Bill Cammack

Women are better liars than men. This is because, in general, women can immerse themselves in fantasies way better than men can.

If women want to start to feel turned on, what do they do?… That’s right… READ A BOOK!!! :O .. Some words.. In a little paperback novel with one picture of Fabio on the cover holding some chick that they project to be them. Suddenly!!!… A Puerto Rican gal sitting on her fire escape in Harlem, NYC is ACTUALLY a southern belle, dressed like the woman on the cover, riding in a Horse & Buggy with her Fabioesque lover whom she imagines is only having sex with her until 100 pages later where she reads that TMZ reported that her man has been ******* every maid and nanny that they’ve ever hired since their relationship began. Read the rest of this entry »

A friend told me a few weeks ago that she felt my blog posts were cynical. I wasn’t sure I agreed with her, so I looked up the actual definition, and I think she was exactly spot-on with her assessment.

I had taken cynical to mean “negative”, when, in fact, it actually means “aware of the possibilities and potential in a situation”. I’m definitely aware of these and I definitely apply my past experiences and the experiences that have been relayed to me by people whose word and judgement I trust to every situation I become involved in or aware of.

Cynical

1: captious, peevish
2: having or showing the attitude or temper of a cynic: as a: contemptuously distrustful of human nature and motives b: based on or reflecting a belief that human conduct is motivated primarily by self-interest.

I think the opposite of this would be to retardedly ignore what you learned from past experiences and go forward into your next relationship as if none of your prior experiences ever happened to you. Perhaps they were all flukes, and this time’s going to be that fairytale relationship that you were brainwashed to believe you were ever going to be a part of. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve always loved the song “Games Without Frontiers” by Peter Gabriel. For me, the song has an incredible mix of depression and hope. There’s power and powerlessness in the face of “the game” at the same time. I never get a feeling that one person is going to “win out” over the next person. I never get the feeling that the situation will ever stabilize. To me, it’s a representation of ‘the game’ and how each person comes to the table with their own set of abilities and shortcomings and the chips fall where they may…….

*In researching, I find that there were some offensive/controversial lyrics that were changed to make the song radio-friendly.*

Mercs

I woke up this morning thinking about this song, because for me, it exemplifies the mercenary nature of dating in New York City.

We’re all ‘Mercs’. We have to be, because people throw pretty heavy ‘game’ at us, and if you’re not a shark yourself, you’ll get eaten by the sharks. It’s just plainly not as simple as people lay it out in these fairy tale relationship stories where some guy in the sticks marries his high school sweetheart or the girl he met when he went to the General Store to buy cereal and gasoline at the same location.

The ‘problem’ is that we all want something, and we’re willing to play hardball to get it. It’s honestly like a war-time scenario. I’m not proud of that or happy about it, but that’s how it is. You just have to know that when you step to a chick and introduce yourself, you’re about to get whatever she wants to give you that will further her own agenda. It’s not “the truth”. It’s not “who she really is”. It’s what she’s willing to present to you in order to get you to do what she wants you to do.

Women have to be that way, because men are that way towards them. Obviously, guys are going to say or do whatever they need to in order to get laid, which is the bottom line. All this jockeying for position is a constant quest for CONTROL of the other person, usually for two different reasons…

Control

Control is a fallacy… a fantasy… it doesn’t exist. The only person you control is yourself…… maybe. Read the rest of this entry »

This is not a continuation of “Online Dating Tactics”. This is a response to a BlogHer post by Zandria M, entitled “Dating: ‘Tis the Season”.

Zandria: I’ve heard that more breakups occur during the holiday season than any other time of year. [...snip...] The thing is, though, I haven’t seen a drop in the amount of people looking for dates online. In fact, I’m receiving more expressions of interest than I did when I first signed up over the summer.

hehehe Excellent read, Zandria. :) Let me tell you what’s going on.

You explained why you’re getting more expressions of interest now than you did over the summer. Guys are dumping their girls for the holiday season OR they’ve already DECIDED that they’re dumping their girls, so they’re trolling for more women ahead of time. It’s like being a freelancer in a work situation. As a video editor, I get MORE work when people get fired or companies downsize. You’re experiencing the same thing with online dating.

The reasons you gave were spot-on. Basically, the holiday season is an expensive time to have a girlfriend, so guys tend to break up permanently or at least until the season’s over and take their girls back in January.

Another reason is that there are a lot of holiday parties right now, with a lot of DRUNK WOMEN at them. That’s where you want to be, instead of stuck at some party with a chick you already know… or even WORSE, over @ her relatives’ crib! :( This is PRIME TIME for meeting women and starting new relationships. Also, if you start a new relationship NOW, it’s too early for her to expect an expensive gift from you. :)

Zandria: The thing is, though, the more dating you do, the more instances of “Did he really do/say that?” tend to emerge.

You need to catalogue those increasing instances of “Did he really do/say that?” that you’re experiencing, because those are brief glimpses into what a lot of guys are actually thinking. It’s really the little things that give people away.

Zandria: I have had several “interesting” experiences.

For one thing, a lot of guys seem to think they’re six feet tall. I]ve spoken to a number of women who back up this theory of Male Online Dating Height Exaggeration. Guys who really are tall — say, over 6′2″ — tend not to lie. But if I see a profile that says the guy is 6′0″, I’m going to assume he’s at least an inch or two shorter than that. (If I’m 5′9″ and wearing not-very-tall heels, and the dude is also wearing shoes, and we’re looking each other straight in the eye? I’m sorry, but you’re not six feet tall.)

