Every woman I know who’s tried online dating has gotten all sorts of weird and sleazy messages from guys, from crude sexual come-ons (“sorry for being forward but id love to cum on your glasses :)”) to terrible “sexy” jokes (“So ay girl, you looking for a stud? Because I got the std, all I need is u :)”) to fetish-tastic examples of Too Much Information (“I WISH I WERE A DOG SO I COULD SUCK MYSELF OFF”). (No, guys, appending a smiley face emoticon does not make it ok to be a grotesque douchebag.)
You always wonder what guys like this are thinking. With the dog lover at the end, it’s clear he was trying to rattle a woman who hadn’t replied to two earlier messages of increasing creepiness. With the others, I suppose they think there’s always a tiny chance that some woman out there is as desperate and horny and undiscerning as they are.
What’s stranger are those who lead not with sexual come ons but with blatant misogyny. Do men really think that women melt at the thought of dating a man who hates half the human race? Or are they just looking for yet another chance to mansplain their Men’s Rights bullshit to the world?
Here are a couple of examples of this strange and unsuccessful approach to winning over women which I found on the delightful and disturbing blog The Ladies of OkCupid, which documents the quests of three women searching for love online.
Sometimes the misogyny sneaks up on you, as in this OkCupid profile from a “laid-back” slut-shamer (who was clearly not an English major):
This fellow, by contrast, launches into the misogyny right from the start, suggesting that the woman he’s writing is exceptional, simply because she’s not stupid and illogical like the rest of her gender:
This “edgy” fellow tries to break the ice with some lovely rape jokes:
But the strangest one I’ve seen so far comes from this dude, who uses his OKCupid profile as an opportunity to mansplain why feminism is eeeeeevil:
Oh, and that list keeps going; it’s one hundred items long.
As Jasmine from The Ladies of OKCupid writes,
Delusional and repulsive takes on a whole new level with this one, because I really don’t think he’s kidding. He has every social media outlet known to man with all the same crap, and his profile is HUGE. So either he’s attempting to become the ultimate Canadian troll, or he really thinks there’s a woman out there who exists like this AND would be interested in him, of all people. Really? He offers little more than a receding hairline and an outrageous sense of entitlement in return.
To paraphrase Animal House, delusional and repulsive is no way to go through life.
Happily for The Ladies of OKCupid, and the rest of those ladies seeking love online, not all the messages are like this. For example, take this message about a basic but delicious foodstuff:
Also, the woman who got the message above about that thinking-outside-the-box use for her glasses? She stayed on OkCupid, and is now in a happy relationship with a dude she met there who is not a shitlord.
Sharculese: dont forget lying about how we woldnt have mikey to kick around anymore because he was suddenly too busy to post here incessantly. he did that too.
Well, yeah. There was that project at work (his urban profession, where he entrrepreneurially has something “businessmanny” going on as a sideline while he participates in a graduate program; and the odd lecture in things which interest him). Why he can’t continue to post from work while doing that isn’t clear; since he seems to have had a lot of time to post when the subject was misandry. I think he is unhappy since he got called out for being himself, it was so much more romantic when he was lying about it, and could pretend he was engaging in fifth column work.
But now the misandry conversation is over, and his one-trick pony nature has revealed itself, and the frisson of subterfuge is gone, so he’s reduced to trying to get pen pals.
Sort of sad to see how the mighty fall.
“You ignore their asshole traits until they cross some wierd line (for you that seems to be implications of pedophilia. Racism, that’s cool. Homophobia, that’s cool. Classism, that’s cool. Little kids… no so cool [unless it’s NWO]. Nice company you’re willing to keep).”
I think I solved that one — NWO only supports treating little girls like adults, Tom Martin was saying the same about boys. It might actually be the only remotely pro-men’s-rights attitude Varpole has (not that “it’s okay to sexually abuse teen girls, but not teen boys” is a very compelling human rights argument).
To give Varpole credit, where it’s due, it does seem that he was upset about the age, not the question of gender.
But that doesn’t explain why NWO is acceptable, unless the age line is somewhere between 10 and 14 (I guess he could just be another MRA who thinks 14 is an adult)
He didn’t know NWO’s history. When he learned, he switched tracks to “no true MRA!”
He has no such excuse with Jean’s racism, classism, and homophobia.
Argenti: NWO hasn’t been public about it since Varpole started paying attention. We are just vile misandrist-feminists who hate NWO for his cogent arguments,and want to keep Varpole from gaining useful allies in the struggle for egalitarian rights.
Well that’s some lovely bigotry to wake up to. Jean is obviously playing Gotta Oppress ‘Em All. You missed a couple, Jean.
Ah right, NWO was “no true MRA”, and then we got accused of some weird shit about faking NWO’s antisemitism.
I haven’t had my coffee yet, I was just about to see whether it’s drinkable temps yet — please forgive my lack of memory, my brain will be with us shortly.
@Argenti – I know of Steele’s trials and tribulations with his woeful lack of writing skills caused by ‘Feminism’, I just hoped that Feminism wasn’t so mean as to stop him from being able to read too 🙁
In shocking news, I have just finished proofreading my (male) partner’s new zine and managed to refrain from scaring him into never writing another word again. In fact, I thought it was quite good.
