Sometimes there’s a Tweet on X that goes viral because men and women have such different perspectives on it. The following Tweet you’re about to see fits that bill. If you were generalizing the reactions, most men seemed to find it horrifying while a surprising number of women seemed to think it was no big deal or even a compliment somehow.
If you’re wondering who’s right, it’s the men. Definitely, the men. Still, everyone needs to see this so they can make up their own minds, right?
From a woman’s perspective, you might be able to see how she thinks of this as backhanded compliment. After all, she doesn’t want to be with all those other guys long-term, but he’s the man she wants to be with permanently. That means she thinks more highly of him than other men. Why, what a silly man! He should understand that’s what she means!
Ok, that’s one interpretation. But, how else could it be interpreted?
Well, a lot of guys would probably hear that “compliment” as another way of saying, “I’ve been with lots of exciting guys, but I couldn’t hook any of them. Now I’m getting older now and I’m ready to settle down with a stable, safe, guy who will mow the yard and pay the bills.”
Is that flattering? Not in the least.
On top of that, she’s flat out saying that’s she’s willing to hook up with a man she just met because she finds him sexually attractive or that she’s good with regularly having sex with a guy without him having any obligations to her as long as he’s good enough in bed. That’s what hook-ups and friends with benefits are.
Yet, she apparently doesn’t feel that kind of strong sexual attraction to her boyfriend. She doesn’t find him attractive in the same way or just enjoy sex with him enough to be with him for that reason. If he wants sex from her, he needs to bring more to the table than those guys who were just handsome or good in bed. In other words, in her eyes, he’s INFERIOR to those men sexually.
Setting aside the masive injury to his pride that hearing that must have been, he now is going to have very rational doubts about whether their relationship has a future.
Why?
Well, marriage is a risky business for men under the best of circumstances today. Roughly half of marriages end in divorce, women are the ones who ask for the divorce about 70% of the time and divorce court is heavily slanted against men. There are never any guarantees, but if you’re a man and you’re seeing huge red flags going into a marriage, you really need to think twice.
So, if you’re a man thinking about marrying a woman and she indicates she’s not that attracted to you or isn’t that into having sex with you, what does that tell you about her chances of cheating on you? About how likely it is you’re going to end up with a dead bedroom? About the chances she’s going to ask for a divorce down the road because she wants to have some hook-ups or get back together with her friends with benefits that she’s leaving behind to marry you?
Actually, it tells you a lot. That one little joke, that one little window into her thinking, tells you all those outcomes are much, much more likely than they would be under normal circumstances.
Ladies, if you think this is unfair or are wondering what the equivalent of this might be, it would be something like a woman overhearing her boyfriend saying, “I’m not attracted to her, but she does a good enough job of cleaning my house and she’ll let me get away with anything.” If you thought you were in a happy, normal, fulfilled relationship before hearing something like that, chances are you wouldn’t feel the same way afterward. It would completely change your whole perception of your relationship and how your partner views you as a person.
Granted, there is a caveat we have to add here. That being, we know nothing very little about the relationship these two people have other this “compliment” she offered him. If this were a friend of mine and he asked my advice, I would ask some basic questions like how often do you two have sex? Have you ever heard her tell her friends that you’re attractive? What’s your sex life like? In other words, are the implications of that insulting “compliment” actually reflected in the relationship or was she just running her mouth? If they had sex five times this week, she’s bending over backward to dress sexy for him and she can’t keep her hands off of him, I’d probably tell him not to worry about it too much. On the other hand, if it was more like, “Yeah, we have sex once a week or so. She doesn’t seem super into it and she makes jokes about me having a dad bod,” I’d be more like, “Yeah bro, you should be very concerned.”
So, long story short, it’s very understandable that her boyfriend was “extremely distraught” and it is entirely possible that she, “destroyed their relationship.” In fact, if that’s really how she feels, then maybe that’s best for both of them.
Hmm. I'm a guy (60s now, but believe it not, I was once 28) and I don't see that as anything BUT a compliment. Only a very insecure guy could see it otherwise. There is more here, though. If after 2.5 years of steady dating, if this statement is enough to rethink the entire relationship, it was already on the rocks, and this sentence didn't put it there.
She paid him a compliment and you read *several* things into it that she did not say. You ignored the important parts in the second part of the post.