A True Nice Person

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Some people don't have the energy to be socially "bubbly" and entertaining all the time. Not all people who are charming and entertaining are going to be truly there for you when you're not doing well. Other redeeming qualities shouldn't be overlooked so easily. I suppose it might be easier to look for people with more depth, but they are harder to find.

Pop psychology is idiotic. I'll just say for people who tend to be anxious, harping on confidence makes things worse. The assumption is that confidence is an element you have more direct control over than other things. In reality it's the other way around. You gain confidence by not focusing on yourself, trying to directly control how you come across, but by focusing on what you're trying to do. Focusing so hard on yourself just puts your mind in a negative loop where you're so focused on trying to appear confident that you get the opposite. Confidence is more subconscious than conscious. You can't just will it.

I psychologist I recently saw gave me a thought experiment. He asked me to imagine myself in a room sitting in a chair with probes. The object of the game is to not thinking about a pink rhinoceros. Every time you think about a pink rhinoceros you get an electric shock. The point is you'd have an almost 100% chance of passing the test without a single shock if you weren't told what not to think about. The minute you're told what you shouldn't be thinking about, you end up thinking about it. Being nervous works the same way. The more your told it's a problem the worse you feel and the more nervous you get, mostly because you're thinking about trying not to appear nervous instead of interesting things to, you know, talk about.

I personally find that oftentimes, the most confident person in the room will also be the one who makes the most mistakes. When you're confident, you're typically convinced that what you're doing is the right way to do it....even if it isn't. Whereas the less confident people are more apt to second-guess a problem, examine it from different angles, and put in more effort towards solving the problem. I'm talking from more of a work perspective here, so it doesn't apply entirely the same to social situations.

I found this book really good
http://www.amazon.com/Dare-Connect-Crea ... 0749941227

she says to try not to focus on your self and thoughts and instead fcus on others for example think about how they might be nervous and want someone to like them instead of thinking of your own nerves.

Its very good and very brave of you to write a blog, I really admire that! I would like to read more of your blogs.

I felt arrogance rather than confidence was a more fitting term for what you were reasoning. I felt sad thinking of you feeling like you will never fit in, in your culture.

I must admit I do like certainties and would get stressed if you wouldnt tell me how long the comp would take to fix, even if you had to change the time, I cant bear things 'up in the sir', I do like a plan lol.

Different people like different things. My husband was boring on our first date, but I knew enough about him to realize that would change as he got more comfortable. Me? I've always been boring, but I have a strength and resilience that my husband needs. In our current life, he keeps the family laughing with his wicked sense of humor, and I tackle it when everything is falling apart. Yin and yang.

What you do, then, is not rush to judgement and give people a chance. To the right person, you won't be boring, you will just be right.

In my society (and in many others after reaching certain age), women are usually marriage-oriented, they don't just date for fun but to find potential husbands, so the job thing is a high thing in their considerations, after all you need money to buy/rent a house, no?
So I really don't believe that unemployment doesn't affect dating chances, in my younger years I knew boys who were unemployed yet having gfs - it is expected from guys under 20 or so, but after 25? Hell no, ever since I didn't know/hear of a single unemployed male acquaintance who got into a long term relationship of any kind, and job is a must-have for any guy wanting a relationship, he can't even dream about one without it. Also long unemployment ruins your social life, you need money to do outings after all, and you need to be a superman (no one is, really) at heart to not let it affects your confidence and selfworth, hence even less chances to meet someone.

That's why I talk a lot about the job element in this section.

Sorry, Boo, I just saw where you are -- I should check those things more often. Yeah, that makes sense to me. Which is not to say women don't get practical-minded here -- even my daughter advised me (at age 7) to marry a doctor so I wouldn't have to work so hard. (One day she'll grow up and meet doctors, and see it's not quite that simple.) But here I think more often women simply don't want to be taken advantage of, and want someone who has some initiative, takes part in life. I can't remember what the stats are anymore but some large minority of households in the US now have women as the primary breadwinners, like getting on for half.

