Rebuffing the Rebuttal
I've been keeping my little collection of essays, rants and stories almost two years. In those two years, the only negative response has been from "Hostess" of the story that started it all. It all began when I thought on my way home from Minnesota that she probably thought of me as being roughly as vile as a professional kitten puncher. When I thought of the phrase "professional kitten puncher", I knew I had to find a way to share it with the world. I shared not only the phrase, but the story of the weekend that spawned it. She got pissed. People, it seems, often object to the way others perceive them, especially when that perception is particularly unflattering.
For my part, when I become aware of a perception of me that doesn't mesh with my own self-image, I go through something of a four step process:
Step One: Surprise...sometimes.
Step Two: Try to understand what I'm doing that could create such a perception.
Step Three: Decide if I really give a shit. If yes, proceed to step four.
Step Four: Make adjustments for the sake of bettering myself.
For many others, I find that really it's a two-step process. For them, the steps are as follows:
Step One: Get pissed
Step Two: Yell at the person for their perception with the ultimate goal of making them apologize for violating your self-image.
The subconscious psychology behind this process is as clever as it is dysfunctional. It operates on the premise that if you can guilt trip them into apologizing, then they have indirectly forfeited their claim to being right. Thus, you get to avoid going through the emotional effort and cognitive dissonance of changing, regardless of whether they were right in the first place.
"Ok Beav," you say, "you were a psych major. We get it. Where are you going with this?" Well, for the second time in history, the critics have spoken. My surprise factor equals zero, because I knew as soon I set out to write my latest entry that there would be responses from both the girls mentioned.
I awoke today to an IM from the second girl mentioned in my most recent entry. God love her, she was mature and levelheaded and offered an explanation, an apology, and even a scenario of how she could have done things better. She said she hoped I wasn't still mad, even though I can guarantee she already knew I wasn't. I forgave her. While it was frustrating at the time, I'm not going to hold a grudge. We can now both consider the matter closed and continue to be friends. In the future, I'm sure we'll joke about it. This is the type of thing guys mean when they describe a girl as "cool as fuck." I also discovered, however, that I had some feedback under the "comments" section of my blog page...
Anonymous said...
You know I always had the notion that you were an ass, but now you've expressly made it clear.
The first story you get mad because she thinks with her nether regions says she wants to have sex, without thinking. You're so fucking sex driven that you act all pissy as if she agreed to hand you a million dollars and took it back - wtf? It's just sex. She spoke too soon, you asked if she was sure, (which by the way was the right thing to do) and she this time used her brain. You don't like to get teased; no one does, but it wasn't blantant teasing. It was thinking it over. So she shouldn't have spoke too soon, but why would you put so much stock in to that? Why do mostly all your blog entries deal with you getting laid or lack thereof and your self-worth macho-ness revolving around it? The second story the girl was all wrong. Things should have been implicitly said so no mix ups. But getting as angry as you demonstrated is so fucking stupid. You're so wrapped up in getting laid or not. Empty shit. "not such a bad guy" that was a shock to you?
When I read shit like this, a big grin makes its way across my face. Thank you, no, it wasn't a shock. I've encountered thousands of different females in my lifetime, and I've hooked up with less than 0.1% of them. I'm actually quite used to it. All guys are.
I'd give everyone two guesses of who probably wrote that, but that would be insulting the intelligence of the average reader. What the hell, let's believe for fun that it actually was just somebody else who was not a character in the story and just read the entry, and decided to up and sympathize with girl number one. That having been established, let me add a term to our psych lesson. That term is self fulfilling prophecy.
A self fulfilling prophecy is a declaration or scenario that by its nature goes on to ensure its own validity. My favorite example is the fight that we've all either had or seen another couple have. It starts with the girl uttering those fateful words, "Are you mad at me?" The guy then responds (with complete honesty) that he is not mad. The girl then proceeds to not take his word for it and badger him about being mad. Eventually the badgering itself along with the lack of willingness on her part to believe him makes him mad. Once he expresses his newly generated anger the girl says something along the lines of, "See? You are mad! I knew it!"
