Investment Risks and Rewards

Treat any relationship like an investment. That is what is actually is, right?

Be aware that there are both long term and short term investments.

Thoroughly research the product before investing; don’t rush in simply because it is the talk of the town or catches a lot of eyes. Trends change quickly and what is “hot” today can be chilly in an instant.

Know your goal before investing heavily.

Understand how much you are willing to lose before pulling out.

Know when to cut your losses and sell.

Research and constantly assess the potential for growth and return on investment.

Understand the stocks position and history: frequency of fluctuations, prospect for market decline, management style, if it has been poorly managed, ROI and of great importance to your own reputation: whether she is privately or publicly held.

You can always apply the gambler’s advice: “You gotta know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em; know when to walk away and know when to run.”

A-men!

Same Sex Civil Unions

I have made the mistake of stating out loud that whenever we reach the point where same sex civil unions are legalized I’ll be one of the first to partake. Obviously I understand why this statement draws stares, but what I mean is simply that it sounds like a grand opportunity. I have male friends that I’ve known for years and although we sometimes disagree on things, we’ve never had a fight that was significant. I trust them completely with my property, finances and even my life. So if the government allowed us to “marry” then I can see that as a very positive move. We’d be able to join resources to maximize assets, minimize liabilities and share all sorts of benefits such as pensions, social security, life insurance, medical insurance and tax breaks.

But of course, I’d have to insist on separate beds and a very clear no sex clause. Wait a minute…that part sounds a lot like my first marriage; yet it was to a woman and we had no such clause!

Long Term Dummy

I don’t consider myself incapable of long term relationships or even averse to them, but admittedly I haven’t had much luck with them. I’ve attempted four of them in the last eight years; the longest endured nearly a year and the shortest made it only four months. The other two fell in between those time frames at ten and seven months each. One ended at my request, one was doused by my girlfriend and the other two were moving along fine for a while but eventually just waned into uninspiring territory from which we both amicably receded. I’d describe it something like a tuna sandwich that you let sit a little bit too long before eating. The mayonnaise and pickle juice soaked into the bread and that did a lot to ruin the whole meal. It was still the same sandwich, but it didn’t hold nearly the same appeal. We nibbled around the soggy portion for a while, but neither of us was truly hungry enough to actually consume that last moist bite. Those two relationships had simply run their course and I still remain friends with both of those ladies.

No friendship survived the other two. One woman attempted to have me swear that I’d never date another woman for the rest of my life. When I refused to do something so ridiculous, she declared that I’d never hear from her again. So far that has been the case. In the other scenario, the lady clearly could not have cared any less about me or our relationship. She simply disappeared. It’s as if she evaporated like a salted slug or was abducted and removed entirely from the planet. No calls, no emails, no texts and not a single reason, excuse or even a good bye. Oh, and that was also the very first time I’ve had a relationship end with me owing her money.

As far as I know she woke up one morning with amnesia and to this date has never recovered any memory of me or us. It was weird for me, but in the end the experience was truly the least stressful break-up I’ve ever endured…though I admit that questions do linger in my head. Could that have been her goal? I dunno. I remain flummoxed by that one.

I cannot figure out why the two longer more serious relationships ended completely and the other two briefer, more casual encounters resulted in lasting friendships. But as usual I do have a few theories. It evidently exhibits an all or nothing attitude and clearly shows an overall incompatibility. These two women were more set on achieving some ultimate relationship goal than ever having or sustaining a friendship. Their interest was in being paired much more than any possible desire in me being their partner in the pairing. Maybe they didn’t even like me, but simply saw me as a step in gaining something better. I was merely the dummy seated in the passenger seat which allowed them to travel the HOV lane of life.

Clouded Memories, Blissful Ignorance

My memories of youth are probably corrupted by the corrosion of time. Certainly as a younger man I was more eager to meet women. Inevitably, chasing behind girls tends to encourage them to run away. Now, in my fourth decade of life, with a divorce, two teenage children and constantly working on multiple jobs and numerous projects I simply have other priorities. It isn’t that I’ve completely given up spending time with women, but with everything else on my plate that sort of thing just isn’t at the forefront of the matrix any longer.

