[Note: I’ve finally responded to all recent comments on the web log. Sorry for the wait people, I’ve just been insanely lazy. If you were waiting earlier for me to respond, please scroll down now. After reading this post of course.]
You’re a male. You’re alone. By “alone”, I mean nothing more (or less) than you not being around anyone at that point of time. Actually, it’s a little bit more than that. Even if there are people around, if you aren’t “attached” to anyone, you’re alone. I use the word “attached” loosely and you can take it any way you want to.
Like I was trying to say, you’re a male. You’re alone.
You then decide to go about some arbitrary activity. Let’s say (window?) shopping at a mall. You don’t think too hard, you just go ahead and do it.
Alone. As you really are.
While going about said random activity, be it lunch (alone) or whatever, if someone (let’s say interesting woman) is interested in coming up to you and starting a conversation, she “just can”.
And does.
There is no reason for her to be intimidated or concerned or any-mixed-anything-like weirdness, because it’s clear. You’re alone. There is no one to “deal with”, but you. No one’s claiming that’s easy, but it could be worse.
You’re a woman. You’re alone. You then decide to go about some arbitrary activity. Let’s say (window?) shopping at a mall. You don’t think too hard, you just go ahead and do it.
With someone else.
While going about said random activity, be it lunch (not alone, with your “friend(s)”) or whatever, if someone (let’s say intimidated-yet-fascinating geek) is interested in coming up to you and starting a conversation, he “can’t”.
I mean, he can, but it’s just so much harder. He has to deal not only with the one person he’d like to talk to, but also her “friends” she is always hanging around. What’ll they think? Will they find him funny too? Can he be smart enough to be funny enough to all of them so no one gives her a “negative” review?
(Or course, a similar set of doubt-filled questions also exist about attributes other than funny, intelligence, sensitivity, attractiveness, …)
He has to, in some sense, perform the fishing “spread his coloured feathers peacock style” dance, but angle it so that more than one person finds the light reflecting off of it colourful.
Try it. It’s insanely harder than you might assume.
What’s not hard, however, is to tune your brand of humour and coloured-feathery-goodness to one frequency, and keep it there.
So, like I started of asking, what’s up with that?
How hard is it to go about your tasks alone so it’d be easier for us? We do it for you don’t we?
Don’t you see it’s hard for us?
No, you probably don’t. You probably missed us because we weren’t brilliant enough to impress the friend you’re always hanging around.