Just Saying Podcast

September 17th will be the 15-year anniversary of Occupy Wall Street protest movement that swept through the US and other countries throughout the world in 2011. I talked with my friend Cinema Timshel, who I met at the Occupy protests in Minneapolis that October, about what it was like to participate and organize with Occupy, where we were successful and where we weren't, how recent protests in Minneapolis compared to the “vibe” and tactics of Occupy, whether Occupy was the incubator for the “Woke Era,” and the state of leftist activism today (among other things). Thanks to Cinema Timshel for taking this trip down memory lane and discussing our Occupy experiences and what we think now! Subscribe to his newsletter here and check out his YouTube channel here. Related links and videos are below the topic summary.And a very special thanks to Prester John Andrews for the original music used in this podcast episode!Topics include: * How Occupy Minneapolis started and how Cinema and Lirpa each got involved* The vibes of Occupy in the beginning vs the end* AdBusters’ role in Occupy and the counterculture in the 2000s and early 2010s* Cinema explains the fittingly rebellious origins of the Wall Street bull* The occupation of the Wisconsin state capitol in Madison introducing Lirpa to the world of protest and occupying as a tactic* Lirpa’s discovery of “OccupyMN” and the initial organizing meetings through MN NORML* The Arab Spring and other revolutions that happened leading up to Occupy as the whole world seemingly had the same idea at the same time* What was the point of Occupy and what were we trying to do?* The media and the broader right who said Occupy didn't have any goals, and what they actually were * Consensus-based decision making in Occupy and how it worked, and how it changed over time throughout different occupations across the country* Why was this decision-making model used, and was it realistic for this type of protest or “community”? * Maybe consensus-based decision-making is better left to small nut butter farms run by hippies* The holes in the consensus model in the General Assemblies and how they were easily exploited* The Iraq war protests of the early 2000s’ influence on Occupy’s initial 100% consensus model* Minneapolis being the last occupation to abandon 100% consensus and Lirpa’s initial devotion to the principle* Bob Carney, perpetual local political candidate, and his influence on our finally abandoning the 100% consensus model* “Progressive stack” and what it was* Was progressive stack the visible beginnings of the left's changed focus to identity politics? Did it contribute to Trump’s first and second terms?* Did we even need progressive stack with the way the GAs were set up and with how vigilant about identity-based equality everyone was already prone to be in such a movement?* How these sweeping critical theory-based procedures are out of touch with how things operate on the ground* How Cinema blocked progressive stack, but effectively unsuccessfully because of aforementioned holes in the consensus model, and Lirpa's mad that she doesn’t even remember that happening* Cinema probably being blackballed after the progressive stack blocking* Occupy Homes * Affinity groups, how they differed from committees, and how the term and concept got bastardized over the years after Occupy* How Occupy Homes became so effective as an offshoot and had the general Occupy participants as backup* Defending Sara's house and an Occupier being intentionally pushed by a Minneapolis police officer with his vehicle, and how it relates to ICE's rationale for shooting and killing Renee Good in Minneapolis more recently* The notable lack of violence at the Minneapolis occupation compared to others in the country, like Oakland, and to the anti-ICE protests in Minneapolis and the George Floyd riots in 2020* Lirpa's experience watching the city burn from DC* Cinema tries to buy ice cream during the rioting* “Outside agitators” during protests and how real they are* Tim Pool and his Livestream start in Oakland and and why Lirpa hates him disproportionately for his later political betrayal* Cinema's theories on how Tim Pool became so right wing* The DRE program where state police gave occupiers free drugs and Alex Jones interviewed an Occupier about it * CHAZ/CHOP and its potentially segregated community gardens and also the murders* What did Occupy actually accomplish? * Was Occupy the incubator of wokeness? * Occupy as idpol's first victims* Democracy and its open decline in popularity today* Lirpa being radicalized by Occupy and calling herself an anarchist for awhile* Paranoia, snitch-jacketing, infighting that seems to always be present among left-wing protest movements* An Occupier getting canceled for being a “sexual predator” for the crime of awkwardly flirting on the internet* The fear of publicly standing up to the cancelers and the feelings of regret associated with it* Cinema's OccuPirates video and Lirpa's subversive contribution to it* The utility or lack thereof of marches * Did rioting in Minneapolis help or hurt since nothing else, like marching