Rebranding the Friend Zone: Turning Familiarity Into Power

We’ve seen it all before a thousand times. Many of us have been there, probably more than a few times. The boards on 4chan are full of people asking for advice on how to break the cycle. The story goes like this: Really nice guy meets a girl, they become really close friends. Either he has been into her from the beginning, or he realizes later on that he’s really into her. (This happens in both directions with any combination of girls and guys; Im just writing the male-hetero version because it is what I am familiar with personally.) The girl goes through other guys like a lawnmower, each one having some major flaw and inevitably acting like a douche-canoe. Of course the guy “friend” is with her through all this. Listening to the complaints, giving lots of hugs, and in some extreme cases even defending the errant boyfriend. All the while the guy won’t have any real relationships, in fact he won’t do much with the other gender at all because has eyes for nobody else but his “friend.” If he does hook up with someone or even start a relationship, it will slowly deteriorate because he has so much more fun with the other girl and doesn't see the point; he returns to waiting.

Often the situation will come to a head when the girl says something stupid, like “I wish I could just date you. . .” Or the guy just can’t take it any more and admits his feelings only to have the girl say no because she doesn’t want to “ruin our friendship.” If no new actions are taken, the cycle will continue until there is neither friendship nor romance. A true waste of emotion and yet it continues to occur every single day. In this post, I am going to discuss how to break out of the friend zone successfully, and why this is often where the best relationships come from.
First of all, I don’t want to give false hope. This article is not a guide on how to seduce that new friend you met three months ago and have gotten “so” close with. This is for the hard-core friends, who hang out on friday nights and eat pizza alone together or have keys to each other’s rooms/houses. These are the friends that people see in the street and assume are couples. These are people who enjoy the company of each other clothed more than they enjoy the company of others naked. These are the lifers who need to stop living in disappointment because everyone who sees them thinks “Man, I wish I had a relationship like that.”

 

Now let’s discuss the objections of the oblivious party. “I don’t want to ruin our friendship.” This is an interesting litmus test, actually, if you are persistent and this is the only objection you receive, it is quite likely that this is the only “objectionable” part of the idea. This is a good sign, if the other person doesn’t find you attractive/only liked buff Germans/doesn’t know who you are and keeps spraying you with mace, it will become clear, and the prospect of a relationship is unlikely. In the situation described by the previous paragraph, however, this objection simultaneously sounds reasonable and  makes no sense under further examination. Usually by the time the receiving party has realized this, the subject has been changed. It makes sense because ruining the friendship is an objectively horrible thing. This is the person you have the most fun with, remember? Losing that connection would be unthinkable. But then, further examination inevitably unearths the next question:
“WTF? How would us spending more time together, and being romantically involved, and being able to express our feelings honestly, and intertwining our lives further, ruin our friendship?”
The short answer is that it really shouldn’t. The confusing answer is that it often does, and the reason for all of that confusion is expectations. (This is the vocab word that allows me to post this seemingly irrelevant article on our blog.) The best couples are best friends, either because they always have been, or through their courtship they became that way. (totally baseless claim warning, that commenter who was very concerned with the comings and goings through my ass will enjoy this one:) I have noticed that many couples who are happiest claim to treat each other the same in public and in private. That is to say one does not ignore the other when friends are around. Physical affection is not abhorred in public (though hopefully not too extreme, either, for the rest of us.) Friends do this naturally. They have no need to treat someone differently in different situations. BUT, when we join in a formal relationship, we get confused and we start thinking we have to buy flowers, we start thinking about what our friends will think, our parents, our pets, that tile on the kitchen floor you have always suspected disapproved of you. We freak out and try to act like boyfriend/girlfriends. This can cause awkwardness in the transition and leads many of these relationships to fail. The resistant party is really afraid of that failure, because that failure means the loss of the friendship. At this point, a choice has to be made, live forever in the friend zone or take a risk on something perfect--and make no mistake, it is a risk. The hardest part is going to be convincing the other person that the risk is worth it.
That’s where this article really starts. I believe that relationships that start as friends, especially longtime friends, have a much better chance at success than other relationships. The reasons are pretty simple. You already know you like the person, and you already know what you don’t like about the person. As a bonus you probably already know almost everything about them and they probably know almost everything about you. When you date a person you barely know, you live in constant fear of their “skeletons.” If you date a friend, you already know them. Now, an argument can be made here that half the fun of a relationship is getting to know someone, and this is absolutely true, but I also believe that misunderstandings/miscommunications/straight-up incompatibilities that occur in that stage of a relationship can stunt growth and result in a premature ending (pun intended).

So here’s what you need to do. Once you are sure that you want to take the risk, you must make a bold move. You must be “Alpha” as they say on 4chan. (remember again this position can be taken by a person of any gender) If possible, this should be done when the other person is single, but it can be successful otherwise as well. A little bit of creativity is necessary here. It is probably a bit too much to breach the subject and perform a grand gesture all in one fell swoop. And on the other hand if you leave too long between the actions she will have time to start worrying. For the best results, hint at the prospect of a relationship between you, even as a joke. Bring the idea to her mind, let it germinate, let her come to the only wall there is: “I don’t want to ruin our friendship.” Now break that wall down. Play to your advantage here. You know her, you know what she likes, you know what she likes about guys, you know what she likes about you. If she’s a surfer, think romantic sunset paddle. If she’s a cinephile think that one-screen movie house that plays cute old rom-coms. If she’s a bookworm, think some imaginative game in the library where you first met. Oftentimes the cheesier the better--If you can commit to it fully. You have to take yourself seriously. Watch Dress up nice, be on your game, make her laugh, blow her mind. Make her take that risk. Make her know that you care, even humiliate yourself a bit because you don’t care as long as she thinks its cool. Try this on for inspiration (but remember it helps to be Heath Ledger):

Then at the end of it all, just tell her straight out what you want, how you feel, how you think she feels. If you have gotten this point it’s all up to her now. If it was meant to be, she will know it too.

If she says yes then all you have to do it deal with the shockwaves. A lot of stuff goes down when two friends go out. Mainly other friends get freaked out. Thats normal. Just hang out with them like you normally would. Make them know that no one is going to get left behind. COMMUNICATE. DO NOT AVOID QUESTIONS. ANSWER HONESTLY. GET YOUR STORY STRAIGHT WITH YOUR PARTNER. 100% of the problems we worry about when friends date can be solved if you share your feelings. You can handle it, you’re already the best of friends.

Occupy Your Life: Living Politically

People have criticized the Occupy Wall Street movement for lacking a central message, if one at all.  Further, people have criticized their repertoire for being ineffective, divisive, and lacking the discipline or leadership to quell violent fringe groups.  I split with most of this criticism;  part of the OWS strength has been it's ability to encompass a vast array of issues that all, in some part, relate to wealth concentration and its corruptive influence.  Also, if a movement is able to mobilize participants across the nation, activating powerful organizing networks while retaining a direct democratic structure- that is, one that has no leaders or representatives, but speaks only through a sovereign voice- I believe this success overshadows any violent fringe groups that successfully lured a media bent on sensationalizing protest.  But as with any social movement, it does require growth; particularly with regard to what, in the sociological realm, is referred to as repertoire.  It is clear that, at this point in time, endless demonstrations will result in little impact.  I do believe that there are some effective social, political, and economic measures that could, theoretically, be executed by participants that might deliver the results.  Some are more arcane, others are obvious, but in concert my proposed measures would deliver a message that could not be obfuscated or ignored by both corporate and political leaders.  This is not an article in defense of OWS, nor a position paper on corporate America and Washington.  It is simply a playbook for effective communication, one that I do hope will take wind.

