STR8UP said:
I like discussing this stuff but it's reached the tipping point where you can't have a discussion about women without everyone breaking in "defending" them when they were never being attacked in the first place. It's like they hear what they want to hear and at the same time create a bunch of noise to keep them from having to assimilate the unpleasant truth.
Many times I've been where you are now; the "why do I bother trying to enlighten these ignorant people?" blues. In fact right around martini fest last year I was at the point of PMing Alan to tell him I was done with SS. Then I went to martini fest and we won people's choice and best of show, I'm getting interviewed by radio personalities, I'm surrounded by beautiful women tempting me with IOIs, and pouring drinks for guys who think I'm the bomb. You and DISH were there man. Then I got up the next morning with my beautiful naked wife of 13 years, had breakfast with my whip-smart, straight A's daughter, drove to the golf course in my pimped 300, and shot a round with some good friends who ask me for advice in person all the time. I got back and thought, "do I really give a sh!t WHAT these people think?" I know who I am, I don't have to prove a thing, much less say a thing, to know I'm legit and valid. You and KARMA and DISH are the only people from this forum I've ever met in person, so who cares right?
Then I go to clear out my PMs that day and I have like 6 new ones from guys desperately asking me for help, or thanking me for changing their lives, and I think "I can't abandon these few, the few who get it." I keep every PM I get from guys thanking me for helping them or changing the course of their lives that would've otherwise been ruled by a bad decision.
Yeah, you're right though, people love to start threads bemoaning how SS has "changed from the way it used to be", but if it has it's been towards a more apologetic shift in guys trying to identify with women. That's exactly what I'd expect at Love Shack, not here. But if you're not there to give a well thought, cogent, counter-argument you may as well merge SS into Love Shack.
Of course you're going to be accused of misogyny at any slightly disparaging mention of women's habits you observe.
Of course you'll be tarred with adjectives like "bitter" or "resentful" or a "complainer."
Of course you're going to have your moral integrity doubted for thinking that women may not be as others would 'have' them be.
That's all part of the Matrix, you know this. When I'm at a product launch party in Aruba do you think I give even an afterthought as to what IQQI or JOPHIL or any of my critics are thinking about my last post or who I am as a person? I realize that sounds conceited and bragging, but I know who I am and people can take it or leave it. For every one person who responds to a post or a thread I make there are tens of thousands more who'll read it over the years and go 'damn I never thought of it that way.' I almost never get PMs from people thanking me for my insight with user names I've seen before. I counsel people via IMs who I've never seen post because they hit me up privately.
STR8 I know who you are, and you don't have to prove a goddam thing. I know what you've achieved, I've seen or met some of the women you describe, and I know you're legit - honestly, if people want to call you into doubt, grant them the leeway of not really knowing you. If you're gonna bail fine. If you want to take a break fine, but realize that the real function of SS is that it's a forum; it's a place to exchange ideas (or should be). Sometimes I simply wont respond to post because I deem the counterpoint the author was trying to make was so weak that by my responding to it I then devalue my original point in defending it. I do that for the same reason I use $10 words in my posts, because I think people intelligent enough to understand my thoughts and the process I used to come to them can judge the merit of my point.
