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ectonurites · 4 years ago

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Conner Kent in Suicide Squad/the Infinite Frontier era: wtf is going on

Alright lads hello I just need to type out some theories/thoughts about what’s going on with my boy Kon right now. This is more for myself than anything else (just trying to organize my thoughts) but since some of y’all like to hear me talk about comics (and some of this discussion has already been happenin in my inbox) I figured i’d format it and put it on here too! its like 4k words and written over the last few days mostly at 3am. sorry <3

this is basically just me going like

Also fair warning that like, I can be wrong and misinterpret things just as much as anyone else can, like I use panels to support why I think what I do but a lot of this stuff is subjective/complicated to understand so like... in general somethings should be taken with a grain of salt, especially because exactly what changes to the universe were made by Death Metal/Infinite Frontier haven’t been super super clearly defined yet. Also sometimes comic writers make the most random nonsensical shit happen, so I as a fan am also allowed to theorize about random nonsensical shit.

But to start: let’s backtrack!

Many months ago when Infinite Frontier was first announced they dropped some promotional art, and I remember being a little confused because. Well:

(Variant Cover spread for Justice League (2018) #59)

(Variant Cover spread for Superman (2018) #29)

Notice how Conner is back to his Teen Titans 2003 look up top, but in his YJ 2019 look at the bottom? This seemed weird to me! But then they announced that Conner would be part of the Suicide Squad ongoing title, in the T-shirt look, so I wrote this discrepancy off in my brain as ‘oh I guess that cover was just the last hurrah for punk Kon’ and moved on with life.

In Suicide Squad right away we learn he’s very much so there against his will:

(Suicide Squad (2021) #1)

Which corroborates more or less what we were also shown in Future State: Suicide Squad, although admittedly it tells... a slightly different version of the events. When I first saw both of these together I just chalked it up to being a bit inaccurate as it’s shown as a memory in Future State:

(Future State: Suicide Squad #2)

Issue 2 we saw him in action with the Squad, trying to do his best to still be a hero despite the team, but things get a little more interesting in the following issue. It starts off with an account of his history

(Suicide Squad (2021) #3)

This page gave me a few immediate red flags, mostly minor things that had to do with coloring, so more irl problems than things to take seriously in-universe (Kon’s pants are the wrong color in the first Superboy shot, and Bart’s Impulse costume is in Kid Flash colors instead of the correct Impulse ones) but then also it just bugged me the phrasing “he joined Young Justice” when he was a founder of the team, he didn’t join it he made it with Tim and Bart.

But again, chalked that stuff up to just.... writers/artists being inconsistent/unaware of things that they should be aware of, or even Nocturna just not being specific with details. But it did still strike me as a little odd considering the very accurate use of villains in those same shots, Scavenger who was a reoccurring bad guy from Kon’s solo days and showed up basically nowhere else (even holding the Spear of Lono and everything!) and Billy/Harm (Greta’s brother) from Young Justice.

But then a few pages later we got this:

(Suicide Squad (2021) #3)

Which is interesting. My first instinct was to think he’s being drugged w kryptonite or something thats leaving him hazy/out of it, but my thoughts on that have kinda changed, we’ll get there in a bit. But in general the context of ‘something’s wrong’ made the slight discrepancies on some details of his own history make more sense.

I also want to then bring up the next part to this story, the crossover issue in Teen Titans Academy.

(Teen Titans Academy #3)

So a few things. Does it feel weird to anyone else that Conner Kent, a known previous Titan who literally has a framed picture of himself in a case there, would set off alarm sensors like that? Wouldn’t he be... recognized as a Titan not an intruder by their sensors? Interesting! Anyways.

He looks really pained looking at that picture, and sad, and almost frustrated, which ya know makes sense and hurts my heart because he misses them! He misses his friends and being happy.

But, importantly for a criticism I wanna make thats less theory related and more just me bein annoyed at Tim Sheridan, that’s a picture of Conner. Right there. That’s Superboy, on display at Teen Titans Academy, so the people who frequent this building would know who he is and what he looks like and be able to recognize him, he’s even in the same outfit and everything. Alinta recognized him at the end of Suicide Squad #3.

So why does only one person during this big fight then comment on his presence?? Why doesn’t it get a bigger reaction???

(Teen Titans Academy #3)

And after the fight we don’t see any on panel moment of Wallace going up to the staff Titans (who weren’t present for the fight) and saying like “HEY NIGHTWING UHHH SUPERBOY WAS WITH THE SUICIDE SQUAD?” we just see him talking with his friends upset about Crush leaving. We see Alinta talking to them but we don’t see the exact dialogue. So I do just wanna take the writer by the shoulders and shake him a little bit and ask WHY because that just feels like... something you’d wanna address on panel! This is like the first time since joining the squad that Kon’s at all in contact with people from his life before Waller got involved, I feel like not addressing those people’s reactions to it/not discussing it at least a little bit on panel (especially when Conner CAME UP in the previous TTA issue, Dick brought him up and everything!!!) is a really odd choice. Maybe it’ll happen next issue and i’m just impatient, but who knows. Anyways, gripes with Sheridan aside, lets move on.

I wanna bring up how Conner... doesn’t really respond to Wallace’s question? At all? Except to just fight him off, not even an attempt at a ‘Sorry’ or anything? (the ‘Ha! That all you got?!’ seems to be coming from Culebra not Conner, although the placement of the bubble is vague enough it could be that it was supposed to be Conner? but it seems more like what she’d say, especially as she’s grabbing Emiko like that) That just feels weird. It feels off. In general he speaks so little in Suicide Squad #3 and this issue. Tbh it almost feels like he doesn’t really recognize Wallace which I mean I suppose they never exactly met (they would have theoretically during Death Metal, basically all past/present Titans were together for a while during that), but Kon’s been back in existing long enough he’d have a sense of who current heroes are anyways.

But right, so, lots of little things that feel weird... that gets us caught up to the most recently released comics... but in this household we look at solicits as they drop. Which gives us some info on what’s coming up a few months ahead of time, albeit without full context obviously. Issues #4 and #5 don’t mention Conner in their descriptions or show him on the covers at all, because there’s just other plot things going on, so ya know seems things will be quiet for him for a bit.

But then we got the August solicitations and oh BOY it’s a doozey for him! And some things start to kinda connect perhaps!

I want to just take a moment to look at that specific wording. “The teen calling himself Conner Kent” I’m probably reading too much into it but that feels deliberate, like why wouldn’t you just say ‘Conner Kent’? Usually these kinds of descriptions are trying to keep a low word count, not add in extra words that don’t need to be there. It makes it feel like that’s a name he’s using that... doesn’t actually belong to him.

So the theory I want to propose (that has been floating around already) is that based on these covers and the description, and how the Conner we’ve been seeing in Suicide Squad apparently talks about his own personal history like he’s ‘reading a wikipedia entry’ and had little response to people he should be aware of like Wallace and apparently isn’t recognized as a Titan through a bio-scan and also bearing in mind those initial promo arts with two separate looks at the same time for him... I think we're looking at a situation where the Conner in Suicide Squad so far has actually been a clone of original Conner (like... like he’s Match 2.0 or somethin) the whole time, that’s just not aware he’s not the original.

