This should help explain the question you pose in note 3.
I don't use the stuff myself, but lipgloss isn't just makeup, it's like chapstick. And you know that if you start wearing chapstick or lipbalm, you get a weird selfperpetuating cycle, where your lips dry out and the only thing that makes them feel better is more lipbalm.
My guess is that the women saying 'Can't live without lipgloss' put it on every hour or so -- lips feel dry, more gloss, lips feel better. That can make you feel really dependent on something.
Look, if I don't hijack the thread I'll just post about it.
(a) Instapundit:
Frankly, I think the best argument for electing a Democrat as President is that as long as a Republican is in office the media powers-that-be will refuse to condemn even the worst atrocities on the part of Islamists, for fear of helping the real enemy in the White House . . . .
(b) What do we make of the "where's the outrage" dance as applied to Rusdhie's knighthood & its response?
The footnote is great. Too often I hear from libertarians that they'll educate themselves, that self-reliance is better than a nanny state, and for example, they read all of the information included with their prescriptions, which proves that government regulations of medications just coddles people.
They don't seem to wonder whether the information packets would be available absent regulation.
People would pay extra for information packets!
lipgloss isn't just makeup, it's like chapstick
I know that, you goober.
Roberta is locked into that ridiculous lipbalm cycle.
Goddammit. That guy has tenure and I never will. Maybe I should open a blog where I spot nonsense and count it as research, too.
4b: Couldn't get to the article, but I'm not sure when 'fighting the war on terror' meant 'having a conniption because there are Muslims involved.'
In other news, this is a great secret. And this reminded me of a recent night out with a bunch of aggressively heterosexual dudes, one of whom totally set off my gaydar. Girlfriend on another continent? Neighbor, please.
aggressively heterosexual dudes
Fifty-something guy at the pool is like this. Yesterday he got to talking about his several girlfriends who'd had breast implants. Verdict: he likes 'em. He's a peculiarly Californian frat boy though: a vegetarian who goes to church every Sunday.
People would pay extra for information packets
I know this is meant ironically, but really. Libertarianism is a political theory about minimizing state coercion. It's not a claim about how much decision making you want to do vs. you want other people to do. Libertarianism does not require that we all want to be auto-mechanics, or to serve on the committee that rates honesty of auto mechanics. Rather, the libertarian point should be that there are substantial costs of government coercion, and a limited number of area where a) we need to be coerced into seeking an and funding intermediary, and b) some else needs to be coerced into supplying information to that intermediary, and c) the best organization to be that itermediary is the government. There are all sorts of complicated decisions out there where we manage to outsource evaluation to intermediaries without government assitance. As I'm not a libertarian, I am sympathetic to claims that for some "issue X", it makes sense to force people to accept a government solution; but one sees the value of making the government carefully justify its case every time.
Concentrations of chemical byproducts from local metalplating shops.
In 1968 and again in 1975 I worked in a metal-plating plant in my neighborhood (Columbia Plating, at that time) which brazenly flouted even the weak environmental protection laws then in place. In the late nineties I ran into a friend who worked for the state DEQ and found that the plant had legendary status in the Oregon pollution-control world. It was sort of the Jesse James or Al Capone of Oregon polluters. (They drained their acid- cyanide- cadmium- nickel- additive tanks directly into the sewers, whence they went into the Willamette river.
Google tells me that the Federal EPA executed a search warrant on Columbia Plating in 2003. One of the issues was the storage of open 50-gallon drums of sodium cyanide within 5 or 10 feet of hydrochloric acid baths.
the value of making the government carefully justify its case every time
I think we'd all agree with this, but it doesn't strike me as a distinctively libertarian position.
Roberta is locked into that ridiculous lipbalm cycle.
Like you wouldn't be too if we were still using bacon grease.
Baa is incorrect. Libertarians are people who think that the national parks should be sold to developers, and that public libraries should be put on a fee-for-service basis, and that government funding of the Smithsonian Institute is unconstitutional, and that every citizen has the right to own a howitzer and a tank.
Baa regrets the error.
baa: What? "coercion"?
Man, forget it, loaded terms from the start: doesn't make for a good ending.
We'd pay extra for humor packets, too, Baa!
Ogged, did you see the NYT column on aging bachelors in summer shares? Want to go in on one?
My conversations with libertarians are generally a weird hybrid of baa's reasonableness and Emerson's explanation. "There should be a high price for state coercion [bla bla bla five minutes pass] ...and that's why we should sell off the national parks to developers."
Living together should help cement our hetero cred, Labs.
Off to swim. Show up, cute breaststroke complimenting woman!
Baa: "As I'm not a libertarian, I am sympathetic to claims that for some 'issue X,' it makes sense to force people to accept a government solution." Careful; this suggests that if you were a libertarian, you would think it doesn't make sense to do this, and that contradicts your earlier, more circumspect identification of the L position. Note, I hope with pleasure, that I changed the quotes around "issue X" and corrected comma placement.
Show up, cute breaststroke complimenting woman!
Goddammit, I wish any of the people who compliment me when working out were cute. Not fair.
baa, I keep hearing there are reasonable libertarians, and I've even read a couple, but they seem to attract a lot of people, like my high school economics teacher, who believe and argued to my class that the only legitimate purpose of government is to pay the military. Everything else the market can do better, or, at least, it's unlikely that the market failure will harm suburban economics teachers. He'll read the information packets.
I think the government should justify its case, much in the way that I believe that breathing air is good, but the government doesn't have too much justifying to do if we're talking about keeping cyanide out of the rivers. Plenty of natural experiments showing how responsible industry is when left to its own devices.
If this turns into a general discussion along the lines of "Government: Good or Bad?" I'll be a little disappointed, but whatever.
Factoid: The US Dept. of Energy paid out 94% of its 2005 budget to private contractors. (This from the most recent Harper's magazine.) Government? What government?
I think there's more meat to baa's position than people seem willing to grant. I would think that a libertarian flavored argument would run as follows: We're concerned with "good decisions." Given the state of our knowledge, top-down good decisions are difficult. The process that is most likely to arrive at a good decision is one made by the people who have a direct interest in the matter being decided. A consensus decision arrived at by those people is likely to be a better decision than that arrived at by some bureaucrat concerned with good government, because the people concerned have more information and more reason to care. The people concerned will arrive at the best decision (or the decision pointed out by the best decision making process available) for the most straightforward of all reason--it benefits them. A good government bureaucrat is no less likely to be in the thrall of some ideological misconception than experts hired by the people concerned, so "bad knowledge" is not the issue.
I think this argument doesn't take into account who counts as "persons concerned," how much initial conditions are determinative of the end result, or how similar private bureaucracies are like government bureaucracies. But it's not as simple as "sell the national parks," I think.
There may be an ideal libertarian in some zoo somewhere who speaks sensibly that way, but I have never met one. Not only are most libertarians loony, but they have several different mutually-incompatible ways of being loony.
28: Equally true of "liberals" or "conservatives," as we've just found out. I come to think that ideology is a put on, at best.
