tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30477941087471280132024-03-13T13:18:36.847-07:00Freds Pico RantsDamp Freddiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01335140908458450601noreply@blogger.comBlogger153125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3047794108747128013.post-4380347692327071372021-10-12T16:15:00.001-07:002021-10-12T16:15:31.664-07:00Toolkit for Getting out the Friends' ZoneFZing is the most horrid thing an amorous prospective guy can get - for a girl to be FZed by a guy believe me, run a mile. Men are always up for someone they find attractive when they are single at least. Women can demure with the FZ being used
Believe me, the FZ is a terrible, sorrowful and dark place of male misery. It is like missing your flight having checked in. It is like seeing a taxi at 3am only for it to rush past you. It is like falling into a dark little hole where you are chained to the slimy wall of manipulation and scrutiny.
techniques to avoid or get out fall into these categories, summarised from my findings:
1) Walk Away
2) Set on hold
3) rationing
4) jealousy
5) Call a Friend
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1) Walking Away
This is by far the best set of techniques. It may seem the most brutal, but it will save both parties a lot of trouble
in my experience, fZing doesnt happen that often, I tend to know when I get the 'show' from a girl and follow up, or they make it very obvious before they need to use the FZ brush off. ALso there is Tinder but with Corona lifting there are going to be flirts at the office, at parties, in extended social groups and so on. As well as getting FZed on the first actual tinder date.
Friend-zoning is I understand though, about 90% a brush off in western societies. You can go into a whole pile of psychological and sociogical reasons as to whey girls do it as a brush off, rather than saying 'no, sorry I dont find you attractive or interesting'. It is often to save both face and grace when you both exist in a social circle though, but can be more devious.
However in 10% or so of FZ reactions, it will be caution, fright, playfulness, demuring, etc there is a real reason to say 'hold your horses, wheeey up there!'
The trouble is it will be almost impossible to sort out at face value because both are in essence, an insencerity which the party will not want to back down from and admit they were white lying.
There fore you need techniques to diffuse the bomb.
The first are walking away, or being prepared to walk away.
a) walking, literally, away - rolling your eyes up , sighing, guffawing, 'uh-ing' and turning away. This in itself is a huge communication and body langiage can often elicit stronger, truer reactions than endless blah blah when a wall of defence like and FZ 'Lets just be friends line' is layed.
Now you are on a risky route but hey, you avoid being the rotten dungeon of the FZ with a girl you really really want in another capacity.
So now the ball is in the air , in her court area and she either has to play it if she wants to actually ne in the game, or it is getting called OUT by the time you have left the bar or party or room. You may get her following right after you, with the explanantion as to why she just FZed you ( 'i'm not ready for a relationship' , I'm seeing someone right now, etc.) . Or there could be a text apologising when you can then ask these questions in return. Or a communication via a pal, often to the negative of course.
You then have of course, monday morning at the office to contend with if there is no further contact? Simple send an SMS saying, sorry I made a pass at you, but hey, youre great I am sure, but let it not go over our professionalism, I am cool with a knock back as being a plain 'no thanks'
b) being prepared to walk away
This is in here with the sales routine. FZ can be a stalling procedure. Maybe they dont think they are ready, after the last catastophe'. Maybe it was the wrong hormonal time of month or other things conspired to influence a temporary brush off.
The sales routing is simple but you have to be prepared to walk away from the deal if the only card on the table is a persistant LJBF
That is NO DEAL guys
Sales begins with the invitation, and often there are then stalling tactics by the other party. Objections. Smoke screens to the uncomfortableness of being influenced by another person into some decision which may be quite weighty.
So you need to qualify those objections. Sales training day 1. Ask questions and counter those answers with new questions if they are not clear. FZ happens because they are either nervous, or they have a BF , or are up in a promising cycle of dating already, they dont fancy you, wrong night/time of the month, they are with their pals, they think it would be nice but you have to work or be in another social group together, they are sexually frigid, they dont want a relationship now, they prefer FZ and friend sex to having a BF with expectations, BREATHE.....et cetera et cetera
All the time dont get on the back foot of oh you dont like me? Stay on the offensive with her as the object, the accused. Oh, do you already have a BF? Are you not single and so on? 'Is this then not the right time or place to be asking you out?
THere are lots of questions. Reading the body language will reveal the truth of the matter. A 'get me out of here' posture and short glances says it all, I was brushing you off FOOL! A chin up in your face can mean she is just wanting to tease you a little more, now she has you on her hook to play with and torment. A pause with eye contact and something said a little shyly is more like it.
If she keeps reaching for LJBF, why cant we just be friends. Say, oh sorry I made a pass at you, Youre a fun and pretty girl. Pity you dont find me attractive' Oh well never mind, we are cool about this eh?
2) Set on Hold
THis is kind of related to rationing, but is an immediate action intended to get a response
So I looked at my mental notes, having time to formulate at answer it being CHat again and not talk, and said that , "great, we can maybe talk again in a few weeks time or a month, then I will have met someone new in the dating direction. Because tonight you are the only girl in the world for me. You are beautiful..." blah blah, you get my drift
It worked immediately, I left her alone, and then she came back 9 hours later ' I'm thinking of you'
3) Rationing.
This is a bit of a risk strategy but if you have notice a chemistry between you, and you know she is the type who maybe likes to be careful and get to know a guy, or has been hurt, then accepting an LJBF is ok. BUT you then dont want to be the soppy BF substitute, cathy's clown, who gets to hang around her and is there when ever she needs a ride to town, or her house fixing up.
I had a very damaged girl, who was on the way up though, FZ me. Shit, she was the nearest to THE ONE ever. Tall, feminine, intelligent sexy, attracive and very young for 48.
I went along with it and sought her attention a lot via SMS. (she was social media minus due to a nasty, nasty ex BF) Fizxed up her house, went on dog walks. Never ending LJBF comments, so I knew she was nervous and maybe we were faling in love. Eventually i got really hooked on her and a bit love sick, so I tried to back off. I stopped random happy things teksting and MMSing. Pang, five days went and pling pling pling, she sought my attention via SMS or called me.
However this became a malaise and eventually my lack of action, being a man , pissed her off as we were pretty much in love, but just couldnt seal the deal because of her history and my seemingly laid back approach, which only hid nerves like handling a handgreande with the pin out.
Rationing is about self respect and knowing your goals in life. It means doing wry things like cancelling walks or coffees together or just not answering texts for a day or more. 'Great. Talk later, busy for now' Also you can make it clear you are using your time to do cool stuff, but she is being held away because she is in the OUTER FZ and that is a nice enough place to keep her until she coughs up with a buying signal, THE SHOW i call it - the lingering eye contact, the invitation to a drink or dinner etc
Rationing takes you out of fulfiling a girls need for attention and someone-to-talk to. And out of her need for power. My girl above, 48 years old, needed to take back the control over relations and men she had lost to a very nasty man who bullied her into the ground psychologically. A lot of girls get hurt and need to take control to feel they are defending themselves. That is fine. FZ is fine in those cases, nothing to get angry about. Just fuck it though, who needs a tantalising babe as a friend?
Rationing your time and socialising away from her also is a form of jealousy making
4) Jealousy
I have pulled a few ONSs on the back of flirting with one girl while another couldnt stand it. Once i did it on purpose, but jealousy is a strong emotion a girl will often struggle to hide. They can be jealous of other girls per se, getting attention, or more importantly feel suddenly jealous that someone has you. Strong emotions elicit reactions and actions. Ie they back down from the FZ and open up
Coupled to rationing it is a very good method. You just conspire to be on a date when you know she might want to see you, or just say you are. And in the social circle, make a point of flirting with prettier or dirtier girls when she is within eye shot.
For the office post pass FZ, then you can say of course ' Do you have any nice friends'? Now out of any context this is a massive insult to someone you just met, but to someone you know and you have made a pass on only to get LJBF, it is a good route. When you get her alone say ' well you know at least now that I am single. DO you have any nice, single freinds ? ......you can add a compliment, they dont have to be as pretty/etc as you' If she really isnt interested you will get a more direct brush off at this point as it is a known strategy of course, but if she is she might make a buying signal, or at least, she may actually come up with a couple of phone numbers or better yet, ask you to a party a lot of singles will be at , or introduced you to a vetted pal at a sports meet or concert.
This in sales used to be called 'snow balling' where you get referred to someone who MIGHT be in the market by asking ' do you know of someone who is single ? Maybe by three degrees of snow-balling seperation and two FZs in that mix, you will meet your THE ONE anyway??
5) Call a friend
I should have done this in fact with said 48 y.o. because her best pal happens to be a psychiatric nurse and probably would have been very understanding over a coffee to both my dilemma and the needs of the woman I had fallen head over heels in love with. Just ask a pal if the girl of interest is actually interested in more than FZ LJBF bullshit??
Call up or talk to a pal if the FZ thing is kind of rolling along, and you are a little trapped by her being social while she maybe sends mixed signals out. For an obvioulsy shy girl or one who may be scarred from previous encounters, this is no bad approach. For the life and soul of the party, a self confident girl of interest, this is maybe a BAD idea because it is a little sneaky, going behind her back. MOre direct techniques above are the winning line there.
You have to tread carefully. FInd out first and foremost if they are comfortable about talking about her and the situation you are in. You may elicit a strong jealousy response of course, but putting it like ' i really am in a bit of a muddle here, and could really do with your help just to clarify' ...then 'well you know, me and Heidi are friends now ...yeah? Well it feels to me like we really like each other and care about each other and it is going romantic, but I dont want to really mess it up if she actually doesnt find me attractive'
Back to being 15 at school ' does she fancy me like ?' but with a serious intention. Like my psychiatric nurse above, you have to know a little about the friend or at least could guess they are close enough to have talked about you. It is a very 'defusing a bomb by remote control' , a little clumsyness and BOOM you blow your credibility
===========================
Guys, dont get put in the friend zone from someone you really want. Try and get the hell out of it asap.
Damp Freddiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01335140908458450601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3047794108747128013.post-48467298293410722072021-05-22T15:45:00.001-07:002021-05-22T15:45:21.551-07:00Orbiters, Ghosters....Best Not FB with Dates !I have a little string of 'dates' who I have unfortunetly friended on FB.
Seemed like a good idea at the time, but now it feels like they are bad luick pendants on my uncharming necklace of a year of falling flat.
Why do they just orbit you, and worse ghost you despite often sending the original FB request ??
Well if you sent them a request then it is clear, they want to be polite, they dont want to hurt your feelings and maybe even want to avoid end up being potentially on some male chat group as a bitch or it getting back to them through old analogue gossip.
But on the other side there is a bit of a women power thing. They have you, one they casted off, or one to show their mates or what ever. Either power over you or prestige with their mates, or making another suitor jealous.
On that last point I sometimes wonder if dating in itself is to make a.n.other a bit on their toes or even jealous.
So we come then to ghosting, where they ignore any comments you make on their posts, and dont like your stuff ....apart from maybe once in a looong while. Then they are ghosting as a power thing.
A recent date went well, as did no 2 but she had me on FB and probably did some objective thinking which in dating is a no-no. Why did I do that? to be open with her, to lay myself before her. Well then you are no longer controlling the message. You are too available, no mystery or romance. Everything is explained or interpreted without you guiding or influencing any of it.
Anyway, she lived quite far away. And in fact there wasnt much more than the chance of a nice time or two and some shagging.
My other recent, very appropos proved to be a lot prettier in real life than photos, sort of unphotogenic. I sent her an FB request after a loong date involving her spare room and a walk next day. She did not accept. Not good.
So FB is to be roundly avoided until maybe the deal is sealed, and you are an item. Then things are rosey in the garden
What about FB as an intelligence tool? Do they really look like they do in their Tinderland images ? Well the only thing there I have learned is that women who fake their images with older ones or smoothing do the exact same thing in the name of vanity in vain on FB.
Also on FB, ok, so who is it? Can I ask a mutual pal what they are like?? The last time I asked about a girl I did the detective work on, I was told she was bipolar before even her husband took his own life, so that was maybe more than I needed to know, and hey, maybe the girl needed a bloody hug , not to be handled with asbestos gloves,.
Perfect failed date was exactly that, she was old, intraverted and did not keep as fit as she said. her images were of when she was nice and brown and maybe five years younger. We lived not that far from each other. i found her on FB but that was it, same vintage of images with a nice sun tan and no crow lines at the edges of her eyes.ie old. We did comm's only on tinder and afterwards there was little chat , i asked if she was shy and she deleted me as a match, thank you so very much.
You can also block phone numbers, so hell, fdrop the whole social media thing and just meet for a date and walk away from it intact and dont gather wee space junk satelites in orbit around you.
Damp Freddiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01335140908458450601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3047794108747128013.post-40439808443825749232021-02-28T11:37:00.001-08:002021-02-28T11:37:56.281-08:00Getting Out of the Friends-Zone in Corona TimesWell I have had some more opportunity to experience the friend zoning phenomenon
I dated a really pretty Lithuanian. I am sceptical to east Euro's but she was very genuine in chat, if not good in languages foreign to her.
First date started witha hug then, because we had already had some telephone conversations. Which is actually the first step of getting out of FZ in Covid times. A girl may be happy to chat on messenger or Snap , it is safe and disposable and you can play or lie or do what ever you like, and cut off answers or consider them first, or have three blokes on the go at the same time. Talk is not so cheap these days. It is a move towards being accepted and becoming intimate. This , works
I kissed her good bye after securing a 'do you want to see me again? ' positive answer of course.
But then she text3ed me and FZed me....puzzled.....
So I looked at my mental notes, having time to formulate at answer it being CHat again and not talk, and said that , great, we can maybe talk again in a few weeks time or a month, then I will have met someone new in the dating direction. Because tonight y9u are the only girl in the world for me. You are beautiful blah blah, you get my drift
It worked immediately, I left her alone, and then she came back 9 hours later ' I'm thinking of you'
Anyway, I got a snog on new years eve with some Bollinger she had to drink, so it was a lovely end to the year, but next date was difficult to squeeze out her. BECAUSE OTHER MAN!<br><br> See last blog, you see FZ is a way of putting you on the shelf while they consider someone who often was in the que before you, or at the same time and is maybe a little shall we say, appropriate feeling for her.
So I prove both my practice and my theory!
Also because I had played my cards, it was off my chest. There was not prolonging the agony as I did with a dippy lawyer two years ago, who nervously FZed me all the time in terms of reminding me " we are JUST friends" ....she wanted me to be more of a man and defy her I believe, but also she was carrying on with a married man at the time, so god knows where I fitted in.
So guys, if you really are hot for a girl, refuse to be FZed, use this type of technique. Deny access to your support and friendship without more intimacy and potential. Lay your cards on the table and be prepared to take the gamble to walk away, because permitting an FZ to occur is basically for wimps, and the girl looking for her perfect, maliable friend who is attractive but at arms length, on demand like a chihouha on a leash, in fact a gay man who doesnt really want to have her, but whom she can have.
The FZ is a sad, loser place to be, I allowed it to happen to me maybe twice with really good potential GFs and it spoiled everythign for both of us. It is not an option, unless they have very hot, single friends themselves. Then the game is up for grabsDamp Freddiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01335140908458450601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3047794108747128013.post-60015085991569606712020-12-26T15:41:00.001-08:002020-12-26T15:41:32.765-08:00Why Do Girls 'Friend Zone'You ?Through out a man's romantic life, from preschool to the elderly care home, he will make advances on a woman and often get a 'let's just be friends'.
Women get this too, but hey, here we come into just why men don't understand the FZ thing and get so perplexed by it. Because if a woman get's friend zoned then it is for three simple reasons
1) He is in a stable relationship
2) He absolutely does not find you attractive <i>(or his type, or you are too attractive for him to be comfortable with</i> )
3) He is gay, or worse perhaps, asexual.
Men then try and interpret a woman*s 'FZ' reaction to their amorous advances, in what they as men understand- how they would react themselves.
There can be truth in that above, one to three. But women have a whole list which comes under 'let me think about it' if you could attempt to summarise.
We have to understand that men are by in large more sexually motivated than women. This is of course a cultural stereotype, or conformity, but it in many many psychological studies from McKinsey's days, the biological mold fits. Women invest a womb, 9 months gestation, a year or two breast feeding, and years of most often being primary care worker. Men want to penetrate and enjoy possessing a valuable woman. Kids are part of cultural conditioning and keeping that valuable woman happy and possessed.
So we have sorted the biology out a little. More on that later, but what about the psychology?
Well women find it harder to make up their minds about men, than men do about women. However famous men, or those with stereotypically masculine jobs, are knicker droppers. Clint Eastwood, George Clooney, and any fireman who works out a bit. When we come to the fact that ALL male fire fighters are happily married to NURSES ( LOL ) and George and Brad are otherwise occupied, then we come down to earth with the regular joes.
So the first dilema for a woman is ' Do I need a boyfriend anyway?' .....back to biology. Studies show that women are more receptive to mens advances on and around their ovulation and least when their period is very near. They are no per se / necessarily consciously sexually arousable, but they are more likely to enter positive social contact with the oppostie sex.
So we can start to imagine possible cures to this ill of being put in the FZ by a girl you are hot for , and maybe feel there has been signals over the coffee machine or while walking dogs in the park.
The second dilema is ' how does he compare to the others?' . Attractive women ALWAYS have men after them. They have older men, younger men, married men and divorced men making little advances. Often on a daily basis at work. Some make bigger advances and they too, get FZed ....or they enter an innappropriate affair for some attention and sex. So guys, I have been here....two years ago, a lot of heart wrenching shit I had to go through to conclude the girl of my dreams was carrying on with a married man, and I was a kind of distraction from the stress of having but not owning him.
Women can weigh you up then.
So let us see then, aha, yes these two issues of choice making are unfortunetly interrelated. That is to say, this same girl in an innappropriate affair, may have reacted differently to me if I had met her when she was ovulating. In fact it went a lot longer than that but she held me off.
So how do we sort this all out?
Well there are always methods of coping with this.
Firstly, unlike me, never let a friend zone develop when you really have the hots for a girl. You are building a nasty little prison for yourself where you will always be looking out the window at the love life outside but not getting let out early for good behaviour.
One approach is to to just back off , hands up, and say , sorry , I'm not your type. Hmm, well that is accepting a Knock Back like a good loser. BUT what if you have to work with this girl or see her every day walking your dog ??? This then becomes red faces on at least one side. But if it is someone you have met briefly or don't need to see often, then yes, just say, ok, sorry I'm not maybe your type. Linger then a little with some eye contact to see if this was just a kind of shy, reflex response which is another difference between average man and average woman.
In what ever scenario, you have to be prepared to do the same thing. Walk away. Attractive women will be used to advances, maybe not had one in a while, but they will also be used to having to live with it and just brush the whole thing off and carry on being colleagues or what ever. But putting you in the friends zone is like putting the caller on hold when you know you actually don't have the capacity or motivation to deal with the enquiry there and then.+*
So another approach is to bluff over to accept her offer. LJBF. Ok . " Sure, we can hang out and do some friends things, whats your number?' This is the wise guy's line of action. If it is a pure brush off then you wont get a number.
And what do you do with said number or Snap handle? Reply saying, here >I am, you seem like a fun person to be around. Chat another time.
Now you are walking away. You have made your play. If she is interested in you, you will by all means get a reply. BUT she will probably be FZing you once again because now you are a little doggy on a lead, one of maybe two, three, ten suitors.....She has you chasing after her but she has all the control in the FZ to get to know you and to consider you versus the others.
So she replies. Send a smiley. You don't reply until next day. Give a polite reply. Then if she wants to chat, say sorry, you are busy. Already you have her on the back foot a little. She wants to pull doggy on the lead out for a nice walk, see how you trott along beside her. Already you are setting a higher price on what you don't do with her than that which she wants to do with you. CHat and consider you.
After this you can then choose to suddenly engage in a funny, or meaningful chat with them. Or if you see them at work judge the body language. Are they seeking you ? Are they even playing hard to get? Or are they just not that interested in fact and take off those rose tinted spectacles.
Now this is obviously a stale mate in maybe a large majority of cases here. She isn't sure about you, probably either too shy, or too conditioned into expecting the man to make all the moves. In effect if you are hot for each other, but she is just holding up on a decision, you are in the Mexican stand off, each side not wanting to shoot because you may anhilate the yourself in the battle of wills. It is check, but far my friend from Check Mate
Most guys sit and dwell on this and think about esculating. This is what loads of books and blogs talk about. Basically this means luring the girl into a more date type scenario in the hope she enters the non friends zone, the moved on to kissing zone. THis is a bit wrong because by this time unless she has made any propositions in this direction, you are the little doggy on the lead and she has the power to decide in yet another amorous advance scenario.
At this stage with nothing to loose you could say, hey, why don't we try going out a little and see if there is a chemistry ? Then you are forcing a decision rather than trying to make circumstances fit when, for the hidden unebknown to man infront of her reasons, that approach may well fail because she doesn't have to decided YET again. Remember attractive women get greater or lesser veiled passes made at them on a regular basis, you have to be lucky that they are recpetive sometimes and you hit that button there and then.
Another thing you can use then, which I had success with recently after being FZ, is saying, OK, I understand you just want to be pals, and say in two three weeks time I will have cooled off, be dating from Tinder in that direction, and we can be pals'
NOW we are hitting the nail on the head. Response? OK I understand, you are a man of flesh and bone, we can chat in two weeks time. Later on, 9pm same night I get this reply " thinking of you...." . I tested the water, is she interested in getting to know me or is it just BS? Does she have something more there? IS she afraid of missing out on me ?
The key to the whole game forward os FOM. The old sellers tactic. This offer is only for this week. Fear of Missing out. Now on the one hand maybe a girl is afraid of making the WRONG choice or if they just have you in front of them, that you MAY be wrong for them., That is their emotional dilema. Now with FOM, you just presented them with a whole new, over riding dilema. That your valuable body, mind and skills will be lost to another woman.
