I wanna put in a word for the manipulative friendzone guys. I've often hit it off with a girl, taken my shot and been rejected, then denied her request to remain friends. The key misunderstanding here is that this is not a ploy to gain anything from her. The girls I end up falling for are awesome people who I'd love to be friends with. However, I can't, for my own mental health. I can't see this person and vibe with them and constantly think, I want more from them. This is not a sexual desire (tho it can be too), it's a deeply romantic one. It's not that I pretended to be your friend to get to have sex. The friendship was genuine, feelings arose, and now I need more and can't continue like this. There is no ultrerior motive, this is just the sad facts

I went to a gender segregated school and a family of all women. I'm in my 40s now and realizing the subtle ways I never learned to see men as people. We were taught to see men, instead as just provider-aggressor-objects to seek out to fill some missing puzzle piece in a fantasy vision sold to us. It's fascinating to think about all the ways the segregation causes this on either side.

As a lesbian, asking girls out made me respect men. That shit is SCARY.

When you are rejected by all strangers, every rejection becomes an affirmation on all your internalized negative feelings

I think the reason men feel rejected when asking out a girl has nothing to do with actual rejection but is more to do with the vulnerability that comes with admitting you like someone in a potentially platonic or romantic way. I think that's what a lot of the other comments want Anita to understand. Edit: Coming from a girl who asked her boyfriend out and found it bloody scary.

In reference to men being afraid of rejection, as someone with a relatively healthy emotional vocabulary, and who has been very scared of rejection, it's definitely not always about the "No". The "No" hurts, sure, but a lot of the fear is the what ifs around it. If it's a friend, what if it destroys the friendship? If it's someone you know through others, how will that hurt your relationship with them? It should be easy. "Hey, I like you." "Aight, cool. I don't, not like that." "Ok. Not the response I wanted but that's fine. Wanna play some mario kart?" but there's so much AROUND that that it's a lot of feedback and noise overriding that simple process. In my experience, fear almost always stems from a want to avoid losing something. Losing the friend. Losing the fantasy you've built up in your head. Losing your social group that you've built up. Or, in the case of fear of rejection approaching someone in a bar or whatever, sure people want to get their way, but it's also the potential reactions. Do they make a scene? Logically, no they won't but they MIGHT. Do other people around give you shit? Do your friends think less of you?

I think what Dr K was trying to piece together towards the end there was: to men, the door to a relationship with a woman they've never met is always open initially, and women saying that the door is closed is the rejection. To women, the door is initially closed, and therefore they can only reject guys if they have let him through the door first!

On the topic of getting rejected by strangers, I think a lot of men have the idea that women will say yes to a man who is a complete stranger if he has the looks, height or status she desires. So if a strange woman rejects him, in his mind what she's saying is "you're too ugly, short and low value for me".

Here’s my theory on the rejection problem. Because men get taught a lot less about feelings and communication they actually end up being a lot more sensitive to these types of things, so if a man goes up to a woman in the supermarket and he gets rejected, it’s taken extremely personally and is a massive hit on their self-worth. The first thoughts in his head in that situation won’t be “She doesn’t know me so it doesn’t matter”, it’s “I’m not strong/attractive enough, I am bad at speaking, my social anxiety is getting in the way” etc.

I grew up in a household that was mostly female dominated. I had to put up with a lot of blame for being male because of the shortcomings of my father. I basically had do be the surrogate father figure for my three younger sisters afther my parents divorced when I was 9 years old. Being the only outlet for my mother's dissappointment in men, I took the brunt of demeaning comments from her. I was basically raised with the assumption that I was not fit to be with a girl/ woman ever, because I was a male and male equals bad - a disaster waiting to happen. This was mostly achieved through comparing me to my father (even though I don't share those bad traits with him) after hearing for years what kind of bad person my father was. My own feelings ended up being neglected, since showing feelings or lashing out was considered to be a proof, that I would be failing and endig up like my father. I had my first girlfriend with 29 - including my first kiss. Up until then I just believed, that relationships are a thing that others do, something that was never meant for me. I went through that "friendzone" bullsh*t during my teenage years, something that reinforced the notion that I was not worthy. I am off my third relationship for a year now and I still tense up when I meet a woman I consider a "possible match", even if it is CLEAR that she is not available. I think - in my case - that is because I grew up with the belief that women are above me. That I, as a man, have to be pleasant an perfect and flawless. And once I am confronted with the slightest possibility that I could be with that woman I get anxious. Because I KNOW I am going to fail. For many years, I was terrified of being rejected. This has somewhat shifted from fear towards resignation. I AM going to be rejected no matter what, since I am inadequate. I know intellectually that this is not true but I still can't shake this feeling.

You know, I sat and listened to the best of my ability. The part that resonated with me was not being able to differentiate signals with friendly interactions. I have experienced this more times than I'd care to admit. I by default assume if someone wants to be around me that they're doing so because they want to be friends. I never assume sexual intent. I've missed. So. Many. Signals. Where women have retro actively asked me why I never made a move. I've been invited to stay the night at female friends houses. Not understanding the implication of what they mean when staying the night. Slept on couches when a bed has been offered. Stepped out of rooms when someone has started to change in front of me. And brushed off invitations of dates as hang outs with the homies. I just assumed it was cause they were comfortable around me - and knew I wouldn't do anything that the offers were being made - NOT - that they were trying to drop a hint.

taking rejection personally: it's easy to start to take rejection personally when you say "hi" to a girl and their response is "ew, gross".

