Things I Learned At The Whiskey Bar
- Everyone — and I mean everyone — between the ages of 25 and 30 used to watch The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air
- The token Asian guy has a fraternal connection with the other token Asian guy in every clique
- Fire has the ability to bring out people’s primal natures, and make them throw their hands in the air and wave them like they just don’t care (or some reasonable facsimile thereof)
- Some people think they’re never too old to get hooched up for a Saturday night
- A good DJ can make you feel like you never left high-school
- Even at 27, I still look like I’m 18, according to the bouncer who carded me
A Thousand Kisses Deep
I can gather all the news I need on the weather report.
Hey, I’ve got nothing to do today but smile.
Da-n-da-da-n-da-da-n-da-da and here I am
The only living boy in New YorkHalf of the time we’re gone but we don’t know where,
And we don’t know here.
—Simon and Garfunkle, The Only Living Boy in New York
Every day, we get caught up in our lives.
We adopt pets to give us a sense of family. We eat breakfast at work or in the car to save ourselves time so we can work some more. We scorn those who express emotion, we avoid eye contact with strangers on the street.
Everything we do — the food we eat, the movies we watch, the home team we cheer for, our coffee shop romances — they’re just trying to fill that hole, that gap that’s missing, the only way we feel alive.
We don’t slow down, we don’t figure things out. We don’t reflect and appreciate what we have.
Like strawberry cheesecake ice cream with a thick graham cracker swirl. Like the serenity of the snow that falls around us, when heaven decides to bless the earth.
Life gets in the way of living.
And now I realize just how guilty I’ve been of this. I’ve been looking for love, but never recognized it when I found it. All I ever wanted to do was lie in bed, look into your eyes, and go through my favourite albums with you. But I never did. And now I wonder. Why can’t we just live? We can’t we just love?
Sometimes you have to stop. You can’t capture everything. You need to throw yourself in.
A thousand kisses deep.
The Spot
If a woman sleeps alone, it puts a shame on all men. God has a very big heart but there is one sin he will not forgive: if a woman calls a man to her bed and he will not go.
—Zorba the Greek
There exists a spot on every woman that needs to be kissed.
It can be as innocuous as the curl of the lip, the web of the hand, or a mark on a landscape of skin.
It’s the responsibility of a man to find this spot. Not as a service to the woman — sometimes she isn’t even aware of such a spot — but as a service to the creator of such things.
A Loss of Faith
Been having an insane argument with a person on Flickr over a “racist” picture of me and Bronwen.
Are people really this asinine? I really don’t want to believe it, but it’s kinda hard when they repeatedly go beyond all sense of logic.
There goes my faith in humanity.
Please, please, please, let this be a joke.
Hugging Etiquette
She hugged me yesterday. I thought I was over her, but maybe I’m still smitten. Physical contact does funny things to the mind.
I don’t understand why girls are so into hugging. Often, I’ll go for a handshake, and as if it doesn’t take, they’ll lean in to hug afterward. A girl once asked if she could hug me after I explained to her my procedure for checking a cat before adoption. Figure that one out.
The funny thing is that most girls aren’t very good huggers. They give limp hugs — more of a pressing of the arms to the body — and it bugs the crap out of me. It’s like getting a soft handshake, also referred to as the “limp noodle”.
Bronwen’s an exception. I always give and get a bear hug from her when I see her and when she leaves. Sometimes we fight for arm positioning, because we both prefer to have the arms lower than the other. I like to have my arms around a girls’ waist, whereas she likes to have her arms surrounded, so she feels protected.
The two Louise’s are/were also good at hugging. Nice and firm, without being too clingy. Maybe it’s a Louise thing.
It just makes me wonder; if girls are so into hugging, why aren’t they better at it?
A Truth is Worth a Million Words
You interpret my heart, my nature, as you wish to believe it.
— Onegin
People see what they want to see.
As I touched on a while back, some of it comes from insecurity. Other times, from a fallacy of projection as some people ignorantly, and megalomaniacally, believe that everyone must think and act as they do. There are a few other cases that don’t fit into either of these categories though.
An example: I once offered a guest in my house some yogurt. The first thing he asked was, “Is it going bad?”. He didn’t believe I would have given it to him otherwise. It was a perfect reflection of his deadbeat friends who expected you to eat before coming to a party, and he had never known any other type of people. A more extreme example is if you offered to feed someone at your house and they got insulted because they thought you were implying that they couldn’t afford to feed themselves. Some people see things that aren’t there. It’s an amazing subconscious sign of their characters.