So here you have two main tools then. Being prepared to walk away, and limiting your valuable time to make yourself seem more valuable and harder to get. THen creating a tension that you are soon not going to be available. I had better nab him now before someone else does
Here I went way wrong and was a little honest and dishonest. I didnt want a GF really, but she was soooooo goooood a match for me that I was prepared to be in the FZ. and I said that to her. So I became a zombie. In the land of the sexual dead, which she couldnt over come,. Neither could she choose me over the married man she is now with today, nor could she see that I was going to withdraw my availability. She even asked me round the houses if people should just have a ONS and be hjonest about it. She was flailing around unable to press herself into choosing me because there was zero pressure, I was there, little doggy jumping up on her lap. I tried pulling away, but she would come witha caring text message after four or five days. So I got more entrenched in my own dilemma and tried to rationalise yes, this will be ok, just pals is fine even though the fly on the wall could see we were (in retrospect of others ) in love with each other.
FOM also brings us into how to build FOM instead of luring someone into dating. It is opportunities to DENY and make JEALOUS.
1) You arrange a coffee meet out of work times. You cancel, in polite time. If she asks why, you say you have a date
2) You conspire to go to a party or the pub, when you know there will be other girls there. GO either early or late, and make a point of flirting like hell with other girls around the place. Even if you are in no way interested in them! As long as it is highly visible.
3) The big one. If you are regular friendly, and there has been more than one or two reminders of "we are just friends" then ask her straight out if she has any attractive single pals, or ask her if she knows if such and such is single. THis is risky as it is the ultimate rejection. It is saying to her face, I am finished with any interest in you, I am well and truyly in the market though, help me out and at least be a little useful to me.
Through all this you have to judge the body language and how she reacts to all this, but you are prepared to walk away from any more than a polite and nice working or dog walking relationship. For me, well I would just know I guess I can read that much, but what are the buying signs?
Well as above , a buying sign may first arrive when you first make it clear that you dont want to invest much time in her. You are not an idle text distraction. Friendship might be something the opposite sex can have with a mild attraction, but if you have the hots for her, it is as well as saying ok, go back on the rail, nice to look at, looks like I can't afford you right now. You need to establish a higher value and see if they set a higher price than the FZ on you.
Buying signs can be subtle though, but usually FOM gives a decided facial and physical response which shows she is ready to say yes. A little fear there and then. A little reaching out, laying them selves open to fire. And spoon feeding you it may seem to her too. Usually things will conspire to a meeting in some form or other, and very often there are co conspirators at play setting you up with her in a situation. Usually in western countries, involving alcohol as a kind of loosening oil for the cogs of attraction to finally be unleashed on both sides.
Another approach when the signals are very unclear leads on from this co-conspirator. I have discussed this with a few women recently and in fact, it will be more illuminating and less risky than you think, especially in slightly older girls when they have a good BFF. You've had fifty fifty, now you are going to ask a friend .. her bestie to be precise.
It really cannot be anyone else, I tried not long ago to ask about a former colleague by asking her whom sits beside her everyday, and she said yeah, she is single I think....only to find out the contrary. Also looser pals, colleagues, team mates, old school compartiots may have hidden agendas. True a BFF may want to protect her BF from you,. But it is EXTREMELY likely that you have been discussed until her BFF is sick and tired of it, and wants as much as anyone, closure in this matter. So ask her. Simple as, I have gotten to know Mary and you knwo she is great, but she is sending me odd signals these days...should I ask her out ? I mean a romantic direction? A BFF will want the best for her pal, and if she says dont know then she is lying to protect you. You are the little doggy on the lead, while Mary there is intent on someone else and you are an also ran. "Sure, why not (erm ??" is kust as bad, in other words you aint good enough to be talked about with BFF which just wouldnt happen if you were. A BFF may not like the idea of you per se, but if Mary is keen, then she will say.
It may not be a bad thing to obviously flirt with a BFF in front of Mary here , but really it is nt a tall ask to just phone her, avoid texting so that you can get an idea of the tone of the reply. Or even better ask her for a coffee to discuss mary. Rejection of this approach reflects the feeling there in wee Mary. That this is a bad idea, and in fact, maybe you were FZ'ed just to be polite.
So here is a final word of warning about being put firmly in the FZ, and then trying to escalate and just going deeper into being smitten and loved up and all is just unrequited. <it is a horrid place to be. Also who knows why they have put you there ? For all I know this one I mentioned two years ago, could have taken me in to make the married man she was in affair with jealous enough to actually leave his wife. I dont think it was that but I never found out, it was just a series of brush offs after attempts at escalation. I got really hurt, and it overshadowed my next healthy relationship because it was unfinished business with 'the one" while in fact my new GF was a wonderful woman who deserved my full attention.
FZ is just that , unfinished or unfinishable business if you dont work your way out of it into their affections, or walk the hell away.
Damp Freddiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01335140908458450601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3047794108747128013.post-85734352162407130712020-07-22T13:52:00.001-07:002020-07-22T13:52:10.236-07:00More Fire from the TinderIs Tinder plus and Gold worth it?<br />
<br />
Well yes ..,,,and No<br />
<br />
A lot of people are tempted to get the pay for upgrades after their first few days of little if any success, or quick dismissals from passing flirty matches.<br />
<br />
However here in lies the rub.<br />
<br />
Firstly Tinder has by now an infamous algorythm which presents highly ranked (liked) people first in your scanning, They let the users generate a piopularity and attractiveness rating system by just getting on with swiping right. See last blog, a cynical plot mayeb to get unattractive people to pay, and clear out attractive people into relationships so they don't clog up the band width with pretty free loaders.<br />
<br />
This ranking though takes ages to settle down, maybe three days or even more. You can probably fox it a bit by waiting to install your app while you are in a large town or a city, thus getting a higher arithmetic like ranking by pure critical mass and chain reaction.<br />
<br />
Second Rub<br />
<br />
Tinder will always show you the ones who liked YOU, first. They are amongst the first ten you see, often thrown in even if they live outside the radius you have fixed yourself.<br />
<br />
So you could just drop buying the app to see your likes.<br />
<br />
Well for me I paid this time to be able to see my likes and work my way through them rather than random swiping. It explains though a lot of ' oh god, not her AGAIN* because wherever you travel or relocate virtually to in Gold, they follow you like a bad smell until you unlike them, then they either delete and come on again (i nbelieve) next week, or Tinder deletes the Nope and lets them out in the paddock again.<br />
<br />
Now most of them are, ahem, not going to go anywhere with me, but they help a lot in boosting my own alogrythm pideion hole of likeability. I can then work methodically through them.This is what appeals to me, that the odd gold nugget lands on you and you don't miss them, they have found you on their criteria of age and distance not yours of course,<br />
<br />
This means in theory that you can do things like build up to a series of dates in a near by town, by selecting to convert two or three likes into mathces from that town or area.<br />
<br />
Or you can try out different strategies, like matching them all but not writing to any of them, seeing then who is really keen on you and makes the first move. Usually that is what marks out the ego like seekers from the ones looking for a man.<br />
<br />
Results ?<br />
<br />
Well so far I would say the results are slightly better quality than from not g when I last had the app installed. I feel I could control my mathcing, and avoid swiping on the open market so to speak all together. But I can't becaise I am like a shark in a shoal of tuna, I want to bite out here and there, see if I get a catche.<br />
<br />
What I am really hoping for is the following though<br />
<br />
A lonely babe, fed up with troiphy hunters, either too young or too pretty to get a swipe from me, lies there in YOur Likes inbox like a winning lottery ticket. Or that a lurker, one who peeps out once in a while to like not quite understanding how tinder works, will like me and then I will be one of the very few matches she gets. Or a new, hot babe, is on the tinder swipe-wave and I catch her before the other guys who don't pay to play.Damp Freddiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01335140908458450601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3047794108747128013.post-55858435860002505992020-06-29T11:51:00.000-07:002020-06-29T11:51:48.635-07:00The Hinterland of TinderlandWhat lies behind the scenes at Tinder?<br />
<br />
Well the fact is in principle Tinder is very, very simple . You see people to your criteria, and others see you if you are in their criteria. A simple bit of SQL programming and in a local small country server, not very intensive on bandwidth or CPU time. So you have space for quite a lot of photos.<br />
<br />
However the Gods of Tinder have put a weird little twist on this with an algorythm which serves up the most liked, ie popular, people first in any search (discover window) :<br />
<br />
Why this somewhat "lookist" approach? I am a bit baffled. Like the Rich getting Richer, the more attractive get shown more often.<br />
<br />
This maybe for Tinder to get shot of the attractive ones asap. Low server load after an initial peak, as they enter reality land and dating. They themselves feel Tinder has been worth while, not paid for it,<br />
<br />
Or is it a more insipid approach, to make the lonely, lonelier? To make them cough up for Tinder plus or Tinder Gold in order to get more likes from people, well , around their own level of attractiveness.<br />
<br />
Perhaps it is simpler. The populist algorythm makes Tinder as a whole seem like a more fabulous pretty people night club? And this is the simplest means of sorting , let the punters do it - more CGM, consumer generated prioritising of prettier people.<br />
<br />
<br />
Well here is a little old club trade secret. At night club launches and first weekends open, or when they are performing a little lack lustrery, they hire in models (usually hiring girls for hetero clubs) to make the place looks sexier. Sort of also ran models, and descreet escort agency girls and any common or garden pretty student they have managed to press gang. Does Tinder pay for Trolls or have AlgoBots with fake profiles ? I doubt it very much indeed. Margins per customer are like the distance between subaatomic particles, they are pico wafer thin. They rely on volume, and that it is a consumer generated media. They aren't going to pay people to troll you.<br />
<br />
So perhapsTinder is most likely trying to shine with the glossy people first, making the poorly liked feel poorer. Relying on the old thing that attractive people don't have to pay to play, but the uglier ones have to buy lots of drinks for themselves and their would be squeezes, so that they feel they have invested in something. Cynical ? Well hey, they seem to make hee haw money from Advertising I guess by the paltry number of ads for a free app in outset, so they are trying to make as much as they can for their share holders as any other company. Attractive people are like your advertising budget, you don't know how much is wasted, but you need an image which sells.<br />
<br />
Now how about another little oddity I noticed. It does seem that Tinder seems to serve up new people fisrt, but possibly people who have turned off their profile become new too. Personally I think that Tinder rations how many folk you see, because when I run dry of new people, I switch firstly my profile off, then wifi off, and within a minute I am back on in reverse order only to find one or two new and often hot profiles.<br />
<br />
I also like switching it off because then I believe that vice versa is true for my profile, and I get served up more often. Which can be a disadvantage come-to-think of it, because then you look like a desperado, always appearing in the in box !<br />
<br />
TInder does do one thing though which is annoying, it stretches the distance search above that of your criteria when you go dry, and serves up people who have hidden their distance in Gold. THis is an irritation, because there is no way I am having a relationship with anyone over an hour away.<br />
<br />
<b><u> IS TINDER GOLD WORTH THE MONEY ?</u></b><br />
<br />
<br />
Why do you want to hide your age? Why do you want to Hide your Location?<br />
<br />
These are both no-no's for me, although I have tried it and then when I get matches, put either one I am sort of testing, up, or both to then show my cards to my matches.<br />
<br />
Also there then is the changing location. You can search anywhere you like. I tried Buenos Aeres having heard of the hot (my type) Brunettes there, and was not disappointed. THey also really look after them selves and look ten years younger ! But that was just tom foolery.<br />
<br />
However if you are thinking of moving to a place or just like a place a little outside your daily life radius, then that is a good feature. TO be frank I don't think I ever wangled a date out of it, and I have been on maybe 6 physical dates, the firth producing a year long very nice relationship ( other wise there would have been more dates, sthupid) . So I don't know.<br />
<br />
Then of course there is getting to see who likes you. Now at first this seemed exciting, then I was shocked at how far away , even arboad, many lived and also how many divorced immigrant ladies with terrible grammar there were. I am not hooking up with a cleaner from Venezuala thank you very much. There were the desperadas and the pictures of landscape 'shy trolls' .<br />
<br />
It does look very like another little trick of Tinder is that your latest "like-you" profiles appear number two and three in the next round of profiles once you have been off a while.<br />
<br />
So I paid for somethign I kind of get anyway, but Amongst them all, there were some gold nuggets. So gaily, sorry, straightly, I venture into engaging them all in Chat. BIG Mistake<br />
<br />
CURE FOR CHAT OVERLOAD<br />
<br />
More than Two Chats becomes total overload. In fact you are better with one at a time. It jut gets too much of hearing what they do, where they live, how many kids etc. I go right in with "what is a nice girl like you...:" or just "Why are you on Tinder then ?"<br />
<br />
So, the strategy is to use Tinder Gold and pick out, one by one your likes. You can totally avoid swiping apart from this. It is a waste of swiping away if you have paid to see your likes first. You may as well carry on and let folk like you, by switching off your profile for a few days at a time.<br />
<br />Also here is a little kind of trick. You can research which pictures get most likes, or just vary the type of appeal you capture, homely, sporty etc, and see who likes you, using this approach. See what is most popular. Tinder does regurgitate your non likes or previous matches, or used to at least, at some point down the line.<br />
<br />
Now there is another wee benefit of Tinder gold, see your likes. You can put all the like you's, whome you don't likr, who would otherwise turn up like bad pennies. But that doesn't happen so often now. Maybe Tinder is popular enough that no like means just that, bye bye.....until of course you delete profile.<br />
<br />
<br />
<u>Patience is a virtue.</u><br />
<u><br /></u>
How many can you realistically expect to date at the same sort of time, initially? If you live in a metropolis then maybe it is easy to line up some speed dates at a Starbucks down town, but if you live in less than huge place, then you are most likely going to end up with one-date-at-a-time or long waits around coffee shops for the next one, getting stood up too.<br />
<br />
Impatience on Tinder is risky though. This is where we get into Super Liking and Chance. Both are sessentially forced matches, because some Superlikes go straight to match apparently, and chance matches are just out of the blue, usually with someone with a fairly new and quite popular profile it seems. I had one very, very my type super like me on my new round of Tindering recently.<br />
<br />Also when you have apparently 'ghosting' matches, if they look like genuine profiles and they are ghosting you, then make a quality decision. In agreement with a friends attitude, I regularly dropped them after saying "hello, nice to match" and waiting a day. But people are busy and also they are working their way through the list of matches, which in ANY attractive females case will be long as they get bags of superlikes. Let them weed out the one-night-standers, perverts, married men/women, fake profiles and economic catastrophe divorce victims before they get to you, a golden nugget ! <br />
<br />
Also I ghost too. Often now, because I find that girls who really have the spark for me, make contact very soon. Whereas girls who don't and offer a look warm reply, just want to chat and be impressed by your chat contra the dozens of other men theyt have chatted too, but dare not meet up with (because they are shy, or inhibuted, dammaged or in a relationship)<br />
<br />
<b><u>SO IS GOLD WORTH IT?</u></b><br />
<br />
<br />
Well you can use Tinder Gold in different ways for different objectives, but if you plain and simply want to meet a local partner , or someone you really like the look of further afield, then it is a bit of a waste of money most likely. If you like the 'relocation' feature, fine, and it can be used in combination with hidiing your distance such that you pop up early in their profile show reel and they maybe choose you instead of thinking you are too far away.<br />
<br />
As for Hiding Age, well that is a big rich, if you hide age and distance and have an iffy Tinderhandle then you promote a kind of bad image of yourself without realising it perhaps. Evasive and not quite honest. You can simply lie about your age if you want to appear younger , or older.<br />
<br />
Seeing your likes? Well that is an interesting feature for doing research because you can go in and see them, maybe even google them if they have a rare name for the location, and take your time to match them. You can be patient and work your way through them one by one too, only matching when you want to, and making an effort to think about a nice first and second date on neutral ground.<br />
<br />
My main recommendation is not how you get as far as matches, but what you damn well do with them. Chatters avoid the issue of dating, they want to chat, and move over to snap to chat, and FB you, soon as you know it it has all been for nothing. People in the market for a date need to be asked out after an initial preamble and some humour. That is the besty point to do it actually, crack a wee joke , maybe poke fun at yourself, then say, sooo, would you like to meet up for a coffee?<br />
<br />
If they chat-zone you at this point, to get-to-know-you-better, then be wary, and if they avoid the issue, then they are just there to waste your time, perhaps revenging an unfaifthul spouse by being naughty - flirty but safe .Whatever, after a move like this, chat a lot less. Ask a few questions about what you want to know, and maybe avoid answering their questions. Then talk about what you like doing more, what might be a perfect first date, or perfect romantic second date. .....then pop it again.<br />
<br />
After that it is best to either just say, sorry you are not interested in meeting me and getting to know me as the real person, goodbye. Or say you have met someone, dating them , and like one at a time. Chat next week ? Or say you are not very good at chat really, and ghost them. I wouldn't bother taking them to Snap chat because you can share more pictures with them, privately, by hiding your profile and putting them up on Tinder. They appear in Stream and they can and will see them believe me. Go to snap or Messenger AFTER you secure a date, or the principle of a date.<br />
<br />
<br />
My ex came out the closet to me as a "chatter". She is too embarressed and inhibited to go on dates, She likes the attention and someone new to talk to, but has no intention of going further, even with VERY attractive men who have great luxury lives and expensive stuff, and are nice and kind it seems. What a waste of space.<br />
<br />
How long should chat go? Well someone who is a bit wordly wise and been on some Tinder dates will be ok with a little half hour chat max, then arranging to meet. If they seem to have a real profile then you can exchange telephone numbers, or move over to messenger or Snap. Telephone numbers these days are really good, because you can instantly find out their full name and then FB search them and Linked in Etc to profile them for old picturing (GOD GIRLS STOP THAT ! BE HONEST) or massive attention seeking on Face' and Insta'<br />
<br />
There are some very shy, or dammaged people out there who despite being genuine and not **chatters** want to spend time on line getting to know you. Some will hold you to Tinder because it is safest, most anonymous. That really is difficult, because they appear just like a chatter. But the way round this is to ask if they are painfully shy, saying sorry do you mind me asking? I did this recently with a really pretty German girl, and she said, absolutely not LOL...so I kind of knew she was just pissing about, not interested in a date.<br />
<br />
At the end of the day, good old biochemistry has it ALL to say really. You can build up a false prospect on line, and find out they are odd, or have really old pictures out on Tinder or so on. BUt meeting someone and the first glances, body scan, smile and then laugh and hey, that is what it is about.<br />
<br />
Tinder and all the dating apps can't subsittute that, they just facilitate more meetings in person, and you should drop Chatters asap.<br />
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<br />
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<br />Damp Freddiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01335140908458450601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3047794108747128013.post-75378832826304241402020-04-08T13:20:00.000-07:002020-04-08T13:20:03.192-07:00Four Weddings and a FunnelThree weddings<br />
<br />
What do three otherwise unrelated weddings, none of which I have attended, have in common, and what do they then have in kind of contrasting relatedness?<br />
<br />
Is it the romantic haitus which caused things not to work out? Were they weddings where I would have been the bridesmaid but never the Bride?<br />
<br />
<br />
No a lot more mundane than that.<br />
<br />
The thing is that it was all about being much further back down the line of romance, in fact just dabbling whille those going up to the alter were diving in.<br />
<br />
I went through a period in my early thirties where girls wanted me to go to weddings with them,. In quick succession . But also I had taken a girl to a wedding before that.<br />
<br />
I went to a wedding with probably the most beautiful but tragically tainted girl I ever met. She was a western isles beauty. Curly locks of hair falling, a kind of callow complexion, quite tall, very thing and elegant, perfectly proportioned if you like the size 8 long look, Champagne glass breasts. She looked a little french when she was 16 and I was a kind of messed up 21 year old. But years later a good pal got married and we had met up, and I asked her if she wanted to come,. ...we had a habit of meeting up down the years, once in Arrochar as I drove by, I just turned round to talk to her and ended up on a road trip with her.<br />
<br />
She looked amaxing at the wedding, straightened hair dyed kind of brownish red hair. She wore pink tight trousers, above the ankle, and a navy blue jacket,. She looked like what she wanted to actually be, a successful actress. Which she wasnt because she was a bit unhinged, a bit of an alter ego me. Lost in her own thoughts often, relating rather badly to the world around her. A distant soul in a way.<br />
<br />
She wanted a free meal, and some drink, Oh yes, she drank. And the drugs later she told me. Addictive personality.<br />
<br />
Anyway the wedding, we eat and we were a little sociable, It was my best mate at Uni and I was already drifting a bit away from him. Later we cadged a joint and hid outside the hotel, unbeknowingly under the nuptual window. Some druinken things were over heard, amusing sexual innuendos. It was an odd thing. Me with a perfect looking girlfriend, them upstairs supposedly enjoying their prima nocta. None of it was quite right. everything was actually dysfuinctional. The grooms long standing infidelity. My inability to be a manly man, a beast who just took my beauty and seduced her with animal passion. This was about 97 I think<br />
<br />
I had even played with her pussy once.<br />
<br />
It was a bit like the forbidden fruit I was afraid to devour, but took a lick of the dripping sap.<br />
<br />
Eventually we even met up in the time of the other weddings. She confessed to her addictions and her rehab,. How she drank Vodka to reduce the smell on her breath. The coke. The pills. She then wanted me to hear her poetry. She was a beautiful looking being, but her poetry was a lot of convoluted pseudo intellectual pish. Some people carry it off, but they have a line of logic. To me it was babbling,. Maybe it was good and on another level I didnt get.<br />
<br />
She went home. Eventually we never saw again, those surreptious meetings stopped, the gods no longer wanted us to intertwine and try to fix each other. Her being lostness in her own mind, and my lack of self confidence and nerves in the face of conflict.<br />
<br />
The other weddings were the other way around.<br />
<br />
Then I was the hot catch.<br />
<br />
I was still in the days of going to a party and being able to get that little tell tale connection with s girl AND follow it up.<br />
<br />
Her nickname was Spike, and as usual, I wasnt quite expecting to meet someone. She reeked to me of needing a shag, and she did. I think we did it on the second date, which, for a nymphomaniac was decency and holding out uintil we knew each other.<br />
<br />
So the sex was great, and she was nice, but a little crazy. More than unhinged. She was a possible because she was nice and the sex was, well amazing, but she was a messy girl without a decent career ahead of her. Neither a housewife for the yuppie business builder I had thought about being, nor a partner in crime in leveraging us into the lbuy to lett market,. Soooo I kind of was going along with a nice in bed, slightly innapropriate post student years malaise type person. It came down to a stinking messy kitchen and some rotten tangerines in a sack lying on the sitting room easy chair for months on end. Bought at christmas, i picked up the bag in early February, to a cloud of blue mould in the air.<br />
<br />
Where then the wedding in this? Well of course these next three weddings weren't ours. And they werent those of anyone I knew, or really wanted to know for that matter.<br />
<br />
Spike wanted me to go to a wedding in somewhere like Guildford or Leicster. It involved the shuttle or a hire car or me driving or the like.<br />
<br />
Moving along quickly, skipping over but a mere six months or so I meet my next prospect at a party. I get this time a nod and a wink, and in fact I had been told I would fall for her by her best mate, whom ensured she would be at said flat party. We hit it off and either that night or another one, we ended up in bed. She pushed away, saying this was just sex. But I was open and wanted some new little adventure. I'd had a nice one nighter with a gorgeous friend who admitted to having a huge crush on me without having to say anything. Turned out to be a nyumpho.<br />
<br />
Anyway, this new type of mine she was gorgeous ...from the chin down. A wonderful figure, easily tanned, looked more french than scottish, a huge head of thick black, flowing hair. From behind, it was like making love to one of those perfect bodied babes you just dont really get. But she was an alco baby. She had all the hall marks of her mum's heavy drinking during a pregnancy she probably didnt know about. Round eyes, dropped ears with a poorly defined lobe, and a thin, squinty mouth.<br />
