Okay, I didn't mean that to sound like a put-down. Please bear with me for a second. I'll tell you a story.
I met a woman not long ago. We hardly knew each other. We're finding out things like birthdays, family backgrounds, etc.
She asks what month my birthday is in. I tell her.
"Oh!" she exclaims knowingly. "We're Fire Signs. No wonder!"
"No wonder what?"
"No wonder there's so much of [ whatever ] between us." (I think she referred to some sort of cosmic energy or personal electricity, something like that. Something indicating a good impedance match.)
I came very close to making a dismissing comment like "You don't really believe all that horoscope bullshit, do you?" But instead, I wisely held my tongue.
In subsequent conversations, I found out very quickly that she is not an astrology nut of the certifiably insane variety; nor particularly religious or spiritual in any conventional way. She's a geek, after all, which means there's a certain amount of core logic in her brain that accepts the fundamental ascendancy of bosonic reality over daily horoscopes and fortune cookies.
Nevertheless, women are plugged into a little different kind of universe than men are. They can pick up vibrations at wavelengths that the male antenna, being only six inches long, cannot pick up.
Over subsequent days and weeks, we never talked about astrological signs, but I started thinking about the various forces that brought the two of us together (an unlikely pairing, seemingly instantiated by random happenstance). And I started to wonder whether higher forces -- "the stars," the universe, God, whatever -- might be at work after all, since I had no better explanation for some of the really odd coincidences that seemed to keep putting us on the same path.
I don't read horoscopes, don't believe in them, never will. But sometimes I talk to my lady-friend on the phone at night, standing on my back porch. And when we finish talking for the night, I invariably (if it's a clear night) take one final look up at the stars, just to marvel at them.
And you know what? Sometimes I feel them looking back.
Then I go inside, throw my empty beer can in the trash, flop on the bed, and smirk, shaking my head.
Naw.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Can teasing violate the Geneva Conventions?
I think we all know the answer to that. Teasing can be cruel. Sometimes it can be incredibly cruel. Especially if one person is trying to be sincere and express heartfelt emotions, and the other person is alternately stroking and dissing her erstwhile-affectionate would-be partner.
My lady friend is a huge, huge teaser. And by that I mean her teases not only scale up, but scale out. The magnitude of any given tease-instance can be huge. She might say something as huge as "I'm going to leave you, don't call me any more", totally in jest, but totally convincingly. But her teases scale out in a peculiar way, too, in that they cover multiple domains and can "flip sense" logically, in intermittent fashion, as she tries to keep me off-balance.
There's also an interface called Sarcasm that, if implemented by a subclass of Tease, can apply an Aspect of extra pain in all this.
After a while, the sarcasm and teasing wears me out, frankly. And it's depressing, because I know that at this point in our relationship, I'm more emotionally committed than my lady-friend is, and I want her to progress a little faster toward the finish line. I want her to catch up with me on the "seriousness" front. Instead, there's still an awful lot of game-playing. Much of it is playful and fun. I enjoy it a lot of the time. But some of it is clearly hard-wired into her personality. She's a tough, feisty little nutbuster.
But what's a guy to do? You tell me. Should I insist that she tone it down (and look like a wimp who can't take a little teasing)? Or should I continue my facade of good-natured bravado a while longer, until she either becomes more serious about me -- or starts to bore me to the point where I leave?
Teach me. Somebody. Please.
My lady friend is a huge, huge teaser. And by that I mean her teases not only scale up, but scale out. The magnitude of any given tease-instance can be huge. She might say something as huge as "I'm going to leave you, don't call me any more", totally in jest, but totally convincingly. But her teases scale out in a peculiar way, too, in that they cover multiple domains and can "flip sense" logically, in intermittent fashion, as she tries to keep me off-balance.
There's also an interface called Sarcasm that, if implemented by a subclass of Tease, can apply an Aspect of extra pain in all this.
After a while, the sarcasm and teasing wears me out, frankly. And it's depressing, because I know that at this point in our relationship, I'm more emotionally committed than my lady-friend is, and I want her to progress a little faster toward the finish line. I want her to catch up with me on the "seriousness" front. Instead, there's still an awful lot of game-playing. Much of it is playful and fun. I enjoy it a lot of the time. But some of it is clearly hard-wired into her personality. She's a tough, feisty little nutbuster.
But what's a guy to do? You tell me. Should I insist that she tone it down (and look like a wimp who can't take a little teasing)? Or should I continue my facade of good-natured bravado a while longer, until she either becomes more serious about me -- or starts to bore me to the point where I leave?
Teach me. Somebody. Please.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Should you date someone from the same planet?
