"Poring over" doesn't even include a visit to Wikipedia on the relevant discipline?

As far as I can tell, the best recent events in Rastaworld are drug-induced (Cialis)...maybe do more drugs? (LSD, shrooms, MDMA, whatever is said to transfigure apathy and invert frowns, etc.)

Well, I'll be honest. I think you're being a little obtuse on the subject*, but I think I get the idea that you're both trying to communicate, I need to 'own' things rather than complaining about societal expectations that affect everyone.

At the moment I'm complaining (WRT to driving) that people don't take those who can't drive and/or don't have a car seriously and certainly see it as a negative thing.

So I need to step up to the plate and come out and say "I'm insecure about the fact that I can't drive, so I do indeed want to drive, what am I doing about it?"

I mean, I am indeed doing it for an instrumental purpose, but that gives me no right to complain that I'm somehow charged with a task different from anyone else who wants to drive because they like cars or act as if I face a greater challenge than other people.

*I remember on the 'sexodus' thread you pushed it too far, and actually came out with the statement of "no-one cares if you're a virgin", which someone rather insightfully rebutted with the memorable counter-example of "no-one cares if you're black" which, together with some first-hand examples that I was able to provide of people very much caring that I was a virgin until a late age, left you a little discredited.

Actually on that subject; at what ages did you lose your virginity, learn to drive and own your first car?

Nah, but he'd actually be funnier and a better option to be honest.

Seeing more people tomorrow. One of the two areas where I buck the loser stereotype (which, other than being quite physically active I conform to completely) is my social life, which due to having a very scattered group of friends ends up taking a lot of work to maintain as well. This week its been:

Monday: gf
Tuesday: Football match with friend then gf
Wednesday: best female friend catch-up
Thursday: gf
Friday: group of mates + gf and her mates for night out
Today: old mate of mine from school
Sunday: mates from uni + gf

Getting home from work at 6.30pm and having to get up at 7am in the morning is a frickin' ordinary, nothing-to-complain about routine, but I really do find myself pressed for time, especially if I want to fit the gym and/or football in. I really am so **** at life its unbelievable.

Sleep is a major issue. I do well to get 3-4 hours a night due to my insomnia. Need ****ing help for that. Girlfriend is concerned already as I might have mentioned.

I'm so confused: you mentioned you weren't in a relationship, but you keep mentioning 'girlfriend' and 'gf'. I'd say when one adresses his/her love interest that way it's a relationship ;-).

Yeah we made it official on Friday night. This might give you a bit of an insight into my outlook but I've been feeling very depressed since then; like she deserves better and ****. Clicheic I know but I really felt down in the dumps yesterday. **** that should make me happy isn't making me happy.

Anyway.

Tomorrow I have a free day once I'm home from the gf's (I'll likely stay at hers tonight). I will put 6 solid hours (not including meals) into jobhunting and doing productive ****, then report back on my progress. Total lockdown.

I think if I set myself the target of 10 hours a week jobhunting/doing focused, productive **** and making that a regular commitment I'll at least feel like I'm making a genuine effort.

Rasta,

Read this. I ran across it for other reasons but thought you might find it interesting. It's written by a hedge fund guy here in the US named Ray Dalio.

http://www.bwater.com/Uploads/FileMa...Principles.pdf

Righty.

I've applied for a Content Editor position with a sports betting site (so I'd be writing about football for a living, fun times) Took a while as I had to not only do a fairly tricky covering letter but also write three, detailed suggestions to improve the site.

In addition I've made an enquiry with LSE as to whether my Philosophy degree will be accepted under the 'social sciences' and meet the entry criteria for the Master's course I'd like to do in 2016 and finally, I've got in touch with my girlfriend's flatmate who's fairly confident he can get me a £25k job with a newspaper in London (though I don't think I'm qualified for it). Anyway, he's still confident that he can at least get me an interview even after having sobered up.

Thanks for the link Howard! Will definitely give it a read.

I'm trying to get myself into the same mentality that I did on the 'Sexodus' thread: A "watch-me-try-my-hardest-and-still-****ing-fail-you-****s" outlook.

If I succeed I succeed, if I fail I get to show you all how uniquely difficult life is for me...or...some such crap.

Anyway, g'nite.

No answers to my questions for El D it seems. What a surprise.

lol

Rasta,


Waiting on you before moving on to additional questions.

Why? All you have to do is pop precisely 6 digits.

