The Surrogate Boyfriend

From a soon-to-be-unplugged 30Darren from the SoSuave forum:

I made a big mistake and got involved with a coworker. We dated for a little about a year ago but it never went far. Never slept with her. We became close friends though. We would hang out, Go to movie, Get dinner go for drinks and just hang out. We always talked even late with text and everything. I liked her a lot and she seemed comfortable with me.

I guess i felt i always had a chance with her because when we hung out she always flirted with me and having sex with each other seemed to be the topic we most talked about. She even mentioned shooting a porno with me. I don’t know if it was just mind games or if she was serious. Right now i don’t know what i was thinking, i should of let actions speak louder than words. But i really felt for her so i grasped on anything that made me feel like she was interested in me. This went on for about 8 months.

We had up and downs. I’m not completely stupid, there were times where i was trying to leave her alone and let each other move on but then she would get this increased interest in me and id fall back in line. I would leave her alone when she would have her little flings but eventually she would gravitate towards me again.

This week was a crazy week though. We went out had she took something i said completely the wrong way. We decided to give each other space (which i did) but then she was all over again when i gave her no attention. She started telling everyone i was her best-friend and then when we went out for drinks with co-workers she started calling me her Man. I didn’t play into and give that too much attention because i felt it wasn’t real. Two days later she is completely ready to end it with me. Said she was blocking my number from her phone and to not expect to hear from her again. she said it was “time for her to spend energy talking to a guy she actually likes more than just friends and that she’s not attracted to me and cant force herself to be, good-bye”. Ill admit. That really hurt. So abrupt and harsh. And remember i work with her.. What am i to do and how do i act. Is it a power game or is this is.

Women have Girlfriends and Boyfriends. If you’re not fucking her, you’re her Girlfriend.

One of the more heinous crimes inflicted upon the men of Generation AFC is the curse of the Emotional Tampon. Hapless Betas being cast into the role of perpetually having to be “supportive” and emotionally available for a woman he’s enamored with all in an effort to prove himself the ideal boyfriend is an 80’s Brat Pack movie plot cliché now. Oh, if only she could see past the hot jock jerks and find the true love that’s been here all along,…swoon,…

Typically when I read classics like this it’s on the high school forum at SoSuave, and for good reason; usually all it takes is one or two passes at this experience for young men to come to an understanding that they’re being manipulated. As we progress through adolescence and into early adulthood (if all goes as it should) there are a series of valuable learning experiences that teach us (albeit harshly) a mature adult set of social skills. This is generally where I begin when I assess particular intergender situations – are the participants using an adolescent social skill set? Has some factor retarded this maturation (such as premature monogamy, or a stubborn clinging to Disneyesque ideals) into an adult social skill set?

What makes Darren’s situation interesting is the pseudo-relationship he’s entertained with this girl for 8 months. For all the shit slinging about Three Strikes or the sex never being worth the wait for a Wait for It girl, it amazes me how readily and willing a majority of Beta men will be to entertain a sexless, quasi-monogamy. I’d like to blame the girl for her playing along, but I can’t – she’s only doing what women do when they pursue their pluralistic mating strategy. Don’t blame the Doberman for eating the juicy steak. It’s Darren’s failure to consolidate, and consolidate early, on ratcheting up his sexual interest in the girl that’s the primary issue.

In addition, Darren still doesn’t want to acknowledge that he never had a relationship with her, instead wondering if her ‘abrupt'(?) rejection is some kind of power game, and hoping against hope that he can salvage a monogamy that only existed in his head. What his part really amounts to is a Buffer against the very real rejection he could potentially experience by putting himself out into the real world by spinning plates. The longer her perpetuates his pseudo-relationship, the longer he forestalls having to face potential rejection.

The Surrogate

Darren was playing surrogate boyfriend, voluntarily accepting and internalizing all of the responsibilities and accountabilities of being a woman’s exclusive, monogamous partner with no expectation of reciprocating intimacy or sexuality. It is the ideal situation for a woman in the same manner a Booty Call is for a man – all sex with no expectations of monogamy, commitment or emotional investment.

You essentially become a surrogate boyfriend for her – fulfilling all the emotional availability and security needs the Jerk isn’t providing with no expectation of reciprocating intimacy on her part.

How Cruel?

From the standpoint of a guy who’s aware he’s become a surrogate boyfriend, and those who can objectively see that he is, it seem incredibly manipulative and deliberate for a woman to put a guy whom she knows has a definite interest level for her into that role. I would argue that, more often than not, a woman doing so has done so repeatedly in the past so often that it becomes normalized for her.

Is she aware of it?

On some level of consciousness perhaps, but it’s comfortable for her to do so because she’s unable to have both her emotional / security needs paired with her physical needs in the same guy. So her coping mechanism is to entertain a Nice Guy (sometimes multiple Nice Guys) from whom she gets emotional support and a security response from, while wallowing in the physical rush and the resulting drama caused by the Jerk. I go into this splitting of needs in Schedules of Mating:

There are methods and social contrivances women have used for centuries to ensure that the best male’s genes are selected and secured with the best male provisioning she’s capable of attracting. Ideally the best Man should exemplify both, but rarely do the two exist in the same male (particularly these days) so in the interest of achieving her biological imperative, and prompted by an innate need for security, the feminine as a whole had to develop social conventions and methodologies (which change as her environment and personal conditions do) to effect this.

Maintaining a series of surrogate boyfriends is one of the most directly observable manifestations of women sexual pluralism.

Women get off on perfecting a gestalt boyfriend from both the Nice Guy and the Jerk, but relatively few are aware of it, and among those who are, even fewer will expressly admit to it. They’ll quite happily allow a surrogate to continue in his qualifying himself to her in his efforts to “be a good listener” and “be there for her” until such a time as he grows frustrated and he becomes a liability in his own right, or a liability to her Jerk sex / drama interest. The hot guy who uses her up and leaves her on the bed wanting more will always take precedence over the emotional surrogate because they’re so easily attracted and entertained.