theworldofdale

Archive for the ‘Technology’ Category

can’t tell me nothing

In Communication, Relationships, Technology on July 21, 2015 at 6:53 pm

I have no idea who reads this blog. I don’t know how many people read it. I know there are analytics and metrics and they are easy to understand, but I just don’t care. I like having people read my writing, but I would still do this if no one read it but me (and my mom, who is contractually obligated to love everything I do). I don’t care how many people follow me on Twitter or Instagram. The threat to cancel subscriptions that would shake the boots of newspaper editorial staffs have lost their power in the age of free information (and free misinformation). I don’t get dollars for followers, so unfollowing, following back, all the status of social media is lost on me.

BUT (I like big buts and I cannot lie – sorry, couldn’t help myself): I am always bemused by the fact that the men I date have one thing in common (and truly only one thing). None of them read (past or present tense) my blog.

It used to bother me – look at this perfectly simple way to internet-stalk/gather counter-intelligence/bask in my brilliance! Men complain they don’t know what women want or what they are thinking, and here I am putting it on this easy-to-read design template. Granted, there are no pictures, but there are at least a couple dick/poop/tampon jokes (that is the grossest collection of slashes ever). And really – if he likes me as much as he says he does, why wouldn’t he support my completely non-profitable venture?

Until a couple nights ago, when I was reminded of the observation that if, for example, you get a rash every time you eat shellfish, maybe it’s not just a bunch of bad shellfish. Maybe it’s you. If you have a lot of friends who take advantage of your time and energy, maybe it’s not that you’ve happened upon horrible friends but because you are attracting them to you. It was time to contemplate why this single similarity tied together the (number redacted because it’s none of your business) men I’ve dated.

My theory about readers developing crushes on my words was confirmed when I wrote a sports blog for cincinnati.com. All of a sudden, emails and Twitter DMs (google it, mom) were pouring in with phone numbers and requests for “just a chat about sports over beers.” If my ego wasn’t already so inflated, I would have been flattered. But I suspected that a crush on my words did not translate to a crush on me. There is a distinct voice to my writing but it’s not necessarily my voice – or at least it’s only a portion of it. This voice is cultivated and uses thesaurus.com regularly and is expressed with an indistinct audience of me (writers write what they want to read) and a nebulous population of at least semi-anonymous readers in mind. My words are an orderly collection of sentiments meant to entertain.

But me? I’m not orderly at all. I’m chaotic and messy and mercurial, not just by diagnosis but by temperament as well. It’s not just my moods that ebb and flow and rise and fall. My house is usually a mess; my playlist goes from Kanye West to Conway Twitty; I’m alternately sentimental and emotion-phobic. In the words of Walt Whitman,”Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself; (I am large, I contain multitudes).” There is a dialectic of complicated simplicity to my nature that results in great frustration but, ironically, comfort, since all of those Jenga pieces still fit back together even after they splay over the game table.

I can’t be sure, but I’d like to think that the men I date like me, the person, and my writing doesn’t have the reckless quality of my human form. There’s something to like – something he has to like – about my agitated life that wouldn’t be sated by a few hundred words every few weeks or months. And even if he was a faithful follower, there would be a discomfiture between the woman he knows and the words he reads… an uncertainty that sometimes confuses even me.

Then again, maybe dating me is more than enough exposure to theworldofdale. In any case, it means I get to write about them and they’ll never know.


you get what you get and you don’t get upset

In Communication, News and Politics, Relationships, Technology, Work on July 26, 2011 at 12:15 am

The world doesn’t owe you anything.

You don’t deserve anything.

You might spend your whole life doing the best you can and still get dealt a shit hand.

Life, like love, is complicated and unfair and beautiful and horrific. I think a lot of unhappiness is based not on what occurs, but on your expectations. There are books and studies and theories and greeting cards based on the idea that it’s not what happens to you but how you handle it. Why wait? Why not start with, I’m not going to say lowered expectations, but a lack of entitlement.

