Can you stand one more story of men behaving badly today? I promise to stop after this one, but it’s just so classically awful–a nice guy
loses it when he’s turned down for a date.
tried being nice. From the time I wrote a MyTake honoring what I love most about women to when I defended older women from the misogynistic charge that they are worthless. I even wrote a letter to my future daughters, because I loved women and delighted in the fantasy of someday raising women of my own as a father. But now things have changed, and changed badly they have.
To those who have been following my recent escapades at work, this is the update you asked for.
Upon receiving my “Yes” and her phone number, I called the girl in question and tried to plan an official date. Not only did she reject me, which is strange after initially expressing interest and volitionally giving me her phone number of her own choice, but she told all of my coworkers that I stole her number off of Facebook and have been stalking her, and that I am a creeper.
She was a lying cunt, simply put, and has completely jeopardized my status in the workplace.
That’s only the beginning. The rest of the monster article is just JRICHARDS1996 raging about evil women who are nothing but whores and how he prefers a conniving prostitute to those wicked females and how he used to be such a nice guy but never again because women are so bad. And he leaves us with a final threat.
As it is, I will never approach another woman again. That nice guy that was once inside of me is completely dead. Dead, and you killed him. You crucified him. You nailed him to the Cross.
Show of hands–how many women reading this are now grieving at the loss of this Nice Guy
from the dating pool?
How many of you think it would be appropriate to scoop something out of the cat box and hand it to him, saying “Here’s a cookie”?
Jesus,no. You have to read another article by this guy: In Honor of Femininity: The 5 Things I Love Most About Women. It begins…
I have been accused of sexism and misogyny multiple times by females on this website. And even though those claims could not be further from the truth, I thought it would be in good taste to vindicate myself by composing a tribute to femininity. That is, a celebration of what it means to be a woman. So in honor of femininity, I have taken the liberty of listing the five things that I love most about women.
You can guess what follows. Just to spare you, the five things are:
-
They are Cute. Like, when they paint their toenails or bake cakes.
-
They are Sexy. “Have you seen just how sexy the female form is buck naked?”
-
They are Selfless. They take care of children and clean house for us!
-
They are Nurturing. “Even the most attractive, classiest ones still have a soft spot for crying losers such as myself, and are there to provide comfort.”
-
They are Emotionally Receptive. “Whether it is consoling a man on the verge of a suicide or expressing some little bit of kindness to an addict at rock bottom who needs to feel loved even if by a random stranger, women are capable of understanding emotion and doing what needs to be done.”
To put the W(t)F in awful, the whole thing is illustrated with half-naked pinup pictures.
*whispers* This is why you don’t date coworkers.
Funny how rejection by a few women always turns into hatred for all women when it comes to these types of “nice guys”. It’s almost like they already hated women and just needed a good excuse to show that hatred openly while telling themselves it’s totally not their fault.
He’s also stupid. I might have remained neutral had he stopped at “jeopardized my status in the workplace” and shortly explained how. But with “calling me pedophile” he already definitely lost me, simply because it doesn’t make sense.
People often include their birth year as part of their nym.
I wonder if that’s true in this case.
chigau @5, you are correct. He does admit to being 20 in a later reply, and the woman in question is 17 according to him.
I note without surprise that he refers to it as his “Yes” and not hers.
Angry young dude complains that the world doesn’t bow down and kiss his arse. No doubt he’s being celebrated as a hero on reddit.
Also the c bomb seems to shibboleth for entitled arseholes. I guess if I see that, or SJW I can safely ignore whatever follows.
Keeps hands down. Anyone who “writes a letter to his future daughters” has a really unhealthy idea of how to relate to women. He comes across as someone who is quite eager to own a woman.
Ah, MGTOW. They’re either men who have had the misfortune of being involved with some truly terrible people or they’re socially anxious/awkward types that find it easier to just assume all women are terrible people because it’s easier than dealing with the dating scene. It’s actually pretty sad when you think about it.
Diamonds to donuts he’s been eating up shit from some PUA/MRA site and freaking out because “OMG I’m 20 and haven’t boned yet I’m doomed!”. That stuff about “defending older women from misogynists who say they’re worthless”… probably got some asinine PUA tips claiming older women who are still single have self-esteem issues and are easy pickings if you “push the right buttons” or some crap like that. It’s bad enough seeing grown men acting like that, but seeing a kid that age acting like that because he grew up with that kind of influence… it’s sad, really. He’s growing up broken, and he’ll probably spend the rest of his life spreading the very bullshit that broke him in the first place.
Ah another “man” going his own way. Keep going guy! Don’t look back! Don’t bother women again! Bye now!
“Hi guys, here’s what happened. [completely fails to say what happened]. [Women], right?”
I’m pretty sure he left out a few significant details in between “I called her, she INEXPLICABLY SAID NO, and now people think I’m a pedophile”.
This is why we can’t have nice people.
From the writing, he seems to see women as a group with little to no overlap with MEN. I know if he viewed both women and men as HUMANS first and foremost, he might have a better life (the folks around him certainly would).
This guy has adopted a worldview that makes him a threat to women while making him miserable. I hope he finds the self awareness to realize how destructive that misogyny is.
(Where “you” in each of these cases is “all women everywhere”)
Yeah, that definitely sounds like someone who started out with a uniquely high opinion of women.
Also, who is this Chad Thundercock guy he keeps talking about? One of his coworkers?
“Awful people don’t know they’re awful.”
I feel some pity even for awful people who are miserable because of their awfulness (partly because I doubt the existence of free will). But this guy reveals he shouldn’t be within a hundred yards of any woman. I share the suspicion expressed by others that he hasn’t given us the entire backstory for his unfathomable rejection.
I think that girl has had a very lucky escape.
quite suspicious construction of that sentence: starting in passive voice then using the volitionally word; who uses that word so casually, to be emphasized with “of her own choice”.
it sounds to me a lot like Lady MacBeth, “who protetht too much”(*nudge* *nudge*) But I’m just always suspicious by nature.
Regarding comment #14 and PZ’s addendum to the original post, it strikes me that this sort of nonsense is one, albeit fairly extreme, symptom of a societal obsession with gender segregation. This young man has clearly grown up to think of half the human race as some distant other rather than as people just like him. He is contemptible for his views, but people like him are going to crop up regularly when the soil is fertile enough.
I would not be at all surprised to find out he is a product of gender-segregated schooling, but even if he isn’t then most of the influences on his social development have reinforced the idea that women are not true people and occupy an entirely different place in the world from non-women. This is why we need the Ghostbusters remake. This is why we need Anita Sarkeesian’s web series. This is why we need the BBC’s insistence on female contestants and hosts on panel shows. This is why we need more of the above and some serious effort to reform all media and cultural institutions.
But it’s not enough to show that women are just as human and normal as men. The key problem highlghted here is the cultural message that the standard, normal, expected and (in many cases) only way for men and women to interact is through sexual relationships. That, I think, is the noxious cultural construct that most needs tearing down here.
Hmmm. Ya know, I was, in university, a totally typical, socially-awkward, weird, nerd. And I say that without any kind of insult; that phrase described me very well. And I asked girls out, and came on to them, and tried to play the game, and totally struck out, and didn’t lose my virginity until 23, more than a year after I left university. So, I was frustrated, yes. I was puzzled, yes. I was nonplussed, yes.
Looking back on myself then, from the present, having had short-term and long-term sexual and emotional relationships since then, I ask myself: “Why did I not descend into this foaming hatred?” “With all of the similarities between myself and the writer of that obnoxious screed, why did I not share his views?” I asked myself this question seriously, and spent some time in self-examination. And the answer was clear and simple:
No matter what happened to me, I always considered women to be PEOPLE, and as such, their opinions and their responses were VALUABLE, and something for me to LEARN from.
And I did learn, as evidenced by my successful interactions with people later on in my life.
My son is autistic and 17, and crying, “Woe is me!” over his datelessness. My only message to him is that women are people just like you, and when you learn to work with and treat PEOPLE well, those people who also happen to be women will then become your friends — and more!
Sorry for rambling.
Wow, such a huge display of entitlement, and barely out of his teens. Hey sunshine, try not to rush into things, you’ve got most of your life ahead of you. Don’t fuck it up now.
A bit of advice – unsolicited and unwanted I know – to JRICHARDS1996: decent men do not call a woman “a lying cunt” when she turns down his request for a date. And, surprise, it turns out a whole lot of women don’t want to go out with guys who are not decent guys.
Errr… part of me thinks, “hey, I was 18 once – I remember writing shitty poetry about how much it sucked that [redacted] didn’t like me anymore – I can see where this kid is coming from.” On the other hand, I don’t think I ever gave up on all women everywhere, or ever garbled on about how all women would die alone because of my up giving. I guess, because I was actually friends with a lot of women who I actually valued as friends, rather than struggling to get out of the friendzone with them. I guess I feel a bit bad about responding to this, because it looks like it’s essentially the modern equivalent of a bebo (I think it was bebo? Proto-facebook, 15 years ago? Questions and answers to and from other beboids? I dunno….) post, but… that’s some ridiculous ranting. He’s clearly bought into a lot of the manospherian rhetoric – the meteoric rise of the male in his 30s, and the decline of the female; the idea that men will finally have the power, even though what they’re talking about isn’t power, but merely the exercise of personal choice, which men have just as much as women do – it’s just that they feel sad about the fact that women don’t always make the choices that men wish they would.
Blergh! Why did you put them up there to begin with? At first you thought they were superior to you, but then, realisation! You were the superior one! No. Nobody was superior. Women poop. They are not angels of love, laid out to be worshipped, and to provide pleasure to you; they are people.
I’m not normally one to dive in and criticise people’s kinks, but the dashboard fetish is just weird.
“The next time you complain about where all of the Nice Guys went”
Has any non-fictional woman actually had this complaint aside from maybe in the context of old people grumbling about kids these days?
rossthompson @#16:
I remember reading that Chad is some sort of meme within the online misogyny crowd, he’s supposed to represent the stereotype of the jerk jock who picks on nerds and gets all the girls despite being, well, a jerk. In short, the “Nasty Guy” who is the opposite of these poor “Nice Guys.”
You know using ‘females’ instead ‘women’ doesn’t necessary mean the speech act must come from a misogynist–the expression may be in extremely formal context, medical descriptions say–but damn does the heuristic of “uses females in the place of women, therefore misogynist” seems completely valid to me.
I’ve only ever heard of it on 4chan, though it may have started elsewhere. they may have picked it up elsewhere. Typically someone posts a shitty paint image with a scrawny dude, a blonde girl in pink dress, and a jock named Chad Thundercock. The post says “Stop Chad Thundercock from stealing your qt3.14” or something similar, then a parade of morons post edits of the image with their creative (and I use that word loosely) solutions to stop Chad from getting the girl. Usually devolves into references to other memes, racism, misogyny, and homophobia. Like pretty much everything else on the chan.
Jesus Fucking Nailholes, the comment thread on that GirlsAskGuys is just as close to a Poe as the original post itself.
What’s weird is the percentage of women commenters, with really positive comments, a la “it’s so nice that there are still men like you in this world!” I honestly wonder whether Richard1966 or whatever his name is has created bogus avatars that he comments on his own posts with. Because I cannot fathom why any sane woman would find his post anything but CREEEEEEPY.
