Let no man pull you low enough to hate him

I just encountered a post titled Quotes I like^e stating:

Let no man pull you low enough to hate him.
Martin Luther King Jr.
US black civil rights leader & clergyman (1929 – 1968)

I was struck by the great contrast between this and the very often hateful attitude of the self-proclaimed anti-racists of today. For instance, just yesterday, I saw the following comment^e:

Rasister är vidriga. Måtte de döden dö.

(Racists are despicable. They should die. [Lit. “May they die the death”, a Swedish expression.])

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The abominable over- and misuse of “you”

An ever recurring annoyance in today’s writing is over- and misuse of “you”. The “Freshly Pressed” entries on WordPress, e.g., are usually full of the word. Software literature is another great source of examples—the more absurd because software developers need to be of above to noticeably above average intelligence, and those who might actually benefit from “you” are best kept away from the field.

What is wrong with using “you”? Nothing—when the reader is validly addressed directly. This, however, is almost never the case. It is far more common to abuse “you” through-out a text as e.g. a highly sub-optimal means of attaching actions (believes, emotions, whatnot) to a subject. In these cases, there are a number of issues:

1. The result is unnecessarily wordy and hard to read, compared to more adult formulations. Compare

   However, if you want to use features such as hot redeployment on a full application server, you need to package your application correctly.

   (genuine example) with

   However, to use features such as hot redeployment on a full application server, we need a correctly packaged application.

   The second text is shorter, easier to understand, and stylistically better. Consider the effect not merely on individual sentences, but on the length of books: This is a roughly 15 % drop in length (more in terms of words; less in terms of characters). Admittedly, this sentence is not representative, but even shaving off just a few per cent can be valuable for a hard-working professional.

   As an aside: The fact that I often am unnecessarily wordy, even without over-using “you”, is a matter of personal incompetence in this area—not a sign of problems with non-“you” texts in general.

2. “You” is often condescending, misleading, illogical, or entirely ridiculous. A particularly atrocious example is the common “in this chapter you will learn”: Possibly, but the reader may also merely be refreshing something he already knows—or even be a reviewer with superior knowledge… Even if not, the statement can be faulty, e.g. because the reader is merely currently getting an overview, contemplating individual points, or is slow on the uptake. A far better formulation is “in this chapter we discuss X” or “this chapter deals with X”.

   I have even often seen “you” (the reader) used where context demanded “I” (the author)… A typical example would be a traveler describing his emotions or subjective impressions during certain events of a journey. Obviously, it should be “When I saw Mount Everest, I was filled with humility.”, not “When you see Mount Everest, you are filled with humility.” or any similar formulation.

   Rule-of-thumb: Does the text work when taken from the perspective of an actual reader who takes “you” as a direct reference to him? If not, “you” is inappropriate. (The reverse conclusion does not necessarily hold.)

3. “You” polarizes the author and his readers; “we” unites them; other formulations provide neutrality.

4. “You” can be accusatory, even to the point of raising the issue of guilt or fault with innocents. Consider an oral example: “When you come late, you hinder the rest of the team.” Unless the counter-part actually did come late, this formulation is entirely and utterly unacceptable: Not only will most feel accused, but a third-party who over-hears the discussion can come to entirely incorrect conclusions. If the discussion is intended to be general, it should be kept general: “When someone comes late, he hinders the rest of the team.”

5. As can be seen by the previous item, “you” introduces unnecessary ambiguities: Is the author/speaker discussing the counter-part or a generic someone?

Rule-of-thumb: Try to replace every instance of “you” with an alternate formulation using “we”, a generic pronoun (e.g. “someone” or “one”), a sentence with an implicit subject (this sentence is an example), or a passive. Only allow the “you” to stand on those rare occasions when it actually is the best alternative. (Do not follow guide-lines that try to ban the passive outright: The passive is very valuable and the extreme anti-passive stance that many naive teachers take is highly misguided—they parrot and misapply an insight that they have not actually understood. Excesses of passives should be avoided, true, but very many uses are legitimate and beneficial, and bending backwards to eliminate them does far more harm than good—just like the positive effects of a pinch of salt on a soup are no reason to empty an entire salt-shaker into the pot.)

To expand on the implicit subject: This may seem to be just as bad as using “you” on a casual glance, because the implicit subject may seem to be a “you”. There are at least two crucial advantages, however: Firstly, there is no unnecessary overhead. Secondly, the implicit subject could in most cases be something else, e.g. a “we” or a more abstract entity. (For example, a “Try to […]” could be seen as “We should try to […]” rather than “You should try to […]”.) This resolves the problems with e.g. an accusatory or condescending tone.

An absolutely awful marriage story

A few weeks ago, I encountered an an absolutely awful marriage story^e. In fact, one that almost made me feel sick—but which the blog author absurdly proclaimed to be “great”. (From context it is not clear whether she also was the author of the story or merely a spreader of it. Either way, seeing it as great requires a near complete lack of perspective and insight.)

At the time, I left a comment explaining why it was awful. Having just noticed that this comment has been arbitrarily censored (the more in need of a comment a post is, the greater the risk of censorship, as I have noticed over the last year), I try to recreate the gist here:

1. The woman has an entirely unrealistic and unreasonable view of what marriage and love is.

2. She is about to throw away her promise of “until death us depart; for better and worse” based on what appears to be mere boredom.

3. Instead of constructively discussing her issues with her husband, she waits until she has given up hope of him spontaneously changing—and then springs divorce upon him.

4. She requires of him, in order that he proves himself worthy of the second chance he requested, that he consider his own life worth less than her (hypothetical) whim of having a particular flower. This is something that is, frankly, inexcusable: A wife may have the right that her husband risks his life to save hers (and vice versa!), but under no circumstances that it is sacrificed for a whim.

   Besides, any man who agreed to even the hypothetical situation would afterwards be in an impossible situation: How can he later refuse to buy her jewelry for a mere few hundred dollars at her asking? To take out the garbage in the middle of a Superbowl game? To letting her unilaterally decide where every single vacation is to be held? … That the man still wanted her after hearing this demand is hard to fathom—better divorced than living with such a self-centered bitch.

5. While he declines, he does give an extremely cheese explanation for why he declines—and this explanation proves her earlier dissatisfaction to have been very, very unfair. In effect, she was about to throw away a far more wife-friendly husband than most women ever have—and one that she gave no signs of deserving.

To make matters worse, there are many elements of this story that are reminiscent of the bad marriage experiences I have heard men tell from real life, including that problems are not brought to their attention, that unrealistic expectations are raised, and that they are faced with a divorce out of nowhere and without the wife reflecting on what a marriage actually implies.

Trains and deteriorating comfort in Germany

Deutsche Bahn^w, the national railway company of Germany, is an object of very mixed feelings in the population. I belong to the large faction who considers Deutsche Bahn not merely bad, but a disaster of incompetence and customer unfriendliness. Indeed, I could write a long rant about its many problems. Today, however, I will merely discuss the matter of comfort:

The flag ships of Deutsche Bahn are the ICE^w trains: They are faster than the other trains and are given preferential treatment when it comes to e.g. right of way or what trains have to wait for other trains—but are also infamous for their poor time-table adherence. Moreover, they are among the more uncomfortable trains in the fleet. Even mere S-Bahn^w trains are usually better—certainly, providing far more leg room. Indeed, the second rank of trains, the IC^w, are far better, despite being older and less expensive. Furthermore, it seems to me that the older the IC, the greater the comfort: More comfortable seats, more leg-room, and a more aesthetically pleasing interior.

Today, as I traveled with one of these ICs, my book turned out to be fifteen minutes too short, and I picked up one of the on-board magazines. Browsing through it, I found only one interesting article—but one which prompted me to write this entry. The topic was the next generation of trains, with the working name “ICx”, and the recent 6 billion Euro/300 trains deal that would provide these trains for several decades. Among the aspects discussed were the new chairs: Instead of having an adjustable back to allow passengers to recline, the same effect would be achieved by a seat that could slide forward. Somehow, this would safe space and (as was stated in a discreet sentence) …

… allow for a shorter distance between the chairs!

