TINDER RULES...

     After futzing around on Tinder for a while, I've noticed the following consistencies in my "swipe left" rejection behavior:

1. When the girl mentions her height, I'm too short for her.

     While I would be considered "minimally tall" at 5'10", it doesn't matter if she says she's 4'11, 5'2, 5'8, or 6'...if she's mentioned her height, she's looking for someone over six feet tall.

2. When the girl mentions she's not looking to hook-up.

     Look, I'm not on this site to hook-up either but I'm fairly confident that if you have to go out of your way to mention it, you're not fun no matter how fun you claim to be.

3. When the profile has only one picture.

     Best case scenario, it's a fake profile and you're just going to be led into what will eventually turn into a spam conversation where the girl tells you to go to an outside e-mail to see her "other" pics. Otherwise, and especially if that one photo is up-close, difficult to make out, or a cartoon/sports team logo...you've got nothing to work with.
     Even if the one picture is fantastic, anyone can look good in a single photo.

4. When the girl has a foreign/ghetto name.

     I want a fully-Americanized girl and I'm just not confident that a Lyudmila, Sirin, Jennyffyr, Yessica, Shayvon, Yeon-hee, Desserae, Huma, Shivani, Xiomena, Dharmista, or Meiying will be so. I'm not interested in dating another language and/or culture, especially if that culture prizes submissive femininity and/or values overly dominant/involved parents. I want a feminist girl: one who's her own woman.

4a. When the girl shows obvious signs of religiousness.

     As a corollary to the above, if your religion is an important part of your identity, it's just going to clash with my atheism; even more so for religions (and lifestyles like vegetarianism/veganism) with dietary restrictions. But if you're just a Christian, Jew, or Muslim in name-only, I'm cool with that but say it in your Tinder profile.
     This also applies to food allergies. I probably eat all-the-time what you're allergic to. Let's just not bother.

5.When a girl mentions she works with "special needs" people.

     Doubly so if she has one or more close retarded family members. You know I'm a eugenicist, right?

6. When the girl has the same name as my Mom.

    My Mom's name isn't a common one like Jennifer, so I won't ever be able to dissociate. And this is one of the few times I would totally understand being rejected for the complementary reason...

7. When a girl mentions she doesn't like cats.

    Even though I'm not allowed to have animals where I currently live, I do look forward to the day I may have a cat of my own. I can tolerate dogs, but I'm not fond of them and if anything, I would want a cat-person too because it is really no joke just how many single women own dogs on these kinds of sites. I'm really convinced that it is a bad thing for a woman to be a dog lover...

POWER DYNAMICS AND FLIRTING...

     I hate the lack of defined social etiquette when it comes to when it's okay and when it's not okay for men to flirt with women (and vice-versa). I say this somewhat ironically as I despise social conventions as unnecessarily restrictive but they have their purpose, especially in tense or otherwise in scenarios with too many variables. A defined social etiquette, or diplomacy if you will, helps take the edge off by allowing participants to follows established guidelines rather than risk accidental offense.

    I accept, however reluctantly as a coward, that it is generally accepted that men make the opening moves when attempting to woo women ("woo" is a terrible word, isn't it?) however, while it is also generally accepted that not all situations are appropriate for male-initiated flirting, there is no clear-cut set of rules establishing when and where such behavior is appropriate.

    I'm not sure I can define the scenarios mathematically but an obvious, all-too-cliché, example where it is perfectly acceptable to flirt is ye olde bar or a dance club. People, strangers, deliberately meeting up in a public place purveying in intoxication is the standard-bearer for male-initiated wooing via inviting female body language.
    I'm not actually one to believe that the men are ever in control here. I feel, like in nature, women are generally always the ones holding all the cards and just make it look like the men are the ones doing so.

    But I think it's also safe-to-say that people would agree that the supermarket or restaurant are not places where male-initiated flirting is acceptable. The difference being that the female cashier (and even customer) and waitress are not in positions of power like they are at a bar or club. They have to be nice to you. They can't get away. They can't tell you off. Etc.
    Yet, as anyone can attest, guys still shamelessly flirt with such women all the fucking time. Now I'm not saying it's wrong, in of itself, for such flirting to happen. I'm saying it's wrong when the man initiates flirting when the power-dynamic does not favor the woman.

     There is a way around this. If the female cashier, waitress, or customer initiates flirting with the guy, she is granting him permission to do so in a venue where his advances would otherwise (and should) be frowned upon. In this way, the power dynamic of the bar/club is preserved in places where it may not simply be assumed by the male.

     The trouble is, I don't see anything like this actually going on nor when I was in school (or from posts I read online) were we ever educated in such a manner of when are where flirting is appropriate. Feminist posts will occasionally broach this topic but I've only ever read complaints about creepy men, etc. taking advantage of the topsy-turvy power dynamic, not calls for social etiquette.

     Admittedly, this sucks for me as only very rarely has a female customer even kinda-sorta flirted with me. It sucks because some of my customers are very attractive and from the ones who do speak, sometimes immediately appealing too. But it only seems fair to apply.
     I think of sexual harassment videos and shit from school and work. They always told you what not to do, but never what to do leaving cautious folk like me without guidance.

     Additionally, I think of the rather unnatural world of online dating and how the power dynamic perhaps ought to play out there as well. I regularly read complaints about creepy guys or overly sexual guys bothering women on these sites, ruining the experience for everyone. Sites like Tinder which require a mutual match before contact may be made and Bumble which require girls to initiate contact with men might help somewhat but what of simply the overall etiquette? What should it be?

