Romantic comedies, family legends, women’s magazines, etc.—-we all absorb the list of officially acceptable ways to meet someone.

Off topic, but what really started me down the dark path toward Nice Guy(TM)-dom (from which I have only recently and hopefully completely recovered) was this dynamic.  The key difference in many cases between me getting rejected with “You’re a Nice Guy(TM), and I Like You(C), but not in That Way(R)” and The Lucky Bastard(TM) was that TLB managed to meet the young woman in question in an “officially acceptable way”.

I guess I’m still being a Nice Guy(TM) and shifting blame around here, but being rejected on that basis (and constantly being told you are a Nice Guy and told that “someday you will meet someone who appreciates you for all you have to offer”) is a sure-fire recipe for developing Nice Guy(TM) levels of entitlement and bitterness.

As long as it’s all about Ann, it’s all good.  Anything to stir the pot is good.  Any attention that she can get is good…in her mind…

I hope getting married will even her out, because as it stands right now, she needs some heavy-duty therapy or heavy-duty prescription drug treatment from a Psychiatrist.  Or both.

If she were happier, maybe she wouldn’t be so nasty…IMHO…

Amanda, I’m gonna get myself in trouble again, but I more or less agree with you except when you characterize all observations about this phenomenon as being about “accepting Althouse’s word.”  I don’t care what Althouse’s word is.  I am actually capable of forming my own opinions.

But I’d say this is a pretty reasonable way of characterizing how I feel about this otherwise.  I just think it shouldn’t be the kind of thing allegedly liberal and feminist men ought to dwell on, because intention isn’t everything, and it does come across as shitty.

My husband and I actually did meet on the internet, and we’ve never given a second thought to people’s reactions to our story.  We actually have a stock answer to the “How did you two meet?” question: “Ya know, you can find the coolest shit on the internet!”

Eh, Ann concocted a lie about what men did to her that was compelling, because that’s exactly what she’d do to someone else.

Also, Pilgrim, this entire discussion is veering too close to “marriage is lady stuff men shouldn’t comment on” territory for my comfort.  I know that’s not what people are thinking, but damn, it’s getting hot in here.

I snagged the tech-boy at work. Four couples have gotten together here in the last 5 years or so and it doesn’t actually employ that many people. It’s like, meet up central, man.

Another thing I find interesting about this is how much it reinforces how the ring and not the relationship is what buys legitimacy.  It’s hard to put my finger on exactly why, but the whole thing reminds me of how couples that have been together decades get less social esteem for their relationships than someone who runs to the altar to marry someone they just met, which is why I can’t be mad at Andrew Sullivan on this one, no matter how big a dick he is.  Especially since Althouse rubbed his nose in her privilege to sign a piece of paper, put on a ring, and get a legitimacy that he can’t have, no matter how long he’s with someone.

Yeah, and Amanda, this is a cliched argument, but I don’t see why it’s always fair to play on the terms she sets.  My version of equality doesn’t mean “equally prone to having to take irrelevant shit.”  Which I still maintain this is - irrelevant shit, I mean.

The reason I liked your characterization above better than Megan’s, say, upon reflection (because, oooh, people can develop opinions slowly and change over time, threatening though this is to comment communities) is that I would say it is mostly all the crap about “this isn’t the right way to start a relationship” that rubbed me the wrong way as opposed to obvious sexism. 

But I also think it’s instructive that everyone seems to be very threatened by the idea that some kind of criticism of these figures ought to be off limits.  I just think that the way to talk about this is to do it as you do above, as opposed to ridicule that, like it or not, Jesse, at least some of the commenters here certainly internalized as being about how “weird” it is to meet and marry people online.  Hell, it’s weird to marry people at all, period, in my book, but I don’t see why it’s relevant to my critique of them.

Sorry, Amanda, I did not see your comment there, but honestly, if someone were bitching about say Rush Limbaugh marrying a commenter I would also say “so fucking what.”  It’s just who I am.  I think we can sit around and criticize marriage in a systemic way all day long, but I don’t kid myself that I know anyone’s particulars just ‘cause I fight with them on the internet all day.  If I fought with everyone whose marriage seemed ill-timed/planned/chosen, I’d never get anything systemically accomplished.

And frankly, since I can see my perspective is not particularly welcome here, I’ll happily withdraw to lurk and continue to enjoy and think about the posts from afar rather than try to engage if it causes offense.

we all absorb the list of officially acceptable ways to meet someone. 
You can meet cute—-he rear ends your car and you flirt while the cops come to take your testimony.
Nope.

You can fall in love while working together at school,
Yep

at work,
Nope

or in some volunteer capacity.
Nope

You can be introduced by friends
Yep (That one got me married twice)

or family.
Nope

Instead, we meet someone at a bar and a one night stand turns into two, then a week, and next thing you know you’re in a relationship. 
Nope… well maybe. Most people I meet at bars are friends of friends

Or you meet someone online, either through online communities
Yep

or online match-making services.
Nope, but I worked for one.

But I can’t say whether on line dating/match making is any better because I live in the (kinda) big city and actually leave the house occasionally to meet people.
Like that desperate guy at the bar, dating is a numbers game.
Eventually, if you talk to enough people, you’ll find someone you click with.
I just feel on line dating allows you to keep your “game face” on at all times and you never know if they snore, leave their socks everywhere, feed the dog at the table, pee in the shower, allow the cat to clean their plate or continue to put their cold feet in the small of your back while stealing the covers.

Re: Amanda’s reference to “the ring” it irritated me that in the NY times photo her hand is prominently placed to show the ring, where he is posed naturally.  Isn’t the relationship supposed to be about them, not what he bought her?

It would be weird if Jesse had internalized that, since he’s never judged anyone, including himself, for meeting people online. Again, I think people are projecting that criticism onto him, because we fear it so much.  Not uncommon, and I could see how I’d believe it if I didn’t know better.

I didn’t say Jesse internalized it, Amanda, I said the commenters did.  I’m still also surprised that he got so angry about someone challenging him on it.

Now I shall abide by my own promise.

Isn’t the relationship supposed to be about them, not what he bought her?

No, and I’m sure Ann could come up with a reason you’re a bad feminist for even suggesting that.

Fair enough, Pilgrim.  He got angry because it’s really horrible when everyone chooses a lie that makes you look bad over the truth because the lie tells them what they want to hear.  You feel extremely helpless, believe me.  It’s happened to me a lot, and no matter how many times you tell the truth, document the truth, etc., you will lose because the lie sounds better and people will tell it.

Amanda, though (and who am I kidding, apparently, with thinking I could avoid continuing to comment), I think what surprised me about Jesse’s post and led me to make an initially ill-phrased comment on something I had not thought about before is that when I read the post in question, I didn’t even realize Jesse had been cited.  I didn’t read it as “oh that Jesse Taylor at Pandagon, so sexist.”  But basically, the same thing happened that I see happening every time a liberal woman (which I think you’d agree Megan is even if you don’t see eye-to-eye on everything) challenges liberal men.  People freak the fuck out.  I got piled on too, and nobody even gives a shit about my minor comments on the internet.

I just think we’d all be better for being a little bit less defensive.  I think if Jesse had written the post above, I’d be less suspicious.  But I can’t get the bad taste out of my mouth that he just doesn’t like that someone else might disagree with him on the rightful limits of left criticism.

You know, I think there is one easy answer to all the Althouse craziness:  Stop caring.  Honestly, I read a ton of blogs, and no one thinks Ann Althouse is as important as you all do.  I can truthfully say that though I had heard the name, I never read a post by her or about her until I started reading Pandagon a few weeks ago.  Your anger/frustration/dislike of Althouse is completely misplaced since no one really gives a shit what she has to say.  Jesse, Amanda, you two could use a little perspective.

“Can’t you just be happy for her?!?!”

Why?  Why do we have to be happy that she seems to be heading into a marriage with little forethought?  Maybe they will live happily ever after, and good on them if they do, but it seems incredibly stupid to me.  A L-O-N-G engagement would be my advice. 

Sorry, but simply getting married isn’t enough for me to do a happy jig.  I’m glad Bristol managed to get out of marrying Levi.  Being married shouldn’t be a woman’s life goal.  Looking askance at a strange relationship isn’t mean just b/c someone bought someone else a diamond. 

Marriage, as Kevin Costner whinged once, is a hard, hard gig.  Even if you try to be careful, you can still fuck it all up.  Getting engaged after meeting once or twice is odd, and pointing that out and laughing about it isn’t something completely out of the blue.

Laughing about her pimping her engagement on her site in her typical fashion, and then laughing at her typical going bugshit insane over anyone not showering her with joy isn’t necessarily being mean.  It might be, but it isn’t necessarily nor does it mean anyone’s jealous.  Getting married shouldn’t be thought of as the necessary ending chapter of a woman’s life, especially since she’ll probably live a long long time after the ceremony.

It would be nice if Althouse got a little introspection out of it, but I don’t see how that can happen when she’s walled herself up in a fortress of indignation.

I wish them luck, but, no,  I can’t be happy that they are apparently rushing into a lifelong commitment with very little real world experience.  Although Althouse has been divorced before, so the question of how long of a commitment she sees this marriage as is a legitimate question.  It’s not mean—she and her first spouse undoubtedly had good reasons for splitting up.  But divorce is most certainly an option for her.

I can easily see why the fact she can marry serially and seemingly capriciously can irritate those who aren’t allowed the same right/rite.  Pointing that out is, also, not necessarily mean.
\\\\\

And while we’re at it, not everyone who is sick of this pointless bullshit is a doubleplus ungood concern troll.

I dunno.  I thought the whole tone of the NYT article was a little condescending.  And was I the only one who picked up that Mr. Meade had been reluctant to “come out” except at his fiancee’s urging?  If I hadn’t known anything about the situation prior to this, I would have thought that his “princess” was being a bitch, and that this was all about her (which, of course, it is).

I won’t even get into the Princess/Courtier thing.  Apparently NYT has an entirely different understanding about blogging and commenting than I do.

Reece, like I said, this is interesting to me not because of Althouse so much as the way that it played out and what I’ve learned about it.  It really shows how a lie can get around the globe, and also how that works, and it’s actually pretty fascinating.  Perhaps I’ll be able to see the next thing that will trip people’s wires better in the future, knowing what I’ve learned now.

Being married shouldn’t be a woman’s life goal.

Ironically, a view that Althouse apparently stridently defended right up until someone asked her.  Which I’m going to write off as a personal problem of hers, but alas, it will just be more evidence for sexists that this is true for all the single ladies.

...we all absorb the list of officially acceptable ways to meet someone.

Heh. I met the woman who I’m now married to in a D&D;game, which is way off the geeky end of the “unacceptable” scale. Fortunately, we were young enough that we hadn’t absorbed any of that stuff.

I would actually disagree about acceptability, though perhaps my perceptions are different because I run with a very techie crowd. I remember when meeting through a personal ad (in an actual newspaper) was considered kind of weird, and then became fairly mainstream as several people I knew did it. Then meeting through an online dating service was still weird, then it became just a little unusual, and now it’s so commonplace it’s barely worth mentioning.

Maybe the wider population has a different perception, but people I know seem to have no trouble grasping that romantic comedies et al. are just stories that work out neatly because they have writers, and no more likely to actually happen to you than becoming an action hero fighting an alien invasion.

I’m just dumbstruck that anyone would read Althouse regularly and think, “That’s someone I’d like to spend the rest of my life with.” And I’m including death row inmates who have lost their last appeal.

She crazy.

I think, too, that a lot of the coverage and commentary stems from how much we fetishize romance-that-leads-to-wedlock. It’s considered blasphemy to utter anything other that effusive enthusiasm for the newly affianced. So those that offer up anything but effusive enthusiams are to be shamed. It might as well be in the lawbooks, it’s so ingrained.

Sure, saying supportive things is good Miss Manners advice for one’s immediate circle, but for strangers? I will reserve my right to snark.

Red, I think it’s both true that social norms about online dating are shifting and that people hold prejudices from an earlier time.  People are complicated.  We can think, very easily, “It’s normal to date online now, right?”, while worrying that someone might disagree and make us feel ashamed.

Narcissist likes attention!  Give narcissist some attention!  She’ll be a happy narcissist if you keep giving her attention!

I just think that the way to talk about this is to do it as you do above, as opposed to ridicule that, like it or not, Jesse, at least some of the commenters here certainly internalized as being about how “weird” it is to meet and marry people online.

I am probably one of the ones you are referring to here, but in fairness, your paraphrasing of the position leaves open a whole shitload of ambiguity.

I can’t speak for anyone else, but my position that it was “weird” for someone to meet and marry someone online was in the context that I found it wierd to make the decision to commit to marriage so quickly after having met in real life for the first time.

