43. He was splashing me, sort of aggressively flirting, dunking me, so I get out of the pool and he pins me down to kiss me.

“A guy friend in junior high. We had several classes and sat next to each other, platonic, loyal friends for 2 years before he got weird. He was hilarious, we could talk about anything. His house had a pool, so during warm weather a bunch of us would swim at his house after school. One day he invites me over to swim after school, when I get there, no one else is there, which was weird. He was splashing me, sort of aggressively flirting, dunking me, so I get out of the pool and he pins me down to kiss me. So I play it off as joking and leave. I give him the cold shoulder after that and he was pissed. Two weeks later and at a different friends’ house he and I are both there for a swim-birthday party and he and another guy give me a simultaneous front and back “seesaw” which is like a horrible double-wedgie in the pool. My swimsuit cut me so badly I bled.”

44. He sent a HUUUUGE rant about how I was too afraid to date someone who might be worth it in the long run

“I had two obvious ones from OKCupid when I was still dating. Most guys I went out with were self hating and self absorbed, but primarily socially adjusted hipsters, but these guys jog my memory as the proverbial “nice guys”

The first was a guy I had great conversations with online, stayed up until 3am talking, couldn’t wait to meet him. We meet up in person and I immediately got a different vibe and wasn’t remotely attracted to him. We got on a bus together and he started loudly talking about his BDSM experience; I tried to steer the conversation towards something else but he kept going on about how I would benefit from being with a good dom and stuff and it was pretty uncomfortable. Our date was walking through the city and he mostly talked about his fanfiction ideas in a rambling way, putting no effort into getting to know me (which at this point was fine because I didn’t really want to talk much). In the end, I told him upfront I wasn’t really feeling it and I was sorry it didn’t match up to our online interactions, he guilted me into giving him a hug, and then made some comment about me missing out on his trust fund.

The other guy, I’m not sure why I even agreed on the date, but it was early in my online dating adventure and I guess I was guilted into it a little. I sat at a Mexican restaurant listening to this guy talk about how super obsessed he is with Rocky Horror in great detail, and at the end of dinner he said he loved how much we had in common. I think he had never met an attentive listener in his life, and I felt kinda sad about it until after gently putting him down he sent a HUUUUGE rant about how I was too afraid to date someone who might be worth it in the long run and that one day I would wake up and realize what I’d missed. I remember very little of it except the strange mixture of dread and pity I felt.

I think many insecure people, such as these “nice guys”, think they’re being judged and condemned as a horrible person when someone rejects them, instead of seeing it as part of a complex journey towards discovering what both involved parties want in life. It makes me sad to think about until I actually remember the sort of weird and often dangerous entitlement and degradation of women it breeds.

(In the end, I did find someone on OKCupid and we’re getting married next week! So, my online adventure worked out very well. My fiancé said I was one of very few women he actually went out with from OKC; I definitely had a more shotgun approach.)”