Nothing is more 21st century American than feeling owed. People are mad that their iPhone doesn’t get service in such-and-such neighborhood. They can’t stand the injustice of inconvenient parking. White liberals in America love nothing more than feeling discriminated against. They will concoct reasons that their lives are hard. They are vegan. They are atheists. They eschew professional career paths. They live in “up-and-coming” neighborhoods.

I’m cynical, but I’m not pessimistic. In another post, I’ll tell you how my cynicism and optimism coexist peacefully (and optimally). But all you need to know for now is that, yeah, life can totally suck. But the resilience of the human spirit is what makes it all worth it.

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putting the period in periodical

In Communication, Health and Wellness, News and Politics, Relationships, Technology on February 9, 2011 at 7:30 pm

I have subscriptions to a lot of magazines. Like, 8. And that doesn’t include the 2 subscriptions I share with my mom, or the free subscription I have to Martha Stewart Living. Granted, I’m pretty good at getting deals on them- I pay about $5/year for 26 issues of ESPN Magazine. But still. For an environmentally-sensitive person like myself, it’s a bit extreme, but I can’t help it. I love magazines.

My periodical collection runs the gamut from girly (Cosmopolitan and Lucky) to issues that appeal to my more masculine sensibilities (Esquire). To illustrate what a frat boy I can be, I used to also subscribe to FHM and Maxim. I even had a letter to the editor published in FHM (PS – I got paid $50 for it!). Granted, they thought I was a dude (if they knew I was a chick, I would have only gotten $38.50).

There has always seemed to be something a bit off about women’s magazines- something that bugged me, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was. Finally, when I was trying to come up with details about what I would do differently (besides just create a female’s version of Esquire), I realized that every magazine whose target demographic was female was comprised only of advice on how to overcome our innate deficiencies- of character, ability, worth, and beauty. As far as Glamour, Cosmo, and Marie Claire are concerned, there isn’t anything wrong with you that a 6-week exercise regimen, new beauty product, and personality transplant can’t fix. Cosmo gives explicit directions on how to shake hands with people (make eye contact, grasp firmly, slight smile- those explicit directions are generally repeated in another type of Cosmo feature).

Conversely, men’s magazines treat every man like he is perfectly fine the way he is, but just in case he was wondering how to find good scotch, fine suits, and loose women, they have some suggestions. Esquire does not have quizzes for their readers to determine if they are too much of an attention-seeker. GQ may recommend their readers use moisturizer, but they certainly won’t condemn you if you don’t. It has never occurred to an editor at Details to give step-by-step instructions on how to meet women (then again, I’m not sure Details‘ readers are all that keen on meeting women). Men’s magazines treat each reader as a whole person, who doesn’t need a mate, perfectly groomed eyebrows, or a home that is welcoming to the opposite sex in order to be happy.

Men’s magazines also tend to respect the intelligence of their reader more than their counterparts. There are stories that involved research and investigative journalism and aren’t just about women who are being repressed. Hey, I’m all for stories about repressed women, don’t get me wrong. But women need to read about men who are oppressed. They need to know what their government is doing, and to assume we only care about that affects our uterus is insulting. For the record, my uterus will remain under my jurisdiction no matter what the Republican Party says.

Hearst, Conde Nast, Meredith, ACP, and all you other publishers: Women are smart and capable and just fine the way they are. Give them more credit.  For pete’s sake, even Playboy treats women like they are beautiful creatures instead of works-in-progress.

But if you do find any fat-melting foods, will you let me know?

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don’t hate the player; hate the game

In Communication, Entertainment and Nightlife, Food and Spirits, Health and Wellness, Relationships, Technology on December 2, 2010 at 12:06 am

Men get a lot of flack for treating women like objects.  Which they do.  But women treat men like objects too.  Just not a sexual object.  Honestly, we have to keep our minds OFF of you if we want to have sex.  You’re a hairy ape, okay?  But I digress.

Women treat men more like game pieces.  To women, every man is just a game of Jenga, where we push and pull and see what comes loose until you’re completely destroyed.

