I see my friends being tagged by the same people on Facebook, hang out with the same people at work, on road trips, overseas, interstate, daily brunching and lunches mostly Western and Asian cuisines. On Snapchat and Instagram, their pictures of them at birthday parties, music festivals, pet farms, trending restaurants, food trucks, sporting matches and formal cocktail events certainly puts more than a tear to my eye. As I see my friends’ long Snapchat stories, tears begin to trickle down my face. I hear their laughter, see their smiles, challenging their kidneys with shot after shot after shot of tequila and sackfuls of goon. Although the scenery is chaotic and messy, I can’t fathom the fact that my friends are having the time of their life. I know there are some people out there who are currently trapped in a similar social predicament. Depending on the season, I see photos of them in their bikinis, swimwear, sportswear at the sporting courts, stadiums, beaches, cafes, restaurants, overseas destinations and running dry tracks. It is by then I’m so agonised to question my friends for being left out of the pack. However as my nose begins to sniff, I somehow refrain myself in search of the truth. I’m worried that by asking why I’m always the unlucky and forgotten one, my friends may view me as attention-seeking, a desperate whinging and pathetic peer and possibly downplay my calls for my presence at future events.
When my parents oversee my depressed state of mind, they don’t realise their words aren’t helping to improve the situation. They blatantly believe my friends are absent-minded and have the worst behaviour concluding they hate me in general. I obviously didn’t believe such nonsense. My parents have little to no experience for what it’s like to have an eventful and fun life around people. I feel they want to pull my social status down to their level; abysmal, so they can feel relieved they aren’t the only ones feeling this inexperienced socially. My parents are overprotective, cautious about their safety with the risk of spiked drinks and alcohol-fuelled violence which I can understand. A risk quite small in reality that is somehow adequate for those parents to leeway to say NO. They think that preventing their children from entering an environment where brawls or embarrassing moments are always eminent is a rightful and responsible act of parenting. The possible reasons for their verbal decision is that they have read negatively biased (Chinese) newspaper articles regarding the dangers of attending parties of any sort including birthday parties or their lack of experience and knowledge of attending parties is contributing heavily to their lack of commitment to face any risks, albeit minute. I attempted to question their way of thinking and dig out relevant sections of their past but to no avail. They kept defending themselves with the same annoying, rehearsed responses to any personal question I throw at them and the conversation wouldn't travel in any direction whatsoever. I just cannot get through the great wall that guards my parents’ psyche. What will it take to soften their mood and reveal their true story for all to hear? Even their closest friends and relatives receive similar sarcastically positive, solemn and humorous responses. Why are they acting so fishy publicly and privately? Can’t they understand their behaviour and verbal responses are making them fishy? Is it just me or are they afraid of being interrogated from not just authorities but anyone in general including their own son? Whatever Chinese war movies they watch the content certainly has plagued their minds.
To be honest I don’t think I’m in any circle of friends. I might be too aware, too conscious and too anxious of the uncertainty of my position and lack of belonging within the group. It seems everyone around me is engulfed by drama and gossip expressing overreactive verbose to innocuous experiences and common unproven rumours. They exert a certain level of unawareness, lack of knowledge and high sense of gullibility. They don’t seem willing to explore outside their current field of knowledge to learn a different breadth of facts and ideas. For instance, those who discuss nothing but fashion, brunches and dinners, social media, holidays, trips with their significant others and circle of friends, progress through school don’t have the curiosity to understand the history, biology, neuropsychology and quantum physics behind their interests. I try to avoid using offensive terms like “stubbornness”, “dumbness”. “idiot”, “nincompoop” and “dunce” because these terms can induce emotional harm and stigma. In reality no one is inherently stubborn, dumb and idiotic. We may learn the same thing in our lifetimes but at different times of our lives. When we lack knowledge in something, we subconsciously ask ourselves questions of the possible outcomes of our actions. If these questions involve standard