I had a conversation about this once with a bunch of women, though we were talking about dating. There was a big divide; some of us actively preferred someone who was bigger and stronger; some of us felt intimidated by someone who was too big and strong, and would prefer to be able to beat our boyfriends up.
Still, while I can't empathize directly, something about it sounds rather pleasant: being able to arrange your life so that your safety isn't so much a matter of assuming that everyone around you is going to obey the rules of society, than knowing that if someone else loses it, they aren't likely to have the capacity to cause you any serious problems. Anyway, interesting.
I just had the strongest sense of deja vu -- wasn't there an Unfogged post several months back on a different subject that ended with an almost exactly similar construction? Something that provoked a long thread back-and-forth about what the ending of the post meant? I seem to recall Patr/ick Niel/sen Hay/den being involved somehow, in an antagonistic role.
A friend of mine's very serious boyfriend once got mad and tried to push her around, but since she was stronger and more agile than he was she just wriggled out of the situation, although it also involved wriggling out of her shirt, and she had to go down to her apartment (they lived in the same building) only in her bra. It wasn't the end of the relationship, but it did seem to be a turning point after which everything bad stood out in higher contrast, and she eventually broke up with him. Before that incident she was sure they would get married.
She's probably overestimating how many of these guys she can drop, and really, the whole idea is nuts. Everyone in any kind of relationship trusts to some extent. Am I supposed to approach every woman wondering if she's going to stab me to death in my sleep?
Of course, it also depends what you're thinking (I haven't read the linked post). If it's a rule of thumb for one-night stands, it makes some kinda sense. But if it's a rule for serious relationships, I'd say yeah, demonstrating some serious trust issues and/or lack of faith in your own judgment.
Either of which may be perfectly sound, of course: a person might have good empircal reasons to doubt their judgment in men, or to have issues around trust. But I, personally, wouldn't want to be in a relationship with such a person.
But if it's a rule for serious relationships, I'd say yeah, demonstrating some serious trust issues and/or lack of faith in your own judgment.
From the post, not so much a rule for serious relationships, as a rebuttable presumption for who she wants to be friends with. Which does come off as weird, certainly. I wonder if there are guys who think this way -- uncomfortable socializing with other men who they think could take them.
15 -- Nonono, you're supposed to approach every woman wondering if she's going to sleep with you, then change her mind and accuse you of rape. And/or, that she's going to tell you she's using birth control, and then take you to court for paternity. And/or, that she's going to become pregnant with your baby, and then have an abortion without telling you about it. There's a long list of potential problems, her stabbing you in the back while you sleep is practically the least of your worries.
So her list so far is, what? no strong men, no lawyers, no smokers, no stupid people, no doms, nobody under 25, and she's not willing to relocate--have I got it all?
20: Huh. I suppose that's a logical enough thing to do, but if someone said that to me I would freak out and think, "wait, do you have a gun?" and leave.
Then again, I do kinda worry about how to find out if PK's little friends parents have guns without sounding like a freak.
Well, certainly. That was what struck me about the post -- both that it was an odd way to approach things, and how interesting to have the option to be weird like that.
14 and 15 get it exactly right, in my gut feeling, but maybe it's just that she wants somebody who could, potentially, share her favorite interest? I dunno. I hate to judge. It just seems a little crazy.
It could also be because my first boyfriend was a football player (tight end - no, really) who could totally have kicked my butt if he wanted to, but he was just a big teddy bear who couldn't have hurt a fly (unless they were a fly in the other side's uniform, I guess) and so I was innoculated early against the idea of thinking of my dates in that way. I mean, that just didn't enter into my attraction to him, and it didn't enter into how we broke up, and so I passed through my first relationship without caring.
From a purely pragmatic perspective, does this really work to accomplish the ends Megan is trying to achieve? Like most martial arts, taekwondo is less useful for beating people up than it is for building the confidence to fight back against an attacker in the first place. It's not really a golden ticket to the Kick Everybody's Ass factory.
19 - He did very well in the tournament. Very well. Some stuff is still up in the air that I'm afraid to talk about for fear of jinxing him but we'll know more in a week or so and I'll surely put up a post at my site when we do. Fingers crossed!
28: Really? I thought it was totally crazy. Particularly as I had made various disclosures that would have given him reason to not want to sleep with me, and I theoretically wouldn't do something like that if my secret plan were to murder him. I let him look, but I thought it was weird.
29: I don't think so. I think that women learn to be really alert to oddness or potential hostility (hence the frequent complain by jerky guys that women are so bitchy and won't give a guy a chance).
Just to flip to the other side, because Idealist's agreement freaks me out and makes me feel I must demonstrate some hostility, I suppose it is something that most men wouldn't "get," since presumably most guys are used to the idea that they're stronger than their romantic partners without ever having even thought about it. I don't have a clue what that feels like. But I do know what it feels like to be just a leetle suspicious and standoffish much of the time, and one of the things I have to admit I enjoy about the company of men is that there is a particular kind of guyish ease and openness that is relaxing to be around. And I've never thought about it, but maybe that ease and openness is an expression of the comfort that comes from being able to fully relax in intimate situations?
36: Well, it's logical in the "letting a virtual stranger into your house" kind of way, but like I said, it would freak me out. It's logical, but shows a real ignorance (or flouting) of social norms. Plus, it seems a little controlling--"will this woman let me look through her bag?"
one of the things I have to admit I enjoy about the company of men is that there is a particular kind of guyish ease and openness that is relaxing to be around. And I've never thought about it, but maybe that ease and openness is an expression of the comfort that comes from being able to fully relax in intimate situations?
This, a bit. There's a particular type of personality that you find in big guys that seems to have something to do with never having given a moment's thought to bullying or being bullied -- that that sort of thing is simply not on their radar at all -- that's very easy to be around.
I think I made some comment here about being around my 6'4" boxer cousin, and being hyper-aware of his power to kick ass. He's a lot bigger than most guys I hang out with, and I really notice it when visiting my family.
Maybe there's some atavistic feeling there--that if someone did threaten me, he could beat him up.
40, 48: Man, you guys are totally insightful. I never even thought about this, but this is true. I've had two separate friends, one in college and one in law school, who are very tall, large dudes (above 6'4"), and both are very laid-back, easy to be around. I think also, due to a complete lack of the possibility of their masculinity being challenged, they both are sort of soft-spoken, very kind and compassionate.
Not that shorter guys aren't those things too. But the correlation between demeanor and height between these two beloved friends of mine just struck me in a big way.
Maybe I shouldn't be so quick to think Megan's crazy here. It was just last night that my honey announced that the doctor had weighed him in at 125 "and a half!" pounds. Still, I wouldn't bet any money that I could beat him up, if for some reason we had a physical fight.
After all, I should be able to take Tia in our long-postponed rumble, but I just know she'd bite.
I wouldn't know anything about being married to someone like that. Although Buck has put on a lot of weight since we met -- he's up to 165 or so, which still looks skinny but no longer in danger of blowing away in a strong breeze.
The last guy I dated was 6'6", which became TOO TALL when I had to dismantle a bed frame so he could stretch out. Also: nature designed him to be a Viking, but he wanted to look waifishly thin, with the result that his elbows and knees stuck out knobbily. In sum: last guy was a git.
49: Well, that's why it was 'trust your own instincts', with instincts being honed over time. I'm not sure, though, that it leads to a categorizing people as 'could beat up, therefore safe and will relax' or 'couldn't beat up, therefore unsafe and will remain edgy.'
Earlier today I was looking at pictures of Cathy Sei/pp's daughter's graduation party (I have no idea why), and saw a pinheaded woman with blonde hair in them. Looking closely, I saw that it was Ann Coulter. This filled me with a strange, cold dread. Imagine having her at your garden party!
Yes, but "droll" in the particular sense of "crashing a menage a trois and thus making it a menage a quatre." Look it up, it's three pages before "sifting."
40,48,54:Let me see, as a 5'4" 120 lb dude, do I have anything to add to this? Where's Farber? The Duke said in "The Shootist":"It ain't the quickness or the accuracy, it's the willin." Anybody see the picture of the kittycat treeing the bear?
Am I irritable, defensice, overly aggressive because of my size? More or less sensitive to certain problems of women? Does my size directly affect my weltschmerz and weltanschauung, not exclusive to but including my Spenglerian pessimism? Does anybody what a short person says anyway, since they have no reason to live?
Is my humongous member adequate compensation? Does a cock joke redeem the rest of this comment?
I think it's great that Megan sees her size and strength as a positive. She is bucking a very deep cultural value. Why is it any weirder for her than for a man to want to be the physically stronger partner? After all, it is what a lot of men feel. They seem to think a woman bigger and stronger than themselves is some kind of offense against nature.
And it's not only men who have this issue about gender and size. I'm quite tall, and other women of my size have told me that they dislike being with smaller men because they feel implicated in various stereotypes: You can both be quite fit and attractive, yet suddenly there's this trailer-trash thing in the air--big fat mama and scrawny tattooed banty-rooster with a gold tooth saying "make me a sammitch, bitch".
A friend of mine who is 6'2" was riding in an elevator with a couple of short, non-english-speaking men. they (the men) were looking at her and talking to each other, when one of them started making these weird snorting and bellowing noises, and they both started laughing their asses off, and she realized the guy was joking about what it must be like when she came. So, so creepy.
I'm posting this even though the thread has moved on to one-liners, and if anyone doesn't like it I'm going to beat them up.
I haven't read the all comments yet, so sorry if I'm saying something already said, but if Megan thinks she'd win a serious fight against more than a relatively small percentage of guys she's totally deluded.
I mean batshit crazy deluded.
Nothing wrong with feeling empowered by being fit and skillful, though. All power to her in that respect.