     My thoughts on this are that it's okay for men to initiate contact on sites like Plenty of Fish and OKCupid but that it is not okay for them to ask for the girl's phone number. I feel by asking for the phone number, the men are violating the power dynamic.
     Online dating isn't like real life dating as there is no face-to-face communication and all its attendant body language, eye contact, smells, etc. that both consciously and subconsciously go along with face-to-face meetings. As women will readily admit, they're kinda sussing the men out to determine if they are creeps, sexual perverts, or the ever classic, serial killers and they're denied this pass/fail opportunity when the man is demanding her private contact information before she is willing to give it.

      Unfortunately, like the cashier and waitress examples, there are no defined and socially accepted rules for these scenarios so they continue to go often violated by men, making dating that much harder for the rest of us. I wish there were a way to socially shun the power dynamic violating men, but as of now, there isn't and as of now, it's still very hard for me to get a date playing by rules that I've effectively made up and may ultimately be projecting an apparent lack of interest when nothing could be further from the truth.

      It makes me hate my life...

THE DATING GAME, part something or other

     If a successful date is defined as "getting subsequent dates" then I've had three successful dates in my life. Those three successful dates have had two things in common.

     The first was that every first date I've had which ended with the girl kissing me of her own free will (no leaning in or other kind of pressuring on my part) resulted in a second date. It seems late in the game to be learning this lesson but from now on if I have a first date which does not end with me getting a kiss, I'm never talking to that girl again. That's one notch higher for my personal confidence...at 36.

     The second, and certainly less important but still curious, thing my successful first dates have all had in common is the girl has been 29 regardless of my age at the time. I'm not reading too deeply into that however...

     Unfortunately only two of those successful dates featured girls whose names were that of '80s songs. That would've been a great coincidence to keep going. I suppose there's still time enough yet for me to successfully meet a Rosanna, Jenny, Sara, Carrie, Joanna, Amanda, Gloria, Sherrie, Luka, and even a Billie Jean... ;-)

THE SEEKER MUST NOW BE SOUGHT...

     Last month I destroyed my dating site profiles. I'm giving up. Whether for the time-being or for good remains to be seen. I'm tired of the routine. It's a lot of wasted time and effort for practically no results. I'll admit I'm already feeling a little better since I'm able to devote what little energy I can self-generate to other tasks, even some old-school stuff like listening (and sometimes singing along) to music. In that sense it's been fun. Maybe I can finally tackle some projects I've let wither on the vine like my language. Hell, I'm already writing more entries to the stupid blog than I have for quite a while. Let's see where it goes...

     I'll take from the experience what I got out of it. I got a taste of normalcy from Winwood. I got to have the title of boyfriend from Costello. And even afterward I managed to get a date (albeit only one) from a girl I asked out in real life. In a sense I've accomplished several major lifetime goals (albeit very late in life). The only thing I've never managed to do was get to date one of my crushes. There hasn't been another one since Number Twelve, which evaporated quickly and there hasn't been a strong, lingering one since Digby and I first started crushing on her over seven years ago. It makes me think my heart is out of it. It's had enough...I've had enough.

     Strangely I'm not sad about it. If something happens, I'll let it happen but I'm not seeking it. I should focus what's left of my life on things I enjoy and might enjoy doing. I certainly need something. The sad truth is I can't say for certain that I have anything to look forward to after the New Horizons spacecraft passes Pluto next year in July (and to a lesser extent, the Dawn spacecraft will also be put into orbit around the largest main belt asteroid Ceres that year too). I still look forward to The Simpsons but I don't know how much longer that show has. I don't think this season is the last because the media would be all over that. It might be next season. We'll see.

      I need something to grab on to but nothing's been coming my way. This all sounds way sadder than I mean it. It's just nice to have things to look forward to...

DON'T DATE GUYS WITHOUT PETS...

     I've been off and (mostly) on dating sites since 2011. Since it takes me a while to even get a date, I go through a lot of profiles and start picking up on their nuances. One off-hand observation I've made was that a lot of women on Plenty of Fish were dog owners and I wondered if, in contradiction to the "Crazy Cat Lady Hypothesis", dog ownership meant a woman was more likely to be single.

     Now because I'm me, I wanted some numbers to back up my claim before making a silly status update on Facebook about it. Yes, I'm that weird. I will spend hours poring over random profiles of women for the sole purpose of making sure my bad jokes have at least some semi-solid backing to them.

     What I found surprised me. But first, while I'm having trouble pinning down exact numbers, The Humane Society of the United States says that 62% of American households have at least one pet (of any kind) and the American Veterinary Medical Association states 36.5% of U.S. households have dogs and 30.4% have cats. Since that combined total is greater than 62%, I'll take it there's some overlap there.

     My idea was to go through random public profiles of women (ones you can see without signing into Plenty of Fish and OKCupid) and see whether I would reach 100 dog owners or 100 cat owners first.

     It took a while, but after going through 313 female Plenty of Fish profiles, I got the following results:

Dog owners: 100

Cat owners: 45

Owned both: 12

Owned other kinds of pets: 12

Owned no pets: 144

     So dog owners reached 100 first, but as you can see, my off-hand observation was correct: there were more dog owners represented than cat owners and by a large margin too. The results should skew around 1/3 dog, 1/3 cat, and 1/3 no pets but dogs and petless are overrepresented by a lot.
     Continuing, I did the same thing for the men. Even though I'm prohibited from owning a pet in this apartment (much to my lonely chagrin), I counted myself as a cat owner because I would surely be one. I then continued with random male profiles with the object, like with the women, of reaching 100 dog or cat owners before quitting.

