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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   30040 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 2, 2026

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wants to listen to how their day went

Absolutely fucking not. This question is either a shit test, or a continuing assessment of the beta bux potential. I wish back when I had or was anything I had a lover who explicitly didn't give a damn about how my day went.

There's a difference between "wants to listen to how their day went" and "wants to know how their day went". I interpreted the hypothetical as a wife who's happy to listen if you need to vent, not one who will necessarily ask if you'd rather talk about something else.

For some reason it reminds me of the old green text where a cashier tells anon to have a nice day.

>wife asks me how day at work was

>tell her it was good

>it wasn’t 😈

I have experienced "shit tests" and annoying interrogations from women, but "How was your day?" isn't one of them.

"What is your plan for the day?" is the dangerous one.

Agreed. I would add "How was your day?" is also a way for her to judge your emotional state and adjust accordingly. Most guys (and I include myself in this group until my wife started explicitly pointing it out) don't realize that when we first come home from work, especially if theres a shit commute involved, that we're about the grouchiest we will be all day.

Multiply that by frequency.

What does that even mean? She asks how your day was every day? And you interpret this as a hostile interrogation?

When it's an every day question where you can't win and can only lose, rarely catastrophically and frequently marginally, then the purpose of that interrogation is what it does. No sex object has ever been asked about how their day has been.

When it's an every day question where you can't win and can only lose, rarely catastrophically and frequently marginally, then the purpose of that interrogation is what it does.

dude, if this is how any relationship you've been is functions then you need to get out of it, that's madness. Me and my wife ask each other how ours days went basically every day, it's just a pulse check. The last psychiatrist has this to say about boring routine conversations which I think strikes true:

But why do we need "the balance?" What does it replace, what went missing? The very thing Holden Caufield hated: "phoniness", protocol and ritual for seemingly no purpose. Politeness is fine, but why do I have to make small talk? Why do I have to pretend to care about the weather? Why, after a decade of marriage, should dinner be a regular review of the somewhat boring goings-ons of "the day"? Because that formality is freeing, it allows self-conscious physical bodies to get used to standing next to each other without having to be acting, this includes husbands and wives. When dinner is a controlled process with "manners" and expected topics of shared conversation and start and end times, as boring as it may get, it is boring, not you. Women are especially sensitive to this absence of convention, this is one reason for the popularity of Downton Abbey, not to mention alcohol and iphones at dinner. It is against this background of "phony" convention that teens can productively "rebel" and find their own individuality against a status quo; fighting against an emotionally illogical, arbitrary, unpredictable structure results in learning the opposite lesson, "whatever gets me through the day..." Without this structure to social activities, when the "natural" conversation stops being interesting-- and it will, even if most of you weren't bad at it-- it would be a judgment about your relationship, about you. And you'll beg St. Jobs to blink a path to safety because otherwise you have to sit there with no existential support. Texting and social media's slowness gives them their power for this purpose. You read a text, and it lingers, it keeps your attention because it's all there is; and then you respond with a piece of your real self, and wait for a response... what's happening is time travel-- while you are on pause, the rest of not-your life goes faster. It is far more efficient at killing time than a phone call.

Domestic questions are good, life isn't a scripted move where every line can have depth and pointed purpose. You need small talk and mundane connection.

if this is how any relationship you've been is functions then you need to get out of it, that's madness

I definitely got out of the relationship business after a couple of attempts. Nowadays, even aided by me being borderline broke, where I couldn't get back even if I wanted to. Which I don't.

Flip me sideways, I never thought I'd be quoting a Tumblr post of all things, but here we go.

So, to cut it short: person posting talked about how they asked their husband "what are you doing?" and he got all defensive and upset. Couldn't understand why, so she asked him "what did you hear me saying?" and he replied "I thought you were angry with me, why wasn't I doing something, why was I being lazy?" She only meant literally "what are you doing?" as signal of being interested in him.

Conclusion of post was that asking about "what did you hear me saying" for both of them saved a lot of arguments, trouble, and misunderstanding.

I think this applies to our friend here; if what they are hearing from "how was your day?" is the start of an attack, then it's either Mommy Issues from childhood or maybe they need to work out why they are dating/involved with crazy bitches all the time.

they need to work out why they are dating/involved with crazy bitches all the time

Because of heterosexuality.

