Various things I don't get.

[Gilda Dent]

1. The appeal of bad boys. My mom has a history of hooking up with them. It would seem to me that, say, a good man would be preferable, if not as exciting as the danger you get with a bad boy.

2. Why we have athletic banquets attended by thousands and academic award ceremonies that are either non-existent or an afterthought.

3. This quote, which I've read in a half dozen places around the net in the last year: "People will give up steak once a week for crap every day." It doesn't work in the literal sense, and thus doesn't work well as a metaphor either. Yes, eating well costs more, which is why most people who can't afford to eat steak every week will eat crap every day. I can't see how eating well every day would enable one to save for steak. I get the metaphor--you have to make some sacrifices in the short term to get access to better quality in the long run, but the phrase doesn't work well in support of that; instead it actually implies that the people making the sacrifices--by eating crap every day--don't get access to the higher quality stuff.

4. Collecting things that are never used for their intended purpose. I don't mean collectibles like action figures or figurines, things whose intended purpose is primarily to be collected and displayed, I mean buying DVDs you never intend to watch, or comic books you don't like just to keep a run going.

5. Advanced organic chemistry.

[PatrickG]

I read the steak quote as meaning:

You can eat crappy snack food every day.

You can eat NOTHING (or close to nothing) every day for a week and buy a nice steak dinner at the end of the week.

The implication I draw from it is that people will respond to frequency of a reward rather than quality.

It's similar to saying that given the choice between a date with the most attractive person on the planet or on-demand sex with someone they find physically repulsive, most people would go for the latter even if it cost them the former.

[Night Swordsman]

2. Why we have athletic banquets attended by thousands and academic award ceremonies that are either non-existent or an afterthought.

This one stuck in my head,Gilda,so i am going to try.

Stimulation.

When we SEE a sporting event,be it from bowling to football(either version),there is a visual action that affects us. The "Win or Lose" factor. People are emotionaly stimulated by athletic events. At the same time,Chess,not the worlds most action dominated "sport",does not get the same accolades as well. People want the visual thrill of yes or no,without alot of thinking involved. A academic cermony just can not produce that same kind of excitement without alot of thought and imagination,something sorely lacking in the general populace.

[Lester C.]

To be honest I don't get why people watch TV when they can play a video game.

[Night Swordsman]

To be honest I don't get why people watch TV when they can play a video game.

Story.

Visual storytelling. Yes,some games HAVE something called a "plot",but to be honest,every single console game plot i have ever seen has been a very vapid experience for the most part. Fun? yes. Exciting to play? yes. Emotionaly enganging the way a good drama or comedy on television is? No.

Yes,Lester...you can now drag out storylines from some of your favorite games,and i can easily just drag out some of my favorite television or movie momments that can easily blow those "plots" out of the water.

Never,ever,doubt the power of storytelling. Video Games are closing in on the grail of interactive storytelling,but they have a LONG way to go.

[Corrina]

I don't get why people play video games.

Well, I get that they love to play them and I logically understand the idea, but they leave me so emotionally cold that I don't *get* them.

[Pink Bat Max]

"Hey, that person is gay/lesbian/bi/transgendered. That threatens my manhood!"

Or really, why some guys feel their manhood is threatened by anything.



Also, celebrity gossip.

[ninjapeps]

Video Games are closing in on the grail of interactive storytelling

I feel it's the opposite. Maybe I've just been playing the wrong games but it feels to me like the height of video game storytelling was back in the 16 bit era. Games these days feel like graphics are more important than depth of any kind.

[Pink Bat Max]

I don't understand why it is that I like peanut butter, I like ice cream, but I cannot stand peanut butter ice cream.

[Gingold]

As to #3- you can pack a lunch every day and save money to eat steak, rather than spending money for crap at McDonald's.

[Gilda Dent]

This one stuck in my head,Gilda,so i am going to try.

Stimulation.

When we SEE a sporting event,be it from bowling to football(either version),there is a visual action that affects us. The "Win or Lose" factor. People are emotionaly stimulated by athletic events. At the same time,Chess,not the worlds most action dominated "sport",does not get the same accolades as well. People want the visual thrill of yes or no,without alot of thinking involved. A academic cermony just can not produce that same kind of excitement without alot of thought and imagination,something sorely lacking in the general populace.

That explains the difference between athletic competitions and academic competitions, not the difference between what is done to recognize academic and athletic success.

