"Do you think we'll get there by eleven?" I asked.

"Yeah, if there's no traffic," he said hopefully.

I liked him. Livery drivers mostly arrive in a Lincoln Town Car. Usually, it's a glossy black. Sometimes, it's white (I think those are ugly). But today, I was riding in a nice SUV. They normally cost more money, if you request one specifically. I could tell that this driver took pride in his work. The interior was clean and neat. He had rubber mats on the floor of the car. The gray leather upholstery was well maintained, with no signs of wear and tear. And he was nice enough to keep the air conditioner real high. That would earn him a nice tip - I'm always looking for excuses to give people big tips - but only if I got there in time.

In time, we got onto the Queensboro bridge. It was starting to become quite a familiar sight. The past few days had been rather hot, and being one who can't stand not to wear at the bare minimum my waistcoat, I decided that I would not brave the New York City subways in 95 degree weather. The heat was taking quite a toll on my wallet, but I always did believe in paying for the little comforts in life. I mean, what was the point of sweating buckets in my well-tailored shirt and stylishly versatile waistcoat if I could spend some money to get to and fro in comfort?

The factory, the one with those smoke stacks as seen in the movie Conspiracy Theory (starring Mel Gibson), came into sight. I started thinking about Geronimo. Jerry Fletcher was a crazy fool, but he was right about love. It gives you wings. It does all sorts of good things. And even though he didn't stand a chance in hell of being with Alice Sutton, at least he had someone to love. I started thinking about how I used to have someone to love. Someone to care about. That. That was what I wanted. To care about someone, to care so deeply that I'd do anything for them. Oh, and it'd be nice if they loved me back too. But you know, it's mostly about loving. Then again, you're nobody until somebody loves you.

That's what Dean Martin was saying through my little white earbuds. I usually would be using my more expensive headphones, but they're unwieldy and too long when I put my phone in the waist pocket of my waistcoat. But anyway, he was right. Well, the song writers were right, anyhow. I started thinking about how nobody really loved me. Not my family, not really. Not my friends, at least not the ones I had anyway. Not a girl, that was for sure. I started thinking that maybe I could fall asleep at night if I could just get myself to develop a crush on some celebrity, and that maybe if I could put on that movie at night, that I could go to sleep with it playing. Then maybe I could get a decent night's sleep. But then I realized that I don't develop crushes, not really. And especially not on celebrities.

A friend once asked me if I was attracted to Salma Hayek. I told her no. She told me I was full of shit. At one point, I thought I was repressed, but I wasn't, not really. I mean, sure, she's good to look at, but I wouldn't give any woman more than a passing glance, no matter how "beautiful" she was.

Then I started thinking maybe that's my problem. Maybe I should really just start getting interested in girls. Maybe I could notice how nice a girl's chest is. Maybe I could become an ass man.

Some security guy once asked me whether I was an ass man or a tits man. It sounded like a pretty stupid question. I told him I was a face man. He looked at me funny for a second, then he told me I was full of shit. With a laugh of course, not all belligerent like. I could've gotten offended. Maybe I should've. I mean, I was just minding my own business, leaving this building after an interview. And then he interrupts my day with a crazy question like that. Well, I guess it wasn't so crazy, not really. He was talking with his friend.

We got stuck in traffic. Me and the livery driver, I mean. It wasn't for long. We just got onto the island of Manhattan. There was this apartment, it was a red brick apartment. I was looking at the back of the building. I wondered what it'd be like to live there. I imagined it wasn't a very attractive place. It was, after all, right next to a highway exit. And there was all this construction around. But still, I wondered what it would be like to slum it. Then again, it probably wouldn't be slumming it, not really. I'm sure rent's high in Manhattan pretty much everywhere you go. I started thinking how it might be fun to play starving artist, just for a while. But then it just didn't seem so appealing to me after a bit. I mean, starving artists don't get to wear bespoke clothing and ride livery cars twice a day at thirty bucks a pop.

All of a sudden, I got very cheerful. I started tapping my foot to the beat of some Italian music. Lou Monte, I think. And that's when I started thinking, maybe I should learn Italian. Then I realized that every summer, I made a bullshit commitment to learn a language. I never did. That reminded me of the only time I tried to learn a language. It was for a girl. No surprise there. Kocham cie. I never got to tell her that, not really.

We passed by Turnbull & Asser. I started thinking that my socks were too thick. They were these stupid J. Crew ones. I thought I liked my wool socks from Turnbull & Asser, but I remembered that long socks that go up over the calf weren't good for me. They clung to my pants too much. I started thinking about getting bespoke socks, but then I figured that it'd be sorta ridiculous. I just needed to find the right length of sock.

That's when I was reminded of my bespoke suit and how much I loved it. I loved it so much, even a year after I first got it. I loved it to death, and I couldn't ever stop talking about it, even after a year. I was absolutely in love with it. That's when I started thinking that I hope that I can some day find a girl who's just like my suit: it makes me look and feel good, I loved it when I first got it, I loved it a year after I got it, and I love it now, and I'll love it forever. My mother jokes that it's too bad there aren't bespoke wives. I didn't tell her that there were those crazy Japanese sex dolls that you can configure to your liking. Not that I'd ever get one. Besides, you can't really buy a wife.

That's when I started thinking about Russian mail order brides. I knew I liked Eastern European women. Slavic women, Russian women, Polish women. I started thinking that maybe if I was alone at the age of fifty-nine, I'd just get me one of those. Not that I think of women as objects. But you know, I just want someone to love.

My driver stopped and I asked him how much I owed him. He didn't try to rip me off, so I tipped him well and thanked him for keeping the car nice and cool. I got out of the SUV and a bunch of folks looked at me, probably wondering who I was that I could be taking a livery car to a city college. I walked up the stairs and was grateful that I didn't have to sweat a single drop of sweat.

Inside the classroom, there were lots of pretty young girls. Too young though. I started thinking that maybe I could just give it a shot, that maybe it wouldn't be so bad to try to ask one of these girls out. Maybe it'd be fun. Then I realized that it wouldn't be, not really. Because these girls are still young, they're still learning. And some fool like me will yell, 'Geronimo!' and I'll be left hurtling through the air towards a certain death.

The professor walked in and I thought he was a handsome man. That's when I started thinking that maybe I was gay. I remember meeting some men whose eyes I thought were so damn sensitive and soulful. Then I started thinking about kissing them. That's when I realized I wasn't gay, not really. I didn't think I could ever kiss a man.

A girl sat down next to me. She looked disappointed that I took up the left-handed desk. I could've talked to her. I started thinking that I should start a conversation with her within three seconds of her sitting down. And then I started thinking that she looked kind of cute. She was small, but not skinny. Just my type. But then I realized that she was too young. She wasn't my type, not really.

A different girl came into the classroom late. She was what most men would consider to be quite the trophy. Tall, curvy, with a big chest. She looked at me, but I ignored her. I ignored her again when she looked at me again on the way out when the class ended. I started thinking that if I were so inclined, I'd strike up a conversation with her. Maybe I'd ask her why she liked wearing shorts that were so short. Then maybe I'd segue into telling her that I'd bet that she gave out a lot of fake phone numbers, that she probably got her way most of the time. Maybe she'd tell me that it was true, and then maybe I'd wonder aloud whether she would be offended if I told her that I thought pretty girls weren't ever as interesting as less pretty girls. Then maybe she'd take the bait, and then I'd tell her to tell me something interesting. Then maybe I would tell her that she was lucky that she was too tall for me, otherwise I'd probably ask her out to lunch. If I were so inclined, that is. But then I realized that I wasn't so inclined, not really.

It was probably 98 degrees by the time it was for me to go home. I had arranged for a livery car to pick me up in front of the building. That way I wouldn't have to feel the heat for more than a few moments. I got into the Lincoln Town Car. "How long do you think it'll take?" I ask the driver. "If there's not traffic, maybe half an hour?" he replied.

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I have had an issue with iChat ever since I got my MacBook Air last year. I usually don't bother going on forums to ask for answers as I end up figuring it out for myself. But I was stumped. I ended up on the Apple forums. It wasn't much help.

Today, on my new 27-inch iMac, I encountered the same exact issue. I finally figured out the fix.

Previously, as seen in that forum thread, the advice was to run the Auto Accept Applescript upon receiving a message. Then I realized that the sound that was corresponding with the event was not the same. It turns out that my issue was that I was running the script on the wrong event. Instead, I should be running it on Text Invitations.

That solved all of my problems. At first glance, it seemed counter-intuitive: you are receiving a message, not an invitation. But technically, the initial message is an invitation. And thusly, you must accept the invitation first.

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As usual, I love this song and couldn't find the lyrics, so here they are. Here's to hoping that I'll some day find the woman to listen to this song with, huddled together on a couch some dark winter evening.

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3. Johnny Cash — Time and Time Again [Lyrics] An absolutely appropriate song for my situation Johnny Cash — Time and Time Again I wish my heart was stone ’Cause you’re hard on flesh and bone but even if...

In the wee morning hours, with nothing better to do, I started re-reading a number of my older posts. It's funny how I am pretty much a broken record.

It's not so much that I haven't had anything new to say. My observations on relationships and such are always growing and developing with new information. But reading deeper, I see that the concerns I had two years ago, some even three years ago, are still concerns I have today. I'm singing the same song. It shows me that no progress has been made. In fact, some feelings are even more compounded. This is quite telling: many of the issues I find problematic have yet to be resolved. What this means for myself is unclear. Is it a lack of growth that perpetuates what I daresay is my misery? Or is it just that I am an uncompromising, incorruptible man who refuses to bend to the ways of society?

