Incoherent rage yelp directed at “expert” witnesses whose misinformation about things like bite wounds and arson can get people incarcerated and killed (Cameron. Todd. Willingham.):
In 2009, the National Academy of Sciences issued a report, concluding there was no basis in science for forensic odontologists to conclude someone is “the biter,” excluding all other suspects.
Four years later, the American Board of Forensic Odontology changed its guidelines to bar such testimony.
A recent study by the group found wide variances in opinions among experts studying photographs of bite marks, many of them disagreeing on patterns and even if they were human bite marks.
An Associated Press analysis in 2013 found at least two dozen defendants convicted or charged with rape and murder using bite-mark evidence have been exonerated since 2000 — many after spending more than a decade in prison.
On being a Catholic novelist:
No honest, self-aware novelist denies the unconscious mechanisms at work and play in his composition, or attempts to refute the insistent facts of his past, facts that heave and breathe in his sentences, in his apprehensions of art and life. Like my Catholic youth, both of my books are flesh-obsessed, preoccupied with mythos and monsters, sin and redemption, affliction and deliverance. Every writer, after all, mobilizes his personal history in the unfurling of his imagination. I would concede to being a cultural Catholic—I recognize the aftershocks of Catholicism on certain avenues of my worldview, on my conception of the dramatic, and acknowledge my enormous debt to Father Gerard Manley Hopkins, to Misters Chesterton and Waugh and Greene, to Dr. Percy and Ms. Flannery O’Connor—but is one really to be cubicled as a “Catholic novelist” because one brooked a Catholic boyhood and parochial education, because one was warped in all the right ways by writers who were Catholic?
Make a cup of tea, settle into a comfortable chair, and read this in its loopy entirety (there are two updates from the OP):
This is such a silly question, but I would appreciate AskMe’s perspective. My boyfriend and I are long distance, and yesterday I stumbled on “wedding” photos of him and his ex that were taken two weeks ago. He told me that it was from a video that his university is making for new students to show how glamorous graduate school life can be (he’s a professor and an alum). Am I being irrational in doubting him?
Uncommon Courtesy on what to do when you’re not a hugger (sidenote: one of my best friends has a huge aversion to being touched, and I always wait for her to initiate it, and the six times or so she has reached out for a hug have been SO MEANINGFUL for me, because I know she must feel super strongly):
Victoria: Yeah, if someone’s giving you pressure you don’t want to be friends with them anyway. I guess you try to read the situation and see if you can get away with not hugging. Also a good time to take up Irish exits–if you don’t say goodbye, they can’t force you to hug.
Jaya: Hahaha yes. I think sticking out your hand first is key, and if someone comes in for a hug anyway do your best to make it quick and create as much space as possible, to send the message that you’re uncomfortable. Also, this question got me thinking a lot about a few articles I’ve read about not forcing children to hug anyone, even family members. This is a good example, but basically it comes down to teaching children body autonomy at an early age, and understanding that something like a hug can be very intimate. And maybe we’re forgetting that applies to adults too.
my mom left yesterday, we had spent a whole month together, so everyone in our house except for the mean cat is wandering around, lost and alone
Some helpful info about predatory medical billing!
Tyler Coates gets mathematical about Meryl Streep’s career:
Each of Streep’s roles were judged according to the following factors: her accent, her fashion sense, her love interest, and the struggles with which she is faced. Each of these factors are given a ranking based on a one to five scale (with five points, naturally, meaning that she has the most difficult or accomplished accent, the utmost style, the best love interest, and the most arduous obstacles). Each role also receives points based on the film’s box office earnings. For more than $150 million, it gets five points; between $100 and $149 million, four points; between $75 and $99 million, three points; between $50 and $74 million, two points; and less than $50 million earns the film one point.
Are there bonus points, you ask? Oh, there are bonus points.
A Shouts and Murmurs from Friend of The Toast Monica Heisey:
2. COST
Under no circumstances is the Juicee to complain about or negatively refer to the cost of the Juice. It is agreed upon by both the Juicee and Juice Your Own Adventure that $10.95 is a reasonable amount of money to pay for what is effectively tepid soup. If/when the cost of the Juice is brought up by others, please see Section 1 (“Taste”), above, for acceptable responses. The Juicee acknowledges that it really is good to know that he/she is getting so many vegetables at once.
This is a pretty good article from Ta-Nehisi Coates about the causes of the Civil War. Maybe some people would like to read it, I don’t know, I don’t want to make assumptions. Maybe everyone has already read it.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/…
EVERY article Ta-Nehisi Coatest writes is fucking gold. I haven’t read this one yet – but I will, right now, and let’s talk about it.
Also, unrelated, ultra trivial – wtf is the deal with that “boyfriend getting married, idk, am I overreacting?” letter?!?!
**edited for a lame typo
I just read that one and dang 1) it’s amazing what a person can talk themselves out of believing when they’ve got a vested interest in it not being true, and 2) I am actually really proud of the commenters on that one! Good job not being fooled, and encouraging that lady to figure out the truth!
Hey, could you not use that word?
@ethylbenzene – oohhhhhhh duly noted. in a head-desk sort of way. re-edit would be forthcoming, but it’s too late! 🙁 my apologies.
Thank you!
I read that as soon as it showed up in my Feedly, and I am sharing it everywhere. I love TNC so much.
I definitely would send my kid to a school where TNC designed the curriculum for the Civil War unit in history class.
Hell, I’m an adult and I would be thrilled at the idea of taking any kind of history class from TNC.
Well agreed, definitely, I’m just thinking about we spent some time talking about the “reasons” for the Civil War, but at no time was I ever advised that the state governments of Confederacy had actually just written letters explaining what their problems were? I feel like this was a significant oversight in my education.
Thanks! Still digesting the article, but I am distracted by my ignorance regarding a mote of trivia. At one point TNC writes: “Thus in 1861, when the Civil War began, the Union did not face a peaceful Southern society wanting to be left alone. It faced an an aggressive power, a Genosha, an entire society based on the bondage of a third of its residents, with dreams of expanding its fields of the bondage further South. ”
Bolding mine. Cursory searching reveals nothing much for the name “Genosha,” other than a fictional apartheid-metaphor storyline setting from the X-Men comic books. Is that “Genosha” named after some other notorious place or incident, or is the author just straight-out citing Marvel Comics here? Which is fine, I vaguely remember that story when it first came out, but I would not have guessed that it had become an everyday reference.
I don’t *think* Genosha has any other meaning; I think Coates is actually just a huge nerd and is referring to the Marvel comics place. (Genosha in the comics wasn’t just an apartheid state, it was a literal slave state, with mutants forced to wear inhibitor collars in service of non-mutant supremacy.)
Obviously I will be very embarrassed if it turns out I was wrong.
You are correct: TNC is a huge comics nerd and that’s definitely a reference to Marvel. http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/… http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2010/12/he-wears-the-mask-just-to-cover-the-raw-flesh/68108/ http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/…
I am firing up my poetry engine, but what to versify about? Roxane Gay, who I adore, or anti-huggers! Aaaaaahh!
Both. A challenge!!
Oh my goodness. I’m going to read that ENTIRE metafilter thing because I am just desperate to see what happens.
“He was really tired and didn’t want to talk about it so I think it’s true! See the grad school wanted to make a promotional video about two professors falling in love and use it as a recruitment tool!”
What.
