what systems do you employ when evaluating potential dates
Will my wife find out?
It's a simple system, granted, but it's the elegance of it that makes it so effective.
or even a 0 into a 2?
Alcohol and the sweet scent of desperation?
000000000000000000000000000..........................
My method is easy.
The periods represent a kind of flatlining for your "relationship vital signs?"
what systems do you employ when evaluating potential dates
Agglomerative clustering? Random Effects Models? No wait, Hazard Rate and Survival Analysis.
Usually, it's a series of three questions: Is this someone I can talk to? If so, does she seem like a good person? If so, is she cute? If the answer to all three is yes, then it's baby-making time.
"baby-making time" s/b "appropriate to begin cockblocking myself"
9: But funny. You've got to give her the funny.
a mix of attractiveness, chemistry between us, etc play into it, but usually what pushes it over the edge for me is the ability to make me laugh. is that cheesy? the whole seeming like a good person is also important. if i see a guy doing something generous or kind or selfless (without knowing that anyone saw it or knew about it) then i'll totally want to sex him.
Catherine, would you like to come to the childrens' hospital and sing to burn victims with me?
What if he tells you about the stand up comedy routine that follows the singing?
I have only one burning desire
Let me stand next to your fire.
#4 is an ASCII-art numeral 1, rotated ninety degrees, yes?
7 seems roughly right. I didn't used to pay enough attention to the second question; it turns out that one is important.
Is this person not dumb, not prissy, and hot?
Other than that, I've never had a system or any kind of general rules. I wouldn't date anyone* with conservative political views, and I have never dated anyone who was religious.
* If I were, say, hypothetically divorced ...
One could refine this question by asking about methods which lead to bad romantic situations versus methods which lead to good romantic situations. Or maybe I simply mean that I have two fairly distinct approaches with radically different results.
If I were, say, hypothetically divorced
I've tried this, but I find that one's spouse rarely agrees with the hypothesis. Women just aren't natural scientists.
Off topic, but my sister just switched to her summer outfits and she looks noticeably better than she does in her winter outfits (she looks fine in them too, but not AS fine). The bright colors just look good.
My first question is, when it's already gloomy in winter why do fashions try to make it gloomier? Warm clothes can be bright.
Is this a local small town Midwestern thing? She says that if she wore her summer outfits all year round people would talk. Maybe in California she could get away with it, she says.
if i see a guy doing something generous or kind or selfless (without knowing that anyone saw it or knew about it) then i'll totally want to sex him.
There are models of the evolution of altruism that predict its emergence and persistence as a trait for just this fitness-enhancing reason. A key variable is whether it is more costly to invest in the ability to monitor when you're being watched (so that you can expend the effort to pretend to be nice when needed, but not otherwise) vs the cost of just being nice regardless. If you're a faker and your detection abilities are not very good, you may suffer very strong penalties for inconsistent behavior when found out.
She says that if she wore her summer outfits all year round people would talk.
I think it's more that she would freeze. And then people would talk.
It occurs to me I've never dated anyone who wasn't i) working class or ii) lower middle class. I've never dated anyone whose parents have any education beyond high-school, for example.
21: Ah, spring in Minnesota. The ground thaws, the birds return, you start to notice how good your sister looks...
Are you trying to ask me out, ttaM?
Emerson is of course right in #23, because most of the systems mentioned so far will only kick-in after a bunch of homogamy-enhancing rules concerning stuff like height, race, social class, education, etc, have been applied first.
Are you an aristocrat looking for some rough trade, Tim?
21: I'm so the wrong person for fashion advice, but summer clothes do look weird in the winter (aside from the whole 'things that are warm tend to be sold in wintry colors'). But there are bright wintery colors; reds and so forth.
On the main subject of the post, looking back to the days when I was on the market, I'm pretty undiscriminating -- most people make it to 1, for me, before you start considering personalities. At that point, if I enjoy talking to them, that's pretty much all I need. But I never needed to do that much filtering -- I was always so offputting, generally, that if I was fussy I wouldn't ever have gotten laid.
They have to think I'm funny. Anyone I can't crack up, I can't possibly have sex with. This probably reveals some sort of horrendously inflated ego problem.
29: If that's what you want me to be.
Smart, mean people with glasses who think I'm stupid (and who, in fairness, are a lot smarter than I am) but are desperate/slumming. (Those, in case you're wondering, generate bad results.)
Average intelligent people with glasses and lots of insecurities who are glad someone likes them.
I'm not really smart enough to capivate someone who's fancy-pants smart, but I'm smart enough to annoy people who don't, say, like to read very much. This leads inevitably to problems.
Glasses and lots of insecurities? Reads books? Left-wing? More-or-less my own age and level of competence? They should also either be funny themselves or laugh when I make a joke. (Which I do, occasionally. I think I'm hilarious.)
You freeze anyway in Minnesota. No one wears their outdoor clothes inside, and we do heat our houses and offices out here.
I am completely in favor of everyone wearing bright cheerful outfits all year round.
31: This seems a more honest version of the "they have to make me laugh" criterion. The implied symmetry is rarely acknowledged: anyone who doesn't think I am astonishingly witty is obviously an idiot.
"They have to think I'm funny. Anyone I can't crack up, I can't possibly have sex with. This probably reveals some sort of horrendously inflated ego problem."
Efforts at humor by Lizardbreath = her checking out whether she'd sex you.
most people make it to 1, for me
Finally, someone thinks I'm good looking.
Black-box methodology: Of course physical attractiveness factors heavily into my first attraction to someone, but there are so many things that are potentially attractive, and almost no one combines most to all of them. There really aren't any particular dealbreakers either, apart from obvious repeated stupidity.
It just ends up being a lot of "Do I want this person?" and the little fantastically complicated algorithm in my head and other anatomical areas spits out "yes" or "no" depending on all the recent information.
31: Me too. Thanks for the diagnosis.
I haven't found class to be part of the system, except in how it effects the likelihood that I'll meet up with someone in the first place (e.g., I don't hang out much at the yacht club). That said, I found the daughter of Japanese communists more agreeable than the daughter of the California bakery tycoon, partly for reasons relating to class.
37: Busted. Oh, I also think I'm funny generally, but in a possibly romantic situation, if I'm suddenly getting much much funnier, I'm either psyching myself up to make a move or hoping the guy will. This, unfortunately, has led my romantic life to be dominated by men who are queer for Borscht Belt comedians; I have the sense of humor of an elderly Jewish man.
31 is good.
I've always thought that I was only attracted to taller men. My Dad's nearly six-feet, and I sort of hoped that over time my descendants could be taller. Lately, I've noticed that I've liked somewhat shorter guys--though they're all still taller than I am--and that I'm attracted to blondes. I still think that dark hair is more handsome, but I haven't found myself being viscerally attracted to dark-haired guys.
I haven't found class to be part of the system, except in how it effects the likelihood that I'll meet up with someone in the first place
Res ipsa loquitur.
Apparently, my criteria for serious dating are essentially as follows:
1. Is she not blonde?
2. Is she intellectually interesting? (can't be too smart or she wouldnt date me)
3. Will she get along with/survive around my children?
However, I am also a believer in non-serious dating as well. Every date shouldn't be a search for happiness forever.
I am a big believer that one enjoyable dinner is a worthwhile venture. (And the bad dinners make for fabulous stories....)
re: 40
I'm sure in my case it was never a conscious choice. But I do find that I am much more comfortable with people who share my sort of class background, i.e. people from the first generation in the family to go to university.
Partly that's just situational though, since at, say, G/lasgow U/niversity that (educated working class people) defines about 60% of the student population.
41:
hahahahhahahahahahhaaahha Wow. You are funny!
31 is hilarious.
Actually, I do the same thing. Then again, I've only dated one girl that didn't think I was funny. Clearly she was in error.
25: A coworker once (correctly) noted that all the women I date have/are at least three of: biomedical job, distance runner, 4WD vehicle, dog-owner. I insist that these must be proxies for "smart" and "outdoorsy" and "throbbing ovaries". I'm also a little freaked out that he noticed; I hope he doesn't have a spreadsheet.
Hmm, I've got all sorts of Yankee values that I think of as class-based. I like some beautiful, expensive things, but I don't things that I consider flashy. I don't like cheap things, because I like things to last.
I appreciate self-deprecating humor, and I associate this with people who are so sure of their status that they don't have to try to impress too much. Not caring about what the Joneses think, because you are totally comfortable in your knowledge that you are above them is tremendously appealing to me. I'm a real snob. I love people whoa are equally comfortable in very high-end settings and in the slums. I think of that as sort of aristocratic.
43: Well, yes and no; it's only, as ttaM says, partly situational.
Nattar:
I've only spent extended periods of time around two people from Scotland. Both were a fabulous mix of being conversationally interesting and very down-to-earth. One, I shared a dorm room at NYU Law school dorms and he provided me with regular shots of drambuie, so he has a special place in my heart.
From that large sample, I like scottish people.
I thought this was the most interesting part:
we found it says a lot about a person if they find that most people they see are 1's, or if there are no 1's, just lots of zeroes and a couple of 2's.
I wonder if it's possible to change how you are about this. In non-romantic conversational contexts I used to be the 0/2 kind of person, but with much practice and years in the business world became more of the other. I don't know if that's possible in the dating realm.
The main lesson to take away from this thread is that everybody wants to sex LB.
"Sadly, also blonde."
Truth be told, my gf is a blonde who claims to be a redhead. "SEE?? There is some red!!"
Leaving me to wonder where the hell all of you were when I was in college and the Peace Corps?
"I appreciate self-deprecating humor, and I associate this with people who are so sure of their status that they don't have to try to impress too much. Not caring about what the Joneses think, because you are totally comfortable in your knowledge that you are above them is tremendously appealing to me."
People have said this is attractive in me. Sometimes it's termed "confidence", but that also comes from a belief that others present either can't or won't act contrary to my interests. Your explanation is the time the attractiveness of that has made any sense to me.
55:
It is interesting how a person's dating value changes as they age.
A 2 at 22 can become a 0 at 35 and vice versa.
Where were you in the Peace Corps?
re: 51
Both were a fabulous mix of being conversationally interesting and very down-to-earth.
That would be not atypical, in my experience. Or at least, among people I know, there's usually a mix of the educated/informed/interesting with the crude/vernacular/down-to-earth.
'Course I could be completely delusional about that, and everyone I know could be a morose gimp.
58:
That is exactly how I have always viewed Scottish people based on my large sample.
57: Samoa; if you google the archives, I've droned on about it a fair amount.
49: Jonesing for the aristocracy is bourgeois, though, right?
You short-people haters only intensify our misanthropy and create Napoleon complexes. You realize that, don't you?
Right, whereas finding them a combination of intimidating and loathsome is good honest working class. (That's unfair -- I like some people who grew up with money. But I still hold it against them.) (And I have no actual working class cred; bourgeois all the way.)
56: I also like people who went to fancy universities and are conventionally successful but don't believe that this matters very much.
In the intellectual area, I particularly like people who are more concerned about whether something is true than whether they can prove how right they are.
As to the original topic, my system was always "yes," "no," and "maybe," which is a little less nerdy than 0, 1, and 2. The "yes" men in my system obviously correspond to my ideal type: nerdy, educated, self-contained, skinny, dark. The "maybe" is the most interesting category---where I test my own prejudices and usually make mistakes.
61 is right, which is why I despise myself a little for this attitude. It's also the case that my family's history has been one of downward mobility, so I'm not as comfortable about these things as I'd like to be.
I'm not entirely sure what's wrong with being bourgeois.
Ogged will rue the day, Jesus, believe me.
It's odd--I don't actually know the answer to these questions. I know what qualities I like or don't like (dark hair is a plus but not required. Smart is required; funny is required; finding me funny is required. Extra points for funny-but-secretly-cares-deeply. Actually, that may be required too) But I also don't know if whether there's some chemistry X-factor, and I don't know where my threshholds for 1 and 2 were because they weren't ever tested in practice. Nothing (and I mean nothing) in high school or freshman year of college. Then in Sept. of sophmore year I met my husband, who's an 11.
I do sometimes have silly little crushes on famous people or wonder whether I'd have been interested in my male friends if I met them when we were single, but it's all totally speculative.
Oh, I forgot one. My ideal type has good balance.
meaning "not a klutz" or something else?
So, for you, unexpectedly shoving someone to see if they fall down is flirting?
So if LB actually were Woody Allen, JM would be all over that.
68: my husband, who's an 11
You'd do him twice if he fell in your lap?
72: Hey, she's a good dancer -- I'm not, which makes me a sucker for someone who can lead.
No, it's just people who know where their centers are. Then later I find out that they did martial arts or yoga or dance.
64: Well then, hi there.
An ex- who became a roommate once explained her heuristic by saying "Short boys are like fat girls."
I'm not entirely sure what's wrong with being bourgeois.
Depends if you mind being first against the wall when the revolution comes. I wouldn't worry about it in the short term.
Good flight, Nakku?
Woody Allen isn't really borscht belt...
