LILIENFELD: In the frosh pit

Thursday, February 2, 2012

I left Toad’s feeling unwanted, unattractive and creepy. I know this isn’t true — I’m a good guy, handsome, respectful and friendly. Yet when girls shove you off at Toad’s, it doesn’t help your self-confidence. After all, if I can’t find a girl in a mosh pit at Toad’s, it makes me wonder: Can I find a girl anywhere?

I’m a freshman, prospective EP&E major, just a nice guy. I know in my heart of hearts that guys and girls are looking for the same thing — someone who will love them, make them happy and respect them. But actions seem to speak louder than words.

The facts on the ground tell us — and multiple girls have told me — that women at Yale are simply confused. They don’t know if they want a hookup, a boyfriend or something in between. Recently, Maria Yagoda (“Just say no (to awful sex),” Jan. 20) complained that men at Yale do not know how to pleasure women, and she called desperately for “nice-looking, not-evil and socially adjusted straight single males.”

Well, here we are. I know us in masses. As a matter of fact, I can introduce you to a few. We desire nothing more than to be in a loving, consensual relationship that makes us and you happy. Nonetheless, women describe this as unconfident and needy. As a result, the outcome of interactions that reflect this hope is less than ideal. Nice guys are left in the dust while the girls we crush on party at Toad’s. Where are these nice-looking, not-evil and socially adjusted straight single females who are apparently in abundance?

From the perspective of a freshman, it seems that girls at Yale desire self-confidence and social standing. What better way to achieve this than to have a nice guy chase you? It makes you feel desired and increases your standing among social circles. In other words, it establishes you as someone popular who is wanted by good men at Yale.

However, what are the ramifications of this game of cat and mouse? If women are genuinely frustrated with men at Yale, they should look toward their actions in these types of situations. We as men put ourselves out on the line, hoping for your interest and affection. Instead, we are often met with rejection or the friend zone.

What are we doing wrong? We are not creepy or socially ignorant. To the contrary, we are bright, well-adjusted, liked young men. We fit the criteria of what you are looking for. Enlighten us: Where is our mistake? While many women claim to want a relationship, they go around solely hooking up and seem to avoid emotional investment. Their defense is that they settle for hookups, hoping men will eventually come around to a relationship.

What they do not recognize are the guys who are looking for a relationship from the get-go — those looking for nice-looking, not-evil and socially adjusted straight single females, someone they can call when they’re lonely, hold hands with while walking to class and watch a movie with on a Saturday night. Sure, we want to be physically intimate, but we also want to be emotionally intimate with a girl we know likes and cares for us. These comments and sentiments are often dismissed as unmasculine and clingy by both sexes.

As a result, many guys are fearful of voicing their feelings — including me. This is wrong. Men and women should be on the same page, able to voice our wants and desires to one another. I can only hope that Yale’s new consent initiatives and maturity among fellow stu ity to do so. Nonetheless, until I start seeing results, I will be skeptical.

One might argue that guys continue to have these experiences because we are looking at the wrong type of women. That statement is simply fallacious. The same games occur with the sweetest of girls — the exact ones who profess their desire for a relationship and lament the lack of nice guys at Yale. I know from experience. These actions are not limited to specific personalities but are found across the spectrum.

I acknowledge that I will never fully understand women, and I’m okay with that. Yet when I see complaints about the lack of quality men at Yale, I urge women to qualify their complaints and notice the actions and sentiments of themselves and their fellow girls. I believe I speak for the nice-looking, not-evil and socially adjusted straight single males at Yale — we’re waiting for these games to end.

David Lilienfeld is a freshman in Ezra Stiles College. Contact him at david.lilienfeld@yale.edu.

Comments

eli2015

Oy vey. This is going to escalate into a game of “my gender is less socially maladjusted” very quickly.
River_Tam

I can never tell if the feminist movement is the cause or just the male excuse for the castration of the American male.
alsoanon

“The Friendzone” is rapidly becoming the worst meme of the past few years. Look, straight up–no matter how handsome or nice or smart or wonderful you are, some people just aren’t going to want to date you. Being nice/polite/not a jerk does not give you the right to date whoever you want to date. Frankly, if you think it does, you AREN’T a nice guy. Talking about friendzoning implies that women aren’t worth just being friends with, that there’s no point in developing a relationship with a woman unless you’re going to get sex out of it at some point. When guys claim that they’re nice guys blah blah they have to suffer friendzoning etc etc why can’t those girls just get it together and admit they want to date me?? It just shows me that you aren’t, in fact, a “nice guy.” Or at least you’re entirely clueless and pretty needy, and maybe that’s why no one wants to date you. Boo-hoo.

River_Tam

Unfortunately, your response is going to be the worst meme of the *next* few years.

alsoanon

Oh River, you can do better than that!

