Convergence

"College is an opportunity to stand outside the world for a few years, between the orthodoxy of your family and the exigencies of career, and contemplate things from a distance." -William Deresiewicz, in Don't Send Your Kid to the Ivy League

While the merits of the article is a totally different conversation, that line itself is among the most profound framings of what college is for that I've heard. It doesn't excuse irresponsible behavior, but it also doesn't advocate any one course of action as the responsible course of action.

I've been thinking a lot about what it means for behavior to be considered emotionally mature. There are many people I consider emotionally mature, but their behavior vary so widely that it really doesn't narrow anything down. For instance, I have a lot of respect for both A- and R- because they both seem to have a remarkably keen level of self-awareness and it seems so effortless on their part (which I understand it might not actually be). However, what they actually do are so vastly different--how do I reconcile that for some people, [responsibly and intelligently] indulging in parties and hookup culture is very consistent with what emotional maturity is for them, while for others staying in and introspecting or reading or having long, meaningful conversations is their manifestation of emotional maturity? Which is it for me?

On the other hand, there are people whose lives are more or less "figured out" by common standards such as income and job security, but honestly seem so juvenile to me. My dad for instance--I feel decades older and wiser than him. The way he handles conflict and confrontation makes me want to go up to him, shake him, and tell him to grow up. I talked to my sister in a heartfelt way for the first time ever (which was incredible and uplifting). She told me about how her relationships were going, how her work was going, and her aspirations after college, even though it was honestly mostly quite bland and stuff I already knew from observing at a distance. In addition, she said that when my dad took her out to dinner for our birthday, he tried to secretly take pictures to send to our grandparents because he didn't want to ask because he was afraid of being turned down.

That's so painful to hear. Thanks to E-, I've gotten to a point where I can see past what my dad did wrong and realize that he's actually just awful at dealing with and confronting emotions, but as his son I'm in no position to try to initiate corrective action. He'd be too prideful to do anything about it now that he's in so deep (i.e. divorced). I wish I could've empathized with him sooner, and maybe communicate that I (and the rest of my family, at least at the time) cared about him. Now, it might be too late. I look forward to the day where I've accomplished something in my life that gives me credibility in how to live, and I can actually go up to him, shake him, and help him grow up. Until then, each conversation with him is a frustrating conversation in which I see things I don't want to be, and it simultaneously helps me avoid his behavior and scares me to death because I share half my biology with him, all the while feeling powerless to help him.

When I think about what it means to be liberated from the constraints of family and the pragmatics of the real world a la the quote above, it certainly doesn't mean act impulsively with no regard to consequences. Instead, it basically means screw up, but only if with a purpose. This is the time during which all of my relationship and career choices leads to low-inertia trajectories, or as if on ice: even the smallest disruptions/decisions will be amplified into significant motion in that particular direction, but can also be easily shifted by further disruptions.

Unfortunately, when I bring this back to the emotional maturity piece, it is at odds with my goals in that regard. I feel that, as a consequence of various circumstances in my life, I've been privy to variety, both in facets of myself and of other people around me. While I don't claim to even come close to having dealt with some of the shit that some people I know have dealt with (K- from Tetris comes to mind), I feel like I've had a non-negligible exposure to assholes and found qualities in myself that disgust me such that I can start to develop heuristics to help me converge on behavior I want to see in myself and people I want to let into my life permanently.

In this sense, I feel old or adult. I feel like I've already gone through the low-inertia stages, but simply not temporally aligned with my college career. As the quote would suggest, everything about the low-inertia nature of young adult life trajectory leads to oscillation away from convergence. This brings me to the next thing I've been thinking about a lot: where my preferences are on the affective circumplex, and what that means about the kinds of interactions I seek with people that occupy different roles in my life.

