Ian On The Red Dot

Had two gatherings yesterday evening. One was with the Plurksters and the other with some friends.

The conversations at both gatherings were really interesting. Some highlights:

Girl: You should never call your bf by his name.
Us: Why?
Girl: You get so used to saying a certain name, that after you break up, you tend to call the new bf by the old bf’s name.
Us: Ouch.
Guy: That’s why I call all my girlfriends dear. Never can make mistake with the name.

Someone: I am God’s gift to women.
In my mind: I am God’s gift to lesbians. After I date a girl, she will never want to date another man and will confirm switch to the other team.

I once loaned a friend $2000 to buy a computer. It was in university and she called me asking if I could help her with the amount because she wanted to collect her laptop. Being a close friend, I acquiesced to the request. A short while later, we had a major argument and she offered to return the money.

I refused.

I refused because I feared the return of the money was a way for her to delineate where our friendship would never be the same again if not totally ended.

When I passed her the money, it was not as a gift. I expected that one day when I really needed $2000, she would be able to help me by providing that sum. Yet it wasn’t really a loan because I had hoped the money would be with her as indefinitely as possible - it was my childish way of hoping that no matter what happened with our friendship, I would still have a tenuous place in her life.

There was another friend who I covered for whenever we went out. We weren’t exactly dating and she paid lip-service to the concept of going Dutch by always saying, “I’ll pay you back later”. Of course, later never happened.

I had a bitter fallout with this second friend and in the aftermath of the fallout, I asked for a certain amount of money she had promised to return.

It was a most ungentlemanly thing to do. Here is the thing - each time I paid ‘first’, I knew then at that moment the money was gone. And I did it willingly because I considered her a friend, I understood her financial situation and I enjoyed her company. In my bitterness, I behaved poorly.

I always look back at that moment and reflect on why I reacted that way. And I realized this - there is a subconscious tabulation that goes on in a lot of us. The better ones among us have risen beyond such petty considerations but for me, and I think it would not be presumptuous to say for most of us as well, we are constantly struggling with the tallying that indicates if we are losing out in any relationship.

When a particular relationship ends or if we think it is going to end, we want to ensure we don’t leave it any poorer than we started.

No one wants to be made to look like a chum. It doesn’t matter if someone did it intentionally or accidentally, we always tend to assume the worse that we have been played like a fiddle.

I guess what I’m trying to say is this - like what my parents always advised, never lend what you cannot give. I know some people will say that the value of the amount is important. I disagree. When does the value become too big? When it hits the thousands? When it hits the hundreds? Each of us have different comfort levels to how much we are willing to lend which to me is the same as how much we are willing to give.

So whatever the amount, the same principle applies - never lend what you cannot give.

That however is just one side of the equation. As friends, we must learn never to accept what we cannot return, even if it is a gift. Accept gifts graciously, and always be mindful that as a friend, we should reciprocate. No one should ever dictate how we reciprocate but as friends we need to be aware that not all gifts are equal and not everyone has the same expectations of a friendship.

If we cannot meet those expectations, we should graciously decline no matter how much the giver insists.

The thing is I think sympathy for the lady in the recent kerfuffle changed when the issue of money was brought up because what was happening suddenly fitted into the worldview a lot of us, especially the males and me included, have about women.

We have become so cynical that we immediately assume the worse of the lady and also the guy.

That worldview is that all women are cock-teasing, attention-seeking, emotional-manipulators that try to squeeze money, energy and time out of us guys and string us along when they know they can milk us.

The other worldview reflected was that while all guys may be horny bastards who think only with their dicks, there is the certain (?naive) hope that it was possible for a guy to help a girl just because he wanted to (and felt it was the right chivalrous thing to do) and not because he expected any reciprocation in love or lust and that a girl could be free to treat a guy how she wants, no matter how it might seem like signals, without her having to restrain herself and tell herself that she got to treat guys differently - Ladies want the freedom while leaving the onus of handling her actions totally to the guys.

Neither of these worldviews can be said to be wrong. Each of us are defined very much by our own experiences and that has shaped our worldview.

The truth is that there are individuals who exist on the extremes of both worldviews. There are guys who are horny bastards who will take advantage of girls whenever they can. There are girls who are cock-teasing, gold-digging sluts who know how to use their sexuality to manipulate guys. There are girls who are totally clueless about what might be appropriate and gender-specific behavior. There are guys who are totally inept with women that if Jessica Alba stripped in front of them, they will wonder if there is a hidden camera meant to play a joke or who will blush and quickly grab a towel to cover her up to protect her dignity.

