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I can’t even make a dark joke about the fact that last night’s mass murderer turns out to have been motivated by the worst case of Nice Guy® syndrome on record as of yet. What I will say is I doubt many in the mainstream media, except maybe Bob Herbert, will be willing to tie this crime to the daily violence that women experience that is similarly motivated. George Sodini was angry at the entire world of “desirable” women for not up and volunteering to have sex with him, and every day anonymous men around the country and world beat, rape, and even kill women because said women were also considered insufficiently compliant, often to unstated demands that women were supposed to just anticipate and fill without complaint. Today, women will be raped or beaten or maybe even killed for choosing to do differently than a man desired of them---everything from screwing up the household chores to being deemed a tease to thinking they had a right to go to this party/walk down this alley to leaving a man who wants them to stay. But most people won’t see Sodini’s crime as different by degree, but by kind, because unlike most men who commit this kind of hate crime against women, Sodini didn’t know his victims.
We’re going to write him off as crazy. But the thing is that “crazy” doesn’t mean completely detached from the world, at least most of the time. Sodini wasn’t one of those people who is so wrapped up in their delusions that they can’t hold a job and need to be kept in an institution. In fact, what’s disturbing about his diary entries is that they sound pretty much like the same ranting you get from every misogynist who thinks he’s a Nice Guy®, and who hates women for their perceived malicious unwillingness to have sex with him.
Anna at Jezebel has discovered that at least some in the “pick-up artist” community haven’t missed out on the connection, which is a nice way to say that they feel sorry for Sodini and are also eager to blame all of womankind for viewing our bodies and lives as for ourselves, instead of for the pleasure of men. PUA blogger Roissy suggests that all Sodini needed was to learn “The Game”, which is basically a pick-up artist strategy promoted by this douchebag. Having applied ye ol’ skeptical skills to The Game, I figured out that the trick to it is to convince the men following it to hit on everyone in sight, and maybe with a little extra confidence. The way that The Game gives you the confidence to do this is by reinforcing your Nice Guy® belief that women are all complete morons who hate themselves (as you hate them). PUAs justify this nastiness by saying that the guys who “need” their help have low self-esteem around women and need more confidence. And it probably is true that telling yourself that women are dumb bunnies who are easy to manipulate and who deserve it for years of not giving you what you deserve as a man will indeed boost your confidence....around women. Needless to say, this logic extrapolated beyond the strict rules the PUAs lay out would lead one to conclude that smacking a woman will give you a boost of confidence in your own powers as a man, as well. Which isn’t to say that PUAs are more or less likely to be wife beaters than other men, just to point out that self-pitying excuses for using sexism to boost your own ego is, as far as I can tell, always wrong.
Anyway, Roissy is deeply sorry that a murderer like Sodini didn’t get more play:
When men kill women, the underlying reason is almost always an unfulfilled psychosexual need. This goes for spree shooters, rapists, and serial killers. I’m not surprised Sodini hadn’t had sex in nearly 20 years. As I’ve written before, to men on the losing side of the desireability bell curve celibacy is walking death and anything is justified in avoiding that miserable fate.
I don’t want to accuse him of saying that celibacy relief through rape, spree shooting and serial killing is justified, but it kind of seems like he said that.
If Sodini had learned game he would have been able to find another woman and gotten laid after his ex dumped him. He wouldn’t have spent the next 20 years steeped in bile and weighed down by his Sisyphian blue balls, dreaming of vengeance. Game could have saved the lives of the women Sodini killed.
And another blogger called Half Sigma backed him up:
His last girlfriend was around twenty years ago. After twenty years of rejection by women, he finally had the courage to take his revenge by shooting at members of the sex who rejected him and made him feel like a loser.
No, “courage” would be just killing himself before he killed a bunch of innocent women. But of course, in these assholes’ world, there aren’t innocent women. The world is full of malicious women who show their hatred of men by not fucking them personally, and therefore “anything” is justified to relieve their horrible celibacy.
Sodini’s crime did not happen in a vacuum. It’s not even close to the first of its kind. The Amish school shooting a couple of years ago was in the same category of crimes, as was the Platte Canyon High School shooting in the same fall. The most famous was the École Polytechnique Massacre in 1989, when Marc Lépine killed 14 women because he blamed feminism for his personal failures.
Shocking crimes like these are almost too easy to write off as aberrant. And they are, like I said, in degree, but not in kind. Every day, there are women subjected to the same standard---that they owe their obedience, body, and life to a man---by some individual man who feels he has a claim, because he married her, dated her, fathered her, lives with her, thought she was flirting with him, or was mad that she was not.
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Amanda Marcotte on 03:15 PM •
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One of the victims is a family member of a person I know. The Nice Guy apologists can bite me.
I’m seriously considering sending a link (probably to the Jezebel article, because I don’t comment there) about this to the dudes I’ve met recently who think The Game is just innocent fun.
Having sex with ANYONE is not my, nor any other person’s, “price” for staying alive, for being female, for being attractive, for going to the gym, for wearing “slutty” clothing and/or high heels, for ANYTHING. Furthermore, I am not a sex worker, but if I were, I would have the right of any businessperson to refuse service (in compliance with applicable nondiscrimination laws, etc.)
Seriously, do we have to print up T-shirts with the above statement? I hear NoSweat’s got a sale going on.
Oh, and having skimmed the book recently, one lingering thought I’ve had is whether the men who are so unsuccessful with women that PUA garbage seems worthwhile are that way because of underlying misogyny, or whether the PUA system actually instills misogyny in otherwise normal (if gawky and immature) men. Not a few of the men described in the book seem to have underlying issues with women that go way, way beyond “dumb bitchez won’t fuck me”, and when you grok the underlying PUA concepts at a basic level, a lot of them reduce to ideas about human interaction that don’t really depend on sexism.
The stench of entitlement. Ah yes.
Twenty years of rejection didn’t teach him to change his tune ... it just drove him over the edge because it is just so unfair that women get to choose their partners! The horrors!
It’s disgusting how people like that (the PUAs) treat human beings as if we’re just chimps.
There are monks (in various religions) that stay celibate their whole lives, and they don’t murder.
You know, I went and said these crimes were a matter of degree and not kind on a conservative website. And the fucked up thing? They proved my point in under 5 comments by talking about the violence they wished to visit on me.
I don’t know how to explain this to people, especially not guys.
WTF? People excuising planned murder because the guy couldn’t get laid? I doubt this dude has had it worse than I have. I suffered extreme social isolation and moderate sexual abuse, and while I still think it amazinig that I have had anything resembling a normal sex -life, I have never struck out this way. Holmes is crazy. I’ve done better and so could he.
So one of the commentors at Roissy’s blog wrote:
“What is the future of a society-
when a guy who is educated, not ugly and has a good job (systems analyst) cannot find a woman for 20 years.”
Couldn’t that he creeped out anyone who got within 20 feet of him; just not possible. Any bitch would have been lucky to have him. ‘Kay now wimmins, you all better start screwing every psycho you can find so this doesn’t happen again. If it does, it’s YOUR fault.
Personally, I have to wonder a bit about a blog named “Roissy in DC;” isn’t Roissy the location where women were turned into slaves in “The Story of O?”
“I don’t want to accuse him of saying that celibacy relief through rape, spree shooting and serial killing is justified, but it kind of seems like he said that.”
Why not? It’s exactly what he said; that mass murder is understandable and justified by the fact that the murderer had failed to find a willing sexual partner.
PUA’s treat women both as nonhuman (as prey) and as malignant actors (who are responsible for causing harm to the men they are not sleeping with).
He is blaming these women (were they all women?) for their own deaths, in essence, blaming all of womankind for the violence that any man perpetrates on any woman. And that is foul and evil in so many ways that I can’t even name them.
What’s interesting to me is Sodini’s claim that 30 million women have rejected him. Did he ask out 30 million women? No? So he was just expecting his dream woman to fall into his lap? I skimmed his blog, and it’s obvious that he’s one of those guys who expect any given woman to be exactly what he wants her to be—always at his service, never complaining, exactly matching his physical specifications. The Game wouldn’t solve any of that shit. All it would have done is get him laid more often, and all those women would have run for the hills immediately upon seeing his real personality.
I think if he had followed the principles of The Game, he would have still turned out to be a murderer, but he would have murdered a woman who directly, personally rejected him.
Personally if these PUA guys feel so bad for the shooter, maybe they should start putting out for other Nice Guys that might go wacko from lack of nookie.
The guy didn’t have any friends at all, but nobody’s lecturing men to go out and befriend an angry, lonely, racist loser, today, for the good of the world. Even though that actually might stand some chance of helping somebody, unlike charity sexing.
As I’ve written before, to men on the losing side of the desireability bell curve celibacy is walking death and anything is justified in avoiding that miserable fate.
Where do these PUA guys get off assuming they are entitled to the use of a woman’s body to relieve their sexual urges. Have they never heard of masturbation?
...As I’ve written before, to men on the losing side of the desireability bell curve celibacy is walking death and anything is justified in avoiding that miserable fate.
OMG because if your world doesn’t revolve around something as pointless to life as if you’re having sex “like everyone else” then you’re in a “miserable” fate.
Fucking hell.
Someone needs a hobby that doesn’t involve playing with one’s genitals.
I was thinking today about the whole “men deserve rescuing from celibacy” meme before I heard about this vicious act of murderousness that in no way is blamable on celibacy. I mean, I’ve been celibate for durations that pop culture would hold are unusual (I don’t think it’s that unusual) and I will not deny that I was perhaps crankier, and also had more spare energy for projects, which I suppose could have in some cases be used for evil. Maybe it’s my special lady estrogen making me disinclined to horribly physically attack people who’ve done nothing to me just because I’ve had to fly solo for a while, but seriously, dudes, what is so bad about celibacy? A lack of close friendships would seem to me to be much more brutal than a lack of sexual partners, and yet I don’t go around shooting nerds just because I’ve had no one to discuss Firefly with for a couple of years.
So how many women are going to be too afraid to go to the gym now?
This is terrorism.
Where do these PUA guys get off assuming they are entitled to the use of a woman’s body to relieve their sexual urges.
I’ll take “their mother’s basement” for 500, Alex!
Have they never heard of masturbation?
See above
As a man with low self-esteem (avoidant personality) who doesn’t resort to loathing a whole class of people I haven’t even met to build myself up, I feel nothing but disgust for the ‘pickup’ community. I do pity those men who are too awkward or ugly to get women to notice them, but such a state calls for self-improvement or at the very least an acceptance of your limitations, rather than pointless hatred and violence.
The real tragedy of this whole pickup thing is that it can actually work, at least temporarily, if applied to women who themselves are vulnerable or have low self-esteem, which reinforces in the ‘artist’s’ mind the truth of his self-inflating doctrines. It’s just a bad thing all around.
The guy didn’t have any friends at all, but nobody’s lecturing men to go out and befriend an angry, lonely, racist loser, today, for the good of the world. Even though that actually might stand some chance of helping somebody, unlike charity sexing.
Maybe the NIH should fund counseling classes for bartenders.
“What is the future of a society-
when a guy who is educated, not ugly and has a good job (systems analyst) cannot find a woman for 20 years.”
These are the kinds of comments that almost make me feel sorry for these guys. When you’re absolutely convinced that the only reason a woman would be with you is because she wants to spend your money and not because she likes you or finds you physically attractive, you’ve got a giant hole in your self-esteem that I’m not even sure therapy could entirely fix.
After twenty years of rejection by women, he finally had the courage to take his revenge by shooting at members of the sex who rejected him and made him feel like a loser.
a missed bit of victim blaming that really jumped at me was that women collectively “rejected him and made him feel like a loser.”
you know, it wasn’t that he actually was a loser, as his willingness to murder kind of verifies. no, it was just what THOSE WOMEN did.
of all the vile stuff that guy says, that jumped at me the most.
I’ve been celibate for durations that pop culture would hold are unusual (I don’t think it’s that unusual)
It’s really not that unusual at all, yes, even for completely normal and stable men with careers and a life. People need to fucking realize the TV and movies aren’t real life, and no, not everyone is getting laid every 5 seconds and that doesn’t mean something is wrong with you.
Yeah, no sympathy. The guy is, as they say, fit, not bad looking, educated. So clearly the problem is that he must be a fucking douchebag creepazoid. Women were right not to sleep with him. He’d probably kill the next girl who dumped his ass.
The guy didn’t need to get laid, he needed therapy and to get over himself.
A lack of close friendships would seem to me to be much more brutal than a lack of sexual partners, and yet I don’t go around shooting nerds just because I’ve had no one to discuss Firefly with for a couple of years.
And yet a lot of men are still handed the line that the only close, emotional relationship that they’re allowed to have is with their wife. They can’t have close guy friends because it’s too “faggy.” The one and only person to whom they’re going to be culturally allowed to open up to (and maybe not even then) is their spouse. Therefore, finding a spouse is more than just a matter of getting laid—it’s really your only possible chance to express yourself emotionally because anything else would be unmanly.
I mean, Jesus, talk about pressure. Add in a fear and loathing of the entire class of people to whom you’re supposed to open up and you have a recipe for disaster.
Don’t quite remember in what capacity, but I’m certain Roissy is from ‘Story of O’.
Y’know, my last relationship was about 15 years ago, I haven’t quite gotten over it and I had a lot of resentment towards her. I should be the poster boy for the PUA movement. Fact is though, it seems to me like selling your soul to Satan—it looks like it works, but it works by transforming one’s personality into someone I don’t think I would like.
There are monks (in various religions) that stay celibate their whole lives, and they don’t murder.
Really? That’s your example of the non-violent celibate?
The religious clergy? Really? I think a few of you need to think a little harder before posting, frankly.
The religious clergy?
Monks, not clergy. I’m just saying its possible to do it without becoming a mass-murderer.
I do feel bad for people who really don’t get any enjoyable sexual contact and crave it. But incidents like this aren’t going to encourage anyone to sleep with more lonely weirdoes.
DonnaDiva, I assume they’re aware of masturbation, but don’t believe it counts. It’s one of those things. You can masturbate all you want, but it still takes sex to “make a man out of you”, the same way that wearing a condom is like “taking a shower with a raincoat on.”
I haven’t had a relationship that lasted more than 6 months in over 5 years. And that person wouldn’t publicly admit we were dating, and corrected me every time I referred to what was going on between us as a relationship. The only even halfway significant romantic relationship I’ve ever had in my whole life was with an abusive choad.
And yet somehow I haven’t managed to murder anyone yet.
I’m with purpleshoes. Must be my delicate lady sensibilities keeping me from snapping and taking out the neighborhood yoga studio or brewpub or what have you. It’s funny how most misogynists turn out to be the biggest man-haters of all, isn’t it?
I can’t even wrap my head around the idea that these guys think women have a responsibility to fuck undesirable dudes so that they don’t go on a killing spree.
So, I suppose these PUAs are out pity fucking all the ugly/creepy/bitchy ladies who come on to them, right? No? Huh, now I’m confused....
And others have said it already, but it bears repeating: what the hell is so horrible about celibacy?
I mean, if you want a sex partner and can’t find one that sucks, really, but TONS of people are in the same boat and they just deal with it and move on and manage not to kill anyone.
I assume they’re aware of masturbation, but don’t believe it counts. It’s one of those things. You can masturbate all you want, but it still takes sex to “make a man out of you”, the same way that wearing a condom is like “taking a shower with a raincoat on.”
The creepiest parts of The Game are the passages that discuss Extramask, this guy who finally loses his virginity only to discover that he likes masturbation better. Except that, yep, masturbation “doesn’t count”. His only recourse is extreme misogyny—if he’s not coming buckets the first time he has sex, it’s because women are evil bitches. Not because, oh, I dunno, he’s not that sexually experienced, he’s like 20 years old, he’s only having one night stands, he sees women as a monolithic under-class of fembots unworthy of any attempt at communication…
That’s funny, nico, you’re assuming that women have sex drives and emotions like real people.
Wait, I forgot. Men don’t have emotions. They have “urges”.
“"""And yet a lot of men are still handed the line that the only close, emotional relationship that they’re allowed to have is with their wife. They can’t have close guy friends because it’s too “faggy.” The one and only person to whom they’re going to be culturally allowed to open up to (and maybe not even then) is their spouse. Therefore, finding a spouse is more than just a matter of getting laid—it’s really your only possible chance to express yourself emotionally because anything else would be unmanly""" (sorry i dont know how to put this in that box thing)
good god, are you serious? Do you know any men? The guy was a nut who fixated his anger on one thing....women. Just like Colin Furgeson (LI railroad gunman) pinned all that went wrong in his life on whites. This guy could just have easily thought that Arabs or Jews were bringing him down and ruining his life. He had it out for women and like the loser, coward, killer that he was, he fulfilled his fantasy. I wish i could have been there to take his sorry ass out.
The religious clergy? Really? I think a few of you need to think a little harder before posting, frankly.
I guess I missed hearing about that last mass murder by a Buddhist monk. Link please.
Sodini worked a geeky job for a big law firm. It’s likely that he was regularly exposed to wealthier, more socially competent and aggressive men, which reinforced his feelings of inadequacy and resentment. Being ignorant of the actual source of his problems—which was himself—he probably associated these higher status men with the women whom he felt had rejected him as a group, viewing them as a shallow, incomprehensible mass.
Loneliness and sexual rejection really are painful. As a society we offer lonely and socially incompetent men ridicule and platitudes. We also offer them a pre-packaged misogynist ideology that blames women for men’s inability to interact with and relate to women. The result is that men like Sodini remain isolated and don’t see a way out of their situation. The proposed solution of teaching men like this to manipulate women, while it might lead to some sort of relief in the form of sex with insecure, emotionally damaged women, merely reinforces the belief that all men are engaged in a resource war with women—the resource being women themselves.
I don’t see how learning the tactics of emotional remoteness and chauvinism present a long-term solution to lonely men who want to actually connect with a woman. But I’m sure it would be a satisfying approach for the average sociopath.
That Roissy thread is some of the most psychologically disturbing shit I have seen on the internet. The first thing that amazes me the most if the utter failure to think of women as human beings, who might be dealing with the same issues of loneliness/rejection/lack of sexual activity as anyone else--and instead seeing them as biological automatons programmed to seek out and elevate the highest status men. The second is that their artificial division of men into “alphas” and “betas” is perpetuating the same kind of discrimination they decry; and instead of trying to convince them that their behavior does not determine their worth in a biological or social sense, they just try to convince them to be sexist assholes…
And then they blame feminism, which seeks to eliminate these sort of bogus self-worth judgements based off of stereotypical “male/female” behavior!
good god, are you serious? Do you know any men?
You may have missed out on this minor book that came out a few years ago called Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus, which made the exact same claim to enormous amounts of applause and cultural praise.
Note that I’m not saying men actually are some kind of emotionless robots who can only download to a wife-bot and spend the rest of their time grunting in caves. In fact, I’m saying that the myth is incredibly harmful to men. Patriarchy hurts men, too, you know.
Oh, and I have four older brothers. I probably know things about men that you don’t even know.