[this could end up retreading comments from an earlier thread]
On the other hand, I don't think it's necessarily crazy that she wouldn't want to date guys that she feels might be physically intimidated by her or who she doesn't respect. Personal taste is personal taste after all and what works for her is pretty much her business.
I do agree with earlier comments about really big physically intimidating guys often being really mellow and unaggressive, though. I have a few friends like that.
On the other hand, I don't think it's necessarily crazy that she wouldn't want to date guys that she feels might be physically intimidated by her or who she doesn't respect.
I think you've got that backwards - she's looking at men who she isn't physically intimidated by.
I do agree with earlier comments about really big physically intimidating guys often being really mellow and unaggressive, though. I have a few friends like that.
Everybody, but particularly teenage boys, needs a few friends like that.
88 is kidding, mostly. I only remember being bullied once. My partner says I have always projected a violent craziness, a berserker vibe. A chihuahua can bite your thru Achilles tendon before you notice him. The lady, like many "martial artists" may be full of it. Winning a fight is not worth getting hurt. It's the willin.
OTOH, we had a game in my young adult crowd. Simple game. The ladies would try to slap your face or kick your nuts. A real man could stop them without hurting them. Quickness and gentleness and self-control were highly valued. Sometimes you let them get thru, laugh off the pain, stop them the next ten times. Whole evenings spent entertaining each other.
My "best" friends have always been over six foot. A father thing, need for protection? I verbally abused them sometimes. Never liked guys my own size. They seemed grasping and needy, too eager to please. Huh.
OTOH, we had a game in my young adult crowd. Simple game. The ladies would try to slap your face or kick your nuts. A real man could stop them without hurting them. Quickness and gentleness and self-control were highly valued. Sometimes you let them get thru, laugh off the pain, stop them the next ten times. Whole evenings spent entertaining each other.
OTOH, we had a game in my young adult crowd. Simple game. The ladies would try to slap your face or kick your nuts. A real man could stop them without hurting them. Quickness and gentleness and self-control were highly valued. Sometimes you let them get thru, laugh off the pain, stop them the next ten times. Whole evenings spent entertaining each other.
I no longer value your opinions on who should be the Democratic presidential candidate.
I think it's great that Megan sees her size and strength as a positive. She is bucking a very deep cultural value. Why is it any weirder for her than for a man to want to be the physically stronger partner?
Reminds me of an old cartoon from (I think) Our Bodies, Ourselves of all places: man and woman are talking, as tough-looking woman goes by. Man (chuckling blithely): "I don't think I'd want to be married to someone who could beat me up whenever they felt like it." Woman: "Well, neither would I."
96:Why weird? The thread was about sexuality and violence and trust. The key words were: Quickness, Gentleness, self-control. Yes, there psychological dimensions. But the point was the women testing the men, and the men showing they would not hurt the women. It was real, and it was harmless. Trust me, you know nothing about violence until you have given and received it.
Our "martial artist" probably has belts with aborted kicks and an occasional accident...seems to romanticize violence. We didn't romanticize violence, but eroticized it, very carefully, with strict rules. And the sex was great.
I'm 6'0" and a pretty solid 205. That seems to be a good size for deterring aggression, but not nearly so effective as being amiable and quick with a joke, which has always been my main strategy for avoiding unpleasantness. 15 years without anybody taking a swing at me, and another 10 before that one brief encounter.
I'm six nothin' too, but only about 170. But that's still generally big enough to deter agression, particularly when mixed with amiability, self deprecation, and quick jokes. I can also do a pretty convincing "don't get me angry 'cause I might just be crazy" act, if necessary, although it almost never is.
I was a lot scrawnier in highschool, and used to walk much closer to the line in terms of verbally messing with guys who could kick my ass, but I was pretty much always able to stay just inside the line by passing it all off as a joke or as if I didn't get my own joke and thus wasn't making fun of them or through turning the joke around to be on me. That and having a few big strong friends.
I feel like we've had this conversation before. Size matters a lot; experience matters more. I'm not aware of anyone, man or woman, who I would definitively bet against in a fight with me. And that's pretty much OK.
Our "martial artist" probably has belts with aborted kicks and an occasional accident
I don't know which league or whatever the hell you call it of TKD Megan competed in but the one my brother's in doesn't pull punches. He's had his nose (not not broken but spraying blood everywhere) during sparring matches at his last 2 competitions and comes away with serious bruises. Some kid got his neck broken at Nationals last year. It's full-on, serious contact.
Obviously size does makes a difference and the big, strong, well-trained female martial artist is obviously going to have much more of a chance against some guy who is 5'5" and weight 140lbs than she is against the guy who is 6ft tall and weighs 200lbs+.
I still doubt that the female martial artist, particularly someone practicing something like taekwondo, is going to beat an average guy of average size and average aggression particularly often without a fair bit of luck on their side
None of that is to diminish the value, for someone like Megan, of feeling strong and being fit and getting a chance to be aggressive.
I got beat up a few times as a kid for mouthing off. And learned that, duh, if you act bored by someone's stupid threats, they'll generally leave you alone. That and the "I might just be crazy" thing.
I still doubt that the female martial artist, particularly someone practicing something like taekwondo, is going to beat an average guy of average size and average aggression particularly often without a fair bit of luck on their side
I think the female martial artist could
A) prevent the guy from doing any harm to her, pretty much indefinitely
B) maybe twist his arm or something
I don't understand why she'd want to make sure the man is someone she could win a fight with; it seems like it would make more sense to look for a man who would definitely not be able to beat her.
It's not like it's anything I worry about much -- barring those two times I got attacked in Samoa, I can only think of one situation where I've ever worried that someone was going to hit me. (Barring sibling fights as a kid.)
Who was the shrink who said that after Freud & Kinsey had broken the sexual barriers, the compensating taboo would become violence? I forget.
Y'all might think about your attitudes toward violence in the light of prior mystifications of gender and orientation. The lady martial artist is, IMO, one incorrect way to approach it...it is not a path to status and power; but to fear and abhor violence excessively is another way to give violence power over yourself.
I was accepted by near bikers in my early twenties; I am no longer quite that person anymore, irrespective of what jm may say.
Tip: WHen some guy you've just met asks if the party you're both at is your coming out party, if you want to avoid a confrontation it's best not to reply with "No, I got here late cuz I just got done with you mom."
My one fight in the last 25 years came while ejecting a drunk stranger from our frat house at the end of a party. It pretty much amounted to two punches, a bunch of grappling, then holding him down until the police arrived. All in all, I felt much more manly when I had to bust down my own front door with my shoulder. That was entirely more gratifying.
Well, re: size, I'm 5ft 10 but weigh about 210lbs. That makes me fairly heavily built (OK, verging on a bit fat!) for my height.
re: 116
Most TKD does point fighting rather than full contact. The contact can be pretty rough -- fighting to score points doesn't meant that strikes are delivered completely without power -- and accidents happen, especially in the heat of competition, but generally, it's a world away from even, say, serious amateur level boxing in terms of contact and aggression.
123: Y'all are forgetting the 15 lb kitty treeing the 300 lb bear. The bear was not stupid. There is a Burt Reynolds movie where he is teaching a kid self-defense:
I've been really surprised at the reaction this has gotten. I would never have realized it was that unusual a perspective. I don't actually expect to get in fights with anyone. I never have.
But I don't see the problem with a screen that lets just about everybody through, and the remaining big guys have to show they are nice (which many do). What is the risk? That I'll miss the occasional nice big man? I miss friendships with lots of people 'cause we don't realize we are alike in whatever short encounter we have. And being open to short scrawny guys opens up the other end of the spectrum for me.
I brought it up mostly because it was interesting to see someone applying a screen that I wouldn't be able to apply, because I'd screen out most (and I mean seriously most) men.
I think the negative reaction is twofold: first, that it seems kind of paranoid -- assessing who'd win a fight is one thing, but resisting hanging out with someone who might seems overly tense. And second, you've got some people questioning your realism (which I have to say I can't see any reasonable way to discuss. You think you could take most men, I don't know any reason to think you're wrong, but I don't know much. If the conversation turns to who here in the comments could beat whom up, I plan to be pre-emptively bored.)
I am no longer quite that person anymore, irrespective of what jm may say.
No, but I still wouldn't mess with you despite having four inches and five pounds on you.
As for the martial artists schtick: The boyfriend before the thwarted Viking 6'6" dude was a 5'8", maybe 140 pound French artist with an angelic face. He got mugged a couple of times and then decided to take ninjitsu courses. He quit right after he nearly lost his eye in a sparring session, but he's never had *any* trouble with muggers since.
Most TKD does point fighting rather than full contact. The contact can be pretty rough -- fighting to score points doesn't meant that strikes are delivered completely without power -- and accidents happen, especially in the heat of competition, but generally, it's a world away from even, say, serious amateur level boxing in terms of contact and aggression.
Yeah, point fighting is good for learning some basics, but sometimes can breed bad habits. People in the quest to get the point will leave themselves open in ways they wouldn't if it meant risking a full contact counter.
It just doesn't seem useful as a sorting mechanism, Megan, to my mind, to divide the world into 'guys I can feel safe with' and 'guys who I can't feel safe with.'
My boyfriend is about 5'10'' and around 195-200 pounds. He could probably kick my ass in a fight if he were sufficiently determined, but I don't think of him as dangerous.
As a screening preference, hey, whatever works. If guys are 'allowed' to like only blondes or leggy women, certainly 'must be beatable' isn't that weird a criterion.
131: It depends on what you mean by 'fight.' I probably couldn't win a boxing match with most guys, as I'm on the smaller end of normal. On the other hand, if I'm worried about self-defense, I don't need to win a fight, I just need to get away. That, I'm pretty sure I can do.
I appear to have been in more fights, both growing up and after, than most people here. I admit they have become much rarer since I grew to full size, which is big. And I agree that they never feel like you might think they would, that they're usually over before you are aware of it and then you get your adrenaline and, in my case, often have to control shaking. I think if you were "spoiling for a fight" that you'd already have been keyed up, but they usually take me by surprise.
