take your girlfriends and cram 'em!

The BBQ Pit
41

I’ve read this thread with interest because I’m one of these. I’m a guy and I much prefer the company of women to men. It’s not sexual attraction, it’s not flirting. It’s just that I find women both friendlier and deeper than men. The rational part of me knows that’s not true, and, like the others, I know a few men who are both friendly and deep. (I certainly am.) I’m even aware that it’s a classic example of a self-fulfilling prophecy: I find women more friendly because I’m more friendly with them. But I still prefer women.

But sometimes, a little voice inside me whispers, “It is sexual attraction!”

Maybe this is just a guy thing.

42

Jar- you are the man! (so to speak)

I am soooo sick of that shit. I hate to shop, hate to go get my hair/nail/pedicure/ done. I don’t own an iron and I can make a salior blush. (I dated a guy who went to Anapolis so this is a true statement)

I prefer hanging with the guys. They’re just nicer and they don’t get that “I don’t know who she is” when I tell someone to fuck off.

I’m in your neighborhood, so let me know when you want to go for a few beers. We can close the 'Vu on Lincoln if there are too many underagers from depaul running around

Shay

43

When I lived in Jamaica, I had a friend I used to sit on the porch and drink beer with when it was too hot to sleep. One night she was laughing at one of my stories, and said, “You know, Jill, you’re not like other White people.” She obviously meant this as a compliment. I doubt she’d ever really known any other white people, but she had this stereotype based on watching tourists. I said to her, “I would rather you say 'Now that I know you, I know that all White people are not alike.” In other words, knowing me didn’t change her stereotype of Whites… it was still intact, but I was “different” than all the other (loser) White people. This is how men often will compliment women, “You’re not like other girls.” And we say “thank you.”

Women are all different, too. There may be a bell curve, but it’s no different from the one you find with men. There are creative, funny, intelligent men and then there are men who will talk about nothing but cars, sports and tits (each of which can be an interesting topic, but not if it’s all there is). They’re as boring and banal as the women who talk about nothing but hairstyles, diets and boys. There are as many interesting, nutty women out there as there are zany, out-there guys. It’s embarrassing to hear us women stereotype ourselves.

The difference is that women who like to be with men, who are maybe even a teensy bit butch, are looked up to (Katherine Hepburn, dressed in men’s slacks), but feminine men? Hm. Liberace. Maleness is associated with power and strength. Femaleness is associated with weakness and petty shallowness. Why would we want that?

I used to manage a mountaineering store and all my employees were male. Like all the people I worked with, I was into rock climbing, and I sometimes got feature articles written about me in the newspaper. Why? Because I was some kind of Great athlete? No. The unwritten message was that I was good for a girl. What a surprise. It was vaguely insulting, even, that there were such low expectations for women. You see this message in movies all the time.

Anyway, I think jarbabyj and most of the rest of you are really cool and I bet if you lived in my town, you’d wanna be friends with me and Mandy JO!

  • Jill
44

[[so let’s discuss them in that light and save black internal racism for another thread.]]

Celestina, I used this example because it’s the one I’ve had the most experience with, and I think it’s a good analogy.

45

I don’t like ditzes, of any gender. And they come in approximately equal numbers amongst guys and girls.

46

Hi Coll, love. My name is Celestina, NOT Celestine. Hay una diferencia. ?Entiendes, esposo virtual mio? Espero que tu estes bien.

Collounsbury said:
“As for understanding men, base instincts combined with random amounts of other things. Locally defined.”

I want some clarification on this point, Coll. I don’t understand. :slight_smile:

JillGat said:
“Celestina, I used this example because it’s the one I’ve had the most experience with, and I think it’s a good analogy.”

That’s your prerogative, Jill. I’ve had a lot of experience with black people too, but I think in this thread what you meant was not clear, and I saw the possibility that people might think otherwise and tried to address the stereotype of black people as deviant. No harm done.

47

Ya know, one sees a lot of threads that start out as discussions and then turn into blistering rants, but **jarbabyj ** has a knack for doing it the other way around (which is a lot more interesting, IMHO).

I loved Manda JO’s post. I don’t like sitting around and talking about my hair either, and I think a lot of women don’t like it, and yet, this is the stereotype that people have of “girly” conversations. I have tons of good girlfriends, and I don’t think we talk about hair a lot. Unless we’re complaining about Rob Johnson and that flippin’ HAIR BAND he has the nerve to wear on the g.d. field, and then also wears later when he trash talks the off. line ON TV, which is not the greatest, but at the same time, I think it’s a obvious, don’t you, Rob, that they protected Flutie a little better than they proteted YOU, which then leads me to ask wtf was Wade THINKING, besides which if you don’t stop making that “boo hoo” face after you get sacked (often) your face is going to freeze that way, and I hope it DOES … but I digress…

Anyhoo, I have often noticed that my mom interacts with her girlfriends differently, and this leads her to think that perhaps her girlfriends are better than my girlfriends. This is, naturally, greatly annoying to me. But at the same time, her girlfriends have stuck together for the better part of 50 years, which makes me suspect that maybe they have some sort of subtext going on under all that hair and make-up stuff that I haven’t yet been able to decode.

