Knowing Your Audience

In my job I have to do a lot of consulting and presenting to clients and the advice that probably helped me the most came from my grade school English teacher.  She said to “always know your audience.”

At the time it didn’t mean anything, but looking at it now that’s some powerful advice… I just wish she used it, because at any given time, I doubt half the class was ever really awake.  It wasn’t just the multiple generation gaps and the 60+ year age difference, it was also because whenever we read in class (which happens a lot in English class), she’d fall asleep.

We’d do this reading thing called “pop-corn” reading.  If you aren’t familiar with it, I’ll explain the rules of the game.  That is where everyone has to follow along while someone reads aloud, and to make sure everyone was following along, the reader can stop and call on anyone in the class to continue to read where they left off.  You had about a 5 second window period to start reading before you get embarrassed with a bunch of loud “Ooohs” and those shame fingers.

Mrs. Kennedy always started off, then she would call on someone to continue reading, then doze off.  Whenever I got called, I’d read about a paragraph and then “pop-corn” Mrs. Kennedy to read.  And if she wasn’t already fast asleep when I started reading… my reading put her to sleep.  After we gave her the silent shame fingers for not reading within the 5 second window period, we’d all go play outside.

It was all fun and games until we got caught by the principle and I got ratted out for an afternoon of detention.  Lucky for me the detention lady was… Mrs. Kennedy.  At detention, I’d start out reading silently, then I’d mouth the words… then I’d quietly say the words… then I’d read out-loud… and when I heard husky snoring… I knew it was time to go home.  I was never in detention for longer than 15 minutes.  If I was lucky, I could even catch the buses before they left and not have to call home to tell my mom what a bad kid I was.

And that was probably the last time reading was ever fun for me. That’s kind of why I call it my favorite past-time.  I haven’t really done it in a really long time.

But the good thing about reading like a moron is that I’d make a great father.  Bed-time story would consist of about two pages of Cat in the Hat and the kids would be fast asleep… or at least pretend to be just to shut me up.  Maybe, good father isn’t the right term… efficient father is better.

But efficiency is what being Chinese is all about.  Notice I didn’t say cheap, I said efficient.  I mean besides the chopstick invention, we might be the most efficient race on the earth.  We have to be!

If the stereotype is true that we have small… “wangs,” which I remind to all the ladies out there is not true for ALL… From what little “wangs” we “supposedly” have… we are doing pretty well.  Because girls keep coming back for more.  1.3 billion times more to be precise.

It’s gotten to the point that the Chinese government had to intervene and put child limit caps to keep the girls off of us!  And it’s not just fighting off girls, I mean we have to fight off guys too!  We are so good at what we do, we make ourselves curious sometimes.  We think… “If we are really that good… then maybe I’ll give it a shot.”  Once again, not true for all guys.

I mean the being good part is true… IT SURE IS.

And somehow this post took a turn to the perverted.  Started out with innocent “pop-corn reading” in grade school and turned into wangs and sex.  Don’t blame me, it is all about knowing your audience… and apparently you like this stuff.  I’m sure if Mrs. Kennedy were reading this today she’d hit me with a ruler… if she could stay awake while reading this.

June 12, 2007.  I finally saw the person I voted for in the 2004 Presidential Election.

If you ask the political pets that hand out the fliers outside the metro station, they’d guess I just saw John Kerry, but no.  I am a minority, and I voted for Bush.  I could go on about how pissed off I get when democrats spot my race and immediately make eye contact as if they found a friend.  A cheap fake smile soon turns into angry furrowed brows and an astonished looks of betrayal after they find the dogmatic press release they just gave me in the trash.  But I digress, the real story is that I saw President Bush today!

He was dedicating a statue memorializing the victims of communism less than one block away from my work place.  I know some of you may be saying to yourself, “BUSH?  Communism?  He didn’t do anything to stop communism.”  Which is actually a similar sentiment shared by a loud passerby-er who tried to walk through the yellow tape.

To which a policeman (most likely a fellow republican) shouts back, “you didn’t do anything to stop communism either and I’d highly recommend you step behind the yellow tape right now.”

I love looking at the face of a cocky elitist right after he is called out and put back in his place.  I almost felt sorry for him, but decided to laugh instead. 

I saw one businessman try and cell phone walk through the yellow tape.  He had his cell phone to his ear pretending not to see the yellow tape and cut through.  When approached he angrily yelled, “I got a very important meeting at 10:00 and I need to get through.”  When told he had to walk around he once again yelled, “I hate the president.”

And out came my favorite republican policeman with, “It’s 10:15.  You are already late.  Don’t blame the president.  Now step behind the yellow line right now, sir.”

Once again the cocky turned humble and nearly shit his pants.  And once again I couldn’t help but laugh.  It is almost as if these loud rants of complaining are just meant for the regular people to hear in order to sound tough, but when someone of authority hears it, they back off.  Which pretty much sums up the Democrat Party for the last 7 years.  HAHA… I meant that as a joke, but to quote the prolific rapper Eminem, “There is a lot of truth said in jest.”