In decades gone by, the big question used to be: Should you date someone in the office? The traditional wisdom being No, you should not, because:
1. Other people in the office will find out (sooner or later) and it could be embarrassing.
2. It upsets the balance of power. If you're a manager and you date one of your direct reports, "favoritism" becomes an issue. Even if you're peers, it upsets the perceived relationships of the two of you with coworkers. No one knows if they can tell you something in confidence without it leaking to your partner. (Etc.)
3. If you eventually break up, you have to stare your ex-partner in the face every day at work. Highly uncomfortable (potentially).
So the usual advice is: Don't date someone who works in the same office where you do. But that's no longer logical. In a world of constant connectivity, we're all in the same virtual office, all the time. Think about it. Everyone you work with (whether they work from home, come in to an office, or whatever) has e-mail, most are probably on Facebook or Twitter (or both), etc. People Tweet stuff or IM stuff without you even knowing about it. Pretty soon it becomes clear that the world is a very small place indeed. The world is your office, my friend.
So don't worry about dating someone in the office. Your office is planet Earth. The question is whether you should date someone from Mars.
1. Other people in the office will find out (sooner or later) and it could be embarrassing.
2. It upsets the balance of power. If you're a manager and you date one of your direct reports, "favoritism" becomes an issue. Even if you're peers, it upsets the perceived relationships of the two of you with coworkers. No one knows if they can tell you something in confidence without it leaking to your partner. (Etc.)
3. If you eventually break up, you have to stare your ex-partner in the face every day at work. Highly uncomfortable (potentially).
So the usual advice is: Don't date someone who works in the same office where you do. But that's no longer logical. In a world of constant connectivity, we're all in the same virtual office, all the time. Think about it. Everyone you work with (whether they work from home, come in to an office, or whatever) has e-mail, most are probably on Facebook or Twitter (or both), etc. People Tweet stuff or IM stuff without you even knowing about it. Pretty soon it becomes clear that the world is a very small place indeed. The world is your office, my friend.
So don't worry about dating someone in the office. Your office is planet Earth. The question is whether you should date someone from Mars.
Monday, June 15, 2009
When she only wants to Chat, Part 3
As I've been saying in previous posts, I've been carrying on a leisurely long-distance relationship with someone for about 3 months now, and we communicate almost entirely by instant message (GTalk). We chat. A lot. Like, hours every night, without fail.
This particular person (whom I care for very much now) is 600+ miles away and simply prefers IM to phone conversation. At first I thought that was strange. Why chat when you can talk? My fingers get tired of typing after a while.
But you know what? After a few months of doing this (and after seeing her in person a few times and talking on the phone with her maybe half a dozen times this past month), I've come to see that chat has a few things in its favor that yapping on the phone does not.
It's easy to blurt things out of your mouth when you're being free and easy and relaxed with someone, and that, frankly, is dangerous if you're a guy. I speak without thinking all the time. It's instinctive. I like to free-associate and say what I think, spontaneously. As a result, I often put my foot so far into my mouth that it's hanging out my ass. That's much harder to do when you have to type a message on a keyboard, then hit Send.
I'm a pretty fast typist (in short bursts), but still, it takes a while to type a message, even a short one. I can speak it much faster than I can type it. But that's a good thing, the fact that typing slows you down is a good thing. Because while you're typing, you get to think about what you're saying. You get to choose between a choice of synonyms for something, fine-tuning the nuance of whatever you were going to say, with much better precision than if you blurted it out. You get to revise, edit, proofread. By the time you're ready to hit Send, you've had much more of a chance to think about what you're saying than if you were on the phone blurting something out spontaneously. Sure, we're only talking milliseconds here, in some cases. But you know what I've found out? Milliseconds can be the difference between sounding like a complete f*cking jackass and maintaining your deceptively gentlemanly online persona.
If you're wise, you'll consciously slow it down -- type even slower than usual . And always keep in mind that you can backspace before hitting Send. Your mouth is send-only, there is no Backspace.
The other thing that's good about chat is this thing called the chat log. Chat logs are handy, because if you have a really good night of chat (a good conversation) you can go back and re-live the good parts by reading the transcript. By the same token, if you had a fight, you can go back and find out who said what; you have a forensic tool for figuring out what went wrong.
Chat logs, I've found, are also great for settling arguments. If your partner says "You never told me you were planning to play poker at Jimmy's house tomorrow night!", you can whip out the chat log and say "I beg your pardon, it's right here in the chat log for November 19 at 8:38 pm. Refer to line 449."
