Over on Patriactionary, a proudly reactionary and patriarchal Christian blog, the blogger who calls himself electricangel is angry at himself – for not being an even bigger douchebag than he already is.
You see, he’s just heard from his wife that one of her friends isn’t happy about hitting the big 4-0. Apparently, his wife’s friend
broke down in tears, sobbing uncontrollably. What had hit her was the realization that she was 40, with no husband, no children, no prospects of either, and she was staring at a future of loneliness.
His reaction to this news?
I wish I could tell you that an evil smile of vengeance crept across my face, and the children this woman discarded were getting their revenge upon her. That this was payback for riding the cock carousel for years, always aiming at the guys she wanted, not the guys she could get.
But alas, hidden deep inside in his tiny misogynistic heart there remains a tiny fragment of sympathy.
But I cannot tell you anything other than how saddened I was at her tale, and how this sadness will rip out the hearts of so many women who did not set out to become lonely, childless spinsters, but whose families and societies removed the strictures on their behavior so that their own lack of self-control was left unbounded. This will be the ongoing social disaster of coming years.
I did say it was a tiny fragment.
But he still wants to use this woman’s story for his own ends.
In discussing this woman, I am insistent upon her becoming an object lesson to my wife, and especially for my wife to tell the beautiful, smart, virgin young women close to her about what happens to carousel riders. Life is a coin you may spend any way you like, but you may only spend it once. This woman spent it on an amusement park ride. Now the park is closing, she has been thrown off the ride, and faces 45 years of solitude.
Yeah, because no woman over the age of 40 is capable of ever finding a date or a mate.
Yeah, because her sadness at hitting 40 is going to last for the rest of her life.
Oh, and the bit about “the children this woman discarded?” She didn’t “discard” any children. She simply didn’t have any. She’s not “discarding children” any more than those with penises instead of vaginas are “discarding children” each and every time they masturbate to orgasm.
In the comments, not everyone is quite so restrained as electricangel.
“I don’t even know this woman and I’m pissing myself laughing at her,” writes one commenter going by the name Friendzone. “Fuck her.”
Take The Red Pill is equally unsympathetic:
I have NO sympathy for this woman whatsoever. Just like most Modern Women, she bought into the feminist deception with eyes wide open with never a thought about the future. Well the future has arrived and it looks a lot like a cold, lonely one for her – just like the cold, lonely youth and young adulthood that MOST men have had and continue to have.
Karma has come due, and the bicycles have realized that they don’t need fish, either.
When women like her are young, they treat decent men abominably – being as cruel and sadistic as they can be when rejecting an ‘unwanted’ man’s advances – simultaneously, they enjoy being ‘free whores’ for every player, dirtbag, and Alpha thug who crosses their path; then when they reach their thirties and are little more than ugly, repellent, diseased trollops (often with some thug’s illegitimate spawn or two in tow), they complain about ‘the lack of good men’.
Others adopt Electricangel’s more, er, mature approach. Will S. decides to be a pompous dick about it, while patting himself on the back for his enlightened attitude:
Indeed, it is proper to not gloat, but rather mourn what we have lost, as a society, and feel sorry for those who have made poor decisions – and try to help others not make such poor decisions, by pointing to unfortunate examples, that at least others might learn something from them.
Sometimes, schadenfreude is tempting, but we Christians do generally know better than that.
Because patronizingly exploiting someone’s (probably temporary) sadness to make other people feel shitty about their own lives is such a moral thing to do. Is faux sympathy better than no sympathy at all?
Our friend Sunshinemary jumps on the “let this be a lesson to the rest of you sluts” bandwagon:
We need not mock such women, but we need to hold up their tales as cautionary examples to other young women. The older women themselves cannot face that their lives should serve as an example of what not to do, and they will rationalize it forever.
Electricangel expounds on his plan to use this woman’s apparent misfortune for his own ends:
I am using her as a vector to drop comments to my wife about the dangers of the carousel. Next is the overt suggestion that she talk to some young women about this friend specifically.
Uh, I guess you don’t let your wife read this blog, huh? Because if I discovered that someone close to me was talking about me in such a creepily manipulative and patronizing way, that person would no longer be a part of my life.
Electricangel replies to Sunshinemary:
Yes, those who did not prioritize children will have their genetic tendencies to that behavior removed from the gene pool. Women do not have the sexual options that men do, and not letting them know this early and often is crushing.
