Yesterday, the revelation was that the “pick-up artist” world recognized the echoes of their misogynist Nice Guy® rhetoric in mass murdered George Sordini’s writings, and some, shamefully, found themselves supporting him, because they agreed with him that all men who have jobs and take baths are entitled to a regular supply of sex (women’s wishes be damned). Anna N. of Jezebel found the “men’s rights activists” and PUAs out there suggesting that all George Sodini needed was to spend his money and time following the misogynist gurus like Mystery who claim to have the magical secret to trick women---who they teach are all dumb bitches who deserve to be manipulated, and that they have it coming to them because they think they’re so hot and can reject you---into having sex. And this would have stopped Sodini from being a murderer.
Well, actually, it turns out that Sodini was already taking their advice and was a fan of one of the charlatans who pushes “pick-up artist” crap. Dan Savage did some digging around and found that Sodini was a follower of R. Don Steele, who writes PUA-style books like Date Young Women: For Men Over 35 (which Sodini has displayed in a video) and Body Language Secrets. Steele also has seminars where he has hired young women to tell the audience of middle-aged losers how to get them into bed. I’m not kidding. I’m curious how much these young women were coached to smack gum, slouch, and act generally childish to get paid, or if Steele just hires them so young that it’s their sort of natural stance.
It seems, from watching Sodini’s videos (which I can barely take, but watched some of), that he was likely making these videos to give to Steele, his employees, and other PUAS so they could “grade” his home and life to bed the young woman that he wants. He talks about “she”, as if the woman he imagines he’ll get after going through these seminars is a real person, and so I’m guessing he had a vivid picture of her. But the plot thickens. I read the comments of Dan’s post and was chilled to read commenters suggesting that Steele probably knew Sodini after these sorts of interactions. I don’t know about that, but the commenter making these claims also claims that Steele has taken down videos of his one of his seminars on how to date younger women. But he pulled it up in cache. I took a screenshot of the relevant image:
The man to the left sitting down looks to me a whole lot like George Sodini. I can’t say for sure that it is, of course, but you have to ask the question: Why did R. Don Steele take this video down?
But one thing we can conclude from this whole sordid escapade is this: Contrary to the claims of the avid sexists in the PUA community, all these charlatan materials that teach men to get women, especially young women, to have sex with them by acting like sexist monsters would not have helped George Sodini not be a murderer. If anything, constantly exposing himself to “dating guides” that dehumanize and objectify women, that argue that women are simps and imply that men are entitled to have access to our bodies (and the PUAs will teach you exactly how to trick them into giving it up!) actually made Sodini’s delusions and anger worse.
I’ll leave this post with this observation from Dan Savage:
One particularly chilling detail from Sodini’s online diary was his seething resentment for a neighbor. He had seen an attractive young woman leaving his neighbor’s house and was absolutely furious that his neighbor was sleeping with the kind of hot young girl that Sodini himself wanted but could never get. The girl was his neighbor’s daughter.
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Just b/c she was his daughter is no excuse for her not having sex with Sodini!
this whole nightmare makes me ill.
Comment #1: Caren-Sun-blocking Creator of Animorphic Pancakes on 08/06 at 06:59 PM
Caren....
I agree. I’m torn between not wanting to read more because all the media attention may encourage other unhinged people to follow suit, and not being able to stop reading about it because it’s just so horrific and weird and, just...does not compute. Like, I just don’t get these people. (Logically I do, but trying to imagine feeling like them just blows my mind.)
The whole “game” aspect of this drives me nuts. It assumes that, if you learn all the right moves, or if you flash enough cash, we’ll flock to you like pea-hens flocking to the peacock with the largest feather display. The fact is, there is no formula. Being well groomed and not being a deadbeat may help your chances, but there is no one-true-way to get women to have sex with you. Just because you buy me a drink and wave around a few twenties, do not expect me to accept it or to feel as if I owe you a little dick lick. I am not a bird.
Learning how to socialize is fine (I haven’t viewed the videos so please don’t think I’m supporting these particular classes) but going to classes does not confer a degree in femminology. On the same vein, do not assume that my refusal to have sex with you is a rejection of you as a person and reason to retaliate with violence. I may be attached, I may not be interested in sex, I may feel bloated, I may not be compatible with you, I may have my monthly visitor, whatever. Hell, I may even sense in you a disquieting lack of respect for women that leads me to believe you might be capable of shooting a roomful of innocent people in retaliation for not getting the sex you “deserve”. Whatever my reason, I’ve chosen not to engage in an intimate behavior at this time.
OMFG! I’ve been arguing on line with a dude who thinks that there’s nothing wrong with these PUA things and that they actually help men who might otherwise shoot up a gym. I’ve tried to point out to him that he needs to read some of the comments on sites like that douche Roissy’s and see how the men there are NOT improving their relationships with women and are, in fact, becoming even MORE lonely, angry, and bitter. I am not surprised at all that Sodini was mixed up in the PUA subculture. All that PUA stuff does is reinforce misogyny and entitlement.
The PUAs are as bad as those lawyers who hang around MRAs and advise their clients to kidnap their own children - they’ll say anything to distract you from the fact that they’re just in it to take easy money away from desperate people.
What I can’t believe about PUAs is how they can use those cheesy scripts and not feel like cheesy sleezebags. I don’t know exactly how to describe it but, they’re, well, I guess douchey is the closet word I can get to.
I have never actually stuck my toe in the cesspool yet, so I’m curious if there’s some sample PUA schtick on the internet I can take a look at without giving a hit or money to a disgusting sleazebag.
That Steel guy seems like a bit of a throwback to the 60’s or 70’s, almost a caricature of a “swinger” from that era. I can’t believe someone would pay for his advice.
You know, I had held the position that others have articulated - that the PUA stuff was pretty gross, but there was also some legitimate, non-sexist tips in there.
But you know? You do way more harm to yourself combing through all that shit for the minor (and obvious) gems. The toxic sexism of the PUA community will mess you up.
Sordini’s writing is very much the same as those who advocate PUAing. C’mon, we’ve all seen the guys from that blog of critics of das feminism. They may not be as violent, but the sentiments towards women are the same. Sordini is removed from them only by degree. The conversations we’re having here about how “women are people, too” are the same conversations we’ve had with those guys. Even before this horrible thing I thought that anybody who thinks that PUAism is anything more benevolent than horribly misguided and damaging is a fool. Any time you dehumanize a group nothing good can follow. This violence, and the response of the PUAists and MRAs, has done nothing to change my mind.
I doubt this content is anything other than a free ad for this guy as it is on youtube. The number of views is reasonably low, so this is not going viral or anything. If it does, it will be because of Sodini, and will have nothing to do with you.
The guys who have hit on me using recognizable tactics - having to go through a massive billfold to find their business card to give me, or “negging” me, crap like that - are the scariest ones to reject. It doesn’t matter how polite I am, they get visibly angry when their tricks don’t work. I’ve been physically afraid of a few. And a tendency to violence isn’t really surprising, because if you’ve dehumanized a woman to the point of treating her like a sex vending machine, you’re only abusing an object.
I wonder how many guys like this are enabled by their friends and family. I’ve been at parties where a guy will bitch about not being able to get a woman (meaning young, hot, no baggage, worships him) and instead of challenging his ridiculous standards, everyone just says “aw, you’re a great guy, those bitches don’t know what they’re missing.” Which just reinforces the deluded thinking. If meeting up with nonstop rejection doesn’t wake them up, something else has to.
Oh, and this douche from Savage’s comments section can go fuck himself.
You know… it just occurs to me that every so often some nutjob does something nutty and awful and we all go, “Oh, this nutjob is emblematic of a more serious problem in our society.” Then we anatomize his or her nuttiness in excruciating detail and pretend we’re engaged in something other than prurient voyeurism. And whatever, fine, knock yourself out.
But really? Contrary to what some would have us believe (keshmeshi, I’m looking at you), this exact kind of mass murder is not—and will not become—a widespread social problem. Three people were murdered, and that’s profoundly fucked up. But the blame doesn’t fall on sex gurus or porn or the media. It falls on a nutjob, being a nutjob. If it wasn’t sex gurus that set him off it would’ve been Jews or black people or the barking dog next door. We live in a confusing world that makes a lot of demands on us, and stupid high strung people with a screw loose will sometimes parse all that confusing input in such a way that the pieces spell out “murder.” It happens. It’s always happened. It will happen again. And there isn’t much we can do about it.
Want to save lives? Lobby for higher automobile safety standards. Picking this crazy fucker’s life apart isn’t going to do anyone any good.
I think this man was unable to ‘get’ women because he was obviously crazy. His lack of sex didn’t cause the problem, he was just a horrible person, the kind most women avoid even making eye-contact with, for fear he’ll hit on them. Yuck.
I have a friend who is not having much luck in the dating pool. He’s a good-looking, accomplished guy and he’s truly bewildered by his lack of success. I pointed out that he’s pretty open about being interested only in young women in their 30s (he’s in his mid-40s), and that often they have kids and other priorities, so they don’t have much time to just hang around and socialize. He’s not interested in women his own age who might be more available. His argument is that men are “hard-wired” to find younger women attractive and that that never changes.
I told him to grow up. Which might explain why I haven’t heard from him lately....
I’m seeing a striking overlap in PUAs and MRAs. It’s all about entitlement and what they “deserve”, plus all women being out to get them or being withholding or whatever. I fervently hope more of this Sodini type thing will not happen, but I will not be at all surprised if it does.
Comment #17: NobleExperiments on 08/06 at 08:15 PM
I wonder how many guys like this are enabled by their friends and family. I’ve been at parties where a guy will bitch about not being able to get a woman (meaning young, hot, no baggage, worships him) and instead of challenging his ridiculous standards, everyone just says “aw, you’re a great guy, those bitches don’t know what they’re missing.” Which just reinforces the deluded thinking. If meeting up with nonstop rejection doesn’t wake them up, something else has to.
I see this kind of enabling of men all the time. I’ve gotten to where I call bullshit on it whenever I can but it’s swimming against a very large cultural tide, unfortunately. My bf’s 20 year old son is showing the hallmarks of a Nice Guy - poor social skills, attracted to girls way more attractive than he could reasonably get, befriends the hot girls in the hopes that the friendship will blossom into romantic interest - and I worry that bf and the rest of the family coddle his ego way too much. I mean, I understand they want to give him compliments and positive feedback to instill confidence in him but I really think they go overboard with it.
You do way more harm to yourself combing through all that shit for the minor (and obvious) gems. The toxic sexism of the PUA community will mess you up.
When your goal is not to meet members of the opposite (or, for that matter, same) sex to get to know, talk to, and maybe sleep with, but your goal is to meet someone hot to sleep with full stop, you’re not trying to meet a person. You’re trying to meet an object, a thing, a come rag. You’re not looking for a hot girlfriend because you find her interesting and sexually attractive, you’re looking for a trophy that fucks you.
There’s no deeper objectification than that. And no way to steer out of that into anything resembling a sane relationship with women.
The “tips” in PUA stuff that make sense are in much more honest, ethical, and non-sexist dating advice available for free from people like Dan Savage. You have to dig around to find the PUA stuff. The only appeal is the misogyny. Dan Savage will tell you to get out there and hit on more people if that’s what you need to hear.
I have a friend who is not having much luck in the dating pool. He’s a good-looking, accomplished guy and he’s truly bewildered by his lack of success. I pointed out that he’s pretty open about being interested only in young women in their 30s (he’s in his mid-40s), and that often they have kids and other priorities, so they don’t have much time to just hang around and socialize. He’s not interested in women his own age who might be more available. His argument is that men are “hard-wired” to find younger women attractive and that that never changes.
Back in my early to mid 30s I was doing online dating. I worked out like a maniac and was smokin’ hot at the time. I was not interested in older guys at all and made that clear on my profile. I actually put it in the body of my description: “I prefer to date men close to my own age so if you are in your 40s or 50s please don’t bother”. One of the main reasons I did that was because when I was browsing men’s ads I noticed that a disturbingly large number of men only wanted to date women younger than them. Many of the guys in their 40s set an upper age limit of 36 or so for women. And it wasn’t because they were looking for kids either because I filtered for not wanting children.
Needless to say, my refusal to consider older men did not sit well with more than a few of them. Almost daily I got an angry message from one of them about how mean and close-minded I was. It was hilarious. Especially when the sniffling came from a dude in his 40s whose preferred age range of dates indicated that he wasn’t open to dating women his own age or older.
Again, R. Don’s stuff is relatively anodyne, and reads more like a guide to building conversation-based rapport. It’s full of really basic stuff about different life stages and how they affect what people want in partners, self-presentation, etc. Most PUA “methods” are about fishing for a response and amplifying any positive response you DO get, each pitched to a particular subculture and speaking a particular sociolect. Like Mystery Method’s “opener” of, “Oh, my gosh, did you see the girls fighting in the parking lot?” designed to appeal to those who take an interest in other people’s drama. A lot of it is dehumanizing trash, sure, but a discerning user is going to cherry-pick to suit his own personality and seek out women whose personalities suit his own.
When your goal is not to meet members of the opposite (or, for that matter, same) sex to get to know, talk to, and maybe sleep with, but your goal is to meet someone hot to sleep with full stop, you’re not trying to meet a person. You’re trying to meet an object, a thing, a come rag. You’re not looking for a hot girlfriend because you find her interesting and sexually attractive, you’re looking for a trophy that fucks you.
There’s no deeper objectification than that. And no way to steer out of that into anything resembling a sane relationship with women.
You go too far. Lots of people of both sexes seek out one night stands from time to time, and it does not necessarily relate to one’s ability to have deeply committed and respectful relationships. Sometimes people just want to fuck, full stop.
You’re trying to meet an object, a thing, a come rag. You’re not looking for a hot girlfriend because you find her interesting and sexually attractive, you’re looking for a trophy that fucks you.
I’ve a very close friend who suffers from this, yet he is very progressive in most matters, so his list includes trophy+ not a trophy. Holy fail! It is like watching a trainwreck in slow motion, through the passenger’s eyes.
At first, when I was in my 20’s, I was baffled and amused by his floundering, but have since come to understand this F’d up misogynistic outlook.
As he has grown older (now 60), “the list” has not changed, but his anger has increased, and at the same time he blames himself for having impossible standards. Hell, his imagined-partner’s age range is still in have-kids-with years!
He has infused himself with this idea that one can simply set their goals high, and then accomplish them, like an athletic contest or a work assignment.
Over the years, I’ve tried to be as blunt as possible, even rude but to no apparent immediate or lasting effect.
I’m hoping that he eventually embraces being single, which he does just fine, while he dates. Which he executes with ease and enjoys, apparently, until he starts on the OMG my-perfect-mate-must-be-out-there-routine.
Lots of people of both sexes seek out one night stands from time to time, and it does not necessarily relate to one’s ability to have deeply committed and respectful relationships. Sometimes people just want to fuck, full stop.
Yes, but the sane ones don’t call that “dating.”
Comment #26: thecynicalromantic on 08/06 at 08:49 PM
You go too far. Lots of people of both sexes seek out one night stands from time to time, and it does not necessarily relate to one’s ability to have deeply committed and respectful relationships. Sometimes people just want to fuck, full stop.
Except: in my experience at least, people who just want to fuck do much better with other people who just want to fuck, not by manipulating someone into believing there might be more going on. And the whole sexist trope that men get in “relationships” because they want easy access to sex and women have sex with men because they want to get into a relationship is icky.
Those who reject the idea of a Patriarchy, and deny that it exists in every moment of of every medium we consume need to take a good hard look at this story. The PUAs? The scary, angry wanna-be PUA commenters at their various blogs? That’s Patriarchy, right there. In all it’s furious, violent, woman-loathing glory.
And next time some over-cologned asshole ‘negs’ me in a bar or on an internet date I’m just cold kicking him in the nuts. Maybe pepper spraying him and screaming “Let go of my purse!” for good measure. They hate women. Period. I’m happy to hate them right back.
Well, yeah, neither group sees women as human beings, but as the Enemy. PUAs swap tactics to rapemthe Enemy; MRAs swap tactics on how to keep from paying child support to the Enemy who no longer wants to fuck them.
I’ve tried avoiding the story, but my toddler hides the remote. News came on and they were interviewing his neighbors. What was interesting was it wasn’t the usual ‘He seemed like a nice, quiet guy. He kept to himself.” Most of the women interviewed said he seemed like a real creep and that they avoided him.
Then there was the one who apparently had invited him over for coffee who felt bad that he was so lonely and wished she’d invited him over more often. I don’t think she understood the concept of how fucked up this guy was, and that he wasn’t interested in talking or having a relationship.
Comment #29: Caren-Sun-blocking Creator of Animorphic Pancakes on 08/06 at 09:05 PM
Funnily enough, I went to a “PUA” workshop on how to make the “opening approach” just this past weekend, as research for a story I’ve been working on. Besides the fact that it felt weird being one of only two women there (the instructor rather unconvincingly claimed that women could use the same PUA tactics), it was bizarre to me how adamant the instructors were that the canned opening line, touchy feely thing will work for any man, regardless of how old you are or what your innate personality is like. They were feeding these ordinary looking, shlubby guys the notion that they didn’t have to “settle” for just any old average looking woman, they should only go for the best, which is apparently Paris Hilton-esque Playboy models who hang out at nightclubs.
According to another story I read, Sodini was going out on dates from time to time, just not with women he thought he deserved (i.e. young enough to be his daughter and hot), and that seems to be where his frustration stemmed from. This wasn’t some sorry guy rejected by the world, this was a guy who somehow got it in his head that he was too good for most women, yet unwanted by those he felt he deserved. The sooner the PUA thing is debunked, the better off and safer women will be.
To further DonnDiva’s point, the comments at Dan Savage’s place have several (mainly) guys who are furiously denying any connection between Sodini/domestic violence/rape and societal sexism. Keshmeshi was trying to fight a rearguard action at one point. I’m afraid that I’m not up to going over and engaging those arguments myself as firstly, I have work to do, and secondly, I know that it would lead to me swearing at my computer and pounding the desk. Not a good look in an open-plan office with no privacy.
asdf, I don’t think Jeff’s saying that one-night stands are wrong or dehumanizing. (I don’t think.) But one night stands are rarely as dehumanizing as the PUAs aim for them to be. They’re still about connecting between people, not about scoring points. They aren’t like having porn in 3D, which is what these turds want from sex (because they hate women). One night or a lifetime, you should respect a person and assume they’re a person who deserves honesty, kindness, and to be considered a whole human being.
As a woman who’s lived in walk cities for 30 years, I’ve encountered more than my share of these creeps, who feel entitled to me, simply because I happened to walk past them, sit near them in a coffee house, or whatever.
Of course, it was more constant when I was younger and in a city where everyone has to hit the sidewalks as a pedestrian (New York) to get around.
However, in the last several years I’ve been hit on by the same creepy PUA type three times: he’s reasonably attractive, perhaps even younger than I am, I believe he mentioned he was an engineer of some sort.
He’s twice tried to pick me up on the street—once in a bookstore coffee area!—starting with a Dr. Jekyll smile and canned lines (PUA generated? Who knows?) Which when I politely state that I never speak to strangers on the street, I’m not interested in meeting strangers, etc., rapidly de-evolves into Mr. Hyde intimidation and nasty insults.
Each time I go into the monotone repeat “I’m not interested—Please go away, please go away, please go away,” the last, a defense mechanism I’ve discovered sometimes works with the creepiest of creeps.
The oddest of the odd in this: on both the followup creep-outs, Mr. PUA apparently didn’t remember that he’d unsuccessfully approached me before, which leads me to believe the creep must approach dozens of women (if not hundreds) in the years in between our chance encounters.
None of which could have been successfull or he wouldn’t be circling back to complete stranger, me, over a period of years.
This joker’s sense of entitlement, and fury when the fuckdoll doesn’t reciprocate his interest, eerily echoed Sodini’s and I won’t be surprised should one of his act-outs end up on the news.
So fuck you PUA “experts”—you’ve thrown a creepy creep into my life at least three times, I can only hope not encouraged another Sodini.
Seebach, a big part of PUA “flirting” techniques, if you want to call them that, involves touching. The workshop I mentioned above hinged almost entirely on this, as well as using canned, pre-rehearsed opening lines. Someone actually brought up the fact that women may not want to be touched by strangers, even on a casual level, to which one of the more advanced PUA students said they’ve come to discover that women only think they don’t like to be touched, but really, they do. I wish I had had the stones, metaphorically speaking at least, to argue that point. In doing some further research, other “tried and true” PUA touching has included “poking,” “grabbing drinks out of hands” and “snapping bra straps.” I wish I was lying.
A light insult wrapped in the package of a complement. Used by pick-up artists to gain and maintain the attention of women who possess uncommon beauty (9+). These women are immune to standard complements.
The classic neg
pua - “you have beautiful nails, are they real?”
(9+) -"not really”
pua - “Oh, I guess thats still cool”
pua - “that’s really cute, your nose wiggles when you speak”
(9+) -"no it doesn’t”
pua - “ha ha, there it goes again, sorry, its just really cute”
They go to long lengths to explain you’re not trying to be mean to women, you just need to penetrate her bitch-shield. So see, you’re wrong. It’s not misogyny.
To further DonnDiva’s point, the comments at Dan Savage’s place have several (mainly) guys who are furiously denying any connection between Sodini/domestic violence/rape and societal sexism. Keshmeshi was trying to fight a rearguard action at one point. I’m afraid that I’m not up to going over and engaging those arguments myself as firstly, I have work to do, and secondly, I know that it would lead to me swearing at my computer and pounding the desk. Not a good look in an open-plan office with no privacy.
Theadosia on 08/06 at 09:24 PM
What got me was the one from a woman claiming to have been a former DV counselor, who agreed with them. She acknowledged that sexism has a role in their violence and control issues but downplays it, insisting that they abuse from a place of narcissism and entitlement. WTF is she smoking??
They go to long lengths to explain you’re not trying to be mean to women, you just need to penetrate her bitch-shield. So see, you’re wrong. It’s not misogyny.
Oh yeah, of course not! /snark
How are people just not turned off by the general cheesiness of the lines? And don’t they realize women can just google and see the canned lines and the “strategies” now? That the cat is kind of out of the bag?
In doing some further research, other “tried and true” PUA touching has included “poking,” “grabbing drinks out of hands” and “snapping bra straps.” I wish I was lying.
Oh for fuck’s sake. Didn’t they grow out of this shit in kindergarden?
Contrary to what some would have us believe (keshmeshi, I’m looking at you), this exact kind of mass murder is not—and will not become—a widespread social problem.
I was really honored to be called out by “name” (not). Of course, I never said, or at least never intended to say, that mass murder will become a widespread social problem. My point has always been that crimes like these are indicative of a preexisting social problem where women’s needs and desires are ignored or even violently suppressed. Things are getting better with each generation, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t keep working at it.
I’m pretty sure the commenter was pointing back to a Slog topic last week where a rapist/murderer was apprehended by the police. Many of the male commenters wanted to dismiss the man as being crazy, which tends to annoy me. With all the violence, perpetrated against men and women, in this country, it’s hard to believe ALL the perpetrators are insane. It also seems like violent criminals are more likely to be dismissed as crazy when they attack women. As someone else pointed out (here at Pandagon, I think), people weren’t quick to dismiss the Holocaust Museum shooter as crazy. I’ll give those guys the benefit of the doubt in that I think they just don’t want to believe that they or any men they know are capable of such violence; I’m just sick of that kind of denial. Under the right (or wrong) circumstances, most people are capable of violence.
The oddest of the odd in this: on both the followup creep-outs, Mr. PUA apparently didn’t remember that he’d unsuccessfully approached me before, which leads me to believe the creep must approach dozens of women (if not hundreds) in the years in between our chance encounters.
This is why I believe the PUA thing has any stickiness. Since the PUA pitch is snake oil, I’ve tried to look at it with skeptical tools, and what I suspect is going on is what they call “confirmation bias”. It’s why psychics get people to believe them. What happens is people forget misses and only remember hits. So if a psychic tells you 5 false things and one true thing (often something kind of stupidly obvious, like “I feel a John in your life."), you remember the true thing---if you want to believe.
If you hit on 100 women, one will say yes unless you are radiating rapist vibes. Maybe she’s bored, maybe she’s really horny, maybe she vowed that morning to stop requiring 15 dates before she sleeps with someone and is experimenting with casual sex. So you’ll get laid, and count that as a hit and ignore the 99 negatives. To make it worse, PUA manuals discourage---strongly---the idea that women are individuals with individual motives. So if a woman has a one night stand, you are encouraged strongly to believe that it’s because you tricked her, not that she has her own reasons that might be totally idiosyncratic and not replicable.
Ironically, men who see the truth in all the above probably have a lot more luck dating. It really helps to believe that people are individuals when you date them, instead of a huge mass of the same individual named Woman in many bodies. People love it when someone looks at them and sees an individual.
What’s sad about PUAs and MRAs and whatever acronym you use to describe the creepy misogynist set is this: they don’t really have access to the true pleasures of sex and dating. The spark you get with someone that you relate to as a person who is relating to you, whether it’s for a night or a year or a decade or a life. The building of erotic tension as you enjoy each other as people, the genuine pleasure you get out of how eros can create this genuine delight in another person’s idiosyncratic existence. All something they’ll never get while they’re negging at every woman in sight, hoping to stumble around one with low self-esteem who needs some cock tonight to feel like she’s desirable.
BenYitzhak, the idea is that they’ll be so startled that they won’t know how to react but laugh in surprise, then you move in. It’s supposed to be “playful.” I’d be curious how often these guys end up going to the emergency room with broken noses or pepper spray in their eyes, but they apparently never admit to failing in their approaches.
For your education, I’ve found some other neg-hits that are supposed to be teh awesome:
“Hey, I like that outfit. **pause for her response** Yeah, my (mother/aunt/grandmother) has one just like it!” This one is a classic.
“You have a very pretty face, but you should use less makeup. Makeup should be used to enhance a woman’s beauty, not hide it.”
“Ewwww! You just spit on me!” (said while she is talking, and you are brushing off the front of your shirt).
If she cusses a lot, “Do you know how unattractive it is when a woman speaks like that?”
Correct her grammar. (Especially difficult to pull off without sounding pompous.)
And I like this, too:
Now, if you are new to being a DJ, I can see what your little minds are thinking.
Is he kidding? Those examples are soooo cheesy! My God, what dumbass woman would fall for those? There’s NO WAY those things will work! These women will think I’m a stupid asshole!
Wow. I just found out what a “neg” is. I think I would prefer to not have this knowledge, however.
A “neg” is just teasing, like what you’d do to show a girl you like her when you’re 13. Anything translated into misogynist nerd-speak is going to come out sounding creepy though.
Donna and Theadosia, the comments at Slog used to involve a bit of actual intelligent conversation, mostly between regulars who have long since fled the coop. I’d say it started careening sharply downhill during the election, and now it’s kind of a cesspool of assholism. Pity.
Is he kidding? Those examples are soooo cheesy! My God, what dumbass woman would fall for those? There’s NO WAY those things will work! These women will think I’m a stupid asshole!
No, I’m sure the ones with chronic self-esteem issues will just love it. If that’s what you’re into!
asdf, I don’t think Jeff’s saying that one-night stands are wrong or dehumanizing. (I don’t think.) But one night stands are rarely as dehumanizing as the PUAs aim for them to be. They’re still about connecting between people, not about scoring points. They aren’t like having porn in 3D, which is what these turds want from sex (because they hate women).
Precisely. One night stands are fine and dandy; if you want to hook up with someone else who wants to hook up with you there’s nothing wrong with that. But if you’re just looking for a thing to go hump—one that’s preferably as attractive as you believe yourself to be entitled to—and you intend on lying to get said thing to let you hump it...well, that’s not going out looking for a person to hook up with.
It’s not the one night stand; it’s the viewing one’s one-night partner as not a partner, but an object. And that’s precisely how the PUA crowd views women—no group truly interested in women as people could advocate negging.
I can’t imagine someone using pepper spray in a crowded bar, but getting hit with an elbow or knee sounds likely.
There are certain things that are playful, once you know someone and have a certain amount of acceptable physical contact. I wouldn’t tickle a stranger.
Right, they don’t admit to failing - they just give a wildly distorted version of events, like “All I did was glance at her breasts and she slapped me!” or “All I did was tell her she looked nice and she went to HR!” I’m quite sure that’s where a lot of that Mean Feminist crap comes from - guys like this who will never admit they were out of line.
“You have a very pretty face, but you should use less makeup. Makeup should be used to enhance a woman’s beauty, not hide it.”
I’ve gotten both that and an admonishment to wear more make-up. In all cases, the result is that I wrote off that man as someone I could ever, ever have sex with. PUAs would call me a “bitch”, but I don’t try to make friends by insulting them, and I fail to see why I should be open to men trying to hit on me who think that’s cute.
Now that I’m older and seem to have less impulse control (read: I don’t give a shit), if ceiling cat-forbid I found myself being “negged” by a PUA I’d probably punch ‘im in the face. Right before making sure he understands that I fuck women.
So of course it would be my fault that he later would shoot a bunch of women.
that picture of him scares me so bad. These are the guys that stare at me on the street and fixate on me in the subway. I am SO GLAD I’m not in my 20’s anymore, and now they only stare, rather than approach me and say scary rude things, though I haven’t aged out of their target group completely yet. I can’t wait until I’m in my 40’s, when I apparently become invisible to these men.
A light insult wrapped in the package of a complement. Used by pick-up artists to gain and maintain the attention of women who possess uncommon beauty (9+).
Damn, I made similar comments when I was 13 and in high school, but not towards women and not for the purposes of getting a date or something like that. Instead, I was pulling this on authoritarian teachers I detested in order to get them so off-balanced and pissed off that they lose their professional cool in front of the class. Still amazed at how well it worked on them even given their inflexibility and “respect mah authoritah or else!” attitudes.
Cannot believe anyone would believe this would be an effective dating strategy....especially when my “neging” on such teachers and openly making fun of them to their face resulted in the award of failing grades and several visits to the dean’s office.
’d be curious how often these guys end up going to the emergency room with broken noses or pepper spray in their eyes, but they apparently never admit to failing in their approaches.
Also, in light of Gena’s comment, I am surprised I didn’t get a bloody nose and worse considering how much I pissed those teachers off back then....
The PUA’s are going to keep on having success, regardless of how much the Sodoni link is publicised. The simple reason for that is that they target vulnerable men who lack the self-confidence or social skills to meet and chat people up, of which there are many. I’m not saying a significant proportion aren’t fucktard misogynists with exisiting issues, but I genuinely believe that most of the guys willing to lay down serious money for these courses are just lonely and desperate.
There are two quick ways to sink the whole PUA movement, the first being to widely publicise the techniques so women can identify them quickly and act accordingly. The second is for someone to set up some kind of more woman-friendly alternative and publicise that. Because there will always be lonely and desperate guys around, and in the absence of an alternative they’ll continue to flock to these courses.
Unless I’m just deluded and they are all woman-haters. Gena, if you’re still around, what was your impression of the guys who actually signed up for this?
Comment #61: Stubborn Kind of Fellow on 08/06 at 10:27 PM
A light insult wrapped in the package of a complement. Used by pick-up artists to gain and maintain the attention of women who possess uncommon beauty (9+). These women are immune to standard complements.
The classic neg
pua - “you have beautiful nails, are they real?”
(9+) -"not really”
pua - “Oh, I guess thats still cool”
I’m not going to pretend that I’m a 9 (And I must say that assigning attractiveness to a scale is so, so classy. Did you see how Soldini assigned his ex-girlfriend a quarter rating, a 7.25? But I digress.), but I have been the target of backhanded compliments in the past, like “Brains! Who needs beauty?” That seems a little too insulting to be a neg, but what do I know?
Sincerely lonely men without a sense of entitlement have free, non-sexist advice being flung at them by the likes people like Dan Savage, as I said before, who have the added bonus of not being obvious charlatans.
Men are attracted to PUA pitches because they hate and resent women, full stop. They maybe can intellectually understand that women’s oppression is unfair, but emotionally, they can’t really grasp that they’re not entitled and that, like women, their sexual success will depend on their ability to be attractive for real.
Stubborn, you seem to believe these techniques work, and therefore rejection from women will stop them. Wrong. They fail on most women they’re tried on. I remember oodles of PUAs trying these lines on me long before I knew what it was about, and it never worked. Ever. I’m not alone. All they need is one out of 100 to get a “hit” and continue.
The only thing that will stop this is for men to believe women are human.
