we're onto you, asshole.












^above right, the hot guy I'm marrying.

at left center, a guy who has trouble getting laid because his eyes are way too close together.


I have a hobby. it involves reading, watching and listening to things that make me furious. usually Bill O’Reilly gets my blood boiling when I want to raise my blood pressure, but I’ve also become a big fan of reading the blogs of pick-up artists. I’m sure you’ve all, by now, heard of “the game,” a series of tactics that men who consider themselves “alpha males” use in attempts to get into women’s pants. I would hope these men would figure out that women are onto their bullshit games, but they keep on trucking, regardless.

one of their biggest proponents is a Washington, D.C. blogger by the name of Roissy. Roissy has developed a “dating market value” test, in which he lets us know that the ideal woman is: 17 to 20 years old, needs little makeup, is within the IQ range of 80% of people in the world, with D sized firm breasts, long legs, a round ass, flat stomach, toned arms, small hands, essentially hairless, small waist, smooth skin, plump lips, big eyes, is helpful, not competitive, doesn’t swear, smiles often, and who loves wearing sexy lingerie, giving blowjobs and doing anal and will try every sexual position. if this man isn’t mainstream media’s consumer darling, I don’t know who is. he’s after some essential virgin/whore that doesn’t exist, a stereotype of a woman within a heteronormative sphere, a youthful little wife-type with no opinions of her own and total reverence of men. he wants a submissive mail order bride because he’s so insecure that he can’t bear to be with a woman who might disagree with him or decide she doesn’t need him (PUAs are even more afraid of lesbians than they are of outspoken women).

one of his loyal followers: “But one can’t escape one’s genes, not even liberated moderns. Now unshackled, women are not inherently polyandrous. Rather, they tend towards serially [sic] monogamy.”

not only do these men fail to understand that women are human, they also choose to put 3 billion people in the world into one category. see the Zoe tribe of the Amazon, the Nepalese & Tibetan polyandrists, and the fact that you have never taken an anthropology class in your life.

Roissy is classic for contradicting himself.

“If she’s the gossipy, backstabbing, conniving sort who drips with sarcasm and generally disdains everyone around her, you can bet her black soul will seek sustenance on a carousel of cock.”

two paragraphs later…

“You want to be on the lookout for manic depressives and girls who can’t make it through a ten minute conversation without screeching in phony excitement.”

the message: a woman should never be cynical. nor should she feign niceness. she should be nice, all the time, despite the fact that on an almost daily basis there are pick-up artists breathing down her neck and hoping they can get her panties off, while she routinely faces discrimination in work and pretty much every other avenue of life.

and lastly, the fucking insanely racist piece de resistance:

“Sorry, folks, hate to say it, but going by my personal experience and what I’ve heard from friends, black chicks seem to sleep around more. Don’t blame me, I’m just the Deliverer Of Truths Best Left Unsaid But I’m Going To Say Anyhow.”

buy into socialized bullshit much? I bet he also believes everything Billy Mays ever told him, and that we’re winning the war in Iraq. also, Asian women are submissive, black men have huge penises and I’m a fat unattractive man-hating lesbian feminazi who needs a good fucking.

ultimately, Roissy and his ilk are merely men who use misogynistic and racist stereotypes as a means to explain whatever they’re not secure enough in admitting exists outside of the sphere of white male middle-class existence. a woman isn’t nice to you and thinks what you say is stupid? she’s a big fat whore! A woman is annoying? also a whore! she’s black and therefore has no common experience with me or interest in sleeping with me? total backdoor slut.

from the comments on a post:

“It seems that the betas would want to team up with the alphas and try to get better against our natural nemesis – women.”

the magnitude to which these men hate women is obvious, but what I’ve found more glaring is the fact that all of them hate themselves. they are obsessed with women – spending hours “practicing” even how to approach women, before even attempting to bed them. they assume “game” as their personalities because in reality, none of them are interesting, clever, intelligent or attractive enough for women to actually want to sleep with them. by becoming someone else, they can trick women into falling for them, though the women are actually falling for the psychological bullshit unloaded upon them, since the women they prey on are generally not smart or self-confident enough to see through it. the entire lives of these men revolve around women – whom they hate. they hate women because they can’t get over their obsession with vaginas; and, by extension, the keepers of those vaginas. Roissy advocates acquiring a nice car and a good job – not because they improve the life of the man, but because that’s what women like. I don’t understand how someone can be an “alpha male” when they’re actually living their lives entirely in a sad attempt to impress women.

an ode to beaus of days gone by.


ah, the good old days. when I was young, carefree. when I dated complete morons.

as I get ready to embark on this crazy journey you kids call "matrimony," I can't help but be reminded of my expansive and often frightening romantic history. I find this to be a good time to reflect and put it all behind me as I get ready to start life with the only person I've ever been in a relationship with who can actually deal with all my bullshit.