drinks of alcohol, drugs, dancing erratically on the dinner tables, then I call this morbid curiosity. But why do we get morbidly curious even if we are aware of the outcomes of serious injury, possible death, and sheer embarrassment and blackmailing on the internet? Well there is no single reason for this interest in macabre. We feel like we need to stay and watch the drama unfold. It may be an opportunity to update your social media and attract anonymous viewers to your profile and channel, hence increasing your popularity and people will take note of your name. At the same time, our bodies are preparing us for possible danger in case hell breaks loose. When we’re fixated on an exhilarating activity you will experience an adrenaline rush and tsunami of blood gushing through your circulation. This causes you to cheer loudly and jump excitedly in the air whilst shouting obscene language and directives to the participants. Nonetheless, your body is subconsciously alerting you to possible danger at any given moment. If you acknowledge your body’s signals, the secretion of Norephinephrine and Ephinephrine to your skeletal and smooth muscles will allow you to elicit a flight-fight-or-fright response the very instant your eyes detects the first sign of impending death-defying risk. Failure to recognise the danger and you risk losing a limb, your sanity and possibly your life. I'll dig deep into drugs and alcohol and its connections with fun, language and excitement and morbid curiosity in another post.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar's_number
150 is no ordinary 3-digit natural number. This integer represents one of psychology’s most fascinating hypotheses. In the 1990s, British anthropologist Robin Dunbar somehow accidentally came across this number when he was trying to understand why primates devotes time and effort to grooming. According to the Social Brain Hypothesis (or Machiavellian Intelligence Hypothesis), it turns out that primates have larger brains when brought up in socially complex societies. The larger the group, the larger the brain. More technically, the larger its neocortex or frontal lobe. Dunbar proposed that any human or primate around the world would feel comfortable maintaining up to 150 stable relationships. For example, any one person in an organisation or company can maintain stable relationships with 150 other colleagues. If we create more interpersonal relationships, we tend to mentally form our own rules, restrictions and norms to help us prioritise which friends we want to keep within our stable, cohesive group. We then create our own so-called rule-of-three formula:
#6 to 20 — Includes your significant other, best friends (circle of friends) that you always invite to a sleepover, dinner at a family home or a restaurant, birthday party or a fun day at the movies or road trip to a festival or carnival. You interact with these people intimately not just in romantic relationships but also platonic relationships and more importantly, in emergencies.
#21 to 55 — These people are on your waiting list to complete your circle of friends if one leaves the pack due to a breakup or a fight at work, at a party or at school. If your best friends are not available for interaction, you will think of these people next when you want a long-awaited catchup or a deep conversation.
#56 to 150 — This includes your casual friends, whom you’d consider inviting to your party to make up the numbers. Depending on your personality and communication skills, this number can range from as low as 40 to as high as 100. You meet them at least once a week in a lecture, a meeting, at school, on a sporting field etc.
#151 to 500+ — These include your acquaintances whom you rarely see in public. You may meet them as frequently as once or twice a month, or as rarely as once a year on the streets or on public transport. You would often forget these people and it can be difficult remembering how you met these people in the first place.
In reality, the above representation of a person’s reallocation and prioritisation of their friends and family will fluctuate depending on how many friends you have or how socially active and popular you are in society. Dunbar’s number may be smaller for introverts and vice versa for extroverts. But, what is for certain is that the equilibrium of everyone’s rule-of-thumb when nominating friends is close to Dunbar’s number of 150. You would naturally move your friends up and down the list in your head depending on how often you interact with them and whether you learn any new information from your conversations with them. If Dunbar’s number is consistent for any group in any tradition, culture, organisation, family and tribe, how do each individual person choose who will be their friend(s) for life or acquaintance they occasionally invite to their party? Answering this question is no easy task and it can make me hate my friends even more.