In reality, Deutsche Bahn chooses to further lower comfort in order to fit more people into the trains. While this is to some degree understandable (Deutsche Bahn does want to turn a profit), it is also likely to backfire over time as an age-old monopoly is replaced by a more competitive environment. Importantly, the reasoning used is likely to be a mere excuse: If the new chairs save space for reclining passengers, it does not follow that they do so for up-right passengers—and the leg-space (and e.g. elbow-space) is less-than-generous even for those up-right and of medium height. For 6”3’ me it is decidedly unsatisfactory, and those yet a few inches taller may be forced into very awkward positions. Spare room to fit in a bag does not exist (the available “regular” storage area for baggage is also under-dimensioned, making this a reasonable wish). Further considering that a) the population will grow taller over the planned decades of use, b) many passengers use the ICE five days a week or for uninterrupted travels of three or four hours, the decision seems highly disputable.

Was not greater comfort supposed to be one of the strongest arguments for going by train instead of aeroplane?</p

Comment censorship

I have repeatedly reported about censorship on the blog hypocritically named Aus Liebe zur Freiheit^e (“For/due to the love of freedom”)—indeed, I first became aware of that blog through discussing its destructive and uninformed comment policy. I was going to ignore the fact that two factual and highly relevant comments of mine had recently been censored, but I will not, seeing that another commenter just wrote the following eloquent complaint (my translation is suboptimal):

James T. Kirk:

Sehr geehrte Frau Schrupp,

ich fände es schön, wenn Sie mal auf meine Argumente eingehen. Warum haben Sie so große Probleme mit sachlicher Kritik?

Es ist sehr befremdlich, daß Sie so viele sachliche Kommentare löschen. Ist das die ideale Welt, die Sie sich vorstellen? Haben Sie Angst, sich sachlicher Kritik zu stellen?

Es ist mir persönlich schleierhaft, wie man solch ein Verhalten vor sich selbst rechtfertigen kann.

(Dear [highly formal version] Ms. Schrupp,

I would appreciate it, if you would spend some time on my arguments. Why do you have so great problems with factual criticism?

It is very strange that you delete so many factual comments. Is that the ideal world, that you imagine? Are you afraid to confront factual criticism?

I have problems comprehending how one can justify such a behaviour to oneself.)

Ms. Schrupp has indeed proved again and again that she has a very destructive take on comments—which she combines with enough arbitrariness that the poor souls who try to counter her many misstatements, misunderstandings, and misinterpretations are led to still comment in the hope that this particular comment will go through and provide at least some counter-weight to her pseudo-intellectual, uninformed, and one-sided prattle. (While I usually try to remain ad rem and show some degree of politeness, my patience with the feminist branch of intellectual dishonesty has been very sorely strained lately—and Ms. Schrupp is worst than most. When push comes to shove, the success of feminism is largely based on being able to build strawmen, spread factually faulty statements, perpetuate false or misinterpreted statistics, whatnot, without sufficient contradiction. It is relatively easy to convince people when they only see one side of the issue—it is very easy, when the one-sidedness is complemented by unprotested distortion of the truth.)

My two comments:

Diese drei Punkte stoßen bei mir auf Unverständnis—denn gerade hier ist ja die Debatte normalerweise zum Vorteil der Frauen gewinkelt. Dies vorallem bei 2., wo immer und immer wieder versucht wird, natürliche Geschlechterdifferenzen kategorisch auszuschliessen, um alle Verhaltensunterschiede mit „Strukturen“, „Patriarchat“, o.ä. zu erklären. Auch 1. und 3. sind jedoch sehr zweifelhaft—ist doch eine von den üblichsten Beschreibungen/Schlussfolgerungen, dass Männer etwas falsch machen und Frauen richtig, bzw. dass Frauen nur was Falsch machen wegen „Strukturen“, „Patriarchat“, … (das Thema kehrt wieder).

