Fellas! I don’t know if you know this, but we’re living in an, um, let me be sure I have this right, a “totalitarian regime dictatorship of forcing social justice and politically correctness.”
That might seem a little bit farfetched, at least to you blue pill people. But I read about this dire new development in the Kotaku In Action subreddit — where Reddit’s GamerGaters mostly hang out — so it must be true.
The post linked to INCONTROVERTIBLE PROOF of this terrible SJW totalitarian regime dictatorship: a picture of some dude holding up a parody of a “I need feminism because … ” sign designed to show just what mean, mean meanies those feminists really are.
I’m pretty sure that every red-blooded heterosexual man knows just what he’s getting at here!
I mean, if some hot babe walks by me, and I, as a thoughtful and considerate man, offer her a nice compliment on her appearance by, say, yelling out “hey, titty girl, show me your titties” while making kissy sounds with my mouth, the feminists are all like, “why the hell did you do that, what’s wrong with you, you living piece of crap.”
You see how they get you with the guilt?
BUT, ok, so some other babe walks by, and maybe she’s not really my type, and I think to myself, well, I’m not going to make the mistake of complimenting her on her titties and get yelled at, especially since her titties are nothing to write home about.
But, you know, I don’t want to be rude and simply ignore her, so I yell out “woah, what’s wrong with your saggy-ass titties, you should get a doctor to look at those cuz I sure don’t want to!”
And so maybe I’ve just saved her life from the breast cancer. But do I get any thanks for it? No.
HEY SJW’S GEORGE ORWELL WOULD BE PROUD OF YOU.
NOTE: This post contains
@katz
They was like
http://nerdreactor.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/science-bros-meme-600×338.jpg
And then, I was like
<3<3<3<3<3
@dlouwe
With compliments, perhaps it might help to think of complimenting as quite similar to touching?
For example, a stranger complimenting my breasts feels really icky. It’s not as bad as if they touched them without invitation, but my mental response of feeling like my privacy and bodily autonomy has been invaded is similar. (Street harassers know this, of course.)
Whereas hair, clothes, jewelry are things that many of us routinely let friends/strangers touch in a non-sexual way without feeling too invaded, as long as some level of comfortable connection has been established. Of course different kinds of compliments have different levels of privacy invasion, just like different kinds of touching. Saying “your hair color is the bomb”, is similar to a friendly high-five, but “your hair looks so silky soft”, very vividly evokes the idea of stroking it.
In that way, it can also be used positively as flirting and foreplay. Complimenting a body part can be a nice way to indicate that you are thinking about touching it, and as a way to gauge the response. (If you already have at least some expectation that the person is interested, don’t move too fast, and are willing to back off immediately if the response is not positive.)
So perhaps that can be used as a rule of thumb? Would you like to compliment some part of someone’s body? Are you close enough that they would feel comfortable with you touching that body part physically? If not, are you okay with evoking that idea?
@RobinG
I also have some trouble discerning peoples’ comfort level with physical contact (so I tend to err on the side of caution and keep my hands to myself), but regardless this perspective is helpful, and is something I will definitely keep in mind, thanks!
@dlowe
A group activity is absolutely acceptable. However, if you want to date, don’t spend large amounts of time with a person before you spring the “Would you like to go out on a date sometime?” question. A couple of group activities in, you need to ask and make it clear that you would be interested in dating. Otherwise the person you’re asking might get into a comfortable “we’re friends” groove with you, and then suddenly out of apparently nowhere you want to change the relationship.
Sometimes friendships grow into romances, but don’t try to replicate that organic growth artificially. That’s Nice Guy™ territory, and it almost never works. If you want to date, ask the person out on a date as soon as you’re comfortable doing it (and sooner rather than later).
Also, use the word “date.” If you’re asking someone out for coffee, call it a “coffee date.” If you’re asking them out to dinner, call it a “dinner date.” If you want to go to a movie, call it a “movie date.” If you’re afraid of making the person feel uncomfortable (or you are afraid of feeling uncomfortable), don’t turn ambiguous or omit the word “date.” Instead, specify, “I just want to get to know you better” and avoid all mention of alcohol.
