I have a friend who is getting divorced from his wife after 20 years of what seemed to me and others to be bliss. He admits that the marriage was good. And it is ending somewhat amicably: There are still squabbles, but it is clear that the squabbles are minor and will get resolved without courtroom ugliness.
My friend said something that amazed me. He said he doesn't think of the failed marriage as a failure. He considers it a success.
The look on my face when he told me this spelled W, T, F in big bold letters.
He said first of all, the average marriage last less than ten years, so 20 is really quite exceptional. Secondly, he said 20 years, in absolute terms, is quite long. "I know a lot of people my age," John said. (He's in his mid to late 40s.) "I can't name one that has had a 20-year-long relationship with anybody."
My friend pointed out that the mere fact that you can point to a track record of having been able to sustain a day-to-day, live-together, eat-together, share-our-money relationship with someone for a period of 20 years is a testament to your own perseverance and patience, your willingness to dedicate yourself to a partnership with someone else in pursuit of common goals, and many other fine qualities. It basically proves you're capable of sustaining a relationship if it's a good one. We all think we can do that, but the point is, few people have proven they can do it.
So why did John get divorced? He shrugged and said "No one thing. It was a bunch of things. After 20 years, you become your own person and aren't willing or able to change any more. You find that you and your partner are standing on different boats. The boats, in our case, drifted apart."
Sounds like bullshit to me, but you know what? I'm not him. I wasn't there. I don't walk in his shoes and I don't know what he's seen. So I'm not going to slam the guy. Not for at least another 20 years.
Friday, September 4, 2009
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Monitoring her every Tweet
So, I had a girlfriend for a while (a geeky type) who happened to be a pretty frequent blogger, Tweeter, and contributor of comments to other people's blogs. She was also a bit self-absorbed and attention-seeking. In fact, she insisted on obtaining constant attention and for a while this was a big issue in our relationship. Very early on, we had a bit of a heated discussion because she felt I wasn't paying proper attention to her daily online activities. She noticed that I wasn't reading her blog first thing in the morning. It irritated her. So I started reading it first thing in the morning (instead of whenever I happened to get to it). Then we were chatting once, online, and she said "Didn't you see my Tweet on this? I Tweeted about it already, I thought you knew that." I went and looked on Twitter; her Tweet was less than an hour old.
I very quickly got the picture: I am supposed to read her blog as soon as she posts it. Also I am supposed to follow her Tweets and know about them before initiating any kind of conversation with her (by phone or chat).
Like a trained monkey, I set up Google News alerts to alert me by e-mail of any new occurrence of her name online. (She has a fairly unique name. A Google search brings up mostly her.) I also wrote a script using Mozilla Jetpack to check once every 60 seconds for any new Tweets posted by her. If a new Tweet was detected by my polling script, I'd get a toaster popup in the lower right corner of my screen showing the text of the Tweet. The code for this is part of the example code that comes with Mozilla Jetpack and looks like this:
Preparing for a phone call with her meant doing homework. First I had to check her blog (including comments to it), then I had to check her friends' blogs to see if she had left any new comments there. Then I had to check her latest Tweets. And finally I had to check out any Google News Alerts that might have come in about her.
Then I could call her.
This got to be a pain in the ass, of course. I should have seen it as the red flag that it was, because it later turned out that this person was seriously messed up in the head. She was constantly seeking attention, from me and others, online and offline, always flirting, always demanding worship and adoration, and viciously denouncing (behind their backs) people who didn't show her the worship she felt she needed. She became a demanding (and despotic) princess with me, requiring a constant shower of compliments. Eventually, she started accusing me of being egotistical and always talking only about myself and my own concerns. It was her way of saying there is no need to talk about anyone but her, so don't mention yourself, ever. Just talk about me.
We eventually had enough of each other. We broke off the relationship. What's funny is that we each told each other that the other was too egotistical!
The difference, though, is that I tried, consciously, to please her: I tried being more attentive (obsessively so, in fact) to her every Tweet, and I carefully avoided talking about myself, for about a week, to see if it made any difference. It didn't. She still accused me of talking about myself all the time.
I'll never act like a freakin' trained monkey again. Don't you do it, either.
I very quickly got the picture: I am supposed to read her blog as soon as she posts it. Also I am supposed to follow her Tweets and know about them before initiating any kind of conversation with her (by phone or chat).
Like a trained monkey, I set up Google News alerts to alert me by e-mail of any new occurrence of her name online. (She has a fairly unique name. A Google search brings up mostly her.) I also wrote a script using Mozilla Jetpack to check once every 60 seconds for any new Tweets posted by her. If a new Tweet was detected by my polling script, I'd get a toaster popup in the lower right corner of my screen showing the text of the Tweet. The code for this is part of the example code that comes with Mozilla Jetpack and looks like this:
- var twitter = jetpack.lib.twitter
- var oldTweet = null;
- function getTweet(){
- twitter.getTwitLatestStatus( "osunick", function(tweet){
- var newTweet = tweet.text;
- if( oldTweet != newTweet ){
- jetpack.notifications.show( newTweet );
- oldTweet = newTweet;
- }
- });
- }
- getTweet();
- setInterval( getTweet, 1000*60 );
Preparing for a phone call with her meant doing homework. First I had to check her blog (including comments to it), then I had to check her friends' blogs to see if she had left any new comments there. Then I had to check her latest Tweets. And finally I had to check out any Google News Alerts that might have come in about her.
Then I could call her.
This got to be a pain in the ass, of course. I should have seen it as the red flag that it was, because it later turned out that this person was seriously messed up in the head. She was constantly seeking attention, from me and others, online and offline, always flirting, always demanding worship and adoration, and viciously denouncing (behind their backs) people who didn't show her the worship she felt she needed. She became a demanding (and despotic) princess with me, requiring a constant shower of compliments. Eventually, she started accusing me of being egotistical and always talking only about myself and my own concerns. It was her way of saying there is no need to talk about anyone but her, so don't mention yourself, ever. Just talk about me.
We eventually had enough of each other. We broke off the relationship. What's funny is that we each told each other that the other was too egotistical!
The difference, though, is that I tried, consciously, to please her: I tried being more attentive (obsessively so, in fact) to her every Tweet, and I carefully avoided talking about myself, for about a week, to see if it made any difference. It didn't. She still accused me of talking about myself all the time.
I'll never act like a freakin' trained monkey again. Don't you do it, either.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
My heart goes out to all my followers
I have to say, I'm overwhelmed by the response to the other day's post about laughing gas as a cure for heartache. That post sent this blog's traffic into the stratosphere. Almost ten thousand visits to that post, so far, from 68 countries -- it must've gotten huge word-of-mouth (and word-of-gmail) circulation. THANK YOU for telling your friends about this blog, it means a lot to me.
In answer to your questions, yes, I'm a real guy, yes the things I talk about are real, and no, dammit, the nitrous oxide thing was not made-up. The laughing-gas matter is no laughing matter. Sure it could be placebo effect. Any goddam thing can be placebo effect. If you've ever had a serious nitrous experience at the dentist's office, you know damn well that the effects of ntrious oxide are very subtle and hard to describe, to say nothing of the fact that they vary tremendously from person to person. For me, if I get too much nitrous (and btw, that takes a LOT of gas, for a long time) I start to feel numb in my fingers and can start slurring my speech. Of course, sometimes it's just the Budweiser.
Anyway, I heart my followers, all y'all who read this blog. That means you. Thank you. And please tell your friends.
In answer to your questions, yes, I'm a real guy, yes the things I talk about are real, and no, dammit, the nitrous oxide thing was not made-up. The laughing-gas matter is no laughing matter. Sure it could be placebo effect. Any goddam thing can be placebo effect. If you've ever had a serious nitrous experience at the dentist's office, you know damn well that the effects of ntrious oxide are very subtle and hard to describe, to say nothing of the fact that they vary tremendously from person to person. For me, if I get too much nitrous (and btw, that takes a LOT of gas, for a long time) I start to feel numb in my fingers and can start slurring my speech. Of course, sometimes it's just the Budweiser.
Anyway, I heart my followers, all y'all who read this blog. That means you. Thank you. And please tell your friends.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
What it means when she (or he) hangs up on you
I had a bitch of a girlfriend whose "arguing style" included a most annoying trait. When she was unable to handle hearing an alternative point of view on something, she would quickly escalate to a rage-state and eventually just hang up the phone (or abruptly, without warning, log off of chat). This was such a frequent behavior, even in cases of relatively minor disagreements, that it got me thinking about what might be behind it.
Mind you, I'm no psychologist. But I think I have it figured out.
Consider the consequences of a hang-up for the hanger-upper. The act of hanging up is a control act. The hanger-upper asserts immediate control over the conversation and the other person. This is important. Your partner may not admit to being a control freak. But this is a telltale clue.
Another important benefit for the hanger-upper is that disconnecting automatically, instantaneously, removes a painful negative stimulus. From an operant conditioning point of view, this is a self-reinforcing behavior.
So it's a double-whammy for the hanger-upper. By hanging up, she achieves a feeling of power while simultaneously eliminating a painful negative stimulus. What could be better?
But what about the hanger-uppee? What are the consequences for the person who's being hung up on?
Well of course, first of all you feel like you've been distanced. It's an awful silence on the other end of the line.
But mostly it's a feeling of abandonment. It's certainly an act of abandonment by the person who hangs up.
What are the emotions felt by someone who is abandoned by a loved one?
I dug deeper into my girl's background, and here's what I found.
At a formative age (adolescent), her father left her mother. The father now dates one of the daughter's former high school teachers. Father and daughter occasionally talk on the phone, but daughter now hates father (even today, at age 32), and she frequently ends phone conversations by hanging up on her father.
My (ex)girlfriend loves her mom, defends her as a saint. She hates her dad, castigates him as a selfish, cruel person.
It all makes sense now. When her father left her mother, my girlfriend's dad was engaging in an act of abandonment -- a type of hanging up. My girlfriend was young at the time and keenly felt the sense of powerlessness imposed on her and her mother. They were powerless to bring the man back. Powerless even to plead for reconsideration. Powerless in the most fundamental sense of not having the ability (even in theory) to be heard.
My girlfriend learned from this experience, at an early age, that the way to gain power over a man -- and punish him for his insolence and disrespect for you (because after all, when you feel powerless and disrespected, you seek power and respect constantly, you make a fetish out of it) -- is to hang up on him. Abandon him. The way you were abandoned.
I feel sorry for someone like that. They're truly damaged goods. And they're going to go through life imposing their own psychological damage on others.
I feel pity. But not forgiveness. People who hang up on me might deserve all the pity in the world, but you know what? Rude assholes can go fvck themselves, I don't care how good a blowjob they give.
Mind you, I'm no psychologist. But I think I have it figured out.
Consider the consequences of a hang-up for the hanger-upper. The act of hanging up is a control act. The hanger-upper asserts immediate control over the conversation and the other person. This is important. Your partner may not admit to being a control freak. But this is a telltale clue.
Another important benefit for the hanger-upper is that disconnecting automatically, instantaneously, removes a painful negative stimulus. From an operant conditioning point of view, this is a self-reinforcing behavior.
So it's a double-whammy for the hanger-upper. By hanging up, she achieves a feeling of power while simultaneously eliminating a painful negative stimulus. What could be better?
But what about the hanger-uppee? What are the consequences for the person who's being hung up on?
Well of course, first of all you feel like you've been distanced. It's an awful silence on the other end of the line.
But mostly it's a feeling of abandonment. It's certainly an act of abandonment by the person who hangs up.
What are the emotions felt by someone who is abandoned by a loved one?
- Powerlessness: You are unable, even in theory, to continue the conversation with the other person. You have no control at all over your situation. You've been robbed of any power, any influence.
- Hopelessness: There's no hope of winning the argument or bringing the other person back. They've already left.
- Loneliness: You have gone from a two-person interaction to one person. You're by yourself.
I dug deeper into my girl's background, and here's what I found.
At a formative age (adolescent), her father left her mother. The father now dates one of the daughter's former high school teachers. Father and daughter occasionally talk on the phone, but daughter now hates father (even today, at age 32), and she frequently ends phone conversations by hanging up on her father.
My (ex)girlfriend loves her mom, defends her as a saint. She hates her dad, castigates him as a selfish, cruel person.
It all makes sense now. When her father left her mother, my girlfriend's dad was engaging in an act of abandonment -- a type of hanging up. My girlfriend was young at the time and keenly felt the sense of powerlessness imposed on her and her mother. They were powerless to bring the man back. Powerless even to plead for reconsideration. Powerless in the most fundamental sense of not having the ability (even in theory) to be heard.
My girlfriend learned from this experience, at an early age, that the way to gain power over a man -- and punish him for his insolence and disrespect for you (because after all, when you feel powerless and disrespected, you seek power and respect constantly, you make a fetish out of it) -- is to hang up on him. Abandon him. The way you were abandoned.
I feel sorry for someone like that. They're truly damaged goods. And they're going to go through life imposing their own psychological damage on others.
I feel pity. But not forgiveness. People who hang up on me might deserve all the pity in the world, but you know what? Rude assholes can go fvck themselves, I don't care how good a blowjob they give.
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