Now that’s the base theory I wanna work with and build off of, but there’s MANY different directions that could go in/ways that could work.

For example, one idea is that the Conner we saw in #1 who was chained up is the original Conner, and he’s been being cloned and held captive, so everything else with Conner in Suicide Squad so far has been this Match 2.0

Another idea could be the original Conner in #1 is also the Conner in #2 who Waller had then commented wasn’t ready during the mission in Arkham and had zapped with a lil Kryptonite, and after that moment she took him off the field because his spirit hadn’t been broken enough to be obedient (as he was a lot quieter in Issue #3 & the TTA crossover compared to #2, and #3 is when the Nocturna thing with the history happened)

Or it could even be original Conner in #1, then in #2 was one clone that wasn’t ‘ready’ that after that point she stopped using him, and switched to a diff clone for #3, because like that first cover did show a LOT of clones. That could be more just ‘artistic interpretation’ or something, covers sometimes do exaggerate/mislead, but it also could indicate we’re looking at a lot of clones.

(Suicide Squad (2021) #2)

With all of those in mind I also wanna bring up this little bit from Future State Suicide Squad:

(Future State: Suicide Squad #2)

Again Future State is a ‘possible future’ so stuff from it isn’t set in stone, but the idea of ‘she still has his YJ 2019 outfit somewhere’ makes me think it could be something along the lines of like, Clone!Conner finds original Conner and frees him and he gets back his YJ outfit, which could lead to like the imagery on that variant cover/the idea from my very first part of this post where I was talking about Kon being shown in both outfits in different places.

Alternatively entirely from all that, another option is that she maybe got ahold of what was needed to clone Kon, but doesn’t even have the original Kon in her possession. (again with the Future State thing, she could be lying since elsewhere in Future State we did also see a copy of YJ 2019 Kon’s costume in one of the Jon-focused Future State comics in a display case 🤷‍♂️) Which could also lead to that confrontation on the variant cover & the promo art thing... and could also explain why we have seen nothing about anyone looking for him, because in that sort of scenario he wouldn’t have even been missing in the first place.

There’s a lot of possibilities! It’s still too early to solidly know anything, but I feel pretty confident we’re entering another cloning related plot with our Clone Boy so it’s... ya know. Clone time. On the one hand it’s annoying because god we have done clone/multiple Kons plots before. We’ve done them so much.

BUT on the other hand, I think it could be interesting to use this situation to tie into some older stuff from pre-reboot that I can see some connections to, because due to Infinite Frontier altering the world and people’s memories it’s all technically fair game storytelling-wise again (and like, the use of Scavenger specifically in that flashback way above, who’s not a super well known villain in general, makes me think maaaaybe the writer did do some of their Kon homework)

Something also just dawned on me that i’m not quite sure what it means but still is worth mentioning: The Conner here in Suicide Squad is back in his Teen Titans Vol. 3 outfit, and his history as he tells it stops during Teen Titans Vol. 3. And doesn’t... mention when he died? It feels like it... stopped before that, because like I feel if he was telling his life history (even the wiki version LMAO) the part where he died and came back would be pretty important to bring up?? And Nocturna specifically says that he didn’t explain how that stuff from TT Vol. 3 then led to him in his current situation. That’s a pretty big gap (like uhhh everything from resurrection until he got lost on Gemworld + all the rest of the Young Justice 2019 stuff?) So like.. there could be something funky going on here that has to do with that.

Similarly when he flashes back in Future State: Suicide Squad to his past it also goes right from Teen Titans Vol. 3 to the current Suicide Squad run? Like I get it’s one page so they can’t show that much, but the fact that there’s now two places that flash back to that same specific time period and nothing past it until the Suicide Squad feels just... noticeable! Not concretely indicative of something, but noteworthy.

(Future State: Suicide Squad #2)

Like...this almost has me thinking maybe it could be something where like, they tampered with his dead body and cloned from that? BECAUSE, for those of you who may not be familiar with how Kon’s resurrection (during Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds) worked, when he came back there was time travel involved! He was brought back to life in the future (like. Legion of Superheroes era) because it was a process that took that thousand or so years to work/heal him (essentially because of his hybrid dna the process that healed Clark when he had died back in Death of Superman/Reign of the Supermen in the 90s just took a lot longer, but its the same Kryptonian healing chamber thing) meaning when he came back to the present alive again, his dead body was still also in the present just in it’s process of healing. Meaning especially if we’re bringing back stuff from before the reboot, Kon likely has his dead body just vibing out there while he’s goin around living life 🤷‍♂️

SO them doing something related to that could explain the choice to put him back in the T-shirt (since thats what he wore in the era his brain would be caught up to if we’re relating this to when he died) and why he’d recognize himself in a group photo with Bart, Cassie and Tim but maybe not someone like Wallace who didn’t exist back then. I don’t know, this branch of thought is still half baked. Will maybe come back and elaborate on this later. But I’m now really thinking there might be a connection to the early Teen Titans Vol. 3 era specifically because of it being referenced twice in stuff with this Suicide Squad.

ANYWAYS moving on, this is probably a shot in the dark and I only thought of it because I just was reading 90′s Superboy, but right away when thinking about ‘Amanda Waller’ and ‘Cloning Kon’ I was reminded of some stuff about the circumstances around the first clone that was made of Conner: Match.

(Superboy (1994) #35)

Match was created by an organization called ‘The Agenda’, that was after a while primarily under the control of The Contessa, Lex Luthor’s ex-wife, aided by Amanda Spence who had a personal grudge against Kon bc her dad was Paul Westfield the guy Kon was originally cloned from (before the Lex/Clark retcon). They were the big bad guys of an arc called The Evil Factory in Superboy (where Cadmus personnel got replaced with clones) which also then tied into the Sins of Youth event over in Young Justice (Remember how Match was posing as Superboy for a while there? yeah). After those plot lines finished the Agenda was pretty defeated (Amanda Spence was still out there and came back later but still) and... who got their hands on the remaining Agenda tech?

(Superboy (1994) #87)

Why none other than Amanda Waller herself!

If they re-canonized pieces of this (which also tied into Young Justice which ya know, YJ 2019 was all about re-establishing stuff from YJ even before Death Metal happened soooo) it would totally make sense for Waller to have complete access to the exact technology used to clone Conner before.

Now, a thing to consider here though is what happened to Kon after he’d been cloned that first time, where his DNA got all destabilized by the process (and he needed to go through a procedure with Roxy as a genetic template to keep him together, which was how he got stuck at age 16 for a while). This was something where he was fine for a period of time before the side effects began to kick in. Now, I think it’s worth mentioning that was also back in the days where he was not yet Lex & Clark’s clone, but still Paul Westfield’s. So there could easily be a ‘now that certain Kryptonian genes have kicked in as he got his newer powers it doesn’t destabilize him the same way’ reasoning or something along those lines to avoid this problem. Alternatively, it could be an interesting thing to embrace rather than retcon away, especially if we’ve been seeing Clone Conner in action and Original Conner hasn’t been in our focus, things could be wrong with him that we just don’t know about.

