Take me or leave me

Somehow last night, I stumbled across a new show entitled “Plain Jane“.  Basically, the premise is that the model-esque host (Louise Roe)

Louise Roe

takes ordinary looking girls, magically turns them into someone completely different, and sends them on a semi-blind date with a guy they have a secret crush on.

First, Louise calls the guy up, says something to the effect of “I have a girl that likes you and wants to go on a date with you” <–insert an annoying high school girl voice here.  Louise and the PJ then literally follow the guy to suss him out, all the while Louise is encouraging Facebook stalking.

Next, the pair go shopping for a new “look”.  On the particular episode I watched, the PJ was a button-up and jeans kind of girl.  What do they put her in?  A bright red dress, one-shoulder, and a hemline only acceptable in Wrigleyville bars.  They give her blond highlights, a ridiculous amount of extensions, enough make-up to “cover her up”, then throw her in 4 inch stilletos and ta-da!  Transformed!

Louise and the victim then go into a grocery store where she is challenged to pickup a guy.  She has a device that resembles an alcohol monitoring bracelet placed on her ankle so that while Louise watches her attempt to talk to men, if the PJ does anything that is deemed to be “bad”, she gets a light electric shock.

Finally, after two days of an intense attempt of altering the PJ forever, she is sent to reveal herself to the unsuspecting guy.  As the girl walks out, Louise says repeatedly to the camera, “I hope he recognizes her”.

Basically this show is a disgusting display of one of the problems with dating today.  There are a fair amount of people that believe in order to “get the guy” (or girl for that matter), they have to pretend to be someone else.  On this particular show, the message is, “Don’t be yourself.  Change everything about who you are.  Ignore all of your instincts.”  That’s just dumb.  You can’t keep up that charade forever firstly, but more importantly, why do you want to be with someone that doesn’t appreciate you in all your neurotic glory?  Apparently what was “wrong” with the girl on this show is that she’s shy and a bit conservative.  So they throw her in a short dress and tell her to act opposite of how she would normally.  Guess what?  It is horribly awkward to watch because you can tell that it is not her being herself.  There’s some guy out there that would think her natural demeanor is adorable and appreciate a more conservative attitude.

I will say this though.  We all have our dating dysfunctions.  Some people act how they perceive others want them to, some are on their best behavior in order to hide the more “negative” aspects of themselves, some play silly games.  Here is mine: I fear intimacy.  Not just in dating, but in all relationships.  It’s very cliche–the old “I’ve been hurt so many times”, blah, blah, blah.  I know it’s stupid but it is literally automatic now.  I don’t even realize that I’m doing it.  I basically have to be coerced into opening up–just ask any of my ex’s.  This is evidenced in my extreme sarcasm and constant teasing that I impose on people I haven’t given my trust to yet.  Yes, I am always sarcastic and poke fun at my friends (with the love) but it’s pretty constant and relentless with newcomers.  It’s almost like a test.  If you give me shit back instead of being offended and irritated, then we can be friends.

I have more than once in my life heard that I am an acquired taste.  I imagine that it is because I can seem like a real jerk when you first meet me when in fact, I am just protecting myself with sarcasm.  Once you “pass the test” though, I am the most devoted and loyal of friends.  I’m a loving and appreciative in reality, but I do have to wonder how many relationships, dating or otherwise, I have missed because of this wall.  So the question is this: If your instinct is to keep people you do not know very well at arms length which can sometimes be polarizing, should you stop or be appreciative that you have the foresight and knowledge to filter out a lot of people that would perhaps harm you in the end?  Mayhaps the lesson here is, let the test of people be their actions and not how much abuse they can take.

I’ve certainly made mistakes in dating and as a control freak expert, I always want to go back and fix the problem.  A do-over if you will.  Unfortunately this is usually not possible.  Once you make a mistake all you can do is learn and move on.  But sometimes we just are who we are, defective personality traits and all, so how do you apologize for that?  You shouldn’t.  You have to balance learning from life and staying true to who you are, even when you’re not perfect.  Listen, I’ll never be the girl that quietly sits in the corner at a bar and just agrees with everything that is said.  I’ll never be able to ride a bike without getting a million knots in my hair.  I’ll always hate running and vegetables.  I am very opinionated but also dedicated.  And believe it or not I am extremely empathetic and understanding.  If I consider you a close friend, I’ll sit with you for hours listening and advising, I’ll drive you to the hospital and sit patiently the entire time (thanks Ben), and support every dumb decision you make.  But there’s nothing I love more than making people laugh and smile–even if I miss the mark sometimes.    Underneath it all, there is good intention, as I believe we all have.  So rather than trying to change ourselves or others, we should just accept these things.  As Deepak Chopra says “What will really make you attractive is not working on your weak points but embracing them”.

Men at work

I was at a conference last month and the keynote speaker was discussing the current workforce challenges.  She mentioned some statistics that blew my mind but I forgot about it until recently.  I’ve been frantically looking for full-time, non-intern employment for the last year and a half and with my current internship coming to an end soon, have been recently highly stressed and anxious about my prospects.  This chart should make me feel better, but it doesn’t.  See below:

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t04.htm

Basically, this chart from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that in the current economic environment, those holding a bachelor’s degree or higher are experiencing a 4.9 percent unemployment rate.  Let’s briefly talk about that.  The “expected” or “normal” unemployment rate is 5 percent, meaning, that in a healthy economy this is the level at which the rate should be at.  This means that those experiencing unemployment, generally speaking, are part of frictional or seasonal unemployment, i.e. construction workers during wintertime, people temporarily between jobs, etc.  This type of unemployment isn’t serious and easily remedies itself overall.  Thus, as bad as this economy is, if you have a bachelor’s degree, finding work shouldn’t be that difficult.  Now that said, what this chart doesn’t show are those that are currently underemployed due to being forced to a lower-level position based on the employment situation.

Unfortunately, the scariest part about these statistics is that for persons not holding a higher degree–or any degree at all for that matter, unemployment is at least double the expected norm.  I’m not going to go into major detail here but the major reason for this difference is the lack of unskilled or low-skilled work available.  50 years ago there were well-paying manufacturing jobs available which have since almost entirely left the country.  These positions were replaced by service sector jobs which do not offer decent wages and are often the first ones cut when money becomes tight.  Any unemployment rate over 5 percent means that there is a serious problem, as we are now experiencing, stemming from either an insufficient demand for the supply of goods in an economy or structural issues, such as technology replacing work previously done by people or the extinction of a skill or field.

Again, I could hold a long and detailed discussion here about the causes and effects of this issue which encompass everything from public education to accessibility to college to government policy and business, but I really just wanted to bring these statistics to everyone’s attention.  In the media all we hear about is the almost 10 percent unemployment rate and recessionary economy, but when you see the details, you get a better picture about who this is really affecting and what possible solutions might be.