The Law Of Unintended Consequences

[joreth]

As everyone by now is familiar with, I have been publishing IM chats and email correspondences with people I define as "assholes".  All one has to do to qualify for this category is not read my profile before contacting me.  Because if you're religious, looking for sex, looking for a soulmate, looking for another sister-wife, or have any kind of difficulty dealing with strong, independent, bitchy women ... all you have to do is read my profile to discover that I am not the person you want to contact.

But, after all this time, TODAY is the first time I've ever gotten a response from someone who was unfortunate enough to get published.

He wrote me a very polite email requesting that I remove the journal entry.  Now, I could have done it since he asked me so nicely.  But without even going back to read the original IM chat, I decided not to.  Why?  Because that defeats the purpose of me publishing it in the first place.

I very clearly state in my profile that certain types of people who should "fuck off and don't" are subject to being published in my various journals.  This is a consequence of your bad manners.  If you regularly run red lights, you might not have anything happen to you 9 times out of 10.  But that 10th time if there's a cop there, asking him not to write you a ticket because you didn't know that a red light means stop will not get you out of the ticket.  And if that 10th time is a fatal car crash, well, you can can get angry all you want at the other guy, but that doesn't change the fact that you made a bad choice that resulted in someone's death, and that bad choice was not bothering to learn the rules of the road (or ignoring them) before venturing out with a machine that can kill people.

All our actions have consequences, whether we are aware of the consequences or not.  IMing a girl asking for sex might get you laid, will probably get you ignored, and just maybe, that 1 in 10 chance will get you branded as an asshole on internet journals.  Reading her journal before contacting her will at least give you an informed idea about which outcome you are likely to receive.  If you see that other car coming down the road, you can choose to keep driving through the intersection and get into a collision or you can choose to not run the red light this time.  But if you refuse to slow down and look out your side windows because it takes too much time, then you *will* get into that crash and it's your own damn fault.

Most people who know me IRL claim that I am way more prickly online than in person.  They don't ever see me being this mean, this obstinate, this bitchy.  A lot of girls have the same encounters that I do, and very rarely does anyone else go to the lengths I do.  I believe this approach does not help things.  Clearly, whatever we're doing now isn't working because we keep getting approached by the same kind of guys.  

My approach serves one purpose only, and that is to be heard.  There are lots of wonderful, nice guys out there in cyberland.  And they are suffering because a few assholes have made defensive cynics of so many of us women that the nice guys can't even be nice without the women thinking they're up to something.  So everyone pays the price ... the nice guys and all the girls who have to put up with this poor treatment.  Y'know, if a guy comes on to us in a bar the way they do online, we could get security to throw them out.  So how do we throw them out of our chatrooms?

I had a relationship once, where he did something that kinda bothered me.  I very quietly and unassumedly hinted that it kinda bothered me.  Time went on, he didn't change.  I mentioned it again, in still a quiet and apologetic way, because it started to bother me more.  Time went on, he didn't change.  I mentioned it a whole bunch more times, each time a little more forceful than the last.  Finally, a year later, I said "HEY, THIS IS FUCKED UP, STOP DOING THAT!"  He blinked at me and said "I didn't know that bothered you!"  

In a relationship, whether it's romantic, platonic, familial, work-related, whatever, it is polite and appropriate to take someone quietly aside and say "Y'know, this thing you're doing?  Well, it kinda bothers me and I would really appreciate it if you could do this instead".  But if you do that and the other person doesn't even hear you, what then?  Well, you can repeat it a little more strongly, still trying to be nice.  But some people just absolutely refuse to hear you unless you knock them down with a flying ninja kick, screaming at the top of your lungs, waving a neon flag and blasing an air horn.

This is my flying ninja kick complete with air horn.  

For all the women who can't or won't be loud enough for the truly clueless dumbasses to hear.  I'd rather not be Le Online Bitch.  I don't actually like being cranky and I definately don't like confrontation.  But some of these guys are JUST NOT GETTING IT.  And no one else is doing anything about it.  Someone has to be the bad guy here because being the "nice girl" isn't getting through.

I am being as bitchy as possible in the hopes that someone will see my entries and think "damn, she's a bitch!  I don't want anyone to do that to me!  I better read this other chick's profile just in case she's as psycho as this girl!" or maybe "oh shit, my name is all over cyberspace as an asshole!  Now I have to work harder to prove I'm not an asshole since this bitch is telling everyone I am!"

I may not be able to change the world, but maybe I can change the occasional person's approach who just happens to stumble over the entrance to this troll's cave and maybe save the next girl he approaches from his bad manners.

Comments

[tedeisenstein.livejournal.com]

Speaking as one of those occasionally clueless guys, I thank you. I'd be a lot less clueless a lot more often if the woman in question did indeed whap me upside the head with a clue-by-four, rather than just sorta maybe casually mentioned that, y'know, something I said or did sorta maybe irritated her a bit. It's not always a man-vs-woman thing (I've seen my fair share of women who are similarly ill-adapted to conversation/dating/social situations); sometimes it's just how some of us learn.

[joreth]

y'know, I can be quite clueless myself. While I do appreciate tact and concern for my feelings, hinting about something you want me to do or not do probably won't get through to me either. So yeah, it's not just the guys. You're not the first guy to tell me that he wishes women would just be more up front about things. I think we do both genders a disservice when we try to be so polite that the recipient doesn't even get the message. Not answering an email when you're not interested doesn't help the guy who emailed you know what he did wrong.

We can't hope or expect change if we never tell anyone we desire change. I keep hearing from people (mostly women) that when they get an offensive email, or even an uninteresting one, they simply delete it and move on. I don't think that's very fair. We can't really expect guys to live up to our standards if we never tell them what our standards are in the first place.

So yeah, these guys I post about are jerks. But if someone else had told them earlier they were being jerks, I might not have had to resort to jumping up and down yelling "ASSHOLE!" online to get through to them now. They're getting the brunt of my frustration, but the women aren't helping things with their silence (or too-polite-to-be-heard).

[phyrra.livejournal.com]

Personally I'm glad you are the way you are.
You give other girls the gumption to be more vocal.
And you certainly have helped me understand how to be more clear with communication at times.

[joreth]

If I only help a few people, I feel accomplished and this hateful persona online has been worth it. Those who know me and who are worthy of me knowing them understand what is behind it all and accept me, warts and all. Thank you.

[toranin.livejournal.com]

Hey, I've never even met you in person and I certainly don't find your persona "hateful". I think it's rather a pity that such measures are necessary, but I've heard enough stories to understand why you've chosen this approach.

[funky-firelord.livejournal.com]

tbh Joreth I find your no nonsense approach refreshing, some toes are made for stepping on, the idiots you have listed I feel deserve to be put in that category. Sometimes when my wife is online on OKC she lets me take over abusing anyone stupid enough to IM her with moronic comments. Being a guy I know just the right things to cause the maximum amount of offense wile getting the point across. It has amazed me on how truly thick skinned and clueless some of the male of the species really are.

But it is a shame that you have to go to such lengths on your profile as it may well put nice people of too.

Firelord

[james-the-evil1.livejournal.com]

Rather than "flying ninja kick, screaming at the top of your lungs, waving a neon flag and blasing an air horn," might I suggest "A cutlass to the head, waving the Jolly Roger, and blasting a canon"? :-)

[mosthings1z.livejournal.com]

I like you the way you are. Some men do need people to "spell it out" for them. I have to do it, too. I guess I am part of the say it like it is, bitch club, too.... Ack, whatever.