Gay Marriage Legalized

Today was the first day in California where gay couples could legally wed. Among the first of them was Former Star Treker George Takei, who will marry his partner of 20+ years.

I for one am glad this finally happened, it's been a long time coming. I've said for a long time, I'm not sure what the big deal about gay marriage is. If people want to get married, we should let them, I don't see any reason why government should make this distinction.

But I do wonder about one thing. I wonder how many gay relationships will actually be hurt by this. Here is the thing. I know for me, deciding to get married is a big deal. It has been a sticking point in my relationship as well as many others. For a lot of people, it is a very difficult conversation to have if you should get married at all.

For most gay couples, it hasn't been an issue, because it technically couldn't happen anyway. Even if they were living as if married, there is nothing quite like making it official and I could see it being the case that a lot of couples, now faced with the choice, find it difficult one to make.

What are you thoughts? Do you think this might have a negative effect of a few relationships?

Online Dating

I have now dated my girlfriend for a little over 5 months and I thought it was time to put down my thoughts on online dating, and specifically the service I used, eharmony.

First let me say that I'm very happy in my relationship. The girl I'm dating is wonderful and we are very compatible. Other than the fact that she is a USC Trojan she is great, but hey, not everyone can be perfect. I'm actually shocked with how well we get along and how much are interest and beliefs match.

I think most can understand that I was a little hesitant to try the whole online dating thing. Even in this day and age I felt it smacked of a little bit of desperation. But I figured that I was a pretty normal person and there must be other normal people contemplating such a move. I just had problems meeting any new people as doing the whole bar thing isn't for me (even though I have a knack for being able to just talk to complete strangers). In the end I reconciled it by just chalking it up to a change in our society that technology has enabled. After all, why is it any better to meet someone in a complete stranger in a bar than to meet a complete stranger through the internet?

So I took the plunge and signed up. The process is long but I suppose better than say Match.com which just feels like a meat market.

So what is the final verdict? I can't recommend it. What? How can that be if I met someone wonderful online? Well I think I was one of the lucky ones. Of all the people I was "matched" with this is the only one that worked out. I talked to a few people and went on a few dates but didn't really feel like I was all that compatible with any of them except for my current girlfriend. Most of my dates' experiences were the same. They weren't really meeting a lot of compatible people. I think for a few of them it made them feel even worse as if they couldn't make it work with someone online, how hopeless must they be?

Also, just like in the real world, you get a lot of fake people. People who say they are looking for one thing, but really aren't. My girlfriend is guilty of this. She put she was open to meeting anyone from anywhere but rejected anyone she met who lived to far away. You have an option to specify how far away someone can live that you would consider dating, so why even put "anywhere in the world" if you really only mean "within 100 miles"? I also found that a lot of women who think they are open minded aren't. Most women don't think they are racist but more than a few women did not want to date me simply because I was Asian.

I also don't like how Eharmony will match you with people who can't respond back to you. I had my account closed for months but still received "request for communication". These request just remain unanswered and you have no idea what is going on on the other end. They do this to maximize the number of matches they provide to people but don't let communication happen unless both sides are paying members. This can be somewhat frustrating.

But I guess it only takes one, and thus far it is working out for me. Dating is a process, and just like anything else, you probably have to have a few failures before you finally have success. So if you set your expectations low, and treat online dating as just one part of your dating strategy, it might work out for you.

Who do Asian Men Date?

My girlfriend (who is Asian) and I have taken up a new pastime. Every time we go out we try and notice inter-racial couples. We have noticed a very disturbing fact. There are very few inter-racial couples involving Asian men.

Inevitably when we see an Asian man as part of a couple he is with an Asian woman. We have seen plenty of other mixtures, White Male-Asian Female and Black Male-White Female being some of the more popular combinations. But seriously, of the hundreds of mixed couples we have spotted thus far, maybe only 1 or 2 have involved an Asian Male and something other than an Asian Female.

Now I have dated other races before but of the people I would call my girlfriend, all of them have been Asian (all different types of Asian). This is not some bias on my part (actually my girlfriend tells me I have a thing for white women) but just how the chips have fallen. My girlfriend has never dated an Asian guy until me. Actually, this is the case for most of my ex-girlfriends; I'm the only Asian guy they have dated.

My girlfriend and I have discussed this in length and believe it’s a societal thing. The stereotypes for an Asian male do not bode well for his success in the dating arena. But it begs the question, if Asian men are only dating Asian women, and Asian women are dating a lot of White men (and Black men for that matter) as our un-scientific sample suggest; whom are all these Asian men dating? Are Asian men resigned to a life of celibacy and being single?

Dating Math

I've been reading a lot of books on interview and interview questions to get ready for the person I'm about to hire. One of the techniques is to ask questions that don't really have answers but are meant to see how the person thinks. Questions like, "How many piano tuners are in the world", or "How many cars are in Los Angeles?" So I decided to do one myself. What are the chances that you will meet the perfect person for you? Here is my thought process.

1. There are approximate 300,000,000 people in the U.S. I'm limiting myself to the U.S. because I don't really travel outside the U.S. that often.
2. 1/2 those are women. I don't plan on going the other way anytime soon
3. I find myself physically attracted to about 10% of the population.
4. I think that 1 out of 4 women are really nice and caring.
5. I need a girl who is inteligent. Probably in the top 5% of the population.
6. I need a girl who is athletic or at least keeps in good shape. This probably applies to 1 out of 4 women
7. She has to love my cat. That applies to 100% of all people. (Okay fine. Maybe only 50% since some people refuse to be cat people)
8. She has to be able to watch sports with me and not complain. That's only about 5% of the female population.
9. She has to be trustworthy. I would say that only applies to 1 out of 4 women. (Maybe worse but I'm being generous. Have you seen Cheaters and Jerry Springer?)
10. She has to be happy with herself and emotionally stable. With all these other things going for her she probably is but lets just say that I think only about 15% of women fall in this category.
11. She has be between the ages of 18 ( I know this is young but if she was all of the above who could say no?) and 35 (This is kind of old but the same logic applies). If the average age is 70 than this would apply to approximately 25% of the population.
12. She has to have not been married before and have no kids. Since I already eliminated certain age groups above lets just say that this number stands at 50% for women of ALL ages so that we can make each criteria mutually exclusive.
13. I'm going to throw in a "TILT" factor of 25% for things I've missed like, "Not a muderer, not from outer space, etc" and because I tend to be picky.


Now do the math. Let's assume that all of the above are mutually exclusive properties. This will simplify the math. This leaves me with exactly 1.37 people in the US that are perfect for me. Since I can't date a .37 of a person that leaves just 1 PERSON! What makes this problem much worse is that I will never meet all 300,000,000 People in the U.S. If I only meet lets say 25,000 of those people then my number drops to 0.0001. What's worse is that she has to

A. Like me too
B. Be single at the time

Lets just say that A is a 5% likelihood (probably worse but who knows) and B is only 1% (If she is so great chances are she's attached). I have pretty much a 0% chance of finding the right girl. This is very disturbing to me.