Miscellany: The Electronic Communication Edition
an IM with Fort Awesome and Terrible Mother:
TM: One of my classes went all wacko today.
FrtAwe: What? Why?
TM: This student went a little Manifest Destiny and tried to take over everything.
FrtAwe: That must have been annoying.
TM: It was. I kept trying to reign him in but he was tough.
FrtAwe: You know what would be awesome? Soccer style penalty cards, but for class discussion.
TM: Group discussion penalty cards? Those would be perfect!
FrtAwe: Like a yellow card for not enough detail. Red card for logical fallacy.
TM: Yellow for being off topic. Red for grand-standing.
FrtAwe: Three reds and you’re out of the discussion for the day. Think of it. People could argue with the ref like they do in soccer.
TM: It’d be meta-argument! I could teach them all kinds of things! It’s a totally valid pedagogy!
FrtAwe: It’s genius facilitation is what it is.
TM: I am so going to write a paper on this and submit it to an academic journal. I’m gonna be famous!
FrtAwe: Hey! I get partial credit here.
TM: Whatever. Tell it to the ref!
****
Later, in the same IM with Fort Awesome:
FrtAwe: You know, this video could also help your students. It teaches argument.
(long pause)
TM: You know what I think, Fort Awesome? I think you and me? We’re the Derrida of Composition Theory. We’re gonna blow the field wide open!
FrtAwe: Uhh…….isn’t it called “Theory of Rhetoric”?
TM: Whatever.
***
an IM between Friend Omega and Terrible Mother:
TM: Did you ever think Jack Johnson was black?
Omega: No, but I can see why you did.
TM: Why? Because he’s friends with Ben Harper?
Omega: Huh? Ben Harper?
TM: Yeah, you know. Ben Harper.
Omega: Didn’t he pitch for the Rays?
TM: No, no. Jack Johnson!
Omega: What am I supposed to do with that link?
TM: Gah!
Omega: OH! I was thinking of Travis Harper.
(long pause)
TM: Who’s on first, Omega? Who’s ON FIRST?
***
One of the strangest things I’ve noticed about Internet Dating is the preponderance of people willing to send you (meaning me) naked photos of themselves. What makes this even more perplexing is that I don’t ask for these photos. Tell me men, is there something in that onery Y that makes you think that “I know what I’ll do! I’ll send this girl some photos of my penis!” is a reasonable and suitable reaction to an email inquiring about, say, your favorite movies? You’re trying to establish your datability here, guys. You’re not auditioning for a porn flick.
Anyway, more than once I’ve been bopping along within those first few emails, things going well (in this case “going well” equals “no felonies” and “a reasonable grasp of the English language”) when, out of nowhere, an attachment lands in my inbox*. One of these came about 5 months ago and was the blurry representation of the milky white nether regions of one Math PhD student here at the University. My first thought was “his skin looks like it’s made from skim milk.”
But my second thought was “Oh bother!” followed by “and, damnit, I really liked this one.” But I did what I always did: deleted and never contacted said suitor again.
Fast forward several months, which found me standing in line at the campus coffee place, waiting to order my Americano. The guy in front of me turned and smiled. He was totally my type–which is geeky cute–and I smiled back. At the same time, I thought “hey, he looks familiar.” He had the same look on his face, both of us doing that quick social algebra you do when you’ve clearly seen someone but can’t remember where or under what circumstances.
And then, at the same moment, we both remembered exactly under what circumstances.
He turned around quickly. His neck turned red and he stuttered his coffee order to the barista (a latte with 1%! Ha!). I was both horrified and amused. Who sends these kinds of photos to someone when you, essentially, work at the same place? It was all I could do to keep from saying, “You brought this on yourself, Skim Milk PhD! TOTALLY ON YOURSELF!”
*tm*Minds out of the gutter people. People!
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Comments
BTW, I have a single male friend who is in the dating market and keeps getting topless shots of prospective female dates. What's up with that?
(nice to see you back writing TM)
C'mon, people. Keep up.
How stupid to send a naked picture of yourself before you even meet someone and you know, date them, have sex with them, marry or move in with them. Perhaps it's a surreptitious way to get you to help look for scary moles.
In other news, I love the scorecard idea. But someone would tell and you'd be in the Dean's office before you could say "Derrida is different."
*shakes head* there should be a built-in 30 second delay between the time you hit "send" and an e-mail really sends...just so you can internally go "oh crap" and stop it.
Rated.
Um, what do you think guys want from internet dating? Hint: it happens in a porn flick
In Kindergarten, all Mrs. Youdin's kids start out on the green card. Just below is a yellow and then the dreaded red. Assertive discipline for seminar infractions. Assuming the role of Socrates would be straight to red - the severe clause. It could work the same as for lining up for library or one at a time to the bathroom! "TM: Whatever. Tell it to the ref!" I laughed out loud.
Perhaps the soccer disciplinary technique to use would be the multi-class ban for excessive yellow cards - that would weed out the blowhards who were bright enough to stay just on the right side of the law.
As for naked pictures, the mind boggles. I've always taken the view that after the age of about 5 or 6, one's nether regions should only be exposed upon request, which is further proof that I am hopelessly old-fashioned.
It would be one thing if you were out there trolling around for internet sex---which has been going on since the beginning of this technology.
Clearly he was either looking to get laid, or is socially inept. Perhaps both.
In any case---GROSS!
Toni
*is* one.
Nothing suitable about it. But you know that, of course. What compels them to do so is beyond my comprehension. Maybe they think you'll be so impressed that they won't have to post so much, and you'll just fall on yer knees. A nice thought, but hardly in touch with anything but their namesake. I remember once in college we were at a party and some gooffball on the hockey team pulled his gear out and shook it at the girl he thought he wanted to go home with. It was a compelling spectacle, and this girl, she looked down at it and said "That looks like a penis, only smaller."
I have this weird image of yer math man there scanning his old boy and maybe even using a slide rule to help cut and paste before sending it to you. How weird are people who think they are no more than a collection of cut and paste body parts. How oddly arbitrary.
And then the pair of you in the coffee queue making the calculations of "social algebra," maybe even graduating to high calculus as the silent seconds tick. What does one say with an easy casualness after one has been emailed one's penis? "Hey, nice penis! Very nice penis!"
You left me howling and, er, hanging though, wondering if your paths have crossed again, with you and yer math man living and working in such proximity.
Myself, I tried net dating once about five years ago in London and it was a similar disaster. She asked if I spoke any foreign languages. I don't, not fluently, but I can get by in a sort of Tarzan Russian from my days as a gem smuggler there.
I felt my Russian was not boastable -- so I said no, I only speak English fluently. But I guess my Russian is much better than I remembered from my days in Moscow and old Leningrad. The business I was in-- buying the Ural Mountain gem alexandrite on the black market -- tended to learn me quickly. Try telling burly Sergei in broken Russian that "gems are fake," and you'll see what I mean. The whole intensity of my experiences in Russian must've imprinted my Tarzan language skills permanently.
When I ask my English Internet date if she spoke foreign language, she tells me she's fluent in Russian. When I break into my slightly slangy, colloquial street Russian, it's clear to me that she can't speak a lick of it beyond "yes" and "no" or "thank you" and "you're welcome" or "hello" and "goodbye." The very basics.
I didn't say dosvidanya right away. We finished the meal, making small talk, but I knew then and there that by inadvertently calling her bluff, I'd over-stepped. Coming strictly from the gentleman's school of never making anyone feel socially uncomfortable, I was sorry to see her turning two hundred shades of crimson, taking her white wine down in giant gulps now, and just sweating to end the date. I might as well have said "pakupayat pajalista" which I think means "check please" if my Tarzan serves me right.
It didn't work out for other reasons because I was otherwise quite taken by her Cockney working class charms. It didn't work out because I was trying to kick booze and drugs at the time and she clearly had many alkie drinks left in her. I could tell by the way she gulped that it wasn't our differences but our irreconcilable similarities that would keep us apart. We both liked to drink too much.
I went on to find another English rose. That one didn't work out either. So here I am. back in Boston after a long time away, living la vida single isolationist bachelor . . . . Thanks for the laughs. - patrick
"I'd critique it and send it back. That'd be the last time he did anything like that."
As a guy, I can tell you with a great deal of certainty that your response would not result in the behavior you describe. Guys who send pictures of the real head with which they think are going to view your response as coming from a closet lesbian, a castrating B*, or someone asexual. In other words, such men believe that any woman who is not enthralled with their better part has something wrong with her.
I could not imagine myself doing anything as juvenile as taking, much less sending a picture of myself naked. This is because I know what I look like when I'm naked, and I'd be very embarrassed to share that with anyone else.
And I am so uncool that when I hear "Ben Harper" I think of the father character on the British sit com "My Family".