“…you wouldn’t stay with me if something better comes along…”
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In my travels through this digital landscape, I came across the strip linked below:
The strip is fairly standard, but one image struck me as particularly self-indulgent.
Specifically, the one that reads “Sorry my friendship is a crappy consolation prize!”
See, the reason that frame bothers me more than any other is the passive-aggressive arrogance of it.
Putting aside the childishly stated false apology (as irritating as it is), I arrive at this:
It isn’t a “crappy consolation prize”.
It simply isn’t a prize at all.
It’s wheels on a tomato.
It’s a solar powered flashlight.
It’s a bowling ball gifted to a golfer.
It’s an effectively useless offering.
You’ll “be my friend”?
What do we have in common?
What are the interests we share?
What are the tasks you can and, more importantly, will do for me when I’m in need?
List as many as you like.
Take your time.
Fill a journal the size of Tolstoy on his most verbose day.
It will still be meaningless.
Why?
Because I already have a handful of men that can and will readily do those things for me.
They’ll talk with me.
Share with me.
Help me out of a jam.
I don’t need another person to do those things.
Plus, they’ll back me up in a physical altercation, should it be necessary.
They’ll also help me move heavy things.
The great irony here, is that both men and women seek male friendship for what quantifiable things men can provide.
In light of that, the gesture – when offered – is empty.
Not to mention, the majority of women are miserly with their resources, emotional, financial and non-sexually physical.
(Yes, NAWALT but I also know people that have seen ghosts and that hardly makes us all believers in the supernatural.)
They conserve them, wisely – to be fair, for the men with whom they are enamored (reciprocated or not).
So little, if anything, remains for “friends” (least of all male friends, who are expected socially to fend for themselves in all things).
Thus, my sincere, honest and heartfelt response to that frame is:
I’m sorry, too.
I Truly am.
Ω
80-Proof Oinomancy 
May 20, 2015 at 10:11 am
“Ghosts” is my new counter-argument for NAWALT.
The overall line of reasoning I very much agreed with, but that ‘ghosts’ example is a hell of a gem.
May 20, 2015 at 10:21 am
Thanks for the compliment, Joshua.
May 20, 2015 at 10:32 am
Ace: Very true. And very apropos.
Every man should remember this column when a woman weakly, feebly offers “friendship” and then shames him for refusing it.
There is no shame in refusing and rejecting an empty offer of “friendship”, because in such situations there is nothing to refuse or reject.
May 20, 2015 at 10:38 am
Thanks, Deti.
Offered nothing; return nothing.
Even trade.
May 20, 2015 at 12:29 pm
Another one you knock out of the park.
Like Joshua said, the line about the Ghosts is one I’m going to have to steal. Hope you don’t mind.
Also – given your explanation of ‘female friendship’, you could argue that this man did want to be her friend, he just wanted for her to actually start acting like a friend to him.
He listed all the things he did for her. What had she done for him?
If the answer was nothing – then he was nothing more than a part-time slave.
Wald
May 20, 2015 at 2:11 pm
When a woman offers “friendship” or “let’s just be friends” to a man and then shames him for refusing the empty “offer”, one of two things is going on:
1. She genuinely feels bad about turning him down. She offers “friendship” as a sincere consolation, because she feels bad and wants to feel less bad. She shames him for rejecting “friendship” not because she wants to be his friend; but because he has not done what she wanted him to do (help her feel less bad).
2. She doesn’t feel the least bit bad about turning him down. But, she does not want to look like a bitch. And she does not want other people hearing about the episode and concluding she is a bitch. So she makes a meaningless, insincere offer of “friendship” to save face and to make herself look good. She wins either way — if he accepts, she comes out smelling like a rose. “We’re friends. No problem.” If he rejects, she can shame him for being butthurt and disgruntled. She did the right and honorable thing; he’s the villain for “rejecting” her. So, when people hear about her turning him down, she has plausible deniability — she can say “but I offered him friendship, and HE rejected ME.”
December 19, 2015 at 1:11 pm
I think its difficult to downplay how harsh of a rejection that really is, which our culture has made comical and tried to downplay how devastating it is to most men, before they have become numb to it.
Think about it from a Darwinian perspective: a woman is basically telling you she has evaluated you and found your genes too poor to be worth passing along into the future.
That’s a hell of a thing to pass judgment on, and it is why (IMO) more traditional cultures take very delicate care to subtly feel out both parties before a marriage offer is formally extended from one family to another. Because the rejection really is a terrible slight.
Men offer it too easily IMO, and women do not understand how much it can effect men.
May 20, 2015 at 4:00 pm
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May 25, 2015 at 8:08 pm
Reblogged this on ciacorps and commented:
Excellent blog, and 100% true. And check out the vicious man-hating comic in the link…if you can stomach it.
June 1, 2015 at 11:55 am
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