There is a sudden season change in Karachi and I find it very pleasant. I was praying hard for winters after surviving heat waves in summers, the unexpected coolness settling in the city is quite cozy and welcoming. I love to spend winters indoors and with indoors I mean just lying in bed wrapped in sheets (its not that cold to call for a comforter), a nice book in hand (Romance Novel maybe to keep myself warm) and a hot cup of tea besides the bedpost. If I was living in a country where it snows in winter, I would love to have fireplace in my room and my bed stationed close to it and just above my bed a wide window to admire the falling snow, cherry trees and maybe occasional glimpses of birds and squirrels. This topic is not about winters and definitely not about the various pursuits of my wild imagination, it is about something I find somehow related to my life and worth penning down for future nostalgic moments.
I am reading Aziz Ansari's debut book "Modern Romance" and I wish he writes more as I find his writing crisp, fresh and very hilarious. He did consolidated research and even traveled far and wide to get his facts straight. The guy has energy! I have to give credit to him for that, I am amazed the book didn't get much appreciation from its readership. It was boring in the beginning but as I made progress I experienced that it is not a typical book, stating what is, in fact it is a book which is compiled after extensive footwork and huge feedback from the masses and with strokes of Author's fine humor (I loved it and laughed my lungs out!). I am still reading it and have to read over 100 pages to be done with the book in totality but I have resolved to write more often(as I lost touch) and not just stick with reading. I usually don't resort to writing reviews but this book is too thrilling to evoke a response in words. A review might be coming up in next blog post.
The quotes I loved are worth sharing, some are serious and others are hilarious but both are true concurrently.
This first quote shows how our ideals and expectations have changed about marriage, which were only financial security, child rearing, social standing and partnership a decade or two ago.
“Marriage was an economic institution in which you were given a partnership for life in terms of children and social status and succession and companionship. But now we want our partner to still give us all these things, but in addition I want you to be my best friend and my trusted confidant and my passionate lover to boot, and we live twice as long. So we come to one person, and we basically are asking them to give us what once an entire village used to provide: Give me belonging, give me identity, give me continuity, but give me transcendence and mystery and awe all in one. Give me comfort, give me edge. Give me novelty, give me familiarity. Give me predictability, give me surprise. And we think it’s a given, and toys and lingerie are going to save us with that. Ideally, though, we’re lucky, and we find our soul mate and enjoy that life-changing mother lode of happiness. But a soul mate is a very hard thing to find.”
Another with the same context.
“We want something that’s very passionate, or boiling, from the get-go. In the past, people weren’t looking for something boiling; they just needed some water. Once they found it and committed to a life together, they did their best to heat things up. Now, if things aren’t boiling, committing to marriage seems premature.”
This one is just my thing. I feel so comfortable when texting and writing emails. I love to talk on phone but in real-time you get out of words and you have to keep a lot of things into consideration before letting words out of your mouth.
“Unlike phone calls, which bind two people in real-time conversations that require at least some shared interpretation of the situation, communication by text has no predetermined temporal sequencing and lots of room for ambiguity. Did I just use the phrase “predetermined temporal sequencing”? Fuck yeah, I did.”
The next one could melt a girl like me, provided that a guy has the nerve to quote it or something similar at the right moment!
“I hope you aren’t holding an ice cream cone against your chest, ’cause your heart just warmed—and your ice cream just melted.”
The one I am going to share now is too hilarious but it is the plight of modern day relationships.
“Today we’ve become far more accepting of alternative lifestyles, and people move in and out of different situations: single with roommates, single and solo, single with partner, married, divorced, divorced and living with an iguana, remarried with iguana, then divorced with seven iguanas because your iguana obsession ruined your relationship, and, finally, single with six iguanas (Arturo was sadly run over by an ice cream truck).”
It is how they make you feel, how home-like they feel, the next quote is all about.
“When I've really been in love with someone, it's not because they looked a certain way or liked a certain TV show or a certain cuisine. It's more because when I watched a certain TV show or ate a certain cuisine with them, it was the most fun thing ever.”
The down side of texting. Ah!! I went through this!!
“We repeatedly found that one text can change the whole dynamic of a budding relationship. ... When I spoke with Sherry Turkle about this, she said that texting, unlike an in-person conversation, is not a forgiving medium for mistakes. In a face-to-face conversation, people can read each other’s body language, facial expressions, and tones of voice. If you say something wrong, you have the cues to sense it and you have a moment to recover or rephrase before it makes a lasting impact. Even on the phone you can hear a change in someone’s voice or a pause to let you know how they are interpreting what you’ve said. In text, your mistake just sits there marinating on the other person’s screen, leaving a lasting record of your ineptitude and bozoness.”
And people can be anything on text, don't make impressions fast!
“As a medium, it’s safe to say, texting facilitates flakiness and rudeness and many other personality traits that would not be expressed in a phone call or an in-person interaction.”
This quote! Thinking of that makes me high!
“If passionate love is the coke of love, companionate love is like having a glass of wine or smoking a few hits of some mild weed.”
I am that girl on the other end. Oh! Correct grammar and unique vocab usage (Googling for meaning), that's my kind of guy!
“We have two selves: a real-world self and a phone self, and the nonsense our phone selves do can make our real-world selves look like idiots. Our real-world selves and our phone selves go hand in hand. Act like a dummy with your phone self and send some thoughtless message full of spelling errors, and the real-world self will pay the price. The person on the other end sees no difference between your two selves. They never think, Oh, I’m sure he’s much more intelligent and thoughtful in person. This is just his “lazy phone persona.”
If you are honest be ready to pay the price. I have always been judged for honesty but old habits die hard. Don't expect honesty from cheap people. Honesty and kindness are two secret ingredients for winning hearts.
“Why do we all say we prefer honesty but rarely give that courtesy to others?”
This is some declaration. Carol would be too stunned to respond I am sure! You lucky girl!
“Carol, I can’t describe how you make me feel. Wait, no, I can—you make my mind release pleasure-inducing neurotransmitters and you’ve flooded my mind with dopamine. If the experience of snorting cocaine and getting so high out of my mind that I want to climb a telephone pole with my bare hands just to see if I can do it were a person, it would be you.”
People are not products, look beyond beauty and your other filters. Treat them right and respect their individuality (even you don't like them). Its what someone is from the inside which would matter in the end.
“Sheena Iyengar, a Columbia University professor who specializes in research on choice, put it to me another way: “People are not products,” she said bluntly. “But, essentially, when you say, ‘I want a guy that’s six foot tall and has blah, blah, blah characteristics,’ you’re treating a human being like one.”
Just for laughs...
“If I ever was texting frequently with someone and wanted to make an alias, I think I'd go with "Scottie Pippin." Then my friends who were peeking at my screen could be left wondering why I was texting with the former Chicago Bull star on the reg.”
“Bye.” [sad] Aron published another study, titled “Couples’ Shared Participation in Novel and Arousing Activities and Experienced Relationship Quality” (damn, dude, shorten the names of your studies!),”
There are more but I am tired and this post has become too long and less engaging, so I am closing here.
I hope you enjoyed the quotes.
