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

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Aeolienne

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(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?”
 
As somebody who was forced by my parents to hang out with and play with other kids who were actively bullying me because telling them no “was not very nice” - I have to side with the girl in this case.
 
Just sounds like an example of real life to me. A person can ask someone for something, extend an invitation or proposal to someone and the other person can either accept or reject it. Sometimes that's life.
 
It reminds me of guys who propose at baseball games infront of a huge crowd. It's just not a good idea, so much pressure, so many people watching. But I don't think they do it because they are trying to manipulate anyone, I can't imagine someone thinking "if I propose in public infront of a large crowd she can't say no and then I got her!". That would be weird. I think they are just trying to create a big, special moment. But when the girl says no infront of thousands of people, it's special in the wrong way.
 
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It reminds me of guys who propose at baseball games infront of a huge crowd. It's just not a good idea, so much pressure, so many people watching. But I don't think they do it because they are trying to manipulate anyone, I think they are trying to create a big, special moment. But when the girl says no infront of thousands of people, it's special in the wrong way.
It also should be noted that people who go for such grandiose romantic gestures are more into it for the theatrics than for anything resembling a real relationship. Avoid people like that
 
To me this is so analogous to why I fundamentally object to dating rituals in general. Because of the unnecessary pressures and expectations it puts upon both persons to end up doing the wrong things with the wrong outcome.

IMO the progression of any relationship shouldn't be dependent on such things.
 
Okay, a question crosses my mind, which is:

How and why is this news?
This entertains some people, and as we know, the news is merely entertainment and is not a reliable source of info. I can believe this would make a local news article in an era where people binge watch trashy reality TV.
 
Okay, a question crosses my mind, which is:

How and why is this news?

Because it's a story that's divisive.

People can read it and side with the girl and how she (girls/women) have the right to say no to advances from boys/men.

Or people can read it and side with the autistic boy who planned something he hoped was special and was rejected by the girl.

Or you can read it from a disability perspective and wonder if it's good for abled people to extend themselves to a disabled person in order to avoid hurting their feelings. Or is it good for an abled person to extend themselves to a disabled person in order to make the disabled person happy but for that reason alone.
 
A fourteen year old autistic dude makes a public display of affection...that's like the least manipulative thing I can think of.

Now, when a varsity basketball player leverages his popularity to force a girl to consenting to se**al favors, let's just all agree to ignore that.
 
I am confused about the storyline. The way the description of it sounds is

1) On Day 1, he approached 1 girl, she said no

2) On Day 2, lots of other girls approached him and he said yes

But when I read this article Classmates rally around 'very sad' teenage boy after Valentine’s Day at school the photo thats there contradicts it. In particular it shows him putting 20-30 names on the card. The question is: was that photo taken on Day 1 or Day 2?

A. If that photo was taken on Day 1, it contradicts the assumption that he approached just 1 girl. In this case, he actually approached 20-30 girls on Day 1, and presumably all of them said yes except for 1 girl. But that means that he did wonderfully on Day 1 (who else can get 19 yes-s and 1 no). Yet, according to the story, he did badly on Day 1 and only became popular on Day 2.

B. If that photo was taken on Day 2, then it contradicts what it says about girls approaching him on Day 2 and him saying yes. It looks, instead, like he was the one who invited all those girls on Day 2. So, if he, indeed, written it on Day 2, then he wasn't that sad, after all, given the way he phrased it and all that.

So yeah, it doesn't seem to add up no matter what day it was.

How would you make sense of that photo in conjunction with that story?

But, going back to the topic. When I was a kid, everything was about me. For example, it was normal for literature teacher to use me as a point of discussion in a classroom. I didn't find it strange or anything cause I was used to it. Also, for my birthday, I played a solo card game that I invented. I would make cards, write all the students names, and then play game with them where certain aforegiven number of cards "wins" (I believe it was around 5 or something like that). I would then invite the students whose names are on the "winning" cards. So the fact that I haven't even considered a situation of one of those people saying no (nor did that situation ever occur) again suggests that it wasn't that bad.

But of course as an adult, I get rejected all the time. Maybe thats why I have such a hard time dealing with rejection: because I haven't been used to it as a kid. So the rejection at the age of 21 came as a shocker to me. So, looking at my younger self maybe he will repeat my story as well? Maybe he will be coddled as a kid and then be shocked by rejection as an adult? This being the case, he is ultimately being damaged even more than the girl who rejected him?

In any case, I still have a lot of contrasts between myself and him. For one thing, I was bullied a lot. And it were the TEACHERS who came to my defense (such as the literature class I mentioned) not the students. But in his case, it were students that all rushed to him, without any promptings from his teachers. And not a single kid bullied him over it. How come?

Then the other difference is that in my case, my parents are always on my side, and it is everyone else who isn't. But in his case everyone is on his side "except for" his parents. I would totally love to trade places with him. I am sick and tired of overprotective parents, but I would love to have some positive attention from others.

