No Stanley, She Doesn't Want to Have Sex With You

Unless she explicitly say's she wants to, she probably doesn't

Photo by burak kostak from Pexels

Have you ever had a conversation with someone, and it was going so well, that you started to think that this was potentially more than just a casual experience? Well, that used to happen to me all of the time usually while talking to women. Whether it was the cashier at Food Town or a random woman who made eye contact as we were passing by each other. Maybe in a brief moment of kindness, she smiled. If I somehow got her beyond that initial interaction, and picked up a conversation I would get this feeling in the pit of my stomach, and suddenly I would think, "what if she wants the dick likes me?" No, seriously, why else would this attractive woman, with nothing but free time on her hands be spending so much time being polite to me, or paying attention to what I have to say?

Sometimes, when that thought entered my head, it would feel impossible to avoid it, and I would be powerless to whatever whims the Gods of criminally horny and delusional had for me. And while I negotiated these unhinged feelings and thoughts, the object of my affection would usually be sitting there, being all beautiful, participating in the conversation, asking follow-up questions, and seemingly being interested in what I had to say. These moments would serve as solid confirmation, becuase why would a woman voluntarily spend that much time with a man, specifically me?

A couple of years ago, I decided to have an internal conversation about this ideology. Because, while I had never approached, or made a move on a woman who I suspected with zero actual cause, wanted to have sex with me. I knew that sometimes, my behavior around them would change. Sometimes, after jumping to conclusions I would then map out our entire relationship in my head. We would go from awkward friends to passionate lovers in a matter of minutes. I would project this idea of romance without any participation from my current romantic fixation. Only to be left crushed and jaded when I found out that they were either uninterested, or already in a relationship.

After years of functioning like this, things came to a head when someone I was originally friends with, became my new fixation, and quickly rejected me once she realized what was happening. Her denial of my advances hurt like hell. She still wanted to be friends, and I wasn’t sure if I could revert to the way things used to be. Even if, the only thing that had changed was whatever was going on in my head. This was the moment I was forced to confront this way of thinking. Why did I do this? Where was it coming from?

I didn't have a response, at least not one that made sense. But asking it out loud and making it a thing that I had to deal with, helped to ground me in reality, because the fact of the matter was, just because a woman acknowledges you, and even shows interest in who you are, does not mean that she has any romantic or sexual interest in you. Someone thinking that you have a cool shirt, or tell funny jokes isn't a sign that they want you in their guts like you, and what you perceive isn’t always reality. Especially when you’re leaning on assumptions to ground your thinking. That realization was a helpful, but hard pill to swallow because next up I had to figure out where that feeling was coming from.

I must have talked to almost every female friend I had about this, and I'm not proud of the emotional labor they had to expend in order for me to figure things out, but I think this process allowed me to get to the root cause of my wild thinking. It's a little weird but stick with me.

My father, as I have written about extensively, was a playboy who didn't give too many heart-to-heart talks. That wasn’t really his style, plus there were very few things he held a deep passion for. Well… besides women. When it came to women, he always had a lot to say. Especially on the subjects of having sex with women, how to convince women to have sex with you, and what the amount of sexual partners you had accumulated said about you as a man. His philosophy was simple; “Women were raised to deny you sex, but they wanted it as bad as we did.” So it was a man’s job to look for the signs they inevitably gave.

It also meant I needed to be ruthless in my attempts to romance women. He taught me how to "Look for any opening that could help you get laid" and that "If you're polite, women will reward you with sex." I thought I was smart enough to realize he was giving poor advice, but it wasn’t that simple. My dad is one of the best people I know, and after years of listening to him, and the opinions of my friends and other men around me, I grew to believe that finding, romancing, and sleeping with women was what gave me value. If I couldn’t do that, nothing else mattered. Soon enough, it was all I cared about.

I was so fixated on this idea that I became one of those guys who sought to be nice to women, with an ulterior motive. I held doors, I bought flowers, I listened intently during conversations, I laughed at their jokes, all for the purpose of being rewarded with sex, or some kind of physical intimacy.

When that wasn't the outcome, I would become bitter, complain about women "always wanting the bad guy" accuse people of "friend-zoning" me, or completely cut that woman off. That attitude became such a way of life for me, it was only natural to expect other people to be thinking and behaving the same way.

They weren't. Looking back now, I would guess that at least 150% of the women I suspected of wanting me, were just trying to be decent human beings. Maybe one of them thought I said something interesting, maybe they were killing time, or being nice to assure their safety. The reason isn’t really important, what’s important to know is that the assumptions I projected on to them were not valid.

But like most things, I would wager that a lot of men still think this way, and because many of us are only focused on dating women, and sex with women, we miss out on really getting to know most of the women who enter our lives, we lose out on opportunities for beautiful friendships, and the those who remain never move past being two dimensional projections, we can never fully see them for what they are.

There’s no fun in that, it adds nothing to their lives, and it takes so much from us, I didn’t want that to be my reality, and now I’m trying to figure out how to help others break that cycle. What will it take?

Congratulations, you made it to the end. But let’s keep the conversation going. Leave a comment answering one of these questions.

1. What’s the wildest thing you’ve ever convinced yourself was a sign that someone liked you?

2. Did anybody else grow up getting absolutely terrible dating advice from adults?

3. Be honest: have you ever built an entire relationship in your head before the other person even knew what was happening?

4. What’s a belief about dating or relationships that took you way too long to unlearn?

5. Have you ever realized you were projecting your own stuff onto somebody else? What happened?