and tactics like it, worked? * Does leftist activism need more intentional hierarchy to be effective? * Why left-wing movements are so often decentralized and “leaderless”* Diversity of tactics* Will Stancil and the paranoia of the Minneapolis ICE protest Signal chats and how it wrecks the movements' effectiveness* The point of civil disobedience* Rough ICE actions against protesters and Cinema's friend's experiences, and the rage about Alex Pretti being shot the way he was* How Occupy is still the lens through which Cinema and Lirpa view activismRelated links: OccupyMNTV’s OccuPiratesOccupy Homes marches to US Bank CEO’s homeWho Is Vermin Supreme? An Outsider Odyssey directed by Cinema Timshel (full documentary)Lirpa’s interview with the Utne Reader from 2011 about why we were occupyingLirpa wrote about occupying the Wisconsin state capitol in 2011: Beyond the Lost Generation by Cinema Timshel:The algo works in mysterious ways. If you liked what you read, please help me out and like ❤️ this post! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit lirpa.substack.com/subscribe

Standards and their discontentsThe phrase “lowering standards” in regards to dating has always rubbed me the wrong way. It sounds insulting to everyone involved: to yourself for needing to admit that you’re not “good enough” for the people you aspire to be with, and to those for whom you now must “settle” because that means they are also not “good enough” for people “better” than you. No one likes the implications of “lowering standards,” no matter which side of the equation they're on. (Were those enough scare quotes for you? I have more!)It sounds unnecessarily harsh to me, but I think the underlying reason I don’t like it is that it’s not actually about raising or lowering anything: it’s about recalibrating.Recalibrating, not loweringLana Li writes prolifically about her experiences in the NYC dating scene, and she offers a lot of great insights about the lessons she’s learned and how she’s applied them to her own life to better her chances of getting good matches and having enjoyable, repeat dates with guys she really likes. A recent piece of advice she offered was spot-on and actually illustrates very well the difference between “lowering” standards and recalibrating them.I want to expand on these ideas. To women, Lana suggests:There’s nothing wrong with wanting a man with a PhD, but if what you really want is someone who can challenge you intellectually and you’re having trouble finding enough phds, try filtering by asking better screening questions to suss this out.What she’s getting at here is that your requirement for a PhD might not really be about the official document confirming that he conducted a certain amount of original research and then successfully defended his dissertation; it might just be the best way you can think of right now to filter for who you really want to meet, which are thoughtful men who challenge you intellectually, and that perhaps different filters would show more of these men. She gives a similar example for men and some of their potentially misguided expectations:There’s nothing wrong with wanting a woman with a low body count, but if what you actually want is a woman without STDs who won’t cheat, focus on women who want monogamy and get tested + ask questions about how past relationships ended when the time is appropriate. Look more for indicators of integrity and honesty in other parts of her life.Again, a more thoughtful substitute for a nearly impossible filter that’s as unlikely for men to find as it is for women to locate men who match their statistically impossible height and income preferences. A filter whose results may not tell the whole story, or which might not even get you what you’re really looking for in the first place. Like Lana summarizes,The issue with both is that we develop filtering criteria that may not align with what actually makes us happy in a relationship - we also often confuse symbols for the thing it’s symbolizing.Emphasis mine.How much do looks really matter?Appearance seems to be the trickiest one because, generally speaking, what we’re attracted to physically seems to be more innate than anything else, but aesthetic preferences, too, can be recalibrated with some success. To go back to this insufferable topic once more, consider women’s stated preference for men's height. Is it really a narrowly specific (and quite rare) combination of centimeters or feet and inches you’re after? Or is it a certain way you want to feel, physically, around the guy when you’re together? Because if you’re a woman of short or average height, most men will already be taller than you (even in heels), and if you want to feel smaller or daintier or otherwise like a smol bean next your dude, then perhaps you don’t actually need, or even want, a man who is literally 6’3”. Maybe more importantly, I feel like the women who insist on very tall men are also picturing a very specific body type attached to that height that isn’t even necessarily “tall” at all. Be honest: are you as likely to be as attracted to a tall, thinner guy as you are to a tall man with