A woman once grew so angry with me that she attacked me, with her hands, with what she could pick up, with what she could throw. I was probably not in much danger — although I had to keep ducking — but the shock of the attack was one of the worst and most frightening experiences of my life. So much for the ease of intimacy, which I admit is usual with me. But that was not the only time, nor was she the only woman, of whom I became afraid; maybe the cat treeing the bear is a good analogy.
I don't need to win a fight, I just need to get away. That, I'm pretty sure I can do.
That's exactly right. Too often people look at women's self defense training as a waste because they figure they won't win a fight with a male. But it's not about going toe to toe. It's about escape.
A woman once grew so angry with me that she attacked me
This reminds me that I should qualify my earlier statement. I've had a couple of women get violent with me, but in neither case did it seem like a serious threat, what with having ~80 pounds and half of feet on each.
I got into a fight once in high school. Or, more accurately, two guys were fighting, and I intervened because the one who was losing and getting choked was my best friend. (This didn't do much for his manly reputation, on the other hand, he wasn't choked, so he was gracious about it.)
It was over pretty quick. The adrenaline rush afterward (or is it an adrenaline release?) alone seems like a reason to get in more fights, though. It was kinda.. fun?
Do I get to plug my favorite site, psfights.com, now?
I haven't been in any fights as an adult, but a couple of weeks ago, my mom dropped me off somewhere and before she drove away, someone came up behind her and honked at her. I threw down my bag in the middle of the street, went up to his window and screamed my head off. I was legitimately angry, not making a show, and he was kind of freaked out. All in all, a very satisfying experience. I don't even want to think about how good it would have felt to actually hit him.
But the category "guys I feel safe with" is men and women I could take and also nice men and women. Why not exclude everyone else?
I don't care much what other people think of my realism. I have an opinion based on years of watching competitors, and that opinion will probably never be tested. So I don't expect to be proved wrong and that's practically the same as being right.
Completely inappropriate, which most people came to accept, although in the meantime I learned hard lessons about presumptions, expectations, trust and friendship from the people I was then closest to. And the incongruity was such — as was the difference in size — that everybody assumed there must be some fault in me. I thought so to, at the time, although I don't now. Many people came around about it after she trashed my room while I was gone.
The closest I came to a fight in school was being hit in the head by a rock thrown by another third-grader who I now think was trying to flirt with me. The only thing I've hit in anger in the last...oh, five years was the hood of a car that nearly ran me over. If my instinctual aversion for everything and everyone that seem violent doesn't protect me, and if running doesn't work, eh, I'm toast.
In a fair fight, size matters a lot given anything like similarity of experience. This is the basis for weight classes (often very narrow) in almost all competitive fighting arts. And I suspect weight will typically underpredict the strength difference between men and women.
In an unfair fight, size matters a lot less. In the sense that if you hit someone with a baseball bat when they aren't looking, you pretty much have that one won. Conclusion: to feel equal in intimate settings with a larger/stronger partner, spend some time visualizing ambushing them with a crowbar.
Of course, but 'getting away' wasn't the question at issue, surely? When someone says they could win a fight against some other person I don't interpret that to mean they could run away from them? And, of course, as others have said, getting away is the key thing as a matter of self-defence.
re: 159
I don't mean to be a dick, and feel free to ignore me, but having a *belief* in some ability that won't actually be tested isn't the same thing as actually *having* that ability, right? It may not actually matter, from a practical point of view, but it's clearly not remotely the same thing.
Incidentally, none of this is to say that there's anything wrong with not wanting to date someone who you think could kick your arse. Seems a fair enough preference to have.
re: 164
The adrenaline rush totally sucks. Nothing worse than shaking and being on the verge of tears (maybe that's just me) despite actually having had the upper-hand in some unpleasant/violent situation.
gswift, I had a majorette baton. It's all about the weapons upgrade.
When I was twelve or thirteen, I was at some evangelical youth group party and they had a martial arts instructor guy demonstrating stuff and advertising his club while doing so.
Anyhow, so he asked for volunteers for a self-defense demonstration and he picked some sixteen-year-old kid and me. He gave the kid a wooden mock knife and said 'Okay, attack her.' I think there was supposed to be an object lesson and something about what to do, and I was supposed to stand there, but the kid lunged at me, and I grabbed his hand, sidestepped, pulled him forward, and tripped him.
I think we were supposed to be learning something about watching the knife or getting someone to drop the knife. I like my way better.
164: there is an adreneline rush, but more importantly, there's a sense of security / confidence instilled inside of you that you can handle yourself. This doesn't make you want to run out and go around beating people up at random, but rather makes you feel a little safer in the world. Of course, as other have said in other ways, you can't punch back when a bullet in your head so this sense of security is somewhat illusional.
I'm 6'3" and clock in between 215 and 225, probably. (It's been a long time since I weighed myself, and I've lost weight since then.) I have never been in a fight, and never want to be. I don't live in fear of it, I just don't think it would be enjoyable at all. The closest I ever got was slapping a guy in 7th grade - and I mean slapping, open-handed, with a loud clap noise. With that one slap I won and I felt terrible about it. And yes, we later both came out of the closet.
I did once get to be The Heavy when throwing a different drunk stranger out of a different party at the same fraternity house, several years later, but I didn't have to talk, much less touch the guy. I honestly don't think I could have brought myself to do it. Actually, come to think of it, I was The Heavy in a number of situations in college. Still, never had to lift a finger and probably would have squealed if I did.
Also, 163 is probably the funniest fucking thing I'll read this month.
Wait a second. In light of Megan's clarification-- big guys have to show they are nice--I think this is perfectly sane. Her further elaboration the category "guys I feel safe with" is men and women I could take and also nice men and women. makes perfect sense to me: isn't it generally true for all of us that we feel safe with (1) people who we don't feel physically threatened by (most 5-year olds) and (2) people who are "nice," i.e., non-threatening?
184: I think the problem is that in LizardBreath's post on this site she didn't mention that factor (2) could stand on its own. It seemed to me as if she was saying that she couldn't be friends with someone she couldn't beat up, even if that person seemed nice.
Now that she's showed up here in the comments, of course, she is completely reasonable.
I clicked through and read Megan's post, and I get the same impression LB does. Megan says she'll give tall guys a chance if they seem to be gentle, but acknowledges that she's unlikely to spend enough time with someone she doesn't think she could take in a fight to give them a chance to get past the wariness.
The problem vis a vis a size and weight differential isn't so much one of who would win in an all out fight. In an all out fight, if either party knows what they are doing, the fight will be over very quickly. The problem is in fights where you need to win, but not risk killing or permanantly maiming your opponent. In those fights, size and weight are a huge advantage, easily enough to outweigh skill. Obviously, at some level skill again becomes the determining, and there is something to be said for speed as well, but size allows you to control the fight and absorb significantly more damage.
Yeah, I felt sorry for Togo. And South Korea. It's always a shame when teams who play with some passion and verve go out because they meet tedious but tactically adept opposition.
I am consistently fascinated to see pictures of commenters here, because they so rarely match the mental pictures I have of everybody. Ogged was the only one who looked like I had imagined him.
My dad tells a story from his time in the army which may, or may not, be apocryphal. It sounds a bit too 'Karate Kid' to be true, but he swears it happened.
One of the guys from his regiment was a karate black-belt and, I think, the Welsh champion. This is in the late 60s when karate wasn't as widespread as it is now and also when training methods were a damn sight more savage than they generally are now.
Anyway, they are visiting another regiment with whom there is some 'friendly' rivalry. After the sporting fixture, or whatever it was, some of the guys from the other regiment come in to the locker room trying to start a fight.
The Welsh guy -- who is not a big guy -- is trying to talk things down but the other guys are having none of it. Are bragging about how they are going to kill them, etc. So he turns round without saying a word and punches one of the locker doors. Hard.
The locker door completely buckles inwards like a piece of silver foil with a great big fist shaped depression in it. He turns, and looks.
The other guys quietly file out of the locker room and nothing more is said.
OT: Can someone point me to the first appearance of the Clownaenesthesiologist? Who wass/he in a past life? I think I might know, but I'm feeling stupid this evening and would love to have someone spell it out for me.
216: In all honesty, I imagined you being much less attractive, because of something you said on my blog once about there being "other reasons" one doesn't date much, and I inferred that you were implying that you thought you were hideous or something.
B: Yeah, that comment was meant to be more about probability of meeting women or something, but then you responded jokingly and I decided to just play along.
It's the third eye that people find off-putting, but that's nothing a little punch from the four-fingered second hand on the sixth arm can't take care of.
I had a conversation about this once with a bunch of women, though we were talking about dating. There was a big divide; some of us actively preferred someone who was bigger and stronger; some of us felt intimidated by someone who was too big and strong, and would prefer to be able to beat our boyfriends up.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 12:44 PM
Scrawny guys win! Hooray!
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 12:48 PM
Still, while I can't empathize directly, something about it sounds rather pleasant: being able to arrange your life so that your safety isn't so much a matter of assuming that everyone around you is going to obey the rules of society, than knowing that if someone else loses it, they aren't likely to have the capacity to cause you any serious problems. Anyway, interesting.
I just had the strongest sense of deja vu -- wasn't there an Unfogged post several months back on a different subject that ended with an almost exactly similar construction? Something that provoked a long thread back-and-forth about what the ending of the post meant? I seem to recall Patr/ick Niel/sen Hay/den being involved somehow, in an antagonistic role.
Posted by Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 12:53 PM
Maybe that was a dream.
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 12:54 PM
3: By the end of the post, do you mean "Anyway, interesting?"
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 12:55 PM
And the preceding multi-clause sentence.
