I'm an Elitist

I've known people that have gotten really pissed off at me for thinking that I am smarter than most everyone else and that it makes me the least bit different from anyone else. The truth is that I am and it does. I am well aware that it does not make me better than anyone else, but this is one thing that validates my rant about online dating (I'm not sorry if that offended you). If you can't understand how this stuff works, you are not my equal. In my entire life, I have known four peers that I've sat down with and that have been able to keep up with me (one of those four well exceeded me). It is not unreasonable to desire to be understood. Everyone desires to be understood. I desire to be able to have conversations about my ideas. If you find that arrogant or offensive, then I don't particularly care. No, I do care. I care because you are selfishly expecting me to be something I am not, hence the rant.



Note: This was written in November of 2006, is a repost, and it's a subset of a larger (completely unrelated) entry. I had been thinking about writing a *new* entry pointing out that I don't think it's such a bad thing to be "elitist." A few minutes ago, I stumbled across something I wrote two and a half years ago that says it as well as I'd expect to say it now.

The Five Love Languages - Words of Affirmation

I learned about The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman several years ago, but I learned about it second-hand--through an SO. As a result, my understanding was directly dependent on her understanding of the love languages. I've been meaning to read it myself for quite some time, and today, I stumbled across it at the bookstore, and now I've read the first 1/3 of the book.

The first language he discusses is "Words of Affirmation." She asserted that this is her love language but concluded that this is NOT my love language. After reading the chapter myself, I'm not so sure any more. In fact, I'm seeing in a completely different light a potential reason for why both of my marriages failed.

I've always been one to fish for compliments, and I know that. I think it's obvious that I'm fishing, but maybe it isn't. I need to be told that I'm important. This is so deeply ingrained in my psyche that it doesn't just apply to personal relationships--it applies to everything that I do. I regularly "show off" at work to whomever is closest (or whomever is likely to care) just so that I can hear someone say, "that's pretty cool," about whatever I built/designed/put together.

In high school, I fell in love with someone I couldn't have. We were good friends and hung out a fair amount, but through circumstances well beyond the scope of this entry, a romantic relationship wasn't an option. I lost my chance. As a result, I put everything I felt in words--poetry. I wrote a fair amount of it. Not all of it was romantic, and not all of it was even relevant to her, but I wrote a lot.

Eventually, I moved on and wound up with someone that was more interested in me. I wrote poetry for her too. I did all kinds of things to express my undying love. I wrote music, I drew, and I even posted a web site proclaiming how incredibly awesome she was. Her response was that my drawings weren't very good and that her poetry was better than mine.

I haven't written any poetry or drawn anything since.

That was ten years ago.





I married her anyway. For me, this relationship turned into a living hell. She had absolutely no grasp on the power of words, despite being an editorial journalist for the university's newspaper. As I interpreted it, she told me every day for a year that she wanted a divorce. Finally, I tried to take her up on what I had interpreted as an offer. At this point, she was completely shocked to find out that asking me every day, "Do you want a divorce," was interpreted as a threat and not as the intended genuine concern that I might be unhappy and want out. In my mind, she never passed up an opportunity to tell me that I was worthless, a complete screw-up, or altogether unlovable (no, these aren't remotely the words she used, but this is how I interpreted it). Obviously, this marriage failed...

...so did the second one. At this point, my primary love language had been reduced to me buying the Hallmark cards that made my second wife so happy that she'd cry--four times per year (Valentines, Anniversary, Birthday, and Christmas). For this, amongst many other reasons, this relationship was doomed from the start.


Last year, I discovered quite by accident that it's in my nature to actively tell a woman exactly how special to me she is. Unfortunately, this woman did not feel the same, and it wound up being a bit much for her and our friendship.

Now, I'm stuck in the position that I'm afraid to say much of anything about what I really think about a woman, as I'm afraid I'm going to come off "too strong" and scare her away. For a very long time, I've also completely avoided bringing up any of my complaints as I've always been afraid that a single complaint would result in the end of the relationship (can you blame me when I heard the question, "do you want a divorce," every day?).


Ironically, the only women I ever tell exactly what I think of them are the ones I don't expect to ever hear back from. Once in a blue moon, I find a woman on a dating site that impresses me for some reason or another, and for yet another reason, I believe a relationship between the two of us would be doomed to fail. I write an email sending a compliment and noting that I don't expect to hear back. These emails are my "just to brighten your day" emails. I know how it would make me feel to receive a no-pressure compliment, so I pass them along.

INFJ??

I just took yet another personality test, but this one had far more interesting questions, and I couldn't predict their intentions. For the first time ever, I tested as an INFJ--and reasonably strong on all of the letters. The J shocked me so much that I went and read a few of the INFJ descriptions that I could find, and then I compared them to the INFP description (which I've thought I am since middle school), and I'm beginning to wonder if this test has categorized me better than I've ever categorized myself.

