Thoughts on Personal Etiquette

September 13, 2010

Location: Albuquerque, New Mexico

Have you noticed how difficult it is to speak, interact, book a date, or simply communicate with *anyone* lately? Have all of these new communication options made us functionally unable to date, have meaningful relationships with a core group of friends and to keep social commitments? What has this done to the dating scene? Can we really successfully meet someone for a date online with these social problems?

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 * * * * My Rant * * * * * * * * * *

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I think something may have physically changed within our brains as human beings thanks to constant communication overload. With work voicemail, work email, work phone, work instant messenger, personal cell phone, personal email, home telephone, Facebook, twitter, google SMS/google voice, Yahoo Instant Messenger, AOL Instant Messenger and dozens of other communication alternatives, each person probably has 12-15 things they need to check on an ongoing basis to continue the flow of communication from their friends and other contacts. On top of this, each website with your bank/credit card company/student loan company/YouTube account/flicker etc that wants to have you log into their website to view a "special message" with a "secure" mailbox instead of using your personal @whatever email address.

With the constant log-ins, medium and website hoping, we have become accustomed to communicating in a style where the timing of conversations has little meaning now. We're accustomed to having a deep, well thought out, extremely brief response that is relevant and (sometimes) adds a lot of value to a conversation. We've also become accustomed to being able to return a message at any time without regard to the amount of time, or recipient urgency, that is required for a response. This has royally messed up our speech patterns. I find myself having meals with my friends where I will simply say something out loud while another person is in the middle of expressing a thought. It's not something I consciously do, but I have become so accustomed to responding with a thought in a chat room while the other party is typing. I now regularly interrupt my friends and start to express my own thoughts on something before they are even finished expressing their current thought. It's so damned rude of me to do and I catch myself doing it constantly.It's also caused any kind of personal etiquette between people with social norms, scheduling, and manors to completely fall to complete disarray. With so many options and the stress of different mediums, It's caused my dating life to completely fall to shit lately. It's caused a great deal of friction between myself and old friends, potential partners, and, honestly - I'm really, really tired of it. Many personal relationships are now failing from this.

I now frequently do not have voicemail messages returned from a plethora of people. My texts are frequently not returned. I refuse to believe people are so busy that they forget to respond to a message that comes to a device that is on their person for the better part of 14 hours per day that they check constantly. I also have people that want to take 45 minutes to text when a simple 5 minute conversation could have solved the problem. I also have people who now have a favorite communication medium. Some people insist I use Facebook to have any type of ongoing conversation or to book social occasions with them. I now have other people who insist on only SMS with cell phones (which I hate). Others, still, insist on a spontaneous call for an event and feel they are so self-important they are better than anyone else and insist on not using a calendar. The irony in all of this is that everyone now has a phone with a calendar function on it. It's just interesting to me how picky we have all become and how hard it now is to book simple social events or get in touch with people. This is stupid. The purpose for all of these mediums was to communicate better and solve interpersonal problems based on previous communication issues. Can we please pick agree on a common standard and not be so self-righteous that we at least look at other mediums and keep our social lives working?

This brings me to dating challenges. I'm looking for someone I have chemistry with and who can communicate well. As you can obviously see from my weekly assault on the English language that my blog sometimes is, I'm obviously not perfect. I'm not a grammar Nazi! The difference between me and your average texter, however, is that I make a sincere effort to have a coherent story or group of thoughts communicated with each of my blog entries. I believe in the use of adjectives. I try to make a compelling argument to get my points across in a succinct and engaging syntax that really describes what I feel. I think describing the intricacies of interpersonal relationships between two men deserves more description than "OMG - Hez hot. WTF is he doin wit him? I want him. LOL". Texting contributes to the destruction of literacy and our language faster than Perez Hilton can spread mind numbingly pointless Hollywood shit-gossip. It just sucks. We have people all over the world with malnutrition, sickness and facing death and I have to hear, frequently via text message/twitterL OMG! Lady Gaga is wearing a meat dress! Who the fuck cares? Honestly!

