Saturday, January 27, 2007

Over the Top Flirting

I'll start this off by saying that lately my social calendar has become more and more filled. This is nice, for once I'm learning how to actually date (i.e. go out on dates with guys to get to know them versus exclusively dating a guy that you knew as a friend first). With this is a different pace at which you progress, and I'm not just talking physically. Yet not everyone understands this. Between myself and my friends, we've noticed a pattern of overachievers. Or what I'd call over-the-top flirting.

First, the overzealous complimenters. Even before I've met them in person (or someone I've just met in a bar), they're gushing about how cute I am, how I'm such a wonderful person, etc. Seriously, if all you've seen is a picture and a paragraph, YOU DON'T KNOW ME VERY WELL. You don't even know if I look like the girl in the picture. If you use compliments this readily now, how are they going to carry much weight when you do know me? One or two well-placed compliments (that are in line with how much you know about me) are fine, but laying them haphazardly in ways that make no sense does not earn you any points.

Second, the early sexual innuendo flirts. Now while my guy friends can ask me if we're going to have a lingerie pillow fight at the girls' night sleepover, if I've met you once (or not at all), that is encroaching too much on my personal space. No, I don't wish to trade sexual fantasies with you, we met for less than an hour. My mind can function in the gutter as well as any teenage boy's, but I need to know you a bit before I'm willing to talk anything other than hypotheticals.

Lastly, the early emotionally attached guys. If we haven't even met yet, you have no reason to miss me. In fact, up until the point we've been seeing each other multiple times a week and for many weeks, there is no reason for that kind of emotion.

Now, I'm not saying that all guys are like this, but it's definitely a turnoff when they are. In the words of Avital- Slow Down Tiger!

Sunday, January 21, 2007

Social Classes

I've started noticing that in every social walk of life there are classes and leagues. First, there's the dating leagues. Now, I used to not believe that these existed. Granted, the Jewish requirement severely limits the applicant pool, but other that, I didn't think I drew distinctions across guys being in and out of my league. Apparently, however, one needs not consciously draw the boundaries, because others will.

Case in point: When talking to a guy in a bar, one of the first questions that always comes up is what we each do for a living. I don't think I do anything particularly unnerving, but you should see the faces of most guys I meet when I say what I do. A doctorate in neuroengineering apparently produces a temporary void in their minds, and they can never seem to get out of the conversation quickly enough. The few that stay are that self selecting guys who consider themselves in (or at least close enough to) my league. Even if I don't define that the guy needs to be smart and ambitious, it's already defined for me.

That being said, I always wonder what the response would be like if I were a male. It seems to me that the higher you climb in the education/success ladder as a female, the smaller your class of potential male partners. Is this a male/female thing, or a common interest thing?

Just recently I've realized that my friends have classes too, albeit less obvious most of the time. I have my friends that I only seem to see on religious occasions, my going out friends, my friends I think will get along with most of my other friends, my family friends, my friends I tend to hang out with one on one etc. While some of these groups overlap and I encourage intermingling, I think I still categorize some friends into one particular category or another. It's weird to me, because I recently understood that my friends do it too, and some consider me only in the religious category or one-on-one category. This has made me rethink this categorizing- perhaps I am assuming too much. Maybe by labelling friends I'm actually insulting them as a person and needlessly limiting their potential friendship attributes. Where does one draw the line between ensuring the group has good dynamics for a given activity and offending those left behind?

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

New York

I just got back from a trip to NYC to visit Alice, my old college roomate. This weekend was so much fun, and felt like we were roomies again. We went to see The Color Purple on Broadway, which somehow managed to both stick pretty true to the book and make an awesome musical (suprising since the book is pretty serious and sad at parts). It was also cool in that it drew a pretty diverse crowd (not your usual yuppy white monopoly). If you get the chance, you gotta check this show out!

We also managed to have a relaxing afternoon of mulled wine and oatmeal raisin cookie making, capped off with some Gay, Straight, or Taken. I apparently suck at guessing who's who, so I'm not quite sure what that says about my potential love life, but that's ok.

Other fun pursuits of the weekend: catching up with Ben, Maloney, and Smolow, as well as a good chunk of my dad's family; playing video games, checking out a comedy club, going to a jazz club, shopping a little, and eating a ton!!! I don't know when my stomach will recover from it, but NYC has some damn good restaurants.

Except for the cost of living, I'm getting to be a bigger and bigger fan of the city every time I go visit. Who knows, maybe one day I'll go out that way for good. But for now, back to good ole ATL...

Tuesday, January 09, 2007

Friendship

What makes a friend a friend? More specifically, what makes a friend a good friend?

These questions may seem trivial at first, but I'm beginning to realize that people have very different ideas of friendship. Take a recent example from an interaction two of my friends had recently:

Friend A was planning on going to a play with Friend B. A reminded B the day before, and B planned to meet A at A's house. On the day of, A's waiting around for B, calling B's phone, waiting some more, until finally A realizes she won't make it to the play on time unless she leaves. Begrudgingly (as A hates going anywhere alone, as all her friends know) A decides to go to the play alone. At the end of the play, B calls A's phone and asks to meet up with A. B apologizes to A, says he didn't have a good excuse (he just forgot and was watching videos), and tried to show up for the 2nd half of the play.

Now, A is bothered because this isn't the first time B has stood her up, and doesn't forgive B right away. What follows is an email chain, with A explaining why she's upset (she feels B doesn't value her friendship and his attitude his shown through his actions) and B expecting immediate forgiveness (because he feels good friends forgive and deal with each others mistakes, especially those they have no control over).

