Personality, Glasses and Gender (was: What does this mean?)

[GulPlum]

"moongirlk" <moongirlk at y...> wrote:

<snip>

[I'd said, inter alia]

> > > > At least it got the right gender. :-)

[To which Barb replied]

> > Where did anyone get the idea that personality and gender are in 
> ANY 
> > WAY related?  Are you using this test to confirm your 
> > gender/orientation or something?  
> 
> Yikes!  No need to go on the attack or anything.  I just made the 
> comment in response to Gulplum/Richard's, and I got the impression 
> his was in response to a previous post in the last week or so where 
> someone mistook him for a woman.  No big gender stereotype 
conspiracy.

Congratulations, Kimblerly. Ten points to your house. :-) I saw 
Barb's post earlier in the day and was going to respond, but decided 
to wait and see if someone else might cotton on to what I was getting 
at. After all, with hindsight it was perhaps unreasonable for me to 
have expected anyone to have remembered last week's post and then 
made the connection...

Elsewhere, Kimberly said:

> Oh, and Richard - do you realize you've just given hope to all us 
> girls who're running around wishing there were guys like Lupin in 
> the *real* world?

Would all the lady Lupin fans like to form an orderly queue? I'm 
currently unattached (though just a little more than Lupin's 
canonical age). :-)

As it happens, I don't think whatever the questionnaire thought Lupin 
and I have in common is what attracts the girls. I suspect that the 
main element of Lupin's personality which you girls find attractive 
is his hardly-repressed vulnerability, which brings out all your 
maternal instincts (however deeply they may be hidden). :-)

There's also another point of Barb's upon which I wanted to comment:

> I'm still convinced Harry comes out on top for me because I wear 
> glasses, which are very important to me, and the silly people who 
> made up the test are confusing one's need to wear corrective 
> lenses with personality, but if I go on about that, this will turn 
> into a rant after all...

As someone who's worn glasses for the last 30 years, I would say that 
they are a VERY integral part of my personality. A few years ago, I 
tried contacts for about 6 months, but although they performed the 
same function in terms of my eyesight, I feel very strange without my 
specs on my face (even if 99% of the time I'm not conscious of their 
presence) - in a way, I feel naked. I could go into the psychology of 
wearing glasses forever (that would REALLY read like a rant), but 
they perform several symbolic functions well beyond being a visual 
aid.

I'm also sure that all the usual taunts during my younger years had 
their role to play in my current psychological makeup.

I do, however, agree, that being a "four-eyes" is far from a defining 
characteristic of one's personality, though I must admit I don't 
recall a question about it in this particular questionnaire. Even so, 
Dumbledore or McGonagall (and Percy from the books) would get higher 
up the chart if this element took on importance. Harry's not the only 
bespectacled character in the Potterverse...


-- 
GulPlum aka Richard, UK