Good News

Good news, even though my head isn't right yet I still did well on my metalogic test. I only missed one point. So woohoo! And the point I missed was really stupid. I just didn't define one thing cause it was defined earlier in my proof...but he wanted it defined again. I guess I shouldn't have assumed anything. Lesson learned.

Lets see, what other news. Well, that overzealous girl I met last Friday is still quote bothersome. She's the one I briefly mentioned in my last post at the very end...anyway, I am trying to figure out how to turn off Facebook chat for a specific person. If anyone knows how to do that let me know. If not I'll just have to turn the whole thing off.

I mentioned a while back a screenplay date. I said I might explain it later. Well, since I've got some free time now I'll do that.

This idea was a response to two things. 1) the over-elaborate dates many Provites go on. And 2) Watching 500 Days of Summer a few months ago.

I'll now explain both points.

For those who have never lived in Provo, I doubt you'll believe what I'm about to tell you. I don't think I'd believe what I'm about to tell you if I hadn't lived here for 4 years. Anyway, here's what dating in Provo is like.

Guy sees girl , girl sees guy, guy spends all his time to be in the same place and time as girl (if he's interested of course). Guy tests water and builds rapport. He impresses her with tales from his mission or mentions casually some sort of thing that elevates his marriagability. Once all the groundwork is done and both begin to fill the warmth brought on by the sparks of a budding relationship, the two Provites begin a very elaborate courtship process (this is beginning to sound like a Discovery channel special).

The first step is usually the responsibility of the male (might as well go all discovery channel at this point).......(please read this next portion either aloud with an Australian accent, or in your head with an imagined Australian accent.....thanks). The male demonstrates his fitness as a mate by finding some elaborate means of expressing his interest. Methods may include:

A puzzle that once put together says "will you got out with me?"

A teddy bear that has a recorded message that says "will you go out with me?"

A bunch of letters from their Alphabet cereal saying "will you go out with me?" (notice a trend here?)

A note on their car written in some easily removable way saying something to the effect of "will you go out with me?"

Perhaps roses will be brought to her class with a note that says (ibid.)

Sometimes he might even use other females to pass on his proposal. They might even become accomplices in his romantic chicanery.

For example, he might have her female friends lure her to just the right spot and then surprise her by being there with some song he had written for her asking her (once again... ibid)

He might put her on a scavenger hunt where she follows clues that ultimately end up in some sort of message saying ....I'm not even gonna say it anymore.

The crazy thing is if they set the bar this high for a first date their marriage proposals better include something like an all expense paid trip to Europe and a proposal on the top of the Louvre or something.

All in all these males are trying to differentiate themselves and establish themselves as nice guys. This is very hard to do because almost every guy in Provo is a nice guy. You take all the nice guys in Los Angeles and they would probably amount to about as many nice guys as you find in a block of Provo apartment complexes. So, here in Provo there is nice guy inflation. Every nice guy isn't seen as very nice cause every guy is nice, so he's gotta do something crazy to be special. (this might all go back to my nice guy proposal from a while ago)

The sad thing is that if one is really trying to be different in a culture where everyone is a nice guy, the best way to do so is to not be a nice guy. Sadly, I have seen this work for many people (some might even be my roommates).

Anyway, I'm tangenting (not a word, I know). My point is this. Dating in Provo is a very elaborate thing. Since I do a date a week I gave up on all of this long ago. I date like people in other places of the world. Recently I've having the girl plan the whole thing. I only do this if I'm not very interested, but it has been very exciting. I just tell them "you get to pick what we do, I'll pay for it, don't get too greedy!" and then I let them go to town. I think it's good practice for them and it teaches them compassion for all the guys forced to plan activities (girls get pretty judgmental of how dates go, when they don't know how hard it can be to get everything to work together....but that's another story)

Tangent: actually, no, I'll address that now. Here's a brief story. Just yesterday I was in a class and everyone was sharing stories (it was a psych of gender class so it was a discussion on gender which eventually spiraled into dating). This one girl said she had a story of the worst date ever. I listened to her talk for about 5 minutes about how the date was, but I still don't even know what she did on her date. All I know is that the guy didn't open the door of the car, he didn't put her coat over her shoulders, he didn't open the door he didn't push her chair in, and he didn't complement her hair. She was the most ungrateful girl I've ever heard. That poor poor guy. I hope he isn't interested anymore. She's used to the nice guy inflation. Maybe I should ask her out so I can knock the bar down so ridiculously low that she can date other guys happily again. Anyway, I can't imagine that a girl that was that high maintenance did anything nice for him. If chivalry doesn't make the responsibilities of the sexes imbalanced, I'd certainly like to know what she brought to the table. Dating is about determining a healthy relationship of equals, for this girl it was more a sport. She was like a queen sitting in her elaborate robes on a throne while jesters joked, and magicians magic'd and dancers danced....all of them excited to do her bidding, while she did nothing but say "I am not fond of that" or "I like his earnestness, give him the time of day..." I believe in being on your best behavior, and I believe it's important to be romantic. I just don't like the ungrateful expectation I hear at times as personified in her highness. Oh well, what can ya do?
--tangent end--

So, back to the elaborate dating of Provo. Okay, so my response was to take their ridiculous planning and take it to a whole new level. I wanted to take it to such a high level that it would seem almost scripted....and then I decided to go all the way and just write a script. But there is another part to this story. This is the part referring to 500 Days of Summer.

500 Days of Summer is a wonderful movie that I often think of fondly. In that movie there was a scene where the main character is going to meet Summer. They've been broken up and he hasn't learned how to move past her. He ends up going to see her again and he has all of these high expectations of how wonderful it will be, how he'll be together with her again, how everything will fit together in his life once she's a part of it again.

As he goes up the stairs to her apartment the camera splits into two frames. On one side there is a frame that says "reality" on the other there is a frame that says "expectations." As the scene moves forward the two start to become more and more different. In the expectations side she greets him warmly, they talk, he's charming, and all is wonderful. On the other side (reality) he is greeted cordially but not excitedly, he ends up talking with people other than her, and then eventually he sees her wedding ring and the screens shatter and his expectations are gone...he's left with only reality.

That scene made me think "too often our lives don't go as we'd expect. We have such a great idea of how things should go, and then reality dashes those hopes."

This then led me to think, "too bad life isn't like a movie, where it fits cause if it doesn't there is no plot (although how great would a movie be if they never got to the point and just had a random set of scenes and all your romantic expectations were unfulfilled...that would at least be novel).

So, with this idea in my head I had an epiphany...I'd write a screenplay for a date. What I'd do is be the male lead, she'd be the female lead. I'd get her to agree to go on the date, tell her what we'd do (she'd have to be a very cool girl to go along with this), and then go through the date. We'd both have very clever lines, we'd both know exactly where we were going. We'd both know what the other person was thinking (there would be a 3rd person omniscient narrator saying things like "she sat amazed wondering how anyone could be so charming" (and she'd read that part of course) and I'd have the narrator have me notice how wonderful she looked that night).

Anyway, we'd have everything go right, and it would be fun to sort of roleplay the whole thing. There would be portions where there would be cut aways (like a real movie) were we could improvise our own dialog (like a real date). There might even be a quick kiss at the end if the script required it (and hey it's acting so no pressure right?)

It will be a date fit for a movie. Better even, because I wrote the script (I'm done pretending to be modest at this point).

So, that's the screenplay idea. That's how it came about. And that's what I finished a while back (really boring class so I was productive).

When I find a girl worthy of this script I'll write a post on how it goes.

Okay, I'm done writing for the day.