Self Awareness Week

Hola,

OK, so I just finished posting an eharmony profile. Scary stuff. Why is it scary? Because my matches seem a bit disharmonious (it's a real word, I promise).

I tell the gurus at eharmony that I don't watch TV. Match 3 says that the four things she can't live without are (in this order): The Lord, My friends, The Bible, TV(!), My car. Match 6 says: My family, My dog, My friends, HDTV(!), The New York Yankees.

One attorney says that her boss (!) is the single most important influence in her life.

Hey, guess what Match 7's friends think about her: "you'd have to ask them" (!!)

Match 2 just read Pride and Prejudice(!). Is that code for "I don't read"?

Match 8 adds at the end of her profile, "Tell the truth!" (exclamation point free with quote)

Big news! All of my matches are "intelligent," "caring," "hardworking," "athletic," and..."modest."

Two of my matches reveal that their best life skill is..."managing their personal finances."

One says that she can't live without..."the Olympics."

Another adds that she is wary of those who live "like pod people."

So maybe I filled out the survey incorrectly. Scarily enough, I doubt it. I think that this is me, staring me hardworkingly and caringly in the face, with finances in order and remote control in hand, looking for an honest answer to some basic questions. And there were some very interesting elements as well. Like Match 4's favorite recent book about the hunt for Edvard Munch's stolen artwork. Or Match 9, my personal favorite, who specializes in kidney disease (how did eharmony know about my kidney stone?).

For those of you who are still on the fence, gather 'round. There are several things that you need to consider before taking the $30 a month plunge. First, be liberal with your answers. Don't box yourself in. One of my best friends answered everything truthfully, including how she would only date a Christian/Jew and would prefer someone who didn't drink or smoke. She was told the following:

"Unfortunately, we are not able to make our profiles work for you. Our matching model could not accurately predict with whom you would be best matched. This occurs for about 20% of potential users, so 1 in 5 people simply will not benefit from our service. We hope that you understand and we regret our inability to provide service for you at this time."

Frankly, I'm stunned. But then again, I live in New friggin' York, and only got ten matches so far. I mean, "matches."

Next, consider this: yes it only takes about 20 minutes to fill out the 400+ questions, but then you are placed in a holding pattern where you have to "ask her questions," send "must haves and can't stands," "send second questions," "read her answers," "read Dr. Warren's message," and only then are you granted a furlough where you may begin "open communication." For the daring among you, there's the red button option - "request fast track." This is an e-mail sent through eharmony that includes a request to bypass all of the above. A dangerous move, likely to scare away those whose "friends think I'm shy" and the many who appear to need to "build trust." Be warned!

Next, consider the scope of the questions that you may select and send to your "match." Of the zillions of things worth talking about, your questions are confined to the trite and pedestrian. Do we really need to know whether our dates would prefer "roller blading by the ocean" to "the ballet" for a date?

Most disturbing are the banner ads that grace the pages of eharmony, most of which are for teeth whitening or digital photo enhancing services. We wouldn't want anyone seeing what we really look like right away, would we?

Finally, it should be noted that many "matches" also means many people who at any moment can put you "on hold" or "close" your profile, turning you down before they even know about your love for the sound of cool metal against the boardwalk. So rejection can come fast and in stereo. Be strong, my brothers!

I don't trust this 29-dimensional algorithm, which claims to allow you to be flexible in finding the right person for you, yet returns a group of strangers who seem so eerily similar to one another. There are many ways to be wonderful, and I refuse to believe that I can only find love in a careerist smiley gal who enjoys hugs and is thankful for free will. The most disturbing part of it all was how I told the nice interface that I was open to people of all faiths, as long as the person believed in God, only to find my "matches" confined to Christians. There may even be a political element to eharmony - a desire on the company's part to bring together people in certain combinations. After all, it's impossible to instruct your computer that you'd like nothing better than to meet members of the same sex.

I want to develop my own patented matching algorithm, but need your help. It needs to seek out more than one personality type for each weary traveler, giving them the chance or at least the hope for finding love in unexpected, exciting, and edifying places. Here are my first ten questions. Comments welcome.

1. What was the first thought that ran through your mind when you woke up this morning?

2. Which would you prefer, to awaken finding yourself with your own body and the mind of an orangutan, or with the body of an orangutan and the mind of a human being?

3. I can think of a New Yorker cover that provides a nice visual depiction of where I am in my life (Likert scale)

4. Puddles on the sidewalk - to step in or to avoid at all costs? (scale)

5. You have one dollar bill. You happen upon some street performers in a subway station:

(a) an African singer who plays guitar and a sings in Swahili with a moving voice but dances embarrassingly out of rhythm;
(b) a violinist who plays a halfway decent but movingly heartfelt version of Clair de Lune; and
(c) a woman with a long, flowing, ruffled dress and dark, curly hair, sitting with a drum machine in her lap that is connected to very large speakers, who randomly sways to a techno beat while she howls into her microphone.

Where does the dollar bill find its home?

6a. "We're marooned on a small island, in an endless sea. Confined to a tiny spit of sand, unable to escape. But tonight, on this small planet..." Would you use this quote in a TV show, a movie, or as a sample in music?

6b. Kindly complete the above quotation.

7. You are sent to Best Buy to purchase The Office. Do you bring back (a) the original BBC series, (b) the American version, or (c) Extras?

8. In a crowded place, I stare (a) down at my feet, (b) at any available advertisements, (c) directly at other people, making occasional eye contact, (d) randomly, everywhere.

9. True or False: People who apply the "veil of ignorance" concept to an ordinary life situation while in group conversation either don't know what they're talking about or are in love with themselves.

10a. An article appears on page three of the New York times, indicating a new correlation between the sipping of green tea and the reduced risk of disease. I (a) immediately drink more green tea; (b) change nothing about my green tea consumption; (c) take out my anger at the gross misrepresentation of multiple regression analysis by drinking less or even no green tea; (d) do nothing; it's the Times, after all, and I'll be damned if I eat or drink like a Liberal.

10b. Follow-up to 10a: will that be jasmine, gunpowder, "whatever they're serving," or sencha?


Vaya con Dios - brooding presence

Life in the '07

Yeah, it's nearly mid-January, but I needed to gear up for my new year's resolutions. Promises, promises.

BP's New Year's Resolutions:

1. Practice (after figuring out!) proper IM etiquette. If I want to have a fight with a friend, first I must GET RID of my active icon, such as the Yeti who dodges avalanches and smiles that adorable smile. It's just not acceptable when you're going off on a person to have a Yeti dancing around and making sounds similar to what the other person would hear walking past a construction sight. And I need to figure out all of those abbreviations and acronyms. Like, brb = "be right back," ttyl = "talk to you later," igtldywahs = "i'm going to lunch, do you want a ham sandwich" and so on. Many of these shortcuts, I should avoid. For instance, tech support at my job has been known to write, "I'll fu later" for "follow up." I am NOT kidding. Believe me. I'm not writing this for laughs. I can't even see you as you read this...you're sitting too far from your web cam...

Also, I should avoid holding too many IM conversations at once. This practice has been known, in several documented cases, to result in "cross-messaging." I want to avoid the following scenario:

broodingpresenceatwork: LOL
cipher84: hey i'm thinking of going to France
broodingpresenceatwork: but you don't speak French ; )
cipher84: you're always so critical of me! i don't like that about you
broodingpresenceatwork: i was just trying to be funny. brb
cipher84: where the hell are you going? you can't run away from conflict!
broodingpresenceatwork is away...
cipher84: like i have all day to wait for you
broodingpresenceatwork: sorry, had a partner on the line
cipher84: look at you, Mr. Man. all important and bullshit like that
broodingpresenceatwork: well you don't have to be rude!
broodingpresenceatwork: i was just sayin, maybe try something a bit more out-of-box than Paris. Like the trans-Siberian railroad. You could stop at Lake Baikal and see the
[box 2 opens on screen]
partneratwork174283: can you stop by my office as soon as possible?
broodingpresenceatwork: six-gill sharks that still live there, virtually unchanged after millions of years!
partneratwork174283: excuse me?
cipher84: see the WHAT?! why are you being cryptic with me?
partneratwork174283: never mind, I'll ask somebody else
cipher84: i can't believe you think you're too good for Paris.