Posted by Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 12:56 PM
A friend of mine's very serious boyfriend once got mad and tried to push her around, but since she was stronger and more agile than he was she just wriggled out of the situation, although it also involved wriggling out of her shirt, and she had to go down to her apartment (they lived in the same building) only in her bra. It wasn't the end of the relationship, but it did seem to be a turning point after which everything bad stood out in higher contrast, and she eventually broke up with him. Before that incident she was sure they would get married.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 12:57 PM
I take it she's still single.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 12:57 PM
In 8 I meant Megan, not Tia's friend.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 12:58 PM
4 -- yeah, maybe so...
Posted by Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 12:58 PM
No, she's encoupled with a new person now. But not married.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 12:58 PM
Oh, disregard 11.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 12:59 PM
9: Yes, there're a couple of posts on the fact that the blog is a semi-serious personal ad.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 1:01 PM
Eh, I think that's a kind of messed-up way of looking at the world.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 1:04 PM
She's probably overestimating how many of these guys she can drop, and really, the whole idea is nuts. Everyone in any kind of relationship trusts to some extent. Am I supposed to approach every woman wondering if she's going to stab me to death in my sleep?
Posted by gswift | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 1:05 PM
I do like the URL for the World Taekwondo Federation.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 1:07 PM
15: yes.
Posted by mike d | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 1:07 PM
Of course, it also depends what you're thinking (I haven't read the linked post). If it's a rule of thumb for one-night stands, it makes some kinda sense. But if it's a rule for serious relationships, I'd say yeah, demonstrating some serious trust issues and/or lack of faith in your own judgment.
Either of which may be perfectly sound, of course: a person might have good empircal reasons to doubt their judgment in men, or to have issues around trust. But I, personally, wouldn't want to be in a relationship with such a person.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 1:08 PM
16: How'd your brother do in his tournament, btw?
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 1:08 PM
Once, when I came over to a guy's house, he asked me if he could look in my bag for a gun.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 1:09 PM
The linked post is actually about all men at all times.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 1:09 PM
17 gets it exactly right.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 1:10 PM
But if it's a rule for serious relationships, I'd say yeah, demonstrating some serious trust issues and/or lack of faith in your own judgment.
From the post, not so much a rule for serious relationships, as a rebuttable presumption for who she wants to be friends with. Which does come off as weird, certainly. I wonder if there are guys who think this way -- uncomfortable socializing with other men who they think could take them.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 1:11 PM
Korean martial arts like to torture you with high kicks. Sadistic little Koreans.
Posted by gswift | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 1:11 PM
15 -- Nonono, you're supposed to approach every woman wondering if she's going to sleep with you, then change her mind and accuse you of rape. And/or, that she's going to tell you she's using birth control, and then take you to court for paternity. And/or, that she's going to become pregnant with your baby, and then have an abortion without telling you about it. There's a long list of potential problems, her stabbing you in the back while you sleep is practically the least of your worries.
Posted by Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 1:12 PM
Eh, I think that's a kind of messed-up way of looking at the world.
I agree with B. (This has happened several time lately, does this mean that the Apocalypse is near?)
Posted by Idealist | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 1:13 PM
So her list so far is, what? no strong men, no lawyers, no smokers, no stupid people, no doms, nobody under 25, and she's not willing to relocate--have I got it all?
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 1:13 PM
20: Huh. I suppose that's a logical enough thing to do, but if someone said that to me I would freak out and think, "wait, do you have a gun?" and leave.
Then again, I do kinda worry about how to find out if PK's little friends parents have guns without sounding like a freak.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 1:14 PM
What do small or untrained women do? Just trust?
Pretty much! Trusting your own instincts is to my mind more valuable than thinking whether I could knock someone out in a fight.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 1:14 PM
I wonder if there are guys who think this way -- uncomfortable socializing with other men who they think could take them.
No doubt, but it strikes me as strange.
Posted by Idealist | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 1:14 PM
I approach every woman wondering if she's going to give me an STD. It's constantly offending my wife, but geez, it's just a simple question.
Posted by gswift | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 1:17 PM
Well, certainly. That was what struck me about the post -- both that it was an odd way to approach things, and how interesting to have the option to be weird like that.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 1:18 PM
14 and 15 get it exactly right, in my gut feeling, but maybe it's just that she wants somebody who could, potentially, share her favorite interest? I dunno. I hate to judge. It just seems a little crazy.
It could also be because my first boyfriend was a football player (tight end - no, really) who could totally have kicked my butt if he wanted to, but he was just a big teddy bear who couldn't have hurt a fly (unless they were a fly in the other side's uniform, I guess) and so I was innoculated early against the idea of thinking of my dates in that way. I mean, that just didn't enter into my attraction to him, and it didn't enter into how we broke up, and so I passed through my first relationship without caring.
Posted by Robust McManlyPants | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 1:18 PM
From a purely pragmatic perspective, does this really work to accomplish the ends Megan is trying to achieve? Like most martial arts, taekwondo is less useful for beating people up than it is for building the confidence to fight back against an attacker in the first place. It's not really a golden ticket to the Kick Everybody's Ass factory.
Posted by strasmangelo jones | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 1:19 PM
19 - He did very well in the tournament. Very well. Some stuff is still up in the air that I'm afraid to talk about for fear of jinxing him but we'll know more in a week or so and I'll surely put up a post at my site when we do. Fingers crossed!
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 1:20 PM
28: Really? I thought it was totally crazy. Particularly as I had made various disclosures that would have given him reason to not want to sleep with me, and I theoretically wouldn't do something like that if my secret plan were to murder him. I let him look, but I thought it was weird.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 1:20 PM
19 - Either way it goes, my little brother could kick all y'all's asses.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 1:21 PM
Wow, like the French judge downgraded him on artistic merit and there's a protest?
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 1:21 PM
It's not really a golden ticket to the Kick Everybody's Ass factory.
Whoa, well said.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 1:21 PM
29: I don't think so. I think that women learn to be really alert to oddness or potential hostility (hence the frequent complain by jerky guys that women are so bitchy and won't give a guy a chance).
Just to flip to the other side, because Idealist's agreement freaks me out and makes me feel I must demonstrate some hostility, I suppose it is something that most men wouldn't "get," since presumably most guys are used to the idea that they're stronger than their romantic partners without ever having even thought about it. I don't have a clue what that feels like. But I do know what it feels like to be just a leetle suspicious and standoffish much of the time, and one of the things I have to admit I enjoy about the company of men is that there is a particular kind of guyish ease and openness that is relaxing to be around. And I've never thought about it, but maybe that ease and openness is an expression of the comfort that comes from being able to fully relax in intimate situations?
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 1:23 PM
Was 38 to me? Yeah, something like that.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 1:27 PM
my little brother could kick all y'all's asses.
He'll have to get through the waffle first.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 1:27 PM
40: What about 29?
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 1:29 PM
36: Well, it's logical in the "letting a virtual stranger into your house" kind of way, but like I said, it would freak me out. It's logical, but shows a real ignorance (or flouting) of social norms. Plus, it seems a little controlling--"will this woman let me look through her bag?"
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 1:32 PM
guys are used to the idea that they're stronger than their romantic partners
And then there's Wolfson.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 1:33 PM
You definitely learn how to hone your instincts. I can even detect the creepy from, like, one email.
Posted by silvana | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 1:34 PM
I have heartily regretted not listening to my creepy detector in the past.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 1:34 PM
one of the things I have to admit I enjoy about the company of men is that there is a particular kind of guyish ease and openness that is relaxing to be around. And I've never thought about it, but maybe that ease and openness is an expression of the comfort that comes from being able to fully relax in intimate situations?
This, a bit. There's a particular type of personality that you find in big guys that seems to have something to do with never having given a moment's thought to bullying or being bullied -- that that sort of thing is simply not on their radar at all -- that's very easy to be around.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 1:35 PM
43: I mean, I don't think that women "just trust"--I think they learn to pay attention to clues that suggest whether someone is or is not trustworthy.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 1:36 PM
I think I made some comment here about being around my 6'4" boxer cousin, and being hyper-aware of his power to kick ass. He's a lot bigger than most guys I hang out with, and I really notice it when visiting my family.
Maybe there's some atavistic feeling there--that if someone did threaten me, he could beat him up.
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 1:38 PM
48: Yeah. And wouldn't it be nice to be able to be that way?
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 1:39 PM
And then there's Wolfson.
Yeah, but he seems like the type who would like it if a girl pinned him and spanked him, so it all works out.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 1:40 PM
46: Am I creepy?
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 1:40 PM
40, 48: Man, you guys are totally insightful. I never even thought about this, but this is true. I've had two separate friends, one in college and one in law school, who are very tall, large dudes (above 6'4"), and both are very laid-back, easy to be around. I think also, due to a complete lack of the possibility of their masculinity being challenged, they both are sort of soft-spoken, very kind and compassionate.
Not that shorter guys aren't those things too. But the correlation between demeanor and height between these two beloved friends of mine just struck me in a big way.
Posted by silvana | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 1:40 PM
Maybe you should email her. Repeatedly. I'm sure she'd be able to figure it out after a couple of dozen.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 1:41 PM
46: No. In fact, I have a remarkably good impression of you.
Posted by silvana | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 1:42 PM
Maybe I shouldn't be so quick to think Megan's crazy here. It was just last night that my honey announced that the doctor had weighed him in at 125 "and a half!" pounds. Still, I wouldn't bet any money that I could beat him up, if for some reason we had a physical fight.
After all, I should be able to take Tia in our long-postponed rumble, but I just know she'd bite.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 1:43 PM
I don't deny it.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 1:43 PM
That's been my experience.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 1:44 PM
125 "and a half!" pounds
Holy moly. Is he, like, a 13-year-old?
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 1:45 PM
Does he have an advanced wasting disease? I heard LB say she could totally take him.