So, with my attention diverted elsewhere, it oddly seems that my tendency to pay the ladies less attention actually results in attracting them. I guess when they aren’t being pestered and pursued they are more apt to poke their heads out of their shells and take a look around. When they notice my lack of interest, it seems to spawn an internal curiosity to explore exactly why I am not showing the level of interest they believe they deserve.

I am not turned off at all by the attention of a nice, intelligent woman. I am not anti-female and my schedule is full simply because I like it that way. My non-stop activity is mostly of my own doing, so I can take a break whenever I choose. When I am approached by an intriguing woman it is very likely that I will make time for her.

This is not some wild claim that women are following me home like stray dogs and lining up outside my door hoping for a fresh bone. But the truth is that in my forties, I can tell you that I get a lot more attention from the opposite sex than when I was a kid. Of course, things have to be considered in proper perspective. Looking back to days when I couldn’t get a pretty girls attention even by intentionally stepping on her foot it doesn’t take a whole lot more attention to make a huge statistical difference: one will always be greater than zero.

Who would have imagined that my being less attentive would have the effect of actually calling attention to me? That would have been valuable information to have as a young man. But I probably would have dismissed it as a ridiculous hypothesis back then. Instead, I once again learn a valuable lesson too late. I’m older now, less bothered to chase women yet more pursued by them. Regardless, the end result is that I am in this period of my life that one might expect I ought to have figured a few things out, but still I am as confounded by females as I have ever been. By the time I sort out this phase of my life I’ll likely be in my sixties dealing with all new and more challenging relationship predicaments.

When We Still Felt Feelings

Do you recall those carefree youthful days of flirting and dating fun? The extreme sensations you felt in both your head and chest with every possibility that arose to find something incredibly special. I do. Why do things have to change in this area when we mature? I can only imagine that it is the result of experience. Frequent injuries build up scar tissues that result in thicker skin with less sensation. Life has a tendency to wear you down in that way. The blissful ignorance of youth is somewhat sorely missed. Even though many of the feelings we had were of confusion and pain, at least we used to have feelings!

A Light Flight

We had just taken off on a cross country flight when the woman seated next to me leaned over and whispered “I don’t want to bother you, but as soon as the plane levels off I’m going to have to pee.”

I responded “Don’t worry, I’ll turn my head.” While at the same time offering her my empty Styrofoam coffee cup.

She laughed at my joke, and then continued laughing for a long time. It turns out she was an off duty flight attendant and she claimed she’d never heard anything so funny. When she got up to go the lavatory, she also went and told all the other flight attendants what I’d said and everyone had a huge laugh. Realizing my opportunity, when she returned to the seat I gave her my card offering a discount on the purchase of my books. I told her that since she clearly enjoyed laughing, I hoped she’d also enjoy reading my books. She introduced herself as Shelly and we spent the rest of the flight talking and laughing. Of course it wasn’t long before we began discussing relationships and she shared a couple stories that I’ll now share with you.

She told me that early in the relationship with her current boyfriend she’d mentioned how much she liked organic Fiji apples. He surprised her a week or two later by showing up with a basket of that very fruit for her. She felt it was so thoughtful of him to have remembered, she offered to reward him orally. I said nothing, but immediately whipped out my always present piece of paper and began scribbling. She leaned over to see what I was writing and read my note aloud: “get organic Fiji apples ASAP!”

She burst out laughing again then added “I don’t know if that will work on anyone else.” To which I replied “Hey, it certainly won’t hurt to try.”

She then told me about a frightening experience she had from a guy she’d met online. Their initial meeting went well, but then he began calling very frequently. Because of her working on flights, her phone often had to be turned off for hours at a time. The man’s voicemail messages became increasingly angry and accused her of screening her calls and intentionally avoiding him. Upon the end of her work day she called the fellow back and explained to him that she didn’t think they had enough in common to pursue a second date. The man was furious and flew into an uncontrollable rage. She was then sure she’d made the best decision and, unable to reason with him, was forced to hang up the phone.

