The only thing I have to contribute to this thread is:
Jodi, you horrible woman, why didn’t you tell me that you came back? 
You know what chaps my ass about women like that? Is I can never get a date with any of 'em! I’m a nice guy, yadda, yadda, but I can never convince any of 'em to ever go out with me! Okay, so I’m not terribly exciting, but I ain’t gonna beat ya or tell ya you’re a piece of shit either, but that apparently doesn’t count. I know it sounds cruel, but I really don’t have a lot of sympathy for women like that, especially after they’ve dumped nice guys and hooked up with some sleezeball.
Er…and you’d want to why exactly?
Thinking about just how visceral that question was for me makes me realize one of the saddest things about the kind of behavior’s the thread’s on about. And that’s just how cyclical and self-feeding a trap that pathologically low self-esteem is. Because I suspect that it’s a hideously unattractive trait (perhaps I’m projecting, because it sure is to me) to people who aren’t abusive assholes–and only “attractive” to those abusive wastes.
That is so right on!! Our society looks down upon unmarried women and it’s not right. If a woman is over 40 years old and never been married most people will look down upon that as if there’s something wrong with her. It’s bullshit. No one looks down upon men over 40 who’ve never been married. They don’t think there’s something wrong with them because they’ve never been married. They assume that those men enjoy being single… but they assume that the unmarried woman is unhappy because she’s single.
Perhaps its because I haven’t had a date in over a year.
Seriously, though, I’ve known several women who’ve done nothing but complain about how bad their boyfriend/ex-boyfriend is/was, meanwhile, I’m sitting there thinking, “What about me, damn it! I’m fucking available and I won’t do that shit to you! Why don’t you give me a chance?” Of course, they spend all their time when they’re not bitching about how shitty the guy is reminding me that all they want from me is to be friends. Yeah, thanks, but I’ve got enough friends already.
Or that they’re gay. I’m 33 and lots of people look at me funny when they find out that I’ve never been married, or had children. Yeah, like this is the lifestyle I really wanted. :rolleyes:
I’ll use a “Real World” example*. One of the members on the current season’s cast suffers from this problem. Even though she’s rail-thin, she was freaking out about gaining “7 pounds.” The reason she was upset (or so she said) was that this is the first time she hasn’t had a boyfriend, so therefore she must be unattractive. I think it’s pretty sad. Aside from a few dates a couple months ago, I haven’t had a boyfriend in well over a year and a half. I’m pretty cool with that. Granted, there are times I wish I had a date, but I know I’m a good person, with or without a man in my life
*Not only did I try to make a stupid pun, but my self-esteem is low-enough to admit that I still watch this show. What can I say? It’s a guilty pleasure. And all of my female friends are healthy enough to not be like this, so it was the best I could do.
I dunno, guys. I recognize poor self-esteem. Self-doubt and I are old friends, and I have been shat upon by men (and women “friends”) because I’m too nice. (Hard for some around here to believe, probably, that anyone could consider me “too nice,” but it’s true.)
But there’s a difference between the low self-esteem that makes you put up with a guy who stands you up or who can’t be bothered to remember your birthday – and the low self-esteem that makes you mourn a guy who tries to torpedo your career or who abuses you. I know as an intellectual matter that that level of self-doubt exists and women (and men) suffer from it. But on a visceral level, when I see a woman treated to such a mind-fuck and react by asking “what’s wrong with me?” I can’t help thinking, Jeez, what is wrong with you, that you’d imagine that you deserved this, could possibly deserve this? It’s just a “through the looking glass” experience for me – talking to my assistant about this is like trying to communicate with someone who thinks up is down and wrong is right.
And the worst of it is that I don’t know how to help her. She’s a great girl, but we’re not really friends and even if we were, I don’t know how you go about pulling someone out of a hole that deep. So I just remind her of all her good qualities, and tell her she’s doing a great job at work – which she is. But it’s now almost a week later and she’s still heartbroken over this total prick and it just baffles me. I think EVE’s Aunt Ida had it right.
TUCKER, keep being the good guy you are. Not every woman wants a jerk – most of us do not. And most men don’t even want the opportunity to treat a woman this badly. Thank God.
MAEGLIN, I’m just newly back but as horrible as ever.
Without wanting to cause a fuss, it did occur to me that this is just one incident.
You called this guy a “prick” Jodi but you don’t know what went on before he made that call. Don’t get me wrong, what he did was horrible, but you are only getting one side of the story (from the girl).
As a legal person, you know that you always need to hear both sides in order to discern the truth and build a case. Maybe she had a string of affairs or something and that’s what drove him to make that desperate vindictive call. Maybe he was previously of good character but something she did drove him over the edge, maybe he got drunk and angry and made a call that he later regretted.
I’m not saying this is the case, I don’t know. But the point is neither do you. At least not until you speak to him.
JOJO, far be it from me to disagree with someone posting under one of my favorite names (my family’s baby nickname for me), but – I disagree.
