BTW, AHunter3, another thing:
This:
and this:
are not examples of well-chosen words. You’re objectifying. Yes, I know you’re also doing it with men, so it’s an equal opportunity thing. But people don’t notice it when you do it with men. They do notice it like all get out when you do it with women.
Women are just people, dude. (So are men, BTW.) “Females” is a word that sets off all kinds of alarm bells. Mine sure went off. You’re risking some very heavy inadvertent well-poisoning here.
And…
Look, I’m not entirely sure what I’m trying to say here. But I can’t help feeling that you’re missing some point. There’s no particular reason to think that radical feminists prefer weak men. It’s just… it’s just not what feminism is about. It doesn’t work that way. And I can’t help feeling like you’re insulting feminists by putting it like that.
Feminists are just people. People are just people. You seem to be categorizing, classifying, applying logic, being all Spock-like about it. But people are just people.
Last week is one of the rare times I heard an actual example of annoying mainstream political correctness. NPR was comparing men and women for some reason in a job, let’s say engineers, and said “woman [engineers] did so-and-so”, which first of all is annoying because most other examples of nouns-as-adjectives when applied to groups are seen as essentializing if not outright offensive, but that would be okay if they were consistent. But the piece went on to compare them to “male [engineers]” :smack:.
A bizarre overreaction to the use of “females” as a noun, which is indeed annoying in itself.
Not sure what your criticism is here. I was just pointing out the reaction one might get when using the word as the above poster did. I’m perfectly happy to give said poster the benefit of the doubt concerning his intended meaning. I’m just saying it’s a red flag. And if you’re walking around carrying a red flag, there might be angry bulls in your near future.
If someone wants to make it their mission to reform the noun “females”, be my guest. If they also, say, want to walk around with a sign saying “misogynist” on their foreheads, because they like the look of the sign and the nice font it’s written in, that’s their call, too. But they’ll probably draw some funny looks.
If someone was casually throwing around racial slurs, I would probably alert them to that, too.
shrugs You’ve said extremely little that I’m in agreement with, Martian Bigfoot. I don’t feel like doing one of those line by line thingies, so instead I’ll confine my replies to things you’ve said that I don’t entirely disagree with —
I am guilty of a kind of haughty smug superior attitude towards “normal” males, yeah. I understand it in myself, it’s partly compensation for everyone’s silly assumption that I’m jealous of them, wish to be like them but in some peculiar fashion am unable to manifest as they do. It’s also partly a kind of chauvinism: “Eww, why would you want to be like that? I’m not like that! You are doing it all wrong!”
Anyway… I don’t think I’m an objectively better person than conventional males. Not when I stop to think about it and stuff. I may even have some form of the passive-aggressive nastiness you’re accusing me of, although I don’t think it makes me worse than other people, just a different specific form of selfishness.
Oh, I am going to reply to one other thing even though it’s part of the total disagreement stuff: I use “male” and “female” to refer to people (either in the aggregate or singularly) I am identifying by their sexual morphology. It’s different from gender. Gender is identity. This is sex. Sometimes I am making generalizations about people who are peniled, and who have the other physiological accoutrements associated with penis-ownership; I use female reciprocally to refer to people who are envaginated and have the other associated morphology that tends to accompany possession of a vagina. If I had meant “women” I would have said "women. If I had meant “men” I would have said “men”. The generalizations I was making were at the sex, not gender level; I was sort of saying that male-bodied people tend to be men and boys, breaking down what “men” and “boys” actually means in personality and behavioral terms.
There’s not a damn thing wrong with using those terms. I shall continue to do so, and I shall laugh at anyone who deigns to find them offensive.
Hey, HFA here and I celebrate my 25th Wedding anniversary next year.
I’ve also never been on a date in my life.
I’m also a nice guy.
It can happen.
I’ve brought this up before. There have been studies done where they ask women one of two questions. One is, “What do you look for in someone you would want to date.” The other is, “What traits are important for you in a life partner.” When the data is compiled there is not a single item that appears in the top 10 of both lists. Then people wonder why they never date anyone that they end up wanting to marry.
I don’t remember what the age range of the respondents was, so this may indeed be something we grow out of.
I often gravitate to these types of threads precisely because I have always been the type of person you’re describing, and I feel the need to jump in and point out it’s never been the hindrance a lot of people (men) insist it is.
I recall around the time I hit 30 being really proud to realize I’ve been living my life the way that comes naturally to me long enough that I could officially declare it a successful life strategy.
That is, I certainly got off to a good start, but at 22 or 25, who is to say it wasn’t just luck and being honest, humble, generous and kind to others was holding me back.
After a dozen years of adulthood, to say nothing of my childhood, this strategy has been wildly successful and I felt confident sticking with it.
I can certainly see the appeal of blaming one’s failures and setbacks on being just too good of a person, but I’m sorry to say it’s definitely not in the case in my life.
I can relate to this. I guess I would self identify as a misanthrope because it has been my experience that, at least our society, and perhaps humanity in general, only tolerates a certain deviation from the norm. And it’s weird because there is a sort of uncanny valley effect going on here. There is a certain distance an individual can deviate from normal and it’s OK. But if you cross that line then watch out. But there is another line that if you cross that you are OK again. The truly eccentric get a pass and the “normal” folk get a pass, but if you fall in that gap in between then you are on your own.
Unfortunately I have inhabited that gap most of my life. I’ve gotten used to the fact that I make others uncomfortable and find it best to mostly just keep to myself because of that. There are a few individuals who either also inhabit the gap or who for whatever reason have chosen to associate with me regardless, but humanity and I are largely in mutual agreement that we don’t like each other.
