There are no Correct Decisions

Well, I’ve returned to singledom. After months of being in an exclusive relationship, I found that she was not for me. This is a pretty hard decision to make because we still care a lot about each other. Sure, there were arguments and fights from time to time, but nothing I’d especially consider bad warning signs. There was hardly any bringing up of past wrongs, so most fights were on new things.

But as much as I would want, it just wasn’t there. Perhaps it is something that I could grow into or perhaps not. I think maybe not, at least not with me the way I am now. I want something else, someone else, and I need to be able to answer myself whether this something else (that I can’t obviously put down in words) actually exists with someone else.

Of course, the danger is that I’m wrong, and then I’d have ended a relationship that was otherwise going well. In these situations, no amount of list making and rationalization can help. Gut feelings is where the solution lies and my gut says I’m doing the right thing.

The Armchair Genius

That’s right people. I am an armchair genius. I sit in front of my tablet, read the news or watch it, read blogs or online magazines, and think about how much smarter, how much more self control, how much more morally consistent I am than everyone else. It is not hard to believe, after all, the world revolves around me. And as such, I’m glad you’ve humbled yourself today to catch even a small nugget of my intellect.

Yesterday I read about the Stanford Prison study. There have been other psychological experiments which yielded similar results but the conclusions drawn here were applied to an article discussing torture and Abu Grahib and the kind of situation that can make otherwise “good” people go “bad”. I will state now that in my infinite wisdom, I have already determined that “good” and “bad” are very subjective. That good and bad are not fundamental qualities of a person, but just a general consensus of how we (and they) view the results of their actions and motivations.

For example, the issue of torture. I’m sure there are many who believe what they were doing is right. That their methods were justified by their results, whatever that may actually have been. That by “keeping us safe”, they should have a get out of jail free card. But on my end, I just see torture. And as with anything that does not directly affect me, I feel that our laws should be immediately and impartially applied to them.

However, there are those that passionately feel the opposite. It is tempting to think they are idiots, immoral, unethical, lacking of humanity. But mayhaps they are not. I used to believe that ignorance played a major role in such things. It certainly can neatly explain why racism still exists and how many conservatives act like it doesnt. It neatly explains how they can earnestly decry any responsibility for what minorities have gone through and continue to experience in this country. It is how they can make statements like “What other country do you people have this level of rights and standard of living” without seeming to realize that until things are equal, truely equal, I would rather work to make America the place where minorities are treated and regarded as equals and not a place where it’s the best we can expect to have in the world. The best shithole amongst shitholes is still a shithole. Seems simple enough to me.

So, in my infinite wisdom, I thought, given that I have wisdom and knowledge and understand these things and they don’t, it is clearly an issue of ignorance. They just don’t know what I know. But perhaps I’m wrong. Maybe they do know what I know. Yet their life story has crafted such a widely divergent viewpoint, their current situation presents such a different outlook, I fear that no amount of knowledge can bridge the gap.

My thoughts turned to relationships. I was in a long term (3+ years) relationship a few years ago. One that my parents very much objected to when they found out about it. At the time, I wondered why they didn’t understand, why they didn’t support me, but now that it is over and time has passed, I’ve come to see some (but definitely not all) of their rationale (one does not become an armchair genius overnight you know). My being involved, no matter how pragmatic and impartial I think I can make my self, irrevocably changes they way I view things.

One conclusion of the study is that in situations like the prison experiment, our mind attempts to deal with two conflicting ideas and what wins out is that of conformity, the decision that is in line with those around us, those with whom we have a very close relationship, those with whom are in authority over us. I’m not saying that other people on the outside are always right, but providing a framework for this logical leap – which is that relationships can be the same way. We can at times deal with conflicting emotions, desires, and thoughts. But we stay because of inertia. Things have been moving in a certain direction, other people expect things of us, we have obligations, we want to do what seems “right”, so we suppress those contrary feelings and move on.

It can be easy for me to then say, the things that I allow myself to do should be those, for better or worse, that don’t generate internal conflict. My current academic/career choice and direction has been largely internal conflict free. My relationships, not so much. Buying my car, conflict free. Buying a ring, not so much. The problem is, I recognize that certain things in life, by their very nature, cannot be completely removed from conflict. Or perhaps, the reason is by my very nature, I cannot experience them without internal conflict.

