Brutal honesty about relationships

In her article entitled My “Naked” Truth, Robin Korth provides a poignant and thought-provoking account of a nascent romance cut short by incompatible desires and brutal honesty. After a short and unconsummated romance with a man she met online, she ended the relationship because he was not physically attracted to her.

Korth’s date found fault with her body, and blamed her appearance for his lack of desire. Korth never comes out and says it, but it’s clear that just as he found fault with her body, she found fault with his character:

• that he did not find her attractive just as she was;
• that he was too brutally honest about his feelings; and
• that he asked her to change herself to fit his desires.

Some of the online responses provoked by the article make it clear that many people hold a perceived culture of patriarchy accountable too. I can see their point. Advertisers and the media certainly do no favors to people with human imperfections; the ideal of happy wealthy healthy youth is continually paraded before our eyes, and these images can certainly warp our worldview.

We have only Korth’s side of the story, but from what she wrote it seems her partner was narcissistic. At a minimum, he appears not to have understood that the way he chose his words could be hurtful to her. Honesty Is good; insensitivity is not. He should have known that his forthrightness about his preference for younger women would cause her distress.

I can empathize with Korth. It is a sad fact of life that we must all grow old, and most of us are eventually reminded of our diminishing prospects — and ultimately, of our mortality — by the declining interest that others express in us.

Korth believes that she deserves a partner who likes her as she is. This is almost accepted wisdom today: that everyone deserves someone who loves them just the way they are. But a moment’s reflection reveals that this desert imposes an implicit obligation on others. This is obviously an untenable position. Apart from familial obligations like the duty of a parent to love its child, no one owes anyone else love.

Part of Korth’s frustration surely has its roots in the expectation in Western society that every person can find one true soulmate. In this childish and romantic vision of love, physical attraction is always coupled to a deeper companionate affection. Unfortunately though, the real world seldom is so accommodating. In real relationships, there are different kinds of attraction. One can feel a strong attraction in one way, but a weak attraction in another way. For example, one can be very attracted physically to someone, but only fancy their personality a bit. Or vice versa. When people get together it is because the sum of all of the types of attraction is sufficient. It does not mean that they both have the same feelings, or that they have the same priorities. Physical attraction may be more important to one, and a personal connection may be more important to the other. How many people are honest about these priorities early in a relationship?

Yes, most people long for a partner who loves them just they way they are; but most people also want a partner who is at least a little bit better than average — in appearance, personality, culture, wealth, etc. These two desires are not compatible. Many people make compromises to find a partner. Many end up alone, and not always by choice. Those who expect the perfect partner will likely be disappointed. People should either adjust their standards to fit reality, or they should learn to be happy alone. As I wrote in a comment to Korth’s article, “there are many lost souls caught between plaintive hope and bitter resignation, because their expectations of the world are so far out of sync what the world has to offer.”

There is no point in blaming someone for failing to match your desires.

Likewise, there is no point in trying to shame someone for having desires that exclude you.

If a relationship doesn’t work out, don’t blame the other person, don’t blame yourself, and don’t curse human biology or deride the whole culture. Just move on.

Will the real Sofia please stand up?

A few years ago, I met a girl—let’s call her Sofia A.—on the free dating site OKCupid. She told me she had studied engineering at Uppsala University in Sweden. She also told me that she was a dual citizen of the U.S. and Sweden because her father was American and her mother Swedish. We began to chat frequently online. I soon learned that she was deaf and had a girlfriend named Hannah. Eventually our conversations became quite personal. However, although she showed me some photos of herself, we never video-chatted, and we never met in person.

Because Sofia already had a partner, she introduced me to her younger sister Lisa, a student at Linköpings University. Lisa and I also began to chat frequently, and although we considered meeting several times, she was also shy, and we never did meet. Eventually, Lisa also told me that she had a new girlfriend, a woman from Japan working at an engineering company in Linköping. Just as with Sofia, Lisa and I never had a video chat and never met in person.