I remember Election Day 2004.  My roommate and I, being the lazy example of our youthful society, didn’t apply for our absentee ballot to vote while in our last year of college.  Meaning, we would have to drive back to out respective voting districts (some 2 hours away) to cast our first ever presidential election ballot and drive back two hours to make our 9am class.  We had to make those classes because we had tests that day.  Not saying that if we didn’t have tests that day we’d skip…  

The conversation that Monday night went something like this.

“Who you voting for?”

“Bush.  You?”

“Kerry.”

“Are you driving back?”

“Not sure.  Are you?”

“Well I guess if we both decide not to vote, our vote… or lack of… will cancel each other out.”  (The true spirit of democracy in action).

“I guess so.”

And so it was settled.  The lazy somehow got even lazier.  We both wouldn’t drive back to vote thinking both our votes would cancel each other out.

But… sometime on my way back from my last class that Monday, I decided I’d vote anyways.  I’d drive back home and cast my ballot first thing in the morning and make it back for class.  Would I tell my roommate?  Hahaha… no comment.  Morally I should, but would I?  But, honestly do morals really have a place in politics?  Luckily I didn’t have to face my morals because…when I got home he was gone.

I found out he had left that afternoon to go home so that he could vote in the morning.  Meaning, I had to drive back now!  I quickly packed my things and headed out the door.

I drove back that night and cast my ballot first thing in the morning just to cancel out my roommate’s vote and barely made it back for my class.

Later that night when I came into our room, I saw Josh.  We just kind of looked at each other both knowing that we secretly tired to vote behind the other’s back.

“How are you doing?”

“Good.”

“Good.”

Ah… The Political Process as it’s finest… and I’m not really talking about the voting part.

"Hey Kevin, I have the car tonight.  I'll go get and date and you get one and we'll double date."

10^th grade.  The age of innocence.  And amazingly enough we both ended up asking a girl named Lauren out.   Fortunately enough, it wasn't the same one.  And my friend and I to this day fondly recall that night as "The Night of Lauren."   Actually we just call it Lauren.  Actually anytime we even hear that name, we have to give a small nostalgic laugh.  This is how the Night of Lauren unfolded.

One by one my friend picked all of us up.  His Lauren, then me, then my Lauren.  The food was good, but inconsequential.  The movie was good, but that too was totally inconsequential.  What made this day memorable was the end of the date.

My friend dropped off my Lauren first.  I said my goodbyes, it was just a friendly date so no kiss.   However after my Lauren was dropped off, the mood in the car changed.  I mean how could it not?  I was only really friends with my Lauren, but my friend and his Lauren have been heavily flirting the whole night.   The situation was ripe for a kiss and both parties knew it…

Upon arrival of her house she said, "This is my house."

This was a total waste of words when you think of it.  He knows it is her house.  He picked her up from there for gosh sakes!  I used to sit next to her in Chemistry class.  I saw the grades she got back, I knew she was dumb, but not THAT dumb.  Although one time we had a multiple choice test and she studied so hard for that test.  She was confident to ace it.  There were 5 possible choices in the multiple choice test.  A random selection of multiple choice answers would have given you a 20%.  She got a 26%.  6% above having a random box of skittles as her brain.  And that was after 8 hours of studying.  What a genius.  Well regardless, I’m pretty her comment wasn’t just a mindless dumb comment.  This was her method of stalling.  

It is a complicated situation.  See in this ever raging society of the augmented female role, you never know what is the male role and which role is the female role.  Kissing unfortunately is still the man's job.  And initiating the first kiss is probably the hardest.   So until that changes, A girl's job is to allow a situation to arise in which a man can kiss the girl.  And at the end of a date is one of those key moments where a kiss is very probable.   And assuming the girl is a rational girl, she knows this.  Thus it is safe to say that she is very careful of the signs she is giving.   If she didn’t want a kiss she wouldn’t ever allow an open path from her lips to his.  However on the contrary, even a slight hesitation or prolonged stares or even an increase is physical touching or contact is a sign to go for it. 

Looking back at this 10th grade experience, her first sign was the stall.  And my friend's response was perfect.  He responded half a second past a comfortable pause and said very slowly, "I know."

At fist I thought this was a very dumb move, but now I think it was brilliant.  I was expecting a Shakespearian Sonnet to woo her, but women aren't really impulse creatures, unless it deals with shopping.   If my friend wanted to kiss her, he had the whole date to create the ambiance for a kiss.  No magical word he says in the last few minutes of a date will redeem a date if it went badly.   He can only ruin it with saying something stupid.  That is why girls hate pick up lines.  They want to be massaged into a feeling, not explicitly directed.  So at the end of a date, the less a guy says the better.  He has nothing to gain, but everything to loose.  

That silence of awkwardness was even painful for me to watch, but come to think of it the extra amount of time (if done confidently) is supposed to add that extra sense of awkwardness.  Because the girl knows she can't make the first move, it is still the guy's job.   So why not take your time?  It kind of reinforces the fact that it isn't her move to make.  And when a girl knows she can't do something, it just enhances the wanting and need for it.  It is slight reminder of the gender limitations that still prevail in the ettiquette of our society.  These limitations drive girls crazy... This is the good kind of crazy though.  Not the kind of crazy I saw in my Political Theory of Feminism Class.  That was definitely bad crazy.  