River_Tam

Hey hey – I didn’t say I disagreed with the gist of what you said. But your ‘response’ has become a trite comeback to what is really a more complicated issue.

Specifically: “nice guys” don’t explicitly think that being nice means they get to date / have sex with women. Rather, they consider themselves morally superior to the guys they see hitting on women in clubs and bars and thus think that women should appreciate how gentlemanly and chivalrous they are. They aren’t necessarily doing it *because* they want sex – they might genuinely think it’s the right thing to do – but they think that moral rectitude is sufficient to create romantic/sexual attraction.

In reality, there are many components that play into attraction, and different women value different things in different proportions. There are some women who genuinely value a guy who opens doors more than anything else – even physical attractiveness – but the fact is that it’s not sufficient to simply be “nice” (no more than it it is sufficient for a woman to be “nice” for men to want to date her).

Simplifying it down to “people who complain about the friendzone are terrible human beings who just think being nice entitles them to sex” is a disservice to millions of socially awkward men who got along just fine in a society where everyone only courted, married, and slept with one partner (in that order!) but who are woefully out of place in a society where men actively compete over multiple women at a time.
StanfordNotYale

Oh River did just fine.
“You’re a douchebag for calling me out on sexing a lot of douchebags, though I say I want to sex a nice guy” is indeed the worst meme of the next few years.

PhysicsAlum

Amen. Treating a woman like a human being should be a baseline. It does not mean that you *deserve* to date someone.
SY

No expert, but I agree that you should be friendly and approachable to everyone for no reason, not just who you are interested in or think you’re attracted to. Someone will be available and interested, and attraction, romance sometime follow. I usually think in the wrong reverse order. Calling when lonely, movie, holding hands to class, physical intimancy, and emotional intimacy are increasingly smaller subsets of those interested. Also agreed, nice is not kind. There are so many nice people, but get to know them, and they are not kind enough yet. Rejection is not a problem either. If a guy shows interest, he should at least be refused with female social skill and some affection. Sex Week should include Courtship 101, and not limited to freshmen.

disneyguy

I stopped reading at “I’m a freshman, prospective EP&E major.”

What is it about EP&E that makes Yalies go weak in the knees? At the very least, wait until you’re accepted to publish that as your “major,” Mr. Lilienfeld.

xfxjuice

My thoughts exactly.

phantomllama

This is cringeworthy.
River_Tam

> What are we doing wrong? We are not creepy or socially ignorant. To the contrary, we are bright, well-adjusted, liked young men.

Do you think socially maladjusted people always realize they are socially maladjusted?
dbe222

The nice-looking, not-evil and socially adjusted straight single female Yale student’s perspective:

So I would first like to say that I appreciate Lilienfeld’s writing this piece – everyone has to acknowledge that it is difficult to put oneself out there as he did here.

Lilienfeld is right that yes both sexes truly want someone who will make them feel loved, happy, respected, etc. And that is exactly the key – people don’t just want to be in a relationship with someone they don’t feel will give them that. It’s not that girls don’t want relationships, it is that we only want to be in a relationship with a guy whom we really like in that specific way! Just because we are friends with a great guy who is good looking, nice, fun etc., does not mean that our feelings for him have to be more than friendship. Attraction is far from a science, and no one, men or women, should be blamed for not having romantic feelings towards someone whom on paper they perhaps should. (As a side note, I will also mention that I promise, women can tell from 10 miles away which guys are nice and want relationships and which don’t. We are not avoiding a relationship with you because we think you don’t want one – we just may not want one with you).

Of course I see the counterargument that feelings grow as people date, and so girls should give it a shot with guys who seem to be good candidates. This is true – but then what’s wrong with getting to know guys as friends if you do not feel a romantic/sexual attraction to them? As some comments above mentioned, Lilienfeld seems to imply that the “friend zone” is a huge problem or even unacceptable. How about some women just like having good-looking, nice, fun male friends with whom they enjoy spending time, but they don’t feel attracted to them as more than friends? I know I personally have many of these. If at some point my feelings towards one of my male friends change into something more, then I can decide to move things out of the “friend-zone.” Jumping in before you feel ready into trying to date your friend whom you are not so attracted to can make friendships awkward and strained.

As a final note, of course many would argue that this is a negative consequence of the “hook-up culture” today. While I am an advocate of love and relationships as much as the next girl (perhaps more than most actually), the hook up culture is in my opinion simply a bi-product of both men and women seeing sexual (although admittedly not emotional) satisfaction in the time in between – i.e. when there may not be anyone at that moment whom you “like-like,” as middle-schoolers put it.

The simple algorithm is this: we hook up with the guys we are attracted to but who are not nice/good guys, and we are friends with the guys who are nice/good guys whom we are not attracted to. When there is a man who is a nice/good guy AND we are attracted to him, then we want a boyfriend.

