Those Aren’t Fighting Words, Dear • Hacker News Board

Re: Those Aren’t Fighting Words, Dear

#31

Post by georgieporgie » Tue, May 18, 2010, 1:13 AM UTC

joezydeco wrote: post #16

zeynel1 wrote: post #14

“Go trekking in Nepal. Build a yurt in the back meadow. Turn the garage studio into a man-cave. Get that drum set you’ve always wanted. ..." Is there anyone else who finds this a very condescending and nasty thing to say? This ought to sound to her husband like fighting words.

When you're married and have the feelings like the husband did in this story it will make a lot more sense.

If there's ever a time when my wife distills my desires to building a "man cave" or "trekking" that's when I know I married the wrong woman.

Re: Those Aren’t Fighting Words, Dear

#32

Post by jerf » Tue, May 18, 2010, 1:13 AM UTC

chc wrote: post #27

jtbigwoo wrote: post #5

Steps to writing an annoying article: 1. Deny you're calling your husband childish while comparing him to a child. 2. Proclaim that you're impervious to abuse by touting your toughness as if those in abusive relationships are not physically tough enough. 3. Highlight your suffering martyrdom as much as possible while claiming that you refuse to suffer.

Almost everything gets compared to cars, but I don't think most people are actually accusing those things of being car-like. I have never understood exactly what causes it, but some people very often read far too much into comparisons. The two things being compared don't have to be alike except in the particular respects that are being compared. It's unfortunate, because comparisons are really useful for illustrating…

It's a highly pervasive cognitive bias: http://lesswrong.com/lw/vx/failure_by_analogy/ Granted, that link is not directly about this issue but a moment's thought shows it trivially extends to the ever-present "argument by analogy" on the Internet.

(At this point, I all but flip the idiot bit on someone if they post an argument containing an analogy. Using it for a description is logically defensible but usually very dangerous. I've been trying to eliminate them from my writing and thought.)

Re: Those Aren’t Fighting Words, Dear

#33

Post by nir » Tue, May 18, 2010, 1:17 AM UTC

Sometimes it seems the quality of HN is deteriorating, and then a submission like this, which you'd think one has to be at least 35 to even understand, gets 149 points. Pretty amazing.

Re: Those Aren’t Fighting Words, Dear

#34

Post by georgieporgie » Tue, May 18, 2010, 1:18 AM UTC

I remember when this came up on Reddit a year ago.

Summary: hold on to your man by emasculating him, then wait for enough depression to kick in that it suppresses his urge to improve his life.

Also, I'm going to guess that most of her fond remembrances of romantically planning their future together primarily reflect what she hoped for, not what he did.

In other news: people who write long-winded, self-obsessive essays and books tend to be self-absorbed.

Re: Those Aren’t Fighting Words, Dear

#35

Post by aaronblohowiak » Tue, May 18, 2010, 1:53 AM UTC

namin wrote: post #23

pook wrote: post #11

Who knows how to make love stay? “When we're incomplete, we're always searching for somebody to complete us. When, after a few years or a few months of a relationship, we find that we're still unfulfilled, we blame our partners and take up with somebody more promising. This can go on and on--series polygamy--until we admit that while a partner can add sweet dimensions to our lives, we, each of us, are responsible for…

Great quote. Made me curious about the author.

Tom Robbins is funny, quirky and occasionally drops nuggets like this. He is one of the few fiction authors that I recommend.

Re: Those Aren’t Fighting Words, Dear

#36

Post by aoriste » Tue, May 18, 2010, 1:56 AM UTC

personally, I think that the husband was lucky to last as long as he did without succumbing to torpid disillusionment with himself, his potentialities, and his powers. I'm so jaded and disgusted with myself most of the time that I tend to not trust anybody who doesn't seem to want to blow their own brains out.

Re: Those Aren’t Fighting Words, Dear

#37

Post by mtinkerhess » Tue, May 18, 2010, 1:58 AM UTC

WalterGR wrote: post #13

mrkurt wrote: post #2

I'm not even going to write about how this applies to hackers and why it could be a good lesson. I really just want to say: "that was nice to read".

> I'm not even going to write about how this applies to hackers and why it could be a good lesson. ...How does it apply to hackers? Either I'm extremely dense, or everyone is projecting their own opinion on your vague comment.

My take on it is that the author had a system that wasn't working how she wanted it to (her marriage), and rather than take the obvious approach to the problem (discussion / argument), she understood the system well enough and found an unconventional approach that gave her the results she wanted. Maybe that's a little bit of a stretch?

The story is also about understanding what's valuable in life, which folks at HN usually express in their desire to make a living on their own terms outside the traditional workforce. In marriage or employment, finding and keeping those things that are worth having is often really hard work, but if you're lucky it pays off in the end.

Re: Those Aren’t Fighting Words, Dear

#38

Post by sliverstorm » Tue, May 18, 2010, 2:08 AM UTC

sukuriant wrote: post #30

andywood wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me, the harder problem is finding a partner who will not detract from my substantial existing fulfillment.

How do you mean, exactly?

my guess: (s)he loves , but all the (wo)men (s)he dates hates and if (s)he married that (wo)man (s)he'd have to give up .

Replace with the tag of your choice :)

(^ one of the biggest crimes of political correctness: making everything so damn hard to read and full of strange punctuation!)

Either that, or (s)he is typically extremely busy with very fulfilling things, and is looking for either a similar partner or a partner who is simply unusually low maintenance.

Re: Those Aren’t Fighting Words, Dear

#39

Post by ghshephard » Tue, May 18, 2010, 2:10 AM UTC

grellas wrote: post #19

I like to call it a "midlife adjustment" and there is not a person alive who gets to that age who does not have to deal with it at some level - it really is the transitioning from the phase of life where everything points up to that in-between phase where things slow down, age starts to show itself more, and our mortality looms nearer. We all react to it differently but react we do, unless we are beyond feeling. This…

I think it's a bit of a stretch to state "not a person alive who gets to that age..." - The whole mid-life crisis thing is a function of societies that are a little higher up in Mazlo's hierarchy.

I assure you that the significant part of humanity that is trying to track down enough food, clean water, or even a warm place to sleep each night - let alone adequate medical care or education, doesn't suffer from ennui. They, of course, suffer from hunger, thirst, and exposure - problems, yes, but they certainly have clear priorities.

Sometime happiness suffers when we are provided everything that we need, and we end up asking ourselves, "Isn't there more?"

Re: Those Aren’t Fighting Words, Dear

#40

Post by abstractbill » Tue, May 18, 2010, 2:32 AM UTC

georgieporgie wrote: post #34

I remember when this came up on Reddit a year ago. Summary: hold on to your man by emasculating him, then wait for enough depression to kick in that it suppresses his urge to improve his life. Also, I'm going to guess that most of her fond remembrances of romantically planning their future together primarily reflect what she hoped for, not what he did. In other news: people who write long-winded, self-obsessive essay…

He wasn't emasculated. He was free to actually leave any time he wanted. She just called his bluff and he turned out to be unwilling to really go through with it.