Your Princess Is in Another Castle: Misogyny, Entitlement, and Nerds

[Derec]

It is one thing to fantasize about an individual girl and another to think that you should be getting *a* girl.

Yeah, imagine wanting that any girl would like them. The audacity! The sense of entitlement!

 

[Shadowy Man]

I think it is also a possible frustration. The girl goes with the cute jackass instead of with the nice geek. The geek thinks, I'm not a jerk, why the fuck do they go for the jackasses?!

But doesn't it seem that the *frustration* arises because they think the girl *should* be going with people like them? One might be puzzled why the girl goes with the jackass, but to be frustrated by it is different.

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It is one thing to fantasize about an individual girl and another to think that you should be getting *a* girl.

Yeah, imagine wanting that any girl would like them. The audacity! The sense of entitlement!

I guess I should have put the emphasis on the word "should" so you'd understand my point better.

 

[bigfield]

I'm not saying that this holds for all 'nerds', but I have often encountered the attitude from some of them that they are unhappy that other men are getting the girls and they are not, as if it is something that they do deserve, instead of focusing on who they themselves are and what they might want from a relationship. It is one thing to fantasize about an individual girl and another to think that you should be getting *a* girl.

I do know where you are coming from. For example, when men talk about how "it isn't fair" that the muscleheads get the girls, they are implying that they deserve the attention of the girls at least as much as the muscleheads do. I didn't encounter that attitude in school or uni - most nerds believe that they are in fact undeserving - but I saw it a fair bit of it in the pickup artist forums, which serve as focusing points for resentful whingers with a grudge. I have a hard time believing that they represented a norm.

ETA: I was one of those boys who considered myself undeserving of the attention of girls. It was part and parcel of having low self-esteem.

 

[Unbeatable]

I'm not saying that this holds for all 'nerds', but I have often encountered the attitude from some of them that they are unhappy that other men are getting the girls and they are not, as if it is something that they do deserve, instead of focusing on who they themselves are and what they might want from a relationship.

IME, things like "respect" and "self worth" and "not being/being seen as a loser" figure into the list of things they want from a relationship. The competitive nature of social status would seem to account for unhappiness that other men are getting the girls and they aren't.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

But doesn't it seem that the *frustration* arises because they think the girl *should* be going with people like them? One might be puzzled why the girl goes with the jackass, but to be frustrated by it is different.

The frustation isn't about any particular girl, but about "the girls" in general. But honestly, that is life, and you have to move on and search.

It is one thing to fantasize about an individual girl and another to think that you should be getting *a* girl.

Yeah, imagine wanting that any girl would like them. The audacity! The sense of entitlement!

Well, you've already indicated you think it is alright to call any particular woman that doesn't want to sleep with you a name, so clearly you think there is some level of entitlement.

 

[ksen]

Hey guys . . . not *all* girls go with the jerks.

looooooooooooooool

 

[dystopian]

But a lot of things about the show did give me pause. One of them was that it was hosted by Robert Carradine and Curtis Armstrong—Lewis and Booger from Revenge of the Nerds. I don’t have anything against those guys personally. Nor am I going to issue a blanket condemnation of Revenge of the Nerds, a film I’m still, basically, a fan of.

But look. One of the major plot points of Revenge of the Nerds is Lewis putting on a Darth Vader mask, pretending to be his jock nemesis Stan, and then having sex with Stan’s girlfriend. Initially shocked when she finds out his true identity, she’s so taken by his sexual prowess—“All jocks think about is sports. All nerds think about is sex.”—that the two of them become an item.

Classic nerd fantasy, right? Immensely attractive to the young male audience who saw it. And a stock trope, the “bed trick,” that many of the nerds watching probably knew dates back to the legend of King Arthur.

It’s also, you know, rape.

I listened to a podcast interview with Curtis Armstrong where he brought this up actually; and pointed out that yes, there's a lot of stuff in those movies that are really creepy if you think about it. It was though, a very different era; where it wasn't really considered much at all at the time. People just weren't as aware of these kinds of subjects back then. I think it's unfair to hold movies to our modern standards, since we can't really expect the people behind movies from 30 years ago to have had our same experience of having been exposed to the possibility of interpretations other than "this is just harmless fun".

