Stretching

I've been starting up some more yoga recently. I like Richard Freeman's Breathing and Relaxation videotape. He has a very calming, soothing manner, although most of the time, I get too impatient and hungry to finish the whole tape. The first half is the hard part anyway, with all the standing postures. I'm already feeling more flexible (read: sore) from it.

At first, the birds seemed startled whenever I practiced yoga, but now they've been joining me in their own birdy yoga. One's more active and strong and does some inverted postures -- sometimes he'll flap his wings or sing, sometimes he'll just hang there or look around restlessly. The other is better at the sitting and relaxation poses.

Actually, I'm proud that they're so strong -- I try to work out the flock every day -- and these cockatiels are over 20 years old! I hope I'm this strong and flexible when I'm 80.


It's getting warmer. I need to start my seedlings for the garden. For two years in a row, my harvest was pathetic since I either started too late or had a too-cold summer. I REALLY want tomatoes this year, ripe ones I can eat, not just green ones that rot or freeze.

Love or love not. There is no entitlement.

I got some interesting responses on my last post about Men Who Think They're Entitled To Women. Niels comments, "It's not that I'm entitled to a conversation, but I, like everyone else in the social setting, am entitled to politeness. If you don't want to be polite, don't go to a social event."

I disagree.

First of all, nobody is entitled to politeness to the point where they can threaten or demand it from others. However, I do agree that everyone deserves civility and courtesy. We're just not "entitled" in the sense that we can rack up points to justify mistreating others when things don't go our way. Respect, consideration, courtesy and love are gifts that we could all give to our fellow citizens more often than we do, but they must be freely given, not obliged nor coerced. While we may certainly deserve a polite "go away" request, we're not entitled to overstay our welcome in order to insist on getting what we deserve.

Secondly, a bar or nightclub is not a "social event" by default but rather a business catering to various interests. Examples of social events are dinner or cocktail parties, wedding receptions, dances, birthday celebrations, and house parties, where guests are invited and there is presumably some assurance that everyone in attendance has someone in common and nobody is an axe murderer.

From a young age, we're taught not to talk to strangers, so there is a lot more riding on subjective experience when we don't know who we're dealing with; some strangers seem more friendly and trustworthy than others, while some strangers appear more threatening. In your "Psycho" situation, Niels, I think you set yourself apart from the average Joe as a male stranger who wouldn't leave when asked, and who would instead respond with condescension... so, probably not the friendly, trustworthy, non-threatening kind of stranger. Even in a real social event, it wouldn't be appropriate to patronize or insult one's social contacts. In a public place like a club or bar, it's no less inappropriate to plant oneself at a girl's table, refuse to leave, then diss her.

Would you scope out a restaurant and sit yourself down at the hottest girls' table while they're getting their entrees, then treat them like they're idiots when they say you're not welcome? The fact that it's a club with drinks instead of a restaurant with food doesn't make that much of a difference.

Thirdly, it seems a little ungenerous to dictate for others their reasons for going out. Of course politeness is nicer than rudeness, but I hope Niels isn't suggesting that women implicitly submit to advances from men whenever they attend a social event.

Itotem comments, "As a guy, I kind of cringe when I see other men want to banter right away with women. It's not ALWAYS situationally relevant."

Thanks for the great comment, Itotem! It's good to know that you share my observation that hitting on women is not always desirable. Niels, it's pretty clear that you were at the club to meet someone like that hot girl. But I think she made it equally obvious that she was NOT there to meet someone like you.

Flirting and bantering are consensual social interactions. As soon as someone voices a desire to stop interacting, you need to respect that request or else you risk crossing the line into harassment. Your expectation of what is supposed to happen in an ideal world is irrelevant, since you shouldn't cross that line, ever. This isn't just about etiquette and social graces, it's about acting in a way that doesn't threaten the well-being of others.

As a female, being objectified is nothing special. Sometimes it's mildly offensive: I don't enjoy crude remarks being made to me on the street. Some women might, but I don't. Sometimes it's even mildly threatening: If a strange guy starts walking with me at night and won't go away, it's a bit creepy. Flirting only works when there's some personal connection. It doesn't work when a guy's just talking to me because he's slapped a few labels on me and finds those words and images desirable. That's just tiresome and makes me look for the quickest way out.

So, do me a favour. Next time you talk to a girl, recognize her humanity and like something about her total being, be drawn to something about her other than how much you'd like to have a piece of her. If you don't find something that makes you care about her as a person and she doesn't think you have much to offer her either, just go away nicely.

No loss on either side.

They're baaaack! Entitlement Attack!

I've been out of my Blogger account for a few weeks because they changed it over, logged me out and I couldn't remember my username and password. But, I finally set to work and got it straightened out today. Thanks for the impetus, Melville!

