Not sleepy.
Tyler Cowen is pimping me over on the Volokh page, where the lawyers are not as fond of me as economists are. That's cool. The negative comments of imaginary people carry as much weight as the pleasant affirmations of imaginary people. I should start a Wall of Shame. I saved my favorite for last.
and then, in response:
I am six years past any possibility of being desirable, but I have no intentions of ever dating a flawed man. Never.
late to this thread, but Megan should've just called her entry "20 reasons why I can't get a date." She does sound like an interesting person though.
Yikes. Easy to see why Megan is single. A bit prone to over-generalizations and really fun to be around?
and then, in response:
Agreed, perhaps it isn’t that there is anything particularly wrong with dating lawyers but mabye there’s just something wrong with Meagan? She was afterall in a relationship with a guy for seven years who ultimately found that he didn’t want to marry her. It stands to reason that he probably knows a lot of things about her that we don’t.
The better question is would a lawyer want to date her? I doubt it.
She sounds like a whiner. I wouldn't date her.
What a ridiculous argument by that woman. Make your argument interesting Madam, post your picture. If you are drop dead beautiful, well then I'll listen out of curiosity. If you are ordinary - well that is like listening to a poor man endlessly drone on about what color Porche he will buy - when, uh, he gets some money. Besides, even if beautiful, she can just wait a few years. When she is no longer in the socially magic (meaning desirable to major male demographic) 18 to 28 age group, her negotiating power will peak and rapidly decline. Whom she "would" date will magically expand to include bald men, flawed men, yes, maybe even (horrors) lawyers. Indeed, should she chose to pursue that often female failing for marriage at all costs - she should be so lucky to as "date" a lawyer who could occasionally pick up the dinner check. ... Now what color Porche was she going to buy again?
I am six years past any possibility of being desirable, but I have no intentions of ever dating a flawed man. Never.
posted by Megan at 1:21 AM
21 Comments:
Jeez. Bunch of haters over there.
I've taken heat from friends about having what they view as arbitrary mate requirements. They seem to think: "I wouldn't want to date someone who x" means the same thing as "People who are x are scum who we should rise up in a jihad against." (We won't go into whether that equivalency does hold true in your case.)
There are a lot of hateful presumptions these guys make in the comments you selected. The ones dripping with the most misogyny are the ones that seems to assume that ALL women will eventually get desperate about being single and marry the first object with something resembling male genetalia they see. While I do know a couple of women who in fact seem to be headed down that route, I know many more women who seem to have a steady hand and are willing to frame their mating decision as guy-who-I-like or nothing instead of the decision guy-who-I-like or any-guy. The commenters seem to be taking gleeful delight in the fact that a woman may eventually fall into this trap and then they'll get their chance.
(And what's up with the dude who wants you to put up your picture?)
Wow,
You are unflappable in the face of ad hominem attacks-- which is hot in itself.
But let's consider their claims seriously for a moment. The commenter suggest that being 30-something makes you unattractive.
We see from your picture that you are gorgeous from neck up.
We'll treat your body, from neck down, as a random draw from your cohort's sexiness distribution. It is a well established fact, at least among people who follow this sort of thing, that ultimate women are the 2nd most banging cohort on earth.
It goes:
1) Field Hockey chicks
2) Ultimate chicks
3) Soccer chicks
4) Supermodels
Even if you were in the left tail of the ultimate distribution, you're about as sexy as the median supermodel. Not having met you, we can't say where in the ultimate chick distribution you fall... but we've placed a lower bound at "damned-gorgeous."
As for your writing, it's the most seductive thing on the internet. If you weren't running logit regressions on getting called after a date, we'd be buying internet porn right now.
I don't know where those Volokh commenters get this stuff... but don't believe the hype.
Recently found a link here from marginal revolution... and your blog is hot hot hot.
Interestingly, the lawyers over at Volokh seem to disagree rather vehemently with your generalizations about lawyers. But wasnt one of your justifications for disliking lawyers that most of them dont like being lawyers, are contemptuous of their careers and their peers? It seems that your broad generalizations about what lawyers think about themselves doesnt match up with what the lawyers actually do think about themselves.
p.s. while ad hominem attacks are of course unjustified in all circumstances, it may be worth noting that you did insult just about every reader of VC. And the general (and perhaps only realistic) response to broad, uninformed generalizations is to dismiss the person as not knowing what theyre talking about.
