So a guy walks into a gym...

[ProdeFemme]

On the McDonald's thing--dude, that lady suffered third-degree burns from that coffee. She was only suing for her medical bills. I would have sued, too! That's not "coffee is hot, durrrhh," that was an unreasonable level of heat.

I must admit, maybe I can't make sense of it because it's never occurred to me to hold a cup of coffee with my knees seeing as it's brewed with water just beneath the boiling point Human adult skin will receive third degree burns when exposed to 160 degree (Fahrenheit) heat in 1 second. That's really not an unreasonable level of heat for fresh coffee or tea, that's actually beneath the setting of most coffee warmers. But alas, that's another debate for another time...

[KayleeSaeihr]

What is this "Nice Guy" stuff? Who is a "Nice Guy"?

[Charlieee]

What is this "Nice Guy" stuff? Who is a "Nice Guy"?

apparently Guys Who Are Not Nice.

[KayleeSaeihr]

That makes no sense.

[Gatto]

If only he'd had a realdoll, he might not have felt so lonely and angry.

Poor baby.

[Prefers Pie]

Regarding 'nice guys':

http://www.heartless-bitches.com/rants/nic.../niceguys.shtml

[IceCreamAssassin]

Regarding 'nice guys':

http://www.heartless-bitches.com/rants/nic.../niceguys.shtml

That link's not working for me.

A Nice Guy^TM is the kind of guy who will be "nice" to a girl in the attempt to get in her pants and rail against women kind when his shallow niceties are not reciprocated in poon and whines that it is because women only want jerks, because the men he sees her date he thinks is a jerk, when just as often he's just a reasonably confident guy. In fact, Nice Guys^TM, from my experience and sample size of one (Not exactly scientific), generally turn out to be somewhat abusive in a relationship since they feel entitled by merit of being "nice."

There are other variants on Nice Guy^TM but that's the one that's most familiar to me.

[KayleeSaeihr]

Regarding 'nice guys':

http://www.heartless-bitches.com/rants/nic.../niceguys.shtml

That links not working for me.

A Nice Guy^TM is the kind of guy who will be "nice" to a girl in the attempt to get in her pants and rail against women kind when his shallow niceties are not reciprocated in poon and whines that it is because women only want jerks, because the men he sees her date he thinks is a jerk, when just as often he's just a reasonably confident guy. In fact, Nice Guys^TM, from my experience and sample size of one (Not exactly scientific), generally turn out to be somewhat abusive in a relationship since they feel entitled by merit of being "nice."

There are other variants on Nice Guy^TM but that's the one that's most familiar to me.

The link isn't working for me either.

Whilst I'm not exactly a guy, I do consider myself nice... But only in so far as I think my personality is pleasant at least most of the time.

[IceCreamAssassin]

Regarding 'nice guys':

http://www.heartless-bitches.com/rants/nic.../niceguys.shtml

That links not working for me.

A Nice Guy^TM is the kind of guy who will be "nice" to a girl in the attempt to get in her pants and rail against women kind when his shallow niceties are not reciprocated in poon and whines that it is because women only want jerks, because the men he sees her date he thinks is a jerk, when just as often he's just a reasonably confident guy. In fact, Nice Guys^TM, from my experience and sample size of one (Not exactly scientific), generally turn out to be somewhat abusive in a relationship since they feel entitled by merit of being "nice."

There are other variants on Nice Guy^TM but that's the one that's most familiar to me.

The link isn't working for me either.

Whilst I'm not exactly a guy, I do consider myself nice... But only in so far as I think my personality is pleasant at least most of the time.

The point isn't that they're nice but that they are nice to a woman when she's single for the sole purpose of being rewarded sexually and when they're not they whine about not getting what they feel they're entitled to, as if anyone has entitlement to anyone else's body just because they showed some occasional basic human kindness or were otherwise self-diagnosed as perfect.