My personal views about long term relationships have undergone a drastic shift in the past couple years. In 2007/2008, while I was single, all I wanted was an end to that status. To have a relationship with someone that I care about, respect, enjoy spending time with, and wanted to grow with and allow them to help me grow. In many ways, I’m a very private person. I dislike sharing information about myself and tend not to make what I feel are unneccesary conversations. So, when I am with someone who I can open up to, it means I’m in a very vulnerable state, and as such, that person must be special.

Now that I’m with such a person, my mind wanders at time. Damn the greener grass syndrome. I wonder if I just need time to get it out of my system. A friend of mine had his girlfriend recently leave him because she wanted to be single to discover who she really was. She’s been in one relationship after another almost continuously for the past 6+ years. Is this possible? Can one ever truely satisfy that kind of thirst? I don’t know. I’ve always said that commitment isn’t a feeling as much as it is a decision.

I hate second guessing my decisions. I fear that I can make wrong ones.

By the way, I actually am a good writer. However, my thoughts themselves (at least when not concerned with robotics) tend not to be organized. What allows me to pass english classes is an ability to turn jumbled messes into works of art. Unfortunately for those who came to see art, I feel no such compuction with this blog to clean it up beyond what flows from my mind (and any sanitization to protect my vanity).

The Three Stages of Relationships

Quick disclaimer, these three stages DON’T include engagement/marriage. However, there will be a slight discussion following that addresses why engagement and marriage should logically be considered one and the same stage.

So, relationships can be tricky to navigate these days. People progress at different rates. Sometimes one wonders “just where are we?” I mean, one is less likely to schedule whole blocks of time off or go through driving hours just to see someone who “is just talking”. I think typically, we either want the other person to be at the same stage that we’re in, or at least have the decency to let us know that they’re not quite that serious when we start talking about planning joint vacations.

This issue is further complicated by our general need to hold the upper hand and limit how vulnerable we can be. Relationship-wise, this generally means the topic of “where are we” is taboo, at least for the first few weeks or months (depending on just how often you’ve been “seeing” each other).

So, what are these stages and how can I recognize them in others (well, probably just your friends when they talk about those of the opposite sex in their lives who are not relatives, classmates, co-workers, or people who have already been turned down [there is NO such thing as platonic friendship])?

1. Hanging out. Also known as “just talking”, “seeing each other”. This is the stage where you’ve just met and are feeling each other out. There is mutual attraction and perhaps some interest. Certainly fun. But heck, I already have fun with my friends and likely don’t need more, so, the point of this is to see whether the other person captures our interest long enough for us to consider moving to the next phase:
2. Dating. For those who don’t know or are confused, dating is the stage where you evaluate long term (and for most, exclusive) relationship potential with a person. You are no longer “just talking”, a stage where either person can cancel without worry about anything because there is nothing invested. See, in stage 1, you spend time together when it is convenient. You both happen to be free, in the same place, etc. Dating requires allocating time to be together out of your regular schedule. Now, this evaluation is just for the next stage:
3. Boyfriend/girlfriend. Yes, that’s right. That long term exclusive relationship is NOT marriage. In this stage, you are now a couple. You meet friends, maybe parents. While you may “hang out” with many people or date a few, you tend to only be in this stage with one other person. The goal here (for some) is to evaluate the other for a permanent commitment – marriage. This is where you root out conflicts like number of children wanted, religion, financial plans for the future, career conflicts, etc.

Once you resolve these issues, you are then ready to move on to (what’s supposed to be) the final stage, marriage. Now, why do I lump engagement together with marriage. Logically, when you ask someone to marry you or agree to marry someone, you are in fact saying, “Yes, we can get married tomorrow”. The only reason that there’s even an engagement stage is to give you time to plan a wedding, setup a common home, finances, etc. If you think that engagement is a time for you to discover any last lingering issues, you have made a very bad mistake.

Alas, many fall into this trap because they don’t actually follow through on the previous stages. Yes, the further up you move, the harder it is to end a relationship, but if you are actually serious about the progression – if your end goal is to be married, then you need to use each stage for what it is. If your end goal is a bf/gf, and you suddenly find yourself accepting (or giving) a marriage proposal, something is wrong. You are not equipped to make a good decision on that front because up to then, that has not been your intention. You’ve not done the due diligence on that front.

