A clear case of West Wing Syndrome: (http://b4a.healthyinterest.net/extras/backpack1.html)

Sorry, bad link:
http://b4a.healthyinterest.net/extras/backpack1.html

NO SHIT! Nothing makes a potentially-datable guy's stock take a nosedive faster than a backpack! Eeeeew! Keep it for when you're um, going camping?
But it's the same for women, you know. Ever since that scene in Swingers: "I'm supposed to think she's special because...because she's wearing a backpack?" Boy did that trend die quick when that movie came out.
And yet, there's always someone out there wearing it, and always a designer making one for such people. I even saw a mini-backpack being worn by a "socialite" at a Louis Vuitton party recently...It was all I could do to take her aside and say "Honey, let's move you up to something new..."

Miss Annie writes: "Nothing makes a potentially-datable guy's stock take a nosedive faster than a backpack!"

So let me see if I have this straight.

If Miss Annie is given a choice between dating some bisexual guy with a N.A.M.B.L.A. tote bag reading "let the little children come to me"

Or a different guy who she spots at daily mass with a backpack reading, St. Thomas Aquinas: the breakfast of champions.

She'll date the first guy and scorn the latter?

Let me answer.

I'm not sure that Annie is a Catholic - let alone interested in the traditional type that might make matins and carry the Summa in his rucksack. Is there anyone in the country that fits such a description?

Also, how does her low opinion of backpacks translate into a preference for NAMBLA members?

What an odd question to pose to someone you've never met. No? What an over-extended reading of the comment! I take it from your comment that women are obliged to choose a rambling, disheveled, conspiracy theorist who doesn't know how to wear clean clothes and lives in his mother's basement over a decent, clean shaven man who works for a living and carries a leather brief only because the former has memorized the Introit and the latter is Novus-Ordo. Or am I reading too much into the text?

This blog may be written by a Catholic - but only sinners and those who have sinned are welcome.

Bizarre and abrupt the remark surely is, and completely out of bounds, but I think it is just possible that a backpack could still be a worse fashion faux pas. A NAMBLA tote bag would stand out much less than a NAMBLA backpack, or have I missed something? Ms. Wilson stated emphatically that nothing would hurt a guy's chances more than a backpack, which puts it at the bottom of a pretty terrifying list of possibilities. In other words, you really, really shouldn't be carrying around a backpack. End o' story.

But, by any standard, no self-respecting woman would be caught dead with a man who read something called "St. Thomas Aquinas: the breakfast of champions." Does the title mean that one intends to eat Aquinas? How unfortunate. I think most men would not be caught dead in the same room with such a book. Besides, if she's seeing him at Mass, what is he doing reading this book? Sounds like an odd character to me. At least with the NAMBLA tote bag-carrying bisexual, she knows what she's in for!

In addition: it has been my experience that women do not like nebbishes (insert obvious joke at my expense here), and it seems fairly clear from all of this that a backpack is a major warning sign of a man being a nebbish. Pointing this out bothers nebbishes, who are already rather tired of being nebbishes, but it fails to escape them that complaining about being treating like a nebbish causes others to say, "But, look, you are a nebbish. What can we do?" Or, to put it bluntly another way, the odds of your being a tremendously religious, daily churchgoing man and not a nebbish at the same time are low, and women know this. The two are not necessarily connected, and often throughout history have not been, but nowadays it often is the case. Therefore, if she saw a guy at Mass on a daily basis she would probably assume the worst. However, I defer the judgement of the experts on this question.

Er, that is, I defer to the judgement of the experts.

Backpacks may be a fashion no-no but, in my experience, they work a hellova lot better than briefcases or other handheld bags.

Mr. Dougherty writes : "What an over-extended reading of the comment!"

Is it over extended? Miss Annie places those who toke backpacks as THE paramount reason why a man would drop in her eyes as a viable candidate to date.

Frankly, until this thread I had never thought twice about backpacks except as carrying books as my children use them and don't recall having seen them used otherwise and could not care less if I had, but I have thought much about what constitutes a viable candidate for dating, with my oldest daughter at 15 and others too soon to follow; and for them I see virtue as standing paramount. With a love of the intellectual life following a close second. Thus the reading of St. Tomas as enjoyable breakfast companion. Although for those for my daughter's age, the choice should be Aristotle with St. Thomas' commentaries.

Mr. Larison,

There is nothing in the act of attending daily mass, especially for the young, which is weak willed; whether it be standing against the earthly city, or the development of the habit of virtue through sanctifying grace via the mass.

These comments are being closed immediately.

This is what happens when your blog appeals to diverse people.

I'm sure Annie is twice as likely to become a Catholic as she was before she was accused of preferring child molestation to St. Thomas Aquinas. In the future if I have a post on breakfast cereals and someone says in jest or in all seriousness that they really dislike Cheerios and prefer Frosted Flakes above all others - let's try not to quiz them about whether they'd like the torments of hell for breakfast instead,