Another Word From the Illuminati...

Note: I started writing this back in May of 2015 and finished it only now.

We Illuminati are hard at work, preparing to enslave the nation!

In the mail this morning, this screed:

There is an IMMEDIATE NEED for all types of companies to assist with Remediation, Flood Clean Up, Renovation, Inspections, Debris Removal, Security and Engineering work for both Services and/or Products. All types of companies needed such as Veteran-Owned, Woman-Owned, Minority-Owned, HUBZone and 8(a)-Owned as well as Small Business's are NEEDED NOW.

Once registered through (DHS) Department of Homeland Security and (FEMA) Federal Emergency Management Agency a company will be able to work under many other agencies such as U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), U.S. Coast Guard (USCG), U.S Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and Transportation Security Administration (TSA) just to name a few.

Yes, as I have mentioned before, I am a government contractor, and a former defense contractor. So here I am, now hard at work, helping build FEMA domes and FEMA coffins, so we can put you all in jail and take over America.

Why do we do it?   That is a good question.   You see, we 1%'ers aren't content to own the majority of the wealth in this country, we want all of it.  And why not?  We're entitled.  We work hard.  We put money aside.  We invest.  Right?

So, obviously, the next step is to just round up everyone and put them in detention camps.   A slave-labor economy will be so much more efficient than a consumer-based economy, won't it?   I mean, once we turn all the Wal-Marts into detention camps, we won't have to waste time selling products to people, loaning them money, or hooking them on cell phone plans.

And since everyone will be in detention camps, we can shut down all the car dealers and repair shops, as no one will have to drive anymore.   It will be sweet for us, to be sure, driving everywhere at 100 mph with no traffic.  Once we have all you "little people" locked up (and take away your guns, it goes without saying) life will be sweet, right?

Or maybe not.   In a consumer-based economy, we make money when people consume.   I make money on my Altria stock because you smoke cigarettes.   If we lock you all up in detention camps, what does that do to the sales of cigarettes?   They collapse, that's what.

And if all the Wal-Marts are turned into prisons, how does Wal-Mart make any money?  And why would a Wal-Mart even make a good prison?

This is the problem with conspiracy theories - they don't hold up under even the most mild of scrutiny.   People posit that the powers-that-be want to lock us all up and put us in detention camps.   Years ago, a friend of mine sent me a scary video of a "Bush internment camp" being built - right near a railroad track!  They would ship us all in to the camp in rail cars, and the turnstiles and barbed-wire topped chain-link fences would keep us all prisoners!

Or maybe, it was an Amtrak train station under construction.   Hence the railroad tracks, turnstiles, and chain-link fencing.  But some ominous music and a little narrative and selective editing, and my friend believed - to the point where they left the country in terror.   Drugs were involved, as you might imagine.  (Fast-forward a few years, and the same video is repurposed as an Obama internment camp under construction).

Yes, pot makes you paranoid.  So paranoid in fact that the powers-that-be can get you to vote for a guy who will outlaw pot so long as he doesn't "take away your guns" (How's that working out by the way?  I mean, how many guns did Obama take away?  I have yet to hear the tally).

And speaking of which, what ever happened to Jade-Helm?   That was a military exercise which was supposed to be Obama's plot to take over Texas - or something - using these domes and closed Wal-Marts.   Nothing ever came of that, and the conspiracy theorists seemed to conveniently forget this, just as "end times theologians" conveniently forget when their predicted "end of the world" date comes and goes.

By the way, the e-mail produced above is a con.   Since I am a registered government contractor (for at least one more year) I get e-mails all the time exhorting me to "sign up" with companies with official-sounding names, who promise to get me all sorts of government contracts in areas that I am not qualified to work.   The joke is, these are not government agencies sending these e-mails, but often are con-artists, who want a fee for me to sign up with them, and in turn, they would send me lists of contracts that I could obtain from the government SAMS site by clicking on a few links.

Yes, even lawyers and government contractors are hoodwinked this way.  Especially the lawyers.   You'd be surprised how many "urgent legal needs!" there are on Jekyll Island, judging from the five or six e-mails I receive daily in my SPAM box.

