That Rel@tionship Is Long Over (Long) - Update, p. 22

[Arista]

Oh, I know, Drawberry!  I wasn't implying anything re: your post; I just wanted to make it clear that I'm saying this lesson is taught to both genders.  Sorry if I was unclear

[Allyson]

Arista, I totally agree with your posts. Though I do have to say one thing--Twilight actually isn't an example of this trope. The heroine in that immediately and constantly has romantic interest in the male lead--no need for him to convince her. Her friend, who has a crush on her and thinks he can convince her to date him instead because he's better, doesn't end up with her.

I think gender issues often are at play, but in different ways. When a woman does this to a guy, often there's sort of an air of 'all men are interested in at least getting physical with any woman who offers'...a man rejecting a woman is really surprising to some people. There's a woman I know who really has a thing for attached guys, and sometimes even the ones with *no* interest in her will have a really hard time making her back off, as physically rejecting a woman comes off as so much harsher than physically rejecting a guy. Whereas with 'creeps' it's kind of expected that women might push away or slap a guy who grabs at her.

With guys fixating on women they almost always in my experience do the 'nice guy' thing. So there's no physical rejection, just rejecting his 'nice' offers. Sometimes he will be positively compared to the abovementioned creeps--he's not trying to take advantage of her while drunk, or grab her, so she's being 'mean' to not want to date him. I think these are more about social attitudes than anything--men and women can 'get away' with different behaviours, and gender can change perception hugely.

Being friends with exes can work. One of my best friends is my ex. But nearly all the time there needs to be a distance there, at least for awhile. And it pretty much never works if the breakup was very onesided.

[Arista]

Twilight actually isn't an example of this trope. The heroine in that immediately and constantly has romantic interest in the male lead--no need for him to convince her. Her friend, who has a crush on her and thinks he can convince her to date him instead because he's better, doesn't end up with her.

I was iffy about listing it initially, but even though Bella and Jacob didn't end up together, I still think Jacob's character is an example of this trope, because Bella does end up admitting in the 3rd book of the series that she loves him after Jacob guilt-trips her into kissing him, to the point where she could visualize their future together.  Even though her love/infatuation with Edward overrode everything else in her life and she told Jacob multiple times that she was in love with Edward and that would never change, Jacob still wore her down and pushed his case and Bella eventually admitted that "Jacob was right," and THAT is one thing that really got my hackles up about the story -- that Jacob's character wouldn't accept what Bella was telling him but instead he approached it as, "Bella is in love with me too, she just doesn't know it yet, and I need to convince her."  I won't go into which male character I think is better for her because frankly, I would have loved for her to have been single at the end of the story! 

Good point about the gender disparity, Allyson.  I agree that it's seen as harsher for a man to reject a woman than vice versa.  A podcast I listened to once had the hosts (straight males and a straight female) asking each other:  When you're walking down a street, of all the people you see of the opposite gender, what percentage of those strangers on the street would you be physically attracted to enough to agree to a date?  The guys claimed around 75%, the woman, 5%.  If this statistic is reflective of most straight people, then no wonder it seems harsher for a woman to get turned down, and for it to be not as surprising when guys get turned down. 

Bottom line is, no one is obligated to date anyone just because they're asked, and in an ideal world, no one would be subjected to unwanted attention or suffer from unrequited love.  But since we live in reality, we have to equip ourselves with the tools to handle it as best we can. 

Aria, how are you doing?  Has Peter tried to contact you again?

[Drawberry]

A bit off topic, but overall I consider Bella of 'Twilight' fame to be one of the worst characters to any sort of female rights/feminism in recent literature. Putting aside 'Jacob vs Edward' entirely she is truly one of the best examples of reverse feminism to gain major popularity in our culture :/ in a way it seems strange to me to compare the two leading males to one another then there's so much wrong in the lead female that could be discussed.