Hacking online dating and other things I don't have the energy for...

If you're the sort of person who has TedTalks pop up on your newsfeed, or if you happen to be friends with those folks, you might have seen Amy Webb talk describing how she hacked online dating. Mad props to Ms. Webb for her commitment to data. 

As you might have gleaned from the title of this post, I don't really like things that are work. I like the idea of meeting people online, to a point. I like being able to connect with people and share ideas while bra-less (not in the sexy way, more like in the oversized hoodie way).

I also recognize that that isn't enough. I recognize the need to connect with other humans in real life, occupying the same physical space. This is where things get tricky. I can blame my natural introversion, my homeschooling, but the it doesn't really matter what the cause, the fact is that like many people my age, I have incurable awkwardness. We didn't grow up online, but we definitely came of age there. We were the first ones to use phones more for texting than calling, and we killed voicemail. Yeah, that was definitely us. Please just hang up and text me already.

Honestly, that's probably just another excuse. I've always been a bit of an outsider. A lone wolf. Ha. I jest. I'm more like a loan sloth. As I grew older, I found myself becoming more comfortable with who I was and better able to decide who I wanted to spend time with. It was great! And then I returned home.

Home is a great place, don't get me wrong. But home is a place where I never really fit in. I loved living abroad precisely because no one expected me to fit in. They expected me to weird and awkward. And I was, it was fabulous. 

I guess the point is that I hadn't really had to work to make connections or build relationships as an adult. Here, that is not the case. Which brings me to the point about Amy Webb's talk. Webb was highly committed to a goal and to an ideal. She knew that a great deal of work was necessary to acheive that goal, and she did it. And that's great for her.What I wonder is, what about those of us who aren't quite so data driven?

We all have different things that motivate us. Some of us need that goal to work toward. Some of us are driven by a need to be the best, some by a sense of adventure, some by a need for a stability. I like to think of myself as purpose driven. Purposes are different than goals. My problem with goals has always been that they are so narrow. One thing I have learned is that I don't know all the options. Some of the best things that have happened to me were things I didn't even know were possible. With hard and fast goals, at least to me, you remove the possibility of the unknown, of something greater.

So when I talk about being driven by purpose, I mean the purpose behind what I do. Is my working helping people? How can I make my work more effective? How can I best use my expertise? Maybe some people would say that helping people is a goal, and that's completely true. There are some who would say we need goals to prevent stagnation. Another excellent point.

What I am saying here is not meant to be a hard and fast approach to personality types or the pros and cons of goal-setting, I'm simply describing the way I see things. This does not mean that other ways of seeings things are lesser or invalid, just that they are different.

When I speak about people who are goal oriented, I am thinking about Webb and her spreadsheets and profile plots. So how can people like me make use of tools made for those who are more goal driven? What can Webb's search for the perfect man and perfect profile teach me about how to establish my own social networks? Can goals and data and spreadsheets help me to be an adult when it comes to seeking out and maintaining friendships? Probably so.

My first reaction to seeing this talk was one of appreciation, then dismissal. This could have no bearing on my life. I'm not even speaking specifically about this talk, but about all of the things I dismiss off-hand. My issue with goals is that they assume we have all the information we need, when we don't. So how can assume that ideas from those different to myself have no bearing on me or my life?

I truly believe in different strokes for different folks. Just because a particular method worked for one person doesn't make it a universal solution. The same method not working for a different person doesn't invalidate the method. I do think that we have something to learn from each other. When we keep preaching to our own respective choirs, we lose something important.

I can't tell you how data applies to my social life. I do know that I need to be more intentional, and more willing to work. As a young person, I always felt as though my intentional efforts at friendship were rejected, which led to me expecting the other person to do all the work in order to feel secure in the friendship. 

I have to relearn things. I have to be open to new ideas. And all of those things are mildly terrifying. #firstworldproblems, I know.

And here's a guinea pig in a sombrero because you deserve a little smile.

I got yelled at. AND figured out the cause of all the problems in the world.

Like a boss.

I was in a rough meeting today. One department wanted to vent their frustrations about an issue that my office deals with, but doesn't really control. I felt for them, I really did. They deal with this specific issue day-in and day-out.

So do we, of course, but many feel that this issue affects the security of their positions. This particular issue is something that I must deal with everyday myself, so I get how much it sucks. It makes it even worse that I feel so completely helpless. It's a bad problem, but not one with any discernible solution at present. It's not our fault, it's not their fault. 

