What to ask?

[cosmolinguist]

irrtum told me an interesting story yesterday, during a conversation about how we don't like buses. (Well, perhaps like is not the right word; perhaps trust or understand would be better.)

"I never knew which one to get on," she said. I laughed, sympathetically. "I had to take the bus home from school for a while," she went on. "I'd look for people who lived near me and get on whatever bus that was. So if they were going to town or something, I'd be out of luck. Then I had a sight test and got glasses, and then I saw that there were numbers on the buses."

That made me laugh again, still sympathetically but also with a note of "oh dear" and "I thought I had it bad."

"What makes that really bad," I thought (out loud), "is that if you'd asked someone to explain to you, they wouldn't have thought to say 'Oh, there are numbers on the buses.' They'd just tell you you want one with a certain number ... which wouldn't really help you at all."

It's so hard to figure things out, when you don't even know what you don't know. It's hard to even ask useful questions that way; I tend to just wallow in confusion until I wither up in embarrassment and give up.

A friend of mine brought up an old question today: "How can I get a girlfriend?" I'm no help; I haven't been single in more than three years (so long! but it's true), and I never did think or worry about it much. I certainly don't know anything about attracting girls, much less The Right Kind of Girl for my friend. This has been a nagging question for a while now, all problems and no progress.

I'm hardly better myself. I'm notorious for not knowing what's wrong with me even when there's something very obviously wrong with me, to such a degree that I'm crying or something else that's hard to ignore. "What's wrong?" Andrew asks me, and I wonder myself, but no good answers are forthcoming, and that makes it seem worse.

Now I wonder if there's something crucial missing here, some way that more efficient, useful questions could be asked when we find ourselves perpetually perplexed. Someone needs to tell us that there are numbers on buses.

Comments

[offensive-mango.livejournal.com]

Wait--doesn't your friend know there are numbers on girls?

[offensive-mango.livejournal.com]

heh, good reply :)

rootbeer shave ice has magic powers

[riddley-walker.livejournal.com]

i want to write something about checking the number carefully because getting on the wrong girl can mean you end yup very VERY far from yr destination, but i won't.

instead, i'll tell you that the other day i got on the wrong metro, having thought just seconds before, "oh i need to remember to check the color so i don't get the wrong one."
seconds i'm telling you.
the metro pulls up, and i end up at National AirportRonald Regan Airport.
hahah. oops.
i had found a shave ice vendor earlier at some random block party i stumbled into....drawn by the echoing sounds of a go-go version of "you make me wanna shout".
i got rootbeer shave ice.
it has spectacular magic powers.
everything after that was an adventure rather than a dumb mistake.

.......that isn't a peace sign that mango is flashing, is it.

[cosmolinguist]

"Have your friends said anything interesting and insightful?" Andrew asked when he saw me checking my e-mail.

"Well, this one says 'rootbeer shave ice has magic powers,' " I replied, clicking on your comment.

He, still on his first coffee of the morning, took a while to process this. "What is a rootbeer shave ice?" he asked.

"You don't have shave ice here?" So then I had to try to explain it to him. All the while I was thinking Hm, rootbeer, I don't know if I've ever had that flavor. I wonder if it's any good..., so I barely even get to enjoy the rare experience of knowing something he doesn't and getting to explain it to him.

Anything that makes dumb mistakes into adventures is A Good Thing.

Also

[cosmolinguist]

Also, in saying i want to write something about checking the number carefully because getting on the wrong girl can mean you end yup very VERY far from yr destination, but i won't are you not in fact still saying just that? Ahh! See, you can't fool me that easily!

Also, I love that icon.

Also, I stole that picture of the sign in your last entry and put it here, because I like it so much.

[cosmolinguist]

Also, I would guess it's not a peace sign the mango is flashing. It's a British mango, and thus offensive.

[karaksindru.livejournal.com]

Hmm ... I was going to offer some sort of helpful advice, but after reading the other comments, I'm tempted to instead post something silly...

I think I"ll go with my first idea

You could (and usually should) ask Google your questions. Google knows all. What Google doesn't know, doesn't exist in any sane reality ;)

Aslo, as far as the "finding a girl" goes, I'm partial to online methods... OKCupid.com or gk2gk.com ... :)

[cosmolinguist]

You could (and usually should) ask Google your questions. Google knows all.

That made me think of this.

[irrtum.livejournal.com]

If only I'd grown up on Oxford Road in Manchester, where the correct answer is almost always 42 - regardless of the question!

[cosmolinguist]

Douglas Adams was right after all! Can't say I'm surprised.