So no worries about being nice. That''s still ok. :P

[Gatto]

[thylacine]

That has been my experience with nice guys too. They act nice, then act manipulative or sulk or turn verbally abusive when they don't get any. Their just phony, really. Then they whine that girls like jerks, but that's because the girls wake up to the fact that they are phony... hey did we get off topic again? Oh well! It's fun to see how things drift to this and to that...

Okay... back to the freak with the guns. Raise your hand if you think he went nuts because he didn't have sex for 20 years.

Okay, we're online. Don't raise your hand... :lol:

But seriously, I am beginning to wonder... we're asexual (most of us are) so we sleep alone for 20 years (or with a cat) and we're happy -- oh, isn't life great, I'm sleeping with a cat! But a sexual guy, he's like, oh I'm sleeping alone, better go to the gun store and freak out... I dunno. Is this stereotypical, or am I on to something here... ?

[KayleeSaeihr]

There's a lot of different reasons why someone would snap... It could be that he didn't have sex (though I doubt it), or it could be he was unstable or already and constant rejection made him snap, or he could've had a shitty childhood and grew up slightly off-kilter. It really could be anything, and as much as he is the villain in all this I can't help but think that maybe he's a bit of a victim too.

[Sciatrix]

That has been my experience with nice guys too. They act nice, then act manipulative or sulk or turn verbally abusive when they don't get any. Their just phony, really. Then they whine that girls like jerks, but that's because the girls wake up to the fact that they are phony... hey did we get off topic again? Oh well! It's fun to see how things drift to this and to that...

Okay... back to the freak with the guns. Raise your hand if you think he went nuts because he didn't have sex for 20 years.

Okay, we're online. Don't raise your hand... :lol:

But seriously, I am beginning to wonder... we're asexual (most of us are) so we sleep alone for 20 years (or with a cat) and we're happy -- oh, isn't life great, I'm sleeping with a cat! But a sexual guy, he's like, oh I'm sleeping alone, better go to the gun store and freak out... I dunno. Is this stereotypical, or am I on to something here... ?

I don't think it's an issue of his being a sexual guy, I think it's more an issue of his being a sexual guy who feels entitled to women's bodies--as if sex was a right as opposed to a privilege. I think a well-adjusted sexual guy who actually sees women as people and not walking vaginas would a) not blame the wimminz for his lack of sexual opportunities, and b) probably wouldn't have that much difficulty finding a partner to begin with.

On the topic of Nice Guys^TM, they're distinguished from run of the mill nice guys in that they're not being nice to women because they want to or because it makes them feel good to make someone else feel good. Rather, the general idea they're working off of is that women are like vending machines; if you do the right things in the right order, you get rewarded with sex! Except not really, and then if they don't get it they become bitter and rage-filled. This comic illustrates the mindset we're dealing with here.

[KayleeSaeihr]

This comic illustrates the mindset we're dealing with here.

I'm actually like that... But not because of any ulterior motive, but mostly because I think relationships that form from friendships are more meaningful those that form from sex (and elements thereof). Maybe it because I'm asexual and am simply not all that interested in someone's body beyond hugs and kisses...

[thylacine]

Re: women are like vending machines. Sheesh. I've known lots of guys like that... LOTS!!!

[Prefers Pie]

Regarding 'nice guys':

http://www.heartless-bitches.com/rants/nic.../niceguys.shtml

That link's not working for me.

Works for me. Works in IE. Works in Safari. Works in Firefox. Ur doin it rong. :P

Try this one.

[IceCreamAssassin]

Regarding 'nice guys':

http://www.heartless-bitches.com/rants/nic.../niceguys.shtml

That link's not working for me.

Works for me. Works in IE. Works in Safari. Works in Firefox. Ur doin it rong. :P

Try this one.

Well, its working now.

[Sally]

The old broad (older than me, I remember, so I can use that term) should have sued her car company for not coming up with cup holders sooner than they did. This thing happened some years ago and she probably had an older car.

