Tangential Tuesday #35
Friendship, Love, How to pick your life partner, Who pays? Printing houses, Sharing your data...
Hey đ. For those in America - I hope you all enjoyed the day off yesterday đșđž.
The unintentional theme of this newsletter is relationships. Both friendships and romantic relationships. Itâs something Iâve been thinking about a lot recently. Iâm definitely guilty of neglecting relationships are various times in my life, and itâs something Iâd like to put more time into going forward.
Feel free to hit reply to this email. Iâm always down to chat đ
đ„ Fruits of friendship [*Highly Recommend*]
Itâs become a fairly common belief at this point that romantic relationships donât just happen. They take work, and planning, and compromise, and intentionality.
But I feel like this belief has yet to permeate the topic of friendship. This is probably less true for some people than it is for others, but as the # of possible activities you could pursue at any moment continues to explode (due to the internet) I think this will become more and more true.
Youâve probably all read a story at one point or another about the loneliness epidemic plaguing the younger generations, especially men. I think itâs also tempting to believe that as an ambitious individual your time might be better spent reading or working or trying to learn something new. Itâs tempting to believe that time spent âhanging outâ with friends is unproductive.
But with the right friends I think this could not be further from the case. After time spent around great, positive, ambitious people - I find myself with new ideas and new energy.
đ« How to Pick Your Life Partner
This is another classic Wait But Why post - and for good reason. I feel like most people treat marriage as a black box where success is unpredictable, and you just need to follow your heart.
Iâm not encouraging people to break out the excel spreadsheet when evaluating potential life partners, but I do think itâs important to have some guiding principles.
My favorite piece of the article is the traffic test:
âThe Traffic Test is passed when Iâm finishing up a hangout with someone and one of us is driving the other back home or back to their car, and I find myself rooting for traffic. Thatâs how much Iâm enjoying the time with them.â
I also like this short take on love.
Zack offerâs up another useful heuristic:
Find someone who you feel lucky to be with, and who feels lucky to be with you. Someone who you admire, someone who you want to become more like.
đžWho Pays for Dates? Following Versus Challenging Gender Norms
This study is pretty wild in my opinion for a number of reasonsâŠ
- 40% of women want men to accept their offer to help pay for dates
- 39% of women do not want men to accept their offer to help pay for dates
- 76% of men feel guilty if they don't pay the bill on dates
- 44% of men would stop dating a woman who never pays
- 16% of men agree with: âIf I pay the bill, I think that a woman should engage in some sexual activity in returnâ
How the Hell Has Danielle Steel Managed to Write 179 Books?
This breaks the relationship theme but itâs a good profile on Steelâs ridiculous work schedule / work ethic.
"I don't get to bed until I'm so tired I could sleep on the floor. If I have four hours, it's really a good night for meâ
Itâs hard for me to relate to people like this b/c usually after 40-50 hours of work / week Iâm pretty toasted - but an incredible work ethic (although this is even more extreme) seems commonplace amongst the absolute top performers.
More to check out
Eric Torenberg on what to focus on in your 20âs:
Personal
- Read The Alchemist. Short read, fun story, lots of pithy wisdom quotes.
- Going to be attempting to climb Mt. Shashta with some friends this coming weekend⊠wish me luck đ€. Iâm taking Monday off from work so thereâs a good chance the newsletter wonât get out next week. Iâm hoping to at least send something short (hopefully with epic pics).
- Ate at Shizen over the weekend. I HIGHLY recommend if you live in the city or are ever visiting. Itâs vegan sushi - but not the bland avocado & cucumber rolls you might be picturing.
Thanks for reading đ - see you next week.
đ Taylor