I thought you weren't insecure about this stuff and that no-one cares if you're a virgin. Prove it.

So far you've done nothing to prove to me that you're an expert on anything who should be listened to, or at least beyond that of the man in the street.

Granted, you might be right about any number of things you've told me, but a random man on the street could have given me precisely the same advice you have.

Not El D or greg, but 17 for virginity, 18 for learning how to drive (min age here), 21 for buying car on my own money.

Didn't like cars back @18, not obsessed about them now either, but driving is fun once you learn it well.

I certainly see guys my age who can't drive as sort of weird/weak and I'm sure a good amount of my friends do too.

Rasta,

I told you what you needed to do before I'd spend more time answering questions from you and you said you'd do it. That's why.

16, 16, ~28

Just interested/haven't completely followed this blog but why should this matter ?

No worries. You can go.

Well its really just a bit of curiosity originating from his rather memorable misstep on the Sexodus thread when he came out with the little gem of 'no-one cares if you're a virgin' before I rattled off several first-hand experiences of the most stereotypical 'Inbetweeners/American Pie' style of prejudice and stigma.

In addition, someone else, as I recently mentioned, very insightfully responded with 'no-one cares if you're black' as a fantastic counter-example of how prejudice and often unspoken stigma works. Very well put indeed.

Assuming El D, like all of you from the sounds of things, learned to drive and lost his virginity at a socially-acceptable young age, then he has no idea whatsoever what its like to be on the receiving end of such prejudice. It is indeed precisely akin to a white person telling a black person that the racism he 'feels that he's a victim of' is 'all in his head' and that 'no-one cares if he's black.'

A black person hearing that would not just be justified in feeling aggrieved, but also well-advised to disregard the opinions of such a person as woefully inaccurate and ill-informed. I need to know that El D isn't such a person before we proceed. If I hear that he also lost his virginity at ~16-18 and that he is indeed speaking confidently about something that he's woefully ignorant of, then I'm afraid that's a fairly major indictment against him as a useful adviser.

Now if he's trolling he's trolling, but if he seriously means to give good advice and that's the kind of stuff he comes out with I do question whether he's really worth listening to beyond the fella down the pub.

That doesn't mean that he's stupid or that he definitely gives bad advice, but it does mean that I can't possibly be sure whether or not he's worth listening to. So far he's just the guy with the longest post count.

El D has insisted that I care too much about what people think of me, I reply that it would be foolish to be egotistical enough to think that society's view of oneself can't heavily (albeit instrumentally), affect one's happiness.

I need to know whether El D has ever transgressed any major societal rules or expectations himself, or whether he's been fortune enough to effortlessly conform to them and as such, hasn't actually got a clue what he's talking about.

If he fails to answer I will confidently assume the latter and won't mind if he exits the thread.

Oh btw, booked my first driving lesson since I quit learning. 22nd April I get started again (and yes, that's the soonest they could arrange one, and its a bloody good driving school too) ****ing overcrowded London.

At least 80 % of the posters here have transgressed societal expectations. Don't you see it? And ElD to. I am not sure about the age of the first sex, but definitely some others.
Don't you see, that here is a high concentration of weirdos? You are not special with your problems. He wrote about at least two of such transgressions in THIS thread.

I have not lost my virginity at a 'socially acceptable age' and I think its really a bit of both. Yes, you're right, there is a social stigma surrounding virginity which can impact you as a virgin young man. OTOH Im pretty sure the actual impact on you as a person is way more explicit/strong in your head then the actual times IRL that you get judged for it. The thought of being virgin is way more of a point than actually being a virgin. Like, all the negativity I endured as a virgin was mostly (close to all) self inflicted.

I was one of the later ones to both get my license and get my car (parents were sort of poor and I was lazy/bad with money). Imo, the smaller the city is you live in the more impact not having a car will have. I have recently sold my car after 6 years of owning one and it isn't that bad. I do have a drivers license and a job where I get cars to use so I guess its a bit different from your situation.

Very much respect your honesty sir.

Can I ask why though? I mean I can understand recognising the fact that overall, society tends to see things that way but can I ask why you personally do so willfully?

Guys; this is the reason I'm learning to drive. There are a lot of people like Absurdas who seem to me like perfectly nice people, but who'll see me as sort of weird/weak if I don't learn to drive.

Now in reality, I'm not fussed about driving. I don't need a car.