Or just bad cost weighting of the hot-crazy matrix!

There are women who are constantly ending up with the guys who beat them or are otherwise abusive, and there are reasons why they always end up with that kind of guy.

If you're always ending up with women who are crazy bitches, there are reasons for that, too, and it's not "because all women are crazy bitches, duh".

One of the problems with cycles of abuse is that victims get conditioned to look for abusers (because that's how they understand to function), and abusers identify potential victims.

If you're always ending up with women who are crazy bitches, there are reasons for that, too, and it's not "because all women are crazy bitches, duh".

I don't end up with women anymore. Fuck that noise, sex is not enough of a compensation for that shit in my life.

Sometimes I wonder what kind of women people are dating. They describe sex vampires who only want your money, and then are bitter because asking "How was your day?" is some kind of malicious kafka-trap.

A normal person asking how your day was is... asking how your day was. If she is your girlfriend/wife, it is generally because she cares about how your day was (or at least is willing to engage in a minimal level of concern to show affection and empathy). That's how things work in normal relationships. Do I actually care about how her day was? Eh, not unless something notable happened. But I will still ask because women like it when you do that. And they do the same thing.

If your partner is just a "sex object," of course you aren't going to ask how her day has been because you don't care. That's not actually a partner.

The word "partner" is a whole can of worms I will lovingly save for some other time, but I need to clarify something: I want me to be the sex object. There are only two kinds of objects in a relationship, a sex object or a resource object, and I can't stand being the latter one. And "personality" is a kind of a resource, perhaps the most humiliating one, a speculative investment instrument for resources of a more material kind.

There are only two kinds of objects in a relationship, a sex object or a resource object, and I can't stand being the latter one.

You shouldn't have been born male, then.

Pass me the console command.

Have you ever had feelings of affection or warmth for a woman? Not just “she’s hot,” but “her smile makes me feel warm.” Ever? Even in school?

Yes. Those were mistakes.

There are only two kinds of objects in a relationship, a sex object or a resource object

Goddamn, some people are miserable.

And some people are naive.

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Do I actually care about how her day was? Eh, not unless something notable happened. But I will still ask because women like it when you do that. And they do the same thing.

You have inspired me to make an "I hate the Antichrist" comic edit depicting the disgust that I feel for such institutionalized untruthfulness.

I love the phrase "good morning".

As a young sailor in the navy, I loved going around ordering the nearby captains and admirals to "have a good morning" and dare them to either:

  1. obey me and internally admit my superiority
  2. call me out for disobedience and look like an asshole, or
  3. disobey me and have a genuinely bad day.

Done with the right attitude and the right other people in attendance, this is quite the power play.

Edit: Just read the post @HereAndGone2 and I do believe I found a meaning of good morning that Tolkien missed!

Such small civilities are the lubricant by which society functions. "Fuck you, I don't give a damn" leads not only to atomised individuals but societal breakdown.

There's a significant difference between open hostility, neutral tolerance, and Stepfordized pretense. And you are literally the same person who was complaining about being forced to mouth false niceties just a few weeks ago.

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Doing things you don't care about for the sake of someone you love who does care is not institutionalized untruthfulness; it is the foundational element of a genuine relationship (romantic or not).

But it's not untruthfulness! I don't say "Hey, I really want to know about your day" or "I am really interested in what you did at work." I am just asking how her day was because it gives her an opportunity to talk (or vent) and I can show that even if I don't care about the details, I do care about her, and I want to know if she had a good day or a bad day. (And maybe, occasionally, something important really did happen.)

Do you literally not care about your partner at all? Maybe more men than I thought really do think of their women as sex appliances who annoyingly make mouth-noises at them sometimes.

On a more abstract level, your comic is inane. If my coworker says "Good morning," that is a social nicety. Social niceties are how people coexist in a crowded and complex society where a little pleasantness makes life more bearable. If someone (my wife, or a coworker, or a checkout clerk) asks "How was your day?" do I really think she cares deeply about how my day was and wants a detailed account of it? No, she is just being nice. Getting mad about that is like being mad when people say "Have a nice day" because you aren't, or "God bless you" when you sneeze because you're an atheist.

