Tag Archives: men and women

A look at some of the worst advice the internet has to offer: how to tell your crush you like him/her

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wikihow crush

It’s probably no surprise that the internet is teeming with bad advice, and some of it you find on WikiHow.

Let’s look at their article, How to Tell Your Crush You Like Him Without Words. (EDIT 23 Jan 2015: The page has since been rewritten, so the advice is no longer as hilariously bad as it was before. The analysis in this post is of the old version of the article. If anyone has access to the old version of the article, a link in the comments section would be appreciated.)

My first problem with this article is in the title: the author insists on not using words. What’s wrong with using words? It becomes apparent shortly that this article is intended for some seriously shy girls. If that’s a problem, WikiHow probably has a few articles on overcoming shyness.

If one were to attempt a psychoanalysis based only on the contents of this article, one may guess that it’s author has an unusual and unrealistic expectation of people’s ability to read minds. If such a person has anger issues or allows little things to upset them, that person probably does have some relationship problems.

Let’s break these tips down one at a time:

1. From afar (about ten feet) look into his eyes (do not stare). When he catches your gaze give him a dazzling smile he won’t forget and wave or wink.

The items on this list are highly situational. The advice here is to stand from afar, about ten feet. Ten feet isn’t very far, but the author of this list seems to think so. Once the distance requirement is met, then “give a dazzling smile.” The author also reminds us to wave or wink, so apparently this expert on crushes thinks it’s a serious omission not to do so.

Notice how it says “about” ten feet. WikiHow is giving a little bit of leeway here, so there’s no need to break out the tape measure in an attempt to set up the moment you’d otherwise probably be waiting a while for.

2. Do you know where he sits in class? If so, leave a note on his desk saying “Something is waiting for you on the school steps at 3 o’clock sharp”. Leave a little gift and note at 3 o’clock sharp on the school steps saying, “Hi so-and-so. Thought you might like this : ). From your friend, so-and-so.”

If I sat down at my typical spot and found something like this, I’d probably find it seriously creepy. One may even consider it a threat. There’s too much room in this tip for something to go wrong. What if your crush decided to sit somewhere else? Or what if Chuck from the football team decided to sit in his favorite spot?

Also, the title of WikiHow’s list insists on not using words, and writing notes does qualify as using words.

3. Grab a group of friends (including your crush) and invite them to play basketball, soccer, etc. When playing, make sure you’re on your crush’s team and pass the ball to him a lot. After the game go up and give him a high five and smile. If you’re feeling daring and need to say something say, “Great job! You’re an awesome —– (fill in the blank with the sport you played) player.”

This tip makes the assumption that your crush is interested in sports. What if he, like myself, is one of the many men out there that don’t care about sports? This tip does little more than support the notion that the ideal boyfriend is a jock, while nerds would be avoided. This is a notion that is turned on it’s face once one advances beyond high school, and the nerds generally have much better careers.

4. Pass by him and then turn your head around to look at him. If he’s doing the same thing, that’s a good sign.

There’s actually such a thing as a female creep, just as there is such a thing as female stalkers. If he’s looking back at you, it might be a good sign. Or it might be a bad sign.

Looking through this article’s art, I noticed that the female is almost always the only one blushing, and in the one where the guy might be, his face doesn’t turn pink. Notice how when girls blush or have a crush, it’s considered cute, but if it’s a guy, he’s often seen as a pervert? Feminists like to complain that women are “objectified” and portrayed as being obsessed with love in media, but men seem afraid to complain that women are usually the ones that can get away with expressing their sexuality. Much of the male gender is in a pretty submissive state these days, resigned to the notion that when something in a relationship goes bad, they’re seen as the bad guys.

5. If he likes you back he will ask you out, but just be patient.

This tip doesn’t belong on the list. The idea is to tell your crush you like him, and somehow do so without words. Waiting for him to decide to initiate the relationship (and possible suffering in silence in the meantime) is not a step in this process.

6. Don’t kiss him, have him kiss you first!

As with the previous tip, the problem with this one is that it insists on waiting for the male to take initiative. Kissing him would communicate pretty well that you like him without using words, so to accomplish the objective, it would be more effective to not take the list’s advice.

7. Never force a guy to like you, just let time do that and be nice. Try to talk and if he does not want to talk then so what? Try next week and then he’ll finally ask you out.

