Normally when kid music annoys me, I give it a pass because I’m not the intended audience. But these Weezer guys are older than I am. Rivers Cuomo is 40 and has a toddler. I’ve been hearing them on the radio since I was in college, singing in that snotty little teenage style they have. So no pass, guys.
Whenever the local NPR affiliate does one of its pledge drives, I switch over to the local pop station. It seems like every hour they’ve been playing “I Want You To.” At first I thought I might be misdeciphering the lyrics, then I thought maybe it was one gay dude talking to another:
“So the conversation stopped
And I looked down at my feet.
I was next to you and you were right there next to me
And I said, “Go! If you’re wondering if I want you to,
I want you to,
So make the move,
‘Cause I ain’t got all night.”
No gayness — he’s singing to a girl! What a lazy little turd. I want to grab the collective female audience and shake them: Of course he wants you to. He’s a GUY. It means NOTHING.
I mean, I was willing to walk right up to the door of the car — but the guy better open it up for me and ask me to hop in. Any further effort required on my part was a sure harbinger of doom for the relationship.
For the men, I have the advice I once gave to my little brother: The social penalty for being shot down is virtually nothing for a guy. For a woman, it’s potential ruin. For being a man, being a chicken could mean life on the sidelines. So you really can’t afford not to try.
For the men, I have the advice I once gave to my little brother: The social penalty for being shot down is virtually nothing for a guy. For a woman, it’s potential ruin.
Being shot down can have social consequences for a man if the woman tells her friends about it. He’ll then have little or no chance with any of them. True, this probably isn’t a particularly common scenario, but it can happen.
Comment by Peter — February 27, 2010 @ 1:59 pm
“It’s potential ruin” sounds as silly coming from a girl as it does from a guy.
Comment by PeterW — February 27, 2010 @ 2:19 pm
So PeterW, propose an alternative and equally pithy phrase for “any loser male acquaintance you have will then expect you to offer him no-strings sex and will have tantrums and spread your private information around if you don’t.” I’m all eyes.
Comment by stone — February 27, 2010 @ 2:39 pm
Being shot down can have social consequences for a man if the woman tells her friends about it. He’ll then have little or no chance with any of them.
That’s what guys have sometimes convinced themselves of, but I’m not sure how often it’s true. I mean, if a girl rejects a guy it’s often the case that the rest of the girls in his cadre will reject him, too… but that’s often the case anywhere because the girls are peers in the same league and in a league different from his.
I mean, it’s never a good thing in the eyes of women to get shot down by one of their friends and peers, but I’m really not sure it’s as devastating as we convince ourselves it is. I think a lot of it depends on how the guy handles the rejection. I would venture to say that when it does it’s often because the guy responds very poorly to the rejection (sometimes malicious, but usually petty or clueless).
Comment by trumwill — February 27, 2010 @ 5:24 pm
Oh, and I do agree with Sheila in spirit if not degree. In a perfect world you can ask her to make the move, but in the world we live in, “making a move” is much, much murkier terrain for a chick than for a dude.
Comment by trumwill — February 27, 2010 @ 5:26 pm
“I mean, it’s never a good thing in the eyes of women to get shot down by one of their friends and peers ….”
I disagree. You’re at least telegraphing you have interest in women. Even if you do really poorly … better overall to be thought the perv than the eunuch. Although neither is good.
If it’s just a small approach, women aren’t likely to see it as any big deal. It’s almost like sending out a resume — most employers won’t think the less of you for sending it out to others. And someone else might be hiring, and now they know you’re on the market.
I can think of times a guy acted interested in a friend, and she wasn’t interested, but I perked up with, “Hey, if he’d like her he’d probably like me too.”
Comment by stone — February 27, 2010 @ 5:53 pm
Does one really need to telegraph interest in women? Isn’t it sort of… I dunno… assumed? I mean, I knew guys that were neither gay nor interested in female-types when I was younger, but (a) I ran with that sort of crowd and (b) those I kept up with changed (either by getting girlfriends or becoming apparently frustrated) by mid-college at the latest.