The affective circumplex         

Before I actually delve into where I currently lie on the circumplex, I feel like there are two obvious but important things to note based on my observations. First, each axis is different for each individual. For one person, biking without a helmet might be a high arousal activity, while for another anything shy of offroad trick biking is low arousal. Secondly, where you lie on the circumplex is not static--it will change throughout life. In general, as people age they tend towards LAP (low arousal positive) over HAP, consistent with socioemotional selectivity theory (SES theory), which states that as people's perceived time horizon shrinks, they narrow the breadth (oscillation) of their social interactions in favor of depth (convergence). Less variation leads to more arousal habituation. But within age cohorts there are large variations, and decay also differs from person to person. Instead, more immediately, life circumstances can have a large bearing on your preference. If you grow up in a shady neighborhood rampant with crime, you will be conditioned to relatively higher levels of arousal.

What remains consistent across all people though, regardless of relative intensities of each axis, is that HAP, whatever it means for them, is not sustainable. By nature of conditioning, repeated instances of the same intensity of stimuli becomes decreasingly less arousing. Just ask any horror movie director.

So where does that leave me, college students, and people in general?

For one, SES theory can be expanded beyond a lifetime as a frame of reference. I've come to realize that, in a sort of fractal-esque behavior, observing smaller phases of one's life reveals similar trends to general aging. There is general change to greater LAP:HAP ratio relative to the initial ratio at the start of that life phase. This includes well-defined and relatively rigid life intervals such as high school and college, but also more fluid intervals such as relationships, job positions, etc. Just as with old age in a lifetime, within particular frames of reference there is a gradual decay in HAP preference, and in transitory periods there is a renewal of HAP preference.

Honestly, I feel like I'm figuring out the things that people generally figure out during a midlife crisis. In both a career and interpersonal relationships realm, I'm thinking critically about what they want at the endpoint of everything (when everything converges), rather than employing a greedy algorithm as I go through day-to-day life. When it comes to career, I've discovered that I don't need a fast-paced work environment the same way a canonical Millenial does. Similarly, the relationships I've had with people in LAP-oriented stages of their lives have deepened, while I've had a (relative) falling out with people who seem far more HAP-seeking.

Why is that exactly? For me, I think it has something to do with the nature of LAP and HAP activities. LAP activities are inherently unsexy compared to HAP activities. Independently reading books quietly with someone or brushing teeth together (without any I'm-rubbing-toothpaste-playfully-on-your-face shenanigans, ahem romcoms) is far less of a Kodak moment than is a surprise scavenger hunt or a tropical getaway vacation. The number of people I have the desire to (which often translates to patience for, as awful as that sounds) share LAP moments with is far fewer than the number of people I want to engage in HAP activities with. The causes or companies I'm willing to do mundane work for because I so completely believe in the cause or company is fewer than the number of companies who have sexy, exciting new products.

In that sense, convergent routine is incredibly counter-intuitive. What I've come to realize all too late, and what my dad failed to understand, is that the absence of the rainbows-and-butterflies of HAP is not a sign that the magic is gone. A job or a relationship is unhealthy when the only present quadrants are LAN, HAN, and HAP. Contrarily, if you can find LAP, hang on and never let go. The desire and willingness to be together even if it is "only" LAP is the magic! I wish I knew this earlier, but even so I anticipate this being invaluable going forward in my relationship and career endeavors.

To answer a question A- posed to me while in SF this weekend on my birthday, by the end of my college career I want to know the types of work and find the people with whom there's a symbiotic, mutual desire to share LAP, and then make sure they know it. In fact, if I achieve this ever, even if it takes another two decades (or eight more), I'll consider my life well-lived. But apparently from others' perspective, there's an element of the-sooner-the-better; maybe that's where my flavor of emotional maturity is pushing me. I was watching a video from a friend of mine, and in S-'s words as she saw how I was reacting: "There are some people who you see the way they respond to kids and you think 'You need to have children right now.' You're one of them. They'd make you so happy." While I've certainly entertained thoughts like 'what kind of father do I want to be?', a more generalized interpretation of S-'s statement is consistent with something I've realized: that I can comfortably join in on conversations about marriage with my late-20s through mid-30s coworkers and project forward my imagination and empathize with a parent delighting in his toddler to the point that a statement like S-'s would be made means I've been incredibly lucky to have had the people and environments, for better or worse, in my life that's led to the relative clarity I [seem to] have about my life.

The key words of the previous paragraph is, as the boldface suggests, making sure they (people, job) knows that they occupy a place in your life of such depth and importance. Unlike HAP, the inherently mundane, routine, unsexy nature of LAP means that is not a beacon that broadcasts easily detectable emotions. If you look at the circumplex, which emotion is easier to detect, serene or excited? Clearly excited, but serene is more positive! The detectability of positive (and negative) emotions isn't necessarily correlated with their magnitude of positivity (and negativity)!

For two entities to realize their willingness, even eagerness to share LAP activities together, that requires taking a pretty big risk to say so and even more effort to make sure the true weight of it is heard. There certainly isn't a guarantee that the risk and effort will pay off--chances are, it won't. In every realm, be it family, or career, or friendship, or romance, for every person with a wild success story there must be dozens more with only-partial successes, but even then it's a success! Intent matters! When it comes down to it, the risk and effort pales in comparison to guaranteed failure. Don't be left with the pain of thinking it, meaning it with all your heart, and never truly showing it, because you might not get another chance to, and it won't matter how much you continue to mean it with all your heart. That shit hurts.

Communication!

Over this past three quarters, S-'s fondness for communication has rubbed off on me. I'm just starting to realize the communication is the answer in literally every social situation, pleasant or not. And then there's the stretch to actually embrace that answer and actually communicate. With that aside, I don't have much to say I guess. I'm very happy with where all of my relationships are right now, many of which are where they are due to both people putting in a good amount of effort to communicate. I definitely wouldn't have been able to  communicate to this extent even six months ago, and I'm shocked at how much I've grown.

I found out a week ago, by email, that my parents got officially divorced back in April. I still don't know the full details, and neither are willing to tell me. The fact that I was told by email and late stung more than the news of the divorce, and I wish my parents just communicated about it honestly rather than tried to hide it in the emails in the past month; the divorce actually happening actually comes more as a relief to me. It's difficult to deal with emotionally, but I know that in the long run it'll be the healthier, happier option for both my parents. It's scary though, knowing that everything my life was before Stanford was is now fundamentally different.

This morning, I had my first kiss. It was in a spectacularly quiet, peaceful, bed-hair glasses-off bodies-intertwined preceded-by-30-seconds-of-meaningful-eye-contact fashion with E-, and it's left me enchanted the entire day. I've definitely daydreamed about how my first kiss might go, and I don't think it could've felt more natural and right. It's bizarre how quickly people can get close to each other. Just two months prior, I might've been able to recognize her in a line at the dining hall, but probably knew not much more about her beyond that. I'm scared to think about how our relationship will (or will not, though hopefully not) develop from here, but at the moment I just can't help feeling so lucky.

Soulmateship and Vulnerability

It's been a good while since I posted anything here. It's not that I've had a drought of sentimentality or visceral thoughts (I'm kind of just always sentimental, goo-prone, and generally pathetic); quite the opposite actually, as I've had too many and don't really know what to make of them. I've needed a lot more time to think about it, and I'm still not convinced I have all the questions answered. This is a long post.

In a nutshell:
Not everyone is your soulmate, though you can sort of convince yourself of it, because there is a difference between the feasibility of maintaining a relationship and how happy doing so actually makes you. Everyone has vulnerabilities, but vary greatly in what they are and willingness to share them. It is better to share your vulnerability with others and sincerely try to be there for them even if it seems uncomfortable than to let it brew because unless you take a shot you'll never know how they express vulnerability. The worst that could happen is that you don't learn anything about them, but at least they'll know you care.

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Thoughts on soulmates:

A few weeks ago, S- sent me a link to this article urging people to marry young. Her main argument was that soul mates aren't found, they're made out of the person you marry. My first reaction to the article was that I could totally see where the author was coming from. I didn't necessarily agree with her for a variety reasons. Her premise simply didn't happen in the marriages in my life, namely my parents. But I could see how romantic relationships, including my own, could follow such a trajectory. I like to think that, unlike my parents, I put a substantial amount of effort into my relationships and am decent at making them work.