I sincerely think that if it weren't for the existence of such a prejudice, I genuinely think I might never even own a car. Ever. Nothing whatsoever against those that do, I just...don't desire one.

However, failing to learn to drive and own a car will result in disrespect. I'm not arrogant enough to pretend that such aggregated disrespect from people doesn't have the power to negatively affect my well-being and for that reason, I will learn to drive and purchase a car.

Still, pointless though it is, I'd be lying if I told you that I didn't feel somewhat aggrieved though. There really is no reason why it shouldn't be socially acceptable to say "Meh, I'm just not fussed about cars and public transport has always done me just fine". Along with virginity it really is one of those completely unjustified prejudices which society is completely OK with.

I feel like being able to drive enhances your 'manly'ness. Its a form of 'ultimate freedom', back in the days you could hop on the back of a horse if you were an apt horse rider and could travel to the corners of the world. I definitely see people without a driver license as that same 'weak/weird' but not in a way that I would act different towards you. A good friend of mine is 36 and hasn't gotten his license and my gf of 29 also hasn't got a license.

Sorry do I take that as you saying you're still a virgin? May I ask your age?

I can honestly tell you that it wasn't 'in my head' whatsoever. I was completely open, honest and secure about having never had sex right the way up until the age of 20 (went to an all-boys school where I wasn't the only one/lived in a house full of Asian lads during the early part of uni for whom the concept of things like arranged marriages and just generally not having sex at University was super standard).

Anyway, because there was no prejudice, I wasn't insecure. Even with other people I was proud to tell them that I'd never had sex and let the chips fall where they may. I was flattered by the fact that often they wouldn't believe me.

However, once I was 20-21 and had made far more 'Uni lad' types (our equivalent of your 'frat boys') I started to cotton on to the fact that yes, my revealing that I was a virgin would get me mockery at worst and a mixture of pity and bemusement at best, coupled with the knowledge that this is how the majority of other people would react. This was not 'in my head'. It was just a straightforward fact about the reaction that would have come my way would be the antithesis of what we'd commonly define as 'respect'.

When I attempted to have sex at 21 in my fourth and final year of uni (and was clearly clueless about what I was doing), the girl in question of course let her friends know. They made fun of me and scorned me, only expressing pity in a mocking and patronising way in the most stereotypical manner imaginable.

The prejudice that exists against male virginity is truly one of the greatest privileges that women have. The fact that women can, as a collective (unintentionally or intentionally), inflict wholesale disrespect and a lack of credibility on a man is something that no-one fully understands if they're not a victim of it. That doesn't mean that its women's collective fault. It doesn't mean that men are entitled to sex. However, it does give women power and privilege and it does I'm afraid, impact the most vulnerable and undeserving males.

And like I say, the harshest thing about all of this is that not only is such a prejudice completely and totally accepted, but people actually have the temerity to deny that it exists and attack those who refused to pretend that it doesn't. Male virgins are attacked and victimised not only for something they don't deserve, but then blamed when they fail to pretend that its all made up.

I would venture to even speculate that this is the cause of a great deal of the misogyny, racism and leaning towards far right-wing politics from a lot of stereotypically nerdy, sexless young white men. I honestly don't think its exclusively down to jealousy or bitterness. Some of it, yes; but I think a great deal of their lack of sympathy towards women or ethnic minorities comes from the fact that though they're white men, they do indeed have experience of prejudice. The difference being that they're not allowed to express discontent with the abuse that comes their way, but must suffer in silence.

Oh yeah sure if we're talking about the transport value of owning a car then naturally my living in a remote city or in either of the Americas would immediately prompt me to purchase one. However, living in London (probably the most car-unfriendly city in the world (you know about the congestion charge right?)) and in the UK overall really does reduce my transport need for a car to damn near absolute zero.

Tend to agree. Makes sense.

You might not intentionally act differently but c'mon. The fact that you see someone as 'weak/weird' is going to colour how you act towards them. Its going to lower your respect for them (Y'know, in the way that you'd think of them as manly/cool/assertive rather than unworthy of your being plain old 'nice' to them).

Sure, there's always going to be the odd exception.

The prejudice is damn near non-existent for women.

And here I am, not giving one single damn if someone can drive or not. Who cares. I don't know your lifestory, who am I to judge you for not learning to drive.

And aren't you proving El D's point here that you care way too much about how others may conceive you?