To add onto the question of, "How can you get rejected if they don't even know you?" You have to take into account how some people make entire character assumptions about you, way before you're even in talking distance. Hell, back in grade school people assumed I was a school shooter simply because I was a dude who didn't talk much and wore a hoodie. It's not until they knew me that they realized all of their assumptions were baseless. Now imagine if you want to go make friends with someone or ask them out, and before they've even heard you speak, they label you as a school shooter. You could perhaps see how you're already rejected before even being known.

Please bring back interview style videos like this more often again!! I miss when you use to do these consistently! They're always great convos!!💚

As a woman, i feel like she assumes a LOT of things about these specific kinds of men... I liked the conversation in the beginning because she was explaining how these revenge porn and deep fakes can feel for the victim, but at the end i feel like she gets angry at men who cannot communicate like "a normal person" and therefore asks for advice and men who gets bitchy about being friend zoned and what not. (I do agree, there is no "zone" to be put in, you start out a friend and it either evolves or stays as is. You can start out as a romantic option but you will be well aware and in this case you'd probably not go "down" to being a friend if it doesn't work out afterwards) I do think the constructive conversation turned sour there as she could not understand the "other side" and how hard it can be for both men and women to talk to the opposite sex regardless of romantic feelings or not. The feelings of rejections in seemingly small conversations that SHOULD NOT matter, but for these people DO MATTER, is a huge problem that many people i know born in the 90'ies have or do struggle with.. I struggled talking to any guys that didn't approach me and start the conversation, even in school projects i struggled talking to the boys in the group, not because of romantic opportunities, but because i was afraid of rejection, being told to do my part of the project alone because i had nothing in common with them.. And they where all very nice people! I have adult male friends today that struggle to get a partner because they don't know how to interact with females. They don't have many hobbies and therefore do not meet women nor have anything in common with the girls they meet.. It can happen the other way around too, i have a couple of female friends, that are or where in relationships with a guy where they had nothing in common with, it often end too because its hard to find something to do together if you cannot dig into the other persons hobbies. I hope you guys and gals out there, who feel worthless and hopeless knows that you are good enough! You are worth being with, your hobbies are fun! You "just" need to find someone who shares the hobby or want to listen in or even try it out because they like YOU for YOU, and its not easy, i know, but get out there, have fun, enjoy life, do your hobbies, along the way you might find that special someone

Fear of rejection is not about loss of value, its about loss of hope.

Getting rejected based upon a perceived lack of initial interest is still rejection. That’s how dating apps work. I think it should still be understood as something that can be entirely harmless. Hell, this has fueled the creation of art.

As a woman, I can agree with a lot of what she has said. HOWEVER, I also feel that she has clutched into her belief and her specific experience that she has now done the same thing. It seems that she cannot see a man as anything more than someone who wants her, or some other woman. I would also like to know, how she approaches someone that she’s attracted to, and would like to ask out. Because all people have transactional experiences with others. In fact, any person who has been in a committed, live-in relationship has made some transactions with their partner.

I love it how Dr. K take this as a learning experience for himself as well to better connect and understand people

21:20 I absolutely LOVE this point by Anita. The idea that men are undersexualized and women are oversexualized. And then that men and women hear about each other's experiences (men never getting the attention they want and women getting all of the attention they DON'T want) and can't empathize with each other, I love this so much. I've had this thought kicking around in my head for a long time that each sex has what the other sex wants. Men want attention and women want to be left alone.

Something about Anita's attitude about rejection did not sit right with me. She came off as not being able to understand men's experience of rejection. You could tell by her facial expressions when Dr. K tried to push back that she didn't really want to take it seriously why someone would be really hurt by being rejected sexually. It's not a personal failure of mine if i can't maintain a carefree attitude about rejection, as she apparently can, because i am not her. Much like i can't just wish my depression away and be like a person who does not suffer from depression. There is nothing wrong with my intelligence, and i've tried many times to try to convince my subconscious to not "fear" rejection by different means, even talk therapy. Doesn't work like that.

I honestly believe that some people lack or lost compassion because at one point in their life (or a constant experience), they were hurting and no one gave a f**k. The world treated them like sh*t, so they learned to treat other people like sh*t. It's not too late to change that, life is filled with RNG and those same people could've just asked emotional support from level 100 narcissists (hopefully they also change/d). I hope they find their compassion again. Really missed these long-form content creator interview content, what a tasteful treat!

I think im in the minority when i say i really appreciate her unfiltered view of how she sees friendzoning. The fact that she made me feel uncomfortable and frustrated by her explanation only helped me get a broader perspective that everyones views on the world differ greatly and that despite my biases i was somehow able to see it from her perspective while also dissagreeing heavily. Especially as a guy, I could not relate to a single one of her feelings.

