Every Couple needs a Secret Language

Every couple, gay or straight, whether married or in a LTR, needs their own secret language. I’m not talking Lovey-Dovey baby talk but some simple words, phrases and even gestures that seem straightforward to circumstantial eavesdroppers, but have a clandestine meaning to you and your partner.  Think of these as your safe words for non-sexual situations.

You can just feel the passion burning between these two!    (Photo Courtesy of Ryan Lintelman)

One common event every couple goes through is a situation where one of you wants to leave a scene and the other may not or may not be aware. Nightingale and I don’t have this yet because we can still use the ole “gotta go, kids are about to have a meltdown,” but I have come up with what I call the Traffic Light Protocol.

• Green Light
• Yellow Light
• Red Light

Let’s say you are at a party and you are done doing the smiling and making small talk and just want to go home, but it’s not urgent. A Green Light phrase might be “honey, did we remember to take the laundry out of the washer? I don’t want mold to set in on my work clothes.”

In the Green Light phase, you’re telling your mate that they have about 20-30 minutes to make the rounds, talk to anybody they really want to speak with and then get out of there. You are going to turn into a pumpkin soon.

Now let’s imagine a different scenario. Same party but perhaps its even duller and you just are not feeling it. A Yellow Light phrase might be “honey, I’m pretty sure we didn’t take the laundry out of the washer and I don’t want mold to set in on my work clothes.”

This is a way to say okay wrap up with ever smooching and dealing you’re doing, but don’t engage anyone new and let’s get out of here in 15 minutes or less. You are turning into a pumpkin right now.

Now let’s imagine the same party but perhaps something transpires that irks you or someone is there that annoys you, or you’ve already given the Green or Yellow alert. A Red Light phrase might be “honey, our neighbor just texted that our laundry room is flooded.”

This is the 2-minute warning. You are beyond your limit and are going to turn a Rage Beast in 30 seconds or less. Wrap it up. No long good-byes.

One last thing: You must use these sparingly and judiciously. Also, you definitely should not use phrases that will blatantly insult anyone’s intelligence.

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Mitch Tribisky, your table is waiting

(Chris Walker / Chicago Tribune)

Hello Mitch, or do you prefer Mitchell?  Either way, welcome to Chicago where the backup quarterback is the favorite, until he isn’t.  I know you got off to a rough start with the neurotic Bears fan base.  We want a starter under center that can be the franchise quarterback, but we don’t really want to pay the price overpay for one.  Kinda like wanting something from Santa without actually even pretending to be good for most of the year.

Don’t worry, we fans have the attention span of a concussed kitten and have already gone through the The Five stages of being a Bears Fan: Anger, Frustration, more anger, more frustration, WTF and rationalization.

Here’s the thing:  Even if the Bears drafted the next Tom Brady they were not going to go to the Superbowl this season.  Even if the Bears could get in a Delorean, kidnap and sign THE Tom Brady, they would not go to the Superbowl this season.  Now if they got Bill Belichick that’s a different story because his contract with the devil stipulates a SB appears every 2.5 years on average.

So I’m okay with the decision to trade up and get a young QB that they can develop.  Note: I forgot to officially state it anywhere to prove it, but I felt the Bears would draft you if you were available because your name is as close to Polish sounding as you can get without grabbing someone from University of Warsaw and that could help him in a town like Chicago.  Unless you become Tri-fumble-sky.

Now here’s the advice you didn’t ask for.  Use the time you have to research some of the less popular Bears Quarterbacks (see the last two three decades).  See also Quarterback Controversy.  Pace and Fox say that Mike Glennon is the starter, and he is, until he isn’t.  See 2nd quarter of the 3rd game of the season.

1. Don’t be a training camp holdout over money
2. Learn to embrace the Media
3. don’t commit any turnovers.  EVER.

Chicago is and will always be a football town and if you get us to a Superbowl you will be treated like royalty around these parts.  If you don’t, you will end up selling insurance in Ohio.  See former Bears first rounders.

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The Delorean Paradox

I’m going to define a new thing — or maybe take credit for something someone else has already thought of — called the Delorean Paradox.  The Delorean Paradox is when someone says something that can only be proven with a time machine.

Anywhere in a Delorean #80sDreamVacation pic.twitter.com/zMRrMJwHoi

— Gretel Armstrong (@SugarGretel) April 30, 2017

//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

Example1: A realtor says “oh you should have listed with me, I would have got you a higher price.”

Example2: If Bernie Sanders ran against Trump, he would be President right now.

The NFL draft is a bedrock of examples.

Example3:They should have pick this person instead because he went on to be successful in Other Teams offense, or

Example4:so-and-so would still have been available in a later pick.

If it isn’t obvious, not only are most of the things unprovable but they are usually bullshit.  So the next time you are at a dinner party and someone says something that can only be proven with the ability to travel back in time and change events, say to them: “Hey that’s the Delorean Paradox!”

And if you see something like that in the comments section, be sure to drop the link to this post there when you call them out on their B.S.

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When History repeats itself, it’s an opportunity to take the other path

Like most people, I periodically clean out the friends list on the ole Book of Faces, removing people who don’t interact with me,  log in very often or not make one of the Bucket Criteria.  In general I’m unfriending people that don’t fit one of the criteria for being a friend/connection on FB.  I discovered doing that breaks the FB algorithms and I see more of my active friends stuff.

I guess I was caught by surprise that anyone would reach out to me to confirm if I unfriended them.    Sidenote: is it unfriend or defriend?  hypen or no?  Discuss in the comments.

It probably seemed arbitrary to TGC that I un-friended them.  So why would I unfriend TGC but keep TG or FG who I know from the same circle?  Well FG and I have a common thing now as we are both parents of twin toddlers.  That is a connection.  Plus he was one of the few attorneys at BigName Law Firm 1.0,  that treated me like a human being.  TG was always a decent person to me and even came to one of my house parties back in the day.

TGC on the other hand didn’t always treat me like an equal.  In 2000 or 2001 or so, while working for the No-Name Software Company, I was a training class around the corner from where we use to work.  I emailed to see if TGC was free for lunch and if it was no trouble to meet.  TGC accepted my invitation but asked if SM could join because SM only worked part time at that point and would also be in the office that day.

Being the naive inclusive person I was, I said sure.  But that was a mistake becuase after 5 minutes of catching up on my latest and greatest life unlocking achievements, TGC and SM started talking about things that didn’t’ include me and made no effort to bring me into their conversations.  And the thing is, it’s not like TGC and SM didn’t hang out already.  They probably could have had this same conversation over drinks that evening or the next day that SM was working downtown or  they could have been less rude and brought me into the conversation somehow.  It was truly a case of why the fuck did we bother?

After that I never emailed TGC again and I only connected on FB because that’s what everyone was doing back in 2008.

After I explained to TGC my motivation for culling my friends list, they wrote back “That’s too bad. I enjoyed seeing pics of your kids and cute family. Take care.”

Talk about not getting it.  Let me translate:  “That’s too bad.  I enjoyed putting no effort into maintaining our relationship or acknowledging any of your Life Event Unlocking Moments, but when the fancy struck me I enjoyed being able to jump on FB and see your kids.”

News Flash: I already that with my Friends That Really Matter.  In other words, you’re not offering me anything I already don’t have but are expecting something from me.  Seriously?  Even a dog expects to be fed.  You don’t have to wish me happy birthday or High Five me for unlocking every Life Achievement, but over the course of a year, I’d expect some acknowledgement that I exist and have value.

About that History Repeating Itself Thing:

A similar thing happened recently at an event that reunited me with many from the No-Name Software Company.  Someone else I thought was a friend decided that it was better to spend the company dime on catching up with a friend they just spent the last weekend with and will likely spend some time with in the near future instead of sucking it up and talking to me for 30 minutes during the dinner portion of the event — even after promising that we would do so and I burned one of my rare hall passes to be out instead of home putting my kids to bed.  Yes technically it was my decision to stay out but it was influence by a promise someone apparently never intended to fulfill.

I did not wait 8 years to unfriend that one.

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The Stages of Facebook Unfriending

So the day comes and you find out that someone unfriended you on the Social Media Merry-go-Round that is Facebook.  Maybe you figured it out because you watch your friend’s list count.  Or maybe Facebook’s On This Day reminder pointed out someone you hadn’t thought of in a while.  Or perhaps you have some software that helps.  However it happened, you now know that someone you use to consider friend no longer considers you a friend.

Sidenote: is it unfriend or defriend?  hypen or no?  Discuss in the comments.

Shock and Denial

The first reaction to learning that someone could possibly have removed you from the list of friends is to deny the reality of the situation.

How could they do this?  I helped them pass Calculus in college.

It is a normal reaction to rationalize unbelievable discoveries. It is a defense mechanism that blocks out the immediate facts.  I use to be one of those people who wouldn’t unfriend someone unless they were completely toxic and would get sad if someone unfriended me.

 Anger

 Rationally, we know the person is not to be blamed.

