The unrealistic expectations of modern dating

A parent had a casual chat with me and mentioned their adult son who has decided to forego dating as he feels it is "not worth it". This attitude seems to be a recent development in dating dynamics overseas, but to hear that young men here are of a similar mind, it's worrying. If we are trying to encourage breeding among our young couples, perhaps incentivizing already married couples to procreate is too little too late. After all, if young people aren't dating in the first place, nobody's getting married.

Of course, I'm speculating and overgeneralizing here, but it seems that dating, marriage, and babies require more money than people are willing to spend on them, hence the PM's Budget proposal. But we need to examine the problem at the root. PM Wong isn't allocating any budget to encourage dating, the first link in the ball-and-chain of marriage and family, but I doubt throwing money at this problem will solve anything, anyway.

What I think has gone wrong with dating today is not the money per se, but the expectation that young men have been priced out of the dating market. In the past, couples knowingly believed in the romantic fantasies of 'love at first sight' and 'love conquers all', meaning that even if we were broke, the couple would still find something to do without breaking the bank. That was how it was with me and the wife in our early days, especially in the year she had an income, and I was living off my rapidly diminishing savings. Today, dating has transformed into a transaction. No more 'love at first sight', aspiration has mutated into the expectation of 's_x on first date'. There seems to be an understanding that the man will pay for an expensive date, but if he doesn't get to round the bases after that, he feels cheated, having been used for a free meal, drinks and entertainment. Meanwhile the ladies invest in themselves to look their best on the date, hoping to entice their partner to become so smitten by their stunning appearance that wallets gape open, spewing money everywhere. "If a man can spend so much money on me, it must be love", but because of the transactional nature of the date, it's like the more money he spends, the less she feels cheap and the more she feels like a princess when it's time to seal the deal.

Young men, of course, don't earn enough to pay for many extravagant dates, so they don't even bother approaching women, while young women get asked out by older gentlemen who have built up enough resources to lavish their dates with the level of luxury expected. But once the old, rich guy has had (and paid) for their fun, they'll take their business elsewhere. No commitment, no baggage, just the endless thrill of "love 'em and leave 'em". Women are left bewildered and frustrated, being ghosted by the man who demonstrated love by showering them with material blessings the night before, and now they no longer believe that love is forever. Everybody playing this game eventually develops trust issues, it seems. Not exactly a solid foundation to build family on.

If it is true that the dating pool today is messed up by everybody's unrealistic expectations of what the dating ritual is supposed to accomplish, then it's going to take an attitude reset, and not necessarily mo' money, that will get the human population back on track.

The lanes, how I've missed thee

Well, this video was totally unsolicited. George, Bee, and I chaperoned the kids at an introductory course in bowling. Brought back memories of some of my earlier posts in this blog when causing our own chaos at the lanes was all the rage.

I joined in as a participant to make up for a vacancy and learned a couple of tips that benefited my game. Stand on the centre dot to start my walk-up and aim dead straight at the second aiming arrow right from middle. Stay focused and follow-through. That did wonders for keeping my first throws on target, mostly. Still need more work to convert the spares, but that was beyond the objective of today's toe-dip into 10-pin mayhem. Racked up a score just below the averages I used to get back then.

I loved the ball I selected from the public rack, this silver 11-pounder with holes that perfectly matched my grip. It fit so well and handled so easily that it gave me a lot of confidence using it. I wish I could have bought it there and then, but since I'm not bowling regularly any more, it would just have been a frivolous purchase. I didn't notice Bee taking this video of me but, damn, despite maybe a decade or more being out of practice, I still haven't lost much form. Good thing I did convert this spare, else it would have been all flair and no substance.

The elderly chief coach has inspired me to likewise be a bowling coach in my retirement years. Not long now...

Focus on POTUS in MCU's Captain America: Brave New World

MCU's Captain America movies usually have some political statement to make. Brave New World, Cap's 4th outing, draws a parallel between newly elected POTUS, Thaddeus Ross (Harrison Ford) and the real-life current POTUS. Both have done and are still doing morally questionable things, and although much of their misdeeds are public knowledge, they have still been given the mandate to be the country's top decision-maker.

What's different about Ross is that his misdeeds are misguided attempts to keep the country safe by all means necessary, including the use of deadly force resulting in heavy collateral damage -- a callback all the way to the MCU's second movie, The Incredible Hulk. That legacy carries over to his initiation of the Sokovia Accords resulting in the unintended(?) disbanding of the Avengers during the brutal Civil War conflict. By this time, Ross is convinced that regardless of his political success, he would never win back the love of his daughter, Betty (Liv Tyler). As such, he seeks to redeem himself by negotiating a global peace treaty over the fair and equitable distribution of a new element that seems to have more potential than even vibranium. This new element is found in the body of Tiamut, the Celestial that arose in the Indian Ocean, but whose full emergence was prevented by the Eternals in their own movie.

Current real-world POTUS has opposite designs for national self-sufficiency at all cost. 'nuff said.

