I still would. But then, I'm not worrying about looks, just at revenge :-)
I still would. But then, I'm not worrying about looks, just at revenge :-)
Separate from health, but not separate from "fitness," right? The pill wouldn't make me swim as fast as I want?
3 - Yeah, separate from health but not fitness. It wouldn't give you superpowers.
1 - How was the triathalon?
I used to exercise just because it made me feel better afterward. But it's been 10 years since I felt that way. I still bicycle 10-20 miles several days a week because I like it. I'd run if I could but my legs are fucked.
Ok, yeah, I still would. But I would take more planned breaks with a lot less guilt.
got the splint off and ice on
i would walk and run the dogs the same fifty miles a week no matter what. the dogs like it and expect it, and walking in the woods or parks and neighborhoods is something i have done since i could walk
it aint heavy exercise, couple three miles an hour but there is a lot of it
In soviet russia, strenght train you!
Seriously, I don't "work out" worth a damn, so my behavior would probably stay exactly the same if factors which have thus far completely failed to impact my behavior were somehow modified. "Being in shape" as an abstract concept has never meant anything to me. I like to be able to do things.
I still bicycle 10-20 miles several days a week because I like it.
First we find out you're not so old, now this. You're actually Levi Leipheimer, aren't you?
I've lost weight since I stopped exercising regularly, and I'm still (barely) young enough not to worry yet so much about health. I do miss the exercise euphoria.
When I was about 50, I discovered that my body did not receive exercise well. Besides repeated small running injuries, I found that I gained strength very slowly if at all when I lifted weights. I was working out very hard as a stress reducer.
If, mind you, the mandated exercise is to go to the gym and make machines move around (or go to the pool and make splashy waves), then hell no.
Yeah, I wouldn't cut back much, but I've never really exercised to look good. (This may explain my not-getting-any status.) I exercise because it's sports that I enjoy, or because it's training to be better at sports that I enjoy (and thus enjoy them more, cause I'm overly competitive).
Relatedly, if I didn't enjoy any of these sports, I probably would exercise at all right now. But, I'm in my 20's and male, so I'm stupid. I'd probably start exercising as soon as I became concious of my mortality, sometime between now and never.
I like to be able to do things
This is probably the best expression of why I exercise, so I think I would still work out just as much.
Huh. I haven't ever actually lost weight exercising, I just get stronger and fitter. I'd probably keep up my current erratic level of exercise just about the same -- I like the strength, and being able to run without getting winded, and so forth, and at the level I exercise I'm not getting any weight loss now.
I suppose I should be more motivated by health than I am, but I'm not actually all that concerned about, I suppose heart disease? is what exercise should be protecting me from.
I actually wish I was better at understanding exercise for its own sake; probably help with the fat distribution, doncha know. I also wish I was still using my bicycle as primary mode of transportation, but those days seem to be over.
My new theory is to recast it as a way to meet girls. Hasn't motivated me so far, but you never know.
the exercise euphoria
This is key -- maybe not the euphoria, but other positive psychological effects of exercise. It's very calming.
The level I exercise at, BTW, is "not since early August." This has not been a fun six weeks or so.
LB you should really try and make an effort to heatbutt one coworker per day, for health.
I just saw an ad showing water buffaloes and other beasts terrorizing a major city, and I felt safe because the Breath family is fit and ready. And also, I live out in the sticks where water buffaloes never venture.
I'm not clear on the fitness/health discrepancy, but since the primary exercise I get is biking, which I do so that we don't have to get a second car, and the reason I want to start doing yoga again is to feel stronger and have better posture (which both go under "fitness"), I'd probably do pretty much exactly what I do now.
LB you should really try and make an effort to heatbutt one coworker per day
I have no idea what a heatbutt is, but in my mind it is hilarious.
23: I believe it involves sitting on them until they're uncomfortably warm. I'm not sure where the fitness element comes in.
I'm erratic about exercise and would probably stay so. I do feel better after I exercise.
I don't exercise now, except as part of doing things that I like (backpacking, walking rather than driving). Part of the reason that I like them, however, is that they involve exercise. Backpacking wouldn't be backpacking if it didn't involve pain. Going to the gym to make yourself pretty, however, is not at all punk rock.
I want the pill that magically gives me an hour or more each day to exercise. I miss the enforphines.
One reason I like to exercise is that I have to wake up around 6-6:30am to get to work and I've found that I just don't have the energy to sustain that if I'm not on some kind of exercise high.
Capitalism and/or workin' for The Man: good for you!
Also, to divert my own thread a bit -- if one were going to visit Chicago, what neighborhood would you recommend they try to stay in that (1) is accessible to typical touristy stuff but (2) has some character [e.g., isn't the Midtown/Times Square of Chicago] and (3) isn't crazy crazy expensive?
I should note that, punk rock or not, I'd like exercise to make me prettier. It just doesn't seem to have much of an effect other than making me able to lift more and run further. I would be motivated by the esthetics of it all if I'd ever gotten anything out of it; I'm vain as anything.
Yeah, if no strength or fitness from the pill, then I'd still be lifting, climbing, etc.
I have to wake up around 6-6:30am to get to work and I've found that I just don't have the energy to sustain that
Edited so, I certaainly agree.
i was planning on getting back on the weights october 1st, before the wrist thing. now im scared of looking like a batman baddie
helps me lose weight because i can see the toning and definition fairly quickly with several sessions a day, i eat more high protein meals, and my metabolism speeds up
still got a bottle of very mild steroids around, prescribed for the dialysis patient. strength builders, not for size,and no feminizing. wonder if they are safe after 5 years
It just doesn't seem to have much of an effect other than making me able to lift more and run further.
You are primarily lifting weights and running the treadmill, yes?
I wonder if anyone really exercises for "health," as distinct from fitness, unless they've been ordered to by a doctor. It seems the kind of long-term goal that tends not to motivate people much.
I love cycling, and often do it daily, for the joy and the lift in mood in usually brings. I would do it just for that so long as it wasn't actually harmful.
I should say that my assumption on the reason that I don't get much of an esthetic boost from exercise is that I don't do very much. If I run three miles or so a couple of days a week, and lift another day or two (which would be about as much as I ever do), I get stronger and more cardiovascularly fit, but I don't lose weight. This isn't particularly mysterious, if I actually wanted to lose weight enough I'd just, you know, run more. (And if I got desperate or something eat less, but that just seems wacky.)
I wonder if anyone really exercises for "health," as distinct from fitness
I started working out because I was 24 and headed for hypertension. I keep doing it though because I like the way I feel now a lot more then the way I did, so I don't know what kind of data point that is.
Then I would say, LB, that if you would like your body to learn to do things in a way that it is not already doing, you are going to need a teacher of some sort: either a personal trainer or a course instructor. Your gym probably has all kinds of fun classes, if you can find the time.
41: I'm confused. Are you talking about weight loss, in which case I'm pretty sure the deal is that I just don't exercise very much, or like learning to salsa dance or something?
Why do you people spell aesthetic so strangely? Am I behind the times?
My secret bias has been found out! I don't think you need to lose any weight; I think you need to stand up straight. For that, you'll need to retrain a bunch of your muscle habits. (Again, snort, oxlike my ass.)
Ooh, 44! Okay, so what does one do to retrain oneself to stand up straight at the age of 40?
(Again, snort, oxlike my ass.)
Jackmormon channels clique-y ungulates.
I don't think you can lose weight through exercise, unless it's pretty extreme levels, like an athlete.
I actually really like physical activity for its own sake, including things like running and stuff, but I get quickly annoyed by people's assumptions that I'm doing it to lose weight. I sort of am already in the position of this post, in that I am very healthy and working out doesn't make me look any better. I only do it to feel good. I just have, apparently, lost the desire to feel good lately.