This list asserts pretty confidently that if a guy doesn’t want to go out with you, then he’ll do it if you ask him again next week. It actually doesn’t work that way. But, again, this list breaks it’s own rule by saying “try to talk,” which, yes, does qualify as “using words.”

8. If he asks to borrow a pencil, give him one with a message on it.

First, giving someone a pencil with a message on it counts as using words. Second, this depends on the object of affection asking for a pencil, which if he does, he’s probably not very dependable. If such a thing were to happen, the exchange would probably go something like this:

Boy: Hi, I forgot my pencil. May I borrow one of yours?
Girl: Oh, yeah. Just a minute. (proceeds to etch something on the pencil)
Boy: Um, will this take very long?
Girl: No, wait just a minute. (scribbles furiously)
Boy: The pencil looked okay. It didn’t look like it needed anything done with it.
Girl: I’m almost done! (scribbles faster)
Boy: Look, I’ll just borrow a pencil from some other girl.

This situation could probably be averted by having a pencil with a message already on it, but then you’d probably end up hanging onto it until the theoretical moment occurs that he asks for a pencil (and doesn’t ask someone else). Another way to avert this situation is with the following tip:

Ask him out.

A date is a small amount of time spent with someone to attempt to determine their character as a potential suitor. A person goes on a date to determine whether they would prefer to be in a relationship with them, and it is sometimes a recreational activity between a couple already in a relationship. If a person takes the advice in the WikiHow article mentioned above, a date isn’t likely to happen, and an infatuation from afar is likely to continue for a long time, with the person continuing to have a crush based on assumptions that they’ve made about that person.

Wanted: Honest Feminists

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I recently attended a meeting about women’s services on campus, which was made interesting by the fact that there was only one female student in attendance. As the meeting went on, my BS detector went off the charts. The speaker, apparently, was what is called today a “feminist.”

What is a feminist? An advocate of women’s rights. Sounds like a noble cause, right? If that’s what it was about, then feminism today would be taken much more seriously.

But it’s not. And the reason for this is because many feminists today are actually a liability to the cause.

Above, I mentioned what’s called a “BS detector.” I think most of us knows what that means, but for those of us who don’t, to have a BS detector means to have an ability, either through intuition or conscious thought, to sense that there’s something fallacious.

For instance, you’ve probably heard the statistic that women make seven-tenths of what a man makes for doing the same job.  It has an element of truthiness to it, considering that women have historically been treated unfairly. In many cases, the statistic is accepted by the hearer without further inquiry. It’s even been stated by president Barack Obama during a State of the Union address.

There’s a problem, though. The statistic is false.

If one were to look into the matter, the ratio would actually be closer to 9:10. The truer statistic does indicate that that there’s still a problem, but it’s nowhere near as dramatic as the 7:10 figure that we’ve been hearing.

When you hear that “women make seven-tenths for doing the same job as men”, your BS detector should go off. Perhaps you’ve picked up on some weasel words. Which job, specifically, do women do that nets them seven-tenths of a man’s pay? When was this study conducted? By whom? Did the study control for factors such as maternity leave and that women’s less career-oriented nature would lend them an inclination to settle for a lower salary?

By Tkjd2007 at Wikimedia.org, public domain

By Tkjd2007 at Wikimedia.org, public domain

Perhaps your BS detector did go off, but you ignored it. As children, we are good at detecting things such as hypocrisy, but as we grow up, we train ourselves to ignore our BS detectors. While this is done with the intention of being more civil, it also enables certain people to walk all over us.

During the meeting, the speaker did mention the statistic. A brief glance around the room revealed that just about everyone present knew just what was going on. Did anyone call her on it? It would seem like no one wanted to. There was a guy next to me who raised his hand, but he was ignored.

Generally, men don’t want to fight back against the tide of radical feminism, because it would be so easy to paint such a person as the bad guy. Because of this, the speaker, even though she was surrounded by college-aged men, could say just about anything she wanted with impunity. The group mechanics were certainly awkward.

It seems to me that feminism still struggles to be taken seriously. Why? What’s so bad about the cause of making women of equal value to men?

Fast fact
Women have been of equal value to men all along. Throughout human history.

