this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2023
132 points (94.6% liked)
Asklemmy
44148 readers
1570 users here now
A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions
Search asklemmy ๐
If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!
- Open-ended question
- Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
- Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
- Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
- An actual topic of discussion
Looking for support?
Looking for a community?
- Lemmyverse: community search
- sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
- [email protected]: a community for finding communities
~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I've tried 4 times, 1 was a complete rejection that nearly ruined a friendship, the second was a weird soft-rejection that led to a friends relationship that felt a lot like I was taking advantage of this person. That ended when they moved away.
The other two led to relationships, one lasted a month and ended with me getting dumped. Second is my current girlfriend.
All of these happened within a year, starting when I was 22. Before that first rejection I had never made a move on anyone because I had 0 self confidence and could only see women as sexual objects. The girl who first rejected me was the first one that I liked for genuine reasons, which allowed me to change the way I looked at women. I now have a lot of female friends and hardly ever think about women I see in a sexual way, when 2 years ago I couldn't see a woman without thinking that way. I owe a lot to the girl who rejected me, and we are now friends again, for which I am grateful.
Was there anything she did specifically that made you look at women as a whole differently?
She talked to me without me having to strike up the conversation, that was a huge part of it. She was really easy to talk to, and friendly to everyone. She was passionate about the same things as me, and got me out doing things that were beyond my comfort zone. Basically, she was a human being who treated me like an equal human being. There was no disgust at my presence, or laughing at my awkwardness. Those had been the things I was afraid of prior to that.
Thanks. This is super insightful for me as a woman.