Trigger warning for discussion of coerced sexual activity.
With my break from any kind of activist posting, I realised one thing I could do was get on with posting more of my story Cyborg Sleeps. But that story has some questions of a social justice/activist bent that I want to address.
Firstly, there's the race issue. The story is set in a parallel universe in which a scientific approach to magic has placed it on the same level as technology based on the physical sciences. In this universe, the British Empire used magical technology to end WW2 a year or two earlier than before, and with a much stronger economic and military position. As a result, it has been able to hold onto a lot of its possessions overseas and remains a superpower on a par with the USA and the Soviet Union (both of which have different names in the story, but I haven't posted the bits where I start to mention them yet). That, inevitably, means that colonial attitudes on race are part of the background of the society in which I've based my story.
So, into that I have dropped two characters of colour: the central character, cyborg "Asira Y"; and Director Samuel Gattell (who is Black). I feel nervous writing about the experiences of marginalised people, when I do not share that marginalisation, and worry about my representation of POC in this particular story.
Both of these characters live lives that are far removed from those of many of their peers. Asira, by being removed and literally made "other-human" through the processes by which she has been made into a cyborg. Director Gattell, by being one of the few Black folks in this parallel world to have risen high enough in the chain of command in the military/intelligence community to be put in charge of a project like this. As noted in Episode 8, Gattell was being set up to fail when he was given the project, but proved his racist peers wrong in their assessment of his ability to run the project successfully; later episodes revealed how Gattell's knowledge of the Establishment's desire to see the black guy take a tumble has worked to place him at times in opposition to the needs of his team, particularly Asira after she was attacked for being non-White.
So that's how I excuse to myself writing these characters as they are.
The other area I wanted to discuss is sexuality.
So far, most of my characters have not had their sexual history discussed very much. Asira and Priestess Bena Wainwright are both revealed to have had PIV sex in their past, but in both cases on not-entirely-consensual terms (that is, coercion and lying were involved).
Here, I'm not so interested in explaining what my reasoning is or my portrayal. What I really want to know is what readers of the stories think are the sexualities of the main characters, whom I currently regard as being:
Agent Asira Y
Director Samuel Gattell
Dr Orla McDonald
Priestess Bena Wainwright
PC Rachael O'Hara
I don't think there's enough prose yet concerning Priest Quinlan Jacobs or Agent Charles V (both of whom are important parts of the cyborg base's set-up), but readers may speculate if they wish.
The reason I ask is simply that for most of the story, the storyline I have mapped out doesn't require sexuality to be a part of the way the characters interact with others. Although the "Temple" as I conceive its organisation and structure involves sexual rituals in some of their worship or magic, obviously because that is ritual rather than relational (or even pleasure-driven) sex, it doesn't tell us anything about the characters' sexualities - and those rituals don't have a big part in the story as I currently imagine it. It does impact on the way that Priests and Priestesses are seen by others, and in an episode following Bena through a typical day (written but not yet posted), some if this gets discussed (there's also a hint about what she finds sexually attractive, but I'm keeping that to myself for now).
So, have at it, dear readers: of the 5 main characters so far, what do you think their sexualities are, and why?
Friday, 30 September 2011
Burn-out, fade-away, what do you say?
I would really like comments with suggestions of light, frivolous things I can write about for the next week or two!
I wanted to get back to doing what I set up this blog to do, all those many (4, count 'em!) years ago, which was to write about my personal brand of feminism, feminism-allyhood, and politics in general (with some emphasis on sex and gender).
I just don't find it in me to do so, though. The past year and a half of British politics have really knocked the stuffing out of me in many ways, and even things that are likely to impact on me directly I don't feel like I want to write about or activist about the way I usually would be up in arms to do. I just want to crawl into my shell and hide until the nastiness stops.
Of course, that's not a highly effective strategy, but the trouble with "I get knocked down, but I get up again", is that then they knock you down again, and harder, and they keep doing that until you stay down, not from choice or submission but just because your body won't function well enough to make standing an option - the pain takes over, the instinct takes over, curl up, protect as best you can the vital organs, and wait until the violence stops.
I had been hoping that some of the Labour Party conference this year would revive a bit of vitality, but it hasn't yet, and even if it did, there's still over three years before the next election is due, and that's a huge amount of time in which damage can be done.
So, yeah - I think I'm experiencing a form of activist burn-out at the moment and retreating from those struggle-y type posts (as may be gathered from looking at recent posting history). I still want to get away from the dating theme, there's been far too much of that recently, and also I think I need to get away from the self-pitying "I feel lonely" stuff that I noted a couple of posts ago.
So, as I said at the top of this post: I'm looking for people to ask me questions or make suggestions of nice, easy, relaxing, light-hearted topics for me to blog about and give my opinion on.
I wanted to get back to doing what I set up this blog to do, all those many (4, count 'em!) years ago, which was to write about my personal brand of feminism, feminism-allyhood, and politics in general (with some emphasis on sex and gender).
I just don't find it in me to do so, though. The past year and a half of British politics have really knocked the stuffing out of me in many ways, and even things that are likely to impact on me directly I don't feel like I want to write about or activist about the way I usually would be up in arms to do. I just want to crawl into my shell and hide until the nastiness stops.
Of course, that's not a highly effective strategy, but the trouble with "I get knocked down, but I get up again", is that then they knock you down again, and harder, and they keep doing that until you stay down, not from choice or submission but just because your body won't function well enough to make standing an option - the pain takes over, the instinct takes over, curl up, protect as best you can the vital organs, and wait until the violence stops.
I had been hoping that some of the Labour Party conference this year would revive a bit of vitality, but it hasn't yet, and even if it did, there's still over three years before the next election is due, and that's a huge amount of time in which damage can be done.
So, yeah - I think I'm experiencing a form of activist burn-out at the moment and retreating from those struggle-y type posts (as may be gathered from looking at recent posting history). I still want to get away from the dating theme, there's been far too much of that recently, and also I think I need to get away from the self-pitying "I feel lonely" stuff that I noted a couple of posts ago.
So, as I said at the top of this post: I'm looking for people to ask me questions or make suggestions of nice, easy, relaxing, light-hearted topics for me to blog about and give my opinion on.
Wednesday, 28 September 2011
Symbolism and "breaking the barrier"
A word of warning: this post probably epitomises my tendency to overthink everything...
I promised myself yesterday's post would be the last one about dating for a while (unless my fortunes changed a LOT), but this is just too funny, and too good for making a point, to leave on the side:
(A caption at the start says that it was inspired by a real couple.)
Now, let's assume for the moment that the woman's behaviour was not, in fact, a passive-aggressive retaliation for (a) the initial act of farting in her presence, and (b) the double-standards then adopted by the man with regards to farting in each other's presence. If it was, then probably not great in r/l dating, but still a very funny "He really got what he deserved there!" comedy sketch.
With that assumption in mind, let's look at what happened in terms of the messages communicated.
The opening scene is everything in this. The initial message is the woman's "Maybe I should start leaving my stuff here." This could mean any number of things, from, "I want to move to the next level of commitment" to simply, "I spend a lot of time here, it would be practical if I had my own toiletries and such here." What boyfriend hears is, "I think we have moved to the next level of commitment," or something similar to that.
What follows is his assumption as to what that means. Particularly, his statement implies that he has not felt able to relax until this moment: he has been guarding against possible rejection (the belief that she might not want him if he allows himself to fart while he's with her). In psychoanalytic terms such as those discussed by Dr Eric Berne (you can get a sense of my attitude towards those theories from the preamble here, I suppose that he would be considered an anal personality with these issues, and the fact that the point over which the issue comes to the fore was specifically farting, would doubtless be used as evidence of that theory... but I digress.
The point is, he feels able to relax his guard and no longer as if he needs to pass the audition. She has accepted him.
So, he relaxes. And when he relaxes, the fart erupts.
This puts him in the uncomfortable position of having to justify feeling okay to fart around her, which he does by explaining the increased level of comfort/intimacy that he feels she has introduced with her request to leave stuff at his place.
Which sends the message to her that farting is seen as a romantic activity - a way of expressing intimacy, bonding, affection and romance. The "shared fart" becomes a symbol of what she likes about their relationship, one of the private things that says, "We are a Couple." To the boyfriend, it is just relief that the audition period is over.
So, when a week later she passes wind in his presence, he is surprised and offended. Such is the nature of assumed gender roles in dating, that men rarely view women as being "on audition" in the way they feel themselves to be (one of the regularly-stated pieces of pick-up artists' advice is "frame" - to project the idea that she is the one being auditioned, and thus project confidence). There is also the stereotype of women not farting generally.
It's possible to read her continued (and then exaggerated) farting in front of him, in a number of ways. There's the passive-aggressive stance that we rejected above; there's the continued, "this is our special signal of intimacy"; and there's the possibility that she has read his rejection of her fart as a rejection of her and now needs to find out what level of intimacy exists by periodically seeing how he reacts to her fart. It could even be that she feels like she has permission to do something that she normally feels denied, and now just wants to let rip (double-meaning entirely intended) and have fun with it (for instance, the "cup o'cheese!" attack towards the end!)
Whichever reason there is, it still adds up to one thing: farting is given an unusual significance and symbolism in the relationship that is created and escalated by the assumptions made by each party.
Nathan @ 21st Century Dating wrote recently about avoiding value judgements over certain actions, and the same kind of principle is at play here, even though it opens with a positive judgement (she has accepted me). The facts are that she has asked to leave stuff at his place; this could simply mean (as mentioned above) that she thinks it is practical given the amount of time they spend together. It is a value judgement that it means acceptance or greater intimacy.
In such situations, I have a tendency to go with a, "it sounds like..." statement, to check that my understanding reflects what she feels it means. For example, in the "maybe I should leave my stuff here" scenario, the reply could be, "I'd like that, because it sounds like you feel more comfortable around me."
While I was sceptical at Nathan's over the value of "can we talk about this?", in the video's scenario where the man becomes troubled by his girlfriend's developed pattern of farting in front of, or at, him, it is clear that "can we talk about this?" is important because the significance of the act is more entangled. If, instead of, "We broke the barrier, you know, we don't always have to..." he sets out that her making a big deal out of it is making him uncomfortable (essentially, re-erecting the barrier, or some such) then it opens the door for talking about feeling relaxed rather than applying significance to the act.
I promised myself yesterday's post would be the last one about dating for a while (unless my fortunes changed a LOT), but this is just too funny, and too good for making a point, to leave on the side:
Synopsis (using paraphrases):
Woman: "I want to start leaving my stuff at yours"
Man: **FARTS**
Woman: Eeeww!
Man: It's totally equivalent - you want to leave stuff here, so we "broke the barrier" of being comfortable around each other.
Time passes.
Woman: **Farts in front of boyfriend**
Man: Eeww!
Woman: We broke the barrier, remember?
Man: I broke the barrier!
Woman: **Farts in front of man at every opportunity, ending with...
Woman: **as they lean in to kiss she whispers, "I'm shitting my pants right now"**
Man ends the relationship
(A caption at the start says that it was inspired by a real couple.)
Now, let's assume for the moment that the woman's behaviour was not, in fact, a passive-aggressive retaliation for (a) the initial act of farting in her presence, and (b) the double-standards then adopted by the man with regards to farting in each other's presence. If it was, then probably not great in r/l dating, but still a very funny "He really got what he deserved there!" comedy sketch.
With that assumption in mind, let's look at what happened in terms of the messages communicated.
The opening scene is everything in this. The initial message is the woman's "Maybe I should start leaving my stuff here." This could mean any number of things, from, "I want to move to the next level of commitment" to simply, "I spend a lot of time here, it would be practical if I had my own toiletries and such here." What boyfriend hears is, "I think we have moved to the next level of commitment," or something similar to that.
What follows is his assumption as to what that means. Particularly, his statement implies that he has not felt able to relax until this moment: he has been guarding against possible rejection (the belief that she might not want him if he allows himself to fart while he's with her). In psychoanalytic terms such as those discussed by Dr Eric Berne (you can get a sense of my attitude towards those theories from the preamble here, I suppose that he would be considered an anal personality with these issues, and the fact that the point over which the issue comes to the fore was specifically farting, would doubtless be used as evidence of that theory... but I digress.
The point is, he feels able to relax his guard and no longer as if he needs to pass the audition. She has accepted him.
So, he relaxes. And when he relaxes, the fart erupts.
This puts him in the uncomfortable position of having to justify feeling okay to fart around her, which he does by explaining the increased level of comfort/intimacy that he feels she has introduced with her request to leave stuff at his place.
Which sends the message to her that farting is seen as a romantic activity - a way of expressing intimacy, bonding, affection and romance. The "shared fart" becomes a symbol of what she likes about their relationship, one of the private things that says, "We are a Couple." To the boyfriend, it is just relief that the audition period is over.
So, when a week later she passes wind in his presence, he is surprised and offended. Such is the nature of assumed gender roles in dating, that men rarely view women as being "on audition" in the way they feel themselves to be (one of the regularly-stated pieces of pick-up artists' advice is "frame" - to project the idea that she is the one being auditioned, and thus project confidence). There is also the stereotype of women not farting generally.
It's possible to read her continued (and then exaggerated) farting in front of him, in a number of ways. There's the passive-aggressive stance that we rejected above; there's the continued, "this is our special signal of intimacy"; and there's the possibility that she has read his rejection of her fart as a rejection of her and now needs to find out what level of intimacy exists by periodically seeing how he reacts to her fart. It could even be that she feels like she has permission to do something that she normally feels denied, and now just wants to let rip (double-meaning entirely intended) and have fun with it (for instance, the "cup o'cheese!" attack towards the end!)
Whichever reason there is, it still adds up to one thing: farting is given an unusual significance and symbolism in the relationship that is created and escalated by the assumptions made by each party.
Nathan @ 21st Century Dating wrote recently about avoiding value judgements over certain actions, and the same kind of principle is at play here, even though it opens with a positive judgement (she has accepted me). The facts are that she has asked to leave stuff at his place; this could simply mean (as mentioned above) that she thinks it is practical given the amount of time they spend together. It is a value judgement that it means acceptance or greater intimacy.
In such situations, I have a tendency to go with a, "it sounds like..." statement, to check that my understanding reflects what she feels it means. For example, in the "maybe I should leave my stuff here" scenario, the reply could be, "I'd like that, because it sounds like you feel more comfortable around me."
While I was sceptical at Nathan's over the value of "can we talk about this?", in the video's scenario where the man becomes troubled by his girlfriend's developed pattern of farting in front of, or at, him, it is clear that "can we talk about this?" is important because the significance of the act is more entangled. If, instead of, "We broke the barrier, you know, we don't always have to..." he sets out that her making a big deal out of it is making him uncomfortable (essentially, re-erecting the barrier, or some such) then it opens the door for talking about feeling relaxed rather than applying significance to the act.
Tuesday, 27 September 2011
Dating advice that makes sense? Why does it have to be astrology?!
After yesterday's moan about most dating advice saying I'm not a man, I thought I would share the one source of advice that seems to get me quite well.
Astrology.
Now, I am a sceptic, and as far as I am concerned I have seen very little to convince me that there is any basis whatsoever to astrology. Horoscopes have never given me any accurate description of the day about to come, and when I tested the Old Moore's Almanack predictions for 2008, the results came out against viewing astrology as a useful predictive measure. For that reason, what follows rankles a little with me, because it offends my sceptical, scientific mind.
I was born under Cancer, and typify the description of a Cancerian in ways that I do not feel like I fit any of the other star signs (an important test of any such personality-science claim is to see whether or not you fit any of the other categories equally well). That means that astrological advice on how to date me might just work, where other advice might not.
The Compatibility and Love blog has a post under its astrology section called How to Win a Cancer's Heart (specifically, a Cancerian man's heart), and for once the advice, while not completely applicable to Yours Truly, certainly gets a lot closer than the stuff I see elsewhere in describing what the messages are that I am sending.