As far as the “six feet tall” thing, hahaha Online dating sites are set up in categories. This is how women and men get to choose whom they see in their search results. If a guy honestly states that he’s 5′9″ and a lot of women check the box that says 6′ or over, he doesn’t show up in the search results and he doesn’t get that date. Or, in some cases, where the site does the matchup FOR you, he doesn’t make the “compatible” list, so, again… HE doesn’t get that date. Since the whole point of him being on the service is to meet women that he wants to date or have sex with or whatever, he wants to meet as many as possible, so he LIES and says he’s 6′ tall. It’s not that he doesn’t REALIZE that he’s not that tall hahahahaha. It’s not that he has delusions about his height. He’s merely tricking you into going out on a date with him, when he’s actually below your selected height requirement.

It’s all in the game. :)

Oh… and apply the same logic to his salary.

Zandria: Another thing: some guys need to be more up-front about important matters that affect possible future relationships before you take the time to meet them in person. I had this one guy wait until our first meeting before he asked me, “Did I tell you that I’m about to be deployed to Iraq for seven months?”

As far as guys being “more up-front about important matters that affect possible future relationships”, nobody’s thinking about “possible future relationships” until they meet you in person. The way it works is, guys get what they can get… NOW… and if it continues, fine. So, if dude’s about to leave town, he’s looking for something to do UNTIL he leaves town. Similar to the “not 6-feet-tall” guy, he’s not going to ruin his chance to try to get some or have a temporary girlfriend by letting you know he’s not physically available for a LTR.

Once he meets you, it’s a different story. He might feel like “this one’s a keeper” and THEN come clean about his current status and future plans. I guess I should have put ‘clean’ in quotes, because STDs are another thing guys (AND gals) don’t tend to mention on online dating sites.

Zandria: Then there are the things that just make me go “Hmm…” Like the guy who came across as really formal and straight-laced, but when I called him out on it (yes, I will call you out if it’s warranted) he assured me, “I do have a dark and twisted side.”

As far as dudes announcing that they “have a dark and twisted side”, that normally means that they don’t, but they’d be willing to make one up so as to not get rejected for being boring. Also, “dark and twisted” is relative to his own experience. I know women who think doggie-style is dark and twisted, hahahaha :D The point is that guys are going to SAY whatever they have to say in order to stay on track to hooking up with you. If they’re wackos, they’re going to say they’re not. If they’re boring, they’re going to say they’re not.

If you want to know if a guy’s “twisted” for real, look in his eyes and then ask him what he wants to do to you.

So, yeah, that’s “how we do”. Lie as much as you need to in online dating so you get a chance to run your IRL game on her. Best-case scenario, the 5′9″ broke-as-a-joke, unemotionally available, boring dude gains the physical company of a female he finds attractive for one or more evenings. Worst-case scenario, she walks out the door as soon as she sees you, because you’re not what she wanted… except that’s the same outcome as if you hadn’t lied on your application in the first place and she never chose you, so who cares?

It’s all in the game. :D

~Bill

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I’m not impressed with Serial Monogamy.

Call it what it is. You’re messing with someone, and then you’re not.

It’s interesting how some people pride themselves on only hooking up with people they’re in a relationship with… but then… getting into or out of a relationship with them is basically instantaneous. Sure… EVERY relationship ends instantaneously…. It’s ON and then it’s OFF. I’m just saying that it’s a trip how serial monogamists front like every time they’re in a relationship, it’s going to last forever, and then it doesn’t, and then the next one’s supposed to last forever. Meanwhile, they have their psychological excuse for hoing (male or female).

I was first introduced to this concept when I was around 13. Not the technical definition, of course, but the behavior as it pertains to dating. I remember asking a friend of mine about some girl, and he basically informed me that they had broken up, and now he was dating this other chick we knew. That lasted about a week, and then he was dating another chick, but meanwhile other friends of ours had switched off as well. The effect of this was that at some point, ‘everyone’ dated ‘everyone’. What was interesting about this was that there weren’t any politics involved. Politics arrived later, around 16, when people started worrying about status and popularity.

By “no politics”, I mean that there wasn’t any drama involved with a guy, friend or foe, going out with a girl you just broke up with the other day. There wasn’t any drama when she’d break up with that guy and go BACK out with some guy she dated before, or start messing with some new guy. There wasn’t any possessiveness over chicks at all. It was just you were dating someone, or you weren’t.

Once politics became involved, there was a form of status attributed to exclusive ownership of a particular person. There was also a stigma attached to people that messed around, but weren’t in relationships. As usual, because we live in a patriarchal society, the females caught the worst of this, being called hoes, tramps, sluts, easy, etc. For the guys, it’s all sport. How many chicks (if you’re interested in more than one at a time) can you keep in ‘Deep Check’ simultaneously? How many numbers can you pull? How many chicks can you screw?

The addition of politics/drama to the dating scene created the environment in which serial monogamy thrives. From the chicks’ side, they don’t want the stigma of being “loose”… by either definition, hahaha, um, anyway… so they make being in a relationship a requirement for hooking up. This way, no matter how many guys they mess with, they were always in a relationship, so it’s sanctioned, and they can’t be criticized for giving some to their boyfriends (even if she was only with each guy for a month or less… week or less?… day or less?).