I know people who have begun relationships online that eventually developed into real life relationships that eventually led to marriage.  I don’t necessarily find anything weird about that, with the caveat that the “eventually led to marriage” part usually occurred after having been acquainted in real life for, oh, I don’t know… more than just a few days?

The fact that this relationship began online isn’t what strikes me as bizarre.  It is the fact that the the real life relationship turned into a wedding engagement in such a short timeframe after the two had first met in person.

I would find it as similarly weird as a couple who had met at a resort and hung out for one week and decided to get married only 7 days after having met in real life.  I had a friend who did this, and it was insane - and of course resulted in a pain in the ass divorce in less than 2 months.

All that said, I acknowledge that when it comes to two consenting adults, ultimately it ain’t my place to judge, so I was wrong for speaking contemptuously of Althouse for this reason.  It isn’t something I could ever see myself doing, and if a friend had told me they were doing exactly what Althouse is doing, I’d probably think they were a little nuts, but hey, it’s a free country.

May Althouse enjoy her wedded bliss.  Just don’t get mad at me if I laugh if she files for divorce within 6 months.

Yeah, I get that.  And seriously, fuck her.  But it’s interesting that she attention whores so expertly—-she can play on people’s neuroses, fantasies, and fears so well.  Her mistake is thinking that the attention this provides is for her, when it’s actually it’s just the themes she plays on hit close to home. 

A good artist knows that the performance is not the person and vice versa, and the applause/outrage you generate is a reaction to the performance and not yourself.

DTG, exactly.  The ring legitimizes the relationship, not the particulars of the relationship.  This wouldn’t be a big deal, except that this has negative consequences for gay couples or straight couples who have long-standing commitments but won’t marry, but are treated like less legitimate than someone who met someone twice and got married.

Quaker:  I’m just dumbstruck that anyone would read Althouse regularly and think, “That’s someone I’d like to spend the rest of my life with.”

Right, that was my reaction too.  It’s like finding out someone wanted to marry Pastor Swank.

Quaker, flip, that “who would want to marry her” (or him) is really dodgy territory.  Andrea Dworkin left a widower, after all.  No matter how repulsive others may make you, or Dworkin, or Althouse out to be, stuff can and does happen.

We can think, very easily, “It’s normal to date online now, right?”, while worrying that someone might disagree and make us feel ashamed.

I think that’s due to the fact that while online dating is considered lightyears more acceptable today than it was even ten years ago, it has only been considered generally acceptable in the past ten years.  Most people who would date online today were alive and cognizant of the “weirdness” that online dating once held, and while the taboos have largely vanished, the awareness that they ever existed at all still serves as an inhibitor for a lot of people.  It will probably take another 20 years or so before online dating is so commonplace that the very idea of it being taboo will seem silly to almost everyone who would participate in it.

It’s like any other cultural acceptance of things which were once “weird”... even when they reach a general level of acceptability among the broader public, the vestiges of “weirdness” tend to hang around for a generation or two before they completely die away.  I imagine most people here are old enough to have grown up without any real online dating whatsoever (save the BBS techies from the 1980s) - I’m not that old, but old enough that the words “online dating” wouldn’t have even made sense to me when I was in elementary school.  Nor would the word “e-mail”.

Quaker, flip, that “who would want to marry her” (or him) is really dodgy territory.  Andrea Dworkin left a widower, after all.  No matter how repulsive others may make you, or Dworkin, or Althouse out to be, stuff can and does happen.

It can be dodgy territory, if it is based on - sorry if the word I’m seeking is wrong - “looksism” (I don’t know what it is called when a class is marginalized based on having less than desirable societal constructs of physical beauty) or ageism.

The vile things said about Dworkin in regards to her ability to obtain or not obtain a loving partner were based very much on her physical appearance and her weight.

I’m not sure that Quaker and Flip are necessarily saying “Who would want to be with Althouse” based on her physical appearance, but rather because of her revolting personality.

Your point is valid, and things like that would probably be better phrased with a statement such as: “who would want to marry such a narcissistic and self-absorbed person?”

Quaker, flip, that “who would want to marry her” (or him) is really dodgy territory.  Andrea Dworkin left a widower, after all.  No matter how repulsive others may make you, or Dworkin, or Althouse out to be, stuff can and does happen.

