60 million people just screamed “I HATE YOU” at the top of their lungs. We can’t undo that. We never will. Thinking it was even possible is the white rabbit that lead us down this deep dark hole.
It’s over. There is, literally, nothing left to do. It doesn’t matter how well we organize, how qualified a candidate we put forth. There are too many people in this godforsaken lake of shit that calls itself a country who would elect the very embodiment of evil as long as he feeds their hatred. There are too many journalists who care more about perceived fairness than accuracy. There are too many people who will let perfect be the enemy of sane. There are simply far too many people who do not want a better world for everyone, only for people like themselves.
I’m done fighting. I’m done hoping. We’ve reached the end. If it’s not going to get any better, then let it fucking burn.
There is nothing left to save. May nuclear war wipe us off the fucking map before Trump makes us suffer death by a thousand cuts.
Statcounter
Friday, November 11, 2016
Monday, November 7, 2016
Protest Votes Are Merely An Excercise In Straight White Guy Privilege
There, I said it. And now I will explain why this is not an opinion, but a motherfucking fact.
Were this a normal election, I literally would not care if a bunch of angry straight white guys in good health decided to write in Donald goddamned Duck as their candidate. But this is not a normal election.
This is an election in which Hillary Clinton not winning means we have guy who flies off on vengeance-driven Twitter crusades at 2am in charge of the nuclear codes.
This is an election in which Hillary Clinton not winning means a guy who is to stand two civil trials for large scale fraud and raping a 13-year-old girl has the power to sign bills.
This is an election in which Hillary Clinton not winning means a guy who has no idea how the government works will hold the nation's highest public office.
This is an election in which Hillary Clinton not winning means a guy who thinks he has the right to sexually assault whomever he wants to just because he's rich will have to meet with other world leaders, many of whom have wives and daughters and quite a few of whom are women.
This is an election in which Hillary Clinton not winning means a guy who wants his political opponents jailed or assassinated has the power to issue executive orders.
This is an election in which Hillary Clinton not winning means a guy who has expressed borderline incestuous interest in his own daughters has the power to pardon convicted rapists.
In other words, were the nation made up of sane, rational people, the very idea of a Trump presidency should scare the holy shit out of everyone enough to make sure he lost by a landslide, simply because we'd become the United States of Fuck This Guy. But of course, if that were the case, Trump would never have gotten the nomination at all.
So here we are.
Unfortunately, while Clinton is still leading, there is a sizeable contingent of people -- many of whom supported Bernie Sanders of all people -- who plan to either throw their votes away entirely on a 3rd party candidate, or not even bother hiding their childish tantrum and vote for the Orange Menace himself. And these people are, by and large, straight white cisgendered men in general good health, voting in a way that screams "I know I'm one of the most privileged demographics in this country and I don't give a shit about anything but my feelings."
Why? Because for them, even a Trump presidency isn't as bad as an establishment candidate since none of the things he wants to do will affect them directly. Thus, the blow to their pride that would be casting a vote for a woman is of far greater concern.
Yes, I'm going there, because the evidence is literally right in front of your faces.
Bernie Sanders has been involved in Congress for even longer than Clinton has. She was elected as a U.S. Senator in 2001; Sanders first got elected as U.S. Representative in 1991. They support many of the same policy positions. They're certainly further on the same page than Jill Stein, Gary Johnson, or Saints preserve us, Trump. And yet, Sanders is the favored anti-establishment "maverick" candidate, while Clinton has been "in politics too long" and therefore "corrupt."
They are virtually the same candidate. But only one of them is female, so obviously that one is no good.
And this is the result of Clinton being the subject of a Republican smear campaign for nearly three decades. Longer than half the electorate has been alive. There is no way in Hell that people haven't internalized that nonsense in some form.
And yes, it's nonsense. Literally every single anti-Hillary argument boils down to "she's unfit to be President because she embodies qualities we still do not find acceptable for women; she does not back down and shut up when a man is talking." Every single "scandal" she's been embroiled in has fallen apart under even minor scrutiny. Every. Single. One. But for insecure privileged white men who felt their balls shrivel up and retreat when she got up on that stage and accepted the nomination, they will cling to any excuse not to vote for her no matter how ridiculous it is. It doesn't matter that her opponent is literally a fascist dictator fanboy. They will, as Varys said of Joffrey Baratheon, "see this country burn if they can be kings of the ashes."
