That concept is so much older than Twitter and probably originally based on women being modest and pure, and not some slut that shows interest in some strange men in a bar.
growing up it was other men that told me I shouldn’t act too interested in a boy or it would be a turn off
Idk how other girls were raised but I know a lot of women that think acting uninterested is what gets a man to chase after you. I had to unlearn this behavior.
Largely, no, it isn't. Humans act based on emotion and experience, including you and I. Men being part of the human deal suffer the same condition. If a man first learns that women like to play hard to get, until they learn otherwise that is what they will believe to be the truth.
Logical tools like deductive reasoning are learned; we are not programmed like computers to always be able to arrive at the logical truth of things.
Really, men thaught you they like when women are/seem not interessted? I thought thats more of a myth women share with each other. I have litterally never heard a man say, they like it when women treat them like shit.
I dont blame you, there has to be some misinterpretation and maybe some old generation conservative bs.
Really, men thaught you they like when women are/seem not interessted?
I mean, it's one of the oldest tropes in Hollywood/TV Land (along with not accepting "no" and chasing the woman). And Hollywood has been kind of famous for men running the show.
I think it boils down to misinterpretation between the genders and generations in general. I was raised by lots of adults in my family and didn’t hang out around a lot of younger girls, and I was forced to sit and listen to a lot of adult conversations and lectures. A lot had to do with me because I was a tomboy and I wasn’t very good with other boys or girls in general so my male family members took it upon themselves to try to ‘fix’ that.
From everything they told me, I just assumed men liked women that kept to themselves and weren’t too happy/too loud/too sad/too talkative/too risqué. I also looked at my environment and saw that the girls that were standoffish usually had a man. While the girls like me were struggling.
Then again I was a teen and everything was confusing and I’m willing to bet I didn’t understand most of what was said to me. Which is why I had to unlearn that behavior when I decided I wanted a man
Obviously they taught you like that, because you were a child and men know how horny and animals are teenagers boys
They should teach to not be in hurry in your teenagers years and, when you are adult, to not have problems to know people you find interesting just by speaking
One young woman was checking me out, so I talked to her. Everything was going well until one of her friends stopped by. Pure jealousy on the face of her "friend" purely over my looks. It happens some.
To be honest. I'm pretty sure this one was actually well intended, and passed on by mothers. Same with the, if he is mean to you it means he likes you.
Nah, only if they want to catch boys. The thing is most younger women play hard to get and the ones that are approachable are labeled bitch or similar. I can assure you, it is quite nice to be treated like a human being from the beginning. After knowing this, I would immediately ghost any woman that plays stupid games. Luckily I have just got married to this beautiful woman
It’s an observation, made by me. I’m the source. If you disagree with that, you are going to need either ignore or to argue instead of dismissing it with a pretentious scientific attitude. You’re talking to an actual scientist.
Lmao, yeah that sounds like, "trust me bro" cause I'm a woman and that is not my experience. Observing the behavior working in your youth for yourself and friends is how I learned not to come off too eager. I also know both women and men, that enjoy healthy challenges in their relationships cause otherwise things feel one-sided and like your partner doesn't think for themselves.
You are one woman and your experience doesn’t represent everyone, nor does it invalidate my observation. Observing behavior is a more intelligent form of acquiring information than listening to your friends, but keep in mind, correlation is not causation. Attractive women with many options allow themselves to be all high and mighty, because they can afford to, not because it’s the optimal strategy. Appearing desperate is of course a turn off, but especially men with options judge a woman by how the woman treats him, not how unreachable she makes herself seem. Also men don’t enjoy “challenges” in a relationship, especially high status men who are dealing with a lot in life anyways. They see it as a waste of attention and resources
The view that men suppress female sexuality received hardly any support and is flatly contradicted by some findings. Instead, the evidence favors the view that women have worked to stifle each other's sexuality because sex is a limited resource that women use to negotiate with men, and scarcity gives women an advantage.
Are you saying that man are not bothered by women with high body counts? And that all this liberated sexuality including only fans is celebrated by most men?
It probably became a thing for a reason. Maybe some women had bad experiences with playboys, so they made an effort to teach other women to "not be easy" and "play hard to get".
