Category Archives: nice guys
Jezebel channels The Spearhead with an odious piece on Amber Cole
Jezebel has apparently decided to gin up some page views by running a bizarre, victim-blaming, slut-shaming, skeevily prurient screed on Amber Cole, the 14-year old African American girl who was videotaped giving oral sex to some boys; the video got posted online and, despite the fact that it was, you know, child porn, went viral. The story itself is appalling; so is the screed, written by a guy pretending (for rhetorical effect) that he’s Cole’s father. It reads like something you’d find on The Spearhead.
The piece starts off melodramatically:
I am Amber Cole’s father. I am angry, confused and completely at a loss. I love my daughter. I want to guide her without suppressing her. That is not always easy. Children need protection from their worst inclinations. That is not always easy. I am trying to convince her that the world will still love her if she keeps her clothes on.
Just to remind everyone again: the author is not actually Cole’s father. (And Amber Cole is apparently not her real name.)
The screed quickly descends into an attack on the girl’s mother that reads like something you’d read in the comments section of The Spearhead or In Mala Fide:
She would listen to her mother, if her mother was not busy. Doing something, anything that is not parenting. I want her mother to spend less time being “empowered” and more time being aware and engaged with our daughter.
And it only goes downhill from there. We get a section essentially blaming girls at large for the incident, because they allegedly ignore the “nice guys” who would never make such a tape. We get a section blaming the “mother’s boyfriend, Karrine Steffans or Kim Kardashian” for teaching the girl to be “proficient at such a difficult act. … I want to know why my 14 year-old knows so much about oral sex.”
And then we get a ridiculous race-baiting rant about white feminists and the Slutwalks:
White feminists can teach their own little girls to find empowerment through their crotches – my brown little girl cannot afford to be that carefree and cavalier with her life choices. Slutlife is the hard, lonely vocation of rich, educated, privileged white women who will fuck The World, contract social diseases and still, somehow find a husband. No black woman ever got far being a slut. I want to know what kind of women “slutwalk,” while young impressionable girls of all kinds look on with wonder and admiration.
After placing blame for the whole thing on just about every girl and woman in the world, the author comes to the father:
I am Amber Cole’s father. Don’t ask where I was that afternoon, because you already know. I was at work, just like you. I do not live with her, cannot always talk to her, cannot always be there. Not the way I want, and there are few laws to help me. To protect me and my rights.
Because that’s the real issue here: Father’s Rights.
And then the big reveal:
I am Jimi Izrael. I am not really Amber Cole’s father. But she is my daughter.
You do not think so. But she is your daughter too.
Go read the whole thing. It’s appalling. Then read Jeff Fecke’s takedown of it on Alas, a Blog.
Ironically, Jezebel ran an excellent piece on the subject about a week ago.
WTF, Jezebel? Are page views really that important?
EDITED: I reworked a bit about the (real) father that I originally formulated badly.
Lady Killers 2: Electric Boogaloo
Well, here’s a new twist on the whole “women love assholes” thing. According to the blogger known as Vox Day – a sort of right-wing/PUA hybrid – the best way for a fella to capture the attention of a comely lass is to rape and murder another comely lass. Yep. He seems to have confused “Game” — that is, pick-up artist trickery — with The Most Dangerous Game. Oh, Vox stops short of recommending that his readers actually go out and murder women, but he argues this women-love-killers argument in all seriousness:
I don’t believe I could recommend this as a strategy for most men, but it is surely educational to learn that raping and killing a woman is demonstrably more attractive to women than behaving like a gentleman. And women, before all the inevitable snowflaking commences, please note that there is absolutely nothing to argue about here. It is an established empirical fact.
His empirical “proof” of this assertion? The fact that some Japanese women have set up online fan clubs for Tatsuya Ichihashi, an accused murderer.
From this one data point, Vox seems to have made a somewhat hasty generalization based on the notion that all women are the same person – that is, if one woman thinks or does something, all women think or do that same thing.
Yes, there are women — and men — who find themselves attracted to vile human beings. Some women idolize murderers. Some men think Ann Coulter is hot. That doesn’t mean that all women idolize murderers or that all men want to get it on with Ms. Coulter. It just means that some people have really, really, really appalling taste.