DON’T DATE (male) PROFESSORS
#notallmaleprofessors
(though the one I dated–and subsequently shacked up with and married–dropped out of academia to work in the nonprofit sector, so that should tell you something…)
I read this whole mess yesterday and that is what stuck with me second most. This is an absolutely atrocious lie. Like not even marginally passable. Especially if you have spent time in graduate school.
“Hey, we’re not going to pay you enough money to both eat AND pay your rent in the same month while you all serve as the instructor of record for a huge number of our classes, but we ARE going to film two people who used to date having a fake wedding in a really lavish venue to let people know how sweet grad students have it.”
I literally had my jaw drop at work, then immediately sent it to a friend who I knew would appreciate the bananas level of it.
“I found more congratulations postings and photos on Facebook. The event was held at the fanciest hotel in the city, and there were families and friends and a 6-tier cake… It was an giant engagement party, one expensive enough that I mistook it for a wedding.”
The MeFi answerers pointed this out but: honey, no. You mistook nothing.
Yeah, the 6 tier “engagement cake” really got me.
But, for the moment, what if that’s TRUE?
Like, I know that people have cake tasting appointments for wedding cakes. But do people have cake tasting appointments for engagement parties??? Like, even if people don’t have 6 tier engagement party cakes, people do have engagement parties with cakes at them. Is the engagement party cake a dry run of the real cake? Would it be inappropriate to have the same cake flavors for both cakes?
I don’t care a whole lot about engagements or weddings, but apparently I care a lot about cake.
I think this is a good solution if you can’t decide what kind of wedding cake you want, just have a bunch of engagement parties where you can have a bunch of other cakes.
I like this. Maybe I’ll get engaged to a whole bunch of different people, throw engagement parties with cakes, get nice engagement photo shoots, and then call the whole thing off.
Eventually my friends will notice, but if the cake is always *really good*, maybe they won’t care?
You got to test out every part of a wedding in advance — cake, menu, cake, groom, &c.
If I post enough pictures on facebook, perhaps I can even make sure I get to meet all of my partners other partners!!! : )
Really good cake covers a lot of sins.
No need for “engagements”, just have parties with giant cakes! I WOULD SHOW UP ANYWAY
I am glad that other people care about cake as much as I do!
ALL TOASTIES INVITED TO MY MASSIVE CAKE PARTY.
I think it depends on the cultural context. I read this and thought the boyfriend might be Turkish; Turkish engagement parties can be fancy as all get-out.
The OP is way more forgiving/understanding than that douche has any right to. Also, so goddamn weird.
yeah, like as of the last update, she still doesn’t get that he’s a compulsive liar that led a double life, which is just staggering.
Yeah, on a first pass, I missed the part in the last post where they said, “He cried so much, not crocodile tears but ones of deep, deep sadness.” Is it naivety? Is it self-flagellation? I keep thinking, if I were their friend in real life, how would I convince them to love themself? I honestly do not know.
There’s a part where she’s worried she upset him because she has so many feelings for him to manage and it must be so tiring for him, and I was like … honey. Honey. I just wanted to take her aside and hug her and then find somebody to be her caring, supportive friend.
99 % of the time the answer to the question ‘Am I crazy?’ is ‘No. No, They’re a shifty douchenozzle’.
I’m reading it as maybe a form of self-protection? Because her options are either A) admit that he is a shitty person who was lying to her the whole time, didn’t give a damn about her feelings, and their entire relationship was garbage, or B) console herself with the idea that he’s a good person and his feelings for her were real, but they just couldn’t be together because of XYZ.
Like, I’m not saying it’s a GOOD coping strategy, but maybe she’ll come around once she’s had some time to recover.
Ok, I think she’s actually Jane Bennett. This is the only thing I can think of that makes any sense at all.
That last update made me more sad and distressed than anything else in that thread. I mean, I’m glad the OP listened at least a little to what everyone was saying, but the fact that she literally said that it was proof of his love how much he lied to her, I just ….. worry about her.
“I think ultimately that was why he gave up on us: it was our impossibility, and the incredible hardship both of us would have had to suffer. And most of that hardship would have been on me. I really do believe that he wanted to spare me years of being an outsider in a society that would oppress me and even now still oppresses him.”
No. No. She does seem very sweet and the capacity for forgiveness is a gift, but … no.
He gave up on you because she was not his “ex” and you found out! The human mind is an amazing thing.
I read this and just…didn’t get it? Like, outsider what now? How? Huh? I mean, bless her heart, honestly and sincerely but jeesh.
I mean, based on a number of things she says, he’s clearly hella manipulative. I’m zero surprised at how forgiving she is… abusive fuckwads are good at getting forgiveness and sympathy from the people they’re actively and outrageously hurting (and picking people who have deep wells of forgiveness and sympathy in the first place.) I just hope he doesn’t keep hoovering her back into contact. I really wanna write her and say, “I’m so sorry for what happened, and also if (when) he contacts you complaining about how unhappy his marriage is, block and ignore.”
I read it over the weekend and I kept saying “oh my GOD” out loud and finally my husband came into the room and asked if everything was ok. NO it’s not okay, there is some outrageous behavior happening on the internet!
I’m so happy because I read this MeFi thread the other day and was like THE TOAST WOULD LOVE THIS
Oh god I read the whole thing yesterday and I’m still thinking about it. I’m really rooting for her to call the fiancee/wife and expose the whole thing, but she seems too nice for that.
Yeah, I would be rooting for “help the wife escape,” but the possible (probable) language barrier would make it a huge mess. Plus, depending on the country the guy is from, divorce might be terrible for the woman no matter whether she was at fault or not. All in the same country? Blow the dude’s spot. In a country whose culture and customs you don’t have a grip on? Mayyybe just ghost.
I knew someone in college who was in a steady relationship with someone who took off at the end of the spring semester for the summer; he hooked up with someone else the day after the girlfriend left, but didn’t want anyone to talk about Girlfriend B because he figured that he’d be back with Girlfriend A come the fall semester, but then after things got serious with Girlfriend B he wanted word to get out so that he wouldn’t have to deal with breaking up with Girlfriend A himself. (Just to make things sleazier, Girlfriend B was his former boss.) The MeFite’s ex seems to be cut from the same cloth.
That long-distance boyfriend really needs to take a class in “How To Be a Philandering Douchebag in the 21st Century” if he wants to try to pull some shit like this ever again.
no way, he knows all he needs to know, he for sure was doing it for the kick of degrading her mentally and not trying to actually get away with it (the part about how she only even saw the photos in the first place because of a third-party link he sent her) — he is having fun trying to see if there is anything he can’t do to her and not have her smile through her tears and take it. Anybody who lives in another country can get away with anything they want if they actually try to hide it; he didn’t try. the next step is to tell her he is a secret werewolf and must have two mates, one for the wolf, one for the man.
it is like how they say that scam emails are intentionally written with bad grammar and strange salutations to weed out anybody who would notice that kind of thing – by the time you’re deep in the scam you’ve been pre-selected for gullibility. The kind of woman who would require skill and guile to deceive successfully would be way too much work.
edit: actually maybe he has already taken such a class, don’t they say to start with a Big Lie because anybody is primed to suspect a small lie, like if you say you’re staying late at work and you call from a bar. but a big giant lie like “my marriage was fake, OBVIOUSLY, because grad school” or “I am a werewolf” (which if I ever get the itch to be a two-timing monster is definitely the way I will do it), your reflex is to say, but who would make up such a ridiculous story, it must be true.
