No, it’s not because you have reasonable standards of attraction and Seattle is just filled with ugly bitches who are deluded into thinking they’re prettier than they are.
It’s because you’re a self absorbed douchebag.
This seems like a brand of Nice Guy Syndrome, but slightly different. “Nice Guys” focus on how women don’t appreciate all of their nice acts, despite said nice acts being shallow manipulative ploys so Nice Guy can stick his dick in you, rather than genuine kindness, empathy, or respect. No, this seems like “Not Ugly Guy,” where he has reasonable standards of who he’s attracted to, but a city of over 500,000 people happens to be full of nothing but ugly women. Ugly, “dumpy” women who spend their free time sitting in (metaphorical) circle jerks talking about how pretty they are and concocting plans for tricking attractive men to stay in miserable relationships with them.
Slightly different, but there is a common denominator: Passive aggressiveness and pure delusion to avoid the possibility that you, Oh Perfect Penis Bearer, could have any sort of flaw.
It really boggles my mind how so many men can’t comprehend that the way to get a date is to treat women like human beings, rather than some monolithic hivemind or dungeon level that can be easily solved with a strategy guide. Or worse, an item they quite obviously deserve, despite being raging dickbags who can’t take a hint when their friends are saying they have too high of standards.
Translation: That’s the nice way of saying you don’t deserve the women you’re aiming for. Probably because you’re a raging dickbag whose justification for 13 years of singledom is blogging not-so-thinly-veiled misogyny.
Oh wait. I just disagree because I’m not pretty enough. Right. I always forget that.
EDIT: The author says he received a death threat because of his post. If this is true, that’s despicable. I hope it wasn’t any of my readers who did that, since we just got done talking about how that’s not okay. Shred someone’s arguments to pieces and point out their idiocy, but never threaten them.
I had the exact opposite problem. When I left Seattle I could not find one guy I wanted to date (not because there weren’t attractive men, but because we didn’t have common interests). So I guess I must be one of those not-so-attractive uppity girls. ;)
yeah,i know why i’m single.no job no drivers license living at parents house 28 years old and never leave the house.and i am attracted to women so far out of my league that even if i had all that stuff and had confidence they could still do better with out trying.
Nice random caps, dude.I’ve lived here for 8 years and have never heard the term “Seattle pretty”.
ha. thanks Jen, good reminder to wake up to. :D
I’m just back to being single after three or so years, so I have no idea where I fall. People seem just as attractive as before, I guess.That said, I think the obvious resentment that festers in both the “nice guy” and “not ugly guy” cases has far more complicated roots than you’re giving credit for. It’s unhelpful to simply take them at their own word and thus view them as childish whingers who aren’t getting what they “deserve”.Far more likely, I think, is that there are social pressures and expectations which both hamstring them and cause them to resent the women they fail to attract. It’s like terrorism – given the right circumstances and pressures, almost anyone could become a terrorist. We don’t say that some people are just innately inclined towards terrorism (not anymore, anyway). Wouldn’t it be better to unpack what makes someone *become* a douchebag, rather than just point the occasional one out?
He’s not really much of a looker himself…
Please Jen – you are the one acting and looking like a complete jerk off here.Exactly how hard is it to understand what he is saying – especially after reading the discussion on reddit?
In case anyone doesn’t read Manboobz, today’s meme image is quite relevant:http://manboobz.files.wordpres…
Yeah…after reading that I concur that he really is a massive dickbag.
That guy is a delusional asshole who should move to Melbourne instead of whining and rationalizing.But people can’t really help their feelings of attraction or lack thereof. If he genuinely doesn’t feel any attraction to most of the people in Seattle, that can’t be fixed by telling him how dumb it is. Maybe he has an Aussie fetish. Relative to one particular person’s sexual preferences, it’s plausible that average physical attractiveness could vary a lot between different places with different distributions of lifestyles, ancestries, etc. He was idiotic to define some absolute scale of attractiveness. It’s all in the eye of the beholder.
I love how he just sums up random relationships he sees on the street and draws his own made up conclusions from them. I will not say looks never matter but I have had met women I wasn’t attracted to initially become *amazingly* sexy after realizing they were some of the most brilliant people I had ever known. However that would require talking to them and not dismissively judging them at one glance.
I just got out of a 6 year relationship, and back in the dating scene.. I can’t land any kind of relationship that lasts longer than a month or doesn’t end with being friends. And you totally nailed the persona of most of the guys I’ve seen around here. I’d like to think I’m a genuine, kind, and respectful person who just wants to find someone who likes the same kinds of things. Sounds pretty simple, right? I assume that I’m not a douchebag, or have any douchey traits since I get along with just about everyone I meet. But nobody wants to admit they’re the bad guy. Oh, and christians never think they are going to hell. But I will admit I have something to be desired in the looks department. And I’m a bit too sensitive? My “Man-rating” is on the low side.I like girls that are Real, not the 110 lbs, blond shopaholics. Nothing is sexier than a girl that can think for herself. So, Jen, How you doin? ;)
It’s not hard to understand at all. What he’s saying is that Seatlle women are ugly.Now I guess it’s theoretically possible that he’s right. Seattle might be a freak of nature where everyone is born looking like the Hunchback of the Notre Dame and everyone who moves there gets leprosy.Or maybe he’s wrong and he’s a douchebag.I know which one I think is more likely…
Oh my! What a douchebag this guy is.
there’s two separate things here, actually1)There are people out there who have a very limited range of what they are physically attracted to. I have one friend like that: most women fall, for him, either into neutral or unattractive. That does lead to limited romantic/sexual opportunities, but he knows and accepts this and doesn’t blame women for being insufficiently attractive to him.2)which brings us to the actual problem here: dude blames women for this. And something else: I’ve known a few Australian women from Sydney and Melbourne who’ve spent some time in Seattle. They have pretty uniformly reported that Seattle is simply a fuckload more casual, sometimes all the way to hippy casual, whereas Australian society often expects women to be dressed to the nines even for a “casual” girls night out (and then there’s the tan issue). Meaning, in essence he’s whining because Seattle women have better things to do than spend several hours getting ready to leave the house. So there you have it, Seattle women. If you want to catch such a prize of a man *coughassholecough*, you gotta step up your game and stop wearing the fleece and sandals and spend all your money on your looks.
I’ve lived in Seattle for 3 years and also never heard that term
Strange coincidence that this topic should come up right after I blogged on something similar and guilt me into an apology for it. I blogged lamenting “the most beautiful women I know are all godbots*” half-jokingly in response to this video in which a woman with a beauty level of over 9000 debates Louis CK on the merits of masturbation. While it’s not literally true that the most beautiful women I know are godbots*, but there does seem to be some strange correlation (2 out of 4 of the women who were in the same confirmation class as me (plus years and years of sunday school) now work as models, and another could if she wanted to. The remaining one is a really nice school teacher). Maybe sin does eventually affect the way people look via alcohol abuse, partying, and whatever other lifestyle differences mould biological substrates. Probably I’m just fooled by a small sample size and have baggage left over from crushes on two of the girls in my confirmation class.*godbot was an asshole-ish word to use to refer to nice friends of mine who happen to be Christians.
I appreciate this gentlemen making his misogyny abundantly clear by blaming women for this problem instead of men. If there are plenty of attractive guys in Seattle who are “settling” and thus screwing up the system, why isn’t he blaming the men? They are the one settling, the women are just climbing the social social. No one faults the buyer for negotiating with the car sales guy for a better price.
They guy needs therapy, lots of therapy.
I know exactly what his problem is. He’s 35, but he still judges women by their appearances, and his stunted criterion of beauty is almost certainly the barely 18, oversexed girl of a Girls Gone Wild video. He reminisces about his college days and his college town when he was 18, too, and he was hanging with a cohort that matched his dreams, but now he’s gotten older, the people he associates with tend to be older, and his brain hasn’t matured a bit…so not only is he unhappy with who he sees, but when he does meet somebody who fits his fratboy criteria, they want nothing to do with him. He’s 35. He’s old enough to be their father. They aren’t stuck up, he’s stuck down. He needs to grow up.35 year old women are just as beautiful as 18 year olds. They just don’t look like plastic, they may have more to do than doll themselves up for a night of clubbing, and they’ve got character and intelligence instead of pneumatics and makeup. He won’t see that.He will get a just reward, though. Wait until he’s 50, and still thinks women are to be judged by how fresh out of the factory they are. He’s going to be more miserable every year of his life.
Actually I think his standards might be tied to the weather. Seattle is known to wear down on everyones soul and cause other psychological problems. Then he went to Australia, where the weather is on average nicer and more sunny.He also failed to account for the fact that Australian women prefer American men to their own… American men are on average much nicer. Even this guy, in all his douchebaggery is nicer than the crappy men in Australia.
That’s all probably true modulo whether the 2nd paragraph was a claim that there exist objective standards of beauty or just a statement of your own standard. People of his sexual orientation are doomed to stay single and masturbate to internet porn. His obsession with thinness is probably a proxy for youth.
Is this a percieved level of competancy issue maybe? It’s obvious the guy has a problem, maybe his recent trip to Australia, where he was a new face, with a strange accent, made him someone exotic enough that some women decided to try to get to know him better. Then with this inflated sense of his own attractiveness he returned to Seattle and decided that it wasn’t his fault in any way that he couldn’t get a partner, but theirs.It’s the declaration that an entire city of women are ugly that really put the icing on the cake. Someone gets a little attention, then loses it, and lashes out at a whole group of people to make themselves feel better about it.
You made a minor error in the OP. You described “Douche In Nice Guy’s Clothing” Syndrome and called it Nice Guy Syndrome. Its easy to assume that all nice guys are just dickheads pretending to be nice in order to get laid… almost too easy perhaps?Naturally, if any male is unable to find a suitable mate then it is all the fault of the male. Of that there is no doubt. Lets not assume that all of these males live on the dark side though.
Agreed on 2 – different cities/regions have different expectations for public appearance.One of the biggest changes moving into the Boston area was just how *little* people (men and women) cared about their appearance. They cared about staying warm, which leads to constant hat head and shapeless padded forms walking the streets. For the first few months I openly wondered if people showered before coming to work.But that has very little to do with RainyBrain . . . as others have noted, he has been single since he was 22, he needs to MATURE his standards.And, of course, my girlfriend says (looking at his picture) – ‘He’s ugly’
I like how everyone who disagrees with him has a “reading comprehension issue”. It can’t be that he’s wrong or they legitimately dislike his opinion, they just can’t read. I see a pattern of blaming everyone else for his own mess.
Met my first wife when she was 18, met my second when she was 36, I’m younger than either. Certainly know which one I think is the more attractive.
It’s not guys that are actually ‘nice’ that’s the issue. Guys who are nice are nice.It’s the guys who self-describe themselves as ‘Nice Guys’ and then engage in passive-aggressive and manipulative behaviour to find themselves a partner, and if they don’t succeed, blame other men for being more successful, or women for being materialistic or masochistic for choosing ‘not Nice Guys’.Amanda Marcotte has some very good posts on ‘Nice Guy’ syndrome that explain it far better than I can.
Not that I am being judgmental toward him… But his nose bothers me. It isn’t a big enough flaw that it would prevent me from dating him, his personality does that; but if we’re going to nitpick at people’s appearances, rather than get to know them–he just made himself fair game, yes?
THIS. Do men expect do be found attractive, or not, entirely on their appearance?
I swear I’ve seen this same rant before, except instead of “Seattle women” it was “English women” and instead of “Australian women” it was “American women” – the basis of his argument was that English women didn’t spend enough time dieting, buying fashionable clothing, and using hand lotion for his tastes, except that he added the douche de résistance of proceeding to complain that American women cared too much about money and style and were therefore boring conversation partners.I guess we’re all supposed to spend massive amounts of time, money, and energy on making ourselves pretty for whatever the current standard of ‘pretty’ is but not care about being pretty or using it to our benefit in every way.
I think what bothers me the most about appearance-related rants from men is that those who make these rants seem to believe that women alter their appearance with make-up and fancy clothes do it for anyone other than themselves. Now, while I fully believe there are many women out there who do just that… It has always bothered me. I put on make-up because I want to alter my appearance for no other reason that I wish to look different that day. It’s like an adult version of face paint when you get into all the fun eye shadows and liners. I lost weight because I wanted to be healthier. I dye my hair because red suits me so much better than blonde. The very idea that a man, even my fiance, has any influence over the actions I take regarding my appearance is absurd.
Hmm, we don’t use the words dickbag and douchebag enough in the UK. Or anything-bag. Something I shall work on in future perhaps.But yeah, he’s a giant crapbag.
Haven’t read all the comments yet, but I really wonder what he finds attractive. My guess is that he likes more conventionally attractive women who wear makeup, straighten their hair, and dress up. The thing about Seattle is that ALMOST NO ONE does that there. Men OR women. Which is what I liked about it the year I lived there.Luckily for me, I find men who don’t dress up or dress preppy attractive. From there, it’s just a matter of finding the decent ones from the not so decent ones. I also didn’t have trouble dating while I was there and I pretty much just wore jeans, t-shirts, sneakers, and fleeces when I went out. And never wore make up or straightened my hair. I’m on the East Coast now and I miss the Northwest. People in my current city dress up to go to what they call “dive” bars here (which aren’t all that divey).So, yeah, I think it has something to do with him.
“I guess we’re all supposed to spend massive amounts of time, money, and energy on making ourselves pretty for whatever the current standard of ‘pretty’ is but not care about being pretty or using it to our benefit in every way. “Not only that, but we’re supposed to like men who spend only minimal time, effort, and thought on their appearance. Now, I that’s something I’m fine with, in general, but not when it comes with expectations for me to spend much more time prettifying myself than I want to.@beyonddimensions:disqus “I put on make-up because I want to alter my appearance for no other reason that I wish to look different that day. It’s like an adult version of face paint when you get into all the fun eye shadows and liners.”Ha! Good description. The problem is a lot of women do this for others. I only wear minimal makeup and I only started doing it on a regular basis about a year ago (I’m in my late-20s, so that’s kind of late), but I do it because 1) I was feeling unattractive, 2) it seemed that wearing makeup is seen as more professional than not wearing it, and 3) sometimes I get annoyed that people think I’m a teenager (I look young). All of those things annoy me because I don’t understand why men with oily faces with a few random red spots (like mine) aren’t expected to wear makeup to look more attractive. Hmmph.
I adjust my appearance (clothes, shaving) for my wife. If I get a comment from someone else, that’s fine, but if I take time to dress up for my wife, or if she comments on my looks it makes me feel really good. Maybe it’s a bad thing, some remnant of the lack of self-confidence I had (have?) when I was younger, but I like dressing up for her. If I put on a suit (or get a haircut, or a new pair of pants) and she compliments me, I enjoy it. The idea that my actions are influenced by my wife doesn’t bother me. I began working out and running because of possible issues with my blood pressure, but one important motivator for continuing is my wife’s appreciation of it. She doesn’t tell me to work out or to dress better (that would be right out), but I can’t deny that she influences me, perhaps without any conscious desire to – if she likes something, I am more apt to do it.Maybe it’s different for males, but I don’t mind. I also find it almost alien to think that anyone wouldn’t be influenced by their fiance or spouse (both directions) – my wife and I have been together through a lot, and we influence each other in most of our actions, not just those regarding appearance.
Luke has a good point. But then, that’s where “treating them like human beings” comes into play. Get to know a woman, and you can better judge whether she is a good match for you. I have a problem with the abstract notion of “standards” in that they never seem to stay put in the face of real attraction; sane and healthy people adjust their standards all the time to accommodate someone to whom they are attracted. I think that’s part of being in an adult relationship.
I find it very, very hard to believe that he is unable to find an attractive woman in a city of over half a million people. More likely there is something wrong with his mindset.
…or it might be the universal appeal of accents and novelty…
“Seattle pretty”? what the hell is that? i lived in Seattle for five years back in the late 90’s (met my husband while we were in grad school there) and i never once heard that phrase used. is it new? or did this jerk make it up? huh. maybe i wasn’t hanging out with the “right” people.aw, shucks.he is obviously a total winner, btw. small wonder he’s still single. could it be that most woman can sense he’s a complete asshat on sight? (and now have proof)also, after basically declaring online (i.e. to the whole world) that all the women who live in Seattle are ugly, he’s going to have several more years of singleness.so…a wee bit counterproductive his post is.moron.
We influence each other in different areas, just not appearance. Our relationship was sparked by conversation before either of us knew what the other looked like. That being said, I don’t mind compliments, I even enjoy them and give them in return; it is just that the compliments are not the reasoning behind my actions regarding my appearance. They’re like a pleasant bonus. Not necessary, but nice all the same. I suppose I was a little harsh in my previous post, my intent was not to offend people who have self-confidence issues. What I would like to see is people with those issues overcome them and love themselves before putting stock into what others see in them. Our society doesn’t make it easy for them to do that and that makes me sad.
What a horrible thing, to go through a midlife crisis at 35. When I was 35 and teaching at a university, I recognized that most of my female students were quite lovely, but I also realized that dating them would not only be unethical, but just a little bit like babysitting. I think PZ has hit the nail on the head: this guy wants 18 back, and he can never have it, so he blames women.
