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.
that’s what we keep telling him! but he’d rather spend his free time screaming at us than honing his craft. it’s super frustrating!
It’s more frustrating that he won’t even hone his craft in the writing he does here. Even with the lessons, and examples which abound in the threads he reads/takes part in.
Some people have even tried to teach him.
That teacher was right, writing wasn’t for him.
Vitamin D: So “slut” “wh*re” etc. are good things. When they are used it’s approving?
Right…
Pull the other one, it’s got bells on.
Reading generously (because if this is what you meant, Vitamin D, the wording was poor) I think Vitamin D was trying to say that “slut” or “wh*re” are examples of shaming language because promiscuity itself isn’t bad, therefore you’re trying to shame someone out of perfectly neutral behaviour.
Gaslighting and mansplaining, OTOH, are inherently hurtful behaviours, therefore calling your behaviour gaslighting or mansplaining is not shaming language becuase your actions are harmful, not neutral.
pecunium // Vitamin D — you two seem to be talking past each other.
If I followed correctly, Vitamin D is saying that wh*re/slut etc are shaming language because there’s nothing harmful inherent to promiscuity, whereas gaslighting and mansplaining are harmful behaviors. That is, the former is shaming language, while the latter is a category of assholery.
And pecunium’s saying that wh*re and slut are used to shame people. And I’m really not sure what you’re disagreeing on here. Vitamin D could’ve been clearer with “your bad behavior” but that seemed to be “your gaslighting (Varpole/Steele)”.
Still waiting for the exchange rate between paintings and photography hours there, if Tom Martin’s around for this wh*re discussion. I really need to know this to determine if I am one!
And ninja’ed because I just had to prod Martin!
@Steele:
“Indeed, I aspired to be a fiction writer. But that was a long time ago.”
If it’s something you really enjoy then why not keep at it? Join a writing group, even an online one. Write, get critique and re-write until you have something in front of you are happy with and then try and outdo it. It’s really not that hard if you are willing to put in the work and have a good dose of imagination.
@ pecunium- nooo? That’s the difference between shaming language and words that describe shameful behavior.
B-D
Yeah, I was just reading the comments and noticing someone was complaining that gaslighting was shaming language, which it isn’t. So I commented. Then it became a thing. Awkward.
Vitamin D: I was quite confused, because it seemed to me you were arguing that slut, etc. aren’t shaming language.
Meh, you get enough trolls you start to shoot from the hip. No harm, no foul.
If I told you that Misandry was, in fact, bullshit, and that men, in fact, could write, and write well, and that you, in fact, could learn to write fiction right now if you wanted to tell stories — would you do it?
I know others have touched on this, but I’m still amused that Steele thinks he can’t get published by virtue of his dudeness. Not even including the “classics” which are almost exclusively all penned by white dudes, there are plenty of dude authors (white dude authors, even!) currently doing extremely well. Off the top of my head there’s:
Michael Connolly
James Patterson
John Irving
Ian McEwan
Alexander McCall Smith
Neil Gaiman
George R. R. Martin
Michael Chricton
Robert B. Parker (recently deceased, but from what I understand, was doing really well up until his death, and his books still go like hotcakes at the library)
Nicholas Sparks
Dan Brown
John Grisham
David Baldacci
Dean Koontz
Gregory Maguire
W.E.B. Griffin
Eric Van Lustbader
Stephen King
Scott Westerfeld
Markus Zusak
Rick Riordan
Terry Pratchet
Jerry Spinelli
Christopher Paolini (which makes me a grumbly fantasy fan, because, seriously, OMFG)
Lee Child (AKA Jim Grant)
And that’s just what I can remember and that’s just fiction, mostly adult fiction, and the super popular stuff at that. There are plenty, plenty more who maybe aren’t a “Richard Castle”, per se, but do ok by their writing. The only thing standing in between you and your writing is… you.
has anyone pointed out the modern library top 100 english novels yet?
ive helpfully bolded all the dudes
i am baffled, however, that anyone rates handful of dust as waugh’s best.
Seriously, men just can’t catch a break, can they? So discriminated against. WHERE’S THE MENS STUDIES SECTION, HUH????
It’s the rest of the library, apparently, bucko.
Mikey? Still waiting on those bigotry examples, buddy.
If I told you that Misandry was, in fact, bullshit, and that men, in fact, could write, and write well, and that you, in fact, could learn to write fiction right now if you wanted to tell stories — would you do it?
No, because you’d be wrong. Also, your blog is terrible and everything on it is wrong. You deny misandry, deny that men have issues, elevate women above men, claim that hurting men is “less bad” than doing the same to women, and laugh at men’s pain. Vile misandrist.
Spot That Fallacy!! We have an ad hominem!
Ad hominem – attacking the arguer instead of the argument.
Poisoning the well – a type of ad hominem where adverse information about a target is presented with the intention of discrediting everything that the target person say
Someone’s supposed misandry has no bearing on whether or not you could become a writer Steele/Varpole.
That wasn’t the question, Argenti. The question was, in fact, if Ms. Moonz said that misandry “was bullshit” would I write? The answer is no, because she’s wrong.
“No, see, you’re bad and wrong. And vile. Vile bad terrible wrong misandry deny men have problems other shit I made up waaah. Vile.”
No Steele, that was one of about 3 questions, the last one being whether you would write if you were told you could. Instead of replying to that, you went on about vile misandrists, and managed to ad hominem in the process.
For fuck’s sake man, if you really want to improve your writing (and I’m not convinced you do), get yourself a damned thesaurus already. “Vile” has plenty of synonyms.
Steele, if you’re an “urban professional” then surely you’re aware that there are any number of classes and workshops that you can attend for creative writing, right? There are writers’ groups, online publishing; any number of resources at your disposal.
At this point, I have to figure that Steele’s anecdote about the teacher who told him he couldn’t write because he’s male is just pure bullshit. She probably just gave him a bad grade on an assignment because he’s such a terrible writer and his lazy cowardice did the rest.
vile
adjective
a vile smell | his vile crimes: foul, nasty, unpleasant, bad, disagreeable, horrid, horrible, dreadful, abominable, atrocious, offensive, obnoxious, odious, unsavory, repulsive, disgusting, distasteful, loathsome, hateful, nauseating, sickening; disgraceful, appalling, shocking, sorry, shabby, shameful, dishonorable, execrable, heinous, abhorrent, deplorable, monstrous, wicked, evil, iniquitous, nefarious, depraved, debased; contemptible, despicable, reprehensible; informal gross, godawful, lowdown, lousy; archaic scurvy. ANTONYMS pleasant.