Also an example is taking the attitude of "I can't do this" about something and then purposely half-assing or just flat out failing basically for the sake of being right. You have fulfilled your own prophecy. The term is also often applied in the context of putting labels on people.
In my case, it has been prophesied that I am an ass. Oh yeah? Well, if you want to cast me in that role, I'm more than capable of playing it...
I have to laugh when I'm lambasted by people who lack a leg to stand on. The main criticism I endure in this "comment" is that my life revolves around sex. The justification given for this is that "mostly all" of my entries are about sex. Poor grammar of that accusation aside, I have written a total of 49 entries. 12 of them involve my sexual identity and/or goings-on as a major theme. That's about 24.48%. If you get a 24.48% on an exam, you did not get "mostly all" of the questions right. In fact, you're not even close to passing your class...and it's probably a math class.
Be that as it may, let's say for the sake of argument that a 12 of my 49 stories being about sex is an unusually high number. Why is 1/4 of my life pure, uncut sex? Why am I such a nymphomaniac? Why do I spend 6 hours of every day trying to get my rocks off? Quite simply, I don't. 1/4 of my stories are about sex, but my body of work does not represent the entirety of my body of living. I only write the stories and essays that I think people might actually want to read.
Don't hold your breath for the blog about the time I unloaded the dishwasher, the story of my night spent playing computer games or an in-depth analysis of what it means to take the dog for a walk. Nobody cares. We all have at least a handful of friends (probably on myspace) who write "blogs" that consist purely of the trite shit they did with their day and a little emoticon to represent their mood. It reads something like, "Today I went to lunch with joanie we went to arbys and i had one of their deli wraps cuz it's lo fat. i thout it would be bad but it was soooo good!! i saw the cuuuuutest dress at this store. i was like joanie isn't that the cutest dress. she was like ya. i wanted it but i didn't get it :'( "
I read literary abominations like this and I think, "Today I read your 'blog.' After I had stumbled through the misspellings, incorrect grammar, punctuation that was either lacking or inappropriate to the sentence type, and total absence of compelling content, I wanted to stab you repeatedly through the hand so that you can't type ever again! You owe me back five minutes of my life." When I first set out to create a blog, I made a promise to myself and to anyone who would ever care enough to read it that I wouldn't waste my time or theirs by writing about boring crap. I write about things that are funny or ridiculous, or otherwise worth reading. I write about sex, fights, relationship drama and major turning points in my life. People care about that stuff. Don't believe me? Break down the typical plot of any successful TV comedy or drama.
Hence, when a life event of mine falls into one of those "interesting" categories, I might write it down. I don't spend all my time being zany or chasing ass. If that's what people want to believe...hey, whatever floats your boat. If it's easy for you believe that about me, then odds are I don't trust you enough to have ever shown you how I really am behind the overconfident facade in the first place. Everyone has his defense mechanisms to prevent people from taking advantage of him. This blog contains a fantastic catalogue of mine. People with a strong sexual identity are intimidating to a lot of other people. Being intimidating is useful.
That's point one. Point two amuses me on levels that I frequently forget I have. "...you act all pissy as if she agreed to hand you a million dollars and took it back - wtf? She spoke too soon, you asked if she was sure, (which by the way was the right thing to do) and she this time used her brain. You don't like to get teased; no one does, but it wasn't blantant teasing."
I don't know where to begin with this statement. Let's not even address the insinuation that this was million dollar pussy. No such thing. Given a choice between money and sex, the amount needed to sway me would probably be in the low hundreds. Moving along, though...how is that not blatant teasing? Last I checked, teasing was leading somebody to believe that you want a piece and then not following through. All the elements seem to be there, so which part of the equation am I forgetting? I guess it's not as ridiculously comical as the time she once told me that if it snowed outside she'd have sex with me, but at least that time each of us was mostly sure she was kidding.
The last argument I consider worth addressing takes a big home-run swing at the point of the whole story and strikes out.
"You're so wrapped up in getting laid or not."
