guys with a gentle soul

Are you a virulent feminist that is getting on in years, or a youngster dabbling in watching TV Land (without much insight)? If you are going to go that route then I'll have to drudge up my childhood memories of the 50's reruns I saw in the early to mid 70's when they were still quite popular.

If you compare Father Knows Best to Ozzie and Harriet, the Donna Reed Show, Leave It Too Beaver, My Three Sons, and a slew of other 50's sitcoms in which moms were moms, kids were kids, and fathers knew best, Father Knows Best stands out head and shoulders above the others. In fact, totally contrary to your shallow and facile use of the show's title in a bigoted and female chauvinistic feminazi manner with no insight on the show what-so-ever, in the radio version that preceded the TV sitcom, the title of the show ended with a question mark, suggesting that father's role as family leader and arbiter was dubious. (Both the radio program and the TV show were the brain child of the lead actor, Robert Young, and many of the plots for the 203 episodes were taken from the personal experienses of himself and the director.)

While the TV show ended up being "Father Knows Best" and not "Father Knows Best?" it still substantially bucked the shallow stereotype you are attempting to distort it into in order to cast dispersions with. Father didn't always know best. Jim Anderson could not only lose his temper, but occasionally be wrong when he wasn't just being mostly passive and loving rather than authorative. Although wife Margaret Anderson, played by Jane Wyatt, was stuck in the drudgery of domestic servitude, she was nobody's fool, often besting her husband and and much more often her son, Bud (played by Billy Gray). Robert Young's character was quick to acquiesce to his wife when it was obvious that she had better insight. Daughter Betty Anderson (Elinor Donahue), known affectionately to her father as Princess, could also take the male Andersons to task, as could even the precocious Kathy (Lauren Chapin), the baby of the family.

Unlike the other shallow male dominant 50’s sitcoms, Father Knows Best is actually a pretty good depiction of what I’m talking about when I say that in a healthy relationship between reasonably well adjusted men and women, the woman should get her way 90% of the time and the man only 10% of the time. Did you miss that part? Perhaps it bears repeating since your synopsis of what I’ve said so far is so stereotypically shallow. Perhaps you think that 10% is too often? If so, then why not go join a lesbian hyena colony where the highest ranking male is below the lowest ranking female?

BTW, female hyenas all have a fake penis, just to make it clear to everyone in the animal kingdom that they are lesbian feminazis. This is no joke, I'm deadly serious, female hyenas are pseudohermaphroditic and have a fake scrotal sack. The hyena is the ultimate example of what you are getting at in terms of "gentle" male souls that have no authority. Letting everything go too Hell and everyone turn into a pack of hyenas is not exactly my idea of gentle modesty. That is just powerlessness. Do you think of gentle as powerless? Perhaps that is why you are so opposed to any sign of gentleness in females?

Really, how much more authority can a man give away and still have any testicles left? 90% ought to be far more than enough for any women. If not, then why not just dispense with men entirely? What is the point of even asking your question if what you are really looking for is men that are totally female dominated and have no authority what-so-ever? Why not just ask about men with pathetic pussy whipped limp wristed pansy souls? That seems to be what you are aiming for.

 

i knew it was just a matter of time before you started flinging insults around.

 

As if your drive-by sneer was not an insult?

I apologize, I am in a supremely foul mood. Life is extremely hard for me right now, so much so that I will shortly have no time for and possibly not even access to the internet. Or perhaps I will go back too my family in the South in shame, and with great discomfort as I have not spoken with my closest living relatives that I grew up with there in years...

I've discovered that all of my so-called friends that have clustered around me during my last few years of intense illness were in fact evil people who are profoundly deceitful. Three of them are obviously members of the shadow military, Col. McKutcheon, whom I have done a great deal for, screwed me royally yesterday. The Sergeant Major, my part time roommate, assaulted me last week, and then, with blood all over my face, had the audacity to call the police. They of course asked me if *I* wanted to press charges, but not after putting me through an ordeal that added insult to injury.

(BTW, just for the sake of my own honor, I have to point out that even though marines are taught all sorts of means to kill, after he had me on the floor, choking my windpipe completely off, yelling “I’m going to kill you mother f^cker!” repeatedly, with a puddle of blood from my nose and lip on the floor in front of me, I reached around, grabbed the his two little fingers and calmly peeled his left arm off me. He leapt up and ran across the room, pathetic coward. He knows my hands are registered as deadly weapons in the state of California, even though I haven’t been involved in fisticuffs since high school.)

