I’m going to be out of town for a while.  I just got a call tonight that my dad passed away.

Boundless blogger considers first anniversary a “miracle.”

Does the Boundless blogger consider his first anniversary a “miracle” because he or his spouse nearly died last year and only miraculously survived?  No.  Did one of them commit adultery and then repent, restoring the marriage?  No.

No, our Boundless blogger considers his first anniversary a “miracle” because, basically, his wife didn’t divorce him for being imperfect.

Very early in this blog’s existence, I wrote a post in which I said:

I’ve noticed that it’s fairly common in evangelical circles for a man to more or less prostrate himself at the feet of his wife’s saintly goodness, proclaiming some mixture of the following:

• I don’t deserve my wife.
• I was a mess before I met my wife.
• If it weren’t for my wife, I don’t know where I’d be right now.
• I don’t know what she sees in me.
• I’m an idiot, but for some reason, she married me.

Lo and behold, Boundless has provided us with a real-life example of this type of talk!  Blogger Nathan Zacharias commemorated his first anniversary with a post disparaging himself and extolling the beneficence of his wife for not divorcing him already.  Says he:

Sarah and I just celebrated our first wedding anniversary. She’s stuck with me 367 days, and that’s a miracle. No, seriously, it is.

….

No longer can I focus on just caring for my needs. No longer can I get by with looking at a situation by how I see it. [AH:  Syntax doctor says what?] Instead, I look at it through her eyes, too. That means I see myself from her perspective. And I have to say, the view isn’t always pretty.

I long to serve Sarah in any way, but that doesn’t mean that my selfishness doesn’t rear its ugly head often. There are plenty of times when I have to tell Sarah I’m sorry for something I did or didn’t do.

The ring on my finger and the vow in my heart sheds light on my negative traits often. And so when I tell people I don’t deserve Sarah, I’m not joking.

….

Why Sarah chose me, I’ll never know. And as a I told someone close to me the other day, I deserve Sarah even less now than I did a year ago. But she loves me anyway.

….

I don’t like seeing my finger without the ring. My finger looks bare without it. And that’s what I’d be without Sarah. [AH:  He would be bare without his wife? “Bare” as in exposed, or “bare” as in I-meant-to-say-lost-or-lonely?]

There’s more, but you get the picture.

Okay, I am not married, so maybe I’m just being a Neanderthal on this topic, but is it not possible to express gratefulness for a spouse without TOTALLY PROSTRATING ONESELF AT HER FEET?

More importantly, does Nathan Zacharias believe that his wife would write a similar article expressing the following?

• how unworthy she is of her husband
• that she has no idea why he married her
• that their one-year anniversary is a miracle
• that she deserves him even less than she did at the time of their wedding
• how ugly she sees herself when she looks at herself from his point of view
• that she often has to apologize to him for things she did or didn’t do

I mean, maybe she would.  Maybe she does see herself as so unworthy of her husband that she would make a public proclamation of it.  Maybe she considers her husband a prince without equal.  Or…maybe she agrees with him.  (As a point of comparison, I don’t recall Suzanne Gosselin, Boundless’s most recently married female blogger, ever writing a comparable post at her one-year anniversary.  I also don’t ever recall Candice Watters opining similarly about her marriage with Steve back when they wrote for Boundless.  Chelsey Munneke, Boundless’s recently engaged blogger who believes weight loss for a wedding is an unnecessary stress, has never spoken of her fiance this way, either.  Rather, she believes her man should love her for her, daughter of the King that she is.  Google-fu experts, feel free to prove my memory wrong.)

I know that it’s popular in evangelical circles to speak of everything in terms of being “sacrificial.”  Sacrificial love, sacrificial serving, no one deserves anything, we’re all sanctified losers, boo hoo hoo, etc.  But this just isn’t a healthy attitude to have in a functional, earth-bound relationship.  Of course no one “deserves” anything; that’s a given.  Humility and tolerance are important in a marriage for sure.  But acting like those traits in a spouse are miraculous is a problem.  Not all that long ago, those were expected in a marriage.  That these are no longer givens but miracles just speaks to how weak marriage has become in America and in the American church.

