Fail At College

Falling in love and partnering up with someone is seen as the norm amongst the human population. In western society this follows the process of courting someone for a period of time until they can confirm their interest is reciprocated, fall disinterested, or know their interest will *never* be reciprocated.

One thing I find fascinating about this process is how “too much” interest can repel suitors whether it be from the initiator or the reciprocator. What one views as “love”, another can easily describe as obsessive. But why does obsessive love become repugnant to those who would otherwise be attracted if feelings were reduced?

Some might say it’s because “obsessive love” is not a valid form of “love.” I’d push back on this but I know semantic arguments do no good so I’ll remove the definitional ambiguities. I’m defining “love” as intense positive feelings for someone and “obsessive love” is when those feelings consume the majority of someone’s attention.

Questioning the existence of obsessive love is a good starting point for discussion though. To reject the existence of obsessive love implies a sanctity to the concept of love that the description of ‘obsessive’ would sully.

When people think of ‘obsessive love’ they might think of a stalker like Joe from ‘You,’ where the intensity of the obsessed’s feelings can cause them to inconvenience their target’s life in pursuit of their own needs. Although I’m only considering the case where both parties have already expressed initial interest in each other, the case of ‘Joe’ would still be helpful to analyze. Whenever an obsessor is silently influencing the decisions of their loved one, or the environment of their loved ones, I believe it’s from a place of hubris where the obsessor thinks they know what’s *best* for their loved one. Or worse, that *they are* what’s best for them.

Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad if the decisions obsessors steer their target away from *would* be seen as bad by the target, but in most cases this type of manipulation is unacceptable for most people. Personally I think the moral way to approach influencing the decision of a loved one is to make an argument containing all the context thought to be missing, and once they have all the context to let them make their own decisions. Any other interference is the enforcement of one’s world views onto another.

What I think is more interesting is the case where an obsessive lover in a relationship *doesn’t* interfere with their partner and appears to be the all-loving, no-inconvenience-having significant other. Someone who gives you your space, but who’s universe still revolves around you when alone. This seems like the perfect partner so why does this seem like an uncomfortable situation to be in?

Well if the non-obsessive lover loves the obsessive lover, it might be worrying to have the entirity of someone’s mental state depending on them. The obsessive partner may not be needy in the traditional sense but there does need to be a good relationship going between them and their partner all the time or they will fall into a bout of depression.

One last reason I can think of as why someone might not want to be in the situation of having an obsessively loving partner is what I call “the expectation.” The expectation is the version of you your partner sees at any given moment. Sometimes the expectation is good (being a loyal partner) and sometimes the expectation is bad (like being a deadbeat), but there’s always an expectation. Really amongst all kinds of relationships, even non-romantic ones.

Now what an obsessive partner has as an expectation is clearly something they feel very strongly about. The scary part about that is the common inability of an obsessive partner to reconcile views that don’t match their expectation. They’ll either live in outright delusion in which they come up with all kinds of justifications for expectation-aberrant behavior, or they’ll come to their senses and drop their partner.

Sometimes the love of an obsessive partner is inflexible and incapable of growing along with the increasing knowledge of their partners. The deviance from the expectation can be as small as not donating a dollar to a homeless person on the street when their partner thought they would, or enjoying a sports game when their partner thought they were too nerdy to.

Obsessive love that’s too flexible means an obsessive lover can be swayed just as easy as they were acquired while an obsessive lover who’s inflexible means they can leave you at the drop of a hat. They may not love you, they might just love the clichéd *idea* of you. I don’t think there’s a middle ground. If you’re obsessive it means you feel strongly about something that’s either common enough to make you fall easily and obsessively for anyone, or restrictive enough that favor can be dropped just as quickly as it was earned.

In my opinion the best kind of love is one that is large and encompassing but not to the point where there’s no room for anything else. This kind of love should be slowly nurtured over time and become something that uniquely manifests as an appreciation for the idiosyncrasies of the person they love in a way that it can’t easily be moved on from or applied to another. Generally my advice is to steer clear of the fast and obsessive kinds of love and look for the love that can be fostered and grown between the people that share it.

