With that said, there are some cases where women will blatantly lead men on for no real reason and waste their time. It's a bizarre dynamic that I still don't fully understand but I believe that it's a man's job to be able to spot these women for what they are and knowing how to cut them off. I've met several women like this and they are a complete waste of time, they are like energy vampires that bring no real value.
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I’ve been the victim as well as the perpetrator of such time wasting. Many people like attention and flirting & a bit of ‘leading on ‘ is fun. It’s unethical, so I don’t let it get too far.
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I think there are different degrees of severity with something like this. I totally agree that people like attention and that some non serious flirting can give someone else the wrong impression. However, I'm referring to more serious instances of this.
A good example I went through back in 2018 was a girl I met at my gym that I had approached, our first interaction seemed to go really well. Anyway, the next time I saw her she approached ME and gave me her number and we made a plan to go hiking up an observatory in our area. She ended up flaking on our date and ghosted me, though continued to try to flirt and use me for attention whenever she'd see me. I later found out that this particular woman did this with a lot of other men.
Another example I had was from the gym as well, I asked for her number and she said she had a boyfriend, to which I said "Ok, well it was nice to meet you.". This girl went OUT of her way to flirt with me, talk to me, etc. after that for no reason but for attention. This is a case of a woman with bad social skills who lead a man on that had already shown interest.
Some other examples I've heard of are women going out on dates with men that they have no real interest in. There was one woman I crossed paths with that blatantly bragged about going out with men from online dating sites just to get free drinks, food, etc.
These are more on the extreme end, but they aren't all that uncommon either. I think men just need to be more upfront with women they are interested in instead of potentially risking stringing themselves along. I'd say the vast majority of these friend zone cases could be prevented by this simple tactic.