The mantle of Captain America now falls on Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie), formerly Falcon. He bears the shield with a sense of inadequacy, feeling that Steve Roger's boots are too big to fill. Moreover, Wilson does not have any super-soldier enhancement, and clearly cannot match OG Cap's physical prowess and abilities. Wilson does have the advantage of aerial combat and makes use of his natural empathy to deescalate tense situations. Without enhancements, Wilson has his own approach to dealing with powered individuals, preferring to use words over fists, although fights can end a bit anti-climactically for a hero-fest. It's not that he can't use his fists to end a fight -- as he does with Sidewinder (Giancarlo Esposito) -- but he prefers not to.

BNW is a straight up comic-book movie. There's enough action and fighting through a varied palatte of threat levels to keep the pace breathless. But because Wilson is already such a good guy from the start, his character arc doesn't have that many legs. By the end, he's gained a little more confidence in himself as Cap's successor, but we already knew that he was worthy. His costume design is also busier than I like, but that's an aesthetic quibble. It was President Ross who kept my attention for this movie. He had the broader character arc with more to redeem himself from and more to seek forgiveness for. His resolution is a bit of wish fulfilment for us in the real world, but it is in taking personal accountability and responsibility for his past missteps that finally brings Ross peace.

Overall, while political enough, I feel that the previous Captain America movies had more emotional depth and higher stakes. BNW tried to create a bit of a besties dynamic in the Sam Wilson-Isiah Bradley (Carl Lumbly) pairing, but the Wilson-Bradley friendship doesn't run so deeply that the audience roots for them as we did with Steve-Bucky. The biggest impact of BNW on the greater MCU is the tying up of some loose ends from previous movies while vaguely pointing the way forward with the discovery of a new element to exploit, and a cryptic prophecy delivered in the sole end credits scene. Generally a good movie, but seeing as the supporting character stole the show, it doesn't top any of the previous installments of MCU's Captain America movies, at least for me.

China ascendant? Pt 2

The second trend has been the most spiteful non-violent protest a people has raised against a government policy that could result in an outcome that could be inadvertently wonderful. With the impending US decision to ban Tiktok in the US, hundreds of thousands of American "tiktok refugees" have jumped ship to xiaohongshu, or Red Note. Ostensibly, the Tiktok ban is motivated by national security concerns over China's ease of access to American users' data, so instead of returning to US-based social media apps as expected, users have maliciously migrated to mainland China's own social media platform, voluntarily handing over to China their personal data on a platter. US Gen-Z's (mostly) collective raised middle finger to their own government is unhinged, inspired and hilarious.

The unintended consequence of this overnight mass migration is unprecedented. Ordinary people who have been told to be suspicious of each other by their respective governments are now meeting each other in a common space en masse and discovering that they have more in common than not. These past few days, people from two different gated communities have engaged on friendly terms and are fully experiencing a grand scale cultural exchange driven by genuine curiosity about each other. So far, the general consensus has been that while their governments are creating tension between each other's countries, the people themselves have no issue with one another.

Of course, no one knows how long such cordial exchanges will last. The Internet usually starts out promising friendship and understanding, but human nature will eventually attract trolls and spoilers that will ruin it for everyone. But in the meantime, people are learning each other's languages and cultures... and lifestyles. American users have been shown how their Chinese hosts live -- not in squalor or poverty as the common stereotypes portray but in better circumstances than most Americans. Chinese people's cost of living is comparative low: they own their own houses or rent at much lower rates than their US counterparts, and utilities, groceries and healthcare are enviably affordable compared to what Americans pay for the same. Some American commenters even compared the USA to a third world state in response to such eye-widening revelations.

These events remind me of the fall of the Berlin Wall in '89 which marked the end of the Communist grand social experiment. Pure Communism did not work, and once the people who lived under that regime decided that they didn't have to and shouldn't live under government restrictions and material privations, previously Communist states reshaped their economies to embrace some level of private entrepreneurship, and freedom of expression, while keeping a firm grip on public order and a commitment to providing essential social services. Something similar is happening now in the USA in that it has become almost a total Capitalist state. Every citizen has to foot their own bill for everything that they need, while (simplistically) the profit motive keeps prices high. Inflation is running rampant, and wages have been unable to keep up. The American Dream is now run by an Oligarchy with a disreputable businessman being sworn into its highest office in a couple of days. Could 2025 be the turning point when the American people themselves decide they don't have to and shouldn't continue living under government restrictions and material privation? When pure Communism fell with the Berlin Wall, could pure Capitalism also fall with the great firewall?

It's still early, but I, and I guess many other people too, are hoping that ordinary people inadvertently bridging the communication gap via the banning of a social media app can pave the way to a more peaceful, understanding, and united world moving forward. If not, at least this week has provided a bright spot in an otherwise gloomy outlook over the near future.

China ascendant?

Two trends have pinged for me recently. The first is the massive uptick of players of video games made by Chinese developers corresponding with the equally massive decline of players of American-made games. "Black Myth Wukong" (BMW), based on Chinese mythology featuring the Monkey God as the protagonist captured hundreds of thousand players on the Steam platform compared to American releases which were struggling to get tens of thousands of regular players. Big budget multi-player game, "Concord", even shut down after a few weeks of launch due to lack of player interest. Game Science, the Chinese developer of BMW certainly seems to have made monkeys out of its Western competitors.

