Despertar

general misogyny

Also, Chris is incredibly misogynistic. It's really confusing, because as crazy as he is about me, it's clear that none of it is rooted in friendship or actual, human-to-human, equal-to-equal, respect. So what is it, then? Romantic interest? Sex? Because I don't know how to contextualize either of those things without a friendship base. Plus, we don't have sex, and I don't really treat him like a romantic partner.

His attitude, as explained in his blog, can be summed up as follows: why be friends with a girl when you can get all the same things out of friendship with a guy, minus the drama? His theory is that platonic relationships with women are stupid, because women as friends require things that men don't naturally want to give, like endless conversation and unconditional support (which fly in the face of the male tendency toward solution-based listening). He contends that anytime a guy is "friends" with a girl, it's because he wants to fuck her, or else he wouldn't stick around.

Ugh ugh ugh. I mean, I understand why people say it's hard for men and women to be friends--most of the friendships I've had with guys have been affected by some level of romantic interest on one side or the other. Still, though, those friendships have their value--sometimes a little tension makes things interesting, keeps people on their toes. And it bothers me that what he's saying is that his interest in me, for instance, is conditional to my eventually coming around on the romance/sex thing, which is a lot of pressure to put on someone you're trying to get into bed.

Plus, and I say this with as little judgment as possible, his all-male friend group is pretty lame. Individually they are all nice guys, and they have all been very welcoming of me as Chris's whatever, but whenever we go out, I'm always the only girl for miles around. They're all too shy to talk to girls at clubs, or to try to dance with anyone, so generally they'll get drunk enough to shed all their inhibitions and end up dancing spasmodically with themselves for hours. Which is lame.

So my counter-theory to Chris's theory is, maybe guys who patently refuse to be friends with girls have that to blame for their Jonah Hill-esque romantic luck.

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Another round of "Follow the Leader"  starts tomorrow. Jenn has come up with an interesting yet convoluted bonus system that, really, I'm not positive I understand, so I'm glad she's around to answer questions about it.

I'm done griping about people signing up with no intentions of finishing. It really, really annoyed me until about two weeks ago, when I realized how much less work it is for me, if everyone averages eleven or twelve entries instead of twenty-one.

I am not, however, done griping about people and their virulent refusal to read the rules. I know they're long, but shit, it's a long contest, and to me it makes sense that the level of preparation required would be in proportion to the overall investment required.

I also don't ever want to read twenty entries about people's old cars, ever again. Which is why Jenn's idea is a good one. She is both the cause and the solution of that particular problem.

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Another thing about San Francisco is that all the black people are married to white people, because apparently being this liberal and progressive leaves you unwilling to date within the race.

All I wonder is, who do they think is going to marry all their awkward biracial babies?