To which she replied “It’s a fucking figure of speech. Jesus Christ!”
Having been blessed to see one of your “lounging by the pool” beefcake photo exhibits, I urge you to remember that with irrestistibility comes great responsibility; you will inevitably attract some chaff amidst all the sexy, desperate wheat. I only pray you solve the crisis of your next haircut before things get out of hand.
Yours in Christ,
Turnip
I can only speak for myself, but no. There are some kinds of ugly a bag just won’t cover … might be something that a coarse and vulgar person would say to express this opinion colorfully. Far be it from me to do so.
Of course this is what you got out of it, because you’re only hearing one side to this story, as **DudleyGarrett **pointed out.
The answer is “Yes,” especially if you’re Bald Prince Charming here. Who knows when he’ll get another shot.
Doesn’t he look like a red hot Ben Bernanke?
See, I find this funny. Pretty much anyone I’ve known for more than a few weeks, there’s some pretty basic stuff that comes up, and I find it hard to believe that one would have absolutely no idea what someone’s religion was after casual conversation for five months. I’d be just as surprised if you didn’t have at least an idea of a persons political beliefs or a number of other things like that. It’s not that casual conversation goes “oh, by the way, are you an atheist too?” but chances are, since topics like religion and politics are so pervasive, that it would have at least been touched on over five months worth of conversation.
As for the OP, it looks like Red Fury did at least as much as his date to make the conversation unpleasant. She thinks it is a miracle, he doesn’t, big deal. Even as a Christian myself, I wouldn’t describe living through being shot in the neck as a miracle and I think it’s a WAY overused term, but her saying that doesn’t make her nuts. The fact that he went on and on about how nuts he thought she was means that, even if he wasn’t saying it, it was probably oozing all over his body language and tone; so it seems to me like while he may not have verbally goaded her, he probably did with his attitude.
The polite thing to do would have been either to have completely dropped the subject, even if you had to say “I’d rather not talk about that” and if she wouldn’t be willing to end the conversation, just end the date before it became excessively unpleasant. From what I can tell from to OP, it looks like he was immediately uncomfortable before you even got to the restaurant.
So, I have to agree with the sentiment that you were thinking with your little head, and now you’re out of a barber.
Would you have said that his being shot must have been God’s punishment for something that the guy did? Is it more than a little weird for someone else to assert that?
I’ve been going to my stylist for years and I haven’t the faintest idea what her religion is, nor have I mentioned my own belief system. (I’m pretty happy with that state of affairs, too.) We talk about family, pets, cooking, vacations, jobs, that kind of thing. I can’t recall off the top of my head if we’ve talked politics.
I saw a book today that made me think of several people in this Board including you, but you’re one of the few who can read it (at least, until I can get a contract to translate it, mwahaha!)
El Catolicismo explicado a las ovejas. Check it out if you can find it, Red.
That said, in which planet do you live that you expect a female, Hispanic hairdresser to believe that “at 8pm” means any earlier than 22:30? Seriously! Talk about weird beliefs!
PS: you’re lucky she wasn’t a plumber 
you would’a died from starvation.
But you can’t infer what someone’s affiliation is by the things they say? Do they have to come out and tell you exactly what they believe for you to have an inking?
I thought the part of this that made her nuts and put him on the defensive was:
“Oh no, you see, he (guy) must have done something wrong and the suffering was his penance to God in order to be saved”
I don’t believe this is a healthy attitude. Assuming that people who suffer misfortune of any kind deserve this misfortune. It’s like blaming a rape victim or telling a wife that her husband got cancer because they weren’t religious enough.
Imho, religion didn’t make her crazy. She is merely using region to express her crazy, and doing a fine job.
Red Fury,
She was a horribly inconsiderate date, in addition to the crazy, I feel for you!
Hopefully you won’t have many more like this!
You may find it hard to believe because, as a Christian, you probably find it a more palatable conversation to have casually, especially since a majority of the people you interact with share your views.
Yes, I know I’m jumping to a great many conclusions there, but trust me – as an atheist, I never bring it up in casual conversation unless I’m directly asked about it. And guess what, it usually isn’t in the form of, “are you an atheist too?” It’s usually in the form of, “are you a Christian too?” at which point I have to burst a bubble or three.
Perfect example: I was playing cards with two friends not too long ago. One friend I knew for about 15 years, the other I knew for about 1 year. Somewhere in conversation, my 15-year friend joked something along the lines of, “you would have gotten that ace you needed if you weren’t an atheist … har har har.”
To which my 1-year friend said, “You’re an atheist? I had no idea.”
She had no idea because … I never bring up my atheism in casual conversation.
I’d be willing to bet that your average Christian brings up their faith unsolicited in casual conversation alot more than your average atheist does.
I can honestly state that I don’t know that about my stylist. We’ve never engaged in conversation that’s raised a flag in any given direction. Well, I’m pretty sure she isn’t Jewish or Muslim since we’ve discussed cooking pork, for instance. What We Do (Or Don’t Do) On Sundays Or Other Holy Days has not come up. Well, we’ve discussed Christmas get-togethers with families but for many people that’s practically a secular holiday.
