You (Sadly) Know The F**kboy, But Have You Met A Softboy? Here’s How To Spot One

Everyone who is braving the dating scene in 2018 has heard of (or experienced) the fuckboy. They’re the kings of mixed signals, appearing not to know or care about your feelings, and if you confront them about messing you around, they’ll deny, deny, deny.

But have you met the fuckboy’s cousin, the softboy? Oh yeah. There are more of them. Put simply, softboys are ‘hipster fuckboys’ – as per Urban Dictionary, the key to a softboy is appearing deep and in touch with their emotions:

The Softboy will butter a girl up by appealing to her emotions and showing a “sensitive” side long enough for her to sleep with him, whether or not he actually cares about her or not. Then, like the fuckboy, he won’t commit.

Softboys will talk to you about music and art and feminism and skateboarding or whatever it is they’re into, and bamboozle you into thinking they’re good guys. But when the time comes to, you know, actually put a name on whatever it is you two are doing, they’re out.

The Instagram account Beam Me Up Softboi is dedicated to chronicling the actions of softboys, from the ones who manage to slip in references to their elevated taste in film, music, and literature wherever they can:

To the ones who are like “I’m drawn to you, you’re my muse, but I still want to have sex with other women”:

And the ones who just outright say their ‘type’ is girls on medication for mental illness. Cool.

The softboy will probably be very grief-stricken about his inability to commit – he just doesn’t think he can truly be with anybody at the moment! – but at the heart of it, he was probably never interested in trying anyway. He’ll still slip into your DMs to preach to you about the new band he’s loving, or ask you to come and watch Wes Anderson films at his place.

You’re probably already nodding your head in recognition here, because the truth is, we’ve all been caught out by a softboy. But the world is slowly becoming more aware of their machinations, and awareness is key. Once you can identify a softboy, you can deflect a softboy. Good luck out there.

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• Dating