(Points out that the central claims of the post are strawmen or otherwise incorrect.)

Ich wollte gerade zu deinem letzten Kommentar einwenden, dass die Mehrheit dieser Punkte im Grunde Strawmankaraktär haben. Hierbei muss ich leider feststellen, dass mein voriger Kommentar, der sachlich eine ähnliche Observation zu deinem ursprunglichen Beitrag machte, ohne erkennbaren Grund zensiert worden ist—und dies auch nicht zum ersten Male.

Unabhängig von deinen Beweggründen sind diese Art von Eingriffen grob unethisch und die Debatte verzerrend. Widerspruch ist keine legitime Grund zur Zensur.

(Further statements are strawmen. My previous comment has been censored without a legitimate reason.)

For my part, I will stay away for the future—but I also publicly declare that Ms. Schrupp is narrow-minded, intellectually dishonest, and has far more to learn from her commenters than they from her. Her blogging brings a net damage to the world—and it is women like she who ensure that feminism remains a force of evil.

Interpreting statistics and research (housework among boys and girls)

I just encountered a Swedish news service claiming that “Girls help [do housework] more at home”/“Flickor hjälper till mer hemma”.

While this article, to my mild surprise, did not make the usual partisan statements of e.g. “Girls are better at X”, it still manages to show some common problems with reading of statistics and how poor critical thinking can lead people (in particular, journalists) astray.

To quote relevant parts:

SCB har undersökt vilka hushålls-
sysslor barn i åldrarna 10-18 år
hjälper till med.

83 procent av flickorna och 79 pro-
cent av pojkarna hjälper till med hus-
hållsarbete minst en timme i veckan.

([“The bureau of statistics”] has investigated what household chores children in the age range 10–18 years help with.

83 per cent of the girls and 79 per cent of the boys help with household work for at least an hour a week.)

Syssla; Flickor; Pojkar

Bäddar sin säng; 82 proc; 77 proc

Diskar eller plockar i/ur diskmaskinen; 81 proc; 71 proc

Städar sitt rum; 78 proc; 64 proc

Tar hand om syskon; 35 proc; 36 proc

Arbetar utomhus; 23 proc; 40 proc

(Task; Girls; Boys

Makes own bed; 82 %; 77 %

Does the dishes or loads/unloads the dish-washer; 81 %; 71 %

Cleans own room; 78 %; 64 %

Takes care of siblings; 35 %; 36 %

Works outdoors; 23 %; 40 %)

(The news service in question^e does not provide an archive, so I cannot give a permanent link. Should I encounter the data from another source, I will add one.)

Going by the numbers presented (but beware that the full report may give another view; for instance, the list of task is likely to be abbreviated), the claim is highly dubious. Firstly, the difference in overall numbers is comparatively small (certainly not large enough to allow for predictions about individuals) and, depending on the size of the sample, could lack statistical significance. Secondly, and more importantly, the tasks are oddly chosen:

Both making ones own bed and cleaning ones own room are things that do not constitute “helping at home”—they are something that a child in the age bracket given either does or does not do for his/her own benefit. (Similarly, baking cookies for ones own consumption is not “helping at home” either—nor is tweaking ones own moped.)

The natural step would be to adjust the overall numbers by removing these entries. For lack of in-depth data, this is not possible; however, we can make a very rough first comparison by simply adding percentages. Now, in the original version we have 82 + 81 + 78 + 35 + 23 = 299 for the girls and 77 + 71 + 64 + 36 + 40 = 288 for the boys. (Pleasingly, 288 / 299 * 83 is just shy of 80, which compares well to the original 79 % overall for boys—in particular, as rounding can cause minor distortions.) Removing the “self serving” tasks, we instead have 81 + 35 + 23 = 139 for the girls and 71 + 36 + 40 = 147 for the boys—who are now ahead by more than they used to trail (as a proportion of the total).

The tentative conclusion, then: Boys (!) help more at home. (Incidentally and anecdotally: This was definitely the case when looking at me and my sister as teenagers. She could barely be bothered to put her own plates in the dish-washer; I moved the lawn and chopped wood for the fireplace.) Of course, I cannot guarantee that this would remain true if the raw data was re-investigated, but the gap is sufficiently large that the original claim (that girls help more) should be viewed as unsupported.

As an aside, the removed categories reflect an issue that is worth keeping in mind when discussing housework: Men and women have different priorities when it comes to cleaning and use of available time. (In my opinion, men have it the right way around and women should take a more relaxed attitude.)

That pesky German language and the quirks of the human mind

After close to 14 years in Germany, I should be able to write correct German (barring the odd slip of the keyboard that we all make even in our native languages). Reality, alas, does not quite agree: I know most of the rules as well as the natives, and with enough proof-reading I can reach a near-native level, differing mostly in that my style, choice of words, whatnot, can be strongly influenced by Swedish and English. However, the extensive proof-reading is absolutely necessary: My first drafts tends to contain errors at several times the rate of my English or Swedish writings, because the “text generating” part of my mind makes many unthinking choices that are simply incorrect—even when the “text reading” part of my mind knows that they are incorrect… For instance, reading the notification email for a comment I sent earlier today, I found that I made a back-reference to a woman with the masculine “der” instead of the feminine “die”—a blindingly obvious error to any semi-proficient reader. A particular common error of mine is using a dative or accusative in constructs where a nominative is called for, e.g. “X is Y”. (The two former cover the English objective case, while the latter is the subjective.) Presumably, the presence of a verb toggles an internal “objective” switch irrespective of what verb is used.

This is a particular nuisance when I comment on German blogs: If I do not proof-read several times, there will usually be at least one error of the “a ten year old should know better” kind; if I do, the effort of submitting a comment grows to be several times what it is in Swedish or English.

IQ myths

A great annoyance when IQ^w is on the table is that many of the PC persuasion make cocksure, yet absolutely incorrect, statements about it—often “proving” the opposite of reality in the process.

For instance, on a recently discussed blog entry^e (where I still cannot comment) someone today made the following two claims as a means to dismiss The Bell Curve^w:

1. IQ is not given by nature, which is proved by how easy it is to train it.

   In reality, IQ has comparatively little yield (less than e.g. a time for the 100 m dash), even having very strong correlations between results at e.g. ages 10 and 30. Even if training has an effect, the thing most likely to change is not actually the IQ proper (or, in its core, g), but the test taking ability. (A reason why some prefer to only give tests to pristine subjects. Note that the proportion of people who are repeated test takers is limited and the distortion of overall numbers, in particular between groups, is small.) Doing this might give better room for bragging, but changes neither reality nor the value of IQ tests.

2. IQ is unlikely to be inherited, which is proved by unspecified claims about adopted Third-World children being closer to their adopted than native countries in terms of IQ.

   In reality, IQ is very strongly hereditary, which has been shown again and again by a great number of studies—including those involving twins placed into foster homes of different SES.

   As for the specific claim, the lack of source makes it hard to make a definite statement. (But I do vaguely recall having heard similar claims on other occasions.) However, the fact that Third-World children were chosen would make the applicability in general low: The Third-World has problems with e.g. nutrition that make the impact of environmental factors far larger than in the First World—and it is quite possible that merely removing these detrimental factors could account for more than half the gap. This, however, has no impact on the observations made in the First World.

   (Generally speaking, the relative influence of nature and nurture on a group will depend not only on their “absolute” influence, but on how much variation is present. For a simplified example consider the influence of x on f(x, y) = x + y when x varies between 0 and 10 and y between 0 and 1 resp. 0 and 100.)