visible gym muscles and some bulk to his frame? I don’t think that height is actually so important that any woman with such a requirement would select a tall, thin man over an athletic or bulkier guy who is average height, especially if she isn’t so thin, herself. Why? Because the symbol (the specific height requirement) did not match the desire (a big dude who makes you feel small and protected) hiding behind it. Perhaps a man who is 5’9” with a stocky frame and noticeable muscles who can throw you over his shoulder without effort would actually fulfill that desire just the same, or better.Once we move from charts and graphs and YouTube rants and check in on how real life is going, someone’s “value” on the “sexual marketplace” feels less like a linear number and more like a unique 3D shape made up of personality, values, and physical traits. You don’t go from “PhD holder” down to “middle class HVAC repairman who reads Sartre on his lunch breaks.” The first is only a status marker, while the second are qualities that make up the person. Someone who both has those qualities and also a PhD are statistically rare, so you need to recalibrate in order to get what you want.Recalibrating one’s standards isn’t just about figuring out what we want from a potential mate, though; it’s also about understanding who we are to everyone else.Avoiding falling into adolescent habits of attractionThe tendency of people to chase after potential mates who will probably never reciprocate their feelings is how we dated (or, subsequently, didn’t) as teenagers. I spent a good chunk of the latter part of middle school plus most of high school obsessed with a certain Type of Guy, just like everyone else in my cohort of teenage girls: handsome, blonde, popular jocks. The kind that resembled the most common of handsome teenage movie stars. I picked one to obsess over in particular, the crush was never reciprocated, and he was actually kind of mean about it in the early days because I acted like an obsessive weirdo to him.Anyway, the point is, don’t do this anymore. Ask yourself: do you know what you’re looking for, and why? Do you have any evidence that these people would ever be into you? How many repeated rejections by the same Type of Person will you endure before you allow yourself to look elsewhere? Plenty of people have discussed the current problem of women’s standards being too high and, to a lesser extent, men’s as well. One way in which this can manifest in women is that she wants the Tall Handsome Finance Guy archetype while she, herself is the embodiment of the Cookie Monster PJ Pants with Tangled Plastic Amazon Hair Extensions and a Groupon Spray Tan archetype. You can see the male version of this play out with the kinds of men who call objectively hot celebrities “mid” or fat between WoW sessions while having questionable hygiene habits and a hundred extra pounds around their waists.What’s your (arche)type?I’ve discussed this before, but one thing that’s both important and so often overlooked is not just figuring out who your type is, but figuring out whose type you are. Who do you tend to attract? Who falls all over you when you walk into a room, who tends to give you the most sincere compliments, who shows the most immediate interest? More importantly, are those the same people who you tend to become attracted to, yourself? If not, how’s that been going for you?I think it's been long enough now that I can say with some irony that I was somewhat lucky in how I was brutally rejected so often early on because I learned a lot about who fit into which Boy-Box and why. Being almost certainly not-autistic while also obsessed to an autistic degree with categorizing things and people probably helped. I think about this post a lot when I think about “types” because it seems to validate my experiences so well. Dmitry says: She understands her attractiveness isn't universal, but to a certain type-of-guy she's his 10.You need to be looking for that certain type-of-guy, or certain type-of-girl, find out where they hang out, and go reassess your options. There are people of all hotness and financial and educational and personality categories contained within those groups of certain types-of-people you are most likely to attract. This is not lowering expectations, but calibrating them properly. When I was about 12 and in my hideously gawky and accidentally-androgynous phase, I was hanging out with some neighbor friends whose similarly-aged male cousins were visiting, and one of the boys became almost comically obsessed with me for the two or three hours we were there. He told me I was the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen, which was such an unusual thing to hear back then that I thought he was joking. I never saw him again after that and I don’t even remember his name, but his words and unprecedented doe-eyed attention stuck with me.As it turns out, I’m that guy’s type. I just had to figure out the essence of that guy, what qualities that guy had that made him notice certain things about me that he liked, and see who else was like that. And I learned these things because that guy was