In light of some recent discussions here, I thought this cartoon seemed relevant. I got it from my new favorite Tumblr blog, Comically Vintage. It’s astounding how many of the comic panels posted there — especially those from melodramatic 60s-70s romance comics — apply to the arguments in and around the manosphere today. Perhaps because the world in which these guys live is as imaginary and out-of-date as the fantasy world of 40 or 50 year-old Romance comics.
And while we’re on the subject, here’s a bonus cartoon. Here, crawling from the primordial soup, is the world’s first PUA! (Granted, he hasn’t quite worked out all of the tenets of modern Game, but, hey, he’s still a lizard. Just as human evolution took millions of years, evolving something as complex as modern PUA theory takes time.)
Indeed, some of my most profound conversations occured at 4 in the morning with friends. At least, they seemed profound at the time… hmm….
A request to David: this place needs a real-time chatroom or a forum.
Or I guess I could start an IRC channel…
No Holly! Must… Continuously.. Create… 600-post-long threads! Each less than two sentences long!
It’s sort of a de facto forum, huh?
Hobbies? Used to play RPG, used to juggle. Read (SF, history), write (alt-hist), walk my dogs, go out with my wife.
And Holly, how am I supposed to mock MRAL when you’re busy trying to reform him? How about showing a guy some consideration, huh?
Holly, hmm. I think you may be right. Or maybe open threads.
I think I might just have to open a thread for suggestions.
I had far more hobbies and out of class socializing when I was an undergrad. The big lectures for 1Ls overstimulate me and most days I could not bear much in person socialization outside of them. Hopefully, next semester’s smaller classes will let me have enough energy left over to join some of the undergrad groups (as all law school socialization tends to revolve around booze and I do not drink, nerdy undergrad clubs are the way to go). So, my hobbies at the moment are the kind of things one can generally do alone-video games, movies, anime, drawing, reading, etc. Maybe I should take up programming, but my computer skills are a bit behind (I did not have regular computer or internet access until five years ago when I was seventeen). Still, I kick butt at formal logic, so I might be able to catch up if I get interested enough to put in the effort (I have trouble with being extremely lazy in regards to things I am not immediately interested in).
Sorry, my internet is really spotty.
Yes, there are breed standards for hamsters just like for cats and dogs, and you can get show-quality hamsters from a breeder (for like $10, because it’s still a hamster). The [[http://chahamsters.org/ California Hamster Association]] holds shows around here.
Mostly they’re just judged by the breed standards, but there is a hamster ball race (with separate categories for Syrians and dwarves, naturally).
(with separate categories for Syrians and dwarves, naturally)
This goes without saying.
Everything about that website is incredibly adorable.
…and now my guinea pigs are looking at me with what I hallucinate to be envy for betraying their species. Aw sweeties, you’ll always be my favorite rodents.
(They are red and white Dutch-patterned Teddy pigs, and while nowhere near show quality–the standards for a correct Dutch pattern are quite harsh–they’re my sweeties and that’s enough.)
Yaknow, some years ago I moved to my current city for work. I knew noone here, and it turned out my colleagues were antisocial and uninterested in befriending the new girl. Because not many people move here from outside, this city is very insular and unwelcoming to strangers. Most people’s social lives revolve around their old school friends.
Add to this that I’m by nature socially awkward and highly uncomfortable simply intruding on a group of strangers, and I had a very rough time of it.
What I did was, go all-out to find ways to meet people. When I managed to get in a conversation, I asked them about what they did, and then sometimes asked them how I could try that. I did a whole bunch of stuff I’d never done before – joined a hiking group, volunteered at the animal shelter, found a folk centre and started playing folk music. And I made friends, as well as gaining some really useful social skills and confidence in meeting strangers, and finding some fantastic new hobbies.
The thing is, I did not wait for people to come to me, and I certainly didn’t approach them thinking that they owed me anything, or that I was warranted in feeling angry if they didn’t respond. I had to make a lot of attempts to find the few things and people that did work out. I had to go way outside my comfort zone. Many times.
MRAL – Go into situations without thinking that people are obliged to interact with you, and without ruminating about how they’re probably just going to be rude, the bitches, like always. No matter what you say, and how you think you’re behaving, that attitude will come across in your body language, and you’ll seem angry and hostile. Also, try to think about what you can offer to them, as well as the other way around.
Piggies are indeed adorable! Have you got any pictures?
Not on hand, but this is my old, sadly departed guinea pig Sally: http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/6128/img0714.jpg
and
http://img205.imageshack.us/img205/6536/img0724.jpg
The conundrum of choosing to DM or just play is an interesting one
For me, it depends on the game. I can play in almost any system, but I have to really feel the setting to be able to GM it properly. One of my favorite games to GM is Houses of the Blooded, a John Wick game, because the players have almost as much narrative control as the ST. I also really like the new Hunter game by White Wolf. And I’d probably get into Mage, but no one around me will run Mage: Revised :(. I’m actually co-running a Babylon 5 LARP in a week or so.
My other hobbies, aside from general nerdery, are sewing and cooking. No, really.
Didn’t Hugo Schwyzer recently get threats from a BU user?
