XKCD #55

In high school, I managed to score a date with the lovely Jess Gore.

She was far above me on the adolescent social ladder. I was the excessively introspective, semi-nerdy guy with hair that resembled hedgehog spikes (I wasn’t trying to be rebellious; I genuinely thought it looked good); She was the elegant (to the extent that you can be elegant as a teenager anyway), quietly rebellious girl without physical flaw (except for her ears which were perpetually red, but I found that oddly charming.)

Being that I had very little “game” (that’s being kind) back in high school, the entire matter was simply a consequence of a favorable situation. I was placed into a project group where she was one of the members. While working on the project, I got bored (as I am prone to do given a forced faux-intellectual venture) and suggested that we (the group) go grab food. Our other group partner was of the anal-retentive variety and opted to stay in the library to find other sources. (She deemed the suggested number of sources inadequate for our advanced 11th grade abilities.) Jess, who was apparently bored as well, chose to leave with me.

Back then, I never thought about social situations; As I said, I was excessively introspective. So when she had me bring her home first so that she could change out of her group study attire and emerged wearing something that I would describe as datish (yes — I did just say datish), I was confused.

As a consequence of my confusion, I grew progressively awkward as we moved through what I began to view as a date. (In retrospect, it definitely was a date. Or at least, I’d prefer to pretend it was.) This opportunity was unprecedented in my testosterone-dominated mind and I did not want to risk making a mistake. To prevent such a loss, I added (too many) judgemental filters to my behavior and my mind was not able to effectively cope with the stress. (It still is incapable of doing this but, thankfully, I have very few behavioral filters anymore.)

Censoring your actions and behavior makes you look filled with self-doubt. Confidence is ridiculously sexy; Self-doubt is not. She clearly could see that I was not acting like myself. The social instincts of women are superior to men; We are insects by comparison. She grew visibly less interested. Thus, I missed what would have been a very large opportunity at the time.

What is the point of this story? My mind has irrational artifacts. To this day, I am incredibly awkward around Jess, even though she does not in any way intimidate me. (I am for the most part socially arrogant; Almost no one intimidates me anymore.) This pattern also holds — albeit to a lesser degree — for other girls that I idolized in high school. It seems that my perceptions are layered; The old socially jittery version of myself still exists and somehow has pre-emptive rights to my actions. I can recognize when I am acting this way but, ironically, it requires effort to be myself!

If this is true, than the layers bellow high school horny also play a role in my decisions. This is probably a convoluted way to think about fear and greed, but it helps me. I still cannot hold a five-minute conversation with Jess Gore because of some old irrational mental fragments. Therefore, I try to recognize that the attractiveness of a trade may be due a lot more to irrational (in the context of trading) mental processes than the brilliance (har har) of my analysis.

…I suppose I am still a bit excessively introspective.