Anything and anybody interesting

All of us are forever in search of something interesting.

Are you sure? I know some people who are content that today is almost exactly the same as yesterday. They will be unhappy if tomorrow turns out to be dramatically different from today. They are satisfied with little variation in the people that they see, the food that they eat, the clothes that they wear, the work and the entertainment that they engage in.

They do allow well-scripted blips in life. In fact, they need them, because they have an idea of normal course of events and wish to follow it: schooling, employment, marriage, children---and their schooling, employment and marriage. And finally, retirement.

They know the major events, and accept them as they are. Those aside, life is a quiet, long river.

Don't you think they make great monogamists?

They ought to, but even they are sometimes overtaken by the biological urge to let their own genes dominate over others'.

Aha, so that is why Mr. Nextdoor who looks so sedate and boring one day runs away with his secretary who is half his age, abandoning his wife of twenty years, children and an Alaskan Husky...

Let's say that many of Mr. Nextdoor toy with a similar idea and are ready to take off as soon as they find a willing accomplice.

Most simply cannot fulfill the crucial requirement of finding that mate for lack of what they can offer. That is, the privilege is available almost exclusively to the rich and the powerful. Conveniently, they are the ones who have stronger desire to have more mates. Their main motive in life is to control as much as possible.

In other words, there are several reasons why people want different partners. One is purely biological. Some others are psychological: the need to have diversity in life and the desire to conquer.

Many also want to prove to the world that they can attract people, and for some, that desire becomes stronger as they age. Of course, the younger the partner, the better. I understand the mechanism behind, but I can't say that it's fun to watch the process or the result.

Politicians are characterized by their excessive wish to be in charge of the world; they are endowed with above-the-norm desire to control people, including those who could be their sexual mates.

It is ironic, because their lives are more in the public domain than others', and they risk losing the very source of their power by fulfilling the urge to attract and conquer mates.

It looks like the stacks are squarely against monogamy, both biologically and psychologically.

An agreed and fixed partnership is indispensable for child rearing, but that only says anything long-term would suffice and does not exclude polygamy and polyandry.

Is there any reason why we should adhere to monogamy?

If the parties involved had made an agreement to a monogamous relationship, they are morally obliged to remain committed to each other. The question is: what are the grounds for agreeing to such a relationship in the first place.

Especially if you declare not to conceive and/or rear children...

The only reason that I can think of is to avoid chaos in this world. People may make such declarations, but they may well change their minds once in a relationship.

The problem then would be if one wants a monogamous union for the child and the other doesn't.

Keeping partnerships monogamous means keeping it simple, and it helps when it comes to dissolution. Usually partnerships entail division in labor, and the fruits of that labor must be divided in a fair manner. If there are many people involved and if it is unclear who they are, we would be spending quite a bit of resources on this issue. Termination of partnerships are usually unhappy moments and people become quite passionate about obtaining their fair share.

So, the argument for monogamy is minimization of chaos and bickering... It's a rather weak one, isn't it?

We started our conversation today about amusing ourselves. Can you describe what is interesting to you, by the way?

Anything that stimulates my mind and senses.

Do you know what does so?

Anything that is beyond what I have experienced so far.

We know that we don't appreciate just about anything. We also like to be surprised by being pushed beyond our boundaries, and if you have not been aware of where the boundaries lie, all the better.

Not all, but many of us, you mean.

Enlarging your territory of appreciation happens easily when you are not conscious of your limits. You are presented by something that you have never experienced, and only when you begin to appreciate it, you realize that your sense of appreciation had been more limited earlier.

Because you are unaware of your limits, you don't reject outright what is in front of you.

Precisely. The rewards are larger when you do not know at first how the new experience fits in your world.

Which further means that we cannot describe what would greatly pique our interest.

Brilliant, comrade.

It's just that I happened to say what you had in mind, I know...

It's the same with attractiveness of a person. If you meet someone whom you know you wouldn't like, you would not make attempts to see her/him again, unless, of course, it is under some unavoidable circumstances.

Such as when s/he happens to be your boss, right?

If the person is different from those that you have known, but if you do not know how to place her/him in your world, you would not avoid her/him. And if you come to appreciate that person, you like her/him more than you would a person who belongs to your group.

Let's say that it is a possibility. The attraction may become strong, but it can wane quickly, too. After all, s/he is from a different universe.

If we succeed in making that other universe ours, we feel the relationship is rewarding. If that universe happens to be something that contributes to your positive image, the attraction can be quite strong.

A person who did not know anything about opera learns to appreciate it and acquires knowledge in that domain, for example.

Many of us are in need of being exposed to something new, and one person cannot be the gateway to a new territory all the time.

Just as one author cannot provide a reader with all the variety s/he needs in reading?

I have a wonderful cookbook that contains hundreds of recipes from all over the world. Anything from the book comes out great, but I get bored if I cook from it all the time. I get the urge to try something else, something seen through a different pair of eyes.

Isn't that another thumb down for monogamy as you implied last time?

Alas, you are right. And you know, after a period of infidelity, so to speak, I go back to that reliable cookbook.

Almost everything we considered seems to point in the direction of the graveyard for monogamous relationships, but I feel we should try our best to sustain it.

Why?

In order to avoid chaos and to use our resources for something more productive than finding an acceptable separation scheme for partners, as you said.

Well done, comrade. In my opinion, staying attractive is an important everyday goal, in particular vis-à-vis people whom we spend a bulk of our time with. The more often we see a person, the more likely that we bore her/him and vice versa. And, the more important that we do not do so, because we have to see her/him anyway.

What can I say... The most important turns out to be the most difficult.

If we are to keep the monogamous system, we need to constantly renew ourselves. We have to evolve.

But you said there are some people who like to have the same food every single day.

Yes, so here is already a source of friction for a couple. It sometimes happens that one is an evolving type and the other is not. Even if both are evolving types, it could be that their interests and outlooks on life diverge. I know a person who had been very much into opera, but it gradually ceased to move him. He now listens only to bluegrass music and let go of his massive opera recording collection.

You have been living with Plácido Domingo, and one day you realize you want to live with Bill Monroe instead? It's... it's scandalous!

That can happen, you know. We all need to evolve to keep the attention of others, especially the attention of those who are important to you, while retaining the aspects that make you likable and attractive to them.

I'd say it's like a store. In order to have customers visit and spend some money at regular and frequent intervals, you need a set of staples that make you reliable as well as something new for a nice surprise.