Furthermore, even if Zacharias used “miracle” for hyperbolic effect, it is still problematic because it accepts modern divorce culture as legitimate.  If he is joking that he is grateful that his wife didn’t frivolously divorce him, then he accepts that this is a realistic possibility for him.  His wording at least suggests this:  he doesn’t mention anything about her honoring her vows despite having to live with his imperfections.  Instead, he chalks up the endurance of their marriage to her love for him.  Well, Nathan, what is going to happen when your wife doesn’t feel “love” anymore?  And are you expecting to be even less worthy of her after two years of marriage, or does the unworthiness sort of level off after a while?  What happens when your wife realizes that she’s been loving someone so unworthy of her affection?  Time to start apologizing for more things you didn’t do, I guess.

Do Christians really want to see stronger families?  Do Christians really want to see positive changes in society?  Less poverty, less abortion, less welfare, fewer single moms, fewer divorces?  Then they really need to begin with marriage, and not just badgering unmarried 28-year-olds about joining eHarmz or making all the husbands do “The Love Dare” or giving purity rings to 15-year-olds who will not realistically marry for twenty more years.

Stereotypical feminist is stereotypical.

I was lurking at one of my usual haunts and in this thread came across an argument between two women about the social/moral merits of Tim Tebow vs. LeBron James.  Unsurprisingly, the more conservative woman (whom I’ll call June) supported Tebow while the obvious feminist (whom I’ll call Gloria) supported James.  Here’s the exchange:

June:

Here’s what I don’t get. Why can’t everyone just stop being bitter and praise the kid for what he is. Is he a legit good quarterback? No. Is he beating all the odds and doing well beyond his means? Yes. Is he out at clubs with bitches, raping girls, or killing dogs? No. Why can’t everyone just stop and realize for once, a good person with a good heart that is working really hard and getting to enjoy it, whatever the talent level, is reaping the rewards? It makes me mad.

and

Like, if this isn’t a fel good sports story, than what is. I mean the kid in the offseason goes to prisons and talks to people. Most players after one negative tweet go off in the locker room in a tirade and he’s never been impolite or anything and even in losses, is gracious. I have seen opponents that are ruthless 99% of the time, as soon as they hit him, immediatley help him up. HE is the epitome of sportsmanship and what should be shown to children. He is succesful by sheer will, and not raw talent. I don’t understand.

A likeminded commenter (whom I’ll call Donna) adds:

Because that’s not what sports are about, apparently. It was better to hear non-stop press for months on end about where Lebron was going to sign (someone who finally just proposed to his long time baby mama, though has multiple side children) than to hear about Tebow.

As is typical of internet exchanges, one person can’t permit a dissenting opinion to go uncrushed, so Gloria immediately shows up and says:

He’s a douche, but Lebron hasn’t done anything as offensive as aligning himself with a bigoted anti-gay rights group just to push his anti-abortion agenda. Not even — ::gasp:: — having children (that he’s entirely responsible for and is actively involved in the lives of) out of marriage and not marrying the mother immediately.

He’s also by far one of the best players in the world at his sport. Something Tebow will never, ever be.

It’s like you couldn’t ask for a better subconscious confession of feminist values if it were something you could order on a menu.  Let’s take a look at what’s going on here:

1. Gloria hates Tebow for living out his traditional (Christian) values.
2. Gloria also hates Tebow for being not alpha enough, i.e., she doesn’t consider him a good player.  (I suspect she especially has a lot of subconscious scorn for him for remaining a virgin as well.  Feminists don’t respect self-thwarted alphas.)
3. Gloria loves LeBron James.  Notice how it doesn’t matter to her that James (himself a bastard of an ex-con) has fathered bastard children and has only recently even deigned to offer marriage to their mother.  What truly matters to Gloria is that James is a charismatic apex alpha and therefore everything about him is forgivable or hamsterable.

Donna replies:

One commercial during a Superbowl, that how many of you have actually seen since, is not pushing in my opinion. But good to know Lebron is the okay douche. lol

Gloria, of course, can’t handle an apex alpha like Lebron being called something as derogatory as an “okay douche,” so she retaliates:

I don’t think Lebron is an “okay douche”.

I’m not going to morally judge him for having kids he clearly adores and a relationship that has worked for both he and his partner and hold that below Tebow’s willingness to publicly join with a group that has historically been against gays’ and women’s rights like you are.

