51/49: A Philosophy of Life for a More Civilized Age

Could somoene please tell me why my wife finds the lives of dwarves...er...little people so mesmerizing? She's pounding a turkey sando, a can of Sour Cream Pringles and a 32 oz. bottle of Gatorade while taking in her SECOND episode of 'The Little Couple'. Too bad we're out of tequila...

I've been so damned busy putting the finishing touches on my book and writing query letters that I haven't had the time to write new material for the blog. So this week I'm airing the equivalent of the 'retrospective episode', you know, the episode of you favorite show where the main character hosts a bunch of flashback clips? Hell, even Seinfeld had a 'retrospective.' In that vain, I present to you something from my archives; 51/49.

In 2004 a good friend of mine, Dan Starr, created 51/49 out of frustration, and we ran with it for years. I hope you find it enjoyable, and if you don't, well; I'm sure you can still catch 'The Little Couple.'





Dan and I both found ourselves reunited years later after we first met still working within the same community college system where we had met four years earlier, neither of us making any progress in life doing the same job. My college degree disappointingly netted me the exact same position I had before I transferred from my hometown to Austin. The new campus became an exercise in exhaustion. We were underpaid, overworked and weary of doing the same thing.

I worked at the point of attack in the front intake center. Waves of mothers and students bombarded me daily; as a promiscuous 33-year-old Pakistani immigrant co-worker did everything he could to fan the flames of their discord by hitting on every woman that walked through the door. I slumped into a deep gloominess, losing 35 pounds and dying my hair bleach blond in a useless attempt to affect change in my dreary life. I experienced a quarter-life crisis, culminating in the purchase of a brand new Chevrolet Corvette, which I couldn’t afford.

The front counter was the waste disposal position of all college jobs, and I flushed my life down daily when I crawled through the door. The only advantage was that I’d get to check out all of the young girls who walked past everyday in short shorts and skimpy spaghetti tops. The scenery, however, provided only momentary respite from the dearth of my situation.

Dan worked in the back and had an office as the advisor to incoming international students. He had the joy of slicing through thick accents to determine whether or not a particular Middle-Eastern student named Amal had legally entered the country, and wondered if each student he saw was a terrorist. We hated our jobs, which is no different than most Americans I suppose. We occupied time by chatting on our interoffice messaging system, voicing our disgust with society like two haphazard revolutionaries looking to overthrow the status quo.

We’d shoot messages back and forth, and at times we’d each have the joy of listening to each other complain about all of our problems, namely his marital travails. As Dan complained about everything having to do with being married. One day like an absurd, Dan typed in a message after complaining about his son crying all the time, “It’s about 51/49, dude.” A seed was planted.


The idea birthed easily in passing, but over the course of the last four years it has matured into something that’s much more concrete, serving as a rally cry for pushing through the muck of female trials. We came to reason that out of a possible 100 happiness points, marriage and relationships made you happy on average 51 percent of the time, and miserable the other 49. The converse was true for being single, it’s heavenly 49 percent of the time, but lonely, self-destructive and vacuous the other 51 percent.

Both lifestyles have advantages and shortfalls. For example, if you’re in a relationship, then you’re never lonely, typically have a steady supply of passionate sexy-time, have someone to build a life with and also have to someone with whom you confide in. Conversely, being in a relationship reduces your free time drastically, restricts your from controlling what you want to do with your money and causes you to be responsible to someone every second of your life. Happiness prevails 51 percent of the time, but 49 percent of the time you wish you imagine what life would be like if that person wasn’t around.

51/49 fluctuates quickly, rapidly changing like the markets. For clarity, let’s take a look at a few scenarios. Let’s suppose that you’re a single person, living alone in a dank apartment. The few friends you have are busy and can’t be bothered by you for the third consecutive weekend. You’ve got nothing. You work your cell phone, racking your brain with ideas of who you can call to get out for the night. Then you realize that there is nothing. You realize that you’re lonely. You wish there was someone for you; to keep you warm through the lonesome nights. At that point, you may think that being single registers about a 20 on the positive scale, and an 80 on the negative scale. Therefore your number is 20/80 toward solitary living. But wait! The cell phone rings and it’s one of your friends returning your earlier desperation call. Before you know what happens, you’re invited to a party where there will be free booze and food….and possibly women. Suddenly the worm has turned, and not being shackled to someone else feels like the for certain best way to live life. That 20/80 number in the negative instantly becomes a 90/10 for the positive. If you weren’t single, you’d never be able to go out so whimsically and have the potential to pick-up other chicks. You feel like being in a relationship or even dating someone seriously sucks. 51/49 evolves with your current climate, and the average is slightly affirmative for relationships, probably on the strength of not dying alone.

Ideally we’d all like to have it both ways, but it’s inherently impossible by the very nature of relationships to have your cake and eat it, too. Relationships are self-dying and sacrifice. You have to give-up some things to enjoy to the fruits in return, and for some people, that’s the reason that their relationships fail. I love to play videogames, strum my guitar, watch movies, workout and write, but when I interject another person in my life the time I have to do all of those times flies out the window. To compromise I have to give-up some things I enjoy doing in order to give some of myself to that other person. That means watching some lame comedy rerun on the WB or a ridiculous reality show instead of playing my favorite game online with my buddy in Dallas because that’s what she likes to do; watch brain-wasting television programs. The bottom line is that successful relationships are give-and-take, involving a lack of selfishness and personal interests. And most of the time, if a man doesn’t give her woman her way; it’s an all out bitch-fest until she gets it. So what’s the point in even fighting it? Just roll over and accept it.