Lately, I've been coming across way too many men who have been discourteous and rude to me at best, and at worst, harassing me and my acquaintances. What do they all have in common? A sense of entitlement. Just because they want my attention, they think they deserve it, and therefore, I'm a horrible and hostile person for not giving them the attention they deserve. Never mind that I might be busy with my own thoughts or activities -- I'm the one who's rude if I don't drop everything as soon as they want my time.

That's why I have a bone to pick with Men Who Think They're Entitled To Women, or MWTTETW for short (pronounced "mau-tet-ew"). Most of my encounters with MWTTETW have been on the Internet recently, thank goodness. Encountering one in the real world is scary to say the least: Because such a man thinks he's entitled to you, he'll often get angry when you don't play ball. Any subsequent hostility or violence on his part is thus "justified" in his skewed little brain, because none of it would have happened if you just wanted him back like you were supposed to! Presto, now it's the woman's fault he's angry and violent! Neat trick, huh?

I figured I've been really unlucky these past few weeks, I've been coming across MWTTETW on websites, IMs, chat, anywhere on the Internet I go, it seems. Now, if you're an Entitled-feeling Man yourself, you're probably thinking at this point that I did something to deserve this negative attention. Sorry, but in all but one case, I was doing absolutely nothing to attract attention other than being online when the Entitlement Attack hit. In the one other case, I was involved in a public discussion that led to the guy messaging me privately to tell me he wanted to get to know me and be my friend, while I tried to parry his advances.

A typical Entitlement Attack:
- I'm around, minding my own business and doing my own thing, with or without friends.
- Man notices me, tries to get my attention, start up a conversation.
- I politely decline, mention I'm busy, act otherwise disinterested or unavailable.
- Man gets angry, attacks me for being anti-social, rude, hostile for not wanting to socialize with him.

If you've ever been the male in this scenario, please consider the following for a moment: If you're the kind of guy who gets angry just because a woman doesn't want to talk to you right then, why would she want to talk with you EVER? It's not fun, it's not social and it's not enjoyable. It's annoying, irritating and unpleasant at best. At worst, if you continue, it's threatening, stalking and harassment. What part of this is she supposed to enjoy? Why should she like you at all?

I was hoping I was just a freak of nature, getting a lot of bad luck from MWTTETW, but then I went surfing on the web and found that not only are there men who do this to unlucky women like me in private, but there are men out there who do this and still feel entitled enough afterwards to publicly talk about about how they should have put the girl in her place!

Take a look at BATG participant Niels Hoven's blog article, "Apparently I'm a Psycho". While the article is aptly named, unfortunately, it appears that he meant it ironically. No, I guess we can't expect self-awareness from MWTTETW who blog about it like it's cool. Basically, the typical scene goes like this: Niels goes to a nightclub, sees some hot girls and approaches them to flirt. One girl doesn't want him there, and one doesn't seem to mind so much. The "unfriendly" girl hints that he should scram, but Niels invariably overlooks these first hints and responds instead by "bantering" or "vibing" with the girls. The hints become less subtle, so Niels blatantly disregards increasingly explicit requests to leave, and often even jokes about the requests instead of respecting them. The scenario ends when the girls can't take it anymore and leave because he won't, or more recently in "Psycho", he finally takes the request semi-seriously and makes his exit. Good to know that he has evolved somewhat...

The good thing is that he DOES leave after being explicitly asked (let's not even talk about how he grabs the first excuse to return to their table). The bad part is the so-called lesson he's learned from this recurring experience. Does he perhaps learn that he shouldn't sit down uninvited? No. Does he learn that he should respect earlier hints and requests to leave? Nope. What Niels Hoven learns is that some girls are "beautiful on the outside and ugly on the inside" and that he "[needs] to lay down the hammer and just tell the girl that her behavior is unacceptable." Whoa.

Am I the only one who thinks that telling the girl that her behaviour was "unacceptable" would have been inexcusably rude considering how he insinuated himself into a "social situation" with her that she didn't even want to be in?

NEWS FLASH: She is NOT rude simply because she wants you to go away. YOU were rude for ignoring her less-than-subtle hints to get you to leave after sitting down uninvited at her table. Just because you want to talk to a girl, doesn't mean that you deserve her time or that she's obliged to give you any. It's this kind of attitude that eventually leads to a man harassing a woman and telling her it's her fault for not wanting him back.

The scary part of this is that Niels is a coach at Art of Attraction workshops, where he apparently teaches men how to flirt with women and be the most attractive versions of themselves. Is he teaching men to ignore women's wishes? Is he teaching men that it's all right to violate women ("It's okay as long as she's hot and you wanna talk to her")?

This is just wrong. Her desirability never justifies your sense of entitlement. And if you're afflicted with a sense of entitlement, at least keep it to yourself and don't infect other perfectly nice men with that attitude.