Category: gender dynamics

Where I Draw the Line with the Left

I spent a great deal of time and effort staying off the political spectrum.  I strongly suspect that the political divide of left and right, or red and blue is a product of the governing class.  Government reform would require a united voter base.  So they divide and conquer.

Something I’ve observed is that those on the far ends of the political spectrum tend to have a great deal in common.  They’re loud.  They’re aggressive.  They assume the moral high ground.  They have questionable beliefs.  And they aren’t very reasonable when those beliefs are challenged.  I’m not the first to have noticed this either.  I think it’s referred to as the horseshoe diagram, and it suggests that the silent majority tend to agree on most reasonable issues.

On this political spectrum, it’s been well documented when the right can go too far.  Nazis.  When a right-wing ideology starts talking about racial supremacy, that’s a red flag.  When they start targeting those of a particular race or religion, blaming them for the country’s problems,  that’s a red flag.  When they start to deny science to advance their own political agenda, that’s a red flag.  An entire generation of Germans learned that in the most painful of ways.  So… if that’s where the right can go too far, do we not have similar standards for the left?  Equality is not equality unless we are all held to account.

Jordan Peterson has made this question a cornerstone of his debates.  He’s often confronted by media personalities who assume that he represents the ‘alt-right’.  In most cases, he addresses that claim and acknowledges that while conservatism and tradition can have value, there is absolutely a point at which it goes too far.  He often suggests Nazis are a clear example of when the right can go too far.  He’ll then ask the interviewer if they could give an example of where the left has gone too far.  In most cases, they can’t answer the question.  I’ve tried it myself and had a similar experience.  On the extreme ends of the political spectrum, it would seem as though you can do no wrong.  As long as you’re fighting for a righteous cause, your actions are justified.  But when both sides take this approach, and both sides believe in their righteousness, there is no middle ground.

I have no issues holding someone to account for a flawed ideology, regardless of it’s right, left, up, down or sideways.  Today, I saw a tweet that was posted to social media that has motivated me to say something.  This was a tweet by @legal_feminista.  It said:

Let’s enter 2019 with the right energy:

Trans women are women.  Sex work is work.  Black lives matter.  Rape culture is real.  Yes all men.  Fuck white supremacy.  Abolish borders.  Free Palestine.  Protect indigenous rights.  Support mental health.  Believe women.

Normally, I wouldn’t pay much attention to something like this as I’ve seen or heard most of it before.  But this tweet received about 60,000 likes and 17,000 retweets in about 48 hours.  This perspective isn’t an outlier, it’s mainstream.  So… let’s dig in and see what we find.

Trans women are women.  That depends on how you define women.  If gender is a social construct and not determined by biology, then sure, trans women are women.  But what about biology? If gender is a social construct, surely, sex must be biological.  Otherwise, we’re ignoring the significance of things like the female and male reproductive systems, or the Y chromosome.  And what happens when trans women start using the natural advantages afforded to a biological male to put women at a disadvantage? There are now various stories about trans women dominating against female athletes.  I’m not sure these competitors would agree that all trans women are women.  At some point, I think we’ll have to acknowledge that there is a very real biological component to being a male or a female.  But in addition to that, we have masculinity and femininity.  Part biology, part psychology, part sociology.. this is what gives us masculine women and feminine men, and really masculine men and really feminine women.  Traditionally, we thought that we should all be masculine men or feminine women and it forced many of us to pretend to be people we weren’t.  Now we’re a little more open minded.  Sex comes primarily in 2 flavors.. with a swirl here and there.  But who we become as individuals, well that’s a flavor that’s unique to each individual.  It includes how masculine or feminine you are, who you’re attracted to, how you choose to dress.. and as long as it’s consensual, it’s all good.  I genuinely think that if we had a little more love for all the unusual ways we turn out, people would be more secure and confident in who they are and less consumed with trying to become someone else.

Sex work is work.  Damn right.  Got your back on this one sister.  Making prostitution illegal is about as sensible as making alcohol and cannabis illegal.  By pushing it into the shadows, you put good people at risk.  By bringing it into the light, we give ourselves a chance of doing it right.

Black lives matter.  Yes, because all lives matter.  My issue with the black lives matters movement was that they weren’t on board with all lives matter.  I agree that racism against black people exists.  I agree that it shows up in matters of police brutality.  But I disagree that police brutality is a race issue.  Black lives matter had an opportunity to open their doors and champion an All Lives Matters movement that would’ve forced police everywhere to reevaluate how they interact with the public.  It could’ve been the solution to police brutality for people of every color.  It could’ve been an opportunity for the black community to be leaders for all of America.  Instead, ‘all lives matters’ was understood to be an attempt at dismissing their cause or taking the spotlight off the black community.  What a missed opportunity.  And meanwhile, you have prominent leaders within the BLM community speaking about black racial supremacy to crowds of cheering fans.

Rape culture is real.  Maybe.  It depends on how you define it.  Growing up, my understanding of rape was someone being held down against their will, being fully aware of the experience as it’s happening, kicking and screaming for help, and dealing with the emotional trauma afterwards.  It was easy to understand that as one of the most terrible crimes a person could commit.  I’m now told that if two people get drunk and have sex, they’ve effectively raped each other because you can’t consent if you’re drunk.  I was also told that if a woman gives consent, but changes her mind during sex without telling her partner, if the partner continues, he’s a rapist.  I think we’re losing sight of the difference between a violent rape and a regrettable sexual encounter.  By no means am I condoning any behavior that remotely resembles rape, but I do think that it’s important to recognize degrees of severity.  I think it would be more accurate to say that we have a culture of sexual harassment.  But if you stop here without asking why, you’re missing half the equation.  I don’t think men want the responsibility of pursuing women for sex.  Most are terrible at knowing whether or not a woman is interested in them.  Most are clueless at figuring out how to flirt.  And most take rejection pretty hard.  And to make it worse, in the same way that men have been socialized to pursue sex, women have been socialized to withhold it.  If we’re going to find our way out of this mess, I think it starts with honesty and respect.  Personally, I vote for women to take over the role of asking guys out for a bit.

Yes all men.   No.  This is literally sexism 101.  It’s like saying that all women are neurotic.  Or all black people are prone to crime.  Or all Muslims are terrorists.  Just because you’ve had bad experiences with some men doesn’t justify you treating all men with the same contempt.

Fuck white supremacy.  Fuck all racial supremacy.

Abolish borders.  Sure.  but how?  Who would you pay your taxes to?  What area would your democratically elected official preside over?  What would be the jurisdiction for the laws you voted for?  Or was this just about firing back at Trump for garbage immigration policies?

Free Palestine.  We should all look for opportunities to put the guns down and hash things out like like reasonable adults.  Unfortunately, religion prevents that.

Protect indigenous rights. Or maybe recognize that indigenous rights, voluntary segregation, and systematic exploitation have destroyed America’s indigenous cultures.  I think it’s time to try integration.  There’s a great deal we can learn from Native American culture, including finding a more balanced relationship with nature.  I think it’s about time we took a real look at their history, and show respect where respect is due.  And once we’ve rewritten history to accurately reflect the role of Native American’s in the development of modern western culture, we can begin to heal.  And part of that will be learning to heal as one family.  If done right, indigenous rights should be no different than any other human rights.

Support mental health.  Absolutely.  Mental health isn’t as obvious as physical health… but can be that much more impactful.  We’re waking up to this reality now.. and there’s a lot of work to be done.

Believe women.  No.  It would be just as foolish to say, ‘Believe men’.  It’s interesting because the last time I saw this, it was ‘believe the victim’.  But what happens when the victim is a man?  Is it still so believable?  The problem isn’t in who we believe, but rather the fact that we should to believe anyone in the first place.  Believing someone is assuming they’re telling the truth without knowing if they are.  Once you have evidence, you can understand whether or not someone is telling the truth.  Without that evidence, you’re left with assumptions.  While some women might think so what, it’ll do more good than harm, consider this:  What would stop someone from paying a woman to make false claims against a man?  Do you believe the woman?  Or do you presume innocent until proven guilty?  On multiple occasions, people have paid women to make false claims against men.  If we believe all women, this will keep happening.  No victim is worth abandoning the right to innocence until proven guilty.  We should trust those who tell the truth.  We should support those who have experienced hardship.  We should hold accountable, those who caused harm to others.  Regardless of what’s between your legs.

 

 

A Belated International Men’s Rights Day

This entry was originally inspired by me being banned from Reddit’s r/feminism community.  It made me sad.  It’s a community I had followed for some time and while I didn’t agree with some of what was being said, I was there to learn.  When I completed the entry, I left it in the draft pile instead of posting it.  I didn’t like the tone.  I don’t mind discussing things that I think are negative, but I prefer to connect them to something brighter.  There’s nothing wrong with a little darkness when you can see the light at the end of the tunnel.  Without the light, I’m much less interested in painting the darkness.

