#metoo

[Snarky Oracle!]

I didn't realise it was a sequel, I thought it was a single production, a film or mini-series shown in two parts.

It might've been both.

 

[Mel O'Drama]

Recently. Steve Harvey said on his show that men were placed on earth by God to provide for a woman.

His female audience, which included a number of several self-proclaimed feminists, broke into wild applause.

So invigorating and lacking in hypocrisy!

I thought of this today when I read this article about attitudes towards who pays the bill on first dates.

“If a man asks on a first date to split the bill you should say to him: ‘Sure, do you want to be friends? I split the bill with my friends not with men I'm dating’’​

'I'd be put off if he asked to split it': Who should pay on a first date?

Some insist on splitting the bill, others say the asker should pay, while many still see a man paying as romantic.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[Frank Underwood]

I get why gold diggers perpetuate the idea that men should happily provide for their every need, but I don't get the men who also believe this is some sort of noble virtue.

I suppose this one-sided situation is romantic, so long as you're on the receiving end of it.

When I was young and naive, I thought love was about an emotional bond between two people. Sadly, the reality is often colder. It seems relationships are often transactional. As a lifelong bachelor, I used to feel like I was missing something when I was younger. The more I see and hear today, the more I feel like I dodged a bullet. I saw how some girls liked to toy with guys and play games with them in high school. I know all women aren't like that, but it was enough to make me think relationships weren't worth the effort.

My parents also went through a nasty divorce, and now my sister's going through the same thing. What a hassle.

 

[Jimmy Todd]

Regarding the "who pays the bill on the first date," George Costanza(Seinfeld) had a good.idea when he said he doesn't mind paying the bill, but she should at least reach for her purse so he can say, "No, I've got this." She doesn't have to pay, but the "reach" is appreciated. If a woman can judge a man by if he pays on the first date(not saying all do), then a man can judge a woman by whether or not she reaches for he purse.

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

I get why gold diggers perpetuate the idea that men should happily provide for their every need, but I don't get the men who also believe this is some sort of noble virtue.

I suppose this one-sided situation is romantic, so long as you're on the receiving end of it.

When I was young and naive, I thought love was about an emotional bond between two people. Sadly, the reality is often colder. It seems relationships are often transactional. As a lifelong bachelor, I used to feel like I was missing something when I was younger. The more I see and hear today, the more I feel like I dodged a bullet. I saw how some girls liked to toy with guys and play games with them in high school. I know all women aren't like that, but it was enough to make me think relationships weren't worth the effort.

My parents also went through a nasty divorce, and now my sister's going through the same thing. What a hassle.

Yes, and you're not just rationalizing your disappointment in order to feel better by saying, "I used to feel like I was missing something when I was younger. The more I see and hear today, the more I feel like I dodged a bullet."

You're actually right. Very few relationships, once you see inside them, are something you would genuinely want for yourself or emulate. Even the ones that last and appear to work, once you see behind the veneer, you'll be disillusioned by what you find.. They are usually mutually frustrated, resent their partner (if comfortably so) and remain together out of familiarity (not that familiarity is necessarily a bad thing) and partly want to escape but remain because they're getting older and don't really know what else to do.

Finding two people who not only have that chemical spark required but are also mutually interested in the welfare of the other, and have mutual good will, is nearly astronomically unlikely... It happens, but not a lot... And the alternative result is a series of grisly personal disasters, one after the other, ruining one's life -- sometimes permanently. It's chaos instead of connubial comfort.

While people are imperfect and go through their own phases, the simple truth is that there is very little love in the world or the human psyche --- that's not my being negative; it's just the way people are wired. They 'want' but not 'love' -- and aren't able to tell the difference, even in themselves, until it's essentially too late. (Especially in marriage, where the family courts -- the only courts which are profit-driven --are so ridiculously biased towards the wife that it should be a scandal discussed in the mainstream media ad nauseum, yet isn't.

Change the courts before pushing for traditional marriage. But don't expect that to happen anytime soon.

I suppose, biologically, men want sex to disseminate their DNA while women want resources in order to provide for those potential offspring. That may be completely natural, but the details can be (and usually are) pretty damned ugly... and nearly everybody regrets, rightly or wrongly -- openly or privately -- those relationships and want to get away from it... That's simply the melancholy way of the world. So people who've had minimal success romantically really shouldn't bemoan it, but they're probably too immersed in their own sadness over what they've "missed" to realize it.