It opens by talking about food, and with the old stereotype/cliché that "the way to a man's heart is through his stomach" (which always makes me think of the response, "Well, it is if you're stabbing upwards through his belly..."). Now, I self-identify as a tubby bitch, and certainly enjoy my food, but really, it's not a key thing.
Nevertheless, when the writer says, "If your Cancer partner loves cooking then support him in that and buy him little things for the kitchen," that has some element of truth. Inasmuch as, in general supporting someone in something they love doing is generally a good way to show you relate to them and respect them and want them to be happy. I definitely like gifts of spices and herbs and nicknacks for my kitchen, because I like cooking. I wouldn't go so far as to say that it is the "best way to win his heart." Cook for me, or encourage me in my cooking, yes, very much appreciated, but it's not the big deal I see that post claiming it to be.
Much better is the rest of the advice. "They are also great nurturers and so, if you’d like a bit of pampering and indulgence stick around with your Cancer partner." Definitely true for me. Althoug, because of being a Dom and a sadist, "pampering" can include spanking, and "indulgence" can include denial and bondage, too. But the spirit with which those things are meant often really is one of pampering and nurture and indulgence! (Is it any wonder that I have a certain fondness for the Daddy Dom type role?)
With the principles I laid out in my earlier post about "who pays for a date?", I think readers will be well aware that "pay your own way" is important - but so is the ability to give treats, not just receive them.
Being grounded is also very good - being able to take flight is also good, but the sense of having "someone to come home to" is important to me. Readers may recall that my standards and checklists post listed under "Dislikes/turn-offs", that I dislike it when a woman appears to be always travelling (i.e. a long list of places they've been, and a longer list of places they want to go). In the original text, I added "Just settle down already!" to that point.
Possibly the part that strikes truest for me, though, is the final point where the post talks about a Cancer needing to retreat for a while:
It's been a feature of my behaviour since I was very small (and some people called it "sulking" when I did). But if you give me space to sort out my head, then yep - it's definitely appreciated. And, just to be clear, it needn't be a huge amount of physical space: if I'm just sitting and thinking, as long as I can do so in peace, I don't always mind if you're actually there at the same time (if I need to retreat physically to another room, don't sweat it either).
***
All of which frustrates my scientific, sceptical mind, because astrology doesn't work!
One of the sources I have for advice on writing fiction suggests using a star sign as the basis of the underlying personality of a character in your story to help you differentiate characters from one another in writing them. It seems to me that in that way, there is some value in the astrological approach. I'm a typical Cancer, and happen to have been born in the right part of the year for that to fit the astrological theory; but if my personality were the same and I'd been born a month earlier or later, then it would still be useful to know that I was typical of the Cancerian personality type.
In my previous post about dating advice, I complained about the universal assumptions applied concerning men, and how I don't fit the statements often made by "experts" about what "men" are like. The benefit that can be gained from the astrologers' advice on dating is that it automatically bases its assumptions on there being different types of men, and different types of women, who interact in ways peculiar to their type. It removes that universalised basis for advice. As outlined above, there's a type of advice from astrology that actually applies reasonably well for me, because it isn't trying to apply the same principles to everybody.
I don't think astrology is a great basis for anything. Although the principles evolved over the course of many centuries based on the experiences and learning of its practitioners, I don't think that there is much scientific basis for its classifications of personality types (regardless of the clearly barmy idea that personality type is linked to when in the year you were born!) and it is basically developed on the basis of anecdotal evidence.
Nevertheless, it seems pretty clear to me that dating advice would benefit from a more nuanced approach that recognised different types more explicitly and was based on deliberate observation. There are some people who have developed quite broad categories (fewer than half a dozen), but I feel like these don't have the depth, instead tending to group too many characteristics together under one label (for example, Dr Helen Fisher's theory about neurochemicals setting temperament - when I get a chance, I intend to read and review her dating advice book that's based on it).
The sort of thing I'm describing as ideal, the obvious structure that springs to mind is the MBTI (Myers-Briggs Type Inventory - the thing that produces four-letter codes like ETSP and so on, that some employers use to decide if you're a Manager or an Architect or whatever). There certainly are websites out there that claim to have advice or matching techniques (particularly dating websites) based on MBTI, but the most rational advice seems to be this piece from The Mind Behind, which concludes that it's really based on guesswork which types match well with which other types, or if there's any actual influence at all. As far as how to make sense of how your date of MBTI type "abcd", I haven't seen much in the first ten pages on Google for [MBTI dating advice].
Obviously, for the practical advice-giving side, any scheme of dating-personality types would have to have some quick, effective and reliable form of diagnostic of the type of person you're trying to date (e.g. Is he a Fire cake personality? Is she a Water doughnut personality? or whatever the terms for the classifications might be...) If you can't figure out fairly easily what type of person you are dealing with (i.e. without putting them through a long quiz and totting up scores) then it's not a realistic approach in most dating circumstances, especially if you want to figure out, "is zie all that into me?" and even more so if you want to figure out how to make a good first impression! Astrology has a short-cut because most people know their star sign (and if they don't, they know their own birthday!) - the problem is that it relies on assumption instead of diagnosis to make that short-cut. I have heard claims that the Enneagram system can provide a more appropriate "quick diagnostic" of a person's type, although personally I remain sceptical of its value.
The scheme should then also give accurate assessments of what's going on - it needs to get it right when it says, "zie's just not that into you" and also when it says, "this one could be a keeper." Similarly, it should give accurate advice on how best to indicate your own interest in them.
I am not the best placed person to try to develop it myself, of course. My suspicion is that the typical personality-type tests (enneagram, MBTI, Big-5, etc) are not finely-tuned to the specific situations of dating, romance and so on. Inasmuch as the generalised approach to communication is covered by these schemes, they do have some relevance, but I think the specific elements that come through in dating are not so clearly defined. I suspect that Dr Fisher's work, while closely focussed on dating structures, suffers from a particular mindset in terms of what's going on (i.e. she seems to come primarily from a neurological/biochemical interpretation). It needs something that is based specifically on how people actually behave when dating and/or in a relationship. Unfortunately, a lot of people with a "one-size-fits-all" viewpoint (I'm looking at you, various different schools of PUA thought) insist that their observations support their theory that all people do it the same way.
Astrology.
Now, I am a sceptic, and as far as I am concerned I have seen very little to convince me that there is any basis whatsoever to astrology. Horoscopes have never given me any accurate description of the day about to come, and when I tested the Old Moore's Almanack predictions for 2008, the results came out against viewing astrology as a useful predictive measure. For that reason, what follows rankles a little with me, because it offends my sceptical, scientific mind.
I was born under Cancer, and typify the description of a Cancerian in ways that I do not feel like I fit any of the other star signs (an important test of any such personality-science claim is to see whether or not you fit any of the other categories equally well). That means that astrological advice on how to date me might just work, where other advice might not.
The Compatibility and Love blog has a post under its astrology section called How to Win a Cancer's Heart (specifically, a Cancerian man's heart), and for once the advice, while not completely applicable to Yours Truly, certainly gets a lot closer than the stuff I see elsewhere in describing what the messages are that I am sending.
It opens by talking about food, and with the old stereotype/cliché that "the way to a man's heart is through his stomach" (which always makes me think of the response, "Well, it is if you're stabbing upwards through his belly..."). Now, I self-identify as a tubby bitch, and certainly enjoy my food, but really, it's not a key thing.
Nevertheless, when the writer says, "If your Cancer partner loves cooking then support him in that and buy him little things for the kitchen," that has some element of truth. Inasmuch as, in general supporting someone in something they love doing is generally a good way to show you relate to them and respect them and want them to be happy. I definitely like gifts of spices and herbs and nicknacks for my kitchen, because I like cooking. I wouldn't go so far as to say that it is the "best way to win his heart." Cook for me, or encourage me in my cooking, yes, very much appreciated, but it's not the big deal I see that post claiming it to be.
Much better is the rest of the advice. "They are also great nurturers and so, if you’d like a bit of pampering and indulgence stick around with your Cancer partner." Definitely true for me. Althoug, because of being a Dom and a sadist, "pampering" can include spanking, and "indulgence" can include denial and bondage, too. But the spirit with which those things are meant often really is one of pampering and nurture and indulgence! (Is it any wonder that I have a certain fondness for the Daddy Dom type role?)
To win their heart don;t be skimpy with payments. Pay your own way; buy them treats; be seductive and stay grounded. Cancerians love grounded people.
With the principles I laid out in my earlier post about "who pays for a date?", I think readers will be well aware that "pay your own way" is important - but so is the ability to give treats, not just receive them.
Being grounded is also very good - being able to take flight is also good, but the sense of having "someone to come home to" is important to me. Readers may recall that my standards and checklists post listed under "Dislikes/turn-offs", that I dislike it when a woman appears to be always travelling (i.e. a long list of places they've been, and a longer list of places they want to go). In the original text, I added "Just settle down already!" to that point.
Possibly the part that strikes truest for me, though, is the final point where the post talks about a Cancer needing to retreat for a while:
Cancers are known for going off and thinking about things when the going gets tough. ... Give them that space and they will come back to you pretty quickly.
It's been a feature of my behaviour since I was very small (and some people called it "sulking" when I did). But if you give me space to sort out my head, then yep - it's definitely appreciated. And, just to be clear, it needn't be a huge amount of physical space: if I'm just sitting and thinking, as long as I can do so in peace, I don't always mind if you're actually there at the same time (if I need to retreat physically to another room, don't sweat it either).
***
All of which frustrates my scientific, sceptical mind, because astrology doesn't work!
One of the sources I have for advice on writing fiction suggests using a star sign as the basis of the underlying personality of a character in your story to help you differentiate characters from one another in writing them. It seems to me that in that way, there is some value in the astrological approach. I'm a typical Cancer, and happen to have been born in the right part of the year for that to fit the astrological theory; but if my personality were the same and I'd been born a month earlier or later, then it would still be useful to know that I was typical of the Cancerian personality type.
In my previous post about dating advice, I complained about the universal assumptions applied concerning men, and how I don't fit the statements often made by "experts" about what "men" are like. The benefit that can be gained from the astrologers' advice on dating is that it automatically bases its assumptions on there being different types of men, and different types of women, who interact in ways peculiar to their type. It removes that universalised basis for advice. As outlined above, there's a type of advice from astrology that actually applies reasonably well for me, because it isn't trying to apply the same principles to everybody.
I don't think astrology is a great basis for anything. Although the principles evolved over the course of many centuries based on the experiences and learning of its practitioners, I don't think that there is much scientific basis for its classifications of personality types (regardless of the clearly barmy idea that personality type is linked to when in the year you were born!) and it is basically developed on the basis of anecdotal evidence.
Nevertheless, it seems pretty clear to me that dating advice would benefit from a more nuanced approach that recognised different types more explicitly and was based on deliberate observation. There are some people who have developed quite broad categories (fewer than half a dozen), but I feel like these don't have the depth, instead tending to group too many characteristics together under one label (for example, Dr Helen Fisher's theory about neurochemicals setting temperament - when I get a chance, I intend to read and review her dating advice book that's based on it).
The sort of thing I'm describing as ideal, the obvious structure that springs to mind is the MBTI (Myers-Briggs Type Inventory - the thing that produces four-letter codes like ETSP and so on, that some employers use to decide if you're a Manager or an Architect or whatever). There certainly are websites out there that claim to have advice or matching techniques (particularly dating websites) based on MBTI, but the most rational advice seems to be this piece from The Mind Behind, which concludes that it's really based on guesswork which types match well with which other types, or if there's any actual influence at all. As far as how to make sense of how your date of MBTI type "abcd", I haven't seen much in the first ten pages on Google for [MBTI dating advice].
Obviously, for the practical advice-giving side, any scheme of dating-personality types would have to have some quick, effective and reliable form of diagnostic of the type of person you're trying to date (e.g. Is he a Fire cake personality? Is she a Water doughnut personality? or whatever the terms for the classifications might be...) If you can't figure out fairly easily what type of person you are dealing with (i.e. without putting them through a long quiz and totting up scores) then it's not a realistic approach in most dating circumstances, especially if you want to figure out, "is zie all that into me?" and even more so if you want to figure out how to make a good first impression! Astrology has a short-cut because most people know their star sign (and if they don't, they know their own birthday!) - the problem is that it relies on assumption instead of diagnosis to make that short-cut. I have heard claims that the Enneagram system can provide a more appropriate "quick diagnostic" of a person's type, although personally I remain sceptical of its value.
The scheme should then also give accurate assessments of what's going on - it needs to get it right when it says, "zie's just not that into you" and also when it says, "this one could be a keeper." Similarly, it should give accurate advice on how best to indicate your own interest in them.
I am not the best placed person to try to develop it myself, of course. My suspicion is that the typical personality-type tests (enneagram, MBTI, Big-5, etc) are not finely-tuned to the specific situations of dating, romance and so on. Inasmuch as the generalised approach to communication is covered by these schemes, they do have some relevance, but I think the specific elements that come through in dating are not so clearly defined. I suspect that Dr Fisher's work, while closely focussed on dating structures, suffers from a particular mindset in terms of what's going on (i.e. she seems to come primarily from a neurological/biochemical interpretation). It needs something that is based specifically on how people actually behave when dating and/or in a relationship. Unfortunately, a lot of people with a "one-size-fits-all" viewpoint (I'm looking at you, various different schools of PUA thought) insist that their observations support their theory that all people do it the same way.
Monday, 26 September 2011
"Oh. I guess I must not be a man, then"
We're still on the dating theme here - I think I am working through my current acute sense of being sad and lonely by writing about this stuff a lot. And especially, writing about things that seem to be frustrating me in my efforts to find someone to be with (not just anyone, mind - the right someone to be with!) Anyway, my current slide into desperation aside, on with today's post:
A lot of the time, I see dating advice (particularly that aimed at women) and come away with a curious sense of disconnect. Typically, it comes in the form of "Men do X" or "Men are Y", or "Women are A and men are B". So often, I look at what they're saying and it feels like I don't X, and I'm not Y, and I tend more to A than B. It's hard to avoid the conclusion that forms the title for this post: "I guess must not be a man, then." I wrote a brief remark to that effect in On Being Not Quite But Almost A Man, and there are plenty of posts under the tag "men" about how it feels as though generalisations about men are harmful and misleading.
So, either the advice-givers are full of shit, or I'm not really a man, despite having all the physical sex characteristics of a man, and having no reason to suspect that my sex chromosomes are anything but XY, and being MAAB (Male Assigned At Birth). If it's true that I'm not a man, then it would be really helpful if people would stop mistaking me for one and come up with new dating advice that relates to whatever-the-fuck it is that I am, so that women know how to deal with me, instead of trying to apply the rules for something that I'm not (i.e. a "man").
For instance, from what I've seen of the advice given by Evan Marc Katz ("Dating Coach for Smart, Strong, Successful Women"), about 90% has no relationship to what I'm like, and a woman following his advice would lose me or dump me in the mistaken belief that I was not into her enough. (There again, Mr Katz appears to assume that the women he's writing for are of a certain social class and are dating men in a similar social class, and I am not, to date, a member of the social class, so maybe that's why it doesn't apply - but in that case, don't over generalise!)
As you may have noticed, I have a hate-on for He's Just Not That Into You, and a huge part of that hatred is because of this "Oh. I guess I'm not a man, then," response. A common theme, exemplified by both HJNTIY and EMK, is that when men write advice for women, they suddenly know what all men are thinking, all the time. Greg Behrendt writes that "I know how men think, because I am one." EMK in his latest video talks about how he gives "the male perspective". I'm equally suspicious of women telling men how all women think - or indeed, anyone telling anyone else how all X think. Chances are, there are more counter examples than there are people who fit the generalisation (just as there are more words in the English language that break the rule "I before E, except after C" than conform to it). Or, maybe all those counter-examples aren't men, or aren't women, or aren't whatever the group is you're talking about.
