Getting Out of Getting Hit On

"How come no one has harassed me yet?"

- from the Sexual Harassment Complaints Box

For some, getting hit on is an irritation; for others, it is a longed-for luxury. Fact: they're both jealous of each others' ability/inability to get hit on.

For the uninitiated, 'hitting on' someone is a display of attention, subtle or overt, for purposes ranging from self-indulgence in hopes of assauging a fragmentary relationship with an absentee parent to genuine interest in lifelong loving commitment.

For the most part, males are the precipitators of this social intercourse, while females are the recipients. Much has been said about how the male species ought to comport themselves in such a situation to ensure the continuation of their genetic lineage, but precious little has been said about how females can refuse advances effectively to ensure their genetic lineage is not tainted with undesireable traits.

To begin our exploration of this uncharted realm, we must first investigate how the male approaches his quarry before we can discuss how he can be stopped at each stage of his endeavour.

Stage 1: Sight Lines
Males primarily rely on their sight to identify prospective females. The best way to get out of being hit on is to not be hit on at all. Therefore, the main goal is to appear undesirable even if seen. Females can obfuscate their visibility by a variety of methods:

Physical Interference: use the environment to your advantage, ex. hiding behind obstacles, to prevent being seen at all.

Numerical Interference: there is safety in numbers. stay in groups to overwhelm him with too many choices.

Relative Interference: hide yourself in the shadow of someone who can draw off attention, in the same way that Jupiter's immense gravity field wards off asteroid and comets from striking the Earth or the Sun's brilliance washes out the light of the stars.

Mimicry Interference: the perfectly edible Viceroy Butterfly resembles the poisonous Monarch Butterfly and thus hides in plain sight by virtue of being undesirable. Females can adopt this defensive mechanism by exhibiting undesirable traits, ex. public excavation of dried mucus from the nasal cavity.

A difficulty occurs when a female is both vying for attention from a specific person and trying to avoid attention from everyone else. In such a case, an awareness of your surroundings and 'audience' will attract the right male and ward off the rest.

Stage 2: The Approach
Once a female is singled out, the male will try to make his presence known through acts of manliness (headbutting, chest thumping, loud talking) and moving into the female's proximity. Advances are best avoided as early as possible with minimum communication before momentum is built up. Therefore, to avoid being hit on, one must recognize the signs of approach and raise warning of disinterest in advance. Here are a few effective, non-verbal warning signs:

Evasive Maneuvers: most males do not like to be obvious about their intent (at least to third parties), so forcing him to take a meandering, circuitous route to reach your side will be enough to throw him off his game (if he is weak).

Focus Group: take advantage of the presence of your group of friends. The ideal Approach a male desires is one-on-one interaction. Maintain your focus on the group conversation, as any eye contact with the approaching male will only serve to bolster his confidence. Keep him out in the open surrounded by your peers who can cast judgmental glances. Any thoughts of funny business will quickly turn into thoughts of self-defense.

Blunt Force Trauma: if he is within earshot, turn your conversation towards the blunt, hard truth about being a woman. Loud, heated discussions on menstruation, birth canal tearing, mammary gland infections etc. will turn anyone who is not absolutely serious about loving you around.

Stage 3: Conversation
The primary desired result of hitting on a female is for the male to enter her sphere of attention. At this stage, any attention is considered good attention by the male. When a conversation is initiated, the female must reply (because females are incapable of being that rude). Provided the above steps were taken to try to prevent a conversation, the only males that make it this far are a) genuinely interested, b) unconventional and sneaky enough to avoid detection, c) using the power of technology to circumvent stages 1 and 2 (instant messaging, Facebook, email, blog posts with thinly-veiled metaphors and references). Situation a) is probably the most difficult to deal with because it hurts to hurt someone who is genuinely investing time and effort into getting to know you. This does not mean you should give him a chance if you've already decided that he is not a potential. Euthanize his hopes in no uncertain terms, or else he'll come back for seconds due to selective hearing. The following are some examples of effective hope euthanization methods:

"Sorry, I'm not interested in starting a relationship with you."

"My boyfriend/fiancee/husband was thinking of getting that [gadget] too!"

"This ring is really straining my shoulder. I'm not used to the weight."

If, however, the male's courage and persistence is found to be admirable, and your feelings about him range from ambivalent to we-could-make-beautiful-babies, you're looking at a free lunch at the least.

Disclaimer:
The preceding were merely suggestions and should not be taken as Gospel, or even scientific truth. In the event that the male in question is clearly a creep, get the hell out of there.

