I've decided to take it upon myself to try something that feels uncomfortable because you're not "supposed to" do it at least once a week. Generally these things are to be conducted in social settings because, quite simply, most of our actual discomfort comes from human interaction. There's very little discomfort to be found in solitude. Where I tend to think we feel the most acute discomfort is in defying what we have been socially conditioned to accept as inappropriate or improper behavior. I'm not going to go so far as to do anything criminal or intentionally malicious or harmful, but things that other people may potentially dislike.
I'm going to start slow and easy. The goal was simply to walk up to people (particularly women) and playing a simple guessing game with them. Just bring a friend and say "We want to guess something about you," state what it is and then guess it. That's it.
I didn't do it as much as I would like to have and I was more intoxicated than I initially wanted to be, but I did it, and it was fun. One group of girls walked off on us before we got a chance to ask them anything, a few groups of people ignored us, but most were friendly and I even got a few hugs and one pair of girls asked if they could take a picture with us.
The point was to demonstrate to myself experientially that not only will no harm come to us for trying such a thing but that it can be enjoyable, not just to ourselves but to the people talking. We found out, for instance, that one guy and girl just got married. Another Korean guy started asking me stuff and tried to engage us in conversation, even after my friend told me he looked like he wanted to punch somebody so I shouldn't talk to him.
Something else struck me, and it wasn't until I got home and contemplated the night that it started bothering me.
I have another friend who has been, on and off, doing this sort of thing on a regular basis (granted, with attractive females exclusively, which I consider even more admirable). I've gone out with him a couple times, and realized that any expectations I felt were only self-imposed: he never criticized or ridiculed any results I got.
This time it was different. There was a group of five of us, and a couple times I was "rejected" outright. Two of them laughed at the rejections. I was a bit perplexed and I realized why: first, it seemed as though they thought of rejection as the status quo, or what was "supposed to" happen, rather than an anomaly. Second, their comments proceding the laughter seemed to indicate that they were "better" with women than me, as they have not yet "failed" and so by default, they have a score of zero and I have a negative score. I realize that's overly analytical, but I see no other reason to celebrate another person's perceived failure and the fact that NONE of them took any initiative the whole night leads me to believe this.
That's the other thing: NONE of them took ANY initiative (i.e. any risk). I had to push them to enter into an interaction with me, and every time I did they expected me to lead and make the decisions. I figured since it was my idea I was obliged to start, so I took each one of them, one at a time, and walked up to a person or two people or a group and initiated the conversation. After that, I basically said "Ok, your turn." and no one did anything, so again I said "Ok, I'll go with you, but you have to come up with a question." None of them did. When it came time to asking, they each turned to me and said some variation of "What should I ask?"
They were also very anal about the actual game itself, missing the point that the game was irrelevant; it was a conscience excuse to get them to do something they unconsciously wanted to do: interact with women. When I woud ask a binary question: "We're guessing whether or not you're students. I say you are." they would get huffy about how they weren't prepared for the question or that it was an either/or question so they didn't get to creatively come up with an answer. This baffled me. Who cares? It's a game!
Finally, in between interactions, there was no interest in pursuing it. They all agreed to come out with me and try it, but once an interaction ended they would begin conversation that had nothing to do with their current surroundings; nothing about what questions to ask or who to approach or what was going on around them AT THE MOMENT. It was all intellectual talk, talk absorbed in the future, the past or the abstract. It struck me to just what propensity men will often try to "escape" even the slightest stress about what is actually happening by retreating into their heads or into conventional patterns of behavior.
I don't blame them, but I feel a little let down. They seemed gung ho to try something silly, but when it came time to pay the piper, they seemed to back down, with commonly accepted mediocrity as their excuse. I'm a bit torn in terms of what to do. I'm not going to quit, but would it be best to do this alone? Or to find more like minded people and limit myself to doing it with them? Or to continue pushing people I consider friends to trying new things? I think, deep down, most of these men WANT to push themselves, and maybe even want someone to help them do that, but I also think it doesn't matter what you WANT, it matters what you're willing to DO to get what you want, and I'm not sure how willing they are to be unconventional.
