I’m afraid you’re putting words into my mouth.
At no point did I say I hated women, although I will readily admit to having endured a series of disappointments and outright heartbreaks that have left me, as I stated in my original post, extremely cautious about approaching any female.
The most provocative thing I stated earlier was that there’s a certain honesty in parting on bad terms — and here I should have clarified that I don’t mean a screaming match but more along the lines of “there’s nothing to work with here, goodbye and if we pass on the street, we don’t know each other.”
Again, as I stated in my original post, this “friend zone” business is extremely frustrating for an old-school Christian gentleman with a huge void in his life.
At least I take a certain stoic pride in the fact that any time a woman I dated gave me this “I only want to be friends” business, I interpreted it for what it was — a rejection.
“You’re such a nice guy, Nothingburger, and I know we’ve been planning this trip to the art museum, but Bruno just invited me to take a ride to the boondocks on his new Harley.”
In all these instances, these women never heard from me again. Not even a phone call. I doubt they even noticed. But at least I recognized a hopeless situation and extracted myself with what grace I could.
Well, thankfully, I’m too old for all that anymore.
Why do you keep explaining how badly you’ve been treated? Are you trying to get sympathy? This thread is about young girls and boys being raped, tortured, sold, sometimes murdered, but shall we put that aside so we can focus on the time you got stood up at the art gallery? Is that what is most important?
Even before I became a Christian, I never saw the point of maintaining a *let's be friends* relationship with someone I had been romantically involved with.
I could not have the kind of friendship I would want that would not be tainted with the memories of the relationship and the sting of rejection.
I'm with you on that one.