Posted by Robust McManlyPants | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 1:48 PM
I said 'advanced', mind you. No fair putting me up against men who are merely in the early stages of a wasting disease.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 1:50 PM
No, I see grown men around here who are skinnier than my 17-year-old niece, and she's pretty damn skinny. They're mostly Southeast Asian, though.
Posted by DaveL | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 1:52 PM
No: at 13, he probably weighed 65 pounds. He's just one of those small-boned, wiry guys with an overactive metabolism.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 1:53 PM
"guys" s/b "Mexicans"
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 1:54 PM
I wouldn't know anything about being married to someone like that. Although Buck has put on a lot of weight since we met -- he's up to 165 or so, which still looks skinny but no longer in danger of blowing away in a strong breeze.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 1:55 PM
The last guy I dated was 6'6", which became TOO TALL when I had to dismantle a bed frame so he could stretch out. Also: nature designed him to be a Viking, but he wanted to look waifishly thin, with the result that his elbows and knees stuck out knobbily. In sum: last guy was a git.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 2:03 PM
JM, the next guy will be the porridge Goldilocks chose.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 2:04 PM
Mmm. Oaty.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 2:05 PM
Megan could make things even easier, dating-wise, by running a personals ad: "Taekwondo chick, [insert ht & wt here], seeks males to beat up."
Then she could sift her pool of respondents.
Posted by Anderson | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 2:05 PM
ATM.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 2:11 PM
ATM?
Posted by Anderson | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 2:11 PM
Anderson doesn't know what "sifting" is. *snicker*
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 2:13 PM
Does Ann Coulter obsess over it?
Posted by Anderson | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 2:19 PM
49: Well, that's why it was 'trust your own instincts', with instincts being honed over time. I'm not sure, though, that it leads to a categorizing people as 'could beat up, therefore safe and will relax' or 'couldn't beat up, therefore unsafe and will remain edgy.'
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 2:21 PM
Yes; except "sifting" is what the receptive partner does, I just decided.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 2:22 PM
46: Not until you asked that question.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 2:24 PM
"Receptive" ... a bit droll.
"I asked my wife whether she might not fancy a bit of buggery, and happily for all, she was in a receptive frame of mind."
Posted by Anderson | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 2:24 PM
Now hold on SB, you can't just go around making up words like that willy-nilly.
Posted by M/tch M/lls | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 2:25 PM
Earlier today I was looking at pictures of Cathy Sei/pp's daughter's graduation party (I have no idea why), and saw a pinheaded woman with blonde hair in them. Looking closely, I saw that it was Ann Coulter. This filled me with a strange, cold dread. Imagine having her at your garden party!
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 2:27 PM
"Receptive" ... a bit droll.
Who, me?
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 2:29 PM
Imagine having her at your garden party!
That's what citronella candles are for.
Posted by M/tch M/lls | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 2:30 PM
"Receptive" ... a bit droll.
Who, me?
Yes, but "droll" in the particular sense of "crashing a menage a trois and thus making it a menage a quatre." Look it up, it's three pages before "sifting."
Posted by Anderson | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 2:34 PM
"Receptive" ... a bit droll, with notes of oak, vanilla, and blackberries. Nice finish too.
Posted by M/tch M/lls | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 2:37 PM
M/tch reminds me of the classic of that genre:
"It's a naive domestic Burgundy without any breeding, but I think you'll be amused by its presumption."
Posted by Anderson | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 2:41 PM
40,48,54:Let me see, as a 5'4" 120 lb dude, do I have anything to add to this? Where's Farber? The Duke said in "The Shootist":"It ain't the quickness or the accuracy, it's the willin." Anybody see the picture of the kittycat treeing the bear?
Am I irritable, defensice, overly aggressive because of my size? More or less sensitive to certain problems of women? Does my size directly affect my weltschmerz and weltanschauung, not exclusive to but including my Spenglerian pessimism? Does anybody what a short person says anyway, since they have no reason to live?
Is my humongous member adequate compensation? Does a cock joke redeem the rest of this comment?
Posted by bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 2:56 PM
I think it's great that Megan sees her size and strength as a positive. She is bucking a very deep cultural value. Why is it any weirder for her than for a man to want to be the physically stronger partner? After all, it is what a lot of men feel. They seem to think a woman bigger and stronger than themselves is some kind of offense against nature.
And it's not only men who have this issue about gender and size. I'm quite tall, and other women of my size have told me that they dislike being with smaller men because they feel implicated in various stereotypes: You can both be quite fit and attractive, yet suddenly there's this trailer-trash thing in the air--big fat mama and scrawny tattooed banty-rooster with a gold tooth saying "make me a sammitch, bitch".
A friend of mine who is 6'2" was riding in an elevator with a couple of short, non-english-speaking men. they (the men) were looking at her and talking to each other, when one of them started making these weird snorting and bellowing noises, and they both started laughing their asses off, and she realized the guy was joking about what it must be like when she came. So, so creepy.
I'm posting this even though the thread has moved on to one-liners, and if anyone doesn't like it I'm going to beat them up.
Posted by mcmc | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 2:58 PM
"...and if anyone doesn't like it I'm going to beat them up."
As expected, and as is your right. Life sucks.
Posted by bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 3:04 PM
My wife is three inches taller than me, and I don't feel threatened.
Of course, I have fifty pounds on her, so...
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 3:06 PM
That's what citronella candles are for.
Don't think so. Too soft to penetrate the chest cavity. You need a proper stake.
Posted by DaveL | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 3:07 PM
90: Nice.
Posted by M/tch M/lls | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 3:11 PM
I haven't read the all comments yet, so sorry if I'm saying something already said, but if Megan thinks she'd win a serious fight against more than a relatively small percentage of guys she's totally deluded.
I mean batshit crazy deluded.
Nothing wrong with feeling empowered by being fit and skillful, though. All power to her in that respect.
[this could end up retreading comments from an earlier thread]
On the other hand, I don't think it's necessarily crazy that she wouldn't want to date guys that she feels might be physically intimidated by her or who she doesn't respect. Personal taste is personal taste after all and what works for her is pretty much her business.
I do agree with earlier comments about really big physically intimidating guys often being really mellow and unaggressive, though. I have a few friends like that.
Posted by Matt McGrattan | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 3:18 PM
On the other hand, I don't think it's necessarily crazy that she wouldn't want to date guys that she feels might be physically intimidated by her or who she doesn't respect.
I think you've got that backwards - she's looking at men who she isn't physically intimidated by.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 3:20 PM
I do agree with earlier comments about really big physically intimidating guys often being really mellow and unaggressive, though. I have a few friends like that.
Everybody, but particularly teenage boys, needs a few friends like that.
Posted by M/tch M/lls | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 3:21 PM
88 is kidding, mostly. I only remember being bullied once. My partner says I have always projected a violent craziness, a berserker vibe. A chihuahua can bite your thru Achilles tendon before you notice him. The lady, like many "martial artists" may be full of it. Winning a fight is not worth getting hurt. It's the willin.
OTOH, we had a game in my young adult crowd. Simple game. The ladies would try to slap your face or kick your nuts. A real man could stop them without hurting them. Quickness and gentleness and self-control were highly valued. Sometimes you let them get thru, laugh off the pain, stop them the next ten times. Whole evenings spent entertaining each other.
My "best" friends have always been over six foot. A father thing, need for protection? I verbally abused them sometimes. Never liked guys my own size. They seemed grasping and needy, too eager to please. Huh.
Posted by bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 3:22 PM
OTOH, we had a game in my young adult crowd. Simple game. The ladies would try to slap your face or kick your nuts. A real man could stop them without hurting them. Quickness and gentleness and self-control were highly valued. Sometimes you let them get thru, laugh off the pain, stop them the next ten times. Whole evenings spent entertaining each other.
This is really, really weird.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 3:23 PM
"Receptive" ... a bit droll, with notes of oak, vanilla, and blackberries. Nice finish too.
"Finish" is appreciated.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 3:25 PM
OTOH, we had a game in my young adult crowd. Simple game. The ladies would try to slap your face or kick your nuts. A real man could stop them without hurting them. Quickness and gentleness and self-control were highly valued. Sometimes you let them get thru, laugh off the pain, stop them the next ten times. Whole evenings spent entertaining each other.
I no longer value your opinions on who should be the Democratic presidential candidate.
Posted by Cryptic Ned | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 3:25 PM
You apparently haven't heard his plans for conquering the Middle East.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 3:27 PM
Matt, half the men in this thread seem to be tiny.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 3:28 PM
100!
(Though it hardly seems worth it anymore.)
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 3:28 PM
Ummm...
Fuck.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 3:28 PM
Ha!
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 3:28 PM
You just wait until we get to 400.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 3:30 PM
I actually never pay any attention until I screw someone over. Then I enjoy the gloating.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 3:32 PM
97: Finnish is deprecated. At least the architecture anyway.
Posted by M/tch M/lls | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 3:33 PM
I think it's great that Megan sees her size and strength as a positive. She is bucking a very deep cultural value. Why is it any weirder for her than for a man to want to be the physically stronger partner?
Reminds me of an old cartoon from (I think) Our Bodies, Ourselves of all places: man and woman are talking, as tough-looking woman goes by. Man (chuckling blithely): "I don't think I'd want to be married to someone who could beat me up whenever they felt like it." Woman: "Well, neither would I."
Posted by gonerill | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 3:33 PM
My partner says I have always projected a violent craziness, a berserker vibe.
This does not surprise me at all.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 3:34 PM
Matt, half the men in this thread seem to be tiny.
I'm sure it's just because you're standing so far away.
Posted by M/tch M/lls | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 3:35 PM
That must be it.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 3:38 PM
96:Why weird? The thread was about sexuality and violence and trust. The key words were: Quickness, Gentleness, self-control. Yes, there psychological dimensions. But the point was the women testing the men, and the men showing they would not hurt the women. It was real, and it was harmless. Trust me, you know nothing about violence until you have given and received it.
