A lot of guys who try online dating (of the heterosexual kind) complain that they send out message after message to the ladies and get no responses. Now, I’m no dating expert, but I would like to offer these gentlemen a piece of advice that I feel could dramatically improve their chances. Here it is:
If the message you are sending the lass you fancy would get upvotes on The Spearhead, do not send it.
This seems like a fairly self-evident point, but it’s one that a lot of guys don’t seem to understand, at least judging from some of the awful online come-ons posted at the always fabulous A(n)nals of Online Dating. Take this fella:
[M]en have an obligation to rescue kittens from burning buildings, pay for your drinks, hold the door open for you, keep their hair neat, go to war and many other things. I’m just saying… Society worldwide really does put more obligations on men than women all around. There are few things women have to do… Shaving your legs is one of them.
I’m not sure how exactly this topic came up in conversation, but I’m pretty sure that Mr. Mammoth-Hunting Kitten-Rescuing Door-Holder-Opener and Lady Who Doesn’t Shave Her Legs are probably not a match made in Internet heaven.
This guy’s strategy is also somewhat problematic:
A so-cal Brooklyn transplant who believes in grammar, manners, music, and humor. I’m nice to my mother, always smile at dogs and babies, and am in the process of pleading that statutory rape charge down to a misdemeanor.
Yeah, it’s probably not a good idea to open with a joke about raping underage girls. Assuming it is a joke.
This message would be a bad idea regardless of gender:
RON PAUL REVOLUTION!! GIVE US BACK OUR CONSTITUTION!!!! lol sorry
Sorry indeed.
This next fellow is a bit of a Stealth Misogynist, in that he starts out with some actual compliments directed toward an actual women. Really creepy compliments, but complements nonetheless. Then we get a plot twist that’s about as shocking as the big reveal in M. Night Shyamalan’s The Village. Which is to say, so obvious that it could probably be spotted from space.
When I look at you I see very happy, fun loving, sexy, good girl. I love looking through your photos, I only wish there were more. Do you enjoy being obedient to the male figures in your life?
David K. Meller, is that you?
I also found a profile for Meller’s ideal woman!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dependent_personality_disorder
Paranoia is believing in things that aren’t real, FactFinder. Like how you think that people here mock you as part of a deliberate campaign to undermine men because women just enjoy making men suffer, whereas in fact people here mock you because they find the comments you post ridiculous and amusing.
It’s also more than a little paranoid to assume that people are anti-technology when those same people are posting on a blog, using their computers or cell phones, ie artifacts of modern technology. When you base that assumption on the fact that people don’t like you, a programmer, or the arrogance displayed by some programmers, then you’re veering from paranoia into narcissism.
So basically what you’re saying is that programmers suck, but you want to keep using their creations. It’s kind of like how the anarchists receives welfare benefits or the feminist utilizes tax dollars taken predominantly from men. You can be anti-technology and still use technology. I don’t see any feminists here saying you can’t be anti-woman and still want to screw them.
No one said that all programmers suck in every way (there’s that paranoia again). What was actually said was that there are some characteristic elements of the social culture surrounding programming that are both arrogant and sexist.
Now if I wanted to flat-out insult you, then I’d start talking about your poor reading comprehension.
I love robots and reading about the latest in AI, so yea, a fan of technology here.
Oh man speaking of which, looks like when the robo-gals take over, us feminists wont be left in the dust after all! http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4b/TOPIO_3.0.jpg
the arrogance displayed by some programmers
“I didn’t prejudge you as a tech nerd, seeing as this is the first I knew about it, but when you are a faux-intellectual misogynist asshat, and then reveal you are a tech nerd, don’t expect any of us to be surprised. The simple fact is that tech culture devalues and belittles women. There’s a reason women generally don’t bother with it. ACtually there are several, and some of them are from gender policing women, but your culture is one of those reasons.”
http://manboobz.com/2011/11/15/men-who-hate-women-and-the-women-they-try-to-date-another-visit-to-the-annals-of-online-dating/comment-page-1/#comment-82611
Not exactly “some.”
NWO,
WTF man, are you OK? That screed sounded hateful enough to be unbalanced. There’s no point talking to someone who won’t even listen to what people actually say to him. I suggest that you go away, calm down and come back in a few days. Maybe then people will actually be able to have a conversation with you. There isn’t one person here who has defended that stupid video or one person defending the SCUM manifesto, and yet here you are gloating about having discovered feminism’s “real agenda”.
Get a grip on that paranoia, seriously.
Oh, you’re doing that thing where all non-MRA commenters are actually the same person and anything said by one is said by all again?
That level of paranoia can’t be healthy. You should really go see someone about that.
Vacuous lie of the day. I repeat: Put up or shut up.
Oh, an ultimatum followed by a snarky assumption.
I’ve always been more of a lover than a fighter, and have never been one to take orders from bullies, so I’ll do neither. What do you think of that?
Oh, you’re doing that thing where all non-MRA commenters are actually the same person and anything said by one is said by all again?