But I am astute enough not to believe that an island of less than 500 residents has such "urgent legal needs!" but instead is a cut-and-paste SPAM e-mail that uses my name and address data scraped from my website or the State Bar website (I wrote the Patent on the scraping technique!).   I can see this, can't you?

So why do people fall for such SPAM?   Why do people believe in conspiracy theories?   People are not very bright and will squander their emotional and physical energy on nonsense.

Just don't do that.   Pretty simple thing.   You'd be surprised how many people fail to see it - even smart people! 

Outrageous Things!

NOTE: This is a posting I started a year ago an never finished.

How dare I say outlandish things like take responsibility for your own life and stop being a victim!

It is funny, but I hear comments from some folks or read comments online about my blog.  It is amazing to me that anyone reads it.  It is even more amazing that people who hate it, seem to read it even more.  If you don't like what I have to say, read something that agrees with your preconceived notions of the world.

Why not?  That's what 99.9999% of the world does.  The Internet is an amazing echo chamber for your own thoughts.    The Internet is a vast place, my little corner of it barely attracts a few dozen readers.

Some folks claim that I say "outrageous" things here in my blog.   I find that rather odd, in this day and age, when you can put up a white supremacy blog and the ACLU will be the first to defend your "first amendment" rights.   But if I suggest that perhaps most of the problems in your life may very well be the result of your own folly, that is "outrageous" and should be shouted down.

And I make these observations from my own experiences.  Almost every financial, emotional, mental, and physical mistake I have made in life was largely the result of my own doing.  Oh, sure, there were other actors in the world who helped me along.   But when something is probabilistically very certain (such as having a motorcycle accident) you can't foist off the "blame" onto the car that hit you, when it fact, it was a predictable event.

So what are the outrageous things I am saying in this blog?  Here are a summary of some of the horrible things I say here that make me a bad person:

1.  Taking responsibility for your own life is a good thing:   Good for society, and good for you.   When you externalize your problems - by blaming others for your woes - nothing gets done, as the "big corporations" and "Wall-street fat cats" aren't going away anytime soon, nor are the Democrats or the Republicans, or the Muslims or the Russians, or whoever or whatever vague and ambiguous large external force you want to blame for all your woes.

For example, nobody - or damn few anyway - suffered as a result of the Real Estate meltdown due to circumstances entirely beyond their control.   People got greedy and decided to buy and flip houses, or thought their ship had come in and they could afford a fancier house than they really could - at a price and on terms that made no financial sense whatsoever.  Others merely over-mortgaged their homes and "took out" equity to pay off credit card bills (as I did).  No one forced these people to pay too much for homes they could not afford on terms that only Satan himself would offer. 

But no, in America, everything is always somebody else's fault, or at least that is how you get elected - and re-elected - in this country.

2.  Mental Health has to be worked at:  Thinking crazy thoughts will make you crazy.  The more you believe in nonsense, the less sense the real world will make for you, and your brain will suffer from this disassociation.  Conspiracy theories, paranormal phenomenon, aliens, religion, etc, are all nonsense and based in fantasy, not fact.   Sure, it is fun to go on a "ghost tour" or visit a church once in a while.  Taking that shit seriously will just make you insane.  If you read enough online stories about pedophile rings in pizza shops, eventually you will find yourself in jail wondering what the hell happened to you.

3.  Crazy people are no fun to be around, employ, rent to, rent from, work for, or have a relationship with.  And I say this one from long hard bitter experience.  A lot of people say we need to "respect" the needs of the mentally ill, as mental illness is an illness like any other.  And there is a nugget of truth to that, of course.   On the other hand, marrying someone who attacks you with a knife is not a very good idea.  And no, you can't "fix them" like an old car.  The best thing you can do for yourself and your own mental health is to leave the crazies for the professionals.

4.  Obsessing about an illness is never healthy:   It is trendy today in America to claim to have some health problem that is nearly impossible to diagnose, or is something people read about and saw on television and then self-diagnose.   People claim to have all sorts of weird allergies that mystify actual allergists.   Folks claim that  eating "gluten-free" is better for them, when there is no scientific evidence to suggest this, other than for a small number of people with a very rare disorder.  Folks like to spend hours on disease websites complaining of their pains and aches - but of course, never getting better.  It is a shitty way to go through life, particularly as eventually you will acquire a real illness that will put things in real perspective, and you will realize you wasted most of your life obsessing about nothing.

