Showing posts with label dating. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dating. Show all posts

Tuesday, June 27, 2017

Mind the Gap: Individualism in Modern America

I recently had a strange dream. I was telling a colleague's child that he was very smart, but he had to pick a group to join to really make an impact. His mission in life, in addition to earning money and staying out of non-dischargeable debt, was to find his "tribe."  

He asked, "Isn't America about individualism?" 

"Not anymore, unless you have access to millions of dollars." 

If that sounds dystopian, you're right. In the old days, when life was simpler--and more harsh, with limited options--if a group of people had an idea, they could go to the town hall or a local event, discuss it, and implement it. Taxes didn't need to be raised--people contributed their time. More often than not, there was nothing to implement. You had a family--a large one--and your life revolved around taking care of them and avoiding disease. 

Today, as more adults in developed countries have delayed having children because of the high cost of homes in good school districts; greater unpredictability in relationships; and the need to go in debt to gain access to decent-paying careers, societies have struggled to replace the family with some other equally meaningful "work." In fact, many modern communities are tasked with filling in the gap that religion and family used to occupy and are learning Facebook, food trucks, specialty coffee, and Netflix don't provide the same ability to bind people together. 

If we have to go and "find" our families instead of creating them organically, we can see attending the "right" middle school, high school, and college counts. We can also see it's easier to exclude people when we or our parents choose private schools, stay within our "found" social networks, and don't take public transportation

Once we "choose" our new tribes, especially when we start working full time, it's easier to let social media and television influence how we feel. We've all seen videos of government officials in the 1960s destroying Beatles records. You might not know that even England banned Sesame Street, with the BBC's chief of children's programming calling the show "non-democratic and possibly dangerous for young Britons." Television was a game-changer, even when its programming was innocuous because societies understood that for the first time in history, an element other than family and school was vying for influence over their children's lives. The old conservatives weren't wrong to feel threatened. As the 2016 American presidential election showed, television's and media's influence sometimes overwhelm everything else. 

A few decades ago, if we disagreed with someone not in our social group, we might go and talk with him. We couldn't google a person's name and make assumptions. We might have gossiped about someone different, especially in smaller cities, but having different political or other beliefs didn't seem to impede social lives because so many other factors brought the community together and allowed opportunities to see an individual's integrity or work ethic. Without credit card or other consumer debt being widespread and with lawyers and the law serving local interests, the community could also assume a person in a neighborhood was there on his or her own merit. 

Today, many native-born Americans and Europeans might exclude or denigrate others based on political affiliations, whereas in the past, Jacklyn might see Miguel and grow to like him based on his capacity for hard work--political differences be damned. (True story, by the way--that's how Amazon.com was eventually created.)  Although it's easier to date interracially now than in the past, which increases possibilities on paper, we've managed to make relationships harder by excluding persons who don't share our opinions--even if they have a strong work ethic or character. 

Humanity seems to have a special capacity for shooting itself in the foot with every technological advancement, but the "meaningful relationship" gap isn't just about greater possibilities a la Tinder and Happn. With debt everywhere and laws giving certain groups preferential status, determining a person's character at a young age or combining lives becomes much more difficult. There are too many moving parts. Do you work a dead-end job to help your wife go to medical school, only to see her split up after she starts getting paid well? Do you stay at home, lower expenses by cooking at home, and take care of the kids while your husband moves up the corporate ladder, only to see him run off with the secretary? When we are unable to use information to establish character and instead use it to divide ourselves based on superficial differences while powerful groups form political alliances to protect themselves against change and consequences, why shouldn't things not to fall apart? 

Humans have never been a very tolerant species, but we were intolerant on our own dime in the past, not OPM and certainly not with money we borrowed from our children's yet unborn next generation. If someone bought a new car, we could look at it and assume s/he sacrificed and saved up to buy it. Sure, the car was shiny and had useful new features, but the real attraction--whether we realized it or not--was that we were lucky to know someone who made an effort to convert his time into something tangible and share its unique experience with us. If the car broke down, the neighborhood felt the owner's anguish, and the car manufacturer or dealer would lose his reputation unless the owner--our owner--was made whole. If a police officer was shot or attacked, we all felt the blow because we saw him walking our streets at nighttime. At the same time, if he committed excessive or unnecessary violence against a member of our community, the mayor and police chief answered to the neighborhood, not the union, not an MOU, and not a lawyer authorized to use every procedural trick in the book. 

I was never very good at algebra, but here's a formula you may want to consider: excessive debt + a lack of tolerance + a dearth of ways to show character and integrity - trust = dystopia. In short, the American president is the least of our problems. 

