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.
@Nicolaluna:
I think I have a crush now. <3
@ IP
I think I’ve got to the stage that every time I learn a new fact an old one gets squeezed out of my brain to make room.
I was thinking about you though when I asked about Swedish Mammotheers, so I think subconsciously I must have been remembering that it was you who told me. Scildfreja could probably explain what’s going on there.
But it is such a sad tale. You know my admiration for combative women and kinetic solutions, so the picture is such an iconic encapsulation of that. But, notwithstanding all the arguments about public domain etc, I do feel, personally, other opinions are equally valid of course, a little uneasy now celebrating the picture.
Tell me his girl friend is named Gloria Mundi. Because if she barfed on the train, we could say “Sick transit Gloria Mundi.”
Every single line of that post is dripping with condescending arrogant superiority. There is no reason to have that convoluted purple prose everywhere except to feel superior and get fawning slobbers from the rest of the site about “How clever and smart you talk”.
“We did, and as expected it took much longer time and costed me almost the equivalent of 50 US dollars. … ”
Costed me? Is that English?
Also, if he was drinking in a Swedish bar it sure cost him more than 50 USD, unless, as well as being a PUA and a gilipollas he has short arms and deep pockets.
Marcus etsum dux forte
Sextus et erat
Marcus sic in omnibus
Sextus sic in at.
Don Quijote : “it costed me” look very much like a typical francism to me. I guess that it can come from other languages too.
Many reasons to suspect the details of this story. However:
That would be likely his own rendering of a Swedish conversation.
A “recent evening” could well been several months ago – also, this spring and early summer was rather chilly in this general region (I’m in Helsinki).
She feared she’d get sick in the metro but not in a cab? I suspect she actually didn’t want to freeze walking/waiting to/at/from the metro station.
In Helsinki, throwing up is almost part of the late night metro etiquette. Seats and other surfaces are hard and smooth, easy to clean. Heck, you could try carving some rude message in a seat and you’d probably ruin your knife.
Headless body in topless bar. That’s what happens when you get legless.
I seem to remember being told a different variant
(Caesar adsum iam forte
Brutus aderat)
Have been feeling really crook all day even with those here being generally solicitous – considering how very much worse that poor young woman must have been feeling, with shitwit ‘boyfriend’ behaving like that, I hope she dumped the shitbag immediately if not sooner.
@Steven Dutch
Witty.
Not at all a linguistic stretch.
And respectful of this woman — and all women.
@Don Quijote
You’ve called out one of my very favorite quotes from this — I have on excellent authority — asshat.
Another one of my very favorite quotes:
I myself made a quick calculation just this morning and decided that the wisest choice was to eat breakfast. Otherwise, I’d stay hungry.
@epronovost
Very well stated.
Except they don’t, at all, because the Penthouse letter will be about something terrific happening to the writer, usually involving one or more women he wants offering sex he wants. It’s a happy fantasy, while all these guys can do, even when they’re lying, is complain about how everyone is awful and doesn’t get how great they are, and how terrible women and all men who don’t agree with them are.
Update: Did end up going to the family reunion, and luckily enough, it turns out racist-step-grandpa-who-posts-stuff-about-confederacy-being-heritage-despite-originally-being-from-BOSTON is not there because Grammy apparently made an ultimatum about not coming unless they changed the location from the barn they usually hold it in cause she’s allergic to hay… And they called her bluff.
I mean, all about making accommodations for people, but it’s like, this is a free venue that a family member owns, and there’s a house there you could hang out in away from hay, and sure, the food’s normally served in the barn, but you could probably get someone else to get you food? Don’t have bad allergies myself, but it seems like there’d be a more workable solution than demanding a change of location.
In any case, he was the one I was most worried about, so this reunion is now much more enjoyable.
@IgnoreSandra
“And every single one of these men I’m sure didn’t think they did anything wrong. Men consider violence against women to be completely normal. I wonder how they’d write any of this online?”
I know it’s become a joke these days, but it is really true. Not all, or even most, men are like that. I can’t say I can truly understand what you’ve been through, because I haven’t been through anything that near intense, but blaming 50% of humanity isn’t a good answer. It plays into the awful stereotype of feminists as man haters that people like MRAs play off of.
In my case, it would be like saying all straight people think that beating gay people is normal and okay. That’s clearly false, is as prejudiced as any homophobe, and alienates straight people who want to help fight for LGBT rights. Prejudice against anyone for what they’re born as, regardless of what that is, is wrong.
Sorry for getting on my soapbox, but it does annoy me when this “men are all X” stuff pops up. That’s how the dangerous path towards true misandry, a la Mary Daly, Valerie Solanas, and Cathy Brennan, begins. And with misandry, which is contemptible in and of itself, often comes transphobia for MtF people, hi again Cathy Brennan. The more we can do to avoid that, the better the movement will be.
Sorry. I’m sick and not up to refuting the not all men post in a more substantial way. Anyone else want to take it?
I’m sorry if I wrong someone, and would love an explanation for what I said that was wrong so I can fix my behavior.
EDIT: Apparently there’s not a delete function on here, so I can’t delete it.
if I wronged*
@Cheese
If your problem with what @Sandra said is how she feels about men and not how men treat her, you’re a (trans)misogynist, slick. Be quiet, listen (if anyone has the time and temperament to explain it to you), reevaluate, come back when you got some sense
If it matters, I’m a straight (or close enough for rhetorical purposes), cis guy. And, just on a personal note, you’re not the 1st person in recent weeks to come a long and say that we’re being driven away by all the She Ra Man Haters. I promise you, I’m not that fragile. Small potatoes in the grand scheme, but I’m truly sick of that line of argument. Ironically, #notyourshield
The crap done to her was awful, and I didn’t intend to say otherwise. I felt that it was so obviously wrong as to not be said, but I realize my wrong, and sincerely apologize. I take back what I said as wrong, pig-headed, and idiotic. I’m still new to politics and stuff, having not really cared about it until recently.
I sincerely apologize and completely take back what I said, without reservation.
so obviously wrong as to not need to be said*
I’m not down with people who use ‘put in their place’ as a phrase. I always actually means ‘put where I think you should be – under me’. Never seen it used by anyone worth following.