rare enough back then that I could pattern-match until it became easy enough to predict who, at the very least, wasn’t that guy. Of course, I’ve been wrong before and I’ve both overplayed and underplayed my hand, but most of the time, I’ve been pretty correct about who will and will not be into me. For example, I am not these guys’ type:Extremely Handsome Sports Guy: This guy will literally never even know I exist unless forcibly introduced to me by someone else. I am completely invisible to this guy. If someone made us to go on a date together, we would bore each other senseless. I am not outwardly feminine enough for him, I am simply too much of an earnest nerd relative to his carefully laid-back, cool persona, and I am unable to pretend to have fun at professional sporting events, which he is required to attend regularly with a female accessory.These guys come in different flavors, but mostly they are usually the exact 6’3” guys who end up in finance later simply because they didn’t know what else to do with themselves or their family’s money or the MBA they got because they didn’t have any other discernable interests.Gym Bro: This is a sub-type of Extremely Handsome Sports Guy in that he is stereotypically attractive (albeit in a different way), single-minded, and typically goes for women who wear dresses and want babies or who, at the very least, wear coordinated, sexy outfits to the gym and not whatever pajamas she woke up in that day. I am, again, completely invisible to this Type of Guy.I add this category mostly because I have literally never in my entire life been hit on at the gym. Any gym, in any state, during any year, since I started going to them in 2002.Ever.Very Serious Academic: I annoy the s**t out of these men. I am not serious enough, I occasionally engage in pop culture and know who Morgan Wallen is, I am a bit too over the top emotionally for them and I am probably not ambitious enough. This Type of Guy reliably accidentally falls for me, anyway, because he will mistake me for One of Them at a party after I impress him by knowing what the Large Hadron Collider is or something, which is more than he can say for everyone else he’s spoken to tonight, at this party his roommate dragged him to that I’ll never be able to get him to go to again, the whole evening setting miserably unrealistic expectations for both of us as we mutually trick ourselves into a relationship. These could also be Very Serious Artists. The point is that they are Very Serious, and I am not. They are big snobs, and I cannot maintain serious snobbery for long without arguing myself out of it. They are disciplined, and I am impulsive and impatient. I am also not dumb, so they tend to like me if they meet me under the right circumstances where my other Very Annoying Qualities are not on display, but they inevitably become exasperated with me, as though I am their annoying little sister who they have unfortunately grown too fond of to leave but must still criticize at every opportunity in the name of trying to help me Be Better.Middle-Manager Griller: Similar in basicness to Extremely Handsome Sports Guy, but not born rich, so his pickiness level is more pragmatic in that he likes traditional femininity and expects some kids, but doesn’t expect as much in the way of accoutrements from a woman. He maybe noticed me once or twice but writes me off as being too much of an over-educated cat lady libtard to deal with interpersonally beyond perhaps a good-natured chat at events we both attend. We have nothing in common and both politely understand this and we’re not mad about it. We wish each other the best.This is basically the country version of the rich finance guy. He might even be country-rich, meaning his wealth is self-made from quietly owning a successful farm supply store that he inherited from his dad, or operating his own small plumbing company that he started in his parents’ garage at seventeen, but he’s humble about it. Most likely Type of Guy to actually rescue the Dunkin barista because he’s the only type to actually appreciate the kind of simple femininity that just wants to be taken care of even when she’s bratty and doesn’t know why.Anyway, I have learned not to go after those men (well, usually; there are exceptions to every rule). After all that rejection, I wanted to stop being attracted to guys who would never reciprocate my feelings, so I just eventually started writing them off as “not an option” for so long that it worked. That, to me, doesn’t feel like “lowering” my standards, either; it feels pragmatic, and in fact it was almost magical how well it worked.There will always be exceptions, like I said, and maybe you actually want to go after one of these guys whose type you have determined you are decidedly not — yet, anyway. What then? The exceptionsChris — the man I chased desperately with varying success for three years — most closely resembled Extremely Handsome Sports Guy in attitude, appearance, and behavior. If it weren't for his curiosity and intelligence (and probably glasses) signaling to me that he was not fully That Guy but just played one at parties, I might