The Padded Cell

I happened to see a link to this article the other day on the MSN home page, and decided to look at it.

It's a post on the Glamour dating blog Single-Ish. I had trouble finding the article again later, since it was written back in mid-november, and the blog gets a lot of posts. Anyway, I couldn't help but roll on the floor laughing when reading it. So ladies, here's a man's perspective on the situation.

Basically the reasons a man goes MIA are, because he did something wrong. Oh, right. There can't be any other reasons. Silly me.

The two reasons given are: 1. He did something wrong or hurtful… and 2. He suddenly realizes he’s headed toward a relationship…

The author highlights that these are based only on her own experience, sounds like she's got some issues.

Let me give some alternate reasons:

1) He realized what a controlling, psycho, paranoid bitch you really were.

2) He realized your body wasn't nearly as good as advertised.

To point 1 from the article, the author says:

I’ve never met a man who liked facing me and admitting wrongdoing. Neither have my friends. I once explained it to a girl like this: A lot of men are all about pride and dignity. Women are too, but we know we can’t survive that way. We might need to approach a stranger and ask her for a tampon. Men can’t or won’t do that. They would run across the street and buy the tampon themselves. But women are willing to show a little vulnerability, admit we’re empty-handed, apologize, and ask for help.

She sets up a nice straw man and then knocks it down. Nicely done!

There’s a book that really drives home this point about pride/shame/ego/dignity and dudes, and it helped me to really see what can go on inside a boy's pinhead. It’s Larry McMurtry's wonderful and short novel, The Last Picture Show. I read it a long time ago, so chime in if I’ve forgotten something. Anyway (spoiler alert), there’s a boy character who wrongs a woman he has been seeing. She is waiting for him to stop by and explain himself, and she is totally ready to forgive him. They love each other. But he never comes back. He is so ashamed. His pride and his embarrassment of his behavior keeps him away. To a woman, that makes no sense. What a waste of a good relationship! Just say “oops, my bad” and we’ll hug you and forgive you. We’re pretty easy that way. [my emphasis] But men just can’t face you for some reason. Next time this happens, just imagine him asking another dude for a tampon. That’s not gonna happen, either.

So, life is apparently about why men don't like to go buy feminine hygiene products. Who knew??

But the highlighted section is what REALLY gets me. "Just say “oops, my bad” and we’ll hug you and forgive you. We’re pretty easy that way." Ho-lee crap! This couldn't be further from the truth. If a guy fucks up, a woman will NEVER EVER let him forget it. Period. Even if she doesn't verbalize it, it's going to be hanging around in the back of her brain, nagging at her, and she'll take it out on him in other ways.

As to point 2 from the blog entry. If she falsely advertised that she wasn't looking for a relationship, then sure, the guy has the right to bail out when he realizes she lied. Plain and simple.

And some parting advice for women when dealing with men: Don't ask the question you don't really want to hear the answer to. If you ask him if your ass looks big in those jeans, when you KNOW you ass looks big BECAUSE it's big, just don't fucking ask. If he says no, you'll know he's lying and will hold it against him. If he says yes, then you'll be pissed at him for being honest. If you love your man, don't put him in that situation. That's pretty simple, isn't it.

I was walking inside an assisted living facility the other day. There was an elderly woman in a wheelchair who had no legs (amputated, most likely, perhaps diabetes, I don't know). Coming from the opposite direction I was walking was a middle-aged woman and three small children. As they were passing the amputee, one little girl (she might have been 5 years old) said to the middle-aged woman, "That lady doesn't have any legs." To which the middle-aged woman replied, "Well that's the way God made her."

I didn't hear if the little girl said anything more, but I would have loved to hear her say, "Why is God such a bastard?" because that would be what I would have asked. Why didn't the woman just say nothing, or "Well that happens sometimes." instead of filling a child's head with nonsense, and wondering what the lady did to piss off god.

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Three mountain climbers on Mt Hood were missing for several days here recently. The body of one was found, the other two were not found after 5 days of searching, then the weather forced the search and rescue teams to stop their searches.

The mother of the one who's body was found was on television afterwards, talking about her son to the rescuers, apparently trying to cheer on the search parties. She said things like "Luke loved to hike, he loved the outdoors, and he loved Jesus."

Well, apparently Jesus hated him, having skipped him off the side of Mt Hood like a flat stone on a pond.

Well, UFC 107 has come and gone. Some great fights, to say the least. My favorite was the expert dismantling of Chieck Congo (no disrespect to Congo, he's a helluva fighter) by Frank Mir. I've always liked Mir, and am pleased to see him win against a dangerous opponent.

But I was even more pleased to see Diego Sanchez lose. He's always been an idiot, although a very good fighter. He's always thanking "god" when he wins, but when he loses there's no mention of Jesus at all. Funny that. BJ Penn is almost as bad as Sanchez in the religion aspect, and has an ego the size of the Orion constellation. For me this was a win-win, since I don't mind seeing either of them get their asses kicked.

It was amazing how Penn COMPLETELY dominated Sanchez. Penn didn't have a mark on his face, and Diego never took him down. It was as about as one-sided a fight as I've ever seen. Diego's face was hamburger (kinda like Mir's was against Lesnar the second time around). And I guess the question of Penn's cardio has been solved. He didn't slow down once.

I always find it amusing when biblical apologists try to explain what was really meant by a particular story of the "bible". If god was so all-powerful and all-knowing, wouldn't he had written his book so all could understand it, as is, for all eternity, instead of leaving things open to interpretation?

Here's an example. The test of Abraham. Here, god tells Abraham to prove his faith by killing his first born son. But when Abe finally is ready to actually do it, after agonizing for who knows how long, god stops him at the last second.

To the apologist, this is god's way of testing his subjects to make sure they're really faithful (so much for being all-knowing). In a modern context, this is called psychological terror. We arrest people and put them away for doing stuff like that.

The apologist says that such tests were a normal part of life during that time. So that somehow makes it right. There are reasons we don't do those things any more.

Revenant