I'm always trying to figure out who I am and why I am the way that I am (in general), and this easily fits into both types. I've always found myself different--even from other INFPs. Ultimately, no one I've ever met remotely interacts with the world the way that I do. Do you know anyone that went to state-level math competitions *and* performed in your high school musicals? Is this person a talented musician *and* a kick-ass computer programmer?

I've always been laid-back and messy, but I've never been disorganized, per se. I hate lists, but I know the personality types of everyone I know. I haven't done dishes at my own house in a year, but I hand-washed most of the dishes at my friend's house last week--because I felt like it.

Ultimately, I'm organized and decisive about things that matter to me (like concepts and people), but I'm excessively disorganized and indecisive about things that don't matter to me... like chores and getting out of bed.

I've been very surprised to find on OkCupid that the vast majority of my matches are INTJs. There are a small number of INFPs and even fewer INFJs. Note that I noticed... and remembered. Until now, it has surprised me that my best friend is an INTJ. I communicate much better with the INFPs that I know, but ultimately, my values are more aligned with my INTJ friends (her boyfriend is an INTJ too). Likewise, my organization of people tends to offend my INFP friends (a little); It's interpreted as cold-hearted or closed-minded. Okay, I'll admit: Not only do I keep up with the personality types of everyone I know, but I have a fair idea of their IQs too. Really.

Along the value lines: I know four INFPs, and three of them still live with their parent(s). Out of four INFPs, one got a college degree by 22. Two of the remaining are working on their degrees in their mid twenties and the fourth got her degree in her early thirties. None of them are atheists. Other than me, all of the NFs that I know are either Christians or believe in some sort of ephemeral spirit realm (e.g. The Secret). All of the NTs that I know are atheists (note: not all of the NFs are girls and not all of the NTs are guys).


Why am I different? I'm still working on that.

Home

I was thinking last night about a test I took a while ago.

What Word Are You?

I'm: Home.

Originally, I didn't think anything of it. I still don't think much of the test, as it's pretty clearly an advertisement for a book.

Despite this, I was thinking about the word "home." There's the cliché, "Home is where the heart is," and it's incredibly true. We've heard it so much, though, that we may only see this for its obvious interpretation. I grew up in Asheville, NC, so Asheville will always be home to me.

That isn't why I'm writing this blog entry.

I've been asked many times how I knew I was in love. Every time, I've failed to give a good answer, but the answer came to me the other night: "Home." When you're in love, Home isn't where you grew up. Home isn't where you spent most of your life. Home isn't a city, state, or your native country. Home isn't where you pay rent or where you sleep at night.

Home is a person. Wherever I am, if I'm with her, I'm home.


I've been homeless for more than a year.

Perfection

I am not perfect.
I am intelligent.
I am educated.
I am knowledgeable.
But I am not perfect.

I am strong.
I am emotional.
I am insightful.
I am intuitive.
But I am not perfect.

I am creative.
I am musical.
I am artistic.
I am fluid.
But I am not perfect.

I am well spoken.
I have good grammar.
I have good spelling.
I have good diction.
But I am not perfect.

You think you write better than me.
You think I can't draw.
My music is too loud for you.
I am not the same as you.
And I shouldn't need your approval.
You are not perfect.

Mere Christianity

Recently, Richard Dawkins published a book called, "The God Delusion." This manifesto discussing Dawkins' atheist viewpoint made a lot of press, both good and bad. NPR's Fresh Air had him as a guest on March 28, 2007. The next day, Fresh Air had Francis Collins, a Christian scientist, on the show to discuss his belief that faith in Christianity was compatible with his scientific viewpoint.

Twenty five minutes (25:00, actually) into the podcast version of this show is where Collins begins his discussion of his initial atheism and his transformation to a Christian. At 27:38, he mentions a book written by an Oxford Scholar who was an atheist who wanted to back up his atheism, and the results had an unexpected outcome--"Mere Christianity," by C.S. Lewis.

This notion perplexed me. How could a reasonable atheist be converted to Christianity, especially one smart enough to be a part of the sequencing of the human genome? As a result, I picked up my copy of the book and began to read it (a Christian friend of mine gave it to me many years ago). The results might surprise you.

The foundation of Lewis' argument is morality. Lewis discusses the detail that humans tend to have a common view of what is moral and what is immoral. He states this as a fact. Lewis misses the detail that this isn't a fact and that different people and cultures do actually have different definitions of morality: e.g. abortion, capital punishment, slavery, women's rights, genocide, rape, consumption of animal flesh, etc... For each of these examples, there are (or have been) people that fall on either side of the discussion of the morality of the topic. In Christianity, Lot was considered a righteous man, though he gave his own daughters up to be gang-raped. Slavery is condoned in the new and old testaments of the bible. God *supposedly* performed a genocide of his own when he spared Noah and his family, while wiping out all the rest of humanity. Clearly, morality isn't the black-and-white issue that Lewis and Christians tend to believe it is.