     However, I had to quit because petless men ridiculously outnumbered the pet owners. I quit searching after I hit 200 petless men. Of the 283 male profiles viewed, these were my results:

Dog owners: 47

Cat owners: 21

Owned both: 5

Owned other kinds of pets: 10

Owned no pets: 200

     So, despite the huge overrepresentation of petless men, dog owners still outnumbered cat owners by over 2 to 1.

     I then moved on to OKCupid to see what would come up. For both sexes, I reached the quit point of 200 petless. OKCupid users appear to be less likely overall to have pets. OKCupid also has an option for liking or disliking animals. For the sake of this experiment, I considered the liking/disliking of animals to be the same as having no pets. Personally I like dogs, but I really would never consider owning one (even though miniature dachshunds are freaking adorable...and cat-sized). No, the user had to actually HAVE a dog/cat for it to count.

     For women, I went through a total of 295 profiles and got the following results:

Dog owners: 59

Cat owners: 29

Owned both: 7

Owned no pets or only liked those animals: 200

    Again, besides the huge petless contingent, dogs ownership outnumbered cat ownership by just over 2 to 1.
    For men, I went though a total of 252 profiles and got these results:

Dog owners: 25

Cat owners: 19

Owned both: 4

Owned no pets or only liked those animals: 204

     Only on OKCupid did male pet ownership appear to correlate with national statistics though I wonder if it would've continued the patterns already shown had I pressed on to reach 100 dog or cat owners. I just was not interested in spending that many hours to get to that number.

My hasty conclusions?

CONFIDENCE IS BORN OF CHARITY...

     One of the commonest forms of advice anyone (but especially males) will receive for dating will be the stressing of the necessity of expressing confidence. And personally, I get that. I see how that works because like anyone else, I'm impressed by confidence when it is witnessed in others be it for dating, in the arts, standing up for oneself, etc. Confidence is certainly wonderful to be around and influenced by. It is indeed.

      However, where does confidence come from? As I've often stated in the dating game, how am I supposed to be confident around women when women (up until June 24th, 2012 anyway) have always refused to go out with me? I would say confidence comes from victory and without victory, there can be no confidence. And while a date is more an endgame thing, smaller victories exist too leading up to that. Victories like girls you're actually attracted to smiling when you talk to them or those same girls giving you their phone numbers. Victories like girls actually competing for your attention. That, in particular, is a wonderful experience that I personally have only witnessed happening to other men...men who would also be getting the attention of the girls I have liked over the years. O jealousy!

      But it got me thinking. What gets the confidence ball rolling? Some people possess it in spades whereas others, like me, desperately scrape the bottom of my psychology's leaky bucket looking for anything I can use because confidence has long since ceased to be available to me in useful amounts. I feel like the lead Prawn in District 9 patiently trying to distill fuel from scraps of their machinery to power their idle mothership. Here I'm combing through scraps of life experiences hoping to distill enough confidence to take a chance on someone and that the effort won't be wasted because I know it will be a long time before I've distilled enough to try again and in the meantime, I'll've only gotten older.

      But still, where does it start? What is the basis of confidence? And then it hit me...childhood. But more specifically our parents. Our first experiences of confidence were acts of charity by our parents. Do you remember making drawings or picking flowers or singing songs for your mom and/or dad? Maybe you got good grades on your report card... Or at least do you remember watching other kids do the same when you were older? What is the parents' reaction to their child's decidedly crude drawing, hackneyed jokes, presentation of common wildflowers, or off-key singing? It was "beautiful", wasn't it? Much praise was given, was it not? And it was an act of charity on the part of the parents because there is no way in hell I can accept that any parent, no matter how enthralled they are with their own genetic progeny, actually believes that the drawing was beautiful or that the joke was funny or that the flowers were well presented/selected or that the singing was great. We've seen art done by masters; heard songs composed  by The Beatles; seen the brightest, most colorful bouquets; witnessed unparalleled intelligence from scientists and philosophers; and we've all listened to some damn fine comedians over the years too.

      These parents are bullshitting their children, but for a good reason. Harsh criticism early on will destroy their desire to create and stand out. The charitable confidence given to them in the beginning encourages them to continue because yes, having an audience matters.
      I've tried to tell myself over the years that the approval of others isn't necessary and to a certain extent that is true because I worked on my language for a good eight years without anyone cheering me on to do so. But to a further extent, it is also a lie. I would argue that the energy/inspiration necessary to create this language derived from my crush on The First One, from learning how other languages worked, and perhaps additionally from whatever well of prior confidence in my abilities I had had from earlier periods in my life when crude gestures/attempts could still garner praise. But then, that language has lain largely dormant for over ten years now. Imagine how much closer to completion it would be today if I had someone (or several someones) supporting me in my quest either through praise, encouragement, or even simple curiosity on their part?

       Eventually these kids will go to school and have friends who will not give them praise just because. Suddenly they will find themselves challenged to earn their praise. Here, those children who have had much charitable confidence put in their psychological buckets will find themselves able to weather these storms. They will get better at drawing; better at writing; better at singing; better at joke telling; better at their particular sport; better at school; etc. and earn praise that way. They will turn their charitable confidence into plain old confidence and with that confidence, they will get the girls they like because they will be projecting the air girls find attractive.
       As for everyone else, barring acts of charity anew, we are lost. As for dating, Winwood was the one who charitably donated confidence to me that girls might actually want to date me. I fear over a year later that it has worn off. I'm tired and finding myself not wishing to try anymore. I feel myself missing my time to work on my own shit again. I feel myself wanting to pull back. I wonder if I should? But then I realize I'm fast staring down the barrel of middle age and if I truly do not wish to die alone, I cannot stop...