Over these past few years, my stances on important things like dating, relationships, morality, and politics have been clarified and solidified. If anything, I have become even less flexible and more entrenched in my ways. Who I am has become well-defined. Where I once had murkiness, focus and clarity has taken its place.

Or so I think and would like to believe. I herald the strong-spirited as people of honor. I live by a code, one of my own making, and abide by it without fail. The strength I need to live by my conduct is not insignificant. Certainly, during times at which my spirit, strength, and resolve waver under the pressures and demands of a society I view as broken, that murkiness returns. In my loneliness, I imagine that I could change in so many ways should I wish to. I could be more accommodating of the ways and whimsy of modern society, from the drugs and alcohol and casual sex to the indifferent lack of respect and loyalty common to today's culture. The man I am today was willed into existence through my strength and discipline. I had a vision for the man I wanted to become: a man of integrity, respect, and humility; a reliable man of industry, an insightful man of creativity; a man of knowledge and understanding, one who owns each and every single one of his thoughts. And for the most part, that is who I have become, who I have molded and crafted myself into.

But now, having come to realize that my desires in the external world are unlikely to be met, I come to question the practicality of my idealism. Being the man I envisioned carries a heavy price. Carrying myself the way I do through this world exacts an immense toll on my psyche. My emotional and spiritual happiness are inevitably difficult to maintain.

It is of little comfort that there are others - as few they are - who feel the same way I do. Companionship is in rare supply. In my own life, it has been practically non-existent. While I have met sympathetic souls, sympathy is never quite the same as empathy. And then even empathy is not quite the same as true understanding. I feel tempted to write of the hollow echoes of loneliness, the tiresome feeling one gets from searching endlessly for something that cannot be found. But perhaps that is best kept in the private pages of a handwritten journal.

A priest is a man of God, a man who accepts God's love in the place of the love of a woman. He lives his life with no expectation of love or romance from anybody but the good Lord above. In times of spiritual need, he looks to God for comfort. In times of loneliness, he has something, someone, to turn to. I myself have nothing - nobody - to turn to. In dark times, I am left to my own devices, devices which have been worn down through constant use. God provides hope to those who need it. He shines a bright light onto His children's paths, lighting the way ahead. My path is shrouded in uncertainty and darkness, my future visible only as murky wisps of emptiness.

I am still young, as I've said three years ago. But in a short six years, I will have approached the hallmark of my thirtieth year of existence on this world, nearly all of it alone and lonely. The same way the first three chapters of my novel set the trajectory of the protagonist's journey, perhaps the beginning of my life defines the trajectory of the rest of it.

I have never been one to imbibe in alcohol or drugs. I find it beneath me. I always imagined myself as tough enough to avoid indulging in such cheap tricks of the mind. I have always prided myself on grounding myself in the reality of things despite my idealism and romanticism. But perhaps the dualism of such an existence is beginning to reveal itself as an unending task of far greater proportions than I could have first imagined. Perhaps, in the light of my realization that things will not be alright, I should start acquiring a taste for alcohol. After all, I have always thought that those drinks looked quite refreshing and appealing. Here's to flirting with the idea of becoming a drinker. Besides, isn't there some sort of cliche about writer's being alcoholics?

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So, I decided that I would start a new section of my blog. It is entitled A Discourse on Film and Cinema. Mostly, this was a decision driven by my desire to have aesthetic variety. While I enjoy the current blog design of The Obtuse Observations of a Wistful Writer - what with its nifty pulpy mass paperback novel-inspired background, coffee stain, and Dewey Decimal card - I have always had a hankering to stick with one of the earliest iterations.

It was a dark theme: a dark background with an appropriately dim gray to ease long form viewing on a computer screen, especially when the sun is down. It served me well for quite a while, but my creativity demanded a new look for the blog, and after several changes, I created this Dewey Decimal theme.

This Dewey Decimal theme is good for long form reading of the literary type. But it doesn't really work that well with slick images and all. Because most of my content is text-based, that won't be much of an issue. But after writing The Shutter Island Mystery: A Visual Analysis, I decided that I could very well use a microsite for my film writings. After all, the main website is a repository of my writerly writings.

So the film microsite will be home to my commentaries, analysis, and reviews of the variety of films I end up watching. It's an effort to reengage my cinematic influences and to aid as a form of discipline in writing critically.

Anyway, you can visit the new microsite here: http://film.wistfulwriter.com. Enjoy!

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I watched Inception last week. Yes, it was an awesome movie. Yes, I would like to see it again. Yes, I would buy it when it comes out on home video (but only if it comes with a kick-ass "Making Of" featurette"). But some people I know heralded it as a mind-blowing movie. Unfortunately, all I found to be mind-blowing was how confusing the mechanics of the Inception dream world works.

Oh, before I go on, I should warn that there is a very slight spoiler involving the ending of the film. But if you're here, I imagine you've already seen the movie anyway.

There isn't anything particularly mind-blowing about it. Popular opinion (at least according to aforementioned fellows) is that it is one big mindfuck. Apparently, there is much discussion about it on Internet forums and such. But really, there's nothing particularly fresh about Inception's philosophical question. Yes, it gets you thinking about the nature of reality. But guess what? The Matrix has already done that for us. Inception is nothing more than a watered down version of what the Wachowski brothers have already created in terms of intellectual and philosophical discussion.

The ending of the movie is essentially just a tease. It doesn't serve any artistic purpose other than to suggest that we question the entire movie. Whether or not Cobb was dreaming the whole movie or not is inconsequential to the plot. I argued this with my brother. The argument clarified my stance on this movie: it isn't a character study, and as such, Cobb's intentions and psychology is uninteresting to me.

You see, Inception is mostly an action movie (albeit an incredibly innovative and novel one) with a twist ending. The twist ending, though, isn't enough to rile up my intellectual investigation. This movie's intellectual appeal is weak. Any philosophical themes present were not strong enough to create a decent impression. It is not particularly complex and is in fact quite straight forward: is Cobb dreaming or not?

In contrast to Shutter Island, the reliability of a dream is unimportant as a dream is ultimately a figment of one's imagination, and thusly inherently unreliable. If Cobb is dreaming, well, he's just dreaming: who cares why? It doesn't carry any implications for the rest of the world. This is not a character study, and so studying the character is ultimately the decision of viewer. If there are any philosophical questions to be asked, they would all boil down to this: Should I take the red pill, or the blue one?

I'm not saying Inception isn't a great movie. It is certainly novel. It is certainly entertaining (though I really wished he had done more creative visuals with the dream world). But does it deserve all this intellectual murmuring that is supposedly going on everywhere? Not really. Ultimately, it's a very slick movie that throws in a single ambiguous shot as an ending, just to remind you to do a little thinking if you haven't already. ¶

The author reserves the right to change his mind on subsequent viewings.

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Yesterday, I went to my estranged cousin's wedding. Due to my parents, we were late and ended up missing the actual marriage ceremony, something I deeply wanted to be present for. Instead, we made it just for the food and left shortly thereafter. Quite rude if you ask me.

Anyway, as we all know, I am very big on being respectfully presentable. A wedding is one of the few times where everyone should really ought to be looking their absolute best. It is a fine occasion to celebrate not only the most beautiful union of two people, but also beautiful fashion.

My original plan was to wear my white pinpoint oxford shirt with brushed aluminum cufflinks, a crimson red tie in a half-Windsor knot around my neck, and a matching red pocket square, all tied together with a waistcoat of course. I reconsidered though, thinking that that particular look was a little too severe and unwelcoming.

I tried a different combination. Instead of a white shirt, I tried a pale blue one. The shirt is a Stafford custom shirt, made-to-measure by my own measurements and ordered online at JCPenney - ordered before my joyful discovery of bespoke clothing. With a standard collar and a single button cuff, it was rather boring and, in my eyes, a substandard shirt. Alas, it was is the only pale blue shirt I own.

I decided to wear the shirt with the top button undone (the collar one). Of course, considering that I was going to a wedding, a tie was in order. I selected a skinny tie and tied a four-in-hand knot and looked in the mirror.

It was a fresh new look for me. The skinny tie - in combination with the loosened collar - imparted a much more casual feel, a far more approachable look. To complement this notion of sprezzatura, I mussed up my hair. I added texture and depth where my hair was once tightly slicked back, purposefully and carefully meddling with the solemnity of the straight dark lines that defined my hair. The final touches involved unbuttoning the last button on the cuff of my jacket and leaving the jacket itself unbuttoned. A crisply ironed white cotton pocket square folded flat pulled the whole outfit together.

Clearly, I put a decent amount of thought into my appearance. I arrived at the wedding reception in South Beach, Staten Island, expecting to see people who were dressed respectably, if not fashionably. I was, as fate would dictate, sorely disappointed.

Arriving at the wedding, I felt a little embarrassed that I was more well dressed than every single man I saw (even with my substandard shirt). There were lots of three-button suits with the last button buttoned; baggy shirts and pants that were too long; poor color matching choices (rose pink with dark khaki?) and dirty shoes; some folks didn't even wear a jacket. The women were far more fashionable, but even amongst the ladies there were questionable outfits. One young lady had a skin tight dress that was much too short to be ever called modest. It was mostly white, with solid bands of aqua blue and seafoam green. I felt embarrassed for her that I could see the outlines of her underwear through the sheer dress. Another woman was wearing a flower-print dress, also too tight: her wobbly bits wobbled quite happily with every step she took.

