[barend]

Maybe... maybe you should stop looking for your „soulmate” among Kate Hudson lookalikes (or whoever your beauty ideal is). I find it hard to believe that each and every average girl in Australia behaves that way.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

wha?

1. i'm not looking for a soulmate... i don't know where that came from. i don't beleive in 'soulmates' if there is any such thing, it's probably your best friend... not someone you're ment to date... that idea is just silly. mostly because if you only had one soulmate in the entire world, the statistical probability of finding that person is infinatley impossible.

2. despite the fact that my girlfriends have been, so far, quite cute... i assure you that is just a coincidence. and that i don't go for anybodys' lookalike. I'm no where near as superficial as the women of Sydney.

3. Australia is bloody big place... i only represent the observational front on sydney. it's up to others to attack the rest...

4. and just to proove that the girls of sydney are a bunch of superficial, average IQ, boring, unrebellious, bimbos... there are none on this site right now defending themselves. Because if there are any on the net right now... they're looking up reality TV related sites or downlaoding stupid ringtones (like that lame-ass frog one) for their phones, or top-40 music for their I-pods...

5. Don't get me wrong, the majority of guys in Sydney are idiot slaves who are no better, but mentioning them won't help me win the central debate...

6. why are people so quick to assume that my main problem with women is a result of some epic search i'm meant to be on? i have better things to do with my time then try and impress a cities worth of the op.sex whome i could only attract if i gave up all artistic persuits, stoped engaging in intelligent conversations in public places, and started getting really obsesivley into football and cars... or was rich.
either way between that and what i do... i'm happy to just have the odd rare freak occurance statistically improbable girl who's half way cool come and be apart of my life until i compliment her one to many times until her ego tells her should could better...

7. there is no 7, i just like that number better, than 6.

This post has been edited by barend: 13 February 2005 - 08:19 AM

[Laura]

Aww, pickin on the poor girls of Sydney just cause they're not here to defend themselves...

It's way too easy to make out a whole group of people as being jerks. I hate to go all moralizy on you with my silly youthful college experience, but when I first came to my school I thought everyone was a superficial frat boy or sorority girl, but now that I've made some friends, I know that only the vast majority of them are! Say 97%, tops. And my school's only ten or twenty thousand people. Scale that up to a large city, and there have GOT to be some sort of semi-cool people! Maybe!

Anyway, very few large pools of people are going to consist in any significant degree of people you'd want to date. No matter where you are, finding someone you want to date is a matter of luck and timing; and in my own humble experience, it tends to happen rather randomly whether you're in situations where you think the people will be cool or not.

How did this topic get to dating again? Oh well, it's better than misogyny.

[Slade]

Don't feel too bad, Barend, at least you're social and amiable. It could be worse; you could be me! When I'm not utterly devoid of social skills, I get no conversation feed from my brain and simply don't talk because I have nothing to say, literally. I also seem to do an amazing job of having people simply not notice me at all. I would make the greatest thief in the world if we lived in a less technologically advanced society. I could steal things in broad daylight and no one would even give me a second glance. Although that would get old since I'd use thievery only as a challenge, the money would be a happy reward on the side. So I'd be more of a cat burgler. But I ramble.

Laura - I thought it was fairly obvious when Kirby was joking up there.

[barend]

cheers, my only real problem, that my social-concious deprived male friends seem to be unable to accept, is that i will not date every girl interested in me. girls who i know it will not work with or i would want to get rid of... i won't date someone to fill time until 'the right person' comes along... this is basically because as much as i really don't enjoy being dumped, i really couldn't handle haveing to dump someone myself...

slade: you have pleanty to say... you have over 1000 posts... there's no law against starting a conversation you already have somewhere else. remember... girsl are just as a fraid of you as you are of them... or is that spiders... i can't remember, the important thing is: if it goes hostile throw a sneaker at her!

..again, i could be thinking of spiders.

[Jane Sherwood]

You know, I don't think I'm really fit to make any serious arguments here since I'm too young to have experienced any real sexism, I've never had a job, I'm deathly afraid of relationships, and have never had a boyfriend or even been on a date for that matter...

But I can say this:

Why is it guys are allowed so much comfort with their clothing and appearance while girls are expected to be carbon-copy, bottle-blond waifs squeezed into tiny, uncomfortable, and revealing clothes? Why do we have to sacrifice our person comfort for appearance’s sake?

(This random complaint is brought on by my recent attempt to buy pants.)

[Jen]

cheers, my only real problem, that my social-concious deprived male friends seem to be unable to accept, is that i will not date every girl interested in me. girls who i know it will not work with or i would want to get rid of... i won't date someone to fill time until 'the right person' comes along... this is basically because as much as i really don't enjoy being dumped, i really couldn't handle haveing to dump someone myself...

slade: you have pleanty to say... you have over 1000 posts... there's no law against starting a conversation you already have somewhere else. remember... girsl are just as a fraid of you as you are of them... or is that spiders... i can't remember, the important thing is: if it goes hostile throw a sneaker at her!

..again, i could be thinking of spiders.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

The sneaker thing = H-O-T.