Not sure why it's so difficult to understand that it is intimate for men to share their feelings. We are very selective about it, because we expect ourselves to be strong , someone who can provide support instead of needing it. So when we do it, understand that this is special and rare, nothing like the way women do it. And we do not want our problems to be shared around by someone we confided our deepest thoughts in.

46:34 "Sleep with me or I dump you as a friend". She seems to grossly misunderstand what's going on with that "dump you as a friend" thing. It's not like the dude is "just waiting for her to sleep with him" or considered her a waste of time unless she slept with him. The thing is, you can't be friends with someone you're romantically interested in. Hanging out with someone who doesn't reciprocate your feelings is painful. Hanging out with someone you're in love with, but can't get involved with romantically is painful. Hanging out with someone you're in love with, but they see other people is painful. Once you fall in love with a woman, it really is a choice between a romantic relationship or nothing. That doesn't mean a man considered you a waste of time or that he only hung out with you because he hoped for sex. You're not entitled to someone else's friendship, ffs.

This got me thinking... When she said that it's not normal to see a person and immediately get scared of rejection when thinking about talking to them... I thought about how it feels when you see an potential client, or a potential business partner. You get scared of rejection in the same manner because that person has something you want, and you're afraid that if you fail to convince them, then you'll have lost any future chance of getting what you want from that specific person. And since every woman is a different mostly unique package, then the anxiety gets even higher, because you'll have lost any chance to "get" that specifically unique "product or service". Since no one can offer exactly the same. I mean, it's the same feeling. And it's scary, because you're so focused on what you want... that you don't care at all about what the other person wants. You're not thinking about how you can serve that client or enrich that woman's personal life experience. You're wholly focused on "how can I extract what I want out of this person", and that is frankly a shitty way to do business or approach relationships. I mean, we all despise that salesman-kind of attitude that's just trying to manipulate you into giving them your money, to manipulate you into saying "yes". And I imagine, for many women it's exactly like that.

I always wanted to be a friend with someone first, before dating her. I've sort of had the opposite problem with women not understanding that I would be open to dating them if they would bother to be my friend first.

I think what she doesn't realize is that the primary reason that these guy's feel and behave this way is because the believe/were taught that love is transactional. "If I want any girl to like me I have to somehow become worthy of liking by doing xyz" is exactly what someone thinks when they don't think they are inherently deserving of love. I think some of this is from parenting issues, some of this is from early rejections in childhood traumatizing them, some of this for me was that people (girls and guys) often used me for various things and I learned that the only way to socialize with people was to let them use me and as a reverse I tried to use them back so it wasn't just people walking over me. Almost none of these behaviors are caused by inherent evil or often even malicious intentions. Their usually a mix of bad parenting, trauma, bad examples, and they are never taught how to live

Hah, I love how he immediately rejected the idea that you cannot be rejected without being known. Anita, approaching someone and even several meters away without even saying a word, being greeted by the hardest eye-roll and the most annoyed look known to mankind is not exactly confidence boosting. Being (non verbaly) told I am not even worth a human greeting is some hardcore rejection. Edit: keep in mind, if you actually choose someone to shoot your shot at, you 1. noticed something you liked about that person 2. you have a goal, it's insanely hard not to have hopes and dreams about how that is going to go. expectation -> suffering It takes a lot of introspection to get over that. It's not by default.

Something that stands out to me in this expression of how things are happening in Anita's perspective is an attribution of intent. Nobody but the person doing the act can explain the intent behind an action. Intent is an internalized expression of will. For Anita to say that someone's intent was X, Y, or Z without them coming out and saying it in those terms is a false attribution of intent, which is no different than lying about intent. If Anita is going to express any intent, she should stick to her own. She can speak of her own feelings, of her own experiences, or repeat explicit quotes from people claiming intent, but it's bad form to put words in someone else's mouth.

So. What we have. Most men can't find a girlfriend. Most men don't even have a chance to find a girl or go on a date. On the other hand, even the most terrible girl can easily find a partner for sex and dating. Then someone hurts you there. Who does this? Maybe you are hurting yourself with your choices?

I (female) actually started finding a way to sneak in that I have a boyfriend in the first 5 minutes with just about any guy. Not like, "I have a boyfriend," but like "O yeah my boyfriend loves that video game."

I am confused and do not understand why so many commenters are saying she's so intelligent or insightful. What I've heard is a bit of her contradicting herself while making sweeping generalizations of men. She seems well-intentioned and passionate, but unable to fathom that her opinion or assumption might be wrong, or even that what she's saying is an opinion or assumption. Women and men go through life with a variety of struggles. Most struggles overlap while some fall to one side or the other or vary in degree. The best we can do is seek to understand, empathize, and support. Somewhere in the rise of absurd manosphere and toxic feminist circles, we've lost sight of the fact that the only way to win is to play in coop mode.

There is a separate type of friendzone that gets rarely talked about: Those who for some reason are unable to clearly express their interest in someone, and instead, send out the wrong signals, signals of a platonic friendship. Those people don't feel entitled to the other person's genitals, they do view the other person as a person, but feel miserable, because it seems to them as if no one is interested in them romantically, and/or they feel miserable because they feel that something is wrong with _them_, but can't find out what exactly. This can be heartbreaking and soul-crushing. These people aren't assholes; rather, they need someone to talk to. But often, they are also loners who have trouble connecting with people in general. The best remedy is a friend who for example watches them when they try to approach someone who they are romantically interested with. The feedback they get from that friend can then be eye-opening. One example for a wrong signal is that they just never clearly ask that person out for a date, and rather, just talk about hanging out, going shopping etc. - stuff that friends do. These people then often are unaware that they are doing this, so a friend who then tells them "you should have asked him/her out directly" would help out so much.