Why am I the only person from our now defunct Book Club that they unfriended!

Emotionally, however, we may resent the person for causing us pain or for leaving us. We feel guilty for being angry, and this makes us angrier.

Bargaining & Rationalization

Okay they only unfriend me because I did not wish them a sincere enough birthday or forgot to high five them or acknowledge any recent unlocking of a Major Life Achievement.

Acceptance Retaliation

Confession:  I have been aggressively culling my FB friends list in order to get down to a more reasonable level.  I was keeping a lot of them because of loyalty and whatever but fuck if we don’t interact anyway what is the point?  And I know some of this is caused by Facebook itself not showing you everyone’s status updates in your feed.

For instance, there are a couple of people I use to do speed work with for Marathon Training…in 2005. Or somebody that I met at a friend’s party a million years ago.  Do I really need to keep them in my friends’ list as some sort of message in a bottle to our future alien anthropologist exploring our post-apocalyptic planet?

Oh, he was friends with this attorney who also happened to be friends with someone who would eventually know someone who was there when the revolution began.

I think not.  Therefore I am diligently and aggressively culling my friends’ list.  So far I’ve cut about 150 people albeit, 3-5 people at a time, once a week since Lent started.  Do you know what I discovered?  It’s funny but just deleting 1-2 people will change the look of your feed.  Unfriending Marek, the fellow Pole I met at Eurocircle ten years ago has suddenly shown me Erika in my feed again.  I haven’t seen her stuff since 2009!

In general I’m unfriending people that don’t fit one of the criteria for being a friend/connection on FB:

• Real friends and family that I care about;
• People who entertain, enlighten or inform me;
• People I’m loyal to;
• People I know.

I discovered doing that breaks the FB algorithms and I see more of my active friends stuff.  I’m actually engaging with people on Facebook that I haven’t interacted with in years!  So now the challenge is to unfriend people who would remain uninvolved in my life anyway so that I can rediscover people who have only been dormant because of those blasted algorithms.

Stay tuned.

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Why I hate small talk

Of course I’d love to here about your Civil War miniatures…somebody please kill me now!
(Photo by David Goehring)

I really hate small talk.  It’s usually superficial observations or comments on what is perfectly obvious.  I get that it serves a purpose in social situations like conversation openers, silence
breakers and even a way to begin the process of bonding.

There are two ways to think of Small Talk.  One way is to accept that you are going to be stuck with the other person for some length of time and you might as well make the best of it.  You talk about unimportant safe subjects that won’t offend anyone or reveal any significant secrets.

The other way is to view small talk as a tennis game of phatic talk until a more substantial subject arises.

Them:  Isn’t this great weather?
me (playing along):  Yes though it’s unusually warm for this time of year.

Them:  So what do you do for fun?
me (finally something fun):  I run marathons and stalk real estate.

Them (ignoring my peeked interest and moving to the next topic):  Do you have any vacations planned?
me:  Purple, because aliens don’t wear hats.

Them:  Aren’t these crabcakes delightful?
me:  ugh!

And I think this is where the break down occurs. I’m from the second camp and I often encounter people from the first. I get frustrated if I find a topic I want to talk about or want to steer the  conversation towards, and the other person is going through their script of safe, boring topics that they don’t care what the answers are.

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I found the perfect stylist, or why I hate haircuts

Two of the things that I hate the most in the world sometimes occur simultaneously:  getting my hair cut and making small talk.

For the majority of my life, I hated getting haircuts. Probably because I didn’t like the way I looked with a fresh haircut, or maybe I just didn’t like the way I looked period (discussion for another day). I’m sure the experiences of my mom giving me in-home haircuts as a child factored in. A fidgety kid like me and a perfectionist like her was never a good combination. It was such an ordeal that we would put off the next haircut as long as possible and thus each haircut took a long time.  The first volley for power in a years long parent-offspring battle of wills.

Please don’t shave your initials again
(Photo by Charles Chan)

Once I started paying for my own haircuts, I was always trying to find the combination of economical (cheap) and stylish (not looking like a dork who just got his hair cut).  At some point I found Aimee. She managed to do the one thing I really depend on, remember how we cut it last time and doing the same thing. Over time we came up with our Summer Cut and our Winter Cut.  She also liked to trim my eyebrows, which at the time I thought was too girly (the Metrosexual Revolution was a few years away) but I let her.

I was doing cart wheels to fit into her schedule

It was a wonderful relationship while it lasted but alas, it became harder and harder to get an appointment with Aimee.  So much so that I was jumping through hoops to meet her schedule.  I had to plan my haircuts two or more weeks in advance.   I was doing cart wheels to fit into her schedule.   I decided that the person who cuts my hair should be available on my schedule, not the other way around.

When she moved locations, I used the opportunity to break up with Aimee. Breaking up with your stylist is easier than cheating on them because you basically make a commitment to never set foot in their shop again. So once I was free to find a new stylist, I vowed I would never get committed to a specific stylist again.

Since then I’ve gone to a variety of places,  most recently a place near my office that is staffed by teenagers. Talk about Small Talk Hell.  I have nothing in common with these kids yet they really try their darnest, going through the ST script.  I’m not good at small talk in general and when I sit in the chair at a salon with a stylist I’ve just meet,  everything empties from my mind and I suddenly become the Least Interesting Man in the World.

I was willing to put up with the teens because I got a decent haircut at a reasonable cheap price.  Even if they sometimes forgot to ask if they could trim my eyebrows (Aimee’s legacy still lingers!).  However, their hours didn’t mesh well with my schedule.  So I checked Yelp and found another place nearby.  For about $10 more, I got a better haircut (wife approved) and I found a stylist who provides just enough small talk from the second camp and then stops talking in order to concentrate on my hair!

This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship….until she becomes more high maintenance than me.

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Winter Marathon Training Blues

I am training for the March Madness Half Marathon to be held on the Ides of March in Cary, IL.  I’m using a custom training program designed with the help of Runner’s World’s Smart Coach app, found on their website.

I KNOW it’s only a HALF marathon, which is just a baby marathon but The March Madness Half Marathon is a tough course. The last time I ran it, it kicked my ass. This was of course 2009 when I didn’t know I was running with a torn meniscus in my left knee.

Looking at my Athlinks account, this is what I’ve done the four times I’ve apparently run this race:

March Madness Half Marathon	Pace	Finish Place			Final Time
		Age	Gender	Overall
March 15, 2009	8:46 Min/Mi	61	393	574	1:54:55
March 16, 2008	7:30 Min/Mi	46	180	202	1:38:25
March 19, 2006	7:36 Min/Mi	38	194	218	1:39:34
March 20, 2005	7:49 Min/Mi	39	237	287	1:42:35

This time my hopes are a little more humble. I want to simply run this course without stopping and finish in under two hours.  The training program the Smart coach spit out consists of three runs per week.  While it does attempt to mix in speed work and tempo runs, remember I input an easy setting so there isn’t much it can do with that.  Basically all the runs are 3 to 6 mile runs spread out over 9 weeks.

Essentially it was a Tue/Thur/Sun run schedule but there is built in flexibility in that some weeks it might be more feasible to run on a different day of the week.  If I missed the Tuesday run, I’d try to make it up Wed and then do the Thurs run on Friday but beyond that, I wouldn’t make up any runs from a previous week.  Also, I wanted to allow a day of rest between runs because creaky knees.

Smart Coach created a 9 week training program and I am now past the halfway point. Here’s how I’ve done:

Because of weather and/or illness I’ve missed 4 out of 15 schedule runs, including two Long Runs.

The good news is that I am doing better at running without stopping. There was a time in my running life when I would go out for a 6, 7 or 8 mile run and I’d be at mile 4 or 5 before I even realized it. These days I’m lucky to get to mile 2 before I want to stop.

Previous Post: My Secret Winter Marathon Training program

IF YOU LIKED THIS POST I BET YOU’LL ALSO LIKE: Sex before the marathon and other last minute tips

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My Secret Winter Marathon Training program

Can I get a little light out here?
Photo Credit: Robert Horowitz

On the morning of New Year’s Eve I signed up for the March Madness Half Marathon in exotic Cary, IL on March 15th.  Online registration opened at 6am that day — so I cannot even claim NYE drunken shenanigans — and this race always sells out quickly.   I told myself if I were up at that ungodly hour it was a sign that I should register for it. Low and behold our (then) 3 month old twins had me up at that hour so I secretly signed up which meant committing to a winter training schedule.

By secret I don’t mean only the NSA knows about it, although I’m sure they do.  I just mean I haven’t exactly told my friends or posted many training runs on FB (via Dailymile.com).  This was to give myself an out.  I figured that if I  didn’t build up the endurance to run more than couple miles before petering out, I would gracefully bow out of running on the Ides of March.

If you are planning to run a spring marathon, you have to do a lion share of your mileage during the winter months. Training for a marathon during the winter is rough enough under ordinary circumstances.  It’s dark when you wake up, dark when you get home from work and cold all throughout. If there is snow that toggles the difficulty setting up a notch.

