That’s right: I’m a brat. I’m a brat who’s spoiled rotten. I came to this conclusion this week when I got to see how “the other half” lives. As it turns out, for my job I had to go through the financial information of many very, very low income people. It made me painfully aware of quite a few things.

I went though over 150 loan applications of almost exclusively dreadfully poor people. Everyone knows that there are poor people out there, but to see their actual names in writing with their signatures at the bottom of a page is pretty depressing: It makes them real. It’s easy to not think about how bad some people have it if you have little contact with them, but when you get to know the personal details of some 150 of them, it breaks your heart. (Yes, I do have a heart, who knew?)

Basically, what I saw was the poorest of the poor but not quite living on the streets. Some of these people were so poor that they were eligible for government assistance programs. We’re talking people who’s life aspiration it is to work at K-Mart or Taco Bell (yes, these are actual examples). I’d say that the average annual income for the 150+ people I went through was probably in the low $20,000s. The standard deviation, however, was quite small.

Yet, there were some especially sad cases. There was one woman my age (23) with four kids who made something like $14,000 per year. In some sense you want to blame her, as you think: God isn’t she smart enough to buy some condoms or stop having sex? You’d think so, but it’s not unlikely that she can hardly afford condoms. She’s trying to pay rent and feed her kids, which certainly can’t be easy. And she clearly has a horrible life, so maybe she sees sex as a refuge. But gosh, if that’s the case, she needs to find a new refuge, because it’s only making matters worse. Sadly, there were quite a few examples not far from this woman’s situation.

The number of married people with children was also quite low. What I mean by that is that there were quite a few single mothers in the mix. Some of these women had 2 or 3 kids, and their husbands were paying some paltry sum like $200 a month in child support. Call me crazy, but doesn’t it cost more than $200 a month to raise 2 kids? You’d think so. But then, I am pretty sure that child support is calculated based on one’s income, and it’s unlikely that the fathers of their children are pulling in big six-figure salaries either.

I, on the other hand, am one spoiled-ass mofo. That’s all I can say. I grew up in one of the richest cities in the country, though my family was not particularly rich. And now, I’m 23 years old, just out of college and I’m making 3-4 times what many of these people are making after working for 15-20 years. It’s just hard to imagine living that way – no, it’s impossible for me to imagine. I’m sitting here typing this journal entry on my top-of-the-line computer in my Manhattan luxury apartment while these people are probably sitting in a run-down 70×14 trailer watching an old 13” TV with poor reception and no cable.

This juxtaposition brings up so many different thoughts and feelings that I could literally write for hours about it. Of course, I won’t do that here. It just seems odd how vast differences in wealth can be. Theoretically, it would be nice if that gap was less. And yet, even in theory, a government mandating such a thing seems immoral. It would be up to people to make that decision for themselves – for them to give some of what they’ve got to those who have less.

And then another part of me thinks that maybe it isn’t as bad as it seems. Maybe some of these people are actually fairly content. I have long believed that the simpler one’s life is, the more probable it is that s/he can experience happiness. For example, take my lunch today. I went out to some Brazilian restaurant on 8th Ave. I got the cheapest thing on the menu, which was a really good grilled chicken on a skewer with rice and beans. It still, however, cost me $13. Going out to lunch for me isn’t particularly uncommon, however. As a result, while the food was good, it certainly didn’t seem like a very momentous occasion: It was just lunch. Yet, to someone who is truly poor, a lunch like this would probably be fairly uncommon, as something like peanut butter & jelly would have to suffice a great deal of the time. Thus, such a meal would not be taken for granted as easily and appreciated far more.

It’s true: I have a “complicated” life. I have to worry about stupid things that someone poor wouldn’t have to worry about: I am concerned with the dry-cleaners breaking off a button from my work shirts; I am concerned with my computer not opening up Internet Explorer correctly; I am concerned with my music being a little too loud when I get ready in the morning and potentially disturbing my neighbors. But really, what serious worries do I have? I mean, I’m not worrying about whether or not my kids will be able to eat tonight, or if I’ll be able to make rent or be out on the streets otherwise. Worrying about such basic needs likely causes one not to care about the stupid things that I often worry about; thus, it simplifies their life in some sense as they have less worries but worries that happen to actually matter a lot.

So my point, as I said at the beginning, is that I’m a total friggin brat. And please, remind me of that from time to time. Because I’m sure I’ll forget pretty quickly. Before I know it I’ll be whining about something stupid like waiting 10 minutes for a machine at the gym, which really doesn’t matter even matter compared to what some people have to worry about. But I will try, rather than to complain about the stupid things, to take a step back when tempted to and instead be thankful for all that I do have.

Remember Merry-Go-Rounds?

This weekend I went to eat some dim sum in the bowels of Chinatown again. A Chinese friend of mine found this really good place, and it’s so good that when I go there, I’m the only white person in the whole place. It’s a fabulous cultural experience, and the food is mad good. But I’d rather not talk about the food or the place; I only bring it up because something that occurred there prompted me to write a journal entry on promptness.

The plan was that we were to meet in Chinatown at the restaurant at 1:00pm. Sounds easy enough, right? I thought so – especially since we’d all been there before. As a result, I left my apartment a little bit after noon, because I wasn’t sure how long it would take to get there (I took a different way there than I did previously). As it turns out, it only takes about 40 minutes to get there, so I was about 20 minutes early. And that’s fine – I’d rather be early than late. As a result, I just hung out in Chinatown for a little while.

Yet, my friends were not quite as prompt. One friend finally managed to show up at around 1:20ish and the other not until nearly 2. Now, I’m not particularly surprised about this, as I know which of my friends have extra trouble getting places on time, and thus, was not particularly shocked. But that does not necessarily make the extra 20+ minutes that I had to wait after 1pm any more positive of an experience.

I have always been extraordinarily prompt. My mother’s convinced I get it from my father, since he tends to arrive like a half hour early for things. I’m not that insane, but in my opinion, on time means a few minutes before you’re supposed to be there. If you’re there exactly on-time, then you’re late.

To me, being on time is about more than just meeting a deadline set by someone. First, when one person is on time and others are not, the person who is on time has their time wasted. If everyone had been on time instead of, say, 20 minutes late, the event would have ended 20 minutes earlier. As a result, I think that promptness is actually about respect: Showing up somewhere promptly shows others that you respect their time, as you do not want to keep them waiting around.

One idea might be to show up late if you know everyone else has a tendency to show up late. I think this is dumb for a couple reasons. First, what’s the point of setting a time to meet if you’re just going to be late? Second, if you show up late, but not everyone else does, then you look just as bad as everyone else who was going to show up late. Finally, it just seems like, in principal, you shouldn’t have to be the one to change your habits, since you’re the one who is correct, and those who are late are the ones who are wrong.

Some years ago, during college, promptness was an issue for those I worked with when we had meetings. As a result, my boss decided that whenever someone was late, for every minute late this person was s/he had to give my boss 5 minutes of his/her time to help him do arbitrary work he had to get done. At the time, I thought it was just a crafty punishment to get them to do more stuff for him. But now I realize that it actually makes sense in terms of justification. Basically, what he’s saying is that, since you’ve wasted his time, you must do work for him so that his wasted time is replenished. The 5 for 1 thing probably can be justified by saying that it would take anyone else 5 times as long to do his work as it would take him, since he knows it much better than anyone else.

So does having people show up late to things piss me off? A little. It pisses me off mostly because I tend to go out of my way to get places on time. One of the ways I’ve managed to do well throughout the years is by being a very effective time manager, and as a result, I really do get annoyed when people waste my time. And waiting for someone to show up after they said that they were going to be there is about the most absolute waste of time that there could possibly be. I have a hunch that I’m not the only person out there who’s bothered by people who fail to be prompt, which is something to think about for those who are constantly late.

What do you think would happen in chickens went extinct?

A comment to a journal entry of mine a few days ago has prompted me to do a little bit of amateur psychology. So be forewarned: I am no psychologist. What I intend to do here is consider what I know about this type of person and infer why it would make sense that s/he is that way through a hypothesis. The person I will consider is none of than the player.

When I say the player, I mean the type of person who has a great deal of promiscuous sex with as many people as possible. Generally only men are considered players, but this is just silly, since plenty of women are players as well. But to make things easier, I will probably refer to “he” and refer to a male player throughout, but bear in mind that this analysis can be cross-applied to either sex.

So what does a player do? Well s/he tries to get with as many people as s/he can, sexually. This is interesting for a slew of reasons, and I think to understand the psychology of the player, one must try to understand how the two aspects of being a player relate and add up in his/her mind. Those two aspects: sex and a variety of people that they have it with.

Does sex mean something different to the player than to people who are not players? I think that this is kind of a silly question since I think sex means different things to different people in general. But in regard to their treatment of sex, it should be pretty obvious how they view it: cheaply. I would argue that the player could care less if this sex was ever “meaningful” and probably doesn’t even have the foggiest idea what the point of meaningful sex would be. I’ll come back to this a bit after I talk about the second aspect.

That second aspect, as I mentioned, is the variety of people. Players like to get with as many people as possible. I find this the most telling aspect of the psychology of the player. What would be the point of getting with a great number of people when it comes to sex? Sure, variety can be nice, but sex doesn’t feel that different with different people – at least not for men. Sex is basically sex. So I think it must be something else.

What I intend to do now is hypothesize why the player has the attitude that s/he has and then see if it fits with his/her actions. I believe that players generally have a relatively low self-esteem and are very insecure.

First, how does the low self-esteem fit in? I think that players use sex to boost their self-confidence. They believe that if they can have sex with lots of different people, then that means that they are desirable. If they really loved who they were, they wouldn’t need to have sex with lots of different people. But they do need it, because the variety of people causes them to believe that many people must find them desirable.

How about the insecurity? This is similar, in that, by sleeping with many different people, they become more secure in the fact that they are, indeed, attractive, since people must be attracted to them. If they were secure and happy with who they were, this variety wouldn’t be important.

So why the sex? After all, if they had a lot of friends, one might argue that this would help their self-confidence and what-not. Yet, I don’t agree. I think that players also see sex as an act of dominance, much the way rapists use sex. To the player, sex is likely less about physical gratification (which is all it could otherwise be about, since it obviously isn’t about emotional gratification), and more about power. This particularly affects their feelings of insecurity, as having dominance over many people makes them feel more powerful.

So am I saying that all players are severely disturbed individuals, as I seem to be implying? Not necessarily. There are those players who are just nymphomaniacs and are addicted to sex. Yet, the only way that these players would not be in the category with the psychology that I mentioned is if they have a fear of commitment, since a nymphomaniac wouldn’t necessarily be dissatisfied with having sex with the same person, as long as s/he had a lot of it. Yet, I would also argue that a fear of commitment probably has something to do with a low self-esteem and/or insecurity. Of course, that’s a more favorable alternative than the feeling of power that I suggest that most players need, but it still doesn’t get around the insecurity and low self-esteem.

I guess from this, one could conclude that the lives of players aren’t all that they’re cracked up to be. Since I’ve never been a player, and don’t particularly believe in that lifestyle, I suppose that I do not find this surprising. It actually almost makes me feel sorry for players. Almost.

Why does Joe Millionaire suck so much this time around?

So there’s the cute girl at the gym (imagine that). She’s there basically every time I’m there, which is basically every day. I have recently caught her checking me out on a consistent basis (read: every time we’re in the same room); it’s gotten fairly obvious. She’ll also do things like use the elliptical right next to the one I’m using, even though there are some 20-30 other cardio machines she could be using instead. I could tell you other stories about obvious things she’s done to indicate that she could be interested in me, but there are so many that it’s not worth the time.

I know what you’re thinking: “Dan, that’s great! What are you waiting for? She’s cute, she seems nice and she wants you baaaad. You know she goes home every night after the gym and fantasizes about you – why not give her the real thing?” This may all be true. I would certainly date her, as she is definitely datable. There’s just one problem: She slightly taller than I am.

Now I’m not one to judge people when it comes to height. I’ve had short friends; I’ve had tall friends; I’ve had medium height friends. And yet, when it comes to dating girls, it seems kinda strange to date a girl taller than I am. But that’s not to say it’s bad to be a woman who is taller than I am, just that it might not be as easy for me to convince myself that she’s girlfriend material. Which, I admit, is bad in a fairly tangible sense after all.

I, myself, am not exactly Shaq, as I’m only about 5’7”. But then, luckily, most women are not taller than this. When they are, however, it’s a little bit weird in terms of my dating them. Now, I’ll grant you that this girl in particular is not very much taller than me. She’s probably 5’8” or 5’9” max. So I’m probably overanalyzing the situation, as usual. Yet, what exactly about it bothers me?

First of all, I think I would be kind of self-conscious the whole time. I mean, I’d think dating a taller girl might give you a psychological sense of physical inferiority, even though you might weigh, say, 50-60 more pounds than she does (don’t worry: it’s all muscle, really). But moreover, there is a societal construction that says that the guy is supposed to be taller. And when you think about it, it’s fairly rare to see a girl with a guy who’s shorter than she is.

The thing is that I’ve never been one to really care what other people think; thus, it would seem as though a height difference shouldn’t bother me. And I guess in theory, it wouldn’t. But if she’s taller than me in sneakers, imagine what it would be like to go out when she’s wearing heels. It could get a little bit awkward. I mean, the whole standing on your tip-toes to give her a kiss thing is what nightmares are made of.

So I’m not sure what to do. As I said, it’s probably not as big a deal as I’m making it. Perhaps I just need to make peace with the situation, talk to her, and see what happens. I mean, for all I know, maybe she likes dating guys an inch or two shorter than she is (she seems to like them if I’m reading her right). And after all, if she’s an amazing girl, why should I let an inch or two of height be an issue? I probably shouldn’t, and yet, it’s hard to get past it. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what happens when I get around to talking to her.