Blood will flow in streets like borscht. ("Excuse me, where have you seen borscht flowing in the streets? Is this like some Russian version of the Big Rock Candy Mountain?" "Shut up, comrade.")
66: Well, not wrong, just funny, in the "I'm so drawn to the aristrocracy because they aren't bourgeois, but my very drawn-ness shows me to be irretrievably bourgeois myself". (And hence less likely to allure in return). I say this with love, though, since I'm all about the expensive bibelots/bijouterie/snobbish use of slightly inaccurate French-type thing myself.
Someone's attitude to religion is also important. No fundamentalists. This is partly for intellectual reasons, but it's also a class prejudice.
I'm okay with atheists so long as they don't dismiss religious people as stupid.
For me, an ideal date is someone who is willing to try new things. ie: taking latin dancing classes or kayaking or mountain biking or weird talks/lectures or unusual food.
It's also the case that my family's history has been one of downward mobility, so I'm not as comfortable about these things as I'd like to be.
Bostoniangirl is Tess of the D'Ubervilles!
I wouldn't say "dismiss". As Jesse Ventura pointed out, weak-mindedness is not necessarily a detriment.
oh yeah, I don't think I could successfully date a Republican. At one point I said this was because I would simply annoy them too much; if they're still gung-ho Bush supporters NOW though, that might be a dealbreaker regardless. Proseltyzing or unbelievers-are-damned-religions would also be disqualifying.
Someone's attitude to religion is also important.
How about this guy, BG? He's short and blonde.
Couldn't date anyone who voted Bush in '04. No way.
I saw a film in Istanbul by an artist who had simply gone about her day with a video camera and later floated text over the heads of every person she passed: "No", "Maybe", "Yes". The best parts were when the maybes would switch over to affirmatives or negatives based on some action like lighting a cigarette.
This whole thread seem to be ignoring the obvious -- if you have a system of classification into 0's and 1's and you want to add another category, the proper place to go is not 2 but 10.
I love people whoa are equally comfortable in very high-end settings and in the slums. I think of that as sort of aristocratic.
'Friend,' said the knight, 'I already am aware of your intelligence and integrity. Would you like to enter my service?'
'I cannot do that,' I replied. 'I was born a gentleman and cannot embrace a condition of servitude. I made myself a beggar because it is a state which does not break this rule.'
When the "Love Conquers All" thing causes someone to marry a Republican, I just add it to my list of reasons why love is a bad thing.
People usually tend to tell that kind of story as though it were a good thing, though: "When I first met X, I found out that he was a Republican, and at first I couldn't stand him.....And now we have six wonderful children blah blah blah."
(I kind of like the idea of rating using a bitmap. So 1=pretty, 10=smart, 100=kind, 1000=funny, and the negation of any of those bits betokens a lack of the relevant quality.)
I can't date any woman who doesn't look into my eyes when she talks to me. I'm more than that enormous bulge in my pants damnit.
Zeroing in on the religion thing is hard. Some of the fundamentalist spinoffs are really wacky and no longer orthodox, for example Garner Ted Armstrong. They have the fundamentalist flavor and are pretty weird and unappealing, but they're no longer fundamentalist.
Like I could see dating 011x (where x is "zero or one"), or 101x, but not 0011 and probably not 1101.
Couldn't date anyone who voted Bush in '04. No way.
A gay guy I used to work with, "You're not a Republican are you? Good, we can be friends then."
I fall hard for big swagger and confidence. Almost the first thing I'll notice about a woman is the way she's interacting with her environment, how she conducts herself socially. Cute is important, but I'm most attracted to women who have cutting humor and steer their conversations.
99: From the story linked from the Wikipedia article:
Because a cold and wet ferret exterminates with a little less enthusiasm than a dry one, Reg used to keep his ferrets in his pants for hours when he hunted in the rain-and it always rained where he hunted.
"The world record was 60 seconds. Sixty seconds! I can stick a ferret up me ass longer than that."
Dammit, I come here, thinking for once this isn't a thread that will immediately be derailed by something unrelated...I see comment 101, and now I must go.
Why has no one mentioned the importance of an exit strategy? When I'm traveling and escape is only as far as the next bus station, all sorts of 0s turn into 1s, and a fair few 1s become 2s. If 2's and my livelihoods depend on our working well together, she doesn't stay a 2 for long.
101 -- I thought the preferred rodent for that application was the gerbil.
(Ferrets are probably not rodents I guess. Still.)
102: You hang out here as much as you do, and threads going offtopic is a negative? I salute your ability to overcome frustration.
105: Ferrets are mustelids. They look kinda rodenty though.
Our next president knows they're weasels.
Dammit, I come here, thinking for once this isn't a thread that will immediately be derailed by something unrelated
Fuck Barry Bonds!
Anyway, I don't differentiate between a 1 and a 2 unless I've heard her talk for a while (preferably to me).
When I'm traveling and escape is only as far as the next bus station, all sorts of 0s turn into 1s, and a fair few 1s become 2s.
Huh. For me it's the opposite: Prolonged contact (shush) over time can move someone from 0 to 2. And it's precisely seeing them in *non-time-limited* situations that facilitates this.
To me a lady ferret legger would probably be a 0, even if almost everyone else in the world was a 1.
Our next president knows they're weasels.
And that you need psychiatric help to overcome your weasel obsession.
109: Barry Bonds rules. He was a HOF player well prior to the period during which he is believed to have used steriods. And he's having a pretty good year this year, too, no?
NB: I hate, hate, hate baseball.
111: True fact. Of course, in my case that may just mean that I wear people down until they start laughing at my jokes.
Nearly everyone I know who had hard and fast rules about who they did and did not find attractive married someone who fit none of those rules. I don't think people care as much as they say they do, once the minimal class/education/social circle standards are met.
One trait that hasn't been mentioned here is good judgment. I require anyone I date to be an excellent judge of character and have a good aesthetic sense. Most people are in the 1 category, but displays of bad judgment can downgrade you to 0 and displays of excellent judgment can upgrade you to a 2. Actually, I have a very difficult time associating with anyone, in a dating relationship or otherwise, who is a bad judge of character.
116: Agree entirely. I was trying to figure out how to say that, and then you said it so succinctly.
The Bonds matter is settled: cheater, cheater, cheater. Move on.
A woman who used steroids to achieve what she otherwise could not would be a 0, irredeemably.
A woman who truly hated baseball would likewise be a 0.
This is going to sound like a joke, but it isn't. I have only dated women who could keep up with me at drinking and drugging. This limited the dating pool sharply, but always worked out for the best in the end.
116: I think they do care, it's just hard to consciously pin down the real dealbreakers.
117: What does that mean? How do you measure judgment of character? Or is this just a clever way of saying, "They should like me?" (That may sound snarky, but it isn't intended to be snarky.)
Like, for example, when my boyfriend and I were trying to get a third person to join our group for a class project, and I was rattling off the list of people in the class who were still available, and at the mention of one person that I didn't know before but had privately decided I didn't like almost immediately, and he, brushing his teeth, at the mention of the guy's name, just gave me an emphatic thumbs down, I swelled with pride.
Yeah, I'm weird.
I agreee with m. leblanc. One great thing about my fiancee is that though she may be friends with boring people, she isn't friends with any arrogant people.
I suppose if I have a heuristic, it's how conversations go: if we tend to have trouble ending them - for example, if one or both of us end up being late to things we need to get to because we keep talking for so long - then I take that as a good sign. It turns out, though, in thinking about things after the fact, that every woman I've ever been attracted to has read a lot, been interested in literature, film, and (to a certain extent) history, and has participated in some kind of performing art like music, dance, or theatre.
when my boyfriend and I were trying to get a third person
Ahem.
123: I guess it really means "likes/trusts the same people I do" and "dislikes/distrusts the same people I do". But, since I consider myself an excellent judge of character (and really, yeah, I am young, but the facts bear this out; I have never really been treated particularly badly by anyone, friend or lover, and I attribute this to my ability to immediately identify good people), I just say "good judge of character".
A ferret-legger on steroids would be a 0 for me. Even Giselle Bundchen or Scarlett Johansson.
Sorry, Scarlett! Sorry, Giselle! The ferret-legging and steroids turn me right off.
122: Then let me phrase. Nearly everything that they thought was a dealbreaker? Wasn't.
I require anyone I date to be an excellent judge of character and have a good aesthetic sense.
Is this not a restatement of "They would fuck me"?
Sorry John, you were a 1 until you spelled my name wrong.
Yeah. I think you're dead right about that -- I'm just guessing that people could look at their actual partners, and figure out what their real dealbreakers were in retrospect.
re: 121
Ixnay on the drugging, but definitely with the boozing.
The girlfriend I think I had the best time with and was most compatible with (except vis a vis the things that made us actually split up) could really hold her drink.
That's why I never understand relationship where one party dislikes the other's friends. It's like, how can you be together if you don't have the same taste in people?
That's why I never understand relationship where one party dislikes the other's friends. It's like, how can you be together if you don't have the same taste in people?
There are legacies, and parts of your significant other that you don't see. That, frankly, you don't want to see. That's what those friends are for.
134: That's true. I mean, I'm not talking about the big things like infidelity, but the guys that swear they'll only date women who are tall, leggy, brunettes who love baseball? Almost guaranteed to end up with a blonde who hates sports.
132: No. There's some overlap, but there are plenty of people who would fuck me and have bad character judgment, as well as people who have excellent character and aesthetic judgment but wouldn't fuck me. I call those latter people "my friends".
Yeah, genuinely liking everyone kind of cheapens it (seriously).
re: 131
My wife is very unlike all but one of my past girlfriends. But she still doesn't violate any of my dealbreakers.
However, I think you are right if the deal-breakers are more appearance oriented though. Almost everyone I know who has expressed a preference for a 'type' has ended up going way outside that type at one point.
the guys that swear they'll only date women who are tall, leggy, brunettes who love baseball? Almost guaranteed to end up with a blonde who hates sports.
Most people have no idea what they're genuinely attracted to, let alone what they need.
Which is the main reason I find a lot of the appearance-based threads ridiculous.
Most people have no idea what they're genuinely attracted to, let alone what they need.
And that's what you're here to address, right, ogged?
An ex recently said that she relished going to museums on dates after we broke up because she could say silly things about art out loud again. It really stung. I'm already convinced that aesthetic preferences make for bad evaluative criteria and I'm thinking now that it might be best to just shut up about them entirely. OT but I had to share.
It's an interesting point about the significant other's friends. It always was a problem that I actively disliked some of the Ex's friends. I don't think it reflected poorly on her, but it was an indication of some kinds of incompatibility between us. Exbeforelast's friends, on the other hand (the female ones, anyway) I almost always wanted to marry. Just an amazing collection of great people.
However, I think you are right if the deal-breakers are more appearance oriented though.
Everything, not just appearance, is negotiable, if the perceived circumstances are strained enough. That's why people end up in disastrous relationships with other significant others that appear to hate them.
An ex recently said that she relished going to museums on dates after we broke up because she could say silly things about art out loud again.
We could never date. I like museums, but my reactions to art are limited to "Ooo, pretty" or to make fun of it. I enjoy making fun of art, but I realize it's not what museums are for.
"there's some overlap, but there are plenty of people who would fuck me and have bad character judgment"
Hold on for a moment m leblanc! You are a woman, correct? How many men wouldn't if you present them with the opportunity? I think that isnt a fair test for women.
But, I will agree with one of your points that a potential date's friends is an excellent baromater of the type of person they are.
My gf has great friends. Smart, interesting, fun, not Republicans, not arrogant. oops I repeated myself.
Yeah, I always assumed I'd end up with someone who I would go out to concerts with all the time, but...I have never once even dated a woman who shares my taste in music. Or movies, even. My fiancee is opposed to plays in general.
I wouldn't date anyone* with conservative political views
I married a Republican ROTC guy who was anti-abortion, and turned him. Bwahahahaha.
But LB, I don't mean to be a prick about it! Like going to a game with a huge fan?
I'm never going on a museum date again.
aesthetic preferences make for bad evaluative criteria
I guess I should be more specific about what I mean. I don't mean that I want a person I date to have the same exact taste as me. Merely that the things they like, while I might not purchase or seek them out myself, are things whose aesthetic value I appreciate, and vice versa for the other person and the things I like.
"We could never date. I like museums, but my reactions to art are limited to "Ooo, pretty" or to make fun of it. I enjoy making fun of art, but I realize it's not what museums are for."
that sounds like my gf and I.
Also, we had to attend a church service. It was very over-the-top holier than thou.
She leaned over to me and said, "When this is over, I need beer and lots of sex to make up for all of this holiness."
Liking their friends is important, as is their liking yours. Liking at least one of their parents helps a lot too.
Unlike Leblanc, I don't care if the people I date are excellent judges of character, though--I am, and therefore won't date anyone who's not worth dating. Q.E.D.
Guys who make fun of my kid? Right out.
Yes to 117 and 124. Having a good b.s. detector is an important component of this, as is having integrity. Actually, "ability to recognize what constitutes an ethical question" is a pretty good heuristic for me for friendships or relationships. Odds are, if they don't recognize why I think it's an ethical issue, we won't mesh as co-workers, much less as friends or lovers.