Good point about the resume. I think that the ability to take rejection well is an underrated asset. Guys that are disinclined to ask girls out (myself included) can fail to learn the art. It’s also true of guys that don’t ask girls out often think it’s as big a deal for her as it is for him, which is often not the case.
That last paragraph is interesting. Diametrically opposed to the way that my mind works. If a girl shows interest or is known to be interested in a friend, I’m inclined to keep my distance for a number of reasons (one set of reasons if he may be interested and another set if he is not).
Of course, I wouldn’t let it get in the way of thinking it through if she were to demonstrate an actual interest in me. Then it would have depended on more typical factors.
That’s one of the differences in guys and girls and the general arrangement. A guy interested in two friends can demonstrate his interest in the second girl whereas a girl interested in going out with a guy that her friend rejected has a tougher time of it. It all goes back to the fact that guys are the ones expected to put themselves out there is a most direct and vulnerable way… but ladies are limited in their ability to pursue what they want or think they might want.
Comment by trumwill — February 27, 2010 @ 6:54 pm
Whenever the local NPR affiliate does one of its pledge drives
I see you’re a fellow NPR listener.
For being a man, being a chicken could mean life on the sidelines. So you really can’t afford not to try.
Maybe it’s better to be on the sidelines? I understand why both sexes are highly reluctant, and would prefer the other to do the dirty work of approaching and questioning, but given that we don’t live in an idealistic world, we’re stuck with the clunky system that we do have.
better overall to be thought the perv than the eunuch. Although neither is good.
FWIW, I’ve yet to ask a girl out on a date or even go on a real date, so my experience is worth more than a bucket of spit, but I’d prefer being the eunuch than the pervert. There’s far less baggage, and women tend to accept you as a friend in lieu of being some weird creep that they won’t talk to.
Comment by David Alexander — February 27, 2010 @ 7:11 pm
Is it really a problem, that guys aren’t hitting on women? Even I, who is probably nearly as shy as D.A., managed to get liquored up last Saturday at the local Applebees and make an ass of myself with a half-dozen women. (I sat at the bar for about five hours straight. Also met a bunch of Canucks, talked about the Olympics, “Ice Road Truckers” and the “Canadarm”. I posted about the last item in my blog.)
Comment by Kirk — February 28, 2010 @ 12:16 am
better overall to be thought the perv than the eunuch. Although neither is good.
This puts the finger on something that’s been knocking around my head for a while. This is likely one of the reasons that the biggest pervs are often people with the slightest romantic/sexual hopes. Being perverted is the only way to get people to actually see their sexuality.
Comment by trumwill — February 28, 2010 @ 12:41 am
Sheila,
regarding the laughter and derision that comes with the “can you believe he dared to ask HER out?” catty games girls play… nuts to you.
I can think of times a guy acted interested in a friend, and she wasn’t interested, but I perked up with, “Hey, if he’d like her he’d probably like me too.”
You, Sheila, are a decidedly unusual woman in that regard. Most of the time, getting rejected by any woman out of a “group” is a signal to the other girls (no matter if they had passing or active interest prior) that you are to be universally derided.
Comment by web — March 1, 2010 @ 1:01 pm
regarding the laughter and derision that comes with the “can you believe he dared to ask HER out?” catty games girls play… nuts to you.
My instincts agree with you on this, Web, but I’m not sure how well it really corresponds with my experience. Most of the times I’ve been party to a conversation wherein female-types were actually scornful of a guy that asked one of them out it was cases where the guy either really overreached or where the guy was completely inept with his delivery. It’s hard not to be sympathetic to the guy, but the best thing from his perspective is to gain more experience.
I’m struggling to come up with cases wherein the girls have really piled on a guy where there weren’t special circumstances that made it at least somewhat understandable. I can think of cases where some girl knew that I was hard-set on someone that had rejected me or was rejecting me and nonetheless made come-hithers.
Of course, I’m dealing with a relatively limited data set. Though I’ve listened in on more female conversations than the average guy thanks to my BBS days and my terms as a confidant to a young woman or two, I still don’t know what all goes on behind closed doors.