Made me disturbed enough that I’m being all ungrammatical!
I guess I missed hearing about that last mass murder by a Buddhist monk.
You’re talking about the religious tradition best known for conflating spirituality with brutal bare-hand combat, right?
I also find it disturbing that after twenty years of simmering anger, the precipitating event that caused him to decide to resort to violence was Obama’s election in November 2008. His blog is filled with hand-wringing and rage about black men claiming white women for themselves. He states that women go to college in order to have sex with black men (only he uses far cruder language). To me, this crime is also part of the growing incidence of violence from racist assholes who cannot accept a black man as their President.
We’re going to write him off as crazy.
I’d have gone with “stupid” and “weak,” myself. Hell, I’ve never gotten anything but dismissal and scorn from women, yet I’ve never considered getting violent about it. Probably because I’m smart enough to realize that being unattractive is my problem and I’m not pathetic enough to base my mental state on how many girlfriends I’ve had.
Chet, why are you lashing out on the tiniest, most inconsequential details?
http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/08/05/ap-omit-killers-racist-diary-rants/
Raw Story point out that a lot of Sodini’s writing is not only misogynist, but racist as well.
I can’t read this fucked up bastards whining without thinking he’s was somewhat, well, autistic.
He certainly can’t see women and blacks as people. And he certainly bought-in to the stupidest and most destructive stereotypes of masculinity, and found himself lacking. And projected this failure on ‘The Other’.
And it is a sort of koan to note that the Shaolin mastered violence to prove the the ultimate (if not contingent) worthlessness of violence..
MR Bill, don’t forget all the weird religious ramblings in Sodini’s writings as well. ABC News completely omitted that as well.
Because, Amanda, that is what he does…
Gawd. There, but for a sense of my own ridiculousness, go I.
Twenty years of rejection didn’t teach him to change his tune ... it just drove him over the edge because it is just so unfair that women get to choose their partners! The horrors!
Ms. Kate,
But this is definitive proof that modern men are emasculated by women!! </snark>
Seriously, it isn’t only about him being rejected and being deprived of the company of women, but the fact he wants to feel like the master of the universe in the relationship to compensate for all past slights...and not only from the women who rejected him....
Without feeling like the master of the universe in a given relationship even a full fledged date/relationship wouldn’t have staved off his vengeful homicidal tendencies. if anything, it could have possibly exacerbated it.....
I hate to change the subject, but one thing that dismays me about these incidents is how no one seems to bring up gun control any more. It has somehow become a given that seething losers should have access to all the deadly weapons they can afford, and everybody else had better either start packing heat themselves or stay out of the way. When did the gun nuts win the debate?
This guy could just have easily thought that Arabs or Jews were bringing him down and ruining his life.
Exactly. You know what enables people to develop obsessive racist complexes? The fact that segregation still pretty much exists. Once you start actually getting to know “Jews”, “Arabs”, “Fags”, “Chicks”, etc, they don’t seem so scary anymore. So, yes, the fact that our society’s rigid ideas about masculinity encourage men to segregate themselves from any real communication with women definitely helps keep sexism alive and well.
err, others, not “other’s”. What the hel is the point of preyview if I don’t even bothtter to catch teh mistakesesess???
Chet’s apparently lost the difference between real life and Mortal Kombat 2. Real Buddhist monks tend not to go on killing sprees and arrange tournaments of fighting to the death to expunge their sexual angst.
I want to expand on Skybolt’s point here: The depths that this guy - and other misogynists - go to to dehumanize women in this vain attempt to rise in some kind of imagined male pecking order. The patriarchy fucks people over all day long.
What you have here is a guy who views life as a competition between men, and women are the score. When he flipped out, he tried to break the game by killing women, because he fundamentally doesn’t even give them the dignity of being real actors, just the prizes that other men get for being mysteriously better than him (either wealthier, or stronger, or just black).
It’s a spooky kind of hate. Really, really creepy.
Chet, why are you lashing out on the tiniest, most inconsequential details?
I don’t think it’s inconsequential. Religions ennoble sexual denial. But that denial has a cost, too, and it’s not a justification of this guy’s crimes to say that involuntary sexual denial fucks people up. Roissy is wrong - dangerously wrong - to offer that up as an excuse, which I do not, but let’s not pretend that celibacy doesn’t seriously fuck people up, because it does.
If this guy had been, say, an Iraq war vet instead, it wouldn’t be a justification of his crime to say that his experiences were a contributing factor, and we would be foolish indeed to pretend that wasn’t true. Even though plenty of our vets come back and don’t shoot up gyms. Even though celibate people don’t all kill people - this was a foreseeable crime.
Nobody’s got a responsibility to fuck you, just to keep you sane. Let’s be clear that I’m not saying that.
Chet’s apparently lost the difference between real life and Mortal Kombat 2. Real Buddhist monks tend not to go on killing sprees and arrange tournaments of fighting to the death to expunge their sexual angst.
This is a pretty fascinating ahistoricity. Do you know anything at all about the history of Buddhism that you didn’t copy down from episodes of Kung Fu? Convincing the entire Western world, apparently, that there’s absolutely no history of Buddhist violence is a pretty neat judo trick, imo.
But that denial has a cost, too, and it’s not a justification of this guy’s crimes to say that involuntary sexual denial fucks people up.
Oh, shit, YOU’RE RIGHT! This is exactly why Gandhi eventually flipped out and massacred the entire British colonial force! It was denying his sexual urges in the name of a quest for ultimate truth that ended the English occupation of South Asia by bloody fiat, and not Satyagraha at all!
The second is that their artificial division of men into “alphas” and “betas” is perpetuating the same kind of discrimination they decry; and instead of trying to convince them that their behavior does not determine their worth in a biological or social sense, they just try to convince them to be sexist assholes…
The funny part is, further primate studies have shown that the “beta” chimpanzees actually get more sex than the “alphas” because the alphas have to spend all their time defending their position while the betas sneak off with the females. Being an alpha’s not quite what it’s cracked up to be.
I’m guessing his idea of the “30 million” women who rejected him consisted only of much younger, beautiful women. If he had had real male friends, he’d realize a single man’s life is rarely anything like the sexual conquistador fantasy that’s shown in the movies.
This guy sounds like a few men I know - except that they resolved their inability to interest women by either relying strictly on prostitutes or getting a mail order bride. His entitlement is not new or unusual. That his thought process mirrors what I hear around the Internet so much is what’s truly frightening here.
Anyway, no more troll feedage, I promise. But you know I can’t resist Chet…
You’re talking about the religious tradition best known for conflating spirituality with brutal bare-hand combat, right?
And the last time a monk of that religious tradition stormed into a public place and started randomly killing people was ... ?
Celibacy may suck, but it’s not going to turn you into a psycho killer who starts shooting strangers in a crowded room unless you’re already a fucking psycho.
This may have been a foreseeable crime in some sense. The cognitive distortion and recorded mental pain in that diary ought to be a red flag to get someone treatment. But pain and mental problems don’t make everybody turn into mass murderers any more than celibacy does.
The cognitive distortion and recorded mental pain in that diary ought to be a red flag to get someone treatment. But pain and mental problems don’t make everybody turn into mass murderers any more than celibacy does.
Then again, therapy and jail are two different things. This guy needed help before it came to misogyny-fueled murder/suicide.
Don’t alpha chimpanzees die younger, too, from violence and health problems (related to high testosterone, I think)?
Convincing the entire Western world, apparently, that there’s absolutely no history of Buddhist violence is a pretty neat judo trick, imo.
That probably had a lot to do with Ashoka.
Good Lord - hadn’t realised the Greek connection there.
This is exactly why Gandhi eventually flipped out and massacred the entire British colonial force!
Gandhi was celibate? News to his children, I suspect.
This guy didn’t kill because he wasn’t getting laid—he killed because he was a resentful misogynist with exactly the same crappy views of women these PUAs hold. I believe their usual line goes something like: “gold-digging, ball-busting superficial bitches.”
And he couldn’t get laid for 20 years because, despite the fact that he was “educated, not ugly and has a good job (systems analyst),” women could probably smell the reek of contempt he had for them and wisely ended things after the first date. I’m a guy, and even I can pick on that kind of deeply embedded misogyny pretty quickly.
Heck, this mope didn’t even live in one of those screwed-up cultures where misogyny and male privilege is shamelessly incorporated into every aspect of life (as the PUAs would prefer) and where, despite that fact, repression of healthy sexual urges is still demanded by the culture’s patriarchs.
Celibacy may suck, but it’s not going to turn you into a psycho killer who starts shooting strangers in a crowded room unless you’re already a fucking psycho.
On its own, surely not. Just like on it’s own traumatic stresses won’t, either. One straw doesn’t break the camel’s back.
good god, are you serious? Do you know any men? The guy was a nut who fixated his anger on one thing....women.
Mnemosyne is right. In between complaining about how much he hated women, Sodini whined constantly in his diary about being unmarried and not being able to find a wife, obviously unaware of the cognitive dissonance. It’s a common delusion with Nice Guy types: they hate women, but they also think women can solve all their problems, soothe all their emotional scars, validate their lives. The fact that real women don’t do this, or don’t do it to their specifications, only fuels their misogyny.
Yes, Chet, Gandhi was celibate. He was forced into an arranged marriage as a young teenager (12? 14?), before he became the Gandhi most people are familiar with. It wasn’t until after his children were born that he decided to pursue his religious beliefs more seriously and became celibate.
BTW, I think there are more of these type of guys in the making:
There can only be so many alpha males. Women are also the majority in any democracy. As long as they can afford it, women will go for the best men, and they won’t give up their equality, largely backed by affirmative action, without massive violence perpetrated by the minority of men who are left sexless under feminism.
Therefore I applaud rape and purposeful violence against women where it is made clear that embittered men are hurting and killing them for not putting out. Only then will women hopefully abandon their equality and be forced to settle monogamously by sheer economic necessity. That is the only language they understand, on an societal scale, human nature being what it is, and as long as most men aren’t happy, nobody will be happy, because violence like this will be commonplace.
Seriously, WTF?! Do these guys have sisters, or mothers, or even female friends?
Gandhi was celibate?
Yep. You may be surprised to hear that the choice is not between always having sex and always being celibate. Many people do one or the other at different times of their life, as Gandhi did. Therefore, Gandhi had children at one point in his life, and was celibate at another.
You really have to get over your habit of lecturing people on their historical ignorance while displaying some pretty embarrassing ignorance of well-known facts yourself. It was even in the movie, fer chrissakes.
before i say anything at all, i have to throw this out there
CELIBACY IS WHEN SOMEONE TAKES A VOW TO NOT GET MARRIED
THE WORD YOU GUYS WANT TO USE FOR A PERSON WHO DOES NOT HAVE SEX IS CHASTITY
which is why, for instance, Catholic priests and nuns take BOTH vows of chastity AND vows of celibacy.
sure, people have been using “celibacy” wrong for so long that most people think that it DOES mean “chastity”, but it DOES NOT.
that off my chest -
my best friend is divorcing her abusive husband. and i just found she has been lying to be - he demand a certain number of “sex acts” or he would kill her. she’s been telling me for months that she wasn’t going to do it, and it was fine, he didn’t know where she was.
except he *DOES* know where she lives. and he gave her a fucking concussion on Sunday.
because she “deserved” it because she wasn’t “a good wife”, and he *HAS* to be able to have sex with her, because he can’t have sex with anyone else until the divorce is final. ??? it’s just bullshit excuses, he wants to hurt her because she left him, she won’t do what he wants, she won’t be the perfect fembot. every time he hurt her or raped her, the justification he used was that she “deserved” it for doing something wrong (dear gods, the shit he has done, and then punished her for not liking).
i am terrified he’s going to kill her.because in his head, she isn’t a person, she is his “wife” - his property. the only difference between the killer discussed here and my friend’s almost-ex-husband is that the killer didn’t try and get a woman - he just sat and waited for one to come to him. because women should just be dying to get a man like him :(
although… you know, i started college, and then i got together with my boyfriend - who is black. maybe there is a causal relationship between those two things lol
Ok, Chet, whens the last time a Catholic monk stormed into a public place and massacred people?
CELIBACY IS WHEN SOMEONE TAKES A VOW TO NOT GET MARRIED
THE WORD YOU GUYS WANT TO USE FOR A PERSON WHO DOES NOT HAVE SEX IS CHASTITY
That’s not how the word “celibacy” is used nowadays.
The term “chastity”, in my mind, is more connected with the word “chaste”, i.e. sexually pure according to the same sorts of fucked up ideas about sex as the ones that fuel the PUA movement.
You can go through a period of celibacy (i.e. not being sexually active), without becoming some kind of born-again virgin wearing a promise ring.
which is why, for instance, Catholic priests and nuns take BOTH vows of chastity AND vows of celibacy.
IIRC, priests take a vow of celibacy and nuns take a vow of chastity. They’re supposedly the same thing since you’re not supposed to have sex outside of marriage, but nuns are the only ones who have to promise not to have sex at all.
Plus, with Buddhists, isn’t being a monk or nun a potentially temporary thing? You don’t have to pledge to be celibate (or chaste) forever and ever, just while you’re at the monastery, and you can leave, do other things, and then come back and re-enter the monastery without any problem.
The guy didn’t have any friends at all, but nobody’s lecturing men to go out and befriend an angry, lonely, racist loser, today, for the good of the world. Even though that actually might stand some chance of helping somebody, unlike charity sexing.
Of course not. Men are never expected to be altruistic like that.
Also, when have you EVER heard a good looking man being admonished to date a frumpy, unattractive, boring woman because she’s “so nice and has a good job!” Anyone? But I heard it on many an occasion back when I was young and a hottie.
Chet, this isn’t a case of a teenaged boy or young man living uncloistered in a culture that’s sexually repressive, and who channels his frustration into acts of terrorism and violence (usually with the eager assistance of his culture’s patriarchs).
This also wasn’t an adult who voluntarily cloistered himself and denied himself sex, which usually has a peaceful outcome. When monks do fight, it’s usually with other factions of monks (e,g, the always hilarious monk brawls at Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre) or when they feel they’re being politically suppressed (e.g. Buddhist “angry monk syndrome").
Also, when have you EVER heard a good looking man being admonished to date a frumpy, unattractive, boring woman because she’s “so nice and has a good job!” Anyone?
Not to mention the other side of that coin. How often have you heard these same men lamenting that such and such woman is a shallow gold-digging bore underneath the hot exterior, and thus still undateable? Women have to be gorgeous, brilliant, hilarious, altruistic, fascinating, well-educated, and successful. Men have to… ummm… well I’d say “not be axe murderers”, but the topic of this thread kind of disproves that one.
Chet, three women are dead. Now is not the time to whine about the unfairness of the sexual market. It really, really isn’t.
Men have to… ummm… well I’d say “not be axe murderers”, but the topic of this thread kind of disproves that one.
Absolutely. The bar needs to be raised on what constitutes “niceness” in a man. I mean, to somewhere in the same ballpark of how good-natured and generous a woman has to be to earn such an honorific would be a good start.
MR Bill, I have no intentions of reading his ramblings, but I’d be pretty cautious about associating autism with mass murder. It reads as just a TWINGE unfair to people that have enough crap to deal with as it is.
Also, when have you EVER heard a good looking man being admonished to date a frumpy, unattractive, boring woman because she’s “so nice and has a good job!” Anyone?
Oh god. It doesn’t even take being frumpy/unattractive/boring. Try being a man and dating a woman who’s a different body type--the weird snide sexist comments you’ll get from both sexes is kind of unbelievable.
One straw doesn’t break the camel’s back.
Look, this bitter sad-sack spent 20+ years piling pieces of straw on his own back. Each piece confirmed the messed-up view of women he shared with the PUAs, and as time went by he grew to appreciate each piece. What he didn’t realise was that the glaringly huge pile of misogyny was something no woman in her right mind was going to try to unburden him of.
Oh god. It doesn’t even take being frumpy/unattractive/boring. Try being a man and dating a woman who’s a different body type--the weird snide sexist comments you’ll get from both sexes is kind of unbelievable.
Being 5’9 and having dated a girl in high school who was 5’11, I can attest to this.
I’ll add: LIFE ISN’T FAIR.
Many women are more gorgeous than me. Many people, period, are smarter than me. It’s 100 fucking degrees out and that sucks. I don’t like getting a period or taking a shit. LIFE ISN’T FAIR.
Lizzie Skurnick, in her very light and fun book Shelf Discovery made a really good point: fairness and justice are WAY different issues. You can demand justice. You can’t really demand that life be a bowl of roses by stomping your feet. Women can demand equality. Men can’t demand sex. Nor can women, but for some reason, no one sheds tears for unattractive women who can’t get laid. Rape is injustice. Not getting laid is unfairness.
When life doesn’t seem fair, there’s two things you can do: fix what you can and accept what you can’t. If you are not getting laid, you have a choice. Make yourself more attractive or get over it. Is that unfair when some people don’t have to develop a personality, get a great haircut, or work out more? Absolutely. Is it unjust? No.
Truth is, most people who do get laid didn’t just step out into the sunshine all fuckable. We had to experiment, work on ourselves, see what works, and calibrate our desires to what could reasonably be filled. Above all, we have to stop obsessing over what we want and start to imagine what someone we want might want. If we don’t want to be that, adults reassess and think about what we are and who’d want that. You fiddle, you grow, you go on dates, you figure it out. And then often you end up falling in love.
These PUA wankers with their fake evolutionary theories and their pity parties don’t want to develop personalities, learn to be nice, or learn more about the world around them. They think by being men, the unfairness they perceive is way more important than the actual injustice women face. They’re worse than children throwing temper tantrums, who can on occasion be reminded that Mom is a person with feelings, too.
educated, not ugly and has a good job (systems analyst)
Translation: He is BORING. Well, except for the hateful misogyny and racism. I guess that’s interesting in a terrifying freak of nature sort of way.
But seriously, I can’t even begin to imagine describing myself like that. Talk about selling yourself short. And one specific point of contention: Why can’t women date men who are attractive (or at least attractive to us)? Why is it such a big deal for a man not to be ugly?
CELIBACY IS WHEN SOMEONE TAKES A VOW TO NOT GET MARRIED
THE WORD YOU GUYS WANT TO USE FOR A PERSON WHO DOES NOT HAVE SEX IS CHASTITY
Er, no. As I understand it, chastity is being morally pure or chaste - which translates into celibacy for the unmarried and fidelity for the married. Thus the phrase “a chaste wife”.
We had to experiment, work on ourselves, see what works, and calibrate our desires to what could reasonably be filled.
We also had to FIGURE OUT HOW TO TALK TO PEOPLE WITHOUT COMING OFF LIKE A POTENTIAL SERIAL KILLER.
Look, I’m reasonably attractive, successful, and charming. I still sometimes get all weird and nervous around someone I’m attracted to and scare them off. I still sometimes say completely stupid things that give them ridiculous ideas about me. I get too into the conversation about comic books or Torchwood and forget to flirt, thus causing them to think I must not be attracted to them.
