The Dislike of Potential Partners

This will probably be a short one.

There’s one thing I’ve observed in people who have at least somewhat of an interest in experiencing romantic/sexual attraction with another person.

It’s that some people will look at the social group they are attracted to (such as straight men or women) and feel the need to construct a judgmental view of that group as a whole.

And a lot of the time, despite there being physical attraction, it can be a negative judgmental view.

To illustrate what I’m talking about, you can find a man who says he is attracted to women, but also says a whole bunch of negative things about women. A man who, when he’s talking to his friends, insults women, demeans them, says they’re crazy, and views them as annoying people they have to put up with.

You can also witness the same thing with a woman who says she is attracted to men. A woman who belittles men, dehumanizes them, says they’re stupid, and perceives them as irritating people they just have to tolerate.

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When a person like this hears something negative about a man or woman, they’ll ascribe it to the gender as a whole.

They’ll say things, “Yeah bro, that’s just how women are. They can be so crazy, mean, and nasty.” Or, “Yeah sis, that’s just how men are. They can be so dumb, uncaring, and trash.”

This of course also happens with queer people. Gay men complaining about how terrible other gay men. Or lesbians similarly complaining about other lesbians.

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These unfavourable views of the group one is attracted to can also be associated with the friends they choose to have.

A straight woman being real and honest friends with only other women, while saying that men are too awful to be befriended by her.

A straight man having good friends that are exclusively male, claiming that he as a man just can’t truly deal with and be friends with other women.

A gay man who will just have straight women as his best friends, and doesn’t get too close with other gay men

In these cases, a person and their friends can then collectively air their grievances and express their dislike towards the social group they are all attracted to.

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However, it’s atypical for a straight man to experience and hear about a negative thing about another man, and then say, “Yeah men are so terrible, and that’s why I just can’t be friends with them.” Same thing for a straight woman.

Why could that be the case?

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For one, I think it’s obvious that it’s psychologically easier to vilify a group that you’re not a part of, compared to a group you identify with.

When a straight woman sees another straight woman they don’t like or appreciate, she’ll single her out as one bad woman, and it does not really sour her evaluative judgment of straight women as a whole.

Partly because if they did insult women as a whole, they would be insulting themselves and their own identity in the process.

Conversely, when this straight woman sees and thinks of a man they dislike, it’s easier for them to then believe that men are bad as a whole.

This is especially true if most (if not all) of one’s friends are of the same gender, or are of an identity one is not romantically/physically attracted to. A straight woman does not hate women in general because of one or a few women, as they would then be hating their own friends.

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Also, in the case of a straight woman with no real male friends, that means the only time she gets close to a man and relates to one on a deeper level is when she dates one and gets into an intimate relationship.

This leads into the second reason why people can have a negative view of those they are attracted to.

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There are a lot of emotions involved in an intimate relationship, especially if it does not work out in the end. And the experiences in the relationship can greatly influence a person’s general perception of the group they are attracted to.

If a straight man only has male friends and their only genuine connection(s) with women is an intimate relationship (or several) that didn’t work out, it can perpetuate a negative bias towards women.

There are a number of negative feelings one can have after being in a relationship, whether it’s short-term or long-term. Feelings of betrayal. Regret. Unease. Disappointment. Sadness. Anger.

There was likely a lot of complex emotions involved, or even traumatic memories and experiences.

And a person can then associate those things with the group they’re attracted to.

A straight man who has a not-so-good breakup with another woman can go on to say things like, “Yeah women can be so manipulative, emotional, ungrateful, selfish, and mean.”

The man will use the emotional journey he had to go through with the woman to construct a view of all women in general.

This is especially true if he hasn’t had platonic relationships with women. So he cannot personally understand women outside the context of being in an intimate relationship with them. A context in which a man may have suffered emotional hurt or trauma.

The same thing can be said for some straight women. And some for queer men and queer women.

Where experiences in an intimate relationship can cloud a person’s overall judgement or perception of a gender.

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I’m sure it’s clear to the reader that I don’t take this to be a good way to behave or think.

It’s irrational, delusional, and insulting to use experiences with a former partner or partners, which are almost always going to be emotionally complicated, to say disparaging things about an entire gender.

It fails to treat people as individuals with their own strengths and weaknesses.

Just because a person thinks a few individual men or women are morally indecent, it doesn’t mean that every single one of them or even most of them are.

And as mentioned before, a straight man is often able to understand this point in their evaluation of other men, and a straight woman in their evaluation of other women. But, for some people, the issue only really emerges in the evaluation of the group they are personally attracted to.

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Now, one might point out that there may be particular gendered behaviour that is worthy of criticism and derision.

There may be displays of possessiveness, entitlement, aggressiveness, demeaning behaviour, and physical abuse that are more likely to be seen in a straight man.

And there may be displays of manipulation, vindictiveness, backbiting, emotional/verbal abuse, and passive aggressiveness that are more likely to be seen in a straight woman.

Displays that can be due to gender socialization and/or sex differences.

Nevertheless, not every man or woman shows these displays and has such character flaws.

A great number (if not most) of men and women are not terribly immoral people.

Just because there is a form of immoral gendered behaviour that we can speak of, it doesn’t mean that every single man and woman engages in it.

Again, people are individuals, and we should treat them as such. This point should be obvious to the reader, but it’s not clear that everyone takes it as such.

If we didn’t take this point as obvious, we would also be robbing people of their autonomy.

We would be implying that men and women act and think in inappropriate ways simply because of their gender identity. That they almost can’t help themselves.

We would then be trying to escape from the fact that some men and women act in moral ways, and others are individually flawed and should be held accountable for their faults.

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Also, expressing dislike to a gender indiscriminately can act as a way to avoid personal moral responsibility and improvement.

A man or woman may claim that the other group is categorically bad and terrible, and that’s why their intimate relationships haven’t worked out.

These men or women may be just running away from engaging in introspection, recognizing the potential things they did wrong to others, and trying to improve their own behaviour in a meaningful way.

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As I try to conclude here, it is worth mentioning that I’m criticizing the minority of people here.

I’m willing to bet that the majority of men and women don’t overly demonize the opposite gender, especially to a point where they can’t be honest friends with them.

We largely live in a world where men and women are sharing spaces more than ever and building friendships regardless of gender.

The people who vilify the group they are physically and romantically attracted to tend to be people who happen to be friends just with the group they are not attracted to, and/or who irrationally use their limited experience with people of the other gender to construct a general, biased view of them.

I guess one method to deal with these prejudices is to further encourage and facilitate men and women developing honest and real friendships with each other.

So that a person’s relationship with a gender is not exclusively through intimate, emotionally complex relationships/connections.

One can then see there are so many individual qualities to appreciate in people as friends, regardless of gender or sexuality.

There are so many individuals in the world that a person can connect with, get support from, and potentially consider a friend. So many interests, personalities, and life journeys that can mesh well together.

Why restrict oneself based simply on gender and sexuality?