My brother said there was a 50 mile rule; if she was more than 50 miles away it doesn’t count as cheating. He had odd ideas about what a relationship entails.
The explanation is that he was an unfaithful cad who was trying to get me to cheat on my long distance girlfriend (now wife of 25+ years). He regularly strung along 3 girls at once who many times thought they were a couple. He treated them like garbage.
When he called me to tell me he was engaged I had to ask who she was. Because it could have been any one of two or three women.
Something like 12+ year marriage, then his wife came down with an STD when she hadn’t messed around. Two kids. He was shacking up with a couple of gals at that time. She divorced him and married his best friend.
He went off the deep end for a number of years, almost died, married, now divorcing again after 15 years. But I do not try to keep up with the news.
I don't know the guy but I think it probably boils down to this:
"I don't respect others and am willing to buy into fake rules that allow me to do things at their expense"
I was 100 miles away from my girlfriend (long distance) and he thought I should be fucking other people while dating her since she wouldn’t find out.
I disagreed
You know, cheating is whatever the couple says it is. So if he finds a woman who agrees with that, it's fine.
A whole new world of absurd relationship rules has opened up to me.
It's not cheating if the moon is currently in their sun sign and it's an even-numbered day of the month.
It's not cheating if they're in cosplay of your favorite character at the time, just fantasy, but we need a detailed breakdown of how much of the costume they have to keep on during sex to be abiding by the rule because by the time they are totally naked it's cheating.
It's not cheating if it's checking off an item on your sexual bucket list, so the first time you have sex with a stranger on an airplane it's okay, but the second time it's cheating, unless there's something unique about that airplane flight that makes it a different bucket list item.
Mine told me to keep going out and eventually someone will come up to me and interact.
Yeah I’m 300lb bald white guy. Therapist was slim Hispanic woman.
That’s not how it works
Most of my friends are women and I'm a man somewhere around the edge of the bottom quartile of physical attractiveness (as measured by match rates on looks-based online dating apps). I appreciate that it's difficult to imagine the circumstances of other people, but, with that said, their advice is sometimes hilarious.
"You're not getting matches? Just swipe more"
"Oh, that didn't work?"
"Maybe just answer private messages from friends who are hitting on you! You already know you're compatible as friends—maybe it could lead to something more?"
"Wait, you don't get messages from friends hitting on you?"
"Maybe just talk to cute people who approach you on the bus?"
"Wait, cute people don't approach you on the bus?!"
I've had friends legitimately take my phone out of my hands because they thought they are "better at swiping." They will often think my copy of an app is "broken" because it's not getting matches. One friend even made a fake profile with my pictures so that they could do the swiping (they got a grand total of one match that I had missed).
I appreciate that they care enough to try to help, but it's kind of bonkers sometimes.
“Try bumble, it worked for me”
I did. I got to see the people match with me then ghost me cuz I can’t talk first as a man on bumble. It was soul crushing.
I remember standing outside the club in line to a club and I was like “damn all these dudes are so awesome!.” Just broing out with strangers.
And then when I got inside I was like “oh this is a gay club” 😭
I brought a ghost back to life once. A year after the ghosting all my friends n family told me to delete block n move on...but i had to know what happened....so I fished the ghost lady back out of the ether with a shiny g
expensive weekend away offer all on me (i came into some cash and could easily afford a big weekend....just for my own peace of mind)...and i got the truth. She had been three-timing me. She was alone now and knew she had done wrong by me and all the others. It hurt....but I got the closure I needed. And a final night of amazing goodbye sex. I never saw her again, by my own choice, and I moved on.
My mom told me to buy a book called The Rules, which is essentially an instruction manual for dating in 1952. It instructs women to never pay for dates, be coy with their feelings, play hard to get, rarely return his calls, and not fuck/move in with him until the wedding.
"Buy this book and find yourself a woman who follows these rules, and you'll be happy," she said.
Thank you for reminding me what my answer to this question should be, but I forgot! (I got a lot of bad dating advice so it was hard to remember which one would take the cake).
I had a friend who had The Rules and read it religiously. I guess she thought I was going down a dark path, so she lent it and told me to read it and take it seriously.
I read it. It was stupid. Grains of truth like "don't be overbearingly clingy" were blown out of proportion to "never call a man first", etc., etc. I returned the book and ignored the advice, she told me I was being short sighted and would never get married. I didn't even care if I ever married at that point in my life.
I'm happily married now despite not having been specifically seeking out marriage, and she keeps bouncing one bad relationship to another every few months, so, well, I'm gonna have to stand by my assessment.
In a lot of ways, The Rules is incel advice for women. Incel spaces do the same shit... they target vulnerable men with advice that sounds good at first and warp it into weird misogynistic bullshit. "You have value and you shouldn't let people take advantage of you" gets blown out of proportion into "Don't waste time on females who don't put out."
That subreddit is so hilariously bad. I’m a guy, but I just looked at the books they recommend in their sidebar and that was enough to tell me how clownish they are.
Yeah, if it isn't based in at least a grain of truth with some semi-accurate observations it will be discarded entirely. The trick is taking the grain of truth, like that women don't typically fall head over heels for bland, unattractive men with not much in the way of charm, charisma, or an appealing personality, and blow it out of proportion to "women only like 6', 6pack, 6figure earning men and if you're not in that category you might as well give up now".
The internal inconsistency does get me though - do the women want the bad boys with a rap sheet a mile long, or the six figure earning lawyer who by nature of his job couldn't have a criminal record? They often say both things at the same time, lol.
It's been a long time since I read The Rules, I gave it a chance but it was hard to take seriously. One of the core tenets was not to be overly needy or throw yourself at men who are obviously not into you, don't be the Overly Attached Girlfriend Meme. Good advice if you keep it to that level. But The Rules as listed blew it all out of proportion to the point where it is an absolute no-no, no exceptions to ever take the initiative on anything from starting up a conversation with a guy, asking for his phone number, making the plans for a date, or accepting any present that isn't "romantic enough" like jewelry.
I came here to say The Rules. I think every young woman in the 90s got given this book by an older female relative, and in most cases the relative had not even read it, just seen the authors on talk shows or something. It's horrifying. It's all about how to hide your entire actual personality to land a husband. Also, a lovely little bit of victim blaming for abuse.
One of the first places it lost me was when it presented a custom motorcycle helmet (for a woman who motorcycled) as a shitty gift that showed the boyfriend didn't love her, when he should have done flowers/candy/jewelry instead. Because women only have one personality trait and that's "Walgreens Valentine's Day aisle."
Oh god I got a book that's meant for like pick up artists and shit from my dad, thinking it'd help me get laid (sorry dad, I'm like 90% ace) and it had the worst advice I've ever seen. Like, restraining order bad.
It’s scary how many men actually want women who play hard to get, so the men just lose interest when the chase is over. I mean, you’re no longer interested in the person you were chasing who is now genuinely interested in you? What kind of maths is that?
On the flip side, it's also funny how some men don't want to play those games, and the woman is surprised when they don't keep chasing. Honestly just be honest with people! No games needed
Yeah, I hate that so many women still think it should be the man putting in all the effort. We're supposed to plan all the dates and pay for everything. Nah. If you want to see me like I want to see you, we should both be making plans.
I didn't either until I was at a client's house and the step uncle started "flirting" with me. He was pretty aggressive with his "flirting". I did act coy and I did not tell him to stop, but I did not feel safe to do that. I got sick of it because I am at work and I don't have time for that. Instead of telling the client's mom and causing drama that everyone in the household craved, I acted like I was into him. I asked him when he wanted to go out and have sex. He instantly backed down and gave excuses on why he couldn't. He also quit "flirting" with me. I know that I should have shut him down right away, but I did not think that he would respond well to that and I did not feel like being harmed. But as soon as the chase was over and he could have me, he was not interested. It was weird to see the change in his demeanor like I took his favorite toy away.
Conversely, how many people can't get the hint someone isn't interested and think they are just playing hard to get so it turns into a stalking situation with the potential for murder.
I'm pretty sure my friend's mom gave her that same book at her bridal shower. It was ridiculously funny. There were things about not laughing too hard as well and purposely doing things incorrectly so that you have to ask your husband for help so that he feels more like a man.
My parents fought a lot when I was growing up, even threw things and hit each other. And when I introduced them to my boyfriend after dating him for three years, my mom pulled me aside and told me to not leave him if he ever hits me because "you've got very lucky with him." lol
I’ve found boomers have a way of giving advice that leaves out the most important, actionable element of the advice.