But let’s just assume for a moment that Vox’s basic premise is true: all women love violent psycopaths,. If you’ want to get with the ladies, but aren’t so hard up for a date that you’re actually willing to resort to homicide, is there some other way you convey what a violent psychopath you are to the ladies of the world? Yep, says Vox:
[I]f you are being introduced to a woman you find attractive, she will be more attracted to you if you slap her in the face without warning and walk away without explanation than if you smile and tell her that you are very pleased to meet her. Now this, being a mere hypothesis, can be argued. And tested, if you’re feeling especially scientific this weekend.
I really hope none of his readers take him up on this.
Is Vox being altogether serious about this? Yes and no. About the idea that women love killers? Absolutely serious. About actually assaulting women? He’s a bit more cagey. On his blog Alpha Game, Vox elaborates:
Women find it sexier for you to rape and kill a woman than putting them on pedestals and being a nice guy. I’m not saying that you should rape and kill anyone, but I would recommend, at the very least, dropping the nice guy routine and pushing over the pedestals.
Women have plenty of positive attributes. But they’re not angels, and when it comes to what sexually attracts them, even the nice, well-bred ones are more insanely twisted, from the male perspective, than the average serial killer.
So apparently the only truly happy couples in the world are those in which both partners think like serial killers.
What a romantic!
Gödwindämmerung: Women who won’t date nerds are like Pol Pot
Note to angry dudes: Women not wanting to date you is not the equivalent of this.
There needs to be a Manboobz Addendum to Godwin’s Law to cover those who compare their lack of dating success to, you know, genocide. You may recall the charming Tumblr dude who equated dateless “nice guys” with persecuted Jews in Nazi Germany.
And now we have “white and nerdy,” the blogger behind Omega Virgin Revolt taking the datelessness=genocide thing a step or two further. As you might guess from the title of his blog, WAN doesn’t exactly have women beating a path to his door. Not even golddiggers, even though he is, he says, “a widly successful owner of my own business.” Women don’t even want to use him for his money? Why is that? Because he is not a — wait for it – “alpha” man.
Yep, it’s the same old dopey logic we’ve seen so, so many times before: Women won’t date me => therefore I’m not an alpha => therefore women won’t date anyone but alphas. WAN has added one more step to this illogical logic chaim: this makes them the equivalent of genocidal monstere:
The ideology that women act on is the ideology of Pol Pot, of the Killing Fields. Women want non-alpha men purged and intelligence is considered by women to be a lack of alphaness in a man. This is similar to the ideology that led to the killing fields. Many of the millions who were murdered by the Khmer Rouge in the Killing Fields were murdered for showing signs of intelligence. That included everything from education to the possesion of wristwatches and/or glasses. If modern geeky hobbies had existed in Cambodia in the 70s, I’m sure that would have been included along with wristwatches and glasses as evidence of intelligence, and anyone interested in geeky hobbies would have been murdered too.
He’s making a could-not-possibly-be-more-strained reference to the whole Alyssa Bereznak/Jon Finkel kerfuffle. Bereznak, as most of you probably already know, wrote a sort of snarky, sort of stupid piece for Gizmodo about her date with Finkel, a champion Magic the Gathering player, and said some mean things about him and his geeky hobby. Pol Pot engineered the deaths of roughly 2 million people, many of them urban dwellers and intellectuals forced to relocate to collective farms in the countryside. Many died of starvation; others were shot – or beaten to death, in order to save on bullets.
So, yeah, Bereznak and Pol Pot are pretty much identical.
WAN continues:
[T] ideology of what women are doing now and what Pol Pot did are very similar. The Killing Fields needed to be opposed for both moral and practical reasons and so must what women are doing now. Rebel at The Spearhead said that women are engaged in a “holy crusade” against men. … The Khmer Rouge was also on a “holy crusade”. As Rebel also said what is at stake is nothing less than civilization itself and your existence and freedom just as it was with the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.
In an earlier post pretty much making the identical, er, “argument,” WAN takes aim at comedian Julie Klausner, who recently published a memoir called I Don’t Care About Your Band: What I Learned from Indie Rockers, Trust Funders, Pornographers, Faux Sensitive Hipsters, Felons and Others. In her book, and in some interviews about the book, Klausner made some unflattering comments about “beta males” and “immature” men. This sends WAN into a rage:
Hitler, Stalin, Mao, or Pol Pot would be proud of this cunt. She all but calls for concentration camps for her “useless beta inferior men” who secretly run the world. …
Ah, classic weasel words: “All but calls for.” In other words, she doesn’t actually call for concentration camps, or even rock ‘n’ roll fantasy camps, for men in any way shape or form. Never mind. WAN continues:
Somehow these “straight angry nerds” who are “useless and inferior” took over the world when no one was looking and this cunt says “something needs to be done” about this “epidemic”.