not have even tried opening myself up to that kind of potential rejection.So, what worked? It was easy: all I had to do was completely reinvent my entire personality to suit his. I'm mostly joking, but what I mean is that I actually had to try harder. I had to actually look at myself, my behaviors, my affectations, and everything about me that had gone uninvestigated for the simple fact that it hadn’t yet needed investigating. It wasn't so easy when I wasn't selecting from the pool of guys who I knew would likely respond well to me naturally, who either didn’t mind or easily tolerated the behaviors that repelled Guys Like Chris. What did that mean for me and Chris?Chris had a thing about “games.” He said he hated them, never wanted to play them, was turned off by them, etc. I brushed this off as paranoia on his part because I didn’t think I played any games. I was pretty transparent about everything — who I was, what I believed in, how I felt about him and our relationship, or my hopes for one. But it turned out there were “games” I played that I didn’t see as games at the time — just little things I’d overlooked in my relationships with other men in the past either because we were both young and playing the same games and thought it was normal, or because the guys in the past would — did, apparently — simply let it slide when I’d engage in them rather than confront me about it, allowing me to bask in blissful ignorance thinking I lacked any real problematic or manipulative behavior. It also meant that I had to turn it down a notch. This wasn’t the Type of Guy who would get excited about how much I liked him — he was the type to get scared of such heavy-handed affection being thrown his way too early. To him, such a thing seemed almost careless rather than romantic or flattering. So, after the first time I displayed some overzealous and contextually irrational jealousy, leading to freaking him out and him calling a break, I quickly recalibrated and ensured that if I were to feel that way again, I would deescalate my own emotions using methods I already knew worked rather than getting brandy-drunk at his family’s cabin and whining about some other girl he had been with before.Anyway, Daniel, who I was with between the ages of 19 - 21, was also a Type of Guy who wouldn’t (shouldn’t) otherwise be into me: the Very Serious Academic/Artist. He had initially written me off, too, for the same reasons I had already assumed he wouldn’t like me, but we had one of those moments that made him think there was more compatibility and maturity there (I mean, I do have my moments). When we first started dating, he was literally warned about me by some of our coworkers who told him I was too young for him and too much of a “party girl” and that we wouldn’t be compatible. As it turns out, they were mostly right, but it took two nearly-blissful years to amicably figure that out, even if I did f**k it up the whole way.Daniel unwittingly gave me the primer on how to behave around Chris nearly ten years later — respectfully and considerately, in ways I didn’t realize (or previously accept) really could be so deeply gendered. Frankly, it could probably all be boiled down to maturity, a quality most of us don’t yet possess in our late teens and twenties, and one that some people never manage to acquire.Whose standards?It’s also worth examining how many of your filters and requirements are genuinely even yours to begin with. Perhaps they were absorbed by those of your friends and you don’t want to lose their favor; perhaps teen magazines told you that the only attractive male body type was Brad Pitt in Fight Club, so you’ve convinced yourself that’s all you can get tingly about even though you only dated the one guy who actually looked like that and you had nothing to talk about and he cheated on you with someone so wildly different from you that you had to wonder why he even bothered with you in the first place. Or perhaps you’re a white guy who’s been obsessed with petite Asian girls since one broke your heart in 2009, so you convince yourself you can never date a different Type of Girl ever again because you need her back, in some form or another. The only Type of Girl who turns your head now is the Petite Asian Girl, and you must get her, no matter how few of them are interested in you. Why isn’t this working? You ask. Am I destined to be single forever? The latter Type of Guy is one I’ve known a lot of, for some reason or another, since all the way back in high school even if Petite Asian Girl actually manifested as BPD Art Ho or Manic Pixie Dream Girl or Unattainable Statuesque Redheaded Model or Poly Girl Who’s Also Dating Your Friend, or whatever (god there are so many more Types I want to call out here), and the happy ones finally got over their long-ago ex or unreciprocated crush and found and married women who share their values and interests and general background and who are pretty and sweet, finally deviating from what they thought was their “type” and realizing that there was a whole world out there full of women who were more than interested in them and what they had to offer once they