Goddamn, some people are miserable.

Do you literally not care about your partner at all?

Bold of you to assume he has one.

But it's not untruthfulness!

You literally just said that you don't care how her day was. Asking about how her day was is untruthfully implying that you do care.

I am just asking how her day was because it gives her an opportunity to talk (or vent)

She can vent to you on her own initiative, without forcing you to make untruthful implications about your own interest level.

If my coworker says "Good morning," that is a social nicety. Social niceties are how people coexist in a crowded and complex society where a little pleasantness makes life more bearable.

Saying "good morning" to a person is an abbreviated wish that the person has a good morning, and therefore falsely implies that you hope that the person has a good morning. A much more neutral greeting with no misleading implications is "hello".

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You know you've been spending too much time on the internet when your reaction to your hypothetical wife asking 'how was your day?' is 'Don't you manipulate me she-devil! You just want my money!'

If she's a housewife, she doesn't just want your money, she needs it. Wanting a housewife and wanting a woman who isn't excessively interested in your earning potential would, in a sane world, be incompatible.

Yeah A bunch of redpill/internet manosophere types are really incoherent about this. A bunch of them look down on career women and say stuff like men provide resources women provide beauty. But then they get mad or at least annoyed about women considering those resources, and then they constantly worry about "divorce rape" and a woman taking half your shit or even women in general taking half the shit of hardworking men. And they never consider deliberately dating a woman with a career or gasp one who even makes more then them to allay these worries. It just feels like a ball of physchosexual anxieties when what they should do is have a sober analysis about whether to go for a women who wants to stay home or have a career.

No, many years ago I turned to the internet to understand why the consequences of honestly answering were so disastrous. I found the answers convincing.

Dude in all my relationships I've never had disastrous consequences for answering this question. But I was also just giving a basic answer. I suspect some of your problem in how you were answering are you way over explaining and laying out every neurotic insecurity. Or as others have said it's the type of woman you are choosing. Either way the fact that everyone is disagreeing with you should indicate it's a you problem.

Either way the fact that everyone is disagreeing with you should indicate it's a you problem.

Freedom_of_speech.jpg

Really? Which part of the internet told you to never tell your wife how your day was (or conversely, so get a woman who doesn't care)?

I can kind of see it in the same vein as "women think they want an emotionally-sensitive man until they actually have one," or the kind of messaging that led Scott to write both Untitled and Reverse Any Advice.

You should be honest with your wife, of course, and a wife that cares about your day is a blessing! But one should be aware that there's probably a limit to that.

I find my job dissatisfying but stable and hard to escape, I figured out where my wife's limit is on me bitching about it, so it didn't take too long to get to an agreement with "ssdd" and I'll reserve elaboration for when I really need to.

/r/theredpill, /r/purplepilldebate, and the tale of Henry of the Radicalizing the Romanceless fame.

I think one problem with relying on TRP for advice about women is that the community is subject to evaporative cooling. Any guys who end up happily married or in relationships aren't gonna stick around, so you're stuck in an echo chamber or men who have failed to coexist happily with the opposite sex.

The second is that intelligence isn't merely reversed stupidity. The Red Pill guys might be right that the mainstream is lying to you about women and relationships, but that doesn't mean they have good advice on how to exist in the world they describe. As someone said the other day on here, they have a correct description but an incorrect prescription. That's why they're so unhappy.

Surely it would make sense to take advice from the men who have succeeded, i.e. the happily married ones?

I think one problem with relying on TRP for advice about women is that the community is subject to evaporative cooling.

I can't see when the sub was created, but the years I'm talking about were near its beginnings.

Surely it would make sense to take advice from the men who have succeeded, i.e. the happily married ones?

I believe a man that his marriage is happy as much as I believe a hostage saying that his captors treat him excellently.

I believe a man that his marriage is happy as much as I believe a hostage saying that his captors treat him excellently.

Is it conceivable that evidence could convince you otherwise, or is this belief axiomatic?