It never made sense to me that people would show up at a wedding wearing anything but their absolute best. I am not being immodest when I say that I was the most well-dressed person in the room. I've said this time and time again, but it's not the cost of the suits that bother me, but its execution. My cheap $200 Calvin Klein suit purchased off the rack at Macy's drew compliments because of the way that I wore it. And if I can do it, so can anybody else; it's not like I read lots of fashion magazines or have a degree in fashion design. If there is one time and place that one should put forth their best effort in looking their best, it would be at a wedding. Regardless of the pedigree of one's clothing, effort is easily discerned, and it is a sad day when I saw not one man who rivaled my attention to the details of my outfit.

I suppose my sense of fashion would pay off more if I were more outgoing. I caught the attention of a fair number of people, from the not-so-discrete stare of a quiet man sitting alone at a table to the sidelong glances of several women flitting around. It seems paradoxical that I "dress to impress" - really, I just dress for myself - yet my behaviors tend towards that of invisibility.

In any case, anybody who knows me would probably expect that going to a wedding would do quite a number on my psychology. Without getting into all the details (nobody is interested in reading what is essentially self-indulgent bitching), I essentially proceeded to have a full-on case of decompensation when I returned home. As the night wore on, I started watching a bunch of movies, and I somehow, each and every one of them had something to do with something I was trying to avoid. I felt an odd numbness...I was unable to feel anything but the suffocating emptiness of limbo. Unable to find any catharsis, I laid in my bed, watching offbeat movie after offbeat movie until I drifted off to sleep in the wee hours of the morning.

Dr. Naehring might say that I have very poor defense mechanisms. Or maybe it's just that they've been worn down. I feel fine now, as I write this, but I suspect that something awful is going on in my mind. I suppose it's all for the better...it'll provide me with a source of inspiration for my novel. But continuing my writing necessitates that I step far back enough from my own situation to be able to transform it from one single individual's experience to a transcendent literary form. As Marcus from Bad Santa would say, "You need many years of therapy. Many, many fucking years of therapy."

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View this on my film microsite: A Discourse on FIlm and Cinema.

After eight handwritten pages of notes taken over two viewings (aside from the first recreational viewing), I have only more questions and not enough answers as to the truth of Shutter Island. The easiest explanation is the one that is offered in a straightforward fashion by the film itself. However, it's far more interesting to consider other alternatives. Let's take a look at what was really going on.

Is Shutter Island really a government operated correctional facility for the criminally insane?

At the very least, it is affiliated with the military. The Warden drives a military jeep that has government plates, and in the ending lighthouse scene, Dr. Cawley uses a military field radio to notify someone to tend to the guard that Teddy knocked out.
The Warden is also described by Teddy as an "ex-military prick" (this of course is not necessarily reliable or specifically confirmed: the orderly only says that he won't "argue with you there"). Finally, the guards are using the M1 Garand rifle, a military weapon. Of course, I'm no expert on the historical use of military weaponry in non-military correctional facilities (such usage is more common at maximum security facilities in the modern day).
That said, the first two points still stand. While there may be nothing inherently suspicious about a correctional facility run by the government, it would reason that an actual military-run prison - one that is not conducting any shady experiments - would have military police and not corrections officers. These details imply that Shutter Island is indeed affiliated with the military, reinforcing the link to the Nazis.

The Role Playing Game as a Brainwashing Experiment
Perhaps this whole role playing game that the doctors at Shutter Island created is actually a form of mind control in and of itself. Forget the lobotomies and other cruelties: what Teddy is going through is a cruel new experiment. Try watching the movie with the perspective that the doctors are all trying to impress their version and reality onto Teddy. Note how always call him Marshal. This is a way for them to reinforce the idea that he is indeed a U.S. Marshal, investigating Shutter Island. They never ask him to recall anything. Instead, they simply present a narrative for Teddy to accept. They are experimenting with ways to implant false memories. Not a bad way to create a patsy.

Was Teddy actually a U.S. Marshal?
He was at the very least a World War II veteran. Tattoos on his body and his comfort with a rifle seem to indicate this. Additionally, he has flashbacks to Germany (earlier in the movie) that are presumably real: they are not discolored in any way, unlike the lake house narrative.

As for whether he was a real U.S. Marshal, this is not so clear. When he is getting angry at Dr. Cawley for his lack of cooperation, he says, "We're going to file our reports and hand it over to...", fumbling with the correct government agency that would be in charge. Dr. Cawley finishes his thought, saying that the report would be given to "Hoover's boys" (the FBI). Unusual for a law enforcement man who's been on the job for a while, I'd say. Yet earlier, he was able to identify MI5 and the OSS as intelligence agencies.

What does this imply? Perhaps Teddy is just a conspiracy theorist obsessed with intelligence agencies. Perhaps, when Deputy Warden McPherson tells him that "Executive Order 319 in the Federal Code of Penitentiaries" gives him final authority, Teddy's leg was being pulled: maybe there is no such order.

In the ending lighthouse scene, Teddy claims he knows that his gun is loaded because of the weight. However, he is entirely wrong: the revolver is a water pistol. It's quite difficult to mistake a metal firearm for a cheap plastic one that can be broken by hand. Does Teddy really know what a real loaded revolver feels like in his hand? The dent in the barrel he described could be just a sign of his highly intelligent and complex fictions. All of this points to the fact that Teddy could very well not be a U.S. Marshal.

So if Teddy was not an actual U.S. Marshal, then what is he doing at Shutter Island? And if he wasn't a Marshal, then what is he?

Would the real Teddy Daniels please stand up?
It's quite possible that he actually was the Andrew Laeddis he described: the maintenance man of his apartment building, the one who lit the match that burnt his house down. Perhaps Teddy Daniels is the pyromaniac. After all, there is consistent use of imagery depicting matches in Teddy's hands. He also seems to be quite knowledgeable about how to start fires, especially big ones. He somehow knows how to set a car on fire, improvising with a tie and a pebble to create a fuse. I doubt that's standard training in the U.S. Marshals.

There is compelling visual evidence that Teddy Daniels is indeed the pyromaniac. During a dream sequence, Teddy meets a scarred man (Scar Laeddis). This scene contains the first use of the extreme close-up shot of a hand lighting a match. In this scene, that hand belongs to Scar Laeddis. Because the only other person lighting matches like this is Teddy, I posit that Teddy is Scar Laeddis. The big ugly scar speaks to a reflection of the scarring of his psyche, as well as to the horrifying ugliness he sees in himself. Scar Laeddis offers him his flask of alcohol, saying "I know how much you need it." This is Teddy's dissociated identity speaking to himself.

The short of it is that Teddy is the just a World War II veteran-turned maintenance man, and not a U.S. Marshal. He is also a pyromaniac who set his apartment on fire, killing his wife. Those other three dead folk are not his children. He has no children and never speaks of them.So Teddy is not an actual Marshal. He is in reality only a maintenance man who burned down his own apartment building. Then what is he doing on Shutter Island? It could be for any number of reasons. If he is just a conspiracy theorist, then perhaps he dug too deep and was taken to the island the first chance they got: when he was caught for committing arson.

Teddy's Children
Because Teddy never mentions his children in his personal verbal narratives (they appear only in hallucinations and dreams), it's quite likely that he indeed has no children. Remember, he only mentioned his wife specifically amongst the four people that died in the fire at his apartment. Who on earth wouldn't say that their children died in the fire as well? Teddy in fact had no children.

For one, Teddy never sees the boys at all: not in hallucinations, not in dreams. The only one of his "children" that he saw was the little girl. And that little girl first shows up when he recalls the frozen bodies at Dachau. Remember, Teddy's war memories are pristine.

How can Teddy have hallucinations of Rachel Laeddis (his daughter) if he never had any children?
Remember, the doctors said that he had regressed many times. This means that it's quite within the realm of possibility that he was exposed to those same photos that he was shown at the last lighthouse scene. The daughter never appears anywhere but in hallucinations. Besides, there is even stronger evidence that his supposed daughter is actually the little girl he saw in Dachau.

What is the Lake House Narrative?

The lake house narrative is the story that Dr. Cawley and Dr. Sheehan tell Teddy is what actually happened. According to them, his wife burned down their apartment. From there, they moved to a lake house where she drowned their three children in the lake. Teddy then killed his wife - presumably to "set [her] free". This narrative is completely false: it is a version of reality that the doctors are trying to get Teddy to accept. Perhaps it is only a mistake in the filming of the movie, but a closer examination of the lake house scene shows that the children's bodies don't even appear until after Teddy starts looking for them in the lake. The scene is also overly bright: the greens are exaggerated. This implies that this is all just a work of fiction, unlike the Dachau flashbacks and memories that are relatively untouched in terms of discoloration.

Who pushes Teddy along on his journey?
Everybody works to move Teddy through the experiment. Dr. Sheehan is always the one to push Teddy along in a particular direction. In the scene where they are sleeping in their bunk beds, he nudges Teddy to continue the investigation. In Ward C, George Noyce suggests that Laeddis is in the lighthouse. When they get close, Dr. Sheehan tries to dissuade him from going in an act of reverse psychology (Teddy becomes suspicious of his identity and tests him with by asking him how the weather is in Portland, knowing that Chuck is actually supposed to be from Seattle). Teddy's movement throughout the entire film is influenced by key players.

Is the "real" Rachel Solando real?
Dr. Rachel Solando (as opposed to Nurse Rachel Solando) is found by Teddy in the cave. When he says that he's a cop, she slips up and says, "You're the marshal." If her story is true, if she was in hiding because of her inquisition into the conspiracy, then she couldn't possibly know that he's a U.S. Marshal: he's in an orderly's uniform. This implies that she was planted there as an actor. There isn't any real Rachel Solando. Rachel Solando is entirely fictitious, an entity dreamed up by the good folks at Shutter Island.