After a year or so of frequent and lengthy chats with both sisters, Sofia informed me that she had gotten a job with a well-known IT firm in California, and would be moving to the San Francisco Bay area. We continued chatting, albeit somewhat less frequently, and she gave intermittent updates about her life there. When I visited my brother in San Francisco, I suggested to Sofia that she and I meet. She declined, and I began to wonder if she was real.

Then, in October of 2008, I moved to Switzerland for work. Soon after moving to Zürich, I joined Nordiska—the Nordic Rowing Club of Zürich—and became acquainted with many Swedes and other Scandinavians here. Among the Swedes I met at Nordiska were several who worked at the Zürich office of the big IT firm where Sofia had started working. When one of these guys told me he was soon going on a trip to the main office in California, I told him about my friend Sofia. “She’s friendly, smart, and Swedish,” I told him. “Look her up and tell her Michael said hello.”

When he returned from his trip, he had disappointing news. “There’s no one with that name working for the company,” he told me. The next time I saw Sofia online, I told her what I had learned. “I use my Mother’s maiden name when chatting online,” she told me. She declined to tell me her real last name. My other friends at the company tried to identify her by her other characteristics—that she was Swedish and deaf, for example. They were also unable to find anyone working there that matched her description.

Then, one day, I saw some photos posted by a friend online. They were photos from a dance competition at La Isla, a salsa dance club in Stockholm that I frequented when I lived there. In the photos, I saw a face that looked familiar. The girl was tagged in the photos, so I clicked through to her profile and looked at her other photos. Those photos looked very familiar. Then it hit me: these were some of the same photos that “Sofia A.” had shared with me years before, and had claimed were photos of her!

Could this be the same girl? Her first name was also Sofia—let’s call herSofia B.—and she appeared to be from Sweden; but judging from the dates and places mentioned in her photos, she had not lived in the U.S.—at least not recently. I sent “Sofia B.” a short note telling her that she looked familiar and asking if we knew each other.

The next day, she replied. She wrote that I didn’t look familiar, but that we had several friends in common. This is true—we both know several people in the salsa dance scene in Stockholm, and I know some of the people who appear with her in the dancing photos. Sofia B.’s email was open and friendly, and did not seem like the kind of reply I would have received from someone who had just been caught in a lie.

I decided to tell her the whole story. I sent Sofia B. another email, explaining why she looked familiar—that I had had a multi-year conversation online with someone who had been using her photos. I pointed her to the profile pages that Sofia A. had created on OKCupid and Facebook.

I received a new reply from Sofia B. She informed me that the photos on the pages I had shown her were old ones, and that all of them had been taken by one man—a former friend of hers, I gather. The impostor is either that man or someone who had access to his photos. She said that she would look into the matter.

I actually know very little about the person I’ve been chatting with all these years. Lying obviously comes naturally to this person, and I simply don’t know what is true and what is made up. The two “sisters” Sofia and Lisa might actually be the same person. In fact, the person might even be a man.

And of course the real Sofia is surely upset to know that someone else has been using her photos to create a false identity. Sofia B. notified OKCupid and Facebook of the fake profiles using her photos. It took a couple of days for them to be removed.

A few days later, the supposed sister of Sofia A., “Lisa,” signed on and said hello. I told her what I had discovered, and explained that I was no longer willing to chat with her unless she was willing to be honest with me. Her reply didn’t really surprise me. “Nice chatting with you all these years,” she said. She made it clear that her anonymity was sacrosanct, and much more important than any friendship we had shared.

I told her that I felt like fool for trusting her. “I’m sorry” was her final reply.

I feel like I’ve lost a friend. I feel betrayed. And most frustratingly of all, I may never know what was real and what was not. I feel a bit like Neo coming out of the Matrix for the first time, waking up to a different reality, and being faced with the prospect of abandoning old friends and old accepted truths. A small part of me feels a desire to retreat to denial and to invent excuses for the liars.