By the way, you know there’s a link at the bottom of the comments that takes you to one of these sites, right? David DeAngelo can help you pick up ‘any woman’. He’ll even show you why “most women are trying to keep you unsuccessful”. Sounds great!
Comment #66: Stubborn Kind of Fellow on 08/06 at 10:42 PM
Thing is, under the layers of misogyny, there is something to negging.
If someone is used to always being complimented on their beauty, or fawned and catered to, then not doing that sets you apart. Also, if they are heavily invested in some aspect of their identity (the pretty one, the smart one, the rich one), then denying them that often leads to an attempt to prove that it really is true.
I know some people who are very invested in how open-minded they are. Point out ways they discriminate and they go nuts overcompensating to prove you wrong. Same concept.
Of course, as with just about everything from the PUA community, it’s layered on with vicious misogyny and framed in such a way as if every neg is effective on women just because they are women - interchangeably - regardless of context or individuality. And some weird delusion that it works for ever or something.
All I can say is when I see this talk of (9+), all it makes me want to say is “Hah, 9+? I’m in a relationship with an 18 plus. Beat that!”
Of course it’s a bit “ugh” because it sorts of accepts the competitive mindset, even if it is to mock it. But I’d like to see the face of one of these PUAs when I shatter his worldview (he’s dating a plus size woman and doesn’t think it’s at all shameful?).
teac - you’re right - people are always shocked SHOCKED when they find out I’m 36. I don’t mind so much looking young, but I was hoping aging would aid in my “looking dignified"/ getting more respect in the classroom thing, but that hasn’t happened yet. Maybe those creeps DO think I’m still in my 20’s (esp. from a distance), but the difference is that I don’t worry about accommodating them or “not being rude” - now I have the wherewithal to move to another subway car if someone is creepily staring. In my 20’s I would have been afraid to seem “mean”.
See how women (I know I’m not the only one) internalize other people’s bad behavior? sheesh.
If someone is used to always being complimented on their beauty, or fawned and catered to, then not doing that sets you apart.
Women have brains. I know, shocking. But if someone is a beauty and is---well, no one gets tired of being told they’re hot, but even us non-beauties get tired of our looks being all that matters to men---then there’s always assuming she has a personality.
But of course, that sort of advice has no appeal to sexists.
Again, I have been negged a lot. All the fucking time. It has worked never. If you want me to like you, treat me like it. My reaction to some dude trying to “challenge” me like I’m some dumb stereotype of a bimbo from a movie is usually to find a girlfriend, point, and laugh. If you don’t think I’m amazing when you first meet me, then there’s no there there. How boring not to want to be with someone you actually find amazing. Guys who “neg” basically are saying, “You suck, but you have a pussy, so I’ll condescend to speak to you.” Fuck off, seriously.
The second is for someone to set up some kind of more woman-friendly alternative and publicise that. Because there will always be lonely and desperate guys around, and in the absence of an alternative they’ll continue to flock to these courses.
Okay, here you go, my three rules of dating for lonely men.
*ahem*
1. If you see a woman you’d like to date, ask her out. If she says no, live with it, and try someone else. Rejection only kills those who let it.
2. Recognize that just as you are imperfect and yet desire love, so too imperfect women desire love. No, you don’t need to date someone you’re not attracted to...but you also don’t need to set your standards so impossibly high that only someone with the beauty of Angelina Jolie, the heart of Mother Theresa, and the sexual skill of Jenna Jameson will suffice.
3. If you’re looking for a woman who scores at least a ‘9’ on a hotness scale, you’re a douchebag who doesn’t deserve love. Women are not numbers. Women are people.
What would Sodini have learned from Steele? Basically, R. Don’s message boils down to this: women hate nice guys. Be a brash, confident, son of a bitch, and target your approaches at young waitresses. Don always preferred them in the 19-21 range.
Oh. My. God. Of course, because waitresses are paid not to tell creepy customers to go fuck themselves.
well, no one gets tired of being told they’re hot, but even us non-beauties get tired of our looks being all that matters to men---then there’s always assuming she has a personality.
Indeed. (And the basis of Casanova’s famous advice.)
The PUA idea that this is some kind of all-encompassing perfect strategy is ridiculous. But introducing cognitive dissonance into someone to make them try and resolve it in your favour is a well-known manipulation tactic and one that works to some degree. Hell, it’s a used-car salesman tactic. Works on some people, as you pointed out. You just need enough hits to confirm your biases.
Because people are individuals, no technique works on everyone all the time. A good salesman adjusts. The whole PUA thing is weird for its vicious insistence that all women respond to the same things all the time. But just about every manipulation tactic that has lasted any length of time works on some people, that’s why it has lasted.
What’s really funny about my getting carded is that no woman under legal drinking age (or hell, no woman under 30) would be caught dead dressing like I do. No belly shirts, no funky nail colors, no crotch-hugger jeans (not that there’s anything wrong with them).
I’m kinda in the Rachel Maddow school of dressing, only even older styles, and without the dorknozzle glasses.
Stubborn Kind of Fellow, most of them I couldn’t imagine being groomed into the smooth-talking, charming ladies’ men type that the instructors of the class passed themselves off as. They were awkward, yet seemed deeply earnest about the workshop, like they were sure that was the answer to their problems. One of them was a 57 year-old, recently divorced man who claimed that the problem with women he was dating was that they were all “like my ex-wife, boring second stringers.” Trust me, he was no prize. None of them were, they were all just a bunch of perfectly unremarkable men, most of them in their 20s and 30s, who were being sold on this idea that they were going to become these alpha males who could walk into any place and get any woman they want.
The video of that house was really, really sad...it’s a drab little post-war brick Levittown clone. There are literally thousands of them in and around Pittsburgh, almost all of them brick. There is nothing special, nothing distinctive unless one counts the hideously patterned sofa.
Worst of all for me is the complete and utter lack of pictures on the walls. I didn’t spot a *single* piece of art, photograph, or poster. Even the stereotypical Star Trek/Star Wars/MUCK fan has a couple of pieces of art he picked up at a convention! No books, a computer in the living room, no sign that he so much as even *sat* at his nice new dining room table....
Terrifying. Just terrifying. And so profoundly tragic.
The young waitress thing reminds me of the men who use trade shows as opportunities to pester the women working at the booths (I grew to hate that part of my job pretty quickly). Captive women, unable to flee, obligated to smile and be nice… what more could they want?
Never needed martial arts, I’ve always been able to talk my way out of everything.
Twice in my life I’ve had a man grab my thigh in public, and each time my instant and honest reaction was the same, “Are you INSANE?”
The guy who grabbed me on an escalator at the bus terminal (!), backed down that escalator (which can’t be easy to do), the guy who grabbed me under the table at a club, slunk out.
It was in New York City as an under five foot girl that I evolved a working system of dealing with the PUAs, harassers, stalkers or whoever, which I’m happy to pass on. To every approach I’d repeat in a monotone, “I’m terribly sorry, but I never speak to strangers on the street,” (or variation) rinse and repeat. (Don’t smile, that’s seen as an encouragement.)
Yelling at the clods to leave me alone only got a psycho screaming at me and following for blocks, ignoring them meant that they could repeat their requests endlessly because, perhaps, they hadn’t been heard. A neutral tone and overtly “polite” line doesn’t give the psychos or PUAs an excuse to abuse you for your disinterest, or to continue to harass you, usually.
A request of any sort is responded to, again, neutrally, “No, thank you.” Rinse and repeat, go on your way. (With a bonus: if the request has been obscene, and the guy has friends around him, they then laugh at him after my “polite” response.)
However, if the clod persists after “polite” neutral-toned dismissals, I discovered how to deflect that too, largely because when someone was rude enough to frighten me, my next, natural response was anger that he’d had the nerve.
Righteous indignation after a line crossed, usually resulted in a PUA or strange man backing away and apologizing, believe it or not, as long as I made it a matter of manners.
“Do you realize how rude it is to follow me and frighten me!” Late at night, followed through empty blocks by drunks, and invariably apologized to.
(However, if there were other people on the street and I was being followed, I’d point it out, “That man is following me!” and cross the street. That would end THAT.)
After I moved to Los Angeles and a guy in some sort of sports car followed me for blocks through Beverly Hills after I’d politely told him, no I didn’t want I ride, I turned once and gave him the frosty librarian, “I said, no thank you!”
Another half block of following, and I finally turned and spat, “Listen buddy, don’t fuck with me, I’m from New York.”
At which point PUA and sports car peeled out.
So that’s the system: overly polite line in neutral, or monotone, rinse and repeat, usually deflects the harassers—until or unless he crosses the line, and then righteous anger (or threat) backs them off.
And I can guarantee the above system works better that the PUA canned lines.
that insulting your “girl of interest” thing is so insidious. Especially with that kind of age differential. When I was in my 20’s and totally insecure and confused, that kind of thing would have, and I’m sure did, messed with my head.
As far as I’m concerned, that’s psychological abuse.
Seriously what is wrong with these people? Why not just be interesting? Cultivate a hobby or something, damn! Make what they call “conversation”! (and with people near your own age, skeezoids!
I can’t wait until I’m in my 40’s, when I apparently become invisible to these men.
Good luck with that. I’m 41 and still get stared at while at the gym; catcalled and leered at while walking down my own street in a baggy navy T-shirt, monoboob-inducing sports bra, sweatpants, glasses, and no makeup; even asked by creeps at the mall if “the carpet matches the drapes” (I color my hair a vivid red). And it’s not like I’m cover-girl material; I’m average height, attractive enough but no stunner, and about 20 pounds overweight. But I’m female, so to these fools I’m fair game.
And my gods, that photo of Sodini is creepy. This is the guy who thought women should roll over for him because he bathes and has a clean house? Ewwww.
But introducing cognitive dissonance into someone to make them try and resolve it in your favour is a well-known manipulation tactic and one that works to some degree.
You know, I don’t doubt it works on women who have low self-esteem, need men to validate them, are used to compensating for low self-esteem with flashy behavior, and aren’t smart enough to see through this shit. There are those women out there, of course. Of course, there are women who are just bored or horny and are willing to indulge an asshole for whatever reason.
What’s really funny about my getting carded is that no woman under legal drinking age (or hell, no woman under 30) would be caught dead dressing like I do. No belly shirts, no funky nail colors, no crotch-hugger jeans (not that there’s anything wrong with them).
teac,
You never know.
Considering what an older cousin who did bartender in NYC during her undergrad days recalled, it is very likely that there are plenty of women under legal drinking age who dressed like you did. In the 2 years of bartending, she’s seen plenty of people of all ages dress in a myriad of styles contrary to their ages.
Just to make clear, I wasn’t advertising the benefits of the courses themselves, I meant success as in making money for the people running them. They do that by targeting men with sizeable self-esteem issues. A significant proportion of them probably do have emnity towards women but I also think that a lot of them are men who are simply clueless. Clueless as in they have next to no social skills - no idea how to dress or act or what to say or how to say it - and these courses take them in hand and tell them it’s not their fault, that it will be all right and that they have the answers.
And that can be enormously seductive. I agree wholeheartedly with everyone pointing out the damaging entitlement ideas at the heart of these courses, it’s just that for a lot of these guys, telling them to be respectful and honest isn’t going to be enough if they don’t have the basic social skills to back that up. Not creepy lines or tricks, just an idea of what kind of things are appropriate to say to someone you’d like to ask out and the wherewithal to say them in a relaxed and confident manner.
You are right though, Gena. If they go into it thinking they’ll be transformed into supermodel-pulling machines that’s different.
Comment #90: Stubborn Kind of Fellow on 08/06 at 11:11 PM
BTW, the picture… that guy just sets off ‘creep vibes’. I’ve seen skinheads who looked less scary. And the mustache is like a skeezy cherry on top of the creep sundae.
As someone else pointed out (here at Pandagon, I think), people weren’t quick to dismiss the Holocaust Museum shooter as crazy. I’ll give those guys the benefit of the doubt in that I think they just don’t want to believe that they or any men they know are capable of such violence; I’m just sick of that kind of denial. Under the right (or wrong) circumstances, most people are capable of violence.
They also weren’t quick to sympathize with the Holocaust Museum shooter either. You’d never see a comment like the following: “While I’d certainly never condone shooting up the Holocaust Museum I can understand why a guy could be driven to it. After years of trying to make money and those Jews never giving any of it up to him anyone can see why he finally snapped.”
I see the fantasies about and glorification of violence against intrusive men have started. Always interesting to see women’s reactions to the pick-up arts. I remember Jeff Fecke’s last intervention in this realm, on another blog, which led to a 1000-comment Haloscan thread containing much waggling of virtual genitalia in classic primate fashion. One thing I learned as a non-conventionally-handsome extrovert is that courting is a process, and, to a certain extent, a non-intuitive progression has to be followed, something that many men simply don’t get without the sort of step-by-step instruction that people like Mystery offer. ("Okay, she laughed at my 3rd joke, now we’re 15 minutes into conversation, move hand lightly resting on forearm to small of back and check for comfort.") It’s dehumanizing to those who feel that all human interaction that isn’t utterly intuitive, by gifted empaths, is fundamentally inauthentic and debased (JF?), but one symptom of Pick-Up is that even if you’re looking at your interlocutor as a stimulus-response loop made flesh, you’re still looking at his/her reaction and (hopefully) respecting his/her agency. I don’t know what to do about the frosting of entitlement, except disavow it, because a lot of the schemata of pick-up are a useful way of thinking about courting behavior, and taken as broad-brush models, they help. Negs get you the women who have an investment in submission to patriarchy, of course, and all of it is intended to be the sort of thing they like for women who like that sort of thing.
I do like Black Bloc’s whimsy, because in 15 years of “Game” of various types, I’ve only rarely found a correlation between a woman’s appearance, character, and responses, besides the standoffishness associated with the type of conventional beauty that gets one approached all the time. Of course, I’m spectacularly ineffective (1 in 50 approaches, I think, yield a phone number) up from no female interest, year after year, as a sweating, nervous, overly-friendly creepazoid. Introversion was never my problem. One learns to hang back, read signals, ask for a phone number and get it, and also know when the number is being given to get one to go away. Hugo Schwyzer’s blog has rather a lot on the subject, including my rather John Cage-esque ("Music is notes and silence") take on part of the art of pick-up being the Walk Away, a move that can be executed at any time for the comfort of one’s “target.”
The whole “negging” thing is infuriating. It’s so similar to something that is acceptable and fun to do with people you know: playful banter. You give a friend shit, you tease them for their taste in music, whatever. The important thing is that it’s someone you know and it’s give and take. I’ve been on dates where we started doing this and it ended sexily, but it was a form of legitimate flirting and we knew each other at least a little before hand.
Eurosabra, you’ve made me look a fool by demonstrating that all these guys probably are weird, creepy misogynists after all. Seriously, have you ever thought that getting to know someone and appreciating them for who they are, you know as a unique, autonomous person, might be a better use of your time than being rejected by 49 strangers you don’t even like, only to finally pull someone you don’t even like or respect anyway?
And what do you mean by ‘women who have an investment in submission to patriarchy’? What women do you think have an investment in being treated like shit?
Comment #95: Stubborn Kind of Fellow on 08/06 at 11:35 PM
yeah, at the college where I teach I’m mistaken for a student ALL THE TIME. It drives me nuts. Oh well, maybe I’ll feel free and easy in my 50’s?
liviaclaudia, teac,
Knew a couple of high school English teachers who were in a similar situation with older longtime teachers. To worsen matters, they were both recent graduates of said high school which meant the older longtime teachers forgot the 8 year interval and thought they were still students. This was problematic as they kept getting yelled at for using the elevators which students were prohibited from using.
I’ve also had similar experiences despite the fact alums are allowed to use the elevators along with the fact I still got asked for my program card on my last visit despite being out of high school for more than a decade.
Seriously, have you ever thought that getting to know someone and appreciating them for who they are, you know as a unique, autonomous person, might be a better use of your time than being rejected by 49 strangers you don’t even like, only to finally pull someone you don’t even like or respect anyway?
Stubborn, don’t be silly. You’re acting like women are individuals with unique personalities and interests, rather than the interchangeable fuckdolls Eurosabra knows they are.
This past spring, one of my 3L colleagues in law school (2d career, y’all) was stunned *stunned* to realize her mother and I are the same age. I had to whip out my driver’s license to prove my age.
I think it helped her understand why, in part, I was so unafraid to talk in class.]
I see the fantasies about and glorification of violence against intrusive men have started. Always interesting to see women’s reactions to the pick-up arts.
Eurosabra on 08/06 at 11:20 PM
And quite the right response it is. I assume that when your personal space is invaded by someone who poses a literal physical danger to you by virtue of being larger, stronger and culturally inculcated with the idea that you are to bend to his will, and who ignores your spoken and unspoken ‘no’s and is hellbent on getting his dick into any of your orifices by any means necessary including lying, insulting you, mocking you and TOUCHING YOUR BODY UNINVITED, you simply smile like a delicate flower. Or wait, has that never happened to you? How odd.
Experience the world as a woman for five fucking minutes and your mind will simply be blown.
themann1086: I suspect that kind of teasing isn’t what they mean when they say “negging”. There’s a whole level of creepy anger involved in it.
Even when I’m saying there is a core overlay that works, I’m not trying to defend negging as presented by these people. Reading the Village voice reprint of the old New Times article, you can see how being surprising and charming lets you talk to more people. Talking to more people means it is more likely you might click with someone.
The problem is it is all presented as this insane automatic programming thing where women are just this horrible undifferentiated mass.
Hell, as I think even Strauss mentions in “The Game”, these sort of manipulation tricks based on messing with someone’s self esteem just get used on each other by these people to try and get money from one another. It’s all kind of sordid.
Eurosabra, it takes a lot of nerve to come onto a thread about a man who opened fire on a room of women and complain that the women willing to physically defend themselves against men who touch them uninvited are too violent.
So that’s the system: overly polite line in neutral, or monotone, rinse and repeat, usually deflects the harassers—until or unless he crosses the line, and then righteous anger (or threat) backs them off.
And I can guarantee the above system works better that the PUA canned lines.
judybrowni, I have a system too, of smiling when they’re too far away to talk and dropping my head and eyes shyly (submissively) as soon as they’re close. I didn’t know I was doing it for years, and when I realized, it really pissed me off that I was unconsciously making a show of submission to men to protect myself from their comments. But it works, and even now that I know what I’m doing, I still do it some days when I just can’t deal with getting hit on.
For the women waiting to become invisible, I’ll mention that one of the most surprising things about motherhood for me was that men are still willing to catcall and hit on me while I’m with a toddler. I guess when my son is older, he can take ownership of me and protect me from random entitled strangers, but right now he apparently doesn’t count. And according to my mother, no amount of age or silver hair makes you immune from being told to smile.
1. If you see a woman you’d like to date, ask her out. If she says no, live with it, and try someone else. Rejection only kills those who let it.
What bothers me is that some women say “yes” when they really mean “no”. I once asked a pretty young waitress for her phone number. She gave me one, and agreed that next Tuesday would be a good time for me to call her. When I called the number, there was no answer. I decided I’d ask her about it the next time she came to my table, which was pretty often. However, as it turns out, she started avoiding me and I never got the chance to speak to her until, a couple of months later, I decided that I would have to confront her and get some closure. So I followed her to the kitchen, where she seemed to be shrinking behind a male co-worker who had his arm around her shoulder. I apologized for having apparently done something that made her uncomfortable, and said that I’d be leaving her alone from then on. (I assume the phone number must have been fake.)
Why can’t I get a simple, honest rejection for once instead of getting the runaround, which only hurts me more in the long run?
----
On “negging”:
Apparently, Richard Feynman was something of a pick-up artist before there was such a thing as the pick-up artist industry. He talks a bit about it in several places in Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman:
I said, “Hi” to the woman and ordered a drink for myself (still playing this game of not being impressed and not being a gentleman).
“You know,” she said to me, “I’m one of the better lawyers here in Las Vegas.”
“Oh, no, you’re not,” I replied coolly. “You might be a lawyer during the day, but you know what you are right now? You’re just a barfly in a small bar in Vegas.”
She liked me, and we went to a few places dancing. She danced very well, and I love to dance, so we had a great time together.
Eh, I see the ranting about the inauthenticity of structured communication has begun. And I can say that I’ve experienced really intrusive touching and mishandling as a sex object, as a teenager, and the girls who did it got a pass because we were all straight, the same age, and they were WOC, and boys always want it anyway. Bonding by “being yourself” works if the woman is *already* attracted, and one can in fact try “fishing” for attraction by trying various gambits, which is button-pushing and perhaps not totally healthy. And, yes, some women do have an investment in being patriarchy-compliant, and will respond positively to jibes like “You don’t want to come back to my place? But I thought you were spontaneous?” Which is an unfair double-bind. And, well, really, I have a very weird sample because I do about the same no matter what approach I take, except that the very naive “I like you. Do you like me?” never worked in any context because it was taken as desperation. Actually, I find the differences and flexibility to be almost entirely on the woman’s side, so it’s more like I do my bit, which is, after all, my bit, patter from MY life experience structured to captivate, and she has whatever individual reaction she feels like. You can, after all, only date people who want to date you. It helped a bit that I had a genuine curiosity about people and was used to approaching as a too-desperate nerd, so by stepping back and cooling off a bit and getting a bit MORE goal-oriented but more relaxed about the journey I actually did better. Bear in mind that as a man with a visible disability and chronic illness, I am a bit ghettoized--someone looking for a jogging partner and an assistive-devices-free good-looking fellow to stand tall next to her at the proms is STILL not going to find me exactly her cup of tea. (Although a cane, when I need it, CAN be a phallocentric patriarchy-fetish accessory.)
Doug S.- She gave you a fake number because she thought you were a creep and she wanted you to leave her alone. You validated her assessment of you by attempting to confront her about it in the kitchen (an employees-only area) at her place of work.
“What bothers me is that some women say “yes” when they really mean “no”.”
maybe she thought she’d take a chance on you, and meant it at the time, but then later changed her mind and decided against it.
Who knows what goes on? But don’t assume they’re lying if it doesn’t work out.
And...I’ve worked in restaurants, and a customer following a waitress into the kitchen??!! that is sooo creepy and stalker-y. I hope you realize that was a bad move. That must have been really scary for her.
Eh, anarchist. I’ve dated women of all sizes, and even one woman who wore an 18 top and 24 pants, and there has NEVER been a correlation of any kind between a woman’s appearance and her character, except for the standoffishness of those who are continually hit on and the body image issues varying accordingly for the thin and the fat. Bodies have the meanings fetishists give them, and we are all, I guess, body fetishists. I don’t think I can be totally neutral, but I like the idea of torquing the scale of the woman-as-f*ckable-object absurdity by twisting it the way you do. I also acknowledge that no one really cares what floats my boat, nor should they.
Apparently, Richard Feynman was something of a pick-up artist before there was such a thing as the pick-up artist industry. He talks a bit about it in several places in Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman:
.
.
.
I think that was a “neg” that worked…
*HEADDESK* *HEADDESK*
Are you really that dumb?
Why can’t I get a simple, honest rejection for once instead of getting the runaround, which only hurts me more in the long run?
One thing I learned as a non-conventionally-handsome extrovert is that courting is a process, and, to a certain extent, a non-intuitive progression has to be followed, something that many men simply don’t get without the sort of step-by-step instruction that people like Mystery offer. ... It’s dehumanizing to those who feel that all human interaction that isn’t utterly intuitive, by gifted empaths, is fundamentally inauthentic and debased
As a bona fide socially awkward person, I know for a fact that this is all bullshit. I know from missing social cues and an inability to read signals, and what you’re describing are people who don’t need lessons in picking up women-- they need lessons in how to make friends and socialize with people they haven’t met before. Trying to make it all about “the art of the pick up” is missing the point entirely and setting people up for failure, but I’m sure it pays a lot better than giving people rudimentary social skills.
And you know what? I’ve never had a woman refuse to give me her phone number or e-mail address after I’ve asked for it. Ever. You know why? Because while you were out asking 49 random women who turned you down, I was reading a book, exercising, and hanging out with friends-- things that made me a more interesting, social person that gave me opportunities to meet women in normal, healthy social situations who themselves wanted to meet new people.
Two possible reasons why the waitress gave you her number, but then rejected you. First, there is really, really strong pressure on women, especially young women, to “be nice” and never reject a man up front if possible. Because that’s mean, you see, and good girls are supposed to be nice and “let guys down easy” and take care of his feelings.
(And most of us have also had some very unpleasant scenes with some asshole who just can’t take “No” for an answer. Thus leading to more evasive maneuvers to avoid being called a bitch and threatened because you didn’t want to go out with some stranger.)
Second, you asked her out at work, where it is her job to be pleasant to customers so they leave a tip. Your asking for her number and a good time to call put her in a bind. If she said no, she figured that there was a good possibility that you’d not tip, you’d complain to management about her, or depending on how creepy she thought you were, that you’d resort to something more aggressive.
Like, say, following her into the employee’s only area of the restaurant.
You didn’t need closure. She didn’t answer your calls and was avoiding you. Somehow, you thought that meant that she really did want to date you? ‘Cuz its either that or you’re lying to yourself about your own motives. I’m gonna take a wild guess that you’ll say that you “just wanted to her it from her.” What you mean, though, is that you wanted to punish her for rejecting you by forcing a confrontation that she obviously didn’t want. Bravo. You’re such a nice guy.
However, as it turns out, she started avoiding me and I never got the chance to speak to her until, a couple of months later, I decided that I would have to confront her and get some closure. <<
Why can’t I get a simple, honest rejection for once instead of getting the runaround, which only hurts me more in the long run?
Doug S. on 08/07 at 12:36 AM
Because you’re the kind of person who nurses a grudge about a minor rejection for months, you seek closure because someone you never spoke more than 40 words to gave you a fake phone number and in seeking closure you follow her into the kitchen at the restaurant where she works?
Would you treat anyone other than a woman like this? If you interviewed for a job and never heard back would you show up at the interviewer’s office MONTHS LATER and follow them around, and corner them seeking “closure”? FUCK.
Doug S., women say “yes” when they mean “no” because we are societally conditioned to be nice. Further, wait staff are paid to be nice. You put her in an awkward situation by asking for her number in the first place. I would argue that she fucked up by giving it to you, but I have no idea how she felt at the time. If it was indeed a fake number, she could have been making fun of you, she could have also been really intimidated and looked for the easiest way to get rid of you. A better course of action would have been to ask one of her co-workers why she was avoiding you or to pick up on the hint that she just wasn’t that into you. Women are constantly admonished for not picking up on far more subtle hints than not answering the phone and obvious avoidance.
Ick. Frankly I hate touching/being touched, and tend to sort of go off when I’m touched unexpectedly. It’s really fortunate I’m a guy and this rarely ever happens.
One girl, a high school gf, was able to get me over it--she was studying to be a massage therapist and needed me to play subject for a while. Sadly, we eventually began to regard each other more like brother and sister than lovers and she got married and moved out of state.
And you know what? I’ve never had a woman refuse to give me her phone number or e-mail address after I’ve asked for it. Ever. You know why? Because while you were out asking 49 random women who turned you down, I was reading a book, exercising, and hanging out with friends-- things that made me a more interesting, social person that gave me opportunities to meet women in normal, healthy social situations who themselves wanted to meet new people.
And I assume that by the time you did ask a woman for her number or email it was because you knew enough about her to decide she’d be someone you’d like to hang out with. Unlike the typical PUA wanker who hits on perfect strangers because they look a certain way or have a pulse.
No shit, they were already attracted to you, which could be from your looks, a coincidence of interests, or any number of things I can’t predict or account for, not knowing you. As I have had easy success with women who shared my religion, ethnicity, interests, and valued the sort of arcana I’ve mastered. I had a decent number of friends and a reasonable social circle, the sticking point was always dating. The thing is, women who weren’t already themselves bookish nerds didn’t particularly VALUE the things I learned from books, and women who found disability off-putting found it, well, off putting. So we’re discussing two totally different human experiences of life as if they were commensurate, which I’m sure helps your facile sense of superiority.
The whole “negging” thing is infuriating. It’s so similar to something that is acceptable and fun to do with people you know: playful banter. You give a friend shit, you tease them for their taste in music, whatever. The important thing is that it’s someone you know and it’s give and take. I’ve been on dates where we started doing this and it ended sexily, but it was a form of legitimate flirting and we knew each other at least a little before hand.
I’m rambling, I hope this makes sense.
That’s precisely what makes the entire concept of “negging” so utterly creepy. You are trying to impose a level of familiarity into a relationship that isn’t there. I think Amanda summed it up best… when you just meet a person for the first time, the way to get them interested in talking to you is not to “playfully” insult them as if you’re old buddies and you’re just being “witty and charming”. It’s about boundaries. If you don’t know the woman, don’t talk to her like you’re old dear friends and you’re just “playing around” with her. It’s an insult to her intelligence. You aren’t “old dear friends”, and you aren’t just being “playful”. You’re being creepy and weird.
It smacks of the overly chummy type of person who is constantly name-dropping, and refers to every common acquaintance you discover you might have as “their really good friend”, even though they barely know the person who you share an acquaintance with.
I fucking hate people like that.
Ultimately, it comes down to this. Woman are people. Period. The end.
Talk to a woman with the same amount of respect that you would talk to any other human being with, and you might have a start, as long as you aren’t a complete asshat who doesn’t know how to treat people respectfully. But if you fail to accept that basic premise, you are probably a creepy douche, and you will probably always be a creepy douche as long as you don’t acknowledge that most basic reality - women are people.
“the sticking point was always dating. The thing is, women who weren’t already themselves bookish nerds didn’t particularly VALUE the things I learned from books”
so why don’t you want to date bookish nerds, if that’s where you connect and your previous success lies? Date the bookish nerd-girls, already! damn.
I don’t get this! Why are y’all barking up the wrong tree, then getting mad there’s nothing up that tree for you??
For strange men feeling entitled to touch me while we’re both in a public place, even being age 59, isn’t a get-out-of-being-harassed-by-a-creep age, as it turns out. Since I had to fend off two drunk younger guys this last weekend, while working with the public in a public place, at night.
Almost wish I had taken up martial arts.
I’m also majorly pissed by the creeps on the Strange thread refusing to see sexism as an integral part of that gym shooting.
Sure, younger women get harassed more, and I’m thankful that a large percentage of PUAs may no longer find me of interest (one of the joys of growing older), but if it isn’t sexism that I still have to deal with men I’ve never met who think I should be available to them simply because I sprouted breasts over 45 years ago and I happen to share the same public place, then I don’t know what in the hell it is.
I don’t feel entitled to touch every man I find attractive, at least in part because our culture makes it clear that’s not in the cards, and because I see men as humans who might not share my interest.
Current Google as: “Get a girlfriend no matter how much money you make--learn how here.”
The website? http://www.GettingInsideAWoman.com
Must go bleach brain.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
Comment #124: hbsweet, empress of ice cream on 08/07 at 01:23 AM
Um, necessary but not sufficient condition? It was always fun to meet the bookish nerd-girl who was interested in books but only EXCITED by physically-active, overtly masculine men. But that brings us back to waaaah...I dunno. My actual relationships are disturbingly functional.
we’re discussing two totally different human experiences of life as if they were commensurate, which I’m sure helps your facile sense of superiority.
I’m talking about meeting and dating new women I find interesting and want to spend time with. What are you talking about? I mean, do you really go around trying to get the numbers of dozens of women you have nothing in common with and don’t have any chemistry with only to get one successful contact out of 50? What is the purpose of that? That time could be spent doing other things, and you would find less rejection and more success if you didn’t spend all your free time asking random women for their phone numbers.
Hey, it’s tough and lonely out there. People want to meet people. We all know it. There’s no point in wasting your time making dozens of futile overtures to strangers, though.
Maybe this makes me risk averse and shy (I am!). I like to think it’s more about being picky and careful.
As a bona fide socially awkward person, I know for a fact that this is all bullshit. I know from missing social cues and an inability to read signals, and what you’re describing are people who don’t need lessons in picking up women-- they need lessons in how to make friends and socialize with people they haven’t met before. Trying to make it all about “the art of the pick up” is missing the point entirely and setting people up for failure, but I’m sure it pays a lot better than giving people rudimentary social skills.
Not only that....it is much easier as instilling social skills does take far more work, especially those who find it difficult like myself, are resistant, or worse, feel it is a “frivolous waste of their time” like a some of my high school classmates*.
* This was one factor in their lack of success in finding work three years after the dotcom bust despite graduating from topflight schools like MIT with 4.0 GPAs. They were the types who felt that learning social skills was what others did to compensate for their “inferior intellects”.
