You're not being manipulated when a friend wants to date you

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I come across a lot of blogs about similar stories where some girl was friends with a guy for a long time, and then the guy asks her out on a date, and the girl feels "manipulated" and suddenly wants no contact with the guy at all. Does anybody see a problem with this? I'll put it this way.

You're a guy. You meet a girl that is friendly, nice and entertaining. You decide to hang out. You're not sure yet if you really want to date her, or if you just want to be friends, so you become friends with her because you think it's "safer." After about a year or so, you've had a lot of fun with her, and you ask yourself "maybe we can be a little bit more than friends, even if she says no, we can still be friends and have fun together!" Right? WRONG!! ! Now she thinks the friendship was just a deliberate scheme to get into her pants. Now it's game over for the guy. The girl no longer wants to be friends even if she says she does. ...and he also gets ridiculed over the internet as a "nice guy" who complains about "being in the friendzone" with millions of other women mindlessly agreeing to everything she says.

Another totally non-manipulative scenario (because I am sure some would take the "so you become friends with her because you think it's "safer." part as manipulative):

Guy meets girl, he becomes friend with her without anything in mind in prior, then with time and after knowing her more , he falls for her --> and this is a common scenario!!

Yet this guy would still be accused of being manipulative.

You got links? It's hard to tell without context.

But.

I have sympathy for being friends with someone and then falling for them. That's never fun.

I have no sympathy for becoming friends with someone on a wait-and-see basis. It suggests the friendship is a means to an end, rather than valued as a thing in itself. That strikes me as a pissy attitude.

I had a strong friendship with a guy for three years and we kind of flirted a lot but it just never went anywhere and eventually it got uncomfortable and we just drifted apart. He seemed a little like an aspie but I don't know for sure. He was a pretty decent person but I couldn't handle the idea of anything more even though part of me liked him a little.

seems confusing to me cause a lot of the girls profiles on dating sites and ads say they want to be friends first then romantic. or friends that could possible lead to more etc.

How weird! It's almost as if the collective female gender isn't actually a hive mind, but is in fact made up of individuals with individual preferences and tastes and desires.

I thought they were controlled by a Borg queen.

This post lack context which will never really be known.

Of course if someone only want to to be friends, and the one with unrequited love cannot get over that fact this can be a problem, not matter how you cut it.

Regarding manipulation, well not necessarily, but can be. However many people with unrequited love cannot help themselves, they may offload guilt onto the friend, whether this deliberate or not this can be construed as manipulation quite easily.

It really depends on the strength of the friendship and the nature of the crush.

Given even those that have been relationships with someone, cannot necessarily be friends after breakup. It is reasonable to say the same applies to unrequited love. However this entirely depends on the severity and their ability to look past it and move on.

I've been there, and I realise this was just an attachment, which I needed to break. In some case they aren't worth being friends with, in other case the friendship is worth a lot more.

Love and attraction developed during a lengthened friendship, which was initiated with no intention of dating, is the truest form of love and the least superficial.

Correct me if I am wrong.

Well sounds reasonable, especially if spontaneous.

The (un)superficiality of love is a deeply debatable question though.

I mean are these emotions, the desire for love, selfless? Or anything for that matter I think not. However it is mutually selfish act. Which is Ok by me. We are feeding our brains, with a kind of stimulus.

Whether or not a relationship started out more superficially, don't mean it could not evolve into a deeper love or the reverse. The likelihood of this is anyone's guess, or which would be more effective for you.

Unrequited love is something different though.

Quite a lot of unrequited love, is more an attachment, or an idea of a relationship.

Maybe the girl feels manipulated because the guy didn't handle the rejection well & started acting desperate & saying things that came off as guilt tripping or bargaining which can be manipulation tactics. It's also possible that the girl believes the guy was only her friend in the 1st place because he wanted more which does happen sometimes but not all the time; those type have issues.

+1

I can't see a problem. For me friendship is the first step to love. I don't really care if someone wanted to be my friend to get close to me and see what happens (which is actually very reasonable) or just started to by my friend without thinking about romance at first and then fall for me since I have to know someone well before I fall in love with him/her and friendship (or friendship-like relationship) is the best way to get close to each other. Actually the whole "date" things is being manipulative for me, not friendship. On a date you wear your best clothes, show your best side, try to be someone you are really not, go to unusual places and plan everything ahead. When you are meeting with a friend you do what you like and are spontaneous. You met to have fun, not to sell yourself. You show your friend who you really are, not who you pretend to be.

granted i haven't been on a date in a while, but those aren't the sorts of things i did when i was dating. i feel uncomfortable in fancy restaurants and other formal settings; i don't have any "best" clothes--only comfortable mostly cotton stuff; i don't really have any "sides"--i'm always pretty unrelentingly myself and incapable of being any sort of social chameleon or putting on suitable "personae" for different occasions; and i prefer activities that don't cost anything (like a hike in the woods). whether i'm with friends or a date, i would always rather do what i like and be spontaneous.

Kiriae is being realistic, and I don't think she was saying people necessarily go fake on a date but they would be kinda 'formal', it's like when you are meeting strangers, you wouldn't be in your full comfort. Also, dating is almost like a job interview, your date would scan you and try to find out the faults/red flags in you and you might feel that and that would lead to discomfort, friends don't do that.

the only reason i don't do that with friends is because i already know them. with any stranger i interact with i'm going to be scanning them in that way and likely they are me, not just on a date--and in dating it would only be during the initial few dates when i am getting to know them. once i know someone i don't feel the need to be as cautious--but being cautious is not the same as "showing your best side" (i don't even know what that means except literally when people do it in photographs because they think they look better full-on than in profile or something). when i'm cautious it just means i say less at first, i tell them only basic information about myself and gauge how they react to it and also what they tell me about themselves, and then i decide whether i think i can trust them with more and move forward from there--the hope being that each time i see them i can tell them more and they will share more of their own story with me, and build on that trust and knowledge of each other. it doesn't mean i lie or act like someone else instead. if you don't act like you truly are from the start the person you're trying to get to know is going to be getting to know a false version of you--this can surely only lead to problems down the road. better to be oneself from the get-go.

you're not soliciting for employment--you're trying to get to know another human being personally. it's a different kind of exchange, and it should be.