So, what’s the problem? They haven’t been treated that way. Would it be bad to advocate that they be treated fairly? Certainly not. So then, what major obstacles stand in the way of feminists being taken seriously?

The one I’m focusing on today is that feminism has honesty problems.

A lack of honesty is an issue, even if the cause is a good one. When a person tells a lie to advance a cause, that person takes the risk that that the hearer won’t look too much into it. While dishonest people have long had their way, the risk is even greater in the information age, when a person has instant access to research for verification.

One day, I came home from work and found that my roommates were talking to a door-to-door salesman, and they were sold to his alternative electrical energy supply company. The only thing preventing them from sealing the deal was that the electric bill was in my name, so they needed my approval. After talking with the salesman, I went inside to perform a web search to see what others were saying about his company. The company’s reputation was very bad, with even former employees coming out and pointing out that the company has nearly no organic growth. Armed with this new information, I went and shut the door on the salesman’s face. Problem solved, with the help of the internet.

Another point I want to focus on is that feminists generally just don’t like men, and that’s another obstacle to them being taken seriously. Feminists generally see the male-female relationship as being adversarial in nature, and because of this, it’s unusual to see them in a healthy relationship. Those who fetch coffee for those pushing a feminist agenda often end up developing the same grim outlook. As a result, relationships suffer where there otherwise wouldn’t have been a problem.

The key to a healthy relationship is compromise. Men and women get together understanding that there are differences beyond that women have breasts and a vulva, while men have something else. Men and women have brains that are 97% similar. That remaining 3% makes a big difference. For men and women to get along, they need to be accepting of one-another’s differences, otherwise, there could be problems.

Feminists have a tendency to teach women to accept no compromise. This results in some very difficult relationships. This is made even worse in an age when there are men who try to be more like women and women try to be more like men. Because so many people are trying to be something they’re not, relationships suffer.

The antidote for this is to understand one’s identity, and understand that characteristics such as one’s gender gives someone something to offer society, and knowing that personal success can be achieved by offering what you have to offer, instead of wishing that you could offer the exact same thing as someone with different attributes.

There are differences between men and women, and these enable both genders to offer things to a relationship that the other cannot. Even if the wife were the money-maker and the husband was a stay at home dad, the presence of primary sexual characteristics will still indicate mutually exclusive capacities. Because of this, there is no man that can do all the exact same things a woman can do, and there are no women that can do all the exact same things a man can do. If they could, gender distinctions wouldn’t exist.

Some would say that it’s not fair that women are generally physically weaker than men, and some would say that it’s not fair that the continuity of their genes requires the assistance of a woman. Just because something is different from what you would have personally preferred doesn’t mean that life is unfair. Besides, life is unfair. It has been for a long time.

The school I go to is a trade school, which means that the majors are highly technical in nature. Among them are architectural, HVAC, and electronic engineering majors. A vast majority of the students are male. Why would that be?

Perhaps it’s due to the popular perception that these are male jobs. Those who are particularly blunt seem to like to say that women haven’t built our buildings or paved our roads. I wouldn’t mind seeing women line up to shut them up. But it seems like that’s mostly not happening.

Perhaps it’s because there are so many men going to schools like this that make women feel uncomfortable with attending. Women that attend would be so far outnumbered that they’d feel out of place. There may also be a sexual element. Men like sex, and some get grabby about it. Those who act this way give the rest of my gender a bad rep.

But perhaps the biggest determining factor when women decide against trade schools is that they just don’t want to be architects or automotive repair women for a living. It’s not as though women don’t see such jobs as rewarding and fulfilling, because they do. However, these jobs tend to be physically demanding, and that’s where women usually being physically weaker comes in. It can make them less effective at the job that they do, which from a results-oriented standpoint, could be used to justify paying them less to do the same job.

If someone would have to try much harder to be just as effective, it would seem more practical to find a job that’s more suited to their abilities. Having said that, if someone really wants to do something, that extra bit of effort can result in a fulfilling career. And if women were to pave roads and build buildings, there would be a number of chauvinists with less to say.

If a feminist is a person who sees women as having equal value with men, then I’m a feminist. However, feminism seems instead to be some far-left movement that teaches women to resent men. That there are so many dishonest feminists also seriously hurts their movement, in ways that they don’t realize.

Because of this, there is a demand for honest feminists.

