This Viral Reddit Post Caused A Gender War As Men And Women Interpret It Differently

A viral relationship post on Reddit has once again fueled the online gender wars, with men and women interpreting a "compliment" in completely different ways.

The original post comes from a 28-year-old woman who shared her attempt to butter up her boyfriend of two and a half years, only for it to backfire terribly. She tried to compliment him during a night of drinking, saying he was someone she would marry. "I tried to compliment him by saying he is not someone who I would hookup or be a fwb with but marry," she wrote.

Her boyfriend became visibly upset: "I thought everything was fine but he seemed extremely distraught after that," she said.

"I realized how he understood it and tried to clarify it but he is still the same this morning. He told me he needs space to think for a while and left the house," she continued. "All my friends tell me I messed it up and guys tell me it’s not a compliment and most men will understand it differently. I think I destroyed our relationship and I am panicking right now."

Some girls are confused by this situation. She said he was hubby material – isn't that a good thing? Meanwhile, lots of men are siding with the boyfriend. As an X/Twitter user (@NamelessCoder) explained, "This means she doesn’t find him sexually attractive yet would still marry him. It means she’d marry someone she basically doesn’t find attractive, for safety (financial, emotional, whatever). A transactional relationship, not love."

@KonstantinKisin added, "It's simple: a man wants to be your everything. The act of comparison itself is an insult. What a man wants to hear is that all the other men in the world are so unworthy of your attention that you didn't even notice them enough to compare them to him."

At the same time, I get where the Redditor is coming from. She probably thought the comment emphasized that he's marriage material and not just a quick fling she'll never see again. But men want to feel sought after sexually and physically. "The bad boy is typically the hot, sexy one who takes the girl on adventures. Saying he’s the one she would marry but not hookup with is saying he’s the 'boring, safe one who’d never cheat not because he’s virtuous but because he’s ugly,'" tweeted @BritMartinez. "That’s why it’s an insult."

It’s easy to see how he was hurt when you put it that way. To him, it could sound like she doesn’t find him sexually attractive, that he's a sort of safety net – a hard pill to swallow in any relationship. Several women in the comments defended the Redditor, arguing that she was simply trying to express that their connection goes beyond physical attraction. Others said he was too emotional or called him a "crybaby."

Likewise, @Philosophi_Cat believes that the negative reactions from men in the comments reveal deep-seated insecurities. "The responses to this are so revealing. A hookup is someone who is a throwaway person to you, who is only good for one night of 'fun' and who you don’t really care to see again. Someone you want to marry is not someone you begin a relationship with by treating them like a throwaway," she argued.

"But a lot of the men in the comments believe this indicates the woman isn’t sexually attracted to him and only wants him for his 'resources' (as if women aren’t perfectly capable of having their own resources in this day and age). The kind of men who buy into that sort of narrative are almost exclusively 1) men who have had little success in relationships, either in forming them or maintaining them, and 2) men who are insecure about their own sexual attractiveness to women. They project their own sexuality onto women."

"For these men, being found sexuality attractive is the most important thing because it’s what they are most insecure about. It’s also the primary (and sometimes only) way in which they value women," she added. "And because they are men who are unsuccessful in relationships, they are the type of men who are the least likely to understand what makes women tick. Men who are successful at long term relationships tend to understand women far better than men who struggle to attract and keep women."

But isn’t the Redditor’s comment similar to when a man tells a woman she’s not just the "hit it and quit it" type but would make a great mother? Case in point: Men and women often live in completely different worlds, and being a grounded person with strong communication skills would probably resolve these misunderstandings.

As @hollowearthterf hilariously illustrated in a scenario with a healthy, loving couple:

Girl: “You’re not someone I would hookup with, but marry.”

Guy: “So you wouldn’t be interested in hooking up with me if we met in a bar or something?”

Girl: “Sorry, no! That came out wrong. I would immediately be attracted to you! I mean that I couldn’t just have you for a single night and never see you again, I want to be with you forever.”

Guy: “I want to be with you forever too.” (proposes soon because it’s been 2.5 years and they’re 28).

And they lived happily ever after. The end.

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