The you’re so cute section seriously felt like satire. But….after continuing….sadly…..noooooo……
slithey tove, 19:
I agree that he protesteth too much, but there’s no passive voice anywhere in that text you quoted. I wouldn’t normally give in to my urge to peeve, but a lot of English speakers seem to think that anything that obscures agency is “passive voice” and it’s giving the poor passive a bad name it really doesn’t deserve!
In fact the only passive in the passages PZ quotes is “I have been accused […] by females”, and that sentence even names the agent (namely the *Ferengi voice* “feeeeemales”).
Sorry, I’ll go to bed now.
Emotional histrionics, misplaced anger and (frankly) vile worldview aside, this seems like a person who was hurt – who is hurting. I don’t think it’s a great leap to imagine a lonely early twenty something with crippling social anxiety behind those words. And perhaps not much more of a stretch to imagine that this is just one more rejection by a girl, part of a series of rejections that were both a result of and contribute to his regressive views toward women – a vicious cycle. As has been observed, part of his failure to connect with the opposite sex might be that his appreciation of women doesn’t extend much beyond surface level – as illustrated by the pinups. But man does it really feel like we’re not doing much better. A lot of what I’ve read here feels like putting ideology over empathy & humanity – his views clearly put him in the “other” tribe, so I guess that just makes it open season, never mind that his pain is no less real than anything you or I have ever experienced. And maybe it’s only because I can empathize more with the lonely and awkward male that I feel it important to speak up (while simultaneously accepting the corollary: that sometimes I act in a way that’s oblivious to someone else’s pain, and need to listen when they speak up) and say that yeah, you guys are being kinda shitty.
Is it bad that I… um… don’t believe him? Like… at all?
So he got a woman’s number, and called her to plan a date, and she just rejects him and starts spreading rumors?
Something, somewhere, isn’t adding up. Either he’s lying to us about how he got her number, or the phone conversation went wildly different (her: “I’m sorry. That’s a bad time. I have other plans/obligations then. Maybe another time?” him: “well FUCK YOU, BITCH!”… or something like that), or he’s lying about her spreading lies, or he got a fake number and made up the rest… or he just made the whole thing up whole cloth and he never got anyone’s number and no one ever spread any lies about him…
Yeah… something is seriously off about his story…
(Trying again. Forgot a specific word is [rightly] censored, here… sorry *insert ashamed face here*)
Is it bad that I… um… don’t believe him? Like… at all?
So he got a woman’s number, and called her to plan a date, and she just rejects him and starts spreading rumors?
Something, somewhere, isn’t adding up. Either he’s lying to us about how he got her number, or the phone conversation went wildly different (her: “I’m sorry. That’s a bad time. I have other plans/obligations then. Maybe another time?” him: “well FUCK YOU, B****!”… or something like that), or he’s lying about her spreading lies, or he got a fake number and made up the rest… or he just made the whole thing up whole cloth and he never got anyone’s number and no one ever spread any lies about him…
Yeah… something is seriously off about his story…
Adam James @30, hurt people hurt people all the time.
Adam James (#30)
Here’s an idea: If you’re so very concerned with the emotional pain of those who are sad because they feel let down by a society that promised them something they were never entitled to in the first place, don’t you think your time would be better spent teaching them strategies on how to cope with loneliness in a healthy way and explaining how to relate to women as people rather than sex objects? Y’know, instead of tone policing the targets of their shitty behavior?
An FTBlogger recently posted something quite like this guy’s last five points, and explained that no, not all women are cute caretakers. Valuing women because they are some allegedly-positive stereotype is just as incorrect as slagging them for imagined group faults. As has been said, women are individual people, and “women” is not a clearly defined word or group.
I killed my Nice Guy a long while ago when I too discovered that it wasn’t working. The difference being that I figured out that it wasn’t the fault of all women that I was being dishonest about my intentions and generally delusional about what women owe me due to being a penis haver.
Mind you my self loathing doesnt make my own company unbearable so I can ride out any occasional feelings of loneliness. Plus I have my career of being Batman to keep me busy.
Adam James
People of all genders will experience rejection. Framing it as “just one more” and then blaming your lack of social success on the girl is utter bullshit. Nobody is obligated to be your romantic interest. Being told no is not a reason to blame women for your lack of success in dating.
Every word on his web-site makes clear that he doesn’t consider women to be his equals, or even people. He considers them sex dispensers, but only if they are sufficiently attractive. It is not surprising that he can’t figure out why women aren’t attracted to him, since apparently he thinks they also have the mental and emotional discrimination of a cucumber.
Adam James #30
Did you read the article linked in the update?
The one called,
“In Honor of Femininity: The 5 Things I Love Most About Women.”
re Zeppelin@29:
the text I quoted was:
sorry if I misunderstood that as “passive voice”. I see that as the writer not taking any action to acquire those things, he just received it, with no agency of his part. This is not an excuse, just an explanation of why I called it “passive voice”.
excuse me.
Oddly enough, my being hurt and hurting made me angry at and disdainful of the people inflicting the hurt, the people who stood and watched and just shrugged, the active Hurt Denialists who insisted I could not possibly ACTUALLY be hurt because ARGLE BARGLE, and and the people who bent over backwards to find some cartoonishly contrived and tenuous excuse for why the hurt was totally deserved and I was actually the one at fault, but never the entire demographic any of the above happened to belong to.
Almost seems like there might be something else going on here.
@ A. Noyd #33
Sure, and I try to when I get the opportunity. But as I said, I still deal with social anxiety and loneliness, so I’m maybe not the best person for that particular job. To fix the larger problem we will need to tackle it from multiple angles: I’m trying to play to my strengths. My perspective helps me to understand that a particular attitude – the one that leads to comments that can be paraphrased as: “I never had a problem understanding that women are people. What’s wrong with this creep that he doesn’t get that?” isn’t super helpful. It’s akin to the approach to theft that goes “stealing is wrong. Steal and you’ll go to jail” without any attempt to address the material reasons why people actually chose to steal (e.g. poverty, hunger, upbringing etc.).
Knowing how to interact healthily with other human beings is in fact a privilege. If I hope to achieve anything by taking the contrarian view on this topic, it would be that even one commenter here recognizes that, and perhaps soften their views toward this person if only ever so slightly. It’s important to point out why a person’s views are harmful. But kicking them while they’re down will will only help them believe they are justified in their resentment (which is not to say that we’re the ones responsible for making misogynists misogynists. We’re just one of countless environmental inputs that shape their worldview). So I’m doing what little I can to encourage empathy and understanding instead, because I think maybe I understand where this person’s coming from, even if we didn’t come to the same conclusions. It’s minuscule, but I think it’s the most important thing I can do to play my part in solving the problem. The more we’re willing to listen to each other, to understand where the other is coming from and how their worldview came to be, the more rare hateful attitudes like this will be.*
[* A quick note a to address what I think would be a completely fair response to what I wrote above: if you are a woman, and you feel that you are a target of male hatred you did nothing to deserve, I genuinely do not mean to suggest that you are in any way morally obliged to try to intimately understand the full life story of any misogynist before judging them. As I said, my comment is meant more as a plea for understanding and empathy, a plea you may have perfectly valid reasons for refusing.]
This is a joke, right?
@magista,
…huh. Maybe he should try pursuing one of those not-quite-“worthless” older women instead. You know, like a 20-year-old.
Probably safer if he just gets a goldfish, though.
Guy, no matter how gloriously unaverage you are, there are three billion women out there who don’t particularly want to sleep with you. You can’t hate ’em all. Or I guess you can, but it’s really exhausting.
Also, his “In Honor of Femininity: The 5 Things I Love Most About Women” article? Literally five out of five of those things are ways that women provide services to him and other not-women. I find women cute, women turn me on, women do nice things for me, women do nice things for me again, women listen to my problems. That’s not just superficial, it’s staggeringly self-absorbed.
No, every kindergartner knows that treating people with respect is a basic expectation. If you have learned unhealthy personal habits, it is your own responsibility to change your behavior. Pretending that abusive manipulation just accidentally happens, like a force of nature, is an abuse technique. Many women are also socially awkward, yet somehow they don’t write books and blogs dedicated to selling predatory techniques for getting men to have sex with them.
@chigau (違う) #37
Yep, I did and actually made a quick mention of it in my original comment (#30). In case there was any misunderstanding, I’m in firm agreement with the rest of the commentariot that his views on women are 1-dimensional at best, and that that was the case before being rejected by a coworker. Hopefully my comment #40 does a better job of explaining what my aim is here – it’s certainly not to support his worldview.
@Azkyroth
I’m sorry you were hurt and even more sorry to hear about the people that didn’t care or tried to blame you. Whatever it was, I hope you’re doing better now.
Please tell me someone is taking legal action of some sort, even if that means the corrupt and useless police.
Richard’s is the same sort of screaming screed as those left behind by Elliot Rodger, “Rusty” Houser and George Sodini before their violent acts against women. I am not exaggerating when I say I fear for everyone he works with or knows, especially that teenage girl. It won’t surprise me if he already owns a gun or gets one.
Ohmigaw. The first paragraph of his article “defending” older women:
Dude, if I was your mother I wouldn’t give you any attention either.
Adam James (#40)
Try sticking to quotes, not paraphrases. That way you won’t put words in other people’s mouths. And stop talking down to us. It’s really not helpful. You’re not actually explaining anything we don’t know. You’re just scolding us to be nicer while pretending that failing to do so somehow makes us as bad as he is. Which really just goes to show that over-identify with misogynistic assholes is not a “strength.”
Bullshit. And anyway, the whole fucking problem is he considers interacting with women to be different than interacting with “human beings.” Which is a typical problem with guys with his attitude. It’s not a lack of privilege that convinced him women are other than human.
Okay, for one thing, we’re not actually kicking this guy. We’re talking about him, not to him. And, second, insofar as he’s “down,” it’s only because he didn’t get something he had no right to expect in the first place. The thing he didn’t get? Is the attention and bodies of women like me. And the way he expressed his emotional pain? By having a woman-hating tantrum in public. So damn fucking right I have a “valid reasons for refusing” to be more understanding and empathetic.
It’s not women’s responsibility to be considerate of misogynist assholes. And no, we’re not shooting ourselves in the foot by failing to “tackle” it from that “angle.” Now fuck off.
Err…
…what?
Is it just me, or is he defining women in their twenties as “older women” here? I realise they’re older than him, but I’m pretty sure that’s not what he means here. I get the horrible feeling I’m going to have to read that one too.
Yes, totally. Although, I nearly spit my coffee onto the monitor when I read that.
Frankly, if he were working in my building, he’d be marched right down to HR for termination and escorted from the building by the nice police officer in the lobby. We won’t tolerate our employees being sexually harassed and stalked.
Hehe, I’m an “older woman”. Hehe.
Adam James,
I have very little compassion for the entitled little shit. He started working at the shop, got infatuated with one coworker and then turned down by her in the first 3 days of work there. Then he saw this other girl, immediately asked her for her number and then presumed that by getting the number she had promised him the world. That’s sad, pathetic and childish. It would normally also make me feel compassionate, but his resulting rant is so very over the top that childishness stops being an excuse for it. He’s 20, not 2.
Wait…he did this with multiple coworkers?
*checks*
So he did. OK, he really has no room to complain about other people “jeopardizing my status at the workplace.” He seems to be doing that just fine on his own.