Another branch of thinking that I think is even MORE a shot in the dark but could be interesting (or again even related to what I just said, could be a combo of things) is if this somehow ended up related to those clones that were reverse engineered from the remains of Match from the very end of Teen Titans Vol. 3

(Teen Titans (2003) #99)

All of them were then taken down with Kryptonite and killed in battle (by Rose & Damian)

(Teen Titans (2003) #100)

But like... idk man if Waller got her hands on those corpses or even just the data from Dr. Caligan that he extracted from Match to make them... that could also be a potential way to make some new Conner clones, and that could be why the bio-scan thing at Titans Tower wouldn’t work properly because of the thing he says above about it not being a “complete match’

One thing I don’t think is the case, but has been brought up to me, is stuff with New 52 Kon. I’ve talked extensively about New 52 Kon in recent weeks because I read through all his stuff, but the thing that makes me shy away from him being part of this situation is the fact that... he’s not interchangeable with Kon the way I think some people think he is. He wouldn’t visually be recognized as Original Kon because he is literally on a genetic level a separate person. They’d prob look related, sure, like they’d pass for brothers because they both have Clark’s DNA, but New 52 Kon has Lois’ DNA and Original Kon has Lex’s. New 52 Kon would likely look more like Jon, rather than Kon. Lois specifically commented in an Action Comics issue that Kon had some resemblance to Lex, even. So like, things like Wallace recognizing him or him looking at his own matching reflection alongside the group picture at the Tower... those wouldn’t happen the same way if this was New 52 Kon.

Now I think it coooould theoretically be possible for Waller to have gotten her hands on that future N.O.W.H.E.R.E. cloning tech that had been used to make New 52 Kon, like I wouldn’t rule that out. Because she knows where the remains of their bases are as shown in Red Hood and the Outlaws (2016) #16-17, and like, Harvest is dead so she could easily just send teams out there to gather shit if she wanted.

Onto some other things I don’t think are actually related but that I was reminded of/wanted to address:

I feel i’d be a bad timkon fan if during all of this discussion of past stories with cloning Kon I didn’t even bring up Tim’s cloning attempt stuff, but I think it would ultimately be unrelated. His tech was stolen from Luthor, and his attempts didn’t succeed because he was trying to build from scratch without Cadmus’ the data about how they altered the DNA from the original process.

(Teen Titans Vol. 3 #34)

Then that initial cover for the annual really reminded me of part of the Hollow Men story from Superboy Vol. 5 just with like... Kon in a room full of copies of himself. I don’t think this story would be related either because it was more magic Tannarak stuff rather than regular cloning, but ya know. It’s the imagery.

(Superboy Vol. 5 #9)

It also really reminded me of the stuff from Hyper-Tension which was hypertime stuff not cloning but again just... visually.

(Superboy Vol. 4 #62)

In general I don’t think we’re EVER gonna see Black Zero or any of these multiverse Superboys again LMAO.

To try to sum up all of this in a way that might make sense here’s kinda a... flowchart of some of my main ideas for what the cloning situation could be/how the logic could work. Again this is borrowing stuff from across continuities because Infinite Frontier means theoretically anything’s fair game. (Also I don’t think I mentioned this earlier but I do mention it in the chart, but I think it’s also reasonable that Waller could get her hands on Cadmus tech if Cadmus is like properly made canon again. She just has funky government connections!)

Also I just now thought of this now several hours after I already made the chart and I don’t wanna remake it so sorry not incorporating it there but I remembered there was also that bit during House of Kent where Clark took Kon to the Hall of Justice and they were running some tests on him, so I’m thinking it’s also possible Waller got ahold of that data/that might be how she found out about Kon in the first place for this timeline. And they indicated that there was something wrong with him there, where he might eventually lose his powers or something, so maybe she tried to do cloning stuff to be able to have a copy of Superboy in his prime or something??? before that started kicking in. I don’t know, just more things to consider:

(Action Comics (2016) #1028)

ANYWAYS in conclusion: there is clone fuckery of some sort happening, I’m curious where it’s gonna go, and I just want Kon to be okay.

If you actually read this uhm. props to you bc this probably makes no sense to anyone but me its just word vomit <3

#this is very long! and disorganized! i am sorry #this doesn't have one theory abt things it has like. many #its basically just brainstorming/spitballing ideas #i could also be entirely off base! with much of this! i just feel i need that disclaimer #grandpa max is god? i go to church now #i need a kon talk tag bc i swear i write more analysis stuff like this for him than anyone else

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queen-erika-the-songful · 4 years ago

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Okay, here are my initial thoughts on Princess Adventure. These are in no way organized; they’re just as I can remember them. Feel free to send asks if you want

- Barbie defending Chelsea’s creativity and imagination is great to see. It’s one of the best parts of Dreamhouse Adventures so it’s nice to see them continue that in this film

- I like “Try It On” a lot more now. It’s not my favorite, and I think it’s one of the weaker songs in comparison to the rest of the soundtrack, but it’s honestly kind of a bop.

- “It’s like they don’t even want me in this movie!” LOL even Tammy herself knows she’s been done an absolute injustice.

- Holy crap Amelia’s plan is so freaking funny to me. She could’ve just, like...invited Barbie over to her kingdom since she’s the princess and was already a fan of Barbie’s vlogs anyway. But nah, she’s gotta have this whole convoluted “cultural exchange” bullshit I just can’t

- Speaking of Amelia, it’s a little disappointing that we don’t spend nearly as much time with her as we do with Barbie, and, thus, we don’t get to see who the supposed “real” her really is. She says she finally got to explore things about herself, like her fears and dreams, but she never goes into details. Ironically, the audience never gets to see who the true Amelia is, we just have to go off what she said about “who [she] is does matter”. I mean, we certainly get glimpses of it (again, the convoluted plan - she’s obviously ‘act first think later’), but overall it’s not nearly enough, at least to me

- “(Not A) Picture Perfect Girl” might just be my favorite song from this movie. It honestly made me tear up a bit. We’ll see if that changes over my next rewatches

- The running gag with Trey mixing up Barbie and Amelia while Ted and Ned knew was a lot funnier than I expected it to be

- Trey is now trans and you can’t change my mind.

- I really appreciate “Somewhere New” a lot more now since seeing it in the movie. I love that the choreography starts on the plane. It was a cool choice that really felt like a “musical” thing to do. I also like that everyone got to sing at leaset a line or two on their own.

- WTF happened between Floravia and Johanistan? Did they have a war or something? Why are they being united into just a bigger Floravia? It sounds pretty fishy. I can understand why Johan is so upset based on what little information is given to us, so I wish they had gone into it a bit more.

- Johan asked “Amelia” (Barbie in disguise) if she remembered what they said they would do as rulers when they were kids. That never comes back and it really bothered me. What was the promise? That they’d rule together? That they’d treat each other’s kingdom equally? I actually thought at the coronation that Amelia would give the answer to that question (something like “Johan, remember what we told each other...”) and then do something like absolve the treaty so that she and Johan would rule their own respective kingdoms. l

- IDK, I think I would’ve just liked it more if Johan had been like Amelia’s brother/cousin/whatever that wanted to become King. He’d be a more boring villain that way but it would be less complicated than this.

- WE GOT REPRISES OF 2 SONGS BUT THEY AREN’T ON THE SOUNDTRACK?! I will NOT stand for that. As soon as the movie comes out on DVD I’m ripping those tracks out and adding them to my playlist

- I really thought Ken and Barbie were finally going to get together. I shall now accept my clown shoes and wig. I’m already applying the makeup now.

- The sequence for “Life in Color” disappointed me a bit. It’s one of my favorite songs on the soundtrack, but the placement in the movie felt like it came out of nowhere. I was really hoping for a nice, tender moment between Barbie and Amelia. Even if they were kept separated, it could’ve started with them video-chatting again. Maybe they’d talk about their personal struggles and then Barbie would stop the recording (”We don’t have to film this...”) and they’d just have a moment between themselves to talk.

- On the other hand, “King of the Kingdom” was such a good scene. It was very entertaining and I laughed a lot (which I had to hold back a lot since I was still at work). Also, those boys can move!!

- To make up for all of the interruptions and missed opportunities, Ken Carson deserves at least 3 episodes centered on him and his life and 1 where he finally tells Barbie how he feels

- TAFFY HAD NO REASON TO BE IN THIS MOVIE. I don’t care that Barbie almost always needs an animal sidekick. Snowy (Amelia’s bunny) fills that role. Taffy just gave everyone a freaking heart attack. Also, how the heck did she survive the plane ride? California to Floravia is a 10-hour flight so how did she stay unnoticed for so long?? ROBERTS FAMILY, GET SOME DAMN LEASHES!

- Speaking of that scene, I hate it. It ate up valuable time that could’ve been later spent developing the plot or Amelia’s character. It was only like 2 minutes but in a movie that is already pretty short (1hr11min) every second counts

- Can DA please finally drop the whole “Hey look Renee is claustrophobic” already? It’s repetitive as all hell and honestly it rubs me the wrong way how often it’s played for laughs. It works in the DA Halloween episode since it’s all about everyone facing their fears but everywhere else it feels like a cheap & undeserved laugh (it only happens twice in the movie I think but I wanted to mention it anyway)

- Morningstar being a little bitch to Barbie was hilarious. I don’t really like animal toys anymore but I’d totally buy her. (She’s part of a doll-horse set called Prance & Shimmer Horse. The Barbie doll has Amelia’s princess dress).

- “This is My Moment” really warmed my heart. The last shot with Amelia and Barbie smiling at each other reminded me a lot of Princess & the Popstar actually. I also really like how they brought back stuff from “Try It On” for Barbie’s verse. Musical finale numbers that bring back earlier motifs is something I just cannot get enough of.

- I liked Alfonso. Like Amelia said, he means well; he just didn’t put as much thought into what Ameila herself wants as he could have. But hey, he was learning just as much as they were

- I LOVED all of the stuff with Barbie trying to make it big and that bitch Rose Ross being all “This is what you have to do to make it sweetie :)” like that’s a great thing to show to kids. You can want to be famous and expand your content like Barbie wanted to, but you have to be smart about it, and you have to stay true to yourself. That plotline also mixed pretty well with Amelia’s life being formulated for the public too. I really did like all of that stuff about how media, social media especially, is constantly fabricated and edited to make things seem easier/better than they might be in real life.

- THEY FINALLY WENT BACK TO INDIVIDUAL END MORALS THANK GOD. I got really tired of seeing “This is our story, what’s yours?” after every Barbie movie, especially when every movie that used it wasn’t going for that message. Hell, that’s not even a lesson or anything, that’s just a random end quote.

- “Life doesn’t happen on camera. Life is what happens when the cameras are off” THAT IS SO GOOD AND RELEVANT I CAN’T EVEN!!!

#barbie spoilers #barbie movies #barbie: princess adventure #long post

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tumblunni · 8 years ago

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Okay, kinda TMI talk here about period problems and Bunni Being Worried And Dysphoric, blablabla I’m just having a huge stupid panic moment right now cos I read some internet medical articles and LIKE USUAL I’m being all ‘oh god i probably have the worst case scenario disease on the list, I’m gonna fuckin die’ even though I literally have never been right about that even ONCE when I’ve done it. Still, it sucks having a stupid anxiety disorder cos you can just feel your body throwing you into panic attack mode even as you are rationally saying to yourself that this worrying thing has a 0% chance of happening. Its impossible to just choose to not be afraid of something... *sigh*... SO YEAH ANYWAY UMM Don’t want to worry anyone, I’m totally gonna be fine and I’m just being irrational mess about something that’s probably gonna be a super easy solution once I see the doctor. I’ll just book an appointment tomorrow or later this week, no biggie. And I’ll write all this stuff down so I can avoid freaking out and crying over how embarassing Vagina Health is when you’re trying to ask your cis male doctor about it and you’re a trans person who just wants to stab themself whenever they think about this goddamn Wrong Organ. like seriously, the biggest comfort I am using right now to come down from this panic attack is ‘hey, if it IS a big horrible cancer tumour, then at least it means they cant stop me from getting a hysterectomy now!’ :P so umm anyway that was probably too TMI already but I’ll put the more TMI stuff under the cut

OKAY! SO! I’ve suffered from REALLY HORRIBLY BAD periods for like.. ever They usually had an issue of being way too short but also WAY TOO POWERFUL. I’d have just a one day absolute burning pain blast where I would literally be unable to walk. LITERALLY BE UNABLE TO WALK! Like, I COULD NOT STAND that my dad was just telling me ‘;you’re lying, you’re exaggerating, its just cramps’ when the pain WASNT EVEN THE GODDAMN CRAMPS. I got fucking stabbing pain in my lower back for no damn reason, was inexplicably constipated and throwing up, got a huge hot-and-cold-flushes fever, complete muscle weakness in my legs which made them fucking shut down, and like.. LABOR SYMPTOMS. Its this weird horrible downward pressure pain in my pelvis and I was just a goddamn kid so i was like.. ‘i cant even tell if this is part of the constipation’, i would be spending five hours on the toilet desperately trying to shit out a shit that didn’t exist, as my body spasmed itself to death forcibly ejecting out way more blood than I ever thought I even had. I It took me so long to find out that that wasnt normal for a period?? That this didnt happen to everyone???? And cos its SO GROSS AND EMBARASSING to talk about these particular symptoms, I didnt tell anyone. Even when i finally was able to get some pain medication from the doctor, I just mentioned the abnormal amount of bleeding and pain, not the weird ‘wtf my bowels just stopped working as if my ovaries are constantly punching them for 24 hours’ part. Seriously just fuckin.. so degrading and disgusting.