As someone who generally trusts people until they prove unworthy of it and finds solace from my own troubles by reaching emotional depths in relationships with other people, I certainly would not reject the idea of marrying someone with complete faith that post-marriage I will establish an emotional connection (i.e. become soul mates) with them, even if that connection hadn't been established pre-engagement. Unlikely, but possible. I can just as easily see how that idea would be completely repulsive to others; some people naturally have all their walls up, and only that special person can chip away at them until they come down, and only then are they comfortable committing to a life-long relationship. I respect both viewpoints.

With these thoughts came a somewhat nightmarish realization--if I can essentially fall in love with anyone, why the hell should I not marry the next girl that passes me by on the street? I can establish a meaningful connection with her, right?

A nice conversation with J- served as a good reality check. There were a good number of holes in the author's argument. Obviously, she didn't just marry any ol' bimbo; she had been with her eventual husband for at least a little while. That's a little more comforting--I do think that I am good enough at human interaction to make any long-term commitments that I am actually interested in (as opposed to a relationship with a random stranger) work, romantic or otherwise. Furthermore, after J- brought it up it seemed so obvious: the argument seemed almost traditionalist. Marry someone without knowing where it'll go expecting that the relationship will grow from there, almost borderline arranged marriage (though psychology studies show that divorce rates don't actually differ between arranged and self-chosen couples, so nothing against it), as if marriage were a business transaction. That simply isn't how I want my relationships to be. I want my relationships to be with people I am happy with right from the get-go.

Recently, a variety of different things, however, are convincing me of something I'm deeply saddened by. Feelings of attraction can be very easily manipulated as we learned in PSYCH 70. Indeed, it seems that my stupid, feeble mind is actually quite susceptible to what is only supposed to be banter about my love life from N-. Call it conformity or priming or  what have you--it seems to have an effect.

I borrowed Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman from E-, and as far as I can tell that an understanding of love languages can be applied beyond just a romantic relationship you're invested in. In that sense, it seems that, with sufficient practice, I can speak any love language, even if it isn't my preferred one, to better be able to be there for someone in their times of sorrow or share in their moments of joy. In that sense, it almost becomes possible to be "compatible" with anybody.

The idea that you can be compatible with anybody, though I don't exactly buy it, is scary as hell. Sure, it will  facilitate smooth relationships, but does it also threaten your relationships at the same time because you so easily mesh with others? While consoling and comforting K- through the recent relationship rockiness she's been experiencing, she told me that any girl would be lucky to have me as a boyfriend. That's generally considered one of those classic, somewhat demoralizing tip-off phrases for friendzoning, but in this context where she knows I'm interested in someone else, it made me think a little.

Scotty McClellan's Valentine's Day sermon from my love class had a section where he denounced passionate, romantic love as a mere projection of one's own concept of other people upon them, and when people defy your image of them, the mirage of love dissolves. When I first read that, the idealist in me kicked in and was revolted, because I absolutely believe that romantic love exists and is valuable. However, now that I think about it more, the whole idea of projecting your image of others on to others, though not strictly a synonym to romantic love, is sometimes found in relationships.

As someone who values peace and harmony in interpersonal interactions, I often find myself in sort of a social chameleon mode, and that makes me susceptible to have others' impressions or images of me projected upon me. I feel very guilty when I can't be what others expect of me; this is healthy when there is mutuality in that aspect of my relationships, but when there is not, I simply lose sight of myself and the relationship is not healthy. In other words, sure I'd be a fantastic relationship partner for many people, but it would not be a healthy relationship at least for me.

What it really comes down to, I suppose, is the difference between being capable of and being happy in maintaining a good relationship with someone. The conclusion I seem to be arriving at so far is that I'd be capable of maintaining a caring, compassionate relationship (platonic and romantic both) with most people, but it isn't always natural, comfortable, and reciprocal and thus not always conducive to my own happiness and well-being.

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Thoughts on vulnerability:

Having arrived at the above conclusion about the possibility of forming relationships with people, the task at hand, then, is to determine the subset of people with whom I'd be happy and comfortable maintaining a close relationship with.

