The bitches: are they getting it right?
Like the Warren Report before it, Trouble Sells is a carefully-considered analysis of grave events, but that doesn’t mean it makes any sense. Garbage in, garbage out, folks. My data are poorly-collected and always have been. Short of an Open Society grant to investigate why people are such idiots, I’m the only one on staff, as chief scientist, accountant, writer, and bottle-washer here at TSHQ. My idea of data-mining is going to the bar, my exclusive social laboratory. Thank god I just did that, so I have some fresh insights for you.
I’ve been considering the oft-repeated meme that “women mature sooner than men.” When I was seven years old, people used this to describe seven-year-old men and women. I didn’t have much of an insight into it. Now I am a decrepit, used-up, you-really-don’t-want-to-talk-to-me twenty-seven, and it seems that women are still more advanced, according to these women. I had originally thought “women mature sooner” meant that they were able to survive puberty with perhaps less scarring, and in less time. Apparently, though, this same truism can be reapplied at any phase of human life. Are they going to hold this over my head forever? How many times do they want to win the same contest?
But then it hit me.
Perhaps women are able to get over that hump from awkward, lost child to wise, self-confident Frau der Welt simply because their schtick is so fucking lame.
I got up some tests on the lab rats of the Lower East Side. They were running the treadmills of Thursday Night Live. The skewed sampling, with its 60/40 male/female split, worked to my advantage, as the goal was to observe how unattached females negotiated their evenings through the minefield of strange males. This is what I discovered:
They sat there and waited for guys to kiss their ass.
Now come on, ladies. If that’s your social personage, you can’t tell me it took you long to master. Meanwhile, these poor saps of another gender have to be (choose any three, or zero) charming, witty, mysterious, warm, spiritual, snarky (heaven help us), well-groomed, well-read, well-hung, well-worn, aloof, a goof, a poof, or Bette Midler on the Roof. No wonder they do it so poorly. They don’t know how! But do you? Has anyone actually matured and deepened here, or do we have two genders who don’t know what’s going on, and one pretending? In other words, are there personalities, or just fears and masks over fears?
Don’t tell me my data are spoiled by the desperate date-night-under-a-rock environment in which they were found. I know that. But at the same time, c’mon, is it any different in the cubicle farm where you spend your days? Let’s see hands. Who here is pushing themselves to the confines of their world, and who is just sitting around disparaging events in a scathingly unshocking way? Don’t be so comfortable on your low level of operation. Reach, strive, strain. My people, Trouble Sells is here to incite you to new vistas of personal accomplishment, through delicately-constructed abusive tirades at an imaginary readership.
Stop sucking so bad. It’s getting ridiculous.
by Jack, November 11, 2003 9:01 PM | More from The Damned Human Race | More from Women
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Whoa baby! What a smack in the face! If only it were that simple that you could just wave your "stop sucking" fan and all the lameness would dissapear. You have yet to tackle the real issue, that of fear and how it plays out in the roles of both sexes. I think you're being really harsh to women who of course deserve it for their own particular crimes. But we all suck, lovebucket. But Women are just crueler at it. The bitches won't get it as long as the guys keep a comin.
You're on a roll, Jack-baby. But you didn't get the new marching orders from Liberal HQ: "meme" is out, "idea" is in.
Emma: you're right that I could have been harsher on men, but who cares about them anyway? But you are more right about fear. Fear has ruined so much possibility.
Vino: you again.
1. The very citation you provide is pro-"meme."
2. But even if it wasn't, who says their blog is more authoritative than mine? Neither is about linguistics.
3. Perhaps I was using the term jokingly.
4. I believe the word "meme" suggests an idea that travels. It is a more specific choice of word.
Call me Vin.
But even if it wasn’t, who says their blog is more authoritative than mine?
Him. You.
And I suppose if Tom Daschle jumped off a cliff, you'd do it too? I think my reputation for avoiding consensus is enough reply here.
Women are more mature than men because women sit around waiting for men to kiss their ass. Perhaps mature isn't the word. Perhaps opportunistic is the word. Word.
In Vino Veritas:
“meme” is out, “idea” is in.
LOL. The comments on here are WAY better than the writing by Jack.
To Jack:
Stop sucking so bad. It’s getting ridiculous.
I love that the best insult my new anonymous enemy can come up with is to quote me back at myself. This doesn't seem to further his/her agenda of proving that I am dull and irrelevant, but it certainly does mine: that I am funnier than those who wish only to destroy their betters.
Bring it.