      Confidence may be born of charity, but it is sustained by skill and damn it, I need skills...

THE WORTHLESSNESS OF BEING MALE...

     I'm pretty sure genetic diversity is the only reason males exist. The mixing of alleles appears to be our only real function. Like the Vice President who has but two functions, waiting on hand should the President die and breaking a tie in the Senate (seriously, look it up), men appear to only exist for the purpose of insemination. Sure, like the Vice President, we can find other things to do in the meantime but otherwise men are useless.

     Insects like ants and bees take this to the extreme. Males are born only to mate with the queen. That lucky guy then immediately dies and the remainder of his cohorts hang around doing no work and consuming hive/colony resources until they are kicked out by the workers later in the season to starve.

     I guess the reason there's so many of us is because the female does not control the sex of our species but rather the male and his reproductive system does not favor Xs over Ys giving males a 50/50 shot at being born. But it's obvious to me that women are the half of our species that is important. They're the ones who actively engage in reproduction. A man's role ends (evolutionarily speaking) at ejaculation. That is the only point in the reproductive cycle a male need participate in. It is the only time a male is definitely needed. At every other point in any human's given life, a woman can do the rest of the work. For only those few minutes does the male shine. The rest of a male's life is spent trying to impress a female enough to be given those few minutes and trying to determine if a female is susceptible to/suitable for such impression.

      Recent scientific speculation suggests that the evolution of sexual reproduction was mainly to keep one or two steps ahead of the viruses, bacteria, mold, and parasites ever nipping at our species' heels. Sexual reproduction exists also to produce random favorable combinations to help deal with random environmental effects like drought, famine, prolonged cold, etc.

      I hear of some species like deer and sea lions in which there will be a dominant male who has a harem of females. Many males of these species are born but never mate because they cannot compete with the alpha...that is, until the alpha dies. Then it's war for a new alpha. But still, it shows even for them, the relative uselessness of males. It makes me wonder how many of us would ever be born if women were in control of sex determination. What ratio of males to females would be necessary to retain sufficient genetic diversity to ward off the threats mentioned earlier?

     Or has the evolution of selfishness ensured that males would continue exist in great numbers even with such an ability on the female's part because females would rather have a male of their own than share one amongst many?

IT'S A NO-GO...

     The customer I had mentioned in a previous post came into work on February 1st. I approached her immediately and wasted no time (for once) in asking if she was seeing anyone or not. She said she was.

     Damn...

     Despite having had little emotional investment in her, the rejection still hurt. Who am I kidding? It always hurts. It only lasted the night, but it still hurts...

     Back to the Online Dating Site drawing board.....

CERTAINLY NEW YEAR SO, UH...FEWER POSTS?

     Have I given up on posting to this blog, even semi-regularly? It's starting to look that way. I suppose I'll still update from time-to-time. It's not for a lack of things to write about though it certainly helped when I had a running theme like the "I Actually Like This Shit" music video series. Knowing I'd be back week after week until I had finished certainly kept this blog on my mind. Oh well...

      So what has the New Year brought already so soon into its tenure?

      I broke up with Costello on December 1st. The relationship just wasn't working in my opinion: I couldn't see any future in it. Costello, for some time, had begun feeling more like a friend to me than a girlfriend. She liked me more than I liked her and nothing I could do could close that gap, a gap which grew only wider as time went on. When she strongly hinted that she was feeling the "L-word" for me, I had to metaphorically slit her throat. I didn't like doing it, but it had to be done. I felt it would be cruel to string her along and for over a month by that point, I was already doubting our future. I offered her friendship and the offer, while genuine, was certainly something she wanted nothing to do with advising me to pretend like she never existed. Costello then applied the scorched earth tactic to all our digital connections. She had wanted me to take a picture of us for some time but we never got around to it, and it certainly wasn't from a lack of opportunities either. Now I have none, except for one with her coat appearing partially in the background. My first relationship is over; about 3½ months worth of one. Back to the drawing board...
     But then, as if seemingly by magic I have already become entranced by an unusually pretty customer of mine whom I had been seeing on a seemingly weekly basis. I had started noticing her before the break-up, but did nothing. She has this mesmerizing smile, you see. When I saw her again in December, I was (in my opinion as a shy man) crowded by my workplace friends who were encouraging me to ask her for her number but lurking far too close for my comfort (a range which can go from just a couple of feet to a seemingly infinite distance depending on just how much I am exposing my vulnerable side). Normally this is a non-starter: I never hit on my customers as a general rule. It's probably good etiquette though I'm sure my usual low self-esteem certainly had a hand in it.
     But this customer, this girl...she got me noticing her and believe me, that's certainly no small feat. I rarely pick up on clues so if I were feeling anything at all, she must be practically beaming them in my direction. After the "crowding incident" on December 17th, I decided that next time I would see her, I would at least get her name. Up until this point, she had been showing up once a week, usually on Thursday. However I would not see her again until just yesterday near the end of my shift. Again, she saw me and rather than go to a shorter line, she waited on mine. I got her name this time but pussed out on asking if she were seeing anyone. My rationalization is that I had wanted that shift to end on a positive note (shouldn't ask too many questions...mustn't get greedy!). She had dried paint on her hands and hair. I can only hope whatever she was painting was just for her and not for a place she's sharing with an as-of-now-unknown partner.
     I like how I work myself up for something that is entirely based on physical attraction at this point. And yes (and I say so surprisingly), I have no doubts that she is attracted to me as well. I hope to see her again soon and not another month from now. It'd be nice to start the new year off so right. It would certainly be a nice change of pace.