Meanwhile, the guys evolved with the girls. Eventually, it became clear that this relationship thing was getting in the way of getting on, so guys learned that it was easier to lie and feign being in a relationship with a chick or three in order to keep them useful. This is one reason why relationships break up suddenly, and it seems like the guy had a ‘change of heart’. He goes from faking being in a relationship with her to not caring about her at all, instantaneously. If his incentive was sex, then as soon as he’s not interested in having sex with her anymore, or he’d much rather hook up with one of his other girlfriends, his entire demeanor towards her changes.

The worst-case scenario of this is the combination of a guy that wants a one night stand with a girl that only wants to give it up to “the right guy” or “the one”. The woman thinks she’s an excellent judge of character, so as he jumps through the hoops, she validates him. Once she decides he’s legit and “the one”, she finally gives it up… then he disappears… or, at least stops taking her calls. This doesn’t even get to the stage of serial monogamy, because his entire goal was to hit it one time… Once. There’s no way she could have known that, because there’s no way he would have TOLD her that.

For some odd reason, women think they can judge this in guys. It’s completely unfounded. How many times have you heard a woman say that she was surprised that some dude hit it and quit it? :D Compare that to the number of times that you’ve heard of a woman telling a guy she knew he was just trying to have sex with her and he admitted it.

So now, we live in this evolved culture. People still want to do what they want to do, but they don’t want to be talked about like dogs, so they find ways around their behaviors. They utilize serial monogamy to act like they’re just poor judges of character and that their relationships continually FAIL, to their great surprise and dismay. Meanwhile, to them, “significant other” simply means “the person that they publicly admit to having sex with at this point in time”. There’s nothing wrong with that, but since THEY see something wrong with it, they use these mechanisms to put up a front.

Another unbalanced aspect of serial monogamy is that women eventually face biological clock issues. The timing of this is critical, because if she’s currently dating a serial monogamist and decides she wants to have kids, there could be positive or negative consequences as a result of flipping the script. It’s entirely possible that the guy had no intentions EVER of having kids with her or moving in with her or even having sex with her once she got out of shape. Suddenly, he has the choice of honestly breaking off the relationship, as Laure suggests, or lying and acting like he’s interested in what she’s interested in so he can keep tappin’ that.

In a perfect world, he would ‘release her from her contract’ so she can go ‘get her biology on!’ :D … Then again… In a perfect world, people would Stop Frontin’ and do what they wanted to do without hiding behind meaningless titles in the first place.

Reader Helene writes (in response to Tip for the ladies: He doesn’t care!)

Let’s talk about this, from DatingGenius:

——
Yadda Yadda Yadda Blah Blah Blah EVERY.SINGLE.EFFIN’.DAY, some chick is confused about why a guy keeps trying to kick it to her. It’s very simple. He’s kicking it to you because HE.WANTS.TO.GET.WITH.YOU, *PERIOD*! He’s not interested in what you think about it. He’s not interested in what you have to say about it.
——-

I feel that. He doesn’t care if he wants sex. I’m going to look on DatingGenius to see if there is a guide on how to tell if a man wants sex or a relationship. I think the man that wants a relationship cares what the woman thinks, right?

There are a lot of interesting points here, Helene…. First of all, that post was written specifically to address the situation of women being clueless as to why a guy doesn’t stop kicking it to them when she indicates disinterest or even disgust. :D The fact of the matter is that he’s not approaching you to get your opinion on things or to discuss politics. He finds you physically attractive or there’s something else about you that he likes (you have money, good child-bearing hips, whatever…) that he’s approaching you for. What you think about it is of no consequence whatsoever. The bottom line is desire-fulfillment… HIS, not YOURS. :)

As an example, I was walking with a blabbermouth friend of mine the other week, and in the process of making a point to her, I mentioned that her homegirl was attractive. I wasn’t telling her that so she could go blab it to her girl like she BLABS everything else. I was trying to make a general point based on a specific situation my friend was privy to. Before I got to say what I really wanted to say, she goes “Oh… She wouldn’t hook up with you. You’re not her type.” :D Now…. First of all, I didn’t ask my friend what she thought about my ‘chances’ of hooking up with her girl. Second, all she knows about her girl’s “type” is what her girl is willing to TELL HER, so her idea of what her girl’s going to do and what she’s not going to do is completely irrelevant. Third, people are functions of combinations, meaning that how a chick reacts to me has *nothing* to do with how she reacts to anyone else on the planet, so until I kick my game and get on or not, speculation is worthless.

All these things ran through my mind in a split second, and I replied just about right when she finished speaking, “That doesn’t matter”. She looked at me surprised, and tried to protest, but I covered that up with another “That doesn’t matter”. We then went off on the tangent of how “what her girl wants” doesn’t factor in AT ALL to my initial attraction to her. Forget about the fact that she IS NOT her girl, so she has NO IDEA what her girl does behind closed doors. Even if she knew for sure that her girl didn’t like me for whatever reason, it’s of no consequence, because I’m talking about what motivates *ME*. I’m talking about what propels me to focus on HER and interact with HER instead of someone else.

This is why chicks would be better off if they recognized WHY a guy is talking to them in the first place. Without that knowledge, you’re grasping at straws when you try to figure out anything else about your relationship to that guy.

As another example, I was waiting for a bus with a crowd of people. This girl walks past at least eight other breathing, standing human beings to come up to me and ask me if I knew what time it was. I told her that I didn’t, and showed her that I don’t wear a watch, which I don’t, because I don’t *care* what time it is. :D The next thing that happened was…… She stayed right there and continued talking to me. Now… What happened to her desire to find out what time it was? *POOF* Gone, into thin air. Had she actually been interested in the time, she would have A) stopped at the FIRST person she saw to ask what time it was, and then made her way down the line, or B) if she DID walk all the way past them to ask me, she would have asked someone else right after I demonstrated the inability to tell her what time it was. She did neither, so the obvious inference is that she wanted to talk to me and used “Do you know what time it is” as the ice-breaker.