All of the days I spent self-aggrandizing, immersing my brain in worldly interests eventually became tiresome and pointless. I might acquire the most sought after items in a videogame or watch all three Lord of the Rings films in one sitting, but those activities were complete empty-headed wastes of time. Did it make me a better person, or was I building toward anything life? It seemed was that I mired in mind-numbing actions to dull my senses until death. There had to be more juice to squeeze out of the fruit of life.

After spending a few months of indulging in hedonistic pursuits, I would inevitably begin to feel like a loser and be lonely all of the time. My 49 percent slice of the pie became moldy. Like clockwork I’d begin to scan MySpace for women who were single or cling desperately to any shred of possibility with any woman anywhere. I searched for any remote possibility on social networking sites. The bottom of the barrel wasn’t scraped; it was busted through! A rainy night and cuddling on the couch with that special someone, watching a movie and giggling together sounded like heaven. I’d pray for a date night or a walk in the park. No matter where I was the grass was always greener on the other side of life, and it is in those moments of realization that I needed to be honest with myself to see where I wanted to be. So it came to Dan, then to me that the line that separated happiness in relationships was somewhat of a blur, but we always concluded that it was slightly better to be involved in the pursuit of love. But just barely.

It’s universally accepted among those with a dual set of X-chromosomes that videogames are for kids, and adults that play games are insecure losers fit for a lifetime of cat ownership and pay-go porn sites.

I honestly had a chick tell me one time that I’d never find a woman because I played videogames. She looked me square in the eye with her judgmental, vacuous, self-righteous view of the world, and condemned all gamers as losers with no social skills or aptitude. Of course I couldn’t call her out at the time; I was in the midst of an epic chick-slump that hanged tighter than Rosie O’Donnell’s top button. I had no comeback, no rallying cry I could call upon to combat her ignorant slander of myself and my brethren. Never mind the fact that I was in my early-20s, had few friends and spent more time with a console controller than I did working on getting to second base. Of course I proved her wrong with the emergence of the Self-Made Diva some months down the line, but her contention was one I’d been battling my whole life: Videogames are child’s play.

In 2004, I wrote an article about videogames and their explosion into popular culture. Sean Connery (You’re the man now, dog!) had just finished reprising his role as 007 in the videogame adaptation of ‘From Russia With Love,’ and Vin Diesel (yeah I know he sucks now) was on the verge of starring an original ‘Riddick’ game. It only took 25 years, but videogames had finally been accepted into popular culture. I referenced a popular Australian study (http://blogs.theage.com.au/screenplay/archives//004937.html) in my article that suggested that half of all gamers were women, and the average age overall was 28. I felt like the little kid tired of being bullied who finally sticks his chest out because his big brother (science) steps in. Take that, snooty chicks!

“If Heath Ledger can play videogames (pre-OD), then so can I!”

I rolled with that study every time I encountered a combatant woman or doucher who questioned my favorite hobby. I was untouchable, unflappable even. I didn’t feel like a pedophile walking into Gamestop (I’ve got to admit, it was starting to get weird). I was vindicated, and with the burgeoning explosion of gaming I could finally emerge from behind a stack of Nintendo Power magazines and come clean.

“Yes, I am a gamer. No, I’m not an overweight, socially awkward loser.”

As it turns out five years later, I could possibly be an overweight, socially awkward loser.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8206163.stm

When this hit, my wife took about three seconds to say, “See, I told you!”

Was the nation of gamers growing older, fatter and socially inept? Was I more depressed than everyone else in America, or were gamers catching a bad rap?

To be honest, the answer lies somewhere in the middle. On average, we probably look like the stereotypical Chuck Taylor-wearing, Wolverine t-shirt-sportin’, Depeche Mode listenin’ virgins. But can we really paint an entire segment of our culture with broad strokes? Does stereotyping really exist in America of all places, the freest country in the galaxy?

Hell yes, stereotyping is running strong, and woman line-up in droves to expound just how immature gaming is.

“Why can’t men grow-up?” they often ask while ignoring the fact they're obsessed with ‘Twilight’, the poorly-written book series that spawned the equally inept movie franchise. Does anyone realize how many women are obsessed with this stuff? The books are about a bunch of young vampire kids reciting cardboard dialogue. So realize that this book franchise is aiming for the 15-year-old demographic, not the 28-year-old demographic. And does anyone else think that ‘Twi-moms’ obsessing over Rob and Taylor beside their daughters is disturbing in a ‘The Graduate’ sort of way?

Geez, as long as women are watching/reading Twilight in droves, they might as well go ahead and watch MTV reality television to complete unsatisfied high school dreams.

The Real World. Jersey Shore. The Hills. Laguna Beach. Road Rules. Super Sweet 16. These are just a few examples of the youth-driven programming that airs on the Music Television Network. And you know what? Women love that stuff. Six shows, all with the same dialogue and created for girls in training bras.

“I know, right?”

“Like whatever!”

“You know, like, I wanna like him but like, you know, like; I just don’t know.”

All I’m saying, ladies, is that you’re not as mature as you think you might be.





Don’t get me wrong; they’re lots of gamers that look exactly like this guy:



Then again, there are gamers that look like this: (Obviously before Chris Brown used her face as a speed bag)



So ladies, the next time you’re chiding your men because they’re playing a videogame, put down your copy of New Moon, turn off The Hills and take a look in the mirror; preferably the mirror in your ‘Edward’ compact.