man is unsure if the woman at the yoga spot is flirting w him

March 11, 2023 3:03 PM

yoga dad bod “You look really cute in your yoga outfit,” she said. Cute? Who did she think she was talking to? This kind of stuff doesn’t happen to me—ever. I was wearing red athletic shorts and a yellow hoodie. I am not a fashion expert, but I know enough about fashion to know that my “outfit” was nothing to write home about, unless of course, you happen to be a correspondent for the Unfashionable Male. “My wife picks out my clothes,” I blurted out. “I just grab whatever is clean, and throw it on.”
posted by alexdobrenko (38 comments total)

This is quite the shaggy dog humblebrag.
posted by rikschell at 3:18 PM on March 11, 2023 [26 favorites]

He's totally cute in his outfit. I wouldn't have flirted with him, but I'm accustomed to having the men I'd flirt with be likely to beat the shit out of me if I said anything. Thus is the sad story of being a gay man who came out in the 1990s.

I don't think he'd beat the shit out of me. I'm just conditioned to think that generally.
posted by hippybear at 3:25 PM on March 11, 2023 [6 favorites]

“I just grab whatever is clean, and throw it on.”

Hellava T-Shirt.
posted by clavdivs at 3:38 PM on March 11, 2023 [1 favorite]

YOGA DAD BOD STORY = ya rod ! dodgy boast !
posted by lalochezia at 4:01 PM on March 11, 2023 [9 favorites]

'a nice balance between working out and keeping a beer gut'
This is why I do sit-ups every morning. I look at my stomach and say ' what would this look like if I didn't do sit-ups every day?'
I feel like my core is good, and that's important, but I would be deeply skeptical of a woman hitting on 70- year old me.
Maybe I need to get red shorts and a yellow hoodie.
posted by MtDewd at 4:14 PM on March 11, 2023 [2 favorites]

That is a cute story and I liked it.
posted by Peach at 5:15 PM on March 11, 2023 [2 favorites]

That put a smile on my face.

Was I dressed like Xerxes?

And I'm pleased this person has found a good environment and activity to help him get/stay healthy:

Middle-Aged Michael practices yoga because he wants Old Man Michael to have the strength, mobility, and mental resilience he needs to keep doing the things that Michaels of all ages have always valued.
posted by brainwane at 5:55 PM on March 11, 2023 [5 favorites]

Okay, wait, I thought "dad bod" referred to like, say, the author of this piece (and I don't mean that derisively). Or if we're going with famous actor types : Seth Rogen, Jason Segal (think current-era "Shrinking" on AppleTV), Will Ferrell, etc.

Pedro Pescal is... like borderline toned, right? I feel like calling his figure a "dad bod" is unfair to both Pedro and dad bods. Sure, sure, it might be yet another excuse to just call hot people hot who aren't built like they spend every non-working hour getting ripped, but ...

...okay I just don't know what a dad bod is. That's what I'm saying. Little help?
posted by revmitcz at 6:15 PM on March 11, 2023 [5 favorites]

Flirting with a nervous dad at yoga is like the lowest-stakes flirting ever. I can see the appeal just on that strength of that tbh
posted by Doleful Creature at 8:02 PM on March 11, 2023 [6 favorites]

My first read of the intro had me ready for some sort of Star Wars references. I guarantee you, my Yoda dad bod is less likely to lead to flirtation...
posted by Chuffy at 8:30 PM on March 11, 2023 [2 favorites]

When nine hundred years old you are, less likely to flirt you will be.
posted by hippybear at 9:06 PM on March 11, 2023 [15 favorites]

Pedro Pescal is... like borderline toned, right?

That's the Hollywood Leading Man version of "dad bod".
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:37 PM on March 11, 2023 [10 favorites]

No one has flirted with me in so long a while that I'd be wondering also "Was this woman hitting on me? wtf?"

I'm tall and skinny -- now called Fat Skinny because I look trim but the numbers aren't good. Still got these big honkin' feet -- if I keep losing weight I'll soon be able to hide behind a broom. I turn sideways, stick out my tongue, ppl think I'm a zipper. Plus all of my life I've steady hit 6'6" but out of nowhere maybe ten years ago I've started losing height also, now a bitty 6'4". If I live to 100 I'll be able to hide behind a boot.
posted by dancestoblue at 11:16 PM on March 11, 2023 [3 favorites]

I feel like calling his figure a "dad bod" is unfair to both Pedro and dad bods.