I kind of would like for you to post a comment like this on that thread, because hoo dogies. I think it’d be a lot more helpful and healthful for the OP to be a lot more enraged about this, as opposed to tied into being the Noble Spurned Side Piece.
(Great point about scammy spam emails, by the way — never thought of it that way ahead of clicking the Delete Forever button.)
I might if I did not Hate Metafilter so, but honestly I am not so sure this is real judging from the very last comment. Up until then I could sort of see it, but this: “I made him promise that he would love her the way I want to be loved, with all of himself forever. I made him promise that there would be no one else. My heart breaks for her, this beautiful woman from an elite family” — what the fuck is this, “this beautiful woman from an elite family?” this is weird bad creative writing.
but I don’t believe any of the advice-givers commenting in response to that are real either. Nobody is suppressing exasperation or being aghast at what she said, they are all crying tears of sentimentality at her deep goodness. they are like drowning in a treacle well over there.
in conclusion nothing is real
I know people who write like that. I confess to having written like that myself. When you’re in a very particular stage of heartbreak, sometimes it’s some consolation to write in grand, flowery phrases and turn a mundane, sordid situation into something beautiful, something that’s too perfect for this cold, hard world of ours. It lets you both get a measure of distance from a shitty situation, and put yourself into a romantic narrative, rather than having to be an ordinary person smack in the middle of an ordinary, shitty situation. And then that desire for flowery, elevated language gets into the commenters, and they all start weeping over the beauty of it all, and how beautiful she looks in that cave, and she’s so brave, and everybody was wrong to criticize her, and everybody who criticized her just dies from realizing how perfect she is.
Like, I mean, hypothetically. Probably. Or some shit.
no, I write nothing but pretentious nonsense all of the time, it’s not that or not only that, it’s like…it would take a lot of gall and a lot of balls to write something that smarmy about a woman you actually did know, and this woman is a complete stranger to her. like the only generous way to read that bit is with irony, right, that this outwardly most fortunate of women — beautiful AND elite! — is married to a sociopath unbeknownst to her. but that doesn’t fit at all with the sincere hitting-herself-on-the-head-with-a-hammer martyrdom tone of everything else she wrote.
The world is a big strange dumb place so it probably is real, I know. but the whole thing gives me Madame Butterfly feelings and makes me feel mean and impatient just like the opera does. some things are too dreary to elevate into high art and while I support the right of all young people to self-dramatize I wish she wouldn’t, it makes such a big figure out of this tiny man. he made her a joke and she is making him a tragic hero.
I expect it’s just a step in her grieving process. Step 1 is denial, step 2 is pretentious romantic nonsense designed to protect her ability to believe in love, and so on, until one day she moves from “that was rather uncharitable of him” to “what a fucking douchebag asshole” to “man, that whole thing happened, what the shit.”
That metafilter thingy is most of the reason I’m afraid of a long-distance relationship. I can see myself in sockpuppetry’s situation very easily, and having the exact same “I’m just overreacting” response. D:
I’m now very happily married after a long-distance relationship and that whole thing was a very dark mirror “what if now-husband had instead been a turbodick?” Being able to trust your partner is so key in LDRs (I mean, it’s key in any relationship but it is like 100% the most important thing in an LDR) and for someone to so cavalierly take advantage of that is just….Christ, what an asshole.
This was the best advice line, for long-distance or anything, really:
Any time someone tells you “I didn’t tell you because I knew you’d be upset,” mentally add “if you found out” to the end of that sentence.
Best advice I’ve heard (outside of “Never go with a hippie to a second location”).
oh my god that ask MetaFilter thing. OH MY GOD.
There are so many ways for people to be The Worst it just boggles my mind.
(totally off-topic, but if anyone wants to join me in trying to keep from despair after the Hannibal cancellation, feel free. I may have cried at my desk yesterday)
Yesterday was a bad day for me, anyway, so once the cancellation news hit I was downright DISTRAUGHT (imagine that in Moaning Myrtle’s voice). Sobs ensued. Many, ugly sobs.
Negative thoughts: Everything that is good is taken away and ALL IS ASHES!
Positive thoughts: Maybe they’ll get picked up by someone that doesn’t make them blur classical artwork!
Yeah, yesterday was already a shitty day for me, so the cancellation was just icing on the cake.
I really hope they get picked up, but then there’s rumors that it got cancelled because they can’t get the rights to Clarice Starling and I get worried again…not that I don’t think Bryan couldn’t find a way to get around not being able to have her.
Okay, I hadn’t heard anything about NBC dumping them over Clarice. I think, as DeLaurentis & Co said, they were always in an iffy position because the show is so bizarre and the violence intense, over-the-top, and strange? I’ve gotten then impression that maybe because it moved away from being a “procedural” (which it was never gonna stay that way) made it less popular with the network. I do admire, tho, that they took advantage of the extra-long delay before airing this season and just went full-speed-ahead with, as Bryan said, doing the show as though it as a “pretentious 80s art film.”
Praying so hard that Amazon or someone picks it up. We are not deserving of Hannibal, but it is deserving of an audience!
Re: Clarice Starling – can they just…not use her? Like Patrice Darling who heard some baby goats screaming. I have 0 allegiance to the source material, so they can do whatever they want.
Bryan has said a couple of times in the past that if they can’t get the rights to Clarice Starling then he’ll just call her “Blarice Blarling” or whatever. Luckily, they’ve played fast & loose with the source material enough that he can make whatever changes to her story that he needs to in order to avoid copyright issues and it should still work.
I’m just figuring that, unless NBC wants to hold onto the show so that someone else can’t pick it up and take viewers from them (and they’ve got a contract with the production company that will let them do that), it will be in the hands of one of the streaming services within the year, a la Community.
I mean, they already anagrammed Paul Krendler into Kade Prurnell, so I think they’ll manage to find an adequate Schmarice Schmarling.
I’m crossing my fingers that it gets picked up by Amazon or Netflix or something. Apparently it was super cheap for NBC to make because of some international production company thing, so MAYBE THERE IS HOPE. It happened for Community, whose ratings were also in the toilet at the time it got axed.
It will never happen but I hope they name her Jarice Jork-Jomp if they ever introduce her onto the show.
BOO, I didn’t hear about the cancellation. that’s a bummer. I mean, I guess we’re lucky it survived past season one, but… 🙁
maybe it’ll be picked up by another network…? (or streaming?)
My feelings towards the people that gave the show the ax:
In the words of Alana Bloom, “[Peacocks] are REALLY stupid birds.”
OH GOD
My fb comment was “rude, NBC. Shockingly rude!” A friend of mine commented that “it’s only cancellation if we’re equals.”
Anyway, my strategy for coping with unwanted hugs is to wait for them to lean in for a hug and then to just lean back at an equal speed while looking at them in this really puzzled way, like I don’t at all understand what alien planet this is appropriate behavior on.
I don’t have a lot of friends, but on the other hand, I also don’t have a lot of weird people trying to hug me.
I tend to stand there and look alarmed and hopefully stick my hand out to intercept their hug-attack with a handshake before they get too close. It works sometimes. But I don’t actually like to shake hands with people (ok, I just don’t like to touch people) so I never lead with a handshake.