For those of us who are not straight white men in general good health, this election is quite literal life and death. I'm a gay woman with two chronic health conditions. I have friends who are also women, LGBT, disabled, cancer patients, black, Native, and Hispanic. People who would not survive 4 years under Trump, no matter how Congress ends up leaning. I have already voted Hillary Clinton not just because she is the most qualified candidate to ever run for this office, period, but because I will do anything I have to to make sure that the people I care about make it through the next four years alive.
This is not an election to cast a protest vote in. There is too much at stake. This is not about you. This is not about your fucking 'conscience.' Because if your conscience is telling you to vote against someone just because she's a woman, no matter what, then you need to get a new one because yours is fucking broken. This is a fucking emergency.
And I'll tell you what we do in emergencies: we break glass.
Were this a normal election, I literally would not care if a bunch of angry straight white guys in good health decided to write in Donald goddamned Duck as their candidate. But this is not a normal election.
This is an election in which Hillary Clinton not winning means we have guy who flies off on vengeance-driven Twitter crusades at 2am in charge of the nuclear codes.
This is an election in which Hillary Clinton not winning means a guy who is to stand two civil trials for large scale fraud and raping a 13-year-old girl has the power to sign bills.
This is an election in which Hillary Clinton not winning means a guy who has no idea how the government works will hold the nation's highest public office.
This is an election in which Hillary Clinton not winning means a guy who thinks he has the right to sexually assault whomever he wants to just because he's rich will have to meet with other world leaders, many of whom have wives and daughters and quite a few of whom are women.
This is an election in which Hillary Clinton not winning means a guy who wants his political opponents jailed or assassinated has the power to issue executive orders.
This is an election in which Hillary Clinton not winning means a guy who has expressed borderline incestuous interest in his own daughters has the power to pardon convicted rapists.
In other words, were the nation made up of sane, rational people, the very idea of a Trump presidency should scare the holy shit out of everyone enough to make sure he lost by a landslide, simply because we'd become the United States of Fuck This Guy. But of course, if that were the case, Trump would never have gotten the nomination at all.
So here we are.
Unfortunately, while Clinton is still leading, there is a sizeable contingent of people -- many of whom supported Bernie Sanders of all people -- who plan to either throw their votes away entirely on a 3rd party candidate, or not even bother hiding their childish tantrum and vote for the Orange Menace himself. And these people are, by and large, straight white cisgendered men in general good health, voting in a way that screams "I know I'm one of the most privileged demographics in this country and I don't give a shit about anything but my feelings."
Why? Because for them, even a Trump presidency isn't as bad as an establishment candidate since none of the things he wants to do will affect them directly. Thus, the blow to their pride that would be casting a vote for a woman is of far greater concern.
Yes, I'm going there, because the evidence is literally right in front of your faces.
Bernie Sanders has been involved in Congress for even longer than Clinton has. She was elected as a U.S. Senator in 2001; Sanders first got elected as U.S. Representative in 1991. They support many of the same policy positions. They're certainly further on the same page than Jill Stein, Gary Johnson, or Saints preserve us, Trump. And yet, Sanders is the favored anti-establishment "maverick" candidate, while Clinton has been "in politics too long" and therefore "corrupt."
They are virtually the same candidate. But only one of them is female, so obviously that one is no good.
And this is the result of Clinton being the subject of a Republican smear campaign for nearly three decades. Longer than half the electorate has been alive. There is no way in Hell that people haven't internalized that nonsense in some form.
And yes, it's nonsense. Literally every single anti-Hillary argument boils down to "she's unfit to be President because she embodies qualities we still do not find acceptable for women; she does not back down and shut up when a man is talking." Every single "scandal" she's been embroiled in has fallen apart under even minor scrutiny. Every. Single. One. But for insecure privileged white men who felt their balls shrivel up and retreat when she got up on that stage and accepted the nomination, they will cling to any excuse not to vote for her no matter how ridiculous it is. It doesn't matter that her opponent is literally a fascist dictator fanboy. They will, as Varys said of Joffrey Baratheon, "see this country burn if they can be kings of the ashes."