I don’t see this as being that weird, frankly. She only learned fairly recently that I’m a vegetarian, because I do cook meat for my husband, and I don’t ‘proselytize’ about my eating habits unless someone else brings up the topic. Some of my coworkers - I’ve been at this job for several years - don’t know I’m a vegetarian and others only learned relatively recently.
I find that really surprising. After 2 years of living in my current neighborhood, and drinking in the same bar, out of the 20 people I interact with closely in that area I can tell you only that one of them is a recovering Mormon. The only reason I know that is that it came up in a discussion of gay marriage/his relationship with his family.
I can, however, list the sports affiliations of all of them. And the political allegiances. Which is easy, because we live in communist northern Virginia (except for the one who works for a GOP senator, but we let him hang around to mock).
No.
Run. Run as fast as you can, don’t look back. Keep running.
Good point. For instance, thinking about coworkers that I’ve worked with for several years… I know who are observant Jews (or maybe just married to one and they’re observing along with?) because they take the day off on the various important holidays. And I know one is Muslim because she was fasting during Ramadan and happened to complain about how crummy she felt that day. I know a previous coworker is Catholic because she mentioned it when she told me this anecdote - she has a “stereotypically Jewish” surname and a Jewish boss wished her a Happy Hanukkah, and she thanked him but corrected his misperception. (He’d never noticed she didn’t take off for the holidays because he was out those days.)
Then again, at a previous workplace you couldn’t go a day without hearing about the wonder and glory of Jesus from one of several coworkers. And this was a state government institution.
Edit: One of my husband’s coworkers is a closeted Cubs fan - he lives on the South Side of Chicago, deep in White Sox territory, and even his neighbors don’t know!
Going by the OP, she sounds like she’s very into her religion. If that’s the case, I would be very surprised she hadn’t said something during their five months of flirtatious banter that implied that she was Christian. Something like, “He moves in mysterious ways, doesn’t He?” or “I am so blessed by my children, they are gifts from God.”
RedFury is one of the biggest assholes on this board. So yeah, probably.
Me neither. But then again, I’m not trying to fuck him.
At a summer job many moons ago, I shared a machine with the local Bible puncher. I think the foreman put us summer student workers on there out of some semi-supressed rage, but this guy would spend the whole day trying to convert you. Then he started on about his prior addiction to porn, and how the Lord had saved him, and he burned all his nudie mags. That brought a tear to my eye, I can tell you.
He should be a shining light in a land of darkness and despair. I just spent half the work day yesterday trying to come up with Cubs vanity plate combos that weren’t taken in Virginia for my new car…
No, I would not have said that, because I don’t believe God punishes us like that. However, I do know plenty of people who believe that. I may disagree with it, but I don’t think it makes that person nuts. AFAICT, it’s actually a reasonably common belief and a well known one.
I’m Christian, but I’m not necessarily talking about casual religious conversation; I sure as hell don’t go around asking everyone what they believe. A lot of times things that are major religious hints are just a natural part of casual conversation. We may be talking about what we did over the weekend and someone mentions mass, which is a huge hint that they’re Roman Catholic. It would be perfectly reasonable to hear someone say “We went out to brunch with some old friends from out of town after mass/church on Sunday.” in response to “What did you do this weekend?” and it’s not a remotely religious discussion.
I also find religious hints come up around major Holidays like Christmas and Easter. Perhaps I notice it a lot more since I am Christian and I don’t celebrate them, but it’s pretty easy to tell what someone believes when you ask “How was your Christmas?”
To relate to the OP, the fact that he’d been getting his hair cut there for five months means, he’s passed Christmas, so chances are he would have gotten a hint about her beliefs then. Besides that, if she’s as religious as he’s implying, surely a casual conversation would have touched on her going to mass or something else related. Hell, we just passed Ash Wednesday last week which is a pretty major event in Catholicism.
Even for atheists, I have little trouble identifying them in casual conversation either. A number of the atheists that I know I initially guessed were so based upon their reactions to common occurences, like someone sneezing and getting a “God bless you” as a response. Of course, I don’t say that either so maybe it’s just one of those things I notice that others don’t.
There’s also plenty of other clues about religion that aren’t even directly related to it. In the same way that I could guess with reasonable accuracy that someone is a Republican because they’re a Rush Limbaugh fan or a Democrat because they’re a Jon Stewart fan, there’s a number of things that are just more commonly associated with people that are Christian or Jewish or atheist. As an example, I was having a casual conversation just about a week and a half ago about recent movies and someone mentioned that he had seen Religulous and I got the impression that he liked it; that’s a pretty good sign that he’s probably atheist. FTR, I’ve never discussed religion or politics with him or anything even remotely similar, and yet I’m reasonably certain that he is both an atheist and a Democrat.