How not to retire from the mating game
One frequently hears of both men and women who have given up on finding a partner, usually because their attempts at finding a suitable partner have been very frustrating.
Some people have genuinely lost interest in pairing up, often because they have other satisfying activities in their lives. But I am talking here of people who have given up because of failure, not because of lack of interest.
I am reminded of them by the writings of Yael Wolfe, a frequent contributor to medium.com. Her latest post is a long screed about how satisfied she is to be single.
It reeks of desperation. She writes at great length in an effort to convince herself, it seems to me. In her previous entries she has often mourned her attempts to find a lasting partnership with a man. She has had relationships but none have lasted. And she really still badly wants a relationship.
I don't know her so have no real idea of where she has gone wrong. I suspect, though, that she has set her sights too high. She goes for men who are of a higher quality than is really available to her. Her own qualities are not attractive enough to hold the men she aspires to.
So what should she do to enhance her lasting attractiveness? I have no knowledge of her particular situation but I think there is a clue for us all in a story that a smart and attractive woman told me not long ago. It is a story that could apply to both men and women, it seems to me.
It is really a simple story. For background, the woman concerned is rather pretty and has a university degree. She is in a fairly well-paid semi-professional job.
The odd thing is that she had for a time been in a relationship with a working class man who had very little money. So how did he attract and hold her? He did it by being very attentive. He would listen carefully to what she said about what she liked and wanted. So if she mentioned in passing that she liked mangoes, there would be a mango or two on the table the next day.
They were mainly little things that he did but he was simply very good at listening and finding ways to give her things she liked. She became quite entranced and for a time thought she had found a life partner. So, as a certain cat has argued, being poorer than your partner or prospective partner is not necessarily an obstacle to a good relationship.
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A powerful affection can be created just by doing little things
Sadly, other obstacles arose in the relationship concerned which ended it, to the considerable disappointment of the woman concerned. Last time I heard, she was one of those people who are "off" relationships, but I hope that is not permanent.
So her personal story is in the end a sad one but I think it does contain within it a a powerful account of how to create affection in challenging circumstances.
There are of course many other things that generate good relationships: Good looks, self-confidence and a good sense of humour being prime. But the power of attentiveness should be added to those.
I have myself retired from the mating game but that is because I already have a bright and good-looking girlfriend. And if a geriatric 80-year old like me can have a girlfriend, there is hope for everybody. There are some details of that relationship on my personal blog, in the unlikely event that anybody is interested. She is referred to there as "Z":
https://memoirsjr.blogspot.com/
JR********************************************
The Left-Right Divide Is Not Bridgeable
Millions of Americans, depressed by the ideological divide in America, harbor a wish that something or someone can bridge this divide.
This wish is understandable. But it is fantasy. The divide is unbridgeable. One might as well wish that daily consumption of a hot fudge sundae will lead to weight loss.
To cite a few samples:
* How are we to bridge the gap between those who believe men can become women and women can become men, and those who don’t believe this? Between those who believe men menstruate and those who believe only women menstruate?
* How are we to bridge the divide between those who believe “colorblind” is a racist notion and those who believe “colorblind” is the antidote to racism?
* How are we to bridge the divide between those who believe Israel is the villain and Hamas is the victim, and those who believe Israel is the victim and Hamas, which openly states its dedication to annihilating Israel and its Jewish inhabitants, is the villain, morally indistinguishable from the Nazis?
* How are we to bridge the divide between those who believe young children should be brought to drag queen shows and those who believe this sexualization—and sexual confusion—of children is morally detestable?
* How are we to bridge the divide between those who believe reducing the number of police will reduce violent crime and those who believe reducing the number of police will increase violent crime?
* How are we to bridge the divide between those who believe in suppressing free speech if they deem any given speech “hateful” or “misinformation” and those who believe in free speech?
Every one of these positions is mutually contradictory. And this is just a partial list.
Ironically, even those who hold these mutually contradictory positions agree that these positions are unbridgeable. Only the naive (usually meaning non-Left liberals) believe otherwise.
I recommend that any American who believes the Left-Right gap is bridgeable read the comments submitted by New York Times readers to any column that discusses a Left or Right position. These comments are a superb indicator of what those on the Left, including liberals (I often distinguish between liberalism and leftism) believe.
To submit a comment to a New York Times article or column, one must be a subscriber to The New York Times. So, virtually all those who comment are on the Left, graduated from college, and have enough disposable income to subscribe to The New York Times.
This came to my attention again this past week when reading all the most popular comments reacting to a column on “Christian nationalism” written by Ross Douthat, the one New York Times columnist who defends Christian conservatives.
“Christian nationalist” is the latest left-wing smear of conservatives. It joins “sexist,” “racist,” “homophobic,” “Islamophobic,” “transphobic,” “xenophobic,” “fascist,” and “threat to our democracy” as the Left’s way of smearing—rather than responding to, let alone debating—those with whom progressives differ.
Douthat wrote an intelligent column explaining four distinctive conservative Christian positions and groups.