That’s a very interesting way of thinking about it, Pábitel. Yeah, now that I think of it, I’ve seen that “uncanny valley” reaction towards some people where more unusual people get a pass. Now I’m going to have to think back on situations to see where else this may have applicability.
Huh. That’s actually a very good observation.
So, pro tip to people who fail at being normal: Stop trying, and just go full out weirdo. Well, if that’s actually easier to do. Maybe it isn’t.
Hmm. This is a bit combative in my opinion. I don’t see anything wrong with people being confused by adopting traits that those they desire claim they desire and then getting terrible responses for their efforts. No, I am not saying people are entitled to other people but if they are conditioned to believe that by acting like x,y,z that the chances of mate selection increase and than they act x,y,z with no chance it can be frustrating to those who aren’t wise to human nature.
AHunter3, the great secret to life is that people aren’t honest with what they want even with themselves. People want to think highly about themselves and will verbally or internally lie to themselves about what they really want or desire. Now, of course that’s not all people at all times.
For myself when I was looking for a long term partner and not just sexual interaction I had a set of criteria I wanted that prospective partner to follow. All the criteria were signals that the person was fit for me for a long term relationship. My wife and I have now been together over 20 years. So I think it worked. The criteria I was looking for were intellectual, disciplined, pretty, loyal, someone who wasn’t partying or drinking, fiscally responsible, had a picture of St. Reagan on her wall, played Dungeons & Dragons etc. That excludes a lot of people. Sadly, that excludes a lot of nice girls. That excludes all guys.
Now I was honest with myself. I really did value those traits and I really wanted those traits. I valued stability very highly because I came from a rough childhood that had very little stability. I wanted stability and I wanted to provide stability for my family because I know how bad it is to be without it. I wasn’t just saying these things in order to convince myself I was somehow more virtuous than those who weren’t saying those things.
Now my traits are not perfect. I can be aggressive. I can be nasty. I’m big and loud. I don’t tolerate attempts to be bullied and I’ve been in many fights. Even as an adult. I believe in two tits for every tat to discourage future tats. In some ways that’s attractive to women. Not all women. Some women. It’s weird but understandable when you look at life as if we live in a jungle. Which we do. It’s just a transformed jungle.
Anyways, enough about me. What do you want? Write it down. Now, who are you? Not who you are to get something but who are you? Write that down.
There will be a set of women who want what you are. There will be a set of women who have what you want. What’s the intersection of those sets? How do you identify those women to see that there may be a realistic chance of a relationship? MY strategy was to identify activities that signaled traits with a strong correlation.
Of course this was all 20+ years ago. So this may be fossilized and irrelevant.
It is puzzling how this would be today if I had to find someone new. I’d probably have to watch one of those pick up artists shows and work on my peacocking. Get me a fancy hat, some wild pants, some red and green shoes, maybe a white van. I wonder if all that would work. I probably would have to go to Nevada and pay for companionship:(
I think it comes down to the appearance of total cluelessness vs choosing to be different.
Of course. I agree. There’s nothing wrong with that. But “nice” guys aren’t doing that. Or at least not beyond the first five minutes. After that, something entirely different is going on.
'Cause “nice” guys are quickly enough clued in to the fact that assertive men get the ladies. There’s no actual confusion about that. The “nice” guys have made that observation time and again. That’s their main complaint. They then classify these men as assholes, and then blame the women for wanting assholes. At that point, they are no longer being “nice” in the belief that it actually makes them desirable. They’re being “nice” in the stubborn insistence that it *should *make them desirable.
If you hear “nice” guys continually complaining that women *say *that they like nice, but actually go for assholes, then they are either a) shifting blame to the women and playing the victim, which apparently is more interesting than getting actual results, to some people, for some reason, or b) attempting to logic women into bed. “Aha! You *say *you like nice guys. I’m nice. Ergo, you must go to bed with me in order to maintain logical consistency. You don’t want to be logically inconsistent, do you? Here, have a look at this power point presentation where I explain this in detail.”
Not really— you’re just not aware of our existence until that point in our lives where we decide that it isn’t our imagination, isn’t just how lots of people say it is, but actually does constitute a trend.
By “accept” do you mean “fuck”? Yeah, it happens. Not to me, but I’ve heard stories.
Yeah I can see that. And it also may be that “nice” guys aren’t interested in the kind of women who are interested in “nice” guys. There are a lot of lonely women who are ignored why don’t the nice guys ask one of these ladies out?
Look, no women are interested in “nice” guys (or, well, maybe there are some extreme masochists out there, the Bell is curve is pretty wide, but not beyond that). If a woman hooks up with a “nice” guy, she either doesn’t notice that he’s a “nice” guy, or he isn’t operating as a “nice” guy at the time. It’s not necessarily a 24/7 type of behavior. People are multifaceted.
But, again, women *are *interested in *actually *nice guys.
BTW, this thing I posted earlier:
is also why all complaints from “nice” guys about how awful and cruel women can be sounds like so much whiny garbage. How does the saying go? Men worry about being rejected. Women worry about being murdered. And it’s true.
When it comes to the capacity for women to hurt men versus vice versa, there is just no damned contest. You were rejected? You had your heart broken? Aw, poor you, Watch me play the world’s smallest violin. Were you raped, killed and left in an alley? Didn’t think so.
Most men are harmless. But the slightest hint that you might not be will scare women off. For good reasons.
In my experience, it’s impossible to do this. 