Also, I have no money. I’m going to have to pawn most of my dead family’s valuables like the silverware in order to have enough money for one more month. I don’t want to pawn my mother’s reprints of classic paintings and prints like Maxfield Parish, for whom my great grandmother was model, or the painting of St. Catherine that she always kept over her bed, and my grandmother before her kept over her bed…

During my long illness my career has gone completely cold, it is far too stale after 6 years for me to be able to get another software engineering job. (And the last 6 years have just been the tail end of what was essentially a life long illness...) I'm going to have to take some pathetic office job ment for a kid, like an admin assistant. Instead of making $50 an hour or $80000 a year I'll be making $15 an hour or $300000 a year, if I am *lucky*... I have a friend who could get me a much juicier job in an IT nitch that he knows I could exploit to create a vehicle for an extremely lucrative start-up firm that would take off like a rocket ship, but even though I paid for his schooling and paid the rent while he wasn't working, that situation ended 6 years ago in shades of something like what just happened with the Seargent Major, but not quite so violent (however, only because he is not even remotely capable of the kind of violence that the Sergent Major is, but at the time he would have if he could have) He still can't get over the way he shamed himself so, even though I made peace with him earlier this week. So it looks like he won't help me out, even though it would mean he got to ride the rocket ship up to fortune. I have been surrounded by nothing but egomaniacal idiots for a long time now because I've been too sick to get out more often for so long...

Things are really bad here, so I apologize for being in such a foul mood. I should just leave this alone and sulk in private. Even though I finally have my health back, for the first time since my teens, I keep getting knocked down at every turn, and your messages have had an exaggerated effect on me. Actually, your sneers have a far more brutal effect on me than the Sergeant Major's physical blows, which just pissed me off. I really feel like crap right now. Thanks for the boost.

 

for starters, if you think so highly of 'father knows best', why did you assume i was sneering? second, sorry for your problems. don't know if it will help you feel any better, but in this your hour of woe, you're still better off than i am.

in case anyone is too young to know about the 'father knows best' show that's being discussed on this thread, here's an episode.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G39VJwYBX0Q

 

My respect for the show does not mean that you have respect for it, which is why I defended it at length.

Come on, be real. You were obviously sneering.

You are facing the prospect of becoming homeless? My relationship with my uncle is extremely strained, and I have no idea at all if I can count on that. I would have to abandon most of what I own in the process, again, but this time I have all of my deceased mother's artifacts from all of my deceased maternal ancestors, and that is something very different to abandon.

During my last few years of intense illness I managed to acquire an eviction notice, so I not only have to find a quick slave labor job, which I am entirely unsure if I am healthy enough to pull off, but I also have to find a place to live that won't do a credit check. In other words, the odds of my becoming homeless are very significant. In my state of health if I do become homeless then that is basically the end of my life. I might be able to eek out a pathetic living for a few more years, but I would never be able to pull myself out of the state, I would just sink further and further into it.

If am able to move in with my uncle, it will be in a state of utter shame. That might not mean much to women, but for a middle aged man that is a suicidal matter.

 

when you said 'a man is someone who knows best' and went on to talk about a father's responsibilities, you simply reminded me of the show. it's not that big a deal. you can characterize it as 'sneering' if you wish.

sorry for your troubles, but you really aren't the only one going through it. i've been struggling to support an autistic child on my own for about 6 years. the only reason i'm not homeless is that i've had family support. the income level you're going down to, i'd be lucky to attain. i can only work part-time jobs because i can't leave my son alone, there's no qualified childcare available for autistic kids. therefore i can't work unless he's in school or with family members. i would love it if i could work fulltime as an administrative assistant. our standard of living would just about double. i guess misery is all relative.

 

I take it that this is a fatherless child. The only reason that I am not dead yet, given the progression of my physical condition, is that I have been leery enough to be celibate for 18 years. I took care of my mother and two half-siblings for most of my adulthood, and that drove me into the ground. My mother died two years ago, just in time for me to have some place to crash when I was too sick to even contemplate working. She was far too contumacious to share a home with me after my siblings were grown, even as I sent a couple of hundred bucks ever month to keep her from selling the family valuables, which I myself am forced to sell now.

I kept my secret weapon in my pants, that is the only reason I am still living. It sounds like you were not so chaste. My virtue is my life, I cannot deny that. Without it I would be in the grave, or rather scattered in Potter's Field (where the cremated ashes of the poor are scattered) if it were not so.

 

you're nuts. have another drink.

 

Oh fuk yeah baby, I'm as gentle as you, get.

I start at your legs and lather them up good, then work up towards your clit, it's all so fukken hot you loose your fukken sensess.
Fukken gentle tongue fuk, until your screamin' your ass off, then I pop up and ram your fukken **** into a red hum that stays with you the rest of your life.

