Here’s an open thread for personal stuff, continued from here. You know the drill: No trolls, no MRAs/PUAs/MGTOWs etc, be nice. Email the mods/me if shit gets weird.
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We Hunted The MammothWe Hunted The Mammoth
My current research scholarship is out by October this year. I have applied for a two-year-job at another university, but I don’t know if I will get it. My former supervisor has some insight in the process, and said my application is among the top five. He said that at this point, “I can’t say that you’ll probably get the job… neither can I say that it’s improbable”. I was like “so you’re saying that me getting the job is in some kind of logical vacuum?”. Right now I’m just holding my thumbs… or crossing my fingers, as you’d say in the states.
Your link doesn’t seem to work.
I do like the sound of that. There are certain prompts that could be fun to see drawn again.
You can see a selection of them here: http://imgur.com/a/SRtH9
Um here’s the opening of something I’m writing:
https://writer.bighugelabs.com/share/1951838
Almost tragically harmless?
Harmless to an extent that you might wonder how they’d survive in the wild. I should probably revise that.
Yesterday I did a 9 hour tattoo session on my arm. I’m having a full sleeve, from inner wrist to armpit and from outer wrist to just below my neck. I got the linework done and a little colour but it’ll probably take another 2 sessions of 9 hours.
But I didn’t flinch once. Even when he was going over my elbows or armpits. Feel like a total warrior today.
Props NicolaLuna. I couldn’t even keep my arm still long enough for a BCG. I have a one inch scar on my shoulder because I didn’t want to sit still for a needle. (I was 4 at the time, but I still hate needles)
That said, what do you do for 9 hours while someone is jabbing you with pointy stuff?
We’ve now got Cookie Butter in England – totally awesome.
On less awesome note, I’ve lost my mojo. A month ago my wife lost her job due to the vile behaviour of an inappropriate boss, late night texts and phone calls, looking down her cleavage and up her skirt and as she would not participate in his behaviour,she was sacked for too much time off (the fact that she had broken her arm falling off our daughters skateboard and the surgery needed was conveniently bypassed). As she works in Financial Services IT, this man was the straw that broke her back and she want to quit her career.
So after two years of being a Stay At Home Parent, I’m now in the situation of having to find a job to support my wife and the children financially, whereas I’ve become used to supporting them all as a home maker. Plus I was a software engineer and my skills are two years out of date.
So I’m feeling down and I just needed to say that. My first few job interviews have been quite humiliating, because I’m rusty and the naive arrogance of the young men interviewing me has been tiresom.
Just needed to say that to get it out of my system – thanks
@Andrew I hope everything works out for you! That sounds scary and exhilarating.
@Alan That’s a beautiful beast, if an awkward introduction. Maybe the second time will go better?
Riding horses is one of those things I want to try and there’s actually a stable not far from where I live, I’m just working up the courage to find out how much it costs, arrange transport etc.
@mildlymagnificent SQUEE! CONGRATS!
@Joe That is disturbing. 🙁 I’ve heard about how abused children can start expecting and even initiating abuse, looking for “safety” with an older “protector” and so on.
@Nick Awww, that’s a hard situation to be thrust into. I hope you can both find living arrangements that suit the two of you. Have you considered setting a deadline? Maybe that’ll spur him to accept less-than-perfect situations, because let’s face it, no place will be perfect.
@ParadoxicalIntention I was wondering about that game! If it’s not too much trouble, could you give me the exact title? Doing a copy-and-paste search pulls up your post as literally the only result, while searching for Tumblr tarot game pulls up tarot art and stuff. I’m such a n00b 🙁
@Falconer New computer, that’s exciting! I’m thinking of refurbishing my 4-year-old laptop before I start heavy-duty work on my dissertation, inserting a SSD and installing Win 8.
@contrapangloss I’d block him. He is not owed sensitive personal information about you, and if he can’t take a polite hint he deserves to be hit with the clue-by-four. Talk about wilful ignorance and entitlement. Always enjoying your posts about firefighting training , btw.
Speaking of kicking creepy guys to the curb, I’ve ended my correspondence with the feminist-ranting, suicide-threatening incel dude. I honestly wish him well, but I’m not his family or therapist and have no obligation to stick around someone who can’t or won’t treat me decently. It was time for us both to move on. Thanks so much for everyone who helped me see that.
@autosoma
My parents have also been in a complicated employment situation for the last year or two, though in less evil circumstances. My Dad was barred from his job for over six months due to two consecutive seizures (it was an industrial job, he’s fine now) and soon after the refinery shut down. He does have a new job lined up. Meanwhile, my mother had to move away from her job with my dad, meaning she has a lot of stressful telecommuting now and basically has to spend half a month away from home every couple of months, which is pretty hard on my sister, she’s ten.
Hope things improve for you.
@autosoma Ugh, that is a horrible situation. See, this shows what’s so wrong with seeing gender issues as a man versus woman thing. When MRAs go on and on with their sexual violence apologism I wonder if they even consider that every time a woman is hurt by sexism, the men and boys who love her and depend on her are also hurt. I’m betting not, because that would require actually giving a crap about men and boys who aren’t sexual predators.
Have you thought about suing this guy? Depending on the quality of the evidence you might be able to find a lawyer willing to work on a contingency basis. There’s no way this guy confined this vile behavior to your wife, and he’ll just keep on doing it if he’s not checked.
@baroncognito
I mostly just chatted to the tattooist, ate chocolate and read a book. We stopped every couple of hours for a cigarette break too so it wasn’t relentless.
I’m totally terrified of medical type needles. Blood tests and injections make me faint 90% of the time and cry 100% of the time. But for some reason tattoos don’t bother me. I’m a little addicted to them (this is my 12th one) so when the needles start their work it feels like scratching an itch.
@PussyPowerTantrum
I’m so glad you stopped talking to ranty incel dude. I was thinking about that the other day and hoping he wasn’t going to freak out about you enforcing boundaries.
@Josh:
As has been said it’s about realising the truth of women controlling everything, possibly by bending spoons with their minds or something.
The problem is that women hide their secret cabal power by only taking low paying jobs that men don’t want to do, and refusing pay rises so as to appear at a disadvantage to men. They also be all tricksy and ensure they’re not elected for government so that they can make men do what they want, through means entirely unknown to non women.
So it’s really hard to see the truth, because it’s so completely contradicted by the facts.
So my parents have been pushing me very very hard to quit my job, and my manager has said I have this week to prove to everyone (including me) that I can run the course, or try a different job. Manager didn’t say that in a negative way btw, she just acknowledges the importance of keeping peace with family and how I’ve been working there for a while but progression has been slow. She is extremely supportive of me in general.
I’m not particularly anxious because I know I’ll be ok whatever happens, but I really really fucking want this to work and get back on the business development program. SO MUCH. I’ve been hindered from day one by an incredibly strong and overbearing “can’t do it” attitude, which has been like a black hole sucking out all my hope and joy and personality, even. I’ve carried that kind of thing for as long as I can remember, with it adapting itself to whatever I try to achieve, and I’ve had enough. I’ve outgrown it now. I’m not far off 30 and I need and deserve to have a good career for myself and not let this fucker and its negative looping tape bully me any more.
So the plan for this week is to work really hard, play the system to my advantage, and have a zero tolerance policy towards all the depressing thoughts in my head. It’s Easter Sunday, and it’s time for a new life.
I WILL DO THIS.
@sunnysombrera:
Yay, do it!
@Zolnier
I feel for your parents situation and I hope that things settle and become better.
@PussyPowerTantrum
What galls me about the MRA, MGTOW and gamergitters is that they have little conceptual understanding outside of their shallow worlds. You wouldn’t be amazed, but the amount of times I’m told to “man up” makes me sick. We looked into the legal option but as my wife was a self employed consultant with only six months work for her employer little can be done also my preferred option for dealing with the entitled dipshit would have got me into a lot of trouble.
You are very right that they don’t understand that their apologism affects more people than just their immediate target.
@ Sunnysombrera
Your doubts are just a manifestation of Kruger-Dunning syndrome. The fact you think you think you’re not good enough is manifest evidence that you are in fact very good.
So of course you can do it. Go for it!
@NicolaLuna Tattoos sound like they take a lot of patience and (pain) endurance, so I have admiration for people who can sit through big jobs–both the artist and the client. That’s an interesting sensation, that it’s like scratching an itch. I remember LBT wrote somewhere that it was like the needle sewed the pieces of their soul together.
