The Long Road

Archives: July 2007

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

"masterminds prefer to stay in the background until others demonstrate ineffective leadership"

Of the many statements made about the INTJ personality, this is one that strikes me as being one of the truest about myself. I've lost track of how many times I've followed along with other people's plans knowing that the best course of action lay elsewhere and that things would be better if I spoke up. The standard game plan is always to follow the loudest option, even though I may not agree with it, and when that fails to present my own path.

Why does this happen? I've tried to come up with explanations.

1. "The Path of Least Resistance"
Convincing people is hard. This is especially true when the vast majority make emotional decisions and require emotional conviction to be able to agree to anything. Numbers and logic will always fail against an argument that hits you in the gut and I simply don't think in those terms (generally). Ascerting leadership requires less effort when others have demonstrated their inability. After they've failed, you no longer have to fight against the "loud ones" to get things on the right track and people will be more inclined to listen to alternatives at this point.

2. "Crisis Management"
I love it when things are dire and I have to step in to save everyone! It makes me feel like my hero, Batman! Assuming leadership often means that people will come to you for more problems than just major ones. I'm much more of a "problem solver" than a leader, and don't particularly like being looked to for what I consider to be "minor" decisions. Perhaps this is why I usually let people get very close to inadvertently hanging themselves.

3. "Plausible Deniability"
I don't like failure, nor the possibility of failure, and most especially not failure in front of others. Which is the risk you take when others follow your decisions.

Posted by Long @ 05:11 PM EST [Link] [Karma: 10 (+/-)] [3 comments]

Monday, July 16, 2007

The best thing I saw at this weekend's Fantasia film festival was "Un Apres l'Autre". It's a short film that made me squirm in my seat, burst out laughing at its sheer intensity, and generally have an awesome time. The rest of the audience pretty much reacted the same way including lots of shouting of "nooo!!" and "stop!!!!". If I had paid the 7.50$ and seen only that film, it would have been worth it. Fortunately for you, it's also on youtube, so you can watch it for free! But this is seriously one short film where you need to see it with lots of people around you and on a big screen where all the glorious detail can be seen. It definitely benefits from audience participation.

Go go go: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xqO7IDUBcc

Posted by Long @ 01:50 PM EST [Link] [Karma: -2 (+/-)] [2 comments]

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

There are both costs and benefits to being in a relationship.
Some costs include emotional risk, less free time, more money spent wining and dining and gifting. One cost we might not think about is Opportunity Cost. Opportunity Cost is a term in economics which looks at the opportunities you can't benefit from because you've decided to engage yourself in something else; basically, it's stuff you're missing out on. The Opportunity Cost of being with a guy/girl is not being able to be with other guys/girls. That might be an oversimplification, but I think it holds true. If you find that your relationship makes you miss out on friends, family, or alone time, then you're either a) not trying hard enough, b) in a bad relationship, or c) whipped.

Benefits to a relationship are quite similar. There's the emotional highs, the fact that you'll always have someone to spend your free time with, and eventually, dual income. And, yes, the Secks.

While its outside the realm of this blogger's ablities to quantify each of these elements in a rigorous Cost/Benefit analysis, a general quideline would be that when Cost exceeds Benefit, it's a strong indicator that changes should be made and perhaps an exist strategy should be considered. I will go ahead and assume, without loss of generality, that being single is at the very least a neutral state. As smart, sentient beings, we should always be trending towards more positive positions. In this case, a relationship with negative return will be a less desireable state than singularity.

Come back next time for Part 3: Bukkake AKA "How do I get her to take it in the face?"

Posted by Long @ 10:03 AM EST [Link] [Karma: 12 (+/-)] [3 comments]

Wednesday, July 4, 2007

I've been giving a lot of dating advice lately, Vishnu knows why anyone would come to me about this stuff, but its a fun to give advice and I do it freely and with great, swelling joy in my heart. Anyways, I thought it would be fun to collect some of it here.

Part 1. Managing Expectations.
Some of you are delusional. Having been fed a steady diet of teen dramas, soap operas, and Nora Roberts, you expect all of your relationships to be worthy of epic Homeric poems recited by James Van Derbeek with the latest melancholy pop song playing in the background. This is rarely the case in reality. Considering that an epic romance takes a few years of your time, most people will only experience a small number of them (maybe 2-3) in their lives, with one of them resulting in marriage!

You should never expect or aim for such. The only expectations you should have from being with a person is to get to know someone you find interesting and, more than anything, to have fun together. Long term relationships will flow naturally out of this. When the fun stops, that's when you have to consider your exit strategy.

Of course, managing your own expectations is the easy part, your partner's are more difficult. If your expectations of the relationship are incompatible, then one of you will eventually end up disappointed.

Next time: Cost/Benefit Analysis and the Exit Strategy. AKA "when to bail out"

Posted by Long @ 03:25 PM EST [Link] [Karma: -1 (+/-)] [8 comments]

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