Talk To The Hand I like this adorable guy friend of a friend. He's single, smart, straight, and fun. He invited me to join him and his co-workers for drinks at 6:15 p.m. Eventually, he and I were the only ones left. I was going to go home, but he asked me to dinner, then after-dinner drinks, and he finally took me to a little park where we sat on a bench and talked until 3:15 a.m. I kept waiting for him to touch me, kiss me...something! Nothing happened. Finally, he drove me home. At my place, there was that good night moment in the car: He turned to me, reached over...and shook my hand! Arrrrrggh! Okay, so I didn't expect the evening to end between the sheets, but a nip of lip would have been nice. Way back in high school, there was all this emphasis on girls learning to say no. What do we have to do now -- learn how to beg?
--Shaken, Not Stirred
HE SHOOK YOUR HAND GOOD NIGHT?! This guy needs to get his priorities in order: Is he looking for a girlfriend or a vote? Presumably, you're confused because your nine-hour conversation with him went beyond campaign promises, political strategy, and the meaning of "compassionate conservatism" ("We feel your pain, but we ain't gonna do jack about it").
It should be safe to assume that a guy who extends cocktail hour into a date-athalon will make a move on you -- a move he doesn't use in bidding farewell to his paunchy old boss. It should be safe, but it isn't.
Perhaps there's some perfectly reasonable explanation for this guy's slight of hand. I have no idea what it might be, but if I twirl around until I hallucinate, maybe it will come to me. But first, allow me to present an unreasonable explanation: The lingering presence of other women. Unreasonable women. These women fall into two categories: those whose need for maintenance rivals that of the International Space Station, and those with the uncanny ability to drop the term "the patriarchy" into any sentence, including a request for the local weather.
Such women might be long gone from a guy's day-to-day existence, but their lessons are like acid reflux. The moment the guy contemplates even kissing a new girl, his old life in the land of high-maintenance flashes before his eyes and stops him cold. (Those pesky abstinence advocates have their strategy all wrong: Just make a guy listen to a few 20-page dissertations on "Why Don't You Love Me?" and premarital sex will seem a little less fun than a deluxe colonoscopy.)
If a high-maintenance woman didn't get to your right-hand man, it was probably one of those "wymyn" with legs furrier than a toilet seat cover. Modeling themselves on uber-victim Andrea Dworkin, they specialize in lecturing lost boys about what women want: men who model their sexual aggression on that of a petunia. (They neglect to mention that it's only "wymyn" like them who want men like that.)
As with land that's over-farmed, misguided men can be reclaimed over time. If you still want this Palm Pilot, hang out with him often enough to show him who you are (and who you are not). Eventually, he might find himself in the position to heat up the men's locker room...and not just by accidentally igniting a cloud of Desenex.
Okay, I was scrolling through some of the old columns today, and this guy has left comments on two that I've seen. Well, the same comment twice.
Of course the comment, which refer to making more sense than your writing, Amy, don't make any sense. I don't think I've ever seen you delete a non-spam post.
All this for a thong comment?
Kimberly at May 13, 2007 5:07 PM
And now, one minute later, the comment is gone. Anyone reading this feel free to ignore my above post. Which now makes no sense.
Kimberly at May 13, 2007 5:09 PM
Kimberly, I don't allow spamming on my site -- posting the same comment, multiple times, on multiple entries, which have nothing to do with the comment being left. I find it weird and inexplicable that you've seen those comments because they were deleted -- sometime last week. Furthermore, I just got home, so unless there are ghosts in my house deleting spam for me, I can't see how comments would be flying off my site.
I closed comments on the thong blog items and column because I was responding to the same complaints over and over from different people -- all of whom had an agenda that kept them from logical thought. I made my point, I really don't give a shit if hetero men wear thongs, I just won't date one who does, and neither will a lot of other hetero women. It's a waste of my time to say that over and over and over again, so I closed the comment. If you want to write about thongs, and how heterosexual women, contrary to my contentions, are all hot for men in thongs, start your own blog...don't litter on mine.
FYI, I'm for free speech -- you can criticize me on a particular entry -- even say horrible things about me, and I won't delete it...you can't, however, just pull down your pants and drop a turd on every post on my site. That's spam, and that goes bye-bye!
Amy Alkon at May 13, 2007 5:28 PM
I knew if you stopped this guy from posting, or closed down a thread, you had a good reason. Anyone who reads your blog or column knows you're all for free speech. I was just annoyed to see his stupid comment popping up in a large number of these comment sections. I wasn't sure you'd seen them, as they are the older columns. It is spam, and just makes him look like a jackass.
I saw this comment from him on seven or eight of the columns yesterday, all right. Most of them after I'd posted the above. Now I'm curious if the others are still there. Must go look.
Kimberly at May 14, 2007 7:21 AM
At least one still shows up for me, under the "Getting Unclothed and Personal" column. That's so weird. Could it be connected somehow to the blog comments current slow loading?
Kimberly at May 14, 2007 7:29 AM
I hope not. Gregg's going to work on that as soon as he has a moment (Elmore's going on book tour for the fantastic "Up In Honey's Room - Elmore Leonard, that is). And I think I left one up because I like to err on the side of promoting free speech. I just couldn't bring myself to delete all of them. The guy's a yahoo, though.
Amy Alkon at May 14, 2007 8:12 AM
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