The Pursuit of Happiness

There Won't Be a Book

2006-04-11T16:29:00.000-05:00

I’ve come to two conclusions. Or maybe I’ve come to one conclusion that directly impacts the second conclusion. No matter, the results of my thinking are the same: random, ambiguous, and flawed.

First, the theory of “the one” related to the great spouse search is completely false. If you’re looking for “the one,” quit now. In fact, quit yesterday. It’s as asinine as thinking that you’re on Earth to accomplish only one, single thing, and if you fail to accomplish that one thing, your life is meaningless and unsuccessful. Once you buy into that line of thinking, the logical end is tons of stress and anxiety. You constantly have to be on your toes, ready and aware to alter anything and everything about life, because if you miss the opportunity of the lifetime (not opportunity of a lifetime, but opportunity of THE lifetime…you’ll only have one, in this line of thinking), you’re screwed. For a guy who, at first, does not succeed, this is not the right plan for me.

Instead, my evolving ideology thinks that life is a game of “types.” There’s a type or two of work or career field I’m cut out for. The more I stray away from the type of work I’d rather be doing, the unhappier I’d be. There’s a type of worship style that God uses to get ahold of me. The more I stray away from that type, the less likely I am to get the point. And there’s a type of lady I’m naturally attracted to. The less like the type the lady is, the rockier the road to happiness will be.

Because of that, the whole idea of finding or writing an end-all-be-all-tell-all book on successful relationships is pretty frivolous. My relationship I’m currently in is unique, just like everybody else’s (clarification for Shay: everybody’s relationship with their other is unique, not everybody else’s relationship with my g/f; that, as we say in the industry, would be bad). That would require a relationship book for all the many millions of relationships there are right now, and each one of those books would sell only one copy. As they say in the industry, that’s not good. Instead, a better pursuit would be to take up learning your relationship style and finding someone who clicks on the same things you do.

If anything else, your odds are better in “the type” theory of getting married than they are in the theory of “the one.” Wherefore comfort one another with those words…

Show me a contract

2006-02-21T16:52:00.000-06:00

I believe I should write a book on relationships. I will too, if somebody offers a lucrative publishing deal. Well, lucrative in the sense that I can dilly-dally around for another couple of years before fully entering into adulthood (trans: getting a job). Here’s the promo sheet:

Title: “The Inverted Relationship: Going Through Life in Reverse”

Authors: Me and the girlfriend

Synopsis: Various and sundry circles have pushed the “true” meaning and purpose of dating, courtship, and other methods of relationship building as figuring out if two people are “right” for marriage. Its fine and dandy, but the inherent problem is that couples rarely ever engage in “married” people activities during the relationship building process. That’s why I propose (no pun intended) a complete overhaul in the relationship building process. After the initial acquaintance phases are over, start doing married people things (within good reason, of course). Activities include but aren’t limited to: Volunteer to take care of kids (have I mentioned how cool the idea of adoption is lately? Yes, Leah, I know, I haven’t mentioned ANYTHING lately), work out each other’s budgets (which, if you’re in college and have no money, it’ll be a piece of cake), plan each other’s vacations (but don’t tell the parents till after the fact if you end up going on the vacation together), and, of course, lots of time observing and hanging around other married people. The purpose is twofold. 1) See if you’re ready for married life—if not, then by the previous arguments you have no business dating and 2) if you are ready for married life, to see if you can handle married life with your significant other. It’s a really crazy notion, but it takes the whole “date with a purpose” idea to its logical end. Plus, it actually works.

The Short List

2006-01-11T16:35:00.000-06:00

I’m in an “old man passing down words of wisdom” mood today. Plus I remember somebody lamenting that there aren’t any good books to help you make the move from singleness to coupleness. Honestly, I’m of the opinion that it’s more luck than anything else, and there’s only so much you can write about having good luck. As friends of mine say, even if you polish a pile of poo to where it shines, it still stinks to see your face in it. But as much as you sometimes can’t control being single or coupled, you can control a heckuvalot when you finally do get coupled. And, though cliché, it is in your best interest to start prepping yourself for coupleness while you’re stuck in singleness. Thus, my short list of things I wish I’d developed before I got coupled. You’ll know how sick and twisted (read: twiterpated) in about 5 minutes.

1). Self Confidence: Gals dig self-confidence. Guys dig self-confidence. Gals and guys dig self-confidence. Why is it, then, that so many of us lack it? And why is it that “self-confidence” is so dang hard to define and develop? I’ve always said there’s a fine line between confidence and conceitedness. Though I admit now that it’s a rather large, grey blob more than it is a fine line, merely defining self-confidence as a humble but assured belief in one’s self doesn’t make it any easier a trait to develop, especially in the face of overwhelming evidence that suggests you have reason to be concerned about yourself. As I read once, “The only consistent feature of all your dissatisfying relationships is you.”

2). Patience: Patience is more than a virtue, it’s on the list of “almost unattainable character traits” up around self-confidence. If you thought managing your own hectic schedule was tough, try to manage it around somebody else’s hectic schedule. It sucks. It sucks hardcore. It usually means feast or famine when it comes to spending time with your other. When you’re eatin’ good, no worries. But when you’re hungry, oh how time doesn’t fly. Granted, you’re likely to only notice the famine when you’re not busy and there’s nothing at all going on. Thus, you probably need…

3). A Life: Patience becomes less necessary when there’s tons of other stuff occupying your time. The busier you stay when you’re away from the other, the less time you have to analyze how much better you could have done on the last outing. You also come up with really groovy ideas for the next outing, and gals dig groovy ideas. I was of the opinion that what can be done today can just as easily be done tomorrow long before I got coupled. It’s even easier to put stuff off for the good and noble cause of courtship.

4). Accountability: There’s also going to come a time (no, hasn’t happened to me yet) that there’s not a lot of things more important than spending time with the other. Unless you’ve got a roomie, good friend, or other person in you life willing to kick the crap out of you a time or two after something truly important gets left undone, life’ll be pretty tough. Not necessarily because things don’t get done, more because you’ll be hearing “Gosh, you’re whipped” more than you want to.

Sometimes you wonder if you’re only here to serve as a warning to others.

*****UPDATE*****01/12/06*****0930*****

If, per chance, you fail to develop these traits while in singleness, you can always work on them when you decide to put the relationship "on hold," whatever the h--l that means.

Unfortunately, I get to find out what that means.

Second helping

2005-12-12T17:28:00.000-06:00

Mmmmm, pie….I like pie…..I think I’ll have another piece.

Tis been almost a month since the curse of pathetically poor social luck was lifted. So far, I got no regrets in turning to the dark side. Even when it means admitting hypocrisy on my part, I still have no regrets. I think that’s a good thing, but, in typical Dingdong fashion, I’ll have to analyze it to be sure.

There are a lot of things I swore I’d never do if/when I ever had the chance to do the whole relationship thing again. Some of it’s been pretty easy to stick to. For example, take rushing the whole physical side of things. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a guy. Guys of all people like physical things; but after you make the mistake (even if it’s not THE “mistake” people so often think of) of getting closer before you get closer, you won’t do it again. I think the whole touchy/lovey/dovey junk just doesn’t work till after there’s a solid emotional knowledge base of the person. Even just the simple stuff like hugs and holding hands means a whole heckuva lot more a month or so into the relationship because the emotional attraction has had time to grow. Physical barriers are easily broken, and after you break them, it’s difficult—if not impossible—to put them back up.

Without the get-to-know phase, you end up being more enamored with the relationship itself than you do with the other person. I read this article a while ago now (like, almost a month ago—coincidence, I hear you say), and the part at the end about “the Us” made me think a little bit. To a point, “the Us” is an inescapable part of a relationship/romance (whatever). Many people like to call it “the new.” Friends get excited that you’re in “the new” relationship/romance (whatever), parents want to know about “the new” significant other, so on and so forth. After a few weeks, though, “the new” should be pretty well over. Granted, it reappears every time you take a step up the commitment ladder (which, if anybody knows what those steps are and what’s different between them, please let me know…soon…), and a lot of people talk about breaking in “the new” marriage—don’t ask me what that means. But “the new” shouldn’t stick around as long the second or third time around. If you’re constantly striving to talk about “the new” more than you are about the other person, that’s when you’ve got a problem.

I also said I’d hate to have a clingy-type relationship/romance (whatever) where I’d be on the phone or hanging out every night of the week, and, yeah, kept that too, but it’s been a rough statute to keep. There comes a point right after “the new” wears off where you just click with the other person, and after that happens, having your own life becomes less important and spending time with the other gets close to breathing, eating, and sleeping on the list of priorities. I think the slang term for it is being “twiterpated” or “whooped,” but I could be wrong. All I know is that life is a lot more fun with her around than it is with her not around, and sacrificing some level of comfort at home on the couch to be out and about with her is a sacrifice well worth making.

It doesn’t even have to be “out,” in the most literal sense (this is gonna sound like I’m trying to score pineapple points, but it’s the honest truth). The most enjoyable part of the last month has been just crashing somewhere, hanging out, talking about life and attempting to solve all the world’s problems. It’s like writing a blog, except you talk instead of write and it’s to another person instead of a computer. Admittingly, I’ve got that dreaded fear in the back of my mind that we’re gonna hit that proverbial wall of having nothing else to talk about and then it’ll be over, but luckily there are no walls on the horizon at this point.

Which, it borders hypocrisy to admit I’m stressing out over stuff. I’ve decided that some level of insecurity and stress is a good thing. If you weren’t worried that there was a chance that you’d lose the other, you’d have no reason at all to talk, date, court, woo, impress, or any of the other stuff we all curse but secretly and sneakily makes the social system work. And no matter what stage of a relationship/romance (whatever) you’re in—whether it be startup or marriage—insecurity can be the best motivational factor in striving for a great relationship/romance (whatever) instead of settling for a good one. Granted, the sources of the insecurity change as the relationship/romance (for the last time, whatever) progresses (yeah, still waiting for that discourse about the various accepted levels of the social system…anytime…now…..), but taking a small dose of general anxiety, stress, and/or insecurity’s a decently good thing to have on occasion.

Did I mention I like pie? It’s the coolest.

Digesting a piece of the happiness pie

2005-11-27T01:23:00.000-06:00

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

2005-11-08T17:43:00.000-06:00

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.