Glad you like the blog. I don't have the standard Ultimate build at all. They're all ripped and thin and can turn on a dime. I am what I believe what the rappers would call "thick". Huge rack, strong haunches. My weight cycles annually, down for the summer, back up in the winter. And, of course, huge pythons.
I knew those were generalizations, which is why I called them generalizations. But I think it is more interesting that only a few of them said: "Oh, I want to be a lawyer, and believe my work does good, and I am interested in the bigger world as well. I fall into the group of lawyers she respects and would date, if I were interested in a whiny unmarriagable person like her."
Hmm, I wonder what the heck Tyler was thinking.
Ok, first of all, Megan keeps describing herself in such a way as to make people think she is a fat cow in the winter and a slender cow in the summer. That is preposterous. She is a totally average build, nothing extreme in any way, and tends towards tawny athleticness during the summer. Megan, you are giving lame lawyers ammunition against you (who the hell is Californio on the Volovk site? it doesn't get any lamer than him...)
So, second of all, you should marry "Dan," who posted at 6:31 am on a Sunday (even though he's obviously a freak for being up that early. I'll assume he lives in Germany or something.)
Finally, I find that random affirmations from imaginary people actually do carry a lot of weight, so I hope these hosers aren't secretly invading your psyche.
P.S. who's Tyler? Friend or foe?
If you were confronted by insulting generalizations about a group to which you belong, would you reply by explaining that those generalizations dont apply to you? For example, if someone said to you, "most women arent athletic, theyre stupid, and theyre not funny," how would you respond? Would you say "well, I am athletic, I am smart, and I am funny"? Or would you dismiss the speaker as not knowing what he was talking about?
But this rather simple point that arguing for an individual exception to stereotypes may simply ratify the stereotype is beside the point. I think it's a touch disingenuous to say that few commentors at VC acknowledged loving the law, and essentially being the opposite of what you said. First, many, many people did exactly that. Second, many people noted the kind of person you are describing, explained why they are so rare, and criticized that person themselves. By any fair reading, those people implied that they were different from your stereotypes. See, for example, the numerous comments stating that your generalizations apply to a few young lawyers, but not to almost anyone who has been in a law firm more than a few years.
Dubin!
Tyler has been a very kind friend, and I am always flattered when he links to me. Dan seems lovely, like all my readers, but so far he hasn't proposed.
11:41 anonymous:
Huh, that's funny. I think that is exactly what I would do. If I came across a post saying 'Americans are ignorant because they don't speak second languages', I would pause, realize that I did study a second language, decide it didn't apply to me and move on. To each her own. I don't think I would dismiss any speaker; although I might go as far as "that's not what I have seen so far".
Megan,
That is the strangest attempt at self-deprecation I've ever heard.
Your concerns are
1) A nice rack
2) Weight fluctuations with changes in activity level
3) That whole snakes thing
The breasts thing is ludacrous.
Fact: Guys like boobs.
I'm not about to debate this over the internet. Go ask anyone walking down any sidewalk anywhere. They'll set you straight.
Second: Natural weight fluctuations with changes in activity level?
That's how human physiology works.
Worrying about that smack is for Cosmo readers... not for smart engineering chicks who can huck.
Shouldn't you be steaming up our monitors with fluvial geomorphology and sex. If I wanted to hear about weight fluctuations, I'd go eavesdrop in the womens section of Abercrombie and Fitch.
Third, the pythons. Given your supposed rule for half the population that you won't give them the time of day unless you can kick their ass, it's probably best that you keep those babies pumped up.
Those were some nutso objections... none of which change that lower bound on your attractiveness. It remains at "damned gorgeous"
I just didn't want you to base your impression of me on most Ultimate players. I don't have the standard build. I'm not objecting to being called pretty, but I'm a different pretty from all the lovely women in Ultimate. (And I totally agree that my weight is a boring topic.)
Also, 'cause this didn't come across before, I judge everyone, women and men, by the same 'could I win in a fight' standard. I mean, all my hardest opponents were women.
found you through volokh - i think you're dead-on about dating lawyers. i dont date female lawyers for the same reasons, plus a few others.