For those of us who are not straight white men in general good health, this election is quite literal life and death. I'm a gay woman with two chronic health conditions. I have friends who are also women, LGBT, disabled, cancer patients, black, Native, and Hispanic. People who would not survive 4 years under Trump, no matter how Congress ends up leaning. I have already voted Hillary Clinton not just because she is the most qualified candidate to ever run for this office, period, but because I will do anything I have to to make sure that the people I care about make it through the next four years alive.
This is not an election to cast a protest vote in. There is too much at stake. This is not about you. This is not about your fucking 'conscience.' Because if your conscience is telling you to vote against someone just because she's a woman, no matter what, then you need to get a new one because yours is fucking broken. This is a fucking emergency.
And I'll tell you what we do in emergencies: we break glass.
Monday, October 3, 2016
Happy Hour With Mussolini: The Rise of Donald Trump Explained
This election cycle is unlike anything we've seen on U.S. soil in living memory. The last time we had such a forward-thinking candidate matched up against the rotting remains of last year's compost stash was when The Party of Lincoln was literal; being anti-slavery was the same level of radical as being feminist, pro-climate science, and anti-crony capitalism is today. And by all accounts, Stephen Douglas was just as batshit looney tunes during the debates as Trump was last week.
It's the kind of once-a-century circus on the Island of Misfit Toys that has people on both sides of the red-blue spectrum asking "where the fuck are we and how did we get here?" To answer that question, we'll have to go across the Atlantic and roughly a century back in time, to where and when conditions were very similar.
In the immortal words of Sophia Petrillo: picture it, Sicily, 1916.
Not Sicily proper, but close enough. The middle of World War I. The Italian Socialist Party had declared itself neutral and opposed Italy's involvement in the war. But a prominent member, writer and professor Benito Mussolini was having none of that. A fan of eugenics, who believed that WWI was a golden opportunity for Italians in Austria-Hungary to prove just how superior they were, Mussolini changed his tune from Marxist Socialism to the kind of scary ideology that would make him besties with Hitler later on; that of nationalistic fervor and the mandate that "superior" peoples dominate the "inferior" ones.
WWI was the European version of Iraq and Afghanistan, only it lasted half as long because in those days, countries still used actual declarations of war rather than merely committing troops to an area indefinitely. But it was just as popular-and-then-unpopular an albatross as Iraqi Freedom later became. And Mussolini saw the same kind of opportunities in WWI that conservatives saw in Iraq; profit, and a chance to bomb the shit out of brown people. And just like Iraq, it eventually proved to be more trouble than it was worth for the Italian Socialists when it started to divert money away from important shit like food and infrastructure.
The Italian Socialist Party eventually gave Mussolini the boot over his pro-war stance, and he responded by forming the Italian Fascist Party, which promoted the need for the "elite" to show the rest of those plebes how to live. And that could only happen if everyone in the country united under the banner of superiority and self-determination, and Seriously, Fuck Those Slavs.
If this sounds frighteningly familiar, that's because it's all happening again. Only replace Italian Fascism with the Tea Party and Mussolini with Donald Trump. It's the same zombie ideology wearing a flimsier, made-in-China hat.
Trump is taking advantage of the same kind of people Mussolini did. Uneducated, low-information country folk who miss the Good Old Days when they were the biggest fish in the pond. And he had a cult of personality much the same way Trump does. He "told it like it was." He peddled the idea that Italians were inherently superior, and if only they could stop their petty squabbling and agree on everything, they could bring their country back to its glory days of law and order. "Make Italy Great Again" indeed. What's more, the Italian Socialist Party that had ousted him saw the whole thing as an overly long joke, until the Blackshirt squads started "restoring order" by getting rid of everyone Mussolini didn't like.
Oh yes, the Blackshirts were very much real. WWI veterans who swore an oath to Mussolini and carried out all the ugly stuff like kidnappings, murder, bombings, and general mayhem in the name of scaring people into line. The fascia in fascism; they bound everything together with the promise of swift and scary judgment against those who didn't conform. Today, we'd recognize them as the "sovereign citizen" movement. The Timothy McVeighs and Cliven Bundys of the U.S..
And the years between WWI and WWII were the crucible in which this explosive mixture of nationalist fervor, childish fear and resentment, and the apathy of the opposition cooked and eventually boiled over.