With these thoughts in mind, I hereby propose the following:

- Manage your affairs with social grace. That means thinking enough of your social circle to keep a calendar and think enough of the people in your life to book an appointment and keep it. If you can't handle something so basic as managing appointments and finances, you aren't worth dating. It shows that you're irresponsible and won't treat and communicate well enough with your partner to have a successful relationship based on trust.
- Texting a new friend or online acquaintance for a date is just tacky. Really tacky. Like lime green shirt with pink dots on top of a pair of Zebra print orange pants tacky. Be enough of a man to call me. I want to hear your voice and get to know your personality and mannerisms through speech. Just because we met online doesn't mean I want to reduce intimacy to text-only basis.
- I realize shit happens in your day, and, on rare occasion you might need to reschedule. As soon as this happens, think enough of the person whom you have an appointment to call them (yes, CALL), apologize, and immediately reschedule. Don't leave an "open appointment" where I have to call you to rebook. Not only does this make you look like an ass that doesn't have his life together, you look flakey and stupid. Not a good position to be in. The gay community seems to be awfully small in a big city. Queens know queens and the royal court LOVES negative gossip. Don't be a dick or it might prevent you from, well.... enjoying dick!
- The phone has, and always will be, the primary communication medium between people. It is still the fastest and most intimate method of communication. If you must text me, consider how long the conversation could go and keep it to less than 3 round trip messages. Otherwise, call.

I can feel the flames coming from this one. Your comments?

- Brad

Proposition 8 Ruling Reaction

Lately I find my particular brand of politics to be moving closer to the center, but on the whole, I am still left of center on a variety of political issues. On the issue of gay marriage, however, I actually agree with the right wing on a variety of things. I think this is another one of those issues where I am totally and completely ashamed to be a gay man and an American, thought not at the same time and not for the same reasons.

"Wait a minute, you are gay and you agree with the right wing on this issue? You don't think that gay people deserve to get married and have legal protections? What's wrong with you?" you might be thinking. Oh boy. Here we go.

Do I think gay people should be able to get married? Absolutely. Do I think all gay people will make great parents? Hell no. Do I think that some gay couples will do awesome things with kids and others will cause serious, irreparable psychological harm? Yes. Yes I absolutely do.

Do I think some gay couples might be making a serious mistake getting married and may cause more harm than good when adopting kids?Well, in a word, yes. I feel like the gay community does a lot of really stupid things and we generally treat each other rather poorly. We don't really communicate all that well with each other. We regularly treat each other like dirt and are often looking for the quick hook-up instead of a relationship based on trust. We value each other based on our looks and how queeny we can be to each other instead of our personal character. We regularly engage in psychological games with our partners that causes distrust, harms long term relationship potential, and spread disease in the name of better quality sex. You might think that all of these beliefs could be viewed as arguments FOR marriage. I see them as a lack of maturity necessary to bring successful people into the world.

I think relationships take a lot of things to work. I think it takes a fundamental trust between two partners. It's something that takes years to build but is fragile enough to be broken in a few words, actions or deeds. It takes a willingness between partners to watch each other thrive. It takes compromise, humility, respect and a sense of humor. In short, it's a partnership between people who simply "get" each other. I think one reason so many relationships in western cultures fail is because there is a tremendous family pressure to get married. Another reason they fail is because too often people are so excited that someone treats them reasonably well they forget to take the time and effort it takes to build the trust and ground rules necessary to thrive. A third reason, is that we have so few successful and positive gay couples in the national spotlight that we see bringing wonderful people into the world.

With these realizations for relationship and family success in mind, the argument I have against gay marriage is that there is no traditional values framework for gay couples to raise their children. Although I will readily concede that married religious couples often convey values of racism, bigotry, irrational fear and economic dependency on their children, many of them raise children readily capable of being positive net contributors to society. They view work as a privilege, contribute to their local governments, participate in the betterment of their community and ultimately lead to a stronger community and nation. So, at what point between gay partners do we become ready for responsible child bearing? With heterosexual couples, the maturity is often forced with the babies arrival. But with homosexual couples, how do you decide you are ready?

I often think that gay couples legitimately believe that all they need is love and understanding when it comes to the raising of responsible children that meet my above postulate. I often wonder how they go about instilling values in children. There are so many things that parents have to teach their kids. For example: When is it acceptable to physically attack someone else who intends you harm? Do you have the right to defend yourself? How would you defend yourself? What should your child do if they are being physically, emotionally or digitally bullied? When is the right time to have sex? How does your child determine their sexual orientation? When should your child start dating? How trusting should your child be of people? Is it OK for your child to experiment with drugs? How late should your child stay out?

I often think the answers to these questions would be very different from gay parents than it would be for heterosexual, conservative parents. The fact is kids rely on parents to create a framework for decision making that they need to exercise when confronted with challenges that life brings.

In short, I hope proposition 8 is defeated and the gay community reaps the benefits of the marriage. I now hope the community steps up to the plate and brings the responsibility and moral framework needed to produce amazing kids.

- Brad