1) We have to start understanding our dualistic role as citizens of a democracy, and consumers in a capitalist society dominated by undemocratic financial institutions.  While we don't control the institutions themselves, we do, in fact control the capital that empowers them.  What does living this dualistic role mean in terms of realizing OWS goals?

-It means being an aggressive, political consumer.  Exercise what democratic pull you do have in the corporate world by organizing people not just under political views, but corporate ones.  You are not just "Progressives", you are Anti- Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs shareholders in the GDP of America.  If you have an account with one of these banks, or a subsidiary of one of these banks, close it and move your money elsewhere.  Request information from banks on where they ground their investments- Is it in firms that support the military industrial complex? Firms that use Washington lobbyists to forward their agendas?  This is public information.  Find it.  Use it.  The sooner these firms lack the capital to continue covering up their incompetencies, the faster they will be shunned by by more consumers and politicians.

- Buy American Products and encourage Product industry.  That is, firms that produce physical objects that are useful in our daily lives, not financial firms that produce hot air and money from thin air.  Don't buy products from firms that engage with these banks, or use lobbyists to influence congress.  Buy secondhand, or from firms you know are good.  You have to be vigilant; the liberal branding of a company culture has no bearing on it's practices.  How do we know this?  Look at some of the most "lib eral" "counterculture" brands many people rely on. Urban Outfitters, for example, is owned by an extraordinarily conservative superdonor who bankrolled Rick Santorums' presidential run.   Apple, a company traditionally revered by liberals for it's break from the corporate monotony of Microsoft, and held in esteem by many for completely unsubstantiated claims about corporate responsibility, contracts to Chinese companies that dangerously exploit their workers.

-Pay only the premium value back on loans to private lending institutions, perhaps adding for inflation.  You read that and said, "That's ridiculous, it's dishonest, it's unfair, irresponsible, impossible, and has serious consequences, such as a dent in your credit score".  Well, maybe, to the last one, but this is only an employable tactic if EVERYONE DOES IT.  No one can jail you for not paying back the interest on your loan.  (Well, as long as you stay on your shit http://finance.yahoo.com/news/jailed-for--280--the-return-of-debtors--prisons.html) As to the other charges of irresponsibility, dishonesty, unfairness- if these words ran through your head for but a fleeting second, take a moment to reflect on the 2008 financial crisis.  If the greedy, irresponsible, unfair, dishonest and bloody incompetent maneuvers by the financial industry don't rock your moral calculators towards supporting this idea, then you weren't paying attention.   Liberals- these scumbags defrauded the American people and lobbied their way into buying your Congress.  Conservatives- your tax dollars bailed them out when they failed.  Explain to me why whatever profit they may reap from loaning you money doesn't already belong to you?  Until these banks issue a check to every American in an amount proportionately equal to the tax money they contributed to saving their asses, I'm pretty sure they owe us.

2) Educate Yourself and become involved in local politics
-So OWS criticizes elite institutions of education, as well as Washington D.C.  Yale, Harvard, Columbia, and Dartmouth don't covet some special knowledge that cannot be accessed through a community college, so let's empower counter-institutions by attending them.  The more attendees your local junior college gets, the more state money it will qualify for. The more you attend alternate four year institutions, the more esteemed they become.  I'm a student at Willamette University- Willamette is well-regarded in the Pacific Northwest, with an increasing following here in the Bay Area.  It is nationally attended but not nationally acclaimed- yet.  Am I ashamed that it is only ranked #57 on the "Nation's Best Liberal Arts Colleges" by US News and World Report?  Absolutely not.  One, because I know it's becoming more well known, more respected, and actually growing to be a better institution.  Two, because that singular ranking system means about as much as the opinions of a fifth grader. Check out that hyperlink to Malcolm Gladwell's piece published in the New Yorker on how that ranking system is organized.  It just reinforces the institutional bias that lies at the heart of what OWS opposes.
  Also, read books that allow you to be a more persuasive authority on topics of interest.  Check out Robert Reich, Kalle Lasn, and Michael Lewis.  The more you know, the more valuable you are to your cause.  Many important OWS media bite opportunities have been debunked by the ignorance of the unwitting individual selected to be the poster boy.