Everyone fucks up moments that are meant to be romantic. Everyone gets rejected (even has a hand in their own rejection). You get up and dust off and keep going, and try not to blame some larger ur-class of people for the fact that dating really sucks on the micro level.
When life doesn’t seem fair, there’s two things you can do: fix what you can and accept what you can’t.
See, this is one of those things most sane people figure out some time during their later teenage years. I can see how it would drive you nuts if you never did figure it out.
Jesus Christ on a segway. I just checked out that Roissy PUA dude’s site. What a douchebag.
i *KNOW* everyone thinks celibacy and chastity are the same thing. which is why i said it - its one of my pet peeves…
i think its a pet peeve because, anymore, women are expected to remain “chaste”, while men who don’t have sex are “forced to be celibate”.
i’m pretty sure that that is most of my problem with it. instead of “celibacy” describing a certain voluntary state (because both chastity and celibacy were supposed to be things that people ENTERED INTO, WANTED to enter into), it has become this “horrible” thing forced upon men who just want to get laid. and it pisses me off, because the way it is used anymore just sort of highlights how society says that men who can’t get laid, can’t get laid because women are evil or selfish or whatever.
i read his blog.
fucked up thing - except for this weird obsession he had, that his life could never change and be better no matter what he did - a lot of what he wrote? i get. living in pain from a fucked up childhood, feeling like no one cares, etc.
but his answer to that was to blame *WOMEN* for everything. i mean - even during the course of the blog, which is less than a year long (and not all that many entries) he went on a few dates. and it was like “oh, i went on a date with X woman, it was a nice date, but it’s doomed to failure so i’m not going to try for anything more”. guy was cockblocking himself
also: why the fuck did he call every single woman he found attractive a “hoe”??? i mean… that was very skeevy, and bothers me no end - he talks about a guy he know’s college bound daughter, says she is nice, and pretty, and smart, and a good girl, all the things that make a *GOOD* girl, and then says that she’s a “hoe”. just because...?
also: the fuck? he apparantly has a kid he has never seen, with the last woman he had sex with.
and also also: why the fuck are guys who are only somewhat attractive and almost 50 running around thinking they are “ENTITLED” to “hawt college-age ‘hoes’”!?!?!? this guy’s biggest fucking problem, i am sure, is that he neverneverneverEVER considered trying to date a woman who was around his age with whom he had things in common!
the whole concept just enrages and depresses me. women must be PERFECT in damned near every way to be considered “datable” by society - but every fucking guy, no matter how mean or introverted or unintelligent or boorish or evil or creepy or racist or hateful or whatever, is EXPECTED to be able to get and keep (for as long as *he* wants) any single one of those “Perfect” women, and if they can’t get one, the problem isn’t THEM, its *WOMEN*. just *RAGERAGERAGE*
and, of course, women who AREN’T “Perfect” are considered to be undatable, but that is the WOMAN’S fault for not being perfect, not MEN’S fault for only wanting women who are “Perfect”. and, of course, those women who *ARE* “Perfect” are evil gold-digging “hoes” who only want men for money, and are apparantly incapable of either intelligence or being “good” (as opposed to evil, i mean) and just *MORERAGE* and i am being not-coherent so i’m gonna stop now…
Everyone fucks up moments that are meant to be romantic. Everyone gets rejected (even has a hand in their own rejection). You get up and dust off and keep going, and try not to blame some larger ur-class of people for the fact that dating really sucks on the micro level.
We’re women, that’s why we don’t get the privilege of projecting our failures onto others.
Truth is, most people who do get laid didn’t just step out into the sunshine all fuckable. We had to experiment, work on ourselves, see what works, and calibrate our desires to what could reasonably be filled.
Personally, I’ve found that genuinely liking women as people helps a lot more in the “getting laid” department than does all that PUA “peacocking” and “game"-playing. The only difference between the PUAs and the PA murderer is that the latter couldn’t, or more likely didn’t want to, engage in “The Game”—not because he saw it for what it really was (a way to offset or distract from obvious misogyny), but because he rejected it in favour of the equally misogynistic NiceGuy® fantasy.
I guess if anyone needed proof that the pickup-artist types are crazy misogynist creeps, it’s that they’re not all screaming “THIS GUY’S BELIEFS ABOUT WOMEN ARE SO TOTALLY WRONG!!!”
Whoever made the point about working in a law firm is right on, I think, but for a slightly different reason: if the associates were like many of the ones I’ve seen over the years, they were showing him examples of men who had precisely the same attitudes toward women that he did, but were still successful in getting laid. Why he didn’t transfer his resentment to them (if only you kill all the alpha males there will be more women for the betas, after all) seems like a sort of learned helplessness.
And yeah, it says something pretty terrible about male social bonding that no man had even the slightest sense of responsibility that might have diverted his path.
Thank you for writing this.
I wanted to post about it, but I couldn’t even bring myself to do to so, I am so disgusted.
It seems that these Game assholes have Sodini figured all wrong. He wasn’t desperately in need of the Game. He was just several levels ahead of them.
This fits a script.
Remember when initial reports were coming in that the Virginia Tech shooter was “getting revenge on an ex-girlfriend?” There were stories about his first victim painting her up like some sort of Helen of Troy: The face that launched a thousand bullets. The media loves this narrative because it’s effortless.
I wrote a little bit about this a while back when Melissa Batten was murdered. It was a different scenario, but I see a lot of similarities.
I read the blog too. Some of it was very familiar for me too, from my worst depressed/OCD/god knows what else moments, and from experiences with guys I know who have issues. But the big thing that was different from anyone I’ve known is that he couldn’t seem to think of other people as human, and of course especially women.
He also came across as someone you wouldn’t suspect of having this murderous rage. He probably deflected a lot of questions about anything being wrong, or just projected enough boringness that people didn’t suspect. Because they are human and have their own lives to worry about.
Dude was in pain and needed help. But I’ve never understood how you get from there to killing random strangers, unless you’re completely psychotic.
There are men who get consensual sex every day who nevertheless beat the shit out of women and eventually kill them. If a man has contempt for women, sexual release is not going to mitigate his violence.
I think the segregation -> sexism link pointed out upthread isn’t discussed nearly enough. In programming jobs, 90% male is the industry *average*. That leaves a lot of socially awkward guys with little to no interaction with women in a social or professional setting - this guy was apparently one of them. It’s a lot easier to demonize people you never talk to.
Reading down the thread, the blog author puts a note in that frigid and ugly women do not deserve sex, but this murderer totally did!
I went back to find that quote posted by The Main Gauche of Mild Reason, and made the stupid decision to look at this guy’s blog. It’s...frightening. I don’t really know what to say except that it’s deeply unsettling to see into the minds of these kinds of people. Also unsettling is how most of the commenters on Roissy’s blog continue to interact with him like he only said something mildly objectionable, like they’re debating whether oranges or apples taste better, and this guy just said it’s ok to rape and kill women so as to violently reverse the feminist movement and return women to their oppressed state. If I ever needed anything else to make me completely distrust anyone who proclaims an interest in being a PUA, that would be it.
You know, now that I think about it some more, the thing about celibacy and religious orders probably has a fairly limited application. Although the best-known western celibate order doesn’t generally get into shooting people up (perhaps because there’s always the outlet of nonconsensual sex with parishioners) they certainly do instigate and encourage a huge amount of violence against women, deadly and otherwise. And that’s probably not entirely coincidental.
I reeeeally hope Chet doesn’t have guns. Seriously, dude, you’re freakin’ me out.
Also, I understand the meaning of chastity to include sex within marriage as well as no extramarital sex. At least, some old fiction praises the chasitity of married women! Celibacy is a better term for people having no sex partners.
(perhaps because there’s always the outlet of nonconsensual sex with parishioners)
I don’t think celebacy makes Catholic priests pedos. I think a lot of them are pedos to begin with and become a Priest because it is a trusted position in the community and gives them easy access to unsupervised time with children. I think the profession attracts them pedos, rather than making one a pedo.
I think all signs point to Sodini having been a deeply, deeply fucked up individual for a long time and, as others have said on here, someone who would have done something like this eventually, regardless of circumstances. The target just would have been different.
Having said that, as far as the PUAs go, taking a vow of celibacy is pretty much the complete opposite of involuntary celibacy. It’s not so much the lack of sex that twists these guys but the general feeling of worthlessness they have from no one wanting to sleep with them. And it may not be because they’re ugly or poor or a horrible person, it could be bad luck or shyness. It’s important to remember that the patriarchal myth states that pulling is, more than any job or purpose-related achievement, where a man’s inherent worth comes from. I’m sure that after a long period of celibacy, when you decide no one will ever sleep with you again (Dan Savage’s column last week hinted that there are probably more of these people than anyone thinks) it’s common to slowly fall into either hating yourself or the opposite sex. Or hating yourself, THEN the opposite sex. And the PUAs provide an easy answer. ‘It’s not you that’s the problem, you’ve just been doing it in the wrong way.’ The notion that all women are deep down the same and respond in the same way removes the burden of being the common link of failure from the guy in question and allows himself to move it on to women in general.
I should point out I’m not making any excuses for misogyny, just suggesting where it might spring from for these guys. They do also need to accept that women are autonomous beings just like they are and they have the right to choose who they want FOR WHATEVER REASONS THEY WANT. I think for a lot of these guys that concept is one which has never occurred to them.
“I went back to find that quote posted by The Main Gauche of Mild Reason, and made the stupid decision to look at this guy’s blog. It’s...frightening.”
There’s a reason why I didn’t link to it. It’s enough to make you lose faith in humanity.
“A lack of close friendships would seem to me to be much more brutal than a lack of sexual partners, and yet I don’t go around shooting nerds just because I’ve had no one to discuss Firefly with for a couple of years. “
I totally agree. I’d rather be celibate than lose my close girlfriends. My most joyous and laugh-filled moments and hours come with them. Sex is great, but I’ve been celibate in my life for even as long as a year, and I found masturbation to beat having sex with someone I wasn’t emotionally comfortable with by a mile.
I also really like Amanda’s point in one of her comments here about no one ever shedding tears over unattractive women who can’t get laid. That is so true, and it’s always her fault. And no one ever tells men that they should be f’ing women like that because the hot ones will hurt them but a unattractive, or even just very plain, middle aged woman is just so nice. And will treat them so right.
It’s such fucking bullshit. I have been so sick and tired for a very long time of men thinking they should be knee-deep in gorgeous, very young women with perfect bodies because they’re “Nice guys”. First of all, a really goodlooking guy can be nice too, I’ve known quite a few who were and are. Second of all, every single asshole I ever knew who thought like that wasn’t a nice guy at all. I never knew that it had been given a special category until I came to this blog. When I first saw people here talking about that, I was like, YES, so I am not crazy. It’s a thing these jerks have and they are never very “nice” at all.
My sister-in-law--a kind person but terminally clueless about a lot of things--shacked up with a Nice Guy about two years ago (they now own a house together). The Nice Guy creeped myself and my husband out the very first time we met him, and our shuddering antipathy to him has only grown more intense over time. He is just...the rare person others simply recoil from on an instinctual level. It’s not just us--seems he has no friends, and from what he’s told us about his professional hijinks, is pretty much “that guy” in the office who turns everybody off and eventually gets pushed out of the job for being difficult and creepy (and it’s always Them, never Him). Just thinking about him makes my skin crawl, though he hasn’t personally offended me beyond talking to my modestly covered B-cup tits instead of my eyes a few times, or been no more obnoxious in convo than a lot of other folk. There’s just something there there that most people pick up on when he enters their space.
I suspect this Sodoni is very much cut from the same odd tragic cloth: Negative Charisma, which has very little to do with looks, dress, and grooming.
“I should point out I’m not making any excuses for misogyny, just suggesting where it might spring from for these guys. They do also need to accept that women are autonomous beings just like they are and they have the right to choose who they want FOR WHATEVER REASONS THEY WANT. I think for a lot of these guys that concept is one which has never occurred to them.”
You know, for a cultural clique/ideology that has dominated society for so long, I’ve always felt that patriarchy was remarkably fragile. It’s not that these guys can’t accept that women have the right to choose men for whatever reason they want, it’s that they interpret women not choosing them as a commentary on their worthlessness and their place in the pecking order of men. If a woman likes another guy instead of them, she’s saying that she thinks the one she likes is superior and the other is worthless. You can see this trend throughout history, and I suspect it’s a big reason why all traditional societies work so hard to repress female desire; because it’s interpreted as women denigrating men rather than just being a preference.
It’s like traditional men are so status obsessed that they cannot get their mind around the fact that everything does not revolve around status .
And of course, this is why a lot of men react so violently to infidelity. It’s not something a woman just DOES, it’s a commentary that he’s a worthless beta male and inferior to someone else and ZOMG THAT IS JUST NOT ACCEPTABLE. It’s equivalent to another man calling them a pussy, which everyone knows has been enough to start wars in the past.
Ben D.
I think it’s more complicated than that—any institution with strong rules about sexual [removed]see also the US military) is going to attract people who are conflicted about their sexuality and want some outside force to help them manage it. I’ve had online conversations with a couple of gay priests who apparently went into their vocation with very little idea of who they would be as fully-formed adults…
But then you have the combination of temptation, mostly-unassailable power and complete condemnation of even perfectly normal (for non-priests) sexual activity. Because pedophilia (especially same-sex pedophilia) is where the biggests scandals have been, but there are also plenty of cases of nonconsensual behavior with late-teen and adult female parishioners. (And, as that case in Miami shows, perfectly consensual but closeted behavior.)
Those are all good points, Paul.
I think the bottom line is that not getting laid doesn’t have any more effect on your mental well being than you are willing to give it. If you wrap up your self worth and ego in how many women you have fucked well, yeah, you’re going to be driven crazy if you don’t get laid. If you just think sex is nice but not the measure of your self-worth as a human being and your status in society, you will be just fine.
There are still the physical urges, yes, but again--masturbation.
One of my duties on the job is to assess someone for suicidal/homicidal ideation and go to court to probate them if I find either one to be the case. If the magistrate accepts my affidavit, the county sheriff picks them up and takes them for emergency mental health treatment. They are very strict about the “danger to self or others” argument, but I think I probably could have probated this dude based upon his blog. There also has to be clear evidence that there is a mental disorder causing it which I think I could also have argued. But with his lack of mental health history (as far as we know), it might have been tough. I’ve had to pass on a few guys that were violent jerks, but had no evidence of mental illness—they were just antisocial assholes. I just wish I was still in Pittsburgh but doing the job I have now....Oh well.
I reeeeally hope Chet doesn’t have guns. Seriously, dude, you’re freakin’ me out.
I never thought I’d say this, but I don’t think folks are being fair to Chet. He isn’t at all indicating that he is a danger to another human.
<quote>You’re talking about the religious tradition best known for conflating spirituality with brutal bare-hand combat, right? </quote>
<quote>This is a pretty fascinating ahistoricity. Do you know anything at all about the history of Buddhism that you didn’t copy down from episodes of Kung Fu? Convincing the entire Western world, apparently, that there’s absolutely no history of Buddhist violence is a pretty neat judo trick, imo. </quote>
Physician, Heal Thyself. To say Buddhism has never had violence might be inaccurate, but pretending buddhist worship amounts to a bunch of sexually frustrated virgins trying to figure out how to kill people, as you’re doing, is beyond stupid.
PIATOR:
“Gawd. There, but for a sense of my own ridiculousness, go I.”
Forgive me if I’m wrong, but you live in Wellington, right. And what do you think your chances are of getting a bag full of weaponry into Les Mills without running into two current co-workers, four people you used to work with, an old friend from high school, the mother of that girl you dated once and several assorted distant relatives? At least one of them is going to insist on chatting while you’re trying to discreetly remove the gun from the bag.
someone asked how he got “there” from where he was, such that he killed people whom he’d never even met.
well, he was a coward of the most cowardly kind; if he had even an iota of courage, he would’ve killed himself only instead (as someone else commented); and if he had an ounce of integrity or emotional intelligence, he would have blamed other men (or women) for being better at bonding with women than he was, rather than blaming generic women, and, THEN killed himself only.
but, no, this stooge was a hater and a coward’s coward. typical sniveling wanker among cowards. the biggest coward at a coward’s convention, now hopefully residing in the coward’s circle of hell.
It’s like traditional men are so status obsessed that they cannot get their mind around the fact that everything does not revolve around status.
For a lot of people, everything does revolve around status. Surely you’ve heard the horror stories people tell about being unpopular in high school? In many environments, falling into the low status zone is an invitation for everyone to make your life a living hell.
Being low status won’t kill you, but it might make you wish it did.
See also: http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html
The people that make life hell for those of low status need to know that status isn’t the end all of life too. I was low status in high school, but perhaps thanks to prozac, and definitely thanks to my intelligence and arrogance, I didn’t give a shit and enjoyed high school quite a bit.
Not to depress anyone, but if you go to OKCupid and start skimming through the journal posts there, you will see (on any given day) a dozen or more self-entitled Nice Guy rants from idiots who seem completely oblivious to the fact that they’re shooting themselves in the foot by doing such a thing on what is primarily a dating site. Some of them mirror almost word-for-word the blog entries from Sodini - and some of them are downright hostile in their misogynistic assessment of women who ‘won’t take the time out to be civil’ and answer their mass e-mails of “‘Sup, babe?”
The Nice Guys generally catch Hell (and rightfully so) from other members on the site - who provide links to essays on heartlessbitches.com & such - but it generally doesn’t do much good. Mainly because these aren’t guys in their late teens/early 20’s - but more in their 40’s & 50’s who should honestly know better.
A few points I wanted to make:
Point one: One of religion’s many claims to fame is the uncanny ability to inhibit a person’s natural, more instinctive responses by “getting into your head”. Case in point, me: Having been brought up on a Catholic education, there is a subconscious part of me that still believes sex (even for procreation) is unclean, dirty, and actually a sin. This, despite many years of learning in my later years that sex is not only necessary for continuation of the species, but can also be beautiful. I constantly have to fight that subconscious impulse to avert my eyes whenever I see a sex scene in a movie, for example, because that part of me stands up and screams, “UNCLEAN, UNCLEAN!” like some Philistine in the middle of the Gospel of St. Luke. 
And as we all know, religion almost ubiquitously leads to misogyny in one way or another. This, combined with his racist tendencies, is likely what caused him to snap like a twig, kill 3, injure 9, and ultimately /RAGEQUIT on the MMO that is Life(tm).
Point two: There is anecdotal evidence to suggest that men who go for extremely long periods without any form of sexual release (this includes masturbation) can show signs of instability, depression, and severe mental illness related to their inability to get some. This usually deals more with people like the stereotypical 40-year-old virgin—mating impulses never get answered or addressed, and it eventually leads to mild psychosis. Of course, IANAP (I am not a psychologist), but I have read about the possibility of such things.
Point three: Mnemosyne waaaaay up there has it right:
And yet a lot of men are still handed the line that the only close, emotional relationship that they’re allowed to have is with their wife. They can’t have close guy friends because it’s too “faggy.” The one and only person to whom they’re going to be culturally allowed to open up to (and maybe not even then) is their spouse. Therefore, finding a spouse is more than just a matter of getting laid—it’s really your only possible chance to express yourself emotionally because anything else would be unmanly.