This type of thinking is widespread among women. …
[I]t’s no surprise that a lot of men are saying they think they would be better off with the Taliban running things. While I’m not sure that isn’t just trading one set of problems for another … I understand what these men are thinking. Anything has got to be better than this.
So: Nerdy men are “oppressed” by women who won’t date them. The solution to this imaginary oppression: oppress women for real.
I couldn’t make this shit up.
If at first you don’t succeed, grope her
This might work, actually.
Say what you will about the dedicated PUAs (Pick-Up Artists) of the world: at least they sometimes actually talk to real human women. The guys in Reddit’s Seduction subreddit, I’m not so sure about.
It’s kind of sad, sometimes, to read the plaintive requests for advice on Seddit (as it’s known) from college guys who’ve fixated on some girl in some class of theirs, and want desperately to learn the secret formula to get into her pants. These aren’t guys who’ve mastered the art of “negging” women with clever little mini-insults (a favorite PUA technique); these are guys who haven’t quite grasped that you have to actually talk to a woman in order to ask her out.
Take this query, recently posted there:
My suggestion?
Write “coffee?” on your forehead, and stand in front of her. Point at your forehead if necessary.
So, yeah, I’ve been banned from Seddit.
Look, I feel for the guy. I’ve been that guy.
But just think of it from the point of view of the girl. Some guy you’ve never spoken to, some guy who doesn’t know a thing about you other than you make him feel funny in his pants, approaches you out of the blue and … slips you a note?
But really, the problem there isn’t the note. Well, part of the problem is the note, But the main problem is that college dude has never spoken to her before. As anyone who has watched Seinfeld knows well, “coffee” means “sex.” Going up to a woman you’ve never spoken to before and asking her out is a bit like saying “hi, you make me feel funny in my pants. I would like to put my penis in you. Perhaps we could chat a bit first. Though, clearly, I don’t care what’s in your actual brain, because here I am asking you out based on nothing more than the fact that you cause that aforementioned feeling in my pants.”
Pro-tip for lonely guys: remember that women are actual human beings also.
Now, this poor Sedditor got some good basic advice from the crowd there, basically boiling down to: figure out an excuse to talk to her before class, and see how it goes.
Now, Seddit may be mildly useful in giving this sort of basic advice to the truly hapless. But it doesn’t seem to be very good at getting across the notion that women are human.
Indeed, there was a strikingly similar question posted in Seddit a couple of days ago: a guy who wanted to ask out the only girl in his engineering class. His post, in stark contrast with the note guy, was bristling with PUA acronyms and lingo: the girl was an “HB8” (Hot Babe that he rated an 8 of 10 on the hotness scale); he was on the lookout for IOSs (Indications of Interest) from her, and so on and so on.
But his strategy was strikingly similar to that of the AFC (Average Frustrated Chump) with the note: he was going to walk up to her after class and ask her out for dinner. But he was planning to add one more “technique” to his approach: “kino.” In PUA-speak, kino means touch.
So, yeah, that’s what he learned from all his study of advanced PUA-oloogy: just start touching her! Women are eager to jump into bed with guys who come up to them out of the blue and start groping them. (The post itself was deleted after it got linked to in the ShitRedditSays subreddit, so no link.)
Trouble is, this guy is not the only one getting the message that Pick-up artistry is all about invading a woman’s personal space and “escalating” until she literally fights you off or given is. This is, in fact, the basic message of the PUA who calls himself Gunwich – a man who not that long ago (allegedly) shot a woman I the face after she refused his advances.
And, yes, pressuring a woman until she gives in, or up, is one way of getting in her pants. It’s also, you know, rape.
In recent days a number of Sedditers have posted advice that is little more than a how-to of date rape. A number of instances were pointed out in ShitRedditSays, and were deleted by the Seddit moderators. It’s clear this is damage control; a number of regulars on ShitRedditSays have been banned from posting in Seddit – many of whom had actually never posted there in the first place.
Here’s a discussion of one copy-and pasted date rape guide that got deleted before anyone made a screencap.
