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This series will take you through a maze of different kinds of relationship trends, aimed at people who are dating, engaged, seeing someone, married, sexually involved, interested, trying to learn more about dating or the myth called “a good relationship“, or something similar. Please realize that the tolerance level in different people regarding relationships is different, and thus some people may give up on a relationship the very moment they notice any of the trends listed in this series, while other let-me-keep-trying-hope-is-in-sight people like me, have in the past kept trying to fix things for a long, long time. You decide how much you can tolerate, and then take actions accordingly. Only let people, who know the whole story or most of the story of your relationship, advice you on whether or not you should end or change your relationship.

This guide focuses on both men and women, and is not limited to only a man-to-a-woman relationship. It includes man-to-a-man, woman-to-a-woman, and woman-to-a-man¹ relationships. The post also does not intend to take your side: you may very well be the very cause of the mentioned trends, and your significant other may be the victim. Hopefully if you are the cause, reading this series will help you realize how you may be doing certain things consciously or unconsciously that may be putting your significant other through mental or physical problems that they should not be put through.

What if I am a man and abused?

You are not alone if you are a man whose heart has been broken before². Relax. For stereotypical reasons, societies today expect females to be more emotional and males to be more “manly“, a term that describes the stereotypical things and traits associated with stereotypical males. Women are not the only victims of abuse, and many males do not report abuse or ask their friends about relationships because they feel ashamed. People might say “What kind of a man are you who feels sad about the relationship? Dump her/him and move on! Remember, you da maaaan!” Even last week I heard someone tell his friend: “What kind of a man are you? You can’t even control one chick, and you expect to be successful in life?” Such is the mentality we hold in life when it comes to the role of genders on our planet.

As a male, the first thing you have to realize is that while majority of the people and mentalities, including the ideas in this article that you are reading, may hint at women being more abused than men, acknowledging the problem in your relationship in your own mind and heart is a very good step to take. Who cares what others think? If you cannot tell others that you feel sad about a relationship, that is fine for now: not being able to admit in public or to others that you can have emotions is a problem that can be tackled later. For now, your focus is on the problem in the relationship. You may be stuck with an aggressive female or a stereotypical girl who is not happy when you act non-stereotypically. Apply everything in this series to yourself, even if you come across an example that mentions females instead of males.

Whether it is a girl or a guy that broke your heart or hurt you deeply, and you are still in a relationship with that person, be sure to think only of the relationship and not your gender when it comes to thinking about the question “Should I even be worried about this, or should I just ignore it and try to be more macho?” The day you start realizing how to look at issues without putting gender into the question will be the day you can start realizing why things are happening. Forget what the society expects from you if you think something is harmful for you and harmful for someone else who is innocent: if in your lifetime you can tell your family even once that their decisions or thoughts may go against what you wish, why is it hard for you to let someone as distant as the society know that you wish to live your life based on what you think is right, and not what the society thinks is right for you? This same society is what bound females into the current male-dominated society. Do not allow the society to keep you tied to the same macho-position in this male-dominated world. Even if in the end you want to be a macho, be sure to make that decision based on your own thinking, without any influence from the society.

Please keep in mind that I am slowly working my way towards discussing such things in more detail also: I am starting from one side and working my way up to help both you and myself understand the situation from some principle, and then branching into other areas based on some form of thinking, logic and reasons based on what I consider is ethical or at least better and the right thing. Also remember one of the important rules: you may hate what the other person does or you may even hate the other person, but do not hate the other gender because of what a single person or a group of people does to you.

3 relationship trends that slowly kill the abused heart

Today we will start with 3 things happening in a relationship that should make you realize that ending or changing the relationship may be the answer to such a trend. We will start today from the trends that revolve around simpler physical and mental torture, to more definite tortures related solely to mental and physical attributes in the next parts of the series. Today we cover the trends of you doing all the work in a relationship, to you not being appreciated for what you do in a relationship, to the other person not doing much or anything for you in a relationship. So please sit down, relax, take a deep breath, hold on to those “will-fall-in-real-love-one-day” or “I-am-always-right-since-I-am-the-man/woman” thoughts in your heart, and start reading below.

1. You do all the work to keep the relationship running.

   This one is very simple to grasp, as the title says it all, yet very difficult to be realized. You, in the relationship, do most of the things to keep yourself and the other person happy in life. This point usually affects females, since we still live in a male-dominated world³. Basically, you are responsible for everything important and critical in the relationship. If you do something wrong, the relationship suffers. If the other person does something wrong, the relationship does not suffer.

   Taking the example of a female in a relationship, like a girlfriend or a wife: if she has to cook, take care of children, clean the house, manage things around the house for the male, manage and handle the money, while the husband only brings in money or does things that are good for his own self and does not love the female⁴, chances are that the relationship is one sided and the female is not an equal in the relationship. Such relationships can be seen in majority of the world, where the popular term, house wife, has come into play billions of times in different houses around the world. One partner does all the work and is always left behind or separate, while the other one does no work and is always ahead and in a better position and control.