This is VERY true. A lot of guys who knew me in college considered me “effeminate” because I was more emotional and prone to mood swings (some of it is the clinical depression I suffer from) and in turn, didn’t feel particularly comfortable talking about “guy things” with me. This extended to whenever I was going through a rough spot—the guys would listen because they were trying to be good friends, but the discussion was always awkward.
I find myself having to choke back tears during movies, out of fear that I’ll be derided as a “fag” or a “pussy”. Hell, the scene in Bolt where Bolt finally returns to Penny, even in the middle of a burning building, is a scene that moved me to tears (as silly as that might sound). I get embarrassed by it, and as a result, I turn my head to hide out of shame, because “boys don’t cry.”
There is a societal impetus that says that simply because I’m male, I’m not allowed to feel emotions like sadness, empathy, tenderness, or gentleness in public “because those are for girls”. I’m told by society to bottle them up, put them away, and never let them out because “you’re a man and men don’t feel those things”.
Am I failing to acknowledge that women don’t get told the same kinds of things with a different set of rules? Absolutely not. I completely acknowledge that it’s very, very wrong for women to be told to keep quiet, be seen and not heard, and to dote on people like June Cleaver. I find it offensive that women “aren’t allowed” to show strength, fortitude, drive, ambition, and other emotions normally “reserved for the purview of males”. I find it horrible and amoral for the religions of the world to take such a virulent stance on sexual and reproductive freedoms for women. And I find it tremendously offensive that there are people who are actually apologizing for this asshole who, because he hadn’t shacked up with someone in 20 years, decided that it was suddenly OK to go out and put 3 people in the ground and 9 more in hospital.
The truth of the matter is that the problem cuts both ways; and all too often one side gets all the exposure while the other side gets none (kind of like treating the symptoms, not the disease). There are two sides to every problem, and this is no different. Men and women both are pigeonholed into roles that restrict their capabilities or shun certain behaviors, and the fact that mental illnesses are spiraling out of control in this country is proof of the damage those roles cause.
Treat the disease, not the symptom.
I just made the mistake of going and looking at M4W on CL after reading this great post and comments (apologies if I am doing a disservice to the discourse!). It’s amazing, there are a lot of PUAs on the intarwebs… Luckily it’s pretty easy to pick them out. If the dude’s post looks like a laundry list for the woman he wants, I’m probably not going to respond to that ad because there’s a high probability that he is a PUA. (btw… apparently “pua” also means flower in Hawaiian, so could we use the more technical term?)
I know that douche potentially has antifeminist underpinnings (due to what a douche literally is), but it is really nice finally having a word that describes men like Roisse. Some could argue that calling a man a “douchebag” is no better than calling a woman a “bitch,” “ho”, or “slut”, but in all honesty, when you have people out there like Roisse, spewing his poison to others, there is no better time to use the word douchebag.
This is VERY true. A lot of guys who knew me in college considered me “effeminate” because I was more emotional and prone to mood swings (some of it is the clinical depression I suffer from) and in turn, didn’t feel particularly comfortable talking about “guy things” with me. This extended to whenever I was going through a rough spot—the guys would listen because they were trying to be good friends, but the discussion was always awkward.
I find myself having to choke back tears during movies, out of fear that I’ll be derided as a “fag” or a “pussy”. Hell, the scene in Bolt where Bolt finally returns to Penny, even in the middle of a burning building, is a scene that moved me to tears (as silly as that might sound). I get embarrassed by it, and as a result, I turn my head to hide out of shame, because “boys don’t cry.”
IME, the only emotions males are allowed from childhood into many competitive sports and many professional fields are anger, rage, triumphalist happiness from besting/stomping on a defeated competitor, and not much more. Anything else...especially the opposites of the three listed would be considered signs the male is not tough, aggressive, or committed enough to persevere through adverse situations and get things done. Saw plenty of this among male classmates and co-workers...including incidents where it was taken to terrifying extremes.
This is also one possible reason why so many men hate “playing psychologist” to a SO or even their friends. It is not only considered “effeminate”, but also can be quite draining of oneself and far more complex and aggravating to deal with.......with the added danger that one’s masculinity is perceived to be deeply threatened.
The guy is, as they say, fit, not bad looking, educated. So clearly the problem is that he must be a fucking douchebag creepazoid.
I’m sorry, but there are a ridiculous number of guys who meet that description that aren’t douchebag creepazoids, that don’t deserve your stigmatization on top of feeling isolated, unloved and damaged. I know, I know if there were any nice good single men out there, they’d be interested in you, but you’re not getting any right now, therefore all good looking single etc men out there must be douchebags. But unfortunately the universe isn’t fair like that (in fact, in a mathematical sense being desirable makes it harder to get a date—it’s called The Carol Syndrome.)
’m sure that after a long period of celibacy, when you decide no one will ever sleep with you again (Dan Savage’s column last week hinted that there are probably more of these people than anyone thinks)
Yeah, this. You stop sleeping with anybody for a year or two and after that it doesn’t matter what you look like, your attitudes towards women, your sense of humor, your gym-toned abs, etc. It’s as though you give off an eau de unfuckability (Celibace?) that anybody can smell for 100 yards. If you seem creepy, it’s in the other direction—you just off as almost post-sexual, unearthly.
Eventually you cut off that part of yourself—you have to. You learn to be happy (most of the time; you get oh so sick of hearing “I can’t believe you’re single” and being compared to killers, etc. at places like these) if incomplete. You learn to love yourself even though you may as well have an Unfuckable caste tattoo on your forehead. You get a sort of gaydar about other Unfuckables and find them even more Unfuckable than everybody else does because of the way they remind you of your own situation. (Want to meet some? Go to the gym—or a 12 step meeting—or work late—on a Friday night. There are basically the only non-suicide/drug addiction/etc. endings to the story—the “happy endings” if you will.)
If you’re fundamentally a decent person you will eventually make peace with whatever crap the universe throws at you without feeling like a victim. That’s the bottom line.
Butot getting laid doesn’t mean a guy’s a fucking douchebag creepazoid, a closet misogynist or whatever, so fuck you (in the most abstract possible sense) for implying that.
liminalist, she wasn’t implying that at all.
She was saying that very likely, the reason THIS PARTICULAR guy wasn’t getting laid was that he was indeed, as evidenced by his killing people, a fucking douchebag freakazoid, and his intended fuckees probably picked up on his barely-suppressed rage and hatred and got the hell out before it was too late. And good on them.
You know, for a cultural clique/ideology that has dominated society for so long, I’ve always felt that patriarchy was remarkably fragile. It’s not that these guys can’t accept that women have the right to choose men for whatever reason they want, it’s that they interpret women not choosing them as a commentary on their worthlessness and their place in the pecking order of men. If a woman likes another guy instead of them, she’s saying that she thinks the one she likes is superior and the other is worthless. You can see this trend throughout history, and I suspect it’s a big reason why all traditional societies work so hard to repress female desire; because it’s interpreted as women denigrating men rather than just being a preference.
Quoting this for emphasis. Also because it’s true.
Sodini reminds me of the men I encountered at the singles dances I attended several years ago. These men stalked the periphery of the dance floor like wolves waiting to pick off stragglers from the herd. One could sense their desperation to connect, if only for the duration of one dance, with an available woman. Their collected desperation permeated the otherwise concupiscent atmosphere of the club like a miasma. Could this be the image I’m sending? Smiling in recognition of the ironic fragility of our testosterone-infused egos, my reverie was interrupted by a soft voice over my right shoulder asking, “Is this your first time here?”
Katey, I’ve always felt “douche” should be reclaimed, given that douches are things that irritate the hell out of vaginas and are bad for them long-term. Which is the best descriptive pejorative for the type you’re talking about that I know of.
Is it completely lost on the PUA crowd that “rejected by women” and “personality of a mass murderer” are probably consistent with one another?
Anything else...especially the opposites of the three listed would be considered signs the male is not tough, aggressive, or committed enough to persevere through adverse situations and get things done.
I also wonder if men who openly have emotions other than the officially condoned ones are pathologized more. I remember watching what one of my brothers went through during a bad breakup, which ended in therapy and a cocktail of antidepressants, and thinking, “hm. That’s exactly what I feel and how I act when the same thing happens to me, and nobody has ever wanted to put me on prozac for it...” Women are allowed to pin our hopes on romantic relationships and to grieve when we’re rejected. Men who do so need to be medicated.
Someone up there mentioned gun control. I think it’s not mentioned after cases like this because guns are like the drug problem: the horse is already out of the barn, in fact it broke through the fences and is now a few counties away. There are too many guns, period. And most people aren’t insane.
The pickup artist apologists for this nut’s actions are insane. Dude didn’t lack game, he lacked any desire to play it. He was just a miserable ass who lived alone because he was too hateful to try to trust anyone after getting dumped, and he created an entire world to justify his hate. My wife left me and I was in a funk for a bit (okay, I’m still not over it and probably never will be,) but I can’t say I ever got to a point where I even shallowly felt she or any other woman owed me any cure for my problems. Life is unfair, not women.
This guy didn’t have any perspective in his twisted worldview, nor did he want any. Doofus couldn’t even bear to watch his own crime, since he turned off the lights. “Coward” doesn’t even begin to come close. I’m glad he was so cowardly, since he’d have probably killed many more if he had been able to see what he was doing. But he didn’t want to, nor did he want to face the consequences. He was a nihilist of the worst sort.
Getting laid doesn’t cure unhappiness. Getting married to someone wonderful won’t cure unhappiness. Having a positive group of supportive friends won’t cure unhappiness. Only happiness cures unhappiness. Some people just aren’t able to get there with all the help in the world, while others manage with every obstacle in place. What makes one person snap while another keeps chugging along? If we knew that, the world would be a much safer place. Most single computer engineers who hate women will die peacefully and have uneventful lives with no victims other than themselves. That’s something to be thankful for. Not much, but it’s something.
I’m sorry, but there are a ridiculous number of guys who meet that description that aren’t douchebag creepazoids, that don’t deserve your stigmatization on top of feeling isolated, unloved and damaged.
There are plenty of women out there who feel isolated, unloved, and damaged because we fail to attract sexual/romantic partners. Nobody seems to be weeping for us. As Amanda posted above, sometimes life isn’t fair. Sometimes you don’t get the girl. Sometimes you don’t get ANY girl, for YEARS. Right now I’m in (yet another) fledgling relationshiplet, and because the last year has been nonstop brutal rejection*, each time more difficult than the last, I’ve become so afraid to just let go and enjoy myself. And yet if others see me as a psycho paranoid needy clingy bitch, that’s their prerogative. Because yeah, I probably really am acting that way, and it’s not terribly attractive despite the fact that I’m a cute girl with a lot of great qualities. It is not other people’s responsibility to give me the benefit of the doubt at all times. If I’m acting like a psycho paranoid needy clingy bitch, they should probably call it like they see it and stay away from me.
Yeah, this. You stop sleeping with anybody for a year or two and after that it doesn’t matter what you look like, your attitudes towards women, your sense of humor, your gym-toned abs, etc. It’s as though you give off an eau de unfuckability (Celibace?) that anybody can smell for 100 yards.
Uhhhh, no, you don’t. Some people might give off a whiff of desperation. But it’s actually pretty easy to control that, if you’re willing to work on it rather than sit there feeling entitled. The bizarre thing about the PUA systems for meeting women is that one of the overarching themes is teaching men not to act desperate. There’s a lot in there about not latching onto a woman and following her around all night drooling. Because no woman is ever going to voluntarily sleep with you if you act like a creep. Of course they mask this in all sorts of misogynistic “all women are stupid bints who will fall for you immediately if you do X” bullshit—but the underlying idea (most people aren’t interested in desperate creeps) is sound.
Also, seriously, if this horrible reek of unfuckability is supposed to happen after a year without sex...? Yeah, hon, you watch too much TV.
you get oh so sick of hearing “I can’t believe you’re single” and being compared to killers, etc. at places like these
If you think what we’re saying here is “all single men are creepazoid douchebags”, you have problems much deeper than not getting laid enough.
*and preceding that, three years of not even meeting anyone I was attracted to.
Butot getting laid doesn’t mean a guy’s a fucking douchebag creepazoid, a closet misogynist or whatever, so fuck you (in the most abstract possible sense) for implying that.
That’s a good way to prove you’re not a creep, dude. If you’re having trouble getting people to hang out with you I’d look at the hostility issue before blaming pheromones, or whatever you meant by ‘eau de unfuckability.’
The guy is a fucking douchebag creepazoid because he blamed women for a problem that was clearly caused by his own personality. And I’m certain that the personality came first, not the rejection.
Also, seriously, if this horrible reek of unfuckability is supposed to happen after a year without sex...? Yeah, hon, you watch too much TV.
This. People who aren’t smart enough to realize TV and movies are fiction, and you shouldn’t take your attitudes about sex and relationships from them, are going to be depressed. Cause on TV nobody goes for longer than a month without sex, unless they’re creepy psychos/losers. This isn’t how real life works. Getting laid is not as easy as Hollywood makes it look, even for attractive people.
Oponax: Dang. I thought I was the only one whose record in relationships with eight months in high school. I, too, dated the guy who corrected me when I mentioned we were dating to anybody. I can’t believe I put up with that shit.
I’ve not had a boyfriend in six years. That relationship lasted five months. I’ve been celibate for over a year now. Do I feel the need to go out and punish every man who has not had sex with me? No.
You do not have a right to sex for fuck’s sake. I can’t believe I had to say that out loud.
I remember watching what one of my brothers went through during a bad breakup, which ended in therapy and a cocktail of antidepressants, and thinking, “hm. That’s exactly what I feel and how I act when the same thing happens to me, and nobody has ever wanted to put me on prozac for it...” Women are allowed to pin our hopes on romantic relationships and to grieve when we’re rejected. Men who do so need to be medicated.
This may have to do with your own personal feelings about whether it’s appropriate to use anti-depressants, or a possible stigma attached to women who use them (which is a stigma I’d have thought would be more commonly attached to men, not women).
Related to this is that once you understand the personal/emotional consequences to relationship failure/rejection, you’re going to be reluctant to put yourself in that position ever again. Most of us will simply allow those memories to fade, and well jump right in again and follow our hearts off a cliff sometime down the road. However, if you’re particularly stubborn, have a penchant for nurturing a grievance, and are in denial about what you actually feel, then I can see how you would both avoid ever being in a relationship again while also ending up bitter and angry that you hadn’t been in a relationship in a long long time.
A year is just how long it takes to basically forget what it’s like. After that happens, you can redirect your energies!
I found out once that the most movie-star of the boys in my department in college hadn’t had sex in two years because he had had his heart broken and was taking a while to get over it. After that I felt a lot more normal. Especially if you’re the kind of person who’s nervous doing much of anything (bowling, light conversation, nakedness) with a complete stranger and finds one night stands difficult, I think multi-year dry spells just aren’t super-rare. And while I like my current relationship a great deal, I really do sometimes miss the manic energy that can come from subverting all that energy into creative projects. Also all the extra sleep.
Well, yeah. It’s kinda like on TV nobody ever waits in line for anything, or has to actually take the time to eat food, pay in a restaurant, find parking, do their job (unless they’re House or one of the detectives on Law & Order). Fiction tells stories. Audiences don’t want to watch the cast of Grey’s Anatomy do their jobs, go home, watch a little TV, eat some takeout, and clean the cat box. They want to watch them get into romantic intrigue and solve amazing medical dilemmas.
This may have to do with your own personal feelings about whether it’s appropriate to use anti-depressants, or a possible stigma attached to women who use them
Not really. I didn’t think it was wrong for him to seek therapy after a bad breakup. I just noted that I’d been through my share and nobody had suggested the same for me. And didn’t find that his grief-stricken acting out was any different than mine—it’s not like he had a psychotic break or had to be institutionalized or anything. His emotions were pathologized. Mine were considered within the realm of normal. He’s male. I’m female. Interesting, to say the least.
Multi-year dry spells are very common, its just that guys don’t like admitting to them, especially if they are (surprise) attractive and have a good personality and don’t fit the “psycho loser” stereotype. So they either don’t mention them or bullshit and make up stuff, which is a shame, because it just re-enforces that stupid stereotype.
Between my senior year of high school and junior year of college, for example, I didn’t get laid once. It never crossed my mind to go I HATE TEH WIMMENS! and shoot up a gym, though.
Yeah not to mention you have a real problem if your goal is more than “getting laid”. I’ve reached the point where having sex with a republican is a repulsive concept, and I really can’t get sexually excited over a man who isn’t an extremely politically-aware leftist with feminist sensibilities.
Imagine my choices huh? lol
I’ve gone some time between lovers believe me. It never felt like any big deal though.
Caton, there was a physically attractive woman who liked me in college, but I found out she held political views similar to Michelle Bachmann. If the choices were between being in a relationship with someone like that, and not having sex the rest of my life, I think I’d seriously choose the latter.
Ben, I think multi-year dry spells and other long periods of not being romantically successful are much more typical of very young people than we tend to want to admit. I had sex like twice in high school, and went semesters without dating in college. The post-college period was even rougher, because I had to learn how to meet people all over again. A lot of the sex I had was really disappointing, too.
Reading The Game, it didn’t surprise me at all that a large proportion of the men described were under 25, and of course lamenting that they were still virgins or that they’d only slept with a small number of women. The media tells young men that they’re supposed to be seducing a different girl every week until the day they get married to some needy bitch who has to practically force them down the aisle. And then they’re still supposed to be keeping an eye out for a little something on the side.
“Life is unfair, not women. “
This.
When I was going through dry spells, I was pretty clear on the fact that it was me, not those evil wimminz. (Of course it helped that some of my best friends [ahem] were women, I was still on friendly speaking terms with most of the women I’d slept with, and had friends who reflected back at me the idea that my company was not a priori undesirable.)
That’s a good way to prove you’re not a creep, dude. If you’re having trouble getting people to hang out with you I’d look at the hostility issue before blaming pheromones, or whatever you meant by ‘eau de unfuckability.’
Exactly. Note also that this guy was not ONLY single - he didn’t have ANY friends, not at work, his neighbors didn’t know him and said he was “antisocial” and “a loner” and “didn’t talk to people”.
That isn’t an aura of unfuckability - that’s somebody with serious social deficits who feels entitled to have women do all the break through work he is too averse to doing.
Besides, being celibate ... in my exprience and that of many friends? It seems to have an “eau do challenge” or “eau du fuckme” to it. A long dry spell doesn’t make you unfuckable - if anything, it can make you more attractive so long as you are somewhat disinterested and not despirate!
BTW, it really isn’t impossible to find an “escort service” if you have money and “rent” a woman to teach you how to behave.
Also, seriously, if this horrible reek of unfuckability is supposed to happen after a year without sex...?
Oh, God, I just expired. How embarrassing. Is this like a passport or a drivers license? Can I go and renew my fuckability?