took the blinders off. Would you call that “settling”? How about “lowering” his standards? In my mind, knowing those guys, I don’t look at any of their girlfriends or wives and think they lowered anything; I see them as finally having made sense of what they wanted from a woman and removing the symbols of those things from their requirements and refocusing on those desires on their own.Ultimately, you don’t need to lower your standards; you just need to calibrate them with reality in mind. Not the reality that you don’t deserve “more” or whatever, but the reality that your symbols and filters may not match your actual desires, or theirs. What can you recalibrate without feeling like you’re “settling”? I bet you can find something. You may also enjoy:Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this post, please click the heart ❤️ so more people can find it, and feel free to share or restack it! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit lirpa.substack.com/subscribe

If you’d like to skip the crossword and go straight to The Discourse, skip to 32:50!In yesterday’s Crosswords and Discourse episode, we talked with Kerry On, writer of Midwest State of Mind, about her recent essay series about infidelity (all parts are linked in the beginning):It was a fascinating discussion that touched on forgiveness, unconditional love, how you know when you’ve felt it, bipolar disorder, drug and alcohol use, marrying young, and many other related topics. We also discussed my story about “Daniel,” which I wrote about a few months ago touching on the same topic as Kerry’s series. It was a very honest and enlightening chat.Thank you to Meta Ronin, Ishmael Hodges, The Horn Gate, Ian Jobling, Cinema Timshel and many others for tuning into and participating in the livestream with Stephen Bradford Long, Kerry On, and myself! I hope you’ll join us for next week’s Crosswords and Discourse, every Sunday at 7pm ET!Next week we’ll be talking about sex robots with Meta Ronin. You’re not gonna wanna miss this one.If you enjoyed this conversation, please click the little heart at the bottom so more people can see it, and please feel free to share! Just Saying is a reader-supported publication. To help keep me out of the cubefarms and call centers, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit lirpa.substack.com/subscribe

The above voiceover is not a reading of this essay, but additional commentary to it. In this one I talk more about what it means to be “cute.” I recommend reading the post before listening so that it makes the most sense!A couple weeks ago, Med Gold 🐒 brought up the “Four Categories of Female Attractiveness” on a recent podcast episode, answering a reader question about whether or not women have a similar categorization method for men’s attractiveness. The reader said women often call him “handsome.” Med said he really had no idea but that he doubts women would do a good job separating men into similar categories because we tend to prioritize character and personality more than looks. He’s not wrong that most women tend to do this when we meet men IRL, but I think he is wrong that we aren’t able to properly categorize male attractiveness prior to meeting them. I’ve been doing it my whole life! You could consider it a specialty. I am a part-time Professional Male Attractiveness Categorizer.Since I can’t find Med’s original Note or Tweet or essay to see exactly what he said, we’ll have to rely on hot conservative lady-mag Evie of boob-dress porn fame to tell us what these female categories are and what they mean: Gorgeous:According to men, the "gorgeous" category is defined by a "stunning element" of uniqueness and a "mysterious allure" that's hard to ignore. It's all about a "striking" presence and unconventional beauty. Celebrities like Angelina Jolie and Adriana Lima exemplify this category, with their distinctive features that set them apart from the crowd. This category celebrates women who captivate with their unique beauty, leaving an unforgettable impression.Beautiful:"Beautiful" refers to a more traditional aesthetic, marked by facial symmetry and a serene, classic look without as much seductiveness. Blake Lively and Natalie Portman were cited as quintessential examples by men due to their timeless appeal. This category is a nod to the enduring elegance that has been celebrated through the ages, emphasizing grace and balanced features.Hot:The "hot" category is synonymous with sexuality and seduction, characterized by features that exude a powerful sexual allure, such as full lips and hypnotic eyes. Men put Madison Beer, Shakira, and Dua Lipa in this category, calling them "bold" and "captivating."Pretty:Defined by a strong element of sweetness and a radiant, friendly smile, the "pretty" category brings to mind the approachable girl next door. Jennifer Lawrence and Emma Watson are perfect examples, according to men, with their sweet demeanor and bright smiles. This category is all about warmth, friendliness, and the kind of beauty that feels both familiar and comforting. Okay! Those categories make sense. I’m going to invent some for the guys now, basically