'Hood

I have been quite productive the last few days... But no major successes of note (I should say that I have success stories all the time that don't seem "major" to me, so I want to write about the next BIG thing, instead of the minor steps that lead up to it)

In other news

Tonight, I couldn't sleep--still can't. I went into the kitchen to have a bowl of cereal as a midnight snack. I discovered my roommate watching netflix and decided to join him for a little bit because I was eating right there anyway. He told me that he couldn't sleep (join the club, I've actually grown to like not sleeping...the only dreadful part is when I wake up at 9am and think: "why did I not go to bed earlier" but I quickly recover from it--if I can get out of bed that is, but I've come to terms with it and I seem to force myself out. 

I don't typically like to write about specific people on this blog--it wouldn't be proper to go around blabbing about people. But tonight I think I will make an exception because it brings up a topic that I want to mention.

So my roommate was sitting there and he asked me a silly question--the kind of questions that you think of only at night when you're not tired but you want to sleep and your mind races as you think about things. Now, I must say that this roommate actually asks me a lot of odd questions--it's a part of his personality. This question wasn't so odd though: which of our neighbors do I think is the cutest. 

I had never thought about the question, and for a couple reasons: first, dating your neighbors can get you into trouble, doing ANYTHING romantic with your neighbors can be troublesome, and even merely being friends and going over to their place can cause problems. I don't want to ruin a good apartment complex. I like it here because I don't have enemies and I don't have friends. If I start to hear drama I walk away. The idiots here might think it's anti-social, but I consider it opti-social.--I am encouraging good relationships with everyone because I don't bother them, yet I'm fine with them coming over and bothering me all they want.--I just don't intend to go into their turf unless they need my help and I can go in and out real quick. So far it has worked like a charm, and although I may get bad vibes here and there from my neighbors, they are merely vibes, and vibes aren't necessarily realities. Plus, the vibes are gone the moment I walk away--Either they are real and they stop, or they aren't real, and I don't notice them when I am not around. In any case, this works, and that's all I care about. No conflict...no problem, no structured differences...no problem, and when I don't have the opportunity, and they don't have the opportunity, to think it, then there is no constructive differences...no problem. (it's a play on sociology)

Returning to the question. He simplified it by saying: which one has the cutest face?

I thought about it, verbally and in my head, in front of him: one girl looked like she was from back in the woods, and having lived in west virginia it scared me away from. Another had a triangle head and bug eyes. Still another had bug-eyes, but a flat head. One looked too native american to me. That left three girls--well it left a few others, but I don't really see them ever so it feels as though they aren't neighbors, even though they're 20ft away from me...

 I am not sure why he asked this question. Usually people have motives for asking questions, even if those motives are merely subconscious. In my head I went over the possible motives: he could be trying to determine my likes, he could be trying to determine what he should like, he could be trying to justify himself in his head for something (I don't know anything about his situation, so everything I assume is made up, but let's assume he kissed one of them and wants to justify doing so, or one of them digs him and he wants justification for not chasing after her, or lets say he has the hots for one and... I don't know. Justification of some sort) or he could just be thinking about some fantasy in his head and subconsciously he wants to include me in that fantasy. 

Since his motives were unclear, I did a little trick that I think should have a rhetorical name if it doesn't already:

I went with the girl that I knew was taken. I narrowed the results down to three and then said: well it could be L, M, or E, (in my head they were the top three "cutest" by his definition of facial features). Oddly, one was a blond, a red head and a brunette, but that just makes the situation humorous. (lol). [I think I may have mentioned this in an article a long time ago, but subconsciously I noticed that I go for red heads when I don't think about it, and in this situation I probably would have gone with the red head had my brain not been contemplating other things].

E is the one that's dating that one guy right?

yes.

I think E has the cutest face. 

Let me re-explain the situation though: 

I set myself up as authoritative by spouting reasons why each girl got disqualified. I related it directly to him and things he would agree with that I agreed with (found common ground). I narrowed it down to three choices and all but tiered them. Then, using my own facial experessions and body language, I seemed to hint that there was something wrong with L and that left E or M and I hastily went with E as though I weren't thinking about it. --I am thinking about it... still. So it wasn't REALLY a hasty decision. But he probably thought it was and let it brush off. 

That's not the interesting part of this story though.

There are other, more interesting aspects to the situation.

Neither is this, but I'll start here anyway:

You see, that intricate response resolved all of the possible motives all at once: by choosing the one that was already taken, I chose the popular choice. If he denies it there is always the claim that her boyfriend agrees with me. If he is picking at my own character, I responded in a manner that seemed as though it were not a big deal to me, I am an authority, and I don't play favorites. 

