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.
as a bubbly femme extrovert who got sick of that shit, i have recently reduced my codeswitching substantially. I also stopped bringing up that i have a partner to ward off men. I don’t try to hide it, and it usually comes up in casual conversation within the first three sentences organically if they ask any questions about me.
I’m tired of it being my fault that some men don’t know what real platonic friendship looks like. they could just talk to me like a human being and not act entitled to my attention before making me reject them, but not my fault they choose to do this. Ideally they will learn from this self inflicted pain and learn that having platonic women friends are awesome actually, but i guess that depends on how deep into the incel ideology they are.
^ i only do this shit when i am in a safe public place though. My scary dog partner is generally not far from me at work either.
anyway to go a lil deeper i think it’s bc a lot of male-male friendships are straight up bullying so it’s not a surprise they fall instantly for any attention and support sent their way. I don’t blame them, and i’m happy to provide attention and support to my friends platonically. The entitled ones though…