Tyro, I’m with you on this. It sounds like the biggest waste of time, and as a method, how fricking inefficient is that? No wonder these guys get so angry and frustrated! It sounds terrible, and as others have pointed out counter-intuitive and counter-productive.
I just watched the video of Sodini, like, talking into a mirror, and while I absolutely feel that he did a fucking awful thing and, as another commenter said, his body should be fed to rats. But I do feel sorry for him. I see someone who could have been normal, could have had normal relationships, but because he started with no small amount of self-loathing, that was channelled towards women by the culture of PUAs (and, yes, just culture in general, sadly), which then lead to this stupid, stupid, aw, fuck it’s so fucking STUPID. It’d have been sad if he’d just sort of quietly gone off and killed himself, which of course many people do. But to take it out on others, fuck, it’s just so sad.
But… yeah, I’ve friends who have said, word for word, some of the things he has said. Nice Guys. I think I need to go and talk to them. Fuck.
I was (and am) terribly un-shy, so it was more an issue of wanting to force chemistry with women I was attracted to, with whom I shared a lot of on-paper interests, who weren’t attracted to me (and while my looks have not changed, I was a lot more nervous, squirrelly, and awkward before.) Perhaps I have a significant disadvantage in that a few of my roommates and neighbors in university have been minor television celebrities, so I saw men who just had to show up to have women throwing themselves at them ALL THE TIME.
What bothers me is that some women say “yes” when they really mean “no”. I once asked a pretty young waitress for her phone number. She gave me one, and agreed that next Tuesday would be a good time for me to call her. When I called the number, there was no answer. I decided I’d ask her about it the next time she came to my table, which was pretty often. However, as it turns out, she started avoiding me and I never got the chance to speak to her until, a couple of months later, I decided that I would have to confront her and get some closure. So I followed her to the kitchen, where she seemed to be shrinking behind a male co-worker who had his arm around her shoulder. I apologized for having apparently done something that made her uncomfortable, and said that I’d be leaving her alone from then on. (I assume the phone number must have been fake.)
Why can’t I get a simple, honest rejection for once instead of getting the runaround, which only hurts me more in the long run?
Dear God and Baby Jesus you are a pathetic and extremely self-centered and self-absorbed freak.
Did it ever cross your mind that maybe, jut maybe, her giving you the fake phone number may or may not have had anything to do with you at all? That maybe, after a long shift and getting hit on for the 50th time that night despite having a boyfriend (or having no interest in a boyfriend, or having no interest in you) that she just didn’t want to deal with it and that was her way of blowing you off?
You, and we (I being a het male) are not entitled to dictate what constitutes an “honest” rejection.
Her “honest” rejection came when you called, she didn’t answer, and then you never heard from her after that. The end. She rejected you. You knew that she rejected you. She “honestly” rejected you.
Rejection is rejection. Nobody likes it, but non-creepy people deal with it and move on. You, obviously, have not mastered that skill.
You failed to accept the way that she rejected you, because your sense of entitlement compelled you to STALK her at her work and follow her back to an employee workspace to demand that she give you an “honest” rejection, several months after it was patently clear to you that she wanted nothing to do with you.
I once asked a girl for her number, she gave me a fake number, and when I called and realized that it was a fake, guess what I did? Moved the fuck on. Was I little hurt by it? Sure. Did I get so obsessed with having to KNOW why she rejected me that I fucking stalked her in her place of work? NO. Because after about 2 minutes of feeling sorry for my bruised ego, I realized that there are several billion other women out there, and if she wasn’t interested in me, my life could go on just fine. And I didn’t have to pout and decide that she was an evil bitch for it, because she wasn’t… she was just somebody who wasn’t interested in me, period. Did I take it as a negative reflection on me? Not really, because she barely knew me. See, I have enough respect for myself and for others to realize that just because there are women who don’t want to throw their vaginas at me doesn’t necessarily mean that I suck as a human being or a potential partner. Sometimes people are compatible, and sometimes they aren’t. And sometimes you are attracted to someone who doesn’t reciprocate the feeling. And you deal with it and get over yourself and accept that some things just ain’t meant to be. YOU TAKE THE HINT AND MOVE THE FUCK ON.
And guess what? No amount of creepy stalkerish behavior is going to make a person who isn’t attracted to you suddenly become attracted to you. And you fucking deal with it like a mature adult and move the fuck on.
But honestly, I like Denise’ response much better:
Doug S.- She gave you a fake number because she thought you were a creep and she wanted you to leave her alone. You validated her assessment of you by attempting to confront her about it in the kitchen (an employees-only area) at her place of work.
I feel so sorry for that poor waitress that Doug S. got all creepazoid on.
Listen Doug and all you other PUAs and creepy stalkers, waitresses smile and are nice to you because their livelihood depends on it, not because they want to fuck you. It is their job to be nice to you - nothing more. Do NOT make their lives any more difficult by assuming that they’re wildly impressed by your studliness and your lame-ass tip. Sorry to burst your bubble. Now fuck off.
Perhaps I have a significant disadvantage in that a few of my roommates and neighbors in university have been minor television celebrities, so I saw men who just had to show up to have women throwing themselves at them ALL THE TIME.
You mean those dudes were getting YOUR pussy allotment?? The NERVE!
If Doug had the ability to put himself in the shoes of someone else, he might have been able to figure out on his own that avoidance is a rejection. Honestly, that’s the real problem here. Women have been “othered” to the point where guys simply don’t even try to see anything from their point of view. They don’t have to, they’re the men. They’re so wrapped up in trying to make the situation happen their way that the woman is just a cipher. And so they are confused when the woman mysteriously doesn’t perform according to the script in their heads.
By “here” I mean in Doug’s little scenario. But I’ll bet Sodini often wondered why women weren’t honest with him—meaning why they didn’t behave exactly like he thought they should in his head.
Sadly, I’ve fallen for that negging crap in the past. It serves a double purpose by working mostly on the inexperienced (i.e., young) and those with low self-esteem, both of whom will probably put up with this PUA shit much longer than a person who is familiar with genuine adult interaction.
Sodini’s guru, even creepier than you could have imagined:
“I’m not anti-Semitic. I just hate kikes,” Steele responds when he’s asked about the posts. And he goes on to explain that there’s a difference between Jews and “kikes,” African-Americans and “niggers,” and Mexicans and “beans.”
This thread is starting to resemble the reception area at the hotel I worked at, what with all the creeps hanging out here. The captive audience men get with service workers is very true. I worked as a front desk clerk at a hotel, and it was creep city. I can’t even tell you how many times I was asked some version of “Do you come with the room?” I had to tell a guy with a swollen leg that he had elephantiasis and should see a doctor to make him go away. On one very special occasion I was healed by the healing aura of a Native American man. I know you’re wondering if this caused me to leap over the front desk and into his arms, and yes. Yes, it led to a magical whirlwind romance at the Quality Inn.
Ok, so I didn’t fuck the magical Indian. But is this what guys imagine will happen when they hit on random women? Because I just cannot envision PUA shit ever working. I’m inclined to agree with Amanda, that people think it works for the same reason that people think psychics work. That and men who do it like to make women uncomfortable. Ugh.
exactly on the negging - as I tried to point out before too, that the deliberate age differential makes it worse, because the much younger, inexperienced girl might be confused by the backhanded compliment/insult, and in trying to figure it out, he’ll be making his next move, and all in all it may seem like it’s “working”, when really the dude is playing mind-games with an unequal (younger, inexperienced, probably insecure, if they’re targeting their “marks"), which is cruel.
I totally was there in my 20’s - smiling (to be nice), nodding along as you’re trying to figure out what’s up, and feeling uncomfortable and vulnerable. While they are fricking basking in your discomfiture. It’s gross how some men really really enjoy disconcerting women. I guess it’s a power trip.
It’s TOTALLY different from banter with an intellectual equal you feel comfortable with. Which I love doing.
Amanda occasionally talks of the hell that would be dating a man with incompatible taste in music, and I’ve never really understood her insistence. Suddenly it’s all clear, and I feel I’ve walked a quarter mile in her boots.
I did try asking other employees there about what happened, and none of them knew anything. And, after a while, I did pretty much figure out that yes, she was almost certainly avoiding me on purpose. Which is why, when I did speak to her, I did so in order to apologize. I’m not proud of this, but I have been the creepy stalker guy in the past, and I wanted to make it perfectly clear that I wasn’t going to try to interact with her again. I was deeply ashamed of myself at the thought that I may have hurt another girl the way I had done many years ago, and I ended up spending a long time that evening crying in my bedroom. Second, she broke the employee-customer barrier first, several days before I asked for her number, by asking me about the video game I was playing, which led into a short conversation about games. Third, when I asked her for her phone number, I said that it was because I wanted to make new friends and wanted to have a chance to speak with her when she wasn’t busy with work. (I’m not in a place in my life where I’m ready for a romantic relationship. I have too many problems of my own to be able to offer anything more than simple friendship, and after all the bad experiences I’ve had, I’m pretty sure I’m just not meant to have a girlfriend anyway.)
In the long run, trying to spare my feelings by not telling me the truth just ends up hurting me a lot more. I can’t hear what people don’t say out loud, and, apparently, I must be really, really bad at reading between the lines.
It makes me sad that so many bright women confuse psychopaths with wannabe-cads. This guy wasn’t a pick-up artist. And he wasn’t a pseudo-misogynist “nice guy”.
He was and is a murderer.
Seems simple enough to this “nice guy”. (Suddenly, I feel the flames lapping at my sexist toes.)
I see the fantasies about and glorification of violence against intrusive men have started. Always interesting to see women’s reactions to the pick-up arts. I remember Jeff Fecke’s last intervention in this realm, on another blog, which led to a 1000-comment Haloscan thread containing much waggling of virtual genitalia in classic primate fashion.
Eh, I see the ranting about the inauthenticity of structured communication has begun.
As other people have said, assuming you have the right to touch someone you don’t know *in a sexual way*, without their permission, as a way of seeing if you might get their permission, is seriously goddamned aggressive behavior. I have always responded to this kind of conduct by saying, in much the same tone that I would use to indicate the time or the location of the men’s room, “If you don’t stop that,… or… If you do that again, ... I will break your fucking arm.” Now, I have never had to break an arm, and I’m not sure I would be able to accomplish it if I tried. I would give it an honest effort, though, because I perceive unlooked for physical/sexual contact as aggression, and I respond. If that is not sufficiently intellectual or civilized for you, and you are the aggressor to whom I am responding, then you are very welcome to fuck off. Thankfully, I am 5’10,” and people tend not to assume it’s “cute and feminine” when I threaten them with bodily harm.
Doug S - you need to work on reading people - not just the subtext, but the actual TEXT!
Being a waitress means being friendly, sometimes when you don’t want to. The asking about something you were doing in the restaurant space is not “breaking the barrier” - it’s idle friendliness, and does not mean anything other than she’s hoping you’ll tip her.
Going into employee-only space is WRONG, and yes, I’m sure you made her feel unsafe in her place for work for some time. Depends on the person, how long it takes them to get over that. If she’d been stalked in the past, it might have affected her worse.
It was definitely a traumatizing thing to do to her. If you’ve done this kind of thing in the past, I suggest, with all kindness, please get therapy. Seriously, you might end up arrested if this continues. I’m not sure how old you are, but you sound really young to me. Don’t think you can’t work on this.
Maybe group therapy would be useful to you - interaction with others-wise.
In general, I’d say waitresses and other food-service types are off limits - or hitting on any other person in customer service whose job it is to be nice to you, especially if it confuses you for now.
Some idiot (whose name I have forgotten) said: “Bonding by “being yourself” works if the woman is *already* attracted to you”
DUUUUUH!!!
And if they aren’t attracted to you, you back the fuck off! Oh, I know that free choice isn’t popular amongst PUAs; after all, the whole “Game” concept is about mentally manipulating & emotionally blackmailing women into sleeping with you… but NORMAL people don’t play by your rules.
I’d like to second whoever pointed out that the best place to learn social skills is not in the dating arena. Just like you don’t throw someone in the deep end of the pool to teach them to swim. Learn socail skills in casual social environments *first*. Learn them with people you feel comfortable with (at first, that may be mostly guys, or mostly girls, or mostly fill-in-the-blank-here). Then, branch out.
If “you’re looking at your interlocutor as a stimulus-response loop made flesh”, *you’re doing it wrong*. They are a person, not a Turing machine! Stop, go back to square one, learn to deal with acquaintances, then friends, then significant others.
I also wasn’t aware that the PUAs advocate casual physical contact - it’s good I’ve never run into that one. I have a pretty sensitive fight-or-flight reflex - I’ve accidentally injured a few friends because they snuck up on me and startled me (not intentionally - just my first reaction upon being grabbed from behind is to strike at whoever’s doing the grabbing). Someone I didn’t know grabbing my bra strap would get them a broken nose, at the very least. But then again, maybe the trick to beating the confirmation bias is to make the failures really unforgettable…
As other people have said, assuming you have the right to touch someone you don’t know *in a sexual way*, without their permission
Honestly, I don’t think you need the *in a sexual way*. A person should not have the right to touch another without permission. Sure, you grab someone who is about to walk into traffic, and situations like that, but people have boundries that need to be respected.
Is it jut me, or is there an almost frightening resemblance between R. Don Steele in that picture above to Vice President Biden? I mean, it’s uncanny… when I first saw this post, I actually thought that was VP Biden for a second.
That isn’t meant to be a dis of Joe Biden. Despite all of his gaffe prone ways, I kinda like Joe Biden. I almost feel bad for Joe Biden, for sharing a profile that looks almost identical to that creepy PUA.
By the way, I didn’t use my martial arts in any fantastical (fantasy oriented) way to defend myself against the unwanted stranger intimacy. It was actually second nature to do what I did. I only realised what I’d done (ie. effectively defend myself) after I’d done it. So in a sense, it couldn’t be helped.
Ben , I was hoping to emphasize the extra ick involved in contact that is clearly intended to be particularly intimate. I know a lot of people who get excited while they’re talking, and will touch an interlocutor’s hand as emphasis, but you can tell they’re just the ebullient types, and not creepy. But maybe you’re right, and I should have left it at just “no touching” because one person’s non-sexual excitement at “conversational topic A” might be uncomfortable for others.
Amanda occasionally talks of the hell that would be dating a man with incompatible taste in music, and I’ve never really understood her insistence. Suddenly it’s all clear, and I feel I’ve walked a quarter mile in her boots.
Yeah.....someone who exclusively loves disco, dance, and/or synthpop isn’t likely to get along in dating/romantic relationship with someone who’s into heavy metal or hard rock IME unless one or both individuals have pretty wide open-minded tastes in music beyond those types.
I can also see how folks who insist classical music and sometimes jazz are the only worthwhile musical genres can be quite off-putting to those who hates those genres or have broad open-minded tastes in a wide variety of different musical genres while the former group disdains the “lack of discrimination and good taste” of the latter.
Even among friends, this can become a point of conflict......with disco/dancepop vs alternative/hard rock/punk/rap being the big divide among us.
Doug, I understand your desire to apologize. And I understand your wish that everyone in the world could be more forthright. These are legitimate feelings. So this is what I want to focus on, because imho it’s where you went astray, emphasis mine:
Why can’t I get a simple, honest rejection for once instead of getting the runaround, which only hurts me more in the long run?
In a perfect world we would never have cause to lie to each other. Unfortunately, you and I have been born into a world dominated by patriarchy. We’re both men, but patriarchy hurts us. It hurts me by insisting that I conform to roles of masculinity that I didn’t, couldn’t and wouldn’t. It hurts you by giving straight women--your romantic and sexual interests--very legitimate cause to fear unknown and halfway-known men.
A waitress is hit on every day, usually several times a day. You were the third guy that week to ask for her phone number. She could hardly deal with the overstock of cock if she wanted to. She has to have a way to turn men down without causing a scene. Telling you “please call me at this number [which does not exist]” is a way of delaying the rejection. You get to save face in front of your friends: “she gave me her number!” She gets to turn you down without inviting the very real dangers of being yelled at in the building or being confronted in the parking lot. It’s a sad state of affairs that women have to worry about the possibility of violence or threats on a daily or weekly basis, but that’s patriarchy.
You’re expected to understand what it means when a woman gives you a number that doesn’t work. It’s an open secret. You were turned down, in a relatively friendly way that allowed you to save face. She didn’t have to talk on the phone to a guy who she wasn’t attracted to. Everybody “wins,” such as it is.
That “win” sucks. But your anger is not properly directed at the woman who has to live in a dangerous system. Your anger or general discontent is more rightly toward the system that forces her to choose between two undesirable options. Maybe in a world without patriarchy, she’d feel more empowered to take a chance on you. Still, maybe, she’d have just said “no thanks.”
It’s the patriarchy’s fault that you’ll never know.
What’s sad about PUAs and MRAs and whatever acronym you use to describe the creepy misogynist set is this: they don’t really have access to the true pleasures of sex and dating. The spark you get with someone that you relate to as a person who is relating to you, whether it’s for a night or a year or a decade or a life.
I’m trying to remember into my Nice Guy® past to recall now this behaviour worked and the motivations behind it. Things that come to mind include:
* Instant fix. I want sex, company and validation. I want it NOW!
* Entitlement. You are here to make me feel good. I’ll chuck you a bone and say you look nice but it really is all about me.
* Objectification (Sex Object). Tits. Ass. Face. Tits.
* Objectification (Pedestalisation). She’ll be perfect. She’ll be my muse. I’ll worship her. She’ll be the centre of my universe if only she will acknowledge me. [This turns out to be the first promise broken the moment she does reciprocate.]
* Objectification (Personality). I want my manic pixie dream girl and I want it NOW!
* Objectification (Mother substitute). I need a woman who pays as much attention to me as mom did; someone to get me to fly straight. And do my laundry.
* Laziness. Building relationships is haaaaaaard!
* Flirt Frustration. I don’t want to play these boy/girl flirting games, they are getting in the way of sex! Why can’t we just be brutally honest about our needs and get on with the dating!
* Date Frustration. I don’t want to play these dating games, they are getting in the way of sex! Why can’t we just be brutally honest about our needs and get on with the fucking!
* Communication Frustration. What do you mean you don’t want to fuck yet? I mean, I want to fuck; we’re here alone together; what’s so hard to understand about that?
* Big Man. Let’s talk about me. I have some anecdotes about what an Alpha Male I am.
* Men Are From Mars And... Women really are from Venus. Stop wittering about people and things I’m not interested in and talk about things that I can rattle on about authoritatively, such as football or war movies.
* Stop. Talking. Now. I’m done with talking. All I can feel is sexual tension. Fuck me!
You get the picture. Notice there is only one person in this relationship. The man doesn’t have access to the pleasures of dating because he’s not interested in them. He sincerely believes a fuck will fix all the self-esteem problems he had since he left home (and Mom) behind and straighten out his life. Which it might do, but only very briefly.
(This was a generalisation. Any resemblance to specific murderers living or dead is coincidental. We accept no liability for any harm coming from this generalisation.)
There was an episode of “Criminal Minds” that revolved around PUA “courses” (they figured out the killer had taken one, which changed his MO) and a fair bit of the show involved showing what they were taught (including an explanation of negging). That episode should be required viewing because they played it straight...and you could see how utterly lame the whole thing looked.
Doug S., asdf is right - it’s an “open secret” - one of those dishonest crappy things we all have to get used to, like when someone asks how you are, just to ask, as a social lubricant, not in a “they really want to know” way, and you’re obliged to say “fine’ even if you aren’t fine.
It’s just life, you’ll get by, it sucks sometimes, but it’s not that bad. Women get it too, you’d better believe. Our cliche is the guy who says “I’ll call you”, but of course never does.
Do we wish sometimes he’d come right out and say it? of course. Be we adjust, and remember that it’s the system.
Speaking as a nerdy, bookish woman - Ai-yi-yi!! I don’t want to be dated because someone loves nerdy, bookish girls; I want to be dated because someone is attracted to me. Book-devouring, pallid, knitting, karate-loving me. I have never in my life accepted a date, given a phone number, or otherwise responded to being hit upon by anyone I didn’t already consider a good friend. I have met all of four men in my life I would even consider accepting a date from (did date two, married #2). Frankly, the couple of PUA’s I’ve encountered in my life were slightly less comfortable to deal with than Karl, the 80-year-old senile guy who alternated between waggling his penis at me, and trying to strangle me. At least nobody chided me for being cruel to Karl when I ignored the nonsense and defended myself against the attacks.
Apparently the PUA has to be 80 and demented before you can get societal approval for dealing with him appropriately.
Speaking as a nerdy, bookish woman - Ai-yi-yi!! I don’t want to be dated because someone loves nerdy, bookish girls; I want to be dated because someone is attracted to me.
Don’t get me wrong. The nerdy bookishness is not the whole thing. And I’ve had those one night stands with men who were everything but. I just mean if the relationship is going to work, there’s going to be quiet time on the couch with little more than the sound of rustling paper. Necessary but not sufficient.
Honestly, I don’t think you need the *in a sexual way*. A person should not have the right to touch another without permission
Indeed, they don’t; touching someone without permission is (at least technically) assault. Touching someone’s thigh without permission is unquestionably assault.
I think I may have been standing right outside the kitchen area, if it makes any difference. There’s no door.
There are several other female staff members at that particular restaurant that I am on pretty good terms with; several know me by name and greet me each time I arrive. (I go there with my grandmother several times a week.) Others more or less leave me alone, keeping things professional, so to speak.
I turned 27 last week. I don’t know if that matters. (I look much younger than I am and could probably pass for a high school student if I wanted to.) As I hinted at before, I’ve pretty much resigned myself to never having a girlfriend. I’m not exactly happy about it, but it’s not going to kill me. I don’t have a paying job (by choice), and I don’t have any friends I see more than once a month, either. So, yeah, I’m a loser. :(
Please don’t suggest therapy. I hate therapy. My parents have forced me to see therapists for about as long as I can remember, and it’s never, ever helped me one bit. The pills helped, but therapy has never been anything other than a waste of time and a de facto punishment for not doing what other people tell me to do. It’s helped my parents, but it’s never done anything for me.
Tapetum, there are different senses of the term dating. One is where you get to know someone who you could potentially have a romance with. It might result in a romantic relationship, it might result in friendship, it might not result in anything at all. It’s the “this person seems interesting to me and I would like to explore that.”
There’s also the sense of dating where people are seeing each other exclusively. “We’ve been dating for years.”
For the second sense, someone wants to date you because they find you attractive. But in the first sense, they won’t know you well enough to find you attractive.
I turned 27 last week. I don’t know if that matters. (I look much younger than I am and could probably pass for a high school student if I wanted to.) As I hinted at before, I’ve pretty much resigned myself to never having a girlfriend. I’m not exactly happy about it, but it’s not going to kill me. I don’t have a paying job (by choice), and I don’t have any friends I see more than once a month, either. So, yeah, I’m a loser. :(
Please don’t suggest therapy. I hate therapy. My parents have forced me to see therapists for about as long as I can remember, and it’s never, ever helped me one bit. The pills helped, but therapy has never been anything other than a waste of time and a de facto punishment for not doing what other people tell me to do. It’s helped my parents, but it’s never done anything for me.
Wow, Doug, I just realized that I know a few young men (including my b/f’s son) who fit your description to a tee. Living at home, no job, playing on the computer all day, not dating, and not learning to socialize or even function as an adult. This is increasingly common and I blame the parents, and to a certain extent the schools and the pill-pushing medical establishment for it. WTF is going on with the way (many) boys are being raised these days?
Doug, I know guys more socially incompetent than you who’ve found a happy place, romantically. Don’t resign yourself to anything. And if you don’t get enough social interaction, then plan to get more. You figured out how to make a few friends, so keep at whatever you’ve learned that works, if nothing else.
Everyone needs enough friends that you can go through your phone book, see how old I am, cell phone and find someone who’s ready to hang out tonight, because you never know when you’ll be so down that you really, really need company.
Not surprisingly, that works to your romantic advantage. The more friends you spend time with, the more self-appointed matchmakers who will think of you when trying to set up their friends on a date.
I still have no idea why men who work so hard to make themselves unappealing complain when women don’t leap into their arms.
Why the hell would any woman choose a guy who’s a creepy stalkerino and can’t hold down a job and lives in his parents’ basement? What about that package is so awesome that it invites interest?
I guess I blame the parents. I dunno.
Comment #172: Punditus Maximus on 08/07 at 04:38 AM
I turned 27 last week. I don’t know if that matters. (I look much younger than I am and could probably pass for a high school student if I wanted to.) As I hinted at before, I’ve pretty much resigned myself to never having a girlfriend. I’m not exactly happy about it, but it’s not going to kill me. I don’t have a paying job (by choice), and I don’t have any friends I see more than once a month, either. So, yeah, I’m a loser. :(
Jeebus, dude.
Fine, I won’t suggest therapy.
Get off the fucking computer, leave your parent’s basement, and go to the park. Or a bookstore. Or the beach. Or anywhere. Get a job. Something. Anything.
You aren’t gonna get anywhere happy in life if you keep isolated and living in this creepy world of self-loathing and self-pitying you have created for yourself. And you could wind up dead, and no, I’m not saying that to be mean, I’m saying that people in your apparant situation seem to commit suicide pretty frequently.
By the way, you are right, you will probably never have a girlfriend as long as you continue to accept your mediocre shitty life the way it is.
But you do have the power to change that, if you want. Nobody becomes a “loser” (your word) as a victim of sheer circumstances beyond one’s own control - you do have a choice in the matter.
Or you can just keep feeling sorry for yourself. But if you do, know that that is your own choice.
Wow, DTG, your comments are usually so spot on, this one’s surprising.
Depression, like any other mental illness, is not a choice. That Doug lacks faith in therapy or medication, apparently due to some previous poor experience with them, does not obviate the need for both.
You aren’t gonna get anywhere in life if you keep isolated and living in this creepy world of self-loathing and self-pitying you have created for yourself.
I’m sure nobody in his life has ever told him that, right?
I’ve heard them all: “You can change it if you want it bad enough.” “Stop feeling sorry for yourself.” “Do something, anything, you’ll feel better.” “Just get out more.”
Even granting both the truth and good intentions of such statements, I can’t describe how demoralizing they are to the depressed person. They reveal a fundamental lack of understanding of the problem: an inabiltiy to actually summon the energy to do any of them.
It all amounts to, “just snap out of it,” combined with blame.
know that that is your own choice.
Yep, that’ll help. Nothing brought me out of depression quicker than knowing that my condition was my own fault.
Comment #175: RobW, Sushi No Gakusei on 08/07 at 06:10 AM
Depression, like any other mental illness, is not a choice. That Doug lacks faith in therapy or medication, apparently due to some previous poor experience with them, does not obviate the need for both.
I apologize for my seeming bluntness.
As someone who has suffered from diagnosed dysthymia my entire life, I know very well, personally, that depression is not a choice. I also know, firsthand, that tragic life events like childhood abuse are not a choice.
But what I also know is that an unwillingness to seek help for coping with those matters, at some point, becomes a choice.
I have had times in my life when I have been PRECISELY where Doug finds himself currently.
I had absolutely no desire to get out of the rut, and I had no desire to talk to a therapist, and I had no desire to get better. I simply wanted to be left alone to wallow in my own self-pity. And I did a great job of wallowing in my own self-pity. I spent nearly a year of my life, in my twenties, doing precisely NOTHING (no job, no school, no social life, no hobbies… nothing) but feeling sad all the time and thinking that everything sucked, everyone sucked, the whole world sucked, and everyone was out to get me and that I was a huge piece of shit.
Finally, someone very close to me said, “You know what… I love you very much, I care about you very much, and I think the world of you as a person. In many ways, you were dealt a shitty hand in life. But I refuse to sit idly by and watch you sink further and further into your own personal hell. You can choose to seek help for the pain you feel, or you can continue to wallow in that pain. If it’s gonna be the latter, don’t expect me to hang around and watch you slowly kill yourself.”
And for whatever reason, I realized that they were right. That I had put myself in a situation of self-fulfilling prophecy - that as long as I continued to do precisely what I had been doing, I would continue to get what I had always gotten… a very lonely, but very predictable, chronic state of emotional pain. But the predictability of it is PRECISELY what made me stay there - because given the choice of a lonely, painful, private existence that I knew would be a lonely, painful, private existence or a life facing the outside world in which I would have experiences that would invariably cause me to feel a whole range of emotions which scared the shit out of me, I chose the predictable.
Because despite the extreme loneliness, there was a huge amount of comfort in KNOWING what the results of my inertia would be. If I went out and looked for a job, or tried to make friends, or talked to girls, there was a possibility I might get rejected. Which scared the ever-living shit out of me.
So by avoiding going out there and taking a crack at living, in which I assuredly would fail at least some of the time, I chose instead to not even try, thus guaranteeing my failure in everything. But as long as I got to control it, it was MY failure, and I could emotionally brace for the results. The idea of trying to live in a world in which the results of my attempts at ANYTHING would be unknown beforehand was just too freaking scary for me. I didn’t like the idea of not having complete control over my outcomes in life. And when you create a lifestyle in which you assure yorself of perpetual lonely failure, the one thing you have is the knowledge that at least you are in control of it. It was the one thing that was absolutely mine, and nobody could take it away from me.
So I chose to settle for predictable failure, because it was a less frightening prospect than the possibility of getting blindsided by unpredictable failure.
And it got me NOWHERE, except into more and more pain.
A life of interacting with other human beings will occasionally lead to an unpredictable failure. Becaue the reality is, not everybody is going to treat me exactly the way I want them to treat me. And sometimes, a person who I want to treat me a particular way will treat me completely different than the way I want them to treat me. Which stings, but the pain doesn’t have to be permanent, and I realize that today. Pain isn’t a choice - we all have to face it at times in our lives - but misery often is.
I said what I said to Doug to try to get him to realize that he DOES have some power over what’s going on in his life.
Yes, depression is very real. As my therapist and psychiatrist still have to remind me on a regular basis when I start slipping back into the false belief that I’m just a shitty person from time to time.
And I know that it is typically a lifelong illness that those who are afflicted have to cope with. But what I also know is that I CAN cope with it, provided I’m willing to seek help in coping with it. The one thing I know I can’t do is just try to figure it out on my own. Maybe others can… but I can’t. And everytime I start to think I can, I get myself in trouble.
Anyway… if my bluntness offended you Doug, I apologize.
But the fact is, dude, the current trajectory you appear to be on sucks.
And it ain’t gonna get better if you refuse to do anything about it.
When I said that I have been precisely where Doug currently is, I meant it fairly literally. When I was 25, I had seen tons of therapists, I had tried a bunch of different meds, and I was just plain done with all of it, because it didn’t feel like ANY of it was working. So I said “fuck it all” and checked out of life completely. No friends, no girlfriend, no job, parents’ basement.. the whole nine yards.
What changed after my dear friend spoke to me was the realization that despite my firm conviction that I had tried “everything” and nothing worked, I knew deep down that wasn’t true. I hadn’t tried every medication, and I hadn’t tried working with every counselor available. I had tried quite a bit of each, but just hadn’t made a connection that worked for me yet. I was just tired of fighting it, so I gave in to it, and I gave up.
One thing I realized WAS true was that if I continued to do what I had gotten myself in the habit of doing - NOTHING AT ALL - I would continue to get what I had always gotten.
So I went out and decided to give it another try, and then another, and then another, until I found a therapist that I could “click” with, and medication that seemed to help. What I refused to do was to let my depression continue to kick my ass. Because it was killing me. Quite literally, as in, yes, I often contemplated suicide, and another year or so of living the way I had been living likely would have led to that.
It took some time - a few years - but I kept doing everything I could to deal with my depression and trauma from my childhood incest that I had never really coped with. Hell, I’m still a work in progress. And some days still really suck ass.
Today, I know that the only way this disease can kill me is if I choose to give in and give up.
And maybe this time next year I’ll be back in a rut again. I certainly hope I’m not, but it’s always a possibility. A year’s a long way from now, and I don’t have the luxury of obsessing on what my life will be like next year - this time last year, I had no idea that my mother would soon die. But I survived that, and had I known it was gonna happen a year in advance, I probably would have been freaking out about it the whole time.
For the time being, I know that I don’t have to keep suffering from this so long as I’m willing to honestly seek help for it.
Hopefully, I will keep that in mind as my life goes forward.
Since I made my thoughts clear about the murderer and PUAs in the earlier thread (and what a shock to discover evidence that a guy with his crappy view of women would also be a PUA sad-sack), I’ll take some time to defend Dan Savage from our own sad-sack troll.