The Groove Theory, revisited

2005-10-20T16:46:00.000-05:00

You know, I really despise the whole notion of horoscopes and psycho-non-sense. It’s not necessarily because it’s wicked or of the devil, anybody can write bluntly vague but true statements like these whether possessed by evil forces, aliens, or an addiction to soda pop. My problem is that somebody’s getting paid a ton of money to write crap like my horoscope I read yesterday:

"Romantic relationships require genuine enthusiasm to be successful, and you can only put genuine enthusiasm into someone you really dig."

That’s so brilliantly obvious that I lost 10 IQ points and had to beat myself with a hammer as punishment. Seriously, that’s like saying “Work is hard so do something you enjoy for a living.” In a utopian society, we’d like to think that we’re smarter-than-the-average-bear enough to avoid investing time, effort, and energy into something that is completely pointless. Even writing the oh-so-unintelligent horoscopes still puts food on the table, so it has positives (the paycheck being the only one I can think of). But occasionally you’ve got to give in and do something that goes against the ultimate plan, hoping only that the time invested in pointless activity makes you mentally stronger to withstand the urge to give in to mediocrity again in the future.

It’s amazing to me how completely odd and random the human decision-making process is at times. Guys tend to ignore the obvious dangers of emotional pain and heartache in an effort to meet our inner physical need of reproduction, and gals ignore obvious logical hindrances of situations because of an emotional warm fuzzy feeling that hints at comfort and security. I’ve got an idea that would totally fix the problem, but as of yet, God hasn’t set up a website where we can go and download a daily agenda of things He wants us to do and people He wants us to see. As somebody once said, “If you’re forced to rest, a laurel’s as good a place to do it as any.” So, until the download-your-agenda website thing gets set up, we’re stuck pondering life’s difficulties in the public sphere and coming up with hypothetical answers to unsolvable problems.

Reviewing the notes from the academy, I think the sole purpose behind the development of the groove theory was the hypothetical answer to an unsolvable problem. While somewhat ambiguous and, dare I say obvious, the groove theory represents an honest attempt at making the decision to pursue or not to pursue more objective and empirical instead of a subjective gut call. Thus, you get a better idea of whether the pursuit of social happiness will be worth “genuine enthusiasm” or whether it will land you in the clutches of mediocrity (i.e. ending up with a lemon instead of a pineapple).

Even if you’ve landed in the vicious cycle of limbo, the groove theory offers hope of making the limbo rock (heh, punny). By taking the principles of the groove theory and putting them into practice, you should be able to figure out if the costs of time, effort, and energy in limbo are worth the potential benefits of a relationship with “someone you really dig.” You should be able to figure out how to put yourself in situations that market your strengths and downplay your weaknesses (because let’s face it, apples get pineapples because of their ability to market themselves) if your desire is to move out of limbo. While the whole notion of pickup lines is scorned and abandoned, the principle of them is highly applicable: the majority of the socially successful have a set routine that nets more profits than losses. Find your groove, embrace your groove, play your groove.

I want to be a horoscope interpreter. Equally as pointless, equally as profitable.

The Indoctrination, if you will, of the Groove Theory

2005-10-11T00:16:00.000-05:00

After much research, analysis, debate, and a good bit of luck, it is my pleasure to present to you the mathematical theory of relationships (the groove theory, if you will).

E=G(M/S+P) where E=effective style, G=groove, M=mac factor, S=speech, and P=personality

Put into words, your effective style is equal to your groove times the quotient of your mac factor divided by the sum of your speech and personality.

I shall have to admit, the work is not my own. I ran across it the other day while cleaning out boxes of high school memories. During the summer of 1997 I went on a three-week retreat that literally began the process of changing me from the shy geeky introverted type I was back then to the less shy, less introverted, but still geeky type I am today. It was one of those summer academy things where they shack you up with 20 people you’ve never met on a floor of a dormitory full of 280 other people you don’t know and tell you “Have fun, broaden your horizons, but don’t get into trouble.”

And, honestly, nobody got into serious “we have to kick you out of the academy” trouble. But, fortunately for my less-than-socially-apt self, I lucked out and got in the house of guys that thought getting to know all the girls was the best way to broaden the horizons. Thus, “The Indoctrination, if you will, of the Groove Theory” not only represents our greatest feat as a band of brothers, but also the countless hours of trial and error courting the lovely ladies of “The House of the Wandering Penguins.” And, wouldn’t ya know it, the theory came to us one evening while we were sipping carbonated beverage listening to White Town’s “Your Woman.”

It made perfect sense at the time (both the song and the theory); not so much sense now, unfortunately. As M.C. Bennett told me later, “The groove theory simply cannot be explained. It just is.” I feel obliged to define the terms and explain the theory anyway, but do allow me some leeway to adjust the definitions should further research on my part turn up more accurate information.

Simply put, a person’s effective style is how good he or she looks to the opposite sex after an encounter. Are you potential arm candy, or just another waste of space? To find out, you start with the groove. The groove is the environmental variable of the equation. Is the situation favorable for hooking up, or are you more likely to get slapped in the face? Everyone hopes for a positive groove or a favorable environment to make a connection, but mathematically it is still possible to effectively style in hard times. The mac factor is your optimal ability to be a player. Its not about whether you execute or not, its about your potential. Some people got the mac, some people don’t. Speech and personality are the action/event variables. Speech takes into account the overall positiveness or negativeness of the conversation and adds it to the combination of the two personalities. If the convo was good, and the personalities, then the sum will be positive; likewise bad convo and a personality clash result in a negative sum. Obviously, a really high convo/personality sum makes for a large denominator, and thus the mac factor has to be that much higher to result in a significant quotient. This takes into account the other variables at play (i.e. doubt on the part of the other person, an overtly favorable environment, sheer odds that everybody gets lucky once in a while, etc.)

I know by now you’re dying to ask, “So, Dingdong, what’s it all mean?” Truth be told, other than the obvious, I don’t remember yet. The obvious is that tons of factors go into making a connection with somebody. Is the time right? Is the place right? Do you say what needs to be said? Are you naturally drawn to people like him/her? Above and beyond that, there are varying levels and degrees of connection. If there weren’t varying levels and degrees of connection, 1) there’d be no fighting among roommates over who gets to date the hot chick/dude, because the first person to connect would win and 2) there’d be no big decision over who to date, who you like better, etc, because it would be a 100% connection or a 100% repulsion.

The only thing I still hesitate to say the groove theory covers is the recurring encounter. While the groove does improve with recurring exposure (no Shay, I don’t mean nudity), the speech/personality sum also improves, and unless your mac factor grows proportionally, your effective style may diminish over time. This is inconsistent with tons of prior research that supports the notion that people become more attractive and attracted to each other over time. The important thing, though, is that the unthinkable has once again been achieved. At least on paper (and now a computer screen), it is possible to use logic and reason to explain the highly illogic and unreasonable.

Go ahead and put my Nobel Prize on the mantel next to the little league trophy and the die-cast race cars.

Of Love and War

2005-09-27T16:55:00.000-05:00

Word of wisdom for today: don’t start reading your horoscope just because it’s opposite the comics. Yesterday’s astrological hypothesis was another winner:

“The dynamic between you and your romantic hopeful is getting interesting, humorous, and/or annoying. The more you ignore this person, the more he/she adores you.”

Well, since I have no idea who this so-called ‘romantic hopeful’ is and therefore can’t pay her any attention, I don’t think I can mess this one up (if indeed the hypothesis turns out to be true—I half-think it’s a load of bovine feces). Of course, this is banking on the “absence makes the heart grow fonder” notion, which is true to a certain extent. I often find myself digressing into thoughts of “what if” and “what should I do” after any kind of remotely successful social encounter (and yes, the barometer for determining “successful” has been lowered during the “Great Drought of the 20s”—some would rather call it the “college years”).

The negative side effect of the absence produces fondness theory is that one inevitably has to go through relationship purgatory (commonly known as limbo) before seeing results. Unlike the popular party game, social limbo sucks. Compare it to that feeling of non-hunger-non-fullness that makes one ponder whether to eat dessert or snack after a meal—you’re sick if you do, you’re hungry if you don’t. The exact same thing can be said of limbo. You’re sick on an emotional level—if not a physical level as well—if you keep to the absence program, because its driving you crazy that some resolve can’t come of the situation. But once you break the silence, one phone call leads to another call and the twiterpated thirst won’t ever be quenched.

Limbo’s not necessarily a bad place to be if one knows how to manage it. I remember reading something about a year ago (though I don’t remember where) that said something to the effect of “If you’re forced to rest, a laurel is as good a place as any to do it.” Looking at the dearth of opportunity that is life at this point, limbo doesn’t sound like a bad vacation from reality. While it is always possible to over-think a situation, limbo gives one a chance to play out various scenarios. It gives a person time to talk to members of his or her personal cabinet (yes, everybody needs a personal cabinet; let me know if I need to explain this concept, it’s actually one of my better theories) and come up with a war plan for almost every possible situation. By the time the battle breaks out, it’s possible a guy or gal could have several good and reliable courses of action that would prevent the new-relationship jitters.

But, after awhile (days, weeks, months…kinda depends on the opposition), the whole “out of sight, out of mind” opinion becomes more relative. Guys’ attention spans are only as long as the time between commercial breaks during the game, and we’ve already got a lot to think about then. I mean, you’ve got quarterback ratings, cheerleaders, rushing stats, cheerleaders, receiver vs corner matchups, cheerleaders and a whole heckuva lot of other stuff to keep track of; not much time to ponder limbo. That’s why it’s apparent to me that the whole be obvious approach to relationship initiation is the best on both fronts. Guys gotta do enough to make the girl stick in the mind longer than the next big play, and gals gotta do enough to make sure they stick in the mind more than the dynamics of the game (and no, dynamics is not slang for cheerleader).

So, what’s there to do while in limbo? Using the war metaphor, before engaging in battle, one needs to send out a good recon team to gather intelligence. In fact, I’ve got an official “Director of Intelligence” on my personal cabinet solely for the purpose of gathering intel (granted, each cabinet member functions as an intelligence gatherer at times, but its always good to have a go-to person). Take all the information you can get, and start coming up with various scenarios and courses of action with your “Secretary of Defence.” In the meantime, don’t go out of your way to avoid engaging the opposition (well, avoid the “traditional” engagement, because, you know, nobody’s gone strait from limbo to being engaged, but engaged as in a meeting or an encounter). While engaging the opposition can be awkward, awkward moments lead to more obviousness and obviousness leads to decisions, whether good or bad. At the same time, don’t go looking for a fight when there’s no opposition to fight. Provoking action unnaturally would be somewhat intimidating; and intimidating, unsubstantiated action is akin to terrorism (and nobody likes terrorists). The key is to realize when the window of opportunity is open the widest to avoid snagging the clothing as one jumps through (unless, of course, you’re a nudist; then its even more important not to snag stuff).