The Seddit mods say this is “fringe” stuff that doesn’t reflect how most Sedditors think. Then how is it that some of the creepiest comments get dozens of upvotes? Take this Sedditor’s advice on how to get inside a woman’s house (and then her pants) that I managed to screencap before it was deleted:
Now, there is plenty of PUA material that is not rapey. Manipulative, sure. Dopey, absolutely. But not rapey. A good Pick-Up Artist, in theory at least, should be able to tell when a woman is interested and when she isn’t, and move on when she isn’t.
But it’s clear that many Sedditors aren’t learning that whole “if she’s not interested, move on” thing. They’re learning: “if she’s not interested, pressure her and manipulate her, and wear her down. And be sure to touch her. Sorry, “kino escalate.”
They’re not learning empathy. They’re learning stupid human tricks. And, worse, they’re learning to ignore a woman’s “no,” to treat it as what PUAs call LMR – that is, Last Minute Resistance. And that’s pretty much a formula for date rape.
Man Boobz Super Fun Time Video Party 5: A Nice Guy’s plea
Tiny Bunny and Small Dog are trying a new look this week, or however long it’s been since the last one of these. It’s a crass attempt to appeal to space aliens.
This time the horrible misogynist quote comes from an anonymous confession on the web site Group Hug , a site devoted to anonymous confessions. In it, a Nice Guy argues that dating is all about “give and take.” Thanks to Denia for posting the link in the comments!
The full quote can be found below the video. (I did some teensy edits to it in the video.)
Mr. Anonymous 174618126 says:
You want a good guy to fall in love with you. Guys want some hot tail. That’s the game. You give and take, we give and take. It’s impossible for two people to even co-exist happily without this give and take process, let alone have a good relationship. So every time you tell me “Uh? I’m more than just a piece of ass, I’m—-” I don’t even hear the rest. I’m well aware you’re not just a piece of ass, you cunt. If I thought that, I wouldn’t talk to you and try to get your consent; I’d just take you. But to give the famous line “I’m more than just a piece of ass” is pretty much the same as saying you’re not interested in even entertaining the idea of us sleeping together. And that means you’re not worth my time or any man’s time.
I’m being fair. Women like you don’t want a man, you want a slave. Someone you can command to bark, sniff, and roll over. Something you can play fetch with. It would be the same thing if I came over to your house, forced you to give me head, and left. I don’t want to be a slave and you don’t want to be my bitch. So why is it so difficult to meet me half way?
I’m so sick of this shit. So very very sick. If you’re not interested in me then don’t fucking talk to me.
Mr. Anonymous 174618126, I feel safe in saying that no one who has read what you just wrote will ever want to talk to you.
Are Nice Guys sociopaths?
Cats: The world's most adorable sociopaths
A reader alerted me to this post on a very interesting blog I haven’t written about before. Regular readers of Man Boobz may find some of these, er, arguments to be a bit familiar:
Our culture is absolutely fucked up. Girls and women hold all control of sex. … [F]rom the first interest in girls, we’re expected to pursue them, and they’re expected to reject us. …
I’m a perfectly healthy man. I’m stronger than a lot of other men, more intelligent, more competent, I think I’m reasonably good looking, and I’m very well endowed. None of that matters though. Somehow, women go for men that fail on a comparison on multiple accounts. …
There are things like rejecting a woman, or pretending to be uninterested that make her even more interested. … Women subconsciously measure a man’s performance in bed by his dancing and posturing. If only they knew how fucking stupid and wrong they are.
I don’t know what happened with me. I’ve always had a strong sex drive, but I got fucked over socially. I wasn’t even “in” in the reject crowd. All girls rejected me, and most rejects rejected me. People made fun of me, laughed at me, picked on me, and all the girls that I lusted after were either repulsed by me, or didn’t know who I was. Even the girls that were “friends” with me, wouldn’t have sex with me. Meanwhile, they went around whoring themselves out to whatever man played this fucking dumb-ass social flirting game. They [crude sexual remarks redacted ---DF] like the dirty little whores they are. I’ve been available my whole life, but the only person that ever chose me as a mate were paid prostitutes, and my wife, who is emotionally and mentally fucked up beyond comprehension.
