Month: October 2016

Men Who Treat Women Like Jeremy Kraft Does in Shopgirl.

October 31, 2016 — Leave a comment

There are very few women who come to “the big city” that don’t end up feeling like Mirabelle Buttersfield. As Ray Porter (Steve Martin) narrates, “She keeps working to make connections, but the pile of near misses is starting to overwhelm her. What Mirabelle needs is an omniscient voice to illuminate and spotlight her and to inform everyone that this one has value.” That omniscient voice is in no way Jeremy Kraft (Jason Schwartzman), nor does he in any way spotlight her and inform everyone that she has value.

As one of the first “promising” suitors Mirabelle meets after her stint in L.A. (which is, these days, just a satellite version of Williamsburg or vice versa), Jeremy makes his presence known to her in the laundromat after awkwardly announcing, “Hey! I mean, hello.” His insertion into her life is just as abrupt as his departure, with the opportunity to tour with a band based on his graphic design job for an amp company taking precedence over getting to know Mirabelle. But even before this slight, it is his oblivion to the inherent tenets of human decency that results in the utter debasement of Mirabelle.

Like most women, however, she is willing to give him a chance based on the desperation caused by the ratio alone, asking cautiously, “Are you the kind of person that takes time to get to know, and then once you get to know them…they’re fabulous?” Jeremy, of course, assures her that he’s just that, even though the sole reason he initially decided to talk to her was to ask for change. But since he already struck up a conversation, he figures, well, “Might as well ask her out. She’s not a total troll.”

The date Jeremy “takes” her on is every girl’s worst fears realized as he makes her pay for the entire dinner and then, when given the privilege of coming back to her apartment, doesn’t even have the gentlemanliness to carry a condom in his wallet and instead inquires, “Do you have a baggy?” When Mirabelle asks what for, he casually replies, “If you had, like, a jiffy baggy…well, I could, I could, like, use it, you know.” In short, she is regarded as a second-rate orifice akin to leftover food rather than the elegant and delicate flower that she is. Even if Ray, her equally as inadequate older suitor, made her sob uncontrollably at times, at least he was a master in the art of gallant behavior–something that’s become more submerged in obscurity than Atlantis.

Men Who Don’t Dress Up For Halloween.

October 31, 2016 — Leave a comment

It used to be you couldn’t beat off the costume wearers with a stick in this town. But this year it seems as though a remarkable sea change has occurred in that there is a visible reluctance on most “men’s” part to don a get-up of some sort that indicates he gives two shits about that wondrous holiday, Halloween (see: the “man” who simply throws on a red sweater and a name tag that says Ken, as in Bone).

Maybe this development has been a result of irony overload–that “too cool” pandemic that has rendered most everyone a robotic naysayer. Whatever the reason, ain’t no one donning on their freakiest apparel anymore. It’s all just, like everything else, too much work. And Christ knows the words “effort” and “potential embarrassment” are extremely offputting to most “men” of the North Brooklyn area and twenty-first century era. So if you manage to lock eyes with a “man” at a costume party who is wearing more than merely a beanie, jeans and a band tee, you might just be dealing with someone who has a dick.

Men Who Pay By The Minute to Work in a Coffee Shop.

October 29, 2016 — Leave a comment

Since most “men” aren’t “technically” employed these days, but merely coast on the non-judgment of being able to say they freelance while secretly living off a private reserve of cash from their generationally wealthy family, it’s only natural that many would gravitate toward the coffee shop as their office. Not only does it give them a sense of “slumming it” as an “artist,” but also delivers the illusion that they’re not as rich as they really are.

Enter the concept of pay-by-the-minute coffee shops, helmed by Glass Hour on Skillman Avenue. Rather than simply let “men” sit there and work at their leisure, on their time table, these types of establishments start out at a flat rate of six dollars for the first hour followed by ten cents for every minute thereafter. But it begs the question, if you can afford a condo or even a hovel in Williamsburg, why bother spending more to be seen paying to “work?”

Men Who Have No Concept of Real Time.

October 26, 2016 — Leave a comment

Because Cher Horowitz (Alicia Silverstone) is an authority on almost everything except driving, it makes sense that she would have no fear when the object of her ultimately gay desire, Christian (Justin Walker), “said he’d call the next day, but in boy time that meant Thursday.” This highly surreal and infuriating notion of “boy time”–like some alternate time zone in a similar vein as “Italian time” or “stoner time,” or worse: “Italian stoner time”–is a pervasive issue among the dickless.

Not only does this predisposition to not giving a fuck about other people’s time intimate just how self-involved and off the planet most “men” are, but also how little they appreciate that the more seconds and minutes pass, the older a woman looks–and she’s just trying to get the most mileage (a.k.a. the ability to be fucked) out of her youth while she still can. And so, a “man’s” devaluation of her time in this way is not only completely egregious, but utterly unacceptable. “Boy time,” accordingly, must not be tolerated on any front. Like Olivia Newton-John once said, “If you love me let me know.” ‘Cause ain’t no woman ever off the clock.

 

Men Who Can’t Be Appealed to With Nostalgia.

October 24, 2016 — Leave a comment

In the case against “men” accusing them of ever-mounting sociopathy, one of the strongest pieces of evidence is the fact that very few of them these days can be appealed to with the heartstring-pulling nature of nostalgia. You know, like when a girl can sense that she’s about to be dropped like a hot potato for no logical reason so she pulls out a box of “sentiment” she has stored and just happens to go through it in front of her current pièce.