Like Trump supporters today, Mussolini's followers viewed him as a genius, someone whose success meant he was inherently better than everyone below him. Mussolini himself fanned the flames by attributing his wealth and prosperity not to luck or being born into the upper middle-class and thus having more advantages, but to having inherently better attributes than other men. Much like Trump's "very good brain."
And that's not the only similarity. Both men dodged military service themselves while later advocating for war (Mussolini did eventually serve, but only because it was a condition of his pardon for, ironically, falsifying immigration papers in Geneva). Both men cultivated a propaganda machine that associated their names with prestige and value (despite the fact that nearly everything Trump has ever slapped his name on no longer exists). Both men's visions centered on a glorious empire with themselves at the top (Mussolini wanted to reforge the Roman Empire, while Trump merely wants to dominate the airwaves).
The common thread that really ties the two together, though, is that neither man was/is dangerous by himself; on their own, people like Mussolini and Trump are no more concerning than that hardcore conservative relative of yours who ruins Thanksgiving every year. The danger is in their followers. Nobody would've taken Mussolini or his movement seriously without the March on Rome; had it not been for 30,000 pissed-off Blackshirts and the very real threat of an armed communist revolt, Il Duce would've been remembered more like Leon Czolgosz.
Likewise, what makes the prospect of a Trump presidency legitimately terrifying is not the kind of laws he could enact even with a Republican Congress (because frankly even his own party can't stand him), but the fact that being elected president has the potential to embolden his fiercest supporters to translate their hatred into the kind of violence we haven't seen in nearly a century.
And these modern-day Blackshirts have body armor, semi-automatics, and much larger magazines than their 1920s counterparts.
There's a saying in toxicology that the dose makes the poison, and it's true in politics as well. The support makes the movement. Followers are the difference between your hardcore right-wing relative ruining Christmas dinner, and a neo-fascist right-wing lunatic ruining your country.
Still, a charismatic leader who tells angry people precisely what they want to hear isn't quite enough on its own. As I mentioned before, it's the apathy of the opposition that's the final catalyst. And yes, we have that, too.
Like the Italian Socialists, today's Democratic Socialists are not taking the threat of President Trump seriously enough. He's written off as a joke candidate, much the way Mussolini was. To the point that some who supported Bernie Sanders' run for the nomination have declared their intent to either stay home or vote a protest candidate rather than cast a vote for Clinton.
Edmund Burke told us over two centuries ago why this attitude is dangerous:
It all boils down to this: don't do nothing.
Don't be the apathetic opposition that looks on and lets this happen again because we forgot what happened the last time. Be the generation that remembers. Be the generation that votes, because there is too much at stake here to throw your voice down the gutter or not use it at all.
Be the generation that tells the Angry Fuckhead Movement that this shit will not be tolerated anymore.
Be the the generation that, when the mob and the press and the whole world tell them to move, plants themselves like trees beside the river of truth, and tells the whole world — "No, you move.'
It's the kind of once-a-century circus on the Island of Misfit Toys that has people on both sides of the red-blue spectrum asking "where the fuck are we and how did we get here?" To answer that question, we'll have to go across the Atlantic and roughly a century back in time, to where and when conditions were very similar.
In the immortal words of Sophia Petrillo: picture it, Sicily, 1916.
Not Sicily proper, but close enough. The middle of World War I. The Italian Socialist Party had declared itself neutral and opposed Italy's involvement in the war. But a prominent member, writer and professor Benito Mussolini was having none of that. A fan of eugenics, who believed that WWI was a golden opportunity for Italians in Austria-Hungary to prove just how superior they were, Mussolini changed his tune from Marxist Socialism to the kind of scary ideology that would make him besties with Hitler later on; that of nationalistic fervor and the mandate that "superior" peoples dominate the "inferior" ones.
WWI was the European version of Iraq and Afghanistan, only it lasted half as long because in those days, countries still used actual declarations of war rather than merely committing troops to an area indefinitely. But it was just as popular-and-then-unpopular an albatross as Iraqi Freedom later became. And Mussolini saw the same kind of opportunities in WWI that conservatives saw in Iraq; profit, and a chance to bomb the shit out of brown people. And just like Iraq, it eventually proved to be more trouble than it was worth for the Italian Socialists when it started to divert money away from important shit like food and infrastructure.
