Good news, everyone! Another Red Piller has made another terrible short film!
“Naughty Nomad,” a Red Pill travel writer who claims to be known as “The Indiana Jones of Pussy,” has produced a not-quite nine-minute film called I Can Do Better. As he explains it on his website, the little drama “explores themes like hypergamy, female entitlement and spinsterhood.” So if you’re into all that you are in luck!
I don’t want to spoil anything, but rest assured that in the film an old woman apparently sort of regrets rejecting some dudes back when she was younger.
The film isn’t as technically, er, challenged as Davis Aurini’s masterpiece Lust in the Time of Heartache, nor does it include any play-fighting ninjas in fedoras and ill-fitting suits. But it makes up for these deficiencies with some awesomely inept acting — and a script that seems to have come straight from the Red Pill subreddit.
In the film, set in the present day, a young woman named Sonia with an assortment of hair styles rejects a succession of suitors, declaring each time that she could “do better.” (Evidently she is supposed to be aging, as everyone knows that young women with shoulder-length black hair eventually mature into women with long blonde hair.)
In the final scene, also seemingly set in the present day, Sonia has suddenly been transformed into an old woman. But she’s up to her old tricks, rejecting a similarly old suitor because she still thinks she can “do better.” At least that’s what she tells her son and his family, who are waiting in her apartment to drink coffee and eat cookies with her.
But then they suddenly vanish. See, they were imaginary, because no woman who rejects dudes that other people think they should be grateful to date can ever hope to have children.
Apparently this is supposed to be a sad ending, at least for her, even though she gets to eat all of the cookies herself.
There is also a Russian version of the film, in case you were wondering, “hey, is there a Russian version of this film?” Though I’m not sure why you would be wondering that, frankly.
H/T — TheBluePill subreddit
Wow. That’s some Birdemic levels of acting and overdubbing right there.
Depends. Commitment is always a big risk, and some level of cold feet are the rule, not the exception. It’s really important to get down to the reason why you’re afraid in the relationship, and work out your own fears. You want to separate your own fear from the legitimate problems in the relationship so that you can make as rational of a decision as possible.
I would say that at the same time someone desperate for a relationship should ask why they are so afraid of being alone, and work out their fears, so that they can make a rational decision based on the strengths of the relationship and not their irrational fears. I think the saddest thing is to die asking “what if”, because decisions where made based on fear, whether that fear was of being alone, or of being vulnerable and intimate.
Just my opinion.
Let me just put this out there, as I don’t think its been mentioned yet;
Every man sucks in some way, just as every women sucks in some way. We’re all human, we’re all flawed. This doesn’t mean that everyone’s compatible, but no-one’e perfect, and I hate this “knight in shining armor” ideal that we inadvertently teach our children by making kid’s movies so damn unrealistic. “Happily ever after” my ass.
Not to mention that despite what fairytales say, not everyone’s cut out to be, or wants to be, in a relationship-male or female.
Let me also give out the best dating/marriage advice I ever got; “go into your wedding with your eyes wide open, live in your marriage with your eyes half shut.”
I fucked up the wording, but I think the intent is clear. 😉
Mrex
I read somewhere that a knight in “shining armor” must be a pretty shitty knight if they don’t at least have a scratch, some dents, or at least a patch here or there.
Means they haven’t gone into battle for long enough.
Honestly I’ve never quite understood why for a woman not getting married is considered some horrible failure while it’s not treated as such for a man – gets my goat it does, as it ‘s just so unfair. Life’s hard enough without folks trying to make people do things like marry somebody, anybody, just because THEY think it’s right. I’m in my late 50’s never married and nobody ever asks me why or how come I didn’t get married. it’s simply accepted. In fact sometimes my younger male friends will half jokingly congratulate me on managing to ‘escape’ getting married. which is kind of weird as they are mostly all married and seem to be happy with it.
Myself I never married mostly because I suck at relationships – my childhood left me with all sorts of shame low self esteem issues and a bed rock conviction I was fundamentally unlovable which managed to sabotage my few attempts at any sort of relationship. I’m okay now with me as me and my life as I live it. Time and a lot of therapy has helped but some wounds just never quite heal right.
That’s an awesome idea. My mom has been talking about someday coming to live with us. She’s in her mid-50s so it probably wouldn’t be until my kids are pretty well grown themselves, so I think it could work out, space-wise. We also have a large outbuilding that could also be converted into living space for maybe 40K- 50Kish… it is insulated and has electricity and nice windows but needs plumbing, a bathroom, a heater, and some interior finishing work….
My MIL still babysits in her 70s, though now it’s often the great-grandkids she’s chasing. From chatting with her I get the impression she’s really not feeling that great about it, but I don’t think she tells the children’s parents how she feels, so it’s not really their fault, either. I don’t really understand how she got into this position to begin with, but the whole family is a lot more “entwined” than my own family, so there are a lot of things I fail to grasp. And hey, my ILs have told my husband that I seem aloof and distant, so I know the perplexity goes both ways.