I didn't give a shit about the sex in the first, middle, or last place. Was I willing? Sure, but frankly my interest in the matter was inversely proportionate to my total number of other options. She, meanwhile, couldn't keep her mouth shut about how badly she thought I wanted to fuck her. The point of the story was never that I didn't get laid, it was that there was a widely agreed upon violation of hookup etiquette. I even did research and gathered multiple opinions from multiple females who in theory could or should be sympathetic this girl's cause. They were not sympathetic. Not a one. In the world of hooking up, clarity and promise keeping are absolute musts. Unfortunately tact tends to put a ceiling on clarity beyond a certain point, so the promises become implicit, but people still know how the script is supposed to play out. Spur-of-the-moment mind changing is a violation of the implicit promise, and is punishable by unfavorable reaction from the other involved party.
Regardless of whether you're willing or unwilling to have sex with a person, you know that before any clothes ever come off. There is no such thing as thinking with your "nether regions" for a limited period of time, because we all know who is really in charge. Either your brain runs the show or your genitals do. If you claim that the balance of power ever shifts, you're lying to yourself. You're either ok with fucking or you're not. There's nothing wrong with either option, but when you fail to be honest with yourself and others about it, problems ensue.
If I choose to start messing around with somebody, I'm not doing it with the idea that we're only just going to kinda mess around a little bit. If I'm not into her, then I'm not into her. If I'm into her then I'm willing to be, pardon the pun, into her. I refuse to believe that anyone legitimately endorses a "decide-on-the-fly" philosophy, and I'm sure as hell not going to tell her I want to do something and then decide I no longer feel that way scant seconds later.
Long story a little shorter than it could be, there is one bottom line to the whole scenario:
1) The journey of hooking up is one-way. You either go or you don't. If you decide you want to stop and turn around, don't be surprised if the rest of the people along on that one-way trip are irritated. To draw another parallel, if you go into a restaurant even though you're not hungry, order something because you think it looks good for a second and then don't eat it, they still get to charge you for the food. That's how it fucking works, because it's a restaurant. Hookups have rules, too and they're well established. If you don't like them and won't follow them then don't hook up. Hold out for a relationship. Failing that, shut the hell up. Failing that, make sure to gather your facts so that you're not setting yourself up to look like a moron when you choose to be so *courageously*, anonymously outspoken.
For my part, when I become aware of a perception of me that doesn't mesh with my own self-image, I go through something of a four step process:
Step One: Surprise...sometimes.
Step Two: Try to understand what I'm doing that could create such a perception.
Step Three: Decide if I really give a shit. If yes, proceed to step four.
Step Four: Make adjustments for the sake of bettering myself.
For many others, I find that really it's a two-step process. For them, the steps are as follows:
Step One: Get pissed
Step Two: Yell at the person for their perception with the ultimate goal of making them apologize for violating your self-image.
The subconscious psychology behind this process is as clever as it is dysfunctional. It operates on the premise that if you can guilt trip them into apologizing, then they have indirectly forfeited their claim to being right. Thus, you get to avoid going through the emotional effort and cognitive dissonance of changing, regardless of whether they were right in the first place.
"Ok Beav," you say, "you were a psych major. We get it. Where are you going with this?" Well, for the second time in history, the critics have spoken. My surprise factor equals zero, because I knew as soon I set out to write my latest entry that there would be responses from both the girls mentioned.
I awoke today to an IM from the second girl mentioned in my most recent entry. God love her, she was mature and levelheaded and offered an explanation, an apology, and even a scenario of how she could have done things better. She said she hoped I wasn't still mad, even though I can guarantee she already knew I wasn't. I forgave her. While it was frustrating at the time, I'm not going to hold a grudge. We can now both consider the matter closed and continue to be friends. In the future, I'm sure we'll joke about it. This is the type of thing guys mean when they describe a girl as "cool as fuck." I also discovered, however, that I had some feedback under the "comments" section of my blog page...
Anonymous said...
You know I always had the notion that you were an ass, but now you've expressly made it clear.
