I'm still alive and getting back in the game

Yes, I am still here. I can't believe it's been over a month since I last blogged. I'm willing to bet that nobody will even read this because they have assumed that my blogging career is over. Think again.

So much has happened (and so much more from the past has gone unblogged) that I wouldn't even know where to begin. The problem with the blog is that the people that read it most frequently talk to me quite often, and they typically already know what to expect from the blog, yet they still read it nonetheless. Also, as mentioned many times before, as the blog's clientele increases so does the possibility of somebody I mention on here accidentally reading my mocking words. This fear has held me back on many of the funnier aspects of several online stories. I have decided to come back to the blog though because it keeps me sharp, gets me writing, and seemingly keeps me aquainted with long lost friends who have the link from my screenname on AIM. I'm willing to bet that my current absense has left a few of my more loyal readers disappointed. For this I sincerely apologize.

As much as I would love to break free and start off by giving you all an amazing story from the past couple weeks, I really kind of just want to start off by mentioning something I was thinking about the other day - the lack of realism in the role conversation plays in the decision making process of the typical dramatic character. To state it blatantly, relationships on television shows and movies are often based on one person convincing the other through cliched romantic conversations and sappy one-liners. This is simply not how the real world works. In the outstanding film Adaptation the main character, Charlie Kaufman, poses the question to a screenplay writing guru of how do you write a story about people changing when in reality people rarely change. This question is very easily linked to my concern - how do you convince a girl in a few minutes of dialogue that you are the one for her?

The answer, you don't. Now, assuming nobody will ever read this or at least nobody will ever comment, I should be able to ignore the threat that somebody out there will retort with an example that they know of that is inconsistent with my findings. You are welcome to do so, but I'll save you a little bit of time by saying that I am keenly aware of such examples and accept that rare conditions do exist. I am also aware that an argument against me would be that the very nature of dramatic writing is that stories worth telling are typically out of the ordinary and therefore seem to be counterintuitive. Both points are well noted. To eliminate some more long-windedness from this article, let me just give a few examples and argue what I don't find realistic about them.

A guy pines over a girl forever. She is extremely hot and he is pretty average in most ways, but lovable enough as a character that the audience feels he deserves the girl. One or two romantic gestures or a love letter a la Can't Hardly Wait convinces the girl that he is the one for her.

Ok, let me just start out by saying that I can't think of even one situation where I know someone who pulled that approach off. In real life a romantic love letter from a relative stranger is creepier than hell and would scare most girls away immediately. Secondly, girls do not become enthralled with a guy based on a few choice quotes from the history of love dialogue. Reality typically dictates that such hookups are more based on drunken one night stands that are regretted by at least one involved party the next day. Impressing a girl with something you say while they're extremely drunk is much easier than changing a sober girl's mind on how she feels about you. On a side note, giving a girl an impressive compliment might garner a smile or blush, but telling someone how great you think they are does not in any way change the way they think about you romantically. In many cases, it can even come off as desperate or pitious.

A guy and girl dated for a long time and they eventually break up for some reason. Time passes and things change but one of them wins the other back with some line like, "All along it was you I was missing," or "I never realized when I was with you that you were as good as it gets," or whatever else you want to make up. After about 6 seconds of thought the other party embraces them and everything is dandy again.

In real life this process is usually many frustrating conversations where the resolution is only reached because both people would prefer to be back together and end the drama of trying to get back together (Or they get drunk and fuck and the pattern starts to repeat until someone assumes they're together and they say whatever and shrug their shoulders). In such reunions there is often an eternal dark cloud of distrust overcasting the once happy relationship. On the other hand, if somebody really used such a lame line on an ex I doubt we'd even be talking about what the new relationship is like, as it is more likely that we'd be talking about how the girl called up her friend later that night to relay how weird and pathetic what her ex said to her earlier.

Lastly, we have the best friends looking in all the wrong places for love story, where eventually they discover that they're perfect for each other. I will state right away that I actually know many couples like this. May I also state that none of these couples ever seem to exhibit the fire and true appreciation for each other that more conventional relationships do. I am sure this is a very controversial point to some, but in my opinion the relationship likely didn't start earlier because a very key element was missing - physical attraction. The eventual coming together of meant-for-each-other couples seems more like settling to me a lot of the time. Sorry to any such couples out there.

Anyway, there are many many more examples out there on which I have not yet elaborated. The whole point of this article is to say that relationships are not chess matches for most people. The way you word your attempt at asking someone out usually doesn't matter for the common person. What does matter are two things - immediate physical attraction that leads to a mini-crush, and secondly a collection of personality traits that over time develop the aforementioned crush. You can't go up to an engaged girl in real life and expect your persuasive abilities to break up a relationship with a few well said lines. Romance is for romance novels. Relationships are started today with one simple question asked at a social gathering or at times in somebody's bed hours after their first meeting - "Can I have your phone number?" Whether or not you actually call...that's another story.