Our "martial artist" probably has belts with aborted kicks and an occasional accident...seems to romanticize violence. We didn't romanticize violence, but eroticized it, very carefully, with strict rules. And the sex was great.
Posted by bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 3:47 PM
I'm 6'0" and a pretty solid 205. That seems to be a good size for deterring aggression, but not nearly so effective as being amiable and quick with a joke, which has always been my main strategy for avoiding unpleasantness. 15 years without anybody taking a swing at me, and another 10 before that one brief encounter.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 3:48 PM
I'm six nothin' too, but only about 170. But that's still generally big enough to deter agression, particularly when mixed with amiability, self deprecation, and quick jokes. I can also do a pretty convincing "don't get me angry 'cause I might just be crazy" act, if necessary, although it almost never is.
I was a lot scrawnier in highschool, and used to walk much closer to the line in terms of verbally messing with guys who could kick my ass, but I was pretty much always able to stay just inside the line by passing it all off as a joke or as if I didn't get my own joke and thus wasn't making fun of them or through turning the joke around to be on me. That and having a few big strong friends.
Posted by M/tch M/lls | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 3:55 PM
Is avoiding fights really such a big concern for people? I've never even come close to fighting someone.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 3:59 PM
I feel like we've had this conversation before. Size matters a lot; experience matters more. I'm not aware of anyone, man or woman, who I would definitively bet against in a fight with me. And that's pretty much OK.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 4:00 PM
Our "martial artist" probably has belts with aborted kicks and an occasional accident
I don't know which league or whatever the hell you call it of TKD Megan competed in but the one my brother's in doesn't pull punches. He's had his nose (not not broken but spraying blood everywhere) during sparring matches at his last 2 competitions and comes away with serious bruises. Some kid got his neck broken at Nationals last year. It's full-on, serious contact.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 4:01 PM
114: Obviously you don't mouth off enough then.
Posted by M/tch M/lls | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 4:01 PM
re: 100
Obviously size does makes a difference and the big, strong, well-trained female martial artist is obviously going to have much more of a chance against some guy who is 5'5" and weight 140lbs than she is against the guy who is 6ft tall and weighs 200lbs+.
I still doubt that the female martial artist, particularly someone practicing something like taekwondo, is going to beat an average guy of average size and average aggression particularly often without a fair bit of luck on their side
None of that is to diminish the value, for someone like Megan, of feeling strong and being fit and getting a chance to be aggressive.
Posted by Matt McGrattan | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 4:01 PM
116 - When you get to the advanced levels of competition (which it appears Megan did), at least.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 4:02 PM
I got beat up a few times as a kid for mouthing off. And learned that, duh, if you act bored by someone's stupid threats, they'll generally leave you alone. That and the "I might just be crazy" thing.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 4:02 PM
What's average size? I'm about 5'9" and 150 lbs. (a bit on the small side, to be sure) and I'm pretty sure she could take me.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 4:05 PM
Matt, half the men in this thread seem to be tiny.
I'm a towering 5'9, 170 pounds.
Posted by gswift | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 4:05 PM
I still doubt that the female martial artist, particularly someone practicing something like taekwondo, is going to beat an average guy of average size and average aggression particularly often without a fair bit of luck on their side
I think the female martial artist could
A) prevent the guy from doing any harm to her, pretty much indefinitely
B) maybe twist his arm or something
I don't understand why she'd want to make sure the man is someone she could win a fight with; it seems like it would make more sense to look for a man who would definitely not be able to beat her.
Posted by Cryptic Ned | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 4:05 PM
117: Apparently so. I don't think I've ever mouthed off to anyone, actually, and I doubt I ever will.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 4:06 PM
It's not like it's anything I worry about much -- barring those two times I got attacked in Samoa, I can only think of one situation where I've ever worried that someone was going to hit me. (Barring sibling fights as a kid.)
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 4:08 PM
I think the female martial artist could
A) prevent the guy from doing any harm to her, pretty much indefinitely
I wouldn't bet on it.
Posted by gswift | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 4:08 PM
Who was the shrink who said that after Freud & Kinsey had broken the sexual barriers, the compensating taboo would become violence? I forget.
Y'all might think about your attitudes toward violence in the light of prior mystifications of gender and orientation. The lady martial artist is, IMO, one incorrect way to approach it...it is not a path to status and power; but to fear and abhor violence excessively is another way to give violence power over yourself.
I was accepted by near bikers in my early twenties; I am no longer quite that person anymore, irrespective of what jm may say.
Posted by bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 4:09 PM
Tip: WHen some guy you've just met asks if the party you're both at is your coming out party, if you want to avoid a confrontation it's best not to reply with "No, I got here late cuz I just got done with you mom."
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 4:10 PM
I was accepted by near bikers in my early twenties
The near beer busts were epic.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 4:10 PM
I've never even come close to fighting someone.
My one fight in the last 25 years came while ejecting a drunk stranger from our frat house at the end of a party. It pretty much amounted to two punches, a bunch of grappling, then holding him down until the police arrived. All in all, I felt much more manly when I had to bust down my own front door with my shoulder. That was entirely more gratifying.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 4:10 PM
Well, re: size, I'm 5ft 10 but weigh about 210lbs. That makes me fairly heavily built (OK, verging on a bit fat!) for my height.
re: 116
Most TKD does point fighting rather than full contact. The contact can be pretty rough -- fighting to score points doesn't meant that strikes are delivered completely without power -- and accidents happen, especially in the heat of competition, but generally, it's a world away from even, say, serious amateur level boxing in terms of contact and aggression.
Posted by Matt McGrattan | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 4:14 PM
123: Y'all are forgetting the 15 lb kitty treeing the 300 lb bear. The bear was not stupid. There is a Burt Reynolds movie where he is teaching a kid self-defense:
"First, you tear off the guy's ear."
Posted by bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 4:14 PM
gswift: "I'm a towering 5'9, 170 pounds."
Yes, but you're armed.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 4:15 PM
The near beer busts were epic.
Whole kegs full of near beer.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 4:16 PM
I was accepted by near bikers in my early twenties;
Is that biker talk for "pulled the train."
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 4:16 PM
I've been really surprised at the reaction this has gotten. I would never have realized it was that unusual a perspective. I don't actually expect to get in fights with anyone. I never have.
But I don't see the problem with a screen that lets just about everybody through, and the remaining big guys have to show they are nice (which many do). What is the risk? That I'll miss the occasional nice big man? I miss friendships with lots of people 'cause we don't realize we are alike in whatever short encounter we have. And being open to short scrawny guys opens up the other end of the spectrum for me.
Posted by Megan | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 4:17 PM
Megan, I'm just glad that ogged, at 8 lbs, gets under the bar. And it's not more bizarre a criteria than any number of others that people employ.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 4:20 PM
Skinny guys fight 'til they're burger.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 4:21 PM
I brought it up mostly because it was interesting to see someone applying a screen that I wouldn't be able to apply, because I'd screen out most (and I mean seriously most) men.
I think the negative reaction is twofold: first, that it seems kind of paranoid -- assessing who'd win a fight is one thing, but resisting hanging out with someone who might seems overly tense. And second, you've got some people questioning your realism (which I have to say I can't see any reasonable way to discuss. You think you could take most men, I don't know any reason to think you're wrong, but I don't know much. If the conversation turns to who here in the comments could beat whom up, I plan to be pre-emptively bored.)
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 4:23 PM
129,134,135: You're right, it was kinda boasting.
Posted by bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 4:23 PM
I am no longer quite that person anymore, irrespective of what jm may say.
No, but I still wouldn't mess with you despite having four inches and five pounds on you.
As for the martial artists schtick: The boyfriend before the thwarted Viking 6'6" dude was a 5'8", maybe 140 pound French artist with an angelic face. He got mugged a couple of times and then decided to take ninjitsu courses. He quit right after he nearly lost his eye in a sparring session, but he's never had *any* trouble with muggers since.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 4:23 PM
gswift: "I'm a towering 5'9, 170 pounds."
Yes, but you're armed.
It's got a 10 inch barrel.
Posted by gswift | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 4:24 PM
Damn italics tag, s/b Yes, but you're armed.
Posted by gswift | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 4:26 PM
Most TKD does point fighting rather than full contact. The contact can be pretty rough -- fighting to score points doesn't meant that strikes are delivered completely without power -- and accidents happen, especially in the heat of competition, but generally, it's a world away from even, say, serious amateur level boxing in terms of contact and aggression.
Yeah, point fighting is good for learning some basics, but sometimes can breed bad habits. People in the quest to get the point will leave themselves open in ways they wouldn't if it meant risking a full contact counter.
Posted by gswift | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 4:29 PM
It just doesn't seem useful as a sorting mechanism, Megan, to my mind, to divide the world into 'guys I can feel safe with' and 'guys who I can't feel safe with.'
My boyfriend is about 5'10'' and around 195-200 pounds. He could probably kick my ass in a fight if he were sufficiently determined, but I don't think of him as dangerous.
As a screening preference, hey, whatever works. If guys are 'allowed' to like only blondes or leggy women, certainly 'must be beatable' isn't that weird a criterion.
131: It depends on what you mean by 'fight.' I probably couldn't win a boxing match with most guys, as I'm on the smaller end of normal. On the other hand, if I'm worried about self-defense, I don't need to win a fight, I just need to get away. That, I'm pretty sure I can do.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 4:29 PM
I will only fight leggy blonde women.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 4:34 PM
Someone page Ann Coulter.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 4:35 PM
I appear to have been in more fights, both growing up and after, than most people here. I admit they have become much rarer since I grew to full size, which is big. And I agree that they never feel like you might think they would, that they're usually over before you are aware of it and then you get your adrenaline and, in my case, often have to control shaking. I think if you were "spoiling for a fight" that you'd already have been keyed up, but they usually take me by surprise.
