I was reading the comment of a CLM member about one of my articles and she said very well, at this point and time we have so much choice and so little time that is difficult sometimes to make a decision. People analyze, research, compare, dissect and compute everything. This is true for most things these days, from shopping to choosing a suitable partner.
Perhaps one of the problems mankind faces today is an excess of choices. I remember when I was a kid, things like a car or a telephone, you could have any color you wanted, as long as it was black, and everybody was happy.
When I arrived to the Singapore Airport, the first impression was awesome; I thought to myself, this is a ladies paradise, so many boutiques, and so many stores selling all the big brand names recognized internationally, from D&G to Louis Vuitton. The feeling was first class. You could smell money in the air, mixed with delicious fragrances from the cologne stores.
I have been to airports of all kinds, from military installations, just a non-paved landing strip (that requires the full skills of the pilot) in the middle of the Amazon forest, I felt like Indiana Jones, to some of the top airports of the world and I have never seen anything even close to Singapore. An impulsive buyer can blow serious money there, so much choice and so many things to buy.
I usually dress very casual, like people in my city, Toronto, or people in New York. Singapore and Wiesbaden in Germany were the only two places that I felt I was never dressed properly. Singapore seems to be the Mecca of capitalism. It is considered the best place in the world to do business, I am told.
I was walking down with a British friend in the “Costera Miguel Aleman” in Acapulco, so many fancy jewelry stores, displaying jewels worth tens of thousands of dollars, that we wondered how difficult would be for someone that was shopping for this type of merchandise to make her/his mind. She said, oh my God, this place drives me crazy. Diamonds of three carats or more, displayed like if they were in a grocery store. At a closer look, very tough looking guys very heavily armed guarding those jewelries.
Most guys that I know daydream to be in one of the famous beaches in Rio, the city where I was born. In their fantasy, they think it is a man’s heavens, that Brazilian girls are the most beautiful ones of the world. This is not necessarily the truth, yes, we do have lots of pretty girls like in any other country, but most are average and we have not so pretty ones too and others outright ugly. The difference is that in Rio, it looks like all the beautiful girls concentrate in the same spots, to the delight of the tourists. Ipanema, for example, looks like there is an invisible sign “only pretty girls allowed”.
What is funny about this is that people always want what they don’t have. Brazilians love Asian girls, they find them beautiful and exotic and also consider the Asian babies (specially Chinese) the most beautiful of the world, so cute.
I remember an episode, a young American couple, it looked like they were on their honeymoon, were in Ipanema. Suddenly, the young lady stood up, grabbed her towel, slapped hard the poor guys face and walked out crying towards her hotel. The guy, astonished, defending himself, was trying to calm her down by saying “I am not flirting, the girls come from all sides, what can I do? I am not blind”. It did not work out. I felt sorry for the guy. I would never advise a married couple to go there, spells trouble with capital T.
When I am in a dating site, I set my priorities straight. I never talk to more than one lady at a time. If does not work out for us for any reason, then, and only then, I move on to talk to someone else. I feel that it is like when we are in a big party, if we look at everybody, we might as well end up alone at the end of the night, without having the chance to meet someone, talking to someone.
People are different; some prefer to talk to a lot of people at the same time, thinking that the next will be better. Well, it could be, but it is not fair to the people involved. The old story, don’t do to others what you would not like people to do to you.
I am not in the business of giving advice to anyone; I am not the Master of the Truth and as they say in Brazil; if advices were good, people would sell them, not give them for free. However, I personally feel that if we don’t give a fair chance to a person we meet, could be in a chat in a dating site or in a big party, we will never get anywhere and might even lose a great opportunity in the process.
Of course in big sites like CLM and ALM there are all kinds of attractive and nice ladies and I bet the ladies must have a lot of choice too.
But I remember a Minister that we had in Brazil. The man was always “on top of the wall”. He would never commit himself to a final decision on anything. They used to say that if he went to a washroom and there were many urinals available, he would pee on his pants, incapable of choosing which one to use. He became a national joke.
If people are over cautious, afraid to commit or always thinking that a better choice lies ahead, keep in mind that there is only one thing that is worse than trying and things don’t work out the way we expect, it is not trying. In the back of your mind you will always think, “what if I had tried a little bit harder and have given him/her a fair chance?”
As per “so little time” that the member mentions on her comment, the best definition I ever heard about time was “Time is a train, that does not stop in any station, it does not whistle in the curve, it does not wait for anyone”.
There are three things that never come back, an arrow fired by a bow, a word said and a missed opportunity. Food for thought…
Remember, the lady you just dismissed or the man a lady just dropped, could have been that someone special that you have been dreaming of for a long time or for a lifetime…
Victoria has just treated us to a series of blogs that clearly show what can befall you if you fail to heed the signs and recognize that you are being used and abused. Daniel himself, in past blogs, has described circumstances in which he gave too much of himself far beyond anything the other person deserved.
There is fourth thing that never comes back and that is the time and love you waste on the wrong person. So give everyone a fair chance, but focus on the word "fair". Don't give and give against all common sense.
Great blog Daniel, food for thought indeed.
Daniel, I came here to look at girls in bikinis. Man, they are hot!!!!!