It's funny how many people forgets to see the opposite gender as just people

This is an interesting interview to listen to. As a woman, for me personally I would prefer to have feelings develop by getting to know each other. I want someone to value me for more than my looks, because as we age we will eventually lose the things that people may have found attractive initially. Friendship is a good basis that can lead to more. If a man is upfront about his romantic desires from day 1, I do appreciate that honesty but if they have not known me it's difficult for me to get something started so soon. In addition, a lot of these men who approached me about love had done so with a lot of extremely negative undertones of desperation and unrealistic expectations. Desperation adds pressure, which kills attraction for me. And expectations can result in disappointments. One spoke poorly about his ex girlfriend and was talking of ways to take revenge, or prove her wrong, which I am not here for. If he speaks poorly about an ex in such a way, I'd fear he would treat me with such vengefulness or bitterness as well. Negativity is fine to a certain extent, unless there are indicators this may be harmful for future relationships too. Key thing is pacing, I have spoken to women guilty of the above as well. I overshare too soon and lose opportunity to make friends because of that. Treat each other you like as you would a friend, build it up slowly over time, and it will increase chances. I'd definitely be attracted to a man who shows me their hobbies, I show mine, we spend time on activities and make our talks personal as time progresses.

Anita: "you can't be rejected until the person knows you" Anita: "i don't date people i dont ask out" The dichotomy of expecting people not to expect things beyond or outside of friendship ever but predicating the idea of rejection or acceptance itself not existing until someone is intimately close, before even starting a relationship is probably the source of friendzones

I appreciate Anita and always enjoyed her interviews, but I feel like in this interview particularly there have been some great overgeneralizations and even dangerous assumptions in my opinion. For example, I feel like it's a dangerous message to send to women that they shouldn't go to the police after being SA'ed because 'the police will do background checks on you and try to discredit you', and while this happens in some places in the world (Japan for example is notoriously bad at handling these cases), it's inaccurate to say that this is always how it is. Another example is with the idea that when a woman does OnlyFans or pornography and then becomes a teacher, that she gets fired immediately. This is true, but it is equally true to male porn stars. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that society sees men (unlike women)'s sexuality as a dangerous thing, and so nobody could convince me that if the school's management found out that Mr.Smith also goes by "Bob the Gangbanger", that they would not immediately fire them on the spot. I understand that this is how she feels, and after what she went through I can't even blame her for feeling this way, but I would be lying if I said that I feel like a lot of her arguments felt somewhat one-sided and should at the very least be challenged. Again, not trying to invalidate her experiences or how she feels, but something about the way things were being said bothered me.

I'm not deep in this yet but Anita Sarkissian did not "just review" games. This is just such a disingenuous statement. Not to justify any harassment she may have experienced, but the backlash against her was definitely not without merit.

As an attractive 25 year old man, I have found that being a safe and respectful person towards women in every possible way allows the people around me to put their guards down. And it is from this unguarded position tends to flip the script. Women who like me approach me and let me know and can even sometimes treat me in ways that would typically make a girl uncomfortable if a man treated her in the same way. A way to shortcut this is to walk through the world in respect to whoever you'll end up with in the end of it all. Why waste time trying to manipulate someone else into intimacy when they have no desire to be intimate with you already? Just love yourself as if that person who wants you is already there and wants the best for you.

Agh the compliment thing is so real. I come from a toxic family and kids being nice to me at school used to boggle my mind lol.

The problem with Anita's perception of regection is that she both rejects and is being rejected. For quite a lot of men it's simply not the case. You just get rejected and you feel like there's no other way to get a date (even if you don't like her)

Lack of understanding or awareness about why something is considered offensive doesn't justify disrespectful behavior towards someone.

Isnt it normal to not wanna be friends with someone who rejected you? I mean I don't wanna be friends, I wanna be together but since you don't want that this relationship is done. Would be to hurtful to be with a girl you actually like knowing nothing can happen between you. Guys aren't entitled to romantic relationship with a girl just because he likes her And Girls aren't entitled to a friendship with a guy who they have rejected.

Rejection is subjective and often tied to prior insecurities. It's amazing that Anita has reached the point of personal growth whereas rejection doesn't project her value as a person for her, but that doesn't deny the feelings that another person might feel when denied a conversation etc. She is in no way responsible for that at all - but at the same time you can't decide what rejection is and isn't as it's up to each individual person. A man being nervous to start a conversation doesn't have to be that he wants to get in her pants, it might just be that he wants to be seen, to be interesting enough or be worth the time.

It is a pretty wild assumption from Anita that men who are her friends and then ask for sex/romantic interactions had those all along and where just hiding them instead i the possibility that the men may have developed those feelings DURING THE FRIENDSHIP.

People use the term friend too loosely.

