By David Futrelle
Great headlines — like the New York Post’s legendary page-one shocker, “Headless Body in Topless Bar” — grab the reader’s attention instantly but leave enough unsaid that hapless news junkies feel compelled to click the link or buy the tabloid because they need to know the rest of the story.
Internet garbage site Return of Kings has gotten pretty good at the clickbaity headlines. But one memorable headline on the front page of the site today, while certainly attention grabbing, falls just short of greatness because, well, it’s pretty obvious that the real story can’t possibly live up to whatever story you make up in your own head about it.
This is the headline:
But however much I might cherish the story I came up with in this particular instance — which involves a blonde Ruth Buzzi lookalike hitting a tophatted, velvet-clad PUA with her purse — it’s my job to click on these links so you don’t have to. The good news is that the real story is nearly as good as my imaginary one, if somewhat less dramatic. And by “good” I mean awful.
So it seems that Return of Kings writer William Adams went drinking with his girlfriend and some of his friends one recent evening in Stockholm. Alas, his girlfriend had a little too much of the drink and wanted to return home around midnight. As Adams, who is apparently always right about everything, explains,
I made a quick calculation and decided that the wisest choice was to take the metro, which is located just outside the bar. I know that traffic can get congested, especially where we were at that time, and even short taxi rides are very expensive in Stockholm, where we live. Of course I can afford a taxi ride or twenty but in this case it was the proper decision to not do it, especially after taking travel duration in to consideration.
But she was afraid of throwing up on the train and insisted on taking a cab, even though this was objectively the wrong thing to do.
We did, and as expected it took much longer time and costed me almost the equivalent of 50 US dollars. … Because of construction work we also had to walk about 300 meters to our home, and she was wearing a dress, rubbing her arms a bit to showcase the low outside temperature relative to her choice of clothing.
She then consequently asserted that she wanted to borrow my (stylish) jacket, but I was annoyed and didn’t want to lend it to her in that particular situation.
Naturally, Adams insisted on informing her that he had been right all along about the cab thing. Apparently this required him to yell at her a little bit.
I thought that if she occasionally associates with my male friends, then she should talk to us on more equal terms and not be afraid of some realtalk. So while listening to her complaints I raised my voice and semi-yelled that if she would have listened to me in the first place we would not have to walk outside and would already be home by now.
ENTER ELDERLY SWEDISH WOMAN
WHO TURNS OUT TO NOT ACTUALLY BE ELDERLY EXCEPT MAYBE TO THE SORT OF PEOPLE WHO READ RETURN OF KINGS
Meeting us on the sidewalk, then about 200 meters from home, a middle-aged woman suddenly shows up. She stops next to me and starts yelling directly in my face. Although she looks normal, she unhesitatingly manifests her dislike for my behavior.
And the fight of the century is on!
My girl has started to cry a bit, not atypical behavior for her subspecies. …
The 50-something bitch sees this and engages in another attack, after I have tried to walk past her in an attempt to ignore and move on. She threatens to “wrestle me to the ground” and calls me an “ass hat,” all while standing two inches from me, looking hostile.
The “elderly woman” then ups the ante by not actually trying to wrestle Adams to the ground.
She refrains from doing so but does not listen when I stress that it is neither her nor anyone else’s business, and the entire situation is taken out of context too for that matter.
Presumably the “context” is that he is always right about everything and he was just pointing this out to his freezing girlfriend very loudly.
After that she also starts a lecture on the ABC of Cultural Marxism. She is so tired of white males who use their privilege bla bla bla.
Ah, yes, Cultural Marxism, that totally real thing that normal people bring up all the time while having arguments on the street at 1 AM and that isn’t an antisemitic alt-right conspiracy theory or anything.
A white knight, perhaps a male feminist – although on a bicycle instead of a noble steed – shows up and asks if there is a problem. Well, that is great, I quietly sigh. I try to calm him down and say that the screaming woman is crazy. Luckily for me he hears the bitch calling me an ass hat again and decides to leave. At least there is some level of rationality left among cucked Swedes. Perhaps he reads ROK in his leisure time.
This is really quite the dramatic story! First we have an attack that turns out not to be an attack, by an elderly woman who turns out not to be elderly, and now a white knight who doesn’t actually do any white knighting.
The “conversation” continues for another five to ten minutes …
In other words, thirty seconds.
… and like Gandhi I stoically remain calm. She gabbles her last feminist tenets, hugs my girlfriend, and suggests that she should leave me. Her mission is almost completed. The woman then adds that there is still something good in me and I do not have to be an ass hat. I can change. Then she left.