     On the numismatic front, I still have not found the 2009-D Northern Mariana Islands quarter...now three years after its release.
      The mintages on the last two 2012 ATB quarters certainly rose significantly suggesting that the Statehood Quarter glut has passed. It was a shame too as when looking at the first three designs, 2012 was on track to have the lowest total mintage of possibly any year since clad quarter production began in 1965. But alas, it was not to be and I had certainly been looking forward to that. The fourth design, the Hawai'i Volcanoes, its mintage exceeded the mintages of that year's three prior designs combined and the final design of 2012, the Denali National Park, exceeded the mintages of all four prior 2012 designs. The total mintage for 2012 did not exceed the quarter mintages from 2009, but it certainly got close. I suspect 2013's mintages will be significantly higher still.
     As of now, the 2012 Acadia National Park quarter from the Denver mint, has the lowest mintage in the entire America the Beautiful series at 21.606 million pieces and the Chaco Culture National Historical Park quarter, also from 2012, has the lowest mintage for a single design at 22 million per mint. I guess that makes them the "keys" even though we all know many thousands of pristine examples have already been set aside by collectors so don't get your hopes up because examples from circulation will certainly never be worth more than 25¢.
     So far, the first three years' worth of ATB quarter mintages have totaled less than the mintages of the first two State Quarters. Using that series as a marker, the ATB quarters are still eating up Pennsylvania's mintage. If the rising mintages hold, then 2013 will certainly surpass New Jersey and possibly Georgia. The mintages only surpassed Delaware's, the first State Quarter, with the first 2012 design, El Yunque National Forest...11 designs in.

     Okay, I'm done blabbing for now...

THOUGHT I WOULD POST SOMETHING POSITIVE

And quick :-P

It has been almost two months since my last depressive mood swing. I haven't been euphoric...don't mean to imply that. I just have not been in a generally negative state for almost two months now. I have been neutral to positive. I do believe this is the longest I have ever gone since I started keeping a journal in 1993.

WHAT IS CLASS?

A profile on Plenty of Fish I just read had this clipping from a newspaper reprinted. She said her grandmother had cut it out and given it to her father who then kept it pressed inside a book he kept with him for the rest of his life. When her father died, she found it and shared it with anyone who might read her PoF profile instead of the malarkey that nearly everyone else posts in their profiles.

WHAT IS CLASS?

CLASS NEVER RUNS SCARED. IT IS SURE-FOOTED & CONFIDENT IN THE KNOWLEDGE THAT YOU CAN MEET LIFE HEAD ON AND HANDLE WHATEVER COMES ALONG.

CLASS NEVER MAKES EXCUSES. IT TAKES ITS LUMPS AND LEARNS FROM PAST MISTAKES. CLASS IS CONSIDERATE OF OTHERS. IT KNOWS THAT GOOD MANNERS ARE NOTHING MORE THAN A SERIES OF PETTY SACRIFICES.

CLASS BESPEAKS AN ARISTOCRACY THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH ANCESTORS OR MONEY. THE MOST AFFLUENT BLUEBLOOD CAN BE TOTALLY WITHOUT CLASS, WHILE THE DESCENDANT OF A WELSH MINER, MAY OOZE CLASS FROM EVERY PORE.

CLASS NEVER TRIES TO BUILD ITSELF UP BY TEARING OTHERS DOWN. CLASS IS "ALREADY" UP AND NEED NOT STRIVE TO LOOK BETTER BY MAKING OTHERS LOOK WORSE.

CLASS CAN "WALK WITH KINGS AND KEEP ITS VIRTUE AND TALK WITH CROWDS AND KEEP THE COMMON TOUCH." EVERYONE IS COMFORTABLE WITH THE PERSON WHO HAS CLASS... BECAUSE HE IS COMFORTABLE WITH HIMSELF.

IF YOU HAVE CLASS, YOU DON'T NEED MUCH OF ANYTHING ELSE. IF YOU DON'T HAVE IT, NO MATTER WHAT ELSE YOU HAVE... IT DOESN'T MAKE MUCH DIFFERENCE.

I'VE BEEN A BIT DISTRACTED...

     Perhaps that is a good thing. I have all these notes of things I've written down to write about, but their urgency has passed and even though they're not time-sensitive, I just don't feel like doing them anymore.

     The dating sites may finally be paying off. I just met a second girl tonight. It took me eleven months to meet the first one and about a month after her, to meet this one. With luck, this is indicative of a trend or that I've stumbled upon an ideally written profile (for me at least). I still have an extremely low response rate but I continue to persevere nonetheless. The first girl I started seeing was rather insistent that I continue to see other people. It's like she knew I was that type who would focus my energies on just one person at a time. I told her that I would and have been true to that.
     I think I've written over sixty messages since meeting her. I've more than redoubled my efforts. I've only gotten about five or six replies, most of which were basically "Thanks, but no thanks." Needless to say, I am happy to have been given another opportunity. I hope this trend continues before it must necessarily start focusing on actual relationships.