Louis CK first brought this to my attention where he pointed out that men are always destroying things.  Whether it’s a toddler knocking over someone’s Legos or grown men at war, men think anything less than annihilation is acceptable.

Women, while still set on creating havoc, have a different method and target.  Women, and I am including myself in this statement, crush men’s souls by nature.  As prone as a man is to spread his seed amongst the womenfolk, women are set to trap one of those men and make him ours.  We have to make you fall in love with us on the off chance we need protection.  You are our bodyguards, and we are Britney Spears.  You are the Secret Service, and we are the president.  Woman = baby-maker, man = guard dog.  It’s elemental, but I don’t think men or women realize it.

I don’t think it’s out of malice that women are destroying men’s souls.  Just like men aren’t thinking of women as sexual objects not because they don’t have respect for them, but because sex is their favorite thing.  Women need to be loved, and if you can’t do it on your own, we’ll help you.

I’m not saying women are bad for destroying souls or men are bad for wanting to fuck everything.  But I don’t get so worked up about relationships when I remind myself of this fact.

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nobody needs you that badly

In Communication, Relationships, Technology on November 5, 2010 at 9:43 pm

I have a cell phone.  You probably have a cell phone.  The last two standing of my cell-less friends got them years ago.  I have a smartphone with access to the internet, my Twitter, Facebook, and Gmail acounts.  You can reach me in at least 5 ways via a device that fits in my back pocket.

I’ve had a cell phone since I was a freshman in college.  Before that, I had a pager.

I was a 16-year-old girl living in southwestern Ohio, and I had a pager.

The point of a pager is so that people can communicate with you at a moment’s notice.  It’s urgent.  You can’t wait until they get home and check their answering machine.  You need to know if they are going to the football game this weekend, and you need to know RIGHT NOW.

Can you even imagine a scenario where a 16-year-old’s attention was needed that urgently?  The only people who take 16-year-olds seriously are 16-year-olds.  Every other age, younger and older, all know that 16-year-olds are the least significant and most attention-hungry members of society.  What argument can be made that results in a 16-year-old having a pager to be a rational decision?

I’m still not that important.  No one needs to get a hold of me at a moment’s notice.  I’m not saving anyone’s life.  My input is not needed to make time-sensitive decisions.  I have no one for whom or to whom I am accountable.  There are absolutely zero reasons I need to be reachable at all times.  Nobody needs me that badly.

And yet, my phone is less than 2 feet from my left hand even as I type these words.

Just in case.

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don’t send chicks pictures of your junk

In Relationships, Sports, Technology on November 3, 2010 at 7:27 pm

I really don’t understand sexting.  Maybe it’s because I’m too old (at 31, I’m ancient in terms of technology, modeling, and professional sports), but I don’t get the interest in looking at a 2″ square picture of a naked? body.

Call me a prude, but I haven’t flashed anyone.  You have to earn this shit.  I see no point in leading men on by flashing them- they will naturally think that the next step is that they get to touch them.  No, you don’t.

Even more bizarre is the epidemic of men sending pictures of their dicks to women.  There are a few problems with this.

  • Pictures of dicks aren’t difficult to get.  In fact, I could go up to nearly any random man at a bar and ask to see his dick and he will be more than willing to oblige.  You are not sending me something unique.  There is no mystique to a picture of your dick.
  • Dicks aren’t sexy.  We don’t get off by looking at dicks.  Honestly, they tend to ruin the mood.  What the hell am I supposed to do with a picture of your dick besides make fun of it with my friends?  Hmm… yeah, go ahead and send it.
  • Once you’ve sent it, you can’t un-send.  As Brett Favre has discovered, pictures of your dick are never seen only by the intended recipient (see above for why).  All too often, the senders of dick pictures are men who shouldn’t be sending dick pictures- married men, bosses, gay priests, and members (haha) of Congress.

I understand that smartphones are the wave of the future.  Suddenly, the world is in your pocket, and that’s a powerful thing.  But the other thing in your pants?  The world prefers if you keep it there.