And actually, there's less room for misunderstanding in an IM conversation than in a phone conversation. Again, it's because you're choosing words and writing them down (typing them) when you use IM. With voice, you use a different vocabulary -- the colloquialisms of everyday spoken language -- and (have you ever noticed this?) the terms of everyday speech tend to be overloaded, semantically, much more so than the words you choose when you write (type) something. The precision of a typed message trumps the fuzziness of spoken language, in my experience. It goes a long way toward avoiding misunderstanding.
But of course, there'll still be misunderstandings -- that goes without saying. Words can always get you in trouble, no matter what the mode of delivery.
I guess my bottom line here is: Don't minimize the potential benefits of chat. Especially when you're early in a relationship and you haven't learned each other's "lingo" and want to avoid misunderstandings. There's something to be said (silently) for Chat.
This particular person (whom I care for very much now) is 600+ miles away and simply prefers IM to phone conversation. At first I thought that was strange. Why chat when you can talk? My fingers get tired of typing after a while.
But you know what? After a few months of doing this (and after seeing her in person a few times and talking on the phone with her maybe half a dozen times this past month), I've come to see that chat has a few things in its favor that yapping on the phone does not.
It's easy to blurt things out of your mouth when you're being free and easy and relaxed with someone, and that, frankly, is dangerous if you're a guy. I speak without thinking all the time. It's instinctive. I like to free-associate and say what I think, spontaneously. As a result, I often put my foot so far into my mouth that it's hanging out my ass. That's much harder to do when you have to type a message on a keyboard, then hit Send.
I'm a pretty fast typist (in short bursts), but still, it takes a while to type a message, even a short one. I can speak it much faster than I can type it. But that's a good thing, the fact that typing slows you down is a good thing. Because while you're typing, you get to think about what you're saying. You get to choose between a choice of synonyms for something, fine-tuning the nuance of whatever you were going to say, with much better precision than if you blurted it out. You get to revise, edit, proofread. By the time you're ready to hit Send, you've had much more of a chance to think about what you're saying than if you were on the phone blurting something out spontaneously. Sure, we're only talking milliseconds here, in some cases. But you know what I've found out? Milliseconds can be the difference between sounding like a complete f*cking jackass and maintaining your deceptively gentlemanly online persona.
If you're wise, you'll consciously slow it down -- type even slower than usual . And always keep in mind that you can backspace before hitting Send. Your mouth is send-only, there is no Backspace.
The other thing that's good about chat is this thing called the chat log. Chat logs are handy, because if you have a really good night of chat (a good conversation) you can go back and re-live the good parts by reading the transcript. By the same token, if you had a fight, you can go back and find out who said what; you have a forensic tool for figuring out what went wrong.
Chat logs, I've found, are also great for settling arguments. If your partner says "You never told me you were planning to play poker at Jimmy's house tomorrow night!", you can whip out the chat log and say "I beg your pardon, it's right here in the chat log for November 19 at 8:38 pm. Refer to line 449."
And actually, there's less room for misunderstanding in an IM conversation than in a phone conversation. Again, it's because you're choosing words and writing them down (typing them) when you use IM. With voice, you use a different vocabulary -- the colloquialisms of everyday spoken language -- and (have you ever noticed this?) the terms of everyday speech tend to be overloaded, semantically, much more so than the words you choose when you write (type) something. The precision of a typed message trumps the fuzziness of spoken language, in my experience. It goes a long way toward avoiding misunderstanding.
But of course, there'll still be misunderstandings -- that goes without saying. Words can always get you in trouble, no matter what the mode of delivery.
I guess my bottom line here is: Don't minimize the potential benefits of chat. Especially when you're early in a relationship and you haven't learned each other's "lingo" and want to avoid misunderstandings. There's something to be said (silently) for Chat.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
When she only wants to Chat, Part 2
So as I was saying yesterday, I quickly developed a chat-buddy relationship with a really awesome lady I met almost by accident on Twitter. In a very short period of time, we found ourselves chatting two to three hours a night, every night, without fail, via Google Talk. But strangely enough, even though it was clear that we were headed toward an intimate friendship, my lady friend was adamant about not wanting to talk on the phone. She gave no real reason other than just not liking phones.
At work one day, I saw her on Skype and IM'd her, asking if she had a moment. When she said yes, I tried to call her via Skype. She immediately ended the call without saying hello! (then scolded me on IM)
A virtual slap in the face if there ever was one.
I was frustrated and hurt by the whole thing but quickly got control of my emotions and decided not to make an issue of it. I dropped the whole realtime vox-convo pursuit and never brought it up. We went back to chat-as-usual.
That was as of about three months ago. Let's fast-forward to today and I'll tell you how things have turned out and what I now think about the whole don't-call-me thing vis-a-vis IM as a primary mode of conversation.