I went on one of these sites once, to research diverticulitis.   What I found was a lot of really bad and contradictory information, and a lot of people who spend every day on the site complaining about their attacks and seeking (and getting) sympathy from others.   I quickly realized this was a dead-end and never went back.  I didn't want to go through life identifying myself as a set of disease parameters, but would rather live life instead.

5.  Buying crap doesn't make you happy or wealthy, just broke.  Having a lot of "stuff" seems like the definition of wealth - to small children.   When you become an adult, you realize that having money is the real definition of wealth, and that owning things is anti-wealth.  Treating yourself to a fancy car or a fancy cell phone is fine and all, but if it comes at the expense of your financial well-being, then it is probably a really bad idea.

6.  Borrowing money isn't a privilege, and it isn't a good idea in most cases.  People obsess about their credit score in this country and look at wealth in terms of how much more they can borrow.  But borrowed money has to be paid back - with interest.  And in this age of low interest rates, it amazes me that people continue to borrow at rates of 15% or more (often far more, for payday loans and the like).  Save borrowing for important things - a home, an education (a real one, not 4 years at party U or a "for profit" college).  Borrowing money for an RV or a boat is just shooting yourself in the head.

7. Keeping track of you money is essential to managing it.   You can't just go through life spending when you want to and assuming that someday money will show up to pay your bills.  Believe me, I tried this and it didn't work!   It is a pain in the ass, but tracking every darn penny you spend is essential to understanding where you money goes and where you are spending too much money in life.

And please, if you are not doing this, you have no real right to say I am spending too much money on X when you have no idea what you are spending your money on at all.
  

8.  Feeling sorry for people accomplishes nothing.   There are a few people in this world who are truly victimized by circumstance.  Most of them are fighting to reverse their fortunes.   The folks who come to you with long sob stories about how rough they have it are the most likely to be con artists looking to con you out of money.   You might feel better about yourself giving a dollar to a bum, but you haven't changed his life one iota - he will just spend it on drugs or alcohol.    Saying you are "better" than others because you care about the less fortunate is just sick thinking and narcissism.   Want to help the homeless?  Work at a homeless shelter.   Odds are, after a week, you'll re-think your sympathies.

9.  Obsessing about politics is pointless.   Vote.  Donate money to a candidate.   But to get all riled up watching Fox News or CNN is just wasting your own energy on absolutely nothing.   Put that energy to use in your own life, and leave the politics to the politicians.  Your input is limited to the second Tuesday in November, or whatever you can spare in your checkbook for political donations.  Forget about the rest.

10.  Stop believing in something-for-nothing.  There are no shortcuts to wealth or losing weight.  People are not giving away cars, motorcycles, RVs, or tractors on Craigslist for 1/4 their actual value.  A Nigerian Prince has not awarded you lottery winnings.   You don't save money by leasing a car - you get ripped off.   You can't deduct your way to wealth.  Buying a huge house to live in won't make you rich, just house-poor.   No scheme or hyped investment will ever make you rich, but likely will bankrupt you, whether it is gold, bitcoin, houses, or whatever.   Others will make money, not you.  Just stop being a sucker!  It is that simple.

* * * 

Now, some of you might say, "Well, this is pretty obvious stuff, Bob!  I mean, if you have lived on this planet for more than an hour or so, you could figure this out!"

You'd think that, but you'd be wrong.  Legions of people believe in utter nonsense and do stupid things and then allege to be victims and want our sympathy when it all goes wrong.   While we might feel sorry for such folks, a better approach is to learn from their mistakes and move on.

And yet our media, our schools, and even family members all preach the opposite.  We should feel sorry for people and the next IPO for some "dot com" company is the biggest news in investing!   The two are related of course, as the people who want you to feel sorry for them are the idiots who fell for the crap the media sold them.