That 5 things list:
1) Women are cute
See, this is not how respect works. And if you want an equal relationship with a woman, you treat her as your equal – a capable adult.
What’s with the pin-ups? Does this guy realize that this is not how people work? “getting into adorable (and often sexy) little mishaps” and “To the creative ways they try to solve said mishaps”… how can anyone who knows at least one woman (he mentions his mother a lot, and presumably lives with her) consider these pin-ups as captures of real life? Wtf? Is he trying to be cute? Because all he manages is slightly creepy, condescending and disrespectful.
Adult women are no oversized children. Besides, the way he portrays women in this point, they seem like they have less intelligence than a house fly, not an average child.
..
I wanted to go through the whole list, but there is so much wrong there I got bored.
In the comments he explains that this is the second time he’s asked a woman out, and the second time he’s been rejected. The first time was in 6th grade.
Cartomancer #20
(bolding mine)
I very much agree with this! It’s pernicious and so pervasive that it’s not easy to weed it out of one’s own first impressions without at least some conscious effort. The more we see women in the media being people rather than fuckable-or-unfuckable adjuncts to ‘real people’, i.e. men, the better for all of us.
Hairhead #21 mentioned
Puts me in mind of a young man I know, having a very hard time with spectrum issues, who despite probably having more difficulty communicating with people than the brat in the OP can even imagine has never taken that kind of shitty attitude to anybody.
Adam James, #30
One of the worst things about misogyny is that it helps create this weird creature called the “lonely and awkward male”.
I’m not talking about mental health related causes here. Besides, many women have social anxiety too. The sense of entitlement to women’s bodies and attention has nothing to do with the social anxiety and everything to do with sexist culture and upbringing.
I’m not strictly against this guy. I’m against the system that created him and the system that keeps churning men like him out and dumping them into universities and then into broad society.
Saad,
What you write is also the reason that, as a lonely and awkward woman, I have very little simpathy for guys like this. We should be something like natural allies, but sexism, misogyny and gender essentialism bring a huge gap between “lonely and awkward” men and women.
Where men are to be pittied and helped, where women should have empathy and understanding for their fumbling even when that fumbling is closer to harassment… awkward women aren’t even the second thought. We are those bitches who ruin their lives. The comment section over at the linked site is calling the girl who gave her telephone number mean, a horrible person or worse all because she changed her mind. WHere are all the people full of empathy because she might eb a socially awkward girl who didn’t know how to respond to coworker’s flirting? Where is simpathy for how she could be just a lonely girl scared of interaction with guys, who got cold feet when the guy who liked her called?
From the way he writes, I find it much more likely that he came on way too strongly, so once her shift was over and she wasn’t forced to deal with him, she had no intention of communicating with him any more, let alone going on a date.
But while people go out of their way to come up with scenarios where the poor, helpless guy just got screwed by the cruel, cold life, there is no attempt to take into account how the other side really felt.
In the case PZ fishes my comment out of the black hole, I appologize in advance for the double comment (the offending word that must have got me in the filter exchanged for a synonym):
Saad,
What you write is also the reason that, as a lonely and awkward woman, I have very little simpathy for guys like this. We should be something like natural allies, but sexism, misogyny and gender essentialism bring a huge gap between “lonely and awkward” men and women.
Where men are to be pittied and helped, where women should have empathy and understanding for their fumbling even when that fumbling is closer to harassment… awkward women aren’t even the second thought. We are those female dogs who ruin their lives. The comment section over at the linked site is calling the girl who gave her telephone number mean, a horrible person or worse all because she changed her mind. WHere are all the people full of empathy because she might eb a socially awkward girl who didn’t know how to respond to coworker’s flirting? Where is simpathy for how she could be just a lonely girl scared of interaction with guys, who got cold feet when the guy who liked her called?
From the way he writes, I find it much more likely that he came on way too strongly, so once her shift was over and she wasn’t forced to deal with him, she had no intention of communicating with him any more, let alone going on a date.
But while people go out of their way to come up with scenarios where the poor, helpless guy just got screwed by the cruel, cold life, there is no attempt to take into account how the other side really felt.
@rossthompson, 54
That’s not right, he also asked out another woman at work, and at least one in college, he only said this about 6th grade:
In here, he talks about the other times:
http://www.girlsaskguys.com/dating/a30381-an-honest-look-at-what-i-ve-learned-from-rejection
Beatrice #57
Do you think the rant was just because she changed her mind, or because she allegedly “told all of my coworkers that I stole her number off of Facebook and have been stalking her, and that I am a creeper.”? That’s way more than just a “No.”, or even a “Fuck off, creep”.
Tethys #44
You can treat people with respect without knowing how to interact healthily with them, politeness is fairly simple.
Just over a week ago PZ was writing about how he asked out and married his childhood sweetheart, “a girl who totally outclassed me in all regards”. That’s a privilege akin to winning the lottery as a teenager, in my eyes.
The first woman I ever slept with had an STD at the time, and knew about it (I didn’t catch it).
The mother of our children turns out to be of the opinion that we are both equally free to do what she wants. I didn’t notice for a long time because I enjoyed being with someone who knew what they wanted and enjoyed doing most of those things. Recently, I discovered that she told one of our daughters that she shouldn’t tell boys she’s a lesbian, because then they won’t do things for her.
Both real people, both treated with respect, neither a healthy relationship. Not everybody has the same experiences.
“The five things I love most about women”
#5 “…diligently following the instructions on the back of boxed cake mixes”
My dog, this man (I use the word generously) needs some help; born in the ’90s, how the HELL did he acquire a perfectly-preserved ’50s brain? June Cleaver left the building a looooong time ago, Mr. “Nice Guy.” I can only surmise that he thinks the pinups he so obviously adores are the real reality, and all actual women are disappointing shadows of this Platonic ideal.
Got an idea for you, Mr. “Nice Guy” – why don’t you damn well make your own cakes, and from scratch, too? I was doing that by the time I was 15, it’s not that hard … will give you something to do, and maybe you’ll get some sort of sense of accomplishment out of it.
How can you steal somebody’s number off of Facebook?
As far as stalking and being a creeper go… there’s the “we chatted all evening” side and “he followed me arround until the end of my shift” side. Can we say for sure that it’s believable that his side is completely truthful? This is the same guy who asked his boss out after three days of working there, it’s not like he has a sense of boundaries.
goaded,
My comment was mostly in response to your #62, sorry for not addressing you.
goaded @62, there is basically zero chance that this guy is a reliable narrator as many in this thread have pointed out, and even if everything he said was true, his response is still awful.
Beatrice, my initial perspective was that the young women targeted for his vitriol just had good perception or was telling the truth about the writer acquiring the number under false pretenses.
The first sentence says it all: “I tried being nice.”
Why would a “genuinely,” “sincerely,” “nice to a fault” guy have to TRY?
His failure isn’t evidence that women don’t like nice guys. It’s evidence that he wasn’t fooling anyone.
Adam James:
I greatly empathize (both for personal reasons and because it’s the right thing to do) with socially inept people, female as well as male, and I’m even more sympathetic to those with mental illness–which may be present here. I suspect most of the other posters here have similar feelings. It’s the UTTER toxicity of this guy’s response to rejection, and the UTTER toxicity of his woman-demeaning presuppositions (not to mention the plausible suspicion that he’s left out relevant portions of the narrative) that explain the anger they’re expressing. Surely you can understand that?
compiled with the last part:
and
My thoughts are that him, as a 20 year old found his 17 year old coworker attractive and asked to be Facebook friends with her. She said “Yes” because, “Facebook”. The Nice Guy(TM) looked at her Facebook page and assumed that being Facebook friends with her that he could call her using the number she listed on the Facebook page. When he called her, she rebuffed him and he continued to contact her through FB(?) sending explicit messages.
She, in turn, found this creepy and that her, being 17 years old felt that his sexualized messages to a Junior/Senior high school student from a guy that has already graduated was using methods typical of a pedophile grooming a potential victim. I would not be surprised if Nice Guy (TM) believes that the age of consent should also be lowered to 16.
NOTE: I could care less if other wish to use a different term for an older man attracted to another women who is over the age of consent but still in High School. I could seriously not care less for any type of demarcations.
I know: “Don’t call me Shirley.”
Re: the phone number thing:
Sometimes girls and women will give a guy our number because not doing so would mean being impolite directly to their face, and then we hope they don’t call or we plan on “not hearing” the phone ad infinitum. Sometimes we choose to tell an interested person no over the phone rather than to their face because it’s less confrontational and we can exit the conversation when we decide, unlike when someone follows us around at work insisting we explain why we made polite small talk yesterday if we don’t want to date them. Turning someone down by phone hopefully allows them some cooling off space so they are less needy-greedy or ragey-explody when we next have to interact.
Sometimes we’ll give a guy our number because we believed him when he said he totally just wants to be friends and we have other guy friends who don’t hit on us or stalk us and since giving them our number was fine, maybe this time it will be fine, too. Alas, this time it was not fine, and now that’s apparently our fault because we should know that giving guys our number is basically a promise to fuck them.
Sometimes coworkers (see also: friends of friends, that guy who showed up uninvited to the party and didn’t get booted right away, person from study group) will get our number from the call list at work, or from a friend, or from our damned phone itself, or from social media, or from searching for us on the internet, and then claim we gave it to them because that claim fits a better “she led me on” narrative than “yeah, I am sort of stalking her, actually.”
We don’t know what happened. Maybe she really did give him her number, thinking she might be interested, and then got warned off by her boss or another girl he’d hit on. Maybe she just changed her mind after she had some space to sit with herself and realize those warning flags weren’t her being paranoid after all. Maybe she was willing to give him a chance as a friend, but not for dating. Maybe she didn’t give him her number, and he’s lying about how he got it.
100% regardless, his aggrievedly entitled behavior is completely out of proportion to her actions (which as far as he’s an unreliable narrator seem to amount to a bit of possible at-work small talk, agreeing to let him call her, then turning him down for a date) and marks him as a potentially dangerous person.
@quotetheunquote, indeed, same here. Creating your own recipe from scratch gives an even greater sense of accomplishment.
The standing joke in our house is, “It’s my kitchen and occasionally, I’ll let my wife use it”. As she doesn’t mind and loves my cooking, my wife’s fine with that arrangement, especially as she knows that I love cooking.
Although, my wife did make the horrific mistake of cooking a meatloaf that my father liked more than mom’s, thereby generating some hostility… ;)
Just this morning, I came home from work, my wife had prepared part of the breakfast, I got to traditionally poach the eggs. She’s still not managed to master that fine art.
Then, a couple of hours later, off to the specialist, to learn that her spinal stenosis is currently inoperable due to severe osteoporosis.
Her next specialist appointment is for a liver biopsy. Our previous primary care physician concealed the osteoporosis and ignored her severe gallbladder disease. Now, she has bilary cirrhosis and the need for a liver biopsy to ascertain the precise severity of the disease. Worse, since the gallbladder was removed, she’s now suffering from chromhidrosis – literally her sweat turns the sheets of the bed blue. That’s degraded blood products being perspired out and bacteria on the skin coloring those products.
Life Stinks, a Mel Brooks production. But, it beats the hell out of the alternative.
Well, off to fix the car. It overheated on the way home from the specialist in Shreveport, badly. Gotta drop the oil, which broke down badly before we could use the off ramp, change out the filter, add more coolant and hit the hay. 10:45 I have to be back to work for my “Friday”.