Pedro Pascal talking about the song Tomboy by Princess Nokia in this interview: "I’m not sure it’s appropriate. She’s brilliant, and she’s completely empowered by it. She sings: ‘My little titties/My fat belly.’ That keeps going around my head. I feel like right now I have little titties and a fat belly. It works for empowered women and for out of shape men."
posted by Parasite Unseen at 11:46 PM on March 11, 2023 [2 favorites]

Color me (red and yellow) unsurprised that a grown man who relies on his wife to pick out his clothes lacks the social intelligence to understand when a different woman is flirting with him.
posted by Panjandrum at 11:53 PM on March 11, 2023 [8 favorites]

Y'all should probably refer back to this Casually Explained classic: Is She Into You?
posted by MengerSponge at 12:39 AM on March 12, 2023 [3 favorites]

nonexistent romantic trope of a pudgy Jewish guy with thick glasses

Pretty sure that exact thing exists! I mean Woody Allen's movies are successful for a reason, women love nerdy Jewish men. And don't a lot of people famously swoon over Seth Rogen?
posted by winterportage at 7:33 AM on March 12, 2023 [1 favorite]

I often get compliments from very trendily dressed young people; I'm shaped like a dad but I wear bright colours and skirts. I smile and say "thank you!" because that's what one should do in response to people so delightfully kind as to compliment a stranger. (I also compliment strangers when I feel moved to do so.)
posted by seanmpuckett at 7:35 AM on March 12, 2023 [3 favorites]

I think a huge part of homophobia that doesn’t get discussed is how difficult it is for men to understand how they can be attractive or and object of flirting. Finding men attractive is obviously super gay so we can’t think about or understand how we could be desirable because then we’d be super gay. It’s why we take such horrible pictures for dating sites and are so unable to pick up very obvious flirting. Being attractive requires understanding what could make us attractive which requires thinking about an attractive man = hella homo.
posted by Uncle at 8:53 AM on March 12, 2023 [13 favorites]

man is unsure if the woman at the yoga spot is flirting w him

If that isn't a potential The Onion headline....
posted by gtrwolf at 9:48 AM on March 12, 2023 [7 favorites]

Media likes to present a narrow definition of attractiveness, to the point that we get surprised when we figure out that many people's definition is wider or different than the media 'norm'.

This goes for mom-bods too. The mom Elastigirl in The Incredibles got surprising fan attention for her mom-bod, so Disney doubled down in Incredibles 2, and the character got even more fan attention.
posted by eye of newt at 12:06 PM on March 12, 2023 [2 favorites]

I'm pretty sure I have that mustard yellow hoodie from target. And yeah, as a guy who has been off the market for decades and thinks I look pretty disgusting, it is seriously disorienting and kind of disturbing when anybody expresses interest.

Last year I got a ratemyprofessor review that called me a DILF and it definitely fucked with my head, to the point where I am still paranoid that this person somehow knew it would freak me out and wrote it as a joke.
posted by anhedonic at 12:26 PM on March 12, 2023 [8 favorites]

nym checks out
posted by clew at 12:48 PM on March 12, 2023 [2 favorites]

Uncle—I think that’s partly it; heterosexual men in patriarchy are far likelier to understand what may make them attractive to gay men than they are to understand what may make them attractive to heterosexual women. The first is male desire, which is well known, if the subject of fear and prejudice, the second is female desire which men are not encultured to know about at all. No wonder middle aged men miss flirting, no wonder men fail to understand how they present, no wonder flirting is so often parsed as mockery.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 1:08 PM on March 12, 2023 [7 favorites]

Related: This video by FD Signifier.

Warning: this video is 90 minutes long and a good chunk of it concerns the horrors of the Manosphere, including knuckleheads like Andrew Tate. The rest, though, has a lot of thoughtful, diverse discussions about male attractiveness.
posted by Eikonaut at 2:49 PM on March 12, 2023 [1 favorite]

Dunno, in those long-past days I considered myself possibly sexually attractive, calling me "cute" always seemed to be a term of distancing. Courteous way of telling me "Iʻm not attracted to you."
posted by Droll Lord at 3:37 PM on March 12, 2023

Fiasco da Gama - I think the patriarchy’s part is that only men can be trusted to determine culture and tastes so if men must be attractive to sell other men the idea that they could be attractive, then only another man could do it at the end of the day. I only came to believe it was possible to be turned on by someone that looks like me in gay bars which is ridiculous because I had multiple women fwb’s in college but of course I couldn’t actually believe women. Toxic masculinity is so stupid in so many ways.
posted by Uncle at 4:15 PM on March 12, 2023

I guarantee you, my Yoda dad bod is less likely to lead to flirtation...

