The Myth of the Male Bumbler: how men take one of our culture's most muscular myths — that men are clueless — and weaponize it into an alibi

TheOGJammies · 2020-05-05T16:51:15+00:00

How many deliberate, premeditated lies, how many carefully set traps, how many instances of deceit do we need before we can admit that men are every bit as duplicitous and two-faced as women are suspected of being? That harassment is not an accident? That predation requires planning? That this gigantic apparatus through which women's careers are destroyed and men's are preserved isn't just happenstance?

WHOOP there it is.

GRCA · 2020-05-05T17:16:29+00:00

I suspect many men make use of the “bumbler” ruse to manipulate their relationships with women in a variety of ways.

Long post ahead because I’ve spent quite a lot of time thinking about the manipulative behavior of “sensitive” men, the so called “nice guys,” who easily befriend women. Men who will lead women on, emotionally cheat on their partners in doing so, and get away with both by playing dumb.

This type of man loves to be the “good listener” to a female friend or coworker. And while he doesn’t deny having a significant other initially (it’s good for establishing himself as friend material), he purposefully avoids bringing her up in future conversations as his infatuation deepens. He builds emotional intimacy with the other woman and uses it to stroke his ego and fuel his fantasies. But he purposefully stops short of physically engaging the other women or stating his romantic interest because he needs to maintain his plausible deniability.

If he plays it right, he can get the other woman to develop and confess romantic feelings, and then string her along further with “Oh oops! I have a wife, remember? So I can’t be with you. We can keep being friends though!” And voila, he’s got both his long term partner to provide stability and his “friend” to provide the ego boost and excitement that accompanies “new relationship energy.” Sure he can’t fuck the friend, but he can think about fucking her. If the particular guy is a porn addict and/or compulsive masturbator, that might even be preferable to him.

When these men do get caught and called out on these inappropriate friendships, they fall back on the traditional male definition of cheating i.e. sex. They pretend that they don’t understand the concept of emotional infidelity. But they do understand. They know they were paying special attention to the other woman because her attention in return gave them dick tingles. They feel entitled to those dick tingles and to using the other woman in the same way they use porn. And they feel entitled to having a woman who will tell him what a great guy he is at all times.

I have seen quite a few examples of situations like this described on other relationship subs. Usually it’s in the form of the girlfriend/wife asking “Am I overreacting?” But I have also seen instances of a man admitting his behavior and asking for advice (usually “Should I leave my wife?”, though I did once see a man asking for help getting over the “friend.”) I think smartphones have made emotional cheating a lot easier. I bet these inappropriate friendships are even more common than we think, but they are not often discovered because of how sneaky and careful the behaviors can be. Plus the “no snooping” culture probably deters some women from following up on gut feelings they may have.

brainsandb00bs · 2020-05-05T15:56:11+00:00

Men are not as clueless as they want us to think they are, great post.

Delicious-Scholar · 2020-05-05T17:06:57+00:00

Thanks for linking this article. I devoured it in mere minutes. A hyper-competent reasoning of why it’s so dangerous to excuse bumbling.

thewetdog_ · 2020-05-06T02:43:05+00:00

Male “cluelessness” is the ultimate gaslighting 💯

Imatworkmotherfucker · 2020-05-05T20:57:48+00:00

I hope you cross post this in 2x.

bootybootybootymeow · 2020-05-11T20:39:03+00:00

FUCKING BRAVO. I loved this, thank you so much for sharing!

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