Digesting a piece of the happiness pie

For those of you wondering, yes, it is official. The dingdong’s off free agency and in the ball game. The apple is in the crisper. The chicken is in the pot. The car has a driver. The pursuit has a happiness.

Singleness, at least for the time being, is over.

So, needless to say, that explains not only the lack of posting the past few weeks, but also will explain the lack thereof during the holiday season (though an overabundance of comments may reverse my recent speculation that nobody reads me anymore and hasten new posts). As I told a friend and confidant, I have to rush to make my quota of dates for the year since, you know, late start and all.

Through the course of college (no pun intended), it became readily apparent to me that the purpose of education in general is not to make you smarter, but to make you realize that you know a lot less than you think. It’s a small secret that, I think, has made more of an impact on how I think and operate as an individual. Take, for instance, this dating thing. I’m no expert; far from it. I really expected that everything I ever thought about girls, dating, and relationships would be disproven. The stereotypical stuff sorta has. But, incredibly, I’ve managed to back up more of what I’ve serously thought about how the world operates than I have debunked it. Things are still in the early innings, though, and I reserve the right to modify and/or amend as necessary.

Let’s start with the groove theory. I still think the overall concept of a connection between two people being a product of environmental/contextual factors and personality factors is highly valid. But, rather than it being E=G[M/(S=P)], I think the actual equation needs to be simplified into something more general, like sparks=place*personalities (S=P-cubed, maybe, where s=sparks, p1=place, p2=guy, p3=gal). That way it keeps with the whole point accumulation theory that we’re all so familiar with (i.e. I better darn well get some pointage for cutting down a friggin’ Christmas tree for HER apartment this weekend).

The simpler equation also makes it more evident that any one factor could overcome a deficit of the other two to create sparks. For example, there are those people (guys and gals) that have the natural ability to draw attention to themselves in spite of precarious circumstances, and, to some extent, explains why people click even when the world seems to be against them. I think I’m my own best proof of this. Granted, my personality is anything to brag about, but put her and I together, and we click along pretty well. In spite of EVERYTHING to do being sold out or cancelled on our first outing, we still decided it was worth a second to see if it was a bum night or if our luck was that bad (for the record, MY luck is that bad—there was less than nothing to do on the second outing; but Charlie Brown holiday specials came to the rescue).

There are also places or situations that naturally create romantic-type feelings between two people that, for all intents and purposes, would not have even considered hooking up. I’m no authority on that subject; see here and here for thoughts and ideas. Personally, I’ve come full circle and am now a big fan of networking/bumming/patheticness. For me, knowing it was a set-up totally relieved those blasted initial encounter nerves that I so often got trying to start the ball in motion myself because, logically, if she was interested enough to agree to the set-up, she obviously saw something she sorta thought she did or could like. Without having the nerves, the only thing left to worry about was living up to expectations (which in my case, I knew, couldn’t be much).

It also helped that the matchmaker is not one of those very driven personalities, but has the gift of meddling. When she (yes, the matchmaker’s a she; but she’s married, to answer that question) wants to make something happen, she’ll go to the ends of the earth and fudge the truth to make it happen, then have a huge debriefing session to verify everything she already knew. So, when I asked her and the husband to make it a double on the first outing, she not only happily agreed, but arranged the whole day and time thing (the husband and I figured out the actual gameplan--which, of course, failed) and she called both her and me the next day (and the day after the second outing) to follow up on her match and tell me what she thought. It sounds—dare I say—pathetic, but follow me. Yes, I think the double is a good thing. Yes, I think follow up is a good thing. There’s less pressure and more thinking capacity to carry conversation during the outing, and you’ve got at least two other people to confirm or deny the existence of sparks and help you rationalize the next move. I recall, again, the book Good to Great by Jim Collins. One of the distinguishing characteristics between the great companies and the mediocre ones was the ability to boldy confront reality. Collins said (paraphrased, of course) that the best way to confront reality was to have regular meetings where staff could openly discuss the company without fear of persecution. When you do the double, you allow yourself to have that meeting, of sorts, where the other couple can tell you if there's a future or not because, accordingly, mediocre companies solve problems (bad relationships), great companies take advantage of opportunites (good relationships).

This point, alone, could be well expounded upon. We actually met each other at church (which, if you want me to endorse a pineapple place, church would be it) the week before the first outing. I was actually expecting to meet another potential fruit that day, and had set everything up myself to make that meeting succeed. However, I always pick bad produce from the grocery store, so I shouldn't really be surprised that my piece of fruit didn't show up at service. I could have put everything on hold, allowed myself to miss the opportunity (admittingly, its been done before), and go on trying to solve a problem (the gal and I had a fling a few years ago--it didn't work, obviously). Instead (wisely, thanks to tons of good mentorship), I chose to take advantage of an opportunity. It doesn't mean I created a situation, it doesn't mean I forced something to happen, I merely took advantage of an opportunity. Personally, relationships are tons better things to be in when they naturally form, and while it does take intentional work to make one (any relationship, really--friends, parents, siblings, or the boy/girl kind) grow, the majority--if not all--of my best personal relationships "just happened" for no rhyme or reason.

So, there ye be; a live case study to mull and ponder. If anything else, it should totally reinforce the notion of modern-day miracles.

Please, don't shoot

It’s a good time to be an 18-year-old-male-southern-gospel fan.