The way some girls interpret things is also an interesting phenomenon. Some of them think a guy who’s talking to them must be hitting on them so they drop the b-bomb in random points of conversation, just to warn you they have a boyfriend. Some girls think you’re gay because you don’t make any advances towards them. Some girls think you’re torn up, depressed because they declined your advances, and end up making a bigger deal about it than you do. I want nothing more than to tell these girls to get over themselves, but I bite my tongue because they end up embarrassing themselves more than I could ever do myself.
There are also times when a person is so pig-headed and stubborn that they see everything through a filter, interpreting your actions in some crazy way, and believe you’re at fault because they subconsciously refuse to see their own mistakes.
The old me would have been insulted when someone assumes I’m a certain way. Nothing would anger me more than someone presuming to know how I feel or what I’m like, and I used to care desperately what they thought, even if I knew I was just misunderstood. It’s an interesting feeling to be passed that now1.
I’ve learned never to take responsibility for other peoples’ interpretations. Only take responsibility for your intent. You learn a lot about a person from the way they interpret things and from the way they see the world.
With the truth in your heart, it doesn’t matter what anyone thinks.
With the truth on your side, nothing can go wrong.
- It’s actually been quiet a few months since I wrote this entry. I didn’t post it at first because I wanted to be absolutely sure that it wasn’t a fickle feeling, and that my strength was firm. Reading back on it now, it seems more relevant than ever. [↑]
A Feint Within A Feint Within A Feint
Knowing where the trap is — that’s the first step in evading it. This is like single combat, Son, only on a larger scale — a feint within a feint within a feint…seemingly without end. The task is to unravel it.
—Duke Leto Atreides, Dune
A feint can be used as a test, to gather information, or a trap, to get someone to do what you want them to do, or both.
The most important part to understand is that the opponent is inherently involved in the situation. You can only gain advantage from a feint depending on the way he or she (re)acts.
A savvy person will react with exactly the right amount of effort, especially important because a feint is only a mock attack. In Tai Chi terms, they balance an opponent’s yin (expansion) with yang (compression), and vice-versa1. In Taoist terms, they act like a mirror, reflecting only that which is in front of them, nothing more and nothing less. With a savvy person, the feint fails, and nothing is gained.
An ignorant person will fall for the trick. They overreact and unbalance themselves2, exposing their vulnerabilities. Without understanding true intention, without seeing the big picture, they get played like a sucker.
And the more they react, the more ridiculous they look.
A Staple In My Tea
I just found a staple — a used, bent staple — in my loose leaf Mao Feng tea from Nihao Tea House. I don’t know if I can trust Nihao anymore, which is unfortunate, as it’s the only tea house in the vicinity.
The girl who works there is somewhat of an anomaly; a Canadian-born Chinese, I’d say only a few years younger than me, wearing a Mickey Mouse shirt. My generation of CBCs usually adapt to the Canadian way of life, eschewing the cutesy culture of Hello Kitty, designer stationary, and stuffed car ornaments. An impostor, by banana1 standards, like a rogue staple among some tea leaves.
- yellow on the outside, hollow on the inside [↑]
The Old Boys of '99: Providing Ignorance as Bliss
I decided to privatize the profiles in my “Old Boys of ’99″ series from now on. Much like this blog, the series was meant to be a sort of memoir, a way for me to reminisce about the past. A low-key deal.
One of my fellow Old Boys found out, and it appears that word-of-mouth is spreading like wild-fire. Visits have increased considerably as links are being e-mailed back and forth.
I never thought that I made any kind of impression on anyone at Upper Canada College, or that anyone I went to school with would actually care to see what I wrote. Evidence of this fact is that I only keep in touch with two people from those days in high-school.
This is a first for me. There were a few times that I considered password protecting my posts, simply because I thought certain things would be too embarrassing to admit or talk about, but I’ve always forced myself to be honest and open.
This series, on the other hand, is where I’m honest about other people. Some of them took offense to what they read in one entry. They lashed out at me, because they didn’t like what was being said.
They’d rather live in denial, or stay oblivious about what other people think of them, and can only cover it up with anger. I’ve made the decision that it’s best for them not to know.
Those who know me well will know the password. Those who don’t may apply.
The Old Boys of '99 Series
- Introduction
- Another Perspective
- Seeto and Bunston
- Mungovan and King
- Providing Ignorance as Bliss
- My Perspective
The Bias of Insecurity
I like to think that humans are, in general, cerebral beings, unaffected by bias or emotion.