Children in primary school often make friends with those with common interests and passions such as favourite movies, sports, celebrities, fictional characters or activities. They would associate with them through these common interests, likes and dislikes as they subconsciously build a personal profile of their new friend. In addition they would bombard their new friend with a series of questions regarding their opinions on certain things they predict would have a decent knowledge base on. Sooner or later two children of opposite genders would begin a romantic relationship with one another and this is no different to people of all other ages. As children mature through high school, university, adolescence and finally adulthood, they learn the morals and rules of society and gain interests and passions they wish to pursue as a career. This is where making new friends becomes trickier. When you’re older, you realise society is much complex than you anticipated and you feel your brain cannot store all this new information hence you feel the need to clear out unused information which you regard as useless or not worth remembering in the long term. Because society is designed to divide and classify us into specific personas based on what we learnt in school and faculties we choose to specialise in, we would have to befriend those within our faculties and it is difficult to befriend others in different faculties. It seems we make an assumption that peers within our faculty would communicate the same way you do, therefore you develop this adhesive social glue with your peers in order to stick with them. This is one of the conditions we form in our heads when forming new friendships as young adults. In some cases we discount those who don’t study within our faculty because we predict their choice of language, lifelong goals, wealth, social status and interests will be contrasting to our own, hence we feel it’s better to be safe than sorry. Other factors that I feel influence the strength of friendships are physical contact, daily interaction, where you live relative to your friend, the way you travel i.e. car, train, tram or bus, wealth, important life skills like a P-Plate driving licence, common hates or enemies. Because I live in Melbourne’s north-western suburbs and most of my friends live the north-eastern, eastern and south-eastern suburbs, it may explain why I rarely get invited to my friends’ birthday parties, catchups with them or asked for guidance and assistance when they're under a cloud. This longing for consistent interaction with the peers I meet along the way through school and now university is difficult to come by and maintaining stable relationships with them has never been made so hard for me. I would often contemplate the point of living if I can’t maintain my friendships, but fate seemingly wants to keep me alive and prolong this pain I’m experiencing at the moment. Around this stage people would give up being human and feel better off in the afterlife where there is no pain. Their friends feel powerless to stop them doing the unthinkable, then become regretful and shameful for letting someone down even they occasionally met them.
I feel, think, and perceive things differently from anyone else so far. I can’t name anyone who share the same mindset as I am. I’m not gullible like most people hence I don’t see the need to exert hate and negativity bias towards the most-hated politicians after reading critical headlines about political correctness or a politically-charged decision. People would criticise me for being too slow to make a statement, un-opinionated or simply being stuck in the middle. I’m one of a few unbiased people going around today. I have this inkling to hear both sides of the debate and then exert logic and reason behind their agreements before passing any immoral and unnecessary judgement towards anyone under the firing line. I agree that this requires time, vigilance, temperament, patience and perseverance, but the effort of searching for the truth will be nothing short of painstaking. This may explain why I can’t associate with those who have a spiteful attitude towards those who allegedly will threaten to disrupt their conservative and liberal way of life according to Rupert Murdoch’s media outlook.
I feel the definition of “friend” has changed a lot since the invention of social media in the late 1990s. Although we are inclined to increase our number of Facebook friends, Instagram and Twitter followers, which provides ample opportunities for connections and endless messaging, it does have its downfalls. In spite of my messages not being lost when sent to a friend, it doesn’t have the important elements you see in face-to-face conversations. Even with a profile picture, the prevailing anonymity still prevents me from hearing your voice, recognising your appearance live, reading your real emotions live, utilising my vocals and wit to entertain you with my quirky humour and exerting limerence with you. This may aggravate a person’s loneliness rather than alleviate it. Real-life chatting is literally not the same as inserting words and emojis on a screen and sending it to your friend through speech bubbles. Our brains can’t utilise all of our cognitive senses to help self-stimulate us making our conversations boring. This may explain why my conversations with virtually everyone ends with a short abrupt “ok”, “yes” or “no” and it is rather disappointing to witness a conversation end like it always does. Why do I always have to provide the spark to light up the conversation once again? Why can’t a normal online conversation involve both parties taking turns sharing unique experiences and ideas? Apparently answering these deep questions is more complex that I could ever imagine, hence I’ll delve into the psychology, statistics and technical side of social media in another post.
When you are pondering about a problem, you would tend to look upwards at the sky left then right then around and around until your imaginary lightbulb lights up. Most of you may be aware of doing these mundane processes but have you asked yourself why? Theories suggest that constant eye moment is correlated to the way your mind processes information and generates thoughts. Scientists conducting experiments in Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP) discover that people prefer different representational systems or ways in which they process the same information. Our brain don’t just process information sent by our 5 senses: Sight (Vision), Smell (Olfaction), Sound (Hearing), Touch (Tactile) and Taste (Gustation) but also Visual, Auditory, Kinesthetic, Proprioception, Pain, Pressure, Temperature, Force and Length. The following graphic shows how our eyes move while we think and the specific mental system that our brain implements. The diagram typically works for people who are right-hand dominant, and the annotations would be transposed for left-hand dominant.