Here's another example of some analysis or advice where I felt as though I came out as strongly on the "female" side of the debate: Miss Singlefied wrote: Stages of Attraction: Men vs. Women.
According to that post, men look at the gut-feeling, instinct, "would I like to fuck her?" straight away, and then only later look at the emotional connection, and then finally look at the rational questions of "Is this relationship material?"
Women, she says, might have an underlying burst of the "wanna fuck that!", but really, the first major thought is, "Could we work?"...
...before moving on to seeking the emotional connection and finally focussing on, "would I like to fuck him?" once the emotional and practical stuff is settled in her mind.
Typically, I have followed the path ascribed to women more closely than that ascribed to men's thought processes. Yes, I do experience an initial "lust-attraction" response, but what I want to know from the off is, "Could this work? Is this relationship material?" and all those questions in the "job interview" stage. This is one reason why I am slow to open up to a relationship in general: I'm still sorting out the "looks good on paper" questions. I tend to be quite eager to get to the emotional stage, so sometimes there's both going on at once, but as the sense of security and possible future grows (that is, phase one draws to its end), then the emotional involvement grows as well (that is, phase two starts to get into gear).
Although I have had sex on first dates, typically some sense of emotional comfort with the person has already developed through phone, email and instant messenger contact, and I only feel ready if the real-life meeting feels like it confirms the impressions from the earlier communications. In other words, I'm not really ready for sex until I have at least some level of emotional comfort with someone. Those first-date sex experiences, I feel, were much better because of that.
So, where does that leave me? I date like a woman? When you recall that I would prefer to be approached than do the approaching, partly from my introversion and partly from wanting to feel as much desired as desiring, then perhaps this is true: maybe I do want to be dated like a woman, instead of like a man. After all, on my last "first date" where I ended up having sex, I was the one putting up an "anti-slut defence" and she was the one who wanted to drag me back to hers to fuck. But in other ways, I am definitely not interested in stereotypically "dating like a woman", in that my attitude towards sex is very open, I expect or want to be in control a lot of the time (BDSM Dominant, after all!), and I want to be able to pay my own way, for example.
A lot of the time, I see dating advice (particularly that aimed at women) and come away with a curious sense of disconnect. Typically, it comes in the form of "Men do X" or "Men are Y", or "Women are A and men are B". So often, I look at what they're saying and it feels like I don't X, and I'm not Y, and I tend more to A than B. It's hard to avoid the conclusion that forms the title for this post: "I guess must not be a man, then." I wrote a brief remark to that effect in On Being Not Quite But Almost A Man, and there are plenty of posts under the tag "men" about how it feels as though generalisations about men are harmful and misleading.
So, either the advice-givers are full of shit, or I'm not really a man, despite having all the physical sex characteristics of a man, and having no reason to suspect that my sex chromosomes are anything but XY, and being MAAB (Male Assigned At Birth). If it's true that I'm not a man, then it would be really helpful if people would stop mistaking me for one and come up with new dating advice that relates to whatever-the-fuck it is that I am, so that women know how to deal with me, instead of trying to apply the rules for something that I'm not (i.e. a "man").
For instance, from what I've seen of the advice given by Evan Marc Katz ("Dating Coach for Smart, Strong, Successful Women"), about 90% has no relationship to what I'm like, and a woman following his advice would lose me or dump me in the mistaken belief that I was not into her enough. (There again, Mr Katz appears to assume that the women he's writing for are of a certain social class and are dating men in a similar social class, and I am not, to date, a member of the social class, so maybe that's why it doesn't apply - but in that case, don't over generalise!)
As you may have noticed, I have a hate-on for He's Just Not That Into You, and a huge part of that hatred is because of this "Oh. I guess I'm not a man, then," response. A common theme, exemplified by both HJNTIY and EMK, is that when men write advice for women, they suddenly know what all men are thinking, all the time. Greg Behrendt writes that "I know how men think, because I am one." EMK in his latest video talks about how he gives "the male perspective". I'm equally suspicious of women telling men how all women think - or indeed, anyone telling anyone else how all X think. Chances are, there are more counter examples than there are people who fit the generalisation (just as there are more words in the English language that break the rule "I before E, except after C" than conform to it). Or, maybe all those counter-examples aren't men, or aren't women, or aren't whatever the group is you're talking about.
Here's another example of some analysis or advice where I felt as though I came out as strongly on the "female" side of the debate: Miss Singlefied wrote: Stages of Attraction: Men vs. Women.
According to that post, men look at the gut-feeling, instinct, "would I like to fuck her?" straight away, and then only later look at the emotional connection, and then finally look at the rational questions of "Is this relationship material?"
Women, she says, might have an underlying burst of the "wanna fuck that!", but really, the first major thought is, "Could we work?"...
We want to make sure we’re not wasting our time, so we get the pertinent stuff out of the way. Are you suitable for me? Do we have a future together? What are your credentials? ... It’s like a job interview and if a guy looks good on paper, we’re very willing to open ourselves up for the next level of attraction - emotional.
...before moving on to seeking the emotional connection and finally focussing on, "would I like to fuck him?" once the emotional and practical stuff is settled in her mind.
Typically, I have followed the path ascribed to women more closely than that ascribed to men's thought processes. Yes, I do experience an initial "lust-attraction" response, but what I want to know from the off is, "Could this work? Is this relationship material?" and all those questions in the "job interview" stage. This is one reason why I am slow to open up to a relationship in general: I'm still sorting out the "looks good on paper" questions. I tend to be quite eager to get to the emotional stage, so sometimes there's both going on at once, but as the sense of security and possible future grows (that is, phase one draws to its end), then the emotional involvement grows as well (that is, phase two starts to get into gear).
Although I have had sex on first dates, typically some sense of emotional comfort with the person has already developed through phone, email and instant messenger contact, and I only feel ready if the real-life meeting feels like it confirms the impressions from the earlier communications. In other words, I'm not really ready for sex until I have at least some level of emotional comfort with someone. Those first-date sex experiences, I feel, were much better because of that.
So, where does that leave me? I date like a woman? When you recall that I would prefer to be approached than do the approaching, partly from my introversion and partly from wanting to feel as much desired as desiring, then perhaps this is true: maybe I do want to be dated like a woman, instead of like a man. After all, on my last "first date" where I ended up having sex, I was the one putting up an "anti-slut defence" and she was the one who wanted to drag me back to hers to fuck. But in other ways, I am definitely not interested in stereotypically "dating like a woman", in that my attitude towards sex is very open, I expect or want to be in control a lot of the time (BDSM Dominant, after all!), and I want to be able to pay my own way, for example.
Saturday, 24 September 2011
Thought experiment: dating and availability
Still on the dating/pick-up theme, and starting to wonder if this blog is turning into a dating blog! Anyway...
NML @ Baggage Reclaim has a post titled Behind every excuse is the real reason. In it, she mentions the idea that whenever a man says he is too busy, it really means that He's Just Not That Into You (see also my notes on Chapter 2.
Compare NML with HJNTIY:
NML:
HJNTIY:
Basically, the same points in different orders. And the HJNTIY links explain how I feel about them!
But here's the hypothetical.
Supposing there's a woman dating a man. The man has actually been so busy that he often gets home after work and just collapses, hasn't the energy to call anyone, not even the woman he's dating. She's making excuses for him, he's trotting out the line about being so busy, she's starting to get sceptical of it all (as advised by HJNTIY, or whoever). Let's assume that she likes his basic personality, and they've got on well whenever they've been on dates - he's got a lot of positives and that's why she wants to make excuses for him.
Then, the next time she calls, the tired, bleary-eyed guy says, "Look, I feel like I'm not currently emotionally available for you because of this work I have to get done. That's not fair on you, or on me. I really really like you and wish we could be together, but it's obviously not going to happen until I have my job back in proper order. I'll give you a call in 6 months, and if it's still like this I'll just say "so long" and we forget each other, but if I have things under control where I have the time and energy to treat you the way you deserve, then if you're still looking, I'd like to get back together."
She says, "So, what? You're dumping me and hoping to hook up in the future? or am I just supposed to hang around and wait?"
He says, "It's up to you. I can't give you the time and energy you deserve right now - the proper care and attention that I would like to be able to give you. If I get to a place where I can, I would like a second chance, but it's up to you."
She hangs up, then sobs to her friends how he's dumped her. Later, she reflects on what he was trying to do with acknowledging he couldn't be what she needed at that time.
6 months later, she's still single and looking, and he has managed to delegate some of his responsibilities to very capable underlings, they hired a guy to replace the women who left for a better job at another firm (and whose job our male subject has had to cover as well as his own for the past few months), and now our male subject has much more energy and time available as a result of not doing two jobs at once, and having some help with the one he has got. He's no longer too tired to stand when he gets home. One evening, he looks at his iPhone and sees her number still in it, remembers his promise to her, and gives her a text or a call.
Given that she really liked him before, even when he wasn't attentive enough and that made her sad, here's the question:
Is it a good idea for her to take him back and see if things have really changed?
From his point of view:
Is it a good idea to send that text/make that phone call? If not, what should he have done instead?
Personally, I hate burnt bridges, so I would want the option to try again later if I realised that current circumstances were making it impossible (for instance, if I started dating someone and then early on in the relationship, my depression attacked hard and made me emotionally unavailable, I would not want that to ruin my chances forever). I guess this hypothetical is to ask whether there is any advantage to a guy for acknowledging his own current lack of availability, in terms of a future pay-off? (If she has to dump him because he's made her so miserable by not being available, I assume that there would be very little chance of redemption.) Must there be an automatic assumption that if he breaks it off then he was never that interested, or is there a way for a genuinely interested but genuinely (temporarily) snowed-under guy to salvage the situation?
(Of course, there are also the questions of what if she has found someone else in the meantime, and, what if she is now the one who is unavailable due to work pressures?)
So, over to you, dear reader(s): what advice would you give my two star-crossed daters?
NML @ Baggage Reclaim has a post titled Behind every excuse is the real reason. In it, she mentions the idea that whenever a man says he is too busy, it really means that He's Just Not That Into You (see also my notes on Chapter 2.
Compare NML with HJNTIY:
NML:
Likewise saying “I’ve been really busy” gives the impression that you’re so busy (ya know busier than a world leader) that you haven’t had the time to contact or see them whereas saying “I’m not interested / am half-hearted / have been trying to get back with my ex” will not only have you in the position of saying something that most people squirm at and possibly inviting ‘conflict’, but if you’re the type of person that likes to hedge your bets, you may want to keep them as a rainy day option. If anything you’re hoping they’ll take the hint and do your job for you and at the worst of things, you may be hoping the excuse allows you to avail of their ‘usefulness’.
HJNTIY:
"He is a man made up entirely of your excuses. And the minute you stop making excuses for him, he will disappear from your life."
...
List of common excuses:
* tired from work
* stressed by project working on
...
When a guy is into you he…
* calls
...
* will be up for sex even if he starts work at 4am next morning (even if it's as POTUS)
...
Men ... Prefer not to tell because afraid of reaction ("We are quite sure you will kill us, yourself, or both – or even worse, cry and yell at us.")
Basically, the same points in different orders. And the HJNTIY links explain how I feel about them!
But here's the hypothetical.
Supposing there's a woman dating a man. The man has actually been so busy that he often gets home after work and just collapses, hasn't the energy to call anyone, not even the woman he's dating. She's making excuses for him, he's trotting out the line about being so busy, she's starting to get sceptical of it all (as advised by HJNTIY, or whoever). Let's assume that she likes his basic personality, and they've got on well whenever they've been on dates - he's got a lot of positives and that's why she wants to make excuses for him.
Then, the next time she calls, the tired, bleary-eyed guy says, "Look, I feel like I'm not currently emotionally available for you because of this work I have to get done. That's not fair on you, or on me. I really really like you and wish we could be together, but it's obviously not going to happen until I have my job back in proper order. I'll give you a call in 6 months, and if it's still like this I'll just say "so long" and we forget each other, but if I have things under control where I have the time and energy to treat you the way you deserve, then if you're still looking, I'd like to get back together."
She says, "So, what? You're dumping me and hoping to hook up in the future? or am I just supposed to hang around and wait?"
He says, "It's up to you. I can't give you the time and energy you deserve right now - the proper care and attention that I would like to be able to give you. If I get to a place where I can, I would like a second chance, but it's up to you."
She hangs up, then sobs to her friends how he's dumped her. Later, she reflects on what he was trying to do with acknowledging he couldn't be what she needed at that time.
6 months later, she's still single and looking, and he has managed to delegate some of his responsibilities to very capable underlings, they hired a guy to replace the women who left for a better job at another firm (and whose job our male subject has had to cover as well as his own for the past few months), and now our male subject has much more energy and time available as a result of not doing two jobs at once, and having some help with the one he has got. He's no longer too tired to stand when he gets home. One evening, he looks at his iPhone and sees her number still in it, remembers his promise to her, and gives her a text or a call.
Given that she really liked him before, even when he wasn't attentive enough and that made her sad, here's the question:
Is it a good idea for her to take him back and see if things have really changed?
From his point of view:
Is it a good idea to send that text/make that phone call? If not, what should he have done instead?
- ended it cleanly in the first place and moved on 6 months ago instead of dragging it out?
- deleted her number in his phone (and then got back on the dating scene)?
- texted her and lied that he was still unavailable, just in case she was still waiting?
Personally, I hate burnt bridges, so I would want the option to try again later if I realised that current circumstances were making it impossible (for instance, if I started dating someone and then early on in the relationship, my depression attacked hard and made me emotionally unavailable, I would not want that to ruin my chances forever). I guess this hypothetical is to ask whether there is any advantage to a guy for acknowledging his own current lack of availability, in terms of a future pay-off? (If she has to dump him because he's made her so miserable by not being available, I assume that there would be very little chance of redemption.) Must there be an automatic assumption that if he breaks it off then he was never that interested, or is there a way for a genuinely interested but genuinely (temporarily) snowed-under guy to salvage the situation?
(Of course, there are also the questions of what if she has found someone else in the meantime, and, what if she is now the one who is unavailable due to work pressures?)
So, over to you, dear reader(s): what advice would you give my two star-crossed daters?
Thursday, 22 September 2011
Case study of my pick-up problem
Today I had a clear-cut example of the situation where my brain won't give me words quickly enough, when I want to make an approach to a woman and start to chat her up. It was so clear-cut, in fact, that I thought I would use it as a demonstration.
The situation was that I was walking along the street in a nearby town when I saw an attractive woman in my age range, smiling and looking at her mobile phone (apparently amused by something she had just read). We were walking towards each other casually from a range of about 10-15 yards, so it felt like if I was going to approach anyone, this was an opportunity to do so without interrupting someone who was (a) in a hurry or (b) in the middle of something else. My focus was immediately on her smile and the apparent cause of it, but as soon as I thought of commenting about seeing that she had read something amusing, my brain countermanded that idea: the instant rebuttal was that it is none of my damn business what she's seen on her phone. Who knows, maybe a pick-up artist would have gone with it anyway but with my brain offering such a caution, I couldn't deliver the line with the confidence required.
However, I was sure that something to do with the smile was a good way to go. However, the range was now closing rapidly and the ideas I had all hinged somehow on the phone, which I could not find appropriate as an opener.
It was now or never, our paths were about to intersect. I still had nothing I could find acceptable!
Two steps onward after we had passed each other, the pieces fell into place: a slightly corny line, but absolutely genuinely meant and appropriate:
"Wow, you have the cutest smile!"
