When Ben Affleck was asked if women saw him as a heartthrob, he denied it. He said he was actually terrible when it came to relationships.

When Ben Affleck was a rising Hollywood star, he admitted that his newfound success didn’t win him many points with women. He said that his good friend, Matt Damon, had more success when dating. Affleck shared why he saw himself as a “catastrophe” when it came to dating.

Ben Affleck said he was terrible with women

In a 1997 interview ahead of the release of Good Will Hunting, interviewer Ingrid Sischy asked if Affleck was “always the one with all the girls calling.” Affleck denied this.

“That was Matt, really. I was a total failure with girls; it was a catastrophe,” he told Interview Magazine. “It was the girls from the United Way that called me. [laughs].”

Ben Affleck | Wendy Maeda/The Boston Globe via Getty Images

He said he struggled to have any difficult conversations with women he was dating.

“The real story is that I have a problem with the telephone and I don’t return phone calls if I can’t deal with something,” he said. “It’s not because I’m cool — it’s because I’m a loser and I’m afraid of dealing with something that’s awkward and uncomfortable.”

Damon said it became frustrating to watch his friend do this.

“Which made one of our roommates mad,” he said. “He would say, ‘Would you just call her back? That’s all you have to do.’ And Ben would say, ‘Yeah, I know. I will, I will.’ And then the phone would ring again and he wouldn’t take the call.”

Jennifer Garner and Jennifer Garner said Ben Affleck pursued them with his writing

While Affleck said he was terrible with women early in his life, he became better at flirtation. When he first began pursuing Jennifer Lopez in the early 2000s, he wrote her love letters. Lopez held onto these for years. Jennifer Garner, who he married in 2005, said he employed a similar tactic with her.

“Well, it helped that we were both single at the time,” she told Parade of the start of their relationship. “He’s a very good writer.”

Garner added that Affleck was a very “persuasive” writer and sent her emails while pursuing her. She said that she held onto everything he sent her.

He is currently going through a divorce

Several years after Garner and Affleck’s marriage ended, he married Lopez. The pair had initially planned to marry in 2003 before ending their engagement. Nearly two decades later, they reconnected and began dating. They married in 2022.

All through the summer, people have speculated about the state of their relationship. On their second wedding anniversary, Lopez provided some clarity when she filed for divorce.

Ben Affleck | Bellocqimages/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images

“Jennifer was Ben’s dream woman,” a source claimed, per OK! Magazine. “It was drama all the time. He’s feeling down about it and is upset and depressed it didn’t work out, even though he knows ending it is the right thing to do.”

In the days since Lopez filed for divorce, Affleck has been spotted out with Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s daughter Kathleen “Kick” Kennedy. Lopez is reportedly not happy about this.