Antisocialitism, you say?

So the other day, I had my first house guests here in my Queens apartment. For those of you who thought that I wasn't "cool" enough to drum up a solid friend base here in New York, well just listen up. My charisma and gregarious charm naturally attract and draw people to me, in case you hadn't already noticed. The other day I had a little get-together with a couple of these newly acquired "BFsF," Elder Chamberlain and Elder Chase. (Yeah, they're missionaries. What of it? I take what I can get.)

It was actually the first time that I had sat down and talked to missionaries after I got back from my own mission one year and four months ago. I felt like my world had imploded, leaving me on the far side of the nametag and pavement-thrashed shoes. But I won't get into that because I fall into "I'm a spiritual failure" mode, comparing my intern self to my mission self. Whatever though.

What I also realized is that I don't have a social life (other than the Elders and a couple of gracious BYU-Idahoans also here in NY). Although this is not significantly different than any other period of my life, it's different this time because I feel like I don't have a choice. You know, in high school, as long as you fish low enough in the social barrel, you can find someone to befriend you. You know, the AP Calculus and marching band kids. But here, it is not so easy. First of all, I live in Queens. It is a lovely neighborhood, but I think that I am the only non-Spanish- or non-Hindi-speaking person here. I of course have nothing against diversity, but it becomes problematic with a language barrier securely on all sides.

Also, living here in Queens, I am kind of detached from the Manhattan mainstream. Granted, I am only a 20-minute subway shot away, but the boroughs define not only geographic boundaries, but also social ones. There is somewhat of a sentiment of a superiority/inferiority/separatism that plagues us here. Kind of like how everyone at The Ridge is too (quasi-) rebellious for the rest of the riff-raff at BYU-I. And how everyone at Colonial House is too Utahan and everyone at Arcadia is too frugal, etc. On top of that, consider that there are only singles wards in Manhattan, and not in Queens. Again, not an excuse in and of itself, but it is all part of the larger excuse equation.

Check out my co-workers. They socialize, but do so by drinking (more accurately categorized as "getting sloshed"), which is hardly social if you don't drink (which I don't. Well, only DP). My roommates do the same, only for extended periods of time (Stu's nights on the town last at least 36 hours. His endurance amazes me). Sobriety is a prize too great to sacrifice for a stint as a socialite. Or so they tell me.

In the end, a social life in its purest sense is hard to find. I have the luxury of not having to worry about it too much because I am only here for three months. I will then go back to BYU-I for one more semester, where socializing is as easy as compulsively laughing at inappropriate moments. After 14 weeks of extensive flurries of social activity (or more accurately, 14 weeks of deferred social opportunity), it will then be over. I will come back here to New York for the rest of my immediate life, and I will have to either come to terms with my situation or just complain about it in blogs that no one reads. Either way, I will be a better man for it.

One pleased, please.

As I was growing up, my mom, by virtue of her calling as a mother, was a cornucopia of handy advice. You know, things like, "Oh, it didn't hurt that bad," "It'll only hurt for a second," or "that didn't hurt, did it?" For some reason, my childhood is full of memories that hurt that probably shouldn't have. In retrospect, she was probably always right, again, if by nothing else than by virtue of motherhood. That and the fact that I was (am) somewhat of a pansy.

Anyways, my mom also gave me advice that didn't come when I was crying because I bumped my knee on the piano bench or when I saw a bug. She said, "If you please yourself, then that's one pleased." Although there may be several ways to interpret that statement, I will use it in the context that it was given to me. Essentially, in the case of tough decisions (such as what I should do on Friday nights, what I should have for dinner, whether I should go to zero hour BC Calculus, etc.), she would advise me to do what I wanted to do because I understand myself well enough to know what pleased me. I didn't have to worry about anyone else but myself because in trying to please others, there is no guaruntee. Since my mom is a math professor, she lives her life based on expected value. (She will even play the lottery when there is enough money in the pool to have a postive expected value.)

In theory, the probability of pleasing yourself entirely if you make decisions based only on your interests is 100%. This would make the expected value of pleasing yourself 1. If I can be 80% sure that I please, strictly for the sake of argument, my girlfirend Grendel (she may not be a lot to look at, but you should see her move furniture), then I have an expected value of .8. Now consider that when I act strictly to please myself, I still have a 20% chance of pleasing Grendel. That's an expected value of 1.2. Good deal, huh? The reason that I say this works only in theory is because there is a serious logical fallacy at work.

First of all, let's imagine a 12-year-old Tony. The probability of having what I thought would please me actually be what would please me was probably around 15%. I might have said to myself, "You know what's good for lunch? Snickers." When I was 16, I might have said, "Friday night? Halo here I come!" When I was 19, "Procrastinating research papers until the night before they are due is what all the cool kids do. And boy am I cool ..." Much to my surprise, none of those would please me in the end. Fortunately, I slowly learn from my mistakes. That percentage rises gradually, so today it may be something like 25%. But after this first fallacy of a grossly overestimated percentage of success, there is still a second concern to address.

I soon came to find that I could not be happy when other weren't. I think that this is not so much a sign of unbridled magnanimity, but more one of envoronmental paranoia, much like as if I were a skittish social chameleon. In other words, I have a 0% chance of being happy if my delicate Grendel is not absolutely ebullient. And perhaps the converse is also true; Grendel is happy only when I am. This becomes fallacious because the process to arrive at mutual happiness is circular. Optimistically this would be called a symbiotic relationship, but I deem it more appropriately labeled a dysfunctional one. As I look at the problematic nature of contentedness, I see why it is so intrinsically imbued with contention.