I think it's a serious pity that the job/provider thing is defining of self-worth for so many men here -- so many would be so much happier if they were able to let go of that. And it'd make relationships easier for a lot of women, I think. Part of why unemployment's so rough on relationships is that if the guy views work that way, he's liable to implode and just become very difficult to live with. The "I have nothing to offer" business...man, it's frustrating. The idea that a woman might want to be with a man because she likes him, rather than because "ooh this one'll buy me a nice house"...it's so hard to put that across. And I don't know, maybe it's because those guys are so invested in the idea that the woman has to be needy so he can be the hero, and relationships in the end are really about whether or not he's doing his hero thing right. I hope that's wrong.

I'm looking back at my childhood...I do think it's true that women used to judge men here, and be judged, on the man's occupation. The wife of an orthodontist, higher socially than the wife of a plumber. But that's such a long time ago, and it was bad for the women, too, spending their lives maneuvering the men to get where they wanted to go, because they didn't have any other way. My daughter's growing up in a very different world. Which is a big relief, because most of her friends' dads make much more money than hers does, at much higher-social-status jobs. It doesn't seem to bother any of them. And I've never once heard her talk about what she hopes her future husband will do, assuming there is one. The main thing that puzzled her, when she was younger, was why the women seemed to have jobs and take care of families, when the men just had jobs. I did a lot of tongue-biting in those days.

You know what's amazing about my wife and why I love her so much. Even though I'm on SSDI and unemployed she stuck by me.

I was taught to put my self-worth in being the provider and to bring home the bacon. It is why I have been depressed because I've always thought I was a bad person. People here would think I'm sucking money from the government, not a man and lazy. It's awful and it hurts. Please try to understand. I do do things like clean the kitchen and I put up new shelves in my wife's closet and the pantry as well.

You know what though I never thought of it the way you think of it and I think you're a wonderful person. I'm impressed.



Your daughter is a very logical person and sees the inconsistency to it. She sounds like she is very intelligent.

Will you please read my blog and make comments and critique if you do not mind?

http://whyifailedinamerica1.wordpress.com/

This is something which most of the people feel for the one's they love..Knowing this is very difficult.But we can guess by the persons behaviour...

Oh, my goodness, cubedemon! Of course she stuck by you! She loves you. SSDI is there because at some point in our nation's history, we were actually less horrible to people in serious need, and we said hey, if a person can't work because of a disability, this is not a crime or a sin, the person deserves to eat and be sheltered. There is no earthly reason to be ashamed of this.

It's HARD to be disabled. People go running by, doing things you want to be able to do, you have to make your peace with this. What that money from the government says is, "We respect you as a human being. You're a person, you deserve to be able to live, here's help." Anyone who says different doesn't know what disability is. And it's not just disability: I think most people want to work, want to make something with their lives. There are times when it's harder than others to do that, hard to find a job. It's also unreasonable now to tell most people in the US: save for a rainy day. They can't! Where's it supposed to come from? People are in deep debt because the game's rigged that way, of course they're not saving. It's hard to be poor, too. A lot of work to be poor.

A lot of marriages do break up over disability. Mine did and I know many others. Money's a stressor for sure, but I think that when the marriages break, it's because one person or both falls apart under the strain of the disability and caregiving themselves. There's more communication, more talk, about these things than there used to be, but still not nearly enough, I think. The talk helps, normalizing it helps. It's very common. I think the stat's that at some point before age 65, 1 in 8 adults will be disabled.

Did you ever see American Beauty? The Kevin Spacey movie? There's a dad in there, a military guy who's just angry, vicious, homophobic. There really is a thread in this country like that. A whole slice, really. But at the end of the movie he has this crazy breakdown, all alone, he's actually gay, he's punishing himself. The people who try to shame others for needing help -- it's what they fear and loathe in themselves, it isn't about you at all, and it's sad and terrible in them. Please pay them less attention if you can.