Who is George Noyce?
George Noyce is very likely exactly who he appears to be: someone Teddy met outside of Shutter Island. The truth is that he was part of their psychological experiments and that he was imprisoned for stabbing those men. When Teddy came along to Shutter Island, they needed someone he knew from outside the experiment, someone he could trust (at least to a certain degree). Thusly, the folks on Shutter Island took George Noyce out of Dedham Prison and put him back in. So it is true that he is here because of Teddy "and Laeddis". To Noyce, all he knows is that Laeddis is some guy that Teddy is hunting down. He doesn't necessarily know that Laeddis is just a fictional character created for the experiment. But he does know that all of this is an elaborate game made for Teddy.

Water imagery in Shutter Island
Water surrounds Shutter Island. A violent storm - a form of water - serves to keep Teddy Daniels trapped on the island. Some may interpret this to the benevolent reality that surrounds and traps him. This is a convenient explanation, but let's take a closer look at what water actually does in the film.

Water obfuscates Teddy's vision.

Water distorts images.

Water distorts this image too.

Water serves to obfuscate Teddy's view throughout the film. Rain makes it difficult for him to see out of the back seat of the car. Rain smears the word RUN written by Mrs. Kearns in Teddy's notepad. The ocean separates him from the lighthouse, prevents him from leaving the island. Supposedly, the lake is the cause of his children's death. Water, in other words, is bad news for Teddy Daniels.

Teddy Daniels is Edward Daniels

The true identity of Teddy Daniels is Edward Daniels, and not Andrew Laeddis. The ending lighthouse scene consists of Dr. Sheehan and Cawley feeding Teddy the lake house narrative, and "installing" the idea that Teddy is actually Andrew Laeddis. These are folks feeding good old Edward 'Teddy' Daniels horse manure by the truckload. If Teddy accepts his identity as Andrew Laeddis, he must also accept the lake house narrative. Both of these are falsehoods though. Everything, and I mean everything coming out of the staff's mouths cannot be trusted. They are all in on some massive game. Everything about Andrew Laeddis is false. Besides, when you think about it, the name Laeddis looks made up. Edward Daniels seems like a much more plausible name, especially considering the time period. Finally, in the last scene of the movie, Dr. Sheehan calls out, "Teddy?" At this point, it is clear to him that Teddy is no longer "crazy" and is of relatively sound mind. Teddy supposedly has accepted his identity as Andrew Laeddis. If he really was Andrew Laeddis as the doctors proposed, then Dr. Sheehan would call him Andrew by instinct, considering the role playing game was supposedly over. Dr. Sheehan calls him instinctively slips up and calls him Teddy because Teddy Daniels's real identity is Edward 'Teddy' Daniels.

Andrew Laeddis: Fact or Fiction?

So if Andrew Laeddis and the history attached to the name is a falsehood, that means Teddy Daniels is Edward Daniels the pyromaniac who killed his own wife. What is he doing on Shutter Island? Well, when he got caught for setting the fire, he was sent to Shutter Island. He carries an immense amount of guilt for killing his own wife, so much that he assuages himself by saying that she died from smoke and not from burning (explained on the ferry scene). Instead of dealing with the reality, he creates the alternate identity of Andrew Laeddis, a separate entity: the man who killed his wife. He becomes a U.S. Marshal and gives himself the task of finding Laeddis. The doctors at Shutter Island are conducting experiments. In this experiment, they allow for his fantastic alternate reality to be played out. At the end - if the doctor's were benevolent - Teddy should be able to see that there is no Andrew Laeddis and must accept the truth that he is actually the one who killed his wife in a fire. Instead, the doctors are experimenting with implanting false memories and attempt to convince Teddy that he shot his wife after she killed his (non-existent) children, and that he is in fact Andrew Laeddis. So far, he has not accepted the doctors' proposed reality. Assuming he gets to the vital point at which the whole game culminates (the lighthouse scene), then he must either accept the reality or not. If he does not, it counts as a regression. They could then detain him on the ferry until his memory 'resets', at which point he regresses into his identity as Teddy Daniels the U.S. Marshal, hunting down the man named Andrew Laeddis, the man who burnt down his apartment and killed his wife. However, back in the real world, the idea to hunt down Rachel Solando was introduced in an experiment. The key point here is that Teddy came to Shutter Island insane, believing he was a Marshal hunting down Andrew Laeddis. Only later, when they started experimenting, did Rachel Solando become part of his hunt.

The Lighthouse
The lighthouse isn't in the same place as the beginning of the movie. Or at the very least, something changed. Look at these screenshots.


The first one is from the first sighting, the second one is from the last shot. As you can see, the first lighthouse had a great length of land lined with fences. The second shot shows the lighthouse without the long fences. This implies that the lighthouse was changed. Are there two lighthouses? I'm not sure, but at the very least, this should seem suspicious.

The thing about the lighthouse is that is actually home to patient experimentation. If there was no conspiracy going on, then Deputy Warden McPherson's claim that the lighthouse housed a sewage treatment plant would've been validated when Teddy finally got in there. Instead, that whole lighthouse was staged as the final part of the experiment. It was completely empty, save for the little office Dr. Cawley set up on the top floor. I'm no plumber, but I highly doubt that it's easy to dismantle sewage treatment equipment and leave no sign of it.

Is Teddy really crazy?
Very likely. He is, after all, a pyromaniac. He shows evidence of being capable of developing fantastic narratives. He invented a story for how the water pistol in his hand was real, loaded, and actually his. He has hallucinations, but those may be the result of the cigarettes and pills that are given to him. But that doesn't mean that Shutter Island is not home to a bunch of psychiatrists with military affiliations who conduct experiments on the patients.

Teddy's dreams and hallucinations
Teddy's hallucinations are very likely the byproduct of the cigarettes and medication he is given by the staff at Shutter Island. There are also visual indicators that what we are seeing is suspect. In the scene where Teddy meets Scar Laeddis, Teddy smokes a cigarette. But the smoke is moving in reverse, backwards in time. It is an indication that we are no longer to trust what we are seeing.

Nurse Rachel Solando is now seen with blood all over her. Later, we see three dead children - in a bloody mess like Rachel - laying on the ground at her feet. This makes no sense. Even at the very start, Rachel Solando was said to have drowned her children. Teddy picks up the little girl who asks, "Why didn't you save me?" He appears at the lake house and proceeds to lay her corpse down into the lake. He looks down, and through the water, we see the distorted image of a little girl's face crying out. In this dream, Nurse Rachel Solando takes the place of his wife in the lake house narrative.

Teddy is roused from his sleep by a bright flash of lightning. Immediately, he proceeds to have a hallucination of his wife. She is dripping wet, and he asks her, "Why are you all wet, baby?" Lightning flashes, and Teddy awakes a second time, without us seeing that he had fallen back asleep. This implies that the first time appeared to wake up, he was still dreaming.

Dreams are more truthful than the subjective reality that Teddy experiences. Teddy's dreams are more reliable than anything else in the film. His physical realm is controlled by Dr. Cawley and his cohorts, who are all willing to participate in a large scale fiction. This should be quite suspicious: it reminds us that what we see and hear can all be the measured creation of someone else. Like the director of a film, Dr. Cawley controls every aspect of his set - the set of Shutter Island - to create a fiction meant to draw someone in. However, as damaged as Teddy's mind is, it is still arguably the most truthful setting in the film. Going along with the psychological theory of those days, dreams are more truthful because one's psychological forces and drives are subdued, letting the unconscious rise.

Wrapping it all up
Teddy Daniels's real name is Edward 'Teddy' Daniels. He is a World War II veteran. Coming back from the war, he became the maintenance man at his own apartment building; he was never really a U.S. Marshal. He was married to Dolores Chanal, but has no children. He is a pyromaniac who burnt down his own apartment, killing four people - one of which was his wife. He is also a conspiracy theory buff.

In his extreme mental distress at learning that his fire killed his wife, he broke down and dissociated himself from reality. He created a new history. In this new history, a hideous man named Andrew Laeddis (really a reflection of the ugly and unbearable side of himself) was the man who "lit the match that caused the fire that killed [his] wife." Andrew Laeddis was sent to Shutter Island. To explain his existence on Shutter Island, Teddy Daniels remade himself as a U.S. Marshal, originally sent here to hunt down Andrew Laeddis.

In reality, the newly incarcerated Teddy Daniels was declared insane and was sent to Shutter Island. At Shutter Island, Teddy became the subject of an experiment. The experiment was one in which the psychiatrists would attempt to implant false memories into Teddy's mind. Teddy, in a state of delusion, claimed that he was a U.S. Marshal to justify his presence. He met Dr. Cawley who invented Rachel Solando for him to hunt down. Dr. Sheehan, posing as Teddy's fellow Marshal and partner Chuck, stays close to him to push him in the right direction. He encourages Teddy to continue the hunt ("I've never quit anything,"); instills paranoid fear in him (the mausoleum scene); and plays upon that paranoia (urging him not to go to the lighthouse in an exercise in reverse psychology), all in an attempt to ensure that he reaches the lighthouse (in a highly unstable state) for the final event.

