Question from a female LWMA: How to approach defensive men?

a-man-from-earth · 2022-04-03T13:14:20+00:00

I'd recommend not using apps but meeting people in real life.

matrixislife · 2022-04-03T16:36:38+00:00

You almost certainly can't approach a man and not set off any alarms, considering it's such a rare event. All you can do is minimise the concerns. This is best done by being honest, "I think I like you and would like to get to know you better" or similar.
This might appear to be putting yourself in a very vulnerable emotional position, consider that it's what's generally expected of men also with the expectation that he will be turned down, you at least have an advantage there.

Epipha-tree · 2022-04-03T12:53:49+00:00

Hello. I'm not really sure what to tell you here. However I do think you should be putting yourself first. If you don't like how a guy is responding to you it's not your responsibility to fix him or overlook any shortcomings he might have whatever the causes of those short coming are. Having said that it's hard to see what you are actually asking with the examples you have given. I think for people who question your intentions, you can only be genuine. If they can't see that then it's their loss. I think all you can do is give these guys clear opportunity, you can be direct if you want but I think talking to a guy on a dating app is direct enough. Any stronger and they probably think you are a bot or scam as a girl giving a lot of attention and time on a dating app usually is, as there is a LOT of bots. I'd say just be available and open

azazelcrowley · 2022-04-03T14:37:21+00:00

I think you're conflating some people here. I would list only one of these responses as defensive;

they immediately question my intentions upon messaging them

The others are just garden variety assholes and you don't owe them anything.

These ones you don't necessarily owe anything to either, but there's more of a case to be made that approaching them could be productive.

I'd need more context. Are you messaging these men first? That's both good but also likely to make some men suspicious. Being open and honest about why is good.

It could be that they have extremely low self-esteem. This is worsened by apps. If they get fifty women ignoring them reaching out, they're going to make assumptions about a woman who reaches out to them as insincere and so on.

I would urge you to continue messaging first nonetheless if that's why, but can you elaborate as to why you do so? Maybe tell them as much. It may well raise their estimation of you. (I can guarantee that messaging first will raise most mens estimation of you to some extent or another).

If instead they're asking this part way through a conversation, it is essentially them asking "Why are you being so nice to me?" which you can answer as you see fit.

Peptocoptr · 2022-04-03T14:30:39+00:00

[permanently deleted]

Jonathanese · 2022-04-03T18:16:33+00:00

First of all, I really appreciate your empathy in this matter, and wanted to say something in this regard.

I dated a girl once who was into men's issues and was often defending the male perspective even in cases where she was attacked. So I often had to defend her side and women's perspective as a whole. She tended to slut shame herself for her libido. Naturally, I brought up bonobos, and the ways they're able to keep issues to a minimum by having high female libidos. That is rather than telling her she isn't a "slut", I felt it was more important to convince her that this wasn't a bad thing, and wasn't abnormal. That it was, if anything, something we need more of.

The dynamic where we were supporting each others' issues was just really good. It was nice having each others' backs instead of feeling like we had to shut people out to defend ourselves. While I certainly don't advocate against defending your own case, I do think being able to defend each others' cases would go a long way in sort of unifying the discussion of gender issues and being able to view each other as our best allies.

Onto the point...

As far as what you're wanting to do, I'm not sure how much specific advice I can give. Mostly I can just give perspective. I've had a girl grab my crotch and offer me a blowjob while I was working, and while it was awkward, I was more bothered by the fact that she had the freedom to screw up, while me telling a friend she had a strong work ethic and great personality was enough to land me death threats.

I also had a manipulative ex who took my feelings of shame about my own gender I had at the time, and instead of being a potentially great source of healing, she used the insecurities more like puppet strings, regularly convincing me that I had some catching up to do to "make up for my gender" and that she was doing me a favor by sticking around. It messed me up pretty good, but taught me to put my foot down and have a bit more pride in myself. And rejected that sort of "original sin" mentality from then on.

But the thing is, I never stopped being receptive. It mostly just affected my willingness to initiate things, especially in the case of a cold intro. The whole idea that I was supposed to initiate and risk outright death threats, sexist claims and accusations, etc...It felt like women were just sitting around living their life, expecting me to just show up and play court jester while she sits back and decides if I make the cut like it's some talent show and she's Simon Cowell. The whole thing felt humiliating in a sense.