I come to think that ideology is a put on, at best.
Give that man a Slate column!
The fallacy of the heap is a huge problem with a lot of libertarian arguments. Nozick has an argument in Anarchy State and Utopia that is very popular in libertarian circles, which begins by saying that it would be wrong to forbid Wilt Chamberlain from charging people an extra quarter to watch him play, and ends with saying that all government interference in the economy is wrong.
Please restate, Tim. I have never met a sane libertarian.
Slate columns are never "given" freely, Stras. They must taken. You'd know that if you hadn't skipped the last cell meeting.
Rob, i don't think that's the best way to understand the argument.
Probably not. It's been a while since I read it.
Perhaps I can fall back to saying that that is the way the argument gets presented by non philosophical libertarians. There is always someone out there willing to embody your straw man.
I totally buy that. I took the argument to be for the conclusion that any mandated *pattern* of distribution will interfere with permissible exchanges, hence unjust. The WC example is meant to generalize sort of like this, iirc: take any candidate distribution (say, an egalitarian one). Permissible choices (people playing to see WC play, e.g.) will upset the pattern, yet the outcomes are just b/c they arose from a fair starting point and permissible actions.
32: Henley seems pretty sane. So so a few of the others. (And even some of the insane groups--like Cato--were better on civil liberties than many Dem politicians and some Dem organizations.) In part, they have a brand problem.
I don't really believe that certain policy outcomes spring ineluctably from an ideological baseline, so I tend to find the arguments put forward by doctrinaire people--be they libertarians, conservatives, or stras--unconvincing. Libertarians, it seems to me, were in the past particularly doctrinaire, and so particularly annoying.
Would it be wrong to disapprove if Wilt Chamberlain made love to one woman? No, of course not!
But if one is OK, why would two be wrong?
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........................
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So if there's nothing wrong with making love to 19,999 women, what could be wrong about making love to 20,000 women?
Woops.
Would we be right to disapprove if Wilt Chamberlain made love to one woman? No, of course not!
As a libertarian leaning person I feel I should say that most people who would call themselves libertarian think the Libertarian Party is run by crazy people.
Just to point out Unfogged has a link to Unqualified Offerings on its front page. I think Jim Henley would describe himself as libertarian.
I have declared Henley to be a non-libertarian. That's more parsimonious than proposing a one-member category of sane libertarians.
Do we really have to hash out why libertarianism is insane? Human beings are not perfectly rational actors, businesses have no incentive to minimize the damage they do to their customers and their environment unless regulation forces them to bear the cost of that damage, when you take away the FDA you end up with a system in which sick people have to see how many other sick people drop dead during the first year or so of a drug's release before they decide to take it, etc.
12 and 27 aren't, incidentally, defenses of libertarianism; they represent a defense of the notion that we should be cautious about what kind of regulation we pass. No one objects to that. What we object to is taking the general principle "unintended consequences happen" and blowing it so far out of proportion that it justifies defunding any state function that doesn't involve a bomb, a prison or a night stick.
You do realise that is logically indistinguishable from saying "The collectivist impulse is responsible for Stalin, Mao, Hitler, and Pol Pot. Its current expression is Nancy Pelosi" or some such?
Anyway, you're obviously not the real John Emerson, as you haven't insulted any economists yet.
In part, they have a brand problem
Ha!
OT: I know this belongs on the other day's Venting post, but that's old.
I recently dropped my COBRA health coverage and started up a new health plan. But the gremlins must have sold my info and it's obviously in some computer somewhere that I didn't get dental insurance with my new plan.
So I get a very sketchy looking set of documents in the mail, from some company I've never heard of, laying out all of the dental benefits I can get, and including two "membership cards." Now, they do say This is Not Insurance, but it's quite tricky nevertheless. Obviously they want you to pay them upfront and then be able to "access" some dental "care" in the future. (Quotation marks used for sarcasm.)
I counted myself lucky to have avoided it and was cutting it up to throw out when I noticed that the member number was MY FULL SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER.
Now I'm angry. Who do I complain to? The state attorney general? State office of consumer protection? Health insurance regulators? FTC? Advice welcome.
CJB, I'll ask you what I try to regularly ask libertarians and leaners: What exactly is government doing (by category) that you would have it stop doing?
(As opposed to do better. You may address questions of federalism if you want, although it seems to me that it's not really libertarianism to prefer that some task or other be performed at one level of government as opposed to another).
Unfogged used to have humor packets!
The process that is most likely to arrive at a good decision is one the people who have a direct interest in the matter being decided
I can't determine whether Timbot is describing what he believes about libertarianism or what he believes libertarians to believe. This sentence in particular seems like an incorrect thing to believe and probably not the way libertarians would phrase things. By this accounting, libertarians will always stumble over Tragedy of the Commons–type arguments. And I guess they do? but not because they fail to recognize them at all.
Screw Lazear.
I agree with libertarians on many or most civil liberties questions. I agree up to a point on the war on drugs. I'm even willing to give them their second amendment position. I have considerable sympathy on the question of faceless and accountable bureaucracies. But the absolute anti-tax anti-regulation anti-social spending stuff is just too fanatical, and an enormous proportion of libertarians have supported Bush on the Iraq War and the War on Terror.
I think the War on (some) Drugs is probably the biggest issue right now. I also think there are issues such as corporate welfare and subsidies that should probably be stopped. I also think that Federalism is a good idea and is compatible with libertarianism. Or at least if preferable in many cases. If the government is going to do something it should done as close to the people affected as possible.
48: I like a lot of libertarians voted Dem in 2004 because we saw how fucked up the Rep party was becoming. In most ways Bush is the anti-libertarian.
The former; I guess also the latter, but all mistakes are mine, etc.
On the topic of good things libertarians do, I thought this map from the Cato Institute was pretty good. It shows botched police raids.
45: Witt, I'd suggest cross-posting (commenting) that in the Venting thread anyway. It's not that old.
50 -- Re War on Drugs: do you means (a) the government should stop aggressive enforcement of Prohibition; (b) the government should repeal Prohibition; or (c) the government should never have had the legal right to enact Prohibition?
Re Corporate Welfare: do you mean (a) the government should means test benefits it pays* to attain a specific end; (b) government should repeal all benefits designed to attain a specific end; or (c) government should never have the power to attempt, through payment, to attain specific ends?
* I don't just mean the payment of money, eg for production of ethanol, but also hidden subsidies, like the requirement that certain items bought by the Defense Department, if made of certain specialty metals, have been made in the US or a 'qualifying country.'
55a: I don't think they actually had the legal right in the first place, but I think they should repeal it now.
55b: Define what you mean by specific ends. I think things like subsidies and tariffs are legal, but I don't think they are a good idea.
56 addendum:
Specifically I think the controlled substances act is of questionable legality.
The link in 20 is soooo much better than today's Modern Love, which is by some annoying young woman who has stayed a virgin till 25, apparently for no particular reason. At least not one that she feels like making clear in her writing. Oh well, she got a NY Times column out of it eventually, that's something.
