When She Admits She Doesn't See You as a Lover

So I was over on Twitter, or X as it's called now, here recently, and somebody posted a screenshot from a website called Reddit. I've mentioned Reddit on here many times. It's a giant website forum with a lot of sub-forums. Basically any topic or subject you can think of, they have a sub-forum, or subreddit as they call it, for that topic. And there was a subreddit called True Off My Chest. So people are trying to get stuff off their chest, I guess. And the subject line was, I think I destroyed our relationship trying to compliment My boyfriend, uh-oh, says my boyfriend and I are both 28 years old and together for 2.5 years. Yesterday night we were drinking and one thing led to another and I tried to compliment him by saying he is not someone who I would hook up or be a friend with benefit with, but marry. I thought everything was fine, but he seemed extremely distraught after that. I realized how he understood it and and tried to clarify it, but he is still the same this morning. He told me he needs space to think for a while and left the house. All my friends tell me I messed it up, and guys tell me it is not a compliment and most men will understand it differently. I think I destroyed our relationship and I am panicking right now. Oh boy, homegirl done messed up. Now, there are some people in the world that will listen to this and say, What is wrong with telling your partner, you are not, you know, a person I would select for easy wham bam thank you ma'am kind of fun, but you're the type of guy that I would pick for long-term companionship? Isn't that in essence the dream for most of us, to have a long-term partner or companion by your side to go through life with? And that's what this gal told him. You are that type of dude. Congratulations. And he took it poorly. Why? When I saw on Twitter was that most of the men replying there on Twitter agreed and said, oh yeah, you can never recover from this. Well, a lot of women are like, what the heck is going on? Why is that so bad? It's an illustration of just how for some men and women, dare I say most of us, we have a fundamental disagreement on, I guess you could say, value in the dating, or as a lot of people online call it, the sexual marketplace. How do we rank ourselves in the hierarchy of the sexual marketplace? Do men and women have different values when it comes to that? This post would seem to reflect that, yeah, there is some place where we have a big fundamental disagreement. So I took this screenshot and I posted it on my Dad Starting Over Facebook page, which has like 140,000 followers or something, to see what the guys and gals on there had to say. One of my female top fans had this to share. Okay, well, you've been with him for a while. Has he ever said anything that hurt your feelings? And if he did, did you end it? All right then. Egos are a fragile thing, and if that comment ends your relationship, it wasn't strong enough to stand the test of time. As long as your actions consistently value him in a physical and emotional way, you've done all you can. Definitely address it and empathize with his hurt, but understand the walking on eggshells makes for a long, unhappy life. Carrie has an excellent point, and that is, what if, you know, their action in the bedroom, so to speak, was off the charts? What if, you know, romantically they were very, very connected at a, you know, a romantic, intellectual, emotional, platonic friend level, plus the passion in the bedroom? And then she throws out the, I don't think of you as the type of guy to be, you know, a one-night stand, friend with benefits thing. I think of you as this more holistic partner person, if her actions say this, shouldn't her words be construed in a different way and not bruise his ego so easily? Kimberly says, that's ridiculous, and so are these comments. The comments that she's referring to are from the men on the Facebook post. I had hundreds and hundreds of comments from people, mostly men, and most of them were like this. From Chad, what he heard was, "I don't see you as someone I'm attracted to. I see you as a resource." If she participated in hookup culture, she just made the man seem like the guy after a string of hookups that finally gets her proving all the red pill rhetoric correct. She just told him that he doesn't stir sexual passion on sight like the other men she slept with have, and that is damaging. Then he added to go back and say, if she was sexually voracious towards him and sought him out for sex often and with enthusiasm, there's a good chance that he wouldn't have been offended. So back to the original point, her actions combined with that statement, relationship over. Positive actions in terms of connection and sexual action in the bedroom combined with that statement, maybe not so bad. Chris says, big mistake. You don't find him attractive, but hey, I think we will have a nice life together. Insert foot in mouth. Jack says, "I used to drive sports cars and motorcycles, but now I'm glad I got the minivan." And then our friend Lauren, the Dadvocate, says— a gal, by the way— "Great compliment, right up there with 'you're the perfect size, the big ones hurt.'" So again, there are hundreds of comments saying the same thing. That one little screenshot tapped into a lot of emotion for men. It illustrates one gigantic fear that we have as men. And this probably goes back generations. This isn't a new thing, but it's very much amplified by the current man versus woman internet culture we have going on right now in a lot of relationship-oriented circles