The guy's crazy. Anyone who isn't part of a militia or armed political group and shoots a bunch of people is crazy. Acts by crazy people don't need a whole lot of arguing about whether the victims have some culpability because of what they did or didn't do, or any particular group the victims belong to (like women). The shooter was simply crazy.

[thylacine]

Re: the guy was crazy. Yes. He certainly was.

But... here's a new problem: there might be dozens of copycat killers out there, sitting at home, watching TV, mad as hell that they can't' get a date... thinking about it, saying to themselves, "Boy, that guy knew how to get back at those b-tches!" Guns are too easy to buy in some states. It worries me. Are we gonna see more of this in the next few months?

[thecynicalromantic]

Saehir: the difference (hopefully a difference; I'm assuming you're not doing this) is that the NiceGuy becomes a girl's friend when he does not actually believe that being her friend is a good and fulfilling thing in and of itself. He does not, in short, want to be her friend, because being someone's friend involves stuff, like caring about them, and pretending to do that is work. He is engaging in the friendship deliberately and specifically because he thinks it'll be the best way of picking her up. He carefully hides his romantic interest for several months, while he waits for her to "develop" hers (which he assumes she will because she's supposed to). If they wind up being friends and then they stay friends, he doesn't think he's gained a friend--he thinks he's paid for something and then didn't receive it. Then he gets cranky.

The key issue here--for NiceGuys , Pick-Up Artists, MRAs, creepy old dudes on the street who ask for your number--is ENTITLEMENT. Women might be allowed to vote and stuff now, but there's still enough of a cultural narrative that allows massive amounts of dudes to develop complexes where they think they are ever, for any reason, entitled to women sexually, and are somehow allowed to get away with thinking that and acting on it without everyone they've ever met insisting they get their narcissistic ass to a therapist PRONTO before they interact with another human. This Sodini dude, obviously, has taken that idea to the most ultra-uber-delusional-extreme end possible, but that basic worldview is actually disturbingly common. If you look at all the vile shit he spewed on his blog, there's almost nothing in there we haven't seen before.

Also, note: HBI is in the middle of a site migration, so if any of their links don't work, just hang tight and they should be back up soonish.

Also also: from the old pandagon, a shiny comic explaining Nice Guys.

[oneofthesun]

Then they whine that girls like jerks, but that's because the girls wake up to the fact that they are phony...

And that at least the jerks are honest about it?

[IceCreamAssassin]

Then they whine that girls like jerks, but that's because the girls wake up to the fact that they are phony...

And that at least the jerks are honest about it?

Or they just aren't jerks. I'm not saying Nice Guys^TM are the only jerks, just that they see other men as jerks when they get what they think they are entitled to.

[thylacine]

News Update: Crazy George was questioned by police about having a hand grenade on a bus the week before the incident. Guess he couldn't get a date on the bus, either.

[Zygote]

Women reject men when they pick up on that "psycho vibe" a lot of them give off. They have this aura around, a neon sign that flashes "serial killer." So of course people avoid them, and they don't get it.

Strange enough, when a woman gives off that same vibe, she's 'exiting' and 'edgy'. *rolls eyes*

I know a few women who are crazy, by my definition. These women are always upset about something. Yet they always have boyfriends. I really don't know why. The poor guy is totally ignored by the girl, and then she comes crying to him over who-knows-what, and he does his darndest to "be there for her". Only he always has to be her shoulder to cry on, because she's always crying. And two days into the relationship, she's screaming at him and crying because of him, and he has this bewildered what-did-I-do wrong look on his face. The smart ones leave at this point. Some guys actually say they're sorry and rinse and repeat the scenario.

Back on topic: I had two stalkers in a small town. I did not tell either of them where I lived, I did not tell either of them my phone number or my last name, and they still found me. Years later when I told my inlaws we were moving to the city and not coming back "What?! But small town are the best places to raise children! Everybody knows everybody! You're safe here!" No, thank you, I much prefer the anonymity of the city. If I don't like you, I don't have to say hi to you at the grocery store, and no one's going to be jumping down my throat about it. Plus, there's more than one grocery store.