Good luck!
Man, that lady has the best unimpressed face I’ve ever seen.
Wow Nick, way to misunderstand someone’s post. Bryce, I totally got what you were getting at and I’m really not sure how it could have been misinterpreted.
@dlouwe
IMO there’s no need for it. The interest is implied in wanting to talk and see them again. You don’t need to make it clear by letting them know you find them attractive; it’s likely they’ve already gathered that.
It was quite a time reliving that CNN segment on cat calling. It raised my blood pressure, just like last time. I love how his solution to cat calling is carrying a gun. What!? That’s a better solution than simply just saying “okay, women say they don’t like to be cat called, maybe we shouldn’t do it.” And what would men say if women actually pulled a gun on every guy who cat called them? The cries of “misandry!” would reach all the way to the Andromeda galaxy.
Thanks for the advice, everyone. 🙂
@Paradox: The closest I’ve seen to a skimpy Superman outfit was this charming piece by Jon Morris, who was imagining him in a sort of Jack Kirby “New Gods” style, as a solar hero:
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QPta83an1JI/ULf4qirzwsI/AAAAAAAAuW8/Kzq1zYtuvVE/s1600/Reign452.jpg
Jon’s had a lot of fun reimagining superheroes over the years, and these two especially crack me up:
http://www.tencentticker.com/projectrooftop/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/tumblr_mo60tqSl4s1s4tnaho1_1280.jpg
http://www.tencentticker.com/projectrooftop/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/tumblr_mmqu3dnh3M1s4tnaho1_1280.jpg
@policy of madness
I get that this is what Nice Guys are about – faking friendship in order to hit on women from the proximity of a “friend”, but it’s not always the reason for hesitating. Sometimes it seems better to get to know them a bit better, so it’s from position of knowledge of who they are, rather than superficial attraction. Or we simply lack gumption, and would rather get more comfortable around the person in the hope of getting up enough courage to ask them out at some future point.
@Bryce
Let’s say we’ve been casual friends for 2 years, hanging out with the same group, and you ask me out on a date. I accept. We go out. You know what will be the almost first thing I’m going to say once we get to wherever?
“So what made you decide to ask me out after all this time?”
Be prepared for that question and have a good, non-creepy answer for it.
@PoM
Again, thank you so much! Your posts on this subject have been very illuminating to me. Particularly the bit about not trying to suddenly trying to switch from friendship to dating; I’m not particularly concerned about finding myself in a “comfortable friend” role – anyone I’d want to date I’d be happy to friend as well – but I think the point of “unexpectedly trying to switch tracks can cause friction” is a good one and can be applied to a lot of different situations.
One thing I never understood was; why do men catcall or comment about the looks of a woman at all? I mean if they find someone attractive cool, I do find some people attractive too but don’t feel the need to comment on them based by my personal opinion esp. not if I just met someone. Do they really think they get something out of it? That a woman will turn around and say; “what you think my tits are great, thanks you can touch em if you like!”
Like that will ever happen…
And another thing I do make videos and the first time I actually showed my face I was so worried because people are even more rude here on the internet than out on the street. I just noticed that men, even if they look like they just came out of bed, rarely get those comments but a woman always get’s comments from people about her looks. And in most cases people who write them are male. I’m not saying it’s always like that just my observation. I was just happy that I rarely get them myself maybe because I have 80% female viewer? But the times I get them, (either rude or creepy “compliments”) they are written by guys.
@Zero
They know that. They know that women don’t like it. That is exactly what they get out of it: making women feel unsafe and uncomfortable.
If you ever doubt that, see what happens when women react negatively to harassment. They’re not surprised. They don’t say “Oh my god, I am so sorry. I made you uncomfortable. I’m so embarrassed.” They just ramp it up.
