Majoru Oakheart said:
First, for those who care, I showered right before posting this.
Woo hoo!
fusangite: I keep having plans to go on Atkins.
It's a piece of cake -- your food budget doubles or triples though. The big thing you have to prepare for is to have low-carb SNACK items around the house and with you at work during the first few weeks when you're going through carb withdrawal. So, buy lots of cheese, pork rinds, pepperoni, other smoked meats and keep them around. Another thing they don't tell you in the diet book that can be quite useful: avocadoes are insulin blockers so in terms of carbs, they not only essentially partly neutralize their own but also the carbs from other foods. So, a few avocadoes a week really helps both in terms of carbs and vitamic C. Another thing that was useful for me: frozen drink crystals -- always have them around in case you run out of diet pop.
After the first two weeks, you won't really have the food cravings and all this stuff won't really be necessary but for the first 14 days, the drink crystals and smoked meats can really make a key difference.
I agree with some of what you say, but I think you have me slightly wrong.
Well, I hope I have erred in ways that speak well rather than ill of you.
I agree with your methods and I appreciate what you are trying to do.
Well, that's a dangerous thing to say. Looks like I'll have to respond to the next round of posts then:
Also, my place is a mess. Yes, because I'm too lazy to clean most of the time. My friends haven't stopped coming over because of it and new people who come normally accept an apology on the appearance of the place. I find that most people aren't extremely concerned if I haven't cleaned up in the last week. I guess we hang out with different people, but I haven't found it to be an issue.
Have you checked out the geek social fallacies page someone here linked to? I bet this is one of the reasons they linked to it. I game every week at a home where the GM and his brother, I am pretty sure, have not cleaned the bathroom more than once since I joined the game 8 months ago. They may never have cleaned it. I am revolted and disgusted every week. But I haven't said a thing -- but I'm quite sure that if they recruited a female player and she was subjected to sitting down on that toilet seat a few times a month, the facilities could make the difference between her going or staying.
The fact that people, especially geeks, don't complain about something should in no way be interpreted as assent or indifference. It can and should be interpreted as a combination of cowardice, laziness and politeness. Most people, not just geeks, absolutely hate confrontation. What separates more mainstream people from geeks is not not that they are more or less likely to express dissatisfaction with something that's gross or unpleasant; it's that they are more likely to move on rather than stay and suffer.
I like to feel that I'm doing the "right" thing. But often, I'm not actually looking for it to be the popular thing or even have the majority agree with me.
This seems like a good place to stop and address another fallacy. I know the thrill, as a kid, of suddenly realizing that just because a lot of people share an opinion, it is nevertheless wrong. But many people in our subculture seem to take the wrong lesson from that. Just because the correctness of an opinion does not vary directly with the number of people who share it, it does not follow that there is an inverse relationship either. There is no meaningful relationship at all; many geeks seem to assume a negative correlation coefficient because it has been demonstrated to them that there is not a positive one. But the fact is that the correlation coefficient of an opinion's correctness and the number of people who share it is, for all practical purposes, zero.
If you credit that the other human beings are not that smart, and you seem big on that rather arrogant view, then why should their opinions be a useful input in predicting the objective truth of a position about which they have an opinion?
I'm instead looking to find the group of people who agree with me and spend time around them to make me feel better about myself.
Wow! I feel like I'm doing one of those "thick readings" they talk about in high level English courses on discourse analysis.
Okay, so falsehood #1: Popular opinion vs. correct opinion.
Falsehood #2: Feeling good=being agreed with
I like hanging out with people who agree with me too. But even when I'm with people with 90% of whose opinions I agree, we often spend our time discussing the things about which we don't agree. Because that's fun, that's exciting. That's when I'm challenged and I learn. Some of my friends are people against whom I work politically every election. Some of my friends are people who don't like RPGs. Some of my friends don't know anything about religion or politics.
So I don't look for friends on the basis on whether they agree with me; I look for them on the basis of whether being with them enriches my life, be that through argument, RPGs, food, shared values or whatever. There are lots of ways to feel affirmed in an interpersonal dynamic. Being agreed with is just one.