Anyway, live and learn.

Dazed and Confused

So, HEC and I hung out again this weekend. She was out with a friend. I met them at a bar, we had a few drinks, chatted, some light flirting, then I bounce them to my usual spot and eventually she and I end up on the dance floor.

At this point, I’m a bit unsure what I want to do. I’m fine dancing with HEC with her friend there. I’m not quite sure how much further I wanted to attempt to go. I guess the question becomes, if you are out with friends, and you are interested in one, can you make a move at that point or do you have to wait until you two are isolated?

I’m relatively sure that I no longer miss the “go ahead” signal. So perhaps that why tings are always interesting when HEC is involved. When we chat beforehand, the signal seems to be there. When we’re actually out, its tougher to read. Or perhaps it should be clear, given that she never quite makes herself available to me alone.

Then again, perhaps that was my move to make. To take her in hand and tell her friend, hey, don’t worry, I’ll make sure she gets home safe tonight. Sigh, I guess I’ll have to find out the next time.

So, aside from HEC, I’ve been dating for a couple weeks now. The love triangle thing has resolved itself, and I’m now just seeing one, and avoiding talking to the other. It goes against my nature, but I think it’s best for now. Because I feel any in depth discussion would lead to potentially resuming the relationship and ultimately a new triangle conflict. While both knew I wanted to see other people concurrently, neither really can accept that, especially if they know that I’m seeing the other

A Woman, A Ring, A Question

Yes, you read that correctly. This post involves a woman, a ring, and a question. Perhaps you already know what I’m about to say. If so, please, skip straight to the comments and leave your response. I’d like to compare before and after thoughts. . . 

So, trapsing through craigslist one day, I ran into an ad a person had put up. Being a bit bored (at my apt, finals over, just finished reading my second book), I decided “what the heck, I can talk”. So we did. Now hold your horses. . . she’s just looking for friendship and that’s all this has been.

Ahem. So, after some talk over some time, we decided to hang out and meet up at a semi-local Chuck-E-Cheese like venue. We have fun, play games, chat a bit, then afterwards go to a mexican restauarant where we ate and chatted some more. Full disclosure: She paid for all her stuff and I mine except there’s still some discussion over which one of us won the most tickets for the prizes we’d gotten (I think that Sky Captain machine was rigged).

Anyway, I like her and have no problems being a friend. Yes, I’m that elusive male character that can be a woman’s platonic friend, given the requirements for such are met that:

1. I am not attracted to her OR
2. She is in a relationship OR
3. I am in a relationship.

So, she’s married so obviously #2. Anyway, even though I myself am not a jealous individual, I’d be a bit uncomfortable with someone who was my wife spending time with a male individual (single or not) that I did not know on some level.

So, I have to decide, how do I bring about the question? When I tell my friends things like this, I always get asked “How do you get yourself into these situations?” Seriously, they don’t happen that often. Just in-between the last time we see each other.

Another thing, with few exceptions, most of the women with whom I’m friends now were met when we were both single. And there was some flirting, perhaps a bit more, then it stayed where it was. So now, it’s no big deal to joke around with them. So, here, I have to think about toning down the typical stuff though I’m not sure if it’s even an issue. 

Last year, I discovered a new friend where some of the initial circumstances were the same as this one. It wasn’t until maybe six months later that we started talking (and laughing) about the initial few weeks of getting to know each other.

Ok, I have a bit of a confession to make. Generally, I don’t really have conclusions for my posts. Perhaps because of the nature of these things, they’re not always “resolved” when I write them. However, being the type of person that I am, I feel bad about this. . . and now all of you will start noticing something you didn’t really see before. So . . .

Boom-shaka-laka. The End.

One of These Days

I’m going to figure it out. Like in my controls class, we went over a method for finding stabilizing controllers for unstable systems using coprime factorization. This method results in a characteristic equation equal to one, not zero. In the interest of taking notes, I did not question this when it first came up, but waited until after the professor had gone over all the material. The answer he gave wasn’t fully satisfactory, but after thinking about it some more, going home, and doing more reading, building on what he said, I think I understand the reason, though I’d much prefer to find a textbook explanation that connects the dots in more mathematical terms rather than inferences that make sense based on my understand of controls.