Oh God, I need to make time to run.
44: I actually don't know what it looks like, but I feel as though my posture's better when I've been lifting a fair amount. Squats and deadlifts make me feel about an inch taller after I leave the gym.
50 can absolutely happen, if you're doing the right kind of stretching and so on. I have seen and experienced it in person; very odd.
Ach, you do whatever you enjoy to retrain your posture at age 40. But having some sort of teacher or trainer will help you avoid simply reinforcing the big familiar ones.
Alexander training is a kind of thing, not a kind of person, LB.
Noted follower of Gurdjieff R. Fripp endorses it, which has always made me think it must be a scam.
Is this still an open question I can answer without having read any of the comments so far?
If they magically created a pill tomorrow that would keep you at the weight you wanted and let you live a long, healthy life, would you still go to the gym/track/pool every day?
Yes. It's about strength, balance. Did I say strength.
5 years ago I wouldn't have given the same answer, but since then I've developed lower back problems. The only way to address them is in a holistic manner. Keep the body strong, and the rest will follow.
Oh, but wait: the magic pill assumes perfect physical health? And continuing to feel strong and powerful?
I think this pill does not understand.
I see. I was hoping there was some magic secret, like playing squash or something.
Circular strength training will beat Alexander technique like small girl who does not fight at all and is small.
which has always made me think it must be a scam
Eh, I'm going to a chiropractor. Might as well just wholly embrace the scammy health stuff.
I think you would enjoy jazz dancing, B.
Circular strength training is where you only put down old weights while you're picking up new ones, so there's no interrupting the steady flow of exercise.
Whatevs. Alexander is very useful. It's not "working out," which does other things, too. It's recreating childlike habits of body that allow for greater range of motion and comfort.
Yeah, I'm with LB. What's that?
60: How about if I just beat on you when we meet?
In fact 64 is not what I was thinking.
63: I probably would. I keep wanting to take salsa dancing, too, but Mr. B.'s a big stick in the mud.
I have some friends who swear by circular strength training, one of whom used to be in the Graham company. It's little like Pilates, but on machines, and all of the movement of your extremities is, as it were, circular.
The advantage of taking a jazz course, B, is that you would not need Mr. B. Added awesomeness: jazz hands!
Ok, time for bed.
67: That website, based on graphic design criteria alone, looks very sketchy.
74: oh, it is. But if you look up "circular strength training" or "clubbell training" or "kettlebell training" you'll find a lot of... well, a lot of similarly sketchy websites. Still, it works.
if we are including mental health from chemical changes due to exercise, then no i don't think i'd go much. maybe once every coupla months.
One reason I like to exercise is that I have to wake up around 6-6:30am to get to work and I've found that I just don't have the energy to sustain that if I'm not on some kind of exercise high.
Hmph. I can get up at 5:00 a.m. with no more exercise than occasional masturbation. Young people today.
76: So, like, swinging weights around in circles? Sounds like fun, but also like it violates my rule against looking like an idiot where people can see me.
I don't work out because I am not religious. I get the impression that many people who work out strenuously do it because they like punishing their bodies in order to feel better. And some tend to be sdanctimonius abut it, so for them I'd say not "feel better" but "feel holy." Jusdt another version of the medieval practice of mortification of the flesh. But the things with whips and studded underwear and the like were at least kinky, jogging - not su much.
I very faithfully practiced my Alexander technique for over a year while I was a piano major in college, but I don't think it ever did much for me. Enough musicians swear by its ability to make the physical aspects of playing an instrument (or singing) easier that most college music programs employ someone to teach Alexander in some kind of classroom setting (which they do say is not the optimal way to learn it). I was always disappointed in the results.
It's simply too hard to find the time for masturbation anymore. We must resort to actual sex, which is obviously less conducive to early rising.
When I was doing a lot of research into the life aspects of pick-up artist training, I came across a video of Neil Strauss advocating that people figure out what things they need to do every day to feel good about themselves, and for him, they were:
1) Do some work.
2) Do something intellectual (reading, thinking, non-work writing).
3) Do something physical (work out, go for a long walk, etc.).
4) Do something social (talk on the phone, hang out with people).
I sort of realized I tend to binge in each of these categories, doing each of them really intensely one day a week, instead of spreading them out into each day. It might be really good for me to think that way.
80: so turn the lights off. Added advantage: you won't know which of the kids you've just brained until later.
AWB you're an MPUA now, aren't you? Makes me feel like an AFC talking to a girl who's got your ASD.
I keep wanting to take salsa dancing, too, but Mr. B.'s a big stick in the mud.
OK, now *this* is a universal male/female difference. Probably traceable back to the veldt.
I just have, apparently, lost the desire to feel good lately.
Like relationships, feeling good is a trap.
86: You're not getting the whole NYC apartment thing. I wouldn't have to worry about the kids, I'd have to worry about the walls. If I can't swing a cat in here, which I can't, I certainly couldn't swing a weight.
Yeah, all those Latino guys are really women in disguise.
87: Missouri Public Utility Alliance?
88: bah. I'd take salsa dancing lessons with an interested girl in a minute. Now we know why you keep disappointing the laydeez.
90: the giant speakers would cushion the blow.
87: I'm working on it. When I was flirting on Friday with the boy from school, I showed him what I'd learned by getting an HB9 to sit down with us for half an hour. He claimed it made him "violently aroused." Again, I did not score with him.
1) Do some work.
2) Do something intellectual (reading, thinking, non-work writing).
3) Do something physical (work out, go for a long walk, etc.).
4) Do something social (talk on the phone, hang out with people).
I got home at 4am from a gig. Got up at 2pm. Played horseshoes and drank beer with bandmates in my backyard today. We talked about mis-attributed Shakespeare quotes. So I'm okay, right?
95: dude. Dude. Girls aren't supposed to learn that stuff; if you're not a terminally unlucky nerd-dude you're likely to rip the fabric of spacetime.
But if you look up "circular strength training" or "clubbell training" or "kettlebell training" you'll find a lot of... well, a lot of similarly sketchy websites. Still, it works.
Those things are getting way overhyped.
Strength training isn't rocket science. Pay no attention to those retarded fucking bodybuilders, and read guys like Vladimir Zatsiorsky, Louis Simmons , etc.
98: hmmm, I dunno, makes sense to me. Core strength is the key to usable strength, no?
93: don't be so quick to promise until you've experienced it a few times. Very trying for your typically uncoordinated North American geekboy.
95: I saw the finale to PUA and it was really charming. It also made me realize I'm too old and lazy to ever become one.
97: Yeah, I've tried my moves on boys directly before, and it makes things move too quickly, because they're trying much of the same stuff. I thought it would be impressive to see me do it to a girl, as a sort of meta-attraction thing, but I think it just intimidated my target.
showed him what I'd learned by getting an HB9 to sit down with us
This is a kind of pencil, right?
100.1: have I not already mentioned that I'm a dancin' fool?
How about if I just use PK's balance board and call it a day?
101: I can imagine! Breaks the whole game, if both parties are horny and intentional.
The trouble with fitness in my family is that even though I am not out of shape I am way behind too many close relatives. My SO is a 2nd degree TKD black belt. My uncle was a world-class marathoner. My sis-in-law just today ran the "Race For The Cure" run in her Small Canadian City and won outright -- I mean beat everyone, including all the men -- and she had a baby five months ago. So where's the incentive, you know?
105: Yeah, but when it does work, you get both of them! Yay!
I would still exercise the same amount if a pill could
deliver health and good looks. But I would do less
stretching and less elliptical, and more lion taming,
parcour, and base jumping.
