The tragedy of himbo death

Perhaps we should consider that both things can be true: she intended the compliment of “I am sexually AND emotionally to you to such a great degree that I want nothing less than marriage”; and his reaction was valid because he perceived the meaning as “I’m settling for you”.
We don’t know how this miscommunication happened. She could have phrased it poorly or said it in a weird tone. He could have misheard. He could have a ton of pre-existing conditioning and pressures that led him to place her comment in a social context that she doesn’t share.
Neither of them have to be in the wrong here. Both of them should do the work and try to understand each other better.
- but also
  completely right

i'm not male or insecure but i can definitely see how this compliment might come across as her telling him he's not hot/she isn't crazy about his looks or his personality, but that he's "a good guy" and "marriage material"- which yes, those are also compliments, but in this context could be taken as backhanded. i feel like maybe she should have just said something else. i also feel like acting like men aren't allowed to have feelings or insecurities or be upset is absurd.
- Lots of people in here just acting like Men aren't ever insecure about their bodies.
  
  Hexbear: men should shirk toxic masculinity and embrace their emotions!
  Also Hexbear: this man, who I have one (1) data point about, is clearly upset here because his ability to control women through sex is being undercut. This is why dating men is the worst, just toughen up and take the compliment bro!!
  
  Or that men are unaffected by negging. Like if you break it down, this could easily be interpreted as negging, even if that was not the intention.
- I've encountered a weird thing with some sexual partners where they seem to think it's shallow to acknowledge that they find you physically attractive as well as emotionally attractive.
  But like, it's a sexual relationship, are bodies are part of it, it'd be weird if we were plutonic friends but enjoying each others bodies is part of our relationship here so I don't see how it's shallow for us to express our enjoyment of each others bodies to one another.
  
  'taking it slow' is coded for more serious relationships culturally, even if that's kind of silly and sex-negative. the 'hookup' is supposed to be ephemeral and shallow
  i think this is very enmeshed in patriarchal norms with people trying to recreate a more old fashioned courtship for a potential spouse while consciously/subconsciously devaluing and shaming casual sex. don't get me wrong i also see how it sounds like they're saying the guy is not attractive, but he and other men gotta understand we still live under patriarchy and it makes people think differently (i mean wanting your partner to think you're adonis is weird patriarchy too,
  deserve love even if they don't roil loins in the stereotypical way)
  
  you don’t have to add that you’re not sexually attracted to them
  I'mma ask every person in this thread where she said this because if she didn't outright say this then why are people drawing this conclusion?
- Male, not insecure much to my knowledge; I think the split here is "I wouldn't just fuck you". As far as I understand the world attraction for women to men is much less based on "beauty standards" and more other factors.
  Everytime I said to the women in my life "That guy's hot, isn't he?" on the basis of what I think would be an attractive man I get back "God, no". Think like, I don't know, Ryan Gosling or Alan Ritcherson or and then Jack Black comes up and their heart beats ouf of their chest, their eyes get comically large and they go "AWOOOOOOOOOOOOGA". I've since learned I have no idea what hetero women find hot and that people like Ryan Gosling or Alan Ritcherson are, going by looks, more like a male fantasy of how and what to look like.
  So coming from the womens POV that sounds like a compliment, but to the guy it sounds like "I don't think you're physically that hot.", because he's Jack Black and not Ryan Gosling if that makes sense. I think the ire here is in large part that women are often complimented on their looks, rarely on their skills and it's vice versa for men, which is why he probably wants to hear he's Ryan Gosling and not Jack Black.
  All very much generalized and such, but that's what I figured. Given her version of the story I think storming out is a bit much, though.
  
