Darwinism in action

I am single. Incredibly single. Painfully single. So single that I sometimes consider rubbing up against people on the bus just to have some amount of human contact. But recently I realized something that made me not worry about it so much. There is an underlying logic to my singleness. It's actually quite simple, and looking back it helps explain an awful lot of my past life. It all basically boils down to one thing: I am an intellectual slut.

Allow me to explain. A normal, or "physical", slut is someone who will give away some amount of their body (i.e. love you long time) for free. If you are lucky enough to encounter a physical slut, you can partake of her physicality without worrying about anchoring yourself down with any kind of commitment to said slut. An intellectual slut, on the other hand, is someone who shares their mind or personality with you for free. An intellectual slut will entertain you with their brain in the same way that a physical slut will entertain you with their body. Intellectual sluttiness is probably just as common as physical sluttiness, yet people are less conscious of it, which is why you don't get arrested for paying someone to have a vigorous half-hour chat with you.

I recently realized that I, too, am an intellectual slut. It all became clear to me at a party while I was watching a friend of mine chat up a girl. I immediately wrote off this girl as being way too hot to have any redeeming personality traits. But my friend was having pretty good luck chatting her up, because he was getting her to talk about what she did for a living, and what she thought about politics, and whatever the hell else SHE felt like talking about. He was totally giving her an intellectually stimulating conversation for no charge, and she spent the whole night metaphorically staring at his mental cleavage.

There is nothing new about this technique. Cavemen probably used it to lull cavewomen into a false sense of security before they clubbed them on the head and dragged them back to their one-bedroom studio caves. The point is, guys like me and my delusionally optimistic friend basically have no other tricks up our sleeves. We can be witty, we can be charming, we can try to make you feel like you've got something interesting to say. If that's not enough for you, we're boned.

I'll let my friend off the hook for a moment and speak for myself. I'm not good-looking, I'm not athletic, and I'm not rich. I realize that the only thing a woman could possibly respond to is my personality, so I lay it on pretty thick. I basically tell as many jokes as I can and try to show her what a clever and witty guy I am. But here's the horrible truth that I only recently figured out: women don't give a crap if the guy they date is clever and witty. It's like 50th on their dating priority list, right after "has original teeth" and "doesn't steal from my purse". A woman can get her intellectual fix from a guy like my chatty friend, and then go home with a guy who can benchpress 300 pounds and will almost definitely cheat on her (why cheat? because he can, that's why). This works for her because of the aforementioned intellectual sluttiness. We're giving it away for free, and it's hard know when to quit. What am I gonna do, turn off my personality? How can I tell if she's interested or if she's just amused? You expect me to stop when the pretty girl is smiling at me? The whole setup is perfect from her end, and kind of horrible from mine. She gets the best of both worlds: she can have her cake and not have to eat it too.

So, here's my new plan for meeting women: don't be interesting or amusing in ANY WAY until they have proven conclusively that they are interested in dating me. There's no way this plan can fail...

I have nothing to say to any of you

I am reminded of a conversation I had with a classmate on Halloween afternoon. I was in my friend Meg's office, playing with her dog, whom she had dressed up like a monster. I forget the dog's name... Scruffy or something. Anyway, another guy in the office, Marty, was talking aloud to himself about some program he was working on and he said "GRR! I don't get it, this doesn't make any sense!" Just to be silly, I say "It's a dog wearing a costume, Marty... it's not that complicated." This got a few laughs from Meg and others in the room, but the best reaction was from Marty himself, who said "Whoa, that was pretty good Mike... I've never heard you say anything funny before."

Not to be immodest, but I was completely floored by that remark. I tell jokes constantly, and sure they're not all gems, but at least I'm trying. Then I realized what was going on. Marty's not in the group that I mentally label as "my kind of person." There are two kinds of people in this world (oh boy, you just know something profound is coming up next!): my kind of person, and everyone else. I can identify my kind of person almost immediately. They're usually huge nerds, but not always. They like most of the same TV shows that I do, especially the cartoons. But the real distinguishing -- nay, defining -- characteristic of "my kind of person" is whether or not they will be receptive to my kind of jokes.

Marty doesn't fall into that category. I fundamentally don't understand how the humor center of his brain works. There's some overlap between mine and his, but it's incredibly hit-and-miss, as with all of the non-my-kind-of-persons. Hence the cause of his remark and the reason why I rarely talk to Marty: I cannot, with any degree of reliability, make Marty laugh.

Not to sound cold, but I have almost no use for such people. Maybe I'm desperate for attention, maybe I have an underdeveloped sense of showmanship, but if I can't make a person laugh then I don't really want to talk to them at all. I honestly get bored with any conversation that's not littered with jokes. If you were to ask everyone I've ever met to describe me, most of the responses would fall into one of two categories: 1) "Oh, you mean that red haired guy? I've talked to him like once, I don't really know him." and 2) "Oh Mike? Yeah I know him, he's hilarious! He does this awesome impression of Dr. Zoidberg..." (people in Category 2 tend to gush... it's embarassing, really).

Sadly, most of the world is in Category 1. If I have decided you fall into Category 1, I will make almost no effort to talk to you, and may even actively avoid you. Most of my relatives are in Category 1. My housemate is in Category 1. My grad school advisor is in Category 1. You see how I'm surrounded by these people. I honestly feel kind of uncomfortable talking to them. If you put me in a room with them, I'll barely talk at all, and if I do it'll be completely serious. I become a totally different person because I know that all my attempts at humor will fall on deaf ears. I'm serious, polite, and probably incredibly bland and uninteresting. I'd honestly rather be alone. Much of the reason why I hated working at Google so much was because I was surrounded by non-my-kind-of-people. I just sat at my desk, purposely ate lunch by myself (which was hard because Googlers are notoriously sociable), and counted the days.

One large chunk of Category 1 is women. Very very few women have a sense of humor that is Mike-compatible. A more objective way to say that is "I don't have any idea what women find funny." The few exceptions are my female friends, and they're my friends for exactly that reason. I would happily marry most of them. I get very attached to the people who fit squarely into Category 2, and on any given night I would rather be sitting in a room full of them than anywhere else. We don't even have to be doing anything in particular... just put us in a room and fun will ensue.

The incident with Marty represented one of the occasional freak cross-overs, when Category 1 and Category 2 briefly coincide. I had shaken Marty's mental image of me as serious, bland, uninteresting guy, because up until then that was who I had been around him at all times. Granted, I don't think I shook it very much. I don't expect to be invited to his wedding (and not just because of the fact that he and Chris can't get married now that Prop 8 passed). But who knows, I might get a couple more chuckles out of him before I graduate. It will probably be as big of a surprise to him as to me.