Tag: Relationships

Too much insufficient conflict 

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I realized today that the amount of conflict in a relationship does not necessarily align with the quality of the relationship. 

One of my game-playing buddies is a high-conflict person. The two of us have a high-conflict relationship. (I bet he has a high-conflict relationship with everyone.) 

Another is a low-conflict person. I have never seen him in conflict with someone else. 

I enjoy playing games with each of them. 

Some family dinnertables are full of raised voices and spirited debate. 

Others are calm and gentle. 

Today I played a single game with both of those people: one on my left, the other on my right. Low-conflict on my left, High-conflict on my right. 

Mid-sentence, I caught myself code-switching. High-conflict person will make some super aggressive claim. I’ll tell him, “That’s insane. You should have done it this way instead.” Then I turn to low-conflict and ask calmly – like a kindergarten teacher: “What would you do differently?” 

High-conflict can get to truth faster, in an engineering sort of way. Low-conflict is more rejuvenating. High-conflict is the storm; low-conflict is the calm after. 

My main dissatisfaction with relationships stems from wanting high-conflict when it’s low-conflict, or vice-versa. And a specific relationship is not always best in a single state. Sometimes I’ll get annoyed at Partner for nitpicking something I say (implying she’s higher conflict than I desire at that moment). At other times, I’ll say to her, “I”m feeling spicy. Let’s fight about something” (I want more conflict than the moment is giving). Monty Python even has a line pertinent to the topic: a man enters an argument clinic to purchase an argument. In the middle of the argument, he says, “I don’t want to argue about that.” (at 3:22 in this sketch)

Most of my social dissatisfaction stems from wanting more conflict (feeling bored) or less conflict (feeling drained). 

As the Buddha would say, one must accept the conflict. Even the conflict containing insufficient conflict containing too much conflict, containing…? 

Yes, even the self-possessing recursion, spiraling ever downward. 

Perhaps purpose is passion plus people 

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Today I introduced a friend who makes quantitative trading-teaching games to a friend who owns a chain of toy and game stores. 

We played a hidden role social deduction game for 3.5hrs. Then they discussed game theory late into the night. 

I pitched this buddy on moving to The City. In 2 days he’s met a handful of driven, interesting, intellectual people. He usually lives in a tiny town. He doesn’t get out much. It’s not healthy. 

I wonder if he’ll ever expand his possibilities and his capabilities. Or if he’ll collapse back into the short-term, brief-profit-seeking perspective he always has. 

—

The last few months I’ve focused on renovating an apartment. Hearing people discuss their passions and excitement is both energizing and deflating. I wonder where I’ll go after this renovation. A family, perhaps. Or an opening of activity into work… or both. 

I enjoy playing games. I enjoy bringing people together. I’ll keep playing games. Keep bringing people together. 

Into a dancer you have grown

From a seed somebody else has thrown

Go on ahead and throw some seeds of your own

And somewhere between the time you arrive and the time you go

May lie a reason you were alive, but you’ll never know

—

Games played

Just after midnight, as my buddy and I descended the steps into the subway station, a woman in a purple bathing suit followed. She muttered something about “Which way is this train going?” and “Who are you guys?” that we ignored. 

We paid our $3 to pass through the turnstile. She followed. 

We boarded the elevator toward the platform. The woman followed us. I tilted my head at my buddy. The woman lowered her top. 

Later, on the platform, my buddy commented: “She really must have thought we were good marks. Spent $3 and everything. And in the elevator, you see that?” 

I replied, “You know what that was?”

He said, “Advertising.” 

You’re Excellent at Friendship

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To learn what you’re good at, ask other people. Even better, see what people pay you for.

Earlier today, I told a friend he’s excellent at friendship. He was surprised. He’d never thought of himself that way. He asked how I knew.

Here’s how: we’d just been talking about his bachelor party, a roomful of strong, eccentric personalities, every one a distinct weirdo, many of whom would never otherwise share a room. He gets along beautifully with all of them. Holding that many particular people close at once takes real skill. That skill is friendship. He has it without knowing.