It has been 7 years since I’ve started this blog. It’s essentially a diary of sorts but it doesn’t document my life. Each post represents a thought I had that was either self-regarded as noteworthy or emotionally impactful for me at that time. This domain ‘failatcollege’ was originally a cathartic way for me to document my struggles during college. I’d like to believe the younger me was never so naive as to believe my failures would all end at college but I’d be lying if I said a part of me didn’t hope so.

Going through life feels like nothing more than a carrot-chasing exercise where the carrot holding mechanism fails just enough to keep me from starving. These carrots might be enough for others but for me it’s barely enough to avoid contracting scurvy. Or maybe I just need different food sources from the average individual.

One of my biggest issues is not understanding, or relating to, many other people. My predilections differ from others and I’m incapable of deriving pleasure from most everyday things. Despite this I try my best to go through the motions of these activities to connect with others and hope that I can add one of their activities to my own favorable-activity repertoire. I try really hard at this and a common theme throughout my life is seeking to understand other people so that I can one day be understood myself.

I’d argue most other people want the same thing. Some people state their mission statement as loving others and being loved themselves but I believe there’s some ambiguity with that statement. What does it mean to love others and be loved, and what qualifies as an expression of love?

I believe a pre-requisite to (and maybe even a form of) love is understanding. How can one be loved if they can’t be understood? I think that’s why I work so hard to understand others because if I don’t, how could I love them? Most expressions of love I see are close enough to give verisimilitude to the feeling of being loved but they will never get there until the person being loved is loved for who they are.

There are many facets to an identity but they are typically not equally weighted. A busty girl could be loved for her big boobs for example, but very rarely does she want to be loved only because of them. Being understood means having someone value the only thing that sets us apart from all the other creatures on this Earth — our minds. That’s not to say everyone wouldn’t like to be loved for all aspects of their being but a love that can’t comprehend another’s thoughts, feelings, and emotions will ultimately feel empty in my opinion. But understanding is just the start of being able to love as it’s only one expression of it.

The desire to use one’s understanding of another to make them happy is what makes up the rest of the difference. Ironically, one of the things that made me come to this realization was a movie I watched a while back, ‘Batman: The Killing Joke’. It’s a common theme in Batman to heed the relationship between Batman and the Joker as one based on understanding. Some say the Joker wouldn’t exist without Batman being there to analyze and thwart his every crime. Part of the reason he commits all these heinous crimes is because that’s one of the ways he can be understood. Batman typically figures out what the Joker is plotting which sets him in a reaffirming loop.

They can even be seen laughing together in the movie when the Joker tells Batman a joke about how ridiculous it would be for Batman to try and rehabilitate the Joker. Their relationship is undeniable and in the end the Joker’s ultimate goal is to let Batman feel understood by forcing Batman’s hand in making decisions the Joker believes will free Batman of his stress. The last scene of the movie shows Batman and Joker fighting in a lover’s cave in a last-ditch attempt to free Batman of his moral burdens. The Joker does this by pushing Batman to the point where he almost kills the Joker, giving the Joker the satisfaction of seeing Batman lose control and assume what the Joker believes to be his true self. It ends with the Joker essentially committing suicide as his dying act of love as his death would debase the moral pedestal the public puts on Batman and give him the freedom to act as he pleases.

This post may be seen as having a shade of romance to it but really it came from a resentful place. Resentment towards this world, my place in it, and the powers that be. This world is absurd and somehow I feel like the only one who is slowly morphing into a being of hate from the absurdity. But this post is lengthy enough so I’ll finish my musings in a follow-up post and expand on what it has to do with my status report.

“Why are you with him if you still feel alone even when your together?”

And why not me?

“He’s done things with you and been with you in ways that I never have. To me, that *is* dating. How is that not dating?”

And why not me?

“You’ve already hurt me in the past, I’m just trying not to get hurt in the future. I think some reflection would be good for you and whoever you end up with”

And why not me?

Every statment I utter through the phone has an undercurrent of anger and hopelessness. It becomes a challenge to hold my voice steady through my rapid breathing signaling my elevated heartrate.

Subconsciously I’ve been hoping for something that should have been relequished long ago. A future with the only person who could call me 7 days straight without annoying me. With someone who had admirable goals and somewhat interesting perspectives. Someone who I could enjoy talking and listening to. But I ignored all the signs of me getting fucked over.

I was way too invested in someone I never felt I could get commitment from, and scared to ask for it because I knew I couldn’t trust her to uphold it. “Maybe I could get commitment over time,” I thought, allowing my most fantastical thoughts to take form.