But that is an outrageous thing to say because the folks who have one hand on your wallet don't want it said.  They want you to be weak, passive, and squandering all your dough on stuff to make yourself feel better about life, even as you go broke.  Why bother trying?  Have another beer and roll a joint and lose your mind.   There, feel better now?

Of course not.

This is, of course, not some grand conspiracy, but something called "human nature" and "civilization".   Throughout history there have been haves and have-nots.   And the haves know how human beings think and act, and how they are prone to feeling sorry for themselves, depression, and craziness, and how these weaknesses can be exploited very easily.  Loan them money for a new Camaro.  They'll feel better about their situation, even as they go broke.   Meanwhile, you make money.   That's how it works.

If you can see through this fog, it suddenly becomes clear.   Sadly, few do - or maybe it is a good thing few do, as it makes it easier to be one of those few!

New Passive-Aggressive Muppet

Is this progress or political correctness?  I cannot decide.

Fresh off the wire:

For the first time in a decade, the classic children's television show Sesame Street will introduce a new passive-aggressive Muppet on the air.

Her name is Julia. She's a shy and winsome 4-year-old, with striking red hair and green eyes.  Julia likes to paint and pick flowers.  When Julia speaks, she often echoes what she's just heard her friends Abby and Elmo say.  Julia is passive aggressive.

Presenting Julia to the gang requires a bit more explanation of her passive-aggression to the other Muppets — and their young viewers.  As Abby Cadabby (the 3-year-old fairy played by Leslie Carrara-Rudolph) explained during NPR's recent visit to the set in the Astoria neighborhood of Queens, N.Y., it can be hard to get Julia's attention.  Big Bird had to repeat himself to get her to listen, for example.  And she sees things where others don't.

"That's just Julia being Julia," Abby said.

Julia, chuckling, then displays a different-but-fun way of playing tag, and everyone joins in.  But when a siren wails, she covers her ears and looks stricken.

"She needs to take a break," Big Bird's human friend Alan calmly explains. Soon, all is well and play resumes.

 * * * 

OK, I went there.  Because when I first read this article about the "Autistic Muppet" (are we being redundant here?) I kind of shit my pants.  I replaced the word "Autistic" with "Passive-Aggressive" as it appears that Julia is not Autistic, but just an annoying person to be around, who wants everything her way and screw everyone else.

Which pretty much describes people with Autism, sadly.

Julia can't play "tag" with the other kids unless she can change the rules of the game and play it her way.   The world is a merry-go-round with her in the center and other people are just wallpaper, and their feelings mean nothing, so she can snub them and they have to "understand" her "difference".

Mentally ill people are like that, sadly, which makes being around them difficult.

And of course, this is on PBS and reported on breathlessly by NPR.   The Left loves Autism and diagnosing it in everyone from themselves, to their kids, to historical figures (who cannot rest in peace, it seems, without being accused of being Autistic or Gay - poor Abraham Lincoln!).

The sad thing is, other than severely Autistic people, it is all-too-easy to make amateur diagnoses of "mild autism" or "Autism Spectral Disorders" (what a cool sounding name!  I sound smart just by saying it!) in yourself, your family, your children, and others.   As I noted, some readers slap this label on me.

OK, from now on, we only play "tag" my way, right?  

Don't get me wrong, people with severe autism have a rough road ahead and so do their families.   They basically will find it hard to work and live in society and will either need the support of a family for the rest of their lives, or an institution.   If you have an autistic kid, you have a lot on your hands.

But this social trend of calling people "mildly autistic" has really got to stop.   Because it is just a trend - like people claiming they can't eat wheat and thus are entitled to "gluten-free" bagels or whatever, wherever they go.

Mental illnesses should not be trendy and hip.  There is something wrong here, and I can't quite put my finger on it (because I am autistic, natch).   Or maybe I am seeing this because of my autism.

No, neither is true.   What we have here is another example of mass hysteria, induced by the media.   A few years back it was "Lyme Disease" which is serious shit, but affects very few people.  But a lot of folks decided they had it.   Before that, Fibromyalgia.   Then "Chronic Fatigue Syndrome".

And when it comes to children, multiply this by a billion.   Little Jimmy isn't dumb as stone, he's dyslexic!  Now we have a name and a condition to staple to his forehead and mark him for life.   Parents will go out of their way to "find something wrong" with their kids, which happened to me and probably would have killed me if someone hadn't put a stop to it.

