loquitur

Oy. It's really difficult to know what other people are thinking, isn't it. Tolerance is called for from everyone, and a bit of generosity of spirit. Benefit of the doubt, too.

chinese crested

I been there too poetry - sorry we all ran wild

Poetry

Jazz, that was pretty awesome.

Chinese_Crested, it happens. Better than the thread dying. Just wish there was a way to thread within the thread so I could select the topic I wanted within the topic. Or something. You know what I mean.

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"You know what? Fuck the moon! He controls our water and our women. I've had enough!"

The_Jazz

Give it a week to 10 days.

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"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - B. Franklin
"There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush
"We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo

Poetry

Aw, don't tease me like that!

__________________
"You know what? Fuck the moon! He controls our water and our women. I've had enough!"

roachboy

there are people regardless of gender/sexuality whose social skills are shit.
there decent smart folk who are shitty writers.
there are clods and idiots.
there are folk who are maladroit.
there are folk who are only sometimes maladroit.
there are people who are none of these things or who are sometimes one or more of these things or are mixes of all of them depending on factors like context and beverage intake.

there are lots of different kinds of people. it's simplistic at best to have recourse to gender when addressing the much wider phenomenon of being-a clod or being-an-idiot.

and there are media that encourage superficiality. they introduce distance between the meat-space human and others and momentarily conceal the people whose social skills are shit, the bad writers, the clods and idiots.

what's strange about most clods and idiots is that they're exhibitionists about being a clod or an idiot. it's like they can't stand that others don't know. so they tell you:

hello. i'm a fucking idiot. nice pix.

it's counterintuitive to me to process this moment of idiot exhibitionism as a characteristic of any broader social category than being an idiot.

and there are lots of kinds of idiots.
there are the assertive ones and the paranoid ones.
there are the insensitive ones and the paralyzed with the overwhelming tragedy of everything ones.
there are some whose idiocy cruises along the surface of a tunnel of pathology. they can be fun to talk to in certain situations. often they have really intricate fantasy lives and, because of this tendency of fucking idiots to be exhibitionists about being fucking idiots, they'll tell you about these fantasy lives at length. but things can go to hell with these people in a hurry sometimes, so situation management is obviously key.

but i mean, for the most part, you already know from jump that a fucking idiot is a fucking idiot because most insist that you know.
they approach you with lights flashing.

i can't say i entirely understand it.
but because i'm a burly gentleman with a beard i am in a position to find it funny rather than threatening. most of the time.

there are lots and lots and lots of idiots. men and women and young and old---idiots are everywhere waiting for someone who might not know that they can inform.

it's the principle occupation of people in publick houses, getting oiled up and waiting for someone who might be in the dark about this important matter. like it's a hobby.

they come tottering up to you.

they say: wait---did you not know? well, let me introduce myself.
hello there.
i'm a fucking idiot.

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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

The_Jazz

The question is not "is that going to be used as someone's quote?" It is "who is going to use that as their quote?"

__________________
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - B. Franklin
"There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush
"We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo

Poetry

I'm waiting for the Dr. Seuss illustrations to go along with Roachboy's post.



Honestly, though, I greatly enjoyed it.

__________________
"You know what? Fuck the moon! He controls our water and our women. I've had enough!"

ring

Yep. He's a keeper.
I'm having fun with the word, maladroit.
Changing up the modulations & inflections.

Thanks, roach.

UnclearContent

Roachboy,

I've missed you. And your exotic/enviable home life.

Fantastic post.

That is all.

purplelirpa

Sex may be always on a man's mind, but why is that a problem? We are designed to continue the species, and we do it well. If a guy is being disrespectful sexually to me, I unfriend him on facebook. Some men are disrespectful, in general, and say stupid shit. I'll agree with mixedmedia and say that the overwhelming majority of leering, etc that I have experienced has been irl, and the internet has been surprisingly devoid of it, because I can control where my content is and who is viewing it (for the most part).