You'll never worry about that sorta thing again.

 

okay, so now i have heard from both extremes.

 

I'm nuts because I kept my pants zipped? Fortunately my health is finally coming back, so I am finally coming to a place and time when I can realistically consider having children without the responsibility killing me.

Both extremes of what? Your insanity vs. his? You are a very hostile person. Perhaps if you were not so mean spirited your karmic recompense would not be so harsh. My problem on the other hand is that I have been much to gentle and passive, letting people walk all over me. Now that I have started kicking ass and taking names things are really turning very positive for me in a big way.

 

i'm hostile? why don't you go back and read your posts, man? gimme a break.

i knew that karma shit was coming sooner or later. it's what always gets thrown at people enduring misfortune through no fault of their own. fuck that.

 

Yes, they're out there. Haha.

 

where? where?

 

I've heard there's one in the netherlands somewhere.

 

I consider myself very sensitive and caring, and I like my women very bold and strong (though also sensitive and intelligent themselves).

 

yeah, that's what i'm talkin' about. there's a big difference between passive and passive-aggressive. passivity doesn't bother me at all in a guy. a sweet, gentle soul who just doesn't happen to have a drive to set the world on fire is very nice. a guy who is 'nice' only because he feels he has to be, not because he really wants to be, usually has a seething sea of anger bubbling inside just waiting to burst out. this happens sometimes to guys who do not accept themselves because they're measuring themselves up against society's standards for a male. it's really too bad when that happens, cuz there are those of us women who value these traits in a man highly, and enjoy the company of such a man immensely. it takes all kinds, and there's a place for all of us.

 

This description also counts for me very much :tongue:. Unfortunately I hear quite regularly from women that they do not find this attractive...

 

There are two types of passive-aggressive. One is cagey and manipulative, a trait not uncommon among many women, but also to be found in men who are suffering from a severe loss of self-esteme. The other comes from politely trying to tell someone a heavy truth without being too frank about it. Most people have huge egos and you just can’t tell them the truth directly or they will be offended, never the less, it s not modesty to simply keep quite when you can help someone or set a good example, that is ego, not modesty.

See the 5th and 6th lines of the hexagram of Modesty in the Book of Changes. Modesty was so highly valued as a virtue in ancient China that hexagram #15, Modesty, is one of only two hexagrams in the I Ching where every single line has a fortunate augury. However, the top two lines, the most advanced forms of modesty, refer to extremely aggressive forms of egolessness and guilelessness that involved very aggressive and forceful action (like starting a war).

I’m sure that boy toys are nice, but a good father for your child this does not make.

That is exactly right, if you hold it in, out of excessive passivity and don’t let it out when you feel it, then it builds up like a pressure cooker, festering and rotting inside. Only someone who lets it out when he feels it, rather than being a passive slave who holds it in until he explodes in an out of control manner, can be genuinely nice from his heart (and write good poetry too!)

It happens from being too passive because you are afraid of how angry people will get at you when you speak your mind. Actually, I use to feel very nervous most of the time, not angry really. I’ve been told by lots of women, especially older maternal figures when I was younger, that I really blow up when I’m mad, but I blow off all the steam at once and never hold a grudge. But I would tell people stuff all the time that was just too heavy for them and they would argue and pretend not to understand, so I just got very nervous about trying to tell people what I really thougt, not angry. I've been told that I tell people things that it takes them years to understand, but I use to think it could just as easily be me that wasn't getting it, so instead of feeling angry about any of it, I felt nervous and unsure of myself in social matters, although I was much more forceful on poltical, religious and ethical matters and more prone to anger in those areas.

These days it is my male friends, rather than older maternal figures, that are completely blown away that I don’t hold grudge against them, despite how guilty they know they are. Some of these guilty parties are turning out to be some of my most helpful friends at the moment, including the Sergeant Major, who looked like chastened little boy the other day, and then bought all my sterling silver flatware at double price the next day.