She's very smart, and very articulate. She's very blind to her own biases and how she's projecting her traumas, and her own lack of empathy.

It's easy to get over rejection and be ''mature'' when you've actually been told ''yes'' at any point in life. If you've only gotten ''no''-s, you can't not internalize that.

I feel a lot of resentment coming from this person, who has probably had a lot of bad experiences with men, so it's probably understandable, but I still get a knot in my stomach listening to her.

Omg the part about the friendzone where Anita says men think she is coming onto them just because she is doing baseline friend things was mindblowing. Made me realize I used to think that too of some of my female friends too (and I am gay).

I've been REALLY HOPING you'd do these interviews again cause it's how I've found your channel and it's always really insightful. Thanks so much for reaching out to a creator to speak on this! 🖤🦇

Anita generalizes men the EXACT same way some red pill groups generalize women. This is the toxicity that makes dating miserable for everyone. We need to address both sides, that's what Dr. K does well.

Thank You for bringing the interviews back!! Combining real world examples/issues with the wisdom of Dr. K is good content.

Fun thing I’ve learned from experience is that even if my feelings are not mutual, so long as the others don’t feel uncomfortable about still maintaining friendships…sometimes that’s made the friendship waaaay better. Now I don’t need to worry about some feelings getting in the way of friendship.

i love the lectures but this style of video is where dr ks channel really shines. more like this pls!

The lack of empathy around friend/fuck-zoning is so frustrating to me, because it seems like both sides can very clearly articulate how it feels from their side, not realising that the experience of the other side is fundamentally very similar. Person A has an expectation of what their connection with person B should result in, but person B doesn't want that, so person A feels hurt/disappointed/rejected. Neither person is entitled to anything from the other: the man is not entitled to the woman's affection/love/sex, and the woman is not entitled to the man's time/friendship.

I made an edit below, if you relate please read it. I think a key part of not putting girls in the fuck zone is being aware that you’re romanticizing women. I used to do that, now I don’t. The problem is, when I stopped doing that I inadvertently killed off my feelings for romance entirely. I learned it’s not something I wanted, it’s something I did in the hope for love when all I want is to be able to be seen as a vulnerable man and accepted. Being romantic (when dating) was a performance with an intended outcome, not a genuine expression. So killing off the part of me that romanticizes women has kind of killed off a lot of dating for me because now I see it as jumping through hoops as opposed to something I enjoy. I don’t know how to fix this, if I should, or if I’m just aromantic or something. I’m still trying to date, but it’s harder because I’m not interested in playing a traditional role. I don’t want to pay for dinners, or protect anyone, or any of that traditional gibberish. I want genuine expressions that I emotionally connect to, or nothing. Edit 3/9 I learned that what I am is called “Gender Non-conforming.” I found out there’s a whole section of some dating apps full of people who feel like I do. If you relate, maybe check it out. I barely even read the google definition and instantly knew it’s how I’ve felt the whole damn time.

This was one of my favorite talks y’all have put on this channel. Anita is so kind and knowledgeable, and Dr. K just reciprocates and builds on that, making for such a great dynamic and creating insightful discussion.

On the idea of fear of rejection, a lot could be tied to the fact that men are the ones who initiates in most times. usually to strangers. And when you see a stranger, looks is all you can go for. So essentially a no feels like "you dont look like a person worthy of my time" which can trigger all kinds of insecurities. Another thing is that I found it wierd hw she seemed mad, or atleast upset, about guys asking how to be better with women. As if wanting someone you like to like you back is somehow a bad thing.

"What about your experience does not translate into empathy for men who are afraid of getting rejected?"

What Sweet Anita said about a lot of men not having basic friendship skills is painfully true. My husband and I were talking about this and he admitted that his relationships with his male friends are very surface level with very little emotional support. The things me and my female friends are willing to share would be seen as "gay" with his friends, when it's just basic support.

At around 1:14:39 she asks how can you reject someone before knowing them. And I think the answer should have been, that rejecting someone immediately is rejecting the outer appearance and not the inner self. If someone knew you then rejected you, they rejected the true you. So it’s sort of like a defense mechanism.

When Dr K mentions that a lot of men are decent men the eye roll "if you say so" type expression Anita gave bugs me. I cannot tell if its because of her T or if she was emoting that she doesn't agree but isn't willing to argue the point.