In any case, that anecdote is relevant to other experiences in my life. I’m able to get to a certain point, but things don’t progress beyond that. This is relevant in that I feel the reason is somewhere just beyond my grasp, that I possess most of the knowledge and experience to get an intuitive feel of the reasoning, but I’m looking for that definite aha light bulb moment or explanation. I’m betting it will turn out to be one of those things where you smack yourself on the head, perhaps a bit too hard, but go “Wow, this really should have been obvious to me all along! WTF was I thinking?”

And so today I write off another one. Well, in reality, that action is nearly meaningless because I’ve already been written off. Though part of the problem is my inability to be completely objective in these situations. I’m just too close, having an interest in one outcome, it’s hard to track evidence that leads to the other. Or worse yet, I’m likely misclassifying things.

Perhaps I’d be best served by attempting to create a bayesian decision network to model these things. I’ve had this idea before, perhaps it wouldn’t be a bad idea to actually act on it. Who knows, if I can come up with a good enough model, there could be some marketable potential.

It’s a New Day

This post is inspired in part by this song by will.i.am. Also good listens, this and that. So, I’m in a good mood. My stomach is still a bit angry with me, tonight probably didn’t help, but whatever. I’ll be fine. So, what happened to the stomach and why am I happy? Glad you asked. . . 

It started Friday evening, ok technically, part of the story probably starts before that, but we’ll fast-forward through those parts. So, Friday, I’m watching How I Met Your Mother with my current roomate and eating dinner. We both had a beer with dinner and went through the second half of season three and first five episodes of season four. Well, epsidoe five pretty much ends with a cliffhanger.  So, a bit distraught, we do a couple shots of Wisniowka and decide to head out to the southside.

I was thinking of going to shadowlounge or ava earlier that night, but I’m not sure what else is in the area and we typically hit up a couple places while out and were feeling lazy. Anyways, we goto Tiki, partly because it’s kinda my spot when I go out in the southside and because my roomate’s been wanting to take advantage of their $2 wells and get started. Well, I probably have about 7-8 of those, plus a jameson on the rocks, and a baileys on the rocks.

After dancing with the cougars in Tiki, we goto lava lounge, find out there’s a $3 cover, just as we’re leaving (too cheap to pay), the bouncer recognizes us as friends of a friend and lets us in free. I run into another guy I know there, we hang out with him for a bit and I drunkenly hit on a girl and get her number. Since I’ve convinced myself earlier that I left my phone in my car, I borrow my roomate’s. Lacking the manual dexterity to bypass his keypad lock, I have to get him to unlock the phone, then spend what seems to be 3 minutes mistyping the girls number. Of course, I don’t even hit save on the phone lol.

Anyway, we leave that and mosey on down to Elixir. It’s a bit boring, so we head to Jacks. Same there and we start walking back towards Tiki. Conveniently, there’s a cab stopped at a light. Realizing there’s no way I’m going to be able to drive, I make the executive decision to take the cab home and we pile in. My roomate starts talking to the cabbie about me and our groups plans. Cabbie tells us if he hits it rich, he’d be glad to invests and gives us a couple of his business cards for us to keep in touch.

I get home, make it up to my room, somehow manage to hit the on button on the heater, strip, and fall into bed. 9 hours later, I awake. Already, I smell trouble brewing, typically, I sleep 5-7 hours and usually less after a night out (where alcohol was involved). My stomach is killing me. I know the solution to the problem, water and food. However, I’m under the vicious circle of my stomach hurting makes the thought and action of eating unpleasant, yet if I don’t do it, my stomach won’t get better. I make it downstairs and fall onto the loveseat apparently “curled up in the fetal position”.

I manage to drink down some water and eat some potatoes provided by roomate and start thinking, hmm, I probably should get my laptop. Problem is, the laptop is a few feet away on the couch. Getting it would require getting up. Getting up will make my stomach hurt. So, I remain. . . until I remember that I’m missing more than just a morning study meeting, I may potentially be hanging out with this cool chick at noon and it’s. . .gasp 12:10 already!

So, feeling energized, I get up, grab the laptop and check my email. . .yep, I was supposed to be somewhere ten minutes ago. I tell my roomate, go change and freshen up, then we get out to his car. . .and have to inflate one of his tires. Then we make it to the southside and luckily, she’s still there I have to say, I haven’t had this much fun in a while.