But I’d no more ask my similarly-aged grandparents to babysit regularly than fly to the moon– and if I did ask, they’d probably tell me that they’ve already raised a generation of kids, thankyouverymuch. My own mother is still working and has some chronic health issues to boot, so that’s out, even if we did live closer together. If I were in a position to fully support her financially in exchange for afterschool childcare and some light housekeeping, that’d be fair and she’d probably even enjoy that. But expecting her to work 40 hrs for her bread and then spend another several hours chasing kids gratis strikes me as really unfair and unsustainable, even if she agreed to it out of… misplaced guilt or whatever.
ANYWAY, the moral of this story is that the old “traditional” lifelong-marriage-and-kids path does not, in any way, shape or form. preclude the facing of interpersonal drama, complicated emotions, and conflicting demands, even in one’s older years. So if someone’s trying to sell you marriage-and-kids so you’ll have some kind of promised happy/comfortable ending, you should probably go realtalk with a variety of older women before inking the deal. ha
Oh, I’m definitely for subsidized public childcare. The demands of childrearing often come at during a low ebb in household incomes (20somethings and early 30somethings haven’t peaked income-wise, and that’s pretty much when we expect them to have kids!)
And child-rearing is necessary to the functioning of society, so it should be subsidized just like public education.
I too quit work for years to be SAHM, because infant care was 800/month where I lived ten years ago, and once you added in a second and third kid… forget about it! It burns my ass to look at my resume now: there’s no place on there to talk about being a SAHM, whereas if I’d worked comparable hours at a daycare center I would have had a whole lot of recent official work experience.
I just don’t think grandparents should be the ones to bear the brunt of providing cheap-to-free childcare for parents. Most of them already struggled to raise their own offspring once, including, in many cases, sacrificing their own career ambitions and leisure time. It’s crappy to ask them to do it twice (or even three times) over.
Two totally separate issues.
Uh fucked up my blockquote tag. Also
*definitely, not defiantly
*I misentered the numbers for my chidcare costs- $600/wk, $2400/mth, $28,800/yr. That’s what I get for doing things for memory and not doing out the math from weekly payments. And yes, the 50k/yr number is accurate, I remember that one, as I’ve done a lot of defense of my decisions with it.
@ParadoxicalIntention
I suppose “knight in shining armor” sounds more attractive than “knight in bloody, battered armor”, but it really that just reillustrates how the whole concept is about image, and not substance. Makes for nice entertainment for adults, but kids unquestionably absorb everything they see.
I was somewhat impressed by Frozen, and even more so by Big Hero 6 and Maleficient, so maybe Disney is at least moving in the right direction.
This! I’ve never done that first thing, either.
But…and this is a big BUT…I can recall at least two guys I dated pulling the “upgrade” card. One of them claimed I was an “upgrade” from his previous girlfriend. Which was, gee, awww, kinda-sorta flattering…until I got dumped by said guy a year and a half later. Then it was “gee, I wonder if he ‘upgraded’ from me to someone else, someone with the party-girl personality and ‘coconut-crushing thighs’ he was always on about, the ones I didn’t have…” I didn’t bother trying to find out, though. I was already hurt enough.
The other was kind of a proto-PUA type who made no secret of the fact that he chased a lot of “good looking women” (gee, thanks, also soooo flattering) and was trying to go out with as many as possible. Oddly, though, he chickened when it came to sex. When he dumped me, we were both still technically virgins! I was so broken up about that one, too…which is stupid, really, because he kind of left the warning sign out, and I just didn’t pay much attention to it. Oh well…what goes around comes around. And when he came around again two years later, I was the one who told him “sorry, there’s someone else now!” and hung up the phone feeling, well, not too shabby. Ha, ha.
I was dumped by a guy once because he didn’t think the relationship was like a movie relationship which is what he wanted.
I would take issue with the phrase “hostile sexism” applied to the Japanese — it is very strong (in terms of “proper” gender roles) but it isn’t really that hostile. The Japanese are raised to be extremely conformist, to believe there is a right way to do everything. (When they confront a situation which has no “canned” response, they tend to become confused. My wife’s great-great-grandfather, who is all but forgotten in the US [or was until some goofy professor started trying to argue that he was Emily Dickinson’s secret lover], is very famous in Japan as a major contributor to turning Japan into a modern nation. When we were in Japan, people would ask my wife about the stories about him that had been passed down in the family, and when she replied truthfully that there weren’t any, they would become completely discombobulated — it was unthinkable to them.) Even in writing the characters that make up most of their written language there is a correct sequence of strokes for each character that must be memorized. The Japanese therefore tend to have a great fear of doing something improper, which leads to a very high degree of conformity without the appearance of heavy-handed enforcement.
