SkookumTree
15d ago
I suppose. But holy shit were there a lot of perplexed guys when locker-room talk took place in my youth. The guys would talk about tits and ass and I'd say I wanted an abrasive bitch.
SkookumTree
15d ago
Ha - the 400-pound ones that nonetheless maintain basic hygiene and work their jobs? Five years ago, I was rather disinterested in that prospect; now, it seems like it might not be too terrible. Sure, there might be home health aides a couple decades earlier than I'd hoped and What's Eating Gilbert Grape, but that's not terrible; I had a medical school classmate like that.
SkookumTree
15d ago
No, but a couple of years ago I became reconciled to the possibility of dealing with severe weight-related health problems in a partner in middle age. That isn't ideal - but What's Eating Gilbert Grape beats the crap out of kids with FAS, a mom on fentanyl maybe causing chaos and legal problems, or just plain crazy - as in 'felony child abuse' crazy. Therefore I don't consider fatness a dealbreaker until it makes them unable to do basic hygiene...although "a sprained ankle away from being bedridden" is a bit of a hard sell to me now. Five years from now I'd be OK with it to be honest.
SkookumTree
15d ago
That's because of 1) motivation - if Everest was as easy as seeing the Grand Canyon, how many would go and 2) you probably hang out with many more autistic people than even somewhat casual mountaineers. The criteria I'd use is something like "Do you own an ice axe and crampons?"
SkookumTree
15d ago
Yeah, that is a hell of a bullet to bite. "Humans must be controlled or their sexuality will destroy society" seems broadly reasonable, but fundie Islam/Handmaid's Tale seems like a durable abomination.
SkookumTree
15d ago
If this is true, you have a nasty problem where you're running civilization off of restricting otherwise-capable women from competing for jobs or niches like 'surgeon' when they can do the job just as well as any other man. It's arguable that a civilization that doesn't have enough people willing to voluntarily contribute should just go belly up.
SkookumTree
15d ago
men need a parallel kind of deference in childhood, mostly focused on their much delayed organizational skills
Have you just considered scaring the ever-loving shit out of them, coupled with describing organization and neatness as a moral virtue - and the opposite as a MORAL failing? I am reasonably sure that a sufficiently extreme level of shame, fear, and valorization of neatness and organization could make most boys well-organized. If we see a teenage boy's messy room as an indicator of moral failure and potential evil, rather than a common peccadillo? Teenage boys will have cleaner rooms.
I mean - I successfully applied Cold War-era deterrence theory at 11 to a family argument that I was highly motivated to win and perceived as an existential danger; Westerners in the middle class are generally uncomfortable with threatening this level of consequence to preteens except in extremis.
SkookumTree
15d ago
If I had to guess at examples/exceptions, the Puritans would be pretty high on the list. The island of Inis Beag might've been too small for aristocracy.
SkookumTree
15d ago
Yes. Very few people can be professional ballet dancers, either - and "Chad" is every bit as determined as any world-class athlete. His social gracefulness probably cannot be described in English, at least not the dialects any of us speak. It would take Paul Ekman and his team a hundred years to articulate what Chad can do - a microexpression held for a tenth of a second too long can communicate an entire sentence.
SkookumTree
15d ago
Essentially, dating is a hock like challenge, good luck in the boreal forest and tundra.
SkookumTree
15d ago
If you're autistic and not otherwise impressive or a "supercrip" it's rather gross for you to want to be anything other than a celibate and prosocial monk. As for fashion: I suspect that the schlubby straight guy is countersignaling some kind of social grace stuff. At least in some places. At my hospital: the medical students dress better than the residents, who in turn dress better than the attendings. One attending I mistook for a janitor or laborer at first!
SkookumTree
15d ago
Possible that they're extraordinarily charismatic and kind of...retired from the high-reward, high-stress lifestyle that you get when trying to monetize that. Like a guy with a math degree from Princeton undergrad working the counter at Subway, or the former investment banker working as a chef or cook at a small resort.
SkookumTree
15d ago
If you're on the spectrum, a relationship with someone who isn't morbidly obese, works a job, and isn't addicted to hard drugs or an otherwise terrible human being - as in "strangling their 10-year-old daughter over an argument" terrible is about as hard as climbing Everest. Or maybe Denali.
These days, Everest isn't that hard; the big obstacle for most reading this would be funding.
SkookumTree
15d ago
Drug addiction - especially if illegal - is a reasonable thing to have as a dealbreaker. For one, it smells like legal trouble and perhaps felony convictions. The rest aren't, really, unless they get people killed, maimed, or jailed.
SkookumTree
15d ago
My vote, naturally, is the Hock. If you can't or won't Hock, maybe you can do something equally challenging to prove yourself worthy.
SkookumTree
15d ago
Being in a relationship with a woman that is able to do basic hygiene, won't get you killed maimed or imprisoned, and can legally consent is not terribly difficult. If you add "not morbidly obese" and "can work a job" it becomes around as hard as Rainier in winter, as part of a team - not insurmountable by any means.
SkookumTree
15d ago
I mean - yes, being in a relationship as a man is difficult. Mostly because if you are middle-class or better and don't have significant experience in healthcare, law enforcement, social work, or corrections you do NOT see the roughly five percent of people that are in and out of institutions for one reason or another, nor do you develop a sense of gratitude and appreciation for things like "My partner can do basic hygiene" or "Can hold a conversation" or "Can stock shelves at WalMart" or an eye for the kinds of catastrophic failures that can come when people cannot do these things.
If young men became genuinely grateful for partners that weren't likely to get them killed, maimed, or chucked in jail, a lot would change for the better.
SkookumTree
22d ago
The man's 57.
I've known people who feel this way and aren't young. especially healthcare workers.
SkookumTree
22d ago
Haul my demented ass into the Alaskan wilderness for one last walk in the woods. If I come back, I'm not too demented; if I don't, good for the local wildlife.
SkookumTree
22d ago
I mean - the blackpilled monk types will either not pay for their care or suck-start shotguns, depending.
SkookumTree
22d ago
The exercise in futility is the point. The pointlessness is itself the point. You are building character through an exercise in futility.
SkookumTree
22d ago
Start working in healthcare, or volunteering there. Ideally, it'd be a clinic or something in a rough part of town. That will give you a much better idea of the long-term health consequences of varying degrees of fatness.
Are you an insanely charismatic man in excellent shape, who's impeccably dressed and whose every word and gesture are a near world-class work of performance art? No? Plenty of people have happy relationships - or non-catastrophic relationships - with women with BMIs of 30, 40, 50, even 60.
Disgust is MUCH more malleable than most people think. Work in healthcare or something like that for a year or two. Your disgust response will calibrate itself better. You'll still dislike gross things - but they'll become dangerous to you, not gross - more like vats of acid than human shit.
SkookumTree
4mo ago
I did in fact consider and reject Hok skis. They didn't fit ski crampons and seem like they'd do poorly on the flat.
SkookumTree
6mo ago
Eh. I openly said I liked abrasive blunt (autistic-coded) women who were caring. I got perplexed reactions for liking unruly hair and unshaven legs, but not much else.
And possibly honorable life paths for perma-single people; there are some valuable, honorable economic niches that are hard on marriage and family. Not impossible - but hard. Long-haul truck driving, neurosurgery, stuff like that.
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