Chaos Theory

The four types of relationship problems

Solvable, unsolvable, dealbreakers, woundopeners.

Dear Miss Manners:

"I would consider myself to be a good-humored, cheerful sort of person and enjoy smiling when I have cause to smile.

However, when I am intensely focused on accomplishing something difficult, I apparently fail to smile, which seems to be a sin in our society. This causes my fellow citizens (no doubt civic-minded) to admonish me to smile, accompanied by a perky smile of their own, which I admit to finding irksome in the extreme.

Could you offer advice on how to respond appropriately, particularly when said admonishment is issued in front of a group? I find if I ignore it, the admonishment continues, but fear a direct rejection of the order might “create a scene” (of which I have a near British-level aversion). And thus I typically comply with a weak smile, which ends the situation but invariably leaves me in a foul mood and, I fear, bit by bit, slowly destroys my soul."

"GENTLE READER: You had Miss Manners’ sympathy that such admonitions are rude, and diminish rather than increase the level of civic concord. And you had her agreement on the weak smile as the correct response — up to the point where you suggested that a courteous reply would have unfortunate, and possibly eternal, consequences.

The hope in giving a weak smile (moving the mouth only slightly while the eyes simply stare) is that it will, over time, discourage your fellow citizens from repeating their behavior when they see it is unwelcome. It will not put a sudden and dramatic stop to that behavior. But responses that would create significantly more civic discord, if they do not carry jail time, should be avoided."

Your Partner’s Weird Family Is Not Necessarily a Deal-Breaker

I don't know about that...

Fun with the Carolyn Hax chat

Washington Post:

First up is a mom of triplet boys who dresses them all alike out of convenience, laziness, and ease of finding them. But people are bitching that the kids will hate it. Carolyn's response:

"People just can't or won't help themselves and, in my experience, at least, their resistance seems to get weaker the more children you have in tow. Higher-order multiples are no doubt red capes to the meddling bull." 

There's also the chick getting crap for being a double minority in a male-dominated field:

"You can point out what people are really saying to you by rephrasing it: "You do realize, I hope, that you just said you're smarter than I am because you're white/male."

Most People Have Mental Health Problems at One Point or Another

I figured.

Get more grit in your life

Podcast interview with Angela Duckworth.

How to Help a Friend Who’s Going Through Something Horrible

“Often, our first instinct is to help solve the problem,” the authors write, before adding, “This approach works very well if someone loses their iPhone. It really doesn’t work if someone suffers a major loss.”

It's a gamification post!

• Dating wasn’t working for me — until I went out with 15 guys in one month (Washington Post): 

"Their answers were part of my research on how they managed to find the one thing I couldn’t wrap my arms around without it slipping away from me — a loving and supportive relationship. I figured that hearing about their meet-cutes would give me enough inspiration and motivation to stop rolling my eyes at dating.
But after a while, their answers started to fall into three main buckets:
The ones who met their match back in high school or college, an opportunity I clearly missed.
The ones who met them at work, which wasn’t going to happen to me since I was running a business of one employee (me!) from my living room.
The ones who met through the modern-day fairy tale of swiping right on each other’s profile. I had tried that, again and again, without any luck.
By asking that question over 40 times in two years, I hoped that I would hear an unusual answer that would somehow magically end my long-running reputation as the “single one” in my group of friends. Quite literally, I was always the bridesmaid but never the bride.

“So, tell me, where did you and your fiance meet?” I asked, wondering what bucket her answer would fall into.

“I gamified dating,” she said, sipping her hot chocolate.

“What does that mean?” I shot back.

“I decided to join JDate and go on four dates every Saturday. I made a spreadsheet. Ranked guys by my preferences and narrowed down my pool of guys into a top five and then picked the best one. It only took me a month to meet my fiance.” 

“You went on four dates a day?” I asked, wondering how she had the stamina.

“Yes. Each date was 30 minutes. After it was over, I’d walk around the block and come back inside to meet my next date.”

Here I was, talking to someone who treated dating like you might would treat shopping for a car. Yet I was intrigued by her technique. It seemed like an exhausting but fun challenge. I wondered if I could survive it.

“It is a numbers game,” she told me.

I knew she was right. Going on one bad date every six months was not helping my odds of finding something lasting.

•  I Should Be Writing podcast episode on gamification.
• Habitica.
• 4thewords.com

Soft skills at work

"If an employee at your organization walked out with a brand-new laptop every day, you’d have him arrested, or at least fired. If your bookkeeper was embezzling money every month, you’d do the same thing.

But when an employee demoralizes the entire team by undermining a project, or when a team member checks out and doesn’t pull his weight, or when a bully causes future stars to quit the organization — too often, we shrug and point out that this person has tenure, or vocational skills or isn’t so bad."

Psychology today

• Your personality changes when you move to a new place.
• Worrying is doing two things at once.
• Things sociologists learned by studying the Women's March.
• Psychology of the Worry Spiral.