✦ The Modern Heiress

When being ‘just friends’ feels like a demotion, not a dynamic.

There’s an unspoken frustration many women carry in their bones, especially those who move through life with confidence, intellect, or ambition. It’s the emotional labor of navigating male attention, not just the kind that’s romantic, but the kind that’s conditional. The kind that only exists if there’s a chance they’ll end up with a claim on your time, your body, or your admiration.

What happens when you take that away? When you’re kind, professional, even warm, but uninterested in anything more? For many men, especially in professional or “friend” settings, the result is almost textbook: passive aggression, coldness, even veiled hostility.

Not because you hurt them, but because you dared to set a boundary.

friendship isn’t a consolation prize

We live in a culture where friendship is seen as a consolation prize to romantic failure. A “soft no,” a leftover, a backup role. But real friendship is not lesser, it requires more emotional maturity, more depth, and often, more stability than fleeting romance ever will. When men lash out or pull away after realizing there’s no chance at intimacy, it reveals a painful truth: many never wanted to know you platonically. They only wanted access.

This pattern becomes even more visible in workspaces and professional collaborations. You think you’re being respected for your intelligence, your initiative but when the flirtation door closes (or never opens), so does their basic decency. Suddenly your ideas are questioned. Your leadership is challenged. And worst of all, you’re gaslit into wondering if you were imagining the tension all along.

You weren’t.

not into you and that’s not an attack

Brooksie’s song Not Into You holds a mirror to this experience. One lyric hits especially hard:

“Why do you feel so entitled / to someone who never invited you in?”

This line echoes the exhaustion of countless women who have tried to be gracious in rejection, only to be punished for it. There’s this illusion that if we turn a man down “nicely,” he will stay respectful. But often, rejection, no matter how soft, threatens the male ego, especially when they weren’t expecting it.

In Not Into You, Brooksie names what so many women live: that it’s not rejection itself that hurts them, it’s the loss of imagined superiority, the refusal to give in, the denial of the fantasy they created without our consent.

They weren’t heartbroken. They were insulted.

the entitlement exit: when friendship was just a fantasy in disguise

In the curated haze of filtered brunches, podcast quotes, and collaborative “friendships,” male entitlement doesn’t always punch through the door, it drips in slowly. It’s dressed in compliments about your “aura,” praise for your work ethic, and respect for your boundaries… until those very boundaries are used against you.

At first, you’re “brilliant,” “refreshing,” “not like other girls.” They play the role well, just vulnerable enough to make you believe they’re safe. But as soon as they realize you’re not auditioning for the role of emotionally supportive love interest, their performance falters. Texts dry up. Congratulations disappear. Your power becomes a problem.

And the cruel irony? You never even rejected them. You just didn’t center them.

According to Alan Lau in his sharp piece “The Problem with Male Entitlement” (2023), this shift is no coincidence. Many men have internalized the belief that basic decency, when paired with performative empathy, earns them emotional access. If they’re kind, they assume you owe them intimacy. If you don’t give it, they don’t step back, they unravel.

Lau, A. (2023), The problem with male entitlement; part 1, Medium.

This proves that this isn’t about hurt feelings. It’s about wounded pride masquerading as disappointment. Entitled men don’t handle not being chosen, especially when the rejection is soft. Lau notes that a “graceful no” can feel more offensive than silence to the ego that expected elevation. They preferred ghosting. At least then they can paint you as cold.

But a woman who says “no” nicely? Who holds her own and doesn’t need them? That’s intolerable. Because she exposed the transaction they were trying to hide behind the illusion of connection.

Suddenly, your independence is “intimidating.” Your professionalism is “distant.” Your boundaries are “rigid.” But what they really mean is: You didn’t hand me the intimacy I thought I was owed. You refused to be a stage for their emotional audition.

And what happens next is textbook:

Let’s be real: they weren’t trying to get to know you. They were trying to be chosen. Your story was just the stage for their spotlight. And when they weren’t cast as the lead, they became critics of the entire show.

And now? They’ll just have to watch from the sidelines, like the rest of them.

✦ the exit strategy: say less, mean more

Now let’s be tactical. For every veiled insult, every emotional withdrawal, every snide comment masked as a joke, here’s how to handle it like a woman with standards, not wounds:

not into you is not against you!

We need to normalize this: a woman turning you down is not a personal attack. Her disinterest does not diminish your value, unless you make it about your ego. If she still respects you, still works with you, still supports you, that’s not rejection, that’s boundaries.

But too many men don’t want to be respected. They want to be desired. And when they realize you see them only as a friend, or worse, as a coworker, they treat you like you insulted them. Like you touched something sacred, their pride.

and let’s be clear, women have egos too. I was raised by accomplished, high-achieving parents with very high standards. That doesn’t make me snobby, but it taught me never to offer myself cheaply. My sense of worth is not inflated, it’s cultivated. It’s built on years of proving myself in spaces where people underestimated me, especially men. I carry that with pride.

So yes, I have ego. But the difference is, mine isn’t threatened by rejection. Mine doesn’t withhold kindness just because I didn’t get what I wanted. And that’s what separates self-worth from ego fragility. When a man becomes cold or cruel just because I no longer entertain the possibility of something romantic, I don’t see a “hurt boy.” I see someone who never valued me outside of what I could offer him.

As I’ve said in several pieces, if I tell you I’m not into you and still speak kindly to you, respect that. Because if I ever stop being kind, trust me, you’ll know why.

–

Your emotionally unavailable heroine,
Madam Alias Solis
Writer, The Modern Heiress