Look

I am the kind of person who could really hurt you with a look. Probably you realize it better than anybody else and it is why you always prefer the cold, non-involved 2.0 ways of conversation.

But while you was struggling with your limited emotional intelligence and existential cowardise, somebody else successfully played its chances. And now, I am the one who wholeheartedly avoids you. For the rest of my life.

Bad luck with sports

I've read lately various blogs and posts of men about the grotesque and unpleasant experiences encountered with women on JDate. For the sake of objectivity, I can confess I went through similar (bad, and mostly bad taste) episodes.

I started this on-line dating adventure with no prior thoughts. A nickname and vague references about yourself are offering a minimum safety of getting in trouble in the real world and I hoped that, it was a chance to identify from a huge database of opportunities my very small and special target-group. But, all I got after one year of serious approach and daily exercise was the conclusion that the high IQ single men must hide somewhere else. I don't know yet where.

One of the first contacts with this unusual universe was a guy, whose profile indicated he's high educated, socially active and with an impressive career. He started to send me an IM asking me directly "Do you like sports?" I was a bit surprised, because I am this old-type kind of person used to start a conversation, with known and unknown people with at least the classical "hi". but, anyway, maybe the guy was at gym and was planning some special sports gathering. Still, I was challenged by this plain question. To tell him or not the truth? The only sports I'm practicing are jogging, city biking and sometimes some gym, but rather at the very practical level, not something I really liked. And, because for me keeping the record of lies is quite neurons-consuming, I answered candidly: "No". For him to reply back, instantly: "No?"

How challenging! In two minutes we are just trying to get further a conversation started dead. And, I was about to fail this - it seems - important, very important test. So, I wrote back on a self-ironic tone how my relationship with sports was never a good one and blablabla. After another minute or two, he answered on a very professional and distant tone: "I'm very sorry for you (what I'm gonna do now, I missed the chance of my life), but I'm interested ONLY in women who like sports". And closed the window, as to run as far away as possible of such a looser. And I logged out. It was enough for one day.

To be continued.

My problems

I have a couple of small (new) problems these days:

- It is impossible to avoid the big fillers with Viagra pills advertising. Everywhere, including on websites for children.

- The pathetic features about the economic crisis. The last on the list is a Washington Times report about a lady who had the "misfortune" of being freed from prison in the "worse times ever".

- The story of the 14 children single unemployed mother (33), all conceived through in vitro fertilization.

But, in a way I am quite lucky, because I don't watch TV and I am out of JDate, so I could enjoy much more my private silence.

Postcards

These days, we do not send too many postcards. We have the e-mails or the phone multimedia options. Our messages could reach the destination instantly. Our pictures might have a more personal touch, because made by ourselves, sharing with the others our personal view of the world. But we are rarely making any such efforts, because we don't have an educated eye to look around us. Plus, we have thousand of (ideas less) ready-made hallmarks or postcards with stereotypical texts. We send it (instantly) sharing in fact our absence.

As for the old times postcards, they are displayed now in museums as this Walker Evans' exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Arts. What about an exhibition of electronic postcards in a virtual museum ?

How to spend our time (mostly with ourselves)

Having very demanding and busy professional lives, we use to complain often - if not all the time, perhaps as an excuse for not being able to find other topic to address with other fellow humans, apparently eager to see - we don't have time, social life, beyond our scheduled devoted, at least 5 days the week, to the life in our offices.

But, when it's possible to meet other people, not sharing the same "fantastic" life targets - based, guess !, on our very demanding jobs - we cannot do anything else than to checking nervously our complicate cell phones or to send short messages. Because, in these tormented times, more than ever, we have to fight for our salary. Instead to enjoy a different conversation and pleasant presences or, simply, a different environment, we are keeping tight our connections exclusively with our offices.

During my last vacations, I'd observed (too) many young couples spending a wonderful time abroad fighting and arguing each other. Normal. It was the only time they were able to share together and they discovered the lack of any kind of communication.

I'm fully aware our daily lives these days are by far three times more complicated than it was 15 years ago. In order to survive, you need to be always ready, stubborn, strong enough to cope with stress and intellectual pollution. Also, than not all of us are doing the job they dreamed to since they were children and getting a secure salary is almost all they want before going retired. The other side of the story is that we don't have any excuse to unlearn the social language and to enjoy, even for one minute but for a one full minute, the other people's presence. Against the broad accepted image of the workaholic, I'm more and more convinced that outperforming individuals are those who have the sense of their time and could see, at a glance, what's worthy or not to focus your attention and those subjects could be not-at-all professionally related. If somebody is telling me he/she's not having time to do anything else than the office life, I'll be extremely reluctant to deal with, because the resources are limited and the lack of social imagination and intelligence are good predictors that, sooner or late this person will be a very devoted robot, but an extremely limited human.