Men will go out with you "as friends" but then it happens

[irc333]

I have a female friend, age 50, seems to always have an issue when men she first meets asks her out and of course she's already made a quick decisions she's not attracted, but her biggest mistake is, "Okay, I'll go out with you, but as friends, okay?"

 

Guy: "Suuuuuuuure!"

 

Then, let mayhem/awkwardness commence.

 

Sometimes she would car pool with a guy to a party, then he'd get in her personal space when talking to other people like putting his hand on the small of her back for extended periods of time or callin' her 'hun'"

 

Or calling her up and saying , "Hey, cutie/gorgeous"

 

This would happen countless times when she'd get men to go out with her "as friends", but then she would have to awkwardly tell them to back off.

 

Ever have that issue? Would her solution to be is to just nip it in the bud, don't say ANYTHING "as friends" and just say, "Sorry, I'm busy" or something like that instead?

[Targetlock]

Don't see the idea of this, kind of ruins the point of the date in my opinion, if she doesn't like them then she should say, just probably being nice and doesn't like rejecting or hurting people.

[irc333]

Don't see the idea of this, kind of ruins the point of the date in my opinion, if she doesn't like them then she should say, just probably being nice and doesn't like rejecting or hurting people.

 

Right, but then it turns out to be a fiasco of hurt feelings when the guy has an agenda, even though she said , "As friends". He figures that she's just saying that as some kind of "as friends, until I grow on her."

[Charlie Harper]

Some people just can´t say NO …then mayhem ensues…

[preraph]

If she says up front "just friends" and the guy ignores it, any hurt feelings are his own fault for continuing to go forward with her and getting invested. If she never told him, that's different. And yes, in my opinion, saying "No, I'm not at all interested nor will I ever be" would save her a lot of trouble as well, but that's considered a mean thing to say in most circles and reserved for those who've really crossed the line.

[irc333]

Instead of saying she would go out as friends, she should just pass altogether. Most men don't want to hang out with women as just friends, we almost always want more. Not to mention that a lot of women have sex with their friends, so these guys figure it doesn't hurt to see if she wants to do that.

 

In other words, if she keeps doing the same thing, and running into the same problem, she may want to try something new.

 

 

 

Yeah, this kept happening to her at the Meetups, to me I thought she was a bit overly picky as she turned down so many guys or none of them were good enough for her.

 

She used to be an avid Meetup attendee, but I think the influx of a lot of men trying to get with her overwhelmed her. Now she just stays home most times.

[guest569]

That's a bit odd because if I asked someone out and they said 'okay, as friends' well, it doesn't get much clearer than that! These guys don't seem to know when to accept defeat.

[irc333]

That's a bit odd because if I asked someone out and they said 'okay, as friends' well, it doesn't get much clearer than that! These guys don't seem to know when to accept defeat.

 

IM guessing most straight men see it as a foot in the door

[preraph]

IM guessing most straight men see it as a foot in the door

Or they'd rather have a woman around for any reason than no woman around. But yes, the one I had the most experience with thought he'd eventually wear me down. That was 1980. We're still just friends. So not a good bet.

[Do_The_Herp]

Sounds like passive aggressive bull****. OP's "friend" sounds like she's saying "only as friends" but probably saying it non-chalant and acting like an attention whore leading him on anyway.

 

Me personally, I wouldn't be dumb enough to mis-interpret something like that, however vague the woman may be for fear of hurting my wittewl feeewings.. As if I'd prefer to be led on because some broad condescendingly believes that I can't handle the fact that she's not attracted to me. LOL Get over yourself.

 

I would immediately press them for that "never" answer, because it's not going to crush me to know what I could already imagine just as easily as "YES!", then smile and say "oh, that's too bad, but I obviously wasn't looking for just your friendship, so no thanks, but have a good day anyway!"

[guest569]

Does she actually want to be friends with them? Otherwise just say no thanks.

[GemmaUK]

Personally if I say 'as friends' then I 100% mean it.

 

That is his really clear signal that if he does have an agenda (as you put it) then he will get hurt if he chooses to think my 'as friends' is not an important statement.

 

I have found that some guys choose to think 'little lady doesn't really know what she is saying or is playing hard to get'. A few have actually said this pretty much word for word to me also!

 

Once they start attempting any kind of relationship moves or say they want to 'move the relationship onto the next level' it's better to not meet again and explain that you're not interested that way and never was.

If the message doesn't get through then I block any form of contact.

 

I remember one guy I was friends with and we went to lunch 'as friends' only which I thought he was clear on after I had stated that. (he said he was anyway)

A few days after lunch he called me to say he wanted a relationship with me so I explained that I didn't feel the same and that the thought had never entered my head.

 

Some weeks later after he had asked me out to this and that and to his place for dinner (none of which I accepted and said over and over that I didn't want to see him again) he got really mad at me one night when I didn't answer a call from him. I was in my bathroom.