Maybe she should move into a summer share and find an aging playboy.
One of the weird consequences of the War on Drugs is how thoroughly it can screw up someone's immigration application or green card application, and how someone being declared inadmissible to the country could depend on what arbitrary-seeming charge was formally entered.
On a lighter note, I am printing a document and my cat is so fascinated by the printer, a DeskJet SomethingOrOther, watching the bit that prints slide back and forth over the paper, that she cannot stop watching it and I can't stop watching her wiggling and preparing to pounce. Cat vs. technology... fight!
46: a libertarian-leaner proposition that seems increasingly sensible the more you think about it is to get rid of the mandatory FDA approval process for clinical drugs and let people take their chances (with "information packets" provided by the government, as discussed above). Maybe reduce the approval to just testing the drug for straight-up toxicity.
I'm not an expert, but I don't really trust the process now. It seems like the worst of both worlds -- the tests and studies are often financed and run by the drug companies themselves, *and* the process is incredibly bureaucratic and cumbersome and takes many years. It seems like a lot of the health risks only emerge once the drug has been on the mass market for years, which makes me wonder about the usefulness of the initial approval testing.
Again, I'm no expert, it just strikes me as something worth looking into.
56 -- Society, through its representatives, decides it wants something that the market is not providing. More ethanol, maybe. Less wheat. Vessel propellers made in the United States. (See 48 CFR section 225.7010.1). It designs a program that creates incentives for the creation of these items -- usually payment rather than coercion. That is, instead of expropriating all the farmland and making a certain number of people grow a certain amount of corn to replace oil, we give a sum of money to people who will voluntarily do it. It broadly ends driven, but there's no question that when the program is designed, people who have a current and/or future interest in how it turns out will express their views in how the program is created.
My question is whether, in such circumstances, you'd prefer we just do without the corn we've decided we need (or the domestic vessel propeller industry) if the market won't give it to us, or whether you'd have some other way to go.
I am largely with Emerson in finding most right libertarians to be nutters. Left libertarians, I find, generally talk a lot of sense and are somewhat unfortunately tarred with the same 'nutter' brush.
57 -- One the Controlled Substances Act, is your constitutional objection based on federalism (ie, this isn't within an enumerated power) or on some other ground? IE do you think the state of New York can ban the sale of heroine, even if you think the US government cannot?
53: Radley Balko, creator of that map, whose pet cause is botched police raids, should be added to the short list of "mostly sane libertarians."
I think the libertarians are correct (i.e. more correct than the median liberal) on a few issues: recreational drugs, conscription or "national service", and umm ... there's got to be something else, but I forget.
And when they actually apply their libertarian principles to issues like warmongering foreign policy and immigration, they generally get it right. But a substantial percentage of self-described libertarians abandon their principles when confronted with the specter of the foreign Other.
Also, while the libertarian fringe is arguably no crazier than the far-left or far-right fringe, the libertarian fringe seems to have a stronger voice in their internal conversations. While most liberals/conservatives will tell the Maoists/Birchers to just STFU, libertarian discourse doesn't seem to shut out their crazies: the Objectivists, the anarchists, and the gold bugs.
Thank you, Megan, from one public servant to another.
Oh, and if y'all want healthy lips without having to get addicted to gloss / balm / etc. just eat a few olives every day. The oil moistens your lips from the inside out. You'll never be chapped and can do away with the tube. To boot, olives are really yummy, really healthy, and, let's face it, really sexy.
with "information packets" provided by the government
Where, barring clinical trials and the associated research that currently goes on, would this information come from?
re:
Society, through its representatives, decides it wants something that the market is not providing.
Or, lobbyists, through the application of money and influence persuade the representatives to pass legislation that effectively results in large cash transfers to the businesses that pay those lobbyists.
It can run either way.
61: Society can very easily decide these things without the government. If we want more ethanol we buy it increasing demand which will naturally give people more money to make it. Also buy less wheat price goes down hence less wheat. I think specifically wanting these things made here is a bad idea.
Left libertarians, I find, generally talk a lot of sense and are somewhat unfortunately tarred with the same 'nutter' brush.
ttaM, I'm not being snarky, but I've truly never heard of this category (by name or by description) in the US. The only time I've ever heard it is in discussion from you or others in the UK. I'm not sure (sample size of one, yadda yadda) that it's meaningful here.
To boot, olives are really yummy, really healthy, and, let's face it, really sexy.
Especially when they're soaking in 3 oz. of gin and a splash of vermouth.
Libertarians, whether left or right, remain undefined; therefore a soft target.
63: My objection is that it gives legislative power to a non legislative agency and can therefore make arbitrary rules without going through the legislative process. Before that substances had to be banned by specific acts of Congress which is legal even if I don't like it.
To boot, olives are really yummy, really healthy, and, let's face it, really sexy.
While I enjoy olives and agree that they might have health advantages, I find that the continual sexual intercourse wears me out and makes me generally less productive.
Zadfrack, I'm kind of surprised that a mostly sane person would prefer the libertarian position on conscription (never) to the liberal position (only when actually necessary). One can decide that one doesn't care about the results of both world wars, and the Civil War, I suppose, but it doesn't seem to me that one can fairly ignore the role that conscription played in getting to those results.
On the subject of recreational drugs, I suppose a lot of people experience a change of views as their children become teenagers. Even so, the 'liberal' view is hardly pro-War on Drugs.
re: 69
Well, a lot of the names associated with the loose grouping of people sometimes described as 'left' libertarians actually are American. It's just that *right* libertarians are much bigger in the US than here so sort of swamp that whole discourse.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left-Libertarianism
66: see, I actually think it might be easier to get clinical trials run anad managed by a truly neutral third party (like the government) if these trials weren't also the gateway to approval of the drug. I don't think that is politically possible now.
Whatever, though, I'm not a libertarian, just thinking over stuff I've heard them pushing that is non-obvious (like criticizing the nuttier aspects of the war on drugs) and might make sense.
can therefore make arbitrary rules without going through the legislative process
How thoroughly do you object to this? Taken to the extreme, this would indicate that no federal agency should be allowed to make rules or regulations, and Congress should write everything down to the last detail.
Assuming you object to rulemaking in at least some cases, do you feel that publication in the Federal Register and the public comment period are insufficient?
It may be more euphonious but it sounds too much like Ally Sheedy.
76: I think many libertarians that want to get rid of the FDA think that it will get replaced with something like the Underwriters Laboratory. That combined with Doctors, the people we pay to be experts on this kind of thing, would keep people from having to be experts on drugs.
72 -- Ah, you're a fan of Schecter Poultry!
74: Unfortunately, the liberal position on conscription has been drifting from "only when necessary" to "hey, maybe conscription would prevent stupid wars" (yeah, right) and "lets make all 18-20 year olds serve their country" (to which I say, fuck that shit).
If the state needs a really big army, it should tax everyone on a fair basis, and pay the soldiers whatever it takes to enough volunteers to put themselves in the line of fire. Conscription is an unjust tax on the young and politically powerless.