A month after our virtual relationship began, my friend took a long-planned-in-advance trip to see family in Russia. The night before she left, I IM'd her and asked if I could call her in the morning to say bon voyage. She tried to explain how busy her day would be, and I interrupted and said "Look, I'm only asking for 30 seconds of your time. All I want to do is hear your voice, and say 'have a nice trip.'" She assented.
Amazingly, she pinged me via Skype the next morning, told me her flight schedule, and proposed a time when she would call me from the airport. I didn't think it would really happen -- but it did. She called me from the airport, at the appointed time. And we spent 3 or 4 minutes saying our good-byes. It was nice. It was very nice. And we both ended up very pleased that we decided to do that.
On her trip, she was in such a remote location that she didn't have internet connectivity most of the time, so we did no chatting whatsoever, and only sent a little e-mail back and forth.
When she got back to the U.S., we started our nighhtly chats again. And our friendship continued to grow.
And as happens when a friendship between a man continues to grow (beyond simple friendship), things happen -- such as arguments. We had our first fight. It was bad enough that she disconnected from me and our chat ended early, with me standing there wondering what to do next.
I didn't sleep well that night. So I got up early in the morning. The first thing I did was call her cell phone and leave a message, apologizing for the fight and asking her to forgive me.
She did forgive me. And she later told me she loved waking up to the sound of my voice.
We've since begun calling each other more often, although frankly if you knew how infrequent our calls are, you'd laugh. We still use chat as our primary means of communication. We use it a lot.
Tomorrow, in Part 3 of this verbal diarrhea outburst (and I promise, Part 3 will be the end of this topic), I'll tell you what I think is good about chat as a primary medium, and why the goods outweigh the bads, and why maybe (just maybe) you should avoid the phone, if you can -- and you can tell me whether (and to what degree) I'm wrong.
At work one day, I saw her on Skype and IM'd her, asking if she had a moment. When she said yes, I tried to call her via Skype. She immediately ended the call without saying hello! (then scolded me on IM)
A virtual slap in the face if there ever was one.
I was frustrated and hurt by the whole thing but quickly got control of my emotions and decided not to make an issue of it. I dropped the whole realtime vox-convo pursuit and never brought it up. We went back to chat-as-usual.
That was as of about three months ago. Let's fast-forward to today and I'll tell you how things have turned out and what I now think about the whole don't-call-me thing vis-a-vis IM as a primary mode of conversation.
A month after our virtual relationship began, my friend took a long-planned-in-advance trip to see family in Russia. The night before she left, I IM'd her and asked if I could call her in the morning to say bon voyage. She tried to explain how busy her day would be, and I interrupted and said "Look, I'm only asking for 30 seconds of your time. All I want to do is hear your voice, and say 'have a nice trip.'" She assented.
Amazingly, she pinged me via Skype the next morning, told me her flight schedule, and proposed a time when she would call me from the airport. I didn't think it would really happen -- but it did. She called me from the airport, at the appointed time. And we spent 3 or 4 minutes saying our good-byes. It was nice. It was very nice. And we both ended up very pleased that we decided to do that.
On her trip, she was in such a remote location that she didn't have internet connectivity most of the time, so we did no chatting whatsoever, and only sent a little e-mail back and forth.
When she got back to the U.S., we started our nighhtly chats again. And our friendship continued to grow.
And as happens when a friendship between a man continues to grow (beyond simple friendship), things happen -- such as arguments. We had our first fight. It was bad enough that she disconnected from me and our chat ended early, with me standing there wondering what to do next.
I didn't sleep well that night. So I got up early in the morning. The first thing I did was call her cell phone and leave a message, apologizing for the fight and asking her to forgive me.
She did forgive me. And she later told me she loved waking up to the sound of my voice.
We've since begun calling each other more often, although frankly if you knew how infrequent our calls are, you'd laugh. We still use chat as our primary means of communication. We use it a lot.
Tomorrow, in Part 3 of this verbal diarrhea outburst (and I promise, Part 3 will be the end of this topic), I'll tell you what I think is good about chat as a primary medium, and why the goods outweigh the bads, and why maybe (just maybe) you should avoid the phone, if you can -- and you can tell me whether (and to what degree) I'm wrong.
Saturday, June 13, 2009
When she only wants to Chat
I met someone a while ago on Twitter. She tried to DM (direct-message) me and couldn't, because I hadn't befriended her, so she contacted me offline and we agreed to use GTalk to IM each other.
One night, we started a chat that went almost to the wee hours of the morning. It was nice, it was fun, it was great, but I thought okay, this is just a fluke onetime occurrence. The next night, same thing. The night after that, same thing. Pretty soon we were chatting an average of 2+ hours a night on Google Talk. Every, single, night.
