Monday, November 17, 2008

Nothing much to report

So here's some fun stuff from jezebel. Go read the whole thing.


"Oh, and let's not get started on the whole bullshit "nice guys don't get the girl" that all these guys re-hash. Well, yeah, sure, if The Girl is the head cheerleader (and she always is) — but were they ever asking out the girl who was President of Students Against Drunk Driving and the German club (i.e., dorky, awkward me)? Some of them were, sure, but I'll be damned if most of them aren't happily married to truly pleasant women who they adore. My photo albums from high school to this day are a virtual pantheon of sweet, dorky guys who asked me out or who I asked out, most of whom were actually as nice as they look and none of whom were bad boys.

I dated two legitimately bad dudes in my life — the first one, in high school, I dumped rather ungraciously on our second date for grabbing my ass, and the second one more recently who I dumped, equally ungraciously, after about a month of jealous fits. One of the supposedly nice ones tells Hymowitz:


According to a “Recovering Nice Guy” writing on Craigslist, the female preference for jerks and “assholes,” as they’re also widely known, lies behind women’s age-old lament, “What happened to all the nice guys?” His answer: “You did. You ignored the nice guy. You used him for emotional intimacy without reciprocating, in kind, with physical intimacy.”
Oh, so, the only reason you were ever nice to a girl, the only reason you ever got close to a girl, was to fuck her? Don't worry, dude, you were never a nice guy. You probably didn't get fucked more because when you were holding a girl crying she caught you feeling up her boob. By comparison, at least a bad boy doesn't lie about his intentions or caring about your feelings.

So, look, the problem is that there are no rules, and there is no one end game any more. Great. I'm glad there's not. I don't mind paying for dinner, or going to see a hockey movie on Valentine's Day, or calling first or opening my own fucking doors — and I don't mind being paid for, or getting roses or being called or having a door opened for me — and I am damn glad that I don't have to hang up my dating spurs at 31 and call myself a spinster and start knitting booties for my younger sister's eventual children. And, yes, it's more difficult because in the absence of rules and regulations, in the dearth of universal social expectations and proscribed life paths, no one knows what anyone else is really looking for in a two minute interaction. But this is solved by actually not expecting things from people you don't know, and by treating women as individuals worth more than the sexual pleasure they might or might not eventually afford you. And it doesn't help to bitch about how all women are shallow, money-hungry harpies who you're just going to game the way they've gamed you. Maybe you've been gamed because as a shallow, money- and pussy-obsessed prick who isn't interested in getting to know a person, you missed out on more than just being played."

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