Know your audience

A while back, Swann said I should write about my views on dating/relationships. She seems to think that they are unusually wise. Personally they strike me as little more than good common sense. Either way, I have some time on my hands so I figured I'd throw something together. Therefore, ladies and gentlemen, here goes.

I will be starting with a very simple but often ignored rule. Know thyself. Too many times I have seen men and women go after people who were obviously wrong for them because they couldn't be honest with themselves about who they were and what they wanted. For instance, I am a geek. I'm a physics grad student who loves science in general. I read comic books, read a lot of old and new literature, don't really listen to a lot of commercial hip-hop or R&B and love anime and cartoons in general. While I may have a slight obsession with martial arts in general, I'm not a particularly aggressive or violent person. Generally I try to treat people with respect until they give me a reason to do otherwise. I posses very few, if any, of the characteristics of the 'thug' or 'baller' types. Therefore, obviously, women who are looking for overly aggressive men to control their lives, or men who will lavish large sums of money on them aren't looking for me. It would be a waste of my time to even try talking to them. Plus, even assuming they would talk to me, how long would the conversation last before I would be willing to give up a vital organ to get them to shut up? I like discourse. I like my women intelligent, knowledgeable about a wide range of things and willing to laugh at themselves and the world around them. Therefore if I decided to hang out in places where the thugs and ballers, or, far more likely, people pretending to be them, go to look for women what are the chances I would find someone I'd actually be attracted to?

If I decided to invest my time in those women, I'd probably manage a series of horrible relationships that would end in them leaving me for someone who fits their ideals better. I'd probably end up bitter at women and believing that they are all gold diggers or want thugs. The real truth would be that I'm just not 'cool'. I never have been and honestly I have no desire to be. I would have been playing in a world I have no place in.

There, of course is the part people refuse to accept. You can choose to live like one of the 'cool' people. If you choose not to, that's not your world. Be honest with yourself about who you are and then go looking for someone who compliments that person. I love female geeks. We generally get along really well and I don't have to pretend to be someone I'm not.

So, children, the moral of this slightly confused story is, learn to be you, then go looking for someone who you are attracted to, who is attracted to the true you. Regardless of whether or not it works out it will be a lot less stress not having to hide who you are.