It's a Trap!

(an extra post to make up for the one I skipped last week)

There are many traps in life. There are literal traps like tiger traps but also figurative but just as dangerous traps too.



For example, the most infamous trap is, "Do I look fat in this?" Why is that a trap? B/c unless you're very careful, all answers are bad and could spark an argument.

Look at his butt! hahaha!!


How to avoid traps? The best way is to be around people who don't set them. Failing that, think carefully about the best response to avoid confrontation. Something like, "No you don't, you look great in everything." (I'm totally making this up b/c I don't really know how to avoid these things...is there any placating trap setters?)

Ok, this article is pretty funny...it has a lot of female to male translation which apparently I can't do. Hahaha!

Another trap I heard of was telling the guy he could go to a strip club with friends and then getting mad at him for going to the strip club...even though she went too. That's just mighty unreasonable. I think if you have someone who is doing that to you, you have to evaluate whether unreasonableness is a fairly common occurrence in your relationship and if you want to live with that.

Anyhow, traps are bad, avoid is possible, deflect and minimize in all other circumstances. And be wary at all times. :)

More geek gift ideas

But dude, not like you have a lot of time now. :P Procrastinator!


These are some ideas from CNN. I guess they've been gloaming onto this geek culture thing lately. It's strange and I'm not sure I'm liking the mainstreaming of geek culture.

I love the Ed and Ein plushie but what's with the red box D&D? I mean, the red box is cool b/c it brings back nostalgia for the old basic sets but dude, you're pushing a starter set for geeks? What kind of geek is that?!

There's a first time for everything

Yikes, this is going to be a delicate topic and I'm not known for my delicacy or like tact...here's trying and I hope I don't offend too many people, but considering most of you know me personally, you'll probably live. :P

Sex is a huge deal. Doing it for the first time is an even huger deal. Especially for nerds that giggle when people would say the word and turn away with people kissed on tv. (I'm not even exaggerating here!) But I'm going to talk a little bit about it, not like HOW to do it, but more the psychological why or why nots...there are plenty of things that can help you with the hows. :P

First, it's not something to rush into. When people are teenagers and nerdy hormones were flooding through their body, they probably wanted to do something, but lets not discuss that, that's creeping me out. The point I'm trying to make is, don't rush it sex b/c your hormones tell you to. Your hormones are dumb and don't come from your brain (I think). Many poor regrettable decisions come from hormone based actions instead of logically thinking about it. Think about it, if you have the opportunity once, likely that opportunity will come up again and hopefully you'll have some time to evaluate the situation and decide if you're ready.

On the flip side, if you haven't yet and you're like getting "old", whatever you think is old don't stress. Stressing about sex is like a sure fire way to not attract someone. I'm sure I've talked about desperation as something that scares people away, so if it's not happening, just chill, work on your life, work on being happy and meeting new people and eventually things should happen.

You should also feel comfortable with the person. Don't just sleep with someone to get it out of the way. You should probably have some sort of emotional connection, and maybe you should know their last name.

Don't do anything you don't feel comfortable with. Don't do it b/c you feel pressured into it by another person. If they're pressuring you, they're douches and you don't want to date douches.

If you're going to have sex, be considerate of the people you live with. Don't do it in the living room and then have your roomate bust in on you and your pasty white nerd butt. That's awkward and your roommate might be forced to blind themselves with brooches. Even if you're in your room, keep screaming to a minimum b/c really, that's not fun either.

Perhaps most importantly in regards to sex, is be safe. Make sure the person you're with isn't going to axe murder you or put poison in your ears. Make sure there aren't any unwanted babies and that you're on the same page about that topic. Make sure that there aren't going to be any diseases passed back and forth b/c there are some things that should not be shared. And I would add that make sure that you won't regret that decision later. I've heard that "you only regret the things you didn't do". Well that's stupid, I've regretted tons of things I've done, but what I mean is, make sure this is something that is right for you, at that time, and with the right person b/c your hormones aren't always working in your best interest.

Holiday Gift Giving (Geek Edition)

I did a blog post before on giving gifts but here's the geek specific version, YAY!

Here's some ideas for things you can get the nerd/geek in your life:

• Nerd shirts: try shirt woot or thinkgeek or nerdmachine (which is Zachary Levi's company) or sheldon's shirts.
  