For example, when I was a junior in high school, the forensics team won state, and the boys' basketball team won district, losing in the first round of the state playoffs. Guess who got four pages in the yearbook and who got a half page group shot?

[Gilda Dent]

"Hey, that person is gay/lesbian/bi/transgendered. That threatens my manhood!"

Or really, why some guys feel their manhood is threatened by anything.



Also, celebrity gossip.

Agreed with all of this.

Especially baffling is why butch/androgynous lesbians tend to get so much more guff from the homophobes than femmes.

[Gilda Dent]

As to #3- you can pack a lunch every day and save money to eat steak, rather than spending money for crap at McDonald's.

Ah, that makes more sense, assuming that the lunch you pack for yourself is really cheap--McDonalds food is dirt cheap, enough so that it's hard to pack one of your own that costs less--and not crap itself.

But that at least clarifies the intended meaning.

[PatrickG]

"Hey, that person is gay/lesbian/bi/transgendered. That threatens my manhood!"

Or really, why some guys feel their manhood is threatened by anything.



Well, to be fair, nothing wrong with:

"That crazed, OCD mohel with a machete threatens my manhood!"

But seriously, having your manhood threatened is kinda funny since your masculinity is all in YOUR head and YOUR hormones. Nobody else can make you less of a man.

I tend to think guys who say things like that and mean it must be in a very shallow closet and unhappy with themselves.

[PatrickG]

That explains the difference between athletic competitions and academic competitions, not the difference between what is done to recognize academic and athletic success.

For example, when I was a junior in high school, the forensics team won state, and the boys' basketball team won district, losing in the first round of the state playoffs. Guess who got four pages in the yearbook and who got a half page group shot?

Heck, my marching band was first or second in every competition we entered... and we won an international competition in Dublin. The football team won about four games COMBINED in three out of my four years of high school.

But even now, a lot of middle aged business leaders and politicians (with no kids of their own in school) spend their lunch breaks talking about the players on the high school football team BY NAME. Stuff like what fifteen year old just moved into town and joined the team or how well that one seventeen year old plays defense.

Kinda creeps me out that all these fifty year old guys who don't work in or around the school system keep tabs on a bunch of teenagers who aren't of any relation to them.

[Tommy]

1. The appeal of bad boys. My mom has a history of hooking up with them. It would seem to me that, say, a good man would be preferable, if not as exciting as the danger you get with a bad boy.

As we discovered in threads earlier there is quite a disagreement about what constitutes a "bad boy."

Everyone I've ever dated was a selfish egotistical asshole. But they were all charming, well dressed, gentlemen. And pretty much the antithesis of bad boy stereotypes.

Thus depending upon your view they could either be considered bad boys or not. I would never consider them bad boys myself.

As for those people who I would consider (from observing my friends), well there are a lot of reasons why they are attractive.

You have your dangerous types. Those are attractive since they provide a steady stream of entertainment in the form of drama. Dating one of them there is always something going on, something to conspire about, something to be upset about.

You have your rebels. These people are attractive since they have passion. It doesn’t really matter what they are passionate about (or even if their rebellion makes any sense) but the point is they have fire and zeal with in them.

And you have your moody types. These people are attractive since they are intelligent and challenging. They have a great disdain for the world, often times a great disdain for themselves. So the fact that they like you is a complement. Plus you share a wonderful secret in that you know the real person on the inside.

Most bad boys I have met in real life fit into one (or all) of these categories.

[Night Swordsman]

That explains the difference between athletic competitions and academic competitions, not the difference between what is done to recognize academic and athletic success.

For example, when I was a junior in high school, the forensics team won state, and the boys' basketball team won district, losing in the first round of the state playoffs. Guess who got four pages in the yearbook and who got a half page group shot?

Once again,stimulation. And the effects it has afterwards,the memories of being worked up over a "match"(whatever the sport is). It is unlikely many people were stimulated by the results of the forensics team match,excluding those involved. The boys basketball team on the other hand,brought it more people to watch AND left impressions afterward to those that watched.

To put it more simply,More people will watch bastketball than forensics,because of the stimulation. And the memories of that stimulation will carry over on the recognition afterwards. The more cerebral a event is,the less recognition it will usually get due to the "general populace" feeling that it too hard to understand or not exciting enough to watch.

[Reverend Smooth]

That explains the difference between athletic competitions and academic competitions, not the difference between what is done to recognize academic and athletic success.

