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You could say that our cultural understanding of women’s autonomy isn’t totally in sync with the logistics of twenty-first-century partnership, and the internet would appear to agree. A 2015 thread on Reddit’s TwoXChromosomes board opens with a PSA: ‘You can break up with someone for any reason, or for no reason at all,’ it reads. ‘You don’t have to have a “good reason” to end a relationship.’
Posting under the handle MissPredicament, the page’s writer muses over the observation that an astonishing number of women in Reddit’s relationships forum seem to be mired in the same existential conundrum. They are unhappy in relationships that don’t really have anything wrong with them. ‘I wish someone had told me when I was much younger that I didn’t have to have an airtight legal case for a breakup – all I had to have was a desire to no longer be in that relationship,’ she writes. ‘I would have saved myself a lot of time.’ The post received over a thousand replies.
Married Love, a 1918 treatise by the British scientist Marie Stopes, changed that. Stopes’s book was one of the first popular texts to propose that women’s sexual desire was not only natural and universal, but an attribute that husbands would do well to attend to. Stopes didn’t mince words; most men entered into marriage not knowing how to sexually satisfy a woman, while most women didn’t grasp what the sexual encounter should entail. Stopes describes how sex should involve a real pleasure ‘which should sweep over every wife each time she and her husband unite. The key which unlocks this electric force in his wife must reverently be sought by every husband.’ In the same breath, Stopes made the bold hypothesis that men who had lost their virginity to prostitutes prior to getting married were inclined to mistake their paid sex partner’s yawps and quivers for a testament to their own sexual prowess; these same men were also likely, in turn, to blame their future wives’ lack of sexual arousal on what they perceived was her frigidity instead of their own shortcomings in the sack. (A hubristic misconception that many straight women would surely affirm has stood the test of time.)
lol
[...] Rabble explained that he was only in San Francisco for a short time with his fiancée, Gabba, so they could save money to continue traveling and going to political demonstrations and protests around the world. This, Rabble explained, was their "full-time" job. But they were not your traditional protesters: They were hacktivists, part of an emerging group of protesters who used laptops instead of picket signs nad blogs instead of bullhorns and who marched down the Internet instead of paved streets. Rabble told Noah he planned to work for only a few weeks, then hit the road again, looking for another protest to join and another way to tell "the man" to fuck himself. He had just wrapped up assisting protesters involved in the 2004 presidential elections, he explained, and once he saved money from this new gig, he would set out for South America to wreak digital havoc on a government there.
kinda cool
But after Google, Ev wasn't anywhere to be found at Odeo, either. He soon semiretired at thirty-two years old. His bank account had gone from a three-figure balance--often barely enough to cover his rent--to double-digit millions of dollars. For Ev, it was time to enjoy the good life, not get involved in another start-up. He began taking Italian cooking classes and exploring museums. He bought a house worthy of a millionaire with wide windows that overlooked San Francisco like a perched owl and a fast new car to put in the millionaire's garage. He went on expensive vacations with his new girlfriend, Sara, whom he had met at Google during an office party.
lol @ nouveau richness
Jack also had an anarchist background. One of his tattoos, on his right leg, was a black and orange star, which was a symbol for an anarchist group. He had been vociferous for years online about his contempt for war and corporations. He'd written about these issues on his own personal web site, which he called gu.st, and also posted some rants about the perils of capitalism, his disdain for banking institutions, and Americans' thirst for oil. He also frequented message boards promoting feminism.
One morning he rushed into the office early and placed a crane on her keyboard. He then slyly sat at his desk, silently pretending to work when she arrived with her cup of Tully's coffee to be met by a little paper bird staring up longingly from her computer. At first Crystal put the crane to the side, smiling at it and moving on with her day. Then she received another the next day. And another the day after that, until finally she grew upset at Jack's relentless passes, especially given that she had a boyfriend.
"You don't need to get me juice," she said to Jack as she stormed over to his desk, reminding him that she was in a relationship. "And it's really sweet that you're putting the cranes on my keyboard, but you can stop now."
"Did you see which letter I put them on?" Jack said excitedly, almost ignoring her request to respect her boundaries. She had not seen that the cranes had each been placed on different letters, which were going to spell out her name. "No!" she said, annoyed, and turned around to leave. But he pressed on, determined that something would eventually happen with Crystal.
spoiler alert: she would end up dating early employee Jason Goldblum, although they did manage to remain friends, amazingly enough (but I very much empathise)
[...] "So what excites you?" Noah asked again. "What do you want, really want, to do?"
"I want to go into fashion," Jack said quietly. "I want to make jeans."
As they stood at the bar ordering drinks, Noah told Jack what had happened. Jack appeared dumbfounded by the fact that his friend had been pushed out. He never mentioned that he had handed Ev the gun with which the final shot was fired. As the night came to a close, Noah hugged Jack good-bye and went home.
after Noah got fired (which was prompted by Jack giving Ev an ultimatum)
As he approached Jack, Noah reached out to shake hands, his mouth opening to offer congratulations. Yet when he was just a few feet away from his friend, Biz swooped in and placed his arm around Jack as he spun them both around and in another direction to post for a photo. Noah was left standing there in a room full of people, his arm at a forty-five degree angle, as if he were shaking hands with an invisible man. Jack, Biz and Ev then slipped off into a side room as more people asked to take their photos. Noah, devastated by what had just happened, left the party.
"We should really take the deal," Jack said sarcastically as they all laughed.
The comical tone was interrupted as Ev told them what Bradley had said on the phone: that he believed Yahoo! could easily build the technology behind Twitter, that it was "simply just a messaging service" and "a few engineers could do the same thing in a week." He had concluded that if Twitter didn't sell, Yahoo! planned to build and release a competitor.
It was a typical relationship offering in the Valley: Either you fuck us, or we'll fuck you.
after Yahoo! offered them only 12 million for an acquisition when they were expecting 80-100 million