How not to impress the ladies on OkCupid
So @catches_stars on Twitter is pretty hilarious. She’s also got an OkCupid account, and regularly posts snippets of her conversations with some of the more problematic dudes who contact her, some on her main Twitter account and some on @okcupid_TXT. With her permission, and because I’m too lazy to actually write a post today, I’m passing along a few of my favorites.
This overeager fellow has a rather sudden change of heart when his stated plan runs into an obstacle, that obstacle being that @catches_stars finds him completely repulsive.
This guy is either totally high or trying some weird and misguided PUA wizardry on her. (It does not succeed.)
This foot-obsessed fellow spammed her with the same message from several different accounts.
This guy, who seems to be shirtless in his profile pic, gets what I assume is, to him, a very disappointing answer.
As does this fellow.
Romance is hard.
Posted on February 28, 2013, in antifeminism, creep-shaming, creepy, homophobia, incoherent rage, men who should not ever be with women ever, misogyny, okcupid, penises, PUA, the c-word and tagged antifeminism, misogyny, okcupid, PUA. Bookmark the permalink. 777 Comments.
@Some Gal:
Thanks for the link.
Sorry, I didn’t make my argument clear enough. The “right to be shallow” alone is not the issue with the service, the right to exclude people from interacting with a large set of people based on shallowness is the problem.
The service I was on about allows a small number of people to exclude a person from the rest of the members who have not seen the person’s pictures based entirely on looks. Imagine running a nightclub, where random people already inside the nightclub determine whether those others who have not already attended the nightclub can be allowed access purely based on a quality which is non-quantifiable and arbitrary.
What I don’t get is why I seem to encounter so many personal attacks when discussing theory.
@hellkell:
That quote is unrelated to what I said about the game. It’s related to my bad IT joke.
I spent years reading materials (in an almost dedicated fashion) about the game before calling bullshit on it. I don’t think I need to do any more learning about it. I explained the theory and did not pass judgement on it despite knowing the drawbacks; because although looking at simple sociological studies lets you easily see through it, a theory is a theory.
What people have done with the theory is not relevant to the theory itself. For those who think my explanation has too much positive bias, try checking the definition of Eugenics. A theory separated from human action always appears positive.
Before anyone says I shouldn’t mention it because they’re familiar with it, consider the fact that others might not really know, even if you do.
Warning: My comment is outdated. Did not see comments since.
I’m going to stick with Kino referring to a movie theatre and continue calling the other thing “Inappropriate touching.”
Okay. How is this nightclub different from all other nightclubs? (And it’s not even pesach)
One internet plus one fluffy kitten chasing a butterfly to you for that Kino reference, Baroncognito.
Or groping, or sexual assault, because that’s how I’d read it (YMMV of course). Maybe it’s not in the legal sense, but I feel a visceral disgust at the thought of anyone other than Himself touching me like that. “This is a possible rapist” is what would be going through my mind.
So, Martyn, with your comments, out of date or not – I don’t care what you say about the “theory”. Even if you weren’t WRONG with your benign description (and why did you put it that way when you say you already know Game is bullshit?), the point is what is being done to women by PUAs. “Oh, but the theory isn’t like that!” is not something to say to someone who’s been insulted and possibly assaulted. Hello, real world calling here.
Why, hello there, mansplaination with a shitty tone, how you been?
Martyn, fuck off.
Could you be nay more clueles and privileged? See, kid, the problem with schmucks like you and theory is that while you’re busy what-iffing, people are actually living out lives affected by these “theories.” You wouldn’t know that, because you knwo jack shit about the world around you, as made abundantly clear by your comments since your arrival.
I can’t tell you to fuck off enough.
Cavemanning – those actions sound like the prelude to sexual assault. That’s all I can say.
Martyn, you know the other day when we were talking about how you come across like you think you know everything? This thread is a good example. You pop in and immediately say, with absolutely no qualifiers, how Androids are better than iPhones and how great Game is.
And then, when people disagreed with you, you doubled down on both of them. (Yes, you claimed you were joking about the phone part, but then you followed that up by saying that Androids really are way better than iPhones. Can’t have it both ways, boy.) People here can be very patient, but you have to be teachable. We can’t possibly have a conversation if your every statement is insisting how right you are!