Yesterday was international men’s day and besides it not being a statutory holiday, I suspect that this is one of the more controversial holidays of our time.  I saw it show up in two places in my news feed: on The_Donald and I think on Jordan Peterson’s sub-reddit.  The_Donald, a sub -Reddit for Trump fans and Russian bots, seem to be trolls first and foremost.  Their celebration of men’s rights likely have as much to do with antagonizing feminists as supporting men who are struggling.  They’re not the most compassionate crowd.  But the feminists aren’t shy to give them ammunition either so perhaps there’s a natural dynamic of ‘accountability’ here.  The Jordan Peterson community is certainly more supportive and compassionate in their stance, looking to actually recognize the challenges that men are up against.  I found some of the stats rather surprising.  This is from a graphic which was shared:

 

76% of suicides are men

85% of homeless are men

70% of homicide victims are men

40% of domestic abuse victims are men

Men are the majority of victims of violent crimes

Men on average serve more than 64% longer in prison

Men are 340% more likely than a women to be imprisoned for the same crime

 

Just like with any set of stats, they need to be understood within context.  But even with context, it’s hard to deny that men have their own challenges.  But is there room in today’s world to support both men’s rights and women’s rights?  The logic in me says yes.  In fact, this is the premise for real equality and from my perspective, the only real way forward.  My personal experiences seem to suggest otherwise though.

Over the last few years, I’ve noticed a rise in feminist rhetoric.  It didn’t concern me much as I had established myself as a feminist back in university.  I was teasing a friend for taking a women’s studies class after being egged on by his girlfriend.  He teased me right back and said, “you know you’re a feminist right?”.  I scoffed at him and said, that’s highly unlikely.   He asked if I thought that men and women were equal.  I said sure.  He pointed out that made me a feminist.  Really? What’s all this I hear about burning bras and a general hate towards men?  He told me that was just a misconception. Perhaps those individuals thought of themselves as feminists, but that wasn’t feminism.  Hmm… well alright then, I can definitely get on board with equality.

Fast forward to the present day, and perhaps we’ve lost sight of what feminism was supposed to be.  In it’s evolution, I think we’ve uncovered a rather destructive dynamic.  Classic feminists saw that there was a need for equality when it came to voting rights.  And equal opportunities for education.  And equal opportunities for employment.  And etc.  And etc.  They fought hard for their seat at the table and they’ve made tremendous contributions to our society as a result.  Modern feminists seem to have taken a different approach.

The current conversation seems to be one of power and oppression.  The argument has been made that all of society is dominated by a patriarchy which systematically oppresses women.  As a result of that power imbalance, women are at a disadvantage and the only way to remedy the situation is for women to become more powerful.  Generally speaking, we refer to the empowerment of women to be a positive thing.  But here’s the trick, power seems to be a zero-sum game.  Assuming that men are more powerful than women, in the interest of equality, it would seem sensible that we should make men less powerful and make women more powerful.   Yet throughout history, we’ve seen this dynamic play over and over again.  Power corrupts. Power becomes a means to an end.  At that point, it’s no longer about equality.

I don’t deny that there are powerful men.  But I also am quick to suggest that women are powerful too.  I think history would suggest that they have always been powerful in their own way.  If nothing else, the entire evolutionary course of humanity has been determined by their power to choose a mate.  In most cases, it’s rather easy to trace the actions of men back to the pursuit of approval from women.  But what if men no longer held on to the power than they leverage in their domains?  What if women did the same?  I think that’s the world we’re looking for.. but it’s not the world we’re pursuing today.

Earlier this year I was criticized for using Tinder by a woman in her 50s.  She told me that technology was destroying our ability to connect and that I should look to meet women in the real world.  I told her that in the age of #metoo, it’s hard to know when women in public want to be approached.  She suggested things like being in line at a coffee shop, or at a book store, etc.  Then one of her younger employees (20s) piped up and said something to the effect of “I don’t want men to approach me when I’m at <insert location> because when I’m there, I’m not looking to get hit on, I’m just looking to do <insert activity>.   It seemed like men were being criticized for not approaching women in a more traditional manner, while also being criticized for approaching women in a traditional manner.  As is often the case, there was this expectation that the man would just ‘know’, and if he didn’t, he was to blame.

The same woman who thought I should be approaching women in public also reprimanded me for calling a few young women girls.  It was something to the effect of I’ll see you girls at the conference tomorrow.  I was told that using this language was belittling, demeaning, oppressive, and etc.  Something about making them seem younger than they were.  On one side, I understood what she was saying but on the other, I was so confused.  I told her that I thought I was using it as a term of endearment, in the same manner a woman would refer to a group of men as boys.  And wasn’t girl-power a hall-mark of feminism?  There didn’t seem to be any logical basis for why she was upset with me, but I was made to feel like I had done something wrong regardless.

I was hanging out with my sisters earlier this year and talking about dating in the #metoo era and how I was generally trying to steer clear of it all.  At one point, we discussed how many decent men were being painted with the same brush as those who genuinely needed to adjust how they were treating women.  They both gave me the same analogy: If you have a bowl of skittles, and you know that just a few of them are poison, you don’t eat the skittles.  I didn’t say anything at the time because I was listening and trying to understand their perspectives, but it registered as a ‘does not compute’.  I thought about it more later and realized it was sexism 101.  Judging all men based on the actions of a few didn’t seem fair at all.  The first parallel that came to mind was demonizing all Muslims because a few are terrorists.  If we can recognize the flaw in that, why not here?

As I understood it, the bigger problem wasn’t going to be empowered women.  It was going to be what comes next.  I was talking to an older feminist and told her that as much as I appreciate equality and that side of feminism, I’m less appreciative of neo-feminism or radical-feminism.  She didn’t understand and took the stance that all feminism was good.  I asked her if there were any examples of feminism which she didn’t agree with, or at least thought was counter-productive.  She flatly said no.  I can’t help but think that if you’ve lost the ability to hold your tribe accountable for anything, you’ve lost site of virtues like equality and have been consumed by the pursuit of power.  I told her that I was concerned.  Not so much by the prospect of powerful women, but by what comes next.

There’s a pendulum dynamic that has operated throughout history.  We mobilize ourselves in one direction and once we’ve realized the extent of that direction, we tend to try the opposite.  This can be seen in things like fashion, politics, the stock market, and of course, major social movements.  So in the age of empowering women, where does the pendulum swing next?

I maintain that if this movement was about understanding and promoting equality between the sexes, the pendulum effect wouldn’t exist in the same way.  Instead, it seems to be about making women more powerful.  All that momentum and all that power that women are enjoying now, will swing back to men.  Not because they deserve it, but because that’s how the pendulum works.  The harder you swing it to one side, the more potential energy you’ve stored for it to swing in the opposite direction.

It seems as though things have begun to swing the other way.  It’s not pretty either.  Feminism grew in part because of how many women felt hurt and angry at the world for a raw deal.  Well it seems as though men are starting to arrive there as well.  It’s showing up in the communities of incels and men’s rights activists… and because it’s mostly people who are hurt and lashing out, they’re being dismissed by feminists. Or worse, they’re being demonized for providing resistance to the feminist movement.  And this is where we have to take a hard look at ourselves and ask, if equality is really the mission here.  Does it matter that 76% of suicides are men?  Because if so, we could use some of that support we hear so much about.

And this seems to be where we stand now.  With feminism approaching terminal velocity, it’s time to prepare for what’s next.  Is masculism next?  Must we send the pendulum back out in that direction to find what we should both recognize is in the middle?  I’m happy to say that I’m not the only one who thinks that the path forward isn’t about feminism or masculism, but rather about humanism.

The video that got me banned from r/feminism was a TED Talk from a female, award-winning, documentary film maker.  She had been a staunch feminist who was filming a documentary looking to expose men’s rights activists and their wicked ways.  After listening to these men and studying their answers, she started to realize just how much prejudice she was carrying against them.  Rather than listening to what the men were actually saying, she would look for reasons to be offended and use that emotional state to dismiss any valid point the man was making.   When she fact checked some of their concerns, like higher rates of suicide, or higher rates of death on the job, or higher rates of incarceration, she realized that civil rights and equality wasn’t just a woman’s issue.  She went on to say that she no longer identifies as a feminist, but with a clear conditions.: She is compassionate towards the struggles of both men and women, and supports the civil rights of each.

She was met with a standing ovation and had I been there, I would’ve been one of them.  Thank you for helping to lead the way Cassie Jaye.

What it Means to be Good Looking

For most of my childhood, the only person who told me I was handsome was my mom. She would tell me that I would be such a heart breaker.  Then I ventured out into the real world and found no such validation.  Occasionally a girl would have a crush on me, but it was never one of the pretty or popular girls.  As far as my friends were concerned, all they knew was that I had a big nose.  I really had no idea of knowing whether I was good looking or not.  I wanted to be… few things were more obvious than the advantages of being good looking.

After high school, I was more focused on building myself up than what I looked like.  I was confident that women were more attracted to character than looks… how else do you explain Jay Z and Beyonce?  So I focused on building character.. integrity.. honesty.. honor.. intelligence.. humor, etc.  I proceeded to date 3 of the most eligible women at my university.  One of them was non-superficial that she could’ve dated a burn victim.  Another thought I was really good looking, but her ex was… rather plain, so not a great measure.  The third was really into the body-builder physique (of which I was not), and that led to some lackluster physical chemistry.  Coming out of university, I knew I had the ability to date beautiful women… but still no clue if I was good looking.

A few years after university, I dated a girl who seemed to be grateful and appreciative of everything in her life.  Even her most significant accomplishments, she would dismiss as good fortune.  It was foreign to me as I’ve always been one to celebrate work ethic.  She was extremely grateful for her looks, and said that I should be too.  I told her that I had given up on trying to understand whether or not I was good looking.  She told me that was ridiculous, and that to deny that I was good looking was to be oblivious of the privilege it afforded to me.  Perhaps she had a point.  Instead of exploring that point, I told her it just wasn’t something I thought about very much and I was pretty happy with the results.  It was the first time someone told me I was basically an asshole if I didn’t think I was good looking.  Well then…

Over the last couple months, I’ve probably been called handsome or good looking more than any other period in my entire life.  As someone who was trying to get back into the dating scene, one would hope those compliments would be coming from interested women.  Wishful thinking.  Almost every one of those comments came from older men in my professional life.  Something to the effect of, “you’re a young, good looking guy, the world is your oyster”.  There was an older Asian guy at my local tech summit who probably told me about 10 times in one conversation that I’m handsome, have a great smile, and should be doing business development for Intel.  He made sure to spell Intel for me.. Pretty sure he was several drinks in.

While it’s easy enough to laugh off, maybe there’s something worth observing here.  Am I good looking?  I’d say that depends on who you ask.  I’ve been told by friends overseas that if you were to drop me in a place like Japan, China or Korea, I’d be like catnip.  Put me in a place like California or New York and probably much less so.  So there are cultural factors at play.  I know facial symmetry makes for bonus points…  A full head of hair…  Good genetics… but  what about personal preferences?  When I was young, I spent a lot of time crushing on girls who just weren’t into me.  There seem to be elements of attraction which are general, while others can be highly individual.

So beauty is in the eye of the beholder, yes?  Seems like an easy out.  But maybe there’s yet another level to this.  Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but eyes of the beholders tend to follow similar algorithms.  I think it starts with good genetics.  When you mix genetics from diverse gene pools, you end up with great looking kids.  When you let a brother and sister get it on, there’s a 50/50 chance you end up with a cyclops.  We have instincts that pick up on good genetics and we perceive that as physical attraction.  In reality, we’re just instinctively trying to diversify our gene pool.

Good health is perhaps second on that list.  We seem to be in an interesting time where people who are unhealthy and overweight want to be perceived as attractive in the same way that someone healthy is.  In reality, we’re physically attracted to good health and there are different ways we pick up on that.  Are you fit?  Do you have good skin?  Good teeth? Is your hair falling out?  Something I’ve found interesting is that whether it’s a 5’0″ gymnast or a 6’3″ power lifter, I’ve always found a healthy woman to be attractive.

So based on these parameters am I good looking?  Probably.

My genetic background is Scottish, Irish, Jewish, and Austrian.  Not the most diverse gene pool, but certainly not kissing-cousins.    My face is largely symmetrical from what I can see.  I have a full head of hair and mostly straight teeth.  While I take liberties with my health and fitness from time to time, I’ve been a competitive athlete my entire life.  If I had to guess, I would say that I am above average looking.

Great.  Now what?

My concern before was that if I figured out that I was good looking, I’d let it go to my head.  I liked being oblivious to it because it kept my focus on what I thought was more important.  Now that I’m conceding, what changes?  … Nothing…?

 

I think that at this point, it’s unlikely to go to my head.  I’m appreciative for where it’s helped me, indifferent to where it didn’t, and hope that this baby face ages gracefully.  I’m also understanding and accepting where it may have created unearned advantages for me.  While it may have helped in my dating life, it probably wasn’t as big of a factor as some may believe.  Where I think it’s actually helped me the most is in my professional life.  Just about every person that’s hired me or considered me for a role has referred to me as good looking.  I think that early on, I just saw these compliments as innocuous or inconsequential.  Why does being good looking have anything to do with my performance in the work environment?  I know I look good in a suit.. maybe they were just saying something nice.  But I don’t think it’s that simple.  I think that things like facial symmetry, good skin, good hair, and good teeth make a difference in the willingness of strangers to trust you.  Match that with being presentable and well-spoken, and you’re able to earn trust faster than others.  In the world of business, that’s a very real advantage.

Are there any disadvantages?

I often see a duality around privilege, and good looks seem to follow that pattern.  While I’m grateful for my looks, I’m more grateful for that uncertainty while growing up.  It encouraged me to put my efforts and focus elsewhere, and not everyone is so lucky.  Think about the prettiest girl in your high school.  Was she more likely to be headed to university on a full scholarship or date the captain of the football team?  Was she more likely to get recruited out of school to the field of her choice or more likely to be working as a bartender?  Does she stand a better chance of accomplishing things on her own, or being accessory to someone else’s accomplishments?  From a certain perspective, being good looking provides an easier path than most.  But since when is easy a good thing?

A duality.. and a reality of our world.  At the end of the day, physical attraction has a rather functional purpose: visual markers of good genetic and good health that help you find a mate.  But I can’t help but see the tail wagging the dog a bit.  Rather than understanding how physical attraction plays out among several other factors like personality, resources, intelligence, and group-membership, we talk about it like it’s magic.  We often treat it like something that can’t be explained, and that even if it could, it shouldn’t.  That it would take the romance out of things.  I disagree.  I find the truth to be more romantic than any lie.

I think there’s a fair bit of magic in having an honest understanding of what we’re seeing and why we enjoy it.

 

 

Dating in 2018: WTF?

February, 2017 

That’s when my last relationship ended.  It didn’t officially end until the spring, but I was going through some things that made it tough for me to be in the right head-space for a relationship.  In January, I was fired from a career I had put my everything into.  A month later, I went snowboarding for the first time that season and ended up breaking my arm badly.  At that point, I wasn’t a boyfriend in any meaningful way.. I had too much that I needed to figure out.  Bless her heart, she was awesome and supportive the whole way through.  Probably the most amicable breakup I’ve ever had.

May, 2017

One of the relationships I kept reflecting on last year was with Max.  We had dated a couple years prior.  There was so much chemistry between us and so much that we had in common.  It seemed to work on every level.  Except she was bugging to go explore the world and I was committed to my career.  I was also too dominant in that relationship, more controlling than I would’ve liked to be.  There were times where her free-spirited nature was at odds with my career goals and I would try to convince her that my career goals were a higher priority than her being herself at all times.  I wish I hadn’t.

In understanding why I had been fired, I realized that it was a matter of fit.  In trying to understand where I would fit best, I realized that I needed to do a better job of understanding myself.  That journey mirrored so much of what Max had learned leaving a big 4 accounting firm and working for a start-up.  I wish I had done a better job of understanding that story.  She helped inspire a lot of growth on my part, and I thought she might appreciate knowing that.

December 2017

I wrote a blog post about her.  Flushed out every thought and emotion I had on the subject and realized a lot of things I still hadn’t considered.  It was a good experience.  At the end, I figured I would tell her about the ground that I had covered and thank her for her part in all of this.  I made a YouTube video and send it to her on Christmas.  I was clear that I wasn’t looking to get back together, but I’d be lying if I said a part of me wasn’t trying to plant a seed for the future.

January 2018

After about month of radio silence, she emailed.  She said some nice things and asked if I was up for a video call.  I said sure – and then proceeded to hear nothing from her for another month.  I knew she probably had a full plate so I eventually just emailed, “whats on your mind?”  Her reply was more direct this time.  Said she was busy, was happy for me, then questioned much of what I had said, and seemed to have forgotten about that video call.  I replied, tried to explain, but then said it would probably be easier over the phone.  No reply.

March 2018

Another month of radio silence.  All I wanted to do was let her know what I had gone through, and hoped that she would be happy for me.  Maybe I should send her a link to the blog post about her?  At least it would be the full story.  So I messaged her on WhatsApp but before the opportunity presented itself, it became a conversation.  She began to question who I had ‘become’, suggesting that I was still the same person.  It was tough trying to explain how and why over text.  But I tried.  At one point, she even ceded that it seemed like I was a whole new person.  Maybe she was just saying that hoping I would stop trying to argue my point.  Regardless, it was clear she lacked the motivation to invest the time into understanding that person.. and everything that I had felt towards her had shifted.  One of the things I appreciated about her most was that understanding me seemed effortless.  Now, not only was there effort involved, but she had no interest in putting the effort in.  A bummer at first, but it felt good to have clarity.

Right around that time, I was trying to go on a date with a girl named Mia.  Someone I dated for a bit a few years ago, and someone who I had a bunch of fun, nerdy stuff in common with.  She’s all kinds of cool, but she’s also working through some things.  When things get difficult or confusing, she hides.  She tried that with me before and I just walked away.. it’s why we stopped dating the last time.  This time, I was more interested in helping her rise above that.  So we tried to go on a date, but then she got busy.  We rescheduled, but then she got busy again.  I told her I knew this pattern, and I was happy to walk away if she wanted me to, but she didn’t – she was struggling with old habits.

April 2018

So we tried again, but work.  And again, but work.  I was on my way out this time, but did so with a link to a post I had written about her, so she would at least know what my honest feelings towards her were.  She was surprised.  She opened up to me more than she ever had, and seemed that much more motivated to see me.  Seemed like progress.  So we rescheduled.. and she ghosted again.  This time, it was because she had read the rest of my blog and found out about Max.  She was afraid that I was using her to fill a Max-shaped void.  I couldn’t hold it against her, it was a legitimate question that I also had to ask myself.  We talked it through, and agreed that we would make attempt number 6.

Had I been stood up 6 times with no difference in the context, I’d be worried about my mental health.. but that wasn’t the case.  With each time, progress was being made.  And I could tell that these were big steps for someone who didn’t have a lot of opportunities to take these steps.  Unfortunately, it was also creating an imbalance in the relationship which I knew was unhealthy.  She pleaded that work was being unfair, and that she wasn’t leading me on, and how interested she was… but she couldn’t get her actions to match her texts.  The outcome was disappointing, but I’m happy that I treated the situation with compassion and understanding instead of walking away at the first sign of getting hurt.

April 25th, 2018

The very next day, Max texts me.  Said she’s in-town, and would ‘love’ to get together.  Well then.  We book a late dinner for Sunday.  She also wants to smoke a joint together, so we plan to get together later in the week too.  Easy way to get my mind off Mia, I guess.

April 27th, 2018

Arrive to a 3-day self-help seminar on Friday.  Pretty skeptical about what I’m walking into, but doing it with an open mind and the best of intentions.  A girl catches my eye.  Was partnered up with her at the end of the day for an exercise where we’re asked to sit directly across from each other and tell a victim story while looking into each others eyes.  We spend most of that time looking at each other and cracking up, because neither one of us is any good at pretending to be a victim.  A fun introduction.  We shall call her..  Lulu.

On the way home, I text my buddy who invited me to the seminar, letting him know how it went.  He asks if I met anyone interesting.  I say everyone’s interesting if you ask the right questions (holding back from saying I met this really cute girl).  He tells me that he has another friend who’s there doing the seminar and he hopes that we have a chance to meet.. and that her name is Lulu.  As he puts it, we’re two of his closest friends and the ones he goes to for good conversation.  Wow.. that’s kinda cool.  I ask if he’s interested in her, or if she’s in a relationship.  Says he dated her for a bit way back, and he thinks she’s in a relationship with someone.  Well, never mind then…

April 28th, 2018

Saturday’s part of the seminar put me and Lelu back in close proximity.  I do my best to avoid creating interactions, but don’t avoid them either.  Our chemistry continues to build.  I text my buddy again that night, asking if he’s sure that she’s in a relationship.  He says yes.  I tell him that while my instincts around these things are a bit rusty, pretty sure this girl is into me.  He tells me a bit more about her and shows some enthusiasm around us connecting beyond this seminar.

April 29th, 2018

Lulu was definitely the best part of my Sunday seminar.  We sat beside each other a few times and ended up doing a couple of the 1 on 1 sessions together too.  I eventually asked if she knew we had both been invited by the same friend – she didn’t.  She was excited, especially because it meant that there was a good chance we’d see each other again. As the day went by, everything suggested more chemistry and more interest.  At the end of Sunday’s seminar, we were supposed to thank people who we had connected with and tell them what we appreciated about them.  She approached me and opened with “Thanks for being the best looking guy here, it gave me something to look at”, and followed with a few very thoughtful compliments.  I replied, telling her that she was the highlight of my weekend and that I hope to see her again.

Now to go directly from that self-help seminar to dinner with Max.  Along the way, I text my buddy and ask if he’s sure that Lelu is in a relationship because everything that happened that day would suggest otherwise.  He ended up taking her out for dinner and dug in.  Said she’s only been dating this guy a short while, but she doesn’t see it going anywhere.  Tells me not to worry, and he’ll connect the two of us before long.  I have no interest in being the guy that breaks up a healthy relationship, but if she’s already on her way out.. I can’t help but want to see her again.

So I arrive at dinner with Max – fancy sushi.  She gives me a big smile and a big, but not too big of a hug.    We get seated and start talking.  Eventually, she asks me about my aspirations.  I think I say something like creating the most significant positive impact I’m capable of.  She says that’s a bit vague and asks what the most significant positive impact I think I’m capable of.  I may have told her President of Mars.  She called bullshit.  That probably needed a little more explaining.

I guess for starters, I really do think that the upper-limit of the human mind is often well beyond the limits we place on ourselves.  Mars though?  I told her that the bigger the problem, the more motivated I am to solve it and I can’t help but want to find solutions to the big problems we as a species are facing today.  Ok, but why Mars?  Well, I’ve seen well-intentioned people come and go, only for their ideas to fall on the deaf ears of a system which is designed to protect itself from change.  I often think that what the world desperately needs today, is a blank canvas where a new government could be established with modern policies.  If we only had the opportunity to lead by example, how quick would the world be to adopt those good ideas?  Unless I’m missing something, Mars will most likely be our first opportunity to build something from scratch.

I think she made an attempt here to bring me back to reality and asked me to connect that to a real goal.  I told her that while I have these ideas, and they seem logical in my mind, I still need to prove that they can exist outside my head.  I need to take my personal philosophies, my ideas, and my ability to execute, and make something special.  If I could make something special, that something that people can understand as an expression of my mind and my vision, people would notice.  If people noticed, they might appreciate, and if people appreciated, they might just be willing to hear what I have to say.  While that something special can take on different shapes and forms, no form comes more naturally to me than building a business.  So I told her I was working on building a billion dollar company.

She said back up the “B”.  What?  Back up the “B” in billion.  What do you mean?  She asked if I knew how hard it was to build a billion dollar company or how rare they were.  She didn’t take kindly to what she thought were grandiose exaggerations of what I was really up to.  She knew that I was working for a cannabis retail start-up, but I don’t think she understood the potential behind it.  I told her about the awards, and the industry growth, how visible our founders were, and how ahead of the curve we were.  She didn’t seem to care.  I said that if you had to pick an early winner in cannabis retail, it would probably be us, and to say that wasn’t an opportunity to build a billion dollar company was untrue.  She still didn’t believe me.  Or maybe she didn’t believe that I would do it.

I did my best to ask her about what she was up to throughout the evening.  She sounded like she was dealing with a lot, but persisted that she was happy.  She certainly valued all that she had gone through in the last year. I asked her what her goals were and she said to land a job this fall.  It looked like she was lined up for a fancy title at a mid-sized private equity firm doing some level of analytics.  I asked if she had any big goals.  She seemed less sure about this… maybe something to the effect of using big data in driving HR policy, limiting inequality in the work place.  Sounds neat.

Despite all my efforts to guide things in a positive direction, we kept finding our way back to my aspirations, and her lack of confidence in my ability to accomplish them.  I wish I had been able to tell the story of how I got from being fired to wanting to set up camp on Mars.. pretty sure things would’ve made more sense that way.

The night largely seemed like an exercise in her trying to cut me down.  I was used to her being an optimist, a big thinker, open-minded, and supportive.  Now I wonder if it’s her that’s changed or if it was just my memory of her.  I was all but convinced that who I had become was a better fit for who she was.  But as soon as I realized that, I also knew that who I had become, might not be a fit to who she is today.  I think that’s what I was facing.  Somewhere between her big corporate gig in silicon valley and her MBA, her mindset seems to have changed.  Where she was once about possibilities, she was now about limitations.  There’s probably also an element of trying to stick it to your ex-boyfriend… and I probably deserved it.

At one point, I said, “This is unexpected, you’re usually more..”  I cut myself off, and apologized, saying that it wasn’t my place to say something like that.  It threw her off, she knew what I was getting at.

It was getting late, we asked for the bill.  We hugged again outside and she apologized for being less supportive than she used to be be.  We said goodbye.

April 30th, 2018

Knowing that we had made pseudo plans to hang out later in the week, I sent her a text.  I basically thanked her for dinner (she insisted on paying), then thanked her for challenging my goals.  I said that I’m steadfast in dreaming big, working relentlessly towards those goals, and being at peace with where that takes me (I’m all about shooting for the stars and landing on the moon).  I said I’m rarely challenged on these things and if nothing else, it was good exercise.  I also said that based on our conversation, I had the impression that there were probably other people in town she’d rather spend time with and that if I was right, it was all good with me.  No response.

The day before she left, I sent a text saying I hope I didn’t upset her with what I had said.  I told her I was happy for her, and wished her the best of luck.  She responded back saying she had been busy and yes, lots of people to see.

May 1st, 2018

Speaking of radio silence, Mia messages me the next day.  Apologizes for the incoming wall of text, and the proceeds to say some very nice things.  She talks about how strongly she feels about the potential between her and I.  Then talks about her struggles and the progress she’s made.  Then she talks about her feelings.  Then she says something to the effect of, ‘and I won’t hold it against you if you never want to talk to me again’.

I agreed with a lot of the things she said about the potential between her and I, and I appreciated that she recognized and appreciated the progress she had made.  So we get into a text conversation where I thank her for opening up to me and we get into the possibility of trying one more time.  I ask her what the difference this time would be, and she says a strong effort.  I ask if that means that the last 6 times weren’t strong efforts.  She says that this time, she’s just going to go for it – be less cerebral about it.  I told her it didn’t sound all that convincing.  She reminded me that she wasn’t very good at explaining this stuff over text.  The conversation kinda fizzled after that.

Went to bed, had a dream that she had made an effort the following day to make something happen between us and I was happy about it.  Woke up to no such effort.  Decided that I was being unfair.  Told her that if she wanted to explain things to me in person, I would make the time for that.  My ask was that it was on the weekend and at my office (so if she pulled a no-show, that I could just keep working).  She was receptive.  She planned to come by on Saturday but on Friday she asked if she could move it to Sunday.  This looked familiar.  She didn’t come by on Saturday or even get back to me about Sunday. And that was the last I heard from her.

May, 2018

A friend of mine cracked a joke a couple months ago saying that I should jump on Tinder with a bio that says something to the effect of, ‘Dating is confusing, anyone wanna blaze and hang out?’  Dude is sounding like a genius right about now.

Ironically, back in April, I was talking with a couple female friends about the challenges of dating and I suggested this was why dating apps had become so popular.  One friend was in her 50s and had been married for 27 years so she had zero interest Tinder.  She said that people need to get outside and engage each other in real life.  I asked where that might be appropriate these days given all the tension between men and women.  Every answer she gave was immediately turned down by my 20-something friend.  At the gym? Nope, don’t be gross, I’m just here to work out.  At a book store? Just because I’m here buying books doesn’t mean I wanna be hit on.  In-line at a cafe? Nope.  I told them I found it all very confusing and hoped they would find some empathy for the other men out there feeling the same way.

Only a few weeks ago, my sister and sister-in-law were in town.  I asked them about the dating scene and the tension between men and women.  I get that some men are shitty people.  I’ve even lost friendships over that kinda stuff.  But this general negativity towards men seemed unhealthy.  They responded with an analogy which they were quite eager to share: Think about men like a bowl full of skittles.  One of them is poison, but you don’t know which one.  Why would you risk it?  It wasn’t the right time to tell them that they’re using the same logic as those who avoid Muslims in fear of Muslim extremists.

My mind is searching for a connection between all these interactions.  Considering the rise of neo-feminism and the #metoo movement.  Considering the impact of social media.  Considering the heightened levels of anxiety, stress, and drug use.  I’m trying to see through it and to the other side… and I can’t.  I’m not saying we won’t get through it.  I would bet that we do.  I just don’t yet see how.  I think this gets worse before it gets better and that concerns me.

Some men have learned the advantages of identifying themselves as an ‘ally’.  Some have learned that you can improve your odds by dating multiple women at the same time.  Some have learned that it’s easier to get turned down if you turn into a giant asshole afterwards.  There’s even a sub-culture of men who are downright confused and losing hope of ever figuring it out.  Everyone’s dealing with it in their own way… but none of these are about how we make it better.

This is a big problem, and I have a swell of motivation to find a solution for everyone out there that’s struggling to find meaningful connections.  I think much of the solution is based in honesty and real communication.  Not just honesty with others, but honesty with ourselves as well. We’ve also romanced the concept of love since we could first tell stories, and it’s warped our expectations of what it is, where to find it, and how long it lasts.  If we would only make the effort to understand ourselves and then to understand one another, I can’t help but think that things would get better.  To get there, perhaps we need to be reminded of why we should be courageous when facing those we fear.  Or why we should be compassionate towards those who have hurt us.

… or sex robots for everyone?

Back from the Depths

Back in December, I decided that enough was enough.  I had spent so much time in a holding pattern with the important parts of my life… waiting for key events to launch me back into the state of mind I enjoyed most.  I knew it wasn’t the best approach I could take, but I was smoking so much weed that I lacked the motivation to break that routine.  Until I started thinking more about Max.

Max was an ex-girlfriend from a few years ago.  We broke up because she was consumed with the idea of leaving a city she had never left and having a chance to explore a world she had never seen.  I’m glad I didn’t try to hold her back from that.

Last year, my whole world came crashing down and I was fortunate enough to have the time and space to reflect on all that had led up to that moment.  For me to understand all that had happened, I needed to be able to see through the noise.  The noise of the outside world, the noise of those who knew me, and even the noise of what I would tell myself.  To truly understand all that had happened, I had to prioritize the truth above all else.  What I found, opened my eyes in a way they had never been opened.

It was through that experience, that I learned to see Max in a much different light.  I thought I had always respected and appreciated her… but I’m not so sure anymore.  At least not in the way it mattered.  Back then, it was about what she meant to me.  Now it has much less to do with me, and much more to do with having a deeper understanding of who she was, and just being in awe of it.

One of the most important things I had learned about myself last year was that I needed to stop trying to force things into reality.  In many ways, it feels like I’ve spent most of my life swimming against the current.  When things got easy, I’d find ways to make them hard.  Many of my life’s accomplishments have been defined by fighting for every inch.  I think there’s a time and a place to fight for what you love, but I have no interest in living a life defined by conflict.  Nor do I have any interest in living a life defined by milestones, or accomplishments, or any other tangible metric.  I realized I wanted to live my life honestly, fearlessly, and with an open mind… and let the universe handle the rest.  And that’s when I couldn’t get Max out of my mind.  She lived by those virtues more so than anyone I’ve ever known.  In some sense, she had become my north star.

I couldn’t help but ask myself, what if we had another shot?  The first thing that came to mind was that I didn’t deserve it.  It was nice that I had gained a deeper appreciation for who she was, but I’d be embarrassed to reintroduce her to the rest of me.  Enough was enough.

I decided that even if it didn’t end up being her, she had set the bar.  For me to be with someone like her, I needed to be… better.  So I stopped smoking weed.  Started training twice a day, 6 days a week.  Started reading a lot more.  Started writing a lot more.  I was still in a holding pattern with my career, but I was determined to break that holding pattern for everything else.  It felt awesome.  So I decided to send her a note.  It was a YouTube video, on Christmas day, apologizing for my mid-steps and thanking her for all that she had inspired.

I didn’t send it expecting a response, but I knew it was likely.  It arrived about a month later and it left me with mixed emotions.  She was surprised, but happy to hear from me.   She said some kind things and then asked if I was up for a call, hoping we could have a real conversation.  I responded later that day saying I would be happy to make the time.  Then radio silence.

A week later, I separated my shoulder playing basketball.  The pain was pretty bad for the first week, enough to keep me from sleeping.  So back to cannabis I went.  Still nothing from Max.

A week after that, Facebook reminded me that it was an old fling’s birthday.  We’ll call her Mia.  I sent her a cake emoji, she sent me a cheers emoji, and we started texting for a bit.  We were both big into superhero movies so I asked if she wanted to go see Black Panther.  She was all for it.  Neither of us had been on a date in a year so we figured maybe this was what we both needed.  There was certainly a part of me that thought if I was going on a real date with a real girl, it would be easier to understand that Max probably wasn’t a real option.  Or maybe I was just hedging my bets on what was looking more and more like a disinterested Max.

Then Mia flaked out and went radio silent.  It’s why we stopped dating the first time, so I was tempted to write her off again.  Instead, I told her no hard feelings, that I hoped she was ok, and that if she ever wanted to let me in, I was curious to know why she was like this from time to time.   She apologized, said she wasn’t trying to be flaky but it was a combination of being really busy and a little awkward around me.  I asked her what she thought I should do.  She asked why I wanted to reconnect, so I told her.  She was into it, said we should probably catch up, and conceded with a smile that this was the original plan.

At this point I still hadn’t heard from Max, and I think my first reaction was being annoyed.  But I’m better than that.  Even if it had been a month, I knew she was likely busy, and I needed to be ok with not being a priority.  But I couldn’t help but reach out, so I asked what was on her mind.

She responded shortly after, saying that she was dealing with a few things and then offered up a rather disheartening email.  Knowing that she still cared about me and always being honest, she told me what she really thought about the video I had sent her.  In the video, I told her that I was on a new path, and that she was the only one who I knew who had the courage and ability to walk that path beside me and not behind me.  I was alluding to a path defined by the journey, not the destination.  A path defined by a compass of honesty, fearlessness, and open-mindedness, not milestones like income or assets.  It was a path I thought she was already on.  She took it as me thinking of her as an accessory to a path which I was taking.  It was frustrating to be misunderstood like that.  But I had to appreciate that her idea of who I was, was largely influenced by the person I was when we dated.  And maybe I was a bigger ass than I realized.

Truth is, as frustrating as that email was, it let me know that she was still exactly who I hoped she was.  She was brutally honest.  Talked about how what she wanted in a partner was a true equal.  Said that she could still see growth in me and was really happy for how far I had come.  She also apologized for taking so long to reply, but said it was a tough email to write because of how much she cared for me.  She wrapped up by saying that she was about to spend the next 10 days in Sri Lanka with some free time if I wanted to chat.

A couple more emails went back and forth and things were positive.  I could tell that she was trying to balance a few different thoughts and emotions, on top of all that she was dealing with in her in life.  If I were to guess what those thoughts and emotions were, I’d guess a lingering sense of disappointment from letting her down in our relationship, a healthy skepticism of where this was all coming from, and a genuine interest in my well-being.  She gave me her new number and suggested we chat on whatsapp.  So I did and we did.

Within the first few messages, I told her that I still wanted to respond to her last email.  She was still making assumptions based on who I was, and I was so eager to show her who I had become.  She welcomed the email, but didn’t respond to it.  What is it with people and radio silence?  Is it a girl thing?  A dating thing?  A me thing?  Am I still unreasonable today?  These are the kinds of things that drive me a little nutty, but I choose to react sensibly.  I took a night off cannabis earlier this week and went into full insomnia mode.  I couldn’t help but think of the situation.  I thought that perhaps it was unfair of me to put this on her at a time in her life where she had other things which were more important to focus on.  All I wanted was for her to understand what had happened to me and appreciate what it meant to the hypothetical ‘us’.  Beyond that, I had no expectations.  But just because that was important to me, doesn’t mean it had to be important to her.  So I grabbed my phone and decided to send her a message that would basically say no hard feelings, I know you have a lot going on, and if you ever feel compelled, here’s a link to my blog.  The hope was that when she was ready, she’d see the journey I took, and see the steps that I’ve taken to arrive at who I am today.  She’s also see my ENTJ Love Story which is one of my life’s most honest moments, and all about her.  Instead I accidentally hit the call button.

I hit the hang-up button like I was button mashing a Mario Party game but to no avail. The call never went through, but she noticed and asked what’s up?  I was a little tongue-tied.  It was difficult to express myself in short text messages, when she was still making so many assumptions about who I am, based on who I was.  We texted until about 4am, but most of that was me deleting and rewriting messages, desperate not to be misunderstood.

She told me that her stance on us was that she wasn’t in the right mindset to be thinking about it since she didn’t have a clue which city she’d be living in once she graduated.  I told her it might be an interesting conversation to have, but not one that I was ready for either.  Truth is, I still have more ground that I need to cover before I would consider myself ready to be in that caliber of a relationship.  What I did want to know is that if the path that I was on was aligned with hers.

When we broke up, we each recognized that we had things that we needed to work on.  And if we did, we could come back to each other and our relationship would be that much stronger.  At the time, I didn’t realize how much of that work was mine to be had, nor did I realize that it would end up being me that would be more compatible to who she was, and not her who would become more compatible to who I was.  But I didn’t know for sure, because all I had to work with was my memory of who she was.

She said it was tough to talk about because she would think about how we were before and it was like she was talking to a whole new person.  I breathed a sigh of relief… she was finally seeing what I was trying to show her.  Then she told me that one of our biggest issues was how dominant I was.  No one had ever described me as dominant in a relationship before, but it was easy to understand why.  I’m happy she said it.  She went on to say that I would push my point of view rather aggressively, and wasn’t the best at taking the time to reflect on my stance.  She was right.  But then she said that it seemed like I was doing that now… and my heart sank.

I conceded that I had issues.  Give me a woman who follows my lead and I get bored.  Give me a woman who challenges me and I compete to win.  Her emails reminded me of these issues, but they also reminded me of how far I had come.  I told her I hoped she’d have a chance to get to know this person, because she played a very real role in where I am now.  She said that she was happy, but was concerned that it didn’t happen until years later.  I responded by saying that I wasn’t in the right state of mind to learn these things when we dated.  I was consumed with becoming what I thought the world expected of me, not taking the time to figure out who I really was and what I had to offer to the world.  She said she was proud, and it sounded like I was on the right track.

And that was it.  We have no future plans to talk.  I have no interest in taking up any more of her time.  I don’t think she’s all that interested in putting thought into this either… but I know I’ve planted a seed.  What I wanted most was to know if any of what I thought or felt was real.  But once I did, I cared too much to do nothing, and knew better than to chase after her.  So I planted a seed.  I haven’t a clue what happens next.  I’d be lying if there wasn’t a part of me thinking about booking a ticket to her grad ceremony but I’m not sure if it’ll be a sign of stalking, support, or a grand gesture of romance.  Especially since my intentions are probably a combination of all three.  But then the pragmatic side of me says there’s at least a 50/50 chance that it goes horribly wrong.  But then the romantic says 50/50 are great odds when you’re talking about something this meaningful.

All I know is that having a chance to reconnect with her and put this out there has left me with a sense of peace.  The rest of my life still feels like the eye of the storm, but at least here, I’ve made progress.

I Used to be a Nice Guy.

As a kid, I think I was probably a handful.  But in general, a good kid.  It’s interesting because you might expect that a good kid would grow into a nice guy, and a nice guy would end up with a good girl and everything would work out. Somewhere along the way though, nice guys became not so nice.

I always had a close circle of guy friends, but back in early high school, I started hanging out with the ladies as well.  I genuinely respected and appreciated them as friends, but there would usually be at least one girl in the group I was crushing on.  As a kid, I really wasn’t sure how to approach the situation.  All I really knew is that if I spent time around them, I could probably make some progress.  I’d eat lunch with them.  Talk with them on the phone.   Help them with their homework. Help them with their guy problems…  And I literally got friend-zoned every time.

In grade 11, I met my first girlfriend.  We met at a driving school and I’m pretty sure she had both hands on the steering wheel.  I was lucky because she clearly knew what she was doing and didn’t mind that I was just along for the ride.  It only lasted a few months but at least I figured out how to kiss a girl.  My grade 12 girlfriend was about the same.

I could’ve very easily graduated high school a virgin.  Probably would’ve had I not been easy prey for a pair of girls who weren’t afraid to go after what they wanted.  Instead, I had a couple relationships under my belt and was ready for university.  I remember during orientation week, seeing a girl in my dorm who had the face of an angel, the body of a goddess, and the personality of a cartoon character.  We’ll call her Grace.  She was pretty awesome, and we started hanging out.  Just when I thought I may have been making some progress, she detoured towards an upperclassman.  Not only was the guy a legit womanizer, his personality was mostly cardboard.  It was extremely frustrating for me because I was athletic, I was academic, she and I got along really well, her friends liked me, her family liked me, and I was a nice guy.  Yet she ignored my interest to chase after a guy who literally treated her like an after thought unless he was trying to get laid.

Towards the end of my first year, I started dating our dorm’s resident busty blonde.  There was one point at which she came back to the dorm with another upperclassman, looking a little flustered.  I was a little suspicious.  He was the type to take advantage of a situation like that and she was probably the type to be into it.  We did a little long distance over the summer, where she cheated on me again with her ex back home.  As revenge, I strung her along until she thought things were good, then I broke up with her.  Effective revenge, but a complete dick move on my part.

Ironically, Grace started reaching out to me that summer, telling me about how I was the one she should’ve gone after.  To make matters more confusing, she had just gotten into a relationship with a childhood friend from back home, and the guy was actually treating her well.  She ended up sleeping with him, and then he ended up sleeping with her best friend, who happened to be a gay guy.  As entertaining as that was for me, I felt a little bad for her.

When we got back to school for our second year, everyone was back to being single.  I had been thinking about Grace a fair bit so I told her.  She didn’t have much of a response.  We went out to the big dance in the first week and within the first few dances, she was all up on another guy, so I decided to get all up on another girl.  We were mutually upset at each other’s behavior, and that seemed to undermine any possible momentum we may have had.  From there, she started pursuing a buddy of mine.  This guy was also a dick.  He was easy enough to get along with as a guy, but he also treated her like an after thought.  The more she wanted him, the more he didn’t want her.  I think they slept together a few times, but he had no interest in a relationship.  By the end of the second year, she was dating another buddy of mine who I shared a wall with.  He was much less of a dick, but also the kinda guy who partied way too hard to make it into his second year.

WTF was going on?  What did these guys have that I didn’t? In my head, I would go through the qualities that I had learned women respected:  Physically fit, good hygiene, doing well in school, good circle of friends, social status, respected women, polite, gentlemanly… what else was there?  Leaving university after my second year, I had concluded that women were more attracted and more responsive to men who treated them poorly than men who treated them well.  I knew that I didn’t completely understand the dynamic, but I was fully ready to give up on being the nice guy who was doomed to live out his days in the dreaded friend-zone.

When I got back home from university that summer, I really wasn’t focused on girls.  I was focused on being bad.  Money for school had run out and because of a few other issues between me and the university, they really didn’t want me back.  So I didn’t go.  Instead, I started doing the kinda things that bad boys do.  I spent the next 18 months with ‘the wrong crowd’, doing the kinds of things that people go to jail for.  My inner-circle knew what I was up to but for everyone else, I would just tell them, “don’t worry about it.”  And it worked surprisingly well.

I still wasn’t the type to chase after women, but I started noticing that girls were into me.  Girls who would’ve friend zoned me before were now interested.  My plan was working.

I didn’t even have a clearly defined plan.  All I knew is that when I was a ‘nice guy’, women weren’t interested in me.  When I wasn’t a ‘nice guy’, I was much more attractive.  I gave that a lot of thought.  Maybe the nice guy was too vanilla?  But then it occurred to me that for the most part, nice guys were harmless.  And harmless was unattractive.  There was a lot more to it than that, but maybe I was on to something.

When I got back to university to complete my degree, I proceeded to date 3 of what were probably the most eligible females on campus.  I thought the first was probably a fluke, right place at the right time.  By the third, I knew something was different from my first two years at the school.  I had manifested into the mysterious, hardened, conflicted, complicated guy who still managed to have a bright future, great friends, and a good heart.  Girls were totally into that guy.  I have to admit, it was a lot easier trying to figure things out as that guy than as the guy who could only watch from the sidelines.

When I graduated and came home, I started training in MMA 6 days a week.  I had watched a ton of it on TV and wanted to start competing ASAP.  Within months, I had added a new dimension to my personality.  I now knew that if I ended up in a physical confrontation with another person, there was a very good chance that I would come out on top.  I can’t stress how impactful that state of mind has been on every element of my life.  I spent the first half of my life avoiding violence, fearing that I wouldn’t know how to handle it.  I’ve spent the second half of my life avoiding violence, because I know how to handle it.  The confidence that comes from that state of mind was the final step in building myself into the ‘perfect guy’.

With all the information that I had collected in the first 25 years of my life, I had what I thought was a pretty good idea of what women wanted.  They wanted a guy who’s nice to them, but not to everyone.  They wanted a guy who’s good, but is capable of being bad.  They wanted a guy who can fight, but isn’t violent.  It was like they wanted someone who was a threat, but not a threat to them.  So I literally became the university educated, former bad boy, MMA fighter, investment advisor, who was complicated but with a good heart and a bright future guy.

It would be an exaggeration to say that at this point, I got every girl I pursued, but not by much.  I’ve never been the type for one night stands or picking up girls at a bar so that’s not what I’m talking about.  All I’m saying is that I haven’t been put in the friend zone since.

So how has that worked out for my dating life?  Am I happier?

For a while, it was nice.  Tinder worked like a charm.  Ironically though, the last time I used it was when I landed what many men would think was the holy grail of dating.  I ended up going on a date with a girl who had blonde hair and blue eyes, who looked like a porn-star, worked as a model, and on our second date, tried to bring another girl back to my place.  The second girl she brought back was way too drunk so I took her home, came back, and did the deed.   And felt so gross.  I literally had zero interest in who she was and I’m not the kind of person who looks to date or sleep with someone I’m not interested in.

It was like I had climbed this mountain of self-improvement, so that women would pay more attention to me, only to to realize that the person I had turned myself into was finally capable of landing the kind of woman I had no interest in.  Well then.

That was about 3 years ago.  I’ve had time to reflect.  With the rise of r/niceguys, I’ve thought a fair bit about the path I’ve taken.

The first thing that I had to face was that I spent most of my adolescent and adult life trying to become the kind of guy that girls would be interested in.  When I was young, I modeled so much of my behavior after prince charming.  The good guy, the hero, the gentleman, the nice guy.  That earned me as many female friends as I wanted, but no real relationships.  The girls I did date either got disinterested or cheated on me.  Once I realized being nice didn’t work, I modeled myself after the reformed gangster.  The bad boy, the outlaw, the guy who had seen some shit but didn’t wanna talk about it, and the guy who did bad but now chose to do good.  That earned me as many dates as I wanted, but again, no real relationships.  I was a fixer-upper that women were keen to get to work on, but I had no interest in being fixed.

There’s a dynamic here worth exploring.

There seems to be this cat and mouse game going on between men and women.  But who’s the cat and who’s the mouse?  As much as personal preference came into play, there would always be a few guys that almost all the girls were into.  There were also more than  a few guys who almost all the girls were never into.  To some degree, there was a male hierarchy, that was determined by female preferences in dating.  It was the alpha males and the beta males.

Interesting.

In an age where people are talking about women needing to be more powerful, I can’t help but think this is a dynamic we’ve yet to really appreciate.  Men, in their formative years, model so much of their behavior after what they think will give them the best chance of being with a woman.

As with most major issues in the world, I can’t help but think that this would be easily solved with the use of blatant honesty.  I think a good starting point would be for women to be completely honest about what they find attractive, and communicate how that changes over the course of their lives.  I suspect that most girls grow up thinking that they want a prince charming but as they start to grow into women, they start to realize that life’s a little more complicated than the fairy tales they grew up with.  Turns out that prince charming doesn’t actually exist, and even if he did… meh.  At this point, it becomes an exercise in women exploring what they do want.  It can be tough to be honest about this though.  Especially when you’re trying to maintain an image of innocence, sexual exclusivity, or any other quality that women tend to assume they should be projecting.  It’s not honest though, and it’s confusing the hell out of the guys.

Men aren’t off the hook.  Not even close.  Maybe, in a roundabout way, women facilitated the creation of the ‘nice guy’.  But seriously, how about we don’t play the victim here?  The modern ‘nice guy’ is no longer defined by being a good person.  He’s now defined by the pain and frustration that comes with years of rejection.  And perhaps a mistrust of women, betrayed by the nice guy philosophy which he was convinced would lead to that elusive girlfriend and social acceptance.  I understand where those emotions come from… I’ve experienced that same frustration… but get over it.

If you had focused on you, focused on becoming an interesting and accomplished individual with the patience to wait for the right woman to come along, you probably would’ve been fine.  Instead, you tried to become who you thought women wanted you to be.  You got it wrong.  You thought they just wanted someone who treats them well.  They want more.  A lot more.  They want someone they feel safe around, they want someone who can make them laugh, they want someone who can make them think, someone who can introduce them to new things, someone they can introduce to new things, someone who will truly understand and support who they are.  And etc., and etc.  Not to mention, they want to feel that physical chemistry.  If all you got is nice, it’s not enough.  If all you’ve got is nice, you haven’t earned shit.  Even when a girl says all she wants is a nice guy, they’re still not talking about you.  Until you’ve figured out who you are, found your reason for wanting to be a good human being, and are no longer projecting your issues onto others, you’re not ready for dating.

So what happens when you figure out that women aren’t really looking for just another nice guy?  Well I’m not sure if it’s the default, but a lot of nice guys are becoming assholes, thinking, “shit, well if I’m gonna get rejected, I might as well be an ass about it.”  And maybe there’s this sense of karma where you’re thinking, “You want to date a jerk?  I’ll show you a jerk!”  All that’s really happened though, is you went from the uninteresting nice guy, to the uninteresting asshole.  Or, maybe you were always an ass, but thought that being a nice was going to sweep her off her feet.  Stop it.  It’s not working.  It’s never worked.  It’s unlikely to ever work in your lifetime.  Focus on being a good person, through and through, and move on with your life.  That was my saving grace.  I was always more interested in being a good person than being a boyfriend.  While I was able to play the role of the disinterested bad boy, I think it’s unlikely that the girls I dated would’ve stuck around for as long as they did if there wasn’t more to it.

Thinking back on it all now, had I focused on being the best version of myself, it may have led to fewer relationships, but it probably would’ve led to more meaningful relationships.  Healthier relationships.  The kind of relationships which weren’t, in-part, defined by trying to be what I thought someone else wanted me to be, when in reality, nobody really understood any of  what was going on.

How Many Innocent Lives is a Police Officer Worth?

This is a very real question that we’ll have to try to answer in the near future.

Growing up, I had assumed zero.  I guess I was wrong.

I don’t like quoting stats because highlighting a single data point within a pattern can be misleading.  But 66 unarmed people were killed by the US police last year.  Up from 48 the year before.  I don’t know all of their stories.  I haven’t seen all the body cam footage.  But from what I have seen, something desperately needs to change.

I’ve known about the darker places of the internet for a long time.  I’ve watched the Yakuza chop fingers off, I’ve watched public beheadings in the middle east, I’ve seen military executions, and I even watched a Boeing exec get fucked to death by a horse.  I know what’s out there, but I don’t gravitate towards it.  When I watch, I see moments of weakness.  Moments of confusion.  Moments of darkness.  They inform, but they don’t inspire.  This year, I watched more footage of people being killed than any other year, and most of that was body cam footage from police officers.

I don’t watch them expecting to make excuses for the police or the people they’re pointing guns at.  I recognize that for all parties involved, it’s probably the most stressful moment of their entire lives and  people don’t always perform well under pressure.  What I try to do is understand what exactly is happening and how we could’ve avoided the loss of an innocent life.

In each video that I’ve seen, the person who was shot ‘reached’ for something.  Sometimes it was the waistband, sometimes the back pocket, but in every case, there was a motion that suggested to the police officer that they were drawing a concealed weapon.  That’s the moment where the officer went from pointing a weapon to taking an innocent life.  I think that’s a moment worth exploring.

I’ve never faced a situation like that before.  Perhaps it’s like pointing a rifle at a bear that’s getting closer and closer.  You don’t want to kill the bear, but you know that if the bear notices you, it’ll likely charge, and you’re unlikely to survive.  I always warn against making decisions out of fear.  It tends to use the least intelligent parts of the brain.  And I don’t think that analogy holds up anyways.  You can’t have a dialogue with a bear.  You don’t already have the bear in a position of submission.  You don’t have the other tools necessary to de-escalate the situation.  If that’s your state of mind in these situations, then they never should’ve let you out of basic training.  But that’s not what I’m seeing when I’m watching these videos.

I’m seeing people who lack the emotional stability to carry firearms.  I’m seeing people who have yet to grasp the value of a human life.  I’m seeing people grappling with their own issues while pointing a gun at another human being.  I’m seeing the fear that comes with a society who thinks everyone should be armed with deadly force.  I’m seeing a bad problem made worse with military grade weaponry.  I’m seeing a failure of training.  I see a corrupt organizational culture.  Worst of all, I see a problem that could be easily solved and that the police don’t seem motivated to fix.

All officers should be supported with an extensive psychological health program.  That starts with a screening process designed to keep the trigger-happy cosplay-commandos out.  Then it continues with ongoing evaluations and therapy.  We need to accept that the damage officers take out there isn’t just physical.  Rather than putting them through the shit and expecting them to sort things out on their own, we need to give them the tools and support necessary for them to stay healthy, inside and out.  If an officer watches his partner get lit up, or is first on the scene to something you think you’d only see in a Rob Zombie movie, we need to be there for them.  If that’s not something they can come back from, help them find something else.  And this all needs to be done by a third party which doesn’t have to answer to the politics of law enforcement.

The failure of training seems to be the one that everyone agrees on, including the police.  But it doesn’t seem to be working.  Perhaps I can make a few suggestions.  Don’t escalate the situation to the point where the person is so scared that they lose the ability to think rationally.  Don’t ask them to do something that might make them reach for something, when you’re going to assume that what they’re reaching for is a weapon.  I’d like to put that all under humanity 101 but here’s the real change I’d like to see:  If there are multiple officers targeting the same suspect, all with weapons-hot, wait until you can see an actual weapon.  You’re right, it’s only a split second between seeing the weapon and being shot at, but you should be trained to make that split second decision properly.

Mistakes will still be made.  Waiting until you see the weapon might mean a few extra dead officers.  But it’ll also mean that just about every single unarmed civilian who was murdered by a police officer this year would still be alive.  That’s the trade off.  A few brave souls who put their lives on the line so that the innocent may live in peace.  That’s what you signed up for.  That is your glory.  That is your honor.  Own it.  That is the proud and noble history of law enforcement.  What we’re seeing now is gang violence.

But that’s not going to change anytime soon.  Especially with the commander and chief excited about deploying more military grade equipment into local municipalities.  I can’t help but think that the general anxiety that the country is experiencing plays into this as well.  Protests, riots, terrorism, political instability, cultural divisions… maybe everyone is a little on edge.  There’s gotta be something else we can do.

I often say that if both people are looking for something reasonable, compromise is just a lack of imagination.  I think this qualifies.  Police officers would like to not be shot by a suspect who may or may not have a concealed weapon.  Suspects who are trying to comply, would like to not be shot whether or not they have a concealed weapon on them.  Police officers would like to not be at risk of being assaulted by a weapon as they try to place a suspect into custody.  Suspects who are trying to comply would like to not be shot by an officer while being placed into custody.  There’s always that risk that as soon as an officer takes his finger off the trigger, things go sideways.  There’s always a chance that when the suspect makes an unexpected movement, things go sideways.  So we need a way for officers to subdue suspects, without having to close the distance or take the finger off the trigger.  Tranquilizer darts.

I’m not going to bother looking up what’s on the market right now that might work because I think that if this was going to be deployed, it would have to be a custom job.  You’d need a compound that worked quickly, effectively, and left no side-effects.  When you approach the scene, and you can’t determine whether or not the person has a weapon?  Tell them that.  Tell them to go belly down with their arms where you can see them, and that you’re gonna shoot them with a tranquilizer dart.  When they wake up, they’ll be in cuffs in the back of a squad car and everyone can figure out what happened.  Crazy junkie on bath salts?  Tranq dart.  Guy pulls a knife from 20 feet away?  Tranq dart.  In just about every scenario short of someone firing live rounds at you, tranq dart.

The other solution that’s crossed my mind is gender equality.  The ratio of male to female officers in American law-enforcement is about 9:1.  I can’t help but wonder if the boys in blue would be a little less trigger happy if there were a few more girls around.  But women aren’t as big and strong as men, and etc., etc.  True, but are we so sure that size and strength are the most important qualities of a law enforcement officer?  Maybe thinking that size and strength are the most important qualities is an issue unto itself.  If we saw a 1:1 ratio of men to women in law-enforcement, I can’t help but think that the police would see a dramatic improvement across the board.  Reduced discrimination, reduced police brutality, and fewer shootings of unarmed civilians to start.  Right now, I see police walking the streets like the foot soldiers of law-enforcement.   In some of the uglier scenarios, they look like gang members protecting the turf of the police state.  I can’t help but think that if we encouraged gender equality within the police, they might just find their way back to protecting and serving.

Female Empowerment Vs. Equality

I grew up around feminists.  My mom, my sister, my sister-in-law… all very strong minded, outspoken, and ready to thrown down if you’ve crossed a line they think you shouldn’t have crossed.  Oddly enough, I didn’t find out that I was a feminist until university when I was teasing my friend about taking a women’s studies course.  He asked what my views on women were, so I told him that I thought men and women were equal.  He said that made me a feminist.  Oh? Sure, why not.

I’m now reflecting on why I didn’t understand feminism as a battle for equality when I was being raised by someone who considered herself to be a fierce feminist.  My mother spent a great deal of her life angry.  Angry at her father.  Angry at her brother.  Angry at my dad.  Angry at me.  There was also a lot of blame, and she placed very little of it on herself.  Men were the source of all her problems.  When I saw her brand of feminism, it wasn’t about raising women up, it was about putting men down.  It was about being hurt, being oppressed, and making sure that others knew about it.

Now I have a sister who thinks that a man is a rapist if a girl who has consented to  sex changes her mind mid-way, even if she doesn’t tell him to stop.  I also have a sister-in-law who condemned John Damore’s memo on social media, but said that she had done too much emotional labor around the topic to even discuss it.

I don’t think we’re still dealing with the pursuit of equality here.  This is about the empowerment of women, and those are two very different things.

I often joke around and say that men have had this coming for centuries and we’re just the unlucky bunch that have to deal with it, but sometimes it’s not a joke.  I’ve had women tell me more than a few times that because of what men have done around the world, and throughout history, women deserve to be more than equal.

More than equal.

Does that not suggest that women would be superior and men would be inferior?  Is that really the goal of feminism?  These dynamics have been interesting to observe because as I try to have these discussions and understand the rationale, I’ve found a lot of inconsistencies that demonstrate several different perspectives within feminism.  Some think that porn is the objectification and sexualization of the female body while others think that a women choosing to do porn is female empowerment.  Some feminists think that Caitlyn Jenner is a strong and beautiful woman, some think that she’s a shitty person.  When I see these inconsistencies, I try to focus on where everyone agrees and that usually illuminates what’s really connecting the movement.

When I think about this deeply, I see two separate movements: Female empowerment, and the pursuit of equality.

Female empowerment is defined by the collective hurt, frustration and powerlessness that women have been feeling for generations.  For them, powerlessness and inequality are the same problem.  To solve inequality, one must become more powerful.  With power comes the ability to right wrongs and protect those you care about.  It’s not the first time we’ve seen this dynamic in history and it’s probably not the last.  The problem with a virtuous  pursuit of power is that you start to think that any decision that makes you more powerful is a virtuous decision.  At that point, right and wrong no longer have any bearing.

The pursuit of equality has been my jam for most of my life.  It understands that there is a natural order to the universe and appreciates that we’ve just scratched the surface on understanding it.  It accepts that we’re all unique people with unique circumstances and this leads to the unique lives which we collectively call humanity.  If each of us lives a truly unique existence, then we should really only be judged on the merit of what’s in our soul.  In the pursuit of equality, eventually you understand that equality already exists, it’s simply our perspective on the matter which needs to change.

Perhaps I should be concerned.  There’s a lot of momentum behind female empowerment.  It’s especially interesting to hear men explain their affinity for it. Unfortunately, the problem with the pursuit of power over equality is that you’re more likely to end up with power than equality.  If the women of today are successful with that pursuit, what are they leaving for the next generation?  There’s a pendulum effect worth observing here.  If female empowerment leads to men being treated as the inferior sex, how long until male empowerment catches on?  If I was a feminist of today, that is not the future I’d be looking to create for my children.

The reason why I’m not concerned is because while fear is often louder, love is almost always stronger.  I suspect that while the majority of men and women today might not understand equality, they believe in it.  There’s something intrinsic about equality which resonates with people and it’s probably why we’ve been fighting for it throughout history.  Unfortunately, equality is the enemy of the powerful so the ruling class usually doesn’t take so well such things.  Fortunately for the rest of us, they’re on borrowed time.

A Brief on Spectral Thinking

I’m sure I’ll dive into this again at a later date as my understanding of it continues to grow but I wanted to unload some of these thoughts for now.

There seems to be a natural evolution of thought from binary, to categorical, to spectral.

You have men and you have women.  It’s one or the other.  Except for intersex.  So 3 categories and everyone fits into one of those 3.  Except there’s at least 9 distinct categories of intersex.  So 11 categories, and that’s it.  Except these traits are expressed differently in each individual so it’s as if everyone ultimately ends up in their own category and it’s way too complicated to have infinite categories so why not just a spectrum?

You’re either gay or you’re straight.  It’s one or the other.  Except for bi.  So 3 categories and everyone fits into….

You’re either smart or you’re not…

You’re either privileged or you’re not…

It’s either black or white…

You’re either good or bad…

So if spectral thinking is next level, what’s after that?  My guess is another axis.

Me Too?

I appreciate the perspective that I have on sexual harassment, not because I understand it, but because I am making progress in understanding it.

Back when I was working at the banks, we had a training program that they would send us out to Toronto for. By the third trip, our cohort had gotten to know each other and one night we were on the hotel rooftop having drinks. A bunch of us were standing in a circle and one of the ladies decided she would show some interest. She walked over to me, started whispering things in my ear, then started rubbing my chest, then her hand went in the shirt, then down the pants.. all while I kept up a conversation with the others in that circle. I was obviously getting a lot of looks, but I kept pulling her hand out my clothes, politely told her to settle down, and laughed it off. It took about 20 minutes, but she eventually moved on and took someone else back to her room.

This was 5 years ago and I want to share what I’ve learned. It was only recently that my experience occurred to me as an example of sexual assault because it didn’t feel like it.. and I think I know why.

Part of it is that I’m quicker to compassion than I am to fear or hurt. She had a husband and kids at home, but she was on a work trip, drunk, tying to bed a guy half her age in front of a small crowd of coworkers.. I knew she was probably going through a rough patch so I tried to handle the situation with dignity. I wanted her to be better off than when we met.

I genuinely think we could all use a little more compassion in our lives, but it’s important to understand that it was easy for me to arrive at compassion because I never lost power or control of that situation. I was twice her size. Even if she were twice my size, I wouldn’t be concerned that she could force herself on me. In my mind, I was safe from what she was trying to do, and it let me act with compassion.

Most women aren’t twice the size of the men in question. All that safety that I felt likely wouldn’t exist for a woman in that same situation. For many, I’d wager that safety becomes fear. As we continue to discover/understand what gender equality really means… physical stature and the physical safety that comes with it is still a very real inequality.

That doesn’t mean that we should feel bad for being men, but it is a reminder that as men, we need to step up.  If you have the power to harm, you probably also have the power to protect.  Imagine if instead of hearing about a high profile sexual harassment case once a week, we heard about how the men around that person stepped up and shut it down?  That’s a future I’m willing to help create.