For example, when I was a junior in high school, the forensics team won state, and the boys' basketball team won district, losing in the first round of the state playoffs. Guess who got four pages in the yearbook and who got a half page group shot?Think of the way that today's culture works in regards to sports, think of the educational system, think of the average citizen who is raised to be incurious. Why would an incurious society reward brainpower over sports that one can easily grasp and root for?

[Gilda Dent]

As we discovered in threads earlier there is quite a disagreement about what constitutes a "bad boy."

I don't recall those threads. I was using the term to roughly mean "immature jerks," usually abusive in some way or another.

You have your dangerous types. Those are attractive since they provide a steady stream of entertainment in the form of drama. Dating one of them there is always something going on, something to conspire about, something to be upset about.

Hence part of the reason I don't get the appeal. All of those things, danger, drama, conspiring, getting upset, all that seems to me to be a good reason to avoid a person who brings that with him. Especially danger. I want a partner to make me feel safe, not at risk.

You have your rebels. These people are attractive since they have passion. It doesn’t really matter what they are passionate about (or even if their rebellion makes any sense) but the point is they have fire and zeal with in them.

Sure, I can see why those guys are attractive, but aren't there a number of good men who fit that description as well? Why not seek out the good men who are passionate rather than the bad boys?

And you have your moody types. These people are attractive since they are intelligent and challenging. They have a great disdain for the world, often times a great disdain for themselves. So the fact that they like you is a complement. Plus you share a wonderful secret in that you know the real person on the inside.

Most bad boys I have met in real life fit into one (or all) of these categories.

Sure, but the same thing as above applies. Aren't there good men who are intelligent and challenging?

Besides, I find people who are generous with their praise and are able to enjoy others easily are much more attractive.

[Night Swordsman]

Think of the way that today's culture works in regards to sports, think of the educational system, think of the average citizen who is raised to be incurious. Why would an incurious society reward brainpower over sports that one can easily grasp and root for?

Thank you for saying it better than me. This is my exact point,sad as it is.
We award physical entertainment over the mental,despite some gains as of the last couple of decades.

[Brack360]

I don’t get why people order a salad so that they can have a healthy meal and then load it up with salad dressing. Or why they eat carrot sticks or celery sticks to have a healthy snack and then load them up with ranch dip. If they are making an attempt to eat healthily, they should eat healthily; otherwise, they might as well eat a hamburger or potato chips. I almost never use salad dressing when I have a salad.

[Pink Bat Max]

How to make the whole casting magic by saying words backwards thing work.

I've said over and over 'Wen Madam Lataf gniogno seires!" Nothin'.

[a. non]

I don't get why Cartoon Network has to suck. The had it right, and they dropped the ball.

[Astonishing X-Fan]

Football.

It bores me to tears, yet everyone is obsessed with it.

For those who don't think video games can pack an emotional punch and can't excell at storytelling, play Bioshock. NOW.

[Reverend Smooth]

I don’t get why people order a salad so that they can have a healthy meal and then load it up with salad dressing. Or why they eat carrot sticks or celery sticks to have a healthy snack and then load them up with ranch dip. If they are making an attempt to eat healthily, they should eat healthily; otherwise, they might as well eat a hamburger or potato chips. I almost never use salad dressing when I have a salad.Eating healthily is boring. I'm on a caveman no-carb diet and, while I no longer crave sweets much, food that's not slathered in sauce is just dull.

Of course, I'm french. Everything should be slathered in sauce. Argh caveman no carb diet.

[Pink Bat Max]

For those who don't think video games can pack an emotional punch and can't excell at storytelling, play Bioshock. NOW.

Seconded!

I was gonna play through a second time to harvest the Little Sisters instead of saving them. 'Cause, hey.... evil is fun!

Couldn't do it. Couldn't emotionally bring myself to do it after seeing the 'good guy' ending. Video games don't affect me like that, except this one did.

[DocAbsurd]

Ah, that makes more sense, assuming that the lunch you pack for yourself is really cheap--McDonalds food is dirt cheap, enough so that it's hard to pack one of your own that costs less--and not crap itself.

But that at least clarifies the intended meaning.

Example:

If you shop smart, you can get:

loaf of wheat bread: $0.70
3 pounds of chicken/turkey: $3.00
package of crackers (wheat or vegetable Ritz) $2.50
package of cookies: $1.00
bananas: $0.20 per pound
gallon of juice: $1.30

This is just for lunches, so I'm not including things like fruit or toast for breakies, or sneaking in an occasional pack of fruit snacks for a treat.