Yet we still have to deal with it every day. There were some passionate words and raised voices, nothing mean spirited, just two sides trying to be understood.

Here's what the hardest part was: Both sides were right. Completely, totally right. Their views might be opposing, but at the end of the day, both were true. Both iffrefutably reflected reality. 

With all of hoopla over the recent elections, it just seems like it all comes down to that: Both sides are right, Both sides are biased, but both sides make salient points. 

We are so sure there is only right answer. It is ours. Given these assumptions, any answer that differs from ours must be wrong. 

It's so natural to us, we don't even question it. It's the reason no one wins. We are both right. We both see something to which the other side is blind. We both understand something fundamental and important. It marries us to a point of view, a way of thinking, an identity. We have to be right and they have to be wrong. 

I don't know what to do about it. I hear when others explain their grievances. I get frustrated when they don't see how much more complicated the whole thing is. I don't know how we find middle ground. Maybe we start with giving up the idea that being right is a zero sum game.

I voted, yo.

Yeah. I did my civic duty. I'm pretty much a national hero now. It's pretty sweet. I even drove 45 miles to get to the polling place. Wow, you say, that's dedication. Or perhaps you more reasonably ask why I had to drive 45 minutes to a polling place in the first place?

Well... It's likely related to the fact that I forgot to register in the county I moved too. But whatevs. Civic duty: done.

Fun stories, self-serving prose, and a manatee. What's not to love?

So I just back from a conference. In San Diego. Free plane tickets and hotels and meals and all that jazz. How grown up am I? Very. I just read an old blog post about how everything would go so well until I got to the ticket counter. Well I can't tell you much I appreciate online check-in taking care of that little problem for me. Yay America! I guess really the best part was spending a weekend with my whole family before heading out west. I don't think we'd all been together at once for years. It was a really special time. There was one downside. Strangely enough, shoving my face with seafood and sugar didn't do great things for my body.

 So I get on the plane, check into my hotel, and get up in the morning, bright eyed and bushy tailed. Ok, so that's inaccurate. I can't imagine a scenario in which the phrase bright-eyed and busy-tailed would describe me at any hour, but that morning it was as good as I was gonna get, motivationally speaking. Confession: now that I'm back in the U.S., this blog could accurately be summed up as "first world problems" or "stuff white people like." This is where stuff gets real. Apparently salt and flying and generally unhealthy lifestyle choices cause you feet to swell. And those adorable, comfortable flats you purchased and broke in just for this occasion... Well they are no longer broken in. Do I let this stop me? Heavens no, bravely I soldier on.

 The shoes, however, they bested me. I spent the rest of the week in the same pair of shoes, waiting for the day I could wear my beloved birkenstocks again. And they did not let me down. The conference ended Friday morning. So I used my excellent navigational skills to go exploring sunny San Diego all by lonesome. What could possibly go wrong? I decided to see the zoo, and I wanted to take the trolley. However google maps had this silly idea that the bus was the more direct route. Whatevs. So I wandered to the trolley. The station I found was near the actual San Diego depot. It was lovely and Spanish and old style, so of course I had to take pictures of it like a good tourist.

I procured a transit pass, the trolley thundered up to the platform, and I was off on adventures. There was still the matter of getting on to the trolley. Being the cool, savvy traveler that I am, upon seeing all doors were closed, I pretended it was cool and I played on my phone. If this trolley didn't want me, well by golly I had no use for it. I wasn't gonna knock on the door or anything, because that would just look stupid, right? Well after seeing a transient gentlemen of questionable mental acuity stand in front of the door, which turned out to be automatic, I reconsidered my approach.

If anyone was looking out the window at the weird white girl avoiding the train like her ex, saw that she just turned around and got on, that'd be weird, right? I seriously considered waiting for the next trolley. Yes. I know. #firstworld problems. But I mustered my courage, stepped up to the door, and indeed I was off on adventures. Except when we (me and 30 of my best middle school friends) were waiting for eternities at each subsequent station.

It was a really slow trolley. So with that under my belt, I decided to hop off and follow google's excellent bus advice. I walked around the block several times, much to the bemusement of the locals (whom I seem to bemuse wherever I go) looking for the bus stop. After much wandering, I finally found it! Next to the train station. Literally. I was so excited with my expert navigating. I hopped on the bus; adventures beginning anew. And begin they did indeed. As I watched the street names, I realized that I was in fact going the wrong direction. Unlike Chicago, San Diego's buses do not tell you what the next stop is.