With the popularity of the metro movement a few years ago, several men I know actually use concealer to hide their blemishes. I think it is the funniest thing ever, personally. Mostly because it means men, in these cases, are becoming aware of their appearance and are finding fault with it. It is almost as though the tables are balancing, but both men and women are coming out the losers. Cosmetic companies, on the other hand, are winning because now both sexes are buying their products.
Pondering this a bit more as I putter about this morning.Bear in mind, for the use of the simplest terms and the easiest definitions, I’m just going to use terms like top and bottom. I agree that Rainy’s rant is much more a reflection on him than on the women in Seattle (or anywhere else for that matter)The *only* location based scenario where an ‘average guy’ who wants to date ‘average women’ is out of luck is one of pure mathematics, and Seattle doesn’t qualify:”For every 100 females there were 99.5 males” – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D…As a contrast to this – Virginia Tech, where I went to school, had approximately 25,000 undergraduates, where 15,000 of them were male.Mathematically speaking, assuming that the top guys were pairing off with the top girls to start, that 3-2 ratio becomes a 2-1 ratio after 50% of the women are paired, and a 3-1 ratio after 75% are paired . . .So, the ‘bottom’ 25% of women would be pairing with the ‘bottom’ 50% of men in that scenario.Or as I occasionally stated – ‘5,001 horny guys are chasing one single girl every Friday night.’As a contrast, when Mary Washington College went from all female to co-ed, the ratios were skewed 9/1 female to male for a time.And yes, I could see *some* legitimacy to a mathematically based rant in those scenarios. But those are the oddities of particular times and locations. In a major metropolitan area, with a 50/50 ratio . . . that argument doesn’t hold any water.
Wait…so this Player’s Guide To Getting A Woman Level 13 is no good? Goddamnit, Jen, can’t you explain these things before I spend my money?I better crawl back into my mom’s basement..
Interestingly, there may actually be a disparity in the gender ratio of single people:http://www.boston.com/bostongl…That doesn’t prevent this guy’s attitude from being total BS, but he may nevertheless be correct that, looking at population differences alone, it’s harder for a straight guy to get a date in Seattle (and conversely, harder for a straight girl to get a date in NYC).One note of caution: don’t pay too much attention to the size of the dots on that map, they’re done by numerical difference rather than ratio, meaning big cities get bigger dots than smaller cities even if it’s equally hard to find a date in either town.
That doesn’t take into account the LGBTs though. 10% of those people will be gay or bisexual. So 2500 of those people will be happy with a compatable partner of their own sex at the least. If you take into account the bisexuals and pansexuals who will be happy finding a compatable partner of either sex, then it’s going to cut into those figures as 1500 of the males might well be perfectly happy with a partner who is also male, while the female bisexuals will face the same ‘pairing off’ problems as the CIS males and may well find a compatable male partner.When I was at Uni, we also mingled with the locals too :P while we obviously spent more time in the company of other students, there was the chance to meet people in the evenings/weekends that weren’t students and a 9/1 female/male ratio is quickly diluted when a campus of a few thousand is situated in a town of tens of thousands.Edit – I didn’t include it because it wouldn’t affect the ratios, but there are a lot of asexuals out there that don’t want a sexual partner of either sex, but a discussion of sexual relationships should include those who don’t actually want one :).
I’m 35, and I remember well making the mental transition of which PZ speaks around 28 or so. At the mall, feeling like I was looking pretty good (for me) that day. Saw some cute college-age girls, and realized they were looking right through me. Suddenly felt like someone’s creepy uncle, until their 45-ish mom flashed me a smile. Well, hello there, soccer mom! And, although I don’t mean to besmirch younger folks, sexy has looked over-30 to me ever since.
I’m curious where you moved from. In my experience, if you’re in the US, people care more about their appearance the further east you go. At least in cities. I don’t know how small towns on the east coast compare to the small towns in the northwest and midwest that I’ve been to.Also, in general, people in northern climates care about being warm during the winter. Not everyone cares all the time, but enough that of course people are going to be wearing hats and shapeless jackets during the winter! We’d have to be insane not to. Or excessively vain.Luckily, leggings and tights are popular now, so people can be warm AND stylish!
What is it with assholes who assault “reading comprehension” when someone takes issue with the implications or logical conclusions to be drawn from their statements? I remember that was Scott Adams go-to riposte during his most recent kerfuffle, and now this douchebag tries the same lame shit.
Ahhh, good point. I actually dated a self-identified metrosexual man for a few months back in 2003. He was already like that and was very excited when he first heard the term. I’m not sure if any of my current guy friends/acquaintances use makeup or not.
That’s a decent point, although it does ignore sexuality as well as whether or not people want to be single.But it might explain why I loved Seattle’s dating scene and hate DC’s (so far).
“Translation: That’s the nice way of saying you don’t deserve the women you’re aiming for.”I have some confusion about this comment. The guy in question does seem like a self pitying jerk, but I am concerned that there are things referenced in this statement that would mean that there are different strata of women that have different requirements for one to be “deserving” of them. That sounds very much like an outside objectification of women. That sounds very much like there is a class of women who are on the upper end of some beauty scale who themselves are deserving of only wealthy, well read, well traveled suitors who themselves are on the upper end of their own beauty scale.Surely this is not what you meant, because as Mr Joe Average, I can personally attest that there are almost no women in an age appropriate range that are “out of my league”, unless they personally make that determination based on a shallow cursory evaluation of their own. Women who do that are cheerfully bidden good riddance, because I am about actually talking to women like they are individual human beings with feelings and strengths and weaknesses, just like everyone else.My friends are sometimes shocked to see Joe Average with Miss USA, but I always tell them that my secret insider scam for picking up women is really simple: talk to them and treat them like regular human beings, who are in every way your equal. It is sadly amazing how many of them never thought of that.
I met me wife playin’ World of Warcraft, and I were well down the road ta bein’ completelies head-over-heels before she worked up the nerve fer ta send me some pics of herself. Up ’til that point, all I knew about her looks was that I were pretty sure that even though she played a Night Elf, she most likelies didn’t have pointy ears, green hair and purple skin. Turned out I were right – she done looked like a 37-year-old woman with three kids what spent more time doin’ her job than getting primped in a salon, and she were beautiful. Three years, six rounds of chemotherapy an’ a mastectomy later, she still is.Couldn’t agrees more, Jen. This bluggernunker with his “average attractive” jibberish is a self absorbed douchebag.
Seriously, people who write things like that make me almost lose hope in humanity.It really annoys me when the obvious observation that physical attraction is part of many romantic relationships gets used as a justification for being shallow and mean.There’s nothing wrong, of course, with having preferences, but it’s important to realize that they’re your own subjective preferences, and do not serve as a condemnation of another person. In other words, the fact that he does not find a certain woman attractive does not mean there’s something wrong with her; it’s his preference. He’s acting like his personal opinion is the law of nature (and also trying to pretend he’s not affected by media portrayals of beauty). He then absurdly uses his own personal opinion about other people’s physical attractiveness to judge other couples when he has no idea about their relationships.About the whole USA vs. Australia issue, I’ve never been to Australia, but there are always these stereotypes about people from certain countries. Jadehawk makes a good point about different expectations for appearance, depending on where you go (and it probably also depends on which part of a particular country you’re in, too).(As a side note, the whole “nice guy/girl” thing always confuses me a bit, because I think there are people who say they’re “nice” but then act horribly, like this guy. Then, there are people who are genuinely nice who might just be shy about approaching other people, etc.)Don’t let his comments get you down, Jen. You are awesome; never forget that.
Nah, I just mean that *everyone* – man or woman – deserves a partner that isn’t an asshole and appreciates them for who they are.
I totally sympathize with the experience of not being attracted to any women. People also told me to be attracted to people that I wasn’t attracted to, and I also felt broken. But my experience diverges here, because I concluded I was asexual, while this guy concluded that all local women are ugly. And now he’s trying to turn the tables, telling his friends to stop being attracted to the people that they are attracted to. :-/If he found Australian women much more attractive, I can think of more likely explanations. It could be the context in which he is meeting the women, or the demographics of the women he is meeting. Or maybe he likes the accent or ethnicity. Maybe in Australia it’s more acceptable for women to pursue men (rather than men pursuing women), and he likes that.I can’t figure out what his own attractiveness has to do with him not being attracted to anyone else.
The fact that you become friends with many of the women you date is a clue that you’re not a douchebag. If you didn’t see women as your equal, you wouldn’t see them as more than potential partners and in turn wouldn’t be interested in being just friends.Finding the right person is hard and sometimes you just have to keep putting yourself out there.
I disagree. It has everything to do with a guy who was able to find women he’s attracted to when he was a kid (and when many women his age were doing their utmost to be physically attractive to men because our culture tells them to), but is no longer able to do so at a point where many women find they have more important things to do than spend a large chunk of their time and money on making themselves conventionally pretty; except when he goes to a place where even post-college women still pay a ridiculous amount of attention to making themselves conventionally attractive. I bet if he went to NY or LA, he’d also find women he’d find attractive.Basically, we’re dealing with a dude who is complaining that Seattle women aren’t performing femininity to his standards (and who pretends that his standards are universal, hence his idiotic opinion that when he sees a man he thinks is attractive with a woman he thinks is unattractive, well then obviously the man must also think his girfriend is unattractive, and she must have “tricked” him)
it may be similar to what I described above: godbots will perform femininity much more diligently than women not encumbered by patriarchal religion. Also, many religionists (especially mormons, but other proselytizing flavors, too) will put a lot of stock into looking “respectable” and “pleasant” to make it easier to garner converts
Amanda Marcotte has written about this; women are supposed to look “effortlessly” beautiful: thin, but snarfing down burgers with the guys; well-dressed, but not noticeably paying attention to fashion; beautiful, but not talking about beauty products and not taking 30 minutes to get ready; basically, women are supposed to hide the effort that’s required to perform femininity properly and look high-maintenance while acting low-maintenance
Ugh. Since he’s writing LW plugins, I may even know him.Anyway, douche posting by him, now taken down and available via the magic of caching. If he wants a bigger pool of >>stylish<< women, he’s certainly going to have to leave Seattle, ‘cuz it’s really not done here much.All magnets are attractive, but not all magnets are good looking. This guy is obviously not attractive in that sense: I’m guessing he’s no fun to be around (and wouldn’t be surprised if he’s overestimating the appearance part).
I moved in my 30s to a tourist area in Florida where I was instantly an older woman and totally invisible. It took a while for me to realize that I was suddenly no longer a commodity, so to speak. Thankfully, I’m not in the market for a mate, but if I were, I would not seek a mate here — the pool is wrong for me. The OP may be fishing in the wrong pond. Move to somewhere completely anti-Seattle — Dallas or Atlanta spring to mind — and if you have the same complaint, then dude, maybe it’s you.
I have seen plenty of butt-ugly people in happy relationships. So he is probably single because he is an asshole.
All this hand-wringing about what people find to be attractive is pointless because each person can’t help being attracted to whoever he or she is attracted to, in the same way that homosexuality is not a choice. This is why the campaign for real beauty is bullshit.
I bring up Virginia Tech and Mary Washington because (Tech particularly) those institutions dwarfed the towns they were in at the time, diminishing the effects of ‘locals’ on the equation.And I left off the flavors of sexuality to keep it simple.Really, though, I was doing the mental exercise of trying to find some scenario where Rainy had a legitimate point, and that was *hard* to do, let me tell ya.And it was easy to disprove my theory vs. Seattle’s facts.
He’s getting death threats by email over what he posted. That is repulsive and I suspect some of those threats may have come from the audience here. Just because you disagree with him, (even if it turns out that he truly is a misogynistic asshole), you never send death threats!
When you say a guys is a “Nice Guy” the quotes are irony quotes. It’s also referred to as Nice Guy Syndrome. The basic idea is that it is a guy who believes that just because he does a few nice things for a woman he is entitled to sex with her. The guy in this article is a “Not Ugly Guy” basically because he believes he falls into the average category of some universal scale of attractiveness he is entitled to women who meet his personal criteria of attractiveness despite the fact that he clearly can’t be bothered to treat them like human beings. He can’t even speculate on why he is single without blaming women for not being what he thinks he deserves. No one is entitled to a relationship and good ones are a privilege for decent human beings.
I for one consider any obvious sign of makeup (eyeshadow, eye liner) to be hideous. And fancy clothes do nothing whatsoever for my opinion of people’s attractiveness, either. T-shirt and jeans is just as good.
I moved from the DC area. And I look at it very much as a climate change (with some discussion of how attitudes are different here as well)As for warm and stylish – I refer to that as ‘rockin the sexy parka’
Well the internet has consequences which can be unfortunately extreme although usually in the end meaningless. I disagree with the people sending him death threats but they are more likely coming from reddit or his own miffed followers. While making a blanket statement is stupid the readers here tend to be rationalists and sending death threats to a guy for being a self important dickbag is a rather irrational response. Every group has some rotten apples in the batch. But you shouldn’t come to a conclusion based on the outliers.
It’s quite easy to understand what he is saying. He is revealing that he honestly believes that the reason he fails to attract women is that there is something wrong with the women, which reveals and an unhealthy resentment of the opposite gender a tragic lack of self-awareness of same. It couldn’t be these things that turn women off, no! It couldn’t be anything about his personality and mannerisms that women detect and dislike; no, because when he went to another hemisphere, some not-so-unattractive women actually flirted with him! Yep, a whole dang city of defective women has sealed his fate. As proof, he saw five mis-matched couples with desperate looks in their eyes! He has at least done Seattle women a couple of favors though; he has remained single for 13 years, and he has made his dickbaggery public to at least some of them. I am guessing his prolonged single status and the resulting frustration and resentment has probably contributed to, but not solely caused, his negative outlook toward women in general.
Oh, please don’t think I was making the conclusion that they must have been coming from here. I was *suspecting* that they *might* be coming from here and wanted to take the opportunity to speak out against the tactic of using death threats.
Since he posted his picture as evidence, I’m going to go ahead and say that he’s grading on a sexist curve. If he was a woman and looked like that, he’d happily use the word “ugly”.
Also, if he’s 35, it might be useful to him to remember that 35-year-old women don’t look like 18-year-olds, and 18-year-olds generally don’t want to fuck older men who have nothing on offer but a heavy sense of entitlement.
I suppose this is terribly unfair of me, but my thought reading it (noting that he did not say he actually *went on a date* in Melbourne) was, “Dude, the women at the rental car counter and the hotel reception desk were not flirting with you. It’s their job.”
Yes, I think he would be much happier in New York. There, the only competition are fabulously wealthy investment bankers and traders. I’m sure he’ll do fabulously on the dating scene.
You do understand that you’re equating deeply held, innate preferences of homosexuality with the frat boy, dudebro who says “No Fat Chicks”, right?
Let’s not also forget that in Australia, the male to female ratio for major metropolitan areas is much lower than in most other countries. It’s something like a 1:2 ratio – the women there are quite literally desperate for male attention. Many of the men stay in the interior to work industrial jobs, while the women move to the cities and the corporate life. He was being “hit on” for the simple reason that he was one of the few men in town.
I agree with what you said, but I would add an addendum: “Even you are a really, truly, honestly good person not just in it to find someone to stick your dick in, you could still end up alone.” Just like there isn’t an invisible man in the sky, there’s also no karmic law that says decent people get to meet someone who wants to be in a relationship with them. Granted, being an actual decent human being doesn’t hurt the situation, but its also not a guarantee. There are lots and lots of shallow men and women in the world, and, sorry, some people end up on the wrong end of that situation for all sorts of reasons.This universal expectations that society puts on people that to be happy you MUST be in a relationship and “if you’re a decent person you’ll meet someone” create the false impression that somehow there’s a guarantee.
Not to one-up, just to reinforce – I spent 19 years there (and still consider it home, currently living in the Midwest) and never heard the term, either. People like to make up words about Seattle. I remember when I moved there and the NYT claimed that “thrifting” was a verb used in Seattle, which was met with perplexed shrugs.
This post reminds me of something I still feel pretty shitty about, but I didn’t know how else to put it, except bluntly. I told a guy, that yes, I found him physically very attractive, a lot even. Like OMG Rawr. But I was put off by his personality and thought it wasn’t a good match (he was a very mean and rude person), and I wasn’t interested in getting serious. Also, I can find people very physically attractive, but then I find out they are creationists or homophobic and…I just can’t find them attractive anymore (attractive as in lets fool around or maybe get serious). Kind of like a friend of mine who says he just can’t find Jenny McArthy hot any more, not even a bit. :(
I do agree that we put way too much emphasis in people “needing” to be in relationships to be happy and it’s true not everyone will find one and not everyone wants one either. My statement was just pointing out that any feeling of entitlement to a relationship is utter bullshit.
“35 year old women are just as beautiful as 18 year olds. They just don’t look like plastic, they may have more to do than doll themselves up for a night of clubbing, and they’ve got character and intelligence instead of pneumatics and makeup. He won’t see that.”I mostly love your comment, but this comes across as 18-year-old-woman bashing, which I don’t think you actually intended.
This cracked me up, because years ago a friend of mine visited from LA, and asked me in all earnestness, “Why is everyone in Seattle so freaking HOT?!” So I don’t even know what this schlub is on about.
