With one of my students I always go to a bar. We have the English lesson there. It’s supposed to last 90 minutes, but usually we talk for at least 180 minutes, often more.
There’s a clear pattern in what we talk about. For once I want to keep this is a short article. I’d like to get to the essence.
We start out by talking about the success of Amazon, the automatisation of the labour market, and if AI will lead to mass unemployment and how to deal with that in the future. Who will buy the products robots at companies produce if none of the unemployed can pay for them? You could distribute these products for free, but the rich who are the owners of those productive robots will never agree to that.
Anyway, that’s how it starts, but what’s really behind it is that we are both
Restless
Maybe that’s the tragedy of men. We always want more. When we talk about Amazon the motivation is not purely a love for big efficient structures and strategies. It’s also that we would love to have something that functions just as succesfully as Amazon. What’s behind it is that we both feel there should be more to our lives, that we are underperforming.
We talk about our fathers, our models for life, and how hard it is to break free from a relatively poor background. How hard it is to figure out what to do with your life even, or especially, if everyone seems to agree that your brain works at above average speed.
We conclude that when you think too much you will be less succesful. We are interested in too many different things.
So we don’t know what we should channel this restless energy into. Ok, I put it into this website, in my classes, in therapeutic work with people and in soaking up knowledge. But am not naive, it’s extremely unlikely that anything am doing right now will develop into something big. It certainly won’t develop into a company the size of Amazon.
At the same time there’s so much to do in the not so promising field I find myself in, dictated by my naturally given skill-set, that I just roll from work to work. Is there a big future ahead? I highly doubt so. I’m like smart enough to kinda understand how money and economics operate right now, but am too dumb or too scared or too lazy or too addicted to working with people in an affectionate way to capitalize on that intelligence.
Only my wife believes this website will go from 10,000 visitors a month to 1,000,000 visitors a month.
She’s almost right, but this time I really thing she might be getting it wrong.
And will I feel so much better then? It would be nice if I wouldn’t have to leave the house anymore to make money. I don’t mind working, but I really hate traveling, it’s pure inefficiency. I could teach double the classes I have now if I would never have to travel from class to class.
Other topics we talk about are the challenges of raising a family, monogamy and -inevitable- Slovak women.
I sometimes think I might be too negative about Slovak women, but then I listen to other guys, even the very smart ones like this guy, and again and again, the cliches get confirmed.
During this conversation I got a picture of Slovak women as women who – if they are honest, which they might be incapable of – inherently feel SUPERIOR than men. If you carefully listen to them there’s this undercurrent of superiority. Slovak women are very sweet in the initial contact and then all of sudden they turn into domineering dictators who feel morally superior than men, no matter what they do. How can Slovak women be so confident in their behavior? Note: in their behavior, on the inside I’m sure it’s different’
The guy I won’t mention by name says: ‘They hear all the time how beautiful Slovak women are and so many guys are always trying to sleep with them that they derive a huge sense of their value from that.’
It’s becoming a taboo to say it, but, yes Slovak women are often beautiful, but they are also a lot of the time so predictable as to be almost useless.
Maybe people don’t believe me when I say that, ok, Belgian women don’t usually knock the air out of your lungs when you see them, but, boy, they are so, so funny and so fun to be with.
If I wasn’t such a superficial bastard who wants to be with a model like my wife, I might have married a Belgian one. Luckily for me my wife seems to be the opposite of all the bad cliches concerning Slovak women. I think it’s because she never realizes until she was already way in her twenties that she’s so beautiful. Who knows what would have happened if from a young age she would have had constant confirmation that she was o so hot?
Maybe she would be one of those stone-faced, dolled up ladies you see driving around in huge, luxurious cars at any moment of the day in Bratislava. Going places, but definitely not to work.
And you see, am incapable of making a short post, because I’m too lazy to edit it. I already want to vomit the next thought out of me.
I would like to know what this guy you are talking with, thinks about monogamy.
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He thinks what most guys think about it when there are no women around to overhear the conversation: that he will never be truly satisfied having sex with the same woman over and over again. The coolidge effect, it sucks…
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So thats definition of modern man? 🙂 What exactly means “being modern man”? Have more hobbies then others? Talk smarter then others? Or feelings that one partner isnt enought for life? Or buying busy by work all the time?
Neither one of these is for me being modern. It is just different. So for me article sounds like – The struggles of different men in Slovakia.
Dont get me wrong, but obviously you two are out of typical slovak stereothype of men.
I have to say, I am slowly also getting annoyed by this negative attitude about slovak women.
