Group Rationality Diary, January 1-15

therufs

Happy new year to those who are celebrating! This is the public group rationality diary for January 1-15.

It's a place to record and chat about it if you have done, or are actively doing, things like:

Established a useful new habit

Obtained new evidence that made you change your mind about some belief

Decided to behave in a different way in some set of situations

Optimized some part of a common routine or cached behavior

Consciously changed your emotions or affect with respect to something

Consciously pursued new valuable information about something that could make a big difference in your life

Learned something new about your beliefs, behavior, or life that surprised you

Tried doing any of the above and failed

Or anything else interesting which you want to share, so that other people can think about it, and perhaps be inspired to take action themselves. Try to include enough details so that everyone can use each other's experiences to learn about what tends to work out, and what doesn't tend to work out.

Thanks to cata for starting the Group Rationality Diary posts, and to commenters for participating.

Next diary: January 16-31

Previous diary: December 16-31

Rationality diaries archive

Happy new year to those who are celebrating! This is the public group rationality diary for January 1-15.

It's a place to record and chat about it if you have done, or are actively doing, things like:

Established a useful new habit

Obtained new evidence that made you change your mind about some belief

Decided to behave in a different way in some set of situations

Optimized some part of a common routine or cached behavior

Consciously changed your emotions or affect with respect to something

Consciously pursued new valuable information about something that could make a big difference in your life

Learned something new about your beliefs, behavior, or life that surprised you

Tried doing any of the above and failed

Or anything else interesting which you want to share, so that other people can think about it, and perhaps be inspired to take action themselves. Try to include enough details so that everyone can use each other's experiences to learn about what tends to work out, and what doesn't tend to work out.

Thanks to cata for starting the Group Rationality Diary posts, and to commenters for participating.

Next diary: January 16-31

Previous diary: December 16-31

Rationality diaries archive

Not really sure if this is the right place (other than the open thread I can't really think of anything that might fit though) so..

http://lesswrong.com/lw/le5/welcome_to_less_wrong_7th_thread_december_2014/bsl1

I attempted to ask her out. I almost did it and had a fucking movie moment when the bus came right when I was thinking the situation is not the most optimal but tried to say it and.. "oh it's my bus cya!". God fucking damnit. I've waited outside for 20 minutes and she didn't show up and thought that she can't take 20 minutes getting dressed so I thought I probably missed her. Went back in and my friend asked who I'm waiting for. Said a different girl's name and made some sexually-flavoured comment about her to change the topic (Got a good success rate). He said that he's gonna wait with me and I didn't want the streissland effect on me so I waited with him and this FUCKING moment. She basically comes out of the changing room and I'm like, "fuck it it's now or never". So I went after her like a creepy stalker (should've middlefingered the cameras as I've made the observation that a lot of guys wanna fuck girls but they only think about ends and their means are either zero or well quite lacking. This would've given them a pissed off feeling as I'm basically tellling them I've got the guts to ask the hot girl out and they don't) and told her to wait for a second but the FUCKING WORDS DIDN'T COME OUT OF MY MOUTH. Knew dropping your pants is always the best way to get that point across but didn't want my balls to freeze. Anyway my memory's hazy here but we were walking in a parell line and she somehow got ahead of me and I was basically (I think before that happened) speaking in a low voice to myself (I think uttered is the right word) saying that I thought I left that behind me. Also did my usual body language thing because that's what I always do and it helps to get the point across. Anyway she got ahead of me and then I noticed her butt was really fucking sexy and maybe it gave me courage and maybe not I just thought that "fuck, this is important to me" and followed her even like a creepier stalker. Again the fucking words didn't come out of my mouth. And well this is basically how I started this comment. Sub-optimal environment but it was important to me. And then the fucking bus came. Oh shit.

For some reason though, I don't particularly feel like I've failed. Intellectually I feel like the whole act had some rather significant holes in there. My plan, while not perfect because it relied on external and uncontrollable variables (like miss lazy taking 20 minutes to get dressed. At least the end result was pretty pretty) that are basically grey area in planning that makes my whole plan fall apart if their value isn't True. I've made a mistake coming back down as I felt that she have left already even though the time frame between her going down and me deserting my fellow employees in order to score a shot was pretty small. Guess I need to tune my decision theory or some other thing I don't know of yet and may Eliezer bless me with his rationality or something like that. But seriously I don't feel like I've failed. Emotionally I didn't feel anything but intellectually I felt that certain variables that were not properly optimized in my decisions. To be honest it feels like an abrupt end of an episode that I'll have to fill in next time we meet.

Also you know what'd be really fucking weird? If she's reading this right now.

Recommendations:

Find 1-3 relationships blogs or forums that talk about typical problems and that you enjoy reading. This recommendation is not to find The Best Advice, but to get a peek at what ordinary smart people (of wide variety) think and have trouble with.

If you are not already a member of a club centered on doing a thing you like, which has occasional social functions (both meanings), you should strongly consider that.

If you have trouble getting the words out of your mouth, consider playing the rejection therapy game a bit.

3bogus11y

Y'know, this is the kind of stuff that can creep people out, for pretty good reasons. I think you need to stop thinking about "asking this girl out" on a "date", and focus on making a good impression on her. What does this girl even know about you? Are you on friendly and trusting terms with each other? (not necessarily 'friends', but comfortable enough that you could see the two of you hanging out without it being a big deal). You should start from these basics, and if you have these nailed down there's no reason for the issue of "asking her out" to even come up as a huge problem.