“I think she’s really into it. Another set?”
“Yeah, she’s definitely really into it. Let’s play another set.”
“Heyyyy.”
“Hi.”
“What are you doing?”
“Writing a letter.”
“Haha, yeah, I can see that, awesome, that’s awesome…who are you writing to?”
“My mother.”
“Right on, right on…” [stretches] “So what’s new?”
“I’m actually going to be busy for a while, writing this letter.”
“Sure, for sure.”
“Can’t really talk right now.”
“Oh, it’s no problem, I can wait.”
“Oh, my God, is he still there?”
“I don’t know, but — oh my God, don’t look up, don’t look at him, he’s going to start playing again. Christ.”
“Okay, but did you like, really hear the difference between the two versions?”
“No, I definitely did, I totally see what you mean –”
“I’ll play it again.”
“Oh, my God, Tess, don’t encourage him. You’re terrrrrible.”
“No, I’m serious! That was so good! Can you play another one? You’re, like, really good at this.”
maybe if I pretend to fall asleep he’ll get the hint
“What? No, I’m just — it’s really good flauting. I’m just so impressed by how good it is, your flauting. Flaut some more.”
“I would love to go out tonight but I’m…I’m dying.” [coughs weakly into handkerchief]
“Oh, my God.”
“Yeah. It’s consumption, so.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“No, it’s fine.”
“I will stay and nurse you.”
“No, you won’t.”
“Hi, I just wanted to tell you, I thought you looked really beautiful out there tonight.”
“Oh, thank you.”
“I don’t know if anyone’s ever told you that before, but I really felt like there was a sadness to your performance that maybe not everyone noticed, but I noticed it.”
“Thank you!…Sorry, how did you get backstage?”
“I just wanted to tell you, in case you thought nobody had noticed.”
“Okay, well, thank you — sorry, I think that’s my dress — I have to go finish dancing now.”
“Right, of course.”
“So maybe you should go back to your seat.”
“Oh, I’m fine right here.” 
“I’m so sorry, I no speak ze English.”
“Ah! That is no problem to me, I also speak French.”
“I speak no French.”
“But I just heard you –”
“I speak no French, monsieur. Good day to you.”
“Hey. Hey. Hi. Hey. Yellow. Girl in the yellow dress. Can you hear me? Hey. Hey. I’m talking to you.”
“Yes?”
“So do you come to court a lot or what”
“Hi, sorry, this is a women-only balcony.”
“Women’s balcony, sorry.”
“Male balcony’s over there, this balcony is all-women, sorry!”
okay just look like you’re listening and look at his eyebrows
Tags: are you still here, art history, artwork, misandry, western art, women ignoring men
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Art history would be so much prettier if they smiled.
My boss just asked me why I was crying if I wasn’t sad, and I said “well, they are Crocodile tears, in a way”.
Smiling is for hussies with good teeth.
Please accept this gift of 1 (one) internet – which you have won fair and square, making it not really a gift at all, technically.
ughhhh, aren’t women sick of men telling them to smile by now?
So, men have been trying and failing to impress woman by playing instruments since the dawn of time.
You;d think they’d have caught on by now.
The problem is that it works every once in a while, so the intermittent reward makes them think they stand a chance.
Dude(s), if your last name isn’t ROMERO, step off!
I have never been serenaded with an instrument but a college bf sang to me. He was so earnest and it was so awkward I laughed in his face. Didn’t mean to, just couldn’t help it. We didn’t last much longer after that. Maybe some of these ladies are just trying really, really hard not to bust out laughing.
My mom went on a first date with a guy when she was in college (late 60s). He serenaded her with Something Good from The Sound of Music (the ultra cheesy Maria/Captain duet). She didn’t laugh but said she had no idea what to do with that so just stood there awkwardly. There was no second date.
I once had a guy ask, post-coitus, “Can I sing you something?” I said “Uh” because nothing in my life prior to that had prepared me for this or even hinted that this might be a possibility. He proceeded to serenade me with “I gotta get back to Hogwarts” from A Very Potter Musical.
That’s marriage material in my books! 🙂 LOL!
Oh, and let us not forget that great subset, the Singing Into Your Voicemail Like That’s Going To Make You Want To Call Back Because ROMANTIC.
Dudes. DUDES.
My college boyfriend did the same, as an anniversary “gift.” I don’t know what was worse – the serenading itself, the fact that he sang Everything I Do I Do It For You, or that he’d asked a friend of ours to accompany on guitar so there is a witness to one of the most embarrassing experiences of my life. It was just awful.
“Yeah, it’s consumption, so.”
please please tell me how to post a gif in html. I am trying to no avail.
Right-click on the gif you want to use and select “Copy Image Location” or similar. When you’re writing up your brilliant comment, use this code:
[img src=”image location goes here”]
Except replace the square brackets [ ] with pointy ones! < > NB not all sites let you hotlink a GIF so it may not show up anyway.