As for rape, I've been raped. By 1 man. But the overwhelming majority of men that I have encountered wouldn't even want to have sex with me where they thought that I might be in any sort of discomfort, and the thought was a turn-off to them. Similarly, they've been very respectful about their advances (even on dating websites), and it's been a small minority who have not veiled their "I want to fuck you" requests.

Because I feel I am slightly more attractive than an average woman, and also am blessed/cursed with rather large breasts, I have come to expect that the majority of men would at least like to fuck me--and a lot would like to date me. But why is that a bad thing? I only feel bad that I am not attracted to more of them, and/or don't really want to go having sex with that many people. Otherwise, hell--why not?

Richard Dawkins got him in a similar mess arguing with someone about this subject recently:Richard Dawkins vs SkepChick

AbelG

i don't think it is right for you to generalize because their are numbers of nice guys out there. you'll never know if that could only mean appreciation.

chinese crested

Roachboy - do you happen to have a doctorate in idiots? I myself seem to attract 'care in the community' rather than idiots alone when working in bars. The regulars used to like it when an idiot hit on me.
One occassion, an odious idiot told me 'one day you'll be on your knees begging me.'
Me 'Bob, there is nothing I would least rather put in my mouth'.
Time stops and the bar goes silent as idiot Rob says 'what did you say?'
Repeated myself and the bar erupted with laughter - and lots of nice appreciative people said the magic words 'and one for yourself'.
The evening a junkie tottered into a bar where there was just me and the landlords wife from another pub. As he sat down and smashed his head on the juke box, he declared he wanted to marry me. He was known as a nuisance like, used to scare the girl in the newsagents by refusing to leave when he ws evidently frightening her. Landlady called the other bar, and my 'brother' Yorkie came in with a couple of his mates, ordered a beer and chatted with his 'sister'. Theres ways of dealing with wierdos, and its best if no one gets hurt isnt it. I am not going to go through life assuming that all men are like these two examples, they are just funny examples - laughable, the idiots. If it were just genetic, I think they would be extinct by now, because the idiots are the ones who never get laid. The junkie wierdo was a bit obviously what he was, and was unpredicatsble and scarey - but he didnt blend in - he was his own warning sign. I wouldnt have thought rape by the way, I would have thought robbery with violence or believable threat of violence.

mixedmedia

Thank you for posting, purplelirpa.

I used to feel very much like you do. Now I don't. And there's nothing wrong with either state of mind. The social compact dictates how you respond to polite requests, not how you feel about them.

That's an interesting article. I've always thought Richard Dawkins was a dick, but wow.

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Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats. - Diane Arbus
PESSIMISM, n. A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile. - Ambrose Bierce

Ultrabum

It's funny but one of my old school friends recently requested my friendship on Facebook. There hasn't been much interaction but that's how it was in school anyway. She was always pretty but recently she's had a bit of a makeover. The picture looks like she is a different person. I had to look twice to make sure it was her. She looked really gorgeous in it.

Well I posted on the pic that she looked really stunning in it. I had no ulterior motive I just meant it as a compliment. Not to say I didn't have the typical make instinctual thought. I did. But I merely meant to tell her how good she looked. I got no response. I would be mortified if she thought I was hitting on her. By the lack of reply she probably did. Now I'm left feeling misunderstood.

Do men objectify women? I'm bit sure. I don't really know what it really means. I do think men do objectify everything. It's why hobby collectors, train spotters, car and motorbike enthusiasts and probably ever other male pursuit. I suppose it's the way we're wired. Its all part of being a more visual creature I guess.

I suppose I really mean that men cannot change that aspect of our character. Well not radically. I guess as tiresome as it is you've just got to ignore them. I'd it's the kind of man that can't take no for an answer the ignore button is the only recourse.

On a side note I've met a vast amount of ladies that don't take the first no as an answer either. My mother is terrible. It's down to mothers at the end of the day to teach their sons the value of no. I've noticed it with my wife too. My sons have learned that if they harass their mum enough she eventually give in. Daddy's no means no but mummy, she'll give in eventually. I've pointed out to her the error here. She doesn't get it.

I don't really see it changing. It's human nature at the end of the day.