It’s sometimes hard to strike the right balance between openness and caution when dealing with people. I’m usually pretty trusting of people I’ve just met, giving everyone the benefit of the doubt until I have reason to distrust the person. It’s clearly easier however to judge a person’s character when you can see the person face-to-face. Online, it’s easy to hide behind a mask of anonymity. I will definitely be more careful next time.

I’m also realizing that for socializing the ’net is best when it is used as a means to arrange meet-ups in the real world. I have flesh-and-blood friends who are deserving of my time and energy. In the future I won’t be wasting time with phantoms.

An undeserved reputation

Sometimes life’s little surprises turn out not to be so surprising after all. A case in point was the surprise that came tonight.

I have a reputation.

While chatting tonight with a woman I consider a good friend, I learned that she has recently heard similar things about me from several women. Apparently, some women in the Stockholm salsa dancing scene have gotten the idea that I’m desperate, that I’m too friendly, and that the only reason I go dancing is to hit on girls.

I wrote that the news was not really surprising. Why? Well, my undeserved reputation probably explains the cold reaction I have gotten from some women.

The timing is ironic. This is because I have in the past year made a conscious effort to be more open and more direct with people, on the theory that honesty and forthrightness are their own reward. Be straight with people and they’ll be straight with you. I’ve made many new friends by letting this side of myself shine. In a way, I’ve become reacquainted with the person I was many years ago, before adolescence. This has made me wonder: kids make new friends so easily, so why isn’t it as easy with adults?

The answer, of course, is that adults often have hidden agendas that they conceal deliberately. I’ve written before about friendliness to strangers and making friends; and it’s obviously more complicated among adults than among children. Most adults with any amount of real-world experience have learned to be a bit suspicious of eagerness.

How suspicious people are, and of whom, depends greatly from person to person and culture to culture. The groups of people who dance salsa in Stockholm perfectly illustrate this. In the Swedish salsa dancing scene, there are basically two types: Swedes and Latinos. The Swedish men who dance salsa are usually more or less like Swedish men in the general public: a bit cold, distant, and yet for the most part egalitarian and respectful of women. Swedish men make good friends once you get to know them, but it's often a mystery how they ever work up the nerve to break the ice. Many Swedish relationships start only after months of friendship, and/or owe their start to the consumption of large quantities of alcohol.

The Latino men on the other hand are the exact opposite of their Swedish counterparts. Latino men are totally upfront, expressing their desires as soon as they feel them. Unfortunately, these men don't seem to know the difference between love and lust, and can therefore sometimes overdo it. I have heard many stories of Latino men expressing their undying love for a woman they just met on the dance floor. These guys are definitely not egalitarian, and are seldom interested in being friends with women. They tend to be macho bordering on misogynistic, and quite often don’t turn out to make good boyfriends to the Swedish women who fall for them.

It's fair to say that with my personality, I fit in somewhere between the serious Swedes and the lusty Latinos.

Realizing this, I decided some time ago to apply my friendly forthrightness not just to new acquaintances and friends, but also to women who caught my eye. If I found a woman attractive, I would be open about it: I’d break the ice and see what happened. If the feeling’s mutual, great; if not, then at least I tried. It’s better to express one’s feelings than to hold them inside. Once they’re out in the open, it’s easier to move on. Or at least that was my theory.

When my friend heard the rumors, she tried explaining to the women who related them to her that I was in fact a decent human being, and that they were mistaking my outgoing and friendly nature for desperation. Her attempt to defend my character was met with skepticism and doubt.

I must admit that even though I’m not truly surprised, I am very disappointed.

I had hoped that by being myself I would allow folks to know the real me. Instead, I’ve given the wrong impression to at least a few people.

Not five minutes after learning the news of my playboy reputation, I received a phone call from a new friend. She and I met a few weeks ago at the salsa congress in Göteborg and learned soon after meeting that we were both interested in photography. I think it's fair to say that we also share very similar world-views. We’d chatted on the phone before and I had enjoyed our conversation. After receiving such disappointing news, I was glad to hear a friendly voice. She and I talked for more than an hour and I shared my thoughts with her:

I face a dilemma. I could try to be more like Swedish men, aloof and distant. Or I could try to be even more like the Latino guys, forward and gregarious. Neither path takes me where I want to go, and each requires unacceptable compromises.

