Double Standards

Originally Posted by Crash Landon

The double standard that annoyed me for the longest time is the "asking-out" ritual. Under most circumstances, the male is expected to ask the female for a date. We're supposed to step it up and make the first move because women are vain creatures who need to feel desired.

This would be fine, if not for the fact that so many women play it coy and do their damnedest to appear wholly disinterested. It's aggravating to know that we men are expected to be mindreaders and that the reason you came back for an extra packet of sugar is because you want to be asked out. How the fuck are we supposed to know this? To us, it looks like your coffee wasn't sweet enough.

I absolutely hate learning that a girl was interested me, well after the fact that she's given up and moved on. I may not be the best at flirting, but I'm capable of picking up basic clues. Help us out, ladies. Don't sit there all shy, playing impossible-to-get, then bitch and whine when we don't notice you.

If a man likes a woman, he's expected to say something, right? Well if a woman likes a man, she should get off her fucking ego-trip and speak up. It'll cut through a lot of ridiculous gesturing and the two of them can actually be happy together. *GASP*

Man Crash, I know exactly how you feel. I've seen cases where the girl throws glances at me, and seems interested, but when I start talking to her, she acts as if I'm some sort of pervert or something and tries to avoid talking to me. But then she still does those glances. As a result of this happening numerous times, I'm very "skeptical" when I see girls do this to me (maybe I just look weird to them or something, and they just have to stare in my general direction. I thought maybe they were looking at another guy, but usually I sit in a corner, so that if anyone does look this way, the only thing they're going to see is me). They also never "make the first move" either, so that certainly doesn't help.

I once tried picking this girl up, who seemed to be complaining that men never do this or that (despite me trying to do this and that for her, like "talk about feelings"). After about two months or so of hanging out, I tried asking her out. She waits about two weeks before giving me an answer, which essentially amounted to "no".

The next semester, I see her and one of my other friends hanging out. Since I'm on good terms with both of them, the guy tells me he's dating that girl I tried to go out with earlier, and that they've been going out for about a week now. They both seem pretty happy at first.

Come about a month and a half later, I ask both of them if they're still going out (cause I didn't see them together anymore). Both of them say they broke it off, but the girl's "reasons" seemed more "interesting" to me. She said that he drinks a lot (something I never do), and a lot of times when she saw him, he was drunk or at least had a buzz. He also had some crude behavior and acted like a jerk sometimes (again, something I don't do often, at least intentionally).

What pissed me off mostly was that I spent a few months trying to be a friend to her (she told me she didn't have a boyfriend too), so that when we did go out, she could see for herself that I can be quite a gentleman, and someone she could be happy with. After all that wasted time, she still isn't interested in me, yet it only takes that other guy like maybe 2 weeks or so for her to go out with him right away, and only to find out that he was a jerk (at least when it comes to dating. I still hang out with him cause we have a lot of interests and when he's not drunk, he's quite cool to hang out with).

Ugh, I hate having to deal with the opposite sex sometimes. They claim that "no man treats them right", but then they also usually refuse to go out with guys who might treat them right, but don't look like Fabio or something. Instead, they seem to go after good looking jerks who will treat them like crap, but because they look good, more women will keep going to them.

On a similar rant, I've noticed that women with kids seem interested in me. I must look like a good father figure or something. What upsets me is that I've seen women who wouldn't give me a second thought while they're childless, but the moment they get knocked up (and the guy subsequently leaves her), suddenly they seem to want to go out with me (I've even encountered a situation where one of the girl's friends asked me for my phone number for her, about the only time I was asked out by the girl, even if indirectly).

My rant is, "Why aren't I good enough for you before you have a child?" Because I'm afraid that if I do go out with them, and suddenly the baby's father wants to get back together, then I'm in a kind of a rough spot. It has happened before too, on several occasions, so as a rule now, I don't date women who have kids, even if they're really good looking. But I hate it when they give me the wrong impression, so that makes it even harder for me to want to ask a girl out (and I'm kind of the shy type too).

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by agreatguy6

Well, once it was custom that after conquering a country, the citizens were yours, do what you want.

So... When the tribe leaders of Africa realized that the Euros felt the same way, they said, why don't we get rid of our enemies permanently!? so they sold people into slavery.

And of course, they were shipped to BOSTON (make note of that) but they couldn't survive the severe cold.
Then they were shipped to the south.

Eventually they got used to it and then the North said, HEY!!! You can't do that to another human! even though it was a practice they started in the first place.