Boy, but I could use a good drunk, but she’s falling more often now. Catching her’s become a full time second job.
Don’t need for doctor to think that I’m beating her.*
*I haven’t hit her since we got a proper sized bed. It’s a standing joke about our sleep patterns, an elbow here, a flopped hand there. With special attention to when she had carpal tunnel surgery and the resultant cast, resulting in my acquiring two black eyes in the middle of the night. Once the initial rude surprise was recovered from, much hilarity ensued (“Why, I’d hit you back, but then you’d hit me with that thing again and *really* hurt me!”).
No, I’d never hit her, not even back.
She’s had enough pain for seven people’s lifetimes, from 16 pregnancies and only two live births through having every time she was enjoying herself freely, a family tragedy would occur. Deployments, training interrupting family celebrations, injuries in the line of duty. Although, granted, our time together hasn’t been all that long, just 35 years at the end of December. Hopefully, things will improve.
Hopefully enough that she doesn’t manage to clock me with another cast…
By all the non-existent gods that “Things I Love” article was uncomfortable. I think it’s what somebody upthread pointed out, the sheer self-centeredness of it. It reminds me of an acquaintance who once breathlessly gushed to me that women were “forces of nature” to him. He was completely shocked when I said that didn’t sound very good at all, and later out of nowhere he told me my skin looks like it bothers me. My first neg?
I fervently wish we were all taken in by some Onion-style site. The images, like the crucifixion (I mean, fucking really??? Because you didn’t get a date?), made me think it had to be a wannabe Cracked writer. But apparently not…?
Shorter Adam James: Women, stop being mean to men who hate you! Be nice and kind and compassionate and nurturing towards them! (Maybe a pity fuck?) It’s not like they occasionally go on on and kill you for existing while female or anything.
How can I make this clear: The oppressed have no obligation to pity their oppressors.
Personally I couldn’t care less about this guys hurt and pain. He’s like Dudley Dursley when he thought he’d gotten less birthday presents than the year before. But Dudley’s excuse is that he was 12 and a fictional character.
@51 Athywren said:
“They only want you when you’re seventeen
When you’re twenty-one
You’re no fun”
Ladytron, “Seventeen”
I’m pretty sure the MRA/PUA/dumpsterfire community subscribes to something like that. It’s a defense mechanism: as people age and grow into a more secure idea of their self-worth, they’re less and less likely to suffer from the insecurities these tools attempt to exploit, and so they are dismissed as “worth less”, because they are harder and harder to coerce, bully, etc.
Donny #69
This part:
was a quote from mnb0 (comment #3), which I read as if they couldn’t believe a 20 yo dating a 17 yo would be called pedophilia, you’ve proved them wrong.
You’re just making things up, here:
According to him, in the posting where he’s over the moon at the chance of a date, the phone number came first and the facebook contact second, and why would he lie about that (or do you think he was planning the whole thing)?
It’s a three year age difference, and you made up the “sexualized messages”!
Where I live, the age of consent is 14, with restrictions for under 16s and lesser ones up to 18.
There are 1/4 of the rapes per person as the USA (even though “the majority of rapes in the United States go unreported”). Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_statistics.
Beatrice #64
What bothers me is the fact that this has been painted as a massive overreaction to being rejected, which he seemed to be used to from everyone else he asked, rather than being a stupid overreaction to an unexpected and malicious lie about him.
I can’t say how reliable he is as a narrator, I can see that his point of view is suspect, and he certainly went off the deep end (and his earlier talk of “dating by force”, wtf is that about?).
Even if he was annoying, and she was angry at him (if she found out he’d already asked every other woman in the store, for example), would it have been alright for her to lie about him stealing her phone number off facebook, which he probably didn’t do?
Beatrice #65
No problem :)
Hey, I was rejected in 6th grade! I told a girl I liked her, she burst into tears, and after that she cursed me out whenever I tried to talk to her. Thinking back, she may have been the first girl I ever heard say “fuck off.” It wasn’t until 11th grade that I believed anyone existed who might want to date me.
Oddly enough, this didn’t lead me to conclude that girls are horrible monsters. I didn’t even think that girl was a horrible monster, I just figured she was having a bad day and was really incredibly not into me. So I hung out with other girls platonically, and many of them were really nice and smart and funny and talented, and things were good because it’s nice to have friends.
Being rejected is not sufficient reason to write off an entire gender as second-class humans, is all I’m saying. Even when you’re a kid.
goaded,
With the whole scread about his entitlement, he just doesn’t come off as being upset about her lying but about her turning him down. And I definitely don’t think he is a reliable narrator.
Besides .. he does come off as a bit of a creep so how much did the girl actually lie if she lied at all?
Anton Mates,
I don’t know what age kids in US 6th grade are, but up until I was about 16 my go-to answer to strange boys trying to ask me out was fuck off. I just had no idea someone could possibly be into me, and was sure they must be mocking me.
.. but I doubt that would get me any simpathy from socially awkward guys like this one.
Beatrice #79
Did anyone find the page he’s describing here:
USA 6th grade is about 12 years old (wikipedia).
@cmhlx, I dunno, I’ve saw many of The Onion style articles on Trump that had me checking if they were satire sites or not. With him, you really can’t tell. ;)
As to a woman being a force of nature, one encounter with a serious case of PMDD, where she walked through me like I was a two dollar door, just to attack her sister over some trivial comment gave me pause that remains to this day.
That much fury, delivered in such a way, with that much adrenaline pumped strength actually made me freeze.
Granted, her issue was a well recognized, if ill addressed combination of psychological issues with said sister and a significant hormonal imbalance and being close friends, the event was utterly unexpected, but the sheer force she applied just because I happened to be standing between them was beyond out of scale of someone her size.
So, for some, under certain conditions, force of nature very well may apply.
Or, from during the war, a paraphrase that is quite accurate, “Hell hath no fury like a woman whose children are endangered”. We wisely let her know of our intent, then assisted in getting her children to safety.
Beyond that, women are people. Although, women do have more to lose than most, in far too many ways, due to failings of our and other cultures.
As a father of two grown daughters, that really pisses me off.
Although, I did take our eldest on in fencing, when she came home on vacation from college, her being the captain of her college fencing team. Took her on touches all the way around. Unusual in that I had never touched a foil, epee or saber. But, I was well trained in martial arts and in the use of edged weapons.
So, another lesson was given in maintaining tip of point and center of hold of the weapon toward center mass of one’s adversary. A combination lesson on body mechanics and dynamics.
Then, we went inside to ice my blown knee – it was twice its normal size.
We still laugh over that one. :)
Dad giving yet another lesson, in spite of being injured.
This little man thinks he’s “entitled to sex”! Silly boy, nobody’s entitled to sex. Great swathes of the animal kingdom never have sex. Just be glad you’re not a real baboon.
goaded,
I can’t find another article of his.
@wzrd1
But that’s just it – some people, under certain conditions. Not every single member of a segment of humanity. There are a lot of things that are the same about people, enough that we can talk about things like Universal Human Rights, but at the same time every individual person has certain quirks and preferences and behaviors that can’t be predicted just by the fact of being human or female or straight or 20 years old or born in Oregon or… That’s what people who write articles like those in the OP refuse to understand. And when it becomes obvious that they aren’t understanding something about being human, that’s what pisses them off, the terrible blow to their intellectual ego. Well, that and not getting laid. ‘Cause right to sex or whatever, rite?
OK, I’ve seen this bullshit blockquoted enough, I’ve finally had my fill.
A privilege is something that can be administratively be revoked. A kid can have bedtime moved earlier for a simple infraction of house rules. You can have your motor vehicle operator’s license administratively revoked because you’re blind. A right cannot be revoked, save by an order of a court of law. Or a cop’s gun.
Knowing how to interact healthily with other human beings *should* be taught, isn’t often enough taught, but is still learned, as humans are by nature, social animals. Exclusion from the group is painful, inclusion is pleasurable. Pleasure is rewarded via neuromodulators and neurotransmitters.
So, you *know* when you’re being an asshole and being excluded by your peers and should adapt. When that lesson is diluted by defective parenting, it’s still given and reinforced when one joins adults in adult things, such as work.
That is, by any definition, not a damned privilege, it’s part of what it is to be human.
My mother grew up in “the projects”. It was tough, as her dad died from tuberculosis when she was quite young. She helped care for her older siblings, while mom went to work. Mom was far from well, having rheumatic heart disease for a long time.
She still knew how to interact, treat others, earn respect, work hard and earn things in life, both physical and in terms of peer respect.
We’ll suffice it to say, very few of her male peers made the grievous error of calling her “a broad”. None made the error a second time. She was… Tough.
She also regaled me of stories from her youth, mostly the more pleasant ones. She even told me, when I came home from Catholic School about how weak and useless girls are, about what later became a feature film, “A League of their Own”, the story of The All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, told quite lovingly of those strong young women’s accomplishments and more, how women helped our nation win a terrible war, while most of the able bodied men were away.
Never said, how the women were discharged from their previously appreciated workplaces and sent back into the kitchen.
Once, I watched an assistant principal make the most insane of errors imaginable, he pointed, then poked her in the chest, trying to make his point, when I was right and he was wrong (nothing could help me if I was wrong). Her, a massive 5’4″ tall, jacked a 6’5″ tall man against the wall and instructed him to never touch her in any way, especially poking her in the chest or he’d be hospitalized. Then, charged.
He wisely desisted and started to actually listen to her.
Shortly after, I was discharged from the office, with an apology.
The majority of the time, she was as sweet as pie. Giving respect due to another human first and foremost, giving disrespect when it was hard earned and even then, begrudgingly. She taught me, respect until it’s supremely disowned by the other person’s actions, then still try to give them the benefit of the doubt.
Now, if we both could learn that lesson, in vastly different home environments, that snot nosed little self-entitled turd can learn something.
For right now, he’s on his way to an EEO meeting with HR and potentially, to prison time. He’s entirely refused to learn any fucking kind of lesson.
So, I’m with PZ.
Lemme go get it from the cat box.
Here’s a cookie. If you prefer, I have some home baked ones as well, direct from me.
For, if he doesn’t learn his lesson, his path is one of several narrow ones, go to prison when he attacks a woman, be perpetually hired and fired, see path one or an enraged father kills him.
The latter, I say from a side of me some of you don’t know. I’m a retired Special Forces Medic. The first requirement for the specialty is, qualifying as an operator. *Then* you get the advanced training, fail, you go back to operator. So, quite literally, I participated and even killed people for a living. Whoever the National Command Authority said to. It was a lawful order, we signed a contract to obey lawful orders, honorable is for you civilians to figure out and tell our leadership, we followed our lawful orders. Tell us to kill an entire village, we’ll tell the NCA to go to hell, it’s an unlawful order, as it’s excessively vague and has zero target to neutralize, an individual, even if we agreed with him, yes.
From that somewhat repressed side (thanks to some hyperthyroidism, not well enough repressed these days), I will say, as a father of two grown daughters, that little shit would’ve had my knife at his throat.
One lesson we learned early on, people don’t run from firearms, most people have never been shot, but *everyone* has been cut, one way or another. Because, another lesson was, if we can’t have respect, we’ll suffer with fear.
Hearts and minds are better, but that takes a lot of time and effort.