Maybe it would have worked, and maybe it wouldn't, but it definitely wouldn't if I had to loop back around and approach her deliberately instead of by "happy accident", and I was all out of back-up plans. So the opportunity was lost, simply because it took two steps too long to arrive at it. The really daft thing was, I immediately filed away that line and for the rest of the time until I had to come home, I was looking for opportunities to use it on someone else (but nobody else had a cute smile today).
The puzzle now is, does this mean that it would be helpful having a few "stock lines" like that "cute smile" one, ready just in case of an appropriate situation in which to use it, or would it still take just as long to figure out that it was an appropriate situation? Would the lines, in fact, lose the congruence/genuineness that could make them effective, if I had them "waiting in the wings", so to speak? Can I use such a shortcut, or do I still need to work on getting that brain of mine to churn through the options more quickly? I remain of the opinion that it typically produces inappropriate suggestions as the first option, for example, yesterday's report. Today's outing provided more evidence, but this time I didn't use them but kept on hoping for something usable in the time frame on several other missed approaches.
The situation was that I was walking along the street in a nearby town when I saw an attractive woman in my age range, smiling and looking at her mobile phone (apparently amused by something she had just read). We were walking towards each other casually from a range of about 10-15 yards, so it felt like if I was going to approach anyone, this was an opportunity to do so without interrupting someone who was (a) in a hurry or (b) in the middle of something else. My focus was immediately on her smile and the apparent cause of it, but as soon as I thought of commenting about seeing that she had read something amusing, my brain countermanded that idea: the instant rebuttal was that it is none of my damn business what she's seen on her phone. Who knows, maybe a pick-up artist would have gone with it anyway but with my brain offering such a caution, I couldn't deliver the line with the confidence required.
However, I was sure that something to do with the smile was a good way to go. However, the range was now closing rapidly and the ideas I had all hinged somehow on the phone, which I could not find appropriate as an opener.
It was now or never, our paths were about to intersect. I still had nothing I could find acceptable!
Two steps onward after we had passed each other, the pieces fell into place: a slightly corny line, but absolutely genuinely meant and appropriate:
"Wow, you have the cutest smile!"
Maybe it would have worked, and maybe it wouldn't, but it definitely wouldn't if I had to loop back around and approach her deliberately instead of by "happy accident", and I was all out of back-up plans. So the opportunity was lost, simply because it took two steps too long to arrive at it. The really daft thing was, I immediately filed away that line and for the rest of the time until I had to come home, I was looking for opportunities to use it on someone else (but nobody else had a cute smile today).
The puzzle now is, does this mean that it would be helpful having a few "stock lines" like that "cute smile" one, ready just in case of an appropriate situation in which to use it, or would it still take just as long to figure out that it was an appropriate situation? Would the lines, in fact, lose the congruence/genuineness that could make them effective, if I had them "waiting in the wings", so to speak? Can I use such a shortcut, or do I still need to work on getting that brain of mine to churn through the options more quickly? I remain of the opinion that it typically produces inappropriate suggestions as the first option, for example, yesterday's report. Today's outing provided more evidence, but this time I didn't use them but kept on hoping for something usable in the time frame on several other missed approaches.
Wednesday, 21 September 2011
Yet more pick-up updatery
About three weeks since my last update on this ongoing project to see if any of the advice out there for men on how to get a date with a woman, is any use to this introverted tubby bitch dude (Yours Truly).
With the unfortunate interlude of a funeral (not the best place to pick up chicks, especially when most of them are your cousins!) and some general issues of feeling poorly, the basic report is as follows:
It feels as though everyone else in my home town is pair-bonded except me! **wail!** (For more on this patheticness, see my last update...)
Let that be as it may. There are a fair few women I spot when I go out shopping or whatever who do not have barrier indicators up, who are attractive, have body language that suggests at least a pleasant surface temperament, and so on. Women, in other words, whom I would at least like to find out if they are interested in dating (me). As discussed in previous updates, most often the problem is that I can't form something to say until after she's moved on and the opportunity has passed (again, see my discussion of this in my last update).
Today, though, I went for two approaches at the supermarket and I did it by doing my best to go with the advice of "just say anything, confidently". Honest truth? Didn't go so well.
First one I actually had a bit of a heads-up: I saw her going into the supermarket while I was still collecting my shallow trolley from the trolley rank. Figured I would have a chance to catch up once in the store while she was picking her first item or two, so I had a chance to think how I might do it. Fortune favours the brave, 'tis said, and so it seemed on this occasion. I saw her visiting a few shelves, gaze across them for a while and then come away with an empty basket. The next shelf was one I was going to anyway, so I had my opening remark: "You look like someone spoilt for choice!"
It seemed to work at first, we shared a few words about the difficulty of making choices, I got some encouraging giggles, just as I was about to move the conversation along and (hopefully) reel her in and get her number, it seemed to stutter and she went on her way. Bummer. (I wonder about the "you look like..." form, and whether it would be better to make an "I" statement about what I've seen to invite shared connection, for example, in this case would I have done better to open with, "Hey, I have trouble choosing sometimes, too!"?) So anyway, it looked good but crashed and burned. That was with a line I was able to line up before I made the actual approach, though.
The second shot I got was when two very attractive women in (I would guess) their early twenties joined the check-out queue right behind me. I looked directly at them and just said the first thing that came into my head, with all the confidence that I feel at my best. This comment turned out to be, "Wow! My lucky day!" (so, my brain went with "Direct game" there, it seems). Zero reaction. I mean, not even the so-called "stinky-fart face" (the wrinkled-nose look of disgust, that resembles the expression of someone who's just smelt a stinky fart and often signifies a guy's failure to connect with a woman). Just cut me out and started talking to each other about something completely different.
I'm willing to bet that my brain is not a reliable source of things to say on the spur of the moment, and that there are probably myriad reasons why that comment was a very bad one to use as an opening line.
(I tend to say that the reason I overthink everything is because in my life so far, the consequences of overthinking have been a whole lot better than the consequences of underthinking.)
What's the next step? Well, I'm counting the first encounter as a positive experience (she didn't look at me funny, I didn't get a disgusted look on her face, I did get some encouraging giggles and responses) I feel like the evidence is nudging me towards "think faster" rather than "don't think, just do" as the solution to making more cold approaches, and who knows, maybe I will get better at that soon and what my results sky-rocket? It feels like I'm knocking at the door with all this close-but-no-cigar conversations that I've been reporting here. With more knowledge that I can, in fact, initiate conversations, the confidence grows, and with that, hopefully, the likelihood of better results.
The quest continues to find good advice that works for me.
With the unfortunate interlude of a funeral (not the best place to pick up chicks, especially when most of them are your cousins!) and some general issues of feeling poorly, the basic report is as follows:
It feels as though everyone else in my home town is pair-bonded except me! **wail!** (For more on this patheticness, see my last update...)
Let that be as it may. There are a fair few women I spot when I go out shopping or whatever who do not have barrier indicators up, who are attractive, have body language that suggests at least a pleasant surface temperament, and so on. Women, in other words, whom I would at least like to find out if they are interested in dating (me). As discussed in previous updates, most often the problem is that I can't form something to say until after she's moved on and the opportunity has passed (again, see my discussion of this in my last update).
Today, though, I went for two approaches at the supermarket and I did it by doing my best to go with the advice of "just say anything, confidently". Honest truth? Didn't go so well.
First one I actually had a bit of a heads-up: I saw her going into the supermarket while I was still collecting my shallow trolley from the trolley rank. Figured I would have a chance to catch up once in the store while she was picking her first item or two, so I had a chance to think how I might do it. Fortune favours the brave, 'tis said, and so it seemed on this occasion. I saw her visiting a few shelves, gaze across them for a while and then come away with an empty basket. The next shelf was one I was going to anyway, so I had my opening remark: "You look like someone spoilt for choice!"
It seemed to work at first, we shared a few words about the difficulty of making choices, I got some encouraging giggles, just as I was about to move the conversation along and (hopefully) reel her in and get her number, it seemed to stutter and she went on her way. Bummer. (I wonder about the "you look like..." form, and whether it would be better to make an "I" statement about what I've seen to invite shared connection, for example, in this case would I have done better to open with, "Hey, I have trouble choosing sometimes, too!"?) So anyway, it looked good but crashed and burned. That was with a line I was able to line up before I made the actual approach, though.
The second shot I got was when two very attractive women in (I would guess) their early twenties joined the check-out queue right behind me. I looked directly at them and just said the first thing that came into my head, with all the confidence that I feel at my best. This comment turned out to be, "Wow! My lucky day!" (so, my brain went with "Direct game" there, it seems). Zero reaction. I mean, not even the so-called "stinky-fart face" (the wrinkled-nose look of disgust, that resembles the expression of someone who's just smelt a stinky fart and often signifies a guy's failure to connect with a woman). Just cut me out and started talking to each other about something completely different.
I'm willing to bet that my brain is not a reliable source of things to say on the spur of the moment, and that there are probably myriad reasons why that comment was a very bad one to use as an opening line.
(I tend to say that the reason I overthink everything is because in my life so far, the consequences of overthinking have been a whole lot better than the consequences of underthinking.)
What's the next step? Well, I'm counting the first encounter as a positive experience (she didn't look at me funny, I didn't get a disgusted look on her face, I did get some encouraging giggles and responses) I feel like the evidence is nudging me towards "think faster" rather than "don't think, just do" as the solution to making more cold approaches, and who knows, maybe I will get better at that soon and what my results sky-rocket? It feels like I'm knocking at the door with all this close-but-no-cigar conversations that I've been reporting here. With more knowledge that I can, in fact, initiate conversations, the confidence grows, and with that, hopefully, the likelihood of better results.
The quest continues to find good advice that works for me.
My take on who pays for a date
The question of who should pay when a heterosexual male/female pair go on a date together is one that numerous dating sites, bloggers, experts, etc have tackled.
Too many of them go for the simple, "The man pays". Sometimes this is framed as "men want to show off that they can support you" bullshit (excuse me, did the past 50 years of feminism not happen or something?) and the claim seems always to be that it is a sign of disinterest if he doesn't want to impress the woman he's dating with the size of hispenis-substitute wallet, and that the money he puts in is somehow a sign of his "investment" in a relationship developing. Sometimes, it's just described as a "romance-killer" by female writers if the man doesn't want to pay.
Personally, I don't see what's so romantic about a man saying "I want to buy sex with you, using barter-trade of goods-in-kind, such as X number of meals". That's the message that I get when a woman expects me to buy everything on a date! Or, if it's not sex, then it's him saying, "I want to buy your love". Still not a classic of the romantic mood-setters, if you ask me.
And, of course, it is a complete romance-killer for me if she expects me to pay for everything, because that says to me that she puts a price on her sexuality. That says that she does not want a relationship with me, but is willing to be bought and will put up with my amorous intentions (and/or having sex with me) as long as she can make a profit from it. Wow, that's sooooo sexy (NOT!) I want to be with someone who wants to be with me. I don't want to be with someone who has to be bribed to like me.
I have two simple rules:
On travelling, it's about keeping costs fair. If one person already shells out a goodly sum just to get to see you, then expecting them to pay for food, movie tickets, whatever as well seems a bit churlish, don't you think?
On who sets up the date, it's about expectations. If someone wants to invite me to an expensive restaurant, then that's their business and their money they have to spend, but I would certainly resent being expected to pay my way at a place I can't afford. If it's your choice of venue, and your assessment of what a reasonable cost should be, then you should pay. If your dating partner perhaps is on a significantly smaller income than yours, then it is only going to embarrass them if you expect them to pay for a date that you set up based on what your budget for a date would be. Alternatively, you put them in the position of having to explain why they can't go on that particular date, and that is also rarely a sexy situation (either it makes you feel unwanted, or it makes them feel inadequate, or both). And seriously: if income is a big issue for you, then get that cleared up before you even start thinking about asking someone out on a date. As regular readers will know, for me, a potential partner having income as a priority is a deal-breaker. If their having a low income is a deal-breaker for you, then check it out before you embarrass someone by demanding they pay for a meal that costs a week's food budget or something! You're saving both yourself and them a lot of time and heartache, surely?
In general, I am against a blanket "who is best able to pay" situation, becuase if there is an income imbalance, then that almost always means one person ends up paying all the time. That can often cause power imbalances of an uncomfortable sort (and not the fun, BDSM-y sort), with one person feeling they are being taken advantage of, and/or the other person feeling as though they are being "bought" or "kept". It is better to be able to maintain one's self-respect by saying every so often, "this is my date that I arranged, and I will entertain you in my way". It may mean choosing cheap options (such as making a picnic or going out sightseeing), but as long as effort and thought go into it, it says, "I have the ability to stand on my own two feet" as well as "I care and want to make you happy". I like to think that for a wealthier partner, the change of pace might (if there's any chance of a relationship there at all) be a pleasant variation from the high-cost, high life dates that zie would arrange. It may still be that the high-income partner pays for most dates, simply because zie has the budget to arrange them, but as long as there is some level of reciprocation I think it helps to maintain the relationship on an equal footing. There is still a potential for "I spend so much on him/her and she/he spends so little on me" to cause problems, so if there are inequalities of income then it's important to be aware of whether these types of feelings are a part of your own make up (or theirs), and decide whether or not you can deal with them. That's why I won't necessarily call it shallow if someone wants to date people only within a certain range of their own income - it's still a deal-breaker for me, but I don't judge people for that decision.
So there you have it: if you want to date me, then you have to be happy to pay every time you a) invite me to your neck of the woods instead of coming to mine or b) set up the date. It's a really good idea to do these at least a couple of times, so that I know that you're interested in me and not my wallet (although my wallet is a lot thinner than most, so if you want money you picked the wrong horse). If you find it a romance-killer to be asked to pay your way, then travel to see me, or else always let me pick the date (and expect a date that's within my budget, not yours!)
And oh yeah, I really would be okay with dating a whore, as long as it was about her pleasure, and not business. But whatever your profession, don't make a date with me turn into you whoring yourself by your expecting me to pay to "win" your love and/or sex with you, mkay? Whores and whoring can be perfectly fine people and activities, but people who pretend they're not (and who think being called a whore is an insult!) when really they are just engaged in the socially-accepted version (via dating and marriage)? Those people disgust me.
Too many of them go for the simple, "The man pays". Sometimes this is framed as "men want to show off that they can support you" bullshit (excuse me, did the past 50 years of feminism not happen or something?) and the claim seems always to be that it is a sign of disinterest if he doesn't want to impress the woman he's dating with the size of his
Personally, I don't see what's so romantic about a man saying "I want to buy sex with you, using barter-trade of goods-in-kind, such as X number of meals". That's the message that I get when a woman expects me to buy everything on a date! Or, if it's not sex, then it's him saying, "I want to buy your love". Still not a classic of the romantic mood-setters, if you ask me.
And, of course, it is a complete romance-killer for me if she expects me to pay for everything, because that says to me that she puts a price on her sexuality. That says that she does not want a relationship with me, but is willing to be bought and will put up with my amorous intentions (and/or having sex with me) as long as she can make a profit from it. Wow, that's sooooo sexy (NOT!) I want to be with someone who wants to be with me. I don't want to be with someone who has to be bribed to like me.
I have two simple rules:
- Whoever spent least travelling to get to the date, pays.
- Where it's more-or-less even, then whoever "sponsored" the date (that is, they chose the place and/or time) pays.
On travelling, it's about keeping costs fair. If one person already shells out a goodly sum just to get to see you, then expecting them to pay for food, movie tickets, whatever as well seems a bit churlish, don't you think?