It'd be a concern if a movie made today included a scene like that, but a movie from the early 80's? Not really.

Anyway, the rest of the article is... there's something about it that just seems *off* to me. He insists he's not saying that nerds are creepy potential rapists and murderers, but then goes out of his way to say/imply that common narrative nerd culture tropes teach us to be entitled and that... apparently causes some of us to rape. But we're not all rapists! Just some of us. And that somehow is a problem for ALL of us. Because, I don't know, we're nerds and somehow we're responsible for liking certain stories. But we're not actually responsible! But we kind of are. Huh? Yeah I don't know either. Look, we all need to 'grow up' and stop believing in fairytale endings even though none of us actually believe in them but you know we have to, because this one crazy dude shot a bunch of people.

The problem I have with his article is the same I have with any argument that claims that the media we consume causes us to behave a certain way; it's bullshit. People are still saying violent videogames make kids violent, despite decades of research failing to show such a link. If I don't accept that violent media can make someone violent, I'm not going to accept that misogynistic media is going to make someone rape.

With this shooting, some people are suggesting that the way society treated him didn't line up with the expectations he got from the media he consumed, and that's what made him kill. So I have to ask: are the people who say this REALLY naive enough to believe that if society treated him the exact same way, that he wouldn't have done the exact same thing even had he watched completely different stuff? A man who gets lonely and frustrated by the rejection of women is going to get lonely and frustrated even if he's never seen media in which guys like him eventually get the girl. If anything, it might have pushed him toward that edge even sooner because he'd never have the hope to begin with; nor the confidence in possibilities required to try. It isn't failed expectation of non-loneliness that drives someone to desperation; it's *loneliness*.

More than that, who the fuck cares? Why should the entertainment of hundreds of millions of non raping murderers be changed just so that a bunch of scared people feel more comfortable because they've deluded themselves into believing the changes are going to prevent another random mentally ill loner who is completely non-representative from hurting someone?

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

You know, generally when someone is trying to earn something or working to acquire something, that seems to indicate that they do not feel they deserve it or are entitled to it. Feeling deserving or entitled generally means one does not feel the need to work or earn it.

So complaining that those trying to win over the affections of another person feel somehow entitled ... doesn't make sense to me.

 

[credoconsolans]

In the media - movies/television, it does always seem that the nerds do think "Hey why is that hottie going out with that muscle head who's a jerk? Do girls really like bad boys? Nice guys finish last and all that? I'm a nice guy..."

Because it's TV and movies, the girl is almost always a hottie.

Ever see a movie where the guy nerd is chasing a nerd girl like himself?

Guys in general have a sense of entitlement. They tend to put the source of their frustration outwards onto other people instead of internalizing it as many women do.

Recent crazed lone killer sure did have a sense of entitlement. His daddy was a Hollywood person, he was driving around in a BMW, but HE wasn't particularly talented at anything, HE wasn't particularly good looking, but he decided was entitled to a hot, blond sorority girl and to be popular and when he didn't get the hot chicks and he didn't get any attention, he decided to kill as many of the people who didn't cooperate with his ideal as possible for being the source of his frustration.

 

[Shadowy Man]

Ever see a movie where the guy nerd is chasing a nerd girl like himself?

Well, there's Leonard and Leslie on Big Bang Theory.

 

[zorq]

Ever see a movie where the guy nerd is chasing a nerd girl like himself?

Well, there's Leonard and Leslie on Big Bang Theory.

The movie "Hackers" comes to mind for me. Of course the nerd girl in that movie was Angelina Jolie.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

In the media - movies/television, it does always seem that the nerds do think "Hey why is that hottie going out with that muscle head who's a jerk? Do girls really like bad boys? Nice guys finish last and all that? I'm a nice guy..."

Because it's TV and movies, the girl is almost always a hottie.

Ever see a movie where the guy nerd is chasing a nerd girl like himself?

There aren't enough nerd girls to go around.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

You know, generally when someone is trying to earn something or working to acquire something, that seems to indicate that they do not feel they deserve it or are entitled to it. Feeling deserving or entitled generally means one does not feel the need to work or earn it.

So complaining that those trying to win over the affections of another person feel somehow entitled ... doesn't make sense to me.

Guys in general have a sense of entitlement. They tend to put the source of their frustration outwards onto other people instead of internalizing it as many women do.