Ps: I've always thought Dr Richard Dawkins was a bit of a douche. he's a biologist. How that gives him authority in theology I don't know.

loquitur

The big thing here is that people really don't know what is in other people's minds, and have no accurate way to assess other people's intentions. As in many other contexts, people rely on heuristics, little short cuts that have worked in the past based on experience, that provide guides so that every interaction doesn't require an extended analysis. And of course, because different people have different experiences, mindsets and predispositions, different people will also have different heuristics. But overall, it seems to me at least that the vast bulk of people will default to the most common sets of reactions/coping mechanisms, otherwise everyday interactions simply wouldn't be possible.

MM did hit the nail on the head, though, when she said "The social compact dictates how you respond to polite requests, not how you feel about them." Feelings are almost irrelevant in most non-gemeinschaft interactions, or they should be. I wonder sometimes about people who are so caught up in their own feelings that they let their feelings define their reality for them, even as applied to other people. Narcissism really does puzzle me.

Poetry

Just two things:

It's not a problem. My original post did not complain about male interest, but the execution of said interest. I've found it interesting that the majority of initial responses to my post have been about male sex drive and not male socialization online in regards to obtaining sex, which was the topic I was writing on.

1. All species are designed to continue the species and they do it well. Otherwise, they wouldn't exist.

2. In evo-psych theory, as men are "designed" to pursue sex, women are "designed" to select the best possible father of our offspring.

We do this by evaluating characteristics of the male in question.

Personally, when some guy (whether I know him or not) messages me (as I am remaining on my initial topic of male pursuit of sex through internet channels) "hey, nice pix", he immediately strikes himself off my interest list as he is illustrating himself as a poor choice in partner.

1. He can't spell (or write complete sentences), or can't be bothered to spell, which means he's performing to the best of his ability (which is a sad thing in his case), or he's allowing himself to perform at a low level, which means...

2. He's lazy. Do I want a partner (and sperm donor) who is lazy?

3. He's doing a shotgun approach in trying to get sex from any source by sending out identitical messages to multiple women. This could mean a few things:
A. He's possibly overestimating his appeal to women and aiming high for resulting fantastical failure rates-- which means he cannot accurately gauge himself on the sexual marketplace-- which means he's unaware
B. He doesn't care who responds as long as he gets off-- scraping the bottom of the barrel with low standards, placing sex on a higher pedestal than partner choice and possible offspring-- which could mean no self control or a complete lack of ability to assign levels of value
C. he's successfully getting laid because of his tactics. If he's not extremely rich and good looking or socially high in some way (because, really, if a girl is responding to a "hey, nice pix" message...), then he is getting bottom of the barrel which could mean a few baby mamas (when selecting a partner, do you really want their resources spread among multiple offspring?) or he's placed himself at higher risk for STDs.

4. He can't or does not know how to comport himself online. He's unaware of how he represents himself, which means, at least online, he's not socially savvy. If he's socially savvy in person, then that could mean a low level of adaptability in social situations. Do I want to have a partner I cannot rely on to present himself well in all situations? Do I want to risk the idea that it's a genetic deficiency and pass that onto my offspring?

5. If he is not actually immediately focused on obtaining sex, but perhaps date and then sex (he's a "nicer" guy... awww...), then he has a failure to communicate such information. Do I want a partner that is unaware of what he communicates?

6. If I don't respond immediately, he may message me again and again, having forgotten the first message or badgering me for a response. If he has forgotten the first, he has a poor memory or he's shotgunning entirely too much. If he's badgering, it's creepy. He, again, can't perceive his own creep factor on the social scale-- bad partner choice.

7. He's more than willing to wave his idiot flag (as Roachboy suggested) by making all of the above likely options.


And before I get leaped on for the above, for those who might be in an offended rage, I'm just following evo-psych theory. And my own experience.

I have limited time. I'm a decently attractive female. I get male attention. While it would be nice to be incredibly rich and have all the free time in the world, I work full-time, I'm a college student, I have an active social life, I have goals I'm pursuing outside of school and work.

I don't have time to go through each man who "submits an application" (in life or online) to really determine what he's trying to achieve (if anything) and then determine, after his intentions have been revealed, that he'd be a suitable partner for me.

So while men are checking me out and determining simply based on my body that I am a suitable partner and they're being told that's normal and expected behavior for men... I'm getting berated for evaluating a man's actions by my standards and determining if he's worth my time and my affections. If I say no, if I mock someone's poor execution of seduction (never to their face-- that would be rude), then I'm arrogant and putting too much stock in my own value (AKA looks).

I'm picky, I'm analytical, because I want the best partner I can have-- whether if it's for a one night stand, a recurring sex partner over the course of years, or a boyfriend.

I'm allowed to do that. Whatever I look like, whatever I do with my life, I'm allowed to evaluate a man's actions and how those actions reflect on him and decide if they work for me (and if I work for man in question). And if they're allowed to do the same to me, and say no, I'm not attractive enough, not smart enough, not whatever enough to suit their needs.

And if I pass over a good potential partner because I'm being too picky, then it is my loss. It's a loss I have to be willing to accept. I have spent years slowly constructing a system of evaluation (which, at first, was subconscious, then brought forth through practice) that has mostly done well for me, and in protecting me from bad situations, but I am sure that good men do slip through the cracks and that sometimes I jump to conclusions much too quickly.

On the other hand, I could tell several stories where I went out with someone or engaged with someone because I wanted to be more open and less judgemental and found myself in an awful situation (ages attached because I think it's interesting). I've had three stalkers (one at 15, 18, and 19), two less threatening than the one. I've been date raped (18). I've had a boyfriend beat me (18). Most recently, over a year ago, I had to use all of my experience with men to get a man to not rape me... and it came close (27). Close enough that it still hovers in the back of my brain.

But, if you look at the ages I've attached to each "incident"... there's a significant decline of events once I hit 20.

Because things happen over the years and we learn, whether we realize it or not, what signals others give off. We create associations that may or may not be accurate, but they are what makes us feel safe, feel aware and make the best choices we can for ourselves-- whether or not they are actually right.

And this got really long. Ah well.

__________________
"You know what? Fuck the moon! He controls our water and our women. I've had enough!"

loquitur

That's a perfect example of the use of the experience-based heuristic. And yours is eminently sensible in the circumstances, because you can't do a deep analysis on every approach in order to determine whether the sender is in reality a sensitive, shy, misunderstood type who would treat you like gold if you only you got to know him and appreciate him, blah, blah, blah........ There's a limit to the number of false positives you can subject yourself to. Perfectly undersandable.

Conversely, there really is a population of hidden gems that are shy and aren't sure how to make themselves appreciated. It's not any particular person's job to help them, of course -- we all have our own lives, and time is precious -- but those guys will be overlooked. It's ok to accept that there will be false negatives, but recognize that they're there, and that foregoing them is part of the price of using your heuristic.

UnclearContent

Poetry,

No one can fault you for being selective. I'll keep my fingers crossed that your end of post list doesn't grow.

P.S. You've won me over with evo-psych.

Poetry

I went out with a midget once. He approached me on campus. I was so impressed that he had the balls to walk up to me and stutter out his proposal for a date (even I don't cold approach that directly) that I decided I should give him a chance, get to know him, see if there could be anything there.

Within two weeks, he was following me around campus, had proposed not only marriage, but kids, and actually attempted to stop me from leaving campus by placing himself between my car door and my actual car because he knew I wouldn't close it on him.

I'm willing to deal with some false negatives. I feel bad about it, but then I felt bad about considering squashing a midget with my car door.

Glad you get that, though.

__________________
"You know what? Fuck the moon! He controls our water and our women. I've had enough!"

The_Jazz

As I understand it, Poetry, you object to the quantity approach and your preferred method is a quality approach. I get that. You want to feel special - he took the time and energy to craft a unique note that is properly worded and punctuated. You've got enough self-respect to know that you deserve as much.