A loaf of bread lasts this family 10 days; recommended serving for the meat is 6 slices so that's over 2 full weeks of lunches; crackers come in 4 tubes with about 24 per each at 6 to 8 per serving; cookies take about a week to empty out; there's approximately 3 bananas per pound; a gallon of juice is weekly as well. Mind you, I also alternate with peanut butter, pretzels, grapes and water, and I rarely eat lunch myself (maybe 3 times a week). It averages out to around $15 a week for 17 lunches.

Three Happy Meals at McDonald's costs over $12. For one meal each. Even choosing our own selections, the bare minimum is a burger, drink and fries; that's $3 plus tax. No dessert, no fruit, no variety.

That savings right there could be weekly steak for all 3 of us.

[Corrina]

For those who don't think video games can pack an emotional punch and can't excell at storytelling, play Bioshock. NOW.

I think I don't get video games because when I'm bored, I go write down stories to entertain myself. Why bother to learn all the rules and stuff when I can play Supreme Creator all by myself?

[Gilda Dent]

Example:

If you shop smart, you can get:

loaf of wheat bread: $0.70
3 pounds of chicken/turkey: $3.00
package of crackers (wheat or vegetable Ritz) $2.50
package of cookies: $1.00
bananas: $0.20 per pound
gallon of juice: $1.30

Wow. You get things for quite a bit less than I'm used to paying. Most of what you list here I'd be paying something like two to three times as much.

This is just for lunches, so I'm not including things like fruit or toast for breakies, or sneaking in an occasional pack of fruit snacks for a treat.

A loaf of bread lasts this family 10 days; recommended serving for the meat is 6 slices so that's over 2 full weeks of lunches; crackers come in 4 tubes with about 24 per each at 6 to 8 per serving; cookies take about a week to empty out; there's approximately 3 bananas per pound; a gallon of juice is weekly as well. Mind you, I also alternate with peanut butter, pretzels, grapes and water, and I rarely eat lunch myself (maybe 3 times a week). It averages out to around $15 a week for 17 lunches.

Three Happy Meals at McDonald's costs over $12. For one meal each. Even choosing our own selections, the bare minimum is a burger, drink and fries; that's $3 plus tax. No dessert, no fruit, no variety.

That savings right there could be weekly steak for all 3 of us.[/QUOTE]

Fair enough. I suppose it's in how you shop. Most of what you list there I routinely bay two to three times the amount listed. I'm impressed at your frugality there.

When I think "dirt cheap" at McDonald's I'm thinking a dollar for a double cheesburger and .50 for a can of Pepsi from the machine at school. $1.50 for lunch, when I wanted to go cheap and not make one to take, which was rare. Soup would be about $.75, soup and a sandwich and a juice or a soda from the machine still about $1.50, so it came out about even.

I make lunch for my brother and sister (school lunches aren't very good), but I don't think about the cost a whole lot, so I'm not sure how much we're spending on that; it just gets figured in with the overall food budget.

When I was working as a substitute my first year out of college and desperately saving money, my weekly treat was Denny's. They had a Grand Slam breakfast special for $2.99 that ran full time. With a water, that came to $3.19. Tip the remaining $.81 (a full 25% tip) and I was getting two full meals for four bucks, half eaten there, half taken home in a box to be eaten the next day for breakfast or lunch.

[Gilda Dent]

Football.

It bores me to tears, yet everyone is obsessed with it.

For those who don't think video games can pack an emotional punch and can't excell at storytelling, play Bioshock. NOW.

Well, I don't have it, but for another example, you can play Photopia at pretty much any IF site. It's more storytelling than gameplay, and even though I had figured out where the story was going by about the two thirds mark, I had to play it out to the end.

It had quite the impact on me.

Another good one is the text adventure A Mind Forever Voyaging. You play a computer AI that has been programmed to enter a detailed simulation of the future of a community that is considering a new set of laws to determine what the long term effect of these laws will be. You advance ten years at a time to observe the effects.

You don't do a whole lot--in each decade, you have to do a small number of ordinary things as you explore--eat a meal, have a conversation with one of the locals, everyday life stuff, and report back to the professor who programmed you.

When you start to see what the long term effects are, it can cause a very powerful emotional response, especially as you can see what's coming, but because it's a simulation, there's nothing you can do to change things; you're an impartial, and powerless observer.

Also, if you can find it, Sanitarium. Creepy as hell.