A woman once grew so angry with me that she attacked me, with her hands, with what she could pick up, with what she could throw. I was probably not in much danger — although I had to keep ducking — but the shock of the attack was one of the worst and most frightening experiences of my life. So much for the ease of intimacy, which I admit is usual with me. But that was not the only time, nor was she the only woman, of whom I became afraid; maybe the cat treeing the bear is a good analogy.
Posted by I don't pay | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 4:36 PM
I don't need to win a fight, I just need to get away. That, I'm pretty sure I can do.
That's exactly right. Too often people look at women's self defense training as a waste because they figure they won't win a fight with a male. But it's not about going toe to toe. It's about escape.
Posted by gswift | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 4:38 PM
A woman once grew so angry with me that she attacked me
This reminds me that I should qualify my earlier statement. I've had a couple of women get violent with me, but in neither case did it seem like a serious threat, what with having ~80 pounds and half of feet on each.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 4:39 PM
half of feet on each.
No wonder they got violent with you standing on them.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 4:41 PM
A woman once grew so angry with me that she attacked me, with her hands, with what she could pick up, with what she could throw
ATM? Inappropriate?
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 4:42 PM
151: I thought he meant he had half a foot in his hand, and could fend her off with it.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 4:43 PM
I got into a fight once in high school. Or, more accurately, two guys were fighting, and I intervened because the one who was losing and getting choked was my best friend. (This didn't do much for his manly reputation, on the other hand, he wasn't choked, so he was gracious about it.)
It was over pretty quick. The adrenaline rush afterward (or is it an adrenaline release?) alone seems like a reason to get in more fights, though. It was kinda.. fun?
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 4:45 PM
half of feet
Jesus. I should slow down on the wine.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 4:46 PM
Do I get to plug my favorite site, psfights.com, now?
I haven't been in any fights as an adult, but a couple of weeks ago, my mom dropped me off somewhere and before she drove away, someone came up behind her and honked at her. I threw down my bag in the middle of the street, went up to his window and screamed my head off. I was legitimately angry, not making a show, and he was kind of freaked out. All in all, a very satisfying experience. I don't even want to think about how good it would have felt to actually hit him.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 4:46 PM
Do I get to plug my favorite site, psfights.com, now?
No, you're banned.
Posted by Cryptic Ned | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 4:48 PM
I'm gonna kick your ass, Ned.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 4:48 PM
But the category "guys I feel safe with" is men and women I could take and also nice men and women. Why not exclude everyone else?
I don't care much what other people think of my realism. I have an opinion based on years of watching competitors, and that opinion will probably never be tested. So I don't expect to be proved wrong and that's practically the same as being right.
Posted by Anonymous | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 4:49 PM
Completely inappropriate, which most people came to accept, although in the meantime I learned hard lessons about presumptions, expectations, trust and friendship from the people I was then closest to. And the incongruity was such — as was the difference in size — that everybody assumed there must be some fault in me. I thought so to, at the time, although I don't now. Many people came around about it after she trashed my room while I was gone.
Posted by I don't pay | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 4:50 PM
159 - me - sorry.
Posted by Megan | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 4:50 PM
I'm gonna kick your ass too, probably Megan.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 4:50 PM
Eight whole pounds? And they're taking one out? You know where to find me.
Posted by Megan | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 4:51 PM
The adrenaline rush afterward (or is it an adrenaline release?) alone seems like a reason to get in more fights, though. It was kinda.. fun?
Can be. Aside from obvious not fun things like getting hit, things like your hands turning colors and ballooning up the next day can kind of suck.
Posted by gswift | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 4:52 PM
Where the hell is that thread about fighting five-year-olds?
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 4:55 PM
Here's the thing we linked to; I can't find the post here, but it wasn't as good as the original thread anyway.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 4:57 PM
165: They're small but fiesty.
Posted by strasmangelo jones | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 4:57 PM
The closest I came to a fight in school was being hit in the head by a rock thrown by another third-grader who I now think was trying to flirt with me. The only thing I've hit in anger in the last...oh, five years was the hood of a car that nearly ran me over. If my instinctual aversion for everything and everyone that seem violent doesn't protect me, and if running doesn't work, eh, I'm toast.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 4:58 PM
And I second the greatness of psfights.com. Most of the participants appear to be students of the windmill school.
Posted by gswift | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 4:59 PM
>Size matters a lot; experience matters more.
In a fair fight, size matters a lot given anything like similarity of experience. This is the basis for weight classes (often very narrow) in almost all competitive fighting arts. And I suspect weight will typically underpredict the strength difference between men and women.
In an unfair fight, size matters a lot less. In the sense that if you hit someone with a baseball bat when they aren't looking, you pretty much have that one won. Conclusion: to feel equal in intimate settings with a larger/stronger partner, spend some time visualizing ambushing them with a crowbar.
Posted by baa | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 5:05 PM
re: 145
Of course, but 'getting away' wasn't the question at issue, surely? When someone says they could win a fight against some other person I don't interpret that to mean they could run away from them? And, of course, as others have said, getting away is the key thing as a matter of self-defence.
re: 159
I don't mean to be a dick, and feel free to ignore me, but having a *belief* in some ability that won't actually be tested isn't the same thing as actually *having* that ability, right? It may not actually matter, from a practical point of view, but it's clearly not remotely the same thing.
Incidentally, none of this is to say that there's anything wrong with not wanting to date someone who you think could kick your arse. Seems a fair enough preference to have.
re: 164
The adrenaline rush totally sucks. Nothing worse than shaking and being on the verge of tears (maybe that's just me) despite actually having had the upper-hand in some unpleasant/violent situation.
Posted by Matt McGrattan | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 5:06 PM
gswift, I had a majorette baton. It's all about the weapons upgrade.
When I was twelve or thirteen, I was at some evangelical youth group party and they had a martial arts instructor guy demonstrating stuff and advertising his club while doing so.
Anyhow, so he asked for volunteers for a self-defense demonstration and he picked some sixteen-year-old kid and me. He gave the kid a wooden mock knife and said 'Okay, attack her.' I think there was supposed to be an object lesson and something about what to do, and I was supposed to stand there, but the kid lunged at me, and I grabbed his hand, sidestepped, pulled him forward, and tripped him.
I think we were supposed to be learning something about watching the knife or getting someone to drop the knife. I like my way better.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 5:06 PM
Ah, here's the Unfogged thread on fighting five-year-olds.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 5:09 PM
How many kids if you have a crowbar, ogged?
Posted by baa | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 5:14 PM
Nothing worse than shaking and being on the verge of tears (maybe that's just me)
No, Tim too.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 5:16 PM
baa, I'm sure you'll enjoy this.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 5:19 PM
176: Jeebus, ogged. Must be that hot Iranian blood of yours. Maybe we should nuke 'em.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 5:21 PM
I think nuking the five-year-olds would be a bit of a cheat, Tim.
Posted by strasmangelo jones | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 5:38 PM
164: there is an adreneline rush, but more importantly, there's a sense of security / confidence instilled inside of you that you can handle yourself. This doesn't make you want to run out and go around beating people up at random, but rather makes you feel a little safer in the world. Of course, as other have said in other ways, you can't punch back when a bullet in your head so this sense of security is somewhat illusional.
Posted by TD | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 5:46 PM
167: "feisty" s/b "tasty"
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 5:47 PM
180: But they're like chicken wings - you can never have just one, and they're all skin and bone anyway.
Posted by strasmangelo jones | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 5:51 PM
Size matters a lot; experience matters more.
So true.
Oh, wait.
I'm 6'3" and clock in between 215 and 225, probably. (It's been a long time since I weighed myself, and I've lost weight since then.) I have never been in a fight, and never want to be. I don't live in fear of it, I just don't think it would be enjoyable at all. The closest I ever got was slapping a guy in 7th grade - and I mean slapping, open-handed, with a loud clap noise. With that one slap I won and I felt terrible about it. And yes, we later both came out of the closet.
I did once get to be The Heavy when throwing a different drunk stranger out of a different party at the same fraternity house, several years later, but I didn't have to talk, much less touch the guy. I honestly don't think I could have brought myself to do it. Actually, come to think of it, I was The Heavy in a number of situations in college. Still, never had to lift a finger and probably would have squealed if I did.
Also, 163 is probably the funniest fucking thing I'll read this month.
Posted by Robust McManlyPants | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 6:08 PM
Robust McManlyPants? When did Harvey Mansfield start posting at this blog?
Posted by Mary Catherine Moran | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 6:14 PM
Wait a second. In light of Megan's clarification-- big guys have to show they are nice--I think this is perfectly sane. Her further elaboration the category "guys I feel safe with" is men and women I could take and also nice men and women. makes perfect sense to me: isn't it generally true for all of us that we feel safe with (1) people who we don't feel physically threatened by (most 5-year olds) and (2) people who are "nice," i.e., non-threatening?
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 7:32 PM
184: I think the problem is that in LizardBreath's post on this site she didn't mention that factor (2) could stand on its own. It seemed to me as if she was saying that she couldn't be friends with someone she couldn't beat up, even if that person seemed nice.
Now that she's showed up here in the comments, of course, she is completely reasonable.
Posted by Cryptic Ned | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 8:16 PM
Jesus, didn't anybody read the linked post? She explained all this stuff there.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 8:57 PM
I said up front I didn't read it, so nyah.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 9:00 PM
You say "nyah" a lot for a grown woman.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 9:05 PM
I assumed that you might have read it at some point during the following eight hours of discussion.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 9:12 PM
I clicked through and read Megan's post, and I get the same impression LB does. Megan says she'll give tall guys a chance if they seem to be gentle, but acknowledges that she's unlikely to spend enough time with someone she doesn't think she could take in a fight to give them a chance to get past the wariness.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 9:22 PM
I think the only proper response to 188 is "nuh-uh".