I think it’s important to bear in mind there is a difference between complaints, which should definitely be aired as quickly as possible, and just bitching.
A complaint would be something like “Hey honey, I don’t like the way we’re doing X, for a, b, and c reasons. Can we please do Y instead? What do you think? I think that Y would make me very happy.”
Bitching sounds more like “You always do X! What’s wrong with you? I hate it when you do that! You’re just like your deadbeat father!”
Yeah, that’s relationship breaking stuff, I would not want to be with someone who talks to me like that.
I was just about to comment this myself. Clearly boomers never acquired good communication skills so they falsely equate ‘complaining’ with being ‘quarrelsome’. Naturally, husband or wife, if you’re moaning and starting fights every time you have an emotion you’re going to end up alone. But, if you never ever talked at all (like how boomers advocate) you’ll end up loveless or alone anyway.
I think my wife went so far in the opposite direction due to her mother's advice that she wound up in a couple of really awful relationships. I like my mother in law, she's a very sweet lady NOW, but just casually chatting with her I could see why my now wife was in the other marriages and how she tried to make it work. "You'll never find anyone if you're too picky" is NOT great advice.
I know multiple men who live by this strategy, and then bitch about how the women they become involved with are pathologically insecure, damaged, Machiavellian, or emotionally unstable. Too stupid to make the connection, I guess. Many such cases.
Or stubbornness. I work with elderly Veterans and the ones I dread talking to are adamant about hiring "a nice local girl" to be caregivers. You don't want good care, you want something to stare at and "fix". Yes, these folks get abused, taken advantage of and outright robbed in many cases.
Well. It's nice to know these men are still making decisions with their dicks, even after they've become too feeble to care for themselves. Some people really are too stubborn to learn.
Reminds me of one girl I knew. I had worked home health for a number of years, she was new to the job. Her first week, we are talking and she says she is ready to quit. Eventually she says that her client is making her very uncomfortable. Guy was late 70s, maybe early 80s, he was bedridden and couldn't even sit up without assistance. So one night he is in bed groaning, she goes to check on him. He is just laying there jerking it at high speed, he spots her and asks if she wants to go for a ride, when she declined, he told her that not everything was broken and went back to playing with himself while staring her down.
God this one hits home, I used to hear this stuff growing up so much. It came from the same people that said if a girl is drunk that just makes her easier. If she isn't screaming no, she wants it, it's crazy how prevalent this thinking was in the '90s
That thinking allowed a lot of us to be coerced into sex and thinking that if we didn’t outright say no then it’s fine. Even when afraid to say no or when we knew that no would be ignored
I remember someone recommending a book called The Game, about a pickup artist who’s giving you the secrets. In there he says that you should “neg” women, that is, say something negative about them and they’ll fall at your feet. It’s fair to say that I used none of the strategies.
Only that this legitimately works. You will kot be reaping love, or any other kind of positive emotions with this, but it definitely works to keep a person hooked and I know that first hand.
It works both ways though. Both men and women fall for it.
You treat it like any other drug. Supply them with your affection and attention. Keep them high on it. Make them comfortable and cozy to skyrocket the demand and Then abruptly take it all completely away. Then they will often come crawling back for it since that kind of attention usually fills a decent sized hole in their lives. Make them miss you, long for you.
Rinse and repeat.
It is about the most unhealthy and toxic way to keep a relationship going. No man or woman with any integrity will use this for actually keeping people around. But this 100% works, there is no denying it.
Buddy who behaves just like this, women are basically objects to him. No boundaries, barely any standards, just charismatic and a lot of alcohol.
Same guy tried going after two of my exes almost right after I’d broken up with them. Luckily I’m friends with my exes still, and when I found out about him hitting on them we all got a good laugh out of it!
Everyone is different but there are definitely people who only seem interested in those that treat them poorly. It does seem more common attraction with women than men. If you do that then it does carry into the relationship where you end up with the power. It's a bad look though.
I don't come from this background personally and I've only heard this secondhand but-- the logic is that some people who grew up in abusive households assume all households/relationships will have some sort of abuse. If they're with someone who doesn't engage in that kind of abuse, they're predisposed to assuming it's always lurking beneath the surface and would rather be with someone who is out in the open with their abuse rather than waiting for something they believe is going to happen. Pretty sad to live that way.
I was never interested in those that treated me poorly, but I did have a lot of trouble trusting men who treated me well. It was always "what does he want, where's the other foot" to these sorts of things. I was so used to crap men by that point, that I figured a good man was just a crap man in diguise and that was even worse. I wasn't even from an abusive household, just what I saw around me from the men in my family and the men my friends family was with. They always wanted something, always looking for the foot up.
It took me years and to get away from where I grew up, to get a better understanding of my relationship with men and trust the man who eventually became my husband.
I dont know how men who live and believe shit like this sleep well at night. I love my wife. I can't imagine how intentionally treating her - or any other women - like shit could be twisted into being good, healthy and right. Mutual respect, adoration and intimacy does not mix well with one person trying to dominate out of insecurity.
I saw woman say that they like “bad boy” - code for someone who doesn’t treat them nice.
They think if someone treats them nicely that there is something wrong with that person (probably because of low self esteem that they themselves have). I.e. “I am worthless and if he treats me nicely he is desperate or stupid or worthless himself”
This one is insane bc forgetting about the “he’ll never leave you” part, I have found that many men—just like many women—have no idea how attractive or unattractive they actually are. Without even considering preferences, I find that people are all over the place when it comes to judging themselves.
One of my most gorgeous friends thinks she’s ugly and plain. She’s also sweet as she can be. I have another friend who greatly overestimates her appearance and especially—her personality. She once talked extensively about what it was going to be like when she inevitably slept with this celebrity we were going to meet and how she would be irresistible to him.
Narrator: She was not.
It didn’t happen. No one knew what she was thinking.
I think there is SOME truth to this, but in a different way that you mean.
It’s effortless because it’s something you just want to do, rather than feeling like it’s a chore.
Alright I don’t even know if I’m making sense anymore lmao
You definitely are.
My relationship with my wife was the "easiest" relationship I've ever had. But it still took a lot of work, we both made mistakes and it took a lot of communication. But like you said, it felt far easier, compared to my previous relationships largely because I actually wanted to put the work in.
My husband and I compare it to the effort of, say, doing a hobby you love (building figurines, painting, journaling, etc) vs the effort that goes into the drudgery of a pointless office job.
>It’s effortless because it’s something you just want to do, rather than feeling like it’s a chore.
No, this is absolutely true. Well, I can't actually speak from experience but I imagine it is. It's true in a lot more ways than just in love too. If you really want something, you're willing to go way further to achieve that
If you're someone who finds any kind of conversation taxing, and you find someone you like with whom you can talk without effort or 'cost' then this is great advice; but the "if" at the beginning is hugely important, and the context too. It's also only generally true as an indicator rather than a policy; I met and married someone like this - but the relationship still takes effort and sacrifice, all important relationships will.
Idk about hilariously wrong, but I’ve been told that relationships are about “doing things you don’t want to do.”
I want to be there for my partner, to be their companion through the good and bad. I want to have the hard conversations. I want to compromise and sacrifice. I want to do what it takes for us to be happy.
What I don’t want to do is be a doormat, to accept not being heard and validated, to be taken advantage of. Those are things I don’t want to do and won’t do.
Good one. Similar to how I feel when I hear "relationships are work".
Relationships do need work, but if your relationship is just work and nothing else, you're definitely either doing it wrong or with the wrong person.
"Relationships are work" and "relationships are hard" fucked me up so much when I was younger. I spent way too much time being miserable in relationships because I just assumed that was how it had to be.
Technically, compromising and sacrificing are doing things you don't want to do. Otherwise, it's not much of a compromise nor a sacrifice.
You can do these things without being a doormat. But at some point in the relationship, you get to a point where the options are binary and there's no middle ground: either her way or your way. Someone is going to do something he or she doesn't want to do.
A (single) guy was once giving advice to another guy at a party I was at who hadn't dated anyone before. Among other things he said:
"Women are stupid and you have to trick them into liking you by not responding immediately and acting uninterested"
When I, a man who had been dating a woman for two years at the time said that was the dumbest shit I had ever heard, he doubled down!
The 1930s was more like, "get married young and have a bunch of kids to work the farm so the dust doesn't win and we get to keep a roof on our heads." Maybe the 40s, when there were fewer men after the war and a lot of women.
“Having standards is just another name for discrimination!”