[thylacine]

Re: Crazy women

1. I've noticed that some men seem to like crazy women. Don't know why.

2. These same "crazy women" treat their female friends pretty bad between boyfriends, too.

Crazy people are to be avoided, no matter what their denomination. After a while, I get sick of giving them grocery money, talking them out of suicide, helping them pay their bills... and it never freakin ends, they never get "back on their feet." You give up on them, so they find another poor jerk to give them money and listen to them cry. They're just always in trouble, all the time.

[KayleeSaeihr]

Saehir: the difference (hopefully a difference; I'm assuming you're not doing this) is that the NiceGuy becomes a girl's friend when he does not actually believe that being her friend is a good and fulfilling thing in and of itself. He does not, in short, want to be her friend, because being someone's friend involves stuff, like caring about them, and pretending to do that is work. He is engaging in the friendship deliberately and specifically because he thinks it'll be the best way of picking her up. He carefully hides his romantic interest for several months, while he waits for her to "develop" hers (which he assumes she will because she's supposed to). If they wind up being friends and then they stay friends, he doesn't think he's gained a friend--he thinks he's paid for something and then didn't receive it. Then he gets cranky.

No, when I'm someone's friend I'm their friend, whole "kit and kaboodle"...

Here's something partially relevant, from Penny Arcade, of all places.

(I should note here that Gabe is playing Devil's Advocate (as he points out later))

Direct Source

I get fascinated by sparkling things sometimes, things I want to incorporate into my nest, and it cinches a noose around my mind which locks me into a kind of inexorable "information accrual" mode. Scientology is a perennial in this regard, to the extent that I actively avoid information about it because it's too fascinating and I don't want to join the "church" in a moment of weakness. I recently had the misfortune of being exposed to some propaganda from the "seduction community," and I've spent the weekend on a kind of data bender that has left me psychologically gutted. I've been trying to navigate away from this page for about an hour now, and I can't do it. That these people are base manipulators should be apparent to any literate person; they've made a cage of language that I can't escape from.

(CW)TB out.

I don't know, Love Systems doesn't seem so bad to me. It's really hard to talk to girls, and this is just helping guys with their confidence. Women are terrifying and strange, I don't see anything wrong with getting some advice.

-Gabe out

I'm fairly certain the purpose of this course is to make you a better predator of women. Check out their offers of "in-field training," as though you were going to hunt antelopes from a jeep in the Goddamned Savannah.

(CW)TB

I think you're being overly dramatic. Girls have been using their "feminine wiles" to manipulate men since the beginning of time. Do you really think the mind games girls play on guys are any better or worse than this stuff. The only difference is that this sort of thing comes naturally to women. Guys are in a tight spot because in very real terms, we have nothing they want. They on the other hand, have vaginas. They can make us do pretty much what ever they want. I don't see anything wrong with guys trying to learn some tricks of their own.

-Gabe out

This, from the dude who thinks it's okay to have sex with unconscious women. That must be considered the "ultimate" technique, something akin to true mastery.

(CW)TB

Hold on just a second asshole. You are taking that comment way out of context!

We were having a conversation about Ambien Sex. You had told me that the drug has been known to put people into a sort of horny trance. Eventually some questions about the morality of such a situation were brought up. What I said was that if your wife takes Ambien and then jumps you in the middle of the night wanting to get all freaky, I would not call that "rape". That's not the same as saying that going around having sex with unconscious girls is okay. We were discussing a hypothetical and I gave my opinion.

-Gabe (I am not a rapist) out

I'm not sure the people who espouse these "love systems" or "dating sciences" want much to do with women outside of their role as the variable in some bizarre equation they're endlessly iterating. And if you aren't interested in women, or at any rate you aren't interested in actual women, or if you are only interested in a subset of a woman's physicality, there's an app for that.

