Owen of the past wrote a lot of stuff!
Wow, so prompted by Molly's comment on yesterday's entry, I went back to find the entry that I referenced in the quote from 2006. As a consequence I read a few entries from back then and I have to say I'm pretty impressed by my writing! There were a bunch entries back then that has 15+ comments and some real good discussion going!
Sadly, I bulk privatized every entry before about March 2007 back during a certain fiasco at the end of senior year. But I went back and re-opened the entry in question. Here is an excerpt:
Women, men, flirting, sex, relationships, clubs, dating. It is too often just a bullshit game. Oh, I suppose on some level it can't all be bullshit if it is the main focus of our genes, but so often it really is just a bullshit game. Which doesn't mean I never want to play.
But consider people our age for a minute. So often the whole dating/hooking-up game can be described as:
(1) go to a location (party/mall/club/bar/class/quad/etc.).
(2) check out the crowd of opposite sex (or same if you swing that way) while they check you out.
(3) attempt to initiate social interaction with target person (talking/dancing/game-playing/drinking/etc.).
(4) attempt to impress them and determine odds of getting together with them (for another date/for sex/for making out/etc. depending on your goals)
(5) if odds are good, attempt to achieve goal from (4).
(6) repeat as necessary.
At this point I can just hear the protests going up from readers about the oversimplification. Yes, I hear you, cool your jets for a moment. Yes, this is a caricature of a particular type of stereotypical interaction. What about dating or relationships beyond the pick-up-in-[location] you ask? Yes, that exists too. But I think in many ways you can tweak the formula and add time and steps and achieve a similar model. What is my point? I guess it all just feel so fake.
Today in the airport I was perusing books at the terminal bookstore and I read the first chapter of a book called Are Men Necessary by Maureen Dowd, a fellow Washingtonian. Among other things, her first chapter discussed how the sexual revolution had largely failed to dispense with the coy game of courtship. She talked all about how her friends were now coming back to her dated 1950s copy of a book about how to win men and keep them. Essentially it described a version of courtship that was full of innuendo, deception, and playing-hard-to-get.
Full entry + comments available here
Haha, on a lighter note, apparently this is another thing I wrote a few days later. Awesome!:
Metro Adventures: Coolest thing I saw on the metro this morning: Dude with a fucking eye patch! Just a regular looking guy in business casual but with a mean-lookin' patch. I'm sure he gets all sorts of pirate jokes, but he sure did have the look going.
That one can be found here
Sadly, I bulk privatized every entry before about March 2007 back during a certain fiasco at the end of senior year. But I went back and re-opened the entry in question. Here is an excerpt:
Women, men, flirting, sex, relationships, clubs, dating. It is too often just a bullshit game. Oh, I suppose on some level it can't all be bullshit if it is the main focus of our genes, but so often it really is just a bullshit game. Which doesn't mean I never want to play.
But consider people our age for a minute. So often the whole dating/hooking-up game can be described as:
(1) go to a location (party/mall/club/bar/class/quad/etc.).
(2) check out the crowd of opposite sex (or same if you swing that way) while they check you out.
(3) attempt to initiate social interaction with target person (talking/dancing/game-playing/drinking/etc.).
(4) attempt to impress them and determine odds of getting together with them (for another date/for sex/for making out/etc. depending on your goals)
(5) if odds are good, attempt to achieve goal from (4).
(6) repeat as necessary.
At this point I can just hear the protests going up from readers about the oversimplification. Yes, I hear you, cool your jets for a moment. Yes, this is a caricature of a particular type of stereotypical interaction. What about dating or relationships beyond the pick-up-in-[location] you ask? Yes, that exists too. But I think in many ways you can tweak the formula and add time and steps and achieve a similar model. What is my point? I guess it all just feel so fake.
Today in the airport I was perusing books at the terminal bookstore and I read the first chapter of a book called Are Men Necessary by Maureen Dowd, a fellow Washingtonian. Among other things, her first chapter discussed how the sexual revolution had largely failed to dispense with the coy game of courtship. She talked all about how her friends were now coming back to her dated 1950s copy of a book about how to win men and keep them. Essentially it described a version of courtship that was full of innuendo, deception, and playing-hard-to-get.
Full entry + comments available here
Haha, on a lighter note, apparently this is another thing I wrote a few days later. Awesome!:
Metro Adventures: Coolest thing I saw on the metro this morning: Dude with a fucking eye patch! Just a regular looking guy in business casual but with a mean-lookin' patch. I'm sure he gets all sorts of pirate jokes, but he sure did have the look going.
That one can be found here