This one’s been brewing for a long time, my sartorial darlings. It’s time to ease on those bitch heels and strut the runway of frustration again.
I’ve been gritting my teeth over a number of things lately, so expect another of these posts sometime soon. But, for now, let’s see what’s had Skell rolling his eyes and muttering, “Oh bitch, please,” at his monitor for this post, shall we?
Other Avatar #1: Omega is the best choice for Slink cos all one application and you can get great skins for $500L to $1500 plus minus
Bitch Please: My friend wont’ be able to use omgea
Bitch Please: he’s a man
Other Avatar #2: omega is easy lol
Bitch Please: get real
Bitch Please: LOL
Bitch Please: no its not
Skell Dagger: I’m a man and I have no difficulty using Omega
Bitch Please: men never understand it
Bitch Please: its to complex for most men
Skell Dagger: That kind of attitude about men and fashion/looks is what I’ve been battling against for YEARS in SL.
Other Avatar #3: Sort of depends on the crowds you’re hanging out with…Plenty of men have no issue at all. Most of the time, the two primary issues tend to involve impatience and language barriers – which are NOT in any way exclusive to men.
Omega is “too complex” for most men to understand, apparently. Possessing a dick means that men can’t get their poor little heads around adding a HUD and wearing it while they click a button.
Oh wait. There’s more to Omega than just clicking a button! I hear you cry? You’re right; sometimes you have to click TWO buttons. Let’s list the ways Omega can be used:
- Installing Omega into a body: Wear the Omega installer HUD for that body. Click it. Omega is installed into the body. Men never understand it! Too complex for most men!
- Using Omega eye appliers on the rigged eyes of a head that doesn’t have native Omega support: Wear the Omega relay HUD for that head. Wear the eye applier HUD. Click the eye applier HUD. Eyes are applied to the rigged eyes. Men never understand it! Too complex for most men!
- Using an Omega beard applier: Wear the beard applier. Click the desired beard type. Menu pops up offering locations the beard can be applied. Click ‘beard’ button on menu. Beard is applied to head. Men never understand it! Too complex for most men!
- The same as the above regarding other types of Omega applier, including skins, hairbases, etc. Men never understand it! Too complex for most men!
God, how do I even find my own arsehole to wipe it after taking a shit if I’m in a group of beings who are that fucking stupid? And this is far from the first time I’ve encountered this kind of attitude about men in SL from women in SL. Where the hell is it coming from?
Hang on a minute. I think I found out…
Dude, do you drive a car? How many lessons did it take for you to learn how to do that? That HUD is not too complicated; you’re just too fucking lazy. Guys like you—the kind who don’t read instructions and manuals and then wonder why you have bits left over from whatever you’re making/doing/putting back together again—are the kind that give the rest of us a bad name and perpetuate this “men are too stupid to do XYZ” stereotype. Be thankful that I spared your blushes by blurring out your name.
And ladies? Just because your guy doesn’t appear interested in Bento mesh head HUDs, or wearing more than the same outfit in SL that he’s had on for the past seven years, or upgrading to mesh at all, or he just wants things to be as easy as possible… that doesn’t mean all of those things are too complicated for him, or that he doesn’t (and will never) understand it. Or that all (or most) men find those things too complicated. Look back at what Other Avatar #3 said in that conversation:
Other Avatar #3: Sort of depends on the crowds you’re hanging out with…Plenty of men have no issue at all. Most of the time, the two primary issues tend to involve impatience and language barriers – which are NOT in any way exclusive to men.
Ever seen a guy get angry when he’s getting to grips with something new? He’s not angry at you, or at the thing he’s trying to do. He’s angry at himself. For not getting it quickly, or even instantly. Hell, I’m one of life’s perfectionists and I’ve been in SL for almost 11 years. It took me a couple of weeks to fully understand everything that my Bento mesh head could do, and I got angry… at myself. I was frustrated that I couldn’t figure out how to work this damn thing right away. I’ve always been that way: start a new job and get annoyed at myself within a week for not knowing everything there is to know about it by that time.
But I’m also one of life’s stubborn fuckers, and I don’t give up. I’m patient and I’ll gladly suffer a bit of annoyance if the end result will be worth it. Many guys, however, won’t. Let’s face it: we all want an easy life, and when frustrations crop up we usually look for a quick way out of them. For a lot of guys that quick way might be getting one outfit right and never taking it off, or sticking to the system avatar that he knows well, or quitting when he doesn’t get to grips with a mesh head’s HUD after more than ten minutes of trying it out.
If your guy is getting angry/frustrated when he’s trying out something like a Bento mesh head, or matching his head to his body at the neck seam, the main thing you can do to help him is not to overload him with ‘click this’, and ‘wear that’ instructions. If you do that, you stand a very strong chance of increasing his frustration. I see this sometimes in the support group chats for mesh heads and bodies: a guy comes in to ask a question, feeling a bit frustrated, and he receives information not only from the group’s CSRs and moderators, but also from a lot of other people in chat. Those people mean well, but I’ve seen guys get completely overwhelmed by having five or six other people (almost always women) giving them advice from every angle. Often I’ll take those guys into IM and help them one-on-one, if I can.
I’ve even seen that kind of question devolve into a bit of a pile-on, with several women all joking about how their man (which usually turns fairly swiftly into someone generalising about all men) can’t get to grips with XYZ things regarding their looks in SL. And you know what that does? It stops other guys who might be lurking from asking the question they might have about their looks in SL, because those women have just implied that guys who don’t get it must be idiots, and those guys with questions don’t want to look like fools. See where that might turn into a vicious circle?
I’m passionate about helping guys to look good in SL, and I have damn-near unlimited patience when it comes to that. This is a virtual hill I’m prepared to fucking die on, my sartorial darlings.
Step back a little and let him work it out for himself, with a little guidance if he asks. And, if he fucks it up completely, he can always redeliver. But he’s not stupid, and nor are other guys who get frustrated with things. He might be a bit impatient and he might feel like he should know this stuff already, damn it. Hell, he might even just be lazy, like Mr “Do Something For Us Guys” up there.
But he’s not too fucking stupid to get it.
Thank you! And amen
Thanks for the support, Neaira :-) This is a subject that’s really been sticking in my craw lately, because I’ve noticed that it’s becoming more and more prevalent. And some guys aren’t helping, either, by saying things are “too complicated” when what they really mean is “Look, I can’t be bothered with this”.
I haven’t seen too much of this, but that is because I live under a rock. I don’t like it when I see it though.
Can we just quit it with the ‘all men’ stuff?
You have some great tips for us ladies though. I’ll take this into my RL too and try to leave my man alone when he tries to figure something out. I am so guilt of trying to help when he probably just want some peace and quiet to get his head back on stright, lol.