But every time I’m met with a bigot, who has nothing to cling to but the strength of their opinions, I lose this hope.
The more they speak, the more they prove themselves as incapable of accepting anything but their own beliefs. Added to this is a lack of self-awareness, causing them believe that they’re not closed-minded, they’re just right.
Often it betrays an insecurity. You can tell that underneath their words, they harbour a subconscious feeling that they’re wrong. To make up for this, they express themselves strongly enough to convince themselves that they’re right.
As logically as you explain things, step-by-step, premise to conclusion, they won’t understand. They’ll never be able to accept the truth, and remain completely ignorant.
It’s impossible to have a discussion with someone like this.
The discussion is superficial, and the issue lies within the person themselves.
What To Accept?
They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.
—Andy Warhol
Many of my relationships, romantic or otherwise, are often approached, at least partially, based on the hope that the other person will change. This change can take the form of something as simple as promptness, as frustrating as tidiness, or as grand as self-centeredness.
Change, synonymous with improvement, has been the basis of my life. It takes a self-awareness of my faults, combined with a desire to change these faults, to improve. Assuming that others are the same way has been one of the biggest mistakes I’ve ever made. When the veil is lifted, and I realize that someone is stuck in their personality, I lose my faith in humanity. For the fraction of people who are conscious enough to know that they need to change, (and I mean this in an absolute sense, where almost anyone would agree that something needs improvement, such as temper or closed-mindedness) only a fraction of those are actually able to do so.
This means that when I meet someone, I either have to accept or reject them for who they are, because that’s most likely who they’re going to be for the rest of their lives. I have to stop accepting someone based on the hope that they will get better.
Acceptance, which has always been a difficult thing for me, thus becomes the most important thing in my relationships. It also remains one of the most hardest things for me to change.
So should I learn to accept this about myself, the way I should learn to accept things of others?
Just Forget
Jeff: I can tell you feel the same
dar: do you still talk to her?
Jeff: no…I actually specifically told her not to talk to me again
Jeff: cause of some creepy stalker shit she was doing
dar: hahaha
Jeff: and she still e-mails me
dar: damn..
dar: she’s going to kill you in the dark
Jeff: hahahahahahahahahhahahaaaahh
dar: she prob. knows where u live
dar: and watches you
In university I met Mike, half-heartedly doing his biology homework in my cryptology class to hang out with his old high-school friend, the latter of whom was one of my clique. Mike has an odd charisma. His outspokenness means that he exudes confidence, and the girls love him for it. I’m never really sure if his mild chauvinism is a serious attitude, or just something he projects around other guys to fit in. One of those sexist assholes the girls can’t seem to resist.
Those girls are only in the movies, I thought to myself. The dorky ones with the glasses who have impossible crushes on the main characters, who, in turn, are completely blind to the awkward advances. The girls who sacrifice their chance at happiness, because they love him so much and just want him to be happy, martyring themselves in the minds of teen audiences everywhere.
But they do exist. Those stubborn girls who still try to keep contact after you tell them you never want to speak to them again. The girls who continue to check your blog at an average of twice a day, some sick voyeuristic fascination.
Those girls you wished would forget about you, so you could forget about them.
The Power Of Freedom
I have an extremely difficult time dealing with people who choose to complain about something and do nothing about it. These are the people who gripe about the jobs that feed them, decry the relationships they’re too scared to leave, pine for better lives when a better life is only a few steps away. Religious doctrines of predestination aside, as humans we’re the masters of our fate. We control what happens, because we have the responsibility — the response ability — to make change happen.
And when life hands you lemons, make lemonade, try to find a guy whose life has given him vodka, and have a party.
Issues In Others
After going through therapy, I’ve started to recognize complexes and issues in other people.
Some put their hope in someone, then hurt them. Some only fall in love with people they can’t have, and as soon as interest is reciprocated, they lose the attraction. Strong signs of emotional deprivation, stemming from traumatic relationships. (Unfortunately, I’ve been the cause on more than one occasion, and it was my own issues that lead to this destructive behaviour where I didn’t treat a heart as delicately as I should have.)
Most people aren’t aware of their issues, but I’m always baffled by the ones who are aware and still don’t do anything about it. They repeatedly make the same mistakes over and over again.
I’ve always believed that self-improvement is the highest form of living, and I’ve been able to work through my own baggage, so I refuse to accept those who don’t work through their own.