   The sad thing is, many of such wives are happy with their situation and prefer to be in a household where the man controls their destinies⁵ and the man dictates the major decisions in life, while the major actions are performed by the female. How can you tell someone who knows what is happening and is satisfied with it, to change their life? It is hard, very very hard. You can force them to change or get out, but then you would be imposing your opinion onto their life, which would be the same thing their husbands or significant others do. If a person is happy with abuse or with being led forward by someone else, how can you easily change their life for the sole reason of making it happier? The solution can be either to let such people be happy in their lives, or to make such people go through a lot of interaction with others to be able to slowly create an idea of the depths and extents of other ideas and opinions; I will not go into that, as that can be the topic of another post.

   If you are in a relationship where you do everything and the other person, regardless of their gender, reaps all the benefits, try to figure out why you are in the relationship. Are you in it because you want to do all the work? Are you in it because you like to be told what to do? Are you in it because you are desperate to be with anyone and you do not want to be single? Are you in it because you love the other person so much that you are willing to let them dictate your life? Are you in it because you love the other person for being in control and you feel weak? You decide the answers to the above question, and then decide if you want to end such a relationship.

2. You are rarely appreciated.

   Ever seen a teenager gangster wannabe with low pants, long shirts, and no skill to earn money on his own? You will usually hear such a guy say “I don’t give a damn what others think fool!” Let me tell you something. Such gangster show-off wannabe’s are the most attention-wanting species in your neighborhood, and they care a lot about what others think. That is why they dress in such a manner, rarely apologize, rarely act considerate, and rarely show a human side that does not try to portray itself as being superior to others. Try it yourself: keep looking at such gangsters and they will get irritated, nervous, intimidated and they will end up saying “What the hell you looking at?” So much for them not caring “what others think fool!”

   In a relationship, you should be the opposite of a gangster child. Whether you are a guy or a girl, your relationship is affected greatly by many questions, including the question of whether or not you want the other person to think positively about you and appreciate you. While majority of the females are used to hearing “You look so beautiful” from guys⁶, real people who want real relationships can slowly realize whether or not they are being sincerely appreciated by their significant others. The same way you get bored and even annoyed hearing “Wow you are such a good person” from people who never help you when you need help but they say such things when they need your help, why would you accept a relationship where you are rarely appreciated sincerely?

   A relationship does not only exist to allow two people to avoid suicide⁷, but to live lives together and to sincerely let the other person know that their actions and thoughts are helping the other person, among a few other things. Such appreciation should come naturally and not at times when you are stuck in a situation or when you feel that appreciating the other person will get that person off your back. Still, many relationships exist where one person, usually the female, is rarely appreciated. This happens when there is an assumed mentality that the female is expected to do something.

   Have you ever noticed that stereotypical guys start appreciating more when they are aroused? Have you ever noticed that stereotypical girls start appreciating more when they need attention? All of such appreciation is stereotypical. Where is the real, sincere appreciation that comes even when the appreciation-giver does not need anything in return? When couples have fights, they start appreciating in order to show they should be forgiven. Have you ever seen someone in a relationship appreciate things after everything is over, and after the relationship ends? Of course not. We do not see such appreciation after a relationship ends, because then there is no more sex, money, attention or support. The only time when appreciation could be the most sincere is the time we start ignoring appreciation on purpose. And we wonder why majority of the couples in Northern and Southern Americas end up splitting even after 40+ years of marriage or being together.

   Why should you thank a person who breaks your window while drunk and then fixes it the next day when you catch him? Why should you thank your roommate for turning off the lights at night while you sleep? Why should you thank your neighbor for keeping the volume down at night when you sleep? Why should you thank your boss for paying you, when you do hard work that deserves money as a reward? Why should you thank a cop for not giving you a ticket when he/she does not even stop you? Why should you thank the credit card company for taking your money for the monthly bills? Why should you thank your wife for having children and going through pain that you as a man will rarely go through, when she is having children in a relationship that are not only for herself but for you also? Why should you thank your husband for earning money when he himself agreed to such an arrangement and you agreed to such an agreement also by marrying him?

   If you can realize any difference in the validity in each and every one of the above questions and the related concept of appreciation, you probably have the ability to realize when and why to appreciate someone. The choice is yours whether or not you want to appreciate. The choice and decision is also yours whether or not you wish to be in a relationship where the other person takes for granted what you do for yourself, for the relationships and for the other person.

3. You are not given any significant focus.

   There is a difference between appreciation and focus. Appreciation usually happens when the other person is reacting to your actions, letting you know somehow that he/she is very happy or satisfied and grateful that you are doing something that the other person likes, including the very act of staying in a relationship. Giving focus, on the other hand, can be viewed as the original action. If someone is appreciating you because you cared for them while they were sick, it is usually because you focused part of your life on that sick person. Thus, appreciation is the reaction if you wish to look at it from that view, and focus is the action. You focus on something, and get appreciated in return. We talked about appreciation in the above point. Let us now put our minds on the concept of having your significant other do things for you as part of their focus in life: them doing things without you asking for such things or without you doing things first.

