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PaperclipPerfector  11d ago (text post)   28702 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 2, 2026

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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.

Some people are naive, but having experienced functional relationships that teach you that they don't have to be miserable, cynical transactionalism is not naivety.

Functional relationships? Vampires, toxoplasmosis, cordyceps, or the fucking red pill. Pick your metaphor, there are plenty.

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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.

There's common social courtesy where everyone adheres to the same script, and there's "this is unreal but you have to pretend to believe it".

Coming in to work first thing in the morning and saying "hello, good morning" to my colleagues is not asking me to pretend up is down or fire is wet.

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.

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".

A much more neutral greeting with no misleading implications is "hello".

Gandalf has entered the chat 🤣

“Good Morning!” said Bilbo, and he meant it. The sun was shining, and the grass was very green. But Gandalf looked at him from under long bushy eyebrows that stuck out further than the brim of his shady hat.

“What do you mean?” he said. “Do you wish me a good morning, or mean that it is a good morning whether I want it or not; or that you feel good this morning; or that it is a morning to be good on?”

“All of them at once,” said Bilbo. “And a very fine morning for a pipe of tobacco out of doors, into the bargain. If you have a pipe about you, sit down and have a fill of mine! There’s no hurry, we have all the day before us!” Then Bilbo sat down on a seat by his door, crossed his legs, and blew out a beautiful grey ring of smoke that sailed up into the air without breaking and floated away over The Hill.

“Very pretty!” said Gandalf. “But I have no time to blow smoke-rings this morning. I am looking for someone to share in an adventure that I am arranging, and it’s very difficult to find anyone.”

“I should think so—in these parts! We are plain quiet folk and have no use for adventures. Nasty disturbing uncomfortable things! Make you late for dinner! I can’t think what anybody sees in them,” said our Mr. Baggins, and stuck one thumb behind his braces, and blew out another even bigger smoke-ring. Then he took out his morning letters, and began to read, pretending to take no more notice of the old man. He had decided that he was not quite his sort, and wanted him to go away. But the old man did not move. He stood leaning on his stick and gazing at the hobbit without saying anything, till Bilbo got quite uncomfortable and even a little cross.

“Good morning!” he said at last. “We don’t want any adventures here, thank you! You might try over The Hill or across The Water.” By this he meant that the conversation was at an end.

“What a lot of things you do use Good morning for!” said Gandalf. “Now you mean that you want to get rid of me, and that it won’t be good till I move off.”

“Not at all, not at all, my dear sir! Let me see, I don’t think I know your name?”

“Yes, yes, my dear sir—and I do know your name, Mr. Bilbo Baggins. And you do know my name, though you don’t remember that I belong to it. I am Gandalf, and Gandalf means me! To think that I should have lived to be good-morninged by Belladonna Took’s son, as if I was selling buttons at the door!”

Looking it up, "good morning" as a polite greeting began in the early 15th century:

good morning
greeting salutation, c. 1400, from good (adj.) + morning. Earlier as good morwe (late 14c., from morrow), good morn. Compare good-night.

To whom Ăľou metys come by Ăľe weye,
Curtasly 'gode morne' Ăľou sey.
["The Little Children's Book," c. 1500]

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 "don't care" in the sense that I don't care to hear the details or whether she had an argument with a coworker or it was unusually busy or the ventilation wasn't working so it was uncomfortable or the craziest thing happened at lunch or blah blah blah. That's stuff I listen to out of politeness. I don't literally "not care" whether she had a good day or a bad day.

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

Well, if I just silently glower when I come home and invite no dialog, she probably will not. Or I suppose I could say "I don't care how your day was, but you may tell me if you wish."

Jesus, dude.

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".

I mean, I probably do wish that someone has a good morning, because why wouldn't I, unless I have some personal animosity for this person?

You don't say "Good morning" because you think it's falsely implying you give a shit?

Jesus, dude.

Well, if I just silently glower when I come home and invite no dialog, she probably will not. Or I suppose I could say "I don't care how your day was, but you may tell me if you wish."

I am imagining that, in a perfect romance, the romantic partners feel free to spontaneously start conversations with each other at any time, without the need for invitations that ring hollow. For example, the man gets up from his computer and invites the woman over to look at the cool program that he just wrote, or the woman calls the man over to the window to check out the cute deer that has just pooped in their backyard. As a friendless virgin I have no experience with such situations, but that's what I imagine.

I "don't care" in the sense that I don't care to hear the details or whether she had an argument with a coworker or it was unusually busy or the ventilation wasn't working so it was uncomfortable or the craziest thing happened at lunch or blah blah blah. That's stuff I listen to out of politeness.

Again, I have no experience here, so maybe I'm exaggerating the true intensity of romance (or just "putting the pussy on a pedestal", as the redpillers say). But I am imagining that, in a perfect romance, even in such a banal conversation, you are thankful to have an excuse to bask in the presence and attention of your romantic partner (as long as the venting doesn't last overly long).

You don't say "Good morning" because you think it's falsely implying you give a shit?

Absolutely. My coworkers would say "good morning", and I would reply "hello".

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