Even worse idk much about codeswitching.

I can tell friends who are girls “I love you” and they take it as friendly. But guys can’t hear this without thinking he’s laid claim to a romantic and/or sexual feelings?

If I reject a girl asking me out with the attitude of a bubbly girl talking to another bubbly girl at a party, and say “I have a bf. But you’re a babe!, You can get another babe!” She’d totally be friendly back about it… But once I said this to a guy who asked me out, and he proceeded to ask me for my number 4 times in less than 10 seconds.

Shit like this puts me in fight or flight mode. I have very little awareness of how or why I have to codeswitch between men and women. My skin is crawling nearly everytime a friend points out to me in retrospect that a guy was actually flirting with me after my only intention was being friends or a friendly neighbor. Yikes. I want to go back in time and yell “Fuck you stop being a creep!” (Ofc, they’d be too creepy to understand why I would say that.)

That said, I love my bf because his fem side makes him chill and understanding if a girl talks to him like he’s another girl. I’m pretty quiet and mostly talk to him, and I have no guy friends. So I’m not learning codeswitching skills by watching him. How do you codeswitch and why do you codeswitch in the exact way(s) you do? I barely go outside, and I’m angry at guys everyday over this over past events I’m creeped out by.

  • BanMeFromPosting [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
    23·
    3 days ago

    I gotta say, codeswitching isn’t a men-thing. I present masculine and frequently get called all sorts of slurs when I reject women (which happens once in a while because I am very very hot swole-chonk )

    Likewise I find I have to modulate the way I present myself in order to fit in so as to not be perceived to be hitting on them. I dunno, I feel like code-switching is just part of life, one wears all sorts of masks in different social contexts. Then again I am neurodivergent.

    Speaking as a neurodivergent, my experience has generally been that men are much more accepting of neurodivergence than women. Or at least those that are unaccepting do much less about it. Maybe it has something to do with that “loneliness epidemic” that people talk about, men are more used to some guys being kinda weird? Or being kinda weird is more socially acceptable in male groups? I dunno.
    The most vindictive pursuant people I’ve met have been women. However their actions have been limited to being really shitty socially, while men are usually… More physically violent.

    It’s not the issue that we gotta be aware of how others interpret our actions, nor is it that men are more creepy than women; it’s that we live under a system of gender norms that make it so a creepy man is much more of a threat than a creepy woman.

    I know it’s “not all men” and “the good ones know its not about them” and all that, but I do really think there is an issue with this kind of thinking. It’s adjacent to bio-essentialism. I remember a little while ago some long-time user wrote a good breakdown about it, I’ll try to find it.

    • LupineTroubles [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
      27·
      3 days ago

      nor is it that men are more creepy than women

      I think men are generally more creepy than women, more emotionally dysregulated and generally less likely to take no for an answer and a small portion of men are also really, really violent about it in a way that women generally aren’t.

      However there is this bizarre “noble savage” view of cis and heteronormative women by especially queer women that seems really absurd to me. Let’s look at OP’s example for example and try to discern something, men hitting on her are more likely to be straight and heteronormative, while women hitting on a women usually aren’t. That’s already a massive skew of the demographics. If you are a man and you interact with a woman that hits on you or flirts with you with coldness or rejection, you are not at all unlikely to receive vitriolic and homophobic abuse but they tend to not insist, at the same time as a man if I am vaguely hit by another they also tend to take no playfully and disengage just fine and I am flirty myself. There is also unfortunately a culture around the idea that a men has to pursue relentlessly to get attention from women which is an entirely another thing that women don’t get and makes them react differently to rejection.

      Nevertheless this type of gender war is not really constructive and I find it very juvenile, a lot of men do get really defensive about it too especially if they consider themselves sensitive to feminist issues which is not right way to discuss it.

      • BanMeFromPosting [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
        10·
        3 days ago

        I think we agree on everything you’ve written here, apart from whether men are more or just as creepy as women. Because all the other stuff is the same as I’ve said, unless I gravely misunderstand you.

        I dont know if there are any good studies about the frequency of creepyness, and I do have the copout of “women aren’t taken seriously, which is why we do not notice their creepyness” so it is kind of hard to talk about. It doesn’t matter all that much in the context of OPs post either, I suppose.

        Nevertheless this type of gender war is not really constructive and I find it very juvenile, a lot of men do get really defensive about it too especially if they consider themselves sensitive to feminist issues which is not right way to discuss it.

        :yea: getting ahead of juvenile actions was sort of part of why rule 8 was made, but it hasnt been enforced in a long time.

    • Omegamint [comrade/them, doe/deer]@hexbear.netEnglish
      26·
      3 days ago

      I’ve had a lot of women either suggest or outright call me gay/slurs for gay/question my masculinity when they didn’t like my response to them flirting with me. I live in one of the most liberal cities in the US, as well.