That is true if there are more stores than necessary for biological survival. We talked about our desire to have both the familiar and the unfamiliar some time ago. The problem here is how to change yourself in a way that is interesting to your partner and preferably to other friends and family members as well.

Obviously, you can't be a Kiri Te Kanawa married to a Plácido Domingo and change your career into one of a country singer's.

Unless he decides to be a Del McCoury at the same time...

Didn't you say that when you are forced to change in the most unexpected direction, your attraction to that person is the biggest?

I did imply so. But for that, you have to perceive that change as positive or interesting. Otherwise, it would not work. So, our question is again: what do we mean by interesting?

Didn't we agree that it is beyond description by definition? But some idea about it is necessary so that we know how to be interesting or find what is interesting.

Therefore, there is nothing but serendipity that we can rely on for this matter.

What about recommendations by others?

I'm sure you have experienced disappointments when you read books recommended by friends, although they also liked the books that you liked.

That's more of a rule than an exception, I'm afraid.

Or, a friend of a friend for some reason does not become your friend.

That happens, too.

Think about the effectiveness of the algorithms that churn out recommended items based on your previous purchases.

Once I ordered on behalf of a friend a black cape with special pockets which double as sleeping bags for bats, and ever since I have been receiving promotional messages for coffin openers, garlic detectors and so on.

And remember, the bigger the surprise of the good kind, the bigger the attraction.

What is your concluding message for monogamists?

Stay vigilantly hopeful! Boredom kills you, your mate and the relationship! Surprise is a double-edged sword, but...

I don't know if it is necessary to raise your fist, comrade... But hey, shall we make socialist-art posters with those slogans? I have a good example. Look, "Hasta la victoria siempre."

To victory, always!

Be nice, or be bored

It has occurred to me lately how small our mental worlds are.

Isn't that another case of hasty generalization? You should know by now that the world is inhabited by people quite different from you.

I am very aware of that, but many others do not seem to be. Quite a few think I know what they are thinking without their telling me. The only opportunity to find out their thoughts is when I happen to do something they don't want me to.

The usual ritual for such occasions is to be showered with scolding, accusation, name calling, saliva, bits of food that have been stuck between their teeth...

Anyway, even the great minds are rather small.

The statement is as meaningless as saying that even the small minds are great. In fact the two may mean the same.

We occasionally witness children show understanding of the world that is more encompassing or deeper than we expect. The same happens with people who are mentally ill or retarded. This is what is meant by small minds being big.

Their levels of understanding in different areas are uneven compared to an average adult, and we tend to think that their overall comprehension of the world is low.

Oftentimes they do not have the means to express what they understand, so we assume that they do not know or understand.

Tyranny of verbalization...

That is how the "civilized" world formed the view of the "primitive" world, by the way. When the West discovered what is outside world to them, it was behind in terms of weaponry and did not share the language and mode of communication. Hence, they thought they found savage beings.

It goes to show the importance of being able to attack physically and verbally. Without them, we cannot preserve our dignity.

I maintain that the level of civilization is measured by how much energy we devote to what is not strictly necessary for biological survival and by how we tame and tweak our animal instincts. They could make us nasty in situations which are not life threatening and hence unnecessary to be so.

But a civilization of higher level can be wiped out by one of lower level if the latter happens to be equipped by superior means of destruction.

Think about Vasco da Gama's barbarism against Calicut. He attacked the city when his demand to expel the Muslims was denied. Of course, Calicut must have had economic and political reasons to accommodate people of different religions, but he tried to destroy peace and commercial wealth with brutal force.

The Portuguese succeeded, as evidenced by the cities that they colonized along the coast.

Ranking various civilizations would be tricky, but I think we can say that the ones that spend more of its resources for activities beyond pure survival are more humane.

What about the people who had been labeled "primitive"? They spend more time and energy to survive compared to the people who labeled them so, but they tend to have more hands-on knowledge about nature and live in much better harmony with it. Isn't that a civilization of a better kind, at least in terms of taking care of the environment?

Very true... What if I say a civilization which spends less of its resources for destruction of any sort is preferred?

What about racial segregation? For people who are happy with it would think that they live in a peaceful world and that anti-segregationists are trouble-mongers, even terrorists.

True again. But segregationism is based on the idea that human beings should be conferred with different sets of rights and that the biological features determine which set. The anti-segregationists are for a society that has nothing to do with such erroneous idea of human beings.

But then, the segregationists would say that keeping the superior apart from the inferior is the better for the society as a whole.

The anti-segregationists would retort that the superiority is the result of unfair distribution of society's resources.

The segregationists would say that it is fair because the superior do the important work and thus deserve more.

And the anti-segregationists would say that because of such patterns of redistribution the inferior lack education, opportunities, etc. and are locked into menial jobs.

And the segregationists would demand the anti-segregationists to name a person of the inferior kind who is worth giving up some of what they have.

The named person may well fail to live up to expectations, and...

We'll hear remarks like, "You see, I told you, they're good for nothing."

The problem here is mistaking what has been caused by external factors as something inherent.

But then, we hear lines such as, "It's because they lack will that they cannot go beyond their lot."

It's not fair to have to exert much more effort to achieve the same goal, just because your biological features are less favored by people in power.

They would say, "Nothing is fair in this world."

We would point out that they did not want redistribution of wealth because it is not fair. Hence, they are contradicting themselves.

Comrade, the anti-segregationists won!

I hope so... Getting back to the importance of being capable to destroy physically, that is why nations still build up weapons. If you don't want others to attack you, you have to show that you can attack them.

Preferably better than they are able to.

Think about what we can do with all the money that we spend on destroying each other or trying to do so. We even attempt to restore something after destroying it.

The Iraq War, for example. I know that some people say the bad was destroyed and the good is to be restored, but there is no denying that it is physical destruction followed by resuscitation.

Do you think we would ever overcome the lack of goodwill and trust that permeates our world?

We first need to do away with hypocrisy that surrounds it.

Yes, hypocrisy, my favorite word of the moment! How can you preach others to act with goodwill and trust when you are not doing so yourself?

Comrade, I know that you are envisioning someone, but calm down, he is not with us here, and besides, we are talking about nations.

Anyway, it is important to demonstrate our capacity for physical attacks, but so is our ability to threaten in words.

The problem here is that verbosity is often taken as a sign of intelligence...

As I pointed out earlier, if you don't have the means to express your complicated thoughts, you may be taken as an idiot.