I had no epiphany, but I did reach an important conclusion: In striking a balance between these two paths, I seek to preserve the best qualities of both sides of my personality. I will not forfeit friendliness, playfulness, trust, or respect. These qualities make me the person I am.

Also, I cannot be all things to all people. Some people will always get the wrong idea, no matter what I do. I think I know who these people are, and I guess I’ll just have to back off for a while and keep them at arm’s length. There’s no point in continuing to extend the hand of friendship to someone who sees it as a threat. Maybe a little distance will help them to see me for who I am. If not, well, I can’t please everyone.

Speaking of pleasing everyone... the photos from Göteborg will have to wait another day at least. I needed to get this off my chest tonight.

Making friends, judging character, and trusting oneself

Anyone who has met me knows I'm a friendly person. However, I haven't always had many friends. When I lived in Austin, I had only a few very close friends. And more recently, when Lotta and I split up a few years ago, I realized that most of my friends were people I knew through her. I didn't have very many friends of my own here in Sweden.

As a sort of declaration of my own independence, and of my determination to remain in Sweden, I set about making a real effort to meet new people and make new friends of my own. I took up salsa dancing. I picked up rock climbing again after many years away from the sport. I got to know some of my colleagues better. And I even met total strangers on the subway or on the internet.

Making friends is a skill. It requires a bit of finesse, especially with Swedes, who can be tough nuts to crack. In Stockholm, most people's circle of friends consists of people they met in school and people they know through work. It can be a real challenge to break into this circle even if you have a lot in common with someone. Sometimes it almost feels like you have to have gone to the same high school as a person to be considered that person's friend. I moved to Sweden in my late 20s, so I didn't have that opportunity. If I went back to university, I'm sure I'd meet a lot of nice people that way.

So yes, Swedes are picky when it comes to choosing friends. But they're also quite aloof and distant at times, so it can be a real challenge to break the ice and start a conversation with them. I have discovered that I have an advantage in this area: English is my native tongue.

When I introduce myself to a stranger here in Stockholm and start the conversation in English, I get a more positive reaction than a Swede who tried the same thing in Swedish would receive. It's partly that Swedes like to be courteous to strangers, and they enjoy every opportunity to practice speaking in English. But there's more to it than that.

Swedes need an excuse to be friendly.

Their default attitude is one of cold detachment, and they require a good reason to step out of this pattern. The excuse can be almost anything, but here are some examples I've observed:

• having a shared interest or shared situation — like most people, Swedes are more friendly to a stranger if they feel that they have something in common with him or her. But random circumstance is often the only commonality necessary. For example, sharing the same subway car with an annoying drunk gives the other passengers a sense of shared adversity, and hence a reason to empathize with one another.
• being on holiday or being in another country — Swedes outside their hometown are more relaxed. Swedes outside of Sweden are completely transformed. It's as though the cold demeanor in Sweden is kept in place by the collective assumption that everyone else expects one to behave in that way. Swedes seem to fear that acting in a different way would be looked down upon by their peers.
• being drunk — It never ceases to amaze me how uptight Swedes lighten up after a few drinks. Normally quiet and reserved, after a few pints of beer or glasses of wine, many Swedes are gregarious and cheerful.
• having a foreigner present — this is the excuse that I take advantage of. It's said "when in Rome, do as the Romans do." For Swedes, having a Roman around is good enough. If in a group of Swedes there is one foreigner, and especially if he or she is an English-speaking Westerner, the Swedes will switch to English and many of them will be friendlier than they would otherwise be. It's partly that they want to put on their best face and act as good ambassadors for Sweden; but it's more than that. They honestly feel more relaxed when a non-Swede is present.

When I realized that I had an advantage as an American and a native English-speaker, I stopped introducing myself in Swedish. Now when I meet people for the first time, I speak English. I let them know soon after meeting them that I also understand Swedish; but I often continue to speak English even if they then switch to Swedish. It's ironic that not speaking the local language has advantages. But of course a foreigner who didn't speak English wouldn't notice these advantages.