parallel to the women’s categories as much as possible. And, listen, I know some of these example photos are old af, but this is based entirely on appearance at the time of the photo, and frankly I was a little shocked to see how much time had passed when I googled some of these guys and saw recent photos. Holy s**t, where does the time go? Anyway, I don’t know who half of the current heartthrob dudes are right now, anyway. They all look like teenagers to me and I can’t have that many dudes in the “Cute” category.Note: I selected these men out of a combination of pure objective appearance, current cultural relevance, other women’s anecdotal opinions that I heard somewhere, and personal celebrity crush-harboring. I’m not consciously considering personality, politics, religion, or anything else that I presumably do or do not know about these dudes.Without further ado:Gorgeous: Striking in his handsomeness with at least one pleasantly unusual facial feature, like perfectly arched eyebrows or full lips or particularly intense eyes. He is usually in great physical shape and relatively fashionable, usually aware of how he looks to others and styles himself deliberately, taking note of what’s flattering to him and what isn’t. The only requirement for his hair is that it looks on-purpose. Robert Downey Jr just has those eyes, man. Hypnotizing. He’s been my forever celebrity crush ever since Heart and Souls in the 90s. What a babe. Patrick Dempsey has nice eyes, too, but it’s all that below-the-nose stuff that really adds something. Nice jawline, good 5 o’clock shadow, amazing hair. Brad Pitt has the jawline and the hair. His hair changes fairly often, but it’s always complementary to whatever other fashion thing he’s got going on. Chris Klein just kind of looks… sculpted. Almost too perfect, which is why he was initially going to be Handsome, but that combination of narrow eyes and full lips is just too unique on a white dude. I had a hard time placing Jason Mamoa. I almost stuck him in the Hot category simply because he oozes sex appeal, but then I looked at more pictures of his face, and then like a s**t ton more, and he’s just got a great f*****g face. More than Handsome. It’s probably the eyebrows. And the hair (there’s a theme with Gorgeous men here, I think). Handsome: Pretty much perfect facial features arranged symmetrically and proportionally. Straight nose, symmetrical eyes, a proportionate mouth, noticeable jawline, full facial hair potential even though he probably looks great without it because otherwise he wouldn’t qualify as Handsome. Handsomeness requires no beard for camouflage. Handsomeness is not something you can typically achieve without good genes or actual surgery, but some guys are on the cusp and can be two things. Handsome guys should never have a mustache without an accompanying beard. It ruins their face and just makes women mad that you would make a mockery of something so otherwise handcrafted by the gods.Chris Pratt just has this, like, man angel face. It’s so touchable-looking. And he’s got a good beard situation, but he can pull off the shaved look pretty well. Eminem is a strange addition here because he, like Chris Klein, appears also to be sculpted from clay, but the near-perfect symmetry and angles of his face make him model-handsome. He didn’t always seem Handsome at first, like in the early days, but he’s definitely grown into it. Justin Timberlake is just a very symmetrical dude. He has nice eyes and unique eyebrows and good hair. He’ll probably never not be Handsome. He’s got a babyface, but just doesn’t seem like he belongs in the Cute category. Pete Hagseth was a last-minute addition because Husband was giving me a play-by-play of the confirmation hearings while I was trying to select more guys for this category, and he recommended him. I googled him because I didn’t know what he looked like, and wow, where the f**k did that guy come from? He has a newscaster face. Oh, she realized, he was a newscaster. I really wasn’t paying any attention at all. But he is very classically handsome in an almost cartoonish way. Ryan Reynolds was almost Cute because of how cheerful and charming his face is, but he’s too buff. He’s too Cute to be Hot, though, and he’s also symmetrical and looks good without a beard and has a great smile, so he’s Handsome. Hot: Features that create sex appeal when put together. Usually requires a specific kind of clothing to complete the look. Styling can elevate Handsome to Hot if sex appeal is what you’re going for. Being Hot is not always reliant on genes and can be attained by styling yourself in a more appealing and flattering way. Hot is the default look for some guys, but almost any guy can be Hot if he tries hard enough. Hotness is one category where personality can also up your score, whereas you can't become more Handsome by making better jokes or being smarter or more charming. This is something only really proven after communicating, so it doesn’t really count for the purposes of this explainer, but it counts in general. Chris Messina’s face just has a whole attitude of its own. His eyebrows and mouth are very