Most of us just fall somewhere in between.

Sadly, when we were born, our birth certificates didn’t come with a play-by-play walk-through on how to circumnavigate the quagmire that is human relationships.

We are all trying to make sense of the rules. Unfortunately, we all play by different rules. It is hard to figure out who is playing with which rule and a lot of times, our judgment is clouded by our hope of what rules other people are playing by.

It is also a human weakness to look for the people who have given us the most attention in our times of need when everyone else seems to forsake us even when we cannot reciprocate their level of attention and kindness. People get led on not because two people go out as friends but because one asks another to do more than what should be asked for when there is an imbalance in feelings.

Are we taking advantage of these givers or are these givers using us to validate their own place in the world?

There are no winners or losers, only victims in this tragic comedy we call life.

In the end, when the dust settles and the mob rides away to the next town and another spectacle, what really remains is just two people who have been hurt and are still grappling with their place in the world.

So, why do married men want to have affairs? New York Mag has an interesting article that might help explain all these shenanigans.

My sister has been influenced by evolutionary psychology, the widely publicized theory that the sex drive is genetically programmed. One of the leaders in the field, David Buss, author of The Evolution of Desire and a professor at the University of Texas, says that men’s genes program them to seek many mates and try to monopolize the reproductive lives of those mates; think of the manners of the Fundamentalist Latter-Day Saints sect’s sprawling compound in Texas, in which the older men ran the younger men off and had as many of the girls—as young as 14—as they wanted. But women are also programmed for infidelity, Buss says. They have a drive to monopolize the economic resources of their mate, according to the theory, but also to keep a man or two in reserve, because men die earlier than women, or men go off, and women need protection.

Gf and I had a bad day. Totally my fault. She said something and my reaction wasn’t the best possible one. In fact, it is the third worse thing a guy could do. After our phone conversation, I began analyzing why I reacted to what she said and I remembered this story my father shared to me a long time ago.

A girl came home from school one day. Her father greeted her at the door and said to her, “I Love You”. The girl started crying and ran up to her room. The parents were shocked. The father tried to talk to her but the girl wouldn’t let him into the room. So, the mother tried instead. Inside the room, the mother was hugging the girl and consoling her and trying to find out why the daughter was crying.

The daughter said, “Father is going to leave us.”

The mother looked at her, incredulous by the remark, “No, he isn’t. Why did you say that?”

The girl explained, “John said he loved me too, but the next day, I saw him kissing another girl. When I confronted him, he said he was leaving me.”

After a while, in this life, we are all going to meet all sorts of people. Inevitably, some of them, if not most, will disappoint us, hurt us and sadden us. The danger then is that we response to the same cues from different people the same way. In a way, it is a defense mechanism left over from our days when we were still living out on the savannah. You see lion. Lion react certain way. Body instinctively react certain way, getting ready to flight or fight.

It happens with our emotions too. The trick is to master these sort of reflex actions.

Much to learn. Much to control.

The totally worship-worthy Geek Goddess talks about guys who pump and dump or at least talk about it. Let’s forget about the guys who do not walk the talk and focus on those who actually do the pumping and dumping.

Disclaimer: ‘Pump and Dump’ is a phrase that kinda belongs to a friend of a friend.

The paragraph that launched a thousand keystrokes:

“You don’t know meh? Alot of guys just to have a f**k buddy, you think they really want to stick with their girlfriends faithfully forever meh? Don’t be silly lah, s’pore guys won’t settle down with the last fling until they reach 35. And never get those clingy GFs, they will commit suicide if you dump them, just get one that you can f**k and dump, who cares about commitment?”

What crosses the line for me is the fact that he outrightly says this, in front of his friends.

Before we go into why they do it, Estee shares the thing that gets her is that he openly says it. What’s wrong with that. I rather a guy tell me, ‘fuck you, I’m going to fuck you over in this business partnership once I get the chance’ then have a friend say, ‘no contract needed, just a handshake, cos we are friends and you know, I’ll never cheat you’.

Basically, I like a guy who says what he means, is constant and isn’t afraid to share his stand.

