Wedding reception dance floor gender ratios.

Around 8:30pm, there were about 10 women for every man on the dance floor.

Around 9:30pm, there were about 3 women for every man.

Around 11:00pm, there were about 0.1 women for every man.

Men don’t dance until they’re three sheets to the wind, at which point it doesn’t matter to them if women are involved or not.

Also, all the old people cleared out by 9:30, so the DJ stopped playing any music my parents recognized.  Explaining to my mother that the name of the song was “Yeah!” turned into a sort-of “Who’s on first?” experience.  Also, my dad was utterly perplexed at the song he thought was called “The Huffty Huff.”

OT: Always a bridesmaid…

I’m going to be out of town for several days (and therefore not updating the blog) to be in my brother’s wedding and visit family.  Consider this thread a social post.

Why sending dirty messages is a bad idea (NSFW).

Because if they’re leaked, something like this could happen to you (extremely NSFW):

(For those not watching, it’s Bill Maher and Jane Lynch giving a verbatim “dramatic reading” of Rep. Anthony Weiner’s Facebook messages with a Las Vegas blackjack dealer named Lisa.)

Maybe it wouldn’t happen to you on this scale, but stuff like this doesn’t go quietly into the night.  I don’t trust cell phones, Twitter, or Facebook.

(HT: THR)

Companionship vs. sexual attraction.

Hana recently made a provocative statement (at least, for this corner of the internetz) at her blog:

…close friendship, where two people share common interests, a compatible sense of humour, and similar intelligence, etc.   When a man and a woman are close friends in this way, the importance of sexual attraction seems to fade.  Sexual attraction is still present…Still, sexual attraction becomes less important when a man and a woman are truly close friends.

She then made an even more provocative statement:

As long as you’re somewhat attracted to him or her, why not marry your best friend?

This seems like a pretty far cry from Dalrock’s and Badger’s insistence that a woman feel “head over heels” for any potential spouse, but in my opinion, it seems like a good recipe for a stable, enduring marriage.  If women are able to grow in attraction to a mate and will feel more attracted and more attached to him once they have sex, and the woman at least meets a man’s minimum physical attractiveness requirements, and there is a preexisting emotional/intellectual bond and the two enjoy each other’s company, then that sounds like pretty solid grounds for marrying (assuming there are no red flags in other areas).  God willing, you’re both going to be old and achy a lot longer than you’re going to be young and hot, so it’s worth investing in someone who will still be fun when your collagen production has reached its nadir and you can’t see each other clearly up close without bifocals anyway (not that you would necessarily want to, due to the wrinkles).

Speaking anecdotally, I had a friend who fit this description.  We attended the same church and got along swimmingly.  It was very easy for us to have lengthy conversations, and our senses of humor meshed well.  We weren’t superclose friends, but I could tell that we were on the same wavelength.  After knowing him for a couple of years, I started to think that if he hadn’t been married with kids, he was someone I probably could have married.  I didn’t feel “head over heels” for him.  I didn’t even have a crush on him.  I wasn’t physically attracted to him (but whatever my minimum standard of physical attractiveness was, he met that, because I wasn’t repulsed by him).  He was just someone I got along with really, really well.

When you consider that when you marry someone, you’re signing up to wake up to that person’s face every day for the rest of your life, and when you come home there’s no escaping that person, getting along really well becomes a pretty important consideration.

A picture is worth a thousand words!

Why women are afraid to pump up men’s egos.

The privateman, in his most recent blog entry, wrote,

“It’s remarkable but I wonder how many women resist or completely reject such advice [to make a man feel good] because of feminist, ideological grounds (“it’s wrong to make a man feel good”)  or their own sense of fabulousness causes them to stick their heads in the sand.”

The answer is:  a lot.

The reason that women resist and reject advice to flatter men is basically an issue of power.  You wouldn’t know it from reading manosphere sites, but men, especially if white and educated, get the majority of perks in the world.  They get the best jobs.  They occupy the top of pretty much every occupational field, fields of women’s interests included (fashion, beauty, cooking, media).  They make the most money.  They’re more implicitly trusted in matters of business.  They get to have sex with tons of people and receive very little judgment for it.  They get to marry women young enough to be their daughters and have kids at age 70.  They get to be funny, outrageous, outspoken, and wild, and people just chuckle affectionately.  (Women who are funny, outrageous, outspoken, and wild, on the other hand,  just get called bitches, sluts, and bulldykes.)  They get to do most of the exciting and interesting things in this world, and they tend to think they know everything about everything.  And generally they don’t pay much of a social price for getting fat and dressing dumpy.