In a way, that's not so odd, because if you know what your thoughts are, you should be able to communicate it.

Precisely. And we don't know many of our thoughts.

Are you sure about that?

I am. I would not say all, but many of malicious acts originate from base emotions and thoughts which we are not so conscious about.

Such as, "I don't like her/him, and I am going to make her/his life miserable," "I am jealous, and I want her/him to be even more jealous," "Let her/him know who is the boss," "I am very unhappy, and therefore, I am going to take it out on her/him," ...

Those are the emotions and thoughts behind the acts, but not so well articulated in our minds. Most people would deny that it was what they were feeling or thinking. I would say verbalization is the first step toward being able to analyze our emotions and thoughts and to decide whether we should carry out actions based on them.

Put differently, ethical behavior is not possible without consciousness.

I agree with qualification. It is possible to be disciplined so that we have stock reactions that are ethical. However, we may not be able to match the situation that we face with what is in our instruction book. Moreover, some situations we encounter may not be in it. It means that we need the ability to analyze and arrive at what we think is appropriate reaction. For that, we need at least some consciousness of what we are feeling, thinking and doing. This is not to say that reactions that come to us unconsciously are useless.

You mean it is useful to touch the tip of your nose with your thumb and wiggle your hand?

Unconscious acts do not involve questioning and they come to us as if they were reflex. That is, we engage in them with very little effort. It is natural, built-in, and thus, consumes very little energy. Different cultures have different sets of such autonomous responses. That is why many of us marvel at people in various countries dealing smoothly with what we consider difficult situations.

Could we say that articulation in words is required for out-of-the-box situations, but it is taxing on our minds?

I think so. Good examples of that may be religious converts. They change their religion from one that they grew up with into another which they decide to adopt consciously later in their lives. What the first religion taught them comes to them more easily, and they tend to fight it off by saying out loud the tenets of the newly embraced religion. We can tell that they are trying hard. Since they have to be explicit about the second one, they are in great danger of being hypocrite.

Comrade, your eyes are shining with anger...

It's hard to have too good examples around, you know... Let's talk about great minds being limited.

You have to admit that you are jealous.

I admit that I am, but that does not make the statement false.

... True...

Remember, even Uncle Isaac said that he was merely standing on the shoulder of the giants.

But he was a physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian. Many consider him to be one of the greatest minds in history!

Okay, that was not a very good example. But I have been noticing lately that usually an artist has one theme, especially writers. They have one truly good work, and the rest is of a similar theme and/or so-so in quality.

What about writers like Uncle Leo?

He has two great works, "War and Peace" and "Anna Karenina," both of which are about love and family life in the Russian upper crust.

Did you expect him to write about an auntie practicing Vodou in Haiti or about the Andromeda Galaxy at war with the Tirangulum Galaxy?

No, it was good that he wrote what he knew best. My point is that we cannot live on Tolstoy alone, just like we cannot on Pirozhki alone.

We can change the filling. In fact, most people do live on Pirozhki alone and with various fillings, because they read only a handful of authors each of whom produces based on one formula.

In a way, authors have to have a formula which can be more kindly called style. For most artists, we can recognize whose work it is from its 'style.' That means they all have a 'formula.' But even people who like repetitive story lines---or motifs in general---want some variation.

Otherwise, they can read the same story or look at the same painting over and over again and be satisfied.

Readers who are fond of a certain formula want several formulas with slight differences. The catch is that one author cannot produce those small variations to satisfy a reader.

One reader needs more than one author, then.

Yes, even if the reader is happy to have some repetition. In other words, we are capable of absorbing much more than we as individuals can produce. A person owes to more than one another person to satisfy her/his cerebral needs. That is true not only in writing, but also in other arts. It is also true for human relationships.

Hurray, here is an incentive to be nice to many others!

It is a motivation for infidelity, comrade...

The Default love is faulty

You are here again in two weeks! You must have something that you need to complain urgently.

Wrong, comrade. It is nothing negative, but positive. I am here today to declare everlasting love.

If it were someone else, my eyes would be wide open and my ears pricked up. But it's none other than you who is to make such a declaration. I would be a complete fool if I do not sense something rather fishy...

Again wrong. It's really about true love, undying love. It's eternal, it's foreveeeeerrrr!

Ah, is it about you and your athlete's foot?

Neither am I in a love relationship with any fungus nor suffer from athlete's foot!

Hmmm, let me see... could it be related to your pessimism?

What can I say, you've come rather close. It's myself.

You came here today to declare undying love for... yourself?

That's right.

I was afraid that even gods might have given up on you. At last you found someone who would love you forever!

Mind you, I am not confessing my narcissism or self-righteousness.

Oh, tell me about it. How does self love differ from those two, if at all?

Narcissism is blind love for oneself, usually displayed in public. It implicitly urges others to love her/him as much as s/he does her/himself. Narcissistic people have their reasons why they consider themselves superior, but in most cases, they are not justified in the eyes of others. They cherish their attributes simply because they are theirs.

Such people are unaware that it is the ownership of the attributes that is playing a big role in their feelings.

Self-righteousness is to consider oneself morally above others. Again, what we forget is that our morality appears superior mostly because it is our morality.

If these are not self love, what is?

I guess it is analogous to true love and fake love.

You mean, narcissism and self-righteousness are wrong kind of love for ourselves, and what you call self love is the right one?

It may appear that I am exhibiting the very behavior that I criticized a second ago, but...

Comrade, I am glad that you realize that. How can you blame others of narcissism and self-righteousness when you have those traits?

Let's put aside for the moment the issue of whether we are qualified to talk about a certain topic.

Critics are often incapable of performing the task that they evaluate, but they do not hesitate to praise or curse as they see fit.

I think it is division of labor, or more precisely, talent. Accomplished artists are not necessarily informed of all the events in their world, or capable of writing and talking about what concerns the senses. The same holds for reporting. A wonderful tennis player is not always a good newscaster for tennis matches.

When it comes to morality and such, isn't it slightly different, because the problem is about how we live and all of us are fully engaged in that activity?

True, we would be hypocrites if we do not practice what we preach, because we are principle actors in our own lives.

Whatever we say about life could be used at some point as a piece of evidence for our hypocrisy, since we are all imperfect.

In other words, none of us can discuss life without being hypocritical. That would greatly inconvenience us, wouldn't it?

What do you suggest?

I think it is possible to talk about it with sincerity.

How so?

