The Homebody Chronicles

Shopping. That's what I do when I'm alone, playing house husband in Singapore. For the last four years, I've rarely stayed in one place for long, and I was surprised how quickly I satisfied the "bored housewife" stereotype. After two weeks of housesitting from 8:00AM to 7:30PM, I've spent unreasonable amounts of time shopping online and watching Netflix, my generation's versions of Home Shopping Network and daytime soap operas. (Feel free to mock "Peloton Wife," but I understand the Peloton bike's intended audience.) Why are shopping malls doing well in developing countries like Philippines and Indonesia but not in developed countries like Japan and USA? Part of the answer must be the dwindling population of affluent and bored housewives, not just fewer overall births. 

One unexpected consequence of being home alone? Well, being alone. In an era when technology is supposed to make it easier to connect with locals, websites and apps are still driven by advertising and sponsorships, meaning the new "friend" you meet at an event might be getting a commission or other kickback from the venue. (I once tried to buy a book directly from a small publisher and was told I could only buy it if I downloaded the Venmo app.) Instead of meaningful connections, the internet has increased loneliness for many people by providing greater opportunities to make fake friends and yet, we're shocked, shocked, fake news has become prevalent. 

Despite expecting routine, I didn't anticipate the steepness of my productivity decline. By week two, staying inside all day in my underwear was an acceptable schedule, and going out became an event worthy of careful color-matching. When younger, I noticed stay-at-home dads and moms tended to be nice and well-dressed. It's that way when you're always looking for friends around the corner until eventually, you start nibbling any bait in front of you. Those jokes about sleeping with the mailman or delivery agent? They're not jokes. They're the realistic output of a silent-suffering society starving for connection. I've heard of older women taking part-time jobs at retail establishments like Williams-Sonoma for the employee discount, but now I know the real reason for Williams-Sonoma and every other "upscale" retail establishment--they, like every other successful business in America, peddle cures for loneliness. 

Thankfully, it's not all snake oil. Relationships thrive on routines. Give your girlfriend her favorite Starbucks drink at the end of a long day for a week, and you might have added a full year to your relationship's probable longevity. As for online discourse, it degenerated the moment we no longer had to expend paper, ink, and a stamp to deliver our thoughts, but the joy we feel when a verified user (or his or her PR team) responds to a tweet or comment remains legitimate. 

Speaking of relationships and online messaging, the ability to instantaneously connect with one's spouse during the working day has probably increased divorce rates. In the first week of my isolation chamber, er, stay-at-home vacation, I snickered at a NY Times' piece about a husband's failure to put away a shirt. By the second week, I snickered no more. When alone, everything is magnified, and your life revolves around finding interesting things to say, do, and see, a battle you don't always win. So if a friend says she's going to bring or mail you an item in three days, the related anticipation might be the highest of highs--and, if she happened to forget, the lowest of lows--in Day 3. 

If someone was visiting, I'd jump in the shower and freshen up better than any desperate housewife. I've bought cologne and pomade exactly twice in forty years, but had I seen the right discount online, you'd better believe my inner "metrosexual" was making a comeback. Given such efforts, I expected similar levels of effort on the other end. Did a full minute pass between my text and a response? Congratulations! You're now on my personal "Do Not Call" list. By the second minute, I'd already contemplated a hundred scenarios in which my friend had died, preferably via self-immolation--oblivious to my own unreasonableness. (Husbands and wives, take note: what you and the rest of the world consider reasonable does not apply in the vacuum of an adult-free home, with children or without.)

Ever wonder why America has so many churches? Stay-at-home parents need places to go, and the American government has failed to adequately promote affordable childcare or child-friendly policies. Last I heard, Congress tried to prove it cared about taxpayers by passing a law giving federal employees--and no one else--paid family leave. As someone who favors small government, I am always surprised to learn the true extent of religious institutions' influence--almost all my local city and county council-members went to private Catholic schools and/or Catholic universities--because I am single and childless and try to avoid hospitals, schools, and "nonprofits." In context, once one sees an invisible mass of humanity alone at home, struggling to make meaningful human contact, the political picture becomes clear: if government does not actively enter the transportation, healthcare, and childcare markets, voters and non-voters are asking to have their public institutions supplanted by anyone peddling snake oil--as long as there's free food at the 3pm event. 

Now if you'll excuse me, I think I hear a knock at the door. I need to practice my flirty face. 

© Matthew Mehdi Rafat (December 2019) 

Book Review: One Day by David Nicholls

It's so hard to find a good love story these days, one wonders if love itself is hiding in the shadows, waiting for someone to properly articulate its existence. David Nicholls did his best in 2009 with his book, One Day, adapted into a film starring Anne Hathaway. The film is good--I admit to crying at the end, despite knowing the plot--but not a true adaptation. 

From the beginning, Hathaway was a risky choice to play a rebellious, Doc Marten's-wearing character with a pen Shakespeare would envy. We see glimpses of youthful defiance when Hathaway wears an anti-war t-shirt and peace buttons on her jacket, but she plays the character as Desdemona to a second-tier Othello, whereas Nicholls wrote her character as far more interesting, more punk genius than lovelorn robin. 

Let me do my best to fill in the gaps in case you make the mistake of not reading the book. We all know the "Cinderella meets Rich Prince" motif has been explored to death, but Nicholls infuses Emma Morley with such verve, no one would dare think her inferior in any way to her would-be prince, Dexter Mayhew. Sadly, the film omits the written correspondence between the two protagonists as they travel in different directions, keeping in touch except for brief periods. Like Cinderella's spic-and-span work ethic, Emma's letters establish her as unjustly downtrodden, her descriptions of colleagues and roommates alternating between comedy and tragedy: "I asked him [a fellow theater actor playing a slave] to get me a packet of crisps [aka chips] in this café the other day and he looked at me like I was OPPRESSING him or something." 

It is within these same letters we understand Emma's unconditional love for Dexter, springing from the vast differences between them, including his privileged upbringing: "I know your whole childhood was spent playing French cricket on a bloody great chamomile lawn and you never did anything as déclassé as watch the telly..." Cinderella never mocked her prince, nor displayed the aptitude to do so, which is why such Disney stories are unappealing to intelligent adults. In contrast, Emma uses Dexter's status as modern-day royalty to showcase her sharp wit, and in doing so, make him a better man. Consequently, the best comparison to One Day isn't Cinderella or Othello, but a transposed riff on Pretty Woman, with Richard Gere's charm intact but his money replaced by intelligence: "Yes, you had to be smart, but not Emma-smart. Just politic, shrewd, ambitious," Dexter tells himself while considering career options.  

And yet, Dexter isn't exactly the male bimbo caricature the film makes him out to be. It's true the director makes us ache for Dexter's lost potential at every turn, at one point giving him as vacuous a girlfriend as imaginable, a showbiz tart who makes Kim Kardashian look worthy of a Nobel Prize in Physics. Dexter's portrayal is unfair because first, he's lost his mother to cancer, which clearly upends his very being, given his emotional distance from his disapproving father (who, interestingly, married a woman far more classy than he deserved, as both the film and book insinuate--at least until the very end). 

Moreover, unlike the stereotypical bimbo or cad, Dexter knows he's not smart, so he tries to find a niche where he can prove his worth. He knows the entire time he can't compete on any level-playing field in the real world, which is why he's so ashamed to face his mother's expectations, and why he's so smitten with Emma: "Without her[,] he is without merit or virtue or purpose..." For her part, Emma knows she's the perfect foil for Dexter, and without him, she wouldn't have a punching bag, er, muse capable of helping her reach Tysonian or Lewisian heights. Unfortunately, the film underestimates its audience by expressly telling us their union is about opposites attracting, even giving Dexter a ying-and-yang ankle tattoo (at least it wasn't on his lower back). 

There are so many ways to interpret the book--the proletariat's place in a bourgeois world being just one of them--I'll stop and let you explore Nicholls' writing yourself. If you've already seen the movie, here's one excerpt that should give you an idea of the book's higher workmanship: 

Here's to smart, witty, kind women. If you find one who loves you, cherish her and have a nice life. 

© Matthew Rafat (2019)

Relationships: Exquisitely Complex

Most people expect to settle down when they're older and use youth to explore as many avenues as they can, not minding cul de sacs. People say dating gets easier with age because we know ourselves better, but anyone single and over 30 knows the conventional wisdom is wrong. By the time we are 30 or 35, we respond in different ways to different people based on what happened to us at 7, 14, and 21. Partners having a fuller history of each other are better equipped to deal with conflicts than new occupiers. 

In the past two years, I've searched the globe for answers only for my heart to return to a place I visited sixteen years ago. Realizing my choice couldn't have been a coincidence, I'll share my thoughts so we can both be a little less clueless about love. 

A person meeting a potential partner at 34 will notice certain tics and file them in his memory bank, but he won't know their origin or how to work around them until years later because of incomplete data. At some point, he'll tell himself "Women are crazy," excluding the part about men being stupid. In contrast, a man dating a 19 or 25 years old woman will have an easier time molding himself to her and may even have the exact details necessary to understand her. The earlier man, Australopithecus Agápi, has an advantage: younger women, like younger men, are less sure of themselves and have fewer reservations about opening up to either gender. The advantage of youth is assumed mutual ignorance, which acts as its own truth serum. Meanwhile, a man who stays with a partner from 28 or 35 will know almost nothing about her history, thus having a much worse chance at accomplishing the one thing we all want: to be understood. 

I used to wonder why baby pictures are so captivating. We are viewing a tabula rasa, but we look anyway, trying to glean the history we've missed. A part of us must know each passing year in a person's life is a year of personal knowledge we lack to solve the mystery that is him or her. Strangely, we give children, but not adults, the benefit of the doubt when meeting for the first time, despite our lesser knowledge. And yet, adults in new relationships are forging boundaries just like children who seek independence within protective frameworks. 

Perhaps we've forgotten one of humanity's guidelines: explorers seeking to settle in mature places should enter knowing others have trampled there before, leaving footprints of uncertain providence. Surely we've forgotten because otherwise, we'd be more forgiving and far more frightened when exploring new avenues in adulthood that were so effortless in youth. 

I met a woman when she and I were 22 and 21 years old. When we re-acquainted in our late thirties, little had changed. Of course that cannot be true, but it feels so because I captured three months' of youth's unguarded moments, time that allowed me to upload some of her source code. Every smile, every twitch, and every tear created a Rosetta Stone that still translates input flawlessly decades later. Now consider how few modern couples have three months of continuous, unguarded time together and then research marital happiness rates. For this reason, parental love is often stronger than romantic love because a unique zero-day foundation holds up the relationship, and all parties know it can be repaired but not replaced. The breaking of the parental bond is the worst psychic wound possible because it robs us of the ability to keep a zero-day historian in our lives, someone who can provide an undamaged Rosetta Stone. 

Rossetta Stone in London's British Museum.

I met another woman in her thirties recently, and we felt an instant bond. I can't tell you why we felt a bond so quickly, but it surprised us both. I saw through her hard armor instantly, and she knew she could clang her metal swords and flail around me without judgment. We trusted each other because our subconscious played matchmaker, knowing our hearts were damaged but willing to play to the right beat. Nevertheless, my absence during her unguarded years means she will remain an exquisite mystery. Thankfully, I don't need her source code to know her toughness is matched only by her tenderness, and when she lashes out, it is not to hurt me, but to scare away the tinkerers trying to hollow out her armor. And so it goes between us, many miles apart, she clanging her swords and me shielded by the knowledge her unpredictable curtness and too-polite texts are fear no one will ever be able to write her Rosetta Stone. 

When older people date today, they are too busy trying to impress each other when all they really ought to do is listen for the sound of armored plates. It is through those sounds you'll discover the level of effort you'll need to complete your journey. The trick, since you'll probably lack a Rosetta Stone, is to find someone whose heart is willing to play with yours. Whom will you ask to dance? 

On Midlife Crises

It is now clear the United States is a shell of its own values. It admires freedom of speech but not tolerance. It showcases the Statue of Liberty while ignoring the inscription on her pedestal’s lower level. It blames foreign powers for election interference, a charge Mossadegh, Castro, and Chavez would find interesting. It believes globalization is responsible for at least some of its economic woes, even as it has benefited handsomely from globalized trade, especially in oil. It claims to honor freedom of religion while making it difficult to donate to Islamic charities or to build or attend mosques. Above all, it loves freedom itself, more so than any other nation’s people--while having the most student loans, incarcerated criminals, and credit card debt.

We can certainly argue about all of the points above. For instance, America is around tenth place, not first, in worldwide debt rankings if we view household debt as a percentage of its GDP. It may have the most student loans, but international students clamor to attend its universities, indicating value. It has massive debt but also considerable wealth, ranking in the top twenty-five worldwide in median wealth per adult. It houses the most criminals, but outside of St. Louis, Baltimore, New Orleans (one of my favorite cities), and Detroit, most American cities are far less violent than international counterparts. (So far, I’ve only been mugged in Paris, France, where a French police officer refused to assist me, blaming the Moroccan mafia.) On average, Muslim-Americans are more educated and make more money than average non-American Muslims, an effect we can attribute to selective immigration, but no less true.

Despite the availability of reasonable counterarguments, no reasonable person today believes America is on an upswing at this juncture in its relatively young history. One astute British journalist says America is experiencing a horrific midlife crisis and how it emerges from this period will determine its fate. I think it’s much more complicated than a midlife crisis, and I say this while arguably going through one myself.

1.  Unstable Job Markets, More Debt, and Fewer Permanent Relationships in Developed Countries are Causing Unintended Consequences

I promise I won’t generalize too much if you agree to hear me out. Prior to the age of 40, men tend to be more prone to risky behavior. In some instances, young men become calmer and less interested in risky behavior when women take an interest in them. As men age, they generally reduce risky behavior on their own, meaning a woman’s influence on a man at a young age is often immeasurable—whether positive or negative. (Note: one premise behind America’s incarceration of so many young men is to age them out of unstable behavior.) I don’t mean to imply men are total or unilateral winners in relationships, or that all relationships follow gender-based patterns. Obviously, everyone benefits if two people meet, fall in love, and have a lasting relationship.

But does the relationship last? In modern society, very few people are romantics, especially if they've read a Family Code. The world is filled with divorcees who will share fiendishly unique parables of woe and arbitrariness—and that’s before they discuss their experiences in divorce court.

In an era where almost nothing is permanent, risk management causes most people in developed countries to marry later and have children later, which requires governments and communities to find new ways to occupy people’s time. It turns out there are only so many taco trucks and outdoor music festivals one can visit before searching for something more meaningful. Indeed, almost all of the Western world’s culture wars come down to this simple fact: people are no longer busy influencing their children so they seek to influence others and society. Case in point: what sane American counter-protests neo-Nazis in a town unheard of pre-protest unless s/he genuinely believes s/he’s influencing society in a positive way?

Of course, nothing is inherently wrong with attempting to influence others and your own community, but the shrillness behind such attempts feels new. If you spent 140,000 dollars buying a law school diploma, I suppose you’d better believe you can use it to change the world in your own image, or you’re a sucker. Problematically, someone down the seating chart also spent the same money as you and thinks she can influence society too, and if her community doesn’t validate her belief system, the forecast calls for social strife or self-imposed segregation—both with a high chance of stormy weather. And that’s just within one law school, not even one community, nor an entire nation.

2.  Where Do We Go from Here?

As some of you know, I’ve been traveling since two years ago, when I sensed a disturbance in the Force. Just kidding. (For the record, I’m a Star Trek fan. Picard, not Shatner.)

In any case, I bought several one-way tickets and went around the world with no set plan. I came back to California—home to the most active hate groups in America—to vote, casting my lot with a candidate who failed to capture even 5% of the national vote—then left town again.

I’m now in Cebu, Philippines—a wonderful place—and excited to be able to visit the Middle East soon. For now, my next stop is Brunei. I’m most excited about Qatar, and it's not only because their basketball play in the recent FIBA Asia tournament reminded me of the San Antonio Spurs. By coincidence, I’ll be there during World Tourism Day—yes, that’s a thing—and I’m especially pleased to see and support Qatar when it's going through some challenging times. (If the United States is going through a midlife crisis, then Qatar, founded in 1971, has yet to reach puberty.)  No one knows what the future holds, but maybe the secret to happiness is finding a young, rebellious country and convincing it to have a lasting relationship with you. Let's make it so. 

© Matthew Mehdi Rafat (2017)

“The day we stop looking, habib, is the day we die.” – Lt. Colonel Erfan Saad 

The Ideal Algorithm for a Single Person considering Worldwide Options

I've stumbled upon the perfect algorithm for choosing a new city (of at least 50,000 residents) if you're single and over 30 years old:

(Percentage of inter-racial marriages and inter-racial relationships of at least six months) + 

(Percentage of inter-religious marriages, including deists and atheists, and inter-religious relationships of at least three months) - 

(Suicide rate per 100,000, averaged over most recent four years) - 

(Pollution levels).

I call this the "Rafat Relationship Index," or RRI. The blue criteria are mandatory, while the violet ones are optional but necessary for more complete data.  The suicide rate would only apply in cities of over 100,000, though I'd be very pleased if any non-resort city smaller than that ranked highly on the first two criteria.  An ambitious researcher might try a formula with both percentages and hard numbers, which would still favor larger cities but provide better conclusions. You only need to find one person, after all, so the more people, the higher your chances.

Upon hearing my idea, my friend's wife burst into fits of laughter, while he said it worked--"It's the tolerance + happiness formula."  When his wife stopped laughing, she posited that countries with public healthcare systems like Canada would rank the highest.

I disagree--from what I've seen in Scandinavian Facebook and other online profiles, it seems rare there to marry outside your race, even though Scandinavia has great public health care and relatively high levels of immigration (when considering its size).  I suppose many of the non-blondes are probably recent immigrants who may not speak the native languages, making it harder to evaluate true tolerance and segregation levels, but the growing presence of Scandinavian Neo-Nazi groups--an issue touched upon in Stieg Larsson's Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series--indicates growing societal problems. In any case, as you can see, this kind of exercise can be quite interesting, even if you're married or in a relationship.

To determine what city to visit to meet a potential lifetime partner, I had been evaluating economic numbers such as levels of private debt.  From a statistical analysis, however, such efforts are futile because it's almost impossible in developed countries to link private debt or lack thereof to fiscal responsibility, lack of materialism, lack of greed, or moderation.  A person living in a more affluent area could be justified in taking out more debt than someone living in a smaller but equally nice area.  Another person could be able to buy a larger property because of parental assistance, while another might not have such options, while still another might have such options and forgo them, indicating higher levels of character than all others. We don't even need to further parse our analysis by considering student loans or their repayment rates to understand that levels of debt are great starting points for character analysis, but so in need of individual tailoring as to be non-optimal for relationship formulas.

At the same time, at least with private debt (or even something more subjective like educational quality), you can easily ascertain objective data if you have the right access.  In contrast, with the first two criteria in my formula, it's not possible today to do a objective analysis because most cities don't keep or even try to find such personal data, and even if they did, many of them experience substantial inflows and outflows year-to-year, making any data gathered unreliable.  Fortunately, the last two criteria can, for the most part, be found using online databases, so we won't discuss them further except to say they provide completely objective markers that would eliminate places with tolerance and open-mindedness but not quality of life. (You might argue I should include GDP growth because most people need a job, but the reality of our modern world is that capital is mobile but labor is not; therefore, a GDP criterion would be inferior to an additional criterion relating to immigration rules and policies, such as ease of student visas and visa extensions.)

If someone was brave enough to attempt to complete my formula, the first step would be deciding which relationships to classify as interracial, an act requiring an in-person check subject to individual preferences.  Does an American woman with light skin but olive eyes who is half-Chinese and half-Caucasian qualify as inter-racial if she marries a white American? What if the male is a white immigrant from Germany or Norway who speaks English less than perfectly? (Are you able to see the vast possibilities and variations yet?)

Taking the potential analysis further, does President Barack Obama's relationship with Michelle Obama qualify as inter-racial?  (He's half-white and half-African, while she's full African-American.)  Or do their respective educational pedigrees render their race and backgrounds less relevant and therefore outliers that should be excluded from the formula's input?

For the religious factor, does someone who goes to church once a year for Christmas qualify as "inter-religious" if married to someone who goes every week? Take Homer and Marge Simpson. If Homer was Chinese, most people would classify his relationship with Marge as both inter-racial and inter-religious, but since they're both the same color with similar facial features, most people would classify them as neither. (By now, I'm almost tempted to return to debt levels as a more reliable factor in finding a suitable relationship, but I'm too enamored with my formula's potential.)

Although it's very, very difficult to parse racial and religious differences without in-depth interviews, sociologists can still get adequate data by going to popular cafes and restaurants at lunchtime and in the evening within different cities and doing an eye-check of inter-racial couples.  In San Jose, California, they could, on at least one weekday and one weekend, visit Westfield Mall's food court, Santana Row, a Starbucks on the East Side, a Starbucks far away from Santana Row, and a few independent coffeeshops using Yelp's ratings.

Researchers may then go to religious services in multiple locations and do a similar eye-check to ascertain further data on interracial marriages.  For example, does the local Catholic Church have separate masses for Latinos and non-Latinos?  If so, what percentage of married couples are interracial? How many African-Americans and Africans does the local mosque have attending on Friday, or is it all Pakistani-American and Arab-American?

The disheartening part about such a study in America is that even a casual observer will notice that religious entities are about as racially and ethnically segregated as you can get.  Near my hometown, Persian Christians have their own church rather than being incorporated into an existing one.  In other words, one can legitimately argue that religious entities, even established ones in America, don't do much to integrate people who look different from their existing congregations or who have different customs--in which case, what's the point of religion anyway?  To increase segregation and provide a tax benefit for doing so?

In any case, research would not take more than two weeks in each city, although the timing must be right--no holidays, no college towns (too young), no one-off days (like April 15 in the U.S.), and no fiscal quarter close time periods.

As for data on inter-religious marriage and coupling rates, the data must include relationships of at least three months to be valid.  I'm at a loss on how to proceed in a creative way.  The regular route of a paid study with voluntary participants would be one way to go, though I'd name the study something else and use it as a conduit to get background information (doing it this way increases the likelihood of accurate information).

In some ways, my formula, like debt levels, is subject to individual perception and therefore bias, but if done over a period of years, one can actually create the framework for a useful metric when it comes to solving this problem we call love.  If any sociology or psychology students end up using my idea, please give me credit.  I think it would make a fantastic idea for a dissertation or end-of-year paper.  You'd need at least three observers and of different genders and ethnic backgrounds to follow the procedure above in cafes, restaurants, and religious entities and majority agreement before marking a couple as "interracial," but it would be a great start.  If cities were judged under my formula, they'd no doubt do a better job reversing centuries of voluntary and involuntary segregation, leading to better outcomes for everyone.

(c) Matthew Rafat (2017) 

Bonus: "Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra and then suddenly it flips over, pinning you underneath. At night, the ice weasels come." -- fictional quote attributed to Friedrich Nietzsche by Simpsons creator Matt Groening 

Social Network: Battle of the Sexes, Modern Version

Dating is so difficult. A man usually thinks about exactly how he will be able to support a family. He realizes big city society favors two income couples and wonders whether a woman will continue to work after she has children and/or if he will be able to provide as the sole breadwinner. Women tend to believe the aforementioned issues will resolve themselves.

Bonus I: Jack Gilbert, from "Tear It Down": "We find out the heart only by dismantling what the heart knows...By insisting on love we spoil it, get beyond affection and wade mouth-deep into love...We must unlearn the constellations to see the stars."

Bonus II, Random Stats Edition: according to National Geographic (March 2011),

1) Worldwide, 33% are Christian; 21% Muslim; and 13% Hindu; and

2) Worldwide, nationality-wise, 19% are Chinese; 17% are Indian; and 4% American.

My friend commented that the religious numbers would change significantly if we accounted for just practicing members. That's actually an interesting question--at what point is it irrational to call yourself a member of a religious group if your beliefs differ significantly from the majority's? And who decides the norm or the majority? If you're a Muslim in Indonesia, you will have a much different norm than a Muslim in Saudi Arabia. Same thing if you're an Orthodox Jew or a Reform Jew, or an Evangelical Southern Christian vs. an Italian Catholic. Perhaps that's the beauty of religion--it brings people together who would otherwise have no reason to mix or mingle.