Guess what the only hit is when you google “she’s Seattle pretty.”
I had that experience in Vegas recently.One of my mates was all puffed up because the very pretty women working in reception and at the conceirge’s desk kept flirting with them.I didn’t have the heart to point out that this was their job.
“the douche de résistance”Love it.
Maybe he’s a hoarder.
As an Australian male, in my defense, I moved to New Zealand.^_^
Well, you don’t see the dirty pipes and filters and pumps and switches when you go to a public aquarium, do you? Same thing!
The messages I’ve always received from society since I was very young was that I would be judged by the opposite sex on a combination of appearance, income, athletic capability, the ability to win fights, how nice my car is and the size of my genitals.Our bullshit isn’t nearly as bad as women’s, of course. But it’s still bullshit.
I think if the entire female half—in all its wonderous diversity—of the species rejects a single man, it’s probably a safer bet to assume the problem is him.
Ayup. One time I happened ta pass Cinderella in the Magic Kingdom, and she flashed me a helluva smile what made this simple orc feel all warm and gushy inside fer a minute. But even I weren’t dorky enough fer ta think she actuallies wanted ta take me home fer ta meet the Evil Stepmom – she were just bein’ good at her job.
I fully agree with that (especially the last line) but I have often felt that men can get away with having a lack of several of these traits by having an abundance of one (which usually women can not). Not handsome? Be funny. Not funny? Be smart. Not smart? Be successful. etc…
You got to love impossible standards.
I got the same result. “Seattle pretty” only brings up lines like “moving to Seattle pretty soon.”
I like how even taken at face value, his argument basically boils down to “In Seattle, unattractive women can get hot boyfriends. How dare they.”
I do wish EVERYbody was my stylish here: I was at a funeral and somebody showed up in shorts and sandals. WTF?But “everybody is unattractive”? Welp, time to move.
“my stylish”=”MORE stylish”. d’oh.
Not arguing with you :) I gave you a like, just added the LGBT complications to the maths. Didn’t know about the demographics for those towns, so I gave my own experience of Uni life.
??? Why would you feel shitty about that, assuming you weren’t totes rude? I mean, he was “a very mean and rude” person– you owed him nothing.IMO more pretty people, men and women, could use a reality check when their personality is lacking.Thinking of a recent example in my life: once you realize a good looking person is a jerk, it REALLY undermines any attractiveness they once had.
meh. Preferences are preferences. If fat chicks deflate your boat, there it is.It’s one thing to say “weight’s a deal-breaker”, and another to say “Everyone in Portland Oregon is too heavy for my tastes.”
I do love this subjectivity thing. I actually find that Roman nose of his rather cute, though he’s turned me off completely with the complete rubbish he’s speaking.But I’m lucky in this case, I’m a man and not an 18 year old woman that has to find a way to turn down such a misogynistic prick when he tries to pick me up.
I am mutt ugly. A bit (honestly not much) overweight, balding, somewhat oversized nose and the hair I have looks like steel wool.All that said, I have always dated and then I married (1 time only, still married to my perfect match) fantastic, intelligent and beautiful, funny, witty and interesting women.How? Exactly as stated above: I treated them like the human being they are. I looked in their eyes, I listened to them, I spoke WITH them, not AT them. I spoke honestly, I listened intently.We built a foundation of friendship first, sometimes for a few days, sometimes, as with the lady that shocked me when she said yes to marrying me, for years…..Some of the relationships are still friendships today, years after the romance faded. With others…. time and tides pulled us apart but in the end I was found by, and I found, the person I have been happy to spend the last quarter century + with.
If I might point out, venomous and abusive treatment does not help the world.Surely things Mr. Jrandom said were hurtful, so feeling angry is fullyunderstandable. But aside from soothing our own feelings, what benefit is thereto the world or to Jrandom when we vent the acid in us? When we model hatred?When we model the will to harm?And what happens when we misunderstand someone? Wishing another to hurt (andits close cousin reflexively flinging barbs) is already a corrosion of humanity,even if in the form of vengeance. So then what is vengeance spurred bymisunderstanding? We would do well to be careful in our understanding and ourresponse when we think we’ve been wronged. Let alone have some care for notjust the “righteousness” of our reactions, but for whether our choices make usall worse or better off.That we lash out with “mere” words is no excuse. Words are not harmless. His”mere” words are what stung us and drove us to action in the first place. Andreally, it’s the exposed sentiment of devaluation and hate that is the realpoison. Is disregard for others really what we want to generally promote?Please think before you act out of anger. Even if merely to express yourdistaste. Try to see how your actions shape the world.
I’m single because I have just lost my job, have no place to live, and am physically 26 and mentally going on 260. Face it: we’re a lost generation. Before even thinking about love and romance, we need to stay alive. And my will to live is shot.
There is making yourself look attractive because you are expected to look like the Yamato Nadeshiko of conservative society.There is making yourself look attractive because you want to feel that you look stunning in that little black number you just bought that you couldn’t really afford but couldn’t resist because, damn, you want to feel good about yourself.There is having 15 ear piercings, tattoos covering 65% of your body, your head half shaved, half spiked, dyed pink and sky blue, because that is what, in your heart of hearts, you want yourself to look like.There is wearing overalls and a t-shirt and didn’t care because today they were changing sparkplugs, cleaning the attic of all the old boxes of junk, haven’t done the washing because they’re too busy and need to get out to class/work.Only one of these is ‘expected’ of you, the others are are the choice of the person making the decision for themselves and I’d rather be friends with a person who was true to theirself than someone desperate to fit into society because of a fear that they were thought of as sinful because they lacked the twinset and pearls.
…why would you think that?
Not this shit again…
So you’re marginalizing people who are so attracted to children that they choose chemical castration, because it’s either that or being a pedophile, as the equivalent of frat boys who say “No Fat Chicks”? Is that not a deeply held, innate preference too? Or is the only true choice a person can make regarding sex straight or gay, with any other attraction being a “dudebro”?Nobody is really sure why fetishes develop, or why people are attracted to who they are attracted to. Sure, being attracted to fit, intelligent, virile 18-25 year-olds make sense from an evolutionary standpoint, but then why are there people who are only sexually attracted to amputees, the really obese, the elderly, midgets, or any other physical trait that is not a sign of good genetics?
To one up, I’ve never been in the state of Washington for 24 years and I’ve never heard that term. :P
“It really boggles my mind how so many men can’t comprehend that the way to get a date is to treat women like human beings, rather than some monolithic hivemind”Jen, I’ve been thinking about this sentence. It reminds me of what Richard Feynman wrote in the chapter called “You Just *Ask* Them?” in the book “Surely you’re joking, Mr. Feynman!” (link http://tinyurl.com/3zkp5jj) This is perhaps the least interesting chapter in the book, since he knew so much more about the Manhattan Project and lockpicking than he did about dating. Also he’s talking New Mexico in the early 40s, so his situation was different from the Seattle douchebag’s, but I’m curious what people here have to say about this chapter.When I read it (which wasn’t until I was many years into my current monogamous relationship) two semi-contradictory thoughts came to me:1. Man, I was doing it all wrong. This explains why treating women with respect wasn’t getting me anywhere when I was dating.2. I hope he’s mistaken and/or things have changed, because this isn’t quite how I want dating to work in the world that I and my children live in.
“Bluggernunker” is the best new word I’ve heard in many months.
What isn’t clear to me is what this clown actually wants to happen. Does he want a few busloads of stunning (in his eyes) women to join the Seattle dating pool so that he can try his smooth moves on them? Does he want one of the 5 women in Seattle who he fancies to talk to him? And how does he think ranting on the internet about how ugly Seattle women are will help?In any case, he’s clearly not planning on taking any action on his own to resolve this. Like, as many people have said on this thread, moving away somewhere, or maybe meeting someone online who might be interested in moving to Seattle. It’s as though the Worldwide Women Supply Corp has failed to provide him with a suitable mate and he’d like to talk to the customer service manager, please.And I hadn’t heard of “Seattle pretty” either. Been here 5 years. Monogamously married, so I haven’t paid much attention to the dating scene.
I don’t like hurting people’s feelings, that’s why I felt shitty. :(
To Bobbi Weth and Collin Christopher:Thanks for the replies. I was thinking something along the lines of what you guys explained, but thanks for explaining it out.
Blag Hag has a fair number of readers.Also, no one had posted about him getting death threats yet. I wanted people to be aware of it.
Seattle women! How could you! Can’t you see that proper behavior for people of your status (people this random guy find unattractive) is to go hide in a corner with a bag over your heads? I can’t believe you possess things that are reserved, through divine right, for people that this random blogger finds attractive! And Seattle men! How dare you not choose mates that meet this guy’s beauty standards! You are truly cheating yourselves! This is just terrible! Poor poor Blogger. Seattle seems to have such a terrible culture, promoting self esteem and healthy body image for all women! Why would anyone live there?You know, there have been times in my life I have been called “uppity”, and that blog article smacks of that horrible “group X is acting uppity” mentality. :P
OT, but I am rapidly falling in love with your writing style.
Dude’s some fragile flower if he can’t take “You’re hawt, but not my type.”
We’re in violent agreement – no arguments here :)
Lol, okay I concede, probably no reason to feel shitty. :P
So he’s been single for 13 years in Seattle but then he moved and the same day he got hit on and he liked a lot of what he saw. There’s a solution there, move somewhere else. Doesn’t have to be Australia though, surely there should be some nice towns within the country. Of course there’s the job thing, but one’s job isn’t written in stone. You can always ask for a transfer to another office or directly start looking for work somewhere else, if you’re really willing to make a change in your life after more than a decade of misery, that is.This solution may seem impractical but before dismissing it, he should consider just how impractical moving is if we compare it to the alternatives:- Magically change his type so he likes the women in town;- Magically change the women in town so they match his type;- Manage to convince a woman he doesn’t like to stay with him and live unhappily ever after;- Staying single for the rest of his life, or at least until a miracle happens.None are more practical, in my opinion.This comment can be applied to every person in his situation, independently of the jackassery levels of the subject.
OP Blogger here, rapidly on my way to The Most Hated Man In Seattle. (I was so confused why my post got so much attention until I checked my web stats.)There’s way too much here for me to respond to, but I’d like to answer one of your questions:What do I find attractive? Physically, little to no makeup, decently but not overly attractive, yes I have a thing for “petite”, not a fan of giant breasts, and a slight (slight, mind you) touch of goofy is fantastic. I don’t really care about the clothes. Hell, I’ve seen flannel be abundantly sexy.I hate the supermodel plasticky bag-of-antlers look, and chubby does nothing for me either.Personality-wise, must be intelligent with an insane sense of humor.Lack of women? They not “stuck-up bitches”, they just dating men more appealing than me through sheer statistics. Yes, I know you don’t agree with the statement. No, not _all_ Seattle women are “ugly” and I never said as much. I never called Ms. (mrs?) McCreight ugly, and I never said that’s the reason she disagrees with me. <– perfect example of my “reading comprehension” statements.So… well, I’m not going to change anyone’s mind about me. I layed out my reasons pretty clearly in my post, but everyone’s accusing me of calling all Seattle women ugly, and all the non-ugly ones as shallow, and I don’t see this ever changing.*shrug*
Yay let’s judge people! yaaaaay!
Wow. Just… wow.Who knew this is what I would get internet famous for?I maintain that a lot of you have completely misinterpreted my post, but the sheer amount of hate I’m seeing makes me pretty sure that all of you will continue to hate me. I’m fine with that. I am who I am and I’m not going to make up any excuses for that.That, being said, if you have any actual questions for me I will answer them honestly and without malice.The internet is such a strange place.
Feel free to despise me, and my plug-in for LW isn’t that great anyhow.(Not a jab, I say this in all seriousness.)
Hetero/straight is just one of a multitude of types of sexual preferences. It is completely idiotic to hate or chastise someone for their sexual preference, regardless of what kind of sexual preference it is, because no one has control over their sexual preference.If they act on that sexual preference in a harmful way (such as insulting “fat chicks”, humping a mannequin that doesn’t belong to them, or abusing children) then you should criticize the action, not the sexual preference.
It probably depends on what neighborhoods you go to and which clubs you hang out at, as well as your own personal preferences. SES is probably correlated with physical beauty (as perceived by average persons) for many reasons including lookism, lifestyle/nutrition, and the genetic legacy of the fact that wealthier guys are more likely to get what they want.
Oh come on, I’m not that ridiculous.These were random women who approached me. Me! Just walking around the park near the hotel, or wandering around at random. They approached _me_ and initiated conversation. It was the strangest thing ever because this sort of thing just does not happen to me.No dates thanks due to my work schedule and then having to come back to the US right away, but I certainly could have gone on a few.
“It’s as though the Worldwide Women Supply Corp has failed to provide him with a suitable mate and he’d like to talk to the customer service manager, please.”brilliant!
1. How many women have you asked out in the past 13 years?2. How many different bars or other social places in Seattle have you visited in your search? Do you actually go out much, or do you spend 90%+ of your free time on the internet (and fapping to jailbait)?3. How often do you go to the gym?4. Have you considered doing a randomized trial via facebook to test whether you indeed do have a higher opinion of the average beauty of Melbourne women than Seattle women?5. Have you considered moving to Melbourne?6. What do you expect to accomplish by complaining about Seattle women?
1. I’ve lost count. I’ve been rejected in about every way possible. My absolute favorite excuse for being stood up was: (over the phone, inquiring about what happened and was she okay): “Oh! I’m uh… sorry. I had to uh… go… uh… wash.. my cat.” (hangs up) — that’s a direct quote, including the pauses while she tried to think up something believable.2. Tried various bars but quickly learned that bars are just not the place for me. I also have a slight hearing defect where if there loud background noises, I’ll be able to hear the sounds coming from someone talking to me but my brain will have no idea how to piece them together into coherent words. I hear the craziest shit because of this.Also, the jailbait crack was uncalled for. I’m more of an r/redheads/ kind of guy. (Note that this is not what I look for in a date. Masturbation does not equal real life.)3. I let things slide for the past year, and just recently started working on turning that around. My tummy still needs some work, but the man-boobs have successfully been turned into the beginnings of pectorals. I need to visit /r/fitness…4. That’s actually a pretty neat idea. I’ll have to look into that.5. Okay, now this is just silly. I can’t find a woman for over a decade and the advice I’m getting is “well, why don’t you leave the country!”. I had a hard enough time finding a job last time I moved and I really don’t want to go through that kind of hell again right now.6. It was a rant and an observation wrapped into a little blog post I honestly expected very few people to ever see. I threw it at /r/seattle on reddit just to see what would happen, got downvoted into oblivion, had a little heated exchange with Jen, figured that was the end of it, and all of a sudden _this_ happens. Totally unexpected and caught me by complete surprise. Throw in the jet-lag from coming back to the US and this has just been a freaked-out day all-around.
Ack, hit “post” too soon, didn’t fully answer #2.Again, this past year I’ve pretty much just focused on my hobbies, but I’ve gone to various different “social” places, outdoor gathers, went to the seattle poetry slam for awhile… it all just sort of blurs together. There are people, I have random conversations, occasionally meet someone I find wildly interesting and discover they are either married (sometimes) or just flat-out not interested. This is expected and normal, it’s the lengthy time-frame that’s getting to me.
Ummm, for those of us who haven’t been paying attention the past few years…When did, socially awkward, nerdy, shy, timid guys with self esteem issues, who are just a little bit intimidated by women they’re attracted to but are totally willing to work through that if they are, and do their best to treat everyone they talk to with decency and respect, suddenly become synonymous with misogynistic douchebag assholes?
If this choad can’t find one person attractive in a city of close to 600,000 people (3,300,000 if you count the greater Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue metropolitan area), then that is a sign there is something seriously wrong his outlook on the opposite sex.The great thing about finding beauty in all different types of people is that suddenly you realize “Hey! There are a LOT of attractive people here! I never noticed!”
Nor did I ever claim to be. Not once.Although the general consensus seems to be that I am “just shy of ugly”, as opposed to “kinda average” (which is my own assessment of my looks).
Since never and no one’s said as much, to my knowledge.Because you’ve admitted to not having paid attention, go look up what is meant by a “Nice Guy ™” (Amanda Marcotte has great blog posts about the subject and Jen’s mentioned it a time or two herself) and see the very, very stark difference.
erm. point of interest: were they talking to you, or flirting with you? I know some American men sometimes have a hard time keeping those two things apart (as I keep noting even though no one will believe me, American society is amazingly gender-segregated in interesting but unpleasant ways)…
It was definite flirting, but it took me three days to notice that’s what was going on. I, by default, never assume a women is flirting with me. A lot of people are just friendly, you know?
as far as I can tell, he wants uppity Seattle women to stop thinking they’re pretty because he doesn’t think they are; and also, stop “tricking” goodlooking men into thinking there’s something wrong with them so that they’ll date all those “ugly” girls, because “obviously” that makes these poor guys miserable
re point 1:turns out I did misunderstand. silly me, I thought it was you who rejected all of Seattle; turns out, all of Seattle rejected you. And all I can figure from that is that it’s because Seattle women have a too high opinion of themselves, so the ones who are attractive enough that you’d ask them out reject you because they too think they’re prettier than they are, and thus think they deserve better than you? something like that? My opinion of you is shrinking by the minute, as unbelievable as that sounds
When the number of misogynistic assholes using the self-description of “socially awkward, nerdy, shy, timid, with self esteem issues, just a little bit intimidated by women they’re attracted to but are totally willing to work through that if they are, and doing the best to treat everyone they talk to with decency and respect” as a stalking horse exceeded the number of people whose true nature that description fits?
