Response to Dan In Real Life questons

I think the amount that a family should be involved in someone’s relationship changes with the circumstance. For instance, when someone is young, I think their family should have much more involvement in their relationship than when they’re older. When they’re in middle and high school, they’re still pretty new to the game and are more in need of guidance. It’s easy for people in that age to get into an unhealthy relationship and just not realize it, and let’s be honest, our decision making skills are not exactly stellar. As galling as it is to admit, I think parents should be at least somewhat involved in their kid’s relationships. As people get older, I think the family ultimately has less say in the relationships one may choose to have.

I do believe that well-traveled people are more interesting. They have more stories and experience and exposure to other peoples’ customs. People who aren’t quite so well-traveled can still be perfectly interesting, but there’s something alluring to hearing about far off lands that the average person probably won’t see.

I think asking questions can make you a good conversationalist, if you ask the right questions. Like, if someone is telling a story, ask questions about that. It keeps the conversation going, and generally seems to keep the whole experience more engaging for both parties. However, just going all interrogation-style on someone with your questions does not make you a good conversationalist. It just makes you look like a creeper or an FBI agent. Choose your questioning tactics carefully, my friends.

When Dan told the kids that “life is full of disappointment,” it definitely rang true to me. Disappointment will always be present in life, be it big or small, no matter what you do or where you go. Unless you just never get your hopes up for anything or have no goals, in which case I am sorry because that sounds intensely boring. On your behalf, I will be disappointed for you. In any case, I think your quality of life in the face of constant disappointment depends on how you react to it. Someone once told me to “always be a pessimist. That way you’ll always be either right or pleasantly surprised.” That is certainly one way to escape disappointment, but that’s not quite  how I choose to handle it. Instead, I pick myself up, laugh, and tell the source of my disappointment to f*** off because it’s not worth my time to dwell on it. Then I move on.

When I was a kid, I loved Hide and Seek. I was never afraid to wriggle into tight places, and often I would hide in cabinets. At some point, I discovered that no one ever looked up. I began hiding on roofs and in trees, and no one ever found me. I am a pro at finding places no one would ever think to look, and I’ve never been afraid to clamber into those places.