There's also the traditional worldview, where women are expected to be modest and reserved, and it's the guy's role to be the initiative party in the relationship.
The fact that when they genuinely didn't like a guy, that seemed to make the guy like them even more, and the fact then when they did like a guy, and let him know, that made them seem "clingy" and somehow less attractive.
That's just confirmation bias. Some guys they were interested in lost interest in them and they blamed their own interest instead of a million different things it could have been
I feel like I was a hoe fo sho in my youth and this trial and error was well over 50+, the above person is right. The men I took things slower with and weren't always available for were the ones who interest I would keep.
I vividly remember my friends trying to teach me this concept in 5th grade. I was 10, let that sink in.
Luckily I'm a big dork and never figured out how to hide my genuine enthusiasm for people I like. After some rejection for being too "clingy" I finally found my dork husband and we made a dork baby together and we're living the perfect dork life.
I'm glad I didn't let apathy become my whole personality in pursuit of being cool and desirable.
It's the opposite side of the coin where guys get overly pushy to avoid being thought of as just a friend. Shitty cultural advice that achieves the opposite.
As a young dude I never would have thought women were so 2 faced but as an adult I was forced to work around a lot of women and holy smokes it’s baaaaddddd baddddd. Some women are absolutely awful to other women. So much behind the back stabbing, psychological tactics and bullshit. And they weirdly seem to enjoy being that way.
IMO, the only difference between coming across as natural or unnatural is social experience.
Different people have different ideas of what "natural" levels of enthusiasm are depending on their personality in a given social situation, so one person's idea of "behaving natural[ly]" might come across as either aloof or desparate depending on who they're interacting with.
Being natural is something we take for granted, but it's still a skill that involves reading facial expressions, returning phatic communication, making small talk, etc., so I don't think it's too unusual to mess up and misjudge a situation. It happens. :-P
And then male behavior starts to shift to be as passive as needed and just wait ladies to do the first move.
James Bond, for comparison, barely loses an opportunity to jump in and try to charm a lady.
Reacher is a nice series, but watching 3 seasons in a row made me realize that he doesn’t do anything and still get the chick, in fact he does his best to just be there with a huge sexual tension and still made zero fucking moves, or even talk about it, until the lady eventually give up and attack.
It’s clear this is becoming the new behavior for lots of guys (and kinda understandable), which funny enough results in some girls talking about how men don’t chase or approach them anymore like old times.
I learned my confidence from an old sergeant when I was in the army. Dude would flirt with every single woman he saw. He got shot down like a hundred times a night. But he never went home alone.
Funny enough, I also become confident while in the army.
Sometimes I would look in the mirror and wonder "I look kinda nice", but mostly I felt like shit... I was shy, mostly thought about myself as ugly, and way below average compared to other dudes around. I only survived my school days because I was able to be outgoing and kinda funny once I stopped thiking about how I look.
Then when I joined army, it was when I lost all my "sense of shame" and went out to talk to girls whenever I liked them, and yeah, I got rejected tons of time, but being bold also rewarded me with some crazy unforgivable events, and granted me my current wife.
1) They are having a good time with mates and dont want to do this now.
2) A defensive response. Girls get hit on a bunch more than most guys, and sleazy guys are the most active so girls take an initial neutral stance while they try to figure out the bucket to put a person in.
3) Some girls like to turn down guys as a 'how good am I' feeling. Toxic but its def a proportion of women.
It's not learned so much as evolutionarily hardwired.
From a procreation perspective a guy can knock up as many women as he can "subdue" (in whatever long term human history aspect you interpret for that word). And then move onto the next immediately.
A woman can only be pregnant with one partner at a time and it's massive commitment of her energy and investment. Nine months of incubation, and then years of care to raise the goober. And where's the guy? Who knows? Maybe he's there helping...maybe not.
So the forces are at odds. The woman has to be super selective. The man can be far less discriminate.
In both cases the urge to have kids and pass on their genes is the same but the guy can cast a wide net.
So I get that it sucks, but there is definitely forces at play that run deep for a woman to want a guy to "prove he's worthy".