Oh, so while I was negotiating the terms of surrender with my stomach on the loveseat, my roomate was telling me that my best friend apparently got into town earlier that morning. Anyway, a few hours ago, we had drinks with him, his new old gf, and a couple other friends. I knew that he was seeing someone (who lives in pittsburgh) a month ago but for whatever reason her identity didn’t click until he texted me that he was bringing her with him tonight.

Anyways, that’s it for now. I’ll probably write more about this day later.

The Latest Front

The latest front in the presidential race, well, not really latest, this line of attack has been going on since the beginning, but certainly rearing it’s head again on the heels of Colin Powell’s support of Barack Obama – Powell is only voting for him because he’s black. Yes, that’s the conservative pundit’s best attempt to marginalize the implications of Powell’s remarks. As usual, those idiots don’t quite realize that by implication, they are either suggesting that they themselves are voting for McCain because he’s white, or that black people in general are neither smart enough nor caring of their community, their nation, the economy, or any of the other issues to be able to make an informed decision.

It’s funny, the essential charactization of Barack Obama voters are either the actual racists in America (black people) or elitist white guilt assuaging arugula eaters. That’s why the McCain camp would have your believe there are “real” and fake parts of America. For example, nothern VA, fake. The rest of VA, real. Part of the racism issue is that many people, especially those in the majority, believe that racism is defined by intent. That is totally wrong. Unlike murder, there is no self-defense argument for racism.

But enough about that. Last week, I more or less officially chose a thesis advisor. This has been a tough issue for me. From all I’ve read and advice I’ve gotten, choosing an appropriate advisor has far reaching effects on one’s career. Now, I have a pretty solid idea of what I’d be doing in the first few year immediately following graduation, but in case that does not pan out, I want to be on solid footing if I choose a research or academic track instead of going back into industry.

By solid footing, I mean I want to have experience and skills in exactly the area I’d like to work, decision making with mobile intelligent agents. So, the best thing would be for me to work with a professor doing research in that area because a graduate student’s own research tends to be along the same lines. The issue, lack of options in that regard at Pitt. So, either I work on transferring to CMU (or another school), or I find myself doing work that’s tangentially related to what I really want to do. Anyway, whether or not I transfer, I still needed to choose an advisor for the time being. So I went with the guy I’d most likely want to work with, whose research is in a similar area and got the shock of my week:

He’s willing to help me develop my own research topic and essentially guide me along, if that’s what I want to do. It would require more initiative on my part, working on finding avenues for funding, coming up with ideas, etc, but, he’s willing to help as long as I put in the work. So, turns out that I probably made the best choice after all.

But leaving that aside for now, tomorrow will be pretty much an entire month (ok, exactly 4 weeks), since I last spoke with HEC. Interestingly enough, she hasn’t called or texted me in that time either. I was hoping I’d be over her by now, but uh. . .not quite. I guess this is one of those that only goes away when someone else takes her place. . .grr.

Affairs of the Heart

Yesterday, I was out with a buddy of mine and decided to text HEC to see what she was up to. 90 minutes and a few text messages later, she was on her way to meet us at my favorite spot in the southside. HEC is someone in whom I see good LTR potential. She is very attractive, an engineer, fun to talk to, ambitious, involved with her family, and many other things. 

However, without getting into the history of what’s been going on, all my good female friends have pretty much told me that I should forget about it. Normally, I would. Normally, I could. However, for some reason, I’m not able to let this go. I tried to tell myself that we’re just friends, but whenever we’re out together, I can’t bring myself to seriously go after other girls. Sure, I may flirt with them, but I’d never let things get to the point where I was getting phone numbers or making out with one.

So, as much as I’d like to think otherwise, I’m still holding out. I don’t want to be one of those guys who is just friends hoping to get with her later and to be honest, if nothing ever happened, I’d still want to (and be) friends with her. I guess I want some sort of resolution to this so that I can move on, but there is something that’s not letting go.

Maybe I’ll figure it out eventually. I hope so. I’ve been telling myself that I’d eventually meet someone else who’d take my mind off HEC, well, a potential romantic relationship with HEC. We shall see.

I’m Going to Do It. . .