I hope I can offer some perspective on the friendzone thing from a male perspective. I’m not saying these feelings or things are right but this is the truth I have come to see from my own experiences being friendzoned and other guys I know. I often hear people say men and women can’t be platonic friends. I don’t think that’s true, however I think it is very difficult for men and women to be friends after romantic feelings develop. This can happen at any time, whether immediately or over the course of time. I completely understand the feelings that Anita was saying here and how it could feel that way… I don’t think most guys are good at articulating what we feel when we are friendzoned, so a guy saying it was a “waste of time” may mean that, or it may mean that he is just hurt in that moment, or that in hindsight it feels that way right now, because selfishly you didn’t get the outcome you wanted. This gets into the core of what I want to say. As guys, when we get rejected it feels like failure, period. Idk if this is right or wrong, but it is true for most guys. So continuing to hang around something or someone that constantly reminds you of that “failure” is very difficult. You feel hopeless and dejected seeing that person that you had hopes of something more with. I need to detour here and say no doubt some guys are way too fickle about this kind of thing. If you’re heartbroken over a girl not reciprocating feelings when you haven’t known them very long then that’s on you. Especially if you don’t know them at all, because at that point you were just objectifying them. On the flip side, if you two were truly friends and then over time you developed feelings for the other person (which like they said in the video, most guys latch on to any sort of emotional support) then there is a real pain there that has to be addressed. I’ll end by saying this (once again this is the male perspective at least as far as I can see it). If me being around you, and spending time with you, and getting to be friends and closer to you is what caused me to become interested in you romantically, then at the very least I need some time away to process and just be apart from you because if we continue forward like nothing ever happened, it will either be very hard or impossible for me to move on. I wish we were strong enough to just say okay and immediately put any romantic feelings we had to rest, but it isn’t that easy unfortunately. Most guys need some time away to move on… and in a sense that friendship at least as it was before is dead. That’s not to say we don’t care about you, in fact that’s usually the opposite of the case. But it’s very hard for us to be around you with unrequited feelings. If there was a true friendship there and he does care about you for who you are, then he’ll eventually come back around and you two can be friends again as long as neither of you were stupid and said things you didn’t mean when the rejection happened. But don’t think that in every case just because the guy needs some time away that all he saw you as was something to have sex with, because a lot of times that isn’t the case. (Sometimes it is though, and for that I am sorry) It’s definitely an ego thing at least in part but given enough time we can get over it. Edit: TLDR: just because a guy isn’t immediately interested in being friends after you friendzone him doesn’t always mean he was only after you for sex or trying to manipulate you.

Anita seems really smart and thoughtful and has very well-thought out opinions but I think that also gives her a bit of a blind spot empathizing with the people who don't see things the way she does. I'm not a guy but I totally understand why they'd be afraid of rejection. And honestly it can almost be worst being rejected by someone who doesn't know you because it feels like they didn't even give you a chance and you're just being rejected based on your appearance or something else you can't change and that hurts. Whereas if it's someone who does know me, then they probably have a good reason to think we wouldn't be compatible and usually it's pretty obvious if someone is interested in you or not before you even get to that point anyway. I'm a lesbian and honestly it can be very demoralizing trying to find women to date so I feel for these guys, I've been single for like 5 years too and it's rough, because it can really hurt to feel like you're not good enough for anyone over and over again, often without even being given a chance.

I think a key misunderstanding here is that these feelings aren’t always there when you first meet. I have met girls before that I was totally platonic with and became friends. Then as I got to know them a bit better, I started to appreciate them more and developed romantic feelings. There was no ulterior motive there and I wasn’t hiding my feelings because I legitimately wasn’t interested in them at first. It was only over time that I started to think about them in that way. I think in this type of situation it’s best to acknowledge those feelings and have a conversation with your friend about it as soon as possible

Really awesome discussion. Anita has a way of explaining things. She put a couple of things into a new perspective for me, so my understanding has deepened a bit, and expanded to other things that pertain or relate. She is really quite remarkable ; her experiences have not crippled her, they seem to have fortified her.

Her concept of the friend zone is odd... she's implying that people cannot grow feelings for each other by getting to know each other more and supporting each other and going through experiences. She's assuming you immediately like someone and if you get feelings down the line or build attachment you are manipulative and a bad person.

I’ve been dating women for 3 years now. I don’t think Anita understands what it’s like being constantly rejected by women. Just like on a daily basis. For incomprehensible reasons or no reason at all. Having had a wonderful date where you seemingly have everything in common. Having to summon the energy and enthusiasm to keep trying over and over because so few femmes wanna make the first move. I mean my first gf dumped me because I once wore perfume she was allergic to. I got rejected a few times when I was dating guys but it’s like 10000x more frequent and intense with girls!!!!

Good luck Anita! May your samskaras be digested and may you have your space of joy with relationships that you deserve. And thank you for talking about these here, hopefully this leads to better understanding amongst everyone. 🙏🏻

I just want to speak on Anita's thoughts on a guy across the room working up the courage to talk to her. The way she explains it, it just sounds so blissfully emotionally straight forward. For me at least pretty women elicit a strong feeling of apprehension in me that I have a psychologically have a need to overcome. To then approach a woman despite the fear elicits a feeling of triumph over my internal state. It's almost a form of therapy to work through deep feelings of inadequacy in the presence of women. And to that extent it is not fair to treat women as therapeutic objects to overcome my deep-seeded personal issues.