This is good — I mean, whatever you have to do to feel comfortable, I think it is good! — but also, I think you don’t have to pretend like this is something wrong with you. You’ve got to make it clear to strangers that want to hug you that THEY are the ones who are bad and wrong!
I also hate touching people or having people touch me, and I’ve developed exaggerated reactions to it, to emphasize how much I don’t like it (sometimes it backfires and they think it’s a joke??? at which point i get visibly upset and let them know that if they keep touching me, on purpose, without my permission I will get violent – frankly, not having a violent reaction in the first place has grown from years of self-control, and also why do people think it’s funny to walk up behind a touch-averse person and touch the back of their neck??)
Anyway! I also hate handshaking, possibly even worse than hugging, and lately I’ve discovered the shoulder bump. It’s not so great for those weird colleague hug things (but stiff posture and a smile gets me out of those), but for friends and family? it’s great! I see a hug coming in and sort of maneouvre to the side and nudge their shoulder with mine. They all ought to know that I don’t like hugs, so my proactively standing close and putting our shoulders together seems to be enough, and indicates that I am happy to see them or whatever. Sometimes there’s a side-hug resulting, but honestly that’s way preferable to a regular hug.
Don’t know if it would work for you, but maybe it’s worth trying out?
Oh man, the MetaFilter OP’s third update though:
I finally feel the beginnings of peace, even as I’m crying every half hour. You have already helped me as much as you could have, and I want to tell you the ending as you deserve. And I’m writing for myself too, so that I can understand.
🙁
I love when people don’t make their kid hug me when they are not inclined. My cousin is raising her daughter this way, and it makes me so happy.
Yes tiny kid, your body is your own, and if you don’t want to hug on command – it is your choice! This is so good for me to see that I don’t even care that you don’t want to hug me! Good job, everyone!
My wife is a metafilter person and was obsessed with that thread. Obsessed. She kept a running monologue – I did not read the thread, but I can describe it in detail. The poor OP was really clinging to hope in a way that was at once sweet and disturbing. Trust your gut, everyone. Also your eyes. If it looks like a man got married, it probably isn’t a promo video about grad school glam. :/
Like, that alone should be your hint, right? Grad school glam? Haha.
The grad school students wanted to do a video showing two professors falling in love! So they picked me and also my ex, which is the most logical choice if you’re going to do that, right? Instead of two people who actually fell in love, why not use two people who very specifically were not in love?
Two people who had tried it and decided love was not for them! What great chemistry. What remarkable energy. So perfect even their friends and family were confused. But such a non-issue that this guy never thought to mention it to his real girlfriend, the one he really loves! What a positively Shakespearean farce. :/
Ah, but their friends and family were not confused! They were pleased and congratulatory!
*pumps fist* I love when people talk about teaching children bodily autonomy!
Also, tangentially, I super love when parents let their kids choose their haircuts. I think that’s a small but fun teaching moment.
Agreed! Discussions of autonomy, a better awareness of consent, yes good.
My understanding is that the more choices you offer, the fewer tantrums/more independence you get in return. Win/win!
A few unflattering haircuts or silly outfits seem like a very reasonable cost, in comparison to what you and the kidlet gain.
Heh. My favourite moment of being allowed to choose my haircut was when my Mom let me do this at 5, but the requirement was that my hair had to be shorter than my chin (the reason for this haircut was to rid me of the habit of chewing my hair). So I of course chose to have a mushroom/bowl cut like my super cool older cousin! I loved that haircut, although I think the only thing I learned from that was if you get a short haircut, people will think you are a boy.
That’s what my mom basically taught me. She cut my hair all the time (pro hairdresser) to a bob cut, for a variety of reasons, including lice control and safety but also because it was easier to maintain (not much brushing, easier washing, etc).
At one point, I said I wanted long hair. She was like, “Okay, hun, but only if you’re prepared to brush it out every day because I’m not detangling your hair for you all the time.”
I thought about it and was like, “I guess not.” Basically, I learned 1) my mom’s priority is keeping me safe and clean and as educated as she can manage, and everything else is her choice, and 2) things I want often come with responsibilities. Not a bad lesson to learn when you’re like 6.
kid haircuts yes!
This weekend I saw two sisters – ages 4 and 6 probably? – dressed all in pink and all in purple. Even their hair was dyed! it was super adorable, and clearly done in a kid-appropriate way (pink/purple washes out after a couple weeks, and it was obviously not done with bleaching). Mom had dyed hair (teal and pink underlayers), so they probably wanted to look like her. And why not?
or my nephew when he was five and asked for a mohawk. he’s half filipino and his hair was really curly back then, so his parents gave him a mini-hawk and it was super cute. (my nephew, obv, preferred that we say he looked tough or cool, not adorable, but he totally was)
I have inspired multiple young girls to demand the right to experiment with (temporary) unusual hair colors. I’m not saying this is my greatest achievement in life, but I feel pretty good about it.
Yeah, I have friends where you ask the kid “can I have a hug” and they will say “no”, which I totally get because I am a rando adult you see like 2x a year. But some of those kids WILL give you a fist-bump as a compromise, which is pretty ace.
Right?? I see my niece infrequently enough that, at 3, she forgets me between visits. Do I want to hug strangers on first meeting? No, and neither does she. I’ll take a high-five or whatever any day.
I may try out the fist bump though. Tiny fist bump! So adorbs!
My initial reaction was feeling sad that so many people don’t want to hug… but then I read some of the stories here and realized that *nobody* in my family/acquaintanceship does the kind of enforced hugging for small kids described here, which sounds awful. I hadn’t realized was going on – ugh.
I do think it is good to learn how to be warm and express feelings and connection, including for little kids… and that little kids in the US are often not socialized into greeting properly and that is messed up, since they are people/part of the community too… but obligatory hugging is certainly not the answer. Why do we so very very often go to extremes here? Hugging is fine, but just having little kids look an adult in the eye and smile and say a greeting would be more than enough! I would often be thrilled to get just that.
Awesome link roundup! I read that metafilter over breakfast and was going to post it here (I know the Toasters love us some wild advice columns) but clearly I needn’t have worried.
Re: forensic odontology, I was immediately reminded of this longform piece on a triple homicide in Waco, TX, where the prosecution’s case was carried by questionable bite mark analysis. Triggers abound, be wary.
And while I do not consider myself anti-hug, I do find hugs very intimate and unless we are at a certain level I am probably not going to initiate a hug. This is also maybe because within my family and close friends, I am usually the shortest, so hugging means pressing my face into the other person’s sternum. In summary: unless we are face-to-sternum levels of close, don’t.
Texas Monthly has some amazing true crime reporting. I’ll have to read this one.
Mike Hall’s writing is across the spectrum but generally always worth a read,
Yeah, I was mainly thinking of Skip Hollandsworth, but I’ll keep an eye our for more stuff by Mike Hall. Thanks for the tip!
Right there with you. I love hugs from a very limited range of people (spouse, parents, siblings), and I avoid them otherwise. I am mulling over what you said about the anatomy factor in hug intimacy–I’m pretty average height, but I have ridiculously large knockers and I really hate smooshing them up against people.
Same here. I am so uncomfortable with my own ridiculously large knockers that I feel self-conscious in a hug. Thank you for this feeling: I am not alone.
But I so often feel isolated because of moving every few years, that I am grateful that anyone would *want* to hug me, the perpetual outsider, ever the newcomer. If it’s someone I genuinely like, I accept the hug with gratitude and try hard to get away from being conscious of my body.