This was a first step, a baby step. It's only going to get incremently more challenging from here. Not necessarily more "exciting", but more challenging. It will take stretching, it will take feeling discomfort and embarrassment and nervousness. But that's the whole point: in the end, I will still be alive, and grateful for it.
I'm going to start slow and easy. The goal was simply to walk up to people (particularly women) and playing a simple guessing game with them. Just bring a friend and say "We want to guess something about you," state what it is and then guess it. That's it.
I didn't do it as much as I would like to have and I was more intoxicated than I initially wanted to be, but I did it, and it was fun. One group of girls walked off on us before we got a chance to ask them anything, a few groups of people ignored us, but most were friendly and I even got a few hugs and one pair of girls asked if they could take a picture with us.
The point was to demonstrate to myself experientially that not only will no harm come to us for trying such a thing but that it can be enjoyable, not just to ourselves but to the people talking. We found out, for instance, that one guy and girl just got married. Another Korean guy started asking me stuff and tried to engage us in conversation, even after my friend told me he looked like he wanted to punch somebody so I shouldn't talk to him.
Something else struck me, and it wasn't until I got home and contemplated the night that it started bothering me.
I have another friend who has been, on and off, doing this sort of thing on a regular basis (granted, with attractive females exclusively, which I consider even more admirable). I've gone out with him a couple times, and realized that any expectations I felt were only self-imposed: he never criticized or ridiculed any results I got.
This time it was different. There was a group of five of us, and a couple times I was "rejected" outright. Two of them laughed at the rejections. I was a bit perplexed and I realized why: first, it seemed as though they thought of rejection as the status quo, or what was "supposed to" happen, rather than an anomaly. Second, their comments proceding the laughter seemed to indicate that they were "better" with women than me, as they have not yet "failed" and so by default, they have a score of zero and I have a negative score. I realize that's overly analytical, but I see no other reason to celebrate another person's perceived failure and the fact that NONE of them took any initiative the whole night leads me to believe this.
That's the other thing: NONE of them took ANY initiative (i.e. any risk). I had to push them to enter into an interaction with me, and every time I did they expected me to lead and make the decisions. I figured since it was my idea I was obliged to start, so I took each one of them, one at a time, and walked up to a person or two people or a group and initiated the conversation. After that, I basically said "Ok, your turn." and no one did anything, so again I said "Ok, I'll go with you, but you have to come up with a question." None of them did. When it came time to asking, they each turned to me and said some variation of "What should I ask?"
They were also very anal about the actual game itself, missing the point that the game was irrelevant; it was a conscience excuse to get them to do something they unconsciously wanted to do: interact with women. When I woud ask a binary question: "We're guessing whether or not you're students. I say you are." they would get huffy about how they weren't prepared for the question or that it was an either/or question so they didn't get to creatively come up with an answer. This baffled me. Who cares? It's a game!
Finally, in between interactions, there was no interest in pursuing it. They all agreed to come out with me and try it, but once an interaction ended they would begin conversation that had nothing to do with their current surroundings; nothing about what questions to ask or who to approach or what was going on around them AT THE MOMENT. It was all intellectual talk, talk absorbed in the future, the past or the abstract. It struck me to just what propensity men will often try to "escape" even the slightest stress about what is actually happening by retreating into their heads or into conventional patterns of behavior.
I don't blame them, but I feel a little let down. They seemed gung ho to try something silly, but when it came time to pay the piper, they seemed to back down, with commonly accepted mediocrity as their excuse. I'm a bit torn in terms of what to do. I'm not going to quit, but would it be best to do this alone? Or to find more like minded people and limit myself to doing it with them? Or to continue pushing people I consider friends to trying new things? I think, deep down, most of these men WANT to push themselves, and maybe even want someone to help them do that, but I also think it doesn't matter what you WANT, it matters what you're willing to DO to get what you want, and I'm not sure how willing they are to be unconventional.
This was a first step, a baby step. It's only going to get incremently more challenging from here. Not necessarily more "exciting", but more challenging. It will take stretching, it will take feeling discomfort and embarrassment and nervousness. But that's the whole point: in the end, I will still be alive, and grateful for it.
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