I consider myself pretty well-versed in the literature surrounding attraction, human prosocial behavior, personality psychology, etcetc. So far, I've found that this gives me surprisingly good control over the emotional atmosphere of social situations, even if I'm not doing so very conspicuously or outwardly. Subtle non-verbal cues and changes in diction and tone all help. A recurring theme in conversation between S- and I is how much potential someone who understands how people think and act has to be manipulative, for good or bad.

However, as someone who is very concerned with his own emotional well-being and happiness, I am very conscious not to let my psychology antics interfere with my social interactions. It would only be to my own detriment to disturb the natural course of social situations, because it hinders my ability to get to know people and how they respond to me in my own natural way.

I think what's helped me the most in figuring out who the people I want to surround myself with is to make myself vulnerable to people. I got into the habit of doing so with some of my close friends because it helps me deal with my inner turmoils to try to put things to words. Everyone has vulnerabilities; the worst that could happen is that yours fall on deaf ears, and you can just avoid sharing personal details to them in the future. However, you might find some comfort from them, or encourage them to share some of their own vulnerabilities, and that opens the gates for building an emotional connection.

The concept of vulnerabilities has baffled me for a while now. It means so many different things to different people, and there's so many types of it. I like the idea of a deep body of water with gates along the way because it analogizes nicely to emotional depth. For me, I don't open up to people immediately, and it takes a little getting to know and convincing (usually indirectly; at some point I decide I trust you whether you know it or not) for me to open up. A diver in my emotional depths would have some clean spring water to get through before reaching a gate, and they'll have to find some way to open it. Once past the gate, however, how far you desire to explore is entirely up to you; the waters are a bit more murky, more muddy, so more viscous, but I will continue to share my inner feelings with you so long as you keep expressing genuine concern or desire to get to know me. Only towards the end is there a final gate, which takes a lot of time and commitment to open. Very few people ever get there, but if you do the emotions come out like like a geyser at the very core: extremely heated or impassioned thoughts, usually in short bursts of sentimentality, and it is very easy to be pushed back out of that last gate if you don't put enough effort into growing our relationship.

But that's just me. For other people, there might not be any gate, just muddy water all the way through. For some people, it's gate after gate after gate each hiding away crystal clear water, with friends being sorted into multiple tiers of closeness, and each tier being revealed the same personal details with utmost transparency.

Moreover, what if the vulnerability comes across unintentionally? What if someone notices you crying in what you thought was the privacy of your room, or the shower, or your favorite secluded spot on campus? That's like being a maintenance repairmen for one of the gates, and getting a free pass directly through that gate whether the gate is open or not. Can a close relationship be formed under these circumstances?

I certainly think so. S- and I have talked a lot about a desire to help people achieve what we perceive as their potential. We want to make people we care about into the fantastic people we can imagine them being, even if we honestly have no right to. Now that I think about it, being on the receiving side of unintentional vulnerability simply allows you to better understand someone. Whether they like it or not, you are now better to appreciate them as a whole than most.

One of my favorite quotes of all time, by Neale Donald Walsch: “The purpose of relationship is not to have another who might complete you, but to have another with whom you might share your completeness.” The more I think about it that way, the more it feels an obligation for you to try to be there for someone when they become unintentionally vulnerable to you. You were able to witness their completeness, embrace it, share it with them.

At SBS retreat this past weekend, our talk questions sort of reached a critical point as far as seriousness or depth, which had been mounting over the past few quarters. I remember the first talk questions were silly things like "which starter Pokemon would you be and why?" Through the talk responses at retreat, I found that my observations of many people's behavior and hunches about some of their personalities or insecurities were pretty spot on. I feel like I might've inadverdently broken the ice at retreat for talking about especially heavy topics.

In retrospect, I am so glad I did because I feel much closer to many members of SBS for having done so, but I also can't help but recall how uncomfortable it was doing so. I was way out of my comfort zone, not sure if I was sharing too openly and that was making people uneasy or bored or coming across as insincere. I was also unsure how to best express empathy, striking a balance between showing concern and being too nosy or awkward, towards the people whose experiences I could draw parallels to in my life.