Ya know how some mornings when you wake up your hair is messier than others – do you think that this is a sign that you slept better than usual or worse than usual?

This past Friday I was watching the new TV show “Miss Match”. If you haven’t seen or heard of this show, it’s a new show on NBC starring Alicia Silverstone as a divorce attorney who has, ironically, fallen into a match-making role since she’s had success with it. While it isn’t the greatest show ever, it’s entertaining. And besides, I’ve always been a big Alicia Silverstone fan, so it’s nice to see that she finally found her way back into the industry, even if it is on a mediocre TV show on NBC.

In the most recent episode, Alicia’s character, Kate, meets a guy that she really likes. As it turns out, this guy is what has recently come to be known as a “metrosexual”. I had heard of this term before, but not given it much thought or attention. Yet, after seeing this character portrayed as the stereotypical metrosexual, it suddenly occurred to me: that’s me exactly.

For those not in the know, let me explain what a metrosexual is. In short, a metrosexual is “a straight man living in a big city who cares – a lot – about personal grooming and fashion.” That definition actually comes from an abcnews article about metrosexuals that is linked in the previous sentence.

So you probably get that definition, as it’s fairly straightforward. Yet, I think I should give some examples of things a metrosexual might do that would separate him from other men. First, a metrosexual actually cares about what he’s wearing. You won’t find a metrosexual wearing brown shoes with a black belt; you won’t find a metrosexual with a unibrow; you won’t find a metrosexual shopping for clothes at Wal-mart. A metrosexual wouldn’t need a show like “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” because, quite frankly, most metrosexuals could probably tell a thing or two about fashion to some gay men.

I know what you’re thinking: “Alright Dan, I kind of get what a metrosexual is, but can you give me some examples of celebrities?” Maybe this will help.

Brad Pitt: Metrosexual
David Beckham: Metrosexual
Johnny Depp: Metrosexual
Colin Farrell: Not a Metrosexual
Mike Tyson: Not a Metrosexual
Jack Black: Not a Metrosexual
Tom Cruise: Homosexual
Richard Gere: Homosexual
Nick Carter: Homosexual

But perhaps you are skeptical about my being a true metrosexual. Prove it? Well, if you’ve ever seen my closet, then you’d need little more proof. I’ve got a work clothes wardrobe that spans over 3 weeks without me wearing the same shirt, and I never wear the same clothes “out” that I’d wear to work, including shoes. Speaking of shoes, I have about a dozen pairs and a shoe rack in my closet to hold them. I own six suits, which is rather numerous for a 23 year-old guy that does not have to wear suits, really, ever. I own four pairs of eyeglasses, two Armani, one Gucci, one Calvin Klein, and yet, I wear contacts 98% of the time.

How about health and beauty? Anyone who has ever seen my lifestyle knows that when it comes to eating and exercise I’d make the discipline of a marine look lax. I work out 6 days per week, and eat four meals per day, three of which are exactly the same each day of the week (lunch is the wildcard). I subscribe to GQ and Men’s Health. It takes me 85 minutes to get ready in the morning, which I have a hunch rivals the time most guys spend primping in the morning. I go for high-end shampoo, conditioner, and hair spray. I have not flossed less than 6 days per week since moving to the city in July. I will neither confirm nor deny whether or not I use products like those “spa treatment” clay-like facial masks.

And I could go on, but of course, I won’t. Surely you get the point. Moreover, you are likely convinced that I am, indeed, a metrosexual. I’m a hopelessly straight guy who really cares about things that most straight guys typically don’t. Now that doesn’t mean that I don’t also care about any of the things that most guys typically do. I do like, for example, sports. Probably too much. It’s moreso about added interests and different priorities.

What does it all mean? Is it good to be a metrosexual? I dunno. It probably depends. I mean, I don’t mind it I suppose, since it’s who I am. I don’t think other guys mind it, unless they’re obnoxious guys who I probably wouldn’t want to be friends with anyway. Do girls like it? Well, in theory, you’d think they would. After all, the article from above comments:

Women are attracted to men with style, and those who date or marry a metrosexual will find numerous benefits.

“Women get more well-rounded men that completely and fully understand things that women are interested in,” Peres said. “Men should be cool with going to a museum, helping with the kids and wearing clothes other than jeans and a fraternity T-shirt.”

Exactly. See that, yet another reason the women should be flocking to me. With metrosexuals you get the both of best worlds: straight guys with a fashion sense. You can share health and beauty products, hang out with him at the gym, and go shopping together without him whining. Now what woman wouldn’t love that? As soon as I figure that out, I’ll understand everything.

Am I the only one who finds those guys who walk around the city with boomboxes blaring on top of their shoulders totally hilarious?