This not-knowing is common. The people who are good at a thing are often the last to know it, because unmeasured skills are tough to compare. We can check the scored ones, though even there the ego cooks the books: somehow every poker player says they’re at the 75th percentile. The scoreless skills, friendship among them, keep no count we can read. So we stay blind to our placing within them.

Take the word “driven.” I have found the people who call themselves driven to be, more often than not, the lazy ones, using the word as a permit: “I’m usually such a hard worker, so I’ve earned a little time off.” The genuinely hard worker, meanwhile, tends to grind precisely because they’re convinced they’re too lazy. Their self-image points the opposite way from the truth. The person who repeatedly calls themselves happy is trying to convince someone, either themselves or others.

So most of us don’t know what we’re good at. We learn from outside, from what others reflect back, because the trait is relative and others judge it better than we do. The blindness runs deeper than skill: we can’t see our own traits, and those same traits decide both what we’re good at and what’s good for us.

This distinction gets even tougher when adding internal emotions: I’ve been turning this over today because two companies interviewed me. One piqued my interest immediately. The other, once I learned the details, is the better fit. It’s almost exactly what I’ve already done, less of a stretch. (“I’ve done all these pieces, just not in this precise combination”, I told them.) Being more drawn to the first isn’t evidence that it’s the better place for me. Being drawn to something is how marketing wins. My interest is one ingredient. When running the ikigai exercise, “what do I love?” is one question out of four. Love is helpful. It isn’t the whole answer. Yes, everyone needs passion. But passion can’t buy food. 

Here, what I’m good at aligns with what’s good for me, but they’re disconnected from what I’m drawn to. 

The thing you’re drawn to and the label you claim are stories about who you are, and the story is selling something. Identity has a downside we rarely count.

When choosing between passion and survival; when choosing between love or life, it is the martyr who chooses love. We reward the martyr with fame and acclaim. Pity they cannot spend it.

Budapest: Scams and Porn

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How porn, scams, and power fantasies feed each other

[Day 2 in Budapest. Written from a downtown bar.] 

In Budapest, there’s a classic tourist scam. The kind of scam that’s so common you learn about it from Rick Steves. A beautiful woman approaches you on the street, flirts, suggests a drink at a bar she knows. You go. The menu has no prices. You order a round. The bill comes: $500 for two glasses of champagne. A very large man near the door makes clear: this is not negotiable.

The scam works because the mark doesn’t expect it. He thinks he’s lucky. 

And the reason he thinks he’s lucky traces back through Soviet history.  

Here’s the loop, roughly:

1. Post-communist economic disparity creates a visible gap between local women and Western tourists with money.

2. Sex tourism follows: Guys pay for sex.

3. Some of them film it. A whole genre emerges — the “meet a girl on the street in Eastern Europe” category. The premise: “this just happens! You walk around Prague or Budapest, and beautiful woman will come home with you.”[1] 

4. Enough men absorb this trope from porn as a realistic model of how Eastern Europe works. They arrive pre-loaded with the belief that beautiful women approach foreign men on the street.

5. Scam operators notice this. They don’t even need to be aware of the porn. They just notice this story works. A woman approaches, flirts, leads the guy to the scam bar. He doesn’t question it because it matches the script he’s already running.

The porn normalized the scenario. The scam monetized the same scenario from another direction.

I like comedy, so let’s look at this from a recursive, self-parody perspective: 

Once enough guys get scammed and tell the story online (forums, Reddit, travel warnings, the Rick Steves travel guide) the scam itself becomes a known thing. It enters the cultural awareness. And what does entertainment do with any known phenomenon?

It digests it back into fantasy.

My predicted next genre: porn where the guy gets taken to the clip joint, sees what’s happening, fights the bouncer, and the girl is so impressed she actually sleeps with him. The humiliation gets rewritten as a test. The mark becomes the hero. The audience gets to engage with the anxiety of being scammed abroad, but instead of worry it gets transmuted into a power fantasy.