79: exactly. Much more pithy than my meanderings too.
Before we mock the lipgloss-obsessed, let us remember the words of British Intelligence:
The ordinary Persian is vain, unprincipled, eager to promise what he knows he is incapable of or has no intention of performing, wedded to procrastination, lacking in perserverance and energy, but amenable to discipline. Above all he enjoys intrigue and readily turns to prevarication and dishonesty whenever there is a possibility of personal gain. Although an accomplished liar, he does not expect to be believed. They easily acquire a superficial knowledge of technical subjects, deluding themselves into the belief that it is profound.
I think Ogged should add this to his profile, with pride. Apparently, Iranians are born bloggers.
As Jonathan Schwarz notes, "It's quite strange the way the countries with all the oil are filled with such awful people." --Texas used to have a lot of oil, didn't it?
(And the Brits could never understand why the Iranians weren't thrilled to have BP running their country for them?)
"to get enough volunteers"
Psychologists should come up with a technique that makes it easier to proofread one's own writing.
81 -- We're obviously interacting with different liberals.
I recognize the arc that zadfrack is describing. Point #2 is epitomized by Rep. Rangel's bill to resurrect the draft (which IIRC he introduced with more or less that exact argument - that if rich people's kids were at risk, we wouldn't get into stupid wars) and point #3 usaully winds up being some kind of "national service" that is not just military but an expansion/revitalization of the Civilian Conservation Corps, AmeriCorps, Peace Corps, etc.
No opinion on how representative these ideas are among liberals, though.
80: Skimmed it. It looks to be agreeable to me. I think the Commerce clause is another debacle.
77: I think if we are forming new legislative bodies it should be done by Constitutional amendment. Otherwise I think Congress should have to debate things. The agencies can do most of the work, but in order to be enforced as law it should go through a legislative debate.
It's cute that Becks thought that we'd need a link to know who Ally Sheedy was.
Was it her practice of genocide that killed her career? She really dropped of the face of the world after, what, St. Elmo's Fire?
I wouldn't call Maid to Order genocide, but, as there are conventions that prohibit both, the confusion is understandable.
CJB, I was all set to say that your 79 seems interestingly non-insane to me (having never heard of the Underwriters Laboratory until ten minutes ago), but your 87 has me totally confused. Congress does debate things -- on the macro level. The agencies do do most of the work -- on the micro level. The devil is in the details, and that's what the rulemaking process is about.
Either I'm being dense or we just disagree about how much of the "micro" Congress really has the time and training to do.
91: At the current size of the Government and with the number of laws that are passed. I don't think Congress could actually debate everything. I think that is a problem in itself. The problem is that the regulations that a lot of agencies create have the force of law without going through the constitutionally set out law making process. If we want these agencies to create laws they should be given that power explicitly through constitutional amendment.
Also to be fare I don't actually expect any of this to actually happen. I understand that libertarian ideas are not mainstream. I am arguing the way I think should be not in any way I actually expect them to happen.
93 is overly fawning, and besides ignores the important role 89 in bringing 90 into being.
94 is just fishing for recognition.
95 is just some chaotic, good, halfling, fighter/thief fishing for ben's approval.
I thought thieves had to be either neutral or evil, hence no CG thieves. But that is my AD&D, pre-9/11 outlook talking, I'm sure.
Eliminating the FDA would create more nightmares than you can possibly imagine. One of my company's jobs as a CRO is to ensure that our clients follow the law and report their statistics honestly. Just based on what they sometimes try to get away with even within a highly regulated and policed industry, I can promise you that without the FDA, they would give you any goddamn thing on earth in a capsule regardless of safety or efficacy, just so long as you're willing to pay for it. As frustrating as the FDA and the drug approval process can be (and believe me, they are), they are still on your side. The drug companies are not. Without the FDA, you'd be able to trust Big Pharma's scientific results as much as you did Big Tobacco's a couple decades ago.
96 is either a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess, or a criminal. Does that answer your question?
If the government is going to do something it should done as close to the people affected as possible.
Nice line, sounds good, mostly bullshit. The problem is that the closer a government gets to the people affected, the smaller the pool from which officials are drawn and the greater the likelihood that it will be run by morons.
101: Also the greater likelihood that the officials will be corrupt, have conflicts of interest, etc.
Hey froz, based on 65 I am assuming you are a farmer of olives?
On the lip balm issue, I recall that when I was growing up a great many people I went to school with (mainly but not exclusively girls) used chapstick constantly. I'm not in contact with most of those people anymore, but I wouldn't be surprised if many of them now use lip balm in the same manner. It's very dry here, of course.
For instance, the humidity right now is 7%.
103: Yes, that too. But "run by morons" is pithier than the full list of evils.
That must be nice. Humidity here is a totally reasonable 40% but for way too much of the last month it has been like half again or double that.
Wait, "lip balm" and "chapstick" are two different things?
I know lip gloss is different, but those two must be the same.
They probably are the same thing; I've never used any of that stuff, so I'm not clear on the meanings of the various terms.
Relative humidity is meaningless without knowing the temperature, of course. Here it's 95 degrees.
Hey froz, based on 65 I am assuming you are a farmer of olives?
No, I have no vested financial interest in that medical advice. Red wine, on the other hand...
Chapstick is just a brand of lip balm, which is supposed to heal your lips but doesn't unless it's the Blistex ointment. Lip gloss makes them shiny and deposits minimal color.
Do people gripe about low humidity too? Jesus. I live in a swamp with frequent 100%.
Medicine in Taiwan was basically unregulated, with outcomes like children dying from lead-based folk medicines, and a doctor/prostitute giving penicillin to an allergic patient and trying to dspose of the dissected body in garbage bags around town.
Do people gripe about low humidity too?
No, they just keep applying lip balm.
Wait, "lip balm" and "chapstick" are two different things?
To add to what Cala said, Chapstick is not only a brand but is a specific kind of lip balm -- the petroleum-based kind. People for whom that is an issue (ethically or health-wise) can be fussy about prefering other kinds of lip balm. Consult your local Whole Foods for examples.
Something in an aloe blend, perhaps?
Burt's Bees makes a really nice one. I usually only need lip balms in winter, and I find that the better ones don't induce the must-apply-every-15-seconds effect.
The original question was:
3. What's with lip gloss? How many women say in their personal ads that one of the things they couldn't live without is lip gloss? A lot. Weird.
I don't read these personal ads, obviously, but apparently they call for people saying what they can't live without. And apparently women frequently say "lip gloss."
I can't help but conclude that these women are, shall we say, lacking in imagination. Perhaps the men they seek to attract are as well. There you go: 21st century online dating in a nutshell.
Ha! (Now let's go pick some fresh strawberries or something, it's so much better.)
lacking in imagination
Not at all -- the "lacking in imagination" answers are like, "food" and "oxygen", and (for those who live outside the tropics) "heat". It shows a pretty vivid imagination to think that one could die for want of lip-gloss.
I can't help but conclude that these women are, shall we say, lacking in imagination.
