I overheard a woman in her probably late 20’s ask her friend how her date went the other night with this guy she befriended on Facebook. She said it wasn’t a “fuck yes”, apparently quoting Mark Manson’s infamous article, and she won’t be seeing him again. I love that article. I believe it’s a must read for every single guy or a woman, and it can help anyone avoid the bad mistake of following the outdated advice of acting indifferent toward someone, if you aren’t, and playing hard to get for no good reason, when you actually want to be close with that other person.
However, expecting to make this “fuck yes / no” determination within 20 minutes of meeting someone is a bad idea and can make you miss out on great connections. We may be able to determine quickly that someone is a “fuck no” but to determine whether you have a connection with someone necessarily takes more time. This applies more to women than men, because it takes longer for a woman to develop both romantic and sexual interest in a guy, than it takes men to become interested in a female, regardless of how long that interest is going to last. Often, the fact that a woman doesn’t develop a strong interest in a guy right away after talking to him briefly doesn’t mean that she won’t like him or even fall for him later. I don’t know for sure, but I think Mr. Manson would confirm that by “Fuck Yes Or No” he didn’t mean to say “Fuck Yes Or Nor Right Away”.
Most older people (and again – especially women) would tell you that the person who they ended up to be the love of their life didn’t start as love from first site. Often, there was no mutual interest for a while, and the pursuer had to show quite a bit of persistence before his feelings start getting reciprocated. The movie “Notebook” illustrates this point perfectly. In that movie, the girl was brushing the guy off for a while before she fell for him really hard for the rest of her life. Anyone who read Agassi’s book and knows the story of him getting together with S. Graff knows that she also didn’t give him the time of the day before they ended up together.
Getting back to the conversation I overheard – that woman seems to be well aware of the fuck-yes-no concept, but she misapplies it. She will continue making the same mistake of potentially missing out on a good relationship by expecting that when she meets the right guy, she will know in an instant that he is the right one for her.
