Book Review: One Day by David Nicholls

It's so hard to find a good love story these days, one wonders if love itself is hiding in the shadows, waiting for someone to properly articulate its existence. David Nicholls did his best in 2009 with his book, One Day, adapted into a film starring Anne Hathaway. The film is good--I admit to crying at the end, despite knowing the plot--but not a true adaptation. 

From the beginning, Hathaway was a risky choice to play a rebellious, Doc Marten's-wearing character with a pen Shakespeare would envy. We see glimpses of youthful defiance when Hathaway wears an anti-war t-shirt and peace buttons on her jacket, but she plays the character as Desdemona to a second-tier Othello, whereas Nicholls wrote her character as far more interesting, more punk genius than lovelorn robin. 

Let me do my best to fill in the gaps in case you make the mistake of not reading the book. We all know the "Cinderella meets Rich Prince" motif has been explored to death, but Nicholls infuses Emma Morley with such verve, no one would dare think her inferior in any way to her would-be prince, Dexter Mayhew. Sadly, the film omits the written correspondence between the two protagonists as they travel in different directions, keeping in touch except for brief periods. Like Cinderella's spic-and-span work ethic, Emma's letters establish her as unjustly downtrodden, her descriptions of colleagues and roommates alternating between comedy and tragedy: "I asked him [a fellow theater actor playing a slave] to get me a packet of crisps [aka chips] in this café the other day and he looked at me like I was OPPRESSING him or something." 

It is within these same letters we understand Emma's unconditional love for Dexter, springing from the vast differences between them, including his privileged upbringing: "I know your whole childhood was spent playing French cricket on a bloody great chamomile lawn and you never did anything as déclassé as watch the telly..." Cinderella never mocked her prince, nor displayed the aptitude to do so, which is why such Disney stories are unappealing to intelligent adults. In contrast, Emma uses Dexter's status as modern-day royalty to showcase her sharp wit, and in doing so, make him a better man. Consequently, the best comparison to One Day isn't Cinderella or Othello, but a transposed riff on Pretty Woman, with Richard Gere's charm intact but his money replaced by intelligence: "Yes, you had to be smart, but not Emma-smart. Just politic, shrewd, ambitious," Dexter tells himself while considering career options.  

And yet, Dexter isn't exactly the male bimbo caricature the film makes him out to be. It's true the director makes us ache for Dexter's lost potential at every turn, at one point giving him as vacuous a girlfriend as imaginable, a showbiz tart who makes Kim Kardashian look worthy of a Nobel Prize in Physics. Dexter's portrayal is unfair because first, he's lost his mother to cancer, which clearly upends his very being, given his emotional distance from his disapproving father (who, interestingly, married a woman far more classy than he deserved, as both the film and book insinuate--at least until the very end). 

Moreover, unlike the stereotypical bimbo or cad, Dexter knows he's not smart, so he tries to find a niche where he can prove his worth. He knows the entire time he can't compete on any level-playing field in the real world, which is why he's so ashamed to face his mother's expectations, and why he's so smitten with Emma: "Without her[,] he is without merit or virtue or purpose..." For her part, Emma knows she's the perfect foil for Dexter, and without him, she wouldn't have a punching bag, er, muse capable of helping her reach Tysonian or Lewisian heights. Unfortunately, the film underestimates its audience by expressly telling us their union is about opposites attracting, even giving Dexter a ying-and-yang ankle tattoo (at least it wasn't on his lower back). 

There are so many ways to interpret the book--the proletariat's place in a bourgeois world being just one of them--I'll stop and let you explore Nicholls' writing yourself. If you've already seen the movie, here's one excerpt that should give you an idea of the book's higher workmanship: 

Here's to smart, witty, kind women. If you find one who loves you, cherish her and have a nice life. 

© Matthew Rafat (2019)

Relationships: Exquisitely Complex

Most people expect to settle down when they're older and use youth to explore as many avenues as they can, not minding cul de sacs. People say dating gets easier with age because we know ourselves better, but anyone single and over 30 knows the conventional wisdom is wrong. By the time we are 30 or 35, we respond in different ways to different people based on what happened to us at 7, 14, and 21. Partners having a fuller history of each other are better equipped to deal with conflicts than new occupiers. 

