So today was meant to be the day was gonna invite a group of people to a small gathering at my house. I made a silly website that’d show all the info and i’d go around personally inviting them.
I think they just liked the idea of being invited more than the event itself. I had around 10 people explicitly tell to my face that they were coming.
Noone followed through.
I probably fucked up somewhere in the process but it hurts nonetheless; It was the first event I had organized for a group. I wanted to share my world with the people around me. I wanted to showcase my dogs and my garden.
At least i’ve learned something, I got to cook some meat for my family. But damn, this feels isolating.
Yeah, they justify it like that whole man vs. bear thing. Basically, “All men are potentially dangerous” loses nuance and becomes “All men are dangerous,” and then they tell themselves that it would be unsafe to simply tell me “no,” so they lead me on and then blame me when I don’t catch the non-existent hints that they’re actually not as into me as they’re pretending to be.
And eventually they simply ghost or stand me up, leaving me some combination of worried, confused, embarrassed, despondent, and self-loathing. And to add insult to injury, they tell all their friends that I’m a creep, and then I become a social pariah and no one will even give me a chance to show them who I really am. All because they assumed something about me based on an overgeneralization about my immutable characteristics. But if I’m insulted that they would think I’m dangerous, then that makes me a misogynist, apparently…
And it’s not just one or two people, it’s definitely been a trend for several years. Like the man vs. bear thing. There’s this perceived moral pedestal that women stand on when they tear a man’s heart out, twist the knife in his deepest insecurities, and make him second-guess himself. “Gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss” or whatever.
That’s not real feminism though, as anyone who’s actually read real feminist writers would know (as opposed to tiktok pseudofeminists who advocate for something more akin to women participating in patriarchal structures of oppression rather than dismantling them). It’s literally just women promoting toxic masculinity along with this sense of exceptionalism, like anything is okay when a woman does it. Mixed messages and double standards does not provide a solid baseline for healthy communication, but they act like all the onus is on the man despite that.
I don’t date or use the apps anymore, I don’t put myself out there or go to groups or events either. It’s partly because I’m too paranoid and sensitive, and partly because I know how slanderous and gossipy people are, and that without any friends to defend my character, people are more likely to believe whatever random rumors they hear about me. And those no doubt get embellished over time.
Like I know I’ve made mistakes and put my foot in my mouth before, especially when I was younger and still figuring things out, but nothing to the degree that I should be shunned for the rest of my life. Based on people’s reactions to me though, back when I still used to go places, the rumors must really make me sound worse than hitler…
I agree that simply not telling someone “no” and leading you on is definitely the a-hole thing to do and that not all men are dangerous. As an outsider to your world, my question is, have you ever heard the saying “if everyone else is an a-hole, then look in the mirror?” I am not saying you are a bad person at all. What I am saying is that if everyone is ghosting you that you meet, there must be a reason that this is happening to you that you are unaware of. I think of my brother-in-law who is a large imposing scary looking dude that looks like he could beat the tar out of anyone. He perpetuates that appearance by how he chooses to wear his hair & beard and how he chooses to dress. However, once you get to know him, you realize he wouldn’t harm anyone with the exception of self-defense. Other times, it is just a vibe that people give off that make them seem like a bad idea. I personally think about a guy that my partner was friends with. When I met him the first time, my creeper radar was going off, and I couldn’t figure out why. I set that aside because he was my partner’s friend. Down the road, we found out that he was extremely emotionally manipulative (probably a sociopath) and was dating young women 18-25 while he was 40. We saw that emotional manipulation based off of observation when he was around his partners and also when we learned some very personal and private things that he was doing with said partners and how it made them feel like they were the crazy one, being gaslit, etc. One of his partners was a newly licensed therapist, and she was unable to see the emotional manipulation until AFTER she got away from him. I am not saying this is what you do, since I do not know you. However, if you give off a creeper vibe (even if you are not a creeper), then that can cause large swaths of the population to ghost you. The entire thing just sucks, and I like to give people I meet a fair shake to show me who they really are because more often than not, you meet some seriously fun people to be around. Do note I am very much a nerd and enjoy table top games, video games, computers, and things of that nature therefore, I am used to interacting with people who are not consider conventionally beautiful/hansom always. The other things to consider is, are the people you approaching in the same league as you? Whether we like it or not, people will judge you based off of your appearance. If you try and get into a friend group or date someone much prettier than you, then that probably won’t go well.
Sorry for the wall of text. I ran up against this problem when I was in middle and high school because I kept throwing myself at the pretty girls to be friends with and couldn’t figure out why I had no friends. Then I got in with the theater and band nerds and found lots of friends. The same is true as I moved cities and instead of looking for the beautiful people, I looked for the gamers and found my people :) I do sincerely hope you find some peeps of your own. It has gotten much more difficult to that though in this day and age with people so tied into social media and not doing things in-person out in the world the way that we used to.
Yeah, I’ve looked in the mirror. I’m one of the most self-loathing, self-deprecating people I know. It’s that, along with my low self-esteem, insecurity, social anxiety and awkwardness, and general nervousness that tend to put people off. I literally don’t know how to “just be confident” as people suggest, without faking it and seeming arrogant because confidence just doesn’t come naturally to me. And even if it did, I still would struggle because I just don’t know the social scripts.
And people have been so shitty to me throughout my life that I can be kinda sensitive to subtle jabs, which puts me on the defensive easily. A lot of people seem to use that to manipulate me. They’ll micro-aggress and badger and push until even my tiny sliver of confidence fades, and even if I manage to not get defensive I still get melancholy and despondent or my insecurities get aggravated and I start doubting/second-guessing myself even more. And then they use that to call me an asshole or passive-aggressive or whathaveyou. It’s literally beyond my control, I’ve tried really hard to sidestep this pattern but people will bait me and entrap me and even if I manage to avoid it they’ll just keep at it and add their own spin until I basically have to either get defensive or affirm their interpretation. And even if I just shut down and get avoidant, people use that against me to. So now I don’t even enter situations where I might have to interact with people. I’m a total shut-in.
Maybe there are kinder people out there who I might have better interactions with, but I don’t know where they are and I’m tired of looking for them, especially since it seems like no one wants to be bothered anyway.