• Technology like new video cards or whatever, but it's important to know what you're buying b/c you want to make sure it's compatible with what they already have and that it's an actual upgrade.
  
• Gadgets like swiss army knives and gerber multiplyers and such. These are just fun things. Also included in this category are flashlights and titanium sporks.
  
• DVDS/Bluray/video gamesbut make sure they don't have it already. A good thing to check is see if they have an amazon wishlist for things they're waiting for.
  
• You can never go wrong with a giftcard. Some people think they're impersonal but really, I don't think geeks will not appreciate a Best Buy giftcard. Just don't make it for like random places like upscale clothings stores which will not compute to your nerd audience.

Things to NOT do unless you want to confuse them or start a nerd rant:

• Things like cologne or hairstyling might be something they need but they probably won't understand why they're getting it, it might not be very appreciated and it may just sit in their cupboard forever.
  
• Don't mix up interests--Star Wars and Star Trek are two very different things...they might like both but it's possible that you could get into a very long explaination about how George Lucas has gone crazy and how 37 minutes of trade negotations is awesome. It might seem trival to you but it's not to your geek.
  
• Wrapping paper is nice. Bags are nice. Grocery bags are probably also ok. While we do appreciate a beautifully wrapped gift, your mother might appreciate it more.
  
• If you're going to give holiday cards, try to find unique ones. I like ones that are a bit strange rather than typical "yay christmas" cards. But for me personally, I'd rather have more present than a fancy card.
  

Ok, hopefully this helps some. Happy Holidays!

Friends and Family

Since Thanksgiving and the Holiday gift giving season is upon us I'll talk about something super important especially at this time of the year, FRIENDS and FAMILY.

There is some debate to how important it is for the person you're dating to get along with your friends and family or for you to get along with theirs. Ideally, everyone would love everyone and things would run smoothly. Alas, this is not an ideal world and sometimes there are personality clashes. In those circumstances it's important to remember that it is in your best interest to play nice. So avoid controversial topics like religion and politics and if keep digging and want to get into it, try some of the tips here. It's for avoiding conversations about religion but it's pretty applicable to avoiding any topics! Basically it says, resist arguing, change the subject, telling them that you're not comfortable with discussing the topic etc. I also like the idea of agreeing to disagree. I do this with patrons at work too, I told a patron who wanted to get into politics with me, "I appreciate your viewpoint but I don't agree with it." He keeps trying to get me to debate him though...some people just like to argue and are bored so you have to be careful with those kinds of folks.

Also try to find common ground. Odds are they won't be gamers...so talk about more neutral subjects like food and movies and books if they read. Telling them all about your half-orc bard who has to struggle against racism and a shockingly low charisma score isn't going to win you any non-gamer friends, so save the geek talk for your buddies.

Don't insult them. Saying that football is the worst sport in the world at a Superbowl party is a pretty bad idea. Insulting the cooking at Thanksgiving also bad. Don't criticism their housekeeping, their dog, their children, their hobbies, anything that is just plain rude. It's not really your job to police their lives. If they want to live in squalor, that's their choice, just be discreet about using napkins to open doors and stuff. If the role was reversed it'd be really rude for someone to come to your house and refuse to use the bathroom b/c it's "too dirty". The only time I did that was at a wedding with over 100 people and only two portapotties...I think that was justifiable. But I also didn't tell the hosts that either and we were still there for like five hours.

Hopefully you'd all like each other. I mean the entire point of friendster is that people you like should all get along right? So if you do have things in common, awesome. But then you have to think about, how much do you want to share with them? I'm not saying don't make friends, but do you want to be sharing hilarious and wrong stories about your significant other? It's one of those things where I tend not to mind b/c I'm not a huge secret keeper, but some people like to keep their lives a little private so it's important to make sure your significant other is comfortable with you becoming like BFFS with their friends and family.

And heaven forbid you become super good friends with their friends and family and you end up breaking up? Do you have to divide up your friends? Set up visitation rights? It gets complicated. I'm not saying don't do it, but sometimes when people are friends with a couple, people take sides and you might not like which side they end up on...especially if it's family (ala She's Out of Your League which was really just an awkward movie all over, but when the guy broke up with the girl, she was really close with the family and she stayed living in the house.)