Didn’t Varpole decide that Martin must be a feminist plant? Wasn’t that what he was going to consult with Elam on?
I’m also curious how that went.
Weird that Jean’s racism wouldn’t bother him, but NWO’s antisemitism must’ve been some false flag operation by David — Varpole’s standards may just not be remotely consistent, which would make trying to guess them impossible (then again, guessing his standards is way more fun than discussing the definition of misandry for 800+ comments, so whatever)
TheNatFantastic — I wouldn’t be surprised if Varpole can make reading and writing into the same thing, they are related after all. Really though, I just don’t want to read another 800+ comments of his whining.
As for editing things for men, I’ve had exactly one person make me want to scare them off writing — one of the lawyers I used to work for — and it had nothing to do with feminism, he’d write legal documents and have sentences that read “blah blah blah and.” *runs away screaming*
@Argenti – Literally “blah blah blah and.”? Because I never learned that term during my degree 😉
Yeah also I agree that 800+ comments of The Amazing Time Travelling WonderBoy Steelpole is a bit much for a Monday.
@Sharculese and Argenti,
So, references to “coloured people” are just fine, but calling someone a “white dude” is Vile Discrimination? Well, I suppose “white dude” could be offensive to foppish, city-dwelling albinos, but still. Steelpole just lives to be outraged, doesn’t he?
captainbathrobe: No… see the reference to “colored people” were “personal experience”, White dudes was “ideology”.
Different.
(Personal anecdotes)
This conversation bears an uncanny ressemblance to another one I had in meatspace last week with a guy. We were talking about Spanish nightlife, and I commented that, after cutting my hair and dressing with masculine clothes, most of the unwanted attention directed to me, such as groping, catcalling, etc., has vanished. He got defensive, arguing that he had never seen such behaviors in the bars he goes, and that he has not met a single man who boasts about groping girls. That’s right, guys… if it hasn’t happened to me, it doesn’t ever happen!
Curiously enough, I still get hit on by guys, albeit I get a weird vibe of… “respect” that wasn’t there before. In two cases, they said something like I was a chick with “personality”, not like those “sluts” who wear dresses and heels. Cue berserker rage from me.
aaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh
after turgid, foppish is the second perfectest word for mikey. i cant believe i didnt think of it.
“Literally “blah blah blah and.”? Because I never learned that term during my degree”
I don’t remember what the rest of the sentence was, but even if I did, it was a legal document and I’m not really sure I could quote it without having privilege issues. I did think, almost immediately after hitting send, that I should’ve clarified that he wasn’t pulling an Elan.
“Steelpole just lives to be outraged, doesn’t he?”
That seems to be it, yeah.
Ooooookaaaaay, but if/when those who are “not JeanM” simply report on the facts of their experience, it’s wildly exaggerated, vile misandry, huh?
OK, did not read all the comments because there are so very many, but I have found that most people have very long lists because they want to improve the chances of finding someone they match with.
As far at the guys on OKCupid I am consistently amused by the deluge of straight men of all ages that pours into my inbox, and you know it is because I identified as “bi” (actually I am pan, but that is not an option.) They rush right past the very first line of my profile where I explain that I am a trans* woman (which again, it would be nice for those of us who want to be able to clarify that to be able to do so) because they think “whoo hoo! Bi chick! I can have a threesome!” Um, sure dude, mind if I bring my friend Scott along?
But surely that ends up reducing their options? For instance, if I’d put together one of these insanely prescriptive lists, I can absolutely guarantee my wife wouldn’t have ticked most of the boxes – and she in turn would have glanced down my list, thought “wanker” and written me off without a second glance.
People click quite unexpectedly, and often in entirely unpredictable ways. And some of the most successful marriages/long-term relationships I know of are between people who would never have been matched up by a dating agency algorithm.
Crazy dude writing in psychology today about why it’s ok when dudes lie on dating sites, but not women. Actual quote in article: “As I explain in an earlier post, modern feminism is illogical, unnecessary, and evil.” Sounds terribly scientific. http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-scientific-fundamentalist/201105/why-men-lie-and-women-lie-down
@Vitamin D I knew that would be Satoshi Kanazawa. He’s well known for being a racist dunderhead, with other questionable ideas (I also recall something about how women should be submissive because of how rats have sex) who’s been put on gardening leave from the LSE. I thought he’d been fired from Psychology Today and his blog on there deleted though.
He introduced me to the joys of laughing at ev. psych.
also- hilarious: http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2681
@ thenat- he’s a character alright. Amazing he got hired in the first place.
@theNatfantastic
English? Do you write it?
Pronouns:
Women* are she / her. (*including! trans women)
Men** are he / him. (**including! trans men)
Making up ridiculous new pronouns is unecessary and divisive – as well as an awkward mangling of the English language that turns whatever you’re writing into unreadable gibberish!
If you want to talk about someone whose sex you don’t know, or who does not wish to acknowledge their sex, or is intersex, you can just use they / them – it will be understood through context that it’s being used in the singular sense. Or – just stick to using their actual name! All human’s have one.
All this zie / hir / cis / womyn bollocks is just a load of Newspeak horseshit that only exists so the user can be all smug about their ridiculous political correctness. Just stop it. You’re not fooling anyone but yourself.