I read and enjoyed The Game very much, because it’s an amazing story and Neil Strauss tells it very well. But the whole thing starts with that douche Mystery suffering a nervous breakdown, and the heartwarming moral of the story is that Neil himself doesn’t get the awesome rocker girl he always deserved until he stops playing. He was smart enough to stop being a douche when it stopped working, which is why he’s the hero of the book. That is was a fun but ultimately destructive lifestyle was the whole point, but of course his (and the rest of the PUAs) audience is just the demographic to miss it. I did have a conversation with a very sexy guy who’d read part of it but didn’t finish. “Am I supposed to like these assholes?” was his opinion.
Cause on TV nobody goes for longer than a month without sex, unless they’re creepy psychos/losers.
*I’ve* gone for close to a month without sex, and I’m in a relationship (6 years and counting). Some Long Distance stuff due to family deaths and stuff. And I guess erotic IM would count as sex. So nevermind, make that a month without PIV sex, which of course in TV Land is the Only True Sex.
Some people need to get a bit of perspective. I was one of those people, I guess. Didn’t get kissed until 21. It was all me and my personal screwups, not ‘teh bitchez’. Worked on myself and whatdoyouknow, I’m doing much better now. It’s easier to just blame others and stay in the death spiral than going out there and actually DO something.
I read something like this and I am so thankful I finally got the fuck over myself and grew up.
I was a Nice Guy® self-loathing douchebag for quite a long time.
Heck, I still have Nice Guy® tendencies/habits/bits of self-loathing that I need to get over.
I was never anywhere near the level of derangement and self-hatred/woman-hatred that leads to a spree shooting, but 5 or 6 years ago, I probably would have been willing to agree with Roissy’s comments.
What got me over my problems with women was growing up, deciding that I had the problem - not them - and reading this blog. When I read about Nice Guy® for the first time, I was like “Holy shit - that’s me” and I didn’t want to be that guy.
And, at least for me, it was more self-loathing and self-hatred (low self-esteem is bullshit) than about hating women. But that self-hatred manifest itself in the form of woman-hating Nice Guy® syndrome.
So, if any of my friends were to fall into the Nice Guy® trap and come to me for advice (and I think some could be of that inclination), I’d recommend reading Pandagon - not some lame PUA site.
You know, if being unable to get laid really did turn men into murderers, unavoidably… society would be within its rights to demand that men have regular sex (unfunded mandate, rather like car insurance… we don’t care how you do it, but if you don’t prove that you have had sex, you are not in compliance), and if they haven’t, lock them up. For the good of society, because men who aren’t having sex are potential murderers.
This would rightly be seen as a horrific invasion of men’s privacy and a violation of their human rights… but *every* time someone argues that because of reason X, person Y had NO CHOICE but to be a mass murderer and kill innocent people, I like to turn it around and say “then we should lock up everyone that reason X applies to.” I mean, if men kill because they don’t have sex, then they should be thrown in jail for not having sex! Right?
Of course, if they kill because they’re *killers* and the sex is a red herring and it would have been something else otherwise, then no, locking men up for not having sex would be pointless. But then it wouldn’t be possible to blame the victims and imply that because women in general were not having sex with this guy, it was justifiable that he killed women, would it?
Note also that this guy was not ONLY single - he didn’t have ANY friends, not at work, his neighbors didn’t know him and said he was “antisocial” and “a loner” and “didn’t talk to people”.
Just about every guy I’ve ever come across who exuded Potential Serial Killer vibes also had serious antisocial/loner issues (which is not to say that all loners are serial killers, of course - I’m no social butterfly myself). At this point I take it as a potential red flag if someone doesn’t seem to have any friends, seems totally hostile to everyone in their workplace, isn’t close with any family members, etc. I mean, you don’t need to be Ms. Popularity or anything, but there’s a certain level of Otaku behavior that is kind of a bad sign about one’s emotional ability to bond with other people.
I had a celibate period for almost 3 years while getting over some Nice Guy tendencies. I thought at first the celibacy itself was making me a little crazy. After a while I figured out that I craved physical contact more than sex itself. So I resolved to become more physically affectionate with my friends. I was already pretty far along in becoming more confortable talking about emotions with male & female friends, and this was pretty much the final piece in overcoming that struggle. I still sometimes have to put in some effort to be physically affectionate, but it helps and is worth it.
liminalist, you want to know one really bad way to convince people that you’re not a douchebag creepazoid/closet misogynist? Coming onto a thread about the deaths of three women and posting a long screed about how hard it is to be a guy who’s not getting laid.
I’ll add: LIFE ISN’T FAIR.
Amanda, thank you for this passage. It was written with clarity and passion. One to re-read and possibly worth a front-page entry of its own.
You learn to love yourself even though you may as well have an Unfuckable caste tattoo on your forehead. You get a sort of gaydar about other Unfuckables and find them even more Unfuckable than everybody else does because of the way they remind you of your own situation.
Why does this passage put me in mind of Steve Martin’s ‘lonely guy’ movie? It’s equally as absurd.
I’ve reached the point where having sex with a republican is a repulsive concept, and I really can’t get sexually excited over a man who isn’t an extremely politically-aware leftist with feminist sensibilities.
Yeah, I’ve never considered sex with Republicans (first words after first kiss with the ex one never really gets over: “You’re not a Republican, are you?"), although I think a couple of formerly apolitical college-era partners did end up on that side of the political fence. Libertarians used to be mildly entertaining in their who-gives-a-shit way, but now I can’t bear them either. Plus I’m in the south (albeit in a city), and over 35-- the prospects are so terrible that I don’t even look anymore unless my hormones are clearly on the loose. Makes it hard to find motivation to get/stay in shape, too… which I guess is another, maybe not-so-trivial difference between me and the shooter.
Anyway, long dry spells really are horrible, especially when I reach the point of being almost afraid of being touched except by relatives because it feels like I might break. But I’m not outgoing, I am hard to read, my opinions are a bit strong for many men-- when younger, they often found them feisty/cute until they discovered I was dead serious, which was infuriating-- my profession does not put me in contact with any potential partners, and even in political activity the single men are usually way too young for me. So it mostly is my fault when nothing happens, but at least I can accept that responsibility… most of my dealbreaker issues have changed considerably since I was younger, but they’re a lot more insurmountable now.
Ben, I think multi-year dry spells and other long periods of not being romantically successful are much more typical of very young people than we tend to want to admit.
Yup. Here’s another example:
There was a very successful athlete (basketball player) in my high school. He had a lot of friends, popular, etc. “Alpha male”, right? He never had a girlfriend in high school. Ever. There is a possibility he was closeted gay, but I didn’t get that vibe. This could *never* happen in TV Land, but it happened in the real world.
Audiences don’t want to watch the cast of Grey’s Anatomy do their jobs, go home, watch a little TV, eat some takeout, and clean the cat box. They want to watch them get into romantic intrigue and solve amazing medical dilemmas.
Which is fine. The problem is when they try to manufacture similar drama in their own lives. If anything, it’s even more annoying than their Tv-driven belief that the reality-based stuff ought to come without any effort.
We all go through dry spells. Not fun, but the only way one gets that so-called aura (which is, as others have pointed out, more the body language and attitude associated with desperation) is by buying into the bogus idea that the dry spell will never, ever end. From there it’s an easy step to creating a dramatic explanation for it—one involving some sort of conspiracy.
The PA murderer is a good example of this situation taken to its extreme.
I’ve reached the point where having sex with a republican is a repulsive concept
Same here. It’s why I laughed so hard at the Curb Your Enthusiasm episode where Larry, who’s about to have a wife-sanctioned extramarital sex with a gorgeous actress, notices that she has a photo of Prince Bush in her dressing room and just turns around and walks out. Total turn-off.
The problem is when they try to manufacture similar drama in their own lives. If anything, it’s even more annoying than their Tv-driven belief that the reality-based stuff ought to come without any effort.
Yeah. Deciding that your lovelife should run on the same schedule as a TV character’s is like assuming you’re entitled to a parking spot right in front of every business you patronize. Most people understand that media depictions of mundane things (The starship Enterprise didn’t even have bathrooms!!!!!) are not realistic. It gets weird when you see how many otherwise intelligent people don’t realize that the rest of it isn’t realistic, either. Because it’s a STORY.
Just about every guy I’ve ever come across who exuded Potential Serial Killer vibes also had serious antisocial/loner issues (which is not to say that all loners are serial killers, of course - I’m no social butterfly myself).
I’m glad you put in that disclaimer, because this “he was a loner” pseudo-explanation is very popular after these massacres. A couple of years ago, guest-posting on Steve Gilliard’s blog, I was cataloguing the piss-poor and lazy “insights” provided by the media whores who show up on cable news within hours of these incidents, and topped it off with this:
And even so, just to cover their empty and agenda-driven bloviating, all of the above commentators will fall back on the ultimate condemnation in America as the cause of this massacre. We’ve heard it every time one of these incidents occurs. Say it with me:
“He was a loner.”
Oh, horrors! A loner. Yes, there’s the basic cause right there. Left-wing or right-wing, natural law or law-n-order, who’s gonna argue with that?
Well, I will. I’m sick of this lazy formulation, not the least because I’m somewhat of a loner myself. So let’s get it straight once and for all, shall we?
Most violently disturbed and chronically alienated people like the VA Tech gunman are loners because, hey, that’s part of the deal. Emphasising that the gunman was a “loner” is stating the painfully obvious, so why do it?
There’s an answer. It’s about the converse assumption—the dishonest tautology implied every time “he was a loner” is brought up: because this gunman was a loner, it must therefore follow that most loners have the potential to be violently disturbed or chronically alienated people. Loners are time bombs just waiting to explode. They don’t conform, they don’t subscribe to conventional wisdom, they don’t engage in superficial conversation, they’re introverts, they have esoteric hobbies, they disrespect arbitrary authority—ergo, those loners must be deranged. Watch them, shun them, cure them.
This is not about boosting the average Joe’s self-esteem. In the end, the “loner” causation argument serves no other purpose but to re-inforce the pernicious Human Resources Culture, the Fourth Purpose (in John Taylor Gatto’s words) that’s ground into Americans from elementary school through to corporate life and retirement. Forget the gregarious psycho manager or bullying athlete or kiss-up student body president—it’s the loner who’s the real problem. The message: look at what happened at VA Tech, then look around your workplace and quail in fear: if he’s not a “team player,” it stands to reason he’s insane and dangerous. It’s the worst sort of propaganda, with all the assumptions of the audience’s lack of critical thinking that implies.
Yeah. Deciding that your lovelife should run on the same schedule as a TV character’s is like assuming you’re entitled to a parking spot right in front of every business you patronize. Most people understand that media depictions of mundane things (The starship Enterprise didn’t even have bathrooms!!!!!) are not realistic.
“Reality” shows are making this even worse, because the morons think because its called a “reality” show, it must be JUST like real life!
The only “reality” show that came even close to living up to the name was probably the first season or two of the Real World. Notice how after that everybody looked like a buff movie star and they didn’t have any average looking, let alone homely people on there anymore. No, its all Hollywood looking people getting laid left and right.
buying into the bogus idea that the dry spell will never, ever end.
And by fixating on that, and refusing to accept the idea and move on. I’m pretty serious about what I said above, that I had three years of not meeting anyone I was interested in. Towards the end of that three years I just accepted the fact that I would probably never find anyone I wanted to be with, ever again.
Pretty soon after I just decided to accept that and move on (more time for hobbies!), people I was attracted to started coming out of the woodwork. I think I kind of just needed to get over myself.
Gracchus, there’s a difference between being a naturally solo flying type and being so alienated that you literally have no one. What sets off a red flag for me isn’t someone not having a faithful stable of bestest buds they’re inseparable with. Hey, I went on a two month backpacking trip alone and didn’t miss the companionship at all.
The red flag is when they have no one in their life at all, express hostility to unavoidable social contacts like coworkers and family members, and seem to deliberately avoid contact with other humans. Which begs the question of what function they think I’m going to have in their life. I’m not interested in being anyone’s fuck toaster, sorry.
Gracchus, you really went overboard there ... loner may be a stereotype, but I think it has a lot to do with how people are exhorted to “be nice” and “say nice things” about somebody who is a scary, anti-social, paranoid creep. It is easier to use the word “loner” to encapsulate all of that without putting too much judgement on it than it is to call it out in no uncertain terms.
Forgive me if I’m wrong, but you live in Wellington, right. And what do you think your chances are of getting a bag full of weaponry into Les Mills without running into two current co-workers, four people you used to work with, an old friend from high school, the mother of that girl you dated once and several assorted distant relatives? At least one of them is going to insist on chatting while you’re trying to discreetly remove the gun from the bag.
Hah! You think you’re soooooo goddamned smart, don’t you?
Anyone I know who saw me in Les Mills would faint in shock and wouldn’t be in a position to stop me. So there.
(But otherwise, scaringly accurate. There are days I can’t walk down the street without running into someone who went to school with my Mum. Her classrooms must have been friggin’ *huge*...)
And by fixating on that, and refusing to accept the idea and move on. I’m pretty serious about what I said above, that I had three years of not meeting anyone I was interested in. Towards the end of that three years I just accepted the fact that I would probably never find anyone I wanted to be with, ever again.
Right. What you didn’t do (at least not with obsessive earnestness of this murderous PA mope or the PUAs) was go on and on and on about the opposite sex, evil scoundrels that they are, conspiring to deny sex to someone as nice/good-looking/wealthy as yourself.
The red flag is when they have no one in their life at all, express hostility to unavoidable social contacts like coworkers and family members, and seem to deliberately avoid contact with other humans.
Correct, but as noted above, the description of a loner is a painfully obvious one to apply to someone who’s chronically alienated from other humans—with the exception of a tiny handful of celebrities, you don’t see an alienated person who’s also a social butterfly.
My point was more about the MSM’s lazy tendency in these situations to start off with the idea that being a loner (in the most general, unqualified sense) was a causal factor that led to the crime. It’s as stupid as someone observing your two month trip and observing “hmmm, she must be the female Ted Kaczynski.” Which is why I appreciated your making a distinction that the MSM doesn’t.
Which begs the question of what function they think I’m going to have in their life. I’m not interested in being anyone’s fuck toaster, sorry.
For the alienated people we’re discussing, that’s exactly how they’ll view you: a RealDoll circa 2040 (they must bloody loathe Blade Runner and BSG). It’s probably why many of them seem to hate sex workers, who can’t help but confront them with the evidence of their humanity and agency by, y’know, existing.
The Opoponax sed:
“I think I kind of just needed to get over myself. “
That’s my story, as a teenager. I had a horrible time in junior high - I looked like a boy, was scrawny, liked math and had the worst sense of 80s fashion (magenta harem pants with turquoise zigzags and long dangly plastic earings with crew cut? that was me). I was self conscious and bullied every second for a few years, had no friends to support me, and cared horribly.
Then, one day, I decided I couldn’t do anything about it. I stopped caring, stopped trying so hard, and started enjoying myself, dressing more simply, doing my own thing. Almost that very second, all these guys started coming out of the woodwork and wanted to hang out with me. It made me laugh: where were they all those years when I craved any positive feedback? And ever since then, it’s been the same. The less I care, the more I am my own genuine self and just focused on existing and having fun with other people, the more feedback I get that I am Teh Hot.
Getting over oneself may be the single biggest key to social success. Of course, it also means relating to other people as human beings like oneself, not as inferior sexbots or competitors.
Gracchus, you really went overboard there ... loner may be a stereotype, but I think it has a lot to do with how people are exhorted to “be nice” and “say nice things” about somebody who is a scary, anti-social, paranoid creep. It is easier to use the word “loner” to encapsulate all of that without putting too much judgement on it than it is to call it out in no uncertain terms.
What you call “easier” I call “lazier.” And the MSM and its pundits are nothing if not that. I don’t see anything overboard about that observation.
And no, they’re not “being nice” when they equate the term “loner” (which could be used to describe myself, or Opoponax, or many others here) with “scary, anti-social, paranoid creep”—they’re buying into a larger and uglier American consumerist narrative about conformity. The judgment is now baked into the term for most people who hear it.
Human resources culture.
Have you ever needed help from human resources? No?
latts, it’s so tacky to give someone unasked for advice on the internet, but...have you ever tried a eharmony type of thing? You know when i broke up with my bf I did, and I wrote write on my profile “Does Not Date Republicans, Period”. I met some pretty cool people on there, though I eventually got back together with my bf and I’m still with him now. This was about a year and a half ago. And I met my current bf on a political message board! A lot of people mind find that f’d up, but he wrote these long really great posts, and I got to talking to him, and he’s a leftist professor. So he flew here and we met in a public place, and after about a year, he moved here.
I think it’s really hard to expect to wander into the kind of person most of us posting on a blog like this would be looking for at your local movie theatre. Not to say that can’t happen, but there’s nothign wrong in looking elsewhere too. At least that’s what I think.
the description of a loner is a painfully obvious one to apply to someone who’s chronically alienated from other humans
Gracchus, I’m not a journalist making social commentary, needing to be wary of making too facile a comparison in spinning recent news. I’m a human being trying to figure out in advance whether to waste my time getting involved with someone. Having had one disastrous relationship already with a sociopathic Otaku type who either wanted me to be his entire social/emotional lifeline to the outside world or to be his fuck toaster (depending on the week), I’ve decided that relationships with those sorts of people do not interest me. And thus, if I discover that someone has no friends and is hostile to most other people in their life, that sets off red flags for me. If I want to use the term “extremely alienated loner” to describe such people, that is my business.
Gracchus, human resources called. They need your birth certificate.
Jesus did I screw that post up - vicodin because I stepped on a nail this morning, sorry! But anyway, if you can look past the horrible grammar…
Amanda at 8:24 - everything you say in your post up to the last paragraph couldn’t be more true and common sensical. It’s also something many people fail to realize which make them mad at the world ("woman are all slutty superficial bitches” or “men are assohles” and etc etc.).
I just want to share one thing. Before I read the game, my view of girls was by no means the same as those of Sodini, but just ever so slightly leaning in that direction. Just a little you know? I was unsuccessful and saw the “assholes” getting the girls. Guys whose parents had money or social status. It was reading the game and then subsequent PU material that made me realize exactly the things that you metion in your 8:24 comment (minust the last paragraph). PU taught me the OPOSSITE of entitlement. Instead, it teaches self improvement, confidence, a variety of social skills. Some of the aspects that get viewed as mysoginist are when people, especially girls, are classified as “targets” in a particular setting. Maybe not the best terminology but all that conveys is that it’s just another person and no reason to make her into some goddess. It helps guys practice be separating their success with women with their self worth. It teaches them that women have every right to enjoy the company of whatever men they prefer and it is YOUR job to develop the social skills, personality, interests, looks, or whatever it may be if you want a particular type of woman. It doesn’t ask you to change yourself, but teaches you to leverage the personality you already have. In all honesty, feministy principles were borderline offensive to me until I started learning PU and my mind opened up. You can laugh but there is lot of overlap in what I read on your blog and what I learend in PU. Of course there are plenty of differences as well.