You mean like how David assumed everyone he doesn’t like is a member of The Spearhead?
guys i actually went back and read that a link factfinder posted yesterday, and i figured out what the fuck he and owlslave have been talking about with this shit: A barely defeated bill where men would be guilty by default. (I’ll take a bow for all my efforts on that one). and why theyre all bringing up ‘preponderance of the evidence’ all of a sudden
patrick leahy, the head of the senate judiciary committee removed a provision from a draft version of the vawa reauthorization act that would have effectively amended title ix to require colleges to use a ‘preponderance of the evidence’ in disciplinary proceedings for sexual assault and harassment because some dv denialist group ive never heard of started shouting about ‘due process violations’.
note for owlslave: this is a terrible argument. you dont have constitutional rights before a private tribunal, this is like basic ‘how government works’ stuff.
http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/article/20111111/NEWS03/111111020/Leahy-scraps-provision-anti-domestic-violence-bill-following-complaints
thats the link factfinder posted. besides that are mra blogs and tucker carlsons super cool internet newspaper clubhouse. even the volokh conspiracy didnt notice, which puts you pretty far down the ‘grave threats to the civil liberties of middle-class dudes’ barometer, around pressing one for english and the black guy in thor.
owlslave, you didnt beat a bill, you beat a text file that almost nobody was ever going to read anyway. like yeah, if you can kill a provision you dont like in the cradle thats an accomplishment, but its more along the lines of ‘check off on my to-do list, when’s lunch’ than a major victory.
From the diagnostic criteria…
The World Health Organization’s ICD-10 lists paranoid personality disorder as (F60.0) Paranoid personality disorder.[5]
It is characterized by at least three of the following:
1.excessive sensitivity to setbacks and rebuffs;
2.tendency to bear grudges persistently, i.e. refusal to forgive insults and injuries or slights;
3.suspiciousness and a pervasive tendency to distort experience by misconstruing the neutral or friendly actions of others as hostile or contemptuous;
4.a combative and tenacious sense of personal rights out of keeping with the actual situation;
5.recurrent suspicions, without justification, regarding sexual fidelity of spouse or sexual partner;
6.tendency to experience excessive self-importance, manifest in a persistent self-referential attitude;
7.preoccupation with unsubstantiated “conspiratorial” explanations of events both immediate to the patient and in the world at large.
How many of them are you going to manifest in this one thread, FactFinder?
Programmers don’t suck, Grace Hopper doesn’t suck. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Hopper
I’m quite proud knowing I’m using technology she had a part in creating.
The dude who founded the start-up I used to work for doesn’t suck. He’s a programmer. Steve Jobs was a pretty cool guy.
Note that neither of those people was/is prone to posting paranoid screeds about how women are trying to destroy him via snarky blog comments on the internet.
Shar, if this is so cut-and-dry, how did we shoot it down? You did not answer that.
I heard Steve Jobs was a jerk, but never bothered to look into it. I do enjoy iPods though, and what he contributed to the computer world.
FF said:
Dude, you KNOW that’s not true. I told you explicitly that’s not what I meant, then I reworded the sentence to make it clear beyond a shadow of a doubt that that’s not what I meant.
Either you are the most stubbornly literal-minded person I’ve ever met or you’re simply lying. In any case, what you’re saying here is simply not true.
If you cannot stand behind every interpretation of your words, perhaps you should be more careful about what you say. You never know when they will be posted somewhere for all of the world to see.
Let me remind you that you projected some very sinister motives to Mr. Elam after his response to a Jezebel piece condoning domestic violence.
and since factfinder is puzzled that were not angrier about this non-story, factfinder, title ix as a tool for sexual assault/harassment prevention in schools is one of the things im studying to specialize in, so if anyone here is gonna have a strong feeling about this its me, and even if i didnt id still go on and on about it anyway… and i totally dont care.
im not sure i even like the proposed language. arguing about procedural rules for a completely opaque body without any meaningful appeals process strikes me as totally pointless. and like maybe, if we fixed every other problem along the way, i could start to care about disciplinary proceedings, but thats after shit like ‘getting schools to acknowledge sexual harassment happens’ and ‘doing anything at all about it’
if this is the kind of thing you guys want to declare victory over, seriously go ahead, cause it makes you like the least dangerous activist group in the world. if only everyone could be pacified so easily.
We don’t try to be dangerous, Sharculese. Threats and personal attacks are more of a feminist thing.
“If you cannot stand behind every interpretation of your words, perhaps you should be more careful about what you say. You never know when they will be posted somewhere for all of the world to see.”
Threats, either vague or explicit – the seasoning which no MRA dish can do without.
Sharculese:
Than you for chasing that up. NWO’s post made no sense to begin with and it really looks like he’s crowing away there over very little. So this was a minor adjustment to a draft protocol for campus police, and not some huge victory over an unjust system?
In FF world, hurting women by denying them bodily integrity isn’t misogynist, but pointing out an ongoing cultural problem in nerd culture and saying it’s not okay is anti-technology.
Dude, I know and am friends with 4 programmers, and someone who only dropped an Informatics degree because he likes astronomy better *in just one IRC Channel*. They’re just, you kow, not assholes like you XD
This will seem ridiculous, but there are actually luddites on the internet.
That’s utterly stupid. I can interpret this as a threat to kill Futrelle if he posts again, or a warning that the mole people will arise from the caverns and enslave us all. Not all interpretations of someone’s words are valid. Especially not those of an illiterate cretin like you.
Did you see what he followed that up with, Rutee?
“We don’t try to be dangerous, Sharculese. Threats and personal attacks are more of a feminist thing.”