I will try to fill in a fuller response later, but I should clarify that a) it’s a general feeling rather than being tied to any specific comment, b) on this post I’m responding more to the comments than the submitter.
socky_t_throwaway
Karma: 53
This is a fairly thin sockpuppet as I’ve made similar remarks elsewhere, but:
I find posts like this (or similar discussions places like metafilter) depressing because I’m left with the feeling there’s no positive option.
I read posts by women, complaining about various male behaviour. Obviously I don’t want to be creepy and Worse Than Hitler(tm), so I try to determine what I should be doing.
So many things are apparently bad that I am left with the conclusion that merely by existing I am offensive to women, and there is no action I can take to improve the situation.
I can see other comments talking about this viewpoint as an undesirable failure mode.
disclaimer: I don’t particularly claim to be right or rational here. This is actually a toned down version of my original thoughts.
Well, this is the naive theory I had before exposure to these posts.
However I have learnt that ineptly flirting is very bad and makes you worse than Hitler, incompetence is no excuse, etc. So I can’t go out and practice dating skills.
If I do want to practice dating skills, that makes me a PUA and worse than Hitler.
Obviously now, having read about elevatorgate, I am less likely to try to flirt with women in elevators, but I would totally expect that I would do something equally as bad in a non-elevator-based situation. So, Hitler.
Therefore I decide to give up on the whole thing as a bad job. But now I’m concealing sexual attraction, which comments on this post have established is definitely creepy.
So then I hypothetically decide to avoid women entirely, we haven’t actually covered this one but I’m pretty sure it would be considered misogynistic.
Short of someone inventing a telepathy pill, I have no options, and I feel sure if someone did invent a telepathy pill, there would be people explaining why it made you Hitler.