Thank you for sharing, too. We’re not alone. I’d hug you in real life if it wouldn’t be totally awkward.
It’s so hard when you’re not getting enough human interaction and you feel like you have to be grateful for anything people throw your way, even if it’s not something you’d ordinarily enjoy. :/
Roxane Gay, the queen of Twitter
ubiquitous, she is
you’ll see her here
you’ll read her there
optimistic, never bitter
Vetted by the New York times
Best Seller List, she is
Bad Feminist
on every list
of authors so sublime
Resident in Indiana
pining for LA
who can blame her
no state lamer
Except maybe Montana
She’s a master of the pen
follower of Ina
Ted talker
troll blocker
her name’s spelt with one N
Hooray for rhyming and Roxane!
But not so much for using that word in that way (thanks to another commenter upthread for the link: http://disabledfeminists.com/2009/10/12/ableist-w… in particular as a diss to my home state.
I am a non-hugger and Nicole’s comment about her non-hugging friend made me smile, as once I went to see one of my best friends on a panel; afterwards I was so thrilled she’d done so well I gave her a hug and a kiss. Later, she told mutual friends what I’d done and they were like THAT IS HUGE YOU MUST HAVE BEEN THE BEST SPEAKER EVER IN THE WORLD TO ENGENDER SUCH EMOTION.
I am not surprised about the forensic bite mark thing, it seems so open to interpretation. I mean, bite marks on skin aren’t exactly dental casts. I WAS surprised at how sketchy arson forensic science was, though.
Between that article and reading about how many people are in prison for life for being arrested with marijuana, not a day to engender confidence in the criminal system,
There was a similar finding recently about hair matching. It’s basically nonsense. Scary.
If anyone has the werewithal, the Cameron Todd Willingham story can be found here.
Over the years I’ve gotten very good at signalling “PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH ME I DO NOT WANT THIS I WILL GLADLY SHAKE YOUR HAND THOUGH.” The key is to have intense fear-eyes
or you can wear this shirt : http://www.zazzle.com/incredulous_dont_touch_me_s…
Oh goodness I need that shirt.
Someone needs to make that in preschool size for my poor, reserved, adorable three-year-old.
But he must have loved me so very much, this man whom I truly respect and admire, to have lied for so long
That is not how it works.
This actually makes my heart ache.
There were even commenters kind of backing that up, saying that since they weren’t having lots of sex because of long distance, he must be sincere in some fashion. this is not reeealllly the kind of misogyny you gain anything by combatting, but nevertheless, it is super misogynist to declare that the only thing a woman has that a sociopath might want to exploit is her body. for sure an awful sociopathic liar might do all this — clearly did do all this — just to have an emotionally submissive tender listening ear on tap at all hours. people do actually desire things from women other than to fuck them, and all this head-scratching “but why would he bother deceiving you since he can’t even fuck you on the regular” in the thread is distasteful and pretty obtuse. you can’t protect yourself from awful men by just not putting out, or by being on another continent, as we all ought to know.
As a former, fuckless Internet Other Woman, 1000 times this.
YES.
NOT A LOVING ACTION.
🙁 Poor kid.
I gotta say, my feelings were more along the lines of “How did this girl live to be 23 years old without developing even a scrap of common sense” but then I remembered how abusive relationships work. It’s very unlikely this is the first time this man has lied to her. Yeah…
I also dislike the comments labelling this guy “sociopathic”. No, he is not some specially defective and evil outlier on the spectrum of humanity, he is operating well within the bounds of what is considered socially acceptable* behavior by a man toward a woman.
* in that he will probably suffer no lasting social consequences comparable to the OP’s pain.
Wow I am in a big in-network out-of-network battle right now for the weird gray zone of accidental dental coverage – which is supposed to be covered my medical since it was an accident, but of course, no dentists take medical insurance so it is all out of network. Luckily I was stressed about costs and read through my entire insurance documents, and realized that I need *prior authorization* to get follow up procedures for accidental dental, or else they have the right to only pay 50% of they agreed standard costs for the procedures. I was supposed to call 5 days before! seeking follow up care, but that was Sat, and of course they were closed. We were able to talk to them yesterday and now I have to wait to see if my cases are approved for gap coverage, which I believe should mean I would get in-network coverage. I am so stressed, because for my out-of-network coverage, all my total reset. So the deductible is another $850 and the out of pocket maximum if another $4,000, when my out of pocket max for in network was $3,000 (which I probably will hit from the ambulance and ER visit, plus all my follow up appointments).
Not as bad as the emergency dentist I saw who did not mention medical insurance would help, told me I only had $800 left on my dental and it would be $14,000 out of pocket.
I know I am lucky yo have insurance, but just saying I am all for better protections for out of network!!
The Hugger
You’re at a party standing where you’re out
of range of drunken fools that want to chat
When all at once you see the person that
you fear the most, she’s bearing down about
to throw her boozy arms around your neck
desperately you seek a way to flee
it’s too late! And finally you see
there’s no good way to put her charge in check
She’s a hugger – her great lust:
squashing you against her ample bust;
like those aunts of yore who liked to squeeze
you ’til you would want to kick their knees
Unconsciously you turn yourself sideways
and tilt your head away from her drunken gaze
It’ll all be over in a little while
hold on for a bit and try to smile
try not to throw an elbow to her throat
remember that she’s quote a friend unquote.
*tiny screams*
Also, re: Forensic Bite Marks: That doesn’t even include some of the stuff that West apparently did in his career as (apparently) a huge fucking liar. I remember reading a piece from Radley Balko a while back that includes video showing West using a dental mold to create bite marks on the victim after death.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/01/michael-…
So, whether or not West thinks forensic odontology should be used in court, I’m not really sure that matters.
Like, yeah, it’s good that West isn’t giving testimony anymore, but I also think he should probably be in jail.
Well. So he’s maybe a serial killer.
NB: I do not actually think he’s a serial killer, but I watch too much Hannibal, so dental molds and lotion being put on skin send my brain to the serial killer place.
From the Streep ranking:
“LOVE INTEREST: Stanley Tucci. I mean, it could be much worse.”
ಠ_ಠ
That was an extremely disappointing statement.
“It could be much worse” as in, “You can’t get much better” is how I’m choosing to interpret that.
Lalalalala fingers in ears, can’t hear you say that’s not the way it was intended.
That made me furious. DO NOT SPEAK SO OF THE TOOCH, FOR HE IS BELOVED.
I feel like if one were to fall in my lap, I’d wear a “Don’t touch the Tooch” sweater. Or “Can’t Tooch this.”
I work with a MEGA WORK HUGGER and you guys, I have seen him ignore some very obvious signs that people do not want to hug him. There’s this one person in particular who is our client who obviously hates it. I did mention it to him and he brushed it off and I can’t really do anything else because he’s above me on the food chain, and also clearly oblivious. Sure do hate watching it, though.
Please hire me and I will come in with an orange safety vest and a whistle and a STOP sign and I will wave the sign and blow my whistle at him and yell “NO!” when he hugs someone without asking.
You, madam, are the savior of non-touchy-feely people everywhere.
Please accept my humble WASP gift of Triskets and Perrier.
