blueswede

The Nine Faces of Dave
2004-01-29 00:22:11 (UTC)

trump card on the side of happiness

So this marks the 230th entry since I began this thing. It
isn't much of a landmark, compared to, say, 250, but somehow
it seemed worth noting.

For the most part, things suck right now. I'm a little bit
behind in my classes, mostly doing to registering quite late
for economics. I'm incredibly sleep-deprived right now, for
which I blame myself and my roommate's microwave. I was in
the lab until very late last night, and ended up not falling
asleep until about 6:00. So I decided to sleep through econ
and get up in time for music theory, since I figured 2 and a
half hours of sleep probably wouldn't be much help.

But apparently I have failed to curry favor with the gods as
of late. 8:50 AM I'm awakened by my roommate's alarm, but I
manage to fall asleep again; 9:10 AM it's his microwave. In
all my years I have never seen a microwave that was so loud
and obnoxious. Something about the frequency of that sound
pattern, the "beep...beep...beep...whirr" I hear every damn
morning when that jerk makes microwave tea, makes returning
to sleep impossible. This is the sort of thing I could deal
with in a decent person, maybe even forgive. But no, I have
to get stuck with someone who's a shitty roommate and a bad
person all in one. We have a goddamn hot water tap right in
the kitchen, expressly for such purposes.

The point is, I'm counting the days until the housing office
completes the verification and does something about this.

But enough about all that shit. I have more important stuff
to talk about than someone I hate.

My systems course is not going as smoothly as I would hope;
the first project was quite challenging, and I probably only
got through it because the TA (also a friend of mine) taught
me a whole lot of stuff about bit manipulation in C. Right
now I'm hoping the next one goes more smoothly; I've started
reading up on it in preparation for working on it, but I've
got a ways to go before I'm set.

Theory, on the other hand, is going more smoothly than I had
expected, given what people say about it. It's supposed to
be the hardest of the core requirements, but frankly I'm not
finding it overly challenging. Granted, I miss points here
and there on the homework assignments (and sometimes they'll
start to add up for that assignment), but overall I have, in
my estimation at least, a pretty solid understanding of the
material we've dealt with so far. And according to one TA,
I'm actually doing quite well with respect to everyone else
in the class. That makes me feel pretty good.

It does make me face the possibility that I might end up in
the specialized theory track, which is something I probably
never would have thought possible last year, or even as late
as last term. I originally feared the prospect, as the only
person I knew who was wanting to do theory was (and short of
my roommate, still is) one of the biggest jerks around here,
and that's saying something. Now, though, he has apparently
figured on doing the AI track, which I was considering until
I actually had to deal with the professor teaching the first
course in the sequence. So that's fine, they can have that
lamer. As long as he doesn't pollute my courses, I'm good.

I guess the important thing here is that my plans have gone
through big changes, and fortunately the stigma I would have
associated with the theory track is gone. But I'm getting a
little ahead of myself here; after all, I haven't even seen
how my grade is going to pan out in the end. However, this
theory course is proving to be a considerable amount of work
(even if most of it isn't that hard). I guess I'll be able
to count on that for pretty much all of the advanced courses
I have to take, though.

At any rate, all this lack of sleep, housing issues, and the
confusion over my path in life suggest dark days ahead. But
it's worth mentioning that I have found one glimmer of hope
in this darkness. If everything works out, I will, for the
first time in longer than I care to admit, have a date on a
Friday night.

Now that the paramedics have arrived to help out those among
you who just experienced massive heart attacks, allow me to
relate the story. You see, I got word that Mitch Hedberg, a
stand-up comedian, would be coming here next Friday. So, I
took the opportunity to ask the girl I've mentioned in most
of my recent entries if she'd care to join me. And she said
that she'd be game if her schedule was clear; that is, she's
waiting on some institutional schedule to be completed, and
until then it's up in the air.

But the point is, this is a huge step forward, and frankly,
I'm stoked. Right now, I'm taking this as a victory either
way: if she can make it, awesome, if she can't, well, there
is the possibility of another night. The point is, for all
intents and purposes, the response was basically "yes."

It will certainly be interesting to see where all this leads
in the end. The possibility exists that this could develop
into a relationship, which would be a great thing as far as
I'm concerned. I suppose some people might take issue with
it; I don't know what the actual numbers are, but I honestly
haven't heard about many relationships with this sort of age
difference in this direction. I'm not sure why that is; you
hear about young women dating older men all that time (then
again, that might just be on TV), but never the converse of
that. Now I'm not talking like 60-25 age gap, none of this
May-December jazz, but fairly small differences in age, say,
3 or 4, maybe 5 years.

The usual stuff I've heard is differences in maturity levels
and rates, but I would think that would cease to be much of
a factor once you get out of high school. Maybe I'm wrong,
but I was under the impression that "maturity" levels were,
on average, the same for college-age men and women. That's
the way it looks from my perspective, anyway.

I suppose the heart of the matter could be ageism, that is,
the idea that youth is inherently desirable. So that would
suggest that it occurs because men my age don't want to date
slightly older women (again, small age differences) because
they fear aging, either consciously or subconsciously. Now
to me, that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Even if you
consider the matter from a strictly aesthetic viewpoint, it
doesn't fly; to me, women in their early to mid-20s tend to
be more physically attractive than women who are 18-19, and
ostensibly (assuming everyone's really shallow), it would be
better to be with a more attractive woman than to be with a
younger woman.

So as I see it, one of three possibilities is true:
1) I'm some sort of exception to the norm here, and am thus
doomed to the life of either a zany sitcom character or some
troubled young man on a new prime-time soap opera;
2) I'm actually representing the norm, and the reason there
aren't more guys my age dating women a few years older is a
simple one: they don't usually want to date us;
3) What I'm observing are the effects of conditioning by the
media and/or society, and because of my differing exposure,
I am following impulses other than social ones.

I'm not sure which to believe. #1 would not be news to me,
and #2 might be depressing on a large scale, but does imply
a few things about my attractiveness (given the situation as
it stands) which I don't mind at all. #3 is interesting: on
one hand, it suggests that the majority of society has been
effectively corrupted by images that sell products, and that
I have avoided that. On the other hand, it could also mean
that other people are more receptive to societal influences,
while I, being more primitive, am still basing my responses
on glandular impulses more than anything else.

But I guess it's really a moot point right now, as I really
don't have much evidence supporting or disproving any of the
three. The important thing here is that for once, I am not
only extremely attracted to a woman, but also seem to have a
very good chance with her. And if people are going to think
it weird because of some small difference in our ages, well,
that's their problem.

Now I just have to hope "society" doesn't actually intervene
with an unfortunate schedule for her. And then again, maybe
the schedule is only important for this one event, and isn't
at all for whatever it is we might have between us.

Buckle up, comrades. Life's about to get interesting.

This is Dave, signing off.




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