Now, let’s apply this to the club! :D When that guy buys you that drink, what do you think he’s trying to do? Do you think he thought you looked thirsty? Do you think he thought you looked *BROKE*, and he likes to hand out charity by buying drinks for destitute women? Did he buy any GUYS a drink? How about any UNATTRACTIVE WOMEN? ‘:) There are two reasons he’s offering to buy you a drink. He wants you to get more drunk than you already are, AND (drumroll) he’s trying to get on.

You can THINK whatever you want… He’s a nice guy. He’s generous. He respects you. He’s interested in what you have to say or what you think. He likes the same music you do… He doesn’t like the same music you do, he dresses poorly, he’s a creep, he can’t spell, he doesn’t pronounce consonants when he speaks, he’s a Cro-Mag……… NONE of that matters, pro or con. It matters as far as how tough or easy it is for him to get on, but your opinion of him is irrelevant and worthless when it comes to what he’s trying to do at that point.

As a matter of fact, a good rule of thumb is “If he didn’t ask you, he doesn’t care.”

Which brings us to your actual question, “Does the man who wants a relationship care what you think?”

The simple answer is YES, which is basically addressed in Only Date People Better Than YOU!. See the section on “Dummies”.

The guy who wants a relationship had better care what his woman thinks. However, first of all, he’d better care that she thinks AT ALL. There are lots of guys and gals running around this planet with ZERO common sense, or at least little enough common sense to land them on the Maury Povich show having paternity tests done on several guys. Considering that there are only about 10 days in a month when you can actually get a girl pregnant, and you can count backwards to the month she became pregnant, that means that every single guy she has on stage with her tapped it within a 10-day period. Considering some chicks’ in-da-club behaviors, if those 10 days spanned two weekends, we could expect four guys to be sitting on the stage, Friday Night (day 1), Saturday Night (day 2), Friday Night (day 8 ) and Saturday Night (day 9). Now, that’s bad enough, but if there are more than four guys on the stage…. smh.

This is why the guy who wants a relationship is hoping that his potential girlfrend/wife’s brain works at all. There’s *NOTHING* wrong with a chick getting her groove on as much as she wants to with whomever she wants to. :) However, if you’re going to be in a ‘committed’ relationship with her, you would like to believe that any kids that appear during that relationship are in fact… yours.

You also want to be able to take her places. When they have those couples get-togethers or business dinners, you want to be able to walk in with her on your arm and have people as impressed with her personality and mental faculties as with her looks. If you accept her without intelligence, you could be sabotaging your own career advancement while she talks some ignant ghetto ish to your COO. :/ Your girl is a reflection of YOU, so if you’re going for a relationship, aim as HIGH (mentally) as you possibly CAN! :D

Also, in a relationship situation, a guy needs to know what his girl thinks so he can strive to make HER happy while he makes HIMSELF happy. You would hope that’s a goal of his in hooking up with her long-term.

Having said that… Like I said above, if he doesn’t ask you, he doesn’t care. If he’s minding his business, like he loves to do, and watching the game or something, and you come in blabbing about gossip from the job, he might listen to you as a FAVOR to you or to make sure he can get on later this evening, but no, he doesn’t CARE about that. :D If he did, he would have said “How was work today, dear? Was that chick still gossiping?” This is a totally different issue, so I won’t get into it here, but basically, you should get a checklist of the things he actually CARES about so that if you want to talk to him about something and have him actually interested and ENGAGED in the conversation, you know the parameters. :)

How To Tell if he wants sex or a relationship? Well… First of all, it’s not *OR*. It’s *AND*. He either wants sex and for you to break north… or he wants sex and for you to stay around and hang out with him. The SEX part is a given, otherwise, similar to the girl that asked me for the time, he’d be kicking it with someone OTHER THAN YOU! :D

Think about it. The way relationships in the USA are set up, being BF/GF / Engaged / Married implies that you’re not having sex with anyone except your SO. Why in the world would someone attach themselves to someone they didn’t intend to have sex with? On top of that, lots of guys want to have kids. Sure they could go the test tube or adoption route, but MOST OF THE TIME, they’re going to want to have their kids the old fashioned way…
By mistake.

Anyway…

If it’s possible at all, I would say the way to tell that he wants a relationship is by how much he focuses on your PERSONALITY. How interested is he in getting to know YOU? What you’re about… What makes you tick… What makes you happy… What you don’t like… The intelligent guy is going to want to know A LOT about a chick he intends to make his S.O.

The problem with this personality-based theory is that, like Omar says, “It’s all in the game”. Guys already know what women are looking out for as cues that they’re interested in more than sex. Knowing the cues makes it easy to “Fake it ’till you make it”. :D

So… the best thing women can hope for is to meet guys through trusted friends that are willing to vouch for their character and keep your fingers crossed! :D

DatingGenius

I spent the day on Seesmic yesterday and had a 90-post conversation involving several of the members. I’ll say first of all that Seesmic has made TONS of improvements since Andrew Lipson gave me an invite 3 months ago. They’re always making improvements to their site, so this post may very well be outdated relatively soon. :)

If you don’t know what Seesmic is, it’s basically like having a conversation with people on a bunch of stickies. In a way, it’s like Twitter, except it’s video and audio instead of text. You get to record a video which goes into the “public” timeline, and other people can watch it just about as soon as you post it. People who see your video can record their own video and make it a reply to your video if they so choose.