105: Oh, you mean when the boy and the girl are sarging each other? That's happened to me a couple of times this year and I've ended up F-closing way way too fast. Rules stipulate you should try to F-close after 5-10 hours of contact. I was running 1-hour games.
I dunno, makes sense to me. Core strength is the key to usable strength, no?
Meh, do some deadlifts.
103: well, get out to a salsa class right away, then. No need to wait for somebody to ask. As a smooth dancer, you'll be able to steal somebody's girlfriend. Somebody like me.
109: girl, I am rofling like a motherfucker. I'm sure you did!
I have tried many times to explain to my doubleyourdating-obsessed dude friends how it was wrong, and useless, to make women into a videogame; now I meet the girl gamer?
Awesome.
108: Your gym has lions? Cool. I could see that being a real incentive on a running program, too.
109: Jesus, AWB, you're a woman! You can F-close within 15 minutes if you pick the right guy!
113: Yeah, but I haven't gotten laid since June, when I became painfully aware that the game was working against me.
115: This is the problem. Of course I can F-close in 15 minutes. But this will freak a motherfucker out, after the fact. This is why the 5-10-hour rule makes so much sense.
116: okay we can totally make this into, if not a movie, a Law & Order episode. Thoughts?
Seriously all that PUA stuff really bugs me. Why not adopt the Tao of Steve, AWB? Much less antisocial.
117: wait, so you are using the 5-10 hour rule as a way to limit yourself? For god's sake, just never start posting on their message boards, will you? You'd give a million D&D nerds false hope.
This is starting to sound like a business plan -- shouldn't you be teaching this stuff? Admittedly, that wouldn't itself get you laid, but it sounds entertaining and possibly lucrative.
I hate exercising, but I've been going to the gym about three times a week for the last five months. Recently friends have told me I'm looking buff, which is not in fact true, but I'm a little less scrawny than I used to be and the beer fat around the middle is a bit reduced. I would gladly take a pill for more of the same and the good/relaxed feeling of having exercised.
This F-closing maneuver, however, is a technique I may need to get a trainer for.
Have you considered hiring AWB, Bave? She is apparently an expert.
Something to do with photography, right?
It's not something I adopted from the PUA community. It was more like I had to develop a way of meeting boys at Nerd Undergrad School, who were very shy/nerdy/hostile, so I codified some stuff, taught it to some other girls, and tried it out at parties. Discovering that there's a standardized lingo for all the same stuff I was already doing was great.
I see it not as fundamentally antisocial or misogynistic---at least, it doesn't have to be---but a way of thinking of ways to elicit responses. Most guys just make a lame play for a girl, put it all out there, and then hate her eternally when she shuts them down. This is because women like to have some input in creating a relationship; everyone does. When I was thinking about how to flirt in a way that would get results, it was all about eliciting a complicit response from a guy, not just demanding that he should like me back. It's also a lot about learning how to move on when someone's not giving you anything in return. You don't have to hate them; just meet someone else.
I think the PUA community has a firm position that only a man can teach another man "the game", since women have too many sentimental illusions about the actual sources of male attractiveness.
I could see AWB opening up a special course for bisexual women, though. I'm sure men would pay just to be present.
Something to do with photography, right?
Heehee.
124: what bugs me is that it seems so far removed from treating women as people; it's like, hit this button then this button then this button, and Boss Level A might give you a blowjob. Sure, there's ways to go about it, but learning to negotiatite interpersonal relationships in a, y'know, personal way seems like a feature, not a bug.
I think the PUA community has a firm position that only a man can teach another man "the game", since women have too many sentimental illusions about the actual sources of male attractiveness.
AWB could start a schism in the community; rogue PUA-instructors! preaching heresy! It'd be great.
125: Mystery has women as pivots and co-instructors. They're very smart and helpful, not at all sentimental.
PUA-instructors! preaching heresy!
Puatestentism.
129: Eh, as someone who never got past lurking at people who I wanted to make out with (the amount of lurking at Buck I had to do was just ridiculous), I have a certain amount of sympathy for the incompetent and confused.
134: ye-e-e-ess, but is the solution really to treat the desired as the output of a seduction function? It just seems so impersonal.
hit this button then this button then this button
But doesn't a ton of human interaction work like this? For both sexes. Especially with strangers. I think you have to do a little of it to break past the barriers people have up. I would have benefited from it earlier in life, probably still could.
132: ah. I haven't seen much of the show.
I mean, I'm no better at making my desires clear than the next guy (arguadly substantially worse), but it seems like all of these systems and acronyms are so reductvie and objectifying... no? Am I ahead of the consensus on this one?
argua(b)ly substantial()y.
Arguadly substantially worse at proofreading, too.
129 points out the major problems with PUA shit. The language it uses tends to be misogynistic, even when its ends aren't, necessarily.
E.g.: If someone you're fooling around with suddenly says, "Wait, I'm not sure I'm ready," that's LMR, last-minute resistance. One of the main techniques for dealing with LMR is called "Freeze Out." You say, "I understand," and then you get up and walk away. You don't keep touching or kissing or pleading. You just go get a drink of water, do something else for a while. Most of the time, because your partner is still horny, and now respects your self-control, you will go on to get laid that night, but the LMRing partner has to fully declare consent.
Fundamentally, this is an incredible way to prevent date-rape. It's a great way to encourage self-control and listening in the bedroom. But it's presented as a way to "get what you want from that withholding chick" or whatever. I dunno. The language is horrible, but I'd much rather someone freeze me out than try to convince me to fuck them.
137
When I read The Game (admittedly over a year ago) it sounded like there was a very strong Turn Yourself Into A Sociopath element in the training, with many of the characters Strauss came across in his guru quest describing the source of their strength as just not caring what the other person thought of them.
That was creepy.
And of course, the book reads like a morality play, where Strauss realizes that he's rendered himself unable to form personal connections any more, and that makes him sad.
30: I would search for one of the bed and breakfasts in bucktown/wicker park. I think there are one or two of each. There are also some hotels with character in Lincoln Park that may be cheaper.
141: it's the attitude that it encourages that creeps me the fuck out. It's like they've observed the external actions of cool, with-it, non-misogynistic guys who get laid a lot, and then translated it into the native language of Hategirlon-A, the Dude planet.
all of these systems and acronyms are so reductvie and objectifying... no?
Steven Poole has a good review of one of the genre. Excerpt:
And so most of The Game, ostensibly a narrative of daredevil sexuality, is actually shrouded in a depressing odour of stale male sweat. It lifts only during the remarkable period when rock star Courtney Love comes to live in the Hollywood house between detox periods. She is a force of nature, stealing people's clothes, giving everyone mountains of lemonade and muffins, regally soliciting all manner of favours, exuding a gale-force fuck-you cool. Briefly, the book lights up with a portrait of a woman who is not just described as a number - 8.5, 9, 10 - with tits and ass attached. Notably, not one of the self-described "pick-up artists" in the house attempts to bed her. A real woman, one who sweats and swears and bleeds, baffles their programmed sense of superiority to the weak Pavlovian female. And so they heave a collective sigh of relief when she leaves, able to return in all spiritual purity to the brotherhood of the cock.
Also, I think it's basically in the tradition of Castiglione, a rhetoric for interpersonal interaction. A lot of people think rhetoric as a way of teaching writing demystifies some glorious magical process by codifying it, too. The problem I see with it is that you start thinking of a lot of interpersonal interactions as a game of how-far-can-I-get? ...Which is why, from what I understand, Strauss stopped playing, because the game took over his whole life. Same thing happens when people read Castiglione. Same thing happened to me when I read Aristotle.
hit this button then this button then this button
But doesn't a ton of human interaction work like this? For both sexes. Especially with strangers.
c.f. Various Alternate Dispute Resolution techniques.
