Denver Notes:
- This morning we witnessed the triumphant exodus of our medical student friends, Jake, General Molly, and Cam from their study caves. More haggard than before
- 4 rookies – Gabriel, Ryan, Holly, and Walter tried to figure out exactly what the fuck it is they’d gotten themselves into this morning.
- Matthew offered to buy Morgan crab legs…for breakfast. WTF is this, NP-Baltimore? Unless they eat crab with green chili and inside a burrito, I’m not having it.
- 1080. That’s the number of reps you got through if you finished the workout from top to bottom. In dollars, since it’s tax season, this is also exactly $1080 more than it will cost you for a 12 month membership to NP. Stick that in your adjusted gross income and smoke it!
Listen, I’m a married man. I (thankfully) don’t have a need for dating websites or apps anymore. Honestly, I couldn’t hack it at this point. Listening to a few of you talk about your dating adventures that began via app or website is enough to induce mild-moderate chest pain. It makes me anxious.
This whole web-based dating phenomenon is worthy of some light unpacking. Full disclosure – I met my lovely wife on Match.com . It took some interesting dates before I got to her, but eventually we found each other and here we are, creeping up on our 1st anniversary . The interesting thing about online dating is that it’s such a paradigm shift from our past traditions. Boy meets girl, girl and boy like each other, boy tries desperately to avoid being shot by girl’s father while simultaneously gaining mother’s approval, etc. Now, there seems to be more risk involved in putting yourself out there. Years ago – I’m talking our grandparents and possibly parents generations – a couple often knew each other for awhile, sometimes years, before they even began dating. Now, it’s as simple as a swipe in one direction and off you go.
As I gracefully slide into my “get off my lawn” years, I’m beginning to take issue with the swipe (though admittedly, I only used Match). What online dating seems to do is produce filters – many of them – to screen out people we’d rather not spend time with for one reason or another. Don’t get me wrong, we all have our tastes. Where I get hung up is that the algorithms of online dating enable our own biases of exclusivity and I worry about how that extends into our day-to-day interactions, or avoidance of interactions. We’ve seen social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram do the same thing – pushing content in front of our faces that THEY think we’d like to see based on our clicks and stated likes/dislikes – from sports, to politics, to friends’ posts, and beyond.
It makes sense, in a way – I don’t want to see shit that I just don’t want to see. Most of us don’t have the time or patience to comb through every social media post, every news article, every dating profile to avail ourselves of the full color of our world. How does that limit our personal scope? How does that affect our biases for or against certain things? Ultimately, how does that selective limitation of our own scope affect our interactions and communication with others?
What I’m asking of you is this – in the spirit of the inclusivity that we work so hard to achieve at November Project, start swiping right, on everything you can. Start walking with your head up and ear buds in your pocket. Smile and say hi to a stranger as you pass each other on your ways to work. Engage with someone you wouldn’t normally engage with – at NP, at work, on the trails, on the street, in line getting coffee, at church, at a shelter. It doesn’t mean you’re asking for a date – fuck that fucking aloof fucking pretentious fucking bullshit, I’m so fucking exhausted with the word “creepy” being used when a stranger wants to strike up a conversation, or smiles, or says hello – it means you’re more interested in the world around you than you are in yourself. Let’s check our egos and biases at the door and truly be active in becoming the open-minded individuals we often claim we are. To be authentically open-minded, you have to be ready and willing to engage in anything at any time, including that person at NP you just don’t seem to vibe with, or the homeless guy on the corner, or the atheist/devout Catholic sitting next to you.
CHALLENGE: Once a day for a week, swipe right on something you normally wouldn’t. Maybe it’s onions on your salad, maybe it’s the guy in the cubicle next to you. Whatever it is, swipe right and let it add some color to your world.
Don’t lose that vibe. Don’t fake that funk.
Major Woody
Friday: Little Man Hill (Hirshorn Park, 3000 Tejon St.)
April 27th: Yoga with Samy at Cherry Creek Lulu, 6a
May 13th: Field trip to Revo Physiotherapy in Boulder
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