If only there were a mathematical equation one could use to figure out the probability of success…

Points and Produce

2005-09-20T17:21:00.000-05:00

It was another one of those funny-horoscope-next-to-the-comics days in the daily news paper:

“Work gets tense, but that's nothing compared to your personal life! What causes stress is not the situation itself but your thoughts about it. With a little help, you can manage those.”

That may explain the pounding headache I’ve had since I set out on this whole self-discovery method of explaining the social fabric of the space-time continuum; that, or I’ve got SARS.

What’s the whole meaning and point of the last week? I think I’ve finally concluded that it confirms the obvious point that since guys have the advantage on the scoreboard when it comes to building social relationships, they are the ones to initiate and lead in the relationship. Yeah, I know, obvious point, and one many of you are telling me to wake up and observe. But find the best method (heck, any successful method) of relationship initiation is another one of those “not a lot of research here” areas. Thus many guys—yeah, including myself (doesn’t take a genius to figure that out)—find ourselves in a bit of a quandary when attempting to pursue “happiness” (or Allison, or Heather, or whoever she is).

The system itself wouldn’t have as many problems as it does if it weren’t for the other variables in the fledgling equation: girls and intangibles. I’ll be the first to admit I’m not one to take a subtle hint (I miss the obvious hints too, mind you); that’s why I told the ladies last week to be obvious in any and all hints you choose to give us concerning your feelings (or lack thereof) of attraction. If you want us to keep in touch or call you or something, we kinda have to have your phone number. More often than not the phone number exchange is the figurative signature on the metaphorical contract sealing the fact that two parties are interested in each other and the relationship can commence in some shape or form. So, when we ask for your phone number, we’re probably gonna call. If you ask for ours, that means you’re gonna call. It’s a weird and funky system, I know, but apparently people make it work.

And blast those bloody intangibles for causing fear and anxiety. If I were a gambling man, I’d venture I miss an opportunity or two every couple of weeks because of fear, anxiety, and a general lack of self-confidence. Going out on a limb, I generalize that’s precisely why 80-90% of guys and girls return home alone after a night on the town. I’m thinking, too, that the intangibles are somewhat rooted in the fruit basket theory because we’re either a) uncertain whether we’re an apple, pineapple or worm and/or 2) uncertain whether the potential interest is an apple, pineapple or worm. It’s fine to be talking to fruit of your own kind, even better to be talking to the premium produce, but it’s a health to be with the rotten stuff. And it sucks even worse when you are the rotten stuff, but since nobody gives honest opinions anymore, you have no idea if you’re rotten or carmelized.

So, yeah, the horoscope’s dead on today. I’d banish myself from thinking, but it’s still not proven that I have those processes yet.

Head-to-Head, Final Round

2005-09-16T14:55:00.000-05:00

I’m growing weary of this bloody awful exercise, especially since its apparently already reinforcing what I know. Some people think I already know enough to be a dangerous lady slayer. Pshaw, I say; just because a guy knows a lot about food doesn’t mean he can cook something in the oven. The point, of course, is that knowledge—especially for guys—doesn’t equate into social aptitude. Girls at least have those two weapons strapped to their chest that they can use in emergency situations. Guys’ secret weapon gets them into emergency situations.

Final Round: Wild Cards

1) Initiation – In spite of what it may do to the space-time continuum, I’m going to reveal to all gals how to know if a guy’s interested in them: we talk to you. It’s that simple. If we want food, we go to the store; if we want shelter, we go to the house. If we want lovin, we go to the girl. It’s that friggin simple. Gals, on the other hand, throw out so many varying signals that we don’t know whether you want us to stay on base or attempt to advance on the next pitch (that’s guy-speak for “BE MORE OBVIOUS”). Sometimes gals talk to guys because they’re interested, other times its because they’re just being nice, or that they have nothing better to do. And there’s no rhyme or reason to their conversation. There’s no hints or structure or anything different about a “hey baby” conversation from a “poor baby” conversation. That sucks. ADVANTAGE: guys

2) Interaction – Here’s the real reason why guys and gals still, to this day, don’t understand each other: neither of us can speak the other’s language. For gals to be able to talk to guys, they need to know the firing order of a small block Chevrolet (1-8-4-3-6-5-7-2) or anything else about cars and engines, statistics of a major sports figure, any small part of a Larry the Cable Guy routine, or some mildly impressive electronics speak. And, really, it doesn’t have to be correct information about engines, sports, electronics, or whatever; just throw something out there and we’ll lead the conversation. For guys to be able to talk to gals, they need to know about 50% off sales, color-clothing coordination, buy 1 get 1 sales, color-furniture coordination, holiday sales, candle and body lotion fragrances, and anything else about sales. It’s easier to get certification in nuclear technology or brain surgery than it is to figure out sales and coordination. And why hasn’t Bath & Body Works come out with “Motor Oil Madness” yet? It'd do better than cucumber melon. ADVANTAGE: even

3) Intangibles – The true wild card of the contest, which is basically the stuff that needs to be addressed that doesn’t fit anywhere else. And there’s not a lot that I can think of (then again, after pondering about this profoundly significant but inconsequential topic for a week, I don’t really want to think much for awhile). For instance, guys tend to pull more money into their pockets, but I’d venture a guess that very few guys manage the money better most gals. I figure it’s because we don’t shop a lot. And if shopping’s so valuable an experience, why is there no “Advanced Shopping and Consuming” in the Economics Department at most colleges? And even though the whole stereotype about asking for directions when lost is pretty well true of guys, its because guys typically make better split-second decisions than girls (if you don’t believe me ladies, how many spontaneous purchases at your shopping outings have had adverse effects on your finances days or weeks after the event? “More times than guys’ wrong turns” is the correct answer), and as such, we’re cool with trusting our gut—however much of one we’ve got. Differences like these can’t really be measured or compared, just merely accounted for. ADVANTAGE: the intangibles.

Discussion: So, unofficial results: Guys 8, Gals 6, Intangibles 1. Not surprising considering the biases this researcher took into the study. And I’m still not sure what the significance of the whole thing is. If anything, it’s just reinforced a theory posed to me by “the co-worker who knows better” a few days ago. “Dingdong, in the animal kingdom there are foxes and there are hedgehogs. Foxes are crafty, cunning, and generally find creative and complex ways to solve problems. Hedgehogs are simple. The only thing they do is curl up in a ball and prick the crap out of you, but somehow it works. Girls are foxes—yes, in more ways than one—and guys are hedgehogs.”

I always was a big fan of Sonic. Never liked Tales much.

Head-to-Head, Round Three

2005-09-14T16:59:00.000-05:00

The pointless-to-this-point debate over the differences of guys and gals continues with yet another recount from yesterday. It has been brought to my attention that gals like to hang out at shoe stores and other gal’s pads. But where do single gals live? Houses? Compounds? Beauty salons? Shoe stores? And why in the world would gals hoping to be noticed by guys congregate in private places like houses and shoe stores? Momma didn’t raise no ordinary fools; we’re not going in those places unless we’re suckered into it by a significant other (and we better darn well be rewarded for our expense). Gals, please, come out into public. You’ll make the world a prettier place. Score remains 4 all.

Round Three: Psychographics

A good friend of mine always insisted that the key to getting anything in life (and I do think he meant anything) lies in one’s ability to market him or herself. It’s too bad I slept through all the marketing classes I took as an undergrad; they’d have come in handy here.

1) Personality: Crap, this is a lot tougher than I thought it would be. Previous research leads me to think guys have three personality types, as per the box theory, and girls have four or five as suggested by the friends theory. I have no idea which is better. I also have no idea how to figure out gals’ personality type; it’s probably because I have no personality. ADVANTAGE: even

2) Value-system: When making decisions, guys consider two things. How will “the guys” think, and what will girls think. Gals consider, um, many more things than this. “Will it cause me to look fat?” “Will this cause me to sleep less?” “What happens if it causes the end of the world?” “Can I pay with credit cards?” “What will Mom think?” “What will my puppy think?” “Will it leave the toilet seat up?” “Does it match my shoes?” All that just to pick out a loaf of bread. ADVANTAGE: guys

3) Response mechanisms: Guys have one response mechanism: walk it off. Whether it’s a stomach virus, a bullet to the leg, the death of the huntin’ dog, or the loss of the home team, guys walk it off. Dude can have a car wreck that leaves him paralyzed, and he’s still gonna attempt to get of bed and walk a few laps around the hospital like nothing ever happened. Gals break a nail and nuclear holocaust ensues. I know a lot of you are claiming stereotype, but where there’s smoke, there’s fire. And you couldn’t pay me enough money to be around a gal during that time of the month. ADVANTAGE: guys

4) Primary hot button: Guys have two hot buttons. One’s the stomach, the other’s slightly below the stomach. Girls have hot buttons too. Unfortunately, I always push the wrong hot button and make her mad instead of happy. Is there a wiring diagram of a girl somewhere I can study? ADVANTAGE: guys

5) Fears – Gals are scared of lots of things. They’re scared of being alone and not being taken care of. They’re scared of spiders, snakes, and other creepy-crawlies. They’re scared of being overweight, underweight, too tall, too short, too attractive, too ugly, too smart, too dumb, too hungry, too full, too bossy, too indecisive, too loud, and too quiet. They’re also scared of loaves of bread. Guys are scared of girls. ADVANTAGE: girls

6) Passions – Gals like lots of things too. They like group shopping trips and moonlit walks on the beach. They like intimacy and friendship and getting to know people while shopping at the mall. They like a sense of humor and intelligence in the clerks at the stores where they shop. And I’ve heard they also like shopping and shoes. Guys like girls; and doing things with girls. ADVANTAGE: girls

Discussion: by my unofficial count, the guys have their first lead of the game. They did it by being superficial and easy to figure out. Maybe gals should take a lesson while they’re drowning a cricket in bug spray and hunting for a new pair of pumps. I still think this may be the most pointless thing I’ve done with my life. Of course, if the guys win, I’m brilliant.