<br />
The truth was as simple as this. After my two big loves around 30 years old mark, who both rejected me, I was in the middle of a great shag fest. I was attractive and had a quantum of confidence, and a job which was a bit of a knicker dropper apparently.<br />
<br />
Anyway, no2 here of the latter day weddings fiascos, was just not quite there for me. She was dirty, but had her hang ups about her prettier and more successful sister. The one who didnt get alcohol dammaged. She was a bit odd about some things and up tight and neurotic about the relationship.<br />
<br />
It was like Esther, the only "long" term mid twenties malaise girl friend I bothered to go out with for any legnth of time. She was moany, a bit pathetic, always thinking I had been more in love with my previous ex. She could be bossy and overbearing too. Uncharming,. I enjoyed being ahem, fulfilled by her but it went on far, far too long for both of our goods. She lacked self confidence so we couldnt build upon each other. She was just a nice shag and she was nice to experience and I had been lonely after my ex left to Ireland.<br />
<br />
Esther had no marital haitus. She moved home to her mums, came off the pill, and I lost interest surprise surprise.<br />
<br />
So these two others then, Spike and the next one, yeah. It came down to the wedding invitation. The set up to be the man on the arm, That they too, could catch a decent man and keep him.<br />
<br />
Maybe a recent daliance which bit me in the tail was karma for all this come to think of it.<br />
<br />
Wedding 2 involved sitting in a car most of the weekend to go to be at a wedding I knew no one. My back was playing up and I put my foot down. NO: I wasnt going to be an exhbition Ken to Barbie.<br />
<br />
No 2 was quite open about it. I left her in tears in her blue mrk 3 golf afterwe had a meeting to discuss things, which I knew was using to end it if she didnt five up on this wedding noncsence. " What's the point in having a boyfriend if you can't take him to a wedding*<br />
<br />
I had to move to look after my old mum after that, but it wasnt long before I was back there, yet another. This time she was much older and wiser, and knew that it just wasnt quite there for me, nor was the chemistry so great. She called the game a bogey about the time when I was not really giving a shit.<br />
<br />
So three weddings down.<br />
<br />
One to go.<br />
<br />
COVID 19 has done it for this new wedding. A super romantic affair on an Italian lake for a wealthy family my new squeeze was once an au paire for, said offspring now to be legally wed. It has fallen through and I am wondering If I am falling through and she is losing interest?<br />
<br />
It would be ironic, but the boot is more or less on the same foot. Girls wanting a little fantastic romantic get away, man in arm to show off to her peer group that her life hasn't been a long succession of not quite good enoughs.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Well it has been for me, until these last three loves of my life, who are all maybe a bit too good for me. Esther,Spike, No. 2 and the Hebridean beauty were all not good enough for me.<br />
<br />
Odd that weddings are the kind of benchmarking exercise.<br />
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<br />Damp Freddiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01335140908458450601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3047794108747128013.post-32042275724816731252020-03-31T03:44:00.000-07:002020-04-08T12:09:28.739-07:00Nice Girl Syndrome Revisited .....Nice girl syndrome, and for that matter, nice guy syndrome whcih I have probably been on the other end of the stick of. What is that all about?<br />
<br />
Well of course it only happens when we are single and have a toe in the market at least.<br />
<br />
At 18 and at 45, divorced, you have a similar perspective dilemma. If you meet someone now, having been alone, then you maybe have to be with them for life or at least through some of your best years?<br />
<br />
Ooh, what if somethign better comes along, it will hard to dump a nice girl / guy? What about spreading your wild oats and having some fun?<br />
<br />
We are back then to disposable sex and consumable love.<br />
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I had a whole lot of this topic in the first I kind of fell in love with post divorce. On the one hand, I kind of put her on a pedestal and as she was the first kind of true interest, I was worried I might end up with her for those precisous single years before I am bald and old and used up. From her side, I had to read through the lines, but basically freind zoning every meet was a bit over the top and showed an insecurity. Indirectly she probed to see if I was interested in a one night stand, ina round the houses third person way. I actually didnt want to because she lives near me, i see her quite often and also a quicky might destroy a good friendship with potential to go somewhere.<br />
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Also between the lines, it became apparent that she had affairs with married men and liked the disposability. Also a summer rommance with an American visitor, cutting him off completely upon his departure, poor sod more than a little loved up with her. So she was avoiding nice boy syndroime. She didnt want a relationship.<br />
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Eventually it al became a mess, because the attractioin we had for each other was massive and I never did do the manly thing and make the move. I felt it wasnt right each time we met, and that her body language was too neutral ( later I find that this is just a national trait, and you need to push your luck a lot and take the initiative, despite it being a supposedly liberated land for women) . I fucked up over an anonymous valentines day card and it became a messy thing which she pushed me out of.<br />
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I remember then nice girl syndrom from when I was young. Fiona at Uni, and my mates Ex, Sharon. Both wonderful. Both, well, too good for me I felt, or was it more that I would have to honour and obey them for ever and I didnt want to risk a relationship before I was old enough to want to settle down-??<br />
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I remember one very pretty, typical my type, petite brunette. We had an attraction and finally hooked up for a drink at a concert on Level 8 , Strathclyde Uni. She was a bit neurotic. She then went off there and then with the drummer from the band and even told me.....It was a bit weird, it wasnt happening for me. She got both a better quality mate and a qucik disposable night of sex.<br />
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Women want it too, maybe it is more cultural than in built moral. I had one of those matey aquaintances in the 80s, you know, you met them on the indy circuit. His name was Geoff, and him and Dean were inseperable Indie music hang outers. Dean was small and squat. Geoff looked like a young Clint Eastwoord. But he was shy and into music. Women threw themselves at him. He was invited to parties, women kisse him out the blue....it seems then that the naughty swan thign is there. Swans pair for life., Only goslings quite often have a different paternal DNA!<br />
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What I have learnt in the modern times, is that ' I'm not very good at realtionships' or any discussion about loose moral , short term relations, is a come on for a one night stand or a friends with benefits relatuionship. Perhaps this is a middle age thing, where the womean is more honest and wants to lay down some rules that this will not be an all consuming love nor will there actually be any committment.<br />
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i dont want to eat the peach I want it for later, and if I take a quick bite, the whole thing will be rotten.Damp Freddiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01335140908458450601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3047794108747128013.post-45886158531731849202020-03-31T03:25:00.001-07:002020-03-31T03:25:42.172-07:00Love, Consumable, To Be Avoided?On the one hand we seem to have easier access to meeting single, lonely, seeking people like our presumed selves , while on the other we maybe are far more selective in whom we commit to?<br />
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Do we fall in Love more easily or do we accept a half ersatz love mediated via the internet, but which ignores some of the other aspects of relationships such as solidity, co dependence, security ?<br />
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Has Love become a consumable ? Dispose after use or when a newer product becomes available?<br />
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Well everything is self centric tinged. But I do share a common set of experiences with people at the other end of the dating and love game: post divorce from a long term relationship is very much like being in tha 17 - 21 bracket when it comes to dating, or maybe a little older when it comes to Love and committment. As a friend said to me, all the nerves and uncertainties are there, like you were 17 again.<br />
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On the flip side of this is Nice Girl Syndrome. Next blog.<br />
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We can then pick each other up, and pre screen for some compatibilities....mutual level of attraciveness if not attraction itself, which is a person to person thing really. We can check we have enough in common to at least enjoy dating - avoding those girls who want to be wined and dined for example, no such thing as a free lunch girls. Avoiding the oldest swinger in town. Safe but not so safe you will settle down.<br />
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Then there is the opportunity for two timing in reality post match, or just by matching which is unfaithfulness in itself. It is going to the Friday night disco when you have a dinner date with your safe shag on Saturday. "Going out wi yer guuurl friend, that's for poofs like' as one Geordie reveller put it.<br />
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It is cetainly easier then to allow those little irritations about your new chosen squeeze to make you turn to see what other fish are in the pond. Also if there are incompatibilies of distance, or actual common interests in quality time together outside coffee and dinner dates and the eventual bedroom<br />
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On that topic there is then the thorny issue of compatibility in the sack. Over 40 that comes to physical size match, yes that is important and then preferences. Many married couples have spiced up their sex lives with games, toys, going up the the wrong un' and even threesomes. Where as many couples have split up because one partner is too sexually conservative or has in fact issues in fulfilling the other. So that becomes a clash point in a new relationship. The man wants porno sex, the woman wants to have a more affectionate type of thing than with her ex. That is a typical issue for divorcees I read. <br />
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If then you reach the compatibilities threshold, the point at which you really do wonder if you are compatible, then you have an easier way out than before the internet. Before the internet you had all the trouble of actually bumping into someone who was single and you fancied. Yeah, you could get a quicky out with the lads or lassies, subject og next blog. But building up a rapport and getting to know each other, and getting them on the hook of love....all conspired to make you stick with your current unless somethign much better fell on your lap, usually at work or in your existing social network, which was problematic,.,then again you had the benefit of face to face attraction, lust and falling in love the old fashioned way.<br />
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The old fashioned way then? Was it not just this very issue of restrictions, that we WOULD have fallen in L.O.V.E. more often if only we had met more of our types. Is life time monogamy still a social construct, shaped by culture and role modesl, or is there some biological and psychological underpinning which modern culture over rides with temptations?<br />
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I am a firm believer in and practice serial monogamy, and the odd one night stand between squeezes. But that does not answer the question. Have I just not met someone super compatible or is that an impossibility and modern stresses of economics and lifestyles mean that it is very , very difficult ?<br />
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Well the answer to that lies in statistics and in fact, most children live in households here at least, with two parents cohabiting or married. The level of single parents has stabilised after its growth period from the 70s to the 90s. It is less than a third. New partner cohabitation and step parents were not accounted for, but you get the drift. A higher proportion of divorces are perhaps quicky , pre children , get out of jail free divorces.<br />
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But why then this possibility for flicking love from one partner to another , facilitated more quickly by the internet, but always having been latent?<br />
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Well it is the two great drivers ...men want sexual variety , yes secuirty too, but sexual variety is a major driver. Women want the best mate possible. So when randy boy meets girl who wants to do better......hey presto. Partners aside, they give each others the singals of a successful mating.<br />
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The result of this, is, as with my pal Heidi, that girl often meets married, opportunistic man. Upon enjoying it, they either back off quickly home to wifey and two point four, or they play along new partner with promises of leaving and declation of love and how much better it is than her back home. They dont tend to leave because of the need for security and the shame in front of the kids and grand parents!<br />
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Tinder and its ilk, just facilitate this a little quicker and over a wider geographic area. It could be said that tinder also facilitates more successful, longer term matches and hooks up those, Like Heidi, who otherwise meet innappropriate types socially. She refuses to have anything to do with datring apps. Post divorce then Tinder is probably making more successful relationships beacuse it generates more over all. It permits otherwise painfully shy people to get to know others too at all ages.<br />
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<br />Damp Freddiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01335140908458450601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3047794108747128013.post-75839289422622561712020-02-02T11:58:00.000-08:002020-02-02T11:58:56.700-08:00The Dark Depths of Freddicus RexYes Freddie, the darkest secrets , the deepest chasms of woe and cynicism.<br />
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Damp Freddie, my alter ego, a made up persona with whom I can play Devil's Advocate, or express the most cynical opinions , or the most visionary ideologies without fear of personal ridicule. Furthermore being able to blame innaccuracies, falsehoods, respun spin, outright mistakes, hasty conculsions and broad, sweeping statements on a nut called Damp Freddie.<br />
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Is he not then more my Ego on the Alter? A scarifice of philosophical and political ambitions and ideals on the cold alter of an increasingly powerful capitalism which will inevitably consume the world's resources and enslave much of its workforce.<br />
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There I go again, or rather King Frederick the Last rants again.<br />
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Why do we blogg using an avatar, a facsimilie? Many of us do it, so we can be contentious and radical and as I state, avoid ridicule, and personal attack on line .....or even off line, in the real world where violence and vandalism begin to plague Little England as it seeks to oust Europeanness from Blighty.<br />
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There, you see , I can't help it. Having a dig at the oposition, making it clear I am a radical internationalist. Workers of the World unite, you have only your anonymous blogs to loose.<br />
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Since the Luddites and then the anti Fordians, who said the production line would destroy labour, then the emergence of the concept at least of the Robot in the 50s and 60s, neigh sayers have always been saying that we will either be befreed from menial tasks, quiote Jimmy Reid acceptance speech as he became rector of Univ of Glasgow, or it will render people who do not own capital assets, into homeless, penniless vagrants living by scavanging.<br />
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The truth is quickly becoming nearer the second than the first in the new world, and those machines need materials which are increasingly (or more transparently) being produced by slave labour in countries like Angola, or India, or in fact China, the great red hope for business growth in the west, which is a poisoned chalice of never ending negative balance of trade for the old west.<br />
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In the other vision Will we all be bloggers, informing each other and sharing knowledge? All philosophers trying to find a solution to the human condition whcih can be rolled out across the world as robots and algortyms do all the stuff of manufacturing and services ?<br />
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The Neo Liberal call for more freedom for business and capital is driving us towards a partially anarchic oligicarchy, it is taking us back to the past, not the future. A time when national governments were the extension of corporate power, or in the hands of dictators who accumulated wealth and power with the support of the elite rich. Laisez faire has its history, with the crash of 1927 being echoed in 2008. Too much freedom, leading to enslavement and empoverishment of many people who were on the breadline already back then, and many who came to join it. The bail outs came, but rather than a New Deal for the people in terms of employment, it was an Old Deal, that capital assets retained their value and were fed by peopleæs basic needs for shelter, food and water.<br />
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What hope any alternative, when Capital will cheat and lie and go for the basal use of nationalism and racism in order to cling to democratic power and justify their onbsession with trickle up, that capitalism is the accumulation of wealth by the entitled few by the exploitation of the many, and the collaboration of the better salaried, educated classes. Alternatives there are though, We already see virtual communism in some supply chains, where some medicines and metallic raw materials are subject to a virtual Chinese monopoly . The internet and cloud computing enables in fact supply chains which are bereft of human input, and here lies a hope for all those old communist and Star Trek futurists amongst you,<br />
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The furture will be different. The greedy baby boomers and their super wealthy masters are going to dies soon, but even before that there may be a senility set into their entires system because of the way it neglects the distribution of wealth through work for those who are young, or not on the gravy train already by virtue of age, family or exceedingly good education and luck.<br />
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Supply and demand will be catered for differently in future because of the way capital works. It is based on linear economics and simple principles of adding value from raw materials, increasingly in slavery conditions. things will be run differently in the future once the computers take over and solve supply chain issues so we all get a unisex, beige blandness like so many sci fi utopias of the 60s and 70s.<br />
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Will human nature, change at all? Are we based on competition or cooperation?<br />
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Freddie Retires from his sabre rattling for a good night's sleep.Damp Freddiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01335140908458450601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3047794108747128013.post-1957483708200407632019-11-08T15:26:00.000-08:002019-11-08T15:26:26.596-08:00The Trouble With Social Democracy.....Yes yes, the trouble with social democracy. In fact there is no trouble with social democracy. The aims are to develop a society where merit triumphs over entrenched priviledge, where work is rewarded with fair pay and the objectives of society are defined by non monetary values. All that is laudible, The problem is two fold, firstly what post war, keynsian social democracy created, and secondly what we wil discuss here, The curse of social democracy. The problem is social democrats.<br />
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Or social democratic parties. By essence they are driven by comprimise, by not repeating mistakes of leninist socialism, and by keeping capital happy. As politicians they adore compromise and avoid risk., The whole climate change politic is flawed, not the science, because Social Democrats are scared they might risk something far bigger in future for their parties' if they dont do anything.<br />
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Social democrats seek to appease capitalism as part of their compromising faith. In part that is because of one of the failings of post war social democratic policy and the imbalance in power trade unions managed to exert in western economies. Inflation, or rather currency devaluation due to too high a supply of monies paid in wages. The 'new deal' on the whole as a movement across the last world war and over into the sixties, in the western economies and Japan, spurned inflation due to consumption outstripping supply and wages creating personal surpluses which meant family spending, the big one in the economy, was not subject to penny pinching. We spent the pounds and dollars and let the pennies look after themselves.<br />
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Big capital it is proposed, had already decided that wage pressure, collectivist union power and therefore manufacturing were erroding their ability to extract profit and capital value from the national economies. Also they had decided to globalise themselves, by family and corporate dynasties. The greater national good and paternal capitalism were dead. They lived in tax havens and spent their monies in the jet set resorts and big cities. Nationalism was something to be avoided because of course, Hitler had dispossessed the wealthy Jewish elite via the ballot box first, then by a corporate take over of an entire nation and continent. Internationalism, trading blocks and globalisation became a mantra, which has only recently been turned upon by a minority in the rich elite who now back nasty-nationalism, given form in Trump and Brexit. The two countries who followed Neo Liberaism the most aka post social democractic policy, ended up with politicians utilising the rhetoric of Hitler and other nationalist fascists to avoid the blame being laid upon the door of the wealthy.<br />
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Social democrats are then far too into comprimise. We can understand that capitalism is a force which is a little like reverse gravity, it means trickle up, accumulation of wealth via speculation. There is no investment without risk. Social democrats have aimed to appease capitalism instead of harnessing it in reining it in. Appeasement means allowing Capital to do what it wants to do essentially, and dressing it up for the population in some terms that seem progressive and sensible. Capitalism will happen the same as river beds will errode the earth and create valleys. It is a process which is not inevitable in human nature, but rather that there are large elements of human nature which facilitate its' processes,.<br />
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What people in many western economies have to understand is the nature of modern capitalism is rentier on a national basis. Globally it still invests in value multiplication and the free maker of manufacturing, but only in the People's republic of China, a socialist one party state. Rentier capitalism lives very nicely indeed on our own existences, and it does not need to care about value multiplicatioon in the west any more, if there is more money to be made at a lower risk from housing, food, health, transport and education. When you consider the 'modern technological based manufacturing base' excluding car manufacturing, then we see that in many western countries it is closely tied to government spending such as on health via national health insurance in many countries, and the quasi national insurance Medicare in the USA: Capital likes living off our backs, especially if it can control some simple parameters via government polocy and in other areas, use complex paramaters such that governments buy value added goods and services from them, and lay down any public provision as competition to that " competition" .<br />
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Of course compulsive competitive tendering has arrested inflation in some key areas of public provision. However many privatised utilities have been able to extract above consumer price index price rises by virtue of price parity, virtual /practical monopolies and obfuscation of pricing and costs over time to the consumer. In some cases the game is very much revealed such as with the railways un the UK, where both passenger faires have increased way above headline inflation for many years,<br />
while subsidies too have increased rather than decreased. Competitive tendering for virtual monopolistic contracts is in reality, legalised corruption with the best legal team winning any inconvenient challenges to the proposition.<br />
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Once we understand more of the nature of the beast of Capitalism, we can start to harness it and lead it into areas which benefit society, We can move to a more symbiotice relationship beofre, at some point it becomes inevitably that the resources of the finite planet be divided out to the benefit of more humans. The social democrats have unfortunetly taken the view that capitalism should have more freedom and given that freedom society can reap rewards via taxation and growth in income outstripping inflation. The reverse has been true. Inflation now is hidden in areas which benefit capital. Property and consumer debt. The money supply is far greater here than any exchequor would be allowed and of course the entire credit system was over stretched to the point of it crashing in autumn 2008. Wage deflation has been the key tool in keeping currency deflation at bay.<br />
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The point here in taking this all into the melthing pot, is that rentier economies evenutally price everyone but the richest out of the market-of-living,. We start to go into debt just to survive with a roof over our heads. Forget people living on welfare long term, we are talking about working.poverty in full time employment, where monthly ends just do not meet without credit debt. The natural end point of government for capitalsim, by capitalism is slavery for a large minority of society,. As long as most of the people can be kept happy most of the time.....if not, then play the Hitler card, Nasty foriegners, The enemy within, The white worker the victim of the pressure of immigrants and racial or religious minorities. Brexit, Trump.<br />
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Social democrats dare not tackle the rentier issues. They are risk aversive. The bold, modernist risk taking of the new deal era, are replaced by moderation and out right mediocrity. Furthermore they created a privelegde "generation class", the baby boomers who enjoyed the benefits of cheap or free education, jobs a plenty, shorter career routes from lower qualifaction-bases, job security and promotion prospects. They are the bastard child that the Keynsianists didnt predict. An ungrateful, selfish brat who lived off double digit growth and high public spending, only to shun this when it was them paying the lion's share of the tax bill, and eat up neo liberalism in a time when wages were starting to slow down in growth for them.<br />