Falsehood #3: Happiness in my tribe vs. happiness in the mainstream
I agree that it's important to put together a social group where you can be in you comfort zone and feel good. That's basically the lynchpin of my entire social strategy in life. But the second most important part of my social strategy is to cultivate the ability to still feel pretty good hanging out with the members of the other tribes. That's because your ability to feel good around your crowd and your ability to feel good around the other human beings are, again, independent variables that do not really correlate to one another.
You don't need to sacrifice feeling good amongst people you wouldn't normally hang out with in order to feel good around your best friend; if you can do both, your life is better. It's like I was saying earlier: the more things you learn to enjoy, the more of life you'll enjoy. Cultivating the capacity to enjoy something (ie. acquiring a taste) makes one's life better. Wouldn't it be amazing if you could spend time with nearly anyone and come away feeling better about yourself?
I feel that I'd like to know the people who think that it's great that I wear what I do. I LIKE wearing it, so although some people might think it's stupid, or unkept or anti-social, I think of it as a shirt with someone I like written on it.
And you don't have to stop liking those shirts. But wouldn't it be cool if you learned to like other shirts as well? That's what happened with me. I used to just like one kind of insanely geeky attention-seeking outfit. It's not that I stopped enjoying wearing that outfit; it's that I began enjoying various other outfits.
It's much better for my self esteem to be around a person who says "Cool shirt" instead of "Can't you dress in some real clothes?"
But almost nobody says "can't you dress in some real clothes" to you unless they really care about you and worry about the impression you're making on all the people who, quite frankly, couldn't be bothered telling you that your outfit makes you look like a slob and just write you off without a word.
Why not acquire more tastes in clothing so that there is a wider range of outfits you can enjoy wearing? Who loses if you do that? You sure don't because you get to enjoy the experience of looking in the mirror more than you currently do.
Plus, doesn't do much for my self esteem to be continually putting on clothes that I don't like just so other people will tolerate me.
It's really a shame that the experience of being clothed sucks for you unless there are words on your chest. I would suggest that if this is the case, you need to branch out in clothing for no other reason than your own mental health. It goes back to what I've been saying in previous e-mails; when you say that feeling good about what you are wearing is contingent on essentially
wearing a sign, that's a sign that you are superficial, appearance-focused and attention seeking -- the accusations you seem to be leveling at the rest of the world much of the time.
(I have another theory about why the slogans that I'll elaborate if we go to another iteration of this.)
Feels like I'm pretending.
From my years in politics, you know what the biggest lesson I learned was? People are lousy liars. Even politicians who make a living off lying are just rotten at it. The reason we're rotten liars is that it's so much easier not to pretend; so, usually the first people we convince of a lie are ourselves. We start out pretending and it soon turns out that the thing you were pretending to enjoy, you actually are enjoying. As a result, I'm a big fan of pretending. When I was younger I pretended to like a lot of weird foods; and it really paid off because now I actually like those foods.
Now, as to your "short history lesson:"
Compared to me and a number of my friends, you actually sound quite successful with women. Now that I know a bit more of your history, I'm really going to chime in with everyone else and say that the girlfriend situation is not your problem. Making girls like you: piece of cake. The improvement you need to effect in your quality of life is to make you like you.
Alcohol: It's been my experience that most people I know who drink on a regular basis drink to excess.
Yep. That's how people deal with alcohol in their early 20s. Good news: maturity and aging livers will put an end to that in not too long. Then you'll find that there isn't the weird belligerent cultural around alcohol that you're finding now. Trust me: social groups that are not centred around people in their early-mid twenties are going to have healthier, saner attitudes towards alcohol and will use it in ways you will likely find much more socially constructive. Plus, they will start making drinks that taste better.
One of my best friends quit life to drink most of the time. Everyone I knew in high school who made fun of me bragged about drinking constantly. The favorite activity of most people I know who aren't my role playing friends is going to the bar once or twice a week and getting drunk.
Well, don't convict alcohol by association there. That's more information about people in their early 20s than it is information about alcohol.
I also have a rather large fear of not acting like myself.