     I'm still on the masturbation abstinence "program". I'm starting to have difficulty keeping track of the days so that urgent part of my withdrawal may have finally passed. The temptations are still there of course. It's been very difficult.
     I feel like my hormone levels are returning to normal. I'm growing impatient too. Usually I can ignore the various pretty girls who come to my register at work to focus on my task at hand, but the urge to flirt with them is becoming powerful. Not so much that I can't still resist it, but that resistance may fall the longer this keeps up.

     While I find it very distasteful, I've been trying alcohol when out on dates with the first PoF girl. I think I can fake it long enough now. The most I've had was enough for it to effect me. I wasn't tipsy or anything but I could feel something different. Knowing this now and coupled with my abstinence, I'm ever more tempted to just go to a bar now though I don't like those environments. They're either too depressing or too loud. Like the urge to flirt, it's becoming harder to resist because damn it, if I can't jerk off, I wanna get laid! :-)
     This is so annoying, but I think it's actually working. I still need a "proof of concept" though...

ON ANY OTHER DAY YOU WOULD BE WRONG BUT TODAY...TODAY IS A VERRRY DIFFERENT DAY

     No matter what happens next, whether it be short or long in duration or even if only an anomaly, an old personal dæmon has been wounded, possibly mortally so. I've waited almost twenty-one years for this day and June 24th, 2012 was it. No matter what happens, the old narrative has been corrupted and can no longer be fallen upon in times of distress. It's been ruined.

     Yes, I got a date. She even called it one of her own, unpressured accord so I can't even hide behind technicalities. Yes, she's cute and attractive, touchy-feely, and even commands my finicky mind's attention and curiosity. We saw each other again yesterday and with luck, this will continue, but even if it does not...it won't matter. A line has been drawn and I cannot cross back. Awesome.

      Suck it, depression!

FACEBOOK CUTTING ROOM FLOOR

     It's been a while since I've done a Rejected Facebook Statuses dump. So let's begin, shall we?

DATING SITE MATH

      I only have two "equations" so far, but then that's what the addendum tag is for.

The first one is straight up math: P_i ∝ R_d
     DEFINITION:  the interest a profile generates is directly proportional to the reader's distance from said profile.

      That happens way more often than can be explained by mere chance.


The second one is more difficult but here goes:  ∵ D_i = ∅, P(R|M) = 1
      DEFINITION:   because intent to date is an empty set, the probability of getting a reply to one's message equals 100%

      In other words, if the purpose of your message to a woman is merely to compliment her on an aspect of her profile and not actually an attempt to seek a date, you can be assured of a 100% reply rate (e.g. I thought a recently viewed headline on PoF "My heart's not a d!ck so don't play with it" was funny, but the kind of guy she was looking for was clearly not me. Nevertheless I wanted her to know that her headline made me laugh).
      That type of reply dominates those I have received over the past nine months of my attempting to date online. How very disheartening...

MOMENTOUS OCCASIONS...

      The more I think about it, the more I feel that I friendzone girls just as frequently and perhaps even more often than I am friendzoned by them. I couldn't tell you if this is so because I am afraid to enter into relationships for whatever reason or if it is more an effort on the part of my mind to preserve the status quo. Lacking knowledge of the former makes it difficult to prove/disprove the latter. Only circumstantial evidence can be offered.

      What I think I need to test this idea is something I've never had and that is the dual combination (is that redundant?) of a girl whom I find immediately attractive (let's say, 7+) and who is also rather aggressive in making an "us" happen. I say this because I've noticed in recent years and, as the memory is fresh, with Number Twelve that there is a certain momentum that builds when I'm becoming interested in a new girl and it's a momentum that cannot tolerate even the slightest stall. And even though I moved with Number Twelve much faster than I did with Digby, even she came with a stall that was enough to set a paralyzing doubt in motion. The week I had intended to ask her out coincided with the Halloween snowstorm that put dampeners on really anyone's plans but it was enough to make me question what I had been doing and whether or not this was the path I should be taking. I had managed to keep enough of my resolve to proceed anyway but I could feel it...I could feel this desire to not upset the established order and it was especially strong coming on the heels of the withering Digby crush. And while my momentum would ultimately be halted on account of her already having a boyfriend, I find that I'm perfectly fine with being friends with Number Twelve and I wonder why that should be.

      I have talked to girls via the online dating sites. I don't know what the limit is for messages before the momentum is lost and they are effectively friendzoned by me and I don't know how many times we can text/talk via the phone before it happens too. Honestly, I'm thinking it's three messages and one phone call. If she hasn't given me a number by her third message and if we have not set up a date (or even just a casual meet up) after the first call, I can feel my mind able to overcome her. That momentum is critical and it applies to other areas of my life as well. Take crying for instance...I rarely ever do and usually that is because it is resistible. In movies and television, it happens because the moment is interrupted by a visual like the camera changing to another view instead of lingering on the moment or from a change in music. In real life it happens because the person making me upset realizes this and halts their advance and even a moment's break is enough for me to regain my composure (only my Best Friend has ever resisted halting her advance...I respect her for that. I really do). And once I have my composure, I will never be able to get crying upset again over that. Basically, you have one chance to pierce my armor: I am the Shishio of emotional defense. This applies perhaps across the board. My anger is disrupted and dissipated by any type of distraction (though absurdity works best...anger seems most vulnerable to anything that forces me to think). My dreams are disrupted by insistence (i.e. logical contradictions or me trying to see something, especially a face, more clearly). Hope is disrupted by doubt. Joy is disrupted by seriousness. Sadness is disrupted by terror.