Other popular incorrect claims include:

1. Scientists like Stephen Jay Gould^w have disproved IQ.

   They have not: Experts see great value in IQ and Gould has been criticized for making unqualified claims, referring to a state of research decades behind even his time (and note that his The Mismeasure of Man^w is another thirty years old by now…), misrepresenting scientific consensus, and building strawmen—with a more than good chance even of ideological bias on Gould’s part.

2. IQ only determines how good you are at taking IQ tests.

   In fact, IQ shows a high degree of correlation with a variety of tasks. There is even a correlation between IQ and speed of reaction. It is true that IQ is a very imperfect (but far from worthless!) predictor for individuals. However, for groups it is very useful. Further, even for individuals it can make statements about e.g. what work positions are at all possible.

3. IQ is “culturally loaded”, biased against non-White, non-Christian, non-European men, or similar.

   Decades ago, this was to some degree true. Since then, great efforts have been made to investigate and eliminate such problems. One of the purest tests, Raven’s progressive matrices^w, shows the same general group differences as have so often been ridiculed as caused by cultural bias. Indeed, cultural bias can often reduce a group difference: By reducing the g loading and making knowledge and experience more important, a smaller difference in these areas will mask the difference in g.

Finally, there is a claim that is true, but often used in a misleading manner:

IQ and intelligence are different things and IQ does not measure intelligence

IQ is indeed only a proxy for intelligence, even increasingly a proxy for g. Notably, it can be argued that removing “culturally loaded” questions (e.g. relating to word knowledge) has made it a lesser proxy for intelligence… To some approximation, it can be said that IQ measures the inborn part of intelligence—which makes it highly valuable and allows it to (approximately) fulfill the demands that are put on it today. In an earlier entry, I compare basket ability and height with success in life and IQ, noting that it would be equally foolish to dismiss IQ for success as to dismiss height for basketball—it would be several degrees more foolish to dismiss IQ when talking about intelligence.

For a decent overview with many further sources, I recommend the original link to Wikipedia. This page is not perfect, often being altered by PC zealots, but the facts usually shine through.

Finally, I would like to throw in a recent Dilbert strip^e that not only matches most uses of the word “racism” I have ever encountered on the Internet, but which is particularly apt for discussions around IQ, “The Bell Curve”, and similar topics.

The Left, the Right, and the People

I have long seen a difference in the way the Left and the Right typically look at the mental capacities of humans: The Right (at least the libertarian and parts of the conservative Right) sees humans as reasonably rational and capable of making their own decisions; the Left (at least in its typical European incarnations and many Marxist, feminist, or PC variations) sees the average human as a sheep that needs to be led to have the right (i.e. Left, PC, whatnot) opinions, do the right things, and generally get by in the world. This is often referred to as “förmyndarsamhälle” (“legal-guardian society”; however, with a stronger implication of society being patronizing) by the Swedish Right.

As is often the case with early observations, they pale into the background. Recently, however, I have come across several posts (e.g. [1]^e) that are so explicit on this issue that it has re-emerged into the foreground. To my own surprise, I find that I must give the Left at least a partial credit for being right—a very large portion of the population is simple so stupid that they would be better of led by the hand in at least some situations. This is evidenced e.g. by the politicians that manage to get elected, the credulity with which some absolutely nonsensical PC statements are believed, how unwilling people are to re-evaluate their believes in light of new evidence, etc.

Yet, all this does not matter:

1. If 30, 50, even 90 % of the population is lacking, this does not give the government (the Left, the Know-It-All think-tank, whomever) the right to decide for the remaining 70, 50, or 10 %.

   What we arguably should do, is to increase the requirements on voters, e.g. in that a certain degree of critical thinking and general knowledge must be demonstrated before a citizen is given the right to vote. (Effectively replacing the age based limits of today with “capacity” based limits. Great care would have to be observed during implementation, however: It is vital that no test of opinion is made, but that capacity to think is the main determinant. In contrast, it is manifestly clear that many on the left equal “being worthy” with “having PC opinions” or “being ‘progressive’ ”.)