You seem to think that your identity is something you will lose if you don't wear a label and cling to it for dear life. Trust me: it will be there regardless.
I've seen people act in ways that they have to apologize for afterwards and would NEVER do while sober. I don't want to drink and then find out the next day that it lowered my inhibitions to the point where I actually admited to my GM who is engaged that if she wasn't, I date her in a second. I don't want to accidently tell my best friend that sometimes he irritates the crap out of me and I wish he wasn't around all the time. Those are things I think, but I keep under control and alchohol could bring them out.
You control 100% how much alcohol you consume; there is no reason that by virtue of having a sip of wine you have to get drunk.
I hate to tell you this but your dopamine, serotonin and blood sugar levels are fluctuating all over the place all the time. (Especially if you're overweight and have a high-carb diet.) Your IQ is moving up and down, your levels of happiness, anxiety, etc.; you aren't "in control" now. Your brain is switching states, causing irrational anxiety, disinhibition, despair, episodes of stupidity all the time. But you manage that. Alcohol is no different; if you can teach yourself to manage the psychoactive effects of a bag of popcorn, a pint of coke and a box of milk duds, you should be able to train yourself pretty easily to manage the effects of a glass of wine so you get its beneficial effects without any radical disinhibition or collapse.
Just as alcohol's effects are sometimes to cause people to do things they wished they didn't do when sober, alcohol can also be used to help people do things they wished they could to when sober. Sometimes a strategic glass of wine can give one the courage to ask someone for a date or a job interview; you don't have to relinquish control to alcohol in order to use it as a tool to extend your will, to carry out a decision you have already made.
I disagree. You like feeling secure. ANd the only way you know of feeling secure is having control. There are other ways of feeling secure and, as you discover them, control will become less important.
But you're not really in control anyway. I bet there are all kinds of things you can't do when you're "in control" even though you would really like to. Don't mistake your fear and inhibitions for your desires. There are probably various things you would choose to do if you really were "in control" but don't because you're afraid or inhibited.
Really, I just wear what I have in my closet. I've rarely, if ever, actually bought clothes on my own. I just don't care enough to go shopping for them. So, nearly everything I have is a gift.
Was I in a time machine that got stranded in Winnipeg? I could have sworn I wrote this sentence myself 10 years ago. Well, I hate clothes shopping too. So, if I may, I'd like to make a non-labour intensive recommendation for taking control of your appearance (one would think that a guy who liked to be "in control" would want to choose his own clothes).
Go to a tailor; surprisingly, tailors are pretty cheap. Sit down with the guy and pick out a design for a shirt that you like, have him take your measurements and order a bunch. There are a number of advantages here: (a) the clothes are shaped for
your body (b) when you need a new shirt, you can just make a phone call and then go pick it up when it's done (c) you get to design your own shirt so that you can develop something that truly reflects the unique you with no need for slogans, (d) you end up with shirts that are suitable for both formal occasions and everyday wear. Now, it's true that my shirts cost me $50 each but in the case of formal shirts, that's close to what I'd be paying in a department store anyway.
I feel for you. I absolutely loathe clothes shopping with a passion but I found a way around that loathing. If you deploy that intellect of yours on these superficial, mundane problems, many of them will vanish.
Therefore, almost all of it are shirts with slogans people thought I would like. I'm not opposed to shopping for new clothes and have in fact thought many times that I really should get some. Even bought a bunch while I lived in Australia to look better for the job I had there. However, my mom does the laundry in the house, and all my clothes seem to go missing. So, I do need to buy more, I just have to be awake during the day to do so.
Sounds like a lot of what's going on with you is grief and despair over your latest breakup. It seems like you were more together economically, socially, etc. and then the rug was pulled out from under you. Don't mistake your current feelings of grief for the real or essential you. You probably have a bunch of negative thoughts and feelings hanging over from your time in Australia that you need to recognize as such rather than incorporating them into a new, more negative self image.
And for God's sake,
TAKE CONTROL OF YOUR LAUNDRY! I don't care how but do so immediately. If you can't afford to move out, at least, do your own laundry and cooking.