MRAL, I know where you’re coming from. Where I live I’ve always been a foreigner with a strange name and a kooky personality. I’ve met tons of people, myn and wymyn, who have made fun of me for who I am or who have just been plain rude to me. I know exactly how painful it is, and there have been times that I’ve been very bitter about it, too.
But you know what? The only thing that these people are really telling you is that they have a horrible personality and that you should steer clear from them. If they ignore you, feel free to ignore them too. Whatever it is you have that makes these people be rude to you is not a curse, it’s a gift: a way to separate nice people from horrible ones very fast. That way you won’t waste time befriending people who end up being incredibly shallow and boring.
Why should you care what they think about you? They don’t know you, so they have no idea what they’re talking about, and you don’t like them anyway, so the contempt is mutual. If you just go about your life without paying any attention to them, you will take away any power they have over you. Instead of being the “omega” to their “alpha” in terms of looks, make them the “omega” to your “alpha” in terms of having respect for yourself and knowing what’s important in life, which you will have plenty of time for once you stop obsessing over them. You want to know secret? They don’t have time to find what is actually important to them because they’re too busy obsessing over themselves, their status among their friends and if these designer jeans make them look fat. How pathetic is that?
I agree with what everyone is saying here: join clubs. If the people in the club are cliquish, or if the atmosphere in the club doesn’t suit you for a reason, leave and join another one. If the atmosphere in the club is fun and people include you in the group, stay. Pay attention to people for reasons other than their looks (their hobbies, the movies, music or games they like,… things you might have in common with them). You’ll end up with a range of interesting, fun friends of all body type and attractiveness. And yes, even girls who you find attractive and who will find you attractive, too.
In short: let go of the bitterness, it’s cramping your style 🙂
Oops. Sorry about the html fail. [Fixed! –DF]
Answering myself: http://hugoschwyzer.net/2011/04/06/mra-i-p-addresses/
Wow, the ‘ugly’ guy has all the earmarks, pun intended, of the stereotypical Irish. Subtle, guys, subtle.
David, a report on trends in marriage and divorce in the US — I was especially interested by the correlation between education and divorce! (This link goes to blog talking about the report, but that blog entry has link to full report).
Nice graphics too!
http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2011/05/29/u-s-trends-in-marriage-divorce-and-cohabitation/
The first scenario (not saying anything) is spitting behavior.
I never knew, I’ve been spit on thousands of times by men and women of all ages, children too. Yesterday this elderly lady spit on me.
Women get that for some men hello = how bout some dick?
Major trigger warning here:
This is the worst t-shirt I have ever seen. I saw this this morning and can’t get over it. It just boggles my mind.
Who the flying fuck would wear this?
MRAL: It’s only a problem when a woman is not alpha-level herself but refuses to even talk to betas or omegas, considers herself better than them, and is in general a bitch.
What tripe. This is utter nonsense (delusional in fact). It’s completely subjective, and has some narcissistic aspects, when combined with your idea that for someone to not respond to your overtures with the reactions you want (i.e.the woman in the elevator who didn’t say hello in the right way) is, “spitting” on you, and knowing that you are the one deciding who it is who isn’t “alpha enough” to not be obliged to talk to you… that’s a delusion; a belief contrary to actual fact.
No one is required to speak to anyone. Ever.
Add the repeated themes of violence to women who don’t give you the “respect” you think you deserve (and why do you deserve it? if you are so omega? I mean you keep saying how hideous your eye is, and how pathetically short you are; when we add how brutish your thoughts are… I can see that you might be right in thinking you are “omega” and a woman who deigned to have any sort of interaction with you might be making a serious mistake.
Not because of your looks, but because you are a violent person. You harbor some very angry attitudes, and seem to have some disturbingly violent ideations as a result of the skewed views you have on 1: your status in the world,and 2: how other people think/act.
Re the whole issue of “urban interaction”: I’ve spent time in a lot of urban areas (San Jose, San Diego, Chicago, Boston, NYC, Jersey City, DC) I’ve lived in big towns, small towns, and cities (I’ve lived in little spots where it was three miles to the nearest other building, and in areas with millions of people). I have to say, 1: I’ve never found anyplace to be all that “rude”, in baseline behavior.
I suspect that’s just me. Even in cities in foreign countries (Quito, Kiev, Nürnbeg, Ottawa, Inverness), I’ve never had trouble with the locals. The only one which seemed at all, “cold” was London, but I wasn’t feeling my best).
But they do have different cultures. Being in Maine, (near Naples) the people were (to me) less outgoing than they were in Boston or New York. What I do notice is the “friction interactions” (where one is just passing people in the street) are different. That tends to be a function of street density, and weather. New York in the summer is lots of people just swirling past, and a lot of people who will, at the least sign of interaction, talk to you. Share an observation about something going on across the street, etc.
The clerks in stores are a lot less friendly than they are in LA, or SF, or Laramie, or Kearney, but the people in passing seem to be friendlier; if they think there is some reason to strike up a passing conversation.
Spearhafoc – Well, there’s only one answer to that:
http://www.dailytees.com/the-police-never-think-it-s-as-funny-as-you-do-shirt.html