On who sets up the date, it's about expectations. If someone wants to invite me to an expensive restaurant, then that's their business and their money they have to spend, but I would certainly resent being expected to pay my way at a place I can't afford. If it's your choice of venue, and your assessment of what a reasonable cost should be, then you should pay. If your dating partner perhaps is on a significantly smaller income than yours, then it is only going to embarrass them if you expect them to pay for a date that you set up based on what your budget for a date would be. Alternatively, you put them in the position of having to explain why they can't go on that particular date, and that is also rarely a sexy situation (either it makes you feel unwanted, or it makes them feel inadequate, or both). And seriously: if income is a big issue for you, then get that cleared up before you even start thinking about asking someone out on a date. As regular readers will know, for me, a potential partner having income as a priority is a deal-breaker. If their having a low income is a deal-breaker for you, then check it out before you embarrass someone by demanding they pay for a meal that costs a week's food budget or something! You're saving both yourself and them a lot of time and heartache, surely?
In general, I am against a blanket "who is best able to pay" situation, becuase if there is an income imbalance, then that almost always means one person ends up paying all the time. That can often cause power imbalances of an uncomfortable sort (and not the fun, BDSM-y sort), with one person feeling they are being taken advantage of, and/or the other person feeling as though they are being "bought" or "kept". It is better to be able to maintain one's self-respect by saying every so often, "this is my date that I arranged, and I will entertain you in my way". It may mean choosing cheap options (such as making a picnic or going out sightseeing), but as long as effort and thought go into it, it says, "I have the ability to stand on my own two feet" as well as "I care and want to make you happy". I like to think that for a wealthier partner, the change of pace might (if there's any chance of a relationship there at all) be a pleasant variation from the high-cost, high life dates that zie would arrange. It may still be that the high-income partner pays for most dates, simply because zie has the budget to arrange them, but as long as there is some level of reciprocation I think it helps to maintain the relationship on an equal footing. There is still a potential for "I spend so much on him/her and she/he spends so little on me" to cause problems, so if there are inequalities of income then it's important to be aware of whether these types of feelings are a part of your own make up (or theirs), and decide whether or not you can deal with them. That's why I won't necessarily call it shallow if someone wants to date people only within a certain range of their own income - it's still a deal-breaker for me, but I don't judge people for that decision.
So there you have it: if you want to date me, then you have to be happy to pay every time you a) invite me to your neck of the woods instead of coming to mine or b) set up the date. It's a really good idea to do these at least a couple of times, so that I know that you're interested in me and not my wallet (although my wallet is a lot thinner than most, so if you want money you picked the wrong horse). If you find it a romance-killer to be asked to pay your way, then travel to see me, or else always let me pick the date (and expect a date that's within my budget, not yours!)
And oh yeah, I really would be okay with dating a whore, as long as it was about her pleasure, and not business. But whatever your profession, don't make a date with me turn into you whoring yourself by your expecting me to pay to "win" your love and/or sex with you, mkay? Whores and whoring can be perfectly fine people and activities, but people who pretend they're not (and who think being called a whore is an insult!) when really they are just engaged in the socially-accepted version (via dating and marriage)? Those people disgust me.
Monday, 19 September 2011
Awesomeness on Channel 4's NFLness
I am a big fan of helmet rugby American football, and regularly stay up late to watch the Sunday Night Football programme live, with the added punditry of Channel 4's team (including the face of American football to us Brits, Mike Carlson).
The awesomeness I want to mention today, though, is not Mr Carlson's wit and panache (of which I believe he has loads, and all the Yanks don't know what they're missing by having adverts instead). No, what I want to mention is the sponsor's messages on the (somewhat scarcer) ad breaks in our coverage.
Thomson Sport have, for the past two seasons, sponsored the Channel 4 NFL coverage. They have created little skits to announce their sponsorship. These, it turns out, are really cool. There are three sets of them, and they go as follows:
One set features a guy watching the game on television while getting ready for a holiday. He notices that his girlfriend/wife has forgotten to pack her handbag. After hefting it a couple of times, he executes a QB drop back out into the garden. He then throws a perfectly spiralled pass with the handbag into the suitcase upstairs. So far, so ordinary.
Where it gets cool is the other two sets.
***
A middle-class professional (going by appearances) woman is riding in a cab at night. The driver eyes her in his rear view mirror. She has her pocket mirror out and is doing her make-up in it. Her make-up routine is to draw the broad black "warpaint" stripes along the cheekbones under her eyes, that we see NFL players (and some cricketers) wearing. The final piece shows her handing a paper-money note to the driver and telling him to "keep the change".
***
A young man is visiting his grandmother. She offers to make him a cup of tea, and goes into her kitchen. he notices a signed NFL football displayed on her mantelpiece. He picks it up to have a look, and then bounces it a couple of times in his hands, at which point gran takes him down in a full-on tackle. The closing piece of the skit shows her celebrating and smack-talking her "opponent".
The NFL is, sadly, a sport where I see a lot of snide remarks about female fans - to the point that a lot of male fans did not see why it was sexist calling a Q&A session dedicated to the female fans of the Green Bay Packers, "Women Say The Darndest Things"... There are plenty of other "aren't they cute?" type remarks out there, and similarly dismissive attitudes. But the Thomson Sport ads don't seem to be in that vein at all. Gran performing her tackle on her grandson shows a woman who is a serious fan, and moreover who appears to be still athletic and keeping fit in her retirement (and one might guess has a history of some sort of sporting achievement herself). The woman in the taxi is tough, confident and up-front, and knows what she's about. Her manner suggests that there is nothing incongruous about her "masculine" warpaint with her "feminine" presentation in other aspects.
It is heartening to see at least one organisation recognise that women who like sports are often as serious about them as their male counterparts, and often have the same depth of knowledge. Of course, not all women who have an interest in sports follow them with any rigour, but the same can be said of plenty of men as well. The bell curve of sports-fandom-involvement I am sure is similar. There's nothing wrong with having a paper-thin depth of knowledge about a sport and just enjoying watching it occasionally with your friends. But it can surely feel that way sometimes, the way some people act. As noted above, some guys seem to be determined to make women feel that way more than they do other men.
The awesomeness I want to mention today, though, is not Mr Carlson's wit and panache (of which I believe he has loads, and all the Yanks don't know what they're missing by having adverts instead). No, what I want to mention is the sponsor's messages on the (somewhat scarcer) ad breaks in our coverage.
Thomson Sport have, for the past two seasons, sponsored the Channel 4 NFL coverage. They have created little skits to announce their sponsorship. These, it turns out, are really cool. There are three sets of them, and they go as follows:
One set features a guy watching the game on television while getting ready for a holiday. He notices that his girlfriend/wife has forgotten to pack her handbag. After hefting it a couple of times, he executes a QB drop back out into the garden. He then throws a perfectly spiralled pass with the handbag into the suitcase upstairs. So far, so ordinary.
Where it gets cool is the other two sets.
***
A middle-class professional (going by appearances) woman is riding in a cab at night. The driver eyes her in his rear view mirror. She has her pocket mirror out and is doing her make-up in it. Her make-up routine is to draw the broad black "warpaint" stripes along the cheekbones under her eyes, that we see NFL players (and some cricketers) wearing. The final piece shows her handing a paper-money note to the driver and telling him to "keep the change".
***
A young man is visiting his grandmother. She offers to make him a cup of tea, and goes into her kitchen. he notices a signed NFL football displayed on her mantelpiece. He picks it up to have a look, and then bounces it a couple of times in his hands, at which point gran takes him down in a full-on tackle. The closing piece of the skit shows her celebrating and smack-talking her "opponent".
The NFL is, sadly, a sport where I see a lot of snide remarks about female fans - to the point that a lot of male fans did not see why it was sexist calling a Q&A session dedicated to the female fans of the Green Bay Packers, "Women Say The Darndest Things"... There are plenty of other "aren't they cute?" type remarks out there, and similarly dismissive attitudes. But the Thomson Sport ads don't seem to be in that vein at all. Gran performing her tackle on her grandson shows a woman who is a serious fan, and moreover who appears to be still athletic and keeping fit in her retirement (and one might guess has a history of some sort of sporting achievement herself). The woman in the taxi is tough, confident and up-front, and knows what she's about. Her manner suggests that there is nothing incongruous about her "masculine" warpaint with her "feminine" presentation in other aspects.
It is heartening to see at least one organisation recognise that women who like sports are often as serious about them as their male counterparts, and often have the same depth of knowledge. Of course, not all women who have an interest in sports follow them with any rigour, but the same can be said of plenty of men as well. The bell curve of sports-fandom-involvement I am sure is similar. There's nothing wrong with having a paper-thin depth of knowledge about a sport and just enjoying watching it occasionally with your friends. But it can surely feel that way sometimes, the way some people act. As noted above, some guys seem to be determined to make women feel that way more than they do other men.
Playing games, and turning to the "dark side"
Since May, I have been going regularly to a "social games evening" organised by a local enthusiast and held at my local pub. (NB: it is a [social] [games evening] and not a [social games] [evening] - distinction is important to avoid confusion with therapy/psychology theories and such!)
The evening involves playing games involving cards, boards, counters and the like, and being social with people. It's kind of a big deal for me because of my introversion, but the groups are on a level I can cope with, and the structure provided by playing the games makes the social element easier to handle. I find myself able to enjoy company (which I generally do) without it being too taxing on my reserves. (Similar observations appeared in my pick-up updates, about the first time I went to one. I have become more talkative as I have got to know the regulars there.)
Anyway, I wanted to write a bit about some of the games that I have enjoyed playing over the past few months!
I won't link to the blog of the guy who organises the events, because it gives away far too much about where I am and he uses my real-life name, with pictures, which would probably make it a little bit too easy for people to find out who I am in the offline world (I am sure anyone who was willing to put in the effort could figure it out from the info I have blogged about myself, but I won't make it that easy for them!) However, I think I can speak in general terms about the games I found most enjoyable.
First up, the organiser has noticed that I like games where you can "nobble" the other players. If I have understood conversations correctly, sometimes this is known as "opportunities for screwage" by people in the gaming community (as in, "screw up their plans"). This is an extension of my general preference for sports that involve some form of direct competition, and not just "tackle the same obstacles at the same time". Golf, for example, involves no direct competition against your opponent, because neither of you can affect the other's ability to win, you simply tackle the same course at the same time, and I don't really "get" that sort of game, in general (cf. my competitive spirit at footie practice!). So this liking of games with a little bit of a nasty edge in that you can nobble your opponents, is the first part of why I talk about "turning to the Dark Side" in the post title!
I like a bit of tactical thinking and strategy in the games I play as well. Coming up with a plan, even if it's a completely useless plan or I change it every other turn, makes my brain circuits happy.
So, the games I have enjoyed most are:
Dominion. A fantasy/mediaeval type theme in which you build your personal deck as the game proceeds (I understand it has a small similarity to Magic:The Gathering). There are dozens of different card types, and typically you play with I think it's 10 types of action cards, and you also have money and territory (victory point) cards. That adds up to a really enormous number of possible different games you could play, depending on which combination of action cards you choose. And it's even more when you take into account the expansion packs that are available! Some of the action cards help you nobble your opponents, some of them boost your own abilities. It takes about half an hour to play to a finish and a lot of the interest is in the combinations of cards that you can create from your own deck. It has a lot of strategy to it, but it's often not possible to work out whether your strategy is actually working or not, until you count up the points at the end. It's semi-serious, but with enough silliness if you play with a good bunch of people, to make it properly entertaining. Of course, I find it more amusing than most, because of Bill Bailey's "Chaucerian Pubbe Gagge" routine, which has the line, "'Til Drunkenness held full Dominion/ For 'twas 2 for the price of 1." It sometimes seems as though most things these days remind me either of sex or of a comedy sketch or stand-up routine that made me laugh. I recently found a website based in Germany that offers an online engine for human vs human Dominion games (amongst others), called BrettspielWelt (it has an English-language interface as well as German and other languages, thankfully - my decade-since-I-used-it GCSE German might not have been up to the job!). If anyone fancied giving me a game over there, I am (as ever) SnowdropExplodes on the system! (You might need to give me a heads-up that you want to, as my out-of-date Mac doesn't run their software very well so I'd need to switch to a slightly less out of date PC, which has better stability with their software)
Trans Europa. The theme is building transport routes across Europe (I think there's also a US-themed version called TransAmerica). Officially, they're train lines but they could equally be motorways or something of that ilk. Your goal is to link five far-flung cities (assigned at random at the start of each round) with your tracks. The nobbling bit is where you place your proprietary tracks (or, if you think of it as motorways, your toll-charging sections), because all other tracks can be used by anyone, regardless of who built them. It's a much simpler game in terms of the mechanics than the similarly-themed Ticket To Ride (which also has European and a North American versions available), but in a way actually has more scope for tactical play. There is also much less reliance on chance and good (or bad) fortune in determining the winner (the only random element is which cities you have to link, whereas Ticket To Ride has multiple random points). It appeals to my mathematical mind because of the geometrical emphasis (the board is marked with an isometric grid).
Castle Panic. This one stands out as different from the others, because it has none of the characteristics I said that like in a game! It's an "us against the world" sort of game, in that all the players collaborate in an attempt to defeat the game mechanism. There is the title of "Master Slayer" to be won, but it only counts for anything if your team all survive. The theme, as you might guess from the title, is based around a castle (it's fantasy rather than mediaeval) and the team has to defend it against a horde of monsters, of whom there are rather a lot (thus, "panic"!)
For Sale. Loosely (very loosely!) based on property speculation, this game involves first a betting/bidding process, followed by a series of blind auctions. The aim being to buy in the bidding process sufficiently good properties as to be able to maximise the return from the blind auction phase. Properties for sale range from "Cardboard Box" to "Space Station" (which shows how closely this is modelled on real life property speculation). The excitement and enjoyment in this come not just fro the direct competition, but mainly from the pretty pictures of the properties (and the rather silly themes of some of them - other highlights include the Igloo and the Dunny...).
I've saved two of my favourites for last, because this is where the Dark Side really shows itself... (cue evil maniacal laughter - BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!)
These games both have a "secret villain" theme to them, in that most of the player are working to the same goal (as in Castle Panic mentioned above) but a minority have been assigned a secret identity as villains, who are out to sabotage the efforts of the group! And it turns out that I very much enjoy being the villain (see, I told you I was turning to the Dark Side! ;-) )
My favourite is called, simply, Saboteur.
In Saboteur, the theme is (fantasy-world) Dwarfish miners striving to find a vein of gold. Cards are played showing tunnels, that connect up and there are three possible locations where the gold could be hidden: the good guys win if they manage to dig a tunnel to the correct location. The bad guys win if there are no more cards to play and the tunnel has not yet reached the gold. There's a further "nobble" factor in that some cards can be used to prevent other players from digging (good guys use them to try to stop the people they think are villains from sending the tunnels in the wrong directions or up dead ends; villains use them to stop the good guys making progress). Typically, the game involves absolutely outrageous and wild accusations by all and sundry as to who might be evil and who might be good, making it a very good game to get people talking (even if it's only of the, "I think you're the Saboteur!" - "Huh! Me? No, you're wrong!" variety!).
The other is called The Resistance, and I've only played it once so far. I was, as it happens, a villain on that go (bwahahahaha!) My villains team managed to scupper the good guys, too. (I iz ev0l jeenyus!) The theme is a futuristic world, if you're familiar with Blake's 7 then you'll get the idea. Agents of the Evil Empire/Federation/Brain Police have infiltrated a cell of The Resistance, and are trying to bring down the plot to overthrow the tyrannical regime. The Resistance are the good guys, and the Agents are the baddies. This game is a "best of five" deal: if the Resistance (terrorist scum - oops, slipped back into my role from the game there!) succeed in three or more of their five missions, they win. If they fail in three or more, then the forces of Law and Order (and Tyranny) remain supreme in the galaxy. In Saboteur, no one knows who the baddies are; in Resistance, the baddies all know who the other baddies are, but none of the goodies do. Just to prove how Dark Side I really am when I play games, in the game I played I at various times accused both of my fellow Agents of betraying the Rebel Cause, to throw suspicion away from myself!
Saboteur is definitely one of my favourite games to play. I also really like Dominion, and Trans Europa (even though I haven't won yet on either of those...) I think For Sale is also a lot of fun.