   A lot of relationships have people that give majority of the focus in their life to things outside of the relationship. Again, usually, the victim of such a trend is the female. While many girls and ladies are all right with having money and not caring what their significant others do, majority of the guys end up not caring much about their significant others other than thinking that they are properties that are to be handled. This mentality results in husbands and many boyfriends not focusing on the essential parts of the female’s lives, like things they care about, things that affect their thinking and their mentality. Basically, these are the things that should affect any ethical being, and stereotypical people who constitute the majority fail to notice such ethical views of thinking.

   Think about your relationship as a bond: why are you with the other person when you cannot focus on the important things in their life without them doing something first? You focus on the other person but the other person does not return or give any focus. You do not have to lie from time to time simply to make the other person feel happy: I always told my ex I hated going shopping, yet I went, I complained, I walked around and also sincerely offered honest suggestions about different things. I slowly got used to it and never lied that I had no problems with it. Now here is the funny thing: slowly, when I went shopping for my own clothes, I realized that I had started taking longer times shopping for my own self also, and my ex had started developing an appetite for shopping faster than me. We had basically switched places. When I realized this, I started being more considerate on my own, and my ex realized this too.

   For guys, it is not that they have other focuses of attention other than shopping. That is a myth. Usually, when guys view girls as sexual objects⁸, they end up not respecting a lot of things the girls do. The guys themselves end up faking a lot of things like enjoying shopping or talking about random things or even cooking. This is similar to the extra love you see coming from guys around Valentine’s Day, with guys trying to shower the girl with random gifts as if buying dog food for the dog. And of course, guys expect a lot of intimacy in return since they are doing so much for the girl as part of the original focus⁹. It is very funny for me to see that the very humane and nice things that everyone should do on a normal basis, like showing emotions or doing nice things without expecting something in return, are considered to be weird. It is also funny that doing things sincerely we may not like, but that our significant other may like, while also being honest in our efforts to help the other person, are considered too soft by majority of the people, and usually attributed to being a quality of the sensitive females. And we say we do not live in a male dominated society.

   If your significant other usually lies about showing interest in your life or your significant other does things in order to get something in return like money or sex, your significant other is not doing things that focus on you. People have their own lives, agreed, but relationships are about both maintaining individualism and a shared life at the same time. I have rarely heard of guys who cook something for their girl friends and do not seek something in return. Stereotypical guys will want intimacy or some favor in return. How about cooking something and simply wanting to hear “Food tasted good” in return and nothing else? Maybe I cooked really bad food most of the time, so I longed to hear only “Hmm, wow tastes good, nice job! Next time try adding more salt and that will fix the taste completely“, so I always have tried to focus on fewer or no rewards in relationships other than the mental ones.

Initiating the change to eliminate the above trends

In many situations and areas, you cannot simply end a relationship because of situations like having a child or because of being in a marriage where it is not easy for a female or a male to take a break from an abusive or uncaring relationship unless the other person asks for it first. In such cases, start looking for outside consultation and legal help, but also maintain a very quiet atmosphere¹⁰. See what your options are, how you can try to improve things, how you can try to make the other person realize that they can act differently in some areas of the relationship to make things easier and happier for you.

Remember one thing: anyone who tells you “Never try to change or ask someone in a relationship to change for you: accept people 100% for what they are” are fools and not your friends; such people are those who do not change anything in the world and wish to be dictated around because they are too weak to realize something may be wrong in different things in the universe. Sure, love a person for what he/she already is, but also let them know what to do in order for the relationship to click. Relationship does not happen because you look for a compatible person: relationship happens because you look for a person who is willing to be compatible with you.

Till next time

There you go, my relationship-advice-mastering of a reader. The above 3 points, from personal experience and from observation of other people’s relationships, will hopefully tell you more about the ways some relationships are fatal. Many people expect others to do all the work or majority of the work in a relationship, which will be bad for you, regardless of whether you are the person expecting the work or the person doing the work. Many people also do not realize the efforts their significant others make in order to please them, and instead treat most of the things as being expected, or with a mild and fake show of appreciation. Lastly for this article, and not least for this series, there are many people who never try to take any initiative to do things for you to show any kind of appreciation for anything on a sincere and honest level.

The above trends and situations can let you know whether or not something is happening in the relationship, due to the other person in the relationship, which may make you unhappy being in that relationship. Instead of telling your significant other this very moment “Yo! I read this thing that Bes wrote, and I finally realized that you don’t appreciate me! I’m outta here loser! You can’t control my life!“, you should actually think as to what makes you unhappy or unsatisfied and talk to your significant other about it. If that does not change things or if you have already talked about it, you decide what you would like to do. Remember, in the end, it may always be the hardest for you since you are the one enduring or ending the relationship.