So I guess you’re free from the moral judgment of a feminist if you fork over resources to women and children, but not if you think women should give birth to the children they’re impregnated with.  Feminism is about the transfer of resources from men to women, QED!  Also, the “relationship that has worked for both he and his partner” might as well be called “woman puts up with indignity of not being married in order to hold on to apex alpha male.”  Any woman who honestly believes that a lower-status woman in a sexual relationship with a charismatic apex alpha male truly does not have any interest in marrying him any time soon (and therefore locking him up financially, status-ly, and at least nominally penis-ly) is lying to herself.

GRAMMAR NOTE:  DO THEY NOT TEACH THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SUBJECT AND OBJECT PRONOUNS ANYMORE?  I mean, it used to be limited to stuff like “me and him went to the store,” but now I see stuff like “they bought a gift for him and I” and the above “for both he and his partner.”  IT BURNSSS US, PRECIOUSSSS.  It’s doubly worse because in the latter examples, people say stuff like this thinking they sound more educated.  GAHHHHH!!!!!!!!!  (And don’t get me started on all the people who think that plurals are made by adding ‘s to the ends of words.)

And fret not that Gloria doesn’t believe the entire feminist party line, because she follows that up with this:

There are tons of better “feel good” stories in sports than a privileged, rich white Christian male that has never been an underdog in his life before he got to the NFL getting overhyped and overvalued by the media and his cult fandom.

Look at Patrick Willis (you know, the best LB in football) and what he had to overcome as a child and young man to get where he is. Hell, watch any weekend OTL edition or E:60 and you’ll come across multiple ones each week.

Remember, if you’re a white Christian male, you never have to work for anything and you never can be an underdog.  White Christian men spend all of their time standing on their mountains devising new ways to oppress women and minorities.  They also practice laughing evilly and twirling their mustaches.

Kind of makes you wonder how much the Tebow-hating feminists would secretly love him if:

• He won a Superbowl ring, or
• He had premarital sex, or
• He were ABW (Anything But White), or
• He gave them all $1000 and told them they were pretty.

Not that I think Gloria would ever turn down a date with Tebow if the opportunity presented itself.  He’s not that unattractive to her, LET’S BE REAL.

 

Jack Dawson game.

In the comments on Dalrock’s post “The one that got away,” which discusses a woman’s penchant for holding on to memories of a previous lover even if married to a man who gives her everything she could ever want, anon66 criticizes the movie Titanic, saying:

This is why I dislike the movie Titanic. At the end of the movie Winslet’s character ends up back on the ship with DiCaprio to which I ask “What about her husband?” Was a very short fling on the doomed ship more important to her than a lifetime of marriage and children.

Commenter vitabenedicta replies:

What’s interesting is that the fiance is an alpha–socially powerful, violent, largely indifferent to her–while her paramour is more of a beta–a sexually timid white knight who dies saving her life. After he dies she marries another man, who also appears to be a beta, but he can’t ever inspire the passion that the first beta did. So the movie isn’t so much about getting “five minutes of alpha” as it is an instruction manual on how betas can succeed with beautiful women. (Basically, target young women who have never been in love before; be different than the men in her usual surroundings; and be an artist. It’s a bit of a tall order.)

I started to write a reply but then realized that it was getting long and detailed enough to merit its own post here.  Since the movie will be re-released in April of this year (with a 3-D conversion, of course) to commemorate the centennial anniversary of the ship’s sinking, let’s take a look at the real alpha/beta dynamics in the film.

For those who are unaware (either having never seen the film, or have forgotten the details, or were too young to see the film when it was released [oblig. THAT MAKES ME FEEL SO OLD UGHHH]), here’s the plot:  Rose DeWitt Bukater is an upper-class 17-year-old Philadelphian engaged to wealthy heir Cal Hockley.  They are traveling with Rose’s mother from Southampton, England, to New York City on the Titanic.  Rose feels trapped because she does not love Cal, and he sees her as a prize possession rather than a person.  On the first evening of the voyage, Rose meets Jack Dawson, a penniless American sketch artist who won his steerage ticket in a game of poker.  He seems interested in her as a person, and she sees an opportunity at a new life.  They fall in love, the iceberg hits the ship, the ship sinks, and Rose survives empowered to live life to the fullest.

This story is framed in a flashback, with Old Rose telling the story to a treasure hunter looking for the diamond necklace that Rose received as a gift from Cal.  At the end of the movie, having now spilled the secret she held so long, Old Rose drifts off into sleep (or death?) and finds herself young and back on the Titanic, where Jack is waiting for her.