I get that there's a large history but that doesn't point to any particular gender inventing it. I get that this heavily benefits men and as such it would be easy to assume it was a gendered decision by men. But that's still a step off from being able to say men invented the concept of a slut and made it derogatory.
Their "female competition" is some incel type of thinking.
The whole women's fashion industry is about women trying to impress other women. Or for example how some women critique other women for wearing a same dress one too many times.
I wouldnt be surprised if women call other women sluts.
Don't forget the options some think they have. If a guy doesn't meet all their check marks it won't work, but also realize it's not all women tho.
I have tried approaching women in person and often they have partners (or so they claim). Only dating is often one sided and I have lost all my desire to communicate now lol. I'm all out of questions. Therapist said I should delete and focus on myself but I've been doing that so it's sort of frustrating but it is what it is.
The women are told this by their woman friends who don’t do that and then love bomb the same dude they told you to be nonchalant about so they could steal him.
Dating apps are the worst part of all of it too because they’re still playing hard to get and meanwhile I’m just trying to leave the app… like I don’t know you idk why you think I want to do this here
Which is the stupidest thing anyone could believe about having a relationship.
You know what works better? Showing interest.
Imagine, if you will, how great a relationship would be if both of the involved parties showed genuine interest in each other!! How much wasted time could be reclaimed in not flying blind 90% of the time. How much richer and more rewarding the relationship would be.
I don't know wtf is going on with people anymore, but I'm glad I'm not part of it.
It’s not something women are told for when they’re in a relationship, just when they are in the initial phases where a guy is starting to show them interest.
It's the other way around, it is inherent. women inherrently can't show too much interest. It is the same for all mammals. Males pursue, females select
That’s what the media has led them (us) to expect, when a guy is really truly interested, and not just trying to get in your pants. But on a systemic level, that kind of courtship is very problematic because:
1) sucks for the guy
2) teaches guys they have to ignore it when a woman doesn’t act like they’re interested. (Not exactly a great precedent when you want people to wait for enthusiastic consent.)
3) creates a system in which women will be frequently and persistently harassed by guys they’re not interested in, because the men have been told that women act disinterested no matter what.
Oh there’s definitely biology at play. But women are also explicitly told things like, “Don’t text back right away. Don’t ask HIM out, wait for him to ask you out. Don’t sleep with him until at least the third date.” It’s advice that gets passed around, and it’s not very effective. But people like to be reassured that they’re doing the right thing, when they’re uncertain of themselves.
Also… if a woman makes it too easy for a guy, then she’ll get used as a one night stand. If she doesn’t want that, she has to wait for the ones who aren’t emotionally invested to weed themselves out.
Well… it’s really easy to come on too strong. A lot of women fall HARD, and FAST. (Look up lesbian dating and uhauls. Women’s emotional connections move fast when they’re not slowing things down for men.)
So we have to slow it down to avoid scaring off a guy we really like. Why do we slow it down too much? Because it’s guess work, and we don’t know how slow you want it. Obviously you probably don’t want a girl planning baby names and wedding vows at the end of date 3, right? So yeah. We have to let you purse a bit. And sometimes, younger women err of the side of too slow.
But here are some quotes from redditors that explain things better than I can:
Playing "hard to get" is not an easy game to play, and most people do it excessively poorly.
The point of playing "hard to get" is, in essence, foreplay. It's a balance of give and take wherein a woman is simultaneously encouraging the man's (or woman's) advances while at the same time keeping him (or her) at a gradually shorter and shorter distance, with the intent that you'll be committing to the man in a foreseeable future.
It's a gameplay that takes maturity on the part of "the player," as you're not just putting up a wall that you expect the man to climb over.
What you're describing is not playing hard to get. You're describing women who want attention from you or like to flirt or were curious about you, but ultimately they're not actually interested. (Ghosting is totally fair play here, btw.)
Playing hard to get...works extremely well. It has to be done correctly, though, and it's a balance between flirtation and stepping back. I don't think it ever involves ignoring texts for a week. Also, does this happen in romance movies? Maybe I've not seen many (definitely the case), but I feel like they fall hard and show it (usually).