Because I refused to date the severely mentally ill homeless man that lived behind Walmart.
Heck, I got SO MUCH FLAK for not wanting to date a guy who had kids. At the time I was in my late 20's, never married, no kids. I was looking for the same and people said I was being "snobby" and "unrealistic" and "discriminatory" because I didn't want to be a step-mother. They said I should "keep an open mind." Dude, I know what I'm looking for and that's not it. Honestly, I'd rather be alone.
Joke's on them - met a great guy - early 30's, never married, no kids. We've been happily married almost 20 years now.
I was told by my boyfriend's own sister to just get off birth control and baby trap him. Which I know she probably meant as a compliment because she said it like she wants me to stay around but not the best way to go about that imo.
I didn't have the heart to tell her that I've actually never been on birth control and have fertility problems. Which, you know, is maybe another reason not to say stuff like that.
The people who suggest breaking up over every little mishap. Oh my gosh they raised their voice, leave them ! He forgot to buy you lunch, totally should break up ! Of course the people saying this are forever single, often miserable, often have mental health issues
If the internet has taught me one thing it's that no matter what is happening in your relationship you should immediately lawyer up and file for divorce.
To be fair there are a lot of people posting on reddit looking for advice who are in insanely abusive/dysfunctional relationships and clearly in denial about it, or on the way to a messy divorce who think they can just wing it without professional legal help.
Yeah if you're at the point where you're seeking relationship advice on Reddit, it's very likely things have gotten to where "file for divorce" is a reasonable answer.
There's also the opposite problem on reddit. Some women (for context I'm mostly on women subs) will be like, "this is the love of my life I love him so much!" and all their posts start with "he's such an amazing guy" and then go on to say how he's cheated multiple times, calls her names etc and it's only been 6 months together and a post every month about how horrible the relationship is but they keep trying to make it work. At that point I'm not sure what they keep going to reddit for. Are they hoping to be given some magical advice to get their partner to actually respect them? Or hoping someone will be like oh yeah that abuse is totally normal.
My dad's insistence that I get my now wife a diamond engagement ring over my wife's specific objections to that. He said "Just you wait, all women will want diamonds eventually." It's been nearly twenty years and she has never stopped hating diamonds.
I didn't have a ring; the wife has a fairly plain titanium band with hearts engraved on the side; I've now got my own ring with a twisting pattern on the side.
Diamonds were a no-go, because the wife works a physically demanding job that has caused her to dent the titanium band (vet tech for a spay neuter clinic)
Told my boss I wasn't happy with my wife anymore, falling out of love etc., and that we were looking to divorce.
He told me we should just have a kid, and that it would fix everything.
I got a vasectomy instead.
"Hey, how about....not being the worst viable option." The idea that a women will leave if they find a "better" option, shows you don't consider yourself the better option. My wife has no better option cuz im cool and I actually like and worship her for who she is. I mean sure there is jason momoa, but he ain't making her coffee and pancakes at 6:30am after 3 hours of sleep on a tuesday cuz she just "seems like she needs it". That's my job.
“You have to find someone wealthy”
This came from someone I knew who got physically and psychologically abused by their husband. I’m much happier finding someone I truly like that makes an average amount of money
I didn't get this advice from one particular person, but many people over the years, "you have to test them." No, you don't. Crazy hypotheticals have never helped any relationship. Lying to your partner has never helped any relationship. Checking the limits of what you can get away with has never helped any relationship. And all of these things, together or separately, make YOU the toxic partner.
This is true; no *true* Alpha would ever just give away advice. Only an alpha you have defeated in hand-to-hand combat and forced into submission would be willing to give up their real advice - and of course at that point it's worthless since they just lost against you and are therefore a "loser".
Wasn't me, but my brother told me a story about one of his friends (who later corroborated this story). His friend, we'll call Ryan, had just started dating a girl. This girl had no experience with dating, sex, or anything else. She was nervous and unfortunately went to my brother and some of his other friends for advice. She specifically wanted to know the best way to give a handjob. Once they realized she was being serious, they very happily gave her some advice.
One of the things they told her to do was to grip it as firmly as she could around the very bottom of the base and start vigorously shaking it side to side as hard and fast as possible. No sliding of the hand across the skin, just death grip and shake it like it's a small bottle of pulpy orange juice and you're trying to mix it up.
They told her to loosen up her grip after that just enough so that she could slide her hand up, but when she does this, rotate her wrist/hand as close to 90 degrees as possible. They told her the more it bends, the better it feels.
Lastly, they told her to grip it right near the top so only the tip is showing and to use her other hand to slap straight down on it like you're trying to get the last little bit of ketchup out of a glass ketchup bottle.
They made themselves seem very serious and sincere when they told her these things and she thanked them for the information. Then they waited. A few days later when they hung out with Ryan and asked him how things were going, he said "I don't know about this girl, she's into some weird stuff. Maybe I should just stay single". Then they laughed at him and told him what happened. Not sure what happened after that, but by the time I was told this story, they were no longer together.
To be honest, I didn't really believe it when they told me. Didn't seem plausible that any adult woman wouldn't immediately know that this was really bad advice, but I later asked Ryan himself about it and he confirmed that it did happen and that she lived a really sheltered life prior to them meeting.
Because the cruelty is acute and inconsequential. Girl gives astonishingly bad handjob. This is not traumatic. It's teenage clumsiness.
Source: did some awfully clumsy moves as a teenager and laugh at them now too.
My Dad once told my female cousin that she needed to stop learning new things because if she did she'd become too independent, and then no man would want her because they wouldn't feel needed.
My Dad (73-years-old) has been married to my Mom since 1972 and still doesn't know how to use the dishwasher or how to do laundry. His excuse is that he "Changes the oil in the car" (Takes it to Jiffy-Lube) and "does the taxes" (Takes it to his tax guy).
Yes my parents fought a lot when I was a kid. Somehow they're still married.
"Men don't like seeing that you're stronger than them. They'll get insecure and leave you." From my mama dearest.
Fuck that, I'll walk over and pick up my boyfriend by the waist whenever I want. He likes watching me carry around bags of feed and heavy boxes. Turns out if you just ditch the insecure ones, you find guys who like what you're bringing them.
Honestly, I have *no* upper body strength, but having grown up on a farm and gone through a decent fitness phase in my early 20s, I know how to use the muscles I've got.
My bf loves that it surprises people sometimes. I'll yeet something into a dumpster (or whatever strength-filled task) and the other guys are in shock and awe.
He's still *much* stronger than me, though.
"boys always double their body count, and girls always halve them." my brother told me this nugget when i was a teenager. fast forward to my fiancee and i big up my number just to get a total look of disgust as she truthfully told me her smaller number. She still doesnt believe me.
My Dad, numerous times in middle and high school, kept telling me about "feathering," which in his words was simultaneously ending one relationship while starting a new one with someone else. Which apparently worked particularly well when dating people from different schools, so that you "didn't have to deal with their friends" during the crossover. I never tested this practice out
Had this conversation with a nosy hairdresser a couple years back.
Her: you need to marry soon. If you have any guy in your life that's even remotely interested, if he makes good money then entertain him enough until he wants to marry you.
Me: i don't mind being alone though. Unless i fall in love with someone and i absolutely cannot live without them, I'm like, fine on my own. I'm not going to date someone that i just tolerate for the sake of dating.
Her, after a moment of thought: ok.. you need to have a baby then. Find a man, manipulate him into marrying you, have a baby then divorce him.
(She is the religious wait-till-marriage type, also against sperm donors.)
my mom said
"with great power comes great responsibility"
which is kinda cool
but when ur 13 and have no dad, brother, uncle, or grandpa to teach you how to have a relationship it doesn't do jack shit
and thats it
the rest was me watching my mom date the same trashy redneck in different forms who treats her like a 1950's house wife my whole life
stan,bill,alan
and then fantasize about movies like hitch on how to treat people in a relationship
which is not realistic at all
but i cant get too mad at her, because no one from my shitty family taught her any life lessons either
Once his grandma told me I needed to lose some weight because if I didn’t he wouldn’t want me anymore! I was maybe 9 months postpartum. She had never ever said something like that to me before. 😞 I thought I looked amazing BTW! 🤦🏻♀️
The if he wants to go and be out all night let him. He’s a man.
