Kiss 'Em and Toss 'Em Back

It's funny how not long after deciding that I don't need everyone to like me and that I am allowed to let certain friendships fade, I find I am very quickly building up a list of people I no longer need in my life. Today's star (who will be called Andromeda) is one who I've come to realise isn't as fun as he appears on the surface. Among his many irritating traits, we had a discussion over respect for relationships, which is what finally pushed him from barely tolerable to not someone I need in my life.

Imagine you meet someone that you really enjoy spending time with. You find yourself looking forward to seeing them, and you always seem to have a lighter feeling in your heart after being with them. You finally realise, "Hey, I'm actually attracted to this person." So you work up the courage to finally make a move, and just before you're about to meet up with this person and ask them out, you bump into a mutual friend who drops a bombshell - this person you're so attracted to is already in a relationship. You don't know this other person, which explains why you didn't know about the relationship. What do you do?

I've always been of the thought that you chalk it up to bad timing - perhaps if you had met them earlier in life, something could have happened, but you didn't. So it's time to write stupid poetry, mope around in bed for a bit, listen to crappy love songs, and eventually get over them. They may one day be single, but you probably shouldn't hold your breath waiting for that to happen. You stay friends if you can bare it, otherwise, you slowly fade away, and go and meet new people.

Andromeda has a different view. He thinks that you should just go for it anyway. Look at it this way, either this person is in a serious relationship, and turns you down, or their relationship isn't that serious and this person now considers you a potential candidate for replacement. You either cut your losses and stop wasting time pursuing something that'll never be, or you end up getting this person that is so amazing. As for the partner, who cares? You don't owe them anything, and if this person was willing to leave in the first place, then you were really doing them both a favour as the relationship can't have been going so well anyway.

Putting it that way, Andromeda's point actually makes sense. If you think that everyone is just out to find their perfect match, and that if you meet someone you happen to get along with better than your current partner, it's probably worth it to give it a shot, otherwise you'll regret every time the two of you get into an argument. Still, it just doesn't sit with me very well. I hate the thought that even once you're in a relationship, you constantly have to compete to stay on top, rather than spend your energy enjoying the relationship.

I also think that people should have respect for other people's relationships. A bit like this scene from Scrubs, where JD realises women with wedding rings are invisible to him, guys in relationships mostly drop off my radar. There was the exception of Daniel, but given the way that I thought he was flirting, I feel like that was a special circumstance. Char also calls married men "safe", I guess because she knows nothing will ever come out of it and so she can just be herself. I like to believe that if I respect the relationships around me, my own will be respected in return, and I won't have to constantly worry that someone is trying to steal MrMan5.5 away from me.

The last point against it I have is the greener pastures effect. This one is a bit more from the point of view of the person in the relationship, rather than the one who is encroaching on the relationship. You may think that this person that you suddenly "click" with is really great, and it seems like they're better for you than your current partner, but how much have you really had the chance to get to know them? I'm sure things with your current partner started off really great as well, and you had that awesome feeling whenever you saw them. Then the honeymoon period ended and normalcy hit. Yet your relationship still managed to hold together. Do you think that will happen with this new person once the novelty effect wears off?

I wrote a long time ago about RH - someone who I had feelings for who got engaged and is now married. I ended up seeing him at PAX last year - though he did not see me as he was one of the panelists. I can't remember when the last time I spoke to him was, but it finally burst the bubble for me. We were talking about how I once stopped by his house with the promise of receiving pizza (I was so easy to bribe in my uni days), and sex was on the agenda, but in the end, I turned back, because I didn't want things to become awkward between me and his brother, who I was very close to at the time. He said that he was totally OK with not telling his brother, and if I hadn't turned back, he would have bought me everything I could possibly have wanted.

I just felt so insulted by that last comment. We were both really into World of Warcraft, I had spoken to him many times about programming related things, I don't know what I had done to give him the impression that I was the kind of girl who is interested in getting presents all the time, but if that's what he thought of me, then maybe he didn't know me so well after all (yes, there's that female neckbeard leaking out again!).

Up until that point, he could do no wrong in my eyes. So much about him was perfect to me, except the part of him being married (which didn't happen until long after we had stopped speaking). I think a lot of that was due to the fact that our friendship never went past the honeymoon stage. We spoke every night, but he would go to work, and I'd go to uni, and we'd both have our WoW raids (on opposite factions, so it wasn't even like we could talk to each other in game). It wasn't like we were in each other's faces all the time, so the absence made the time we spent together all the more precious. We never fought because we had nothing to fight about - and because we hadn't ever met in person, we still had that semi-anonymous Internet intimacy between us. We did dual each other for photos (I think in the end, I was 9-1, but I got a photo eventually!), and  I guess we both found each other non-repulsive enough to still be attracted to each other.