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Omce we realise the rentier nature of modern capital in the west as a whole, and this generation issue, metastatic - standing upon, suppressing - the needs of societies today, we can start to realise the need for a re-evaluation of the relationship between democratic governance and the forces and mechanisms of capitalism. We can start to say, no you do not have the right ot make me poor or deny me having as good a material wealth as you just because you own the means of supply to the necessities of living. In one scentence, we cannot go on with a generation and a class of "buy-to.rents" dominating society and government policy. We need a fairer society, We need a better referee.<br />
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In future, distribution of goods and services will be done differently. The world has a 'set point' in terms of agricultural proidcution and natural resources, where the demands of a population of ten billion plus outstrip supply, and beyond which a linear economy will self destruct into terminal inflation. For now appeasing capital and hoping for the best beyind re-election is the main issue with the Social Democratic Movement.<br />
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<br />Damp Freddiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01335140908458450601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3047794108747128013.post-88039911295004146612019-05-20T07:42:00.002-07:002019-05-28T03:37:57.731-07:00Woman Whispering - You have Much to Learn, Young MagwiI have come to the conclusion that I am , still am, and have been a natural woman whisperer.<br />
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At least when I'm not thinking about woman whispering!<br />
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That is to say, it is a little kind of random in outset, that I can just walk into a club and pull at the cash desk, or get dating with a lovely single lady who walked her dog past my house for two years.<br />
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When I look into, I can share some secrets from many years of scientific observation, an empirical study of what happens for you to progress experimentally<br />
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What are my key tips in getting a new girl then, dear Alpha Male?<br />
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1: Don't go out to look for a girl<br />
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This was a very key observation and colours the next two points below too.<br />
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Most of my pulls have been when I have otherwise been out socialising without intent..... or just hanging out doing something, like fixing my garage or walking the dog. Oh yes, single mums love the latter two believe me!<br />
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Going out with the one intention of pulling is stressful and actually counter productive. Bar Flies and dance floor domingos may look like they are getting the girls, but they are getting attention which is passing, and will end up with some desperate girl...who would rather have you actually.<br />
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Further to this going in blind and without intent......<b><i>.If you thought that men have a lead role as the hunter, and the women were the prey, then you my friend are deluded.</i></b> Women are the hunters. They will sneek around scanning the bar for 'talent' and read those signals of social prowess and self confidence subconsiolsy, deciding whether or not to persue. There after though, it is true to say, the hunter becomes the prey., You have to go in for the kill, it is the man thing now that she has cornered you LOL !!<br />
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Women can reek that a man has a single intention for the evening, and a great many attractive, self respecting girls ( your target group, maybe a unicorn in there) will run a mile, especially when there is a whole troop of would be sex monkeys leering and josseling after them.<br />
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<b>I have very often pulled when I least expected to pull, and that is because the girls could read I was relaxed and self confident in my own wee world with my mates.</b><br />
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GIRLS CHOOSE YOU, and in a club, party or bar they often choose you loooong before you choose them, them believe me. While your eye contact is with your pals, and you are exchaning signs of belonging and social adeptness, she is looking over at you, only to dart her glance and neutralise her body language as you look towards her.<br />
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Or out in the neighbourhood, Girls are in fact awful stalkers!! They will change routines to see you, learn what you are up to, who you as a whole are. To a girl, your sociability, lifestyle and standing in society is equally important as your looks, and if you are not a looker or a bit soft round the edges, then much more so than looks. They become quite intrugued in the course of a party, or when living just near enough to you so as to not be obvious.<br />
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So go out to celebrate. Go out to have fun. Say hello by all means to girls you see walking past as you fix your car, or walk your dog, or go jogging at 6am....<br />
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Dont go to parties to pull, go rather to hang out. More on how to do that below. But this all sends those signals out that you are a social, well integrated animal and not some reclusive sex fiend.<br />
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Further to this, dont dress up in anything you dont feel 100% comfortable in! Some guys do feel great in expensive, finely tailored and presented suits. Me? Well maybe at a wedding, but hell no, I pulled the best looking girl in my life and some others too, when I hadnt showered and was in jeans and mucky t shirt. In fact my most recent little nip, with a really pretty lass, I went out in very drab clothes in fact.<br />
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Go with only a notion in the back of your mind that you CAN pull generally speaking, if you get some luck.<br />
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...a little crudeness , a tip. Get used to not ahem, shaking hands with the devil for 36 hours before you have social activities at the weekend. This will help you communicate without knowing anything about it, because your pheromones will be do lally when they meet someone you find attractive and waft over to her. Pheromones have a lot to say, which is why the personal zone and the intimate zone are crucial for the mating process, such that our pheromones can mingle and give us that odd little bit of confidence to chat each other up,find comonalities, joke, then touch, kiss..........<br />
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2. DONT HAVE A WING MAN !<br />
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As a young man I used to want to have a wing man all the time. Maybe a married gur, or more confident buddy who would support me in my approaches, who would look for positive signs around the place , and who may even wing a couple into conversation.<br />
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BAD idea. The wing man is a little red flashing light of the above, that you are on the pull. That you are maybe a bit socially awkward and lack confidence. Or that you are a predatory double act if you are both quite outgoing and superficially confident<br />
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Wing men have an uncanny habit of becoming lead fighter pilot. This is because they instantly diffuse their own situation and approach, by doing it on behalf of a pal, and for those girls with some self respect, they quite probably dont like a guy who wont dare himself. A few might, but you know why nerds are single? Because they never dare and they secrete I am a coward from their pores.<br />
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3. BE THE WORLDS BEST WING MAN<br />
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Yes, of course, you have a poor unssuspecting single pal, who is either as above, shy and awkward, or is licking the wounds of splitting up. you go out on the auspices that you are going to wing him in a new girl.<br />
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Been there and often girls will ask, is he too shy? Then you can actually paint him as you like, be a little naughty if he is just a colleage and not an old pal. They will assume for a while that you are confident and hooked up, but if they ask if you are single, then you are in! Then you can say, yeah, but not in the market right now, and I wanna help my buiddy out. Then you are playing the game, a little hard to get!<br />
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4. Go out ALONE<br />
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Yes, yes, go out to a party alone, Go to your pub alone. Populate a local cafe which gets girls in, on your todd.<br />
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People are a very sociable type of mammal. They like to include they like to help. When confronted with a whole pack of wolves, they will form a circle and go all defensive. But when they see a lone wolf, there at the bar or with the first complimentary fizzy Prosecco in hand, they will take note of them.<br />
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The trick with going alone, is to be patient and relaxed. Make like you are just taking a chilled drink or maybe waiting for someone. That someone is a long lost cousin bro, male or female, doesnt matter if its in a social setting with plenty of people about and a few target girls.<br />
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Dont be glued to your phone and wait to be spoken to by bar staff, dont seek their attention other than using a small smile.<br />
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One tactic I use by kind of default if not pure accident, is to sit at a far bigger table or stall than you need, or in the middle of the bar. Thus as the bar / club / cafe or Caberet fills up, someone is bound to have to ask if the seats are taken.<br />
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Here you have to people whisper a bit. Let them come to you, Use a short smile and brief polite eye contact. Let them do the talking.<br />
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Soon as the evening developes you will have a whole new social life! Believe me. Most people are kind, nice, interesting and fair. Otherwise this capitalist western society would fall flat on its face with us being parasitic on each other. The worst that can happen is that they take over and as you to maybe move on, but hey, use that as a chance to raise your voice show you are insulted and that they are rude, then you might get further included in the wider group.<br />
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Lo and behold, in the course of the night, women will have been stalking you, sorry gathering intelligence on you, from the visual and social cues you are sending out. You are now engaged in conversation and confident. You look, like you belong socially, or can fit in quickly with people. The girl need not be in that group, but she will often be joingin them, and say, wow, who is this new, hot integrated male here?<br />
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If the people are not your type who as to sit there, then say, oh, two of these are taken, but the third isnt for example if you dare. Avoid being the last chair at the table, very sad, or being squeezed into the corner of the bar all alone and cut off by a wall of backs.<br />
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Other corners though, of a social kind, are good,. Putting yourself at the outskirts of a group makes you integratedl, but available, and physically easier to walk around to.<br />
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While in the group, make a point of talking to some women, more on the talking part soon. Just a little social contact, enough to be polite, doesnt matter if they're married or with their men., If they are out then make a point , rapidly, of being introduced to their BF !! Avoid a fist fight early rather than later!!<br />
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5. Find a WING WOMAN !<br />
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Now a wing woman or a mother hen, or a female buddy to go on the pull with is a great, if often rare thing.<br />
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Usually it is rare because no one thought of doing it overtly. It just happens that you end up with a female friend, and it just so happened that she got talking or you got talking to people around . BE OVERT!<br />
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If you are not a complete geek , nerd, anorak, then you proibably have a couple of female pals or colleagues or even relatives you can play this game with, and they most likely have never thought about going out "cold calling" with you. Rather they may have suggested match making, and that IMHO is a fucking awful way to go, which is so cringe worthy. That a third party thinks you will be suited is justan insult to many, and we come back to that lack of social adeptness and confidence again.<br />
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Go out to familiar places, or parties, where they will be new people or people at least only vaguely known. And just hang out! Look for those girls scanning you surriptisoulsy. Say hello with your eyes!<br />
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Whats in it for her? Well just as women are scanning the bar for potential signs a man is mateable, men will be looking at womens behaviour, and being more overtly competitive than girls, will possibly try to tease a boy friend or test his mettal if they see the girl isnt interested. They will tell you are not that intimate, and move in on her. Win win if she doesnt leave you with the lonely walk home!<br />
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7. Use body language and facial expression over chat up lines<br />
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Chat up lines actually only work because they are ironic, or because the rest of the body language makes them irrelevant.<br />
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The best material to learn about body language and facial expression is none other than Charlie Chaplin in his silent years. He clowns a lot, but he was a master at body language acting in the days before the 'talkies' . Buster Keaton is a kind of antidote , dead pan as he was , but with some very funny<br />
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Body language starts with stance, how you stand , where you stand, where you sit how you sit, how your limbs are arranged, how your posture is open and relaxed, chin up.<br />
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Here we come to positioning yourself socially. Either in a group as above, or still alone 'waiting' for someone. This is the invitation to the huntress, she will start to signal that she wants to come in for the kill.<br />
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As with scanning above, she will likely look at you sideways, glancing over when she sees that you are in eye contact with other people. Hold your ground, and make sure there is room for her to come and get you.<br />
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Then use your open body language and eye contact. It can be a surprised, I cauight you looking at me, and a flash of the eyes, roger moore style, demure then , smile and look away only to look back to see if you still have her interest. It can be a brief smile, as if involuntary, followed by offering someone next to you a drink in order to break out of a tight bunch of people. Does her gaze follow you to the bar? Does she follow you to the bar? When you get back, has she moved in to your kill zone, ie where you left?<br />
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If none of the above happen and she starts to use rejection signals, or hard to get signals, then leave her alone. She may be married or just out to tease you, while not really thinking you are up there as a contender for her. That is what teases do, they choose men they wouldnt want to be with anyway, to tickle and lead on. More on teases soon....<br />
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8. Read her signs as she comes into the intimate zone.<br />
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There are about ten signs, but instead of trying to make intelligent, stimulating sounds with your mouth, look her in the eye and smile a lot, and ask open questions.<br />
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At this point you may have established the Nirvanna of pulling a new girl: dilated pupils and bodily contact. Then she is already yours if you just go with the flow and play cool, polite, playful and sincere.<br />
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If not she may hold to the outer zone. This is three to four feet. At this point, "chase after me little boy" is a clear sign of either nerves and excitement, or that she is out to tease and nothing more. Be aware of this and smile a little laughing smile, and go back to talking to someone else. Dont go to the bar at this point, unless maybe it looks like she is lingering and looking at what you are doing, If here nose is in the air and she is off as far from you as physically posiible, or locking herself into a social circle a little further away, then drop her. If she follows you to the bar, introduce yourself and make her the centre of attention, not buying a drink. Offer a drink after you establish positive social contact.<br />
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One thing I'd avoid is shaking hands with women, It kind of earths the electricity of first contact, neutralising what should be a special moment, It renders an exciting meeting of souls to a business transaction. If offered a hand, dont reject it, but use move yourself closer into her zone and see how she reacts, while asking her name. But dont offer a hand. If she holds your hand a little too long, then like those dilated pupils , you are in there hook, line and sinker.<br />
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There are lots of youtube and other blogs about positive body language and how it tends to escalate with interest and as the Prosecco sinks down. So look there, but be aware that in these situations it is overwhelmingly true that body language and to some extent tone of voice, is 90% of communication that counts, and content of what you say is so very unimportant really. No need for chat up lines....<br />
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But as above on ahem, avoiding releiveing your sexual self for 36 hours before, going with your gut instinct means actually going with what your pheromonal receptors say. They are on your lips and in your nose. They illicit a stronger emotional response in women, and if you have avoided the devils handshake, a strong sexual drive in men.<br />
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Pheromones only work at a short range and in conjuction with eye contact. You may be in a bar and find that you feel a little aroused due to there being lots in the air in general, but they are produced only when contact is made between two people! They are nature's little tricksters, over coming the otherwise high thresholds to what we think we might want or not want.....<br />
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This is one reason internet dating, chat and face time often fails, because pheromonal interaction should be established early in a relationship, at its inception. It is all a very non cerebral process!<br />
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9. We Need to Talk<br />
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Women by in large like to talk more than men, and especially about themselves and their friends and circumstances. You just need to ask a few open questions to get the ball rolling after the first contact is made.<br />
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10. Shy versus Rejection<br />
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My greatest regret is not understanding SHY when I was a young man. I have missed out on my biggest chances for a beautiful, intelligent doctor and probably lots of others, and yet today, it still tripped me up recently.<br />
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Shy means afraid of rejection, you are too nervous to make first social contact. However shy does not mean anti social! Shy just means they have a high threshold for social interaction with new people.<br />
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Now the trounble is tthat SHY looks and smells pretty much like REJECTING behaviours.<br />
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The difference is that shy is a threshold to overcome, while rejection cannot be overcome. Shy is often someone desperate for positive social contact, only too afraid that it will be negative to actually initiate it. Help is at hand, because often shy reveals nervousness, while rejection reveals coolness. Rejection will show itself when your advances, subtle as they may be, are met with crossed arms, that rejecting look away mouth open sigh thing girls do, or plain get up and walk off. Shy on the other hand, will be delighted you have established a positive social contact, and will quite quickly move into your intimate zone if she fancies you and feels safe with you.<br />
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Shy is often a sign of high nevroticism - worrying about themselves and their place in the social animal world. It also follows then, that most stages of becoming intimate are going to have thresholds. This is something I fail to realise,.<br />
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So getting a one to one date, will have a threshold. Getting a kiss, will have a threshiold. Getting any form of committment to being in a GF BF relationship may take a while. Shy puts nervous self defences out when you do start to get intimiate, but all the time they want YOU to overomce THEIR threshold. Recently I got friend zoned because of this, and really I should have just driven over it and kissed her!<br />
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Being Neurotic is actually not a bad thing, despite being painted negatively. It means you are cautious, consider options, protect yourself and most of all, it means then that when a girl does go for a guy, it is quite likely to last! She may be a catch who doesnt want to let you go!<br />
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Rejection is tough to take, and the odd ego woman enjoying it makes it worse, but by in large a polite approach with positive body language will result in social contact and a conversation. Some girls will use their natural pathway to tease, while others will get close to you, decide your eyes are not the right colour, and back away. Rejection is something to get used to, to accept as an occupational hazard, but if you follow the above and let them show they are interested and come a little to you, then rejection for at least getting to know them a little will be far less. Let biology do the rest thereafter!!<br />
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I'm going to leave you on shy there, because well, if you are single, then it is quite likely you are a little shy. Shy usually mannifests itself in not knowing what to say to break the ice., not in the bigger picture of body language.Damp Freddiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01335140908458450601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3047794108747128013.post-52529841746405268502019-03-06T12:07:00.000-08:002019-03-06T12:07:09.350-08:00Friend Zone Hell with No Rational Way Out?You meet a girl, maybe a bit shy or sceptical type, and you get along like a house on fire. There is body Language, pheromones the lot......<br />
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Then she friend zones you. <br />
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Lets just be friends . Usually pre-emptive in fact, but can be as a result of you making a pass or lunging forward for a kiss at what seemed such a right moment.<br />
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Getting out of the friend zone? Simple, dont get into it in the first Place.<br />
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You can of course say yes to LJBF but dont what ever you do what I did recently, I continued to kind of date and get to know the very lovely Lassie it has to be said, and we got kind of addicted to each other a while. <br />
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She had put me in the FZ most likely because on the one hand she is highly neurotic, while on the other she was unsure about my situation and if I would get back together With my Ex. She refused not just once but twice to answer if she had had an affaire With a married man before, so there it was, she priobably got a guy on the hook, promised to leave, had left in a trial, shagged and then dumped her to og back to his ex. Hence the neurosis?<br />
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I was burried and With no way out, She even played my own Cards back at me in one bizarre Meeting over coffee when she reiterated LJBF, told me to find a girl somewhere , and told me she didnt like having outstanding favours which may be inviting payment 'in kind'.<br />
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I tried the best tactic With being LJBFed-. Limit Your availability and dont do the running., But PING after about five days she would get in touch, or we would bump into each other. <br />
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FZ is often a holding pen for a fussy or uncertain woman, but like cattle, if you dont go to market asap then you start to look less interesting, there all penned up and pawing at the ground. They have you where they want you, safely behind bars of FZ steel, but dont have you anywhere they need you if they want a romance.<br />
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Some few guys perisist the FZ, This is why ugly guys or mediocre guys sometimes have absolute babes as wives, because they just Charmed their way in and made the good lookers look like insencere bastards. But that is a hiding to nothing really, it is desperation and after a few months of being there I was ready to cut my losses and throw a Direct I love you at her.<br />
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Avoiding can , as I have blogged before, mean just saying NO, i would like to date you and get to know you in a romantic way. You can qaulify, as in, do you have a BF already? Do you want to take time to get to know me a little and see what happens? Or of course, do you not find me attractive at all then? <br />
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Avoiding FZ can also mean saying YES. You just walk away and leave the contact making up to the girl, Furthermore cancel a few arrangements you make With them. Get a tinder date and go out locally where People know you both. <br />
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Make yourself only partially available and in chatting on line, move the conversation in two ways. One helping you get a girl or With girl issues, and two, towards opportunities for decent amounts of alcohol and partying where you can overxome the Natural nerves she has, or if you make a pass you can laugh it off as being the drink talking. <br />
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I even tried this, and got what was like a first date, but it was odd and kind of friendly and a little forced and false feeling to some extent, She seemed tired and a little disinterested. It built my hopes up, after four months of FZ, and I took it as the first date With a hug good by, But it was a little payback for being her pal and helping her out, that was maybe all, given the Cold light of day. Then there was a dinner invite which I kind of maybe pushed a little too much for, and it was cancelled and that is when the turning point came, She didnt want what they Call progression, <br />
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I stumbled on and I dont know, she got in touch With me and had ten questions so I suggested coffee and it was Nice, but then she pushed me away a little more With a bit of New boundary setting and I kind of reaxted against it.<br />
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I had been in the holding pen long enough, She was bored With me rustling aournd in there pawing at the ground and giving her the eyes and smiles of BUY ME PLEASE; MAKE a BID! she wanted me out of her sight. <br />
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I duly learnt my lesson., Circumstances were odd though. Neighbourhood to the Family home i was moving out of. Saw her all the time, Knew her a bit over several years., Once bitten, twice shy of the dreaded FZ.Damp Freddiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01335140908458450601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3047794108747128013.post-68702895635739351042018-12-03T13:41:00.001-08:002021-10-12T15:05:11.268-07:00Dealing with the Dreaded Let's Just Be FriendsAfter a long absence, I am finally back on the dating game, having separated.<br />