It’s still hard for me to believe that the guy who wrote and directed Terminator and Aliens is the same guy who wrote and directed this grade-A chick crack (and the plot description reads like the romance novel that female romance writers all wish they could have written), but there you go.

Going back to the above comments from Dalrock’s, I disagree with vitabenedicta that Cal was alpha and Jack was beta.  In actuality, the reverse is true.  Titanic is actually a testament to inner game and is a celluloid representation of Roissy’s insistence that money and social status alone are not enough to win a woman’s affections.

Jack is more beta on the surface, but he has strong inner game.  It is actually this strong inner game that provides the basis for the emotional through-line of the movie.  When Jack and Rose first meet, Rose is about to commit suicide by jumping off the back of the ship at night.  Jack is able to talk Rose out of suicide using some light negs, nonchalantly reminding her of how cold the water is and how he’s gonna hafta jump in to save her, subtly shifting the power in his favor by insinuating that she’s being silly and emotional.  What he does NOT do is act like what she’s about to do is SRS BSNS.  A lesser man would have acted frightened that Rose would jump.

Jack is also unapologetic about his station in life and sees it as a good thing.  He does not try to seek Rose’s approval (or even make any pledge or attempt to better himself for her).

He is unruffled by Cal’s continued attempts to belittle him and charms all of Rose’s upper-crusty dinner companions. He tells her what to do (“meet me at the clock”) rather than requesting behavior of her. He never panics when the ship begins to sink but remains level-headed and provides guidance to Rose the entire time.  And (SPOILER ALERT) in the end he does what every woman wishes the man she loves would be willing to do for her:  sacrifice his life in order to save hers.

In contrast, Cal, while having an alpha social position, has little inner game and thinks that bullying is a substitute for alpha frame.  He is domineering rather than dominant.  He acts defensively and lets little things bother him, and he spends most of the movie in a petulant mood, being rude to Jack because he can sense Rose’s attraction to him, and paying his #1 minion to spy on Jack and frame him for theft. When he loses his temper with Rose, it’s not one of Roissy’s occasional outbursts to correct bad behavior, it’s a man trying to intimidate because he can sense that he’s losing the woman and intimidation is the only tool he has left in his arsenal.  And once it’s really and finally clear that Rose has chosen Jack for good, Cal completely loses it and picks up a pistol and chases them around the sinking ship shooting at them.  These are not the actions of a man with inner game, who is in control of himself and the situation around him.

(Of course, in case we weren’t able to figure out already that Cal isn’t The One, James Cameron reveals Cal as the ultimate coward, first trying to bribe his way onto one of the lifeboats, and when that doesn’t work, actually picking up a random child and pretending the child is his so he can get onto a lifeboat.  And just to make really, REALLY sure we know that Cal is a loser, we find out that Cal ultimately committed suicide when the stock market crashed in 1929.  Stuff like this is why James Cameron, despite being one of the greatest action directors of all time, and one of the few blockbuster directors who actually writes his own films, will never be considered by tastemakers on par with guys like Christopher Nolan or Peter Jackson.)

In light of the differences between Jack and Cal, and the fundamental truths of Game and female attraction so simply presented, it’s not surprising to see why Titanic became such an international phenomenon.  It worked because the truth of human experience is not bound by culture or nationality. Not that the nice, shiny package of a lavish period drama of class warfare that was also an action movie that was also a disaster pic that was also a “first love” love story that was also Leonardo DiCaprio at his most beautiful and charming didn’t help.  But if more writers were able to access the truths of human existence, I think the box office would be doing a whole lot better.

As for the claim that Rose was some sort of awful woman for meeting Jack in Titanic heaven and not her husband, I think there are a couple of different ways to look at this.  One is that yes, it’s kind of horrible that Rose still carried Jack in her heart, a man she knew for only a few days, rather than the man who was her husband and gave her her children.  But Jack was a first love, and first loves have a way of sticking that later loves can never quite displace.  Isn’t that why manospherians are so much about keeping numbers low?  (And really, how can any man compare with a man who literally talked you off a ledge and saved you from freezing to death in the middle of the North Atlantic ocean while the luxury ship you were sailing on was sinking AND sacrificed himself in the process?  Okay, and also that you had your first orgasm with him in the back of a car.)

