Completely agree with you. Attributing criminal tendencies to people different from you is discrimination. Weirdos are cool people, not automatic villains.
You do find places on the internet where unhappily single women congregate and talk shit about men and their superficial preferences. But to be honest? Most of the negativity is directed at pretty girls who can just waltz in a room and turn heads just by existing.
It’s not raging hate. It’s more like sad bitterness. It’s not “I’m going to kill Stacey!” It’s more “I hate how no one ever notices me, but they always notice her. How can I possibly compete against her. And I really wish she would stop acting like her life is so hard and tragic. Anyone would kill to have her life. So she needs to shut the hell up!”
If they were guys, maybe all of this would seem slightly misogynistic. But because these are girls (or at least I assume they are), they just come across as bitter and jelly.
Not gonna lie. I get where they are coming from. Only beautiful women are ever allowed to be true victims. A few months ago I watched an incredible documentary about a young woman dealing with chronic fatigue syndrome. It really did a great job of showing how difficult life can be with the disease. But I strongly suspect the film would have never been made if she weren’t so photogenic. Even though I believe this, I still came away from the film thinking, “If even pretty young woman can get CFS, there’s no way it’s a psychogenic disorder!” Ugly women are invisible, but when they are made visible, they are blamed for their problems. I know I would have had to fight the urge to blame her for being sick if she had been obese.
So when these Forever Alone women kvetch about this particular societal unfairness, I don’t argue with them. Cuz they are 100% right. And I think they are entitled to feel bad about it and rant about it, even if it’s not productive behavior that will help them get a man.
I’m sorry, the second that picture popped up with the wires on her head, I couldn’t think of anything but this. Has nothing to do with her physical attractiveness. 
But you’re absolutely right.
Absolutely, and lonely men are equally entitled to kvetch about the societal unfairnesses that make life harder for them too. As I said in an earlier post, there’s a big difference between blaming the bad choices that society traditionally imposes on us, and blaming women or men as people.
We are all definitely allowed to blame society for the bad choices of “toxic masculinity” and “feminine mystique” that pressure us to conform to rigid gender roles where women are supposed to be dependent and obliging and men are supposed to be dominant and powerful. It sucks that so many men feel it would be humiliating for them to be dating a woman who’s not “hot” and young. And it also sucks that so many women feel it would be humiliating for them to be dating a man who’s shorter than they are, or bald, or who doesn’t make more money than they do.
It sucks that men expect to get away with catcalling and harassing women, and it sucks that women expect to get away with requiring men to pay for their drinks and dinners and dates. It sucks that women are shamed for being ugly or sexually active, and it sucks that men are shamed for being virgins or low-income. It sucks that girls are pressured to like glittery pink stuff and it sucks that boys are pressured not to.
All of us are getting seriously screwed in one way or another by the various injustices built into our societal inheritance from ancient patriarchal systems, and we’re all justified in complaining about it.
I don’t know if I agree with that. Dating sites and online communication just favor different skills than meeting someone in person. You don’t have the body language and spontaneity, but you do get to spend some more time on crafting a first impression and displaying good writing skills. I’ve gotten compliments on my writing in a few places. I haven’t had much luck with online sites, but better than I’ve had in person.
I also notice that you describe the process in terms of a man trying to make a favorable impression on a woman. (Well, and that is what the whole thread is about.) But even in the 21st century that is still the default; men actively pursuing (for lack of a better word) and women fielding offers and waiting to be impressed. And I don’t mean to suggest you’re wrong for describing it that way. It’s just so ingrained to look at it that way that it takes a conscious effort to even notice we’re doing it. And online dating, whatever drawbacks it might have, requires women to put up profiles, too. They can indicate availability, and preferences, even if they’re rarely the first to express interest. That seems to be a good thing in terms of giving them more options[sup]*[/sup] and making them take a more active role in the process.
All in all, I think online dating is the modern equivalent of standing next to the keg.
- I’ve read that more options don’t always make us happier, which is kind of a bummer.
Ouch.
I didn’t even go to those sorts of parties when I was in college. I wouldn’t know where to find one, now.
Until one day it’s not, or one day you just can’t drag yourself out of bed to keep trying.