I put forth, for your examination: three of the most screwed up couplings of my 23-year-old life.


Exhibit A: Chelsea's Traveling Circus, featuring The 180 Degree Man

when I was 18, I was probably the most miserable person on the campus of Northeastern University. I was also the biggest mess. I smoked far too many cigarettes. I ate horrifyingly fattening cafeteria food every day, I wore way too much glitter for my own good, and I drank Southern Comfort religiously. after screwing around with a misguided emo kid, an actor, a software peddler, a pagan and a hipster, I fell for - you guessed it, or, actually, probably not at all - a long-haired World of Warcraft player English major who pretended to play bass. who was a virgin. pro-life. and a Republican.

not a very long story short, we dated for a year and a half. I took my second v-card. he broke with me over the phone right after my mom got out of the hospital, where she almost bled to death. not that there's any ill sentiment remaining. it appears that after we split, he cut all of his hair off and voted Obama. how charming! I like to think it was my bold, overtly feminist ramblings, but it seems to me now that he was either 1) naively under the political direction of his overbearing Catholic mother, who continued to buy him action figures for Christmas when he was 19. or 2) claiming to have voted for Bush and and against abortion simply to irritate me. I wish him all the best, regardless of the fact that I actually have no idea who he ever was to begin with.


Exhibit B: Work Relationships are a Bad Idea, Even if One of You Doesn't Work There Anymore

fresh on the prowl in January 2008, I admitted to a former coworker that I had a crush on him following an inebriated night in the city. we had worked together as co-ops and had spent most of the 6 month period making fun of each other. he admitted the feeling was mutual. things are supposed to progress grandly from there, are they not? we met up in Allston for drinks. drinks turned into hanging out at my friend's friend's house until 3 am. that turned into an awkward sleepover on my parents' couch. we made out in a stairwell at Jillian's during a work party. he took me to lunch and left me on the stoop of my office building, and he didn't call me again. until he found out I met someone else. turns out he was "cleaning up the mess" of his psychotic meth-addict ex-girlfriend, who has her eyebrows tattooed on. last I heard, they had a beagle together. mazel tov.


Exhibit C: I Thought I Did a Dead Guy

I just want to preface this story by saying: when I was 17, I was an idiot.

I met a guy on the internet. I'm not going to go into my internet rant, and I'm not going to discuss how the internet has led to two engagements of people I know. including my own. all I will say is, I met a guy on the internet. and he was a lot older than me.

seven years older, to be exact. I invited a guy seven years older than me to come to my house. and he did. and he brought pot. and I hooked up with him.

we went for a walk around my neighborhood and he invited me to go "camping." now, we all know about "camping." "camping" is not cooking on an open fire, sleeping under the stars and enjoying nature's pleasures. "camping" is going somewhere so you can have sex in a tent. and foolish me, wanting adventure and more of this guy's pot, agreed. I met him at a forest in Taunton. he regaled me in stories of jam band festivals and sleeping with a woman in her forties so he could get unlimited use of her Cape Cod beach home. he told me all about the trailer he lived in while we sat in my Jeep to avoid mosquitos. I was bored and he was an asshole. I drove home the next morning and never saw him again.

one day, curious about the hippie douche I went "camping" with, I Googled him. much to my surprise, I found an obituary for a person of the same name, and approximate same age, from New Bedford, where he claimed to be from, but the obituary was dated 1999. I convinced myself the loser I met assumed a dead man's name so he could screw high school chicks from the North Shore, and fell into a miserable shame-slump about it.

recent Facebooking has refuted my initial conclusion. the guy I met from the internet did provide me with his real name. he only used his weed to bed me. and his about me says it all: "you could never understand this shit." I think I do, Brian. I think I do.

I'm nobody's strumpet.



I have a dream.

I have a dream that I will find a generous benefactor who will give me insane amounts of money to use at my leisure simply for being the fantastic creature that is Chelsea.

apparently, my dream is not so unique.

I have been pretty intrigued lately at the fuss about SeekingArrangement.com. if you live under or a rock or don't read any of the Gawker blogs, SeekingArrangement helps people, well, seek arrangement. by arrangement I mean pathetic gold-digging "sugar babies" latching onto rich, lonely, seemingly-sex-starved self-righteous rich jerks. men attach a net worth to themselves, and a monthly "budget" of what they will spend on the right whore lady. in their words:

"An Arrangement is short for 'Mutually Beneficial Relationship' between two people. Such a relationship is usually between an older and wealthy individual who gives a young person expensive gifts or financial assistance in return for friendship, or intimacy."

it's tempting. I am an American. I like clothes. I want a car. I have bills to pay. denying my consumer-driven mentality is about as pretentious and phony as asking somebody rich to finance my lifestyle in exchange for my companionship.