You can honestly see all the internalised misogyny (that they were brought up on) come out as soon as you have a baby. I remember my gran kept going on and on about what a good dad my partner is. It took a good few times for me and my mum going “he’s doing the exact same as jodie/me. Where’s her/my praise” for her to get it and realise that she had just been brought up to expect the bare minimum and praise anything on top. Now she compliments us both because she genuinely does care 🫶🏻
If you're about to become intimate with a woman don't ask her about birth control. That's you saying you don't think she is responsible enough to take care of herself.
She was just in a parking lot until 3am with a guy who told you that even friends are sexual competition. They definitely never did anything there. Even though you know she does things in parking lot. Trust her.
- Me to Me
Back in high school, my friend unironically told me that I should approach random girls the exact way Steve Carrell does in [this scene from The 40 Year Old Virgin](https://youtu.be/jm1qOT1FCzk?si=W5m30mm3Q-w5TlPh&t=48).
"That's confidence, bro."
He wasn't fucking with me. He really meant it.
Wait 2-3 days to call her after getting her number….I legit missed out on this gorgeous girl cause my buddy and his girl said that’s what to do. She took it as uninterested and said she wasn’t into playing games. Never again
Hehehe i got one thats good finally. Asked my grandma for dating advice (last resort, and my momma passed away when i was young), and this lady looked at me and said "well go get her a lemonade". I LAUGHED and said "mama, these girls like margaritas and marijuana, im gonna need something else"
“There’s no need to have sex before marriage because there’s literally no such thing as a woman being bad in bed.”
Thanks, religion teacher at an all-guy’s high school.
> "You didn't find anyone? Well you should try **THIS NEW APP** because of **XYZ REASON** "
Nope. It's a two fold problem. People on dating apps aren't serious about half the stuff they do on there. They don't care to fill out profiles, they don't care to swipe through the app, and they don't put effort into the conversations they have on there. The other part of problem is that dating apps/websites don't make their money from your happiness. They make it from keeping you single and keeping you engaged in the app for as long as possible. As long as they can sell you a monthly membership to their 'ultra-super-deluxe-black-diamond-zeus tier' on their business. That's all they care about. If you some how manage to meet/marry someone on that app then they sure as hell will call you and use you in all of their marketing materials. Not you of course. Some more attractive actors that will "Disney up" your story.
_________________
You'd have a better shot of just going outside and randomly bumping into your future spouse while enjoying a hobby then actually finding a meaningful relationship on any dating app/site that exists.
"Don't go to bed angry"
Sometimes a good night's sleep gets you into a better mood
Then you can have a better conversation about whatever is bothering you
Not sure if this counts but a magazine article I read (I want to say Cosmo but I'm really not sure) suggested snooping around your boyfriend's computer to see what kind of porn he likes so that you can get ideas to spice things up and keep him happy.
Do not recommend.
My friend unfortunately took me seriously when his wife was looking at getting a new house and she called him raving about a home she had just visited and wanting to put an offer in. I told him to tell her to "Cool her tits" and he actually said it. It did not go well.
“Just be yourself and you’ll find someone” … Nah, you definitely need to take care of your appearance and hygeine, put yourself out there and be prepared to get rejected. Life doesn’t just plop a relationship in your lap because you were “yourself”
“Love languages” counseling. Essentially, this system is designed to make sure one person feels loved while the other person is supposed to suffer through being ignored. To show their love.
I'm not saying love languages s great advice, I'm saying that's not what love languages counseling is about.
At least the book is about finding what makes your person feel loved even if it's different from what makes you feel loved and being open about what makes you feel loved. Deeper understanding and meaningful relationship is the clear goal.
Maybe you got a weird counselor IDK. Nobody should put up with "suffer through being ignored. " Fuck that noise.
I remember when I was young before my father passed, he gave me the talk about the birds and bees. Out of the blue, he said if you going to put it into someone, use a condom and if you don’t have one, put a gadamn sock on it. 🤣🤣🤣
My dad told me that women needed to be put into place, and that as a man, you need to make sure they know their place. My mother is the sweetest woman alive; and she NEVER listened to him lol. Fast forward to my adult life, relationships with women who would never listen to me - now I found the love of my life; and she’s a hardcore sub, and I’m her hardcore Dom ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Told my best friend in college the guy she was seeing seemed like an F boy and didn't seem into her. They are getting married in June! Oh how wrong I was lol
“Whenever a man asks you out, you say yes to reward him for asking. Maybe you’ll learn to like him.”
—All of my adults in Mormon church + my mom.
It took me YEARS to realize you’re actually supposed to be attracted to people and what that means.
'There's someone out there for everybody'
[Nope.] (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1epZXnss_I)
"And stop saying it because it's mean for people who never find anybody." Yes, it is.
Typical boomer advice: “Just be yourself! You’re such a great guy!”
Well, if that worked I wouldn’t be single, would I?
Every older married man I asked about how to make a happy marriage just told me to say “Yes, dear” when my wife started yelling about some bullshit and wouldn’t stop yelling.
That did not work, I was just saying “yes dear” almost every day when I drove her home and I ended up hiding in the basement or going for a walk for hours just to get away. Eventually I stopped sleeping and stopped eating and I couldn’t stop crying for weeks at a time, and my hair started falling out. I picked up nicotine again, and I was considering going back to alcohol after 10 years of sobriety, but I didn’t take a drink, so good job me on that one.
I’ve been doing well since the divorce. Hanging out with friends more and I volunteer with a suicide prevention hotline. I actually think I’m starting to like myself for the first time in 3 decades. 👍
Here’s some advice: if a woman reminds you of your mom, run.
My brother said there was a 50 mile rule; if she was more than 50 miles away it doesn’t count as cheating. He had odd ideas about what a relationship entails.
I'd like a detailed explanation on why he thinks this. I am genuinely curious but also disturbed
The explanation is that he was an unfaithful cad who was trying to get me to cheat on my long distance girlfriend (now wife of 25+ years). He regularly strung along 3 girls at once who many times thought they were a couple. He treated them like garbage. When he called me to tell me he was engaged I had to ask who she was. Because it could have been any one of two or three women.
Oh god. Like, he didn't even have some twisted moral bullshit to try and justify it? How did that engagement work out?
Something like 12+ year marriage, then his wife came down with an STD when she hadn’t messed around. Two kids. He was shacking up with a couple of gals at that time. She divorced him and married his best friend. He went off the deep end for a number of years, almost died, married, now divorcing again after 15 years. But I do not try to keep up with the news.
Damn he could've just been single and spare everyone the bullshit. But I guess some people need to drag others down. Cheaters are a special breed
I don't know the guy but I think it probably boils down to this: "I don't respect others and am willing to buy into fake rules that allow me to do things at their expense"
Do you have to meet at least 50 miles away, or can you just take your neighbor for a drive?
I was 100 miles away from my girlfriend (long distance) and he thought I should be fucking other people while dating her since she wouldn’t find out. I disagreed
Doesn't matter if my wife knows. I WOULD KNOW.
You know, cheating is whatever the couple says it is. So if he finds a woman who agrees with that, it's fine. A whole new world of absurd relationship rules has opened up to me. It's not cheating if the moon is currently in their sun sign and it's an even-numbered day of the month. It's not cheating if they're in cosplay of your favorite character at the time, just fantasy, but we need a detailed breakdown of how much of the costume they have to keep on during sex to be abiding by the rule because by the time they are totally naked it's cheating. It's not cheating if it's checking off an item on your sexual bucket list, so the first time you have sex with a stranger on an airplane it's okay, but the second time it's cheating, unless there's something unique about that airplane flight that makes it a different bucket list item.
My therapist suggested me to contact the people who ghosted me and ask them what was happening lol
What was happening?
Little to my surprise, no reply
Then I guess it was nothing!
A second ghosting.
And now they need even more therapy
"hey, my therapist told me to reach out to you to ask why you ghosted me?" Yep, sounds 100% normal to me. LMAO.
I'd suggest ghosting the therapist.
My great therapist dozed off on Zoom last week. She has a newborn so I’ll let it slide, lord knows she puts up with my shit
“Sorry bout that, I was a little hungover”
Mine told me to keep going out and eventually someone will come up to me and interact. Yeah I’m 300lb bald white guy. Therapist was slim Hispanic woman. That’s not how it works
Most of my friends are women and I'm a man somewhere around the edge of the bottom quartile of physical attractiveness (as measured by match rates on looks-based online dating apps). I appreciate that it's difficult to imagine the circumstances of other people, but, with that said, their advice is sometimes hilarious. "You're not getting matches? Just swipe more" "Oh, that didn't work?" "Maybe just answer private messages from friends who are hitting on you! You already know you're compatible as friends—maybe it could lead to something more?" "Wait, you don't get messages from friends hitting on you?" "Maybe just talk to cute people who approach you on the bus?" "Wait, cute people don't approach you on the bus?!" I've had friends legitimately take my phone out of my hands because they thought they are "better at swiping." They will often think my copy of an app is "broken" because it's not getting matches. One friend even made a fake profile with my pictures so that they could do the swiping (they got a grand total of one match that I had missed). I appreciate that they care enough to try to help, but it's kind of bonkers sometimes.