Dan Savage is a joke! What good advice has a word limit?
The type that’s published in a newspaper, moron. As with most people, I read Dan Savage for entertainment purposes. But that doesn’t mean he’s usually spot-on in his advice.
1. And if she expects a lifetime commitment after posting misleading photos and exchanging text messages and a single weekend of sex, she isn’t just asking to have her heart broken, her heart needs breaking…
Any reasonable person would read this as “if she’s an unrealistic liar then she deserves a wake-up call.” Tough, but true.
2. The odds are even better if she fucks another guy with or in front of you and realizes that, just as she had sex with another man without feeling any less attracted or attached to you, you could have sex with another woman without feeling any less attracted or attached to her.
Context is key here. Sounds like he’s offering “sauce for the goose” advice to someone talking about a very one-sided open relationship. So again, nothing particularly controversial.
3. You’ve got a big advantage over ALONE, STPIWTGO, in that you’re financially secure. That’s something that many women look for in men—women are sex objects, men are success objects, blah blah blah—and you could leverage your professional success to your personal advantage. You wouldn’t be the first man who was paying for sex but, since he was careful to launder the money through a relationship, wouldn’t have to admit to “paying for sex.” So, STPIWTGO, why not sell the house, move to a retirement community where single women outnumber the men, wear nice clothes, and drive a nice car?
Again, without context, I have to assume that he’s trying to give an ego boost to an elderly and well-off widower who is no longer interested into a relationship, who is still interested in casual sex, and who is wary of going to a prostitute or escort (the only option for casual sex for someone of his age where he lives). Savage is saying that many women (not all, not most—“many") are into successful men/sugar-daddy style situations, and that if he can’t find someone like that where he is living he should go to a place where the odds are better (and, incidently, sell the house that contains so many memories). It’s slightly misogynistic advice, but not terrible.
Given the PUA-like opinion of women and sex you’ve expressed elsewhere (as I recall, you’re the guy who didn’t know how safewords works and expressed a vision of D/s straight out of Cinemax), you’d probably disagree with my assessment of misogyny there.
I was not interested in older guys at all and made that clear on my profile. I actually put it in the body of my description: “I prefer to date men close to my own age so if you are in your 40s or 50s please don’t bother”.
Totally OT, but I’ve learned from internet dating (and maybe this plays in with the “marginally literate” tangent from another recent thread) that any pragmatic deal-breaker you put in your profile will have virtually no impact on the responses you get.
For a long time I had in mine that I was really only interested in people who live within an hour or so of me. The only impact this had was to increase the “neg” emails from guys who live in Jersey or Suffolk County or the PA suburbs, calling me a stuck up bitch for only wanting to date people who live in the city. I never realized that limiting myself to only the 3 or 4 million people that live within my stipulated area made me “stuck up”, but if you say so…
I don’t think Doug S. quite deserves the vitriol he’s getting. Yeah, it was a bad move to obsess about the rejection from the waitress, and a terrible move to essentially stalk her at her workplace.
asdf’s response was perfect.
Doug S. sounds like he genuinely has a hard time reading people and understanding social cues (I apologize if I’m overstepping my bounds here); maybe he’s on the autism spectrum? Contrasted with a guy like Eurosaba, he’s harmless. Now, women don’t know whether he’s harmless or not, so his moves come off as threatening. Like I said earlier, it sucks to be made to feel like prey whilst you’re just trying to make a living. That’s a feature rather than a bug to folks in the PUA community, but I don’t get the feeling Doug S. is like that.
a big part of PUA “flirting” techniques, if you want to call them that, involves touching. The workshop I mentioned above hinged almost entirely on this, as well as using canned, pre-rehearsed opening lines. Someone actually brought up the fact that women may not want to be touched by strangers, even on a casual level, to which one of the more advanced PUA students said they’ve come to discover that women only think they don’t like to be touched, but really, they do.
See, this is where it becomes clear that PUA is not a misunderstood but harmless self-help genre for socially clueless dudes to learn to not be morons around women, but straight up blatant on purpose misogyny.
It might perhaps be true that touching a woman casually during the first few minutes you talk to her can be useful. For instance, it will tell you right away whether she’s potentially interested or not. Does she touch back, or does she recoil? It’s probably a useful tip for men who have hangups about knowing whether she’s into them or not, or if they should move further, or whatever. But it’s really just a litmus test. It’s not fucking voodoo. And telling men that you do this because it’s a magical cheatcode that will get you in any woman’s pants is absolutely not helpful to men with no social skills who want to learn to talk to women more easily.
What bothers me is that some women say “yes” when they really mean “no”. I once asked a pretty young waitress for her phone number. She gave me one, and agreed that next Tuesday would be a good time for me to call her. When I called the number, there was no answer. I decided I’d ask her about it the next time she came to my table, which was pretty often. However, as it turns out, she started avoiding me and I never got the chance to speak to her until, a couple of months later, I decided that I would have to confront her and get some closure.
You made it clear that you wouldn’t take no for an answer. When I was a pretty young thing, creepy fucks like you would demand my number and wouldn’t take no for an answer all the time. I gave them a fake name and a fake number. This is called “survival”. The only other option with creeps like you is mace.
Luckily for all of us, someone has actually responded to the existence of creeps like Doug, and created the Rejection Line. Give creeps like Doug who won’t leave you alone this number and they’ll give him the no he wouldn’t accept from you, a mere woman.
God, the levels of don’t get it in your comment.
1) Don’t hit on waitresses. The answer is always no. They don’t go to your job and demand that the fact that you fill out their tax forms for pay means you should come home and do their math homework. Waitresses smiles at you because it’s their job. They don’t want to fuck you.
2) That you couldn’t take no for an answer, and instead stalked her and freaked her out.
3) That you don’t realize that the blow-off is closure. No one, especially not someone who you’ve never dated and who you clearly creep out, owes you closure. The fact that you think this means that I hope she carries pepper spray.
4) Guys like you are why I’m so glad god invented cell phones. Now when one of you starts to move in on me in a public place because I made the mistake of not wearing a jacket with spikes on it, I whip out my cell phone and either call someone or just pretend to. Knowing that I have people who can help me runs them off.
Comment #185: Amanda Marcotte on 08/07 at 08:54 AM
Totally OT, but I’ve learned from internet dating (and maybe this plays in with the “marginally literate” tangent from another recent thread) that any pragmatic deal-breaker you put in your profile will have virtually no impact on the responses you get.
It’s bad enough for a guy posting these ads—when I post one these days, I’ve gotten to the point where I put in a polite request at the end that any replies contain a specified (and usually ridiculous) word in the subject line, so I know the respondent has read through my ad. 3/4s of the handful of responses don’t even do that. And yeah, some of the responses are more screeds about how one of my requirements/preferences is evidence that I’m the devil.
From what I understand, a woman’s ad usually gets hundreds of responses. I can only imagine the kind of idiocy and bitterness contained in them.
<blockquote>I never realized that limiting myself to only the 3 or 4 million people that live within my stipulated area made me “stuck up”, but if you say so…<blockquote>
Sounds like those “neg” e-mails have less to do with geography and driving times and more to do with the class insecurities of lonely commuters who spend most of their time in town stuck in cubicles.
I agree, but this is the Intertubes, and the only context we have is that which is offered by the author’s own words.
You have to admit, in his initial retelling of his waitress encounter - which lacked the full context of his personal background - it came across as really, really creepy.
And regardless of his background, the behavior still is really, really creepy, though given the context of his life situation as later presented, it doesn’t appear to be quite so willfully creepy as the behavior of a typical PUA-type.
In any case, a few of us addressed him further when more context was given to his personal situation. Not sure whether or not what we said was good or helpful - well, I should really only speak for myself, I’m not sure if what I said was good or helpful - but it was framed within the greater context of his background as he presented it further down the post.
I absolutely hate men like this. Sodini thinks he deserves a young, attractive woman, but he is neither young nor attractive himself! He thinks he deserves to have a physically beautiful woman, yet that woman does not deserve to have a physically beautiful man. When women don’t like old ugly guys, they’re shallow, but men are never called shallow for feeling entitled to date a woman half their age. As a young, attractive teenager, I experienced this kind of crap all the time. One guy hit on me who actually had no teeth and in all seriousness expected me to have sex with him as soon as he told me how rich he was. In college, there was a boy who liked me but I didn’t like him because he literally smelled like urine, among other problems. He once told me that he hates the show Seinfeld because Elaine is too shallow. I mean, there’s George who is so obsessed with the rosy cheeks of a blind date, but this guy thinks Elaine is the shallow one. Oh, and his favorite show was Two and a Half Men. I hate this double standard that women must work for hours a day being as attractive as possible, but it’s somehow immoral for them to demand the same thing of men. If Sodini wasn’t so shallow and not such a jerk, maybe he could have found a woman his own age who would like him for his personality. Or, maybe instead of writing in his diary and shooting people, he should have taken the time to get a makeover or something, if he really had his heart set on an extremely beautiful woman.
If you absolutely must hit on the waitress, leave your number, and don’t ask for hers. It’s much less threatening, more sensitive to her possible concerns, and isn’t taking advantage of the fact that she is paid to be nice to you. If she decides there’s something really there, she’ll call you, and you’ll know that she is really interested in a date, not just being polite because she has to.
Gotta love those blog-appropriate Google Ads. I know it’s not the fault of any of our fine Pandagonian writers, but geez… it’s like the blog gods have some sick sense of humor with the shit that pops up on those things here.
What bothers me is that some women say “yes” when they really mean “no”.
Agreed. No-one really likes mixed signals or game-playing. But is that really applicable to the situation you describe?
I once asked a pretty young waitress for her phone number.
Not great, since the waitress is there to work and not to get picked up. But if there was a connection beyond “oooh, purty” (e.. regular conversations, genuine rapport, light flirting), then not terrible either. You took your shot (better to have offered your own number), and ...
She gave me one, and agreed that next Tuesday would be a good time for me to call her.
Great! Or maybe she was trying to get rid of you with a phony number.
When I called the number, there was no answer.
No answer!? The horror, the horror.
It happens, sometimes on purpose, sometimes not. In any case, not the same as saying “yes” when she really means “no.” Sometimes people change their minds.
I decided I’d ask her about it the next time she came to my table, which was pretty often.
What exactly did you want to ask her? “Why don’t you pick up your phone?” or “Are you screening my calls out?” I can’t thing of single thing to ask in this regard that wouldn’t have made you come off like a desperate creep.
However, as it turns out, she started avoiding me and I never got the chance to speak to her until, a couple of months later, I decided that I would have to confront her and get some closure.
What? This is a near-stranger you haven’t gone on one date with—do you really need closure? Especially the sort that requires even mild confrontation.
Look, I consider myself fairly bad at reading social cues and situations, but this seems odd even to me. You might want to re-consider your approach to these things, lest you end up like the disappointed and frustrated schmos who follow these PUA gurus.
SarahMC - At some point we need to stop telling people that it’s the big bad world’s terrible fault that they can’t get laid. Yes, poor you, you posted on a blog that you’re depressed and that causes you to stalk waitresses, hey, you’re probably autistic, it’s not your fault, *hugs*! probably isn’t going to work. While Eurosaba is trying the “hey, PUAism is SCIENCE!” approach, Doug is rocking the tried-and-true “I’m sad feel sorry for me” approach. There’s always one or two of them in a thread like this, and they always get half a dozen women to be nice to them, merely from claiming that they’re just hapless depressed-or-probably-autistic dudes fumbling around in this sad, mean world.
I don’t think it’s the big bad world’s fault any dude can’t get laid. I didn’t say anything of the sort. In fact, I’m usually the one getting accused of being a bitch for being too hard on the poor guys.
I just don’t think this particular dude deserves a dozen middle-fingers and fuck-yous. He doesn’t deserve a dozen gentle hair-strokes either. Part of the reason I’m not going that hard on him is because I *think* I recognize him as a long-time commenter who is not an asshole. I could be wrong.
One of the ironies for men who are very interested in a woman’s thought is that their sincerity can be mistaken for Yet Another Bullshit approach. An old friend of mine was the best listener I’ve ever seen. He was genuinely interested in what people told him, and when you talked you were the centre of his complete attention. What he found over the years is that a multitude of women that he worked with thought that he was going to hit on them at any second because only guys who wanted to fuck you listened that hard to what you had to say.
What bothers me is that some women say “yes” when they really mean “no”.
I try to always be straightforward, but nearly all men make it very difficult. Occasionally I will meet a man who handles rejection well, but that’s usually genuine nice guys who I’ve known and the topic comes up and I tell him I’m not interested. The kind of guys who walk up to me on the street or when I’m eating in a restaurant are rarely that type. And let’s face it - there’s just no nice way to say “I’m not interested”. It sucks for anyone to hear that, and I understand. However, generally these guys who don’t handle it well fall into three categories. First, there are the ones that try to make me feel guilty for hurting them. They’ll say that they really don’t deserve to have a date, or even that they are thinking of committing suicide because I turned them down for a date. Then are the guys who get really defensive and start insulting. They’ll call me a slut, or fat, or ugly, which is really ridiculous because they apparently liked me enough to hit on me in the first place. Third, some guys will bug me incessantly to just “give them a chance”. These guys never actually ask what I want, but they assume I want a certain thing and then go on about it. They’ll tell me that they’re rich, or that they have a big penis or whatever, without actually considering that maybe I prefer a guy who wears matching clothes and manages his body hair. Yes, I do care about looks to a certain extent, and since I (like most women) put so much effort into my appearance, I expect a man to care about his too. Lying doesn’t work. Even though I’m generally against lying, I have resorted to telling men that I have a boyfriend or husband, and they either tell me to leave him or say that he won’t care if I date other guys on the side. Giving a fake number doesn’t always work either. I’ve had guys who give me their number and then ask me to call them in front of them so they can get my number from the caller ID. On top of all of this is the tremendous pressure to be polite. Women are especially required to be polite in public, and often women are raised to never say “no” to anyone or anything. This was stronger in the past but it still happens. My mom gets mad if someone even asks for a favor, because, since she feels like she can’t refuse, it feels a lot more like a demand to her. The bottom line is, a lot of guys just don’t handle rejection well. So considering all these problems, is it any surprise that some women will think that lying is the easiest way to turn down a man?
Sounds like those “neg” e-mails have less to do with geography and driving times and more to do with the class insecurities of lonely commuters who spend most of their time in town stuck in cubicles.
Certainly*. And this is why I started deleting unread any message from a male from the suburbs. For all I know there could have been some really sweet people in there saying, “I’ll come to you!” or letting me know that, while they’re listed on the site as being from Hoboken or Allentown, they also have a pied a terre in Hell’s Kitchen. There were just too many hateful responses from bitter assholes who ruined it for everyone else.
Then I took my locational stipulation off my profile and simply ignored anyone not from my target area.
*Though it’s also ridiculous, since most people living in the suburbs have a lot more money that I do and are from comparable class backgrounds.
Gracchus, actually the last excerpt was from the “bitter virgins” column last week, which I would link but I try to avoid reading Savage Love at work. Intriguingly, two of the men had actually had sex with sex workers but didn’t count it as “real” sex. Judging from his blog this week, Mr. Savage’s response would have been kind of different after this incident.
I am actually kind of startled at how many women here report getting hit on regularly. My gender performance is not very feminine for a straight girl and I’m told I often project an air of fuck-off-you-bastard, so maybe that wards off opportunistic strangers? I am certainly not insinuating that wearing makeup and doing something with your hair is asking for PUA attention - just intrigued that 1) never being actively hit on has never kept me from having my share of indifferent, happy, and unpleasant relationships, though the dry spell in between might be longer than average 2) the attentions of this particular set of dudes seems so focused.
Though come to think of it, I’m pretty sure I’ve done the hitting-on every time in the form of saying something like “look, kiss me or don’t, because I’m getting bored.” Because I have charming manners? This has not always ended well because I think nerdy men face actual propositions so rarely that they are not used to turning them down even when they probably think it’s a bad idea. Oh well, it ended pretty well last time (thanks, clear communication!), thus sparing me the need to bluntly proposition any more acquaintances to see what happens.
purpleshoes, being hit on in the street or other random public situations (not a bar, party, etc) hasn’t happened to me as much over the last few years, for whatever reason. I don’t know if it’s an air of fuck-off, or if I’m for some reason less desirable to those sorts of men. I’d guess that the sort of creeps who do that stuff are mainly interested in women in their late teens through early 20’s, and I’ve just aged out—but then I hear over and over of much older women than me still dealing with it. So I dunno.
I did invest in really nice, big, ostentatious I’M NOT LISTENING TO YOU headphones sorta recently, but the public pickups trailed off well before that.
also, I do not live in a world where people hit on strangers, partially because I’ve never lived in a major city where I didn’t already know someone’s brother’s aunt. I know Dan Savage has many fans, but I prefer Miss Manner’s advice, which is that the first thing to do to counter romantic isolation is to treasure your friends and try to make more, because romantic isolation is just one extreme of social isolation.
Bingo. Also-- Jesus Christ on a pogo stick, would people get over this notion that others and/or the world in general owes them A Final Sign that something’s over? It’s over when you decide to get over it, and not a second before; furthermore, waiting for some sort of external cue is passive, immature, and generally lazy. And I say this as someone who has a tendency to brood as the world continues to turn… the fact is that we’re responsible for reclaiming our own lives. This goes for everyone from socially insecure, creepy dweebs to capital-murder-case survivors: waiting for the almighty Closure is just pissing large chunks of your own life away, and the best way to get your life back is to actually, y’know, live it. Unless you’d rather piss and moan and whine and give all that time to others who neither know nor care about your feelings, of course.
I’m still in my early twenties. But I’m big (tall, broad-shouldered, not particularly slender), too, and I think hitting-on-in-public probably relies on some power dynamics that are easier to instigate when someone’s physically smaller than you.
When women don’t like old ugly guys, they’re shallow, but men are never called shallow for feeling entitled to date a woman half their age.
Yeah… um… no. In high school and college, I’d occasionally see older guys out with younger girls and generally been left asking, “WTF?!” The forty or fifty year old man dating my 23-year-old classmate boggled my mind. The girl I dated for a few weeks who confessed to really being into older men left me baffled. For myself and my friends, it was a bit of a comfort to know that when we all turned 40 our options grew wider not shallower. But generally speaking there was a great deal of hostility and resentment for the richer, smoother, older guy who could date girls our age.
I don’t know anyone that called a girl “shallow” for thinking creepy old men were creepy and old. And I know tons of girls who were more than ready to peg older guys - even the late 20-somethings still in college - as groddy pervs for hitting on Freshmen girls.
All that said, I’ve worked through The Game and read up on the Mystery Method, and the one thing it does tend to stress is that you don’t bat 1.000 out the gate. Hell, even Mystery himself - the king of sexual conquest - would go through weeks or months shooting absolute blanks. It’s called “getting lucky” for a reason. The idea, repeated over and over in the book, is that not every night was a success. Guys would dress up, go out, work for hours playing the “game” and as likely as not come home empty handed. It was a combination of persistence and refinement of technique that finally got them all their crazy sexual fantasies. Go out every night looking for a cute girl to take home and, if you bat under .200, you’ll be bringing home a new companion once a week.
So this Sodini guy wasn’t a playa. He never got his Game together. Rather than going back to the drawing board or finding a new hobby, he decided to throw a screaming bloody hissy-fit. But blaming PUAs for the Sodini shooting is like blaming DOOM for Columbine. I don’t remember any pick up artist ever preaching, “Gun violence is the gateway to a threeway” or “If you’re not getting laid, go on a shooting rampage.” That guy just went off the rails.
The PUA gurus really recommend touching a woman they don’t know? If any stranger laid a hand on me, he’d pull back a stump. No one fucking touches me.
I’m really glad I’m too old (and deliberately non-Beauty Compliant) to get hit on much anymore. Usually obvious ignoral or the Stare of Death drives off any man foolish enough to ogle me.
also, i’m a fan of just bringing up the kissing thing right away if i’m in any sort of semi-awkward first meeting/date/whatever situation. if i want to kiss someone, and it doesn’t seem to be flowing organically, i’ll just tell the person to kiss me, or that i’m going to kiss them, or whatever.
if the person can’t deal with that, it was probably never going to work out, anyway.
Opoponax, sometimes the things you say so resemble my own experience that I am sad that I do not know you on livejournal or something.
I mean, I also am bad at perceiving social cues, which gives me some sympathy for dudes who think they might need a book or something, but my solution is usually to ask up-front what’s going on and then try to deal with the consequences without imploding into a big ball of entitlement. I can’t say I’ve never reacted immaturely to rejection, but then, a new extreme of reacting immaturely to rejection was just defined, so.
I don’t know anyone that called a girl “shallow” for thinking creepy old men were creepy and old.
I’m sure you know men who think that; they just don’t say it in front of you. Any old creepy guy who hits on a young woman and gets turned down will call her shallow. I know this because I’ve been the one called shallow by the old creepy guys.
I’m told I often project an air of fuck-off-you-bastard, so maybe that wards off opportunistic strangers?
Well, I’ve tried that and it has never worked for me. I’ve even tried making myself as ugly as possible (no make-up, sweatpants, baggy T-shirt), and I still got hit on just as often, by even creepier guys. I guess they assumed I would be more desperate or something. I don’t know why, but I get hit on randomly all the time. Maybe I happen to live in an area where this PUA guy gave a seminar.
Guys would dress up, go out, work for hours playing the “game” and as likely as not come home empty handed.
I’m curious. How much do guys “dress up”, really? I see guys in bars wearing jeans and t-shirts. Nearly all the women at the bar will be wearing (generally short) dresses and skirts, make-up, and uncomfortable shoes. And that’s just typical of women going out. If a man puts in half that time just to comb his hair and put on a polo shirt, maybe that’s why he doesn’t “get lucky” as often as he wants to.
In high school and college, I’d occasionally see older guys out with younger girls and generally been left asking, “WTF?!” The forty or fifty year old man dating my 23-year-old classmate boggled my mind. The girl I dated for a few weeks who confessed to really being into older men left me baffled.
Teenage and college-age guys often tend to be really horrible in bed. And often don’t have a lot else to offer, either. When I was in college, in the rare instance that I would deign to go out with a dude, the men I was interested in were 25+. I never dated anyone in their 40’s or 50’s, but yeah. Sorry, 20 year old dudes. Not to mention that there is a pretty wide window between the ages of 25-45 where most people are just as attractive as very young folks, anyway, so even if for some reason you’re obsessed about looks, there’s still no reason to exclude older people.
In slightly less shallow news, I feel like a lot of high school girls feel pressured to date much older men. I can’t put my finger on exactly what the dynamic is, but I knew quite a few girls my age who were dating college guys at 14 or 15, and guys well into their 20’s by the time we graduated. It was creepy and fucked up, and my instinct is that it’s probably not entirely those girls’ fault.
@Zifnab: fuck you. Seriously, you’re defending a worldview that sees women as statistical targets? As trophies? And you claim this is totally unrelated to someone who couldn’t cope with women having their own point of view and agency, to the extent where he went and killed them?
Zifnab, you are attempting to excuse a worldview that treats women like objects because a person who held this worldview expressed his anger against women as if they were objects.
The idea, repeated over and over in the book, is that not every night was a success. Guys would dress up, go out, work for hours playing the “game” and as likely as not come home empty handed.
Of course, the sense I got was that all this game crap has little or nothing to do with actually having sex or dating a woman you find interesting or anything else that rational human beings would describe as “success” in the sexual/romantic playing field. What it’s about is showing the other men in the room that you are superior to them. It’s no different from making up a game wherein you get a bunch of guys together and go into a supermarket to see who can buy the most cookies. “Wheee, lookit, I bagged all the Oreos while y’all were still trying to find Aisle 12! I win!”
I’m thinking of going back and skimming The Game to see how many times Strauss’ forays actually result in sex. Thinking back, either he doesn’t mention it much, or the number is surprisingly low.
Any old creepy guy who hits on a young woman and gets turned down will call her shallow. I know this because I’ve been the one called shallow by the old creepy guys.
Well, no kidding they’re going to be pissed at getting rejected. The first thing that goes through my head when a girl rejects me is, “Well fine, I didn’t like that snobby jerk anyway!” because my ego is fragile enough as it is without being confronted with the idea that all women don’t find me incredibly gorgeous. The fact that old, creepy men are tactless enough to say the stupid that floats through their brains three seconds after rejection doesn’t shock me. But I don’t think this has any baring on greater social trends. The same creepy old man, when watching you reject a creepy old man that wasn’t him, would probably just laugh and think, “She’s too young for him anyway.”
The PUA gurus really recommend touching a woman they don’t know?
Depends on the school. Some methods suggest you get touchy-feely right away, with the idea that if you’re attractive enough and the girl gets comfortable with physical contact quickly, there’s less of a barrier to making out. Other methods suggest you act very stand-offish until you get a number of (often listed and constantly disputed) verbal or physical queues that suggest the girl is interested in you.
But yes, when the goal is to eventually have sex with you, at some point the guy is going to have to make physical contact with you. I’m not quite sure how you’ve worked it out with any previous boyfriends, but if every time they tried to touch you, you hacked off a limb, I can’t imagine you did much necking.
Teenage and college-age guys often tend to be really horrible in bed.
I completely disagree. I’ve had sex with many men, and the older ones tend have screwed up ideas from being in the macho culture too long (i.e. porn, strip clubs, talking to other guys). After the age of about 20, many guys get this attitude that sex is all about them, or they get weird ideas about what they think all women like. I’ve had more than one man tell me that I personally must be a little bit bi because all girls are. I’ve had plenty of men insist that I would absolutely love anal sex if I only allowed them to put their magic penis in there. However, even though 19-year-old guys certainly watch porn, they still realize that it’s not real. They actually care about making sex enjoyable for me (although I think it’s partly just to impress me and not because they actually care about a woman’s enjoyment). Also, they’re aware of their inexperience and willing to actually listen to what I want, because they are trying to learn. I might be getting too old to go for guys that young, but I will certainly miss them.
catgirl, I’ve heard from people with particularly striking faces / builds that covering way up can actually attract more attention from the kind of creepsters who might be intimidated by someone who’s attractive and dressed in a way that communicates confidence. (And I’m certainly not trying to make it sound like anyone deserves creepster attention through their dress/actions - if anything the harassment of the conventionally attractive displays the same patriarchal belief that women’s bodies are available for public comment and that the people in them have some obligation to men that screaming fatty fat fat, or for that matter eat a sandwich out of a car window does.)
Well, no kidding they’re going to be pissed at getting rejected.
Umm, they are the shallow ones! They’re the ones who will only consider dating young, gorgeous women. The whole point of their game is that they’re shallow. Why should they expect other people to not be shallow? Do you genuinely not realize how hypocritical that is? That’s the freaking definition of hypocrisy! Ironically, if they realized this, maybe they’d spend more time on looking more attractive and then they’d be more “lucky”. The game is useless. If these women really are shallow, then give them what they want - a hotter guy.
I don’t actually have anything much to add that the other regular commenters here haven’t already said (& better than I could have). I just wanted to say that I wish people would recognize Sodini for what he was, a cowardly murderer. He deserves no sympathy from anyone and these PUA & MRA people make me sick for defending him.
Seriously, you’re defending a worldview that sees women as statistical targets? As trophies? And you claim this is totally unrelated to someone who couldn’t cope with women having their own point of view and agency, to the extent where he went and killed them?
It’s a worldview that sees all women as potential sexual partners. The goal is to have sex. Last I checked, you can’t put sex on your mantle piece, shine it up, and show it off to your friends. People don’t play baseball for the trophy at the end of the season.
If you’re confusing the desire to have sex with lots of attractive women with the desire to collect what amounts to decorative art, then you’ve missed the boat entirely on the purpose of picking up women. I know this may come as a shock to you, but some people actually have sex to have sex, and not to add another notch on their headboards.
At a certain point in several of the pick-up books, the “sex for the score count” mentality is highlighted as a hazard, rather than an allure. Several authors specifically spell out that if you run out with a different girl every night, you risk losing the enjoyment of the actual act. And this is defined as a very bad thing.
If Sodini had, personally, decided all women were trophies and sex was just a happy side effect of adding a tick on his belt, then he’s likely either dense or highly illiterate. Which might explain his inability to pick up girls after doing extensive research on the subject. And no, I don’t consider “How to Date 50 Girls in 50 Days” style books the gateway drug to mass murder. Any more than I consider a Sally Jesse Raphael marathon the root cause of domestic abuse or divorce.
The linkage is as asinine as comparing the release of Counter Strike with a rise in domestic terrorism.
I’ve had sex with many men, and the older ones tend have screwed up ideas from being in the macho culture too long (i.e. porn, strip clubs, talking to other guys).
Funny, I find it the exact opposite. Younger guys’ sexual knowledge tends to be composed mainly of stuff they saw in porn or heard in the locker room/on the internet, as opposed to actual flesh and blood women.
Though it might be a generational thing - guys who are 5-10 years older than me grew up in the 70’s and 80’s, before the major backlash against 2nd wave feminism had entirely mounted, and also before the current D00D culture had completely set in. In my early 20’s I found it much easier to find feminist guys in their late 20’s or early 30’s, because they’d grown up in a 2nd wave household, or studied under a feminist theorist in grad school, or worked in a part of the social justice movement that had a lot of crossover with feminism.
This is changing a bit as I head into my late 20’s and some men my own age get over all that PWN TEH BOOBIEEEEZ!!!1! garbage and start thinking for themselves a little. But when I was in college, if I wanted to be with a guy, I found that the only palatable ones were the Gen X-ers.
Do you genuinely not realize how hypocritical that is? That’s the freaking definition of hypocrisy! Ironically, if they realized this, maybe they’d spend more time on looking more attractive and then they’d be more “lucky”. The game is useless. If these women really are shallow, then give them what they want - a hotter guy.
Well, yeah. Absolutely. I’m not arguing the hypocrisy in the least. I’m just saying it’s not surprising for a guy - after rejection - to respond harshly to his rejector. I’m sure the same guy throws a fit if he gets passed up for a promotion or doesn’t like the restaurant wait staff.
The purpose of the Game is to surmount the edge given to the naturally rich and handsome. You’ve got a collection of guys - mostly poor, unpopular, geeky or some combination of - that see the obstacle in dating the beauty queen and decide to approach the problem more scientifically.
The challenge is to find the beautiful but shallow girl and seduce her away from the richer and handsomer guy. If the cheerleaders all date the football players, and you’re not a football player, how do you get to date a cheerleader? If you’re not six feet tall and built like a marine, how do you score with a Supermodel? Your answer appears to be, “Give up! It can’t be done!” but that’s the challenge that books like The Game seek to answer.
Funny, I find it the exact opposite. Younger guys’ sexual knowledge tends to be composed mainly of stuff they saw in porn or heard in the locker room/on the internet, as opposed to actual flesh and blood women.
Don’t get me wrong; 19-year-old guys already have those crappy ideas. They’re just less pushy about them and not as confident that they’re right. I tell younger guys what I like; older guys try to tell me what I like. It’s a real turn off when someone keeps insisting that he knows better than I do and I really will like whatever if I just let him try it.
Which might explain his inability to pick up girls after doing extensive research on the subject.
Look, what you don’t understand is that the reason he was unable to pick up women is because he’s old and ugly, and also shallow and hypocritical. It has nothing to do with game. He just wasn’t desirable both physically and with his personality. Women like to enjoy sex too, regardless of the myth that they don’t. They also often want to have sex with someone is hot. Sardoni’s problem is that he failed to realize that women wanted the same things he did out of sex, so he failed to give them what they wanted.
because my ego is fragile enough as it is without being confronted with the idea that all women don’t find me incredibly gorgeous.
It’s a worldview that sees all women as potential sexual partners. The goal is to have sex. Last I checked, you can’t put sex on your mantle piece, shine it up, and show it off to your friends.
Zifnab, homey-domey, dude-man… seriously. Read some different books.
Maybe start with the socially-accepted basics?
If you don’t think PUA ‘brag’ about their sexual conquests, in essence showing it off to their friends/peers, then Why even write a book like The Game!? That book is essentially, “I’m so awesome because I have sex with lots of ladies. Buy this book about how I did it.”
Is that not bragging? Showing off a trophy? The author expected social status from his conquests, and got it, through book sales and seminars.
The linkage is as asinine as comparing the release of Counter Strike with a rise in domestic terrorism.
No, it’s really much more of a link between a world-view that treats women as objects of sexual conquest and the experience of women in our culture being sex objects and recently being SHOT for the offense of being attractive while female.