In the past two years, I've searched the globe for answers only for my heart to return to a place I visited sixteen years ago. Realizing my choice couldn't have been a coincidence, I'll share my thoughts so we can both be a little less clueless about love. 

A person meeting a potential partner at 34 will notice certain tics and file them in his memory bank, but he won't know their origin or how to work around them until years later because of incomplete data. At some point, he'll tell himself "Women are crazy," excluding the part about men being stupid. In contrast, a man dating a 19 or 25 years old woman will have an easier time molding himself to her and may even have the exact details necessary to understand her. The earlier man, Australopithecus Agápi, has an advantage: younger women, like younger men, are less sure of themselves and have fewer reservations about opening up to either gender. The advantage of youth is assumed mutual ignorance, which acts as its own truth serum. Meanwhile, a man who stays with a partner from 28 or 35 will know almost nothing about her history, thus having a much worse chance at accomplishing the one thing we all want: to be understood. 

I used to wonder why baby pictures are so captivating. We are viewing a tabula rasa, but we look anyway, trying to glean the history we've missed. A part of us must know each passing year in a person's life is a year of personal knowledge we lack to solve the mystery that is him or her. Strangely, we give children, but not adults, the benefit of the doubt when meeting for the first time, despite our lesser knowledge. And yet, adults in new relationships are forging boundaries just like children who seek independence within protective frameworks. 

Perhaps we've forgotten one of humanity's guidelines: explorers seeking to settle in mature places should enter knowing others have trampled there before, leaving footprints of uncertain providence. Surely we've forgotten because otherwise, we'd be more forgiving and far more frightened when exploring new avenues in adulthood that were so effortless in youth. 

I met a woman when she and I were 22 and 21 years old. When we re-acquainted in our late thirties, little had changed. Of course that cannot be true, but it feels so because I captured three months' of youth's unguarded moments, time that allowed me to upload some of her source code. Every smile, every twitch, and every tear created a Rosetta Stone that still translates input flawlessly decades later. Now consider how few modern couples have three months of continuous, unguarded time together and then research marital happiness rates. For this reason, parental love is often stronger than romantic love because a unique zero-day foundation holds up the relationship, and all parties know it can be repaired but not replaced. The breaking of the parental bond is the worst psychic wound possible because it robs us of the ability to keep a zero-day historian in our lives, someone who can provide an undamaged Rosetta Stone. 

Rossetta Stone in London's British Museum.

I met another woman in her thirties recently, and we felt an instant bond. I can't tell you why we felt a bond so quickly, but it surprised us both. I saw through her hard armor instantly, and she knew she could clang her metal swords and flail around me without judgment. We trusted each other because our subconscious played matchmaker, knowing our hearts were damaged but willing to play to the right beat. Nevertheless, my absence during her unguarded years means she will remain an exquisite mystery. Thankfully, I don't need her source code to know her toughness is matched only by her tenderness, and when she lashes out, it is not to hurt me, but to scare away the tinkerers trying to hollow out her armor. And so it goes between us, many miles apart, she clanging her swords and me shielded by the knowledge her unpredictable curtness and too-polite texts are fear no one will ever be able to write her Rosetta Stone. 

When older people date today, they are too busy trying to impress each other when all they really ought to do is listen for the sound of armored plates. It is through those sounds you'll discover the level of effort you'll need to complete your journey. The trick, since you'll probably lack a Rosetta Stone, is to find someone whose heart is willing to play with yours. Whom will you ask to dance? 

The Ideal Algorithm for a Single Person considering Worldwide Options

I've stumbled upon the perfect algorithm for choosing a new city (of at least 50,000 residents) if you're single and over 30 years old:

(Percentage of inter-racial marriages and inter-racial relationships of at least six months) + 

(Percentage of inter-religious marriages, including deists and atheists, and inter-religious relationships of at least three months) - 

(Suicide rate per 100,000, averaged over most recent four years) - 

(Pollution levels).

I call this the "Rafat Relationship Index," or RRI. The blue criteria are mandatory, while the violet ones are optional but necessary for more complete data.  The suicide rate would only apply in cities of over 100,000, though I'd be very pleased if any non-resort city smaller than that ranked highly on the first two criteria.  An ambitious researcher might try a formula with both percentages and hard numbers, which would still favor larger cities but provide better conclusions. You only need to find one person, after all, so the more people, the higher your chances.