The comments rated highest on the list of “Reader Picks” are not only left-wing; they are irrational. Few, if any, actually define “Christian nationalism.” They simply declare conservative Christians “Christian nationalists,” just as they declare “transphobic” anyone who opposes hormone blockers for minors or opposes men who say they are women competing in women’s sports.
These comments also reveal a lack of self-awareness I believe is a defining characteristic of leftism. Nearly every commenter writes that any American who seeks to advance policies rooted in Judeo-Christian values is a Christian nationalist and therefore a “threat to democracy.” But if you seek to advance policies or laws rooted in a secular value system, that is perfectly in accord with American democracy.
“We progressives can advance our agenda based on our values, but when our opponents promote their values from a biblical perspective, they threaten democracy.” In other words, leftists can bring their values into American life, but conservative Christians (and Orthodox Jews) may not.
As for the lack of self-awareness, the Left never perceives itself as imposing its values. The Left forced as many Americans as possible to get the frequently harmful COVID-19 vaccine. The Left forced young people who were at minimal risk from the virus to get vaccinated and forced children to miss school for nearly two years.
But New York Times readers do not see themselves as imposing their values on Americans. In their minds, they never “threaten democracy”; only conservative Christians who wanted open churches and open schools did. And they never explain how, if a majority of the citizenry wants and votes for a particular value (or candidate) deemed conservative, democracy is “threatened.” Isn’t that the very definition of democracy—the candidate or policy with the most votes wins?
If you still think the Left-Right divide is bridgeable, it is only because it is too painful to confront the tragic reality of contemporary American life: Today’s Left-Right divide is at least as great as the North-South divide before and during the Civil War. The only thing that remains the same is that it was the Democratic Party that opposed freedom then, and it is the Democratic Party that opposes freedom today.
https://www.dailysignal.com/2024/03/05/the-left-right-divide-is-not-bridgeable/
****************************************************Ban of WWII kiss picture part of the left’s mad crusade to erase history
Never mind that Greta Zimmer, the nurse, didn’t have a problem with the photograph, and understood that sailor George Mendonsa was caught up in the joy of Japan’s final surrender when he randomly kissed her.
Zimmer later became friends with Mendonsa and his wife, Rita.
The Secretary of Veterans Affairs, Denis R. McDonough, reversed the removal decision — when he found about it.
Which makes you wonder how many woke middle managers are out there in the government declaring what is “appropriate” based on whatever they learned at Oberlin.
Throughout society, progressives are pulling this exact nonsense every day, tearing down statues, emptying museums, erasing history.
As George Orwell warned: “Those who control the past control the future.”
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The numbers prove it: Bail reform drove a 66% recidivism rate for repeat crooks
In a recurring theme in the debate over New York’s criminal-justice reforms of recent years, the outfit Data Collaborative for Justice offers a new study meant to show the no-bail laws worked — when its numbers indicate the exact opposite:
Among the most worrisome criminals, they boosted crime. To alarming rates.
As former Queens prosecutor Jim Quinn explains in The Post, the study — which focused on parts of the state outside the city — openly admits that two out three defendants freed under bail reform despite recent prior arrests got picked up for new crimes within just two years.
That telling number includes perps who’d been nabbed for violent felonies, then rearrested and released for committing new crimes.
And get this: Nearly half (49.3%) were hauled in for new felonies — a quarter (26.2%), violent ones.
Not only are the rates are up since bail reform, but they were troublingly high to begin with.
Oh, and with far more people being freed at higher rates, the total number of crimes they commit has soared.
It all adds up to overwhelming proof that bail reform has been an unmitigated disaster, not the success that the Data Collaborative and other progressives claim.
The group boasts that the reforms “tended to reduce recidivism for people facing less serious charges and with limited or no recent criminal history.”
Fine. Yet it also admits they “tended to increase recidivism for people facing more serious charges and with recent criminal histories” — that is, precisely the ones who account for most crimes, including the worst ones.
And “minor” crimes can add up to a plague.
Per NYPD stats, just 327 people were responsible for 30% of city shoplifting arrests in 2022. Bail reform created a revolving door for these repeat offenders, and retail theft is now killing shops large and small across Gotham.
Perps with priors are likely to re-offend if and when they’re released — not just because crime is simply the chosen career of many, but also because their repeated releases send the message that they’ll pay no consequences for their anti-social actions.
Let’s be honest: It’s no mere coincidence that crime shot up after the 2019 no-bail laws, which came after Albany had already relaxed other criminal-justice reforms, via measures like Raise the Age, and as the city passed more and more rules handcuffing cops.
Shoplifting, thanks to repeat offenders freed on no bail, has gone through the roof.
Nor did it help that the city and state used the pandemic as an excuse for early release of thousands of career criminals.
The numbers don’t lie: Bail reform — as even researchers who support it quietly admit — has played a key role in fueling the recidivism that’s driving crime.
https://nypost.com/2024/03/05/opinion/how-bail-reform-drove-a-66-recidivism-rate-for-repeat-crooks/
****************************************My other blogs. Main ones below:
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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Kristina Pimenova, once said to be the most beautiful girl in the world. Note blue eyes and blonde hair
Bliss: What every woman wants: to feel safe and secure in the arms of her man. Robert Irwin and Rorie Buckey. See
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