When Teddy reaches the lighthouse, he is confronted by the inconsistencies and flawed logic of everything that he has been going through. He is presented with a far more reasonable explanation, though it is a fabricated one. This is the point at which the experiment is judged to have either failed or succeeded. If Teddy accepts this fictitious account, the psychiatrists have succeeded in attempting to implant a false memory into a patient. Teddy has been through this before, and he now realizes that there is no way out of Shutter Island. He tells the doctors that he accepts their narrative in order to avoid lobotomy. However, sitting on the steps outside, he reconsiders and decides that lobotomy would be better than chasing Andrew Laeddis for the rest of his life: he figures they'll just try to keep forcing this lake house narrative on him over and over again. He never realizes that he is actually just a maintenance man and is the one who killed his wife, and is instead perpetually stuck in an alternate reality where he is Teddy Daniels, U.S. Marshal.

Final thoughts
The thing is, there are still many issues with all interpretations of the story. Perhaps the point is that there is no definitive version of the real events. Reality is a slippery thing, and our personal narratives are always colored by our most recent memories. From a cinematic point of view, I have yet to determine the importance of the fire imagery. I still don't know the significance of the repetition of the record player or the white flashes. Perhaps given more time, I'll discover the themes behind the usage of such devices. But in the mean time, I am satisfied with this conclusion, given all of the visual and thematic evidence.

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It's damn nearly 6AM and I can't fall asleep. And it's when I can't fall asleep that I my mind starts wandering into dangerous territory. I started wondering about whether or not I'll ever find that special lady, whether or not I'll ever find the right woman to marry...all sorts of bad things.

I've already written on my self-inflicted conundrum of not approaching women I don't know. That is to say that I refuse to make any romantic advances (or even develop any romantic intentions) on a woman whom I know nothing about. Such actions predicated on superficial attraction are, in my book, not the right way to go about finding a woman of relationship potential. My attraction begins with a woman's values.

What exactly am I looking for though? Time's passage has since given me clarity on such things. The woman I'm looking for is fiercely loyal and has very good moral strength. She really ought to be a romantic who believes in the lofty notions of true and undying love, and preferably an idealist who believes in striving to reach those ideals, no matter how difficult it may be to run counter to popular society.

Previously, these things were more fluid in my desires. I once believed that I wouldn't mind a woman who had less strength and boldness, but I see now that I have very low tolerance for those who would bend in their code of conduct, for those who lack a sense of loyalty. These two characteristics are a deal breaker: I cannot be with a woman for the rest of my life unless she has, for the most part, an incorruptible sense of self.

These ideals are of course ones that I embody myself. I seek a woman who is like myself. Loyalty is important. She must be loyal not only to me, but to her loved ones as well. Loyalty is a sign of moral character, and speaks to a sense of reverence for ties to those who are close to you. A woman who has the strength to be her true self is a woman who is honest and unwavering in her allegiances; she is someone whose actions are congruent with her ideal self.

I once dated a girl who was still trying to figure things out for herself. She let others define who she was and what she wanted. I thought I could be with someone like this, but it's tiring to have to see her changing her mind on things from one day to the next. She questioned her own values - which were not unlike my own - and considered the advice of those whose values were not in line with hers. I found this to be quite foolish, and entirely unattractive.

I'm a man who knows myself. I know what I like, and I know what I want. Of course, I know now with a great deal of certainty what I want in a woman. The only issue here is that what I want is not so easy to find. Rare is the romantic idealist who believes in chastity, discretion, respect, courtesy, loyalty, and honesty. So rare is such a woman that I had resigned myself to accepting singlehood as a permanent state. While it is popular opinion that concessions should be made to allow for more flexibility in one's dating prospects, these core values are not something I can compromise on. I don't care so much whether or not a lady is well-read, whether she enjoys Broadway theatre, whether she has a good figure, or whether she cooks; by and large, these factors are immaterial to me. Because a relationship that lasts is based partly on mutual respect and admiration, I must look for qualities that I respect and admire. And as a man with incorruptible morals and ideals, the bar is set quite high.

I suppose that this new mandate makes it relatively easy for me in terms of dating. While I had previously considered relaxing my standards - and thusly creating a fluid and relatively indecisive calculation - I can now look first and foremost at two things: good strength of character and morals, and a solid sense of loyalty. Should my date exhibit that she lacks in either of those, such a mindset will aid in a swift and precise decision on whether or not I should expend any further efforts pursuing her.

Now, all I have to do is go out there and actually find a woman who's like me. No small task, considering my inflexible and slightly anachronistic values. Oh well, such is life.

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I absolutely love the convenience of the Kindle. I read Sex at Dawn on my Kindle. In fact, I was able to pre-purchase it so that I'd be able to read it the first day it was released. I also read Outliers, Click, and countless other books on it. With the addition of native PDF reading, I also loaded up a bunch of those as well.

As a "serial reading" device - I made that up - eBook readers are wonderful. If you're the type to read a book from cover to cover, without stopping in between, without going back to this page or that page, then eBook readers are wonderfully convenient devices. The problem though is when you want to refer back to them.

I have a visual memory. When I read, and something sort of jumps out at me, and I want to recall it later, I have this vague memory of where in the book it was. I sort of remember about how far into the book it was and where on the page it was (i.e. middle of the right page, second paragraph). With eBook readers, recalling a spot in the book in this visual fashion is pretty tough. For one, there's no sense of progress: the visual percentage meter doesn't really help unless you're always checking it. Then there's the fact that pages are potentially laid out differently: the start and end of a page depends on the "location". After all this time that I've owned a Kindle, I still don't really know what that location number means (I should just go look it up).

Anyway, I was entranced at the idea of reading eBooks for free at Barnes & Noble with a Nook. Prices have dropped to very reasonable levels, and the devices have gotten better since the first Kindle 2 I purchased (and still use). But then I realized that my main issue with eBook reading devices is the slow page refresh time. For browsing and virtual flipping of pages, you definitely need to have near instant refreshing. I imagine that one day, we'll have a perfect E-Ink screen that refreshes instantaneously. Flipping through a book is as easy as dragging your finger across a touch screen scroll bar at the bottom.

Now, one might point out the fact that I can simply use the built-in search function. The only thing wrong with that is that I may not necessarily remember the exact word or words I'm looking for. Searching requires specificity, where my visual memory relies on context. I can browse printed books quickly and easily, something I can't do on any eBook reader that exists today.

So, for now, since I've already got a Kindle 2, I think I'll hold out on buying any new eBook readers until they're designed to be easily browsable. It's not so bad reading the latest pop psychology or pop anthropology book from start to finish on my slow-to-refresh Kindle screen.

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If our prehistoric forebears' freely and casually sexually promiscuous ways were influenced by their hunter-gatherer existence, then
our modern sexual behavior is influenced by our agricultural roots. As covered in my previous piece, the advent of agriculture could very well be the reason that we modern Americans are, by and large, sexually jealous creatures.

I posit that sexual jealousy is entirely normal. One could even argue that it is healthy and inherently natural, considering how long agriculture has been a part of our lives. It is entirely possible that jealousy is a survival tactic. With this in consideration, casual sex won't really work all that easily into our modern post-agricultural lives. Only those who have broken free of society's possessive status quo would be able to move past jealousy and on to sexual and emotional generosity. In fact, I'd like to relate to you an experience I had regarding sexual jealousy.

Years ago, as a young buck intrigued with the sexual decadence of swingers, I got involved with shady Yahoo swingers groups. I corresponded with quite a number of swingers couples. Nothing ever came of it, but I got an invaluable insight into men and women who are seemingly unselfish and generous with sexual access to their partners.

The truth of the matter is that a lot of these couples are not so indiscriminate when choosing their extramarital partner. On several accounts, the couple expressed the concern that the third party (the newcomer to the couple's sexual relationship) might be mean-spirited. That is, the wife didn't want to be having sex with a man who looked down on her husband in any way. One woman said that she wouldn't stand for her husband being treated as a cuckold. Many of the couples I spoke to wanted to be friends with the third party, to live an open existence where the husband and wife maintained emotional fidelity, but gained greater heights of sexual satisfaction by engaging a third party for sexual needs. The main criteria for the third party? That he be good natured and non-judgmental. Mostly, they seemed to be concerned about each others emotional well-being, to make sure that neither partner felt unloved or taken advantage of.

Granted, my sample size is not indicative of the swingers population at large, and I was not conducting myself in a scientific manner. With that said, I don't find it to be too far from the idea that emotions and psychology play a large part in someone's decision to engage in a sexually open relationship. Post-agricultural humans are not wired to share. Generosity is a virtue, but it is not natural. And when something is not inherently natural, it takes a lot of energy to make it work.

Clearly, this arrangement of sexual openness is a difficult one, considering our agriculturally developed possessiveness. Take for example a couple seen on a Taboo: Strange Love on National Geographic. This couple had an arrangement (they call it negotiated infidelity) where both of them were free to have as many other sexual partners as they wished, provided they bring the partner home to have sex. This way, there is no sneaking around and everything is above board. So there it is again: the theme of honesty. Like the couples I spoke to, there was the issue of trust. In all likelihood, sleeping around behind someone's back is more hurtful and disrespectful than the sexual act itself. It is more about the betrayal of trust.

The couple expressed concerns of their partner meeting someone else and falling in love. Something like that would be grounds to abandon the current relationship: to leave them for someone better. Each and every time one of them has sex with someone else, it is, no matter how trivial they make it seem, a threat to the relationship. But why?

It's because sex comes with an emotional component. Try as we might, we cannot deny that there is something emotional about sex. When people have sex, they open up to each other in an immensely intimate way that can transcend any spoken or even non-sexually physical actions. Whether it's love, like, or simple affection, unless you are having callous sex - the type that is a simple mechanical exercise involving Tab A going into Slot B - emotions are bound to arise from such an interaction.