— Vr = Visual Remembered = Sees images of something remembered (Deja Vu)
— Ac = Auditory Constructed = Hears sounds not heard before
— Ar = Auditory Remembered = Hears sounds previously heard before
— Ai = Auditory Internal Dialogue = Talks internally to one’s self
— K = Kinesthetic = Experiences feelings, emotions, sensations and movement
If you have children who are currently learning about, for instance, limits in mathematics, occasionally they would gaze up at the sky once they encounter a homework problem that forces them to integrate multiple concepts they learnt separately at school. I, for one, have learnt about limits back in high school but only the basics of the mathematical notation were expected to be written on the test paper by my teachers. I’m not going into a full-on lecture on limits, its notation and its practical use in physics and economics but I’ll share a link for you to learn and read in your own time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limit_(mathematics)
Nonetheless if you’re sitting on a grassy patch on a clear sunny day and you look upwards to think about something out of the blue (pardon the pun), you notice the sky above you is blue. But have you ever thought why the sky is blue to you? When I was in primary school, teachers told me that the sky is the surface of the ocean on the other side of the Earth and at first I believed them. However after watching multiple documentaries about Earth, I realised this is not the case. At the heart of solar system is our bright star called the Sun where 7 planets circumnavigate it in elliptical orbits due to the Sun’s warping of space time. The order of the following planets goes from increasing distance from the Sun: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Earth, or our Blue Marble viewed from outer space, is what we humans call home sweet home. Depending on the month, Earth’s distance from the Sun varies being closest in summer and farthest away in winter i.e. 146 million km (91 million miles) in early January, also known as the Perihelion, and 152 million km (94.5 million miles) in early July. We know that for 4.5 billion years already, our sun releases up to 3.8 x 10^26 Watts of power every second, equivalent to 3.8 x 10^23 Kilowatt hours. According to Einstein’s famous equation E= mc^2, every hour our Sun loses up to 15 billion metric tons of its own mass. It’s quite clear our Sun is like a gigantic, floating nuclear power plant that never stops producing energy because 99% of its electromagnetic radiation comes in the form of visible light, ultraviolet rays and infrared rays (heat radiation). Our Earth has an outer layer of gas particles called an atmosphere, which consists 78.084% Nitrogen, 20.946% Oxygen, 0.9340% Argon, 0.0407% Carbon Dioxide, 0.001818% Neon, 0.000524% Helium, 0.000118% Methane, 0.000114% Krypton, 0.000055% Hydrogen along with trace amounts of water vapour which varies from 1% at sea level and 0.4% over the entire atmosphere. When light mostly emitted from the Sun and surrounding stars interact with the Nitrogen molecules, light of shorter wavelengths of the visible spectrum tend to be scattered more than those of longer wavelengths. This is called Rayleigh Scattering. Our eyes have cones and rods located within our retina that are highly sensitive to blue, green and red lights. Even though violet light has the shortest wavelength our eyes aren’t sensitive enough to detect it hence we mostly view a clear sky as blue. During dawn or dusk when the sun is setting or rising, blue light becomes scattered even more and are now directed away from our eyes. In that case, whenever you view the sun along the horizon, lights of longer wavelength like red and yellow will then be detected from our eyes hence the sky during those periods of the day will be seen as yellow or red.
For years I have wondered about this phrase “the sky is the limit” which this post is mainly based on. For those who haven’t heard of this phrase before, it means there is no apparent limit. In other words, there is always potential for anyone to stretch beyond their boundaries and strive for success like no one has ever gone before. Some sources claim this phrase was coined by Cervantes in his 17th century work Don Quixote. Other sources claim it originated at a time of optimism and progress in an American newspaper prior to the first world war (WW1). The earliest known citation is from a New York newspaper named the Syracuse Herald, in September 1911:
“Then good luck, and remember the sky’s the limit.”