Things have changed very fast in this country -- the fortunes rose fast and are falling. When I was a little girl, I didn't know any unemployed men. Why would I have? Things were booming, if you wanted a job, you had a job. Even the craziest men in my family had jobs. Everyone had a house, because houses were cheap. Everyone had health insurance. Women stayed home because one salary was enough. People saved up money and took vacations, because it wasn't 1936, and you could do this. That started changing in the late 70s, early 80s...suddenly there were daddies out of work. Then there were manager daddies out of work. And by the time I got out of college, it was a new thing: sometimes you have a job, sometimes you don't, and get ready to be exhausted, because you're going to have to do something new every few years, and everyone's washed their hands of your welfare. Oh, and you'll be competing with young people who work for next to nothing and have no families, there's not much to base seniority on, we're kind of over seniority. And you'll still feel like you're supposed to take the kids on a vacation, so you'll borrow a few thousand to do it. And so on. If you have a house, it's a bit of a surprise, you wonder how long it'll last, you get it when you hear Willy Loman's wife struggling to make the house note, what's at stake. Now there's another generation, and they're not surprised when they have to live with their parents as adults, and, more and more, the parents aren't surprised, either.

The world I see is much more like the novels of the 1930s, 1940s than it is like what I recall of my early childhood. People just have to look after each other, because there's no other way for most.

I've been making my own peace with it over the last decade, thinking what I can give my daughter, what her life will be, even what college will be. Last semester I showed the class a movie -- thematically it had to do with our discussions, but it was an 80s college movie, a lot of fun and hijinks. One of my students came to talk to me, angry about the movie. This girl was relatively fortunate, had parents who helped out a lot, but she was watching these kids in the movie playing, goofing off, and still coming out okay...why, she demanded, did they get to have so much fun? I wound up embarrassed, because she was right, and I hadn't really thought about it. In the 80s I did have tons of fun in college. We all did -- man, it was a fantastic party. One dance party after the next. Nobody went through the day full of dread about debt. Nobody was terrified that there wouldn't be any jobs, despite all the debt, no one worried that we were getting a bum steer from our college advisors. We sure thought we were serious, but we weren't premature 45-year-olds like the kids today are. It's a different world. Dear god, these children are so exhausted, in college, and still come out so indebted.

If anyone looks employable to me, it's my kid, but even as I go window-shopping for apartments in other places for after she's grown and I can work less...I'm looking at 2-bedroom places. Because she can be the greatest thing in the world, but if the jobs aren't there, or there's a misfortune, she'll need a place to go. It's just how things have gone. A person is a person; the job is not the person.

I don't define my self-worth by my job, but most women in my area do, so even though a job means nothing besides social interaction and money to me, I must deal with reality. My sister never thought about what her future husband would do for work, just what names their kids would have.

I think they(women in my area) do want to be with a guy cause they like him, however they require said guy to have a job and other things. I am willing to bet most would stay with him if he lost his job, however we aren't talking about staying with a person but the getting involved in dating a person. I offer a lot of stuff besides a job and not just cause I lack a permanent job.

i'm guess the part about a woman having to be needy isn't at me. I am finish with a woman making more then me, aside from i don't want to mooch off of her. to be honest I only want the social interaction and having something to do that work provides, the income is a nice bonus.

Job *IS* what defines most worth for men especially the fathers here, and according to stats, everywhere else, stay-at-home dads are still a very very small minority everywhere and not viewed that highly by many.

I am all for true egalitarianism, but come on, one shouldn't be that stupid and blind. Call me sexist-generalizing-minded if you want but I am ultra-pragmatic, and I just tell and analyze what I observe around me, it's not me who built this world, and I know one thing for sure when it comes to dating/relationship: man's occupation is very crucial, and unemployment is big no.

Saying otherwise is...

Oh man.....that sand will pierce his eyes!

It would be worse if there's a crab underneath.