Right. So…are you saying we should just shun him until he can fix himself out of these thought patterns? What are you saying?
Cuz all I’m saying is that shunning him isn’t necessarily going to keep him from going from a bad guy into a worse guy. All I’m saying is that it MIGHT be good to step in at some point and keep him engaged enough with the real world so that his beliefs don’t become even weirder (or more toxic or whatever other word you want to use).
OK, maybe there are kids that come into the world believing that girls are aliens who must be killed, and there’s nothing we could to do to dissuade of them that notion. I’ll concede anything is possible. BUT I AIN’T TALKING ABOUT THOSE KIDS. I’m talking about the kids who aren’t that messed up. Like the kid who throws sand in another kid’s face because he’s a derp who doesn’t know that sand can hurt. Letting that kid become so marginalized by his peers that he can only find comfort on the internet IS NOT A GOOD THING. I’m saying we should stop that from happening somehow.
I’m not here writing prescriptions for each and every scenario you can dream up. I’m throwing out IDEAS for what we COULD do that MIGHT work on SOME kids. Shit.
A lot of weird people are treated like CREEPS!! (dangerous people) when they are merely creeps (scary-looking people who aren’t dangerous). Do you deny this?
And I’m not even talking about self-identified weirdos. I’m talking about people others have deemed as weirdos.
Perhaps you can stop arguing with me, then. Cuz nothing I have said should be that disagreeable to you.
Or alternatively, he might be an asshole in one context but be totally fine in another (when his medicine is working). Or he might have made a mistake (throwing sand in a kid’s face), but no one will ever let him live it down so he’s always going to be the “crazy asshole who throws sand in people’s faces”. As you said, we could go back and forth with this kind of speculation. But where does it get us, to talk about individual hypothetical cases? If you had an asshole kid on your hands AND you suspected he was mentally ill, would you try to optimize his chances for making friends? Or would you drug him up, force him to go to therapy (that he hates), and let him stay in his bedroom all day long, doing god knows what on the internet? Because I wouldn’t. I would try to treat the mental illness as effectively as possible, and I would also do what I could to keep him from being lonely and socially disgruntled. I can’t think of any instance where it would be prudent to not care about both of these things simultaneously.
I’m drawing that conclusion based on how he was described by the people who knew him. No one described him as a “jerk”. If you can find reports of that, I’d love to see that. But one thing I’m not going to do is assume he was a jerk.
So it sounds like you are throwing out there the possibility that he was a sociopath. OK, let’s say that’s what he was. What is the point you’re trying to make? Are you saying that there was nothing we could have done to keep him from going on a killer spree, so we shouldn’t even entertain the idea that maybe an intervention could have stopped him? Because I’m only positing that MAYBE he could have been stopped if someone had intervened and yanked him out of that internet bubble he lived in. Maybe I’m wrong, and I’m okay with that. But I think it MIGHT be worth trying for guys who look like Elliot Rodgers. I’m not saying anything more definitive than that.
OK, now I’m confused. Are you under the belief that all this time I haven’t been arguing that mental illness is a basic driver? Because I’ve repeatedly said I think this is the case. If Adam Lanza hadn’t been neurological impaired and mentally ill, I don’t believe we would be talking about him right now. Are you thinking that all this time I’ve been saying social isolation is the ONLY factor, rather than one among multiple? Cuz that’s not what I’ve been saying at all.
If he had been put in a hospital, at least he wouldn’t have been socially isolated. He wouldn’t have only had the internet and guns to keep him company. He would have been in the midst of other patients–maybe people he could have connected with. So I agree with you that he should have been in the hospital instead of living at home. But I don’t understand why you seem to be suggesting I WOULDN’T be in favor of this.
I am not “supposing” things, and I’m pissed that you think making inferences based on the available data is “supposing”, but assuming the very worst is perfectly okay.
OK, cool.
Just because I think we might be able to stop future Elliot Rodgers by coming up with intervention strategies for guys who have a similar profile doesn’t mean I’m making sweeping generalizations about Incel killers. And I didn’t say anything about “harmless” weirdness. A person can be a big ole weirdo and do harmful things (intentionally or no). But that doesn’t mean he has a toxic ideology.
