'Me, too'

Isn’t Occam’s Razor “the simplest answer is the most likely correct one”?

 

I don't think I've done anything that would qualify as a "me, too," but I will say that re-entering the dating world for the first time in 17 years was... Interesting.

There was a little while early on that I thought of printing a T-shirt that said: "I am available for sexual congress but wish to be respectful of your desire to have a quiet night out with your friends or whatever, so if you are interested in talking please approach me and wink twice if you're not just being friendly but might actually want to engage consensually in some manner of coitus."

 

At my first paper, it seemed as if there was a party a month (always the same setup ... beers, music and bullshitting in some staffer's apartment). The second year I was there, I went to one and hung around a couple of hours (I'd gone hoping to run into this new business reporter on whom I had a life-threatening crush, but she wasn't there). I left well before the party was over, feeling a bit righteous at my relative lack of indulgence. But at work the next day, one of the other writers came in and started haranguing me about having stared at some woman for too long. "The whole night! Everybody was talking about it!" I was completely taken aback, because: A) most of the time there I was talking sports with her husband (and the father of her two children); B) I'd never been particularly attracted to her; and C) the only woman I might have been interested in staring at wasn't there!

Over the years I came to realize that my accuser, the guy -- now a "content coach" at everyone's favorite newspaper chain -- had a penchant for these gossipy narratives that had been created out of whole cloth. At the time, however, it was very unsettling. I started to think, "Damn, maybe I did stare at her ..." One day, saying a quick "Hello" to someone else (who had her back turned to me), I was horrified by it being that woman.

It was a great relief a couple of months later when I took a job at a new paper. And when that paper turned out to not have a lot of parties.

 

Why do other posters have to stick to the parameters you set and accept your premise?

 

I'd like that shirt in an extra large, please.

 

Related to my previous post: staring doesn't work and comes off super creepy and threatening, which was news to me because that was my entire game when I was young.

Quick eye contact, smile.

 

Person 1: The moon landing was not a hoax.

Person 2: You're wrong. Oswald did not act alone.

Person 1: That's not really responsive to my position.

Person 2: Why should I have to stick to the parameters you set and accept your premise?

 

Given the length of the message, I think extra large might be the only option.

 

I just realized I'm turning a "Me, too" thread into a "How to Pick Up" thread and I'm fucking mortified. Sorry, everybody.

 

You're no Freqposter, that's for sure!

 

It's not surprising that a lot of this has moved online, is it? It's hard. I worked at a very large law firm for five years. There was virtually no sexual tension there, to speak of. I think millennials, more than our generation or those before us, have really chalked the fields.

 

You are responding to an imaginary post, because that isn't what I'm talking about.