[Christopher Cross Is God]

I don’t get why people order a salad so that they can have a healthy meal and then load it up with salad dressing. Or why they eat carrot sticks or celery sticks to have a healthy snack and then load them up with ranch dip. If they are making an attempt to eat healthily, they should eat healthily; otherwise, they might as well eat a hamburger or potato chips. I almost never use salad dressing when I have a salad.

I don't get that, either. My wife does it, and she has taught our daughter to do that shit as well, much to my chagrin.

If I eat a salad, I eat it plain, or I'll get a lemon or lime, slice it up, and squeeze the juice onto the salad.

The concept of a salad is nutrition, so lemon or lime juice is enough flavoring for me. Otherwise, like you said, I'd just eat something unhealthy.

Besides, salad dressing tastes like shit, anyway. So artificial I can't stand it, kind of similar to how I can't stand flavored potato chips.

[Reverend Smooth]

The concept of a salad is nutrition, so lemon or lime juice is enough flavoring for me.
You should add a little olive oil, because a lot of the nutrients in greens can only be effectively assimilated by the body in the presence of at least a small amount of fat.

A dressing I like to make is the juice of one or two lemons or limes, a tomato, (optional green onions) some olive oil, salt and pepper to taste. You can blend it, or just mash it up and dump it on the salad. :3

[ninjapeps]

play Bioshock. NOW.

Get me a new vidcard and I'm sure you could twist my arm into it. :D

[Christopher Cross Is God]

You should add a little olive oil, because a lot of the nutrients in greens can only be effectively assimilated by the body in the presence of at least a small amount of fat.

A dressing I like to make is the juice of one or two lemons or limes, a tomato, (optional green onions) some olive oil, salt and pepper to taste. You can blend it, or just mash it up and dump it on the salad. :3

Sounds pretty good. How much olive oil do you put on? I usually only use olive oil for cooking.

[beetlebum]

[QUOTE]1. The appeal of bad boys. My mom has a history of hooking up with them. It would seem to me that, say, a good man would be preferable, if not as exciting as the danger you get with a bad boy.


It's a phase. Bad boys are hot. But as you get older, you realise you don't want a guy like that. Especially the really pathetic ones that hang onto their glory days. I think it is a combination of a woman's nurturing nature, (or in my case, the messianic complex) and a desire to live vicariously through these individuals we are so attracted to them.They present a small break in conformity. Now I just look at the bad boys I liked in high school and just laugh. I can't believe I thought smoking cigarettes was bad ass.
]
2. Why we have athletic banquets attended by thousands and academic award ceremonies that are either non-existent or an afterthought.

Rev answered that question quite well. Society has a tendency to reward those who posses the ideal physical prowess. I think it has something to do with our biology. In archaic times, these individuals would have been the hunters and soldiers.

3. This quote, which I've read in a half dozen places around the net in the last year: "People will give up steak once a week for crap every day." It doesn't work in the literal sense, and thus doesn't work well as a metaphor either. Yes, eating well costs more, which is why most people who can't afford to eat steak every week will eat crap every day. I can't see how eating well every day would enable one to save for steak. I get the metaphor--you have to make some sacrifices in the short term to get access to better quality in the long run, but the phrase doesn't work well in support of that; instead it actually implies that the people making the sacrifices--by eating crap every day--don't get access to the higher quality stuff.


I'm guilty of buying fast food. It's all I can afford. Trying to cut back though. This goes back to the obesity thing. Perhaps if good food were cheaper, people like me will eat healthier. I realise that may sound like an excuse, but I really am trying.

4. Collecting things that are never used for their intended purpose. I don't mean collectibles like action figures or figurines, things whose intended purpose is primarily to be collected and displayed, I mean buying DVDs you never intend to watch, or comic books you don't like just to keep a run going.

Vanity I guess? I dunno. I only have one job now. Can't afford it.

5. Advanced organic chemistry.


I don't know anything about chemistry so I will leave it there.

Things I don't get:

Those who question the intentions of others trying to do good simply because said soul is an adherent, a believer of faith.
HOW CAN ANYONE HATE GAIL SIMONE???? :mad: The most confounding conundrum of our time.
Assassinations-Lazy bastards. Let democracy take it's course.
People who are sexually attracted to children.
How allowing gay marriage will somehow turn America into Sodom and Gomorrah. .
Bullies-get a life.
Why is it whenever a woman accuses a high profile man of rape, her integrity is always trashed.
How anyone can make a living by being a part of the military industrial complex. How do you sleep at night?
Why certain blondes want to get me drunk to take advantage of me. I mean, I know I'm hot and all but God. They seem to be obsessed.http://www.clicksmilies.com/s1106/lachen/laughing-smiley-008.gif
How anyone can spend money on the dreadful crap they put in movie theaters.
Why Girls Aloud and big bummed Kelly Clarkson is more popular than Rilo Kiley.
Those who have a literal view of the book of Revelations. You're making the rest of us look bad.
Spanking- oh wait, never mind.:D
Adultery- My dad used to step out on my mom. To this very day I find it difficult to have a conversation with him.