To be open to criticisms and be ready to admit mistakes. We should bear in mind that, because we love ourselves so much, a tad more leniency toward others and a bit more severity toward ourselves than we think are best would appear justly balanced to others.

I know what you mean... I have heard the line, "People are selfish, but I'm not," and the like. We are so clear-eyed about others and cloudy-eyed about ourselves.

We shall proceed on the premises that we are capable of discussing earnestly how we should live. We do so while acknowledging that none of us can eliminate all of our hypocrisy, because we are imperfect. Our imperfection in turn does not allow us to be a total hypocrite either.

We have those moments when we think the person who is in front of us is so hypocritical that we want to throw up on him. If we call him a total hypocrite, we will have to admit that we are letting our anger and disgust take over. Too bad, isn't it?

Comrade, you are reading my mind... You must know, then, that the ones who claim to be moral persons are absolutely the worst. They would do anything so that they would appear moral, even by taking advantage of others' distress.

For example?

They would admonish people who are in anguish, anger, sorrow, fear, etc., for those reactions. Further, they may say that immaturity has prevented them from accepting what caused such emotions.

Isn't that lack of compassion?

Yes. It is also hypocrisy on the side of the self-professed moral people, because they preach compassion. In the above case, they are not so much concerned about how to help mollify the emotions, but how to make use of the incident to display what they think is their advanced mentality. Oftentimes, they do so with the tone implying that they themselves are mature enough to accept a similar situation.

Some may not tell the distraught person that s/he is immature on the spot, but later tell why they did not say so then. It comes down to their own maturity.

It's all about themselves, not about the distressed person. It can be pretty condescending, I tell you. I have been subject to many of these, and it is only recently that I realized their self-serving nature.

It shouldn't have taken that long, comrade...

The more self-advertising people are about their honesty, kindness, compassion, and so on, the more hypocritical they are. Isn't that chilling?

That goes by definition. The more you market yourself, the more attention you and the claim receive.

You should have seen me when I was facing this guy who claimed that he was compassionate. Or another who claimed that he was nice. So far, I have not met a person who lived up to a positive characterization of who her/himself was.

We, human beings, do not have the ability to be nice in all senses and that all the time. We should not be congratulatory about ourselves, because it will look ridiculous sooner or later.

Agree. You may say, "Trust me, I will do it," but not "I will do it. I'm a trustworthy person."

It is a matter of generalization, then. We can make a strong claim for one event and act accordingly. As for general statements, we should know that we cannot help violating them. In other words, broad claims make us hypocritical.

It is quite embarrassing when we forget having made such encompassing claims but others remember that we did.

Are you trying to seek your way out of your hypocrisy?

... Getting back to our earlier topic of self love, I think too many of us are self-loathing or self-neglecting.

They are the opposite of narcissism and self-righteousness which you brought up earlier as big problems.

In my mind, they are all related by insecurity in oneself. When we cannot be confident about ourselves, we either hate or neglect ourselves, or try to think and show that we are more than what we are.

Insecurity can be very harmful, but doesn't self love lead to another type of harm, overconfidence and cockiness?

Once again, we should not go to the very extreme. The underlying problem is that we are the ones who have to live with ourselves, but we often forget that. It would be better if we are with someone we like than someone we do not.

Is that why we'd better love ourselves?

Biology has endowed us with the mechanism to think anything that is ours better than others'.

We are already self loving without trying?

Yes, but that love is problematic, because we love whatever we happen to be.

What about self-loathing and self-neglecting people?

For some, the mechanism is suppressed by negative feedback from others. We may say that they are victimized by people who wish to feel secure at the expense of easy preys. Some others think the affection that they receive is insufficient, and loathe or neglect themselves as a way of expressing the frustration. Since they cannot get enough attention for being "good," so to speak, they are unconsciously trying to be "bad."

They adopt the attitude that would correspond to, "You don't like me? I don't either. You don't care about me? I don't either," if articulated.

But in truth they are keenly waiting for someone who would like them or care about them.

We love ourselves, but at the same time we harbor insecurity about who we are.

You know how that works. If you are desperate, you become vulnerable. As with anything innate, the biological urge to love oneself is deep rooted, but inappropriate in situations that are more delicate and complicated than basic survival. It may in fact work to our disadvantage.

Comrade... Tell me, should I love myself or not?

Consider a world in which every member behaves as dictated by their blind, biological love for oneself. It would be quite brutal.

Deep down, we think we are sane and others insane, but those others think they themselves are sane.

It's hard to accept, but all of us are quite loony and unreasonable at times.

Naturally, some are so more often than others, right?

"To love a stranger as oneself, implies the reverse: to love oneself as a stranger."

Simone Weil... Is that why you brought that big mirror with you?

We need to look at ourselves as if we were strangers who are to be nurtured into ideal beings with care and attention. There are too many occasions in which I think, "Only if they knew how they appear to others!"

I fear that the very hypocritical wouldn't notice their hypocrisy, whatever we do.

You're right, I can think of an example or two... or three, or...

Let me hold the mirror for you.

...

... Comrade, your pulse is... weak! You just saw yourself. Your true love, your one and only, remember?

So, you don't like me

Here I am again in much less than one month!

In the meantime, have you thought carefully about big issues, such as punctuality, commitment, etc., and preferably, your personality?

In terms of punctuality, I come close to Immanuel Kant, and in terms of commitment, I am not as inexplicable as Søren Kierkegaard.

You are obscuring the discussion! What about you as a person?

Aren't you happy that I am not taking your questioning as a wholesale denial of my existence?

It could be that it is so, but you haven't realized yet...

Lately, I have been involved in a few episodes in which the target parties of criticism have responded rather emotionally.

I didn't know that you go around telling people to re-examine their personalities!

Comrade, I am disappointed that you think I am so crude...

Well then, do you wish to congratulate yourself that you are not emotional at this moment?

Don't you think most people would get very upset if you ask them to reflect on their personality? We often become too angered to assess the cause and the implications of such a suggestion. The first thought upon hearing it would be "What the hell is s/he talking about?" Then, "How rude!"

"Who does s/he think s/he is to tell me so!", and finally, "I don't want talk to her/him again."

I find it interesting that we usually do not investigate what could be the problem with us, or between us and the person who made the criticism. We respond with anger and sometimes hate, and not much more.

That points to the inefficacy of very explicit criticisms.

I agree. In my experience, it is more effective to avoid the person that we do not like rather than to tell her/him so in words.

I think it quite reasonable, though, that we respond with anger when we are told to rethink our personality, because it is a threat to our very existence.