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Already I have had one LJBF; nose really out of joint because of it, and I am about to give a LJBF very shortly<br />
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It is a kind of nice nasty, when in fact people should really be cruel to be kind, but that is the way of the western world, people are always trying to be polite to keep up appearances.<br />
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First and foremost though, way over 90% of the time it is a BRUSH OFF. They do not want this attention. Usually LJBF comes after of course you get to know each other a bit, and ask out on a date, or something whcih becomes suddenly interpreted as a date, and the other (girl in this case since I am hetero and cant speak for other sex or persuasions) just doesnt fancy you.<br />
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On a first date, it is a defence mechanism pure and simple, it is often because the girl is a little overwhelmed by you and the sudden attention, or because they have a boyfriend but hey, you are actually a better catch and worth getting to know on a LJBF basis.<br />
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But most often it comes after a getting to know you bit, often in a social context where a date has not quite been achieved. It is then most often a brush off for a date.<br />
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Some guys will avoid dating and that is a good tactic in fact. They will use instead social occaisions because they are less charged and focused and they can be seen to be playing the field a bit, and wait until of course, the blood alochol level is high in their girl of choice, or move on to another Some girls are ok with this, others really would rather get to know you on a one to one, and wont be themselves with you in those situations and will actiuvely avoid contat with you. LJBF then after a drunken snog is fine.They know they have to see you socially and ok, it was a drunken mistake<br />
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When it comes during early dating then guys, most of the time you have no choice. Walk away. It is a straight knock back, and worse, they are going to use you for attention and toy with you sometimes to get some other guys jealous, or just show their power over men to the women they are competing with. Miaoow, yes that catty are girls.<br />
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Walking away, quite literally is a very good tactic, because sooner or later you are going to walk away confused, in tears or in anger anyway if you try and persue a LJBF girl. Yes it can be a defence mechanism, but it too often becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. Romance is that unknown quantity between men and women, between people who do not really know each other but have a chemistry and an intrigue. LJBF is boring, it is sanitising, it is a passion killer. Walking away is a strong reaction,<br />
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Walk away, Try it., Yes, physically walk off, say nothing. Shake your head maybe but walk away and dont look back.<br />
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You will get LJBFed just you wait. Dont worry about the social awkwardness later, you have already made it as awkward as possible by making a pass. You can always agree to LJBF another time, and make it obvious it is lip service to politeness at UNi or in the office. Walking away takes control away from her. It puts the ball up in the air, and it will be played 'out of court' and she will be finished if she does not play back, these days with a text, whcih will either show interest or confirm she is truly LJBF ing you.<br />
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The response you other wise want is the text or chat which says, oh I actually really like you, but I just want to get to know you, or what other explanation they have, going through berievement, sad for the loss of their last relationship, PMT you name it.<br />
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Secondly you can try humour. My latest line I have ready for my next prospect because I live in a town where everyone knows each other is simple. You want to just be friends? Oh so value having male friends? Well you know there are those two, very nice gay dentists in town, I suggest you be friends with them" . This will get a laugh. Probably. Given you know the girl a bit, you can use the old cliched " Oh so you're a lesbian, sorry" which is funny in the right circumstances and otherwise a good way of saying fuck off, I'm not putting up with LJBF!!! Be prepared to do as above, walk the heck away there and then or even get a slap on the face.<br />
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The next option if the girl is a little shy or seems uncertain, is to qualify the LJBF. Here you want to know if she just needs time to get to know you better, whixh is a 'buying signal' or if she has some hang up for now about dating, or of course she is just rbushing you off and actually doesnt want to see you on a one to one basis. YOu can push the point here to being outright rude, because LJBF is being nice to be nasty!! Alternatively if it is actually factually I want to see you just as a freind, there is no sexual attraxtion for me, then be prepared to do just that if you really like her as a person, But in that case, be back on the dating game before you next see her or you will get hung up on her. There is nothing worse for most men than having what you cant have dangled in front of you, it makes you want it even more. Like a steak and chips when you weren't hungry, you start to druel over it anyway and really want it even though you know in practicality you should not go there.<br />
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The other option is acceptance and seeing what happens, but treating it as if you didnt get the job but are invited to apply at the next time they advertise. That is to say, ok, LJBF, but I am not applying until you make it cleare you want me to. Let her get in touch with you, always. If she truly wants LJBF , then she has to beg for it, because your young, free, single time is precious believe me. In this case, take it as a total loss and see if she gets in touch, and try and avoid all social situations or be very, very cool at them and let her make a fool of herself by making the small talk. Treat is like shas said ' no, you're ugly' and walk away with an ok, be seeing you, lets be like that then.<br />
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I'm going down the LJBF route because I am a glutton for punishment and we are both way over 40 so maybe she needs time, and my situation is not ideal with my ex right now. But I am wasting my time. My counter to this though is I just say, I'm not ready to have a lover now. So that lets her know, fine, lets just be pals, Iæm not ready, you can get to know me and see.<br />
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<br />Damp Freddiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01335140908458450601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3047794108747128013.post-27139130630449517632018-03-02T18:19:00.001-08:002018-03-02T18:19:37.521-08:00True friends , true lovers?<p dir="ltr">Thirty, yes thirty fucking years ago , I had a fucj up with my true scottish frie d Kenny.</p>
<p dir="ltr">A bromance went reuly, hard o n the rocvks in a tempest of jealousy anbd first time love</p>
<p dir="ltr">Going out with ypur mates' ex's is a boy rule nort to be broken. Yet untold millions do just that.</p>
<p dir="ltr">It qas very muxh two streams odf conflicting interests.<br><br></p>
Damp Freddiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01335140908458450601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3047794108747128013.post-32050299675060383402018-02-25T13:30:00.001-08:002018-02-25T13:30:56.058-08:00Dream<p dir="ltr">This morning I had one of those life threading dreams which makes you wonder if there is a dream world where we either live out parallel lives in our sleep, or where the ghosts in our each and every machine, meet up in a kind of soul place and mingle.</p>
<p dir="ltr">One such dream I had a long time ago now, getting on thirty years dear reader, was one morning in the days when I could and did sleep 12 hours straight with impunity and a clear conscious once or twice a week. I dreamt I dived into a deep mountain pool, at the foot of a waterfall, somewhere up Glen Falloch in Scotland, a kind of rendition of a place I had been before. I swallow dived the fifteen meters or so from near the top and plunged into deeply refreshing water, to arise cleansed, free and happy, Finally that morning, upon awakening soon after, I realised that my first ever broken heart was now mended and I could move on in life and forget and forgive my misopportunity.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Today was linked back to those days and in fact a rivalry over that same common love-of-our-life, which caused a rift which has lasted all our adult lives in fact. My best friend of the time, Kenneth, who actually really believed in me and supported me, and rivalled me in a friendly way, and challenged me and was funny and just there for me all the time, has never really spoken to me after I went out with his Ex. She was both of ours first big loves. She was nothing special, just fantastically normal and outspoken and sexy and kind and full of humour and love. Very different to me, she had more in common with her ex, and we of course got to know each other while they were still together. The big boy rule broken, dont go out with someones ex's. He could be quite civil about it all, but then again he avoided me and finally had a couple of out-with-its where, despite him having moved on to another girl, he was jealous and gutted to the core and wanted to punch me through my innerds. Things never quite mended there. Also there was something there in the background maybe, I just put it down to her wanting a new boy friend when she moved and wanting desperately away from me., Instead of confronting her properly I took her white lie at face value, and then of course got that back in my face early one sunday morning when she unceremoniously dumped me. The only reason she gave was that I had, and it was bad of me, mentioned that her ex had been unfaithul. That was spiteful of me, and unneccessary, and I think it was on the first date I did it, to kind of stub out his embers I guess. It is a regret, but it was only kind of ammunition in an otherwise cocked gun so to speak, when she moved flats and things changed suddenly. I dont know and I dont care if kenneth was behind it. But then he reappears you see. </p>
<p dir="ltr">Unlike me Kenneth stuck to his research career and made good, moving into business and eventually being the dream ticket PhD & MBA combi. I saw him once, when he got back together of course with our common ex, which didnt last, but they were both kind of lonely and fell back together when he moved to her Uni. later I could only track him on Linked In, no face-ing or before that, friends-reunited for him. But his other ex, the one after the ex in topic, got in touch with me after many years and spoke of him. </p>
<p dir="ltr">So came the dream. I was in a kind of pres'que vu, almost seen that is, like deja vu , but as if it was out the corner of your eye and not as familiar a feeling. It was reminiscent, places I could have been and almost maybe saw, but had not been before, Sandstone houses and garden walls, visiting a place or living there I dont know. Kenny appeared at my appartment. I had moved back there and become slightly economically successful and lived in an academic area I feel. We talked. He said big business wasnt all it cracked up to be anyway. He was very much passing through, just kind of making an appearance in mid life, and only half holding out the olive branch I felt. Then as we went inside my appartment or his, in the kitchen on the floor, was my latter day, biggest love at first sight woman, on the floor, post coitus and still high on sex with him. My successes fell away and I guess this was his show to me in the spirit world, that he too could piss about with my inner emotions of those I held once dear. Her being there was a shock. She was older. But still her, still the one woman I would give up everything for even today. There she was in a cheap kind of scenario, semen on her breasts and throat, passionate lust begone on the kitchen floor in the L shaped open plan appartment, hoping I wouldnt find her, she had lain still until I managed to barge in instead of leaving the way I had come in. For kenny, it had just happened, it wasnt actually out of spite, he was apologetic, I wasnt supposed to have found out. It was his place and she was my big ex, but so what, that was a looooong time ago. It was regrettable that I found out, that was all. Now the rift could not be healed I felt.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Kenneth was perhaps show boating in front of me, or perhaps the gods of the soul world wanted to show me that transient love hurts but precious love can hurt more and tear people apart. I felt a little bitter that this wonderful potential for connecting with three of my favourite people from my twenties and early thirties, was squandered by the embaressment or intent of the situation I found on the kitchen floor, and the precluding luke warm conversation with kenny became clear as to its tone, he was hiding her int he kitchen and wanted another time to resolve our feud. I should never have known he had a conquest over her, it was a coincidence perhaps but the suspicioun of a conspiracy of commonalities, where two people talk of their pasts and meet at common denominators, and gradually realisethey have people in common, and that mid life isolation thing throws them into each others lonely and lusting embraces, mouths like cods in the air pressed and gaping at the chance of one more incidental, by the wayside love affaire.</p>
<p dir="ltr">The dream was begun more by me wondering about my new career route whcih will be a dead end most likely, but pay the bills and pension and allow me to live in a wonderful part of the world for the rest of my life without more than a 30 minute commute. The dream should have been a rational com,paritor dream then. I made my choices and missed out on what some describe as success. Kenneth made his and the better man kind of came back to counsel the loser, by asking what success is when I in fact, have such a good quality of life. However the soul jungle dreamland threw a screw ball at me with Gill being there, fucked on the kitchen floor, his seed sprayed on her in a way as to deny her a child *she has none to my knowledge) and dominate her, while humiliating me, that this great love of my life, flash in the pan as she turned out to be, was just a sly shag, and wank in a warm body, an easy conquest. </p>
<p dir="ltr">I realised there are some places, people and times you can never really expect to go back to , and those things become regrets only if you let them burn in on you. This dream means one oif two things. Firstly if this is purely internal, then it is all about middle age catching up and how I have only come so far, yet must also drop the past. If there is a sould jungle of the peri consciousness, then Kenny is about to turn up in my life again, for better or for worse.</p>
Damp Freddiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01335140908458450601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3047794108747128013.post-81652016681243937682017-11-13T12:59:00.002-08:002017-11-13T12:59:33.031-08:00The Eternal Dabbler?I read a long time ago now, George Leonard's "Mastery", where it looked like I was doing the right thing in many ways, and my career and other ahem, issues in life were kind of subject to a string of bad luck and the odd impetuous decision casting me to the wolves by my own hand.<br />
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I was not really in his worst of all sinners category - That of the "DABBLER".<br />
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The dabbler of course merely dabbles. They take up new sports or try a new level which challenges them a little, persue it for a while, gain some success and then fall off or fail.<br />
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EEK! Not me!<br />
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Well perhaps other people SEE me like this when they read my CV or get an impression of me.<br />
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To me my career has been about putting a lot of painful threshold crossing, then some trial and error in, running on the plateau of experience, and then notching up to achieve things a little higher. However I have been a little generous with myself perhaps?<br />
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From the outside I can seem a little unenthusiastic, reluctant, sceptical and maybe lacking confidence. Certainly looking back I lacked a lot of positiveness in front of asshole bosses I had to put up with to get a couple of year's experience under my belt in each of my three or four chosen career routes. There is a pain barrier, because of this dynamic and me being a little too big an ego when it concerns my 42 hours a week base line of work and commuting. I'm here arent I? I'm qaulified, and if you explain the task and your expectations I will do it brilliantly, However it is that little dynamic there eh, that breaks down.<br />
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The thing is I have had to work with a lot of this type of employee as people I have had to either cooperate with or manage within project groups, and it is just the nature of, well, most males in particular,. I never learned to suck up and shit down though. Well a little when that type of dull response with a generous squirt of skepticism comes my way. I only get on by in large, with weak bosses, and have only had a couple of good, strong bosses in my entire career spanning now quarter of a century.<br />
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I have had a number of bosses, direct and by proxy, who work by the mantra 'anything is possible, as long as someone else is doing it for me' . That is my pet hate of course, being a healthy sceptic and having a good deal of insight now, and knowing a little that folk thought I was wet behind the ears twenty years ago.<br />
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In fact my career, and current malaise is really down to having rather bad bosses and either not suffering them long enough, or suffering them too long. So if the job was good and I could shine in it, I should stay longer, while the reverse if the job was shit and the boss was shit, a double negative game outcome, which I just had in my last position and in my consulting contract before that.<br />
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Throughout my career, being a boss boss has meant marrying your job, I have only ever done that in stints of up to 18 -24 months, before divorce or the project ending.<br />
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Moving on from that little rant, then I just dont really have the service mindedness, or maybe it is that I seem to be a YES man , CAN DO man, WHIPE SHIT OFF YOUR SHOES, OK man at interview, but I am a beligerant bastard who likes making decisions with external bodies, customers or suppliers, wih the final say.<br />
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The trouble is then that I am an APPARENT DABBLER because after a big effort I just kind of move on, while from my point of view I have learned, practised, done well on the plateau, and moved on to the next challenge by changing jobs or contracts.<br />
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I am not really one of the other two bad guys in Leonards book, the<a href="https://klickerinc.com/george-leonards-mastery-outline-review/" target="_blank"> Hacker and the Obsessive</a>. I don't hack my way up anymore, I used to a long time ago and then kind of plateau out and maybe refuse to accept I was in a comfort zone and needed to go forward. I am far from obsessive in character, but do obsess about somethings with a weird emotional attachment to doing a good and complete job. On paper, my CV, to the world outside I am a dabbler.<br />
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The cure for me I know has always been doing something steadier for a time. But I have had some exciting private life opportunities and taken my sports where I have wanted to by in large before in life, and remain in an area of learning and wisdom to help others in those sports, while advancing a little slower physically of course, from a middle age spread low point a few years ago.<br />
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I can't do steady because I am not very interested in being loyal to a negative situation, while I am too idle and oddly committed to doing a good job, to get out of a bad position. The last two times I extracated myself, it went kind of badly and then left me here, with a CV more holey than swiss cheese, and about as solid infront of an employer's eyes. I just havent got into really good vibes, but then again I havent always made very good vibes in jobs where other people's negativity could have been over come by my positivity.<br />
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Coomunication falls out as I have been told on a number of occaisons, because my ego keeps me off the same side, and sometimes kind of stalling around in trying to comprehend how facile a task I have just been asked to do is, Often it is that I just could not see another way of cooperating or working around other people's stubbornness or egos.<br />
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Body language has a lot to say, and that 'oh whit a gift to gi us, to see ourselves as others see us' is there in that part of my personality, THe part they know and I dontDamp Freddiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01335140908458450601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3047794108747128013.post-52391117163549606832017-11-12T03:57:00.001-08:002017-11-12T05:27:11.985-08:00Cures for Isolation in Cyberland<p dir="ltr">The new fangled electric internet is a wonderful place to make new friends, stay in touch with old, find common interests, see your niece grow up from afar.......and to feel very isolated and ignored by those who used to mean most to you.</p>
<p dir="ltr">It's a common thing and I see it most by tracking some of my new Cyberfriends out there in internet land. We are actually the generation whcih grew up with the proto-cyber world, when green screen rumblings and phone phreaking evolved into Usenet and the news groups, and sending each other micro blogs in e/post. In fact my first encounter with social isolation if you like was via that. I used to send out what today would be called a micro blog, a post, a chat hook - when I first got a personal e-mail account in 1996. I sent maybe two a month out to a very few people who had e-mail and whom I had spent my best formative years in Glasgow's West End in the late 80s with. Then one chap just came out and said it " Stop Sending Me Bollocks, mate".</p>
<p dir="ltr">It gave me a bitter feeling becasue this was in the days prior to any real spam and inbox overload. I felt socially reprimanded, as if I had walked up to a group of mates in a pub and been told to piss off. The chap who said it though was forthright as a type, and had become a busy B2B public relations consultant in the big smoke, Londinium, where e-mail was becoming the new jungle drums of trendier businesses. It did make me question my relationship to him, and basically he held some kind of grudges for reasons I am only guessing at, so that is enough for now. Suffice to say I have only spoken to him once, and he refuses to face-me , FB that is , ignores my two friends-requests over the last decade of otherwise happy face-ing.</p>
<p dir="ltr">It was a forerunner of what happens now. Being 'sent to coventry' is nothing new on the internet.  A green screen predecessor of the world wide web, and the first truly networked game was ' MUD '  - multi user dungeon, as in that which went with Dragons as a social fantasy game which was rampant in the 70s and early 80s. In Mud the creators allowed those who completed the crusade to the finish of the game, to become super users and moderators, and they had the power of the Gods over the cyber personas who played there. The could F.O.D. - the finger of death, which would delete a user. Back then they probably had every user's IP address so it was goodbye and good luck from logging in again if you didn't use another computer. People were thrown out for different reasons, but a major area was being abusive and swearing, which both the 'wizards' could see anywhere and other players could see in the interactive 'rooms' or 'plays' under way. </p>
<p dir="ltr">For my generation people use mostly FB, and hence the younger generation under 25 have packed up their social bags with FB such that parents and older colleagues need not see their 'private' lives, which are only to be shared with a large extended network of SnapChatters or prospective play mates on TInder and the other dating apps. So the over 30s are left on FB as the main users as a social communication network, and it will no doubt age and become senile with them. This means though that we are the most exposed to FB's little systematic quirks and the unspoken etiquette.</p>
<p dir="ltr">We are all 'unfollowing' our friends who are most active on FB. Also there is a little etiquette on FB Messenger, the app' which hijacked Microsofts good work. It used to be called 'ignore' but that was a little too aggressive a language, so FB changed it to unfollow, or you could when I last looked get 'important' posts. I started doing it almost immediately I got an account exactly a decade ago in 2007. I also blocked a couple of rude lunatics and one woman who had talked behind my back in the land of pressing the flesh sociality. As soon as we found each other, we blocked each other in fact. We tend otherwise these days to unfollow people who post too much, or whom we dont really know and wouldnt have a pint with basically. However we live in a glass house.</p>
<p dir="ltr">I first noticed it with a relative who is a house mother with a bit too much time on her hands. When FB had that other people's Likes madness when you got a mass of all and sundry your mates liked, she was all to clearly sitting for a good few hours a day facing. Also there were inspirational life quotesd and diverse 'memes' Even though I shouuldnt have, I put her on ignore, feeling guilty, but she was the main participant on my FB newsfeed, as if she was postering her personal mores over the windows of my house and I could no longer see anything else. When her youngest daughter had a birthday, only four people of the many hundreds of 'Friends' she had on FB sent congratulations, and me and other family seemed to only do so later on in the day when we had remembered to catch up on the cards we had sent by snail. I felt sorry for her, but it was of her own design. FB also felt sorry for her type it seems, and adjusted algorythms to present at least kids birthdays and so on, to a wider audience. <br></p>
<p dir="ltr">I am a middle high user of FB, but my online pattern has changed thoroughly to most posting and expression of political opinion being in like minded groups, and my hobbies being mostly posted and others followed through such groups. I did this from a burning desire to have an interactive relationship with FB. So this was a result of the fact being that my oldest friends had obviously put me on full ignore and werent liking any of my posts. I was kind of late to that etiquette, but just revenged them all by not following them either, and to be frank the frequent post-ers had pretty innane, irritating and often flagrantly boast posts. Holidays, kids doing something funny, cat or dog doing something funnier, someone left litter outside their house, what did everyone think of the terrrible pot holes in the road outside the nursery school? </p>
<p dir="ltr">After a short time of this going on, a kind of truce was called and a new internet protocol for our loosely connected group of 'year of 86ers' was quickly pasted together on FB messenger. Some of the closest friends had probably started it, but anyway I was invited to our 'reprobates and n'eer do well' club, whose main intention was to have a renunion. At said renunion, a truly wonderful time was had, some bitter sweetness too as we were well into middle age. We even had an FB event page which we could post before, during and after pictures to.  Middle age upon us, responsibilities etc, some folk were more tired than others and had to retire earlier to respective sprogs or olds in our home town next day, On the night itself, we had a long afternoon of bevvying as we call boozing in the wild west, followed by a dinner at whcih bless him, the oldest of our crew fell asleep at the table. It all went too quickly, and we would have been far better off doing one of those remote cottage things, where of course someone always has a near nervous break down over their mid life crisis and everyone rallies round, and then wonders what the hell to do with them after the initial cuddles and kind words are over. That would have been better, because frankly for most of us 15 years of time was to be caught up on, and for some 29 years had elapsed since we last spoke ie 1986!</p>