If ‘The Game’ has helped you find personal fulfillment in your life, then good I guess? But to deny that the phenomenon it represents is fueling a dangerous and inhospitable climate for more than one half of our species is delusional.
<touches Zifnabs thigh lightly, and with direct eye contact, asks “So… do you come here often? Cause if you haven’t yet, we can go to a closet and I can make you.”>
The purpose of the Game is to surmount the edge given to the naturally rich and handsome.
No, being rich does not make women want to fuck you. Seriously, are you too stupid to realize that?
The challenge is to find the beautiful but shallow girl and seduce her away from the richer and handsomer guy
Being handsome is not just about nature. Women spend many hours and dollars on looking better. Men can and should do it too, especially if they want the shallow women. Your time would be better spent on making yourself more attractive than on some silly game.
I’m just saying it’s not surprising for a guy - after rejection - to respond harshly to his rejector.
No, you’re not allowed to get mad at someone for doing the exact same thing you’re doing. If you want a hot women, then be hot.
Your answer appears to be, “Give up! It can’t be done!”
No, my answer is to give those women what they actually want. If they want a hot guy, then be hotter. Is that really a difficult concept to understand? And, if a woman isn’t interested, it is your obligation to give up and leave her alone because she has no obligation to fuck you just because you went through a special ritual. If a dorky, ugly woman wanted to have sex with hot male supermodels, what would you tell her to do? If you were that hot male supermodel, would you have sex with an ugly woman if she went through a proper ritual?
Over two hundred comments in on PUAs and their techniques and I find myself a little surprised that nobody has pointed out one obvious fact: maintaining a one-way patriarchal structure where men Approach and women Accept or Reject is part of the damned big-picture problem.
Troll… your opinion, but sad sack? You are so far off… Shows you are an idiot. Do you even know where that word comes from?
As a matter of fact, I do. Perhaps you’re thinking of a different Pvt Sack, who’s a winner in everything, including with the ladies. The wartime comic strip I’m thinking of (the title of which has entered the American vernacular as a synonym for “born loser") portrayed the Sad Sack quite differently.
Yup everyone in a newspaper is just sooo awesome. You would be lucky to be in the same room as Dan. Spot-on advice is rarely a paragraph long and given by a stranger. We weren’t talking about the entertainment value of Dan.
I don’t worship the guy, I read and enjoy his column. As do many others who actually do show up when he speaks in person.
And yes, if you’re discussing a newspaper agony auntie column, then entertainment value and writing style are huge factors. His style, which is abrasively and cruelly funny to match the no-BS advice, attracts so many readers that, unlike other such columnists, he doesn’t have to make up the letters he answers himself. Given that, and being a professional, he tries to serve his audience by making sure his advice is sound as well as entertaining.
Savage has his flaws—he sometimes evinces a limited view of women that we sometimes see from gay men. But on the whole he’s pretty good.
Exactly how is “heart breaking” better advice then just telling her that her photos are misleading and she shouldn’t use them? Oh wait! It’s not, but it is cruelly entertaining.
Because he’s a writer. The woman probably accused the person asking Savage’s advice of “breaking her heart,” so Savage turned the phrase around. And yes it’s cruelly entertaining—that’s the style of the column. It doesn’t make the underlying advice (which anyone who isn’t a brain-dead literalist can see is exactly what you said) incorrect.
Your mental gyrations to make Dan’s advice seem good are pathetic. “Hypothetically speaking this would be good advice if…” Context is always key. So why open your mouth anyway?
Says the man who provided no context for his initial critique of Savage. Why not provide a link to the parts you selectively cut-n-pasted, at the very least?
I don’t idolize or demonize as you do. You probably can get pills for that you know. Some of the things PUA’s say are true, some of the things aren’t.
It’s not personal, wrongside—it’s pointing out the idiocy of your statements (on the topic of which, I’d love to hear which parts of the PUA attitude toward women you think are true)
Reflection not vision, dumb ass. And your safe-word comment is a lie.
I’ll just quote your own words, as you tried to make yourself come across as a sexual sophisticate when someone else mentioned safe words:
Yes flies off her lips about a 1000 times. “No is repalced by some mutually chosen word that she must say it if she wants to stop. Ahhh. You bring back great memories. Thank you.
The sub saying “yes” 1000 times has nothing to do with safe-words—quite the opposite, it’s about being able to say “no” 1000 times while letting the Dom be the Dom. That you focus on getting the sub to say “yes” instead of enjoying the sub’s freedom (provided by the safeword and the mutual consent it implies) to say “no” or “stop” indicates a profound misunderstanding of the core of a D/s encounter and the function of the safeword.
Not surprisingly, in the earlier graf you implied that the sub role is naturally that of the woman, and that in the end D/s (and its S/m and B/D flavours) is more about entering into a contract so that no-one (read: the woman) can later claim rape:
What I always loved about BD & DS was the detail and frankness. The verbal/written explicitness required of the female is awesome. The expression of intent requirements that it placed on the male is awesome.
Randos in line behind me at the bar =/= “boyfriends.” Did you not read people’s comments re: inappropriate familiarity?
That was me.
And yeah.
Zif, the tactic people are calling creepy is the tactic of uninvited touching in the first few minutes of THE VERY FIRST encounter, which is a tactic recommended by several PUAs.
It’s not likely that a woman will rip the arm off of their boyfriends for touching them… but if you are Joe Random and you just met the woman five minutes ago, you are not her boyfriend, and yeah, there is something fairly creepy about uninvited arm caresses from someone you are barely familiar with.
And by the way…
So this Sodini guy wasn’t a playa. He never got his Game together. Rather than going back to the drawing board or finding a new hobby, he decided to throw a screaming bloody hissy-fit.
I don’t have much of anything to say about that except… wow. Just wow.
But that brings up the question of why admittedly not-hot men are purposely going after women they consider shallow. Is it because they realize that women looking for a man with a good personality are not going to choose them either?
Look, what you don’t understand is that the reason he was unable to pick up women is because he’s old and ugly, and also shallow and hypocritical.
I’ve got that just fine. Again, I think you’re missing the point of these dating guides. The whole idea is that you can get an attractive woman to be attracted to you without spending every waking hour at the gym or in plastic surgery. You can be attractive without being a millionaire or TV beautiful.
Neil Strauss aka Style, from The Game, was short, thin, and balding.
http://www.succeedatdating.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/neil-strauss.jpg
Nothing was going to make him tall or put hair back on his head. A few months in the gym wouldn’t hurt him, but he was never going to be a stud. He developed a persona that made him attractive to women, such that - despite being short, thin, and balding - they still wanted to sleep with him. That’s the end goal of having Game. The idea is that you can overcome genetic deficiency and social status. That your charisma isn’t bound up in the size of your biceps or your wallet. It’s a philosophy that girls AREN’T gold diggers or shallow sluts. That the most attractive guy in the room doesn’t always have to be the football player or the rock star. It’s a science of boiling down what makes guys attractive to girls, with the revelation that money and looks aren’t trump.
That is the essence of what these books are about. That and getting laid.
when the goal is to eventually have sex with you, at some point the guy is going to have to make physical contact with you. I’m not quite sure how you’ve worked it out with any previous boyfriends, but if every time they tried to touch you, you hacked off a limb, I can’t imagine you did much necking
That problem is easily solved since I don’t neck with complete strangers. I expect to know a person before I let them make any physical contact with me. If a guy knew me well enough to touch me, he’d also know that I’m a lesbian.
Zif, the tactic people are calling creepy is the tactic of uninvited touching in the first few minutes of THE VERY FIRST encounter, which is a tactic recommended by several PUAs.
Those PUAs might be completely and utterly wrong. It’s all kinda theoretical, and there’s no shortage of cranks and blowhards in the field.
That said, there are lots of people that greet with a handshake. It’s an extension on the idea that the initial physical contact brings people closer together. Some PUAs are crazy enough to suggest you greet with a boob squeeze, and that’s clearly off the deep end. Others suggest less retarded methods of contact. But the goal is to make the person more comfortable with you, not less.
If a touch gets perceived as a grope, you’re probably doing it wrong. If you can’t seem to do it right, you need to not use that approach anymore.
<touches Zifnabs thigh lightly, and with direct eye contact, asks “So… do you come here often? Cause if you haven’t yet, we can go to a closet and I can make you.”>
I mean, good or bad, that sort of thing would certainly get my attention.
I try to always be straightforward, but nearly all men make it very difficult.
There’s that, too. No-one likes mixed signals, but it seems to me that a lot of women are forced to give them out as a way of getting rid of a stalk-y or inappropriate guy.
I am actually kind of startled at how many women here report getting hit on regularly.
It might be a more urban thing. I saw it all the time when I lived in NYC, and frequently where I live now. And it often has nothing to do with physical appearance—it’s usually cat-calls and indecent proposals and dirty-old-man extended leers and stalking, which these mopes somehow equate with pick-up artistry. These cowards also don’t usually “hit on” women who they think will kick their arses over it (verbally or physically), so maybe your dontmess factor is high.
The whole idea is that you can get an attractive woman to be attracted to you without spending every waking hour at the gym or in plastic surgery.
If you want to date women who spend every waking hour at the gym and gets plastic surgery, then you need to do those things too. If you don’t want to do those things, then don’t expect women to do them. You’re very hypocritical.
He developed a persona that made him attractive to women, such that - despite being short, thin, and balding - they still wanted to sleep with him.
There’s plenty this man can do about being bald. He just chose not to. Of course, I’m sure he’d never consider dating a woman with thinning hair, because he just deserves more than women do. Being short isn’t a problem. Plenty of women, including myself, prefer shorter men. You also don’t have to be muscular to be hot. I and all of my friends are grossed out by guys who look like Arnold Schwarzenneger. My guess is that this particular guy had a lot more problems than just being bald, which is relatively easy to fix or hide effectively.
And you still haven’t answered my question. If you were a hot male supermodel, would you have sex with a dorky, ugly, old, or fat woman if she performed the proper rituals on you?
There were just too many hateful responses from bitter assholes who ruined it for everyone else.
On-line dating in a nutshell, no? Understanding that makes it a lot easier to put non or negative responses in perspective.
Though it’s also ridiculous, since most people living in the suburbs have a lot more money that I do and are from comparable class backgrounds.
It’s not about the money or even about class background—it’s a puritanical resentment of anyone who’s not stuck in an exurban commuter’s rut and actually enjoys living, working and playing in NYC.
Over two hundred comments in on PUAs and their techniques and I find myself a little surprised that nobody has pointed out one obvious fact: maintaining a one-way patriarchal structure where men Approach and women Accept or Reject is part of the damned big-picture problem.
Zifnab, you are seriously starting to creep me out. I realize that there are otherwise progressive guys out there who can’t see women as anything but trophies to soothe their massive egos, but I’m always freaked out when I actually run across one.
Again, I think you’re missing the point of these dating guides. The whole idea is that you can get an attractive woman to be attracted to you without spending every waking hour at the gym or in plastic surgery. You can be attractive without being a millionaire or TV beautiful.
Also, I can be a size two in only 15 minutes a day! And while eating the food I like!*
It’s a science of boiling down what makes guys attractive to girls, with the revelation that money and looks aren’t trump.
Except it’s not attractive, at least to any woman with decent self-esteem and an iota of judgment. It’s ugly and manipulative. And desperate.
*until I hit thirty, this was mostly true, but certainly not thanks to a particular program.
The whole idea is that you can get an attractive woman to be attracted to you without spending every waking hour at the gym or in plastic surgery. You can be attractive without being a millionaire or TV beautiful.
My reading of the PUA approach is that you can get an attractive woman to be attracted to you (read: sleep with you, thus adding to your scorecard) by faking those things or compensating for them through superficial distractions and tricks.
I read the Strauss book, and understand that certain of those tricks work. But those tricks (like “opening” a social group and mirroring) are common-sense, and can exist outside the misogynistic framework of the “Game.”
OMG, you guys, I just went to Google books and started reading Mystery’s “The Venusian Arts” to see what kind of crazy shit he said. He suggests that his students get a car, in order to INCREASE THEIR RANGE. Like they’re mountain lions or bears or something! They have a range! My mind is blown. He has all these graphs demonstrating that if you don’t have a bed to sleep in, you will have trouble getting laid. This gives you some idea who the target audience is—guys who sleep on beds of shredded newspaper in their parents’ attics, I suppose.
What it all boils down to is this: PUAs want and expect women to have sex with someone who isn’t hot. However, they’re not willing to do the same thing, and they actually consider that to be worst thing they can imagine. So, they demand that women do something that they are not willing to do themselves. They think that women deserve less.
It’s a science of boiling down what makes guys attractive to girls, with the revelation that money and looks aren’t trump.
No, you don’t care what is attractive to women. I’ve told you that being physically attractive is attractive to women, and yet you refuse to think that men should have to actually bother with that. You want women to be attracted to something different.
But if we’re drawing a line from PUA to George Sodini, you can expect to find the women you target at gym, apparently.
Someone on another site pointed out that the gym was where the murderer felt simultaneously the most powerful (lifting weights, getting the workout rush) and the least powerful (surrounded by women he found attractive who weren’t giving him a second glance). Make no mistake, he was obsessed with at least one of the women in the class he targetted.
Creepy doesn’t begin to describe what was going on, long before the shooting.
Sardoni’s problem is that he failed to realize that women wanted the same things he did out of sex, so he failed to give them what they wanted.
I’d put that lower on his list of problems, somewhere under “he was a nutjob” and derivatives thereof. If you’ve got deeply seated emotional and psychological issues, no amount of Game is going to help. You can read palms and neg drunk sorority girls all night, but you can’t hide the crazy forever, and woe to the woman who finds that out too late. Probably the only thing his lack of “game” affected was that he had to kill random strangers because the most recent bitch who left him for no reason at all was already two decades in the past. The women he killed were all old enough to be mothers, well off the wrong end of the PUA 1-10 scale. There were kids, too - one of the papers carries the eyewitness account of a 14 year old girl. We’re all arguing with people who are trying to defend him because of his righteous anger for not getting the young hotties a man needs, but much like The Game, there’s a distinct lack of hotties in this story. Let’s concede for a moment that death is too good for all the beautiful young women who won’t pity fuck their share of socially inept men: now the PUAs on this thread can explain to me why its fair that non-babes took the babes bullets, and if you have to admit this guys actions don’t make sense (you know, because he was insane) please tell me why you’re spending so much time defending his motives when anyone with the PR skills God gave a turnip would be distancing themselves from any association with him.
It can’t be because you know your community attracts crazies like flies to honey, can it? Are you a little uncomfortable that you share a philosophy with a spree killer? I would be, too. Seriously, you should all be following Steel’s lead here: get rid of any evidence that you know that guy, and lay low until it all blows over. Spend the time quietly reflecting on why you’d want to defend a cowardly spree killer. On a good day you probably don’t want your techniques getting a lot of attention, and today is not a good day for you.
I’m assuming that you meant WTF rather than FTW, so I respond to the former. I just wanted to make the point that the one-way dating thing is a patriarchal relic and thus contributor to the fucked up worldview of the PUAs (which is likewise sexist, dated and should be discarded) and thus part of the problem, seen in its toxic and murderous extreme in Sodini. No point deeper than that micro-macro one intended.
It’s not a cause-effect correlation—Marc Lepine didn’t do what he did because he didn’t get dates, for example—but I’ve listened to a lot of these guys vent and part of their seething resentment is that they have to “do all the work”. It was interesting to listen to because the gender resentment followed a similar pattern in some of their class resentments: they did the work and some pencil-neck came in and shot it down. They perceive themselves as powerless and exploited and lash out with deep, deep, deep bitterness. They see it as being toyed with: build it up with the promise of acceptance but instead there is inevitable rejection.
I’m not excusing; I worked for years with guys like this and I’m just engaging in a little reportage.
All of this defense of pick-up artistry on a thread about a PUA-student spree killer reminds me of the NRA guns-rights rallies after Columbine. Like, really, now? Is this quite appropriate? Because I think your slip is showing.
As a guy who comes from a long line of bald men and regularly checks his hairline for approaching doom, I can assure that there’s really nothing you can do about it. Your hair falls out and you’re done. You can get plugs or wear a wig or pull a comb-over or do any other neat little tricks, but you’re never getting head hair back on your head.
realize that there are otherwise progressive guys out there who can’t see women as anything but trophies to soothe their massive egos, but I’m always freaked out when I actually run across one.
I don’t know how to spell it out any further than I already have. Having sex with girls is about having sex with girls. I don’t keep a score card. I don’t hang plaques on my wall. I don’t keep a cabinet of plastic statues celebrating my greatness. I just enjoy sleeping with women.
Also to Zifnab and all other PUAs: if you look average, then why not just have sex with women who are also average?
You can do that too. But pretty girls are pretty. And prettier girls are prettier. I mean, why wouldn’t I have sex with women who are below average? Why work for more than minimum wage? Why eat steak when you can have chicken? Why go to Florida when you’ve got a perfectly good beach on Galveston? Why does anyone ever ask for anything more than the median statistical value?
I’ve dated lots of girls and I’ve slept with a few of them, and some were prettier than others. I’ve got nothing against “average”.
You’ve got a collection of guys - mostly poor, unpopular, geeky or some combination of - that see the obstacle in dating the beauty queen and decide to approach the problem more scientifically.
The “beauty queen” is either going to go out with you, or she’s not. If she’s your stereotypical beauty queen who invests a lot in good looks, money, status, etc, you’re SOL if you don’t have those things. Period. If she’s not like that, she’d have gone out with you anyway. You didn’t have to learn to be a misogynist sociopath to “win” her.
zinfab, along the lines of “how is joe average supposed to get gisele?”, i don’t like to be a dream-killer and i’m sure catgirl doesn’t either, but part of the problem is that we’ve got a whole culture full of tv shows, movies, books, etc telling people all their lives that the plucky, not-particularly-attractive hero gets the much more attractive girl. that’s the story. vanquish your foes. get giselse. full stop.
at some point we have to introduce reality. if i were at a party with my friend who asked me honestly how she (an average-looking sort of dame) could get the gorgeous model dude across the room to go home with her tonight, i wouldn’t build her up with unrealistic hopes and expectations. i’d tell her to give it a shot, sure, but don’t obsess over it. you say yourself in your hypo that the supermodel wants to date 6-foot marine-types or whatever. well, first off, it’s way off base to assume that all could-pass-for-supermodel women are confined to dating men of equal or greater conventional attractiveness, or that they value it above say, personality. but in the case you’re describing, let’s assume she DOES only want to date the beefcake. what should average joe do about it? ultimately, NOTHING. in such a case, you tell your friend average joe to try to talk to her, but if he doesn’t get anywhere, you don’t encourage him--he’s got enough of that elsewhere as it is.
bottom line: not all dreams come true. part of life and dating as a grownup is realizing you aren’t the star of your own epic hero myth movie.
Comment #254: chareth cutestory on 08/07 at 11:49 AM
Zinfab-aren’t all cats grey in the dark? Because my personal experience with men actually suggests an inverse relationship between physical attractiveness and sexual ability (I mean raw physical attractivness, good grooming is still required). Personality has been a much better indicator of performance for me. Anyone who has had sex with more than two people knows you can’t always judge a book by it’s cover, so if it is all about sex, there’s no logic behind your actions that I can see. Unless it’s about gaining status by having only dipped your stick in the finest and most elaborately wrapped vagina, then focusing exclusively on physical appearance makes sense.
Zifnab, I am neither steak nor chicken but a person who finds you deeply unattractive and would avoid you in public if I’d read your blog comments. Please learn to cope without making distasteful comparisons. I mean, why apply for a job as a CEO of a chemical conglomerate when your degree’s in performance art? It’s really not your interviewer’s fault is all I’m saying.
You can get plugs or wear a wig or pull a comb-over or do any other neat little tricks, but you’re never getting head hair back on your head.
So then get the wig or plugs, duh.
You can do that too. But pretty girls are pretty. And prettier girls are prettier.
But hot guys are hot. And hotter guys are hotter. And yet you expect women not to want them more. Geez, you’re dense.
It’s a science of boiling down what makes guys attractive to girls, with the revelation that money and looks aren’t trump.
Of course you want to think that looks shouldn’t be trump when women are looking for men, yet they’re trump when men are looking for women. You’re a hypocrite and very dense about it.
It all boils down to this: you think you deserve to have sex with someone hot while women only deserve to have sex with someone who is not hot. I guess ugly women aren’t entitled to anything.
On-line dating in a nutshell, no? Understanding that makes it a lot easier to put non or negative responses in perspective.
Yes, as I said, this is something I learned in online dating.
I learned that, in the face of a flood of asshole men, there is no point in making polite requests about what you do or do not want. You just have to be cutthroat about whose emails you’re even willing to open. Even if that means you’re a “stuck up superficial bitch who only wants to date the ‘football players’ of this world.” Replacing “football players” with whatever subset of men the emailers in question have a grudge about. Which in my case seems to be “other people who live in Brooklyn”, or “people who do not live in their mother’s basement”, or “people who are gainfully employed”, or something like that.
Doug, in all honesty, what you need to learn is something that even people who are successful at dating screw up, which is the art of releasing desire. Everyone has wanted something so bad they screwed it up. Everyone. The secret is to stop wanting it.
For instance, many a woman has gone through the “I like him so much, why won’t he call?” scenario. There are three reasons that you are stuck in this loop:
1) He’s blowing you off
2) He’s jerking you around
3) You want it so bad that you are having trouble realizing that he can’t call yet, since he’s at work, but he really likes you so he’ll call promptly enough, unless of course you fuck it up by wanting it so bad you get pushy.
All three situations need to be handled by releasing desire. I know it sounds impossible, but actually, with practice, it can be done. You need to distract yourself until you don’t want it anymore. Pour yourself into work, get a drink with a friend (especially one who understands that talking about your desire in the right way can help you release it), go book shopping, update your blog, go bike riding. If I find myself waiting, I try to make sure that I’m so busy that if the phone rings, I can’t even answer it. Of course, if I properly conquer desire, then I’m fine with answering the phone on the first ring, because it just is what it is. It’s not a situation where I’m falling all over myself and possibly screwing this up by wanting too much.
All three are handled well by conquering desire. If it’s a blow-off, you can accept it with joy in your heart. Really! Rejection is often a relief, but only if you get to the point where you’re not wanting something so bad that you’re suffering. If he’s jerking you around, by releasing desire, you are not as susceptible to his games, and you are in the place to preserve your dignity by dumping him. If he likes you, you won’t screw it up by being so overeager that you creep him out.
I don’t mean don’t want at all, but when wanting slides into being painful, you’re in the red alert zone for being pathetic, and you need to release your desire.
This is my advice to women stuck in the waiting for the call hell, and it’s good advice for you. Release your desire for a girlfriend, for this girl, for whatever. Be happy if things work out, and be happy if they don’t. This is the only way that things working out is even possible.
It also will make you more adept at not being a stalker or doing really inappropriate things like hitting on women who are a captive audience, such as service workers, because your desire is so strong not to be rejected that you will literally force someone not to be able to reject you out of hand.
Comment #262: Amanda Marcotte on 08/07 at 11:57 AM
Kyso K, the best predictor I’ve found for skills of the bed kind are guys who have had long-term relationships with women they’ve respected. “We cared about each other a lot but it didn’t work out” seems to mean “I have had a lot of sex with someone whose experience I cared about and probably know vaguely where things are.” “She was a psycho bitch” or “I’ve slept with a lot of girls and all cats are the same color in the dark” are both, in my experience both direct and secondhand, signs that you’re in for some fumbling awkwardness. Or bad porn dialogue! Or both.
Zinfab-aren’t all cats grey in the dark? Because my personal experience with men actually suggests an inverse relationship between physical attractiveness and sexual ability
Well, how many people have sex in the dark? I’ve never done it. Honestly, this kind of statement will be taken the wrong by PUAs, because they’ll assume it only applies to them and not women. They still demand a hot woman, but then they think their looks don’t matter because if that woman just gave them a chance, he’d prove how great his magic penis is. I’ve experienced that plenty of times.
If your sub needs to say “No” 1000 times you are a shitty Dom.
Again, writing style—you used the term “1000 times,” so I turned it around. You are a literal-minded fool, aren’t you?
The function of a safeword is not to see how many times you can hear it uttered.
I also didn’t say anything about the safeword being spoken more than once. Read it again, really slowly, and you’ll see that.
Hey genius what about the word “I” can’t you understand. We’re not talking natural or probable. We’re talking actual! The sexual orientation of the dominant references the sex of the sub. Can you stop your lying now?
Oh, believe me: I (and others) understand very well your use of “I” in relation to your own sad, contractual-obligation version of D/s (or, as you might put it, general M/f sex).
I’m not even gonna get into the insane advice you gave Doug at 11:42, except to note that I have no doubt the part about being banned from a restaurant or workplace for being an inappropriate creep comes from your own hard-won personal experience.
I’m assuming that you meant WTF rather than FTW, so I respond to the former. I just wanted to make the point that the one-way dating thing is a patriarchal relic and thus contributor to the fucked up worldview of the PUAs (which is likewise sexist, dated and should be discarded) and thus part of the problem, seen in its toxic and murderous extreme in Sodini. No point deeper than that micro-macro one intended.
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I meant the acronym I posted… FTW (for the win!).
Your initial observation about the patriarchal Approach/Accept/Reject gender norms kicked ass.
All of this defense of pick-up artistry on a thread about a PUA-student spree killer reminds me of the NRA guns-rights rallies after Columbine.
Funny. All this attacking pick-up artistry reminds me of NRA gun-rights rallies blaming video games and rap music for Columbine. Perhaps we could use a “Questioning Gun Rights” thread to discuss how Mr. Sodini armed himself to the teeth, rather than waxing poetical about how PUAs used mind control techniques to force this guy to start spraying hot lead into a public gym.
I don’t recall where any PUA suggested carrying around a gym bag full of automatic weapons.
Purpleshoes - Now I have to do the “sluts are people who’ve slept with as many as I have + n” thing on the crazy. I actually did have an ex go kind of psycho when we broke up, so I’ll give a guy with that excuse a hearing. However, you only get one, and your story better be plausible
But if your goal is good sex every time, yeah, there’s a million other metrics that are better than physical appearance. Of course, our definition and Zinfab’s definition of good sex are probably a little different.
Thanks, DTG. I got fooled by the AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG. It’s not normally a comment one hears from someone who approves.
Gross, remind me never to be in a room with Zif. Yuck.
The irony is Zif basically proved my point. The “hit” rate for PUA stuff is actually low, probably a lot lower than it would be if you talked to the same number of women but were not a giant asshole to them who saw them as marks and worked out your misogyny on them. The attraction is 100% sexism. If it were just about sex, there are ways to do that without being a jerk that actually work better. But you don’t get to be a jerk. Which is what Zif apparently wants.
Comment #271: Amanda Marcotte on 08/07 at 12:07 PM
In slightly less shallow news, I feel like a lot of high school girls feel pressured to date much older men. I can’t put my finger on exactly what the dynamic is, but I knew quite a few girls my age who were dating college guys at 14 or 15, and guys well into their 20’s by the time we graduated. It was creepy and fucked up, and my instinct is that it’s probably not entirely those girls’ fault.
Yeah, I’ve heard many stories from others about how it was commonplace at some places that high school aged girls/women dated much older men...or at least aspired to it. What’s more is the prevalent given explanation that this was because girls/women matured at a faster rate than boys/men.
Recalled a lot of seething resentment of this phenomenon from male undergrads at my college and those of my friends.....though the resentment was not only directed at their female high school classmates, but also at the older men for “robbing the cradle”.
Similarly, I’ve seen a fair number of female undergrad/grad students expressing similar seething resentments about older male grad students or grad students dating female undergraduates. Understandable when I have overheard them complaining about how men who were the same age/slightly older than them suddenly developed cold feet on a coffee/dinner date when they discovered they were in their late ‘20s and were grad students at an Ivy/Ivy-level university and similarly aged male grad students/professionals openly state that women in their late 20’s were “too old” for them and women who are pursuing grad degrees at Ivy/Ivy-level institutions were “too aggressive” and/or “arrogant”.
Funny. All this attacking pick-up artistry reminds me of NRA gun-rights rallies blaming video games and rap music for Columbine.
Except that video games and rap music had no causal relation to motive in the Columbine massacre. It would seem that the PUA philosophy, and more specifically the disappointment and frustration it creates in its adherents, did have a causal relation to motive in the PA massacre. The murderer’s own screed makes reference to that sense of hopelessness no matter what he did, because women were ... well, exactly how the PUAs portray them.
Zifnab, Sodini was a PUA who felt entitled to have beautiful women sleep with him even though we was too lazy/selfish to put in the same effort that they do to look hot. His selfish and misogynistic attitude directly caused this killing. Like he said, he’s not a hideous man. If he hadn’t felt so entitled to have young hot women, he probably could have had a date with a woman his own age, but that just wasn’t good enough for him. And this attitude stemmed directly from this PUA junk.
The challenge is to find the beautiful but shallow girl and seduce her away from the richer and handsomer guy.
Since you admitted the hit rate was low, and that they actually lower expectations after building them so that you stay with the program (and give the hucksters more money), I’d say actually, that’s not the goal.
The goal is clearly to inculcate anger at pretty girls for not wanting you, and to find a support group of guys who tell each other that they’re better than those bitches anyway, to waste women’s time, to insult them to their faces, and if one sleeps with you for whatever reason, to crow about conquering her because by marking one of the pretty girls, you help resentful dudery get its revenge.
Comment #276: Amanda Marcotte on 08/07 at 12:14 PM
Zifnab, homey-domey, the last thing you want to do right now is call women meat.
Really? Straight for the meat comparison? I would have hoped someone would be insulted that I compared women to Beaches.
It would seem that the PUA philosophy, and more specifically the disappointment and frustration it creates in its adherents, did have a causal relation to motive in the PA massacre.
Correlation, not necessarily causal. The correlation is, of course, the underlying misogyny of both the PUA crowd and the killer. There’s a reason why he was drawn to these groups. I don’t think it means they caused his resentment. I think his resentment made him buy into PUA BS.
At least it’s getting him attention from women, which apparently is something that he craves in a way that’s starting to look really unhealthy. Being negged must be like being trolled except in real life, possibly by someone who reeks of Axe.
The challenge is to find the beautiful but shallow girl and seduce her away from the richer and handsomer guy
See, this kind of gives up the whole “game.” It has nothing to do with enjoying sex or liking women. It has to do with impressing/one-upping other men. Perhaps we need to bring back duels or something.
Zifnab, Sodini was a PUA who felt entitled to have beautiful women sleep with him even though we was too lazy/selfish to put in the same effort that they do to look hot. His selfish and misogynistic attitude directly caused this killing.
From Sodini’s journal:
I got ideas outside of Obama’s plans for the economy and such. Here it is: Every black man should get a young white girl hoe to hone up on. Kinda a reverse indentured servitude thing. Long ago, many a older white male landowner had a young Negro wench girl for his desires. Bout’ time tables are turned on that shit. Besides, dem young white hoez dig da bruthrs! LOL. More so than they dig the white dudes!
Yup. If there’s one thing I pulled away from all my reading on PUAs and pick up methods, it’s that Obama wants to steal all our white women. My eyes have been opened. Clearly, the Mystery Method is to blame here.
Honestly Zifnab, just get the damn toupee already and give up on defending this PUA nonsense. It will make life better for you and every woman that you meet.
Correlation, not necessarily causal. The correlation is, of course, the underlying misogyny of both the PUA crowd and the killer. There’s a reason why he was drawn to these groups. I don’t think it means they caused his resentment. I think his resentment made him buy into PUA BS.
In this case, I actually do see a causal relationship that goes to motive—whatever resentment toward women was of his own making, the PUA stuff exacerbated it to the point where it became part of the motive (especially when he realised that all the effort he put in following Steel’s advice changed nothing). It’s a typical vicious cycle gone totally out of control.
From the screed, it seems apparent that the murderer also had some serious mental health issues that contributed to motive.
Zifnab, you misunderstood my question. If an ugly woman wanted to have sex with you, would you do it? I assumed that the answer was “no” since you’re so obsessed with winning the hot chicks. If you wouldn’t have sex with an ugly woman, would a pick-up line work on you? If you would have sex with an ugly woman, then why not just do that and stop bothering the hot shallow women with your PUA nonsense?
If there’s one thing I pulled away from all my reading on PUAs and pick up methods, it’s that Obama wants to steal all our white women. My eyes have been opened. Clearly, the Mystery Method is to blame here.