The takeaway, in my head at least, was that I clearly need to not cower from initiating attempts at forming deeper emotional connections with people. Perceptiveness and empathy are some of my greatest strengths, and as someone whose sense of fulfillment is fundamentally rooted in what I mean to or can be for others, I need to learn to step out of my comfort zone to make myself happier. Building deep emotional connections is precisely what I want and would be happy with in a relationship, so don't settle for shallow relationships even if I'm capable of maintaining those too simply because I'm too conscientious to move the relationship to that stage.

Physical vs. Emotional Intimacy

This quarter, I'm taking a class called Love as a Force for Social Justice, and it's making me think critically about what it means to be "in love," different types of love, and how love is expressed more than I ever had. This'll mostly just be a collection of scattered thoughts I've had in the past couple of weeks.

First and foremost and actually totally unrelated to love, my dad needs to fucking stop sending me emails asking me to add him on Facebook. The reason I'm so desperately looking for a job or internship over the school year and summer is because I can't wait to be financially independent and not have to depend on his ass to help with tuition. I've gotten to a point where I've wondered if it's possible to get a restraining order on a family member. A quick Google search said yes, it is.

Now then, love. (Because that paragraph wasn't.)

In my Love class, we read an article about types of love. In a nutshell, the article classified six different types of love:

• Storgic love: founded on rapport, interdependency, and mutual need fulfillment. Good friends who have grown in intimacy, appreciate even mundane activities with each other, does not have a "falling in love" phase but rather realizes it after some time. Temporary separations are manageable due to mutual trust. Very similar to siblings.
• Agapic love: Centered around selfless devotion to the partner. Will put him or herself through various pains for the good of the object of his or her affection. There is no "falling in love" in the sense that their happiness is derived from a love object accepting the affection or love they're always willing to give.
• Manic love: Characterized by obsession with love object, sometimes beyond rationality. Jealousy and manipulation can be common, and separation is difficult. Usually very anxious/reflective about what can/did go wrong in a relationship. Can be associated with low self-esteem.
• Pragmatic love: Love based on investment of self. They assist the loved one in fulfilling each other's potentials, but is very business-like in the motivations. For instance, a pragmatic lover might think about compatability, future family size, financial security, and education all in context of how the relationship will affect it. Sex is not unwelcome, but might be done, for instance, to relieve sexual tension and sleep better rather than for physical pleasure.
• Ludic love: Love is like a sport, and the compatibility of partners is centered around how well the partners satisfy his or her wants. Love is like a challenge, and self-fulfillment is had when he or she is successful; partners are like conquests. Love affairs are considered natural.
• Erotic love: Extremely romantic, usually monogamous, incredibly explosive and escalates quickly. Usually very idealistic, risks that might harm the relationship are not afforded. Certainty in reciprocation is absolute, and partners rarely spend time apart. Physical intimacy happens early, and displays of passion are varied and frequent. Usually more common in people who have had a secure and happy childhood, especially those with happily married parents.

While S- pointed out that the article clearly gave preference to storgic love, I nevertheless felt that it was reasonably fair towards the other types of love, and I still prefer storgic love to the others. What I want out of a romantic relationship is not financial security, or the thrill of "conquering" a romantic partner by winning their heart. I want to establish a deep, meaningful connection.

The first assignment in my Love class was to define "love," or explain why it couldn't be defined. While it was extremely open-ended and more or less ended up being a lot of students just sharing their thoughts on what love is, there were two ideas that particularly stood out to me.

First, one student defined love as a region on the high end of a continuum of how much you care for someone. On one end is total indifference, and then maybe 70% of the way up you've reached the part of the spectrum that contains your friends, and then maybe the top 5% are things or people you love. That makes sense to me; it doesn't strictly define what love is, but provides an operationalization of love such that you can sort of quantify love, or compare two things against each other and determine which you love more or less.

Second, one student suggested that you cannot be in love without leaving yourself vulnerable. To be in love is to fully put your emotional well-being into the hands of your love object, and trusting that they will not only do no harm, but might actually improve your emotional state.