(first, i do have a jd. and 2 bs degrees (comp sci, molecular bio). and i run a business that's completely unrelated to law. i only mention this b/c i want to illustrate that i have a basis for my observations & opinions.)
law schools are filled with the type of kids that you describe - those who didn't know what else to do with their lives, or those who went simply because their parents are lawyers (lots of these). but a good portion are there for another reason - they like to always be right, and they like to feel like they're better than other people.
this drive to be better than others is what makes law school and firm life so stressful. you take 50 of these personalities and tell them that there is an award that only 20 of them can earn, and they'll work their fingers to the bone 24x7 to "earn" that award. it's just the way they are - i don't know if it's a genetic personality trait or if it's the result of not being hugged enough when they were kids, but the fact is that they all want the reward, the praise, the pat-on-the-head, "atta-boy you're the pick of the litter" confirmation. even if the work is mind-numbingly dull and tedious. these people will make themselves phenomenally unhappy, all for the fleeting pleasure of feeling like they're better than someone else.
most legal work is not difficult or interesting. junior associates spend 16 hours a day sifting through legal documents, digesting depositions, checking citations on briefs prepared by others - all work that a paralegal could easily do. the only reason that the paralegal doesn't do it is to the firm can charge the client a lawyer's rate. the interesting part of all this isn't that these folks put up with it, it's that they actually brag about how much they dislike it. they talk about how many hours they billed and how dull and boring it is with an expectation that others will be impressed by it. i think that somewhere up in their brain they've managed to confuse themselves into believing that "long hours = i am really important."
i suppose i shouldn't rip on lawyers too much for this attitude, it's present in other fields as well. the difference is that the entire legal profession is built on the principle that "you're a nobody if you're not trying your hardest to be better than everyone around you. and if someone around you is better than you, you should feel like crap about it and work harder."
i think i've rambled a bit off topic. i don't date lawyers because they're always babbling on about how someone in a deposition said X or Y, and how that was inconsistent, and how catching it was so genius, blah blah. girls, these are not things that guys want to hear about, even other lawyers. these are not things that anyone wants to hear about.
"hi! my name is kim! actually, im an attorney at longname and longername." you'd think that this was just someone introducing themselves - it isn't. it's someone trying to impress you, to let you know "i am better than you."
if you act unimpressed, they'll try harder, detailing what they do and talking about how "hard" it is.
it's clear that this is what's really going on because the conversation will drastically change as soon as you reveal that you, too, are an attorney. "oh really, which firm?" "where did you go to law school?" "what kind of work do you do?" as soon as you give an answer that they think they can best, they give a sympathetic-sounding "ohhhh" while nodding their head as if to say "oh, poor you, i understand that you must feel disappointed in yourself." they're actually not sympatheitc at all - inside they're secretly happy that they feel like they are, again, better than you.
for me, i usually get the disapproving "oooh" when i say "i dont practice anymore, i got sick of it real fast." "oooh. i see. yep. (nods.) i know someone who did that. i think he regrets it..."
im sure that the volokh readers will rip me apart, say that i have a complex, or that there's something wrong with me. they'll say that i quit biglaw because "i couldn't handle it" or "i wasn't good enough." whatever, let them say what they will. the fact is, i'm very happy. and i've learned to care very little about what most law-types think of other people, anyway. hopefully you have too.
would you date, say, a historian, or are you only into engineers?
Wow, check you out, stirring it up!
I have to second Zeldaah. I know Meg, and she has a great body. And you can't help but touch her boobies. They're AWESOME.
Sweet Coalminer,
I wish you and Claudia would respect me for my thoughts and my knowledge and my ideas! I am not an object, you know. I am a person, with a mind, which you might have noticed and I would appreciate it if you would please look up from my sweet, luscious breasts to ask me what I think about things.
I think only a lawyer would say something like "I'll never date a flawed person."
Human=flaw.
The trick is to find a partner with which you are willing (and who is also willing) to form those million little compromises that must occur to get over the breath, the snoring, the smell, the otherness of someone. Flaws are what are interesting about a person.
In other words, one must admit one's own human "failedness".
Do lawyers seek to have no life more than others? Perhaps if one is comparing a school teacher to a lawyer. But money managers and various other "careerists" exhibit the same characteristics.
Blah, blah, blah.
It's all about the milkshake! Ideas Schmideas. That's what work is for. Relationships are all about the fondling.
There WERE a few really despicable posts, probably from people feeling defensive, but I think if you did a regression on those...
I thought about a bar chart for a while, but I didn't care enough to go through and code the comments on Volokh. But you must be excited! He mentioned you by name! I think he likes you.
Sorry if my link backfired, I thought more of them would find it charming, and perhaps correct. I married a lawyer, but she is exceptional. If there is a lawyer for you, presumably he would like your post.
Tyler
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