It adds an element of mystery and excitement to the whole experience. Will it be Park and 1st? Park and Harbor? Who knows? Only God. So I deftly got off at the next stop, found a woman carrying heavy bags on to the bus, grabbed her bags, and we got on the bus going the right direction. By grabbed, I mean I assisted her carrying her bags onto the bus, I didn't mug her or anything. We set off adventuring! Get off at zoo drive, google tells me. Alas the bus driver is not as on top of his game as google. We breeze by various unnamed streets, occasionally stopping, never actually naming a location. So I decide that this is as good a place as any to stop. There's an animal poster. I get off I rediscovered my blog from SE Asia today. And I must say, used to be quite a good writer. You should definitely check it out. Seriously, it's worth your time.

https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6840395830571099844#allposts

It made me remember how much I love to write, how much it soothes my soul, and what an incredible sense of humor I have. Ah ha, I jest. Honestly, the reason I started reading my old stuff is because I was looking for ways to supplement my income and wanted to see if my old writing is any good. That's not really the point though. Between student loans and car troubles, I find myself in a place that 18 year old me never thought 28 year old me would be. Unable to save money. Well... unable may be a stretch. I like to buy stuff. And eat. So there's that. But more to the point, I keep thinking about who 18 year old me thought she might become vs where I am right now, at 28.


If tumblr is to be believed, I'm in the same boat as many other people my age. I can support myself, but loan payments cut into my disposable income. So I can't really buy things that I can't eat. But I do anyway.

But more to the point:


 I guess when I think about 18 yr old me, she was adorable. She was awkward. She had been told she had all the answers. Inside she was terrified that she didn't. She was going to live in a hut in rural unheard-of-third-world-country. She was going to make a difference. What that would look like, she couldn't really articulate.

But nevermind that. She wouldn't need to worry about money, because for one reason or another, she would always have enough. 10 years later, 18 yr old me was both spot on and wrong about everything. 18 yr old me knew the importance of serving strangers and travelers. But she thought that you needed to go far away to make a difference. 18 yr old me knew that she wanted to be independent.

She didn't understand that she couldn't be who she really was without the people around her. 18 yr old me knew that justice was big and important. She didn't understand that it was also small, and mundane. In many ways, I have become exactly who 18 yr old me knew she always. But my life looks nothing like she thought it would. That's fine. It's fine because she forgot that joy and fulfillment aren't about places but people. She wanted the outward trappings worldliness and sophistication.

Along the way, she learned that joy is where you are loved, there is no limit to the number of people you can fit in/on a truck, justice is both elusive and universal, and that nothing is as simple as it seems, and that most things boil down to doing right by people even when it's hard or they suck. 

Along the way, she's learned that caring for strangers and travelers can happen in your own backyard. That justice isn't glamourous, and that it's really hard. She's learned to milk sheep and cube mangoes and drive big vans and listen to what people have to say. She's failed at lots of things, from opening a coconut with a machete, to working at the UN, to knowing what to do with her face in pictures, to listening to what other people have to say.

She's made mistakes that have cost her. Done bad things she never thought she was capable of. Maybe changed her life. She's still messed up in a lot of ways. But it a lot of ways she's not. She's different now. Not better, or worse, just different. MUCH better at the whole driving thing in general. In her head, she is the most kind and understanding and compassionate person. In reality, well... You've probably figured that out by now. Don't get in her when she's driving a big van 18 yr old me would probably disapprove of 28 yr old me. But she'd get over it. Because she's tough like that. I guess a better title for this post would be "An Ode to Myself." Self-serving poetry's annoying, so I'll end with something much better: You, You there. Yes you. You are fabulous! Mainly because you're here reading this. But also for a host of other reasons. I don't need to explain. This manatee knows what's up.

Ah... Adulthood. Kind of. Sort of?

It's been forever! So much has happened since last we spoke. It's hard to believe those wild and wonderful Peace Corps times were almost four years ago! But enough about me. How are you? I hope you're well. Getting rest, taking your vitamins, smelling the roses, all that jazz. I was kind of lying earlier. That wasn't nearly enough about me. Since we last spoke I've been all over... the midwest. It's a great place, and if you've never visited, you absolutely, definitely should. Do it now! (Because soon it will be all kinds of cold and nasty, so you'll want to avoid that if possible).

So if you're wondering what enticed me back from my previous glamourous, exotic lifestyle, the answer is free graduate school. Yep, some schools do pretty great things for Returned Peace Corps Volunteers.