And where there are emotions involved, things get messy. As much as men are quoted as being more concerned with sexual fidelity and women with emotional fidelity, I believe that both sexes are ultimately greatly concerned with emotional fidelity. I can't imagine a loving relationship in which a man would magically disregard the fact that his wife is in love with another man just because she isn't having sex with him. Evolution may dictate or explain the male's inherent concern with paternal certainty, but it doesn't explain why, even when assured of his wife's sexual fidelity, a man gives a hoot about her daydreaming about going on a romantic trip to Italy with her boss. Psychology does though.

It all comes back to jealousy and possessiveness. I posit that because we are now wired for ownership (again, thanks to agriculture), in any given sexual encounter - repeated over a sufficient length of time with the same partner - that there will be an inherent drive to own. That is to say that given enough sexual liaisons between two people, at least one of them will wish - on some level - that they could have the other person all to themselves. And as we all know, honor dies where interest lies. So long as there is a desire to share in someone's limited resources - whether material, emotional, or sexual - there will be competition.

If we could actually all get along with each other, if we could all ditch the culture of ownership and possession, casual sex could very well work out. The hippie-esque notion of free love for all, of sexual generosity and good will to all, is a wonderful vision. But until we can break free from the chains forged by the American cultural pillars of consumption, competition, and ownership, casual sex is more likely to hurt someone than it is to result in widespread bliss. Because we are naturally possessive, sharing just isn't going to cut it. And that, folks, is why casual sexual relationships do not work out in the long run.

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Sex at Dawn, a new book discussing the prehistoric origins of human sexual behavior, seems to suggest that we should relax our moral standards in order to allow for varying arrangements and configurations of relationships in an attempt to relieve stress and to better everyone's lives. While free love for all seems like a good idea (even for a relatively asexual person like myself), it seems equally hippie-esque to believe that such a thing would ever happen. There is a very good reason why we feel so incredibly jealous and threatened when we become victims of infidelity.

The book suggests that our prehistoric ancestors were promiscuous and lived in small societies where casual sex was the norm. Paternity was not important because it was a highly egalitarian society where everything was shared, from sex to the responsibilities of raising a child. Sexual promiscuity made sense in a world where resources were plentiful and within reach to all. As pointed out by the authors, there was no way to gain leverage in order to control anyone. There was no sense of status and no hierarchy. However, the world has changed into just the opposite of that world: the wealthy accumulate more wealth and, using that wealth, wield more power and control over others.

Following the book's narrative, the development of agriculture changed the playing field. All of a sudden, certain people were able to control access to resources. This created an imbalance in social dynamics. Now, because resources were limited and controlled, paternal certainty became important. But why is it so important that the child we raise is ours? Why do we feel jealous and hurt when we learn that our life partner has been doing the dirty with someone other than us?

Jealousy is an emotion predicated on possessiveness. The fact is that we have quite rapidly evolved on a social and emotional level. Consider the "fierce egalitarian" societies that our hunter-gatherer forebears lived in. Personal property was unheard of since nobody owned anything, nor could they. Because of this communal dynamic, there was no way for the feeling of possessiveness to gain foothold. If everyone has everything that you have, and you cannot see that anybody has it any "better" than you, it stands to reason that you couldn't aspire to anything "better" either. People are limited to what they see. Greed doesn't come from nowhere. It is triggered by seeing another person's greater success, whether it is measured materially or emotionally or otherwise. Even if greed has different origins, sharing was a survival tactic and therefore a necessity of ancestral life.

Our ancestral societies weren't concerned with hoarding resources, but we are. In those societies, the resulting offspring of a sexual liaison wasn't an issue, especially when everybody shared in the raising of the child. However, sharing is no longer in vogue nowadays. Possession is the name of the game, whether it's material ownership or emotional or sexual ownership. Ham sandwiches don't grow on trees. We can't just pick up a free lunch from that tree in the backyard like hunter-gatherers could. In order to obtain sustenance, we must work for someone, who in turn pays us in the form of currency. That currency is used to buy ham sandwiches that we use to feed our children. Such work takes time, and time is money. We aren't immortal, so time is limited, which means money is limited. Without easy access to resources, we must become stingy with our time, money, and energy. Sharing now becomes counter to survival.

So if sharing is no longer a viable survival strategy, then hoarding becomes a way to increase one's chances of surviving. Squandering one's very limited resources on a child that is not his is not conducive to the evolutionary imperative of passing one's genes along. Put simply, it costs money to raise a child. Money takes time to earn. Both time and money are resources, and these resources are limited. So in the interests of making sure our genes get passed on to the next generation, we need to make sure we're not wasting our time, money, and energy on a kid who doesn't even have our genes. In this way, the traditional evolutionary narrative in regards to paternal certainty and access to resources does apply, but to modern life rather than prehistory.

Going along with this idea of jealousy, we should also examine not only material jealousy but also emotional jealousy. On a psychological level, I wonder (and I can only wonder, as I do not hold a prestigious academic degree) if perhaps our ancestors did not experience romantic love the way we do. Romantic love, to many people, is a possessive emotion. It just doesn't feel right to "share" your life partner - whom you love and care about so deeply - with someone else. This isn't so far from how a young child might feel by new addition to the family in the form of a new infant; the baby is a threat, an additional competitor for resources, both material and emotional. While we like to say that love is infinite, that mommy loves all her children equally, the truth is that love and attention is not unlimited. I'm not suggesting that we cannot love people in equal amounts, but the intensity must certainly diminish when divvied up amongst multiple people. There is evidence that children notice inequalities in sibling investment even at a very very young age. So just like a child who envies the attention his parents lavish on his newborn baby sister, people (quite naturally) get jealous when their romantic partner sees someone else.

Perhaps jealousy - both material, sexual, and emotional - arose from agriculture. After all, there has been evidence in various case studies that cultural norms stem from the method of survival and sustenance in that area (one easily accessible example is in Chapter 8 of Gladwell's Outliers; it discusses the relevance of rice farming to Chinese culture). Save for those who are wealthy, most of us probably don't grow up with the mentality that the world will simply provide for our needs along the way (a hunter-gatherers outlook). Hunter-gatherers weren't concerned with personal ownership because everything they needed was in the environment around them, free for the picking. Those who grow up in an agricultural world, however, are instilled with the idea that one needs to "save up money for a rainy day". Hoarding is a survival tactic that is expressed throughout American culture, and it would make sense that such wisdom pervades all levels of post-agricultural existence, including one's emotional outlook on romantic endeavors.

Relaxing moral standards is not going to do anyone any good in our modern society. While promiscuity may have worked in prehistoric life, it certainly will not work now. We live in a capitalistic society where it's every man for himself. Because of this intense competition over resources, men cannot tolerate the raising of child that is not his. In the parlance of anthropological circles, paternal certainty is immensely important and very relevant in the modern day.
How many illicit lovers do you believe would actually come into the family to help raise the child that was the result from said illicit affair? Not only is there the matter of the betrayal of trust, there is the matter of raising the child.

There is a very good reason why the modern marriage demands sexual fidelity. Perhaps sexual jealousy, like mate guarding, is a genetic survival instinct designed to ensure that we maximize the chances of our genes are passed on throughout the existence of human kind. The book makes an example of a sports team who sexually shares a single woman, saying that such sexual relations encouraged bonding between the team mates, amongst other benefits. It was an attempt to relate modern sexual phenomenon to prehistorical sexual behavior. But let's be honest: do you really think that all of the men who have sex with that groupie really hold her in high regard? Do you really think that, should she become pregnant and with child, that the whole team would come together to raise the child? If you do, please contact me immediately, because I have a bridge to sell you.

The book suggests that perhaps we should relax our moral codes to allow for more variety in sexual relationships so that we can all just get along. But there's a huge piece that's missing: you must also address the fact that the offspring from all these additional sexual relationships need raising. You can't have your cake and eat it too. Sex can be casual if the consequences of sex are casual. Unfortunately, raising a kid today isn't exactly small potatoes nowadays. So for folks thinking that this book serves as carte blanch to screw everybody who's willing, think again. Sooner or later, someone's going to get possessive. It's only natural. The same way sharing everything (including sex) was a survival tactic in prehistoric ages, hoarding is a survival tactic in post-agricultural ages. Of course, I'm certainly not credentialed in anthropology, so all this is just food for thought.

On the whole, I enjoyed the book very much. It was incredibly insightful, a very clever and eye-opening read. The author does an outstanding job dismantling the current-standing evolutionary theories that are out there. It also covers some interesting ground about human sexuality as a whole. While I disagree with some of the author's assertions, if one takes it from a simply factual point of view, without the colored agenda getting in the way, you stand to learn a lot about human sexual behavior. I highly recommend this book to not just those interested in evolutionary theory but to anyone who's interested in sex (which pretty much includes everybody).

May we suggest you have a gander at these?

1. On Casual Sex: The Difficulties of Promiscuity This is a companion piece to my earlier reaction to Sex at Dawn. View the previous piece here. If our prehistoric forebears’ freely and casually sexually promiscuous ways were influenced...
2. ‘Sex at Dawn’ justifies casual sex, and even orgies This new book Sex at Dawn (that’s an affiliate link, so I’ll be grateful if you purchase the book) promises to explain the prehistoric origins of human sexuality. I haven’t...
3. Love interests on the big screen Perhaps my exposure to romantic cinema has been limited in scope, but I have yet to come across a movie that truly captures my heart. I have yet to watch...

I haven't been doing much personal writing lately...mostly it's been essays and updates about my novel. In a tribute to the old days of online journaling, this is going to be one of those self-indulgent personal pieces that also serves as a writing exercise; I've fallen into a rut and need to stretch my imagination.

