Have you ever been alone in a crowded room when I'm here with you?

Have you ever been alone in a crowded room; well I'm here with you...

You know how they always say that to acknowledge and understand your shortcomings are the first step towards overcoming them? Well, it's the oddest thing but I find that I've become very forward about the way I interact with people in relation to my social retardation these days. I mean, a few days ago, I precursored (not a word) something with saying (roughly):

"This might seem a little odd but my social quotient is like zero or close to it so I'm not very good at understanding the subtleties of social cues and I need things to be put into words in order for me to understand anything. That being said... (insert unusual question regarding social interaction)"

I might just start doing that more often from now on.

Does anyone else find it weird that we say "I went golfing with so and so" and in doing so, somehow turn "golf" into an action? I mean, yes, I know "golfing" is in and of itself an action, but when people use it to refer to the sport? Like "I went baseballing/tennissing/soccering/volleyballing with so and so"? I've not been able to figure that out yet.

Like how I can't figure out why smoking pot exacerbates hunger.

Sitting at a table in a bar, surrounded by good people who were drinking, eating, and enjoying each other's company... I don't think Friday nights could possibly get any better. Except that it was Saturday morning. But still.

Proof that I'm not really being elitist when I say I only enjoy conversing with interesting people. A cursory glance at the most recent posts on my wall (made by *other* people) reveals:

"People are afraid of hermaphrodites, cyborgs, conjoined twins, and semi-colons, all for the same reason"

"I totallyyyyyy disagree with you. The leafs suck s***" (after I said the Leafs suck)

"I wasn't eating babies!!!"

"I think my head might implode - stay tuned for later details"

See! Interesting people are everywhere!

The way I see it, listening to good music is like drinking coffee. They're things that are best done when you're not doing anything else and you must take the time to savor the moment. This is why I can't listen to music while I work. It's like drinking coffee during dinner.

"We have this idea that love is supposed to last forever. But love isn't like that. It's a free-flowing energy that comes and goes when it pleases. Sometimes, it stays for life; other times it stays for a second, a day, a month or a year. So don't fear love when it comes simply because it makes you vulnerable. But don't be surprised when it leaves either. Just be glad you had the opportunity to experience it."
-- Neil Strauss

My body says I'm hungry but I don't feel like eating. Hmm.

I've been meaning to write something about this for a long time. Again, the thought has simply never struck me at a convenient time (i.e. I'm at my computer/have access to my computer/during a time when accessing my computer would be reasonable). But I've been hearing, all my life, but particularly with the onset of university, people constantly spewing off the following phrase (I know "spewing" has a bad connotation... I don't mean it as one but I couldn't think of a more accurate term): "I don't judge people" or "I try not to judge people". And for the longest time, this declaration (I guess this would be a better term than "spewing"), which has always been made with some amount of pride, has never completely sat well with me. I just never really spoke up because I couldn't think of a way to phrase a response that wouldn't me make me sound like a bigot. But I will try to do so now. And please, this post is not about any particular person, in case anyone reads this and instantly thinks "he's talking about me" (which might provide a sense of how ubiquitous this declaration has become).

As far as I can tell, there are actually 2 branches of this statement that sometimes get muddled up. Akin to the "knowing someone vs. knowing stuff about someone," here I find that people sometimes interchange "judging someone" and "judging what someone says/does". I'm going to tackle the latter statement first because to me, it's a little less complicated.

What, may I ask, is wrong with judging the actions or words of someone else? Or conversely, what is wrong with other people judging our actions or words? It seems to me to be supremely important to be capable of making judgments about these things. Not only that, but isn't that why you propound them in the first place? When you raise your hand to speak in class, or post something on blogger, aren't you openly inviting other people to comment on what you've said or written? You can't encourage people to agree with you if you're not ready to accept that people are going to critique your point of view/disagree with you. I mean, none of us are really so overconfident about our opinions that we think we're always right (at least I hope not). Say what you will about me being an intellectual/cultural elitist, I don't insist that everything I say or do is necessarily right; I'm just unwilling to accept a contrary view unless someone is able to demonstrate how the contrary view is more accurate than my own.

But back to our actions/words. Why are we so conscious of other people making judgments about our viewpoints? As long as they're not misinterpreting our viewpoint (which I sometimes think is the thing we're actually afraid of), it seems to me that you're never going to broaden your mind unless you're prepared to expand your own views based on other people's response to it. It's the same the other way around. Why are we so afraid of making judgments about other opinions? As long as we understand an opinion, I think it's supremely important that you take that opinion and decide for yourself whether or not you agree with it. It's one of these things where I'm trying to develop a habit in my classroom of always saying "but this is only my/the author's opinion. You have to make your own decision about whether or not you agree" because students are the perfect example of people who are willing to just absorb everything you say/present and accept it as the truth. The same goes for judging people's actions although that blends into actually judging people. What a convenient segway (not a word)...

I hope I don't get my head bitten off for this but again, it seems to me that it is supremely important for us to make judgments about people as well as their opinions! In fact, we do it all the time, day in and day out. You're not just going to befriend everyone around you are you? As much as I would love it if that happened, this doesn't happen! We make judgments about people to decide who we want to spend time with. We make judgments about people to determine whether or not they're worth our time, effort, and trust. Anyone who says they don't judge people based on looks is either a. LYING through their teeth or b. has never been ugly. If we never made judgments about people, we'd be extremely susceptible to being cheated, lied to, betrayed, taken advantage of... all sorts of unpleasant things.