On the surface, this reads like almost every “nice guy” lament I’ve ever seen on the internet. Oh, it’s a bit more bitter than most, but this “nice guy” hits all the right notes: like the Holocuast-trivializing “nice guy” we looked at last Sunday, he complains that women get to actually choose whom to have sex with; like the “nice guy” Redditor we looked at Monday, he still holds a grudge against former crushes who chose to go out with (and have sex with) guys who weren’t him.
The difference? For one thing, this new guy is a bit more self-aware than most “nice guys,” in that he doesn’t actually describe himself as “nice.” For another, he is (or at least claims to be) a sociopath. As might have been immediately apparent had I quoted these comments, which immediately follow what I quoted from him above:
This is the reason I don’t care about people. Why the fuck should I? Everybody [wears] a mask. I want to rape and murder people, and I pretend I’m “normal.” Normal people wear a mask where they pretend they’re friendly and honest; whereas, they’re really deceptive, insecure, and emotionally hostile.
This posting comes from Sociopathworld, a fascinating blog written by a sociopath who is basically trying to explain to non-sociopaths how people like him or her think, to clear up misconceptions about them, and to help sociopaths themselves deal better with their disorder. (The author of the blog didn’t write the comments above; they were sent in by a reader.)
For those not intimately familiar with abnormal psych, “sociopathy” (often used synonymously with the term “psychopathy”) is a term commonly used to describe what is known clinically as Antisocial personality disorder (ASPD). The blogger at SociopathWorld quotes a journal article that gives this useful capsule description of psychopaths as people
characterised by an absence of empathy and poor impulse control, with a total lack of conscience. … They tend to be egocentric, callous, manipulative, deceptive, superficial, irresponsible and parasitic, even predatory.
So are “nice guys” a bunch of sociopaths? Well, no. They may be egocentric – like the “nice guy” on Tumblr who compared his lack of dates to the Holocaust. They may lack empathy – like the “nice guy” Redditor who couldn’t feel sympathy for a female “friend” who had been raped. They may be manipulative – hoping that by being excessively “nice” and doing favors for women they will earn themselves some sex.
But they lack, among other things, the impulsiveness and routine deceitfulness that tend to characterize real sociopaths. Sociopaths can be deceptively charming, but very few people would ever describe them as nice. (Indeed, if anything, it’s pickup artists that act the most like real sociopaths; indeed, I’ve heard “game” described before, I think accurately, as an attempt to get guys to think and act more like charming, conscienceless sociopaths.)
So why do “nice guy” laments make them sound so much like sociopaths? I think their egocentricity and their almost total lack of empathy are key. “Nice guys” get crushes on a lot of girls and women, but these crushes often seem to have nothing to do with the objects of these intense feelings: the “nice guys” have whipped up a romantic and sexual drama in their own head, and simply projected it onto some convenient romantic object . The “nice guy” Redditor was once obsessed with his female “friend” – but when she was raped he did not react as a true friend would, with sympathy and sadness. He responded with a callous “she had it coming.”
Combine this lack of empathy with a sense of wounded entitlement – I DESERVE a cute girlfriend! – and you have a recipe for a pretty noxious stew.
“Nice guys” may not literally be sociopaths. But sometimes they think and act in some pretty sociopathic ways.
Nice Guy Redux: If you’d gone out with me, you wouldn’t have gotten raped.
The contest for the Most Ironic Use of the Term “Nice Guy,” When Applied to Yourself –otherwise known as the MIUTNGWAY Award – is heating up. The previous front runner – the Tumblr guy who compared his inability to get laid to the Holocaust – now faces a serious challenge from a Redditor calling himself DogmaDog.
The other day Mr. Dog wandered into a discussion of the SlutWalks in the Feminisms and offered his two cents: he declared them “stupid,” and suggested that they won’t really help victims.
And then he started in on his own tale of woe.
I know I’m going to be shit on for saying what I’m about to say, but please hear me out.
Not a promising start, Dog.
I’ve never raped a woman, and I’m the ‘nice guy’ who never took advantage of a woman.
Do you want an award for this?
But a girl I was infatuated with in high school blew me off and treated me disrespectfully. She ended up being raped one night, while intoxicated. I do not know how I am supposed to feel about it.
As Don Draper would say, “what?”
How do you think you’re “supposed” to feel? Did you accidentally dislodge the part of your brain responsible for basic human empathy?
Apparently, the answer to that is “yes.”