The commitment level was so low, there was still another guy in the picture. The fact I thought I could build a relationship with her was delusional. I didn’t want to play second fiddle to anyone yet I stuck through it, ignoring how bad it fucked with me mentally.

Still I rooted for a future where I would be the only one, willfully ignoring the abysmal situation I was in. I clearly cared more for her than she did me and it’s frustrating acknowledging my own stupidity. The “other guy” had his contact as “my king” on her phone and probably had me under “dumbass”. When I spent time contemplating how I could come to where she was, someone else spent time coming inside her. It’s absolute madness and it will be a constant reminder of who I need to become going forward.

Eventually I stopped asking “And why not me?” and started asking “Why me?”. It’s not that the old question magically went away, I just started to accept the fact that she didn’t see me as worthy of commitment. The nasuea-inducing heartbreak motivated me to ask how I put myself into this position.

I was looking for an answer to the “and why not me” question without understanding the true motivations of the girl who I wanted to choose me. I ignored the simple truth that she didn’t care about me as much as I did her. I was the person designated to keep chasing her as her backup. Someone so emotionally invested that I couldn’t even stand up for myself and uphold the rules I’ve made for myself.

All I really wanted was for her to be my girlfriend which basically just required her not to fuck other guys. Ultimately I was never worth even a month of celibacy and put in way less than I got out. Instead of celebrating a one year anniversary with someone who I could’ve been in a relationship with, I’m wallowing over my own fuckup where I chased a girl who played me.

And maybe beat his face in a little bit. He borders on someone who I feel shares similar behavior to at times, but that I also hate with an intense passion. Maybe it’s because I think he’s full of contradictions and regardless of whatever his IQ is or how well he performs at his job, I walk away a lot from him thinking “wow, this guy is kind of stupid.” I find myself saying it in A LOT of ways. He’s a hippie with a self-righteous stride about him who touts what many would consider hippie-like values. He’s the type of guy who’s opposed to war, appreciates nature and likes protecting the environment, and loves taking drugs. On the same note he’s also the type of guy to *gently* push his views onto others. He’s a sensitive guy who I may not be walking on eggshells around, but maybe it’s more like vases.
What brings me to the hate post for today is his unwavering love for his cat. What pisses me off about his love for his cat is his reason for loving her — his adulation for her “cuteness”. I’ll gloss over my disdain for pet ownership here as well and will focus on what I mean by him loving her because she’s cute. As a pet, she’s not the most desirable. She meows a lot but for no apparent reason as she does this short periods after eating and runs away on encounter, she runs full speed at random times through the house with no explanation, and she barfs a lot and has medical complications that run medical bills to the hundreds if not thousands. To put it in short words, she’s stupid like her owner.
Now I don’t immediately dislike weird behavior (I’m a weird person myself), but what infuriates me is the lack of self-awareness of one’s subjective opinions. My roomate is one such person who has an intense hatred for littering for example and acts like someone who tosses a paper out the window should be addressed for their high moral offense. What I wonder about is where this anger comes from. Is it because he’s personifying nature and feels he must defend nature’s feelings from getting hurt? Is he trying to make a stance for the future generation because he thinks that one piece of paper will affect his kids in the future? Is he just angry at the fact they’ve slightly cluttered a small area enough to corrupt his aesthetic? If it’s a problem he has with the desecration of nature, then the best thing that he could do for nature is, in the words of my roommates past, suicide to reduce his ecological footprint. I could even help him with goals for that one! The other 2 reasons he could be angry would just reinforce my belief that he’s an absolute idiot.
Today I got riled up because he asked me to stop chasing his cat because maybe he thinks I’ve deeply emotionally scarred his animal slave. What his small drug-addled brain fails to understand is that the cat literally does not care. I’ve done it to get her to stop meowing, which it’s pretty affective at, which first starts with a process of me trying to pet her. If she runs off on the first pet and she keeps meowing then she’ll bolt and I leave her. Now if she’s still meowing after that I’ll keep chasing her until it stops. Maybe she’ll learn from the bad behavior, but judging from the fact that 50% of the time she comes right back out of the room within 2 minutes and meows again, indications are showing she’s not all that in-tune to learning like her pea-brained owner.
Anyway his one comment is making me use 90% of my will power to restrain myself from trying to physically destroy him. His annoying levels have reached new heights and if he was smart enough he would notice the rising tensions and leave my house soon since it’s been more than a month at this point. He did pay me $1000 for the month of May (even when I said it was okay not to) but I don’t want the rent payment for one month to suddenly negate my wishes for him to stay 1 month. In fact I told him the expectation was 1-2 months after detailing past hardships with previous roommates overstaying. Hopefully we make it through the next 2 weeks when he’ll hopefully organize somewhere for himself to stay. It’s not like he’s hurting for money so I’m surprised at how long it’s taking him (especially because he already stated that he would already try and find a place for the intermediate month in-between my place and his future long-term residence). Again, let’s hope I can survive these next couple weeks without catching a case.

I’ve been seeing a common pattern amongst my friends where they’ll bring up certain fringe views they believe in and try to argue them as being more natural than the more popular ones. “Natural” meaning closer to our biological human instinct rather than something culturally derived. 

While I admire their acknowledgment of cultural impact on social norms, I typically disagree with the beliefs they end up championing. In fact, I’d like to argue that their usage of the word “natural” is typically self-serving and misguided.

It’s misguided because rather than “natural” just being a word describing the processes that humans are scientifically proven to be susceptible to, it’s instead used as a term to denote something as “better” than whatever is deemed “unnatural”. Meanwhile there are many instances where doing the unnatural thing is better than what the natural thing to do is. Of course to use words like “better” we need a measurable metric, so let’s say “better” is being applied to physical and mental health.

Examples where the “natural” thing to do can lead to worse outcomes than the “unnatural” thing are plentiful. Someone would be hard pressed proving the majority of learned (and therefore “unnatural”) behaviors deriving from years of human experience are all worse than what’s “natural” . Examples of “unnatural” behaviors range from hygiene-related things like brushing one’s teeth to the adherence of laws directing people not to murder each other.

Not everything “unnatural” is good of course, but I just wanted to point out that natural and unnatural things both come in flavors of good and bad.

Keep in mind this is all in-line with *my* definition of natural.  Maybe there’s a definition of natural we could all agree with that could provide a better argument for all natural things being good. I just can’t pin one down. 

When there’s no universal definition of “natural” within people’s minds, it becomes a proxy for people’s personal values. Whatever is “natural” is just what a person thinks is “good”. In this case their value judgment is guiding their definition of the word.

My main problem with people using the “natural” argument is when they use it to attack what they think is unnatural and the people who undergo these “unnatural” behaviors. I’ve heard the “natural” argument used to attack things like abortion, gay marriage, and even monogamy. 

Personally I believe that the basis of ones moral system shouldn’t be based off some perceived will of the universe manifested as a definition of “nature” that can’t fit human ingenuity into its definition. When people use this higher power/grand design argument, they’re copping out of thinking for themselves. These people would rather hide behind the argument of intelligent design than acknowledge the reality that they might just be uncomfortable with the unknown and the different.

Another potential reason for championing ideas as natural might stem from an inability to fit in or succeed in a world where the ideas opposite to theirs are the norm. I’ve seen this exemplified in people who say working is not normal because they can’t find a job, or that monogamy is unnatural because they can’t remain loyal to one person in a romantic relationship.

In these cases I think the derision for the “unnatural” is a defense mechanism for those individuals and is a desperate attempt to make themselves “normal” or “natural”. I can relate to this as I’ve almost definitely done this myself. The logic behind it is “I’m not the odd one out, everyone else shared the same values but were conditioned to believe in something else I was too smart to fall subject to.” In this way I could dismiss my inability to appropriate to society and not feel as lonely in my views.

To wrap this up, I want to say that there’s nothing wrong with aspiring for a workless society, nor is there anything wrong with practicing polyamory. I just don’t believe in actively fighting against the opposites of those (or any) beliefs unless they fundamentally go against one’s core values. Everyone needs to find out what those core values are for themselves and why they hold them as well. I personally believe that the right values to hold are those that you cannot be happy without upholding, not those that stem from trying to escape the discomfort of not being able to understand other views. 

Maybe one day we can all work towards a world where we can come closer to understanding each other and no one has to feel left out or ostracized because of differences in beliefs. A world where ideas are respected and discourse can exist between both different-minded and like-minded individuals alike. Despite the current cultural landscape I believe we’ve been able to make great strides towards this goal and desperately hope we can continue in this direction for the sake of a brighter future.

Thinking too much has always been a major problem of mine. That’s how I find myself writing this post at 1:45AM. I just had a conversation with one of my closest female friends and went to bed feeling strangely morose. I was acting like I wasn’t and didn’t bring it up, but now I can’t go to sleep because I can’t rest until this feeling is unraveled. All I know is that the root of this feeling is related to her.
In our conversation today we went back and forth revealing and discussing our deepest fears. During this process I debated and ultimately decided to tell her my biggest fear underlying all of my problems — the fear of being different. Different enough to be labeled an anomaly and un-extraordinary enough to warrant ostracism. The big irony here is that this friend I was talking to is the source of many insecurities revolving not being normal. She contributes to this feeling of being different by offering advice on how to overcome some of these insecurities. These tips provide less comfort by offering solutions I believe to not work from every part of my being, therefore making some of these problems seem more intractable.
There’s also another reason that I was hesitant to write because it’s embarrassing, but since the hallucination caused by sleep deprivation are coming in I’ll just say it outright. Part of the irony of her making me feel more estranged is her romantic feelings towards me. Sometimes there’s verbal affection but I don’t know how she actually feels. Now the shameful part of this is that the doubts come from physical shows of affection. The problem is I don’t feel any from her which brings up a multitude of issues in my head. She’s informed me of her previous sexual partners, and from what I’ve gathered, there’s been multiple times where she compromised on looks and personality. The fact that she doesn’t seem to take any interest in me (aside from some previous talk over the phone in the past) would therefore imply that I’m worse in the looks department, personality department, both departments, or a new department entirely.
Alright I’m delirious enough from sleep deprivation to deliver a closer analysis that’s both blunt and to the point. Because I’m using sex to signify a level of connection with her that I don’t have, and the fact others have had sex with her means they were able to get that aspect of connection. The bad feeling I’m left with (or was since my brain is shutting down for sleep) was the working assumption that I’m too different to be loved in the same way as them. Whether this is a result of a physical limitation or a personal one I have no idea but all I know is that I’m doing something different enough from those other guys to be a lot less desirable. Mix this in with a talk about my insecurities and me getting an increasing feeling of romantic indifference from her digs at the fact I’m less desirable than the other guys and that hurts. It’s a manifestation of unrequited feelings and heartbreak.

I’ve been thinking about the problem of fetishization for some time now and have been trying to think of why it’s frowned upon when it comes to dating. Is it actually something bad or is it something that’s just looked down upon when actively acknowledged? Maybe fetishization is more prevalent than one might think, like when a guy says he only likes blondes or exclusively dates black girls. Are those forms of fetishization, and if they are, is everyone collectively deciding to dismiss their own bouts of fetishization as something else? To explore more of this concept I’ll do what I always do — get my definitions in order. It’s hard to make an argument when both sides aren’t on the same page about the subject matter at hand.
Google describes fetishization as “a form of sexual desire in which gratification is linked to an abnormal degree to a particular object, item of clothing, part of the body, etc.”. I’m interpreting this definition to mean an individual getting a disproportionate amount of sexual gratification from one quality or trait compared to a collective set of traits. I also want to note that when it comes to dating, someone with a fetish for one quality doesn’t necessarily have to limit themselves to liking that one quality (so personality, etc can play a part as well).
As a straight male I had a funny thought conceptualizing every straight person as having a fetish with the opposite gender. A lot of people find relationship candidates based on the other person’s gender, and a gender is all but one trait. Seeing how much importance we as humans put on biological gender, you’d think we’d all be considered fetishizers!
To focus on trying to dissect when/how fetishization is a problem, I decided to include arguments from someone who has written a blog post on fetishization and their supposed problems with it. Specifically the post discusses the fetishization of asian women. The post can be found here: https://serenalihere.substack.com/p/yellow-fever-how-much-do-you-tolerate
Reading the first part of the article, it seems that her main gripes of asian fetishization lies with men liking asian women based on false presumptions/stereotypes. This also encourages a level of unwarranted familiarization amongst the guys because they feel like they’re closer to asian women due to their “understanding” of their culture.
This fetishization and false understanding of culture that comes along with an asian fetishes is what distinguishes asian fetishes from something like a blonde fetish in her opinion. This accompanying fetishization of culture links those who have the fetish to possibly assume incorrect things about the asians they meet, and may end up liking asian women for the “wrong” reasons. “Wrong” reasons being when a fetishizer likes qualities that are not existent on the person. She elaborates on this point by expanding on this idea of the “Geisha” package.
Then the author goes on to question whether all interracial love involving those who can’t understand each other are all forms of fetishization. I’d like to analyze that statement and ask whether it makes sense to have a problem with this in the first place. Fetishization of culture is bad when the qualities generally assumed to be within a culture are assigned to a random individual of a race associated with said culture. Fetishizing a culture that someone does practice doesn’t seem inherently bad as long as it’s not a presumed observance of a culture.
Finally she asks “How do people fall in love if they can’t even communicate in the first place? It must have been fetishism that started everything, no?” before ending with her “halfass proposal”. To the first question I ask, why does a line need to be drawn? Drawing a line assumes there can only be one or the other when in fact these categories are *not* mutually exclusive and an individual can have any subset of these 2 traits (have fetish with no romance, have romance with no fetish, and have a fetish and real romance). To her expansion of “her halfass proposal” she pretty much says she’ll deal with these moral ambiguities of fetishization by recognizing it’s okay for people to have types, understanding people fetishize and generalize traits after seeing a societal standard of beautify exemplifying those traits, and setting boundaries on those who have fetishes that make her uncomfortable.
In the end she questioned whether her problem with “fetishes” is really a problem with “misogynistically objectifying someone’s culture” and understands that the discomfort she feels may not exist in the raw definitions of the word. With that, I think she gave a pretty good treatment to the concept of fetishization and addressed her exact problems that came with her own personal experiences of fetishization.
I personally came away learning something about why some people may frown on fetishizers (due to other accompanying aspects) and hope to learn more people’s perspectives on fringe topics in the future. I don’t think this knowledge will necessarily dispel any active opponents of fetishizers (like people who hate foot fetishizers because they think liking feet is gross), but maybe someone who’s open to tackling why they see things how they do will come along to sympathizing with those fetishizers and in the process accept that they may be fetishizers in their own ways.

Ever since I was a kid I’ve always wondered what it is that motivates people to do bad things, and what separates good from bad in the first place. I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s the disconnect between 2 things we know as morality and desire. Desire arises almost uncontrollably and causes people to commit acts for the sake of pleasure, while morality exists as a school of thought concerned with good and evil. I was tempted to say morality is the desire to do good, but I couldn’t quite say that since someone can acknowledge ‘bad’ things and still want to do them.’Having morals’ doesn’t implywanting to upkeep them.

So what makes a person stray from the desire to upkeep their morals? The answer to that question is the strength of one’s desire. If one desires to do something they know is ‘bad’ more than they care for the external and internal consequences of doing something bad, then to hell with morality!

How about this, can a person be ‘good’ within a moral system even when their thoughts are ‘bad’? If you ask most people that question I’m sure they’d say the thoughts are the most valuable part of being ‘good’ but I question whether anyone can uphold a system where none of their thoughts violate the principles of their moral system.

I have a close female friend who is steadily growing older and can’t find a partner to settle down with. Sometimes she talks about finding a man with similar qualities to me and that makes me cringe because she is the antithesis of everything I want in a woman. Needless to say, she’s probably also the antithesis of what guys who are like me look for as well.

After giving it some thought I decided to write down all the things I believe are holding her back in a no-holds-barred blog post. I’m writing things that I wish I could tell her in person but can’t because I don’t think she’d take it constructively. That’ll bring me to my first point — she’s unable to process information that doesn’t fit her predefined worldview.

I believe this stems from her sense of entitlement. She has a mental model of the rules she thinks everyone should play by and “righteously” berates anyone who goes against her warped sense of morality. For example, when she does something nice for someone, she expects something in return. It makes everything she does seem like a transaction. Like she’s saying “I’ll do something for you now, but I’ll collect on your gratitude later” whenever she does something nice for someone else. When she feels as if the favors she’s deserved aren’t doled out to her, she has these child-like fits of anger which frankly showcase a lack of self-control.