[Edit To Add: I just saw the link back to this post on someone else's blogroll - their blog is primarily about dating and the title struck me as having a completely different tone to it in that context!]
The evening involves playing games involving cards, boards, counters and the like, and being social with people. It's kind of a big deal for me because of my introversion, but the groups are on a level I can cope with, and the structure provided by playing the games makes the social element easier to handle. I find myself able to enjoy company (which I generally do) without it being too taxing on my reserves. (Similar observations appeared in my pick-up updates, about the first time I went to one. I have become more talkative as I have got to know the regulars there.)
Anyway, I wanted to write a bit about some of the games that I have enjoyed playing over the past few months!
I won't link to the blog of the guy who organises the events, because it gives away far too much about where I am and he uses my real-life name, with pictures, which would probably make it a little bit too easy for people to find out who I am in the offline world (I am sure anyone who was willing to put in the effort could figure it out from the info I have blogged about myself, but I won't make it that easy for them!) However, I think I can speak in general terms about the games I found most enjoyable.
First up, the organiser has noticed that I like games where you can "nobble" the other players. If I have understood conversations correctly, sometimes this is known as "opportunities for screwage" by people in the gaming community (as in, "screw up their plans"). This is an extension of my general preference for sports that involve some form of direct competition, and not just "tackle the same obstacles at the same time". Golf, for example, involves no direct competition against your opponent, because neither of you can affect the other's ability to win, you simply tackle the same course at the same time, and I don't really "get" that sort of game, in general (cf. my competitive spirit at footie practice!). So this liking of games with a little bit of a nasty edge in that you can nobble your opponents, is the first part of why I talk about "turning to the Dark Side" in the post title!
I like a bit of tactical thinking and strategy in the games I play as well. Coming up with a plan, even if it's a completely useless plan or I change it every other turn, makes my brain circuits happy.
So, the games I have enjoyed most are:
Dominion. A fantasy/mediaeval type theme in which you build your personal deck as the game proceeds (I understand it has a small similarity to Magic:The Gathering). There are dozens of different card types, and typically you play with I think it's 10 types of action cards, and you also have money and territory (victory point) cards. That adds up to a really enormous number of possible different games you could play, depending on which combination of action cards you choose. And it's even more when you take into account the expansion packs that are available! Some of the action cards help you nobble your opponents, some of them boost your own abilities. It takes about half an hour to play to a finish and a lot of the interest is in the combinations of cards that you can create from your own deck. It has a lot of strategy to it, but it's often not possible to work out whether your strategy is actually working or not, until you count up the points at the end. It's semi-serious, but with enough silliness if you play with a good bunch of people, to make it properly entertaining. Of course, I find it more amusing than most, because of Bill Bailey's "Chaucerian Pubbe Gagge" routine, which has the line, "'Til Drunkenness held full Dominion/ For 'twas 2 for the price of 1." It sometimes seems as though most things these days remind me either of sex or of a comedy sketch or stand-up routine that made me laugh. I recently found a website based in Germany that offers an online engine for human vs human Dominion games (amongst others), called BrettspielWelt (it has an English-language interface as well as German and other languages, thankfully - my decade-since-I-used-it GCSE German might not have been up to the job!). If anyone fancied giving me a game over there, I am (as ever) SnowdropExplodes on the system! (You might need to give me a heads-up that you want to, as my out-of-date Mac doesn't run their software very well so I'd need to switch to a slightly less out of date PC, which has better stability with their software)
Trans Europa. The theme is building transport routes across Europe (I think there's also a US-themed version called TransAmerica). Officially, they're train lines but they could equally be motorways or something of that ilk. Your goal is to link five far-flung cities (assigned at random at the start of each round) with your tracks. The nobbling bit is where you place your proprietary tracks (or, if you think of it as motorways, your toll-charging sections), because all other tracks can be used by anyone, regardless of who built them. It's a much simpler game in terms of the mechanics than the similarly-themed Ticket To Ride (which also has European and a North American versions available), but in a way actually has more scope for tactical play. There is also much less reliance on chance and good (or bad) fortune in determining the winner (the only random element is which cities you have to link, whereas Ticket To Ride has multiple random points). It appeals to my mathematical mind because of the geometrical emphasis (the board is marked with an isometric grid).
Castle Panic. This one stands out as different from the others, because it has none of the characteristics I said that like in a game! It's an "us against the world" sort of game, in that all the players collaborate in an attempt to defeat the game mechanism. There is the title of "Master Slayer" to be won, but it only counts for anything if your team all survive. The theme, as you might guess from the title, is based around a castle (it's fantasy rather than mediaeval) and the team has to defend it against a horde of monsters, of whom there are rather a lot (thus, "panic"!)
For Sale. Loosely (very loosely!) based on property speculation, this game involves first a betting/bidding process, followed by a series of blind auctions. The aim being to buy in the bidding process sufficiently good properties as to be able to maximise the return from the blind auction phase. Properties for sale range from "Cardboard Box" to "Space Station" (which shows how closely this is modelled on real life property speculation). The excitement and enjoyment in this come not just fro the direct competition, but mainly from the pretty pictures of the properties (and the rather silly themes of some of them - other highlights include the Igloo and the Dunny...).
I've saved two of my favourites for last, because this is where the Dark Side really shows itself... (cue evil maniacal laughter - BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!)
These games both have a "secret villain" theme to them, in that most of the player are working to the same goal (as in Castle Panic mentioned above) but a minority have been assigned a secret identity as villains, who are out to sabotage the efforts of the group! And it turns out that I very much enjoy being the villain (see, I told you I was turning to the Dark Side! ;-) )
My favourite is called, simply, Saboteur.
In Saboteur, the theme is (fantasy-world) Dwarfish miners striving to find a vein of gold. Cards are played showing tunnels, that connect up and there are three possible locations where the gold could be hidden: the good guys win if they manage to dig a tunnel to the correct location. The bad guys win if there are no more cards to play and the tunnel has not yet reached the gold. There's a further "nobble" factor in that some cards can be used to prevent other players from digging (good guys use them to try to stop the people they think are villains from sending the tunnels in the wrong directions or up dead ends; villains use them to stop the good guys making progress). Typically, the game involves absolutely outrageous and wild accusations by all and sundry as to who might be evil and who might be good, making it a very good game to get people talking (even if it's only of the, "I think you're the Saboteur!" - "Huh! Me? No, you're wrong!" variety!).
The other is called The Resistance, and I've only played it once so far. I was, as it happens, a villain on that go (bwahahahaha!) My villains team managed to scupper the good guys, too. (I iz ev0l jeenyus!) The theme is a futuristic world, if you're familiar with Blake's 7 then you'll get the idea. Agents of the Evil Empire/Federation/Brain Police have infiltrated a cell of The Resistance, and are trying to bring down the plot to overthrow the tyrannical regime. The Resistance are the good guys, and the Agents are the baddies. This game is a "best of five" deal: if the Resistance (
Saboteur is definitely one of my favourite games to play. I also really like Dominion, and Trans Europa (even though I haven't won yet on either of those...) I think For Sale is also a lot of fun.
[Edit To Add: I just saw the link back to this post on someone else's blogroll - their blog is primarily about dating and the title struck me as having a completely different tone to it in that context!]
Sunday, 18 September 2011
Ethics and the atom bomb, and a personal connection
One thing I learned at the funeral of my great-uncle was that, when the uranium bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, he was on a ship sailing from Britain to join the invasion of Japan.
I have always felt that the USA's deployment of atom bombs against Japan amounted to mass murder (just as the bombing of Coventry, and Dresden, and so on did earlier in the war). The specific justification for the act was always that using the A-bomb forced Japan to surrender and prevented the deaths of many more people in protracted and bloody battles on the Japanese mainland.
Robert Jungk, in his classic work "Brighter Than a Thousand Suns", telling the personal history of the scientists who worked on the atom bomb, informs us that:
Jungk recounts the various overtures that were made by individuals high up in Japan's military hierarchy (including by the Emperor) of which the US was aware, and that President Truman spurned.
That it was not necessary to use the A-bomb to end the war with Japan seems obvious now. But suppose it were true that the only way to end it otherwise was to invade at the risk of heavy casualties on both sides. In the funeral service, the invasion of Japan was described as being "almost a suicide mission" for the people, my great-uncle included, who would take part in it.
My feeling has always been that, if you're going to fight a war, then civilian lives have to be placed at a huge premium over the lives of the soldiers who are sent to fight, just because ultimately, the deal is that soldiers are expected to die for their country, while civilians generally are not, and soldiers know that that's the deal. It's harder when conscription is introduced, of course, because then people don't have a choice about the deal, but at least they know what it is.
So, have my feelings changed now that I know that one of those soldiers with whose lives I would have been willing to buy the lives of (Japanese) civilians would have been a man who in his later years was a great joy to my family?
I still feel the same way about the mass murder of civilians in Dresden, Hiroshima, etc. I feel a much deeper sense of anguish about the choice that has to be made when making military decisions. I feel torn by the personal connection, and yet, still, were it my own relative and I the commander-in-chief making the call whether to invade Japan or drop the A-bomb (still using the hypothetical that those were the only two options - we know from Jungk that in real-life this was not the case), I would still have to give the order to invade rather than to kill many thousands of civilians in cold blood. I would cry, a lot, once I had given that order, but that is what I would do and what I would feel was the right thing to do.
Some people might say to me, "But what about the people left behind? The friends and relatives of those you condemned to death by your decision?" But I find it hard to choose between different people's grief. The grief is as all-consuming, as deep, as heartfelt, whoever they are, and will have the same meaning. Whether you say "kill the civilians" or "kill the soldiers", the people whose relatives are killed will then turn to me and say, "Why did you let my loved one die? Why couldn't it have been someone else?" And talking about numbers (or indeed, talking about soldier versus civilian - especially if the soldier is a conscript) will make no difference to them.
Some people might have said, "Why did you choose to save Japanese lives over our boys' lives?" But I will not value a person's life more highly because of the accident of birth or race or whatever.
So my opinion remains the same, just with another layer of sadness at the horrors that wars inflict upon our souls.
I have always felt that the USA's deployment of atom bombs against Japan amounted to mass murder (just as the bombing of Coventry, and Dresden, and so on did earlier in the war). The specific justification for the act was always that using the A-bomb forced Japan to surrender and prevented the deaths of many more people in protracted and bloody battles on the Japanese mainland.
Robert Jungk, in his classic work "Brighter Than a Thousand Suns", telling the personal history of the scientists who worked on the atom bomb, informs us that:
The intelligence services of both the Army and the Navy of the United States were in fact at this date already convinced that the final downfall of Japan could only be a question of a few more weeks.
...
The surrender of Japan could not only have been achieved by intensification of the blockade. The chances of it being brought about by clever diplomacy were even more favourable. For Japan was at that time more than ripe for capitulation. The country was to a great extent willing to capitulate.
Jungk recounts the various overtures that were made by individuals high up in Japan's military hierarchy (including by the Emperor) of which the US was aware, and that President Truman spurned.
That it was not necessary to use the A-bomb to end the war with Japan seems obvious now. But suppose it were true that the only way to end it otherwise was to invade at the risk of heavy casualties on both sides. In the funeral service, the invasion of Japan was described as being "almost a suicide mission" for the people, my great-uncle included, who would take part in it.
My feeling has always been that, if you're going to fight a war, then civilian lives have to be placed at a huge premium over the lives of the soldiers who are sent to fight, just because ultimately, the deal is that soldiers are expected to die for their country, while civilians generally are not, and soldiers know that that's the deal. It's harder when conscription is introduced, of course, because then people don't have a choice about the deal, but at least they know what it is.
So, have my feelings changed now that I know that one of those soldiers with whose lives I would have been willing to buy the lives of (Japanese) civilians would have been a man who in his later years was a great joy to my family?
I still feel the same way about the mass murder of civilians in Dresden, Hiroshima, etc. I feel a much deeper sense of anguish about the choice that has to be made when making military decisions. I feel torn by the personal connection, and yet, still, were it my own relative and I the commander-in-chief making the call whether to invade Japan or drop the A-bomb (still using the hypothetical that those were the only two options - we know from Jungk that in real-life this was not the case), I would still have to give the order to invade rather than to kill many thousands of civilians in cold blood. I would cry, a lot, once I had given that order, but that is what I would do and what I would feel was the right thing to do.
Some people might say to me, "But what about the people left behind? The friends and relatives of those you condemned to death by your decision?" But I find it hard to choose between different people's grief. The grief is as all-consuming, as deep, as heartfelt, whoever they are, and will have the same meaning. Whether you say "kill the civilians" or "kill the soldiers", the people whose relatives are killed will then turn to me and say, "Why did you let my loved one die? Why couldn't it have been someone else?" And talking about numbers (or indeed, talking about soldier versus civilian - especially if the soldier is a conscript) will make no difference to them.
Some people might have said, "Why did you choose to save Japanese lives over our boys' lives?" But I will not value a person's life more highly because of the accident of birth or race or whatever.
So my opinion remains the same, just with another layer of sadness at the horrors that wars inflict upon our souls.
Wednesday, 14 September 2011
Dying is a part of life
I am going to be away for a few days with my family, partly because I haven't seen them for a while and partly because a sad occasion brings the opportunity to do so.
The sad occasion is the funeral of a relative, who two weeks ago had a heart attack and then died a few days later in hospital. He was very old, so the death does not come as such a shock, but it is still sad. The past week, I have had several memories come back to me of him at various stages of my life, both meeting him when I was a young child and later in my life.
That said, the sadness is not lingering. Dying is a fact of life, after all, and after he suffered the heart attack I was kind of braced for the possibility he might not make it. I was prepared for it.
Nevertheless, it will be good to be with my parents, who knew him far better than I feel I did, and while I am away it is unlikely I will blog.
The sad occasion is the funeral of a relative, who two weeks ago had a heart attack and then died a few days later in hospital. He was very old, so the death does not come as such a shock, but it is still sad. The past week, I have had several memories come back to me of him at various stages of my life, both meeting him when I was a young child and later in my life.
That said, the sadness is not lingering. Dying is a fact of life, after all, and after he suffered the heart attack I was kind of braced for the possibility he might not make it. I was prepared for it.
Nevertheless, it will be good to be with my parents, who knew him far better than I feel I did, and while I am away it is unlikely I will blog.
Apparently, I compete like a woman!
A couple of weeks ago, I blogged about how I rose to the challenge of competing in a team even though individual effort or competition does not bring the best out of me.
Now, it appears, economists have discovered that's how women do it. (Link found via The F-Word Blog)
Although the study looked at a contest of intellectual ability rather than physical, I thought about it and felt that in that field also, I would match the results found concerning women rather than those concerning men.
Here's what they found:
The researchers suggested that this may affect not only business hiring and promotion strategies, but also political representation of women:
One thing occurs to me, though, which is to ask how much socialisation of women's roles and the appropriateness or otherwise of putting oneself forward based on gender, play into these tendencies? The researchers have shown that the phenomenon exists, but have not explained it. It's worth noting that, even in the two-person team game, less than half the women chose to compete, while 2/3 of men did.
***
For me, the question is, how do I use this knowledge about my own tendencies to help me find a job?
Now, it appears, economists have discovered that's how women do it. (Link found via The F-Word Blog)
Although the study looked at a contest of intellectual ability rather than physical, I thought about it and felt that in that field also, I would match the results found concerning women rather than those concerning men.
Here's what they found:
The economists conducted an experiment in which the participants had to answer maths problems as quickly as possible. Participants in teams decided whether they wanted to be paid according to the number of problems their two-person team answered correctly or whether they wanted to enter a competition against three other teams. Individual participants decided whether they wanted to compete against three other individuals.
