Write Here! Write Now!
Why is it that people write to me, a person who answers piles and piles of mail for a living, thinking I will be their pen pal? I get about 20 letters a week from convicts who think that's a good idea. And hereís an e-mail I received yesterday from a non-con.
The guy wrote me a list of ten statements, each of which he preceded by an irritate-i-con (those little pictures 8-year-old girls cute-ify their e-mails with). I guess he expected me to drop whatever I was doing and give him a mini-dissertation on each one of them:
Advice Goddess: Do you consider the following to be true or false?
*Life's too short to date homely people.
*Many beautiful women often go dateless because men are afraid to approach them.
*Gynecologists are less likely to objectify or fear women.
*Guys that treat their girlfriends like dirt do so because they fear being themselves.
*Girls judge men based on their interactions with other men.
*Hugh Grant's style in movies is a shining example of how not to approach women in real life.
*Women are often more insecure about their genitalia than men are.
*Women run from angry men, but with angry women, all men (who are otherwise attracted) want to do is calm the woman down long enough to get her into bed.
*$ Women who marry for money usually end up earning it.
*Well-endowed men are more likely to succeed in business.
I write back:
Sorry, but I'm in Paris packing to come back to LA, and I don't have time to answer a quiz.
He writes back:
Sorry, not into the abuse thing.Ý You must have me mistaken for a fan.
And I write back to him:
"Abuse thing"? Because I don't have time to be your pen pal and answer a bunch of questions when I could have been out running around Paris instead? What you want, when you want it...and if you can't get it, send a snippy little note? Narcissisme, c'est toi. In English: You're an asshole.
Now, sometimes, I actually do write back, and sometimes at length, to people who write asking for my opinion on some issue. One issue at a time, thank you very much, will do. I don't have a homework fetish -- do you?
Most of this guy's points are too boring or obvious or obviously wrong to address. The suppositions about brave gynocologists and female genital insecurity were simply weird. Regarding the Hugh Grant remark, here's what I wrote in my column a few weeks back (I'll paste in the last two paragraphs of that particular column):
Chatting up a woman is like crashing a party. Act as if you belong, and you might escape getting drop-kicked to the Rottweilers. That said, unless people commonly address you as ìHey, Supreme Being,î why worry that youíll come off as oafish and say something stupid? Itís the human condition. You might even use it to your advantage, a la Hugh Grant in his typical onscreen persona; i.e., ìIím completely bumbling and shy, and normally, I would never approach a woman in frozen foods (not even in the potato chips aisle)...but in your case, I had to say something.îYour assignment? Get in touch with your spine (it isnít just Tupperware for spinal fluid anymore!), glue some hair on your chest, and embarrass your way to a better life. Make yourself make moves on 20 women every week ñ until the prospect becomes more tedious than terrifying. Donít fixate on the outcome, as this tends to cause lockjaw midway through ìhello.î Your goal should simply be having fun. When a woman doesnít seem up to the task, take it as a sign ñ a big, flashing arrow pointed at the woman behind her, and away from your previously scheduled lifetime of Saturday nights lying quietly on your couch impersonating mold.
Or writing me indignant e-mails when I won't respond to your demands.
Amy, perhaps you might advise him to put out this ad:
Unsuccessful, low-income homely wallflower gynecologist with unwarranted self-confidence and illusions of genitalia grandeur seeks beautiful dateless woman who loathes men with Hugh Grant personas and is ready to finally calm down with a man who is not afraid to bond with other men in public or behave consistently like a donkey's ass.
Doug at July 31, 2004 2:22 PM
I think you pretty much got it down, Doug.
Amy Alkon at July 31, 2004 6:28 PM
The Goddess, whom I dearly love, writes: The guy wrote me a list of ten statements, each of which he preceded by an irritate-i-con (those little pictures 8-year-old girls cute-ify their e-mails with).
Call Guinness, folks. We have a new world record for the most hyphens in one sentence.
And you're right. Those questions are stupid. But fortunately, since my busy schedule actually has afforded me this moment to be a lazy slug for the first time in weeks, I'll take a crack at them.
*Life's too short to date homely people.
----I don't know, but I'm guessing that a lot of people feel this way. Why else would you have time to even contemplate this? Never knew someone with a full plate on Saturday nights to ask this question.
*Many beautiful women often go dateless because men are afraid to approach them.
----Nope. Not true at all. There are plenty of guys who think they are God's gift to women and have no reservations about approaching a beautiful woman. If a beautiful woman is dateless, she's just particular.
*Gynecologists are less likely to objectify or fear women.
----Shouldn't you be asking this question of gynecologists, or perhaps a sociologist?
*Guys that treat their girlfriends like dirt do so because they fear being themselves.
----Guys who treat their girlfriends like dirt are typically modelling their fathers who treat their wives like dirt.
*Girls judge men based on their interactions with other men.
----Girls judge men based on their interactions with the girls themselves. Women typically aren't interested in guy to guy thing.
*Hugh Grant's style in movies is a shining example of how not to approach women in real life.
Can't help you there. Since Grant got busted with a madame the night before his premiere of "9 months" as a patent publicity stunt, I've refused to watch any of his lame-ass movies. Besides, Hugh Grant is a homely jellyfish.
*Women are often more insecure about their genitalia than men are.
----Considering men are the ones whose genetalia can actually be measured and evaluated based on size, I would say that's a lot of rot. You ever hear a woman being ridiculed because of the size of her vagina?
*Women run from angry men, but with angry women, all men (who are otherwise attracted) want to do is calm the woman down long enough to get her into bed.
----Actually, I suspect men typically avoid angry women.
*$ Women who marry for money usually end up earning it.
Nope. Women who marry for money typically get it.
*Well-endowed men are more likely to succeed in business.
I've dated plenty of successful businessmen who were not especially well-endowed (It ain't the wand. It's the magician.) to know that that probably isn't true.
How, the question that comes to my mind is why would anyone care about the answers to these questions? More importantly, why would anyone actually care about what someone else thinks about these questions???
Sounds to me, Amy, like your "pen pal" seriously needs a date.
Patrick at July 31, 2004 8:49 PM