Well, this guy didn’t get over the disappointment as quickly as a normal man and instead reacted with a prolonged and intense viciousness. He copied photographs from this ladies online profile then created a new dating profile for her complete with her full name, real phone number and home address. This crazy scorned guy even went to the trouble of pasting photos of her face onto the naked bodies of men and uploaded this newly fabricated profile to a website specifically designed for cross dressers and their admirers. Shelly finally became aware what happened after receiving several emails and phone calls of an oddly suggestive nature. Eventually, one of the callers referred to her online profile and Shelly was able to view it. She had no doubt about who had perpetrated this identity theft and fraud so she reported it to police, providing the contact data of the offender. The profile was soon removed and the phone calls ceased, but Shelly very reasonably concerned about attempting online dating ever again.

Beware Auto-Correction

Text messaging is all the rage these days. Parents of kids with cell phones will tell you that their bills reflect thousands of text messages sent and received, but hardly any talk time. I can’t figure out how to get my kids to talk with me on the phone; they neither answer my calls nor return my voicemails. But they are usually very quick to respond to a text message; even during school hours when they shouldn’t have their devices turned on.

My most recent relationship experience consisted mostly of communication by text message. This lady was about twelve years my junior and evidently preferred texting to talking. This suited me quite well as I have long preferred email to phone calls since they are less intrusive. If the matter is not urgent, and most aren’t, then a recipient of an email can reply at his or her convenience. When a phone call arrives and you are busy and cannot answer it is often perceived by the caller as rude that you don’t answer. The truth is that the call might come while you are at work, in a meeting, on another call, in the rest room, dressing, swimming, out of earshot of phone, brushing your teeth, in the shower, have your hands in dishwater, be carrying a tray of drinks or some other activity that prevents an immediate answer. Unfortunately the caller cannot see why you didn’t answer and in the case of the female caller, this will often spur her imagination to kick into turbo mode as she obsesses about the possible reasons you are ignoring her call.

Thankfully this was not the case with my last relationship. She hardly ever called without first texting to see if it was alright to call. I admit that I rather liked that. So I do text more these days, but still do not know the lingo used by the kids. I haven’t tried to learn it either. This means my messages tend to be rather long as I don’t much abbreviate. In fact, I still use all punctuation, apostrophes and capital letters for names and new sentences. Yes, you can tell me that my way is inefficient and I wouldn’t try to argue, but I would insist that my method, while slower and more tedious, does result in less confusion over meaning. At least that’s the usual case.

Like many people, I tend to utilize a number of different devices and change my primary mobile phone frequently. This means that I have to learn new keyboard layouts, new tricks for making capitals, switching between letters and numbers and how to insert special characters.

It seems many devices come with a default setting for auto-correcting text. This may be appreciated by many, but I don’t like it at all. I find it extremely annoying that this mini-computer wants to attempt to guess what I’m going to write. Even more frustrating is when it changes a word after you have typed it because it ‘thinks’ you meant to say something else. This can even get beyond annoying when the device auto-corrects something so critically important as to change the tone or context of the message.

So being innocent me, I sent a message to this girl I was seeing and included her name in the message for emphasize. But my cellular phone had its devious little way with my message and proved that auto-correct is not my friend. When Angelica responded with an outrageous accusation in all capital letters I was confounded. What the hell was she doing?

So my response was a request for simple clarification: “Who are you talking about?” Angelica responded that she had suspected for a while that I was cheating on her.
“What?” was all I could muster in response. I then added “Give me a call when you figure out what’s going on so you can explain it to me.”

“It’s over! DON’T EVER CALL ME AGAIN!” was her final message in all caps.

I sat quietly for a moment; staring at the device and waiting for her inevitable “LOL JK” but it never arrived. So stunned was I by what had happened I looked out my front window to see if she was outside waiting to surprise me with this little act. But she wasn’t there, didn’t show up and never texted me again.

It wasn’t until the following day when I was replaying the full scenario that I went back to review my messages in an effort to understand her weird, extreme reaction.

It took a few minutes because I was initially focusing on her messages, but when I looked at my outgoing texts I saw it. Clear as day and as stinging as acid rain: my Samsung had auto-corrected her name from 'Angelica' to 'Andrea.'