  i mean no disrespect when i say this, it's absurd to believe women don't actually think ryan gosling and dudes like that are hot. that is literally 90% of their appeal and why they're rich and famous- women pay to see them in movies because they're hot. i know they'll say that if you ask them, but my brother, come on. they certainly probably find jack black more entertaining and "huggable" but if we're being honest with ourselves, and you ask 10 women which of these two men they find more attractive, do you honestly, HONESTLY think most of them would pick jack black?
  also, "i find you attractive like jack black, not like ryan gosling" isn't a nice compliment.
  i think people really just have trouble admitting that women can be insensitive and shitty just like men can, and that men can have insecurities and feelings and it isn't invalid. there are so many people in here acting like "you just haven't read enough feminist theory" to justify taking the girlfriend's side in this post, but that's just mental gymnastics. i love shitting on men all day, i will shit on men like nobody's business, but i can not read this post and not think her boyfriend was right to be upset
- When did she say he wasn't attractive lmao? I am so confused at people drawing this conclusion
  
  Because if he's attractive then obviously his girlfriend would want to have NSA sex with him and randomly hookup. Women only do one night stands with attractive men. Ugly men don't get random hookups. Plus it's all about sex. You can't be in a relationship with someone and have mutual respect, care for one another, and have sex. Nope, it's got to be two hot people fucking and sucking.
  Why yes I'm aware of propaganda and problematic culture, that means I'm immune to buying into it. How can you tell?
- I am both male and insecure about my body, but if my partner said this to me I would take it to mean “I wouldn’t just fuck you once, I’d spend my life with you and fuck you many times”
  
  Right? Like damn you like me that much lol
- Finally some common sense.

please, no reddit relationship advice posting. my brain is already severely permanently damaged
- But it lifts people self steem
- You have a brain injury? Your brain is injured? Ow.
  
  Literal TBI from too much banging their head against an old CRT monitor
- I swear, reading reddit life adivice on social interactions, sex, dating from an early age dealt immeasurable harm on my brain.
  This is the only comment in this thread I 100% agree with
- But there's already like 50 comments, this thread is gonna be so much fun!

You'd have to be incredibly obtuse to see such a thing as a compliment. It sounds backhanded and almost like she's negging him. Like you'd have to consider men as emotionless robots with no deeper feelings or thought to see this as compliment. Oh wait, that's how society sees men! And you'd have to know nothing about male gender roles and expectations to not see how this could be insulting. Imagine wanting to spend the rest of life with someone (in this case a man), and knowing this little about their gender identity. And I say this as someone that's dated men. I don't know, maybe this is all incredibly obvious to me as a man or something, because I cannot see how that would be a compliment.
- The way it could be interpreted as a comliment is that fwb or hookup is too shallow and she wouldn't be able to keep it at that level. But it is very badly worded if so. Just say "You're the kind of man I would like to marry" instead, adding in the fwb and hookup stuff before adds nothing to the compliment.
- How? She literally says he's worth more than a fwb and that's insulting to you lmao?
  
  Are you really not seeing the issue? This could easily be interpreted as "I don't find you physically attractive", even if it wasn't intended. Who in the world wants to hear that from their partner? It also could easily be interpreted as negging. Are people not allowed to feel aggrieved by that?
  
  She literally says he wouldn't be a FWB to her, the implication being that she's not attracted to him in that way. If this guy came back and said "I listened to that Jimmy Soul song and I realized that you could really make me happy for the rest of my life so let's go for it" would the expectation be that she's cool with that?

Can't really judge neither of them based on this text alone, not enough information, we don't know the tone of how she said it, their relationship in the 2.5 years and their lives before, we don't know these people's faces or names or even if they broke up yet or got over it, if it's an insult or a compliment depends on their life. He could've been insecure about his looks and was bullied because of it throughout his life, or he could be a manipulative person with crocodile tears, and maybe this is all an AI reddit bot posting something controversial for Karma, we can't really judge much.
- beanis