And to be honest, it’s something I did with one of our eldest daughter’s former boyfriends. A young man showing many of the behavioral traits shown here and worse, one that had the sheer lack of judgement to both be firing a firearm in a suburban living area (between homes not his own) and far, far worse, handed me his firearm to inspect – loaded, without warning that it was loaded.
He received the full treatment that’s sub-lethal. The wrath of every angry god known to man, heaped upon him instantly upon my learning that he handed me a loaded firearm, the wrath of endangering an entire neighborhood and the wrath of various actions attempted with my daughter. It culminated with a badly damaged firearm and my knife digging into his upper thorax, aimed at his subclavian. With a low voiced, full and detailed explanation of what vivisection was, precisely how he’d be vivisected and how I would aim for 12 hours before expiration.
We’ll suffice to say, her previously suggested “seeing other people”, while mildly violently objected to before, was worshipfully accepted then.
So, there is a side of me that I utterly hate, but know all too well and have temptation to let loose on occasion.
Because, I was quite deadly serious, it’d have been covered via a national security letter. That isn’t a good way to live one’s life.
Karma, my balls, I still have to look at myself in the mirror. I have enough problems sleeping with some unintentional “collateral damage” events.
For the record, I did believe in two specific operations to remain, I retired when it started to hurt too damned much to put all of that crap on and hence, decided I was slowing down enough to endanger my teams.
Those specific operations, anti-Al Qaida and anti-boko haram, ISIL being not even on the drawing board at the time.
Although, early operations against boko haram were eased by psyops usage of my bint haram epithet against them. Transliterate that as bastards. Single word, eroding their entire “message” in their name.
But then, I’m old school in a very specific way, one’s primary weapon is that which one is born with, one’s mind. Use that first and foremost, you’ll most often never need another weapon.
Save, for the true bastards.
Just a few thoughts and the context from which they were drawn.
Soldiers don’t have their minds plucked from them. Conditioned responses are trained in basic training, for a damned good reason. The warning “Incoming!” doesn’t mean, “Uhh, incoming mail?”, “Incoming freight”, it means artillery is coming in, get down or get shredded in large chunks. “Gas” doesn’t mean, oxygen, nitrogen, helium or anything beyond, “chemical attack underway, get that carp on five minutes ago or you’re toast!”. Even marching is based upon mass movements of forces. Laughably, from the ancient era of fixed armies in masses boxed and fixed point blasting at each other, but also in efficient movement of bodies to specific places, at specific times.
Just as I wrote that, I mentally recalled moving squads, platoons and companies at a command to a specific point. Embarkation and also immunization.
Some things, I do miss dearly. The camaraderie, the companionship, hell, if anyone had a broken down car, a full team arrived to help out.
I had a rule for my men, one of you gets into trouble, *all* of you should be in the same trouble or keep him out of it.
Believe it or not, seeing a full squad in jail was a joy. I knew they’d keep each other alive.
Because, I’ve also been around the brigade commander, as he wrote that dreaded letter home. I’ve written a similar letter as their senior NCO.
Neither of us was good company during those times.
Because, we ate, drank and spent times with their families. We knew them.
Worse, we couldn’t explain precisely what happened, it was classified.
They, in a very real way, weren’t a tribe, they were family.
In that context, how’d you feel to write that non-information filled letter?
Welcome to what I retired from and sorely miss.
A seriously big family that I’d let down by slowing down from my many, many injuries.
Damn, but I miss those magnificent maniacs!
And some wonder at what I try to bury?!
Christ, I’m actually crying.
There is, in fact, a fair amount of truth in this specific sentence.
That said, as someone who can speak with a fair amount of authority on the manner in which that sentence is true:
Adam James, if you haven’t picked this up yet, you are way off base here.
@fledanow, I’m entitled to sex. Occasionally. When my wife agrees to have sex and she has an absolute right to change her mind at any time.
Something she’s done, due to her various maladies, quite a few times enough to make even her think that said maladies are extremely unkind.
My response, ranging from, I’m tired and going to sleep, feel better tomorrow to, I have a hand and can deal with what you’re worried about, come snuggle.
My wife is disabled, I’m variably (of late), enabled or disabled, can’t tell, any given day, so I take the cane with me.
Note how we dealt with a much more significant problem, yet the child behaves entitled.
There’s a very good reason that I’ve not reviewed his pages. I may very well be tempted to space-a a MAC flight to visit him in person and deliver percussive therapy.
I loathe that side of me and want it buried deeper.
@goaded, 80
http://www.girlsaskguys.com/relationships/a30903-you-live-you-learn-making-sense-out-of-an-unfortunate-aftermath
I get the feeling from what he wrote here that what he learned is that he upset some of the girls he likes with his last one.
I also get the feeling that this is deeply creepy and I’m not going to keep tracking this whole thing with this one guy who I already know too much about, but I was also creepily curious.
Beatrice #83
Found it: http://www.girlsaskguys.com/relationships/a30903-you-live-you-learn-making-sense-out-of-an-unfortunate-aftermath
Very long winded. Still very much about him. I think he’s been screwed over, but he’s still young. We can’t all pick the perfect partner first time out, and I expect the possibility of lovemaking is in the mind of everyone who asks for or accepts a romantic date (although it’s obviously not a given or a promise).
goaded
Yeah, I’m pretty sure the majority of rapes wherever you are go unreported, too. This isn’t just a US thing.
@cmhlx, something of a joke there.
Seriously, if you’ve ever cared for children, wouldn’t you be an impenetrable wall from hell between those kids and harm?
But, there is a very real fear of women protecting children, hidden throughout all cultures.
So, is that fear due to a goddess or a very real potential phenomena that, while worth exploration, very well might be a good idea to not explore under adversarial conditions? ;)
To be honest, threaten children around me, having had gone through the difficulties that we did to have just two and wanting to have a third, that’d be one hell of a battle from hell. The Avengers movie would pale in comparison.
I’d play the Phenomenal Bulk. ;)
Hulk smash?! Bah, Bulk Crush! :P:p
Athywren #88
Thanks.
jefrir #90
OK, then only 1/4. Germany, btw.
While I would agree that being able to have healthy relationships is difficult for people who have come from profoundly abusive homes, that still does not make it a privilege. As already noted, a privilege is something that you earn, and can be revoked. It is not the same thing as the male privilege that permeates our culture. This particular male is exhibiting every red flag of male entitlement, and I see no compelling reason to coddle that behavior.
Pretending that he is the injured party is a classic abuse technique known as victim playing.
The whole letter is him acting as if he is a victim of all women everywhere, because he got told off after being a real creep. 20 year olds should not be pursuing 17 year olds who are still in high school. He also needs to learn that the workplace is not a singles club for his dating convenience.
goaded
You might want to go reread it, because you have missed the part where PZ has a healthy marriage because he respects his wife as an equal and treats her accordingly. He never acted as if he was entitled to her kind attentions just because he had a crush on her. A long happy marriage didn’t happen randomly and with no work on his part, like winning a lottery.
Tethys #93, 94
Saying it doesn’t make it so. Or are you saying being born male or white or to rich parents isn’t privilege?
Firstly, the 17 year old is in college, not high school.
My 16 year old daughter spent yesterday evening in the company of several men, average age 21, and if she wanted to date one of them that would be her choice. She can also legally buy and drink beer and wine (she can’t buy spirits for another couple of years). She is sensible and doesn’t drink much, and I trust her, you know, like an equal.
Absolutely, I totally get that. The lottery part is that she was, as far as I can tell, his first date, his first kiss and his first love. It doesn’t work like that for many people.
It’s always fascinating that all those poor dudes who have difficulties in interacting appropriately with women, poor dudes, don’t blame them, be kind, it’s not their fault, are totally able to interact appropriately with men, especially men with more relative power.
Tethys #93, again
Wait! You don’t have to come from a “profoundly abusive home” to find it hard to have healthy relationships. Some people take things too literally, or take lessons from an early age to heart and are stuck wondering why real life doesn’t work the way they were told it does (have you ever seen anyone ask for a kiss in a movie?).
Didn’t you just contradict yourself in the space of two sentences?
There’s no reason to coddle that behaviour, but there is there is a good case for trying to educate him and get him to learn that with both men and women, there are kind ones, ones who only want things for themselves, ones who will try to hurt you, ones that don’t want to but will hurt you anyway, friendly ones, angry ones, indifferent ones, and sometimes all of those things at different times. And how to tell the difference.
Telling him he’s a creep for asking women out is not helpful. Telling him that it’s creepy to ask women who don’t know him out on a date and maybe he should, say, make some male friends first, worrying about the rest later. Men with friends who trust them will meet more people, some of them may even be women and some of them may even like him enough to date him or at least introduce them to their friends.
The alternative pushes people to the dark side of resentment and manipulation and MRAs, IMO.
I, Beatrice, do formaly believe* that JRICHARDS1996 is an entitled little prick who should just give trying to get women to date him a rest until he learns a bit more about how life works. But I’m not holding my breath. Dog forbid they employ another cute blond tomorrow because the day after that he’ll be over the moon again.
*just read the lastest article linked in #88 and #89.
goaded,
This kid (I’m an older woman, I’m allowed to call him that) is incredibly immature. If his posts are anything to go by, he is quicker to make grand pronouncments than to actually give some thought to what they are about.
Sure, his stance softened a bit due to favorable comments, but he understood nothing. He picked and choose those who confirmed his victimisation, but gently nudged him toward the idea that not all women might be horribly monsters. He is still convinced he did nothing wrong.
He understood nothing, but he hurried to share that with the world. *slow clap*
Why don’t you sign in over there and gently explain to him why he is wrong? Don’t let thhe dark side get him! It’s the only moral thing to do.
Giliell #96
Do you think he has many friends? I doubt it, but I could be projecting, having come out of high school with none.
Do you think it’s poor people’s fault that they’re poor? Losers, don’t even know how to make money!
Yes, he’s an entitled [expletive]. Where would you suggest he should go to try to get over it?
Wait, you can say “prick” here? Isn’t that a gendered insult?
Facebook or Google+ to sign in over there. No thanks.
goaded,
There’s a funny thing.
You know how he complains in his articles how people call him acreep and accuse him of sexism? THat was even before the latest shitshow.
Have you read all the comments he got on all his articles? Have people called him that? Have there been others who gently explained that dating coworkers is a bad idea, or that putting women on a pedestal isn’t as respectful as he thinks he is and so on… because the entitled little shit is a selective reader. He takes into account comments he likes and pretends the rest are all condemning him (him! a poor little victim!). And yet, you still go out of your way to claim his side, you believe nasty commenters are pushing him to the dark side and there is no one to show him the right path. Excuses, excuses, excuses. Internet is a thing. The guy obviously has some regular readers eh interracts with a lot. If he wants to learn, he has people to learn from.
Too bad he only takes in tiny little bits that don’t contradict his victimhood.
Oh, it’s so terrible that this guy hasn’t managed to score a girlfriend by age twenty. Why, I can remember my own desperation at that age, longing to get laid and find out what this “sex” thing was about. I think I was about twenty when I came up with what I figured would be the master plan to end all master plans: if I hadn’t managed to have sex by the time I was thirty, I was going to go on holiday somewhere I wasn’t known, and hire a sex worker to find out what the fuss was about.
Never had to carry through with it. By the time I was twenty-six, I’d managed to meet someone I liked who liked me back. We’re still together even now – next year is our twenty year anniversary, so our relationship has lasted longer than a lot of marriages.
