explain to me this double standard on loneliness and honesty

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People tell me it's unreasonable for any woman to accept my offer if she also knows I'm lonely,
but if an admittedly lonely woman asked me out, I would readily accept.

If you're one gender and you admit you're feeling lonely you get sympathy in abundance.
If you're the other gender and you admit you're feeling lonely, it's your own damn fault.

Could someone please explain this to me?

(The exception for men is if you're in a boy band, in which case you prance
on stage with lavish costume and makeup to proclaim/lip-sync with overt
insincerity that you're oh so lonely, to the deafening screams of fawning fan girls.)

Well, "sympathy" (for being lonely) and dates (as a means of staving off loneliness) are NOT interchangeable.

Would I accept a date from some guy if all I knew was that he was lonely? No. That's not the kind of thing you tell near-strangers (it telegraphs "I've got boundary issues").

I have not heard of this double-standard you speak of but assuming it's a real thing, let's flip it around.

Why are men okay with dating women who need a man in their life to be happy? Aren't they concerned that she might be too needy, not independent enough? Or that she's only dating him to cure her loneliness, not because she actually likes and respects him?

I made all that stuff up but that's to illustrate these things can all be viewed from different perspectives.

I am making a broad analogy based off my personal experiences and the conversations I hear.

More to the point,
In my experiences I was never given the benefit of the doubt by anyone,
but I always gave women the benefit of the doubt. When they had a hard time after
a breakup I didn't reprimand them for being too needy or too clingy or desperate,
which were all accusations that were made against me for why I supposedly couldn't get a date.

What I'm advocating is actually lenience for BOTH: That merely being lonely shouldn't
disqualify any man or woman from the dating world. The way I see it, using another
person to fulfill one's own emotional needs is NOT a bad thing, as long as you can help
satisfy that other person's needs too. In fact I thought that was kind-of the point of
relationships.
(I know that there's a limit to it, and you can't stretch your partner's time, energy, and patience too far.)

@KayteeKay When I got rejected they each knew a lot more about me than the fact I was lonely.
I thought it would defeat the purpose to pretend to be perfectly happy and content with being single.
That requires a level of skill beyond my acting ability. I might as well forge a passport declaring myself
the President of Spain for all the trouble it would be worth to maintain such a fake facade.

I think lonely people may be more attracted to other lonely people sense they can both relate & help each other be less lonely. I defiantly was more attracted to lonely women when I was single & lonely

People are useful. Our mistake. We're doing everything we can to rectify this customer service issue.

Just IGNORE KayteeKay. She's a troll trying to ruffle the feathers of lonely single guys around these parts.

The answer to your question is that men are still expected to be independent. Not just financially self-sufficient, but emotionally as well. Women are always going to be given more sympathy as it is socially acceptable for them to act weak and admit weaknesses like feelings of loneliness and struggling financially.

Thats not my experience at all. I get told how I need to be a better person and love being alone and to stop whinging, by both men and women. I don't know where this 'sympathy in abundance' exists because it's definately not in my neck of the woods.

You should have been on my campuses.
I don't know your circumstances so I can't pretend to empathize,
but I acknowledge that your feelings are valid as your own.


Is it that way? I suspected it was another way.
So many members of society judge men by their ability (or inability) to seduce a woman
that for us, failure to do so is blame-worthy: an immediate source of derision which negates any sympathy.

It seems from both our analogies that we are fans of the victim card, or at least 3rd-person self-deprication.

I think it's because loneliness is seen as weakness by society, and a lot of men are predators, so, loneliness is seen as an easy target. Sucks to say, but, hey, it's mostly true. Just don't make it true for you.

Now having said that, I think women care a lot more than men about how sociable their partner is otherwise.

I wouldn't date someone if they were lonely or I would be horrified if I thought someone were to date me because they felt sympathy for me because I was lonely. But the whole classification of "lonely" is one to be discussed. You can be filled with a room full of people and still feel lonely and visa versa. Be in a relationship with someone and still feel lonely. A person who is comfortable with who they are can still fill lonely. I live with my two older kids and my daughters boyfriend, never alone but still feel a sense of loneliness?

AGREED. Kayteekay is wrong about all seven billion of us. Conceeding loneliness to strangers is high art. IT'S CALLED BLUES.

Guys, I'm not sure Kayteekay deserves so much vitriol. Her initial statement makes sense and her second strikes me as more of a personal opinion.

In regards to the main topic: there is a serious difference between how society is and how it should be. Making that transition will be slow, difficult, and likely incomplete, but that makes our efforts all the more important.

What does acting weak and struggling financially have to do with being lonely? Or publicaly admitting to loneliness??

@Lazar seems to have a giant boulder on his shoulder because, apparently, his inability to find meaningful or simply not-terribly-low-paying work because gainfully employed women find that attribute a turnoff.

Interesting quote:

"Women have no sympathy... And my experience of women is almost as large as Europe. And it is so intimate too. Women crave for being loved, not for loving. They scream at you for sympathy all day long, they are incapable of giving you any in return for they cannot remember your affairs long enough to do so." -- Florence Nightingale

Full article with discussing women as it pertains to sympathy and empathy (with that quote) here:http://no-maam.blogspot.ca/2006/01/very-few-women-are-capable-of.html

Most women are unable to give as much empathy for men in weakness, and it's probably why they're unable to settle with second best (the dreaded friend-zone) or the flaws that a lot of male aspies here are riddled with. That's why I say, because women have inherit value, they cannot imagine a world where they are totally worthless, men largely, through various periods of their lives, have to deal with the cruel reality that we are the disposable gender, but it's the experience of being worthless that allows man to more effectively empathize and sympathize with those around him.

I can imagine that it's also part of the 'tough love' that good fathers typically display, the father loves the child just as much as the mother although the father is quite well aware of the pain the child might be faced with considering the child's performance deficiencies, a mother would nurture the deficiency for the illusion of competence, the father, knowing well in advance of the pain that awaits the child when they discover the brutal truth, instead, tries to veer the child towards other strengths, or he might nurture that weakness through strict and harsh discipline, all to protect him from becoming inferior, hence disposable. The mother doesn't see that reality because she's never tasted it, never felt it, never been maligned by it, because sex has far too much value than it should.

In addition to financial independence, men are expected to be stoic because stoicism is living proof that a man is in control of his emotions. But moreover, an independent man is one who doesn't need anything from other people when it comes to sympathy and emotional support....Or at least he acts that way towards others. If he feels bad about being single and/or lacking connections with people in his life he just keeps a stiff upper lip and acts like it doesn't faze him in the least.