When the “grab 'em by the pussy” video came out I was surprised by the reaction by Trump’s base. Not that they didn’t mind the misogyny, but that they didn’t mind how pathetic he is. Trump was so clearly the guy desperately trying to be cool and failing miserably. The idea that the combination of misogyny and social failure was his the appeal really had never crossed my mind. I feel like I understand MAGA men a little better now.
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The ponderous tombs I could write on just “what not to do when you’re drinking”…
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i spent some time in 91 and early 92 dealing with that stuff from just a slightly different perspective. i worked in housekeeping at a ranch/resort and by the winter of 91 i was housekeeping supervisor so there were times that in addition to my typical early shift i also had to come and work evenings as a “manager on duty” for the hotel. business was usually mostly sparse in the winter except for when conference groups would come in. a lot of times when there wasn’t a lot of business staff would go to the lounge to unwind and sometimes that happened even when we had a group in.
anyway . . . i had to deal with customers and staff who were stupid drunk. we had a policy such that if there were empty rooms that weren’t needed the next day we’d just let staff members who were too drunk to drive use them to sleep it off. there were too many times i either ended up walking a staff member to his or her room or walking the customer up the hill to their guest room or their cabin and there were way, way too many times i had to hold up a staffer or a guest while they puked their guts up, sometimes onto my pants or my shoes. one time a halfway sober guest went up with a very drunk wrangler to join him in his room and then an hour later i had to deal with the husband banging on the guest room doors looking for his wife and ready to have a fight with any male who opened up the door until he had chance to “find that cheating bitch.”
there wasn’t any of that which makes into my “most satisfying experiences in colorado” list.
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Speaking as a happy nerd who remembers the pickup artists from the early 2000s I wasn’t always a happy nerd and this comic helped explain a lot of people to me.
I will admit buying into pick up culture when I was a teenager but mainly because I was a nerd and president of Japanese Club. Needless to say I didn’t get a lot of dates. Well, none.
I decided that I was just going to be my nerdy self but combined it with things that could be considered traditional masculinity that I actually liked but not in a toxic fashion, and found a way to combine nerd and craftsman into a genuinely interesting and thoughtful person. Spent years trying to get a date, gave up, tried again, gave up, and then just stopped giving a fuck. Ironically that’s when I just talked to women like they weren’t even there as something to pick up, and that’s when I seemed to have them talking to me of their own accord, despite still being a nerd, I became a maker a blacksmith a machinist a lapidary and a few other things along with a vintage motorcycle mechanic.
Basically I was just my badass self, and did my own thing, and I’ll admit it was still hard to meet women but I now have an amazing girlfriend that appreciates me, who’s very nerdy herself. I never devolved into the slime depicted in this comic. But I can see how some people do now. I guess having integrity and a conscience keep that from happening. Its hard being a nerd in America. Thanks to all the nerdy women out there who made it a bit easier.
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Reading that article is like a word-for-word recitation of every excuse-laden dumpster-fire post we’ve had about sexual/gender inequality here on BB:
'…the Devil’s Chadvocate is well-practiced in the art of “whataboutism” and “both-sides-ism,” the sort of rhetoric that makes all participants appear at fault, meaning no one should face consequences for problematic or offensive ideas - least of all the Chadvocate, of course.
This is in keeping with his style of caution, a mesh of plausible deniability that shrouds those ideas, but allows them to soak through. The Devil’s Chadvocate is disgusted by rapists and harassers but hates dating in the era of #MeToo because “it’s tough for me to know where the line is.” He won’t say “witch hunt” but is always vaguely afraid of things “going too far,” spinning “out of control.” Whose control? His, I guess.
He’s a regular guy. Should he be “attacked” for that? He’s sensitive!’
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Fuck those guys I want my fedora back.
Also…is that how my name became a stupid meme?
Edit: OMG
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If that is indeed your actual government name, then you have my sincere sympathies* for the inevitable negative connotations.
*As does every woman named “Felicia…”
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Resentment.
Social isolation.
Disaffection.
Group identity.
No family responsibilities.
This is the same profile ISIS recruits.
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I did a bit of bar work in my late teens, and one day saw a guy getting orange juice for his female companion, but paying on the side for a shot of vodka to be slipped into the drink. At the time I thought “what a dickhead” and did nothing.
Now, decades later, I deeply deeply regret not causing a scene, ruining his day, and doubtless improving hers. My young self failed a test. It’s one of the first things I’ll do once I get the time machine working.
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Horrible people flock to horrible people.
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I don’t buy much of this.
Nerdy types and engineers always had it difficult with women, whatever the reason. There is an engineer character in Emile Zola’s “Germinal” and he is desperate for lack of sex. That book was written in 1885. Suddenly today’s unsuccessful men turn to alt-right because they are losing their privileges? It does not add up.
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It does add up to me.
It’s the same exact schtick of any scammer.
"You’re not the problem, they are the problem. Getting laid is just a puzzle. An engineering challenge. You’re good at that right? You strip the problem to it’s core components and reassemble it with a solution in mind, just like anything else.
You deserve it. Because you are awesome. You are better than other people. You are perfect. Here, let me show you how it’s done."
Dehumanizing the first group is HARD. Dehumanizing further groups is easy.
I mean, just check all the nerdy kids who go "once I stopped taking to girls like they were (insert innocent alternative to thing), and started talking to girls like they were people, it became easier to find a date.
They aren’t turning alt right because they can’t find a date as if that’s natural, otherwise you could fuck the Nazi out of them, they turn alt right because that group identified these kids as easy marks.
And they are, in fact, easy marks
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I see your point. The alt-right, isis, army recruitment or whatever turns to these guys because a larger proportion of them is naive and desperate and can be misused. Yes, that makes sense.
But then, these guys are victims. Unsympathetic victims, maybe, but nevertheless.
In my mind when their worldviews turn from quiet belief to action or sometimes even just propaganda spreading they stop being victims and become perpetrators. Until then though I reserve the right to pity them.
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It was always this way. It’s a big part of why an art nerd went toxic long before he became a corporal in the Kaiser’s grand army.
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No one’s saying they all do. But it’s pretty clear that many do, and that the consequences for others are sometimes severe.
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Interesting spotlight on “double-down-ism”.
Instead of coming to the obvious conclusion “if what I do didn’t work, clearly what I do is wrong”, the conclusion MAGA reached is “if what I do didn’t work, clearly the world is wrong”.
But that’s just some elitist entitlement attitude worthy of a cult.
Once I was quite interested in the PUA movement… I actually have one or two of those books. But women are not all the same, and such “techniques” are really just crutches and body language reading repackaged into a personality cult.
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Pick-up techniques certainly work better than never addressing any woman and spending all nights behind a screen, so there is that.
It’s simple. Don’t treat women like they are yours to conquer. don’t treat them like you DESERVE them. Treat them like human beings. It’s not rocket surgery.
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