I belong to a Facebook group for a certain science-fiction fandom in my local area. I know many of the people in this group personally, in real life. The few people I don't know are usually friends with some of my friends. So when a member of this group, who we'll call SAW (Super Annoying Wanker), sent me a friend request, I thought, "Sure, he's probably friends with a lot of my friends!" Nope. And, he's a super annoying wanker.
Mostly, SAW was a super annoying wanker because of the non-fucking-stop annoying posts and sharing. Okay, dude, you've known me for, like, two minutes on Facebook. Stop sharing shit to my wall like you know me and we have inside jokes. Even after I changed what should show up from him on my newsfeed, he was still managing to clog up my newsfeed with his stupid crap. I mean, okay, it's your Facebook, you can do whatever you want. If you really like pictures of cats, share however many pictures of cats you like. If you want to post new status updates about wanking to coffee every twenty seconds, go nuts. But really, you don't need to tag me in every damn cat picture/fandom picture/thing vaguely related to fandom/Muppet bullshit you post, especially when there's 80 posts a day!!!!!! The admins of our common group even sent him messages asking him to calm the fuck down and stop sharing every about this popular fandom that pops up on the internet on the group page.
This is just backstory. Time to get to the specific stuff. SAW sends me a friend request that I foolishly accept. I haven't even lifted my finger from my mouse after clicking "accept" and I've got a Private Message from him. So I talk to him a bit, and I'm not digging him too much, but okay, sure, whatever, we'll chat. He then ends the message with "Okay, cutie, I'll talk to you later."
Oh, SAW. "Cutie"? For real? Let's start with the stupidity of YOU'VE NEVER FUCKING SEEN ME! Do you know what I look like? No. You've seen a picture on the internet. The picture is actually of me, but you don't know that. I am cute, but it's still ridiculous of you to assume that. Also, why do you think it's okay to start out making comments about my appearance? We're having a conversation, not fucking and not having a photo shoot. You're asking me questions, I assume this means you want to know about me as a person. This assumption is shattered by your saying "I don't care about who you are, I'm bringing focus back to your appearance." Thirdly, you didn't make a comment about "I think you're pretty." You have taken away my name and replaced it with a term of condescended, pseudo-endearment that one would use for a child. You know who I called "cutie"? My three week old nephew. You know what I usually call him instead? "David."
So, SAW shared a comic with me on Facebook and this was about my last straw.
You know what? I'm going to be lazy here, and just copy and paste my replies from Facebook.
Comment One: Well, let's start with the fact that it's Negging. If any of you are fortunate enough to not know what "negging" is: this is when one person (frequently a male talking to a female, but not necessarily, but I'll be going with this scenario to avoid wanting to punch a pronoun in the theoretical face), trumps a minor compliment with an insult, i.e. "I really like your bangs. Most girls with a nose that big can't pull off bangs." It focuses on a negative, a likely point of embarrassment, and is meant to damage the self confidence of the woman. It's like saying "You have this flaw, but I can forgive it. Never expect anybody else to though! All anybody else is going to see is that big nose." It's manipulative and terrible, but it is a ploy to achieve casual sex. So salsa's response is dead on, even though I think she should have included "Fuck off" and breaking off the corner of his chip head.
Comment Two: Also, "Don't be shy; here's a comment on your appearance." Because I don't fucking care about you as a person (or an anthropomorphized jar of salsa). It doesn't matter who you are. You have a physical quality that I like. For example, I like men with dark hair and olive complexions. This is like me saying to a guy "Yeah, it doesn't matter to me what you say right now because I'm not paying attention to your personality or your opinions, you have a physical attribute I like and that's the only reason I'm here."
Tonight, SAW sent me some more private messages, to which my answers were becoming increasingly curt and snarky. This culminated in him saying "Your fun to talk to" (oh, yeah, no attempts at proper usage of your/you're or abbreviation is TOTALLY the way to win the heart of a nerdy girl!) and me replying with "Yeah, well, you're not."
Could I have handled this better? Certainly. Could he have? Definitely. 'Bye-'bye, Wanker.
While I'm on the topic of SAWs, let's discuss a few more of them.
I went on a date with this guy a few weeks ago. Partway through, he starts telling me his life story. Not like, "I went to college here, I do this for a living." Like "When I was 8 my mother died in front of me, and my father tried to get custody of me but couldn't because he had been married to somebody else when my mother got pregnant so she didn't list him on the birth certificate. So I went to live with an aunt and uncle who beat their autistic son who in turn tries to beat me up. Yeah, I still live in their basement and am 30. I just don't want to look for work more than two miles from home. Well, my brother offered to let me live with him in this area where jobs are good and plentiful, but I don't want to do that. Where are you going?" I mean, people go through shit in life. It doesn't make them bad people. It frequently makes them stronger and better people. However, when you tell me that you're in a bad situation but are making no attempts to make it better, you're fucking ridiculous. I don't want to deal with people who lie, but you're supposed to try to sell yourself a little bit on a first date. If I can bother to put on mascara, you can wait until a second date to tell me all about your defeatist views on life. Actually, you know what? Scratch that. You can tell me about your defeatist views on life before asking me out. Save me some time. And seek therapy. Seriously. You need help with that shit.
I once went on a first date with a guy who told me a story about his being dick to some kid. He then actually used the phrase, "Yeah, because I have really high self-confidence, I'm okay with telling people when they're wrong." Nope. That's not self-confidence. That's narcissism. It is not an attractive quality. Stop talking.
Went on a first date with another guy. We had fun. He paid for my chai tea, we talked, we laughed. He boasted a little bit about how he's young (younger than me, incidentally) but has a good job that he really likes and owns a house and such, but never said "I own a house at 25 because I'm fucking awesome." More in terms of "It's important to me to be independent. I really like my job, because it's meaningful to me and I think I'm good at it. It doesn't make me sad that it's good money." Good job, sir. You've presented yourself well. Please give lessons to your peers. Did it work out? No. But at least he wasn't a SAW about it.
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