When he first asked the question I asked him to clarify what he meant by "cute" because it applies to many different things. In that sense I showed that I clearly think about other things that just physical appearance. (sure, it ranks up there, but other things are more important to me). etc. etc. I am thoroughly satisfied with the response I gave him, in fact it had a reverse effect strategically: I gleamed more evidence that he is lonely, wanting a girlfriend, and that he thinks about the neighbors (if merely subconsciously). (psychology is fun, if often wrong and based on assumptions!) 

So here's the interesting thing:

Although I have never thought about -that- question before, I had a faint thought once about the "cute" aspect of my neighbors.--I think I do it with every girl I meet: I size them up and group them in order to compartmentalize my behavior towards them. 

On my first week of living here, I ventured upstairs to the girls' above me apartment a couple times. --Never again! Everything and everyone was still new to me (I like to observe first then react). And since I had just moved to logan again, didn't really know anyone...again, didn't know how school would turn out, didn't know how my roommates would turn out, didn't know anything. I went upstairs to introduce myself to them. First, I met one girl and was somewhat surprised and scared by the introduction. She opened the door quickly and I forgot the reason for going up there--it was startling, not just by the approach and her body language at the time, but because of how young she looked--it turns out she was underage, and I had good reason to be surprised! I was greeted by a munchkin and didn't know what to say: sorry if my music loud I turn down--I, you live room I below where? --okay, it wasn't that traumatic, but still.

The next time I came over, three of them were home. The munchkin and the redhead were watching a little kid show that might be humorous to someone...younger... Since I didn't know how old the munchkin was, nor did I know anything about her or redhead, I just absorbed the info and told myself 'whatever'. half smile shrug. 

While conversing with the two about their show and about basic introductions, L showed up. She was complaining about how HORRIBLE it was to unpack after being gone for so long.

Let me just recap at this point what first impressions were:

Munckin: young, jumpy, is entertained by kid's shows

M: redhead, kids shows, something to do with teaching little kids

L: complainer, over dramatic.

Continue.

L: I've been gone for sOOOoooOOoo long.

Oh...that's nice...are you bragging?

She then proceeded to talk about her wii, and her summer vacation, and how she was also an english major and a whole bunch of phoney stuff that made me think she was bragging about her intelligence. She said how she wanted to take a specific class on rhetoric to which I felt the urge to brag about my own experiences with the class and how awesome it was. --I took that class about a year ago and added what I learned to my arsenal of rhetorical strategy. After chatting for a brief while, munchkin and redhead told us that they have never felt like they weren't smart, but after listening to our conversation now they did feel slightly unintelligent.

My roommate realized he needed to leave (or maybe he wasn't there at this visit? I'm not sure)

2nd First impression: L: bragger, somethign to do with wanting to be a lawyer, thinks she is smart, talks funny which makes her seem less serious, VERY sarcastic--also makes me not want to take her seriously. Summing it up: not sure whether to take her seriously ever. 

On my final visit up there, all of them were home.

It turns out that I was in a class with one of them--she was quiet then. Quiet now. Don't know how to place her--sure she knows how to place me (because I'm very active, very diplomatic, assertive, confident, and probably made several gaffs here and there that everyone is aware of--in other words, I'm a noteworthy individual: you either like me or hate me. You decide, I don't care.)

The other one who I just met I had actually met at my place because she is old friends with one of my roommates. They were from Virginia together. I lived in virginia for 6 months of my mission. At first she seemed nice, she was making a cake for her boyfriend. Something to do with she has a wheat intolerance and couldn't eat any for herself. She offered to let me hang there until my other roommates showed up. It was my first week--I had nothing to do. 

While sitting there I faded into the background. I overheard and saw the social happenings from my little perch--they all seem to get along fairly well, munchkin isn't just young but she's also very blond and gullible. L isn't just sarcastic she's too sarcastic. M is quiet. E runs the shots and seems to have the most leadership abilities of all of them. The other girl wasn't around for very much.

This is where everything shifted. 

Since I blended into the environment rather than contributed, it just got awkward. When my roommates showed up I was decked in camo--no one spoke to me, I just listened. And I was bombarded with information. Details, man, details. --I am one to notice a lot of details and make sense of them either then or later--I was still trying to make sense of things and my brain was getting swamped. Keeping track of this many characters is hard as it is (seven people) trying to do so without stepping on anyone's toes, portraying in a diplomatic manner, and possibly establishing a few treaties at the same time is deathly difficult. 