2. Speaking of IM: remember: the existence of IM communication does not render asking a woman on a date via e-mail the new "in-person."

3. Speaking of dating: resolution number 3: resolve the "brick and mortar" vs. "sketchy Internet dating" divide and elect to probably try neither. I admit, I've come close to convincing myself that it's OK to dump your bio data on some website, of course after sufficiently researching whether you agree with how their algorithm selects prospective partners. I once thought that Internet dating was just plain wrong, because I needed a "narrative" about how I met a person - it had to feel random yet predestined. But now that I've been reading a lot of science fiction, I'm sure that I can come up with something worth telling the grandkids by the fire while we're camping in the Adirondacks. And why would randomly running into someone at work or Borders Books and Music and Coffee and Biscotti be any better than learning about them on-line first? I mean, e-harmony basically creates a virtual book store, "populates" it with several dozen people who, like you, are all about "the dawn" and love to eat those little yellow candy chickadees at Easter and are constantly seeking expression of who they are and meaning in what they do (andhavethesamelevelofeducation - ain't nothin' wrong with a little bit of SES), and then lets you browse. If you see one of these ravenous chickadee eaters in the Inspiration section, you can start up a conversation without sirens going off and the poor, misunderstood (I didn't smile at you!) woman escorted by armed guards to safety. Because for some reason, people only feel like going to this particular book store when they're single and interested in dating. Or so they claim.

Now I just think it's sketchy.

4. Stop acting so careerist. After all, Ralph Waldo Emerson once said that "Great geniuses have the shortest biographies. Their cousins can tell you nothing about them." But what to quit? And which cousin to estrange? And let's not forget that RWE is only one man. Everyone and his mama has something to say about "genius." Like Einstein. He said that "intellectuals solve problems, geniuses prevent them." Whither me, Mr. InstaConflict? (just add water!)

5. Speaking of quitting jobs AND real genius: this year, establish a beachhead within the MacArthur Foundation Fellowship selection committee; maybe one of them has a daughter with a YouTube channel on which I could post an endearing comment or two. Hey anonymous nominators, imagine how purdy my blog site would be if I had an extra 100 g's? Heck, you've awarded the fellowship to rare book binders and clowns, and I'm sorta funny and my book that just came out might as well be rare based on its Amazon sales ranking, so holla!

6. Speaking of funny: this is the year I take the world of stand-up comedy by storm, or at least by rumors of rain. Where art thou, open mic? My first joke:

"You all ready to have a good time? You ready to laugh your asses off? Huh?! Are you READY TO LAUGH YOUR ASSES OFF!? OK, goodnight!"

7. Charitable giving: decide whether I want to keep setting casts and handing out slings or if I want to finally invest in filling that pothole out in front of the doctor's office. Give accordingly.

8. Resolve all moral quandaries, especially whether I should donate a kidney. If I were to pass an icy lake with a small child drowning in it, and I knew that jumping in to save her would increase my chances of dying before my time by 1 in 4,000, I would try to save her. Otherwise, I would be valuing my life 4,000 times more than her own, which is just silly. But to date, I have not increased my risk of premature death by the same amount and rid myself of a superfluous organ. I've asked my friend Greg, who is studying to become a priest, this very question, and he promises to bring this up in his next class. I can see the news clip now:

"One seminary. Twelve priests-in-training. Twelve kidneys. The inexplicable mass-gifting of kidneys anonymously to children who were too far down the donor waiting list to otherwise have a fair chance of survival began shortly after the new year began. It is sparking a nationwide movement, and spawning copycat donors within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who some say have the most to lose."

9. Be nice to people. And I mean everyone. Whip up a nice batch of niceties and start dishing them out, even to people who don't even come close to deserving them. Then just sit back and start keeping score! I mean, just sit back and bits of happy will return to you from the ether. Duck if they're inordinately large.

10. Realize that every day is a gift. Live each day with the sense of urgency that such a realization demands.

I gotta go.

Vaya con Dios - Brooding Presence