True. But I believe that some actions are absolutely indefensible. It is possible to do something that makes you, definitionally, a prick. Calling your exgirlfriend’s (or exboyfreind’s) work to tell his/her boss that he/she is a slut and an addict is one of those things.
First, I’m not trying to build a case agains the guy – I don’t know him or care to know him. But, second, I don’t agree with this. Even if she had had a “string of affairs” that would not justify his call. There is nothing any other person can do to “drive” any of us to commit acts that are so obviously beyond the pale. Some things you just don’t do. This IMO is one of them. IMO, there is nothing this woman could possibly have done to “drive” this guy to do this, and I’m frankly a little disturbed by the implication that she could even possibly be at fault. (Though certainly and alas, she apparently would agree with you.) But speaking for myself – I don’t care if she’s screwing his brother, if she whips him, beats him, makes him write bad checks. Then leave her ass – but no one else has the power to “drive” any of us to act so small.
Not true. They do look down on us guys, or, like ** Tuckerfan ** said, assume we’re gay. Maybe the criticism is not as bad as for women, but they do look down at us. Maybe the ones who seem to date a new woman all the time are viewed as playboys (which has good AND bad connotations) and are assumed to enjoy it, but not the ones who have less active social lives. We get asked why we never settled down, why no one sees us with dates, etc.
It hurts.
And I know a few cases where the woman treats the man like shit. It goes both ways, though, I must admit, the man seems the abuser more often than the woman.
It’s possible that she could be at fault. Maybe she provoked him to such a large extent that he became temporarily insane. Temporary Insanity is a legally recognised concept.
All I’m saying is that it is possible to imagine a scenario whereby she is (at least partly) to blame for that phone call.
Without knowing all the facts it’s hard to say for sure what the ultimate truth of the matter is.
No. It is not. The best you can come up with is temporary insanity (and how likely is that?) which, even if true, would still not be her fault. Unless you think that one person can drive another person insane.
Look, my position on this is simple and it extends to all areas of behavior, both good and bad: We are each of us responsible for how we act. We may not be able to control how others treat us, or how others perceive us, but we can control how we act. (The sane among us, at least.) Now, we may not always act appropriately – we can lose our tempers, act without thinking, whatever. But that doesn’t mean someone else is to blame for how we act.
But how we act is a product of our upbringing and our environment, both of which are influenced by other people. You can’t discount the influence of other people.
On the contrary; I can and do. We are each of us obviously the product of our upbringing and environment, but that does not make any one of us anything less than responsible for our own sane, intentional actions.
I am not saying such factors as undue influence may not be considered when weighing the punishment for such offenses (if such an act was a crime, which it’s not, and if we were talking about punishment, which we are not). But they do not change the culpability – the responsibilty – of the actor. I absolutely reject the idea that a sane adult can be “driven” to do any act, by anything short of intense physical or mental coercion. And there is no reason to think that the asshole in question was coerced into making the call. There was no gun to his head, and even if there was, the woman he tried to hurt wasn’t holding it. She was at work, minding her own business.
All I know is that when when faced with the choice of no man and me, women always choose no man.
You know, this could be coming from left field, and if it’s stupid, I’m sorry, but sometimes someone who is trapped in a horrible relationship will assume that anyone who won’t treat her like shit is “too good for her.” Just a thought.
As an aside: while this case is pretty clear-cut, please be careful about jumping to conclusions about other people’s relationships if the evidence is dodgy. With my ex (who, yes, can really piss me off like NOBODY else), my friends told me to break up with him. Why? Because I got pissy when he didn’t have time to talk.
Now, you know, I’m a pretty self aware person, and I realize that one of my flaws is that I assume that any slight in attention is automatically a slam against me. Yeah, I have low self-esteem, and I hate being “ignored.” It pisses me off, yeah–but I recognize that I’m being irrational, and therefore, put the blame on me. However, I bitched to my friends. Big mistake.
Did my ex do some stupid things? Yeah. Did he ever intentionally hurt me? No; the only thing he did was to break up with me in a really screwed-up way. Did he ever abuse me? No, because if he had, he wouldn’t have any balls after I got done with him.
And you know what? We’re really good friends now. When I bitch about how hard it is to get a date, how stupid I feel, how I feel like no one’s ever going to date me, he tells me that I’m being silly and that I’ll find someone good. And since I’ve enlightened him as to the fact that my world is no longer centered around him, things have gotten really great.
So…you know, low self-esteem + guy who seems to be a jerk doesn’t necessarily equal chick lowering herself and losing all self-respect. I mean, sometimes it does, but not always.
And I’m sorry I went off on this tangent, but this thing’s been griping my ass for a long time. Carry on :o.
I’m with you–the prick chose to make the phone call, nobody MADE him do it. I don’t care if the chick was a complete bitch to him, killed his cat, raped his goldfish, whatever, he still has no call trying to ruin her life like that.
If someone pisses off another person, the offended person has the CHOICE of reacting directly or taking the high road and leaving it all behind. Being vindictive and a jerk and blaming it on the person who pissed you off is classic abuser behavior–“Well, I’m sorry I hit you, but you shouldn’ t have made me mad like that.” Fuckit, we’re ALL responsible for our actions. I manage not to hit people or call up their bosses and lie about them no matter the provocation, and if I can do it I’m not out of line to insist that no one else do it either.