And we reserve the right to be astonished by such.

I mean, geez, with all your jumping up and down and screaming “stop giving Althouse attention” it seems odd for you to concurrently gripe about normal people expressing astonishment that there’s a match for XYZ rancid person. Why don’t you follow your own advice to, you know, stop commenting on this issue and let the rest of us snerk in peace?

OK, I don’t want to begrudge people their happiness, but is it really that dodgy?  I’d hate to think I was really that much more judgmental than my like-minded friends and peers.  But it could be sadly true.

The problem is, if a woman other than Althouse were doing something equivalent—marrying a commenter she’d really only just met, who had a lower level of education and class status—it could raise some really interesting questions about gender, status, and power.

Since it’s Althouse, it’s all about her. Both because that’s what she’s made it center around in the moment and because everyone’s responses to her at all times are predicated on her years-long quest to make everything personal.

And, just to be clear, no, I didn’t mean anything about looks, and I won’t and wouldn’t go down that road.  Also, I should have specified that when I used the word “marry” I wasn’t intending to refer only to straight state-recognized pairings.  “Who would want to marry her?” could be taken for a sexist comment.  “Who would want to be with such a person?” is more of what I meant.

I didn’t read all the comments but seriously, why does anybody give a shit about Ann Titmouse?  She’s a blogger, BFD, there are 10 million of them out there.

I thought only those wags at Sadly, No! bothered to read her pointless blather.  I’ve checked the blog a total of twice through links and have had no desire to explore or revisit it.

The people who aren’t quite getting what all the fuss is about, I don’t think they understand how perfectly his plays into the Legend of Ann Althouse. And hell, I can’t blame people for not wanting to know much about her.

But if you’ve followed her for very long, a clear and predicable pattern emerges. It’s been documented here many times: 1. Ann writes something excruciatingly stupid 2. People call her on it 3. Ann launches into a long, calculated faux outrage that’s ALL ABOUT HER, while completely missing the point of whatever it was people were calling her on. Because you never have to refute what you say if you characterize every criticism as a personal attack. I mean, you could set a clock by this cycle. It’s so fucking transparent that we wonder how anyone can take her seriously. But yet so many people do. Her comments display a pretty shocking level of sycophancy.

So yeah, the fact that she is marrying a commenter is just perfect. I mean really. When I first read about it, I seriously thought it was an April Fool’s day prank. And that she was profiled in the New York Fucking Times because of it? You can’t make this stuff up.

She’s a blogger, BFD, there are 10 million of them out there.

She’s a blogger who has parlayed her “I love me, what’s your second choice?” schtick to the op-ed page of the New York Times, not just the fashion and lifestyle section. It would be nice if trolls were not rewarded in this fashion.

I don’t fear it at all Amanda, and I tell everyone how I met my guy.  I love the story actually.  It’s a great story.

But forget about my story - what did I miss about Alter?  She isn’t telling the truth about how they met?

ACG - yeah totally.  I couldn’t get over the tone of that crap.  You should see (or maybe you have) some of the emails from readers that Josh Marshall posts.  He posts them because they know more about a subject, or, have additional information about a subject, that he has already blogged about, and he is no intellectual slouch.  To assume that your readers, or commentors are of a lower intellect is incredibly, well, dumb.  The best bloggers assume that their readers are extremely smart and well-read.  But I have to say too - they’re mostly on the left.  With a couple of notable exceptions, you really don’t see liberal or leftist bloggers talking down to their readers. 

I have NO idea what’s going on with that Althouse stuff.  It’s so weird.

Quaker, flip, that “who would want to marry her” (or him) is really dodgy territory.  Andrea Dworkin left a widower, after all.  No matter how repulsive others may make you, or Dworkin, or Althouse out to be, stuff can and does happen.

All I know about her is what I have read of her postings. That body of work does not showcase character traits that would prompt me (or anyone I know) to throw caution to the winds and propose marriage.

I think I’m on pretty safe ground to say that my evaluation would be the same regardless of the age, appearance, or gender of the person involved.

Thanks for your concern.

I mean, folks, commenters and bloggers alike, we type words on a computer and hit “submit.”

Submit TO THE QUEEN!  Kneel before Zod!

Now bend before Zod!
Now tummy tucks before Zod!

