tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7146512.post5148183729847901697..comments2024-03-12T22:31:46.500-04:00Comments on What Would Phoebe Do?: Sororities virtually visited, "guy friends" revisited UPDATEDPhoebe Maltz Bovyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17996039330841139883noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7146512.post-17370464648765724782014-01-27T11:48:35.795-05:002014-01-27T11:48:35.795-05:00"Your middle-school behavior is perfectly nor..."Your middle-school behavior is perfectly normal"<br /><br />Such kind words! Ones every former middle-schooler wants to hear.<br /><br />Anyway, yes, I think you're right that there's something entitled about this sort of behavior among adults. Presumably a grown man will have worked with women, etc., and will have a default friendship relationship with women he meets socially. The default needs to be not casting every interaction as romantic. <br /><br />There is a downside to this, though, which is a culture of it <i>never</i> being acceptable to see anyone as a potential romantic partner. A kind of professionalization of all settings, such that it's squicky to be hit on - however respectfully - in public, or by a friend of a friend (because <i>friends</i>!), or by a same-level colleague you hardly interact with, or even just someone in the same office building (because work), and so on. Which, in turn, drives people to online dating, where any pretense that people are there to make friends is just that, a pretense. And the basic social skill of figuring out when it is or is not OK to pursue something is potentially lost.Phoebe Maltz Bovyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17996039330841139883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7146512.post-64826281604848910162014-01-26T20:26:25.154-05:002014-01-26T20:26:25.154-05:00Separating the social awkwardness and the entitlem...Separating the social awkwardness and the entitlement into two components is smart and helpful. But in some ways, the entitlement lies in *not growing out of* the awkwardness. <br /><br />Your middle-school behavior is perfectly normal and gender-neutral. A middle school boy exhibiting the same behavior should be forgiven as hapless. A 34-year-old man exhibiting that behavior is behaving like a middle-school boy because he can.<br /><br />Refusing to grow up is most definitely entitlement.Doctor Clevelandhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07326408523926507003noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7146512.post-31396923006503724282014-01-24T22:49:39.824-05:002014-01-24T22:49:39.824-05:00By way of context, Into The Gloss is a beauty blog...By way of context, Into The Gloss is a beauty blog. That was the only part of the post that made sense. I mean, the overall gist kind of did, in that there's a running theme in a lot of the post about women's transition from a more conventional/suburban/high-school 'pretty' look to something more high fashion, edgy, New York. (Or better yet: Frahnce.) The whole story about how one used to overtweeze one's eyebrows but has since learned better (as if fashion in this area isn't cyclical, and we won't all be looking at the Cara Delevigne look and wondering what *that* was about in a year or two) comes up every so often. <br /><br />What was odd in this case was the meanspiritedness, especially pre-blurred-photos. But also - as some commenters there point out - that <i>nothing has changed</i>. This is the story of someone embracing one conventional ideal for another. It's not about abandoning the sorority aesthetic in favor of either a more individual style or a lower-maintenance approach. <br /><br />But I'm being too critical. If listening to Hebrew rock music and quoting Seinfeld are what it takes to be hip in one's youth, I was far more alternative and interesting back in the day than I realized. All this time I'd thought those things indicated that I'm both Jewish and (at this point, given when Seinfeld aired) old.Phoebe Maltz Bovyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17996039330841139883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7146512.post-9335380878571506002014-01-24T21:11:44.772-05:002014-01-24T21:11:44.772-05:00Sorority life=suicide? Wow. And looks like there&#...Sorority life=suicide? Wow. And looks like there's only one photo of her new makeup routine. Not that I'm really interested--it's a bit jarring how the post starts out being about her whole social life and descends into just makeup.caryatisnoreply@blogger.com