Come on, a lot of people probably just want to throw in something lighthearted into those answer boxes.
I think it's sort of a cliche that you're supposed to say lip gloss if they're asking what sort of beauty product you couldn't live without. It probably is a really good proxy, better than Tevas, for someone being low maintenance but who knows how to look good when it counts. Uh.
Unless she's wearing Lip Smackers, and then it's only a good proxy for jailbait.
Dude, gswift, your daughter's all of three years from Lip Smacker territory. Shouldn't you be teaching her to reload while applying lip gloss rather than macking on the preteens?
I've never seen the answer boxes on these things, so I trust your judgment. I assume it's not a drop-down menu providing "lip gloss" as one option.
Shouldn't you be teaching her to reload while applying lip gloss rather than macking on the preteens?
She is totally into all things lip gloss. Always has at least two flavors of something lip related with her. And as a matter of fact, this is the summer they start shooting .22's.
Assuming the personals site in question is Nerve, the prompt is "Five items I can't live without" with an open response field.
That is so cute! I hope she does better than I did at that age. Bespectacled11-year-oldCala couldn't get a sight picture at all.
I've never seen the answer boxes on these things
You're getting close to "I don't even have a television" territory. Go read some personal ads!
98: Eliminating the FDA now would probably be a nightmare. I think the problems would be the transition to a new system would have huge costs. I was just pointing out that alternative systems could exists unfortunately transition costs going between systems is probably prohibitively expensive. On the whole the drug companies would kill us all. I think that would be a little overblown. There are already all sorts of foods and supplements on the market that are basically unregulated and they aren't killing people by the thousands. I don't know if they actually do anything beneficial either.
101: Don't get me wrong I would like less government at all levels. I don't know if the regulators at that level are any worse though. The federal government just lets the greediest and most ambitious idiots get power.
It's hard to drop a horny guy with a .22 unless you hit him in the exact right place in the groin area.
Go read some personal ads!
Why? Though. As sociological research? I've read ads in the newspaper and magazines on occasion; not online ads.
Maybe one of these days I'll head in that direction.
And. You know I'm intentionally irritating you all by saying this.
Look: I don't read personal ads for the same reason I don't window-shop: I am not going to buy, so why tease myself?
Craigslist personals are actually pretty fascinating on a sociological level.
I am not going to buy, so why tease myself?
What are you, celibate? (If so, call me, we should date.)
137: It's not all white people, so yeah, that too.
Personal ads are like obituaries -- the fascinating part is trying to deduce why people are choosing to highlight certain aspects. Given 100 or 300 words, what makes people choose as they do? It's amazing to see what people think is important to mention.
135: You don't have to buy. You can rent. Some people even have hourly rates. It is all very convenient.
Things I Cannot Do Without: these have to be trivial, showing that you're normal, healthy, and shallow. Not cocaine, Metamucil, physical therapy, anger management training, Haldol, etc.
We should be Nerve friends, Teo.
I just used up 200 points to contact someone who will probably not write me back. But by God, I'm optimistic!
140: I also think it's interesting to see what qualities they prioritize in a partner.
Rob, you're at UH for part of the summer? Honolulu meetup, time permitting?
It just seems to me that a shotgun would be a better choice, granted that during intimate moments her emotions might impact her marksmanship.
I find it weird that while the profiles I'm most likely to respond to are the absurd/ironic ones, mine is very boring because I don't want to sound like a bitch. But my profile of 3 years ago was extremely absurd/ironic and I got a lot more responses. I think I've forgotten how to write that way without feeling too hip for myself.
Not cocaine, Metamucil, physical therapy, anger management training, Haldol, etc.
I would love to meet the person who can't live without any of these. (as long as they never find out where I live.)
I'll go all out here and say that people placing personal ads, of the online variety, with profiles and such, are basically trying to sell themselves. I'm weird enough that I don't want people who are doing that.
That said, I realize that plenty of decent, interesting people go the personals route. I've known some, and some have had success. Still, it's not for me. I just can't imagine any way I'd be able to profile myself adequately; and can't imagine how anyone I'd be seriously interested in could profile himself. A total crapshoot, and blind dates suck.
That's it, really: blind dates suck. Otherwise personals seem like vehicles for one-night stands; those can turn into relationships of convenience, and I don't want that anymore either.
We should be Nerve friends, Teo.
Totally.
I winked at someone last night; how long should I wait for a response before giving up?
132 -- I'm with Megan on this one. If you want to see "the greediest and most ambitious idiots," you go to NYC, not DC. (Present company obviously not relevant to the matter).
86 -- You recall what the vote was on Rep. Rangel's bill? 402-2
And WRT the various voluntary service gigs -- AmeriCorps, Peace Corps, etc -- they're strictly voluntary. And why shouldn't there be an avenue for people to contibute talent and energy, if they want, under public auspices?
"Darling.... I love you and I hate you.... this is too much for me.... I'm really falling to pieces..... I'm losing control..... I'll just aim in your general direction and hope I hit some vital organ or at leats knock you down....."
150: You should check your "Who's Viewed Me?" thing and see if she's even gotten the message and looked at your profile. If she hotlists you or winks back, that's good, but if she's particularly interesting, I'd go ahead and send a message, because why not?
Dave: I'm at the East West Center as we speak, er, type. I'll be here until July 20. Email me. rloftis at stlawu dot edu.
can't imagine how anyone I'd be seriously interested in could profile himself
Now you're just being hurtful.
Caveat to 153: I have sent a message, and the gentleman has looked at my profile and seems to have no response to my offers of carnal freedoms so far. My profile is really boring.
Re: It's not all white people, so yeah, that too.
and
I also think it's interesting to see what qualities they prioritize in a partner.
One thing I've learned is if someone will only date within their racial/ethnic group, we are guaranteed not to be a match, regardless of what that group is. I wouldn't necessarily have predicted that, but it's been true in 100% of cases.
Linkee, ogged. For extra pleasure giving pain.
Maybe you should post several different profiles to check their effectiveness. Also, if one guy answers to all three profiles, maybe he's the right guy.
AWB: Do you offer "carnal freedoms" specifically? I don't know if I would turn down either carnal freedoms or the kind of woman who says "carnal freedoms."
if someone will only date within their racial/ethnic group, we are guaranteed not to be a match
This is true of me, too, but possibly for different reasons.
Or maybe he's a spammer working for a Russian Mafia white-slave ring. You take your chances.
(And yes, parsimon, blind dates can suck, and I'm obviously selling myself, but sexual property moves very quickly in NYC, and if I don't get it this way, I end up sleeping with people I know, which can be a social disaster.)
Oh wait, the Rangel bill has been reintroduced. And this time it's got 2 co-sponsors! I can't see why I thought anyone was overreacting -- the popularity among members of Congress of the idea of a draft has increased by 50% in less than 3 years.