Huh. I don't like about half of Object's friends, and he doesn't like about half of mine. I've always felt that this was fairly healthy--I don't need to like his friends, and I don't need to spend every waking moment with Object. We socialize separately a lot of the time, but we gossip relentlessly about all friends, liked and un-.
Q is important enough to me that I would not date a vegetarian or vegan. That would be a dealbreaker--I really enjoy cooking dates and don't want to eat couscous for the rest of my life.
157: Women who can't handle the truth about their kids? Right out.
How many men wouldn't if you present them with the opportunity?
Gawd, the notion that men will just fuck anyone they can is so outdated, yo. And wrong. I've been rejected a bunch of times, and I suspect I would be rejected a bunch more.
re: physical types, in a similar discussion years back -- in which I denied having a type -- a female friend of mine claimed that I went for girls with striking eyes and full lips.*
* this has been mentioned before in previous Unfogged 'hawt or nawt' discussions.
Dealbreaker might be putting it too strongly. That better be some phenomenal tofu she makes.
i made a very specific criteria dating list a long time ago inspired by ogged's list, but have since realized that it's incredibly useless and that pretty much being a good, kind person (and having a good sense of humor) are pretty much the only traits i care about. oh, and being a liberal. that said, i still can't imagine dating a vegetarian.
158: I don't like all of my fiancee's friends in the sense that I would want to hang out with them if she wasn't around...you know, some guys talk exclusively about things that I find boring...but I respect them, there aren't any douchebags or wastrels among them.
160: I wouldn't date Jack Nicholson, either.
More important than intelligence, aesthetic judgment, or possible GOP affiliation, I have one sine qua non for relationship-type things: kindness. If a person is fundamentally unkind, as most of us are, I feel guilty having sex with them, like I'm cheating on God. This prob reveals more about my neuroses than it illuminates any general condition, but there you go.
So the message I'm getting here is that, as much as I resist and as much as I deny it, I'll probably end up involved with a steroid-crazed Giselle-Bundchen-type ferret-legger? Perhaps that's what I really want most?
91: eb, what's that from? It's great. I really liked your quotation from The Bostonians too. You beat apostropher on finding stuff from real books, as opposed to the internet.
167: Me either! It's like we were made for each other.
I hope you never used 142 as your opening conversational gambit, Ogged.
My ex was a vegetarian. It really isnt that hard to live/date a vegetarian, unless they expect you to never eat meat.
I think you simply end up doing more planning in the cooking process.
Plus, there are some really good tofu dishes and some great Natural Foods grocery stores.
the notion that men will just fuck anyone they can is so outdated, yo. And wrong
I've recently realized that going all the way back to adolescence, I've always been attractive to some girls/women and there have often been some who weren't shy about it. And that even at my loneliest and most desperate, I was still rejecting them.
173: Why thank you.
171: Only, not.
"men will just fuck anyone they can is so outdated, yo. And wrong"
Yes, it was a generalization. But, it is much less of an indicator for women than for men.
I couldn't date anyone who voted for Bush in '04. A good friend of mine married a Republican. I spent Thanksgiving with her and her in-laws a couple of years ago. His Dad is a thrifty sort of Republican who is aghast at Republican deficit spending. His Mom's a liberal. My friend's husband would still vote for Republican representatives (which is totally meaningless, because they live in a very liberal town), but he can't stand Bush largely on civil liberties grounds. He seems fine. A bush '04 voter? Not so much.
Apparently LeBlanc and I should be dating each other.
I wonder how many positive criteria are actually negative criteria dressed up funny; e.g. when someone says they like to day intelligent people they actually mean they wouldn't date someone they judged to be of low intelligence. Maybe it's just a threshold.
Similarly, I think a lot of people are unrealistic about their actual issues. Dating people who are conventionally attractive because other people find them desireable, not because you particularly do. Dating smart/wealthy/connected/whatever people because your friends respect it, but later reallizing they really annoy you. I suspect (hope?) this sort of thing is much more prevalent when you are young.
I either had no 1's or no 2's. My main qualifier for getting involved with someone has usually been them being interested in me -- which could easily be interpreted as 'fell into my lap.' But then I take those relationships very seriously and have stayed in them for years.
Isn't there a qualifier for when this rating is taking place? I mean in college I had much looser standards (read none) for hook ups, figuring the admissions department had done most of the work for me.
Now, you demand SAT scores and a list of high school extracurriculars from women you meet in bars.
TLL, you Middlebury grads always find a way to drop it into conversation.
Then there are the inverted standards. I've known smart people who think that they need a partner who shares their intelligence but are never happy, because they are actually quite arrogant and can't stand being with someone who's as smart as they are.
In other words, you all should be dating Republicans. And ogged should date a fat chick.
170: I find things from real books on the internet. The quotation is from this (page), a book I seem to quote or mention a lot.
This, unfortunately, has led my romantic life to be dominated by men who are queer for Borscht Belt comedians; I have the sense of humor of an elderly Jewish man.
You and I would get along just fine, I think.
182: Maybe that's why so many people here are marrying foreigners. 'admissions department' s/b 'INS'
180: I think it can go either way. My attractiveness requirement is much more of a "threshold" matter; once you're over a certain hurdle, it's all "fuckable" to me. But my desire to date someone who's smart is not about status, and not about a distaste for people with low intelligence. It really, geniunely, turns me on, it's a really important component of my relationship-happiness to be with a person who can challenge me intellectually, etc.
I've been with people who were actually very smart but not particularly intellectually curious or interesting, and it didn't do it for me.
When my dad dropped me off at college, this was his advice:
"Heebie, you'll be getting into serious relationships and looking at potential life partners. When you do, be sure to meet their parents. Sometimes bad traits skip a generation."
I thought that was a really funny Life Lesson Moment and have teased him mercilessly about it ever since.
190: sure, i'm not saying everyone or every criteria is like that. It just seems I've known a lot of people who weren't really in touch with what actually did it for them.
Of course, my brother gave me advice like:
"Don't sit in a boy's lap, because he could have sex with you."
Me: Really? What about my pants?
Him: You'd be wearing a skirt.
Me: Really? What about underpants?
Him: If you weren't wearing underpants.
Me: Ohhhhhhhhh.
I was left with the impression that you could be slipped a penis, like a roofie, and not find out about it until days later.
Yeah, genuinely liking everyone kind of cheapens it (seriously).
The biggest thing I took from reading The Man Without Content is the maxim that taste is compounded of a thousand distastes, but I can't remember who came up with it.
I should qualify 192 --- I don't mean that people tend to go against their own internal `criteria'. Just that if you asked them what they were, they'd often be off base.
Like 'Smasher, confidence works really well for me. Met my husband at work where he would spend his days charming the hell out of everyone. I've never found myself trying to coax some shy boy out of his shell, I'm the one attempting to to throw myself at the mouthiest boy in the room. Intelligence and humour, the bitchier the better. (Clearly why I like this place so much.)
These days I confine myself to purely physical crushes. Apart from this fat guy on the Nationwide Building Society adverts because he's so wittily rude to the customers. And Will Self because he's just too clever.
we found it says a lot about a person if they find that most people they see are 1's, or if there are no 1's, just lots of zeroes and a couple of 2's.
Yep, have found that too, e.g. when idly playing "Shag or Die" with friends. One friend answers "shag" to pretty much everyone, on the grounds that obviously death would than fucking pretty much anyone except your father-in-law (or Bush); one answers "die" all the time because she finds even the thought of being unfaithful appalling.
I'm the one attempting to to throw myself at the mouthiest boy in the room
Heh. That sounds familiar.
This unutterably stupid article seems apropos.
197: we do that as "cliff, marry, screw." Marry can include sex but can also be a sexless marriage of convenience, as appropriate.
Shag or Die
Man, I don't know that there is any person on the planet for whom I would answer "Die." But then, maybe I just like living more than most people.
Where are all you people who like the glasses-having nerds when I need you?
199 `interfacial marriage' ???
urk.
We used to play, "Which one would you rather give oral sex to, and you HAVE to pick one?"
119: I'd totally do a woman who took a pill that allowed her to break all existing records for smoking hotness. So would you, I bet. This is just one reason why Bonds rules.
Also, everyone seems to be confusing the things that make you initially want to do someone with the things that make you glad to settle into a relationship with them. The things that turn you on when you first see someone stay nice all through the relationship, but the stuff you tune into later is often not evident at first.
"cutegory" is worse than "interfacial" I think. Hard to say.
208: there's a lot to hate, there.
208: there's a lot to hate, there.
206: That was my roommate's criteria for figuring out if he was really attracted to someone or not. If he could imagine going down on her, she was hot.
kindness
is something I've never quite grokked that I learned early on was important to women I knew. It always seemed to be this very breathy abstract concept that I found irritating to have described to me by female friends, who mostly just used it to describe guys they liked anyway.
It's more clear now-- kind mostly just comes down to "not an asshole but not a pushover, and likes animals." When I was twenty I thought I had the first one licked (but didn't), the second one not so much, and the third I was willing to lie about. At thirty I still think I have the first one licked, the second one mostly licked, and I've lied so long and so convincingly about the third one (always been anti-dog and pro-cat) that I don't even know what's true anymore. It is nice to get through the "he doesn't like dogs enough" sociopath filter without a hitch, though.
206: How does the criteria for that game that differ from that for 'which one would you rather screw'? Genuinely curious.
I figured "bacne" was probably not a typo. But it may not be the neolgism the others are; I've never seen it before
201 - Three options is too confusing.
Actually, we mutated the death part into "severe pain and no internet connection" as death was obviously over the top. The no-unfaithfulness friend (who is also a Christian and doesn't fear death as much as some I guess) admitted that would have her shagging all and sundry, which amused us no end.
But yeah, better to offer a choice. I like to play that when I'm watching films .... Butch or Sundance was a tricky one.
Liking animals is pretty important, actually. Not liking animals suggests selfishness.
If he could imagine going down on her, she was hot.
This is supposed to narrow the field? I believe I may have a better imagination than your roommate.
The system is triage:
The dying (ugly/jerky) - to the morgue
The walking (out of my league) - let them wait
The saveable (acceptable + I have a chance) - let the doctor get to work!
Bacne is a well-established word, I thought.
Bacne is a well-established word
There you go.
212: Now, I'm going to sound all sappy here, but 'kindness' is more than neither a pushover or an asshole. Someone who's actively kind notices when other people need help, or what they need to make them feel better, and does it -- it doesn't have to be big, effortful stuff, it's more about the attention to other people's needs.
217: oddly (at least, I thought so) enough I've had three seperate unrelated converstations with women who claimed a hierarchy of standards like this (ncreasing difficulty): would give oral sex to, would have sex with, would accept oral sex from.
213: It's way more vulnerable, I think. Sometimes someone's such an asshole that you'd screw them but you wouldn't want to go down on them. It's so graphic, too - it's harder to cop out and answer the easier question "who's cuter?"
For example:
GWB or Cheney?
Michele Malkin or Ann Althouse?
You have to really get in the cracks with your answer.
215: Butch or Sundance is hard -- I was about to say the decision was obvious (mostly I'd take Newman over Redford whenever) but in that movie it's tricky. I think the setting flatters Redford more than Newman.
212 is totally wrong, especially for the non "treating people like utter shit" definition of asshole. For example, I think all of the dudes who post on this blog are mildly assholish, but also, I suspect, rather kind.
Back to baseball, I just realized I have a man-crush on Walter Johnson. The Big Train has kind eyes.
would give oral sex to, would have sex with, would accept oral sex from.
I've seen the same thing. It's a trust issue, I think.
re 222: i was misremembering, one reversed the order of the first two.
225: Yeah. 'Asshole' is a complicated word, but I can think of some assholes I'm very fond of, and who are kind.
227: I think I get the ordering it was the repetition I though odd. Maybe I just end up in a lot of discussions about sex.
224 - my thoughts exactly!
Liking (or not) liking animals has occurred to me to be important. Being prepared to put yourself out for your friends is definitely important, and generosity is too - being tightfisted would be a dealbreaker.
215: it wasn't three options for a given person--you name three people, and you have to marry one, have sex with another, and throw the third over a cliff. I think roommate/sex/cliff actually works better, and for that matter wanted to downgrade "cliff" so I didn't have to murder someone not to have sex with them, but there you are.
"Kindness" != liking dogs.
Being prepared to put yourself out for your friends is definitely important.
I like that criteria, but very very few people I know really meet it. I find that as people get into their 30s they get more and more selfish that way [I'm thinking specifically of friends who don't have kids so who don't really have an excuse].
Blah, I'm not concentrating today!
"Liking (or not) liking animals has ***NEVER*** occurred to me to be important. "
"I agreee with m. leblanc. One great thing about my fiancee is that though she may be friends with boring people, she isn't friends with any arrogant people."
This is bullshit: arrogant people are lots of fun, especially if you bait them into being 2x arrogant, and then laugh at them with the rest of your friends later behind their back.
"Liking (or not) liking animals has ***NEVER*** occurred to me to be important. "
Yeah, I think this is an American thing.
