Lunch is Not a Date

I am an NIU alum, class of ‘94, as are my younger sister and brother-in-law, classes of ‘98 and ‘95, respectively. All of our thoughts go out to the school, students, those involved, and their families. I can’t even imagine or really comment on yesterday’s tragedy. Sometimes there just aren’t any words; only feelings–hostility, anger, sorrow, confusion, disbelief and others. I spent over two hours last night playing hard-core volleyball, just playing as hard as I could, men’s two’s. It didn’t solve anything but it did keep me from facing a situation I wasn’t ready to face. Instead of dealing with the shooting head-on all at once, I was able to slowly let it sink in during the matches. In this fashion, I became able to think about the incident and focus on it without numbness and bewilderment that would just be overpowering and crushing. Sports and physical activity have become a way for me to cope. If you don’t have any, yet, find your own ways to cope with the hardships of life; they will make you better balanced, healthier, and better prepared for whatever life throws at you.

I am always harping about how college is perhaps the best time in your life for dating. You are exposed to a variety of people, opinions, shapes, sizes, colors, and so forth. Variety is the spice of life and college provides a lot of it. It’s troubling that the possibility of a shooting hangs over every school like a menacing, dark cloud. It robs college students of focusing on becoming adults and learning about themselves, which is the purpose of college.

Why does it keep happening? We can only speculate. I hope that yesterday’s tragedy didn’t have anything to do with Valentine’s Day and shudder at the thought. These incidents do make me think about an annoying pattern in our culture, though. It’s one that I see a lot in dating and in other dating materials, whether they be blogs, pick-up manuals, or chick lit. books. It’s the notion that your unhappiness is the fault of other people. I call it the “blame game” and it’s one of the key reasons I wrote God.

Clearly, the shooters in all these incidents have one thing in common: they are unhappy. That’s it. In every other area they may or may not share traits. Some are mentally ill. Some aren’t. Some were picked on or suffered a recent breakup. Others didn’t. They are all, though, unhappy. At some point they blame someone else for their unhappiness. It is someone else’s fault. It is a view that is perpetuated in our society by the media, the government, businesses, self-help authors, PhD’s, and ourselves.

When I was a teenager, a burglar was in the news because while robbing a house, he fell down the basement steps and broke his leg because there was a step missing. He sued the homeowners and won. That’s right; it wasn’t his fault he got injured, it was the fault of the family he was robbing. They didn’t warn him about the step missing or have it fixed. Of course, they didn’t even know he was there, but that’s beside the point. You most prepare your home properly and maintain it at all times, so that it is hospitable for burglars, rapists, serial killers, and other guests.

My first secondhand experience with a campus shooting occurred while I was in college. My friend Paul attended the University of Iowa and I panicked when I heard that a graduate student there had killed several people. Thankfully, Paul was unscathed (not much happens when you ditch all your classes and sit around watching TV, so Paul was pretty safe in college). Gang Lu killed five people before killing himself. He was upset because his doctoral dissertation did not win a prestigious academic award. Only one award was presented annually and he had applied for it a few times. He continuously failed to receive the award. He planned the murders and his suicide. Who did he kill? His advisor, the most recent recipient of the accolade he wanted, the chairman of his college, and two others. He felt that he should have won and it was his advisor’s fault, the head of his college’s fault, and the winner’s fault that he did not win.

Everything is everyone else’s fault these days. I see this a lot. Readers review pick-up manuals with words like “Taught me an absolute loathing for women,” or “Women are such bitches, it’s good to see this guy come out on top.” Chick lit reviews often say things like “The author proves what we all already know; men are pigs and jerks.” If you’re fat, it’s because of restaurants and fast food venues. If you spill hot coffee in your lap, it’s McDonald’s fault. If you get drunk and flash your breasts for Girls Gone Wild, it’s the owner of the company’s fault. Everything is someone else’s fault.

Why is this “blame game” notion pushed? It’s marketable. People buy into it because it’s easier to blame others than it is to admit you aren’t the best or it just wasn’t in the cards or that guy or gal just doesn’t like you. People want excuses not solutions.

I used to blame women for my lack of success with them. I used to blame other people when I had a problem in life in general. If I didn’t get a gig at a comedy club, it was someone else’s fault.

One day I realized something: The only person responsible for my happiness is me. The same is true for you. You are the only person responsible for your happiness. If you’re unhappy, change what’s making you unhappy. Dating the wrong people? Chasing the wrong women? Women won’t talk to you? Change who you date, who you chase, and work on your conversation skills. One of the most satisfying things I see in reviews of God is “the author actually likes women and doesn’t preach manipulation, like other books in the genre.” Yup. I did much better when I dropped being crafty and misleading for simply observing and anticipating; I became insightful instead of manipulative or hopeless.

This week in a hockey match, my team was up by four goals with 8 minutes left. We were clearly the better but smaller team. Some of the other team’s players suddenly played like thugs. I was held on two occassions and shoved out of the way in another for three goals. (It’s a no-contact league, no-check league.) They scored 6 goals in the final minutes to our 1 to win the game. They knocked in a few goals after our goalie had possession. I was pissed and disagreed with the ref’s lack of penalty calling. But I don’t blame him or the other team for the loss. He called the game as he saw fit, the other team played to win. It’s my fault. I should have changed strategies at that point by playing more physical and risking a penalty myself. I should have switched the line-ups to counter their physical assault (I’m the captain). 

If you’re not happy, take steps to make yourself happy. Remember, tomorrow is today’s backup plan. If things don’t go the way you want today, tomorrow is the backup. We have tons of backup days. Work hard today to achieve your goal but remember if you don’t reach it, plenty of other chances are coming. It is very likely that Gang Lu might have won something later in life, like a Nobel. But he gave up because he blamed other people, so we’ll never know and he sealed his fate as–in his mind–a failure.

If you know someone unhappy in their lives, whether it be in dating, their job, or whatever, help them to see they can and must make changes. If you are the unhappy person, make changes. Please don’t blame other people. If you get picked on or rejected, ask yourself why? If it bothers you, change it. It sucks that people pick on people but it’s a reality of life. Sometimes it’s merited (like if you refuse to bathe and keep subjecting the public to your stench), other times it isn’t (like if you have a big nose). Before you scream, “How can you change a big nose? Surgery?” remember that I have a big nose. I used to get teased about it. A few guys called me “Ichabod Crane.” I developed wit and buried them with my own insults. I made friends with other people. Soon, anyone who picked on me got picked on by other people or embarrassed by my witty comebacks. I haven’t been teased about my nose for 19 years. You see? You can make changes. That’s a big part of what life is all about, making changes. It’s also a big part of what love is about; putting someone else’s happiness in front of your own, something you have to do for kids, who can’t be responsible for their own happiness a lot of the time, due to a lack of control in their lives.

Make changes when you need to and be happy.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 15th, 2008 at 4:06 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.