First, I'm going to copy a request from a friend who is a librarian. This person has a patron who wants books (preferably good ones) with the following characteristics
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Re: I only read cute books ...mrissaJanuary 18 2007, 19:50:46 UTC
Poor "people." I'd much rather be hit on than patronized. (Presuming that people don't try to multitask and do both at once, which is really deeply unpleasant.)
Re: I only read cute books ...victoriacatladyJanuary 27 2007, 06:30:06 UTC
Miss Marple herself has no romantic inclinations. In some of the books featuring her, other characters do have rather chaste romances. (Very chaste by today's standards.) Miss Marple looks on benevolently.
mmerriam has a knee-jerk reaction to being called "nice" -- he'll grimace and shudder uncontrollably. He suffered from Nice Guy Disease: all the girls thought he was a great friend, but would never consider him as a love interest, because he was so Nice. Instead, they would flounce off with whatever testosterone-charged asshole flashed his convertible at them, leaving the Nice Guy all alone.
I have tried to help him overcome the horrified feeling when somebody calls him Nice. Smart Girls like Nice Guys, I remind him (being a data point). But it's still a long way down, as they say.
I can't think of "absolutely no" examples, but Sue Grafton's Kinsey Milhone books (A is for Alibi, etc) are pretty close. There are a few dates, but men are a minimal part of her life. I don't recall her being prone to profanity and the violence is mostly "off screen".
I was going to say Alexander McCall Smith, particularly the Sunday Philosophy Club, but then I realized that even though the protagonist is older and the books aren't particularly violent or romantic; sometimes she remembers romance, or tries to fix up her niece.
This is a tough category. How 'bout Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly?
My knee still jerks and probably always will. When you are an engineer in an engineering company and you get a new chair that needs some assembly and people (other engineers, not facilities people who might legitimately consider furniture part of their job) try to take it and do it for you for no other apparent reason but that you are small, young and female, what can you assume they think of your professional skills?
Oh gosh yes. Even if one is neither young nor small, but only female. *rolls eyes* I'm about your age, but I'm used to the perception that 35 is old. What really bothered me, even more than having a research or engineering colleague seeing me start putting the chair together and doing it for me, was having one colleague see me start with the chair and tell a second colleague to help me with it. Reinforcing proper roles across the board.
Funny, I had thought you were older for some reason. Blogging is weird that way. I was thinking about it after you wrote. I definitely don't think of 35 as old; I think I'd rate it at "still young" (which, as Valancy said in The Blue Castle, is not the same as *young*). Of course in my case that may well be because 35 is younger than me, if only a few years.
But though I definitely do feel I'm getting closer to middle age, I think the fact that I had mostly older friends as a kid predisposed me to feel comparatively younger than most people. It was a bit of a surprise when I first realized (at age 30 or so) that I had friends and coworkers younger than my little brother, and then again at 36 or 37 when I realized the junior rowers I knew (15-18) were literally young enough to be my children. Since I have been a kid but never a mother, I'm still more likely to think of myself as closer to the "kids" age bracket rather than the "parents" one, even though obviously I am plenty old enough for the latter.
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I have found that people will often say "cute" to avoid being slapped for what they really want to say.
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I have tried to help him overcome the horrified feeling when somebody calls him Nice. Smart Girls like Nice Guys, I remind him (being a data point). But it's still a long way down, as they say.
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I do think, though, that nice is necessary but not sufficient for more-than-friends.
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"That was so nice of you": that was a pleasant or considerate thing to do.
"You're such A Nice Guy": I do not see you as gendered.
"You're such A Nice Girl": I suspect you do not put out.
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Nowadays I just shudder and grimace.
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This is a tough category. How 'bout Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly?
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But though I definitely do feel I'm getting closer to middle age, I think the fact that I had mostly older friends as a kid predisposed me to feel comparatively younger than most people. It was a bit of a surprise when I first realized (at age 30 or so) that I had friends and coworkers younger than my little brother, and then again at 36 or 37 when I realized the junior rowers I knew (15-18) were literally young enough to be my children. Since I have been a kid but never a mother, I'm still more likely to think of myself as closer to the "kids" age bracket rather than the "parents" one, even though obviously I am plenty old enough for the latter.
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