Frivolous

[ase]

Today seems to be a day of general upset. Broken pipettes, rain, roommates in upset, mp3 player left at home, other people's broken other stuff, blinding rage with respect to coffee stains on my Ann Taylor Loft corduroys. Let's hope this is a 24-hour bug, and that tomorrow will be awesome TGIF all the day through.

Amy Ray at the 9:30 Club tomorrow. 6 PM doors give me hope that the main act will be on sometime before midnight. (What? I'm an old woman.) I think I will wear a pretty shirt tomorrow and take my earnest, entertaining wingman, Mr. Big Fat Book, to Ben's Chili Bowl or Busboys and Poets. Fortunately, Mr. BFB is a cheap date, and he's quoted that ass Emerson only once so far.

Speaking of dates. Some time ago someone remarked she was surprised I hadn't dated someone who'd shown some interest, because she thought he was my type. I, um, disagreed emphatically. After some thought, it's because I don't want to get involved with someone I feel is reflecting my anxieties back at me. And that's why I am too smart to date the people other people think I should be dating. I am pickier have higher standards than "breathing, talks geek, available." The threshold is "available, breathing, person I want to bare my soul to (or talk, ick, feelings with - look, can't we get back to Grossest Things I Have Seen on a Lab Bench now please? Please?)", and I learned the hard way that the third one is the killer show-stopper. So that's why my dating life is going to be A.) really boring or B.) really slow for the foreseeable future.

Comments

[norabombay.livejournal.com]

In about a week, I will have a spiffy new black berry curve! Awesomeness will ensue!

[ase.livejournal.com]

Awesomeness, or greatness? Inquiring minds. ;-)

[toraks.livejournal.com]

Hope today's better for you!

I've decided (in my eons of experience) that you either meet the right person or you don't. Works that way with friends too. No amount of trying will make a friend out of someone you like a lot, if that click isn't there. Same for romantic interest.

Very sad, because then you have to rely on meeting the right person at the right time and then knowing that he/she is the right person. I still haven't made any of those kinds of friends here and it's coming up on 5 years. blech.

Good luck and don't settle! And I hope today's much better! :-D

[ase.livejournal.com]

I think there's a range of relationships, and one of the harder things to learn is that it's okay to be chummy but not BFFs. It makes you value the people with whom you really click. I wish you could meet more people you clicked with! Maybe after crunch time you and Tom can poke around some social organizations, see if you can meet some new people.

There's no way I'd settle; I'd be mean and miserable. And that's no fun.

[tessfawcett.livejournal.com]

High five, my sister of the high standards!

[ase.livejournal.com]

*Palmslap*

[charlie-ego.livejournal.com]

Hope today is better-- I empathize with you; some days just suck and there's nothing to be done about it but go to sleep as early as possible.

I don't want to get involved with someone I feel is reflecting my anxieties back at me.

Dude. This makes you, like, about one hundred times smarter than I was, when I started dating, when the criteria was "breathes, available, is smarter than other guys in room" -- while this may be a good way to pick a lab partner, it turns out to be, um, let's say, an incomplete list for a Significant Other.

[ase.livejournal.com]

...some days just suck and there's nothing to be done about it but go to sleep as early as possible.

Oh yes. Either crash early before anything else happens, or crash early to brace for whatever adventures (ha) the next day will bring.

...the criteria was "breathes, available, is smarter than other guys in room"...

Well, two of three of those are very important, and the third I'd modify to "not less smart than me." Awesome academic smarts does not reflexively translate to social intelligence.

...while this may be a good way to pick a lab partner, it turns out to be, um, let's say, an incomplete list for a Significant Other.

Excuse me while I howl with laughter, because this is so true. Thank you, college, for teaching me that the people you party with aren't always the people you want helping with your lab reports.

[charlie-ego.livejournal.com]

Well, two of three of those are very important, and the third I'd modify to "not less smart than me."

Yeah, that's way more healthy! I've always thought it was a bit weird and unfeminist of me to put so much stock in intelligence (the geek version of looking for the most good-looking or richest person). Perhaps a rant post on this at some point :)

Awesome academic smarts does not reflexively translate to social intelligence.

So true! The first boyfriend taught me that. The second taught me that social intelligence does not necessarily translate directly to relationship-with-me intelligence. (The third taught me all about my own lack of relationship intelligence, but that's another story.)

[ase.livejournal.com]

I've always thought it was a bit weird and unfeminist of me to put so much stock in intelligence

Mmm. If they're going to drive you insane by not keeping up with you, it's probably not a good relationship. It may be anti-lower-IQ-people, but it doesn't strike me as anti-feminist, except in the way that all discrimination (against women, other social groups, salad, red sweaters) is bad and wrong. (I have my own rant about geek friendship fallacies, and times when discriminating is not evil, but the compressed version is: four people I consider friends went to a Pogues concert, and thank God, I was not invited.)

Re: boyfriends teaching you things: alas, the only way to learn relationships is to do them. There is no academic course or magic analytical epiphany.