Sporting well

This past week I spent at the World Boardgaming Championships.  This was my fourth year, and when I arrived I was on the end of a continuous slide towards failure.  My results each year had gotten worse than the year before, and while I don't worry that much about winning it was a little depressing to fail to measure up to my own standards.  This year things looked up from a pure winning perspective as I collected another 2nd place trophy for Castles of Mad King Ludwig and a 5th place finish in Santa Fe Rails.  Better than last year, and about equivalent to 2017, though still shy of my double 2nd place finishes in 2016.

However, the real victory is how well the year went in other ways.  In all three other years I have attended this convention I ended up playing at least one table that got really unpleasant.  It isn't fun to have players get mad at you and then publicly state that they are going to do anything they can to destroy your game, nor do I enjoy having someone spend the whole game coaching, cajoling, and begging people to attack me, especially when the person doing the harassment is beating me soundly anyway.  Mostly games were great fun with pleasant people but I have definitely run into some jerks, and also a few people who are generally all right but who lost their cool and did some crappy things.

This year had none of that.  I had a good time at every table, even when things got tough.  One of my semi finals had an illegal placement of a tile that caused a seriously challenging GM ruling to come up - there were four players with really legitimate claims to having won the table depending on how the GM chose to fix the illegal play.  That sort of thing is a nightmare for the GM, and I strive to not put them in that position.

At many tables this would be a tense argument or even a shouting match, but at the table I sat at everyone had a reasonable discussion about how we should resolve it, and four players all unanimously voted on an interpretation that sent the fifth player to the final table.  The GM was surely happy to have avoided a contentious decision and just accepted our vote, and even though I wasn't the player who moved on I am perfectly content with the result.  I have made a final table at that event before and the player who moved on had not, so I am happy to have given someone a shot at such a thing.  Plus I just can't see that there was a "right" way to do this.  We picked someone, everyone shook hands and moved on, and I was thrilled that such a thing could be resolved with no animosity.

The real draw of the convention is the people, not the trophies.  I don't even think I need trophies - I put them in a pile on my bookshelf and ignore them.  It feels good to be successful, no doubt, but if I had the option to get a trophy but to have to put up with a crappy game with lots of conflict and bad behaviour I would turn that down cold, so I have to be pleased with how this year went.

Now it is time to go back to real life again for six months.  I am exhausted and my knee aches from all the walking from game to game, but it is such a joy to do.  I was asked if I would continue at WBC for more time if I could and the answer is tricky - I love it, but eventually I do want to be home.  My bed, my food, and my people here are quite the draw.

Corporate Pride

It is Pride month, and in Toronto that is a pretty big deal.  I always ignore the big parade because the idea of travelling to a spot that will be jammed full of noisy people is more terrifying than exciting, but I certainly support the whole thing - from a safe distance.  Toronto has had some struggles in recent years with figuring out who gets to be in Pride, especially with the police.  The police seem to think that everyone should just forget their role in attacking queer people and sparking Pride in the first place, but faugh to that.

That part seems easy to me.  Keep out the people who actively assaulted and harassed you in years past.

It is trickier for me to know what to think about banks.  Banks love to be part of pride, using rainbow symbols, having floats, etc.  On one hand I am hesitant to embrace big corporations trying to redeem their images with temporary shows of progressive thought, but on the other hand their money and enthusiasm does amplify the Pride signal.  I have seen plenty of people giving opinions, and they don't seem to find much in the way of agreement.

Pride should be about queer people, goes one line of thought.  Scrubbing the reputation of staid businesses isn't what Pride is about.  Banks would have been just as happy condemning queer people if that was good for the bottom line, so why should they be allowed in? 

But during Pride month there are so many rainbows, and that has to matter to young queer kids trying to find acceptance.  Just seeing all those businesses desperately trying to show how much they support queer people is something in itself.  It also sends a message to the bigots who aren't going to change their minds - it says that bigotry isn't welcome in public, and you had best keep your gay bashing to yourself.  That helps in ways that are hard to measure.