The results highlighted huge differences between the genders:
- Even though men and women performed equally well on the task, 81% of men chose to compete as individuals compared with 28% of women.
- When participants competed in teams, the gender competition gap shrank by 31 percentage points to 22%, with 67% of men choosing to enter the competition compared with 45% of women.
The researchers suggested that this may affect not only business hiring and promotion strategies, but also political representation of women:
"It appears to be the case that women often opt out of entering these competitive environments," Pate said. "Importantly, while qualified women opt out, unqualified men opt in. As a result, the gender competition gap may result in organisations failing to select the most qualified leaders."
...
The findings also have significance for the world of politics. Women are much more likely to be active in politics in countries with party lists than in those where a single person is elected.
One thing occurs to me, though, which is to ask how much socialisation of women's roles and the appropriateness or otherwise of putting oneself forward based on gender, play into these tendencies? The researchers have shown that the phenomenon exists, but have not explained it. It's worth noting that, even in the two-person team game, less than half the women chose to compete, while 2/3 of men did.
***
For me, the question is, how do I use this knowledge about my own tendencies to help me find a job?
Elation and buzz is relative
So, more or less by mistake I gave my (spam-sink) email address to another PUA/SC plying his wares ("by mistake" as in, I wanted to receive a single freebie product, and naively didn't realise that they would of course use it to send me lots of adverts for their expensive courses). This one goes by the handle, "Christian Hudson".
It's fair enough: one or two of the emails from a couple of others who got my addy the same way have actually had a point worth thinking on at least. But the thing that always gets me is the assumption that everyone is the same unless they have different genitalia.
This is a prime example, and one that I really want to talk about:
The email contained the following line, about where you find attractive women:
Reading that, my brain came to a screeching halt. Because in my experience, I have never felt any elation from dancing (drunk or sober) on a table to "fun music and flashing lights". I have once or twice been in that situation, but what I felt wasn't "elation". What I felt was "in the wrong body". It just. felt. wrong.
On the other hand, reading philosophy sometimes has produced a sense of elation adn wonderment that is incredibly valuable to me.
Let's be charitable and say that Mr Hudson is talking about the difference between physical and intellectual elation. Let's call "physical elation", "buzz" for short. I did get a sense of buzz from the competitive effort when I tried out for the soccer team a couple of weeks ago, for example, and that certainly was different from anything I would get from reading or debating philosophy or science.
Mr Hudson seems to think that everyone gets this buzz from crowds, display, alcohol and music.
I'm an Introvert: crowds kill my buzz. Displaying, quite often, kills my buzz.
Alcohol, I find, tends to work to anaesthetise and kill a lot of buzz-y feeling in me.
I buzz from music, certainly, but clearly in a very different way. The most "buzz-y" occasions I've had are where I can either be lost in the crowd (singing along with everyone else), or else sharing the experience much more closely with just one person (or a couple of other people) with whom I already have a connection. Either that, or I am actually performing the music myself (and then there's a whole lot of stage fright buzzing going on at the same time).
If you want me to feel elation then your best bet is, in fact, to go for the brain rather than the body. I will feel it when we have a scintillating, engaging conversation that feels intellectually as stimulating and energetic as the physical sensations of dancing or whatever. I will feel it if our minds start to converge and attraction starts to build on that level.
The frustrating thing is that Mr Hudson claims that:
However, all his examples are extroverts being themselves and being successful with women.
The lifestyle is an effect, he says, of finding and being yourself. But everything he suggests as a lifestyle that works to be successful with women is antithetical to who I really, truly, am. All of them assume that the "real" me must be an outgoing, crowd-confident, extrovert. And that is not who I really am, because I have done a whole lot of work in the past 20 years or so to figure out what that really is, and one thing is certain: I am not an extrovert!
I am confident that there are ways for me to work around this fact and thereby meet attractive women and talk to them, get their numbers etc etc blah blah. However, to date I have not found any evidence that PUA/SC people have them, so I'm more or less figuring it out as I go.
It's fair enough: one or two of the emails from a couple of others who got my addy the same way have actually had a point worth thinking on at least. But the thing that always gets me is the assumption that everyone is the same unless they have different genitalia.
This is a prime example, and one that I really want to talk about:
The email contained the following line, about where you find attractive women:
Besides Flo Rida, David Guetta and yours truly, you'll also find hot women at hot parties. I long struggled to understand why so many women are attracted to clubs and not, say, existential philosophy. Well hmm... Kierkegaard's words, while clever, don't quite cause the same sense of elation as dancing drunk on a table to fun music and flashing lights.
Reading that, my brain came to a screeching halt. Because in my experience, I have never felt any elation from dancing (drunk or sober) on a table to "fun music and flashing lights". I have once or twice been in that situation, but what I felt wasn't "elation". What I felt was "in the wrong body". It just. felt. wrong.
On the other hand, reading philosophy sometimes has produced a sense of elation adn wonderment that is incredibly valuable to me.
Let's be charitable and say that Mr Hudson is talking about the difference between physical and intellectual elation. Let's call "physical elation", "buzz" for short. I did get a sense of buzz from the competitive effort when I tried out for the soccer team a couple of weeks ago, for example, and that certainly was different from anything I would get from reading or debating philosophy or science.
Mr Hudson seems to think that everyone gets this buzz from crowds, display, alcohol and music.
I'm an Introvert: crowds kill my buzz. Displaying, quite often, kills my buzz.
Alcohol, I find, tends to work to anaesthetise and kill a lot of buzz-y feeling in me.
I buzz from music, certainly, but clearly in a very different way. The most "buzz-y" occasions I've had are where I can either be lost in the crowd (singing along with everyone else), or else sharing the experience much more closely with just one person (or a couple of other people) with whom I already have a connection. Either that, or I am actually performing the music myself (and then there's a whole lot of stage fright buzzing going on at the same time).
If you want me to feel elation then your best bet is, in fact, to go for the brain rather than the body. I will feel it when we have a scintillating, engaging conversation that feels intellectually as stimulating and energetic as the physical sensations of dancing or whatever. I will feel it if our minds start to converge and attraction starts to build on that level.
The frustrating thing is that Mr Hudson claims that:
And the lifestyle is an effect, not a cause.
And the women are most certainly an effect.
In other words, it's not "first you get the game, then you get the lifestyle, then you get the women."
No, it's "first you get yourself, then you get the game, then you get the lifestyle, then you get the women."
YOU are the cause of your success. Not your game. Not your lifestyle. Those are effects of who YOU are.
However, all his examples are extroverts being themselves and being successful with women.
The lifestyle is an effect, he says, of finding and being yourself. But everything he suggests as a lifestyle that works to be successful with women is antithetical to who I really, truly, am. All of them assume that the "real" me must be an outgoing, crowd-confident, extrovert. And that is not who I really am, because I have done a whole lot of work in the past 20 years or so to figure out what that really is, and one thing is certain: I am not an extrovert!
I am confident that there are ways for me to work around this fact and thereby meet attractive women and talk to them, get their numbers etc etc blah blah. However, to date I have not found any evidence that PUA/SC people have them, so I'm more or less figuring it out as I go.
Sunday, 11 September 2011
My Recollections of 11th September 2001
Ten years after the "9/11" attack, the chief memory I have is of being unable to comprehend the scale of what had just happened.
I had slept late, then had lunch/breakfast, then turned on the television to find the usual programmes were replaced by news coverage, and the towers of the World Trade Centre were shown burning like two macabre candles. After a few minutes, they showed the news helicopter's footage of the second collision, and pictures of the crash site in Washington DC.
I wasn't able to understand the scale of the buildings. I wasn't able to understand the scale of the jet fuel explosion. I wasn't able to understand that it could take more than an hour to evacuate a building. The concept of a building that took that long to evacuate seemed ludicrous to me. And I wasn't able to understand that the fires had left people trapped above the impact points. I also wasn't able to understand the radius of the effects of the collapse of the towers.
When the towers collapsed, at first I thought that all I had seen was the destruction of inanimate structures, and symbols of US economic hegemony in the world. Given my political views, that seemed like something to celebrate! It was tragic, of course, that so many people must have died in the actual impact, and that was not something to celebrate, and I would never have bought the destruction at that cost, but at the same time it seemed like a great symbolic blow.
Only after listening to the news anchors' explanations subsequently did I realise that I had seen on my television screen an event that involved the deaths of thousands of people at once (at that stage, they were still talking in terms of around 6,000 possible casualties, later the true figure turned out to be about half that), and that it was a hideous tragedy of immense proportions. I felt sick that in that initial moment I had felt more joy than sorrow, because I had not understood that there could still be people alive in the buildings when they started to collapse. The destruction of an inanimate symbol might be celebrated, but the destruction of so many lives could never be, and that dissonance between what I had felt when I thought it was the first situation, and what I felt when I finally understood what the true situation was, remains painful for me, along with the sympathetic pain for those who lost loved ones in the tragedy.
Later that day, I had to take the dog for a walk - some things need doing whatever has happened in the rest of the world. As I was walking out to the common, a bright rainbow shone overhead - a phenomenon so often taken as a symbol of hope or divine intervention in the myths and beliefs of our forefathers. It was astonishingly beautiful and quite jarring in contrast to the feelings I carried with me from the news that had been broadcast to my home, and the feelings that resulted from it. All I could think of was to wish that that symbol had been sent where it was needed most, to the people of New York and Washington DC.
That evening, I logged on and discussion had already started in various email discussion groups I was in. I made, even at that early stage, the prediction that many many more people would be killed this time by US and British forces, as a consequence of the terrorists' actions. At that stage, I was still supremely sceptical that it even was terrorism, and the conspiracy theories about using it as a pretext for war were already surfacing in my mind (I now think that there probably was not a conspiracy, but I am always suspicious of official explanations). At that point, the media speculation was still focussed on Palestinian terrorism (fuelled by the fact that there was news footage of Palestinians celebrating the attack), and I was sure that thousands more would die in revenge attacks, that Israel would use it as a pretext for punitive activities against the Palestinian people, and that the tragedy had only just begun.
That was how my day ended: with the anticipation of greater tragedy still to come, not on US soil, but in the Middle East. When the names of Al Qaida, Taliban and Afghanistan (and from US sources, Iraq and Saddam Hussein) started to emerge as the assumed culprits, it became clear where the further deaths I had predicted on the evening of September 11th 2001 would take place.
I had slept late, then had lunch/breakfast, then turned on the television to find the usual programmes were replaced by news coverage, and the towers of the World Trade Centre were shown burning like two macabre candles. After a few minutes, they showed the news helicopter's footage of the second collision, and pictures of the crash site in Washington DC.
I wasn't able to understand the scale of the buildings. I wasn't able to understand the scale of the jet fuel explosion. I wasn't able to understand that it could take more than an hour to evacuate a building. The concept of a building that took that long to evacuate seemed ludicrous to me. And I wasn't able to understand that the fires had left people trapped above the impact points. I also wasn't able to understand the radius of the effects of the collapse of the towers.
When the towers collapsed, at first I thought that all I had seen was the destruction of inanimate structures, and symbols of US economic hegemony in the world. Given my political views, that seemed like something to celebrate! It was tragic, of course, that so many people must have died in the actual impact, and that was not something to celebrate, and I would never have bought the destruction at that cost, but at the same time it seemed like a great symbolic blow.
Only after listening to the news anchors' explanations subsequently did I realise that I had seen on my television screen an event that involved the deaths of thousands of people at once (at that stage, they were still talking in terms of around 6,000 possible casualties, later the true figure turned out to be about half that), and that it was a hideous tragedy of immense proportions. I felt sick that in that initial moment I had felt more joy than sorrow, because I had not understood that there could still be people alive in the buildings when they started to collapse. The destruction of an inanimate symbol might be celebrated, but the destruction of so many lives could never be, and that dissonance between what I had felt when I thought it was the first situation, and what I felt when I finally understood what the true situation was, remains painful for me, along with the sympathetic pain for those who lost loved ones in the tragedy.
Later that day, I had to take the dog for a walk - some things need doing whatever has happened in the rest of the world. As I was walking out to the common, a bright rainbow shone overhead - a phenomenon so often taken as a symbol of hope or divine intervention in the myths and beliefs of our forefathers. It was astonishingly beautiful and quite jarring in contrast to the feelings I carried with me from the news that had been broadcast to my home, and the feelings that resulted from it. All I could think of was to wish that that symbol had been sent where it was needed most, to the people of New York and Washington DC.
That evening, I logged on and discussion had already started in various email discussion groups I was in. I made, even at that early stage, the prediction that many many more people would be killed this time by US and British forces, as a consequence of the terrorists' actions. At that stage, I was still supremely sceptical that it even was terrorism, and the conspiracy theories about using it as a pretext for war were already surfacing in my mind (I now think that there probably was not a conspiracy, but I am always suspicious of official explanations). At that point, the media speculation was still focussed on Palestinian terrorism (fuelled by the fact that there was news footage of Palestinians celebrating the attack), and I was sure that thousands more would die in revenge attacks, that Israel would use it as a pretext for punitive activities against the Palestinian people, and that the tragedy had only just begun.
That was how my day ended: with the anticipation of greater tragedy still to come, not on US soil, but in the Middle East. When the names of Al Qaida, Taliban and Afghanistan (and from US sources, Iraq and Saddam Hussein) started to emerge as the assumed culprits, it became clear where the further deaths I had predicted on the evening of September 11th 2001 would take place.
Saturday, 10 September 2011
Signal-boosting: Wordpress refusing to enforce privacy TOS on MWMF Blogger Trans Women Hitlist
Found viafierceawakening @ the strangest alchemy:
The MWMF Blogger Trans Women Hitlist, and Wordpress' Refusal to Do Anything About It.
labelle77 writes:
I can only add my voice to those saying that, not only is the action by the MWMF blogger vile, but so is Wordpress' response to the complaints.
The MWMF Blogger Trans Women Hitlist, and Wordpress' Refusal to Do Anything About It.
labelle77 writes:
This blog post outs several trans women with both pseudonyms AND legal names, their photos, where they can be found at the festival, and in some cases their profession and employment.
...
The blogger is also putting these people in possible professional peril - at least one woman is listed by both her legal name, profession, and business name AND by the stage name she uses as an actress in (feminist-award-winning, actually) adult films. Suddenly, anyone who googles her in a professional capacity becomes immediately aware of her other work, without any consent from her.
...
Everyone who has made a report to Wordpress received a single paragraph canned reply that states:
“WordPress.com is in no position to arbitrate disputes or make judgment on such claims. As per http://en.support.wordpress.com/disputes/, please provide us with a Court Order including a court's decision regarding this particular content; if any content is found to be defamatory or illegal by a court of law, it will be removed immediately from our service. Any court order, should you obtain one, must be sent to the following e-mail address:court-orders@wordpress.com”
I can only add my voice to those saying that, not only is the action by the MWMF blogger vile, but so is Wordpress' response to the complaints.
Thursday, 8 September 2011
Able-'splaining "lame", and my most recent attempt to deal with it
I regularly read a blog called 21st Century Relationships, the author of which I encountered during my researches of PUA/SC advice, the experiments with which, I chronicle on this blog.
On a post discussing how far one should question to oneself, one's own dating preferences (tangentially related to these issues), the following throwaway line appeared in one person's comment:
To confuse the matter, there were other remarks about this person's preference against dating people who actually have disabilities.
I decided to weigh in.
Here's what I said:
The TAB-Ablesplainer came back with:
Which is fair enough, but missed the point of my remark completely, necessitating that I make it clear that I was objecting to the use of "lame" as a pejorative.
TAB-A responded as follows:
Which is only different in scale, and not in kind, from the horrible, horrible "comedy" stand-up routine described @ Womanist Musings recently (I haven't watched the video, but I read the transcript there and - urgh!)