The Italian Socialist Party eventually gave Mussolini the boot over his pro-war stance, and he responded by forming the Italian Fascist Party, which promoted the need for the "elite" to show the rest of those plebes how to live. And that could only happen if everyone in the country united under the banner of superiority and self-determination, and Seriously, Fuck Those Slavs.
If this sounds frighteningly familiar, that's because it's all happening again. Only replace Italian Fascism with the Tea Party and Mussolini with Donald Trump. It's the same zombie ideology wearing a flimsier, made-in-China hat.
Trump is taking advantage of the same kind of people Mussolini did. Uneducated, low-information country folk who miss the Good Old Days when they were the biggest fish in the pond. And he had a cult of personality much the same way Trump does. He "told it like it was." He peddled the idea that Italians were inherently superior, and if only they could stop their petty squabbling and agree on everything, they could bring their country back to its glory days of law and order. "Make Italy Great Again" indeed. What's more, the Italian Socialist Party that had ousted him saw the whole thing as an overly long joke, until the Blackshirt squads started "restoring order" by getting rid of everyone Mussolini didn't like.
Oh yes, the Blackshirts were very much real. WWI veterans who swore an oath to Mussolini and carried out all the ugly stuff like kidnappings, murder, bombings, and general mayhem in the name of scaring people into line. The fascia in fascism; they bound everything together with the promise of swift and scary judgment against those who didn't conform. Today, we'd recognize them as the "sovereign citizen" movement. The Timothy McVeighs and Cliven Bundys of the U.S..
And the years between WWI and WWII were the crucible in which this explosive mixture of nationalist fervor, childish fear and resentment, and the apathy of the opposition cooked and eventually boiled over.
Like Trump supporters today, Mussolini's followers viewed him as a genius, someone whose success meant he was inherently better than everyone below him. Mussolini himself fanned the flames by attributing his wealth and prosperity not to luck or being born into the upper middle-class and thus having more advantages, but to having inherently better attributes than other men. Much like Trump's "very good brain."
And that's not the only similarity. Both men dodged military service themselves while later advocating for war (Mussolini did eventually serve, but only because it was a condition of his pardon for, ironically, falsifying immigration papers in Geneva). Both men cultivated a propaganda machine that associated their names with prestige and value (despite the fact that nearly everything Trump has ever slapped his name on no longer exists). Both men's visions centered on a glorious empire with themselves at the top (Mussolini wanted to reforge the Roman Empire, while Trump merely wants to dominate the airwaves).
The common thread that really ties the two together, though, is that neither man was/is dangerous by himself; on their own, people like Mussolini and Trump are no more concerning than that hardcore conservative relative of yours who ruins Thanksgiving every year. The danger is in their followers. Nobody would've taken Mussolini or his movement seriously without the March on Rome; had it not been for 30,000 pissed-off Blackshirts and the very real threat of an armed communist revolt, Il Duce would've been remembered more like Leon Czolgosz.
Likewise, what makes the prospect of a Trump presidency legitimately terrifying is not the kind of laws he could enact even with a Republican Congress (because frankly even his own party can't stand him), but the fact that being elected president has the potential to embolden his fiercest supporters to translate their hatred into the kind of violence we haven't seen in nearly a century.
And these modern-day Blackshirts have body armor, semi-automatics, and much larger magazines than their 1920s counterparts.
There's a saying in toxicology that the dose makes the poison, and it's true in politics as well. The support makes the movement. Followers are the difference between your hardcore right-wing relative ruining Christmas dinner, and a neo-fascist right-wing lunatic ruining your country.
Still, a charismatic leader who tells angry people precisely what they want to hear isn't quite enough on its own. As I mentioned before, it's the apathy of the opposition that's the final catalyst. And yes, we have that, too.
Like the Italian Socialists, today's Democratic Socialists are not taking the threat of President Trump seriously enough. He's written off as a joke candidate, much the way Mussolini was. To the point that some who supported Bernie Sanders' run for the nomination have declared their intent to either stay home or vote a protest candidate rather than cast a vote for Clinton.