I will tell you what I think about this beauty phenomen about us and then you maybe can add me into sample of opinions.
Slovak women like to look pretty. We like to buy nice cloths, parfumes and generally we care how our hair, nails and body looks like. Nothing wrong with this attitude. I dont understand, why I should go to work like I just woke from bed and go.
But on other side, we dont need listen over and over how beautiful we are. If man repeats this too often to one woman, either he doesnt have nothing else to say or he is looking something else as relation. What ever.
After one or two compliments about appearance its enough. We are not living in 1980 and earlier. Most of slovak women have done University education and can really match to men in inteligence.
You wrote in several articles before, we have hard life that we do not even realize. Yes we do. But whos fault is this?
Yesterday we have talked with my partner about education and rising kids here in SK and in BE. I even spoke about it with you. You know, I still think we are rocking over Belgium hardly.
So you need excuse slovak women, arent that funy as belgium ones, but we have a lot else to do as being just funy in real life.
You can call us modern slovak women or simply different. 🙂
PS : I was sharp this time. ^^ Thursday, battery slowly going empty.
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I will reply when I have more time. I am annoyed from Slovak women, obviously, but it’s true that they are swamped by work and responsibilities and that they have to deal with all sorts of services that don’t function properly, plus they come out of a school system that encourages humor and initiative and being spontaneous and so on even less than the Belgian school system. So sure, I understand. I am trying to do my best to just ignore them and focus on the fun ones. What’s weird is that all these factors are also true for Romanian and Hungarian women, but somehow those are always a lot of fun. No idea why. What makes modern man modern man? Being lost, being kinda lonely, overcompensating for our suppressed manhood by playing football, things like that
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You know its just subjective opinion about what means being modern? Other side would tell you totally different story about this. Now I mean those men, who do sports, watch football, do not read books , etc. 🙂
Very subjective.
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I think we can agree both our lines of thinking are highly subjective. That’s being human we see the world through the lense of our own priorities, egos, loyalties, etc. Anyway, I just vent my opinions on this site to stay sort of sane in my head. Sort of…
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Agree. I m just letting my thoughts going out of my head…
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Again the part about Slovak women is quite harsh but I won’t go into that.
I find interesting this desire to do something big. Do you know what would make you more satisfied in that regard? Sometimes I’ve been also wondering whether I shouldn’t be putting my time into some higher ambiton, like finding a cure for cancer or so. 🙂 But for that I would have to take completely different decisions earlier in my life. I mean, it’s always possible to change what we do but big things usually require quite big commitments and sacrifices.
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I’ve always wanted to do something big, just like the guy in the post. What would be enough? Probably nothing I can actually do given the person I am. Maybe become a famous psychotherapist like Yalom, maybe write a bestseller. The options are getting more and more limited. There’s no glory in teaching, although I do like it and am sort of a good one, but I’m not proud of it
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What would be something big for you? Apart from curing cancer?
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Also: I agree it’s better not to go into the topic of Slovak women. I guess I mostly miss openness and spontaneity. Interacting with women from Belgium, the Netherlands, the west in general, Hungary, Romania, Austria is really a lot different, easier, more relaxed. If I ask a Belgian woman if I can cook for her she will come over, even if she doesn’t know me at all. In Slovakia they look at me like I’m a rapist. My wife also thought I was completely crazy and abnormal when she met me. I just said the same things I said to other women… it’s really different here. Not my cup of tea. But hey, I’m stuck here, so I’d better get used to it.
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Spontaneity is great. I love when I just naturally click with someone, when the talk goes smoothly and interesting topics fly around. That is why I have a weak spot for the people from the Balkans. They indeed tend to be more extroverted and sociable than us. On the other side of the coin, when Slovak people really like someone, they usually become very loyal friends.
I guess that the general feeling of trust between people is higher in Belgium than in Slovakia. We tend to be a bit cautious when we meet someone for the first time. It might be that the inner fear of being cheated or taken advantage of is still present in our minds. I am not a huge fan of that either but maybe it will get better later. So with Slovaks it just takes a bit more time. Maybe they will be surprised to get invitation to someone’s home very early on but after 3rd or 4th meeting it should be fine. 😀
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I am not sure if curing cancer would be really my thing. 😀 That was just an illustrative example of ‘something big’. But certainly something like making a revolutionary discovery in natural sciences or building new technologies that can improve people’s lives are things that come to my mind when I let my fantasy go adrift. But I wasn’t thinking along these lines when I was younger and I chose a different path.