It isn't totally clear cut either way, at least to my eyes.  Right now it feels like big companies trying to be part of Pride is a net positive, but that comes with the caveat that it will only persist as long as they see profit in it.  They are uneasy allies, right now, people who are helping out but who could backstab at any time, even if they probably won't.  I would probably have lots of extra feelings, maybe feelings on both sides of the issue, if I were queer myself and had a greater emotional stake in it.  Having lots of queer friends and partners doesn't grant that same lived experience, even if it does cement me firmly on one side.

The Pride organization seems to agree with me.  Take their money, let them spread the message, but keep an eye on them, just in case.

Is it just me?

In my experience dating various people while being polyamorous I have found meeting metamours to be a challenge.  (Metamours being people who are dating someone I am dating.)  In the early going there were a couple of times that I definitely felt intimidated by a metamour, but only prior to actually meeting them.  The millionaire pilot who was also taller than me was a stand out example of this - I never actually met him, but I felt that insecurity, no doubt about it.

But every time I have met someone I always ended up feeling a sense of comfort and relief upon realizing that this isn't some superhero, just a person.  Someone who has strong points and weaknesses, stuff that is pretty and stuff that is not.  No need to be worried!

When people have met me in this situation though there has been a consistent reaction including some combination of insecurity, jealousy, and fear.  I have been mulling it over the past little while and I just don't know if this sort of thing is universal, mostly just among straight / bi guys, or if it is particular to me.

In theory people don't need to treat this like a competition.  I have lots of friends of widely varying looks, skills, attitudes, and personalities.  There is no need for a friend of mine to be worried about me meeting a new better friend and leaving them behind!  Romantic or sexual relationships could be just the same... but they don't generally seem to be.  I blame culture, mostly, and our instinctive reactions that treat attraction like it exists in a environment of scarcity rather than abundance.

I don't have the experience to judge if this sort of thing pans out the same way amongst women or nonbinary people.  That isn't my life!  My guess is that it is worse among men, in large part because of the way online dating works these days, with women bombarded with offers and men desperately seeking any response at all.  I don't have data to back that hunch though.

I also can't tell how much of it is me, or even what parts of me might be contributing to other people's struggles.  It is easy to see how you could describe me in ways that would contribute to insecurity - "Hey, I am dating a new guy, he is a tall, musclebound weightlifter who studied math in university and designs his own games.  Also he has the sex drive and self confidence normally associated with mythological deities!"  That is a recipe for creating insecurity, and while it does not paint a really accurate picture, it is close enough to the truth to be a problem.

A significant part of it is the emphasis that men place on height and strength, I think.  It doesn't even have to be conscious to be there, a deep primal worry that if you get in a fight with this person, they will crush you.  Tell people that this is a silly thing to worry about all you want, it won't stop them thinking about it.  Thing is, I know that size matters in the creation of insecurity and jealousy, but I don't know how much it actually affects the final outcome.  Do people just find something to be insecure about, no matter how innocuous the person they are considering?

My guess is that insecurity, worry, and jealousy before meeting or at an early meeting is worse among men than among non men, and I further guess that it is worst among straight men.  Also me being big probably makes that even more so in my specific case.  But there isn't anything I can do about it, really.  I already don't have any intention of stealing anybody from anybody, but that rational assessment has jack to do with how people end up feeling.  I wish I didn't create such feelings in other people, but there is no way to achieve that.

A lot may just come down to feeling like you are enough.  If you feel that, truly believe it, you have little to fear.  Even if a person decides they aren't going to be around you any more, there are other people.  Life goes on.

If you don't think you are enough, then you are probably doomed to be insecure no matter what sort of people are involved, and there is no way I can make you feel like you are enough.

I don't want to be different - I am fine with the way I am.  I do wish though that I didn't create these unpleasant waves in the world around me just by existing. 

The true enemy revealed

I have many enemies.  Pants.  Shoes.  Ninjas dressed in yellow.  But one of my greatest foes is doors.

There are a few acceptable reasons to have a door.  My fridge door, for example, keeps my food cold.  My oven door keeps me from roasting to death.  My balcony door keeps me from freezing in winter.  These are annoying doors, but their utility outweighs their intrinsic evil.