Thank you for reading

Next time, I will talk about relationships that have certain trends related to sex, money and your gender. Please let me know if you have any questions, comments, or ideas on how some of the above things or trends may be different from what you observe. Also, please let me know via e-mail or through the comments if you wish to find out my views on certain trends that you may have noticed. I have about 13 trends planned out so far: I will be more than satisfied and grateful if I can find more trends that may be hurting people in relationships. Maybe I will come across a trend that has affected me in the past, or I may learn of a new trend that I had not previously thought about or experienced. Also, please let me know if you wish to see this series in a little bit different format that may help you read and understand the series better and in a more organized manner. If you noticed a recurring trend in the above 3 points, here it is again as a summary: one person simply enjoys the relationship due to the efforts of someone else doing all the work and giving all the appreciation and focus.

Till then, thank you for reading, relax, and be happy that you are going to hopefully realize more things about relationships from this series, things you may have thought are too small or important to be analyzed. Figure out what problems you are facing in your relationship and why, bring them up to the attention of the person who is causing such problems, and then decide what you would like to do.

Thank you for reading.

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Opening a business with a friend can have the following 3 random benefits and downsides.

3 random benefits

1. More honest and open communication about issues
2. More chances of solving business problems as if they were friendship problems
3. Fewer chances of being taken advantage of by the other person in the business

3 random downsides

1. Friendship can get affected because of the existence of money and personal interest in the business
2. Existence of friendship can result in one person not taking the business or business issues seriously
3. Friends may not realize if their honest, friendly communication is satisfactory enough for the business to work properly

Opening business with a reliable non-friend contact

Similarly, opening a business with a reliable non-friend contact can have the following 3 random benefits and downsides.

3 random benefits

1. More formal and effective communication
2. More chances of both parties addressing different issues openly so that they can be satisfied, resulting in more issues coming to the spotlight quickly
3. Professional relation with the business partner means both partners will know exactly what to expect, in contrast to the confusion that may result because of a friendship

3 random downsides

1. More chances of being taken advantage of if one partner does not feel fully satisfied
2. Less chances of talking openly about one’s emotions and feelings about the business
3. Fewer chances of solving a business problem on a personal level

A business with a close friend or a reliable non-friend contact?

So, what do you think? Do you feel more comfortable with the idea of opening a business with a friend or with a reliable contact who is not yet your friend?

Please let me know what you think or if you have any questions, thank you.

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[Update: September 9th, 2007 - 2:00 pm PST] For this question, Stacee in the comments for this question asked if the friend was reliable also. I have updated the above question and added the following line in the 2nd paragraph of this article: “Last, imagine that the non-friend contact has shown reliability in other business situations, and that you do not know about the business reliability of your close friend; you only know that your friend is your close friend.” Thank you Stacee. [/ end of update]

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Your friend may expect you to comment on their site, whether or not your current friendship with that friend is solely based on the online world. You can talk to your friend via the phone or even chat with them online, but if you do not visit or comment on their site regularly, they may retaliate by not talking to you that much or by talking to someone else who visits and comments on their blog.

It is as if the friendship is solely based on the number of comments you leave on a blog. A blog can be considered someone’s personal property, thus you have to see whether or not your friend is justified in getting upset over you not commenting on their site. Your friend getting upset over the absence of your comments on your site can either be like your friend expecting you to support them in unrelated things in order for the friendship to continue or like your friend expecting you to support them in a passion they may have.

Of course, such confusion can be solved if you ask your friend what they want, or if your friend tells you what they want. However, I wonder if it is always easy for everyone to tell a friend “You know what, I don’t like commenting on your blog or reading it, because of this and this reason. Is that going to upset you?”

Business and non-business contacts expecting comments

Business and non-business contacts can be different than your friends. Sure, more and more people are calling each other friends, but no one is there for each other in anything from which they themselves do not benefit, or when a business deal is not around. Thus, let us briefly focus on the idea of non-friend contacts expecting comments from you: a random person or a business contact may show you their personal or some other blog, and thus may expect you to regularly visit or participate that blog. What happens if you do not fulfill their expectations?

Well, from my personal experience, several things can happen. I have seen business contacts doing less business simply because I do not comment on every post of theirs. I have also seen some very famous business contacts being non-communicative until they need something, which can appear to be beyond unprofessionalism in many cases. I have also heard people complaining about their business contacts becoming more aggressive and unfriendly in business deals if those people post a disagreeing comment about something on a blog. Getting upset in different ways over other contacts not commenting on some site can be signs of people not being able to differentiate between their expectations from their own blogs and their business and other deals with other people.

How do you fix such a thing? You cannot fix such a trend and mentality until you find out what the business or some other deal expects. You entered into a business deal; did it include in any direct or indirect manner your participation on any site? Did the other person get any kind of a hint in the beginning that you will continuously participate on their site? It is best to not mix business with personal life or something like your passion for comments unless you know the people involved in a business deal are willing to be true friends or logical contacts who will not let things get affected by something like the number of comments you post on a blog not related to the business or some other deal in question.

What to do?

It depends. I personally do not want to be obligated to comment on any friend’s or non-friend’s blog. I comment when I want to. Otherwise, I try to communicate with people a lot outside of a blog, like via the phone, e-mail or even chatting online on different im’s. I actually prefer to communicate more offline than online in many cases.

Do you want friendship to continue? Do you want a business or some other contact to continue doing business or remain a contact with you? Do you want a random contact to keep in touch normally? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you can think of ways to come at a solution that satisfied either you, the other person, or both of you. Whatever solution you come up with, you should feel comfortable enough to actually stick to the solution if the other person agrees to the solution also.

What do you think? Please let me know, thank you.

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Viewing online and offline friends as being equal can be different than treating online and offline people equally. I know some people who prefer online friends to offline friends. I know some people who prefer offline friends to online friends. For me, online and offline friends can be equal.

I have a personal preference of wanting to move online friends a little bit into the offline realm, whether it be through face to face interaction, phone calls, text messaging via cell phones or even postal mail. That way, I have both online and offline friends and I can treat them equally and consider both to be important, while preferring the offline world a bit more than the online world, regardless of whether the friend was originally an online or an offline friend.

3 random things online and offline friends can offer

To help you figure out the answer to this question more, I am listing below 3 random things that online and offline friends can offer to you in their respective worlds.

3 random things online friends can offer

1. More privacy
2. More space
3. More ways to listen to you - you can send an e-mail or an online message to a friend anytime, even if they are not online

3 random things offline friends can offer

1. More powerful interaction
2. More physical privacy
3. More powerful ways to listen to you

So, do you consider your online and offline friends to be equally important? If you do not have online or offline friends, would you consider them to be equally important if you ever did have both online and offline friends, or would you prefer one over the other?

Please let me know. Also, if you have more things in mind that I can add to the above “3 random things” lists, please let me know and I will add them to this list and give you credit. Thank you.

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[update September 2nd, 11:35 am PST]
Simonne, in the first comment and answer to this question, said that “The online-offline split is not very clear.” I have added 2 sentences to the end of the 2nd paragraph in this article to briefly explain the difference between the online and offline friends I am referring to. The 2 sentences added are “Also, by an online friend, I am referring to friends we make solely in the online world. By an offline friend, I am referring to friends we make solely in the offline world.” Thank you Simonne.
[end of September 2nd, 11:35 am PST update]

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1. Laundry

   If you share any laundry machine with any of your neighbors, you can easily annoy them. Leave your clothes in the washer or the dryer, and do not take them out for hours. The next person who wants to do laundry will probably check repeatedly, every half hour or so, to see if you picked up your clothes.

   I currently have many laundry options, including shared laundry with a few neighbors. I decided to do laundry while talking to a friend in Europe. After washing my clothes, I noticed someone else’s clothes in the dryer. I waited for that neighbor to come and pick up the clothes. After almost 4 hours of waiting, I knocked at my neighbor’s door and asked politely if she could help. She had just woken up from sleep, sincerely apologized and took out the clothes from the dryer. That was fine and really nice of her. I told my friend all of this, and he said I should blog about it. This very post is because of that friend and that situation.

   I put my clothes in the dryer for 70 minutes and told my friend I was going to take a nap. I woke up very late, about 2 hours after the dryer had finished drying. I went to the laundry room and noticed the same neighbor waiting for me to take out my clothes from the dryer so she could put her newly washed clothes in it. In my friend’s view, I became the very inconvenience for a person that I may have felt only a few hours ago from that very person. That was a good example of how sometimes a random thing, like sleeping a bit longer than usual, can result in others being inconvenienced even though we did not intend to. When I talked to my friend again and told him what had happened, he could not stop laughing. I wonder if he is going to make fun of me using that example forever.

2. Car

   If you and your neighbors have a car, you can annoy them by parking in weird ways to make sure they have a hard time entering or leaving the parking area. Park in the middle of the driveway, or park very close to their car so that they cannot get in it easily.

   Someone has to go to work? Big deal. Let them learn new driving skills, or let them come to your door to make you move the car. Someone has an emergency? Well, if they have an emergency, they will come looking for me and then I can move the car. I had an emergency 4 nights ago and had to leave instantly. A car was blocking my way, and I had never seen that car before. After trying different neighbors, one of them finally came out and moved the car. In an emergency situation where you have to be somewhere immediately around midnight to help someone, arriving 25 minutes late can sometimes be bad. This brings us to the next point, which is…

3. Your friends

   If your friends come over, make sure you let them do whatever they please. Do not keep an eye on their activities, and if you do notice them inconveniencing your neighbors in any manner, do not tell them anything unless the neighbor comes and asks you about it.

   Friends are making a mess? Who cares. Friends are supposedly forever, neighbors can move anytime. Friends are using other people’s laundries or blocking driveways? Who cares. Friends should have fun, and neighbors should stay away. Friends are being loud? Who cares. Friends can be loud in your place so you can be loud in their’s. That brings us to the next point, which is….

4. Neighbor’s privacy spots

   One of the best ways to annoy your neighbors is to be invade their privacy. The entire area is someone’s property, and not your neighbor’s. Even if your neighbor owns it all, they do not own the right to your body, which you can position and direct to do many things.

   Hover around your neighbor’s car while they are in it. Have loud barbeque right by their window. Use flashlights and scream to points things in every direction in the middle of the night and make sure they notice it by their window.

5. Favors

   Ask your neighbors for favors, and then make them regret that they decided to help you. Whatever they do for you, directly or indirectly, abuse such a thing to not directly hurt them but to abuse the actual favor.

   I recently start giving free wifi access to some of my new neighbors who asked for it. They are not paying anything for a $60+ package. One of the neighbors knows how downloading and bandwidth works, and he downloads thousands of gigabytes of movies and other things every few days. He leaves his laptop on and simply goes out to party, leaving me to have an internet connection that suffers at random times during the day. Long live the “Click here to disconnect this wireless user” button.

So, there you have it. If you want to annoy your neighbors, try one of the 5 above techniques, and your neighbors will surely love you in ways you probably never want them to.

Have you or do you know someone who has experienced similar things?

What do you think? Have you run into anything similar or know someone who has? I found Stacee’s housing and neighbors related posts to be very good examples of how some neighbors and roommates can be continuously annoying. You may find them interesting too. Sorry you had to go through that Stacee!

Thank you for reading. I really appreciate it. I have to stop writing now, as I notice that wifi guy to be hogging the entire bandwidth again. Time to find the “Click here to disconnect this wireless user” button.

[update: August 29th, 1:34 pm PST] My friend told me, while he was laughing, that he was laughing at the situation and would never laugh at me. Therefore, for the 3rd paragraph under the list subheading “Laundry“, I have changed the sentence “When I talked to my friend again and told him what had happened, he could not stop laughing at me” to “When I talked to my friend again and told him what had happened, he could not stop laughing“, removing the “at me” part. Thanks Robin. [end of update]

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To help you decide the answer or give you more information about the nature of this question, I would like to present to you 5 random benefits of meeting distant relatives in person and 5 random benefits of meeting them online. If you had to meet your distant relatives in person, your choices could be to walk, drive, take the bus, horse, train, plane, ship, etc. For chatting online, you could type things via chats or e-mails, having voice chats, do webcam, etc. For this question, I would like for you to keep two things in mind.

5 random benefits of meeting distant relatives in person

1. Meeting a distant relative face to face can show your willingness to know them more. Only chatting with them online may show that you do not consider them important enough to go visit them.
2. Can result in more interaction between family members
3. An offline presence can leave a greater memory impact on many people than an online conversation
4. Hanging out with actual family members can also enable one to help them in small ways, like helping in cooking, helping clean, etc, which results in more family bonding

5 random benefits of meeting distant relatives online

1. Can removes a lot of nervousness that may happen because of meeting relatives for the first time, because of past arguments with them, etc
2. Can allow one to talk more informally than is possible online, regardless of the age of the other person
3. Saves time and money, specially if you are not rich or do not have a lot of time to go meet distant relatives at times when they are not doing anything else
4. Online, many awkward situations can be ignored. For example, one can get to know someone online a bit more and then know them online

Do you prefer having your distant relatives live virtually inside your computer, or do you prefer them living in an offline place where you could go meet them in person?

So, do you prefer communicating with your distant relatives online, or do you prefer meeting them in person?

Please let me know what you think. Thank you for reading. I really appreciate it.

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[update August 26th, 2006 - 9:30 pm PST] Ronald asked below in his comment if I meant physical or mental distance by the word “distant relatives.” I have clarified that in the article, thanks. [/update]

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Online dating services like Match, eHarmony, LavaLife, True, FriendFinder and Yahoo Personals allow you to meet new people to have relationships with. Some services like Yahoo Personals are free, while services like True cost money. Some services can have you up and searching for a supposed soulmate within 5 minutes by answering less than 10 questions. Other services, like eHarmony, make you answer around 436 questions before you can be shown any results.

Some people get good results using such services, finding the right person to date or become engaged to. Some other people do not get any results with such services, since the concept of relationships is really hard in the offline world, and the online nature of approaching dating makes it only more complicated for many people. For many people, simply looking at a picture does not match the level of observation one can make by actually observing a person in the offline world.

Do you like the idea of using online dating services?

Do you think it is a good idea to use online dating services to meet new people? Or do you prefer meeting new people through mediums other than those offered by online dating services?

Please let me know what you think. Thank you for reading.

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Good things:

Yesterday, I added an old friend of mine on MySpace to my MySpace account. We have not talked for almost 7 years for reasons I cannot remember, so I am not sure if she will add me as her friend, or if she will freak out and say “Who the heck is Bes? Gonna block this psycho!@!@!@!@!” That is a benefit of using MySpace. Not the blocking part, but the finding old friends part.

Also, you can keep in touch with friends through different things including MySpace Instant Messaging. You can also become part of the school and university groups, rate your professors too.

Bad things:

One of the flaws of using MySpace is relying on a service that is not reliable and something which does not have that many features. Spam and scamming MySpace messages haunt MySpace users. Many porn and dating services are creating fake profiles to lure unsuspecting and maybe desperate people in. Also, many psychos and stalkers are on MySpace, probably tracking different users for whatever reasons.

On top of that, MySpace is becoming more and more of an advertising network where more focus is being put on bringing ads to the users instead of adding features or building MySpace from scratch on many levels to make it more user friendly. I think Facebook learned a lot from MySpace, which is good for Facebook, and uncertain for MySpace.

What do you think of MySpace? Do you like, or would you like to use MySpace?

Some people do not use MySpace to find new people, but to simply keep in touch with people who already have MySpace, and to keep in touch with people who only want to keep in touch through MySpace. So, do you like using MySpace? Do you have, or plan to use MySpace?

Thank you for reading.

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For some people, a blog about relationships may do better if the author’s relationship status is shared with the readers. Some people may want to be open through their online presence, so listing their relationship details may appear to be necessary on their blogs or comments. Similarly, some people may want to list your relationship status on places like MySpace or Facebook because they may simply want to be open, or they may want to meet other people to have some kind of a relationship with, like solely friendship or sometimes dating too.

Do you like revealing your relationship status online?

Do you like telling others online whether you are single, married, divorced, engaged or something else through your blog, comments or on social networking profiles?

Please let me know what you think. Thank you.

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1. The offline contacts you talk about may find out your site, causing relationship issues.
2. You may alienate online people because of the way you treat offline people through your offline stories.
3. Offline businesses may not give you their business, in the form of a contract or employment, if they see you talking about offline businesses.
4. Online, things can be taken out of context, and thus appear to be completely different what they really are in the offline world.
5. Your online privacy will be reduced. More online people will know about your personal life, creating more ways for stalkers and similar people to intrude on your life if they want to.

Do you blog about or like reading blogs about personal life stories from the offline world?

What is your opinion on this? Do you currently talk about offline people and events in your online blog? Do you like reading people’s offline stories on online websites? Do you think it is a good thing to express the personal things from the offline world online, or do you prefer keeping things in their own offline/online realm?

Thank you for reading.

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There could be several reasons you would want to interact with people outside of a blog. Following is a random list of 6 such reasons:

1. Make online friends
2. Make online contacts to help yourself or others with businesses or blogs
3. Make online contacts to learn about something
4. Make online contacts to help them convert to offline friends and contacts - my favorite
5. Make online friends to fulfill hobbies, like exchanging gifts
6. To promote a weird kind of drama, the one to get yourself headaches and stalkers - this is a personal classic of mine that is revisited more than once every year or so for almost 6 years. I’m hoping to avoid it beginning this year.

6 random ways to interact with people outside of blog comments area

There can also be several ways to interact with people outside of a blog commenting area, like the following 6 ways:

1. E-mails
2. Instant messages
3. Text messages
4. Online voice conferences
5. Online webcam conferences
6. Snail mail - more and more people are giving this up. I think I would never want to give this up

An example of interacting via Snail Mail with online people: Sidney from Bubbles SOC

A good example of this is Sidney from BubblesSoc; Sidney has a very nice habit of sending me amazing gifts in the mail from time to time, and I still have to send her a lot of things that I have not had the time to pack and mail, because of packing and mailing a lot of other stuff. She is very good at it; I want to be as good too. She knows how to build relationships and make good friends that way. Just because of this, I consider Sidney a very nice and considerate person and friend. Maybe I like her gifts a lot?

For another example of this, you can read how Ronald became friends with a few online people by interacting with them for different reasons and through different levels. Ronald is a good friend of mine because of many reasons, including what he wrote in his post.

Do you build relations with others outside of a blog?

If I had not interacted with some people, and vice versa, outside of the blog comments on either my site or other sites, I would not know many of the wonderful and interesting friend that I know now. Similarly, had I refrained from interacting with certain people outside of the comments area, I would have saved myself from a lot of headache, a stabbing, and a few stalkers. Cute stalkers who hate knives and any harmful, physical objects are always welcome, though, I think.

So, do you like building relations with bloggers and commentors outside of a blog? Could the reasons you build such relations affect the level of relationship you can end up with?

Thank you for reading.

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What many people in the online world do not realize is that sharing information has nothing to do with whether you are online or offline; if you share anyone’s personal information with anyone, through any method and in any form, you may be breaking a trust.

I think that in order to build relationships, make friends or even have good contacts, one should prioritize the idea of never revealing anyone’s personal information under any circumstance unless one has specific permission to do so. Otherwise, people who share their personal lives with others will be forced to blame themselves for sharing their thoughts with others.

Sharing people’s personal and private information, that they entrusted you with, in your blog posts should be avoided

Imagine you write a blog post using someone’s personal life situation as even a small indirect example, and then some random commentor dissects that information or the topic in question. Because of that, you have forced someone, who shared that personal information with you, to feel defensive and to feel bad for having their personal lives out in the open for random people to discuss and debate. That is not an act of being considerate to others. That is an act of using others to write blog posts.

Why would you assume that someone would not mind you sharing their personal information?

Personal information is personal information, Assuming things like “I thought you wouldn’t mind…” only makes me think of a few questions: Why would you think that someone would not mind you sharing their personal information? What specific thing prompted you to think that someone would be comfortable with you talking about their personal life with someone else, on a blog or a place like Xanga? What is your reasoning and logic behind such an assumption?

If you ask personal questions, be prepared to keep to yourself any personal answers you receive

Many people consider things like business and blogging ideas to be part of their personal lives too, so it is important to realize when to share any information about other people, and when to simply keep quiet. If you do discuss the information with someone, make sure no one finds out about it. Otherwise, the act of sharing information will result in someone running into trust issues, because of their private information being put into the public world by an inconsiderate person. It is not nice to have someone else suffer because of your actions, is it?

What do you think? If you would like to read more on a related note, Jess has an excellent post about this, titled “How foolish is it to trust?“, which can tell you more about some of the thoughts that can come to mind regarding the topic of trusting others.

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1. DBT keeps me from eating normally every night

   Oh lord! It can be 3 am, and when no other e-mail is coming in, I hope that some DBT subscription e-mail comes in. It is very interesting to read the tips that Daniel has to share with the rest of the planet. I like getting daily DBT subscription e-mails.

   If I had to choose between eating cheesecake in the middle of the night and reading an e-mail, I would prefer eating cheesecakes and talking to a very good friend [ ]. However, if my good friend is not online, DBT e-mails are so interesting, I will usually put off my eating and read the latest DBT posts and any related comments. By the time I get done with DBT posts and comments, I forget about eating. Not good. Really not good. DBT should start writing boring posts on a daily basis, so that I can get bored easily and resume eating my food.

2. Daniel from DBT makes me wonder if I am chatting with him, or if I am dreaming

   Daniel, the owner of DBT, is usually online around the same times. “Why is he so accessible?” I wonder. Daniel is considered one of the finest A-list bloggers by many people, and yet he is always online, ready to interact when he has to. I sometimes wonder “Am I dreaming?” when I find it so easy to chat with Daniel compared to other A-list bloggers. Not nice, Daniel and DBT, for making Bes wonder every other night whether or not he is dreaming.

   “Hey Bes!” He usually says. “Am I still dreaming? He still remembers me?” I think to myself, wondering if forces of blogosphere nature and lack of sleep are playing with my mind. DBT sucks because it spoils me into thinking that all “A-list bloggers can still think about other people and not act too stuck up after getting their blogs famous.” Other A-list bloggers, take note: Daniel sets a few good examples to follow on how to communicate with others based on the topic at hand, and not based on how rich or elite one feels.

3. DBT discriminates, but less than most other A-list blogs

   Wow. I remember getting together with an A-list blogger last year who told me that he only wanted to write for advertisors, so that the readers could click on more sponsored links. DBT, on the other hand, does not care if you look at ads or not. DBT also does not discriminate based on whether or not you link back to it. DBT does have one criteria on which it wants to discriminate: you having a blog. If you do not have a blog and you do not want a blog, you will probably have a hard time realizing the potential of DBT. Other DBT lovers will probably hate you for not having a blog. You will not be able to show your face in the DBT world, for you do not have a blog, while everyone else does, and everyone else learns from DBT about ways to improve their blogs.

   That is bad, since such a discrimination forces all of us bloggers to force ourselves to keep having blogs, whether we like it or not, just because we want to keep DBT happy and we want to keep reading DBT posts. DBT’s business model discriminates against people who do not have blogs, because it does not cater to them. Will I ever be able to free myself from the chains of blogging, considering the fact than if I stop having a blog, I will be looked down upon by other DBT lovers who are not being discriminated against because of having blogs? It sounds highly unlikely. Boohooo!

So there you have it. That is my list of 3 random reasons why Daily Blog Tips sucks so much, that I like reading it everyday via e-mail to learn about different tips and techniques, or to see what Daniel thinks of different ideas and concepts that I am already familiar with.

What do you think? Can you think of some more reasons? Did you find anything interesting in this list, or does TR [The Reasoner] suck for not being able to make you smile even a little bit? Now if you must excuse me, I must do something which I have been saying and doing recently in many of my posts: eating, I have to go eat now.

Thank you for reading.

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