Explain how we have “misinterpreted” it.Then, assuming we actually have, see here. Replace “smug” with “righteously indignant” and be glad I’m not in the same room with you after the day I’ve had.
Huh. Wonder where my other comment went. :/You can’t really think this kind of smug, vapid fingerwagging is helpful, can you?
You’ve come here and tried to respond to what people have said. Kudos.There is the possibility of course that in any system that can be modelled statistically, that some people, no matter the circumstances involved, arrive in the lowest percentile. This seems to have happened to you by your own admission.There is also the statistical truth that no matter the luck involved, there is often a reversion to the mean at some point.What a lot of people here have found unpleasant is your apparent blaming of the women of Seattle for your current woes, and beyond that, the implication that women of Seattle are somehow worse than any other randomly chosen group. That isn’t fair.I’ve pointed out that as people go, I don’t find you unattractive physically, though by the tone of your post I wouldn’t be interested in you personally after reading what you said. Though, as I’m a bisexual male, and you appear to be CIS male, that wouldn’t be any comfort anyway.All I can say is that your post, especially with blogs like Manboobz that point out the more egregious examples of misogyny and the blaming of women for deficiencies in the men who post in MRA fora, you didn’t do yourself any favours.I wish you luck, I hope that you continue to try to find love, and if this is just a cry of frustration that has backfired on you, then I don’t see why you wouldn’t be able to find the love you seek in the future. If you jump back into the dating scene and try to become involved with a woman and show genuine interest in a woman and her personality and interests, instead of the faux interest that some people show just to get close to a possible partner, then you will probably find someone who shares the same or compatable interests to yours and from that mutual respect, not just a feigned respect, a relationship will grow.I hope that you understand that, as far as I know, no-one here would wish ill on you, no matter how we might have criticised the tone of your post.
Thank you. In this swirling madness it’s nice to see some occasional sanity. :)And backfired? That doesn’t even begin to cover it. There’s even a “this guy is a 45-year-old ugly liar man!” thread going on over at regretsy. They dug up every picture of me they could find and are ripping them to shreds.Fun day.
Somehow my desire for an average-looking woman in a city where they seem to be all taken already gets instantly twisted around into everyone instantly assuming I won’t be happy unless I have some 18-year-old supermodel bimbo.You all call me a misogynist who emanates douchebag rays for the mere fact that the only women who’ve shown any interest in me whatsoever have been decidedly unattractive, but they’ve been genuinely unattractive! This isn’t some snotty, higher-than-thou opinion, they really weren’t desirable-looking people. I don’t know what else to say.If this had happened to you for years in a row you’d be a bit ranty about it yourself.The very first comment I ever got called me a “raging dickbag” for pointing out that there are quite a number of women here I am not attracted to, but dammit, there are a lot of unattractive women here! There are! Just go outside and wander around! But this instant insult slinging got me into a slightly-heated conversation, the one that led directly to me being featured here at blaghag and suddenly I’m the internet’s new favorite whipping boy.I also NEVER said that all women in Seattle were ugly, but you’d never know that by reading these comments. It’s gone past overreacting and straight into outright ludicrousness. You’d think I was Tom Leykis or something.Did I focus on physical attractiveness in my post? Yes, because it was the most obvious thing I’ve noticed over the years — it’s happened so often it’s statistically significant, but no one ever bothered to even consider that possibility. Nope, I must be some horrible douche jerk who see women as objects! Why, it’s the only possible answer!So yeah, hell of a day, with a minor rant about women and a horribly, lonely life blown far out of proportion with people screaming about how I’m a bad, bad monster.Step back, imagine 10+ years of terrible luck with the opposite sex no matter what you do, finally write up a snarky rant about it, then look at all these comments again.
I don’t have to step back and imagine. And while my ex-wife is genuinely a basket case and intermittently a monster she is not representative of all women.
Right. Now imagine you’d been married 10 times and each one was a genuine basket case so you write up a blog post about how the women who will marry you are basket cases… and then get all of these comments thrown at you calling you a woman hater who objectifies women and won’t be happy until you’ve married a pristine young princess with no brain.That’s pretty much been my day today.
I fail to see how it was “definite” flirting if it took you 3 days to notice that it was flirting, but whatever.
It took me three days to notice because at first I just thought Melbournian women were just more friendly than I was used to. You’re actually surprised by this?Once I started paying attention then yes, it was obvious. Let to some nice, flirty, bantery conversations.
“Somehow my desire for an average-looking woman in a city where they seem to be all taken already”That’s not what you wrote. If that were what you wrote, you’d be merely one of an uncountable mass of people, both male and female, whining about how “the good ones” are all taken.”The very first comment I ever got called me a “raging dickbag” for pointing out that there are quite a number of women here I am not attracted to, but dammit, there are a lot of unattractive women here! There are! Just go outside and wander around!”See? This crap in addition to your “ZOMG the ugly women are guilttripping Teh Menz into dating them!!!one!” bullshit, is why you get called a “raging douchebag”. Your personal opinion about the looks of Seattleite women is YOUR PERSONAL OPINION, not some universal standard. I’ve lived in Seattle and found the women there quite beautiful in comparison to many other places (and unlike you, I move about once every 2-3 years).Quite frankly, the use of the phrase “political correctness” in a blogpost about something as subjective as looks marks you as a douchebisquit all by itself.”it’s happened so often it’s statistically significant”that’s not how statistics work. that’s not even how statistics work if you actually tallied your experiences on paper, and if there actually was an objective standard of beauty. “Step back, imagine 10+ years of terrible luck with the opposite sex no matter what you do, finally write up a snarky rant about it, then look at all these comments again.”that you honestly imagine the misogyny and idiocy of your writing is excused by a shitty life is tragic. Again, if all you’d written was that all women you’re attracted to are either not interested or taken, no one would have gotten pissed at you. But that’s not what you wrote. You wrote that Seattle women are lying to themselves, bullying men, and making them miserable in relationships into which they bullied them. THAT makes you a fucking asshole.
“You wrote that Seattle women are lying to themselves, bullying men, and making them miserable in relationships into which they bullied them. THAT makes you a fucking asshole.”I wrote it because I’ve watched it happen. In person. Multiple times.I don’t know what else to say here. I mean, I could go into name-calling like everyone else here, but that’s not going to accomplish anything.
“On my walk back home from grocery shopping (just a few blocks) I saw five, fivecouples consisting of an Average Attractive man with a Not So Attractive to Downright Ugly woman. The woman, without fail, has a visible Attitude and the man just looks unhappy. There’s this gleam of desperation in their eyes and I now understand it’s because they bought into the “your standards are too high” lie.”So he’s telepathic, too, amazing! Honestly, wtf is a ‘visible attitude’ and how the fuck can you see it from passing someone in the street. What a dick.
Body language. Facial expressions. People communicate with those too.
again, no, you didn’t “watch it happen”, at least not according to what you wrote previously. Couples you see walking past on a trip to the grocery are unknowns to you, and everything you say about them is pure projection on your part, including the judgement of their relative attractiveness.Not that it matters. Generalizing from your own limited experience is an asshole move even if your observations of people were accurate. By that logic, I’d be entitled to say that Seattleite men are toxic assholes, because I’ve known a few that were.
projection
You’re managing to stay friends with the girl you’ve dated and haven’t clicked with? That’s a good sign. What it means is that you are the type of guy girls trust and want in their lives. Why it’s not working out with these girls, I don’t know. Could be mismatched life goals, relationship needs, or any number of things that make you a better friend than a lover FOR THESE GIRLS. Chances are there isn’t anything wrong with you, just the luck of the draw that the girls you’ve started relationships with so far haven’t been a good match. However, assuming for a moment there is something going on that is pushing you from lover to friends with the girls you date why are you asking advice here? These girls ar still your friends right? Why haven’t you asked them. Don’t ask right away after you’ve broken up but a few months down the road when you’re hanging out ask them why they think you keep ending up int eh friend zone. Don’t do it in an accusing manner or like you want to get back together. Tell them that you honestly want to know for your next relationship how to make it better. Hopefully they will be able to give you the answers you need.
New England from Massachussetts on north is a little different from the rest of the East Coast. It’s a lot more casual and outdoorsy even in Boston which is a pretty big city. I have a friend who spent most of her life in NYC and she thinks no one up here dresses the way they should, it’s all too casual. She is amazed that my boyfriend has never even owned a suit despite working a job where it would be required attire in NYC.
see, this is what i mean: friendly banter != flirting, at least not alwaysmind you, I’m not saying that it couldn’t have been flirting. but if you managed to confuse it for friendliness, it wasn’t “definite” anything, unless it lead to more.
Adult, schmadult.It’s sound business practice, plain and simple. It’s STUPID to not examine the wares. It’s INCOMPETENT to be held back by nonsense.
However, it must be noted that this depends on an assumption that he actually wants to acquire anything more than a blonde wig.
Sorry but, I have to disagree with Mr. RainyBrain. I lived in the Seattle area for five years. I found plenty of nice, intelligent, attractive women there. I found I rather liked the people in Seattle as a whole. I was married at the time to a rather attractive and intelligent woman so, dating was not a concern of mine then. Perhaps when women don’t sense that you are a guy on the prowl, they feel more secure in just talking to you and relating to you as a person as opposed to a guy who wants in her pants. Dunno, just a hunch.This guy must be smoking crack or something.
Is it just me, or does the name George Sodini come to mind when reading about this guy? Both have the same sort of can’t-get-a-date-so-I-hate-women type of rants.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2…What do fishermen do when they can’t catch fish in one area? They try new fishing grounds and/or they try new lures and techniques. There are plenty of fish in the sea, but the person in question can’t grasp that the problem is himself, not the women.I’m over 40 and never married, but I don’t share his attitude, and I actually get dates. Why? Because I’m suave or handsome, or loaded? No, because I’m not desperate and women can pick up on that. What woman wants to go out with a guy who views dating as an accomplishment rather than a possible partner? Until he changes his attitude, his ambition and his goals in dating, he’ll never meet anyone..
If I managed to marry ten different basket-case women, I would at least give some thought to the possibility that there might be something wrong with my approach.
Maybe the guy’s single because he’s a self-absorbed “dickbag” (and I’m not interested in reading his entire post to form an opinion, frankly) but maybe he’s single because he has normal standards and women in Seattle are uglier than average. You know, just like he says.It’s certainly been my experience that Seattle women are, on average, much less attractive than other cities I’ve spent significant time in. If this supposedly normal looking guy is holding out hope for scoring a top fifth percentile lady just because they’re the only decently attractive ones in Seattle, he’s going to be disappointed.
Very true. I guess I only really take issue with the terminology. “nice guy syndrome” sounds really nasty to me. I hear layers of implication wound up in the words that make feel uncomfortable… Like in one phrase we have lumped the nice guys and the “nice guys” in the same group that cant think past getting their dicks wet.
I moved the opposite way, from Boston area to DC, and I completely agree. I think the climate makes a huge difference. When I first got to DC, I immediately felt that my wardrobe had developed a gaping summer-dress sized hole that hadn’t seemed to be there before. Then I went home to Boston after a year of wearing dresses and skirts almost every day, and suddenly felt a bit undressed.
I am single. And I like being nice and think it’s a positive value/position to take. Frankly I’m somewhat troubled that a good thing (being nice) is being turned into a syndrome (something bad).Being nice, can be no ploy at all. In fact my main mode of relating is precisely that one cannot ask for anything in return. So why do we not call it “manipulative guy” syndrome? And leave the nice guys alone?That guys blog has nothing to do with “nice guy” but with his mode of attraction/entitlement etc etc. So why take the worst term of pop relationship self-help and perpetuate it’s negative connotations.I think we need some real skeptical discourse on gender roles, on relating and relationships. The level of discourse on the topic right now is really bad, and yes that is a form of criticism. So what are people who do have trouble finding working relationships to do? So far I see harsh reactions to individuals and to extremes (“buy rubber dolls”, “you are just a douchebag”)…And I see the term “nice guy” being loaded with negatives. Please. Let’s be more serious about the topic.And yeah, I am actually interested in relating to nice people and by that I do not mean submissive, passive, dependent or anything else. I mean people who actually care enough to put in an effort to do good things for others (without asking for anything back).
he needs to MATURE his standardsAbso-freakin’-lutely. Attraction is so deeply multidimensional that you have to wonder what a simpleton this guy is that his “standards” are so narrow-minded (not to mention that he considers his narrow-mindedness to represent “high standards”, which is pretty laughable to begin with).
“no matter what you do”That isn’t really true. You said you had a good experience when you moved to Australia in a business trip.You can spend the next 13 years talking about how sad and lonely your life is, or you can do something about it. I understand that ranting and complaining is easier than actually facing your problem in a practical way and making a change in your life. But easier as it is, it doesn’t seem to be doing you any good.
First off, “a gleam of desperation”*? Seriously? Second, you *know* all these couples are dating/fucking becausewhy? NONE of them could be just friends, or relatives, or people on blind dates, or sleeper-cell members in deep cover? Oh, no, I forgot, body language. Presumably each of these couples had just finished making out and were wearing shirts with arrows pointing at each other saying “I’m with Them”. But the men looked unhappy! Therefore their girlfriends suck. Because of the Ugly, you know. Average Men just can’t be happy with Downright Ugly women. It couldn’t possibly be because the store was out of cat food, or they just got laid off, or they paid $10 to see a terrible movie. Nope, has to be Ms. Ugly with her obvious “I’m Not Ugly” Attitude.(Fun fact: You can tell their place on the Objective Attractiveness Scale because everyone gets a tattoo with their rating just under their left ear. As you age, you have to keep your tattoo up to date, or the Dating Police will fine you for thinking you’re pretty when you’re Totally Not.)No one has said this yet, but one of the things that really bothered me about your post was the tacit assumption that everyone should be with someone else that (you judged to be) at the same level of Objective Attractiveness as their partner. And I think that is just silly. Just a silly idea. It doesn’t even make sense to me.And that’s not even to mention the fact that you imply that all good qualities follow after physical attractiveness here: “some dumpy, mildly intelligent, kind of interesting woman”. Because dumpy women aren’t ever exceptional in other ways, you know!People can’t be arranged in a long line from Best to Worst and then matched up accordingly. Some people are beautiful, some are not. But that doesn’t make those people better or worse in any other category of skill or personality, and in the long haul, that’s what these people will have long after they develop jowls, gray hairs, bizarre liver spots and horrible bathroom etiquette. *Sounds like a hot new cologne for the socially mal-adjusted! Someone get on this.
Also: timely.Money quote: “Some times just pointing and laughing at someone can deprive them of a lot of power to do harm to others.”
I think it happened a few years after I had kids of my own, but (at 43) I’m now almost unable to visually tell the difference between college students and 14-year-olds. I know a couple guys my age who find 20-year-olds “hot”, and this baffles me, since they look (physically) like children, to me at least. While I can carry on a polite, social conversation with my friends’ 20-year-old kids and even be interested in some common subject matter, there simply isn’t any kind of peer-connection (a basic requirement for attraction of any kind) there.The qualities I’m attracted to are things it makes sense for me relate to and appreciate – and now that I’m in my 40’s, these include a million things other than how accurate a simulacrum someone is of some random bit of teevee imagery. At 35, this “Rainy Brain” dipshit has no excuse for not having matured into adulthood by now, and his taking it out on the female populace is just pathetic.
… men more appealing than me through sheer statistics.This kind of simpleminded reductivism is a big part of your problem, and this has been pointed out to you more than once now.
Even if that were true, posting about it the way he did cements him as a dickbag. So even if Seattle women are on average less attractive, even granting that there’s such a thing as objective “attractiveness,” those propositions would have to both be true.
The significance of the quotes and capitals in “Nice Guy Syndrome,” and the distinction between “being an asshole while insisting that you’re a ‘Nice Guy’ and that you’re not getting the pussy you’re ‘owed’ because ‘chicks only want Bad Boys’,” and actually being a decent human being, have been explained three fucking times in this thread alone. Why should we give a shit what you think if you can’t even be bothered to read and absorb the rest of the conversation you’re ostensibly trying to add to?
In your experience, body language and facial expressions are reliable forms of communication ?Hint: they are not.
“Oh wait. I just disagree because I’m not pretty enough. Right. I always forget that.”This is actually true even though you may not consciously think so. Since you are unable to exercise power over men through your looks the way very beautiful women can, your subconscious strategy is to demean the aspects of physical attraction as much as possible. There is no one objective standard for mate selection in humans and each member is going to push for an emphasis on the positive traits where they can compete and try to dismiss the traits where they can’t. That is why supermodels enthusiastically sexualize themselves but the average woman doesn’t. That also explains the hypocrisy displayed in elevatorgate by RW. When RW was younger and hence, more sexually appealing, her subconscious strategy was to use her sex appeal as much as possible which explains the nude calendars. But now, with aging, that strategy will not work; hence the furor over being sexualized.