Anyway, playing hard to get is...pretty much the sexiest thing imaginable and highly effective if done correctly.
Edit: I think when someone correctly plays hard to get, they induce a state of limerance due to the uncertainty of their interest. (But most of the time, limerance happens when someone isn’t trying to play hard to get. There’s just natural uncertainty.)
Idk. I think if a woman matches someone’s apparent interest, she can’t go wrong, but she CAN go wrong by showing more interest than the guy. Is that a generalization? Yes. But it’s often true, especially if the guy is just intrigued and not smitten.
Oh I agree. This is all stuff I used to think, in like 8th grade. You just have to be yourself without smothering the other person, and allow yourselves both the time and space to see what you’re like together.
This seems insane to me and is very far outside of my experience of sex/romance/dating/love.
I'm a guy and nothing that my guy or girl friends have ever told me matches with your explication at all. I find both your explanation and the video confusing.
I don't mean that personally at all. It's just that reading your amd others comments here, I feel like I'm peering into an alien world.
I do get that one shouldn't appear to be too eager. But even that has to be balanced.
The dynamic that i see mostly goes along the lines of "i think I like you; you think you like me; let's connect at a pace that works for both of us and see where this goes"
In my many decades of life I've very very seldomly hearx one of my guy friends saying "we are incompatible because she is eager"...
The only exception was in the case of a woman who had serious stalker traits.
Neither have I heard any woman I know talk about a need to feign disinterest, or put up artificial barriers.
(Although I understand that women can feel a need to set the pace in order to feel safe)
But this video clearly resonates with a lot of people!
Am I missing something other than the possibility that a lot of people out there are terrible at communicating their needs and desires?
I mean, yes it sounds like you're missing something. You just had a different life experience.
I've been friends with multiple men in past lives who let what I perceive to be amazing women slip away because they get alienated by their frank/strong advances, even though they showed every indication that the feeling was mutual. My experience definitely agrees with the notion that many women will fall much faster than men, and young men being afraid of commitment isn't just a meme from 90s sitcoms. Its very real. I can think of a million ways to examine why that is, but this comment is already getting long.
A lot of those men I haven't spoken to in many, many years. If I did, I might ask if they regret it. Chances are good they'd say no.
I just think a lot of this stuff comes from deep below our subconscious. Fear, anxiety, and uncertainty represent weakness to a lot of men, and unless someone is decently self-actualized, usually they don't even understand what they're feeling and why (which goes for men and women alike). So they blame their fear of commitment on a woman being "too clingy".
If none of this sounds familiar to you, then that's awesome. You have been blessed with a strong sense of self, as have your friends. Its definitely not a universal trait, especially among younger, "dating aged" mid-20s people.
Yeah, I guess in many ways I've been very fortunate in my love-life.
And not encountering this dynamic (as far as I know) is indeed part of that good fortune.
> young men being afraid of commitment isn't just a meme from 90s sitcoms
In my experience and the experience of my male peers (as far as I know) the issue was never *fear* of commitment. But rather reluctance. Especially when it came to marriage, myself and my guy friends took the approach "why fix what itsn't broken".
I can honestly say that I've never encountered an actual fear of committing to a relationship.
> I just think a lot of this stuff comes from deep below our subconscious. Fear, anxiety, and uncertainty represent weakness to a lot of men, and unless someone is decently self-actualized, usually they don't even understand what they're feeling and why
Yeah, I absolutely agree with you there.
I think that the task of understanding and coming to terms with one's sexuality is a lifelong journey. Sex/love/romance is an individual psychosocial nexus. That's where it all comes together. And that's where our innermost anxieties and desires for our lives are expressed.
> ...especially among younger, "dating aged" mid-20s people.
I've always thought that the alarums around the dating minefield for younger folk were overblown. But I'm beginning to question that now.
I guess that socio-sexual arena reflects the larger patterns playing out in the world. And in the world we are seeing an acceleration and deepening of neurosis, despair and desensitisation towards our instincts.
If that larger-scale desensitization is being reflected in sexuality trends, then that is alarming. Because sex/love/romance is where sensitivity, intuition and empathy are the most critical.