Upload your gifs to imgur. I created an album of just reactions so that I could both (a) hotlink them and (b) keep track of them. Mine is http://imgur.com/a/7obtG#0
“So do you come to court a lot or what”
DEAD.
omg her body language is soooooooo uncomfortable and perfect for that line.
This post is perfection.
How do the monks feel about this?
“Hey, do women…”
“Do women what?”
“Do they ever, like, acknowledge men’s existence?”
“How do you mean?”
“Like, do women ever look directly at a guy?”
“Never.”
“Never? That can’t be right.”
“Ever happened to you?”
“No.”
“Me neither. Never happens. Now finish your art, it’s time for vespers or whatever.”
VERY, VERY CELIBATE
Girl in picture #2 is obviously writing her queer feminist political lesbian manifesto.
Hey letter-writer-botherer, next step is to take a turn about the room so she can admire your figure while walking.
Oh wait, wait. Admire her stile of writing! And offer to fix her pen!
I would so much rather listen to an audio tour of this!
Oh man, I don’t even want to think about what Top Hat Man is doing or trying to do to that ballerina.
straightwhiteboystexting.tumblr.com
“just writing a letter”
“nice, nice. so r u a virgin”
haha and then what 😉
“wana bang”
DIRTBAGS IN TEXT FORM. Amazing.
This is perfect and beautiful.
Thank you for sharing this. I just sent it to all my coworkers, who are all straight white boys, and said, “Here’s a nice example of what not to do while wooing.”
i am laughing and also hiding in shame at having said yes to similar approaches
Has anyone else had like, a banner couple of weeks for having to do this shit out in public? I don’t know what the fuck is in the air or emitting from my person but it has been really bad lately, which you’d think anyone with half a brain aware of the News would realize was a shit idea.
Yes. And the aggressive and/or flat-out gross factor has been higher than usual.
I was wondering if it wasn’t maybe because of the news. As if all the people who Would Do That Sort of Thing are suddenly being informed by the news feeds that it’s not a good thing to do, and they feel very uncomfortable about themselves, and decide to stand closer and closer and closer to women they don’t know on subway platforms, or shout “Hey, you can come to my place any time, just say when!” in people’s faces as they get off trains, just to prove that it isn’t such a terrible thing to do, because it’s not like the women they did it to died.
Don’t forget “The Irritating Gentleman”
THANK YOU, I was looking for this for ten minutes this morning after this post went up and could not find it.
YESSSSSS
I found a note about this painting on Tumblr from an art historian that I thought made it even more poignant…look at what she’s wearing: all black. This is DEEP MOURNING. She’s distraught, there are tears in her eyes and she’s traveling alone, which most young women didn’t do at the time…she’s probably a young widow, recently bereaved. And this dude is pushing himself into her space and demanding attention. The only way commentary on these paintings could be improved is if they finished with “…and then she ripped out his intestines and strung them on a lute.”
I was actually going to point this out–she’s in mourning. Additionally at the time, there is NO WAY he would not have known that. It’s as blatant for the time period as if she was wearing a sign that says HELLO RECENTLY BEREAVED HERE. Which pushes this into a category from “irritating” to “potential victimizer.” THAT is how blatant it is.
How much do we want to bet he’s calculating her inheritance/(financial) worth from her clothes?
You gotta seize a chance if you see it. With her husband just dead, she’s available. I see *absolutely* nothing wrong with this.
Why he’s no gentleman at all!!
Harry: University of Chicago, right?
Sally [resigned]: Yes.
Harry: Did you look this good at the University of Chicago?
Sally [rolling eyes, sarcastically]: No.
Harry: Did we ever…?
Sally: No! No.
[…]
Sally: It’s amazing. You LOOK like a normal person, but actually you’re the Angel of Death.
Thank you! I thought of that painting immediately but couldn’t remember the title.
She carries a couple of horseshoes in that bag, and not just for good luck. That’s my headcanon and I’m sticking to it.
She should pull the communication cord.
yesss this reminds me of a painting that I saw once in a classroom and also circulated around tumblr for a bit where a young woman is traveling by herself in a carriage(?) type thing and there’s this older guy leering and she’s looking straight into the viewer’s eyes, like “this is the absolute worst”.
unfortunately even my inventive googling came up with nothing but I’m posting in the hopes that someone else actually knows what I’m talking about.
Look above you! The internet hath provided!
#blessed
“nudes plz?”
(n/a for first painting)
edit: this was supposed to be a reply to continue straightwhiteboystexting jokes my bad
I like this comment right where it is.
Why is “I’ll play it again” guy wearing leather leg warmers but no shoes? And is anyone else super amused by the lead-heavy symbolism of all the animal pairs?
Also what is up with the pocket-sized child.
Yes! I spent forever trying to figure out just where that kid is supposed to be. No clue.
“Why aren’t you paying attention to me? I’m a Nice Guy!”
I love this series, but my heart cries out for proper attribution!
wikimedia commons [waves hands generally about] mostly i searched for ‘high renaissance pastoral’ and ‘impressionist bathers’
that’s the best i can offer you, everyone who painted these is dead so i don’t really care
Are you sure, though? Some of these dudes may have kept themselves alive all this time for you, a woman, to notice them.