There's a little undercurrent here of "Toughen up, men" you obviously misinterpreted this and you're a little baby for being upset. Sorry, but that's the same toxic masculinity bullshit that everyone decries in the abstract.
- I mean it's pretty much the cycle whenever men have legitimate issues about something in the cisgender heterosexual dynamic. (So glad I'm not a part of that). From my observations, it starts like this:
  1- Someone asks men why they don't do X thing or why they think in a Y way. (In this case thinking that such a compliment is backhanded and insulting)
  2- Men answer why. (Explaining why they view it this way)
  3- Some women who don't like the answers, proceed to shame and try convincing the men into believing they're the ones wrong, or acknowledge that it's a legitimate issue but deflect the blame by saying "not all people do this".
  4- Guys see no reason to do or think any different than before and their beliefs are often reinforced. (Gender polarisation increases between men and women).
  5- Go back to number 1 and start over.
  It's literally the same cycle over and over.
  
  Yeah as a (mostly) het man this is a toxic dynamic I've encountered. I had one partner straight up say to me (paraphrasing a bit) "well I experience emotions more intensely than you so you have more a responsibility to be sensitive to me than I to you".
- Yeah, it’s easy to feel like the answer is to toughen up when that’s historically been the answer to everything. I fully believe that deconstructing patriarchal masculinity happens through healing of the emotional wounds that patriarchy inflicts on us through understanding and kindness. I also believe that everyone deserves to have their feelings validated. I don’t know if this space is the ideal place for all of that to happen, but if people are trying to use it that way I’m happy to participate.
- I want to clarify that I'm not like super offended by the comment itself. Even though it can be interpreted as rude, it clearly wasn't intended to be an insult, and I'm abso-fucking-lutely not interested in analyzing a relationship from a handful of sentences. It's moreso the idea that the guy is wrong for being upset by it.

If they've been together almost 3 years and this is his response to something as innocuous as "I take this relationship seriously" she dodged a bullet.
- No wait, the joke is that he understood her phrase as "I'm not really sexually attracted to you, but you feel good enough to settledown"
  When she actually meant: "I don't obly want to fuck you but also grow old with you, etc"
  
  Oh I know. I also know guys who misinterpret a relationship maturing as it dying and I'm just saying that if she's seeing it mature and he just thinks it's all about jumping bones, then there's some really serious lack of communication there.
  
  A lot of hetero men do not value the last part above the first part. The "chad" who bangs "chicks" every night on his bedframe less bed, is still seen as aspirational, unlike the "beta" house-husband manwife who cooks for his wife, while she shacks up with her personal trainer or something.

Beyond not being able to truly judge a situation based on so little information, this is the single post of a throwaway account which then made no edits to the post or replies to any of the comments. Maybe it's just me, but I always assume these cases are someone trying their writing skills or something of the sort.
- Lots of people teying their writing eh

Yeah, it's an overreaction to be sure, but I'm not sure I'd like hearing, "I wouldn't give you a second glance if I saw you in the wild" either. Could be they were already going through some stuff and that was the final straw.
- I don’t understand how that’s what what she said means

lamest struggle session yet

I don't like heterosexuality.

Locking this thread.

124 comments / 58 upvotes
Lmao
- if only they got this engaged at something important like Five nights at Freddy's lore

Everyone here is siding with who they self inserted themselves into

How is this not a huge compliment? Dating men is literally the worst cause they are like this.
- It's very easy to read as "I don't find you super attractive but you seem like someone I could settle for once I'm done playing the field"
  Her intent seems to be more "I don't think I could have hooked up with you and moved on because of how special you are to me" but she phrased it in an ambiguous way
  
  The first interpretation is extremely foreign to me. Do people just marry someone who they don’t like that much because they wanna settle down?
- As an """"AMAB,"""" this left me scratching my head confused as fuck, and I still don't understand how someone could be so upset by it. I'd love to hear nothing more than this from my partner.
  Point for my gender being validated I guess but also a point for me hating cisheteronormative bullshit.
  