Here’s my theory about Martyn’s tenure here: it will be nasty, brutish, and short.
Give him the Hobbes treatment, eh?
Better that than nasty, tedious and long, a la our other mansplainers.
Kitteh’s – what is the program you use instead of GIMP? (if I may ask)
The Hobbes treatment always looks like so much fun to me, though. Who wouldn’t want to be given the the Hobbes treatment?
@hellkell
If I’ve said to offend you, please state it. That seems just a little too personal.
Just because you know something, doesn’t mean everyone who ever visits this page will. You have the privilege of knowing, not everyone does. Also, if you have a problem with the text, then criticise it with authoritative sources and literary critique, not personal attacks.
I’ve done a lot of reading on PUA materials, I’m not clueless on the subject. Privileged I can’t deny, relative to the benefits of my particular genetic roll of the dice.
Maybe I’m misinterpreting your intentions with what you’re saying here, please clarify if I am:
This raises a few questions:
Should people stop criticising theories on the merits of the theories themselves because of the actions of abusive arseholes?
Should discussion of all potentially abusive theories halt because abusive people claim them as inspiration?
Why should anyone allow arseholes to have this effect?
PhotoStudio, and sometimes Paint.net for effects it doesn’t have, like screens for layers. It’s pretty basic, but much easier to self-teach than anything using Adobe-type language (I loathe Adobe stuff).
@Martyn
Everyone who signs up knows that there will be a set of selected people they will be interacting with. They WANT that if that is what they sign up for. They don’t owe their attention or membership in their group to anyone. They can refuse it for any reason, shallow or not, or no reason at all. That is part of the right to be shallow and the right to choose your friends.
It sucks to be excluded, but anyone doing the excluding has every right to do that.
We all understood how it worked and thought you were wrong. Please stop assuming we are stupid and just don’t fully understand your complaint/position. We understood. We disagree. We tried to explain how and why we disagreed and, rather than ask for clarification, you assumed we were just not understanding.
Don’t assume. Ask more questions.
Don’t ask those questions. Shit.
If you tone troll (look it up) or insist someone engage with you on your terms again, like you did with hellkell just now, I will be done trying to help you.
If I may say so myself, if that happens, you should pretty much leave. This is not a 101 site. You might do better at one of those.
Frankly, Martyn, your entire attitude offends me.
Who are you again? This is a site mocking misogyny, and you are a little misogynist.
Look, kid. You have missed my point about your cluelessness re: theories (of any kind, really) to the point where there is no hope for you, and I don’t think you really want to learn, you want to wank, because you think you’re really fucking smart.
Now you’re just JAQing off with al your questions.
Keep assuming, and keep on fucking that chicken.
1. You’re on a misogyny-mocking site. Your “research” doesn’t seem to have extended to what we do here, and the sort of PUA shit included in our mockery. See that tag cloud up there? See where it says PUA? Try reading that before you come pontificating. You’re talking to regulars on this site, people who’ve read this shit for years. Don’t come pretending you’re the teacher leaving little notes for new students.
2. This isn’t a fucking literary site. PUA isn’t some academic text. It’s an abuser’s pattern for getting sex, for ignoring and overriding the lack of consent. IT’S ABOUT RAPE. You’re talking as if its theory (which, as I said before YOU ARE WRONG ABOUT) is important, when its effect is to harm women. Strike that: its aim is to harm women.
If you didn’t grasp this in all your supposed study, then you’re even more clueless and privileged than we thought.
3. When men come telling women they know more about any given subject than we do, when they have the gall to tell us they know more about our experiences than we do, when they tell us what we should be thinking about things that hit us, not them … then it is personal.
And as hellkell said, fuck off.
This ad just says all that needs to be said about PUAs. It’s from that PUA Lingo site linked earlier in the thread:
Attraction is not a choice.
*Barf*
@Myoo
That is even more rapey than I imagined. Ick.
Martyn, I’ve been trying to explain to you why the way you talk and act is going to piss people off. Now you are seeing the results: People are pissed off.
If you have any desire to make people less pissed off at you, which I think you do, then, first, don’t tell them not to be pissed off. They have every right to be annoyed because you are being obnoxious (and besides, when does telling someone not to be annoyed ever make them less annoyed?).