Gosh, I can’t even imagine what I would do in that scenario, other than begging Ask A Manager for advice. I do not envy you.
oh god, not WORK HUGGERS
I mean, I am a happy friendly hugging person who would gladly hug some of my current coworkers, were we not coworkers, and does hug past coworkers, but just
don’t hug people at work, especially don’t hug clients
there are exceptions but they’re few and far between and the consequences of misreading it are AWFUL
Ask a manager talked about this! I don’t know how to post links, but google Ask A Manager Employee Won’t Stop Hugging People
Found it, thanks! I am very much not the boss of him so I don’t know if it will take but I can certainly try again. Maybe if I specify that this particular person does not seem very touchy it will help? The first attempt was very, oh no people love it it is totally cool that I am doing this.
Print it out and tape it to his computer. Unless there are cameras in your office. But hey, those who give Unwanted Hugs must submit to Unwanted Reminders That Your Hugs Are Not Universally Appreciated.
I have a juicer at home. I consider just moving the thing from one place to another to be the equivalent of a trip to the YMCA.
Things have been terrible in so many ways that a small piece of awesome seems like it is something we could all use. Here’s one from the Facebook page of Sarah Robles, Olympian (weightlifting) and generally cool person:
“If a little kid asks you to be his bodyguard to get his bag of Doritos, be his bodyguard.”
I don’t know why I like that so much, but I do. 🙂
Ohhh man that MetaFilter thing ohhhh man.
Second semester of sophomore year of college I met and started dating a guy, we had a ton of fun, great conversations, the whole shebang. I moved two hours north for summer jobs and he stayed in the city where we went to school. I came down to visit a couple of times over the first month I was away, and one day he told me not to. Being 19 and an idiot, I went anyway.
I caught him as he was leaving work, and we went back to his place. He sat me down on the bed and told me that not only had he been dating someone else the entire time, but that the someone else was 16 and that he’d gotten her pregnant.
It was not, NOT my finest hour.
(They are still married and have five kids so.)
bullet: DODGED
We all kick ourselves for falling for these things but man, we got away from them eventually, and that’s what’s important.
oh my GOD
Yeah. It was sure something.
UGGGHHH that’s a mess. I did something similar when I was in high school and my dude at the time was in college. I went up to visit him (TWO HOUR DRIVE, YOU GUYS) and he took me to some dance thing, and he introduced me to the girl that he told me he now had a crush on. Then he had sex with her a few days later and called me in the middle of the night to… “apologize??” Still not sure why that happened or why I ever spoke to him again. Young love! So silly!
My eyes just went as round as saucers. What on EARTH.
Friend, it was not HIS finest hour. Whatever you did was probably justified.
I’m so not a hugger but have close friends who are, so they’re always the intitiators and never notice that I’m not. It’s one of the few social pressures that I don’t speak up about or actively work against, maybe because back in the day in when I did a lot of queer activism, gay male activists were always giving me hugs and it seemed awkward to explain that the only men I hugged were close relatives. I don’t hate it, but don’t initiate, ever. Regarding the metafilter post: I didn’t finish it, just kind of sucked my teeth and said, “Straight people!” Even if (when?) queer marriage becomes universal, we probably won’t be pulling this shit–but if we did the discussion would last for all of two replies, “You’re kidding right?” “Yeah, I was trolling you: I totally dumped him/her way before this point.”
hooo boy do I wish that were the case, but I’ve seen some pretty messed up, crazy-thread worthy stuff go down in queer relationships too. Jerks: they come in all sexual orientations!
Believe me, I’m well aware of all the terrible things queers do in relationships, but the sort of unquestioning acceptance and willful blindness this woman showed (complete with her saying she still loves him!) is patriarchy in action.
Roxane has such a wonderful voice.
HUGS I was going to write a comment and then realized that I already wrote a blog post on this. So I’m linking it (I feel guilty like this is self promotion but I’m too lazy to write it out all over again and I have to disappear to internet-less work right now so here: http://seizetheabsurd.blogspot.com/2014/08/kid-ar…
I work with kids and a lot of them don’t have great boundaries it’s something we have to work on all the time, “Keep your hands and the rest of you to yourself. Thanks.” I don’t like being touched by people generally and this combined with teaching is a situation.
Also I have had a kid breathe on my hand. Just slowly, hot breath, breathe on my hand. I was like um… is this? Is this happening? It was.
I do not in general have issues with being touched, but I DO have issues with being breathed on (how do you bring this up to a S.O, I ask you, when bed snuggles and sleep almost always involve being breathed on?) so I totally understand your perplexity there.
I do not have too many issues with being touched but during my very brief stint working with kids they all wanted to get their hands on my glasses! I think it needs to be taught: if there is one inviolable rule of human interaction, it is that you do NOT touch another person’s glasses.
YESSSSSS I HATE IT WITH THE FIRE OF ONE MILLION SUNS
I teach English to preschoolers twice a week. There’s one girl who is extremely touchy and will grab on to your arm and hug it like her life depends on it. I don’t know how kids can be so strong, but it can be really hard to get her off sometimes. It’s like a fucking vise.
Have you considered that maybe you are just magnetic?
Oh no. I do this to my cats. Exhale into their fur, especially in the winter. Mostly because I like resting my face in their fluff. Hm.
*sits in corner, rethinks life choices*
I love adorable teeny kid hugs, but my cousin (who works with them) says a lot of them will just wipe their noses right on her. That is Not Cool, teeny kids.
THE HUGGING THING! Sweet jesus stop hugging me you freaks. I remember thinking one day, ‘Wait, am I allowed to not like hugging?’ and since then its been an issue for me. Its not that I don’t like being touched, I just don’t see the point in performing quite an intimate act for no reason. Sure if I haven’t seen you in awhile, or there’s a reason to hug, hell yeah I’ll hug it out; But if I’ve only just met you, DON’T FUCKING HUG ME.
It kind of became an inside joke when I moved country and had to meet all new people, since everyone else I’d known back home I’d known for years and the hugging thing wasn’t an issue, but then I met new friends and straight away they were like ‘HUGS NOW’ and I had to be like ‘um yeah I don’t hug.’
I am getting a bit better, but often I find myself falling into that trap of hugging people for no reason, only to not be awkward and I really don’t like it. I’m pretty good with the hand out first thing and I always shake hands, even in social situations for something to do, but even then I’ve had a few huggers/cheek kissers professionally and its so weird.
I wish I had more time to hang out on this thread and talk about the forced hugging culture, especially with children, but I have to work 🙁
YES! I just flat out say no.
There’s some really good stuff on Captain Awkward about this – and lots of fellow non-huggees/huggers to validate your experience!
ROXANNE! Such a great Ted Talk and it was wonderful to actually put a voice to the writing. I saw it last night when somebody posted it on Facebook and (1) squealed with joy and scared the dogs; and (2) paused the episode of Bob’s Burgers I was watching to focus on Roxanne even though it had only 6 minutes left. No regrets for either!
one n, tho!
Dratty McDrat! As somebody with a name that is rarely spelled right I humbly apologize to Roxane and shake my fists at the red squiggle under her name in this comment.
Oh, that MetaFilter woman. Nobody wants to feel like a sucker, but sweetheart, you’ve been a sucker. It seems like she doesn’t get that this woman was never his “ex” – he was cheating on his now-wife with OP, not the other way around.
I think ultimately that was why he gave up on us: it was our impossibility, and the incredible hardship both of us would have had to suffer.
No, that’s not it at all. Poor kid.
All of her comments about the relationship sound like something Stephanie Meyer would write. Which is frightening.