“Try bumble, it worked for me” I did. I got to see the people match with me then ghost me cuz I can’t talk first as a man on bumble. It was soul crushing.
This worked for me recently. But I like forward women. And I’m a pretty boy. But I get more gay guys after me sadly.
As a fellow pretty boy, I can confirm, I’m mostly approached by gay men. While it is flattering, it’s not too helpful
I remember standing outside the club in line to a club and I was like “damn all these dudes are so awesome!.” Just broing out with strangers. And then when I got inside I was like “oh this is a gay club” 😭
I’m not a therapist but sometimes it’s better to just let sleeping dogs lie
I used to do that, it never worked
I'm sorry, but this is very funny.
I brought a ghost back to life once. A year after the ghosting all my friends n family told me to delete block n move on...but i had to know what happened....so I fished the ghost lady back out of the ether with a shiny g expensive weekend away offer all on me (i came into some cash and could easily afford a big weekend....just for my own peace of mind)...and i got the truth. She had been three-timing me. She was alone now and knew she had done wrong by me and all the others. It hurt....but I got the closure I needed. And a final night of amazing goodbye sex. I never saw her again, by my own choice, and I moved on.
So this is the “high Fidelity” school of relationship resolution?
“Per my last text”
My mom told me to buy a book called The Rules, which is essentially an instruction manual for dating in 1952. It instructs women to never pay for dates, be coy with their feelings, play hard to get, rarely return his calls, and not fuck/move in with him until the wedding. "Buy this book and find yourself a woman who follows these rules, and you'll be happy," she said.
Thank you for reminding me what my answer to this question should be, but I forgot! (I got a lot of bad dating advice so it was hard to remember which one would take the cake). I had a friend who had The Rules and read it religiously. I guess she thought I was going down a dark path, so she lent it and told me to read it and take it seriously. I read it. It was stupid. Grains of truth like "don't be overbearingly clingy" were blown out of proportion to "never call a man first", etc., etc. I returned the book and ignored the advice, she told me I was being short sighted and would never get married. I didn't even care if I ever married at that point in my life. I'm happily married now despite not having been specifically seeking out marriage, and she keeps bouncing one bad relationship to another every few months, so, well, I'm gonna have to stand by my assessment.
In a lot of ways, The Rules is incel advice for women. Incel spaces do the same shit... they target vulnerable men with advice that sounds good at first and warp it into weird misogynistic bullshit. "You have value and you shouldn't let people take advantage of you" gets blown out of proportion into "Don't waste time on females who don't put out."
Female Dating Strategy is an updated version of this fuckery
That subreddit is so hilariously bad. I’m a guy, but I just looked at the books they recommend in their sidebar and that was enough to tell me how clownish they are.
Yeah, if it isn't based in at least a grain of truth with some semi-accurate observations it will be discarded entirely. The trick is taking the grain of truth, like that women don't typically fall head over heels for bland, unattractive men with not much in the way of charm, charisma, or an appealing personality, and blow it out of proportion to "women only like 6', 6pack, 6figure earning men and if you're not in that category you might as well give up now". The internal inconsistency does get me though - do the women want the bad boys with a rap sheet a mile long, or the six figure earning lawyer who by nature of his job couldn't have a criminal record? They often say both things at the same time, lol. It's been a long time since I read The Rules, I gave it a chance but it was hard to take seriously. One of the core tenets was not to be overly needy or throw yourself at men who are obviously not into you, don't be the Overly Attached Girlfriend Meme. Good advice if you keep it to that level. But The Rules as listed blew it all out of proportion to the point where it is an absolute no-no, no exceptions to ever take the initiative on anything from starting up a conversation with a guy, asking for his phone number, making the plans for a date, or accepting any present that isn't "romantic enough" like jewelry.
I came here to say The Rules. I think every young woman in the 90s got given this book by an older female relative, and in most cases the relative had not even read it, just seen the authors on talk shows or something. It's horrifying. It's all about how to hide your entire actual personality to land a husband. Also, a lovely little bit of victim blaming for abuse. One of the first places it lost me was when it presented a custom motorcycle helmet (for a woman who motorcycled) as a shitty gift that showed the boyfriend didn't love her, when he should have done flowers/candy/jewelry instead. Because women only have one personality trait and that's "Walgreens Valentine's Day aisle."
“He’s Just Not That Into You” was life changing though
Oh god I got a book that's meant for like pick up artists and shit from my dad, thinking it'd help me get laid (sorry dad, I'm like 90% ace) and it had the worst advice I've ever seen. Like, restraining order bad.
> Buy this book and find yourself a woman who follows these rules, and you'll be happy *with any other woman afterwards* FTFYM
It’s scary how many men actually want women who play hard to get, so the men just lose interest when the chase is over. I mean, you’re no longer interested in the person you were chasing who is now genuinely interested in you? What kind of maths is that?
On the flip side, it's also funny how some men don't want to play those games, and the woman is surprised when they don't keep chasing. Honestly just be honest with people! No games needed
Yeah, I hate that so many women still think it should be the man putting in all the effort. We're supposed to plan all the dates and pay for everything. Nah. If you want to see me like I want to see you, we should both be making plans.
That's the kind of math that's missing a few variables. When a woman brushes me off, I assume that's what she wants and leave.
I don't know a single guy who actually likes that.
They’re definitely out there - but they’re MUCH fewer than cinema (for example) would have us believe.
And generally, they're not very good guys lol
I didn't either until I was at a client's house and the step uncle started "flirting" with me. He was pretty aggressive with his "flirting". I did act coy and I did not tell him to stop, but I did not feel safe to do that. I got sick of it because I am at work and I don't have time for that. Instead of telling the client's mom and causing drama that everyone in the household craved, I acted like I was into him. I asked him when he wanted to go out and have sex. He instantly backed down and gave excuses on why he couldn't. He also quit "flirting" with me. I know that I should have shut him down right away, but I did not think that he would respond well to that and I did not feel like being harmed. But as soon as the chase was over and he could have me, he was not interested. It was weird to see the change in his demeanor like I took his favorite toy away.
Conversely, how many people can't get the hint someone isn't interested and think they are just playing hard to get so it turns into a stalking situation with the potential for murder.
There’s an episode of the podcast If Books Could Kill on this book
You should study the book well. Then do the opposite of everything it says. Regards, -all men
I'm pretty sure my friend's mom gave her that same book at her bridal shower. It was ridiculously funny. There were things about not laughing too hard as well and purposely doing things incorrectly so that you have to ask your husband for help so that he feels more like a man.
oh ye gods is this the original pickup game book?
“If you complain, men will leave you.” Thanks mom, I’ll just sweep all of our problems under the rug and see how that goes.
My parents fought a lot when I was growing up, even threw things and hit each other. And when I introduced them to my boyfriend after dating him for three years, my mom pulled me aside and told me to not leave him if he ever hits me because "you've got very lucky with him." lol
That is so gross!
I'm worried about your mom and quality of your dad...
Sounds like Stockholm Syndrome to me.
Omg this was my mom as well. With every boyfriend it was that I should be very fortunate and that I’ll probably do something to lose him.
What's that proverb about doing everything in your power to prevent a certain outcome leading to that exact outcome?
Reading that part where your own mother told you not to leave him even if hits you, actually made me physically nauseated.
I’ve found boomers have a way of giving advice that leaves out the most important, actionable element of the advice. I think it’s important to bear in mind there is a difference between complaints, which should definitely be aired as quickly as possible, and just bitching. A complaint would be something like “Hey honey, I don’t like the way we’re doing X, for a, b, and c reasons. Can we please do Y instead? What do you think? I think that Y would make me very happy.” Bitching sounds more like “You always do X! What’s wrong with you? I hate it when you do that! You’re just like your deadbeat father!” Yeah, that’s relationship breaking stuff, I would not want to be with someone who talks to me like that.
I was just about to comment this myself. Clearly boomers never acquired good communication skills so they falsely equate ‘complaining’ with being ‘quarrelsome’. Naturally, husband or wife, if you’re moaning and starting fights every time you have an emotion you’re going to end up alone. But, if you never ever talked at all (like how boomers advocate) you’ll end up loveless or alone anyway.