Instead, please, please, just zip it and try listening. I’ve told you this before, but perhaps you’ll pay attention this time. If there’s something you don’t understand or disagree with, try asking about it, not in an obnoxious confrontational way (“if you think X is true, then what about Y?”) but in a neutral way (“why do you think X?”). And for the love of God, qualify your statements. Learn to use phrases like “I think” and “in my experience.” And then restrict yourself to talking about things that are actually in your experience!
If you don’t do this, then I guarantee, this won’t be the last time someone tells you to fuck off.
That’s horrible. Gods, I loathe these men.
Scenario: Martyn cuts someone off in traffic.
Other driver: “Fuck you!”
Martyn: “That seems a bit personal.”
Other driver: “So fucking what, you cut me off!”
Martyn: “Also, if you have a problem with my driving, then I insist you criticize it by citing the relevant sections of the vehicular code. Otherwise it’s just a personal attack.”
Other driver: “You practically crashed into me!”
Martyn: “That’s just a theory.”
Let’s talk about something happier.
How about today’s surreal and inexplicable Heathcliff cartoon, where Heathcliff is dressed in a tweed coat and smoking a pipe with birds flying out of it while a pet store owner says “Hold it right there, Professor,” all set in an underwater city?
+1 internets for cloudiah
Oooh, I’ve never seen Heathcliff cartoons!
I got from what’s-his-butt that PUA was meant to teach playful banter to people with no concept of ‘playful’ or ‘banter’ at best. And either way, it comes off as creepy, slimey, rude and a way of establishing unnecessary and unwarrented male dominance.
Playful banter is usually done between people who know and trust each other, are aware of each other’s sore spots and limits, and ends with everyone feeling mostly good about themselves, because they know the friendship is strong enough to handle a few snarky insults.
At best, PUA tries to do this on complete strangers.
And then there’s Roissy/Heartiste, who seems to think that pretending to have killed your partner’s pets is a great romantic bonding activity:
http://manboobz.com/2012/03/22/heartiste-totally-dominate-your-woman-by-farting-in-bed-and-pretending-to-kill-her-cat/
People who think the brand of stuff people own defines them lose 500 relevancy points even more immediately.
This has been posted here before, but not for a while:
@Kitteh
Where’s the proof!? Please, show the proof! I’ve read many commercially published works on the subject. Yet no-one has ever cited the physical, hardback books found in stores like Waterstones or Barnes and Noble when making the claim that it’s about rape.
If you know so much about the game and PUA then you’d know the difference between the two terms. Which you have demonstrated you do not by what you have just written.
PUA – Pick Up Artist / Pick Up Artistry
Refers to the people and practices involving “picking up women”. Obviously this isn’t an academic text, it’s not theory, it’s practical.
Game – the theory, which I explained
Now please show me an authoritative, published source that proves what I said to be untrue.
So a man can never say they know more about a subject they’ve studied intimately than a woman or it’s personal? Please re-check this, that’s a huge logical fallacy.
You are correct however, that I can never say I know more about your personal experiences than you do. But you don’t “experience” a theory. Game is a theory, PUA is practice. I spoke of the former.
So I take it you can make the claim with valid justification that the game as a theory has not affected men as well as women then?
Also, even if that is justifiable, why should it be personal?
Now I’ve just had to “mansplain” something someone clearly did not know, this confirms why it’s good for people to explain in-case people do not know something.
Kitteh, Heathcliff is usually one of those boring comic strips that’s been running way too long and doesn’t have anything funny to say anymore. But it’s funny when the comic makes no sense at all!
1. Because women are hounded out of places such as bars and clubs by creepy PUAs and their creepiness. And I’ve explained why your “theory” thing is bullshit too.
2. Most of the people who have responded to you ARE WOMEN. Most of those women have been on the receiving end of a variety of creepy fuckers. Of course it’s bloody personal.
@cloudiah
Driving is itself practical, while the highway code is a set of rules governing how people should drive.
PUAs doing awful things are doing awful things. People reading up on and interpreting the game are not doing anything other than reading up on and interpreting the game.
Why people have gotten so personal over a simple, balanced explanation of a *theory* is beyond me….