I see that you are pissed that people say “if only this guy had learned the Game” he wouldn’t have done this. Now, anyone who EXCUSES this act has outrageously fucked up values. But just because some shmuck with a blog calls himself a PUA says this crazy shit doesn’t mean the more intelligent, nuanced and progressive PUA’s don’t have a lot to offer guys like Sodini. Had he been taught how to interact with women, to view them as people, to meet more of them and know that his dreamgirl won’t fall into his lap, to not take rejection personally, to be more assertive, to get a haircut, etc etc, things could have been different.
No question that the dude is evil and quite frankly a terrorist. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t root causes that could be dealt with.
Human resources culture.
Have you ever needed help from human resources? No?
Well, there’s the HR Culture and actual HR departments. The first is described by Gatto as a pervasive (if often unknowing) societal agenda where:
All of us are to be made perfectly and dependably manageable, using every trick of psychology, social pressure, or brute force known to history.
To bring about such a result requires that most of us have to be infantilized - made childish - lifelong if possible. School has been the training laboratory for this project for between fifty and one hundred years, depending on the location. It is the most ambitious piece of social engineering in modern history, and has been a brilliant success in reaching its goals. Of course, these are hardly the goals of ordinary citizens, of families, of religions, or of cultures, but they most certainly are the goals of management, whether of business, army, or government.
[Source]
For the latter, when I was working in corporate, sure I took their help—but only because they were handling health benefits and paycheques instead of the CFO office (where, absent single-payer, those functions really belong). I certainly wouldn’t have looked to them for help in other areas, because I understood that HR exists to help the company’s shareholders and executive management, not me or anyone I might have a conflict with or who cares about my job performance.
Gracchus, I’m not a journalist making social commentary, needing to be wary of making too facile a comparison in spinning recent news.
Still, I appreciate the fact that, in this public forum, you made the distinction—something that professional journalists in their public forums can’t be bothered to do.
Agreed with everything else you said.
Chet, three women are dead. Now is not the time to whine about the unfairness of the sexual market.
I wasn’t. I was trying to arrive at an understanding of the killer’s mental state. Maybe that’s impossible. But maybe it’s not the time to whine about PUA douches, either?
I never thought I’d say this, but I don’t think folks are being fair to Chet.
They’re usually not. I don’t get all “woe is me” about it, though.
Chet, one of the focuses of the post is about PUA douches excusing the murder and being concerned that their view will be the only one expressed in the mainstream media.
And you DO get all “woe is me” after a while in these kinds of discussions. What you never ever realize is that you always come in acting like a douche, then get upset when people call you on it, and rather than backing down, you just say more douchey things like the example above. You indicated that people need to think before they post. You need to take your own advice.
But maybe it’s not the time to whine about PUA douches, either?
Surely there is not a more appropriate time?
Gracchus, human resources called. They need your birth certificate.
I keep telling them that I am not Blackazoid, and yet they keep demanding my papers. Perhaps they’re trying to discourage me from my own evil plot to make the You-Ess-Ay into a socialist worker’s paradise. Perhaps if I use that joke birth certificate generator to show them I’m the bastard child of PG Wodehouse and Nadezhda Krupskaya they’ll leave me alone.
You do not have a right to sex for fuck’s sake.
Frankly, I don’t think anyone is saying that anyone does. But not having a right to it doesn’t mean that it isn’t still a human need.
But maybe it’s not the time to whine about PUA douches, either?
Given that the PA killer and the PUA douches shared exactly the same crappy view of women, and that the latter have made excuses for the former on that basis, it’s quite appropriate.
Chet, one of the focuses of the post is about PUA douches excusing the murder and being concerned that their view will be the only one expressed in the mainstream media.
I’m aware, since I can read. It doesn’t obviate the criticism. If the three dead women are the only thing we can talk about, well, they’re the only thing we can talk about.
What you never ever realize is that you always come in acting like a douche, then get upset when people call you on it
I can live with being called on for my actual douchyness, since it’s obvious even to me that I can’t help but be a douche on the internet. It’s when I get called out for entirely fictitious douchyness, like “Chet believes that animals can’t learn” or other such nonsense, that isn’t really fair. But I guess reacting to that makes me a douche, too. Like I said, I’m the douche, every time.
Given that the PA killer and the PUA douches shared exactly the same crappy view of women
It was precisely that crappy view of women that my posts were about.
But not having a right to it doesn’t mean that it isn’t still a human need.
So? The PA killer wasn’t denied sex because mainstream American culture said it’s forbidden outside of marriage by dictate of the Invisible Bearded Sky Man™. He was denied sex because he had a crappy attitude toward women and because he lacked enough “Game” to hide it for very long from those women he dated.
Stating “sex is a human need” as the source of dissatifaction for someone who isn’t getting sex is about as useful in explaining this crime as is stating that someone who’s alienated from family and co-workers and has no meaningful friendship is also a “loner.”
It was precisely that crappy view of women that my posts were about.
No, you were talking about situations where external agents (e.g. religious authorities) with that crappy view deny a person sex, leading to frustration (which is not the same thing as trauma by a longshot) that results in violence. Again: in this case it was the killer himself who was doing that to himself.
But I guess reacting to that makes me a douche, too. Like I said, I’m the douche, every time.
Can we say “woe is me”?
You definitely came into this thread like a douche. Most people do not know the long history Buddhist monks, yet you come on here with a vague post berating someone for not having this knowledge. You don’t even bother to share the knowledge until the third post, by which time people have already decided that you’re an ass. What I am saying is there is a lot you can do to stop being so antagonistic so that people can actually hear your points instead of engaging in a shit throwing match all over the thread.
It was precisely that crappy view of women that my posts were about.
No, they were not. They were first about making fun of people who used Buddhist monks as an example of celibate people that do not go on killing sprees, then they were about the damaging effects of celibacy. Any feminist leaning comments were clearly the disclaimers defending your attempt at threadjacking in order to talk about that.
Funny thing is, I never said anything about Buddhist monks. I actually had Catholic monks more in mind, but whatever.
PU taught me the OPOSSITE of entitlement. Instead, it teaches self improvement, confidence, a variety of social skills. Some of the aspects that get viewed as mysoginist are when people, especially girls, are classified as “targets” in a particular setting. Maybe not the best terminology but all that conveys is that it’s just another person and no reason to make her into some goddess. It helps guys practice be separating their success with women with their self worth. It teaches them that women have every right to enjoy the company of whatever men they prefer and it is YOUR job to develop the social skills, personality, interests, looks, or whatever it may be if you want a particular type of woman. It doesn’t ask you to change yourself, but teaches you to leverage the personality you already have.
Having read The Game, I disagree. As I’ve said, there are kernels of useful information that one can separate out from the sexism that’s heavily ladled over the whole package. But the sexism is there, and it takes someone who is already fundamentally OK to shovel past it to the truisms that lie beneath. Since PUA isn’t catering to people who are fundamentally OK, but to people who are socially dysfunctional, comparatively few people seem to ever take away normal shit from the PUA concept.
So?
So, let’s not say that sexual denial is no big deal, that Catholic monks went ages without and they’re all 100% fine, and so on. Let’s have a realistic and truthful understanding of humans, of human need, not the superficial and wrong understanding that is more palatable to ideology.
That’s all. This guy was a murdering filth, and the only good thing he ever did was his death at his own hand, which still came way too late. And women are dead because of his hideous attitudes - attitudes reflected by our society. I didn’t realize you needed me to say the exact same things Amanda can say much better, but there it is.
You don’t even bother to share the knowledge until the third post
I didn’t realize I was the sole custodian of th knowledge that religion promotes violence. I’ll try to be more forthcoming about that, in the future.
The Women and Girls Foundation of Southwest PA will be holding a candlelight vigil tonight, Thursday, Aug. 6th at 5:30 p.m. at the City-County Building to offer support and non-denominational prayers to the victims and families of this tragic and senseless event.
WGF, community organizations and elected officials will be in attendance. All are welcome.
If you live in the Southwest PA area, please attend if you can. You can also help support WGF in honoring the victims by passing this information to your friends and networks. For questions or more information, please contact WGF .
“Celibacy doesn’t cause people to be violent” != “Religion doesn’t promote violence”.
Opoponax - point taken. I think we’d probably disagree with respect to matters of degree. To me there weren’t kernels of truth but many revelations (lightbulbs) of truth. And sure, you probably can’t be as fucked as Sodini and be helped, but my experience with the community (somewhat limited but I think I have a pretty good feel) is that there are just tons and tons of guys who had similar views of women before PUA but changed once they developed the skills to attract and have normal healthy relationships. It’s obviously not the end of the world, but the dismissiveness of PUA’s as douches in the feminist community, though many times justified (as clearly the case withthis Rossi in DC guy) overlooks many of the potential benefits. The community is actually pretty diverse dare I say “ideologically.” Anyways, it is what it is.
No question that the dude is evil and quite frankly a terrorist. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t root causes that could be dealt with.
Exactly ... except those “root causes” are not “needed to get laid and women wouldn’t do it for him” but “man is seriously antisocial and paranoid, and is bothered by the consequences of his antisocial paranoia”. Many hermits are celebate, anti social, and happy to just stay home and do their thing. This guy needed mental health services, as he was clearly suffering from the consequences of his inability to connect to others. Unfortunatly, he (and others) blame the agency of women in general instead of a lack of access and direction toward more appropriate assistance.
my experience with the community (somewhat limited but I think I have a pretty good feel) is that there are just tons and tons of guys who had similar views of women before PUA but changed once they developed the skills to attract and have normal healthy relationships.
I don’t really get how, exactly, the PUA techniques as advertised are supposed to get someone into a normal healthy relationship. They seem to be, at least on the surface, nifty shortcuts to get women to sleep with you. I don’t think you could really get past a second date using that approach.
Deeper down, you can, if you are a thoughtful person who is attempting to deliberately sift out the misogyny, translate some of the PUA concepts to useful icebreakers to start up a conversation with someone you find interesting. But if that’s the main goal of the movement, the guys hosting the blogs and throwing the workshops really don’t seem to have any real sense of how to get ideas across to people. Why start a self-help movement which requires your followers to filter out 90% of what you say?
Ms Kate. Absolutely. To take it further, many antisocial and paranoid people bothered by the consequences of the antisocial paranoia also do not shoot people. It’s really common for people who do evil things to have had very horrible stuff happen to them (MUCH more horrible than Sodini’s life) and that is NEVER an excuse for the evil. Like I said, dude is an evil terrorist. I was just saying that PUA enhances ability many men to connect to others and could decrease the chances of stuff like this. Not all PUAS are the douches cited in the original posts.
“Celibacy doesn’t cause people to be violent” != “Religion doesn’t promote violence”.
What an incredibly parsimonious response to that point. It’s only too bad that it wasn’t a response to my point.
Opoponax - “as advertised” is probably a very appropriate qualifier here. Like I said, there’s lots of diversity in all of this. I think we can agree that what makes a good VH1 reality show is not always the same thing as what helps people have normal relationships.
I guess my point is that many of these NiceGuys’ mysoginy stems from a simple lack of interaction with women. If, like you said, you are a fundamentally OK person, some interaction along with some other social skills will serve to make you realize, that: HEY!, women are people just like me. Additionally, of course there is a lot there that teaches guys how to get women to sleep with you. Sometimes coming home from the bar or what not, other times once you are dating. I fail to see the problem there. Last time I checked teaching people how to attract the sexual partners and get them to sleep with you wasn’t a bad thing. Sometimes people want sex sometimes they want something more. Standard life stuff that also happens to be taught in much of the material. A guy named Juggler comes to mind (I blelieve he is married now) as someone whose methodologies and views are quite healthy and progressive.
Caton, it’s okay-- if I drop my baggage out in public, I expect that someone can & possibly should advise me a bit on how better to carry it 
Really, I’m not wired for online dating, although I like online discourse just fine. I’ve done a couple of profiles & free weekend trials, but without any enthusiasm, which of course led to utterly useless results. Also, the couple of responses I’d gotten really had very little to do with my profile (reading “My heroes: my grandparents and God” just made me twitch). It’s a problem for an introverted old theatre geek; I can only be presentational with someone else’s script and [preferably] a director, which rules out all explicit relationship-seeking tactics. Anyway, it’s a basically impossible set of contradictions for which I accept responsibility, because forcing myself to fake my way through the early part of the process would lead (and has in the past) to misery. Don’t believe in personality transformations & the incentives just aren’t there any more, so c’est la vie, etc.
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But I do want to agree with the often-made point that there are plenty of women who have nearly the same problems that these desperate-to-vicious men have, without turning to manipulation, bitterness, and/or violence. They may suffer more for lack of status, but we face being considered defective-- after all, women are supposed to be the real social creatures, aren’t we, so how can we possibly need others’ help (beyond a superficial makeover)?
“as advertised” is probably a very appropriate qualifier here. Like I said, there’s lots of diversity in all of this. I think we can agree that what makes a good VH1 reality show is not always the same thing as what helps people have normal relationships.
Except I’m unfamiliar with the VH1 reality show. My familiarity is via reading the book The Game. Which I read after I caught some of my otherwise sane male friends talking about it when we were all out at a bar one night.
As I’ve said, it is possible, if you so choose, to read The Game with an eye towards filtering out all the misogyny, and the shallow lying douchebaggitude, and distill away some basic truisms about human behavior that might serve you well if your main problem is how to initiate a conversation with a woman. Things like “bathe” and “act confident” and “try not to be creepy”. But people who are going to take away those things, as opposed to “all chicks are the same: learn magic tricks and wear a shiny shirt”, probably didn’t need “game” in the first place.
Errr, I’ll retract the word “progressive.” Not because it’s necessarily inappropriate, but because my main point is that the concepts and skills taught are not necessarily or even usually mysoginistic but instead have the opposite effect.
Well, I guess we are getting sidetracked from the crux of the original post, but things like “act confident” and “try not to be creepy” may be very simple concepts for you, but for others it really takes a deconstruction of what those things mean to understand WHY they are important and HOW to implement them in one’s life. What the Game did is take these concepts and make them accessible. Also, I am not sure where the Game said “all girls are the same.” What it did say was that your initial, formal interaction with someone before you know them at all will often follow a pattern. You aren’t going to see someone’s brilliant uniqueness after a 10 minute conversation at a bar. So setting up a system where you treat these interactions similarly in order to maximize your ability to actually get to know the person once you are both comfortable with eachother - well, I’m still not sure how that’s a bad thing. If I remember right, the author’s point at the end was that everyone is not the same - hence, he ended up with the one girl with whom he connected most.
It is easier to use the word “loner” to encapsulate all of that without putting too much judgement on it than it is to call it out in no uncertain terms.
Usage of the term in that manner also paints loners with an overly broad brush and makes them seem monolithic which is an effective red herring in cases like this.
There are plenty of life-long loners and no-so lifelong loners who go through their entire lives without having the vengeful homicidal tendencies of Sodini. Focusing on the “loner” factor or even using the term like the above not only unnecessarily stigmatizes a diverse group of people where the vast majority don’t become like Sodini, but also acts as a distraction against finding the root causes of cases such as this.
In the way this term is used currently, I’ve seen too many cases where after Columbine, idiot college admins and law enforcement use this as justification to harass overly studious undergrads who were loners by choice and were actually pretty well-adjusted. And that’s added to the problems most loners face in school settings with classmates who view them as “weird” and “abnormal”. Unfortunately, US pop culture seems to pathologize anyone who is not a social-butterfly who goes to parties and drinks themselves into oblivion. 
I guess my point is that many of these NiceGuys’ mysoginy stems from a simple lack of interaction with women.
And PUA encourages that. The idea in The Game is to see all women as either Targets or Obstacles. That woman over there is a Blonde 8.5 or a Redheaded 4, not a human being just like you. She is, at best, a real life NPC. Approach, issue cheatcode, obtain blowjob. Nobody who answers to PUA’s target demographic is going to be encouraged to actually get to know women as human beings via their system.
Additionally, of course there is a lot there that teaches guys how to get women to sleep with you. Sometimes coming home from the bar or what not, other times once you are dating. I fail to see the problem there. Last time I checked teaching people how to attract the sexual partners and get them to sleep with you wasn’t a bad thing.
It is only a bad thing if you are deceptive about it, which from what The Opoppnax and others are saying (along with my interactions from guys who were clearly following The Game) is part of what is being taught. Good dating advice should not need to be couched in so much misogyny. That is the problem. If these tactics are so good, someone needs to write about them without turning people into targets. Oh, wait, feminist do that all the time, nm.
things like “act confident” and “try not to be creepy” may be very simple concepts for you, but for others it really takes a deconstruction of what those things mean to understand WHY they are important and HOW to implement them in one’s life. What the Game did is take these concepts and make them accessible. Also, I am not sure where the Game said “all girls are the same.” What it did say was that your initial, formal interaction with someone before you know them at all will often follow a pattern.
Did we read the same book?
It is only a bad thing if you are deceptive about it, which from what The Opoppnax and others are saying
One of the ideas repeated over and over (verbatim, even), is “It’s not lying, it’s flirting”. As a response to situations that are, well, straightup lying. I mean, I certainly don’t see any real problem with some of the stuff (one classic conversation starter is “did you see those two girls fighting outside?”, the fight being a total fabrication of course) - those are little white lies that don’t matter much. But the book dances pretty closely to advising men to lie about rather fundamental things, like what they do for a living. The theory being that if a woman discovers that you’re “boring”, no nookie for you. Which could get sorta problematic on the third date when she discovers you’re a CPA, not a record producer.
Check this video at about 1:17. Reading material is ... interesting. This guy was a self aware socio-path? He tried to learn about complex interpersonal relationships from “self help” books, as though a manual can be written, like for a programming language?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1ZQHrKQo5Q&feature=channel
Chet, you’re an ignorant bigot. Buddhism is only “best known” for hand-to-hand combat if your only exposure to it is through Kung Fu movies. You said “best known”, not “there’s an interesting history of violence” initially, so I think you still ought to get called on it. I know that every buddhist monk I’ve ever met has been friendly, non-violent and compassionate.
A few things - with respect to your last post, Opopanax - to the extent that the book advises that you straight up lie about what you do or something else fundamental like that, of course that would be quite wrong. I am not sure where that is sanctioned though. Everything I have read and seen encourages you to talk about what you like about your job and to tell a more colorful story than “I am a CPA.” How to be entertaining, engaging, throw in jokes, whatever. Not to say you are a producer when you are a CPa.
