Age of Interest

I’ve been blessed with the pleasure of having questions asked to me. I also question everything I do and I would call it nihilism if I didn’t think that was a little presumptuous. I hope others will judge me posthumously and read into my trash what they will.

We live in the age of interest. Or maybe an age where showing interest is the easiest thing a man can do and the most careless of things.

It used to be, in my mind at least, that a man(guy) interested in a woman(girl) would seek her out, wait for her after the class he saw her go into or hang out by the coffee cart where they first met so he could utter a few clever sentences and maybe win a date. It required effort and a fortunate cosmic accident where a guy would run into a girl reading a book on Sartre at the library and remember that it was him who said that “human nature” does not exist. We had to wear preppy collegiate sweaters or worn out jeans with dried specks of white painting from a summer spent in construction to get away with it of course.

But now we mass text. And we think that’s enough.

A simple:

Hey, Been thinking bout u. When r we hanging out?

Constitutes enough of an effort.  If carefully done it is appropriately addressed to mask anonymity but an explanatory clause to keep them hoping. Chivalry (isn’t) dead.

I don’t mean to say I like calling or that I call at all. All I’m trying to say is that with a new socially established point of reference life is easier for the determined guy and that a simple, careful gesture, pays off.

Again and for the sake of completion I’m not talking about handing out a blossoming red rose, or walking up to a stranger and asking her for the chance to sit down with her over a cup of dark, brewed necessity and get to know each other or calling.

I’m talking about using what you know to bridge the chasm between idle chat and interesting dialogue. It’s all in the detail, carefully planned to seem subtle and spontaneous the secret is in knowledge.

Scientia est Potentia