Upon hearing my idea, my friend's wife burst into fits of laughter, while he said it worked--"It's the tolerance + happiness formula."  When his wife stopped laughing, she posited that countries with public healthcare systems like Canada would rank the highest.

I disagree--from what I've seen in Scandinavian Facebook and other online profiles, it seems rare there to marry outside your race, even though Scandinavia has great public health care and relatively high levels of immigration (when considering its size).  I suppose many of the non-blondes are probably recent immigrants who may not speak the native languages, making it harder to evaluate true tolerance and segregation levels, but the growing presence of Scandinavian Neo-Nazi groups--an issue touched upon in Stieg Larsson's Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series--indicates growing societal problems. In any case, as you can see, this kind of exercise can be quite interesting, even if you're married or in a relationship.

To determine what city to visit to meet a potential lifetime partner, I had been evaluating economic numbers such as levels of private debt.  From a statistical analysis, however, such efforts are futile because it's almost impossible in developed countries to link private debt or lack thereof to fiscal responsibility, lack of materialism, lack of greed, or moderation.  A person living in a more affluent area could be justified in taking out more debt than someone living in a smaller but equally nice area.  Another person could be able to buy a larger property because of parental assistance, while another might not have such options, while still another might have such options and forgo them, indicating higher levels of character than all others. We don't even need to further parse our analysis by considering student loans or their repayment rates to understand that levels of debt are great starting points for character analysis, but so in need of individual tailoring as to be non-optimal for relationship formulas.

At the same time, at least with private debt (or even something more subjective like educational quality), you can easily ascertain objective data if you have the right access.  In contrast, with the first two criteria in my formula, it's not possible today to do a objective analysis because most cities don't keep or even try to find such personal data, and even if they did, many of them experience substantial inflows and outflows year-to-year, making any data gathered unreliable.  Fortunately, the last two criteria can, for the most part, be found using online databases, so we won't discuss them further except to say they provide completely objective markers that would eliminate places with tolerance and open-mindedness but not quality of life. (You might argue I should include GDP growth because most people need a job, but the reality of our modern world is that capital is mobile but labor is not; therefore, a GDP criterion would be inferior to an additional criterion relating to immigration rules and policies, such as ease of student visas and visa extensions.)

If someone was brave enough to attempt to complete my formula, the first step would be deciding which relationships to classify as interracial, an act requiring an in-person check subject to individual preferences.  Does an American woman with light skin but olive eyes who is half-Chinese and half-Caucasian qualify as inter-racial if she marries a white American? What if the male is a white immigrant from Germany or Norway who speaks English less than perfectly? (Are you able to see the vast possibilities and variations yet?)

Taking the potential analysis further, does President Barack Obama's relationship with Michelle Obama qualify as inter-racial?  (He's half-white and half-African, while she's full African-American.)  Or do their respective educational pedigrees render their race and backgrounds less relevant and therefore outliers that should be excluded from the formula's input?

For the religious factor, does someone who goes to church once a year for Christmas qualify as "inter-religious" if married to someone who goes every week? Take Homer and Marge Simpson. If Homer was Chinese, most people would classify his relationship with Marge as both inter-racial and inter-religious, but since they're both the same color with similar facial features, most people would classify them as neither. (By now, I'm almost tempted to return to debt levels as a more reliable factor in finding a suitable relationship, but I'm too enamored with my formula's potential.)

Although it's very, very difficult to parse racial and religious differences without in-depth interviews, sociologists can still get adequate data by going to popular cafes and restaurants at lunchtime and in the evening within different cities and doing an eye-check of inter-racial couples.  In San Jose, California, they could, on at least one weekday and one weekend, visit Westfield Mall's food court, Santana Row, a Starbucks on the East Side, a Starbucks far away from Santana Row, and a few independent coffeeshops using Yelp's ratings.

Researchers may then go to religious services in multiple locations and do a similar eye-check to ascertain further data on interracial marriages.  For example, does the local Catholic Church have separate masses for Latinos and non-Latinos?  If so, what percentage of married couples are interracial? How many African-Americans and Africans does the local mosque have attending on Friday, or is it all Pakistani-American and Arab-American?