I've always found, though, that being a gold-digger is a question of dignity. either people will take handouts, or they won't. I come from the stock who is too proud to take money, let alone ask for it. unfortunately, I am a big selfish brat. however, this, like all things, has limits. I obviously have never cared about money when it comes to dating. anyone who knows my track record is baffled at how I have only been sexually attracted to poor dudes. I'm even marrying one.

which is why the SeekingArrangement thing just won't settle right with me. it assumes that the greatest currencies in a relationship are money and beauty. that's a sound model, I guess, if you recognize that it's directly related to every advertising ploy in modern society. but it's bullshit if you actually consider that 95% of the population is 1.) not rich and 2.) not beautiful. furthermore, it perpetuates the idea that the best way to get what you want is to fuck someone who has it - money, power, even a discount at the dry cleaners. and anyone with half a brain will tell you - a truly classy lady would never screw for money.

what I always wanted was a charming, fascinating older woman with no children of her own (and, obviously, a small fortune) to take me under her wing. I would visit with her twice a week and drink extra-dry vodka martinis while she warbled about how much I reminded her of herself at my age. then she'd give me $2000 to go buy a nice coat and do something about that god-awful hair, a woman should never let her roots show.

if anybody's got any hookups to lonely old ladies with eccentric accents and no heirs, let me know.

die ticketmaster, die.


I ain't no hippie. I buy clothes that are most likely made in sweatshops. I enjoy Wendy's chicken nuggets and I've probably unwittingly contributed to the 401(k) of the CEO of R.J. Reynolds. but there are two companies that really infuriate me: Wal-Mart and Ticketmaster.

now, I know that Wal-Mart basically has America by the balls. I know that there are hundreds, possibly thousands, of towns across America that base their entire economy on their local Wal-Mart: where everyone works and everyone shops. and though I find their employment policies discriminatory and sexist (and I am rooting for the million-strong class action lawsuit against them), I recognize that, conscience be damned, sometimes you have to buy things cheaply and you have to buy them from Wal-Mart.

but there is no excuse for the monopolistic shitpile that is Ticketmaster.

yesterday, whilst showering, I was contemplated this devil of a corporation. Seth, Joel and I are planning on going to see Peaches (of F**k the Pain Away fame) in a week and a half. we went online on Tuesday to purchase the tickets from LiveNation - and found that two $18 tickets were going to cost us $54 - with a NINE DOLLAR convenience charge PER TICKET. you may not be aware, but Ticketmaster and LiveNation merged in February - creating the single-largest ticketing powerhouse in the world. Ticketmaster already controlled the sale of tickets for more than 80% of the venues in the U.S.

I still cannot understand how they have weaseled their way into this deal, effectively avoiding federal antitrust law. David Balto, on AmericanProgress.org, summed it up best, as follows. the beast that is Ticketmaster & LiveNation now:

  • sells most of the concert tickets in this country through its contracts with venues
  • manages a significant number of the marquee performers in the world or controls their tours
  • owns most of the amphitheatres in the US and owns more 'club' venues, as well as controlling (through owning/leasing) a large amount of other clubs and theatres
  • owns two of the major resellers of tickets
  • owns various sources of competitively sensitive data
so basically, unless the only live music you're into is listening to that homeless guy play his 25-year-old broken Fender Strat in Davis Square on a Sunday afternoon, you're pretty much screwed. I still can't even fathom where Ticketmaster gets off charging YOU $2.50 to print a ticket ON YOUR OWN PRINTER, USING YOUR OWN INK. not to mention the "facilities fee," which, I assumed, the club just made by overcharging you for booze. they now lump all the fees together into a simple "convenience charge," which they say is to pay for the convenience of finding tickets from your home computer, rather than standing in line at box offices, like they did in the days of yore. but here's the thing - running that online system doesn't cost Ticketbastard ANYTHING. it has boosted their profits tenfold to sell tickets online to anyone, anywhere. and now they've been caught with sending customers to TicketsNow, a so-called ticket "reseller," seconds after tickets are put up for sale on Ticketmaster, and charging huge markups. it seems like the rape will never end.

I won't be going to half as many shows as I used to. I guess it doesn't matter anyway, because the new House of Blues fucking sucks.