The unique challenge with men is that they are people who desire physical intimacy and romantic affection but are without the strategies and tools in order to satisfy them. What’s frustrating is hearing the shame, insults, and guilt hurled at men without offering any solutions aside from platitudes such as, “be yourself,” or, “confidence is key.” Critikal/Penguinz is especially guilty of this. You want men to do better and then continuously chastise men for even trying. How else does someone learn aside from trial and error? On top of not having a viable source of information to learn the social skills that would resolve much of this. Then when women get together with men who are the complete opposite of the typically afflicted “nice guy syndrome.” It’s send mixed signals and feels like a crapshoot, which in turn creates more A-holes. Combine that with this overarching pernicious attitude towards men from law, culture, media, and so on. It’s as if men are caught between a rock and hard place. Dammed if you do and dammed if you don’t. It’s hard to empathize with a group of people (women) who are privileged with the sort of attention men want. B/c pretty privilege can take you pretty damn far. The majority of men cannot do this and have to develop a skill to receive this sort of recognition. It’s nice to hear some level of empathy from Anita. Most gestures like this are paltry by comparison. As for the rejection thing. Men don’t know you from a hole in the wall at first. All there is go on is how you look. The thing is the more a man is attracted to a woman the more invested they are in the outcome of the interaction. This results in men overthinking, future pacing, and hindering their ability to be confident, socially flexible, and spontaneous. An equitable scenario would be for women to place themselves in the position of sales. Each call feels as if it’s do or die with someone who looks about as friendly as a prisoner with money and it’s the salesperson’s last chance of keeping their job and paying their bills. That’s how it feels like for men. All. The. Time.

I think what Anita said about rejection and the guy not knowing her and only desiring her on physical levels is right in a way. At the same time, I think it's a little off. It's not necessarily about being rejected as a person, for who you are, but about the chance of getting to know that person being rejected for reasons outside of one's understanding or grasp. For someone with rewarding friendships and a healthy social life, this would usually be fine *however* because many guys are often lonely or undersocialised being denied the chance to even get to know someone is saddening and can contribute to a kind of learned helplessness. It really strikes me as a non-intentional vicious circle :/

I find these videos with Sweet Anita to be the most interesting on the channel. You have two people with vast amounts of knowledge and information from two different perspectives that ask questions and give productive, well-articulated, and incredibly informative responses. This is the kind of civilized, productive discourse that is missing from society, and watching these actually makes me feel like some progress is being made to at least try to get viewers to understand the major problems in our society and give them some food for thought for coming up with solutions.

Honestly, this video and these perspectives have been so enlightening. Thank you both for the great talk!

"The stigma of female sexuality" part resonated with me. There's plenty more where that came from, sadly, and oftentimes comes directly from our mothers, aunts, sisters, friends. Unfortunately, we women also keep that stigma going

Really happy to see another interview. I feel like there are so many good and varied lessons to learn from these, more so than the one off solo topic videos.

Something that's really interesting psychologically is how little her tics are happening throughout this conversation. I would assume its a sign of how passionate and engaging the conversation was.

Great video. Would love to see more interviews!

Utterly fascinating conversation. Thanks for having Anita on! 👍👍👍

One thing about the friendzone, as someone who was put into it by my first .... well, love, I guess, is that it doesn't always happen just by completely platonic interaction. In my case, we went on dates, kissed, made out, she sent me a postcard at one time when I was on vacation, saying how she misses me and spending time with me was "magical" (which is indeed something I still remember because even almost 20 years later, nobody has EVER said something like that to me again, even across multiple relationships). Then at some point she told me she just liked me as a friend and didn't want to lead me on. Well excuse me, woman! If that was you not wanting to lead me on, I shudder to think what it would look like to have you actually interested in someone. So yeah.... while I do understand the case of complete and utter loners mistaking basic human kindness as a sign of romantic attraction, there are certainly also cases of actual attraction that somehow didn't seem to be enough for whatever reason. So I daresay the topic is probably fairly nuanced, and there are people on both sides who cause an issue by their sheer cluelessness or indecision...

This conversation was so enlightening the perspective of Sweet Anita made me understand so much in regard of aproaching girls and rejection and how ugly it can feel to them that I go to them whit a whole lot of fear or anxiety because I'm trying to get something out of them (wheter conciously or unconciously) , in this case a date. But the fact that I´m feeling such an intens pressure for some one whom I don´t know a thing about and who doesn´t Know me , KNOW makes no sense to me. There is so much brillance in this conversation but that part just clicked so hard in my mind. It is always an interesting and content packed conversation when Dr. K talks to Annita, It's so cool!

This video reminded me of a conversation I had with my teenage son. He was questioning about the attitude women have towards men, like being overly cautious and even fearful of men. I haven't been raped, but I've been molested. I shared my experiences with him. Some of which happened even before I reached puberty. His facial expression gradually changed from angry, bothered, and annoyed to understanding, worried and empathetic. It was a conversation I know is needed in the life of every boy/teen from a significant woman in his life, be it grandmother, mother, sister, etc. Our life experiences are so different that it's hard to put ourselves in each other's shoes.

Friendzone/Fuckzone nonsense. 😕 I used to think like Anita. Because it’s sad to lose a friend, when they have unrequited romantic feelings for you. It’s easy to feel angry. But falling for someone isn’t a bad thing to do! And if it’s unrequited, breaking off the friendship is probably healthy. Sure it’s sad, but it’s no one’s fault.

