Posts by Tom Beard
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Up Front: The Up Front Guides:…, in reply to Bart Janssen,
and so Is can sleep with them?
I really have to keep re-reading that carefully to make sure that it doesn't say "so I can sleep with them". For various values of "I".
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Or there's another way to spice up test cricket: Rollerball.
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Up Front: The Up Front Guides:…, in reply to Bart Janssen,
So it was an awful test pitch, if you count lost time for rain less than 4 days play.
I think we've hit upon the formula for exciting test cricket: good bowling, careless batting and a pitch that's greener than an Aro Valley polling booth.
Not that there's anything wrong with unexciting test cricket. There's a lot to be said for the sort of match that is just an excuse to sit around for five days reading, drinking G&Ts, and occasionally looking up to say "well played, old chap". But if you want results, then batting-friendly pitches and a line-up of solid, cautious batsmen isn't going to deliver.
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Up Front: The Up Front Guides:…, in reply to Emma Hart,
So, just to be clear, you're only open to listening to men's opinions about what women do?
The tricky thing is that we're dealing with subconscious reactions, and introspection might not be the best guide to understanding one's own actions. This applies to both men & women, and in all fields: what we say we want is often not what we do.
So, if we're going to investigate such old saws as "women are more attracted to taken men than single men", it would be best to have some actual data, and neither repeating "many men would agree" nor relying on an individual's counterexample would shed any light on it. In lieu of such data (and I'd welcome any suggestions), one could still suggest possible mechanisms for the supposed phenomenon:
- B Jones' suggestion that "women are more prepared to be friendly when they know getting hit on is unlikely": it's not that coupled men are more desirable, but that they're less threatening.
- Even if a woman makes no conscious calculation along the lines of "he's taken, so he must be worth taking", a man in a relationship might actually exhibit attractive qualities (confidence, relaxation) compared to someone who's lonely and desparate or sleazy and predatory. Of course, the same would apply to a man who is comfortable being single.
- The wider concept of "social proof", which suggests that if a person has friends and/or lovers then they should be a likeable/loveable person. This ties in to the general idea (for which I'm sure there's some sort of pop psych name, though it currently escapes me) that our desires tend to be strongly influenced by what others find desirable. -
Up Front: The Up Front Guides:…, in reply to BenWilson,
My sister has dozens of stories about guys like this. Either she sends really mixed messages, or she's a magnet to such people. I think the latter more likely
I once went out with an East European woman who could never work out why guys kept hitting on her (well, apart from her being a famously beautiful and talented semi-celebrity). "Why do so many men think that I'm attracted to them?" she asked.
I pointed out to her that she tended to look very intently into someone's eyes during conversation, laugh freely at their jokes and constantly touch them lightly on the hands or forearms. All of which is lovely, and quite a normal part of everyday conversation in her culture, but in our dour and less tactile culture she may as well have been wearing a badge saying "I want you now".
Which was the correct interpretation in our case at one stage, but when we went back to being platonic friends I kept being thrown by her signals. Even though I knew that it was just her normal manner, it was all but impossible to recalibrate my interpretation of her body language.
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Up Front: The Up Front Guides:…, in reply to Emma Hart,
Some women, myself included, have a "friend zone". Once you've been put in the Friend Zone, thinking of you in a romantic/sexual context requires a jarring mind-shift.
That definitely happens, but the shift isn't always that dramatic, especially if there's already been some flirtation or sexual tension in the friendship from the start. Which in my case is often.
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Up Front: The Up Front Guides:…, in reply to Emma Hart,
I just fell off my chair as a result of random clumsiness. Not at all because I was laughing so hard I couldn't hold myself up.
Honest, officer! I'm actually really terrible at asking women out. The few times it's worked it's been when they've been dropping hints so heavily they might as well have held up a sign saying "Just ask me out, already!"
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The whole "nice guys" vs "jerks" thing is not without some truth, but it's much more complicated than it's normally portrayed. For a start, in most of those discussions, "nice guy" isn't a shorthand for "decent human being": it means "doormat". Hence, there's a lot of space between that and "jerks".
Secondly, actions that seem jerkish from one person could just seem playful, cheeky and confident from another. It's partly about tone and delivery, partly about the physical attractiveness of the deliverer, but mostly it's about context and the state of the existing relationship.
For instance, a "nice guy" might say something like "I think you're really special, and I really like you, and would you like to go out with me please? Oh, any time. Wherever you like, it doesn't matter, you choose." And for some people that might seem theoretically to be flattering and respectful, but for others it just seems creepy and indecisive.
At the other extreme, a "jerk" might say "Hey sweet cheeks, let's go get a drink at X. I'll pick you up at 8. You know you want to." And for some women, an approach like that with the right delivery from the right man would work like a charm. But in most cases (I think) it's more likely to come across as arrogant, sexist and controlling.
Something in the middle might be "Hi there, I saw that this great new place X has just opened, and it seemed like your sort of place. How about we go for a drink there sometime?" The flattery isn't necessary, since it's sort of implied by the fact that you're asking them out. If done right, it should seem confident and positive without being controlling. It implies that you know enough about someone to share their tastes, and if you're right then it should be much more appealing than seeming to have no preferences, tastes or personality of your own. If she says "I'm not so keen about that place, how about Y?" then don't spoil it by insisting on your first choice: that's jerkish.
So, the general idea is that one should be confident without arrogance, express interest without desperation, and if possible cheeky without being insulting. Well, that's the theory. It never works for me.
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Hard News: When A City Falls, in reply to Emma Hart,
It’s like seeing an ex again for the first time after you break up. It brings back painful memories, but what are you going to do, spend the rest of your life desperately trying to avoid them?
That's probably what I've been trying to do with Christchurch for a couple of decades. I've moved on, and all that. But with someone who was that much of your past, no matter how distant that past feels, it's still going to be a wrenching experience to see them fall apart.
Which is why, among other reasons, I haven't felt ready to go back there since February. Going there after last September was wrenching enough. But, yes. I have to see this.
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Muse: Indecision '11: Fighting the Grey, in reply to Stewart,
Personally, I would prefer to see a little more tolerance for some of these older folks who haven't been brought up in our more enlightened times.
Sorry, I don't buy that. My father is older than Des, brought up English in a time when there was still an Empire and racism and other prejudices were assumed to be common sense. Not only is he not a bigot, he brought me up by taking me on HART anti-Tour marches and instilled in me the importance of fighting for social justice in all its forms.
Generational cultural pressure and the values taught in childhood are powerful, but they're never an excuse for vileness, and they are not insurmountable unless they are constantly reinforced and allowed to go unchallenged. That generation lived through WWII, the Cold War, the sexual revolution and several economic booms and busts; they learned how to deal with television, mobile phones and the Internet. They should be able to learn to treat people with a different language and skin colour as human beings.
If they were my grandparents I'd be well pissed-off at you guys' attitudes.
If they were my grandparents, I'd be well pissed-off at their attitudes.