My first novel was a great success. It started out as just a small success, a little known cult classic. Then word spread and it garnered the attention of those literary critics I don't give two hoots about. They heralded it as an insightful glimpse of the face of loneliness. There was talk of how it touched on the growing phenomenon of urban isolation. Some folks likened it to a classic country song about alienation and 'urban wickedness'. It was never one of those New York Times bestsellers, but it put me on the map. I was 26 when it was published, and 27 when I was interviewed. The reporter said that she loved Mark - the protagonist of my novel - and how tragic his loneliness was. I asked her if she caught the priestly angle, and she said that that was actually something that deeply resonated with her - her father was a pastor who always seemed so aloof. She also remarked that Mark's separate from the rest of the world, he's on a whole different plane of existence. A clever gal, that one.

That article got me noticed enough so that I could get an advance on my next book, which was about a darker side of loneliness, the festering violence of a man with hate and intolerance in his heart. That's only one side of him though. He's a protector, a guardian. But he's got nobody to protect, nobody to save. Yeah, yeah, it's sort of yet another spin-off of a different side of myself, but hey, it's still good work, and the publisher gave me and advance, so I must be doing something right.

That was my second book. In between that one and the one I'm working on now, I finally met a woman who ended up being my fiance. I remember the day after she confessed that she was in love with me, I wondered if maybe that psychic I saw all that time ago was right, that I wasn't destined for dating lots of people and that I would only need to meet that one single perfect woman whom I would marry. If she was right about that, that means she was right about me living 'til I'm 80 or 90, too. Back then, I didn't think there was any reason I should have to live that long, but now that's all changed.

So yeah, about that woman. I love her. It was funny, we met through the Internet. She was all the way on the West coast, and I've always been a New Yorker, so I figured that we'd never meet and that she was probably too different for me. It was totally platonic at first. That's why I felt alright showing her my website; otherwise, if I was romantically interested, I probably wouldnt've ever showed her. I'd be afraid of what she thought about my writing, whether she'd misinterpret it and all that. Plus, she's a good three inches taller than me. While I'm not threatened by women who are taller than me, I just always envisioned myself with a smaller woman. I guess it's that protector in me (yeah, that one, the one I drew inspiration from to write my second book).

But yeah, she didn't let the fact that I was shorter than she was stop her. She secretly read my writings and I guess she saw in me something she just couldn't shake. With time, I saw in her a fiercely loyal woman who I knew would be a devoted mother to my children. There was this one evening when I was at her place and we were baking a cake for her aunt - we were still relatively new to each other as boyfriend and girlfriend - and we ended up talking about our childhoods and dreams. She started talking so honestly about how she wanted to raise her family, what she envisioned. I always wanted to talk about that sort of thing, but I didn't want to scare her away with such talk.

Anyway, that night, when she was sifting the flour and talking about what sort of mother she'd be, her back turned to me, I just stood there, staring at the back of her head. It was that moment, when my heart told me that we were both looking for exactly the same thing, that I fell even more deeply in love with her. She noticed I was quiet and turned around. Our eyes met, and something inside both of us just clicked. Without saying a word, she walked to me, floury hands and all. She took my hands in hers and stood real close to me. We just stared into each other. It felt like an eternity. I didn't need to say a word: she knew what I was thinking. She knew that we both wanted the same things, the same future. She knew that my heart was completely hers, that we could spend forever with each other. It was just one of those leaps of faith.

I proposed to her two weeks later. Quick, I know. But you know when, you know, you know? For me, I don't fall in love often, so I know when it's real. Anyway, I had planned on putting the ring on her finger by levitating it over her finger and, after having it hover for a few seconds, let it descend - I was an amateur magician. I wanted to do this one starlit night in a park. But then the damnedest thing happened. One day, she found it in my jacket pocket, and after waiting for a week, she couldn't keep quiet about it anymore. We were in Crate and Barrel, shopping for some baking stuff (I once attempted a cursory psychoanalysis of her: I thought her penchant for baking was a domestic yearning for parts of her childhood she felt she missed out on; she yelled at me for about a week after I pulled that stunt), and when there was a quiet moment, she grabbed the ring box through my jacket. "I can't wait any more, you idiot. Are you going to ask me to marry you or not?" She's always been strong like that, it's one of the reasons I even dated her. I pulled her in close and kissed her. "What do you think?" I asked. She gave me a sly look, said, "I'm not sure yet, show me again." We kissed rather passionately, which I'm embarrassed to admit. Hey, we were in Crate and Barrel for crying out loud.

And now we're married. We've got a nice little house in a nice little suburban neighborhood. I've got my psychotherapy practice in the well-monied part of town. It's a part-time gig though. That's alright because that gives me time to write. We'll probably have the two kids we planned on having once I get more steady clients. We both worry about what that'll do to my writing though. Getting more clients I mean. Well, I guess the kids too, when you think about it... But yeah, she's a sort of creative type too, so she knows how it goes, the creative process and all. Oh, did I mention? She took the photos for both of my book jackets. I didn't let her put a portrait photo of me on the back of it though. I'm not too hot about getting famous. Besides, it's better to let people wonder.

Oh, right, my latest work in progress. Well, this one is on family and siblings. I'm looking to examine themes like loyalty, taking the people in our lives for granted, and how precious our family is. That and death.

My wife's putting on some dinner, so I've got to go give her a hand. We'll finish this interview tomorrow, alright?

"Talk about yourself as you want to see yourself. And some day, that will be yourself."

May we suggest you have a gander at these?

1. Jay & The Americans — Come A Little Bit Closer Jay & The Americans — Come A Little Bit Closer In a little café just the other side of the border She was just sitting there givin’ me looks that...
2. The truth behind my loneliness This entry’s been long overdue, so excuse me if it feels a little out of context. I only just finished it. This blog is clearly a reflection of my loneliness. ...
3. Goddamned novel I’m not sure if it’s writer’s block or what, but writing this novel seems to be a great deal more challenging than my screenplay. Two pages in and I can’t...

The union of a man and a woman as husband and wife - otherwise known as marriage, matrimony, and getting hitched (amongst other names) - is a very popular type of relationship that many American adults look forward to. When a man loves a woman, and she loves him back, doing "the right thing" often involves getting married. She "makes an honest man" of him, and he "makes an honest woman" of her. They promise each other everlasting love. To many folks, marriage just "feels right". A lot of people think that matrimony "is natural". But just how many people really think about marriage, the reasons for its existence, and its profound implications?

As was discussed in a new book examining the prehistoric origins of human sexuality entitled Sex at Dawn[1], author Dr. Ryan posits that monogamy is arguably not a natural part of the human animal. There are those who would tear down the institution of marriage using just that argument. They point at the many failed marriages and the high divorce rate, the animal nature of man, and rampant infidelity in the face of severe consequences, otherwise making a mockery of the futility of such an arrangement.

The book claims that fewer and fewer people are getting married. If so, it certainly makes sense. In modern day America, men and women are having more and more freedom of choice in the configuration of their relationships. Friends with benefits, swinging spouses, open marriages, cohabitation: these types of unconventional relationships are gaining traction and, although we are far from the day where they are openly accepted or even encouraged, the trajectory of our society certainly seems to be pointing in that direction. As much as said state of affairs is off in the seemingly distant future, the lamentable death of the monogamous marriage as the status quo appears to be inevitable as more and more of the younger generations challenge the traditions of marital union, a slow death that I will grieve for greatly.

After some deep thinking, I came to form some insights on the nature of man as it relates to marriage. Even before reading Sex at Dawn, I had noticed that while conventional evolutionary theory contains notions that humans are wired for pair bonding (i.e. monogamous lifelong marriage), there was evidence that sexual infidelity (used in the modern sense of the word) is evolutionarily productive in the sense that genetic diversity is good for the human race. That is to say that being sexually promiscuous is a good tactic for women trying to pass on to the next generation the best genes available.

Being unable to reconcile the two differences within the same paradigm, I came to believe that monogamy was in fact a social construct, and that pair bonding may not necessarily be embedded into our prehistoric evolutionary programming. That is to say that the institution of marriage is strictly a creation of man and could not inherently be explained as natural in the evolutionary narrative of our ancient ancestors. This establishes that monogamy is a limitation set by society. The institution of marriage is a man-made construct that defines a particular type of relationship, prescribing and proscribing a certain set of behaviors. It is not inherently explainable by the evolutionary narrative of our prehistoric ancestors. Sex at Dawn certainly can attest to this. So if marriage and monogamy is not natural to our biology, then what purpose does such a configuration serve?

It is beyond the scope of this piece to discuss the true purpose and nature of marriage. However, one viewpoint comes to mind. Many feminists argue that marriage was essentially a system of legalized prostitution, one in which the female offers exclusive sexual opportunity to a male in order for access to his resources. In other words, it's an arrangement where women have sex for money, albeit with one man.

A very cursory look at history seems to support this view. However, I find such a belief to be not only incredibly pessimistic and naive, but quite unrealistic. Perhaps that was the reality of women before the industrial age, but in the modern day, I imagine that marriages are more or less based on the ideal of monogamous romance. Nowadays, women can choose to marry for love rather than money.

Let us consider the impact of such a choice. Assuming the two partners (no longer is it even constrained to a man and a woman) considering marriage are of sound mind and body, love is presumably at the very least a large part of the motivation for two people to get together and make vows to spend the rest of their lives together. This makes romantic love the basis of such an arrangement. As such, marriage is ideally the most serious declaration of love between two people. It is the promise to spend the rest of their lives together, ever faithful to each other even through the worst of times. In an ideal marriage, a husband and wife become everything to each other. They become best friends, lovers, confidants. They promise to take care of each other and to be faithful, to be there for each other through thick and thin, through health and sickness.

