I know that mistakes are not pleasant. Sometimes mistakes hurt. They might even hurt a lot. But just because something is unpleasant or hurtful does not necessarily make me want to avoid it. While I do not relish pain, I do appreciate lessons learned. No lesson is as well learned as one through a mistake.

As I go through life I have grown to appreciate silence from others. It’s a good thing to fall off the bike and get up to try again. The problem is that people that have fallen off of the bike before do not want others to fall off, too. They want them to go straight to riding perfectly. Or maybe they want to ban bikes altogether.

While I like trying things out, I can definitively say that I do not know much in this life. I know some things. I will learn other things. And hopefully there will always be people around me that I can turn to for some advice. The thing is, I only want advice if I ask. And likewise I will only try to give advice if asked for it.

The Perfect One is the ideal that you have in your mind of whatever it is that you are looking for. It is going to be recognized and apparent. You are sure of this. Far be it from me to doubt that you could possibly know this for sure.

For example when you are dating, you are looking for the Perfect Boyfriend/Girlfriend. If you are a little better at seeing the bigger picture, you are looking for the Perfect Husband/Wife. But through the good and bad dates, you are evaluating the other person by holding them up against your ideal. Once the other person does not match, you are going to move on. Don’t pay attention to the fact that the person would make a very good match for you despite being slightly too short. Much more tragically than missing a good match in search of a perfect match, though, is being married to someone who you eventually believe to not be the perfect match. When that happens, you might find that you have found the Perfect One in another person. At the very least in this situation you are going to imagine the possibilities of a different life, and at the worst it can lead you to pursue your fantasies. This will obviously hurt many people around in addition to making you a liar (since you could not keep your vows).

Another instance when people look for the Perfect One is when they are house hunting. When you are searching for a house, people often advise you that you will “just know” once you walk into a house. That is rubbish. It is just another way of saying that you should be looking for the Perfect House. Forget the fact that you are looking at houses that would work out just fine. And forget the fact that any house will have its problems. Forget the fact that it’s just a building that will not last!

The horrible thing about this mindset is not that you should have standards. When someone fails to meet your standards for a mate or if a house is completely broken, you should move on. That just makes sense. However, the horrible thing about this mindset is that it will fool you into doing things that do not make any sense at all. You will fall in love with the Perfect One with your heart but not with your head. And then when (not if) reality comes in the form of imperfections, you will be horribly disappointed. And it will hurt.

Can this be fixed? Yes it can! Today you can realize that there is no perfect one, whatever it is that you are looking for. Realize that settling can be just a negative take on this and realize that settling is not always so bad. Settle on something that is acceptable (this seems obvious but don’t settle on something that is unacceptable). If you do not settle, then at least start to believe that the Perfect One will never be found. Move forward with the knowledge that you will NOT find the Perfect One. And if the results match up to your expectations, you are much less likely to get into trouble.

Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me

It was assumed that this saying would protect us from other people’s mean words. And when you’re a young child, it is easy to trick yourself into believing it.

But then you get older and you realize the truth. Words are, in fact, more powerful than physical pain. Physical pain definitely has its place. Broken bones, strained joints, diseases, and so on are all painful and uncomfortable (to say the least) to go through. But all of that pales in comparison to the effect that words and emotional trauma can have.

While it’s rather debatable what can hurt a person more, it is pretty easy to see how emotional trauma can scar people for life. The life of a child who has verbally abusive parents can be negatively impacted for good even with counseling. While I do not want to undermine the damage that physical pain can have, the emotional pain is the one that I have seen with my own eyes because it happens all of the time. One can toil for great lengths of time over something, and sometimes it seems like it takes only a single word to make all of that labor futile. Words get at us even through our armor and shields. They needle their way through kinks and prick us to death. And the worst part of all is that it is the words of those closest to us that hurt the most. Well maybe even worse than that is the fact that we are all so horrible in regards to how we use our words.

The tongue: so mighty and so horrible. No one can tame it, but we must try, eh?

They’re pretty much married already. What’s the difference?
-former co-worker about an unmarried couple living together

What is the difference, really? That is, I have an idea of what the difference is. To me there is a difference between marriage and just living together. In fact there is a difference between marriage and any other state that one can be in (e.g., single, friends, partners)!

But to the rest of the world, it seems like marriage is only an extra special promise to be faithful. And legal rights and benefits. Really, that’s all it is to a large part of the world? “I do. I definitely promise not to be unfaithful to you. You have my word.”

It seems like people wouldn’t try so hard to fight for it if that’s what it is to them.

So what do people do? They play games. What are games? They are things like:

• Girls saying no when they actually mean yes


Courtesy of Flickr user *Karla*

• Guys not wanting to express how they actually feel because it’s not “manly”
• Similarly guys pretending to be completely uninterested
• Girls playing hard to get (when they actually do want the pursuer to “catch” them)
• Both reading into all kinds of actions, lack of actions, subtle tones, sly looks, the way they laugh when you’re around, and all manner of intricacies that I do not have knowledge of
• A girl leading a guy (or vice versa) to think that a relationship might happen at some future time

When we play these games, it’s all smoke and mirrors. And if the goal of relationships is marriage, then how is that helpful in accomplishing that goal? It’s not.

Guys need to ask the girl out, straight up. (I had my fun being sarcastic about it On Asking A Girl Out by saying what you should not be doing.) But you need to make it crystal clear to her what you want and what you’re doing. Otherwise you’re just beating around the bush and wasting everyone’s time.

Girls need to act purposefully. You want him? Go with it if he asks you out. You don’t? Tell him the truth, brutal as it might be. Don’t sugarcoat things because that helps nobody.

