Go stick your head in a pig: Annoyed complaints

[diesel_powered]

Damn straight.

[YojimboMonkey]

maybe, I guess it hasn't really reached the level of harassment yet or anything, I just don't feel like I should have to deal with it at all, and how the fuck did they get my cell phone number?  Fucking jackals.

[diesel_powered]

There's the national do-not-call list...

I used to get calls for other people from collection agencies all the time. I told them all to fuck off and at least for now, it seems like they finally got the picture.

[coldforge]

maybe, I guess it hasn't really reached the level of harassment yet or anything, I just don't feel like I should have to deal with it at all, and how the fuck did they get my cell phone number?  Fucking jackals.

Debt collection standards and practices are very well laid-out, and they don't have to be harassing you in order to be violating those standards. Find out what they are in your state; I reckon they'll probably apply.

[C of heartbreak]

Oh man, I used to receive calls from collection agencies all the time for the guy who used to have my phone number. Every time they called I politely told them this was no longer his phone number. They kept calling, until one time I absolutely screamed at the poor woman on the other end, cursed her out, called her, everyone who does her job, anyone involved with the whole collection system the lowest form of scum on this earth and said I hope her office burned to the ground (I think I'm making up that last part perhaps). Haven't received a call since. Getting harassing calls for the wrong person gives you a particularly potent sort of liberty I think.

[YojimboMonkey]

The thing that's weird is, this guy didn't used to have the same phone number as me, he used to have the same address.  Getting his mail is one thing.  Why am I receiving phone calls, on my cell phone, which has a completely different area code than the area where I live and which has never been associated with this person--and in fact is an account not even under my name and address but under my company's name and address--for a guy who is (apparently) dead and has no relationship to me other than the fact that I bought the house he used to live in (from his kids and their lawyer, who had his power of attorney)?

[Maaik]

Oh dude, that is fucked up.  Like someone did a sketchy snoop job on your biz.  Yeah, I'd get whatever higher authorities on their asses post haste, cos that shit ain't so keen-smelling.

[Good Intentions]

It's below freezing outside, every window and airway is closed, so why am I being attacked by mosquitoes? I didn't expect this shit in Northern Europe -- not before the spring thaw, anyway.

[heather marie]

I can't make sense of my paper! I don't know why I decided to write about something which has nearly zero scholarly articles about it. ARGH

[Greg Nog]

That's awesome, though!  You're a trailblazer!

[cold before sunrise]

Jeez, jeb is such a gossip.

is he? that bastard better not be sharing my secrets, i don't know why i tell him anything.

[jm]

Some genius either wore or dumped out a shitload of cologne/perfume, and now I have a headache which will become a migraine which will engender nausea.  I knew I should have stayed home today.

[Anne the Man]

When a bunch of girls take their tops off--not bras, just tops--at a party for the hell of it, is it legitimate for me to be annoyed at guys telling us to put them back on because we're objectifying ourselves, even when we don't feel like we're doing it for the male gaze but just for the hell of it? Some of them said they were wanting us to put them back on as a respect thing. Thing is, none of us felt disrespected or uncomfortable until they started making a thing of it. I probably should've been less of a dick about it, but I was tired and drunk. I've been feeling pretty grumpy lately, with almost no inclination to suffer fools. It's not a very pleasant feeling.

[Good Intentions]

I'd chalk it down to a well-meaning but idiotic action on their parts. If I were you, I would suffer but not encourage that behaviour on your part. Just as I would suffer but not encourage you to take your top off for kicks.

[jess]

I'd chalk it down to a well-meaning but idiotic action on their parts. If I were you, I would suffer but not encourage that behaviour on your part. Just as I would suffer but not encourage you to take your top off for kicks.

Why suffer it just because it's well-meaning? That's how sexist idiots who are well meaning but still assholes are born.

[Antero]

When a bunch of girls take their tops off--not bras, just tops--at a party for the hell of it, is it legitimate for me to be annoyed at guys telling us to put them back on because we're objectifying ourselves, even when we don't feel like we're doing it for the male gaze but just for the hell of it?