Incel guy doesn’t have many options to blow up, fortunately. My only point of contact with him was through a fansite where we used the messaging system to communicate. I sent my last message explaining why it was the last, then backed up our messages and deleted my site account. I was only using it for the last few years to message him anyway.
The experience filled with admiration for abuse survivors, because mine was objectively a very easy relationship to end yet it still wasn’t easy to do so. Our lives weren’t entangled and our relationship went no deeper than an online friendship (albeit a confessional sort) and I still wondered if he’d be okay, whether he might hurt himself, wouldn’t he need me. Then I remembered the words from the community here and of my friends who had been abused, and I realized, wait, this was traumatic bonding and it was designed, consciously or not, to be hard to break. These emotional ties were meant to get me to accept treatment that I was too damned smart and too damned strong to take, using my own empathy and compassion against me. Anger at that realization gave me the boost to get the hell out and not look back.
Now if this had been a meatspace connection, if we were in a romantic or familial relationship, if I had people I loved and trusted saying he’s not so bad and I should give him a chance, if I relied on him economically, if I had children who loved him, if I feared physical violence or other reprisal, if I suffered from PTSD or depression from prolonged abuse, if I had been isolated from friends and family who would have supported me–any one of those situations would have raised the difficulty level, some of them exponentially. And yet there are people who brave these incredible hurdles to get out, and sadly there are people who are unable to, or are stopped trying to leave.
No, Accidental Premature Posting Mammoth! (Is that a thing?)
@autosoma
I’m glad you didn’t, not that I would have blamed you. Unfair as it is, you’re right there isn’t much legal recourse against him while the law against battery is quite clear.
Ironically, it seems your reaction is at least partly conditioned by patriarchy in seeing sexual misdeeds against members of the family as deserving violent reprisal. That’s no indictment against you or to say the impulse is evil, I have a similar conditioning and I sympathize at a visceral level. (Though my experience as a woman in patriarchy is different from yours as a man, of course, to say nothing of male/female biological differences.) It’s just a way of looking at our assumptions from the outside, rattling the bars a little if you will.
In fact, you mentioned that this guy’s shenanigans were just the straw that broke the camel’s back and it sounds like there was a lot more crap that your wife had to deal with. Neither finance nor IT are known to be bastions of gender equality, and years of microaggression and harassment can wear down a soul. Maybe it was the right time for her to get out, horrible and unfair as it is. And they say the dearth of women in STEM fields is because “girls suck at math.”
If I had to find an example of organized misandry it would be this phrase. It’s a way to abuse and police men who don’t fit the mold. Though I make no excuses for incel dude’s behavior, I did see that it was legitimately painful for him to be judged by this incredibly restrictive measure and be found worthless. Then he joined the enemy rather than turn away from it and that’s his choice, but his actions did come from a place of pain. I suspect the same is true of many manospherians.
Just started a new job refurbishing a power plant cooling tower, 60 hour weeks with some nice perks and awesome engineering. Just working my ass off and letting my savings account swell up.
@PowerPussyTantrum
I’ve been trying very hard to get over my conditioning’s, and I agree with your points, there does need to be a better system . The microagressions and harassment have been quite tough on her and there are many occasions where I don’t know what to do to be supportive, it’s a challenge.
I do feel for Incel Dude, but having known a number, it’s sad he fell into that trap. What annoys me most about “man-up” and its like is that the sayers of it offer nothing other than a vague high level concept that doesn’t work in the real world.
Hi all! Jumping out of lurkdom to well wish everyone managing difficulties and high fives to those celebrating good happenings.
I recently decided to give online dating a last try. Any advice on surviving online dating as a non-conventionally attractive woman with your self esteem intact? As well I started going to the gym again so hooray for extra energy, the good feels and confidence that comes from it. I went from barely being able to run 1k in January to running 4k as of yesterday.
@autosoma
Thanks, things are looking up though, after ten years living remote it’s pretty nice to be closer to where the action is.
@PowerPussyTantrum.
I have to admit I kind of was that guy at one point. Though I just endlessly badgered someone in the midst of a depressive state. Not excusable of course and something I regret.
Also incel sounds like it should be the name of a computer company.
Once I’ve written some more stuff does anyone mind if I drop another link?
Oh and autosma, is there no possible legal recourse your wife can take?