Things may have changed somewhat over the 20 years since we were there last, but it was quite true that when women married they were expected to give up their careers and become full-time mothers, largely devoted to keeping their little scholars on track in the oppressively competitive Japanese education system. Women who wanted to keep their careers — we met a few — tended not to marry. I got the impression that it will be a long time before the working mother — at least in the middle and upper income ranges — becomes a common thing in Japan.
Mrex – Dude, you don’t have to tell me. I’m staying home right now, too, because the costs of infant/toddler care + before/after school care for two older kids would have eaten most of the paycheck that I was bringing home with two, and I would have been paying to work in the summer. (And we did intentionally look at only my pay when considering the move since (1) I would have been / am the one staying home since at the time my husband made more than me and neither of us had careers that allow for easy “downshifting”.)
I 100% agree that we should have subsidized, quality childcare in the US, if for no other reason than that study after study has shown that *quality* childcare has a substantial impact on subsequent school performance.
I’m surprised that the Republicans haven’t brought it up as a “leg-up” solution since they don’t want to address structural issues behind their new dear, income inequality.
And, yep – I’m looking at my professionally stagnant LinkedIn and the future gaping hole (save volunteering) in my resume with a little trepidation.
We can get by on my husband’s income (and, not to break my arm patting myself on the back, the money that I’m currently saving us with home cooked meals, in-sourced manual labor, etc), but the grand plans outlined for additions to accommodate my Mom (and, not mentioned, our kids – we’re in a high-cost area, and I’d be surprised if they don’t camp out here and save for awhile as young adults) will more than likely only happen if I can bring more money to the table.
And what gets me is this is a conundrum that primarily only hits those already doing relatively well.
I’ve been a single Mom, and the stress of trying to make sure that your kids are in a safe, constructive environment while you try to work to pay the rent is mind numbing.
More to say, but I’ve already written too much.
GoM – I think that The Washington Post had something on that (and the dive in the Japanese birthrate) awhile back.
No time to search now, but it was within the last month or so if you want to have a go.
Fun fact: We don’t have public childcare in the US because the filthy commies did it.
http://www.vydr.ru/fs/a_articles_photos/9094_pic.jpg
I’m up against the economic realities of childcare too…single mom, so I have no choice but to work. (In a lot of families these days, both parents have to work – it’s not a choice or a luxury.) Around here, 2 little ones in daycare runs me $1900 a month, which is like taking on an extra mortgage. Since my twins missed our state’s kindergarten cutoff date by a few weeks, that will cost me an additional $23K in daycare. I’m praying we can hang on financially till then.
I wish state-funded preschools were more common in the US. The school district we live in is piloting a pre-K program this year, but admission is lottery-based, with 60% of the slots allocated to families that already receive state aid, and there are way more applicants than there are spaces. Some school districts also do rolling kindergarten starts, where kids start the semester after they turn 5, rather than make some kids wait almost a whole year and having huge age disparities in the classroom.
Of course, the expense doesn’t end when they get to kindergarten. There’s before and after care, school vacations, summer vacations, bank holidays, professional days, half days, snow days…and then they start getting into sports, camps, and activities, with all the associated fees and equipment costs. I’ve heard estimates anywhere from $250,000 – $500,000 per child to raise an average middle-class child here in the U.S., and that’s not even counting college tuition.
The $3000 per child tax credit is ridiculously small, IMO. It’s a drop in the bucket compared with what most people pay annually for child care. Same with the $5000 limit for FSA dependent care costs. At the very least, all child care expenses should be tax deductible.
Something has to give. Families are scrambling to put together a patchwork of child care, parents don’t have enough sick days to take care of their kids, women find they can’t afford to stay home with kids any more (or worse, they can’t afford to work and have to leave the workforce), families find themselves in a slowly sinking financial boat, and marriages start to crumble under the pressure of constant money worries. Meanwhile, the “family values” crowd spends an enormous amount of time bleating about keeping the traditional marriage and family intact, and zero time enacting policies that actually help families.
I think grandparent care can be nice, but it can’t be expected, not as a society-wide solution. There are a lot of reasons. Not all grandparents are responsible or effective caregivers, not all adult children are capable of using grandparent care w/o abusing it.
Some families are geographically too scattered for it to be effective even if you passionately wanted it to work, and others have such diametrically opposed caregiving styles that no accord can be reached on what’s appropriate.
Plus, my mother sacrificed her career completely for the sake of her children, and now she’s slowly building it back up, from scratch. I plan to follow a similar path. Kids first, then bear down on education/work.
I have a hard time being a’tall pleased with the idea that in ten years, my children should have any business deciding that I have a “responsibility” to take another career/indepedence hit in favor of unpaid domestic work, so they don’t have to, you know?