Reality creates the fantasy. The fantasy creates the vulnerability. The vulnerability creates the scam. The scam gets folded back into the fantasy. Someday maybe people will want to be scammed by the beautiful woman as they’ve gotten off on it so many times. 

This structure isn’t unique to Budapest. Casting couch porn followed the same loop. The real casting couch was an open Hollywood secret (producers leveraging access for sex). Exploitative, coercive, career-ending for the women who refused. Then the genre emerged: the “audition” scenario, repackaged as the fantasy itself. The power imbalance turned from a social bug into the pornographic product.

The pattern repeats because it works. A real dynamic involving real exploitation gets turned into content, and fed back to an audience that is now one step further from seeing the thing clearly. Nobody plans the full loop. Each actor in the chain is just optimizing locally — the pornographer for clicks, the scammer for cash, the next pornographer for a fresher scenario. The loop runs itself.

The economic loop feels no different from the gentrification loop seen in Brooklyn, Berlin, and Budapest: down-trodden area → cheap real estate for bars or clubs → yuppies who want to be near artists → cafes → expensive real estate 

It’s an economic loop. You’re living inside thousands every day. Try not to get fucked by them. [1] Budapest actually produces a lot of porn, and this “meet a strange woman and bring her home” is a common genre, featuring the beautiful city architecture

The empty longing of a holding pattern. (Apr 12 2026)

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In which Our Hero yearns. 

When a plane doesn’t yet have a safe runway available, the control tower tells the captain to “go around again”. The captain circles and circles, awaiting the change in this external event that will enable the hundreds of passengers to continue on with their lives. No one enjoys a holding pattern. Quite the opposite: it is during these unenjoyable intervals that we find ourselves “killing time”. 

The last few weeks have been versions of this activity. I’ve forwarded key aspects of incredible importance (my eye surgery; Partner’s jaw surgery complications fixing; Partner’s medical malpractice case; apartment renovations; my work). Yet we – Partner and I – are not living the lives we wish. 

We lift weights more days than not. We amble through the most beautiful park in the greatest city in the world. We cook and eat food that we enjoy. We watch Jeopardy over lunch or dinner, shouting out the answers we know (and a roughly equal number that we don’t). 

But still, we wish for more community. 

We moved into this apartment with the intent of living with others. Now, 2.5 months in, renovations have not started. They might not for another month. Then add 4 months for the renovations themselves. And it could be – probably will be – over half a year before we live with roommates we like, hosting weekly dinners and playing board games and shouting out Jeopardy answers with more than just ourselves. 

This period – this holding pattern – weighs on me. 

There’s no point establishing clear patterns and habits and routines when they will all change in a month. No point improving the infrastructure or systems in a home that will literally have different walls. No reason to stabilize on processes of engagement with my roommate (Partner) when we’ll need to live elsewhere for a while and then return to a different home. 

So we set ourselves on a month-long horizon. We establish temporary patterns. We work, and lift weights, and reach out to friends. We enjoy what we can. 

But still, each day, I want more. 

I want what we’re building. I want at least 5 people living here. I want to cook meals with others, to establish a weekly “Come over for dinner on Tuesday!” that invites a half-dozen people. A board game group and a poker group. I miss those activities. I miss them, though I’ve never had them. 

And that weight – the weight of wanting what I don’t have – is a heavy burden

for at least the next month. Or two. Or four. Or six. Or….

Everyone Starts a Stranger (Apr 11 2026)

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In which, new friends.

“And thanks for inviting two strangers into your house,” the six-foot-six south Indian computer scientist/theater double-major said just before leaving. 

Later, Partner and I laughed at this comment. We don’t even think of such an invitation as odd. We didn’t invite strangers into our house. We invited new friends. 

We talk to strangers. It’s a chosen relationship (and future family) policy. We met this pair at a NYC alumni event for my high school on Thursday. The conversation flowed smoothly; they seemed like fun, smart, and pleasant chaps. We exchanged contact information. I input mine with a funny contact photo of myself. Later, he texted me a picture of himself mimicking that photo. 