[H]ow do you suppose I am supposed to feel about this woman I knew who got raped? I mean, I’ve never taken advantage of a woman, but I don’t understand how my ‘friend’, this girl I went to high school with, could go out and party all the time, and in turn treat me, her classmate, as though I were an inferior person for not enjoying the atmosphere of drunkenness at high school parties.
As it turns out, you’re an inferior person for an entirely different reason.
That girl was a mean girl, no? And by being disrespectful toward men, and prejudiced toward men, wasn’t she asking men to behave badly toward her? The only men she gave attention and physical affection to were the ones who hurt her back.
So let me see if I get this: she didn’t go out with you, a “nice guy,” so she was therefore “asking” to be raped?
Naturally, this being the Feminisms subreddit, and not The Spearhead, some of the regular commenters took exception to Mr. Dog’s victim-blaming and his complete lack of empathy for the victim – especially strange, since Dog, who says he is suffering from an (unspecified) mental illness, considers himself “a victim, in my own way,” of prejudice towards those with mental health issues. This experience, alas, has not given him any sympathy towards other vicitms.
Indeed, it seems that DogmaDog didn’t misplace his sense of empathy after all; rather, he threw it out of the house and got a restraining order against it. Responding to someone who suggested he show a little empathy, Dog lashed out:
Your empathy can go suck a dick. Empathy does nothing to help my situation. I suppose that is just the excuse people give themselves so that they can feel like they are actually doing something.
You basically called me an inferior human being because I can’t or won’t empathize for my friend who was raped. Well, ask yourself this, smart-ass, have you ever really wondered what good your empathy does? It does nothing. …
In reality, you are doing nothing but attacking me, and I may or may not have a ‘complex’, even though I don’t know what that is, but I can guarantee you, I HAVE NEVER RAPED ANYONE!!!
The sound you hear is me banging my head, ever so softly, on my desk. Empathy is what connects human beings to one another, what allows them to understand one another on a deep level.
When people are suffering – as you are, Dog, in dealing with your mental illness – a little bit of empathy from someone else can make all the difference in the world.
If you can’t feel even a little bit of sympathy for this woman you were once “infatuated” with, you’re not a nice guy at all; you’re an even bigger asshole than those drunken high school partiers you disdain. You may never have raped anyone — as you’ve repeatedly insisted, as if this should win you a prize – but “in your own way” you’re thinking like an abuser. Your lack of empathy for the victim, your continued bitterness towards her for turning you down, your sense of wounded narcissism; none of this is healthy, for you or for anyone who comes into contact with you.
You need help, dude. Please, please get it.
A Nice Guy’s lament: “First, they came for the rapists … .”
You’ve all seen the famous quote attributed to German religious leader Martin Niemöller:
First they came for the communists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.
Now one embittered “Nice Guy” on Tumblr who goes by the name joetomcollins has written his own version, with feminists as the Nazis, rapists as the communists, and, well, just read it yourself:
When the Feminists came for the Rapists,
I remained silent;
I was not a Rapist.
When they locked up the stalkers,
I remained silent;
I was not a stalker.
When they came for the Players,
I did not speak out;
I was not a Player.
When they came for the men who they got bored of,
I remained silent;
I wasn’t some one they were bored of yet.
When they came for me, the nice guy,
there was no one left to speak out.
So, yeah. Let’s think this through a little bit. When Niemöller made his now famous remarks, he was expressing his own sorrow for not standing up to Hitler when he started arresting Communists. So is joetomcollins suggesting that he – and we – should have stopped “the feminists” from going after rapists and stalkers?
Joetomcollins doesn’t say, but he does have a lot more to say on the evilness of feminists and stuck-up women in general:
[I]f I’m going to be the bad guy no matter what I do… might as well get it the fuck out the way right up front.
I might as well ENJOY being the villain.
The FemeNazi messsage is LOUD AND CLEAR!
I am an average normal guy. I am never going to be good enough.
Especially in NYC where you only personalities you get are native “rats” who have learned to survive to being ruthless, and Type “A” psychopaths who come here to conquer everything.
Dude, if you don’t like the people in New York, then maybe, just maybe, you should move out of New York. It’s a high-pressure place and, well, you don’t seem to respond well to pressure, let’s put it that way.
He continues on with a refrain that I suspect will sound awfully familiar to a lot of you:
Man hasn’t had the ability to choose his woman for at least the last 150 years. The woman chooses the man. ALWAYS.