So, why do they do it? Estee has a few theories of her own. She divides these guys into 3 categories:

1. The young and immature.

Why is pumping and dumping women an immature act? Lots of people do pumping and dumping and not just in a sexual way. Also, there are many kinds of relationships and I don’t think a guy is any less mature if he doesn’t want a committed one.

2. The jaded.

3. Those who have never loved before.

So, you know why guys pump and dump. Simple. BECAUSE THEY CAN. I mean, look at what the person leaving the comment continued to say after sharing what the ‘despicable’ guy said.

I suspect alot of guys are like this, well, at least those who look ‘passable’. the other option would be the CMI geeks. Tell me, what is a girl to do in sg? How to find a good guy who doesn’t have the intention to f**k and dump?…sigh…

Well, you want to know how to find a guy who doesn’t have the intention to fuck and dump? Simple. Don’t fuck before marriage. That could be one suggestion. Don’t let people eat the tohfu until they have paid for the meal or at least you have the credit card to charge to their account.

Or maybe, moderate your standards. You want to label people Cannot Make It and go for those that can make it and seem to consider those who don’t look good as an unenviable option , of course you are going to attract a certain kind of crowd. Besides, what’s wrong with geeks who cannot make it by whatever absurd, bullshit superficial standard you have (notice, she talks about looks in that comment).

Gosh.

Guys pump and dump because they can. I suspect most guys would pump and dump if they could. The guys who don’t pump and dump are:

1. Those who think God is watching. (he isn’t)

2. Those who can’t.

3. Those who haven’t been caught.

So, what sort of guys can? They are those that (and this isn’t an exhaustive list nor do the guys need to have all these attributes ) are rich, good looking, hunky, intelligent and charming.

Now, I know some of you might be saying this - ‘but there are some guys who really cannot make it leh, yet still got a chance to pump and dump’.

Simple. The market is imperfect. Women do not have information on all the guys out there. So within their limited social circle (say all the people in Toa Payoh who go to XXX school who like to hang out at XXX location), as long as a guy is the top dog there by whatever arbitrary standards a girl might have, he is going to get some action. Now, guys, the imperfect information works in your favour, so don’t go and get smart and think of some Web2.0ish idea to improve the market.

The conceivable problem with being a player is that it is hard to sustain the advantage that allows you to be a player. Age and the degradation of the body are two things that are impossible to fight against although the latter can be mitigated with money.

The other conceivable problem is that a player might decide to not be a player for whatever reasons like wanting to father a legitimate child thus needing to get married but not wanting to lose any assets in the eventuality of getting caught. Or maybe he decides he doesn’t mind eating the same sushi everyday.

Now, at that point, the choices are rather limited unless you are the top tier of players which is by definition a small group. So, what are your choices? The funny thing is this, most guys want one kind of girl when they are being a player, but when they think about getting married, they want another kind - sweet, homely, virtuous … kind. I am generalizing and stereotyping but I have seen enough of my peers to know there is some truth in this. The problem is this, at that age, most of these girls are already taken and it is harder to get them (every contract after all is negotiable, even the marriage contract) or there is too little of them going around (after all, in the prime, the players themselves were responsible for reducing the pool of nice sweet, homely, virtuous … girls).

So, what’s the solution? Go younger or go foreign.

Now, I totally laughed when Estee shared that girls are smart and will wise up to these sort of players. REALLY? I think Estee is really the exception to the rule because I think most girls don’t learn.

They may be wary but there is something about humans that make us always think we are the only that will change that guy or girl. We all have these ridiculous notions of our own value that we think we can be the one to ’save’ that guy and girl from the philandering unfaithful or just plain fear-of-commitment ways.

Also, the very fact that a guy has a string of past relationships show that he knows his stuff. Even if a girl is wise, which is a rarity, I think the safer option is not to even enter the lion’s den. But, no, we all like to play with fire. We ALL think we can handle it. That we won’t fall for the same scam.

I want to leave you all with this. Estee and I, when writing our blog posts, are stereotyping and generalizing. But the world isn’t like that. Humans are complex and we can’t all be painted or rather typed with the same keystrokes. So, if you didn’t read anything in this post, I hope you would read the last two paragraphs.

If you play a game with certain rules, the rules are going to constrain your rewards. You can’t play chess and hope to win the game by getting the most money. That’s monopoly. So, the key thing about this life is this, you got to decide what values you hold dear and what are your priorities, then find someone who is like-minded and hopefully you get a chance to build a strong, loving and lasting relationship with that person.

