You've described several of your dates in extremely unflattering and unforgiving terms although they appeared to be intelligent and interesting individuals, as far as their comments back to you indicated anyway. Yet your description of A, on the face of it a complete wanker, is tender and forgiving.

What's up with that??

And since I am in a question asking mood, how could you get to be in your 30s and still wind up having dorm room style sex next to someone else?

It's because I've known A for 6 years, not 2 hours. I've never dismissed a date or judged one in any of these posts. So but how can you assume that my dates have been "intelligent and interesting?????" Based on a few words, some assumptions informed by adjectives? Isn't that just as quick and superficial as me saying one looked like a ten year old boy in drag? It may be more polite and sociable to come to flattering conclusions about people, but it's no closer to the truth...

And, it was at one of those weddings I wrote about, on the road, we were sharing a hotel room.

You appear to have your panties in a bunch.

I didn't "assume" they were intelligent and interesting, hence my choice of the word "appear".

For all I know, they were dumb as wood and equally boring.

I did make the assumption however that you would date reasonably intelligent women on principle, but admittedly I've been wrong before.

bart - what are you, his mother? If you post your thoughts and opinions in a public forum, chances are peeps are going to ask questions. If Amboabe was fragile enough to need you fighting his battles, presumably he wouldn't be blogging.

I don't dislike Amboabe because I don't know him.

Loobetchka constantly goes after me and fishnets and "nothing" was just rude to Zeit. How come you didn't feel the need to go tell them to lay off?

ahg: Just fyi, my panties aren't bunched. Sorry for the excessive use of question marks. I'm still not sure what you're getting at, though. Am I a hypocrite? Do I have fungible standards? Do I date dimwits? Yes; yes; and I don't know. Not the term I would use...

major briggs: You're absolutely right. That's one of the things I think about quite frequently with regard to my writing. How much am I pointing people towards the conclusions they wind up reaching and how much of it is a product of their own subjectivity? I wouldn't say anyone is ever "incorrect" in their reactions, if you want to psychoanalyze or criticize me or the thoughts I have, that's fair game.

But finally, no, I'm not trying to convey a "point." Points/messages are for phamplets and press releases. What I want to write about are experiences, thoughts, feelings, and reactions that I've had. There is no reductive point. I may fail most of the time but my aim is to describe a broader experience, not boil things to a simple truth. That's the schism I've commented about in the past. It's not about people liking or disliking my writing, it's people assuming I've comdemned/judged someone based on a description.

I just finished 'the Naked and the Dead' over the weekend, so these questions are particularly interesting to me, as both can be applied to great works...

Was 'TNATD' about experiences, thoughts, feelings, and reactions certainly... In the end did it boil it all down to a simpler truth? Absolutely... Personally I have no problem being reductive in my writing. It IS something people constantly take issue with, but I believe with true art you really have to take sides and make a stand.

you couldn't get more reductive!

Prorob - I was exactly the same way as you.. I’d never read any of his work previously as I was predisposed to disliking him based entirely upon his macho man/I stab my wives/I start fights in bars/I’m the world’s greatest writer gestalt. Whatever... I agree about TNATD.. gorgeously written, with a clarity that's just mind-blowing. The man is a stone cold genius.

major briggs: It's a constant struggle for me with this writing. Every post I write I always come to the same point, "What did it all mean, again?" "Why did this matter to me? Why should it matter to someone else?" Sometimes answers come to those questions, but a lot of the times they don't. That's the trick. I agree. I fail at it far more than I succeed.

What I would be interested in is hearing a more detailed explanation of what in specific is so offensive about the way I've described the women I've been out with. I've also been fairly ruthless about my own self-descriptions, and the one of A here is unkind, at the very least. In comparrison, saying I was bored with a woman or remarking on a flat butt doesn't strike me as negative. I've returned to the language again and again looking for what is so objectionable. Sometimes it's been loose writing, but I still don't see the negativity.