BOY WHAT A SAVAGE ATTACK HE ENDURED HERE. HE IS TRULY LIKE GANDHI. GIVE THIS BOY A NOBEL PEACE PRIZE.
Amazingly, this experience seems to have taught our hero a few lessons, which he spells out in his conclusion.
If there is anything to learn from this minor debacle it is that non-violence is the only available strategy for a masculine man in many situations where he is confronted. Of course it would be more than pathetic to beat a woman, but many might consider doing it to give someone disrespectful like that a lesson. Think again. In fact, even speech can be considered violence in our current radical left-leaning societies, and to avoid rough talk and a raised voice near women is the way to go.
Wait, so you shouldn’t beat women who annoy you? WHO KNEW. Mind blown.
@ feline
That is one of the sweetest cartoons I’ve ever seen! It’s so true though. I’ll now be sending it to all my doggie devoted friends.
There’s a similar thing I like, that the great thing about dogs is, no matter how daft your plans for the day, dogs are always “That’s brilliant! I wish I’d thought of that.” 🙂
Violet: That is a good point about the lying. The shame of it is, it would be better if the lying to themselves had to take effort. Sadly, the lie is the default. When growing up I recall attending a conservative church where a person from an overseas outreach program was speaking about sexual assault in northern Africa. One point he made early to emphasize the issue was “Imagine if it were your wife or daughter” which, at the time, just struck me as an appeal for general empathy. It wasn’t till I read feminist literature and began to learn more about analyzing these things that I realized this was an appeal to the ego of the men listening, not their empathy – e.g. “Imagine how badly it would reflect on you if this happened to one of your women”
Hello.
Say the man complaining that a woman righteously scolded him because of his fucking behavior, the same man using “subspecies” and “bitch” to qualify women, and “cucked Swedes” to qualify other men (let me guess : the man was not a person of color…). Yeah, totally objective point of view.
But violently insulting your girlfriend seems to be ok because, you know, she did not confront you… Ow, you completly drip masculinity, i clearly do not understand why women prefer to confront you rather than jump your boner.
Weirwood already said it. Your girlfriend made an effort to put clothes to please you (and your boner), never mind the cold, and even with that you find means to blame her for that and to not take care of her !? I do not know if it is manly man behavior, but even Augias’s stables were not that shitty.
Yeah. The (stylish) jacket, probably.
> Weatherwax
Well, then it is time… to learn ventriloquism !
And catcalling a dog seems to be a bit paradoxical…
> Violet the Vile
Arh, that was awful, i am sorry for you.
> Scildfreja Unnyðnes
But i have labels saying that i am 100% pure wool ! And wool is nice and smooth ! Checkmate, etc… What do you mean that is not this kind of label ?
Well, then, what about that ? Thanks to technology and augmented reality, with some electronic glasses, you can see label on me. Labels saying i am a Nice Guy, of course. Totally legal. Not suspicous at all. And if you click on the button on the left branch of the glasses, you can even see comments left by 100% real people about my so-modest person, like : “He’s a pearl, don’t throw him to the swines !” – “Eat at Joe’s !” – “He has a big one because he uses our Cialis pills which are 70% less expensive than at drugstore !” – “He’s nice, and not only because he has paid me ten bucks to write that, but because he has a cool hat !” – “He’s Nice ! Or Paris ! I don’t care, frenchies all look the same to me.” – “Your car is very annoyingly parked. You can pay your 135 Euros fine at https://www.amendes.gouv.fr/” And so on ! So, chekmate ? No ?
Have a nice day.
Oh, so you’re a xenophobic Quebecer!
(Even pure wool isn’t a safe label anymore — the racists appropriate everything.)
Regarding catcalling: Perhaps it’s because I’ve worked with special needs teenagers for several years, but I believe that the “they’re just trying to intimidate” isn’t true unilaterally. In many cases, it is. In other cases, it’s them thinking that life works like a porn clip, and they get genuinely confused and angry when it doesn’t work. In yet more cases, it’s because they’re simply starved for attention and taking an unhealthy strategy to get it. All of these approaches are toxic and need to be condemned (because the little jerk’s feelings are not more important than the young lady’s need to feel safe, especially as so many have trauma that it touches on), but it can difficult to correct the problem if the wrong motivation is attributed to it.
That said, this only applies to those of us whose actual job is to correct poor socialization in minors. It’s not the job of the woman in the street to try and fix the problem, only to maintain their own safety, and if you can afford it, the safety of others.