Unemployment has the same effects. Lack of work is not only about being deprived of income, but also a report card from the society that we are incapable of doing anything that is worth payment. You can go further in interpretation and say that the society would rather see you dead, because it is not giving you an opportunity to earn your bread to stay alive. The unemployed frequently experience anger. Of course, this is not to say that any unemployment is justified.

Social welfare could prevent us from starving and mollify our angry feelings.

Some deny the usefulness of it on the grounds that it makes the diligent pay for the lazy. No system can possibly circumvent all cases of abuse, but many do not seem to acknowledge that, especially the ones who manage without welfare.

Everything has undesirable aspects, and if we cite them as reasons for terminating its existence, neither you nor I would be here.

What we should do instead is to list both pros and cons, weigh and compare them with those of the alternatives. Belgium has one of the highest income taxes in the world, and I heard Belgians comment that they'd better become ill just so that they could make good use of the taxes that they had paid and would be paying.

They weren't joking?

They were quite serious. Suppose they are given two choices for the coming year: pay their taxes and remain healthy, or become gravely ill and be cared for without paying income tax or medical expenses.

They would definitely choose the former.

I would think so, too. They are lucky that the choice happens to be that of their liking.

The problem here is that they are unaware what kind of choice they face and that it is not entirely up to them to make the choice.

The same holds for social welfare. Some of us are lucky enough to be employed and pay for others.

Many are not aware of the choice: to be employed and contribute to the funds, or to be unemployed and draw from the funds.

If we are faced with the choice, the majority of us would choose the former. We cannot deny that luck plays a big part in our lives. In other words, the choice is between to be lucky and not in need of handouts, or to be unlucky and in need of financial assistance. People who grumble about welfare do not know that the choice has been made in their favor.

Many would want to purchase luck if possible.

If income taxes are what we have to pay for our luck that enables us to earn money, I would consider it inexpensive.

What about the unproductive uses of public funds, i.e., the money collected from us?

As I said, no plan of ours can succeed in weeding out all waste. If we do, it would be through intimidation and fear, as would be under autocracy or totalitarianism. Besides, if we are to make noises about misuse of funds, why don't we complain about Bill Gates? He has locked many of us into Windows operating system, which is much inferior to Linux. What would the public think about his owning a 66,000-square-feet estate that includes a swimming pool with an underwater music system if he were the head of a state?

It has been built by the money that we paid for Windows... If he were a head of a nation, he would be seeing a scene just like the painting by Eugène Delacroix depicting the July Revolution of 1830 in front of his estate!

We often forget a very important fact that we as voters have a say in how the public funds are used and we can hold the public administrators accountable for it. However, we have no power over Bill's riches. It's his money, period.

Many want to keep him as an example of how rich you can become, although the chances are nil for 99.999% of us.

Almost nobody thinks about the fact that we footed the bill for his 1000-square-feet dining room, but he still has to invite us for dinner!

Calm down, comrade. You can't fight against the idea, or rather myth, on which that country is founded.

It never ceases to astonish me... Getting back to the topic of reactions to criticisms, we oftentimes focus on the emotions provoked in us rather than the content of the criticisms. It is not rare that we see faces that want to tell us, "So, you don't like me, huh?"

Some actually say so.

It is a sneaky way to deflect criticism, because we are obliged to negate that allegation instead of talking about what made us criticize in the first place.

I'd say childish, too.

I agree. Do you remember that as kids we would fight, for example over play grounds, and soon it would escalate into abuses, such as how stupid the others' siblings or parents were?

It became a contest of showing how much more we detested the others than they disliked us, and how much more we could insult them than they could insult us.

Many engage in that strategy or derivations of it, even as adults. They change the point of dispute or add more points so that the original one becomes out of focus.

They don't want to discuss in depth what was at issue at the beginning.

It becomes impossible to talk about it, when you see the face or hear the line, "So, you don't like me." If we accept that there is no pure black or white in this world, the most mature action to take is to search for something that we agree with in our "enemy's" argument.

If we don't, we are probably allowing our self love to overrule everything else.

Precisely. We tend to make a similar mistake when we talk to people in other ideological camps. It is easy to divide the worldly views into two: the ones from our side, and the rest.

Our inclination is to agree with everything from our side and dismiss everything from the other sides.

There should be valid points in our opposition's opinions, too. Conversely, if we agree on everything with the members of the same camp, we were most likely coerced. To accept that fact and to search for such points is one sign of maturity, I think.

If so, most politicians are puerile. Not only they like making simplistic contrast among camps, but in some countries they also like to dig for dirt which has little to do with the ability to govern.

It is rare that we see politicians publicly acknowledging validity of the opponents' opinion. When we do, that is also when they are accused of selling out or being weak. Holding an extreme stance is much easier than reaching a balance in the middle.

Maintaining it is difficult, too, because you would be considered an unreliable ally by all sides.

Courage is seldom rewarded...

You know, striking the middle-ground is sometimes meant to deceive others by way of wearing two hats at a time.

Cowardice and even manipulation can be indistinguishable from courage!

Let's hope that true courage is recognizable to all of us...

The Utility of apologies

I've been thinking lately how useless apologies are. We should do away with them.

You, the ultimate apology-dispenser and paradoxically also the champion apology-extractor! I am shocked. Is that because you don't want to apologize for not meeting for more than a month? I never dreamed that I would witness your denunciation of apologies. How are you going to define yourself without them?

All right, you want me to apologize for not coming for so long. Is this right?

According to what you have been preaching, an apology at this instant wouldn't hurt.

I'm sorry.

Was that an apology? I thought it was an grunt with 'm' and 'e' sounds. It doesn't make me feel any better.

You see? Apologies are no good.

Of course, if you say it that way, nobody is going to be placated.

You got it, comrade! It all depends on how you say it.

Apologies count only if you say them effectively. It means that they need to be backed sincere feelings of guiltiness.

Not so fast. We only have to pretend that we are sincere.

My goodness, what happened to you?

Nothing, except that I have been exposed to so many fake apologies recently that I am over the edge.

Oh, oh. I know that you are of the type never to return from the other side of that edge.

I am not happy about it either, but I can't do anything. I tolerate, tolerate, tolerate, and one day, boom!

I thought it was a plonk... You know, because you tolerate rather well, you invite more of it, while the parties that have been heaping it on you have no idea that you are retreating step by step toward that grande falaise, one of the Cliffs of Moher.