End of Round Three: Guys 7, Gals 6

Head-to-Head, Round Two

2005-09-13T16:47:00.000-05:00

Against my better judgment, the head-to-head guys versus gals matchup goes on, even after a recount of round one yesterday. The dispute was over the eyes category, as one scholar noted that girls occasionally give good looks too. The sports commissioner reviewed the play, and did agree that girls give good looks; however, they’re insanely subtle and most guys wouldn’t know a “come here baby” look from a “get away, I’m going to sneeze look.” Thus, the ruling on the field stands and the score remains Guys 2, Gals 3.

Round Two: Miscellaneous Demographic Data

1) Population – The Census Bureau reported that, as of 2000, there were 143.4 million gals in the U.S., compared to only 138.1 million guys. You’d think with that many more gals than guys I’d have a decent shot at landing one. Do the math, though, and that’s only a 1.03 to 1 gal to guy ratio. Gives new meaning to the whole “special one” concept, don’t it? And has anybody ever met 1.03 gals? ADVANTAGE: even

2) Geography – Will somebody puh-LEEEZE tell me where single girls hang out? I’ve been to everything from fancy eateries to county fair truck pulls – no difference in either. Single guys are easy to find. Besides the afore-mentioned places, we frequent living rooms, bathrooms, game rooms, garages, clubs, bars, and electronic stores. ADVANTAGE: guys

3) Income – From all the reports I’ve seen, guys continue to have more earning power than gals. I, like everybody, don’t think its fair, but I’m in no position to do anything about it. ADVANTAGE: guys

4) Age – Rumor and data suggest gals live longer than guys to. If gals weren’t stomping our grapes so they’d put out more wine, we might live longer. Ever had your grapes stomped? ADVANTAGE: gals

5) Education & Age – The wild card of the round. Hear me out on this one, because evaluating both categories on their own likely wouldn’t do much to help the cause. Based on observation and interview data, it appears to me that girls begin the maturation (and as such, gaining of wisdom) several years earlier than boys do. However, this process of maturation appears to take ten, fifteen, even twenty years. Boys, on average, don’t get out of the kootie stage till their mid-teens, but once they do, tend to be fully mature and wise (granted, there are various levels of wisdom; some grapes get more ripe than others) in five years or so. It’s a good theory, but, unfortunately, still too few case studies to be sure. ADVANTAGE: even

Discussion: Other than catching guys up with gals on the scorecard, it’s still a pointless exercise. There are more girls than guys, but guys don’t know where they’re at, so it does them no good. More than likely they’re all older gals anyway; which make good adopted grandparents, but not so nice significant others. Maybe the psychographic data will turn up something substantial.

End of Round Two: Guys 4, Gals 4

Head-to-Head, round one

2005-09-12T16:53:00.000-05:00

Obviously nothing’s come of the whole horoscope incident of last week. I know that comes as a great surprise, but it still needed to be said. What’s the statute of limitations on something like that anyway? Does it mean I’m gonna be stuck with the next girl I turn into a psychotic babbling idiot or has my supernatural ability expired?

Anywho, the marriage equation is still in the works. I’m having to review all the calc and trig notes from high school and early college life, which is a slow, painful process. Believe it or not, there exists very little quantitative research on the subject, which is fine since I like to think of myself as a pioneer. The bad part is that I’ve got to start from scratch.

So, I thought the best way to do this would be to just put guys and gals up against each other in a head-to-head style format, matching traits, characteristics, and anything else I deem worthy of consideration in an effort to look for commonalities, patterns, abnormalities, or anything else noteworthy (plus, there’s not really much else to write about right now).

Round One: Physical Traits

1) Hair – I might as well start at the top and work my way down. It’ll be easier to keep things straight. Guys normally have hair. It’s not normally confined to their head. Even that which is on their head has a tendency to disappear or become disorderly. Gals have hair too, and (hopefully) the only place they got it is on their head. Even when they’re having “bad hair days” (whatever the crap those are), its more orderly than my “good hair days.” And gals’ hair typically smells like fruit. ADVANTAGE: gals

2) Eyes – Guys have eyes. They’re used to look. Gals have eyes. They’re used to give the look. No contest. ADVANTAGE: guys

3) Nose – seemingly a tossup, since everybody’s got a nose and most noses do the same thing. Girls typically stick their noses in a lot more places they don’t belong, though. ADVANTAGE: guys

4) Mouth – another tossup. Guys have mouths, and not a lot comes out of them, which is good mind you. The bad, though, is that half of the stuff that does come out of our mouths is normally classified under that “bodily function” category and not as “verbiage.” Gals have mouths too, and although very few use it for the “bodily function” thing (which, I think more of them should; there’s something mildly fascinating—if not attractive—about a girl that burps), gals use their mouths way too much. ADVANTAGE: even.

5) Midsection – I could seriously damage myself here. Suffice it to say as great as arms, pecs, and abs can be to guys, gals were created with breasts. They’ve caused guys problems ever since. ADVANTAGE: gals

6) Lower body – another potential area detrimental to my social well-being. The short of it, gals look good in tight jeans, shorts, dresses, sandals, tennis shoes, pumps, or any combination of the above. I never bothered to notice how guys look. ADVANTAGE: gals.

Discussion: This was a seemingly pointless exercise. Like all good academic research, the mini-study revealed nothing new and stated the obvious in more flowerly language (well, maybe not). Girls look good. Guys look at girls and only hope girls look at them. Score through 1: Guys 2, Gals 3.

Maybe Round two will be more productive.

Math Homework

2005-09-06T16:11:00.000-05:00

My horoscope today made me chuckle:

“The spark of romance finds you yet again, but this time, there is no way you can get burned. The Cancer or Leo you meet has a true and beautiful heart. Share your love.”

First, I’m not one to go out of my way to read the horrorscopes. It just happened to be opposite the comics today, and I find myself addicted to Pearls Before Swine. Sad part was that my horoscope was funnier than 75% of the comics. I may have to read it again tomorrow.

Second, as I write this, it’s 4:30pm, and I haven’t met a single soul yet (or a single girl, for that matter). And looking at tonight’s agenda which consists of going home and prepping for tomorrow’s lecture, I don’t think the chances of this amounting to much are very good (odds in Vegas of me getting married—like, ever—are somewhere around 75 or 100:1; in normal people speak, its slightly better than gas prices coming down and slightly worse than hell freezing over). Expect an update tomorrow or Thursday if/when I get a chance.

Third, why is it that people always say “You’ll find that special someone when you least expect it”? That’s equating finding a mate to hitting your thumb with a hammer or any other chance accident where somebody could find him or herself in a world of pain. Course, it also means it’s equated with good stuff winning the lottery or finding change in the couch cushions. And, economically speaking, two household incomes should theoretically do better than one household income (put kids into that equation, though, and you’re screwed).

Point, though, is that it’s difficult for me—a reason-based, logically-thinking (okay, most of the time), research-and-report kinda guy—to grasp the whole mate finding thing as purely a crap shoot. AM’s favorite people want to say that there’s a formula or method to go about it, and I have a tendency to believe them. Granted, I may not believe that their method or formula works, mind you, I just think that there has exists in the world an equation that makes love a calculated process and not a random occurrence.

For a com scholar who didn’t take math, it may be a bit difficult to figure out, but y’all sure as heck know I’m gonna try.

All Dingdong'd Up, again

2005-08-18T21:17:00.000-05:00

Apparently the FGF found a way to my blog the other day, because she greeted me with an instant message that spurred a heckuva conversation.

“I am sorry that the female race are jerks in disguise,” she popped. She told me she’d been reading up on my review of the fair evening, and I told her, honestly, “If girls weren't jerks, I'd have nothing to write about. And actually, girls are evil, guys are jerks.” “It’s all stereotypes,” she shot back. I said, “Well, there’s gotta be some truth to it; I mean, where there’s smoke, there’s a spark” [actually, that’s my problem, there ain’t no spark; probably not even a match or lighter fluid].

“Well, we all have mean in us. It’s the good we have to develop,” she advised. I’ve tried that though, and it’s gotten me across that really good friend line more times than I can count. I’m tired of being a nice guy. And, I told FGF as much: “I’d rather develop my bad into sinisterly evil and take over the world.” “No. You don’t need to lose that thing that makes you special and untouchable to 99% of the women.” Crap. I thought the point was for women to touch me (no, Shay, not like that). “I wanna be touchable to women, though,” I told her. After she quit laughing, she said, “Well, you are, but only to a select few.” A glimmer of hope? “Like SHF?” I asked. “No,” she said. Junk, shut down again.

“If you saw the scars you would see she isn't all that wonderful. Looks can be deceiving and I am sad that she pulled the wool over my eyes,” she said. Hmmm, that’s a pretty dang powerful warning, coming from a close friend. What gives? Well, honestly I was thinking “She’s hot, who cares?” but I can have literary creative liberty, right? Anyway, I didn’t question her, because it looked like a touchy subject, and I’m not one to get involved in touchy situations; it’s just more responsibility I don’t need. “Well, is there a consolation prize?” “The most amazing love you can have,” she said, and referred me to II Corinthians 12:10 (Since I know it is all for Christ's good, I am quite content with my weaknesses and with insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong—NLT). Good fuzzy thoughts if I were in a good fuzzy mood; I really wasn’t. “Don't give me that. I know all that. I want practical nuts and bolts answers to my practical nut and bolt problem” (no pun intended—I’m not into the Bob Dole stage yet, I don’t think).

I asked for it, and I got it. She said, “Practically speaking you just have to keep moving, because girls like guys that appear to not have time for them.” WHAT¿! “That makes no sense,” I told her. “Well if you are waiting for them to walk up to sweep them off their feet then they have no time to observe and realize they don't deserve you. Girls like to be spoiled, and thus want what they don’t deserve. That is why there are so many girls falling for the jerks. They don't pay attention and the girls are just waiting for a guy to reveal what is special about him, and unfortunately they will just keep waiting.”

This is the best, most fantastic bit of information I think any man has gotten in the history of the world in his quest to understand women. It’s a brilliant idea, and also seemingly doesn’t conflict with the “bad guys get good girls” postulate of the box theory. If the confident guys exude something similar to success or “specialness” (and probably not in the short bus kinda way I do), and girls want what they don’t deserve, then it’s pretty obvious that two and two are gonna add up to five eventually. When it does, the jerk guy, again, got something he didn’t really earn or deserve, and the girl got what she thinks she deserves, even though she doesn’t.

Why is life so bass ackwards?

Sound Off

2005-08-17T17:50:00.000-05:00

Allow me to take a break complaining about life and actually digress (likely into a complaint) into a topic that people might actually be interested in reading.

