Oh man, my sister and I had to go through so much dumb shit before we could like each other as adults. Just...so much.

When I was 24, I was in grad school and hanging out with another 30+-year-old grad student. He invited his boyfriend and his boyfriend’s friends to drink with us. I obviously did not guess that his boyfriend was 20 years old, because why would I, and I ended up hooking up with one of boyfriend’s friends.

(as in met online and proposed online without ever meeting in person).

I don’t think I said anywhere that any other country is worse than America.

I don’t think that I was making a knock at other countries as much as at people who idealize other countries. It is hardly a damning criticism to say that no country is a utopia. Nor have I claimed that America is number 1. Disagreeing with you is not being a stereotype, no matter how hard you try to set it up so that…

I am referring to the list you opened this thread with: trans people, gay people, non-white people.

I think I’ve gotten all the replying out of my system, but who knows? Maybe they’ll come back with a crackpot response I didn’t anticipate, and I’ll get sucked back in even though I know they’re trolling.

I don’t know why we’re both still doing this. The OP either can see what we’re saying and is straight trolling, or he is so dense that we’ll never be able to get through to him. And yet...we both keep trying so hard.

I think you are wilfully disregarding the fact that men are well represented in the entertainment industry, making this a completely different situation than that of minority or oppressed groups.

No of course that isn’t the reason. I’m just saying that 14-year-old boys on tv are almost never played by 14-year-olds. You didn’t actually bring up the middle eastern descent portion in your original comment, I assumed because Nasim Pedrad is Iranian American.

Oh, I wasn’t trying to contest the idea that racism might be at play here. I definitely think it is.

Oh man, ALL I want to do is hang out with them and listen to their opinions on various subjects. I just feel like it would be a good time. I am fascinated by the way that she holds and portrays herself while saying things about hell. Something about it is enthralling to me.

Not as good of a headline, I guess. For whatever reason, people are really into the possibility of the man knowing first.

Almost never is a 14-year-old character on a TV show played by a 14-year-old. Child labor laws are too strict, and actually 14-year-old boys don’t look like they forgot to shave that morning, which is generally the look that TV shows go for.

Yes! This! I had such a hard time with this when I moved to England because I was accustomed to US fashions, but also because I had a warm weather wardrobe. So once the cold came and I couldn’t afford to buy all new clothes, I had no choice but to layer up like a madwoman.

That has also been my experience, as a white American. Part of it, too, was age. I moved to Europe when I was about 24, which I think is roughly the age when people start being more open-minded about who they date. In college and high school, people were definitely pinned down by strict conventions about beauty…

I mean, I’m going to disagree with you, but now that you have set the stage so that anyone who disagrees with you is an “angry American making excuses,” I’m sure you’re not going to take it well.

Well, that’s true, but there is also a degree of “work put in” that I think some men account for. As in, it might be worth a lot of “work” in the form of dates, flirting, etc. to “get” an incredibly attractive woman, but if a woman is perceived as being “loose,” the work put in is lower, so she doesn’t have to be as…

Yeah I’ve never understood why people hold up the fact that Holden Caulfield is a whiny little shit as evidence that it was a bad book. Of course he was a whiny little shit! That’s what the book is about! The book knows that Holden sucks; Holden knows that Holden sucks.