The other way to look at this is that having Rose meet Jack in Titanic heaven is really the only way the story could have ended satisfactorily.  The story was about Rose’s emotional emancipation.  Jack was the agent of change.  He was her savior (and Rose even says at the end of the movie that he “saved [her] in every way a person can be saved”).  Having her reunite in death/dream with her late husband (whom we hadn’t even seen), right after she has finally relieved herself of the secret she has been carrying with her since she was a teenager, would have been bizarre.  I can’t imagine anyone would have walked out of the theater rejoicing that Rose showed what a loving and faithful wife she was if THAT had been the ending.

It’ll be interesting to see how the film affects a new generation of movie-goers.  In the age of Twilight, Facebook, and reality TV, will Jack and Rose be able to enchant today’s teens, or will the bulk of moviegoers only be nostalgia-trippers?

Don’t let your wife befriend a firefighter!

Over the holidays, I found out that one of my brother’s longtime friends is getting divorced from his wife (but not until after they file their taxes).  I’m pretty sure everyone could see this coming, since there have been rumblings for a long time that both have been miserable, and basically the wife showed up at my brother’s wedding with her boobs out to there.  The best man also told me that she cheats on her husband all the time and goes out partying a lot.  I don’t know how he would know that, but that’s the hearsay.

Anyhow, this is one of those situations where there was a third party involved.  The wife works across the street from a fire department, and the girls from the office would go over and flirt with the firefighters at lunchtime.  The wife got friendly with a firefighter, and while I don’t know if there was any physical cheating going on, there was definitely a texting relationship, and when the husband told her to ditch the firefighter friend, the wife said no.

This is the second marriage in my brother’s friend circle that has fallen prey to firefighter mojo.  Several years ago one of my brother’s other good friends married his high school sweetheart who also happened to be one of the prettiest girls at school.  Said friend porked out after getting married while the wife, who was a teacher, met the dad of one of her students.  Said dad was a firefighter.  The wife started working out.  Guess what happened.

Also while we’re on the topic of divorce (I know, not a very up way to start the year, but it was on my mind), I have an update on Morf and Bee.  My mom told me that Bee has a new boyfriend already, and that Morf proved his beta-ness once again by HAVING DINNER WITH THEM.  If I were Morf, I would have accidentally set fire to Bee’s residence or unintentionally worn some brass knuckles when I greeted Bee’s face with my fist.  The divorce has hit Morf so badly that he has moved to the West Coast to work for his company out here.

Some food for thought about all of the above scenarios:

• Divorce-after-taxes couple got married quite young, and I had had the impression that the husband was just desperate to get married at the time and took the first woman who would have him.  This, I think, is part of why mainstream conventional wisdom recommends that people don’t get married until their mid-20s.  But that’s really just a proxy for having the maturity to be proactive and purposeful about finding a mate who is really marriage material.  Age itself isn’t a guarantee of anything.
• High school sweetheart couple were an instance where they began dating freshman year of high school and didn’t marry until they graduated college.  They had never dated anyone else, and while the husband might have looked like an apex alpha at a small high school, when he got out in the real world, it turns out he wasn’t.  Meanwhile, the wife figured out that she was still cute enough and young enough to get more alpha than she had at home.  Not that I hear that the firefighter has married her yet.
• Bee hadn’t even graduated from college yet when she married Morf, and I remember remarking at the time that I thought she was too young.  Bee also is an only child of divorced parents and used to getting her own way all the time.  Oh, and Bee and Morf recited their own vows at their wedding, which included a recounting of how Bee “just knew” when she first set eyes on Morf.  DON’T WRITE YOUR OWN VOWS.  They will never be better than traditional vows.

I hope everyone had a terrific Christmas and New Year’s Day.  It’s good to be back.

I’ll be home for Christmas.

Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.  See you in ’12!

Celebrity divorce and the differences between men and women.

So, anyone who cares about sports has probably heard that after ten years of marriage, Vanessa Bryant has finally decided to divorce Kobe since the latter can’t stop taking advantage of his apex male status and banging other women.  This was a very stupid decision on Kobe’s part, since he and Vanessa have no pre-nup limiting what Vanessa will now be entitled to in divorce.  Since California is a community property state, everything Kobe the couple earned during the marriage is now up for grabs in a 50/50 split between the two.  And since Kobe made the majority of his wealth during the past ten years, Vanessa is legally entitled to a huge payday (I’ve seen an estimate of $180 million), which most women would agree is not bad work for ten years of getting cheated on and enduring a husband’s rape accusation.