Such a promise is not made from the loins but from the heart. Therefore it is inherently a romantic's ideal. It is so serious a union that in Western cultures, matrimony is overseen by God Himself. In fact, marriage holds the promise of such blissful heights of existence that some religions consider it to be a gift from God. This ideal is something that people aspire to for its almost mythical status. Is it not an aspiration to perfection in trying to become the sole man or woman your partner will ever need? It is an immensely idealistic role. It is a remarkable, life changing experience, rife with rewards. But it is also extremely difficult to fill that role.

Marriages are difficult because they are essentially an aspiration to perfection. A man must become the husband who satisfies his wife in every way imaginable: emotionally, spiritually, and sexually. And a woman must do the same for her husband. On top of that, one must remain faithful in both mind and body. It is not realistic, but it is precisely the type of ideal that romantics aspire to. Romantics are the ones full of passion and creativity. Sometimes I wonder if perhaps marriage is for romantics who believe in true and undying love rather than your average person. After all, look at the divorce rate. Look at how many failed marriages there are.

There are many theories on why there are so many divorces and separations, why so many people report low levels of marital satisfaction. In the light of these new books on evolutionary theory, some may begin to point to the fact that humans were not wired for such an institution. If humans are not evolutionarily built for marriage, and if marriage is just something created by humans, then one might ask, why should we bother with marriage at all?

Personally, I posit that humans are creatures that are capable of wonderful things. I do not believe that our biology would dictate that we have the propensity for landing a man on the moon or inventing the microprocessor. I do not believe that the human animal would be capable of writing romantic sonnets or painting beautiful sunsets. I do believe that evolutionary theory and a study of the biology of humans can tell us very important things, things vital to understanding ourselves. But is it not a fine cause to transcend the bondage of prehistoric chains?

The development of the homo sapien into the modern man - the modern man who is capable of education, imagination, science, technology, romance and beauty - was only capable because of discipline. The ability to delay gratification, to suppress our urges, is why we are able to travel across the country in just six hours, why we are able to send messages to each other instantly even if we are on the other side of the world. Discipline is what allows us to make choices. Without discipline, we are slaves to our impulses.

How many of us have had the urge to launch our fist into someone's nose for one reason or another? How about to kill someone? If we had no discipline, the world would be a very different place. It would be a savage place. Self-control and discipline is what accounts for being civilized. Violent urges are not so different from sexual urges. Suppression of one's urges is what allows civilization to advance. Without such suppression, I doubt there would be very much time for anything but eating, sleeping, and fucking.

Marriage is a lifelong exercise in discipline. While it may come easy to those whose will is strong, the reality is that most people are not in possession of such impressive faculties. It is easy to do what comes naturally and impulsively, and very difficult to do what one imagines he should instead of what he wants. A man whose basic instinct causes him to seek out an extramarital affair is not a man, but an animal, the human animal. Perhaps marriage is based on the ascetic ideal of self-denial (while promising the rewards of marital bliss). It takes a man of strength and integrity to deny his immediate gratification out of respect and reverence for the vows he made to his wife.

Mind you, these vows may not be for everybody. While I am a staunch proponent of the romantic ideal of monogamous marriage, I am well aware that most people are ill equipped for such a life. In fact, I myself point to the divorce rate as evidence. Perhaps the majority of people does not have the strength, discipline, and willpower to overcome the difficulties of sustaining a lifelong monogamous marriage.

Some feel that marriage is a libido killer, the beginning of the end of passionate love and sex. To these people, I say that they must be doing something wrong. Sure, our biology dictates that we will find ourselves seeking out sexual novelty. But I again point back at the marvel of the human spirit, at the resilience and resourcefulness of human kind. There are things that can be achieved beyond what our biology and prehistory would dictate.

I am extremely confident that there is at least one couple in the history of mankind who, at the end of their lives, could honestly say that despite some inevitable rough patches, they have lived an immensely satisfying life full of love and passion. And if one couple can do it, then it certainly is within the realm of possibility. And if it is within the realm of possibility, then why should we not strive for those ideals? We try to get more money, get bigger houses, get more education; we try to get better cars, become more physically fit, mentally fit; and generation after generation tries to give their children a better future. Why should we not continue to reach for this ideal of marital bliss?

Some anthropological literature may imply that marriages are failing because of the inherent human impulse towards promiscuous sex and sexual novelty. But what if were just the fact that people are getting married for the wrong reasons? Are Americans marrying for the right reasons? Alas, such a question is also beyond the scope of this piece.

But if not the "right" reasons, then what of the other reasons for marriage? They are quite irrelevant as far as I am concerned. If someone is marrying for money, status, religion, sex, or any other reason than love, it stands to reason that they will inevitably find themselves in a state of despair and desperate unhappiness. While marriage started out as a business arrangement, modern day marriages are not predicated on such grounds considering that the freedoms of women have since greatly increased. Or more accurately, modern day marriages should not be based on anything but romantic love. At least not if you want to stay happily married (and happily faithful) to one person to the rest of your life.

It is useful to question the value of monogamy in a marriage. The usual suspects are ever present: paternal certainty and other evolutionary theories try to explain our current faith in monogamous marriage. But perhaps infidelity, in spite of all the biological and anthropological evidence that monogamy is unnatural, is unacceptable because of our psychology. Infidelity may in fact have nothing to do with the threat to paternal certainty or access to resources, but rather is an emotional and social concern. After all, marriage is not an evolutionary imperative but a social construct.

When infidelity occurs in a marriage (i.e. one partner has sexual relations with someone other his or her "second half"), it is considered "cheating". While Dr. Ryan says that the word itself implies that someone is winning or losing, the word cheating could also be interpreted to mean that the person is cheating the institution of marriage. Perhaps the phrase "cheating on Mary" is merely a shortcut to saying that "John is cheating the institution of marriage, which by extension means that he is being unfair to Mary by breaking the rules."

However you interpret the semantics of infidelity, infidelity is ultimately considered a betrayal of trust. While some may say that it was "just a fling", or that it was "purely a physical thing, just a physical release", and that "it didn't mean anything", this view fails to account for the promise that was made, the premises on which the union was agreed upon. On a purely emotional level, infidelity is indeed a betrayal. Promises were made, and promises are to be kept, biology be damned. Because promises are the mark of a developed man, breaking a promise is beneath him. Presumably, people get married in hopes that they will be able to keep their promises to each other. They trust each other to keep their word to remain faithful to each other. Infidelity is arguably more about the breaking of that trust, the deception that goes along with an affair, than it is about the actual physical acts performed in the commission of that infidelity.

Ultimately, marriage is a societally imposed structure. It is a social union based on the culture in which it resides. Matrimony is not based on what makes biological or evolutionary sense but on the lofty ideals of human kind. I believe that romantic love and a sense of personal betterment is what drives us to get married. The monogamous lifelong marriage is an aspiration, something that we reach for. It is a calling to transcend the physical. It is a lifelong journey of growth and self-improvement. Marriage is not a mandate that springs from the thighs. No, it is the mandate of the heart, borne from romantic love and sustained by passion, creativity, respect, good conversation, amongst countless other things.

I believe that one should understand the implications of marriage, to understand the seriousness of such a union, before committing him or herself to another person for the rest of their lives. Perhaps it is an inherently American lack of reverence for most things that causes us to look at marriages as something to be entered relatively casually, something to be broken off when it becomes inconvenient.

In which case, it may not be so outlandish for churches and other institutions to test a couple's martial readiness as seen in comedy movie License to Wed [2]. In a society where single parent households, divorced families, and broken homes are becoming more and more prevalent, it seems to me that the sanctity of the role of husband or wife is not being taken seriously by enough people. There are deep and underlying implications of becoming a spouse and even more immensely important impact on their children if they choose to become parents. I believe that most people have particular deficiencies, some superficial and others more serious, that make them a poor fit as a spouse or parent. If we would educate people to help them to understand that a marriage lasts forever, that our actions live on through our children who may suffer for our sins and indiscretions, that matrimony is not meant to be thought of lightly, if we would entertain the idea of putting people through mandatory child care classes and a couple of marriage seminars to help people gain valuable perspective and knowledge on the journey they are about to take, then perhaps we would be able to realize higher rates of marital satisfaction and more longevity. And although tangential to the topic at hand, perhaps with the improvement of the marital state of affairs in this country, we would see less broken families and therefore decrease the burden these people place on the government, what with all the social services that are created to help these families.

The tradition of marriage, an ideal that entails lifelong monogamy and mutual spousal support along with emotional, spiritual, and sexual satisfaction, is largely a modern one when one takes historical uses of marriage into consideration. I believe that with the right information and a more well developed mindset, this ideal can live on in great prosperity. But until we decide to look at the truth behind marriage, the reasons they fail or succeed will remain a mystery to us.

May we suggest you have a gander at these?

1. On ‘Sex At Dawn’ (or Why casual sex doesn’t work) Sex at Dawn, a new book discussing the prehistoric origins of human sexual behavior, seems to suggest that we should relax our moral standards in order to allow for varying...
2. The problem with dating I was strolling along with my friend Linda this cool summer evening. As usual, she had much to say, and much of it revealing. She had mentioned her friend, who...
3. Still going on dates in a relationship A friend of mine, Luanne, had mentioned that she had not seen her boyfriend (soon to be fiancé, if all turns out well) since he got back from his travels....