You’ll recall from before that I spent a week or so out at the annual city/county hootenanny (the fair, for short). Aside from wanting to declare myself as the next candidate on the bachelor and turn another perfectly innocent girl into a psychotic babbling idiot (it’s my spiritual gift, I’ve decided; so if anybody has an enemy they’d like to see turn into a psychotic babbling idiot, I’m available), I also got to talk to quite a few people about southern gospel music. Whether its been mentioned before or not, I’ve got a little gig at the local sg radio station. From the way the new ratings looked, you likely haven’t heard of it. Apparently, though, I am a hit with the ladies 55 and over. Maybe some of them have to have hot granddaughters.

Alas, I digress. If it’s not obvious, I sorta stray into the more progressive side of southern, whether it be toward country or inspo or newgrass or whatever. It’s not that I don’t like the traditional stuff; it’s great in concert. But in the age of modern compressors, equalizers, and other wonderful gadgetry, the majority of it sounds flat and hollow over the airwaves. Some of it, I’m sure, can be attributed to poor recording and production, as southern has always played catch-up to the better produced devil-music of the world, and I’m sure I’ll at least have an overnight stay in purgatory for listening to it.

But some of it is also inherent to the style. It’s been said all over the bloggy internet that southern’s a vocal-driven musical style, which is fine and all, except that (if I remember my sound theory correctly), the human voice likes to hang out anywhere from 800Hz to 4KHz (give or take—please correct me if I’m wrong and point me to an adequate sound theory book I can read in my non-existent spare time). Considering most people can hear stuff from 20Hz to 20KHz, there’s a lot of open space to fill. The piano does a decent job to fill out some of the low- and mid-range with its 28Hz to 4KHz range (ish, again). And I applaud those few individuals who can masterfully craft together an accompany track to sound rich and full with only the buck-toothed coffee table. But you really need a bass to get a full solid bottom end from 200Hz on down. An nice acoustic guitar, at 600Hz to around 8K (granted, that does cut the bottom end, but it would only muddy the bass and piano), would also gracefully enhance the middle ranges of the mix and mold them with some of the upper frequencies (the better choice for enhancing the mids is a good electric, but the electric guitar’s the debil, kinda like the foozeball). To continue to round out the upper end, add some synthesized stuff, and don’t forget about those worldy drums and insanely high cymbals.

Alas, I’ve digressed again. I told you that story to tell you this one: I like full sounding music. It doesn’t necessarily only mean rock or pop or whatever, because even a five piece bluegrass band can sound astoundingly full. But in context with this southern gospel topic, that means I play lots of instrument-driven groups like the Crabb Family , LordSong , Isaacs , Christlike, etc). Needless to say, I catch the occasional flack with the traditionally minded folk, and become more and more irritated with each and every phone call. “Are you changing formats?” “That’s not southern gospel.” “Do you read the Bible?” Comparatively, purgatory doesn’t sound too bad.

What the bloody Hades is wrong with it? Since I refuse to debate the issue on the “it’s not Christian music” point (because nobody’s gonna convince anybody else to swap sides of that fence), I give you point one: its better sounding radio. Granted, to accept this argument, you’ve got to agree to a large extent that sg radio is 1) a business that must survive alongside other businesses in a competitive market and 2) as such needs to pull down a decent slice of the listenership pie to secure the advertising dollar necessary to sustain the business. Once you’ve accepted those points, why in the world wouldn’t you want to play the fullest sounding, best produced stuff you’ve got in the library (single or no single, because we also know that sg is notorious at releasing non-radio-friendly songs)? Of course, you’ve also got to have the on-air talent to back up the music (which is another blog entry entirely), but I’ll venture a guess that the majority of the population listens to the radio to hear good music.

There’s one more assumption to the argument to accept: 3) the listenership you’re competing for is largely non-Christian and/or favors modern-sounding music. To me, that’s the final nail in the coffin for empty, hollow and (especially) the poorly produced junk that floats around sg radio. Playing inferior music to try to attract listenership is like nailing your foot to the floor so you can hit your leg with a sledgehammer. Okay, well, it’s nothing like that really, other than the results of both are extremely painful and something’s bound to get broken. But, and point number two of the argument: what good is having a message if nobody will listen to it? Again, you’ve got to largely view sg radio as an evangelistic tool to the unchurched more than a ministry tool to the average Christian, but I’ve never been able to hook my friends (churched or unchurched) on traditional sg music through anything except a live concert (and it was like beating their legs with sledgehammers to get them to go to that). But I have had friends bum a Crabby, Isaacs, or Martins CD and show interest in the music.

I now relinquish control of the musical soapbox. Your regularly scheduled insights on the stupidity of girls will return shortly.

All DingDong'd Up

2005-08-08T21:06:00.000-05:00

Ah, life, how I’ve learned to despise thee.

When I last left this whole virtual think tank of mine, I’d taken it upon myself to get out of geekdom. So, I did. For two weeks, I limited myself to only one “geeky” activity per day—-alas, PlayStation won out most often. And even during this “geeky” PlayStation time, I tried to play the “cool people” games, like baseball, basketball, NASCAR, and golf. Most of the time was spent thinking of arrangements for the original music our church praise band has written and are going into the studio to record. Since this will likely be crown jewel of my small portfolio as a producer, I figure I need to make the most of it. So I thought I’d try the whole plan twice, record once thing out to see if it really works.

I even made it out to into the real, social world for a whole week. The work place put a booth out at the city fair, so I took the evening/night shift, thinking that’d be the most opportune place to meet “people” (yes, Shay, that means girls). Unfortunately, the fair caters mainly to 1) teeny boppers, 2) couples or 3) old people, so I was doomed from the start. It should come as no surprise, then, that this story doesn’t have a happy ending.

Sawyer Brown was in concert the very first night of the fair, and my brother’s fiancé-girlfriend (FGF: not exactly a fiancé, but not exactly a girlfriend) had tickets to it. So she, her mom, her dad and her smokin-hot friend (SHF) wandered up to the booth before the concert. Her parents had never met me, and I tried to concentrate on the conversation instead of SHF. And I succeeded, for the most part, at balancing the attention thing between the parents and SHF, because the parents thought I was a riot and I got a phone call a couple days later from the brother saying the SHF thought I was “cute” and that brother, FGF, SHG, and I should set up an outing (hmm, fancy that, Dingdong’s got social skillz). I thought about it for a whole nanosecond and finally agreed. I give the situation a week to fester up and hit the brother and the FGF up about it while they were in town on Saturday. “Yeah, SHF decided she didn’t want to because she started dating someone.” Hmm, fancy that, Dingdong loses again.

Welcome to the realm of Dingdong. I should have known better, because this came not more than a week or two after a similar incident. Another girl from church (GFC) was just as smart, saying she “didn’t want a commitment” right now when the church matchmaker shot my name at her. GFC didn’t even take me up on free David Phelps tickets, saying she “had a big project from work” she “needed to get done.”

What gives? What’s wrong with saying, “Oh, I don’t think you and I would work out” or, even better, “you’re not datable material” instead of this whole "dating somebody else" or “non-commitment” thing? I’m not as concerned about having a horrible batting average as I am about girls not telling the truth. It would at least help me prioritize life a little better knowing that the social life is a lost cause. Guys always get the bad rap for “hiding our feelings,” or, my personal favorite, “not saying what we mean.” Ladies, I present two cases that prove you are as guilty (or more so) than we are.

Besides, guys already have dibs on the “don’t want a commitment” line anyway. It’s not fair to use our own weapons against us.

The Box Theory

2005-07-19T19:03:00.000-05:00

You hate it when you leave yourself nowhere to go after your last blog post? Yeah, I royally hate me for screwing myself over. I think I’ll beat me up. Before I do, though, I’ll attempt some random string of mildly coherent thought that leaves one scratching his or her head that God would actually allow a pathetic being such as myself to go parading around in public for close to a quarter century.

I’ve concluded through much research that there’s something to my hypothesis that girls are all evil (I’m gonna get beat up by myself anyway; I might as well just speak my mind and get all the beatings done and over with). In fact, as soon as I can get in touch with the authorities, I hope to get it confirmed as a scientific fact (along with the whole window of opportunity theory). Everybody’s always talking about, “there’s chemistry between you and her,” or “maybe there’s a spark between him and her,” so I figure I’ll talk to the American Chemical Society and see what other sanctioned research has been done on the matter. Granted, there has been a mathematical proof of the hypothesis, so it is plausible. However, in typical MythBuster’s fashion, I want to see a real-world confirmation.

I’ve at least figured out why guys who don’t deserve girls get girls. There are four groups of males in the world--no more, no less--and guys are placed in one of the four groups based on their levels of competence and confidence. All guys start out as “boys,” the period of low competence and low confidence. “Boys” are dumb; they have no idea how the world’s social system works, if they even know what a social system is at all. “Boys” also don’t have a lot of confidence in themselves, though its for good reason: they’re puny, pathetic, pimply-faced weaklings at the bottom of the food chain.

From there, a “boy” takes one of two options: he either develops competency or self-confidence. Obviously the competent ones move into “geekdom.” They figure out the way the world works, do insanely well in school, sit and theorize about quantum physics, and create robotic women at will. But because they have no self-confidence, the robotic women they create leave them for a household appliance (not that I know or anything). Real women choose household appliances over geeks too, though, so at least they’re use to it.

The guys who take the confidence route are a different story. They get girls they shouldn’t be with, jobs they’re not qualified to have, and opportunities not afforded to the normal man just because they exude the highest level of confidence in themselves. In fact, some guys act like it’s a privilege for a girl to have him as a “friend,” or an employer to have him as part of the team, just because of the sheer ability to market and sell one’s self. That’s also the problem with the confidence route. You always walk the line of conceitedness, which means, more often than not, you’re a jerk.

Then there are the true men in the world: competent enough to handle most any problem, confident enough in themselves to tackle any opportunity. It’s tough to break into the elite club of men, because one naturally plays his strengths--whether it be academic achievements or social skills--and don’t focus enough on improving weakness--whether it be social skills or academic achievement. Rough estimate, only 5% of the total male population ever attains this level of manhood, because the geeks never get out enough to take opportunities, and the jerks are too busy living the social lifestyle. I personally think all males aspire to be part of the complete, well-rounded 5% elite club, but the point at which they attain this desire is obviously different. Some guys realize it much too early and turn into Doogie Howsers (not that there’s anything wrong with being an 18 year old doctor, but, c’mon). Many realize it much too late and end up being middle aged recluses or washed up celebrities. The goal of all guys is to figure out the utopian time frame for advancement through the system. This ensures 1) gaining the proper technical skills necessary to complete the task of life so one does not fall flat on his face and 2) having time to break into a social network necessary to get the support for the task of life so one does not fall flat on his face. For men, it’s all about not falling flat on the face.