(CW)TB

Listen, I would never personally take a class like this. I think it's silly and expensive. All I am saying is that I can relate to guys who are scared to talk to girls and I can understand how desperate they might be for help. Obviously I don't approve of hunting women from the back of a jeep and if that's the intent of this shit then yeah it's fucked up. If it gives guys genuine tips for getting past their anxiety around a girl then I think it's fine.

-Gabe out

Wow, just fucking wow.

I decided to play devil's advocate yesterday with Tycho just because that's something I enjoy doing. I think in reality I fall somewhere in the middle of this argument but that's not as much fun. What I didn't expect was to get flooded with mail from guys thanking me for sticking up for this system because they use it. I also got my share of mail from angry girls but honestly I expected that. I made some pretty ridiculous exaggerations for the sake of a silly argument. Just like any time we exaggerate for the sake of a joke, we end up offending people who don't see the humor in it. We've been doing this for ten years and so the angry mails were no surprise. It was the mails from guys thanking me that really threw me for a loop.

Like I said, I was trying to be ridiculous but in reality I guess I sort of hit on something. As someone who was diagnosed with, and currently takes medication for chronic anxiety I suppose I should have expected it. You can go back through the archive here and find my posts about anxiety. It was something I lived with for as long as I could remember and it was horrible. What I didn't really understand until I started taking medicine was that the constant worrying and anxiety had also lead to depression. Once I was on Lexapro I started to feel...well good and I finally had a frame of reference. When you're always depressed and worried you don't understand that there is any other way to feel. It probably sounds crazy to people who've never had to deal with it but it's true.

One of the effects of my anxiety was that I couldn't talk to girls. My wife Kara was the the first girl I ever went on a date with and the fact is I didn't even ask her out myself. My friends at the time knew that I liked her but also knew that I would never be able to ask her on a date. I was in my early twenties and I had never really talked to a girl for longer than a couple of minutes. My friends knew this and so like some kind of crappy romantic comedy they cooked up a plan to get us together. They told me that she wanted to meet me at a movie theatre and they told Kara that I wanted to meet her there. We ended up together watching Vegas Vacation and when she reached over to hold my hand I was literally fucking terrified.

What I'm realizing is that sort of anxiety is almost like a kind of class feature for nerds. I got tons of mail from guys who aren't using these systems to abuse girls or score one night stands. They are using them for the reasons that I listed jokingly. They really are trying to learn to be more confident and get past their anxiety with girls. They feel like all the douche bags out there give the system a bad name and more then one recommended a book called the Game by Neil Strauss. Where as I had pretty much given up on the idea of ever meeting a girl these guys are going out and trying to get help. I'm not sure how I can blame them for that.

In my exchange with tycho I was trying to do a bit, I was playing a part and I thought I was making a joke. I guess I was being a little more honest then I really understood. Now obviously I don't think women are evil witches ensorcelling men with their magic vaginas. I'm a 31 year old married guy with a kid and a much clearer view of the world thanks to the miracles of modern chemistry. What I can say to all the guys mailing me about this system is that the girls you're so terrified to talk to, are just as scared of you. I've got guys mailing me saying they don't know how long they should wait before calling a girl or if it's okay to ask for their phone number. They are worried about not understanding the rules of some imaginary game. My advice for what it's worth, is that the girls you really want aren't playing a game, and they won't expect you to play one either.

-Gabe out

If things have gone well for me on this go 'round, it's because I'm constantly being given opportunities to learn things. That is to say, I have had many opportunities to be savaged by reality in ironically appropriate ways. I don't know exactly what I'm supposed to emerge from some of these experiences with, but I do emerge from them, armed for the next surreal asault from a hostile universe.

The most recent example occurred last night at around midnight, when an old friend told me that he was actually an instructor for Love Systems. They use handles, so I never put two and two together. I had a very robust model - completely imaginary - decribing both the sort of person who would attend a course of this kind and the sort of depraved animal who would transmit this kind of parselmouth bullshit to lonely men in a desperate, daily search for a less brutal existence. That's not who this guy is, this friend of mine. He is, unmistakably, one of us.