But for most “men,” the decision to bounce is almost always final. And now, it is probably said more often than not in these times of apathy that those who are roped in by the effects of nostalgia are weak–easily taken advantage of.  One supposes “men” would explain away their callousness with the reasoning that to get attached or involved is far too dangerous–especially when there are so many other options on Tinder. In effect, Don Draper’s ad campaign for the Kodak Carousel slide projector would have never worked past the 60s, as the pitch, “Nostalgia–it’s delicate, but potent. Teddy told me that in Greek, ‘nostalgia’ literally means ‘the pain from an old wound.’ It’s a twinge in your heart far more powerful than memory alone,” does not apply to the automatons of now.

Men Who When You’re Talking To Them, It’s Like They’re Not Even There.

October 23, 2016 — Leave a comment

Possibly the number one reason “men” and women come across to one another as aliens is a result of ill communication–or, rather, “men” can’t listen for shit. You could tell them you just went on a killing spree and they would barely bat an eye. Though they might ask if you managed to incorporate any of the blood from the spree into their dinner for that evening.

Maybe it pertains to the “softness” of the female voice being so easy to drown out, or maybe that “men” naturally assume the only topics of conversation a woman has to discuss are flippant. Whatever the case, a woman could recite her life story multiple times ad nauseum and still not be heard by the “man” she’s attempting to be a raconteuse for.

In a way, it’s almost a comfort though. To be able to say whatever you want to the “man” who’s supposed to be satisfying you sexually and emotionally, but rarely does either. It’s almost like getting free therapy, since we all know your shrink is checked out every time you talk about how your family made you this way. Thus, consider talking to “men” like a savings account for mental health and confessional catharsis.

 

Men Who Destroy The Trajectory of Your Life.

October 20, 2016 — 1 Comment

Hey, so are you ever, like, sitting there making an omelette for some “man” and, like, planning your life around him as though you’re some sort of 1950s ninny and then it hits you–this “guy” don’t give a fuck about whether we stay together or not? No? Well, then you’re probably under 27 with a Tinder account.

But for those who have invested a mound of time in a single person with the distinct belief in mind that, maybe, just maybe, they’re equally as concerned with your future together as you are, you’ll probably understand feeling like you’ve just been mowed down by a Hummer when you learn that the “man” of your so-called dreams is perfectly fine with existing sans toi.

In keeping with adhering to the worst cliche about themselves, “men” have a unique talent for consistently proving just how disposable they think you are. And, as a result, you will be left with your own, much larger dick in the wind by trying to accommodate their whims and desires instead of your own. So don’t let the trajectory of your life get ruined by kowtowing to a “man” who gives you some yarn about wanting to “maybe” pursue a shared life together. ‘Cause before you know it, you’re day old bread and he’s making up a new version of what happened between y’all to make himself feel better about wasting the prime of your youth.

Men Who Don’t Fathom That Slighting A Woman Will Spur a Mental Breakdown.

October 18, 2016 — 1 Comment

“Men” have many advantages over a woman. Not only do they possess the emotions of a cold, dead fish, but they can also, as a result, quickly move on from things without giving it a second thought–even wondering how and why the girl he disrespected could still be ruminating over his actions months later. Unfortunately, this makes it a cinch for them to overlook that slighting a woman is tantamount to stamping the form for her mental institution admittance.

And so, for those “men” not in the know, maybe it’s best to break it down this way: the fragility of a woman’s psyche can perhaps best be elucidated by Aileen Wuornos, who shot seven of the Floridian “men” that tried to slight her while she was simply attempting to do her job as a prostitute without them treating her like a pièce de merde. Are women “weak” for being so “sensitive” to the whims of a “man” and his inevitable need to bounce for reasons that only seem apparent to him? Missing A Dick don’t think so. It’s merely indicative that evolution has, somewhat cruelly, seen fit to keep the female heart from hardening.

Men Who Still Seek The Manic Pixie Dream Girl.

October 16, 2016 — 2 Comments

When the manic pixie dream girl was branded out of, of all things Kirsten Dunst as Claire Colburn in Elizabethtown, back in 2007, it was as though a collective ejaculation happened among “men” because they were finally able to pinpoint what it was they had been seeking ever since 2001 when Margot Tenenbaum burst onto the scene.

That “it” quality that embodies both quirk and attractiveness was just the one-two punch to convince “men” that the search for this type of girl was fruitful, that her ilk truly exists. And sure, once the term was coined by Nathan Rabin, many a woman worked diligently to embody the archetype via a certain Shannyn Sossaman look, but their day jobs and latent desire for stability would always quickly reveal they were no “force of nature”–no Sandra Bullock in Forces of Nature, if you will. And that’s a real turnoff to a “man,” who just wants a woman who will open his mind (with her open heart and pussy) and be more reckless than him so he can live vicariously through it.

And yet, like a “man” actually willing to stick around and not be a generally huge flake the size of one of the flecks that come off of Ally Sheedy’s head in The Breakfast Club, the manic pixie dream girl is a myth, ergo the “man” who still seeks her has just one more fake excuse not to “settle down.”

Men Who Live Up to the Worst Cliche About Themselves.

October 12, 2016 — 2 Comments

Sometimes, I truly do yearn to be a “man,” if for no other reason than to live my life in service of defying the most notorious cliche about the gender: that they will always leave. Whether it’s a father abandoning his child for another woman or, maybe even worse, for careerist reasons, or a boyfriend/husband who simply gets bored with the lack of novelty a woman’s body and/or personality has to offer, the “man,” without fail, consistently flees the scene.

He might do it in a somewhat “courteous” manner by actually informing the woman in his life, however, more than likely, it will be a Houdini-inspired disappearance. One minute, he’s there, and the next, gone. Some like to chalk it up to the “biology” argument, using the cave “man” mentality still engraved in the DNA of the modern “man” to insist that this is what propels them toward a nomadic, “hunter-gatherer” existence.

In truth, the only excuse for leaving is weakness. Monogamy is a battlefield that picks “men” off like flies.