Being with MrMan5.5 for this long has made me proud that I stayed around during some of the tougher times. It wasn't always as easy as it is now, and even now, sometimes we have problems with each other. But if I had ditched him for the first guy to ask me out when I was in a relationship, then... I'd be with Cheka. The guy who befriended MrMan5.5, and who MrMan5.5 supported even after he started behaving inappropriately, and then the guy who tried to steal MrMan5.5's girlfriend.

Hanging Out

As part of my New Year's resolution, I've gotten to know two really awesome people. Both of them are also female gamers, and it sounds a bit silly, but talking to them, a lot of the time I find myself saying, "Me, too!" I really enjoy hanging out with them. One of them, Ally, was telling us about her own experiences with being, "one of the guys".

She really liked this guy (GG), they spent a lot of time together recording podcasts, watching TV shows, and playing board games. She thought that maybe he was spending more time with her than with anyone else, but it was hard to tell as they often spent time with other people, and he is really friendly in general. Eventually, she figured that he wasn't interested in her, but she still thought he was a great guy, so she tried to set him up with one of her friends. It didn't go so well, as her friend wasn't really interested in him, not being nearly as geeky as she is. So she tried again with another friend (who also happens to work at the same company as her) who happens to be a hot, Eastern European programmer (who also happens to be a huge geek).

The second matchmaking attempt was more successful. Her programmer friend got along really well with him, and the three of them started organising events together. Ally still had feelings for this guy, and even though she knew he was interested in someone else, she didn't want to pass up the opportunity to spend time with him, even if it was just as a friend. How often do you find a friend who is interested in all the same things you are, and takes good care of you?

A few weeks later, Ally was hanging out with the co-workers of Hot Eastern European Programmer when one of them mentions that HEEP went out on a date with someone she met online over the weekend. Ally was a bit confused, and she asked wasn't HEEP going out with GG? None of them even knew who GG was, HEEP had never mentioned him. So Ally went back to GG and asked if he and HEEP broke up. Now GG was really confused. As far as he was concerned, he and Ally had been dating for the past few months. He said that he never asked his female friends to just "hang out", and so he thought all the times that they hung out together were dates. However, from Ally's point of view, hanging out was just that... hanging out.

The two of them had a conversation where they made it official to each other that they were boyfriend and girlfriend.

The entire situation stemmed from a misunderstanding. He pretty much never spent time around other females, and so he thought he was being clear of his intentions when he asked her to join him on various activities. Though, seeing as they were both pretty geeky, the activities he came up with were not the traditional date activities (dinner, movies, coffee). I guess that led to her not considering those outings "dates", and made her unclear of their status. However, since she's fairly shy and modest, she didn't want to ask him whether he was interested in her in a romantic way, because she didn't even think he would be interested in a girl like her.

When your friendship group's gender ratio happens to be heavily skewed towards the same gender that you are attracted to, I think this can be a common occurrence. I would have no problem seeing a movie, or going out to dinner just 1-on-1 with a male friend, and wouldn't consider it a date at all unless they specifically said so. Probably because I've done it so many times and it hasn't been a date. Dante and I used to meet up for coffee regularly, but neither of us had romantic intentions.

Ally's story reminded me of RT. In my first year of uni, we spent a lot of time together. Mostly painting models or playing Warhammer 40k. We'd meet up after class to play board games. He asked me to see Shaolin Soccer with him, but I had an optometrist appointment a couple of hours before it, so I said I'd meet him at the cinema, instead of his house, which was fairly close to mine. However, my appointment was delayed by 3 hours, and he didn't have a mobile phone, so I couldn't even tell him that I was going to be late (I tried calling his home, but there was no answer). I showed up to the cinema 2 hours late, and he was still there waiting, so we went to see the movie. He even came to my house on New Year's Eve as I mentioned I would be home alone as I was working that night and my parents had gone out to the family gathering, and we spent the night playing Tiberian Sun.

At the time, I was 100% sure that there was nothing between us. There were girls on his running team that he spoke about a lot, and also this girl that we both went to primary school with who was my best friend at the time, and who he was completely in love with during our school years. After hearing Ally's story, I think I'm only 95% sure now. Thinking back, it seems like he went further than your typical friend would go, but I don't know if that's because he had romantic intentions, or because he's just a really nice guy.