160: Uh, I forget what I said. I think I asked if it was too suggestive to loan him the use of my knife sharpener, regarding a mention in his profile of a very long dull knife.
blind dates suck
I had dinner recently with an older friend who regaled me with stories of 1970s-era blind dates. It did not inspire even the smallest bit of nostalgia or envy.
sexual property moves very quickly in NYC,
"Chattel! Come back! Dammit, I'll never catch you in these heels!"
Now I am dreamily imagining a similar scene, except that someone is calling after her child, whom she has actually named Chattel.
It just seems to me that a shotgun would be a better choice, granted that during intimate moments her emotions might impact her marksmanship.
Intimate moments are close range. .38 snubbies are a perfect accessory for the ladies.
155: Sigh. How do you pick someone out of a crowd? Shit, maybe these profiles are really interesting after all. But if you have to sift through hundreds to find one that's interesting, I dunno. A lot of time. Isn't it better to try to do it in real life?
Or if you're highly verbal, via blog.
I recently sent a wink at someone, and now I see that her profile has been turned off. Causal efficacy!
168-169: I was thinking more in terms of being priced out of the market. "Two years ago this was really hot property, but it's cooled off lately since I've turned 30. I'm thinking of investing in a few remodeling projects to keep the, uh, property values firm."
173: Yes, those remodeling projects are getting more and more comprehensive in today's economy.
I was showing apartments today, and it struck me how emotional looking for them is. Everyone dealt with being told it was taken in a different way. One person tried to barge into the building, another cried, another sighed and hung up, one started fighting with me. And the guy who took it looked around it for twenty minutes, unsmilingly taking note of all its features, declaring he couldn't find a fault in it, and then, delighted and relieved, signed the paperwork. I always wonder if they date the same way.
those remodeling projects are getting more and more comprehensive
That bacon's not going to trim itself.
153: Neither she nor anyone else has viewed my profile, so it's likely she just hasn't gotten the message yet. I think I'll wait a couple more days, then maybe send her an e-mail if she still hasn't showed up.
Chemical Ali is sentenced to hang.
I've only skimmed the lip-gloss and libertarian part of this thread. But Ali's sentencing reminds me of the Annie Leibovitz portrait of GWB and Dick and the rest of the gang that I saw this weekend. The picture was taken in December, 2001, and originally published in Vanity Fair. Interestingly, Rice and Powell and even Rumsfeld all look as if they're trying to pose for an official portrait two months after September 11th. But Cheney and most of all, GWB, both look at the camera and smirk, as if to say "Oh, boy, we'll have fun fun fun 'till Daddy takes our T-bird away." If any photo should define this Administration, this is one of them.
178: Definitely. That secret reminded me of the psychopath riddle.
151: The nice part about federalism though is that I don't live in NYC so even if some municipalities are fucked up I don't have to live there. Unfortunately moving out of the country is much harder.
Tomorrow, can we have a thread about Mike Gravel?
I'm kind of digging his "Rock" campaign art.
This (from his website) is pretty cool:
In 1971, he waged a successful one-man filibuster for five months that forced the Nixon administration to cut a deal, effectively ending the draft in the United States. He is most prominently known for his release of the Pentagon Papers, the secret official study that revealed the lies and manipulations of successive U.S. administrations that misled the country into the Vietnam War. After the New York Times published portions of the leaked study, the Nixon administration moved to block any further publication of information and to punish any newspaper publisher who revealed the contents.From the floor of the senate, Gravel (a junior senator at the time) insisted that his constituents had a right to know the truth behind the war and proceeded to read 4,100 pages of the 7,000 page document into the senate record. The Supreme Court ultimately ruled that Senator Gravel did not have the right and responsibility to share official documents with his constituents.
He then published The Senator Gravel Edition, The Pentagon Papers, Beacon Press (1971). This publication resulted in litigation, Gravel v. U.S., resulting in a landmark Supreme Court decision (No. 71-1017-1026) relative to the Speech and Debate Clause (Article 1, Section 6) of the United States Constitution.
He has worked as a cab driver in New York City, a clerk on Wall Street and as a brakeman on the Alaska Railroad.
OMG, I was just searching around various cities playing to see if I could figure out who various folks here on Nerve are, and I found one of my exes. That was interesting.
General message:
I don't mean to have been unkind to those who engage in online personals profiles. Really. Just that it's a mystery to me.
181 -- You missed my meaning. No matter where you live, you are living in an economy designed to serve the interests of the greedy and most ambitious idiots who run it. From their private sector perches.
185: I worry more about the moralistic idiots then the capitalistic ones myself. I meant greedy in that Federal level politicians need much more money and so end up more beholden to special interests.
Parsimon, quit being nice. It's inappropriate here.
I worry more about the moralistic idiots then the capitalistic ones myself.
That's a pretty bizarre set of priorities.
186 -- Ambition I'll grant you, but greed? Members of Congress don't really get to keep much of that money, it just lets them keep their jobs. A congressman makes less than a junior associate at a big law firm, and, all in, works longer hours.
That's a pretty bizarre set of priorities.
Or so the mullahs would have you believe.
I might be willing to go with ambition. I think even fairly honest politicians get a lot of perks with their jobs and if they play their cards right can leave to pretty cushy private sector jobs. And just because they don't get to keep the money themselves as you say they still need it to stay in power so it will still have a hold over them.
192: Fair enough, but that doesn't really have anything to do with bureaucracy.
86: See this thread at Ezra's today on Chris Dodd's national service plan to get a feel for the current liberal position on such an idea.
I'll go on record saying that if the 2008 Democratic nominee is pushing mandatory national service, that's probably the one thing that would get me to abstain from voting. (And I'm the kind of civic duty nerd that even votes in local primary elections.)
her child, whom she has actually named Chattel
Pron., of course, "shah-TELLE".
I thought that was how "chattel" was already pronounced. It's one of those words that nobody says with their mouth, only writes down.
Once a friend of mine was in a mall in Virginia and heard a mother say sharply to her small child, "Spatula! I have two words for you: Be. Have."
Did she pronounce "Have" like the English verb?
I have two words for you: Do. Be.
I wanna go back to 149. I'm not sure if meeting through online personals always counts as a blind date; how many e-mails do you exchange first? In how much detail?
But anyways, the "blind dates suck" part is what I was curious about. I know it's conventional wisdom, but I'm not seeing it. The worst case scenario from a blind date is one awkward evening, right? Maybe worse depending on how careless the person who fixed you up was, and maybe I underestimate just how bad one evening can get, but still. It doesn't seem nearly as bad as dating a co-worker or the new neighbor or something. Do blind dates have a bad rep not because they go worse than "normal" dates, but because they go worse so frequently?
I've never been on a real blind date, fixed up by others. I have met people I've come to know online, but only once was that with romantic intent, and that only after having exchanged a lot of pictures so that we were fairly sure we found each other attractive.
It's the attraction, or attractiveness, thing: I spend enough psychological energy fending off the pressure to be constantly worried about whether I look good, whether random folks find me attractive, and whatnot.