I thought you might find his mail to me interesting. I asked him about negging, which is usually framed as being purposefully insulting to a woman, and received the following Goddamned novella.

-

It's harmless and normal between two people to tease or even, in the case of you and Mike, insult. How much outlandish and even insulting inside jokes do you have with Brenna or does Mike have with Kara?

When you call Mike this or that caustic name, you do it because you know you can and because you're friends. Our students-- and probably most men-- have elaborate belief systems made around how women are and how men and women interact. A lot of these systems are either misguided or blatantly false (to wit: women don't want to be picked up when they go out to a bar). The neg gets attention because it SEEMS like an insult, but it's more a gesture of comfort, a sign that you, the suitor, aren't going to bend your natural conversational style for the sake of trying to impress a woman. The main reason why assholes get girls is not because girls are just dying to be abused and ignored-- although some are for whatever fault of upbringing or genetics-- but because women, especially beautiful women, hate the weakness implied when a man bends over backward to impress her. A reactive sign of this is to, um, not bend over to impress her. A proactive sign, a way to signal this in the first few minutes of conversation, is to tease her.

And the neg is just a tiny sliver of what we teach.

More than anything our material is about understanding what makes women attracted to men beyond the obvious answers of looks and money and power, beyond the simple snipe of "confidence". We then help our students implement that understanding through practical application, i.e. actually trying to pick up the girls you are attracted to.

Mike noted that if it's guys "hunting women from the back of a jeep" he's not behind that. What does he (or you) think guys are doing every single time they go out to a bar or club? As my mother has noted during the times I wore a hair shirt about my job, Love Systems didn't invent the act of guys going out and trying to find girls to have sex with. We just gave guys the tools to do it effectively without boring girls. Our course lets guys make their own calls. For my part, I try to explain the ethical ramifications of hollow sexual interactions, and I try to emphasize the role that developing personal standards for the people with whom you surround yourself has in developing standards for yourself... But if a guy takes away scummy lessons, I am not there to change him. At my last bootcamp, though, there was a gentleman who had an MFA and poetry and ran a non-profit. I just don't see him as the sleazy guy at the bar with his chest hair poking out, you know? But he had just left a divorce, has two daughters he loves very much, and he wants to know how to interface with the modern world of dating. Mike happened to meet Kara in line at Star Wars. Romances spark at events like PAX and Comic Con. And some people-- most people-- are content to live day to day and luck into chemistry and attraction. But every guy has seen a girl who has taken his breath away, or been on a date that didn't end with a comic strip proposing marriage to her through his alter ego, a date where the girl decided, inexplicably, that she just wanted to be friends.

I am a nerd. I can run D&D 1st, 2nd, or 3rd from memory with very little help, and I have a Planescape: Torment tattoo proudly on my right arm. Just TALKING about Shadowrun gets my excited. I have an encyclopedic knowledge of Marvel and DC comics, and I have strong feelings about what Batman would or would NOT do in any given situation. I built my computer, and I'm going to build my next one, to say nothing of the hundreds of servers I built in the Marines.

And beautiful women, the women I would want from afar, used to scare the shit out of me.

Our kind, the nerds, are the worst of the lot, man! How many girls did YOU have at your gaming table? They are thin on the ground in my weekly d20 modern group and in my XBox Live Friends list, and I don't think I'm overreaching with my anecdotal evidence when I say my experience is not abnormal. I'm sure we both have compelling reasons for WHY girls might steer clear of our favorite hobby, but the simple reality is that gaming, even when there are comparitively a LOT of girls, is still going to see WAY more men than women. It doesn't grant us the same male/female socialization tools that say, sports does.

-

Jeezy Creezy. This thing is a fucking rabbit hole.

(CW)TB

Well the last two days have been pretty crazy. I'm still pouring through mail trying to answer as many people as I can. I'd like to say that now that I have read more about this system I think it's pretty shady. I'm a little worried that guys reading the site might take our discussion here as some sort of endorsement and I want to make sure that isn't the case. While some of their advice is probably fine I think the majority of it is really sleazy. Again, I can't blame guys for seeking out help. All joking aside though, I just want to make it clear that I don't think the seduction community is the place to go. I understand how badly you want to believe that there is a system out there that if you can simply master will resolve your problems. Sadly I don't think that's the case and if there is such a system, it certainly isn't this one.

