L.A. Affairs: Why I stood him up on our very first date.

This reminds me of all the social stuff that trips geeks and nerd types up (hello, this used to be me!). Everyone knows where stuff like buying drinks for a woman in a bar is leading, but at the same time everyone must pretend like they do not know. The minute you acknowledge that, on either side, you’ve lost! This is very hard for geeks and nerds because oftentimes they do truly just want to buy drinks for a woman at a bar, with no ulterior motive, and this is absolutely 100% impossible for normals to understand. On the other hand if a geek is straightforward about it and says, “I am buying you drinks because I want to take you home and have sex with you,” which everyone knows is what is happening (including the woman in question, no matter if she plays innocent), then that makes them horribly creepy and predatory.

This stuff is not taught anywhere and if you are not a natural at it, it takes a very long time to learn. I don’t generally pick up women at bars, but I did eventually learn this stuff through trial and much error. Those who are naturals at it assume everyone is just born that way (see Elevatorgate from years ago) like they were — when nothing could be further from the truth.

It’s a game I don’t like playing, but at least I know how to play. Many people truly do not and that’s seen as them just being assholes. A lot of the time, though, they just do not have the skills at all.

I think I’ve figured out where liberals are coming from with their over-broad definition of what constitutes “harassment” now. And it amounts to this: if it inconveniences capital, or causes a person to be unpredictable to the algorithm or the system, it’s harassment. This centers the interests of capital and the cult of productivity over any concerns about love or partners actually being good for one another or even any matters of deep love and affection. Capital does not care about love or affection; capital cares about predictability, compliance and control.

I know, I know, it seems obvious when you state it like that but I hadn’t quite connected all the threads that way until now, even though I had discussed many parts separately before.

Since liberals are just tools of capital, they must do nothing but parrot its priorities and demands. Thus doing anything but dating your “appropriate” algorithmic choice is harassment because it is illegible to the interests of capital.

The first ten on today’s playlist: