The word "homely"

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I get it, I mean popular culture is shallow...language can be shallow and it sucks I can certainly agree with you there. But also you have to give a little slack to people like they can't all be as analytical as you are.

As for the rejection lines. Thinking of someone as a brother or sister makes them seem kind of sibling like, you don't want to date your siblings...so if someone feels they have a more brother or sister like connection with someone that is what they have rather than romantic interest.

I have not really heard anyone use 'you're a nice guy/girl' as a rejection line, normally people just discuss nice guys/girls. It can be a bit confusing since nice is supposed to have positive connotations, but its usually talking about people who act nice but aren't really actually nice if they don't get what they want.

As for lets be friends that can either mean they want to establish friendship first, or it can mean they only want it to go as far as friendship...I suppose that can be a tricky one.

But yeah language is weird, I can see why you are complaining myself. That said you gotta be kind of picky about who you discuss it with. There are people who certainly wont get you...and starting off with telling them they are wrong will only make them defensive and less likely to want to consider what you have to say.

Sometimes you just gotta smile and nod. That is something my cousin told me once, like when it seems like BS but its not worth making a conflict, then just acknowledge without telling them they are right or wrong. Basically not everyone needs to hear what's going on in your head. I mean for instance it's perfectly fine to make a post about how this stuff bothers you...or talk to someone that's on a similar page to you. But problem is IRL sometimes you just need to let things go, cause sometimes other people don't care. There are plenty of us not so 'cool' people who could care less about what is going on in current popular culture, and have plenty to criticize about it. But some of us know that not everyone wants to hear about it, or even really has the capacity to consider all of that stuff so we tone it down a little around the normies. That said though if someone rejects you for that other 'cool' guy...well do you think you would have really had a good connection with that person anyways?

As for how people know how you treat others, well its more they just find out how you act, like maybe you come off a little too abrasive or you jump into trying to argue/debate against them to quickly. No one can take one look at you and know how you are, but even in small interactions people can get an idea. Still pretty much every new person you meet is a new opportunity to create a different experience than you have had in the past(because they don't know anything about it yet). But you have to make changes to how you go about interacting, like try to eliminate the things that make the interactions go bad. I think a big thing would be just fight the urge to point out if you think someone is wrong and its not something thats a deal-breaker for you wanting to interact with them. That is where the smiling and nodding comes in.

Also I can certainly see feeling bitter, and that leading to having a hard time not taking it out on others. Trust me I know that one all to well...thing is regardless of the reason behind it, people won't tolerate it. Its taken me years and years to kind of understand that my problems aren't other peoples problems and I have to take more responsibility to find ways to take out my anger/bad feelings than taking it out on others. Can't say I never slip up, sometimes my boyfriend has to get after me if I start getting kinda ragey at him cause I'm frustrated, and well he's right just because I am upset is no reason to be an ass to him.

But yeah I totally get how it could be a defense mechanism, you've been hurt...so you act a little spikey to try and avoid it. But you have to try and reduce the spikeyness or you won't be able to get along with others, probably easier said than done but its certainly not too late.

Just googled the word.

Apparently in the UK it DOES mean comfortable and home-like. Like a worn sofa. "This place looks very homely" would likely be compliment.

In north America its applied to persons. And means "plain", and like that. Not typically a compliment.

A slightly exotic hottie is a person who inspires you to get off your ass and pursue them. While some one who just looks like your cousins in the village does not inspire you to leave the home to go after them. So the later boring type person is …"homely". That's my theory as to how the word evolved into its present North American meaning.

The word "homely" meaning depends on where you live. Where I live it means you're unattractive. From others in this thread it seems to mean something different.

But that's not why I'm here, I'm here to say that your "experiment" is a cruel thing to do to someone. You plan to use her as an experiment for a word You know has a negative connotation(depending on where you live) to it and then confront her. You only use her as a "consolation prize" which gives me the impression that you don't think highly of her at all. Why are you even talking to her then?

Leave her alone and let her go on with her life and you do the same. To intentionally do something knowing it has the potential to hurt someone is a real A-holeish thing to do!

Good observation. This leads me to some further thoughts though. As I speculated earlier, the negative meaning attached to the word "homely" might be tied to the preference of "cool" as opposed to "genuine". So now that you say that British don't view "homely" as negatively as Americans do, could it be that British have more appreciation for the genuine while Americans have more appreciation for the cool? Consequently, could it be that -- as someone nerdy -- I would have better luck among British girls than American girls? And also could it be that "nice guys finish last" phenomenon is more prominent in America than in Britain?

UPDATE I just asked that woman about the meaning of the word "homely" and expressed to her my thoughts about it. No I didn't call her homely and I didn't do any of that experiment thing, I simply asked her what she thinks So now you can sleep peacefully: I won't make any experiment -- not with that woman anyway.

Another update I asked her what would have happened if I were to come to facebook and say "hey you look homely", would she be upset? She said yes. And I told her it means she participates in shallow American culture. And now she is defending herself against the "shallow" charge.

She’ll get turned off to you....unless she likes games herself.

Well, I won't call her homely since she knows what is going on so it won't even be interesting.

As far as calling her shallow for assuming that, our conversation moved on to the language discussion so she isn't upset. She was "about" to get upset half an hour ago but nope not any more.

But of course you don't want to actually be in a relationship with her, only talk to her because you haven't had luck with other people...and the reasons you don't want to be in a relationship seem to be because she has health issues and is overweight, is that not a bit shallow as well? Not saying you have to date people with sever weight problems or health issues thats up to you...but kind of sh*tty to lecture some woman about how she's just a shallow american, when you are actually being pretty shallow to her. Especially if you've been stringing her along and did not set her straight when she expressed she thinks she's your gf, you should have explained that isn't the case if you don't like her that way instead of just going along with it without telling her.

I've gotta say I'd be pretty annoyed if someone called me shallow because I understand the intent of 99% of people using a commonly understood word.

Words change meaning over time. The meaning of a word within a cultural context is whatever meaning the culture assigns to it. It does not matter if it meant something different 100 years ago. It does not matter if the base of the word implies another meaning. It does not make an individual person shallow to understand what a word actually means instead of insisting that it should mean something different. Whatever the cultural reason for the change in meaning was, is not an individual person's reason to use the word in the correct way. The individual person's reason to use a word in the correct way is that they know what it means. Simple as that.

What your heart is telling you about the word homely is irrelevant. The reason why it seems like you're not using your heart is because you have no qualms about intentionally hurting people and playing mind games with them.

SURPRISE! SURPRISE!! !!

You insult her, and then you insult her a SECOND time! And that causes her to... cop a bad attitude toward you! Who would've guessed!

Love your posts. you're hilarious!


What if we met on Facebook. and I were to look at your pic and say "HEY! you're a pretty girl!"

You would probably get angry, and protest that you were "a guy, and not a GIRL you blind stupid dumb ass!".
Or you would THINK it, even if you didn't write it.

And then what if I were to inform you that "well... the word "girl" originally meant "ANY young person" ( not just a female) in Middle English about a 1000 years ago!". And then what if went on to inform you are "for that reason you are just being shallow to take it as an insult".

Would the comment in the above paragraph make you feel (a) less insulted, or (b) doubly insulted?

QFT sometimes simply being nice is the hardest thing to do. Forget "deep" or "interesting" don't ever use people like Pavlovs' dogs. Learn how to be kind and compassionate, or you may be a very lonely genius. If you can't do it on your own find a good therapist who can help you understand emotional intelligence. In fact you are failing on your own. You are on the wrong track.

Apparently you didn't read my last posts from the beginning to the end. I did NOT follow through on my plan. My plan included "first" calling her homely and "then" calling her shallow. I didn't do the first item, I only did the second one Because I didn't call her homely, I simply said "I have discovered the meaning of the word homely and I disagree with it, what do you think" and then -- only after I asked this -- I said "well, what would have happened IF I were to call you homely without any prelude, would you get mad" and then when she said she would I called her shallow.

In any case, our conversation ended up on a positive note. She actually told me that, when she was little, she was similarly confused about the meaning of that word, and she also thought it was meant to be positive when she first encountered it. But then her parents corrected her and told her its negative, so thats why she remembers that its negative.

Maybe the part that was confusing is that I said "half an hour ago" -- which made it sound like we had half an hour fight. We didn't. What happened was that I was chatting with her from the library, and the library closed, so I had to walk to my dorm to continue the chat. It just happened that the computers in the library were shut down at the worst possible time -- exactly after I called her shallow -- and then it took half an hour for me to get to my dorm. But once I was at the dorm it took like a minute to clarify what I meant and she was perfectly fine with that. Yes, we went in circles a little, since she didn't know what point I was trying to make, but she wasn't upset.

Yes, the comment that she made right before the computers shut down were a bit annoyed, but she was totally cool when I got to the dorm.

Its a combination of several different things, not just the ones you mentioned. After all, the woman I dated back in 2007--2009 was also sick and overweight, but at least she was living in the same town as me, was also a graduate student just like me, majoring in science (although in biology while I was in physics), etc. So we had things in common. Now contrast it with the current woman. She lives several states away from me, and doesn't seem to be willing to fly to meet me any time soon, she doesn't arrange the skype conversations eitehr, only talks on facebook, she is not in school (yes I persuaded her to apply for college for the next year -- but I couldn't convince her to apply to science, she applied to business administration instead) and also she is 40 (yes I am 40 too, but I want kids, and I heard women go through menopause around 42 so its like I have 2 years to marry her and have kids if I want any) and speaking of her being 40 -- even if she did go to school and major in science, just how old would she have to be until I can actually be proud of her being a scientist (the other girl I dated in 2007--2009 she was 23 when I just started dating her and I was 27, and she was already a second year graduate student). Maybe if the current girl was willing to apply to college to where I live that would maybe be one thing that would make the rest worth it. But no, she wants to apply in her own state so that she doesn't have to pay out of state tuition. So how often are we even going to see each other?