Sheila has said that it could make her ears perk. Becky says that she probably would be reluctant to date a guy that asked her friend out but mostly out of concern of being a consolation prize. These could be exceptions, but I have to wonder if the instincts I refer to are simply wrong. Perhaps projection, perhaps paranoia, but without much foundation. My sense of “of course that happens” (with regard to post-rejection conference calls) and that I swear I’ve heard it happen starts coming up short where I’ve seen it happen and where I don’t look back at the situation and say “You know what? That guy kind of was a loser…”
None of this would stop me from advising that you get one love interest per group at a time. So while I might advise my younger self to be a little more brave in asking girls out I would also not advise them that most girls are going to be like Sheila.
Comment by trumwill — March 1, 2010 @ 2:24 pm
Most of the time, getting rejected by any woman out of a “group” is a signal to the other girls (no matter if they had passing or active interest prior) that you are to be universally derided.
From my like almost two months of practicing pickup, the most it hurt my chances with other people was when it was obvious I was carrying a torch post-rejection.
With really tight cliques, maybe it hurts one’s chances with the others, but lots of bffs aren’t really that tight. I got several dates from asking one girl out in front of another. Post rejection the other girl asked me out, one time right on the spot. I guess I seemed on the market/a sexual being in a non-threatening non-pervy way. I didn’t make a big deal of asking, so I felt it seemed more like getting turned down. Rejection hurts, getting turned down, meh. It doesn’t even look all that bad. At least for me, outside the pickup phase(which I need to get back into) asking someone out was a far more momentous, important occasion. When I built it up so much, rejection felt like a true love leaving probably feels. Casually asking is way easier, but a very difficult frame of mind for me to get into.
Comment by rob — March 1, 2010 @ 5:07 pm
Will,
from personal experience, girls like Sheila who will say “well if you don’t want him maybe I do” are rare. Asking one girl out, if they’re traveling in a pack, is the equivalent of getting shot down by the entire group.
Oddly enough, the other problem there is that if you ask the one out you actually want to ask out, chances are there’s one in the group who is less pretty who will get all offended. At that point the claws come out. This happens whether you ask the “prettiest” girl in the group, or one more towards the middle in terms of the looks spectrum.
I have, actually, gotten the line “why the hell didn’t you ask me first” from someone after getting shot down by one of her friends. The oddest part of that was, they were both wandering the crowd and I didn’t even realize they knew each other. And no, it didn’t end in getting a number or date.
Comment by web — March 1, 2010 @ 5:42 pm
Web,
I agree that you can sometimes (or maybe usually) only get one shot at a pack. I don’t think this is always so, but I do think it’s more often than the scenarios that Rob and Sheila describe. I don’t have any real proof of this, however. This is *particularly* true if it’s obvious you’re carrying a well-lit torch I do think that Rob is right that the more casual you make it, the less fall-out you’re likely to see. That sort of thing would have been hard for guys like me that tend to let things grow before acting on them. A bad idea on a number of levels.
What you’re talking about is what Becky described a while back. Asking out one girl can preclude other options from within the group, but more typically in the sense of “He chose her first and I don’t want to be a fall-back” and not in the sense that “She rejected him! How pathetic!” or the sense of a post-rejection loss of prestige, which is what Peter is describing.
I wouldn’t know how rare Sheila is as far as that goes. I suspect it varies from person to person and group to group. Group dynamics are weird. I know that I had trouble with the concept of asking out a girl that carried a weird torch for Hubert, but I didn’t have any such problem with an ex-girlfriend of Fustle’s regardless of who ended it.
Regarding the “prettiest”, my brother Mitch had the idea that you never ask out the prettiest girl in the pack. You ask out the next one over or whichever one (but the prettiest) that you’re interested in. Seemed like a good philosophy, though he had a confidence that I lacked (though not the confidence of Ollie, who would always ask out the prettiest).
Comment by trumwill — March 1, 2010 @ 7:03 pm