  So what was she supposed to say to her bf of 2.5 years, "hey if I saw you on an app i'd totally have a meaningless one night stand with you and then never talk to you again"?
  It seems to me that this man is just highly insecure that his gf may have had previous partners because he views her as his property basically.
- I see people saying variations of "what they mean is that they couldn't just be FWB". That's not what is being said though
  According to the post she did say she wouldn't be just FWB or Hookups with but marry". Which does arrive you at "You're hot and I want to boink you, but I couldn't just boink you because then I'd be lovesick on account of how great you are" which is a sick ass, major compliment, but I really do understand how the 1 - 2 levels of abstraction required to get there might easily be missed in the heat of the moment and smart a bit and how starting your bedroom compliment with "I wouldn't hook up with you" could use some polish
- I think every one earth wants to be considered hot, smart, and funny. If your partner says something that comes off as suggesting you are not one of those things, it can be hurtful.
- It's a backhanded and insulting "compliment". It can easily be seen as if she's saying that she's settling down and he's not her first choice, or that she doesn't see him as physically attractive but wants to have a long term relationship with him because of the "security" he offers. Pretty much almost every man that's attracted to women in some way will see this as a backhanded compliment or negging. No one wants it to be implied or told that they're not sexy or fun.
- Yeah other people are pointing out ways that it could sound backhanded, but unless she said it in a pissed off voice it seems innocent and much more thoughtful than the more usual compliments you might think of.

Het moment

- "I find you sexually attractive exclusively due to the emotional and romantic connection, not because of your physical attractiveness" is not a compliment of someone's physical attractiveness. Wanting to be perceived as physically attractive is not controlling and patriarchal.

This is only an insult if you assume that married people don’t wanna fuck each other, which is statistically untrue. Patriarchal relationship expectations are a fuck.
Edit: I guess it only works as an intended compliment if fwb and hookups are lesser relationships than marriage or stepping stones to marriage. Patriarchy just sucks.
Edit 2: Some people in this comment section really need to learn about the dual attraction model.
- This was an insult because there's several causes:
  Lady is a redditor telling her side, which means that she said it in the worst way possible and changed it a bit.
  Lady thinks she ought to post what happened to online, and not just anywhere but reddit.com/r/offmychest because I dunno reasons.
  Again this lady posted this to reddit and doesn't even really own up to it even though all her friends, who she probably told the actual story to, told her she fucked up.
  No critical support for redditors, if this story wasn't made up for karma then what she actually said differs from what she wrote there.
  
  Yeah, her friends are actually familiar with both of them so in a matter as subjective as this, they’re probably more right than anybody in the comment section
- i sort of 'get' hookups being lesser because of the presumed temporaryness but where's fwb catching the flak from? isn't it just like less formalized open sort of deal with the special provision of preexisting friendship?
  who doesn't love their friends why would it be bad
  I guess it only works as an intended compliment
  wouldn't it be really funny if the op boyfriend was upset because they don't agree other kinds of relationship are lesser? still a baby for not listening tho lol

weirdly gender affirming to be with the women on this one thinking "wtf that's an incredible compliment what are you talking about"
- having the reverse experience being on the other side :yea:
  
  Like, I can see where the other side is coming from even if I don't personally agree with it. If a woman told me that, that would probably be the single most flattering thing anyone's ever said to me

Literally half the thread is "I can't really understand what she's saying but, goddamnit, I am passionate about what I think it could mean."

"You're so sexy, I want to marry you."
"Okay, wow, first of all, how dare you?"
- I read it as "you're not sexy at all, but I could tolerate marrying you."
  
  It's wild because to me saying you want to marry someone is way more a compliment than just lusting after them. It might be because I'm older too and getting married was like the big thing in your life.
- Literally this god damn how is it insulting to have someone say this to you, and where is the implication that she said it as an insult?

This is a conversation these two need to have with a therapist.

Maybe it's cause I'm an enby with the tizzy but I don't see how someone wanting to be with you long term is an insult? When did she ever say he wasn't attractive lol?