Recently (and ironically) another Chinese developer, NetEase Games, has captured much of the gaming market with its release of "Marvel Rivals" making use of American publisher, Marvel's, widely renowned characters like Captain America, Hulk, Thor and a host of other household superheroes with more promised every new season.

One simplistic factor for the popularity of non-American video entertainment is that foreign developers are not hamstrung by activists insisting that diversity, equity, inclusion, or DEI, has to feature in popular entertainment so as to not exclude people who do not conform to mainstream stereotypes. Now, although I believe that DEI is a noble agenda, the numbers are telling us that people who qualify as DEI do not represent the market that buys and plays video games. The vast majority of gamers tend to be vanilla mainstream people who like their game characters to be identifiably mainstream with few but very clear distinctions that help us tell one character apart from another. For example a clear male-female dichotomy with males exhibiting a more angular body shape, and females with softer, rounder curves. Easy. There's no need to delve into any character's sexuality or preferences which is of little relevance to a game in which people are shooting each other for fun. Besides, if I were to be shooting at your character who is exhibiting identifiable DEI characteristics, wouldn't my intentions be even more actively discriminatory?

Anyway, insisting on a DEI agenda in video games is ultimately self-defeating from a marketing standpoint. People who identify as DEI, are identifying themselves apart from the mainstream. It makes little sense to push non-mainstreamers into the mainstream. It's confusing for everybody. DEI individuals pride themselves on embodying very unique characteristics that distinguish them from everyone else. Distilling character types from such a wide range of unique qualities creates character designs that at best only partially represent a person, so a DEI person is unlikely to see themself fully reflected therein. But the stereotypical male-female body shape is a silhouette that anybody, DEI or not can see themself in as it is the lowest possible common denominator. So there is little to gain from fragmenting the market and chasing after the smallest demographic that may not even exist. And then be shocked and outraged when games that target the widest possible audience do so much better at attracting players.

But depending on the game, character design may not even be a key issue for a game's success or failure. I'm not playing "Rivals", I'm playing "Path of Exile II" developed by NZ-based Grinding Gear Games. POE2 is an isometric ARPG in which my avatar is relatively tiny in comparison to the playing field and is constantly lost in explosions, fog, and other environmental effects. My current character is a female witch (player classes have no gender options), but her body shape is not of any prime concern as the idea is to layer her up in protective armour so it really doesn't matter what she looks like. As long as she can kill things fast, keep a forward progression, and find gear upgrades, that's all I care about. Is the game fun to play? Yes. That's it.

So, now the Chinese know how to make video games fun and pleasing to play, are targeting the people who actually play games and are doing well as a result. In contrast, corporate America has bogged down American games with unnecessary encumbrances, pulling down the fun factor in their greedy and misguided attempt to appeal to every potential niche customer, but pleasing essentially no one. American gamers are rejecting such games and have no qualms jumping ship to Chinese games that actually offer them what they want. Ironically, the capitalists have forgotten that in a free market the customer is king.

This one has gone on for much longer than I intended. I'll cover the second trend in my next post. Stay tuned!

Sleep paralysis demon

This face belongs to my newly-acquired sleep paralysis demon. One night I had a dream that made me annoyed and angry. I don't remember the details, but I remember the emotions I was feeling when I suddenly woke up. Sir, you are sleeping on my chest and stomach. Your chubbiness is compressing my insides, making breathing difficult while limiting my range of movement which I like to enjoy, even when asleep.

That was a couple of weeks ago, so why am I posting this report now? Because since then, I have been waking up to this face at all strange hours of the night as since he's done it once, he feels entitled to do so repeatedly. No more. Your new career has been terrifying and short-lived. You threw up on my carpet and my mattress, so now you are summarily banned from my room. In revenge, he's taken to jump scaring me awake with the Song of his People, loudly lamenting the injustice of revoking his privileges for no good reason. Excuse me, sir?

SU-METAL wins Metal Awards' Female Metal Singer of 2024

 

This news is days late, but I was waiting for a video I could make a link to. Suzuka Nakamoto a.k.a. SU-METAL is Metal Awards' Female Metal Singer of 2024 after winning a year-long ballot by a landslide. The video cites the openness of the Metal community, becoming more inclusive of new, innovative variations within the genre, and how BABYMETAL's blend of heavy metal and idol-pop has opened up to the world a new way to appreciate Metal music. Agree and agree.

SU-METAL has forged an over a decade's long bond with a growing fanbase who really love her and BABYMETAL so much that they care enough to actually vote. Consider that the total number of votes cast for Female Singer at nearly 100,000 is double that for Male Singer at 50,000. Voting matters. When I cast my vote last year, SU already had a commanding lead over her rivals, so I knew that this fanbase was unparalleled among other female-fronted metal bands. Give her more chocolate to keep her (and MOA and MOMO) working hard and happy at making great musical productions for us all!