On the other hand, your dreams sound achievable. Becoming a psychotherapist or writing a successful book. Seems realistic to me! 🙂 Although I am not saying that your current work is not valuable enough. Teaching might not getting the respect it deserves but it is an important and admirable profession.
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I have fun as a teacher, not all the time, but often. I like to make people laugh. I don’t have the courage to try and be a stand-up comedian though. I prefer to be funny when nobody expects you to be funny. I was a therapist in Belgium, but the rules were far more relaxed there. I loved it. But I wouldn’t want to give up teaching entirely either, you can be very creative as a teacher, and laugh more, as a therapist you mostly deal with sadness, blocks, etc. But I think am a better therapist than I am a teacher. I don’t like to push people to do boring things, but sometimes they have to or they don’t learn. I taught in Senec all day. One more student to go today. A four year old girl. I will play dobble with her. Do you know it? What I like about teaching is that there are so many fun things you can do to teach a language. Plus, if people need therapy I can slip it in the lessons. It’s not the same as real therapy, but sometimes it gets very close. Most of all I like that you can be very nice to people all day and give them the kind of attention that makes them know you really care. I write harsh things, but am almost never like that in real life. I just need to throw all that stuff out while writing, because of all the things I suppress to function as a ‘normal’ human being. I mean, in an ideal world I would be in bed with one of my students right now. But I know it’s impossible because we’re both married. So I need to vent and write about it, to filter those thoughts and urges. Sometimes I get harsh and mad at the world. I mean, am a spoilt child, if I don’t get what I want I sulk. But in person am almost always nice (I hope). Too nice in fact…
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Slovaks are coconuts, hard to get in, but great once you get through. Belgians and especially Americans are peaches. Super easy to befriend, almost useless and cold further down the road. My main problem here, apart from being yelled at at the post office or feeling like a hunted animal on the road, is that sexual flirting works so differently here. When I date a Slovak woman I feel like am being asked to present my CV, I become totally blocked and nervous. My wife was different in this of course. Or Slovak women just don’t like me that way. I think am very weird in their eyes. So they focus on my CV to see if this weirdo can at least be a stabile provider. Or I don’t notice the women I am not attracted to, but are showing attraction. I tend to be blind to that. When I am totally exhausted I start rambling. So when so see lots of blog posts it doesn’t mean I have more time, it usually means am in this tired state that thoughts just roll out of me, like talking in one’s sleep.
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Which strategic boardgames did you play? And how does flirting look like? Other Slovak women have also told me many times that Slovak guys don’t flirt…
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I read all your comments, but some of them are gone. What I wanted to ask was: which strategic boardgames did you play? Also: I must be very weird in the eyes of Slovak women. I write them poems, funny letters, with raving compliments, hide gifts for them to find, take them to restaurants, probably stare at them with star struck eyes, etc. The result is that they usually love me in a kind of platonic way, but nothing else happens, usually it’s because they know am married
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I played many strategic board games but it was some years ago so I forgot the rules by now. I would love to try them again though as it was fun. From those that I can remember I played Settlers of Catan (of course:), Race for the Galaxy, Pandemic, Small World, Munchkin, Agricola, Powergrid, Memoir’44, Battle for Hill 218. Today I still sometimes play one nice strategic game for two – Lost Cities. And Carcassonne, of course. That one never grows old. 😀
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The things that you do for ladies are definitely not common. 🙂 But I would say they already qualify for courtship rather than for a flirt. For me flirting is a rather subtle thing. Non-verbal communication is important there. The look, the smile… People should show they are positively interested and curious about each other. Compliments are important too, but they don’t have to be too direct.
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Yes, you’re right. I didn’t realize. Ok, then I totally suck at flirting, because am very scared of making a woman uncomfortable, but am good at courtship then. Do you know the Hot Ape model for flirting? It’s somewhere on this site
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I play settlers, age of empires (the boardgame), several games concerning the american civil war, civilization, axis and allies, machiavelli (known as citadella in slovak), werewolves with large groups, and a game I invented when I was teaching only teenage boys. There are several others, but can’t think of the names right now. When are you available to try some? I sometimes invite groups of people, mostly my students, to go to a bar and play
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Oh thank you 🙂 that could be fun. How many of you usually gather for board games night? Do I need to learn some Dutch? 😀
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Last time there were 9 people, not everybody played. Most knew Dutch, but we mainly spoke English and Slovak 🙂 next you will get an invitation
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Great, thank you! 🙂 Mondays and Tuesdays are quite busy for me but other days should be okay. 🙂
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