z: Never read Naked and the Dead. The only Mailer book I ever read was Executioner's Song way back in college. I'm not sure how much I can add to conversation about him, but I do agree that plenty of great writing has some essential center of gravity. It's tricky though, and the luxury of a book is that you can look at that basic truth in the context of hundreds and hundreds of pages. In a blog we get a few paragraphs. I feel genuinely uncomfortable trying to jam something that big into a space this small. Sometimes it works, but other times I feel disingenuous when I get to the paragraph where I'm supposed to tell everyone what it all meant. I can hear Carrie bradshaw's voice over in my head "I guess some people just..." and it makes me flush with writer's shame.

prof: Thanks for the comments. As I mentioned earlier, I do ask myself those same questions in every post. It might seem ridiculous given the nature of things, but I'm really not here for my own ego aggrandizement. I try to write for readers more than myself. I know it doesn't read like that always, and that the tone is, at worst navel-gazing diary talk, but if I am not repaying the people who read this for their time with something thought-provoking or previously unconsidered, then I'm failing. It's a struggle to reach a conclusion that's genuine in 700 words. In a space that short it's awfully easy to drift off into fairytale land, to sell a line of bullshit as truth (my instincts for nostalgia and bullshit are fierce, if you hadn't noticed) instead of own up to something indemnable, own up to some fallibility. Anyway I try, and I'm certain that, whatever temporary ire my recounts of certain dates have caused, the remnant effect of all of this writing will be self-incriminating and not a superficial indictment of women I've been with. Which is as it should be. This is a confessional, at the end of it all, no? I wrote this earlier, but what good's a confession without some basic sin to reconcile with?

I see your point, but I think an overall center of gravity is doubly important in the 'blog' format... WIth every other person and their cousin having one, it's even more essential to establish your 'point/perspective/boiled down essence'... If people like it, they'll read.. hell sometimes even when they don't like it they'll still read... Especially in THIS context.. fuck, all I try and to is write something that I might find an entertaining diversion for 5 minutes or so... I don't think the length of a piece makes any difference as far as having a 'point' is concerned... Points make the world go 'round...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqZHsVBRa1Q

"saying I was bored with a woman or remarking on a flat butt doesn't strike me as negative. I've returned to the language again and again looking for what is so objectionable. Sometimes it's been loose writing, but I still don't see the negativity"

If someone refers to your writing as boring, tedious, uninteresting etc and that they would rather read a cereal packet (the equivalent of you saying you couldn't bear to hear another of her stories) would you find that to be negative? Just wondering...

prof: Your comments reminded of how much I like The Sluts by Dennis Cooper. Are you familiar with it, or his writing. The whole thing is a collection of message board posts and call boy ratings that forms a terrible narrative about perversion anonymity, and internet flamebaiting. It's a book I admire a lot, has a remarkable structure.

Anyway, I'll keep searching for points. But me culpa in advance, sometimes they slip through my fingers after midnight on a Tuesday night :)

ahg: Well you've managed to pack your question with more derisory cues and applied your own extremes to inflate my language. I never said I couldn't "bear" to hear another story. I said I was ready to kiss, was ready to move on to the next factor of romantic compatibility, that I had heard enough stories for a first date, liked her enough to want to move forward. So what I said was an acknowledgement of attraction, but the way you're framing my thoughts it is a complete rebuke.

To answer your larger question, I wouldn't take as negative someone calling my writing boring. People have different interests and someone not being interested in my experiences and thoughts doesnt' feel like a slight to me. We're not all meant to be compatible. Someone saying they would rather read a cereal packet than my writing elevates that into a passive aggressive attack. It doesn't say they're not interested by my writing, but that my writing is objectively worthless to them, lower than a collection of ingredients that include xantham gum. That's an attack, and something different. If I've ever used that kind of passive aggressive language to attack or antagonize women I've described, feel free to point it out. But I suspect that conclusion is something that says as much about your interpretation of my experiences as it does about the language I've used. Neither or right or wrong, but if I'm to be criticized for the things I've said, it's only fair to limit that to the things I've actually said, and not the inflated, version that further underscore your point while obfuscating my original intentions :)

prof: It was my nickname in Malagasy. It's pronounced am-BOOO-uh-BAY (the Welsh were the first to write down Malagasy way back when so the "o" is pronounced like a "u" in American English). It means "big dog." The term is an ego-aggrandizement in English. In Malagasy dogs are filthy, revolting creatures and it's a taboo to refer to any human as a dog.