The hour badly spent

The word creep is male. Straight men have been being creepy long enough that their tactics are pretty recognizable to anyone who sat in front of, or next to, or knew about that guy in third period. Insofar as we’re all privy to the coercive techniques dudes use to trick ladies into doing sex, the existence of the mancreeper is a well-established paradigm of…the entire developed world. It’s such a given that apparently nobody’s given any thought to the other side of things: women can be creepy too — albeit without the authoritative, violent overtones that dudes are so good at exuding. Anyway, for those who have yet to spend ten minutes or so listening to girls talk about exactly what they do online, I guess this is coming as some sort of surprise:

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Mind you, I have no solid research to confirm this; but I suspect many, perhaps even dozens of ladyfolk leave the house every day (shocking in and of itself — they are allowed out in public!), going to work, to department stores, frozen yogurt bars, maybe even the gas station: without makeup??? What could this possibly mean? Wayward lady Maura Kelly shamelessly divulges her harrowing story at Marie Claire’s Living Flirtatiously blog.

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When I was seventeen, my friend John took me aside and told me the secret of a good date. "The key," he slurred, beerly, "is to get her to talk about herself." And so I guess some guys know this? But apparently Maura Kelly knows a bunch of guys who don’t. And that, clearly, must be Maura Kelly’s model for manhood: oblivious braggarts regaling a shockingly bored date with tales of their most epic rapes:

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This is totally backwards. You will have plenty of time to not fuck years later if you’re still together. You will never want to fuck each other as much as you want to fuck on the first date. So, you crazy kids go someplace where her dad won’t find you, don’t spread STDs, and don’t get pregnant. Just fuck. Start strong, so years later you’ll have fond memories to look back on.

Something else you were dying to know: 10 reasons social networking benefits students, via the Collegian, because you’re still fumbling to justify your Facebooking. Not mentioned: how it’s a great way to waste time on your Droid while you’re waiting in line for whatever. Instead, things like: “10. Creating a positive impact on the world.” Really? Friendster leads to charity? I miss the days when the whole point of technology was to see naked people in higher detail.

[K-State Collegian]

To say that sex categorically ruins relationships is a lie. There is no objectively right or wrong time to get squelchy. It happens whenever both of you decide you want it; no later, and not a moment before. And suppose a relationship is not what you’re looking for? Suppose you just want to fuck? Isn’t it ultimately worse and more painful to go through the motions of traditional romance just to get someone to give it up?

Collegian lameass Sara Gudde takes us through the exaggerated consequences of what she righteously judges as premature sex:

How in the hell is it even possible that someone could grow up to be such a haughty, self-righteous jackweed without even the merest trace of self-awareness or civility? You expect this from a certain kind of dude, the kind who fancies himself a white knight, whose feelings and morals are universally Good, but there’s just something about veganism that bridges the divide between genders and transforms all involved parties into septic phalluses. “To transform into a septic phallus” ought to be its own verb.

[K-State Collegian]

“There are some who argue that an unborn infant is not a human being. For them, I suggest looking at pictures of aborted babies,” writes a dude named Danny Davis in the Collegian. His hyperbolic adoration for the righteous unborn continues:

Features eerily similar to human features are present on these aborted fetuses including arms, legs and heads. As I am unaware of any creature carrying a different species within it that magically changes species once it is born, I am left to conclude that unborn babies are indeed humans. Operating under this logic, I am baffled as to why we continue to allow the genocide known as abortion to continue.

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Facebook users with more friends suffer more stress and "neurotic limbo" from feeling they have to continually update and amuse their larger audiences, according to new research.

“But the claim has met skepticism from internet psychology experts, who question the methodology of the study,” continues the article, because no fucking shit. Apparently not factored into the survey: people with jobs. Who would probably mention that “neurotic limbo” as it pertains to sitting around on a couch letting the afternoon light filter on you through the curtains of an adjacent window while clicking through pictures of cuties and dropping genially microaggressive quips is quite possibly the exact opposite of suffering “stress,” except that people who work probably have more important things to do.

[The Telegraph]

As if you didn’t know prospective employers would get around to this eventually. Solution: have multiple accounts. If you show you’re smarter than them, they have to hire you. Right? Right?

No, for real: “With its rigid tablet shape, Apple’s iPad has raised an awkward consideration for many men: how to carry it in a manner that is practical and yet, well, masculine.” Myself, I’m not much of an Apple fan, but if I were, I would probably hang it off my belt and reach for it the same way I’d draw a gun or a samurai sword, should the need arise.

“Women, they have purses to put this kind of stuff in; men don’t,” said André von Houck, a 22-year-old programmer from San Francisco. “I don’t want to carry any bags.” His solution: he simply leaves his iPad at home. “I don’t carry it anywhere.”

But guys who want to lug around their iPads are finding themselves quietly reaching for a so-called man purse, or murse. The iPad-shaped bags seem to be the gadgetphile’s equivalent of a woman’s clutch.

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In case you need coaxing, Women’s Health wants you to know that “people who start their days by having sex are all-around healthier and happier than those who don’t.” This experiment must have had the best clinical trial ever!

But of course this would be true. Waking up surly next to a naked and willing partner is the quickest path to waking up alone and surly, and surliness notwithstanding, any number of factors in a relationship could lead to an unbridled desire to make sweet love without delay upon waking up, just as any number of factors could just as soon push you to shut down emotionally and seek out the sweet palliative of solitude. What are these factors? The study doesn’t account for them, and I don’t know. What I do know is that there must indeed be couples out there who start out every day with a physical affirmation of their erotic bond, and the very idea of it makes me want to turn to the side and masturbate very quietly.

What’s it like to be a dude? Since I don’t really know, I need people to tell me. All the time. Other men, other women, my friends, their moms, their dads, my professors, their star students, their textbooks, talk show hosts, church people, queer atheists, and talking animals in animated movies. Here are some things I learned about myself from This Recording:

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Liberals, over the last century and a half, have embraced the idea that there might be more than one populist movement, composed of different types of populists. But don’t tell this to privilege denier Neal Gabler at the Boston Globe! In “The Arrogance Divide,” he inquires as to why liberals can’t "capture the populist movement."

Whether the so-called Tea Partiers have simply co-opted the populist label and its heated rhetoric, populism seems to have taken a rightward swing — a process that has been going on for at least several decades. Sarah Palin, certainly no liberal, is now the self-appointed queen of American populism.

Liberals understand that they could use the fortification of grass-roots, high-decibel populism, and they’ve been scratching their heads over why the rupture exists.

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What are you doing for lunch today? Depending on how serious of an issue this is for you, perhaps the presence of a clandestine sandwich dealer might help you decide.

Even though his product is available at every diner, deli and corner bodega, one New Yorker has found success selling grilled cheese on the black market.

The underground chef takes orders by text message, cooks his sandwiches on the stove in his brother’s East Village apartment, and then meets his customers on street corners. (He does have a Facebook page.)

"I feel like a drug dealer because I’m handing people a paper bag and they’re handing me cash," the unlicensed cheese pusher, who, fearing reprisals from the Health Department, asked to be identified only as "Ronnie," told the Post.

This guy is pretty much the Celia Hodes of grilled cheese. Read more at The Post!