"Kindness" != liking dogs.
I said animals, not dogs. But actively hating even big slobbery dogs is suspect.
Arrogant can be OK* if tempered with a bit of self-awareness and wit. Arrogant and asshole are sets that intersect but there are non-asshole arrogant people.
* I would say that, since I've occasionally been accused of it...
A more serious thought: the reason we end up with people who aren't like what our superficial lists said they should be like is that when you're dating just for fun, liking concerts and art and the same sorts of movies is important (otherwise, not as much fun), and when you're ending up committed, those all come in second to "is willing to put up with my shit."
203: If I remember rightly from my college years, the w-lfs-n-beta I knew was busy chasing the beautiful punk-rock chick who was adorably tiny and vulnerable...there's a basic misunderstanding here, I think: the people who like glasses-wearing, nerdy guys are not themselves usually smoking-hot, delicately-built, brilliant-yet-cutely-feisty and petitely feminine. Thus, glasses-wearing nerdy guys usually aren't interested. This is sad, but it seems to be natural law.
asilon--I didn't think that you were married. Did you marry before you met your current partner?
236: You're saying foreigners are selfish? Racist.
re: 242
Nah, we just think their proper uses are the testing of our expensive hair products and perfumes, and the manufacture of offal-related foodstuffs.
There are perfectly good reasons to dislike being around animals. I don't know how good a proxy it really is, having known both misanthropic pet-lovers and kind people who don't like animals particularly (which is different from active dislike, I guess).
I said animals, not dogs. But actively hating even big slobbery dogs is suspect.
I don't think liking animals is important, but being an asshole with animals can be. Keeping a newfie in a city apartment, or a cat that's never allowed outside, for instance, suggests some fairly major issues in the kindness/judgment categories.
I like animals, but the degree of slavish devotion that a lot of New Yorkers lavish on their dogs has begun to be off-putting to me.
183- guilty. Not so much whore as adventurous opportunist. My friends had a phrase- "Into a nearby bottle, and out comes LibidoMan!"
185. Middlebury- Phfft- As If!
I know misanthropic pet lovers too. IME, they're usually people with trust issues whose pets are proxies for love and companionship, both important things. I'd rather know someone who sublimates those desires into pet-ownership than someone who dislikes animals--the disliking animals thing honestly seems to me to connote some kind of selfishness/impatience/lack of empathy.
And yeah, I realize that animals in America play much the same role that children play in the rest of the world. Same thing applies.
240, 244: only some truth—I don't think I ever chased anyone. I certainly pined over a beautiful punk rock chick was adorably tiny (but certainly not vulnerable, she's currently sailing a boat for Outward Bound).
248: Does this mean talking about their dogs too much, spending a ton of cash on the dog, what? I'm curious.
247: Agreed about the indoor cats, at least in places where it's safe to let them out. Indoor cats in Manhattan make sense.
49: I appreciate self-deprecating humor, and I associate this with people who are so sure of their status that they don't have to try to impress too much.
Not to hark back too much, but is this really the case? I'm nothing if not self-deprecating, and I can assure you, it does not come for an inner core of confidence. (I mean, Woody Allen, right?)
And this no-pursuing was carried out in the face of no visible expressions of interest from others, whom I would certainly have considered.
240: I'm petite and delicately built (well--except for the big chest). This explains all of my problems with dating.
Shivbunny doesn't like dogs as housepets, because he thinks of dogs as dirty animals that wreck your house. This is a shame because I like dogs, and he says I can have one if I keep it outside but that to me seems silly.
in places where it's safe to let them out
My cats stay indoors because I suspect they might be traumatized by all the flattened cats on the roads.
Indoor cats in Manhattan make sense.
See, to me, if you actually like cats then the thing to do in Manhattan is not to keep one.
251: A run-on sentence! Heebie must've really gotten under Ben's skin.
Why would apo's cats respond to his suspicions?
Could not agree more with #259.
Are we breaking the site today? It seems awfully wonky. I wanted to post a comment to the thread about gay chicken, because I had a story that I wanted to relate about men not observing women's boundaries, but I didn't want to overtax the server.
Heebie? You mean Frowner, m'dear.
259: Nah. In a tiny studio, probably not, but cats in apartments can work, especially if you play with the cat a lot and let it run around in the hall occasionally.
But I really am in favor of indoor/outdoor cats, and my primary criteria in choosing places to live has always been "low traffic street."
Speaking of liking animals, one or more animals, possibly squirrels, have found their way into the walls of this house. The noise they make is annoying, but I'm more worried that it or they will be able to chew through to my room, which has various small, but larger than necessary holes in it where the wiring comes in.
260, 264: Bet she left that for you on purpose.
264: That's the second time I've done that in the last few days. I suck.
This.
We have this big stray tomcat who likes to hang out in our yard. He never lets anybody get within five feet of him, but he'll plop down just out of reach if you're in the yard and seems to enjoy the (distant) company.
My cat seems to be okay in my apartment. She'd probably be happier with a backyard, but she doesn't seem too bored.
See, to me, if you actually like cats then the thing to do in Manhattan is not to keep one.
Agreed. Actually, I like animals too much to have a pet. I always feel bad for them.
Liking animals != has/wants to have pets, I'd like to note. I have an incredible amount of empathy for animals, but I neither have nor want a pet. Is that weird?
Animal shelters are completely militant about not letting cats outside. In a lot of the country they're either vulnerable to cars or to predators (I would laugh off the latter if not for the in laws cats who was eaten by coyotes).
Cat trees are good, but the indoor cat propaganda really annoys me, I have to admit.
252.--All of the above, really. People buy giant animals that live in small apartment. People spend too much on purebreds and pet therapy and dogwalkers and doggie dayspas. People wander around with their dogs on leash as status items. And people talk about their dogs all the time---their dogs having become lifestyle, that lifestyle's many virtues and superiorities are listed and extolled. And I come from a dog-owning family, in which a day that the dog doesn't get an off-leash hike in genuine park wilderness is a day of intolerable pet-cruelty.
271: No, that's cool. I'm kind of that way about dogs.
241 - BG, yes, I'm married, I just usually say partner instead of husband. I say it for other couples - it's easier than trying to remember who's married and who's not - so I generally say it for us too.
All this talk of animals is putting me off you all ...
In a lot of the country they're either vulnerable to cars or to predators
And are themselves very dangerous predators in the overpopulated aggragate, with major impacts on native birds.
251: Oh, how I remember hearing about Wonderful Girl...Wonderful Girl was beautiful (and tiny--and although I was fit and trim enough at the time, I have a giant skeleton and a huge head and can never be tiny in this life). Wonderful Girl was always saying adorable, feisty things and cutely Standing Up To The Man. Wonderful Girl was in a band. Wonderful Girl liked to go to protests and fight the cops while being all masked up. (Unlike me...I hate fighting the cops, I hate getting arrested, and I usually try to avoid those situations). Wonderful Girl wore cute punk rock clothes instead of the worky clothes I had to wear. Wonderful Girl was adorably insouciant about Difficult Books. (I particularly resented this because I had been browbeaten quite a lot about various Great Books and Important Authors). Wonderful Girl didn't seem constrained by the ordinary parts of life; she lived in a neat house with neat roommates. Wonderful Girl was also adorably pensive and sad, sometimes...of course, since she was petitely beautiful, it was cute when she looked pensive. (Old Stone-Bones here just looks like a cross between a cow in mourning and a chalk cliff)
Of course, I was an idiot back then myself.
I did say as many nice things about Wonderful Girl as I could, so as not to reveal that I was sick with jealousy.
271: Not weird at all. Major kudos.
274: Exactly. I don't come from a dog-owning family, I come from a family that's never lived anywhere suitable to keep a dog.
251: Oh, how I remember hearing about Wonderful Girl...Wonderful Girl was beautiful (and tiny--and although I was fit and trim enough at the time, I have a giant skeleton and a huge head and can never be tiny in this life). Wonderful Girl was always saying adorable, feisty things and cutely Standing Up To The Man. Wonderful Girl was in a band. Wonderful Girl liked to go to protests and fight the cops while being all masked up. (Unlike me...I hate fighting the cops, I hate getting arrested, and I usually try to avoid those situations). Wonderful Girl wore cute punk rock clothes instead of the worky clothes I had to wear. Wonderful Girl was adorably insouciant about Difficult Books. (I particularly resented this because I had been browbeaten quite a lot about various Great Books and Important Authors). Wonderful Girl didn't seem constrained by the ordinary parts of life; she lived in a neat house with neat roommates. Wonderful Girl was also adorably pensive and sad, sometimes...of course, since she was petitely beautiful, it was cute when she looked pensive. (Old Stone-Bones here just looks like a cross between a cow in mourning and a chalk cliff)
Of course, I was an idiot back then myself.
I did say as many nice things about Wonderful Girl as I could, so as not to reveal that I was sick with jealousy.
I remember so well, I guess, that I was moved to post twice. Seriously, it was taking so long that I thought I hadn't actually hit "post". Wonderful Girl would never do that.
Very little of that is accurate, actually, but I have the vaguest vague sense that how accurate your memories of your situation are to mine aren't of the first importance here.
I've never found myself trying to coax some shy boy out of his shell
I wouldn't say I concsiously think of this as a heuristic, but the odds of me being attracted to someone who does not find herself doing this are probably pretty low. Then again, I find myself in sort of an odd situation where people meeting me for the first time might have no problem thinking that I'm shy, but more than once people I've become friends with have denied outright that I am.
A friend from the U.S. mentioned to me recently her favourite bit of advice - "Marry someone who doesn't bug you."
277: Yeah, yeah. Blaming other predators for the damages people do to wildlife populations is pretty much an American tradition.
... or a cat that's never allowed outside, for instance, suggests some fairly major issues in the kindness/judgment categories.
What? Indoor-only cats live much better lives. They don't get fleas or parasites, they don't get in fights with or catch diseases from other animals, and they don't get hit by cars.
I'm a serious cat-lover, and I think allowing a cat outside shows questionable judgment.
(It's one thing if you adopt a cat that's used to going outdoors. If it's used to it, it will always want it. But if you're raising a cat from a kitten, and never allow it outside, the cat will never develop that desire, and will live a much happier and healthier life.)
"Marry someone who doesn't bug you."
I've told a friend who was considering leaving her husband that you can make a marriage work even if you don't love somebody, but there is no way in hell to make it work when you don't *like* the person, no matter how much you love them ("but I love him!" being her reason for not having left her abusive, drug-addicted fella). I stand by this advice. Liking a person is immensely more important than loving them, though you'd obviously prefer having both.
Cats that would trade their liberty for a little temporary security deserve neither...
actually, if I lived in some places I'd probably let a cat out, but I see no problem w/ having one in an apartment, while I'd never have a big dog in the city even if I liked dogs.
285: Wait, what? I thought cats killing songbirds was a well-established area of concern. Didn't the Sierra Club or the Nature Conservancy or some big group have a to-do amongst their membership over just this issue?
Actually, it was probably the Audubon Society.
282: Well, yes...I wasn't writing it about you. I was writing it because I wouldn't have been at all surprised had the beautiful, adorably tiny punk rock chick of my college years also been able to sail boats. It was more a rueful reflection on how much time I wasted on crushes and being sick with jealousy than anything else.
286 is dead right. Then again, I have four cats and a moderately-sized apartment. They're never bored, however, as they have each other to chase around/stalk/pounce upon/stalk/sleep with/stalk/&c.
But if you're raising a cat from a kitten, and never allow it outside, the cat will never develop that desire, and will live a much happier and healthier life.
Like most Americans are so much happier because they don't have passports. My sister in law had a cat that was raised indoors from a kitten and looked after as well as you can imagine, but given the slightest opportunity he *always* escaped (2 or 3 times a year on average, and it isn't like they weren't careful). This is a myth that urban cat owners tell themselves to make themselves feel better.
283 - Of course, the seemingly-confident men I like nearly all turn out to be completely fucked-up underneath. The husband's schmoozing, super-knowledgeable, flirt-with-everyone-to-make-them-do-what-I-want work persona is in startling contrast with his home persona, which never wants to meet anyone he doesn't know and hates going into shops in case people look at him. Work colleagues find it hard to believe he's shy at other times. Fortunate for me I met him at work, I guess!
"University of Wisconsin ornithologist, Dr. Santley Temple estimates that 20-150 million songbirds are killed each year by rural cats in Wisconsin alone."
289: It is. I'm just cranky about the whole "you should keep your cats inside so they don't get fleas and kill birds." Cats are hunters (though if not taught, they're pretty incompetent at it). But the real problem with wildlife populations is urban sprawl and loss of habitat. IMHO.
Which is to say, lalalalalalalaI'mnotlistening, basically.
Like most Americans are so much happier because they don't have passports.
Bullshit, OFE. Cats are not people.
You probably don't believe in spaying/neutering either.
Based on my family's experiences, cats are much likelier to get hit by cars or coyotes than we are to be killed by angry foreigners. (Of course, based on my family's experiences, indoor cats are also not safe).
291 is correct. The advantage of having multiple indoor cats is then you get to watch them fight each other.