Now even showing interest is offensive to the FemeNAZI.
We aren’t talking about DOING anything but telling someone you think they are attractive. If a guy YOU liked rejected you, he would be Satan incarnate, but when a woman rejects a guy…
“HE SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER!!!”
“HOW DARE HE THINK HE WAS GOOD ENOUGH FOR ME!!!!!”
… and we’re supposed to nod sheepishly and apologize for bothering you as we leave with a smile.
When I read shit like this I have to wonder: who exactly are you approaching, and what exactly are you saying to them? I’ve made some awkward passes in my day, but I’ve never gotten this response from anyone.
Could it be that you’re a dick? Your post seems to suggest that you are — an angry, self-obsessed dick almost completely lacking in self-awareness and empathy.
I mean, seriously, comparing your inability to get laid to the fucking Holocaust? Your bad luck with women to the murder of millions? Douche move, my man.
If you embrace your dickhood, as you seem to want to do, and become much more straightforward about your sexual desires, instead of trying to hide behind a nice-guy facade, you might actually get laid more often than you’re getting now. But you’re not likely to get a lot of repeat customers. And for good reason: no woman wants (or deserves) to be saddled with all your bullshit.
So let’s assume, for the purpose of argument, that you’re not a full-blown dick; you’re just a horny young guy on a sexual losing streak lashing out at women for your own failures. Let’s assume you are willing to work on actually reducing your dickishness. (Readers: All I ask is a little temporary suspension of disbelief.)
Reading your account of your romantic failures, and bearing in mind that most straight men don’t get this sort of response from the women they approach, there are several possibilities:
- either you are exaggerating the alleged awfulness of the rejections you’ve gotten, or
- there is something desperately wrong with your approach — perhaps you’re cornering women in elevators at 4 AM, or otherwise transgressing their boundaries in inappropriate ways — or
- the women you are approaching are, you know, bitches.
You really only have two choices here: you can spend the rest of your life wallowing in bitterness at women, or you can reconsider your approach. Find some woman you are friendly with – one you are not obsessed with fucking – and explain to her what’s going on, and ask her where you think you’re going wrong. If it’s your approach, learn to better respect people’s boundaries and read their body language; some women don’t want to be bugged by anyone when they are, you know, on the way to work. If it’s your selection of women, select different women.
And stop posting tirades on the internet about how women are a bunch of evil Nazis out to oppress you and your poor lonely penis. You know how, when you jump into cold water, your genitals shrink in horror from the cold? Something similar happens to the vaginas of most women when they read shit like you just wrote.
Garfield’s John Arbuckle becomes an MRA, or a PUA, or possibly an MGTOWer
You need a cat to keep you company, dude.
Actually, I’m pretty sure he’s been Going His Own Way pretty much since the strip started.
This is borrowed from the fabulous Garfield Minus Garfield. Thanks to speedlines on the Man Boobz Forum for finding this.
Is she really going out with him?
Some guys get all the chicks!
This is a bit of a rant inspired by some of the discussions of my recent post on Susan Walsh.
In my defense, I’ve enlivened it with a couple of videos.
Let’s say you’re a young, horny, lonely heterosexual guy. You’re walking to the store to buy some, I dunno, pretzels, and you see the woman of your dreams walking arm in arm with some hideous toad of a man. You say to yourself: how is it that a nice guy like me can’t find any girl who will return my phone calls, while ugly boy here seems to have won the girlfriend jackpot? If you’re Joe Jackson, you write a song about it:
Pretty women out walking with gorillas down my street
From my window I’m staring while my coffee grows cold
Look over there! (Where?)
There’s a lady that I used to know
She’s married now or engaged or something so I’m told
Is she really going out with him?
Is she really gonna take him home tonight?
Is she really going out with him?
‘Cause if my eyes don’t deceive me,
There’s something going wrong around here
A lot about the world seems desperately wrong when you’re young, horny and alone. But maybe in this case there is something that you’re missing. Maybe the ugly dude is charming as fuck. Maybe he’s a brilliant thinker. Maybe he’s awesome in bed. Maybe she’s shallow and materialistic, and she likes him just because he’s rich. Or maybe there’s nothing redeeming about the guy – intellectually, sexually or financially — and the woman in question simply has horrendous taste in men. It could be any of these things.