Also, after I sent my old friend Johnny an extremely eloquent letter in order to bury the hatchet after an extremely bitter conflict over the past 6 years (he was literally trembling when I went to visit him and spilling pot everywhere when he’d fill the bong for me) he has finally warmed up to me, and gave me the email address and phone number to the best IT head hunter agent he knows, so it really does look like my IT career is going to get restarted after my long illness that has left it so stale. Now he is calling me up and asking my advice on what to do about this girl he is trying not to fall in love with, even though she is obviously a perfect match, and how to deal with his alcoholic close friend of many years, and also asking all kinds of technical questions about how to get extremely expensive pirated software. He has agreed to go into business with me in a few months when we’ve mastered the half dozen different types of server software, and he is completely taking all of the personal advice that I give him (only upon request, never offered in a vacuum). Even though that was the most bitter conflict I’ve ever had in my life, mainly because I held in all my anger while we were sharing an apartment 6 years ago, so much so that I kept blowing up at him with incredible ferocity for years after. He is my oldest friend in LA and so I know him extremely well, I know his psyche inside and out, and can imitate his vocal idiosyncrasies in a way that makes him laugh intensely and yell “thank you!”, so when I went for the emotional jugular like I had never done with anyone in my life, it totally wigged him out. All his friends told me in the intervening years how my messages on his answering machine would completely devastate him. On the other hand, if I really went into all the things that I passively took from him for the year and a half were shared living accommodations, you would be in total shock as to how anyone could put up with so much abuse. He was in a very bad place at that time, I paid for his network certification when he couldn’t get any kind of job, paid all the rent, got his life back on track, and got kicked in the head almost every day for it because he had been raised by a profoundly abusive adoptive mother and was at the lowest point in his life, getting middle aged and having no career. He was a total maniac during that period, a hideous angry monster, almost destroying his health with the rage he wallowed in. Not the at all the good old Johnny that was my oldest friend in LA, he gone from Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Hyde and I bore the brunt of it in a manner that you could never imagine and I will never tell, now that we are friends again.

However, I have to point out, that it was during this period when he was a monster and I was trying to help him in every way that I could without setting off his anger and making him even more of a monster, that he was the only person in my life who has ever called me passive-aggressive. So I find your accusation that I am passive-aggressive to be quite ironic. That suggests to me that you are holding in a lot of anger, truly are in a bad place in your life, don’t want to hear anything other than your own opinion, and infuriated by what is nothing more than extremely good advice that you don’t want to here. That was the state of mind of the only other person who has ever said this of me.

You have it completely backwards. What man is judged by women for his passivity in any kind of forceful way? It’s not the passive life preserver guy that gets told off in a forceful way by a chick, it is the bad boy lover that she yells at. However, what is worse, being yelled at, or not being truly loved, and knowing that his lover is actually more in love with someone else?

Chicks never fall in love with the passive guys. They always fall for the bad boys, so in the end the passive guys find nothing but heart ache. Psychologists refer to the passive guy that a girl will cling too as the “life persevere”, whom they don’t really love, but cling to for stability. When the girl really looses it and tries to commit suicide the psychologists will keep the life preserver off for weeks but IMMEDIATELY call in the bad boy lover to help stabilize the girl’s emotional state.

Having a modest, gentle and loving spirit is the very antithesis of a passive man who holds his anger in until he explodes in out of control lethal violence when he can’t hold it in any longer. What you are talking about is a total denial of the masculine psyche, the very opposite of embracing ones own loving masculine nature. What you are talking about is a good slave, a kept man, not a man you are truly in love with, just a convent boy toy who will never grow up and be happy, at least for a while, to be your slave, until he figures out the hell that that really is, or you do. You are not talking about anything that could ever be a healthy, functional, stable relationship.

In order to be gentle and loving most of the time, it is necessary not to force one’s self to be gentle and passive all the time, but quite to the contrary, to do the very antithesis of this and let it all out when the anger comes. Only someone who doesn’t have a lot of festering angry locked up inside can do this. A man who has been too passive and built up his anger like a pressure cooker can’t afford to let out all his anger at once. Those kinds of men can’t control it and will do something that they will regret if they let their anger out all at once.

Only someone who has no residual reserve of anger constantly gnawing at them inside can let their anger out all at once in a controlled manner, blowing off all their steam, and in so doing insure that they hold no grudge, so that they can almost immediately turn around and be gentle and loving to the person that has wrong them. Everything that you have described would lead to the very opposite of this kind of gentleness and modesty. So the question is, what do you know of feminine gentleness and modesty and how to maintain it?

 

well, when you're a capable, go-getter type woman, often men don't appreciate that you have goals and an agenda you wanna follow. they aren't supportive and they do things to sabotage you because they compete with you, or feel threatened because they think you might leave them - or just get off on seeing you fail in some cases. it would be nice to have a guy just say, 'you go girl, i'm behind you 1000%!' instead of always putting their wants/needs/goals before yours. and having a guy around who is gentle and kind and thoughtful...well, who could ask for more? sounds simply lovely to me. and hey, both partners benefit when either partner succeeds at their goals. the trick is to be well-matched so you complement each other and you both flourish in the relationship.