<p dir="ltr">That is a bit of an aside, but such a reunion would probably have been cobbled together anyway by telefone and post card without the use of internet. The point was the aftermath. One of us, who had some sob stories and in fact, never really got himself out of a hole of a dead end job he dug himself into in 1990, decided to have quite little to do with us as a mass after that, but because of that very fact I have to say, he is being forced to be individually sociable with his nearest old boys. (We are very geographically spread, no one within 2 hours of our Alma Mater) Anyway he ignores the Messenger cackle by in large. Now I tried to find some interactive entertainment, realising that all these folk have kids and are in the same boat as me, only more tired on Fridays than my youthful spritelyness and shorter worker hours (hee hee) permit me. And I fell flat on my cybersocial face.</p>
<p dir="ltr">There is then an overall FB etiquette of brevity. Those who are most selective, get most likes. In profile they are most often successful and they post nice things about their family and most of all about their exotic holidays or work related projects. Some of the more lifestyle entrepreneurs seem to use FB as a kind of PR campaign to build a personal brand, copying the style of 'celebrity'  pages. I think some peoplke though who are successful and sociable dont  NEED social media to be ahem any more extravert and involved in society. Modern life and emmigration have made me an FB junky though. This etiquette of being short, to the point, positive and sharing only life's best orgasmic happenings or sweetest kiddie pic's. </p>
<p dir="ltr">The same extends to messenger,. only there you are communicating minutia and meeting for a pint type stuff, or sharing the odd meme. It is abouut short communications, because most people use their phones and most people are too busy to read even one wrapped scentence which breaks a single line on screen. It is a series of abbreviated spasms we communicate in. I have never learned this etiquette, being used to longer converse, in fact being quite 'long winded'. </p>
<p dir="ltr">On FB very many have me on ignore, but FB have a cunning plan. They post other wise unfollowed content onto the newsfeed of friends when the content has important key words, and people have started liking or reacting to the post, and replying with some important triggering key words. I did this, on a life issue of throwing in the towel with my wife and job situation, and after months of feeling isolated I suddenly felt a little too much that I had let myself be caught up in my own gold fish bowl. People even translated the post, which was a kind of cry for help in terms of getting a new job and a place to perhaps ease a trial separation.   I started to feel that both FBs algortyhms and half my FB friends list were lurking me and now patronising me.  The rub came when people came up to me in the street and talked to me about it, having not reacted on social media, but having read it.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Anyway that was kind of an example of both how to do it on FB when you know you are being ignored, post less often but post more 'important' keywords,  and what not to do, be a little too personal expose. In truth I am unfulfilled by my relationship with FB, because it seems I give it a lot of time and I get little of substance back. Hobby wise, politically, on the local historic pages, we are all patting each other on the back and being nicey nice. I have tried some serious cyberpub conversations over politics or sport, in posts or via messenger or even e/mail, but I find the same as I did at Uni - I get in touch with 'liberal believers' or 'conservaitve rationalisers' who are not actually very open minded. I have found that dipole of the internet - there are few floating voters or radical thinkers in these groupings, they are self perpetuating opposites. The left and the right. The established and the new. The etheral crystal tree hugger and trhe v8 chevvy driver. The accomplished sportsman and the novice. The 'published' photographer with the 10 grand gear, and the cheap skate with a super zoom going birding. I could elaborate, there seems to be little space for a communist-free-market-existentialist-dabbler like me.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Building up new cyberpals then to replace or supplement your real friends who have you on ignore, is no subsitute in fact. It is a shallow distraction. If you could of course meet up with them, then fine. THen you could make a bond, have a new 'bromance' with a like minded fellow, or one of those oh-so-knowing middle aged flirts like Wendy Craig and her admirer in 'Butterflies' from the 1970s. However it just isnt happening, we hold each other at an arms length. I even have a local potential good pal, who I find I am afraid to befriend further, and he explained our friendship to a bystander once we did meet up socially at a party, as an FB thing , we Faced together, but I had some issue with being shy and insecure. It was a very weird feeling, as if we know each other and respect each other in cyberland, but I need a distance and time in real life, That the usual social approach and queues have broken down and cannot be made up for once we went so far in our acquaintancship on line. </p>
<p dir="ltr">It is a little different with on line dating, and you guessed it I am soon to embark upon that route, enough 35 plus ladies on the apps now to allow for several hours of left swiping a week I see. A friend of mine uses Tinder and some more local market apps. It is like shopping for mobile telephones. You get all the info, you check out the model is right for you, the economics seem right (cash strapped single mum meets salaried man, has to be said sorry but true) and when you first get it in your hands it is instantly rewarding. A tactile experience where you get to try all the complicated applications you used to have to spend far more time getting to. In other words, you skip a few entree courses at dinner and get down to enjoying a sex life. The trouble here is that you both know enough about each other to be a little dangerous. You have your Tinder chat for a while, and you look up each other's time line. At middle age you know your socio-economic direction and are comfortable within those ambitions and social class. So the handset looses its appeal, you realise it is a used model with a few scratches on the screen from earlier misuse or accident. Some of the apps dont actually work as well as you expected, and some stop working after the phone gets a larger load on its processor. </p>
<p dir="ltr">You realise you have taken short cuts and that it is all too easy to cut short, so being a good consumerist, you sneek back on Tiinder to see just in case that you are still in-the-market. You find each other's profile there, previously deactived during your cyber catalysed whirlwind romance, and you part company with a lets-just-BF. You are back shopping. It all happens again. In becomes a transaction, with recylcling of product as the end point. It is all too easy to change your tariff and get a different model which is sexier or costs you less, or is easier to use, or whose batteries last longer. </p>
<p dir="ltr">This happens because relationships are organic, flesh and blood, and we choose to maybe show a little less of our lives to the other in person, and let the flirting and romance drive it forward. However that said, the alternative for over 30s used to be Spanish evening school of those bloody Salsa classes everyone was going to in the naughties once their divorce papers came through, or their hair line reached a height of crisis. You take a short cut of trust when you cyberdate, you build up in other words a good deal of commonality and comfort in deciding to real world date. You have let yourself walk over an imaginary bridge, thinking you both leave your baggage on each bank. You have passed into an area where you are over familiar, over prepared, over eager, over convinced......Some steps, some exchanges of small signals, have been missed. I was you may not be surprised, early out with internet daing, using the 'wall' on the infamous Cybercafe in Edinburgh, Scotland. I met one particularly unhinged young lady who brought a whole enterage of girls with her, one of which I liked and got a long a lot better with ,but she lived 30 miles away so I dropped that line of attack. I was an unashamed young, upwardly mobilish professionalish person then anyway, and decided cyberdating was a silly place, where you could window shop but not get a personal recommendation nor that little love-at-first-sight we experience all our lives, whether or not we do anything with it or not. I have never internet dated since, but did of course use e/mail for my long distance relationship, which frankly always seemed to be better from her side in e-mail, where she was a kind, giving, loving and youthful person, not the grumpy cow she is in real life , and whom I have parted company with after 14 years. </p>
<p dir="ltr">However it is probably not always the case that Cyberdating is too virtual, and those I know who Tinder like above, over the age of 35, are probably a little bit to non committal. You see cyberdated couples hook up for a while and then unravel, but often the next internet instigated romance leads to a new partnership with someone who is a little more screened for compatibility than the previous drunken sex interviews which were dating in the old world of flesh and blood. Like e/mail when it first really took off in business, it lead to far more face to face meetings and sales reps who suddenly lived in the business lounges and transatlantic economy plus seats. It lead to some price parity where before there were far too many cosey high margin local market deals struck on the golf course. It lead most of all to companies consolidating their supply chains and cutting out middle men. Which is a little parallel to dating on line. You can meet a wider market,. some extra romance with the arrival lounge reunion, and you get to screen who you date a little more than which drinking hole you spilt drinks on the other in, or how they were dressed on that night, or if they were ovulating or so on or so on. </p>
<p dir="ltr">Perhaps the thing is that we drop those social qeues and those pheromones when we indulge in social intercourse on the internet. Even between old friends, like I say. But anyway we have to bend with the wind, we neurotic extraverts and chatterboxes.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Here then finally are my tips<br></p>
<p dir="ltr">1) Start a fresh on FB. Some people just lock down their profile and start a new one in a name a like, using a the opportunity a new mobile phone number presents. Add a middle name, or a nickname in the middle. Some even delete their accounts and start afresh. An alternative is to message all your pals and leave a public message about a virus, and needing a new profile asap, reinviting all later. Then keep to brevity, important posts only.</p>
<p dir="ltr">2) Use restricted list. This means that some of your FB chums are kept a little in the dark, but not too much, because they see only those posts you choose 'public'. I have an old pal who is a crude and irritatting guy, who I have had to do this with because he is just embarressing and went thorugh phases of trying to bait me. I even had to swtich tagging over to being approced, which is not a bad idea but not good if you want to be a little profiled and on news lines. Restricted then is good for colleagues, new FB aquaintances, old flames, and good freinds who post little and like little, but lurk around. It has to be noted that it also restricts what you see automatically of them, but it is assymetrical. Acquaintances is not quite as good in these terms, but you can choose in the pull down each time to exclude that list. </p>
<p dir="ltr">3) Re-post Memes and links most often only in private interest groups you are with. This will help reduce your burden on long suffering friends while keeping you in the hotline of viral meme spreading amongst the converted in these groups. </p>
<p dir="ltr">4) Avoid commenting on public walls & posts from organisations which are public, unless you have friends on there. Very often you will find a private group with the same interests. From these private groups, befriend people who live near enough to you that you will meet up/ see below, or test them out to see if they can have interesting messenger conversations. </p>
<p dir="ltr">5) Allow for tagging yourself, and use tagging to reach a wider audience. If you have experienced Facebook anonymity, neigh ignomosity, then this is a way to creep back into social intercourse, and if you restrict your public postings to nicey or importanty on your wall, then you will get people flicking you off 'unfollowed' to 'follow' once more. Be light handed with it! once or twice a week with differing friends each time, or during a special event you can do get away with some 'density' but you will also get tagged yourself if you start the ball rolling.</p>
<p dir="ltr">6) Use Messenger carefully to 'catch up' . Say that you dont get much if anything on your newsfeed from them, the reverse being true, and wanted to catch up. Keep the scentences short, and sense if the conversation is a little strained. Usual times you would have phoned a pal in the old days to catch up apply - Friday after 1 pm, sunday night. Then just suggest you follow each other again on FB to keep in touch, make sure we select follow. </p>
<p dir="ltr">7) Get on the phone, get down the pub. There is no excuse for endless cyberchatting and then avoiding each other with 'busy' tonight. Don't use FB messenger or Skype, Facetime esepcailly not as it is default video, without express invitation or a discussion about it and how it may be worth a try instead of all this typing. When you do go out, keep your phone on flight or silent mode until an opportune time for a double selfie and then tag each other. Hah, we have a real social life. </p>
<p dir="ltr">8) Do get involved with more local area on line groups and local dating apps and sites instead of having cyberfriends you will never meet. These groups often have meetings or why not suggest a meet up, find a venue willing to have a pile of people turn up on a saturday late afternoon is best if alcohol is involved, Sunday late morning for outdoors or sporty stuff, Tuesday or Wednesday forr poltical interests etc. <br></p>
<p dir="ltr">The point on 7 and 8, is that you, like me, need to get out more. You are using social media and have become a junky because it is a quick, easy, ersatz means of feeling a little more connected to people and having your ideas and opinions recognised. Be challengeabkle in those opinions, and not like the polarised internet land. I have had many an interesting conversatioon in the pub about economics, politics, scottish independence where there have been protagonists and opponents, and where me and others play devils advocate a little to help our more stubborn and decided pals to see alternative view points That just does not happen on line, it is too easy to be polarised, preach to the converted or avoid a discussion by cutting it short. I have never had a good down the pub discussion really in postings or via Messenger chat with like minded folk. Just one or two get near, and one seems a little of a false profile for someone who maybe knows more about politics and politicians than they care to be open about. </p>
<p dir="ltr">Also it is very cool to meet up with old friends and have surprising news, or just general chat which has not all been covered by facebook postings. I struggle a little actually with some impetuous pals who want me to just pop on a jet and see them. In fact it sours our internet relationship! But being local is good. Also another thing on that point, is not to befriend your new found mates' friends on line until you actually know them a little. Make sure you people know you are sociable and up for invitations to social things. Do it more off line, and use on line like the phone books we all used to write on in the days of analogue lines with mechanical diallers. FB and other social media are really best for that - and started as that via Friends reunited and the early, viral days of FB when it seemed dozens of people were gathering friends without doing any posting, or putting other people instantly on ignore after they saw three of their Likes, never to be then heard of again. You dont see if others have you on restricted or acquaintance you see. </p>
<p dir="ltr">It would be maybe cool to have a one to five rating for friends and one to five for acquaintances. FB's alogryhms do somethign there in serving you uip content from others, and delivering you to others newsfeed. I would have my whole home town on 5 lowest acquaintance and then invite them all to follow me again, just to then have the correct level of silent 'dialogue' with them, in that FB would cut what they see from me, but at least they would see some content. </p>
<p dir="ltr">I am going to readdress my online habits and bneing sociable off line, which just used to happen, but now it seems it is harder this year than any year before in my life for some reason. I have an inertia too which others no doubt sense. I am going to then use social mediua to kindle sociability.<br></p>
Damp Freddiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01335140908458450601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3047794108747128013.post-31425348352223521352017-08-19T04:17:00.001-07:002017-08-19T04:49:26.462-07:00Standing on Zanzibar<p dir="ltr">In my lifetime the world population has doubled. Ironically it was the same year I was born that John Brunner released 'Stand On Zanzibar' his science fiction novel which has proven in part to be perfectly prophetic. In 1968 the world's people could shoulder to shoulder stand on the Isle of Wight, but he correctly predicted it would double from 3.5 billion then and we would be required to Stand on Zanzibar by 2010.</p>
<p dir="ltr">What are the likelidhoods then that we will see an equal rise to around eleven billion people within the latter part of my lifetime? What will this mean for food security, health and the environment? Can the world fundamentally feed itself and avoid catastrophic consequences caused by pressure on resources?</p>
<p dir="ltr">In biology and ecology they talk about set point for any population of organisms. This is a natural equilibrium point where resources are limiting and a population is sustainable or in other words, declines as it reaches diminishing resources. The typical example given, and much studied, is grass-rabbits-foxes. When the foxes get too proliferate, they eat up their own food resources. When the rabbits become too plentiful they too eat up their food resources. When the grass declines the whole ecosystem collapses. Each though has its own risk for population collapse because it reaches a point when suddenly the resources are for practical purposes of availability, used up.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Farmer propogandists who want more power, susbidy and freedom for agriculture and in particular GMO, state that we need food security and we all must match the demand from Stand on Next Island. However these are largely in the west. Europe the USA and to some extent Russia and the former USSR countries havce reached large scale over production. This is from the post war (and post US dust bowl) policies of rewarding new productivity in meeting regional demands for self sufficiency and also in having secure stores of preserved food in the event of a nuclear war. It is only in the last five years that the EU has turned away from this policy of rewarding glut, and is moving towards a free market for the commodities themselves, while rewarding farmers more for defending the natural and global environment. </p>
<p dir="ltr">Some authors and scientists point to the nonsense that we in the west need to feed the developing world or be caught in a global price and resources war. Firstly food security is still a regional area of policy, it is not purely a global free market for big capitalism to exploit and say 'tough luck' when an imagined future declining western economy can't afford the price of bread. Secondly because of this essentially socialist /social democratic reign of subsidy and over production, we already in the west produce enough calories and protein for the entire world population. We will come back to the trouble of inefficiencies and waste around this but first what happens to that overproduction at a higher level, as it aggregates to silos and national figures ?</p>
<p dir="ltr">Here we get into a rather insidious dark side of 'food aid' for the third world and 'affordable food' outside the west. The US is the largest single exporter of aid in commodities of food stuff to in particular, Africa. Within our lifetimes and post war era, the vast majority of Africa has in fact moved away from subsistance and barter to monetary linked economics.  Aid looks good on the headlines, but what it does apart from emptying the near-date reserves in the silos, is dump free food on the market not only the area affected by famine, but with direct and indirect ripple effects beyond. Firstly it displaces the monetary economy outside just the worst effected agricultural areas and refugee camps. It is not that well directed and it is plentiful. Secondly some inevitably ends up stolen and on the black market, sold cheap, because unfortunetly, Africa has many corrupt actors. A ring effect to this is that farmers in those regions of Africa who have a monetary supply chain to the affected areas and their surroundings who are 'flooded' with cheap grain, rise and maize. This all keeps US farmers in subsidy for commodities without there being sizeable destruction of food, which would be a scandal. Instead there is a well established 'do gooder' get out clause. The reality is that Africa can feed itself already it only requires sustainable prices such that farmers can expand those crops which are most needed in areas of famine or under production. Susbidy in the west could be used then as aid money directly to this supply chain, but of course we are back to interferences inthe market and corruption. However in rewarding countries who fight corruption and establish the rule of law and monetary economics, a great favour is done to Africa as a whole. It becomes regional cross border trade and the subsidy is used by buyers who are acting carefully so as not to distort the market price too much. In effect an area of famine represents a decline in demand for African produce in the monetary economy anyway so there is potential for some balancing.</p>
<p dir="ltr">We come back to over production of calories and how the west on a large scale, wastes this. Firstly the largest inefficiency is feeding beef in particular. Cattle used to be grass raised, which is fine in the alluvial and high pastures but these lands became expensive and meat prices went up. As cattle were then ranched and driven over huge areas of poorly vegetated land, this in turn became self limiting during drought or over grazing. So the US turned first to maize (part of the E.Coli 0151 scandal, another story) which is not a natural feedstuff for cows but they grow quickly on its high carbohydrate and reasonable protein content in semi arid areas, like much of Texas. Then the entire western worlds farrmers fell in love with the even higher yielding addition of high protein Soya to the diet of cattle. Soya now is as much as slash and burn catatstophe as Palm Oil but in a far wider scale - from the Rain Forrest of Brasil and other S. American countries, to the 'clearances' of small farmers in central Africa, we have created demand for a cash crop by our love of the burger, mince n' tatties and the satruday night fillet steak.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Secondly we in the west now throw away a huge amount of food at the consumer level, and a smaller amount (which oddly enough attracts all the scandal calling) in the value added supply chain. Some US and EU households are throwing away between a quarter and a third of food they buy or have cooked too much of. On average one estimate is an eight, 12% is simply thrown out after meals or straight from the fridge and larder. This is for two reasons. Our love affair with variety and that food is now a far lesser proportion of our expenditure, and seen as cheap. The USA has a particular issue with large pack sizing, and here we come to another form of deliterious 'waste' of calories. Obesity. <br>
Now I am overweight, I have a reasonably sized beer gut despite being quite active. I represent a sub clinical mass of middle aged folk, while the biggest threat to morbidity and premature mortality in very many western countries is obesity and the related illnesses of heart disease and diabetes. Our excess calories, beyond c.2000 kcal per day for a man like me, go onto our bellies. 'Super sizing' and processed food prioduction are cited as major causes of this epidemic, a western lifestyle pandemic, but in fact we can all afford healthy food if we cut down on the calorie intake and avoid expensive meats if not just becoming vegan. Even two meals a week vegan would help. </p>
<p dir="ltr">In future then we actually have a plus side of obesity in a macabre fashion. Firstly we may as farmers warn, experience rapid price inflation on the basics of food, and in particular on beef as it wastes so many potential calories in the slow and 'farty' growth of cattle. So people will start looking at the food they eat and what it takes out their wallets, and western farmers will see less need for subsidy and in effect also price support if not price fixing. Secondly we see a sharp rise in mortality amongst fifty to seventy year olds over the next decade, coupled to the stagnant birth rate, leading to less domestic demand for foodstuffs as the population declines. </p>
<p dir="ltr">The market increase in price of goods, in particular animal protein, which the rapid rise in population forward will probably entail, means also that farming becomes a more lucrative business in developing countries and standard crops suited to a climatic or soil area of a country, become cash crops on the world market. This means that people will eat less meat in the third world per head, and focus more on affordable plant protein and energy. We reach a chinese diet , where traditionally a small amount of pork of chicken (both more efficient per kilo input of plant stuff for making protein) coupled to nutritious vegetables in a larger amount, then with plain carbohydrate for energy in each evening meal. We then see more people having more vegetarian only days, purely by market mechanism, and 'mock meats' made from vegetable and myco proteins (fungus, Quorn for example). </p>
<p dir="ltr">(Fisheries are now very much in question in terms of sustainability, and the same for aquaculture which has been shown to be very 'dirty' in terms of its supply chain including unsustainable palm oil, third world soya, and fish protein like sand eels which threaten the north sea's econ system. Already in the last two decades we have seen that local substiance fishing and local market economy fishing is being globalised rapidly and then becomes almost immediately unsustainable as over fishing races to the bottom in each poor area, and destroys the fishery and sometimes entire eco systems. We also have the back drop of accelerated global warming which will threaten many fisheries, although may extend the population of some palgiant species greatly. )</p>
<p dir="ltr">We have a quaint view of the third world as being simple, local and subsistant in terms of small farms, fisherman and hunter gathering and this is completely out of date. It is perpetuated because those areas which still indulge in this are photogenic, pure and simple, colourful and quaint and no longer representative of the globalising and monterising factors of all natural and agricultural food supply chains. GMO was sold to us as curing the ills of the third world, while in fact it has created more overproduction and local environmental problems in the west, and locked many third world farmers out of international markets or some crop types because they are too expensive to buy seed for, and too expensive in particular to then manage with the high doses of herbicide and pesticide which the west affords itself. The largest selling GMO crops are engineered with resistance to herbicide so that higher levels can be used. We have a frankenstein monster which is more of economic nature than a biological threat. </p>