The disheartening part about such a study in America is that even a casual observer will notice that religious entities are about as racially and ethnically segregated as you can get.  Near my hometown, Persian Christians have their own church rather than being incorporated into an existing one.  In other words, one can legitimately argue that religious entities, even established ones in America, don't do much to integrate people who look different from their existing congregations or who have different customs--in which case, what's the point of religion anyway?  To increase segregation and provide a tax benefit for doing so?

In any case, research would not take more than two weeks in each city, although the timing must be right--no holidays, no college towns (too young), no one-off days (like April 15 in the U.S.), and no fiscal quarter close time periods.

As for data on inter-religious marriage and coupling rates, the data must include relationships of at least three months to be valid.  I'm at a loss on how to proceed in a creative way.  The regular route of a paid study with voluntary participants would be one way to go, though I'd name the study something else and use it as a conduit to get background information (doing it this way increases the likelihood of accurate information).

In some ways, my formula, like debt levels, is subject to individual perception and therefore bias, but if done over a period of years, one can actually create the framework for a useful metric when it comes to solving this problem we call love.  If any sociology or psychology students end up using my idea, please give me credit.  I think it would make a fantastic idea for a dissertation or end-of-year paper.  You'd need at least three observers and of different genders and ethnic backgrounds to follow the procedure above in cafes, restaurants, and religious entities and majority agreement before marking a couple as "interracial," but it would be a great start.  If cities were judged under my formula, they'd no doubt do a better job reversing centuries of voluntary and involuntary segregation, leading to better outcomes for everyone.

(c) Matthew Rafat (2017) 

Bonus: "Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra and then suddenly it flips over, pinning you underneath. At night, the ice weasels come." -- fictional quote attributed to Friedrich Nietzsche by Simpsons creator Matt Groening 

Globalization: a Counterargument based on Love and the Individual

I have always supported globalization, but with caveats--including that the process from old to new not only consider, but protect the ones left behind.  Furthermore, government spending drives much of the modern economy, and its inefficient allocation of tax revenue has created mega-cities, which are easier to control and influence, but which do not necessarily increase individual or marital happiness.  Such inefficient spending almost forces established politicians to focus on larger cities rather than small ones, creating opposition from newer players in smaller cities who feel left behind and who have little incentive to cooperate with existing players.  Somehow, globalization has made it easier for international megacities to cooperate with each other than larger and smaller cities in the same state or country.

Even with this disconnect, why aren't people in developed economies happier? Part of it must be due to the lessening influence of the individual, and the individual's difficulty in actualizing the power of sincere and selfless contribution as cities grow larger.  Another part is more basic--the difficulty of finding compatible relationships.  I recently watched La La Land (2016)--a wonderfully bittersweet movie based in L.A.--and realized yet another issue with prevailing forces in developed economies: people, especially men, must often choose between careers and love.

Why do I focus on men? I suppose it's because women may not necessarily find true love, but they are rarely alone if they choose not to be.  Men who want to be fathers, on the other hand, seem to have resigned themselves to conforming to a world where their productivity and agreeableness are prized over their own self-discovery and needs.  Other men who see their roles diminishing on all fronts have decided they won't go gently into that good night and have found succor within fringe political groups.  Others just opt out.

In short, the 21st century is in danger of becoming a tragedy by forcing most of the most idealistic people to compromise their ideals to fit in or to find companionship.  Interconnectedness is breeding contempt and dissension as more people realize principles matter less than someone else's overall end goal. When individuals are not supreme--even if right--a sense of decency becomes too readily sacrificed on the altar of reasonableness.  Such compromise, if done by fiat, renders the populace prone to rebellion--first in small ways, then in larger ways that finally become too noticeable for the mainstream to ignore. At that point, as if by design, the disenchanted men and women, the ones left behind by forces outside their control, flee to places where they can feel free--or worse, they stay and withdraw.

In La La Land, the Ryan Gosling character drives away his true love and attempts to get her back, only to lose her again.  He ends up successful but alone.  The Emma Stone character ends up successful and married, but not with her true love.  No one has fled anywhere, but the moral seems to be that large cities force people to choose between being broke and idealistic, or settled and compromised.  If this is a reflection of modern love in America, it's time for a change in the economic system, which requires political changes.