Edmund Burke told us over two centuries ago why this attitude is dangerous:
"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."The reason I've taken the time and energy to write this is because this exact scenario strikes a very personal chord with me; my grandfather escaped Fascist Italy in the 1930s. He died in 2007, which I'm actually glad for. Because my grandfather loved the United States; he would not have wanted to be alive to witness the rise of the same kind of man he risked death at sea and capture/deportation to get the fuck away from.
It all boils down to this: don't do nothing.
Don't be the apathetic opposition that looks on and lets this happen again because we forgot what happened the last time. Be the generation that remembers. Be the generation that votes, because there is too much at stake here to throw your voice down the gutter or not use it at all.
Be the generation that tells the Angry Fuckhead Movement that this shit will not be tolerated anymore.
Be the the generation that, when the mob and the press and the whole world tell them to move, plants themselves like trees beside the river of truth, and tells the whole world — "No, you move.'
Tuesday, September 13, 2016
Nobody "Put" You In the "Friendzone"
You walked in there all by yourself. And you remain there 100% by your own choice.
No, it's not your fault that the woman (because this seems to be exclusively a straight guy thing) you're interested in rejected you, but that's not what the "friendzone" is. You don't just get there by being rejected. You get there by choosing to stay friends with the woman who rejected your romantic advances, despite not actually wanting a friendship with her at all.
See, the "friendzone" is really just the dysfunction junction between Resentment Road and Dishonesty Boulevard. It's what happens when a guy, for whatever reason, refuses to admit to himself that staying just friends with a woman he wants to be romantically involved with but who has made it clear that's not happening is too much for him to handle emotionally. And so he remains friends with her in order to not seem shallow, but spends the entire friendship bitching and moaning about how difficult and unpleasant it is.
And this goes about as well as anyone sane expects it to. Eventually, the guy does one of two things:
1) he tries, without success, to weasel his way past her boundaries no matter how many times she unequivocally shuts that shit down, until he explodes at her and shows his true colors.
2) he finally wises up and realizes that a friendship isn't enough and quietly severs contact.
And this is all provided he doesn't threaten to kill her (or worse, actually kill her).
What the guy misses from the very beginning, though, is that the only reason any of this happens, the only reason the friendzone even exists for him, is because he chooses to stay friends with someone he does not want to be friends with.
The friendzone is not a prison cell. You are not locked up in there against your will. You have the option to leave at any time; furthermore, you have the option of never entering in the first place.
As a member of the mysterious tribe called "Girl," I'll let you in on a little secret: women don't expect a guy they just rejected to stay friends with them. It's nice if the guy is cool with it, but we really do understand if he's not. So at least to us, it's way the fuck less creepy and douchey to say "look, I gotta be straight with you here, I don't think I can handle staying just friends." Women are frankly more inclined to respect your honesty.
Certainly less creepy and douchey than claiming our friendship still means so much to you while going behind our backs to whine to anyone who will listen how we're such frigid bitches because we won't give a Nice Guy like you even a handjob.
Because since men are supposedly the more logical of the sexes, let's break this down as such: if you don't really want a friendship with this woman and she has made it clear that friendship is the only relation she's willing to have with you, why would you bother staying friends with her at all? Why would you remain friends when you've already admitted it's difficult and painful and unpleasant? Because last I checked, that is everything a friendship is not supposed to be.
As much as I really hate to reduce women to consumable goods, sometimes that's the only way men can understand because that's how they've been trained to think of us: do you hang around outside Home Depot hoping one day they'll start carrying Cristal champagne? Do you stalk the baristas at your local Starbucks to buy winter coats? Do you loiter around your local Apple store looking for outdoor camping equipment?
Of course you don't. Because you know that those stores are not offering the thing you want to buy. And no matter how much you beg and plead and stamp your feet, they never will.
So why would you hang around a woman whose only offering is a relationship you already know you don't want?
You are under no obligation whatsoever to remain friends with a girl when she tells you friendship is all she wants from you. You are free to leave the friendzone whenever you want by simply leaving the friendship.
Nobody is saying that you can't feel hurt or disappointed or even a little angry when rejected by someone you're into. But it's how you react and how you choose to handle it that means the difference between being an actual nice guy, or a creepy, predatory douchelord.