For the sake of argument, though, let's disregard this difficulty in Lewis' "proof" and continue. The foundation of his argument depends on one additional claim. Given that we humans have a common notion of the moral ideal, the moral ideal must actually exist... it must have a source or an example. Unfortunately, this logical claim breaks down very, very quickly. Lewis claims that we can't call a line crooked without having a notion of what a straight line is; we would notice being wet, but a fish would not; if the universe had no light, then there would be no creatures with eyes, and we would not be able to comprehend the difference between light and dark. Each of these examples is flawed.

First of all, a blind person is capable of comprehending the difference between light and dark, specifically that one is the presence of photons within a specific frequency range and the other is the absence of them. Likewise, a deaf person is capable of understanding that sound is merely vibration of air molecules. While we have never experienced it, we are capable of comprehending that space is silent--with no matter to vibrate, there can be no sound. We are perfectly capable of imagining that a substance exists and that something travels through that substance. Take as an example ether. At the beginning of the twentieth century, scientists were looking for evidence of the "ether." As it turns out, it was rather, um, ethereal. Scientists imagined that light traveled through this "ether" and assumed that they could figure out how fast the Earth was traveling through the "ether" by measuring the speed of light in various directions. As it turns out, they were wrong. Just like imagining darkness in a universe with no light, we imagined the "ether" in a relativistic universe.

Next, implying a fish does not feel wet because it is a water creature implies that a human would not feel dry because he is not a water creature. Likewise, it implies that we are not capable of appreciating air because we have never experienced a vacuum. This is an inappropriate example, so I'm having a very difficult time coming up with an appropriate counterexample.

Most importantly, the biggest flaw in Lewis' argument is the notion of a straight line. This brings us to mathematics and geometry. I prefer the example of a circle. A circle is the collection of points on a plane that are a specific distance from another arbitrary point on the plane. We are capable of comprehending each of these logical ideas, but sadly, none of them exist. A point is a man-made concept, an infinitesimally small dot. An atom is infinitely larger than a point. No one has ever seen a point, and no one ever will. The same is true of a plane. The same is true of a circle. No one has ever seen a circle, and no one ever will. It's a concept. The fact that we are capable of imagining the concept does not prove the concept exists.

Furthermore, it's important to point out that the concept of a circle is a human construct, and its lack of real-world existence is not a hindrance to the furthering of mathematics or physics--not unlike how the lack of god's existence hasn't affected religious apologists.

Talking with a girl that has a boyfriend

The other day, I upset one of my friends. She knew I had an interest in a girl (but not which girl). When she found out, her response was "You know she has a boyfriend, right?" My response: "So?" The obvious question ensued: Would I really want to date a girl that left her boyfriend for me?

First of all, I don't know the guy, despite the fact that he was there. I know next to nothing about him. He's a completely random stranger. For all I know, he beats her. What I do know:

a) His name.
b) She behaves differently when he's around than she does when he's not around.
c) He gets nervous at the notion that a guy might be trying to talk to his girlfriend.

Between (b) and (c), I would say that they don't have a particularly strong relationship.

For the record, she smokes. I couldn't date anyone that smokes. Obviously, then, this blog isn't about her; it's about my position on making relationships with women that already are dating someone else.


Women and men are in very different positions when it comes to dating. A beautiful woman of any type is likely to have men lined up waiting for her to become single. Obviously, this isn't true for all women, but it's definitely not true for most guys. For those of us that aren't interested in (or capable of) dating a dozen women at once, it's difficult to ever be noticed.

All guys claim to be the caring, compassionate man that women tend to be interested in. Few of us really are. Since all guys claim to be the mythical "good guy," the only way to prove it is with time.

There are many aspects to relationships, especially relationships between the different genders. I tend to get along better with women than I do with men, and as a result, I tend to look to have females as friends instead of males. My reasons for this are different from what other people claim. I get along better with women because I have more in common with them. As Annika puts it, she thinks of me as one of the girls because I tend to think more like a girl would.

So, why would I be interested in talking with a girl that already has a boyfriend?

a) for the same reason that I would talk to a guy that already has a girlfriend: she might turn out to be a really interesting person.
b) it's good to have women that will vouch for me.
c) perhaps when she's single again, we may find that we're interested in each other.
d) friends make much better lovers than strangers.
3) meeting people and making friends is a great way to meet new people and make new friends. (duh.)