So, the goal temporarily is to get out of geekdom.

Just One of the Guys, concluded, finally

2005-07-06T00:46:00.000-05:00

“I’m still mad at you for that comment last night,” Shay told me via messenger as I sat down to a nice Italian dinner (translation: hastily made sketti). “Just one of the guys?” I asked her. “Yeah,” she said. I promised her a explanation here on this very website, to which she said, “It better be a dang good one.” Admittedly, I’ve drug my feet about getting into the meat of the “One of the Guys” trilogy. It’s a very touchy subject, which has offended at least one person before. Figuring myself to be in a deep enough hole that I’ll never see the light of day again anyway, I press on into the poo.

If you’ve been following this saga, you know the last question Shay asked was “So what should a girl do if she doesn't want to be considered ‘one of the guys?’” I, being one to speak first and think later, said, “I don’t know, probably the same thing a guy should do if he wants to be more than ‘a good friend.’” Alas, that social void that we all hope to escape. Shay, sensing the depravity of the situation, asked again, “which is?” “I don’t know,” I told her, “if I did, I wouldn’t be somebody’s ‘good friend’ right now.” “So we’re in the same boat?” she asked. “Yeah,” I said, “and it ain’t no cruise ship.” See, there’s nothing an individual can really do to take the “you’re a good friend” relationship to more than a platonic level. One has progressed into that “like family” area where it would feel more like you were dating a cousin or something freaky like that.

What I’m getting at is a friendship continuum. At the point on the continuum that you meet someone for the very first time, you cross into the acquaintance phase. Obviously, you and the person are acquaintances, you’re on an “I know that name” or “I know that face” basis. Other than the superficial details, you don’t know a lot about the other person. When you begin to know them on that “first name” or “buddy” type basis, you’ve crossed into the “friends” phase. You know where they work, you know some of their personal favs, and you begin to hang around each other when a convenient occasion presents itself. At some point during this “friends” phase is the “dating window.” It’s the literal window of opportunity where a dating relationship could start without any awkwardness. You know enough about the other person to know he or she would be a cool person to hang out with and get to know seriously, but not enough personal information that, if a breakup occurred, would lead to awkward situations like all-out personal wars, lawsuits, moving, or any other change in the habitual routine we all like to have. If you choose the window of opportunity, then you make the transition into the relationship continuum (an entirely different subject that, if enough interest is shown from the readership, I’m not scared to delve into later). If you continue along the friendship continuum and either miss or ignore the window of opportunity, you’ll eventually cross into that bloody awful “you’re a good friend” (or, in Shay’s case, “just one of the guys”) phase. At this point, you’re like adopted family. And we all know what happens when family gets together in that “family tree that doesn’t branch” kinda way.

I’m thoroughly convinced that the majority of the time relationships don’t work out (mine included) is that people choose to enter them outside of the window of opportunity. The best example of this is those countless times I’ve heard, “but if we start a relationship and it doesn’t work out, it will hurt our friendship, and I don’t want to do that.” I thought for a long while that it was a copout, just an excuse to get that dorky dingdong kid out of the way. A former college roommate once told me, “Sam, your best friends make the best girlfriends.” He, of course, was dating one of his best friends at the time. I saw him a couple years later, and he told me that after the fun initial play stage that every relationship goes through, things just got “really weird when the new wore off.” And he’s right. You get to know too much about a person that they become undatable after a period of time. I mean, you wouldn’t want to date one of your racin buddies or one of the gals you go party with on “girls night out.” At this point, the individual is one of those friends you have that, if you’re both single when you turn 40, you decide to settle with each other, thinking that if you both look like losers, then neither of you will look like a loser.

Then there are the couples that hook up during the initial friendship phase that don’t know enough about each other to be dating yet. It’s like the dreaded blind date from hell: outings filled with silence, obligatory but meaningless niceties at the end of dates, and an overall feeling of unfulfillment from being in a relationship for the sake of being in a relationship. Those suck more than the best friend relationship feeling that you’re dating your sister (or brother or cousin or grandma, whatever). There’s no good way to end the “too early” relationship, because nothing bad has really happened that would warrant a normal break up. (S)he really hasn’t done anything to make you mad, like cheat on you or rob your refrigerator or make a general nuisance of himself or herself, and you haven’t really done anything wrong, like not call or forget his/her birthday or run over his/her pet rabbit that would make him/her not talk to you again (okay, so I’m not the best at coming up with examples of bad stuff that happens in a relationship…shoot me). For that matter, you don’t really want to, because (s)he is kinda cool, and if you could just find one or two things you had in common to talk about on those painfully long dates, things might actually work out. Instead, you eventually do intentionally skip calling, go out with somebody else, and run over his or her pet rabbit and things blow up. It sucks (not that I’d know or anything; none of my exes have ever had pet rabbits).

And finally, you’ve got “guys.” The only thing “guys” need to know about a girl is that she’s hot, and they can do that without saying anything. So, find a girl who’s really hot, get acquainted with her and hook up. It’s doubtful it lasts, unless he’s lucky enough to find a girl who wants the same thing. I think the technical term for her is “desperate.” He, on the other hand, is “deprived,” whatever that means. That’s why, as Shay astutely noted, that “FAT, UGLY girls can get guys” [caps hers, not mine--ed.].

At this point, I began blowing smoke out of several bodily crevices on what Shay could do to remedy her situation, assert her feminity, find a woodsy kinda person like herself, take tons of interpersonal communications classes and get a masters. Much to my surprise, she didn’t like any of them (note my tongue sticking through my cheek). I retorted, “For bein’ one of the guys, you’re sure stubborn like a girl.” Dumb thing to say, but it got the response I wanted: “I am a girl! And I’m not stubborn!!!! I just know what I want, just like guys know what they want.” A hasty generalization on her part, but since I’m guilty of the same thing, I let it slide. Instead, I said, “Well, whether good or bad, I’m not a guy because I don’t know what I want. Right now, I’m not opposed to putting girls on hold until my job situation [er, lack thereof--ed] is sorted out, unless one of the dream girls fell into my lap,” figuratively speaking, of course. Shay: “So you DO know what you want, or should I say who you want.” The guy in me replied, “Well, I’d be a fruit to give up a chance to go out with one of them. I’d also reconsider if somebody with an extra set of goals, ambitions and beliefs came along that I could steal, because I have yet to figure out if I have any of those either.” Shay: “Why don’t you change all this?” Me: “Because I lack the motivation to do it.”

And, ladies, there’s your answer to figuring out men. As the male of the species, we possess the ability to think coherently, act sensibly, and live successfully at any given point in time. The big thing for us is that at the majority of these points in time, we don’t bloody care how we think, act and/or live, and thus, don’t make choices toward life, liberty, and the pursuit of a relationship. Thus, you, as the coherent thinking, sensibly acting, and successfully living female of the species must find the subtle ways of motivating us into choosing to do what you want us to do during those times where we don’t bloody care. Relationships, in this sense, are like a big game of social chess. Trap the king, force a checkmate, game over.

The way I see it, though, ladies have the upper hand. I mentioned the three basic male needs earlier; that’s really all it takes to figure out guys. I’ve heard rumors females have three basic needs too, and to a point I believe it. They want to feel secure, they want to feel valued, and, off in right field, there’s that whole motherhood thing. But, as I’ve discovered, making girls, ladies, and/or women feel secure, valued, and motherhooded is a far bigger task than it appears on paper. I think once I figure that out, I’ll begin to understand what it takes to not be “a good friend” anymore.

Any ideas? Write it up, post it on a blog, and leave me the link. I seriously want to figure this out.

Just One of the Guys, visited, again

2005-06-29T23:12:00.000-05:00

Shay and I picked the whole relationship conversation up again a few days after our first conversation. By this time, we’d dropped into the whole wedding kick of last week, and were discussing my inability to find where the female species congregates in my region of the world. It also came out through conversation that I possess the superpower of being able to attract the mentally and emotionally unstable fems; so, if there’s ever a need to pick a psycho girl out in a lineup, just ask me which one I’d go out with, and you’ve got your winner. After some banter on this subject, Shay asked me: “So why [generalize] all girls?” Admittedly, I was overgeneralizing; I’m sure there are girls, then there are “girls,” then there are “ladies,” then there are “women,” and finally you have all my exes (for those of you playing the home version of the game, that makes five categories--don’t ask me for the differences; I still haven’t figured out girls).

Anyway, I told her: “It’s quick, easy, convenient, and gets the point across.” C’mon, for cryin out loud. We all do this. Gals, I know you talk about “men,” “boys,” “pigs,” whatever. Then there are “mother-in-laws,” “bosses,” “lawyers;” the list could go on for several pages. Granted, some of these stereotypes aren’t the most accurate portrayals of those groups of people, but they do serve the purpose of getting across the exact intent of many principles in conversation. Shay played the “unfair” card, so I replied: “Those few cases [outside the stereotypes] fall out of the 95th percentile of observable cases.” Okay, I’ll admit to switching games a bit, but the standard rule of research at the graduate level is to throw out the outlying 5% of cases in a sample if they are skewing results in an unusual way. To put this into visual perspective, if you draw a 10 inch line on a piece of paper, cut a quarter of an inch off both the right and left side of the line, and that big 9 ½ inch part is all “girls.” The outer half inch is all the girls, “ladies,” and “women” (for those of you still playing the home game, my exes fall in the “girls” category). According to the US Census Bureau, there were 149,117,996 females (sum of all five categories, if you will) in the US a year ago. Granted, all those are not in my datable age bracket, which consists of only 19,734,404 fems. And since I don’t want a “girl,” I use the 5% rule which leaves Sam’s dating pool of 986,720.2 girls, “ladies,” and “women” to choose from. The odds are seemingly in my favor, with one datable female in every 0.107697936 square miles (ya know, in the amount of time it took me to figure that all out, I could’ve gone out and met somebody).

Shay counters: “You're ultimately putting me in the same category with freaks, psychos, stalkers, fat girls, etc…” How this conversation went from generalities to being only about Shay is still something I have yet to figure out. I’m sure when I do that I’ll have another piece of the puzzle about girls, “ladies,” and/or “women” in place (depending on which of the five categories Shay ends up falling into). Shay also tried to tell me that “when you start puttin’ all girls in the same category, you leave no room for changing your mind.” True, but as I told her, I’ve “never seen the need to [change my mind] yet.”