Oh, that metafilter saga. Does anyone remember the Bob and Eli saga from The Hairpin? I think I read that column three times a year and would give anything to know what happened with that.
LOVED BOB AND ELI SAGA!
MEMORIES!
Link?
Looks like all the old “WUT” comments got destroyed in a fire / move to disqus: http://thehairpin.com/2012/01/ask-a-married-dude-…
Woooooow.
the 700 comments all being like “what do you mean, whoops”
The Ballad Of Bob and Eli was the best.
HOLY WHAT
I white-knuckled-gripped the arms of my chair through the entire thing.
I like hugging people I’m close to, but I am all about teaching kids they don’t have to hug people they don’t want to. My mentally ill father (who, of course, got custody of us thanks to Texas family law courts) used to mandate a “hug and kiss time” when we got home from school, on the totally misguided theory it would make us closer to him. It did not work. It was completely repulsive, something to be gotten through as quickly and violently as possible, without any hint of affection. It’s a wonder I’m not more warped.
Awwwww….I’m feeling your “I’m a little bit lost without my mom” feelings. Here’s an internet hug (if thatz ok). Clever Manka, we need an appropriate GIF, pretty please!
Do any men have the same aversion to hugging? I feel like I’ve only ever heard from women who feel this way, but its also only women (that I know of) that feel the societal pressure to have physical contact?
What about the pressure to hug members of the opposite sex? I really despise casual physical contact with men (Largely because they ALWAYS read more into it), and I often feel they are just using it as an excuse to get their hands on me, cause who’s going to turn down a hug, right?
I don’t dislike hugging necessarily as, like, a physical thing to do. I think it’s fine, I don’t mind touching other human beings. But I am deeply resentful at the sort of implication that it’s okay for a person to just get up in my space. For this reason I (a man) do not have a good tolerance for social physical contact.
I don’t like hugging people who I have just met, am not friends with. Friends, family it is fine, but it is a running joke in my friend group here in the Midwest that I am not a hugger. I’ve gotten good at side hug/ back pat for all the preschoolers who hug me after I read books to them.
My family is not really huggy at all, even with each other, with the exception of my mom. I know a couple of years ago my older brother deliberately started hugging people after he had some of his friends tell him he comes off as cold and impersonal sometimes. I’m not sure if they suggested he do that specifically, though.
My ex, a big bear of a guy, did not much like to be touched in any sort of friendly way, from hugging to arm patting to a casual arm around the shoulders. I’m not sure why but I always respected his wishes, which was hard sometimes as a big time casual toucher.
I wouldn’t say I have an aversion to hugging, necessarily, but I am *extremely* hesitant to initiate a hug, with pretty much anyone.
I (also a man) don’t mind hugging, but will pretty much always wait for the other person to initiate it as I’m not sure where they would stand on that (unless they are a close friend and I already know).
That Catholic Novelist article…I’m lost. It seemed like the entire piece was designed as a platform for the author to go, “See, I’m not a Catholic novelist, because explicitly Catholic novels are dogmatic and Bad, and my novels are not dogmatic, therefore I’m not a Catholic novelist.” I really wanted more information on how being a Catholic influences novel-writing, but his examples seemed to be, “This person was explicitly trying to preach Catholicism, and that’s Bad. This person was Catholic, sure, but their writing wasn’t at all like Catholocism, therefore it was Good.” Which may be true, but says nothing about the influence.
Also, the piece was written by William Giraldi, he of “I’d love to help my wife, but I’m trapped under something heavy” fame. So. I’m confused.
lollll that was HIM? I liked it as a historical look at Catholic novelists!
It was!! And that makes perfect sense. I went into the article with a very narrow view of what I wanted to get out of it (as an aspiring novelist who is Catholic, also as a person who hears “Catholic novelist” and immediately thinks, “Tolkien!”).
I had to read that “I’d love to help my wife, but” piece again, and I can’t stop laughing at work. Especially when I got to:
“My wife is now more vacuum than human woman. Her attachments are many and efficient, but none of them can save me.”
I lost track of how many times I said “Oh, honey, no” while reading that MetaFilter thread.
Oh god, huggers. I have successfully employed the “Oh whoa sorry, I’m not a hugger” statement a few times – usually while laughing and offering a high five instead. It works pretty well in social settings, but I don’t think I could do it in a professsional one – all you can do there is be as frosty and awkward about it as you think you can get away with.
The worst part of this, though, is that the more forward you are about how you Do Not Like Hugging, a certain brand of asshole will take that as an immediate invitation to hug you and laugh at you about how much you hate it and they feel entitled to do it anyway (this asshole is often your aunt that you don’t like). Or the other one who assumes that Not Liking To Hug = Not Liking To Hug THEM because everything revolves around their comfort. They will take great personal offense that you will not hug them, and behave very awkwardly about greetings and goodbyes ever after. This is usually a man who is known far an wide for his great sensitivity.
Yeah, I have definitely used that same line. “Sorry, I’m not a hugger! High-five!” I agree that it probably wouldn’t work in an office.
I once told a professor (of a meditation/mindfulness class) that I wasn’t a big casual hugger when it came up in class. He seemed to take it as a challenge/request for desensitization? Idk but that man hugged me TWICE after that, once while saying “I know you don’t like hugs,” and now I avoid places I think he might be. Your comment about the known sensitive guy reminded me of him!
People – including aunts! – who can’t hear this without getting pushy are the worst.
I love hugging people. That said, clearly some people don’t know (or ignore) basic hugging etiquette. As the potential hug initiator you keep your elbows at your waist while turning your palms out and look at someone with a questioning expression on your face. If they smile and lean in, hug them! If they stick out a hand, shake it. If they shift their body weight away or wave, wave at them.
Also you don’t go in for a big squeeze hug when the other person is trying to lightly touch their arms to your shoulders (which is how I hug).
Good point! Be aware of the clues the other person is giving in general, I think that’s the thing.
I am not a hugger, not at all, by any means, and I need help. This has been less of an issue in the US and most of my friends there know not to be touchy feely with me, but in the UK, giving a half-embrace- kiss on the cheek with friends or acquaintances is pretty customary. I am so not a fan of this, but it’s less terrible with people I know already. With new people, I usually am pretty quick to put my hand out for a shake and introduction, which sometimes works, but what Toastadas, WHAT can I do when new people see my hand and just use it to pull me in for the cheek kiss? It’s gotten to where, if I’m in a big group at a table, for example, I position myself so I’m not within standing up and embracing distance and I can wave and smile instead. I know it’s becoming a cultural norm here, but this is becoming my permanent ‘meeting-new-people-at-so-and-so’s-birthday-party’ face:
As an addendum, I did read the piece in the round-up, and I do pretty much all of the things suggested, but especially to UK and European toasts who are accustomed to the little embrace/ cheek kissing greeting, are there any ways you can think of to, uh, help me avoid them, especially with people I’m just meeting for the first time? Or do I just need to stick it out? OH GOD AM I JUST NEUROTIC?
Well, when I took a self-defense class, we learned a tactic for preventing handshakes that turn into hugs where you shake their hand, then when they start coming closer, grab their elbow with your other hand, and use it to turn them to the side.
I’m having no luck googling, but it looks a little like this:
An extremely appropriate example.
Thank you, friend! I will deploy this!