<p dir="ltr">We touched on self limitation of rabbits and foxes, and then also on what is happening to human health in the western world with for the first time since 1945, a declining life expetancy on average and a spike of premature death related to obesity, lack of exercise and smoking. In future if we start to see relative rises in food prices and even availability in more areas of the developing world, then this too leads to a self limiting growth in the population as children cannot be fed. We have the risk of famine, where infants are the victims and fertility is also reduced in malnourished women.  However it is not just plain biological limitations, there are economic limits in theory.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Doom sayers have long since told us that if the third world was to aspire and achieve the western material standard of living, then the physical world would have to be three times the size it is now. However there is a paradox here in terms of population. In the UK for example, birth rates fell from the cliche'ed 1970s 2.4 kids, to an average brood of 1.6, meaning in effect domestic population decline as we fail to even make up for our own prescence on earth. This is also true of the USA. Both nations have for many years been reliant on immigration to boost their populations and work forces, and both nations have a large proportion of the 'angry white worker' population who have become super sceptical to immigration, as their standard of living has ceased to better itself and declined in many urban areas. Fine when you are getting  a mexican gardener or polish builder to do a job at a fraction of the cost of an indigenous firm, on time too, but not when as a mass they supress wages and inflate the cost of housing Such is the rentier nature of economics these days.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Here comes the greatest irony. Immigrants have traditionally come from developing countries with eitther Catholicism or Islam as their religions with their anti contraception conditioning, or from other lands where a large family is the culture. However within two generations the descendents of those 'one of a family of twelve' have normalised to within the average of the national average. In part you can say that they have learned the value of contraception and family planning in a secular society, and turned their back on religious doctrine,. However that is really not the story. It is the emancipation of women and the cost of housing which drive the western birth rate down. The two exacerbate each other actually. Demand for a better material and experiential lifestyle and inflation in the 1960s and 70s lead to the widescale entry of women back into the workforce.This in turn lead to inflation in the property ladder as back then families competed for desirable 'two ups/two downs' in the metropolitan suburbs. Then as women became more emancipated in the 80s with their own independent careers two things happened. Firstly there was more demand for starter flats and single occupant rented accomodation. Secondly the average age of first birth in women jumped from mid twenties to late twenties, and among more educated and affluent middle class women, it went on into their mid thirties. </p>
<p dir="ltr">Also we have then that other great western social phenomena relating to the emancipation of women and the secularisation of society - divorce, and the lesser documented seperation from unofficial partnerships. Common reasons for divorce are conflicts of interest over career and work/family balance, relocation of one partner for work, fertility issues and the now old chestnut, men's poor willingness to do housework. This is then as much a symptom then of economics as it is of any social or biological phenomenom. In turn this is a major effect on the rate of birth because the eventual biological limit is around 44 in women, and many couples experience poor fertility in their 30s on either or both gonadal sides. People are more aware of the price of housing per bedroom too. In effect due to pressure on income and stagnant wages for a large swaithe of salaried workers in administration, customer service and semi technical proffessions, there are less kids planned and more break ups due to poor economic prospects.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Housing is a key in this equation, meaning that western workers are locked into dependency on metropolitan jobs and a dependency on a very high proportion of income going on mortgages, and increasingly, just on renting and perhaps never affording property. Housing is the key thing in terms of the western aspirational model for bringing up a family. It becomes a limiting factor and owning or having access to suitable housing for raising families becomes a goal of both newly educated men and emancipated women in developing countries. Is this a real phenomenon? Well it is an exponential phenomenom in China and some metropoles in Africa. We have an increasing rich poor divide in the west and a move to the rich owning and the average renting. This could see a sharper divide in developing countries in future as they fully moneterise and open their capital real estate markets to global investors. </p>
<p dir="ltr">The western lifestyle for the majority of workers in the US, the UK and Japan as the prime examples, actually means a contraction in average wealth and material possessions, excluding that must have status symbol the car. We also have technology which reduces our expanding consumption. The mobile smart phone for example, has eaten into sales of everything from PC's to watches, cameras and torches (flash lights). The internet means less use of public entertainment like cinemas or pubs - people can be sociable at home and not use petrol and consumer services elsewhere. Whole supply chains have moved on line, electronically. As the older. pre internet generation declines as a proportion of the population (death of a baby boomer) then on line shopping will come to predominate and supply chains of delivery will become far more efficient in matching the rising demand. <br></p>
<p dir="ltr">The doom sayers are though quite probably still right to some extent as to the rapid growth in the populations of India and Africa in particular, while command economy and party dictatorship China may enforce the one child policy yet again. With a challenge to immigration laid out in the oldest of capitalist economies, we will see inevitable trend of decline in population especially as the baby boomers shuffle off this mortal coil. There are ecological/biological limiting factors where famine is a result, and global warming is a clear threat to this. Some say that many colder areas of the world will become fertile, but the endless tundra is not going to be cultivated within the next generation or two during whose times, the main growth of population will happen. It is then perhaps the very act of economic development and the extention of the western lifestyle and western rentier economics to the developing world which will limit the growth in population as plain supply, demand, income and pricing limits the breeding potential of the human race.<br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br></p>
Damp Freddiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01335140908458450601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3047794108747128013.post-63964444530403270672017-06-02T19:50:00.001-07:002017-06-02T19:50:03.799-07:00Old Flames. Best Burnt Out?<p dir="ltr">Are our old flames best burnt out ? Or to be perhaps more accurate and grammatically correct, burned out of our emotional memories?</p>
<p dir="ltr">My brightest raging inferno like old flames are all from 20 to 30 years ago now, so they no longer are the scorching emotional ties they once were, more like they are charred earth patches where the rest of life has grown a green and moved on to new, wider pastures.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Being middle aged you do think about the what ifs? All from ex's you maybe could or should have stayed with, through one nighters you maybe could have made pregnant to all those possibilities or taking up that coffee, movie or drink with......or lustful kiss when the flirty friendship maybe should have gone forward.</p>
<p dir="ltr">I live  life now with few regrets about that sort of thing. If I ask why it didnt work before with some ex's then it is because either I or they, or both were non committal. It wasnt for a lack of soul mating, you can just make that up when you are newly in love and like to do stuff together and agree a lot. It is falling into this love deeper in a committal way which involves financial investments, moving for jobs, talking about kids and k0jmost of all, planning a wedding as a display to your social sets that this is serious. You mean all this love and together forever shite.</p>
<p dir="ltr">I was  non committal for the same reason I think that I am non committal with jobs, THey are never quite good enough for me, When I do get a job which is good enough, too good to be true, then I have found invariably that fate and conspiracy take them away from me! I have no faith in jobs, whiile once my portfolio career was a plus for me, now I am the aged slut at the bar wondering why I shagged and bragged and did not once really see myself anything else than trapped in a work relationship. THe same for women for me. </p>
<p dir="ltr">Old flames, yeah and avoidance at the time back then. I managed to finally track down one , Janice, after the odd perusal of the electric  internet and book of digital faces over the years. Her name is quite common especcially in the USA., which I thought were  bum steers., But once I connected her job and her love of running marathons, I came up trumps. She dies here hair red, lives in Dallas, and has a lovely daughter. It filled me with joy that she finally found love, and had a family and kept on being a successful long distance runner. Do I friend her?</p>
<p dir="ltr">Now we come to Fargo, where our anchor character, Margie the police officer, gets looked up by an old class mate, and they play out a little embarressing reunion which is inevitably a bad idea for Francis McDermott or her on screen character to get into. One side holds more than just a candle, they have a wax and string supply chain of unrequited love come their middle aged failure to stay in a relationship or even establish one in the first place. </p>
<p dir="ltr">So Janice and Irish Anita, I am very happy for the two of you. One a flirt which would have gone places had I been at all committal, the other a flash in the pan for a year which looked and felt often like it should have gone on forever, but now that I remember it, I too was often in two minds about her,. Both live far from the British Isles and both have kids and seem happily married so I am delighted., Phew also it was not me.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Janice was lovely, and still is. A pretty Scots Irish lass with freckles and a beautiful jaw line with twinkling dark eyes under a gushing mop of tightly curled dark hair. Slim and elegant. And a very, very nice and sincere person. There in lay the issue. I was 26 odd when I met her, and still in my phase of avoiding 'nice girls'. Nice meant settling down and not hurting their feelings with your own ego's desires for jobs, travel, and most of all variety in the pussy department. It would only be the mature and reflective 35 year old me that could have gone there, and it looks like she struck in lucky when she was in her mid thirties too. We had kind of sort of dated a bit, and she was making overtures but I did a stupid ignorant thing one night as a kind of avoidance and just shitting on my own doorstep, by visiting a female pal and turning up not only late for our wood be date, but also with girl in tow. My bad., But also it kind of put a full stop I thought which was beastly, but convenient. I got a post card from Janice on her tour of NZ so I should have maybe kept in touch, but I am also sure she is happier in Dallas.</p>
<p dir="ltr">It was another old flame who taught me I am more socially awkward than I had ever beleived. She just was wrong for me, I was kind of a catch for her, she was frumpy, and I got caught when in fact I maybe could have done with a nice girl to settle down with,. It was 1996 and I was having an inbetween year working part time and doing loads of sailing and stuff. I was going through a kind of isolation thing, where I had not quite fitted into a group of gen'Xers due to my being crap at sports, and I felt a kind of hang over of being an individualist, but feeling very lonely out of my now long behind me university days or constant social stimulation, and instant company on hand. The real world of suits and mortgages had bitten. I was working with older folk who resented my youth and eagerness, and I ended up dumped out at the end of it in 1996. She became a flame I could not avoid, but the experience taught me two things. One I dont like groups and I am very intimidated. Two I am a little more socially inept or had become so by that time. </p>
<p dir="ltr">I blame a kind of passing dullness, a lingering depression and also perhaps cannabis which I was using a lot in 94 I think. It seemed there was a stress and anger which was in me, and a lack of being able to determine my own destiny. However 1997 sorted that all out, and i found myself a happy individual with the most beautriful girlfriend I have ever had. I got a very yuppie job and had a lot of fun not having to be anywhere near a 'crowd' or a 'scene' but rahter with some small circles of friends. </p>
<p dir="ltr">Still today I have a massive stress response to there being a crowd of cackling people who know or seem to know each other. just last week on the dockside, a pile of new people and me feeling left out and neurotic at the side lines. I should leanr from my flames there, back away from the crowd, keep it simple and small. Fuck the crowd.</p>
<p dir="ltr">My flames taught me then that you can make up and in fact there are in ways to going out again, somethign I should have known with my first love Sandra, who dumped me in mysterious circumstances possibly related to her social climbing into med student circles. We met up a month or two after we split up to exchange records *before CDs: and we ended up in a fond embrace kissing each other good bye with smiles and a laugh. She ended up going out with her ex who I met her through the next year. Not marrying material maybe, but I did love her to bits for a year,</p>
<p dir="ltr">Flames are perhaps just those patches of scorched earth today. They have flickered and smouldred and then there is now all that sex stiuff with women with two kids and so on, where all passions are spent. </p>
<p dir="ltr">I have one old flame, a flirt, who holds a defiant FB candle for me and I suppose I for her. She dropped the lines on the plate a few times for me to have an affaire with her, which turned her on a lot while she had a steady man., Jo is a bit of an enigma, we think a like and recognise this in our conscious streams of chatter. She never produced kids and now never will I guess, being into her mid forties. So she is maybe an old flame worth a fling?</p>
<p dir="ltr">Some old flames do get back together and live happily ever after. Your youth remains hard burned into your memory and emotional record book more so than all those years of the humdrum or even of having kids, which is just a bit of a blur often. Your memory is overloaded and harks back to the deeper recollections and simpler emotional connections of youth, So high school sweethearts do often meet up, both divorced, or one the successful business bachelor*ette, and they have those rose tinted memories of youthful unrequited love and liasions, and all the bubble they lived in then, to reflect back on and find some kind of new emotional rock to anchor up to. </p>
<p dir="ltr">Some folk say they have few memories again of childhood and youth, and they are mostly lieing, they have had negativity or were goody two shoes with a boring time back then. For me I remember and relish the recollections of days of school and especially university, more so than some of the awkwardness of young adulthood I went thorugh from which I still have a major hang over today. Folk who dont remember those formative years or even moments, are perhaps covering up for a Flame whicih burnt their fingers back then in the summer days of yore, <br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br></p>
<p dir="ltr">b<br><br></p>
Damp Freddiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01335140908458450601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3047794108747128013.post-33309642490318598732017-05-19T15:32:00.001-07:002017-05-19T15:32:29.129-07:00Alternative Careers? University is a Waste of Time for Maybe 50% of Graduates .....<p dir="ltr">The elephant in the living room is why are so many western countries sending their offspring to university to do degrees for whcih there are either virtually no need for the skills and knowledge gleamed , or there is so much competition for jobs and the career ladder that hardly anyone gets to actually have a career where they earn more than they would as a school leaver with the same level of activity and effort.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Govbernments are convinced they need more graduates, while shcool leavers are convinced that studying something they really like will get them good grades and a ticket to something, which they have in no proper, meaningful way have researched the current of potential future job market.</p>
<p dir="ltr">In truth even if you ask many engineering graduates, they are not getting a red carpet and have to compete a lot for quite few opportunities. What there is a shortage of in engineering is a percieved shortage across the board, when in fact on the one hand it is often just very special skills and know how which are in short supply, and those often vary year to year. The reality is employers would like more graduate unemployment in engineering so they can keep wages down and get the most motivated, right fit personality types out of a pick of nerds and head strong youth.</p>
<p dir="ltr">In most all vocational degrees and a good few where there are jobs in academia because of retirals - that demographic time bomb is under way- or turn over as in teaching, then there are jobs for the top folk and also those 'hacks' who do well but also excel in the debating society or on the sportsfield. With so many Universities quite a few employers have actually become worse in choosing OxBridge graduates ahead of the plethora of first class honours graduates from the redbrick and the breezeblock universities. Take many blue chip marketing departments, they dont employ marketing graduates from 'tech' or business schools, they go for english literature and psychology graduates from Oxbridge with debating laurels on their CV. </p>
<p dir="ltr">In my day university had just been extended to about double or triple the number of undergraduates, and the drop out rate went up of course, as did the graduate unemployment rate, not to mention the longer term problem of underemployment and perceived over-qualifiction. I'd say in my day about a third of all students either ended up no better off than their new, school leaver colleagues in the great masses of underemployment, on top of another 10 to 15% who never made it through their degrees. Compared to those who took a trade via apprenticeships or the armed forces, many of my graduate and post graduate more have not faired all that well now I look through linked in. </p>
<p dir="ltr">The thing is that the conservatives either steered the country or aided and abetted the country on its way to becoming a tertiary service economy, with a fixation on owning property and rising house prices,. So people in trades have fed off thirty years now of new building and home improvements, extentsions, loft conversions, rewiring and replumbing. In other technical fields, it is often the on the ground, time served service engineers who get to keep their jobs while all those project managers, team lead, techology managers get down sized because in fact, the company lives off service and not ground breaking infrastructure and innovation. </p>
<p dir="ltr">Graduates who go into business services and banking fair much the same, and many I know are in a kind of self rationalising their middle aged lack of really making it by posting lots of photos of their kids and their reunions, while of course we all have smaller houses and less spending money in hand than our educated, unionised parents had. We are only dispossessed by our own belief that our lives would mirror our parents lives and the post war journey the UK (and US and many other countries) took post war, when a degree was a ticket to a management salary and your head above water well and truly. We became the new working class, pushing around money and presenting ideas that pushed around money while in fact we werent creating a lot of new money what so ever. That is a bitter truth. We were the delayered white collar workers who took over from the blue collar and the lower middle class became the new factory floor workers being passed over for pay rises and upskilling. The working working class, those with skills and trades, and a few in manufacturing, they did rather well out of it all, having well paid careers for decades and keeping my generation out of many opportunities simply by being in their jobs with a decade under the belt and a union on call when the downsizing and mergers came. </p>
<p dir="ltr">Like any socio economic phenomenom, it is all easy to see in retrospect. So blatantly obvious that an over supply of graduates would help fuel business growth with all that data punching, powerpoint pushing, excel graph making energy that was by in large hot air in the 90s and 00s. A few economists 'predicted' the financial crisis of 2008, but they were given for doom sayers and some only had the end of national credit card ratings as a foot note in their futurologist scenario builds. My generation went blindly in and for very many it meant that they do not enjoy the material assets and quality of life work balance their nine to five middle class parents did. </p>
<p dir="ltr">A couple of aquaintances of mine either dropped out of uni, or later in life threw in the towel and became plumbers, which may seem a bit of a well trodden cliche bound not to be a golden goose anymore, but in fact of course you can make decent cash at it, at least 33 k a year in UK spondoolics. Of those who took practical, hands on experience or non university career paths, nearly all are doing better than me and a pile of other acedemics or graduates who have worked in office jobs. Those who made it in accountancy and medcine are of course doing quite nicely, but complain of the long hours expected and the stress of work not really making up for the high salary. </p>
<p dir="ltr">I do have a few pals who were from wellish to do families who had alternative lifestyles and what have you, and they are off the radar now, or when on a re vague about what they are into, and possibly lookign to borrow some cash for a new project. </p>
<p dir="ltr">Even those who were very, very good at their non vocational, academic careers have ended up in more mundane industries - oil if they were technical, and housing if they were in other areas. </p>
<p dir="ltr">The UK stands in real danger of falling into a hole because so much of the recent economic growth has been underpinned in fact by immigration - demand for housing in particular, and labour rates from Poles in particular which enable more projects to be viable in the pyramid of investment monies going into housing constuction and redevelopment. The great ' white' hope is that these folk will evapourate away and wages will go up by a market mechanism, but in the same way as we did not really see that property was a key driver in the economy, a key money rich area to be in, and fell for the allure of University education,. The drivers for that are a rising population and rising metropolitisation, and rising wealth among retirees going rural. The latter is likely to be the only growth area, as a new blue rinse blue voting mass of baby boomers getting ready to put their slippers on and live in a cottage in the sticks. Policy on immigration is going to change a lot of things, but some businesses will not survive the period of malaise and retraining and reattituding if you like- british youth rolling up their sleeves and coming off their YouTube channels to work the land, and on building sites. Wages are going to have to go up a lot to attract them and where time served skills are needed, it is going to be a difficult period. In the back of this the Tories promise that the coutnry will still get all the talent it needs, but that stop gap policy could mean many employers dump apprenticeship schemes and opt for quota immigrant workers, or just flout the law, </p>
<p dir="ltr">Simply put, brexit is too simplistic in this 'immigrants out, jobs for our lads and lasses' and over night payrises which match the gap to property prices. High on the list of tory wishes was to remove the 48 hour working week and the employment agency directive, making working life more like insecure slavery for many hundreds of thousands of young workers in particular. However they have turned tail and offer to preserve workers rights that stand now. Right wing politicians are not to be trusted as we now know, and will have any sound bite they like if it wins today, it is forgotten tommorrow and is a necessity. They are looking at todays floating voter, who will be a different voter in six months time, so what if they are let down, we won!</p>
<p dir="ltr">Britain and to a large extent the USA are locked into another consumer and national credit mountain which may at any time, reveal itself to be weak to the core and implode as in 2008. The miracle of business confidence is being based on rolling back environmental leeshes on oil extraction and offrering more public contracts to the private sector, with a virtual blank cheque once public provision is removed from the equation. Tax cuts have worked in the past, because the upper middle class get to invest in more property and stocks like apple, while everyone else can afford bigger mortgages and consumer credit, three to five times rise for each one point rise in wages remember because loans are on a multiplier in the economy. They end up of course, paying more for the same and the next generation get less for more. The upper middle class and some of the middle middle established earners can then afford to release equity for rental property and screw the younger generation even more out of the housing market. Oh how jolly, but it all goes bang at some stage when people are using credit to pay the rent and pay for food, or when the population stops rising, stops metropolising. Then the whole house of cards can fall, and it can be small things like the subprime idiocy which bring it all down. What next, a credit upset due to brexit? Scottish Yes vote?</p>
<p dir="ltr">Self employed tradesmen seem to be always the ones who do alright, given their own health holds out or they are clever enough to hire people and become managers rather than inevitably wearing themselves out physically. There are stresses in being self employed, but as long as the money stream is there at the top, and you are getting great margins on working hours and materials, then you can do very, very well. </p>
<p dir="ltr">If you have family money to invest, then rather than a uni education why not look at buying a fishing boat after working in that ? Why not a saw mill and joinery shop? Very many graduates today are going to be leaving uni with debts as high as 50k, and then having in many careers like law, an internship year which they have to fund somehow too, probably in a big city with craxy rental prices. Mummy and daddy you see, aha, they bail out their kids by remortgaging and when they can, they leverage their business connections to get paid jobs for their over priviledged offsrping. </p>
<p dir="ltr">Hard work is a thing of the past if you just go off in any old direction via University. Take doctors, for the hours they work in their young career, the years they study, the hours they study to get a specialism or pass out as GPs then by age 35 they would be multi millionaires if they had worked in investment, real estate or as plumbers setting up a business. What do you need to succeed in business these days as an entrepreneur? A Theresa May like self belief and ability to twist and turn to meet sound bite opportunities and keep most customers, investors and idiotic employees on your journey happy most of the time, and fuck over the others. <br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br></p>
Damp Freddiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01335140908458450601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3047794108747128013.post-7690455596865669282017-05-08T02:53:00.001-07:002017-05-08T02:53:47.465-07:00What Is It With Beauty? <p dir="ltr">What is it for men that makes them find a woman to be beautiful?</p>
<p dir="ltr">Famously for those women who revell in obesity, some african and polynesian societies set a large price on rotund women, as being the beautiful ones, most attractive and sought after. However not all men in these societies agree. There is then a degree of cultural stereotyping and social norms to be conformed to. Is the reverse true, were western men brainwashed and normalised to prefer the 'anorexic' look?</p>
<p dir="ltr">Once again we fall into what societal impressions are made in the media and the 'tri-via' of every day banter. On the one hand there are 'leadership' messages trying to normalise that which is not actually normal or healthy. For the fashion industry, it was the unobtainable clothes rail figure which on the one hand makes the job of the designer's seamstresses easier, cylinders being catered for instead of horizontal curvature, and it helps the industry sell a concept that you are never good enough so buy more. On the other hand, the tribal elders know that a fatty will survive a famine better than a skinny-me-links. </p>