Although most women find Vanessa’s expected take from the divorce to be exorbitant, they won’t argue with it (much) or look down on her for it.  After all, she’s never been in the media for bad behavior or sought out personal fame through a reality show.  She seems to have been a good basketball wife, having babies and staying beautiful.  Additionally, all of her adult life, starting at age 17, Vanessa Bryant has been Kobe’s girlfriend or wife, so she never went to college or worked and has no backlog of work skills or experience.  Only a cold-hearted person would demand that as a victim of adultery, she go on public assistance after divorcing.

This sympathy lies in stark contrast to the universal derision Kevin Federline gets for receiving spousal support from Britney Spears for their two-year marriage.

If men and women were truly the same and only cultural conditioning explained sex differences, then why does Kevin Federline receive scorn, but Vanessa Bryant is probably going to come out of the divorce smelling like a rose?  Both married famous, successful people and are now (or will be, in Vanessa’s case) living off the legally obligated largesse of their ex-spouses.  Yet Federline continues to be the butt of jokes, whereas any accusations of gold-digging on Vanessa’s part will be mitigated by Kobe’s cheating.  Really, the only explanation is that men and women are different and have different attractiveness triggers:  men are valued for their ability to provide for women and children, and no amount of social conditioning is ever going to make that go away – not that it seems that anyone is trying to make that go away.  Even the staunchest feminists probably think Federline is a loser, even though he isn’t doing anything uncommon to the ex-wives of successful men.  (Of course, staunch feminists probably look down on women who aren’t working, either, but then they’re just using masculine standards to measure women’s achievements, which just points again to the differences between the sexes.)

Food for thought:  Is Kevin Federline an alpha by Roissy’s definition?  If alphadom is measured by a man’s ability to get sex, then surely Kevin Federline is doing a pretty good job of it.  The man is only 33 and has five children by three different women, and I would expect that if his current woman doesn’t work out, he’ll find yet another woman who will have babies with him.  Yes, he’s famous (or at least notorious) now, but when he had his first two kids, he wasn’t famous.  And he wasn’t famous when he met Britney.

Random thoughts and links.

Some bloggers are very prolific, but I find that my inspiration comes in fits and starts.  Sometimes I can crank out a blog post quickly, but other times I’ll spend hours tinkering with a post, trying to figure out how to say what I want to say.  Sometimes I start a post and then don’t finish it for weeks or even months.  It just depends.

Since I don’t have anything fully-formed at the moment, here’s a smattering of stuff that’s floating around in my mind lately.

• Mrs. Cubbie Fink wrote a book.  It’s called What Is He Thinking? and contains the results of Mrs. Fink’s interviews with “men she respects who hope to get married some day.”  According to the description, “The men share their thoughts on topics like how women can respect themselves and the men in their lives, modesty, purity, taking it slow, friendship, letting guys lead, and more. This book gives them the floor to say what they would really like women to know.”  Or, you know, you could just read some men’s blogs FOR FREE and find more honest, more real, and more true information.  Somehow I find it hard to believe that men would be truly frank with someone who looked like Mrs. Fink, but that’s just cynical ol’ me.  P.S. If anyone wants to hook me up with a copy of the book to review, let me know.
• There’s been noise in the media lately about how 80% of self-identified evangelical singles aren’t virgins.  Well, duh.  Most people can wait until age 22 for sex.  Asking the same people to wait until they’re 30 or 35 or older to have sex is just preposterous.  I generally think that after the age of 25, a lot of Christians say “F THIS” and do what their hormones tell them to do.  If Christians really are serious about preventing premarital sex and the social ills that result from fornication (single moms, bastard kids, poverty, demand for government entitlements, STDs, abortions), then they need to change their attitudes about (a) instructing their kids on marriage and its obligations, (b) when it is appropriate to get married, and (c) getting involved in finding good mates for their children.  I know it’s unpopular to try to shape your child’s romantic destiny (yet okay be a helicopter parent dragging your kid over the finish line to get the minimum SAT score necessary to get into a decent college), but wishful thinking is clearly not keeping the kids out of each other’s pants.
• I came across a shop on Etsy that sells sexy bikinis for plus-size women.
• Women admit they were more attractive at 19.  They are actually shocked at how good they looked when they were younger.
• I started following the whole Tim Tebow thing after I saw someone on TV trashing him as a QB a few weeks ago.  Is the publicity good or bad for Christians?  Weigh in.
• I guess a special on virgins wasn’t enough for TLC, so now they’re doing a special on Sunday, Dec. 18th called Geek Love.  In the Venn diagram of life, those two circles intersect quite a bit.  Here’s a promo clip:
  