But the guy who has that approach isn't going to make it without knowing you're worthy of it. Why would a guy spend that much time drafting a note that's going to catch your eye without being reasonably certain that you (the plural "you", not the specific "you") aren't a complete airhead? Any guy that's going to pass your muster is going to be at least passingly interested in what's between your ears. Sure, at the end of the day, his predominant interest is what's between your legs, but any halfway intelligent guy is going to know that it's more important to impress you than not.

Your history lends itself to one of the assumptions I've made in recent years: anyone younger than 23-25 is an emotional idiot. By that I mean that they don't have the experiences yet to find the smooth ways through life and that they're predisposed to create needless drama for themselves. The body may graduate from Junior High School at about 15, but the mind stays there for about a decade. At least for most of us. Myself included - hell, I once moved TO a city where I knew 3 people for a girl and then moved to a city where I knew no one a couple of years later to get away from her.

I don't mean that to pooh-pooh the seriousness of what happened to you, but at least with your earlier run-ins, I'm willing to bet that you could honestly say "if I knew then what I know now, that never would have happened."

__________________
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - B. Franklin
"There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush
"We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo

Poetry

On the internet, it's not as much (for me) about feeling special, as much as determining that the sender is worth a response. And it's not just about the sender's "worthiness", but our possible success as a couple or his desirability as a sex partner.

I like the men I sleep (and date) with to be intelligent. Not just a little intelligent, but a knock-me-on-my-ass intelligent. That's more important to me than looks or money.

So if I get a message (like "hey, nice pix") that conveys a lack of intelligence, I'm not going to want to sleep with him. And if he's not desirable as a sex partner, then I'm certainly not going to want to date him either.

And this is true, not just online. But, fortunately, the internet is a place of information. On most social sites, people have their privacy settings not as tight as they could be, and it's easy to gather information on the person.

Also, there's something to be said for a message that reads along the lines of, "Hey, I'm a friend of your friend John. I saw you commented on his wall about x,y,z-- it made me laugh, so I checked your profile. I didn't think anyone else liked Band X, I have an extra ticket to their show because Joe bailed out on me-- wanna go?" (I've responded to these, and gone.)

I know that the interest is primarily of sex. Mine is too, honestly. But I want a man who can seduce, approach, whatever, well. Prove to me that he has the experience to do so, has the innate talent, has the social skill. Whatever. I think most girls do too, whether they consciously realize it or not.

Yes, exactly what I was trying to say. We learn over time. We craft the heuristics that loquitur brought up. I know that the men I dated when I was 17 I wouldn't date when I was 20, and the men I dated at 20 I wouldn't have dated at 25 and so on. I know I wouldn't have gotten caught in the situations I did when I was younger if I had the experience I do now in evaluating men and situations. But I gained that experience from those situations, and I did so at a vaguely early enough age to recover and grow from it in a positive manner without them causing too much impact on my serious relationships.

I know that if I met the boyfriend who beat me now, I'd be able to read the signs of that potential in his normal behavior. If I met the date rape guy now and he asked me out, if I had gone, I would've rapidly seen where things were headed and demolished him. If I had listened to my gut last year instead of giving someone who made me uneasy a chance, I would not have ended up trapped in a bedroom in another city with a krav maga meathead pinning me down and ripping at my clothes.

Thus we learn, we create filters, we select better.

__________________
"You know what? Fuck the moon! He controls our water and our women. I've had enough!"

MrFriendly

Haha, I am curious as to your definition of 'knock-me-on-my-ass intelligent'.

I have learned over the years that intelligence comes in many forms, these days I tend to appreciate emotional intelligence above all.

+1

Though to be fair, I used to be friends with someone who was smooth as silk with the ladies and would use such an approach, the issue I had with him in the end is as successful as he was with women, it was all cold calculated tactics with him, he didn't really give a shit about the women was seeing. But his narcissism was brick in the face obvious, I can't say many of the ladies gave a crap about him in the end.

But I digress


Amen to that. It sucks that you've had to endure some of the things you have to gain that attitude though.

I guess the thing I've found with getting older is you just get better at working out what is most important to you and what you can honestly be fucked putting your energy into and dealing with.

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