Since the proposed suggestion of “Outer Space" by Greek philosopher Aristotle in 350 BC, referred to as nature obhurs a vacuum, a principle known as the horror vacui, and following astronomical discoveries by Zhang Heng and Galileo Galilei, we humans are the first organisms to send people, animals, satellites and space materials into outer space with the help of rocket boosters that could overcome Earth’s gravitational pull. Our motivation to be the first at everything in the space race certainly brought vigorous competition between the United States and the Soviet Union. The media called this competition “the race to the stars”. On October 4 1957, Sputnik 1 was the world’s first ever manmade satellite to reach outer space. Then on November 3 the same year, the first animal to reach outer space was a Russian dog named Laika onboard Sputnik 2 and on April 12, 9:07am the same year in Moscow, the Vostok 1 spacecraft successfully travelled around the Earth once reaching a maximum height of 327 km (203 miles) over the course of 108 minutes. The pilot of Vostok 1 was 27 year-old Senior Lieutenant Yuri Alexeyevich Gagarin. But on 20 July 1969, NASA’s Apollo 11 was the first spaceship to land on the Moon with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin taking the first steps and speaking the first words on the lunar surface. So technically the Soviet Union (the rabbit) actually won the space race against their rival tortoise (United States). Now it seems humans are the only organisms who have the motivation, knowledge, skills and curiosity to explore our solar system, neighbouring stars, Earth-like planets light-years away and possible signs of alien life far far away in other galaxies. All these questions regarding us being the only ones breathing Oxygen, receiving any response from the messages we sent to other galaxies at light speed, the type of language aliens out there may or may not understand or will aliens see us as aliens is still a mystery. We are no closer to finding any proven, rational answers in the short term and you and I who are reading this right now may not be alive to actually watch it happen. Here are a few links that you can read about regarding space exploration and outer space.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_exploration
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_space
The environment in outer space is very different to what we live in here on Earth. You would feel more weightless because the impact of Earth’s gravitational pull is not as strong as it is on the ground. There’s not many particles per square inch of outer space and crucially no oxygen out there for us to breathe. That’s why we see astronauts wear sophisticated spacesuits to not only replenish their oxygen levels (756 mmHg) for a sufficient time depending on their missions. They also protect them from minute particles of space debris and harmful radiation from the Sun, maintain body temperature and pressure, remove harmful waste products like Carbon Dioxide, Hydrogen Sulfide and Urine and maintain clear radio contact with fellow astronauts and ground control through an in-built intercom system. But what if you were exposed to the elements of outer space? The pressure in outer space is so low, close to a perfect vacuum that all the air from your lungs and airways will be sucked out causing pulmonary barotrauma, rupturing your lungs and severely damaging your chest cavity. Air inside your anus, ears, eye cavities and nasal cavities will also be sucked out causing your eardrums and sinuses to rupture, followed by bruising and internal bleeding of your soft tissues. Within milliseconds your body will respond by replenishing your fast depleting oxygen levels and with no oxygen in outer space, you will experience hypoxia. All of these painful biological experiences are a result of rapid decompression of your system. Within minutes, deoxygenated blood accumulates in your brain to a point you will lose consciousness and then die of hypoxia. When your body pressure drops below 6.3 kPa, your blood and other bodily fluids will boil and this is known as ebullism. The steam that accumulates within your dead corpse may expand you like a balloon slowing down circulation. However your elastic tissues and skin’s porous characteristics will prevent your body from bursting. But what will it take to make your body burst? That is hard to answer because everyone’s body limits is different depending on your cell structure integrity, body size and adaptability to high internal and external pressures. It is known that Jacques Cousteau withstood 13 atm (atmospheres of pressure) in his recording-breaking scuba dive 117 metres deep. This got me wondering about the limits of the human structure and function. I’ll compile a long Q&A list regarding the limits of the human body in another post.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_1
Do you think there is someone out there in another galaxy? Would they speak any of the languages we speak here on Earth? We don’t really know. We, the homo sapiens, have the curiosity and motivation to build and launch spacecraft into interstellar space like Voyager 1 & 2 in September 5 1977. These spacecraft still communicate with the Deep Space Network with countless data and routine commands being sent to and fro. As of December 2016, it is officially the farthest manmade spacecraft on Earth at a distance of 137 AU or 2.05 x 10^10 km from the Sun. It has already flown past Jupiter in 1979 and Saturn in 1980 including its largest moon Titan. As Voyager 1 flies through space at least 17 km per second, what will it see next? It has already crossed the heliopause at 121 AU (Astronomical Units) and is now in interstellar space. Slowly one by one instrument after instrument will shut down and terminate its function. Until time has reached the 2020s, whatever data it has collected and pictures it has taken in front of it, it will be stored in its compact data servers and we will not be able to retrieve it. In about 300 years Voyager 1 will reach the Oort cloud which takes about 30,000 to pass through it. Voyager 1 wasn’t programmed to travel towards any particular star and it may be the loneliest thing out there. Provided it does not collide with anything, will it ever be retrieved by anyone out there? In the event of Voyager 1 being found, if ever, by intelligent alien life forms from other planetary system, there is a gold-plated audio-visual disc stored inside its compartment.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_Golden_Record