Anyway, we continued talking about why I still haven’t managed to find someone in the outer 5%, and I said it was probably because when I talked to the ones I found in the outer 5%, it was during a time in my life “when I was young and stupid and socially inept. Now, I’m older, wiser, and still socially inept; [but] I have a newfound confidence in my ineptitude that may make me more ‘dangerous.’” I’m sure, since Shay didn’t catch it, that not many see the connection between danger and ineptitude (least, not in the senses that both terms are being used here). The thing is: “I've heard rumor through the grape vine that, to women, a confident aura sometimes outweighs a few social blunders. So, since I'm confident in my inability to talk to girls, I gain the confidence necessary to relate to them on at least a seriously platonic level. It’s like reverse psychology.” Shay informed me that many girls, “ladies,” and “women” like a little mystery to their dream guys, and asked me how I’d work this into the theory. As I told her, “the social ineptitude actually plays to that "mysterious" thing, because you naturally stray away from stuff you don't know about, like fashion, cooking, and relationships. Thus, you have a mysteriously confident man.” It makes perfect sense to me. Act confident in the areas you know a lot about, dodge conversation in areas that you have no business discussing. What’s the problem?

Shay: “But that's insane.” Me: “Girls like a little craziness in their men too.” Shay: “See, there you go generalizing all females.” Me: “If, by generalizing, you mean making observations about all the girls I know, then yes.” Alas, I haven’t gotten out much in my pursuit of life, liberty and happiness. I spent the majority of my time putting off papers to the tune of drums, guitar, piano, PlayStation, basketball, racing, television, and other general nonsense that didn’t involve girls, “girls,” “ladies,” or “women.” So, the only basis for my “generalizing” are exes (not the best data, mind you) and general observation of the female species. Don’t shoot me, shoot the data.

Shay: “Girls like to feel secure; they like seriousness.” Me: “…and a little crazy.” Shay: “Humor maybe, not crazy.” Me: “A little spice, a little pizzazz?” Shay: “But that's not crazy.” Me: “[Crazy’s] what gets you taken home at the end of the night.” Shay: “If that's all that matters, then...well…” Me: “It doesn't matter at all, but it at least gets me noticed. And for a guy who doesn't get noticed a lot,” crazy looks kind of appealing sometimes. Granted, I’m talking about drunk crazy, psychotic ex girlfriend crazy, or certifiably crazy; I’m talking about those extroverted risk takers that get into bars for free on a regular basis, steal conversations with the most attractive “ladies” at parties even though said “lady” is involved with another guy, get hired for jobs they’re under qualified for but still excel at because of their inner business savvy, and live on the ragged edge of life for at least 5 out of 7 days a week. That kinda crazy. Even if it doesn’t get you taken home at the end of the night, you’ll have had a blast getting rejected. Shay then asked me why I didn’t get noticed, and I cited her the above areas that I’m lacking in, summed up in the phrase “I don’t get out much, and, according to you, I have ‘issues.’”

From there, we randomly delved into one of my favorite parts of life: bar-be-que. The smoke, the flavor, the look on everybody’s face when you give them a slice of rib that’s been hickory smoked for four hours, it’s one of the most satisfying occurrences in the existence of human kind (behind the moon landing thing and winning the Daytona 500). I was breaking one of the cardinal rules of barbeque and giving Shay my dry rub recipe when she told me of her disgust at having to rub spices all over the ribs. So, she started figuring out a way to still get the ribs done right by getting her mom to do the dirty work: “I'll tell her that you said it's worth it and that she should touch the nasty meat.” At which point, I’d been serious for long enough and cracked off the line: “Ha, ha. Shay said ‘touch the meat.’ Ha, ha.” It did get a sympathy laugh, but she pointed out the obvious: “Maybe comments like that are why you can't find a girl.” I could have let it go. I could have agreed with her and “corrected” the problem. Instead, I spoke without thinking: “See, I keep them to myself when I'm out with somebody, but you're one of the guys, Shay.”

You’d have thought I told her the DE’s were disbanding. It sent her into a minute and a half long fit of rage that I caused me to want to disinfect the computer screen (my virgin eyes and all). Okay, it wasn’t that bad, but I think the messenger window literally winced after I said it. I really didn’t know the gravity of my faux pas. I was too busy watching Conan interview Saddam Hussein. Shay asked me: “So what should a girl do if she doesn't want to be considered ‘one of the guys?’” So I told her: “I don’t know, probably the same thing a guy should do if he wants to be more than ‘a good friend.’”

That’s when the extent of my error hit me like a slap in the face after a date gone awry.

"Just One of the Guys," visited

2005-06-28T01:27:00.000-05:00

Yes, I admit to calling Shay “one of the guys.” I didn’t honestly realize it would go so far as to almost offend her because I think Shay, like me, is not easily offendable (if “offendable” is even a word; if not, you can tack that on to “Sam’s official dictionary of the English language you never knew”--“Sodot Elynk” for short). Heck, I didn’t know I had the ability to offend people. I thought it was one of those weird superpowers that only that upper level management type had the ability to do. If so, then maybe I need to set my occupational sights higher than I currently have them.

Anyway, I revisited the multi-day conversation Shay and I had on the whole subject (sometimes history files can help you more than they hurt), and I think I still stick by my comment. She's already said her piece about the subject. My take goes something like this.

To set the stage (for what could be a short-lived moment of brilliance or yet another tangent into lunacy), we were doing the whole one-upmanship on relationships (more like the lack thereof), and the struggles therein. If the history file serves me right, I asked Shay “Why are girls like this?” (this, here, refers to girls being somewhat more inclined to follow feelings and emotions rather than rely on the obvious signs of logic used by most, if not all, men). Shay, being one to open a can of worms, made me a deal I couldn’t refuse: “You tell me why guys are like they are, and I'll help you figure girls out.” ‘Woo-hoo,’ I thought, ‘some real world answers from a real girl.’

Her first question on the table was “Why y’all gotta be so clueless and insensitive?” That’s an easy one. The short version, which I told her, is that “because, in our mind, the world and everything that goes on in it doesn't make sense, and if it doesn't make sense, then it must not matter; things that matter always have a reason why they matter” (a poorly structured sentence, I know, but most IM conversations are full of them, anymore). The more grammatically correct and verbose version is that guys think logically. Everything in the world has a set order, formula, process, method, system, or routine; and once we figure out said order, formula, process, method, system, or routine, have figured out why said everything matters. In 18 grades of study, I’ve concluded girls have no logical order, formula, process, method, system, or routine, and thus have yet to figure out why--beyond sex--that they matter (well, they do get that one thing once a month, but I don’t understand that either). I, at this point, counter with the question, “We don't like how you guys are moody and base all your decision on your ‘feelings,’ what’s up with that?” Shay, being the scheming individual that she is, dodges an honest attempt at an answer with the copout, “moody = God's fault...take that up with Him.” I attempted to call her bluff, only to get “Just actin’ on a whim to get back at guys, show a little power, ‘lookie what i can do to make you miserable’ [kinda thing].” I don’t doubt any of this, but I still don’t understand what possesses girls to do this. Shoot, even when they’re trying to get back at guys, they’re doing so illogically. The easier, more efficient way to annoy us is to withhold one of our three basic needs from us (which, in no particular order, are food, sports, and sex).

Shay’s next question was, “Why you can't just say what you feel instead of keepin' it all locked up inside?” The short version: “It would make us vulnerable, and the only thing we hate more than moody girls is looking vulnerable in front of moody girls.” Ladies, believe it or not, we do actually worry about security in a relationship; if you look at the list above, traditionally wives supply two of the three critical needs of our existence (three, if you want to count cheerleading and mud wrestling as competitive sports). Having established the fact that girls have no particular rhyme or reason for ANYTHING they do, what the bloody hockey-stick is it worth to us to open up and (quite possibly, given the odds) say the wrong thing at the wrong time and shoot ourselves in the foot? I’m all about being honest in a relationship, but the words of two particularly smart people come to mind. First, Mark Twain (paraphrased): “It’s better to keep your mouth shut and appear a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.” Second, a former boss-man: “They say the customer is always right, but sometimes I beg to differ.” Put these two principles together and you get the picture: “It’s good to be honest in a relationship, but to open your mouth might mean not having a relationship in which to be honest.”

This led me to the big question guys have, “Why you all gotta go sending us mixed signals?” Shay, being smarter than me in most instances, again tried to dodge the question: “Cause the signals aren’t received in the way they're meant to be.” ‘Pshaw,’ I thought, and told her, “I think they're not sent in the way that they were meant to be. If girls want us, why can't they just come up to us and stick their tongues down our throats? It’s what we want them to do in the first place.” Shay: “Because girls ain’t gonna do that crap.” Me: “Some will, they just cost too much. So, again I ask, why can't you guys be more obvious?” [insert random banter here] Shay: “One thing you gotta realize is that girls feel the same way guys do about stuff like that. They [go] for guys who they're not compatible with and then get screwed b/c of mixed signals.” Me: “I think it’s all a conspiracy on your part to torture us.” Shay: “Nope.” Me: “Examples?” Shay: “None.” Me: “Then I stand by my hastilly formed but well-thought out opinion.” And I still do. Since it’s been established that girls have no logic for anything they do, they don’t stop to realize the logical end of their naturally flirtatious behavior. Girls’ thought patterns goes something like: act ‘natural’ equals bacon and eggs for breakfast which equals filling up with gas on the way home which equals shopping (everything in a girl’s thought pattern ends in shopping). Guys, meanwhile, already have the formula worked out: girl that flirts equals (through a long process that includes dating and marriage) sex with girl.

By this time, it’s getting late and my head’s starting to hurt. Shay’s last question of the night: “Why y’all so stupid?” Me: “Because, while we're logical, we don't take time to properly weigh all evidence.” I hate to admit, but it’s true. Take the flirtatious girl example. Superficially, the equation is flawless: flirt, date, marry, mate. Ah, if only life were that easy. Guys overlook the emotional connection that, from what studies indicate, just clicks somewhere in between date and marry that makes the mate part more fulfilling. And the click is everything. It’s what gives guys the ability to put up with countless phone calls about nothing of importance and girls the patience have many “uh-huh” conversations during sporting events. And it’s just like girls to have the “key” to marriage be something completely unexplainable.

