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...

Christian, what does "deceptively" mean as an adjective? The debate in question being... um... if I may quote cracked.com:

"If you say (to a lady, perhaps), 'I possess a deceptively large set of balls,' you could mean that your modest bulge belies the real heft of your testicles, which are actually so pendulous that you're forced to strap them to your legs. However, you could also mean that you have tiny love eggs, and that your ball-shaped jean protrusions are actually caused by the hideous malformation of your wang."

I was actually 1 mouse click away from posting this question on your wall but I wasn't sure you'd appreciate it. This, by the way, is why I still keep a blog.

Ugh. You know what question I hate to see on teacher-ed assignments?

"How would you make accommodations for students requiring them?"

Not that making accommodations are a bad idea. But they range from students who are in a wheelchair to students who have autism. What kind of vague generality are you expecting me to spew forth? "I will assess the type of accommodations my students require and accommodate them accordingly."

Or do you want me to list every possible type of accommodation I may or may not have to make?

If a student has autism, I will...
If a student has a hearing disability, I will...
If a student is dyslexic, I will...
If a student has ADHD, I will...
If a student has a peanut allergy, I will...
If a student has leprosy, I will...

Why are people asking me, via facebook, where the town of Lindsay is? Google Maps, people!

Ugh, WHY would an LED company offer some measurements in radiometric frequencies and others in photometric frequencies? That's like building a house using metric measurements for some things and imperial measurements for others.

I had this amusing thought today: Stephanie, for all her character flaws, was always the girl I'd have had a blast with. For example, she's the only girl I know who likes Stars, Glee, and the Toronto Blue Jays. Anyhow...

Jon Wong on The Game (Part 3)

So Section Two tells us that this whole thing started when Neil Strauss decided to attend a pick-up-artist workshop conducted by Mystery. Neil Strauss calls himself Style and that's pretty much how he's referred to for the rest of the book.

"Think of tonight as a video game. it is not real. Every time you do an approach, you are playing the game."

That seems like a good quotation to point out the etymological significance of "The Game." When you play The Game, you treat it like an actual game: the point is to win. It must be quantifiable and perhaps most importantly, you can always start over. That, really, is one of the core principles behind why The Game is so misogynistic; the idea of starting over - like playing a video game - without a sense of personal loss. That means, 1: you dismiss the girl's thoughts and feelings from the entire procedure, and 2: whatever connection you make with a girl, be it good or bad, holds no meaning beyond proof of your ability to establish said connection.

There's also a term that crops up in chapter 2: negging (or the neg). It's closely allied to the idea of teasing and/or ignoring the girl you're actually interested in. Basically, the idea is that when the girl you're looking to pick up is part of a crowd (which will invariably be the case), the best way to get her to pay attention to you is to a. not pay attention to her, and then b. tease her. I mean, it might very well just be another term for "tease" but there's something about negging that's decidedly less... lighthearted. Again, I think this goes back to intent. Usually, when you tease, you do it on the fly, and it's meant to be charming because you're making fun of someone in a way that implies that you're joking with them because you think they're fun to be with. Negging is premeditated - the INTENT to let the girl know that you don't think she's perfect while simultaneously "granting" her wish to have attention bestowed upon her.

Now, whether you call it negging or teasing, I've always found it to be an interesting truth about people that we don't respond well to compliments. In a lot of ways, that contributes to the reason why we respond so much better to teasing. We are, it would seem, an inherently distrustful species (whether or not that's good or bad depends on context... but we'll get into that later) and we tend to be wary of people who pay us unconditional compliments because we doubt that such a thing exists. That's as much our own fault as it is the person who's actually doing the complimenting because it highlights something about us: we tend not to compliment people for no reason. It's a big, circular, self-perpetuated mess we've created for ourselves where somewhere along the line, we complimented a guy or girl we like liked (<-- how the hell did we come up with this convoluted way of expressing romantic interest?). Then, further along in the future, we refrained from doling out a similar compliment to someone we have no interest in because we "didn't want to give them the wrong idea" and thus cemented our own belief that we shouldn't compliment someone in case they get the wrong idea, which in turn, adds weight to the moments we do use them, further proving that when we compliment someone, we do so because we're interested in them romantically.

So we create this self-perpetuating vortex that basically forbids ALL kinds of compliments unless you're actually attached. You can't compliment someone you don't like like because you're afraid that that might give them the wrong idea. You also can't compliment someone you do like like because then you're being too obvious that you like like them (which is only the case because you refuse to compliment people you don't like like).

But fear not! We as a society are great at coming up with solutions to the problems we create. Since complimenting someone is never socially acceptable, we've replaced it with attention, i.e. giving someone attention, rather than paying her compliments, is the new "Indicator of Interest (IOI)" (<-- Neil Strauss's term). But here's the caveat: since it's pointless to simply substitute attention for compliments if they're just going to mean the same thing, you have to give a girl attention AND make it seem like you're not interested in her by putting her down. Win-win scenario (from the guy's viewpoint). It's like saying "I'm interested enough in you to give you attention, but lest you forget that you need me more than I need you, I'm going to make fun of you." Of course, in order for all this to work, you have to patently ignore her so you can get the girl to feel like she wants your attention in the first place.

Welcome to the world of negging.

Now, I just want to take a moment to explain why this differs radically from teasing. Teasing is harmless. It's still based on the "attention in lieu of compliments" train of thought but it's fun, lighthearted, and most importantly, signifies consideration for the other party. Where negging is like saying "I'm going to pay attention to you, but don't get the idea that I might actually like you more than you like me 'cause I don't," teasing is more like saying, "I'm going to pay attention to you because I like you, but I don't want to freak you out by coming on too strong." See?

I was going to push a little further (we're about halfway through section 2) but the next interesting bit I came across is the cat-string theory and I feel like it's going to take more time and energy than I have right now. More next time.

To the people who force their shopping carts into already full lines to the point where it juts out into the parking lot and impedes traffic: you are among the worst specimens of our human race.

I have just noticed that the "poke" function of facebook still exists.