So when he yells at his girlfriend it’s just ‘real talk’ but when this other woman yells at him, it’s an ‘attack’. Huh.
It is not a stretch – I have seen the smirks on the faces of men who have succeeded in making a woman afraid. They like to get a response, and I expect fear is preferred over anger. I just read a ghastly story on a post here from 2015 – 2 older teen boys telling an EIGHT year old girl to undress, and then one says to the other: ‘I think we have scared her enough now’.
When men are prepared to terrorise women and girls in public clearly they are getting something out of it, yes, they certainly do not CARE about the effect they have on our well being, but they are looking for some kind of response.
I am prepared to accept that there are levels of cluelessness, but I don’t really see the connection with porn – unless there is a lot of catcalling in porn where a woman loves it and immediately goes over to the catcaller/s and starts fellating them?
If there is a connection then it is an indirect one which is the same sort of connection as wearing a short skirt or having large breasts supposedly gives the message that one is ready and willing to have sex with anyone.
I once had an internet conversation with a man who said that 12 yo girls dancing on youtube videos was provocative – ie that the children (whom he called ‘developing adults’) were totally aware of their effect on others. I said ‘I do not see that at all, but if they ARE attempting to be provocative it is to boys of 14/15yo, not adult men’. He shut up after that.
Oh yes, many of them are absolutely looking specifically to frighten women. They get that little “oh, look at how scared she is, isn’t that precious” smirk on their faces, as if they were teasing a child. Then they get to tell themselves how infantile and weak women are, compared to them and their big manly man muscles who doesn’t afraid of anything. The most basic function of sexism reinforcement.
Scaring women to make themselves feel big. And that’s the nicest, most benign path for that to take. Nothing makes my skin crawl quite like it.
Oh yes don’t you know us feeemales need to know our place, and if a man yells at us it only shows that we need to be reminded of that place, whereas a woman yelling at a man is a crazy, shrewish bitch!
I’ve seen on the street interviews with catcallers where they say – even after hearing that it makes women uncomfortable – that women were put on earth for men to look at. To bring it back to the title of the post, the purpose of catcalling is to put us on in our place as that of sex objects. Even if catcallers aren’t self aware enough to understand that this is what they are doing.
This explains why women in marginalized groups often get harassed more. It explains why harassment tends to peak when we’re teens or preteens. It’s easier to put women who are already vulnerable due to age and small size or membership in a marginalized group.
It also explains why not all street harassment is “complimentary” It often involves calling women gendered slurs or making barnyard noises at fat women.
I’m not buying the clueless but not hostile or desperate for attention stories for a minute. Especially the “oh my, what if they’re disabled or socially awkward?” line that Chimeric is edging uncomfortably close to. I’ve experienced both harassment and disabled people chatting with me on the bus when I was not in the mood for talk and they didn’t have the ability to pick up on that from my body language. There’s a big difference between those things and it’s not difficult to tell that difference.
@Zack
No, it definitly is about putting women down, reminding us we are not full persons, just bodies to be commented on.
Maybe try not explaining women’s experiences to women next time?
I believe he has a girlfriend, that he was yelling at her (“semi-yelled” yeah right), and that he caught the attention of passers-by.
I also believe he acted like a whiny piss-man and refused to offer his girlfriend his jacket.
I feel bad for his girlfriend and hope that she dumps him, if she hasn’t already.
I’m incredibly socially awkward. From my experience, the claim of ‘oh, he’s just socially awkward’ makes NO FUCKING SENSE.
Even if socially awkward people were somehow inclined to yell at random strangers on the street (which seems bizarre, because that sounds like essentially a nightmare scenario for a socially awkward person), this would really only happen until they got a bad reaction to it, or someone told them it was wrong. Then they would be horrified about it and stop immediately. If anything, I tend to overcorrect when I do something that someone else tells me is offputting. Usually a ‘okay, this thing is bad, I must never do this to that person or to anyone else EVER AGAIN. Unless someone else specifically asks me to do it. And probably not even then’. sort of reaction. Since everyone else appears to be operating off of a handbook that I never received, when I get tips from the handbook-owners, I take them very seriously.
Yeah, I’m socially awkward too. Not as much as when I was young. I’ve worked on it a lot and outgrew some of it, but it still lingers a bit. Crossing boundaries, coming across as weird in a bad way and looking stupid are horrifying to me. Expressing interest whether it’s platonic, romantic or sexual and not having it reciprocated is one of my biggest fears. All of this has made me way too reserved around people I don’t know well and I have to drink at parties in order to be able to deal with socializing in a big group.