And, thirdly, when I am pouting about being rejected, I tend to daydream of someone else coming towards me and me rejecting them. How come he didn't fulfill my daydream? I wish he could have said no to those invites he got on Day 2. Especially since those are "pity invites". If he cares about his ego, I don't see how it would boost his ego to have those people inviting him out of pity. But it surely "would" boost his ego to reject them -- at least thats how I would feel if I were in his position.

But then again, in my daydream I would be rejecting one or two people, not the whole school. So who knows, maybe he did say no to the first couple of invites, and then when he felt like he said no enough times he started saying yes? Would love to know if thats the case.

Also would love to hear some updates to this story. How does he feel now, that he sees that people elsewhere on the internet are siding with his girl and not with him? Or did he get to learn that? Does he have access to the internet?
 
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The guy got treated like a regular guy.
The girl has the right to say 'no.'

What did the mom want? Did she expect the girl to
say 'yes' out of pity? Did Mom expect her boy to be
treated special, not like any other kid?
 
The guy got treated like a regular guy.
The girl has the right to say 'no.'

I think he was treated as a regular KID not a regular GUY. Because I don't think adult men are being treated this way. At least I am not.

Or are you saying that adult men DO get that kind of special treatment, and the reason I haven't experienced that is because of my Asperger?

What did the mom want? Did she expect the girl to
say 'yes' out of pity? Did Mom expect her boy to be
treated special, not like any other kid?

From my reading of the story, the mom was actually on the girls side. It was the rest of the school that was on the boys side.

Which by the way is the exact opposite to my situation. In my case my mom would be the only one on my side.

Or are you saying that I am missing part of the story and that, initially, the mom was on his side but then she switched sides when the rest of the school went too far? Was it originally his mom that asked those other girls to invite him? If so, that would make more sense. Because I think when I was coddled as a kid, it was always my mom's speaking behind my back to people.

But again, can someone get the facts. Did his mom speak on his behalf before this whole thing happened, or no?
 
When I was around seventeen years of age I made a promise to myself that I have tried to keep for the rest of my life. To NEVER allow anyone to put me on the spot if I could truly avoid it.

I'm inclined to perceive this as a basic right for everyone. That attempting to put anyone on the spot intentionally or otherwise amounts to bad manners.
 
@Polchinski
I don't think adult men are being treated this way.

What way?

Treated by girls this way? (Having their advances refused)
Or
Having numbers of people commiserate with them after
their advances have been declined?
 
I can't imagine someone thinking "if I propose in public infront of a large crowd she can't say no and then I got her!"

Actually it can go both ways. On the one hand, it might force her to say yes. But on the other hand, if she still says no, that "no" would be all the more humiliating. So it is like a gamble.

But then again, you mentioned sporting events, and they are a gamble in a similar sense too. Because if your team loses thats a public humiliation, too. I never liked public sports for that exact reason.

My parents had me on cross country running team, and I went there because I didn't want to admit I was a coward. Thankfully I was the top on my team and third way down on other teams, so it wasn't humiliating. But still it was too much pressure.

One thing I found, though, is that by the time the slow runners come to the finish line, a lot of people aren't watching any more. So they don't get all this humiliation, more like they are being left alone. Which is nice.

But I guess since I lacked the theory of mind, I didn't get this point all the way. Because I remember thinking about a "mathematically fascinating variant" where instead of "only" taking the photos of 5 fastest runners they would also take photos of 5 slowest runners "to make it more symmetric". People didn't get I was talking about mathematical symmetry. They were thinking I was wanting to bully people. But the bullying aspect didn't even cross my mind.

So maybe when he looked abnoxious in his proposals where he put people on the spot, something else didn't cross his mind?
 
Actually it can go both ways. On the one hand, it might force her to say yes. But on the other hand, if she still says no, that "no" would be all the more humiliating. So it is like a gamble.

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.
 
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.

I agree with that, too. The reason I wasn't mentioning it is that others already said it. But then there was that other aspect that others ignored: namely that it might not force yes anyway, and instead it might make the "no" all the more humiliating. So there are different sides to this:

1) It might force yes. But then

a) The yes would be damaging to the girl since she would be forced to do something she doesn't want to (thats what others already said)

b) The yes won't be that beneficial to the guy anyway since its not heartfelt yes (thats the point you just made)

2) He might still get a "no". And then "no" will be far more humiliating than the "no" he would have received in private (thats my point in the previous reply)
 
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.
Ironically the first person I thought of in this scenario was Princess Diana. Even her own siblings pressured her into marrying Prince Charles, even when she knew what a dreadful idea it would be for a marriage made for three.

And we know that indeed that marriage never worked. Tragic that she didn't go with her own instincts which probably would have saved her life. No one should be pressured into marriage. Especially just to satisfy the public or those manipulative and scheming "old grey men" of Buckingham Palace.
 
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