You’re cruel, Mallory, so cruel.
Plus you can drag and drop images into Google Image search now.
WHAT IS THIS SORCERY ALSO HI.
@lilymhudson, As an art history nerd, I could not let these works go unattributed, either. After a little research, I came up with the following list (sorry, I couldn’t find dates for all of them):
1. Titian or Giorgione: Pastoral Concert, c. 1509
2. Gabriel Metsu: The Letter Writer Surprised, c. 1662
3. Giorgione: Youth with a Guitar and Two Girls on a River Bank
4. Abraham Bloemart: Pastoral Scene with a Herdsman’s Family in Front of a Landscape
5. Eugène de Blaas: The Serenade
6. Gustave Dutailly: A Young Man Serenading A Woman Who Reclines Asleep Upon A Bench
7. François Boucher: Shepherd Piping to a Shepherdess, 1744
8. Federico Andreotti: The Persistent Suitor
9. Jean-Louis Forain: Behind the Scenes, c. 1880
10. Édouard Manet: In the Conservatory, 1879
11. Jean-Louis Forain: Tribunal Scene, 1906
12. Édouard Manet: The Balcony, 1868
13. Édouard Manet: At Father Lathuille, 1879
Thanks for doing the heavy lifting huntuckian!
Oh, no problem–it was fun to research, actually. Reverse image search makes it a lot easier than it would have been a few years ago.
Dude with the wig in picture 8: Paul Rudd or Josh Radnor?
Haaaave you met Wig Guy?
Yes. I’m definitely dying.
I am going to print these out and paste them all over the Louvre when I go.
Asshole Number Seven isn’t even fluting in the right DIRECTION (and the only people who say “flautist” are assholes).
It’s pretty much the standard word in the UK.
Excellent. And that “grumblyqueer” person is an asshole.
Such a fun list! It’s funny how a lot of those are Manet who also happens to be the painter of the most awkward painting of women ignoring men… while naked… while the men are fully clothed… and also ignoring the women!
http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_d%C3%A9jeuner_sur…
This just made my kinda-shitty day SO MUCH BETTER.
“goawaygoawaygoawayomgomgomgomgomggoawaygoawaygoaway”
“just one more thing”
These are funny… Except number one I think is incorrect. There are two naked women there and those two guys only have eyes for each other. It’d be more like: “You come to these often?”
“Mmm. My mother makes me. She thinks it’s ‘healthy'”.
“And is it? Healthy?”
“It can be… just what kind of flute DO you play?”
“Oh…? Same as yours would be my guess. Are we on the same song sheet? Wanna get out of here?”
In case someone wanted to know the list of artists and titles, I came up with the following:
1. Titian or Giorgione: Pastoral Concert, c. 1509
2. Gabriel Metsu: The Letter Writer Surprised, c. 1662
3. Giorgione: Youth with a Guitar and Two Girls on a River Bank
4. Abraham Bloemart: Pastoral Scene with a Herdsman’s Family in Front of a Landscape
5. Eugène de Blaas: The Serenade
6. Gustave Dutailly: A Young Man Serenading A Woman Who Reclines Asleep Upon A Bench
7. François Boucher: Shepherd Piping to a Shepherdess, 1744
8. Federico Andreotti: The Persistent Suitor
9. Jean-Louis Forain: Behind the Scenes, c. 1880
10. Édouard Manet: In the Conservatory, 1879
11. Jean-Louis Forain: Tribunal Scene, 1906
12. Édouard Manet: The Balcony, 1868
13. Édouard Manet: At Father Lathuille, 1879
thank you xxx
My college boyfriend did the same, as an anniversary "gift." I don't know what was worse – the serenading itself, the fact that he sang Everything I Do I Do It For You, or that he'd asked a friend of ours to accompany on guitar so there is a witness to one of the most embarrassing experiences of my life. It was just awful.
I have felt like this Manet times…
Did you just make a Lioness Quartet joke? Because I love you for it.
I will never look at a painting of people in the same manner ever again.
Mallory, your articles are awesome. I hope your writing makes you piles of monies, you deserve a solid gold goose.
“I’m so sorry, I no speak ze English.”
“Ah! That is no problem to me, I also speak French.”
“I speak no French.”
“But I just heard you –”
“I speak no French, monsieur. Good day to you.”
died
Dear Mallory, Still currently and always obsessed with this style of writing. I’m going to be bulking up my “please write on my blog” begging to include cookies and brownies.
Best. Use. of gif. EVER.
*STRUMMING INTENSIFIES*
Googling on a sleepless night brought me to this post – it did not cure my insomnia, but it did make me LOL! I was reminded of that statue of Afrodite being so annoyed by a leering satyr that she takes off her slipper – to bash him over the head with: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Aphrodite_… Thanks for making me laugh!
Well, sexual selection must have something to do with this behavior because the trait IS passed on. Or, is it encoded by the Y-chomosome centromere (the self-CENTered ROguish ME-heRE gene)