And i was a fuckin 13 year old kid, this just abruptly started in my second year of having a period, and my dad was a sick fucker who ‘didnt believe in doctors’ and didnt believe i was telling the truth about my symptoms. So I had to live FROM 13 TO 17 without EVEN KNOWING THAT ASPIRIN AND IBUPROFEN EXISTED! i was going through all of this without even the basic pain medication most people have for normal periods! Once monthly I would BEG GOD TO LET ME DIE Seriously i would spend THE WHOLE 24 HOURS screaming in horrible pain on the floor that gradually got worse until I finally couldnt move my legs and passed out from exhaustion. And all i could do was hope that I’d get weaker each month and pass out faster, cos seriously being able to sleep through it was THE BIGGEST BLESSING EVER like DEAR GOD like ONCE I was able to get to sleep during the point where it was milder pain and then when I woke up it was already over and AAAAAAHHHHH I got to go a full two months without feeling that death madness again and seriously fuckin.. how the fuck could my dad look at this small child screaming and vomiting and sweating like I was in the sahara and gushing blood from every oriface cos i fuckin VOMITED SO HARD I VOMITED BLOOD and somehow still think I was just ‘making it up’

god one of my worst memories was how I had this huge horrible period death attack in the middle of school and my poor teacher was trying to comfort me and trying to call my dad to pick me up, and he just Did Not Give A Shit so the teacher tried to drive me home himself and just.. god I was so happy even as I was dying just cos I got to meet ONE PERSON who had sympathy for me and even actually said ‘hey you should see a doctor’. And all i gave him in return was throwing up in a trash bin for an hour in the back of his car, and then he had to meet my awful father and have a door slammed in his face. And then as soon as he got me inside the house dad just hit me and screamed at me for ‘embarassing him’ and ‘ditching school’ and man the only good side effect of being Fucking Dead On The Floor Already is that I did not feel a thing of it and barely even managed to hear a word he said. I think he just gave up cos seriously i wasnt even fuckin moving, i guess the fun goes out of beating your kid when they’re too fuckin stoned on their own vomit fumes to even be able to cry anymore. Oh and my other Even More Worse memory was when I missed the chance to see Howl’s Moving Castle cos of this shit. I saw like the first twenty minutes of it before my period hit while I was in the middle of the theater and then i had to spend three hours crying and puking and bleeding and laying on the floor in a pool of my own vomit in a cinema bathroom while my dad screamed at me as if i was purposely faking just to embarass him. Like seriously dude?? BASIC LOGIC, PLEASE! he was CONSTANTLY accusing me of doing really horrible manipulative things all the time, as some sort of twisted excuse to hit me and pretend i was an evil fucker causing every problem in his life so he didnt have to feel guilty about doing it. And it NEVER MADE ANY GODDAMN SENSE! Even if i WAS an evil monster, what would that evil monster’s MOTIVE be? Why would i constantly do these evil things that serve no purpose except to get myself half killed by my dad? Why would I ruin a cinema trip that I asked to go to, to see a movie I waited all year to see??? And the most vivid disgusting part of it all was when he walked in and saw me like that and I LITERALLY ASKED TO DIE, and he LITERALLY LAUGHED. I begged him to call a doctor, he laughed and said I was exaggerating. I begged him to call an AMBULANCE, he laughed harder. I told him to his face that I wanted to kill myself just to make the pain stop, and he acted as if it was the funniest thing he ever heard, turned around and left and watched another movie. The poor cinema staff were left taking care of me while he ignored me, he wouldnt even take me home, he was just like... waiting til he finally got bored enough to do it. His biggest concern was ‘eww you made me walk into the girls’s bathroom’... I’m never gonna be able to stop remembering that, I’m never gonna be able to deny how absolutely certain I was that I’d rather end my life right there than live this nightmare for another month and another month for like fuckin 30 or 50 years. God I wanted to kill myself A LOT when i was with my dad, but this one was the worst cos for all I knew I’d be stuck with this pain forever even if I managed to escape him. I was so fucking ignorant! I didnt even know there was easy to acquire pain medication you could buy in any supermarket across the world! I mean, I still have the problem of my period being more severe than expected and all, but the meds at least made it NON SUICIDAL LEVELS OF PAIN. And god I once wanted to kill myself as a young child because I didnt know those existed. And I didnt know that transgender people existed or that there were words to put to my other feelings of disgust about having a period. I may still be depressed in a lot of ways, but I’m living a way better life now!

So umm yeah anyway my current worry today is because my period hasn’t ended for like 2 or 3 months now. I can’t even pinpoint the exact time it happened, cos it started with just light spotting and my period coming a few days late every month for like a year? and then it would last longer, and sometimes I’d get a small bit of bleeding suddenly starting up five days later and ending within a few hours. I sorta didnt think much of any of these symptoms and i cant nail down exactly when it just increased so much that it became this noticeably constant. And its REALLY weird for me, cos also all this stuff came along with my period not hurting as much?? And now for the last month i haven’t felt any pain at all, so I cant even tell which part of all this bleeding was the actual period. And I’m bleeding way less than usual, its just... constant. Its not even enough to be a big problem so I didnt wanna tell anyone and be a bother, its not like I’m losing blood enough to get light headed, its just annoying having so many pairs of underwear ruined and feeling more dysphoric 24/7. And it makes me pretty anxious cos I didnt know what was causing this and whether it was a symptom of some bigger problem- like, it doesnt hurt but maybe its a sign i have fuckin death doom cancer or something and its suddenly gonna start hurting any second now???

So yeah, today I finally stopped being anxious and decided I’m gonna call a doctor next week, and did some internet research to see if this is serious enough to really call the doctor. And cos I’m dumb I panicked thinking of the worst case scenario, but also doing that research kinda cheered me up cos now at least I know an explanation for why the symptoms seemingly got worse on random days, and like.. this isnt an impossible thing. Cos seriously, yeah, raised in a household with No Doctors Ever. i dont know very much about medical health, when this first started happening i freaked out cos i had NEVER HEARD of bleeding outside the regular monthly cycle and from all I knew it was PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE and I’m PROBABLY DYING xD But no, apparantly spotting and mistimed periods and going one or two weeks of constant bleeding are all completely natural variances that just happen, and you dont even need to call a doctor for that. I just need to call a doctor cos its been happening a bit more often than that, they say up to a month is a normal amount. And apparantly the vast, VAST majority of conditions that cause constant period are not remotely life threatening, the worst possible scenario is becoming infertile or just.. having to continue experiencing mildly annoying bleeding a lot. Apparantly a lot of people choose to not have an operation cos they don’t wanna lose the ability to have children, but fuck I’ve been hoping to lose that thing FOREVER, jesus christ! damn docs won’t let you have a hysterectomy ‘without reason’, like seriously why is ‘i dont want to have children’ not a reason?? and why is ‘i have never had sex and never will have sex’ not a reason and also why is ‘i’m nonbinary transgender and would like this surgery even though i don’t want genital surgery’ not an option seriously MAN PLEASE can I at least go on hormones doc. seriously everyone is being all ‘well treating your ptsd and depression is a bigger priority right now’ and i mean ITS NOT LIKE THERE’S A REAL DEADLINE FOR WHEN THAT’S GONNA END and DYSPHORIA KINDA DOESNT MAKE IT ANY EASIER gahhhh god i really REALLY hope they let me have a hysterectomy i am gonna be SO DISSAPPOINTED now if it turns out this ovary failure is not the particular sort of ovary failure that requires removal of ovaries. plz kill them. pliz mr docter. they haf plagued my lyfe 4 too longe. XD god, sorry, like I said I’m just really dysphoric talking about Vagina Health Stuff so i’m getting a bit irrational and ranty. Its just like that ‘please can i skip the middle man and get to the end of the transition already’ feeling. I know it would be stupid to not listen to my doctor’s advice on the subject. Tho I do kinda feel like everyone is just patronizing me and doenst think that nonbinary really exists, i’m still trying to get my support worker to stop calling me a girl... MAN IM GOING OFFTOPIC TO A WHOLE OTHER ANXIETY HERE

