Rachel Lucas unloads on a high maintenance girlfriend writing about her relationship in Men’s Health magazine:
I’m not even going to blockquote it; you really gotta read it to get the full punch. I’m just going to write a helpful very-slightly-altered version to balance out the evil karma resulting every time one of these articles is published. I’m compelled to go after other women like this for one primary reason: they embarrass me and bring shame upon my gender with their superficial double standards. Someone’s gotta fight back and guys can’t do it lest they be accused of piggery and sexism.
And we thank you for this important service, Rachel.
I’d like to believe it would make a difference but double standards seem hard-wired in our gender differences on many issues both for and against men.
The biggest double standard, however, remains that men have to act like men and take it anyway.
I thought both the original article and the rebuttal were pretty uninspiring. Males are males, females are females, other people are other people, and, speaking only personally of course, I find that in general it is best to avoid them all as far as possible, except on mutually agreeable terms. Not agreeable? Fine. I’ve got other things to do. It’s just like arguing in blog comments. But as I said, that’s just me, I got me one o’ them there aspergery brain structures. I think that one (self) is company, two’s a conversation, three’s politics, four’s a crowd, and five’s a mob. The rest of you will have to work out your own system 😉
Hotdog – men don’t have to take it. They just need to choose wisely. Of course, the same could be said for women.
The whole thing smacks of immature twenty-somethings. Ladies and Gentlemen, we live in an age of the incurable adolescent. Everyone is base, petty, smart ass, cynical, irresponsible, unconcerned with the future–that means future generations–or the past. Anyone wondering why the divorce rate exceeds the marriage rate and that population is on the decline or even that Islam wants to kill us? These articles are your answer.
Vit – “…one (self) is company, two’s a conversation, three’s politics, four’s a crowd, and five’s a mob”
Yep. Definitely a trace of Asperger’s. I probably need testing, too.
Doug – attributing this to “incurable adolescen[ce]” is praising with faint damns. Adolescence is a rather recent invention, attributable to affluence, parental neglect and the warehousing of children in substandard public schooling. These twits are just plain childish, which is a synonym for foolish. They have yet to be civilized.
Oh my. We are doomed.
“The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in
which we are permitted to remain children all our lives.”
— Albert Einstein
I am reminded of Bill Mahr’s line “Women will spend 20yrs trying to change you and then they will leave you because you are not the man she married.”
This topic is very dear to my heart. I have been blasted from many directions when I defend rap music and its so called misogyny. I am tempted to quote Ice Cube but you folks will not understand. As long as women deny that a b***** is a b***** no matter poor or rich(oops) they will never understand that the title b***** doesn’t apply to all women, but all women have a little b***** in’em.(couldn’t resist)
This article speaks to the validity of the opinions expressed by some rappers about some women. To deny that these opinions haven’t come from the experiences of these rappers or people close to them is arrogant. The last and final bit is that for the most part the eeeotch songs like the one quoted above are mainly in jest.
I liked #8 the best. Anybody ever notice how the sound level in any workplace rises in direct relation to the number of women there?
The number of women I dated back in the day who just could NOT shut up and let me read for ten minutes, it was appalling.
Ladies, we are not like you. We are men. We are different. When we talk its because we want to convey actual information or make a request. Empty blather is reserved for cars and sports, in my case just cars because I detest sports.
Silences generally do not need filling. This is the way of men.
Vit – you say childlike, I say childish…
…depends on the trait to which is the trend, darkly wise or rudely great, n’est pas?
I think I see your semantic point, Tenebris, but I’m not so sure I see the dichotomy. Childlike and childish can both be applied to both the advantages and disadvantages both of being darkly wise and of being rudely great (each of which is, I note, an interesting juxtaposition in its own right, giving us a six bit Karnaugh map). After all, in his Essay on Man, Alexander Pope used and, not or:
“Know then thyself, presume not God to scan;
The proper study of mankind is Man.
Placed on this isthmus of a middle state,
A being darkly wise, and rudely great:
With too much knowledge for the skeptic side
With too much weakness for the Stoic’s pride,
He hangs between; in doubt to act, or rest.
In doubt to deem himself a god, or beast;
In doubt his mind or body to prefer,
Born but to die, and reasoning but to err;
Alike in ignorance, his reason such,
Whether he thinks too little, or too much:
Chaos of thought and passion, all confused;
Still by himself abused, or disabused;
Created half to rise, and half to fall;
Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all;
Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled:
The glory, jest, and riddle of the world!”