   In this manner, the damage they potentially do would be mostly limited to their own private lives, where they have a natural right to exert influence, but protect us from society-wide influence. (Interestingly, in my experience, the Left is usually keen on relaxing the conditions for who is allowed to vote even further—probably knowing that their own type of propaganda and often populist demands goes over better among those weak in critical thinking.)

2. If the people needs a “förmyndare”, who decides his identity?

   Well, the unsatisfying answer is that it probably cannot be done in a fair and objective manner. If nothing else, there seems to be no end to the people and organisations who consider themselves called for the task, but have opinions that are incompatible with each other and/or idiotic on closer inspection. In some cases, it would even be a matter of the blind leading the one-eyed: Consider e.g. former PM-wannabe Mona Sahlin^w—who regularly talks to voters as if they were little children, yet herself is uneducated, unintelligent, and of dubious morality and competence. (And, no, that is not merely a portrayal by a political enemy, but what is clear from her CV.)

3. Similarly, who decides where to draw the border between who needs to be shepherded and who is allowed to deal for himself (or is even allowed to become a shepherd)?

   The answer is equally similar. In a nut-shell, these common Leftist attitudes are best answered with: Who are you to decide?

4. The typical implementations tend to be such that they worsen, possibly even create, the problems they were intended to solve: The Swedish school I went to, e.g., did nothing to teach critical thinking, but was hell-bent on instilling the “right”, determined-from-above values—the UN is good, women are oppressed, nuclear power is evil, democracy is the only civilized form of government, … To actually teach the children about the limitations of the UN, or how perverted by special interests it is, was never on the table; a differentiated and more up-to-date view on the situations of men and women was absent; a compare and contrast between different energy forms (which, if fair, would have been far more favourable to nuclear power) unthinkable; and no deep discussion of the disadvantages of democracy, the least evil of the popular alternatives, ever took place.

In the end, a blanket treatment of people like sheep is the wrong way to go about it. Instead, we should try to give them the tools to both fend and decide for themselves.

(Note that I do not rule out that those who have failed despite having received the tools should be given further help. The first step, however, should be to give out fishing equipment and fishing lessons—not fish. Indeed, it would be presumptuous even to decide that fish should be a major part of the diet.)

Romantic fools

Were love is concerned, we have likely all been both naive idealists and great fools. What I have encountered on a recent post^e, however, borders on the scary.

The post it self is a youthful pep-talk by a 22 y.o. single woman (Isa), making statements like

You, my friend, are worthy of great, authentic love.

Please never settle.

The person I want you to date might be making morning coffee right now or sleeping through a thunderstorm or getting a degree in Physics. Wait. I mean it. Every other person will be a cheap imitation of the real thing.

And when it comes to their love for you, YOU WILL KNOW. Their love will be the most painfully obvious thing in the world that though you will come to question many, many things in life, you will never — not even once — question them.

Nothing other 22 y.o. single women have not said before and certainly something many of them want to hear. Naive and self-deceptive—yes. Hard to understand and sympathize with—no.

The scary part is the forty something responses (81 at the time of writing, but roughly half are “thank you”s from Isa). Off these, only one (mine) is dissenting or trying to show another perspective; the others mostly go along the lines of

I love you. You are amazing, quite frankly. Thank you for writing this.

I love this. I think I’m going to print it out and mail it to my 15 year old niece…

As a single girl who’s never had a boyfriend, this blog entry gave me hope.

(a minority are somewhat more neutral or inquisitive).

Are people really that keen on believing what they want to believe and hearing what they want to hear? Scary…

At the bottom-line, those who do not compromise will have to wait long (sometimes forever), those who set their sights too high will be disappointed by any real-life partner, and those who search for “perfect” will often pass up the “good” that would have made them happy. The point is not whether someone is “the one”, but whether our lives are better off with or without her/him. If nothing else, the partner at 22 is unlikely to be the partner at 32, let alone 62—we have plenty of strikes before we are out. The question is whether we use them or not…