Thanks for another entertaining and thought provoking read Stella, and your honesty with intimate recollections is rare and much appreciated, and necessary to fully understand your feelings. Enjoy your break to the full, and get all the experiences possible, you’ll have plenty of time to write later x
"One piece of bad bitch dating advice I have to give is never tell men other men have not treated you well. They value you less after that, no matter what they say. Men want what other men want."
I think it's less the case that men value you less after finding out other men treated you bad, but that whatever made other men not value you more soon manifest in your current relationship.
I am not without empathy for this predicament though, what do you do when you just don't feel strong enough feelings or are conditioned to be non-commital
Why should they commit when they have a 'buffet of women'. Like everything else romance is a commodity now with its very own language 'swipe left' 'swipe right' 'i can see you on wednesdays'' 'delete' sorry, who is this?'...tant pis, the population will never recover to replacement level ever again. Sorry you weren't 20 in the 80s...
I am not sure I would want to be 20 in the 80s though, the 90s were a brutal time to be a woman, each generation has its struggles. Many men who are boring and unambitious are bitter they are not being picked by women because women now can have their own career and interests and options.
I have been going through your past articles because they're frankly delicious. I haven't read smut that's so gripping yet political since Gore Vidal. I think you summarising him elsewhere as Judas Friend was slightly unfair, since you met him on a dating app and his flirting wasn't a surprise. I also enjoyed this because you remind me so much of a woman in my own life and it makes me wonder if she has your sangfroid. All the same, George Bernanos or Mauriac would've loved this stuff.
As mentioned, there is the humiliation kink, which appears to be driving you to choose men who will then reject you and give you a taste of being a loser again.
And I suspect this blog is fundamentally a public exhibit of your sadness and loneliness.
Which you have fetishised and enjoy revelling in.
Perhaps you want to recreate the conditions of your childhood bullying, the isolation and contempt, so that you can liberate yourself from the opinions of others and show off how much you don't care what they think.
Which is the basic underpinning of goth culture.
"I pretend not to care if people hate me, but secretly I like it."
When you find someone who you believe is worthless, their opinion doesn't matter, and there is no pleasure or enjoyment.
When someone worships and adores you unconditionally, it is boring, and probably seems fake.
So all that is left is to find new people who seem interesting, whose opinions still matter to you, and convince them to abandon, reject and humiliate you to confirm that you were right to stop caring what people think.
If I'm correct, then you probably enjoy being psychoanalysed, especially if it reveals deep character flaws.
You may like heavy metal music, which is designed to be awful, and your ideal relationship is probably a groupie for a tattered bad boy rock legend with the soul of a philosopher who alternates between abusing you and adoring you.
He has many female fans, but none of them understand him like you do, because they are dumb sluts.
He must abuse you to maintain your interest and belief in his credibility, but he also must adore you to prevent dissociation and ultimately boredom.
Perhaps he breaks up with you and then convinces you to trust him again repeatedly. So that you can feel rejection over and over.
For a healthier relationship, you'll want to find someone who is good at roleplaying. An actor perhaps, because I bet you can still get off on staged humiliation.
My ex boyfriend worshipped me and I loved it! I love men who show interest in me, always give them a chance even if I am not immediately impressed by them. I untangle myself pretty quickly once I am rejected or ignored.
You replied to let me know I was wrong, so I assume you found it interesting in some way.
I hesitate to make a second guess, but perhaps you will find it entertaining. Let's say that you never cared what people thought about you.
Perhaps you are instead fuelled by pure unshakeable self confidence.
Then your self deprecating humour is signalling that you are stoically unaffected rather than afraid of criticism, and what you'd want from a partner is help to achieve your life goals.
In the absence of others' opinions, all that is left is one's own opinion and the relentless pursuit of personal objectives.
Which gives a person the ability to listen to criticism objectively and apply it unceremoniously.
Then we judge the advice giver according to the accuracy of their information rather than getting absorbed in a compliments game.
On that note, it's not hard to see that you are attractive, clever and funny. I have no doubt that you could find men to worship you as a goddess, so I can only conclude that there must be slim pickings.
Society itself probably can't be improved due to the general crappiness of the average person. However it should be possible to create pockets of quality.
In which case, the solution could be to set up a social platform that can filter thousands of people according to various traits, philosophical, religious and political beliefs and affiliations, ethnicity, language fluency, cognitive abilities, physical fitness, etc.
Which would generate communities of like minded people where discussions could take place and greatly increase the chance of finding a good partner.
At the same time, it provides an opportunity for people to show off their social skills, and pursue self improvement that is more than just creative lying and posting photoshopped pictures.
Discord servers are close to this idea but generally only filter for a single interest at a time.
One of the major issues with the current generation of dating platforms is that it's too one dimensional. Sometimes it is useful to see how someone interacts with other people in a community before making contact with them.
I think many people struggle with the expectation that they should know whether they want a romantic relationship before they actually know the person.
And if it isn't obvious, my great love is trying to fix people, myself included, so I'd be very happy to see this platform come into being.
Anyway I hope I didnt offend you, and I wish you success in your love life.
Very entertaining read, again. IMO, If a man values a woman less because she's been hurt by someone, there's something wrong with him. That's a big ass red flag.
Thanks for another entertaining and thought provoking read Stella, and your honesty with intimate recollections is rare and much appreciated, and necessary to fully understand your feelings. Enjoy your break to the full, and get all the experiences possible, you’ll have plenty of time to write later x
thank you Andy, NYC is lush so far
"One piece of bad bitch dating advice I have to give is never tell men other men have not treated you well. They value you less after that, no matter what they say. Men want what other men want."