In closing, in addition to pleading for Rob Johnson to GET A CLUE before preseason, I would just like to say that true blue friends are the greatest, and I’m glad I count both men and women among mine.

48

Well, since I bandied around that stereotype, I’ll address this. I mentioned three girls whom I met and who embodied every stereotype about women. In my experiance, at school and at work, there are quite a few women who believe that they need to have this artificial front in order to fit in, find a man, be popular, etc. I know that they are deeper than that. The girl who was an English major attended Johns Hopkins, so obviously she was intelligent, but it was the idea that she, for whatever reasons, was not willing to express her intelligence that irritated me. I meet an awful lot of women who dominate conversations with nonsense and don’t make an effort to express themselves as having anything deeper.

Example? But of course:

I was out to dinner with the two girl friends I mentioned, who occasionally devolve into chats about fake nails and highlights, and also with two close guy friends. Jeff and James and I started talking about Tom Stoppard’s new play, The Invention of Love, about A.E.Houseman. We’re talking about some of his other stuff that we all like (R & G Are Dead, Shakespeare in Love) and then Jeff points over to Adrienne and Lamis, who are examining their hair for split ends. Now, I don’t think they were familar with Stoppard, which explains the deviation, but come on! Split ends!?

I don’t only discuss weighty topics. It’s much more MPSIMS than GD in my life. But I don’t ever want to discuss fake nails, or highlights, or cellulite, or Leonardo Di Caprio, or split ends or thigh exercises or any of it! Never! I have found a few women who won’t be bothered with such nonsense, and I keep them close at hand. I don’t automatically exclude all women from my friend circle, but if your topics of conversation are so limited, I don’t want to spend time with you.

If that makes me internally racist (which, AFAICS, it most certainly does not; discerning, perhaps, or picky, but not racist) than I’m still not going to spend time with anyone who talks about her thighs and facial hair all goddamn day.

49

Who’s Rob Johnson?

50

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Nacho4Sara *
**

Do you actually know someone who spends the day discussing **HER OWN ** facial hair?

Frankly, I don’t want to hear about ANYONES facial hair, regardless of sex. Ick. But that’s just me

51

See, Nacho4sara, when you say things like:

you are not just talking about this individual and that individual–you want to talk about how annoying ditzy girly girls are and I will match you story to story. Instead, you gereralize about the whole damn sex: ALL men are fun, but even after a “fair shake” all women are shown to be boring and a painful waste of time. If you haven’t discovered that men are every bit as likely to be inane, uncultured, boorish, and trivial as women ,well then you haven’t been paying attention. Were you to ask 1000 men what Stoppard’s new play was called and a thousand women the same question, I would suspect you would find that the percentage was roughly equal, or even slightly slanted towards the women since women are coming to dominate liberal arts departments these days.

If you never or harldly ever in comparison meet women who are capable of and interested in “deep” conversations, I am going to have to draw your attention to pluto’s “self-fufilling prophecy” theory–perhaps women never discuss anything weighty with you because you never bring up weighty topics around them, assuming them to be consumed with hair and nails. And since they have no evidence that you are any deeper than that yourself, they keep the conversation light for your sake.

They have to decide whether to go “GD” or “MPSIMS” based on what you and the guys were talking about? Had you and the guys been talking about times you had explosive diahrea, then would the way have been clear for them to talk about split ends? If anything, it is usually polite to keep conversation light until the rest of the table is ready to join in. And what is up with your friend, publically pointing out how boring the other people at the table are?
Lastly, do you think the statement: “I don’t like to hang out with black people, most of the ones I meet are sneaky, lazy, stupid people” is racist?

If you do, how can you think that the statement:

“I don’t like to hang out with girls, most of them are artificial, innane, and boring.” is not sexist?

52

Quarterback for the Buffalo Bills, and part of a “who’s-the-starter” controversy with Doug Flutie that ended up with Flutie heading to San Diego for a one-year tour presumably to act as future-draftee Michael Vick’s mentor. (Technically Flutie has a 6-year $30.3-million contract, but that’s about as plausible as Lance Johnstone’s 5-year $30-million contract with Minnesota.)

This ends your regularly scheduled football hijack.

53

Having shot the breeze with jarbabyj in person I can say she’s all that and a bag of chips. ;o)

<<Ok enough about you! your ego must be increasing exponentially at this point!>>

As for me - I can hang out with both men and/or women and have a good time. Versitility is good I suppose.

54

JillGat wrote:

This is what I like to call the Talking Dog Syndrome. Even well-meaning efforts to accustom people to the idea that women are present in all fields and all hobbies tend to come across as implying that it’s actually unusual. I remember years ago, I saw a sketch on Sesame Street that featured a song and dance number about how women can do anything a man can do. I came to realize that there was a disparity in gender roles precisely because I saw it being denied.

55

You know, you could always get to know some transvestites and then introduce them to the family, that way every one can be happy :).
What with the Stanley cup and the baseball season starting who has time to miss NFL. Especially as down here we don’t really get to see any of the above, oh well back to the rugby game and a cold beer.

56

Entiendo mas bien pero j’oublie seulement pour un instant chica, una diferencia pequena, “e”, “a” eh non?

Diferencias

Oh no, I decline. I have a rep to proctect.

57

I have a massive and debilitating crush on Jarbabyj. It’s true. Ever since the talking dog joke.

58

But are you a GIRL? :smiley:

Anyway…I guess this is quite a thread…and I’ve read it with great interest…some comments…

What IS the deal with Rob Johnson’s hair? He looks like a porn star. It’s horrible. Look at Mark Brunell. Now there’s a haircut you can set your watch to!

Manda Jo and JillGat…I’d love to hang out with y’all…although I feel by the end of the night you’d be saying, “this girl is…stupid.” You have some brilliant posts!

Silo, you little minx. Let’s go out again and not involve the authorities. I didn’t get to throw darts.

And finally, Collunsbury, I’m going to level with you…I’m just a theatre major. Your terms and theories frighten me. I read your response to my mentioning of your name (which was really just in jest because I said ‘racial’) and I STILL don’t get it. Could you help me out?

My head blew up after reading that. Fallacy of composition…is that in reference to my comment? My statement is false? People in general? The OP? Women? I don’t get it. You said you were confused by my statement…what I meant was that sometimes within a group that is ‘generally perceived’ by the public (women, hispanics, vegetarians, episcopalians) people try to stand out within that group by rejecting the general group view…

My friend who is black always makes a point to tell people that “she doesn’t buy into all that black shit”, that she “hates black music”, etc. And I feel that she does it because then people see her as an interesting anomaly (I don’t even know if I’m using that word right, that’s how dumb I am) I guess I’m just asking for further explanation of your statement.

Lastly, I see that no one has offered up an example of ‘what I’m missing’ by having a guy be my best friend rather than a woman…so I’ll assume we all agree it doesn’t matter.

And by the way…I love nothing more than going to the spa, doing my hair, getting a manicure…and going to the Cubs game.

jarbaby

59

So I’m listening to the radio this morning and hear a commercial for Dave and Busters (a restaurant/bar/gaming place) The announcer said,

“Dave and Busters! Where a knockout meal is followed by a fine white wine for the ladies…and authentic NASCAR go karts for the guys! YEAH!”

:rolleyes:

jarbaby

60

There are several people…many of them women…in this thread with whom I would love to hang out for a drink or two…and I’m talkin’ Budweiser, baybee, because I am hopelessly plebian.

However, I have a feeling that by the high standards of the folks in here, I would be dismissed as a flake because…I’m a housewife. I never progressed beyond Algebra in math (I just don’t get it. I try, I WISH I got it, I’d love to get into physics, but my brain refuses), I dropped out of college, I’ve been married since I was 22 and I have three kids.

I have almost no friends - PERIOD - where I live, because it’s not like I can put out a personal ad:

Housewife, 30, ISO same-ish. Must despise the fashion elite. Must own a large dictionary AND a thesaurus. Must not gush over actors. Must not be racist or homophobic. Occasional recreational drug use ok.

Must not assume that housewife + non-college-graduate = stupid and/or useless. Must be able to stop in the middle of a discussion about the theory of Man as an experiment in free will, scream, “Stop pushing your sister or yer gonna GET IT, boy,” and return as though uninterrupted. Must have the ability to get through both “Buzz Lightyear: Space Ranger” AND “Pi” and enjoy both (for admittedly different reasons).

Must be willing to have hair-coloring parties as long as a good game of Starcraft follows. Must know that Cuervo 1800 is infinitely superior to Joe-Bob’s Generic Tequila. Must understand that there is a hell of a lot more to the Internet than AOL. Must not flinch at really really really bad puns and jokes, most of them sexual in nature. Must know that if a kid is screaming, you give 'em a few seconds to stop before assuming an emergency.

Okay, so assuming that I could afford a personal ad like that, I know that no one in THIS town would answer it except for an undercover DEA agent who focused on “Occasional recreational drug use ok,” and wanted to find out who my dealer is, because that’s the kind of town this is.

I don’t think women are inherently more interesting than men, or vice-versa. Every experience we have in our lives builds on who we become. If you see a housewife dragging her three kids around the mall, you don’t know that she’s not thinking, “Must get the hellions home so I can fix my web page and BOY, I hope my Piaget showed up today and shit, what am I going to make for dinner? Do we have any ground beef? That reminds me, meant to pick up “Evil Dead” before I go home,” [aloud]: “Give some of that to your sister! I don’t care who had it first, I will have HARMONY!”

Yeah, there are a lot of ditherheads out there, male AND female.

I’ve lost my point. Here’s hoping I got any of it across, my boring, housewife who works part-time in a craft store and has three kids self.

Oh, and Leonardo diCaprio is crap, but I’d tackle Angelina Jolie in a heartbeat.

And all of the following, in my not-particularly-vital opinion, kick serious bootay (note: exclusion from this list does not imply lack of inclusion on my ‘cool people’ list, as though THAT was an honor): jarbabyj, Tequila Mockingbird and Arden Ranger rock da house, yo.