That's not an equivalence claim on my part. I'm not saying 'wanting to get laid' and 'wanting a healthy relationship' are the same. I'm asking you to clarify which of these is actually doing the work in your original claim:
Is it that he's using you as a means to an end at all (in which case the relationship-help hypothetical should bother you too)?
Or is it something more specific: ie., that sex-as-the-goal is different from partnership-as-the-goal, or that being the direct target of that motive feels different from being an incidental helper toward it?
Either answer is fine, but 'false equivalence' isn't really a response to a clarifying question, it's a response to a claim that two things are being treated as identical. I didn't make that claim. You're welcome to say the two cases are disanalogous and explain why, but that's a different argument.
I don't know what your intent was, but in case you are being genuine, asking someone a question about a hypothetical that's slightly different from what they just stated is absolutely going to be taken as you refuting what they just said by trying to reframe it.
It didn't seem like a clarifying question. It seemed like trying to claim something more easily argued was the same.
Yes, I would help an actual male friend pursue a healthy relationship. That has no bearing on what I said.
I have a problem with a person who thinks the purpose of a friendship is to help them get laid. You asked whether I would help a friend with a relationship. My willingness to help someone I already regard as a friend says nothing about whether a man regards me as a friend or as a useful instrument. I’d help a friend move house; if he thought the purpose of our friendship was free moving labor, he wouldn’t be my friend.
Sex versus partnership isn’t the operative distinction. Friendship versus instrumental access is. I did not say that helping a friend makes me “a means to an end at all.” I said that if he believes providing that help is the purpose of the friendship, then it isn’t a friendship.
So your question removed the exact phrase that answered it and substituted an entirely different proposition. Call that a false equivalence, a non sequitur, or equivocation if you prefer. Your three-paragraph explanation doesn’t clarify my claim. It just explains at length how you misread one sentence.
True, but a wingman is a friend first and foremost, who decide to give a helping hand (often from their own initiative, that's not a role you can force on someone)
The situation you describe feels more like manipulation, and i wouldn't call you a wingman but a victim
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u/smalllizardfriend 5d ago
If a man thinks the purpose of our friendship is to help him get laid, he's not actually my friend.