So if I didn't completely lose you there, here's my point. Besides B's refusal to take responsibility for forgetting (yes, if you're reading this, your memory is your responsibility, not some unattached entity you can put the blame on and expect immediate forgiveness for), there's a blatant difference in what each considers a good friend. A values reliability and dependability, from the silly to the serious events in her life, and defines a friendship where two people work to maintain their friendship. B values acceptance and understanding of each others flaws, and from what I gather values compatibility over all else.

My personal opinion is that real friendships are a combination. I prioritize dependability a great deal, and do want effort to be two-sided, but I definitely have friends that I'm willing to overlook/accept flakiness for their companionship. However, my closest friends all have one thing in common: they're willing to drop everything if I really need them for something, be they dependable or flaky at other times.

Oh yeah- and they don't let me get away with shit. :)

Wednesday, January 03, 2007

Iran and Holocaust Denial II

And my reaction to the previous blog:

The worst thing about all of this is that I doubt they'll be successful at prosecuting Iran. The world would rather naively believe that nothing will happen than for once stand up to prevent a genocide. I mean, really, the United Nations was formed for that purpose, and what has it done to date?

Look at Darfur, the UN still doesn't have troops there. Why? Because it's Arab aggressors against a non-Arab minority. Because it's politics, and enough Arab countries will join their votes together to prevent any actions against an Arab country. Not to mention the countries that have tried to befriend this terrorist supporting and inciting regime. Russia and China would rather sell weapons to and gain political clout with Iran and Syria (and by proxy Hizballah and Hamas) than actually take actions against blatant terrorism. That's why it took so long to get even minimal sanctions pass against Iran, and the language on the latest Lebanon resolution lacked any teeth to enforce it. In contrast, how many resolutions has the UN general assembly passed against Israel?

Iran and Holocaust Denial

I was going to write something about Iran, but then I found the editorial pasted below. Since the author says it so eloquently, I figured I'd post it (care of the Washington Times).

Three weeks ago, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad hosted a conference in Tehran to promote the cause of Holocaust denial. Sixty-seven persons from 30 countries attended the International Conference on Review of the Holocaust: Global Vision," which had two main aims: to deny that the Holocaust ordered by German dictator Adolf Hitler killed 6 million Jews, or as a fallback position, to minimize Nazism's human toll; and to deny the international legitimacy of Israel. Participants included former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke; and some of Europe's most prominent Holocaust deniers, including French Professor Robert Faurisson, who has questioned whether Nazi gas chambers really existed. At the conference hall, there were pictures, CDs and posters, all of them dealing with some aspect of Holocaust denial. These included pictures of Holocaust survivors liberated from Nazi death camps; the pictures were falsely labeled as photographs of typhus patients who had been quarantined to prevent the spread of the disease. (Visit www.intelligence.org).

A recurring theme at the Tehran conference was the connection between Holocaust denial and the destruction of Israel. "Just as the Soviet Union was erased from [the map of] the world, so will the Zionist entity soon disappear," Mr. Ahmadinejad told conferees. Iranian Foreign Minister Mamuchehr Mottaki declared that "an official study of the Holocaust will also lead to the nature of the Zionist regime's existence being questioned." Mr. Duke, who denied that gas chambers were used to kill Jews, said "the Zionists have used the Holocaust as a weapon" to conceal Israeli crimes.


Conference participants agreed to establish an international institution to study the Holocaust, and appointed Mohammad Ali Ramin, an adviser to Mr. Ahmadinejad, as general secretary. Mr. Ramin says that, throughout history, Jews have "inflicted the most damage on the human race," and that some Jews have engaged "in plotting against other nations and ethnic groups to cause malice, cruelty and wickedness." Mr. Ramin has also suggested that the Holocaust was a myth concocted by the United States and Great Britain to weaken Germany by falsely depicting it as a "human-burning nation."


Such statements, while disturbing enough in and of themselves, must be viewed in the larger context of Iranian support for terrorist groups targeting Israel, along with the fact that Mr. Ahmadinejad has missiles capable of reaching Israel and is working to develop nuclear weapons. When you add it all up, the International Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists argues persuasively in a new report issued in conjunction with the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Mr. Ahmadinejad is actively attempting to incite genocide against Israel. In its report, which is endorsed by Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, the association notes that all too often, the civilized world, when confronted with leaders bent on mass murder, "has consistently delayed action until after thousands or even millions were already slain." In Rwanda, for example, the 1994 massacre of 800,000 Tutsi tribesmen was proceeded by years of propaganda incitement against them by the Hutu majority and reports that death squads were being formed. In Bosnia, there was ample warning that Serb President Slobodan Milosevic was prepared to slaughter his neighbors, but the world refused to act until 200,000 Bosnians were killed. With Tehran determined to acquire nuclear weapons, the failure to act could be far more costly this time.

Monday, January 01, 2007

Happy New Years

This new year's eve focused on the same central debate it does every year: go out to a big party, or stay in at a house party. I think most people tend to feel strongly for one or the other, but for me, I'm always torn. I mean, I love going out dancing and the like, and there's a certain appeal for the lights and glamour of a big club surrounded by hundreds of new found friends counting down to midnight together.

On the other hand, at a big club you can't really talk much to your friends, and you have to worry about transportation. Not only do you have to find designated drivers or hail cabs, but you have to trust on the road some other drunk driver isn't going to injure you. Staying at a house party has that personal appeal, and you usually have offers to crash there.
Bela will post photos soon, so feel free to check them out when she does :)