The problem here isn't the inclusion of an autistic character in the show.  The problem is turning autism into pop culture and creating a world where autism is diagnosed in everyone.

And diagnoses of "Autism Spectral Disorders" is skyrocketing.   Why?  Because it is in all the magazines and on all the daytime talk shows and is saturating the media.  So Mom and Dad go shopping for a doctor who will say their kid is Autistic so they too, can have a special snowflake of their own.

If maybe they just left the kid alone, he'd do OK by himself.

You see, a diagnoses of "Mild Autism" doesn't really help much.  Why?  Because we don't know what causes it and there is no cure for it.   You are just slapping a label on a person, and labels are rarely helpful.

You are also giving a person an excuse not to succeed.   Once you tell people they are damaged goods, they tend to live up to that expectation.    Once you tell people they have an "easy out" because of their dyslexia or autism or whatever, they will use this crutch to get by, arguing that they can't succeed because of their "condition".

Thank God no one ever slapped such labels on me, as I would never have succeeded in life.

We need to stop making illnesses or conditions trendy or popular.  Medicine should not be dictated by what is trending on Twitter or Facebook.   People should not be diagnosing their own maladies online or diagnosing maladies in their children.   Housewives should not be deciding that they know more about vaccines than doctors.   

This trendiness shit ends up being dangerous, and that is why I am more than a little ambivalent about Autistic Muppets.  Because if we go down this road, then, well, we have to have a Muppet for every disorder imaginable.

And a Muppet for every minority group.   Of course, Bert and Ernie aren't gay - just good friends.

Can Refugees Fit In To Western Society? Maybe.

A startling article from the New York Times implies that some Syrian Refugees might not make it in the West.

The New York Times is hardly a conservative newspaper.  In fact, it is now the Left wing "newspaper of record" and there is nothing wrong with that.   Liberalism is not a dirty word.

But this means when the New York Times reports troubles with Syrian refugees fitting into Canadian society, we should sit up and take notice.   It is one thing for Fox News or Breitbart to say this - we can safely assume both are lying all of the time.  But the New York Times?   If anything, we would expect them to wallpaper over any difficulties with refugees fitting into our society.

But a recent article illustrates just that.   Many refugees with professional skills and talents and some English Language skills seem to fit in well to Canadian society.   It is harder for the less-educated and the poor.  The article follows one family who were poor farmers in Syria before they were displaced by the war.  The Father has a second-grade education and cannot even read or write his native Arabic, much less English.  The parents have never had a bank account and the mysteries of balancing a checking account and using the ATM are still not understood nearly a year later. 

The Dad is sending money back to Syria to his own Father, who refuses to talk to him when Dad finally cuts off the funds.   In a fit of pique, he smashes the cell phone provided to him by the government and declares he wants to move back to Syria.

Meanwhile, sponsors of some of these families have had enough.   After spending a year supporting them financially, chauffeuring them around, having to help them with every aspect of their lives, they just want out of the deal - let the refugees get by on their own, and not bother them anymore.

It is a sentiment I understand fully.  Trying to "help" people can backfire on you in a big way, as some folks love to put themselves in peril and expect you to bail them out.  They become dependent on your largess and aid, and thus never learn to act on their own.

We had a cleaning lady from Mexico, who was here legally.   She seemed never to know whether it was snowing or blowing.   I was appalled when I found out she was using a check cashing store to cash the paycheck I gave her (we did withholding, social security tax, and set up health insurance and even a 401(k) for her - she appreciated none of it and would have preferred to be paid in cash).   I ended up "cashing" her paychecks for her and then paying her in cash.

But it didn't end there.   Every week, there was some sort of crises.   A letter would come from Ed McMahon telling her she had won the Publisher's House Sweepstakes and she thought it was a deportation notice.   She was as helpless as a kitten and expected everyone else to handle things for her.  And she refused to learn more than a few words of English.

We moved away, eventually, and she latched onto another one of her clients to help her with her everyday needs, from doing her taxes, to getting government assistance.   She wasn't a stupid person, she just found it easier to rely on other people.