•  Lady Gaga is a good example of a woman who is extremely sexual but not at all sexy.
• An older article at The Art of Manliness that I read recently:  5 Easy Ways for the College Student to Upgrade His Style.  Antonio strongly favors a classic, somewhat preppy look, but his general points are good ones for men of any age.
• Buy clothes that fit.  Don’t buy anything that doesn’t “sing” when you put it on.  Buying something because “it’s a great deal” is the worst reason to buy something.  Better to buy something more expensive that is great on you, because you’ll wear it more and pay for itself that way.
• Saw this review of an item at Old Navy, written by a mom who claims she is a size 18:  “I don’t always have the time to pull together a nice outfit outside of sweats and a t-shirt. This shirt makes it easy to pull a nice outfit together quickly whether it’s with cargos, jeans or a skirt.”  A nice outfit outside of sweats and a t-shirt?

Until next time,

a.h.

Video: why men and women can’t be friends.

Res ipsa loquitur, but these kids are probably too young to have any familiarity with When Harry Met Sally. Click play and watch the hamsters spin.

 

(BTW, does this mean that only un-fat, generally attractive girls use the library at Utah State?  Are there no fat girls at Utah State?  Or did the filmmakers use size-ism to make their point???  If so, the whole thing is discredited!  Discredited, I sayyyy!)

Feminist sexual dogma, cont.

“The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” Jer. 17:9 (NIV)

I checked back in on the message board thread that I had posted about earlier, the one from the girl who’d had sex with an alpha on the fourth date, and then he did the disappearing act.  The drama continued, not just in the thread, but she actually obtained a closure of sorts from the guy.

OP’s comments are a sterling example of how a woman’s hamster reacts to an alpha.

She protects him from criticism and only reluctantly accepts his shaming from the hen house:

It’s hard for me to think of this dude as being an asshole, but the more I think about it and read what you all are saying, I realize you’re right.

She wants to hear what he has to say when he finally contacts her:

I guess I’ll let him know that he can call me. I’m just really hurt at this point. But you’re right — I’ll hear him out. At least now I can get the closure that I’ve wanted all along.

and:

I’m just REALLY curious about what he’s going to say. I texted him and told him he could call me after I get off work in a few hours.

Oh, GIRL, this is really not rocket science.  Also, any time a girl wants to hear what a guy has to say even though she swears she has written him off, he was a mistake, she doesn’t care anymore – guess what?  SHE STILL CARES AND STILL HAS HOPE.  Such talk is pure, grade-A hamster talk.

OP gets her “closure” with alpha, but (surprise!) it wasn’t what she wanted to hear:

Alright, so he called about an hour ago. Basically, he apologized for not calling after we had sex. He admitted that he regretted doing it so soon, and that he was sorry for basically ignoring me for almost two weeks. I accepted his apology. And that was that. Honestly, I wish he wouldn’t have called in the first place. Yeah, I got my closure, but it was easier for me to get over it if I could just write him off as a dick. Now he’s not REALLY a dick, since he apologized. Gah. I’m sad now.

OP admits why she took his call:

Thanks everyone. I’m still super bummed (I guess a part of me was hoping he’d want to go out with me again?), but I know I’ll get over it.

OP in response to a commenter who asks if she would have gone out with him again if he had asked:

I would have.

Exactly how alpha was he?

I don’t know. I know I deserve better.

Mark the following as truth:  the only time women claim not to deserve better is when they’re fishing for compliments from other women (or beta orbiters).  Otherwise, women pretty much always deserve better than what they’ve got (or had).  But let’s look at this situation a little more closely:  OP really, really liked alpha and believed that they had a special enough connection that she got naked and had sex with him after four dates.  Then she procured a phone call from him apologizing for his behavior.  Most alphas would not even bother to call.  Actually, the more I think about it, the more it seems like our alpha was possibly a greater beta/lesser alpha – he did, after all, take OP on dates, which is way more than most women can expect from an alpha male these days.

So what, exactly, does OP believe she deserves that is better?  Considering what happened, she got about as good a treatment as she could expect.  Oh, but she wanted to have sex on her terms.

Ay, there’s the rub.