Anyway! Researching into possible causes of it! It’s entirely possible i may have Adenomyosis, which would ironically mean I have an excess of estrogen in my system and am like.. Too Female To Female. I’m gonna fuckin cry if its this, that’s like the biggest fuckin sign that your sex doesn’t have to align with your gender! or lol maybe god is trying to compensate, i just imagine its like throwing too much sugar into a cake to try and make up for it tasting like shit. sorry dude, woman machine broke. BUT I don’t seem to have like a huge amount of symptoms for that one, aside from just the excess bleeding outside of my cycle. So I’m leaning more towards the ones that also include back pain and uhh.. gross bowel issues of embarassingness. It might be that I was always showing preemptive signs of one of these conditions!

One other that it could possibly be is Endometriesis which is a really fuckin cool sounding word but impossible to spell, lol. Apparantly its this TERRIFYING CONCEPT where your uterus is like.. a tumour in your gut. For whatever reason there’s uterine tissue growing in your intestines, stomach or other butt related tubes. I dont wanna read more about it cos its already making me terrified and anxious, so I dont even know HOW exactly that works. I mean is it like there’s a big ol hole stabbing through your organs connecting two unconnected things together?? Cos if so, I cant understand why its saying that its an easy operation and a never fatal condition! So I’m assuming maybe its more like everything is still separate but like.. the composure of the cells in your intestines is wrong? There’s like a tiny vestigal lump of uterine lining tissue in your stomach lining instead? i guess maybe they’re somehow vaguely related, so like.. if the human body begins from stem cells that can grow into any other cell to make a full human, it would seem entirely plausable that rather similar organs or skin thingies could accidentally form all vice versa. i guess thats also the reason for mutations like people growing an extra finger? I had a friend who had two extra fingers at birth, actually! I felt really sad when she told me about it, it was like years after we met that she felt comfortable enough to tell me about where her hand scars came from. i just remember i felt SO CONFUSED why she’d even think that like.. she had to be super certain i was a good person who wouldnt make fun of her. Why on earth would you mock someone for something like that?? How many other people must have treated her like shit if she feels this ashamed of her own hands?? And I felt really sad that she had them amputated too, I just find it a bit disturbing and surreal that there’s this societal thing of giving extensive surgery to very young children to ‘correct’ something that’s completely harmless just because it ‘looks wrong’. i’ve read stories about stuff like a child having like a split arm, an extra arm attatched at the elbow. And that particular operation to ‘correct’ it literally made the kid lose all ability to use both arms, just so they could have one ‘normal’ looking nonfunctional one. Thats messed up! Its EVEN WORSE that this happens the most commonly with intersex conditions, its invasive GENITAL surgery on newborn infants and even assigning them a random gender based on whichever form of genitals was easiest to ‘recreate’ with plastic surgery. These poor kids dont even get to know about what happened to them until they grow up and uncover this horrifying pandora’s box of medical files...

Oh, and speaking of intersex conditions, another possibility is that I might have PCOS, which is like being intersex in hormones but not outer genetalia. But I’m not sure about it cos I don’t have a lot of the more visible symptoms of it, aside from adult acne and ‘weight gain' which is.. well im pretty damn sure I gained this weight the normal way instead XD It also says that unusual hair growth might be a symptom, but it doesnt seem I have it in any of the places that’re common for the disease. I’ve had a weird thing of suddenly gaining light spots of hair on my belly and neck in the past few years. Its weird cos it really is just spots for the neck, its only growing in the right side in a little circle. i dunno what’s up with that! It sucks cos I really would like to be able to grow proper facial hair, I’m only able to do a very spotty mustache that just makes me look even more like a woman I think. i just look like an ugly woman, I feel like everyone can instantly tell I’m DFAB and they’re just laughing at me for this one failed attempt to look masculine. Also it fuckin sucks being overweight cos binders don’t work as well! They’ve gotta be wider to fit around a bigger body of course, but that means its hard to find the right size that’re be tight where it counts withough being tight on the shoulders. I think my current one is too baggy, I can’t stand even looking like a normal dude of my weight level, i cant stand even having regular fat guy ‘moobs’. I WANNA DESTROY THEM ENTIRELY!! Also, incidentally, I’m kinda terrified the most of being diagnosed with PCOS just cos it’d make my dysphoria worse. It’d kinda make me worry that maybe my identity is invalid and I only feel this way cos I have this hormone problem, and I’d probably refuse to take any treatment just in case it somehow cures my transness :P

The one that currently seems most likely is ‘uterine fibroids’. Apparantly its a non cancerous form of tumour that’s so small that its not remotely damaging, and surgery is very easy and non scary. The problem is just that you have so many of these small things slowly stacking up over the years, and being hard to spot until its already gotten bad. Plus even a small thing can be very painful when its in a very sensitive organ. I’m thinking its probably this cos they mention specifically lower back pain and constipation/other bowel problems. The endometrisis one would also explain the constipation during periods, but this one has a wider range of very specific symptoms that all seem to match.

Anyway, writing this up has helped distract me so I can calm down a little and wrap my head around all this. I just hope I can have enough courage to talk to the doctor about it and hopefully find out what it actually is. Oh, and a random tip I learned! Eating too much sugar increases menstrual bleeding! That was what was confusing me about my symptoms seeming to worsen out of nowhere on random days. I was super worried!! I guess the change is just more noticeable than it would be on my regular period, cos this one is lasting so long. I tested this out today by chugging one of the super grand milkshakes from that cool midnight milkshake takeaway shop, and I started getting the big ol scary clotty giant bleed within two hours. Waited a while til it stopped, drank another sugary drink, happened again! Definate correlation! I’m kinda relieved cos this definately proves it’s a period related problem, I’m not bleeding from like an exploded organ or something. This is definately specifically the ol menstrual blood, and I dont have some horrifying sudden septic wound in my vag out of nowhere. Tho seriously i dunno why I was worrying that cos its not like I’ve ever had sex, where would a wound even come from?? I guess I was just going nuts back when I was all uneducated and assumed it was Literally Impossible to have a period that lasts too long. Mannnn talking about this is SO GROSS I’m like cringing into the ninth dimension just from saying the word vag... Anyway now I’m actually feeling a bit lightheaded from the Even More So Than Before heavy bleeding, it probably wasnt a smart idea to test out the sugar thing twice in one day. Now I’m bleeding as much as I usually do on my regular period, which is probably not good cos I’ve already been losing a small amount of blood everyday. Apparantly carrots have a vitamin that helps decrease menstrual bleeding, but its late evening now and all the supermarkets are shut :P SOMEONE BEAM CARROTS INTO MY HOME, AAAAA lol i just need to calm down and get out of this panic attack, its probably just this in combination with the blood loss thats giving me lightheadedness. and then it makes me worry even more about the blood loss and enter an eternal death spiral of anxiety yet again... GAHH I HATE YOU DYSPHORIA DAY I WILL TALK TO THE DOCTOR AND SO HELP ME GOD I REALLY WISH THIS LEADS TO A HYSTERECTOMY seriously lol every time I’m doubting if I’m ‘really trans enough’ i should look back on this conversation where i’m wishing my uterus disease is the worst possible option just so i can get rid of the damn uterus.. ANYWAY BUNNI IS GONNA GO TRY AND CALM DOWN NOW COS I CANT CALL THE DOCTOR TIL TOMORROW ANYWAY