like mine on, you know, Dad Starting Over and Help for Men. And that fear is my wife, my partner doesn't see me as, as the guy who really pushes her sexual buttons. She sees me only as Mr. Comfortable. She sees me only as Mr. Safe Guy. A lot of men are flat-out scared to death of that idea, and for some men it makes them so anxious, they feel so negative about that possibility that they set aside the concept of relationships completely. In fairness, a lot of those guys were hurt by women. They were cheated on by a woman who cheated on him with, in their mind, what was an objectively poor partner choice— some felon, drug addict, whatever it is— simply because that guy made her feel a certain way, really pushed her buttons in a certain way, something that Mr. Safe Guy of 10, 15, 20 years, 3 kids, roof over her head, job and everything could not. So I've talked about this in previous videos. One distinct fear that men have is this guy over here was able to achieve the pinnacle of connection with my partner at a very low cost to him. An extreme example is your wife, when she was single before meeting you, was at a bar, let's say, hanging out and having cocktails, and walks Mr. Handsome, Mr. Handsome says, "How you doing? My name's Bob, nice to meet you." An hour later, they're leaving, going out the door, and going for a good time at Bob's apartment. What did Bob have to do to achieve the most intimate level of connection with that woman? He was himself. He walked in, got to know the person for about an hour. Yes, in a drunken environment. Yes, in a party environment, or whatever it may be. But he was able to reach that goal very quickly and very easily, and he didn't have to quote unquote invest a lot. Well, he, husband, if he looks back on the relationship together, he's probably like, I had to go on 12 dates, I had to fill all these things, and yet the sexual fulfillment was never quite there. It was eh, so-so, but not super good and definitely not great. And so for those men to hear something like, I've never seen you as Mr. Loverboy. I've never seen you as Mr. Guy that walks in and an hour later walks out with me. I see you as safe guy. Really rubs a lot of men the wrong way. It really taps into and pushes buttons in especially our anxious guys, our guys who are previously traumatized from bad relationships, our guys who were taken advantage of. That does exist. For those guys, this is the ultimate kick between the legs. And yes, that woman vocalizing that in such a blunt way to her partner shows what a fundamental misunderstanding she has of that very common and very real sentiment amongst probably the majority of men out there. Ladies, if you're watching this, if you take anything from this, and this is going to sound ridiculous to many of you, but this is the truth. Hear me out. Your husband loves you more than anything on the planet. He would literally murder people to protect you. He would work hour after hour to provide for you. I know most of you work and you're gainfully employed and everything, but he still has that wiring within him— must provide for and protect mate. He committed himself to you. Part of that programming This is kind of a subconscious thing. It's not really overtly stated by men, but it's in there. Part of that programming is we convince ourselves, many of us, that we are the absolute best lover our partner has ever had. We push all our buttons in a way that no one else has ever done, and that is in big part why they chose us. Now, a lot of you women are laughing at that, saying, That's, you know, in the grand scheme, you know, when you, when you split up the, uh, things my male partner must have to be my partner for life— this is how a lot of women think— when you split that up like a pie, a very, very small sliver of that pie is we match very, very well in bed. In my mind, and in a lot of like therapists' and marriage counselors' mind, that actually, that piece of the pie should actually be a lot bigger, to be honest with you. But for a lot of women, that piece of the pie is pretty small. Other pieces of the pie that are bigger is going to be a great parent, a great father to children, help provide, help protect, be emotional support. We intellectually match, emotionally match, and everything else. And then in the bedroom, a very small sliver. Yet for men, giant piece of the pie. Call us shallow, call us Neanderthals, stupid, whatever. It's how we're wired. So ladies would say, what, am I supposed to lie to the guy and tell him like, oh yes, you stallion, you destroy me in bed, and yada yada yada, you're the best I ever had? Besides, the best I ever had was, you know, some guy that I had a summer fling with back when I was 18 years of age. That was the best I ever had, and my husband cannot compete with that. And you know what, that's not like a deal. It's not a big deal to you necessarily, but it is to him big time. Just go to my Facebook page, Dad Starting Over, find the post, look at the comments, and prepare to be wowed. How do you take this? Is it that big of a deal? Are these men just, you know, is this another, yet another illustration of the quote-unquote fragile male ego? Do they need to get over themselves? Do they need to realize that this is a really small sliver of the pie in the woman's mind and other things are much more important? Or Is this illustrative of a fundamental mismatch? And do the men have a point that that sliver of the pie actually should be a lot, lot bigger? And if we are in fact not your best lover ever, it spells potential disaster for the relationship. Just food for thought, guys.