I think that's probably the last thing I'll say about the subject. I honestly had no idea what I was getting into here but its been a real eye opener. Thanks to everyone that mailed me from both sides.

What a GDCF, and people wonder why I don't post more. I'm just gonna draw for a while.

-Gabe out

[henshin]

That's a really interesting article. But I think there's a lot more to it, and instead of addressing the consequences of these actions, I think it might be more productive to address the causes...

I haven't made any comments like that (or at least I don't remember making them....) but as one of the three or four guys in my whole school (a women's college), I can understand where they're coming from. Not wanting to say things that are going to offend anyone else, and just plain being uncomfortable. Jokes are often used to diffuse uncomfortable or awkward situations. And that sounds like what's going on in that article - making jokes about the women's reactions in order to diffuse the uncomfortableness of being the extreme minority in that room.

Or I could be completely wrong. *shrug* Either way, awesome article, and I'll definitely keep that in mind for the future...

Sorry for derailing the thread further, thylacine.

Hey Charlieee, just wanted to respond to this, not to attack you, just to point out that while humour might be used by those who feel uncomfortable or awkward when they are surrounded by people who experience systematic oppression and prejudice and the topic of discussion is said oppression, that deosn't mean its ok.

If you don't have anything to say, then say nothing and listen. If you must say something don't try and make light of other people's experiences with prejudice. It's massively disrespectful and also asserting a dominant narrative whereby certain people's feelings are invalid and deserving of ridicule, if you're a man in a room of women, or a white person in a room of p.o.c., or a straight person in a room of homosexuals, etc., remember that our culture gives you respect and power and that you will be listened to and have your word accepted as truth, regardless of the experiences of everyone else in that room. Its worth being aware of that. Its worth calling people out for that.

[thecynicalromantic]

That Penny Arcade thing pissed me off so much. Honestly, if you're going to play Devil's Advocate on a point, you have two options:

1. Actually believe what you're saying, or

2. Jesus Christ, *tell us* that you're playing Devil's Advocate. Especially when the "Devil's Advocate" part is not even remotely intellectual and is basically just going to be you sitting around going "BUT BUT BUT I'M AN ASSHOLE!!!!!!!" because every argument needs two sides. If all you do is respond to stuff by Being An Asshole, we'll probably just think you're an asshole. Retroactively coming out with "but no, here's a fancy debate term! That's what I was doing, really!" just makes you sound like an asshole trying to save face.

Also, traditionally, I believe the Devil's Advocate is a term used for when someone believes that the opposing side has arguments with some degree of possible merit or logic, and is used to force someone into explaining their side as fully as possible and covering all possible points. Crying "But women are scary manipulative bitches! And scary! And don't like us! And are scary!" just does NOT serve that fucking purpose. The stuff the Gabe dude said *in his attempt to backtrack and disclaim his previous posts* had stuff in it that could potentially be a Devil's Advocate argument for a real discussion ("social anxiety amongst nerdy dudes is an actual problem, therefore people will try to find answers"), but the crap about how "men don't actually have anything to offer women so we have to find ways to make them date us anyway" is just... it's not funny, it's not helpful, it's not intellectual, it's not heightening the level of discourse or forcing the other side to defend their arguments more articulately, and--what's really sad--it's not even over-the-top enough to reasonably be recognized as an attempt to mock people. It was just regular old everyday NiceGuy whining, and so it sounded like regular old everyday NiceGuy whining.

[ProdeFemme]

TCR is now officially my first draft pick in any and all future battle-of-the-sexes related debates/arguments/volleyball tournaments/etc.

(Read: excellent post, I agree) :lol:

[thecynicalromantic]

Aw, thanks ^_^