Vaclav Havel, Disturbing the Peace (1991)

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Social Network: Battle of the Sexes, Modern Version

Dating is so difficult. A man usually thinks about exactly how he will be able to support a family. He realizes big city society favors two income couples and wonders whether a woman will continue to work after she has children and/or if he will be able to provide as the sole breadwinner. Women tend to believe the aforementioned issues will resolve themselves.

Bonus I: Jack Gilbert, from "Tear It Down": "We find out the heart only by dismantling what the heart knows...By insisting on love we spoil it, get beyond affection and wade mouth-deep into love...We must unlearn the constellations to see the stars."

Bonus II, Random Stats Edition: according to National Geographic (March 2011),

1) Worldwide, 33% are Christian; 21% Muslim; and 13% Hindu; and

2) Worldwide, nationality-wise, 19% are Chinese; 17% are Indian; and 4% American.

My friend commented that the religious numbers would change significantly if we accounted for just practicing members. That's actually an interesting question--at what point is it irrational to call yourself a member of a religious group if your beliefs differ significantly from the majority's? And who decides the norm or the majority? If you're a Muslim in Indonesia, you will have a much different norm than a Muslim in Saudi Arabia. Same thing if you're an Orthodox Jew or a Reform Jew, or an Evangelical Southern Christian vs. an Italian Catholic. Perhaps that's the beauty of religion--it brings people together who would otherwise have no reason to mix or mingle.

Monday, November 8, 2010

Major City Hell?

This blogger sums up the reasons Gen Y has a harder time reaching the "adult" benchmarks of previous generations:

Boyfriend & I have had many discussions about the fact that New York is a short-term place to live. It's for young singles who like to party. It's for businessmen in their 20s who want to drink and bone and work on Wall Street 14 hours a day. It's for liberal women who have sworn off marriage and kids and simply want to make sweet love to their professions. But as you approach your 30s, you may begin to see New York in a different light. Most people start to see the city as an abusive boyfriend: It treats you like sh*t, steals all your money & wears you down to a little nubbin, but you keep running back because you love it and believe it will change.

More here. When houses in average school districts cost 500K+, it's very, very difficult to think about starting a family. Throw in the fact that money woes are the primary cause of breakups, and we have a perfect recipe for delayed childrearing.

Monday, February 22, 2010

First Date Ritual

Do any of you have pre-first-date rituals? I have a few things I do before a first date.

I have an older American car (from 2003), and it's not worth much, so I try to spend as little as possible on it. On date night, however, I like to get the car washed and inflate the tires.

Usually, I go straight from work to the date, so in the morning, I spend an extra half hour fussing about my appearance. For example, I use a straight razor instead of my usual electric one, and I cut the hair on my nape.

As for my clothes, I usually stick with a business casual outfit, which tends to be a nice white collared shirt and a pair of new jeans. I wear my faded Wrangler jeans all the time, so I use another pair of jeans, which I rarely wear, on dates.

I have Drakkar Noir cologne and toothpaste/mouthwash in the office, so I use those before I go. (I bought the Drakkar Noir cologne because of a Dale Earnhardt, Jr. car promotion.)

I should probably add hair gel, but I don't use hair gel enough to justify buying any. For some reason, most of the hair gels I see come in large tubes that would take me years to finish.

Sometimes, I forget to wear a belt, but I fix that issue if there is a second date. Unfortunately, I have to wake up earlier than usual to do all the administrative stuff, and changing my sleeping patterns leaves me in a tired mood. I make up for it by taking a small nap in the afternoon.

I fully realize I sound like a bad Southern caricature--Wrangler jeans, Earnhardt car collection, no hair gel, no belt, old American car, etc. I tend to just come in casually, even when I implicitly realize the dating game requires some song and dance. At the same time, my casual approach should weed out the materialistic, shallow women, so I'd like to think it all balances out. Besides, my white collared shirt is from Nordstrom or another higher-end retail store, so at least there's one hoity-toity part to my first date ritual.

I have no idea if my first date ritual works, but I'm in no rush. I hear good things come to those who wait.

Monday, November 30, 2009

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Awesome Blog about Dating

This woman is a genius. There's something about her writing that hooked me immediately. Here is the blog and two samples:

http://didhereallyjustdothat.blogspot.com/

1. A few days ago, I hated online dating. Now I have officially became an online dating sl*t.

2. If the world were different and a successful New York woman could marry a small-town man with dreams the size of marijuana seeds, then we could be together. But the world doesn't work that way. So in a self-induced Romeo & Juliet tragedy, me and Mr. X share a love that can never be.

Awesome openings, right? I love finding interesting writers--it's like getting a X-Mas present even though it's not X-Mas.

Tuesday, March 10, 2009