Is one of the reasons the feeling of being friendzoned comes about? You think that you are making all the right moves, but you never do anything overt due to fear of scaring off the other person. You feel like you are on the boarder of being in a relationship, but never actually confirm it. Or is that just really deluded?

Not Like Those Other Girls

When I first started uni, a lot of the people around me (friends, family) kept saying how nice it was to be doing engineering, because there were so many males compared to females (they didn't know about my secret boyfriend at the time, so I think they were trying to hint that maybe it was time for me to find someone). I kept trying to insist that the male to female ratio wasn't the reason I wanted to study engineering, but in the end, I gave up. I guess it was lucky to be surrounded by guys when I did end up breaking up with my boyfriend.

Over the course of my uni (and gaming) career, I got to know a lot of guys, mostly of the geeky persuasion, and I also got to hear a wishlist of features that many wished their girlfriends had: like to play games, like sci-fi, like fantasy, like paper and pen roleplaying games, like wargames, like eating junk food, etc. In the deepest times of loneliness, I often wondered, if they wanted those things, and I had those things, why did they never want me? I was pretty much a niche product for that market, but I had so few buyers. What was wrong with me?

A few days ago, I came across this comment in response to the question, "What is the female equivalent of a neckbeard?":

–]jurymast 3556 points 4 days ago

The female equivalent of a neckbeard is a Not-Like-Those-Other-Girls girl. Yeah, you're a female, but you're not like... you know, those other girls. Other girls are stupid and vapid, and only care about boys and shopping. Other girls only watch Sex and the City, and their favorite activities are gossiping and stabbing each other in the back. Other girls are sluts who wear tacky clothes and too much make-up and have no self-respect.

You're not like that. You watch anime (subs only, of course) and play video games. You don't read Twilight or any of those shitty paranormal romance novels. You read comic books and ASoIaF (which you liked before the show, tyvm). You'd rather fling yourself off an overpass than wear something girly or pink. All your friends are guys, and they know you're one of them; you're one of the cool girls. You're smarter than all those ditzy popular girls, and that makes you better than them. You're a unique and special snowflake amongst a sea of clonebot OtherGirls, and maybe, just maybe, one day some cute nerdy guy will see you for the catch you are, and be the Derp to your Derpina.

As soon as I read that, I thought, "Wow, that's me." (except the part about reading ASoIaF before the show, I'm one of the late adopters). Tangent: I never knew being "one of the guys" was a thing until I was dating RB. He added me into a group conversation with a friend of his from high school, and that friend ended up adding me as a contact. He messaged me saying, "Don't worry, I'll never hit on you, you're just one of the guys to me." I think that was the first time I had knowingly been friendzoned.

I'm a female neckbeard. Ignoring all that "m'lady" and fedora rubbish often associated with neckbeards, the part that makes me worried is how neckbeards often act courteously towards women, and feel that that alone is enough to make them feel entitled to reciprocal romantic feelings from those women. Then get upset when those feelings never manifest. I think I was the same - I thought I had all the qualities that they seemed to want, and so I should have been entitled to male attention.

What some of the other comments in that thread touched on were how these female neckbeards often unkempt, had no hygiene, had a misguided notion of how physically attractive they are - but they thought that as long as they had those Not-Like-Those-Other-Girls qualities, it would be enough. I can definitely associate with that. I remember thinking that surely it would be better to stay up and fit in another game of Dota rather than go to bed early in order to have enough time to do hair and make-up in the morning. Now I think it's more important to be more balanced. I'm not so delusional as to think that appearance isn't important anymore.

I've also realised that they're not mutually exclusive. Just because I want to be good at gaming doesn't mean that I shouldn't take care of myself. I do feel better now that I've been taking better care of myself physically. And I don't know if it's the virus talking, but lying in bed, I realised I really need a new wardrobe. I think I should be dressing my age, or at least more mature - especially as I can wear casual at work every day now, but not everyone in the office is doing it, so I tend to look a bit out of place. My boss introduced me to someone that I might some day want to work for, but I was dressed in jeans, T-shirt and a hoodie. He was wearing a suit. I don't think I gave off a very good impression.

My new self-improvement goal is to push myself into wearing something outside my comfort zone. Here is the plan:

Month-1: Buy new clothes.

Month-2: Once new clothes have been acquired, find a friend who is willing to hold on to my old clothes. This is so I don't relapse into wearing my old clothes.