My cats cannot leave my apartment, but they can go on my deck, and that seems to suit them fine. They certainly show no desire to leave.
Put a bell on your cat's collar. The only living thing on god's green earth stupid enough to be caught by a belled cat is an urban pigeon, and they really are vermin. NB. this actually works.
It's such an American thing though zadfrack - most people in Britain probably wouldn't even believe that Americans keep their cats indoors. They seem to me to be so obviously outdoor hunter/climber types, that they should just be allowed to do that.
291 is correct. The advantage of having multiple indoor cats is then you get to watch them fight each other.
In the South we call it rasslin', as it's the only form of fighting which consists wholly of falling to the ground in a spat of mutual head-kicking.
292: I wouldn't go that far. My last cat, prior to Luna, was allowed outside but never did much beyond lie on the porch. Oh, and she did occasionally bring in cockroaches, which was all she ever caught. The other cats ranged further and caught rats.
Luna I got while living in a high-rise apartment and I'd occasionally take her out on a leash to the park. She seemed fine in the high-rise, but as soon as I moved to a first-floor duplex, she made it Very Clear that she Needed Out Now. I gave up that (affordable, lovely, huge) place b/c it was on a busy street and have lived in cat-safe places ever since.
And yeah, she catches the occasional bird. She's done a lot more damage to the rat population, though, to be honest.
You probably don't believe in spaying/neutering either.
See, this is what annoys me about the indoor-pet people.
299: Not true. I tried that when I got tired of Luna bringing in half-dead rats at 3 am. The only difference was that now the fighting under the bed was accompanied by a jingling noise.
296. Crap. Did you read the rest of my comment? Of course cats aren't human, and of course they should be neutered. But they have evolved with a natural territorial requirement of about 2 square miles. A suburban cat will probably cover about half that most nights if left to itself - not ideal, but better than nothing. If you want a house pet, buy a fucking tropical fish tank.
I've seen a cat catch a bird at my birdfeeder, and others in the family saw a different bird killed. Cats are hunters all right, which is why I've thought of getting a pellet gun to shoot a few with.
301: The head grab with double back leg kick is my favorite move.
There is an enormous culture gap between (much of the) US and the UK on the issue of whether cats should be allowed outside.
It's awesome that a dating standards thread has devolved into the indoor/outdoor cat wars.
307: I'm partial to the endless tilted-head circling myself which precedes it, myself. But yes, the mutal double back leg kick's a real benefit of multiple cat households.
See, this is what annoys me about the indoor-pet people.
Be annoyed if you want, but don't tell me that my cats aren't perfectly happy - and certainly healthier - living inside.
Your cat is something like 1800 miles away, B. But if it shows up under my bird feeder, get a new cat.
My sister in law had a cat that was raised indoors from a kitten and looked after as well as you can imagine, but given the slightest opportunity he *always* escaped (2 or 3 times a year on average, and it isn't like they weren't careful).
Same here. We never let our cat outside from adoption until age 2 or so, and he managed to escape a few times, particularly through the garage. He didn't try to run away. He constantly wants to go outside, then goes outside and doesn't wander outside our yard. Why prevent him from doing this?
If you want a house pet, buy a fucking tropical fish tank.
This is the first time I've said this on Unfogged, but FUCK YOU, OFE.
The gap between cat and dog factions in England had implications for the Reformation.
Seriously, I leave my front door open and the cats don't leave. Presumably that means they don't want to.
Perhaps my cats have learned to abrogate their natural territorial requirements to gain the comfort and convenience of modern urban living? I know I have.
Are you this rude and angry whenever you meet one of the hundred million or so people who lets their cat outside, zadfrack? Are you drunk?
I suspect that Zadfrack and I would choose to date very different people.
Tropical fish don't have "natural range" of a small bowl. I don't know where you got that statistic & I'm not sure what it even means in the context of a domesticated animal. (All a google search turned up what stuff on the natural range of bobcats, which apparently ranges from 1.5-2 square miles in eastern forests to 20+ in more open areas out west.)
I'll bring it: Your cats aren't certainly healthier living inside. Of course I have no idea what your cats are like, but I do know that cats need exercise, and while your particular specimens certainly might get enough, I have known many people with indoor cats that are batty. They tend to be destructive, full of energy, shredding things, knocking stuff off tables, rasslin' all night, what have you.
I had goldfish for awhile. Most unsatisfying, frankly.
323: Well how'd you prepare them?
319: You'll note that in the italicized bit I quoted that OFE is the one who escalated the rhetoric to profanity.
My sister in law had a cat that was raised indoors from a kitten and looked after as well as you can imagine, but given the slightest opportunity he *always* escaped (2 or 3 times a year on average, and it isn't like they weren't careful).
I bet that this kind of cat is much more endangered by traffic than a cat that's allowed outside.
Goldfish are tiny carp, and cats like them.
I don't know where you got that statistic
From a small animal vet, offering advice to the owner on the care and maintenance of felis cattus domesticus. I think this conversation has probably reached its natural limit.
Why did I have the bowl, Bart? Why did I have the bowl?
New mouseover text! Unfogged: Vociferous expression of petty opinions.
325: No, in 296 you said "Bullshit". The millions of middle-americans watching this debate have you squarely pegged as the "guy who started it" based on their shock at the use of profanity.
I prepared them for an early death by naming them both after Catholic martyrs.
I certainly wouldn't own a cat that wore heels or dangly earrings.
So you grilled Lawrence, what about the other one?
I think this conversation has probably reached its natural limit.
Neighbor, please. Not until somebody mentions Hitler.
okay, I've been told the opposite by vets. I tend to think: safer inside, a bit happier outside, either is preferable to some cage in a shelter, don't think anyone who does either is abusing their pets.
My extended family has had cats: (1) fall out the window of a 20th floor apartment (no injuries); (2) run away; (3) run away; (4) get hit by a car and lose a leg; (5) have another car finish the job; (6) drown in a toilet; (7) get hit by a car; (8) get hit by a car; (9) get eaten by coyotes; (9) poision itself by drinking drano; (10) run away. There were also some deaths from old age or feline leukemia in there, nonetheless I am in no position to judge, and I think indoor-cat people and outdoor cat people alike should come together in the spirit of comity agree that they're all better than THAT
335: Interesting way around a couple prohibitions, there.
335: this cat should be kept indoors in a cell in the Hague.
Everyone knows taht dogs are better anyway. Now will someone get to work on breeding miniature labrador retrievers?
American vets tell you to keep your cat inside (by and large, maybe not rural vets). UK vets say the opposite. It's not just popular opinion that varies strikingly across the Atlantic, but the expert opinions that feed those popular opinions.
What about Hitler cats?
Both Teresa di Avila and François-Xavier went directly to God through the sewage pipes.
When I got my cats they were covered in fleas and living in a shit-filled house with like seventy other starving cats. So maybe they're less worried about exploring and more worried about food and safety. But, you know, who knows.
The pet thing is only significant to me on the extreme ends. Somebody who's quick to tell me how much he hates cats/dogs is just a wanker: you don't like 'em, don't have one, but why a human being would make hating some variety of animal a big part of his identity escapes me. On the other hand, people who treat their pets like people (ahem, NY dog owners) are incredibly annoying. I wouldn't get a dog for myself as a pet, but if it came as a package deal with a person I liked, no sweat.
I don't understand what all this business is about indoor cats, though (B, what "propaganda?"). Whether they're indoors or outdoors, they're not in the jungle, they're in a man-made environment. Fine, cats like a big territory, but if what they have to work with is my apartment, well, they can suck it up and claw the sofa if it makes them feel better. People have pets for their own benefit, not the pets'.
Teresa di Avila
Caramel goldfish. Sounds yummy.
336: Your family should party with alameida's family.
I think indoor-cat people and outdoor cat people alike should come together in the spirit of comity agree that they're all better than
people who don't walk their dogs.
Just to diversify the two-kinds-of-people awkwardness in the thread, I get glum (or pissy, depending on my mood) whenever people say things about not trusting people who don't like dogs. How can that be an untrustworthy quality? It seems to arise from ascribing some weird semi-mythical qualities to doggishness and expecting the world to agree.
I like a nice quiet smooth dog, I suppose, and dogs at a distance and in fiction, but man, there are some viscerally displeasing qualities that many dogs share. Plus they're so much trouble, so needy, so... doggy.
Fucking hyper-active Dalmatians... those dogs I dislike.
I don't like the fact that my hands smell after petting a dog. I also don't like being licked.
I love dogs, but they're more work than I'm willing to put into a pet. Specifically, they don't shit in a box and then bury it. I'm just make sure I have friends with dogs. That said, there are specific breeds that I just don't trust at all (coughCHOWcough).
Yes, the hand-smell is gross.
they have evolved with a natural territorial requirement of about 2 square miles
I think the problem here is the word "requirement"
I also don't like being licked. By dogs.
I also don't like being licked.
I could convince you otherwise, HG.
346: No doubt, no doubt. I had a roommate once who had a year old Weimaraner he never walked. Talk about a hellish situation for everybody involved.
336: That's impressive.
Since Bush's reelection, my lab has nearly died or suffered major injury from cars (x2), dehydration, impaling, falling off a cliff (x2), drowning, being bitten by a snake, heat stroke.
The only actual injury she's sustained was something like a sprained ankle, after jumping off a 12 foot high bridge over a dry creek.
Clearly I don't need a kid.
And I don't like wet slurpy breathing. Dogs or otherwise.
I grew up with cats (one at a time -- the first from when I was 2 to 16, and the second after the first died. The first was the bestest cat ever, and the second was an evil psycho.) who lived indoors in a small city apartment ten months a year, and then lived in and outside in a small town when we went there for summer vacation. They really didn't seem any less happy in the winters than in the summers.
I understand that the American vet position is that it's abusive to let your cat outside at all, and it appears that the UK position is the reverse, that it's abusive not to let your cat outside daily. From the cats I've lived with, I'd say they're clearly safer indoors -- vet bills were all due to outdoor injuries -- but they like it enough to make the additional risk worth it. But they don't seem unhappy or unhealthy living solely indoors at all.
That cat list does involve multiple households over about three decades.
On the other hand, I forgot to mention the famous cat who was shot by the NYPD.
363: You call the fire department when they get stuck in trees, not the cops. Remember that next time.
363: Well, it looked like he was reaching for something. A coroner's investigation revealed that the cat was just going to lick its privates.
I think dogs do have a semi-mystical quality. They're by far the oldest domesticated animal, and the only animal that all groups of humans on the planet have had. It's reasonable to believe that the human race would not have been able to prosper without dogs.
I wasn't a dog person growing up, though.
366: The dog thing is culture-specific, though. Some societies are horrifically cruel to dogs.
It's reasonable to believe that the human race would not have been able to prosper without dogs.
Well, now it's time to pull up the ladder behind us, Clarence Thomas-style. Dogs seem pretty useless to me.
Oh, sure, guys. I post this on my blog and it doesn't even get one measly comment. I come back from teaching, and look at you all.
ZEROES FOR EVERYONE.
dogs do have a semi-mystical quality
I'm not really a dog person, although we have a dog, and I do sympathize with people who aren't happy with the doggy smell or getting licked or whatever. I do judge people a little for being unable to cope with an excited dog -- the sort of person who makes it worse by skittering around being excited themselves. Calming down makes pretty much any dog calm down, and if you don't have the sense or self-control to calm yourself down, I do think a little less of you. (I make exceptions for people with real life phobias or little kids.)
More than anything else, this thread is making me realize that I'm not having nearly enough sex. Or at least it was up until that last 100 comments or so, when you started talking about cats and dogs.
I'd say I've an even distribution of 0s, 1s, and 2s. Although the 2s in theory tend to be 1s in practice, because except in rare instances I don't often engage in active pursuit.
Alcohol, of course, changes everything. I'd say at least 10% of so of the 0s convert to 1s (or better) with each additional beer I drink. By 8 beers or so the bucket of residual 0s is very slim indeed.
Also, am I crazy or have we discussed this very heuristic previously on this site?
"Dogs seem pretty useless to me."
Really?
372: Yeah, I think AWB mentioned it in passing once before.
Plus they're so much trouble, so needy,
Just like children, you child-hating never-want-a-child horrible sociopath who hates children.
"if you don't have the sense or self-control to calm yourself down, I do think a little less of you. (I make exceptions for people with real life phobias or little kids.)"
Having little kids makes it impossible to calm yourself down?
372: I've probably brought it up here somewhere. I just hadn't posted it at my blog. But look, it returns home where it belongs!
Instead of 'Shag or Die', Brock could play 'Shag or Sucker-Punch Mike Tyson.'
When I was a kid, my cat was deliberately poisoned by a neighbor when we let it outside one day. Mean ole' bitch.
I've been tempted to poison my neighbor's dachsund which they let out at all hours of the night to stand in the street and bark at nothing before crapping in my yard.
380: Poison your neighbors and train the dog.
380: Not the dog's fault apo, you should've poisoned the neighbour.
Back to the OP: Is it more of a Boolean thing or a gradient or a point system?
