In your experience, what do beginner guys tend to mess up the most in their first relationship?

Derek da man

Cro-Magnon Man
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Usually too much of a "nice guy". If a guy doesn't lead, stand up for his opinions and be strong a woman will keep testing him and she will end up being in charge. At this point her attraction falls off and it's game over.
 

Will_V

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Lack of leadership, neediness, pedestalizing the girl, everything to do with lack of abundance.

My first mini-relationship was terrible, basically everything besides sex I did wrong. She had to figure out what we'd do and I just sort of tagged along and enjoyed myself like a stray dog she'd taken in. If I hadn't fucked her so well it wouldn't have even lasted the three months it did.

Even my most recent LTR I failed to lead sometimes, because I was a bit selfish and just wanted to do my thing, and didn't invest in experiences that would keep us glued together and satisfy her.

It even extends into marriages, someone I know got married a year or two ago and the first thing he did was move in with the in-laws (even though he's the breadwinner), basically submerging himself into his mother-in-laws sphere of influence and setting all kinds of wrong precedents.

I'd have to say, overall, almost everything men do wrong in relationships comes down to lack of leadership - either giving too much or being selfish, or swinging from one to the other, rather than having a set of principles for how things should be done, and making sure everyone including himself sticks to them.
 

Wick

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Moving too fast (in terms of relationship seriousness) before you get to know a person.

It takes time to really get to know someone, and once you know someone and you can determine whether they are a good fit for you, that your relationship goals align, that they aren’t crazy, etc. then that usually takes care of a lot of the issues people see in relationships.

Besides that, when the man has a lack of frame and understanding of women, he tends to do a lot of things that slowly sours the relationship.
 

Chase

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You're always going to mess up a lot in Relationship #1.

You don't know what you're doing, everything's new, all the emotions you're feeling are really raw, and you tend to overemphasize the importance of things. Even if you're a devoted student of relationship game and you've studied all the best stuff, you will still screw a bunch of things up.

For my money, one of the biggest things guys mess up in that first relationship is the screening. You have no relationship experience and usually limited dating and sexual experience when you dive into relationship uno. Often it's with whatever girl seems like she's "pretty good" and is available for a relationship.

So, you'll get attached, won't want to let her go, but then at the same time some part of your brain is also thinking this probably isn't the most perfect match you could ever get. The dissonance leads to some difficulties though ("Do I keep her or let her go? I've been trying to decide for nine months now!"). You will typically refine your tastes a lot more as you gain experience.

Another thing guys do is screw up the expectations, for both themselves and the girl. They can make big promises, or they imagine themselves growing old with her, and behave like the two of them are soul mates (à la @J Wick's moving too fast too soon). But sometime later when the girl starts wanting them to commit or get off the pot, they begin to realize they really aren't ready to commit so soon and all those big promises and expectations they set, whether explicitly or implicitly, they are going to have to break.

A final one is this: they work too hard.

It's a bit paradoxical, but guys will both fail to lead (@Derek da man's and @Will_V's points) while also working their tails off to do things they think the girl wants/needs to be happy. They will be running her around to different activities, or trying to make sure she's entertained when she comes to their place, or trying to always make the sex extra-special good, and just generally putting loads of pressure on themselves to please her. Girls do the same thing, btw... most girls in their first few relationships work a lot harder trying to please their man than they do in subsequent relationships.

Often they end up setting loads of very resource-hungry relationship precedent early on, then discover as the relationship progresses they cannot keep up with the precedent they set, which ultimately makes the girl feel like they don't love her the way they used to because they used to do all these things with her and now they don't anymore (whoops).

Anyway, it's very hard to be a leader while you are also trying to be as pleasing as can be. Even your attempts at leadership turn into a form of mild supplication ("I have to lead because I want her to stay happy!").

I don't know that any of this is really avoidable though...

  • You can't refine your screening until you've already experienced relationships and begun to learn what you like and don't like

  • You can't set realistic expectations until you've learned through experience what kinds of expectations you CAN realistically set (vs. not)

  • You can't relax into a relationship and run things in a relaxed, confident way until you've tried a bunch of things and figured out what's really necessary to keep the relationship running vs. what isn't

So... you can keep an eye out for these things.

However, you are still going to have to go through them anyway in that first relationship.

There's not really any way around it. A rite of passage every young man must pass through :)

Chase
 

trashKENNUT

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I'd have to say, overall, almost everything men do wrong in relationships comes down to lack of leadership - either giving too much or being selfish, or swinging from one to the other, rather than having a set of principles for how things should be done, and making sure everyone including himself sticks to them.

Funny that I haven't posted my TikTok video on this. I was noting what I have been thinking and it shared the same sentiment on this post.

You give me a reason to!


Besides that, when the man has a lack of frame and understanding of women, he tends to do a lot of things that slowly sours the relationship.

I'm observing my Asian counterparts. There has been rising numbers of marriage proposals on special days and birthdays and the male will take her on a hotel staycation or rent a yacht and all this other horseshit.

I'm not hating. I genuinely love seeing people happy. My essence of life is freedom all the way to it's core, and when I see people happy, I am really happy for them.

Will be interesting to see how this couples journey. Whether they survived or not.


For my money, one of the biggest things guys mess up in that first relationship is the screening.

@Chase ,someone or anyone, please hand me an award now. :)

The irony is that this is universal.

Funny when I work with businesses, it's the same shit over and over and over that it's not even funny. From their marketing message to their appointment and branding. Everything really.

I'm now questioning myself why do businesses failed is already a knowledge that I fundamentally know but I just could not accept it

Because it's so obvious and clear to me.

z@c+
 
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