Rant of the Exiles

A friend at church and I were talking about dating. She met her current boyfriend on the dating app Coffee Meets Bagel. She observed there were a significant number of church members who had met each other on the app but had not previously met or gotten know one another through our church. She said: Men don’t initiate. Men are stupid.  I don’t think men are stupid. I don’t think people are stupid. I think people, for the most part, behave rationally. Let’s take a food analogy. Before processed food, people had to spend time making and preparing a roast beef sandwich for lunch. They needed fresh meat, bread, and condiments. And then they had to assemble and eat it the same day. Today, people eat a tremendous amount of processed food. For example, Lunchables are easy, convenient, and last forever. You don’t have to make them, you don’t have to package them, and they taste good. By many metrics, Lunchables are nutritious. However, it’s becoming increasingly apparent tha...

I disagreed with my previous post even as I was writing it. It was something of a thought experiment. I was reading Weike Wang’s short story and thinking “Wow, her writing is amazing and she’s Chinese American. How come most Chinese American guys I know don’t communicate like this? Oh and it’s about dating a white guy and it’s about power dynamics. And oh, she’s married to a white guy in real life. Let’s write a provocative post about the intersection of all these ideas”. Oops.  I’m now aware of the numerous problems with my opinion piece starting with the misleading, clickbait title. I don’t actually think Asian American (AA) women have more “courage”, nor is the post really about courage. I couldn’t come up with a word that captures the specific aspect of EQ that involves verbal emotional expression, but Brene Brown’s concept of vulnerability came to mind and that’s how courage came about. I made unsubstantiated negative generalizations about AA women, AA men, and whi...

I love DJ Khaled’s "I’m the One". The pop saccharine tune with a chorus of big names (Justin Bieber, Quavo, Chance, and Lil’ Wayne) is simple, catchy, has a great rhythm, and an obvious meaning. Bieber croons: Hear you’re sick of all those imitators Don’t let the only real one intimidate ya And there ’ s  a very succinct boast from  Quavo: I make your dreams come true when you wake up   Make no mistake - “I’m the One” is 100% male braggadocio. Feminist anthems are essentially male ballads. Except in a male ballad the man brags about himself without ever saying he’s a man whereas in a feminist anthem, the woman brags about herself by making repeated and explicit references to her womanhood.  Male ballads have been around since like forever. I’m sure there was some caveman who was trying to woo his prospective wife by making up a song and came up with the male ballad. Evolutionary psychology...

Back in 2000, I was a rising star at IBM Storage Systems Division. I was three years out of college, garnered top performance reviews, aggressive in hitting deadlines, and known as a go-getter throughout the IT office. I worked as an SAP analyst supporting orders and returns. During this time period, IBM desktop hard disk drives failed at an unusually high rate and subsequently, had a correspondingly high rate of returns. Our reverse supply chain was inundated with return requests and we had many problems keeping up with the volume. Not surprisingly, customer satisfaction plummeted.  After a grueling two-day cross-functional workshop to brainstorm solutions, I was selected as one of the leads to coordinate follow-up on all the workshop action items across departments. I set up a meeting with all the relevant parties from each group. I had a carefully planned agenda and...

I enjoy confrontation but my emotional reactiveness can often get in the way of being helpful. This article  by Evan Marc Katz, a dating coach, is an example of effective communication and its limits. He is passionate, logical, and empathetic in making his point. And yet even the most helpful communication will fail when the hearer doesn't want to understand. Effective Communication What I admire about Katz is his ability to call a woman out on her issues in a way that is sensitive, compassionate, and rational and yet makes his point forcefully and clearly. I wish I could do that. This woman complains to Katz that her boyfriend doesn't think she's as beautiful as Angelina Jolie. It's not a comment he made in passing or because he was dissatisfied with her looks - it's something she brought up with him - likely when they were watching a movie and he made some comment praising Jolie's looks. The woman then asks if her boyfriend's inability t...

Uncle Drew schooling a young blood I am the Lebron James of nursing home conversation. Elderly people don't intimidate me, I intimidate them. When I swagger into the foyer of a skilled nursing facility, 90-year old women with walkers quake from paralyzing fear (or arthritis). They know what is coming next: talk smack-down. The grizzled love to sharing their lives with me. They tell stories non-stop and we laugh and cry together. I am the magician of geriatric confabulation, the Gandalf of gabbing with the gray, and the vicar of venerable vulnerability.   Two weeks ago in Missouri, I went to two nursing homes with Asian Christian kids. Those young bloods did great. This post is not for them. It's for the adults who are still making young blood mistakes. We're taught to ask questions. Questions are good. They are the dribbling and passing of conversational skills. They are foundational. If you don't know how to talk to someone, asking questions is essential. And ask...

Recently, a couple guy friends told me their plans to have a "Define-The-Relationship" (DTR) with women in whom they had a romantic interest. It got me thinking about when a DTR is necessary and when it's not.  When two people discuss their mutual understanding of a romantic relationship (casual dating, serious boyfriend, etc). -   Urban Dictionary definition of DTR False Advertising  A DTR is a discussion about how to label a relationship.   Labels are important . Without labels, it's easy for men to manipulate women and easy for women to be manipulated (the converse happens as well but it's not a labeling issue*). In this   award-winning essay , a young woman, Jordana Narin shares about the one-way relationship she developed with a guy. The object of her affection is clearly a douchebag but the tragic part is Narin completely fell for it because among other issues, their relationship never bore a label.  Narin emotionally and sexually b...