am I supposed to tell people this or am I socially dumb? I told

>>18131219

unfortunately there is no culture-wide agreement on any rules. there is no happy magic answer to each problem, and a lot of the time to get what you want you need to take away what other people want, and that often comes with neither party getting what they want.

thats all fine though.

the best way you could go about this without lowering yourself to outright lying about your status is to simply bring up a boy you're into in conversation. as a general rule, if they still stick around after that, its their own fault.

many girls simply lie or find a way to say 'i just dont feel like dating right now' the same way gay guys ALWAYS seem to find a way to bring up the fact that they're gay within the first 5 minutes of meeting them.

>>18131219
i think you done him a favor and everything else he tries to pull on you is going to be his own fault from now on, so long as you're consistent on your position to be purely friends.

good job op, need more girls to do this shit. i'm straight up like this with guys all the time, and managed to make actual platonic friendships with them respecting my boundaries this way. i even help them with getting other chicks.

better than to string him along and have him develop deeper feelings for you.

>>18131226
Hmm. I will try bringing it up. The last time I tried it (I brought up the person I was crushing on a lot with the last 'friend') that 'friend' turned out to be a major creep who thought I'd change my mind. He was telling people we were dating. i don't talk to that guy anymore. Maybe he was just a huge creep though, and most guys will get the hint if I talk about my crush.

>>18131232
Thanks, I felt that i would want to know this too. I guess some people aren't emotionally strong for this but it's better than him falling harder for me and me stringing him along

>>18131241

thats kind of the thing is you could literally say 'we will never date ever' and guys will still orchestrate fantasy scenarios where you're just playing hard to get.

there is no real answer here. as a general rule if you lay down the law and they persist, its their own damn fault.

but if your issue is men pursuing you as opposed to the fallout, then simply dont let them pursue. it wont always be easy but you seem smart enough to know when a guy is into you and when hes just friends.

>>18131219
>>18131232

I feel like I'm the opposite. I'm actually fucking retarded when it comes to reading social situations, and looking back a lot of men I've been friends with were trying to pursue me, but since I didn't know I kept being friendly to them and they probably thought I was stringing them along.

I'll feel bad about it forever lol

>>18131251
I never thought of it that way. i won't let them pursue me, then. I've just been avoiding things before I started telling it straight. And all the fallouts I've had so far have been kind of scary. One guy said I owed it to him to date him and he wouldn't let me leave. It's just stupid so I'm gonna crack down.

So far my intuition for whether a guy is into me or not seems to be 50% but I'll just keep working on my social awareness

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>He looked really sad and said ok
I mean, rejection sucks. It's never fun to deal with. But you were upfront, he accepted it and didn't try to convince you otherwise. This is pretty much an ideal case of how things would go down as far as I can tell.

Sometimes no one is the bad guy when people are feeling shitty at the end of the day.

I think the only thing I would really say is to be careful about hanging out with guys one on one, or letting them treat you to lunch. Otherwise it does send the wrong impression.

>>18131267
>One guy said I owed it to him to date him and he wouldn't let me leave.
Yeah if someone is that unstable you're going to be in for a bad time no matter what you say. The way I figure it is to be upfront and reasonable people will respect that, and to just discount the unstable ones altogether because there's no winning there.

>>18131274
Thanks, I feel better. Also I should mention I never let anyone treat me to lunch, i paid for myself, but you're right about hanging out with people one on one. Maybe i could have figured it out earlier, because he did offer to pay for me a few times, but it's over now.

Yep there are a lot of unstable people out there. Just gotta crack down faster