Opals and Bonobos

A younger friend recently asked why I (and many others my age) make so many comments about being old. After some thought, I realized a big part of this was related to experiencing specific meaningful life stages during the pandemic. In 2019, I could (and often did) stay up late at parties, survive on very little sleep, and run on my own willpower alone. I didn't usually need to think too hard about any of this in terms of trade offs, and thus had the ability to be way more spontaneous about it all. If a friend invited me out, I could say yes that night, with no planning ahead, and have a good time. Then lockdown hit, and everything shut down. During this time, I got divorced, turned 30, and made a bunch of other huge life changes. In normal times, I probably would have started to see my stamina decline. I would have noticed at first that my body would hurt more the day after a night out. Then I'd start to notice myself losing energy earlier and earlier. But things didn't pl...

I’ve noticed a trend of writing out dating documents (or web pages, blog posts, etc) as a means of having everything you’d normally put on a dating profile in one place. There’s a particular way many of these are written, such that they’re more straightforward and practical about dating than online dating profiles and apps tend to be. It honestly reminds me a little of how arranged marriage works nowadays in India. In an effort to better understand what it is people tend to expect of these documents (and throw in some of my own thoughts), I decided to read through every dating document I could find (mostly through reciprocity and Bountied Rationality) and compare/contrast to find common themes, as well as good ideas of what to include that should be more common. Though written as a guideline on how to write your own dating doc, this is equally (if not moreso) a meta-analysis on what's been put into those already out there. TLDR: a dating document should tell the reader who you ar...

When I was a kid, I was moved by the idea that love was a powerful force. In the media, people did ridiculous things in the name of love; worse still when love was unrequited. I was terrified of feeling completely and helplessly vulnerable for someone who could not or would not reciprocate. It not only felt like a loss of power, but also a waste of emotional energy that could just as easily be spent on someone who reciprocates. I decided that I would never let myself develop feelings for someone who was unable to return them. This first showed up as an inability to develop a crush on someone who was already in a relationship. As I grew older and learned more about myself, I realized also that this is why I didn't develop a crush on a girl until I became very close with one who was openly bisexual. It also meant that as soon as one of my childhood crushes came out to me as gay, my torn up confusion on why he didn't reciprocate my flirting transformed into an appreciation for ...

When discussing the idea of loving more than just our spouses and families, the phrase "love thy neighbor" often comes to mind. A quote I tend to prefer was said by Thomas Aquinas: "The person who truly understands love could love anyone". He believed that true love was unspecific, and open to all humanity. When we speak of falling in love with someone, we tend to talk of the person as if they're flawless (as one does in the honeymoon period of a relationship). Aquinas instead preferred a less romantic, more modern view of love: where you love someone, flaws and all. That's not to say you have to love strangers equally to family and friends. A popular children's poem goes "I love you, I love you, I love you, I do. But don't get excited; I love monkeys too!". Love gets underused with people because we want to save it for someone special, and overused with things and experiences. I might say that I love peanut butter, but feel shy telling ...

During a discussion on how to make the rationalist community more "Hufflepuff", the idea was brought up to define what "more Hufflepuff" even means. Words like cooperation, loyalty, diligence, and empathy were written down. As the list grew longer, I realized they all fit one or two of three categories: relational, emotional, and action. These are the three states that Hufflepuffs are most valued for. Loyalty is a relational state, while diligence is an action state. Meanwhile, cooperation is a blend of action and relational, and empathy is a blend of emotional and relational. The fourth state (cognitive) is more or less what the community was founded on, so it makes sense that the other three are where the community is lacking. People and communities often pick a state to prioritize, letting others fall by the wayside. My experience with other communities show that the cognitive state is often deprioritized, which is why it makes sense that there would be demand...

The Center for Applied Rationality has given its alumni a number of excellent tools to work on their bugs. Going through a workshop myself, I found that a lot of these tools are similar to therapeutic techniques, just reformatted to fit a more self-help-y context. Going through the workshop as a therapist, I had two goals: learn to use these techniques myself, and learn the translation between therapeutic technique and self help (in both ways!). As a therapist, it is useful to take self help techniques and turn them into something you can use in the room with a client. Similarly, it is useful to be able to take a therapeutic technique and find a way for the client to do it themselves at home. After all, the ultimate goal of a therapist is to get their clients to a space where they don't need therapy. Just as translating therapy to self help is useful for ending therapy, translating self help to therapy is useful in beginning. When I begin seeing a client, one of my first questio...

When a good friend expresses that they are facing tough times, we may feel an impulse to reach out and help. However, unless this is someone you are particularly close to, you may not know how. So if you tell them that you want to support them, then they'll just reach out whenever they need support, right? Well, not exactly. A person who is struggling isn't necessarily going to reach out, and those who do are more likely to reach out to those closest to them -- a partner or best friend. A generic offer of help doesn't often do much because it doesn't let the person know how you want to help. You could be imagining yourself as a shoulder to cry on for a recent divorcee, while what they may really need is a place to stay or help moving. They may choose to not ask for help if they fear rejection, or may ask you to help with one of those things, only to result in an awkward conversation due to differences in expectation. So how do you ensure you actually  get to help you...

Some call it The Honeymoon Phase or puppy love. Others mix it in with infatuation or limerence. Views on new relationship energy (NRE) vary, from seeing it as immature to completely normal to a little unhealthy. Regardless, NRE distorts your perception of the person you've just started dating. This can be thrilling, though at times a little scary. It feels like living in an illusion that you know is going to be shattered sooner or later. The Baader-Meinhof phenomenon (also called the Frequency Illusion) is what happens when you learn about something new, then start to see it everywhere. There is a lot of similarity between what happens here and in NRE, to the extent where NRE can effect your emotions in the same way that Baader-Meinhof effects your mind. It is the feeling of every love song reminding you of your new beau, or every book, movie, and band you like seeming like something to recommend to them. This is also partly because NRE is often when you learn the most about a p...