The racist stuff follows from the same crappy attitude pushed by the PUAs: “superficial gold-digging bitches.” The old “black bucks stealing our women” chestnut comes directly out of the idea that women will only go for strong, buff, good-looking guys—specifically, the insecurity with that fantasy and the desire to circumvent it (sometimes with money, but more often with privilege) and get a supposed entitlement. That last part should be very familiar to the PUA fans.
His selfish and misogynistic attitude directly caused this killing.
Actually, his being an anti-social psychopath who happen to fixate along these lines caused the killings. It could just have easily involved jews, blacks, gays, Mexicans, etc.
seeker, consider the troll of fairy tales, except reeking of what the Axe bottle swears is “a hunk of man candy” and telling you your nose wiggles appealingly WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT in a bar. This image makes me laugh and feel comforted, which is as close to a happy place as I will find to bow out of this thread.
If it were just about sex, there are ways to do that without being a jerk that actually work better. But you don’t get to be a jerk. Which is what Zif apparently wants.
If you’re coming across as a jerk (or if you’re coming across as someone the girl you’re trying to attract doesn’t like) you’re doing it wrong. The idea is to be attractive. You’re absolutely right, in that girls who see you as obnoxious and assholish probably won’t want to sleep with you.
The idea is to come across as fun and sociable. Attractive (I don’t know how many more times I can use this word). If you’re getting hit on by guys who call themselves PUAs, but act like complete dicks, they’re doing it wrong. If you don’t like the guy who is hitting on you, he is unsuccessful.
The “methods that don’t involve being a jerk that actually work better” are the methods PUAs strive towards. If the methods you’re reading about don’t sound like they would work on you, then they are likely bad methods or badly executed. Not everything works on all girls. Not every guy can be attractive to every girl. Not every girl wants to jump into bed, no matter how many techniques or methods or secret tricks the guy knows.
The “hit” rate for PUA stuff is actually low
Part of the method is getting your “hit” rate up. Finding what works on a large percentage of girls.
Part of the method is simply not getting discouraged and giving up. The guy who curls up in his dorm room and cries himself to sleep because no one loves him isn’t going to get a girlfriend. You can’t pity or lonely yourself into a relationship. A good PUA isn’t daunted by failure and doesn’t go swearing off all women the moment one gives him a sour look.
I can’t speak to percentages. You might be right. A guy that hits on 100 annoymous girls probably doesn’t have as good a “hit rate” as a guy that only dates one of the five women he’s known since high school. But since the end goal is to date lots of girls, not meet the one girl to spend the rest of your life with, it’s ok to get turned down 90% of the time if it means you get to date 10 different people. High School Guy can be the perfect Casanova and still only do half as well. If your goal is to get married and settle down, that’s perfectly fine. If you like to party the night away with a different girl every day, not so much.
If you’re coming across as a jerk (or if you’re coming across as someone the girl you’re trying to attract doesn’t like) you’re doing it wrong.
Zifnab, every single PUA comes across as either a jerk, or a pathetic puppy. Yes, women always know when you’re playing them. If a woman does end up having sex with you, it’s in spite of PUA attitude, not because of it.
The idea is to come across as fun and sociable. Attractive (I don’t know how many more times I can use this word).
You’re using the word wrong. I’m a woman. Why don’t you believe that I know what women find attractive? If you were smart, you would listen to the advice coming from actual women. If there’s a man who I’m not attracted to but he’s fun, I might like to be friends with him but that doesn’t make me want to sleep with him.
Part of the method is getting your “hit” rate up. Finding what works on a large percentage of girls.
Then why are you so unwilling to increase your “hit” rate by increasing your physical attractiveness? Give the women what they want. It’s clear that you don’t care about what a large percentage of women want.
Why do none of these PUAs figure out that the only sage and sound advice on how to appeal to women is most likely going to be written by women? Start there—and filter out the normal BS/chaff quotient that comes with the species and dating—and they might actually get somewhere.
If an ugly woman wanted to have sex with you, would you do it? I assumed that the answer was “no” since you’re so obsessed with winning the hot chicks. If you wouldn’t have sex with an ugly woman, would a pick-up line work on you? If you would have sex with an ugly woman, then why not just do that and stop bothering the hot shallow women with your PUA nonsense?
I don’t see why it has to be either/or, for starters. Again, if I’m “bothering” the hot shallow women, I’m doing it wrong. The idea is that hot shallow women want to be approached by me.
And if the girl is physically not appealing, but just as charming and debonair to me as I try to be with anyone else, why wouldn’t I sleep with her? I’d be epically naive if I believed average guys could attract hot girls, but were themselves completely immune to the charms of average or sub-average girls.
That doesn’t mean I’d go around tackling every woman that walks up to me. If a girl isn’t physically beautiful, she’s got to have something to make up for it. If she’s got a gorgeous singing voice or she’s really funny or she’s incredibly smart (again - ATTRACTIVE traits) then why not sleep with her? If you’re attracted to a girl and she’s attracted to you, sex certainly a logical conclusion. If I’m not attractive, I don’t expect beautiful women to sleep with me. I’m not sure why it would be normal to conclude that a girl who makes no attempt to make herself attractive to me would leave me wanting to sleep with her.
Stop feeding the Troll.
It’s fun, I know, like banging on the cage in zoo’s Monkey Exhibit, but just like the same, you’re just going to end up covered in shit and feeling foolish.
Stayed out but I’m compelled to say to all PUA’s and potential PUA’s:
Listen to Amanda and the other women posting. Want to get layed? Don’t be a gamer. You can either play the game or be in the game, not both and certainly not both at the same time.
Engage someone and let the eros develop. Don’t try to force it because you can’t force it. The best ‘sales’ technique is absolutely neutral. Don’t have the ‘stink’ of desperation on you. Don’t be scary. Be calm, be confident and listen. Live in the moment.
The idea is to come across as fun and sociable. Attractive
Sort of like the “fun and sociable” guys we see this site (the joke being that the only time the guy will get with the girl is in the photo he begged her to appear in).
If I was a woman, I’d be insulted by the PUA idea that a loud-mouth in a shiny shirt and big goofy hat who’s pulling coins out of ears and tossing around casual insults is the epitome of “attractive” for most women in a bar or club. (It would probably go over well as entertainment at an 8-year-old’s birthday party, though).
Look Zifnab, listen closely. Those shallow women want you to be hotter, which you refuse to do. So you are trying to find a way to get what you want from them without actually giving them what they want. You’re selfish and a hypocrite, and you don’t even realize it.
Again, if I’m “bothering” the hot shallow women, I’m doing it wrong.
Well, I’m sure that you’re doing it wrong because every PUA does it wrong every single time. Women realize you’re doing it, even if they don’t let on. If a woman still goes home with you, it’s in spite of the PUA tricks, not because of them. Women are smarter than you think, and we can see tricks from a mile away.
The idea is that hot shallow women want to be approached by me.
I doubt it. You’re not even willing to give them what they want. Why are you so adamantly against getting a toupee or shaving your head completely?
Zifnab, instead of arguing with women, maybe you should take advice from us, since we are actually women and contrary to the myth, we do actually know what we want without the need for a man to tell us what we want.
Is there a PUA fantasy league? Can I draft Robert Downey, Jr. in the first round?
Now that’s a different type of PUA. Toback (who based the script very loosely on his own experiences) was leveraging his own best qualities when he’d do his damn-the-torpedoes pick-ups, without all the shoddy tricks we see from these “gurus.” Also, he genuinely likes women, and sees them as human beings rather than enemy aliens from planet Venus.
The movie wasn’t all that great, either—Toback trying to fit his louche sensibility into an ‘80s team comedy wasn’t a recipe for success (and related but OT: John Hughes dead at 59?! WTF?)
Does the fact that so many old, bald, overweight men think they can get attractive women in their 20s have to do with the fact that a lot of guys are completely clueless as to whether they are physically attractive or not? This seems to be a problem with men, much more so than women.
There is a flip side of this that few are acknowledging - remember that stooopeeedass “The Rules” book for women??? 90’s bullshit on how to control men? Many of the targets of PUAs have read this book and are playing their own idiotic manipulative games like my housemate used to.
I always thought her dates served her right.
There is another flip side, though. A friend of a friend used to complain that all she met were PUAs. I pointed out to her that her constant makeup and heels routine aimed at projecting a certain appareance of hollywood whatever might be attracting shallow people who were superficially attracted by appearance. She took that as a revealation, and started varying her appearance a bit to suit herself rather than just copying the latest magazine and found guys she could talk to.
If I was a woman, I’d be insulted by the PUA idea that a loud-mouth in a shiny shirt and big goofy hat who’s pulling coins out of ears and tossing around casual insults is the epitome of “attractive” for most women in a bar or club.
Zinfab-aren’t all cats grey in the dark? Because my personal experience with men actually suggests an inverse relationship between physical attractiveness and sexual ability
Well, how many people have sex in the dark? I’ve never done it. Honestly, this kind of statement will be taken the wrong by PUAs, because they’ll assume it only applies to them and not women. They still demand a hot woman, but then they think their looks don’t matter because if that woman just gave them a chance, he’d prove how great his magic penis is. I’ve experienced that plenty of times.
Both of these are good points, but I must say that I do agree with the initial statement a lot, based on the only experience I have, my own.
We build up societal beauty norms so much that there really is a kind of false connection between one’s physical beauty and one’s ability in the sack… I think this is much moreso with men than with women, meaning I think men are far worse at creating this dubious equivalence.
I have had sex with more than 5 and less than 15 partners in my life, and as much as I built up a ton of excitement behind the partner who I found to be the most physically attractive, honestly… it was a bit of a disappointment. Which wasn’t in any way her fault, but rather my fault for placing silly expectations on her - she was the most physically beautiful person I had ever been with, so I just automatically assumed that when we did the deed that it was gonna be THE BEST SEX EVAH!!!
In reality, the best sexual partner I ever had - in terms of bedroom compatability - was with a girl who I wasn’t even instantly attracted to when I met her. She was definitely pretty, but not somebody that society would call a supermodel. Not that I’ve ever been with anyone who society would call a supermodel or that I’ve ever even expected to date a supermodel… I consider myself reasonably physically attractive, but I know I’m not Brad Pitt, or even remotely close. The point is, the person I had the best sex with wasn’t the person I found to be the most physically beautiful woman (based on societal norms) I have ever slept with. But she was an awesome person, and had an amazing personality - she was very self-assured and a bit of a geek, but a very self-confident geek with a sharp-witted tongue, a bit of a tomboy. And the bottom line is, what made her so drop dead sexy to me was that she kicked ass as a whole human being - and because I was attracted to the whole person, that made everything about her sexy to me, even her “less than perfect” body. And I was madly in love with her, which can totally skew one’s own perception of the other’s physical beauty. Basically, she WAS incredibly beautiful to me when we were together, even though I recognized that she might not have been considered the hottest girl on earth by the standards of some silly lad magazine.
Anyway, yeah… “more physically beautiful” doesn’t automatically mean “better sexual partner”, based on my experience. I’d be lying if I didn’t have some sort of idea of what I consider physically attractive, but I’m not such a self-important prick that I set an unreasonably high bar for myself where I expect all women I date to look like Scarlett Johansson.
And to catgirl’s point, I’d agree that a lot of PUAs would likely misread “aren’t all cats grey in the dark?” to mean that women should have to give up any sort of physical standards they may have for guys while freely giving it up to every ugly shlub who thinks he’s entitled to her va-jay-jay.
And it is a disgustingly hypocritical double-standard, caused by the patriarchy.
I’ll point out that Zif is actually doing what PUA manuals encourage men to do in real life: find a group of people, preferably women, and get their attention by being irritating. In this way, you get your revenge on the high school cheerleader who didn’t fuck you. Never mind that probably none of us were either that high school cheerleader or any high school cheerleaders. Never mind that the high school cheerleader that Zif is getting revenge on is probably a very nice person who found him understandably annoying. He’s going to get his revenge on us, and perhaps tonight he will waste some 21-year-old’s time. But she had it coming, because she has a boyfriend.
Comment #312: Amanda Marcotte on 08/07 at 01:11 PM
My posts keep getting eated
But (as a hopefully recovering NiceGuy(TM)) I do feel compelled to say something:
Seeker is right: the root of the problem is that (hetero) dating still has a “men pursue / women reject/accept” paradigm that ends up breeding resentment.
As to the issue of physical attractiveness, to some degree many men are clueless about what makes a man attractive to a woman. An “average” man will be rejected and then the woman in question will go out with another guy (who seems just as “average” as the rejected guy) so the guy is asking himself “what does he have that I don’t?”. Such a guy is easy prey for PUA scammers who claim to have the answer.
As to the age issue, it works both ways. When I was single and interested in dating women my own age, it was very hard to find women in their mid/late 20s (my age at the time) who were interested in men their own age. Most gals insisted on dating older guys.
Catgirl, Magis, Amanda, & everyone else who’s offered it: Thanks for the advice. That you’re even bothering to give it is above & beyond - it’s not as if that were the purpose of this blog, this post or even this thread.
& the thing is, it’s not even new advice - it’s just not reinforced nearly as much as the PUA stuff.
Zifnab, every single PUA comes across as either a jerk, or a pathetic puppy.
Well, that’s a fun blanket statement.
You’re using the word wrong. I’m a woman. Why don’t you believe that I know what women find attractive?
Yes yes. You like pretty guys. If the guy isn’t off the cover of GQ, you’re not getting near him. Gotcha. Not every girl shares your taste. Otherwise, no one who didn’t make the cover of GQ would ever get laid.
You’ve set it in your head that there’s a caste system. Only pretty people are allowed to date other pretty people. If a guy isn’t in a girl’s “league” he’ll never have a chance and should just give up and go home because failure is inevitable. The best he can hope for is “the friend zone”, because he’s not up to your standards.
I’m not going to keep arguing with you. But I subscribe to a different philosophy. However, I promise, if I ever meet you in public, that I avoid making any kind of pass at you unless you make it abundantly clear I score a “Hot” on your “Hot or Not” scorecard.
Why do none of these PUAs figure out that the only sage and sound advice on how to appeal to women is most likely going to be written by women?
There are PUA books written by girls, and I read those too. Again, I never understood this natural assumption that if you listen to one, you must be tone deaf to the other.
That said, all I’m getting off this board is - “Guys are creepy! You are doomed to a boat full of fail! PUA tactics never ever work, and if they do work you’re a bad person for using them! UR DOIN’ IT RONG!” - which isn’t much advice in the grand scheme of things.
At best, it’s become abundantly clear that you never talk shop around any girl you actually plan to hit on. But since I have absolutely no intention of hitting on any of you - this being the internet and rule 16 being in effect - I’m safe.
I can’t speak to percentages. You might be right. A guy that hits on 100 annoymous girls probably doesn’t have as good a “hit rate” as a guy that only dates one of the five women he’s known since high school.
Actually, my point about hit rates is this: A guy who hits on 100 girls by being nice and saying, “Hi, I’m so and so” and engages in a conversation about the weather will probably get laid as often, if not more, than a guy who drenches himself in Axe, wears a shiny shirt, and hits on a girl by saying, “Nice tits, where’d you get them done?”
Both will probably get laid at some point. Women---and I know you don’t believe this, but it’s true---are a diverse group. And some might say, “You know, I’ve got douchebag PUA on my bingo card, and I better cross that one off so I can win the secret bingo game I’m playing with my equally crazy friend.” Or whatever.
When a PUA “gets lucky”, he attributes it incorrectly to the method/game/douchebag olympics. Because he doesn’t want to believe it’s not about that. Because facing the truth would mean owning up to the facts, which are these:
He wants to believe Mystery or whoever, because they’re telling you that women are crap and that’s what you want to hear.
Comment #318: Amanda Marcotte on 08/07 at 01:17 PM
“That doesn’t mean I’d go around tackling every woman that walks up to me. If a girl isn’t physically beautiful, she’s got to have something to make up for it. If she’s got a gorgeous singing voice or she’s really funny or she’s incredibly smart (again - ATTRACTIVE traits) then why not sleep with her? If you’re attracted to a girl and she’s attracted to you, sex certainly a logical conclusion. If I’m not attractive, I don’t expect beautiful women to sleep with me. I’m not sure why it would be normal to conclude that a girl who makes no attempt to make herself attractive to me would leave me wanting to sleep with her. “
ok let me get this straight--you’ll sleep with an average looking woman if she offers something else you desire, but you’re trying to scam hot, shallow women into sleeping with you WITHOUT EVEN AN ATTEMPT AT OFFERING WHAT IT IS THEY WANT (i.e., being more physically attractive to them)? DOES. NOT. COMPUTE.
Comment #319: chareth cutestory on 08/07 at 01:18 PM
Why do none of these PUAs figure out that the only sage and sound advice on how to appeal to women is most likely going to be written by women?
Because they’re not interested in appealing to women or being better dates/lovers. They’re interested in punishing women for non-compliance.
Comment #320: Amanda Marcotte on 08/07 at 01:18 PM
I pointed out to her that her constant makeup and heels routine aimed at projecting a certain appareance of hollywood whatever might be attracting shallow people who were superficially attracted by appearance. She took that as a revealation, and started varying her appearance a bit to suit herself rather than just copying the latest magazine and found guys she could talk to.
Please, don’t blame the victim. No woman deserves PUAs, regardless of what they wear. I’m glad that things worked out for your friend but, as I mentioned earlier, I’ve tried making myself ugly and it didn’t work. There’s no such thing as bug spray for PUAs. Also, sometimes women really do want just casual sex and that’s why they’ll wear make-up and high heels, but that still doesn’t mean they want PUAs.
Actually, my point about hit rates is this: A guy who hits on 100 girls by being nice and saying, “Hi, I’m so and so” and engages in a conversation about the weather will probably get laid as often, if not more, than a guy who drenches himself in Axe, wears a shiny shirt, and hits on a girl by saying, “Nice tits, where’d you get them done?”
Right, the law of averages. Any used car salesman knows this, and didn’t have to take a PUA “class”!
“When a PUA “gets lucky”, he attributes it incorrectly to the method/game/douchebag olympics.”
Because he doesn’t want to think that he’s the one being “gamed” by a group of women who went to the club betting who could pick up the biggest douchebag.
I’ll point out that Zif is actually doing what PUA manuals encourage men to do in real life: find a group of people, preferably women, and get their attention by being irritating.
Whatever, Amanda. I’m trying to be sensible and hopefully offer a bit of perspective. If you’re just going to respond with cat-calls of “All PUAs fail always!” and “George Clooney or bust!” then what else is there to be said.
You win. Attempts at increasing one’s attractiveness are - by definition - signs of misogyny. Sodini is the personal embodiment of every guy at every bar you didn’t like. Pick up lines are one step away from drive by shootings. Men looking for sex are evil. Game over.
Chareth, hot, shallow women may be playing their own game with PUAs.
It just isn’t one that I have ever been intersted in. The whole “rules” thing made me gag gag gag! Women can pull or play this shit too, self select to attract PUAs, etc.
Yes yes. You like pretty guys. If the guy isn’t off the cover of GQ, you’re not getting near him. Gotcha. Not every girl shares your taste. Otherwise, no one who didn’t make the cover of GQ would ever get laid.
Maybe you’d have better “luck” with women if you listened to what they actually say. That’s not what I said at all. What you fail to realize is that looking attractive isn’t just natural. Guess what? You can actually make yourself more attractive; you simply refuse to do so. And yet, you want women to work very hard at making themselves look attractive. You want them to do something you refuse to do. That’s hypocrisy.
You’ve set it in your head that there’s a caste system.
No, you have set up the caste system, but only want it to apply to women. You want to pick up hot chicks, but then expect them to ignore the caste system that you’ve set up when it comes to deciding on a man to date. You care about looks but expect women to not care about looks.
They still demand a hot woman, but then they think their looks don’t matter because if that woman just gave them a chance, he’d prove how great his magic penis is.
And yet he doesn’t have a magic penis, or a magic mouth, or magic hands, and certainly not a magic personality, because he was too busy being a desperate, lying asshat to develop any of those things.
If a girl isn’t physically beautiful, she’s got to have something to make up for it.
Well, there are always crappy, manipulative flirtation techniques they buy from some con artist… why would they need anything else?
I will quibble a bit about women seeking men who are their physical equals-- some do (including me, as a rule), but IME a lot of women will trade down a bit-- not much, in most cases-- for other qualities, including money (a nice lifestyle could make up for enduring sex with an unappealing person- depends on the individual), or more often intelligence, kindness, warmth, consideration, or pretty much anything that they feel they need in their life. Very few women need social/emotional con games, however, and any man who buys into these methods are clearly lacking in any more substantive appeal whatsoever. Guess I can’t blame someone who has zero character or social gifts for resorting to shitty manipulation, but that still in no way makes them qualitatively better potential partners, for relationships or even just sex. As with work, the best way to get into the situation you want is to actually, y’know, learn the skills to properly earn it and not fuck it up once you manage to obtain what you want.
But that’s the real problem, to me: these methods do not make loser men non-losers, and the offensive part isn’t that they’re so desperate, but that they’d rather try bullshit tactics than actually become better, more realistic people. Even if it means starting out with less-stunning women until they become confident enough to trade up for what they really and truly deserve (yes, that’s sarcasm).
Ask youself this. Why do you want to have sex with someone at all? We could all just stick to masturbation and thus always be with the one we love the most.
We seek sex because of the human contact. To enjoy the “otherness” of the person. It is isn’t just rubbing Part A against Part B. Even if it’s only for a night, we need to remember to enjoy the mental connection. Sex is far more about the brain that it is about genitalia. Let potential partners see your good heart; that’s 90% of the battle.
I’ve read lots of “women talking about men” sites because I find them utterly fascinating (and instructive). The number one thing women say they appreciate in men (so help me God) is the ability to make them laugh. Share a laugh. Treat them as a co-conspirator in pleasure and not as a goal line to be crossed and you’ll do fine.
GS, I’m almost 60 and I’ve never ‘done without’ for very long.
They still demand a hot woman, but then they think their looks don’t matter because if that woman just gave them a chance, he’d prove how great his magic penis is.
Proof of this? Craiglist personals, M4W section. Half of it is guys showing photos of their cocks, as if that is the secret to getting a woman in bed.
I just gotta stick my head in to say something about bald men.
There’s nothing wrong with bald men. But, like anything, you gotta know what to do with it to make it look good. I have lovely hair, but if I never brushed it, or didn’t get a trim once in a while, it wouldn’t look nice, and I know that it looks better down than up in a ponytail.
I recently met a good looking bald man. But here’s the thing—he’s my own age (25). If I’m not attracted to a 50 year old bald man, it’s not because he’s bald, it’s because I’m not interested in older men. Anyway, the fellow in question realized that his hairline was quickly receding, so he shaves it all off, and it looks good. It likely looks better than it would if he’d left the receding hairline. That we didn’t end up hopping into bed has nothing to do with the baldness; rather, there were little bits of his personality that indicated to me we’d make better friends (which we are) that partners.
When a PUA “gets lucky”, he attributes it incorrectly to the method/game/douchebag olympics. Because he doesn’t want to believe it’s not about that.
Yes, exactly! This is the point I’ve been making. If I find a guy attractive, I might tolerate a little corniness because I want to have sex with him. If I’m not attracted to a guy, no amount of rituals will make me more attracted to him.
Because facing the truth would mean owning up to the facts, which are these:
He wants to believe Mystery or whoever, because they’re telling you that women are crap and that’s what you want to hear.
Yes, exactly. It’s never his fault for acting like a jerk, having bad breath, or being too lazy to take a shower daily. It’s always the woman’s fault for being stupid and not responding to the correct rituals.
catgirl, may I just tell you that you are my hero? I’ve REALLY got to get to work this morning but your PUA evisceration has me riveted. I spent 20 years in the military and another male-dominated industry and was constantly exposed to the hypocritical lookism of men. In my 20s and early 30s the grossest old creepy men would hit on me and some of them would have to nerve to criticize aspects of my appearance. Oh, and of course the favorite pastime of my male counterparts was to get into lengthy discussions dissecting the physical attributes of various female celebrities or “hot” women they had seen somewhere. And of course those of us who worked with them were substandard. I grew to realize that it was part of the punishment for daring to encroach on a males-only work space. You got to be the recipient of the most brutal public assessment of your physicality.
As for Zifnab, I will give him a small bit of credit for not having gone evo-psych on us to justify his double standard. Then again, the day is young.
What really gets me is Sodini’s rage at women rejecting him, WHILE HE WAS REJECTING countless women, based solely on their lack of attractive looks/ age.
So he can reject “losers” but no one should dare reject him. The self entitlement is just staggering!!!
There’s nothing wrong with bald men. But, like anything, you gotta know what to do with it to make it look good.
Yes, this is all I’m saying. Bald men shouldn’t just give up and decide they’re doomed to be not-hot because they’re bald. They can do the best with what they have. For some men, a toupee would look best; for others, shaving it completely would look best.
Women do this every single day. I have very straight hair that won’t hold curls, so I have accepted that there are some hair styles I simply can not have. That doesn’t mean I don’t bother to do anything with it an just accept that it will be ugly. There are certain clothing styles I can’t wear for many reasons, but I can still find stylish clothes that look good on me. I just do the best with what I have. That’s all I want from men.
When I was single and interested in dating women my own age, it was very hard to find women in their mid/late 20s (my age at the time) who were interested in men their own age. Most gals insisted on dating older guys.
DAS,
That and the fact there are men who naturally look so much younger than their actual ages that even women 3-5 years younger than them feel they are “too old” for them.
Attempts at increasing one’s attractiveness are - by definition - signs of misogyny.
Dehumanizing, deceptive, calculated games are unattractive, period.
As far as I can tell, you have not once made a compelling argument that the men who use these methods actually have something to offer women, which is why you’re getting smacked around so much. In the previous thread, and I think even a bit in this one, most people have been at least a bit sympathetic to those who are decent, but simply a bit awkward & clueless without any particular resentment issues; the offense is in the destructive, misogynistic framing of the methods themselves, and in claims (like yours) that all’s fair in seeking top sexual prizes whether one is really qualified to compete at that level or not. None of that recommends the purveyors’, the customers’, or your own characters in the slightest.
One that I’m afraid you’ve only confirmed. You exude douche in these comments. In fact, it’s absolutely baffling how self-assured you are about your own douchebaggery. You remind me of a guy I saw in the comments at Feministing who went apeshit because they made fun of an Axe ad, and he was sure that Axe really had special pheromones that would force women to suck his cock.
Really, reading your comments, I’m put in mind of Ricky Gervais’s character on “The Office”.
Comment #340: Amanda Marcotte on 08/07 at 01:49 PM
Yes yes. You like pretty guys.
“Attractive” does not necessarily equal “pretty”—catgirl wasn’t implying otherwise. It’s a package.
You’ve set it in your head that there’s a caste system. Only pretty people are allowed to date other pretty people.
No, it’s that average-looking or homely men who think they’re entitled to have sex only with hot, gorgeous women are setting themselves up for a world of disappointment. That doesn’t mean that it doesn’t happen (it certainly does), but Mystery-style PUA methods are usually not going to be a factor in those cases—especially for 48-year-old guys who already have a bad attitude toward women and find re-enforcement in that attitude from other PUAs.
Re: Touching me when I don’t know you? It is amazingly easy to break the human finger, so go for that instead of the arm. Seriously, do NOT touch ANYONE without permission. Period. Full stop. At the bar where I used to work, we’d throw your ass out for that. With extreme prejudice.
Re: Dan Savage. Dan Savage is an ass who has gotten marginally less ass-tastic in the ensuing years, but still regularly pisses me off. Granted, he can learn from his mistakes, but why did they have to be so fucking egregious in the first place? I.e. bisexuals don’t exist, fat people don’t deserve love or consideration, etc… Yes, as I said, he’s learned from those mistakes, but only after looking and sounding like a complete asshole for an extended period of time first. And, he doesn’t write much of his column anymore, he has other people to do that for him. Maybe having spent the last 20 years living in Seattle and being part of the Queer Community has just caused me to become immune to the Dan Savage Mystique.
RE: PUA’s. Just don’t. I bounced and bartended in a goth/fetish bar with an open 80s night for nearly a decade. I have heard every cheesy line there is and my consistent response was loud, resounding laughter… Or if the guy seemed like an otherwise decent guy, ill-disguised snorting and “Ok, sweetie, I think you’re cute and I’m going to explain why you should NEVER say anything like that to any woman ever again so long as you live.”
I’ve also seen the, admittedly less fatal, fallout of guys like Sodini who don’t understand why the hot club chick just isn’t into the 40-something, short, dumpy, doesn’t bother to dress up to go out, waves money around like that just be enough guy. Oh My Gods. Seriously. I defended one of these assholes right up to the point where I blogged about “No one owes you sex” and he cam unglued in the comments in my blog about how if he spent a certain amount of money on a woman, she damn well did owe him sex. At which point he was invited to bugger off, never darken the club again, and to please drink bleach.
You’ve set it in your head that there’s a caste system. Only pretty people are allowed to date other pretty people.
Which conflicts with caste system you have where women are ranked by their looks pretty much exclusively (though you do give a few points for talent and congeniality) and men can overcome substantial deficits in their looks through “game”.
In the long run, trying to spare my feelings by not telling me the truth just ends up hurting me a lot more. I can’t hear what people don’t say out loud, and, apparently, I must be really, really bad at reading between the lines.
I don’t disagree with this, except for the part where it’s not all about you. I am all for women being straightforward and obvious about who they do and don’t want to fuck or hang out with. But you really need to be aware of the myriad reasons why it’s really difficult for many people, and especially for women to do that, and that they don’t owe you doing something personally difficult just to make you feel better.
Whatever, Amanda. I’m trying to be sensible and hopefully offer a bit of perspective. If you’re just going to respond with cat-calls of “All PUAs fail always!” and “George Clooney or bust!” then what else is there to be said.
I didn’t say that. I said, and let me repeat: You are being sucked in my hucksters.
Do all psychics miss all the time? No, or they wouldn’t get followers. What they do is play the odds. They toss out 100 details that are commonly shared by a lot of people ("I’m feeling that you’ve lost someone recently....was it an organ in the torso that failed? “ Nods. “The heart?") You could literally get the results you seek by just passing out your phone number with “Wanna fuck?”, especially if you front load it by going to places that are established precisely so people can get drunk and have sex with strangers.
The excuse for this is that it “works”, but anything would work in this situation. The reason the program appeals is that it makes you self-righteous about your negative opinion of women. You see women who you find sexually attractive, especially if they put a lot of work into aping the look sold in Maxim magazine, and they aren’t immediately getting naked like they do in the magazine. This makes angry! Women suck! Time revenge!
So you’re fed a bunch of “tricks” built around the premise that those women you’re angry at deserve your anger, because they are teases and bimbos and you’re going to a) irritate them and b) occasionally get one over by sport fucking her and then gloating about how they’re not so hot anymore. The adrenaline rush of sport fucking is strong, I’m sure, but let’s not pretend this is just about sex. Because sex is infinitely hotter when you’re doing it with someone where everything’s on the up and up and everyone is in this for mutual pleasure.
Comment #345: Amanda Marcotte on 08/07 at 01:59 PM
Wouldn’t the act of referring to yourself as a pick-up artist imply that a lot of your ego is tied up in how attractive you’re able to make yourself to TEH HOT CHIX? ie, a shallow douche? Everybody has that one sleazy asshole friend. Do you really want to be that guy?
I mean, seriously, you’re defending hucksters. It’s sad how obviously stupid PUA hucksters think you are. The debate isn’t whether it works---between reasonable people, the debate is whether or not most men who fall for PUA claims are idiots or assholes. My opinion is both.
Comment #347: Amanda Marcotte on 08/07 at 02:02 PM
Oh, and:
Only pretty people are allowed to date other pretty people.
Well, that’s stupid-- people should only date people they find attractive. If one’s expectations are too elevated and don’t match those of any potential partners, then I guess that means no dates. It’s true that only pretty people can reasonably expect to always date other pretty people, because that’s an equal-status, reasonably fair assumption. Oddly enough, most pretty people I’ve known have learned the hard way to look for more substantial qualities than mere prettiness, which should tell you morons something about a) the true value of good looks, and b) being a decent and genuinely appealing person instead of a wanker.
So I guess the moral of that story is that very attractive people who have been dating for a while are most likely far less shallow, and better judges of character, than unattractive people who haven’t due to completely ridiculous expectations.
