The Antisocial Socialist

I feel obligated, as a dweller in a tiny, dusty corner of the feminist blogosphere, to comment on the Lori Gottlieb thing. Lately, she seems to be on the covers of those magazines meant to make middle class women feel bad about themselves as well as in the sections of newspapers that are meant to make middle class women feel bad about themselves. Lori Gottlieb is—for those of you who are lucky enough to avoid that shit—a very sad woman. She wants a dude to marry her. She also has pitiful self-esteem. You can tell by the pictures; she is skinny as hell but she's still resorting to a MySpace angle for her publicity photos. Also she thinks she's old. And ugly. Neither of which she is, physically speaking, though in spirit she's a bit of an ogre.

Gottlieb's groundbreaking theory is that, had she settled in her youth for one of the many dogged Nice Guys^TM who pursued her, she would not currently be single and miserable. I have my own theory. I believe that anyone who writes a book titled Marry Him: The Case For Marrying Mr. Good Enough (or in fact, has it on their bookshelf) is going to have a hard time ever getting laid for reasons that I'm sure are obvious. Not to mention the fact that she's publicly and brutally fat-shamed at least one ex-boyfriend (who sounds like a pretty nice guy), under her real name no less, means that she's probably going to have difficulty even getting past introductions, let alone to first base.

Generally speaking, someone so obviously pathetic wouldn't be worth an even half-thought-out post even on a slow news day, but I happened to be reading Chatelaine and there was a long interview wherein she bemoaned the tendency of uppity feminists, sorry, modern women, to be entitled about dating. She even mentioned Sex in the City (which amuses me given that the one episode I saw was all about settling for a guy who was a flake and treated the protagonist badly but was good enough), that whipping girl of empowerful pseudofeminism. And it occurred to me just how useful such Serena Joys are; they're the flip side of the Superbowl ads. Submit, submit, submit, even if he marks his territory with piss around the toilet and dirty socks on your bedroom floor and expects you to clean it up, even if he hates you, because at least he's not beating you, and without him, you'll get old alone with only your cats for company. Apparently she slags on the idea of having a tight-knit circle of girlfriends, even though that is fucking awesome and everyone, male and female, ought to be entitled to a tight-knit circle of girlfriends. But I suppose that threatens the dreary cage of co-dependence that she so fantasizes about.

File under: Don't know whether to laugh or cry.

Young woman held 8 years in underground cell starts new career as TV host"

For some reason, I knew this would happen. I predict that within a year there will be a reality TV series based on her experience.

Randroid dating! I tried to sign up to get a look at the ads, but alas, my application was probably a mite unconvincing. But I'm so curious.

Oh, it really is my day. The Pandagon/PunkAss folks have uncovered the trainwreck to end all trainwrecks. Dear readers, meet Jacqueline Mackie Paisley Passey. She's better than 86.3456546% of you!

She's airbrushed hot!

I’m attractive (my new picture has been rated more attractive than 86% of the women on Hot or Not -- and the women who upload their pictures are a self-selected sample that is probably already biased towards being more attractive than the general female population)

She's brainy (even though she can't seem to fix the HTML on her blog)!

I’m intelligent (IQ tested at 145 when I was a child, which is 3 standard deviations above the mean -- higher than 99.85% of the population. Even if I’ve gotten dumber as I’ve aged I’m probably still at least a 130, which is higher than 97.5% of the population.)

She clearly still lives with her parents!

I have my financial shit together (no debt, perfect credit history, 6+ months living expenses saved, adequate insurance, self employed)

And she's horny!

I have a strong libido and love having sex (my lover *never* has to beg, unless it’s for me to let him get some sleep!)

But she still doesn't want to date you. She complains:

I'm sorry if I've offended you, but I'm also really sick of getting e-mailed several times a week by delusionally hopeful men who read my blog and think because I am *their* dream girl that I'll therefore want them too.  Too often they act crushed when I reject them, which I feel bad about, but if they had stopped to consider whether they had as much to offer me as I have to offer them then they might have had more realistic expectations. 

Since becoming single again the amount of time I've had to spend on hopeful fanboy/stalker management has been steadily increasing.  It's uncomfortable, a little creepy, somewhat overwhelming, and I want it to stop.  I'm hoping this post will serve as a reality check for the guys involved (as well as any who were thinking about joining their ranks) because I don't want to have to stop being friends or friendly with the single geeky guys I meet via this blog.

Here's my advice: Stop mentioning that you're single, dear. Take your photo down, or if you must camwhore, choose a picture of yourself that does not show part of your boob. I am squarely average in terms of looks, and even I get hit on when I post pictures of myself. Or when I don't. Or when I go out in public. I dig the attention (I am a third-wave sex-positive feminist, after all) as long as the boys and girls aren't sleazy about it, and I'm guessing that she does too, as she doth protest way too much about it.

What's even grosser, though, is her advice to men who aren't "of quality":

Lower your standards and stop pursuing women who are out of your league. There are lots of fat single mothers out there who can’t find dates either.

Look in the developing world. If you’re literate with a home computer and an internet connection you are very wealthy compared to the rest of the world. Citizenship or legal permanent residency in a rich country makes you more attractive to women in poorer countries. Your value on the dating market is thus much higher there.

Oddly enough, I do know fat single mothers who get dates. Why? Because they aren't assholes, and because there are decent men out there who like larger women and who are good with kids. But I doubt they want to date libertarians.

Other than the humour factor, this is just fascinating on a personal-is-political level. Libertarians have problems getting dates because their entire ideology does not lend itself to functional relationships. One can't view another person as an object, a means to an end, a commodity to be traded on a free market, and not experience some sort of emotional fallout. Libertarian men want an airbrushed Playboy centerfold who's just smart enough to echo their talking points and who will lie naked across their desks over a skyline of high-rise office buildings. Libertarian women want John Galt. The problem is that most libertarians tend to be acne-ridden overgrown teenagers living in their parents' basements and playing video games (not that there's anything wrong with that, but it's hardly the Randroid ideal) so they are completely incapable of meeting their own inhuman standards.

This has been a total cheap shot, but can you blame me?