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‘It’s manipulative’: Parents defend girl who ‘politely’ turned down classmate’s Valentine’s Day request

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Forest Cat said:
I just can't imagine someone wanting to force or manipulate a woman to say yes to a proposal. Because that relationship or marriage will never work. It seems pointless and weird and mean. If someone did that to me, I would not be pleasant to live with and the relationship just wouldn't work.
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Re-reading what you wrote, it seems like you were bringing up slightly different aspect than what I first heard. What I heard you saying was "the yes won't mean much because it won't be heartfelt" (that would have been my point). But what you have actually said is "it wouldn't work on the long run anyway" (which is a different point).

Now, speaking of the long run, here is my thinking. I keep thinking that when the woman decides it won't work without even knowing me, she is basically making a decision without knowing the full story. What if I just had a bad day, for example, and she judged me based off of a bad day? So, according to that line of thinking, forcing her to give me another chance "might" make things work on the long run because then she would have a better picture of me where she would see all of my days, not just the bad day.

So when you are saying it won't work, it might actually address my question. In particular, I would have to ask you WHY wouldn't it work.

So I have few theories as to why that might be the case. Please tell me which theory you are thinking of:

a) Its not about "what I have done" on a "bad day" but rather its about physical attraction.

b) I am a creature of habbit a lot more than I think. So even though I think I was that way only on a "bad day", in actuality I would be that way in all the remaining of the days too? Just like I can't change my handwriting, I can't change underlying personality either

c) I might well be different in the other days, but the girl has her mind made up that I won't be. She can force herself to say yes, but she can't force herself to abandon the preconceived perception that caused her to say no

d) She might well come to agree that I am not the way she saw me on the first day. Instead, the issue would be her resentment that she was forced to do something. Which is a different issue from what turned her off initially, but just as valid.

e) Other. Please specify.
 
Aeolienne said:
(Not written by me)

‘It’s manipulative’: Parents defend girl who ‘politely’ turned down classmate’s Valentine’s Day request

The school came to the boy’s defence, but observers pointed out that the girl did nothing wrong by spurning his advances

A debate has been sparked after a schoolgirl turned down a classmate’s Valentine’s Day request, prompting a wave of sympathy for her would-be suitor.

The controversy began when the boy’s mother, Heather Starr, wrote on Facebook that her son Roman, who is neurodivergent, had made a poster to ask a girl to be his Valentine. It didn’t go well.

“You guys. My oldest baby is 14, he has autism, is very shy and socially awkward,” Ms Starr wrote in a post on Feburary 14. “Yesterday he made a poster for a girl at school and asked her to be his valentine at lunch in front of everyone. She said no.”

Ms Starr’s story got national attention — and plenty of sympathy for her son at the school.

The next day at school, a number of Roman’s classmates approached him with kind words and offers to be his Valentine. According to Today, one of his fellow students presented him with a poster like the one he had made to ask the girl the day before.

“They asked him to be their Valentine and he said yes,” Ms Starr wrote on Facebook. “Then the entire cafeteria cheered so loud that they disrupted nearby classes and everyone got in trouble and had to have a silent lunch period after that.”

The experience, Ms Starr said, was a highlight for her son.

“He told me it was one of the best days of his entire life,” she told Today.com.

After the story was given national exposure on the NBC platform, however, a number of observers pointed out that while they were happy for Roman, they were troubled by how the response might affect the girl he asked out.

Mandy, a TikTok user, made a video claiming that the boy is being “coddled,” while the girl who rejected his advance was being “demonised.”

“He’s a boy who asked a girl to be his Valentine, and she, from all sources I can find, politely declined,” Mandy said in the video. “He chose to do it in a very public way. We’ve got to stop teaching kids to do that. It’s manipulative, because it puts the recipient on the [vulgarity deleted] defensive. It puts them in a position where everybody is watching, and now you have to decide something in front of other people.”

Mandy said that the response to the story was “planting the seeds that if a girl says no to you, she’s beneath you” and that women are often bullied or even assaulted or killed for rejecting male romantic advances in a world in which men are often taught to feel entitled to women’s bodies.