They relatively recently implemented threading as a one-dimensional, reverse chronological timeline. This was way better than no threading AT ALL :D but having held a several-hour-long conversation on it that was about actual intellectual concepts, not “what to name a dog” or “who’s going on a date tonight”, I got to experience the downsides of asynchronous video threading in Seesmic’s current format.

The reason I make a point of it being asynchronous is that it’s not a real-time conversation. It’s more like twitter or an email group than it is like Yahoo Live where several people speak to each other simultaneously, or even chat rooms, where everyone’s there at the same time and can jump in with their opinions if they feel like it.

Liz Burr made some excellent points that I hadn’t paid attention to as I was absorbing so many other things during a full day’s use of the app. Someone had made the point that because you record your own video and decide when to stop it, you get to say what you want in its entirety without being interrupted. Liz mentioned that since it’s asynchronous, you can be turned OFF at ANY point, or not listened to at all, as your screen name and icon are attached to your video in the thread. This means you have more of a chance of not.being.heard.at.all. if someone decides that what you have to say isn’t worth listening to based on your behaviors and what you had to say in previous videos. I “knew” this, but I hadn’t processed it until she mentioned it to me. I was already employing that behavior, for example, after listening to a post from someone that I determined was garbage, I would skip anything with their face on it after that.

At this point, I should mention how Seesmic is set up for people to become aware of people’s posts. It’s important to understand this to understand why one-dimensional threading is NOT optimal for an application like this. There’s a “public” timeline that catches everyone’s videos. This is world-wide, but you can set it to only pick up posts in your language. That’s still A LOT of people, and it’s not even open to the public yet. Your next option is a “friends” timeline. You get to choose to “follow” people, and only their videos will show up in this timeline. This is another way you can elect to bypass people whom you’ve determined have nothing valid or intelligent to say… don’t “follow” them. They’ll still show up if you’re looking at a thread that they’ve contributed videos to, but then you resort to visual parsing and skip them as usual.

These abilities to select people to follow and people to “allow to speak” by clicking on their videos and watching them all the way to the end absolutely alters each person’s perception of a thread they arrive to. Seesmic member Otir read a perfect analogy of the situation, telling the story of a bunch of blind people whom were all offered different sections of an elephant to feel and then to give their opinion of what an elephant is like. Each of them had their own perception of “an elephant”, and that perception colored what they had to say about elephants.

First of all, if you’re following certain people, their posts come up in your “friends” timeline. If you click on the member’s icon, you go straight to their opinion. That’s a good thing. However, you’re jumping in in the middle of the thread. You can click “conversation” and see the entire list of posts in that thread. This is where your personal bias comes into play. If you don’t have any respect for the people earlier in the timeline, you might skip their videos entirely, bypassing much of the context of the situation. If there are a whole lot of videos before the person you’re following, you might not be inclined to watch an hour’s worth of posts before you enjoy what you really came here to see… thus, bypassing much of the context of the situation. If you’ve determined that the person you’re following is more credible than others in the thread, you may be inclined to reply along the lines of that personal bias. This is where we get the blind people approaching the elephant from different sides and angles.

Another “problem” with this layout is that what you’re looking at is NOT actually linear other than chronologically. The posts are laid out by the TIME that they were posted to the site, but they are not differentiated by the TANGENT of the thread that that particular post followed. This leads to a circular, “telephone game” situation, because people show up to a thread hours after it started, read something a “friend” of theirs posted, which was dealt with hours ago, and respond to that person’s post without watching all of the surrounding material.

My thread was 90 posts long. Even if each person took only one minute to say what they had to say (and I’ve seen videos that were 5 minutes long, so if there’s a time limit on individual videos, it’s NOT shorter than that), that means that to absorb the entire thread, you’d have to sit there as long as a feature film. People aren’t going to wait that long to reply. As a matter of fact, people started showing up and making NEW threads asking for someone to summarize my thread because they didn’t want to go back and read it all. This is another way that posts get “lost in the sauce”. People show up and want to be involved, but don’t want to put in the work to go back and experience each post.

Another reason it becomes circular is let’s say you have three tangents in a thread. As the original thread participants scramble “left and right” (since it’s all appearing as a one-dimensional timeline) to deal with tangents, 20 posts down the line, someone reads something from a tangent that was already resolved, hits “reply” and now, your 21st post is actually a response to your 5th post. :/ Then, THEIR “friends” see what THEY posted and continue the previously resolved tangent, causing the original thread participants to scramble over there and put out THAT fire… AGAIN. :/ Meanwhile, the thread splinters more and more and is misinterpreted more and more but LOOKS like a single, chronologically-ordered discussion. The snowball rolls further downhill when someone shows up to post #60, which is really only three posts removed from post #5 and doesn’t want to read the rest of the material, so they assume that all 60 posts have been along the same tangent.

Like I said, this only comes into play if you’re trying to have an intelligent conversation. If you’re just socializing via video, you don’t need to worry about tangents and following thoughts and concepts. You just throw up a “me too” post and you’re good… you feel like you’re a part of the conversation, whether people are “following” you or not.