Probably one of the hardest things is when your significant other and your family/friends just don't get along...this can make for tense times especially around the holidays. The best thing to do is make sure that you still make time for everyone b/c the last thing you want to do is mess up your relationship with your friends and family over someone you're dating.

So have a Happy Turkey Day and I hope you're enjoying it with your friends and/or family! :)

It's Not You It's Me. No For Reals.

From an article on CNN.
Here's the article.

I think one of the themes that runs through this dating blog is self improvement. No one is perfect, there are always things we could working on to make ourselves better people. This article talks about what happens if you find the "one" but you aren't the "one" for them? The author says it's important to work on these four aspects to make sure you are as ready as possible to get out there and find your partner: self esteem, attitude, happiness and kindness/compassion.

You need self-esteem b/c it's hard to like someone who doesn't like themselves. If someone is always putting themself down, and not in a funny Conan O'Brien way, you just don't want to be around that. Or someone who doesn't respect themself enough to take care of their body, by using drugs or drinking to excess or can't shower regularly. Really, that's no good either. So work on taking care of yourself, and remembering you are a worthy person...and maybe you need to work on some stuff, but you can still like yourself, even if you're not perfect. Just don't too far over the other side and become a douche. Oh and showering is important.

Attitude is another important aspect. We geeks can be pretty cynical and sarcastic, it's part of our charm, but a lot of people might not understand our sense of humor and think we're emo. Emo is ok if you're like 15. Emo is not ok when you're in your 30s. It's supposed to be emo-kid, not emo-man. So if you're still super emo, think about why and what you can do to not be emo. Is your job dragging you down? Start looking for things that do make you happy including looking for another job! Love life got you down? Well that's just circular, you are emo b/c you can't find someone but your emo-ness is keeping good people away!

It's important to be able to be happy. Not like Pollyanna where you are happy all the time. I'm talking about being able to feel joy when good things do happen. It's really annoying being around people and you tell them good news and they're like 'meh'. Dude, it's great news! I'm enthused, why can't you be enthused too? People like to be around happy people. If you saw two crowds of people and one was full of smiling, laughing people and the other was full of mopey people, MOST people would go to the happy crowd. Some nerds might go the mopey crowd to avoid having to talk to people but generally we gravitate towards people with positive energy. Try to be one of those people with positive energy and people will come to you more.

And very importantly, it's important to be a kind person. I think this is something that sounds very cliche, "oh I want a nice guy." But it's really not too much to ask for. You want someone who genuinely cares about others b/c they will be a good person. Do you care about others? If your whole life only revolves around you, then what do you have to offer someone else in the long term? Kindness means you can empathize. Even if you're not working in a food bank every weekend, at least be polite to your waitstaff at restaurants. I think true kindness and compassion are about the little things like saying please and thank you and packing a lunch rather than buying someone jewelry. Moral of this story? Don't be a self absorbed douche and think about how you and your actions affect others.

I think if you work on improving yourself, even little by little, I think that more people will be able to see how great our geeky qualities are and that we're great people.

The Preemptive Strike

This is dedicated to a friend of mine. You know who you are! :)

Somethings are great to do early: homework, your taxes, Christmas shopping. Somethings not so much, like dumping a someone b/c they might become crazy in the future. I think that it's fairly common to freak about about starting a relationship esp if your past history involved some not so great people. But don't let your past dictate your future.

If you see actual signs of craziness then be wary. If you're worried b/c they aren't crazy, then you probably just worry too much. So if you're having fun and the person seems like a nice guy, just go with the flow. Don't freak out b/c nothing has gone wrong yet. Sometimes if you're lucky, they won't!

We can't predict what will happen in the future. I mean, you could be with perfect* person and later they have a brain thing that changes their personality. You can't know what will happen. So if you like them for who they are now, that's all you can really ask for. We geeks like to plan but you can't plan for everything...unless you're Batman, in which case, go ahead.


So in conclusion, don't break up with someone b/c you might see the crazy eyes in the future. Only dump someone for something they actually did. I heard some story about girls who got mad at their boyfriends b/c of something they did in a dream. That's nuts, don't be that person.

Last thought, remember how crappy it was in Minority Report? That's all I have to say.

*There is no such thing as the perfect person. Don't delude yourself.