The thought of meeting with someone with the express intent of seeing whether he finds me attractive (enough to sleep with?) strikes me as masochistic. It's not that I have terribly low self-esteem about it; I'm sort of distinctive-looking, such that some people find me attractive, and others are just "meh."
It works much better to let that sorting happen for the most part in real life. I'm certainly not against meeting people initially online, god knows I do it all the time, but if crushing is going to go on, I'd rather have it creep up on me while in pursuit of other interests.
And I don't see what's so bad about dating a co-worker or a new neighbor.
No, it was as in "behave" -- I dithered about how best to render that.
I don't see what's so bad about dating a co-worker
I didn't either, until I tried it. Don't shit where you eat.
Don't shit where you eat.
It sounds as though the co-worker part wasn't the problem.
201 -- yeah, I figured as much. Just the other way seemed like it would be funny, and distract from the hilarious idea of naming your child "Spatula". What other kitchen appliances could be used for a name? "Collander" is kind of nice for a boy's name; "Ricer", maybe a middle name. "Sieve" maybe for a girl.
re: 200
Never been on a blind date. Can count on the fingers of one hand I've been on a 'date'.*
However, the one time, years ago, I went on a double-date with a friend, his girlfriend and her female-friend-I-didn't-know it didn't go great. We had a great time, went back to my friend's flat, opened and drank a lot of bottles of wine.
Cue me dozing off on the floor and waking up in the morning (still fully clothed) to find the female-friend-I-didn't-know had i) put a blanket over me and ii) taken off her clothes and climbed under it and snuggled. I took this as a sign that maybe if I phoned her later she'd be amenable to going to see a movie or something. But apparently I read too much into it semi-naked snuggling.
* see previous threads, passim.
It's still a little funny, since "behave" isn't actually two words. But yes. Spatula!
Call me old fashioned, but I prefer the good old names like "Pancake Turner" and "Whisk".
Pancake Turner = Nat Turner's less famous brother.
Re: 1. The song is idiotic, but what a great video.
Hey is French for sieve "siève"? Cause that would be a seriously great name for a girl.
No, "Sieve" is actually an Anglo-Saxon word. It's unclear what the "e" is doing in the middle.
Awesome. So I can name my next daughter "Siève" without fear of her going through life being named after a kitchen appliance.
I recently sent a wink at someone,
I winked at someone last night;
People, DO NOT WINK. It's lame behavior. How inspired can you possibly be by a profile if you can't even string together two or three sentences to respond to it? And if you're too shy to send an email, how tongue-tied are you going to be in person?
I don't even respond to winks from women, and we all know women are pickier than guys.
Is "wink" the name of a message that does not include any text -- one that is intended only to pass your name along to the object of your infatuation and hope they follow up?
People, DO NOT WINK. It's lame behavior. How inspired can you possibly be by a profile if you can't even string together two or three sentences to respond to it?
Some people have it set so that you're not allowed to email them directly.
I would go with "Siège" myself.
Siège Périlleux Os/ner.
214 is right: a wink is pure medium, a message whose content is "you have a message".
Ah, so it's like a Facebook poke.
if [head-]crushing is going to go on, I'd rather have it creep up on me while in pursuit of other interests.
My thoughts exactly.
213 was me, BTW. I'm all about stern admonitions, in caps.
You shouldn't poke people either, they might get mad.
I think this lipgloss thing helped me with an epiphany. Ogged's insistence that makeup is a proxy for high maintenance, combined with his *noted silence* on the question of cushy toilet paper, is absolute proof of his utter sexism.
That, and you boys are all wusses.
Poking is charmingly meaningless because FB is not just a dating site. Nerve is ostensibly for people who want to date, and in that context, winking is lame unless you have no spendable points and are hoping the other person (who may have less limited contacting power) will like you and message you.
That said, I only have two messages' worth of spending power before I use money, and I spent one of them last night on someone who has still not (and therefore will not) write back.
The thought of meeting with someone with the express intent of seeing whether he finds me attractive (enough to sleep with?) strikes me as masochistic.
In the context of a date, at least, it occurs to a guy to think about whether I'm attractive or not. My friends and colleagues just don't think of me that way, perhaps because I'm fairly professional and talkative (?? no idea, actually). But the only difference I can think of is that a certain kind of social context of mutual respect makes certain people off-limits for concupiscence, and a blind date lacks that prohibitive context.
Do you ever feel like it makes dating slightly like Pokemon?
LET ME SHOW YOU MY FUTURE BOYFRIENDS.
Let me show you them.
a certain kind of social context of mutual respect makes certain people off-limits for concupiscence,
I don't think that at all, I find it rather sexy when I respect or admire someone in their work selves. It's just that the work context massively raises the risk of negative fallout from a failed attempt at concupiscence.
whether he finds me attractive (enough to sleep with?)
Isn't that what photos are for -- IME honest recent photos along with basic physical info usually take care of the pure physical attractiveness aspect (unless someone's in-person personality negatively affects their looks).
216 really is great, especially because I recently was trying to remember the phrase "siege perilous".
When I was a kid, when my parents were entertaining visitors, I would often set up army men outside the door obstructing any egress in order to force those within to capitulate to my demands—sort of a siege parlous, if you will.
Not a lot of support for the winking, it seems. I don't know, I just figured it was best to see if there's any interest before using up any points to send a message.
Teo, you need to convey that you are a prosperous male who has ample points that he can squander in this endeavour. Where were you when we were learning how to live on the veldt?
Where were you when we were learning how to live Internet date on the veldt?
I think I'll just message her on OKCupid instead. No limit on messages there.
My mom just poked me on facebook. I'm not sure how to feel about that.
Teo, I hate to go all Econ 101 on you, but seriously: Think of it as a sunk cost. You've spent $30 (or whatever). Now go forth and get a month's worth of enjoyment and opportunity out of it -- just as if it were three movie tickets, or one very expensive museum visit. Don't debate whether you should walk eleven times around the block to kill time before the discount twilight movie.
/end opinionated opinion
You could walk around the block once, but at 1/11th of your normal pace.
235: Er, what? I haven't spent anything on any of these sites.
You know what is a crucially important unasked question on these dating/networking/whatever sites? Walking speed.
A. Normal. What are you talking about?
B. Average, unless I'm passing by shop windows.
C. Depends on what shoes I'm wearing.
D. Skip the gym; just walk next to me.
It could save a lot of heartache down the road.
My mom wants to get instant messenger so she can chat with YoungestCalaSis when she heads off to college in the fall. This is going to be fun.
OK, I got overruled on the "poking on Facebook is passive-aggressive" on the grounds that Facebook is not a dating site. But winking is really no good.
240: Whoops. What's this "points" thing, then? Aren't you paying for those?
And don't listen to eb, he's murdering the English language.
Well, depending on who you are trying to attract, I suppose winking at guys can work. But I think winking at most women is a waste of time.
Jake's right about the winks. And AWB or whoever upthread.
But that's just percentages. There are exceptions to every rule.
To what does the "long" in "long walks on the beach" refer? In an area with small beaches, to be long the walk would have to be slow: "take a long walk on a short beach," one might say. On the other hand, a brisk pace on a longer beach might make the walk long in distance but not in time.