"I had a great time," she says as her eyes linger on his as she fumbles with her other hand toward the door handle. 

Prolonged stares and even more lingering and more senseless chit chat.  Girls seem to like that senseless chit chat thing.  But in this instance it was good.  It meant she really wants it.  And he knew it too.  He was such a genius.  I had so much to learn from this guy.

And this is when he made his move.  He put is arm around her, winked at her, and just puckered his lips without moving toward her. 

She had waited and wanted it long enough that this was all she needed to kiss him.  I was so proud of my friend!   Great job!  Sly devil you!

Unfortunately, during my quiet observation and with their preoccupation with reading each other's signs, they forget I was in the back seat.   And one kiss turned into a very graphic make out session.

I still remember the song that played in the car while this event unfolded.  It was the New Radicals only hit song.   "You Only Get What You Give."  It is quiet a long song for the radio, but when it ended they were still going at it.

And I started to sense that they might want to get more physical and I was worried that they might try and move to the back seat for some more room.  This is when I gave a pre-emptive slight cough.

With that the girl turned red, jumped up, hit her head on the car ceiling, and bolted out the car door.  My friend just sat there dazed and confused… and slightly shocked that I was still there.   I told him it was ok and to go after the girl.  He caught up to her and walked her to her door.  Kissed her again and walked back totally embarrassed.

He got back to the car and we kind of sat there in silence.

He broke the silence with, "Do you want to sit up front?"

To that I replied, "no thanks.  I'll stay back here… I know what happens to people that sit up front.”

My mother got upset with me once because she found out I went to a gay club a while ago.  She thought I was doing it because I was experimenting with it and questioning myself.  Paraphrasing what she said, the pink shirt and purple shirt I have doesn’t really help my cause.  I told her I wasn’t experimenting and I just went because my gay friends go to straight clubs with me, it is only fair I go with them to a gay club.  As for the color of my shirts, I couldn’t come up with a coherent response before her eye brows furrowed.  Then she went on to question how often I went clubbing (straight or gay), and any number you say to an Asian parent is too high.   

Well apparently my mom is not the only one that has a lurking suspicion that I’m gay.  While at the club, a gay guy came up to me and just started freaking me from behind.  Some may question how I could deduce he was a gay guy without turning around and seeing him.  Well for starters… Let’s put it this way.  I didn’t need to turn around to FEEL he was a guy freaking me.  And I the fact that I could FEEL it from behind, I knew he was… excited by dancing with me?

For the rest of the night I was dancing with my back against the wall.

But after having that happen to me, I am curious now.  Not in that way, Not that there is anything wrong with it.  But curious if girls feel it when random guys dance up on them?  I felt it.  Now I know why girls kind of freak out when random guys freak up on them.  Maybe that is how the term came to be Freaking?  I guess that is why I saw so many girls at the gay club, they feel safe knowing they won’t be accosted there and can dance without worrying.

*Note to guys:  Lots of cute girls go to gay clubs.  They put their guard down and are more likely to act favorably to your advances.  Actually scratch that… Note to Self… I don’t want other guys knowing this!

Now another thing pops up in my head.  Now I wonder about the girls that still love freaking with random guys… or even their guy friends.  They feel it, and yet they still keep doing it?  Don’t they worry when their guy friend is dancing with them and they start to FEEL it?  Do they question if the guy friend is really just a “friend” or does he want more?  How can they keep dancing when they feel it and not question why?  Don’t they ever feel weird knowing what the guy is thinking as he is freaking them?  And does their act of allowing the freaking to occur constitute a valid permission that states they are fine with possibly entertaining the perverse thoughts going through the guy’s mind?  Or are they just teasing the guys by allowing it and not even entertaining the thought.

At work some of my coworkers ate breakfast together and during a lull in the conversation I asked these questions to everyone.  Especially the old lady at work who thinks I’m a horrible father. 

I’m going to name this lady for future references.  She seems to be a topic to many of my entries.  I don’t want to give her real name so I’ll create a fake one for her.  And trust me, it is a very complex code that you won’t be able to decifer it… so don’t even try.  For future references, I will refer to this old lady as “yggeP,” or “eiggeP” as she signs her emails. 

In the middle of my soliloquy I was interrupted.

“What is freaking?”  Asked “yggeP.”

“Um… It’s kind of hard to explain in words.”

“Well then show me,” replied a genuinely intrigued “yggeP.”

If she were 1/3 her age, that would be such a great dream… if only the age… and if we were not in the pews of McDonalds.

Judging by who was laughing at the table, I know who in my office is a straight up freak and who is a prude.  And amazing enough, it correlates almost totally with gender.  If I had to guess R values, I’d say around 0.98… give or take 0.02.

Eagerly looking for help on this one (I wasn’t sure I could talk my way out of this one) I was relieved when one of the guys answered,

“Freaking is how I conceived my last son.”

I’ve never seen a frail and pale old lady turn so red.  She did not speak for the rest of the meal.  Having a 60+ year old woman ask me to freak her… didn’t boost my self esteem as much as I thought it would.