anewnadir asked: I agree with you that the notion of 'friendzoning' is really the result of entitlement and false notions of reciprocity. However I will offer that many men (including yours truly) were naively taught that if you just loved girls they would (eventually) love you back. This is trivially true; in reality, though, people work under more complex motivations and incentives. Every girl who fucks a motorcycle-jacket wearing asshole sends a message, and every frustrated 17-year old boy listens.
See, the problem I have with this is the definition of asshole, because its validity seems to be predicated on nothing more than the guy in question wearing a motorcycle jacket. I know you’ve gone for a quick example, but for me this exemplifies a real issue with the ‘why do girls like assholes’ argument, viz: who actually calls them that, and why? Because it certainly never seems to be the girls who are passing that judgement.
If you’re calling a guy an asshole because he’s visibly mistreating his girlfriend, then unless you have a low opinion of her self-respect and intelligence, the lesson you take away from it shouldn’t be that she sought, enjoys or prefers abuse, but rather than she made a mistake. Which it’s her right to do; and note that, if that is the case, this is not the same as saying that she deserves it for rejecting you, or that you have somehow magically become her only viable alternative to abuse. If you care about her and she’s in a legitimately dangerous situation, then your concern should be to help her be safe - not to play the 'I was right’ card or guilt her into what would, under such circumstances, be an equally unhealthy relationship. The abuser, however, is definitely an asshole.
If you’re calling him an asshole because you don’t think he’s right for her and/or don’t think he treats her as well as you would - and note, please, that this is not the same thing as him actually being abusive - then you’re entitled to your opinion, but the call is still hers. You can think he’s an asshole all you want, and objectively, you may even be right; but if your assumption is that she’s chosen him on the basis of actively preferring his negative characteristics to your positive ones, then once again, you’re doing both her self-respect and her intelligence a disservice. Everyone has negative personality traits, but leaping to the conclusion that these must be what she sees in him just because you can’t or won’t see his positives is both offensive and reactionary.
If you’re calling him an asshole solely on the basis that he’s dating the person you want to date and wears a motorcycle jacket and/or looks like whatever stereotype of assholeness you’ve got in your head: congratulations! You have just become an asshole. You have no claim on this woman’s body, and if the only lesson you can take away from her choosing to sleep with someone else is that the guy must, ipso facto, be an asshole, then I think you’ve just discovered at least part of the reason for your initial rejection.
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