So this young fool is suffering both from youth and foolishness. The first is curable with time. The second… well that might require him to develop the ability to take a hint when one is dropped on him from low earth orbit, or actually catch a clue or two when it’s launched at him from a trebuchet. As a starting point, he could try pulling his head out of his arse.
(At twenty, I was the female version of “incel” – or to put it in terms the MRA/PUA crowd might understand, a non-pretty female person. Possibly a female-shaped rock. I know I spent a lot of my twenties being apparently taken for granite by the men around me. What changed? I grew up, stopped comparing myself to everyone else around me, and started taking an interest in the wider universe that existed outside my own head space. I recommend it to a lot of the PUA/MRA crowd – if nothing else, it makes the singledom a lot more interesting.)
goaded, #100
It’s not about having friends. It’s about being able to interact with guys without feeling like they owe you something, like they belong to you, like you are deserving of their attention inherently. It’s basic sexism really.
You have my sympathy for feeling lonely or not having success in meeting someone or falling in love. But you cannot start blaming and throwing tantrums and writing disturbing diary entries about women for not liking you (or liking you initially and then changing their mind). You can be sad about it and you can seek a shoulder to cry on. But telling the world you have been wronged by women is wrong. You’re saying that women are intrinsically supposed to like you just because you’re a man. It shows a disturbing lack of understanding of boundaries when it comes to women. These people should try reversing the roles and see how it would feel. Nobody should have to feel guilty or be portrayed as a villain for freely making the decision of who to associate with (romantically or not).
goaded
1. You’Re totally making this up to make the guy look sympathetic.
2. You’re totally missing the point while displaying your own sense of entitlement. The point of treating people with dignity and respect (aka healthy social interactions) isn’t that you get something out of it, like friends or sex. It’s about respecting the humanity of your fellow beings. Most people I have healthy interactions with aren’t going to be my friends.
The point is that the dudes who apparently can’t figure out how to talk to a woman without being a total douche and creep usually manage not to creep out their boss, or the dude at the car repair shop. They know full well how to interact with people, but they don’t really see women as people as much as they see them as pussy dispensers.
1. Non sequitur.
Being poor isn’t the same as being a creep.
2. Not ok, seriously. The systematic exclusion of groups of people from societal wealth, the lack of opportunities often based on race and gender are completely different from some guy not getting all the pussy he thinks he’s entitled to. Hint: You die without food, shelter and medical attention. “Blue balls” are just a myth.
I don’t know if you’ve heard of it, but some 25 years ago they invented something called “the internet”. It doesn’t only have shitty places like Reddit and PUA sites but also many sites where people kindly and freely* educate privileged people about what they can do themselves for a change.
Secondly: He could get a life. He could stop seeing women as fucktoys and start seeing them as people. He could enter social groups with the explicit goal of doing something fun while not looking for sex so he could get to know women as people. I don’t know, join the local “clean the park” group or support an animal shelter.
Meg Thornton
Exactly!
Actually, I was every dude’s “best female friend”. And that was OK because being friends is something good and I’m still friends with some of those dudes. I didn’t start yelling how they “friendzoned” me or anything. Oh, and my dude and I got together because we were having fun together, being interesting people to talk to.
@Beatrice, 99
Not to self: /blockquote. Not /blokquote.
Beatrice #102
I can’t find a list of his “takes” or articles other than the ones listed in here (maybe I’m missing out by not logging in?), so I can’t find ones he wrote before his 5-things-i-love posting (which is obviously, spectacularly, sexist). And he is very anti-feminist, which is dumb. He is not a nice man.
You say I’m claiming his side, I say I am empathising with someone trying to find their way in life (without supporting every aspect of the person), and that you’re claiming the side of someone who maliciously lied about a coworker to make him look bad.
He says in his latest post that he’s learned not to date coworkers and younger girls. Everyone learns lessons like this as they mature, most people don’t broadcast every step of it to the world; if we’re lucky, others will learn from his mistakes.
In comments to the nutty one that started all this off, he had a reasonable exchange with “twigplant” (and made it pretty damn clear that his explosion was about the lies, not the rejection, as I said).
Do you think he’s a better person than he was a week ago? I think he might be.
Do you think he’s a pedophile? I don’t think so.
Do you think he should be labelled a pedophile? I really don’t think so.
Do you think he’s lying about being lied about? I don’t think so.
I don’t understand what you mean by “Internet is a thing.” If you mean its a place to find answers, what happens if you find girlsaskguys before freethoughtblogs?
goaded,
I thought freethoughtblogs would probably turn the guy to the “dark side”, so it could be considered better that he found girlsaskguys before that.
And anyway, I doubt there are no decent people over there, just trying to figure out how dating and relationships work. Decent people can figure it out together and help each other, so the claim that poor victim has no friends who can lead him the right way is faulty.
He is seeking advice on girlsaskguys and he is actually getting some decent advice amist various kinds of crap. Too bad he mostly choses crap to look up to.
I am done with this conversation.
Athywren
There’s a difference between being told you’re being creepy and being told you’re a creep (or having everyone you work with being told you’re a creep), the former is something you are doing, the latter is something you are. I honestly think he’s misguided, but trying to learn.
How do you go about that, though?
@ Giliell #105
I really do not like to oppose you because you are making good points overall and I do not wish to come off as defending this guys actions, because he certainly behaved and behaves like an entitled asshole.
But since I am a lonely person who has been sick of the fucking clueless advice “get a life” I will point out a few things.
First:
That maybe so, but loneliness kills. Literally.
Second:
I wholeheartedly agree with the second sentence (only I would replace “could” with “should”). But the rest? No.
This might be applicable in some cases (I do not know if in this one), but as a general statement this is wrong on many levels. For shy introverted people who have overall difficulty interacting with others or who are interested in things that do not in themselves encourage meeting other people en masse (like myself) this advice essentially boils down to “be (or pretend to be) someone who you are not”.
Thirdly I remember how you yourself have said on multiple occasions that you know people who are attractive and sociable yet nevertheless single and unable to find partners. So you are aware that all we can at best do in our lives is to shift the probabilities slightly towards the desired result, but in all our endeavours there is a significant “luck” component and in finding a partner perhaps more than in anything else. This means that even some people with good cards in their hand will die alone no matter what. And those who start with bad hand because of how they are from the start (back to the point 1) even more so.
Telling the unlucky ones they should have done something differently is not helping them to cope with the bad luck, but blaming them for it.
Giliell #105
OK, I get what you’re talking about, creepy with women, no problem with men they interact with.
The point I was failing to make was that there is a skill and a knack to making friends, generally, that some people find very hard.
goaded
Maybe
Why? WHY? WHY???
Why the fuck are you sure the guy isn’t a paedophile from some words he’s written on the internet? I have no idea who that guy is and whether he fancies kids / and or violates kids. Neither do you. I have no reason to think he’s a paedophile, but I’d sure as hell not drop off my kids at his place for a sleepover. Would you?
This is rape culture in action.
1. See above
2. Unreliable narrator again. Also, given that he thinks that women in their 20s are “older women”, it’s entirely reasonable to wonder what he thinks “young women” are.
See, this is the thing. Nobody has to be lying. He comes off as entitled and lacking awareness, so it’s entirely possible that he didn’t think he did anything wrong but she felt massively uncomfortable. Remember how many guys think that getting a woman black out drunk and then sticking their penis into her isn’t rape?
Charly
See, here’s the problem: This is a very personal thing. I understand that not everybody is a social butterfly. And believe me, I never won popularity contests either. But at some point your personal social difficulties are your personal thing. If being in a group of people is not for you, that’s ok, but then people also can’t be blamed for not being your friends. Because they’re individuals with their own issues and likes and their own self care.
See, this is where you’re getting me wrong. While I do believe that going out, meeting people, having hobbies significantly increases your chances of finding a partner, I also think it’s a doomed start to treat them as means to an end. My advice is explicitly not “join the local volunteer shelter to pick up a hot woman with a saviour complex”. My advice is “join the local volunteer shelter to help animals and meet new people so you can have healthy social interactions.”
As you said, I am well aware that there are tons of non-creepy decent people who also have social lives who are nevertheless single. Because life isn’t fair and nobody is entitled to sex and a loving partner. It’s not going to be raining men anytime soon. You can’t change that, I can’t change that, but what you can do is change your own behaviour and attitudes.
I’d like it very much if, for just a moment, everyone defending this guy as just lonely and awkward and such a sad little hateful sack, to imagine that the 17 year old girl he targeted is, herself, friendless, socially awkward, and lonely, that she feels responsible for curing his loneliness while at the same time she’s frightened of him and trying to stand up for herself. Everyone imagining that? Everyone fully engaging with the possibility? Great.
Now imagine that even though she’s frightened of him, most of the people around her keep telling her that he’s just socially awkward and she should be nicer to him lest he, I dunno, turn into someone who will stab her in a stairwell like that guy who got turned down for prom a couple years back. Imagine that is the reality she lives with every day. Imagine the pressure. Can you feel the frustration, the invalidation, the gas lighting? For just a few minutes, try to imagine what it would be like to be on the receiving end of a hateful diatribe like the guy in question wrote, how it would feel to risk dealing every day with someone who’s aggrieved entitlement bleeds through their interactions with you. Now imagine that when their true nature comes out, people are oh so concerned for their wellbeing, their feelings, and not yours. Imagine being erased like that. Imagine being targeted by this guy, speaking up, and having person after person make excuses for him. Oh sure, a couple people have your back, but why did you have to be so rude, gosh.
That’s what you’re doing, @goaded and @Adam James. You identify with guys who act out with misogyny when rejected? Well then by all means go to them and be the sexist creep whisperer your own self, but stop fucking expecting the rest of us to shoulder that burden, stop excusing their terrible actions and attitudes as “loneliness” while totally ignoring the effect those attitudes and actions have on girls and women who are the targets of their hatred. We get lonely too. We can be awkward too. We get rejected for dates too. We experience all those things while also being expected to personally and as a group caretake the feelings of creepy, entitled assholes who write hateful screeds (or better yet, scream them in our faces) when we don’t want to date or fuck them, while also being expected to stuff our own feelings about that down, because woman, thus invalid. So this apparently too harsh a burden that we’re placing on this poor sad little soul, that he work on himself rather than having people hold his hand and nursemaid him out of his misogyny? That’s just another layer of entitlement on display, another expectation of privilege-benefits that women and girls don’t receive.
It’s so great you have his back. Really. I wonder what that’s like. I also wonder what it would take for you not to provide him with cover.
Despite some very significant gaffes here, in person, my wife and I, together and individually have found it very easy to make friends.
We respect the person that we’re interacting with as a person and hence, due the respect due to another human being. We listen attentively, we use friendly body language and are free with an easy laugh and or smile.
Our very openness and relaxed pleasure in making a new acquaintance tends to relax even the most insecure and tense individual that we interact with. That’s true even when we’re nervous, such as meeting professionals far beyond our social status.
Being open, accepting and having a ready, easy smile disarmed most people.
My medical misadventure of being accidentally vaccinated with a phonograph needle as a child also helps to disarm. ;)
Of course, being in person is a lot easier than dealing with someone online, as in person, one can read the other person’s body language.
Thereby aiding the introduction of humor, such as my superpowers. I am barometerman, I know when barometric pressure changes instantly. I’m also ambidextrous, doing things equally badly with both hands. I also type quite well and rapidly with both hands, all ten thumbs at 70 mistakes per minute or 45 words permitted, variably misspelled.