But my home is *full* of doors with no redeeming value.  Recently I struck a blow against the tyranny of doors and took off the two cupboard doors that have most annoyed me in the past.  Now my kitchen is far superior.

It is glorious.  Beautiful, functional, clean, neat.  Now when someone is using the counter and I want a glass, I don't have to caution them about danger, wait for them to move back, open the door, reach around it, and fumble to get the right glass.  Instead I just reach in and get it, smooth as anything.

You know how often I bash my head on no door at all?  NEVER.  You know how often I bash my head on the old cupboard doors?  SOMETIMES.  Never >  sometimes, when it comes to head/door bashery.

I can just look in and see everything.  No opening one door, realizing the thing I want is behind the other door, and then opening that.  Instead of a piece of furniture whose primary function was to impede my vision and movement, I have empty space, nothing at all, and both my vision and movement run wild and free.

People will no doubt claim that you need bathroom doors.  FAUGH I say.  Bathroom doors just cause mirrors to get foggy and block access to the towels that are hanging on the wall behind the door.  People have bodies under their clothes.  They poop on a regular basis.  We don't need a door to pretend that we aren't naked under it all, or to perpetuate the fiction that we go to the bathroom just to play Candy Crush on our phones.

But when a door is taken off, the resulting free door, loosed from its bondage, must be dealt with.  The solution I have come up with is to store doors behind my curtains in my bedroom, up against the floor to ceiling window.  If you are across the street from my condo you would clearly see a door up against the window, and you might wonder why.  The answer is that it doesn't bother me there.  Those curtails are always closed, it does not block my sight.  I don't want to go through the window and fall to my death, so my movement is free.  Also, I am extremely unlikely to bash my head on it.

While I would rather simply smash the doors, rend them to pieces, watch tiny shards fly past my head as I deliver the deathblow with an axe, this is not to be.  If I end up selling this place someday the new buyers will insist on their being doors.  They will be convinced that plates must be kept hidden, washing machines must be disguised, and food needs to be sequestered away.  We can't have visitors thinking that we clean our clothes, or eat!  What a social disaster that would be!

So the doors will stay until such time as I must reattach them to coddle the foolishness of others.  I despise doors, but not enough to lose money over them.  I am not *that* far gone.

Burnout

The Fyre Festival is an example of legendary incompetence turning into spectacular failure.  It was a festival pitched as a luxury music experience in a remote, tropical location that was superbly marketed, but which completely failed in execution.  People who were promised villas on the beach got leaky tents, chefs serving sushi were replaced with cheese sandwiches, and all the bands pulled out and the festival collapsed after everyone had already arrived.

I just watched a documentary on Netflix called Fyre about the festival, cataloging its initial meteoric rise and subsequent implosion.  It was clear that this wasn't a series of unfortunate accidents, but rather calculated fraud layered on top of idiotic optimism and mismanagement.  I liked the show a lot, and I recommend it if you want to watch evil fools fail.

The thing about the documentary that I found most fascinating though is the way they marketed the festival.  They got social media influencers to post about it and make it a meme, and sold out all of their heinously expensive tickets in no time at all.  I know that social media influencers are a thing... but the idea of following them, much less buying shit they are shilling, boggles my mind.

Why would I care what any of those people say?  Aren't they just mostly spending their days composing photos to make you think their lives are better than yours, and then trying to sell you shit that in theory will give you the life they are pretending to have?

I think I have a weird relationship to my phone compared to most people.  Health professionals insist that you need to leave your phone away from your bed so your notifications don't keep you awake all night.  I can't fathom this.  Why the fuck would you have your phone near your bed?  If anything gives me notifications I uninstall it!  Stop bothering me!

I can look at an instagram model and appreciate the curves, or marvel at the gigantic biceps.  But following them to get more pictures?  Nonsensical, is what that is.  It isn't that I am claiming some perfect rationalism that makes me immune to sales pitches (though I am about as resistant as people get), rather I honestly can't fathom what it is that goes on in people's brains when they follow social media personalities so fervently.