You can't help but develop a fairly intimate virtual friendship after 10 or 20 or 30 hours of chatting. Pretty soon a lot of flirting has happened and you're signing off with "xoxo" and using words like honey and darling.
But in my case, the lady (should I say "girl" or "lady"? She's 30) lives hundreds of miles away, I've never seen anything but her online picture(s), and I'm wondering, Who is this person, really?
So naturally, I want to call her up on the phone.
But when I tell her this, she says no, please don't. I press her further, and she resists. She does not want to talk on the phone.
I considered the possibilities. Maybe she's actually living with someone and she's afraid her boyfriend will pick up the phone? Maybe she doesn't want to run up her cell-phone bill? (That's all she has is a cell phone.) Maybe she's embarrassed about her command of English or her accent? (She's from a non-English-speaking country.) Maybe she's hearing impaired or voice-impaired?
One by one I eventually ruled all of those possibilities out. In the meantime, though, I quickly backed away from the whole topic. I stopped asking if I could call. And I stopped asking why. (She said she just doesn't like phones. Um... right.)
I'm running out of room (and time) right now to finish this discussion, but I want to pick up on this topic tomorrow, so please come back and hear me out tomorrow. And let me know what you think.
One night, we started a chat that went almost to the wee hours of the morning. It was nice, it was fun, it was great, but I thought okay, this is just a fluke onetime occurrence. The next night, same thing. The night after that, same thing. Pretty soon we were chatting an average of 2+ hours a night on Google Talk. Every, single, night.
You can't help but develop a fairly intimate virtual friendship after 10 or 20 or 30 hours of chatting. Pretty soon a lot of flirting has happened and you're signing off with "xoxo" and using words like honey and darling.
But in my case, the lady (should I say "girl" or "lady"? She's 30) lives hundreds of miles away, I've never seen anything but her online picture(s), and I'm wondering, Who is this person, really?
So naturally, I want to call her up on the phone.
But when I tell her this, she says no, please don't. I press her further, and she resists. She does not want to talk on the phone.
I considered the possibilities. Maybe she's actually living with someone and she's afraid her boyfriend will pick up the phone? Maybe she doesn't want to run up her cell-phone bill? (That's all she has is a cell phone.) Maybe she's embarrassed about her command of English or her accent? (She's from a non-English-speaking country.) Maybe she's hearing impaired or voice-impaired?
One by one I eventually ruled all of those possibilities out. In the meantime, though, I quickly backed away from the whole topic. I stopped asking if I could call. And I stopped asking why. (She said she just doesn't like phones. Um... right.)
I'm running out of room (and time) right now to finish this discussion, but I want to pick up on this topic tomorrow, so please come back and hear me out tomorrow. And let me know what you think.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
A Love-Blog for Programmers? Written by a Guy?? WTF?
Yeah, I'm a guy, I'm a programmer, I write about romance and heartbreak -- get over it. Guys have feelings too. But make no mistake, this is not just a blog about guys, or for guys, or about girls, or for girls, or about relationships -- it's all of the above, plus a lot of personal soul-searching; it's therapy for yours truly, at times. And yeah, some of you out there are going to think it's just plain gay. But you know what? Gay people have hearts too. So if you're one of those insensitive mouth-breathers who think gay people are somehow different from the rest of the human race when it comes to matters of the heart, you can stop right here and go do you-know-what to yourself.
Know well, this blog is from the heart: It is based on heartfelt emotions and true-life experiences. It's a no-bullsh*t zone. And I count on your input (your comments) to help keep things real. If you have insights of your own to add, hard-won lessons to share, or you just want to pour your heart out for whatever reason at all, feel free to contribute. I look forward to your input. The world needs more people who know how to pour their hearts out.
One more thing. If by any chance you find anything of value here, anything you enjoyed reading or that helped you in some way, please tell a friend. This is the only programmer's blog with a geeky guy stupid enough to dump his heart out in public every day. Pass it on.
Know well, this blog is from the heart: It is based on heartfelt emotions and true-life experiences. It's a no-bullsh*t zone. And I count on your input (your comments) to help keep things real. If you have insights of your own to add, hard-won lessons to share, or you just want to pour your heart out for whatever reason at all, feel free to contribute. I look forward to your input. The world needs more people who know how to pour their hearts out.
One more thing. If by any chance you find anything of value here, anything you enjoyed reading or that helped you in some way, please tell a friend. This is the only programmer's blog with a geeky guy stupid enough to dump his heart out in public every day. Pass it on.
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