erin (she/her)

Apologies! I couldn’t see any pronouns from the image so defaulted to gender nonspecific they. Edited.

Regardless of your opinion on whether dude has become genderless or not (I also use dude for my friends of any gender), the word is a gendered term that has become ubiquitous. If someone doesn’t want me to use “dude” referring to them, I won’t. It’s not good to assume, so until I know that someone doesn’t mind, I’m not going to use gendered terms contrary to their gender. I wouldn’t call a man “sis” or “girl” the same way I would women I’m friends with, unless I know that doesn’t make them uncomfortable. I wouldn’t call a woman “bro” or “guy” the same way I would men I’m friends with unless I checked. All of those terms are gender nonspecific for me, but they might make someone who doesn’t have my lived experience uncomfortable.

The user’s pronouns were in her username, OP’s client just doesn’t display additional lines.

I recommend sticking to gender nonspecific instead of defaulting to masculine.

It did. OP’s client doesn’t display it. It’s pure miscommunication.

I believe they were being sarcastic.

Yes

I feel no need to be protected in my day to day life. My partner provides love, companionship, empathy, and a listening ear. Sure, some women might care about protection and toughness or whatever you’re on about, but attraction varies from person to person. Most other women I know want to be heard and loved. People are allowed to want to fuck “fragile” men. They can be hot without needing to be “manly.” You’re putting so much stock in traditional gender norms, not realizing that it’s not women that actually care about those. It’s the men that are trying to be that. Some women will, of course, but women aren’t a monolith. Want an example? Timothy Chalamet is very commonly considered to be an extremely attractive actor, and he’s far more androgynous and “fragile,” as you put it, than your traditional masculine ideal. Just as many women might be attracted to any number of different appearances, because people are different! The days of needing a strong man to support us frail women are over. Your insecurities and ideas of masculinity are clouding your judgment.

To answer your question succinctly: No, they aren’t fragile looking, they’re just slim. No, they don’t look “dehumanized,” they look like people. The dehumanization happens in industry, not with their faces. I know people that look similar. Some women find them hot, and want to fuck them, and idolize them, because they are hot! They’re very attractive people, if that aesthetic is what you’re into! If your only metric is how likely they are to win a fight, sure, they probably aren’t at the top of the scale, but the vast majority of people DON’T CARE.

They told you to look into therapy because you have an unhealthy idea of what women are attracted to and what masculinity should be. They called you insecure because you sound insecure (why do women like the weak little boys and not big manly men :(( they look so frail and weak, don’t women know they can’t protect them??). Whether or not that’s how you’re actually thinking, it’s how it comes across. Instead of realizing that some people do like strong men, you took it to a place of jealousy and defensiveness.

TLDR: Different strokes for different folks. Don’t obsess over people you don’t find attractive still being attractive to others, as it isn’t good for your mental health and isn’t a good look.

My experience is so different, and so are the market statistics. A “forever mouse” is a dumb idea just looking for a subscription cash grab, but the PC mouse market is expanding year over year as more people get desktop computers, and especially for PC gaming, an expanding market in its own right. The customer base of people who use mice might be shrinking in some Linux communities, but stating that across the board is just incorrect.

It was a general assumption, and apparently not an accurate one. I don’t presume to actually know how you think from one comment. There are dog whistles on all sides, because it’s essentially a term for an “inside joke,” minus the humor (usually). It comes up most often with Nazis and racists not because they’re the center of attention necessarily, but mostly because dog whistles are needed primarily by groups that are not socially acceptable. You cannot be openly racist except with other racists, or openly a Nazi except with other Nazis. Dog whistles allow people to declare allegiance and signal to others that believe the same without needing to openly state it. Usually, we still know anyways, but it gives them plausible deniability in their eyes.

What? They used the word correctly. How are you gonna pull out “both sides” when they’re correct? It hasn’t lost its meaning, you just don’t like hearing it so often because, surprise surprise, there’s an awful lot of dog whistling going on in the current political cycle. It means a signal used to communicate loyalty or belief to an idea, group, platform, etc, that is understood by other people who agree, and not necessarily obvious to the neutral observer. In this case, the word “woke” is a dog whistle for bigots. It was applied correctly.

Authoritarian doesn’t mean exercising authority. Banning slavery did exercise authority, of the law, over slave owners, but it was anti-authoritarian. It took power, and authority, condensed wrongly in the hands of a few and, in theory, distributed it to the many, however effective it actually was.

Expressed well or not, you didn’t use any logical fallacies or resort to ad hominem attacks. I could disagree on every point and still enjoy the discussion just for the sake of respectful debate. Hope to run into you again.

I happened to read your last reply before it was deleted, and I have to give you props for disagreeing respectfully. I don’t see nuanced debates online often, and I’d much rather have a respectful discussion where we don’t see eye to eye. Have a good one, you seem dope.

I think the issue is that the “new” usage of “they” is seen as different, or incorrect, when that’s simply not the case. The strict usage of “they” as only a plural pronoun is not “correct.” It’s revisionist. Historically, “they” has been used as both a singular and plural pronoun, and it can be found in conversation and literature going back hundreds of years. At some point, we revised that they should be only plural, and that’s why it feels like things are changing in our current lifetimes. We aren’t changing how the word is used, we’re going back to how it’s been used for centuries.

Language is not a set of rules and strictures. It’s fluid, and the way people use words becomes grammatically correct. If these things could not change, then language couldn’t exist. You can feel uncomfortable that language has changed from what you’ve known, but don’t hold it back, or complain about the next generation. Language will change in their lifetimes too. Overall, it’s a good thing and pushes us to understand each other in the manner appropriate for the times. Right now, an easily recognizable and commonly accepted gender neutral, singular pronoun is more valuable to language than a strict usage or a new word for the use case.

“They left their bag.” “They went that way.” “I’ll find them later.”

All these examples could refer to either singular or plural cases, and maybe that confuses some people, but I think it’s very simple to determine with even the barest bit of context. It’s better than defaulting to “he” for any unspecified gender, as was “correct” for the last few decades, and allows for non-binary people to be referred to without needing oft-criticized neo-pronouns.

TLDR: Times change. We need to get with it.

It’s my name

What? Cognitive behavioral therapy is not for the mentally handicapped. It’s for anyone.