What's this "points" thing, then? Aren't you paying for those?
Nah, you get them for doing various things Nerve encourages you to do. I got my by uploading a picture. Each picture only gets you enough points to send one message, though (and you can only upload five total). Upgrading to a paid membership lets you send as many messages as you want.
Okay, Jake, I bow to your more extensive experience. No more winks for me.
248: Presumably it has to do with the amount of time you spend together, so a slow walk on a short beach would count but a brisk walk on a long beach would not. The issue of walking speed is important here.
Cala, my mother never got around to IM but she was an avid user of e-mail. It actually was great fun for her, and she was thus always more in touch with her away-at-college brood than my father.
Teo, I take back my "whoops." Buy a paid membership already. Are they that expensive, or is it the principle of the thing?
Walking stamina is important too.
Argh. Not trying to be hectoring. Just saying that having seen the emails some people write, and having seen your ability to string together a setence or five, and having been on more than one's fair share of internet dates and engaged in a fair bit of meta-discussion, it's really not obvious at first glance just how useless winking is.
Teo, are you claiming that a fast walker doesn't spend enough time with his s.o.? Bah.
To what does the "long" in "long walks on the beach" refer?
Endowment. Though I'm told that what women really want is thick walks on the beach.
I should have known these things all used "the beach" as a yonic symbol.
252: I'll consider a paid membership when I come close to running out of points.
255: Not at all; I'm a fast walker myself. Just that it's an issue that needs to be taken into consideration when planning long walks on the beach.
The discussion about long walks could benefit from reviewing related research.
I think I am learning that no matter how cute and funny my personal messages are, they aren't going to get me laid if I don't write a more entertaining profile. It's hard to be funny, though, without sounding like a bitch or inviting regrettable misunderstandings.
We should all edit each other's profiles.
It's hard to be funny, though, without sounding like a bitch or inviting regrettable misunderstandings.
Understatement of the week.
263: It's funny -- people talk about online dating so much here that I've thought about it, despite its entire irrelevance to my life, and I can't imagine how anyone writes a profile. Anything I can think of that would convey anything at all about what I'm like, or what sort of person I like to date, seems as if it would come across as wildly obnoxious and unpleasant.
It's really a quite difficult thing to do.
There are services which will help you with your profile.
It was for the benefit of those who've never seen a Bob comment before.
Ah, the days when Bob was commenting...
I saw Bob under a bridge. I gave him the can of beans I happened to be carrying.
There are services which will help you with your profile.
I think that the kind of people who would work for services like that are not part of my target audience. It's just as important not to attract people you wouldn't like with your profile as it is to attract people you like.
Actually, I don't think I need any help, my profile seems to work well enough on those occasions when I wheel it out. You only have to stand out enough to get a first meeting, everything else is determined by how you are together anyway.
It was for the benefit of those who've never seen a Bob comment before.
And I can't believe there was ever a time that this profile got only 4 comments on a post. A post about dating, no less.
I think we should write a profile of LizardBreath--not so much about what sort of person she'd date (hi Buck!)--but about who she is in a paragraph or less that might interest someone who was looking for a date.
This is actually a terrifying idea: others writing you up.
There's a reason we see ourselves in the mirror through our own eyes.
Noobs. Labs put up an ad for me that actually got a response.
It might be more useful, actually, in an actual online-dating situation, to have some knowledge of how others see you.
The instance mentioned in 279 is a perfect example of what I mean.
BG! What's going on with John?
(And Teo, are you saying you want feedback on your profile? 'Cause I was thisclose to tricking Salon/Nerve personals into thinking I was looking for someone with your stats, just for the fun of looking at it.)
Nah, I think my profile's okay. Mostly just musing on the difficulty of writing one. Anyone who wants to can feel free to try and find it, though.
Hell, I don't mean that it's a terrible idea; it'd be fascinating.
In sort of the same way that you might or might not want to read someone else's novel involving a character who is supposed to be you: terrifying, fascinating.
There sure are a lot of people from Santa Fe on OKCupid.
I found you, Teo. Check your email.
Unfogged died on me mid-comment. I could neither post nor load the site. It was frightening.
This is what I tried to post..
282: Nothing good so far. I keep telling myself that I have to say something, because it will be too painful to go on as friends. He's astonishingly polite about some things, but can be clueless and rude about others.
But then, I spend time with him, and I think, "I don't want to say something that will cause me to lose someone I consider a good friend."
He's spent so much time at the hospital that he's only just branching out into other social groups, so I'd hate to make it awkward for him to be part of the group at church. I wouldn't want to feel that I had to leave it either.
We had a long conversation the other day whiel walking about status and schools and how dumb it all was and how unreal so much of it seemed to him. Our Church is very waspy even by Episcopal standards, and it can be very status conscious. There are a lot fo people with high-powered resumes. He's really kind of pure in a certain way--not unaware of, but remarkably untouched by snobbery--and it makes me want to be a better person than I am, though I'm sure he thinks that he's overly prideful. Some other friends of mine tried to drag John out to play catch, but in the end we just went over to his apartment to grill. One person ditched us at the last minute, so it was just me, John and friend N. Friend N had to leave to go to a dinner, so we both went out at the same time. I offered to help clean up, but John walked us out together.
He does seem to remember a lot of details about me, even when he can't remember other people's names.
My strongest interpretation of this is that he just sees us as friends, but it's also the case that he's an early riser who likes to go to bed around 9, and he might have been trying to be polite (though clueless) in declining my offer to help. Gah! I admit that I'm a total wuss.
I never can tell whether guys really want to go to bed [by themselves] early or whether they're trying to be polite. My first college bf was obsessed with getting to bed at a certain time (swim practice in the morning), so I got used to taking it seriously. Now I just get confused.
He does get up at like 5 every morning. He's said so to a bunch of other people, and a couple of times I've seen him start "to fade fast."
My resolution is to avoid obsessing, and I have mostly. I also resolve to say something so that I can move on, but I do enjoy his company a lot. I find myself talking to him and can't quite imagine what I'd do, if I said something, and it turned out that the feelings aren't reciprocated.
We have definitely become good friends, but his nature is fairly confessional, so it's not clear that his fairly easy intimacy is with any purpose in mind.
Having said that, he did ask me once whether I was a vegetarian (in the context of grilling burgers). He said, "You have the body of a vegetarian." He got a little embarrassed after that, and I wasn't drunk enough to make a move. But then he's a doctor, and he (rather goofily) complimented me on my veins.
BG, for the love of god, say something. You have to take the chance sometime; you really like this guy.
I concur. It's pretty obvious just thinking about him makes you a little giddy. Say something! He likes your veins!
Yeah, I must. I was planning to when I was going to help him with the dishes, see? Work has been so shitty lately that it's taking all of my energy just to make it through each day.
Yesterday was the first weekend day off I've had in months, and the weather was gorgeous.
Now I have to get myself to sleep, because I need to be at work by 6:45.
