Dear RP experts,

I’m making this post partly to get something off my chest but mainly because I’d like to hear some perspectives from people here who have more experience with these dynamics.

I currently have a plate who has become noticeably more distant recently. She’s no longer as eager to please sexually as she used to be whether physically or through sending nudes/videos. I suppose that’s ultimately not surprising. Plates break eventually and I’ve more or less accepted that even through she still contacts me for attention. In this particular case, I suspect she has realised that nothing serious is going to come out of things with me and she’s also getting to an age where she probably wants to figure out where her relationship prospects are going.

What I recently discovered, though, has made me look at the whole situation rather differently.

Apparently, she has been spinning another guy for years without me knowing about it. From what I can tell, she has invested a ridiculous amount of sexual attention into this guy — sending him plenty of nudes/videos and making herself sexually available whenever he wants even things that she has not done for me despite wanting it.

The interesting part is that he apparently gives her almost nothing in return. He doesn’t buy her things. He doesn’t take her out. Their physical meetings seem to consist largely of quick meetups/quickies in the car. She has apparently been trying to turn this into something more serious but he hasn’t given her any indication that he wants a relationship. At one point she even asked him whether he was married and he never answered the question.

My read is that this guy is basically treating her as a convenient fuck toy while she continues hoping that eventually all the sexual investment she has made will somehow convert into a relationship.

And this is where I’ve started reflecting on my own behaviour.

Although I regarded her as a plate, I actually did quite a lot of the stereotypically “beta” stuff. I bought her gifts, spent money on her, took her out, etc out of good faith. So seeing how willingly she has sexually invested herself in another guy who apparently gives her almost nothing in return has made me realise that, in a sense, I was probably paying for something that this other guy was getting for free.

Obviously that’s on me. I’m not complaining about having spent the money or gifts — I chose to do it. But psychologically, it has made me question what I was actually doing and what I was getting out of the arrangement.

For now, I’ve basically withdrawn my attention. Her recent messages are increasingly about her feelings, frustrations with life and how I’m supposedly her only friend, wanting to have dinner, etc. I’m not interested in becoming her emotional support system so I’ve stopped engaging.

What I’m genuinely curious about, though, is the other guy.

How does this usually end when a woman has invested this heavily into a guy sexually for years while hoping that the relationship will eventually materialise? At what point does she realise it isn’t happening?

Does increasing the amount of sex, nudes, attention and availability actually reinforce the behaviour because she occasionally gets enough attention from him to keep the hope alive?

Or does there eventually come a point where the accumulated frustration turns into resentment, confrontation, jealousy, or some kind of emotional explosion?

What puzzles me most is that she doesn’t seem to be walking away despite apparently getting very little from him beyond sexual attention. Instead, she seems to be doubling down — more sexual attention, more nudes/videos, more availability, while continuing to hope for something serious.

I’m also wondering whether I should be careful about anything on my end and how I should respond to her messages from time to time about having dinner etc. Given that I’m now pulling back while she is simultaneously becoming increasingly emotionally frustrated with this other guy, is there any possibility that I could end up becoming the fallback/attention source when things eventually implode with him?

And finally, putting the RP terminology aside for a moment, what should I actually learn from this situation?

I’m beginning to think I may have misunderstood the dynamics of the arrangement myself. I treated her as a plate, but perhaps I was behaving more like an LTR provider while another guy was getting the raw sexual attraction without having to provide any of that.

Interested to hear how you guys would interpret the situation, particularly from the female-psychology/attachment side rather than simply “she’s a plate, plates break.”

Appreciate any perspectives. Thanks guys

In the end market forces always win in a LTR. Plate or not it was a long term thing from her point of view. You aren't providing what she wants so she withdraws (women withdraw anyway with time, being in love is short lived and a woman not in love is far more transactional that she likes to think).

You can't fool her forever. You can make a woman double down on her investment at first by playing her but in the end she is going to get pretty pissed off and resentful and realise you are not what she wants. She will feel stupid and that will make her more bitter and the hamster will turn it against you. You were supposed to be her guy, on her side, her support and you were a fraud. You will eventually just be another crappy ex. Men are such bastards!....

There is no magic moment the realisation comes but the break usually happens when you finally decide to stop putting in the energy to spin her wheels just enough to get her to give you just enough affection to keep you interested. You realise that you put in more than you get out and so you stop the spinning.

Oh, do you suppose wealthy, successful men favor younger and more attractive women, too?

Those bastards. Why, it's almost as if-- if given the option-- an attractive and unjaded woman is more desirable than a dried-up old battleaxe? Much in the same way-- and I know this analogy might stretch the mind-- a green, moldy slice of mystery meat sells for less than a cut of prime rib.

Or-- to put it in terms that a woman might understand-- an out-of-fashion item of 2nd hand clothing might fetch a slightly lower price than a new, brand name item fresh off the rack. With the analogy being that the old, unwanted, 2nd hand clothing is the OLDER woman, while the new, brand name item is the YOUNGER woman. The salient point being that a well-to-do buyer of clothing probably wouldn't want what's on offer at the Goodwill when they could afford something better. ...with the "better" clothing, in this case, being the analogy for a younger, less bitchy woman, with the "worse" clothing corresponding to the bitter, bitchy, old harridan..... do I need to dumb it down a bit more?

Keep dumbing it down? Okay... imagine there's a stale slice of birthday cake from a birthday 10 years ago that's been left exposed to the weather. And there are buzzing flies orbiting the remains of the cake. Sitting beside that, there's a newly-decorated cake fresh from the bakery... am I still going too fast??