Historically speaking, yes, conquered peoples were yours to do with as you pleased. However, just about all of them, except American slavery, let you be a freed person after x number of years of being a "slave". Even in the Roman Empire one could strive to be a freeman after being a slave for a while (even if it was a long time).

With American slavery however, blacks for the most part were slaves all their lives, and any children they had would be slaves as well. It was hereditary. They also prevented blacks from having formal marriages, so that it would be easier for the slave owners to tear families apart if they needed to (for example, to sell the children to another person). Slaves were treated like "property", no different from a horse or plow.

Yes, sadly African tribes did capture their enemies and sold them off to Europeans, who would then ship them to the New World (not just the US), to work on plantations and grow stuff to be sent to Europe to sell.

There were many issues concerning the lead up to the American Civil War. It was originally fought to preserve the Union (cause the Confederate States didn't want the North messing with their rights, hence why they seceded). But as the war began to drag on, Abraham Lincoln put a new twist on it, "To free the slaves". Even his Emancipation Proclaimation only freed slaves in the southern states, any slaves in the northern states weren't affected (probably cause if all slaves = free, those union states might've went Confederate as well).

And yeah, it gets worse after the war and during Reconstruction. Apparently, Northerners are opposed to slavery, but a lot of them were just as racist as the South was. Sure, they didn't want slavery, but they sure as heck didn't want blacks living in the North either. It would take the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960's for blacks (and other non-whites for that matter) to finally start getting some equality put into the law and have it enforced.

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On a slightly OT, but related issue, I think the problem with stuff like this is that a lot of US history books in high school and below tend to omit a lot of stuff that happened, and just show everything as a one sided affair, with everything working out A-OK (and boy was I mad when I found out all this stuff in my college history courses, which I don't ever recall hearing in my high school history classes). As a result, many US citizens are pretty ignorant of what's "really" happened in the past (or they don't get a clear picture), and then wonder why stuff like 9/11 and Saddam Hussein happened (we actually supported Bin Laden during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, and we supported Saddam cause he was anti-communist and fighting Iran, who we didn't like after the Shah got overthrown. Of course, once communism lost, Saddam was no longer needed, so all the bad stuff he did was bad for the world).

Another interesting fact that's left out of US high school history books is that the US (well specifically Woodrow Wilson) sent troops into many countries, including Russia, to help fight against the Reds (communists). When it was apparent the Whites (non-communist Russians) were going to lose, he pulled them out, and pretty much got rid of any mention of it in the US. However, Soviet history textbooks all point out that the US had troops here at one time in the 1920's.

Ho Chi Minh also wanted Wilson to go to Vietnam and help them establish a self-determined state, just like he said during his 14 points address. But because Vietnam was under control of the French, and Wilson was pretty racist (he got rid of a lot of blacks who were working in the government), he basically ignored Ho Chi Minh, who then promptly went to communists (and this would help set the backdrop for the Vietnam War later on). But once again, many history books omit this information, cause it's not "nice to hear".

Sorry for going slightly OT, but I think that history shouldn't really be whitewashed, because a lot of interesting things happened in the past, and while "hero-ification" of historic figures is nice, we should also show the struggles they faced so that they'll seem more human, not like something you read in badly written fiction. The Woodrow Wilson you'll probably read about is the one that presented the 14 points, and tried to set up the League of Nations (which the US never joined ironically enough), and basically the guy that helped win WW1. But you'll never hear of how he shunned Ho Chi Minh (and other non-white delegates at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919), or all the invasions of other countries (I forget which ones, but I recall Panama, Russia, and invaded Mexico like 6 times), which would make him seem less of a hero, but at least would make him human and more understandable as a result (cause nobody's perfect).

However, I'm not just accusing the US of this, because just about every other country tends to hide their imperfect actions as well, or they tend to downplay it, such as the Japanese record of WW2, which I'm sure you remember infuriated the Chinese and Koreans. Or many of the things that the Soviet Union did as well, like the fact that more people died under Stalin than Hitler. Yet history tends to paint Hitler as the ultimate evil man, cause of his views on the world. But only by studying why things happened the way they did in the past (such as Germany's loss in WW1, and the brutal reparations the Allies forced on them), can you understand why Hitler would do what he did (such as blaming the Jews for the loss of WW1, and that they're the reason why things are so bad, so therefore they should be killed. He felt similarly about communists and the Russians as well).

I'm not saying that it'll give you a good feeling to learn all this stuff, just that it'll help you understand history better, and why things today are the way they are as a result of what happened in the past (the crisis in the Middle East also comes back to WW1 and WW2 as well, such as putting the Jews back in what's now known as Israel, pissing off the Muslims living around that area).

There's nowhere I can't reach.