The thing is this - humans are selfish. I know we have our moments, but the rule when dealing with a human should be is that humans are selfish. For guys, somehow, there is a big score card in our individual and collective male consciousness that is tallied based on the quality of women we get to bang and the number. This isn’t the only thing that governs our thoughts, decisions and actions, but it is a big part of our psychological and biological makeup. A guy who can pump and dump is more likely to do so than one who doesn’t. So, to answer the question of Estee’s reader, the way to find a good guy is simple - manage your expectations and always be mindful of which game you are playing and more importantly, which game the other guy is playing. Some guys are playing the get-to-heaven game or the treat-women-with-respect-because-i-want-my-sister-to-be-treated-same-way game. They are better candidates.

Interesting article by Lori Gottlieb arguing the case for settling for Mr Good Enough. The interview with her is also filled with perspectives that I can relate to.

I think the trajectory of my romantic life took on a similar path - desire to find the one to accepting that there isn’t always THE ONE and realizing that the best one is different from the right one if she even exists.

An interesting discussion I had with my former boss at the Indian company concerned arranged marriages. He defended it saying that the notion of marrying for love was all nice and good but that it didn’t ensure a marriage would work or last. Of course, arranged marriages don’t necessarily guarantee a successful marriage but he argued that people entering an arranged marriage might have an advantage in finding long term happiness because they do it with a different mindset. I’m quoting Lori Gottlieb who touches on this issue:

I think the people who go in with these very high expectations about what kind of fulfillment they’re going to get from the marriage and the partner are kind of set up for disappointment.

They have vivid memories of a shared romantic history, and when that wanes or even disappears, there’s a certain amount of sadness or grief that can morph into outright resentment as the years go on. Because the we is redefined so drastically from the we they were before marriage and kids and mortgages and all that emotional water under the bridge.

Well, they don’t go into marriage with those grand romantic illusions. They go into it, I think, with much more realistic expectations. The starting point is “OK, this is your teammate or your partner. Go work out your differences,” as opposed to “This is the person who’s going to fulfill you on all of these very profound levels.”

I do not support arranged marriages - I feel people have a right to choose how they want to live their lives. The key thing to note is about entering a marriage, or for that matter any relationship, with realistic, albeit what might seem lower, expectations.

Passion does not always lead to happiness or fulfillment.

Marriage isn’t a passion-fest; it’s more like a partnership formed to run a very small, mundane, and often boring nonprofit business. And I mean this in a good way.

I guess, the question is then what one considers important? A passionate romantic relationship or a stable happy relationship. Both types of relationships aren’t mutually exclusive and blessed is the person who finds a relationship that is high on both counts. Every relationship probably has both elements in varying degrees, so back to the question, which one would you like to have more of?

My sentiments exactly:

What I long for in a marriage is that sense of having a partner in crime

Best description for our search for love:

It’s like musical chairs—when do you take a seat, any seat, just so you’re not left standing alone?

A classic Catch-22:

“If I’d settled at 39,” she said, “I always would have had the fantasy that something better exists out there. Now I know better. Either way, I was screwed.”

Even if you find THE ONE, if that person is so awesome, what makes you think that you are good enough for that person to desire you or accept you? The conceit we have is that we feel we deserve better.

Are you willing to risk what you have in order to hold out for what either may not exist or, equally important, may not be attainable to you, even if it did exist? It’s nice to have high ideals, but the reality is, you may not be attractive to what you consider the best.

A while back, during Chinese New Year, I had an interesting discussion with a friend about finding THE ONE. My friend argued that God wouldn’t have setup a system where there was one perfect partner for each of us because such a system couldn’t possible end up in a state of equilibrium where everyone had the ideal partner because all it took was one person to make the wrong choice and there will be a cascade leading to everyone being attached to the wrong guy or girl.

In an earlier post, I blogged about why arguments with members of the opposite sex tend to last so long. From the same book, I learned from an interview with Victor Johnston how to tell if a girl will choose you as a mate just by looking at her fingers.

So, how to tell if a lady will mate with you? Simple - look at her ‘digit ratio’. The ‘digit ratio’ in women is one or greater than one. When it is one, the length of the index and ring fingers is equal. When it is greater than one, the index finger is longer.