In the context of those two ideas, I can elaborate on what I mean by a "deep, meaningful connection." I want this connection to be made between me, in my most honest and thus most vulnerable state, and my partner's most honest and thus most vulnerable state. When you meet someone, you don't just tell them anything; only after becoming close and building trust do you start to divulge more personal details about your life. That explains why I struggle with falling for people I don't know well, and believe I need to be close friends with someone before I can begin to consider them a possible romantic partner. What good is an emotional connection between the person you are when your walls are still up you're still on guard with anyone else? You need to have made the step to reveal everything about you first.

So if this is so straightforward, what is up with society that has obscured this clarity?

I had a pretty heated conversation with S- today wherein she told me that, as far as romantic endeavors are concerned, I'm essentially a middle school student because (spoiler alert) I've never been kissed on the lips.  At first, I was pretty offended. Who was she to evaluate on my behalf how meaningful my past relationships are? Who was she to tell me that, because I didn't slobber all over my past girlfriends, my relationships were meaningless? I'm convinced I've grown more as a person and learned more on how to partake in the miracle that is human-to-human interaction, including romance, from my relationships in middle school than many adults have.

But then I realized the underlying meaning that S-'s contempt carried: our society measures relationship success by physical intimacy, more specifically making out and sexual activity.

The ultimate end result of romantic relationships (in the western, American culture that I'm familiar with anyway) is to find "the one," the person you're meant to be with for the rest of your life and live happily ever after with, basically. As discussed earlier, that person is the partner with whom you have that ridiculously strong emotional connection to. In that process of building that emotional connection, it is common that you will do something physical, like making out or having sex. That does not mean that physical intimacy causes emotional intimacy/you to find "the one". There is a correlation, not causation.

Physical intimacy in cases where emotional intimacy is also present can simply be one of many ways to communicate passion. It is no different than giving flowers, or serenading, or making breakfast in bed, or holding hands, or cuddling on a couch watching a movie, yet it is blown so wildly out of proportion by popular culture.

And what is with "Facebook official" and being able/the right to use to phrase "boyfriend" or "girlfriend" to describe your romantic partner? While certainly some people see being in a relationship as a thing of pride and a thing to gloat about, I know plenty of couples in relationships that are not, say, Facebook official. In those cases, the purest way to think about it is that officiation is also a way to communicate passion. Homosexual couples have been living together for decades, yet the fact that they can get a marriage license with their names on it now is such a strong, symbolic milestone in their relationship (just like with any other marriage, I might add). It strengthens that emotional connection that we all, in theory, seek to make.

The obfuscation of relationship success by society, then, is because a relationship, perhaps back in the mid-20th century, would only reach a stage of physical intimacy after the emotional connection is established, and thus physical intimacy was associated with relationship success. However, in today's society where those in my parents' and grandparents' generation look and shake their head at my generation's liberal, gratuitous relinquishment of lip (and other) virginity, that is no longer the case. Relationships that are founded on physical intimacy, with or without emotional intimacy, are a thing in today's culture. (Especially because Hollywood says so.)

It seems to boil down to whether physical versus emotional intimacy comes first. I certainly prefer establishing an emotional intimacy first; physical intimacy is something that comes after the emotional connection is made. Unfortunately, emotional intimacy is less obvious or visible, and I think this might be why measures of physical intimacy (e.g. kissing, sex) are more often viewed as benchmarks for evaluating the development of a relationship. It might also explain cultural phenomenons like the friend zone and being led on, when the two involved parties see different levels of emotional intimacy.

Holy shit this was a long post.

Dad's Postcard and Care Package

My dad insisted on driving me to the airport, just like he insisted on dropping me off at Stanford before the school year started. He's back from his business trip to China (perhaps "business trip" to "China") now. He gave me a postcard with a penguin on a polar bear that, in a nutshell, said:

It made me sad to see you and your sister fight.

The divorce will be legally processed by the end of the month, and afterwards I will be going overseas and who knows what your mom will be doing. Both of us are in poor physical health. For all you know, the two of you might be the closest family either of you have shortly. You guys should get along.

I have one New Years' wish. I wish you guys would add me on Facebook. You guys are 18 now, I'm not trying to control your life. Please add me so I can know how you guys are doing.

