Occam’s Razor’s Edge

Honesty is not the best policy.  In fact, a significant amount of the time, it’s not even relevant.

I asked a girl out for coffee.  She said no.  This happens.  She indicated that coffee was “a prelude to a kiss.”  I thought this was a little presumptuous since I happen to know that kissing a girl after a (first) coffee date is a) next to impossible and b) quite gross.  I argued that, if anything,  coffee is “a prelude to a piss”.  Luckily she was just trashy enough to chuckle.  I offered a safety net in suggesting she bring another couple of her choice and make it a double-date.  This would, in turn, give me the chance to make three (good) first impressions instead of just one.

The date moved along nicely.  My couterpart was an excruciatingly good looking Italian boy with spectacular manners and a sultry accent.  He quickly became the prized attraction and I was forced to play a more subdued roll.  Even I had a tiny man-crush on him.

Incidentally, when I was young, I thought accents were the other language.   As a boy I would have thought this boys Italian accent was him speaking the Italian language.  By the same token, I thought people who actually spoke another language, were possessed by the devil…and anyone who didn’t speak English was bat-shit-crazy.  It’s little wonder I was skittish.

We had just finished discussing the weather and our families and I was (quite obviously by now) trying to move the conversation toward work and hobbies (two of my strengths).  At this point The Italian Guy excused himself to visit the washroom.  Presumably because he had no job and collected stamps.  His girlfriend immediately accosted his designer coat and therein found cigarettes.  She turned to my date and inquired through betrayed eyes, “why on earth would he have cigarettes in his pocket?”  The girls spent the next five minutes (seemingly) discrediting the obvious before looking to me for an explanation…

“He smokes cigarettes.”  If I’d said that they would look at me like I’d just told them Eskimos discovered fire by rubbing two Popsicles together.

The simplest solution is often the correct one; however, if the simplest solution has absolutely zero chance of carrying you to your desired result, then by all means, construe an overtly complicated one, ”the cigarettes are in his pocket because a chain-smoking leprechaun lives in there.”  It doesn’t have to be perfect, in fact, it doesn’t even have to be plausible, it simply must satisfy the querying party’s requirement.  The previously happy couple doesn’t have an argument.  My date isn’t forced to defend her friend.  I’m not forced to choose between what I think and what I know.  My date and I don’t have an argument.  And that little pot of gold protecting bastard lives out his days in a hazy blue shroud of chemically induced denial.

I did well in school.  I was an honor student.  I was sorta smart and did most of my homework.  The one thing that (I believe) set me apart from other students was my ability to infer.  Think of an exam (for example).  Some people are good at writing exams and some people are terrible.  Mechanisms, nuances, and trends in standard evaluations (exams) can always be leveraged in order to increase the odds of getting a better grade (sometimes greatly).  Multiple choice questions yield to the processes of elimination, fill-in-the-blank questions provide clues via context, and essay questions allow you to pad answers in value adding fluff.  Furthermore, if you were prepared to temporarily abandon “what you think” in favor of adopting “what they think” you stand an even greater chance of success (teachers pets generally do well).  What I learned was that I didn’t (necessarily) have to know what I was talking about or (more importantly) say what I actually felt to achieve a desired result.  The whole is greater than the sum of the tiny parts (you’ve manipulated)…

I opened my mouth to speak, trying to simultaneously be my most thoughtful and insightful.  “Well, he said went out last night, it’s pretty easy to grab someone else’s coat when you step outside for a smoke.“  Complete rubbish.  The Other Girl sighed heavily in relief, “ya, that’s true.”  I’d effectively abandoned integrity and honesty in favour of making her feel better.

My date noticed.  We spent the next two months getting to know each-other.   More importantly, she spent that time getting to know me.  A pattern emerged, and it didn’t work out.  Sometimes, it doesn’t matter how perfectly you move about the tiny pieces, it simply has no bearing on the overall outcome.  In these instances, you’d be well served to keep your principles close and simply be yourself.