#gahhhh anxiety #anxiety and gross embarassing medical problems #and dysphoria #and apparantly carrots #carrots somehow control your uterus #al these years and ive never known to eat more carrots on the monthly time...

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adambstingus · 7 years ago

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You May Be A Good Dude, But Here’s Why You’re Single

I used to be a “Nice Girl” — a former walking Taylor Swift song in geeky glasses who’d stare longingly through your bedroom window while singing about how terrible your girlfriend is. I used to make homemade fudge for all the cute boys in the hope they’d notice me. Now, I write romance novels. And when I published a book about ghosts and serial killers, the creepy stalker guy was the one who attracted weirdly devoted fan girls.

The point is, I know where nice guys are coming from. I’ve cringed while watching them unknowingly sabotage their relationships. I’ve winced through stories from my female friends of how nice guys became creepy. I’ve watched good guys like you chase away nice girls who really did once want to give them a chance. So if you don’t understand how your sweetness and good intentions could possibly scare anyone away, buckle up, because I’m about to give you some inside info on where you’re going wrong.

The Big Sickly Sweet Romantic Gesture

Here’s a fun game. Sit down with a bunch of girls and ask them to make a list of the sweetest, most romantic things a guy they like has ever done for them. Then ask them to make a list of the creepiest, scariest, most WTF things a guy they didn’t like had ever done to try to get their attention. Then count how many of the exact same things are on both lists.

Sappy poetry, sketches, drawings, acoustic ballads, mix tapes — sweet, personalized, homemade gestures are the unstable land mines of romantic weapons. Get it right and you’ll demolish the competition, shake the ground, and blow away … um … whatever gets exploded when two people suddenly decide they really like each other.

Get it wrong and you’ve just shot Cupid’s dick clean off.

pixdeluxe/iStock “I made a sand castle based on floor plans from your childhood home.”

Hey, this former fudge-making girl gets the appeal of sweet sappy gestures. I’ve written poetry for guys I liked. I’ve made mixtapes and playlists. Hell, I’ve even sewn things for guys. And I’ve included all kinds of grand romantic gestures in books I’ve written. The entertainment industry has been living off the sweet romantic gesture long before lovestruck 90s kids held boomboxes over their heads. When it comes to love, we’re trained to think bigger is better.

In movies, it doesn’t even matter how jerky your gesture is. In the grand cheerleading epic Bring It On, cute-guy-who-recently-did-an-NCIS-cameo (Jesse Bradford) shows up at head cheerleader Kirsten Dunst’s house with a cassette tape of a song he wrote for her. The song starts off with him insulting the most important thing in her life, before telling her he wants to feed her chocolates and screw her in a barn. Because it’s a movie, she starts dancing on her bed in her pajamas and spanking herself with her pompoms.

Universal Pictures This is not love.

In real life, there are just so many ways to get it wrong.

First off, it has to be really good. Bad amateur poetry and crappy artwork is just sad. Beyond that, there’s no faster way to look creepy than to come on way too strong … which makes music especially dangerous because there aren’t that many songs with lyrics like, “Hey, I think you’re kind of cute and I’d like to maybe go out sometime, if that’s cool with you.”

That aside, you’ve both got to be on the exact same page for it to work. If you take her out to dinner and she hates the food, you can both laugh it off and move on. But if you spend hours writing her a song, composing a poem, or organizing a flash mob to do a choreographed dance, she has to really love it. Like a lot. Because if she’s just “meh” about it, there’s no going back from that. You’ve just crammed any hope of a relationship into your ass and fart-launched it into the sun.

Because your sickly, sweet, romantic art is your goddamn heart spilled out on paper. It’s throwing the biggest weapon you’ll ever have — and that’s an incredibly big, risky, and frankly stupid thing to do. Whether she likes it or not, you’ve just put her on the spot. It’s often embarrassing and uncomfortable … and why would you want to embarrass someone you like? That doesn’t get fun until marriage.

Martin Dimitrov/iStock “That doesn’t even look like me. Terrible.”

You want to try a real-life sickly sweet romantic gesture on a real human girl? Start small. Nothing big. Nothing intense. Nothing pledging undying love. Don’t blow your romantic wad on someone you haven’t actually dated yet (or worse: is in a relationship with someone else). Because that’s just awkward and uncomfortable for everyone.

The Freaking Generous Grand Gesture

A friend of mine had been dating Mr. Nice Guy for about a week when she made an offhand joke about needing a massage. To her shock, he showed up for their next date with a gift-wrapped exotic personal massager. I know a guy who paid a girl’s credit card bills before he’d taken her on a first date. I know another who decided a weeklong trip together at Disney World would be the perfect way to start a brand-new relationship — and he lives in Canada.

Nice people kick ass at grand gestures. But every single one of those relationships I mentioned ended up crashing and burning in a big ball of flames and humiliation. Because here’s the thing: Grand gestures — especially financial ones — are very uncomfortable and even just plain crazy to people who aren’t used to it.

Money makes people weird. It just does. Especially when everyone else shows up to a birthday party thinking a “hey” is all the occasion requires, and you walk in with a gift-wrapped Xbox.

Don’t you hate being around the kind of asshole who’s always showing off that he has more money than you? How about the slimy turd who’s always paying the bill but leaves you feeling like he’s running some creepy agenda? Those guys are movie punchlines, villains, or Richard Gere. Don’t start off a relationship looking like a bag of money who’s saving the prostitute.

The gut reaction to this is: “I’ve spent a lifetime being told I should pay for dates and now you’re telling me that women hate men who pay for things? So, basically I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t?”

No, I’m saying your big, grand gestures might be self-sabotaging. You want to pick up the check? Then try asking the object of your affection if they’re cool with it. Or “Hey, I was thinking of booking something really fancy for our first date. Is that cool with you, or would you rather do something low key?” Remember, there are two of you in this thing. You’ve got to think about what’s not going to make it uncomfortable for her.