It carries photos of the Earth and its lifeforms, scientific information, spoken greetings from famous people such as Jimmy Carter and Kurt Waldheim, a medley “Sounds of Earth" that includes the sounds of whales, a crying baby, waves reaching the shore, and a collection of music from famous composers and artists such as Mozart, Blind Willie Johnson and Chuck Berry. Other Eastern and Western classics of the 1970s and prior plus indigenous music and greetings in 55 different languages are also included. But will anyone out there be able to decrypt it and decipher the information on that disc? Assuming they do understand the message, would they be able to send a message back to Earth? As a matter of fact, that is all a mystery. Personifying what aliens might do and perceive is not demonstrating empathy towards possible alien life. What are the chances they speak at least one of those 55 languages? If not why weren’t the voices of artificial and fictional characters like R2D2 and Chewbecca included in the recording? Well no one here on Earth can answer those questions for you. You and I don’t really know how long it will take for a response to reach Earth but we all know that number is huge. If there is anybody out there and they coincidentally find this post, this is my message to them:
Hi there, welcome to Earth. What do you think of this place? If you are reading this for the first time I may not be alive today. But if you were curious to find out who I really am, go to [my grave] at [this cemetery] and you will see I and many others are mere mortals. You wonder why everyone looks so different to you, find an object that looks like this [picture of computer, screen tablet or phone] and follow the instructions I will provide to search a gizmo called the Internet for answers. Don’t worry if people look at you suspiciously, be open and optimistic of what your future lies ahead of you. You may even find your best friends and your long lost love here. Enjoy your stay on Earth and we will understand if you choose to leave and visit somewhere else.
Growing up as a young Chinese man living in Australia, there is an expectation put upon me by my parents and relatives that I should seek love from someone who is also Chinese and can communicate in the same dialect as my parents, Shanghainese. First and foremost, Western countries like Australia, USA and UK are multicultural countries meaning numerous cultures and races reside in these democratic 3rd generation countries and my parents aren’t fully aware of that. I often rebut their unrealistic standards and criterion of my future wife because it is quite rare to find a Chinese girl who also lives in a family that speaks Shanghainese dialect to like like me. The thing that goes against me is that I cannot speak Shanghainese but I can understand it and will only respond in Chinese Mandarin or English. To be honest my Mandarin cannot compare to that of a Chinese-born person because my vocabulary is limited to general conversations. Any discussion regarding systematic, academic and conceptual matters that require to be translated from English into Chinese is too much for my brain to handle. Although my parents don’t quite support my way of thinking in terms of finding a suitable partner, I’m quite optimistic and open in my criterion. Growing up in a neighbourhood where Caucasians thrive, I find Caucasians slightly more attracting than Asians because not only they don’t mind showing their natural beauty in public, I can communicate with them far more easily than Asians. Race and culture isn’t considered important in my book but since my parents are so fussy and critical of every choice I make, it would be best if there is a girl who is a hybrid of both backgrounds (Asian & Caucasian). It’s like applying the Porque-No-Los-Dos Principle when both parties have contrasting preferences and the solution would be finding a person that satisfies both preferences. I have a feeling nobody else has this sort of mindset because I know most people will have a fixed preference of their dream partner depending on the environment they grew up in and the entertainment they have watched online or on the big screen. This made me wonder how do humans identify what is beautiful to them? Does it have something to do with the size, arrangement and juxtaposition of the basic features of the human face like the nose, 2 eyes, mouth, ears and superior hair? Does it have to do with the fear of becoming a statistic of domestic violence between same-race couples? Or is it because the cultural background is contrasting to that they grew up in? Is it because they exhibit characteristics and traits they long for in a woman?
They say “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” but what does it mean scientifically? So far psychologists and neuroscientists have discovered that when we view something that is strikingly beautiful to us whether in music or art, our brain’s medial orbital frontal cortex, part of the reward and pleasure centre, becomes stimulated. Depending on the country and culture you grew up with, people in Asian countries prefer asymmetrical faces whilst those in Western countries prefer symmetrical faces. Overall, humans of all ages, races and cultures including babies will find symmetrical faces more attractive. So how does symmetry lead to attraction? There are theories that symmetrical features indicate clearer genetic markers for fitter offspring and men with stronger immune systems along with high testosterone levels were considered more attractive according to the women. But all these hormonal indicators are found within the human body which are not visual cues. So how do different women instinctively perceive a man's biochemical and genetic profiles based on their man's personality and appearance of their bodies? So far these questions are still yet to be answered and I’d love to investigate these anomalies in another post.