What is that it you may ask? I’ve been frequenting this nightspot that has an open-mic night. In general, things like that tend to motivate me if I hang around long enough – I almost convinced myself to attempt some stand-up comedy before I left TLH. According to a friend of mine, it was a good thing that was never inflicted upon the world.

Perhaps at some point, I’d do the composition here. But for now, this feels more complete to me . . .

The lyrics to a song go “I know you think that i shouldn’t still love you or tell you that. But if I didn’t say it, well, I’d still have felt it, where’s the sense in that? I promise I’m not trying to make your life harder or return to where we were”.* Those are the first few lines of the song. I’d always liked it, never understanding the resonance it had with me, not knowing why it stayed on my playlist.

But after meeting you, I see why. Somehow, the words conveyed a meaning, a meaning of words before their time, echoing between the void of space and time, taking me to a place, not that I’d never been before, but I was destined to tread, to walk, a bit more jaded, not quite baring my soul as before, but yet, putting myself there, making myself vulnerable, exposing that part of me which in foolishness was unprotected.

Unlike Achilles, I was not dipped into the river of immortality by someone with a firm grip on my heart, instead it was the work of chronos, in the heat of my formation, my period of learning, growing, yearning, thinking that life was perfect, reasoned, wrapped up, and under my control, yes, I too was arrogant. However, unlike the ill-fated Achilles, when my weakness is revealed, it is not by accident, it is with a purpose.

Others cannot get close as long as there is a shield up, a force field in their way. Invisible yes, impenetrable, I’d like to think no. Like the cells that make up our body, it is semi-permiable membrane. Under the right conditions, some molecules can make their way through, gaining access to the very core. However, these barriers can also be lowered under conscious control. And so, that’s how you got close.

Your smile set the mood, eyes glittering like the reflection of fire in sapphires, the combination catching my attention, spiking my interest already aroused by the curvy of your torso, from bottom to top teasing the eye with the sensualness that your attire tried to hide, but could not
suppress. The dichotomy further drawing my attention, my smile, and so I respond, teasing you in conversation, wanting to hold your eyes on me, keep your voice tuned to me.

If our attraction sounded the first bell anouncing a weakening of my defenses, it was the verbal sparring that tired me. Your pedigree preceeds you, your intellect scintillating, yet we did not chat of technical matters, no need to focus on work or play, those pieces of the puzzle can come readily enough, yet even as I talk, elicit your laugh, your smile, the twisiting of your hair in your fingers, drawing my attention to reach over, an excuse to touch, to linger, to experience, I find I cannot read you.

Where others are an open book, you are closed. Despite our growing closeness, there is a void I cannot breach, a gap I cannot close. Others may well be foiled, but it is too late. I’m vulnerable before you, before your look, your touch, your smile, your laugh, your words, and there is one
thing I must know. The answering would just be throwing a single rope across the chasm. Dangerous it would be for me to attempt to cross on so tenuous a holding, but the prize is worth it.

Yet the timing is not right. Perhaps you don’t have a line to cast, or the ground is too loose on your side to secure it. Nevertheless, “I will go down with this ship. I won’t put my hands up and surrender. There will be no white flag above my door”.

Perhaps I may add a bit more, but I’ve always been a write once kind of guy unless forced to revise. Still, mayhap it deserves a bit more attention. Maybe Thursday evening, I’ll have more reason, more motivation, more experience to draw on, for which to add, to bring it to final completion.

In terms of technicality, I think I’ve given up on attempting to make thing rhyme. Here, I did that a bit, or at least I established a rhythm which can be easily seen in the writing or heard if I read it aloud. I’ve been told my face is pretty expressive. I know my voice can be, but I’ll be nervous reading this much of myself out to people, so I’m not sure how much of the meaning I’ll be able to communicate beyond the text.

I think that is what draws me to creative mediums. I feel that my skills in subcommunication are lacking. Yet this is the richness of life. Meaning beyond words. Meaning infused in the inflection of our voice, the raising of our eyebrows, the curl of our lip, genuflection of our hands.

I hope this experience, if it will be as transient as anything else has been in my life, will be one where I make some improvement, some measure of something that stays with me. That even when not active, is still there. Then like riding a bicycle, when I need to turn to the skill, in a moment of despair, a moment to connect, a moment to prove myself, it is there, reassuring and uplifting.

*The song is White Flag by Dido.