The triathlon actually went really well. Still waiting for results to be posted (I would assume tomorrow) and then I'm going to post about it.
Also, another reason to exercise for me is because it provides me something to do. Call me boring, uninteresting or whatever, but I would otherwise be sitting at home on my ass not doing anything, and being unhappy. Finally, it gets me to travel. Thinking of doing both the Chicago and New York triathlons next year, as well as the Arizona one I'm already doing.
It's not about fitness or feeling good for me. It's about setting a goal and reaching some end.
137: I have to think that that the impersonality or otherwise is in the person doing it. If they're having trouble meeting women because they're a jerk who relates to women only as objects, sure, giving them a bunch of techniques to do so successfully is kind of gross. But for someone who's just kind of a klutz, how bad is it to self-consciously learn some of the same stuff that someone who's naturally smoother does without thinking about it?
145.quote: right; as I said to my friend "you talk to other guys on the internet as a way to get laid? What?"
148: the problem is, the whole scene is about teaching the kltuzes to be jerks. The lesson the take from all of it is: "you care too much, so you shouldn't care at all. Treat women as you would treat a videogame, and all of your self-consciousness will disappear."
Same thing happened to me when I read Aristotle.
?
153: Poole again: "The "game" appeals to the mindset that supposes everything can be reduced to a technology, a program to follow. "Think of tonight as a video game," Mystery instructs his students before taking them out sarging."
I don't buy most of it, honestly. I recognize that it's gross and sociopathic in some ways. I just don't think trying to understand how we meet and get along with people is a bad idea. Too much, we assume everyone who's good at meeting people is either just (a) magically attractive or (b) magically charming. I'm neither, but I've gotten really good at meeting people by practicing, seeing what works, trying new things, etc.
Same thing happened to me when I read Aristotle.
I categorized the living shite out of everything, and insisted that women had more teeth than men.
154: I'm a rhetorical theorist, and I annoy everyone in earshot by obsessively taking apart the rhetorical structure of texts while everyone else talks about what they "mean."
Neat. I picked up a battered copy of his rhetoric treatise at a yard sale once, but now it's in a box somewhere unread.
156: this may be sexist, but I think as a woman you're almost insulated from how and why it can be harmful. It speaks to a certain kind of guy, massively nerdy, unlucky, who is primed for sociopathy, whether through religious fundamentalism, militarism, or misogyny. They feel like the world is stacked against them and, if they just had the program to hack it, they could figure it out.
The whole idea of thinking of the dating process as systematic is endemic to the process of male maturity. The only reason you wouldn't have an approximate sense of what the PUA system attempts to teach is that you grew up a loner, or a nerd.
Eh, I'm actually not familar with any of this except that I run into people making fun of it occasionally.
161: Surely there are meta-PUAtasters. It's the natural field-positional move to make.
160: this may be sexist, but I think as a woman you're almost insulated from how and why it can be harmful.
Huh. This may be sexist in return, but part of the reason it doesn't strike me as particularly harmful is that the attitude you're talking about, possibly not toward all women, but toward at least some women, sometimes, seems more common than not. It's not like a program like this is teaching an unpleasant attitude toward women -- the attitude is endemic, but the program is channeling it into a reasonably unobjectionable set of behaviors.
160: The only guys I could meet at Nerd U were massively nerdy, unlucky sociopaths. I wish they knew this stuff, because at least it's better than what they were doing, which was sitting around the dorms playing Gay Chicken and talking about what evil cunts women were that they didn't react to their periodic stalkerish soul-outpourings, or to date rape.
No, it's not the same as getting therapy or learning to love humankind or whatever, but some people just aren't built for love. At least they could learn a way to talk to people without creeping them out.
Are you arguing that creepy people should stay creepy, for the good of humankind? I could accept that, maybe, except it seems pretty defeatist.
Agreed with 163. The men themselves are misogynists.
Rhetoric, btw, gets a similar bad reputation, as if knowing how to construct a convincing argument is inherently evil. Clearly, evil people who learn rhetorical arts are more powerful than they were before, but good people who learn rhetorical arts also become more powerful.
142, 145: The Game is an excellent book precisely because Strauss both masters the game and realizes its limitations. I didn't like the Poole review because Poole represents himself as understanding something about the book that Strauss did not. But Strauss was consciously delivering the message that Poole saw, plus a couple of other layers too that Poole does not deal with.
the whole scene is about teaching the kltuzes to be jerks.
I thought this at one point, but now I disagree. It's about teaching klutzes not to be klutzes. Whether they then become jerks is up to them.
The lesson the take from all of it is: "you care too much, so you shouldn't care at all. Treat women as you would treat a videogame, and all of your self-consciousness will disappear."
caring too much = nervousness = inability to function in the very high-pressure environment of chatting up strangers. Once you are beyond that stage and the person is no longer a stranger, then you can interact with them on another level.
But it's true that there's another step beyond that where you don't care about the woman at all, just getting her into bed. That probably would help you get laid more often (like any single-minded focus), but it could get to a pretty dark place, you're right about that.
164: I guess I would argue that those creepy people aren't really endemically creepy, just lonely, lost, and lacking in role models, and that when they get the idea that this PUA nonsense could assuage a bit of the loneliness they lose the scared, sensitive guy inside forever.
That is to say, to frame it in the rhetoric of Rhetoric, they learn one particular argument, and the idea that there might be other arguments, and that they might better make the case by finding common ground, is lost.
Taking a course on mediation helped my situation with the laydeez more than reading the Game would have, although neither is even close to joining the Drama Society.
166.last is, I think, pretty accurate.
166: Yes, and in my own way, I'm realizing that it has been really easy for me, since I started thinking this way in college, to make extremely close, intimate friends, and also to get laid. But I'm a total klutz, still, when it comes to meeting someone I like and trying to date them. I've never done it, I don't know how, and I'm in this weird place where I have no script except to do that really boring thing where you say "I like you" and then wait for the other person to either get creeped out or ask you out again.
I'm in this weird place where I have no script
Improv, not so much.
they lose the scared, sensitive guy inside forever
Ah, but what if women (and indeed, other people in general) don't really want anything to do with the Scared, Sensitive, Guy Inside? What if he's just too creepy, not because he's sensitive, but mostly because he's scared? So they'll be repelled by seeing him? Tragic, but evidence mounts that it might be true.
This relates to AWB's 164. We're basically talking about deprogramming folks from being scared of other people, especially attractive opposite-sex people. But fear is closely related to openness and sensitivity -- we're scared of what can hurt us.
But I'm a total klutz, still, when it comes to meeting someone I like and trying to date them. I've never done it, I don't know how
Hi, welcome to your peer group.
welcome to your peer group the human race
I mean, this is the plot of every romantic comedy ever, no?
But concentrating on 166.last is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Talking to strangers is really difficult, and there's a lot of aspects of social interaction that are really not obvious to a lot of guys. Wasn't it Mystery pointing out on Conan about thinking about what it'd be like to be attracted to someone who was much larger than you and easily capable of physically harming you?
Surely framing social advice as "this will help you get laid" is no worse than anything the average parent tells their kid to get them to eat their vegetables.
176, 177 approximately, well yeah.
This whole conversation has become adorable, bastards. I certainly hope Emerson shows up to scold us..
30: the loop or magnificent mile, where most of the hotels are, is a lot nicer than midtown/Times Square. The loop might get kind of quiet at night, if anything. Lincoln Park & Wicker Park are more residential & still relatively convenient to tourist stuff (esp. Lincoln Park, which is closer to the lake) but have fewer hotels. I don't know about specific hotels that are good deals. My in-laws just stayed at the Days Inn closest to us last time they came, which was fine but nothing you'd seek out & I don't remember how expensive.
