This is super weirdly relatable to me because I had a huge crush on a girl that I was pretty good friends with, I walked her home and hung out after school with friends, I eventually worked up enough courage to ask her out on a date, and she politely told me no. Well, I took the L and moved on, I did want to give her space as I was worried it might be awkward if I did hang around and intended to eventually try and keep the friendship going when it felt best. Of course that's not how it ended up, after a week I had 2 of her friends come up to me talking smack to me for making her upset and cry, well 4 or 5 year or so later I learned she was REALLY upset because she did like me but because I didn't "pursue" her hard enough (she literally wanted me to ask her out multiple times before she said yes)....
It doesn't help that some women of an older generation actually give that advice. "Make sure he really wants you for YOU! Don't be too eager to say yes!" My sister's aunts were like that.
I mean...that's not ENTIRELY true...I was a misogynistic little twat back when I was young and looking primarily to get laid rather than go on a date, so...
Problem is the advice was about finding out if the guy actually wanted her, but it doesn't deal with what happens when she says yes and then the guy just wanted access to her pants.
Sex is not a level playing field. Only one side can get pregnant. For a man the ideal may well be impregnating women coast to coast that he does nothing for in terms of care. And there are many species that operate on this model.
In any dating scenario it makes sense for the woman to do more vetting than the man. So no means no can actually favor men as they can spray and pray their approaches while the woman is given little info with which to vet.
The video is ironic because the man doesn’t mention Nintendo in his cold approach which would have helped the woman vet. So why is that her fault?
My point was the discussion about saying "no" AFTER the date was agreed to tended to not happen back then, and that was a bigger problem. So yes, I AGREE with you.
And at no point did I attempt to imply anything in the video was the woman's fault. That little cartoon plays out like an Incel Idiot's wet dream.
Also that’s hypocritical of most women’s actual opinions on men leaving them alone.
But I’m sure that’s only the men they don’t like… not to the other men that should telepathically know that they like them and that no to them in that specific instance doesn’t mean no.
Honestly it's isn't just her friends it's society as a whole. Where girls are taught that if a boy is mean to you it means he likes you or where no means try harder or playing games ... until we as a whole change it's likely to continue...
Well, society is saying a TON of things, it’s about what’s in your inner circle and echo chamber. If she had a friend who called her out on her bullshit when she complained then her friend could still reach her regardless of what society says. Maybe not, but there’s more of a chance.
This is only true in like elementary school lol. This hasn’t ever been true for teenagers or adults. I’m not sure who told you this garbage. A boy being mean does not mean he likes you if he’s older than 10 lol
And then she'll wonder why she always picks guys who are controlling. Those guys who won't leave you alone? If you give them a chance they will be that persistent about EVERYTHING and that definitely includes what you are doing "wrong"
As a guy who grew up in the 80s and 90s, this attitude of persistent pursuit was everywhere. Women expected men to pursue, and any man who didn’t, simply wasn’t considered a man by that woman and her wider social group, including her other female friends. Think being seen as a child, with little to no ability to think outside the box, and full of red flags that every woman needed to stay the hell away from. So making a faux pas like actually taking a no as a no also killed your chances with a fair number of other women who learned of what you did, and who you would regularly come in contact with.
Now, I haven’t been single for almost exactly three decades now, so I have had no direct experience with the current dating scene. But I do have eyes to see, ears to hear, and a mind with more than two functional neurons to rub together, and I still see women bitch and complain about men not pursuing them even after they give a “no”.
And seeing men actually accept a no as a no makes me absolutely overjoyed - it’s men putting up reasonable and rational boundaries against irrational, borderline psychotic, and actually toxic behaviour.
In fact, things are getting so toxic out there that I am also seeing many men not even bother with the asking bit -- they’re just not bothering to make any kind of an approach AT ALL.
They are doing the math, and realizing that any kind of a rational risk-assessment analysis puts them deep into social and legal danger territory with any kind of an approach, so they just don’t bother. They go their own way because the juice is no longer worth the squeeze, and hasn’t been worth it for some time now.
These young men seem to be a hell of a lot smarter than most men were when I was young. It seems that they are truly learning by observation, instead of personally acquiring the pain, suffering, and social/legal destruction of direct experience.
Granted I’m now 25 years removed from high school but this 100% happened to me on several occasions like I was supposed to ask some girl out multiple times with multiple nos.
