the Set Theory of Potential Friendships
After watching a movie about people who take philosophy way to serious, I hesitate to post this.
No...no, I don't. I'm going to keep being me and damned anythings else.
But to spare the easily bore, the symbolic notation is allowed to cower behind the cut:
Anyway, consider P, the set of all people. Call P | Y the set of all people I would be want to develop relationship with, and cal P | X the set of people who would want to develop a relationship with me. Let E be the set of people I encounter.
I previously expressed concern that P | X and P | Y are shrinking in size relative to P, mostly due to, well, things like this. And this was bothering me.
But, I realized this recently. Being eccentric will shrink P | X, but it will also shrink P | Y. So, I shouldn't be worried about becoming a "loser". That would be if P | X shrunk, but P | Y didn't. That would mean people I wanted to get to know were ever more rejecting me. Being eccentric just means you just having to looking harder for compatible people.
Furthermore, I'll go out on a limb and say that my social skills are better, and so the amount of people in P | Y not in P | X (or, (P | Y) - (P | Y intersect P | X) ) is shrinking. Which is good.
So, increasing the friend pool means doing one, or both, of the following:
In other words, I could worry that I am a dork, and that preempts my ability to make friends. But, I enjoy friends similar to me more, so, since I judge my social skills as good, I shouldn't worry about my eccentricities, but should instead get out and expose myself to people more. Specifically, people who have things in common with me.
For now, I've chosen the option of increasing the amount of people like me that I encounter. I remembered that Craigslist has events postings and the like, and that I ought to look there for opportunities to do new things. I've already taken action be attending a pick-up football game this morning. Much fun, and much soreness, followed. I got up at 8, and we started playing at 9 and played until noon. I can't believe I drove 22 miles to play flag football, but I can't say it was a bad decision. :-)
And I think that I might join a book club. We'll see.
In other news, I continue to be a total tool. Wait...that's not really "other news", is it?
And in case you're wondering, yes, the math and philosophy generally get shut off when I'm being social. I truly am my geekiest before you all.
No...no, I don't. I'm going to keep being me and damned anythings else.
But to spare the easily bore, the symbolic notation is allowed to cower behind the cut:
Anyway, consider P, the set of all people. Call P | Y the set of all people I would be want to develop relationship with, and cal P | X the set of people who would want to develop a relationship with me. Let E be the set of people I encounter.
I previously expressed concern that P | X and P | Y are shrinking in size relative to P, mostly due to, well, things like this. And this was bothering me.
But, I realized this recently. Being eccentric will shrink P | X, but it will also shrink P | Y. So, I shouldn't be worried about becoming a "loser". That would be if P | X shrunk, but P | Y didn't. That would mean people I wanted to get to know were ever more rejecting me. Being eccentric just means you just having to looking harder for compatible people.
Furthermore, I'll go out on a limb and say that my social skills are better, and so the amount of people in P | Y not in P | X (or, (P | Y) - (P | Y intersect P | X) ) is shrinking. Which is good.
So, increasing the friend pool means doing one, or both, of the following:
- Increasing the number of people in P | X that I encounter (i.e., P | X intersect E)
- Deciding what provides me with greater utility: having cool hobbies and interests, or maximizing (P | Y intersect P | X)
In other words, I could worry that I am a dork, and that preempts my ability to make friends. But, I enjoy friends similar to me more, so, since I judge my social skills as good, I shouldn't worry about my eccentricities, but should instead get out and expose myself to people more. Specifically, people who have things in common with me.
For now, I've chosen the option of increasing the amount of people like me that I encounter. I remembered that Craigslist has events postings and the like, and that I ought to look there for opportunities to do new things. I've already taken action be attending a pick-up football game this morning. Much fun, and much soreness, followed. I got up at 8, and we started playing at 9 and played until noon. I can't believe I drove 22 miles to play flag football, but I can't say it was a bad decision. :-)
And I think that I might join a book club. We'll see.
In other news, I continue to be a total tool. Wait...that's not really "other news", is it?
And in case you're wondering, yes, the math and philosophy generally get shut off when I'm being social. I truly am my geekiest before you all.