I'm better with restaurants than hotels. Also, highly recommended if the trip is before it gets too cold: renting bikes & riding along the lake.
179: Actually, I'd expect he's lurking and thinking "My work here is done."
that really boring thing where you say "I like you"
If the other person likes you back, then it will never be boring for them to hear that. Maybe you just haven't run into the right guy yet.
I agree with Sifu just enough to believe that we have lost something valuable when we lose the ability to feel like an awkward klutz when faced with someone we are truly deeply attracted to. The most boring thing to really be jaded.
Looking like an awkward klutz can be endearing. I find that, because I'm never awkward in professionally or socially intimidating situations, my awkwardness in romantic ones is maybe especially creepy-seeming. Or at least, it's disconcerting.
You're utterly endearing, AWB. Not to worry.
184: You're just saying that because she hasn't said she likes you yet. She makes a romantic move and, wham, major creep factor.
We call that one the old bait-and-switch.
I agree with Sifu just enough to believe that we have lost something valuable when we lose the ability to feel like an awkward klutz when faced with someone we are truly deeply attracted to. The most boring thing to really be jaded.
But it's nice (or seems like it would be nice) to not always have to act like an awkward klutz. Nothing wrong with being able to act smooth for the first couple of hours until you realize that yes, the other person likes you too.
LB knows. I was all, "I think we have something special, Ms. Breath" and she was all, "Erm, I think I have to get up early or something, mumble, okay bye!"
I will deploy creep factor first, LB, not to worry. My creep factor is the fastest.
188: I was all, "I think we have something special, Ms. Breath"
In my wistful dreams.
I feel like I'm really good at the PUA stages of Opening, Comfort-building, and Attraction-building, and I can F-close. But the point is, none of this is really good for doing something other than just fucking. For this, do I have to read The Rules? I don't want to read The Rules. Yuck. There has to be another way.
192
I talk about this with my roommates. My guess is that those techniques are going to be a lot less developed, because who in life is going to have more than a handful of successes? I mean, it's going to be really hard to build up a lot of data for your "how to fall in love" treatise, where "how to pick up people in bars" lets you generate multiple trials a night!
192: So, what happens if you pull out the mojo on someone you actually like, like the guy from your department you were talking about? It doesn't work if you're not starting as strangers, or it freaks people out, or what?
I guess what I'm wondering is if, perhaps, Tweety was maybe right to begin with, that thinking in these kinds of terms at all sets the tone for a game that isn't about finding someone compatible and kind. And while I only realized PUA terminology existed about a year ago, it's not that different from how I've been thinking about interpersonal relations since I was 16 or so. I have to undo a lot of thinking and backtrack, which is what I've been trying to do since June, but put me in a situation like Friday's, and I'm back to old tricks.
Wait, PUA doesn't stand for Protestant University of America? I thought it was already schismatic.
I would love to know how eHarmony wrote their algorithm, and what's the theoretical basis behind it.
it's not that different from how I've been thinking about interpersonal relations since I was 16 or so.
Often our 16-year-old methods of interpersonal relations have a ton to do with unexamined childhood insecurities, and may in fact even be unconsciously designed to avoid and push away scary intimacy. I don't really know you, just just sayin'.
194: Well, I did pull it out with him, and realized at some point that, damn, I didn't want to fuck it up. All I knew how to do was drag it out; I ended up spending like 12 hours with him. At that point, I made a funny ploy to get him to go watch the sun come up with me, but we were both too tired. Will he be happy to see me again? Will he seek me out? Dunno. I'd be delighted if he did, but I have to stop thinking in terms of whether I get what I want or not.
Plus, I think I intimidated the everloving daylights out of him. Found really sly ways of introducing him to famous people, gave him a brief 3am tour of everything hip that would still be open, etc.
195: it is confusing! Is what I'm saying!
Found really sly ways of introducing him to famous people
What does this mean? Like, you brought up their names in conversation, or you somehow managed to run into famous people whom you know and introduced him to them?
This PUA shit creeps me out. I say this as a male geek type whose charisma takes the expected dive among attractive women; in theory I am the intended audience. In practice, the idea of systematizing one's expression towards the end of fucking fills me with moral horror. I can't justify this: it's dishonest and all, but I lie all the damn time, and that doesn't bother me.
Famous people in our field who could be useful to him. We were around a lot of them when we met.
Rhetoric, btw, gets a similar bad reputation, as if knowing how to construct a convincing argument is inherently evil. Clearly, evil people who learn rhetorical arts are more powerful than they were before, but good people who learn rhetorical arts also become more powerful.
How did this happen? Wasn't mastering rhetoric - in the form of becoming a great orator - one of the goals of humanistic studies (European renaissance version).
203 - That's because it is fantastically creepy. There's a real tension between objectifying someone to the point where you literally run a programmed routine on them and the intense personal intimacy of sex.
How did this happen?
This is my dissertation.
I prefer to interpret 207 as an admission of guilt.
205: if I'm not mistaken this attack on rhetoric goes back in some form to Plato and the sophists.
((Research proves that the Boy in Question is In A Relationship. Please see all my previous comments about the death that should come to someone in a relationship who never mentions it to the girl he's flirting with for hours. Tragedy averted, though!))
207: sounds more interesting than starting a magazine, frankly.
211: were you the one who thought that he appeared ambivalent or torn? Maybe he was toying with the idea of letting you seduce him despite the relationship. That's usually the circumstance under which someone doesn't mention a relationship.
212a: It is interesting, yes. I just need lots of things to do.
212b: I understand this is the motivation, but it's not nice, and puts me in a really awkward position, and not the good kind of awkward.
How did this happen?
There's the utter divorce between rhetoric and substance that is prevalent today. How did that happen?
Also, I don't mean to deny PUA-type stuff's utility as a means of constructing a mutually-agreeable fiction conducive to fucking: if everyone's in on the joke, fuck away.
I understand this is the motivation, but it's not nice
of course, it's well known that this behavior totally sucks. Lying is bad. I understand that even PUAs believe this.
Now that you are all asleep, I can, in anticipation of the morning commenters, return (almost) to the OP: this exercise euphoria business, is it real? Do you really get all happy and dopey after running? I've run a fair bit myself, and haven't felt anything of the sort. Of course, I seem to be immune to the other sources of euphoria so my experience doesn't even rise to the level of anecdatum, but I'm curious. Do you all get happy after exerting yourselves?
He didn't lie, but he did make a point of saying he hadn't gotten laid since moving here. I'm guessing it's long-distance.
Playin' th' playa is played, playa.
Nope. I mean, smugly tired if I'm in a good mood, but nothing that feels like euphoria or any kind of a high.
217: I never got euphoria out of running, exactly. Lots of endorphins, yes, so a very good physical feeling, but not anything like bliss.
218: That always used to give me the willies, back when I was trying to hit on boys. No faith that they'd let me know if they were otherwise occupied in time to keep me from looking like a fool.
this exercise euphoria business, is it real?
Euphoria is rare for me. Actually, localized euphoria would be great, because it would make me work out more consistently. What I get instead is a kind of across-the board feeling of well-being that lasts for an hour or two, and then a subtle upward push on my baseline happiness.
Apparently, neither of those rewards is close enough to the original exertion to figure into my Pavlovian response to dragging my ass out of bed to work out, but maybe others are better conditioned.
I occasionally had euphoria from running, but the real exercise highs I've had have been from being at high altitude. Unfortunately, without time to get acclimated, those highs could be preceded by feeling kind of sick for a day or two.
If the pill described in this post existed, I'd probably make the same excuses for not exercising that I make today and have the same reasons for wanting to stop making excuses.