@Zero
It’s a power trip. He feels that she — by being both attractive and out of reach — has an unfair advantage over him. So to tip the scales in his favor, he tries to embarrass/annoy/frighten her. Bonus: He gets her attention.
It’s a lot like macho posturing among men; talking about fighting, and threats of violence, but rarely do they actually want to get into a fight. It’s about demonstrating power (real or perceived). Catcalling is a similar sort of posturing, but modified so that it’s “acceptable” to direct at women.
Lol oh my god it’s so goddamned telling that the guy in that CNN video tries to say “well I’m a guy so I have insight into what these guys are doing, you can’t know what they’re thinking like I can’t know what you’re thinking” then proceeds to tell the women what *they’re* actually thinking instead.
Like, how can someone put those ideas in that order and not just die of shame?
There are two sort-of exceptions to the “don’t compliment people’s body parts, it’s creepy”, I’ve found, at least culturally speaking. (Not to say that these things are ALWAYS appropriate, or even appropriate most of the time, but there’s more situations that I, personally, can think of where the application might be more flattering than creepy.) There’s hair, which can be appropriate sometimes because people put work into their hair, same as the rest of their style. And then there’s eyes. Complimenting someone’s eyes is generally a very clear indication of romantic interest, yeah, but it usually doesn’t hit on the same level of creepiness as other body parts, at least to my mind, and I’m not exactly sure why? I mean, people can no more control their eye colour than they can the size of their breasts (well, you sort of can, but you need technological intervention), but hearing that one has beautiful eyes is almost always completely different in tone than hearing about one’s alledgedly gorgeous breasts.
Possibly it’s because of what people sexualize in our culture? Or because of the social connection formed by eye contact? Or maybe it has to do with the fact that the eyes aren’t a part of the body that would be touched by someone else, and thus there isn’t the unsaid “and I would like to grope them” addition to the statement?
Not sure, but I have found that a bit weird.
@Catalpa
That is true. Although it has been way over-used and now it mostly sounds like a cheap line to compliment someone’s eyes. I connect it to people who are trying too hard to not sound shallow.
(I have heard eye compliments that sounded sincere, but I don’t recommend it for early dating.)
I think that’s in some of the cases. Sure, there will be these asswipes who do something because they make others uncomfortable. But a lot of guys don’t get WHY women find it uncomfortable. In their eyes, they’re being nice. They’re making a compliment and how rude is it to not only reject his compliment, but get angry at him!
And I’ve seen this kind of mentality in several people lately. They try and do something ”nice”. Now, that thing they’re doing may not be very nice (said cat calling) or it may be nice, but unwanted. And they are upset when people don’t respond to their niceness as they wanted. It seems they don’t care all that much whether or not their actions actually do make somebody feel better, they just care about what they think is nice. Kind of like they’re the main character in a story and everyone exists to make them to most awesome person ever. It’s not about making other people feel better, it’s about making other people think you’re Super Nice Guy.
@ catapalta
I was in a Chinese restaurant when someone said I had beautiful eyes. I said “Waiter, I ordered aromatic duck”
(I’m in town all week, try the veal)
@Catalpa
Just an n of one, but I get complimented on my eyes quite frequently and here’s my take on it:
Generally, when people I don’t know and especially men make comments about how beautiful my eyes are, I feel uncomfortable. The comments feel inappropriately intimate to me, and I am unsure how to respond (I had no involvement in the color or shape of my eyes.) It’s even weirder when there are follow-up questions about my parent’s eyes, or whether I hear that a lot.
Complimenting my eyes if we weren’t already dating would make me think you were staring at me way too closely.
I have been complimented on my eyes once! Came entirely out of left field from a particularly introverted friend of mine (She and I are rather similar to be honest). Didn’t know what to think about it for quite some time, but I eventually figured out that she saw how depressed I looked and was trying to cheer me up. It worked, but was rather awkward, since we’re both sort of awkward people :s