Today we learned they don’t even know each other very well: they met a few weeks ago and became rock climbing buddies. (How droll: one brought the other to a highschool reunion without even knowing him well!)

We had them over today for lentils and conversation. The night ended with a game of Mario Party. 

The value of talking to strangers cannot be overstated. The humor – to me – of two people meeting two other people and it being *surprising* when one pair invites the other pair over for dinner… prompts a little sadness in me. While I am undoubtedly top few percentile in frequency of meeting strangers and inviting them to events, at least one of those two found the concept foreign. Pleasant, but foreign. Two college grads from last year, have they not socialized in this way? Had I, when I was in college, gone to others’ house for dinner? 

Yes. Or some facsimile. 

I remember my now-fiancée and her then-roommate (and bestfriend) inviting me to their off-campus house for drinks. She texted to ask what my drink of choice was. I replied, “whiskey sour”. I will always remember her stirring the simple syrup on the stove, explaining how it was becoming a super-saturated solution. 

Most of all, I remember the kindness of her acquiring the items to make my favorite drink. That, and her laugh. What a blessing that I may have that laugh with me forever. 

A Small Change’s Gonna Come (Apr 10 2026)

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You can’t always get what you already don’t like having

Steven Jobbers (the famous fruit vendor) once said (or at least I remember hearing of him saying it) that he tracks whether his days are good and if he ever has too many not-good days in a row, he makes a change. 

Yesterday, I made a change. 

This change: 

Walking up 7th avenue, roundabouts 26th street, I saw all the negatives. Everything sucked. So I switched it. I saw that woman’s hat. That’s a good hat. Then the windowpane. That’s some straight-up magic. Then the fact that Partner enjoys hanging out with me, even when I’m a grumptastic grumplestiltskin. That’s nice. 

I did this over and over – saw the positive, the good, the bright thing. 

Often that’s how I get dragged into the doldrums: seeing the problem, the issue, why it wouldn’t work. I avoid that, resist it, run from it. 

That’s how Partner engineers. She sees the problem, the issue, the way it won’t work. I find that demotivating. She finds it comforting. 

Today, Partner worked from a coffeeshop. I worked from home, leaving three hours before I woke up. A good day is one where you sing to yourself in the morning, then only put on pants around noon. I completed around 7 administrative tasks, only one actually for me. Then, at 1pm, Partner came back. How nice it was to see her after a few hours away! 

I like working alone. I like the emptiness. The lack of seen-ness. The feeling and knowledge that no one’s paying attention to whatever-the-hell I’m doing. Writing with a witness is a nightmare. 

She likes coffeeshops.
I can’t stand them.
Two nice

tiny

significant

shifts. 

Ahhh. 😌

Alums, Assembled. (Apr 9 2026)

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If you can’t return to the school, the school will return to you. 

“I was just talking about you. I was telling him about your underground gambling ring in highschool.” 

My reputation left an impression. 

“If the administration found you, they would have expelled you!” 

Oh, come on. Do you know how hard it was to get expelled from that school? Dealing drugs to other students or cheating on an exam, sure. Or, like, punching someone. But gambling? 

–

“Julian Wise! I know that name.” –two women from the grade below me. They recognized my name. I sure didn’t recognize them. 

–

My highschool had an alumni gathering in New York City earlier tonight. I ran into some old friends and met some new friends. This is why I live in New York: the serendipitous activities; the always-on; the my-highschool-was-on-the-west-coast-but-of-course-there-are-enough-people-in-New-York-for-an-alumni-gathering. 

I feel sad. Sad that it’s over. Sad that I can’t ride that social high. Missing it already. 

I miss that event more than I miss most of the activities I did in highschool. 

Improv, some theater, bumming around with friends. ..
I don’t miss having been there.
New York seems to have been in hibernation mode.
And now, finally, it opens. 

Repetition DOES NOT Equal Boredom (Apr 5 2026)

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In which Our Hero meets a new sort of show

The weirdest part of the Baptist Easter services was the repetition.
Say it again: The weirdest part of the Baptist Easter services was the repetition. 