Me neither! I guess my mistake is thinking we can make some inferences about Elliot Rodgers and Adam Lanza based on the information that is available about them? You don’t seem to like me doing that. OK, fair enough. But I’m not going to assume the very worse about them just because we don’t have enough information to rule out this possibility. Sorry. If we always assumed the very worse about people, we wouldn’t bother doing anything to help them. I’m trying not to be the kind of person who is okay with that.
If you’re going to try to bully me (no matter how “mild”) you’re no longer my friend. and if you’re a family member, I’ll cut of any and all contact with your ass.
good lord, what horrible advice you give.
And I suppose that’s what I’m saying. Dating apps favor guys who are great with the verbal medium. It doesn’t favor guys who have great body language or have a good sense of physical humor, but maybe don’t come across well over prolonged texting, in which you’re trying to woo someone whose attention is switching between your texts, some other guy’s texts, Netflex binging, and redditing.
Some people will do well with this. But is everyone advantaged? No, I don’t think so.
So are you getting more dates now they you were before dating apps? I’m trying to square this statement with your posts about how hard it has been to find someone.
Texting is also fraught with the same danger as any other writing.
The inherent ability of humans to read emotions and other things into the message that were not intended by the person writing it.
Well, yes, but it’s very nearly a case of saying that “few” is more than “none”.
It’s real easy to look at someone’s more ambiguous texts and find them pathetic or creepy under a certain light. I think people are more forgiving of weirdness in oral communication because those words aren’t being recorded. The cringy stuff can disappear forever. But when your friends are talking about their dating (mis)adventures, it is way too tempting to whip out your phone and show them the weird thing some guy has texted you. It may not even be THAT weird, but it just seems that way because it’s in written form and oh my goodness what was he thinking?!
I hope you find someone, Robot Arm. I’ll never stop rooting for you.
It’s also a matter of tone, attitude, body language and so forth. I’ve given presentations and had them go very well and get very good feedback on them, yet have people who read the same presentation document without the speech coming back to me complaining about ‘tone’ or specific words that NO ONE had an issue with when those words were on screen in front of them and I was speaking them. Early in my career I would apologize and let the person trample on me. As I got more experience, I would just blow them off.
Because there’s always some asshole who wants POWER by criticizing every detail and demanding you appease them.
Thanks.
I hope she’d have gotten her money back from whoever sold her the weak-ass Mace, then…
(This why I’ve grown tired of posting in this thread…it seems like I can’t express a viewpoint without me then having to defend something that doesn’t follow from anything I wrote. Like, where is this question coming from?)
No, I’m not saying that. See this earlier post from mine.
you with the face, I also think mental health conditions need to be addressed. I just also think the social stuff is important too. I’m sorry that you’ve somehow missed this in my posts.
I haven’t missed that because I keep saying the social isolation is a problem too. I’m simply choosing to you engage on the points where I do disagree with your conclusions a bit.
My opinions seem to be pissing you off for some reason despite the care I’m putting into expressing them. Since that is not my intent, I’m outie.
It’s pissing me off because you’re arguing with me on what seem like extremely trivial points. You asked a very good question about whether these guys’ social isolation could be driven by mental illness (which you cryptically called “toxic ideology” but whatever) or whether their mental illness is the result of social isolation, and I offered a hypothesis about positive feedback loops and then threw out some speculation about our favorite punching bags Elliot Rodger and Adam Lanza. And then you come back accusing me of forgetting past crimes committed against me by assholes on the playground thirty years ago. Did you really have to be that personal with your response, when I was agreeing with you that your question was a good one that needs to be researched?
Of course I would be pissed off by that. I’m only human. It was a weirdly personal and argumentative way of making a point that didn’t need to be made. I’m not stupid enough to think there’s no possibility that Elliot Rodgers was a raging asshole his whole life. It just doesn’t matter to the point I was making. However, I wasn’t pissed until you went there with the stroll down memory lane. Up to that point, I was fine with what you said.
I ain’t got no hard feelings, and I really don’t want you to be “outie”. But you haven’t been totally innocent in the miscommunication between us, is all I’m saying. It would be nice if you’d own up to that, but I’m fine if you just want to be outie. This thread is probably about to die anyway.
n.b. Lanza had serious mental illnesses identified when he was a child, long before his rampage.