It's probably for the best not date someone you're not seriously interested in! But how do you know that the girls you are complaining about overlooking you aren't thinking the same thing? I like to think that somewhere in Sydney there is the perfect Barend-girl, and she is posting the same thing on some Bizarro-Chefelf board -- let's say, "craftelf.com"

[barend]

i'm glad you asked jane...

i don't think much of make up or fancy wear... it's not important. cosmo and vogue just tell you that's what we want.

to tell you the truth... the only real problem with women is what those magazines have told them about men!!!

i don't expect a girl to dress up for me... when they do, i feel guilty (even if i'm wearing a suit)...

[Madam Corvax]

wha?

1. i'm not looking for a soulmate... i don't know where that came from.

* note: This is compeltely on the side - I just feel I owe Barend explanation where the "soulmate" came from. You see, I was trying to be trendy. Since I do not have much contact with native speakers I try to watch every English film that I can lay my hands on and I had the misfortune of watching on Satuday the feature film "Xena the warrior princess". I have never seen any of the series, so I basically had no idea what it would be all about.
The two women were on about "love" all the time and at one point Xena referrs to Gabrielle as "her soulmate". Not her friend, colleague, partner, wife, companion, but "soulmate". So, I though it basically meant that a soulmate is "someone I have a long-term relationship with (but I really cannot be more explicit about it because I still want this feature to get the PG rating). "

I was wrong, apparently.

Jane - about clothes. It is the stereotypes of what is feminine and masculine. In college at one point we had a following execise in English. We were given a set of adjectives and were to judge which are feminine and which masculine. Of course the authors of the exercise meant that such things as "fluffy", "cosy" are feminine.

Similarly - short, revealing and uncomfortable clothes are considered feminine. Ditto high heels. But I'll be damned before I start to damage my spine and risk further ankle injuries by wearing such shoes. So I wear totally masculine boots with vibram soles, with plenty support for ankles.

If I could help it, I would never work for a company demanding that women wear high heels and tight skirts.

[Laura]

On the other hand, re: clothes:

Girls can wear most men's clothes if they really want to. Especially casual clothes: nobody would bat an eye to see a couple of boys and girls in identical baggy jeans and sweatshirts. Women who wear tuxedos are strange, but cute.

On the other hand, men cannot, under any circumstances, wear women's clothes. At least, not without making a huge statement and automatically being branded a drag queen. Women have a wider range of what they can acceptably wear.

[barend]

and that, laura, is a social injustice!!! not that i would excercise that right, were it handed to me unreproachably.

oh, and sorry Jen, you posted simultaniously with me, and i missed it...

"But how do you know that the girls you are complaining about overlooking you aren't thinking the same thing?"

because sydney girls enjoy dumping guys... it's their thing!!!

[Chyld]

While I'd love to throw my two cents into the ring, its gotten a bit too deep for me. What I will contribute is my views on boys vs girls in the media.

You've all already gone over stupid men vs intelligent women in sitcoms, and had it royally dismissed. Its hardly isolated instances. Check just about every single webcomic ever made (good examples: Questionable Content, 8-Bit Theatre) and you'll find women beating the crap out of the men for little (sometimes no) reason. And usually the premise is funny. However, I'll bet if you even dared swapping the genders, there'd be a global outcry.

And to counter the reply I know I'm going to get, while you don't hear a lot about women beating their husbands, I'm quote sure it happens nearly as frequently as wife-beating (I don't know the stats, to be perfectly honest). Its just that its a blow to the egos of the men in question. Lets be honest, your average man hears more about men beating woman in the media, becomes ashamed he's being beaten, and shuts the hell up. And while that happens for the other way round too... I'm stuck now, someone give me a hand.

I had another point to make, and I'll make it as soon as I remember it.

[barend]

there was that woman not so long a go who killed and ate her husband...

[Laura]

Women beating men happens, and it doesn't get reported for the reasons you cite, but I strongly doubt that it happens with anywhere near the frequency of its inverse; I mean, in most cases, men are just physically stronger than women.

[Chyld]

Problem is, I can't find any recent statistics to prove it either way. I'm wary of using any relativly old statistics (in my mind, the more publicity it gets, the more men come out and admit it), but the earliest dated statistics I could find via Google were from approximatly 1994. I leave the floor open to anyone who can prove it either way.

Until then, I present a quote that presents my big hangup here, complete with source.

    Betty King had beaten, slashed, stabbed, thrown dry acid on, and shot her husband. Eddie King had not sought prosecution when she slashed his face with a carpet knife, nor when she left him in a parking lot with a blade in his back. Neither of these incidents even made the police records as statistics. She was only arrested twice -- when she stabbed him so severely in the back and so publicly (in a bar) that the incidents had to be reported.

    All these stabbings, shootings, and acid-throwings happened during a four-year marriage. During a subsequent shouting match on the porch of a friend's house, Betty King once again reached into her purse. This time Eddie King shot her. When an investigation led to a verdict of self-defense, there was an outcry of opposition from feminists and the media.

I couldn't find any reliable source to collaborate this story, but if its true, I'd like to think its my point exactly.

[Jane Sherwood]

As much as I enjoy the women-beating-men comedy routine, I definitely have to take sides with that guy. That's not funny, that's just plain disturbing.