And finally, why can't there be more awesome songs like Just Another by pete Yorn, One by U2, Slide Away by Noel and Gem and It's a hit by Rilo Kiley?

It's a holiday for hanging yeah!

[Infra-Man]

I don't understand why it is that I like peanut butter, I like ice cream, but I cannot stand peanut butter ice cream.

You know, I had a peanut butter Italian ice a few days ago and could not finish it. There's just something about the blend of those two enjoyable things that does not work. It's the bacon-and-chocolate of the ice cream world.

I don't get what the deal is with those Bratz dolls, skanky clothes for early adolescents and pre-teens, and why I can't find a decent burrito out here.

[snarkbunny]

I'm guilty of buying fast food. It's all I can afford. Trying to cut back though. This goes back to the obesity thing. Perhaps if good food were cheaper, people like me will eat healthier. I realise that may sound like an excuse, but I really am trying.

Okay, that is something I don't get...Where does the idea that good food is more expensive than fast food come from? Assuming a monthly food budget of $100 for a single person (~3 dollars a day), I can go to the supermarket and get groceries for a variety of tasty nutritious foods to eat...

[beetlebum]

It's probably because I am busy with work, school and volunteer work. And I don't mean to start another row here, but junk food is cheaper and more widely available.

[Monkey Boy]

Seconded!

I was gonna play through a second time to harvest the Little Sisters instead of saving them. 'Cause, hey.... evil is fun!

Couldn't do it. Couldn't emotionally bring myself to do it after seeing the 'good guy' ending. Video games don't affect me like that, except this one did.

I am currently working on my second walk through of the game and I too have to get the ending from harvesting the little ones. It was really hard to kill one the first time cause the game has pulled me in and made me want to help them.

I'm one of those people who feel that stories in games have been on a downhill slide but Bioshock changes everything.

[DocAbsurd]

Lottery. I really don't get gambling in general, but the lottery completely escapes me.

I've seen people spend $50 a day, pulling numbers outta their arses and boxing every fecking combination like caffeinated statisticians. I've stood behind people buying scratch-off tickets like they were picking from a menu at a Chinese restaurant.

And why?

Weighing the amount they spend against the possible pay-back simply doesn't add up. You could play for years without a single win. And if you do win, you've got to either claim it on your yearly taxes or write off a good chunk before you even hand in your ticket. Then, of course, you still have to pay more taxes depending on your investments, purchases, etc. How exactly do these people figure they're coming out ahead?

Yeah, I know, it's the lure of easy money; and considering that the vast majority of lottery gamblers are seniors, they're probably trying to make up for their lack of ability to save for a proper retirement (like such a thing is even possible these days).

But I just don't see how spending hundreds -- if not thousands -- of dollars a year for a return of a few bucks that just go right back to buying more tickets can possibly make a difference in anyone's budget.




Doc 'Odds Are' Absurd

[Alex L]

I don't recall those threads. I was using the term to roughly mean "immature jerks," usually abusive in some way or another.



Hence part of the reason I don't get the appeal. All of those things, danger, drama, conspiring, getting upset, all that seems to me to be a good reason to avoid a person who brings that with him. Especially danger. I want a partner to make me feel safe, not at risk.


Sure, I can see why those guys are attractive, but aren't there a number of good men who fit that description as well? Why not seek out the good men who are passionate rather than the bad boys?



Sure, but the same thing as above applies. Aren't there good men who are intelligent and challenging?

Besides, I find people who are generous with their praise and are able to enjoy others easily are much more attractive.

beetlebum phrased it so much better than I ever could, but you really do have to look at it through a different lens.

You have to be relatively bored with your life, and you have to have that young person's sense of invincibility. Hanging out with this bad boy will, by extension, make you interesting and since you're young and invincible, no harm can ever come to you.

And there's the fact that at younger ages, the bad boys tend to have a supreme amount of confidence in themselves.