And other people get tired, eventually, of doing this.  It is one thing to show someone how to handle something, it is another to do it again, and again, and again, with them refusing to learn as they prefer you just do it for them.   Altruism starts to wear thin at about this point.

The refugee thing is an interesting one.   Many are fleeing war and violence and strife.   Others just want a better life in a Western country, where going in welfare makes you far richer than working hard in their homeland.  And stories filter back how you can move to Germany and get a free apartment and spending money, just for showing up.   These stories may be exaggerated or even untrue, but they are no different that then "streets paved with gold" stories my ancestors told the folks back in County Cork, circa 1850.

The problem isn't ISIS or Al Queada, or war in Libya or Sudan that is causing this "refugee crises".  The problem is the world is becoming overpopulated and we are running out of resources in the worst parts of the world, such as the Middle-East or Africa.   So people flee from shitty areas and go to places that are less populated and more wealthy.   The window-dressing of religious conflict or conflict between political ideologies is just window-dressing of the real underlying problem - overpopulation.

And often the people overpopulating the most are the least educated and least skilled.   In Saudi Arabia, homeless kids are sent to school - to memorize the Koran which trains them for no other job other than suicide bomber or Jihadist.  A country that still imports petroleum engineers from the West!  But there are no jobs for their own citizens.

How do you fit someone whose world-view is shaped this way into a Western country?   Their children, no problem - they are young an impressionable and will gladly accept a better way of life.  I can only hope the "Dad" profiled in the article doesn't drag his family back to war-torn Syria just because he can't read the road signs and figure out an ATM.   That would be pretty sad.

Ms. Stark, believing that Mr. Hajj didn’t understand his accounts well enough to realize what had happened, went to the bank to try to figure out what had gone wrong. When that turned up no evidence of theft, she and the other sponsors wondered if there were other explanations for the unfamiliar pattern. Had Mr. Hajj sent the money to his father in Syria? Stashed it away in a drawer?

A few weeks later, Mr. Hajj asked the sponsors about going on welfare. He had heard about it from his classmates in English lessons. Some were enrolling, seeing it as a safer bet than insecure, low-wage jobs, they told him. One explained that he could work and still collect the government assistance, if he could persuade his boss to pay him under the table.

Oh, shit.   This is like what every Trump supporter has been saying.   "They come here to go on welfare and then wire money back to ISIS."   Maybe not literally true, but plausible.   Of course there are native-born Americans and Canadians who work under the table and collect welfare as well.  Everyone wants to scam the system!   Maybe this Syrian guy figuring this out is a sign he is ready for citizenship!   Welcome to the West!

Or maybe, if you "adopt" a redneck from Syria, you can't expect them to become middle-class citizens in America or Canada.  They will just be rednecks here.

Anyway, it is an interesting article, and considering the source, it is fascinating that it casts some doubts that all refugees will fit in to Western Society.

The Nature of Relationships

We need relationships in our lives to the point where we will put up with a lot to maintain them.

One of the best ways to save on money is to have a partner or spouse.   "Two can live as cheaply as one" the old song goes, and to some extent, that is true.   When Mark and I both moved to Alexandria, Virginia, we were both spending about $650 a month each on an apartment.   Moving in together saved us $325 each a month - a lot of money back then, and even today.   It cut our housing costs in half.   And as we saw from previous postings housing costs are the single highest expense for most folks, even exceeding food, cars, and health care.

There are other savings as well.  If each of you has talents and abilities that compliment and not compete with each other, you have someone who fills in the holes in your life.    Mark likes to cook, I like to fix things.   He's creative, I'm more logical.   He has ideas, I have ways of making them work.   We don't always agree, of course, but the combined power of two makes more than the sum.

And in the best scenario, a relationship should be like that, where 2+2=5 or maybe even 6, as your combined powers amplify each other.   You give each other confidence and build each other up.   Your ideas and dreams are expanded by a point of view you never thought of.

In other scenarios, 2+2=4 or worse, it equals 3.5 or 3.   In the worst cases, 2+2=1.5, which means that each partner is worse off for the relationship than without it.   And sadly, this is where a lot of people end up, in a relationship where they would be better off being alone.