Given my current situation of having to juggle twins, along with my diminished running ability, I decided that a half marathon was much more realistic than a full one, especially in the winter months.

This Half Marathon is special because it is a tough hilly course and hills are hard to come by in Illinois.  Rumor has it they actually reversed the course a few years ago because it was too tough.  I haven’t found any concrete evidence of that.

Locals who are running the Boston Marathon usually run this race, even if they have to bandit, because usually aligns perfectly with the Boston Marathon training schedule. What that means is your 12-14 mile “cutback” run usually falls on the same weekend as the MM HM so why not.

Because of my diminished speed and endurance, along with having 4 month old twins to wrangle, I opted to use Runner’s World Smart Coach to create a training program.  This tool is free but you have to create an account at Runner’s World.  You input a few variables such as the results of a previous race, the date and distance of the race you are training for and how hard you wish to train and it crunches out a handy training schedule that you can follow (see above).  My inputs spit out a 9 week training program that will log me 126 miles including the MM HM itself.  I’m not in love with the idea of being married to a training schedule again but it is the best way I know to get in shape for a race and it gives me something to focus on.

You can read more on how this 9 week training program is going here.

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Being neutral in a Friend Cold War isn’t always the right thing to do

Have you ever had two friends who had some type of blowout and now won’t speak to one another? Maybe it’s over something really stupid, like liking Coldplay or maybe it is a friendship breaker, liking balking on reimbursing someone for Coldplay Concert Tickets.  Either way you might be caught in the middle. Sure all the pundits say to play Switzerland and stay out of it. But sometimes you cannot remain neutral because it does affect you.

Let’s say you are planning a big event, like a special birthday party, a trip to Vegas or even your annual holiday party, and your friends don’t want to come because they don’t want to run into each other. You’d think they could suck it up for one night for the greater good but one friend might think well he’ll understand if I skip this birthday party and besides, there will be others there, no one will notice my absence. The other friend is thinking the exact same thing.

And so the 10th anniversary of your 25th birthday is not as awesome as it could be because two of your besties couldn’t put aside their differences for one night to help you celebrate. And the best part? in 4-6 weeks they kiss and make up and all is right as rain with the world. Except you cannot hop in the DeLorean and go back to the night of your Bday bash and have that Night of Awesome that you were destined.

Hopefully, by the time you hit the 2nd quarter of Life on Earth, you have eliminated these Drama Llamas types from your MonkeySphere . But the reality is that life is about conflict and people tend to be selfish at least two times a day: AM and PM.

The other side of the coin is that whatever your friends are disputing may seem petty to you but it is valid to them. it is important not to dismiss their feelings while trying to navigate this delicate situation. And if they have had conflicts in the past, it’s possible that they are keeping score. Maybe you have always inadvertently sided with FriendA and this one time it really is FriendA’s fault. You playing the Switzerland Card comes off like a copout. FriendB sees it as oh you were willing to pass judgement all those other times but now when FriendA is being the WeenieHead you suddenly don’t want to take a side.

As a friend, you have a fiduciary duty to do the right thing and not be an asshole. When you play the Not-Getting-Involved Card, you are basically dismissing the validity of your friends feelings. And while it isn’t your job to play judge and jury on every little trespass, you do have the power and with that the responsibility to create a level playing field.

Two thoughts come quickly to mind:

1. Whenever two parties are in conflict, rarely is one party solely to blame. It might be 60-40 or 70-30, but rarely is it 100-0. Sometimes Person A said or did something and Person B felt slighted. a) PersonB is too sensitive, b) PersonA was being a DBag, c) both a and b.
2. While it is easier and sometimes appropriate to play the Switzerland card and not get involved, As a friend, you have a fiduciary duty to do the right thing and not be an asshole. When you play the Not-Getting-Involved Card, you are basically dismissing the validity of your friends feelings. And while it isn’t your job to play judge and jury on every little trespass, you do have the power and with that the responsibility to create a level playing field.

Back in college a couple friends were not getting along. Cindy was pissed at Linda because she made out with Jane’s boyfriend. Cindy gave Linda the cold shoulder for the entire Spring semester. She did everything she could to make Linda’s life uncomfortable and unpleasant.

I was thinking about Linda’s story the other day. I wasn’t there when this occurred, but according to her, Cindy put her through Hell for 16 weeks until school was over.  A lot of people in our group knew what was going on but they opted to stay out of it.  Perhaps rightly so.  But I also wonder if a gentle influence from mutual friends could have pressured Cindy to behave more graceful and treat Linda more kindly.

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