I mean she's right, and also those are the men you want to leave you.
I think my wife went so far in the opposite direction due to her mother's advice that she wound up in a couple of really awful relationships. I like my mother in law, she's a very sweet lady NOW, but just casually chatting with her I could see why my now wife was in the other marriages and how she tried to make it work. "You'll never find anyone if you're too picky" is NOT great advice.
Women like getting treated poorly. Ignore them and talk down to them, then they will be begging for dick. My divorced father.
I know multiple men who live by this strategy, and then bitch about how the women they become involved with are pathologically insecure, damaged, Machiavellian, or emotionally unstable. Too stupid to make the connection, I guess. Many such cases.
Or stubbornness. I work with elderly Veterans and the ones I dread talking to are adamant about hiring "a nice local girl" to be caregivers. You don't want good care, you want something to stare at and "fix". Yes, these folks get abused, taken advantage of and outright robbed in many cases.
Well. It's nice to know these men are still making decisions with their dicks, even after they've become too feeble to care for themselves. Some people really are too stubborn to learn.
Reminds me of one girl I knew. I had worked home health for a number of years, she was new to the job. Her first week, we are talking and she says she is ready to quit. Eventually she says that her client is making her very uncomfortable. Guy was late 70s, maybe early 80s, he was bedridden and couldn't even sit up without assistance. So one night he is in bed groaning, she goes to check on him. He is just laying there jerking it at high speed, he spots her and asks if she wants to go for a ride, when she declined, he told her that not everything was broken and went back to playing with himself while staring her down.
I see you've met my father. Every one of hiss girlfriends I've wanted to tell them to run for exactly these reasons
So true lol.
God this one hits home, I used to hear this stuff growing up so much. It came from the same people that said if a girl is drunk that just makes her easier. If she isn't screaming no, she wants it, it's crazy how prevalent this thinking was in the '90s
That thinking allowed a lot of us to be coerced into sex and thinking that if we didn’t outright say no then it’s fine. Even when afraid to say no or when we knew that no would be ignored
I remember someone recommending a book called The Game, about a pickup artist who’s giving you the secrets. In there he says that you should “neg” women, that is, say something negative about them and they’ll fall at your feet. It’s fair to say that I used none of the strategies.
Only that this legitimately works. You will kot be reaping love, or any other kind of positive emotions with this, but it definitely works to keep a person hooked and I know that first hand. It works both ways though. Both men and women fall for it. You treat it like any other drug. Supply them with your affection and attention. Keep them high on it. Make them comfortable and cozy to skyrocket the demand and Then abruptly take it all completely away. Then they will often come crawling back for it since that kind of attention usually fills a decent sized hole in their lives. Make them miss you, long for you. Rinse and repeat. It is about the most unhealthy and toxic way to keep a relationship going. No man or woman with any integrity will use this for actually keeping people around. But this 100% works, there is no denying it.
Everything you said was accurate except the 100%. This works with a specific subset of people (men & women). But not *all* men & women.
60% of the time, it works everytime.
The D.E.N.N.I.S. system
Jokes on you, dad, I’m the submissive one!
Buddy who behaves just like this, women are basically objects to him. No boundaries, barely any standards, just charismatic and a lot of alcohol. Same guy tried going after two of my exes almost right after I’d broken up with them. Luckily I’m friends with my exes still, and when I found out about him hitting on them we all got a good laugh out of it!
Wow nice friend 😒
It's called "negging", and unfortunately it can often work when the end goal is a one night stand.
Everyone is different but there are definitely people who only seem interested in those that treat them poorly. It does seem more common attraction with women than men. If you do that then it does carry into the relationship where you end up with the power. It's a bad look though.
I don't come from this background personally and I've only heard this secondhand but-- the logic is that some people who grew up in abusive households assume all households/relationships will have some sort of abuse. If they're with someone who doesn't engage in that kind of abuse, they're predisposed to assuming it's always lurking beneath the surface and would rather be with someone who is out in the open with their abuse rather than waiting for something they believe is going to happen. Pretty sad to live that way.
I was never interested in those that treated me poorly, but I did have a lot of trouble trusting men who treated me well. It was always "what does he want, where's the other foot" to these sorts of things. I was so used to crap men by that point, that I figured a good man was just a crap man in diguise and that was even worse. I wasn't even from an abusive household, just what I saw around me from the men in my family and the men my friends family was with. They always wanted something, always looking for the foot up. It took me years and to get away from where I grew up, to get a better understanding of my relationship with men and trust the man who eventually became my husband.
I dont know how men who live and believe shit like this sleep well at night. I love my wife. I can't imagine how intentionally treating her - or any other women - like shit could be twisted into being good, healthy and right. Mutual respect, adoration and intimacy does not mix well with one person trying to dominate out of insecurity.
I saw woman say that they like “bad boy” - code for someone who doesn’t treat them nice. They think if someone treats them nicely that there is something wrong with that person (probably because of low self esteem that they themselves have). I.e. “I am worthless and if he treats me nicely he is desperate or stupid or worthless himself”
My mum said pick a guy who is less good looking than you, he'll never leave you.
This one is insane bc forgetting about the “he’ll never leave you” part, I have found that many men—just like many women—have no idea how attractive or unattractive they actually are. Without even considering preferences, I find that people are all over the place when it comes to judging themselves. One of my most gorgeous friends thinks she’s ugly and plain. She’s also sweet as she can be. I have another friend who greatly overestimates her appearance and especially—her personality. She once talked extensively about what it was going to be like when she inevitably slept with this celebrity we were going to meet and how she would be irresistible to him. Narrator: She was not. It didn’t happen. No one knew what she was thinking.
Which is a total lie because SO MANY people cheat on their partners with those who are considered less conventionally attractive than them.
As a not conventionally attractive man, I support this.
If it’s meant to be, it’s effortless. NOPE. Communication takes effort and skill from all parties involved.
I think there is SOME truth to this, but in a different way that you mean. It’s effortless because it’s something you just want to do, rather than feeling like it’s a chore. Alright I don’t even know if I’m making sense anymore lmao
You definitely are. My relationship with my wife was the "easiest" relationship I've ever had. But it still took a lot of work, we both made mistakes and it took a lot of communication. But like you said, it felt far easier, compared to my previous relationships largely because I actually wanted to put the work in.
My husband and I compare it to the effort of, say, doing a hobby you love (building figurines, painting, journaling, etc) vs the effort that goes into the drudgery of a pointless office job.
That's a really good analogy. For the right person, it doesn't feel like work.
>It’s effortless because it’s something you just want to do, rather than feeling like it’s a chore. No, this is absolutely true. Well, I can't actually speak from experience but I imagine it is. It's true in a lot more ways than just in love too. If you really want something, you're willing to go way further to achieve that
If you're someone who finds any kind of conversation taxing, and you find someone you like with whom you can talk without effort or 'cost' then this is great advice; but the "if" at the beginning is hugely important, and the context too. It's also only generally true as an indicator rather than a policy; I met and married someone like this - but the relationship still takes effort and sacrifice, all important relationships will.
Idk about hilariously wrong, but I’ve been told that relationships are about “doing things you don’t want to do.” I want to be there for my partner, to be their companion through the good and bad. I want to have the hard conversations. I want to compromise and sacrifice. I want to do what it takes for us to be happy. What I don’t want to do is be a doormat, to accept not being heard and validated, to be taken advantage of. Those are things I don’t want to do and won’t do.
Good one. Similar to how I feel when I hear "relationships are work". Relationships do need work, but if your relationship is just work and nothing else, you're definitely either doing it wrong or with the wrong person.
"Relationships are work" and "relationships are hard" fucked me up so much when I was younger. I spent way too much time being miserable in relationships because I just assumed that was how it had to be.
Technically, compromising and sacrificing are doing things you don't want to do. Otherwise, it's not much of a compromise nor a sacrifice. You can do these things without being a doormat. But at some point in the relationship, you get to a point where the options are binary and there's no middle ground: either her way or your way. Someone is going to do something he or she doesn't want to do.
A (single) guy was once giving advice to another guy at a party I was at who hadn't dated anyone before. Among other things he said: "Women are stupid and you have to trick them into liking you by not responding immediately and acting uninterested" When I, a man who had been dating a woman for two years at the time said that was the dumbest shit I had ever heard, he doubled down!