I find that poem to be magnificently non-judgmental. It remains, I think, one of the best summaries of the human situation ever, right up there with Albert Camus’ comment on Sisyphus:
“I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain! One always finds one’s burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night filled mountain, in itself forms a world. The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”
It seems to me, per Pope’s by himself abused, or disabused and Camus’ take on the struggle filling a man’s heart and bringing happiness, that the matter of which problem is being worked on, be it guys pleasing gals, gals pleasing guys, nuclear physics, nanobiology, or tyromancy, is less important than is picking one’s spots. Thus, if one finds oneself with a shortage of fights, one should pursue more of those sorts of things, else not. Personally, I prefer to go around fights, rather than through them (offer, of course, void where prohibited by law or physics).
…and the hail mary pass is caught! (‘pologies to the weaker sisters)
I find the poem to reflect the torment of one baffled and bemused by the vagaries of existence, striving for an answer he knows to exist, but falling short.
And Camus? He needed to raise a glass wit a dour ould scotch, steeped in Calvinism, to speak so contentedly of Sisyphus (a tempting nom de plume, but I shall not forsake Isaiah).
Tyromancy? Speak not to this brine-soak Dutchman of cheese. I read naught but ill, forebeit my instruments are wan lumps of wax.
Goodnight moon…
Oops, I thought it was a hale merry pass 😉
I read about this on Dr. Helen’s and Rachel Lucas’s blogs, and there was a lot of pain and anger towards women expressed there in the comments sections. In these comments, however, there are quotes of Einstein, Alexander Pope, and Camus. What the hell? What is this, the Philosophical Asperger’s Society?
“Boss there’s a rider comin’ in”
“Kill him.’
“But boss, it’s a woman”
“Wound her.”
-Evil Roy Slade
“The number of women I dated back in the day who just could NOT shut up and let me read for ten minutes, it was appalling.”
That’s hilarious. I cannot sit and read anything for more than 5 minutes without getting asked a question or interrupted in some manner. And she wonders why I spend so much time in the washroom.
“Hon, the check engine light is coming on.”
“What do the gauges say?”
“Gas is ok.”
“Hmm, running fine?”
“Appears to be.”
Now fast forward a few days…..
“Went shopping and found a big puddle under the car, so I moved the car and the puddle re-appeared. So I thought I come home instead of going across town.”
“That’s good, did a wise thing.” (While the inner voice is saying “She actually stopped and “thought”?”
Start car up, temperature gauge max’s out right away, engine starting to struggle.
“Um didn’t you notice the temperature gauge?”
“What’s that?”
“It is the gauge above the gas gauge. It shows the engine temp. You were overheating due to losing coolant.”
“oh.”
“Didn’t you even look at it when the check engine came on?”
“No. Why should I? You didn’t teach me how to read gauges.”
Head meet wall, wall meet forehead….
Who the hell drinks Wild Turkey?
Missing Link brings up a very important point. Wild Turkey is for washing carburetor parts. Single malt is for drinking. J&B at a pinch.
Because, as we all know: “If its no Scots its CRAP!!!!”
Gary in Wpg said: “Um didn’t you notice the temperature gauge?” “What’s that?”
That’s a funny thing about women eh? They talk for sure, but they do not hear anything about cars.
Good thing they’re girls or we wouldn’t put up with ’em. ~:D
That article makes me glad I’m an old broad and I hang out with adults of both genders. I love single malt (working my way through them all). Be genuine and stop playing silly ass games trying to manipulate other people and “making” them be what you want.
I’m really irritated now.
Heard that, Rita! ~:D I bet you can drive standard too, not just automatic.
Unfortunately you’d be the exception that proves the rule.
Vitrovius:”…four’s a crowd, and five’s a mob.”
10’s a squad, 25’s a platoon, 75’s a company, 300’s a battalion, etc.
Depending on your point of view, in Beijing during daylight hours, five is only about a quarter of an elevator’s average one-way trip load or the number of people occupying 15ft^2 on a city bus, or how many people per block are selling $2 DVD’s of movies still in theaters.
Five’s a big number here on the prairies but pretty tiny elsewhere.