I wonder if what I said about my ex's libido could help. Like, to convince him that it's okay to express this side of himself. I just worry about you creating an opening for the douches. But I think one way you might be able to do this would be to simply compliment him first. If you say he looks dashing in his work attire or something, it provides an opportunity to return the favor, or at least feel like he can.

But another thing to consider is that he might interpret your interest as a joke. There were several girls in high school who would say something to me, and I basically assumed their friends put them up to it to mess with me. But several of them actually did like me. So authenticity would go a long way here, too. Guys don't get much of this type of attention, so attention might be met with either skepticism or assuming you're further along than you actually are.

As for apps, guys have really high response rates. Though mention something about his profile or picture. A simple "Hi" is often used to wait to see if they respond, followed by "I'm looking for a sugar daddy....." or "Check out my OnlyFans" or some other scam. Dating sites prey on the fact that men are kind of the underdogs on dating sites. Essentially they run on the assumption being that women are super desirable by default, and men are undesirables lucky to get any attention. It's traditional dating on steroids.

I think Bumble would fit your goals. If you aren't aware, with Bumble, the woman has to initiate. I like this system because not only does it filter out the shitty messages that flood women's inboxes, but it also means women don't get to sit around waiting for attention to come to them. They have to play an active role if they want to receive any attention.

And then another thing. Perhaps he said something awkward that put you off, but not bad enough to be a clear "nope". Having an off-ramp is helpful. Like a "we're not there yet but maybe we could get there." All I can say is that it would help me a ton if I made some Freudian slip.

But again, I also don't want someone to take advantage of your empathy. It's often the ones extending the olive branch who get burned. And it's too valuable that you are willing to extend the olive branch. I don't want to see you get punished for it.

I'm mostly thinking aloud here. But let me know if you have any other questions. You can ask here or PM me. I can mostly offer my own perspective. As for specifics, I'm kinda working on that myself.

LettuceBeGrateful · 2022-04-03T16:22:11+00:00

These sound like the kind of alarms you should be triggering. Imagine if these guys hadn't taken their masks off early on, and they carried that mentality into a long-term relationship.

It might be easier if you gave an example of how you initiate with men.

psychosythe · 2022-04-03T18:51:39+00:00

Well I'd put those examples in the 'asshole' category rather than the 'defensive' one, and the answer to dealing with those is to report them and move on with your day.

Don't take it personally if their first question is if you're a bot or a prostitute, some people get a lot of them and some of the bots have decent scripts. Personally I've found a weird meme reply to be the fastest way for someone to convince me they're not a bot.

Whole sentence responses go a long way. Not with perfect grammar an punctuation or anything, but more than three words (lots of short responses, or several in a row, can give the impression you're not paying attention or that the responses are automated. If you don't know how to respond to something they said, a lot of the time it's better to just say that rather than say, a third 'lol'.") And less than a full five sentence paragraph (tends to be a wind up for a sales pitch, especially if it's a chunk of someone's memoir). If they don't believe your intentions by the 8th message or so move on.

If you're talking about gender politics, save it until you know them a little better. Regardless of your intentions, most people are not on dating apps for those kind of discussions, maybe bring it up on the second or third meet up or something.

Remember that dating apps have been meticulously engineered to wring money from the socially awkward, which is not restricted to just straight men by any means. So if it's not working out for you that's perfectly fine and perfectly normal, dating sucks for women too.

If the demographics you're attracted to tend to have a lot of overlap with defensive men or men who have a very hard time on dating apps I recommend your local gaming/hobby store if you have one.

D_B_sucks · 2022-04-03T18:53:04+00:00

You are going to trigger alarms in a subset of men no matter what. Either they aren't used to it, have been hurt, or are just paranoid. You'll find this in both genders.

The examples you give are (except for the questioning of intentions) garden variety POS responses. The questioning of intentions comes from using dating apps. I've (a happily married man) have been approached on social apps by women (or people/bot saying they are women) just looking to get paid (for their onlyfans, their sob story, or whatever) or are shady AF and seem like they are trying to scam in some other way. I think, if you can, approaching men in the real world you will have less of this response.