But here’s the thing: no matter how wounded you feel, whom this woman goes out with is really none of your business. She doesn’t have to have a good reason to be going out with him. It’s not your call. The world doesn’t owe you a hot girlfriend, and this particular woman has the inalienable right to go out with whoever she chooses, even if you personally feel ill at the thought of them doing it. Women you find attractive aren’t obliged to date men you think are appropriate for them.
A lot of guys in the manosphere seem to have hung on to this young-man’s anger and sexual jealousy. But instead of somehow turning their resentment into a catchy song, and then moving away from the rock world to a more jazz-inflected sound, these men cultivate their resentments. And talk about them endlessly.
Soon they’ve developed the uncanny ability to demonize any woman who makes any romantic choice – other than picking them. If a “hot” women is dating an ugly dude, well,
He must be rich! All women are filthy golddigging whores! She’d never give a decent, hardworking beta like me a second look!
If the same woman is dating a conventionally handsome man, the reaction can be just as strong:
She’s a shallow bitch! They always go for the alphas! She’d never give a decent, hardworking beta like me a second look!
Weirdly, a lot of manosphere dudes also get angry about the sexual and romantic choices of women they aren’t interested in at all. If a woman they don’t think is all that hot is with a conventionally handsome man, it’s still the woman to blame:
Ha! She’s punching above her weight class, looks-wise. I guess any bitch can get laid, while a hard-working beta like me doesn’t even rate a second look. But eventually he’ll dump her and I will laugh and laugh. Live it up now, bitch, because you’re going to end up alone with a bunch of cats!
This is the thing that’s weirdest to me. Getting worked up about a woman you like who’s dating a loser? I can understand that. I did that, a lot, in my twenties. But quite a few manosphere dudes – and women like Susan Walsh who are manosphere-adjacent – seem somehow deeply affronted by the notion that any women could hook up with a man either lower or higher on that universal 10-point hotness scale so beloved by PUAs and other manosphere dudes.
Walsh speaks of “equilibrium” in the “sexual marketplace” (or SMP as she and her fans like to abbreviate it), and seems to consider any deviation from it to be a moral failing – of the women involved. (The slut-shaming is strong with this one.) Her idea of “equilibrium,” as I mentioned in my last post on her, is one in which fives date fives, tens date tens, and female sixes and sevens know better than to try to get the attention of male eights and nines by wearing low-cut dresses and “slutting it up.”
But here’s the thing. If you’re going to try to mix economic terminology into your dating advice, it helps to actually know what the terms mean. Market equilibrium, as Wikipedia handily summarizes it,
refers to a condition where a market price is established through competition such that the amount of goods or services sought by buyers is equal to the amount of goods or services produced by sellers. This price is often called the equilibrium price or market clearing price and will tend not to change unless demand or supply change.
Guess what? Insofar as the dating world is a marketplace, it’s already at equilibrium. Potential daters size up their prospects, and make a guess as to who is and who isn’t “in their league.” Those who are aiming too high (setting their price too high) and not hooking up with anyone (selling themselves) may end up lowering their standards (lowering their price) to make a sale (get laid). Some products (people) appeal to a wide demographic; others to a nice market. Some have better marketing then others. Some products look good at first glance, but turn out to need a lot of repairs. All this is mighty familiar to students of economics. This is how markets work.
Of course, the dating world is even more complicated and messy than economic marketplaces. But in a lot of ways it really does act like one.
The interesting thing here is that Walsh and her followers aren’t thinking like capitalists at all. Essentially, they’ve decided that they know better than the SMP they so love to talk about, that their imaginary 10-point scale should predict who chooses whom better than those who are actually doing the choosing. That’s not capitalism; that’s a Soviet style command economy. It’s not the way marketplaces work, and it’s not the way the dating world works.
Guys: if no one is buying what you’re selling, you could try to change what you’re selling so that it appeals to buyers more. Or if you are confident in your product you can simply wait until a more discerning buyer shows up.
Or you could sit by yourself stewing in your own bitterness and blaming everything on the bitches. Much like the jealous narrator of David Bowie’s classic Queen Bitch, only much less sexually ambiguous. And, frankly, much less appealing. In this song, Bowie manages to make sexual resentment somehow glamorous.
I would like to apologize for talking about this song and bitter manosphere dudes in the same sentence. But I’m still posting the video. This is Bowie, in 1972, performing it live, and fucking killing it:
