Sam here, using Python 3 it took me weeks to get this done in a big company that does not focus on software development
560 karma · joined January 4, 2014
I loved my boarding school because above all the normalcy led to emotional stability so kids could focus on themselves instead of drama. very little drama, very little dating. But everyone was actually very nice and happy. At the same time I felt like an alien even if noone intended it, because it was very obvious 98% of the students there had no clue what an elite system they were in. It also made it difficult to deal with conversations outside of school, like say going to my parents friends house for dinner. "oh you go to THAT school, good for your for being on scholarship. I bet the kids there are spoiled brats. how do you DEAL WITH THEM!?" and i would awkwardly have to explain that they were the nicest people I had ever met, and people went out of their way to make me feel included.
It was like switching between two alternate realities everyday, when the entire population of each world you pivoted between had no idea the other existed, and if it was mentioned, each world mentioned the other in immediate disdain, while perhaps the boarding school world had the more appropriate and politically polished "oh" to anyone who was not at our school. It was not even disdain just kind of like, a blankness in being able to relate to the outside world, but it was not because they were horrible or mean, just that we were all very busy, and to be clear, i much preferred the elite world I lived in, because everyone was so nice and I did feel more at home there than anywhere else in the world.
The gates and doors I had at my own elite beautiful campus of a boarding school were by far the nicest buildings i had ever been in, and it made me feel safe and loved and protected, a world that took care of me and cared about me more than anyone else ever had in the world.
This has been an advantage for me going forward. I got a degree in Electrical Engineering and ComputerScience, I also happen to be female, so being an alien/minority in almost every aspect has become normal for me.
But I can say ive adjusted so much better in the "real world" where competition is high in engineering and software dev, and noone is coddling you. Alot of my friends who took the same majors as me and went to get a job after their Beachelors like I did, had severe adaptation problems and it almost seemed childish to me but I realized I had lived my whole life in lower middle class life, I could carry on a conversation with anyone, and I was not afraid of venturing outside of my comfort zone. That may be a little bit gratiuitous, obviously I dont speak every language and things do scare me and I deal with the imposter syndrome almost daily but in general my ability and willingness to talk to anyone I meet while I'm out, and be creative in the jobs I want and understand complex economic and social impacts of the industries I work is much more developed.
Ultimately the key to evolution is adaptation and I would say I have more emotional adaptability to people and have a more intuitive understanding of economic impacts that have caused so much strife between upper and lower class, the dissapearing middle class, in a more human way.
Because while each of these worlds seem to be (in my opinion) more curious and therefore scared or clueless about the other world which they don't understand, inherently more judgmental without meaning to be, how i see each one is with personal memories of friends, real people, christmas dinners with the poor neighbors and also the incredibly rich girl I knew in boarding school who now interns at Louis Vuitton, and when other people assume the worst about her, I remember how her family let me live at their house when my parents were going through rough times, and her parents treated me as one of their own, and never made me feel inadequate, took my mind of horrible situations at home by bringing me along with their families to fundraisers and elaborate parties where I had a neverending choice of designer gowns to choose from "my closet is your closet" so in no way I feel left out. I remember her genorosity more than her evasive richness, I remember her heart to give and inclusiveness more than I remember her designer clothes, I remember her sense of humour more than I remember her aloofness to the daily grind of the outside world.
And to the real world I grew up in, I remember the extreme struggles of my parents as children and have grace for their inadequacies emotional and financial raising me, I remember the frustration of the neighbor who had been laid off due to a series of globalizing optimizations in his industry that were beyond his time and energy and education to understand, and how it culminated in judgement and frustration in an assumption at dinner about the kids at my school.
I try to remember the humanity in these people and it is much easier to do when you have personal experiences to associate on both ends of the spectrum.
I definitely think everyone could stand more to put themselves outside of their comfort zone, and habitat for humanity on a Saturday for a resume booster is not exactly going to provide the intimate and emotional experiences needed to understand how complex and divided we are as a nation, and just how deep cultural influences play into our prejudices against the unknown.
For real about unnecessary dismissive hate, I'm a female Engineer and loved her stuff, and for the people on here incredulous about the investment scale for this clothing store, you are seriously underestimating the proportion of ones paycheck or overall wealth a female with a decent salary like me (26yr old female working in tech) but also girls who don't make very much like coffee baristas or artists, spend on clothing, and being fashionable, however they define that for themselves.
Whether you agree its rational spending or not, the spending happens, and this is not an example of sexism, just an example of sometimes how clueless men can be about the time money and effort women put into their looks. I say that accepting as usual that me as a female am a minority in the HN community, so I try to provide gender perspective when its relevant.
That aside, even if fashion and makeup is of no interest, being a female costs more than being a male when it comes to basic clothing and hygeine. That is pretty undisputed.
For the men on this thread who may not have been there for the cult fashion launch that liberal awesome women really identified with and particularly nerdy female engineers I knew, as we were always the ones on the internet and finding new launched stuff that was not yet mainstream, in my opinion there were two major things, and both of those were fueled by VC firms funding it making decisions on Sophia's behalf that in my opinion were subpar, and also I'm saying this because I've read dispositions of her first female employees and have their perspective as well.
The big downfall was she Sophia was supposedly aggressive with her own female employees. That is all a matter of perspective from her employees and who knows the real story but one thing goes undisputed, the integrity of her teams spirit and unification went down the drain years back. Thats never a good sign for anyone, regardless of whose fault it was.
Secondly, The second the Male VC firms put the Macy's old Fashion Director in charge of revamping the clothing choices, I could immediately tell, and did not like it, and neither did Sophias best weapon in her company, her tight knit core of awesome scene girls who vigorously curated the clothing line into something awesome and unique.
Sophia had a magical ability to be at the racy edge of fashion while maintaining a classic California Vintage Style and pulled it off as a badass look that never came across as cheap or slutty. Her pieces did not look like something you bought online. They looked like you really did find that one amazing once in a lifetime impulse buy that was a buried treasure in a vintage fashion store in Oakland. Her pieces were original but echoed some classic badass and also classy shapes and ideas.
Fashion like this has its beauty in the FACT that it walks a very very very fine line without crossing it, and all that went down the drain when the business plan was modeled to cater to the masses and not the cult following.
Even early on female employees who did not like Sophia agreed that the input from the previous Macys Director was crap, and they should have never put her wannabe 80's common girl attempting to be badass and failing miserably and looking cheap and slutty input into the line, because it was obvious in the output of the clothing curation.
Sophia's magic was her own style, and finding other girls my age who genuinely emulated that style, and letting them do the curation. Bringing on a multimillion dollar chain store for 5th Ave Fashionistas was the worst idea ever.
Nastygal was like shopping with Scene girls in Oakland helping you pick out your clothes. Now It's like some lady 3x my age in stilettos prototyping my "stereotype" and picking out economy scale pieces and being dressed by my mom. Not only did the Macy's employees brought on just "not get it" in the first place, they really bypassed the input of the girls doing the original curation, and those girls spoke out about it alot.
If none of this makes sense about fashion sense, what should make sense to you is that the product components were mistaken as the input from a bigger better company when it really should have been the financial components of Macys as a target using good financial models they have made around clothing, and not trying to actually use the same type of curation.
It's very simple at the end of the day. They stopped listening to their customers, and the main curator was imported from a Brand that could not be further from the personality of her dedicated customers.
For men, I can only relate to you this concept as what it was like (I'm 26 so got FB two years before college when you had to be invited by a college student with a college email ID) to go from the awesome FB phase to the point when your parents and grandparents were allowed on facebook and suddenly started commenting on everything you like and posting pyramid schemes for tupperware sales. The party loses its edge quick. (Maybe some of you cannot relate, but for me, I have been off of FB for over three years).
Once you lose your cult following, your brand and the critical brand honement and feedback spirals out of control.
Nastygal was one of my favorite places to get a statement piece here and there when I wanted to be fun, but as a nerdy girl I'm not daring enough to pull it off without botching it, and Nastygal was always there to help me make a classy but original and slightly daring jump.
I havnt bought clothing from there in years. There are a million online female clothing stores that mimic nastygals brand now, and because theyve lost their uniqueness, there is not much to differentiate them from the rest.
I have no idea if this is true or whether his experience with advisors that have served him well financially in the past would translate well to policy management in the white house, but it is not true that he does not rely heavily on advisors, which could turn out to be a good thing for everyone depending on who he appoints.
This does not mean I support Trump, but he is going to the President, and even before he was President jumping to assumptions does not help anyones point, if anything is disqualifies and gives more power to Trump and his party which daily offends many people, including myself.
This is happening though, and unlike the Mayor of Toronto, Trump has a history in successful business and turning bad neighborhoods in NYC and has alot of old school respect from people who remember the impact he had. You can contribute economically in a positive way to society and still be a crummy person. Alot of business men are like this, and think it entitles them to women as if they are goody bags.
This is coming from me, a woman, who cannot even begin to articulate the offense his words about women muster in me. But I know the women who are liberal who scream victims end up being victims even more. I wish calling people out on their crap worked but I know first hand it doesnt. So I was like WELP
I can drink whiskey for the rest of my life in an introductory level Engineering job and hate my life, and we live on in this old school inequality, or I can show that I have what it takes and I can take on the challenge.
Now, lets be clear, I still drink whiskey from time to time, but not every night anymore out of emotional distress.
I sympathize, but I have to get up and go to work everyday and earn respect from men to get ahead in life so I can scream and moan and yell or I can act like an adult and try to understand what makes these people successful and often times there are elements about them that are very intelligent that people never learn because they are too busy hating them. People need to learn that you can be successful and be a dickbag, and to be a successful non dickbag you will at some point interact with dickbags. You can learn from them and set the example that you too can be a leader in many ways without having to act like them, which is really the biggest weapon we have against people like this, or you can cry about it.
And lets be clear, men like this that I work for now, do not treat me this way, because they know that I don't put up with that crap. I change the way I interact with men to make it clear it aint gonna work. It's not a judgment of other girls and victims of Trump, it's just me and my experience working with men in business who have egos bigger than Trump.
Again, I'm not giving this guy free rides or condoning him, but we need to be realistic moving forward. SO many of my female friends are in tears still and yelling and screaming, and yo, I gotya girl, I do, so lets like be awesome together and show them we can do it too because crying just gives men like this more power.
1. A me too idea
food delivery service for san francisco #5978978974 another online payment app like the 5 you have downloaded pretentious chat app #749857987
As someone ramping up through vetting stages of successful founders to pitch to VC firms, and reading their feedback, they are so tired of me too ideas, and san francisco solving san franciscos own app problems. There multibillion dollar industries living off off excel files with almost zero people who know sql much less the structure of their own databases, but people dont want to innovate in those industries because its not sexy enough. Even VCs are like please stop if I hear about one more chat app today...
When an industry is overfunded inefficient and bad ideas can get funded too, as people pointed out in the .com crash alot of companies died, including people selling cat litter bags online, way before amazon prime existed or any type of optimized shipping or payment plan. People were just selling things online because they could, even if it was not more economical or beneficial for the customer.
Those ideas died off, and good too, because we were able to hone in on real economic problems or set backs and focus on providing those solutions
and we need that to happen again. Everybody needs to stop trying to be paypal and facebook and look at the other problems out there to solve, because there is alot, so I just have little sympathy for people who are failing with their me too ideas.
Now whether any of Trumps policies result in that or not I do now know nor am I educated enough to have an opinion on. Reading Goldman Sachs and UBS wealth management reports this morning post election, alot of details remain to be seen based on his appointments, which people have little idea of at this point, as he is such an outlier even in his own party and has been abandoned by much of it.
But it is true Silicon Valley has been expecting a bubble bust for months now, and that is clearly documented on almost every tech forum I read, so immediately
1. Blaming any outcomes on Trump is just inconsistent with the Valley's own prediction for itself
2. Not necessarily a bad thing
Another story: kid OD on drugs, his mom flew across the country to be by his bedside and paid the school from getting suspended
Another Story: child is depressed because he got a low first exam grade os his parents sent him to Europe to a GPA booster school for a semester to "cheer him up"
These kids are ridiculous their parents coddle them through everything and clap joyously and the slightest acheivement which they totally positioned them for.
They are depressed and completely incapable of navigating the real world. I had to break up with the one I dated because he wanted me to be his mom. Like no kid, I have a life to live do your own laundry and no I'm not going to redo your resume for you and get you a job.
This has GOT to stop. Below is an article from the Former Dean of Stanford on just this very topic: It's embarassing.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/education/wp/2015/10/16/...
With that being said, I'd love to work in Europe, maybe I should check that out aha.
She absolutely embodies the outdated and old school corrupt version of aggressive angry corrupt feminism and was riding on the idea of being a female but outside of that was not a compelling candidate, and was a bad choice for females in the first place.
I would love to see a Female President in my lifetime, but a qualified one who sets a good example for women not validating an outdated extremist feminist gone awry version.
However, that is unrelated in my opinion about the degrading and vulgar comments Trump has made about his female employees, and Hillary is unrelated to the men that have personally spoken to me that way, who are only going to feel further validated by this election.
I absolutely agree with you about this, and I think this happening to Hillary is a good thing, because it is an impetus for women to actually change and not just cry "I'm a woman".
I don't get respect from the men I work with because I am a woman and play the gender card, I get respect from the men I work with because my work is up to par and I DONT play that card.
With that being said, every guy I work with for the past few days has gone out of their way to make it clear to me they do not support men who talk to women the way Trump has spoken of woman, because they view me as a real person who is capable of being hurt by comments like this, not a freebie that comes in a party launch goodie bag, and NONE of them want to be associated with it.
But yes, I agree with you regarding Hillary's campaign.
As a woman who has been spoken to in previous workplaces the way Trump has spoken poorly of women, it's too much for me to overlook. It may seem like a one off issue for intelligent men who are (and you should) looking at all the contributing components, not just focusing on the pieces targeted media ads bring to light, but to me its a fundamental component for economic and technology depressions that women are not making money and contributing to technological advances and product creation geared for the masses.
It's fundamentally hypocritical to be a proponent for economic growth and treat 3.5 billion people in the population as potential girlfriends instead of opportunity for economic growth beyond buying diamonds on TV (the business his ex supermodel wife has).
You need to do it because you are passionate about the problem you are trying to solve and genuinely interested in the work you do.
You were frustrated with the rest of your life because you were looking for it to supplement your job, because you werent excited about it for the right reasons.
It's not just a problem with you, so many high level VCs are sick and tired of seeing really smart engineers come up with ideas that clutter the system with another food delivery service or the "next facebook".
When you are aiming for fame and fortune, youre aiming to emulate people who have already come up with original ideas, instead of focusing on your own originality.
That's why the bay area is filled with so many "me too" ideas while the rest of the world has multi billion dollar low hanging fruit begging to be worked on. Because they exist in neighborhoods that arent cool or hip, that do not resonate fame or fortune, when it is precisely when you leave the things you are trying to emulate that you find what you are looking for.
It's like being jealous of a girl at school just because her family can afford nicer clothing than you.
The author is addressing the resulting fashion trend, and not the lifestyle, and assuming a bunch of rich people with mansions gave it all up just to try a new hairstyle persay, at the expense of the dignity of the masses, which is far from how I would see it.
Not everyone buying minimalist wallart from urbanoutfitters and posting it on instagram is necessarily representative of people who have organized their thoughts time, schedule, social life, work life and have a resulting apartment decor that represents that.
1. Addressing the claim that minimalism is for the elite, I think its a result for people who have the luxury of time and money to take a thorough look at their life needs, have the time and structure in their life to have long term goals and then organize their life to fit those goals and optimize their things around their life which is centered around a busy work schedule.
Absolutely, if you are a poor refugee you are making ends meet from day to day. you are not organizing kitchen ware, you are at Salvation Army buying clothing for your children and just as you have a spare $60 in your paycheck your sons discount coat's zipper is broken in the middle of winter so you need to buy a new one, but you only have $60, ha probably a fraction of that to figure out a solution. You are not on Amazon finding a long term investment triple wool down Northface jacket that is light yet warm and will last your son until college.
It is true that it takes time, organization and a higher initial capital to invest in long term sustainable products that are planned in advance to meet a lifestyle you have planned, but that does not mean its arrogant.
There will be people who aspire, just like they aspire to every "trend" to emulate this hoping to fit in with an image as a result, but it's not fair rational or logical to assign the whole group of people to that when the pioneers of this in technology ended up living this life as a RESULT of trying to optimize their life, not deciding in advance this is what they wanted. It ended up that optimizing your life helps you work more, live more organized and have less hiccups in life when time and efficiency is of the essence.
2. It's also not fair to assume the same people who had wealth 50 years ago living in mansions and lavish wealth are the same genre of people who have "dissavowed the advantages that helped them obtain wealth". The people using this lifestyle mostly in technology are new people creating new wealth and were never associated nor did they grow up with the lavish lifestyle they are supposedly disavowing. Steve jobs started his company in a garage and basically always lived out of his backpack, and the saying goes he didnt even leave the office long enough to unpack into his new place for months after going back to Apple. Is that arrogance of just living efficiently and not putting trinkets and pictures on your wall to stare at while youre on the couch because youre never on the couch?
3. Personally, I've gone minimalist as a result of being a tech graduate with student loans so constrained money, and also not knowing if I'm going to be living on the east coast or west coast in two years. I have a very minimalist apartment and everything I buy I base the quality of whether it's something I'm willing to ship across the country in the next few years or something I am fine to give away when it's time to move 3,000 miles, and in general most of the time I decide not to buy it at all.
I am not doing this so I can take minimalist photos on instagram of my blank living room apartment, I'm doing it because for my lfie style, clutter is a result of downtime not scraping by on day to day needs like refugees which I totally sympathize with but my minimalism is not arrogant or looking down on them, it's how I choose to live life for me, not to put my nose up to poor people, and not to tag it on instagram.
This article is not even journalism, it's opinion with barely any facts excepts the numerical results for clicking the "minimalism" hashtag on instagram.
This is also entirely leaving out that given the housing crisis and the economy, people in their 20s like me, my generation has way less trust in stocks, the economy and the promise of the American Dream aka owning a house with a wife a 2 kids (given college is outrageously expensive and the divorce rate and broken families of this country is outrageous as well and the finances associated with it that atleast half of us in this country grew up wtinessing first hand), and companies do massive layoffs and on average people in my generation switch jobs every 7 years as opposed to more than double that 20 years ago. We are economically incentivized to be mobile and adept learners so electronics aid us in that, not houses and long term relationships that lock us into a lifetime of financial debt if they don't work out. I think this is the most valid reason why it catches on regardless of the elite few who initiated the lifestyle out of in my opinion efficiency not arrogance, yet the composer of this article is like "maybe its this" in one sentence (referring to the summarized version of everything I've said in Part 3) or maybe its arrogance and pomposity and spends the majority of the article on that, and then refers to the "elite few" to blame for this instead of the usual mass of people who are always going to jump on anything trendy.
At the time I did not really think of it that way because I was in my own head alot and focused in class but in retrospect I would say yeh I was definitely more of an outcast than not.
At the time I did not really think of it that way because I was in my own head alot and focused in class but in retrospect I would say yeh the way I was treated definitely qualifies as bullying and I think if I participated in mean behavior towards other outcasts and gossiped with the girls I would have been treated better or had a better chance of fitting in.
Anyways, despite this, there were these disease ridden people called "helicopter parents". The angry moms who believed their genius little sons didnt belong at ANY place beneath what they deemed to be good enough for them, which of course was only the Ivy Leagues or perhaps the trailing 5 after (but only because they DECIDED, not because they couldnt get in ugh how dare you make such an assumption).
The sons, these rich little beleagured alcoholics had been drinking their way through highschool as their parents shoved them into every extracurricular they could think of and 1. Made them feel they were never enough while simultaneously sending the message they were privileged geniuses who were entitled to the best --> that mindset will screw with ya abit and I witnessed it in the guy I dated for 3.5 years from college
2. Completely strips away their ability to have a. self initiative b. be curious and have confidence in their own intelligence
This leads to a lot of rich entitled kids who simultaneously had low self esteem and no idea what they wanted to do with their lives and were alcoholics.
My ex is interesting particularly because his 4 closest friends were all just like him/similiar background. They all have brand new sports cars fresh out of college and 3 of them have totaled them drunk driving and should be in jail or loaded down with fines and lost their jobs. Needless to say parents payed for lawyers, court, new cars and hooked every single one of them up with jobs and when they "get sad" they can go home and layout at their pools while their mothers dote on them.
My ex before I met him was "depressed" because he wished he could go to state school so his parents sent him to Denmark to party in Europe for a Semester to "cheer" him up....
These kids don't have any sense of consequence for their actions or any idea what its like to work to get into college. They actually have the attitude of being dragged there against their will...
As someone who started on welfare very young and eventually reached lower middle class, going to my college was a dream come true...
Let me tell you though in our 20s ill be paying off student loans and working hard but I am a much happier more intelligent curious person and love my job. These kids are miserable alcoholics bored with life and sitting in jobs their parents put them in.
Their snapshot wealth portfolio may look better than mine ....for now, but they are not happier. They may inherit their parents houses and money but they will still be bored and sad and drinking all the time.
That being said, I know alot of kids who are wealthy and genuinely doing well in life though. I think it is opportunity hoarding when kids who don't want to be in college are forced to go to college, and while some of these kids are obnoxious, upon years of observation I mostly blame the parents for exerting their awful pretentiousness and ways of life onto these kids who basically feel helpless like they don't have any other choice.
We both found out we live a few blocks from eachother downtown so we would meet up and catch up, he would update me on how the company is going, and I would update him on my new company because he originally had wanted to work there years before.
From there, he introduced me to people who were also really smart motivated people working for startups and we would all meet up once every week or so for drinks or coffee. From there I met alot of great people, some from my university, some not.
I agree it is harder to find friends once you graduate, but at the end of the day you have to be willing to put yourself out there. I am a very shy person and if I had not been invited out with that group of people by someone I had gone to class and ended up working closely with at my old company, I may not have felt comfortable just going out with people for drinks.
if you livei n a bigger city, reddit meetups are great, and going on eventbrite and going to entrepreneurial events is good. Even if you are not looking for a new job, that demographic is more likely to have self starter smart motivated ambitious people that you will run into, if thats the crowd you are looking to run with.
My exboyfriend and his friends were all Engineers but graduated and wanted to live a comfortable life. I was supposed to marry him and cater to him until I found out he was cheating on me. I left him but the hard part was we had a tight knit group of 20 mutual friends. They were my life but I had to leave them because they all wanted to treat eachother like shit and get comfortable.
It was REALLY hard for 6 months I felt like I had no friends but if I did not have those times I Would have never met the new people in my life, one of which also ended up leaving that group. She is my age and the CEO of a multimillion dollar company. From her I have met so many amazing people and when I share my story they are like "oh yeh I know those kind of people i DO NOT spend time with them."
Then it makes me feel less crazy. When you are an outlier, its more likely people say you are "crazy" what is crazy? Crazy is an extreme outlier. The key is to not be an outlier, by surrounding yourself with people like you..
My ex actually made me believe there was something wrong with me but thats because I was not hanging around other really motivated people who wanted to spend more time doing cool things and less time on drinking and drama. In that circle I was crazy. Even though I act exactly the same, in my new circle, people think I'm awesome and they all really want me to do well.
I look back at my friends from two years ago and I cringe wondering why I ever put up with it. Slightly embarassed I did. When I fly home to visit my family and see their lives, it depresses me.
Definitely want to surround yourself with people who challenge you, not make your feel like "you work too hard. youre crazy. everyone treats eachother this way were ok with it you should be ok with it too."
Thats a self esteem killer.
Oh sorry did not answer second question.
2. Yes I have friends from my hometown who are heroine addicts, and no I cannot be too close to them because they end up asking for money and it causes alot of tension in the relationship.
And yes most of my female friends, even the highly educated ones, actually are settling for men who they have lots of problems with but they are comfortable with eachother because they have been together for so long. THey have given up good jobs to move to their boyfriends new jobs even though their boyfriends would not do the same for them. It's hard to see smart motivated girls slowly settle over time and our lives go in different directions, but already years later I look back and look at their lives and know I made the right decision for myself.
If you are an attractive smart female in tech, alot of guys want to date you. I think that makes it really easy for a female in that position to actually marry another successful person and get comfortable spending more time on the relationship than on their career. There will always be men vying for that spot.
It was a tad weird because I Expected women in tech, like the females I met at Engineering school to be very feminist and independent, but because they are a scarce and highly coveted resource, men rise to the challenge to accomodate them and alot of women get comfortable with that.
Would I say they didn't make it? I dont know about that. They will live financially successful lives still and live at the upper income. Will they reach their full potential that way? No, but I could ask myself that question everyday and always push myself harder.
The influence your community has on your personal decisions and how that impacts your personal wealth is significant.
Weve already witnessed highschool suicides tend to happen in clusters. Weve witnessed it as a nation at Gunn Highschool in SanFran and other areas. If one kid does it, the two others who were seriously considering it are more likely to follow through.
This is also a root cause of the housing foreclosure crisis. Wired Magazine did a piece. One of the missing pieces of analysis was the correlation noticed when one person on your street forecloses on a house, how much the likelihood goes up that other people on your street will too. They retroactively did that analysis and found a huge correlation.
We should do this type of correlation in alot more studies, particularly ones dedicated to trying to understand socioeconomic mobility.
I say correlation because correlation is not causation. The causation we can't know right away but it might be helpful to first look at some significant correlations and then try to understand if there is a cause and effect relationship. Or at the very least come up with some likliehood statistics.
White Mother: Great Grandparents rich oil $$$ in Texas. Wife no formal education, alcoholic. Father business degree white men making oil money in Texas. Had ONE child. The ONE child was a girl (My grandmother). Rich Girls in Texas are not allowed to learn how to handle money. She went to finishing school. She inherited the money, and did as she was told and taught, gave her money to the man to let men handle the money.
Married a Southern babtist preacher and he squandered it all in 5 years dont know how. BY the time my mom was born they lived on a farm in South Georgia and he was preaching at his church.
My mom was a preachers daughter who fell in love with the Poor Native American kid in South Georgia, from the Natives who refused to go on the trail of tears.
It was the beginning of a BEAUTIFUL LOVE STORY! lol. and the rest is history as they say.
and yeh, my mom is extremely religious as is all my family. I am not. So add that onto the list of socially isolating struggles and criticism I had to deal with. I was taught women are not supposed to talk about science or politics, and that science is a scheme to eliminate god from the equation. Ummm yup, it is! It's a pretty good one too, trying to replace God with understanding and answers.
So In Summary Background FEMALE NATIVE AMERICAN CHRISTIAN WELFARE POOR
goes to be an Electrical Engineer working in a male dominated environment, compounding every minority status to the extreme. Dude, its been an interesting ride but I can tell you one thing, I don't give a F^%& about what other people think now because I'm used to being an outlier, so I HAD to overcome that to do well and have good self esteem and tell myself I can keep learning and do well.
Some people would complain and say its been hard. It has been hard and socially isolating but actually if you choose and force yourself to look at your uniqueness as an advantage I think about things differently and it usually gives me an edge in applying ideas I have or understanding how to communicate and implement them. People get scared or attack things they don't understand. I'm not as understandable or relatable to other people but the more you hang out with intelligent people the less they do that so its just motivation to be around better people and do better things and work on more challenging things.
Also, people will try to tear you down at first, but if you hold your ground and respect yourself and respect other people regardless of how they respect themselves and how they respect you, eventually they will respect you, but theres not alot of instant gratification here, so I can only say this in retrospect.
I have (not a graduate degree but a Bachelors) a degree in Engineering from a top Private University but neither of my parents or their parents even graduated from highschool, much less went to college. I loved to read and learn from a young age, made straight As and thought Engineering would be cool because I liked math and Science but I knew being a Scientist meant long turn around times for learning cycles and now I do software dev because, learning cycles are fast! and I enjoy it, alot.
My parents lived in a trailor park, both druggies, I eventually got an academic scholarship to a private school while my Brother failed out of highschool. My dad has been in and out of prison and my mom would be at home drunk meanwhile I'm going to school day to day with kids who drive beamers to highschool and parents land helicopter to their kids crew meets.
It has been a bizarre experience to be able to be friends with people from my hometown in trailor parks who go to church and walmart and have babies at 17 (basically all of my cousins) and also know and become intimate and working peers with "the super elite".
I want to make a disclaimer that Yes, I acknowledge that some people start off in worse situations and that should be accounted for. This is not an opinion about who deserves what and what is fair and what is not. It's about observing issues people have when they are poor.
When it comes to trying to calibrate and be fair to historically economically disadvantaged ethnicities and demographics, the Government sucks at that.
My dad is full blood Native American (I'm half, and for those of you wondering already. nope. I did not put it on my college application, I left it off and wanted my perfect SAT Score and 3.986 unweighted GPA to be enough to get me into my dream school, and it was).
Welfare and closed off land for Native communities feels (and yes I say feel because I've LIVED in these places) more like a closed off culture for self perpetuating destruction from what I've experienced and also continued to witness from my extended family and their lives.
Issues of proper ways to calibrate disadvantaged people aside. Debates about whether people can get out of those situations and whether some deserve to be there aside.
For all people who are really poor in America, whether fair or right or how they got there, I've noticed that poor people across the board tend to have the following issues:
1. Their economic neediness attaches them to other economically needy people to pool resources like ride sharing, furniture, food, childcare. Therefore, their social networks are closely linked to other needy people. If one person becomes less needy, the balance is offset, people notice and immediately try to maximize the other persons resources because they can benefit greatly from it, obliterating the gains the increased wealth could be used to invest in more long term purchases to set that person up for a more stable life.
It can be done, but usually requires being a black sheep and experiencing an extreme amount of social isolation.
We already know strong social networks correlate with less depression so this creates an incredibly hard to document relationship when it comes to someone breaking out of their network of other economically needy people.
2. They don't realize this is happening. People who are the most self destructive tend to not realize when they are engaging in self destructive habits and with self destructive people. If this is how you grew up, it's hard to understand you deserve to be treated better, and that there are more productive ways to sooth yourself through stressful situations.
3. It is not rocket science for me. I know firsthand there is alot of unintentional emotional manipulation from people who feel threatened by someone else doing better. If you are born to an economically needy and codependent family in an economically needy and codependent community who exists by pooling resources because they are caught in a cycle of being desperate to meet basic life needs and self soothing with instant gratification that is self destructive, it is hard to take increased wealth, keep it to yourself or use it for the good of the community to invest in long term benefits for yourself and the people around you.
4. Investing in education is hard when you are poor, and trying to overcome the learning curve that other more privileged kids around me took for granted like connections to elite companies and institutions, having a dad who was an Engineer help you with your math homework, having a family who stays healthy and has healthy habits, took even more time.
When you are poor, being broke, dealing with stressful relationships and maintaining social connections to people who need you economically takes up time, time that you have even less of when you are making up for the learning curve just to calibrate to the elite.
Most people cannot overcome this even if they try because the emotional and cultural imprisonment, intentioned or not, can be soul crushing, and the guilt tripping associated with "thinking your better than everyone else" forces people in these intermediate situations to "choose sides" and some people don't make the best long term decision for themselves here.
For me, I moved far away for college, and have consistently relocated myself and each time associated with smarter people more aligned with my goals. If I still lived in my hometown and had people whose lives are going poorly around asking me for favours and wanting me to come to family events all of the time, I would not be as successful.
You want to believe that everyone will work as hard as you to make their lives better but the truth is alot of people are scared, don't believe in themselves and American poverty is comfortable enough that its easier to surround yourself with other people in that situation than experience the soul crushing isolation of trying to make yourself better without the full support of your community while also entering into a new community and trying to overcome the inferiority complex.
I'm a female Engineer Age 26 and now I make 6 figures, almost done paying off student loans, which were steep going to a private university, don't tell my family how much I make, live far away from them and am doing freelance software on the side outside of work, working 70hours a week to make passive income and invest more in software and bring those skills back to my niche industry so I can increase my salary even more.
Alot of people tell me "all you care about is money". No, you obviously have never lived on food stamps, lived with a single working mother whose father is in prison, and been sent to live with aunts and uncles when your mother couldnt afford to have you. Being broke is stressful and all consuming and forces you to be dependent on other people who are stuck on making short term economic decisions because they can't save up enough (for whatever reason, legitimate or lack of planning or putting in enough effort, stress, too busy working long hours at min wage etc) to invest in a better life.
Screw you. It's not about the money, its about creating a stable life so I can invest and focus on what I love to do. If I love what i do and I invest in that, I'll get a job doing something I really like, and I will be good at it and want to spend my time doing that, and I'll have the opportunity to work on big problems that help alot of people, and I won't be distracted by my lack of ability to take care of myself or pay my bills.
I've had fake hipsters who are Art Majors "living at home" buying a $5 latte not realizing what an economic luxury it is to sit a coffee shop and "contemplate" life, tell me all I care about is money has never really been poor, and thinks backpacking and asking people for money here and there is a cool socioeconomic experiment (that can be cushioned by crashing at your parents house when it doesnt work out), has idea what they are talking about.
Instant gratification is a subconscious mindset many people have and overcoming it day in and day out and forcibly changing your perspective when you get frutsrated with how little your accomplishing to "taking a break" or "going out for a drink with friends to blow off some steam" to what can I do starting today to fix this or avoid it next time or implement a solution or make this apart if my everyday life? And then following through instead of just giving into frustration with a self soothing action like procrastination in the form of going out, checking your phone etc. Is the hardest part.
There will be many times youre not motivated but dedication and habits will help you overcome that. I go to work from 6am to 2pm. I'm home by 3pm coding and on the on the weekends. I was wasting time going to the gym and in crowded gyms so I invested in weights and yoga at home that I do around 4:30am before showering and going to work and "binge" on some more luxurious types of working out like a hike or a lung run outside on the weekends.
When time is of the essence you'll find that 1. Not automating your bills 2. Not having lastpass or some other organized platform for passwords to logins 3. Driving to gym 4. Grocery shopping 5. Friends who do not contribute to your lifestyle 6. Dysfunctional romantic relationships 7. As a girl, spending money on random stuff like clothing and makeup and martinis with girls who only want to talk about their boyfriends
Are time suckers.
Get sleep.
Get up early and have "you" time whether it's yoga, reading your favorite blog, taking the dog for a walk, cooking breakfast having you time before the day starts makes you happier and more focused
Make a to-do list the night before with every little phonecall, extra stop you have to make on the way home and email you have to do. Have 15things on your list? Turns out it took an hour to compile all of it that night before but 25minutes to execute the day of. You can send that phone call while they are checking out your groceries, make that phone call during your lunch break etc so you can FOCUS and not feel like you're forgetting to call time Warner cable about that address change or call your mom back. Get it done and move on. Do it everyday for a couple of months until it wittles down into a routine.
Get a minimalist high class wardrobe. DONT spend time especially as a girl trying to figure out what to wear. If you're getting sleep. Working out regularly and bribging home healthy groceries and not drinking all the time having a minimalist nice well tailored wardrobe with some signature you pieces to brand your personal spin to it is all you need to look great. Less is more and alot more money to spend on that new thing you needed for your project that you didn't know you needed.
If you do these things above it will take up alot of your time for the first couple of months but your life will forever be in better order and it will be more habit and take up less time.
Very few people show up to their goals tasks or job each day with a workout done, a healthy breakfast, having taken them time, dressed well without much thought, and have a detailed todolist so when they need to focus on a task they can do it without the subconscious burden of trying not to forget random things that can turn into big things later.
Wow. Shower, clothing, breakfast. Workout, you time = productivity and focus
Mabipulative people. Negative people, on and off gray area relationships, anything or anyone emotionally exhausting besides your work: ain't nobody got time for that.
At the very least. Trying out a challenging but doable project is great for getting your life in order and seeing who and what serves you and lifts you up when it's crunch time and who wants the best for you and who can contribute to your life in a positive way. If you make a genuine effort at making room in your life for a project and even if the project is a failure or you decide to move onto another one, this few months of life cleansing and getting your s$&* togerher time will not be something you regret.
I believe the only mode of failure they were questioning in the study was the program coordinators own inability or failure to accurately identify people who did end up making large contributions to society (such as Shockley, aka the transistor) who failed to pass their initial thresholds for what they deemed as gifted. Much of the study focuses on questioning the failure of the program to adequately identify and support gifted children, not whether gifted children themselves ended up being successful. I'm honestly surprised noone has brought this up yet and that your comment is so presumptuous.
Unfortunately, I'd say 1/20-30 guys I work with are going to make a pass at me, or make me feel uncomfortable. Alot of this is encouraged r discouraged based on the culture of the workplace.
In general, I get along with my male coworkers, and I loathe getting special treatment or being given breaks because I'm a girl so I agree with you, you don't need to do anything extra beyond what you normally do.
Unfortunately, not everyone is as awesome as you. It's more just that statistically if females are a minority, and the culture of the workplace allows it, it's likely you might get hit on, and it's possible the female coworkers you hung out with may have gotten hit on inappropriately at work and just never talked to you about it. For sure, none of the guys I worked with who were cool with me knew what I went through.
Same as you, I started in semiconductor. 95% of the guys were totally chill and we worked and ate together etc etc. I did however, get asked out on dinner and dates by four married men in my two years working then, who then avoided me and refused to even do necessary job place coordination with me on daily tasks after I turned them down, making my job harder for me.
The team was 114 people, 6 women, all of us 20 yrs younger than the average age of the men. SO that means 108 of the men were totally awesome, and 4 of them sucked. This is not all that I went through, just a PG version but in general, I'm making the point on average and most men are not like that, instead of trying to hone in on the few bad outlier scenarios I had to encounter.
I definitely don't want these conversations to make men like you feel you are not doing enough. On the contrary, need more men like you that DON"T feel the need to treat us any differently, because thats what we want, atleast for me.
and she wasnt at a Pharma Convention, she was at Google I/O. Her stuff is everywhere, and has nothing to do with Pharmaceuticals.
but should this be an advertising mechanism at a tech conference? if you need a dancer to advertise your startup, then you probably have a shitty startup because your product doesnt speak for itself.
So no I'm not against dancers in general, or even strippers, but there is a time and place for everything, is a tech conference the time or place for dancers? I would say probably not.
When I say "demeaning to women in tech" I mean WHILE AT A TECH CONFERENCE, for women to be default assumed to be in an auxiliary role because most women at tech conferences are hired to be in auxiliary roles, is demeaning.
I'm not making a statement about appropriate sexual behavior. I am a liberal feminist and I believe women should be able to do whatever they want with their bodies, and sympathise with women who don't get the opportunity to educate themselves, and also support women who willingly choose other paths. The female body is a wonderful thing and can be enjoyed by whomever she feels comfortable sharing it with. In South Korea, prostitution is a respected career and feminists in south korea even lit themselves on fire in protest of trying to outlaw it because they believed it was encroaching upon their freedoms. Awesome for them. One of the girls on my old sports team just got featured in VICE magazine for, after graduating as valedictorian from my highschool and then at Princeton, went underground for multiple years studying female rights as a call girl in multiple countries in multiple socioeconomic stratas and wrote a huge article on womens rights even in the realm of prostitution.
Believe me, I am not here to crap all over women dancers. It is women in entertainment, and female rappers who are trailblazing the idea that their bodies are wonderful and they can do what they want with them and say what they want and that its ok.
I absolutely agree with you, but I still dont see what that has to do with a tech conference...
tech conferences are somewhat professional and its even valid to argue diverse enough that some ethnicities might even have males that are offended by female dancers at a tech conference.
Don't get me wrong, it is isolating in general but after working for two startups, one bought out by a foreign company and another now has billions in funding, doing software analytics on the trading floor through summer internships in college, and going to a predominately male college for engineering, 70% males overall, and 99% male in my major, I can say I have a diversity of experience even within the tech field and also years of experience working at single companies before moving on, I can say a few things that I think echo what she is saying
1. Most of the people speaking the most about female controversey are not coders, or engineers or in the nitty gritty of tech. While I appreciate their empathy and willingness to latch onto a cause and speak for us, they often get it wrong, and recently have done so much so that they scare the MAJORITY of men to feeling uncomfortable talking about it. What do I mean? onto point #2
1a. Sorry, before I go to Point 2, another way journalists or people wanting to speak out on our behalf (female women in tech) get it wrong is by assuming we want to change the culture to be this outgoing, social fashion forward world. Actually, alot of us are introverted geeks and like doing the same thing other male engineers do. I definitely think wheather you were or are a cheerleader sorority girl who likes to bake and throw parties or an introverted star wars nerd and each one is an engineer, either should feel equally comfortable at a new tech company and not isolated by the culture, but anecdotally I happen to be an extreme introvert, and the excessive socializing and advice or notion that if we have an environment where we can all be super girly like omg together is the vibe I get from alot of female focused events in tech. It's actually overwhelming and makes me feel more out of place than not. Listen to us, not imposing your idea of how we might feel onto us. Get a good profile of what females are saying who are IN tech, and if there is a difference between that and the ones who are latching onto the idea of it or operating in auxiliary roles surrounding tech. These women are just as important, and are are still subject to sexism working around male dominated industries, but if you want more women IN tech, instead of talking about tech but not in it, listen to the women IN it, you might be surprised.
EXAMPLE
Here is one example where both genders are contributing to the problem but making it harder for women IN tech. my friend is a Biomed Engineer who prototyped and developed her hardware. Keeping her anonymous on here, but she went to a big tech conference in the bay area and was approached by three men asking if she was a "showgirl" at the conference as a starter to the conversation. Of all the things you could possibly say right? How offensive to a female engineer with over 30 pending patents running a multi million dollar company and two engineering degrees under her belt. Welp, those guys are in the wrong, but also why are there showgirls at tech conferences. because hot girls attract geeks to the boothe. But MEN hired these showgirls, and WOMEN are actually fufilling those roles. So both parties are at fault.
Who suffers? The people who suffer are the ACTUAL female engineers who would love to go to a conference and not have it be assumed they are there in an auxiliary tech role until proven otherwise.
once my friend described who she was, both of the guys felt really bad, even embarassed and apologized profusely. They ended up being cool guys she is still friends with. they learned a lesson, but they have also been heavily conditioned by males and females who are both willing particpants in establishing a stereotype that is demeaning to women actually in tech.
2. Most men I've met and worked with in tech are absolutely fine. It is that in general outlier cases good and back stick out in our heads. If there are 200 employees at a company and only 2 females in my department of 40, probably over a 6 months period the chances are I'm going to be made to feel uncomfortable whether intentionally or not by one person atleast. I'm not saying it's acceptable or ok, or that steps shouldn't be taken to fix it, I'm saying 19/20 guys I work with in a random sampling are just fine, and don't make being a girl a thing, and treat me just the same, or if anything are excited to see women in tech and go out of their way to make you feel comfortable. It's then in your discretion to stand on your own two feet and not take advantage of that, because some women do, which brings me to...
3. There are some women who abuse their minority status. I'm NOT saying women who have spoken out about being treated poorly are the ones who are abusive, or that they are lying. It is usually ones that have nothing to complain about and the situations are much more nuanced. I'm sorry people will get mad at me about this statement but I feel comfortable saying it as I've observed it and I work in tech and I'm not going to lie to remain politically correct. Both males and females are capable of abusing their position. Not all males do it, not all females do it. So hating men or making them terrified of saying the wrong thing if anything is just going to make you feel more isolated.
There are also women who still have queen B syndrome and like being the only female around, and actively bully other women. This is so obnoxious. However, in my varied experience in tech, I can say one key indicator of a real female engineer, is that most of us would LOVE a female friend because we don't have many. Females that view male dominated workplaces as a fun new playground because of all the men, are constantly having coworker boyfriends, and view other women as competition, instead of empathizing with them, have probably not experienced the long term years of being in college engineering classes and doing their homework and not having female friends, and the desire to be treated as an equal instead of put on a pedastool or having to prove themselves. Real females doing real work in tech know what it's like to be isolated, and when we get together as females, we are all super super grateful for it, and we all feel uncomfortable going to glitzy girl focused events where we are bombarded by girls not in tech telling us how things should be. This has been my experience.
4. While some of us can't choose who we work for and with, if you are a female IN Tech, not marketing or some soft auxiliary department of a developed company, but you code or prototype electronics or hardware or engineer something, then you are valuable enough that you can move onto thousands of other companies if you don't find one with a culture that fits your comfort zone. Not just because you are a talented brilliant ambitious female, but because you are a talented brilliant ambitious engineer, and they are in great need in any gender, but being a female is always a great added diversity and step into equality for EVERYONE, not just females. AGAIN, it's not ok women should ever have to feel uncomfortable but we live in the real world and not everything is fair, not just for women, but for alot of situations and people in general.
CLOSING COMMENTS
In life in general, forget being a women or startups, a good rule of thumb, and one I took way too long to learn myself in my personal and professional life, if you don't like how you are being treated, then start hanging around different people.
I have plenty of male engineer friends who are low key, we geek out together, order pizza, watch tv, code, switch knowledge, music and talk about latest tech stuff, and its totally chill. What and who makes you feel comfortable but also gets you excited about learning and obtaining your goals? hang around them and your work life and personal life will be better. It's the same as if you want to stop drinking but your friends only method or venue for socializing is drinking, well it's not going to be super fun for you, so hang out with people who gel with your same lifestyle.
I definitely have my frustrations, but my successes and friends male and female far outweigh my desire to spend most of my time feeling negatively. This is coming from a girl who has been through some troubling times with male coworkers. It's not that is hasnt been harder, its just that I have so many things I want to do, I'd rather "show them" by being successful and acheiving my goals than fighting a legal battle. I am glad some women have chosen the legal path, but I actually would be upset if someone chastized me for not spending all my time in court. There are lots of way to bring tech forward with everyone, not just articles and legal battles. Sometimes, just being a good role model, the girl you wish you had to hang with 5 years ago when you had no female friends, goes alot farther in the world of tech females who actually need a friend, not just people reading the hottest news. Any new girl I meet in my company or department or otherwise who is an engineer or software developer, I atleast attempt to make friends and go out to lunch or a grab a drink with them , let them know I'm available to chat or otherwise, and every time I've been endlessly thanked saying I'm the only female friend they have. Well, now I have like 5 awesome female engineer friends and we all are friends as a group now, it's not much, its not enough, but its more than we ever had and it's all we have time for, because you know, we are also coding, starting companies and doing all the same things males do so we are not over here just being social butterflies. As cliche as it sounds, and something I never would have believed about myself years ago when I was feeling isolated, is that I focused on being the change I wanted to see in the world, and the role model I wish I had when I was fresh out of college, instead of fighting legal battles. Sometimes thats the right thing to do, sometimes my path is a good one too, and I don't regret it.
I've had to abandoned some groups, and in one case a company because I was around egotistical chovenistic males who challenged me on everything and even worse it was all subconscious sexism so it was not even easy to address. no its not ok, but I decided to instead of fighting for it for years and years, to move onto something better for me, and now I can spend the majority of my time coding and working on my goals, instead of fighting against people. It was the best decision I've ever made, I'm able to be alot more technically advanced, and by holding my head high and deciding I could do better, instead of tearing other people down.
Atleast three of those guys have come to me years later to apologize (with no prodding on my part), tell me I was a good player on the team, and I know from females who joined that same team later, they are treated very well. Those guys straightened up because sometimes the most powerful thing you can do, is know you deserve better, walk away and discover a place that fosters your worth. If you have real tech skills, this will always be an option for you as a woman, or a man. It's ok to stand up and "fight" and it all depends on your situation. I should have had more support in mine, but honestly I think I made the right choice by just moving onto something better.
FINAL NOTE
She is right, don't be scared. JUST DO IT. If you can actually code or prototype, then do it. Perform, let your product speak for itself and noone can argue with you. That is the cool thing about coding or being an engineer, if it works and people are paying for it, who cares if youre a girl, or a transgender, or have purple hair, wear tennis shoes to work, or if you are a hippopotamus. It's not going to be easy, it's going to be WORTH it, and there may be some extra barriers, but how rewarding for you to be a trailblazer.
I never thought of myself that way until people started calling me a trailblazer or a "badass" years out of college and now that I think about it, hey yeh, I've been through some pretty hard times but damn this is cool, minority or not, I love what I do and nothing is going to stop me. In fact, I had no idea when I first went into this that anyone would want to stop me, or feel threatened by me, and honestly, that is the hard part.
THE HARD PART
The hard part is realizing that some people are actually not supportive of you, subconsciously or not, alot of the anger on your part comes from the confusion surrounding the challenge of understanding this concept, because if youre an awesome person who doesnt need to tear other people down to have success, this isn't going to be intuitive for you to understand other people are actually that lame. Once you realize yes these warped people in self denial who project their own insecurities onto you DO exist, and probably always will in some form or fashion, then you can be like "oh, no I'm better than that sorry". Sometimes again, legal is a good way, sometimes not.
Just do you and find that confidence. if you don't have it, dig deeper, if youre reading this youre already way ahead of the game and have nothing to feel insecure about. Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you respond and how you let it effect your opinion of yourself or your subconscious belief about your capabilities.
Have that attitude, and support other girls around you, focus on your work and not people, and youll be amazed. In the words of Dr. Suess "oh the places youll go.."
Sometime's people are trying to be nice but I'm worried they are being sarcastic and I'm not interpreting correctly. The reason I've LEARNED to worry about that is because sometimes I thought people were being nice but they were being sarcastic to me and making fun of me to me or in front of their friends.
Sometimes, hours later, I'll have to reobserve the interaction in my head, view it from all possible angles, cross check it against how this person typically is/how much I genuinely think they like me or not, and then I can feel pretty confident in about the message I think they were really sending across. But if I don't have alot of previous experiences with this person to cross check, it's like having an incomplete algorithm to make a decision on.
Yes, this is an arduous process and it's why alot of people tend to say I keep them at a distance for a while before I get to know them, I need to stay safe and then gradually as I learn more about them open up to them because I can interpret how they are reacting to me correctly.
When it comes to having mutual crushes. It's turning out to be a nightmare trying to navigate weather a guy is genuinely into me and even if I'm willing to believe he is how to engage with that, when other girls are masterminds of cutsey mindgames and being flirtacious.
The guy I think is into me right now I think has become frustrated because I'm not flirting back with him, but he knows I like being around him, so it's confusing for him and I think hes getting frustrated thinking I'm playing mind games. I need to go talk to him before he goes away entirely but what to say? Gosh I don't know, been debating that for weeks now...
In summary, can not only be exhausting it can be emotionally painful and hurtful when the people on the other side facing you don't really understand what it's like in your head. They tend to jump to alot of conclusions that are not even close to the innocent confusion I experience and genuine effort I'm putting in to get to know them.
Thank you!
I'm also reading/have finished reading in the past few months: The Empathy Trap Safe People Without A Conscience Trauma and Memory Women Who Love Psychopaths Social Engineering Whos Pulling your strings In Sheeps Clothing
From your recommendation which is the first one I heard of, I found these highly reviewed books on Amazon in the recommended section after you search that book.