...or at least I assume that's what the draw is, being neither a female nor a bad boy.

[Pink Bat Max]

How allowing gay marriage will somehow turn America into Sodom and Gomorrah.

By undermining the sanctity of heterosexual marraige, DUH. Want proof? Look at the divorce and infidelity rate in Massachusetts. (Just, um. Don't compare 'before' and 'after', m'kay?)

How anyone can make a living by being a part of the military industrial complex. How do you sleep at night?

Okay, it's time for you to turn in your 'conservative' card. Chop chop! Here we go annnnnnd... there. It's been shredded. Take the second door on the left, and you'll be issued your bow and robin hood costume. Next?

[Gilda Dent]

beetlebum phrased it so much better than I ever could, but you really do have to look at it through a different lens.

You have to be relatively bored with your life, and you have to have that young person's sense of invincibility. Hanging out with this bad boy will, by extension, make you interesting and since you're young and invincible, no harm can ever come to you.

And there's the fact that at younger ages, the bad boys tend to have a supreme amount of confidence in themselves.

...or at least I assume that's what the draw is, being neither a female nor a bad boy.

OK. So how does it work with middle-aged women like my mom? She's just short of 50 and just came out of her third marriage with a "bad boy". Add in various boyfriends and theres a pattern that's some twenty years long here, starting with when she left my dad (who was himself an abusive jerk, but wasn't a "bad boy"). She prefers the bad boys to the decent men, usually because she thinks the decent guys are "boring", but never really takes the time to get to know them.

Maybe it's just that my mom has lousy taste in men, and has nothing to do with bad boys.

[Black Atom]

You know what I don't get? Cumshots.

I don't mean to be vulgar, but seriously, what's so exciting about coating a woman's face with semen? People have a lot of varying tastes, that's a given, but EVERY porno ends with the girl(s) getting her face splattered with semen, which communicates to me that this is a rather widely embraced practice. Not only that, many consider it the best part of the porno.

I, personally, could do without it. I've never felt the need to celebrate something by covering it in my sperm. Generally, the release of semen is the messiest part of the whole deal--I'd just as soon do without it.

[Gilda Dent]

You know what I don't get? Cumshots.

I don't mean to be vulgar, but seriously, what's so exciting about coating a woman's face with semen? People have a lot of varying tastes, that's a given, but EVERY porno ends with the girl(s) getting her face splattered with semen, which communicates to me that this is a rather widely embraced practice. Not only that, many consider it the best part of the porno.

I, personally, could do without it. I've never felt the need to celebrate something by covering it in my sperm. Generally, the release of semen is the messiest part of the whole deal--I'd just as soon do without it.

I don't the appeal of most basic porn. Pictures or movies of people doing it just do nothing for me.

Now, certain subgenres can be fun, and a good source of ideas, but personally I've always found a good romance to a better way to set the mood than any form of porn.

[Pink Bat Max]

You know what I don't get? Cumshots.

I don't mean to be vulgar, but seriously, what's so exciting about coating a woman's face with semen? People have a lot of varying tastes, that's a given, but EVERY porno ends with the girl(s) getting her face splattered with semen, which communicates to me that this is a rather widely embraced practice. Not only that, many consider it the best part of the porno.

I, personally, could do without it. I've never felt the need to celebrate something by covering it in my sperm. Generally, the release of semen is the messiest part of the whole deal--I'd just as soon do without it.

I once talked with someone in the industry who explained cum shots to me this way: Off camera squirtin', it's probably just Pina Colada mix through a tube.

Not one of those things I asked about or needed to know, but it cracks me up all the same.

[Infra-Man]

I once talked with someone in the industry who explained cum shots to me this way: Off camera squirtin', it's probably just Pina Colada mix through a tube.

Not one of those things I asked about or needed to know, but it cracks me up all the same.

Great... now I have "Escape (The Pina Colada Song)" by Rupert Holmes stuck in my head.

[beetlebum]

By undermining the sanctity of heterosexual marraige, DUH. Want proof? Look at the divorce and infidelity rate in Massachusetts. (Just, um. Don't compare 'before' and 'after', m'kay?)



Okay, it's time for you to turn in your 'conservative' card. Chop chop! Here we go annnnnnd... there. It's been shredded. Take the second door on the left, and you'll be issued your bow and robin hood costume. Next?