It is evident that multi-cultural couples are indeed part of the future of dating as part of the evolution of natural selection amongst the human population. Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg and his fiancé Priscilla Chan already have a child named Maxima, and Mark has learnt to speak Chinese Mandarin somewhat fluently in a 2015 Chinese New Year tribute video. Former Chinese ballet dancer and author of an award-winning autobiography "Mao’s Last Dancer”, Li Cunxin and his Australian-born wife, Mary McKendry already have 3 children named Sophie, Thomas and Bridie (in that order of birth) and their family photo is on the back cover of the book. Nowadays I have observed more and more children becoming a hybrid of both contrasting backgrounds and this begins to worry me in some ways. Although these children are just as adorable and beautiful as all other children, I am deeply concerned that certain Asian languages like Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai, Korean and their respective colloquial languages may not be taught to these children in any extent. The thought of my children adopting an English language that is already evolving with slang and curse words is rather frightening to contemplate. People may not realise this but the language taught by their ancestors who spoke it since they were children may inevitably become extinct like the Bo language on 26 January 2010 when Boa Sr passed away as the last known speaker of the Aka-Bo language.
I don’t mind marrying a non-Asian girl but the big questions are: Would my parents and relatives accept her into the family? Would they see her as an intrusion that jeopardises the family tree’s Chinese background? Aren’t they prepared to let natural selection do its bidding rather than continue to manipulate the possibilities of the background of my future offspring? I feel like I’m raised by conservative parents and relatives whose main goal is to maintain the family name and reputation with no impediment from neighbouring and contrasting cultures and dialects whatsoever. They’re treating this question like either I find someone they approve of or they’ll arrange a forced marriage for me with someone they prefer which I may not be satisfied of. They threaten to kick me out of the house if I had feelings for a non-Chinese-Shanghainese girl and the thought of being abandoned by the ones who gave birth to me and nurtured me is unbearable and indignant. That is the social dilemma I’m going through at the moment and I don’t want to risk losing a stable friendship for a loveless marriage.
For years I have wondered how a romantic relationship usually starts? Does it start with a kiss at a party, several years of friendship, a pickup line, being coincidentally put on the same team, or something else? To be honest experts don’t really know for sure because there is no single cause. It comes down to chance of both the male and female counterparts having the chemistry, the love interest, the spark and commitment to a relationship which is often random. Films, youtube videos and television aren’t a reliable source because they don’t accurately reenact the conversations and everyday scenarios of dating. They actually screen our expectations in romantic relationships which is always eye-catching but highly scrutinising for viewers. The chances of romantic scenes we watch in the studio or on social media appearing in real-life relationships are quite slim, however, there are still some people who are gullible enough to be convinced by these make-believe scenes like Korean pop dramas. The matter of fact is, anything is possible in human society. What is really frustrating is that even if you ask your closest friend, they are quite reluctant to accurately depict the circumstances that led to the beginning of their relationship. Some may reveal where they have met their partner for the first time but there is almost no recollection on the conversation during that interaction. I then ask myself "what is going on here?" Why are people resistant to sharing the important details that may unravel the mysteries of love amongst humans and the animal kingdom? Even if they were trying to be honest with you, their memory on what made them fall in love with their partner in the first place is still fuzzy.