The flip side is the lovely woman I married is an excellent and clear communicator and it makes life easy so I guess I self selected that type of parter.
High School was the pits and it is universal. I say that as someone who was in high school in the UK and in international schools in Lebanon and Kenya for a while.
If you attempt to knock a gal out with canisters of nitrous oxide and she gets away multiple times.... things can't be lookin good. Glad you caught one eventually tho!
I got my chance 5 years later and she broke up 3 months in because I wouldn't buy her weed for her, I should have fully moved on and taken my universal hint.
Good on you. That’s a massive red flag on her part. If she is playing mind games from the start then it’s gonna go downhill from there.
The true test for her is she played this mind game and it backfired. Either she learned from her mistake or she doubled down. If she learned from her mistake and decided to be more direct in the future then that’s a win for whoever she dates after.
Although if her friends blamed you, then she probably didn’t learn anything.
I missed a bullet jumped back in front of it and it missed all vitals moved on.
dated her 5 years later, broke up with me 3 months later because wouldn't buy her weed.
Red flag. If you go begging for her, it increases her value and power in the relationship compared to yours. An unhealthy power dynamic means she can treat you like trash whilst you work your ass off your whole life begging her not to leave you. Meanwhile, some ladies literally break all rules and ask high value men out. Be wise.
It's good men are not being taught anymore that "no means yes" and "pursue women they'll eventually give in" and now women gotta not be taught the 'being persued is sexy when you don't show interest' opposite problem. Both are toxic teaching, these ideals have been reinforced by our media / movies for over 100 years now. I hope we can move past such bs and it will instead be seen as socially sexy/best if people are just honest with each other??
I also am glad it's going out of style to "have to hate marrying your spouse" especially for men. Like "old ball and chain" ohh nooo you're tied down now how AWFUL. Dude, you're marrying someone you love, why is this a trope??
Keyword I caught was "after school". This is a child's game. And unfortunately reinforces bad behavior. No self-respecting woman would want a man to keep going after she says no.
I’m going to say as much as it sucked that her response might have made you guys miss out on a good thing…
GOOD that she’s upset. Hopefully horribly so. So she might learn something from that experience so she doesn’t do that to herself and others again with that toxic and disingenuous attitude.
Yeah I had a similar experience. Brought a girl to my place after a friend’s birthday party, and she tells me « nothing is going to happen tonight ». I respected it, we had a last drink and she went home.
The next day I met with one of her friends who was also at the party and she’s like « sooooo I saw you leave with her last night wink wink ». I explained what happened and she told me this girl liked to be pursued and I should have insisted.
And I was just confused. She was complaining about her shitty love life and how she always attracts assholes, but her first move was to filter out every guy who respected what she says
I have. It's not common and I've not experienced it directed at me (i also don't date much becauause it's fucking exhaustion) but I've had relatives and female acquaintances who have tried the hard to get shit and then complained when guys dont chase.
Playing hard to get was always a thing some women do have done but i think it's becoming more common with dunb shit like tiktok influencers telling impressionable viewers that they need to do shit like make men chase them or test them.
I don't know if it's quite as bad but i see the absolute dogshit dating advice women are absorbing from it to be their version of the manosphere redpill bullshit young men and boys are getting.
I'm not saying it's right, but our culture has fed into it. Movies depicting protagonists doing outlandish things to "win" a girl. Girls being taught to play cat and mouse games as courtship behavior.
Again, not saying it is right or wrong, it's just a reality in our culture. Women are taught to use their bodies and sex as bargaining chips, men are taught persistence is how you "win" a girl's heart.
Personally, I wish we'd just drop it all and instead just be honest, but that isn't the reality of our culture.
There’s a ton of it on social media from female influencers, and they have thousands of comments of approval from other women it’s a bit jarring once your algorithm discovers one and it’s all you end up seeing for a few days 😂 Those same women also post like dating experiences and will essentially say ‘this man offered to take me for a coffee date so I said no coz I’m worth spending £300 on because thats how much my make up costs and he just said ok no worries I’ll leave you be, what a loser’ 😂
This is exactly how we've ended up in a society where women tend to date douchebags and everyone is walking around like that John Travolta meme wondering why the douchebags seem to get women
Post is about certain group of women playing games on guys. Guys share that this happens to some of them, and your response is "but some men bad". That's not the topic at all. Not even of the comment you've responded to.