The thing is: if you go in too fast, you step all over the place and everyone hates you or suspects you. These were the natives who had connections and roots already, I was the newbie that no one expects anything good from and is annoyed when they ruin everything. I didn't want to make a bad impression. If you go in too slow, you get forgotten, making yourself stand out in a crowd is key, but you don't want to go too far. I think I did both: got forgotten, then went too far.

Our conversation led to the telling of old jokes. I'm not one for memorizing jokes. I like telling things as they happen and making jokes of them presently. I had wit and storytelling, but I'm not the greatest. I felt inclined to share a story joke that I heard the other day--it was the only one I could remember. Unfortunately, too many details had already swarmed my head and I couldn't concentrate on the joke. I tried to adapt it to the crowd by changing the name of the teams involved and that didn't help.

My story took too long to tell, had too many fumbles and the punchline was ruined. Plus, they had already heard it. That's about the worst thing that could happen for a storyteller. I looked like a novice. I only had one recovery "well I suppose I butchered that joke, but that's okay, you guys already knew it." I think the impression they could have taken from me is that I try too hard and don't know what I'm talking about...

After telling my joke I knew my overclocked brain couldn't handle more comments. I waited till there was a break in the conversation and looked for an excuse to leave. *bing* I got an email. 

I turned to E, the leader, and asked for her help in determining the religious validity of my situation "is sending emails on sunday breaking the sabbath?" --of course not. --of course it isn't any of her business. --of course I was going to do it anyway--of course I didn't need to ask for her permission or anything.

But it gave me an out. I hate departures because I never know how to depart. I never feel like the life of the party, so my absence isn't going to kill things. Sometimes I really am the life force and I just don't realize it--which is another reason to hate departures because what do you say to that: sorry, but you're on your own, the party is dead now that I leave. This wasn't one of those times, thankfully.

I left, E knew my excuse, though I don't think she cared. I walked out, said goodbye, I think no one heard it. and that was the last time I went over there. 

Except for...

I am prepared for most things. I am one of the few people on my block with a toolbox, I'm the only one I know of who can pick locks, and I have a lot of obscure talents that come in handy every now and again.

Munchkin has come over a few times asking for help, which I promptly gave. M has too. 

I used to sit on the porch when the weather permitted and I saw the neighbors a little more often. That's where I started to get vibes from them that they were avoiding me or didn't like me, or other fanciful things. I'm sure it was all made up in my head, so I hold no one accountable. Vibes just happen sometimes and only 80% of the time are my vibes real.

So to answer my roommates question in the way that I would naturally respond to it, I would have to say that M is the cutest. munchkin is too young for my tastes, E is taken and she's too much of a leader to be anything other than an acquaintance I would call on once a year for assistance, I don't know whether to take L seriously and she seems she could cause a lot of drama and be a total nerd all at once, finally there is that other girl who I just don't know enough about--anything about--and yet was in a class with her once--not sure which class though. That means she doesn't make an impression whatsoever. 

To conclude, I want to bring up a thought I had while I showed before bed tonight (I'm in the process of going to bed, I promise!)

With my roommate A, if he IS lonely and looking for a girl, I have a little bit of advice for him, and anyone out there (hopefully this turns out short, because in my mind things that are long appear to be short):

Alpha: If you want to have "fun" with girls because you don't want to make commitments and you don't want...whatever. Whether you want to kiss or do something more along the lines that short-term relationships do, then you have two rules to follow:

1) make sure she is a virgin, and doesn't have mouth diseases like cold sores or oral herpes.--you don't want to catch anything from the experience that you would regret when you get married and give it to your wife.

2) after narrowing your potential short-term relationship girls, rank them in *prettiest* to ugliest. Not cutest to whatever. You want her to be as pretty as possible so that your experiences are always: remember when I made out with that smoking hot girl in college? That was the life.

beta: If you're looking for more than fun, "cute" isn't your primary concern. Figure out what you REALLY need out of a long-term relationship and look for that--you don't need looks for the long term. It doesn't work out so well for ANY of your motives...even if all you want her to do is have your kids and to ensure that your kids are good looking, your kids will be good looking, so good looking that they'll be pregnant at 15 and you'll have a lot of undue stress. It's just not worth it, because a lot of pretty girls have personalities that they act that way around their kids, based on how leadership works, the kids will follow the example and it'll just bring more snobby, self-absorbed, rude, ignorant children into the world. God and nature have a way of making beautiful rarities out of ugly parents. Let the pretty girls get worked over a few times by being sluts or idiots, and once their heart is broken, they've grown up, they're beat down and humble, and they're suddenly the nicest, non-vain women, then it's safe to form a relationship with them. Think of the future.