My final question: “How do I understand you guys? I'll buy the whole moody/emotional thing if you just tell me the formula for figuring it all out.” Shay: “There's no formula. We expect you to understand what we need, we will tell you the opposite of what we really think.” Me: “Unless, of course, you tell us what you're really thinking, then we're screwed.” Shay: “Yup.” Me: “So dang'd if we do, dang'd if we don't?” Shay: “Yup.” This completely sucks, in my opinion. Humankind has boiled down the computer to a small foot by a foot square that sits on your lap, does thousands of complex calculations every second, and we can’t write a program that figures out girls? What gives? I reckon this problem to that GMC commercial: “If a submarine can run silent, if an all-terrain vehicle can have all-wheel steering…why can’t your SUV?” I say, “If your life can be likened to a series of problems easily solvable by weighing risks and consequences, then why can’t girls?”

I concluded two things from this conversation. First, “if girls didn't agree to sex once in awhile, guys would never go for ‘em.” Remember the list of critical needs. It’s a calculated risk on our part to chance physical harm from girls for potential physical pleasure from girls. Second, “if guys didn't have half of their kids, girls wouldn't go for guys.” Kids and family and junk obviously supply girls with some illogical emotional fulfillment that guys will never understand, and since girls can’t have kids without guys (in some way, shape, or form), they’re forced to endure the presence of boys on the planet.

As I told Shay that night: “I have everything figured out and I know nothing more than when I started.” Nor have I done anything to remotely explain the whole “Just one of the guys” statement…

Doh!

The Perfect Wedding, revisited

2005-06-21T20:46:00.000-05:00

I’ve still been pondering this really good bad idea that, (unfortunately for me, I can’t shake out of my head (thought is the first step to acceptance). By definition, “really good bad ideas” are those that, fundamentally, are bad ideas, but that with proper execution and/or a great deal of stupidity, could turn into a profitable venture, a social fad, or, at the very least, fodder for others’ blog postings (‘cuz I’m all about being popular like that). Take this commercialized wedding. It’s the exact argument made by fans of the Kansas City Chiefs when they suggesting putting cardboard on the floor of Arrowhead Stadium: the Chiefs always look good on paper.

It is highly unlikely that, for starters, anybody in their right mind would buy tickets to a wedding. Most people don’t want to go to them in the first place, and to take tickets at a wedding would go over much like the concrete cloud that hit those people who think s.g. groups should go anywhere for a love offering. If you were going to take tickets, then there’d have to be something so fantastically over the top that they’d mentally think they were buying the ticket to the equivalent of a Broadway musical (or, for great-aunt Beatrice, a B-rate Branson show). So, if it were me going to my own wedding—okay, I guess eventually, it is me going to my own wedding—what in the world would make me leave the comfort of couch, television, and PlayStation to go to something as potentially devastating as my own wedding?

Well, obviously a smokin hot bride would get me to any wedding, but that’s a given. Besides, to open that can of worms would not only require confirming the (obvious) fact that I, like all other men, are partially driven by looks and appearance, but it also means acceptance of cheesy ploys and gimmicks, the nature of which “blessed” us with such shows as “The Bachelor,” “The Bachelorette,” and “Temptation Island” (example: the corporate wedding meets “The Amazing Race”—the groom & bride, the head groomsman and the maid of honor, and the ring bearer and flower girl all race to the hotel, the couple that wins gets the honeymoon trip).

Since I can’t tinker with fate and don’t want to add fuel to the reality TV fire, that leaves only the ceremony and other superficial details. Let’s start with that bloody awful wedding march. Screw the canned music or the organ player, and let the wedding procession “march” (read: saunter in drunkenly) to Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama.” No more traditional “Here Comes the Bride” crap either; instead, the stadium anthem “Let’s Get Ready to Rumble.” And rumble we shall, because instead of the father just handing off the bride to the groom without any effort, the groom has to race the father in an obstacle course that closely resembles the old “Eliminator” from American Gladiator (yes, the groomsmen are the gladiators). He loses the race, he loses the bride.

Oh, one more music fix. No more of those overdone, oversung love songs as special music. Instead, the only special song permissible is Paisley’s “Mud on the Tires.”

My favorite fix is the lighting of the unity candle. If you get to play with fire, then really play with fire. Before the service, accidentally dump a couple gallons of gasoline and kerosene in the baptistery of the church, and the bride and groom can shoot off roman candles at it.

If I ever find a girl to agree to all of this, I'd be a fool not to propose on the spot.

The Perfect Wedding

2005-06-20T20:18:00.000-05:00

I got roped into going to a wedding this weekend. The bass player in the church band decided he wanted to get hitched, so, as a man, I felt it was my duty and go pay my last respects to his singleness. Typical weddings normally wig me out hard core. The pomp and circumstance of the ceremony and reception seem a bit over the top when, as a guy, the whole point of the wedding is to have a honeymoon. But, since the ladies are all about the whole chapel celebration thing, we guys sort of put up with it all in order to get to more important matters. If it were me, I’d do away with the whole ceremony thing. Just pay a pastor to sign the “sex permission form” and off you go to the world of consummation. Then again, I’ve heard this is called “eloping,” and most parentals look down on that sort of thing.

So, as I sat around at the reception with the guys (some married, some not), together we put together my wedding. First, an online fan club. I’ve gotten enough flack for not “taking advantage of opportunities,” so when (well, more like if) it ever happens, I’m gonna make a cheering section. Not only do you get the official “I’m on the groom’s side” shirt to wear to the wedding, but you also get to order your tickets before they go on sale to the general public.

Secondly, yes, I’m charging admission to the ceremony. This does one of two things. First, it raises funds to recoup the costs of the “real wedding” that night (if you know what I mean). And second, it cuts down on those annoying guests who you feel obliged to invite even though you don’t want to. If you really don’t like them, you double the price of their ticket (since, obviously, they didn’t sign up for the fan club deal).

Third, to make up the remainder of the costs, I introduce corporate sponsorships to the ceremony. If you saw any of the U.S. Open this past weekend, this is what I have in mind. The wedding party would still have on the traditional formal garb, but on the vest pockets of the tuxes would be the Ping or Calloway logo (because I’ll be danged if I’m not golfin one day over the honeymoon—for those of you ladies reading that are wondering what I’m smoking, realize this is freeing you up to go shopping) while the gowns for the women sport the Sheraton or Hilton emblems (which, of course, would provide the hotel accommodations). During the ceremony, a commercial from Chevrolet would play, because Chevy would provide the official get-away car to the airport, and whatever airline wanted to pony up round-trip airfare could also run an ad.

It’s a fail-safe plan, if it were not for one loophole: there’s no bride yet. In fact, at the wedding Saturday, the garter didn't go anywhere near me.

Hitting 300

2005-06-17T20:04:00.000-05:00

Last week I got the dreaded 18-hole flu, so my pastor suggested he and I cure the sickness with a trip to the local golf course. We’ve been on several occasions already this year, and while I’m in this whole “quarter-life crisis” everybody’s talking about now, I figured the spiritual guidance and stress relief would be worth the green fees. The game started out forgettable. After a 50-yard drive due perpendicularly left of the tee box, I sent the next shot over the fairway with a 3-wood out of the rough. Course, the third shot, again with the 3-wood, landed 30 yards off the green. So, for a par-5, I’m about where I should be. After two chips and two putts, I’m cursing this bloody game.

The front nine continued on in much the same fashion, except that the bad tee shots cleared up after the 2nd hole. I made the turn with a 20-over 55, some 11 shots behind my pastor. Since he spots me ten strokes (and we normally play the front 9 as warm-up anyway), I’m only one back. We play even on the par 3-tenth hole, and the par-4 eleventh. He gets goes two up on the twelfth when I missed a 15-foot down hill putt for par, and three up on the par-5 thirteenth when I overshoot my 4th shot from the rough that lands on the other side of the green some 60 feet away.

The whole day was salvaged, though, on the thirteenth. Allow me to provide more background to set the scene. My pastor plays golf as religiously as the Pope holds mass. He normally plays three to five shots from par on a round of 9. The whole winter he’d been touting his ability to hit the long ball off the tee. The previous outing, not only did I outdrive him on regular occasion, but I also beat him by two shots on the back 9, in large part due to a couple lucky birdies on thirteen and fourteen. So, needless to say, he was all business as he stepped to the tee box and, to his credit, sent a great 250 yard drive on its way to the rough just right of the fairway. I step in the box and blister the golden sphere to a temporary home in the center of the fairway. We have some difficulty finding his ball in the thick stuff, but have even more difficulty finding mine, which is odd, mind you. You would think a 260-ish yard drive in the short stuff would be highly visible.

After pastor shoots, we go back to the fairway, and he looks up the way and says, “I think I see you up here.” I find my new lucky ball (no pun intended, Shay) sitting 15 yards inside the red markers. The sign listed the yardage of the hole at 389, and I’m 85 yards out. Now, I’m no math scholar; in fact, as a com student, all I know is that people convey meaning with words and actions. But if the measurements were true, then I successfully drilled my first 300 yard drive…and there was much rejoicing. So, as a fresh member of the 300 club, I did what any rookie duffer would do: 3 chips and 2 putts for a double bogey.

Now, some 7 days later, I want to join more of these unwritten social “300 clubs.” The NHRA use to have a 300 club for drivers who broke 300 m.p.h. in the quarter mile; if I had a dragster or a funny car, that’d be fun. I could go down to the bowling alley and try to shoot a perfect game of 10-pin and be in that 300 club. Even nicer would be a six-figure yearly income, which would put me in the highly elusive $300 a day club. And if I had a girlfriend, we could get in an airplane and join the…oh, wait, wrong club.

Besides, I’ve come to two conclusions about girls. First, girls aren’t right in the head. I think girls have a gene that causes them to be emotionally clingy, which negatively impacts their judgment. The wife of one of the guys at work calls him EVERY night around 6:15 to see when he’ll be home, disregarding the fact that he does radio and his air shift ends at 6p (and, thus, his reason for being at work) meaning he’ll be leaving soon. I also watch other friends dealing with significant others, and the girls call the guys EVERY night. Even if there’s nothing really to talk about, they’ll ask some insanely simplistic question that shouldn’t require collaborative thought as the excuse for interrupting the guys from much more important things like PlayStation and Family Guy reruns. I ask to anyone: why do girls do this? Are they really, for lack of a better term, this ignorant? Do they think by consulting guys on everything that they’ll make us feel superior in some way?

To their credit, though, the second conclusion I’ve come to is that most girls smell seductively good most of the time.