Something I've been meaning to talk about for awhile.

[polimicks]

http://angeratthestupid.wordpress.com/2009/03/04/misogynist-nerds/

Anger at the Stupid, a new blog I just found, names the problem pretty well.

Basically the sloppy, disheveled, misogynist douchebag nerd, who will whine and whine and whine about how the girls he's attracted to are shallow, materialistic whores because they want nothing to do with him because he hasn't got money or isn't good looking, or whatever...

HOWEVER, when someone points out that there are girls who do find him attractive and share his hobbies, he will scornfully dismiss them as "Fat and Ugly" or otherwise "not his type." And if confronted on this will then expound on how you can't help who you're attracted to.

So, when hot girls aren't attracted to him they're shallow, materialistic whores who don't know what they're missing.

But when he isn't attracted to girls who are available and possibly interested in him, it's because "you can't help who you're attracted to."

Yeah, fuck you, Captain Double Standard.

Seriously.

And every time I talk about a "hot" nerd guy (say, Vin Diesel) in the GGR colulmns I catch a ration of shit for making real geek guys feel bad, because I'm all about the pretty. But really, if you've met the Husband and I, you know that he doesn't look anything like Vin Diesel, and to me he is the most beautiful man in the world, because he's smart, funny and just all around awesome. Would I like to fuck Vin Diesel? Yes. Duh. Would I trade him for the Husband? Not in a million years.


I'll probably post more on this later, but I wanted to get this out before I exploded.

Comments

[kurosau.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure that I really disagree with you or AATS, but I think this is a little simpler of a picture than what I'm comfortable with. To wit, I think attraction can be a complicated thing, but I can't really explain it that well. I'll try to offer something approaching an example or a metaphor or an analogy or whatever.

First, before I begin, I have my own hangups. All of the gamer women I've personally known were either a) involved, b) crazy, or c) frequently both at the same time, which has given me the irrational idea that women who are gamers are frequently crazy. I am working from an extraordinarily small sample size, and so this isn't a real idea.

Anyways, I'm very overweight, intelligent, a gamer, male, clean, and generally polite, occasionally charming. I also have no luck meeting women. Getting to the point of actually going on a date is a rarity, and then it never leads to a 2nd date or even a potential friendship. Among my female friends, I've only asked out one, and while I initially thought she was interested, it turns out she just has no interest in dating me. I do believe that the commonly held assertion that being attractive and/or wealthy can help you date, but at the same time that would mean dating people who were into people for such things. My friends say that I over-emphasize the attractiveness thing, because I'm overweight, but from where I'm sitting it seems to matter a lot.

On the other hand, there's the issue of dating a woman who shares the same interests as you, which in this case I'd say gaming is the big one. I think a lot of the same issues can apply. If I get refused in all dating circumstances, I'll be just as likely to get refused in a gamer dating circumstance. When you add in any element of physical attraction, things get worse, as it takes an already small sample size and reduces it even further.

If my own personal experiences are any measure of what gamers deal with, I have grown up thinking that my weight issues were the result of an extremely unhealthy psychology. It wasn't until I was older that I realized that I might just be eating the wrong food, and was the fatty-fatty-mc-shove-food-in-his-face that media and school taught me I was. This had the unfortunate side-effect of helping me develop an unhealthy psychology (I'm depressed, you see) and in no way assisted me in losing weight in order that I might become attractive to myself. As a result, I tend to look at overweight people through the same lens by which I judge myself. Overweight = an unhealthy mind = someone I don't want to date. After years of beating myself down and learning that, it's taking a while to change that. And I've known fat gamer women and thin gamer women. There's still a point at which I don't find someone attractive because of their weight.

So, you see, I'm more or less coming to the same conclusion you are. Holding a double-standard about dating like that can be a shitty thing to do. But sometimes, I don't think it's a double-standard as much as it is a gigantic lump of personal problems that get all pushed together under the banner of 'relationship problems'.