Meanwhile, women are expected to be quiet and have babies, always be up for sex, never gain any weight, and never have an opinion that contradicts a man’s.

Given these circumstances, it’s pretty easy to see why a modern woman balks at making a man feel good about himself.  In her mind, he already has the world’s oyster in his palm.  Giving him MORE sex, MORE compliments, and MORE deference is only going to inflate his ego even more than it already is and make him feel even more entitled to the things society has already given him.  And what, exactly, has this man done to earn any of these things other than be born with a penis?  Furthermore, if a woman flatters a man’s ego, he will just take her for granted and feel he has the ability to make unqualified demands as well as the right not to be of any help to the woman.  Women can’t see how treating a man well (i.e., like a ’50s homemaker) for no reason other than that he is a man can result in anything good for themselves.

Additionally, every woman either has a friend or knows somebody who got a boyfriend and then turned into a Stepford wife who has to get permission just to go to the mall, and while she’s there, her boyfriend will be constantly checking in on her and demanding to know all the details of what she’s doing.  And the friend will insist that he’s just doing this because he loves her.  No sane woman wants this to happen to her or be seen as weak and controllable, so that’s another reason that women tend to be resistant to giving men what they want.

Some of this attitude stems from hypergamy.  Women all want the best men for themselves, but women know that those men have options and in many cases have no compunction about straying.  A woman could treat such a man as a king, and she still runs the risk of his cheating.  So in a defensive measure, the woman will do what she thinks will earn her greater respect and shore up her power, which is to deny the man what he wants or thinks he is entitled to.  Then the man won’t feel quite so secure about walking all over her, because now he knows there is a price to pay.

Another reason is the American culture of meritocracy, where we take pride in earning things for ourselves and much American lore is centered around people who Did It Themselves, as opposed to getting something because of who your dad was.  This attitude extends to mating, as well.  It’s hard for women to be taught that everything they know about how the world works apparently doesn’t work in romantic male/female relationships, and it’s not like any major media is out there promoting this, anyway.  (It IS kind of ironic, though, that men who will rail against the evils of affirmative action will be happy to receive affirmative action praise from a woman.)

I can hear the cries rising up from the peanut gallery already, so let me be clear that YES, a lot of this modern female attitude is a response to alpha males and WAH WAH WAH MOST MEN ARE BETAS DOOMED TO LONELY SEXLESS LIVES WHILE ALPHAS HAVE ALL THE FUN WAHHHHH MARRIAGE 2.0 CAROUSEL NO GOOD WOMEN LEFT ON THE ENTIRE PLANET EXCEPT IN THAILAND WAHHHHHH.  But at the same time, women instinctively don’t want to dish out praise and coddling to men they don’t respect.  Sorry, Pushover Pete.**  And sorry, Slob Sam.  A lot of times women see men as overgrown children who seem barely able to take care of themselves.  They live in sties.  They think the Value Menu is cooking.  They would rather turn their underwear inside out than do laundry.  And women think to themselves, “I’m working a full-time job and still living respectably, but I’m supposed to tell this guy how wonderful he is and bring him his slippers?!?”  (Boundless:  “MAN UP!”)  It’s the “people like to help people who can help themselves” meritocratic thinking at work.

So what is the solution?  It’s not castigating women and screeching that everything is their fault.  (See:  Garden of Eden.)  Explanations of the differences between what motivates men and what motivates women are all fine and good, but you can’t undo generations of dogma raised to a level of canonical faith to go bye-bye with a few sarcastic zingers and alpha posturing.  Demonstrating praiseworthy characteristics is the best way to go, especially if done with confidence and good humor.  Greatness is irresistible, so show some greatness and the admiration will come forth naturally.  (If it doesn’t, you might be swimming in a poisoned pond.  Best to look for fresh water in that case.)

**My brother once told me that when a woman tells you you’re the best at something, you’re walking on air for a week.  I goggled at him like he’d just said that 2+2=5 and asked him, “But what if the woman is lying?”  He said that it didn’t matter.  But inside I was repulsed at the idea that a man would so gladly accept unearned praise and that a woman would stoop to giving it just to get her way.

Every beta will recognize himself in “Superstud.”

I recently read Paul Feig’s memoir Superstud: Or How I Became a 24-Year-Old Virgin.  (For those who don’t recognize the name, Feig directed Bridesmaids and created the cult classic show Freaks and Geeks.)  The book begins with his discovery of “the rope feeling” at age 7 and ends with the end of his virginity at age 24.  In between, Feig’s journey to non-virginity reads like a compendium of mortifying beta male experiences, except funny, because Feig is a deft, honest writer and the young Paul Feig of the book is so earnest and so sweetly naive that you can’t help but find him lovable even as you’re groaning at all of his colossal beta mistakes.**  Additionally, Feig was raised as a Christian Scientist, which meant that his hormones were always at odds with God, and a lot of the humor from the book comes from Feig’s ongoing inner dialogue with God as he tries to bargain with God and rationalize away his desires.  I imagine that every guy raised in a Christian home can relate wholeheartedly.