For example, you are in a relationship with a drug addict, an abuser (physical, mental, sexual, financial, or whatever) or someone who is tragically mentally ill.   You end up giving and they end up taking, and your life is worse off for the bargain.   There should be some advantage to you in a relationship.

Of course, one sign you are in a bad relationship is where you start tallying up the advantages and disadvantages and "keep score" so to speak.   It is a sign that maybe you aren't happy with what is going on.

It is funny, but often you don't see your relationship the way others do.   A friend of ours has a precocious 8-year-old who once asked me, "Why do you let Mark boss you around like that?" which generated a "shush" from his Mother.   I never thought about it, but he does like to control things, as I guess we all do.   But to some extent, it is good to have direction now and then.   Out of the mouth of babes.

On the other side, Mark's brother once (cruelly) remarked, "You're lucky to have found Bob!" as I guess he thought Mark was a gold-digger or something.  And Mark rightfully replied, "No, we were lucky to find each other!" which is true, because without him, I would still be driving a Chevette, at least metaphorically.

People on the outside might not see the whole picture,

Nevertheless, some relationships are "race to the bottom" relationships, where each spouse tries to outspend the other in retaliatory purchases.  Or relationships where the whole family wants to ride Dad like a cheap mule, until they extract every penny from him.   Or relationships where the husband abuses the wife, cashes his paychecks in bars, hangs out with his drinking buddies from high school, while expecting the misses to have the trailer clean and dinner on the table when he gets home at 2 AM.

What got me thinking about this was a reader thanking me for one of my most popular postings, Husband sends money to Brother, which gets a surprising number of hits, telling me it isn't just me that is seeing this go on.   The reader is in a relationship, but not married, and her partner sends off hefty sums to relatives who are not really in need.   When someone owns a vacation home, they don't need your money.  Meanwhile, she struggles to make ends meet.

I somewhat flippantly said, "Well, maybe it is time to look elsewhere" which is sort of a cruel and stupid thing to say, not knowing the whole story.  But, on the other hand, they are not married or have kids, so maybe she is still young and has options.   And if he is sending money to relatives before marriage, do you think this will stop afterwords?

The problem is, of course, that finding your "soul mate" is damn difficult to do.  Statistically, you are going to marry or live with someone you work with, someone you know from childhood, a friend of a friend, or someone nearby where you live.   This is pretty obvious, if you think about it.   Sometimes lighting strikes.  A friend of mine came to Jekyll 30 years ago on vacation and met a local boy and fell in love.  30 years later, well they are married with two kids.   It happens.

Others use dating services or computer matching setups.   I am skeptical of these as they try to match interest for interest instead of looking for complimentary matches.   If you are both marathon runners, you won't be supporting each other at the next marathon, but competing instead.   My personal opinion is that matching interests one-to-one is not a good idea, as you will not be exposed to different experiences and different ideas, but rather be arguing all the time over who is right.  Then again, as I noted, marrying an alien isn't necessarily a good idea either - someone whose life experiences are completely alien to your own.

But it seems - at least to outsiders - that some folks "settle" for less than they should, or at least might be better off being single than ending up with the partners they do.   And I'll give you some real-world examples of folks who made odd choices in partners that keep their friends and family scratching their heads - and often end up in divorce court.

For example Joe and Mary are living in sin together.  I say "living in sin" as Joe is a devout Catholic and has a wife and two children.  He met Mary who was 20 years his junior and decided to move in with her and have a child (which came first, I do not know).   He refused to divorce his wife as he was a devout Catholic and that is a sin, but adultery I guess isn't.   People do like to compartmentalize their religious beliefs!

The problem for Mary is that she has nothing.  The house is in his name and his entire estate, including the house they are living in, will go to Joe's wife when he dies, leaving Mary with nothing, other than her own savings.   We are not talking a 50/50 split here, between the two spouses, or even 60/40 or 70/30.    The wife, who Joe has not lived with for over 25 years, gets it all and Mary will have to struggle to get by.