Kris Renee, another TikTok user who made a video about the situation, said that she was teaching her children that they are entitled to respectfully decline anyone’s advances.

“Is anyone thinking about the fact of how the next day, that girl was made to feel guilty for having said no? Has that thought crossed anyone’s mind?”

Source: Independent
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Opinion: That's a classic definition of a "helicopter" parent, and a "Karen". OK, I get it, the boy has autism. On the other hand, that girl has every right in the world to decline. Guess what? ALL guys get declined, many, many times in their life. This is normal. So, here we have a pandering, narcissistic, attention grabbing, entitled mother posting this on Facebook. Why? Does the boy understand all the attention that he and his mother are getting, and why? This is toxic behavior and now the girl is catching the backlash when it was nobody else's business but her own. This sort of "namby pamby", "whiney", "weak" behavior does not do the boy any good in the end. Sure, it gives him some attention for a while, but it's bad behavior.
 
Neonatal RRT said:
Opinion: That's a classic definition of a "helicopter" parent,
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But I thought the story said that his mother was actually siding with the girl?

Or are you saying she sided with the boy initially, but then switched sides when he got even more attention than she intended?

Neonatal RRT said:
and a "Karen".
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I am not that familiar with that term. I remember in the past this word was used in the context of accusing people of racism. But that doesn't seem to be the case here since race wasn't even mentioned. So what is the other definition of Karen?
 
Polchinski said:
So when you are saying it won't work, it might actually address my question. In particular, I would have to ask you WHY wouldn't it work.
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I just meant that if someone wants a happy marriage or relationship, pressuring someone to start a relationship is a terrbible start. To me it sounds like it would never work and it's just a terrible thing to do to someone.

If someone manipulated you or forced you into a relationship, would you want to be with that person? I wouldn't.
 
Forest Cat said:
I just meant that if someone wants a happy marriage or relationship, pressuring someone to start a relationship is a terrible start. To me it sounds like it would never work and it's just a terrible thing to do to someone.

If someone manipulated you or forced you into a relationship, would you want to be with that person? I wouldn't.
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Agreed. One of those negative sensations that just continues to nag at you and never seems to stop. With Princess Diana it started before she was married and didn't end until her divorce. That perpetually sad look on her face which towards the end she could not seem to mask or hide.

A classic example of how in so many instances it pays to listen to and abide by your own instincts.
 
Forest Cat said:
That was surprising, I have always thought "Karen" came from the character Karen Walker from the sitcom Will & Grace. She was hilarious. But they didn't mention her at all in the article. Maybe it doesn't come from her afterall.
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It's a bad term to use IMO. Probably better to use a more nebulous one without so much vitriol. Like "buttinsky".

bŭt-ĭn′skē
noun
  1. One who is prone to butting in; a meddler.
  2. One who is prone to butt in, interrupt, or get involved where (s)he is not welcome.
  3. a meddler who tends to butt in
 
Forest Cat said:
That was surprising, I have always thought "Karen" came from the character Karen Walker from the sitcom Will & Grace. She was hilarious. But they didn't mention her at all in the article. Maybe it doesn't come from her afterall.
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I haven't heard of that sitcom nor of that character. Can you summarize what was it about?

And if it didn't come from there, where else did the name Karen came?
 
I haven't heard of that sitcom nor of that character....
...where else did the name Karen came?

You could try looking those things up.
Think of it as research.
 
tree said:
https://parade.com/1111328/stephanieosmanski/what-is-a-karen/
https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/30/us/karen-meme-trnd/index.html
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I didn't have time to read it through yet, but the first few lines say that Karen disregards social norms and acts inappropriate. But then why did they pick a female name for it? I thought men are more likely to act socially inappropriate than women? Or could it be that there is a "male" way of being inappropriate and a "female" way, with Karen referring to the latter? If so, could you elaborate what are the distinct ways in which the two genders are inappropriate?
 
Perhaps his mother is unknowingly on the spectrum as well, and does not understand how there was a very strong potential that the girl would say no.
 