Yessirree, I came back and finished out my early twenties as God intended, finding myself (by which I mean interning my butt off, mastering lit reviews, sobbing about my thesis, and partaking in way too much Chinese food and netflix).

I got to explore the state of Illinois via driving international college students around in 15 passenger vans (you really haven't lived until you've had the entire beginnig English trying to direct you as you blindly back a giant van into traffic). I have had to explain Groundhog Day to many international guests. The most common response is "you know those things can't actually talk, right?"

Yes. But it illustrates a very significant aspect of my new adulthood, my post-peace corps life: America is pretty weird if you think about it. Why do we have a holiday pretending groundhogs talk? When did we decide on pajamas all day err'y day? Aeresol cheese? A hundred different kinds of aeresol cheese? Not judging, just saying, we're an eccectric people.

It took some getting used to when I came back. It took a lot of getting used to, in fact. Let me just tell you, when you are used to two-hour siestas everyday, the American work week is a MAJOR buzzkill. And don't even get me started about the weather. What, I have to go to work when it's raining? Come on guys.

There are, however, some which habits run so deeply, you just can't break them. My parents drilled punctuality into us as kids. It was never something I could unlearn, even after I showed up an hour late to a party and ended up still arriving an hour before anyone else. Ah, my punctual heart is happy again. And now we have these wonderful devices which allow us to arrive early and pretend to be doing important things! We don't have to just sit there like some lonely, over eager loser, now we can just be those super cool people who are so popular that everyone's always texting them.

That's a life win for this awkward turtle. It's funny that we seem to think that we should somehow be less awkward as we get older. That's absolutely not how it works (at least from my experience, if you are totally super smooth in your dotage, more power to you!). As I've gotten older, I've gotten a much better handle on who I am and what I want. I have completely lost the desire to be around people who are aren't bringing good things into their environment. Granted, I have to check myself on a regular basis to make sure that I'm bringing good things into my environment. But I'm definitely more discerning.

That's how I would love to think of myself, alas the truth is, I'm just awkward. It's a lot of work to meet people and talk to them. I mean all those buzzfeed lists about awkward people could have been written about me. However, the fact that somebody made a list tells me that I'm not the only one out there! Hooray! Awkward turtles unite! (but online first because meeting for the first time in person is exhausting).

Being awkward is good because at least it's honest. I did well in Cambodia because I could handle awkward. If I could update my resume into actual usable skills, awkward tolerance would be at the top. The thing is that it's ok to be an awkward foreigner in another country. It's different here though.  I was always kind of an awkward kid. I loved living overseas because awkwardness was expected from my weird, foreign self. Back in the states, it's a whole other ball game. When I first came back, I was really afraid.

After three years back, I feel like I own it. I am still super duper awkward. But it's fine. It happens. Life goes on. And it makes me wonder why it bothers us so much. Why do we expect that we should feel at ease in every situatoin? Why do we expect that we should exactly how to act in any situation? Is it that we watch too much tv? Is it because the camera doesn't cut away at the right moment in real life?

Why are normal things like elevator rides and bathroom run-ins and seeing someone you know down the hall when they're still too far to speak to so darn hard?

So now I do the most awkward thing ever. I work with international college students. No one ever really has any idea what's going on, and that's part of what makes it so great. It's honest. No one has it all together. Everyone feels like a fraud just waiting to be found out. We're all making it up as we go. And to be able to work in a place where that's understood is pretty amazing. For any job seeking youths out there, this is a very important quality to look for in any future workplace. Also I just love the word "youths" and wanted a reason to use it.

I always wanted to make a difference beyond the rural Midwest. I wanted to save the world. Or at least a part of it, preferably the poorer, mud hut-y parts. What I learned is that there are ton of people out there who are way more qualified than me to be saving the world.

That's great, because I have some great world-saving ideas, but I'm probably a bit lacking in the implentation area. So instead of running the U.N., or something fancy like that, I stuck to what I know. I know how to make super awkward interactions less awkward. I know how to help people talk to those who they might have felt were too different to understand them. I've learned how live honestly (not counting the jaywalking, of course). Also by not working in the UN I'm much less likely accidentally start a war or something. So you're welcome.

I have no idea what this new blog is going to be. The thoughts and musings of single gal and her pals just trying to make in the big city? Nope. Definitely not that. It might be fun anecdotes or thoughts on current events or maybe just cute pictures of baby animals. Who doesn't love baby animals? It's also possible Tina Fey memes will feature prominently. Who knows? Basically I just like typing words and I know you love reading them, so you're welcome again!