Also, the idea behind Targets. Look, the terminology is quite sexist and I grant that. But what we are talking about is guys who are scared shitless to talk to a girl at a bar, and on top of that, even if they get up the nerve, they have no idea how to do it. What was developed was a system that allows them to put away their fear and in some sense play a game. A girl may get hit on 10 entitled douchebags in an hour. There’s just so many of them. She is not required to think about the personhood of each one of them and should be free to dismiss them. On that same note, this nervous unskilled guy is given a context where he views the girl in the bar as just someone else to talk to and practice his social skills. What seems to get lost in the “advertised” version of PU is that most schools strongly encourage steering the convo something you have in common and to develop an interesting life so that there is no lying about what you do for a living or what you have in common with a woman. The self-improvement meme is probably the most improtant. Your time on this earth is pretty limited so talking to as many people as possible in order to find those you have a connection with seems like a good idea to me. Before you get to know the woman over there in the corner, well, yes, she is just the 8.5 blonde. Really, what else do you know about her? Of course once you approach, interact, and connect the whole situation changes. And teaching someone ways to make her attracted to you seems like a positive thing.
freddybak, that you were able to get a better understanding of women-as-people out of this book is one thing, but clearly, you are an exception. ALL people need good information on how to interact with potential sexual partners, and while The Game teaches that (only to men, and it is supposed to be a secret from women - no misogyny in that at all), it does so in a way that most men interpret and use as a way to enhance their existing misogyny. It might have helped you, but it just makes most men more subversive and slimy.
Buddhism is only “best known” for hand-to-hand combat if your only exposure to it is through Kung Fu movies.
I would say, in fact, that that is most people’s sole exposure to Buddhist philosophy, which is why I said “best known.” I didn’t say it was my sole exposure, or how I knew it. “Best known” really is incontrovertible, here. And frankly I always find it so surprising that people who claim to abhor violence so quickly embrace the self-serving Buddhist spin on the martial arts as “mastering violence to prove the worthlessness of violence” or whatever and not, say, personal fulfillment by beating people up with your fists, which they would readily recognize as sociopathy in any other context.
I know that every buddhist monk I’ve ever met has been friendly, non-violent and compassionate.
And celibate?
Ursula, I understand why it seems that way. And to some extent, maybe some of it is. That’s why I think terming PickUp as just one thing may be reductive (mostly the fault of the community since they bill themsleves as one whole). As I said before, lots of different perspectives.
But one point I strongly disagree with is that it’s mysoginistic to tailor your teaching to to men. Like it or not, we live in a gendered culture and while subverting that and changing double standards is great, you do a disservice to someone if you ask them to pretend like it doesn’t exist when making decisions about their love life. Also, by NO means is this supposed to be a secret from women. In the book most of these guys describe to women what all of it is and, um, they made a VH1 reality show about it: http://www.vh1.com/shows/the_pickup_artist/season_1/series.jhtml
So ya know. I definitely understand where you guys are coming from, but I think oversimplifying this as some kind of mysoginist douchebag ideology misses a lot of important stuff.
Chet, the problem here isn’t that *we* don’t *get* what you *meant* to say - the problem is that you don’t say what you mean and then go into endless loops explaining yourself. If you expressed your ideas with less short hand and more tact, you would spend less time defending what you wrote by going on and on about what you reallllly meant!
Lather, rinse, repeat.
Did we read the same book?
I think he’s talking about “The Game” to describe general PUA methods, rather than the Strauss book, which is more non-fiction narrative than a manual.
That said, I agree with you—the PUA hucksters rely on perpetuating the idea that women are aliens with an antagonistic agenda. They just promise to make their followers the wisecracking action hero of the movie rather than the hapless scientist sidekick.
The “Game” also teaches them that the women prefer men who are peacocking blowhards with gimmicks like close-up magic and bad jokes and “negs,” all of which serve to compensate for a continuing lack of substantive social skills, personality, interests, and looks.
One sentence from freddybak illustrates my point:
Well, I guess we are getting sidetracked from the crux of the original post, but things like “act confident” and “try not to be creepy” may be very simple concepts for you, but for others it really takes a deconstruction of what those things mean to understand WHY they are important and HOW to implement them in one’s life.
It’s not act confident, freddy—it’s be confident. The first is the superficial sham taught by the PUAs. The second is the result of being comfortable in your own skin, having a sense of humour and a sense of perspective, and being considerate of other people (not targets, not leads—people) without being a doormat. I’m not saying that real confidence comes easily (it’s earned through life experience and good role models), but it beats the phony-baloney brand that the PUAs are flogging. The sell-by date on that product is pretty short, and certainly wouldn’t have do anything for a 38-year-old man, let alone a 48-year-old one like the murderer.
As for “creepy”, most of the major PUAs I’ve seen creep me out big-time, and I’m a guy. I can only imagine what a woman would make of these Butabi Brothers slimers.
Okay, I’m going to go back to Amanda’s comment, because it seems pertinent:
When life doesn’t seem fair, there’s two things you can do: fix what you can and accept what you can’t. If you are not getting laid, you have a choice. Make yourself more attractive or get over it. Is that unfair when some people don’t have to develop a personality, get a great haircut, or work out more? Absolutely. Is it unjust? No.
Truth is, most people who do get laid didn’t just step out into the sunshine all fuckable. We had to experiment, work on ourselves, see what works, and calibrate our desires to what could reasonably be filled. Above all, we have to stop obsessing over what we want and start to imagine what someone we want might want. If we don’t want to be that, adults reassess and think about what we are and who’d want that. You fiddle, you grow, you go on dates, you figure it out. And then often you end up falling in love.
It seems like we have to assume that the debate over this Game stuff and the PUAs is a matter of degree, not kind, wrt dating interactions. Or rather, it’s about nasty, faulty, even pathological assumptions about other people and social interactions that make what could theoretically be honest efforts to improve oneself destructive. It’s perfectly possible to assume that these specific techniques could be of use to gawky, clueless types who don’t actually mean any harm, because one likely problem of theirs is that they simply don’t have any social intuition at all… OTOH, it’s also beyond troubling to think that people so lacking in social understanding would very likely believe the horrid underlying assumptions about women that these methods promote. There’s almost never a clear line between positive presentation and deception, between looking out for one’s legitimate interests and outright manipulation. That’s why human relationships are so damned complicated, and why taking any social ‘method’ very seriously is problematic.
And this can be turned around, gender-wise-- rejecting all common expectations wrt appearance and/or social adaptability generally means that women will suffer socially, but it’s also true that meeting those same expectations will be burdensome. And unjust, to use Amanda’s entirely correct distinction, because it increases pressure on others to behave as prescribed. So how much effort do we make to please others in the hopes of eventually being pleased ourselves?
There are plenty of life-long loners and no-so lifelong loners who go through their entire lives without having the vengeful homicidal tendencies of Sodini.
I’m a loner, and it can sometimes be lonely and frustrating, but the fact of the matter is that I need plenty of alone time just to function and I don’t really connect with that many people. Superficial friendships don’t really do much for me. And yet, I don’t expect to shoot up any public places at any point in my life.
Freddybak, either you’re actually not that familiar with the material, or you’re being disingenuous.
But what we are talking about is guys who are scared shitless to talk to a girl at a bar, and on top of that, even if they get up the nerve, they have no idea how to do it.
Sure. There’s nothing special about that. That describes about 99% of humanity.
And it’s true that, if you are a dedicated weeder-out of the misogynist bits, there are some useful tips on how to break the ice with an attractive stranger. Except that the framework is absolutely misogynist. Not because it refers to women as “targets”, but because it encourages men to see women as a monolithic group of NPC’s who will ALWAYS sleep with you if you dupe them in certain patented ways. No different from the way that iTunes will ALWAYS download This American Life if you use a certain set of keystrokes, or the way that your toaster will ALWAYS turn out perfect toast when you set the dial to “6”.
On that same note, this nervous unskilled guy is given a context where he views the girl in the bar as just someone else to talk to and practice his social skills.
Except that’s only the takeaway if you cut out all the other misogynist stuff. Which really is actually there. As I’ve said over and over again, I’ll readily agree that under all the vile shit, there are a few truisms about human interaction. But that doesn’t negate the vile shit. And it especially doesn’t make it ok that, over and over, we see that the main takeaway for PUA advocates is the vile shit, not the basic truths about human behavior.
What seems to get lost in the “advertised” version of PU is that most schools strongly encourage steering the convo something you have in common and to develop an interesting life so that there is no lying about what you do for a living or what you have in common with a woman.
This is either not true, or so deeply buried under all the misogynist sociopath stuff that it’s extremely difficult to access.
It’s not fair to separate out “the advertised version of PUA” from some idealized version you seem to have invented for yourself. Because the advertised version is being advertised by the pickup artists themselves. I mean, who wrote The Game? Some marketing guy at an ad agency somewhere? No, a Pickup Artist. If he’s misrepresenting the nature of PUA, he has only himself to blame. In order to believe this is a bunch of altruistic dudes just trying to help socially awkward men learn to respect women better, you have to assume that every Pickup Artist is the biggest fucking moron ever when it comes to how to convey the nature of their ideas. People who are so full of fail at selling their theories usually don’t become bestselling authors.
“It’s not act confident, freddy—it’s be confident.”
No shit, sherlock. But if you’ve been socially inept your whole life you have absolutely and your self worth has never been reinforced, well, there’s no reason to be confident. Telling someone “you are very special and great and you will find someone eventually!” is very nice, but confidence, as you say, develops from learning and experiences. But unless you first ACT confidently, you aren’t going to have the experience level necessary to BE confident. Giving someone the tools to act confident so they can progress as a person is oh so creepy. Instead you should tell them they are special and admit to being nervous and insecure in all of their conversations, lest this creepy gawker be dishonest.
Like it or not, we live in a gendered culture and while subverting that and changing double standards is great, you do a disservice to someone if you ask them to pretend like it doesn’t exist when making decisions about their love life.
Which is hilarious, because I’m a woman and I basically “sarged” a table of cute guys in my local bar last week. I wasn’t there to meet men, but I could have had my pick. Seriously, I walked up to their table to find out if anyone was sitting in the next booth, and by the end of the conversation they were offering me free concert tickets.
So, yeah, I’d say that you could easily turn the legit concepts behind The Game into a gender-neutral approach to meeting people.
I would say, in fact, that that is most people’s sole exposure to Buddhist philosophy, which is why I said “best known.” I didn’t say it was my sole exposure, or how I knew it. “Best known” really is incontrovertible, here.
To early Gen Xers, Boomers, and older people, maybe. But the heyday of “mystical kung-fu” movies and TV ended in the late 1970s. Since then, most people’s perceptions of Buddhism have arrived via or have been supplanted by Eastern medicine, New-Age books, yoga, meditation, and the Tibetan independence movement, and the martial arts has become the media domain of Hong Kong cops and gangsters.
That’s not to say the Buddhist monks don’t get violent, but it’s usually prompted by political conflict initiated by outsiders. Enforced celibacy isn’t the main driving force behind “angry monk syndrome.”
I definitely understand where you guys are coming from, but I think oversimplifying this as some kind of mysoginist douchebag ideology misses a lot of important stuff.
*headdesk*
How many times do I have to repeat the phrase, “I agree that there are some basic truisms about human behavior at the core of PUA...”
I get that it’s not ENTIRELY misogynist douchebaggery. But it’s enough misogynist douchebaggery that you can’t really get away with pretending it’s not there. And the misogynist douchebaggery is part of the intended takeaway—erase that stuff and you’re left with a 3 page pamphlet of tips like “bathe regularly” and “come up with something interesting to talk about rather than just drooling in her general direction”.
And here’s at least one of the PUA type groups involved as Sodini tries to overcome his problem, which I think he suggests is “RDS” (Reward Deficiency Syndrome?) at the beginning of one of the videos.
http://www.youtube.com/user/steelballspress
(linked from a comment on one of his videos)
I guess that PUA group can chalk up at least one confirmed failure.
I’m a loner, and it can sometimes be lonely and frustrating, but the fact of the matter is that I need plenty of alone time just to function and I don’t really connect with that many people. Superficial friendships don’t really do much for me. And yet, I don’t expect to shoot up any public places at any point in my life.
Yeah, that describes me too - almost perfectly - and I’m pretty sick of people acting like it’s wierd. Or worse, feeling sorry for me, like I CAN’T get friends to hang out with or a boyfriend even though I must secretly want them. Most people really can’t understand being a loner by choice.
Also, I think it’s worth noting that a lot of true sociopaths are very good at NOT coming off as loners - that’s why when the police find the bodies under the back porch the interviews with the neighbors are all variations on “he seemed so NORMAL”, “he seemed like such a NICE guy”, “he was so POLITE”, etc.
Wow. You’re Extramask, aren’t you?
Opopopnax - please don’t hurt desk. As I said before, I think it’s just a matter of degree that we disagree on. I’m also definitely not pretending it’s not there, but I really believe that much of what I learned helped me to UNlearn some of my previous sexist assumptions. When first reading this sociopath’s blog, my reaction was the same as many of my friends: if only he had read the Game!
Now, upon reflection, that’s quite the simplistic reaction. And who knows - maybe he has. There are definitely plenty of people who get involved in PU and don’t learn shit. But many of my previously held sexist assumption gradually went away when I read the Game, other material and opened my mind up. The success that came with it also didn’t hurt. I admit that, especially with the wrong dude, PUA can have very mysoginist implications.
And one last thing, I don’t doubt that there could be a general nuetral way to teach people dating techniques and that you were able to have a table full of guys drooling over you. But I’m pretty sure that the skills you display or in many ways different than what would be ideal for a guy. Just as an example, most PU material encourages you to deepen your voice to the extent you can (nothing weird or forced, but just taking it down a notch).
BTW, Extramask, I have the book in PDF form and can copy and paste some of the more appalling passages, if you want. I’m pretty sure it would stay within the realm of Fair Use. I mean, I wouldn’t want to humiliate you, but hey, they’re supposedly your words taken verbatim from a PUA forum post.
I’ve never heard of RDS, but I see staydaddy has pointed out what I just implied, that this stuff didn’t work on him.
No shit, sherlock.
Says the person who used the term ”act confident.” Did your PUA programme teach you to act confident or to be confident? If the latter, why do you continue to use the former term?
But if you’ve been socially inept your whole life you have absolutely and your self worth has never been reinforced, well, there’s no reason to be confident.
And shiny shirts and magic tricks are gonna cure that? Please. When it comes to confidence with women, the first lesson should be: they’re people, with desires and needs and agency—just like you. That’s not the message any PUA programme I’ve heard of sends.
But unless you first ACT confidently, you aren’t going to have the experience level necessary to BE confident.
I think we can all think of examples of glad-handing blowhards who decided that the act was all that’s needed, and who are possessive balls of insecurity inside. Your own experience aside, the PUA community promotes acting, not being—that is creepy and phoney.
Giving someone the tools to act confident so they can progress as a person is oh so creepy. Instead you should tell them they are special and admit to being nervous and insecure in all of their conversations, lest this creepy gawker be dishonest.
Telling someone they’re a special snowflake who deserves hot babez is useless in any context. But there’s nothing wrong with confronting one’s insecurity and nervousness, and getting over it by realising that it’s not the bloody end of the world if you fumble a conversation. And get over it you do, because you learn that perspective and get that sense of humour, and the confidence follows in turn.
Some of the PUA tools help toward that end in the right framework, but as Opoponax notes the PUA framework stinks on ice. And many of the PUA tools (e.g. this neurolinguistic programming business and the “negging") fit right into that framework of treating women as aliens.
Where I’m from it surely IS the responsibility of the non virgin to make “it” good for the rookie… especially when the experienced partner is not a teen.
Wait… what?
Is there a rulebook somewhere that I’m missing?
Chet, the problem here isn’t that *we* don’t *get* what you *meant* to say - the problem is that you don’t say what you mean and then go into endless loops explaining yourself.
Ms Kate, I honestly couldn’t be clearer in my posts. Vacillating and hedging just isn’t something I do. I couldn’t be more direct with my thoughts - which is why I always come off like an asshole.
I’m misread around here because people do it on purpose, because it’s a lot easier to find cartoonish excuses to dismiss me - “Chet believes animals can’t learn! har har har, what an idiot!” - than to grapple with my points. You’re the most prominent example of this, frankly. For you now to come back and say I wasn’t clear - despite dozens of posts in dozens of different threads telling you I never believed or said that animals can’t learn - is beyond absurdity.
I do always say what I mean. And believe me when I say that you are without a doubt the least intellectually honest contributor to these Pandagon threads, I mean it.
I admit to being a little creeped out not only by the idea that the book teaches men that women are humans (You need a book for that?) And that the really payoff is that it teaches men that women are human so that they can get laid. It’s still the classic Nice Guy thing; that’s not seeing women as humans that’s seeing them as instruments. True, it’s different from hating the bitchez who won’t talk to your awesome self but it is still not really seeing women as human.
I say anti-shy people bigotry needs to end. Yeah, this is my idealized reality as opposed to how the world actually works for most, but people aren’t always socially confident, people don’t always want to be the life of the party or the suave operator. Anyone who’s lived 5 minutes is aware they aren’t always confident machines made of pure kick ass and destruction. So why do so many people look for that type of behavior in others? And then forcing yourself to behave in that fashion because that’s what most people seem to look for in this society, and therefore feeling like you need to project that in order to get laid or start a relationship is not only bullshit, but it can also sometimes be harmful.
Shyness is always seen as a personal defect to overcome as opposed to only being a problem in cases when it actually reaches the level of being crippling. And I think that’s kinda sad. If you’re at a bar to begin with, obviously it’s hardly crippling. I mean, I’ll take the the quiet person over the boisterous blowhard every time. I find people who act like they know me and are totally comfortable after just 2 minutes to be far more creepy than someone who isn’t saying much.
Social confidence has very little to do with whether you’re actually interesting or not anyway, and even less to do with whether you’re truly self-confident. And sure, it can be harder to find a quieter person, but so what? Trying to be someone you’re not just because that’s what you think everyone else is looking for usually isn’t the way to go and it’s just reinforcing the attitude that there’s something wrong with being quiet.
This is all easier to soapbox about when you aren’t single though, I know.
that you were able to have a table full of guys drooling over you.
See, this is where the *headdesk* thing comes from. They weren’t “drooling”. That’s the point. No woman is ever going to be interested in some guy who stares mutely at her tits and mumbles. Because it’s creepy. It’s pretty much word for word what your mother tells you to avoid so as not to end up in someone’s deep freeze.
They were just normal guys, and I just went up and asked them an ordinary question. And some of them happened to be wearing Reverend Billy For Mayor t-shirts ("peacocking", in a manner of speaking), which inspired further conversation. The useful information in The Game is basically “talking to people like a normal human being is a good way to get to know them”. It can be applied to just about any gender or sexual orientation. It can probably also be applied to nonsexual situations, like a job interview or first day of school.
I’m starting to doubt what your takeaway from the PUA scene really was.
But I’m pretty sure that the skills you display or in many ways different than what would be ideal for a guy. Just as an example, most PU material encourages you to deepen your voice to the extent you can (nothing weird or forced, but just taking it down a notch).
Yeah, this is the upshot of what we’re talking about when we say that PUA is sexist, or that it takes a misogynist approach. You don’t need to fucking deepen your voice. You just need to not come off like a mouthbreathing weirdo. The rest is just frosting. Sexist frosting.
I know I shouldn’t, but…
Since when does not liking someone make them an extreme misogynist?
When the reason you don’t like a woman is because she doesn’t act exactly like a compliant porn star your first time out, and you decide on that basis that all women are exactly what the PUA “community” claims they are ("cold-hearted bitches only interested in money and looks").