Listen to me now: 

At 9:30am, Partner and I walked north into Harlem. We approached one church on the right. The church was welcoming people inside. We entered. The deacon at the door introduced us, mentioning there is a $10 admission to the service. Partner found this charge unacceptable. We left. You shouldn’t charge admission to Easter services.
Say it with me now: You shouldn’t charge admission to Easter services. 

We continued onwards up north. A few blocks later, we arrived at a second church. More active, more bustling, with bright colors adorning all the flock milling about. We joined the line to enter. Security wanded us, patted me down. We ascended to the second floor balcony of the former theater. We joined. 

And ‘allelujah, did we experience His flock. 

The singing began at 9:54am. It did not stop – I say it did not stop – until 11am. 

At 11am, the service stopped for an ad break. The Hope Network and the church itself both advertised (the latter for donations). 

Then, 11:05am. The pastor – pastor Mike – enters the stage. This man has the sort of presence that demands a $180 ticket to his 55th birthday party (on a yacht around Manhattan, cash bar, advertised during the ad break). He starts with the text. Of course he starts with the text. And oh boy oh boy does he go deep with the text. 

Deep. But not wide. Deep. 

What juice can we squeeze out of these four lines of text? And how many times can we repeat it?
There is… profound juice to be squeezed from this one line of text. 

I said: this juice can be squeezed.

Now turn to three people near you and share the message: There is. Juice. To squeeze. 

A 45 minute sermon. Fewer than 9 points total. 

The sermon was the opposite of boring. It was repetitive and grand and communal and physical. It was not wide. It contained 1) Repeating the thesis of the sermon; 2) Inviting the congregation to repeat the thesis of the sermon to their neighbors; 3) Repeating the thesis of the sermon; 4) Raising the audience up to standing; 5) Seating the audience with the wave of a hand; 6) Repeating the thesis of the sermon; and of course 7) Repeating… 

Of all my experiences at church, this was my most enjoyable. Partner commented, only half-jokingly: “Our kids might become the only white atheist Hispanics Jews in the Baptist choir.” 

I’m reminded of the Grand Texas Megachurches I visited in Austin back in 2019.
Those subtly (or sometimes obviously) wormed their messages into your minds.
Their leaders funneled away money while allegedly practicing various Good Deeds. 

This church made no promises. It gave some advice. But it was all vibe. 

Upon leaving this church, I felt energized. 

At the end of my faith healing in the Austin megachurch, three separate individuals invited me to come back to church. I never did. 

But next year, with this Baptist church?
There may be more juice to squeeze. 

Food & Fluff (April 2 2026)

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A view into my daily life. 

“Write about oxtail soup.”
“You could write about how good I am at making tasty food in all sorts of ways.”
“Nooooooo you can’t say that.”
–Partner, in answer to my question, “What should I write about today?” 

Partner and I have a new approach to food.
As we recently moved in and are about to renovate our apartment, cooking options are limited to 1) A sous vide, and 2) Two Instant Pots. 

Why two Instant Pots?
They were free. Unused. From Facebook. From the same person. 

Why did they have two unused Instant Pots?
🤷‍♀️

Partner: “I learned how to make frybread once.”

Me: “Mmhmm?”
Partner: “End of story.” 

Partner: “Okay, the context was someone else talking about the best food and … Indian fry bread.” 

Partner: (Mockingly) “Native American fry bread.” 

Partner is now saying things in an effort to make me write them.
I will not comply. 

—

Me: “You have any edits [on my daily writing]?”
Partner: “Boooooo.” 

Partner, 2 minutes later: “Now I have to self-censor.”
Me: “No you don’t.”
Partner: “Because what I want to say is ‘Poopy butts’.”
<Seeing my writing>
“You wrote it wrong. It was ‘Poopy butt face’. That’s funny. ‘Poopy butts’ is disgusting. You’re an unreliable narrator.” 

—

Partner: “I feel like you need a closing… something clever.” 

(Upon reading this) “That’s not clever.”