Jan McLaughlin mentioned an addition that I think would work very well in these situations… the ability for the originator to moderate their thread. I suppose the ability to assign mods would be useful as well. A couple of days ago, I left a 32-post thread of mine for a few hours and when I returned, it was around 60. Thinking that there was much interesting material to sift through, I clicked on it, only to realize that two people had started online dating in my thread. :/ Instead of taking their chances in the “public” timeline, the best way to try to get each other’s attention was to click “reply” so that it would show up in their “replies” folder (an alternative timeline to “public” or “friends”. The unfortunate side-effect of this was that as they kept “reply”ing to each other, their posts were being added to my thread.

It would be lovely to have a way to separate irrelevant posts from your thread. It would be lovely to be able to remove videos posted to your thread by people that just showed up to act dumb. Not *delete* them, just remove them from YOUR thread so that new people arriving after the fact wouldn’t bail on your 70-post thread because there are 30 posts worth of online dating inside it that’s completely indistinguishable from on-point conversation in a one-dimensional reverse chronological timeline.

Seesmic’s making tons of improvements, so I’m sure features are coming down the line that will facilitate intelligent conversation, such as GROUPS. The ability to have a discussion only amongst the people that *you* choose would be a major development. There’s no need to block others from reading it. Just stop them from diluting the content and making the originators waste time running around putting out fires. Like I said, they’ve progressed in leaps and bounds in the three months that I’ve been on the service.

Personally, I’m a fan of synchronous interaction, whether we’re talking live video or text chat. Even IRL, I enjoy holding arguments against 5 people at a time. :D The upside of asynchronous conversation is that you only have to make your point ONCE, and everyone hears it and we can all move forward and explore greater depths of the conversation. The downside is that you have to actually BE THERE at the time it’s happening to be a part of it. If you show up hours later, all you can do is watch the archive, if there is one.

The upside of asynchronous conversation is that you can join in on work breaks, when you get out of class, whenever it’s convenient for you, you can add something to an ongoing discussion. The downside is that depending on how much time has elapsed between the beginning of the conversation and your arrival, you might not be willing to put in the work to absorb the entirety of the conversation anyway.

Bill Cammack • Cammack Media Group, LLC

As you know if you’ve been following this column over the last 6 months, DatingGenius doesn’t “date”.

The term “dating” implies progression. It’s like something Richie Cunningham or Potsie Weber might do. You see a chick and you want her, but you’re not willing to let her know what time it is, so you beat around the bush taking her places in hopes that she’ll see you as the kind of guy she wants to give it up to. *yawn*

In fact, there *IS* no progression. A chick knows if she wants to mess with you off the bat. Depending on what you tell her after that, she either thinks more about giving you some or LESS about giving you some, hahaha :D … That’s all there is. You want to hook up with her, or else you wouldn’t be on a so-called “date” with her. Everybody knows it, so stop acting like you’re all sneaky and undercover and then try to surprise the chick with a “good-night kiss” when you drop her home, hoping that it works like in the movies, and all of a sudden, she’ll invite you in for…. a nightcap. :/

So, no. DatingGenius doesn’t “date”. He hangs out with chicks. Period. If they’re into DatingGenius like that, then CHA-CHINGGGG!!! :D If not, we have a good time anyway, then we go about our respective businesses.

Having said that, if you still insist on “dating”, like actually courting one person in a serial fashion with the intent of them eventually handing you a title that’s supposed to mean something, like “significant other”, then make sure you date someone BETTER. THAN. YOU! :D

Now, that might not seem to make sense, coming from the diabolical, empty-life-having (bookstore chick’s friend informed me of this a couple of weeks ago), sinister, evil, manipulating DatingGenius! :D You would think that he would advocate kicking it to the dumbest, low-brow character you can find in order to maximize your control over the situation. Dummies and lowlives are great if you’re just trying to get on ASAP and don’t intend to see them ever again in life. If you’re actually going to REPRESENT with this person, like as in let ANYONE ELSE know that you’re messing with them… That person needs to be a FANTASTIC individual. This is actually MORE IMPORTANT for the ladies than it is for the fellaz, so pay attention. :D

[Part 1: Dummies]

Let’s say the person you’re dating is a dummy. Like they’re just not intelligent. Maybe you’re on iChat with them and it takes them mad, crazy, stupid long to type a response to you, and then after all that waiting, it’s like a line and a half because they were only using their two pointer fingers to peck at the keyboard. Or maybe they can’t spell for JACK, and you’re wondering if they dropped out of school in the 5th grade to pack bags for change at the supermarket, then got hooked on drugs before making it back into the school system.

If you actually date this idiot, regardless of how good he or she looks or how good the sex is, don’t give yourself credit like you’ve pulled off some fantastic feat. In fact, anyone smarter than them will be able to manipulate them if they choose to, and you’ve “built your house on sand”… if not quicksand.

On top of that, you can’t TAKE this person ANYWHERE! :D Unless they happen to LOOK intelligent and you can convince them to not say ANYTHING around your peers, this person is an accident waiting to happen… Actually, an accident TRYING to happen, because it’s been my experience that the dumber someone is, the more they try to impress other people. Did you notice that? :D It’s like the smartest people, most of the time in a conversation, they’re listening and PROCESSING what people are saying. When they finally say something, it’s worth hearing and it’s the product of what they’ve absorbed from what’s been going on. Meanwhile, you see the dummies sitting there staring at the mouth of the person who’s talking… They seem to be trying to synchronize, like double dutch, getting ready to jump into the conversation when they perceive that the current speaker is about to finish his or her point.