But they must be pointed to, and shown as examples. I understand people who will laugh at and mock them; I thought I would. It’s just the enormity of a waste of a life, and the lives she threw away, and the realization that this is just the tip of huge iceberg that has gripped me.
Yes, EA, you’re such a deeply moral person. Posting an “I told you so, you whores!” post on your blog is no doubt exactly the way The Lord would like you to handle this.
In a later comment, he reiterates his plan to use this woman’s story to increase the insecurities of his wife:
I do not feel guilty at all about using this woman’s example to drop pellets of manosphere logic on my wife. It has the side benefit of my wife starting to ask me (because she’s asking herself) “What do I do to bring value to the relatinship?” It is a good thing.
First it was a sad thing, now it’s a “good thing.”
How exactly is this better than gloating? No, scratch that. How is this different than gloating?
@Tikidoc
I think the sad thing is that a lot of aspects of modern society are enabling people who think this way. Maybe not as much as 100 years ago, but still.
aworld: I’d say it’s not bad to be ashamed of what you used to believe, but there’s not much you can do about that now, and it’s probably not helpful – so I wouldn’t say you’re wrong to feel bad about it, but if you can manage to look at it and say “I used to be wrong and a bit shitty; I got better,” and not worry about it, that’d be good.
(If that makes sense.)
@aworld, being sad about wasted time is as pointless when you’re in your 20s as it is when you hit 40. You have time now; i recommend you use it to have fun 🙂
@Everyone
I suppose you’re right, not much I can do about it now except try to make the best of the fact that I’m out of that phase.
aworld: I used to believe those things too, because of the environment in which I had grown up. As a result, I made a lot of mistakes in my teens and twenties, A LOT of mistakes. I try not to think about what I could have made of my life if my mind hadn’t been so befogged with this nonsense. But it’s no use; I try to appreciate the good in my life, and there is plenty of that.
This whole thing feels kind of problematic for a number of reasons:
1. No family is ever 100% healthy or harmonious, and the pressure to make it so motivates a lot of abusers and abuser apologists.
2. I know a lot of people raised by single parents or divorced couples who are absolutely amazing people who had amazing childhoods. Most of them have had more problems with people contantly assuming they’re broken than with actual emotions over their family situation. The “opposite” of a healthy family is an abusive family, not a single parent family.
3. I’ve met a lot of people whose kids geniuniely did not have “life prospects.” Like, they were born peasant farmers and were likely going to die peasant farmers. I’ve also met people who could not work their entire lives due to disability. This doesn’t mean that these people and their families are worth any less. Life is about more than prospects.
Ugh said:
This. Nobody gets to be really super-proud of what they thought and believed five years ago unless they haven’t gotten better in the last five years.
Aworldanonymous, look at it this way–when you look back on that time, look how far you’ve come. There are plenty of people in this world who haven’t figured out they used to be wrong, who many NEVER figure it out.
And you aren’t one of them. You’ve changed.
Growth can be good, especially if we’re aiming to improve.
I look back at the me I used to be, and there’s a lot there to hate. But the flipside of that is that every single change in me since then is something to love.
@aworldanon: You shouldn’t get so down on yourself. I think it’s great that you realized that you had some wrong ideas and worked your way out of them. Kudos!
@anonymous- be gentle with yourself. The person you are today (who is very nice!) grew out of the person you were. Everyone goes through a stage of doing/ believing things that they look back on and groan about, but most of us grow up to be decent human beings.
Everyone, group hug!
Think of it this way, maybe: that’s a mistake you never have to make again. You’re now free to make new, exciting mistakes instead! …Or don’t think of it that way, if that’s depressing. 🙂
I was recently in a similar depressed spell about my career; I was really worried that by going to law school in my 20s I’d blown any chance of doing what I actually want to do (teach college English). It’s only been in the past few months I’ve realized that, yeah, I may have dicked around some in my 20s but I have the whole rest of my life to do what really inspires and thrills me. And now that I know what “doing what I’m told instead of what really reflects who I am” feels like, I’m much better at listening to myself instead of trying to live up to others’ expectations.
Oh, I get it. We live in a culture that worships youth, tells women over 30 that they are “old” and no longer desirable, and also tells women that they are broken or not whole unless they are married and have children. So when a woman who buys into this onslaught of cultural conditioning gets sad about it — she’s a bitch who deserves it. Gotcha, bud.