You win. Attempts at increasing one’s attractiveness are - by definition - signs of misogyny. Sodini is the personal embodiment of every guy at every bar you didn’t like. Pick up lines are one step away from drive by shootings. Men looking for sex are evil. Game over.
And who the fuck said any of that?
In case you haven’t read… oh… the last 125780 posts or so, folks here are attacking your absurd adulation for a “society” that is by it’s very nature patently misogynistic.
I mean for real, have you stepped back and actually read the fawning praise you’ve heaped on these douchebags who call themselves things like “Mystery”, “Style”, “Penis Maximus” and the like?
Seriously.
You have an actual genuine respect for some hucksterish snake oil salesmen of a program that amounts to nothing more than a sad, pathetic, late-night infomercial targetted to lonely, angry, bitter men with entitlement issues who are completely ready to hand these douchenozzles $895 to be taught in the their magic ways of persuasion in the “Venusian Arts”?
For fucking real?
Did anybody bother reading the Village Voice article linked here, where it talked about two of the founders of this douchebaggery movement and their little spat?
R. Don Steele:
His next conquest occurred in high school when another Janet asked him to the junior prom. She remained his girlfriend through graduation. “Maybe twice we had intercourse,” Steele says, “and I lasted about half a stroke each time.”
That Janet became a distant memory after graduation; Steele went to Penn State and after a promising start saw his grades plummet. Why?
“Women, man! I’d never seen so much pussy in all my life,” he exclaims.
---------------------------
“It was like heaven, man. Oh, my.” Football buddies, beer, and fucking babes. It’s a simple vision of paradise but one Steele never seems to have let go of.
---------------------------
But the women he met were mad at the world, he says. “I agree with equal pay for equal work and sharing household chores, but women’s liberation is about hating men, and I can’t stand it.” In How to Date Young Women, he writes: “In my experience most [women my age] are looking for a new husband so they don’t have to stay out here in this big, mean, cold, nasty, cruel world and make it. The ones not looking to get married aren’t busy losing weight and getting into shape, they’re grinding a feminist ax. Stuff what they say about beauty only being skin deep. Fat bellies, saggy breasts, stretch marks and wide asses are not attractive.”
---------------------------
He says it’s incredible that anyone would be taken in by Jeffries’ claims that he’s an expert in how to attract women. It should be obvious that Jeffries is just a charlatan, a man with such little experience in dating that he probably wouldn’t know what to say to a woman if even she did take the time to acknowledge him. Steele’s the one who’s been seducing and bedding women since the early 1950s in Shippenville, Pennsylvania. As late as the early ‘90s, Steele claims, Jeffries admitted to him that he was still a virgin. And now he was an expert in getting tail?
He suggests that New Times ask Jeffries for the names and phone numbers of all of the women he has supposedly seduced. And for good measure, Steele sent over a long list of “nonsoftball questions” for Jeffries, including gems such as “What does love mean to you?” and “How much pussy did you eat before you wrote Chapter 18 of How To Get the Women You Desire into Bed?”
I won’t even go into the douchebaggery that is Ross Jeffries. Interestingly enough, Jeffries was parodied in the film Magnolia, by Tom Cruise playing the film’s self-help whackjob.
Anyway, my point is this… these guys are sad, sad men. Ross Jeffries actually claimed that he could see himself being hired by the CIA for his incredible skills of perception (and absolutely no educational or real-life experience in the intelligence community. Right.) to do super-secret undercover top-level security jobs for the U.S. Government.
And the whole thing would really be funny if all you saw was the caricature that these dorks have made of themselves, but then one of their followers - who isn’t getting the results he was promised - decides to take his anger out on some women at a gym, because afterall, in The Game, women are nothing more than objects to acquire, and so disposing of them really isn’t that fucking evil.
Bald men shouldn’t just give up and decide they’re doomed to be not-hot because they’re bald.
I dig bald dudes, if they accept they’re bald. I think they’re hot. Perhaps my tastes were formed by admiring some sharps with their dome tops and Docs that aren’t uncommon in punk rock circles.
Comment #350: Amanda Marcotte on 08/07 at 02:15 PM
Oh, oh… and “Mystery”?
You worship a dude who makes a living dressed up in a FUCKING PIRATE OUTFIT, SKULLCAP, FRILLY RUFFLED SHIRT AND ALL!!!!
What gets me is how our PUA dismisses numerous cogent arguments of why the PUA shit doesn’t work with “that mean’s you aren’t doing it right”. That makes it clear to me that it’s no different from every other snake oil scam out there. It actually reminds me of people I know who are into the Secret and similar types of woo horseshit. “It’s not the program. The program works if you work it. It must be you.”
turning out like this creep has always been my number 1 literal nightmare. it’s a recurring dream. I’m my current age (50) and have to return to school to finish my degree for some reason. So there I am, living in the dorm, I’m 50 years old, and never married, no girlfriend, too old for the coeds, totally alone. I had this dream just two nights ago. (shiver).
Then I wake up and give my wife the biggest hug I can manage....
Can someone explain to me why a man who haven’t had sex in 20 years spends $895 on a seminar with a dude instead of paying for a prostitute ?
THIS is the PUA problem right there to me. The men who do it want to cheat women into going to bed with them by manipulating them. They could have used the same amount of money on an honest bid for sex with a professional, but no, they need to have the feeling they duped the girl!
PUA clients are rotten misogynistic fools. May Steele and others fleece them for all they have! Just deserts for them trying to fleece women.
I dig bald dudes, if they accept they’re bald. I think they’re hot. Perhaps my tastes were formed by admiring some sharps with their dome tops and Docs that aren’t uncommon in punk rock circles.
He has all these graphs demonstrating that if you don’t have a bed to sleep in, you will have trouble getting laid.
Um, what?
I mean, yeah, maybe you sleep on the couch. But do not expect anyone to screw you on a couch! Maybe, maybe if it has a really nice fold-out bed or was purchased with excellent specifications specifically for screwing. Maybe.
Aside from that...what else do people sleep on, in America at least?
hen are the guys who get really defensive and start insulting. They’ll call me a slut, or fat, or ugly, which is really ridiculous because they apparently liked me enough to hit on me in the first place.
Oh yeah, the worst things I’ve had said to my face in my life have been by men who I turned down POLITELY when they wanted to date me. All of them were my ‘friend’ first too, for a couple of years in one case. So much for that. Then suddenly, I’m ‘not exactly beautiful’ and ‘need to lose weight in x-body part’ and blahfuckingblahididntlikeyouthatmuchanyway. Right, that’s why you so desperately wanted to get into my pants, matey.
Any men reading this, please know that this behavior simply confirms our decision not to date you, ensures our last memory of you is as a great squalling infant and opens the door for me to tell everyone that you have a fetish for boinking ‘ugly’ girls.
“It’s not the program. The program works if you work it. It must be you.”
And of course if you are able to achieve the promised results, you don’t need a fucking program anyway.
You worship a dude who makes a living dressed up in a FUCKING PIRATE OUTFIT, SKULLCAP, FRILLY RUFFLED SHIRT AND ALL!!!!
To be fair, as a young girl I thought Adam Ant was pretty hot with his pirate getup, before he became a gun-waving nutburger. Goes to show looks aren’t everything, I guess.
Well, they do pay for prostitutes, lost. But obviously, paying someone makes it hard to maintain the illusion that she’s willing.
Men go to prostitutes for entirely separate reasons. Again, sex is rarely all there is to it. The act of paying for sex in and of itself is the turn on. For men who target streetwalkers, especially, the pleasure is often trying to get the drug addict to lower her price from $5 to $2 for a blow job, to get off on her desperation. Obviously, the ones involved with more expensive prostitutes are probably not as bad, but they’re nonetheless interested in paying for it. PUAs are interested in making women out to be fools.
Comment #361: Amanda Marcotte on 08/07 at 02:38 PM
I’ve read way too much from the PUA justification trolls on this thread.
But no matter their sputtering defense, it’s clear PUA is about hating women, objectifying them as the Other, and Lesser-Than-Human, flat cardboard cutouts suitable for masturbating on, or using as targets.
The PUA trolls may refuse to see what is said about (and done to) women by the leaders and followers of PUA as any indication of the above, but it’s harder to ignore their bigotry when it slops over into the way they regard other Less Than Human scapegoats.
Sodini’s PUA guru Steele:
“I’m not anti-Semitic. I just hate kikes,” Steele responds when he’s asked about the posts. And he goes on to explain that there’s a difference between Jews and “kikes,” African-Americans and “niggers,” and Mexicans and “beans.”
“Amerika has chosen The Black Man. Good! In light of this I got ideas outside of Obama’s plans for the economy and such. Here it is: Every black man should get a young white girl hoe to hone up on. Kinda a reverse indentured servitude thing. Long ago, many a older white male landowner had a young Negro wench girl for his desires. Bout’ time tables are turned on that shit. Besides, dem young white hoez dig da bruthrs! LOL. More so than they dig the white dudes!
Every daddy know when he sends his little girl to college, she be bangin a bruthr real good. I saw it. “Not my little girl”, daddy says! (Yeah right!!) Black dudes have thier choice of best white hoez. You do the math, there are enough young white so all the brothers can each have one for 3 or 6 months or so.”
There is a flip side of this that few are acknowledging - remember that stooopeeedass “The Rules” book for women???
Oh, it wasn’t lost on me at all. In fact, when my male friends told me about The Game, the first thing out of my mouth was, “so it’s like The Rules, but for guys?”
Re: Touching me when I don’t know you? It is amazingly easy to break the human finger, so go for that instead of the arm. Seriously, do NOT touch ANYONE without permission. Period. Full stop. At the bar where I used to work, we’d throw your ass out for that. With extreme prejudice.
I meant to address it when I saw it, but Zif defended this by suggesting that the PUA folks were just talking about a simple “handshake”.
1. Bullshit.
2. A handshake doesn’t typically involve uninvited touching. In most instances, one person extends their hand, and the other person must actively choose to accept the extended hand to commence the handshake.
3. Fucking bullshit. The PUAs aren’t recommending that you offer a polite “handshake"… they specifically suggest brushing your finger down her arm or on her back or across her cheek.
It ain’t the fucking same thing, and no, PUAs aren’t merely suggesting fucking handshakes as the method of initiating physical contact with a target. They are suggesting weird, creepy, uninvited intimate caresses that are completely innappropriate when encountering someone you just met, and would most certainly be grounds for sexual harassment if they tried it on a subordinate at work.
The PUA trolls may refuse to see what is said about (and done to) women by the leaders and followers of PUA as any indication of the above, but it’s harder to ignore their bigotry when it slops over into the way they regard other Less Than Human scapegoats.
Oh yeah, this strikes me as more whining white guy syndrome in which they obviously deserve anything they want and if they don’t get it it’s the fault of the dumb bitches or scapegoat X. And this all is a zero sum game, as stated upthread where the goal is to get the hot chick even though you’re not a football player. Because that’s not some sort of inferiority complex from high school or anything. It’s not about sex, it’s about dominance in which the joy is in thinking you’ve tricked women. It reminds me once when I was in college and was out, had a one-night stand with a guy, and the next day our friends were ribbing me about “falling” for his lines. The absolutely refused to believe that I just wanted to have sex and did and was done. They insisted that, no, I’d been duped.
DonnaDiva, I thought of The Secret, too. A magnificent load of woo. With a side of misogyny.
To be fair, as a young girl I thought Adam Ant was pretty hot with his pirate getup, before he became a gun-waving nutburger. Goes to show looks aren’t everything, I guess.
Indeed, as a SCAdian, the pirate look can be super hot. But there’s s time and a place for it.
Zif, if you won’t listen to the women on here, at least listen to a guy who’s been married for almost 20 years.
Stunning good looks aren’t natural, on men or on women. They take both hard work and money to achieve. For the sort of people who care enough to invest that time and effort, it’s a serious hobby, like music is for Amanda, or books are for my wife and me. If you’re trying to date a stunningly beautiful woman but aren’t interested in doing any of the work (going to the gym, shopping for tastefully flattering clothes, and so on) that’s involved, by definition you don’t share her interests. You’re not going to finesse that by being subtly insulting.
Not that I’ve ever been with anyone who society would call a supermodel or that I’ve ever even expected to date a supermodel…
Which is sort of the point. I don’t really understand the mechanism that enables ordinary average shlubs to expect to be dating supermodels and women of that ilk, or to feel cheated about this.
I’m a fairly attractive-ish woman. I’m intelligent, successful, and have been known to be charming on a few occasions. I live in a nice neighborhood, have cool friends, and even have a somewhat glamorous job. I get to experience a little of the fabulous side of New York life (sometimes my life even bears a tiny resemblance to Sex and the City). And yet nothing about me would lead me to believe that I “deserve” to be screwing actors, models, and other Beautiful People. Even if I have the opportunity to meet someone especially fabulous and allow myself to develop a little crush, I know that they’re way out of my league and try not to bug them by following them around like a puppydog.
Pennsylvania Gunman Used Same (out-of-state) Gun Store As Virginia Tech Shooter
BRIDGEVILLE, Pa. — The gunman who killed three women and wounded nine others at a Pittsburgh-area health club bought accessories for a handgun from the same Wisconsin-based dealer that sold a gun to the Virginia Tech shooter.
Forty-eight-year-old George Sodini bought the accessories from TGSCOM Inc. of Green Bay, Wis.
1. It’s a sure and quick thing.
2. They can pick the prostitute’s looks.
3. Its easier to hide from their GF/Wife.
This strikes me as untrue on many levels given that:
1. There is always a risk in these transactions that she’s simply going to rob you, that you will be interrupted, etc.
2. Very few real-life prostitution situations are like the Bunny Ranch where you can pick out a woman from a line-up. Many men have sex with prostitutes with looks they would never consider dating.
3. This seems very untrue since an arrest is very difficult to conceal.
PUAs are interested in making women out to be fools
Amanda
I think PUAs don’t believe that prostitutes “count”. It’s not about sex, it’s about getting something from a woman without giving her what she wants.
catgirl
Yeah, that is the vibe I get from all the PUA sites. It is a form of revenge on women who would normally reject them. “See ? I can get you 9+ to eat out of my hand”. And a “nya-nyah” rebuttal on their male / female friends that tell them to be less picky. “I told you I could do it without paying for a hooker!”
The very things that make men get PUA advice is what is driving loving women away from them. But what do they care ? They are in it to boost their ego.
Llelldorin, you described it perfectly. Hot women aren’t just born that way; they work hard for it. It’s perfectly reasonable for them to expect the same work from a man.
I want to reiterate that we’re all still falling for the men-as-agents in the dating game. Most of the men I’ve had, I picked up myself. Most men do not generally go after the 5’10” plus sized women like myself and being the agent in my own life feels really awesome.
I happen to be someone that doesn’t mind talking to strangers or being touched casually in conversation* with anyone. It undoubtedly comes from growing up in the middle of nowhere with a father that loved to talk to anyone and everyone about anything at any time. What I don’t like are the people that don’t understand when such an interaction should end and they should leave me alone. Like when I clearly am reading a book and said “go away” several times. My perspective is that the world is mostly decent, interesting people with a small portion of assholes. This PUA scam just creates more assholes that don’t respect the end of the conversation or interaction.
*I would be put off by a person I met on the street just touching me, but if we had been talking about something for a little while, then it might seem odd, but not off-putting.
Llelldorin, word. I am consistently amazed by our culture’s inability to recognize how much work goes into hotness even for the genetically predisposed. While it’s a hobby many people enjoy - even though it’s widely denigrated - it is still work and represents a substantial investment of time and money. I don’t think there’s a single other hobby in our culture where the work is so widely denigrated and the results are so widely prized.
Judybrowni, I wonder what it’s like to work in that gun store. I wonder if you feel guilty a lot?
But, yeah, what everyone said about it not being about the physical urges. Masturbation doesn’t “count” and neither do prostitutes. You can’t brag about that to your friends or w/e he wanted to do.
I would also note, lostmypassword and exholt, that paying for prostitutes can be seen as an admission of defeat, an admission that one can’t get it any other way. In Sodini’s case it would have preferable to the form his final admission of his own loserdom did take.
I don’t post here often, and typically only when I’m feeling irritated enough to enthusiastically disagree with something (so yeah, usually being a bit of a jerk), but I just feel the need to say that Amanda’s post at 10pm is a tour de force. Good show.
Also fucking a prostitute, while it would be physically enjoyable for him, wouldn’t increase his social status. Which is what it is really all about. He had his status and self-worth all wrapped up in how many women he fucked how many times. Nothing else mattered to him--not his career, or hobbies, or something else interesting, he pinned his entire self-worth on how many women would voluntarily have sex with him. Which is just sad.
It seems to me you could get a border-line Emperor’s Club type of hooker for that much cash.
Was thinking for that much cash, he could have also taken an evening/weekend class in something interesting, bought himself a mid-high end electric guitar/bass...sometimes with amps and accessories, a new wardrobe, etc.
Moreso if you consider the money he spent on the guns, ammunition, and accessories. Last I checked....that’s at least a few hundred dollars more right there....
Was thinking for that much cash, he could have also taken an evening/weekend class in something interesting, bought himself a mid-high end electric guitar/bass...sometimes with amps and accessories, a new wardrobe, etc.
Yeah, really. That’s only $350 less than what I spend on my rent!
I always had an easy time meeting women. I’m a decently good looking (although thin-haired), well educated guy with a good job and liberal politics. There is an incredibly awesome pool of dating candidates for guys like me, especially as I moved into my late 20’s.
On the other hand, when I was in the appropriate age range, I had no prospect of picking up available women looking for meaningless sex in MTV Spring Break type settings. I was invisible to party girls who were looking for a good time.
My take on the PUA thing is that there is a female equivalent of the PUA douchebag, and that whole clique has their own dating rules. These PUA guys would never have any success with my wife, but I have no doubt that they actually succeed with women I’d never have a chance with. I think it’s a mistake to trash the PUA thing without acknowledging that there actually are women who respond to this kind of low IQ battle of attitudes.
yeah, I still want to hear Zifab’s advice to the ugly woman who wants to date the Brad Pitt-looking guy....
Actually, this is also somewhat related to conversations about prostitution.* The fast majority of prostitutes are women, and some people will justify it by saying that these women fill a need for guys who are ugly/geeky/old/whatever that just can’t get sex for free.** However, women are always left out of this conversation. Women who can’t get sex for free are expected to just be celibate. Sex is seen as a right for men, and if they can’t get it, they can either just pay for it or trick some hot woman into giving it to them. Women who have trouble getting sex are supposed to just be celibate.
*Disclaimer: I certainly think that prostitution should be legal, and I’m not judgmental about the morality of sex workers. However, I’m not a big fan of sex-for-money for various reasons, but I think the problem is on the demand side, not the supply side.
**Yes, prostitution isn’t just about not being able to get laid. There are a lot more issues involved.
On the other hand, when I was in the appropriate age range, I had no prospect of picking up available women looking for meaningless sex in MTV Spring Break type settings. I was invisible to party girls who were looking for a good time.
So then stop looking for young party girls and hit on women your own age, duh.
These PUA guys would never have any success with my wife, but I have no doubt that they actually succeed with women I’d never have a chance with.
No, women really are smart enough to realize when they’re dealing with a PUA. Even the dumbest woman isn’t fooled by these tricks. If some woman does have sex with a PUA, it’s in spite of the game, not because of it. Really, give women a little more credit.
I really think that’s part of the problem - people have said random things about Asberger’s or other autism, but to me he seems just a low IQ sociopath. (in the media we’re usually presented with high IQ sociopaths, twirling their mustaches and getting away with it) Dwelling ONLY on the superficial, not understanding how it really works between actual humans - no empathy, caring overwhelmingly about status. that’s sociopathy. And this PUA thing attracting sociopaths - makes tons of sense - and creating an echo chamber for misogynists is terrifying - and supplying them with easy access to guns! And our society in the US catering toward sociopathic values - that’s not news either.
As a guy about to hit the dating scene after the end of a 23-year relationship with the only person I’ve ever had sex with, this thread has been a lot of fun.
I somehow doubt that Cassanova and Ben Franklin used PUA tactics ... or even Wilt Chamberlan!
Yes, this, Ms Kate.
There is a huge difference between having a set of lines and having the savoir faire to deliver them.
These guys see themselves as Sean Connery. Uh, yeah.
I think it’s a mistake to trash the PUA thing without acknowledging that there actually are women who respond to this kind of low IQ battle of attitudes.
Except that, for the most part, we’re not trashing because “like, omg, that would NEVER work on ANYONE!” We’re trashing it because it’s misogynist and disingenuous bullcrap.
I’m sure there is a certain brand of low-self-esteem 19 year old country-come-to-town stripper/waitress/shot girl who eats that shit up. And if all you want to do is shag such women, sure, learn magic tricks and wear a shiny shirt. You’ll still be a sexist choad for dedicating yourself to duping sad silly little girls into sleeping with you.
the other thing that boggles is that these guys aren’t reading self-help books about how to work on yourself, honestly interact better with people, how to develop empathy, etc etc - there is SO much out there!
Instead, they read books that might as well be called “how to bend people to your will” - I mean, that’s the problem! right there! bzzzzzzzz automatic creep alert going off!
“Guns are like drugs, if he couldn’t get ‘em froma store, he would have gotten them from the black market.”
More NRA justification—which also doesn’t explain why in countries where it’s near impossible to get (anything but sport) guns legally (England, for instance) shooting deaths are relatively rare.
I was in England in the early ‘80s before the Brixton (race) riots, sitting outside the public library while the police arrested someone.
The crowd got ugly and it looked as tho they were about to tip over a police car, until one of the cops told the crowd that the miscreant “had a gun!”
The crowd backed off, cooled off—if that fellow had a gun he was obviously up to no good, and they certainly didn’t want to be on the other end of that muzzle.
If only the NRA idiots (and their apologists) displayed that kind of common sense and self-preservation.
Yeah, really. That’s only $350 less than what I spend on my rent!
Seminar on Pickup Arts - $895
Guns, ammo, and accessories - ~$500+
Feeling so angry, cowardly, and over entitled to murder 3 women because of rejection derived from setting one’s standards so high and being a longtime hostile vengeful homicidal maniac - ABSOLUTELY WORTHLESS
I’m sure there is a certain brand of low-self-esteem 19 year old country-come-to-town stripper/waitress/shot girl who eats that shit up.
I’m not so sure about this. It may seem to work, but the woman most likely sees that it’s a game and then plays her own game with the guy. It might work on some extremely naive girl who has never dated a man before, but even 19-year-old strippers can recognize the game.
Actually, this is also somewhat related to conversations about prostitution.* The fast majority of prostitutes are women, and some people will justify it by saying that these women fill a need for guys who are ugly/geeky/old/whatever that just can’t get sex for free.** However, women are always left out of this conversation. Women who can’t get sex for free are expected to just be celibate. Sex is seen as a right for men, and if they can’t get it, they can either just pay for it or trick some hot woman into giving it to them. Women who have trouble getting sex are supposed to just be celibate.
Oh but (insert some evo psych bullshit canard about the male’s great “need” to spread his seed or whatever).
The whole PUA thing just floors me- and reminds me (not in a good way) of a couple of guys I have known.
Guy # 1 was a co-worker of my boyfriend at the time. He spent all his time at work or at home, he went nowhere, he did nothing socially unless pressed to it by others. He had zero hobbies outside watching whatever was on tv. His personal hygiene was of the ‘minimum to be able to go to work’ variety, his wardrobe seemed to consist entirely of work uniforms and promotional giveaway tee shirts.
His favorite topic of discussion was how unfair it was he didn’t have a girlfriend. I don’t know, maybe he thought there was an office somwhere that issued them? One day I suggested he spend less time bitching and more time out meeting people, because his dream girl was not going to kick in his door and scream ‘take me now!’ if she didn’t know he existed. He stopped talking to me, and started telling my boyfriend to break up with me because I was a ballbreaker. Heh.
Guy # 2 was a housemate in a communal housing situation. Middle aged. Average looks. Spent his off hours hanging out in bars and talking NASCAR. Utterly convinced he deserved a beer poster pretty babe under the age of 25. Refused to date women his own age, didn’t like women who were too involved in their careers, wanted to have kids some day but was not willing to date anyone who already had kids because they got on his nerves, ect ect ect. And totally baffled that he was still single. He asked me once what my husband had that he didn’t, because every woman he knew liked my husband.
“He treats women like people,” I said.
“Yeah, but what’s the trick to that? I mean, how does that work?”
Still single. Who’d have thunk? These are the PUA huckster’s marks, as seen in the wild.
Catgirl, my point isn’t that I want to date party girls. It’s that douchebags really do get laid. Surely, I’m not the only one with MTV (which, I’m just going to say in advance, I wouldn’t watch except that my wife likes to watch it). These women who come back to the Real World house, or the women grinding and kissing on douchebag fratboys at Las Vegas hotels and Spring Break beaches, really do respond to douchebag fratboys who act like belligerent jerks. I’m not judging – I’m just noting that they exist.
wrong, since you’ve been wrong about everything else, I’m going to go ahead and suggest you’re wrong here. Or are you such a prig that you refuse to believe that paying for sex might just be its own fetish?
Comment #415: Amanda Marcotte on 08/07 at 04:18 PM
Ben D - WTF? don’t you read anything? WE are supplying guns to MEXICO - not the other way around.
People die all the time in Mexico because of OUR lax gun laws.
Wallace, the fallacy in your argument is that you fail to realize that women can also be douchebags. Like attracts like. The male douchebag’s natural mate is the female douchebag. I fail to see why this bothers you, unless you are falling into the trap of seeing all women as a single Woman, one who gives the pussy to douchebags and not to you.
Comment #417: Amanda Marcotte on 08/07 at 04:19 PM
“He treats women like people,” I said.
“Yeah, but what’s the trick to that? I mean, how does that work?”
Still single. Who’d have thunk? These are the PUA huckster’s marks, as seen in the wild.
I wonder if the PUA’s who think there is a ‘system’ for picking up women also think there is a ‘system’ that works in Vegas. Betcha.
Heh, Jesse said the same thing to me.
Comment #419: Amanda Marcotte on 08/07 at 04:21 PM
It’s that douchebags really do get laid.
Douchebags get laid because they give those particular women what they want - good looks. It has nothing to do with game. If a woman has sex with a PUA, it’s because she already decided he was hot and tolerate the PUA nonsense anyway. They have sex with the guys in spite of their behavior, not because of it. They would have had sex with that guy even if he hadn’t acted like a jerk. Why is that so hard to understand?
So then stop looking for young party girls and hit on women your own age, duh.
catgirl, I have to respond to this - Wallace clearly said “when I was the appropriate age” and is now in his late 20’s. He also claimed to have “no prospect”, which didn’t even imply that he wanted to hit on them. He may have done it, failed, and realized that it just wasn’t in the cards and moved on.
Ben D - WTF? don’t you read anything? WE are supplying guns to MEXICO - not the other way around.
Most of the guns used are military-grade weapons, which are already illegal here. There are handguns smuggled from here, yes, but the drug kingpings get a lot of their weapons through corrupt military officials in Mexico.
Pandagon, notoriously, is crawling with liberal, progressive and leftist gun owners, gun sport enthusiasts, and Second Amendment partisans. Please let’s not start accusing one another of supporting a right-wing lobbying group like the NRA. It just ain’t so.
—which also doesn’t explain why in countries where it’s near impossible to get (anything but sport) guns legally (England, for instance) shooting deaths are relatively rare.
Well, you have to explain why Canada, with gun laws very similar to the USA, has a much lower rate of shooting deaths and gun crime. Michael Moore brings this up in Bowling for Columbine. If it were simply a matter of laws and availability, then Canada should have a much higher rate of gun crime than it does.
I did not read that Wallace was upset by douchebags getting laid at all. After all, he’s already married. He didn’t use the phrase “female douchebags” to refer to the women that do sleep with the douchebags, so what he might be guilty of is assuming that women are a monolithic class, but even that is a big maybe.
I’m sorry, Wallace. I reread your comment, and see what you mean.
You’re right about the douche on douche love. But phrasing it as “douchebags get laid” got my hackles up. There’s no secret to it. Morons + liquor + aggravated sexual dissatisfaction due to low skills/interest in others=lots of random hook-ups.
Comment #425: Amanda Marcotte on 08/07 at 04:29 PM
If a woman has sex with a PUA, it’s because she already decided he was hot and tolerate the PUA nonsense anyway.
Or becasue she wants the no-strings-attached sex from somebody that nobody will ever think she shouldn’t just drop tomorrow.
Well, you have to explain why Canada, with gun laws very similar to the USA, has a much lower rate of shooting deaths and gun crime. Michael Moore brings this up in Bowling for Columbine.
Or Finland, or Switzerland. Or why Vermont isn’t number 1 in homicide per capita, and why Montana isn’t a cesspool of crime. High crime areas will have high gun ownership, but areas with high gun ownership aren’t all high crime.
“if handguns were illegal they wouldn’t be more difficult to buy than heroin or cocaine.”
Live in your fantasy-land, if you like, but countries that prohibit general gun ownership have relatively rare deaths by gunshot. Duh.
Even the Prohibition years of alcohol, did actually restrain the drinking of alcohol (I’ve seen the charts, and drinking alcohol plummeted during Prohibition. Making alcohol more difficult to buy, yes indeedy, made it more difficult to find and drink.)
Please now don’t yammer on about the ills that Prohibition of alcohol then incurred, I’m not advocating prohibition of alcohol—it’s not an exact analogy, for one thing, alcohol being something that is more generally consumed by the public.
Compared to the general public gun ownership is rare compared to anyone who drinks alcohol. Heroin and cocaine may be easy for you to come by, but I’d be clueless at the moment how to obtain either, and it’s certainly difficult for children to obtain, whereas:
“In 1999, 3,385 kids ages 0-19 years were killed with a gun. This includes homicides, suicides, and unintentional injuries.
This is equivalent to about 9 deaths per day, a figure commonly used by journalists.
The 3,385 firearms-related deaths for age group 0-19 years breaks down to:
214 unintentional
1,078 suicides
1,990 homicides
83 for which the intent could not be determined
20 due to legal intervention
Of the total firearms-related deaths:
73 were of children under five years old
416 were children 5-14 years old
2,896 were 15-19 years old “
I’m pretty sure Wallace is saying that the 20-something hottiezz weren’t interested in him even when he was that age.
Totally OT, but I’ve learned from internet dating (and maybe this plays in with the “marginally literate” tangent from another recent thread) that any pragmatic deal-breaker you put in your profile will have virtually no impact on the responses you get.
The guys who write “no fatties” or something similar in their profiles always crack me up. I guess they’re willing to alienate the considerable number of thin women who are insecure about their weight or are turned off by that sort of crap just to spare themselves the horrific indignity of being seen in public with a fat woman.
the gym was where the murderer felt simultaneously the most powerful (lifting weights, getting the workout rush) and the least powerful (surrounded by women he found attractive who weren’t giving him a second glance).
It’s funny, because I’m far more likely to give the time of day to a guy at the gym I’m not attracted to. Attractive guys are a distraction from what I’m trying to accomplish. It also helps that my gym is not a meat market.
There’s nothing wrong with bald men. But, like anything, you gotta know what to do with it to make it look good.
Just no combovers! I personally prefer the Patrick Stewart look over the completely shaved head look—at least on most guys. Big men can get away with a shaved head, but I think a completely shaved head looks kind of strange on shorter, skinnier guys. But that’s just my preference.
Oh, and the National NRA* is just a glorified arm of the Republican Party. They opposed Sotomayor’s nomination, for God’s sake, for some bullshit made-up reason. PLEASE don’t tar me with their brush!
*Which is very different from the individual state-level divisions of the NRA.
but I’d be clueless at the moment how to obtain either, and it’s certainly difficult for children to obtain
Bwahahaha! Difficult? Go visit a high school, or even a middle school in downtown Richmond (where I live) sometime. Or ask someone who works in them. If you have the cash, you can get drugs.
Suicides? Any kind of private gun ownership is illegal in Japan, but they have one of the world’s highest suicide rates. Much higher than the United States. There are many ways to kill yourself.
Reiterate: Sorry I misread you, Wallace. I agree with you that a lot of loser douchebags seen more effective douchebags bedding douchebag women and want to know the secret. A lot nerdy douchebags, in fact, who think of only the sort of baffling women who wear stilettos to a beach party when they think of the category “women”, and don’t understand why they can’t get with them. They’re naked right there in Maxim! It should be easy!
They buy these books. Also, apparently, middle-aged miscreants who pay money to have actresses lie to them about how they’d totally sleep with them at “seminars”.