Obviously, not all given at once, as that overdosage results in the notion of idiocy.
A case in point was just yesterday afternoon, a gentleman was by inspecting the corner fire hydrant. As I was outside finishing up a minor task, I chatted him up, agreeing wholeheartedly that fire hydrant inspection was highly important for the entire community, as it was critical for the fire department to have a reliable source of water to quickly extinguish a home that was ablaze. He was quite surprised that I knew of the components of a fire hydrant, such as the shear valve at the bottom of the hydrant, feet below the surface.
He was all smiles as he completed his task and our conversation and departed with a cheerful wave.
And yes, his job is very important, for the reasons outlined above. I had expressed relief that his job wasn’t cut back, as some communities have done, increasing the risk of unchecked fire within those communities.
I had merely approached him out of curiosity, although I suspected what he was doing.
But, that’s the way I am by nature, when meeting people in person.
Of course, my greatest delight is to meet small children. I always win any funny face making contest, as I own a naturally funnier face.
A trick that I learned during pediatric rotation was, never tower above a child, but squat or kneel to their height.
Not that towering was much of an issue, I’m only 5′ 9″ tall.
Humans are social creatures by nature, everyone wants to be liked, so if one has difficulties, just force yourself to forget to be diffident or nervous and actually show honest and open interest in what the other person is saying and telegraphing via their body language.
As for “nice guy”, he would probably best benefit from an older peer at work taking him under his wing to teach him how to behave in a more appropriate manner. Usually, that is indeed successful. But, on occasion, some will insist on remaining in their rut, digging ever deeper and making life ever harder for themselves. For, such behavior as his in a workplace will get one shown the door, once HR starts getting complaints.
Yes, over the years, I’ve done just that, taking on “problem children” Privates, who command was considering separating from the service on. Only once did I recommend separation and he shortly after removed that decision from all of us, as he popped hot on a drug test during a zero tolerance phase. Once out of nearly two dozen, I just provided a good example and gave ever increasing responsibility to them. After all, showing trust is a form of reward as well.
@Giliell
Thank you for the clarification. That this is your position was not clear to me from the post I was responding to. Because I have met a lot of people who give that very same advice as means to an end. And I have met people who desperately tried and failed to be someone they are not, because they have been told that that is the only way not to die alone. That is essentially the whole point of PUA.
I am sorry if I wronged you, maybe I am too cranky about this. Depression creeps up on me again and this topic brings up memories of things I would like to forget.
Because asking a 17 year old young woman out when you’re 20 is not that unusual. Would you be fine with it in a few months, when she’s 18 and he’s 21?
Where the fuck did I say I was sure?
So now I’m a rape apologist for a paedophile? Great.
“I have no reason to think he’s a paedophile,” but it’s fine if he gets labelled as one? Seriously?
So you don’t believe what he wrote.
That would be because he’s entitled and lacking awareness, that still doesn’t make it right to lie about how he got her number.
And they are wrong.
I’ll add, from what PZ has presented and honestly, I’ve refrained from being irritated by his page, lest I take time off from work, look him up and give him some personal coaching.
While, that would be preferred, currently, my wife is very, very ill and I’m going to be selfish enough to not try to cure the world, one person at a time right now.
Otherwise, I’d explain, in person, so that we could read each other’s body language and microexpressions, precisely what I thought of him, in a very gentlemanly way, what a waste of skin that I firmly believed that he was acting like.
It’s a talk that I’ve given quite a few times in the past as an NCO to a subordinate that was sent to me as a last ditch effort to save his career. The talk is so emotionally damaging, I’ve quite literally had some placed on quiet suicide watch, for very good reason. It was a regrettable necessity, as I’ve never found a way to destroy such destructive behavioral patterns without badly damaging the persona, then intervening. If anyone has a superior way, I’m all ears!
Hence, my lack of a desire to correct this young man at the current time. Such would take time off from my wife’s care that cannot be afforded. Time off from work, trivially afforded, I have PTO time in spades.
Now, from my read, based upon comments here and PZ’s words, I think that he’s not a pedophile, he’s still a kid in his own mind, so he’s seeking peers. Likely, he’s never been responsible for anything whatsoever in his life, likely, even today in regards to keeping his own room clean, doing dishes or likely, even taking out the trash. He’s mentally a 16 – 17 year old kid seeking his peer girlfriend, with our societal distortions distorting his version of reality.
Privilege and shelter are unkind gifts to children, it prevents them from maturing and distorts their perceptions of the world.
I won’t fault him for that, indeed, it’d be a keystone on my plan of action and mitigation of his behavioral issues. Never give fault to a patient a symptom of his or her disease, work on treating that symptom and root cause.
Indeed, in a very real way, while rejecting his feeling of entitlement, I understand its cause and feel badly to him. He expects everything his way, delivered on a silver platter, gift wrapped even.
But, in the real world, you have to work for what you get, be it a nice house, a car that works or a wife who is literally a part of you.
He was raised to expect satisfaction, pure and simple. That can only be brought under control by destroying that sense of entitlement and then showing what can be attained via hard, long work.
In that, I’d need my wife. Our marriage will be 35 years, on the tail end of December.
That marriage has survived 16 pregnancies, two live births out of those, missed anniversaries, missed birthdays, missed holidays, missed, pretty much everything once our wars came on. We only wanted one more child, if we were lucky, to challenge dad, to challenge his ability to survive the disability that testosterone provides toward survival and guide to the wisdom of his elder sisters.
Alas, that wasn’t to be.
But, we had surrogates. Screw-up soldiers, foreign nationals that remain close personal friends, local foul-ups.
We quite literally adopt entire families. We’ve done it for over two decades.
A good example goes far in rehabilitation of a screw-up.
Positive and negative deinforcement also are critical. Feedback, most critical.
The majority of the time, that is very, very, very effective. On odd occasions, once in my own personal experience, they’re refractory to intervention, although, there is entirely a possibility that I was unable to recognize and correct that single failure.
For, one thing is certain, I’m not a god and hence, I am fallible.
@goaded, 110
-> (me, 106)
Word choice makes no difference. Tone makes no difference. Reason makes no difference. Evidence makes no difference. Willingness to listen makes every difference.
For example:
See? Giliell made a comment about what you are saying, and how your stance interacts with the culture around you. You made it a statement on what you are. One that is not even in Giliell’s comment.
This is simple. What you do is you call society, and you ask it to come and stand outside your house, then you walk up and push on it. Easy.
Or, you know, by engaging in the practice of vigorous action or involvement as a means of achieving political or other goals, sometimes by demonstrations, protests, etc. AKA activism.
goaded
Language, how the fuck does it work? No, being 20 and fucking a willing 17 yo doesn’t make you a paedophile. I don’t think that in and on itself is wrong or inappropriate or has a significant difference in power. But that just means that that single action doesn’t make him a paedophile. It is absolutely irrelevant to the question whether he is or is not a paedophile. There’s a convicted paedophile living in the street I grew up in. Afterwards people knew why his daughters left as soon as they could. Daughters you say? Yeah, well respected member of the community still married to a woman his age. Marrying a woman his age and fucking her didn’t make him a paedophile, but abusing his daughters did. Therefore I’m asking you: Why do you think this guy is not paedophile?
1. You’re putting words into my mouth.
2. Nah, you’re just a run off the mill a dozen a dime dude who’ll exonerate another guy for no reason whatsoever.
You’re still not getting that language thing. I have no idea if he should be labelled a paedophile. I don’t think he should be labelled a paedophile for asking out a 17 year old. There may well be reasons he’s not telling us why that woman chse to label him such.
I don’t treat it as the Bible. Or rather I do: up to reasonable debate.
No I don’t take his word for the word of god. Even people who have no reason to present themselves favourably get things wrong.
Btw, @goaded, 117
You’re not convinced he’s a paedophile based on an accusation he claims was made against him. Why are you convinced she lied about how he got her number based on an accusation? What actual evidence do we have that she claimed he stole it? Even assuming that was said, why is it necessarily from her? Why are you skeptical of the claims laid against him, but not those laid against her?
Athywren
That’S because female dogs never tell the truth.
I’m wondering what motive the girl could have for lying about giving him her number. Possibilities:
she’s embarrassed because he’s such an idiot;
she’s scared if word gets out that other guys might think she’s easy pickings;
she wants revenge for something he said/did;
she’s playing for drama/attention.
Any others?
The last two, though not impossible, are pretty immature for a 17-year-old; the first two are (to my mind) rather sympathetic – I hope I’d have had the guts at 17 to not do the same, but I’m not sure.
Spoiled kid lying to get himself out of a hole seems likelier than any, though.
Have you ever felt forced into doing something and it later felt better to just deny the whole thing happened?
@stripeycat
Another possibility: She gave him her number because many coworkers do so they can inform people or be informed if someone is calling out sick.
Only creepy asshole didn’t want her number for that reason so we now have a state where simultaneously she gave him her number and he ‘stole’ it because he got it under false premises.
So there we go. Another motive and plausible explanation for how neither side is ‘lying’.
I for one am interested in seeing how goaded responds to the points Onamission5 brings up in #114.
Very interested.
@Crys T:
Considering goaded also ignored my #71 re: phone number thing*, I’m not holding my breath. But maybe an exercise in seeing things from the targeted person’s POV will be helpful to other people less invested in defending “nice guys.”
Also, the “what would it take” closing in my post #114 was supposed to contain this link. I wonder if that’s what it would take. Or maybe this.
*I mean, it wasn’t directly addressed to them, but I thought I made a couple decent points which countered their preferred “she’s a liar” narrative.
I am so tired of men banging on about how we should coddle and be understanding of a textbook creeper. He has an entire website devoted to whingeing hyperbole, and his aggrieved sense of entitlement. Crucified? Women are evil because Eve ate an apple and therefore god was right to make women subject to patriarchy? Did all you understanding men miss those giant waving red flags?
goaded simply refuses to acknowledge that his target has every right to call him whatever she wishes at this point, including pedophile. He wants to privilege the clearly lying male asshat, over the 17 year old girl who had to put up with his sorry ass at work, and then had him call her up and demand that she date him.
How about you spend two seconds looking at it from her perspective, rather than going into the poor me, woe is me, women won’t let me use them for sex purposes and call me names when I creep on them and write entire posts consisting of nothing but rank misogyny.
Despite the poor menz claims, it is not the women who are lacking in understanding and empathy.
Also, let me tell you a story about guys and women and phone numbers.
It happened some years ago. My phone rang and a dude, let’s call him M, asked to talk to J, a woman. Sorry I tell him, wrong number. Soon the phone rings again, M again. We compare the numbers to make sure he doesn’t have a weird typo, or the phone company didn’t mix up cables (seriously happened to my parents once. People dialled a different number from the one my parents actually have). Maybe this used to be her number, did I have that number for long? And he chatted with me, how J had given him this number in the sauna of the public swimming pool, and why did she give him a wron number, why didn’t she just say no. Yadda yadda yadda. And because I’ve been socialised to be polite and kind and nurturing and as our Original Nice Guy put it ““Even the most attractive, classiest ones still have a soft spot for crying losers such as myself, and are there to provide comfort.”, I did emotional labour and consoled him.
Afterwards I was annoyed with that woman. Instead of simply telling him off she’d made up a number which happened to be mine. Over time my stance to her softened considerably. Giving him a number, any number, was safer than telling him off. He could be persistent.
