Episode 114: I Don't Make Eye Contact On The First Date

[KingKalamari]

The recurrent theme I kept getting out of this episode was "I want a girlfriend but I don't want to actually TALK to people...If only there was a better way!"

I mean social anxiety is definitely a real thing a lot of people deal with but there's a big problem when your attitude towards it goes from "There is something wrong with me that prevents me from interacting with other people" to "There is something wrong with SOCIETY that prevents me from interacting with other people. Everything in the universe is preventing me from putting boners in vaginas!"

[Isfahan]

Before I even start listening, I just want to say that Magic: the Gathering has gotten me laid before

That's only impressive if a guy says it and the guy isn't lying.

[NutshellGulag]

Update: Kal-Elk PM'd me the story, and I want you to know that the prudishness in you just cheated you out of hearing the words "Strip Magic The Gathering Trivia" in context.

I'm okay with that.

[Goose Goose Honk At Me Now]

What is it with these people being like "I don't want friends but I do want a ~romantic partner~"? Ideally the person you date and/or spend your life with should be someone you consider a friend as well as a magical sex machine. Pretending the two can't overlap at all is staggeringly dumb.

[KingKalamari]

What is it with these people being like "I don't want friends but I do want a ~romantic partner~"? Ideally the person you date and/or spend your life with should be someone you consider a friend as well as a magical sex machine. Pretending the two can't overlap at all is staggeringly dumb.

I think these guys are people who just haven't discovered sex dolls yet...

[Isfahan]

What is it with these people being like "I don't want friends but I do want a ~romantic partner~"? Ideally the person you date and/or spend your life with should be someone you consider a friend as well as a magical sex machine. Pretending the two can't overlap at all is staggeringly dumb.

Only demisexuals have sex with people they like, duh.

[PurpleXVI]

Ideally the person you date and/or spend your life with should be someone you consider a friend as well as a magical sex machine. Pretending the two can't overlap at all is staggeringly dumb.

This is something that most people recognize after a while, that platonic enjoyment of each other and romantic enjoyment of each other should ideally go together, rather than being two completely separate realms.

But I honestly think that a lot of people start out not getting just because of how romance is represented in so damn many movies, books and other things. It's always some sort of MAGICAL SPECIAL THING that strikes RIGHT FROM THE MOMENT THEY SEE EACH OTHER and then all they do is ROMANTIC DATING THINGS which are usually completely different from what they do with their friends.

I'd be willing to bet most of these people are under or around 20-ish and not too socially experienced, who have weird ideas about romance, and women in general, because of how the two are represented in a lot of shitty media, and unless they get dragged into some sort of MRA weirdness where they consider women to be incomprehensible aliens, they'll probably figure it out eventually.

[Horza]

The whole DATING MACHINE thing felt like the author of Moon People attempting to somehow quantify or explain human interaction.

its unintentionally hilarious ineptitude started to remind me of iBrain, I kept waiting for the clown makeup to break out.

[Sherlockian]

Update: Kal-Elk PM'd me the story, and I want you to know that the prudishness in you just cheated you out of hearing the words "Strip Magic The Gathering Trivia" in context.

In my experience, drunk nerds can make a strip or drinking game out of almost any geeky pastime.


In other news, the "Fuck Offer" vaudeville bit made me really want Lemon and Boots(?) to do some Marx Brothers routines. It gave me some hardcore nostalgia for my formative comedy experiences.

[Lemon]

In other news, the "Fuck Offer" vaudeville bit made me really want Lemon and Boots(?) to do some Marx Brothers routines.

John, but I could go for watching Duck Soup again.

[Goose Goose Honk At Me Now]

In other news, the "Fuck Offer" vaudeville bit made me really want Lemon and Boots(?) to do some Marx Brothers routines.

John, but I could go for watching Duck Soup again.

Fun fact: apparently at one live performance, Harpo and Chico switched roles and no one knew except (I think) Groucho's daughter.

[🍆]

Add It Up was the perfect song to open this ep with.

There seems to be this entire subgenre of internet batshittery that involves pathologizing normal human behavior. Demisexuals, love-shy... what ever happened to just being introverted? I'm fascinated and scared to see where it goes next.

[A Whirring Bone-White Gleech]

Before I even start listening, I just want to say that Magic: the Gathering has gotten me laid before and it's actually a pretty fun game with a really awful playerbase reputation (only most of which is probably deserved). I barely play with people like the stereotypical Magic nerd at all! (And then only at tournament-type things). It is a silly hobby and anyone who doesn't acknowledge that should be soundly mocked, but it's also probably one of the more fun/deep games currently out there.

Also woooooo incel episode, this is going to be amazing.


e: i just enjoy this silly wizardpoker hobby and am defensive about it for no real good reason

Toast really nailed it in the closer to one episode forever ago.  Some Magic players are normal, functional people with a nerdy hobby, and other Magic players are incredibly fucked up disasters of human beings.

Having said that, I quit playing the game years ago when I couldn't find a player group that wasn't more of the latter than the former.  So I have a Theory about what the ratio between the two is in the Magic player-base.

[chai tea latte]

Having said that, I quit playing the game years ago when I couldn't find a player group that wasn't more of the latter than the former.  So I have a Theory about what the ratio between the two is in the Magic player-base.

Yeah, it's pretty tragic. I still like the game enough to play despite the neckbeards, but I haven't played with strangers in a long time for just that reason.

e: do you recall which episode? I vaguely remember what you're talking about, but not entirely.

[zugunruhe]

I remember, I met this guy on an internet forum devoted to learning foreign languages. He was really cool and nice and interesting, then after knowing him for like two years, we're talking about sex and he comes out to me as incel and linked me to basically all of the stuff that you guys were reading from. Holy merciful god I could have lived seven lives without ever having that bullcrap brought back to my attention. MONTRITH. YOU DID THIS TO ME.