Starting to realize the people are n-dimensional blobs of personality traits.
Said traits are related, but not always correlated the way I expect.
I’m still finding ways to probe the shape of people’s personalities
(what others might call “getting to know someone”)
without poking sensitive portions of the blob.
Random statistic: I know that at least 14% of the women I’ve slept with are now lesbians.
Should I contribute to a political candidate?
I can’t vote yet, but I still have to live with the next president’s policies.
Is it right for me to attempt to influence things, even if it is in a minuscule way?
As I’m trying to pay more attention to those I interact with, I find myself self-censoring what I want to
write about… if I blog about certain things I notice, at the very least, I’ll Heisenberg the personal or social
dynamics… at the worst, people may feel uncomfortable, which is not what I’m aiming for…
It’s also slightly interesting to me the level of social politics that sometimes seem
to accompany the simplest of things.
Right now, I’m dealing with said politics by being in denial about them.
Hmmm… does writing this blog entry mean I’m no longer in denial?
One of the interesting things I’ve noticed is how Dina reacts to my flirting with others and, of course,
others flirting with me. Mostly, the wonderful wife that she is, she’s OK with it.
On very rare occasions she isn’t. In an attempt to zero out the “isn’t”
times, I’ve been making some observations and case studies based on the flirtee.
Let’s put this in a tabular format.
Note the “if”. It should go without saying wouldn’t make a serious pass.
Table 1. Suspected Reaction Of Flirtee If Nick Made A Serious Pass At Them.
| Case | …while married | …were I single | Reaction |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Negative: Punch Nick’s lights out / run away / faint / vomit. | Negative: … | OK. |
| 2 | Negative: … | Positive: Act on the pass. | OK. |
| 3 | Positive: … | Positive: … | Not OK. |
| 4 | Positive: … | Negative: … | Not OK. |
Case 1 would account about 99.9999% of expected reactions.
Case 2 is obviously flattering.
Case 3 is intellectually interesting.
Case 4 offends my vanity on some level.
Anyway… a number of things are surprising to me…
First, it took me writing out a damn fucking table to boil down “something blindingly obvious”
into “something blindingly obvious to Nick“…
<sigh />
I hate being slow…
Dina gets defensive, and rightfully so, if she think the flirtee would act on a pass even though we’re married.
I think this applies to people I don’t flirt with too… duh…
Surprisingly to me, she doesn’t get defensive in case 2.
It’s realizations like this that make me realize what a social moron I am.
A friend of mine recently noted that they
“have to fight to stay on the marginal edge of social competence.”
I think I’m jealous of them…