I like Grant's post unfortunatley I have nothing that I'm able to contribute to it because it was done so damn thoroughly, heres a wink for ya Granten ;) now, I do have something else on my mind, something that's been on this little mind of mine for quite some time: religion. Shit, I always end up going full circle and coming back to talk about religion. Maybe its because I just find it fascinating is all. Now, we were watching a movie in history class called 'Inherit The Wind' and this movie was about the Scopes Trial, or the moment in American history when Charles Darwin's Theory of Evolution was put up against Christianity in a battle to see who would come out the most unscathed. Now, in the movie there are points where lawyers are giving good arguments to religious people about evolution and their answer, no matter the question, will always be 'because God wills it' or 'if God wants to make it so, then it is so' these arguments are beyond infantile. If you ask me, why do we have religion? The answer to this question is simple, because it fills the void and gives us hope, it brings knowledge to us of the unknown and it shows the unknown in a favourable light, this unknown of course being death. But think about this for a minute, suppose that we were all going to go to heaven, yes, what about all the other animals? Is it feasible to say that flies or maggots go to heaven? Of course not, they dont have souls do they? I dont know. In all honesty though, I beleive that since there is no heaven and since there is no God, I will probably share the same fate at death that a beetle being crushed under the sole of my shoe would. We are all just products of evolution, we didnt ask to be born, we just were. We didnt ask to live in the way that we live, we were born into that way. In the end, we are all just steps on which the feet of the human race will stand before moving to the next step, or the next generation. The way we live on after death is by leaving something behind for those who come after us, or in the memory of those who knew us. Of course, this gives us the perfect reason why we should live life to the fullest. Indeed, I can see how there is consolation when your unsure or suffering to think that your suffering is somehow being heard by a higher being, but a wolf in the forest with his paw in a trap has about as great a chance of being heard as we do. The best way to think is to think that someday, we're all going to die, this is a gloomy thought yes? Well, counter it by giving yourself a zest for life, and know that what you do will have a significance however small it may be. However, I think that while it must be nice to be able to beleive in something like heaven, why should we try and take that away from others? Whatever you beleive, you beleive, and if it gets you through life happily then really thats all that counts, I like the quote that says something like "to know what happens in death is like saying what happens when a fire goes out."

I'm going to expand a bit on what Grant said, partly based on his own words and partly the ones that Kay said in response to my response to David's post. If you haven't read Grant's post yet, read it and then come back to this post.

Grant I think is right in his analogy with the commercials. I'm going to use a slightly different, more brutal analogy just for fun. Say you're a fisherman and you want to catch a fish. Now, you're an animal lover and you actually just want to catch this fish because it's trapped living in a polluted area of water and you want to transfer him to a cleaner part of the lake. Now in order to catch this fish, you're going to have to dangle the right kind of bait are you not? If you dangle the wrong bait, the fish is not going to give a flying fuck that you have all the greatest intentions in the world, it just isn't going to bite. But dangle the right bait, and the fish will bite and you can reel him in the put him in clean part of the lake. This wrong bait in our analogy is the genuine, modest, sensitive caring guy. He's the wrong bait because he's not flashy. He doesn't LOOK appetizing. Girls are not going to see a guy walking by and say to themselves "Wow, this one's sensitive!" But what girls WILL notice is "Wow, this guy's got his head held high, he's confident, and he's flashy." That's what I mean by the right bait. You have to get the girl to actually NOTICE you. And they tend not to pick you out from a crowd of other men (who are probably just as eager for that girl's attention if she's good looking... yes, men base their impressions on looks too), if you're modest, genuine, or caring. But they WILL pick you out if you're flashy.

Like Grant says, once you've got her to notice you and you've reeled her in, then you can show her what you're really like, whether or not you're better or worse than you portray yourself to be. I mean, if you go fishing, if you offer the right bait, the fish will bite regardless of if you're the guy who wants to move them to a clean lake or you're the guy who wants to chop them up, salt them, and cook them for dinner.

Now, women are a good deal smarter than fish and they're a good deal more capable of defending themselves (this is my disclaimer so don't go suing me for libel), but this is why girls will get OUT of relationships. And this works out for me to pass from Grant's point to Karen's reply to my reply to David's original post.

Karen made the point, "if the girl you're looking for is hoping to get a smooth-talking sunuvabitch who won't do something as GQ as hold the door open for you, then you wouldn't want her for a long-term relationship anyway." My response is this: girls (the nice, caring, sensitive, etc. ones) don't actually want a guy like that. But, this goes back to my original point that guys will go into a relationship without the expectation that the girl will change. Girls on the other hand, tend to go into relationships thinking the relationship can change the guy for the better. Guys will NOT date a girl who they don't think has the traits they're looking for because they don't expect the girl to change. They just keep looking until they find the girl who DOES have the traits they're looking for.

Girls are willing to date guys who aren't the actual kind of guys they're looking for because they hope to change the guy for the better so he will BECOME the kind of guy they're looking for. But more often than not, guys don't change. And you know what happens when a girl dates a guy expecting him to change and realizes that he won't? She breaks up with him. That I think is partly the reasoning behind the fact that girls will break up with guys for seemingly no reason. Obviously, I'm going to discount either parties cheating on each other or other such unpleasantries where the reason behind breaking up is crystal clear. But breakups that happen for seemingly obscure reasons "I wasn't feeling it anymore" or "it's not the same as it was at the beginning" OR, and this is the real crux of my point here: "I've just realized that he wasn't worth my time/I realized he was actually a jerk."

Now hold on a minute. Why is it that I've heard "I've realized that he's a jerk/he wasn't worth my time" so many times from so many different girls months AFTER she starts dating? Come on, it doesn't take that long to figure out that he's a jerk or he wasn't worth your time. Someone like Grant could tell you within 5 minutes of hanging out with the guy whether or not he's worth your time or whether or not he's a jerk. And I can attest to this too. When Rachel (friend at Queen's) was still going out with Oliver, I could tell within 5 minutes of meeting him that he was good guy. Honestly, that's all it takes. 5 minutes. And even after she broke up with him, Rachel still, to this day, admits that he was good guy and she didn't break up with him because she had some sudden epiphany that he was a jerk or wasn't worth her time.

I'm sure girls are just as capable of making this judgment as guys are. So why the long period before the breakup? I honestly think it's because girls see guys as uncut diamonds. They think guys can be cut and shaped into a 58-facet round cut diamond (can you tell I actually possess knowledge about diamonds. A 58-facet round cut diamond will give you MAXIMUM sparkle because the way light reflects against the angles of the diamond means that it will practically sparkle given that there's any light at all). So there you have it Karen, my long winded response on why even the best of girls will go out with worst of guys.

On a last note, guess what happens when a girl finally chooses a guy that she doesn't want to change? One of the greatest things in the world occurs. Honestly, the best way to ensure that any relationship goes smoothly is simply this: find out exactly what kind of person your partner is, decide that it's OK, and don't expect him or her to change. If you can honestly say that you've done that, only then, would I ever qualify anything as "love"

"Love isn't about the perfect person. It's about recognizing the imperfections; comprehending them, enduring them, and in spite of it all, still loving the one with them"