Think this:

Not this:


-Local politics- Just as elite academic institutions have little more real educational value than colleges "ranked" far beneath them, you'd be surprised what your local district supervisor, state senator, or mayor can do to improve your world.  Often, this level of government has a more visible impact on our daily lives, and it's more accessible than the entrenched systems of Washington, and subject to less special interest manipulation.  Get in touch with these people, or become involved yourself.  The more active and effective local governments are, the more responsibilities and assets are endowed in them.  Remember "think globally, act locally"?

Were these suggestions to be implemented, a real possibility for swift, systemic change exists.  If we begin by executing a run on every major publicly traded bank, but are sure to instantly reinvest those assets in community credit unions, the economy will not cave in on itself.  Rather, it will undergo a reformation that relegates the distribution of capital to regional microcosms of what they once where.  This creates oversight and accountability, allowing the sort of bottom up financial disasters such as the Great Depression and Recession to be cut off at their genesis.  Essentially, this would be citizens forcing banks to abide by a federal law that already once existed- the McFadden Act of 1927 prohibited banks from branching out beyond the state they initially operated in.  This kept a reasonable measure to the pipeline between investor and borrower, one that could not be obfuscated by national bureaucratic design.  Could you imagine a mortgage broker pushing a Ninja (No Income, No Job, No Assets) loan when his supervisor regularly reports to a state financial supervisor?  Further, that risky loan could never be shrouded in the secrecy of a derivative bundle-up and then traded as a hot commodity on national markets.  Risky financial behavior would be monitored, and failures would affect the involved parties alone, rather than internally shredding the organs of our financial system.

By consciously supporting product industry, that is, ethical firms that produce physical products and not financial mechanisms, we will help companies that will actually create jobs.  Financial firms simply concentrate jobs on the administrative end of the economy- these jobs are important, but they should only exist to the extent they need to.  Right now, our economy is flooded with financial advisors that should actually be in management positions of firms that are developing useful products for the future and employing Americans.  We can make that choice, if we do the research.  By not allowing your capital to fall into the black hole of finance, you throw your weight behind meaningful economic growth.   That is to say, you will shun financial mechanisms that enable frenzied recirculation of capital to grow GDP in a nominal fashion, and support firms that grow real GDP permanently by employing people and selling useful stuff.  This is the only legitimate way to lower the unemployment rate.

This is a Tesla Roadster, a fully electric, American-made, American-badass sports car.  Unfortunately one of these bad boys (with middle-of the road upgrades) weighs in at $84,000  in American markets.  This would be different if Tesla Motors was supported by serious financial backers and high consumer demand.  This is the sort of product we could be mass producing if we shifted our emphasis from finance, to ethical products.  

  

By not paying back the interest on our loans, we would send a message to large lenders that we are not willing to accommodate large, floating interest rates, at least until our money is returned from bailing them
out.  The result would not be some cataclysmic default- all of the principal investment would be returned, and the capital would continue to flow- investor salaries will drop.... I see no negative repercussions.  Again, the lack of income to financial firms would cut the margin for jobs in the financial sector and redirect our young professionals into jobs that actually matter.

If people began to attend and financially support junior colleges en masse, we would see a reconstruction of the way hiring works.  Well-attended, well-respected, and well-run community colleges would provide valuable degrees to people seeking employment.  This has two resounding impacts: 1) On of our main employment issues is that of under education- an abundance of jobs requiring technical expertise in the medical, agricultural, mechanical, and IT industries exist, but there is a lack of people with those skills connecting to these employers.  Community colleges provide these skills.  2) It lessens the demand for four year institutions, forcing them to drop this aggressive campaign of tuition hikes in response.  The average student debt is now $20,000, a result of the overbearing average annual tuition: $32,475.