#YesMenToo

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I would like to say first that it’s not my intention of taking on the #YesAllWomen hashtag. Women do deal with some serious challenges. It’s not my intent to take a shot at that. However, there are certain things that men must deal with, and I would like to bring some attention to that.

Recently, there was a mass-murder in Santa Barbara, California. The perpetrator targeted women specifically, apparently upset that he didn’t have sex. He certainly had a warped view of things. For one thing, he apparently had an unrealistic perspective of the male-female relationship, coupled with a sense of entitlement.

He also spent hours a day playing World of Warcraft, so he was complaining about not getting something he wanted, while apparently doing little to actually obtain it. This kind of sense of entitlement isn’t anything that’s new, though it’s unusual in that it’s taken to this extreme. I could go on about how this indicates the kind of wrong thinking that’s apparently gaining momentum in America. However, that’s a different topic.

There are certain things that men do have to deal with.

For one thing, there is the perpetuation of the idea that sex is something that men must always be preoccupied with. Men feed into this notion too, and the popular idea is that if a man doesn’t have a stronger libido, then he must be less of a man somehow. You’ve probably heard that men think about sex once every thirty seconds. This is statistically inaccurate, but you’ll find it hard to find the man who admits that he doesn’t obsess over sex that much. If men were that preoccupied with sex, how would most of us function in society?

As I see it, sexual desire is a universal human trait, and can be healthy, depending on how it’s expressed. However, the notion that men must obsess over sex every waking moment of our lives doesn’t do men any favors. I do have aspirations, and I prefer to be remembered for what I strive for and differences that I make than how much I think about sex.

It’s assumed that when men gather together, we talk primarily about women and our sexual exploits, and there is an assumption that, if left to our own devices, we’d spend hours a day looking at pornography on the internet. This doesn’t paint of picture of our gender as being productive and intellectually engaged, but neither does the notion that men are constantly sexually-obsessed.

I would also like to point out that, often, men are judged by physical appearance instead of what else we have to offer. The popular notion is that men focus on function over form, and while this is generally true, it’s because of this that this is frequently overlooked.

Sometimes, men with certain physical characteristics are favored for female attraction over those without them. This girl I knew in high school (that I was interested in) had a poster of Brendan Fraser in her bedroom. He would be the guy known for playing the role of Tarzan and George of the Jungle, among other things. Women would generally prefer to have a poster like that in their bedrooms (though their spouses might object to it). As a skinny teenager with acne, there was little more I could do than accept the fact that I was in competition with other members of the male gender for the sexual attention of women, even as the media instilled in young women unrealistic expectations of male characteristics.

Some women prefer certain characteristics in men, and many of these are physical characteristics. What could I do to get the attention of women other than attempt to live up to their expectations?

It’s expected of men to be in competition with other men, and women seem more attracted to men who butt heads with other men. How far would a man get complaining that we still live in an age where men compete with other men? After all, women are usually more drawn to men that they feel can protect them, and a man that just complains is probably complaining about a game that he’s losing.

Sometimes a person looks for certain characteristics in a potential suitor. Sometimes a person prefers some characteristics over others, some of them physical. This is often called an indication of a person’s tastes.

Do I mean to say that women are unfair to men? Sometimes, they are. People sometimes have a double-standard toward other people. For example, there is a problem with domestic violence against men. Little about it is done, because men are typically viewed as being on the administering end of the domestic violence problem, and when someone behaves violently against men, it’s expected of him to be macho and “take it.”

Some men have a conviction against committing acts of violence against women, and when such a man is the recipient of spousal abuse, there is little he could do about it. And because he’s a man, he can expect little sympathy from either women or men.

The American legal system has an overwhelming bias favoring women in domestic disputes. This is also the case when it comes to sexual crimes; it’s typically assumed that the man is at fault. This problem is magnified by the fact that, when it comes to sexual crimes, people are prone to assuming the worst in other people, and thus a mere allegation is sufficient to heavily damage some people’s lives. Because of this, some people attempt to get revenge on other people by accusing them of committing a sexual crime. And when the person issuing the allegation is a woman, a man who is on the receiving end of it is in for the battle of his life.

There are other challenges that men face, but these are a few of the big ones. Many view it as being “the way things are”, and because of this, many cope with life facing these conditions. There are certain things that men have to deal with, and deal with them, we do.