Why We Write

on wednesday, i was linked an awesome blog; one particular post caught my eye.
for the first time since Opera 9.5 came out, i was happy that the internet was invented and that it has evolved towards user-generated content, rather than commercial fluff. there are some really excellent writers out there who wouldn't have had even the remotest chance of making it into my brain if it weren't for the internet.

of course, the internet is not all good and gravy. the gold is hidden in the dross and muck and refuse and detritus; it takes a good deal of work and luck to find a nugget worth holding on to. it's the same with life and love and work and everything else. there will be good times and bad times; sweet moments that you wish could last forever and painful moments that you wish would go away; days when the productivity is peaking and days when you just want to switch all the keys on the keyboard with someone else's.

what i really like about this example is that he writes the way i want to be writing 10 years from now. it's like looking into the future. i've found a few similar writers who have travelled down the same path i'm on now. they write down their memories, experiences and insights for their own reasons (like i'm doing now); somewhere down the road, it helps someone else understand his or her own world in a different perspective.

while most of my writings have been frivolous, whimsical or downright awkward, i do hope some of them turn out to be someone's gold one day.

the way things change

change is in the air. i can feel it.

the one big ability our mortality affords us is the ability and motivation to change*. changes come in all stripes: good, bad, positive, negative, reinforcing, deconstructing; what those stripes are depend on your interpretation. are zebras white equines with black stripes, or black equines with white swaths of hair**? someone go shave a zebra please.

apart from the subjective changes, there are also objective changes: categories of change that have no element of interpretation.

i have a pair of stereo headphones that came with a little radio i got back in the late 90s. i thought they were cool, because of the way they wrapped around my head and bent to fit into my ears. i've used them consistently as computer headphones for the past 2 years. a few weeks ago, i noticed that the sound from the left side was noticably missing. after doing a quick diagnosis (plug in different speakers/headphones while running the same video), i've concluded that this pair of headphones has changed, i.e. failed, just through the daily grind of being worn and translating electronic pulses into timpanic vibrations. this kind of change is what i would call an Environmental Change, like erosion or tectonic motion; it just happens.

Environmental Changes can be positive or negative; by positive, i mean additive, like how the Mississipi River deposits silt at the Gulf of Mexico to form a delta, and by negative, i mean subtractive, like winds of the Arctic carve away at boulders.

the other objective change is the Deliberate Change, where an agent or sentient force exacts a premeditated alteration to something that is not operating in the desired way. in psychological terms, this would probably be Operant Conditioning. when i first started to use my laptop, it would not connect to wireless networks automatically, requiring mouse movement to click on the network manager icon and selection of the desired network. you know how much i hate unnecessary mouse movement***. so in an effort to become more efficient, i exacted a change that allowed me to connect to networks automatically, but sacrificed a hardware button to turn off my wireless card. this resulted in further changes, whereby the wireless card was disabled through keyboard shortcut. the rest of the story is documented in its entirety in a previous post.

by nature, or by intervention, i am being positioned for something promising and interesting. old paradigms crumble in place of different, and hopefully better ones.

* yes, BSG viewers, i totally swiped that from Natalie-Six.
** polar bears have black skin and clear fur.
*** i know some people that still click the Enter button with their mice after entering something into a form field.

"what do you do at work?"

i make stuff like this:

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how to seduce a hoimin

if you've ever thought to yourself, "hoimin's so dense; how can i ever get him to notice me?" this post is here to help.

Primary Seduction Vectors

do you know the 5 Love Languages? well, now you do. if you're looking to seduce me, you have to speak to me in the langauges of love that i understand. the following are the angles of attack that are most effective against me. we're talking about a 74% success rate of getting me smitten if half of these methods are used -- even accidentally.

Proximity - if you're in my field of vision, or simply sitting near me consistently, i will notice you. the key is being consistent for a few times, and then playing hard-to-get, so that i'll wonder, "hey, i wonder why she doesn't sit nearby anymore." i am highly susceptible to psychological manipulation. this method appeals to my first love language: quality time.

Conversation - let's me get to know you. usually, the more i get to know someone, the easier it is for me to notice how awesome she is. i can't converse very well, so if you're looking to use conversation as a seduction vector, you'll have to do most of the talking. conversation will also allow you to show off how smart, clever and funny you can be. wordplay is an underrated point of attraction. this method appeals to my first love language.

Let Me Get That For You - you can make me feel really pleased with myself by walking around with something awkward-heavy and letting me carry it for you when i ask. same goes for door-opening, shoelace-tying and getting hair out of your eyes when you're up to your elbows in random muck. this method appeals to my second love language: acts of service.

Punching/Slapping/Shin-Kicking/Tripping - just like grade school. i'm sure you remember how. this appeals to my third love language: physical touch.

Secondary Seduction Vectors

the Observer Effect - start some rumours. if everyone starts talking about us even when i've never spoken to you before, it will cause me to start thinking about you.

Special Powers - i'm a big sucker for ladies that have special powers and know how to use them. examples of special powers include: crossword puzzle solving, singing, catching flying objects, making babies do funny things, laughing, eating and communicating with animals.