I have had moments of like-high-on-drugs euphoria, but generally only when I'm hypoxic. You have to be training hard which I haven't done for years.
I've come to expect that if I'm flirting with someone and it seems to be going well, it's only a matter of time until I find out she's in a relationship.
Do you all get happy after exerting yourselves?
Not "happy" exactly, but there's a floaty, slightly-disassociated but still mentally sharp feeling that last for 30-60 minutes after a good aerobic workout, and then my energy level stays noticeably higher for most of the rest of the day. The immediately post workout feeling is definitely a kind of high.
Other people get that by having sex.
After I really good run I feel just like 228. The one time I took a Xanax it felt a lot like a post-running buzz.
Unfortunately my legs are now too messed up to get to this point very often with running. And running is the heroin of workouts, it gives such a good high it's hard to climb down to more moderate ones.
The immediately post workout feeling is definitely a kind of high.
This extends for me into the next day. I'm sufficiently old and out of shape that when I go at it hard, I wake up the next day feeling stiff and sore and great.
A few decades ago, I remember chatting with a 90-year-old retired doctor about the aging process. He remarked that when he woke up in the morning, everything was stiff but what was supposed to be.
At the time, I was amused.
See, my endorphins, they don't work like they're supposed to. When I'm done working out, I feel like a sucker. This, I suspect, is why I don't work out, absent a payoff.
Working out only makes me sweaty and tired, so I no longer do that.
Cycling however, as part of the daily commute, feels frikking wonderful when the situation is right (tailwind, flat, no tourists slowing me down).
hum de da doo. I was feeling slightly sluggish at the weekend so I went for my roughly annual twice-round-Regent's-Park 10 kilometre run. (just under fifty minutes, apparently). The overwhelming feeling was not so much "euphoria" as "aching ribs".
232. Apocryphally, Voltaire woke up with a stiffy when he was 90 and called all his family and servants in to see it.
I don't get the euphoria thing except occasionally but generally have an overall sense of greater well-being when I exercise regularly. My favourite stuff when I have the time for it involves being outside for hours at a time (hill walking, sailing) which helps to counteract the fact that I sit at a desk all day during the week. I think I'd still do those things for the spiritual/emotional benefits.
I have found that I'm in a position of ongoing stress (eg major relationship break-up, job problems, seriously ill family member) exercise is absolutely essential just so I can keep going with my life w/o bursting into tears and/or snapping angrily at people.
I have a buggered up lower back* and knee at the moment. Haven't been training for 3 weeks, and I am supposed to be fighting in a competition [semi-contact, not full-contact] in 2 weeks. I suspect this is not going to happen.
I quite like the process of training, but I am also fundamentally quite lazy. If I wasn't i) working and full time job and ii) trying to finish thesis revisions, I'd train a lot more but I suspect it'd mostly be slanted to things that were fun -- martial arts, yoga, dancing, some weight training etc -- rather than running or cycling which I don't enjoy.
* well, some sort of nerve compression thing there anyway
I would comment on this post, but I have to go swim now.
Now while I'm between contracts I have no excuse but distraction and sloth from riding every day. It would be very good to build my fitness base while I can, because I haven't yet been able to ride while working. One of the best parts of my long-time suburban job, the one I had for about fourteen years, was that I could ride a half hour to a train and then take a half-hour train ride, reversing at night. So exercise and reading were built into my schedule automatically.
Even someone who loves riding still needs to make himself do it or incorporate it into a routine.
I'm never sure if those who report not having the rush from exercising are actually constituted differently, such that no amount of training would induce it or it would need unrealistic amounts of training to, or whether they are not at fitness levels where they can enjoy and fully benefit. I ride easily and naturally without fear on the busy streets near my house, and push through my aerobic threshold quickly and almost painlessly. So it seems ridiculously easy to me, but by thinking about it I remember that it hasn't always been so, and I'm where I am after years and years of doing it.
I have found that I'm in a position of ongoing stress ... exercise is absolutely essential
Yeah, this is why the only time I can be relied upon to exercise is during my period. Nothing like sweatin' off the pain.
personally I have enough faith in the market to believe that if these "endorphins" everyone keeps talking about were any good, you would be able to buy them with your morning heroin. I therefore conclude that they are a pale imitation of proper drugs.
likewise "adrenalin", whose self-styled "junkies" really do appear to me to be phoning it in.
Oh, now adrenaline I like, a great deal. Fear makes me extremely pleasurably giddy. Even on drugs or while drinking, I still behave within the boundaries of normal human behavior, but I'll do some fucked-up stuff on adrenaline.
If I could have the health and appearance benefits without working out would I still work out? Hell. No.
Maybe that's a little too quick, but I've had a very hard time getting motivated lately sans magic pill, so who am I kidding? Working out is good for managing low moods, but the low moods make it hard to decide to go to the gym.
Just married (and for you guys, pretty recently moved in together too, right?) is disruptive, too. Pleasant, but it'll mess with your routines.
I would still work out. I enjoy the competitive aspects too much to not work out.
My routine is wholly fucked. There is another person in my house! All the time!
My routine is wholly fucked.
Ah, honeymooners..... to be young and newly married again.
248: Yes. I was at my all-time heaviest about the time of my marriage, after living together for about three years. Both of us found that eating regular meals with each other had that effect, the carelessness about food that would let you miss a meal or just scramble some eggs at most was gone.
Even heroin isn't the best. I have a friend in Israel who's supposedly making me a Tshirt saying:
I don't need drugs to get high --
I'm fucked up on Jesus!
He has also copped to having killed Our Lord.
But I do expect to see commercial endorphins soon enough. I lost track of the designer synthetics long ago, but I do know that one of the ingredients of root beer (sassafras oil) is a controlled precursor substance used to make ecstasy.
I was at my all-time heaviest about the time of my marriage, after living together for about three years. Both of us found that eating regular meals with each other had that effect, the carelessness about food that would let you miss a meal or just scramble some eggs at most was gone.
I Don't Pay makes a good point. My gf and I like to cook/eat together. So, instead of simply deciding not to eat because it is getting late, we make food. Bad habit.
Have I mentioned the weight loss benefits of divorce?
252: Yep. I blame Buck for everything -- he feeds me regular meals, and is unable to live in a house that doesn't have four kinds of cookies in it at all times. (He doesn't actually eat the cookies, I eat the cookies. He just needs to have them in the house in case the glaciers come and we can't get to the corner store.)
I think if I lived with someone, I'd be too embarrassed to eat the way I do sometimes. Like last night, I had almost no food in the house, so I made lentilles de Puy and brown rice. It was fine, but when I cook with/for someone else, I'm good enough to make sure I have fresh produce and add butter. And the dessert thing, too; I love making desserts if there's someone there to eat them, but I'm not a sweets person, so I never have anything around. I use dating as an excuse to make nut brittle and cakes.
Irregular habits may not be good in the long run, but in my experience it was what kept grad students in their late twenties thin without thinking about it.
Have I mentioned the weight loss benefits of divorce?
Indeed. I dropped a good 10-15 pounds without trying in the months just before I filed.
on the African veldt, mankind evolved complicated and stressful divorce filing procedures for this very reason, in order to get female hominids back into dating shape as soon as possible.
Yeah, I lost shit loads of weight when I split up with my previous girlfriend and have put on the same (and more) since getting married.
Oh, now adrenaline I like, a great deal. Fear makes me extremely pleasurably giddy. Even on drugs or while drinking, I still behave within the boundaries of normal human behavior, but I'll do some fucked-up stuff on adrenaline.