Governments are realizing that happiness might not be easily measured in officially reported data, but tax revenue is often driven by whether people feel as if they can achieve their relationship goals in x rather than y city.  Indeed, taxpayers don't need to leave to new countries to disengage--they can simply move to other areas within the same country, up-ending local economic projections drastically, as so many cities--burdened with debt--depend on sales and other taxes requiring constant economic growth or at least a non-declining working population. Those new high rise condos going up in every major city? Who will buy them from existing and secondary owners without a steady influx of younger workers?

Economic projections, once disturbed, require more debt and thus fewer choices, or pit existing players against younger and newer ones, such as immigrants.  Worse yet, taxpayers who don't leave and who stay in areas that don't reflect their values tend to disengage emotionally from others not within their own groups, decreasing the positive impacts of diversity and dooming efforts to create cohesive communities.  Without community, what is the point of working 60 hour weeks or taking out $50,000 in student loans?

How governments interact with each other will determine whether worldwide prosperity is merely academic well-wishing or the next stage of cultural evolution.  Since it's obvious more ideas result from greater rather than less interaction, my wager's already been placed--as have the bets of trillions of investments and debt.  Democratic governments are quickly learning that if they desire to help their citizenry stay in their current globalized trajectory, they cannot ignore the individual, and they cannot talk down to those who do not share their opinions.   To protect continued migration of people and ideas, the future requires empathy as much as productivity.  Which countries will be up to the challenge?  Which ones will win the battle to create a place where Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone's characters meet, fight, fall in love, and stay together? 

© Matthew Mehdi Rafat (2017)

Bonus: "We are an urban species. Homo urbanis is actively reshaping geopolitics, economics and climate action in the 21st century. And with good reason. While the world’s cities cover just 2% of the earth’s surface, they account for 55% of its population. What’s more, they generate 80% of the world’s GDP and over 90% of its patents. Yet they are also responsible for 75% of all energy consumption and 80% of CO2 emissions." -- from World Economic Forum, Katherine Aguirre from the Igarapé Institute, and others from the Global Parliament of Mayors and C40. 

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.

Monks and Nuns in Love

Last Sunday's NYT published a beautiful love story. See HERE for more.

Movie Quote

"Stop talking about love. Every a**hole in the world says he loves somebody. It means nothing. What you feel only matters to you. It's what you do to the people you say you love--that's what matters. [Indeed] It's the only thing that counts."

-- from The Last Kiss, the best part from an otherwise terrible film

Helen Fisher on Love

Love in the Time of Automobiles

This NYT piece, about one man's love for his wife, ought to be made into a film:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/08/fashion/08love.html

This incredibly capable woman who loved to hike mountains, ride waves, and run marathons, who had cleared our sizable backyard of eight-foot-high brambles and helped me move all our furniture into three houses, suddenly couldn’t do any of those things, ever again.

Not long after getting home from the hospital, when we were having dinner by candlelight at our kitchen table, she burst into tears. “I don’t know if I can do this for the rest of my life,” she said.

All I could say was, “We’ll do it together.”

Kudos to Mr. Layng Martine Jr. for being a good man.

Love in the Time of Wit

This post has nothing to do with economics or the stock market. It's just a well-written article on love--more specifically, how to tell if a woman loves you:

The Morning News

I can't believe I'd never heard of TMN or Pasha Malla till now.

Hat tip to J-Sares for the link.

Love in the Time of Famine

For all those who think love should be analyzed in terms of economics, here is your article:

http://www.cambridgeblog.org/2008/09/james-flynn-in-the-new-scientist

The crucial thing is whether men operate in a seller’s or a buyer’s market. As usual, market analysis oversimplifies, but it isolates an important “exchange”: women provide sex and men “pay,” ideally by helping to support children. When viable men are scarce, they can get sex without paying a high price. On the other hand, women who want children must provide sex and hope for a husband, rather than being able to expect one.

Can you feel the romance just oozing from the page? What palpable romance you bring, sir.

Hat tip to E.S. Fortune for the link.