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.

  • quarrk [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    18·
    2 days ago

    Damn. This is a great insight and needs to be emphasized:

    Because other men are unavailable and because women are supposed to be caretakers, you end up depending on one woman shouldering a man’s entire needs for affection and validation and emotional stabilizing.

    From this perspective, when a man is turned down by a prospective partner, he is agitated not merely because he is insulted. All of his frustration and unmet desires by society become focused entirely on the one person. That person stands in, not as their personal self, but the abstract embodiment of society. Their rejection or affirmation then becomes that of society. It’s sad yet inexcusable at the same time. But then it is clear how and why incels come about — refusing to participate in the process, but in a confused way which blames women for patriarchy.

    Your solution is also spot-on. If the problem is a lack of validation, then men need more validation, not only from partners, but from everyone, particularly but not only other men. The dichotomy between partner and non-partner has to be significantly reduced.