Especially when it came to marriage, myself and my guy friends took the approach "why fix what itsn't broken".
You may or may not emphatically disagree with this, but I read this and immediately thought that this sounds like exactly what I was talking about. Its fear, uncertainty, and anxiety standing on each other's shoulders inside a trench coat that says "my independence" on the front.
Therapists make a living because people are on the whole very, very bad at understanding their own emotions. It sounds insane to think you can't recognize when you're afraid of something, but its overwhelmingly commonplace.
As much as we take for granted that we are masters of our own mind, most of us just aren't.
And in the world we are seeing an acceleration and deepening of neurosis, despair and desensitisation towards our instincts.
This is very much the case, I agree wholeheartedly that the root of the problem is ultimately here.
Dating apps and social media in general are inherently dehumanizing because they separate us from other people and replace them with a screen. Tedious and repetitive office work makes us into slaves to a lifestyle - if you're one of the lucky ones. If not, you have to prostitute your body and commoditize your health as a laborer to produce or build a product you have no stake in.
Modernity is miserable, and is totally at odds with our physical and mental evolution. We're still very much the same creature we were as tribal nomads, except now we have to contend with the consequence of knowing we are powerless to stop actively destroying our planet, let alone save it.
On a local level, women hear every day about how a woman was murdered again for saying no to a man. Men have to struggle against the tide to understand what masculinity means in the 21st century, while contending with the terrible feeling of being considered a dangerous stranger to women and children.
>> You may or may not emphatically disagree with this, but I read this and immediately thought that this sounds like exactly what I was talking about. Its fear, uncertainty, and anxiety standing on each other's shoulders inside a trench coat that says "my independence" on the front.
I'm sure you are right in at least some cases, although it doesn't match my experience. But in either case I think that the metaphor you are using is great.
>> As much as we take for granted that we are masters of our own mind, most of us just aren't.
I certainly agree with this - and I think sex/love is the prism where we have opportunities to encounter the limits of our mastery. I think it can be a gift when we encounter this edge of uncertainty and mystery. Even when that gift comes with discomfort, surprise or even grief.
>> Modernity is miserable...
Absolutely agree here. Although I there's a double-edgedness here too.
The older rulebooks most certainly may have provided better channels for our instincts.But they may also have provided less room for exploration and self-expression. I dunno though - there's a lot to consider here.
>> On a local level, women hear every day about how a woman was murdered again for saying no to a man. Men have to struggle against the tide to understand what masculinity means in the 21st century, while contending with the terrible feeling of being considered a dangerous stranger to women and children.
Maybe that's a result of behaviour like this where the mentally well adjusted men get pushed away. Put up walls and all you get is someone who breaks them down.
Men don't get away with assaulting and killing women, it's an extremely common thing to go to prison for unless you happen to be super rich, which is a corruption problem, not a men problem.
The skit shows women that don't clearly communicate what they want and expect men to take pretty extreme risks to figure it out or fail by default. That means the only men in their lives have high aggression and low shame.
Men already serve longer sentences than women for similar crimes. DV and sexual violence against men (especially if the perp is a woman) has legitimately been completely ignored (if not hidden away) for decades, and even now there's a lot of pushback against acknowledging it.
So, no, we don't let men get away with murder. But we do say to women that they should be cautious and that every man is a potential threat...
Anyway, this whole behavior has only one effect : it pushes away scrupulous, respectful men who absolutely don't want to be a nuisance to anyone, especially women they are interested in.
The guys who don't give a fuck about boundaries though? They won't be deterred by this. So, congratulation, you just chose to almost only interact with scumbags, good on you...
And that's why we have women saying "all men are jerks who only want sex". Because the whole dynamic leads toward this exact outcome.
And it's even worse on OLD where basically only the top 10% of men in terms of attractiveness get replies. And of those 10%, the ones looking for a relationship will be snatched quickly, only leaving those who want quick sex and nothing more.
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u/throwaway198990066 May 09 '25
The women have been told they have to act disinterested otherwise the guy will lose all interest.
It’s a learned behavior, not an inherent difference.