The problem with this is that if you’re synchronizing, you’re not LISTENING, which becomes apparent when the dummy jumps in with something relevant to 10 minutes ago when they finally had ONE good idea, and they’ve been waiting until now to get a word in edgewise. That’s when the entire conversation stops and everyone tries to be polite. There’s this silent exchange that goes on between everyone. They’re not so much being polite to the dummy as they’re being polite TO *YOU* because it’s YOUR FAULT that this person’s in here $&%*ing up the program! :D Basically, people are embarrassed *for* you, and everyone’s trying not to mention that the emperor has no clothes on.

This is easily avoided, if you insist on dating dummies and bringing them out in public, by not giving them a title when you introduce them. We all have those friends… Every so often, they come around with a new…. person… and they introduce this person by name, but no title. Like, it’s clear that they’re out on a date, but by not declaring this person, you get to play it off down the line. Oh… That was a business partner from the Kentucky branch, my job asked me to show him around. Oh… That was my CEO’s daughter, visiting from San Diego. Who? When?… OH!… I was interviewing her for that intern position (at 11:30 pm). This only works, however, if you know you’re going to get rid of them eventually. If you end up eventually declaring them, you look like a chump for trying to play it off.

You also can’t leave people like this alone with your friends. Do NOT go to the bathroom. Do NOT go to the bar to order drinks. Do NOT pass “go” and Do NOT collect $200. Stick to this person LIKE GLUE. If you leave, and your friends ask your date “What do you think about Obama” and they reply “I think he’s still hiding in those mountains”, you’re *dead*. Laughing stock. You will NEVER live it down.

DatingGenius

I told my ex-girlfriend not to lie to me… I mean, she was still my girlfriend at the time, and now she isn’t. The reason I told her that was that I was catching her in small, seemingly insignificant lies. VERY VERY small lies… Not even worth telling, to be sure. I explained to her that the most important thing you have in a relationship is trust. Without TRUST, you have nothing at all, because any communication you have with anyone will be tainted… untrustworthy… disbelieved. Lying to me about small things is WORSE than lying to me about important things, because it’s not necessary. If your character can’t stand up to the smallest criticism and you feel the pressure and need to LIE, then you CERTAINLY don’t have the stomach to tell me the truth when it REALLY counts.

WHAT does this have to do with “Technology”, you ask?… Because the same holds true in many situations, *including* posting on the internet. The way a lot of blogs are set up, including this one that I’m posting to right now, after the main entry, there’s a section for comments. This is the place for viewers/readers to weigh in and let you know if they agree OR disagree with what you said, and why.

The benefit of having comments is taking a post from being a soliloquy to being the beginning of a conversation. It’s like having a lecture and then at the end, opening up the floor to any questions your audience might have. *YOU* are just as responsible for and will be held accountable for what happens in your comment section as you will be held accountable for what you post in the main entry. Just like I told my ex… (paraphrasing, hahaha) the way you carry yourself in dealing with comments can make or break your credibility in EVERYTHING ELSE that’s MORE IMPORTANT than your comments section…..

Let’s take a very simple example that everyone should be able to follow:

Let’s say you have a company that sells widgets. Let’s say your business blog is “widgetblog”, and is a blog about widgets. Let’s say you also author “personalblog”, and what you post there has NOTHING to do with widgets, and only to do with your personal life. Unfortunately for you, you can not separate these three things if people know that you’re connected to all of them. Similar to a chain, your credibility is only as strong as the *WEAKEST* link.

Now, let’s say you post that “the sky is blue”. Let’s say that several people post “I agree, the sky IS blue!” and those comments are not tampered with. What do you do when someone posts “the sky is actually grey”? This person has now added their personal opinion to the discussion that you started. Do you leave this dissenting opinion on your site so that people can see the HONEST, TRANSPARENT format of how the discussion actually unfolded?…. OR…. Do you log in as “admin” and CHANGE THAT POST so it now reads “the sky is blue”?

Let’s say you get five more “blues” and two more “greys” and even a “red”… What now? Do you log in AGAIN, and tamper with your comments AGAIN? When someone comes to your post the next day, will EVERYONE be in agreement with your position? Is that fair? Is that HONEST? Is that *transparent*?

Now, in most cases, you can get away with this underhanded behavior. There’s only one thing you have to do to maintain your credibility and look like people agree with you….. Be. Faster. Than. Everyone. Else. That. Reads. Your. Blog!

If you come to your blog, and the dissenting posts have been sitting there for an hour, consider the possibility that SEVERAL PEOPLE may have ALREADY READ THEM and will see you for who you really are and what you’re really doing if you tamper with your comments. :/

What’s the problem if you get caught tampering with your comments?…. “Trickle Up”! :D

If you get caught tampering with comments on PERSONAL posts, your credibility is *SHOT*. You can NOT be trusted. If you can’t be trusted with the comments on your personal post, you can’t be trusted in what you POSTED either. Why tell the truth, when you could make up a convenient lie to make yourself look good? Now, your entire personalblog is tainted. Meanwhile, you’re the same person that writes and moderates widgetblog. Why should we believe that you’re willing to risk your business by allowing people to have opinions contrary to YOUR best interests? Now, the posts AND comments on widgetblog are tainted.