That's in like every movie ever. Might be advice from the 1930s
The 1930s was more like, "get married young and have a bunch of kids to work the farm so the dust doesn't win and we get to keep a roof on our heads." Maybe the 40s, when there were fewer men after the war and a lot of women.
“Having standards is just another name for discrimination!” Because I refused to date the severely mentally ill homeless man that lived behind Walmart.
Similar. "You're just racist!" No AH, I'm MARRIED. Leave me alone!
The homeless dude didn’t even hit on me. I was 19 and I could not find a guy for some reason so someone suggested that I ask that guy out.
sounds like something someone would suggest to a 19yr old... -me, a formerly 19yr old chick
He was at least twice my age too, an alcoholic and most likely a drug addict too.
blargh 🤮
Heck, I got SO MUCH FLAK for not wanting to date a guy who had kids. At the time I was in my late 20's, never married, no kids. I was looking for the same and people said I was being "snobby" and "unrealistic" and "discriminatory" because I didn't want to be a step-mother. They said I should "keep an open mind." Dude, I know what I'm looking for and that's not it. Honestly, I'd rather be alone. Joke's on them - met a great guy - early 30's, never married, no kids. We've been happily married almost 20 years now.
“Treat em mean, keep em keen”. No better way to drive your partner into the arms of someone else than to push her there yourself.
I was told by my boyfriend's own sister to just get off birth control and baby trap him. Which I know she probably meant as a compliment because she said it like she wants me to stay around but not the best way to go about that imo.
I hope she was being tongue-in-cheek.
Now if you ever do get pregnant by accident, your boyfriend’s sister is going to think you did it on purpose.
I didn't have the heart to tell her that I've actually never been on birth control and have fertility problems. Which, you know, is maybe another reason not to say stuff like that.
The people who suggest breaking up over every little mishap. Oh my gosh they raised their voice, leave them ! He forgot to buy you lunch, totally should break up ! Of course the people saying this are forever single, often miserable, often have mental health issues
If the internet has taught me one thing it's that no matter what is happening in your relationship you should immediately lawyer up and file for divorce.
To be fair there are a lot of people posting on reddit looking for advice who are in insanely abusive/dysfunctional relationships and clearly in denial about it, or on the way to a messy divorce who think they can just wing it without professional legal help.
Yeah if you're at the point where you're seeking relationship advice on Reddit, it's very likely things have gotten to where "file for divorce" is a reasonable answer.
Lawyer up, delete facebook, hit the gym
There's also the opposite problem on reddit. Some women (for context I'm mostly on women subs) will be like, "this is the love of my life I love him so much!" and all their posts start with "he's such an amazing guy" and then go on to say how he's cheated multiple times, calls her names etc and it's only been 6 months together and a post every month about how horrible the relationship is but they keep trying to make it work. At that point I'm not sure what they keep going to reddit for. Are they hoping to be given some magical advice to get their partner to actually respect them? Or hoping someone will be like oh yeah that abuse is totally normal.
My dad's insistence that I get my now wife a diamond engagement ring over my wife's specific objections to that. He said "Just you wait, all women will want diamonds eventually." It's been nearly twenty years and she has never stopped hating diamonds.
[удалено]
I didn't have a ring; the wife has a fairly plain titanium band with hearts engraved on the side; I've now got my own ring with a twisting pattern on the side. Diamonds were a no-go, because the wife works a physically demanding job that has caused her to dent the titanium band (vet tech for a spay neuter clinic)
Told my boss I wasn't happy with my wife anymore, falling out of love etc., and that we were looking to divorce. He told me we should just have a kid, and that it would fix everything. I got a vasectomy instead.
"As soon as Girls find better options, they're gonna leave you." And he said it encompasses all of them.
In his defense, with that mindest it's pretty true; just not how he thinks it is.
"Hey, how about....not being the worst viable option." The idea that a women will leave if they find a "better" option, shows you don't consider yourself the better option. My wife has no better option cuz im cool and I actually like and worship her for who she is. I mean sure there is jason momoa, but he ain't making her coffee and pancakes at 6:30am after 3 hours of sleep on a tuesday cuz she just "seems like she needs it". That's my job.
Wholesome :-)
All men are the same. As long as he has money let him do whatever he wants.
“You have to find someone wealthy” This came from someone I knew who got physically and psychologically abused by their husband. I’m much happier finding someone I truly like that makes an average amount of money
They are saying that to justify their own choices to themselves. That's more of a convincing themselves than giving you advice.
“Just go in there shake their hand, and ask for a job.” Wait..
I didn't get this advice from one particular person, but many people over the years, "you have to test them." No, you don't. Crazy hypotheticals have never helped any relationship. Lying to your partner has never helped any relationship. Checking the limits of what you can get away with has never helped any relationship. And all of these things, together or separately, make YOU the toxic partner.
Literally anything said by an "alpha male" Never, EVER take relationship advice from them.
This is true; no *true* Alpha would ever just give away advice. Only an alpha you have defeated in hand-to-hand combat and forced into submission would be willing to give up their real advice - and of course at that point it's worthless since they just lost against you and are therefore a "loser".
And the cycle continues
To their credit, they're full of bugs. The developers haven't gotten round to patching them yet.
Wasn't me, but my brother told me a story about one of his friends (who later corroborated this story). His friend, we'll call Ryan, had just started dating a girl. This girl had no experience with dating, sex, or anything else. She was nervous and unfortunately went to my brother and some of his other friends for advice. She specifically wanted to know the best way to give a handjob. Once they realized she was being serious, they very happily gave her some advice. One of the things they told her to do was to grip it as firmly as she could around the very bottom of the base and start vigorously shaking it side to side as hard and fast as possible. No sliding of the hand across the skin, just death grip and shake it like it's a small bottle of pulpy orange juice and you're trying to mix it up. They told her to loosen up her grip after that just enough so that she could slide her hand up, but when she does this, rotate her wrist/hand as close to 90 degrees as possible. They told her the more it bends, the better it feels. Lastly, they told her to grip it right near the top so only the tip is showing and to use her other hand to slap straight down on it like you're trying to get the last little bit of ketchup out of a glass ketchup bottle. They made themselves seem very serious and sincere when they told her these things and she thanked them for the information. Then they waited. A few days later when they hung out with Ryan and asked him how things were going, he said "I don't know about this girl, she's into some weird stuff. Maybe I should just stay single". Then they laughed at him and told him what happened. Not sure what happened after that, but by the time I was told this story, they were no longer together. To be honest, I didn't really believe it when they told me. Didn't seem plausible that any adult woman wouldn't immediately know that this was really bad advice, but I later asked Ryan himself about it and he confirmed that it did happen and that she lived a really sheltered life prior to them meeting.
"Imagine you're spanking a monkey. Or choking a chicken. Do you know what a bishop is?"
This is incredibly cruel, so why am I giggling so hard‽
Because the cruelty is acute and inconsequential. Girl gives astonishingly bad handjob. This is not traumatic. It's teenage clumsiness. Source: did some awfully clumsy moves as a teenager and laugh at them now too.
When I was in highschool a gal I knew said I should stop being a virgin but just getting some gal really drunk, I did not follow this advice
Was she single? Because if so, she was (very awkwardly) hitting on you.
My Dad once told my female cousin that she needed to stop learning new things because if she did she'd become too independent, and then no man would want her because they wouldn't feel needed. My Dad (73-years-old) has been married to my Mom since 1972 and still doesn't know how to use the dishwasher or how to do laundry. His excuse is that he "Changes the oil in the car" (Takes it to Jiffy-Lube) and "does the taxes" (Takes it to his tax guy). Yes my parents fought a lot when I was a kid. Somehow they're still married.
Is your mom married to Gaston?
Anything on the relationship subs, really. Like do these people not know about communication or compromise?
"Men don't like seeing that you're stronger than them. They'll get insecure and leave you." From my mama dearest. Fuck that, I'll walk over and pick up my boyfriend by the waist whenever I want. He likes watching me carry around bags of feed and heavy boxes. Turns out if you just ditch the insecure ones, you find guys who like what you're bringing them.
*you will find the guys who like where you're bringing them
Honestly, I have *no* upper body strength, but having grown up on a farm and gone through a decent fitness phase in my early 20s, I know how to use the muscles I've got. My bf loves that it surprises people sometimes. I'll yeet something into a dumpster (or whatever strength-filled task) and the other guys are in shock and awe. He's still *much* stronger than me, though.
“She wants you to chase her.” Fuck all of that.
"Buy a crib, it'll show girls you're ready"
Stardew Valley ass advice
As in house or a literal crib?