He then sent me several texts saying that I was not behaving as I should in 'this relationship'.

There was no relationship, he never did get it. I blocked him that night and didn't respond to his abusive comments.

 

For the record we had lunch just one time, no touching, we both paid our own way, no conversations suggesting we would meet again or do 'xyz' together at any point so there wasn't anything he could have read into it aside from perhaps me turning up.

[irc333]

I got a good one for you, but she did "enable" him in a sense. So she didn't help matters much.

 

Apparently, this guy had a big thing for her. Both of them were members of an outdoors Meetup group and apparently there was this big camp out plan at a national forest.

 

Well he had a pull-behind camper and asked that if she would like to go together with him. Carpool on a 2 hr ride to the site and meet the rest of the MEetup members.

 

They set up camp and park his travel trailer. They actually agreed to BOTH stay in his camper.

 

Well, the campfire was going, it was night and some people were drinking it up and he was getting a bit "chummy" with her, getting close, and hardly left her side.

 

I think he got a little jealous when other men were trying to flirt with her, too.

 

Anyhow, they went to bed in the same camper, but slept in different parts of hte camper...and some of the drunken members of the Meetup started shakin/pushing on it saying, "If this camper is a rockin', don't come a knockin'!"

 

I guess they were just reinforcing the "green light" in his favor.

 

They never did anything together in that camper, but after the weekend had ended and they were driving home, he asked if they wanted to stop by the beach before they both went home. She agreed to it, and when walking on the beach he had then asked her to be his girlfriend.

 

Well, he got an instant "No, I don't think of you in that way" and figuring he was expecting a girlfriend by the end of the campout, his plans/goals didn't work out for him.

 

They drove home...awkwardly, as he dropped her off.

 

He never again contacted her as he was rather hurt.

 

But, I think she shouldn't have agreed to "carpool" with much less share the same sleeping space with him...that's just leading him on.

 

She eventually got tired of guys doing this and now she's rather a homebody, doesn't attend Meetups much at all for fear men (that she's not into) trying to "get with her".

 

 

 

 

 

Personally if I say 'as friends' then I 100% mean it.

 

That is his really clear signal that if he does have an agenda (as you put it) then he will get hurt if he chooses to think my 'as friends' is not an important statement.

 

I have found that some guys choose to think 'little lady doesn't really know what she is saying or is playing hard to get'. A few have actually said this pretty much word for word to me also!

 

Once they start attempting any kind of relationship moves or say they want to 'move the relationship onto the next level' it's better to not meet again and explain that you're not interested that way and never was.

If the message doesn't get through then I block any form of contact.

 

I remember one guy I was friends with and we went to lunch 'as friends' only which I thought he was clear on after I had stated that. (he said he was anyway)

A few days after lunch he called me to say he wanted a relationship with me so I explained that I didn't feel the same and that the thought had never entered my head.

 

Some weeks later after he had asked me out to this and that and to his place for dinner (none of which I accepted and said over and over that I didn't want to see him again) he got really mad at me one night when I didn't answer a call from him. I was in my bathroom.

He then sent me several texts saying that I was not behaving as I should in 'this relationship'.

There was no relationship, he never did get it. I blocked him that night and didn't respond to his abusive comments.

 

For the record we had lunch just one time, no touching, we both paid our own way, no conversations suggesting we would meet again or do 'xyz' together at any point so there wasn't anything he could have read into it aside from perhaps me turning up.

[KaylaP]

I have a female friend, age 50, seems to always have an issue when men she first meets asks her out and of course she's already made a quick decisions she's not attracted, but her biggest mistake is, "Okay, I'll go out with you, but as friends, okay?"

 

Guy: "Suuuuuuuure!"

 

Then, let mayhem/awkwardness commence.

 

Sometimes she would car pool with a guy to a party, then he'd get in her personal space when talking to other people like putting his hand on the small of her back for extended periods of time or callin' her 'hun'"

 

Or calling her up and saying , "Hey, cutie/gorgeous"

 

This would happen countless times when she'd get men to go out with her "as friends", but then she would have to awkwardly tell them to back off.

 

Ever have that issue? Would her solution to be is to just nip it in the bud, don't say ANYTHING "as friends" and just say, "Sorry, I'm busy" or something like that instead?

 

 

HELL YEA! I one time had a guy pretend to be GAY & it was a lie just to try to make a move on ME.

[KathyM]

Unfortunately, some women (and some men) are not clear about boundaries and give people mixed messages about their interest. This poor guy was getting all kinds of mixed messages. She rode up with him to the campsite, and even slept in his camper. That is leading him on, and rather insensitive. Why she wants to foster attention from men that she knows are interested in more would either mean she is an attention-seeker who doesn't care about these men's feelings, or she's clueless about how this behavior affects men. It's hurtful. It's a good thing she doesn't go to those events anymore if she is going to be such a tease and so insensitive.