Sexually harassing, catcalling or stalking someone is about the antithesis of what I as a socially awkward person would do because someone being repulsed by me in the way that I am repulsed by creepers would just highlight every one of my insecurities.
It’s not impossible for me to imagine an awkward but well meaning person crossing a boundary. It is impossible for me to imagine such a person crossing it again and again.
Another thing the “think of the socially awkward!” hand wringing leaves out, is that the people who engage in that hand wringing never consider that the victims of harassment might be socially awkward. They never hesitate to expect every last women to have the social skills to know how to turn down boundary violating men in a polite but firm way that will magically get them to leave us alone but not make them feel bad about the rejection. This has been said in this space before, but apparently it bears repeating since the sympathy for creepers was starting to well, creep into this thread.
So much this. There’s hostility in catcalling. There’s a negative reaction from the recipients. People who do it are assholes. Anything else they have going on is unrelated to their assholishness.
(I have brain damage. I can’t keep friends because people get extremely upset with me over things they won’t/can’t explain to me that I’ll probably never understand. As far as I’m aware, I interact in a normal way, at least I’m trying to, but they tell they “just don’t know with [me],” whatever that means. I don’t know how to do small talk and don’t understand why I should. I have crippling social anxiety. I have a hard time reading body language if I don’t concentrate all my energy on it. Despite all this, I’ve never once catcalled anyone. Funny, that.)
Umm…
Yes, the idea that “social awkwardness” explains, or worse, excuses, harassment always needs vigorous refutation, so it’s good to see it refuted here again.
I didn’t think Chimeric Mind was edging towards that though, myself.
YMMV obviously.
I have a very socially-awkward (on the autism spectrum) 15-year-old who doesn’t realize he’s socially awkward, and we talk with him all the time about what is and is not appropriate behavior towards other people, especially strangers. It is possible to be socially awkward and outgoing. And dealing with our son and explaining how not to be creepy leaves me with no energy to be sympathetic to all those who use “socially-awkward” as an excuse when what they really mean is “can’t be bothered to act decently”.
Besides, the same people never seem to give a shit about socially-awkward women.
I suppose you could argue that lack of awareness of others is a form of social awkwardness that anyone can have, but to wilfully use it rather than trying to change it is just shitty behaviour.
When I was younger I was very unaware of other people’s feelings in a lot of ways, and I am in no way ‘on the spectrum’. I was just young and self centred but in a very specific way. I recognised that this was not something I wanted to be so I made efforts to change and mature.
But I guess they do not give a shit how much they upset others.
n’thing the whole “this behaviour is not due to social awkwardness” discussion.
When you’re socially awkward – I mean really, talk about a vague description – you’re very hesitant to engage in social interaction, and when it backfires you retreat, because you have no idea what just happened.
Catcalling is the exact opposite of this. Guys who catcall are generally very confident, they engage in catcalling eagerly, and when they get a bad reaction they laugh – at best.
They’re the opposite of socially awkward. They are perfectly social to everyone around them – except women walking by. That’s not a flaw, that’s a strategy.
Yes, Homo Sapiens Sapiens often cry when they are cold and being abused by their boyfriends.
Ellesar skrev:
In my teen years, my undiagnosed aspie disdained pleasantries as antiquated and inefficient. I was set straight by Robert Heinlein of all people, in The Notebooks of Lazarus Long:
Say what you will about the Old Admiral (and, believe me, I could say plenty), he knew how to speak to people in their own language. (Admittedly, my preferred brands of verbal lubricant are different to the ones he specified there, but I use whatever fits the situation and doesn’t violate my own personal sense of the moral and political fitness of things.)
For those that thought I was making some sort of loophole for those being “socially awkward”, I wasn’t. Plenty of students in special needs programs are there for learning disabilities rather than social difficulties. Also, while most are good kids, just like every segment of the population, there are a lot of little jerks in there, too. I’m NOT making excuses for them, I’m just offering alternative reasons that I hoped to stress weren’t mutually exclusive with the idea of dominance plays and intimidation offered by others. Many of the young men being little assholes know exactly what they’re doing and enjoy it. Some don’t, and they’re the ones that it’s vastly easier to correct because yes, explaining to them why what they’re doing is wrong does work. Of course, when this is combined with unequivocal statements that authority figures will NOT tolerate it, it also tends to reduce the problem with those that would otherwise keep doing it for fun, too, so it can be difficult to tell the genuinely repentant from one who is merely going to save it for a time when he won’t an authority figure keeping him in line.