FYI, I started reading your response on my phone and it cut off the crucial part of “where you shake their hand, then when they start coming closer, grab their elbow with your other hand, and use it to ____” and my immediate thought was “put your thing down flip it and reverse it” and thereby cripple them. Your way is more diplomatic, I feel.
Let me know of your successes in turning would-be huggers, as I am very eager to hear of them.
Has anybody else been getting ads on here that are for Iowa (like the whole state, in general, I guess?) or are they just targeted at former Iowans whose parents are already guilting them to move closer to home?
I love the thought that your parents are paying for these ads. “Can we add in any sort of subliminal messages about how she should really call more often?”
I’m expecting that if I click on it, I’ll get something that culminates with “and when was the last time you went to the dentist?”
Quest Labs really wants me to know if I have Hep C. Iowa doesn’t care about me though.
I’m getting things for Washington, because I’m from Washington, I reckon. Here and on Spotify. I’m guessing it’s something that goes by region and IP?
I really like the bifolding doors they advertised on sale at some store near Seattle, but I have no interest in renting an apt in Kenmore.
I hate hugging and people touching me when I’m not expecting it. I most ESPECIALLY hate cheek kisses, which cause me to freeze and remain very still until no one is trying to put their stupid lips on my face anymore.
I actually have made a pretty serious effort to ‘get over it’ because people make such a big deal about it! Like, sometimes I DO want to hug someone because they are cute and I love them and I don’t need everyone to point it out when I do. My efforts have been mixed – I still don’t initiate hugs (why can’t we just wave? waving is nice!) but I put up with them when they come at me.
I actually don’t find that men (particularly older men, not the innocuous 25-yr-old dweebs in my friend group) don’t initiate hugs very often. I actually kind of find that older men of a certain kind (kindly dad-aged dudes) have this horror of ever being creepy and therefore, I’ve noticed, do funny things like not make eye contact on public transit. I appreciate it, guys.
I hate cheek kisses, because I spend the entire time being worried that somebody will move at the wrong moment, and it will become Awkward.
I think my favorite kind of person to hug is one of those 6’6″ 350 lb. dudes. So comfy!
Strangely charming spam I just got at my work email:
Hey,
I wish you would come to the museum
Phillip
Sounds like a keeper! You should totally meet up with him.
Right? Like, I wish I would go to the museum, too.
I’m DEEPLY curious about what the Metafilter girl was referring to when she talked about how she couldn’t move to where he was from because of the culture!!
I suspect that was just one of her boyfriend’s many lies, to dissuade her from visiting him ever. “You can’t come here, honey, this culture is terrible, so terrible. So terrible no human woman could stand it, and that’s also why you can’t call between 6pm and 10 pm.”
She’d visited there twice since he left though, no? There are a few comments that have been redacted as some Mefi people may have sleuthed him out; then at one point a commenter says “I speak Korean, if that helps” which might be in response to the now-deleted comments. (I’d been thinking something more like Iran til that moment, but Korea would fit.)
I thought that he had visited her twice, but maybe I need to read more carefully.
Have we all seen this article about the 100 year old chalkboard drawings that were found during a renovation at a high school in Oklahoma city? http://www.npr.org/2015/06/23/414616431/school-sc…
I’m the opposite, I love hugging, but come from a No Hugging family, and also have friends with strong No Touching positions that I deeply respect.
Sometimes I just want a hug.
No hugging. No. Don’t hug me. If you want me to you, you have to be a blood relative or a cat.
Roxane gave me ALL THE FEELS! Well done, madame, well done.
Not related to anything, but does anyone else think it’s hilarious that there’s a Franzen ad on The Toast front page?
We all get different ads! I prefer to visit some pretty dresses shopping sites and then visit Toast.
Yes to the no hugging/touching, oh my god. I love hugging and I find hugging/sitting close to my people to be incredibly soothing (to the point that my sister will ask if I need primate therapy if I’m tense about something), but the list of ‘my people’ is …short, to say the least. My boyfriend is super gregarious and a hugger/high-fiver/handshaker with most of his coworkers, and I think that his coworkers assume that because of that and because I’m usually tucked right up against him when they’re around/when they see us together (I am hard-of-hearing, anxious, kind of germphobic, and very uncomfortable with crowds of/new people in social situations for these and other reasons, and my boyfriend is 6’1 and 200 pounds, like, pick up on my body language, I am *clinging to him to try to hide myself,* and also, you know, he’s my damn boyfriend of nearly nine years and my best friend of ten, clearly there is a level of intimacy there you and I have not reached), that I’m also super gregarious and totally comfortable hugging/shaking hands with people who are almost entirely strangers to me. Just accept a friendly wave and a ‘hey, what’s up?’ I DO NOT KNOW YOU, STOP TRYING TO TOUCH MY BODY WITH YOUR BODY. EW.
This repeated situation does not help with my latent (…ish) misanthropy/misandry at all (SURPRISE IT IS ALL DUDES THAT ASSUME I WANT TO SHAKE THEIR GROSS UNWASHED SWEATY HANDS AND WON’T TAKE NO FOR AN ANSWER). Ugh.
She kept referring to the other woman as his “fiance” too, because he only admitted they were engaged. Darlin’, those were WEDDING photos you saw.
I am not really a hugger, but I’m trying to be more of one. It pleases other people more than it bothers me, what the heck. When I hear about side-hugs, I get paranoid that I’m being too boobish if I just do a full-on hug. I’m pretty used to these chesticles I have, but others may not be. Is it rude to moosh my chest against that of a person I don’t know very well?
Ok I am suuuper late to this but I have a hugging story that I need to get off my chest…
So there is an older woman at work, she's way senior to me but I don't report to her, and she's based in another office. The first time I met her, she was in town, had emailed to arrange a breakfast meeting with myself and my two colleagues. I'd never seen her before.
I got to the breakfast place a little early, was waiting at the table, and the next thing I know, someone has tapped me on the shoulder and as I turn, I'm being hugged.
Apparently my face was a picture of "I don't like this, who the hell are you?" which she thought was hilarious. She always says "I'm a hugger" and hugs EVERYONE (except our CEO, who would give Snape a run for his money in the "touch me and die" stakes).
I know of several other people who don't like it either, but all attempts to say as much to her have not been heard. I think she sees herself as a very caring "mother figure" in our company, and hugging juniors/peers is a way for her to demonstrate that. I just…what if I had a serious issue with strangers touching me? She had no idea how I would react – me not enjoying it is one thing, but someone with a different history or different personal situation could totally legitimately have freaked out.
Phew. Anyway tl:dr – DO NOT HUG PEOPLE AT WORK, particularly if you've never laid eyes on them before. It's not ok!
I mean, based on a number of things she says, he's clearly hella manipulative. I'm zero surprised at how forgiving she is… abusive fuckwads are good at getting forgiveness and sympathy from the people they're actively and outrageously hurting (and picking people who have deep wells of forgiveness and sympathy in the first place.) I just hope he doesn't keep hoovering her back into contact. I really wanna write her and say, "I'm so sorry for what happened, and also if (when) he contacts you complaining about how unhappy his marriage is, block and ignore."
Did anyone think that it had to be a massive troll? By the time it got to the end, and she described him in such glowing terms and what a great gal he’d bagged back home, it sounded like some guy’s fantasy of having women weep over him, because he was so valuable and that loss was such a trauma. Maybe I just don’t want to believe a person like sockpuppetry exists out there. It’s too sad.