I was talking to a very good friend of mine recently about how I sometimes feel that I just want to cut some dates short because I don't want to waste the other party's time and effort needlessly. I always thought that I was being very polite to attempt to adhere to a policy like that, but my friend begged to differ. She was telling me that I had no such right to make decisions like that for other people. For a while I didn't really grasp her point that well and left it at that, thinking that of course there is nothing wrong with my view and that she had simply not understood it. That she had missed the point regarding how courteous I was in not dragging things on needlessly.
But I do have to admit that I may have finally understood what she meant by this. I recently went out on a couple of dates with this girl and after last January and some silly rebounding after that I had decided that instead of just trying to rush into anything, I would primarily just try to get to know people and if things didn't click, I would at least try to be friends, assuming they weren't totally horrid. This was more or less what happened with the girl; she was cute and fun to be around, but I hadn't really felt any real connection. I had been honest with her that I was mainly looking for just new friends and didn't necessarily feel like forcing myself into a relationship, having seen what that is like. And I have to admit that this casual pseudo-dating was actually surprisingly fun, even without having any sort of agenda. My theory is that a person should try to meet and get to know a very wide group of acquantances from very different places in an attempt to broaden one's own horizons, and this was the primary motivation, as such.
In situations like these, however, there seems to be a very high probability of some type of expectation mismatch occuring. I should've understood that whereas I was just in it for the fun, she might've been looking for something else, something more than just friendship and that she would feel as if she's wasting time if it is clear that there are no deeper feelings present. But the way in which she articulated this was so much a cliché and illustrated my friend's point in such a clear way that I couldn't help but laugh when I understood how silly I had undoubtedly sounded in the past. Her comment was that "She feels that I might not be looking for a girl like her." The was obviously very clear, but hearing that myself made me understand how stupid it is to phrase it like that. How could she know what I was looking for and how could she make a decision like that for me? A better phrasing would've been "You're not what I'm looking for" instead. As a matter of fact, I'm quite ashamed that I've also been scared enough to avoid direct confrontation myself and used phrases like the former in an attempt to not have to say the latter. The former is of course politically very nice, but incredibly annoying and spawns the following questions: a) do you suggest that you are so good at interpreting people that you know what they think, b) are you so afraid of confrontation that you cannot take ownership of your own decision, and c) do you think that that actually works?
So, to summarize, another lesson learned. And to whomever it may concern, I do have to offer my apologies for not being the upstanding person I thought I was. But I am learning, and I guess that's always a good thing.
Monday, October 27, 2008
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
You scratch my back, I scratch your back...
I'm becoming more and more convinced that people these days have long forgotten how the world works and what the dynamics are. The age old wisdom of "you scratch my back, I scratch your back" seems to have been forgotten. There are many examples of this, even from my personal life. It seems that things have become a free-for-fall, every person for themself.
One of the most simple scenarios is located in the bar setting. In a group of people, it is often very convenient to have one person at a time get rounds of drinks for everyone. That means that your group won't lose seats and that instead of everyone having to queue one at a time, only one person needs to queue. As an additional perk, this sort of exercise slowly creates trust in a group. Everyone is of course free to leave when they will, but buying rounds shows trust in the other people, that they are not opportunists only looking to score a free drink. Of course, even in this simple game, there are still two types of people who ruin it: a) the idiots who do not understand the nature of the game at all and b) the purely opportunistic bunch. Group b) is easy: evolutionary biology has a concept of reciprocal altruism, and when a parasite is present, it is cast out of the society as punishment. In the bar setting it means getting a round for everyone else but the castout. Group a) is more difficult, as this bunch consists of morons who just don't understand, for one reason or another, the dynamics. What should one do with this group?
So again, here we have another topic concerning trust and altruism. Trust could be understood as a two-sided issue. On on hand trust could be said to exist when two or more players optimize their own utility and where their utility functions are aligned so that it is in the interest of both parties not to screw the other party. On the other hand, trust also requires belief and confidence that even though you expose yourself, the other party does not attempt to opportunistically benefit and increase their utility at your expense.
Now, there was an interesting case tonight at dinner. It may not inherently have that much to do with opportunism, but there is a longer term trend appearing which might suggest something to that extent. It is of course not fair to suggest that it would've been the case today, but passive opportunism may still lurk about. Anyway, it is interesting how this group a) is also very much unable to understand and arrange a trivial operation, such as reserving a table at a restaurant, let alone arriving at the agreed time. And I admit that even though being 5-10 minutes late is still annoying, it can be tolerated. Being 50 minutes late is very interesting, indeed. Now, the other interesting issue arose at the end of the dinner, when I indicated in an annoyed fashion that considering the overall course of the evening, it would fit the theme for me to pick up the bill. I have nothing against picking up a bill as such, but considering the amount of bills that I've picked up here and there, I would've assumed someone else to step in and offer to take it. But no. This is what I would label as passive opportunism.
It is, of course, always possible to start doing math afterwards and split the bill by calling people up and asking them to pay their parts. This, however, is very tasteless, in my opinion. As described above, I understand the system to work in the way that the next time I'm out to dinner, someone else could pick up the bill. But alas, with some people this is too much to expect, and I am at a loss whether to just admit defeat and begin calling in all the beers and dinners and other such tabs that I've picked up in the past.
And finally, for the two top tips of the evening: 1) do not be late for if you've agreed on a time and do reserve a table if there are more than two people coming, and 2) if someone buys a round or picks up a bill, do remember this in the future and do return the favor. Nobody likes a leech, and unless there are other understandings in play, the default dynamics remain the ones to live by.
As I final note, however, I have to admit that all of this is still fairly minute when compared to the entirely rotten group of people who always actively want something from you when they contact you, but never extend a helping hand themselves.
One of the most simple scenarios is located in the bar setting. In a group of people, it is often very convenient to have one person at a time get rounds of drinks for everyone. That means that your group won't lose seats and that instead of everyone having to queue one at a time, only one person needs to queue. As an additional perk, this sort of exercise slowly creates trust in a group. Everyone is of course free to leave when they will, but buying rounds shows trust in the other people, that they are not opportunists only looking to score a free drink. Of course, even in this simple game, there are still two types of people who ruin it: a) the idiots who do not understand the nature of the game at all and b) the purely opportunistic bunch. Group b) is easy: evolutionary biology has a concept of reciprocal altruism, and when a parasite is present, it is cast out of the society as punishment. In the bar setting it means getting a round for everyone else but the castout. Group a) is more difficult, as this bunch consists of morons who just don't understand, for one reason or another, the dynamics. What should one do with this group?
So again, here we have another topic concerning trust and altruism. Trust could be understood as a two-sided issue. On on hand trust could be said to exist when two or more players optimize their own utility and where their utility functions are aligned so that it is in the interest of both parties not to screw the other party. On the other hand, trust also requires belief and confidence that even though you expose yourself, the other party does not attempt to opportunistically benefit and increase their utility at your expense.
Now, there was an interesting case tonight at dinner. It may not inherently have that much to do with opportunism, but there is a longer term trend appearing which might suggest something to that extent. It is of course not fair to suggest that it would've been the case today, but passive opportunism may still lurk about. Anyway, it is interesting how this group a) is also very much unable to understand and arrange a trivial operation, such as reserving a table at a restaurant, let alone arriving at the agreed time. And I admit that even though being 5-10 minutes late is still annoying, it can be tolerated. Being 50 minutes late is very interesting, indeed. Now, the other interesting issue arose at the end of the dinner, when I indicated in an annoyed fashion that considering the overall course of the evening, it would fit the theme for me to pick up the bill. I have nothing against picking up a bill as such, but considering the amount of bills that I've picked up here and there, I would've assumed someone else to step in and offer to take it. But no. This is what I would label as passive opportunism.
It is, of course, always possible to start doing math afterwards and split the bill by calling people up and asking them to pay their parts. This, however, is very tasteless, in my opinion. As described above, I understand the system to work in the way that the next time I'm out to dinner, someone else could pick up the bill. But alas, with some people this is too much to expect, and I am at a loss whether to just admit defeat and begin calling in all the beers and dinners and other such tabs that I've picked up in the past.
And finally, for the two top tips of the evening: 1) do not be late for if you've agreed on a time and do reserve a table if there are more than two people coming, and 2) if someone buys a round or picks up a bill, do remember this in the future and do return the favor. Nobody likes a leech, and unless there are other understandings in play, the default dynamics remain the ones to live by.
As I final note, however, I have to admit that all of this is still fairly minute when compared to the entirely rotten group of people who always actively want something from you when they contact you, but never extend a helping hand themselves.
Saturday, October 04, 2008
Fresh...
Strangely enough things are looking up again. Or, it's difficult to describe, but in a really weird way the above song just really clicks with my current mood. It's slightly playful, light, optimistic. The strings are just so sexy and the beat continues to move things on with great ease.
School started again a bit less than a month back and for the first period I'm only looking at two courses. That said, I did already read the course book for a course starting in the second period. Out of the two courses, both promise to be interesting, but in different ways. The advanced course in software business is actually an interesting course with a small group of people and the sessions are more discussing in nature. And then the other one... Software Development Project I. There's an eight person team and the intent is to revamp some older piece of software for an external client. And I'm having some sort of a culture shock with our project manager, who seems to not have any experience in running these types of projects... Or any projects for that matter.
Work is taking up more and more time and even though I'm being pushed increasingly hard by managers, it's still amazingly enough interesting and challenging. And even though at times I'm just about ready to give up and throw my hands in the air, I just end up pushing on. This whole project has taught me so much that even now I consider my time very well spent.
What else...? I bought my first blazer a couple of days back and I'm totally addicted to it. Wore it yesterday for the first time and combine it with khaki trousers, a light shirt, a repp tie and voila, amazing. The blazer itself promises to be one of the more versatile investments that I've made and it certainly has that prep-appeal present. And yes, the really relevant question here is: How is it possible that I've not owned one before?
And while taking into account the current situation of the economy, I've also been running a personal project during this year of minimizing my fixed costs by shifting e.g. phones and the internet to the company, killing some of my own magazine subscriptions that I can read at work, and so on. But amazingly enough it seems that when you save somewhere, you start spending elsewhere. So now that the fixed costs are down, my next project is to shift myself to a 20e a day budget. Meaning that every morning I take a 20e bill from the ATM and I have to get through the day with that. And whatever remains of it at the end of the day, I through that into a glass on my bookshelf. This means that hopefully I'll be able to cap my monthly spendings quite a bit. Because it would really be a shame to miss the upcoming possibility to broaden my investment portfolio due to lack of cash. I guess I'll also need to review my strategy for investing and go through some fundamental questions...
But, it's Saturday morning and even though it's slightly raining outside, I'm feeling great and a large breakfast might be a good idea before the evening in with some friends.
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