Don't you understand that you women can't be trusted with your own bodies?

[Good Intentions]

I'd chalk it down to a well-meaning but idiotic action on their parts. If I were you, I would suffer but not encourage that behaviour on your part. Just as I would suffer but not encourage you to take your top off for kicks.

Why suffer it just because it's well-meaning? That's how sexist idiots who are well meaning but still assholes are born.

I don't think you can be a well-meaning asshole. You can be an asshole who professes being well-meaning, but then you're an asshole and a liar. You can be a young kid who wants to do the right thing and has no idea of how to go about doing it. It's possible (and probably best) to let these people know that that isn't how to show your concern, and it's possible to do so without making them out to be jerks. It's quite embarrassing enough to discover that you tried to do something in entirely the wrong way without somebody trying to convince you that, deep in your heart, you're a bad person.

Anyway, knowing Anne, I doubt there was much chance of the guys involved came out of the experience thinking that their officiousness was appreciated.

[diesel_powered]

I endorse top-removal on the part of both sexes.

[YojimboMonkey]

I endorse top-removal on the part of both sexes.

yeah Anne you just keep on partying the way you want to party, never mind those JERKS


you should have told them to get naked too so you could objectify them for a while

[clare]

I'd chalk it down to a well-meaning but idiotic action on their parts. If I were you, I would suffer but not encourage that behaviour on your part. Just as I would suffer but not encourage you to take your top off for kicks.

Why suffer it just because it's well-meaning? That's how sexist idiots who are well meaning but still assholes are born.

I don't think you can be a well-meaning asshole.

I dunno about that. the bloke and I have a distinction between "arsehole by accident" and "arsehole by design", but I'm not sure I can articulate it well. It often comes about when driving - someone cuts you off because they were driving badly and didn't look, that's "arsehole by accident" someone cuts you off deliberately "that's arsehole by design". In the first instance it jsut happened bcause they were vague or didn't think. In the second instance it happens because they were intentionally being a dickhead.

Anyway, my guess is that these boys were jsut uncomfortable with the situation, didn't want to look like dickheads by staring, but ended up looking like arseholes for making a comment. Any comment probably would have been the wrong one, and I'm not trying to have a go at Anne there at all. I'd love to be able to take my top off and have no-one comment or stare. And it makes me grumpy that I can't. (and I have taken off my top at plenty of parties, but men are always dickheads about it one way or the other, that's just how it is.)

[Anne the Man]

I endorse top-removal on the part of both sexes.

yeah Anne you just keep on partying the way you want to party, never mind those JERKS


you should have told them to get naked too so you could objectify them for a while

We did. I mean we started doing it because there was a topless guy in the room with a really good body, and we just felt like playing too.

Anyway, my guess is that these boys were jsut uncomfortable with the situation, didn't want to look like dickheads by staring, but ended up looking like arseholes for making a comment. Any comment probably would have been the wrong one, and I'm not trying to have a go at Anne there at all.

Yeah I get that, but they could've dropped it after awhile. They just kept complaining and saying that we were doing it for male attention no matter how much we told them we weren't; unless it was on a subconscious level, which who cares. My friend's boyfriend came in and told her to put on some clothes because these guys were checking her out (she is incredibly foxy), and she got annoyed. If he thinks she's being objectified because she has her top off, he should tell the guys to stop it, not tell her to fix their problem. It's the whole "women tempting men" thing, which is a largely bullshit position to take.

[jess]

I'd chalk it down to a well-meaning but idiotic action on their parts. If I were you, I would suffer but not encourage that behaviour on your part. Just as I would suffer but not encourage you to take your top off for kicks.

Why suffer it just because it's well-meaning? That's how sexist idiots who are well meaning but still assholes are born.