This isn’t some snotty, higher-than-thou opinion, they really weren’t desirable-looking people. I don’t know what else to say.Bingo. If physical attraction is all you really care about, then you’re every bit the superficial misogynist douchebag your harshest critics describe you to be.If not, then your problem isn’t that these “unattractive” women don’t possess attractive qualities, it’s just that you’re too imperceptive, lazy, and/or self-entitled to find and appreciate them – which makes you every bit the superficial misogynist douchebag your harshest critics describe you to be.These points have been made to you zillions of times, and you still complain about other people’s alleged lack of reading comprehension. And you wonder why you’re taking such flack? Really?
Okay, it would take me a good 12 hours to explain every aspect of how you’re not just wrong but inexcusably, moronically wrong here. But just for starters:I have not seen a Skepchick calendar, or followed that project to any great extent. However, assuming Rebecca chose to pose nude for one or more, she did so as a matter of her own choice and initiative and on her own terms. Are you really so fucking stupid that you don’t see a difference between consciously choosing to display your [EDIT]BODY, which is not necessarily equatable to your sexuality, when, where, how, and why you WANT to,[/EDIT] and having sexual interest imposed unilaterally on you when you’ve already indicated disinterest and discomfort with such, in general, in the imposer’s hearing, repeatedly?Really?Or just so fucking misogynistic that you don’t see why that difference should matter to a woman?(I would mention that Jen is considerably more attractive than the clade of airbrushed plastic “supermodels,” who may or may not be intelligent but generally aren’t showcasing it or promoted on the basis of it if they are, but I don’t want to be mistaken for legitimizing your rhetoric.)
Instead of being politically correct and expressing your uninformed subjective feelings, I suggest you read some books on human sexuality and evolution. I recommend:The red queen. The blank slate. The mating mind. The selfish gene.
I still think it’s a bad term, quotes and all. If you have to explain quotes and capitals but then the term is used in spoken language and it remains misunderstandable, frankly there is a point to be had that it’s not a good term.
“Since you are unable to exercise power over men through your looks the way very beautiful women can” I’m offended. Men are not some kind of drooling zombies whose brain turns paramecium mode on whenever a beautiful woman is present, you know.
You know, you could have just said “Both LOL”Although, I suppose that would have required you to actually read and engage with what I actually wrote.
Oh wait, you’re a frequent commenter at ERV. Please, ignore my comment and forget I said anything. I don’t want to to subjected to that level of nastiness. I had to stop posting there, feeling sick. The last thing I want is to bring that here.
And if you manage to persistently misunderstand something that is not only clear to almost everyone else but has BEEN EXPLAINED ALREADY, maybe there’s a problem on your end.But, fine. If we start saying “[FAUX] Nice Guy Syndrome” will you quit your self-important whining?(The brackets are there because something that’s ordinarily implicit, but obvious from context, is being stated explicitly in this instance, ya see.)
Oh, that implication is just him speaking from personal experience. While lecturing us about uninformed subjective feelings.
Your reply was meaningless as it showed that you completely failed to grasp the essence of my post.
Wrong.
…Isn’t it a little douchey to presume that women who are 110 pounds, blonde, and enjoy shopping aren’t “real”?
I have to say, I think this is one of the most outlandish “arguments” I’ve ever heard of. Any time I go to any city in the world, I see more beautiful men and women than I would even have time to say “hi” to over the course of a day. This is like the epitome of self-deluded sour grapes o.O
Yes. It’s exactly like that, in fact.
How about you just quit trolling people?
Why do I get the feeling that we are feeding a troll?
A large fraction, probably a majority, of women can’t stay at 110 pounds without disordered eating and overtraining, and (at least in the case of younger women) don’t actually enjoy shopping but have either been convinced that they should by advertising and peer pressure and so try to force themselves to, or are aware of their non-enjoyment but fake it to fit in. Ditto, a significant percentage of blonde hair is dyed. I think it’s fair to describe them as “not real.”Though it’d be more precise to say that these are traits associated with a stereotype that holds no appeal for him, and that since that stereotype is commonly promoted as the objective definition of female attractiveness, he wants to call attention to himself as a data point for the rebuttal.
Well…
And don’t forget: 5 is a statistically significant sample size in a population of 600,000, and a glance is a statistically significant sampling of an entire relationship’s-worth of interaction. If you’re as much of a sup-r-geenius as this guy, apparently.
I shall have to make a point of including a clause in my will specifying “show up, wear pants” as the dress code for my funeral.
He didn’t really get a death threat. He’s just crying wolf the way all useless whiny bigot do when they realize the world doesn’t agree with them, like the world is supposed to do, because they are the cernter of of it. They instantly reach for the sympathy card to continue to avoid having to look in the mirror for the root of their problems.
im pretty sure i was a dickhead when i was 18-20. but that was probably me just being young and inexperienced, today im hoping ive learned from my mistakes.what i find troubling is that people will judge you despite that, you make a mistake people dont care if you learn from it or make up for it, once a failure always a failure.thats my problem with being single anyway.
That’s rather the problem, if a guy behaves decently, shows respect to others, doesn’t manipulate women into relationships, isn’t racist, or homophobic, and doesn’t engage in any of the other forms of asshatery, then his official title is ‘a guy’. It’s only when someone does behave in inapropriate and/or unpleasant ways that they deserve a title.Like ‘Nice Guy’or ‘Racist guy’or ‘Sexist Guy’A guy who is actually, honestly, truely nice IRL is ‘a guy’ and doesn’t need a qualifier to explain that he isn’t in fact an arse.
Well thankee. Never took a lesson.
I love that ERV has become synonomous with bigotry. Couldn’t have happened to a more deserving asshat.
“35 year old women are just as beautiful as 18 year olds.”Everything we know about evolutionary psychology and human nature says this is false. And that is OK. We don’t have to be always beautiful. Across all cultures there’s a universal preference for younger women. But looks are not the only thing that matter in a long term relationship which is why we don’t have all men trading in their 30 something wives for 20 somethings. We don’t need to pretend 35 year olds are as beautiful as their younger counterparts in order to stay in loving committed relationships.
Look. In. The. Mirror. and stop humilating all men by association. We don’t appreciate it.
The essence of your post appeared to be a clumsy effort at amateur evo psych.
If the truth is offensive, then the problem is with you. You need to think in terms other than black and white. The more beautiful a woman is, the more power she has, on average over men all else being equal. This does not mean she can control them like puppets, just that the amount of influence is proportional to her beauty. Again, I stress: all else being equal.
Just wondering how many of you have actually met the blogger, because I have. Also just wondering how many of you would be screaming “What a dick!” had this been a woman ticked off at the situation. As a female in the greater Seattle area for 20 years now, Seattle is full of some great folks, and a lot of super ugly ones. It has nothing to do with physical attractiveness, but attitude, as, apparently, illustrated by the responses to the multiple postings of this story and responses to it. Dumpy isn’t only a physical descriptor, but an overall description of carriage as well. Seattle has a fabulously high ratio of dumpy, uber-emo, socially maligned people who are just downright ugly because of the way they snap to harsh judgments of others, don’t talk to “strangers”, and shlump around with super self entitlement issues. Maybe it’s the weather, maybe not. Maybe it’s because Grunge happened here. No idea. But the descriptor is relevant.Those responding to his post with such violence (not physical, but emotional), should try reading it one more time. Exercise those reading comprehension skills by imagining he was a she. Wouldn’t you be outraged that this poor girl was being told by her “friends” that she should “lower her standards”? Would you be posting “OMGWTFBBQPONIES! What a sexist PIG!”? probably not.
And if instead of the truth, all you’re offering is a bunch of simplistic nonsense, then the problem is with you, not the truth.
I think the underlying cause of your and others’ hatred of erv is your insecurity stemming from the fact that she is an intelligent, educated woman in science doing actual research and productive work in contrast to RW who merely takes the intellectual content of others and presents it dumbed down and packaged as something interesting. Based on the nude calendars, the various glasses and the affected videos, one can guess as to what she’s using to sell her package. As such, she is non-threatening and hence is treated “nicely”, or to be more accurate, patronizingly.
What is with you “two” and accusing people of having poor reading comprehension? We comprehend, our assessment and opinion just doesn’t match up to yours.
There is always the “Woe betide me” post. Remember after a sufficient quantity of time having relationships explode in your face you tend to become bitter and cynical. This may just be him being cynical about something… I mean I have caught myself going “bah! Wimmin” a few times.
Thumbs up for reiterating some deeply naive myths as if they’re new and profound truths.Seriously, you think punks and other “counterculture” types all congregate into nearly identical looking groups because that’s what they each want to look like in their heart of hearts? My goodness, what an amazing coincidence that their idiosyncratic, culture-free desires happen to align so completely!Not to mention that “making yourself look attractive because you want to feel that you look stunning in that little black number” and “making yourself attractive because you are expected to” are absolutely indistinguishable from each other by strangers and the public, and very few people you’d slag as worthless slaves to expections wouldn’t insist that they LIKE being attractive. Your black and white narrative smacks of teenage angst.
Yeah, I also thought of the True Forced Loneliness guys, who are very Sodini like: http://thedeclineofmyamerica.b…
Let me think for a minute. Would I assume that someone couldn’t possibly be a simple-minded, entitled, sexist asshole who blames everyone else for their own failures?Let’s see… do I believe women are human beings..? Yes.Then, no. I wouldn’t make the assumption you’re ascribing to everyone here. But who knows? Maybe you’re enough of a psychic that you know my mind better than I do. Who am I to say?
Being part of a subculture is a personal choice, being brought up in a patriarchal system that demands subservient behaviour from females isn’t.
So what you’re saying here is that women who have been pushed to extremes and impossible standards by the media should be further marginalized and disrespected by being classified as “not real”? What even constitutes “real” to begin with? I dye my hair, have had a history of eating issues, and have occasionally used retail therapy to deal with things.I’ll go ahead and answer my own question: Yes, it is just a little douchey to presume that women who fall into a certain stereotype are less “real” than others. Mostly because “real” is douche term to begin with.Edit: I should also add that if you’re going to invoke percentages, I’d be fascinated to see the studies you’re going off of so I can better understand your belief set — but I also realize that the percentage of women who dye their hair a certain color is also wholly irrelevant and actually doesn’t really have any bearing at all on their character.
I realize I’s just a simple orc so maybe I’s confusicated, but when yer friend said “Physical attraction is part and parcel of a relationship” it sure sounds ta me like it has plenty fer ta do with physical attractiveness, far as he’s concerned. You say Seattle be filled with dumpy ugly emo people, but he be pretty adamant what it’s only the wimmenz what be skewed ta the low and the men be perfectly normals. That’s why the “Not So Attractive” ones be fillin’ up the slots what’s supposed ta be “reserved” fer the “Average Attractive” wimmenz, and that be why he claims he cain’t find nobody. Mebbe is you what needs fer ta go read his post again.If he was a she and was screaming to the interwebbies what she couldn’t be in a relationship ’cause the only available dudes in the whole damn metropoly were too damn fugly and goddammit Average Attractive ones were supposed ta be reserved fer her, then I would also call her a self-entitled fluggernubber too.
If you’ve met him, why do you think he’s single then? Because he’s standards are too high and women don’t find themselves attracted to him? Or because he acts entitled to a “pretty” woman even though he’s kind of average?
“35 year old women are just as beautiful as 18 year olds. They just don’t look like plastic, they may have more to do than doll themselves up for a night of clubbing, and they’ve got character and intelligence instead of pneumatics and makeup. He won’t see that.”I find it amazing that of all the things that can be added to this discussion, you think it’s a good idea to vilify 18 year old women with tired “dumb bimbo” stereotypes, apparently as a weapon against this guy, and because you want to white knight 35 year old women right at this second. Really, really dumb post.
I’m a bit in love with you right now, Mr. Ratshag. Or Ms. Ratshag. Either way.
Jules, everyone is entitled to a person THEY think is attractive. When it takes a long time to find someone we actually find attractive, most of us settle for someone else. I’ve done it in the past, and my guess is that many of those posting here have at some point dated someone who was not really at the top of their list so they could have some companionship physical or otherwise. Brad hasn’t done that. He hasn’t been rude enough to waste the time by “settling” for them. And before you tear me apart for saying that everyone here is wasting someones time by dating them, I’ve done it too. I said that. In hind sight, there are a couple of relationships in the past where had I not settled for someone, we both would have had a much better time with someone else but we probably missed it because either one or both of us were trying so hard to make a relationship work that just wasn’t going to. So, why he’s been single for so long? He just hasn’t compromised what he wants in a partner. Nor should any of you have to compromise. As for the physical attractiveness, of course physical attractiveness plays into it, I happen to like tall dark skinny geeky guys with sharp features (my husband). Guys with big muscles whose tits are bigger than mine (which is pretty easy to find) gross me out. Most of the men I know prefer women with some curve instead of ones looking like stick figures, but others much prefer a slender girl. One friend of mine can’t stand pig tails on any woman/girl because he says they immediately turn him off since he used to have a cocker spaniel. We’ve all got our preferences and we get to have them. What blows my mind is how up in arms so many people have gotten over a rant. And great! Sounds like my assumption that people would react differently to a female having written the post was incorrect. And that, I think, is a good thing.
So, he’s seriously creating female friend sockpuppets (he had female friends! he can’t be sexist!) to tell us we’re totally wrong about him. And besides, anyone who calls a sexist a sexist must be the REAL sexist. Troll.
“I like girls that are Real, not the 110 lbs, blond shopaholics. Nothing is sexier than a girl that can think for herself.”So being blonde and thin with a penchant for shopping means a girl can’t think for herself? That is really douchey, sir.
Jules, everyone is entitled to a person THEY think is attractive.First of all, this is nonsense. No one should settle for someone who isn’t attracted to them, but the idea that anyone is “entitled” to someone else is a huge part of this guy’s problem. That you apparently agree that the women of Seattle “owe” this guy companionship makes me sympathetic to Stephica’s suggestion that you’re the same guy posting under another username. I’ve actually met … let’s see, zero women in my life who actually believe that womankind “owes” men their time and reciprocation of interest. Outside of religious cults, I mean.Second of all, what a lot of people here are complaining about is not the idea of being attracted to other people – but his simplistic objective/linear definition of what attraction is in the first place. My fourteen-year-old son has a far more mature and multivariate understanding of attraction, and has for years. If I had this guy’s embarrassingly childish image of women, I wouldn’t wonder why I couldn’t get the time of day. Or, I guess I wouldn’t, which is kind of the entire point.
I agree with some most of what you are saying except for the entitled part. There isn’t a rule book or constitution where it says we the people are all entitled to have the love we want. None of us are owed love. In the best of all possible worlds, all kids would have loving parents, no one would start wars, and we’d all find our ideal mate. But this is the real world. Lots of not so good things happen.Dating is the process where you get to know if there is anything “there” right? So it isn’t wasting anyone’s time if you date. See if there is a chemistry at all. That’s the point. It’s time spent, not wasted. Staying in or developing a relationship that he doesn’t want and she does would be wasting time. But dating? No I think that’s important.Obviously we all have a type we are attracted to. Some of us have several types as well as some more mental/emotional/educational dynamics we seek. Then we put that combo together. Sometimes you get more of one thing than the other. Also, people change. My skinny dark art boy might age into a pudgy balding marketing guy. If I love him and have been with him, I don’t dump him for not looking the same way. He’s got that right to not date anyone he doesn’t find perfectly attractive enough to him….but…It sounds to me, and apparently to many others, that his arbiter is purely physical at the beginning. And if his range of what he wants is so narrow that he can’t find it, or finds it and those women are not attracted to him…well? Of course he’s gonna stay single. But it isn’t the women’s fault. That’s his issue to wrestle with, not the women of Seattle’s. His post, and why it seems to anger so many people, is that he appears to be railing on the unfairness of the world, how he’s being rejected and how it’s the Pretty Seattle girl’s fault. Or something. Or rates of attractiveness not matching and ugly girls getting cute men. It makes him sound like he’s not looking for any personal ownership of the issue.If he is really lonely. And if he really seeks a long term mutually loving and sustaining relationship, he might do well to consider widening that range of what he finds attractive (attractive in this case meaning what attracts his mind, heart and body, not just what gets his dick hard). He might be surprised by a nice response from someone.
And I’ll say that I’m well aware that if I were to start dating now, in my 40’s looking as I look (which is, I’d say in shape, slightly geeky, but sweet faced and middle aged), I’d never be able to attract a “10” or some such in looks dude. I’d need to look at ALL the qualities in a person instead of trying to nab “young Johnny Depp” look alikes. That’s reality. I can be single and trying to hook up with the perfect looking boy, or I can find a person who I really am compatible with but who maybe looks more like an aging Jon Cryer. Or some such, I’m bad with actors. That is the compromise and all of us wind up making it over different relationships.
Umm… Bruce, just what are these things on my chest? They may be small, but they’re mine. And… well, I’m guessing I’m a wonder of modern medicine, cause I’ve managed to give birth to two sons. I am most definitely female, and not the same person as the blogger. Just thought I’d clear that up. ;)
For what it’s worth, Mammy Toadpipe has a different IP address from the OP. Doesn’t mean she knows what the fuck she’s talking about, though.
Thanks… um… I think.
I’m mildly curious. Could I get a show of hands how many here are in long term relationships (not long distance), or married currently? It wouldn’t make any opinions any more or less relevant, necessarily, but I’m curious. By long term I mean 3+ years.
I’ve been in a relationship now for 18 years, we’ve been poly for 7. The men I date are not Johnny Depp, but they are all different and very interesting. Neither am I Vanessa Paradis or a young Winona Ryder. I will say that I am still considered “cute” “sexy” and “fun” by the wide variety of men and women I’ve dated, but I”m guessing (in fact I’d put money on it) that if I met the aforementioned blogger in question, being as I am 7 years older than him and curvy, he’d consider me unattractive, or not attractive enough for him. I think part of the reason I’ve had luck with dating and with love is because a) I like myself a lot and enjoy lots of social activities and b) I like a men a great deal and really enjoy meeting people and getting to know them. My husband and I are more or less on the same level of attractiveness, I’d say. More importantly though, we like each other and were friends for nearly a year prior to dating. He wasn’t really my type, but look what happened!
I’ll say though, again, that I realize at 42 or so, the chances of me finding a new mate (should I find myself god forbid widowed or divorced) grow slimmer and slimmer and I’d need to widen my range of what I’d consider attractive in order to find someone to share time with. I realize I”m not owed love in the future just because I’ve had it in the past.
Azkyroth, I sincerely believe that contempt for people doesn’t help. Itincreases general animosity (which breaks down communication) and entrenchesmisbehavior. One thing it really satisfies, though, is your gall bladder.Which, to be sure, needs expressing, but when we’re justifiably outraged it’stoo easy to conflate our self-gratifying viciousness with doing good. Contempt and ridicule for _behavior and ideas_, making a distinction between persons and their mistakes — _that_’s something worth exploring. I can tell that you’re _very_ intelligent and, if I’m reading you correctly, I think your values are righteous, something you can be “contentedly confident” about. _Wanton malice_, however, is childish and harmful.
4+ years, getting married next month; have an ex-wife (12 years), and a handful of ex-girlfriends, three of whom I dated for 3+ years each.
Well, there you go, Bruce. Surely, no one pretending to be a woman would be able to insist that she’s really a woman. Bet you feel pretty foolish now!Also, Jen – my work and home ISPs would show me posting under different IPs as well, so I’m not sure that an IP discrepancy necessarily means that much.Skepticism, is all I’m saying.
Jules, I really respect your approach to this whole topic, and I do agree with a lot of what you are saying. Extra props too on the respect level for being in a poly marriage, I’m afraid that I’m not self assured enough for that. Your last sentence there is a great one though. That is how my husband and I started out, but eventually there was physical attraction.
Oh, I guess in that case, RW, anyone who helps communicate science in a way non-scientists can grok, and the rest of us non-scientists should just GTFO, right? And here I thought the skeptical movement was for everyone capable of critical thinking, whether or not you have letters behind your name or a college degree or not.And seriously, when was “non-threatening” considered a bad thing? On the same topic, treated nicely? Seriously? Talk about selective memory in effect.
Absolutely adored this post, Jen. I’ve been trying to hammer through to a friend it’s not okay to constantly act like a douche and justify it with “I’m joking” or “that’s just how I am, you want me to hide who I am?” >.<
Geez, and I thought the “Forever Alone” types were sad.http://foreveralonecomic.com/http://www.theplatform.info/ut…http://www.viceland.com/wp/201….
I had another thought on this…sometimes guys (including me) are labelled assholes for not wanting to date women, as if one’s reasons can never be valid. If a man expects a woman to be perfect and he isn’t, or be attractive while he’s ugly, then yes, he’s an idiot. But I don’t see a problem with expecting to date only women who never smoke, or women who hold certain views (e.g. only atheists, agnostics, buddhists, daoists, shintoists, etc.) or women of roughly the same physical fitness as I am. It’s not about body image, I expect her to keep up with me (or be someone I can try to keep up with)..
I have more than one computer I work with on a daily basis, so I have more than one ISP. That doesn’t mean its not him, or his mom. And tits do not a woman make. One would think a woman would know this, mammy. Also, way to erase transmen. 1 + 1+ 1 = sockpuppet.
*snorts* never mind we have different writing patterns, sentence structure and the like. :/ So, while your statement is true, generally speaking, it doesn’t change the fact that I’m a 30 year old, red headed (hence the want for a fight), woman with two kids, two cats, a husband and a job in retail. Today is my Saturday, so I am at home, posting between times where I am peeling my sons off the walls and keeping them from sticking forks in the outlets. I mean, really, lol, do I have to do a snatch snap to prove it? Sooooo not worth it.
And I’m sure you’re asking this question is not at all a gotch! question, at ALL. Will the gotcha! still work, if I’m married to a man?
btw, since I’m not someone to be shy about who I am, this is me. Slam me if you want, but thar ya go. http://www.linkedin.com/profil…
I hate to say it, but your tone sounds a little too much like the guy you are attacking, and you have some of the same self constructed generalities that he does. This post does not bring a whole lot of wisdom or understanding to the issue. It is simply more of the same “my perspective is most valid, and is the “real” reality. All this impotent anger misses the point, the guy is wounded and can not see out of himself.
Funny how your writing style COMPLETELY changed as soon as you were trying to prove you are someone else. It doesn’t necessarily mean you’re the same people, but it’s obvious lol, *snorts* :P
Yes, my writing changed when I went from presenting an opinion to people I don’t know, to writing an informal “you’re not worth my trying to put this nicely” post defending my sex. And that matters, why?
Like I said I was just curious. And what would it matter if it was a man or a woman that the relationship was with? Does that matter? I’m just curious about the demographics of the people who are not finding the OPs opinions true. Who are the people who feel themselves validated in judging how handsome (or not) this guy is? Who are the people trying to give relationship advice? Are they actually in successful relationships? I suppose it is a sort of “who do they think they are” question. Not meant to be a gotcha, but certainly one that would, hopefully, inspire some people to take a look at their own credentials before slamming him. But of course, you think I’m a man, so…. does that skew your opinion of the validity of what I’m asking in your eyes?
Thank you. And that’s all I’m suggesting for your friend. Is that he give some ladies a chance to let that attraction grow.Peace.
Does anyone else smell all the sexual tension in here?You guys, clearly, need to settle this one over a nice dinner date.I know this sounds like a joke, but I am dead serious about this. You guys are perfect for each other.
It’s not his opinions we aren’t finding “true”, we are finding the attitude around them offensive. He’s welcome to his opinions about the women of Seattle. He’s also welcome to stay single if he isn’t willing to look at himself and his motivations and the things that may be limiting his relationships with women. What I don’t welcome is the attitude that the entire scene is “fucked” as he put it, because he himself can’t get a date. I think, if something isn’t working for 13 years…….try something completely new. I askedMy “credentials” as a married person? I have no idea what that proves accept I found a mate that I found attractive and vice versa and we’ve slogged it through. FWIW, I lived in Seattle for 10 years or so and yeah, while I met perfectly wonderful and friendly people, I also met a lot of cool, cordial, hard to get to know people. I’m a southern girl by birth and so I found it very difficult at first to make friends and flirt up boys. I made it work, in part by adapting my approach and in part by finding groups of people I was the most like (in this case theater) and dating within that world. Moving back to Texas, I found the friendliness and flirty banter nearly overwhelming but quickly got back in the rhythm. Some regions do not work for some people. If he felt less “broken” in Australia, it isn’t unreasonable to suggest that he might find a whole new world opening up for him if he moved to the SE of America for example. He might not WANT to move, but why not give it a try for a few years and see what the adventure does? Or visit and spend time in those regions.I’ve left some supportive comments on his site, he’s not answering those. He’s answering the ones where they call him names, but not the ones that seem positive to him. He seems invested in his narrative that all the women are rejecting him, when it’s also clear he is rejecting a set of women as well. He’s stuck and I’d advise a therapist, a dating coach, a gym trainer or something to help him out of the cycle he’s in.Certainly, it sounds like he’s in a lot of pain. Attending to that first would probably help the rest of things fall into line.
Sure – but I don’t see how that improves his situation at all. Am I ascribing too much rationality to him?
More precisely, he’s doing two of three things.He’s apparently read up on the fact that both the wiring of the brain and the set of impulses and drives humans possess have been shaped by evolution, which operates on a basis of differential reproductive fitness.With this shallow understanding, he may simply be purporting to lecture a PhD life sciences student, social activist, and commentator on the basics of one aspect of the interaction between biology and society, presumably on the assumption that as a woman she naturally needs his superior insight (this is 90% pattern matching and subject to revision, naturally).Or, he may actually be taking this awareness of the influence of evolution on neurology and on impulses and drives, and pole-vaulting from that to asserting that human psychology consists ONLY of these drives and our lies to ourselves and one another about them, and that all sentiments, values, concerns for fairness, or attempts operate on any level above that of an impulsive child with hormones are insincere and/or delusional.Which would be about as dumb as asserting that the principles of combustion are the only relevant factor in trying to understand traffic patterns.In any case, he’s furthermore pointlessly insulting his host and calling her a liar, assuming this tiresome reductionist garbage is new or interesting, derailing a thread, and derailing it to masturhate about elevatorgate AGAIN. In other words, clueless fucking douchebag.Okay, that’s more than three things, but the last few are sort of glooped together.
That’s your upper lip.
What the hell are you talking about?
Malice is malicious. The inability to distinguish between strongly worded criticism coupled to the use of social pressure via mockery to try to adjust the behavior of a person, who’s given good reason to believe rational persuasion isn’t going to help, and malice is childish.
This strikes me as an exceptionally uncharitable reading of the post.
Okay, I’m cutting you off on the Holier Than Thou. You’ve had enough. No. I’ll call you a cab. No, you’re not okay to drive. I’m calling you a cab. That’s final.
…you know, that explains a lot.
Aren’t you generally hoping to see the pipes when you go on a date though? :P
Oh, okay. Cool story, bro. Good talk.
On a side note, I really can’t figure out your response to this, especially when we basically agree on all other fronts.
Interesting that you’d even mention writing styles and such, as though that were something to pay attention to.Every post convinces me that much more that Stephica is on the money. I wonder if your friend knows you’re using her account.
But of course, you think I’m a man, so….Dead wrong. We think you’re a particular man.
Seems to me the guy in question thinks the men of Seattle are generally more attractive than the women of Seattle.So maybe the real issue is that he’s more *attracted* to the men. Nothing wrong with that, but his life might be easier if he recognized his real desires and changed his strategy accordingly.Either that or he needs to move. But not here. He and Seattle will both be better off for it.
If I read you right, you are saying in essence, “I am using strongly worded criticism coupled with social pressure via mockery with the intent to adjust Jrandom’s behavior.” I don’t buy it. I don’t think you are being more intentional than reflexive. I don’t think you’re being intentional enough to merit referring to your lashings as designed or careful or benevolent. And I don’t think such a tactic as contemning-to-better even works. Were you hoping to steer me back from perversity with your first comment to me? I thought I was trying to help, saying what I’d said: I tried to discourage contempt and abuse. I tried to encourage care. And for that you called me smug and you called my effort vapid and useless. Now you tell me you use hostility as a tool for good. I don’t buy it. It’s complex, I’m sure. You’re not purely lashing out. You’re crafting your comments to say meaningful things, to leave out pointless derision, to be on the side of what’s moral. You’re not attacking good behavior. But you are indeed attacking. To be honest, I poked at you with the “childish” comment, trying to provoke your ire. It was a bit hypocritical of me to do that, however accurate what I said may have been. But I am sincere in the idea that failing to note our anger, to account for it, to be purposeful in our interactions, and to disentangle righteous offense from “righteous belligerence” is net bad. I am sincere in the belief that contempt does little to effect genuinely good change, and much more likely works against it. You sound brilliant to me. So I worry about what influence you may have. It’s too easy for each of us to continue to engage in “righteous belligerence”, mistaking it for doing good, rationalizing it as such. I think we do ourselves and everyone else harm if we indulge our disdain and superiority in the name of righteousness. I’m not entirely certain that contempt isn’t a good tool for character development. I’ve done a lot of thinking about it and it seems pretty clear to me that it’s not, but I would defer to more rigorious research. Maybe your approach, whether incidental, works best. I deeply doubt it, but I’m open to reports on your research or a detailed explanation of your ideas. [email protected]
If I read you right, you are saying in essence, “I am using strongly worded criticism coupled with social pressure via mockery with the intent to adjust Jrandom’s behavior.” I don’t buy it. I don’t think you are being more intentional than reflexive. I don’t think you’re being intentional enough to merit referring to your lashings as designed or careful or benevolent. And I don’t think such a tactic as contemning-to-better even works. Were you hoping to steer me back from perversity with your first comment to me? I thought I was trying to help, saying what I’d said: I tried to discourage contempt and abuse. I tried to encourage care. And for that you called me smug and you called my effort vapid and useless. Now you tell me you use hostility as a tool for good. I don’t buy it. It’s complex, I’m sure. You’re not purely lashing out. You’re crafting your comments to say meaningful things, to leave out pointless derision, to be on the side of what’s moral. You’re not attacking good behavior. But you are indeed attacking. To be honest, I poked at you with the “childish” comment, trying to provoke your ire. It was a bit hypocritical of me to do that, however accurate what I said may have been. But I am sincere in the idea that failing to note our anger, to account for it, to be purposeful in our interactions, and to disentangle righteous offense from “righteous belligerence” is net bad. I am sincere in the belief that contempt does little to effect genuinely good change, and much more likely works against it. You sound brilliant to me. So I worry about what influence you may have. It’s too easy for each of us to continue to engage in “righteous belligerence”, mistaking it for doing good, rationalizing it as such. I think we do ourselves and everyone else harm if we indulge our disdain and superiority in the name of righteousness. I’m not entirely certain that contempt isn’t a good tool for character development. I’ve done a lot of thinking about it and it seems pretty clear to me that it’s not, but I would defer to more rigorious research. Maybe your approach, whether incidental, works best. I deeply doubt it, but I’m open to reports on your research or a detailed explanation of your ideas. [email protected]
Ha! Did he actually get threats? I laughed my head off at the thought that he’s surprised to be single, and I can’t think of anything to wish him that would be colder than “Keep on being yourself, dude.” Funny, I know so many happy couples in Seattle!
A large problem for many, many people is the assumption that there is some sort of mathematical formula for landing a significant other. There are basics – hygiene, employment, general sociability, but there simply is no “if/then” to it. Even treating women as human beings will often only land you in the “friend zone” and therein lies the problem. We wander around hoping to attract someone and when we don’t, we get resentful, taking it out either on ourselves or on others. Either we must be ugly or they must be stuck-up. No-one seems prepared to examine the underlying assumptions that on some level, we all deserve a mate and if we don’t have one, someone must not be doing their job correctly. I imagine it must be difficult for men, after thousands of years of adapting to simply taking women by force or presenting enough cows to her father or whatever, suddenly having to cope with the reality that women are people. And yes, it sounds a bit trope-ish, but the implications don’t ever seem to be considered. Because women are people, there are no formulas. You can look like Brad Pitt (or whatever you straight ladies are into these days) You can make mountains of money.You can treat women like human beings. You can be nice.You can be interesting. You can be intelligent.You can be hung like a horse.But none of this means that you will ever, ever find someone. It may increase your chances, but no woman ever owes you anything. Not the “superhot” ones. Not the “ugly” or “dumpy” ones. No-one. There are no “leagues”. “Pretty” people get to choose who they want to be with. So do “ugly” people. You also get to choose. But it doesn’t mean you’re going to get it. And whining about how people aren’t fitting into your silly categories only makes you look like a dickbag. It also means you aren’t treating women like people. Bitching about how the women in your city don’t meet your “Average Attractiveness” that you perceive yourself to be and that you assume you deserve at this point is laughable. TL;DR version: You’re an asshole who thinks far too highly of himself and still thinks that “leagues of attractiveness” is a valid concept. No-one in any “league” owes you shit.
Maybe he’s secretly Scott Adams!
Yep, I think there is definitely more pressure on Australian women to “make an effort” to fit into standardized beauty routines. “Couldn’t you be bothered then, ya lazy slag?”
In his description of the five couples he passed on the street (for his data set), he stated the women had “visible attitude”. I want to suggest that he explore that more, privately. He doesn’t like women who frown? raise their voices? look like they took a Women’s Studies class in college and aced it? What is it?I probably shouldn’t post, but I’m like some charitably motivated pimp, I want to help people stop fucking up and actually get laid. (But my sympathy for really picky people is wears thin quickly.)And let me note that yes there are books that tell women over 30 to settle and those books sell a lot of copies.