Truth be told, if a woman waits until she’s 40 to start having children, it’s not gonna be easy. My first cousin once removed had her son 10 years ago at the age of 41 but required fertility drugs(and she couldn’t have any more). And yet, there are now women in their 50s becoming mothers, so there you go. Cosmetic and medical technology is clearly succeeding in slowing down the biological clock. Well, at least for women! 😛
And yes, I *am* aware that some women don’t want kids.Do not insinuate that I think women should have kids because I don’t think that way nor do I particularly want any myself.
@Shiraz e-arms open wide over here ! in hopefully a non-creepy way!
Woo! People-who-used-to-be-shitty-but-got-better party! *Puts on music*
I mean, I wasn’t MRAish or anything, but I didn’t used to be the most pleasant of people to be around (mostly due to crappy social skills and trying to get around that in the wrong ways, ie. by actively and purposely annoying people, because it was the only way I knew how to engage with people without feeling weird about it), and I still feel really bad for it.
Though crappy social skills isn’t something that’s “gone” for me, it’s just redirected so that it doesn’t actively impact the people around me.
Also, for aworld.
Oh hey, I have a story like his one – a friend at my work hit forty and was in floods of tears over it. Only, she does have a husband and kids, who she loves very much – it was just the ‘oh my god I am Ooooold!’ moment. Then they all went on holiday abroad and she got to swim with dolphins, which she had wanted to do all her life, and she realised she didn’t have one foot in the grave after all, took up zumba, loved it, became an instructor in it and packed in the job (which she had hated). And now she’s really happy. Yay!
Right back at ya, heidihi!
Wow, this is a good party. I wonder how long before someone hateful sees all of our wisdom and positive affirmation and decides to poo on it.
There’s a very freeing feeling knowing that you don’t need to be part of a couple in order to be happy. My boyfriend and I love each other but we would be just as happy as friends as we are as lovers, it’s a nice bonus but not necessary for our happiness or self worth.
This is why I really want the myth that you HAVE to couple up, get married, and have kids in order to be happy to be torn down and relegated to a damaging bit of history. Being part of a couple is great, for people who want kids I know being a parent is great, but people shouldn’t be made to feel like their self worth and happiness are dependent on them. That is a load of bullshit, I was very happy living on my own with just myself and my dog to worry about. If it wasn’t that financially it made sense to move in together (mainly due to gas prices, we lived an hour and a half drive away from each other for two years) we’d still have separate places. Getting have sex in the middle of the week instead of just on weekends is a pretty nice plus too.
If I’d been male I would have totally turned MRAish in high school. Fortunately they don’t have a similar movement for horny, lonely, entitled, and resentful ladyshape folks.
Also, my girlfriend has had sex with double digits people and is getting married to our boyfriend, who doesn’t give a fuck about it, soon.
@beshemoth- Your friend sounds awesome, and I’m glad she is enjoying her life and her new career!
One of my cousins is approaching her mid-40s, with a husband and 2 kids. She graduated from college in her 30s, and became one of the most kickass wedding photographers I know. She swears, and listens to fabulous music, and arranges parties at bars for cool parents in her city. People who say that 40 is fast approaching 40 make me laugh SO HARD, because they clearly have not met my family.
There are people of all genders that love babies and children, and for whatever reason never become parents. These are the kinds of people who do great in careers in education or childcare, because they can get paid to do what they love, which is nurturing children. Because they don’t have parenting responsibilities themselves, they also have more free time to volunteer as coaches, mentors, etc. Finally, if someone really wants a child, they can adopt a child or become a foster parent. So even if the 40 year old woman from the OP exists, she has a lot of options besides being LONELY WITH CATS. (no offense to cats, who make much better companions than misogynists any day)
@ozy- Mazal tov to your girlfriend and you boyfriend! May all three of you enjoy many years together of health and happiness!
*er, 40 is fast approaching obsolescence. I can haz non-tautologies.
The reason I call bullshit on the story is his wife’s reaction. All of a sudden she wonders what she brings to the relationship?
Nope. Either he’s been gaslighting, and manipulating; the entire marriage (not at all beyond the realm of believable), or he made it up.
Ugh: I know this ideal situation is rare. I am saying that this alone might be worth missing, because when I look at the family and marital situations around me, including the one I grew up in, sometimes nothing is better than something.