I don't think you can be a well-meaning asshole. You can be an asshole who professes being well-meaning, but then you're an asshole and a liar. You can be a young kid who wants to do the right thing and has no idea of how to go about doing it. It's possible (and probably best) to let these people know that that isn't how to show your concern, and it's possible to do so without making them out to be jerks. It's quite embarrassing enough to discover that you tried to do something in entirely the wrong way without somebody trying to convince you that, deep in your heart, you're a bad person.

Anyway, knowing Anne, I doubt there was much chance of the guys involved came out of the experience thinking that their officiousness was appreciated.

I absolutely think a person can be a well-meaning asshole, because I consider asshole to be a measure of behavior (namely, is a person acting like an ass) more than attitude (a person is an asshole down to their asshole heart—I mean, who is that way anyway, other than people with Antisocial PD?), largely because a person's attitudes are complex and difficult to assess and, also, often irrelevant in that only the attitudes that can lead to behavioral change are going to matter re: assholishness, and a lot of them don't. That said, I don't assume people who are being assholes a.) have bad intentions and b.) can't change in their level of assholishness.

Also, I didn't say anything about making those kids feel like they were bad people or anything remotely like that, and that's nothing I would ever do in a situation where someone seems to be making a mistake and not knowing why. I would simply point out why what they are doing is so not cool and that it bothers me, so way to read into what I said. You on the other hand said she should tolerate but not encourage it, which suggests not even correcting it (just not encouraging it), which doesn't really do a whole lot to improve future behavior, especially given that boys that age in my experience often tend to be too oblivious to notice something as subtle as "not encouraging" it vs calling it out.

[elpollodiablo]

So maybe a lecture next time, is what you're saying?

[Good Intentions]

Well, what we both agree on is that treating the kids as if they displayed a deep personal failling (as opposed to choosing the wrong way to go about things) isn't going to be useful, and we both agree that what you would be after is some way to impress on them that, in the future, they should do something different if they want to express their concern (like not being so forward and officious, for instance). I imagine the appropriate response would be somewhere on the axis of rolling your eyes and going 'whatever'. Perhaps you disagree on that, I don't know. I had a good friend (an ex, actually) who dealt with such situations by making some outrageous jokey comment on the matter, then a lewd joke following on from that, and then go on as if the faux-pas didn't happen -- I've resorted to that a few times. It gives the impression that the entire line of discussion simply can't be taken seriously, and that's the right impression, I think. I believe a large part of what the kids did wrong was they made a round table discussion out of it, and lecturing them in return (which isn't what I think you're recommending) would go further in that wrong direction. The best response, I think, would be one which shuts the discussion down in the quickest, least disturbing way. The kids in question don't have the authority to make comments like that, nor is it clear what could give them that authority, so their comments lack weight, and should just be waved away, I think.

[jess]

Ehhh... But I don't have a problem with making people feel some shame or feel kind of bad when they do something dumb that disrespects others, even if it's inadvertent. I'm not going to imply that they're bad people or anything, and if that's how calling out is done, it's missing the point and likely not effective (good call-outs target the relevant behavior, not the person), but what they did still is problematic, and I don't think there's anything remotely wrong if their response to my calling them out is, oh shit, I fucked up and I feel bad. That's how I feel if someone calls me out on privilege because I said something without realizing it was potentially offensive/problematic, and that reaction is what pushes me to think about it and to work to try to not make that error again. Really, I guess I'm just not too concerned with coddling the feelings of men who inadvertently display male privilege and are being sexist—if they feel a bit bad when called out, well, good. That's the point.

Also, in my opinion, when men react to a situation like Anne is describing, what's wrong isn't making a round table discussion out of it. What's wrong is the fact that these guys are assuming that women's nakedness has anything to do with them (and thus should end if they don't want it to be there), and that they have any right to comment on its appropriateness at all. If they can't handle it, that's their problem, not the women's. It's not just the length at which they discuss it. So no, I don't think your approach really points out why they should shut up about it particularly well, and while I'm not advocating a lecture, I'd probably tell them to shut up and very briefly why (none of their business, the nakedness has nothing to do with them, and their discomfort is their own problem so deal with it).