@Love: Internet dating and why it is or is not a misguided endeavor

I’ve never used an online dating service, and so you might think it strange, brazen even, that I choose this as my topic. However, I study embryonic mouse development for a living, am pretty good at it, but I have never owned a mouse and have not been an embryo for almost 30 years. My lack of expertise is, therefore, not to be dwelled upon.

I know that there are some mind-blowing success stories out there about online dating. There are also mind-blowing success stories about plane crashes and mold. A few weeks ago a derivative of mold coursed through my body and cleared a nasty infection. I won’t mention that my body then mounted a surprisingly enthusiastic immune response against said drug and made my face look like a plum. I won’t mention that. Anyway, the fact is, that to my knowledge, there are many more failures in online dating than there are successes. To my knowledge, that is a fact.

If there is indeed a problem with Internet dating, which I can’t really say that there is, I would hypothesize that it has something to do with the introductory questionnaire. The first problem, and you may be familiar with this fact, is that humans lie. People are often surprised when they take an occupational competency test and the results tell them to stay in their current occupation. Shocking! I can’t imagine that anyone putting themselves on the dating market would experience similar temptations to stretch the truth. Maybe you can imagine that, but I can’t. The second problem with the questionnaire is that it is composed of questions, or more specifically, that the answers, assuming they are honest, don’t mean anything. As a brain scientist I can almost tell you with near certainty that all of our actions are (probably) the result of activity in subconscious, primitive brain regions, and that our consciousness is more like a boss who signs papers all day. He/She doesn’t even have to wear pants. I’m leaning towards being pretty sure on all that, so lets move on.

It’s harder to find mates now because of the increasing number of individuals we have to sift through. I already saw like 50 people already this morning. But if dating sites want to be successful, they need to embrace human nature. Want to know if you’re going to like someone? Smell them! Scent is a much better indicator of compatibility than whether you enjoy Jimmy Buffett just Sometimes? or Often? I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been about to heavily pet someone who’s legs just don't know when to quit until I got a whiff behind her ear. That happened once-ish. Want to go high-tech? Get a cheek swab and see if you have similar immune system genes. Same genes? Move on or your kid is going be the one carrying six asthma inhalers and who’s afraid to wipe.

I think I’ve hit upon an important point here, namely that, at first glance, there appear to be both positive and negative aspects of online dating.

When I was 11, my parents took me to a local elementary school to pick out a musical instrument. The cafeteria was abuzz with confused pre-teens, hopeful parents, and a few administrators helping children handle the instruments correctly. I don’t remember specifically why I wanted to play a stringed instrument; probably because I thought they had an aura of sophistication and I was a pompous little shit. Regardless, I tried the violin first. I winced when my bow touched the E-string, which had the surprising effect of lighting up my future music-teacher’s eyes. “Try this one!,” she said, “it’s not as high-pitched.” And that is how a viola first came into my hands.

If you’re one of the rare individuals not intimately acquainted with orchestral social hierarchy, let me break it down with some useful analogies. If violinists were med-students, violists would be grad-students; if violinists were doers, violists would be teachers; if violinists were Whole Foods, violists would be the dumpster behind Whole Foods filled with grad students and teachers digging for food. This is why my teacher was excited; few people willingly choose the viola. There is nothing inherently wrong with the instrument. It is a slightly larger version of the violin with a similar range and often rings with a richer sound. However, almost invariably, viola parts are simpler than their violin counterparts and rarely carry the melody. We are also the subject of jokes so demeaning that a crack about 9/11, the Kennedy assassination, and honor-killings would sound classy in comparison.

Needless to say, I rapidly caught on to my disenfranchised status, but it was too late. Like everyone else in the viola section I developed an inferiority complex, and in an intriguing twist unique to male violists, turned a little gay. I’m not upset about that, but life wasn’t easy for a barely-talented, teen violist in the late 90’s who had a secret crush on Macaulay Culkin.

I played for a couple years in college, where I was forced to take graded lessons. During my final lesson, after completing a piece (with a pathetic little flourish) I’d been working on for a few months, my teacher, a man about five foot two with a face like a wooden building block, looked at me and said, “Do you think anyone would want to pay to hear you play?” Rudeness aside, this comment sunk in over the following week and spawned, along with some terribly biting come-backs, the realization that my philosophy regarding musical performance was irreconcilable with his. Of course, the mature thing to do was to quit.

My viola made the move to NC with me and has received limited, but increasing, exercise over the years. Unsurprisingly, I’m still not very good, and I’ve developed a resting tremor in my fingers that makes vibrato a little tough. I’ve also developed, however, a bit more patience as well as a comforting faith that I can suck at something and still be happy with myself.

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If you want to make a sensitive soul go mad, place one in an environment in which the easiest and most encouraged route to success and survival are at complete odds with basic moral precepts.

Several years ago, between jobs, I interviewed with a biotech supply company, thinking at the time that it might be a good pre-grad school occupation. During the interview the owner made a point to tell me that he was a practicing Christian, and at a different point in the conversation that, of course, the details we were discussing about the business were confidential. By this point I’d caught the drift that were I to be hired it would be as a lackey or delivery man, so I was tempted to ask if Jesus would really want us to keep secrets. Putting aside the cynical, admittedly immature attitude I had at the time, the idea that the underpinnings of capitalist economics include passive deceit, immediate self-interest, and the necessity of the “other” has stuck with me.

Our society is nominally not based on religious precepts or beliefs, but religious rules are ubiquitous and in large part respected and valued even among the non-religious. Those of us in the latter population might reject the idea of an ultimate authority from which religious precepts derive, but we respect their origin as pragmatic and necessary for the survival of a society of any appreciable size. A major precept comes from the Declaration of Independence (framed religiously, but again, not necessarily interpreted as such by modern readers): all men are created equal. If I really believe this, and I have something that someone else needs, how can I in good conscience withhold it until some superficial need of mine is met? If every man is my equal, if this is one of the underlying principles of my free society, how can this reconcile with an economy that requires as its most basic principle that any given individual’s interests not be equal in their own eyes, but necessarily unequal? The concept of universal individual superiority is, of course, logically impossible and, in combination with the requirements of our underlying moral foundations, poisonous to the psyche.

I need to share a very romantic story. Seven years ago, when I was a junior in college, a girl I knew blew a guy I knew, assuming that they would then be a couple. Learning otherwise, she blew another guy I knew the following week. Well, now “girl I knew” and “blew-guy-2 I knew” are married! Now if that ain’t so sweet it’ll make you suck on a lemon for a week, I’ll eat my hat.

(Thanks to Robert Plant for subtle innuendo help)

I keep having dreams where I’m given children, then told that I must care for them. In the first dream, I had just finished competing in a Frisbee golf competition when an infant boy cleaved off of a wall and was handed to me by the referee. “He’s yours now.” I had to admit that he was very cute, and I walked around with him under my shirt to prevent people from asking questions, apparently not realizing that having a baby under one’s shirt is also reasonable grounds for inquiry. Anyway, I woke up soon thereafter and found myself missing him. Last night I dreamt that a former colleague gave me her 7 yr old son to take clothes shopping. I actually didn’t mind except that I had to go to the mall, which I hate.

Of course the first thing that comes to mind as far as explanations go is that I subconsciously want to have a child.

Sick.

In my dream interpretation book (yeah, so what?), having a baby can mean “budding talent or creative potential that is just emerging.” Fuckin’ right. The past 6-8 months have probably not been my most creative (in my case usually associated with suicidality), but have been times of increased focus, intelligence, and reasonability. Mentally, I may be at my most awesome. Physically, I still have foot fungus, but that’s neither here nor there.

This past week I paid a visit to some friends in Kansas City and their newborn. I was excited for several reasons. First, I’ve been friends with this couple for several years and was present for the entirety of their courtship including the courthouse wedding. Second, this was the first birth amongst my friends that I did not secretly believe was the product of a half-hour deviation in birth control dosing and a quicky before work. Lastly, I’d seen pictures of the newborn and she was cute. It’s difficult be sincere when such is not the case, especially when juxtaposed with the new parent’s pride in such outstanding evidence of our evolutionary heritage.

“Isn’t he adorable?”
Large sip of rum and Coke made for the occasion.
“He’s really, really something”.

I was given some very minor responsibilities with respect to care of the child, most of which required light bouncing. For someone who hasn’t been around newborns much but is vaguely aware of things that are not good for them, being asked to “bounce” a 3-week old is a terrifying prospect. Sitting down on an exercise ball and looking past those unfocused gray eyes to the loosely held brain, I saw what I imagined was a complex network of delicate glass tubes, each containing a critical aspect of the child’s future.

“Is this OK,” I ask, sitting on the ball, not moving.
“Umm, you can bounce a little more.”
“How about this?” I’m now bouncing on the ball, but moving my arms 180° out of phase so as to cancel out the motion of the baby.
“It’s OK, I’ll take her.”

As it turned out, the child seemed to enjoy being in my care. I credit this to now being strung somewhat less tightly than a piano wire, which dogs and babies can smell. I’ve discovered several keys to my relaxed demeanor, including 10 hours a day of rigorous physical/mental activity, a strict diet, Wi-Fi, and triple ply toilet paper. Watching Mom and Dad time-manage to the extreme (breast-pumping while making a sandwich and dictating computer code) I became aware that my personal maintenance requirements would need to be radically trimmed before I could think about caring for an infant. This was driven home by the distressing updates I received regarding the health of my succulents back home, which I cared for enough to name but not enough to put in the sun. I’m confident that I’ll be able to breathe some life into them when I get home and start caring again for my baby, a fetal PhD.

It’s back! Catch up on unimportant (to you) aspects of my life in the following categories:

Dickishness: This year saw an exceptionally wide range of dickishness, which after slow gains beginning at age 13 (see “Puberty”) peaked in late October of `09, followed by a precipitous and sustained dip to pre-13 levels (see graph). Explanation: I was not born a dick, was reminded of this, and responded accordingly. It hurt.

Puberty: After a late start (see “Dickishness”), I’m finally done!

Poorness: Several outstanding debts have encouraged my acquisition of habits described variably as “frugal”, “tight-ass”, or “leprous”. Among these are 2-minute showers, disconnecting the lower heating element of water heater, haggling with my 80 year-old landlady over rent, calorie-restriction, and decreased flushing.

Pastimes:

Extreme graduate studenting (with knives and bacteria and other cool shit)

Cultivating awareness

Watching antics of my succulents

Photographing insects, plants, self

Daydreaming about J.R.R. Tolkein’s elven lore

Dilettanting

Preferred positions while falling asleep: See diagram

Dream themes:

Weird sex stuff…really weird

Frustrating or impossible tasks, arguments

Movie theatres, grade school, college cafeteria, hometown library

Rivers, slow-moving waterways, and the occasional bridge

Jumping or gliding long distances

Several times in my life I’ve woken up and exclaimed that I had just had the most bizarre dream of my life. All of those instances pale in comparison to last night, when I traveled into the recent past to carry someone's sweater, used that sweater to warm someone on a hospital gurney in a cold parking lot, visited a high-security high school, flew on a sleek vessel into Earth’s distant future, procreated with a human/butterfly hybrid, was pursued by males of her kind for stealing their women and diluting their race, became a human/butterfly hybrid myself, got an MRI to see what my new insides looked like, retransformed back into a human, woke up within my dream to explain what a crazy dream I had, assumed that I was delirious with the flu, had blood painfully drawn from both wrists, then laid down on a screened-in porch and asked not to be bothered. That was my most bizarre dream of my life.

FACT SMACK!

In this first part of an indefinitely numbered series, I use airtight logic to defend, or offend, a particular assertion of my choosing. Today’s assertion: It’s OK to design pigs that develop cystic fibrosis. See: http://stm.sciencemag.org/content/2/29/29ra31.abstract

FACT! Cystic fibrosis (CF) is arguably one of the worst diseases imaginable. When you have CF, your lungs slowly accumulate fluid and you drown from the inside. Gross. If you’re lucky, the offending organs are posthumously removed and studied in a lab where an undeservedly narcissistic researcher who doesn’t know when to shut up will scrape off cells and examine gene expression. And that’s if you’re lucky, which, as it seems, you are not.

FACT! As humans, we value beings based on their similarities to humans. I’m not defending this, only saying it’s true. Our culture has rules for the treatment of all primates, whether they be the quasi-human chimp or the absurd aye-aye. We don’t like killing dogs or cats because they are cute and smart (dogs), similar to young humans. Humans can’t fly, so we don’t have as many rules for birds. Humans don’t have six legs, so we are extremely cruel to lame octopi.

FACT! Pigs are cute, intelligent, (moreso than dogs), and, like most humans, have personalities.

SUBFACT! Pigs are the source of foods so scrumptious, so mouthwatering, one has no choice but to assume that all of the pig’s personality can be magically transformed into fatty, coat-the-inside-of-your-stomach flavor. Amazing.

FACT! If you saw a piglet drowning in the shallow end of your uncle’s girlfriend’s swimming pool when you were 12 you would save it, run it home, and watch your parents send it off to a nice farm where it could be with its friends. You would certainly not throw the pig in.

CONCLUSION! It is not OK to design pigs that develop CF.

One success I’ve had in my pursuit of self-knowledge is noticing that without exception I’m happier when outdoors, observing and participating in the circle of life. If I had to guess at the environmental origins of this trait (it certainly isn’t shared by everyone) it would be the countless wonderful childhood experiences I had hiking, camping, and being mock-drowned by my older brother. As I became older, however, it became clear that my more lucrative skills were better matched to a demanding indoor environment, where I’m cut off from the bliss provided by fresh air and achieve levels of white-boy lameness most people can only dream about.

Happily, my new apartment is reinvigorating my passion for the outdoors. For the competitive price of $700/month, I enjoy three south-facing windows overlooking a small, forested ravine crawling, buzzing, and flapping with jolly woodland creatures. My doors and windows are always open and I’ve acquired a few plants that sit happily on my windowsill. The delphinium is supposed to be grown outdoors, so I rotate it a quarter turn daily to help it gather sunlight as evenly as possible. My watering scheme consists of a well-aimed turkey baster, itself all that’s left from a sad incident several years ago during which I suctioned the liquefied remains of a rodent from a small compartment in the trunk of my car. Yesterday the first delphic bud blossomed and I clapped merrily. Liquefied rodent, delphic blossom, merry clapping. That’s the circle of life.