Then, two years later, something happened. My phone rang. “Hello, here’s M, can I talk to J?” “Wrong number”, I said and hung up. I was dumbfounded. It dawned on me that “J” had never existed. M simply made up that story to chat up unsuspecting women over the phone and probably had wanked during our first conversation.
The phone rang again, the same guy. I told him he was an asshole and that I’d seen through him. He acted all hurt, innocent man. I hung up.
wzrd1 #181 Thank you. Not for anything that I might feel supports me in you post, but because I recognise a much better man than me. Best wishes for your wife, and I hope she gets better soon.
Onamission5:
I didn’t reply to #71 because it contained no question, I agreed with it, and I’d been writing far too much on this thread already.
#114 “That’s what you’re doing, @goaded and @Adam James. You identify with guys who act out with misogyny when rejected?”
No, I identify with young men who screw up when asking someone out and make people uncomfortable, and I think that lying about them at work is not an appropriate reaction. If she lied and if he didn’t misrepresent the situation.
It’s blatantly obvious that he shouldn’t have written his stupid “Take”, but to me it was likely that it was more than just because of her rejection. Had I seen anyone on this thread say “she shouldn’t have lied about it, but…” it would have been over in a flash.
Athywren #119 Very good point (and I’ll be making an appointment with society first thing tomorrow).
Athywren #121, not such a good point. I don’t know it it is true that she lied, but if she did, I seem to be alone in thinking it would have been wrong. There was no claim he was a paedophile except coworkers talking about him bothering the 17 year old, which even Giliell says doesn’t make him a paedo.
Giliell #120
“Language, how the fuck does it work?”
Well, I thought “Where the fuck did I say I was sure?” was pretty clear. After that I may have been a bit pissed and rushed.
If you haven’t worked out what the reason that I supposedly don’t have for partially defending him is yet, maybe you should try reading harder.
Also, “There may well be reasons he’s not telling us why that woman chose to label him such.”? She didn’t, see above.
Giliell #122 Please.
#123, #124, #125, the description was fairly specific about it being stolen “off Facebook”. I don’t blame the girl for making a bad decision, I’m frustrated that nobody here seems to accept that it was one (and I’m not saying he was at all justified).
Tethys, want to make any comments about the stuff you made up out of whole cloth, you know the facebook harassment and stuff?
She did not call him a paedophile, some of their coworkers did.
Giliell #129 Sorry you had to go through that shitty situation.
Fuck off asshole. It’s clear that you wish to ignore blatant misogyny in favor of making up some pity party poor boy story about b**chez be lying.
If you assume a woman lies and a man doesn’t for whatever reason, you’re mansplain’. Which is what you have been doing.
There is no discussion with mansplain’ers, as they preach, they don’t listen. You pretend to listen, but you really don’t.
We’ve heard all you have to say before, and it isn’t sufficient to change our minds. Which is why you are being laughed at. Pitiful.
I think we need a different term for dudes who read an entire page of misogynistic ranting, complete with illustrations, and conclude not only that he deserves loving kindness, but that the poor girl who is having to deal with such a maladroit in her workplace is lying and a terrible person.
re 133:
umm maybe “Schrodinger’s misogynist” one who is both a misogynistic, and not, simultaneously
untilwhen their dox is opened?*seeing myself out*
@goaded You still have explained why it’s oh, so important for us to coddle de widdle manfeelz but it’s just fine & dandy to ignore the suffering these assholes inflict on the women around them.
Come on, we’re all dying to hear your explanation of why manfeelz always should trump bitchfeelz, and why we should always automatically believe dudely words, no matter how mich evidence ther is to indicate the dude in question is an unreliable narrator.
And above all, I personally want to understand why it’s the responsibility of victims to coddle their oppressors and make sure they never feel bad about their oppressive behaviour.
goaded
The whole four paragraph thing I wrote about having empathy for the girl in this situation, and that’s the part that you thought salient enough to comment on. Okay then.
goaded, what is your actual point about JRICHARDS1996?
Beatrice, Rowan: good and plausible suggestions; n.b. neither reflect badly on *her*.
Goaded: Why do you think she might have lied? The reasons I and others have come up boil down to either crazy-weird (shits and giggles), or because she felt endangered. Why doesn’t her posited dishonesty driven by fear get the same compassion from you for being a young idiot, as he gets for spewing hate?
[pedant]
Calling the guy a pedophile is wrong. The correct word is ephebophile. Somebody who likes older, preadult, adolescents, typically between 15 and 19. The word is no longer in common usage, so I excuse pedophile.
Also, while the age of consent is typically considered 18, the legal age of consent may be lower (often 17). But there is usually only a small age differential allowed or it is statutory rape, depending upon the state.
So a 20 year old trying to date a 17 year old looks very shady in most peoples eyes.
[pedant]
goaded
Oh, I think I have. I also think it’s different from the reason you think you have.
Oh, so it was the co-worker. Who cares. I’m saying you’re acting on insufficient data. Oh, yeah, you said “No, I don’t think he’s a paedophile” which is really miles away from “I’m sure he’s not a paedophile”, but let’s not dwell on it.
You only have the information he is giving you in a story where he has every incentive to make himself look good and others look bad. And even in his attempt to present himself as the perfectly nice guy he comes across as creepy and shady.
Do you think it’s reasonable to wonder what a guy who considers mid twenty women to be “older women” (directly linking them to his mum considers to be “younger women”? But you don’t do that, do you? You’re buying his whole story and go on imagining further mitigating factors like “didn’t have friends in high school”. That’s bog standard dudebro behaviour: Moving way past benefit of the doubt when it’s him but not even entertaining the idea that the woman might be telling the truth because the man said she’S lying.
+++
Nerd
Honestly, it doesn’t. It only looks shady in the eyes of most Americans.
Since my other comment got eaten: @goaded You still have not explained why it is that women are perpetually charged with coddling men and propping them up and being endlessly forgiving and compassionate, even when they may be just as damaged and hurting themselves.
If you and I are equally traumatised, why is it MY job to just take any abuse you throw my way & gently, carefully hold your hand through an explanation of why it (not YOU, though – heavens, never you) is bad? While you, apparently, not only get a free pass on abusing me, but get a Greek chorus of dudebros criticising me if they don’t find my coddling abject enough.
Seriously, goaded, I’m dying to know how you rationlise that in your own head as a reasonable world view.
Eh, I’m a Brit, and I’d say it’s fairly marginal, but definitely has the potential to be shady. Like, an individual relationship between people of those ages might be okay, but I’d definitely look askance at a 20-year-old who was consistently hitting on 17-year-olds.
Jefrir
As I said above: it’s not shady in and on itself. It might still be abusive, it might still be a creep, it might still be an obvious and problematic pattern. But just the ages of the participants isn’t anything that would raise my hackles.
Also, of course, 17 and 20 covers age differences between slightly over 1 year and almost 5 years…
Scrap that, it’s2 and4
re 143, 144:
don’t worry about the maths in that form. At those ages proportion is more significant than absolute delta. (ie 3/17 is bigger than 3/20)
I recall so many changes between 17 and 20, making it much more significant than eg 27v30.
a high school junior is much younger than a college sophomore. essentially.
more so than say college senior vs college freshman.
deltas not the best way to measure age difference.
IDK
It is odd the the US has the highest ages of consent, but Nerd is correct when he says that it is the same as the age of legal adulthood (18) in many states. It is unlikely that she is in college, as the legal requirement for starting kindergarten is that you must be 5 by June 1st. It is possible that she has been a college student for a few weeks, but the vast majority of 17 year old Americans are high school seniors.
Having said that, I don’t automatically think a romantic relationship between a 17 yo and a 20 yo is odd. I met my spouse when I was 17 and he was 20, but we were both students in college. We spent several weeks getting to know one another before he called and asked me out on a date.
Our baby misogynist met this girl at work 3 days ago. He has already demonstrated that he has no intention of noticing, much less respecting her personal boundaries. The one person who believed in her? He doesn’t even know her, WTF does he think he is the one anything in her life?
Interestingly, 31 states have the age of consent as 16, 8 states have the age of consent as 17 and 12 states have the age of consent as 18.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_of_consent_in_the_United_States#State_laws
I remembered that the state in which I grew up, Pennsylvania is one of the states where the age of consent is 16, so I looked it up. The article is fairly well cited.
@wzrd1 #87 There’s a vast gulf between what you mean by “entitled to sex” and what Silly Boy means. See also your meaning of “woman”, “human”, and “sex”. While your entitlement to sex involves the consent of and caring for and from your wife, I’m pretty sure Silly Boy’s entitlement to sex with a woman looks very much like masturbation with any other object he chooses to use. Silly Boy is a nasty piece of work in the making.
I’ve spent a couple of days on the girlsasksguys site, and discovered that (1) you don’t really need facebook or google+ to access it (I was wrong), (2) jrichards1996 doesn’t respond to anything critical, but (3) at least one person is capable of admitting that they were wrong.
Tethys # 147, she really is in college, having graduated a year early (according to jrichards1996, at least)
Crys T # 141
I don’t know how I should know your gender from your nym, and I wasn’t talking to any one sex in particular when I was asking for empathy for a young man who doesn’t understand how people work. I do understand why a 17 year old woman who has been unexpectedly approached by an older “man” and realised it was a bad idea would want to deny the whole thing. She shouldn’t have to put up with it, but I think she shouldn’t have exaggerated it (if she did), she will learn, as hopefully, will he.
I don’t feel that I have abused you, except to point out that you extrapolated a line of bad behaviour that there was no evidence for.
Now that I’ve found that he’s a Russian Orthodox Mexican who doesn’t believe in sex before marriage, and doesn’t respond to critical comments, I guess I have some work to do on his forum of choice.
@goaded
You weren’t being accused. It’s a hypothetical.
Yeah, it was obviously her all along. Really, girl, you can confess your sins, we all know it was you, we understand that, there’s no shame in it. We know you made the whole thing up.
A classic example of rape culture. The “benevolent” understanding for why women lie about claims of rape and sexual assault.
I see goaded has not walked back any of their ridiculous accusations, and has made several more unevidenced claims.
She should not have to deal with a creeper co-worker at all. There is also zero evidence that she has exaggerated the incident. I’m she sure he was 100% more creepy live and on her phone, than he is in this post. There is no evidence she has done anything other than exist and been called up and propositioned by said creeper. If I was their manager, the phone call with demands for dates would result in a one time warning to leave 17 year old girl alone except for necessary work interaction. One look at this screed and I would have him summarily dismissed as dangerously fixated, and I would file reports with various state agencies.
How many mental backflips does it take to believe such utter tripe? Every word written by jrichardsonovitch de vendejo indicates he is a white middle class catholic boy from USA suburbia with a narcissistic personality, and matching sense of entitlement.
Tethys,
I don’t see why jrichardson can’t be believed about his religion or about having Mexican family. He gave enough evidence of being an asshole, there’s no need to get too paranoid about everything else he says.
Russian orthodox Mexican? I don’t think finding that excuse preposterous on multiple levels is paranoid, especially coupled with his over the top reaction to being told no. Nothing about being Russian, Mexican, or a religious regressive makes it ok to be a misogynist,
As a side note, I hate my crappy vision, autocorrect and how it inserts words I never wrote. “I’m
shesure he was…”