For myself, the act of beginning a conversation is the most difficult part. It has nothing to do with how others will perceive. I have intentionally so few friends, and I don’t talk about women to them or family until I’ve been dating someone a while is promising. The issue I have in handling rejection, is that I don’t feel worthwhile to much of anyone outside my parents. People historically haven’t prioritized putting time and effort into me. So I just don’t bother (that and I know women get hit on undesirably enough). The only thing I’ve been able to do is some very sparse speed dating or other events like that where the other side is intentionally there. So the risk for me in this scenario is putting another vote on the “another person doesn’t see enough in you” side of the already touching the floor scale. I just don’t have the self esteem to be confident in believing someone is looking for me. Confidence comes from experience, which turns out to be a catch twenty-two for people who care how others perceive their own character.

what a great conversation! you both have such a great way of explaining your thought, and listening to you try to figure out how humans react was very interesting. always a pleasure listening to intelligent people!

Her logic is very juvenile at times. She often goes to individual examples to attempt to generalize the entire issue based off a specific item. She also never has specific names or statistics to give just things like "all the time" or "many, many times." Then she tops it off by downplaying any plight of the opposite sex because she can't handle admitting that men have plights as well.

I think the fear rejection also has to do with the fact that approaching women especially when we are young is basically putting our self in a state of emotional voulnerability we arent put into before in our life. Having to suddenly interface with the world in a way that you have been told not to ( emotionally ) is really hard. We are told that we should supress emotion and we are also told that the one person you can emotionally be open with is your romantic partner. It creates a no win situation where if you want a romantic partner you have to open up emotionally but if you do and that gets rejected you are devistated because finally you opened up to someone and you got hurt. It’s absolutely not fair to blame women for this. We need to stop raising children in a way that stunts their ability to engage emotionally with the world.

Yay, thank you for doing another interview! More of these please!

As far as I listen to her, she basically judges everything from a viewpoint that everything against women is cultural injustice. I mean when she says that sex workers are being replaced when they are old and that it is happening because we as a society have something against women’s sexuality that’s just takes a cake.

“How can I reject you if I don’t even know you?” It’s not just that, you rejected the opportunity to get to know him. You’re right in saying this isn’t owed, but that doesn’t change the fact that it hurts, especially if it’s repeated. I think a lot of Anita’s assessments were correct, but it was frustrating to hear her demand empathy from men on issues they can have a hard time understanding to then turn around and offer no empathy on issues she has a hard time understanding. I feel like that’s most of what happens when these topics come up.

I also feel like there's one thing I need to point out: it's 100% true that there's little point in being afraid of the rejection of somebody you don't actually know because what you see is only the way they look. But it's also worth mentioning that a person's appearance is the first thing we see and it's not so unreasonable to want to talk to somebody we like the look of. Even if they belong to a gender we aren't attracted to, we may notice something that strikes us which makes the person look interesting enough to want to know them. If I, as a straight man, go out and see a guy in an interesting outfit or with a tattoo of something I like, I may want to talk to him about his ink or clothes. The point is, while it's true that it may feel bad to only be approached because of the way you look because somebody is attracted to you, appearance is usually the first thing that catches our eye (literally), so I don't think anyone can be blamed for it. Of course, I'm not naive or obtuse enough to pretend a man approaching a woman he likes is probably not doing that out of lust, but it's entirely possible that a friendship may develop out of it. There are women I find attractive who I've become good friends with and I would never date for several reasons, I just don't think it's so bad to think "she's attractive, I should wouldn't mind dating her" at some point

it honestly heartbreaking to hear her train of thoughts. seeing a guy nervous across the room and thinking he's just lusting over her body and scared that he dosent get what he wants and will try to manipulate his way into her pants or whatever. this is such a hateful way of looking at it, im sure there is plenty of guys like this but men in general are raised to be the approacher and ask the woman out, ofcourse he's attracted to you and want sex but what make you think he dosent want a relationship too? its not like guys are raised starving for attention and pretty much told you either approach girls or die alone. let alone being extra starve for affection because they just dont get it at all. its weird and hearbreaking way of looking at it honestly

The bridging the gap and jail example is excessive. At jail I know I'm around a bunch of people that don't care about breaking laws. As a COMPLETELY STRAIGHT man, I've been to LGBT+ bars and spaces with friends and had other men show attraction to me or attempt to buy me drinks. It's awkward at times but overall not that bad. If respectful, it's even oddly flattering despite the COMPLETE lack of attraction. I imagine it happening in jail would be MUCH WORSE. Also in that example I think many men are more fearful of the attack on their traditional masculinity then the sense of general unwanted attention itself.

He was pivoting and trying to tell her she is wrong about her biology argument in the nicest way possible. It sucks she doesn't want to face reality because her audience are jerks to her.

I percieved what Anita said about feeling rejection is that she feels rejection when it is personal rejection. As in - You know me, my personality, my quirks, my mannerisms, my other friends/family etc. You are rejecting who I am... But when a man asks a woman out and they don't know each other its only based on looks or if they are busy or not in that moment. It isn't like they are getting personally rejected for who they are as a person.

I think I know what is the problem with the her understanding. When you have negative outlook on yourself and it's hard then to ask someone out. Every NO you get is the confirmation of what you think of yourself. That's why it hurts so much and you feel rejected, unattractive, you think you will not find anyone ever. Probably she has healthy self-image and combined with hi maturity is why it's bothering her less than men.

It is so good to see how much Anita have improved in her speech(so less ticks now in comparison to last time I saw her a year ago on KZfaq).

Last segment on framing rejection powerful. Great video.