Also, partially the point of wearing those clothes IS to show who I am. I find that if I'm wearing a Star Wars shirt, people who like Star Wars come up to me and talk to me.
You know, rather more sophisticated strategies have been used quite effectively to find people efficiently with whom to discuss Star Wars.
And I have to confess something here: If I were at a party and I genuinely wanted to discuss Star Wars, I would start remarking to
other people about your tshirt. I would say things like, "I remember thinking Star Wars was the greatest movie of all time but..." That's because liking Star Wars wouldn't be the only signal you would send me with that tshirt: the shirt would also tell me that you would probably be socially awkward and detail-focused, that if I started talking to you, I might not be able to get away, that you might have some kind of humourless devotion to the series, etc. But your t-shirt would be a great prop for me to use, unbeknownst to you, to find people more likely to be fun to talk to about Star Wars.
I like having things in common with people. When I look through a crowd of people, I'm prone to ignoring the well dressed, preppy people and finding those people who look like they are kindred spirits to talk to.
Now, from reading this thread, how many ENWorlders have told you that despite their obviously high intelligence and deep knowledge of sci-fi and RPGs that they wouldn't be dressed like you, that they might, in fact, be dressed like preppies or punks or goths or construction workers? I make it at least fifteen. So, your system isn't that efficient for finding kindred spirits after all, is it? It causes you to dismiss people who are worthy of your attention and lose opportunities to socialize with many fun, interesting individuals.
If I was looking for a woman in a crowd I'd skip over the one in the dress for the one wearing the T-shirt that says "you know you're a gamer when..." like our female DM wears..*grin*
ANd she might say, "No... my aunt gave me this t-shirt last year and I've been so depressed I haven't had a chance to replace it."
No, I am not too stressed out from the rest of my life. I just don't have time.
Could you sketch out your average week and where the time goes? I'm counting 40 hours for work, 5 hours for commuting, 56 hours for sleeping, 2 hours for showering
, 10 hours for eating and 15 hours for gaming so I'm missing about 40 hours or about 5.7 hours per day.
Other than that, every girl I've ever met has either dated me or it has become awkward and we stopped being friends after they realized I liked them more than they liked me. I'm not sure I'm capable of being friends with women. I don't mean to be deperate, but it always comes through anyways
I feel your pain man. This is something with which I still struggle but I've made a lot of progress. So, for what it's worth (almost nothing), here's another example of something I did in my life to address this: start by making friends with women much older than the ones you're attracted to. Once you get comfortable with those women, keep moving younger. Soon, you'll find that you can make friends with women of any age with no weird sexual dynamic or awkwardness even if you're also desperate for a girlfriend.
Life is too short trying to spend it trying to be someone you aren't.
I guess it all comes down to what you think your essence is; if who you are is a bunch of hobbies and clothes, I'm not sure life's worth living at all. But if your identity is a more profound and rich thing than that, then enriching your life shouldn't be synonymous with being someone you are not.
I like to concentrate on what I have in common with people rather than what I don't.
That's a shame. The ways that people aren't like you are so much more fascinating than the ways they are. You know this to be fundamentally true with women... don't you vastly prefer the body parts they have and you don't to the ones that you and they both have? Aren't they the most interesting parts? Well, this isn't just true of the opposite sex on a carnal level; it's true of all people on a social and a spiritual level.
You see, I'm perfectly aware that most of the world works in fallacies.
Wrong. The
entire world does. Including you. That's why you're not superior or special. You have a social strategy that results in me, a fellow Star Wars fan, not talking to you about Star Wars because your social strategy is fallacious. So get off your high horse.
Why bother pretending to like someone so they can pretend to like you when you could find people you really DID find interesting and who really did find YOU interesting?
Because, paradoxical as it sounds, the ability to feign interest in a social skill you can deploy in a campaign to find people who reall do interest you. Several of my friends have been introduced to me by people I did not find interesting. The more social skills you hone, the more people like you you will find!
I'm aware that people put on clothes so that other people will like them regardless of their own opinion of their clothing.
Nope. Most people just bother to cultivate more tastes in clothes so they can enjoy dressing in more seasons and styles.