I tend to get penalized for trying to be decent. By the way, I prefer Cabo Girão which is more than twice the height of the Cliffs of Moher.

Decency requires intelligence. Have you thought about it? An early warning system would help, for example.

Thanks for telling me that I lack intelligence.

You may want an apology for my statement, but I know that I cannot offer a sincere one for such a trivial case. What do you advise?

An apology for something like that? If you offer me one, I would think that you are being sarcastic. Anyway, the most obvious misuse of apologies is to utter one when you do not mean it.

Why do they say it, though?

In order to transfer the guilt to the other party. It would be considered unjust not to accept an apology, even when we know that it is not a sincere one.

Proving insincerity of a statement is impossible, although most of us can tell it.

The latest case that I have been involved in has been marked with great disrespect and insincerity toward me. The perpetrator has been offering apologies in which I have not seen a speck of truthfulness. He has also offered a solution which is totally impractical. After so many rounds of the same farce, I had to tell him that I would judge him by actions and not words.

I heard bits about it. How impractical was the proposed solution?

I tell you, it was as bad as making him run completely naked in circles in deep snow for three hours.

Yikes, it wouldn't be useful, pretty or even funny. What happened next?

I don't think he understood the gravity of the situation. He kept laughing.

Wasn't that some kind of embarrassment?

Even if embarrassment is what it was, it is not permissible to repeat the identical exchange over and over. The more you do, the more absurd the whole incident becomes.

You didn't say all that to your boss, did you?

Mon dieu, who said this has anything to do with him?

That's what I heard, I swear.

The issue here is that apologies are used as a substitute for indulgence. An apology is offered each time the same mistake is committed, but without any intention to avoid one in the future. Another grave problem with respect to apologies is that oftentimes they are given for wrong causes.

People apologize for what they do not need to?

It may sound funny, but yes.

I thought that is what you yourself are guilty of. Quite a few have told you that you don't need to apologize so much, right?

Some see how bad I am feeling about the rut that I managed to put them in, and wish to reassure me that they would overcome that setback. They tell me that I don't have to apologize in such instances.

And others?

They say how wrong it is to apologize for so many things, and in effect, show how little understanding they have of me.

How do you know that you are not committing the mistake that you pointed out?

I sure would be if I apologize only for the wrong causes and not for the right ones.

You offer apologies for just about anything to make sure that every cause has been covered... That may dilute the efficacy of each apology, you know.

But I mean it each time!

It looks like we may understand you better, if we do away with apologies as you proposed.

I did not say that I was going to eliminate the feelings of guilt and the wish to bear responsibility for wrongdoing and errors and to correct them. As I implied earlier, I will continue to express them through actions.

Don't you think it makes a difference to say explicitly that you are sorry?

I do want to hear it from others as long as they believe in it and are planning to follow it up. As for saying it myself, I have to think that I do so for the proof that I am doing my best to be moral. If some complain about my apologies, well, I will just put a big X next to their names.

That may be the best, because we cannot please everyone on the planet and we need to be accountable to ourselves.

Anyway, the serious problem with apologies that I want to address here is the following. Many apologize for something rather trivial and unrelated to the real and bigger issue. For example, I may be upset because my partner---mind you, I had no choice over who that would be---always cunningly takes the easy part of the job and leaves the difficult part for me to deal with. That itself may not be too bad if he does not advertise to others how much contribution he is making.

He senses that you have been unhappy and apologizes profusely for colliding with you in the corridor.

Such people are so skilled at not looking at what is inconvenient to them. Some manage to take advantage of the rumor mill, too.

"Are you guys in bad terms?" "Yeah, we bumped into each other the other day, and I apologized because it was my fault. But..." "Upset because of that?" "Looks like it." And for some reason, they never turn to you to ask what's the matter between you two, right?

I wouldn't say much anyway. What's the point of complaining about the third party?

You firmly believe in discussing any problem with the culprit and not with others.

Another person went as far as to admit that he had become rather self-righteous in a certain domain, but seemed to want to believe that he was not overall a self-righteous soul. I'm afraid he is turning a blind eye to the real problem.

Isn't it usually the case that the parts tell us quite a bit about the whole? People who are cruel to animals tend to suffer from psychological disorders, and are abusive toward fellow human beings as well.

What about people who are nasty toward family members, but nice toward colleagues? It can be the other way around, too.

True, some manage to maintain that duality for decades.

We hear what loving parents some dictators were when their hands had been soaked in tons of blood of others.

Joseph Stalin remains a good example of consistency.

Some other problem cases concern shifting the blame to factors beyond our control by way of apology.

"I lied because the earth orbits around the sun. The motion makes my tongue wiggle." That genre?

It could be a bit less absurd. "I couldn't help snatching your carefully prepared lunch while you weren't looking, because I hadn't eaten anything since last night and it looked so good." Or even more plausible. "I may have the tendency to be self-righteous, but that is because I live alone." That raises the question of: are all who live by themselves self-righteous?

If the answer is no, s/he has to look for an excuse elsewhere.

We try hard to find excuses in our environment, because we do not want to admit that it is our personality or lack of morality that is the true problem. You would be surprised how far we go to avoid questioning who we are.

Isn't that natural?

Yes, and that is why apologies are very often useless. Most of the time, we do not address the real issue with the earnestness that is required to prevent similar incidents. In many cases, apologies are harmful, because they are used as indulgences and put the pressure on the victim of the mistake or wrongdoing to act as if nothing bad had happened. If we are still angry after given an apology, it will be us who would be accused of spitefulness, childishness, and so on.

Having considered all the difficulties of offering useful apologies, you want others to apologize and you plan to apologize as often as you used to after all.

Let's say it is like saying 'good morning.' If you don't, it's rude in most cases. Many people neither think it is a good morning nor want to wish you a good morning, but say it as a courtesy. I want to be civilized enough to say 'good morning' to as many as possible, and would like to hear a pleasant 'good morning' rather than a grouchy one. If people think I am making too big a fuss about 'good morning,' they don't understand me.

Now who wants to understand you?

We all pretend that we either understand each other or are doing our best to reach that goal, comrade.

You are more Machiavellian than usual today. In any case, what do you say about not coming for so long?

I'm really sorry about it, but you know... I don't want to make excuses.

In other words, you could have made it, but you didn't.

It's a matter of priority... Nobody can do million things in a day.

Apology rejected! You are not showing enough remorse, comrade. You should have volunteered to reexamine your morality and personality.