I've made lots of friends in the past few years, and I only recently began to realize how many. A while ago I joined Facebook, a social networking site originally open only to U.S. college students. Nowadays anyone can join, and in recent months many of my friends here in Sweden have joined. Facebook has turned into a way of keeping track of all the people I know. I now have almost 250 friends on Facebook, and I add more almost every day. I have started to use Facebook to make new friends too. After I meet a person once or twice, I will add him or her to my friends list so that we can keep in touch. For many of these people, we don't correspond much (or at all) directly with each other, but we can still see what the other is up to by looking at the news-feed every day. In a very real way, Facebook has come to fill a roll once played by the town square: it's a place where people can bump into one another, where they can just sit and people-watch, and where opportunities abound for networking and making new friends.

Already, I have made several new friends using Facebook. In some cases these were friends of people I already had in my friends list. In fact, I have found a few people who knew several of my friends of mine, but whom I did not know yet. I figured that if they were friends with several folks I already knew, then they might be people worth getting to know. I've also made friends there just by random chance. I have struck up email conversations with a few complete strangers on Facebook, and learned that the way a person responds to my style of friendliness depends a lot on the person.

Several folks were eager to add me as friends after one or two emails. Others added me right away after seeing that we share a common interest or learning that we have a mutual friend. Still others have preferred to keep their distance a bit, corresponding by email for a while or meeting in person a few times, and then adding me to their friends list only after we had established a rapport.

Then there was one woman who seemed nice in the beginning, but turned cold soon after. After a very brief email exchange, I added her to my friends list on the strength of our shared interests. She didn't reply directly, but instead posted the following status message to her public profile:
"...is wondering why people think it's a good idea to send friend requests to complete strangers."
Even for a Swede, that sort of reaction seems petty and fearful. But of course I don't know what sorts of experiences this person has had in the past, so I probably shouldn't be too quick to judge. When I told the story to a friend, she said "you are much more honest than most people which is confusing."

Honesty is confusing? I find honesty refreshing. However, I suppose Facebook is in this regard not too different from real life. There are a lot of dishonest people out there, and it's probably hard to tell what a person is really like without a face-to-face meeting. As Forest Gump's momma used to say, "Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're going to get." Absent first-hand experience, people tend to draw on their past experiences. For many, this means assuming the best about people; but for some, experience has taught them to fear the worst. The vast majority of my experiences with people have been positive, and this no doubt had led me to tend to give people the benefit of the doubt.

This brings me to something I've been thinking a lot about lately. With each new person I meet and each new friend I make, I gain valuable experience in filtering out the stuff on the surface and seeing the real person underneath. As a result, I am a much better judge of character now than I was just a few years ago. At first, I didn't realize how good a judge of character I was, because I too was easily distracted by irrelevant superficialities. But I've grown to understand that when I trust my instincts about a person, I'm almost always right about that person.

A case in point is a good friend I met about a year ago. She and I met quite randomly, but struck up an intense conversation almost immediately upon meeting. I knew after about a minute that she was the sort of person I could really like: friendly, intelligent, and forthright. I didn't know at the time that we would actually become such close friends; but my instincts were right on the money.

I have ignored my instincts in the past, and paid the price for it later.

Looking back over my life, I see that I have tended to second-guess and over-analyze in precisely those times when I was unhappy or troubled. When I am happy and confident, I tend to trust my own gut feelings more. Intuition is a powerful tool that can save a lot of time and energy. I'm learning to trust my instincts. What feels right usually is right, even if it's not immediately apparent why.

I asked a question of my friends recently: "What is the most important thing you have learned about people?" The answers are as varied as the people who gave them. I'll close by paraphrasing a few of them:
"Nobody's perfect."
"Don't trust anyone."
"People are often nicer than they try to appear."
"Your first impression is usually correct but you sometimes have to change your opinion about someone. Try to give everyone a chance."