If your intention is to impress her with a fancy night out, and she’s on board with that idea, it’s going to be awesome. If your intention is to make her feel like she owes you something in return, you’re not actually a nice guy — you’re just a piece of shit.

Showering Them With Time And Attention, All The Time … Non Stop

One of the worst things I ever did, back in my nice girl, Taylor Swift stage was try to charm my way into a hot guy’s heart by giving him a personalized version of that stalker classic song where the guy pledges to watch his beloved constantly, every step she takes, every move she makes, because she belongs to him. It failed. Oh, how it failed.

For most women, nothing is creepier than a guy who smothers her by wanting to be around her, all the time. Which is really bad news for nice guys, because wanting exactly that is in their nature. They click “like” on all of her social media posts. They offer to help her with work, hobbies, homework. They show up when she gets off work to give her a ride. Being everywhere she is, all the time, forever, quickly goes from “He seems sweet” to “Ugh! Leave me alone for two goddamn minutes” to “I’m calling the police.”

I know a chick who freaked out at a guy for liking all of her posts, on all of her social media accounts, the second she posted them (He’d set up a bunch of alerts). I know another girl who ran screaming from a nice guy when it became clear he changed his bus schedule in order to sit near her every day. Basically any time you find yourself arguing with someone you barely know about why she doesn’t text you more often, you can presume the little voice in her head is chanting, “Run, run, run, RUN!”

Seems harsh? Well, from a woman’s perspective there are way more creepy, controlling, possessive, asshole stalker dudes in the world than there are nice guys. How’s she supposed to know you’re not one of them? It’s important to know that this isn’t your fault … but if you overcorrect by being around nonstop to show her how much of a normal guy you are, you’re just cranking the volume on her stalker alarm.

The “I’m Just Trying To Protect You” Thing

The world is full of assholes and creeps, and from the perspective of nice guys, too many hot and interesting women gravitate toward them. If only the evildoers among us were unmasked and the pretty girl at the next desk really saw just how bad that guy is, she’d fall right into your arms. Or at the very least, you’d be saving her a world of hurt.

Look, I get it. It’s noble to want to rescue people. There’s a whole subgenre of angsty music dedicated to helping girls see that their boyfriend’s a dick and a douchebag, and you can’t believe she’s really going out with him because he doesn’t know anything about her because he isn’t what a prince and lover ought to be. Which can be very sweet and very caring. Sometimes. But honestly? It can also be patronizing as hell and extremely annoying, because basically what you’re saying to a fellow grown-ass human being is that you know better than her and she’s not smart enough to know what she’s gotten herself into. You’re telling her that by going out with that guy, she’s being duped. You might as well be shouting directly into her face, “Wake up, you fucking idiot!”

It comes in lots of forms: “Here’s all the dirt on the guy you’re dating. Here’s why he’s no good for you. If you were my girl, you’d be treated like a queen,” or “Please don’t do this thing I don’t like because it’s bad for you, and I want you to be healthy and happy,” or “Please don’t ruin yourself by screwing that guy, or getting that tattoo, or going to that college, or whatever.” All of that boils down to, “Hey girl! I know what you need better than you do!”

Whether you like it or not, she’s got a reason for doing whatever she’s doing. Sure, you can offer to weigh in as a friend. But be prepared that she might not want to hear your opinion and it’s likely to piss her off.

Her body, heart, future, and mind are her business. Those things belong to her. Not you. Forgetting that, or acting like she doesn’t make good decisions, or nagging her about her life after she’s told you to drop it, will make you look like an asshole and fast.

You care. You’re nice. But as much as you’re going to hate hearing this: Sometimes, being too nice really is the problem. And that brings me to the point that is going to sound like an alien language to nice guys …

You Avoid Confrontation At All Costs

Nice people don’t like fighting. They don’t like hurting people, so they don’t risk confrontation. Because of that, they often don’t say what they mean. They also don’t like rejection, so instead of just coming out and saying they’re interested in a person, they drop hints. Then they get frustrated and hurt when that person doesn’t catch on. Unfortunately, that all adds up to make you look like a petrified little kid.

If nice people are lucky enough to get into a relationship, they’ll do just about anything to keep it … which often means avoiding arguments. They won’t bring up what’s bothering them, especially if the source of that hurt (even unintentionally) is their significant other. Instead they hide it, ignore it, or sugar coat it for a REALLY long time, until they finally hit a breaking point, and it shoots out of their word hole like emotional projectile vomit. What should have been a simple, honest conversation turns into a huge blow-out argument.

Don’t do that.

Conflict and confrontation are a major part of relationships. You can’t ask her out if you can’t confront her. You can’t fix a fractured relationship if you don’t talk about the conflict. The important part is remembering that there’s a difference between “I’d like to talk about something that’s been bothering me” and “You’ve been a fucking bitch lately, and now it’s throw-down time!”

It’s terrifying — god knows I get that — but it’s necessary. You want to show a grand gesture of your love and commitment? This is the best way to do it. If the relationship has problems, talking about it (and, yes, even arguing about it) shows that you care enough to fix it. If you like the pretty girl, let her know in a straightforward, simple, and honest way. Remember, if she’s a nice girl, she’s probably just as terrified as you. But at least it won’t be because you came across as a creepy stalker freak show.

Mags writes books with kissing and ghosts in them. You can bother her on Twitter.

The proliferation of beer pong and craft beer may have you think that we’re living in one of the peak times to get drunk, but humans have been getting famously hammered for millennia. Like a frat house’s lawn after a kegger, history is littered with world-changing events that were secretly powered by booze. The inaugural games of the Roman Coliseum, the drafting of the U.S. Constitution, and the Russian Revolution were all capped off by major parties that most attendees probably regretted in the morning.

Join Jack O’Brien and Cracked staffers Carmen Angelica, Alex Schmidt, Michael Swaim, plus comedian Blake Wexler for a retelling of history’s biggest moments you didn’t realize everyone was drunk for.

Get your tickets here:

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/you-may-be-a-good-dude-but-heres-why-youre-single/ from All of Beer https://allofbeercom.tumblr.com/post/175073121532

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allofbeercom · 7 years ago

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You May Be A Good Dude, But Here’s Why You’re Single

The Big Sickly Sweet Romantic Gesture

Get it wrong and you’ve just shot Cupid’s dick clean off.

pixdeluxe/iStock “I made a sand castle based on floor plans from your childhood home.”

Universal Pictures This is not love.

In real life, there are just so many ways to get it wrong.

Martin Dimitrov/iStock “That doesn’t even look like me. Terrible.”

The Freaking Generous Grand Gesture

Money makes people weird. It just does. Especially when everyone else shows up to a birthday party thinking a “hey” is all the occasion requires, and you walk in with a gift-wrapped Xbox.

Showering Them With Time And Attention, All The Time … Non Stop

The “I’m Just Trying To Protect You” Thing

You Avoid Confrontation At All Costs

Don’t do that.

Mags writes books with kissing and ghosts in them. You can bother her on Twitter.

Get your tickets here:

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/you-may-be-a-good-dude-but-heres-why-youre-single/

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