You have a right to those feelings. What you don't have a right to do is lie to a woman's face and then get pissed off at her for believing you. You don't have a right to her being, and you never will.
No, it's not your fault that the woman (because this seems to be exclusively a straight guy thing) you're interested in rejected you, but that's not what the "friendzone" is. You don't just get there by being rejected. You get there by choosing to stay friends with the woman who rejected your romantic advances, despite not actually wanting a friendship with her at all.
See, the "friendzone" is really just the dysfunction junction between Resentment Road and Dishonesty Boulevard. It's what happens when a guy, for whatever reason, refuses to admit to himself that staying just friends with a woman he wants to be romantically involved with but who has made it clear that's not happening is too much for him to handle emotionally. And so he remains friends with her in order to not seem shallow, but spends the entire friendship bitching and moaning about how difficult and unpleasant it is.
And this goes about as well as anyone sane expects it to. Eventually, the guy does one of two things:
1) he tries, without success, to weasel his way past her boundaries no matter how many times she unequivocally shuts that shit down, until he explodes at her and shows his true colors.
2) he finally wises up and realizes that a friendship isn't enough and quietly severs contact.
And this is all provided he doesn't threaten to kill her (or worse, actually kill her).
What the guy misses from the very beginning, though, is that the only reason any of this happens, the only reason the friendzone even exists for him, is because he chooses to stay friends with someone he does not want to be friends with.
The friendzone is not a prison cell. You are not locked up in there against your will. You have the option to leave at any time; furthermore, you have the option of never entering in the first place.
As a member of the mysterious tribe called "Girl," I'll let you in on a little secret: women don't expect a guy they just rejected to stay friends with them. It's nice if the guy is cool with it, but we really do understand if he's not. So at least to us, it's way the fuck less creepy and douchey to say "look, I gotta be straight with you here, I don't think I can handle staying just friends." Women are frankly more inclined to respect your honesty.
Certainly less creepy and douchey than claiming our friendship still means so much to you while going behind our backs to whine to anyone who will listen how we're such frigid bitches because we won't give a Nice Guy like you even a handjob.
Because since men are supposedly the more logical of the sexes, let's break this down as such: if you don't really want a friendship with this woman and she has made it clear that friendship is the only relation she's willing to have with you, why would you bother staying friends with her at all? Why would you remain friends when you've already admitted it's difficult and painful and unpleasant? Because last I checked, that is everything a friendship is not supposed to be.
As much as I really hate to reduce women to consumable goods, sometimes that's the only way men can understand because that's how they've been trained to think of us: do you hang around outside Home Depot hoping one day they'll start carrying Cristal champagne? Do you stalk the baristas at your local Starbucks to buy winter coats? Do you loiter around your local Apple store looking for outdoor camping equipment?
Of course you don't. Because you know that those stores are not offering the thing you want to buy. And no matter how much you beg and plead and stamp your feet, they never will.
So why would you hang around a woman whose only offering is a relationship you already know you don't want?
You are under no obligation whatsoever to remain friends with a girl when she tells you friendship is all she wants from you. You are free to leave the friendzone whenever you want by simply leaving the friendship.
Nobody is saying that you can't feel hurt or disappointed or even a little angry when rejected by someone you're into. But it's how you react and how you choose to handle it that means the difference between being an actual nice guy, or a creepy, predatory douchelord.
You have a right to those feelings. What you don't have a right to do is lie to a woman's face and then get pissed off at her for believing you. You don't have a right to her being, and you never will.
Wednesday, September 7, 2016
An Open Letter to the Hipster Edgelords
Nobody gives a shit about you.
No, really. Nobody cares what obscure piece of media you're currently creaming yourself over. Nobody cares how much you hate social media (but still post on it every day for gods-know-why). Nobody cares that you hate everything popular purely because of its popularity. Nobody cares that you hate most of humanity for literally no reason other than you think it makes you unique and therefore cool (spoiler: it doesn't).
Because see, as geeks we all went through that phase where we were so desperate to prove we were better than other geeks to cover up for our inability to function outside mom's basement that we took every opportunity to wave our geek boners at anything we thought they were long enough to slap. Fortunately, we grew out of that fucked-up mentality by the time society expected us to be functional adults.