Impale me gently with a vertically oriented chain saw!It seems like the standard advice of “Be Yourself” would no longer apply to me. Like I didn’t already have troubles opening up to people when I was acting like myself, now I have to do it while pretending to be something I’m not so that people don’t assume I’m something I’m not.Because what you’re basically saying is that because a bunch of assholes had to go and pretend to be “nice”, its made it impossible for me to have honest relationships with the people I find interesting and would like to spend time with?That in order to form new relationships I essentially have to lie and pretend I’m someone I’m not otherwise those very same people are going to assume I’m a misogynistic asshole who hates all women and spends the entirety of my free time in a blind rage blaming women for the majority of my problems?
One of the things I see as a common denominator between this guy and “Nice Guy Syndrome” sufferers, is the assumption that ANY woman should be willing to accept them so long as they are at least average attractiveness, and not a jerk. It doesn’t work that way though. There have been a fair share of men who expressed interest in me that were fantastic men. I wished I liked them more than I did. By the same token, there have been men I felt attracted to that I wished I hadn’t. But ultimately, I “settled” for neither. The man I ultimately married was someone who I found both attractive, kind, interesting, intelligent and a great partner. But attraction is not rational and its not something you just turn on as soon as you establish someone meets some remedial standards of humanity, such as being not a total jerk and not hideous. I don’t have the expertise to delve into it, but I think the person who brought up historical societal norms of women having no say in their partnerships, vs. men having some control so long as they met basic social standards. I would also take a look at the popular culture trope of single women all being desperate to couple up, which may lead some men to believe that any woman over a certain age would accept any decent man who would have her. In my anecdotal experience, men and women are either eager for/repelled by committed relationships in fairly equal measure. There are billions of men on earth who are reasonably nice and are reasonably attractive, but in general, any given women is only potentially romantically interested in a miniscule percent of those men. If the man who is pursuing her at a given time doesn’t happen to be one of them, IT IS NOT HER FAULT. It is not his fault either. It is just life.
Maybe she has an attitude and looks ugly because her spouse is an asshole.
I gotta think the blogger falls into the category of dumpy, socially inept people. Since he needs a haircut, revealed that he had manboobs, and apparently performs some kind of tech work.I would also think any single person who could not find a mate for 13 years had some personal problem that they were reluctant to admit. The anomaly in Sydney could be nothing more than being happy while on vacation, which may have caused him to act more upbeat, who knows? All we have to go on here is his post and subsequent comments, none of which foster the impression that he is a particularly pleasant person to be around. And his friends’ comments have actually underscored that – one assumes birds of a feather…
Been in a committed relationship for 14 years, married now for 6.
No? Whether one person is attracted to another is completely separate to the question of whether the person is nice or not. It has to do with each person’s particular preferences, quirks, personalities, chemistry, and all number of other factors that mingle together to form a level of attractiveness ranging from “dislike” to “like as a friend” to “attracted to, but a relationship wouldn’t work” to “love” to “perfect partner” and many more in between. What people are saying when they talk about “Nice Guy Syndrome” is that women actually have the intelligence to distinguish between someone who is nice because it is their personality and someone who treats them nicely only in order to get into their pants. So the term “Nice Guy Syndrome” comes from people recognizing that SOME of these “nice” guys are not actually that nice. There can be “nice girl” syndrome as well to some extent. I have stood by and watched men I was attracted to fall all over women I thought had unappealing personalities and I was very tempted to fall into the same trap of “but I’m such a better person (in my opinion) – why doesn’t he like me instead of her?” This does not mean that men do not like “nice girls.” It meant that the man I liked didn’t happen to like me back, and it had nothing to do with whether I was nice or not. You do not have to do anything in particular to attract a woman other than interact with various women until you find a situation where you and a woman share a mutual attraction. My husband did not go out looking for me and when the two of us met, there was no expectation of a relationship (I was engaged to someone else). It just so happened that we were perfect for each other and there was a mutual attraction, and when I ended up single, it wasn’t too long before we ended up together. He didn’t do anything to “win” me, I just liked him and he liked me. It’s really as simple as that. The problem comes when men forget that women are human beings just like themselves, with free will and complex and varied personalities, and treat them instead like a puzzle to be solved, a game to be won, or a reward/goal to be reached by following a set of “strategies.”
And who the fuck gets to decide what is “real”? I’m tired of being told that I’m not a real woman because I happen to be slim, blonde and into shoes. I should put on weight, dye my hair brown, and only talk about “intelligent” stuff?
It is in fact SUPREMELY douchey. I’m also tired of women buying into it and bitchily going on about their curves making them “real” women. Do we really have to stoop to sabotaging our own sex?
I’d quite like him to explain to us how being pompous and insulting on the internet maximises his reproductive fitness. There’s no question that this is ultimately why he’s doing it, since no one ever does anything that isn’t ultimately part of their breeding strategy in some way, but I would like to know more about the proximate justifications for this approach, as it would seem superficially to be a counter-productive one.
Absolutely. His statements are based on the idea that beauty is both objective and one-dimensional, and that response to it is predictable, straightforward, and unimodal. Every single one of these suppositions is ridiculous, for the reasons you mention. There is a tiny grain of truth in what he’s saying, but the suggestion that it can’t be more complex than he describes – the essence of his response to Jose – just demonstrates how poorly he understands the subject matter he supposedly reads about.
I want to help people stop fucking up and actually get laid.Not me. My primary motivation here is that the prospect of my amazingly bright and sensitive daughter (soon) entering a dating world at least partially populated by these kinds of raging douchenozzles just fills me with sadness.Read and learn, Teen Guys Who Think Like This. For fuck’s sake, read and learn.
So, there are women you find attractive in Seattle, but they are dating other people? That makes a little more sense, because there are a lot of women in Seattle who would meet your standards. I think. Although maybe they aren’t very petite?Anyway, someone else pointed out that cities on the west coast have a higher number of single men than single women, so that could be part of the problem.However, your original post does sound like you’re saying all Seattle women are ugly. Women hear that argument (or something close) all the time, just with wherever they are located substituted for Seattle. You also spend a lot of time focusing on looks, rather than personality, in your post. Which is why you got such a big response.
@JamesYou don’t understand or you are misinterpreting me. The drives that evolved do not act at the conscious level. That is absurd. When Einstein was figuring out relativity, he wasn’t consciously thinking of getting laid.Women who are not very attractive or old do not consciously start de-emphasizing the factor of physical attractiveness, but that is what their subconscious strategy will likely become in some cases. We evolved not just to lie to others, but to ourselves as well. You can sense that kind of hostility in this blog post. Man says he doesn’t find most women attractive. Blogger starts insulting him and calling him names while implying that he only cares about looks. Note that considering the man is having such problems, it’s very likely he overestimates his mate value in the current dating market. @azkyrothYou are a brainless troll and should shut the fuck up.
“To be honest, I poked at you with the “childish” comment, trying to provoke your ire””So, you straight up admit to being a tedious, pearl-clutching tone-troll? Hmm. Its rare to see such honesty in such a worthless word salad.
It’s unfortunate, but it’s the self-described ‘Nice Guys’ that are causing the problem with the terminology.If you trawl the MRA blogs for examples, like the epic Manboobz does (may the flying spaghetti monster grant them all the beer they can drink in pirate heaven for their bravery). Some of the most vociferous misogyny come from men who describe themselves as ‘Nice Guys’ who are angry that ‘Nice Guys’ can’t get a date with *insert your own sickeningly misogynist epithet here* bitches who will only date ‘alpha’ males who use the startlingly unfair tactics of showing an interest in a woman, rather than the ‘Nice Guy’ tactic of passive-agressively attempting to manipulate her into a relationship.Guys who are nice are nice, they don’t need an epithet and they’re certainly not grouped into ‘Nice Guys’.
What, are you actually trying to suggest we should judge Rebecca Watson’s ability as a science communicator on her ability as a science communicator? Good luck with that eccentric line of reasoning.
He’s also incapable of noticing when his position is being rather unsubtly caricatured.
“If you have to explain quotes and capitals but then the term is used in spoken language and it remains misunderstandable, frankly there is a point to be had that it’s not a good term” – this is a good point hastily discardedIts not unreasonable to expect everyone to “read the 101” when unusual terminology needs to be explained, but it is unreasonable to put something in quote marks and expect every reader to know what level of subtlety/irony/humourous dig those quote marks represent, especially when those words are in common parlance.I had a discussion with my housemate who was arguing for absolute morality, and it turned out that he had a number of good points, but he had labelled the overall perspective badly. He was talking about “absolute” morality and if he had dropped the word altogether there would have been no disagreement from me. I know damn well what the word absolute means and if someone is using it to mean something else, then I reserve my right to take issue with that. In regular conversation, stopping and referring your partner to an essay which describes the freshly created nuance of an existing word is stupid. why not just use a better descriptive word. “Faux nice guy” is fricking perfect, needs no introduction and therefore avoids this problem. The only thing you dont get with it is the in joke or the circlejerk mentality.Azkyroth, I see you here frequently and you clearly know your critical thinking shizzle. I dont think that “self important whining” was evident there and I was surprised that you gave that response.
Cock… Beer?
Richard Dawkins is a science communicator. Anyone who thinks RW is a science communicator has to have very low standards of scientific understanding.
One day Ratshag, I want to become just like you!
And anyone who thinks you need a PhD and 50 years of experience before you can be a effective science communicator is a fucking moron.We get it. You hate Rebecca Watson for whatever reason. Get over it.
♀ Chicks dig guys who say “douchebag” and other gender-directed epithets.
wtfbits complaining about “low standards of scientific understanding” blew out the irony-meter on my PC. Thanks a lot – now I have to put in a service desk ticket.
What, like all those professional scientists who think Rebecca Watson is a good science communicator? It’s only the people who think they’ve joined the scientific elite because they’ve read a couple of popular science paperbacks who seem to resent her position.
@68b3d79df053952a913a37a95c181bf8:disqus “When Einstein was figuring out relativity, he wasn’t consciously thinking of getting laid.”What? How do we know he wasn’t???!!? [CITATION NEEDED]. :-)It would have been awesome if he was, though.
Dunno if the world could handle that much amazing virility, but let’s find out. I sez go fer it!
Your post is a strawman. I never said you need to have a Phd and 50 years of experience. You need to calm down and not start calling people names and lying when they don’t share your opinions.
Rofl. Pot Kettle Black?
He seems really focused on the “This is my friend Alaina Toadpipe and not a sockpuppet!” thing: http://rainybrain.org/Images/T…And if you’re still reading comments Mr. Seattle, do you smoke? Because many people won’t date a smoker, that knocks like a whole point off in the league ratings for some!
No. Candle dark black.
Wow – that’s quite a wank-fest. High marks in Self Pitying, Playing The Victim, and Missing The Point. He didn’t depict himself nailed to a cross, though, so points off on that one.
The word “troll” does not mean “person who is unimpressed by my bluster and critical of my bullshit conceits.” It also does not mean “person whose objections to my thesis I cannot answer so I’ll flail around self-righteously and hope no one in the audience is older than about 5 because then they’ll notice I’m bluffing.” Have we cleared this up now?I do, however, owe you an apology.You are pretty clearly a clueless NON-fucking douchebag. :)
at no point was I trying to “improve” the situation. He’s an idiot and asshole with a warped sense of reality, and his view is only rational if you assume the premise that women exist for men, and thus their behavior must be modulated for the benefit of men
How is douchebag gender-directed? (You’re aware that douching is in almost all cases both unnecessary and actually detrimental to female reproductive system health and the only reason most women do it is misogyny-inspired anxiety and disgust with the female genitals, right?)
I get that you’re not trying to improve his situation, but I would have thought that HE was.Completely agree with you about him not getting that women are, I don’t know, independent people.
You can look like Brad Pitt You could also be a rocket scientist or own a car. Actually, that song captures it really well. You can have some laundry list of achievements, but that doesn’t mean that anyone will actually like you.
Sure – but by the same token, these women’s reasons for not wanting to date jrandom are equally valid.
No. Correct horse battery staple.
So Glacier’s hoping to go virile?
I haven’t read The Red Queen or The Mating Mind, so I can’t comment there.But I have read both The Blank Slate and The Selfish Gene… And I think you go much too far in citing them as backup. For three main reasons.Firstly, you’re taking a broad generalization and applying it to two specific individuals.Secondly, you’re reducing complex behavior down to a single factor of motivation and ignoring a significant amount of context.Thirdly, you’ve completely and utterly misrepresented Jen’s views on female sexuality and the expression thereof.FirstBoth in the case of The Blank Slate and in The Selfish Gene, Pinker and Dawkins go to great lengths to explain that the genetics of populations affects behavior in a probabilistic and statistical fashion.This means that you cannot go from “this is a common strategy probably explains this behavior in many cases” to “this is what explains Jen McCreight’s and Rebecca Watson’s behavior right now”.Note that “this is a common strategy probably explains this behavior in many cases” is something I’m only granting for the sake of argument. I have some powerful reservations about whether or not you’re actually correct by the standards of Blank Slate or Selfish Gene… But given that I can’t quote either book with encyclopedic knowledge AND that I don’t have time to research for specific sections and passages that might contradict your interpretation, I’m going to have to let this particular point slide.SecondYou’re ignoring a lot of context.The main point here is that not everything in a human existence can be drawn back to sexual motivators. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.I have no doubt that in the right context, both Rebecca and Jen are both perfectly happy to get their flirt on.And I’m sure that on occasion, they do both become susceptible to the same battle-of-the-sexes psychological bullshit that plagues the rest of us in our relationships. I admire and respect both women, but I don’t suppose either of them are reified super-humans.But to suppose that this is true all of the time is simply ludicrous… And I don’t think you’d find support for this in either the Blank Slate or in Selfish Gene.Both books (admittedly, Pinker seemed to be channeling Dawkins in this, so maybe just Dawkins) go to great lengths to distinguish between ‘ultimate’ causation and ‘proximate’ causation.So while the ‘ultimate’ cause of our behavioral ticks will always come down to enhancing reproductive fitness, the ‘proximate’ causes can be many, varied and perhaps even intuitively counter-productive to enhancing sexual fitness.So the ability to not have our sexuality flicked into the ‘on’ position all the time is itself an important aspect of sexual fitness. Because if our sexualities were always on then we’d never actually get anything done and our ancestors would have either starved to death or been killed by predators.This applies to the current situation because posing in the Skepchick calendar or heading out on the town with a mind to enjoy wine, men and song are very different contextual circumstances to writing a blog post, giving a talk on sexism in the atheist/skeptical movement, or being propositioned inappropriately in the claustrophobic confines of an elevator.In a nutshell: Your analysis of the situation has no depth.ThirdThis one is simple.You said:”Since you [Jen] are unable to exercise power over men through your looks the way very beautiful women can, your subconscious strategy is to demean the aspects of physical attraction as much as possible.”This is an outright misrepresentation of Jen’s views on sexuality.Jen goes overtly out of her way to be pro-sexuality in her feminism.The only person I know about that goes further than Jen in terms of pro-sexuality is Greta Christina.One thing that is a sticking point for Jen (and Greta, and I think most thinking women and men as well – I count myself in this) is that there’s a big difference between:1) delightfully expressing one’s own sexuality, and;2) being reduced down to a mere object of other people’s sexual desire.A huge difference.An obvious difference.An I’m-a-little-bit-shocked-that-I-actually-need-to-point -this-out kind of difference.But in this case I do need to point it out, because nothing I have ever read from Jen on Blag Hag has ever struck me as being anti-sexuality in any way, shape, or form.Where exactly do you think that Jen ‘demeaned the aspects of physical attraction’ at all, let alone ‘as much as possible’?That was pure misrepresentation, plain and simple.SummaryYou cite four texts as somehow backing up your position. Admittedly, I’ve only read two of them.But the two I have read? They shouldn’t be on that list… Which gives me some pretty justified doubts as to whether or not the other two deserve to be on that list.Your analysis in this situation attempts to apply statistical probabilistic nature of behavioral genetics at the level of the individual, it ignores context, and it misrepresents the views of those involved. And your citations do not support your assertions.You’re going to have to do better than that.AsideThis doesn’t tie in neatly to my argument above. But I wanted to have a word on supermodels enthusiastically emphasizing their sexuality.While I’m sure this is true in some cases, it is incorrect to suppose this is true in *all* cases.From what little I know of the seedy side of the modelling world (which, admittedly, is fuck-all) many of the girls (and men) involved in the industry hate and resent the extent to which their sexualities are exploited.Many agents and photographers treat the girls as if they are some kind of travelling harem. You want this job, honey? Well, maybe if you do a little something for me first, then we can see about getting you on my set, yeah? Let’s see what you’ve got…It may not always be as overt as that. But the girl who offers to sleep with the photographer, agent or other relevant decision-maker? She’s more likely to get the job.But the girls put up with it so long as they perceive that it’s the only way to get ahead in their industry – if they don’t do it, someone else will, and they won’t get the job, they won’t get on the cover of the magazine, and they won’t get paid.Now – I don’t necessarily know how true this is in a statistical sense. I don’t know if this kind of scenario of sexual exploitation in the modelling industry is widespread or if it is isolated… But I’m pretty damn sure that this happens enough that the point you tried to make that hinged on the notion that supermodels enthusiastically sexualize themselves is problematic at best.Yes, supermodels may very well sexualize themselves. But then again, they have to to get ahead in their industry.To what degree this can be described as ‘enthusiastic’ is quite the open question.