And the post-breakup/divorce negativity usually lasts far longer than the brief (often delusional) giddiness of a new romance.

I mean, it's just true. But instead of being embittered or emotionally gutted by all of that (bad relationships that ended badly, or very few or no relationships at all) it's useful to look at how those things play out for other people: despite surface social appearances, it's a nightmare for them, too, those folks who seem to have 'normal' personal lives; there's mostly regret and, if the couple stays together, feeling trapped and unable to escape, hopefully able to make some peace with that and sometimes not.

Now, that's not exactly my experience relationship-wise. (I had unusually good taste from early on, and when relationships ended, it remained a positive memory; and I can embrace temporariness when circumstances change). But same-gender relationships, especially male, are kind of different: lesbians have the highest level of domestic violence (and divorce), gay-male relationships have the lowest level of domestic violence (and divorce), and straight couples are in the middle... Obviously, there are plenty of exceptions, but what does that tell you??

In general, women are more naturally aggressive than men (as the woman who shot Andy Warhol would tell us) and, as such, are more likely to achieve her transactional goals of extracting resources than are most men (who are not as successfully sexually predatory as reputation would have it -- most straight guys are not the 'Chad and Tyrone' players stereotype we envision)... She may not get all she wants, but she's likely to get more of it than he does romantically.

It's important that she receive as many assets (often his) as possible. And everything is geared towards that in the culture... 85 percent of the consumer dollars are spent by women (and she's not just buying diapers or groceries for the fam), so she's the one tossing all that money up to the real patriarchy at the top: the superrich corporations. (Which is why all the commercials today, and much of the entertainment, is tonally skewed to flatter her at every turn).

And speaking of gay shit, even the usual traditional admonition of male homosexuality is about the redirection all male attention, protection and resources to women as per usual -- such that false hints or outright accusations of homosexuality directed towards straight men (who don't provide to her what she wants) are made as often as truthful accusations; in order for him to avoid 'shame' by getting the 'validation' of women (or just being coupled with women) he must focus his resources and attention towards her. (And don't be fooled by current pro-gay sentiments among quasi-leftist women, whose acceptance of male-homosexuality falls apart pretty quickly, and who's pushed a ridiculously outrageous "pro-LGBTQIA+++" agenda in order to hurt gay male rights in the long run).

And while I'm not saying it's easy growing up a little lesbian girl, there have been some countries in the past which have maintained harsh laws against male homosexuality while lesbianism received social disapproval yet wasn't criminalized. And why? Because lesbianism doesn't take anything away from women, but male homosexuality certainly does (and the accusation of which is useful against straight men to get 'em in line).

Is all of this conscious? Probably not entirely. But it doesn't make any difference. It all turns out the same way.

Back to dating: feminism has always cherry-picked equality. The movement isn't holy. And it has always mostly been about maintaining traditional male obligations while eliminating -- or attempting to eliminate -- women's reciprocal obligations.

Has it worked? In some ways, yes. But the women are as unhappy as ever, and the guys are only a wee bit happier if they can stay out of the fringe of all of it.

And women lie far more often after -- or even during -- relationships (as I've discovered in my platonic friendships with women) while men mostly don't talk about it at all.

So, yes, you've dodged a bullet.

There's a reason the religious texts warn about female nature. And it's not because they're 'patriarchal documents'.

Women are more assertive and restless by nature; most men are more placid and accepting of his own circumstances. (Yes, more men are involved in warfare, as the feminists often point out, but few of those men want to be in those wars -- they're sent there by male rulers, but female rulers, though fewer in number, are statistically much more warlike in contrast... which is probably why it's not an anthropological mistake that there have been much fewer).

Bitterness and anger are pointless. It's understandable perhaps, but it's also a form of denial and a waste of time.

It's war indeed between men and women. And she has the edge. So sometimes the best thing you can do is to opt out. If possible. But that requires knowing what's actually going on.

Once you see it, you can't unsee it.

 

[Angela Channing]

I've always believed that if I invite a woman out on a first date then I would pay unless she insists on paying her share. If a woman invites me out on a date (yeah, wishful thinking!) then the expectation would be that she would pay, although I would offer to pay my share of the bill.

It's not just a female or male thing. If I had 2 tickets to a football match and I asked a male friend to go with me, I wouldn't expect him to pay for the ticket unless I specifically asked him to buy the ticket from me before he agreed to accompany me.