And since she is 20 years his junior, well, it was likely that she would outlive him by quite a spell.  Mary's sister shakes her head and wonders what Mary sees in Joe and why she went along with this scheme for so many years.  And Mary's sister worries that Mary will start asking her for money, once Joe passes away and leaves her destitute.   But the overriding thing is, Mary's sister feels bad for Mary that this is the "marriage" she had to settle for in life, a 2+2=3.5 at best.

Melissa and Daniel come from radically different backgrounds.  Melissa went to private boarding schools and graduated from Swathmore.  Daniel barely scraped though high school and works menial labor jobs.  Why Melissa married Daniel is anyone's guess.   She thought she was "in love" with him, but they were two different people whose interests did not compliment each other.  She was a left-wing liberal and agnostic who smoked pot, he was a right-wing conservative fundamentalist who liked to swill cheap beer.   He cashed his paychecks in bars and came home drunk on weeknights, and on more than one occasion, Melissa had to bail him out of jail for his DUI arrests.  She had to reply on her parents to send her money periodically, in order to make ends meet.

They ended up getting divorced after many years and after having two children, whose upbringing in a chaotic household was anything but normal.   Melissa's family also scratched heads wondering what Melissa was thinking marrying someone who was such a layabout and whose fundamental values were so different than her own.    You get one shot at this in life, maybe two.   Melissa had only one.

This wasn't a 2+2=4 relationship, but 2+2=1 or even zero.

Nancy and Shelia were lesbian lovers.   They shared a row house in Maryland and had been living together for over 20 years.   Every month, Nancy would tally up the bills and send Shelia an invoice for her half of the living expenses.  When I asked Nancy about this, she said "Shelia is a compulsive gambler, and if we had the same checking account, she would drain it dry to go the casino!"

At least Nancy had a realistic eyes-wide-open view of her relationship with Shelia.   But it is sad, to me, that Nancy (from experience) didn't trust her "life partner" and that Shelia wouldn't get help for her gambling addiction and was more than willing to steal from her lover to gamble.

This is a 2+2=4.0000 relationship, but only because Nancy keeps such meticulous books.   Sadly, when Nancy died, Shelia ended up tearing through the money Nancy left to her and ended up homeless within a year.

Bruce and Lillian have been married for years.   For the first part of their marriage, Bruce made most of the money, but didn't manage it very well.   They have enough to get by on, but Bruce keeps sending money every month to his sister, who he is convinced "needs their help" to pay off her credit card bills, even though she has a good job, a pension plan, and a paid-for Condo she is living in.  Lillian is livid that she has to "do without" while Bruce's sister spends their money.

When confronted, Bruce says, "It's my money so I can do whatever I want with it!" failing to realize that in a marriage, there is no "mine" and "yours".

A few years later, Lillian comes into a sizable inheritance.   And of course, you can guess what happens.  Bruce says, "Well, we can finally retire in style!" but Lillian replies, "Well, maybe I can, after all, this is my money!"

Poetic justice for Bruce, but it is hard to feel sorry for either of them.  They are both selfish people wanting to "win" all the time and use very ugly psychological games to control each other.   The last time I checked in with them, they were sleeping in separate bedrooms - in separate apartments!  It makes me very, very sad.

Here is a relationship that isn't even 2+2.   It is a pair of deuces wandering around the planet, never really intersecting with each other but upon occasion.  There is no savings here, not even on rent.  Their skills don't compliment each other.   One wonders why they stay together except out of habit.

* * *

The list goes on and on.  And it is why my posting on "Husband give money to Brother" is so popular.  People are stuck in relationships that are really of no benefit to them or worse yet, are a detriment to them.

Of course, we are looking from the outside-in.   Maybe they get something out of the deal we don't see - wild, kinky sex or something.   Or maybe it is just the needs of one partner to be abused due to low-self-esteem issues from their upbringing.   "This is all I deserve!" they say inwardly.   And often an abusive spouse will reinforce this message.

And of course, Love is a many-splendor'ed thing.   We do fall in love and love people even if the relationship is to our detriment.  You can't argue love logically, it is pure emotion.

But love is also a two-way street, and if someone loves you, they shouldn't abuse you, right?  Or at least not abuse you that much.

Now pardon me while I go hug my husband.   I like the way he bosses me around.