5:00pm. Around that time, every city’s CBD becomes swarmed with romantic couples coming out of their apartments, alighting from public transport and walking along the footpath whilst holding each other’s hands. Like most of you, I expect them to be excited, happy and chatting with exuberance which is the case surprisingly for a small proportion of couples I walk past. Nonetheless I don’t see many smiles, laughs nor playing around from either the male or the female counterparts. They are just casually strolling around looking for a place to eat, drink or kiss that excites their taste buds. I thought every couple plans their way to a date on a specific time at a specific location but turns out this is not often the case. I often overhear conversations that involve the guy asking his beloved “Hey do you wanna hang in the city and we’ll get food then?” The girl’s response varies from “OK”, “Yes, let’s go”, “Sorry busy” or “Can’t we go to another place?”. These type of interactions can often lead to fierce personal arguments and I’m sitting hand in head expressing sarcastic but honest thoughts like, “You dug yourself a huge hole my friend. I don’t know what can be done to rescue your relationship currently sinking into quick sand." I can sympathise with those who are consistently indecisive or allowing their partner to make the decisions but with the Internet, finding suitable places to hang out is now readily available for you to search. There’s apps where food bloggers and glutinous wealthy people post pictures of their meals on social media like Instagram and you will notice the restaurants they ate at by the tags above the photos. I also researched this simple but somewhat complex question: What are the elements of a successful relationship? Most people would think it’s all about daily flirtation, dirty jokes and pickup lines, date lunches and dinners, sex and obsessive cuddling at every opportunity. But I’m sorry to say that these expectations are just part of the real deal. According to this report:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/enlightened-living/201001/ten-elements-effective-relationships
Accompanied with sex, dates and naughty humour, relationships are also built upon transparency, clear communication, conflict, honesty (even if it risks jeopardising the relationship), sacred space, mutual respect and understanding, empathy, sharing responsibility and getting accustomed to each other’s habits and superstitions. Other optional additions like vast general knowledge, useful connections, financial and social awareness can also compliment effectively with the other elements I’ve listed strengthening the relationship bond even further but they should be used when appropriate. It’s evident the concepts of human relationships are quite complex that most people would claim to not have adequate brain capacity to understand all the psychology and neuroscience jargon and would rather let fate randomly choose a man or woman for them. If finding a mate is one of the main goals of human survival, then why aren’t all of us are fully aware of all the elements that form the constructs of a long-term relationship?
Do you ever notice a couple's technique of holding hands compared to countless other couples? The obvious exception, of course, to this discussion is family members holding hands with their children. I notice all couples don’t hold hands the same way. They vary from:
a. Tightly interlocked fingers
b. Down-facing palm
c. My Lady grip
d. One-finger hand hold
e. Relaxed lace where only the finger webbings make contact
f. Finger grab
https://www.littlethings.com/different-ways-to-hold-hands/
This article above discusses about a theory regarding the way we hold hands with other partner can subconsciously display the type of relationship we and our partner experience. Even though it’s a visual cue and we formulate social theories based on this body language, we still have to account for other possible theories that don’t involve romantic relationships, for instance, the girl might have cold hands and she needs a guy’s warm hands for warmth or the guy and girl are currently in a platonic, close friendship with no intimate thoughts or they are siblings and one of them is more clingy over the other.
More often than not, I would notice someone I met before in school but then I see them accompanied by someone I personally haven’t met before. Should I say hi to them and introduce myself to his/her partner? Or should I pretend I was distracted I haven’t seen them? No doubt I was instinctively feeling awkward. It’s no surprise all of us have been in this situation at least once in our lifetime. Third-wheeling, Fifth-wheeling, Seventh-wheeling you name it. The pattern goes on infinitely depending how realistic the situation is. For those who don’t know it’s when a person who doesn’t have a romantic partner by their side hangs around with two friends who are romantically in love with one another. These moments are captured in photos and videos and you can almost feel sorry for the single person who is on the verge of vomiting once those puckered lips make contact. At first glance, it is one of the most gruelling and awkward encounters especially if the couple you’re adjacent to are known to you personally. Normally the boyfriends would demonstrate their protective, aggressive and territorial nature to their partners, however I seemed to have found a way to prevent them illicit this sort of natural behavioural response. I can’t recall how I learnt it, but based on my vast third-wheeling experience, it’s important for you to compliment the strong bond between the couple. Furthermore it is useful to learn topics that relate to the integrity of romantic relationships and the crucial aspects that form the basis and foundation of a romantic relationship. For instance, topics include sex, love chemistry, personality, romantic references from famous movies and cartoons like and satirical comedy quirkily mocking the actions of both male and female counterparts of the relationship. Initially, it is difficult to execute at the first go because those feelings of butterflies in your stomach and a racing heart telling you to leave them in private are unbearable to resist even with willpower. However, with practice and learning from the mistakes you make along the way, third wheeling eventually becomes a normality and there is no need to exert awkwardness around couples. If you can somehow bring up topics that will amuse both the man and woman, you might gain some crucial insider information about the secrets to starting a long-term relationship. But then again, all of that is easier said than done.