81

“the hook up culture is in my opinion simply a bi-product of both men and women seeing sexual (although admittedly not emotional) satisfaction in the time in between”

Bi-product? The gay ivy indeed..
alsoanon

“Just because we are friends with a great guy who is good looking, nice, fun etc., does not mean that our feelings for him have to be more than friendship.”

Yes, this. Exactly.

Justine

Alcohol promotes the hook up culture. When most of the drinking is done in the residential college suites – Yale admin look the other way – and at the frat houses by underage Yalies, boys will be boys. Show me a guy inviting a girl on a proper date and I will show you a girl who will be open to getting to know him. No alcohol. A proper dinner and movie. Ice Cream. Coffee. A walk in the park. Doesn’t have to be expensive. Act like a gentleman, a thoughtful young man, and you will be surprised at the response.

alsoanon

All I’m saying is no matter how great it would be if more people asked other people out on dates, just because you ask politely doesn’t mean you’re guaranteed a ‘yes.’ Yeah, not being a douchebag probably gives you some points, but as someone said above, that should be a baseline requirement for dating *consideration.* I know a lot of non-douchebags that I don’t want to date, no matter how politely they ask me, and I’m sure lots of people would say the same about me. Romance is a crapshoot–kind of like college admissions. You can have the resume and the GPA and still not get in, and you just have to suck it up and find happiness at some other respected institution.
River_Tam

> Show me a guy inviting a girl on a proper date and I will show you a girl who will be open to getting to know him.

In the words of Julia Stiles, “Have you seen the unwashed miscreants that go to that school?”
StanfordNotYale

“Show me a guy inviting a girl on a proper date and I will show you a girl who will be open to getting to know him”

Umm. I think he’s already tried that and it didn’t work at all…. hence the letter.

StanfordNotYale

“Just because we are friends with a great guy who is good looking, nice, fun etc., does not mean that our feelings for him have to be more than friendship.”

Yeah it’s true, but think about how screwed up that is. If a man finds a great gal who is good looking, nice, fun etc, the only way he doesn’t want more than friendship is if he’s gay.

River_Tam

> If a man finds a great gal who is good looking, nice, fun etc, the only way he doesn’t want more than friendship is if he’s gay.

[citation needed]

StanfordNotYale

Common sense 101

River_Tam

> The simple algorithm is this: we hook up with the guys we are attracted to but who are not nice/good guys

If a guy is not a good guy, do not hook up with him.

Both of the anonymous accounts of sexual assault from yesterday’s YDN involved acquaintances that were “more than friends” but not quite boyfriends (as did the allegations in the Pat Witt case).

Sure, not every asshole will commit sexual assault. But if you know that he’s too much of an asshole to date, why in the world are you letting him in your pants?

Justine

Girls who just want sex, like guys who just want sex, are on the same playing field. That’s the girl’s freedom to choose. But, for those girls who want a real boyfriend and a serious relationship, protect yourself and be cautious until the guy reveals his true intentions over time. Yes, anyone, anywhere can be victimized by violence. But use discernment and listen to your instincts. If you feel he is creepy or too aggressive, keep your distance. Sociopaths can fool you so do your best to be skeptical and let him prove he’s a good guy by his repeated actions over time.

River_Tam

> Girls who just want sex, like guys who just want sex, are on the same playing field. That’s the girl’s freedom to choose.

Of course it’s her *right* to choose, but I’m saying it’s very inadvisable to hook up with someone who you think is not a “good” or “nice” person. When people talk about the problems with the “hookup culture” this is a big one right here.

Another note: girls and guys are NOT on the same playing field, even if you’d imagine that philosophically this is so. Sexual assault is far more often man on woman than vice versa, and that means that women can imagine themselves as a self-sufficient equal partner in a casual sexual encounter, but when it comes down to it, we’re the ones who can be intimidated by physical violence, we’re the ones who are more likely to be sexually abused, and we’re the ones who are more likely to be raped.

Facts are facts. Ignoring them is willful ignorance.

penny_lane

> But if you know that he’s too much of an asshole to date, why in the world are you letting him in your pants?

My thoughts exactly!
SY

“The simple algorithm is this: we hook up with the guys we are attracted to but who are not nice/good guys
If a guy is not a good guy, do not hook up with him. Both of the anonymous accounts of sexual assault from yesterday’s YDN involved acquaintances that were “more than friends” but not quite boyfriends (as did the allegations in the Pat Witt case).”

Thanks for saying it. If sex and opposite sex were not so important, those YDN articles would not get 50-250 comments, and counseling would not be 98% about sex issues (my guess). I’d bet that dbe222 does not hook up or use this algorithm.