It is conceivable, and deep inside I would even relish it, but in a Bayesian fashion it would need to be so overwhelmingly adhering to my ideal, with my knowledge so voyeuristically comprehensive, that it's frankly unrealistic.

I believe a man that his marriage is happy as much as I believe a hostage saying that his captors treat him excellently.

Why? Both men and women who are married report being happier than those who are unmarried. If the men are lying, are the women lying too? And if so, why the hell are they choosing to couple up and marry if it's making both sexes miserable?

If a vampire and a thrall both report being happier in this arrangement, are both lying? Why are they choosing this?

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Mostly it’s just a way to learn more about your partner’s life and a jumping off point for further discussion

Much like how a Stasi officer asking what you've been reading is looking for literary recommendations.

Can you give an example of when answering this question honestly led to negative consequences?

It's in the aggregate, where the best possible result is maintaining the status quo, and the likely result is a downgrade. Those add up.

Conspicuously missing in your analysis is the possibility that the emotional distance from not having these conversations causes the relationship to decay. I would submit that insufficient communication is likelier to cause two people to fall out of love with each other than repeated communication that multiplies the opportunities for minor annoyances and disagreements to build up, even if I agree the latter can happen.

Can you give an example of a situation where this led to a downgrade?

I respond with something negative, she thinks less of me, repeat X times, the relationship is done.

What is an example of a negative thing you might have responded with?

Difficulties, frustrations, defeats. If you want specifics, tough luck, I haven't been in a serious relationship in years, because fuck that noise.

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Women and men have different modes of communication; it's not like women don't like to talk other women's ears off as well.

In broad strokes, men don't like to revisit past events to form narratives and emotional bonding around them; if they must be revisited, then it's for the goal of finding a solution to some unpleasantry, to be finished as quickly as possible. Women prefer the opposite. Not understanding this leads to conflict. Men offering unsolicited solutions to women who just want to do shared narrative forming, and women talking the ears off men about Karen at work while men do the interminable emotional labor of pretending to care. Neither is right or wrong, just differing gendered styles, and the solution is for both parties to realize this and meet in the middle.

That's kind of funny, hereabouts it's AFAICT a whole trope that men are prone to bonding over the shared (ridiculously alien to regular modern life and in many ways unpleasant) experiences of the semi-mandatory military service, and the ladies will get vocally frustrated if the dudes don't have the good sense to keep away from that immensely boring-to-them topic when they're around.

women talking the ears off men about Karen

But this is not what I responded to. Back in the day I found being asked about my day particularly dangerous and/or demeaning. Listening about hers is merely annoying.

Have you considered the possibility that whatever relationship you were in was unusually dysfunctional (and in your choice of internet forums, you sought out a selected crowd with similar experiences)? Over here in relatively functional land, I don't think I know anyone who would consider being asked about their day "dangerous and/or demeaning", don't know any couples who don't keep each other updated about their day or suffer any danger to their health or status from providing accurate information, and see a shared understanding that anyone suggesting otherwise would soon be met with advice to break up for their own and their partner's good.

I have considered it and I have rejected it. Have you considered that if you're not lying you're in a unusually functional relationship?

Yeah, I have. The key reason for why I have dismissed it as unlikely (at least in the context of this exchange) is that my experiences mesh with those of others in my friend circles, which are selected from an environment with no obvious correlation to relationship quality beyond what factors through educational attainment (universities, random language-learning social clubs), while yours seem to be primarily backed by people from internet forums with an "I hate the opposite sex" theme (obvious negative correlation to relationship quality).

Even if you think that TRP is actually more representative of the general population than universities, that doesn't necessarily make its outlook particularly more applicable to people on this forum, it presumably being a haven for the heavily schooled.

while yours seem to be primarily backed by people from internet forums

False. I turned to the internet forums to explain what I observed, not the other way around.

that doesn't necessarily make its outlook particularly more applicable to people on this forum

If I ever implied I'm talking about this self-selected place rather than the general population, I did so unintentionally and mistakenly.

Given that you've made it explicit that you want a woman to treat you as a sex object to the exclusion of all other aspects including personality, which is about as realistic as a woman expecting her boyfriend to get hard-ons from her career instead of her body - it's a more realistic assumption your relationships were the unusually dysfunctional ones.

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