      So perhaps my attraction is thus disrupted by delay or repetition. I can't define an interaction so long as it is in motion. It is only through delay or through the formation of a pattern that I can mark a person as a friend, an ally, an enemy, a coworker, a friend of a friend, a girlfriend, etc. In other words, so long as you are in a state of flux, you can be anything to me. Chaos is your friend when assigning yourself in my otherwise orderly mind or rather, when not getting yourself assigned.

      I think thus that for a girl to become my girlfriend, she either can do nothing to halt her momentum or must circumvent all this nonsense by leapfrogging initial steps. The only circumvention I can think of is sex as it is something I do not expect of almost all types of interactions. It would be near-impossible to friendzone a girl I were attracted to if shortly after meeting, I knew unequivocally she were attracted to me. That, unfortunately, has never happened to me. I only give the idea credence because I think unusually. So while one-night-stand type behavior is generally considered a no-no for relationship-creation for most people, I am not most people. Treat me like most people and you will be friendzoned. Treat me like most people and you will bore me. Move faster than I can keep up with you and you can be whatever you want.

ONE MORE AND THEN I WILL GET TO WHAT I SUPPOSED TO HAVE DONE THREE HOURS AGO...

     OKCupid is doing a Christmas-themed gimmick sending me "12 Matches of Christmas"...one per day for twelve days. I was stunned...stunned I tells ya, that this site for the first time actually recommended someone for me whom I am interested in meeting, immediately attracted to, and within distance of - the trifecta. Usually I have found such women through my own searches. She's also the first woman on this site in my five months of being on it who made me go, "Whoa..." Thank goodness I liked her profile too :-)

There's no ID so it's okay to post this, right? :-P

      I hate when I'm put in a position where I would actually be saddened, even if only somewhat, should she not respond to my message cuz, well...goddamn. I need some good news because I am clearly very attracted to Number Twelve and I know I shouldn't be because despite the present benefit of her pulling me away ever so gently from Digby, it will come at the ultimate price of emotional doom. It grows inside me, manifesting as an evil* patience this time. Some days I really hate that my Heart is so patient. My Heart is entirely unable to understand that I will one day grow old and die. So...fingers crossed :-)


ADDENDUM: She did not respond to my message.

________________________________________
* I tend to use "evil" as a synonym for the kind of selfishness which requires the suffering/sadness of another in order for me to be happy. I have trouble accepting that a good relationship can be born of knowingly desiring to benefit from the misfortune of another. In this example, it would be one thing to ask out a girl who's single because her singledom is innocent from your perspective, but to wait for a girl's relationship to sour and end like a kind of vulture before making a move seems inherently wrong. I'm not explaining it well, but I'm hoping you get the point.

THIS DOES NOT BODE WELL...

      I had an unexpected Monday off on Thanksgiving week so I decided to take advantage of it and texted these two girls who had given me their phone numbers off Plenty of Fish and with whom I have been having texting correspondence and in one of the two cases, an actual phone call with about getting together that day so we could finally meet up and see if there might be something for us to build upon (now that is a difficult sentence!).

      I got no response from the one I've actually spoken to and two days later have still not gotten a text. The other one, the one who prefers texting, told me that while she was in fact off that day, that she just wanted a day to "relax". I wasn't asking to make a day out of it, just the old classic "meet for coffee" type thing but apparently an hour or two out of her day was asking too much. I didn't press the issue in that manner...or at all really, that negative thought was just in my head. She didn't text me yesterday either even though we had been communicating daily for a while now. Yes, I know it is near Thanksgiving and people are busy but still...this lack of "excitement" is bugging me a bit. You'd think they would want to meet and feel bad if they could not. So instead of having a full social day (and being awfully tired the next as a result), I only took out my Best Friend for her birthday.

      Like the title says, this does not bode well...and like I joked at work, the way things are going, I will be back waiting for Number Twelve to break up with her boyfriend in no time...

TERRA INCOGNITA ON THE HORIZON...

      The fourth incarnation of my online dating profiles seem to be the charm. I may finally be on course to securing successfully a date off these things. So far, OKCupid seems to be a place to meet new friends as I am up to two so far and Plenty of Fish seems the better place for finding a date. I don't know why that is.

      The timing was even good. I asked a girl out at work whom I am convinced is totally attracted to me. Although she accepted at first my invitation to "buy her dinner tomorrow after work", I think she misheard me and thought I had said, "get some dinner tomorrow after work." Hours later, she figured it out and told me that she had a boyfriend so I was sidelined. She still wants to be my friend, though. Though brief, I am going to classify her as the twelfth one and for want of a better alias, will refer to her as Number Twelve (or simply Twelve or whatever I feel like settling on).

      Her behavior though, is confusing. Maybe she just likes me as sees something in me that she really needs in terms of friendship or maybe I'm right and she not only is really attracted to me but has also optioned me in the even of her current relationship's end. After her shift ended on Saturday, she spent a half hour exclusively with me at my register (despite other choices remaining available...VERY unusual for me. In fact, that's the first time that has happened to be in nearly eleven years), even bagging customers groceries so we could talk. She is not wanting for friends: I know this. So I'm confused as to what is going on. It's potentially a poisonous mix, but I intend to be a good boy and be solely her friend. She set the rule and now only she can change it. However, because she is confusing me...I feel it in my Mind that she has been reclassified as a Secondary.