WHO DA DAD BOD? YO DA DAD BOD!
posted by straight at 4:26 PM on March 12, 2023

It would never occur to me that someone was flirting with me either. Possibly later, when I was pondering what was strange about a personal interaction, but definitely not in the moment. Any particular interest that a female shows towards me in a commercial setting like the one described would be parsed as her just doing her job and making clients feel good so they spend more. In a social setting, I'd likely assume she was just a friendly type. It just never occurs to me that anyone would be flirting with me. Oddly (to me), it seems women flirt with me much more now I'm visibly married - I assume maybe it's 'safe' to flirt with me because I'm less likely to take it as a sign of interest or something.

Finding men attractive is obviously super gay so we can’t think about or understand how we could be desirable because then we’d be super gay
This is the basis of the market for lesbian porn to straight men - men get aroused by watching people in sexual activities, but get confused by becoming aroused when a scene includes men in sexual activity, so watching lesbian porn confirms they aren't gay.
posted by dg at 5:33 PM on March 12, 2023 [4 favorites]

I'm kind of AMAB enby (makeup is fun! Feminine body language is fun!), het, though I've made out with guys, and the reason I know I'm het is that I've cuddled on the couch, and kissed both men and women, and definitely feel some kind of way about one and not the other. I dress myself, I know the difference between choosing an outfit and throwing on whatever's clean AND I have no fucking clue when people are hitting on me, or what anyone could possibly find attractive about me.

Maybe it's heteronormative male gaze bullshit where men aren't looked at, and media isn't made with women's tastes in mind, but it's not really internalized homophobia. At least not for me. It may be a part of the answer, though again, having seen a reasonable amount of gay porn, it's as realistic as straight porn, and gay men's tastes can be as unrealistic as straight men's tastes. Have you SEEN the nipples on a Tom of Finland picture?
posted by fnerg at 6:51 PM on March 12, 2023 [3 favorites]

Have you SEEN the nipples on a Tom of Finland picture?
Well, I have now! I feel even more physically inadequate than I did 5 minutes ago ;-)
posted by dg at 8:08 PM on March 12, 2023 [2 favorites]

Snakebite kits are the old school way to get big nipples. Just so you know.
posted by hippybear at 8:17 PM on March 12, 2023 [2 favorites]

It’s why we take such horrible pictures for dating sites...

I am very much out of the game and don't use dating sites, but I've thought if I did, I would use a very mediocre, if not somewhat unflattering pic with the caption "Yes, ladies, this is the real me you'd see on Sunday mornings before my coffee. Now your expectations are level with reality."

I wouldn't expect a lot of responses. But it would speak very well of the ones who did so.
posted by zardoz at 12:44 AM on March 13, 2023 [1 favorite]

this thread is more compelling than its source. Thank you.

What society tells us we should find hot versus what we do in fact find hot, is something that frequently trips me up : Also why 'society' - speaking to us through the various media we do or don't bombard ourselves with - is in broad strokes generally 'just fine, thank you' but on a real, personal level 'for the fucking birds.' I mean - some people find people who are like X attractive! can you imagine! I only find people who are like Y attractive, which means they are the only attractive people... sigh. It's like fucking middle school or something. You never know when it hits or why it hits but it does, and there you go, you're attracted to someone who is like - Z -
posted by From Bklyn at 2:23 AM on March 13, 2023

I read something online a few years ago that made sense to me (paraphrasing here): You may think you're not good looking; but it's not because you aren't, it's because you're not "your type". You may well be someone else's.
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:19 AM on March 13, 2023 [2 favorites]

Y'all should probably refer back to this Casually Explained classic: Is She Into You? yt

I feel this video so hard. I'm so glad I'm married now. Man was I bad at dating and flirting.
posted by The_Vegetables at 10:05 AM on March 13, 2023

TL;DR: I'm a dad bod too and someone flirted with me and I had no idea how to process it.


I'm a straight white male in my 50's for a long time I have been trying very hard (probably too hard) to find some kind of connection. Always with women in my own age range. It's almost impossible just to even get a phone number. Never really sure why. I'm not much to look at. Makes me wonder if I'm just too ugly to date. Yeah, I need therapy.

Anyways a couple of times recently two much younger women have obviously flirted with me. The first time I was so shocked I was almost speechless. Could this really be happening? Surely not. Am I supposed to ask for a number? Would I be a pervert I did?

The second time I noticed it and it was little less shocking and was even able to get in some flirting back but the circumstances were so that nothing happened.

No real point to the story except that yeah for some of us guys flirting with us is so unexpected we have a lot of trouble processing it. I'm sure it happens to women too.
posted by Justin Case at 11:48 AM on March 13, 2023

You may think you're not good looking; but it's not because you aren't, it's because you're not "your type". You may well be someone else's.

No matter how weird looking or ugly you may think someone is, somebody looked at one of their parents and said, "I'd hit it." And they did.
posted by kirkaracha at 8:29 AM on March 14, 2023 [1 favorite]