Thread by @RemakingManhood

THREAD: When Women Say “No, Thank You” to Our Offer of a Date
Recently, a woman friend told me about being asked out on a date. It is a story from more than twenty years ago... medium.com/remaking-manho… /1

She was sharing it as part of a larger conversation we were having about relationships. It’s not a dramatic story. It isn’t a story that was difficult to tell. Which makes it all the more instructive because it is so innocuous. /2

Twenty years ago, a man she didn’t know well asked my friend out. “Would you like to go out to dinner?” he asked. They were closing up at the end of the day at a conference where they and others had been working together. My friend said, “Thank you, but no.” /3

The man then came back the next day in the course of their interactions and said, “Are you sure? I’m only asking for you to dinner.” The implication being, “Just take a little time to get to know me. If it’s not right for you, no big deal.”

She again said, “No, thank you.” /4

When a man asks a woman (or anyone else) on a date, it is never a simple request. There is no such thing as “just dinner.” When we make such an invitation, we are asking another person to be open to possible emotional or physical intimacy. /5

Because it’s about intimacy, it activates each person’s histories, both good and bad. These histories can include past lovers, family relationships, friend’s experiences, work relationships, momentary experiences on the street, and what we witness as children. /6

It activates literally every relational moment that has led up to now. Our histories of sexual or relational trauma leap to the forefront immediately. All of this happens in an instant. /7

So when a woman answers “No, thank you,” it could be the result of a previous ugly interaction between her and a man we will never meet; a man who created an inflection point in this person’s life that informs how she calculates her response to men seeking intimacy. /8

And while these kinds of previous bad interactions can be huge, up to and including domestic violence or rape, they can also be smaller than that. They can be a single bad interaction, one small ugly moment. /9

And before we say, “But I’m not the guy who did that,” we need to take ownership of something that many of us angrily refuse to accept. /10

A lot of the deeply negative inflection points that impact women’s views of intimacy are born out of our dominance-based culture of masculinity. A violent culture of masculinity which continues to exist because men, collectively, have not demanded we create something better. /11

Every day we still collectively fail to stand up to the very public harassment and abuse that the worst among us heap on women; harassment the rest often witness but in our collective silence, fail to challenge in any effective way. /12

Things like locker room talk, catcalling, rape jokes; the daily denigration of women that is so deeply embedded in how we’ve all been taught to perform masculinity. The use of “bitch” and “pussy” as the way to insult other boys and men. /13

The nasty ways we talk about women behind their backs. The way we encourage each other to have contempt for women even as we seek sexual intimacy with them. “Yeah, I’d hit that,” and so on. /14

Women are becoming more empowered. They and the men who are their allies are creating a world where abusive men are being challenged. This is leading to a crisis in masculinity. /15

Angry, retrogressive white and male supremacist voices are calling for open war against women, LGBTQ people, people of color, immigrants, religious minorities and others, and the outcome of this battle is by no means guaranteed to go well. /16

Things could just as easily go very badly for us all.
Incels and other masculine extremists leaders are coldly weaponizing the trauma of boys and men brutalized by Man Box culture to drive their ugly political and social agendas. /17

It is an assault on our larger democratic institutions clothed in the rage of sexual frustration and hate. And ultimately, it’s nothing new. Women have been the victims of men’s sexual frustration and rage throughout the history of the world. /18

It’s well past time for the millions of silent men to stand and fight for the simple moral imperative that all people are created equal. That all human beings are deserving of autonomy, safety, respect and opportunity, equally. /19

We must break out of Man Box culture and leave our centuries-old domination-based masculinity behind, creating in its place a healthy masculinity of compassion and connection.

And if we continue to fail in this, “Thank you, but no” is all we will ever ever deserve. /20

That said, let’s return to my friend’s story.
She and I talked about the brief exchange she had with this man. She then talked about why, in those days, she often said “No, thank you” to men seeking a date. /21

In the initial moments, her reasons included:
1) I was about to move to a new state to start my internship
2) Dating had always seemed like a distraction from focusing on my education
3) I felt no strong attraction
4) I had been raised to be careful about men /22

The first three were those of a busy woman who was focused on her own priorities. This is something which, by the way, many men can never quite seem to fathom. Namely, a heterosexual (or bi-sexual) woman with no particular need for a male partner in her life. /23

The fourth reason she gave for saying "no" is seismic in its scale. It is the issue many women consider in these moments — safety. These four reasons together formed the context from which her answer emerged almost automatically as, “Thank you, but no.” /24

And then there were other things specific to this particular man in these moments that she also recalled. These are things men often fail to notice but that many women see right away.
Take, for example, the circumstances in which he invited her to dinner. /25

They were the last two people in the conference space for the day, doing final clean up, when he made his invitation. Whether he was aware of it or not, he was standing between her and the door. /26

She had already been tracking the exits because this is what women do when they are alone with a man they don’t know well, but now that he asked the question, she became even more aware of his position between her and the door. /27

“Thank you, but no,” she said. She sensed that her answer didn’t land well. Perhaps he was disappointed or embarrassed, but they didn’t discuss it further. She made it her goal to finish and get out the door without delay. /28

As I said, the man in my friend’s story approached her again the next day after she had said “Thanks, but no.” When he added, “I’m only asking you to go to dinner,” the implication was, “Give me a chance. I can change your mind.” /29

For my friend, that hint of "I can change your mind" cemented her choice to say no. This is because it carried the suggestion that perhaps she didn’t know her own mind on the matter of choosing a potential partner or even wanting one at all. /30

It was a diminution of her agency. In asking a second time, he failed to understand her context, her history, her professional and personal priorities, her position and her hard-earned authority in the world. In that moment, he didn’t notice he was again blocking the door. /31

Like so many women, my friend grew up in a world full of warnings. Always be careful around men. Be careful about how you walk down the street. Be careful about your supervisors, your professors, your friends and your own way of showing up in the world. /32

Get your education. Get your own agency. Don’t leave your future in the hands of a man, or you will be sorry. You will be lost. My friend saw the reasons for these warnings play out over and over again in the casual displays of power by men. /33

What if boys and men, early in our dating lives, could learn to consider the vast landscape of reasons why a woman might say “No, thank you” to our offers of, requests for, intimacy? Reasons born out of the full context of women's lives. /34

As men, we could ask ourselves why so many of us view the impact of a woman’s “No, thank you” primarily through the lens of our own personal wants and needs? I’ve had this self-centered response more times than I care to admit. Especially when I was young. /35

If men begin to question why we feel entitled to react in this way, things will shift. We can start considering the lifetime of inflection points that inform a woman’s choice (or a man’s choice, or a non-binary person’s choice) to say no to our offers of intimacy. /36

The fact is, women’s reasons for saying “No, thank you” may have a lot less to do with who we are as individuals, and a lot more to do with the culture of masculinity men have collectively created and are collectively sustaining. /37

When we make the effort to learn about the economic and sexual violence our culture of masculinity has created in women’s lives for generations, is STILL creating in women's lives, we can dial down our reactivity when we get told “No, thank you.” /38

This is the work millions of men need to do if we are to successfully challenge the incendiary agendas of incels and other masculinity extremists who think all women owe them sex. /39

Just take a minute and think about it. Who owes us a yes?

No one. /40

Know a man who's ready to break out of man box culture? To create safety for women and children? To create a masculinity of connection with like minded men? The Little #MeToo Book for Men is a powerful guide to humanizing our culture of masculinity. amzn.to/39v0U31 /41