These things don’t just apply to the chase, do they? I’m not even really sure why they would apply more specifically to guy/girl relationships. All I know is that I see it there more often. However, these thoughts and their ramifications could be generalized to cover any type of relationship with anyone.

Isn’t it strange, then, that it seems like most people will indeed discriminate against others if they are in the majority? That is, people that might be discriminated against for whatever reason in one location will discriminate others when they’re somewhere else.

What is within man that we do such things? Is it egocentricity? Original sin?

More than that, it seems like things are getting worse. What with the age of the computer upon us, our social interactions are changing rather dramatically pretty quickly. Children, instead of playing with the other neighborhood kids, will play games online with strangers they’ve never actually met. And while I am not opposed to playing games (I’ve played a game or two myself), you must admit that it is changing things up. Instead of being active, we’re watching more television. The list goes on and on.

Even beyond childhood, we are maintaining our relationships through this newfangled phenomenon called the Internet. On websites for all sorts of topics and aims, we are interacting with people in a whole new way. We consider people that we’ve never met in real life our friends. We spend countless hours writing on blogs (kind of like this one!). You get the point. I don’t think that these things are bad in and of themselves, they are bringing our society to a place where social skills are declining.

On a related but slightly different note, is it just me or has the word awkward encroached everyday conversation over the past few years? And somehow, I don’t think that helps fight against the awkwardness. While it does seem amusing at times, I’ve grown to dislike it quite wholeheartedly. Perhaps it’s because any amusement is always coming at someone’s expense. Someone who usually cannot afford to be laughed at. Or maybe it’s because I’d much prefer if everyone were comfortable instead. Whatever the reason, awkwardness is no good.

Or am I the only one?

Child-Like

Courtesy of Flickr user Kristi-san

With children, I think that I can break down my amusement to the fact that they are new to the world. They haven’t lived in society for the years and years that adults have. (Of course, that relates to this comment on a previous post.) So for lack of all of those years of social influence, they are new to the world. They aren’t jaded because everything is fresh. The ocean is huge, the mountains so tall, and everything is worthy of a question. And in addition to that, they are much more free about doing and saying things. That is, they aren’t inhibited because they don’t even know that they should be inhibited. So they’ll run and have fun, pick their nose when they feel a booger, and say what they think about people. Even when it’s inappropriate.

While I’m amused by all of this, it’s also likely because I don’t have to deal with my own children. Because…I don’t have any. Yet. Haha but really I’m positive that it can get old to parents when their kid(s) are acting up endlessly. Oh boy I can’t even imagine!

Courtesy of Flickr user blondie478

Childish

And while I enjoy this child-like charm, (as the title suggests) I don’t actually like it when people are acting childish. What’s the difference? Well in my terms, childish usually applies to those traits of children that are very undesirable. I think of things like throwing temper tantrums, being self-centered, not knowing when to be serious, and other such pleasant attributes. And while children obviously do this, I think that I’m even more turned off when I see it in people that should know better: adults.

In them, I find it to be such a turn-off. And I’m not just talking about in girls. When I meet a guy that acts childish, I’m almost immediately turned off to ever wanting to be friends with him. Childishness just shows (to me) a lack of maturity that is more and more exaggerated the more I’d expect them to be mature. They say that with age comes wisdom, but that, unfortunately, isn’t true for everyone.

So it all comes down to this: I want to continually be child-like and grow to never be childish!

1. Scared – That’s right, girls are scary. They’re mean. They’re intimidating. So shy away from them. Ask them out using as little direct interaction as possible (e.g. while chatting online, on their Facebook, over e-mail). They’ll just want to coddle and love you because they can see that you’re a sensitive soul.
2. Ask Everyone For Advice – Communal knowledge, right? Ask her friends, her enemies, your friends, your enemies, strangers, and anyone else what you should do before you actually do it. But no matter what, don’t ask her yet.
3. Nervous – It’s not easy. So go ahead and stutter, stumble over your words, and forget what you wanted to say. She’ll understand. It’s a tough, cold world.
4. Over Dramatize – Asking out a girl is a big deal. So go all out. Flowers? Of course. Dress up? Sure. Jewelry? Perhaps. Because really, once she says yes to a date, she’s probably going to say yes to anything else that you ask.
5. Trick Her – Don’t even call it a date. Call it “hanging out” or “catching up” or something similarly ambiguous. That way you can get in under the radar without having to put yourself out there. Because if you put yourself out there, you might get hurt. And that doesn’t feel good!
6. Figure Out Everying Before – She’s gonna say yes anyways. So you have to know what kind of centerpieces you’re going to have at your banquet. Man she’s going to look beautiful walking down that aisle towards you, huh?
7. Don’t Take No For An Answer – She really wants you. She’s just playing hard to get. Go get ‘em, Tiger. Even if she gets a restraining order. Even if she never responds to you. Even if she says to get out of her life and never call her again. It’s all a ploy. Only suckers fall for ploys.

Now you’re ready, young man. Or old man. Whatever stage of life you are man. You have all of the tools necessary to win the woman of your dreams. Don’t worry, she’s gonna love you. Trust me, I can tell about these kinds of things.

Imagine, if you will, going into a situation where you’re trying to get in with a whole group of people. Individually you are able to interact pretty well with them. Conversation is pretty easy, common ground is found, life is good.

But as a whole when you’re with them things are not well. You are left standing there thinking, “What am I doing here?” You don’t follow their inside jokes. And you definitely haven’t known them for as long as they have known each other.

Why the difference? It seems strange to me to be able to be friends with them individually but have trouble with them when they are all a group. But it happens. Related to mob mentality? Who knows, you got me.