The Sissyphus Paradox
Mite-y M recently lamented that she's finally given up. That she just can't seem to meet interesting men and is going to have to give up "expecting" to find one. Not that she's in the throes of depression or anything, but just that it'd rather simplify things if she stopped expecting it to happen. Gone would be all the stress that the 'manhunt' is inflicting on her, and if Mr. Right just happens to turn up, then hurrah for serendipity.
It was this observation that got me a-thinking... Sissyphus knows for a fact that there are many, many, many poor male-of-the-species-types that wander like lost souls waiting endlessly to meet a woman. And then, here's Mite-y M, who's a one-helluva-cool-woman types, who's complaining that it's actually impossible to meet 'nice' men. Despite our failings as a gender, Sissyphus knows that we aren't all bad... not all of the time anyway. Sissyphus also hears his brothers rant on about how they aren't able to find engaging women despite searching high and low. And therein lies the paradox - if cool, intelligent women-types and cool, intelligent male-types mutually lament a shortage of supply of members of kindred souls of the other sex, even though it's obvious to even the casual observer that there is on the contrary a serious supply overhang.
Nefarious S suggests that it's simply a matter of what women and men looking for very different things, despite seemingly meeting each other's search criteria at a superficial taxonomical level.
This seems reasonable enough, and yet it leaves me with more questions than answers... especially the biggest of them all - What do women want?? or, in this specific case, what do cool-intelligent-women-types want?
Clearly, this makes for a rather oh-not-again type of blog topic, added to which, I frankly have no clue... and so I shall leave it to the hordes of cool-women-types that visit this blog to help me figure this one out. What can I say... I live in hope! :)
And as for what men want... that sounds like a reasonable, though equally done-to-death topic for a future post!
Until later... Au revoir!
Mite-y M recently lamented that she's finally given up. That she just can't seem to meet interesting men and is going to have to give up "expecting" to find one. Not that she's in the throes of depression or anything, but just that it'd rather simplify things if she stopped expecting it to happen. Gone would be all the stress that the 'manhunt' is inflicting on her, and if Mr. Right just happens to turn up, then hurrah for serendipity.
It was this observation that got me a-thinking... Sissyphus knows for a fact that there are many, many, many poor male-of-the-species-types that wander like lost souls waiting endlessly to meet a woman. And then, here's Mite-y M, who's a one-helluva-cool-woman types, who's complaining that it's actually impossible to meet 'nice' men. Despite our failings as a gender, Sissyphus knows that we aren't all bad... not all of the time anyway. Sissyphus also hears his brothers rant on about how they aren't able to find engaging women despite searching high and low. And therein lies the paradox - if cool, intelligent women-types and cool, intelligent male-types mutually lament a shortage of supply of members of kindred souls of the other sex, even though it's obvious to even the casual observer that there is on the contrary a serious supply overhang.
Nefarious S suggests that it's simply a matter of what women and men looking for very different things, despite seemingly meeting each other's search criteria at a superficial taxonomical level.
This seems reasonable enough, and yet it leaves me with more questions than answers... especially the biggest of them all - What do women want?? or, in this specific case, what do cool-intelligent-women-types want?
Clearly, this makes for a rather oh-not-again type of blog topic, added to which, I frankly have no clue... and so I shall leave it to the hordes of cool-women-types that visit this blog to help me figure this one out. What can I say... I live in hope! :)
And as for what men want... that sounds like a reasonable, though equally done-to-death topic for a future post!
Until later... Au revoir!
posted by sreeram at 4:43 AM
7 Comments:
SP,
Agree with Nefarious S re the differences between what men and women want. However, also think this is a problem of an imperfect market ie not being there at the right place and at the right time. The quest is to resolve this imperfection.....some attempt to resolve the temporal elements by a wait forever....Others, limited by the space they occupy for large amounts of time attempt to look for it within the contours of their immediate surroundings.....if only, it were a more perfect world!!..but when the distortions are corrected, it is like a boundless moment ..so dont see it as a paradox....merely, distortions in an imperfect world
Inkkognito
Inkkognito
An additional point: While agreeing that there is a supply over hang, and there are imperfections in the market allowing the partcipants to find each other, a yet another factor is the irrational behaviour of participants when they eventually find who they are looking for. For inexplicable reasons, when they eventually find their companion, they let go, either looking for more optimality (if they know what they want) or due to a lack of understanding itself on what indeed they are seeking.....
apologies to bring economics into this debate....but SP, there aint no paradox
clearly, I have no answers to that question..(and my single status is reason enuff for me to hold my peace)and as Mitey-M would say, I hardly see a point in even trying to figure it out.. :)
Perhaps Inkognito, knows better..and maybe its all about economics and math afterall.And I agree, timing is probably everything.
As far as people not knowing what they want...its more true than a lot of us would like to admit, i guess. But the paradox as i see it is that the more clear you get of what you want, the smaller are the chances of you finding it...coz arent you, in many senses, shutting yourself to ..possibilities? Boxing yourself into compartments that you draw around yourself? Im only wondering.....
Dear Hip_Prudester,
Couldnt agree more on your paradox :) In a lot of ways, we are saying the same thing, arent we?
And inkognito, while holding on to the crutches of economics and math, can very much be accused of not having learnt anything....have let go in the past, for the very same inexplicable reasons.....like you say so beautifully, in the search for something....only to see much later that when one hasnt found oneself, it is meaningless to look in others.......
living in a suspended reality right now...waiting for epiphany to arrive...porbably never will, but it is an eternal quest...
Inkognito
ps: You write very beautifully, visited your site and read your poem, it is lovely. Please do keep posting more..you have one loyal reader :)
Hmm so much angst... Forget all the paradoxes and go forth and proliferate much like amoebae and random other primitive organisms...
Here's an inconvenient truth: Much like the perfect job, the perfect person doesn't exist!!! Relationships are a series of compromises, big and small and you can just hope and pray every day that the superglue you used to make them stick will hold for long enough for you both to die of old age!!!
Unfortunately, though this is a tale of many generations past and several more to come ... So take refuge in the thought that misery in love always brings forth excellent poetry (and sometimes music)!!! And then move on...
Dear Inkognito,
:)surely, we aren't the only ones who are clueless.. our tribe increaseth. The older and none -the-wiser that i get, Im begining to feel that the best some of us can do is to, as a function of time,figure out what wont work for us and learn as we go in the process of elimination...:)
epiphanies... well,i dont think im holding my breath for any such in my life.. sour grapes, perhaps..:) and hey, Epiphanies are surely over-rated, arent they? :)But perhaps, like miracles, epiphanies come to the eternal seekers ...so i think you have the right idea :) Im just jaded :)
Anyways... thank you so much for your really sweet encouraging words about my writing. Personally, i think you write extraordinarily well..and should blog, honestly.
And the only person who seems to be benifitting from this mutual-admiration club right now, is SP, on whose site, the comments, completely unrelated to his blog are piling up on...creating this false impression of several takers for his musings :).
@Hip-prudester : Thanks, there is a plan to write a blog. In fact, plan to from this weekend, but unlike yours or SP's or the greatbong's or sidin's blog (sissy, please feel happy you are being mentioned in the same breath) this one will have nothing interesting to say....it is more a self discovery kind of blog....gee, i am shamelessly advertising myself, even before i begin :dd
@The Wag: lol :)) you've probably nailed it there - lets enjoy the poetry and the music, and also the insanity, the pain, in the interim...
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