Mating Burn-ins (Part ii)

So, I've been working on my sales deck.

As usual, I go into most interviews trying to find reason NOT to do the deal - because there are just too many deals to deal with, and some culling is ever in order.

Top four red flags that are "probably," going to give you a good reason not to date me.

1. lack of "Asian filial piety"
2. you probably will hate me if you don't like being analysed
3. I'm potentially never going to make money; I'm open to just never being interested in earning serious money; so it may happen
4. related to 3: approach to life and death... because I don't mind dying, the lack of an emergency cash buffer is rarely an issue; because death is the escape hatch; and since I care less than many people about the consequences of emergencies ... a warning is due

Reminding myself that folks who avoid explicit communication are often best avoided. Their opinions, unprioritisable.

This post was a follow-up to this one.

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Update (re-told as a set of "standards") 2013-07-15:

"I had coffee with a philosopher; we talked about love. He said my standards are too high for the KL market. Please. That can't be right."

So folks asked what my standards were:

"Here's my deck these days (have so much free time, I actually have a bit of work put into this):

1. Specific to the Asian market, you need to be ok with the fact that "filial piety" isn't implemented in my head. I don't treat family much different from non-family unless I actually like you.

2. In general, the following is true. You have to feel no annoyance at being analysed. Analysis is what I do, so it'll happen at some point to everything in my environment. If you're the sort of person who takes personal offense, or religious offense, to the notion that everything can be flowcharted, we are probably heading down a path to trouble, and probably shouldn't even get started.

3. I don't have much money, and may never have much money. The things I spend my time on, my preference for financial risk, and my propensity to say "this is too easy, I need to make it harder," are very likely to make this the case. You should not date me if this bugs you.

4. As a general summary of all the above, I have a cavalier attitude towards life and death. I'm fine being what I am each day, would be quite happy to be told I'm dying tomorrow, have no problems with growing old, can't actually wait to grow old and die on days when I'm bored, and for example, have never bothered with health insurance. Not to say that any of these are permanent traits, but they describe the past and present version of me.

^_^

Tough sell to these urban/e kitties, eh?"

Update 2013-07-21: Mistake: it is irresponsible of me to drag into relationships... folks with normal fears of labour, poverty, solitude, and fear itself.

Dating Protocol

I've recently been studying a type of situation that's been highlighted by women in two separate recent conversations.

Males have acted "datey," while on meetings with females, without explicitly announcing that the meeting was "a date." How should they have acted? This seems relevant to the high-context-low-context cultures subject.

I seriously only want coffee when I ask people out for coffee. But I have an unfiltered mouth, right... so I suppose some people might have felt that my questions are too personal.

Fcuk You // No, Fcuk You!!

she: Its like you have this tourette's thing when it comes to un-pcness

me: HAHA. No, it's performance art.

she: then you're pretentious!

me: yes!! (no seriously? I'm bored...)

she: you're always bored

me: sad kid is sad

Staying Alert

I have no clue about weight loss, obviously, but I do find that keeping a high protein-to-sugar ratio in diet is about the best thing for mental productivity (and by extension, physical activity). Keeping fruits and veggies up just helps to offset the crap that the body has to put up with from digesting meat...

Water Piping Material

Not really up for a detailed market summary, but here are a few points learnt for consideration.

• metal or polymer pipes all corrode, eventually
• metal has an solubility advantage where water is hot, but some PE/PEX materials can take hot water too
• polymer has an solubility advantage where water is softer, or has lower pH
• polymer should never be exposed to UV (i.e. try your best to keep it indoors)
• polybutene-1 has had a problem attributed to reactivity with halogen ions

I actually have been starting to think that glass piping would be an awesomely novel design choice.

Analytical Lovers

Baby, if you think love is a mysterious, magical, nonanalytical category... then we probably ain't gonna get along... #dating #antitype

So, I figured out that a sufficient condition for the breakage of my heart is when people stop thinking about things.

By people, I don't just mean people whom I'm in a relationship with. I mean people in general, and thinking in general, and things in general. That probably explains why I'm a rather melancholy fellow. If I don't shy away from the news, there's something to be sad about almost on a minutely basis.

Explicit Consent?

The first hint of brain death is "I am sure of X."

Someone suggested listening for "yes," instead of listening for "no."

It's an interesting situation when partner X says "you should do ABC to me," and partner Y then does it, without asking "should I do ABC to you," - this is really a gender neutral question - how much protocol is too much/too little?

TCP joke: "Can I tell you a joke?"
"Yes, you can tell me a joke."
"Ok, I'm going to tell you a joke."

I WISH I DIDN'T HAVE TO ARGUE ABOUT THIS WITH CERTAIN THEORISTS!!

In all seriousness however, this segues nicely into case studies of the situation (such as some popular ones in the press these days):

if a woman says "fuck me," and a guy fucks her, and they fall asleep, and he wakes up, and he fucks her, but she's asleep...

aha... commonsense says he should have woken her up and asked, but technically, it's a bit fuzzy. I mean from a purely technical point of view, the protocol was leaky.

[Enter any number of objections.]

The protocol was leaky because no chronological coordinates were specified.

I think it's an open question. But it's always safer to err on the side of certainty. I.e. do nothing if unsure.

Well to be quite clear, there are very very few closed questions where I come from. Haha.

[Enter stonewalling.]

I say:

I take it that you're trolling, so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt about whether the question should remain open or closed. Have a nice day!

The discussion began with BlueNothing85's comment (on this comment - I haven't read the article):

"A few years ago I had a guy friend I hadn't seen in a while, so I went out to his place. I flirted, we watched some movies late at night snuggled together, had a few drinks. When it came time to figure out sleeping arrangements, he asked if it was okay if we shared a bed. There was only one blanket, so there we were together for the night.

Nothing happened. I'm not a "me too". But I share it this story because that friend is now my boyfriend. I hadn't explicitly given consent, so he didn't test or cross those boundaries, as attractive as he found me. This is a story where the beginning sounds like "bad judgment" on my part had I been raped. I wasn't. Rape is a choice men make, and I think it's important to remind women that men are in control of what they choose to do, and should be held accountable if they make the wrong choice, regardless of how we acted, dressed, or flirted."

I had a "platonic," friend like BlueNothing85 in college. I think it annoyed her eventually that it didn't get any further than that... which always makes me feel bad about letting people in too close. What's too close, or not?

What's Your Appetite for Discomfort?

I like hard problems, so I find that my tolerance for discomfort is abnormally high. I just keep forgetting that many others have lower tolerance for such. For what it's worth, I find it very hard to stay focused on large problems without tripping over people who just want to make a little difference in the world.

A technique for discovering objects of fear.

Sleep with pillow/blanket over face. Oxygen drought puts brain into nightmare mode. Memories associated with discomfort eventually emerge. But this only works if you are already ready and able to dream. (There have been times in my life when I was training to not-dream.)

6am

Hmm. Why am I up at this hour? Perhaps missing a warm body and snipey conversation. Zzz.

Some water and fruit juice is in order.

Time to write down something that a barista at the cafe said today yesterday. He said, I always look tired. Not physically tired, just mentally tired. He said, I appear to pause and rest frequently. I say, I just have nothing to do. I say, I'm basically hyper, and I "only," get tired when I have nothing to do.

The recent Superman movie was also a reasonable decent portrayal of what one has to do to maintain sensory acuteness beyond the norm. Agile analytical wetware just requires more calibration. Moreover, due to plasticity, what one does not practice, one loses eventually. As usual, when one does not practice routine objective benchmarking, and I do not, one's sense of oneself tends to wander.

Back to sleep for routine purposes.