u/LLSmoove1

For those who don’t know this phrase, it means to see someone actions (generally negative) in the most positive, innocent or honest way. But my contention is that, if it ever gets to a point where you would even need to consider giving someone the benefit of the doubt, you actually shouldn’t.

First, it means that this person likely hasn’t earned or has done something to diminish your trust in them. This evidence, or lack thereof, suggests that you have already seen signs or suspect some kind of dishonesty or negativity with their actions. In order to give the benefit of the doubt, you need to ignore your own instincts and evidence presented.

Second, it enables people to continue bad behavior even unintentionally. Imagine you are texting someone and invite them to hang out but they don’t text back until after the time you suggested. Now you could give them the benefit of the doubt and believe they were busy or their phone died. But going back to point one you would likely not even think about giving them the BOTD if you trusted this to be true. If you do excuse it, it just influences them to continue the behavior

Third, with the same scenario, it doesn’t change the outcome and relies on thinking of that persons feelings rather than yours. You can excuse the behavior but whatever you felt is still there and is essentially a platitude or copium. It allows people to not be accountable for the things they do to disrespect your boundaries and standards

So what do I mean by overrated? By this I mean there’s no reason you should regularly be giving people the benefit of the doubt. In fact, I’d go so far as to say it should be an extremely rare occurrence and used very sparingly, and only with specific people who you have strong rapport with. I can personally say that of the times I’ve given people the BOTD, my gut instinct was always correct and i was worse off for doing it.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/Co8Rn2vgrEa/?igsh=NmpuYW5vamwyZzZr

I see it’s a shuffle and it looks simple (maybe it’s just her) but I’m not understanding how to go left to right with it

A lot of people talk about power imbalance relationships as if they’re a bad thing, particularly when it comes to men. They say men seek out these women in order to take advantage of them because they have less money, education, opportunities and whatever.

But after many years of dating myself and seeing guys who date in this sorts of relationships the real reason seems clear to me. They’re appreciated. I see it more and more where the more equal a couple is in resources, the less respected a man is.

I think most people won’t admit it but the resources provided by a man in a relationship plays a major factor in how much that man is respected and valued in a relationship and there’s nothing wrong with that. So there’s 2 options for men, work harder to provide more resources or keep the same resources but find where they are worth more. In these “power imbalance” relationships, men are simply doing the latter.

So if we think about this realistically, and whether it’s more likely that men are consciously seeking these relationships to take advantage of women, or that they’re seeking them because they are more fulfilled, I think it’s more likely the second option.

CMV

I have seen many women say that they want men to treat them how they treat other men but I don’t believe this is true. I think what they are actually asking for it to be treated like a man with the privileges of a woman.

I’ve worked with a lot of women and I’ve noticed a major trend where women will gravitate more towards the men who “treat them like women” and generally not closely associate with the men who treat them like anyone else, and sometimes even claim those men are unfair to them. Women often act in a way that influences men to treat them like “women”. Obviously not all women but it is very apparent when women don’t do this.

Most women complain about being ignored if they aren’t attractive, spoken over, only valuable for what they can provide someone, and things of that nature. But it’s the same for men if not worse because they don’t have the biological/cultural tendency to acknowledge each other like they do women.

So I think women’s ideas of what it means to be treated like a man comes from the view of holding onto the privileges gain as a woman while still being viewed as a man which doesn’t make much sense to me. The only way to gain this would be to give up those privileges