Mr Crankypants is cranky (a short rant)

[drwex]

I'm having a hard time shaking a long-running cranky. Things that pissed me off in rapid succession this AM.

Pope gets huge headlines for saying he won't condemn gay priests. This dude has approximately the lowest bar in history to clear, given his predecessors. Let's see, I won't condemn someone for their inner thoughts. That raises me almost to the level of adult. It's sure as shit not adulation-worthy.

People emailing social lists saying "I'm 49 but I can pass for 32". Who gives a flying fuck? You may not look your age, but you should damn well act it. You want to date younger women? Whatever gets enthusiastic consent from your partners is OK by me. But, seriously, stop skeeving me out.

I think my problem is I have too high a standard for my fellow humans. And it's not even 9:45. Now to see if I can get through my day without cranking at my cow orkers.

ETA: took a brief walk, practicing my breathing exercises.

Comments

[badseed1980.livejournal.com]

Your second peeve reminds me of the guys who are in their 50s and who e-mailed me on OKCupid when I was in my 20s. They always said stuff like, "I'm young at heart." I took that as code for, "I'm immature, and I think that this somehow will help me get young women into bed." Ironically, these guys would have had a better shot if they hadn't tried so hard to downplay their age.

[drwex]

In a word: ICK.

I elided a much longer bit about how youth-obsessed our culture is and how people trying to date younger (usually men > women) are playing into that kind of distortion in much the way people obsessively pushing dieting fads are playing into our society's maltreatment of fat people.

But that's more like thinking and less ranting so I deleted it :)

[desiringsubject.livejournal.com]

I think the moment I got okay with dating a much older guy was when he said it was okay to tease him about it or talk about about in any way that occurred to me. I know it doesn't map much, but it helps me. We'll be in a museum of renaissance art and I'll ask if he ever met the artist... (Occasionally he'll say yes to such things. He says Galileo was a hoot.)

I look younger than my age, which is also neither here nor there, but makes people all the more surprised we're dating. My Chinese students thought I was between 24-28. That is often the range. I don't have feelings about that, but its' odd how many people think I should!

Also, semi-relatedly, I hate it when people think I'm dating my father. No one ever thinks D is my father, but when I'm with my father, people think we're dating. To which... eww.

I get younger men

[sweetmmeblue.livejournal.com]

who message me on OKC and I ask them why they want to date someone twice their age (or close to) they say they dig older women. I hear "I can't get laid by women my own age and I figure you're more desperate."

Re: I get younger men

[badseed1980.livejournal.com]

Ewwwwwwwwwwwww.

[drwex]

Personally I think TKIOK but I'm biased.

[desiringsubject.livejournal.com]

Also can I suggest more closely circumscribing your reading material...

And deep breathing.

[drwex]

The pope item was sent to my by my dad, of all people.

And I wasn't consciously thinking of you when I wrote "enthusiastic consent" but at the same time I've never seen your D try to pretend he was anything other than what he is.

It'll be good to see you guys again.

[vibrantabyss.livejournal.com]

Methinks there is extra cranky floating around in the northeast, looking for folks to latch on to. Shaping up to be the sort of week I want to spend on a desert isle just to avoid the infected.

[woodwardiocom.livejournal.com]

I'm 44 but can pass for 12. So there. [nyah]

[vibrantabyss.livejournal.com]

Sadly, that is just not a good lead in for "I know you are but what am I?" :-P

[intuition-ist.livejournal.com]

dude, you have facial hair. That's all i'm sayin'...

[caulay.livejournal.com]

Experience shows that expecting the great majority of your fellow human beings to treat each other as human beings is setting the bar too high.

Perhaps you should settle for "Not actively killing each other right now."?

[shades-of-nyx.livejournal.com]

I got that skeevy email. I'm glad it wasn't targeted, at least. Ewww.

[chienne-folle.livejournal.com]

Since my parents did the emotional equivalent of keeping me in a box for the first 20 years of my life, people often think I'm a lot younger than I actually am. I usually think of this as something I need to apologize for, not something I need to celebrate...

[intuition-ist.livejournal.com]

i never thought i'd start a comment with this phrase, but here goes:

in defense of guys who contact/attempt to date younger women -- at least some of them have no intention of ever treading the standard adult male path (marriage, kids, house, debt, work, debt, overwork, grave). for people whose similar-age friends have all started down that path they have no intention of going down -- what do they do for a social life? or should they sit at home watching videos all day? society has no good answer for them but "conform, dammit, or be the skeevy old man/woman in the corner". i'd like to have a better answer than that before we start playing the blame game.

[drwex]

I do not disagree. But as i said there's a world of difference between "adults of widely differing ages do things to which they enthusiastically consent" (see my response to desiringsubject above) and "I am older but making a point of my youthful appearance."

Given that the communication that set me off went over email and there were no photos involved it was (imnvho) not at all necessary for him to mention either his age or apparent age. To do so sends a vibe that skeeves me.