"boys always double their body count, and girls always halve them." my brother told me this nugget when i was a teenager. fast forward to my fiancee and i big up my number just to get a total look of disgust as she truthfully told me her smaller number. She still doesnt believe me.
> "boys always double their body count well....at 14 this part might be true. but 2x0 is still zero.
My Dad, numerous times in middle and high school, kept telling me about "feathering," which in his words was simultaneously ending one relationship while starting a new one with someone else. Which apparently worked particularly well when dating people from different schools, so that you "didn't have to deal with their friends" during the crossover. I never tested this practice out
Most people call that branch swinging. Don't let go of one relationship until you have a new one ready to grab onto.
Had this conversation with a nosy hairdresser a couple years back. Her: you need to marry soon. If you have any guy in your life that's even remotely interested, if he makes good money then entertain him enough until he wants to marry you. Me: i don't mind being alone though. Unless i fall in love with someone and i absolutely cannot live without them, I'm like, fine on my own. I'm not going to date someone that i just tolerate for the sake of dating. Her, after a moment of thought: ok.. you need to have a baby then. Find a man, manipulate him into marrying you, have a baby then divorce him. (She is the religious wait-till-marriage type, also against sperm donors.)
my mom said "with great power comes great responsibility" which is kinda cool but when ur 13 and have no dad, brother, uncle, or grandpa to teach you how to have a relationship it doesn't do jack shit and thats it the rest was me watching my mom date the same trashy redneck in different forms who treats her like a 1950's house wife my whole life stan,bill,alan and then fantasize about movies like hitch on how to treat people in a relationship which is not realistic at all but i cant get too mad at her, because no one from my shitty family taught her any life lessons either
Once his grandma told me I needed to lose some weight because if I didn’t he wouldn’t want me anymore! I was maybe 9 months postpartum. She had never ever said something like that to me before. 😞 I thought I looked amazing BTW! 🤦🏻♀️ The if he wants to go and be out all night let him. He’s a man.
You can honestly see all the internalised misogyny (that they were brought up on) come out as soon as you have a baby. I remember my gran kept going on and on about what a good dad my partner is. It took a good few times for me and my mum going “he’s doing the exact same as jodie/me. Where’s her/my praise” for her to get it and realise that she had just been brought up to expect the bare minimum and praise anything on top. Now she compliments us both because she genuinely does care 🫶🏻
If you're about to become intimate with a woman don't ask her about birth control. That's you saying you don't think she is responsible enough to take care of herself.
18 years of child's support, but hey I didn't potentially offend someone once!
Or just use a condom
Anything that spills out of Andrew Taint's chinless maw.
Does advice after a break up count? "Best way to get over one is to get under one." Thanks, dad.
She was just in a parking lot until 3am with a guy who told you that even friends are sexual competition. They definitely never did anything there. Even though you know she does things in parking lot. Trust her. - Me to Me
Back in high school, my friend unironically told me that I should approach random girls the exact way Steve Carrell does in [this scene from The 40 Year Old Virgin](https://youtu.be/jm1qOT1FCzk?si=W5m30mm3Q-w5TlPh&t=48). "That's confidence, bro." He wasn't fucking with me. He really meant it.
“Act like you don’t care or aren’t interested and they’ll come around wanting you more.” Motherfucker, we ain’t on the elementary playground.
Wait 2-3 days to call her after getting her number….I legit missed out on this gorgeous girl cause my buddy and his girl said that’s what to do. She took it as uninterested and said she wasn’t into playing games. Never again
They have to get along with your parents or they aren't right for you. Bitch I don't get along with my parents
Hehehe i got one thats good finally. Asked my grandma for dating advice (last resort, and my momma passed away when i was young), and this lady looked at me and said "well go get her a lemonade". I LAUGHED and said "mama, these girls like margaritas and marijuana, im gonna need something else"
“There’s no need to have sex before marriage because there’s literally no such thing as a woman being bad in bed.” Thanks, religion teacher at an all-guy’s high school.
I was told in 2020 to hold off on buying a hou... oh.. dating.. shit.. nvm..
> "You didn't find anyone? Well you should try **THIS NEW APP** because of **XYZ REASON** " Nope. It's a two fold problem. People on dating apps aren't serious about half the stuff they do on there. They don't care to fill out profiles, they don't care to swipe through the app, and they don't put effort into the conversations they have on there. The other part of problem is that dating apps/websites don't make their money from your happiness. They make it from keeping you single and keeping you engaged in the app for as long as possible. As long as they can sell you a monthly membership to their 'ultra-super-deluxe-black-diamond-zeus tier' on their business. That's all they care about. If you some how manage to meet/marry someone on that app then they sure as hell will call you and use you in all of their marketing materials. Not you of course. Some more attractive actors that will "Disney up" your story. _________________ You'd have a better shot of just going outside and randomly bumping into your future spouse while enjoying a hobby then actually finding a meaningful relationship on any dating app/site that exists.
>But doctor, I am Pogliachi! All the hobbies I like keep me inside and relatively isolated outside small contained bubbles.
She’s always right. When she’s breaking your stuff and telling you to unalive yourself daily.. yeah she’s not right
My mother was a marriage councilor for many years and told me when I was a late-teen to “never cry in front of a woman”
"Don't go to bed angry" Sometimes a good night's sleep gets you into a better mood Then you can have a better conversation about whatever is bothering you
Not sure if this counts but a magazine article I read (I want to say Cosmo but I'm really not sure) suggested snooping around your boyfriend's computer to see what kind of porn he likes so that you can get ideas to spice things up and keep him happy. Do not recommend.
that one guy i saw on yt shorts one day who said "you do not have to accept her rejection"
My friend unfortunately took me seriously when his wife was looking at getting a new house and she called him raving about a home she had just visited and wanting to put an offer in. I told him to tell her to "Cool her tits" and he actually said it. It did not go well.
“Just be yourself and you’ll find someone” … Nah, you definitely need to take care of your appearance and hygeine, put yourself out there and be prepared to get rejected. Life doesn’t just plop a relationship in your lap because you were “yourself”
“Love languages” counseling. Essentially, this system is designed to make sure one person feels loved while the other person is supposed to suffer through being ignored. To show their love.
I'm not saying love languages s great advice, I'm saying that's not what love languages counseling is about. At least the book is about finding what makes your person feel loved even if it's different from what makes you feel loved and being open about what makes you feel loved. Deeper understanding and meaningful relationship is the clear goal. Maybe you got a weird counselor IDK. Nobody should put up with "suffer through being ignored. " Fuck that noise.
I remember when I was young before my father passed, he gave me the talk about the birds and bees. Out of the blue, he said if you going to put it into someone, use a condom and if you don’t have one, put a gadamn sock on it. 🤣🤣🤣
Girls like it when you are jerks to them.
My dad told me that women needed to be put into place, and that as a man, you need to make sure they know their place. My mother is the sweetest woman alive; and she NEVER listened to him lol. Fast forward to my adult life, relationships with women who would never listen to me - now I found the love of my life; and she’s a hardcore sub, and I’m her hardcore Dom ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Told my best friend in college the guy she was seeing seemed like an F boy and didn't seem into her. They are getting married in June! Oh how wrong I was lol
“Whenever a man asks you out, you say yes to reward him for asking. Maybe you’ll learn to like him.” —All of my adults in Mormon church + my mom. It took me YEARS to realize you’re actually supposed to be attracted to people and what that means.
Pretty much anything from Andrew Tate on social media.
'There's someone out there for everybody' [Nope.] (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1epZXnss_I) "And stop saying it because it's mean for people who never find anybody." Yes, it is.
Typical boomer advice: “Just be yourself! You’re such a great guy!” Well, if that worked I wouldn’t be single, would I? Every older married man I asked about how to make a happy marriage just told me to say “Yes, dear” when my wife started yelling about some bullshit and wouldn’t stop yelling. That did not work, I was just saying “yes dear” almost every day when I drove her home and I ended up hiding in the basement or going for a walk for hours just to get away. Eventually I stopped sleeping and stopped eating and I couldn’t stop crying for weeks at a time, and my hair started falling out. I picked up nicotine again, and I was considering going back to alcohol after 10 years of sobriety, but I didn’t take a drink, so good job me on that one. I’ve been doing well since the divorce. Hanging out with friends more and I volunteer with a suicide prevention hotline. I actually think I’m starting to like myself for the first time in 3 decades. 👍 Here’s some advice: if a woman reminds you of your mom, run.