Comment #432: Amanda Marcotte on 08/07 at 04:35 PM
OK what is it with the “shiny shirt” thing? What is their “reasoning” behind dressing up like that?
They call it “peacocking”, and it’s one of the few ideas in the books that actually makes a degree of sense. Instead of going out in nondescript polos and khakis like every other guy out there, wear something flashier. If you look like you stand out from the crowd, women will assume that it’s not just wardrobe deep. Mystery and his ilk suggest classic mid-to-late 90’s douchey rave-poseur gear. Of course, it doesn’t work because of magical PUA voodoo, or because shiny shirts and big stupid hats radiate sex appeal. It works because, standing apart from the crowd really will get people to notice you. A cool t-shirt, interesting tat, or some dapper accessories work equally well.
I grew up in a household with guns in it. When I was around six years old, I was told Don’t you ever, ever, ever touch this! Understand?. Similar to how my parents told me never to put my finger in an electrical socket or play in traffic.
Heroin and cocaine may be easy for you to come by, but I’d be clueless at the moment how to obtain either, and it’s certainly difficult for children to obtain, whereas:
If a parent keeps their heroin and cocaine in an unlocked dresser drawer, then the kids are going to find it and play with it. Most addicts know better.
Kids aren’t buying cocaine on the streets. Restricting the traffic of cocaine isn’t going to affect how many kids overdose on daddy’s stash. Kids aren’t buying guns on the streets. Restricting the traffic of guns isn’t going to affect how many kids shoot themselves with daddy’s gun.
Guns should be legal. Gun owners should have to keep guns in locked gun-safes. People should have to provide proof that they own an adequate gun-safe before they can buy a gun.
I didn’t know there were “hello kitty” accessories for guns until now. I didn’t ask my question very well. What I meant was what accessories did the killer purchase. For no reason other than it might indicate long term planning rather than snapping. I didn’t want to turn this into a “gun thread.” Sorry to all.
Guns should be legal. Gun owners should have to keep guns in locked gun-safes. People should have to provide proof that they own an adequate gun-safe before they can buy a gun.
This. And gun store owners should recommend they take safety courses in the proper use, storage, and care of firearms. Guns are a tool. They don’t poses some kind of evil sentience* that turns people into maniacs. They are no different than a blowtorch, a butcher’s knife, or an automobile. The last one of those kills far, far, far more people in this country, btw.
*This applies equally to those who fetishize fireamrs in the other direction and see them as some kind of penis extension. It’s just a tool, people!
Yes, I’ve seen Bowling for Columbine, too—however, making something more difficult to obtain, also means it’s more difficult to obtain.
Which means fewer people can obtain, or use or abuse it.
If cocaine and heroin were as easy to obtain as guns, there would be more use and abuse of cocaine and heroin.
If guns were as difficult to obtain as cocaine or heroin, there would be fewer to use and abuse.
Simple math (and basic history.)
But, true, it doesn’t factor in the Scary Brown People Paranoia of gun nuts (which Michael Moore also covered in Bowling, as one big reason for why we don’t have decent gun control laws in the United States.)
(Sorry for bringing out the gun nuts in this thread, Amanda—as if the PUA apologists and sexists weren’t bad enough.)
But, true, it doesn’t factor in the Scary Brown People Paranoia of gun nuts
The first gun control laws in the country were aimed at blacks and other minorities. “Gun nuts”, the real ones, are somewhere between stamp collectors and train spotters in terms of scariness, btw.
The guys who write “no fatties” or something similar in their profiles always crack me up. I guess they’re willing to alienate the considerable number of thin women who are insecure about their weight or are turned off by that sort of crap just to spare themselves the horrific indignity of being seen in public with a fat woman.
Oh yeah. Sometimes they’ll even specify a certain weight range, without realizing that many women are not dainty ectomorphs and some of us would look downright scary at 125 lbs. I was like 145 lbs and a size 6 at the time. I’m sure I’d fit their standards if they met me but since they were douche-y enough to put such a rigid weight range on their ad like that they were never going to.
Couldn’t find any figures at all for children overdosing on Daddy’s stash—stats on gun deaths of children are readily accesible.
And the argument that drugs may be easy to obtain in any high school or college is a lame one for no gun control—the market for guns in a high school or college is damn small, for one.
They don’t equate: illegal drugs/illegal guns.
The underlying paranoia in these gun nut comments: “If guns were illegal, only (scary brown people) would have guns. I WOULDN’T—HOW COULD I DEFEND MYSELF FROM (imaginary) SCARY BROWN PEOPLE!”
It was no accident “Mexico” popped up right away, although gun nut got the statistics wrong, of course, and going the wrong way.
I brought it up because it is a country that isn’t very good with law enforcement and could supply a ready black market for that reason. See: drugs and Mexico. I bet Russia would be a supplier, too, and they’re lily-white.
Clearly Ben D. did not sit at a table in a public restaurant with close family members circa December, 2008 and hear them openly and blatantly say something to the effect of, “Now that Obama is going to be President, I think it’s time to go stock up on more guns.”
These close family members, btw, are people that, prior to this conversation I would never have considered “gun nuts”. Just nice sane people who happened to own guns to use as a tool for hunting. Suddenly we elect a black president and they’re ready to stock up on ammo and head for the hills.
I learned in December that there is really not a whole lot of space between “nice person who happens to own a firearm for reasonable purposes” and “scary bigoted gun nut who thinks there’s a race war a-comin’”. And I grew up in the rural south, in a gun-owning family. I’m sure there are some people who keep firmly to one side of that line, but really, you’d be surprised.
Does anyone really need an excuse to wear a shiny shirt? I mean, it’s shiny! I have one shirt that has a certain degree of opalescence, it’s just fun to look at. Why shouldn’t I wear that when I’m going out?
making something more difficult to obtain, also means it’s more difficult to obtain.
Nice tautology. Making something illegal, though, doesn’t necessarily make it more difficult to obtain.
Ask any teenager whether it’s easier for them to buy marijuana or beer.
If cocaine and heroin were as easy to obtain as guns, there would be more use and abuse of cocaine and heroin.
Cocaine and heroin are much, much more easy to obtain than guns. I can buy cocaine in the next fifteen minutes and heroin within an hour, and nobody is going to do a criminal background check on me prior to the sale.
(Sorry for bringing out the gun nuts in this thread, Amanda—as if the PUA apologists and sexists weren’t bad enough.)
Great. You just crossed the line from discussing to trolling.
Oh, and they have a scarcity mentality because they swallowed all the bullshit about how Democrats want to outlaw guns, and they think they have to buy them all up before they’re gone.
Oh, and they have a scarcity mentality because they swallowed all the bullshit about how Democrats want to outlaw guns, and they think they have to buy them all up before they’re gone.
That wasn’t the upshot of the conversation. Believe me.
The guys who write “no fatties” or something similar in their profiles always crack me up. I guess they’re willing to alienate the considerable number of thin women who are insecure about their weight or are turned off by that sort of crap just to spare themselves the horrific indignity of being seen in public with a fat woman.
I think these guys are seriously just too stupid/naive/whatever to realize that many women are very insecure about their weight. They have no idea what women go through to look good, and that might be part of the reason that they’re so unwilling to go through all that stuff to make themselves look good.
I have a very real and legitimate fear of being assaulted by heterosexual white men. It’s happened before. I’m not irrationally paranoid about this. I have a right to defend myself.
It’s no accident (Scary Brown People) that Mexico popped up right away from a gun nut, and that when he qouted me back, he left off the second half of my sentence, that gun nut even got the gunrunning backwards: the problem is US illegal guns infect Mexico, and not the reverse.
And his next comments got the (imaginary, former) Commies into it: he bets illegal guns would come from Russia, if Scary Brown People didn’t supply ‘em.
It’s gun nut apalooza!
Supply and demand: if something is illegal it’s more difficult to come by, and abuse, then if it’s legal and readily bought.
Hence more overdose deaths from aspirin and Tylenol, than illegal drugs.
(And noooooooooo, I’m not suggesting that headache remedies should be prohibited, but the warnings on overdose possibilty should be more generally known.)
I wonder how many men there are on dating sites with No Fatties and such on their profiles who either blanket-attack women’s profiles regardless of anything she may have written about what she’s looking for, or, even better, write hateful screeds to women who stipulate far more socially acceptable and pragmatic needs.
I learned in December that there is really not a whole lot of space between “nice person who happens to own a firearm for reasonable purposes” and “scary bigoted gun nut who thinks there’s a race war a-comin’”. And I grew up in the rural south, in a gun-owning family. I’m sure there are some people who keep firmly to one side of that line, but really, you’d be surprised.
I wouldn’t be surprised. I know those racists. And I don’t think Ben or I are suggesting that there aren’t a bunch of them out there.
They aren’t in this thread, though, and I wish that leftists who work against white privilege could be allowed to have a frank discussion about guns without being trolled by judybrowni at 05:05 PM.
‘Kay, I give up. It was all my fault. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.
judybrowni:
Except the whole Mexico thing has escalated now to full automatic weapons and RPG’s. They are NOT buying those in gun stores. Period.
Yes, I’ve seen Bowling for Columbine, too—however, making something more difficult to obtain, also means it’s more difficult to obtain.
Which means fewer people can obtain, or use or abuse it.
Which is a tautology, except that “when guns are outlawed only outlaws will have guns” is too.
Just because you pass a gun ban doesn’t mean anyone is going to comply with it. That is to say that “making something more difficult to obtain” is, at best, an assumption. The horse is out of the barn.
Since the demise of the USSR in 1991, the world is awash in weapons that are far more scary than anything you can buy at Joe’s Tackle Shop.
I’d support some kind of licensing scheme similar to cars where you have to be trained by a state (or, hell, state-approved private) agency in gun safety and ownership before buying a gun for the first time. I think that would be way more effective at reducing (accidental, at least) gun deaths than a hand gun ban.
But of course it was white people who made the laws prohibiting blacks from owning guns!
(Scary Brown People!)
If only whites could be gun nuts, then they could “defend” themselves during lynchings and what not.
Again, my apologies Amanda, for bringing out the gun nuts and their tired, dangerous tropes.
And no, for the next gun nut straw dog, warnings against aspirin are not the equivalent to teaching children how to use guns safely.
Since guns are not made to combat headaches, only to shoot—and except for “sport” guns—built specifically for the purpose of shooting and killing people.
But who could have predicted that a “tool” to kill people would be abused!
Having worked with sex workers, a fair number of them talked about johns having a variety of motivations other than just fast, easy sex. Common among them was the sense of ownership coming with paying for a service. Another common thread was a really nasty virgin/whore streak and wanting to do things they would not want to do with their wives.
And you really think there’s no risk of having a scam run on you when you go to craigslist for your sex worker? I’m certain no one has ever used the Internet to run a scam before!
But of course it was white people who made the laws prohibiting blacks from owning guns!
Twist my words. I said it wasn’t white gun nuts. I didn’t say it wasn’t white people.
The War on Drugs is a war against the poor.
What do you think the results of a gun ban would be? It won’t inconvenience the rich and privileged. They will still be able to buy whatever they want and kill whomever they want. They will still have the power of state violence to secure their private property. It will be the working classes who are prevented from defending themselves.
And you really think there’s no risk of having a scam run on you when you go to craigslist for your sex worker? I’m certain no one has ever used the Internet to run a scam before!
Or, more rarely, get murdered. I.e., that Boston killer.
Speaking of Craigslist, if you want to lose faith in humanity really quickly, look at the dating section. You don’t even have to go to the “discrete encounters” section or whatever. Just the vanilla dating section is chock full of the clueless, weirdos, creeps, or some combination of the three. Especially the Men for Women section.
I think these guys are seriously just too stupid/naive/whatever to realize that many women are very insecure about their weight. They have no idea what women go through to look good, and that might be part of the reason that they’re so unwilling to go through all that stuff to make themselves look good.
Catgirl,
The main factor IME is the fact that dating women perceived to be fat is seen by other men in many male-centered social circles...especially the frat types as a sign of utter desperation and/or an exhibition of a weird deviant sexual fetish on part of the dating male and would instantly annihilate what little social status/macho cred he may have had in that group. What’s worse is that there are families where older relatives and parents would feel a younger male relative/child who is dating a fat woman is embarrassing the family for the same reasons.
Even if they did know about how women are very insecure about their weight, their concerns about maintaining their social standing with their fellow buddies in that group/family trumps them.
I’d support some kind of licensing scheme similar to cars where you have to be trained by a state (or, hell, state-approved private) agency in gun safety and ownership before buying a gun for the first time. I think that would be way more effective at reducing (accidental, at least) gun deaths than a hand gun ban.
Also a good idea. I’d require occasional re-tests, because some people acquire bad habits later on.
“Just because you pass a gun law doesn’t mean anyone is going to abide by it.”
Well, actually, it does.
Everyone not interested in being arrested, convicted and etc. will abide by it—those caught not abiding it, would spend time in a locked facility away from the rest of us, which would also cut down on the number of illegal guns. And again, if there are no gun stores (or the few related to hunting) there’s less opportunity to buy, hence fewer buys.
And for those who say they’d “support” licensing and training by the state—ha! that’s what gun nut membership in the NRA pays to thwart.
(Even if you in particular aren’t a member of the NRA, there’s certainly not a large number of gun nuts lobbying strongly for that licensing.)
And for those who say they’d “support” licensing and training by the state—ha! that’s what gun nut membership in the NRA pays to thwart.
(Even if you in particular aren’t a member of the NRA, there’s certainly not a large number of gun nuts lobbying strongly for that licensing.)
And of course we aren’t members hre. But judybrowni, you have assumed that the goddamned NRA speaks for most gun owners. They don’t, and most are not members. The majority of gun owners support the licensing and registration of guns.
Even if they did know about how women are very insecure about their weight, their concerns about maintaining their social standing with their fellow buddies in that group/family trumps them.
Oh absolutely. This entire PUA shit has little to do with actual desire for women and is really just a cock-size comparison between men. It’s a competitive battle to trump other men in quantity or “quality.”
Speaking of Craigslist, if you want to lose faith in humanity really quickly, look at the dating section. You don’t even have to go to the “discrete encounters” section or whatever. Just the vanilla dating section is chock full of the clueless, weirdos, creeps, or some combination of the three. Especially the Men for Women section.
Yechh!! Had to take a shower right after being naive enough to go there to see what kinds of posts were there.
Among the worst ones were the legions of apocryphal angry male rants about meeting a potential seemingly attractive date online only to be devastated when they found that instead of her being a young slender woman fitting beauty standards, she turned out to be 20-30 years older than stated age and was an obese slob.
So there’s a big problem with rich people shooting the poor?
Sorry, but the rich have more subtle ways of successfully eliminating the lower classes, including blocking healthcare reform, although gun ownership is unlikely to fight that effectively either.
The poor must have guns to “defend” themselves from the rich—whoo! the paranoia is thick on the ground!
At that eliminationist grim fairy tale, I excuse myself: I really am in a debate with a nut or two, guns not withstanding.
Everyone not interested in being arrested, convicted and etc. will abide by it—those caught not abiding it, would spend time in a locked facility away from the rest of us, which would also cut down on the number of illegal guns. And again, if there are no gun stores (or the few related to hunting) there’s less opportunity to buy, hence fewer buys.
The naivité is blinding. Like “everyone not interested in being arrested, convicted and etc.” will not be a criminal in the first place and of course there are no criminals, now are there. Jeezus H. Christ. Look at the statistics in Australia since their big gun grab.
Where do you think the terrorists get their guns, Hakim’s Hunting?
Among the worst ones were the legions of apocryphal angry male rants about meeting a potential seemingly attractive date online only to be devastated when they found that instead of her being a young slender woman fitting beauty standards, she turned out to be 20-30 years older than stated age and was an obese slob.
Yup, seen a lot of those, but about 60% of them are just photos of guys with their cocks out, and that’s all. Like that is going to get a woman to jump in bed with you. I mean, really. Would anyone do that in a bar? No, not unless they wanted to risk getting arrested and/or having cut off. Then why do they think it is kosher on the internet?
So there’s a big problem with rich people shooting the poor?
Worldwide, yes, the rich are murdering the poor in massive numbers. They hire other poor people to do it. But the rich are the ones who buy and supply the weapons.
My God, how do people who follow this stuff not feel like complete and total jackasses?
My guess is that, by and large, the people following PUA advice are guys looking for a quick and easy cheatcode to fuck any woman. So they just follow what is mentioned in books, even if the books came out 10 years ago, or cater to a very specific regional and subcultural setting. The idea is supposed to be that this is some kind of magical sex voodoo, not that these are ideas one should apply to their own situation.
By by, gun nuts, you’re too crazy for a rational debate (kinda knew that going in, but it’s really a waste of time when you reveal yourself so readily as coo coo bananas.)
At that eliminationist grim fairy tale, I excuse myself: I really am in a debate with a nut or two, guns not withstanding.
You began by being immediately hateful and inflammatory. In spite of your trolling, we’ve been civil in return.
Other LGBT people can call me a fag, in good fun. Other gun owners can call me a gun nut. But when you do it, I recognize that you’re not here to have an honest conversation.
Again, judybrowni, I have a right to defend myself from heterosexual white men.
Yeah rich people are mowing down the poor in the United States with machine guns which is why all the gun nuts must have guns.
No, it’s more like the rest of us who realistically need protection from the gun nuts, and I must be psychic, because it’s the nuts who also want to prevent healthcare reform:
“Breaking: wingnut tweets followers to bring guns to meetings
Based on the news that health care events are edging into violence, an anti-health care reform protester in New Mexico named Scott Oskay is calling on his hundreds of online followers to bring firearms to town halls, and to ‘badly hurt’ SEIU and ACORN counter protesters.”
Something I keep thinking while reading this – especially in response to things about baldness, but about male attractiveness in general – is that it really isn’t that hard for an adult male who has his life together to be attractive to females. (I’m using “adult” as shorthand for 30+.) I mean, “no fatties” probably tells you everything you need to know about a guy. But for an adult male, if you like yourself and you genuinely like and respect women, great women are pretty available. Way more so than great guys are available for adult women. What causes these guys all this frustration isn’t some game that eludes them. It’s that women don’t want to be with guys who are quick to spout off hateful shit about minorities, and who only barely mask their contempt for women, and who otherwise have a chip on their shoulder about the burden men have to bare (that last part is meant sarcastically). Like yourself and don’t be hateful, and it’s not that hard to find a woman interested in being with you.
judybrowni, What country do you live in that it is impossible to buy things that are illegal? Because here in America, we do it all the fucking time and mostly don’t get arrested for it.
Perhaps my tastes were formed by admiring some sharps with their dome tops and Docs that aren’t uncommon in punk rock circles.
Hopefully you admired them from afar and didn’t have to interact with them too much.
I have direct knowledge (my two brothers are skins) that the gender politics of SHARPs isn’t always up to feminist par. It’s a lefty warrior culture, but that still makes it a warrior culture, with all it entails re: their views on women. See also: ‘hardcore’, i.e. metalcore, culture.
“Breaking: wingnut tweets followers to bring guns to meetings
Based on the news that health care events are edging into violence, an anti-health care reform protester in New Mexico named Scott Oskay is calling on his hundreds of online followers to bring firearms to town halls, and to ‘badly hurt’ SEIU and ACORN counter protesters.”
Thank you for making my point for me. I wouldn’t have found that if you hadn’t looked it up.
“Breaking: wingnut tweets followers to bring guns to meetings
Based on the news that health care events are edging into violence, an anti-health care reform protester in New Mexico named Scott Oskay is calling on his hundreds of online followers to bring firearms to town halls, and to ‘badly hurt’ SEIU and ACORN counter protesters.”
http://twitter.com/ScottEO is a privileged white man who is advocating violence against labor union members.
You couldn’t find a better example of rich-on-poor class warfare if you went back 100 years.
Ya know, Judy, the morphing of the righties into the reborn SA is precisely reason I won’t give up my guns. I’m not worried about the Commies....I’m worried about the neo-fascists. asdf is on to something here.
They will still have the power of state violence to secure their private property. It will be the working classes who are prevented from defending themselves.
Look, I’m not anti-gun by any means but you have to know how absurd the belief that ordinary people can arm themselves against the government is at this point. There are no weapons available to working class people that even compare to what the police and military have available to them.
Look, I’m not anti-gun by any means but you have to know how absurd the belief that ordinary people can arm themselves against the government is at this point. There are no weapons available to working class people that even compare to what the police and military have available to them.
There are no weapons available to working class people that even compare to what the police and military have available to them.
Wish you’d have told that to the Viet Cong, it would have saved us a lot of trouble. Of course if the boys at Lexington had thought things through we wouldn’t be having this debate.
Maybe one, rich white guy—who’s calling out HUNDREDS of his followers to take their guns into healthcare townhalls, so by your cockeyed logic, those hundreds would all be rich?
Yeah, right. They’re also not Scary Brown People, is my guess.
Your paranoia is built on sand, the actuality of hundreds of already armed (not rich) wingnuts is a frightening reality.
And what are those wingnuts “defending?” The right of the rich to eliminate the rest of us through the more subtle (but likely and realistic) means of lack of healthcare.
But I give up, it’s impossible to have a rational discussion with someone already armed with paranoid delusions (and guns, god help us.)
Maybe one, rich white guy—who’s calling out HUNDREDS of his followers to take their guns into healthcare townhalls, so by your cockeyed logic, those hundreds would all be rich?
I pretty much already answered this: “Worldwide, yes, the rich are murdering the poor in massive numbers. They hire other poor people to do it. But the rich are the ones who buy and supply the weapons.”
Of course there are gun owners who are working for the capitalist class. They’ve been hired for this shit for over 100 years.
Learn your labor history.
The fact that some scary people own guns does not give you the right to take away everyone else’s ability to defend themselves from those scary people.
Yeah, right. They’re also not Scary Brown People, is my guess.
Again, it’s heterosexual white men who have assaulted me. It’s heterosexual white men I’m afraid of. You can quit with the dishonesty.
Yeah, she’s said she was going to flounce off at least three times now.
Who can blame her, Ben? You’re insisting that gun owners should be required to take safety classes and keep their guns locked in safes. That’s downright crazy, so who could have a rational debate with you?
The point is, Sodini legally owned guns. How can we cut down on the ridiculously easiness of crazies getting guns?
Shootings happen all the time because people have access to guns. It’s not rocket science. And yes, if they’re legal, they ARE easier to get. Many people would not take the step to buy illegal guns, available or not.
Cutting down on proliferation is part of the solution. It’s that simple.
Wish you’d have told that to the Viet Cong, it would have saved us a lot of trouble. Of course if the boys at Lexington had thought things through we wouldn’t be having this debate.
Tell the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki while you’re at it. As for Vietnam, 50K American troops died. 2 million civilians did.
That was enough to break political will to fight here, wasn’t it? That’s all you have to do, break the political will of the invader. Yeah, I guess if they have the balls to use nuclear weapons, you’re screwed.
Many people would not take the step to buy illegal guns, available or not.
Proof please.
So somebody as crazy as Sodini, who was planning to kill himself, wouldn’t purchase a gun on the street? There wouldn’t be illegal drug dealers if drugs weren’t, ya know, illegal.
If there is a willing buyer and a willing seller and a supply, there will be a market. If not one more gun was ever sold legally there would still be a supply from hell. There may be 100+ million guns already out there. I regulary shoot a U. S. Army rifle made in 1898. They don’t go away.
You can click your heels all you wish but the U.S. is an armed nation and it’s going to stay that way.
That was enough to break political will to fight here, wasn’t it? That’s all you have to do, break the political will of the invader. Yeah, I guess if they have the balls to use nuclear weapons, you’re screwed.
My point is that this pervasive notion among gun nuts that possessing a mini-arsenal is going to keep the gubmint out of your business is absurd. You may take a few of the jackbooted thugs with you before they obliterate you and your family but that’s about the best you can hope for (see: Waco, Ruby Ridge etc.).
You can set your standards any fucking way you like. You can make them as alien to your own attractiveness level as you want. To have standards is your right.
BUT you do not have any right to have those standards lived up to. The universe is not obligated to provide you with a girlfriend/boyfriend/one-night-stand/fuckbuddy/whatever of your desired hotness level. And, contrary to what might be popular belief among the PUA set, setting your standards as high as the moon does not change your own attractiveness status to equal theirs.
See, as people themselves, they have their own set of standards. In most cases, some people’s standards will include you, but by eliminating all but the hottest of women, you’re eliminating most of the people who’d find you attractive enough to be interested. And due to the nature of how hot people can get away with having higher standards (because they fit more people’s standards and can choose the ones they like best without narrowing their field overmuch), you’re selecting the group of people least likely to have standards that you live up to.
Which brings me to the biggest point here:
The people that live up to your standards do not owe you sex, attention, or anything else in exchange for you declaring them hot enough.
Nobody owes you attention or sex in the first place, but to clarify further, the dubious compliment of being placed in some guy’s exclusive category of “good enough for me to fuck” is not “an offer so good she has no business refusing.” (Nothing is, by the way.)
The higher your standards are, the lower the odds are that you’ll meet someone fitting those standards who also likes you. This has to be accepted, in order to have high standards without being an asshole. The rarity of people who fit those requirements does not entitle you to disregard her wishes in order to increase your luck “catching” one. If your standards are high, you better be OK with being single, because that’s going to be the natural result a big chunk of the time. Not necessarily because you’re unlucky or outcompeted or because your chosen targets are all bitches, but because nobody owes you their attention just because you want it.
The point is, Sodini legally owned guns. How can we cut down on the ridiculously easiness of crazies getting guns?
One thing to do is bring back the waiting periods. It was fine to bring in the computerized background checks, but they shouldn’t have replaced waiting periods outright. A waiting period is also a cooling-off period. I wouldn’t mind if they were a month long instead of a week.
Many people would not take the step to buy illegal guns, available or not.
You’re proposing that people who are planning to murder someone would be deterred from illegally buying a gun.
Many decent and responsible citizens who have a moral right to self-defense would be deterred, though, that much is true.
Cutting down on proliferation is part of the solution. It’s that simple.
Do you know where most guns used in violent crimes in the US come from? I do. Hint: it’s one of the reasons I advocate that all guns should be stored in locked safes.
I mean, DonnaDiva, are you really suggesting guerilla warfare is ineffective? Cause that would contradict a lot of history.
I don’t think history, or frankly reality, figure much into the context of the way the typical gun nut thinks he’s going to use guns to protect his home and family from the gubmint. I mean, jesus god, they are arming themselves out of fear of Obama right now. They ain’t playing with a full deck.
Tell the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki while you’re at it.
One of the factors in the decision to drop the atomic bomb in 1945 was the perceived fear the US military would have to face fanatical guerrilla from remnants of the Imperial Japanese armed forces and the civilian population....there are plenty of documents and film footage showing civilians including women and children being trained in hand-to-hand combat with makeshift spears and explosives. Considering US troops suffered around 29,000 combat deaths in the taking of Okinawa, this fear was understandable.
Another thing to keep in mind that many Japanese and some in the progressive left seem to forget regarding this case...Japan is not the hapless victim of US atomic bombing as often portrayed in a sizable portion of Japanese popular media and some of their history textbooks.
Those bombings were the byproducts of Japan’s own imperialistic adventures in Asia and the Pacific which subjected millions of colonized Asians to a murderous militaristic rule and biological and chemical warfare experiments which made the US atomic bombings in Japan look mild by comparison.
Disclaimer: I am coming at this not only as someone who has done a lot of academic research in this area, but also as someone who has had family members who lived through and in some cases, died as a result of that occupation.
My point is that this pervasive notion among gun nuts
I’d like to have a real conversation. Can we have a real conversation? Or are you going to troll like judy did?
that possessing a mini-arsenal is going to keep the gubmint out of your business is absurd. You may take a few of the jackbooted thugs with you before they obliterate you and your family but that’s about the best you can hope for (see: Waco, Ruby Ridge etc.).
Yeah, holing up in a bunker is ridiculous. But that’s not what I’m talking about. See, you’re only thinking about right-wingers.
Capitalists hire thugs to break up strikes. It happens less often these days but it still happens. Workers have the right to defend themselves.
Now, you can disarm workers. But you cannot disarm capital. Laws don’t apply to the rich.
“You can click your heels all you wish but the U.S. is an armed nation and it’s going to stay that way.”
maybe so, but this is a thread about a guy who legally bought guns, then shot up a bunch of women, so y’all might wanna tone down the YAY GUNS (!!!) stuff.
It’s damn creepy, and not a little insensitive. ugh. bring back the PUA stuff!
Excellent points, exholt, and I didn’t mean to oversimplify a complex historical issue like the atomic bombing of Japan. I’m just pointing out to Ben that whatever kind of gun or weapon you’ve got the U.S. gubmint will ALWAYS have something bigger and badder. Whether or not they choose to use it in a given situation varies but know you that they have it.
Incidentally, being OK and fulfilled being single is probably a good idea for everybody. Not only does it make your life a lot more fun while you’re looking for that/those special someone(s), but if your life isn’t fulfilling enough for you, then what do you have to offer a prospective lover? How can you enrich someone else’s life, if there’s nothing interesting in your own?
Expecting another person to shoulder the whole burden of making your own life interesting is selfish, twice over. Unless you’re planning to do a whole lot for them in the drudge-work department in exchange for completing you in that fashion (which is an act of desperation, and an acceptance of inequality that often leads to resentment) (and which seems to be the basic blueprint for Patriarchy-approved relationships, and any feminist can tell you how much that fails both members of the relationship), there’s nothing in it for a prospective partner. If your life is lacking as a single person, you’re poorly suited to enter into a relationship as the equal of your partner---and if you’re expecting to enter into it as a superior, you’re very, very sadly deluded.
Lemme put it this way: if the thread were about a guy who stabbed a bunch of women, and someone came on saying: “but I love my knife! no one can take away my knives!”, and then accused everyone ELSE of trolling, wouldn’t that be creepy?
Well see now, asdf, if you’re going to take offense at the commonly used shorthand of “gun nut” and accuse me of trolling because I used a term that, at least on progressive blogs, tends to refer to a specific type of RW scary asshat (like the gym shooter) I really don’t know what to tell you. I think about right wingers when I hear the argument that guns will protect you from the government because it’s typically delusional right wingers making the argument.
And isn’t it funny how you are forgetting that some of the most transformational resistance movements in American history, like women’s suffrage and Civil Rights, were not armed.
Lemme put it this way: if the thread were about a guy who stabbed a bunch of women, and someone came on saying: “but I love my knife! no one can take away my knives!”, and then accused everyone ELSE of trolling, wouldn’t that be creepy?
stop already!
No. That’s not what happened.
First, someone started saying that we should take away everyone’s guns. We responded.
It’s okay to put the topic to rest, but it’s not okay to have a discussion where only one side is allowed to speak.
Excellent points, exholt, and I didn’t mean to oversimplify a complex historical issue like the atomic bombing of Japan. I’m just pointing out to Ben that whatever kind of gun or weapon you’ve got the U.S. gubmint will ALWAYS have something bigger and badder. Whether or not they choose to use it in a given situation varies but know you that they have it.
DonnaDiva,
That may be true, but governments with bigger badder weapons have been overthrown before by guerrilla groups armed with little more than small arms...even with massive assistance from superpower allies. Plenty of recent examples from the last 60 years.
Granted, revolutions of that type which tend to be victorious tend to be quite Pyrrhic for the victorious guerrillas, but it is still a victory.
Not to say I agree with the right-wing nuts, but I don’t believe that’s where Ben D. or asdf are coming from.
If your life is lacking as a single person, you’re poorly suited to enter into a relationship as the equal of your partner---and if you’re expecting to enter into it as a superior, you’re very, very sadly deluded.
But if you just pay R. Don Steele or Mystery $900 you’ll have Game(TM) and you WILL have the upper hand in all your dealings with women!
Well see now, asdf, if you’re going to take offense at the commonly used shorthand of “gun nut” and accuse me of trolling
Well, I’m not yet accusing you of trolling. I’m asking you not to use the offensive term. We can’t have an honest discussion if one side is by default declared to be insane.
And isn’t it funny how you are forgetting that some of the most transformational resistance movements in American history, like women’s suffrage and Civil Rights, were not armed.
And others, like the labor movement, were forced into responding violently to violence.
And the black civil rights movement was not just MLK and Rosa Parks. It was also Malcolm X and the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense.
You’re quite mistaken. I’m not forgetting anything, because look
Just b/c she was his daughter is no excuse for her not having sex with Sodini!
this whole nightmare makes me ill.