As an aside: Something about using the phrase ‘wine, men and song’ feels so damn weird.Yay for consciousness raising!
Same.I moved to the other side of the state, where all the married/uberconservative/redneck weirdos live. So, not a shock for me, but had I been given much of a choice on the carreer front I never would have left Seattle :-
“Also just wondering how many of you would be screaming “What a dick!” had this been a woman ticked off at the situation.”There was a woman who published an article titled “Where have all the good men gone” at the Wall Street Journal.http://online.wsj.com/article/…It’s the same kind of message, only with the opposite gender and a higher standard of prose.However: I was also ticked off by that article.So… +1.
Well, we kind of hit all over, Cap Hill, BellTown, a few forays into the Eastside, the Waterfront… So, I don’t think it was just the neighborhood we were in. And I lived in the North Greenwood area. So she got a pretty representative sampling of all over.
Poetic license…not okay?
It MIGHT just be the lack of alliteration. “Mead, music, and men” rolls off the tongue pretty well.Also, I wonder how long it’ll be before someone jumps on you for referring to models as “girls.” ;/
Mead, music, and men…Stealing it! ^_^—They’d have me bang to rights, too. Oversight’s a pain in the neck, yeah?:pWomen. Models are women. Some of them also happen to be girls in the sense of child and adolescent models, but the collective term is, of course, women.Thanks for getting to that first. ^_^
It’s the same reading people made for this post, which, to be fair, you also protested.http://www.blaghag.com/2011/08…I often read pharyngula, and there too PZ often comes across (to me) as white knighting.
My understanding of the term ‘white knight’ doesn’t fit in the current context.Could you elaborate on how you intended its use?[EDIT: I just re-read my comment above and it sounded really, really aggressive. I didn’t mean it to sound aggressive – I’m genuinely confused as to how you’re using the term and wanted to clarify what you meant, that’s all.]
The same does apply to guys, you know. Guys are also supposed to be physically attractive, well dressed, well groomed, and generally excel in whatever they do, while at the same time have enough free time to “have a life”. (All while not even being interested in men’s fashion or notice well-dressed/attractive men.)I’m not saying it’s equally bad, of course. Women undoubtedly have more pressure to look better. At the same time, vis-a-vis women in general, I would certainly love it if my male friends (and many of my female friends) wouldn’t look at me funny when I comment on some guy’s hairstyle or boots.
Nono, I think all things considered the block caps aren’t warranted in this case.It’s just a little douchey.But then again, using the term ‘douche’ as a pejorative is actually a little, well… A little douchey.Now of course, hygiene in all its forms can be a little bit gross at times.But why the quick readiness to use a feminine hygiene product into a perjorative? Why could that be? Well. That’s simple. It’s vaginas vs. penises. Again. The same sexual bullshit we’re all tiredly familiar with.Now: I’m not meaning to start a flame war over the use of the term ‘douche’. I use it too. It gets across the point you’re trying to make in a quick way, and I think that the word is so far distanced from its base meaning that I suspect most people don’t know what a ‘douche’ actually is on the grounds that I didn’t until I watched the Mark Edwards episode of South Park.All I’m trying to do is point out that everyone can be a bit of a douche from time to time… And it sounds like Nickajensen is at least trying not to be one.I think in this case he can be cut a bit of slack, yes?
RECOMMENDATION: Move to Australia for a week or a month. Either you’ll find who you’re looking for and be happy, or you’ll catch yourself thinking that “Australian women are actually ok-attractive but think they’re super-attractive so an ok-attractive guy like me has no chance with them!” If the former, great! If the latter, it’s time for some serious introspection, eh?
You’re confusing ‘beauty’ for ‘sex appeal’.
You buying? Cause, I’m kinda broke right now and chainsaws, being power tools, are, I assume, fairly pricey…
@Azkyroth:disqus – Yes I’m aware of those things. The term’s pejorative use has nothing to do with that. It is entirely based on the notion that things associated with women and woman parts are somehow a putdown.
Even if we had figured out all of neurobiology, and evolutionary psychology was shown to be infallible (this is not the case), it still doesn’t change the fact that subconscious drives are often irrelevant. If I value intelligence more because I am more intelligent than pretty, I still value intelligence. If Einstein discovered relativity out of a machinery that evolved to reproduce, he still discovered relativity. If Rebecca Watson’s brain is the product of evolution, she still has good reasons for what she’s written here.But that’s not all. If you truly understand evolutionary and proximate cause you know that the causes we argue and debate and examine and try to change are all proximate causes. For good reason! Evolutionary causes, which we do not understand well and couldn’t change anyway, are merely the mechanism by which we came about, not the moral justifications for our actions, and definitely not the subconscious drives of our mind.Evolution is just as responsible for supermodels flaunting their sexuality — have you met any supermodels off camera, by the way? — as an Earth with liquid water, or the laws of physics. Yes, it is trivially true, but meaningless to any debate.
“Aggressive?” Am I witnessing self-trolling? O.o
Apparently.
Okay, the purity trolls have descended on this thread in earnest, so I think it’s reached the terminal stage. There’s a decent chance of me leaving it alone after this.
Some of this is too funny……I really cannot get excited about a 35 year old bloke who needs to grow up. I’m an older woman, who’s been sliced and diced so no boobs, with a fat stomach dubbed by a 30 something fan my “uniboob”, great legs and a few more pounds hanging out on my face than I like . This has not impeded men and women making advances toward me; they tell me it’s my energy, smile, humour, sense of fun, intelligence and joi de vivre. Now I just need more hours in my day :-) to play
Thanks Jen for another fun saga. I always enjoyed the irony of organizing Boobquake Vancouver and was described on the front cover of a widely distributed free paper ‘Metro News’, as being without breasts, can’t remember the phraseology – the irony is that they showed a pic of some anonymous cuties with cleavage. Funny old world as my Mum used to say :-)
The way you talk about women is just fucking gross. It makes me ill reading some of the things you wrote.’I really started to believe this. I look around and I see other men that come here and after complaining for awhile, finally give up and chase after women they are not attracted to because, lets face it, after a long enough period of time most men will stick their dick in just about anything. I am not one of these men.’So, women are THINGS. All I need to hear. Enjoy your permanent singleness. Ass.
Aww, teh poor Socially Awkward Nice Guys Can’t Get Laid! /s
PROJECTION! XD
A classic move- the Pity Me. Used by sociopaths and narcissists everywhere.
I think its use in popular culture has long since evolved away from those original connotations. For me (and I presume, at least some others), the idea that calling someone a douchebag would possibly be a short-hand way of saying, “you, sir, are as gross as girl-parts” is just alien. Maybe it did mean that at some point, but now? It strikes me as akin to taking offense at describing something funny as “hysterical” because the term originally had to do with neanderthal notions of womens’ brains not working correctly due to all their excessive womb-having and such silliness.Just out of curiosity – to what aggregate degree are women offended by this term, generally speaking?
So…. does he own that skeleton, or did he acquire it just for the comic?
@e6d20f9109bcba4b02817f562ca59859:disqus – Obviously Jen herself has no problem with it. Employing cultural fads isn’t really evolution, though I suppose with enough convoluted rationalizing (“douchebag = tool of the patriarchy”) a case could be made for “reclaiming” the term.
Employing cultural fads isn’t really evolutionConsidering that we’re discussing language and not biological organisms, I’d suggest that that’s exactly what it is. How else do you imagine language evolves?
@e6d20f9109bcba4b02817f562ca59859:disqus – The only evolution going on is the long-term trend of former vulgarities becoming more mainstream, and even that is something that comes and goes in the longer term. The word itself hasn’t evolved in the slightest; its pejorative use has the same meaning it had in the 1950s. No doubt a select few may hail its brief revival in the 1980s as ironic, and its current revival, meta-ironic, but the vast majority don’t give it a second thought: the them, it’s just a harder-to-spell alternative to calling someone a “cunt” or “pussy.”
Sorry, but I still think you’re off-base. The magnitude of the word hasn’t changed much, but its flavor certainly has. And the idea that the “vast majority” of people “don’t give it a second thought”, is exactly my point.
Wish I could be like you again. Not knowing to demur in the face of sabotaging discourse. Enjoying seeing people gank one another, screeching and hopping excitedly inside (*presses like button*). Yielding self-gratifyingly to urges for conflict and deluded into thinking those urges aren’t lowly because attacks are gussied up in logic or — ha — flung in the name of righteousness. Savage and carefree. Better still, indulgently cruel and self-satisfied. A part of me wishes I could be that way again. It was so much more fun. Seriously, though, it’s childish. In the way that young kids are sociopathic. But without the excuse of an underdeveloped prefrontal cortex. Presumably.Nowadays I’m a stick in the mud. It’s no fun. It’s painfully hard to be careful in conversation. I miss the titillating hormones of social conflict and domination (though maybe not at the moment). Being careful just isn’t rewarding like fighting is. Trust me, I can totally understand your reluctance to be civil. I used to fight all the time. Like you, I was clever enough to rationalize my urges. Unlike you, I figured out that that’s masturbatory. And harmful. Huh… You’re smugly jizzing bile on people. Whoa.Now, mind you, ejaculation’s healthy. Just don’t burn others with it? I don’t expect this message is any more persuasive though presented more in your idiom of hate. Maybe it at least disabuses you of your simplistic thinking that tone squeamishness might be the only cause for trying to promote civility.
Dammit! Forethought describing someone else’s posting motivations as masturbatory and self-indulgent broke my irony meter again, and I just had that damn thing replaced.
Dear Jrandom,Sorry to hear you have had such a hard time, whatever the reason. I never enjoyed being single myself. It must make you feel very annoyed and frustrated.Here comes the unsolicited advice. I would like to ask you to revisit the idea of moving without rejecting it out of hand. First of all, you wouldn’t necessarily have to move to Melbourne, which might be quite difficult. I have no idea how that kind of immigration works. As others have pointed out with various degrees of wit, it is unlikely that Seattle or its women are going to change. You have stated that your preferences are unlikely to change. (Personally I think they might be able to change a little, but that’s a different discussion. For the moment I’ll assume that the available pool of women in your area are just unacceptable to you. Doesn’t matter what the reason is.) Given that they won’t change and you won’t change, you are left with some decisions:1. What do you really want in a woman? I recommend making a private list that you keep private. No need to debate it with the internet. Consider both what you desire and what is acceptable. For instance, you might want a non-smoker, but you’d be OK if she smoked a few times a month when she was out with friends. I suggest you consider both the physical and non-physical. Try to avoid listing what you think you should want.2. Check #1 for reasonableness. So, like everyone else, and like you admit about yourself, everyone has their strong points and weak points. Make sure that what you are looking for in a woman isn’t so narrow that you are setting yourself up for failure. (If you find that is the case, you have a different, harder-to-solve problem). If you are only attracted to short, blond-haired, blue-eyed, English/German, strong-minded philosophers, there just aren’t that many of us around! Of course you should also consider yourself and what you have to offer another person.3. Find where those sorts of women are. There are probably women somewhere in the US of the type you like. As others have suggested, maybe you like the tanned ladies of Melbourne and their active lifestyle in the sun. Maybe you like women who primp a little more. If possible, you might want to try visiting other US cities and seeing if (perhaps down the coast or in the South) you will find women more to your taste. I’m sure someone can also suggest an internet way of doing this if the trip is out of the question.4. Weigh up your options. Assuming you find a place that you feel has more attractive women you now face a decision. Do you want to date so badly that it is worth moving? Yes, moving is not trivial, but if you can’t face being single and the women near you are not to your liking, it might be your only option. I have no idea about your personal situation, but most people could move if it was important enough. 5. After you move to XYZ town, I’d get rid of your blog posts and try to start over with as little anger as you can manage as it will be counter productive. When you meet new women in XYZ town and they ask why you moved there you will not tell them that it is because the women in Seattle were ugly! It will, as you have seen, create the wrong impression. Instead, put a positive face on it and say that you were looking for a change in your life so you went for a trip around the country and you were just so charmed by XYZ town and how nice the people are there and how lovely the ladies are that you had to move there. This will be much more attractive.6. Bonus tip. Being hard of hearing myself, I can concur that it is a major bummer and a barrier to effective communication. I too have a lot of trouble in noisy environments and I know exactly what you mean about putting things together wrong. If you have not already done so, do look into getting hearing aids, they make things somewhat better and now come in fashion colors.Good Luck.
Quiet you. ^_^On my re-read it sounded really sarcastic to my ears (eyes?). Saracasam is a form of literary aggression, surely? Just wanted to clear up the possible confusion before it arose.
White knighting: it describes a person who feels that a lady has been wronged on the internet, and that they need to “ride to the rescue” of the poor maiden, swinging their massive sword in the faces of her male attackers. It’s kind of a Myers trademark since the incident with the woman and the man and the rising box thing in the hotel after the stuff.
That’s not quite what white knighting is. White knighting is doing what you said…for the purpose of getting something out of it, usually admiration or getting into said lady’s pants. Which is obviously not what PZ is doing, so he’s not white knighting.Claims of “white knighting” are used to shut up men who are allies of women. So you know who needs to shut up? You.
Women speaking to you = flirting? Dude… Really? Your 15 minutes are up, brother.
Been here 37 years and never heard it till here. One I like I have heard is “Dairy Queen Hot” as shes not bad lookin for someone who works at DQ
Either way, it’s about as much an unwitting metaphor as you could ask for, innit?
The problem with that chapter is veryrelevant to the discussion of Nice Guys TM. It defines twowords, respect and disrespect, but I think both definitions arebackwards. He writes that he treats women with respect by regardingthem as nothing more than a goal in a secretive game. The prize isn’teven the woman, merely a potential sexual act, that he tries to winthrough a combination of deceit and manipulation.The other man advises him to treatwomen with disrespect, in order to “win” the game. He goes on toexplain that behavior as being honest with a woman, asking for herparticipation openly after describing what it was he wanted from herin the first place. No pretense, no manipulation.It’s a problem I still see too oftennow, so I don’t think it was unique to 1940s New Mexico.
Managed to find a summary of that chapter online.I’m all let-down and sad now. Man, that’s disappointing coming from Feynman. Christopher Hitchens was right. Better not to have heroes.I’ve been aware of tactics like these for a long time. I never used them myself – I wasn’t willing to sacrifice my ethics to get laid (perhaps Socrates deserved his poison after all).But it always baffled me how often those tactics actually work for the guys who use them.Actually, it still baffles me now.
PROJEC-..Okay, okay. Fine.I took the joke too far and I apologize.
Though it’s worth noting that some particularly self-important people do exactly that. Or take offense at “histrionic” because it kinda sounds like “hysterical.”
Feynman’s point is that he’s somehow being noble by being honest about what an asshole he was. I hear this sentiment expressed with some regularity by narcissistic morons who somehow haven’t figured out that it’s better not to be an asshole in the first place.
Are you seriously saying what I think you’re saying? After all of the trashing last week of JRandom and what an awful sexist piece of crap he is, you’re actually arguing that 35 year old women are biologically not beautiful? What an absolutely ridiculous thing to say. Especially as the lifespan of the human being is longer, this is absolutely untrue. Take, for example, my boss. Just turned 40, Persian GODDESS! The woman turns more heads than I could ever hope to at ten years younger. What you have just done is mistaken cultural and media bias for biological calling. Media dictates a 50 year old man marrying a 19-25 year old woman is one hot bastard and boy has he still “got it”. But a 50 year old woman marrying a 19-25 year old man is a media flop. And don’t misunderstand, the idea that a young girl shaped like a young boy is 100% cultural bias. Anyhow, just had to call bullshit on that statement. And it really isn’t a good idea to quote from wikipedia “Across all cultures there’s a universal preference for younger women”. Because, to the contrary, many cultures value mature women far more because of their *ahem* expertise. No pretending involved, women of any age can be more or less beautiful than any other based on who is looking, and what they think of themselves.
I live in Seattle and use the word thrifting…
I wish it were as easy as a classified:Late model, single white male with three previous careful female owners seeks uppity, honest, late model woman; Christchurch, NZ for food and company.But the reality is it is tricky and the misplaced anger and frustration always results in the same mass of misogyny and misandrony prevalent in these posts, replies and comments. Don’t hate the nice guys or the beautiful women or even the men and women who cannot see past skin, just feel sorry for those without love in their lives, for whatever reason.
Ha, I came here to say just that! You beat me to it. So, yeah, I guess you could say that australian women have lower standards due to the lack of single males around! (ones worth dating anyway!)
I think that to see women as people, they’d have to stop trying to get a date. Otherwise, it will always be fake niceness.
%93 of Seattle women are dumpster fires and that covers looks and attitude.
Seattle is one of the only cities where a ugly woman is considered average. So she is there for Seattle pretty.
An all the these fat gross waddlers post crap on craigs list ‘BBW/Curvy looking for handsome fit man’. It should read ‘Blimp looking for pilot’
The fact that Seattle is still above sea level is amazing.
PUT THE FAT FOODS DOWN, STOP PACKING YOUR FACE 24/7 AND THINKING DRINKING DIET COKE/PEPSI AN WALKING TO YOUR POWERED CHAIR WILL HELP.