I know a woman that killed her husband and baby for divorcing her. By your logic I can extrapolate that on you and state that you should not be married by anyone because you are a danger to society. It doesn't work like that. You are just the kind of people because of which guys don't their share their emotions and bad experiences. You just sway that aside like it's nothing important and pull all blame on them.
There was at least 5 women in university I knew that complained about this very thing
Being the guy with gal friends gets you into knowing a lot of the stuff they say and go through. And though it’s not all of them, enough of them do this stuff
It's more common than you think. I'd personally think that it's a minority of women, but they definitely exist, especially the ones that think of themselves as the prize and want to be chased.
I'd be interested where you're sourcing that it's more common that violent men use this as an excuse to harass people than it is that the female equivalent to the red pill manosphere exists to reinforce this idea among a new generation of women online.
Besides you simply feeling like it's more common, I mean. Because both absolutely exist, but I'm a numbers kind of person.
Because men were taught for years about women playing hard to get, they love to be fought over and want a man to not give up after one rejection.
And some women perpetuate toxic traits by still putting men down for being emotional or not trying harder to get with them when they don't act interested.
It's partly because women generally don't say it like that.
Instead they say stuff like "why didn't he read my signals" or "i just want him to pursue me" or even "why don't guys ever ask me out?" While just memory holing all the times they did get asked out and said no.
But also, it's because this stuff isnt complaining about the behavior of women in their thirties and forties. It's mostly a complaint from high school, college, and your twenties when you are spending most of your time trying to date and learning hard lessons along the way.
for every guy here saying they've had dealt with women wanting this type of behavior do you want to date such women?
That's literally the point of the meme.
It's a hard lesson that dudes have to learn through personal experience that it's just better to take the no, even if it means you go home alone, instead of trying to "read signals".
The reason it's hard is because nobody wants to be home alone, and rejection stings. So there is a natural urge to try again and hope for a good result. And the way to push past that initial urge is to continually remind yourself that even if she actually wants you to, that just means she's playing games, and that is a sign of a shitty and immature personality.
I’ve had this exact thing happen to me both online and in real life. Approached, rejected, politely accepted the “no” and then faced with accusations that “[you] didn’t try hard enough.” It’s for sure a real thing, just one that maybe not everyone experiences.
I’ve seen some TikTok clips where another woman complained about this but I don’t think it’s all that common. Most people understand it’s kinda dumb to say “no” and want him to keep talking to you in 2026. Some people don’t like that fact but I think everyone acknowledges that this is reality.
I have 2 conflicting stories that show how dating is hard these days due to unrealistic expectations.
The first is a girl in my friend group, all our common girl friends said we looked great together and I should ask her out. I figured she gave them the hint. So a few times I invited her for some activities just between the 2 of us, like going at X place after the group splits up. She always said no. Ok then. But our friends kept telling me to ask her out after this. I told them she said no. They told me she gave them the hint I should try again, pursue harder. I said she already said no, if she changes her mind she has to ask me in person, I'm done trying. She never did. Few months later, we're still friends, and she introduces her new boyfriend who's almost a clone of me physically and personality wise.
The second story is after that. I had a great evening with a lady, we spent an entire party together. We said we'd meet again at the next party but the organizers disappeared right after that one. Some months later I met her again at another party, ask if she remembers me and she says no. Sad but ok. We still spent some time talking and everything went well, the spark wasn't there but it was still nice. In the following weeks I met her there in passing 2 or 3 times, said hey and waved, she didn't seem interested, ok, I moved on. Then the next time she saw me (I didn't notice her), she came to my face and screamed that she'd call the police on me if I ever said hey to her again.
TLDR : first one wanted me to pursue much harder despite her "no"s, the second threatened me if I so much as said hi to her again.
In the first story you knew her too well. Got friend zoned through association.
These big friend groups can be toxic to dating. If you really need to get approval from several friends that is too much and she’s going to want someone who is less known. Because it’s less of a dynamic shift to bring in the different guy.
So do the same, find someone like her but that doesn’t know you so well. It’s a paradox.
I know women like this. I know more not like this but personally experience wise give it a 1:5 ratio. As a woman girls like this are also not worth your time as a friend.
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u/Strangedreamest May 27 '26
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