The first story you get mad because she thinks with her nether regions says she wants to have sex, without thinking. You're so fucking sex driven that you act all pissy as if she agreed to hand you a million dollars and took it back - wtf? It's just sex. She spoke too soon, you asked if she was sure, (which by the way was the right thing to do) and she this time used her brain. You don't like to get teased; no one does, but it wasn't blantant teasing. It was thinking it over. So she shouldn't have spoke too soon, but why would you put so much stock in to that? Why do mostly all your blog entries deal with you getting laid or lack thereof and your self-worth macho-ness revolving around it? The second story the girl was all wrong. Things should have been implicitly said so no mix ups. But getting as angry as you demonstrated is so fucking stupid. You're so wrapped up in getting laid or not. Empty shit. "not such a bad guy" that was a shock to you?
When I read shit like this, a big grin makes its way across my face. Thank you, no, it wasn't a shock. I've encountered thousands of different females in my lifetime, and I've hooked up with less than 0.1% of them. I'm actually quite used to it. All guys are.
I'd give everyone two guesses of who probably wrote that, but that would be insulting the intelligence of the average reader. What the hell, let's believe for fun that it actually was just somebody else who was not a character in the story and just read the entry, and decided to up and sympathize with girl number one. That having been established, let me add a term to our psych lesson. That term is self fulfilling prophecy.
A self fulfilling prophecy is a declaration or scenario that by its nature goes on to ensure its own validity. My favorite example is the fight that we've all either had or seen another couple have. It starts with the girl uttering those fateful words, "Are you mad at me?" The guy then responds (with complete honesty) that he is not mad. The girl then proceeds to not take his word for it and badger him about being mad. Eventually the badgering itself along with the lack of willingness on her part to believe him makes him mad. Once he expresses his newly generated anger the girl says something along the lines of, "See? You are mad! I knew it!"
Also an example is taking the attitude of "I can't do this" about something and then purposely half-assing or just flat out failing basically for the sake of being right. You have fulfilled your own prophecy. The term is also often applied in the context of putting labels on people.
In my case, it has been prophesied that I am an ass. Oh yeah? Well, if you want to cast me in that role, I'm more than capable of playing it...
I have to laugh when I'm lambasted by people who lack a leg to stand on. The main criticism I endure in this "comment" is that my life revolves around sex. The justification given for this is that "mostly all" of my entries are about sex. Poor grammar of that accusation aside, I have written a total of 49 entries. 12 of them involve my sexual identity and/or goings-on as a major theme. That's about 24.48%. If you get a 24.48% on an exam, you did not get "mostly all" of the questions right. In fact, you're not even close to passing your class...and it's probably a math class.
Be that as it may, let's say for the sake of argument that a 12 of my 49 stories being about sex is an unusually high number. Why is 1/4 of my life pure, uncut sex? Why am I such a nymphomaniac? Why do I spend 6 hours of every day trying to get my rocks off? Quite simply, I don't. 1/4 of my stories are about sex, but my body of work does not represent the entirety of my body of living. I only write the stories and essays that I think people might actually want to read.
Don't hold your breath for the blog about the time I unloaded the dishwasher, the story of my night spent playing computer games or an in-depth analysis of what it means to take the dog for a walk. Nobody cares. We all have at least a handful of friends (probably on myspace) who write "blogs" that consist purely of the trite shit they did with their day and a little emoticon to represent their mood. It reads something like, "Today I went to lunch with joanie we went to arbys and i had one of their deli wraps cuz it's lo fat. i thout it would be bad but it was soooo good!! i saw the cuuuuutest dress at this store. i was like joanie isn't that the cutest dress. she was like ya. i wanted it but i didn't get it :'( "
I read literary abominations like this and I think, "Today I read your 'blog.' After I had stumbled through the misspellings, incorrect grammar, punctuation that was either lacking or inappropriate to the sentence type, and total absence of compelling content, I wanted to stab you repeatedly through the hand so that you can't type ever again! You owe me back five minutes of my life." When I first set out to create a blog, I made a promise to myself and to anyone who would ever care enough to read it that I wouldn't waste my time or theirs by writing about boring crap. I write about things that are funny or ridiculous, or otherwise worth reading. I write about sex, fights, relationship drama and major turning points in my life. People care about that stuff. Don't believe me? Break down the typical plot of any successful TV comedy or drama.