@Martyn you seem to have confused “published in hardback” with “authoritative source”.
And you have been told where you can find numerous examples of PUAs advocating rape (and in at least one case, confessing to it). That you chose not to follow up is your own problem.
Martyn: keep digging that hole.
CWS – exactly. PUAs don’t even like women. None of the crap they say is “playful banter,” it’s just abusing strangers, and it’s all this shite about having to be dominant. It’s about forcing a woman to comply, because they don’t see us as humans, just as things to be programmed, some sort of challenge for their precious egos. Was it in a recent thread or an old one I read lately, where the discussion pointed out how strongly homosocial and competitive the whole business is?
The joke is that one can have all that banter and touching and hell, tossing each other around, in a trusting relationship. Doesn’t even have to be love, just one where trust has been earned. If the dominance is there, it’s consensual and pleasurable for all the parties involved. And physical play doesn’t have to be all sexytimes! It doesn’t have to be about him showing what a manly dominant man he is! It can simply be fun!
But then, fun isn’t really on the radar for PUAs, MRAs, etc, etc.
Scenario #2: Martyn steps on a woman’s foot in an elevator.
Woman: “Ouch — get off my foot!”
Martyn: “Where’s the proof I stepped on your foot?”
Woman: “Proof?”
Martyn: “We’re in the mall. Let’s go to the Barnes & Noble and you can show me the physical, hardback books proving I stepped on your foot.”
Woman: “You’re still on my foot! Why should I have to prove it with books? Just get off!”
Martyn: “You’re talking about practice, but I’m talking about theory. Do you have any authoritative sources about the theory of me stepping on my foot? I’ve been reading up on that for a long time, and I think I know what I am talking about here.”
Woman: “What the fuck are you on about? Get off my fucking foot?”
Martyn: “Why are you making this so personal?”
Woman: “I’m calling security.”
Martyn: “You can’t experience a ‘theory’. Why are you forcing me to ‘mansplain’ this to you?”
Not the fucking “balanced” shit again.
Do you think white supremacists offer a “balanced” view? There are matters where there IS no argument to be made for the other side. This is one of them.
You are talking as if a theory for how to commit rape and get away with it should be given fair consideration.
Go away, rape apologist kid.
Disingenuous troll is disingenuous.
“Gee, I don’t know why these silly women get their tiny ladybrains all het up about a theory,” he said, totally ignoring the fact that the theory under discussion is used by assholes to perpetrate asshole behavior.
^theory of me stepping on your foot^
cloudiah, how many internets are you trying to win today? We’ll have to restock at this rate.
Here’s an achievement: Martyn is the second troll whose comments are so inane that when I try to read them my brain says “No. Too painful. Skip it.” The first was B____n, and that took at least a month. Either I’m getting crotchetier or Martyn, your commenting style is preternaturally obnoxious. Or both.
@Creative Writing Student
If you have citations, I’ll be happy to see them. Otherwise, I’ll go by what is defined at the published source.
Although no-one can really prove either way, has anyone thought creepy fuckers would be creepy with or without the game? Game isn’t the be all and end all of PUA, it’s a PUA theory. PUAs which don’t follow the Game standard exist all over the place. Ross Jeffries stands as an example. But hey, I’m just “mansplaining” this right?
Martyn, here are some examples of times, in this thread alone, when you’ve done one or more of the following extremely obnoxious behaviors:
-Framed yourself as the authority on a subject
-Acted like you’re here to teach everyone else
-Assumed that you are always right and everyone who disagrees is automatically wrong
-Blamed people for misinterpreting you
-Assumed that, if someone doesn’t agree with you, it’s because they don’t know what they’re talking about, and if they understood, they’d of course agree
-Doubled down on something people have disagreed with
-Etc, etc.
OH MY GOD JUST SHUT UP.
The fact that you don’t understand why people are upset, even after having it explained to you, is part of why they’re so upset.
Kittehs’, I actually think his response to my first scenario was (unwittingly) funnier than the scenario itself.
Fuck, of course I messed up the blockquotes. But only a little bit.
Martyn is going to have a very rough existence if he’s like this all the time.
@emilygoddess: How many times have I said PUA != Game? Game is not about rape.