Hate it. I hate all things structured around adrenalin rushes -- amusement park rides, roller-coasters, extreme sports. I detest the feeling. Makes me feel sick, and I don't get the remotest rush from it. I actively avoid those kinds of things if I can help it.
Even the sport I do, which is moderately violent and gives some people the 'fear', I hate the adrenaline rush part. Luckily, the more you do it, the less you get the adrenaline rush and the more relaxed you are when sparring.
The couple of times I've experienced real 'I might die' sort of fear, I don't remember any sort of adrenalin rush at all. In fact, I remember feeling almost nothing while it was happening.
I Don't Pay makes a good point. My gf and I like to cook/eat together. So, instead of simply deciding not to eat because it is getting late, we make food. Bad habit.
wha? Eating is a good habit.
moderation etc etc etc
and while i'm at it: ashtanga yoga must be the heroin of exercise routines. i get a high on a pretty regular basis.
So, instead of simply deciding not to eat because it is getting late, we make food. Bad habit.
Nah, from a weight-control pov (though not just this), cooking food is a much better habit than eating out or buying pre-made stuff.
one of the ingredients of root beer (sassafras oil) is a controlled precursor substance used to make ecstasy.
Ah-ha! I knew there was something magic in there!
I think if I lived with someone, I'd be too embarrassed to eat the way I do sometimes. Like last night, I had almost no food in the house, so I made lentilles de Puy and brown rice.
How could this possibly be embarrassing? I was expecting something more along the lines of I ate the entire value size pack of Jaffa Cakes between one and two in the morning. Which is what I sometimes do.
If exercise was only one of several routes to good health, I think I might still do it for the sense of community and shared purpose. I've found this applies to running and cycling just as much as it does to the gym. Otherwise, the gym is good for strength, and strength is useful when it comes to moving furniture, opening jam jars, and such.
See, I find that when dating, I eat about the same, but everything I eat is way better because I can get up the motivation to actually cook something yummy, instead of just eating a sandwich every day 'cause I'm lazy. Like, last night I made a Tom Kha Kai soup (easier than you might think!) and a spicy yellow curry. Yum. I would never do that shit if it were just me.
I would still work out. I enjoy the competitive aspects too much to not work out.
Me too.
Me too.
Yea, but probably not as much as I do.
OH YEAH? I think I'm the most competitive.
OH YEAH? I think I'm the most competitive.
Maybe at getting red cards, but that doesnt really count, now does it?
OT: So my tenure vote is in four hours. This morning at 4am my wife got up, went to the airport and flew to Europe. I am wondering whether these facts are connected.
It counts to that poor girl's dislodged front tooth.
271: Consider my fingers crossed for you.
271: Have you checked if she cleaned out your bank accounts? Good luck on the vote.
It counts to that poor girl's dislodged front tooth.
She knew the risks. You arent an athlete unless you are willing to lose some blood or teeth.
It should be fine. I'm more worried for these kids that I'm now in full charge of fot the week.
I can neither confirm nor deny knowing Gonerill's wife.
Good luck today!
I'm now in full charge of fot the week
Oh yeah, a shoe-in.
It's an excellent time to teach them important life skills like mixing their father a decent cocktail. (Well, I suppose that depends on how old they are. Younger than four or so, you lose too much liquor to spillage.)
No exercise for me. I broke my toe Friday, and now I have one of those hideous grey hospital canes. It doesn't really help much, but it's useful on the subway for protecting one's injured foot. I think I should go shopping for a really nice walking stick, since I keep spraining and breaking things.
It's an excellent time to teach them important life skills like mixing their father a decent cocktail. (Well, I suppose that depends on how old they are. Younger than four or so, you lose too much liquor to spillage.)
that made me laugh.
I'm in a commenty mood. For this reason I contribute a data point: I would totally work out. I would yoge all the live long day, and I would do strength stuff to help get strong for yoga and other stuff in daily life and because I am proud when I am strong and all the other weenies in pilates are doing pilates pushups on their knees and I did ten the regular way, and I don't mind when I am the weenie, and also because weight lifting classes are fun, and I would spin spin spin as fast as I could because it's fun to feel sweat drip down your eyelids and past your nose and it's such a mood elevator. And if I had more time I would take more classes like pole dancing and trapeze/silks and capoeira and bhangra dancing, all of which I've tried and enjoyed. Also, in relation to another thread: I have a three pack, suckers. And yet am pudgy. But especially in the butt, another reason why ogged will never have me. I don't think I get exercise related euphoria, but I can move from having flickering "what if I just died right now" thoughts to feeling glowing and upbeat through cardiovascular exercise, so that's a pretty large magnitude change, even though the final valence isn't euphoria.
Yeah, I lost shit loads of weight when I split up with my previous girlfriend and have put on the same (and more) since getting married.
Point to Emerson. The No-Relationship Policy: It's All About Ideal Weight.
re: 281
I fancy a decent cane for smiting ruffians.
283: Sifu, you are so right! That's exactly what I need.
Sorry about your toe, mcmc. I note that you suspiciously didn't say how you broke it.
Di Kotimy:
You have it all wrong. It isnt just about being single. You have to be going through a break up.
I think they quit using sassafras oil in root beer becuase its somewhat carcinogenic.
A mate tried "capoeira" and had me literally crying with laughter as he described it. Apparently it's an excellent way of working up enough frustration to break out of character and gratuitously twat some smug Brazilian twat of an instructor.
did you see what I did then, playing around with the multiple meanings of "twat" and "Brazilian twat"? They call it jouissance in the English department although God knows why, because that's a French word.
You have it all wrong. It isnt just about being single. You have to be going through a break up.
No, no, no. You go through the break-up to lose the weight. You eschew relationships thereafter in order to maintain. The only alternative is to limit yourself to relationships involving extreme athleticism, sufficient to burn off the added calories that come with regular meals. This is not necessarily an undesirable alternative.
About the original exercise question, the distinction between "health" and "fitness" or whatever it was 200 or so comments upthread might have sounded confusing, but I think I got the general gist of it. Suppose "health" merely means a life expectancy that's average or better and a body weight that doesn't look fat, while "fitness" means toned rippling abs and the ability to run a half-marathon without hurting yourself. So the question is, if you didn't have to exercise for "health", would you still exercise, whether for "fitness" or endorphins or some other reason? When you put it like that, I'd probably exercise about as much as I do now - about an hour of biking or something equivalent once or twice a week, plus walking wherever I can - but I'd feel a lot less guilty about it. For the endorphins everyone talks about, and also because I like the views and the fresh air of biking, and while I don't have any major events like a half-marathon planned, I kinda like to have my options open. I might decide to start doing something physical and strenuous and competitive again, and if I do, I'd prefer to be starting from a baseline of not totally helpless.
As for the PUA thing, this thread has got me interested (feel free to be scared of that if you want). I first heard about the idea three or four years ago, I think, and my reaction was something like 203, and I haven't thought or heard about it much since then. But hearing from AWB and LB that it's not necessarily totally evil, and might only be the symptom of a problem rather than a cause, well... it's worth thinking about.
And I disagree with 167. Or at least, I doubt it describes the majority of cases. Sometimes there's not a "scared, sensitive guy inside," and sometimes he's not worth holding on to (OK, sensitive is a good thing, but there's such a thing as being over-sensitive, and what's so great about being scared?), and even when he is worth keeping, I find it hard to believe that this system could really get rid of him.
I'm unfamiliar with 'twat' used as a verb, so, not actually comprehensible (your friend hit the instructor in some non-capoeira fashion, perhaps?). But the overall effect was colorful, certainly.