Months 2-5: Continue wearing new clothes

After 5 months, I want to see if I feel comfortable enough in the new clothes. I met a new friend who is willing to go through this whole thing with me. We are even going to learn to wear heels together! I feel really excited about my new project. :D Hopefully this will be an end to NeckbeardFodder.

Planetary Alignment

Someone posted on Reddit about how she found out her boyfriend regularly searches for a friend of hers on Facebook, and it turned out it was because he likes to masturbate to photos of her friend. A lot of the replies basically said that it was a pretty normal thing.

• what if you know them?

  9:04 PM
• how can you look at them normally?

  9:04 PM
• pretty damn easily

  9:04 PM
• ok this may be a shocker

  9:04 PM
• but I've jerked to most females I know

  9:04 PM
• and almost every guy is the same

  9:05 PM
• • for me it's a 1 or a 0

    9:11 PM
  • and if it's spank bank stuff

    9:11 PM
  • maybe 90% of people are 1

    9:11 PM

I'm told that sometimes, if you have someone on the mind, the only way to get them off your mind is to use them in that way. It just seems really odd to me. I don't know if I'm just picky, but for someone to be in my spank bank, they have to pass a really rigorous test!

Be attractive to me

I think this one is a bit of a given, as you are fantasizing about them in a sexual way, and if you don't find them attractive, well, then you'd better hope you don't develop RSI.

Cannot be in a relationship with one of my friends, or have been in one in the past

This one is more to do with the girl code, and I would feel really guilty picturing someone's partner in a sexual way, even more so masturbating to them. Interestingly, if someone who I may have thought about in the past starts to date one of my friends, then they just fade off my radar. 

Must be intellectually stimulating

This one is probably a bit weird, because it's not like there is imaginary cuddling after the imaginary sex, but I just can't imagine sex with someone who I'm not able to talk to. For instance, there's a guy I met a few months ago, who is definitely physically attractive to me (except for the fact that he has a tattoo on one arm, but not the other, so he's asymmetrical (why would you ruin perfection like that?!)), but even if I try as hard as I can, I just can't imagine him in a sexual way. We only have one mutual friend (a male), and so I'm pretty sure he hasn't dated anyone I know. I think the reason why is because the only thing he has ever said to me was, "You were a poker dealer? That's cool." Although looking at his Facebook page, it turns out that he also worked at the same casino, so maybe we do have more to talk about with each other than I thought. And he's a pretty big nerd. Hmmm, brb...

Can't be someone I hate

Another self-explanatory one. Although I find it strange that some guys I have asked said that they could have sex with someone they hated. Personally, I feel like sexy time is happy time, and it shouldn't be interrupted by angry thoughts caused by someone you hate. Oddly, I think I could have sex with someone who hated me. Maybe that's part of my people pleaser personality, and that maybe if I slept with them, they might like me more?

There are very few guys that I know that I haven't already slept with who I fantasize about. The main reason is, these are people that I see, and I find it very hard to look them in the eyes knowing that I pictured them naked with my mouth around their cock not too long ago. For me, it doesn't just end after orgasm. There is that guilty memory of what I just did which lingers after it's over. If I end up seeing that person not long afterwards, then I feel a compulsion to apologise, but can't bring myself to do it because it would admit that I had used them as a sexual object, which seems like a horrible thing to do.

It's hard for me to just ignore the fact that the person is my friend. I feel like I am violating them by using them without their consent like that. I think I could probably do it if I had their consent, but then that brings the problem of getting that consent in the first place. "Hi, I find you attractive, and you are not currently dating, nor have not dated, a friend of mine. Plus, I also think you are intellectually stimulating and I don't hate you. However, I am in a serious relationship, and I'd never actually have sex with you, but are you OK with the idea that at some point in the future, I would like to masturbate to you?" Yeah... I can't imagine anyone wouldn't find that creepy, much less than agree to it.

Overall, I find it so much easier to just go online, find a picture or video that some random you'll never meet has uploaded and get your rocks off without having to ever worry about any rules or post-orgasm awkwardness.

Motive and Opportunity

An acquaintance was telling me about how she doesn't play in Magic: the Gathering tournaments anymore. She said that she hates it that the guys who play in those tournaments spend so much time staring at her boobs that she constantly has to tell them, "My face is up here". She also said that she doesn't get much respect, and that a lot of the players will ignore what she says or tell her that she's wrong, just because she's a girl - even though she does know the rules. I had never experienced anything like that myself, but ever pre-release I went to was with my cousin, and so I had the benefit of being able to hang around him.