<p dir="ltr">The fashion industry could own the print media for decades and perpetuate the impression that these 'twiggy' like women's bodies were the height of beauty in society. Now of course there was another quite different print media than Vogue and that genre, there was the men's 'interest' magazines and later the Lads mags. Curves a plenty and no cup size smaller than C on view. And bottoms started to get bigger.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Social media burst on the scene which was a new platform to rebel against the old print media and give a voice to the hoi palloi, the feminist and the male. And bottoms got bigger. Much biggerr. We went from the kate moss waif look being in all images people consumer in paper days, to the Beyonce Jay-Lo big and beautiful. Waistlines are still a little too wasp like then for the fat-is-a-statement fringe in feminism, and there is a focus on good health and physical training. I noticed this on one of my intermittant returns to my homeland, where the shock of so many obese teenage girls in the late naughties turned within halkf a decade to the surprise of how many well trained young women there were around. Social media creates a new peeer pressure you could say, but also it inspires a viral type of discussion on good health and what is really normal for humanity - that we are physcial creatures forced into sedentary lifestyles by the economics of modern times.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Beauty though is not just a pretty bum. What is facial beauty ? Is there for us in the west a set of characteristics which we in the majority would recoginise or rank as beautiful? How does individual taste vary in this ? Do we maybe rate a pretty face but accept and love a different face as being beautiful to us every day when we live or work with someone?</p>
<p dir="ltr">Computing has brought us the average face algorythm. There is an averagely beautiful face you can find, and it isn't all that beautiful and obviously it depends on where the faces are from in the world and who did the initial choosing before the aggregate face merge was run in the programme. Average faces across nations of ethnicities are more interesting, and in fact you can always find beauty in them. However they too are taken from young adults it seems. </p>
<p dir="ltr">There are some features which many seem to agree on and are represented in the averagely beautiful cyborg face.   Relatively large eyes, full lips, a defined jaw line and defined cheek bones for us in the west at least. If we think of this statistically in terms of ranking or some way of saying is your partner or object of affection beautiful, we will probably find that there is a nice statisitical bell curve which may be quite tight when being asked to rank faces or choose the single most beautiful of five images say, or if being asked to rank many or consider their own experiences and actual feelings then we could expect a flatter bell curve. It is socially influenced, with people most likely ranking the feautres of the love of their life or forlorn object of girl next door desire higher.<br><br></p>
<p dir="ltr"> For me the ultimate beauty is Jenna Coleman, who many might think is a bit cutsey or a soft little brunette. She has features which remind me most of my kind of most beautiful girlfriend in my life, who was also a very compatible type for me I can see in retrospect, us meeting though in a time of personal turmoil for us both. So do we then colour our choices by our own experiences ? Yes of course, a deep emotional trigger is in there, either to be adverse or attrtacted. There is the pretty girl in the night club syndrome. She attracts only the cockiest because the more modest personality types consider her out-of-their-league. Her personality is by in large going to be around the average yet she attracts domineering, daring and crass personality types most. After perhaps rejection or being dumped for another, we men quite likely find some features bite a little and rank them lower in a test, and in real life, avoid perhaps girls with those sets of features.<br></p>
<p dir="ltr">Perhaps we are conditioned and manipulated by society and the media, but most of all we are conditioned to behaviours by our own experience and some of our own innate senses for attraction to the opposite sex. I know that I had a good sense that I was heterosexual by age 5 and liked the prettier girls then in my class. These as I remember aged 5 to about 12 were blondes. Later into my teens I grew a strong preference for pretty brunettes, and this was later focused towards petite brunettes at Uni and throughout life, with only 2 or three blondes in my history of 25 dating girlfreinds. I have had interest from some blondes and sandy haired but it is brunettes who catch my motivation to act. This is a learnt response. Petite brunettes like me, a tall auburn man quite well built, and it is a kind of mutual thing through life that I show a certain confidence and perhaps a blush too. </p>
<p dir="ltr">So love #3 in my life, is a story. We had that love-at-first sight PING of the pupil dilation and the kind of body language and her shyness was broken by a common friend in hand. It showed that our biological instincts and programming through life had made a match and the social context was conjusive to a potential partnership. I am glad in a way we didnt marry, she was 95% sweet and lovely but 5% vitriolic bitch. Maybe I would have tamed that last shrew percent into something better, but she wanted a rich boy in her cerebral choices which would have been troublesome. </p>
<p dir="ltr">It's no coincidence I write this as the 20th anniversary of meeting the greatest, brightest flash-in-the-pan I ever had back in june 1997. I am seperated and middle aged and find myself on the brink of being in the market again. I met up with my own Jenna Coleman a few times after,and we hit it off of course, I was a bit once bitten of course. On leaving she admitted it was just a bad time and perhaps later (when I had calmed down a bit from a stressful lifestyle) .I certainly don't have the same tastes as my friends, and don't want to go back to my twice bitten period after love #3 and love #4 in the late nineties, whereafter I became an opportunist happy to take what landed at my feet, being a young man in his prime. It wasnt a waste of time, although I think economics could have played a bigger roll now in retrospect either way of getting a professional partner or a good house wife so I could work more. </p>
<p dir="ltr">Our programming by genes and by experience then I beleive counts for more of what we of both sexes find instantly attractive. We seek queues which are obvious and some more subtle in our peri-conscious judgements, but of course we are prejudiced by our social learning experiences and cerebral filters. <br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br></p>
Damp Freddiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01335140908458450601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3047794108747128013.post-17367095195519624712017-04-18T14:38:00.000-07:002017-04-18T14:38:06.030-07:00David Cameron's Last Economic Wheeze....OPM Pension Fund Raid<h3>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">What could have been a major discussion in parliament has been washed away in the mire of brexit and the Scottish indy 1, is the shift in private pension law. Previously pensions were managed via a very controlled move from pension fund over to a pay-out vehicle called an annuity. This suited the industry quite nicely because most of those reaching pension just carried on in ignorance to this and put it down to jargon and small print, allowing their private pension provider to continue control of their amassed small fortune.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">However what Cameron, <i>or rather his economic advisors desperate for growth drivers to inject fluidity in the economy, </i> noted was that this money is somewhat not the company's it is the pensioner's fund<span style="font-weight: normal;">. There was a cash log-jam in the consumer economy to be unblocked just in time for the wave of baby boomers crashing onto the happy shore of retirement. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> It suits Tory individual freedom of choice to move the law to making it very obvious that the pensioner has control of this in effect, lump sum. Now it has to be said that the pensions industry sell a premise which is building a million pound fund in order to give an annual dividend from interest of between two and five percent of the fund's top line value. Of course the pension's company and their fund managers hope to make a heck of a lot more over 10-20 years of payout of interest on that lump of cash, and over the 30 or so years of contributions have made a very tidy margin on everybody's payments collectively. At death the pension fund passes to spouse or next of kin, and is subject to death duties/ inheritance taxation . </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">You could as a prospective pensioner, elect </span></span><span style="font-size: small; font-weight: normal;">alternatively to balance annual income by drawing down from the pot as well as the interest, but that really would not suit the whole game the pension fund managers play - they need lareg sums to spread bet and expect above 5% ROI year on year as averaged over 10-20 years. Most people do unfortunetly die within 13 years of retiring, and that age is about to fall on average as the unhealthy baby boomers, who have enjoyed too much of fags, drink and nosh ups, hit the buffers earlier. So given you have a million pounds to offer say a £ 25,000 - 45,000 annual income from the old annuity route, you can see that taking 100,000 p.a. for ten years is attractive - in the context then if you do make it past average age of death at only about 77 y.o., and then letting your PAYE pension pick you up if and when you are in your dotage and need to sell your house anyway to fund nursing home</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Now of course the government does nicely out of inheritance tax - eventually- but being able to inject a huge amount of cash which is sloshing around in pension company managed funds, internationally it must be said, then the country will gain by short term growth, as in the credit cycle before of the 80s and 1997-2008 periods, with the VAT reciepts and other tax revenues being high. Suddenly the finest crop of baby boomers born in 1950-1953 will discover that they can manage their own capital, and despite what ever smart alec IFAs say to them, they will want to spend, spend, spend and then rely on the state SERP PAYE pensions so many stayed in or had via state employment, for their really decrepit years, where capital penalises you by forcing up your charges in nursing homes.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">Pensioners on average are of course not stupid and balancing capital extraction with interest payouts plus your true life expectancy, or qualiyears as some call it then fuck it, live for today..</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">..A year or two is positively geological time in politics these days , so a 'quick win' was to be had, injecting billions of otherwise locked up pounds into the consumer economy rather than the global investment banker network.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">The essence of people's capitalism and self determinisation or just a credit bubble which will squeeze for example, buy to rent prices upwards? It certainly is a little cynical and possibly anarchic, especially if you are a Norwich Union fund manager (for example).</span></h3>
Damp Freddiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01335140908458450601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3047794108747128013.post-15497681190556539612017-04-16T14:41:00.001-07:002017-04-16T14:41:11.070-07:00Say Hello to Madame George<p dir="ltr">Trans identity and rights have been eclipsed by other madness in world events recently, but one old and very petty little debate won't go away. Say hello to Madame George.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Often held up as a trans song, there is in fact no reality in this, just the misinterpration of words. Van Morrisson wrote Madame George as the second part of a probably a highly autobiographical pair of songs , the other being Cypress Avenue , of course mentioned in the opening line again of the latter in the brace of ballads.</p>
<p dir="ltr">The myth of Madame George being an early pro trans song and alluding to a flirt with blurring the borders of sexuality and the artist's own experimention there in, are completely transparent. Firstly in the very name of the 'lady' being George. Secondly in the general poetic narrative suggesting a forbidden, underground flirtation which could never quite be requited. Thirdly the mention of what some claim is ' playing dominoes in drag' when the police raid the place. </p>
<p dir="ltr">Alas these are just misinterpretations. Firstly George is not referring to a first name, it is a well known second name in Ulster, and as both the well heeled middle class avenue and the 'soldier boy' husband suggests, a protestant one at that. Leading from this, the sexual tension and intrigue is more understandably heterosexual and extra marital, as the swingin late sixties afforded women a greater sexual freedom. Lastly ' in drag' is actually ' an' drag' , and not in, with the word meaning a card game played for petty bets at the time. </p>
<p dir="ltr">Van Morrison has spoken little of his specific inspirations for his modern folk master piece ' Astral Weeks' but he has mentioned that he had an affaire ( or several?) with an uptown lady which meant him walking up Cypress avenue in Belfast. ' Marching with the Soldier Boy Behind' seems to allude pretty strongly to a woman in control of her destiny with some contempt for her husband. This has also though, been 'decoded' to mean a gay lover in tow, walking two steps back to avoid attention. </p>
<p dir="ltr">The subject matter is though more clearly upon setting in context of the young openly heterosexual artist's formative years, centred around an affaire or unrequited relationship wirth a femme fatale. She may have been from the Republic due to the references to a police raid on their gambling den, and Van Morrisions seemingly obsessional need to get the train back to Belfast from Dublin. This seems also to refer to the innapropriateness of having a liason with perhaps a lady into her forties, and Van Morrison's dubiouty over the relationship</p>
<p dir="ltr">For me Madame George is then and Ulsterian Mrs. Robinson. She is a chance encounter for the artist. Out of boredom or awareness of her sexual needs, she leads the teenage protege into unchartered adult waters.</p>
Damp Freddiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01335140908458450601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3047794108747128013.post-46824587145871463802017-01-17T03:25:00.001-08:002017-01-17T03:25:48.476-08:00Trumpman's New, New Deal <h3>
Trumpanomics Round the Corner, or More of the Same-Old-Same-Old?</h3>
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President Elect Trump's inauguration is just a couple of days away, and he has in his latest interview continued his hard line on ripping up a bad trade deal. The balance of trade with China in particular is staggering. He is really talking about protectionism.<br />
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For the last thirty years, protectionism and tightening national border customs control have been very untrendy. In fact they have been consigned to the extremes of politics, with entities like the Italian Communist Party and some of the Neo Fascist organisations being the only ones who support a retreat from internationalism in economic policy.<br />
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The thing is that the West can live with a bad trade balance as long as it has a positive investment balance ie companies are listing in the west. Reselling and design in the west, build in the east is highly profitable and efficient in the eyes of investors because it avoids all that nasty risk of having to manufacture yourself and face things like skills shortages, trade unions and wage pressure.<br />
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<h3>
The Liberals Got Shafted By Accepting Neo Liberalism</h3>
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When Bill Clinton signed the first major free trade deal with China it was in the 1990s when US manufacturing was doing rather well, having modernised and been able to get itself away from the bad days of excessive trade union power. The concept was then that rise paddy land would buy our higher value western consumer goods in return for commodities and the type of low tech, high labour intensive work the west had "grown out of". This has become a complete nightmare of a mirrored situation from anticipated, where China has eaten up all the manufacturing jobs and rendered much of that hidden under-belly of the US to what is called the 'rust belt'. All forms of jobs apart from retail and personal services, and of course public sector, have been going east.<br />
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It just doesn't matter to the major brands where their product is made or what politics it is made under. This extends also to the major web sites - the mega cyberbrands - and mobile app's too, which are increasingly being programmed in China and India. Worse that just losing jobs, the west are also losing brand dialogue and suppliers. The growth markets in the east have massive untapped potential- already the affluent middle class in China, India and the Island Belt (SingMalDesia as someone called it) is approaching half the entire population of the USA. Brands look to their tastes and needs first now.<br />
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<i>A </i><i>Strategy for </i><i>Balance of Trade based on Financial Markets, Premium Goods and Brands, Has Failed </i></h4>
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Selling our high value goods to this massive growth market has just not been a job creator. In fact the opposite, because some of these brands have been bought out by eastern investors, including those supported by good old Keynsian cash from national banks. Incredible that we allow a government and credit fuelled group of Tiger economies behave like this while the western worker has to accept that such spending is interference with natural market mechanisms. We forget all too quickly that there are other economic models than the neo liberal one, and that it has taken Trump of all people to drag off those ideological emperor's new clothes from the ruling elite in their Davos coseyness.<br />
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The biggest issue for the Democrats and left in the EU countries is that they swallowed the 'new consensus' on more free trade and less borders is always good. In effect there became no fundamental opposing economic policy, rather with the Clinton period and New Labour period, and the Social Democrat period in the EU and scandinavia of the 1990s, it was on who couls spend the tax best and offer the consumer a better deal on their visa card.<br />
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<h3>
Real Living Cost Inflation and Erosion of Wages As Bad as The 1970s?</h3>
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We are in fact also in a wharped mirror decade which is looking a lot like the 1970s to people who have to balance family budgets. Then we had an energy crisis, and overly powerful unions which lead to high inflation in retail prices and a devaluation of western currencies over the course of seven years or so. Now in fact we have of course real living cost inflation in that housing, commuting and utilities are all costing more, but none of these show on the consumer price index which is the great beaming siren of health in the economy. Only it of course is an outdated index in terms of erosion of spending power and standard of living.<br />
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What capital has been able to pull off is a health chart for the patient which shows there is no disease in the west, that we only need to all work harder to get on. Their capital assets and income increase in value based on this rentier economic investment in housing, privatised utilities, transport, health and retail. There is no consumer price increases which worry the currency markets, who are myopic to the balance of trade. IN fact you could say that the anarchic currency trading system is exacerbatic to real inflation for ordinary employees because it values also a high total stock value and private equity flow into the country's housing market. That keeps demand for dollars up.<br />
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<i><br />Neo Liberalism is the Run Away Goods Train of Ideology Which Has Delivered Social Unrest</i></h4>
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What the left really did not realise is that Neo Liberal globalisation is a hurtling goods train for the delivery of poorer living standards for a very large proportion of the workforce. It not only exposes workers in manufacturing to the global pressure to compete with the lowest common denominator, or the highest secretly subsidised state. The management philosophy sweeps sideways into the domestic service economy and over into those middle class, high value added jobs which now have wages which are stagnant, and thus become eroded Unemployment and oversupply of graduates is good for the bad bosses out there, because it means they can offer take it or leave it initial conditions, and even reduce wages or increase working hours on an unpaid basis. In several professions in the US now, it is necessary for ordinary workers to do an extended period of wages free internship. This is all just the market, the facts of life, the value you have as a person versus the next man or woman in line.<br />
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We used to call this DOLE RULE and we used to something about it via organising our labour. Post war we, the western middle class, strung out our time of imperialism, and protected our imperial markets to a large extent allowing slow growth in bilateral international trade. We rebuilt europe on keynsian principles, and the US white worker at least, never had it so good under the 'virtuous cycle' of the 50s and 60s. Keynsianism. Protectionism. Collective Bargaining via Unions. Free Education. All these bads. Yet our economies grew faster in that peiod than the subsequent three decades, there was a higher spending power and lower basic costs of living relative to wages. In fact inflation during this period is lower than it was in the last three decades.<br />
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It all went wrong in the 70s with several key factors, one of which was unrelated: the arabian oil crisis. The other one which was political and local was on the one hand powerful unions and on the other management struggling to raise investment for new technology and plant to increase productivity. We entered a kind of perfect storm of inflationary pressure and decline in those companies which did not modernise production or methods. We saw rising automation too, but it was general difficulties in teh economy coupled to the baby boomers being too proliferate which lead to job losses. In fact unemployment and in particular under employment became a lot worse in the 1980s, but this is a little facile because women entered the work force as full timers en masse and this was also a disruption. A lot of things caused the malaise of the 1970s and set the route to slavery the Neo Liberals pushed us out upon in the 80s.<br />
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<b>The net result is the US Rust Belt and growing social unrest in the old west. Scapegoats are easy to find, and the free movement of Labour and blind eye to Mexican labour the Neo Liberal epoch permitted is coming to an abrupt end with Trump's wall and Brexit. We want your markets, but we don't want your people and we won't buy our brands made in your country any more.</b><br />
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In the UK, there is a surprise low productivity to economists, but if they bothered to look away from the Financial "City" and the North Sea, they would see everyone selling insurance and cappucinos to each other, or offering nail manicures, or being marginalised in privatised services into low wages and temporary contracts. We are in a malaise, and the lower third of society are paying highest for it, yet often lack the articulation or understanding for how they were put in this situation of stagnant wages and a hard labour market yet with rising living costs.<br />
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Trump knows that the balance of trade is paid for somewhere. It is paid for by the personal credit mountain and government spending. In part of course, the government had to prop up and subisdise the failing financial credit industry, in a similar way to the sick car industry of the 1970s. In other ways, a large part of the economy is driven by imports being sold to people on the public pay roll, and an increasing proportion of American internal industry is paid for by government spending such as Medicare and defence. Because the market for labour is so saturated, employers can get away with marginalising retail and service workers into precarious low hours , taking top up benefits from the state.<br />
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The trouble is of course that Trump does not just oppose an Ideological Economic Epoch, he also opposes huge vested interests in the USA and lobbying power in Senate and Congress on both sides of the house. China is a major investor in both the stock exchange and private equity (mostly real estate). The big brands don't want to have to manufacture in the US when they can do it easier and cheaper in China, and get loans there from the state's back door. Retailers are a powerful lobby who dont want inflationary pressures or a threat to their supply of cheap labour. Health companies and defence manufacturers dont want the US public purse to get a 'better deal' as Trump wants. He faces entrenched political channels for all these interest groups, and a stock exchange and currency market which may punish him. <br />
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Further to all this picture of Trump being perhaps the Left's new surprise hero or stalking horse to more equitable national economic policy, he has reiterated this week his committment to building infrastructure in the US. This is a keynsian and Federal approach to fixing problems, both of which are abhorrent to Neo Liberalists. It starts to look more like Truman's New Deal than Reaganomics take II.<br />
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These ertswhile socialist policies though are not going to be brought in with a punative taxation plan for the upper third and top 2% of society, quite the contrary. Trump looks to balance the books over 5 years via productive activity in the economy dragging the labour maket up, and a better more symmetric trade deal with China. He will cut defence if he can get away with it, and ease the sense of New Cold War growing with Putin. He will cut propping up Israel. Trump's economics seem to be from the radical left mixed with Thatcherism of the purse strings in the handbag. Trump has been a supporter of the democrats before. Who is this man really? A lot of republicans asked the same question during the primaries, but now he has his uber right power base established they do not dare dissent before they see weakness down the line. A republican " house and hill " is quite a rare combination taken in the context of the last half century. It is seen as political opportunity for other reforms and regressions of laws and systems. Also they know now that people do not beleive in the revamped Bushanomics offered by their other presidential candidates.<br />
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<b>The Neo Liberal, globalised model is broken for the US working class and has also eroded the standard of living for the middle class. Like Lenninist Marxism in the USSR, the public finally find a mouth piece in the corridors of otherwise entrenched doctrine and ideological worship. Trump is that Gorbachev for Globalist Neo Liberalism.</b><br />
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Simplistic solutions for limiting immigration and negotiating better trade deals behind closed doors seem to favour the worker in the street, but the structure of the national economies are not there to actually make the change. They are still oriented around globalisation and Neo Liberal anti organised labour policy. It will take brute force to shift this old epoch out of the way and it is Trump and Brexit which are either those forces or the stalking horses to a new era. It is going to be different.<br />
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<b>If you say that Brexit and Trump have pushed through a log-jam of political correctness, in fact it is far more true in motivation to vote, that they are a move away from Economic Correctness in the Neo Liberal epoch.</b>Damp Freddiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01335140908458450601noreply@blogger.com0