Following celebrities?  I am barely interested in following people I actually know, and I curate my facebook feed to maximize 'people who link thoughtful and clever articles'.

But apparently just knowing how to get followers on instagram is a career option, so apparently it is me who is the freak.  Nobody is paying me gazillions of dollars or offering free stuff just for a mention on my blog, so by the logic of capitalism I am doing this *wrong*.

I guess I should start posting pictures of my fancy life, spending time oiling my arms and learning to use filters to put up muscle shots, and telling people they can have it all.

Or not.  Because the prospect of doing that regularly makes my skin crawl.

Want what you want

I just read a Savage Love post that got me thinking about what people think is okay to demand in a relationship.  In the post the letter writer complained that twenty years ago his wife said that she would never kiss him or give him oral sex again, and he was looking for permission to divorce her.  (Kinda late, though, wouldn't you say?)

Dan basically told him he could divorce his wife if he wanted.  Because obviously if you are unhappy you are allowed to get a divorce!

The comments afterwards though were interesting.  Some people thought that withdrawing oral sex in such a way was unacceptable, some thought that it was fine but withdrawing kissing was unacceptable.  There was a lively debate about exactly how much physical intimacy should be required in a relationship.

I think so many people, nearly all the commenters included, miss the boat on this one.  The key is this:  There is NO universal standard.  There is no thing that your partner has to do such that not doing it is righteous and proper justification for breaking up.  You can break up righteously any time you want, for any reason or no reason.  You do not owe anyone a relationship.

There are the basic decencies we owe everyone, of course.  But a partner can demand kissing.  Or they can demand no kissing.  They can demand flowers every day, sexy Santa/Elf roleplay, living in different cities, or eighteen children by age 40.  And you can demand your own things, and if each person's demands are not met, they can leave.

I would say that we do owe each other honesty about our demands.  Trotting them out only after a partner has made a critical commitment is shitty.  On the other hand, people do change, and we don't have to be the same person for our entire lives.

In so many relationships, in advice columns and in real life, I see people asking the question "Is this thing my partner did so bad that I am allowed to break up with them now?"  They don't phrase it like that of course but this is truly what they are asking.  We have ingrained this idea that relationships must be forever and it is so destructive.  We idolize the idea that a relationship that ends has failed, even though there is no sense in that - a relationship should be judged on what it brings, not whether or not someone died.

You can end a relationship any time you want.  You don't need permission, and you don't need an ironclad reason aside from 'I am not happy with this relationship'. 

I wish more people thought this way.

Bag of bags

The Liberal government here in Canada just announced that they are going to be banning single use plastic by 2021.  Naturally this isn't going to be a *full* ban.  They will cave to all kinds business pressure in the name of 'being competitive' but hopefully a substantial amount of single use plastic will stop. 

The phrase competitive is constantly brought up in these sorts of debates as though it is some kind of magic bullet, when it so often is meaningless or silly.  Who cares if businesses are inconvenienced, if they are selling in the Canadian market against other businesses here who are equally inconvenienced?  If your unique business model requires generating loads of trash and plastic waste and your competitors do not, you *should* go out of business because you are depending on hurting society and government largesse in cleanup to maintain your bottom line, and the rest of us shouldn't put up with that.  If everyone in competition is doing it, then you all change your practices and prices together, no big deal.

Naturally the Conservatives are against this, because of the effects it might have on business.  This is something I always find hilarious, as though the important thing in the world is business.  Don't worry about humans - corporations are the crucial thing, goes their thinking.  Corporations should exist to serve humans, not the other way around.  If a decision is good for people and bad for corporations... then it is good for people!  Easy!

I personally try to work on not using single use plastic, but it is rough.  When you are a tiny slice of the market it isn't in most companies best interests to provide you with options, so we really need the government to bring the big club down and force it.  I prefer soft enforcement, like a $1 tax on every disposable plastic bag, for example, to hard enforcement, but I will take what I can get.

If only we could actually elect someone willing to put environmental issues like this as high on the agenda as their impact on people actually warrants... but for the moment that is a bit of a pipe dream.