Meanwhile, you’re the owner of the widget company. Why should your character in doing business with someone face to face, shaking their hand and looking them in the eye be any stronger than when you’re posting a business or personal blog? So, unfortunately “this person is a liar” trickles UP to where you don’t want it because you didn’t have the stomach to leave your comments alone and perhaps POST A REBUTTAL? Stand up for your own statements? Explain to the dissenting commenter why you think you’re right and they’re wrong? Seriously. :/

Assuming you feel you’re prone to resort to underhanded tactics to make yourself look good in the future by tampering with people’s comments today… Here are some things you can do that will still make you look like you have something to hide, but there’s no PROOF, like when a statement that was “X” for 45 minutes, suddenly becomes “Y” merely by clicking ‘refresh’ in your browser. :/

Turn Off Comments – Your word is law and that’s it. Anybody who comes to personalblog or widgetblog will get what YOU have to say about things, and that’s it. Nobody else has any say.

Turn On Moderation – Make it so that NOBODY’S comments make it to personalblog or widgetblog unless YOU approve them. That way, when everything ends up positive, you just look like you spun the situation by only letting the comments through that you liked. This is DIFFERENT from changing people’s posts because there’s never anything negative for people to see in the first place, AND dissenting comments don’t become agreeing comments with the same person’s name on the top, posted at the exact same time.

Delete Dissenting Comments – MUCH, MUCH better than changing what people had to say from “X” to “Y” is deleting their comments altogether. That way, you look like someone who can’t handle the truth instead of someone actively cheating to make it look like everyone’s on your side in this situation.

Don’t Blog At All – Really, I don’t understand why some people post things on the net in the form of a blog with comments, when they don’t REALLY want to hear what people honestly think about what they’re saying or doing.

Maybe two years ago, I read something I thought was interesting on someone’s blog. I thought it was very interesting….. as well as COMPLETELY WRONG! :D I explained to her very professinally and clinically WHY she was wrong by posting a comment on her blog. Eventually, I got an email from her saying that she was going to erase my comment, and suggested (to her credit, because I hadn’t saved my post anywhere) that I copy it and post it on my own blog and link to hers.

I wrote back to her, thanked her for not deleting my post FIRST, and explained to her (in not so flowery terms) that I thought she was lame for having a web site where all she wanted on it was her opinions and people that agreed with her position. She was doing a disservice to her readers, because with all of them commiserating and rallying around the flag, it was the blind leading the blind, and they were never going to get to the solution to their problem, because they had the question wrong in the first place.

Since then, I’ve come to realize that many people post NOT to START a conversation, but to appear as if they’re an authority in something. They think that as long as they post something and nobody disagrees, they look intelligent or wise. I now realize that a lot of people use the internet to make themselves feel better or to doctor the results so as to convince themselves that they’re in the right and someone else was in the wrong.

That’s all well and good, however, if that’s the type of person you are, don’t think that people aren’t figuring you out. Don’t think that you’re getting away with tampering with comments or juking stats scot-free. Your credibility’s taking a hit, and you may find out down the line when nobody wants to buy your widgets that it’s because more people than you know saw you tampering with comments on some seemingly insignificant post and decided that your credibility as a businessperson has been seriously undermined by your personal character.

Bill Cammack • Cammack Media Group, LLC

Reader Derek writes:

I noticed that if a pretty blonde lady says anything – anything at all – like “asdfgHJKL;”, she’s gonna get tons of replies, all in a “Wow, you are ingenious ’cause you wrote that!”

And the closer to blonde you get, the more responses you get. I’ll put money down on fact that a girl “wiith blonde hair on facing left” would get more responses than the SAME GIRL “facing left with black hair.”

I know everyone has their fans and stuff, but why does beauty get you attention like that?

Actually, it depends where you are and what you have in abundance around you.

I live in New York, so we have A LOT of naturally dark-haired women and a lot that like to dye their dark hair red. Because of that, blonde is actually a commodity. Not the blonde chicks with the brunette eyebrows, hahahahaha. Not the blonde chicks with the 3″ black roots down the middle of their domes! :D … ACTUAL blonde chicks.

OTOH, I have cousins that live in a different part of the USA. I went to visit them and was totally amazed with the blonde chicks they had in that area… Meanwhile, I noticed that my cousins barely looked at them AT ALL! :D When I inquired as to what was up, I found out that their particular area was TEEMING with blonde chicks, so what was fascinating to THEM was BRUNETTES! :O

I was like “Man… you can’t throw a ROCK in NYC without hitting several brunettes before it hits the ground!”… See, so it all depends on what you’re used to, and what you have available to you.

Similarly, I grew up around chicks with BODIES. Other guys grew up liking chicks with flat asses ‘n stuff like that. So I can look at a chick and think she has the physique of a teenage boy, and the guy standing next to me is thinking “Man! Check out how nice that chick’s ass is! :O” Eventually I got used to this, and I realize that it really is “Different Strokes for Different Folks”. :D

As far as internet culture in particular, I’d say that you’re right, that blonde chicks get more props than brunettes. There are probably a bunch of societal reasons for this including the objectification or perhaps bimbo-fication of blonde chicks ever since television and film started being shown in color instead of black and white. From Marilyn Monroe to Anna Nicole Smith, blondes have been portrayed as the “perfect” combination of sexiness and stupidity. Easy / Quick to give it up. Fun to be with. Not smart enough to make problems. Simple-minded enough to be low maintenance. Who could ask for more? :D

Meanwhile, brunettes are often portrayed as troublemakers, thinking too much, don’t like to follow orders, not particularly sexy… This is one of the reasons why chicks dye their hair blonde, to be more attractive to guys that have gone for this “hair color indicates something” bullshit. They get tired of their blonde girlfriends getting all the raps, so they WISELY start hooking themselves up to be more attractive and get more attention.

DatingGenius