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 9:28 PM
Or, "so's your face."
Posted by mrh | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 9:39 PM
I was thinking more, "bite me."
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 9:40 PM
I'm pretty sure most of these are yours, B.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 9:48 PM
They probably are, Ogged. Sue me. You know my provenance.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 9:56 PM
The problem vis a vis a size and weight differential isn't so much one of who would win in an all out fight. In an all out fight, if either party knows what they are doing, the fight will be over very quickly. The problem is in fights where you need to win, but not risk killing or permanantly maiming your opponent. In those fights, size and weight are a huge advantage, easily enough to outweigh skill. Obviously, at some level skill again becomes the determining, and there is something to be said for speed as well, but size allows you to control the fight and absorb significantly more damage.
Posted by Glenn | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 11:03 PM
matt, if those are really your measurements, we don't have to beat you up - just tip you over!
(can i say, the france/togo match last night was fun, but what is up with a goalie getting a yellow card)
Posted by mmf! | Link to this comment | 06-24-06 3:24 AM
re: 197
You'd be surprised. I'm not particularly spherical, just carrying an extra 20lbs or so.
http://static.flickr.com/50/157316756_e19da3822c_o.jpg
Yeah, I felt sorry for Togo. And South Korea. It's always a shame when teams who play with some passion and verve go out because they meet tedious but tactically adept opposition.
Posted by Matt McGrattan | Link to this comment | 06-24-06 5:45 AM
I am consistently fascinated to see pictures of commenters here, because they so rarely match the mental pictures I have of everybody. Ogged was the only one who looked like I had imagined him.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06-24-06 1:51 PM
And 200!
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06-24-06 1:51 PM
You've seen a picture of ogged here?
And I still say we need different names for the comments evenly divisible by 100. 100 is Kobe, 200 is . . .
Posted by M/tch M/lls | Link to this comment | 06-24-06 2:24 PM
I've met Ogged in person.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06-24-06 3:11 PM
there is clearly an implied "under the rules of tae kwon do" in there.
actual conversation in a rugby club which defused a potentially tough situation:
"as a last resort in a fight, would you try to blind someone or bite their ear off?"
"yes I fucking would"
"well that's my first fucking resort, now do you want to put your shirt back on or not?"
Posted by dsquared | Link to this comment | 06-24-06 3:24 PM
Shorter 199: Pretty much all Mexicans look alike to me.
Posted by M/tch M/lls | Link to this comment | 06-24-06 3:24 PM
"well that's my first fucking resort, now do you want to put your shirt back on or not?"
Was this some sort of dispute over wearing team colors?
Posted by M/tch M/lls | Link to this comment | 06-24-06 3:36 PM
re: 203
My dad tells a story from his time in the army which may, or may not, be apocryphal. It sounds a bit too 'Karate Kid' to be true, but he swears it happened.
One of the guys from his regiment was a karate black-belt and, I think, the Welsh champion. This is in the late 60s when karate wasn't as widespread as it is now and also when training methods were a damn sight more savage than they generally are now.
Anyway, they are visiting another regiment with whom there is some 'friendly' rivalry. After the sporting fixture, or whatever it was, some of the guys from the other regiment come in to the locker room trying to start a fight.
The Welsh guy -- who is not a big guy -- is trying to talk things down but the other guys are having none of it. Are bragging about how they are going to kill them, etc. So he turns round without saying a word and punches one of the locker doors. Hard.
The locker door completely buckles inwards like a piece of silver foil with a great big fist shaped depression in it. He turns, and looks.
The other guys quietly file out of the locker room and nothing more is said.
Posted by Matt McGrattan | Link to this comment | 06-24-06 3:55 PM
For all that I would probably faint if I had to hit anyone, I think Matt's dad is just wicked hot.
Posted by Robust McManlyPants | Link to this comment | 06-24-06 4:20 PM
Or, rather, the other guy. You know what I mean. Mr. Karate McHotness.
Posted by Robust McManlyPants | Link to this comment | 06-24-06 4:23 PM
I wonder what apo thinks I look like.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 06-24-06 4:27 PM
OT: Can someone point me to the first appearance of the Clownaenesthesiologist? Who wass/he in a past life? I think I might know, but I'm feeling stupid this evening and would love to have someone spell it out for me.
Posted by Bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 06-24-06 9:34 PM
Here you go.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 06-24-06 9:42 PM
I wonder what apo thinks I look like.
Hairy.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06-24-06 10:22 PM
Matzo brei.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 06-24-06 10:23 PM
You're both right.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 06-24-06 10:32 PM
Okay, I have to admit that is absolutely nothing like I imagined you.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 06-24-06 10:42 PM
How did you imagine me?
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 06-24-06 10:46 PM
Yeah, in my head you looked more Mediterranean.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06-24-06 10:47 PM
I'm not really Hispanic, you know.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 06-24-06 10:50 PM
Here's one of me, I hope this works. I think I'm actually about 10 points heavier than this by now unfortunately.
Posted by Cryptic Ned | Link to this comment | 06-24-06 10:51 PM
Forbidden!
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 06-24-06 10:53 PM
Actually I'm probably not any heavier now, I was just stretching in that picture. It's flattering.
Posted by Cryptic Ned | Link to this comment | 06-24-06 10:53 PM
Dammit, it worked fine for me.
Well I can't find any others that wouldn't give away my identity, so never mind. I don't feel like setting up a Flickr thing tonight.
Posted by Cryptic Ned | Link to this comment | 06-24-06 10:54 PM
Actually I look very similar to teofilo except with slightly lighter and straighter hair. And I'm about 6'1", 210, I think he looks smaller than that.
Posted by Cryptic Ned | Link to this comment | 06-24-06 10:57 PM
Quite a bit smaller, actually.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 06-24-06 11:02 PM
216: In all honesty, I imagined you being much less attractive, because of something you said on my blog once about there being "other reasons" one doesn't date much, and I inferred that you were implying that you thought you were hideous or something.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 06-24-06 11:03 PM
If you copy and paste Ned's link, it works. I too was imagining you, Teofilo, as darker, rounder, less homicidal. You know, Jewish.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06-24-06 11:03 PM
Hey Ned, may I ask what was wrong with the piece nearest you? Or were you reaching for a dip?
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06-24-06 11:06 PM
See, Ned looks pretty much like I thought he would, at least as far as I can tell from that picture.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 06-24-06 11:06 PM
I was under the impression that Jewish people have lived, and many still live, around the Mediterranean.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 06-24-06 11:06 PM
See, Ned looks pretty much like I thought he would, at least as far as I can tell from that picture.
It's not forbidden to you????
Posted by Cryptic Ned | Link to this comment | 06-24-06 11:07 PM
Also.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 06-24-06 11:07 PM
Only one of my grandparents was born Jewish.
B: Yeah, that comment was meant to be more about probability of meeting women or something, but then you responded jokingly and I decided to just play along.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 06-24-06 11:08 PM
As per Ogged's instructions, I copied & pasted the link, et voila.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 06-24-06 11:08 PM
227: Those are white chocolate chip cookies; I think the one closest to me was broken.
Posted by Cryptic Ned | Link to this comment | 06-24-06 11:09 PM
229: My Jewish people have not lived anywhere near the Mediterranean in a long time (if ever).
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 06-24-06 11:10 PM
I basically imagined all the male people here looking like me, except that I imagined Ogged looking sort of short and round, like his name.
So far Teofilo looks like me, and Matt McGrattan doesn't. 1 for 2.
Also, I imagine all the women to look like Rachel Weisz.
Posted by Cryptic Ned | Link to this comment | 06-24-06 11:12 PM
232: Well, your playing along led me to think that you were morbidly obese and had, like, some kind of hideous skin disease or something.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 06-24-06 11:12 PM
Or no eyes.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 06-24-06 11:13 PM
I imagine that I look a bit different than pretty much everyone around here.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 06-24-06 11:14 PM
I imagine that I look a bit different than pretty much everyone around here.
You don't look like Rachel Weisz? My system is falling apart.
Posted by Cryptic Ned | Link to this comment | 06-24-06 11:15 PM
I admit that I don't really have a clear idea of what eb might look like.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 06-24-06 11:16 PM
I'm pretty sure he doesn't look like Rachel Weisz, though.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 06-24-06 11:17 PM
I admit that I don't really have a clear idea of what eb might look like.
Yes, we need more than two letters to go on.
Posted by Cryptic Ned | Link to this comment | 06-24-06 11:17 PM
Hm. So eb, do you have green skin or something?
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 06-24-06 11:17 PM
It's the third eye that people find off-putting, but that's nothing a little punch from the four-fingered second hand on the sixth arm can't take care of.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 06-24-06 11:18 PM
Can't you just wear an eye patch?
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 06-24-06 11:21 PM
I imagine you all as looking like 47-year-old balding men.
(Really, I thought teofilo was one of you old people.)
Posted by L. | Link to this comment | 06-24-06 11:21 PM
On an ankle?
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 06-24-06 11:22 PM
Some folks posted pictures when we did Frappr. Some of them are even of the people who posted them.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06-24-06 11:23 PM
248: Ah. Yeah, and socks would tend to chafe. I see the problem. Ha ha! Geddit? See?
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 06-24-06 11:24 PM
I imagine this no longer quite describes L today.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 06-24-06 11:25 PM
I imagine this no longer quite describes L today.
I still perceive her that way, but Miegs has convinced me.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 06-24-06 11:27 PM
249: So washerdreyer does look like Rachel Weisz, I feel better now.
Also, apparently teofilo, myself, Matt McGrattan and Matt Weiner all have blue eyes.
Posted by Cryptic Ned |