Otherwise, you can only be a good human and treat people with respect and dignity and hope that will get them to lower their walls.

Good luck

Sleeksnail · 2022-04-03T23:48:50+00:00

When I was using tinder I wrote "if I swipe second I'll message you, if you swipe second why not message me? Equality?"

Or something to that effect. I felt that it filtered out gender essentialist women. And some women really appreciated my take AND wrote me first.

shit-zen-giggles · 2022-04-04T02:00:34+00:00

There are (as others have mentioned) a fair number of bots that send malware or push some crypto currency scam or what not. In the common dating app using men's exerience those were/are the only women to message first.

Additionaly:

A women just got sentenced to multiple years in prison for stabbing several men she had lured into meeting via a dating app.

In New York a man was held hostage by a group after meeting with a girl from a dating app and going to her appartment.

As a woman, I don't have to explain to you the safety concerns that women have with respect to strangers, dating and so on. So please take into account that for guys these concerns exist as well.

Regarding the assholes: block them and move on. Nothing to win here.

Strikes001 · 2022-04-03T20:57:02+00:00

Bisexual guy here so I know a thing or two about approaching men.

u/Lianza

Don’t waste your time on guys that are “defensive”. It’s true men face a lot of shit and discrimination. But that doesn’t change that there’s no excuse for those men to say what they did.

Go look at my post history: I am VERY “cold” (for lack of a better word) when it comes to how I see women. I still have enough sense to not say things like “make it up with slutty pictures”. I still respect individuals even if I’m jaded in this way.

raclnp · 2022-04-05T12:41:47+00:00

If you are meeting people in real life, and they are sceptical or shy, I would make sure your intentions are clear and you give time for people to adapt.

I have been approached, but in ways that were so direct and demanding I felt sceptical or didn't know how to react, or just wasn't in the mood / had no time to get in the mood, and felt what I wanted didn't really matter. It felt more like a request to be entertained, then no further action was taken, and all the weight was on me to keep it interesting.

Yet others were so indirect and teasing, it wasn't clear if they were interested or just playing (deceptive) games.

Flirting is also about getting comfortable with one another, so playfully or jokingly suggesting what you really want is perfectly fine, as long as it's playful honesty, instead of some power game.

Being playfully honest is great, as it takes some of the pressure away for both. That, together with being accepting of insecurities and validating them, should go a long way.

The rest is really just a matter of patience and seeing if you are progressing towards a comfortable interaction.

Skirt_Douglas · 2022-04-03T16:03:59+00:00

Only your first example contains defensive behavior, the second example is too vague a description for me to even imagine what you are talking about but treating a person as a source of entertainment is not defensive. Ridiculing your awkwardness and asking for nudes to make up for it sounds like a joke, a bit crude of a joke and probably a turn off, but not at all defensive.

So I’m going to focus on your first example because that seems to be the only one that’s relevant to the topic.

If he doesn’t know you and is second guessing your intentions then that probably has more to do with his previous experiences with women and not your character. If all you did is say “hi” and they question your intentions, then it’s clearly not you that triggered them, it’s something that’s already going on in their mind.

Sometimes triggering people can’t be helped, and all you can do is carefully navigate their triggered behavior by being clear about your intentions.

adam-l · 2022-04-03T18:39:37+00:00

Your ideology is not a factor for short term matching. (That would be your hotness.)

You attract a man with your looks, you keep him with your character.

qenqinqon · 2022-05-01T16:04:23+00:00

off topic but i really like the community here in this sub. a lot of the times the MRA spaces i see have a decent hint of misogyny and an evident sense of double standards but this one is so much more balanced, it’s a breath of fresh air.

Title	Question from a female LWMA: How to approach defensive men?
Author	Lianza
Upvotes	57
Comments	29
Date	April 3, 2022 11:42 AM UTC (4 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/comments/tv7e4y/question_from_a_female_lwma_how_to_approach/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/question-from-a-female-lwma-how-to-approach.1108841 https://theredarchive.com/post/1108841

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