Yes, a boyfriend doesn’t assault his girlfriend, unless he wants to lose a gf, and rarely then (except when she ends it, but still rarely). He may play, but only until she is not amused. The physical and sexual assaults seem to be quick, unromantic or not-yet-what-both-want relationships. Those variations on hook-ups are unsatisfying even to half of men (this op-ed). If women don’t know (they must), half my male friends can like any available young woman enough for an hour or so, if they can get away from her. I don’t know any literature or history of brothels where females stop by for an hour. When Lilienfeld writes about “games,” I think he wants women to let the game play out maybe a couple dates or bases before calling it. That’s a minimalist request for the team.

dalet5770

I think what allot of people are not saying is, freshman. Male or Female, are going to be at Yale for at least four years. If you date someone, and then break up you have to see them the rest of you’re university experience. When Yale was a male college, they would often have a much better experience. with liaisons with female colleges, and visa versa. there is something comforting about retreating to you’re castle.
silliwin01

Isn’t it a shame so much of our happiness in life is determined by things far beyond our control?
memorylane

A man is sexually attracted to a woman, but the woman just wants to be friends. The problem of the friend-zone is as simple as that: denial of desire-fulfillment. In and of itself this should not be a big deal, because people have to deal with unfulfilled desires every day. But when a man is placed in the friend-zone, suddenly his very masculinity is at stake. To put it bluntly, an adequate performance of the heterosexual masculine gender requires an active sex life. You will notice that a man who is already in a relationship with someone will not complain that he was friend-zoned by this or that pretty woman. In this day and age, it is trendy to point and laugh at damaged masculinity. But for many men, masculinity serves as the ideal to which they will, consciously or unconsciously, devote a lifetime of identity-formation. However, this is not to suggest that a man can never have the freedom to choose whether or not to react to denial of desire-fulfillment according to heteronormative gender codes. In other words, the friend-zone does not have to be the friend-zone, because it is a matter of choosing to experience your own circumstances in a certain way.

StanfordNotYale

No Duh! If a guy is ALREADY with the woman he wants why would he complain about not being with the woman he doesn’t want? As you said already this is about desire fulfillment so why then do you contradict yourself and make it about chasing a masculine ideal?

y07hls10

Oh my God.

1. You are a freshman and it is February. You need to cool it.
2. The EP&E thing, dear Lord.
3. Why are you looking for love at TOAD’S? In the MOSH PIT? How exactly is this supposed to work?
4. Most importantly, individual women want different things. This is because, shocker, women are people–individual people. This doesn’t make the collective body of women “confused.” Some want to hook up. Some don’t. Some want relationships. Some may even want relationships but, you know, not with you. Don’t get bitter, don’t start generalizing. Just keep trying to find someone you like who likes you, too. (That last bit is clutch.) It’s hard for everyone. So don’t turn it into something it’s not.

dbe222

Precisely.

RexMottram08

The maturity level of undergraduates continues to hover the needle at: CHILD
OOB

Cringed the entire time I read this
edm2012

This is honestly just a tirade from someone who can’t get a date
histrionic_female

“Slut” is how we vilify a woman for exercising her right to say “yes”. “Friendzone” is how we vilify a woman for exercising her right to say “no”.

StanfordNotYale

Or maybe “exercising her right” is how histrionic females avoid being called out for any and all displays of bad behavior. Just sayin.

Trish

Another reason why women might seem overly picky or hypocritical is because we don’t want a boyfriend who just wants any old girl as his girlfriend. A lot of these nice guys have really generic preferences because they basically just want something that tons of people can offer. Women like to feel as though he *selected* her from a bunch of other women. How would a guy feel if he thought that a girl was only with him because he’s the only one that would date her? If a girl feels like she’s the 900th person you tried asking out this month, she’s not going to feel special and that’s going to affect his credibility of his sincerity/bonding.
dahlingdarling

**”Nice guys are left in the dust while the girls we crush on party at Toad’s. Where are these nice-looking, not-evil and socially adjusted straight single females who are apparently in abundance?”**
Perhaps the nice-looking, not-evil, and socially adjusted straight single females are the gals that nice guys aren’t crushing on.

**These comments and sentiments are often dismissed as unmasculine and clingy by both sexes.**
Thanks the patriarchy’s traditional gender roles and image of masculinity.

**The same games occur with the sweetest of girls — the exact ones who profess their desire for a relationship and lament the lack of nice guys at Yale.**
Quite unsure how it’s a game rather than rejection. A gal wanting a relationship with a nice guy usually means she wants a relationship with a partner who is nice not that if you’re a nice guy she’ll want a relationship with you. Usually attraction and compatibility come into play.

**I believe I speak for the nice-looking, not-evil and socially adjusted straight single males at Yale — we’re waiting for these games to end.**
Perhaps it’s not a game rather some guys have a bias in self-evaluation and are overestimating that they’re nice-looking and socially adjusted. Most likely it’s not a game rather the gals are lamenting nice guys as in nice guys they find attractive, interesting, fun to be around, and compatible.