The only alternative is to limit yourself to relationships involving extreme athleticism, sufficient to burn off the added calories that come with regular meals
think outside the box. date a chef who carries E Coli and never washes his hands - bingo, problem solved.
originally Liverpudlian, I think, although by no means unknown in Scotland, ttaM? Basically meaning, punched, round the head. It apparently wiped the smile off his face a treat.
291:
did you see what I did then, playing around with the multiple meanings of "twat" and "Brazilian twat"? They call it jouissance in the English department although God knows why, because that's a French word.
Huh. I didn't know about the English use of the word, but I wouldn't normally associate the French meaning of it with capoeira.
Jouissance is a Lacanian term for a painful excess of pleasure, which has been rather taken out for a spin by Zizek in recent years.
btw, I in no way condone the unannounced punching of martial arts instructors, a practice which is quite obviously both shameful, illegal, dangerous and hilarious.
295: Adventure travel in the tropics, being sure to eat plenty of salads, should have the same effect.
re: 291
Pretty much any martial art that doesn't involve putting on gloves and a gumshield is a bit like that, I suspect.
That said, capoeira looks flash.
re: 294
Yes, twatting == hitting/belting/punching, etc.
re: 296
Yeah, used in Scotland too. The actual action unknown of course, due to our pacifistic natures.
my missus and her friends always used to joke about going backpacking in India "for about four kilos", and I think one of them intentionally went on such a trip with the intention of fitting into a particular dress for some event.
Sorry about your toe, mcmc. I note that you suspiciously didn't say how you broke it.
That's because it was pathetic. I was moving paintings around, and while rushing to answer the phone I kicked one, really hard. Then, shortly afterward, drunk with pain, I knocked a painting over on the same foot. Then I stubbed it again. Then I gave up and went to the emergency room, where they offered me free ibuprofen. Bastards. Fortunately I still had a stash of some narcotic or other from the last time I broke some toes.
I think that the capoeriaies are actually pretty hard, because it's not possible to do all that gymnastic stuff without being really strong. But more or less anyone is going to go arse over tit if they get thumped when they're not expecting it, which is one of the things that makes life worth living.
Worked like a charm in Samoa. There was a traditional bar night when a new batch of volunteers would come in, where everyone would be sidling up next to the guys who showed up a little on the pudgy side, figuring that six weeks down the road they'd be looking fine. The ones who showed up in the country already lean got all unattractively bony and ill-looking after their first couple of bouts of one thing or another.
Like last night, I had almost no food in the house, so I made lentilles de Puy and brown rice.
I think disguising boasts as ashamed confessions should be grounds for banning.
Also, small point, but you don't make lentilles de Puy, only Puy does that. Humans just prepare them. Normally not so nitpicky, but I have a sentimental connection. Lentilles de Puy in a particularly good French restaurant was one of the finest and most sublime vegetable dishes I've ever had. Of course, I go with the French in believing that something flavored with lardons (chunks o' bacon!) counts as a "vegetable dish".
re: 303
I've seen videos of the local capoeira chaps in action. They look fit as fuck. But not much with the actual 'being belted in the head' stuff. Still wouldn't want to mess with them, though.
I've seen videos of the local capoeira chaps in action. They look fit as fuck
capoeira Looks really cool and I am sure it would be a great workout, but I have yet to figure out how it works as an actual fighting style.
A martial arts teacher, a twat,
Tricked students into falls-prat
He used his martelo
To push one into jello
And the bloke finally twatted him flat
Like LB, I have a shitload of work to do.
306: Yeah, the problem with belting a martial arts teacher in the head is he might get up mad.
307: I think the idea is you do it with sharpened shells in your hands. It adds a little something.
unannounced punching of martial arts instructors
Punching will damage your knuckles in fairly short order, unless you have a clear shot at his kidney. Feign drunkenness or timidity until the fellow looks away, then hit him hard with a chair or bottle.
Street vendors cook up special batches of bacteria. Unfamiliar food at breakfast time when the innards are reacting to a new guest-- that's travel for you. In Japan, they eat Natto, whose smell inspires euphemism, for breakfast.
but I have yet to figure out how it works as an actual fighting style
Neither has anyone else.
more or less anyone is going to go arse over tit if they get thumped when they're not expecting it, which is one of the things that makes life worth living
Another UK fan of happy slapping heard from. I do wish the quality on this video were a bit better.
We all carry E. Coli. Not everyone carries a toxic strain, though. Only the few and the proud.
The average human intestine holds several quadrillion bacteria, mostly dead. Way more than the national debt.
The best meal I ever cooked is worse than the one AWB apologizes for.
If I cooked for you, no matter who you are, you would lose wait. Even if I washed my hands.
happy slapping is surely a great example for your introduction to moral philosophy classes - the minor discomfort of one smack on the back of the head, compared to the pleasure induced by half a million chuckles. I think a plausible case could be made that it should be mandatory.
re: 312
Some of the kicks are fairly straightforward moves. I imagine they work fine and the less flashy hands on the floor moves are also found in old-skool [not modern] s/avate.
Some of the more flippy stuff, I'm mystified, though.
Also, some people I know were complaining that in the last world championship (s/avate/) some of the French were putting their palms on the floor for certain kicks. It must have some utility (although is technically against the rules).
295, 314: The hemorrhagic diarrhea would seem to weigh against that option. But I am a bis of a wuss.
317: Supposedly in order to practice capoeira the slaves who invented it had to disguise it as a dance, hence the drumming and the flashy moves. Also, more fun!
The couple of times I've experienced real 'I might die' sort of fear, I don't remember any sort of adrenalin rush at all. In fact, I remember feeling almost nothing while it was happening.
For me, the adrenaline rush comes after the "holy crap, I might die" moment. During, yeah, nothing.
I think I should go shopping for a really nice walking stick, since I keep spraining and breaking things
Get one with hot rod flames, like House
What Tia describes is a more precise and accurate description of what I usually feel, although sometimes the lift is so strong that I've felt the word euphoria is appropriate; I've blogged about this. I think of it as a continuum though, not as qualitatively different experiences.
Pity I missed this thread. I'd take the pill, but if it were practically possible for me to row on actual water every day, I still would.
I heard a talk by a guy who studies gut critters, and listening to him talk about guts as ecosystems, complete with things like "weather" and extinction events, and how much these critters determine what we actually get out of our food, I actually had a moment of regret for picking a less interesting science.
I'm glad somebody else wondered that about capoeira. It is cool to watch, though, particularly in movies with hot French actors and homo subplots (and a completely puzzling butt-shaving scene). Speaking of hot French actors, which we should all try to do more often, if I were much fitter and somewhat younger, I'd take up that sport where the French guys jump over buildings and whatnot.
You know, parkour looks like endless amounts of fun, but also like you'd spend an awful lot of time accidentally hitting concrete walls, etc., face first while you were trying out new moves. Even were I young and fit enough to make an attempt at it, I think I'd be offput by the likely dental bills.
Gut bugs are a hot topic, genuinely interesting, and only recently accessible to study, since most can't be cultured. Here's an interesting recent paper
guts as ecosystems, complete with things like "weather" and extinction events
This is going to make my next spicy lunch from the nearby Thai place much more exciting -- as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.
But the voices might be those of your plant friends...
A number of pepper-based foods tested positive for PMMV, suggesting dietary origins for this virus. Intriguingly, the fecal PMMV was infectious to host plants, suggesting that humans might act as a vehicle for the dissemination of certain plant viruses. (from lw's link)
Parkour! That's right. I have the hardest time remembering that. And you (LB) do have a point about the faceplants.
I'd play more sports if it were easier to keep in shape for them. I'd get my ass in on some in-line hockey, yeah.
Dominique Jacques is a world-class Alexander Technique teacher. She trained under FM Alexander's principle proteges, Walter Carrington, and has over 30 years of experience.