And tattling and lying to a non-involved third party in order to get back at a person you’re mad at is just plain tacky, juvenile and shitty–end of story.
Not that I’m concluding that all men are worthless; a man has his place.
Just let it not be sleeping at mine.
After 13 years in an emotionally violent (beyond abusive) and physically abusive (he was just getting up to speed, on this, hadn’t quite put me in the hospital, yet), I concluded that he did not and had not ever loved me after my definition of love. Once I’d had that epiphany, all else came easily.
I was transferring jobs. I changed the new lease at the apartment to my name only, explaining the situation in depth to the apartment manager. She was another lady just coming out of the same situation; so was her assistant. The one thing this has really taught me is that almost every woman my age (and I’m not that mature yet) has had or is having an abusive relationship. The ones that are past it are very encouraging.
I told him he wouldn’t be living with me anymore - I got all the stuff, and let him come pick up what we’d previously agreed was ‘his’ in email one day while I had six friends of mine there. I never met with him alone in a private place ever again. I kept the shotgun, and made sure he knew that I still had it, loaded and next to my bed.
Prevention is 9/10ths of the solution.
After 13 years, I didn’t expect to adjust and truly be ‘happy’ by myself for at least a year or longer. A mere month later, I suddenly looked up from cooking dinner, struck by the peaceful calmness my life had taken on. It felt SO good. No more fear, no more worry, no more dread of coming home, no more headaches, backaches, bad sex under durress, cleaning up messes I didn’t make, being blamed for bills not paid I had thrown away… when I hadn’t, actually.
I can find things now. They’re where I put them away at. There are clean dishes. I actually get to eat the “good things” I bring home from the grocer’s for snacks, even more than 1 or 2 cookies from a bag of 'em!
I can have friends now.
I can go out and do things that are fun for me.
I can watch the movie that I want to see.
I can even date guys. Although most of them, so far, have been whiney or ‘I’m just here for the sex, ma’am!’. Not that anything is wrong with wanting it, assuming it is bad. Most of the ones really hot to have it are really lousy at it, strangest thing. I guess the ones that are good get talked about (yes, guys, the Good Ol’ Girl’s network does exist and yes, we do talk about how good a fellow is in bed). These fellows apparently do not lack for opportunity.
Men are useful, but too high-maintenance. I’d rather just rent than own. 
I didn’t have the ‘you are worthy of love’ kind of childhood where my parents always stood beside me and made it clear that they would do absolutely anything to help me.
Growing up in there house was more or less ‘we like you but only when you earn it’ kind of deal that just really didn’t foster great self-respect. They tried to instill in me the belief that people would only love me so much as I had earned, through self-sacrifice, that love. For all the time I lived with them growing up, I was basically a raving bitch due to my frustration with the constant efforts made to cause my unhappiness.
And then I moved out. It took a year of college, living away from them, meeing entirely new people (I cut off ties with everyone who’d treated me like a doormat) and realizing that if I walked around looking like I deserve to be treated with respect, that’s what I got to put me on my feet. I developed my self worth and got happier. Then I figured out I didn’t need attention from asshole guys, because I could have men who treated me well. Success.
So after this whole process thing, and after I’m feeling pretty good about me, one night I’m trying to sleep and I hear yelling, screaming, crying, and lots of thuds coming in the window. The guy across the street beating the hell out of his girlfriend. I get up, grab 9mm, call police. The state cops arrive, separate them, and she tells them that she doesn’t want them to take him away. I guess she hasn’t gone through her process yet. This did make me want to grab her and tell her to wake the fuck up and smell the blood, that she’s a human not a punching bag… but she is insisting for whatever reason on remaining right where she is. The guy is a waste, has no job, can’t support himself, is a druggie and an alcoholic, but she loves him.
Considering that I have now interceded twice to stop particularly brutal ass kickings (the ones I can actually hear), I’m rather frustrated that she won’t get a fucking clue and leave him, but I doubt it’ll happen. I’m also reaching the point where I don’t want to extend the effort to help someone by calling the police and reporting incidents they keep telling the police to do nothing about.
I will NEVER understand the female mind, and I have one.
There is another option instead of low self esteem…and I’m not saying it applies to this case…but,
competitivness and the need to succeed.
We are raised on the Beauty and the Beast myth. If you love him enough, he will change. If he doesn’t change - you didn’t love him enough. We are also raised to be competative about men. Having one is better than not having one. Having a cute one is better than having an ugly one. Having a successful one is better than having a poor one. But having a nice one isn’t worth any points in the girl olympics sport of dating. And if your friends don’t know he’s not nice (and I’ve watched people hide it), you can still be the envy of your girlfriends, even if he does sleep around (just a little).
Have a boyfriend dump you and you’ve lost. Especially if you’ve invested any significant time in the boyfriend.
Needless to say, I think this is bullshit.