Respect as aloofness, instincts before consciousness

Last time you argued how circumstantial evidence leads to richer interpretations of events.

Since we cannot remember all such pieces of evidence and describe them well, it is difficult to convince others of our interpretations.

Even if we could remember and describe well, most of us do not have the patience to listen to them. Somebody was complaining about the three-hour monologue on a family funeral, the other day...

You are right. That means we should forget about asking others to integrate the information that we give to them.

And yet, they tell us that our judgments are either too optimistic or pessimistic!

If we give a concise summary of an exchange or an event instead, that would necessarily be based on our view of it. For example, we could say, "He was very angry when he left the room," instead of recounting how his eyes looked, how he was breathing, how he turned around, how he grabbed the door knob, how he closed the door, and so on.

Whatever we do to explain better, we will be told that we are looking at it in a wrong way.

And you do look at an exchange in a wrong way.

Are you saying that you are unbiased, but I am?

It was a generic 'you,' comrade.

Why did you dropped the generic 'we,' then?

You see, these small things matter, but we usually do not remember them.

You have changed the focus of our conversation ever so slightly... Anyway, we tend to retain in our memory only the overall impression that the details give us. Plus, there are historical elements in most exchanges.

For all these reasons, I respect the interpretations of the persons involved.

If you are only indirectly related to the exchange or event, your view should matter less for that fact.

Unless you have a very strong reason to present yours as the more plausible, or you happen to have the obligation to rule over them. You could be a guardian, instructor, judge, supervisor, leader, and the like.

Aren't we back to the issue of personality, then?

I'm afraid we are. There will always be people who are pushy enough to tell others that they are wrong.

Overconfident souls do not see anything wrong in bulldozing their way with their opinions. Many are unaware of their might. The ones who are aware nonetheless push through, because they are so convinced of their goodness.

You know, many people like being told how they should think. For them, a person like myself is totally useless, because I don't tell them what they should be doing.

Even if they ask your opinion?

I would offer it if asked, but I always add that the final decision is theirs.

I bet they don't like that either.

To me, they are effectively asking me to play God. I refuse to accept the request because I do not believe that there exists an omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent being. If it did, I am certainly not that being.

How can they ever think that you are?

Some are quite desperate. Perhaps it is more accurate to say that they are so unwilling to think for themselves... The conclusion is that when you are decent enough to refuse to be God, people may resent you for that. They will say you are unsympathetic, cold, aloof, heartless and so on.

It's surely ironic that being respectful comes at a price. But I think the problem is that your definition of respect is different from others'.

Talking about respect, I have discovered lately that my instincts in that department are very much---how should I put it---developed. I always thought I had the tendency to overreact in general, but not so.

Comrade, you must admit that there are benefits to getting older. We become so sly that we find justification for everything we do!

Once in a while, I notice that I am acting angrily or offended, and surprised by my own action.

Slyness comes easily, but not maturity. Is this what you are getting at?

What you said is true, but that's not the point here. In the cases that I just described, I examine the situation later and realize that I was reacting to lack of respect.

If that is not an excuse for being rude, I don't know what to say.

Such a self-effacing and self-doubting person that I am...

An oxymoron, comrade. Would you ever trust someone who describes her/himself as nice?

The paradox is that a nice person ceases to be one by admitting so, but it is not rare that we encounter such declarations.

How easily people say, "I am nice," depends on the culture. Whether your "nice person" label should be confiscated upon reading it out loud yourself is culture dependent, too.

We need to make some kind of judgment, and in my world, uttering that line is an unmistakable proof to the contrary.

I thought you have been watching too many Hollywood movies, but you never get used to that one, eh?

Let's say I am so ruthless in my self-examination that most think I lack self-confidence. What they do not realize is that it is my self-confidence that allows me to disclose the results of those examinations.

I can't tell whether this is better than the earlier assessment of yourself. You are obscuring the true nature with convolutedness, ahem.

During an interaction with a person, I sometimes realize that I am all of the sudden angry for seemingly no reason. I am surprised by my own emotions, and that surprise sometimes shows as well. I am struck by feelings of remorse for exhibiting anger, especially because it does not seem to be justified. After the event, I think about it carefully and cannot but conclude that the person that I was with lacked respect and my behavior was in response to that.

How could anyone agree to that kind of argument?

This is exactly what we talked about last time. The other persons' gesture, eyes, tone, etc. indicate that they have little respect for me. They are certainly not aware what these details reveal. In most instances, they do not even know how little respect they have for me. But my instincts pick up the clues before I can clearly formulate in my mind what the attitude of the other party is.

As I recall our previous conversation, you know that it is almost impossible to convince others of your interpretation.

They'll just say I am paranoid and/or rude. But trust me, because I am loathe to be self-congratulatory, I had thought about this mechanism of mine for the longest time.

And you have come to the conclusion that your actions are provoked by others...

You should be happy; I fully accept that many will not understand the mechanism.

Do not despair, the American Psychiatric Association is to release the new version of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders very soon.

Did you want to talk about the Americanization of the fields of psychology and psychiatry? If you are diagnosed ill according to that manual, it simply means you are not an average American. As we all know, that can be a very good thing. Most likely, you will be making contribution to world peace for being who you are. Or, you may be labeled mentally ill even when you are not. Think about their aversion to unhappiness and pessimism---it's unhealthy!

Now, now, let's just say that psychologists and psychiatrists need to talk more to anthropologists and sociologists, but they have not done so yet. About being average, we are all ambivalent about it. We find both comfort and boredom in being surrounded by people who are more or less like us.

By definition, most of us cannot escape the fate of being average.

It's more precisely called 'mean' for good reason, my dear comrade.

It shows, here and there

Have you ever noticed that we reveal more of our thoughts than we intend to?

Not all of us experience such under-the-influence moments, you know.

I'm not talking about dropping the guard.

Including the occasions when we become too carried away with the subject and blurt out what we tried to bury deep down?

We may become so engrossed in talking about the effects of unhealthy lifestyles on public finance that we forget that a burden case is standing right next to us. Is this the kind of incident that you have in mind?

We may even exclaim, "We have to do something about those people!"

Do you have a nightmare on that theme, once in a while?

I utter the f- or s-word out loud, and everything stops, as if it were a movie and the projector went on strike. It takes a moment to realize that everyone is looking at me with expressions of anger or horror...