During the Easter/Anzac break, I played in the Journey into Nyx pre-release. This was the first MtG event that I had attended since the Fifth Dawn pre-release (June 2004), that wasn't something with only friends. Stupid as this sounds, but based on what the acquaintance said, I was keeping an eye out for the notorious boob stare. I've always wanted to have a "My face is up here" moment, as it seems like a quintessential part of being a female. I had a close call once, but it turned out to be nothing. Unfortunately for me, I did not manage to catch anybody staring at my boobs. Part of that might have been because I went with my cousin, a gay guy, an engaged guy, and an ex, but there were still two people that I played against that I hadn't met before, so it wasn't like I only played with people I knew!

The first guy was super serious about the game. We had three pretty close games (bo3), and I ended up losing 1-2 in the end, but he was definitely way more interested in my cards than in my chest. There was never really an opportunity in either of those games for tricky rules, as they were both fairly straightforward, so I can't really judge him on the respect for me aspect as we barely talked about anything other than the games we were playing. The second guy seemed very much like the stereotypical socially-awkward nerd. He was very shy, and mumbled his words a lot. Still, I did not manage to catch him in the act. As far as respect goes, I think we both respected each other. I pointed out a mistake that he made, and he pointed out a constellation trigger that I had missed - although both times, it wouldn't have affected the outcome of the game, so it wasn't a big thing. (Side note: even though we were playing against each other, tournament rules state that both players have an obligation to point out something their opponent has missed, e.g. if a Zombie creature enters the game, and one player has a Zombie creature enters trigger, but they don't realise. Obviously, it's impossible to enforce, because it might just have been that both players missed it, you can't just accuse the opposing player of not pointing out something. So it's just considered good manners.)

My other two games were against my cousin and the gay work friend, so I wasn't really trying to catch them out.

It just makes me think that sometimes someone does something, and the motive that you attribute to that action may not be the same as the reason for their action. For instance, imagine you are walking to get lunch, and someone crashes into you and nearly knocks you over, what is your first thought? I find that if I'm having a good or neutral day, my first thought is that it was an accident and they probably tripped. If I'm having a bad day, my mind immediately thinks that they were in a rush and just rude and inconsiderate, not looking where they are going or caring who they knock over along the way. It's funny how the same action can have different motives attributed to it depending on how you are feeling.

So back to the boob staring, I think that sometimes people staring while thinking, and it's unfair to just naturally assume that they are staring at your boobs. Unless it is making you uncomfortable, if it's just a quick glance or you're not entirely sure, isn't it safer to err on the side of caution and not just assume they are doing a boob stare? The reason I say this, is because it feeds into the second point my acquaintance made - about the lack of respect because she's a girl. How does she really know that's the case based on such short one-time encounters? What if they are not treating her with respect because she has lost their respect?

Let's look at 4 boob staring related scenarios:

1 - The guy was staring at her boobs and she tells them to stop.

2 - The guy was not staring at her boobs (but doing something else) and she tells them to stop.

3 - The guy was staring at her boobs and she doesn't say anything.

4 - The guy was not staring at her boobs (but doing something else) and she doesn't say anything.

In situation 1, the guy will feel reprimanded, but probably be slightly annoyed at being called out on it.

In situation 2, the guy will feel really annoyed, because he was just accused of doing something that he wasn't, and even if he were to deny it, nobody would believe him.

In situation 3, the guy will get away scot free.

In situation 4, nothing happens and the game continues as normal.

To me, it seems like situation 1 and 2 are the worst, 2 especially, and the both arise from telling him to stop staring. 3 is bad for her, as he is getting away with staring. But from a respect point of view, i.e. his respect, I'm pretty sure in both situations 1 and 2, any respect he had for her will have been lost. Well, at least in situation 1, he will be thinking negatively towards her.

I do think it's unfair that in order to be respected, or at least somewhat liked means that you have to ignore people staring at your boobs, but I think that it's something that's incredibly hard to prove. If you go in pre-disposed to think that there will be perverted boob staring people, then your motive attribution is going to hit a lot more false positives and you are going to end up pissing off more people. Then you are less likely to enjoy yourself at these events, and probably go in next time with an even more negative perception and it'll just be a positive feedback loop until you quit altogether. Which is also really unfair, if you can't do something that you enjoy because you feel ostracised from the community. 

My approach has always been, if I respect them enough to treat me just like any other player, and try not to go in with any pre-dispositions, then hopefully they will respect me enough to do so, and we can all just continue with playing the game. Or am I just setting feminism back another fifty or so years? :(