Yeshuasdaughter said:
Perhaps his mother is unknowingly on the spectrum as well, and does not understand how there was a very strong potential that the girl would say no.
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According to the story, the mother didn't know what her son was doing until after he got a "no":

Starr, who lives in Colorado Springs, Colorado, had no idea her son Roman was planning a grand romantic gesture.

“If I’d known, I would have suggested that he consider a less public approach,” Starr, 36, tells TODAY.com, noting that Roman has a “hard time understanding the nuances of social interactions.”
 
By the way, I am curious as to how the girl who initially said "no" react to all this. Was there any update about this one?
 
A lot of overthinking, gnashing of teeth and garment rending over the girl's appropriate response. The sooner the boy realizes that there are a thousand reasons for being declined that don't reflect on him personally, the better off he will be. And now he has a learning moment that he is noticed by other girls and paying attention to them may yield what he desires.

Starting from a baseline of rejection sensitivity for me created its own issues. Yet the kindest rejection I ever received was when the woman said I should speak to another that she knew had a crush on me that I never recognized. That started my first relationship.
 
Gerald Wilgus said:
And now he has a learning moment that he is noticed by other girls and paying attention to them may yield what he desires.
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Not really, because this was done out of pity. So what that "learning moment" would teach him is that he should dwell on the girl that rejected him so that other girls would date him out of pity, which is pretty much the opposite lesson to "having to move on".

Unfortunately for him, the adult life doesn't work that way.

But then again, the reason to dwell on one girl on the first place is precisely "because" one is not noticed by other girls. So its a no-win situation. Accept your predicament and be a loner or fight against it and be labelled as a stalker. Which is sad, really.

Gerald Wilgus said:
Starting from a baseline of rejection sensitivity for me created its own issues. Yet the kindest rejection I ever received was when the woman said I should speak to another that she knew had a crush on me that I never recognized.
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I suspect this might have happened to me too, but I would never know, since I never engaged that "other girl" I was directed to.

So, all the way back in 2005, a girl in the math class approached me and our interaction evolved into close friendship within just a week. Then, a week later, I asked her to be my girlfriend. She rejected me for three reasons. One had to do with her own bipolar, the other had to do with the fact that I never tell her what I want to do and keep asking her to decide for me, and the third had to do with the fact that I am overly sheltered by my mom. I totally dwelled on the third one and got very upset, keep pointing out that "just because my mom treats me like a kid doesn't mean that I actually want to be treated that way" and was also dissecting various details of my interaction between me and that girl. This was pushing her away, and she completely stopped contact a month later. But, within this month, she was making varying attempts to continue friendship with me while at the same time being at a safe distance.

So during one of those days, she "had to get something in her appartment" while she had me and her friend waiting for her outside (this was the first time I ever saw her friend: she introduced me to her right there and then went to her appartment to get something). Then after that, she asked me if I would be interested in dating her friend. I told her no, because I didn't find her friend attractive. Although, looking back, I realize that it was a lot more because I couldn't get over her, so I didn't really care about any other girl. If it wasn't for that I would of probably liked her friend, at least enough so as to settle on.

But then again, who knows. I remember another time when I was obsessing about dating sites and spending hours there, there was that cashier at the grocery store who kept trying to chat me up. I was ignoring her because I would go to that store past midnight on my way from my office home and wanted to collapse in bed. Once she said "I am in love with that guy" and the guy she said it to asked "who" and she said "comes in here, never talks". I was wondering ever since whether she meant me or not. On the one hand it is unlikely that she would say it in front of me, but on the other hand the construction "that guy" sounds that way, plus "comes here never talks" pretty much describes me. So thats the question I would never know the answer to.

So, going back to the girl I met in the math class: maybe I would have ignored the friend she was trying to set me up with for the same reason as I was ignoring the cashier: my mind is laser focused on whatever it is focused on and I don't see anything outside.

I have few other examples of girls that, looking back, seemed like they might have been interested in me that I ignored. But they were few and far between. And, unfortunately, now that I am older, I don't have any more of such examples at all (all of the examples I can think of are from two decades ago).
 
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