@hellkell:
Gee, I wonder why Game is a term referring to a theory while the practice (PUA) is what you’re really criticising. Game in theory partially explains successes in social interaction by people who aren’t PUAs too, the practice I’m referring to is called flirting. But hey, more mansplaining right?
I’ve not ignored the fact that a theory can be abused, but it can also explain good behaviours too.
But failure to separate theory from practice has resulted in personal attacks! A good way to debate a theory, amirite?
Honestly, I have no idea how to explain things to someone who doesn’t understand the concept “If you are doing something and it has a result you don’t like, stop doing it.”
Martyn, if you are talking about something and people get mad at you and you don’t want people to be mad at you, then stop talking about it. You know, like if you eat something and it gives you a stomach ache, you stop eating it.
@hellkell
Good. Buttocks up there is making me wish I could throw the contents of my wastepaper basket at him via internet. It’s mostly empty packets of ham.
Go fuck yourself kid. Go eat shit, build up that supply. You’re telling women there is some magical theory and that’s just fine hunky dory, like this theory matters when it’s about COMMITTING RAPE. You’re splitting hairs and trying to claim game and PUA aren’t the same. You’re ignoring all the pointers given to sites YOU CAN REACH FROM HERE to show you exactly what PUAs and their game are about. You’re either incredibly stupid or a liar or both.
You’re demonstrating that you don’t actually give a damn about what happens to women; you dismiss our experiences and words and just want your ego stroked, because you are a Man who’s Read Stuff in Books!!!1!!elebenty!
It’s like he can’t fucking see people.
Hey, don’t call him that … buttocks can be cute! :P
Martyn: equal but separate is a great theory, it’s about balance!
Us: it was used to systematically disadvantage PoC.
Martyn: but that’s not the theory! Why do you make everything so personal?
===========
Next in the series: Martyn asks why women get so emotional and can’t be totes rational and logical like him.
Not enough to convince me or anyone else here, obviously. Just repeating something doesn’t make it true. And since all your conclusions follow from a premise that most of us here don’t accept, you shouldn’t be surprised when we don’t agree with those conclusions.
@Kitteh’s
For some reason, IRL, I have taken to cutesy not-proper cussin’. Possibly because I have a 6yo cousin. Or a boyfriend with nice but fairly traditional parents. Buttocks is one of them. Nuggets (short for butt- or fucknuggets) is another.
IDK, ‘buttocks’ seems to express my frustration better than a string of swearing.
I will concede that buttocks are cute, especially when wiggled. :D
I have no evidence, but I suspect books like “How to seduce a person of the gender you like” sell a lot better than books like “This method of seduction is total crap and doesn’t work!”
Book stores are after a profit.
For someone who claims he decided ages ago that game is bullshit, he’s mighty keen to defend it.
CWS – I like buttocks as a swear!
Reminds me of a line from the Goons:
“And now, a word from our sponsor.”
“DRAWERS!”
“Next week, another word!”
Ross Jeffries? This Ross Jeffries? That’s your fucking example of a good PUA?
Let’s see what Mr. Jeffries has to say:
Yeah, a real class act. Go fuck a lemon.
Even if this Jeffries creature wasn’t promoting rape, he should be sent to the corner of shame for using “disinterest” when it should be “uninterest”.
Somewhere there’s a dusty skeleton leaning by a phone.
Oh, look, that blur you just saw was the goalposts moving.
Marty, you never said shit about flirting, and even if you had, that’s not how flirting works.
Someday you will realize you are not the axis on which the world turns, maybe it’ll be today.
gelar – like this?
@Martyn
If you ever start to wonder why I decided to stop trying to help you, it was this line right here:
Fuck the fuck off.
Let’s not forget that Marty said that Eugenics as a theory is just fine and dandy. I’m just going to let that sink in for a bit.
I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that a dude who’s ignored boundaries from the get-go on this site can’t see the problem with game.
Marty is a troll and he’s boring as fuck.
So I’ve been looking at RedBubble instead and OMG WANT:
http://www.redbubble.com/people/absinthetic/works/7630510-pigs-in-space?body_color=black&p=t-shirt&print_location=front&style=mens
Only a small number of people would get it, though. They’d probably assume it’s some weird Angry Birds reference.