There’s also her issue of indifference towards doing basic tasks. Whether it’s making sure her room isn’t covered in dirty clothes or preventing old food from rotting in her room, there seems to be a lack of care put into completing even the most basic things in her life. Who wants their life partner to be someone who can’t separate their dirty clothes from their clean clothes? Or someone who can’t wash a dish properly without there being food on it afterwards? Although there are guys who are willing to take care of all domestic duties, I don’t many people would accept such an uneven distribution of responsibilities.

She also makes a lot of excuses. She has been diagnosed with a few mental maladies like anxiety but my problem with her is that she uses these diagnoses as an excuse for not pursuing her goals. I’m all for people learning their limits and how far they can push themselves, but some people don’t even try to find where their limits are at all. It’s annoying when someone is constantly bringing up a mental ailment as an excuse not to try something uncomfortable. I’m all for understanding one’s limits, but I will not stand for people not pushing themselves to whatever their limits to get better at something.

I could go on and on with examples of how this girl exemplifies all of these traits along with other vices like her addiction to cigarettes and need for social validation but I think I’ll wrap this up on a good note. Nearing one’s 40s as a bachelorette is never easy. She’s always wanted someone who understands her but I think she’s starting to feel as if no guys want to. Understanding that there’s a problem is half the battle so maybe internalizing this knowledge into her feedback loop will help her grow into a person that’s worth the effort of understanding. After some growth, maybe she can meet a man who can help her where she’s at and encourage mutual growth among the both of them. Those are the relationships that tend to be the strongest since committing to someone is hard, and true love is a lot more work than most people make it out to be.

On one occasion, when talking to one of my past roommates, I remember asking her why she couldn’t disagree with someone and be nice about it. She followed that question with another question so profound that it prompted me to write this post — “Why”?

I thought about what she said and for the first time in my life I contemplated the “why” of being nice. Are most people kind in anticipation of reciprocation? Is it something deeper than that, inherent to human nature maybe? Maybe it’s just a survival mechanism to appease threats?

Like most of the musings in this blog, I don’t have the answer to those questions but I’d like to explore the topic by first pinning down some definitions.

What IS “kindness”? The definition I found on Google says “the quality of being friendly, generous, and considerate.”

Okay, well…what definition can I find for “friendly”?

According to Google it should mean…”kind and pleasant.”

Great, a circular definition.

Looking at the other two words in the definition of kindness, generous and considerate, we get the following two definitions respectively: “showing a readiness to give more of something[…],” and “careful not to cause inconvenience or hurt to others.”

For now let’s define being kind as the willingness to give more resources to another person than needed and not actively trying to hurt others.

Now what are some logical reasons one should be nice from a game-theoretic perspective? With the assumption that being on the receiving end of an act of kindness may bring someone happiness, in the case of a power imbalance, the weaker party can strategically wield kindness as to not be the target of hostility. The stronger party can also get something beneficial from being kind as it may imbue a sense of loyalty in the weaker party. This type of gratitude-bred loyalty can help cement the stronger party’s position.

In the case where both parties hold similar power like a weak-weak or strong-strong relationship, the incentive for being kind may take form in the wish for support from peers. As said before, getting others to like you cements one’s own power. This of course makes the implicit assumption that all parties enjoy being at the receiving end of kindness.

Unraveling more assumptions from my previous arguments, what if weak parties don’t care about survival and being nice to those stronger than them? What if those in power don’t care about cementing their power and being nice to those weaker than them? What is the incentive for being nice when it doesn’t directly benefit the individual showing kindness?

From this perspective nothing stops one another from being mean or indifferent to each other. Well for those cases I think we’d all like to believe that our ethical principals will always lead us away from malfeasance.

Principals that are stemmed from the belief that others are capable of feeling and have even felt at some point in time the same range of emotions we ourselves feel — from love and joy to depression and grief.

I believe this acknowledgement of our shared feelings of joy and pain breeds empathy and a desire for others to be happy that can’t be explained away.

Being nice and the desire to please is as fundamental to the human experience as some of our more biologically dictated instincts like eating or drinking. There may be no “real” reason for being nice, but I’d also say (with that logic) that there’s no “real” reason to do anything. In the end, I’d like to believe most of us can relate to the sentiment of doing no harm — physically and emotionally — and can always strive to be nice regardless of the accompanying rewards.