If you liked Freaks and Geeks, you’re almost guaranteed to like this book.  The young Paul Feig is clearly the inspiration for the geeks on that show.  But even if you’ve never been exposed to any of Paul Feig’s work, Superstud is still worth reading because it’s so honest, funny, and sensitive about growing up in contemporary American society as an awkward beta male with romantic dreams in his head.  It’s also a nice antidote to the Roissyness that’s out there that’s all about cold calculation and shielding yourself from feelings while you spit out glossy negs, crusade against feminism and hypergamy, and judge women for failing to meet all of your criteria on your checklist of ideal femininity.  Not that there isn’t a place for Roissydom, but it’s nice to know that not all men hate themselves for having a marshmallow center, either.

**Such as asking out the girl with the biggest boobs in school and then taking her to an REO Speedwagon concert to impress her, only to get AMOGed by drunken twentysomethings at the show; deciding to move across the country for the summer in order to break up with a girl he didn’t really like; enduring a day at Cedar Point with his crush and her boyfriend after he and his crush had secretly made out; and getting the woman who eventually deflowered him up to his bedroom only to freak out and play two games of MouseTrap on his bed before forcing himself to face the music.

Character matters: Morf and Bee edition.

Yesterday my mom told me that Morf, the son of one of her best friends, is definitely splitting up with his wife Bee after four years of a marriage that, as far as I can tell, never really took off.  There’s a “for sale” sign in their yard, and Bee has apparently already moved out.  Again.

Morf is a pastor’s son and attended Christian school all his life, including college.  He was popular, good-looking, and athletic, and seems to be a romantic.  (He gave his college girlfriend a promise ring.  I remember groaning when my mom told me.)  After college, Morf found some success as a salesman in the Chicago area, and it was during this time that he met Bee in (of all places) an internet chat room.  In a stroke of fate, Bee turned out to be a hometown girl who had attended the same high school that Morf did, only she was four or five years younger.  Bee had actually seen Morf way back when and immediately knew he would be her future husband.  Morf and Bee began dating and married when Bee was 20 in a ceremony where they had written their own vows.  The only thing keeping their story from being a Nicholas Sparks novel was that no one was terminally ill or in the military.

Unfortunately, the wedding was the pinnacle of their relationship.  About a year or so later, my mom told me that Bee had moved back in with her mom and wanted out of the marriage.  Morf tried to reason with her, explaining that they had entered into marriage for life, especially as Christians, but Bee flat-0ut told him that those rules didn’t apply to her.  Eventually, Morf was able to convince Bee to come back, and for a while it seemed that things were back on track.

Except, obviously, they weren’t.  Morf and Bee went to marriage counseling, but Bee had already checked out of the relationship.  Her friends were still in school or starting jobs, living it up in Wrigleyville (the fashionable young people’s neighborhood in Chicago), while she was stuck in podunk town married to a guy who now was working for his dad’s ministry, a.k.a. not a road to riches and earthly glory.  It seems pretty obvious that Bee had decided that a better life, free of the constraints of Morf, was out there waiting for her.

My mom is quite grieved that Morf and Bee’s relationship cratered, but in retrospect, the warning signs had always been there.  For starters, Bee was an only child of divorce and was used to getting her own way all the time.  She lived with her mom, and if her mom wouldn’t get her something she wanted, she would just turn around and get it from her dad.  The fact that her mother allowed her to move back in the first time Bee left was a bad sign as well.  Instead of telling her that she’d made her bed and now she had to sleep in it, Bee’s mother enabled Bee’s selfish behavior.  But it’s not Bee’s fault alone:  I suspect that Morf acted like a big, fat beta during their marriage.  Even before Morf and Bee got married, Morf’s mom had mentioned that Morf could never say no to Bee.  (Of course he couldn’t; he was the kind of guy who goes around buying promise rings.)  When I spoke to my mom, she said that when Bee came back to Morf, Morf acquiesced to every single thing that Bee demanded.  Which, as those of us steeped in manosphere principles know, NEVER WORKS.  By trying to make Bee happy, Morf just confirmed to Bee that he was not the man she had signed up to marry.