Lastly, involving yourself with local politics enables one of my favorite conservative principles: devolution.  This is not to say that the federal government doesn't have an important role in our lives, but there is a lot more that could be done with well-funded local governments.   By becoming involved in district, city, and state politics, we make these governments more accountable and thus, more effective.  By proving to the federal government that local public works projects can do far more than poorly managed national ones, we can usher in reinvestment in communities and away from foreign wars of occupation.  The Obama administration has begun a promising trend of entirely avoiding wars of occupation, ending the decade long engagements in Afghanistan and Iraq, and transforming military policy into a streamlined unit focused on small tactical strikes.  If he could only complement the reduction in defense spending with a termination of the Bush Tax Cuts, we'd be fully back in business.  Let's make our local governments so efficient that when that day comes, and our richest citizens are forced to contribute their fair share, we see encouraging dividends of return in our public schools, libraries, parks, and museums.  Instead of waiting for top down change, let's start living in the future- everyone else will catch up.

I hope that these ideas are received by those active in OWS and similar movements.  I hope we can reinvent these social mobilizations as lasting social institutions that promote and guise immersive political lifestyles-  you don't need to wait for a Democratic House of Representatives to start demanding reform.  You can live reform.

There's No Government Like No Government (The Blogging of the Revolution Part 1)

Since my inbox did not exactly overflow with suggestions on how to begin the discussion of the brave new world, I will endeavor to start the wellspring myself by offering the most simple extreme: No government at all.

(Obviously, this image belongs to bethesda)

This is often inaccurately referred to as Anarchy, but it is subtly different, as any reader of V for Vendetta will tell you. Often in the U.S. anarchy implies lawlessness, violence and chaos. The original meaning of the word, and the way it is meant by most people who identify as anarchists, is a non-govermental system of volunteers who take up all the matters usually run by the state. There would still be fire stations and hospitals; but it does rely a great deal on human generosity and responsibility--coffers that are known to be quite paltry at times. But anarchy is an old idea. Let’s discuss the implications of having no government at all. No hierarchy, no government services, no nothing. Tomorrow, every governing body in the world, from the International Monetary Fund, to the People’s Republic of China, to The Coca-Cola executive board to the Santa Fe Park and Recreation office, all close up shop.  

The major difference you will realize right away is that your money is worthless. In the United States, and in most countries, our currency is Fiat money.

(Not that kind of Fiat)

Fiat means “by decree.” Money is only valuable because the government backs it up. As soon as the government is gone, money is just paper and nostalgia. From here a couple things can happen. People can go to precious metals--which also inherently have no values and will keep the rich at the top, or people will return to trading. The latter will happen in either case, actually, because there are not enough precious metals to go around and without a government the mining of precious metals will at least become thousands of times less efficient (think gold rush standards) or cease entirely. All industries will come to a standstill because laborers are not being paid anything meaningful anymore. Proprietors and paymasters would have to find an alternative store of value--and fast-- or let their organizations dissolve. Most will dissolve. The only networks with a fighting chance to stay active are volunteer networks; and many of those support causes and actions will be rendered irrelevant by the disbandment of government.

So you’ve made it through the first night. Eaten all the microwavable stuff in your freezer while the power is still on. Maybe you got lucky and survived the looting crowd of your local grocery with a couple boxes of cereal to show for it. Good for you. Now what? You need food. No economy means you need to either make your own or find something valuable that you can do in exchange for it. Many, many, many people will starve. Without a government to care, this is an unavoidable outcome. Agribusiness will dissolve too: it's no use for a group of a couple people to own thousands and thousands of acres of a single crop. If they’re smart they will set up some sort of sharecropping arrangement where they let people use their land for a cut of the food produced. Of course, ownership is a bit iffy after a governmental collapse, so they would need some muscle to enforce the arrangement--no small feat for a couple of acres, let alone 25,000. The best position to be in would be to have a small, self-sustained farm that is remote enough that people won’t care to take it over and successful enough to live off of its crops. These people will become the aristocracy of the new world once the masses are finished dying off.