Know that your mom and I will always love you very very much. You can always talk to us about anything.

Love, Dad 1/5/12

And my thoughts about it? Fuck you dad. It makes you SAD to see us fight? Boo frickin hoo. How do you think it makes us feel when you and mom fight, hmm? Both of you are in poor physical health? Maybe if you and mom stayed together, lived together, and looked out for each other like you had for the 16 years before my junior year, like my mom did for you when she saved your life in Michigan. And don't you use Facebook friendship as a starting point for repairing the damaged father-child relationship. If you want to get on better terms with us, you better talk to us, face to face, and tell us honestly everything you've done for the past two years, like we've beckoned you to do on numerous occasions. Maybe then we'll start to open up to you and trust you again. It's hard to give you the benefit of the doubt on anything when you've cheated on mom. It sounds resentful, but it will take much more effort than social networking to set you on the right path again. I don't like holding grudges, but I feel justified, for myself and for mom, in holding this grudge.

~~~~~~~~~~

Today was my second day back to Stanford after winter break and first day of winter quarter. I spent the majority of my day upstairs in K-, K-, and L-'s room, and some time in those hours they had sneaked together, put all of their stuff in a box, packaged it, wrote a meaningful note on origami paper and folded it into a flower, and delivered it to the doorstep of my room. And at midnight, they misled me into thinking they wanted to watch How I Met Your Mother so I'd go downstairs to get my hard drive, and I found it at my doorstep.

At first I had no idea what it was, and I asked my roommate about it, and he didn't say a word about it. He just shrugged even though he knew who was behind it. Very thorough planning on the part of K-, the deliverer. It was addressed to "Larry Lewis Liu" so I was able to narrow it down to a few people who knew about the middle name that K-'s friends gave to me.

I took it upstairs to try to find L-, who I thought was behind it because he said he had a present for me, but to my surprise, there were like 8 people in my RA S-'s room. At that point, I knew whatever was up was a bit bigger scale than I expected. I opened it, and the cardboard flap that opened up from the top the box said "CARE PACKAGE :)"

Turns out, over break, eleven of my dormmates had collaborated and decided they'd each bring me something that represented where they were from. From snacks, to soap, to homemade desserts, to magnets, to a hat (that is arriving in the actual mail soon!), to a book by an author I enjoy. There was a card written in an origami flower that L- folded, in which they each wrote an adjective or descriptive phrase they liked about me. I was speechless. I managed to choke back tears long enough to give everyone a hug and then excuse myself and leave under the guise of bringing the box back downstairs.

I have never felt so warm and loved before. It's an incredible feeling. And they couldn't have given it to me at a time when I needed it more. I was at an emotional low after cleaning out my room in preparation for selling our house, going over divorce paperwork with my mom, and my dad's postcard in the last few days of break. My last class of the day was a lecture for a class titled Love as a Force for Social Change, and as interested as I am in the class material for the sake of acquiring knowledge and education, all the anecdotes that the professor and students shared about how love has manifested itself in their lives only made me miserable because I did not have anything to share that was remotely as cherished as my colleagues cherished theirs.

I could not have asked for a better cohort of dormmates. No matter what happens, I will treasure for forever the past five months I've spent with them and the six to come.

Mistletoe! and thoughts on niceness

This was from StanfordGirlProblems, but it's great. Made me smile so hard and feel all giddy inside.


On an unrelated note, two days ago C- asked N-, S-, and I what was one thing I valued. Her own answer was niceness, because it is underappreciated and taken for granted. My initial reaction was that it is not underappreciated because nobody dislikes nice people. But then I thought about it a bit more, and it made sense. When people are really smart, or have a great sense of humor, or something like that, such a thing is often verbalized in a compliment. It's definitely far rarer to hear "you're just really nice." Maybe it's because the opposing complement (not compliment) of niceness is being mean or rude, which if you are you're just a terrible person, and so it's expected that you're not that, and thus are nice. Exceptionally nice is not distinguished from nice. Meanwhile, if you don't have a great sense of humor, you're not any less of a good human being, and so it's not expected that people will have good humor.