      To help my dear reader(s) out with my insanity, crushes come in four flavors: Primaries, Secondaries, Dormant, and Past. You can blame my Best Friend for this because simple answers were never enough for her. She long ago started me on a path of introspection. You get to suffer with the results. A Primary is an active crush and intense. A Secondary is more a passive crush that, while weaker in intensity, remains persistent. A Secondary can exist without a Primary but is usually overshadowed by one. Rabbit is an example of this. For over four years, she was never able to become a strong focus. A Dormant Crush is like an ember. The fire has gone out, but it still glows, fading as time goes on. The First One and Digby are examples of this. A Past Crush is a dead one. I have moved on completely in terms of longing. They will always be extremely attractive to me because that never changes, but...they're over. There are also Potentials,  those who could be crushes but are missing that certain something to push them over the edge be it predictability of presence (don't see them enough...I have one in mind right now), immediate knowledge of their unavailability (either they're introduced as a girlfriend/wife of so&so or make their disinterest in you known immediately - a prerejection if you will), inappropriate context (let's say, at a funeral for the sake of example), etc. The list of Potentials would be quite long but often I've never learned their names because I only saw them once (or a couple of times at random).

      If I sensed no attraction from Number Twelve, I would move on from her, but her confusing behavior is causing me to retreat into the shadows and watch...and wait...should the day ever come that I may be called upon. It could persist for years or new information could cause it to die quickly. For example...

      I have received attention from four women in the past week on Plenty of Fish. One is just looking for friends (I hope, because I am not feeling it otherwise). Another seemed interested but I guess I failed that audition because I have not heard from her in days now. Another week and I'll delete her from my phone. Then I got two this morning. It's exciting, especially since both seem accepting of my baggage (my place of employment and lack of car/driving). One is moving faster than the other. I just hope I don't have to choose...that it works out to one or the other or the other because the last time I had to choose, I chose badly and have suffered under the effects of that "curse" for thirteen years now.

     I am not in terra incognita yet, but I may very well be soon. This could be the first time in a while that I will really be putting my intelligence to the test...see if I can pull a relationship out of my ass with nothing to go on except suppositions, experiences with friends, exaggerations learned from television and movies, articles read, and anecdotes. Should be interesting...to say the least of it.

     And here I wrote in a fit of sadness quite a number of Facebook status updates that were wonderfully depressing. I guess I won't be sharing them with my FB friends now...keep an eye out for them here one day :-)

WHERE MAH INTROVIGGAZ AT?

      Now I've been doing the online dating thing for over three months now. I have yet to secure a date but that is not the point of tonight's entry. No, what I've been wondering about is something I've noticed fairly early on but dismissed as an anomaly but now, after three months find it inescapable: where are all the introverts?

      And by "introverts", I'm also including those people who simply don't like going out under the assumption that that is an introverted tendency even if they have no social anxiety. I simply have not found them. They are either a truly rare breed or they are elsewhere...or maybe hiding behind lies on their profiles.

      The vast majority of profiles I encounter are written by women who claim to either love travelling and going out and doing so or they profess their desire to do so the moment their financial circumstances permit. Occasionally I'll see a line or two about staying in to catch a movie but it's a one-liner amongst many a sentence devoted to dining out, bar/club hopping, trying new things/foods/cultures, activities both done and desired to be done, places travelled to and places where she desires to travel in the future, how their jobs take up much of their day and that they love it, working out at the gym 3-7 days a week, going for a jog/run, reading this and that novel (often obscure), going to live shows to watch indie music (surprisingly few girls admit to liking popular music as if that were some sort of badge of dishonor)...basically no time for down time because they are always doing something or interested in portraying themselves as the always-doing-something type. I don't even know where they'd find the time to date to begin with, especially all the ones who list such activities in addition to the fact that they are also a parent.

      They're all go-getters. Many have post-graduate degrees or are otherwise over-educated. And they all like dogs. I don't know where this single lady with cats idea came from because the two sites I'm on are full of dog owners. I like cats! I don't want a fucking dog. I don't hate dogs but that doesn't mean I want to own one. Yes, cat owners exist, but it's not the 50/50 split you would expect. Though I have no evidence besides circumstantial, I really do suspect that cat-owners are more laid-back by nature seeing as how owning a cat is more a passive ownership as compared to a dog which needs to be walked multiple times daily and trained. And it may just be me, but I find dog owners tend to be intolerant. Not a truism, just an observation. It's much easier to find a dog owner who hates cats than to find a cat owner who hates dogs. I'm sure some psychological studies have been done on this.

      But the thing is, I can understand why these types are on dating sites: they are too busy doing things to meet new people through normal channels or they're not home enough to be out and about around town. Their presence online makes sense to me. But that being said, where are the people who have trouble meeting new people because they're home whenever they can be? Because they'd rather watch television or read than share some drinks over a game at a bar? Because they don't envy the clubbing scene? Because they prefer doing (usually quiet) solitary activities at home? Or simply because they have few friends? They must exist and in great numbers so why aren't they a presence on the dating sites I'm on?

       I would think the rise of online dating would be a boon to social misfits and eccentrics who would now have a means for advertising their availability to the wider world out there. Yet, I know I have stumbled upon a few, but not nearly as many I would think should exist. Am I really so rare? Have I been spoiled by friends who are largely hang-out-at-home types. Is my level of income related to my not-going-out-muchness? If so, do relatively poor people not use dating sites? Still, if laziness is supposedly endemic in society...where are they? Too lazy to create profiles? I guess I'll just have to try and lure them out myself...