As for the rest? Well not much else exists anymore. Anyone with a service job will be pretty much irrelevant and move into any sector they can (hint: probably agriculture). Little compounds of society will erupt and in those places some specialization will take place. Eventually society and economy will evolve again. Perhaps the same way it did before, perhaps completely differently. Millions of people will die. Probably billions. General health will be supremely diminished and average lifespan will plummet.

This is a possible route to the future, but I personally don't think it is the best. Lets keep brainstorming.

What did I miss? Post your conjectures in the comment below.

The Revolution Will Be Blogged About

This is something of an angry post, because my opus (a 5,000 worder on what it would take to start a bar) was lost by the blogger interface. Like most things I am mad about, it was totally preventable and my fault for not using google docs and hibernating my computer for a week which makes it all the more frustrating. But I bet you are wondering what this has to do with revolution. Well, the answer is very little, that is what the next paragraph is for.

We live in startling times. People in northern africa and the middle east are dying in droves for a fairer government, people in China are fighting long legal battles for the freedom of their information technology, people in some smaller countries are struggling just to save up enough money to buy the goat that will be their livelihood for the next ten years. There are peoples in the deep amazonian rainforest who know nothing of the hyperconnected world around them but for the glass eye of an unmanned drone. There are peoples in a house nearby who have neglected their corporeal form to live out their existence in World of Warcraft or Second Life. We have drugs that make you sleep, drugs that make you dream, drugs that make jump, drugs that make you want to rub a carpet for hours, drugs that make you kill, drugs that make you ride a bicycle off into the sunset without a care for your previous life. Whole cultures rise and fall in matters of years.

There is so much good in the world. Science has found so many answers and smart innovative people have more power than ever, especially through the mouthpiece of the internet. If every good idea could be brought to pass, most known diseases would be under heavy attack and the average household would be converted into a zero-emissions bastion of convenience, health and design. Cities would be lit by bioluminescent trees and hovercars would be powered by algae tanks. Everyone’s eyes would be bright and everyone’s bed would be warm at night.

So why not? What has gone wrong? Why, in an age of exploding talent and education and assets, are we still quagmired in politics and finance and even genocide? The answer is that we are badly organized.

Our resources are inadequately allocated. Pure math can show this. There are 12 million square miles of arable land (farmable land) in the world. That is 7.68 billion acres. (640 acres to a square mile). That means there is more than an acre of farmland in the world for every man woman and child alive. Given advanced farming techniques, even sustainable farming techniques, that is more than enough to keep a person well fed. So why is there starvation? Some say greed. People in richer countries eat more because they can. True, but an an acre and a half of land for one person is actually huge and will give more calories per day than a person needs. No rich person sits in their dining room, eating a frisee salad and thinking “Hmmm. . .I really must make sure 1,000 children starve next week. Waiter! bring me ten more courses!”

This has always been a problem, it’s why capitalism exists, it’s why communism was so popular, it’s why socialism seems to be making a name for itself. But none of these ideas are perfect. communism has the “real world” problem and doesn’t account for its inherent bureaucracy. Socialism leads to weaker incentives and hasn’t been shown to work with a heterogeneous population. Capitalism leads to unbelievably income disparity and a despotic oligarchy of corporations. I’m not complaining about the existence of these systems, they have brought us where we are today. But why haven’t we had an original idea about government for 50 years? Where is the grassroots movement to overhaul the way things are done on this planet?

Let’s brainstorm, people. Post original ideas. Its not like we are going to immediately enact a  government system just because it was posted on this blog. I don’t care if your idea says that the value of our currency fluctuates with the phases of the moon. Anything new is worth checking out, insights can be gained from the most outlandish of ideas. I myself will attempt to come up with as many new systems as I can, and I’ll re-examine some of the old ones too. Karl Marx didn't wake up one morning with the idea for communism. Lets see if we can’t get the powers of the internet to work on something big.