expressive and can change his whole appearance depending on how he arranges them. He has good hair and a nice physique and he can style himself casually or formally and look ravishing either way. Jake Gyllenhaal is what one might call smoldering. Dark hair and short facial hair against paler skin and bright eyes. The combination is pretty intense. John Krasinski is hot in that real-life way. Now, I’m breaking my own rule here by referencing a character he played and not strictly his appearance, but like the way Chris Pratt started out (Andy From Parks and Rec), John K started out playing kind of a derpy dude (Jim from The Office) who wasn’t necessarily traditionally attractive, but who had potential. Now, with time and some separation from the initial faces they gave to the world, they’re both babes. They are examples of men who became Hot (Chris Pratt was already naturally Handsome, but his former chubbiness hid that from most people). Pedro Pascal is one that I only added because when The Last of Us came out, everyone was peeing their pants over how hot they thought this guy was. I don’t really get it, personally, but I felt like not including him here would be some kind of fraud against women everywhere or something. I guess I can see it in the characters he sometimes plays, but that’s not supposed to be a consideration. People apparently think he’s charming and an example of not-toxic masculinity. I guess that can translate to Hot by my definition! I’m adding Huntley even though not many people know who he is yet because he’s a great example of Hot. He has A Thing (his hair, which is usually braided or done in some other interesting and unique way) and a face that looks like it belongs to a Greek God or something, both of which could put him in the Gorgeous category, but the fact that he’s a musician and dresses in things like boots and motorcycle vests and lots of jewelry changes his overall vibe to Hot. Man’s got sex appeal and he knows it. Cute: Guys whose facial features produce an appealing visage but who are too skinny to be hot or too feminine or pleasant-looking to be strictly handsome. Also characterized by unusually pretty eyes with extra-long lashes and a smaller-than-average mouth and often very little or no facial hair. Harry Styles is someone I don’t know anything about, but I hear his name a lot and looked him up. He’s got a Nice Face, which is another way of saying Handsome, but he’s also got a boyish quality to him that makes me think of him as more Cute. Robert Pattinson is just, like, universally understood to be attractive, and I think that’s because of his moody, shy appearance and kind of reluctant-but-real-looking smile. He’s very symmetrical, giving him Handsome potential, but he’s slender. Cute, it is. Ryan Gosling has such a baby face that I just can’t put him into Handsome. He’s just gonna have to be Cute. Very, very Cute. Timothee Chalamet is an actor everyone seems to be talking about right now! I guess he has an interesting face. I am adding him because he is everywhere, not because I really think he belongs here. I am confused by this one. Edward Norton is here because he’s adorable. He’s “too pretty to go to jail,” as they say in 25th Hour. This section was actually going to be called “Pretty” because of him and that movie, but I decided against it at the last minute because I thought people would think it was an insulting category, which it is not, but I don’t wanna argue about it. Edward Norton is not conventionally attractive in my opinion and is only considered to be so because of the way he moves his face around. I mean, the way he smiles and the way his eyes twinkle and the way he looks around and talks and stuff. Character stuff again, not allowed, but that’s why.Who did I leave out? What categories would you add or change? Who absolutely should not have been included?Oh. You see, around a year or so ago, Timothy Olyphant was in some movie my husband and I were watching, and I said he was ugly and looked kind of like a crackhead. T-Man is apparently one of his favorite actors and has not gotten over it. He believes that the fact that I do not think Timmy O is attractive means my taste in men is questionable and now his self-esteem is affected. Maybe I just have a bias against guys named Tim! Anyway, Timothy Olyphant is not going in any of my buckets. He is a caveat.You might also like: Just Saying is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and help keep me out of the call center mines, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Thanks for reading Just Saying! This post is public so feel free to share or restack it. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit lirpa.substack.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit lirpa.substack.comI went to Minnesota to spend Thanksgiving with my family and had the opportunity to interview my 17-year-old niece, Adara. We covered a ton of topics about Zoomers and other issues. We get into some of the more controversial topics of the day after the paywall! Conversation topics include:* What’s high school like these days?* The underground vape market* Ada…