I think it's less the case that men value you less after finding out other men treated you bad, but that whatever made other men not value you more soon manifest in your current relationship.
I see what you did there Charlatan!!!!! Thanks for confirming I am inherently unloveable, as i had long suspected!!!!
Sensationally fun writing as ever Stella. You'll end up a contemporary Eve Babitz at this rate
thank you James :-) I love Babitz
"He is haunted by the pain he’s caused them".
That's because what he is doing is a grievous sin. He should stop.
I am not without empathy for this predicament though, what do you do when you just don't feel strong enough feelings or are conditioned to be non-commital
Why should they commit when they have a 'buffet of women'. Like everything else romance is a commodity now with its very own language 'swipe left' 'swipe right' 'i can see you on wednesdays'' 'delete' sorry, who is this?'...tant pis, the population will never recover to replacement level ever again. Sorry you weren't 20 in the 80s...
I am not sure I would want to be 20 in the 80s though, the 90s were a brutal time to be a woman, each generation has its struggles. Many men who are boring and unambitious are bitter they are not being picked by women because women now can have their own career and interests and options.
I have been going through your past articles because they're frankly delicious. I haven't read smut that's so gripping yet political since Gore Vidal. I think you summarising him elsewhere as Judas Friend was slightly unfair, since you met him on a dating app and his flirting wasn't a surprise. I also enjoyed this because you remind me so much of a woman in my own life and it makes me wonder if she has your sangfroid. All the same, George Bernanos or Mauriac would've loved this stuff.
I think I may be seeing the problem.
Apologies for the unprompted psychoanalysis.
As mentioned, there is the humiliation kink, which appears to be driving you to choose men who will then reject you and give you a taste of being a loser again.
And I suspect this blog is fundamentally a public exhibit of your sadness and loneliness.
Which you have fetishised and enjoy revelling in.
Perhaps you want to recreate the conditions of your childhood bullying, the isolation and contempt, so that you can liberate yourself from the opinions of others and show off how much you don't care what they think.
Which is the basic underpinning of goth culture.
"I pretend not to care if people hate me, but secretly I like it."
When you find someone who you believe is worthless, their opinion doesn't matter, and there is no pleasure or enjoyment.
When someone worships and adores you unconditionally, it is boring, and probably seems fake.
So all that is left is to find new people who seem interesting, whose opinions still matter to you, and convince them to abandon, reject and humiliate you to confirm that you were right to stop caring what people think.
If I'm correct, then you probably enjoy being psychoanalysed, especially if it reveals deep character flaws.
You may like heavy metal music, which is designed to be awful, and your ideal relationship is probably a groupie for a tattered bad boy rock legend with the soul of a philosopher who alternates between abusing you and adoring you.
He has many female fans, but none of them understand him like you do, because they are dumb sluts.
He must abuse you to maintain your interest and belief in his credibility, but he also must adore you to prevent dissociation and ultimately boredom.
Perhaps he breaks up with you and then convinces you to trust him again repeatedly. So that you can feel rejection over and over.
For a healthier relationship, you'll want to find someone who is good at roleplaying. An actor perhaps, because I bet you can still get off on staged humiliation.
My ex boyfriend worshipped me and I loved it! I love men who show interest in me, always give them a chance even if I am not immediately impressed by them. I untangle myself pretty quickly once I am rejected or ignored.
I see, swing and a miss.
You replied to let me know I was wrong, so I assume you found it interesting in some way.
I hesitate to make a second guess, but perhaps you will find it entertaining. Let's say that you never cared what people thought about you.
Perhaps you are instead fuelled by pure unshakeable self confidence.
Then your self deprecating humour is signalling that you are stoically unaffected rather than afraid of criticism, and what you'd want from a partner is help to achieve your life goals.
In the absence of others' opinions, all that is left is one's own opinion and the relentless pursuit of personal objectives.
Which gives a person the ability to listen to criticism objectively and apply it unceremoniously.
Then we judge the advice giver according to the accuracy of their information rather than getting absorbed in a compliments game.
On that note, it's not hard to see that you are attractive, clever and funny. I have no doubt that you could find men to worship you as a goddess, so I can only conclude that there must be slim pickings.
Society itself probably can't be improved due to the general crappiness of the average person. However it should be possible to create pockets of quality.
In which case, the solution could be to set up a social platform that can filter thousands of people according to various traits, philosophical, religious and political beliefs and affiliations, ethnicity, language fluency, cognitive abilities, physical fitness, etc.
Which would generate communities of like minded people where discussions could take place and greatly increase the chance of finding a good partner.
At the same time, it provides an opportunity for people to show off their social skills, and pursue self improvement that is more than just creative lying and posting photoshopped pictures.
Discord servers are close to this idea but generally only filter for a single interest at a time.
One of the major issues with the current generation of dating platforms is that it's too one dimensional. Sometimes it is useful to see how someone interacts with other people in a community before making contact with them.
I think many people struggle with the expectation that they should know whether they want a romantic relationship before they actually know the person.
And if it isn't obvious, my great love is trying to fix people, myself included, so I'd be very happy to see this platform come into being.
Anyway I hope I didnt offend you, and I wish you success in your love life.
You've got a knack for observation and analysis clearly, ever considered starting a Substack? 😉
"If there is one thing in this life that animates me more than British men, it must be American men."
--- Both are notoriously bad looking. I just don't get it.
Very entertaining read, again. IMO, If a man values a woman less because she's been hurt by someone, there's something wrong with him. That's a big ass red flag.
Dull men. Hmm.
Sorry but some are, they can date the dull women. I'd rather die alone than not fall in love.
No need to apologize. I love your writing.
This was very illuminating. Thank you.
thanks for reading Bas !