I shall leave you all with my (hopefully) final comment on this matter @ 21st Century Relationships, as my final remarks in this post:
Definitions 3 and 4 are using "lame" as a derogatory term, and are discriminatory language against people with disabilities. Just because you can find the N-word in the dictionary, doesn't mean it's okay to use it. If you found the derogatory usage of "gay" to mean "boring or uncool" (as opposed to "homosexual") in a dictionary, would you be comfortable using that, too? Or would you understand that as homophobic and discriminatory language? While we're at it, the same principle goes for people with mental disabilities and the term "retarded", too.
You're quite right when you say, 'I should have used the word "boring" or "unsophisticated".' All I would ask is that you remember to do so in future. That's the whole point of my making an issue out of it.
EDIT TO ADD: The owner of the blog, Nathan, has created a new post to discuss these language issues, and I think he gets it pretty well. Sadly, the commenter who was ablesplaining still doesn't, and I don't have the spoons to keep this up much longer.
On a post discussing how far one should question to oneself, one's own dating preferences (tangentially related to these issues), the following throwaway line appeared in one person's comment:
I'm also less likely to date someone who lives in the suburbs (of my town, anyway, this doesn't always apply in other cities) because my experience is that suburban guys are really lame.
To confuse the matter, there were other remarks about this person's preference against dating people who actually have disabilities.
I decided to weigh in.
Here's what I said:
do you genuinely find that suburban guys have great difficulty in walking? It's hard to tell, since you're also negative about people with other disabilities as potential dates, but I would think it statistically unlikely. I do hope you weren't using an ableist slur!
The TAB-Ablesplainer came back with:
I have nothing against people with disabilities. But I would not date one. It's not my thing, and I think that's OK. Why lie? It's not their fault and it's a crappy deal for them. I am sympathetic, just not attracted.
Which is fair enough, but missed the point of my remark completely, necessitating that I make it clear that I was objecting to the use of "lame" as a pejorative.
TAB-A responded as follows:
Lame:
1. crippled or physically disabled, especially in the foot or leg so as to limp or walk with difficulty.
2. impaired or disabled through defect or injury: a lame arm.
3. weak; inadequate; unsatisfactory; clumsy: a lame excuse.
4. Slang . out of touch with modern fads or trends; unsophisticated.
I meant number 4. I should have used the word "boring" or "unsophisticated". It was a quick comment, I didn't edit it for content, and I only use the word "lame" as in the above-referenced number 4. I've never in my life referred to a human as "lame" in any other sense of the word.
Which is only different in scale, and not in kind, from the horrible, horrible "comedy" stand-up routine described @ Womanist Musings recently (I haven't watched the video, but I read the transcript there and - urgh!)
I shall leave you all with my (hopefully) final comment on this matter @ 21st Century Relationships, as my final remarks in this post:
Definitions 3 and 4 are using "lame" as a derogatory term, and are discriminatory language against people with disabilities. Just because you can find the N-word in the dictionary, doesn't mean it's okay to use it. If you found the derogatory usage of "gay" to mean "boring or uncool" (as opposed to "homosexual") in a dictionary, would you be comfortable using that, too? Or would you understand that as homophobic and discriminatory language? While we're at it, the same principle goes for people with mental disabilities and the term "retarded", too.
You're quite right when you say, 'I should have used the word "boring" or "unsophisticated".' All I would ask is that you remember to do so in future. That's the whole point of my making an issue out of it.
EDIT TO ADD: The owner of the blog, Nathan, has created a new post to discuss these language issues, and I think he gets it pretty well. Sadly, the commenter who was ablesplaining still doesn't, and I don't have the spoons to keep this up much longer.
Wednesday, 7 September 2011
Dating sites required information, and the OMG risk of meeting a geek.
Finally been spurred to comment on this, after Daisy Deadhead wrote a piece that on many levels echoes precisely how I feel about the whole ridiculous snafu over a blogger @ Gizmodo who called a guy a liar because he didn't mention his love of Magic: The Gathering on his dating site profile. This was originally was going to be a comment @ Daisy's, but it got long and rant-y and wasn't entirely on topic for her post, so I've moved it as my own post over here (where it then got even longer and more rant-y).
Full disclosure: I probably count as pretty geeky. I'm not a big gamer, whether in online worlds or in real-life (I go to a games evening every couple of weeks and have a lot of fun with the things that we play there, and I've designed my own card game that with a little luck I may even manage to sell to someone). But I get geeky about loads of things, like SF, music, language, history, religion, and so on. So I have a little bit of a vested interest here! That said, I am writing this in general terms (mostly) and not focussing on "geeks can be good dates too", but more on, "how is this even a thing?"
I'll just quote the same passage that Daisy did:
I'm just flabbergasted by the idea that you're required to include certain types of information on your dating profile. Time was, I'm sure, when if you wanted to know something particular about a date, that you asked them and got an answer - then you could certainly say they lied about it if it turned out they didn't answer truthfully! And that goes for the "divorced" or "has a kid" thing, or anything else. Sure, I'd quite like to know in advance whether a potential date is a racist arsehole (or whatever) in advance, but I can't call them a liar if they just didn't mention that on their profile - I have to find it out myself.
But, "This could happen to you" - what could? You meet someone with divergent career plans or interests from your ideal? Gosh, that must happen only to EVERY SINGLE PERSON WHO EVER DATED EVER, surely? Or is there some weird disease you can only catch from nerdy, geeky types? (of which I, presumably, am a carrier - who knew?) I mean, it's not like "having unprotected sex - if you're not careful you could end up pregnant and HIV-positive and stuff like that". Using a dating website - you might end up meeting someone who thinks differently from you, and has different priorities! Oh noes! The shame, the horror, the suffering!!!
To get back to my original point: there's no information that is obligatory on a dating profile. It's not like you're buying a fucking house, for pity's sake! There's no need for "full disclosure". It's there for you to put your best foot forward and hope to make that first fleeting, tentative connection that, with good communication and a few dates, might spark and flare into something approximating a relationship, and then actually become one, with love and joy and all that good stuff - SOME WAY DOWN THE LINE IF YOU'RE LUCKY.
[Hmm, I just watched a documentary about Bill Hicks' life, and I think my inner voice has picked up some of his mannerisms and delivery, here - hence the shouty uppercase clauses at times]
So, on your profile, you are obliged to talk about NOTHING. You really find it useful only to talk about what you think is significant in terms of finding a suitable partner, because THAT'S ALL THE PROFILE IS THERE FOR. It may well be that "Champion of Magic: The Gathering" guy didn't realise that his gaming involvement was even relevant to whether or not he would be a good partner, or to finding out his chances of being attracted by someone else. Heck, the original piece says that she was the one who brought up the topic on their first date, not him! It doesn't even sound like she even used this as a screening tactic, until he told her his geeky claim to fame, at which point all bets were off.
If it was so important to her not to date a nerd or geek or dweeb, then why didn't she ask about the things that she found unacceptable? There's a free messgaing servcie on OkCupid, for crying out loud, you can check that screening stuff before you go on a date! Only you know what your deal-breakers and must-haves are, no other fucker (or, indeed, celibate person) can be expected to anticipate what's going to turn you off. You pretty much have to do that checking yourself.
If you see a guy or a woman in a bar and you think you might want (them) to pick them/you up, you don't think to yourself, "This person has to tell me XYZ about themselves straight away so that I can be sure I'm not going to accidentally date someone whose outlook is totally different from mine!" No - that's kind of the point about dating: you get to talk about stuff that makes you tick, and they talk about stuff that makes them tick, and if you can live with what they're like, and they can live with what you're like, then maybe it will go somewhere, and if you or they can't, then too bad, it was nice meeting them and the search for love continues. Hell, I've been there, and I'm sure most people who have tried dating at some point in their life has, too - see above.
I don't mind that this woman doesn't want to date nerdy types. I don't mind that for her, it is important for a date to have a college education, a high-paying job, and to be "normal". We all have our deal-breakers and must-haves (one of my deal-breakers is a date having those sorts of priorities, but hey, I'm nerdy/geeky/gamer type, so we wouldn't be in each other's dating pools even if we lived in the same continent).
What annoys me about the whole thing is just that she expects the world to revolve around her, and everyone else should match up to her standards, or admit that they don't, and they should automatically know what those standards are. We're not fucking mindreaders out here! If it's a deal-breaker, then YOU HAVE TO DO THE WORK and ASK them about it. Savvy?
Sure, google away if you prefer (I know dates google me, and I google dates in turn) but really, it comes down to talking to each other is still the best way to get an idea of if they're a good match for you, and you a good match for them. Sure, you might want to have things to ask about specifically that you found out on Google (one or two dates have actually found my NSFW "And You Thought I Was Sweet", and the more disturbing things my psyche churns up over there - and they've asked me about them, and been satisfied that I'm not going to murder them and do unspeakable things to their corpse, and those people are all living and breathing today, I hasten to add, because we met up and I did not, in fact, do any of that stuff). But I promise you: the adult, grown-up, healthy, thing to do when you find out is NOT to go away and laugh behind their back and post a blog post calling them a liar because they didn't even know you would even fucking care about it that much! The adult, grown-up, healthy thing to do is to admit that you have a problem with it and say that you don't think you're compatible as a result. Make it a fair, clear "no". If they want to push it after that, then they're the unhealthy, un-adult one.
Full disclosure: I probably count as pretty geeky. I'm not a big gamer, whether in online worlds or in real-life (I go to a games evening every couple of weeks and have a lot of fun with the things that we play there, and I've designed my own card game that with a little luck I may even manage to sell to someone). But I get geeky about loads of things, like SF, music, language, history, religion, and so on. So I have a little bit of a vested interest here! That said, I am writing this in general terms (mostly) and not focussing on "geeks can be good dates too", but more on, "how is this even a thing?"
I'll just quote the same passage that Daisy did:
The next day I Googled my date and a wealth of information flowed into my browser. A Wikipedia page! Competition videos! Fanboy forums! This guy isn’t just some professional who dabbled in card games at a tender age. He’s widely revered in the game of Magic that he’s been immortalised in his own playing card.
Just like you’re obligated to mention you’re divorced or have a kid in your online profile, shouldn’t someone also be required to disclose any indisputably geeky world championship titles? But maybe it was a long time ago? We met for round two later that week.
At dinner I got straight down to it. Did he still play? “Yes.” Strike one. How often? “I’m preparing for a tournament this weekend.” Strike two. Who did he hang out with? “I’ve met all my best friends through Magic.” Strike three. I smiled and nodded and listened. Eventually I even felt a little bit bad that I didn’t know shit about the game. Here was a guy who had dedicated a good chunk of his life to mastering Magic, on a date with a girl who can barely play Solitaire. This is what happens, I thought, when you lie in your online profile. I was lured on a date thinking I’d met a normal finance guy, only to realise he was a champion dweeb in hedge funder’s clothing.
I later found out that he infiltrated his way into OKCupid dates with at least two other people I sort of know, including one of my co-workers. Mothers, warn your daughters! This could happen to you. You’ll think you’ve found a normal bearded guy with a job, only to end up sharing goat cheese with a world champion of nerds. Maybe I’m an OKCupid arsehole for calling it that way. Maybe I’m shallow for not being able to see past his world title. But if everyone stopped lying in their profiles, maybe there also wouldn’t be quite as many OKCupid horror stories to tell.
I'm just flabbergasted by the idea that you're required to include certain types of information on your dating profile. Time was, I'm sure, when if you wanted to know something particular about a date, that you asked them and got an answer - then you could certainly say they lied about it if it turned out they didn't answer truthfully! And that goes for the "divorced" or "has a kid" thing, or anything else. Sure, I'd quite like to know in advance whether a potential date is a racist arsehole (or whatever) in advance, but I can't call them a liar if they just didn't mention that on their profile - I have to find it out myself.
But, "This could happen to you" - what could? You meet someone with divergent career plans or interests from your ideal? Gosh, that must happen only to EVERY SINGLE PERSON WHO EVER DATED EVER, surely? Or is there some weird disease you can only catch from nerdy, geeky types? (of which I, presumably, am a carrier - who knew?) I mean, it's not like "having unprotected sex - if you're not careful you could end up pregnant and HIV-positive and stuff like that". Using a dating website - you might end up meeting someone who thinks differently from you, and has different priorities! Oh noes! The shame, the horror, the suffering!!!
To get back to my original point: there's no information that is obligatory on a dating profile. It's not like you're buying a fucking house, for pity's sake! There's no need for "full disclosure". It's there for you to put your best foot forward and hope to make that first fleeting, tentative connection that, with good communication and a few dates, might spark and flare into something approximating a relationship, and then actually become one, with love and joy and all that good stuff - SOME WAY DOWN THE LINE IF YOU'RE LUCKY.
[Hmm, I just watched a documentary about Bill Hicks' life, and I think my inner voice has picked up some of his mannerisms and delivery, here - hence the shouty uppercase clauses at times]
So, on your profile, you are obliged to talk about NOTHING. You really find it useful only to talk about what you think is significant in terms of finding a suitable partner, because THAT'S ALL THE PROFILE IS THERE FOR. It may well be that "Champion of Magic: The Gathering" guy didn't realise that his gaming involvement was even relevant to whether or not he would be a good partner, or to finding out his chances of being attracted by someone else. Heck, the original piece says that she was the one who brought up the topic on their first date, not him! It doesn't even sound like she even used this as a screening tactic, until he told her his geeky claim to fame, at which point all bets were off.
If it was so important to her not to date a nerd or geek or dweeb, then why didn't she ask about the things that she found unacceptable? There's a free messgaing servcie on OkCupid, for crying out loud, you can check that screening stuff before you go on a date! Only you know what your deal-breakers and must-haves are, no other fucker (or, indeed, celibate person) can be expected to anticipate what's going to turn you off. You pretty much have to do that checking yourself.
If you see a guy or a woman in a bar and you think you might want (them) to pick them/you up, you don't think to yourself, "This person has to tell me XYZ about themselves straight away so that I can be sure I'm not going to accidentally date someone whose outlook is totally different from mine!" No - that's kind of the point about dating: you get to talk about stuff that makes you tick, and they talk about stuff that makes them tick, and if you can live with what they're like, and they can live with what you're like, then maybe it will go somewhere, and if you or they can't, then too bad, it was nice meeting them and the search for love continues. Hell, I've been there, and I'm sure most people who have tried dating at some point in their life has, too - see above.
I don't mind that this woman doesn't want to date nerdy types. I don't mind that for her, it is important for a date to have a college education, a high-paying job, and to be "normal". We all have our deal-breakers and must-haves (one of my deal-breakers is a date having those sorts of priorities, but hey, I'm nerdy/geeky/gamer type, so we wouldn't be in each other's dating pools even if we lived in the same continent).
What annoys me about the whole thing is just that she expects the world to revolve around her, and everyone else should match up to her standards, or admit that they don't, and they should automatically know what those standards are. We're not fucking mindreaders out here! If it's a deal-breaker, then YOU HAVE TO DO THE WORK and ASK them about it. Savvy?
Sure, google away if you prefer (I know dates google me, and I google dates in turn) but really, it comes down to talking to each other is still the best way to get an idea of if they're a good match for you, and you a good match for them. Sure, you might want to have things to ask about specifically that you found out on Google (one or two dates have actually found my NSFW "And You Thought I Was Sweet", and the more disturbing things my psyche churns up over there - and they've asked me about them, and been satisfied that I'm not going to murder them and do unspeakable things to their corpse, and those people are all living and breathing today, I hasten to add, because we met up and I did not, in fact, do any of that stuff). But I promise you: the adult, grown-up, healthy, thing to do when you find out is NOT to go away and laugh behind their back and post a blog post calling them a liar because they didn't even know you would even fucking care about it that much! The adult, grown-up, healthy thing to do is to admit that you have a problem with it and say that you don't think you're compatible as a result. Make it a fair, clear "no". If they want to push it after that, then they're the unhealthy, un-adult one.
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