He was 26 when he lost his virginity and his views on sex are twisted by a fucked up strict Catholic upbringing.
And then further twisted by the PUA “philosophy.” Wonderful.
And like a lot of people he didn’t see fireworks the first time he had intercourse. And yes it was her fault. Where I’m from it surely IS the responsibility of the non virgin to make “it” good for the rookie… especially when the experienced partner is not a teen.
Lots of assumptions there. A lot of women (except in the fantasyland where you’re from) don’t want to be teachers at the beck and call of insecure boys—they might be looking for a little pleasure of their own from the man. And did this shmo even tell her he was a virgin, or was he (per freddybak) doing the PUA thing and acting like he was an experienced, confident stud?
Orange boxes on shelves at 3:26:
Anybody recognize these as Hornady (LE?)ammo for either a 45 or 9mm (two of Sodini’s weapons)?
Could be something else (nails, officesupplies, bike tubes?) it is hard to tell. Video posted back in February 2008, indicating a possible pre-murder-blog interest in the firearms he eventually used.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1ZQHrKQo5Q&feature=channel
I’m 29 and I have not had sex, and not for wont of a sex drive. I would happily have sex with a woman I loved, it just never seemed like the right time in my last relationship. Despite this, I’m not about to murder anyone. There are times I wish I was dead, but that’s because I still love someone who doesn’t love me, and that hurts more than I imagined it would. Honestly, because I’ve never had any serious health issues, it hurts more than anything else I’ve experienced.
The lack of sex has nothing to do with this. He hated women, that’s what this is.
Catholic monks aren’t a very good example of celibate people who are also mentally normal. They make furniture and decorations out of human bones, a la Ed Gein. I saw a severed hand in a box in a Catholic church. I put a coin into that box, and it lit up. No, these are not normal people.
The lack of sex has nothing to do with this. He hated women, that’s what this is.
Yup. This seems to have the causation down here. He hated women which probably contributed to the lack of sex. That’s why the whole “he just needed to be better with women” thing is b.s. A cursory read of his blog shows some pretty deep sociopathy and inability to see women as anything other than “targets” to boost his esteem.
I was most creeped out by the passage where he talks about masturbating after watching a hot coed walk out of his neighbor’s house after spending the night there and he complains about how jealous he was that his decidedly not impressive 50-something male neighbor scored his hot ho. Turns out that “hot coed” was his neighbor’s daughter. But he’s incapable of seeing women as anything other than a lay. That’s not a man who needs more game. That’s a person with nothing but contempt for women as human beings independent of his desires. And, frankly, I’m not sure I see anything in The Game that discourages that kind of thinking.
I saw a severed hand in a box in a Catholic church. I put a coin into that box, and it lit up. No, these are not normal people.
Wins thread!
<Blockquote>I saw a severed hand in a box in a Catholic church. I put a coin into that box, and it lit up. No, these are not normal people. </blockquote?
WTF? Ok, I stand corrected. I grew up Episcopalian, sooo....yeah. I thought you were only slightly more weird than us!
Opoponax - the drooling thing was me just being loose with the words - understand all you meant to say that it was a fun convo with a table full of guys.
With respect to deep voice: http://www.news-medical.net/news/2007/09/26/30420.aspx
I don’t know that website but it’s the first thing that came up on google. It’s just a fact. I mean, some women put on make up, so the PUA are taking what is statistically indisputable and teaching guys how to implement it. They might also tell them to get into better shape, shave, etc. And again, as easy as it is for you to say just don’t come off like a mouthbreathing weardo, for a bunch of guys who sound like Steve Urkel (it may be funny on TV but a voice like that would creep the shit out of most people), some of this stuff actually needs to be taugh. As we go around again, of course there is some sexism there, but tailoring certain self improvement and social interaction techniques to men is no more mysoginist then having a men’s magazine - oops, I hope I haven’t opened a can of worms there.
BenYitzhak, stay close to your friends and try to make new ones, so that you’ll always have someone to call and hang out with when you’re feeling down. That’s how I’ve stayed healthy and alive when (too slowly) getting over a lost/unrequited love.
The useful information in The Game is basically “talking to people like a normal human being is a good way to get to know them”. It can be applied to just about any gender or sexual orientation. It can probably also be applied to nonsexual situations, like a job interview or first day of school.
I got this useful information when I started out in journalism back in college, calling sources on stories and conducting interviews. Despite my natural inclination toward shyness and being a loner, I found I was pretty good at it, mainly because I was a good listener and took to heart my editor’s advice that most people love talking about themselves and their interests.
Strangely, dressing like Elton John or pull coins out of my interviewees’ ears or gently insulting them played no part in my training. Even more odd, it was about that time that I felt a lot more comfortable approaching women in social situations (prior to that, they’d only approached me on rare and fortunate occasions).
Seriously, there are lots of opportunities for shy types to learn a little social confidence (which, as stormhit notes, is not necessarily equal to self-confidence). I don’t see why the rank misogyny that the PUAs promote should be a prerequisite.
I saw a severed hand in a box in a Catholic church. I put a coin into that box, and it lit up. No, these are not normal people.
That’s awesome. Reminds me of my childhood novelty piggybank where a skeletal mechanical arm would come out of a coffin and scoop the coin in (photo). Probably invented by an ex-priest.
I know that every buddhist monk I’ve ever met has been friendly, non-violent and compassionate.
Weeeeeeeell - I did know a buddhist nun, but she was an HR person. Is there some sort of contradiction there?
And again, as easy as it is for you to say just don’t come off like a mouthbreathing weardo, for a bunch of guys who sound like Steve Urkel (it may be funny on TV but a voice like that would creep the shit out of most people), some of this stuff actually needs to be taught.
Yeah, and some douchebag misogynist in a shiny shirt will be more helpful in that respect than a voice or diction coach.
The bottom line here is that no-one is arguing that social skills can’t be taught or that social confidence can’t be built up. We are arguing that the PUA community, however many useful techniques they integrate, sets the follower up for long-term disappointment and failure by inculcating lousy attitudes about women. If you don’t like PUAs being discussed this way, the fault is theirs, not ours.
Freddymak, altering your voice is lying. The thing you said that no PUA ever advocated. You can’t keep that stuff up forever. And yeah, it’s the same tragedy as the women who are so worried about their looks that they have to get up at 4am to apply makeup before their partner wakes up. Seriously, this is the great strategy that’s going to teach men to be more confident and socially adept?
I don’t doubt that a certain class of rather superficial women refuse to become involved with any man who doesn’t fit their ridiculous image of GI Joe masculinity. They need a six foot tall dude with a rumbling bass voice who drives a humvee and can benchpress them. Just like there are rather superficial men who refuse to become involved with any woman who doesn’t fit their ridiculous image of Barbie femininity; these guys need long blond hair, a full face of perfectly applied makeup, 5 inch heels, and big tits.
Nobody who resembles Steve Urkell (vocally or otherwise) stands a chance with the abovementioned women, and no woman who resembles me stands a chance with the abovementioned men.
The good news is that most people aren’t like that. Which is why the game works, to the extent that it does. There is somebody out there for everyone. Even short bald accountants with nasal voices who snort when they laugh. One of the things that depresses me when I’m in the depths of despair about being terminally single is how often I see someone who is obviously less attractive, less successful, less interesting, less fun, whatever, out and about all happy and in love with their partner. Why does that frumpy girl who runs the cash register at the supermarket have a wedding ring and pictures of her baby up everywhere, when I can’t even get a computer programmer with a big nose and a squeaky voice to call me back? Then I realize I’m being a hateful asshole and stfu.
Ha, deepening your voice is lying just like going to the gym and building musles, standing up straight when you are tired, wearing flattering clothing, cleaning up before someone comes over when you are often messy, or any other things we do to attract the opposite sex. It’s not lying, it’s putting your most attractive, best self forward. Everyone is superficial to some degree or another and it’s an instinct that we should all try to minimize, but to increase some of our superficially attractive qualities is not lying. Sorry.
Freddy, your dishonesty is appalling and disturbing, but you’re never going to win this one.
See, Sodini was already a PUA.
The attraction of the PUA crap is the misogyny. They boost *you* by telling you women are shit. It has no relationship to genuine advice, which is available by the bucketloads and dutifully ignored by the men you are trying to sell us as sad sack who don’t get help anywhere else. What? They can’t read Dan Savage?
It’s misogynist tripe. Trying to point out the chunks of corn left in a piece of shit doesn’t make it not shit.
Also, who said anything about being a hateful asshole? I’m pretty sure I can be happy for a fat squeeky voiced bald dude with a beautiful wife and family, and still go to the gym and deepen my voice in order to increase my chances of what he has. Not seeing how that’d be mutually exclusive.
Amanda: Yikes. Well OK then.
Freddybak, putting on a fake voice isn’t permanent. It’s pretend. Going to the gym, dressing better, being well groomed, and all the rest are permanent. One day you’re going to answer the phone and your Barbie girl is going to hear what your voice actually sounds like. And if you’re right, that she wouldn’t touch you with a 10 foot pole if she knew the real you, she’s never going to call again.
I mean, if a guy who has self esteem issues because of his voice wants to take a course in the Linklater technique or hire a voice coach or whatever and learn to access new parts of his vocal equipment in a permanent sense, sure. That’s nice. But that sort of thing isn’t cheap, and it’s not going to change who you are. It’s also no guarantee that you will have the deep manly voice you’re after - I did a lot of voice work in college, and while it expanded the range of different pitches I have access to, I don’t sound like a different person on the phone or anything like that.
who said anything about being a hateful asshole?
I was describing myself, when I find myself getting upset over the fact that someone I see as less “worthy” than me has someone, while I’m alone. I’m being a hateful asshole. I usually try to talk myself down from that sort of thing, though, rather than patenting it or getting a book deal or what have you.
The reason the game works, to the extent that it does, is that most people are willing to at least give the time of day to a pretty wide range of people. Even people who aren’t the perfect model of GI Joe/Barbie alpha gender performance. Putting your best foot forward is good, of course. But if that girl in the bar is giving you her number, she’s doing it because you seem interesting. Not because you have a sufficiently deep voice.
Count me as someone who thinks lowering one’s voice is a lie, but one that’s more silly than offensive. But I a) can almost always tell when someone’s straining their voice, and b) am much more affected by inflection and less-studied vocal changes (that giveaway breathlessness = awesome if the attraction’s there) anyway. Hell, you want a deeper voice, start smoking, which will also give you an excuse to converse with female smokers in communal doorway huddles.
My unsolicited voice-related advice for men would be to ditch strong regional accents (unless they’re British, but under no circumstances ever affect that accent) ASAP, but that’s a real pet peeve of mine.
There is a double irony in that in the PUA world RDS is generally derided as being useless bumf, and in the fact that it is essentially a manual for conversation-based rapport-building. In a genre that has produced sex-through-hypnosis, “How to Date” actually discusses elements like the importance of changing romantic goals in different stages of life, being clear about one’s desires, and ethically engaging with members of the opposite sex. It is one of the most “naive” and least cynical PUA books out there.
No amount of dating advice really would have helped his situation unless it also addressed his misogyny. This doesn’t seem to be a case of “he just needed to find a good woman” at all. Even if he found a steady girlfriend, I can’t imagine that it would be a happy relationship for her.
“The Game” couldn’t have stopped this. Society could have, though, if he’d gotten help, if it were harder to get guns…
My unsolicited voice-related advice for men would be to ditch strong regional accents unless they’re British
Sorry, but a southern accent (a LOWLAND southern accent, think Jimmy Carter, not billy-bob redneck NASCAR) can be a positive, in my experience. As long as its real and not faked of course.
And besides, the wrong type of British accent can be really obnoxious. Are you telling me speaking like Ozzy Osbourne is going to get you anywhere? I think not.
I don’t think being British is first and foremost among the problems with Ozzy’s decipherability.
And anyone who can make me giggle over the words “vagina doctor” as much as he did probably has a good shot at provoking further interest!
I don’t think being British is first and foremost among the problems with Ozzy’s decipherability.
No, that is an accent in a region of Britain. It doesn’t have to do with his drug/alcohol use. Yes, I was surprised to learn that, too.
Well, I did say it’s a pet peeve of mine… more clipped, neutral speech usually seems more educated/sophisticated. And I’m Southern myself, so none of the regional dialects charm me at all, not even a little bit-- but I don’t actually like the South much. Not many Americans can distinguish between various British dialects (upper-class or Cockney’s about all most even pretend to recognize), but a lower-class accent from another country’s still more interesting than an American dialect, rural or otherwise.
I’m almost afraid to post this because of how it plays into the getting-women topic, but it’s really worth reading the ambassador’s response IMO:
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2000/12/22/cleaver8/index.html
I had to stop reading the thread because it’s time for work, but Opponax - did anyone in the freddybak conversation mention that the best evidence that the PUA community wasn’t in it for healthy relationships was the ease with which it became and actual game? The whole middle of the book is about how simply getting phone numbers became not enough, the pick-ups had to become more elaborate and outrageous to impress the other guys. It culminated in the one guy picking up a woman who’d become internet-famous for writing a really wretched email criticizing at date, and getting her to pay for dinner.
Yeah, but two guys in the book ended up doing OK, so you know, no problem. For every psycho killer who kills three women, one man (and one woman!) end up in what might be a successful relationship. There’s no larger cost/benefit analysis to be done here at all 
I am not currently masochistic enough to read a PUA site, so if someone could tell me what PFC stands for, I’d appreciate it.
Heo Cwaeth, where are you reading PFC? I can’t find it on a ctrl+f search and without context, the only thing I can guess is private first class.
@wrongsideofthetracks
Thank you for this: “And like a lot of people he didn’t see fireworks the first time he had intercourse. And yes it was her fault. Where I’m from it surely IS the responsibility of the non virgin to make “it” good for the rookie… especially when the experienced partner is not a teen.”
When I first had sex with my boyfriend, I was certainly not a virgin or a teen. He was a “rookie,” as you put it. I came twice and he didn’t come at all. All this time, both of us have chalked it up to inexperience and nerves. I never realized that it was ALL MY FAULT.
I clearly neglected an important duty as a member of the Experienced Sex Squadron ("Protecting Virgins from Bad Sexual Experiences Since the Advent of the Pill") and for that I am so, so sorry. I actually woke up my boyfriend to tell him about how sorry I was that, over five years ago, I failed him.
His response? “Well, there were fireworks near the end, but mostly that was from being tired.” I understand: I was on top, chafing and sore, but trying to please him and when he finally was too tired to continue, we stopped. And I suppose at that point I became a failure. I had shirked my duty, let down this poor virgin who was depending on me. In your words, “ [f]or a lady “looking for excitement” [I?] sure seemed to be lame in bed.”
I do have one question though (and keep in mind that I have not read the written record of Extramask’s Difficult First-Time): you say that it is no “surprise that Extramask kept it a one night stand,” but my boyfriend has been dating (and having sex with me) for over five years since my Great Personal Sexual Failure. Why is this?
I took him out to IHOP afterward, was that it? Do pancakes fix a bad sexual experience? Do chain restaurants? White and blue color schemes? I really need to know just in case I ever have sex with a virgin again. Now that I know the awesome responsibility of meeting the sexual needs of a person who might have no idea what those needs are or feel confident enough to express them, I really need to have a back-up plan. Maybe we could reduce it some sort of simple equation? Pancakes lead to Getting a Boyfriend like Deep Voices lead to getting a girlfriend? (I would try to be less heteronormative, but I have the first guy I ever slept with to call and demand an apology from.)
And I’m Southern myself, so none of the regional dialects charm me at all, not even a little bit-- but I don’t actually like the South much.
Of course, there are regional accents besides Redneck. The guy I’m going out with now has the teensiest little Lon Guyland thing going on, and even though I claim to hate all the obnoxious Noo Yawk accents, I think it’s cute on him.
The bottom line is that just about any of the superficial stuff is really not going to be a big deal to most people if it’s attached to someone they are interested in. It’s one thing I’ve learned from internet dating. This is what real attraction is - the belief that this honestly pretty average person is superhuman, because some je ne sais quoui about them rubs you in exactly the right way. It’s amazing the exceptions we’re willing to make because we like someone. The game works in that it gets your foot in the door, and that, as I said above, all the superficial crap doesn’t actually matter that much. If you talk to enough women, you will eventually find a few who are attracted to you despite or because of your “flaws” as compared to Mr. Alpha GI Joe.
Opoponax-- sure, just about every trait has at least some people who find it attractive. I remember being totally bewildered by the first bf who really seemed to think I was beautiful even from the chin up <g>, but realized after seeing some of his exes (and his eventual wife) that he was just attracted to angular-faced women with long necks, small mouths, & high cheekbones, for whatever reason. So there you go.
I was mostly being flip about the voice/accent issue-- the advice to start smoking was pretty sarcastic because smoking cuts one’s potential dating pool down quite a bit (not much more than 25% smoke, and IIRC most nonsmokers are like me in totally ruling smokers out); OTOH, it also seems that the rituals & camaraderie of smoking provide some good opportunities to socialize. The accent thing is, as I said, my pet peeve, but in general sounding less provincial should be better… in a social sphere where accents are uncommon, it may be charming but also may seem backward, and the lack of an accent stands out a bit in places where one dialect is prevalent. There’s a reason dialects are so heavily used in entertainment, after all-- they’re used to create a particular impression.
Opopponax - When I mentioned lowering one’s voice, I meant it in the context you describe - by trainging yourself just like you’d train yourself to stand up straight or what have you. It’s kind of a side convo and was really only mentioned as an example of ways to improve certain superficial physical characteristics in order to increase the likelihood of someone being attracted to you. Obviously, if you are just faking it in the beginning it will be quickly discovered as a lame act.
I meant it in the context you describe - by trainging yourself just like you’d train yourself to stand up straight or what have you.
Except that’s impossible to do in the same way that you can “train” yourself to have better posture, because when you do voice training you don’t train yourself to have a certain kind of voice. You do vocal exercises that allow your voice to become more relaxed, natural, and versatile. Just like getting better posture isn’t going to make a 5 foot 2 guy into a hulking six footer, voice training isn’t going to turn Steve Urkell into James Earl Jones. If you want to “deepen” your voice, that’s going to take “putting on a funny fake voice”, not “learning to train your voice”.
And, yeah, eventually any woman is going to figure out that’s a fake voice. Though it doesn’t really matter, since PUA isn’t actually about picking up women. It’s about other guys seeing you hitting it off with such a hot babe and thinking you are therefore more of an “alpha male” than they are.
His response? “Well, there were fireworks near the end, but mostly that was from being tired.” I understand: I was on top, chafing and sore, but trying to please him and when he finally was too tired to continue, we stopped. And I suppose at that point I became a failure. I had shirked my duty, let down this poor virgin who was depending on me. In your words, “ [f]or a lady “looking for excitement” [I?] sure seemed to be lame in bed.”
You are indeed a failure. You have no choice but to fall on his sword.
YOUR sowrd. I meant your sword. Really.
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One of the victims is a family member of a person I know. The Nice Guy apologists can bite me.