Nice guy? Yes. Finishing last? No.

Been reading a lot of blogs lately dealing with nice guys finishing last, etc. "Why is it?" people ask. Well, speaking as a nice guy, I see three factors in this perception.

First, The Darwin Excuse: Bad guys do what it takes to win. . This is the most commonly cited reason. It's a no-brainer; the guy who puts with the fewest limits on his behavior has the most options to get ahead.

Second (I hear this one talked about once in awhile), nice guys are often passive. Many equate "niceness" with "selflessness", which has some merit. Some. ( I would argue "empathy" is the more important characteristic, though there may be some connection between that and selflessness.) Many, "nice guys", however, seem to extrapolate from this that they should have as little will of their own as possible. The result of such thinking is a person with no sense of self, and no confidence in his own opinions and desires.

But I think there's another important and much less-discussed factor. It comes of nice guys letting others set the win conditions. Then, should they fail to achieve the results that the bad guys did, they think they are losers, because they ignore what they have achieved -- usually, the things that were more important to them.

Take me. I could make a lot more money if I had put my oldest in kindergarten and her sister in daycare and worked a full-time job. I'd have a bunch more stuff, a bigger bank account, I'd have time to go out to a bar more often and more time to blog. Hell, if I'd put off having kids entirely, I could have worked full time the last 6 years and saved up quite a wad by now -- and still has a bunch of stuff and taken some trips to Iceland, or whatever. Could have gotten my degree in Massage Therapy and started loosening muscles for a living. Maybe by now I'd be enjoying a no-strings sexual relationship with that 20-year-old hand model. But I'm not.

So have I come in last?

No. I don't want that. I mean, I someone handed most of that to me, I'd smile and say a hearty "Thanks!". But given the choice, what I have is the result I want. That's why I did it this way. Disregarding genuine mistakes, of course, but that's nothing to do with being nice or not.

This doesn't, by the way, mean that those who choose differently than I did are not nice people; I'm not trying to say that my way is better, just better for me. Some people do not particularly want have kids, or to work from home, or whatever. These people then typically go out and accomplish what they want more, which often (though of course not always) involves making more money, or having more time to pursue leisure, artistic or entrepreneurial dreams.

That's my point. Because, meanwhile, people who do the things necessary to achieve different things (the life they prefer) often look upon the former groups' achievements as things they "sacrificed" -- when the fact is, they were simply second-best, and therefore rejected.

It's the problem with "The American Dream"; We're all told what we "should" want, so when we "fail" we feel bad, even when we didn't really want it.

You may be a geek if...

...you think this is anywhere near as cool as I do.

Questions

Some questions has been brought to my mind.

Why is reliance on technology wheelchairs, crutches, dialysis and insulin seen as fundamentally different from reliance on technology such as cars, refrigerators and ovens?

Why do we classify restrooms as "Men's, "Women's and "Handicapped" as if they are simultaneously all-encompassing and mutually exclusive?

Why is there no assessment of general functionality on an IQ test? Isn't a significant part of the point of intelligence the managing of day-to-day survival?

I'm Going Insane

[DISCLAIMER: The following is less than a rant. It may well be a simple whine. You don't have to read it.]

I love my daughters. And in recent months, my relationship with them has improved remarkably, especially the 5-year-old. They both spend more and more time down here with me, and even wants to sleep down at my place (at least the big one does; the toddler pretty much sleeps wherever she is when she finally runs out of steam). This is all wonderful.

Except that it's driving me crazy.

See, for the past week, various events have conspired to cause Mommy to stay out late, usually working, or shopping for some necessary item, or a social commitment. As the Best Ex-Wife Ever, she always checks with me to see if it's okay, and I've said yes. After all, things are going so well with the girls, why not? They want to sleep here anyway. But the result is, I've had them pretty near 24/7 for almost a week. On the rare occasions when I could leave them with Mom for a few hours, I haven't; last night's Star Wars party is an example.

They've been pretty much my only real-world social contact. I'm starting to mentally devolve. It's like I've been bitten by a radioactive toddler and gained its powers of mental focus, and that is NOT GOOD! I've started letting clutter gather, I've stopped my final edits of my manuscript (and thus I've stopped posting updates on my writing site). I find myself wanting to screech and throw legos across the room whenever one of them grabs something from me.

And now tomorrow, a two-and-a-half-hour subway trip each way to their doctor for routine visits, with a side-trip to their dentists' to pick up copes of their records. In sub-zero weather.

Thank God It Will Be Friday.

Star Wars first time

Tonight was the first my 5-year-old has seen it. I'd realized suddenly that she never had, and immediately put it at the top of my Netflix queue. She, the Best Toddler Ever, their mom and me, with pizza, popcorn, soda and Dunkin Donuts (delicious and nutritious). She's the same age I was when it first came out.

She said as she went to bed [scare quotes hers], "Daddy... I didn't "love" it like you said."

Ah, well. She's not got the science fiction background I did. I don't think she even understands the concept of alien civilizations. (That'll be tomorrow's homeschooling lesson.) And I have no doubt she'll warm to it as she watches it several dozen times over the next two weeks.

Got in one great line, though. When the 5-year-old asked why Leia didn't like Han, I told her (referencing the ex finding me obnoxious the first time we met), "Sometimes people think they don't like someone at first then decide they want to marry them for a few years until the find out they're gay."

Ex: "We would love to claim Leia!"

Me: "You can have her when I'm done. (pause) Kinda like with you. SNAP!"

(Note: This was well within bounds for us. A hearty laugh was had by both. Didn't hurt that I delivered "SNAP!" in an incredibly uncool-thinking-it's-cool voice.)

Sextarian violence

War, politics, Iraq,
fighting and biting,
her sluttiness, his piggishness
(can't make "pig" sound as bad
as "slut",
misogyny in the heart
of English)
all clogging the blogging
forcing me from prose
makes me want to ask,
"what gets you hot?"
happy commenting.Publish