Maybe a simple flowchart would do. Just substitute the word "relationship." [/emerson]
Oh, sure, guys. I post this on my blog and it doesn't even get one measly comment. I come back from teaching, and look at you all.
(AWB cried because she had no shoes.)
Calming down makes pretty much any dog calm down...
Calm, assertive energy puts dogs in a calm, submissive state. Don't these people watch television?
The cat was shot full of too many tranquilizers after it somehow managed to crawl into the old lady next door's house through an open window & freak the crap out of her (my in-laws had been out of town for the weekend). I don't know whether it was actually the cops or some animal control people to do the shooting, but there were 2 squad cars at the scene.
Oddly, this was NOT during the Giuliani administration.
Was the cat reaching for its wallet?
381, 382: That's what's saved Zack's yappy ass thus far. The owners have a four-year-old adopted daughter, so I'd feel bad about orphaning her a second time. I have found myself staring longingly at pellet guns, though.
Or a candy bar?
It's such a great story, though. "What happened to Fluffy?" "Suicide by cop."
I've heard that most cats that jump off the Golden Gate Bridge face the city.
391: made better by the fact that the cat's name was Jocasta.
I've heard that most cats that jump off the Golden Gate Bridge face the city...
And are very, very pissed when they realize that's a shitload of water beneath the bridge.
371: aren't you just talking about grace, here? I'd say not crapping your pants over minor annoyances is a broadly-applicable requirement. Also unamerican.
I love both cats and dogs. Children are fascinating creatures meant for another's care.
I'd love to get a dog but I'm way too busy and lazy to take proper care of it so no dogs for us. The cats are largely self-maintaining and very affectionate and playful when engaged anyway. I do love being friends with people who have dogs, though. Were I to hit the lottery tomorrow and begin a life of complete leisure I would get an Akita and just spend all day in the yard.
That said, I would not miss them if my neighbor's dirty little yap-factories were gone tomorrow. They're loud, their kids are loud, their dogs are loud. One day about a year ago Rah and I were out on the back deck and the guy was yelling at one of the dogs while the dog was barking its fucking head off at the guy and I turned to Rah and asked, "I wonder which of them taught the other?"
371: Oh LB, the first rift in the lute! Dogs make me exceedingly uneasy, mostly because we have a lot of big, dangerous ones in my neighborhood (not to mention the small, badly-behaved ones like the little yippy dogs down the street who get loose and bite my ankles once every couple of months. Many's the pair of tights I've lost to dog-induced laddering.)
There are some dogs I like a lot, but as a category I don't care for them. But then, that's true of almost everything I've encountered in life except possibly for sushi, cute little fluffy kittens and bookstores, so it can be read as a fairly weak statement.
The problem with most pets (and kids) is the people who own (raise) them, which just brings me back to pets ain't people: the problem in the relationship is always another human.
397: My online faith in you is such that I can't imagine you'd be one of the people who annoys me here -- I've got nothing against people who aren't fond of dogs, particularly annoying dogs. Just the ones who can't figure out how to hold still and let the dog cool down.
Faith is a beautiful thing, LB. I usually keep away from extremely worked-up dogs, because I can't always tell euphoric-worked-up from going-to-bite-you worked up...funnily, I can always tell when cats are about to go from yes-I-love-being-stroked to I-want-to-bite-you-spasmodically.
We used to feed a stray we called Bitey for that behavior. Bitey was small and slender at the time, but I see Bitey skulking through the park sometimes, and now Bitey is a giant, menacing black and white presence.
Ha ha. I would probably annoy the crap out of you then--I lived in an apt. with my uncle & his dog for about a month last fall and I absolutely did not know how to behave around the thing at first (a big lab-ish mutt that smelled and barked, but was basically harmless)--would end up basically hiding in the bedroom. It wasn't a real phobia, just a residual fear from childhood & complete unfamiliarity with being the one who gets the dog under control.
I was afraid of dogs as a boy, and the exasperated impatience of people so dog-oriented that the fright of a child annoys them infuriates me. Somehow, the fear wore off and I'm often very affectionate with dogs. My neighbor's dog loves me and I let him lick my face and I've rolled around with him some on the lawn, to my friends amazement.
Avoidance is a valid strategy. And I really have no right to talk here, DogBreath is kind of an annoying dog (jumpy and emotionally needy, and she nips and paws at people). She's smallish (40lbs or so) enough not to be scary, I think, and she generally conveys a pathetic goodwill and need to be loved, but she's not well mannered. I blame Buck.
A dog that's barking at you from behind a fence is a good opportunity for practice. You should be able to get that dog to stop barking, from your side of the fence, with nothing but body language. Bonus points if it doesn't start barking again when you walk away.
But if it does, LB is judging you.
Being a big person I'm not afraid that the dog is going to overpower me, so I don't freak out or anything. I used to try to ignore the dog, but this sent people some sort of message that the dog had offended me and they should start apologizing on the dog's behalf. Now I just sort of stand there saying "How ya doing, dog?" and alternating between trying to pet the beast and holding my hands up in the air so they don't get licked.
little yippy dogs down the street who get loose and bite my ankles
One kick hard enough to send a yippy dog skittering across the street 1) is completely justifiable and 2) will usually cure this behavior.
You should be able to get that dog to stop barking, from your side of the fence, with nothing but body language.
If you have years of experience dealing with dogs, you should. I wouldn't have the first idea what I was doing to make it bark in the first place, let alone how to get it to bark less rather than more.
I wouldn't shoot a big dog with a pellet gun.
exasperated impatience of people so dog-oriented that the fright of a child annoys them infuriates me.
It is a maddening Catch-22; while 'they can smell fear' is I think bullshit, they certainly get riled up by fearful bodylanguage. So you end up blaming someone (as I just did) who really is afraid of a dog who really is behaving intimidatingly, because you know that if the person would calm down, or fake calming down, the dog would chill out. With kids, if they're unhappy around the dog I put her away, and most grownups are fine with her because she doesn't look like a threatening dog even when she's excited.
Isn't rule number one with dogs to bend down and offer the back of your hand for them to sniff at?
412: Presenting your genitals works as well.
412: I have never seen anyone do that.
A certain number of big dogs, either because of sadistic owners, mis-training, or defect, really do hurt and kill people, and you can never be sure that the strange barking dog in front of you is one of them.
222: many women are weirdly inhibited about receiving oral sex.
408: Well, the trouble is that the dogs are owned by a Native family who live in a Native housing development right by my apartment. (To those of you who know Minneapolis: yes, welcome to my house!). I feel like the dogs are nasty and yippy for a broad range of reasons, and also that if I kick one it will be seen as "spoiled middle class white lady kicks dog belonging to underpriviledged family"...which it really would be, sort of. This same dynamic is why it is unlikely that asking for control of the dogs will help--the parents have been there on several occasions. Also, I've been threatened by some teens from there while walking home late, and I don't want to become more visible through injuring a dog.
This is one of the many tiny (and in this case selfish) reasons why I hate racism--the stupid dynamics of our society are such that an apparently-simple thing like "please keep your dog from biting my ankles" is freighted with so much history and class priviledge that it's impossible to have that conversation in anything ressembling a kind and successful way.
412: Right. Stand still, move calmly, and talk calmly.
I've liked Dobermans since a job I had in college going door to door for a nuclear freeze group. I turned away from a house where no one was home, and realized that an extremely tense looking Doberman had me trapped: house behind me, hedges or something on each side, and the dog in front of me, growling a little. I figured I was going to get bit whatever I did, so I might as well get style points for having tried to do it right, and held out my hand and quavered "Nice doggie". And then she licked my hand and followed me down the block demanding that I scratch her ears.
410: When I finally get cats, I am going to adopt one from a pound but also perhaps buy a fancy Norweigian skogkatt ("Often found quietly fishing by rivers and streams").
Ah yes, the Norwegian blue. Beautiful plumage.
Frowner lives in the Indian ghetto? I've heard it's the only one in the country.
A skogkatt might not put up with a Swedish-American owner.
412: I think that's to safeguard your fingers if they try to bite you--I've also heard of people extending their hands palm-up with their fingers curled in, for the same reason.
The cat in 421 looks surprisingly like my sister's.
Native Americans, Hmong, Somalis...Minneapolis has the most interesting racial dynamis in the country.
In this country; there's a bigger, scarier one in Winnipeg.
That was supposed to be "dynamics", but if I were the mayor of Minneapolis, I would change it to "dynamism".
424: Not in, but next to. It's a weird place. There are some definite good things about it, though, actually. If the city or someone could put a good solid whack of money into fixing it up, well, that would be nice all round.
I would add, though, that people are way more afraid of this part of town than is remotely reasonable. The only altercation I've ever gotten into was more or less my own fault.
It's interesting living around a lot of Native people--genuinely different values about a lot of stuff, from dress and hairstyle on. And I don't mean that in a condescending "ooh, those people have different values, by which I want you to understand 'bad' and 'uneducated' "way.
It's also sad--at least around here, you're kidding yourself if you think that your average working class/middle class Native person doesn't feel a lot of ingrained bitterness toward white people.
Well, I have a heuristic which just gives me an excuse to tell a story that I wanted to tell in the matriarchy thread.
Any kind of uncontrolled temper in a man is a total turn-off unless there's some overwhelming brilliance or other amazing attribute. It's almost always going to be a 0.
I was at brunch with a group of friends. I was about halfway down the table and was paying attention to the conversation on my right. The person on my left is someone with whom I'd had some intellectual disputes and whom I found vaguely annoying, but I'd been trying to be more charitable. On my right there was an interesting guy who played for the London Symphony Orchestra, and a bunch of us were having an interesting discussion of music.
The guy to my left playfully pushed on my shoulder and neck. He was trying to get my attention, and, although it wasn't overtly sexual, I felt a sort of sexual vibe. I was already a little bit embarrassed, because he'd been loud. He was acting out some sort of joke which involved running away from the table and making a loud booming sound.
I reacted pretty strongly. I shuddered, turned to my left, put my hand in his face and said, "Don't do that. That's too familiar." I think that he was embarrassed and said, "What are you going to do? Slap me?"
Later he and his woman friend Y were talking about people he could date, including another woman who had just left the table.
Later that day I saw the guy at a friend's house. I said a quick "hello" to him when he walked by. I did say hello even though I was in the middle of talking to someone else.
He blew up at me for being rude and not saying hello to him. I told him that I might have mumbled, but I did say hello. He told me that saying hello inaudibly was rude. Then he got this pained look on his face, a real puppy-dog look and asked if we could talk. The apartment was really small and the only place one could talk privately was the bedroom, and I didn't feel comfortable doing that. I told him that I'd be glad to talk to him at some point, but that I didn't think that this was the appropriate time. I walked away, but then I walked back to say something about his intrusive behavior. Then he said, "either you want to talk or you don't..." Friend Y pulled him out to the bedroom, and Host A tried to engage me in conversation in the kitchen area.
That was a total turn-off. I found him physically unattractive and didn't care for his status as a divorced guy. I also had the feeling that he wasn't so much interested in me as trolling for a date.
His actions made me think not only that he'd be bad for me but that I'd try to dissuade any female friend from seeing him. He's not a bad guy. His divorce was really difficult--one of those evangelicals who marry young things--he's had a lot of career transitions, and I think he'd make a decent friend--as long as the Effexor keeps his depression in check. I don't think that he's an alcoholic, but I have seen him drink excessively on more than one occasion.
421: That is a beautiful cat.
Are the dogs coming after you when you're on a bike? Because then you're screwed, and there's nothing to do but avoid them -- a loose dog that's not well trained is going to chase bikes, and is likely to nip.
If you're on foot, stopping, facing the dog when it's coming for you, and acting as if it's making a friendly advance (saying something calm and friendly, putting a hand out for the dog to sniff) is probably your best bet. The thing about dogs is that they're chasers, and once they're coming towards you, if you keep walking briskly on your way they're going to read that as flight. This is annoying advice, because it doesn't give you an obvious way to disengage -- do I expect you to stand there facing the dog forever? But the dog should calm down, and then you can walk on.
If you do this enough times, it might get you out of the category of "chasing objects" and into "boring people to be ignored".
A girlfriend of mine in HS was a Scottish foreign exchange student living with a really odd couple in our Kansas town. They had two of those enormous brown-on-brown Dobermans, beautiful animals who would bark like fucking hell when the doorbell rang, but, when you came inside, nudge you in the stomach with their heads, demanding hugs. They were pretty careless sometimes, but it was all out of love.
Then the family got a teensy little kitten named Bullitt. (Or maybe it was Bullet. Anyhow.) Bullitt would run down to the door with the dogs when the doorbell rang, and you could always hear RUFF RUFF mew! RUFF mew! GROWL RUFF mew! RUFF! Far too cute.
431 sounds exactly like the guy I was discussing in the matriarchy thread, the guy from school. He keeps acting like I'm snubbing him when I don't return his inappropriate advances, and then begs me to still be his friend. I'm like, listen, asshole, we'd have to *be* friends for me to give a shit how you feel about this.
Teo, what a pretty cat that is!
Why Thisbe? That makes me think first of Midsummer Night's Dream, but I assume it's the classical reference?
IDP, once Norwegians get used to our superior ways, they love us Swedes.
("Ten thousand Swedes ran through the weeds/Chased by one Norwegian", it is said. Yeah, because those Norwegians are smelly. It's the Danes you have to worry about--they're crazy as well as dangerous.
Oddly enough, there are still people here in Scandesota who believe stuff like that...I knew some of them in college.)
431: Man, what a jerk.
I reacted pretty strongly. I shuddered, turned to my left, put my hand in his face and said, "Don't do that. That's too familiar." I think that he was embarrassed and said, "What are you going to do? Slap me?"
Yeah, this is right in the area of what I was talking about in terms of maintaining boundaries; you get a surprising number of people who keep on being pushy about it.
It's interesting living around a lot of Native people--genuinely different values about a lot of stuff, from dress and hairstyle on.
Word.
435: When I was in college, I visited a friend's family in Norway, and was wildly amused by the ethnic jokes they told about Swedes. I figured it would have been obnoxious to point out that from my perspective they were indistinguishable. (It's funny, I'm tall and very fair, I figured I'd blend in just fine. Nope; in Norway I look like a dog at a cat show. I am very conspicuously the wrong color of pale in a Norwegian crowd -- too pink. And my face bones are all wrong.)
Teo, what a pretty cat that is!
Thanks.
Why Thisbe? That makes me think first of Midsummer Night's Dream, but I assume it's the classical reference?
Yeah, my sister wanted to use a classical name, and it seemed like the most appropriate one.
Also, if a dog is thinking about chasing you, bend over as if to pick up a rock. (If there's actually a rock, pick it up.) In my experience, dogs recognize this gesture and leave you alone. But maybe there's not as much of a culture of throwing rocks at dogs in your locale.
Of classical names, "Thisbe" sounds the most like "Fuzzy".
It's interesting living around a lot of Native people--genuinely different values about a lot of stuff, from dress and hairstyle on. And I don't mean that in a condescending "ooh, those people have different values, by which I want you to understand 'bad' and 'uneducated' "way.
Do you find that it's really, really hard to describe different values without getting into language that sounds pejorative to someone who doesn't know what you're talking about already? I have a hell of a time talking about Samoan stuff for that reason. (At this point, I'm far enough away from it that I shouldn't talk about Samoan stuff at all -- whatever I knew about Samoa ten years ago, I don't any more. I just remember the stories I've told myself about the place.)
Desert island joke. After a year, the boat returned. The two Finns were fighting the two Norwegians were drunk, the two Danes were starting a small export business, and the two Swedes were waiting to be introduced.
Apparently in Sweden, you people have to know who you are.
Actually, I don't think that he's a jerk--just that his emotions were a bit out of control. I think that the rejection was painful to him.
I still see him, and he doesn't behave inappropriately. He's good friends with a friend of mine. Friend's wife who is also one of my best friends finds him a bit boorish.
Nobody else said anything at brunch. I did sort of rub my fist on his head, because I wasn't about to slap him, and he said "See, that's fine." Nobody else said anything.
438: Even though there's a lot of scandinavians around here, many many are Norwegian and so although I am meticulously Swedish looking I don't look like most of them. I went with my family to the Swedish Museum (also mere blocks from my house...well, half a mile...and yes, the Native housing project thing is about half a mile from the Swedish Museum. Funny old world.) and was astonished and delighted to see pictures of people who looked Just! Like! Me! No longer was I the flat-faced, high-forehead, weird-nose freak! No, there's a whole nation of 'em!
Perhaps, while we're telling stories, I could tell this story. On my mother's side, everyone is Swedish. My grandmother had two sisters, and until they were in their twenties their father was rich--lost most of it in the Depression. They never really expected to work, and apparently they had some money of their own. Two sisters married, but not my great-aunt, Nancy. Nancy scandalized the nuns who ran her college by smoking and driving around in a little convertible. She was one of the first women to make a substantial career in advertising. She also struggled, quite unknown to everyone, with severe bipolar disorder.
The funny part of this story: when her two sisters married, their parents gave them sterling services for twelve, engraved with initial of each bride's new last name. My great-aunt was pretty peeved that she didn't get a set, so she bought her own with her ample earnings, and had them engraved "N" for Nancy.
That's a great story, although the combination of her name and the convertible makes me assume that you're Nancy Drew's great-niece.
442: Yes, exactly. I'm going to cook an omelet now, though--hunger precludes a detailed response. But say more about Samoa, even if it was ten years ago. You must have been in Samoa while I was in Shanghai--also a world changed out of recognition.
446: Well, there was my great-aunt George....
After a meeting I have to run to.
450 comments and not one mention of the phrase "big tits". I therefore conclude that I am the only genuinely working class person here.
But did you search the thread for "Walid Jumblatt?"
250 - DD, as a working class person you get judged on your cup size?
247: Indoor cats live, on average, 16 years. Outdoor cats live, on average, 6 years. There are certainly people for whom keeping their cats indoors is a proxy for their terror about relationships and the outside world in general, but it's sound advice.
OTOH, I lost a great outdoor cat last year. 5 years old. I was very sad -- he was a great cat, you could hold him like a baby -- but there was no way he was staying inside.
Back to thread catchup now.
I'm sure that d^2 can ferret-leg with the best of them, regardless of his cup size.
Wait, D-squared isn't his cup size?
453,4: Hey don't blame me for the objective truth. As Dr Larry Summers said, I believe, this has a sound basis in evolutionary psychology, where it is believed that on the ancient plains of Pleistocene Africa, mankind developed a preference for big tits because it would thereby "signal" that he wasn't middle class.
It's back on the veldt that we learned all these things. Busty women were also used to bait antelope traps.
Ooo, that was embarrassing. Apparently I wasn't the only person who felt the need to comment about indoor cats.
OK, back to seeing what the Englishman does to zadfrack now. Gee whillikers, a tussle!
Ibexes, on the other hand, are totally bourgeois.
Antelopes now have small tits, because the ones who liked big tits were all eaten.
450 comments and not one mention of the phrase "big tits". I therefore conclude that I am the only genuinely working class person here.
But no mention of shoes either, so at least they're not classist.
Specifically, they don't shit in a box and then bury it.
See, this is another good reason to let them outdoors. No need for a cat box!
You may commence ranting about cats who shit in your yard now.
Or, if you prefer, you can berate me for the fact that Luna just brought in her second lizard of the day. She's fascinated, it seems, by the way their tails keep squirming after she breaks them. It's utterly disgusting and I should save the lizard, but he seems to me to be too far gone at this point.
Yuck.
My son's afraid of dogs, and it really really fucking pisses me off when we're out walking somewhere and there's a dog off a lead and it comes towards us and Ernest is acting very scared of it, and the owner says, "Oh don't worry, she's friendly." Oh, thanks you MORON, telling us it's friendly will obviously immediately cure his fear and make him feel fine about your large (it's always the large ones who are the most obtrusive) dog trying to sniff him.
Getting annoyed with someone who doesn't know how to react to your dog seems easily solved by calling your dog off, rather than expecting the non-dog-comfortable person to do anything about it.
fascinated, it seems, by the way their tails keep squirming
Well, that is pretty fascinating.
My kitten used to eat geckoes. But then one of the neighbours caught and ate him.
Who wants to be the big strong man and come clean up the remains of this lizard for me?
471: You've got a son. Put him to work.
473: He's at school, and if I leave it until he gets home he'll cry because he is upset when small cute things die, dammit.
Tell him if he doesn't clean up the lizard another small cute thing is going to die.
477 cracked me up.
It's done. They're really easier to clean up than mice and rats b/c the cat doesn't really eat them (I suppose they taste bad?) so there's no guts to deal with. But there is something extra-creepy about a dead reptile, somehow. Shudder.
My cat has lizard breath.
Hostage situation. Correct response? 363.
Are you anywhere close to the Griffith Park fire?
I'll take 418 to be a general inquiry.
Not I, but I can smell it, and the sun was an interesting color the other evening, because of it.
Getting annoyed with someone who doesn't know how to react to your dog seems easily solved by calling your dog off, rather than expecting the non-dog-comfortable person to do anything about it.
Those people are jerks who shouldn't be walking their dogs off the leash, but they're probably failing to call their dogs off not because they wouldn't if they could, but because they don't have the dog well trained enough to successfully call them off; by the time the dog's bothering your kid, there's not all that much they can do. Given that that's the case, the dog shouldn't be off leash, and you're perfectly justified in being rude and hostile about it.
Who wants to be the big strong man and come clean up the remains of this lizard for me?
I'll pick it up if you cook it.
People who walk their dogs off the leash drive me nuts. Leash laws exist for a reason.
484: This seems right to me. I remember not just the fear, but a sense of being ashamed that it was so obvious, when others, like other kids, weren't afraid.
485: I'll cook it if you'll eat it.
483: Really? Is it your own genitals or the monkey's you're smelling, do you think?
484: Yup.
468, 486: I assume ya'll mean in places that aren't primarily intended for dog owners. In my mid-size city, we have a bunch of public space, some of which is specifically designated as dog off-leash areas. In those areas, well-mannered dogs get to go sniff whoever and whatever.
Well, you never can tell. We share 98% of our genetic material. It tends to get messy.
Dog owners of the world: those leashes where your dog has unbelievable range and you hold onto a little reel? Yeah, so that doesn't count as leash training any more than putting a fence around your yard means you've taught your dog to stay. Buy a leather or nylon lead, teach your dog to heel, and if you can't handle that, don't walk your dog in the park.
Sincerely,
Rollerbladers of the world who tire of dodging your goddamn dog.
491 - I was talking about anywhere - parks, out in the woods, wherever. I don't think we have any byelaws about dogs on leads or whatever here, but I also don't think that has to mean that dogs (and most dog-owners think their dogs are great, so putting in the qualifier "well-mannered" is pretty meaningless) have the right to do whatever they please. And if you can *see* that your dog is upsetting someone, wouldn't it be well-mannered of you to call the dog back to you, rather than offer a 6 year old assurances that it's only being friendly? That's totally unhelpful - the point is, his fear is *irrational*. If he could be rational about it, he wouldn't be scared.
I think dsquared had the right idea about dogs and kids.
I used to get pretty good results just barking back at the damn dogs. And, when bicycling, a good sturdy aluminum pump sometimes came in handy. But mostly dogs are at least as well-behaved as the people they hang out wth.
467: One of the cats I had as a kid chased a lizard into the house. She got its tail into her mouth, but the rest of the lizard broke loose and ran away. Seeing the cat sitting there, practically beaming, a flailing lizard tail hanging out of her mouth, it was clear that this was one of her proudest moments.
The other cat we had when I was a kid looked exactly, and I mean exactly, like the cat in 421.
500?
My most recent dog's been in the great beyond for 5 years now, and the one before that for 20 -- but if I had one (and I will again) I would totally let it run loose, everywhere I can. That is, everywhere that the dog can parse it's own safety situation. (Earlier dog was smart enough to walk city streets without a leash. More recent not quite scared enough of cars, and so could only really be loose in less urban settings).
I don't care if someone is scared. My dogs never bit anyone, and I always knew they weren't going to bite anyone. Oh, I'd call them if it looked like they were being pests to a specific person, but I'm just not going to worry about phobias. Someone scared to encounter a dog along the river should take their walk inside a museum.
Why let the dogs run loose? Because they love it. And their joy is contageous. (In my very considerable experience with this, people visibly digging on my dogs outnumbered people visibly annoyed by an order of magnitude).
Someone scared to encounter a dog along the river should take their walk inside a museum.
That's what I was looking out to say. We have dog-areas and no-dog areas. Both are well marked and publicized. If you recreate in one of the dog-areas, dogs are going to come up to say hi. That's expected.
So you think it's ok to scare people with your dog? The people who are afraid of him/her don't know that, and often don't know the correct body language or dog communication skills to deal with your dog.
As a former dogphobic that seems really cruel to me.
"don't know that" s/b "don't know that your dog won't bite."
As long as the owner is paying attention and can call off the dog or intervene if its intentions are unwanted, that would be fine. Much preferable to those damn reel leashes.
My position on the issue comes from extensive experience walking a dog that loved people but hated other dogs. Nearly every time I walked her there would be some damn fool walking their dog without a leash, and when the dog inevitably became curious about mine and started to approach, I had to struggle madly to restrain my dog and prevent a fight. The other dog owner saying "don't worry, (s)he's friendly" was not helpful; your dog may be friendly, but mine sure as hell isn't. Like I say, leash laws: there for a reason. More than one, actually.
Obviously, leash-free areas are a different matter. I don't care what happens there.
Sigh. You and your unconditional love.
498, 499 - Christ, I don't really know what to say to that.
If we had with-dog and dog-free parks, I'd go to the dog-free ones I guess, but we don't. I have absolutely no objection to dogs running free. It's the thoughtless attitudes displayed by the owners (and exemplified here) that piss me off on my son's behalf.
I guess if people are going to get all freaky about it, then I'd keep a dog on a leash. But if you think I'm leashing my hyenas and baboons, you've got another thing coming.