I think I would be PISSED.
The public option keeps that kind of angsty family dynamic down to a minimum. ha
And it PAYS the workers, hopefully at least as decently as public-school teachers are paid now: that’s what’s best about it to me.
Like it or not, money = respect in our society! Everyone talks about respecting caregivers, blah blah blah, but as far as I’m concerned it doesn’t amount to a hill of beans until they start putting some real money in that hand.
Proxieme — that sounds awesome! If you can, try to plan for when she’s quite old and needs things like no stairs and an accessible bathroom and such — my grandfather’s tub became too dangerous for him to try to get in and out of long before he reached the point we couldn’t handle his care in-home, a walk-in shower with chair would’ve been great. (I think the funniest solution to this I’ve ever seen was a bathroom with a fully draining floor and long handheld showerhead, so you could just sit on the toilet and shower. Hilarious, but hey, it worked!)
Living in Britain I get it a lot easier as a single mother, we do get 15hrs a week free nursery care from age three, and the benefits system is a lot less punishing (for now). I agree that the U.S. should have good quality, state sponsored childcare. Having a family shouldn’t be regarded as a luxury.
Back to the OP, I’ve never rejected a man on the grounds that ‘I can do better’, what does ‘better’ even mean? Either you’re into someone or you aren’t, and to be with someone you’re not into because you think you’re running out of options is unfair on both of you.
I’ve completed my own version of ‘I Can Do Better’ on my blog, if anyone would care to check it out:
http://depressedfeminist.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/a-badly-drawn-rebuttal-to-i-can-do.html
The fact is that people are allowed to set their standards however they like. I could say I’m waiting for a millionaire supermodel who owns 2 black horses and a meadow for us to ride through. Am I going to get it? Probably not, but that’s not the point. If I decide I’d rather have a relationship with someone rather than wait for my sexy millionaire equestrian, that’s another valid thing I–or anyone else–can do. The dudes making shit like this are just upset that some women’s standards will never be low enough to date them.
That said, when people set high expectations, it’s not fair of them to complain that no one meets them. You can set your standards however high you want, just as long as you’re ok with the idea that it’s possible you won’t find someone who meets them (who will like you back).
@sn0rkmaiden:
That was awesome. I could clap, or laugh out loud, or snap my fingers in appreciation, but really there’s only one possible response.
*♫ poignant music ♫*
As for whether the “I can do better” rejection even exists? I’ve only ever heard it used post break-up from the friends of the dumped party, like “Oh, you don’t need him, you could do so much better.” And in that one Avril Lavigne song as an incentive for the subject to dump his girlfriend.
Yes, the Japanese birthrate has been falling for a long time, and they face real problems in caring for an aging population with a shrinking population — they may be forced to make it easier for women to go back to work and perhaps let their adolescents fend for themselves a bit more (Japan is the land of the helicopter mother — she hovers because there’s not that much else for her to do.) The Japanese have a national belief that their relatively high social harmony comes from the fact that they are so ethnically homogeneous and not, as many of us would believe, from social conditioning. This makes them resistant to change.
I was a SAHD. My wife and I are about equal in education, but I have a criminal record as a Vietnam era draft resister and she has always been very good in business-related work so she has had a relatively easy time finding good-paying jobs that were looking to hire women for non-traditional jobs. When we married, she was earning 3 times as much as I was, so we agreed that when we had children (which she definitely wanted) I would be the one to stay home with them. (I was already pretty experienced with small children because my first wife was schizophrenic and had periods where she was incapable of handing even routine child care.) I had a part-time job that paid so little that I was essentially a volunteer, and I did some maintenance work on the house across the street that she bought as an income property, but basically our financial survival was based on her ability to perform at a high level professionally and my doing things that we would have had to pay for if I’d been working full time.
I’ve always felt that it’s better to have a parent at home when children are small (not so much when they are older and a stay-at-home parent is inclined to over-parent) — but of course that’s a time when people are starting careers and not making a lot of money. I wish men would read things like what the women have written on this blog to understand how women are responsible for most child care AND for the care of their aging parents,. to understand what a major contribution this is to the welfare and functioning of society. When I read about these dudes writing about how women are worthless selfish gold-diggers, I feel like saying, “Why don’t you crawl out from that rotten log you’ve been living in and actually look at what really happens in real life.” I mean, all men had mothers (except those raised in the woods by wolves), and most of them have sisters, daughters, etc. Why they can’t understand that women bear these burdens imposed by biology and society and deserve a bit of consideration towards having things made easier for them in other ways — I’ll just never understand. Why we let parenthood be a serious disadvantage to a woman’s career prospects completely escapes me. Children need care FFS. The richest country on the planet ought to be able to manage that.