So for those of you who are so fond of saying "I don't judge people," stop and think to yourself for a minute. Is that actually true? And if, by some miracle, it is, is it something you're really all that proud of? By the way, anyone who has ever turned down a potential suitor without giving him/her at least 1 date... you've already judged someone so you're definitely disqualified from making that statement. Like I said before, we judge people all the time. It's part of what makes us human. And for crying out loud, it's not a bad thing and we shouldn't be afraid of doing it or having it done to us. There are only 2 things we have to watch out for. The first is the mistake of not being open-minded enough to change our judgments... because people change their opinions all the time. As we grow and experience, we modify our views. And people change; their natures get better (or worse). The second thing we have to watch out for is applying judgments in a certain area to other, non-related areas. Just because I've judged someone to be an ignorant racist because he raves about white supremacy doesn't necessarily mean he's also a misogynist.

But that doesn't change the fact that we have to be able to make a decision based on what we're given. Imagine how wishy-washy we'd all be if none of us ever made any judgments on anything! And yes, sometimes, we make the wrong judgment. So what? At least we made one and it is GOOD. If we're wrong, then we should take responsibility for being wrong but it's better than never making a judgment because we're so afraid of being labeled as "judgmental". I'll let you in on a little secret. Those who we label as "judgmental" are just people who lack the social wherewithal to keep their opinions to themselves. It doesn't change the fact that EVERYONE makes them. The question of how we ACT upon our judgments... well, that's a different post altogether.

Good news! I don't lose my sarcastic edge when I'm insanely tired. That might be bad news. But I like to think I'm sarcastic in a kindly manner.

So I was conversing with a friend of mine the other night in the cafeteria. It was one of those days where I went down at 7:15 hoping the rush was over and intended on snagging a quick 10 minute meal before heading back to my room to "work". Apparently, she did the exact same thing with the exact same intentions. Needless to say, we took far longer than 10 minutes to finish our meal. So long, in fact, that by the time we left, I got this really eerie feeling of being practically the only person in the cafeteria (shameless digression: I was trying to type cafeteria and actually started out with faceteria... an obvious tribute to facebook's ubiquitous nature). But this is not the point. Actually, none of this has any bearing on the point of this post but I like painting a setting.

The point is this. We were talking of relationships (obviously, what else could keep my attention for that length of time) and she asked me whether or not I believed that everyone has a perfect match. And by perfect match, she didn't mean the perfect person; I suppose she meant it more like a perfect person for you so I wasn't supposed to get into a debate about how perfection does not exist. The question was a precursor to her concern about what she was "supposed to do" if she never meets the perfect person. Me, I was more concerned about the question of what in the hell a "perfect match" is supposed to mean.

I mean, if we take "perfect match" at its face value, we're talking about some sort of pinnacle. So that would mean we're describing someone who is better for you than anyone else. Now how on earth do we go about defining this? To take a hypothetical example, in the course of my life, I have liked certain girls well enough that I would have dated them. But obviously, due to us being well... human beings, they're all different. So I take that to mean that none of them were perfect for me?

Well ok, I admit that is very likely the case. But say I break down the principle behind why they were all so different. We've agreed that there is no such thing as a perfect person. What seperates a "perfect person" from a "person who is perfect for us"? Well, I like to go by a maxim that some genius once declared: that love isn't thinking that someone's perfect. Love is about understanding the imperfections; comprehending them; enduring them; and in spite of it all, still loving the one with them. Alright, so the perfect person for you is someone who you love, not only for who they are, but also in spite of what they're not.

But hold on. There are lots of things I could love people for and lots of things that I could love people in spite of. I mean, the girls that have walked in and out of my life, they are very distinct from each other because I would have loved each of them for the unique goodness that defines the good in them, and in spite of the unique flaws that define their imperfections.

So what is this "perfection" then? I seem to have reached a dead end. It would seem then, that a "perfect person for me" can't be possible. A person can't be flawless. And since I am able to love in spite a great variety of flaws, if Girl 1 has Flaw A and Girl 2 has Flaw B, one isn't really better for me than the other. And you can't seriously suggest that the quantity of flaws is the defining feature. I don't think that I'd define the girl who possesses ALL the flaws I could possibly endure as perfect for me. And it can't be the quality of flaws, as in the girl with the least offending flaws is perfect for me because that would undermine the original principle of these flaws being traits I could understand, comprehend, and endure, all the while loving the one with them.

It would seem then that a "perfect person" does not exist... or rather, if you want to look at this from a more positive way, there are many "perfect people" for us. They're all perfect because we can love them because of who they are and in spite of what they're not. And we love them because of different reasons and in spite of different flaws.

So rejoice! Don't worry about never meeting the perfect person. We meet them everyday, everywhere. We just have to open up, trust a little bit, and give them a chance - because you can't sweep people off their feet if you can't be swept off your own.

Man am I glad my don talked me into going to Wolf Island tonight. It was teh awesome.

I've come to note how many people walk into my 100 or 200 level classes with their laptops and seem seriously inconvenienced if they can't sit in a spot where they can plug their laptops in or if all the outlets are taken. It's crazy. You know, the thing that differentiates a laptop from a desktop, aside from mobility, is that your laptops do, in fact, come with batteries! Some people seem to forget this...

Or god forbid, take notes on a piece of paper.