Dealing with negative men?

Mewster1818 · 2020-11-30T15:30:19+00:00

I know that this is instinctual and men won’t treat me delicately the way they treat other women until I’m perceived as attractive (working on it), but I don’t even have any male acquaintances because men are instinctively rude to me.

I don't find this to actually be true at all. I'm not conventionally attractive, but I wouldn't say that most interactions I have with men are poor. They may not treat me "delicately" but they're not rude or inconsiderate either. If all of your interactions with men are poor experiences then either:

You do not understand men very well and are misunderstanding the interaction, (as another commenter pointed out men have a very different sense of humor than women do, and are more likely to tease each other in good spirits than women are)
Or something about the way in which you're interacting with them is unpleasant and they're responding to that energy, (if they feel that you're being rude or have a bad attitude they're going to respond to that subconsciously, you may be unaware that you are doing this because you've already created the expectation that your interaction is going to be negative before it's begun)
Or your expectations of how they should be interacting with you are unrealistic. (Men are very capable of being friendly and nice to women they're not attracted to, especially in settings where you're expected to work together. If you're hoping they're always going to treat you delicately and not as a colleague or professional or whatever capacity you're fulfilling in that situation, then you should re-frame your expectations.)

This is not to say that men can't be rude, they absolutely can and it's perfectly fine to draw distinctions about individuals. But if you're coming from the premise that "men are always rude to me and it's just because I'm not attractive enough" that's just not how society works. Not seeing you as a dainty flower is not the same as being rude.

Think4Yoself · 2020-11-30T22:59:42+00:00

If you meet an asshole in the morning, you met an asshole. If you meet assholes all day, you're the asshole.

LateralThinker13 · 2020-11-30T20:41:23+00:00

I can say about 5 words before a man teases me, mocks me, says something slick/rude to me, whatever.

Unless you're dealing with unruly teenaged boys or low status men, this isn't generally a thing that's widespread. There's more going on you're not telling us.

and I responded akwardly because I didn’t really know what to say

It sounds like you try to talk or interject yourself when you don't have anything solidly contributory to say. Could be attitude - if you're timidly offering hesitant advice to men (or anyone) who know what they're talking about, you'll get dismissed.

This isn’t a one time thing either. It’s like whenever I interact with men they instantly start making fun of me. I understand this is their way of friendzoning me,

Friendzone really isn't a thing that men do. Women have beta orbiters in the friendzone; most men do not.

Also, if it's consistent and instant, it's you, not them.

Is there a way to shut this type of behavior down other than gray rocking?

You are assuming that other men are the problem. You seem to be getting the same attention across the board, suggesting to me that you may be the problem, not them.

I feel like I’m being weak by not standing up for myself.

By all means, stand up for yourself when you have something useful to contribute. But I keep hearing you say things that suggest you need conversational/speaking skills. Maybe try joining Toastmasters, or reading The Art of Conversation. Something along those lines.

ManguZa · 2020-11-30T14:28:44+00:00

Men try to be funny, lot of them failed pretty hard with that alright, humor is pretty hard to master... but the thing is that they actually try to build a connection with you where you laugh with them to become closer to you !

They also do it with attractive women, except for the numerous beta that try too hard to be nice with them.

The best is to 1) laugh with them and build connection or 2) tell them that you understood that was a joke but that was too disrespectful to be funny.

SamathaStevens · 2020-11-30T15:42:32+00:00

Is it just at work or in all situations? It is very common for coworkers to treat you like a friend or one of the guys. Especially if it is a fast paced situation, the "joking" may be a way to handle the stress or get through whatever you guys are doing. You mention the thinner new hire not being treated that way but it may have to do with him not being as comfortable with her. This is not to discourage you from improving yourself, that is always a good idea. But specifically at work it may be you are misreading the situation. As far as being awkward there are several way you can help that. Decide on 4 or 5 common phrases you will use. For example living in the south we use bless your heart for EVERYTHING! Most of it is based on tone for that expression to show happiness or frustration. So pick a few different ones, like "My gosh" ,"my goodness","oh man",ect something that can be used neutrally and adjust tone for either good or bad. Then find something you can use to express sadness (I am so sorry is simple and effective) and happiness then find something to say for awkward situations like you were talking about. Obviously I don't know the situation but if people are talking badly about their body (you said it was appearance based) my two favorites are "you are being way too hard on yourself, I don't see that at all" or " that is not true at all". After you come up with your list stand infront of the mirror and practice saying these lines over and over. Yes you will feel dumb but watch your self do it. Be very dramatic, very quiet, and, sad, happy,ect. Learn what you look like saying these things. The best way not to be awkward is to be familiar with saying these things and knowing how you look and react. Once you are comfortable with them it becomes so much easier. If it becomes second nature, you will just say it and not worry about what to say. Especially where you have 30 seconds, you say it and they leave. People assume really socially successful people just have some magic gift of knowing the right thing to say at exactly the right moment but they are just really good at faking it until they make it. You need to spend time practicing interacting.
The second part is humor, you have to have a good sense of humor! If you do something embarrassing laugh at yourself. Someone teases you and it is funny laugh. When they make fun of something you said ,say well we can't all be as awesome as you or I was waiting for you to use your smooth lines for me! Sometimes we do dumb things and spending hours, days thinking about it is a huge waste of your time. Acknowledge it and move on. I feel the need to say there is a huge difference between laughing at yourself and being self aware of your awkwardness in situations vs being self deprecating and unkind to your self. It is very important you always stay on the side of self aware. Let's say the situation today was someone said that they were ugly and you said I love you. That would be awkward to say to someone you don't know. After they left you could start laughing and say I can't believe I said that. Then next time something comes up you could say well at least I didn't say I love you ,I am getting better . Self deprecation would be after you said it tell everyone how stupid you were and next time talk about how you screwed up last time and will of course do it again and probably even worse this time because you are an idiot. Funny and recognizing silly mistakes makes people like you because we are all human. Self hatred is not funny to high value people and is extremely detrimental to you! I hope this all makes, I feel like this isn't translating well to words when it mainly things that can't be put into words but more into action.

Title	Dealing with negative men?
Author	Mastopexyyy
Upvotes	2
Comments	19
Date	November 30, 2020 2:01 PM UTC (5 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/RedPillWomen
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/RedPillWomen/comments/k3wail/dealing_with_negative_men/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/RedPillWomen/dealing-with-negative-men.650163 https://theredarchive.com/post/650163

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