Yes, I just made five bucks starting a blog entry with that sentence, which is totally not the point, mind you. But it justifies the next few minutes of ballsy, testosterone-fueled rambling about a topic that likely will cause the head of my voodoo doll to be put on a stick and burned in a hot grease fire. So don’t even bother clicking that “flag this as offensive” button on the top of the blogger window; I already know it is. Actually, if you can make it through the locker room, I think there is a practical lesson; if for no one else, then for me.

I have concluded that the southern gospel industry is disproportionately loaded with jailbait. First, by jailbait, I don’t necessarily mean girls that will send me to jail; more like girls that would get me in trouble. You know, the whole apple/pineapple thing. It’s the negative stigma attached to the word “jailbait” that keeps the mind in the sanctuary during the worship service, if you know what I mean. Second, this isn’t just a random accusation that’s unsubstantiated, impractical, or impossible (like one of the sg publications putting out a swimsuit edition every year, though if the only thing stopping them from doing it is a freelance photographer, I can take pictures as well as anybody). It’s an observation based not only on tons of evidence during extremely slow days at work, but also through interviews and surveys with trusted friends and advisors. And, no, they’re not mad scientists, convicted criminals, cradle snatchers or anything weird like that; just guys making observations. Observations are completely acceptable within the realm of scientific discovery (and no, “scientific discovery” is NOT slang for “dating” or “sex,” as much as I think it should be sometimes).

Having just turned 25 in the last week, I can now officially claim to be in a quarter-life crisis. The inner clock of wanting to get out of college mode, find “the” job, “the” place to live, “the” girl…basically “the” life and live it, I sorta decided that it doesn’t necessarily matter what order the “the’s” happens in, as long as they do happens. And knowing that it’s not about how much you know, but who you know, I’ve been in a mood to utilize my networking skills a lot more. I think that’s just a nice way to saying that I’m turning into a bum, but oh well. Bums at least have a 9-to-5 job begging on the street corner and can go home to a cardboard house at the end of the day. I split several hours of every day between any of three jobs (all of which are pretty cool) and go home to a rented place (which is nice and comfy). It’s a far better life than being a bum, but there’s little to no consistency in it.

Alas, I digress; back to the story. They say confession is a good thing, so here's everything out in the open now. When I first started working in s.g. radio back in my late teens, I was the single guy everybody tried to hook up (completely fine with that, mind you). One day I was jawing with a good bud and radio-type, and somehow worked our way into talking about music rotation calls. He mentioned that Annie McRae called the station the other day, and he tried to put in a good word for me with her. I didn’t ask him to that first time, mind you, but from then on, I always made sure that regardless who called, there was a good word put in for me with the record execs and the artists. Call it networking, call it bumming, call it pathetic, I don’t really care. Point is that it doesn’t work. Annie McRae, Trecia Cisneros, Lauren Talley, Jessica Brown; nothing, no love at all (I was gonna say “no love for the dingdong,” but that sounds too…yeah, this is the point where we enter the locker room).
By this point, we were just yakkin more to hear our own voices than to actually get me closer to social involvement (no, still not slang for anything), and we noticed that for every lady within my “dating pool,” there were at least twice as many out of it. So, the genius friend of mine suggested considering the younger ladies. But, having dated a high school girl four years go (back when high school girls were in my dating pool), I decided that’d be like an apple going after a peach seed. I love peaches; they make great pie, cobbler, ice cream topping, etc. But there’s not much you can do with a peach seed. If you don’t believe me, then make a peach seed cobbler and see what happens. Not only will your teeth hurt like a sonuvagun, but I’m sure those seeds can’t feel good coming back out.

While it wasn’t necessarily the most spiritual exercise of my life, I did learn a couple things. I’ve since abandoned large-scale networking. While I did have honest connections with “the stars,” that whole crappy phase was nothing more than a teeny bopper fantasy about hooking up with a Backstreet Boy (I was dumb when I was a kid; stupidly, insanely dumb; how the &^$% did I survive 25 years? I really want to beat myself with a stupid stick now). I do think friends of friends are decent places to scout for potential datables, but it has to be practical. In my quest for maturity, I’ve noticed that God’s left us tons of evidence that proves the world and the people therein operate, for the most part, very practically, and if I look hard enough for a reasonable explanation, I’m fairly likely to find one.

Second, while betting on the long shot can get you a great return every couple million chances, you’ll probably make more money putting down a few bucks on the sure winner. I just got through reading Good to Great by Jim Collins, and in his study he found that the greatest companies put more effort and energy in developing their opportunities than they did in solving their problems. If I go and find a lady outside the dating pool, I’m putting more energy in solving problems I create for myself than I am in building opportunities.

After the botched relationship early in college, I vowed I’d never date a high school chick again (and, yes, I’ve kept my vow). And really, after going through grad school, I doubt I’ll date a freshman or sophomore. I have nothing against freshman or sophmores, but there are way too many differences in their lives and mine. The high school and early college years are all about discovering who you are and all that warm fuzzy crap. I’ve got a decent handle on that, even though it took the two extra years of grad school to get the full extent of who I am. Even in early grad school, though, I became less concerned with who I am but more about what I’m doing. All those bloody leadership books another good bud of mine made me read have me longing for a life of significance. I know there’s many ways to do something significant, and I don’t necessarily care what path to significance I take. I just want to know I’m on the path and moving in the right direction. Apples can do things like that; peach seeds can’t. Put an apple with a peach seed, and you create more problems than you build opportunites.