Women change their preferences just prior to ovulation. In what direction does the change happens depends on the amount of testosterone present in the uterus when the girl was a fetus. The greater amount of testosterone present in the uterus will affect how ‘masculine’ a girl is. The more ‘masculine’ she is, the longer the ring finger. The girl with a lower digit ratio tends to be more masculine and will prefer men with prominent, square jaws because that is an indicator of masculinity in men. Such women will want such masculine men for both sporadic and longer-lasting encounters.

If the girl has a shorter ring finger (i.e. higher digit ratio), she will prefer friendlier, gentle men, more commonly known as the nice guys, when she is ovulating. Note, this only happens when she is ovulating or seeking a longer-lasting relationship - the key thing to note is when the chance of being impregnated by a man is high (like in a marriage), such women with higher digit ratio will choose the friendlier, gentle man - the normal guys get their chance. But if such a girl wants a fling, the macho man still gets first rights.

So, normal guys…either way, your girlfriend/wife is going to have sex or already had sex with that guy with the Superman jawline. But hey, you get to play husband as well as the father of her children. Of course, if she times it wrong or the body sends the wrong hormonal signals, they just might not be yours.

I’ve been reading this book titled ‘Mind, Life, and Universe - conversations with great scientist of our time‘. It contains interviews with a bunch of really smart people. The great thing about this book is that it makes science relevant to our lives and not exile it to some esoteric corner of our society. It is a great book and one that I highly recommend everyone to read if they have the time. Actually, you got to make the time to read it.

I found one particular interview with Robert Sapolsky highly interesting because it helped explain why arguments with members of the opposite sex can drag on for so long.

Our limbic system, which is responsible for our emotion and feelings, seems to work faster than the autonomic nervous system. When my girlfriend is angry with me, what happens is that within the limbic system, the part of the brain which deals with emotions decides for her that she is upset. It then tells the rest of the body she is upset - the autonomic nervous system is activated and her heart beats faster, she sweats more.

Now, here is where what William James discovered comes in. He suggests that the brain also takes its cue from the body when deciding what emotions to feel. The brain checks with the body and finds out the heart is racing - the brain infers that the individual is feeling a strong emotion.

So, this is how the loop happens. You make your girlfriend angry. Her brain tells her body to react to the anger. After you apologize, and she accepts it, her brain tells her she is no longer angry, but her body is still in the angry state. You leave the room to go take a piss. During this time, because the autonomic nervous system resets itself to normal state slower than the brain, the rest of the body as opposed to the brain is still angry. The brain checks with the body what is going on and finds out the body is still in angry state, so the brain thinks it must still be angry over something for the body to be angry and so the limbic system kicks in again and now she feels angry all over again.

Here is the thing. On average, the autonomic nervous system for women resets itself slower than that for men.

So now, the argument is finally settled. We know whose fault it is - women’s.

Discovered the ladder theory today via Insane Polygons. Helps explain why some guys just can’t seem to make passionate love with the girls they want to.

I found his other theory about why God is an absentee landlord interesting - God Is Asleep.

Anyway, from his about page on the site, I learned who I am and what I’m called. I too am a recovering Intellectual Whore.

I was being used for their amusement and entertainment while they were busy fucking outlaw bikers. Of course they weren’t interested in me sexually; they were too busy with guys with forearm tattoos. But apparently they still needed some intellectual stimulation. That’s when they would call me with an opening line like “Tell me something interesting.” or some other not-to-subtle line. I recalled the term intellectual whore and applied it to this situation. These women had made me into their intellectual whore. Since then I have dedicated a large part of my life to avoiding this trap, and the various bitches that try to put you in it.

In short, it does not refer to a “smart slut” as it were, but rather to males who are kept around by women for their mental entertainment.

It is 2.16am according to my computer’s clock. I’m alone in the office waiting for some production stuff to happen before I can get to work. Anyway, here is something I heard at a first aid course.

————————————————————-

Instructor: What do you do when a guy comes with a broken arm?

Student: Make sure he doesn’t move his arm so that matters don’t become worse.

Instructor: Nope. You tell him man don’t cry and man don’t feel pain. Tell him to stop being a wimp and throw him a plaster. Remember, whatever a guy comes with, throw him a plaster.

Student: — silence –

Instructor: Now, what do you do when a girl comes.

Student: What is she suffering from?

Instructor: Doesn’t matter. Resuscitation is the first thing you do.