Hence, when a life event of mine falls into one of those "interesting" categories, I might write it down. I don't spend all my time being zany or chasing ass. If that's what people want to believe...hey, whatever floats your boat. If it's easy for you believe that about me, then odds are I don't trust you enough to have ever shown you how I really am behind the overconfident facade in the first place. Everyone has his defense mechanisms to prevent people from taking advantage of him. This blog contains a fantastic catalogue of mine. People with a strong sexual identity are intimidating to a lot of other people. Being intimidating is useful.
That's point one. Point two amuses me on levels that I frequently forget I have. "...you act all pissy as if she agreed to hand you a million dollars and took it back - wtf? She spoke too soon, you asked if she was sure, (which by the way was the right thing to do) and she this time used her brain. You don't like to get teased; no one does, but it wasn't blantant teasing."
I don't know where to begin with this statement. Let's not even address the insinuation that this was million dollar pussy. No such thing. Given a choice between money and sex, the amount needed to sway me would probably be in the low hundreds. Moving along, though...how is that not blatant teasing? Last I checked, teasing was leading somebody to believe that you want a piece and then not following through. All the elements seem to be there, so which part of the equation am I forgetting? I guess it's not as ridiculously comical as the time she once told me that if it snowed outside she'd have sex with me, but at least that time each of us was mostly sure she was kidding.
The last argument I consider worth addressing takes a big home-run swing at the point of the whole story and strikes out.
"You're so wrapped up in getting laid or not."
I didn't give a shit about the sex in the first, middle, or last place. Was I willing? Sure, but frankly my interest in the matter was inversely proportionate to my total number of other options. She, meanwhile, couldn't keep her mouth shut about how badly she thought I wanted to fuck her. The point of the story was never that I didn't get laid, it was that there was a widely agreed upon violation of hookup etiquette. I even did research and gathered multiple opinions from multiple females who in theory could or should be sympathetic this girl's cause. They were not sympathetic. Not a one. In the world of hooking up, clarity and promise keeping are absolute musts. Unfortunately tact tends to put a ceiling on clarity beyond a certain point, so the promises become implicit, but people still know how the script is supposed to play out. Spur-of-the-moment mind changing is a violation of the implicit promise, and is punishable by unfavorable reaction from the other involved party.
Regardless of whether you're willing or unwilling to have sex with a person, you know that before any clothes ever come off. There is no such thing as thinking with your "nether regions" for a limited period of time, because we all know who is really in charge. Either your brain runs the show or your genitals do. If you claim that the balance of power ever shifts, you're lying to yourself. You're either ok with fucking or you're not. There's nothing wrong with either option, but when you fail to be honest with yourself and others about it, problems ensue.
If I choose to start messing around with somebody, I'm not doing it with the idea that we're only just going to kinda mess around a little bit. If I'm not into her, then I'm not into her. If I'm into her then I'm willing to be, pardon the pun, into her. I refuse to believe that anyone legitimately endorses a "decide-on-the-fly" philosophy, and I'm sure as hell not going to tell her I want to do something and then decide I no longer feel that way scant seconds later.
Long story a little shorter than it could be, there is one bottom line to the whole scenario:
1) The journey of hooking up is one-way. You either go or you don't. If you decide you want to stop and turn around, don't be surprised if the rest of the people along on that one-way trip are irritated. To draw another parallel, if you go into a restaurant even though you're not hungry, order something because you think it looks good for a second and then don't eat it, they still get to charge you for the food. That's how it fucking works, because it's a restaurant. Hookups have rules, too and they're well established. If you don't like them and won't follow them then don't hook up. Hold out for a relationship. Failing that, shut the hell up. Failing that, make sure to gather your facts so that you're not setting yourself up to look like a moron when you choose to be so *courageously*, anonymously outspoken.
posted by Beav at 9:16 AM
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