I suppose the golden lining is that Morf and Bee’s marriage is a classic “starter marriage,” which means that other than any emotional lumps they’ve taken through this whole thing, they’ll pretty much be right back where they started.  Not being rich, they have no significant assets to split.  They have no children.  And each is good-looking enough to attract a new spouse easily; Bee is cute, young, and vivacious, which is enough to make many men ignore all the warning signs, and women LOVE taking care of the good-looking, vulnerable men that other women abandon (it’s always a competition with women:  “I won’t treat you like dirt the way she did!”).  I expect both to be remarried within a few years, tops.

I could say that we should learn some very obvious lessons from Morf and Bee, but being human, we probably won’t.  No one wants to believe that their beloved is a statistic, rather than the exception.  Still, I believe Morf could have saved himself a lot of grief if he had more closely examined Bee’s character while they dated.  Her cuteness, along with his general desire and readiness to Be Married, probably blinded him to her shortcomings, and now he’s paying the price for that.  So, readers, choose carefully and look at the details as well as the whole picture.  Being a Christian isn’t in and of itself enough to save a marriage, nor is being cute, or young, or popular, or nice, or “having good values.”  You really have to get to the root of someone’s convictions.

P.S.  As far as I know, there is no third party involved in this split.

“The Hunger Games”: post-apocalyptic female fantasy.

LOGLINE:  As she is thrust into the national spotlight under circumstances beyond her control, a tomboy from the wrong side of the tracks must choose between her tall, dark, and handsome best friend and the shy yet heroic rich boy who has loved her from afar for years.

For those not in the loop, Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games is the first of a trilogy of books that is one of the hottest things in YA lit right now.  A movie version starring Jennifer Lawrence is in the works (see this week’s Entertainment Weekly), and the brass are obviously hoping it becomes the next Twilight franchise.

Whereas Twilight was entrenched in the realm of fantasy (vampires and werewolves), The Hunger Games is futuristic sci-fi, set in a post-apocalyptic North American dictatorship known as Panem, which is made up of twelve districts and a Capitol.  Originally there was a thirteenth district, but the Capitol destroyed it when the districts rebelled.  As a result of the defeated rebellion, the Capitol instituted a televised gladiatorial event called The Hunger Games, held annually to remind the districts who’s in charge and to provide entertainment for all the residents of Panem.  The conceit of the Games is that the gladiators are all teens drawn at random from each district (one boy and one girl, for a total of 24 competitors known as “tributes”), and they must fight to the death until only one is left standing.  It’s part Survivor, part Roman coliseum.  Entry into the lottery is compulsory between ages 12 and 18.

Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen becomes her district’s tribute when her younger sister’s name is drawn.  Knowing that participating in the Hunger Games is certain death, Katniss volunteers to go in Prim’s place.  She and Peeta Mellark, the district’s boy tribute, travel to the Capitol, where they are styled and given star treatment (so the audience can get to know them and possibly decide to “sponsor” them, i.e., send them helpful supplies once the Games are underway) as well as trained for the Games by a previous winner from their district (a forty-something alcoholic named Haymitch).  Once the Games begin, Katniss must use all of her wits to stay alive…which she does, obviously, or there wouldn’t be much of a trilogy, would there?

The book is a page-turner, and while not exactly gory, it doesn’t shy away from the killing.  What surprised me, though, was how “chick-lit” the book was once you stripped away the post-apocalyptic setting.  I’ve read other sci-fi/action teen series (Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies trilogy and James Patterson’s Maximum Ride series, both featuring teen female protagonists), and neither of them was remotely as egregious as The Hunger Games in the area of romantic female fantasy.  (Then again, those series were written by men.  Hmmmmmm…)  For all the salacious “teens forced by the totalitarian government to kill each other” angle, the book’s emotional heart is pure chick lit.  To wit:

• Peeta has been in love with Katniss since they were five years old yet has never had the guts to talk to her. [Women love longing stories.]
• Still, he has always looked out for her when he could.  When they were eleven, Peeta, a baker’s son and therefore “rich” by the district’s standards, provided Katniss with some bread he intentionally burned on a day when she was hungry and rifling through their trash.  For doing this, his mother beat him. [The woman does not have to do anything to earn the man’s devotion and bravery.  Her mere existence is inspiration enough.]
• Before the Games start, Peeta confesses to an interviewer on television that he is in love with Katniss.  Katniss, of course, is skeptical because she thinks it might be a ploy to win viewers’ sympathy.  Haymitch encourages the teens to play up the “star-crossed lovers” angle for the audience.  [Playing pretend lovers is straight out of a Harlequin novel.  Or Candace Cameron Bure’s most recent TV movie.]
• During the Games, Peeta pretends to side with the tougher tributes as a means of protecting Katniss. [More devotion and bravery.]
• When Peeta is badly injured, Katniss tends to him.  After the change to the rules is announced – both tributes from a district will be declared winners if they are the last two standing – Katniss realizes that she can get more aid from viewers if she pretends to be in love with Peeta.  [See above re: Harlequin novel.  Even better if plausible deniability can be invoked later.]  Naturally, as they become more intimate with each other (at one point sharing a sleeping bag – he was ill, it was cold outside!), Katniss feels confused.  But maybe that’s because….
• Prior to volunteering for the Games, Katniss spends most of her time hunting (illegally) with her best friend Gale, who just so happens to be two years older, tall, dark, handsome, and angry at the government.  Katniss is better with a bow and arrow (no self-respecting heroine is worse than a man at anything important), but Gale is a good hunter and together they are able to help feed their families.  Although Katniss spends much of her time believing that she and Gale are only friends, she also spends a lot of time thinking about Gale during the Games.  Especially when she feels herself growing a little too close to Peeta.  [Romantic heroines usually must choose between two guys.  Even tough, not-particularly-feminine heroines.]

So…what we have here is a tomboy whose choices in men are a devoted rich boy and a hot loner.  Or a best friend and the new boy in town.  Or the beta she never noticed and the alpha who hasn’t declared his intentions.  Haven’t we all seen this movie before?  Did I mention that Katniss doesn’t want to get married, ever?

But that’s not all!  Because the Hunger Games are televised, the tributes must all get makeovers.  So the book devotes a significant amount of time to fashion and grooming.  Yes, we are treated to Katniss getting her legs waxed and details about her outfits and even her fingernail polish.  The tributes even get personal stylists.  (Lenny Kravitz just got cast as Katniss’s.)  The tributes get instant fame and must go through televised interviews that are like talk shows.  Of course, that the tributes have no choice in the matter (and are about to go to their deaths anyway) is supposed to mitigate this most girly of plot points.  But a perusal of YA lit aimed at teenage girls will reveal tons of books about being popular or famous or becoming popular or famous.  When Katniss (and ::SPOILER:: Peeta) triumphs at the end, she is informed that she will have to do a victory tour – more forced fame!  Quelle horreur!  And she’s still going to have to pretend to be in love with Peeta!  (Can you even stand it?)  Even while her feelings for Gale are getting in the way!  And she breaks Peeta’s heart!  What’s a tomboy who just survived death to do?

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the book, but I was really shocked at just how stereotypical and conventional the book was underneath all the window dressing.  Maybe the secret to The Hunger Games is that it’s Twilight for the people who think they’re too good for Twilight.  But at least Twilight didn’t pretend to be some sort of social commentary about war, survival, and totalitarian government.

The hamster is strong.

(For further reading, check out Salon‘s article comparing the heroines of the two series.  Celebuzz did a comparison of the two series also.)

Curvy on the internet.

Bug killaz.

A couple weekends ago, I came back to my apartment with some female friends to watch a movie.  I went into the kitchen, and one friend said, “Uh…is that a big bug on your ceiling?”

I looked up at the ceiling and didn’t see anything.  Then I looked where she actually meant, and there, sitting on the vent, was a cockroach that was maybe 2 1/2 inches long.  My friends immediately wanted to find a guy in the building to kill it.  I suggested a neighbor who I was pretty sure was male (judging by the chubby guys I had seen entering with bottled beer on another occasion), so my friends ran over to recruit his services.  Alas, he was not home.

My friends continued to freak out, and I realized that if I wanted this roach out of my apartment, I was going to have to remove it myself.  Not having any roach spray, I decided to see if ant spray would be effective.

It wasn’t, really, but it did get the roach to fall to the floor, whereupon I smashed it with the can, and roach bits went flying.

My friends congratulated me on killing the roach and marveled that I was able to do it.  In my head I was going, “What else could I have done?  I couldn’t leave it there, and I couldn’t have you guys standing around freaking out about it for another half an hour.”

Secretly, though, I was sort of glad that I killed the roach myself.  I have a hard time asking favors of people in general, and sometimes I get the impression that men feel awkward being asked to help, or they feel put out/annoyed that someone is interrupting their plans.  Men seem to be happy to grab things that are out of reach, or occasionally to lift something heavy, but beyond that, things get questionable if you don’t know what a man’s specific abilities are.  He might be good at doing something…or he might not.

Maybe some of this just boils down to how patient a woman is.  Not too long ago, Suzanne Gosselin of Boundless wrote about how she never once changed a tire while she was single because she always had beta orbiters helpful male friends who would do it.  She saw this as a good thing.  My reaction was more of, “Why didn’t she just change it herself?  It’s not that hard.”