Anyway, we don't have to go that far to say that we communicate more than we plan to. As I said in our last meeting, we can't hide our true feelings. It shows through the way we say things. The voice is one obvious factor. The eyes tell an awful lot as well.

It is easy to see excitement, joy, surprise, sadness, boredom, indifference, annoyance, contempt, fear, and so on in them.

What we look at as we talk is another.

The floor/ground, the ceiling/sky, the face of the interlocutor, the object around her/him, her/his body parts or our own, etc.

Our gestures count, too. We can fiddle with the object that we happen to carry. If you have long hair, wearing a ring or mustache, you can play with it. We may cough, we may straighten our clothes when we start or finish talking, and they all say something about our mood, our true feelings behind the words. We usually don't plan those gestures and most of us have little control over what our eyes convey to others. How the talk was initiated and by whom, what was the topic before and after the part in question---these reveal not so much of mood, perhaps, but related thoughts.

And that is why we always reveal more than we intend to?

When we recount the conversations we had with others, we often fail to communicate the full significance of them because we omit the details.

The look in the eyes, gestures, etc., you mean?

Someone may say to me, "You're overly pedantic," but...

You still have hard feelings about that one, eh? I can see it in the movement of your facial muscles.

The problem with people who give me such evaluation is that they don't let me be me.

Are you saying that the negative remark was based on stereotypes?

Not necessarily, considering the fact that it came from my own mother.

Why did she say such a thing?

She meant it as a piece advice for enriching ma vie sentimentale. But what good is it to attract people by pretending to be a person that you are not?

Isn't that a problem that you have with almost anyone? That people do not like you any more if you reveal your true self?

I wouldn't say 'my true' self, because that sounds like I am deceiving others.

Let's say 'your core,' then.

Don't you think it best if we accept that any relationship is community service for each other?

You mean, all of us tolerate each other and nothing more...

Getting back to the topic of factors besides words, we are not so bad at integrating the unspoken elements. That is, we know from them whether the statement is meant as a joke, serious advice or even revenge. The curious thing is that we are hopeless at reproducing them.

That's why actors can keep their jobs, I'd say.

It doesn't have to be reenactment of the scene. We hear the tone, see the gestures and postures. In theory, we should be able to describe them.

We are bad at putting them into words?

What is mind boggling is that we forget the details in most cases. We cannot recall what we noticed and only remember the overall impression that they gave us.

Someone may complain that her/his lover said s/he was too pedantic, but s/he may not get the sympathy that s/he deserves unless s/he can explain how it was said.

I told you, it was my mother! I myself have experienced and also witnessed others go through the same process over and over. We are certain from the non-verbal cues what the true intentions of the interlocutor are, but because of our inability to explain them convincingly, we are told that we are interpreting people in a wrong way.

Isn't it usually the case that if we insist on our take of the event, we are labeled obstinate at best and psychotic at worst?

Or wishful-thinkers, scaremongers... I had been wondering for some time why quite a few people tell us that we should trust our intuitions and gut feelings.

I thought we are not supposed to.

We are taught to avoid emotional and impulsive reactions. These days, I am inclined to give such responses more credit than before.

Are they the same, intuition, gut feelings, hunches, emotions, and impulses?

They are similar in that they are considered irrational and cannot be explained neatly.

You are saying that so-called irrational responses should not be taken lightly, and quite a few people are of the same opinion.

We are very much influenced by what the ideal scientific methods are. That is, if something cannot be proved with evidence and reason, it has very little or no value.

But if we go astray from that principle, we will be allowing witch hunting.

There is that danger, but ignoring circumstantial "evidence" is also dangerous. The huge problem with those fuzzy factors is that they escape communication, and often memory as well. Our interpretation of a specific event is often based on the observation of similar ones over the years. Usually, we cannot remember enough of them to make our case convincing.

Doesn't it depend on how much your interpretations in general are trusted?

It does. In other words, neither credibility of our hunches to ourselves nor that to others can be established in an instant. To complicate matters, nobody has a static set of reactions, so we are never able to deduce with certainty whether interpretations of reactions were reasonable or not.

A bigger problem is that we tend to think that we know ourselves best, but that is not true. We may inquire a person what s/he was thinking, but the answer can be far from what it really was, and that without attempting to lie.

Another danger is that a manipulative person can sell her/his interpretation to a less manipulative one. For example, the former can ingrain in the latter that s/he is useless.

Didn't you imply above that we have the capacity to detect malice in such cases so as not to believe in it?

I guess we differ in that ability. Most of us certainly become more adept at it as we accumulate various experiences in this world. Anyway, we should not underestimate how much people can pick up clues. I can't conceal disgust and contempt when dealing with insincere statements, and that has been a problem.

What about writing, does it come with circumstantial evidence as well?

Writing is a tough one. It is very easy to give an impression that you did not intend to and be totally unaware of it. Writing has a greater variation than the use of voice, I think, and it is much harder to find out the unwritten elements.

Sometimes little correspondence means laziness on one side or both, not necessarily lack of caring feelings.

That can work in the opposite direction as well. As I said before, if we write frequently to each other, that gives an illusion that we care and understand each other well.

Such illusions are backed by solid evidence such as the number of correspondence per month, whereas intuitions and hunches are devoid of proof of that sort...

I find it interesting that incidental details are often more powerful than our summaries of them, such as "He was very angry," "She was clearly shaken," etc.

But we tend not to remember the details that have contributed to those conclusions!

A few more snags to our claim that instincts should not be taken lightly...

I knew it, I knew it. It's your "Snag Time."

One is that deep-rooted prejudice can be misunderstood as legitimate instincts. Examples are ones based on appearance, including race, gender, and so on.

That one...

Another is that one bad incident can form and dominate our instinct.

A severe case of food poisoning would make you physically allergic to what caused it.

That's a good one. The last snag that I can list at this moment is the cultural dependency of incidental proofs. The other night, I was listening to the dialogue between Karen and Denys in the film, "Out of Africa." At that point in the story, they were in love with each other, but did not know whether their feelings were mutual. I felt a bit confused because their conversation did not seem to indicate that one was interested in the other.

If you mean that there were no too obvious, sugary lines, isn't that the only way of declaring love that you approve of?

I have been watching too many of more typical Hollywood movies lately that I didn't even recognize my preferred way of courting.

Mais quelle horreur !

Exactly... It goes to show that cues may not serve their purpose if you are not used to them.

Are you sure that we should trust our instincts after all?

Maturity transcends cultural boundaries, remember?

'Maturity,' our catch-all word are here to save us!