I am fairly conservative but not in the way we define it today. I am conservative in the way IT USED to be defined, back when Barry Goldwater and William F. Buckley were considered their spokesmen. I am for fiscal responsibility, personal responsibility, and free markets. I am against the creation of new social services unless you can prove to me in all actuality they can work, I believe strongly in the first and second amendment, and I am for less government intervention in our personal lives, both here AND abroad. The Wilsonian doctrine does nothing but harm.

What makes me 'liberal' is the fact that I am anti-death penalty, against war and killing, except in cases where it is just, like Bosnia and Herzegovina, and I am for a complete overhaul of our health care system by the government, and for maternity leave laws and and even national daycare. I am just so disgusted by the fact that the military industrial complex is our biggest industry, right after the exporting of our pop culture.

[beetlebum]

OK. So how does it work with middle-aged women like my mom? She's just short of 50 and just came out of her third marriage with a "bad boy". Add in various boyfriends and theres a pattern that's some twenty years long here, starting with when she left my dad (who was himself an abusive jerk, but wasn't a "bad boy"). She prefers the bad boys to the decent men, usually because she thinks the decent guys are "boring", but never really takes the time to get to know them.

Maybe it's just that my mom has lousy taste in men, and has nothing to do with bad boys.

A Bad Boy exudes untamed masculinity, independence and confidence," says Michael Fitzgerald, author and relationship correspondent for AskMen.com, "To women, these traits especially confidence are an aphrodisiac.The bad-boy attraction that some women feel may also stem from a desire to taste a more risky side of life one they themselves don't want to pursue, just experience.

It could also be because she has a messianic complex like me (see what happens when you listen to too much U2? You begin to inherit Bono's personality traits):p :D Maybe she has a real desire to save them. Either that, or it could be a Spike/Buffy thing. Maybe she feels she is not worthy of a good guy and this is some sort of contrition. And women, as much as I hate to admit it, do go after men who are reminiscent of their fathers. Either way, the fact that your mother keeps falling into a reciprocal cycle of bad men is awful.

And regarding the cumshot thing, I think that there are some people who enjoy degradation and being subjected to it. There are people who get their emotions released through this vicariously. I guess I would rather have them get it out here than in real life.

[Pink Bat Max]

I am fairly conservative but not in the way we define it today. I am conservative in the way IT USED to be defined, back when Barry Goldwater and William F. Buckley were considered their spokesmen. I am for fiscal responsibility, personal responsibility, and free markets. I am against the creation of new social services unless you can prove to me in all actuality they can work, I believe strongly in the first and second amendment, and I am for less government intervention in our personal lives, both here AND abroad. The Wilsonian doctrine does nothing but harm.

Dammit, woman, I swoon and swoon, and on you continue!

For the record, I don't really believe in the terms 'liberal' and 'conservative'.

[Black Atom]

Re: Bad boys

My dad, who is much wiser than he is smart and probably more cyinical than I am, would say that there's no greater pleasure for a woman than saddling a wild stallion and there's probably some truth to that. He tends to think that women naturally prefer to start with a chunk of stone and smooth down the roughened edges. "If they started with a masterpiece, they wouldn't have anything to do."

I really don't know if that's true, but American society does seem to reinforce the idea a lot. Look at all the sitcoms and TV commercials built around women who are basically playing mother to childish, dim-witted men. And that's essentially what the bad boy relationship is: a Mother-Child relationship. They're not called "bad men", after all.

Of course, that's just one idea and it doesn't explain why men sometimes go after "bad girls", either. In my own experience, I tend to think some people readily substitute the emotional highs and lows and "excitement" of volatile relationships for long-term happiness and purposely seek out partners they don't synch with beyond some superficial commonality. It's like gambling. Besides, good relationships take effort. You don't have to try as hard when you're low-balling it.

[mgs]

I don't understand why it is that I like peanut butter, I like ice cream, but I cannot stand peanut butter ice cream.

I don't get that. (liking the pb & ice cream thing)

I don’t get why people order a salad so that they can have a healthy meal and then load it up with salad dressing. Or why they eat carrot sticks or celery sticks to have a healthy snack and then load them up with ranch dip. If they are making an attempt to eat healthily, they should eat healthily; otherwise, they might as well eat a hamburger or potato chips. I almost never use salad dressing when I have a salad.</p>
I don't get that either. (if you're trying to be healthy) BUT, I don't do it b/c it's healthy, but b/c I like the taste.

me, I don't get theoretical math. it's useless and a complete waste of time, unless you're a math freak who likes to, for some reason, 'play' with their minds, in a game that has no purpose.