But you? Oh no. Growing up into a mature member of society is entirely too mainstream. You're still chasing that banner of Better Than All Those Other Nerds because you're such a worthless, useless sack of piss and vinegar that you have no other purpose in life. And it's your own damned fault.
And no, you don't get to use the myriad of excuses you've racked up over the years, that so many people gave you a fucking pass on because you happen to be straight, male, cisgendered and white.
Don't have a job? Since you seem to love spewing bullshit on the internet 24/7, guess what? You can totally get paid to do that. You don't really need money to start, either. And with modern accessibility features on all operating systems, even a physical disability isn't a barrier. You have a computer, you have internet access, and boom. With a little work and--
Oh yeah. That's your problem. "Effort" is a dirty word in your language. After all, it's easier to bitch and moan all day about how every popular video game, band, movie, and TV show sucks and get into forum and Facebook spats at 2AM than contribute anything meaningful to the media landscape. After all, bitching and moaning gets you the payoff you're after -- the smug assurance that you're Better Than All Those Other Nerds -- and you don't have to do a goddamn thing except piss people off (which is easy, since you're an asshole).
But at the end of the day? Guess what? The blogger who writes about stuff they like, popular or not, gets to take home a paycheck, make friends, and have fun. People give a shit about them.
You? Get to sulk in the lone corner of your mom's basement with your friends, Empty Cheeto Bag and Jizz Shirt, once your Better Than All Those Other Nerds high wears off and you gotta go get into an online dick-waving contest so you can shoot up again.
And still, nobody gives a shit about you. And nobody ever will. Because you don't give anybody a reason to care since you're too busy pissing them off for your own childish amusement.
So if you still want to keep on keeping on on the Road to Nowhere that is being Better Than All Those Other Nerds? Fine.
I think you should just be aware that seriously, no one gives a shit.
No, really. Nobody cares what obscure piece of media you're currently creaming yourself over. Nobody cares how much you hate social media (but still post on it every day for gods-know-why). Nobody cares that you hate everything popular purely because of its popularity. Nobody cares that you hate most of humanity for literally no reason other than you think it makes you unique and therefore cool (spoiler: it doesn't).
Because see, as geeks we all went through that phase where we were so desperate to prove we were better than other geeks to cover up for our inability to function outside mom's basement that we took every opportunity to wave our geek boners at anything we thought they were long enough to slap. Fortunately, we grew out of that fucked-up mentality by the time society expected us to be functional adults.
But you? Oh no. Growing up into a mature member of society is entirely too mainstream. You're still chasing that banner of Better Than All Those Other Nerds because you're such a worthless, useless sack of piss and vinegar that you have no other purpose in life. And it's your own damned fault.
And no, you don't get to use the myriad of excuses you've racked up over the years, that so many people gave you a fucking pass on because you happen to be straight, male, cisgendered and white.
Don't have a job? Since you seem to love spewing bullshit on the internet 24/7, guess what? You can totally get paid to do that. You don't really need money to start, either. And with modern accessibility features on all operating systems, even a physical disability isn't a barrier. You have a computer, you have internet access, and boom. With a little work and--
Oh yeah. That's your problem. "Effort" is a dirty word in your language. After all, it's easier to bitch and moan all day about how every popular video game, band, movie, and TV show sucks and get into forum and Facebook spats at 2AM than contribute anything meaningful to the media landscape. After all, bitching and moaning gets you the payoff you're after -- the smug assurance that you're Better Than All Those Other Nerds -- and you don't have to do a goddamn thing except piss people off (which is easy, since you're an asshole).
But at the end of the day? Guess what? The blogger who writes about stuff they like, popular or not, gets to take home a paycheck, make friends, and have fun. People give a shit about them.
You? Get to sulk in the lone corner of your mom's basement with your friends, Empty Cheeto Bag and Jizz Shirt, once your Better Than All Those Other Nerds high wears off and you gotta go get into an online dick-waving contest so you can shoot up again.
And still, nobody gives a shit about you. And nobody ever will. Because you don't give anybody a reason to care since you're too busy pissing them off for your own childish amusement.
So if you still want to keep on keeping on on the Road to Nowhere that is being Better Than All Those Other Nerds? Fine.
I think you should just be aware that seriously, no one gives a shit.
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