This is one of the biggest problems for a law blogger. Because you are writing every day about things that happen to be in the news, readers assume that if something in the news is important enough, failure to blog about it means you don’t care or you’re some kind of fraud. This thinking is magnified when you’re a law professor and the news story has legal significance. Yet this may be precisely why you don’t blog about it. Unless you have an automatic ideological position—as many political bloggers do—you can’t just pop out a post. You could put a small block of time into crafting a more thoughtful post, but that would only give it the aura of a legal opinion and you don’t want that. Given the complexity of the text under discussion and the legal issues it generates, it is quite resistant to serious blogging by a law professor. Failure to blog should therefore be read as a sign of the law professor’s distance from partisanship. It is not that we don’t recognize the importance of the matter. It’s that we do.

Classic!

I think if Jesse had written the post above, I’d be less suspicious.  But I can’t get the bad taste out of my mouth that he just doesn’t like that someone else might disagree with him on the rightful limits of left criticism.

Sorry to hop in on this so late, but I have no earthly idea what you’re talking about.

Well I think the moral of the story is if this particular woman felt she were more physically attractive this post wouldn’t have been written because Jesse wouldn’t have heard of her because she never would have bothered to start a blog.

Some people don’t like it when Princesses are happy.

Well I think the moral of the story is if this particular woman felt she were more physically attractive this post wouldn’t have been written because Jesse wouldn’t have heard of her because she never would have bothered to start a blog.

I hope you’re joking…

You know, in all honesty I learned everything I needed to know about Ann Althouse when I read that she is:

A) a law professor who

B) regards Antonin Scalia as a great and admirable legal mind.

Once you know that, everything else is just rancid gravy. Like that stuff about her being a rotten teacher who gives tests on stuff she never taught and grades them with no visible rhyme or reason?

Just exactly what one would expect of an acolyte of Scalia.

Not about this particular woman.

Um, am I the only one here who is boggling that Andrea Dworkin is cited as someone just as scary and bizarre to imagine someone marrying as Ann Althouse, and not one says “hey, wait a minute!”

This is me calling foul.

I’ve read a little bit of Althouse directly, and lots of snark about her, but I’m comfortable in my opinion that she doesn’t deserve any more careful consideration from me.

Dworkin—even when I was hearing about her mainly from her enemies, she puzzled me. I just couldn’t imagine this legendary troll people were making her out to be.

Eventually I read some of what she had to say for herself—and it totally won me over. Well, not totally, I imagine she’d be pretty pissed at some things I continue to do. But I’d be prepared for her to make a good case that the fault lies with me, not her. Because in general she made a deal of sense and FWIW I gather she was actually a fun and attractive person.

I was really sad I didn’t learn this about her until she was already dead.

Now if I want to worry about a really scary feminist, I think of Mary Daly. But even she came by her extremism honestly, I gather from her biography.

Some people don’t like it when Princesses are happy.

Once upon a time, there was a lovely princess who lived in an ivory tower. Well, she thought she was lovely, which is what really counts, I suppose.  Alas, no-one was able to get to her, for the tower was guarded by a fierce monster who drove all that behold it far far away.  Lo, the princess did pine, and spent her time admiring herself in a mirror and emptying her chamber-pot over those passing below.  *BLOG* went the contents of the chamber-pot as she flung them far and wide, *BLOG* *BLOG*.

Then one day, the brave knight Meade showed up.  The princess sneaked down and unlocked the door, and courageously Sir Meade did storm her tower, charging up the stairs with his sword drawn.

The townspeople stood amazed, except for a group in the back who were sick of her *BLOG*ing and spent their time jeering.  They were generally assholes anyhow.

For a long time, there was silence from the tower.  And them came a terrible, terrible scream.  The knight had discovered the horrible secret about the princess and the monster…

@ Mark:  I thought the citation of Andrea Dworkin was intended as an example of someone whose reputation was one thing but her actuality another, rather than as an example of someone loathsome.

Yeah, I thought the point of mentioning Dworkin was to compare people who have or might have been cited as “unmarriageable”, not to reflect personal perception on those people’s marriageability.

As in, it’s easy for righties to think that we’re squawking a version of “No one would want to marry HERRRRRRR” based on our personal opinion of her hawtness—because that’s the same kind of thing they did with people like Dworkin—but they myopically fail to realize that the reason we can’t believe anyone would want to marry Ann Althouse is because she comes off as essentially a crappy person.