In the end, the only way out is slowly developing an understanding of what brings us pleasure coupled with pure, undiluted selfishness. At least I have one of the two, right?

An embarassing addiction ...

Every day I give thanks that I don't drink and that I never have. There are, of course, the health benefits and the financial freedom as a result, but the main reason that I'm glad of my sobriety is because I know that I would be a sloppy drunk--truly a crippled alcoholic. Although I have never experienced the addictive power of alcohol, I have let myself become addicted to another substance. However embarrassing this is to admit publicly, I feel that it is necessary for the purgation of my inner suffering.

Ever since my childhood, I have had a particular attraction to something that piques all of our carnal passions from time to time. But I was not only attracted, I was infatuated, even titillated, stimulated. As I grew older, I felt the same sensation seep through my body, and soon enough I had to act on the desires of what is so accurately labeled "the natural man." The self control that I once firmly grasped was soon dross next to my drive to attain the physical whims for which I so yearned. It started small and has now swelled into a gigantic, obstreperous monkey on my back.

When I went to the store with my mom, while she was deciding between 2% and 1% milk, I stole away and found myself wide-eyed in front of rows and rows of my new-found best friend, which I now know is my unavoidable worst enemy. They came in all shapes and sizes. Of course, the best ones were wrapped keenly in plastic to keep scavengers at bay, but I knew that I soon would be able to get my own passionate fingers around a couple. Then it happened. I won't be specific about the wheres and hows of the story, but it suffices to say that I had my first experience. And once you have experience, you are never the same. I might call it a right of passage, really.

Of course, in this day and age, there are plenty of places to go. You aren't safe at home, work, or even at school, however disturbing that is. Adolescents and children, girls and boys don't have to look too far anymore. The corner store. Dad's "special collection" on the top shelf. The locked drawer in Mr Engleking's desk. Rupert's backpack in health class. Everywhere and everyone seemed to be a resource. Before I even realized it, I was sneaking around behind my parents' back trying to be clandestine in my now compulsory tendencies. Before I knew where I was going, I was on the road to addiction, where I still find myself trodding along in embarrassment. And of course small things don't stay small.

I knew that I had a problem when I got into the serious stuff--double stuffed, to be specific. And once I had tried double stuffed, I had to try the mint and cream and the peanut butter versions of the same vice. Why stop there? My Oreo fetish began to sink in deeper and deeper. My dreams started to involve giant cups of milk spattered with Oreo icebergs. Although I started by indulging myself maybe once a month, it soon became once a week. Then it was twice a week. Now it is almost a daily routine. This morning I was barely able to get the package back into the cupboard before my roommate Stu came around the corner. Can you imagine what he might have thought of me (a self-touted "Mormon") if he saw me with a chocolate crumb-covered mouth at 6:30 in the morning? It was a close call, but when your desires are so intense, your uncommonly strong passions cloud your common sense.

If there is anyone out there than reach down and bring me back from my Oreo addiction, I am reaching out to you. I would do anything to become the man I was before I let myself become the shell of a man that I am today. Oh, reopen (if you caught that play on words, please accept my hand in marriage) the gates to my happiness.

It's made for whom?

We have this intricate set of personal tastes that no one really understands. These tastes dictate our romantic lives, or so we tell ourselves. In reality, they only exist to give girls an excuse to criticize guys they don't like without feeling bad about themselves. I am not so naive (or so gender-biased) as to imply that this only works one way, but I will tell the story from a man's point of view just for the sake of saving awkward gender-sensitive phrases such as, "When a man/woman and a woman/man fall in love/lust, he/she just can't help him/herself to treat his/her honeybuns/stickybuns to a romantic evening under the stars/makeout sessions during the halftime show."

These tastes become so important to girls that they become somewhat of a code, or a set of rules. Of all of these rules (aka excuses), there are essentially only two categories. The first category is "Too much" and the second is "Not enough." I will ask your pardon in advance to the poor grammatical structure that I will use, but often parallel structure is more affective (not effective, in this case) than grammatical accuracy. "He is too much affectionate." "He is not enough compassionate." "He is too much loud." "He is not enough funny." "He is too much stinky." "He is not enough relaxed." The only time that a woman thinks that she is pleased is when a guy is neither "too much" nor "not enough." But those are just excuses. Contrary to what is most comforting to think, we cannot quantify love.

There is no formulaic answer to the already nebulous question of "what is my type?" In my life, I have "fallen in love" (in quotes because I use love in the Hollywood sense and not a true love, which still eludes me) with all types. I have "loved" a girl that was too loud and liked to dress up and throw parties. I have "loved" a girl that was a fireman's daughter. I have "loved" a girl that liked to read fairy tales in the back seat of my Lincoln (and no, that is not a euphemism). I have "loved" a girl that liked to do puzzles until all hours of the morning. And with every one, I was "too much" something and "not enough" something else, which was just a self-preserving way that they had of saying, "I don't like you."

However difficult it may seem for us guys who try to become the right amount of everything, it is a waste of time because girls don't really want what they say they want; they just want a guy that they love. Until they find that guy, they will make up "too much" and "not enough" excuses about why they don't like those would do anything to make them happy. And I guess that is okay.