No, nice guys (including nerds) have this weird belief that they can earn their way up.

 

[GenesisNemesis]

If people believe they know how relationships work because they watched a fictional movie (especially a movie like Revenge of the Nerds), then they're idiots. That is no fault of the movie itself.

 

[Unbeatable]

In the media - movies/television, it does always seem that the nerds do think "Hey why is that hottie going out with that muscle head who's a jerk? Do girls really like bad boys? Nice guys finish last and all that? I'm a nice guy..."

Because it's TV and movies, the girl is almost always a hottie.

Ever see a movie where the guy nerd is chasing a nerd girl like himself?

There aren't enough nerd girls to go around.

Huh? So? There aren't enough hotties to go around either. That doesn't seem to stop guys from chasing them.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

I have a confession . . . I am a nerd.

I also have a wife most people would consider pretty hot. How did this happen? Well, when I was in my early 20s we worked in the same place. I found out my best friend's mom was going to try to set her and my best friend up for a date. As soon as I heard that I was galvanized into action and ran upstairs and asked her out first because I had liked her from afar way before my BF had ever seen her.

She said yes and we've now been married for going on 24 years with three grown children.

The only thing holding nerds back from getting to be with women is that they tend to say no to themselves for the girl without giving her the chance to make the decision for herself. They/we probably do that because in our own heads we think there is no possible way a girl like that would ever be interested in us. I blame a lot of that on society and how the friendzoned nerd guy meme is narrative society has about nerds and women.

Give the girl the chance to make her own decision and she just might surprise you.

That is definitely a mistake that nerds make.

The secret is that it ultimately doesn't matter what the girl says. If she likes you back and you live happily ever after, cool; but if she doesn't like you back, then that's cool too, because there are plenty more girls out there. The only shame is the time and energy one wastes by avoiding potential rejection.

Many nerd boys pine after girls who are not actually interested in them. It is pathological, needy behaviour on behalf of the boys that prevents them from getting on with the business of meeting other lovely girls. No matter how wonderful a boy may think a girl is, chances are that he could feel the same way about dozens of other girls and therefore it serves no purpose to obsess over her.

So true, and something I wish I had figured out long before I finally came out of my self imposed bubble in my mid thirties.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

While that idea is nice in theory, it completely overlooks the fact that all of those other girls can get restraining orders taken out against you just as easily as the first one can.

 

[Unbeatable]

The article describes someone like me, albeit at 17, not 27 years old.

I disagree with Chu about the causes of this behaviour. It was never about entitlement or hatred of women for me: I was just woefully ignorant about girls, and about people in general for that matter.

Had someone taught me the basics of intimate relationships, and the path to personal happiness, my behaviour would have been vastly different and both myself and the people around me could have benefitted.

Nerd boys don't need need more adults telling them what they can't or shouldn't do. Those boys need people providing POSITIVE role models, and providing them with useful knowledge and guidance instead of utter bullshit.

Right. Chu's essentially pointing out a problem but not offering any solutions.

It’s because other people’s bodies and other people’s love are not something that can be taken nor even something that can be earned—they can be given freely, by choice, or not.

This is a copout. People's choices are not acausal or random. You can in fact do things which increase or decrease the probability that other people will make a given choice with regards to you, just as they can do things which increase or decrease the probability that you will make a given choice with regards to them. This is why marketing, advertising, sales, and social skills work. You can't "earn" relationships in the sense of fulfilling some necessary and sufficient list of requirements which results in a 100% probability of getting one with a particular person, but you can do things which increase your probability of finding a relationship with someone.

If you want people to grow up, but you admit that when they were actually growing up, they were force-fed a misleading model of how to satisfy their needs, you need to offer them a model that isn't misleading. If you don't like the model the PUAs are selling them, you need to beat their offer. You can't just skip over that sort of legwork by trying to motivate them with guilt. A sense of collective guilt about the plight of women seems unlikely to indirectly turn frustrated male nerds as a group into the sorts of well-adjusted people you want them to be. If you want to take away the comfort of self-pity, you need to offer something in return.

 

[ksen]

If you want to take away the comfort of self-pity, you need to offer something in return.

Something like a quick handjob out in the parking lot for starters.