I'm wondering why they only muzzled one of the hyenas.
Maybe I should get a hyena to see off nosey dogs. Although seeing as young Ernest is currently being nervous of a 2 month old kitten (click the link, he's very cute), I don't suppose it would really help!
#489: that's the nicest thing anyone's said to me all week.
#495: I had a doozy of an argument in the park at the weekend. Someone had what they no doubt believed to be a charmingly boisterous Labrador and I'm sure that in context it was a lovely dog, but my son didn't like it and I reassured him by telling him that if the dog bit him, Daddy would throw it in the canal. My God some people can be arsey.
OK, from now on I am only ever going for a walk with my son if you're with us, d^2.
OT - we've had so little rain lately that on hearing it pouring outside just now, I got confused and wondered whether something was somehow flooding in my house. Then realised it was rain.
I also drive 80 whenever traffic conditions and road design permit. If someone is driving 55 in the fast lane, I'm likely to approach quite quickly. That person might be afraid. Might be annoyed. might have a million stories of fast driving having harmed them and theirs. Might wish the police would give me a ticket, or that people who like to drive fast would stop doing so. None of this concerns me particularly. What I'm interested in is whether the person is going to get out of the way.
I never honk, blink lights, or any of that stuff. I just figure out if I can go around, and then do it. And if not, I drive at whatever speed I have to drive, until an opportunity presents itself to pass. My car has good acceleration, and, more importantly, I know what it will and won't do. So I'm not really concerned whether the person I'm passing thinks I won't be able to pass either.
I've been driving more than 30 years and never come close to having an accident. If someone is scared, it's just not something I'm going to worry about.
513: I've had two dogs snap at or bite my kid and in both cases it was the usual "Oh my god the dog's never done that before he's such a darling I can't believe it etc etc etc." That'll teach me for believing the dog-owner propaganda.
Eh, yesterday we were bike riding and there was a woman walking with her dog off the leash, and the dog pricked up its ears and looked like starting to come at is, and she simply put her hand down and said "no" and it stopped. Dogs off leash are fine, as long as they're well trained.
PK was bitten once by my aunt's dog (in her house) and while it scared him, he wasn't badly damaged. And yeah, from that point on the dog stayed outside, but you know, whatever, people. Kids can get hurt by all sorts of shit. Vicious dogs shouldn't be kept, period, and ill-trained dogs should be on a tight leash, but come on: it's not that hard to share the world.
Most dogs aren't well trained, and most owners are stupid about how their normally perfectly well-behaved dog will tend to respond if a small unknown human appears nearby, or tries to pet/play with/get in the face of the dog.
Granted I hate dogs, but I'm surprised at how dismissive the dog owners here are about the concerns of people who have to deal with off-leash animals. Animals, being animals, aren't quite as predictable as y'all are saying. It's something that belongs to you and is capable of harming other people and "Oh, it's mostly fine" seems pretty glib.
519: I don't own a dog. But it mostly *is* fine. My reaction is pretty much the same as my reaction to people who get all bent over kids acting up in public spaces: it's a public space, yes there are limits, but your feelings that every minor annoyance is the same as a major threat are your problem.
Also, Ogged, what's with the humorlessness? Are you on the rag?
My family had a Siberian Husky who most small children thought was a wolf. They kept their distance. My parents took her for a walk once and a small yappy dog came up and started pestering her. She put her nose under its belly and flipped it over. It went away.
I always hoped she'd do something like that when I walked her, but I generally kept her away from people (and other dogs) unless they specifically signalled that they liked dogs and wanted to pet her. A very friendly, wolf-resembling 70 pound dog is likely to frighten quite a few people.
I always hoped she'd do something like that when I walked her
Put her nose under your belly and flip you over?
Huskies are definitely some of the nicer big dogs around.
Hey, maybe people with kids ought to teach them not to get in the face of a dog they don't know.
OK, it all sounds a lot more assholish written out like this, I'll grant you. There's a point, though, where one just can't get to wrapped up in other people's fears. We're all familiar with the gnawing fear a great many women feel in a room full of men, or walking down the street, and having a large strange man approach from the other direction. It's not even irrational, given the world we live in. That said, anyone who is afraid when they see me coming is making a (completely understandable) mistake. From my point of view, I'm walking along, on my way from some place to someplace else. The woman approaching from the other direction might get a look, and maybe a thought. If she looks preoccupied, or unwelcoming, I'll pass by without comment. If she looks open to it, I might smile, depending on my mood. And then walk by.
I don't know whether she was afraid, and, there's not really anything I can do if she is. Talking to her will only make it worse, most likely, and hey I'm on my way somewhere, and if someone is going to use their mental energy being afraid of me, there's just not much point in my even thinking about it.
Now, those of you who've had a dog menace your kid can recount LeBlanc's story of the guy copping a feel walking by. Sure, men can be bad, or fearsome. What's it, on a day-to-day basis, to me?
I've had two dogs snap at or bite my kid and in both cases it was the usual "Oh my god the dog's never done that before he's such a darling I can't believe it etc etc etc." That'll teach me for believing the dog-owner propaganda.
It feels presumptuous to be saying it, so sorry if I'm out of line, but this sounds like it could be the beginning of a vicious cycle. You should probably work with your kid to prevent him from developing a fear of dogs, and maybe teach him/her some dog manners which might prevent the incident from being repeated another time.
I'm certainly not trying to blame your kid. I just know that if you treat a dog like you expect it to bite you, it will pick up on that and it's much more likely that it will do so; and if you're conditioned to expect dogs to bite you, well, that's how you're going to treat them.
Are you trolling us, Charley? What you can do if you sense you're scaring a woman on the street is to cross the street. If you're in a group of men with one woman who seems nervous, you can be friendly and make her feel like she has an ally. But none of these analogies, not even the one with the car, is apposite, because you can't predict or control an animal the way you can a machine or yourself.
You know, purely on the dog front, I think you're dead absolutely wrong. A dog is a big dangerous animal that can really hurt someone -- what Cryptic Ned said above about not being afraid of dogs because he's a big guy? My fluffy little 40lb sweetheart of an Australian Shepherd can crack a cow femur with her jaws - we buy them for her. If she wanted to hurt you, she would fuck you up badly.
I trust her not to hurt anyone -- she's nippy, but in a way that never breaks the skin over her nine year lifespan -- but just because I trust her doesn't mean that Joe Guy In The Park is responsible for trusting her. There are dogs who will hurt you, and he doesn't know her to trust her. (People in my house, I expect to take my word that she's annoying but harmless). Someone who's afraid of a strange dog is being perfectly reasonable.
People get badly hurt by dogs all the time. If I've got my dog in a public place, it's my responsibility to keep her from frightening people. (I do let her off the leash in our park, where it's permitted by custom although not law. But I keep her away from people who aren't actively trying to greet her.)
CC-
I frequently walk around Manhattan fairly late, and walk quickly (so there's a good chance I'll pass someone else, or at least be approaching someone else, who's walking in front of me). I'm not particularly intimidating in my own mind, and probably even less os in reality, but I've talked to my friends about what I can do to make sure that I'm not making anyone uncomfortable. Other than switching sides of the street, the main advice I've gotten is to purposefully jingle my keys or otherwise make noise. I don't even think about it that often, but why not do these things if you notice that you're in appropriate circumstances?
Erstwhile X-Man CharleyCarp takes his mutant power and joins up with Magneto.
Hey, maybe people with kids ought to teach them not to get in the face of a dog they don't know.
You should probably work with your kid to prevent him from developing a fear of dogs, and maybe teach him/her some dog manners
Yeah, sure, small children shouldn't get in the face of dogs they don't know, and my kid is well aware of this now, as am I. My point is that it's dog owners with their unleashed/long-leashed dogs and "my little poochy-woochy wouldn't hurt a fly" attitude that often create situations where something bad can happen.
532: Yeah, I started this by being annoyed at grownups who rile up dogs by being stupidly jumpy around them. Yes, kids should learn to be cautious around strange dogs, while also learning to be calm and unafraid of them -- that's the best way for them to stay safe.
The dog owner is still absolutely responsible for keeping their dog from scaring people.
530 -- What a fine idea! I own some bear bells created exactly for the purpose.
The "liking animals = kind and trustworthy" thing is so fucking stupid, and such a common woman thing (at least in the U.S.). Don't people know how much Hitler loved his German Shepherd?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Hitler_Blondi_Berghof.jpg
I'm not sure I like animals, but I respect them. Especially if they're not freeloading indoor cats.
This whole devolution in this thread from dating to endless discussion of pets really replicates the aging process.
It's completely wrong that my reaction to that picture is "Ooo, look at the puppy!"
Next is endless discussions of real estate, then heart medication.
Ogged, I don't sense that I'm scaring anyone. Im just walking along. Thinking about what I'm thinking about. Likely whatever is on my iPod. If I really thought someone was scared -- that is, if there was some sort of manifestation to snap me out of my little thought-world -- sure, I'd move across the street, or something. The thing is, I'm not watching to see what people think of me.
And so it'd be pretty unlikely that I'd ever know if someone was scared.
When you see a new dog with a stranger you start from zero. A significant number of dogs are uncontrolled and a small number are vicious, and there's always that possibility. A certain number of dog owners also mistrain their dogs to be threatening.
So anyway, I don't think that the burden of proof should be on the person who fears dogs, especially not if they're a child. It's hardly completely irrational. (I do think that people should teach kids not to approach strange dogs, partly for just those reasons -- some are untrained, mistrained, or vicious.)
Here and there in my life I've run into people who trained their dogs to scare people and dared you to object. They were jailhouse-lawyer types and knew how far they could push it. In some cases they dragged out the process (first and second warning, etc. etc.) until someone was actually hurt.
I always hoped she'd do something like that when I walked her
Ya might wanna try pettin' her first.
Of course fear of a strange dog might well be reasonable. I said that a woman who sees me approaching from a block away after dark can reasonably be afraid. It's a mistake, but I'm 6 feet tall, weigh over 200, and probably look like I could do some serious harm. And I probably could.
I don't blame anyone for being afraid.
I'm not going to stop walking around at night either.
So, as I've mentioned before, we had a 120lb dog of a gentle breed that developed the case of the nerves (we had to put the dog down eventually). This is bad. Nervous dogs tend to bite first and figure out what the problem is later.
I used to take the dog on walks when I was visiting my parents. Caladog was perfectly leash trained, on my left, short leash, at my heel and everything and the most scared I've ever been around an animal was when someone's toddler decided to walk up and pet the "big white fluffy bear" and I felt the dog tense up next to me and try to hide behind my leg.
That was the last time we went for a walk. Playing in the yard was fine, but there was no way I was going to be able to tackle a 120lb dog and god, what if the kid had moved too quickly?
So, dog owners, be realistic about what your dog is capable of. And people with young kids? Your kids shouldn't be afraid, but they really should get it pounded into their heads that you do not go up to the dog without talking to the dog's owner first.
I am going to stop with the analogies, though.
And to get back on topic, my longest relationships have been with women who had the same birthday. Other than their religious upbringing (Catholic -- which is not mine) it's about all they have in common. Not at all by design, of course, just coincidence. That's the empirical truth of it, then: Catholic women born on January 27. Otherwise all the 0s, 1s, and 2s mean nothing . . .
Yay, original topic. Pale blonde-ish women with advanced degrees drive me nuts. Fair coloring, soft skin, not too overweight and not too skinny, mmmm....
Is it awfully objectifying that I sound like I'm talking about a tasty dessert? Except for the advanced degree, that is.
Mmmmm. A bowl of ripe, juicy fruit -- with a PhD-MD!
re: 513
When I was a small kid (4 or 5 years old) I was bitten by a little yappy dog that ran out from a garden. The guy was kind of surprised when my Dad picked his dog up and drop kicked it over his hedge.
Then, a few years later, the traveller family who moved into our street had a border collie that just loved chasing and biting kids. My dad went round to the house and warned them to keep the dog inside. They didn't, it bit my sister.
Cue: my Dad walking round to their door. Ring ring on the doorbell. Door opens. Punches the guy flat in the face. Turns, quietly walks away. Not a word said.
More generally, I personally get a bit nervous* of big aggressive dogs as I had one try to 'kill' me once. I was working as a paper boy, and when I walked into the garden the dog knocked me over and went for my throat. I fought it off so it went for my groin instead. Having a 100lb dog savaging your crotch is not fucking fun. Luckily no permanent damage done.
As a result, however, I have told people whose dogs are acting aggressive towards me that if they don't get it away I will kill it. People seem to find that offensive. I suppose I should be more diplomatic and tell them I'll kill them (rather than their dog) instead.
* I do actually like dogs, though, and as soon as we have a big enough place, we're getting one...
a 100lb dog savaging your crotch is not fucking fun
But try telling that to Emerson...
CharleyCarp:
You will scare fewer women if you stop wearing the black hoodie when you walk at night.
Same birthday? Please tell me the only involves two women.
re: 548
He can be a bit of a pain in the arse in other ways, but he does have that whole 'Glaswegian ex-army' thing happening for him. Very useful in those sorts of of circumstances.
