Open Letter To "The One"

Cheesy level 900000+; you have been warned

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Dear *female name*,


I'm very sorry.

I'm sorry I haven't already written you a dozen cheesy poems and enough blogposts to get myself unfollowed by half my friends on Facebook and removed and blocked by the other half.

I'm sorry we aren't already arguing about what we'll do next weekend even though we both know that we'll probably end up on the couch, binge-watching TV series and consuming enough junk food to kill a dragon even though we were supposed to finally work out together.

I'm sorry I'm not already trying to write you a song for your birthday and failing miserably because I don't have a private place to practice the tune on my guitar where you can't hear it.

I'm sorry I haven't yet made you hate guitars and rock music in general because of my mad guitar-practicing skills.

I'm sorry I'm not already teasing you about your bed head in the morning and getting my ass kicked for it.

I'm sorry you aren't already deeply confused by my instant mood swings and making jokes that I'm more PMS-ey than you are.

I'm sorry I'm old fashioned and that my almost extinct idea of chivalry will likely piss off the feminist in you fairly regularly.

I'm sorry my cooking is going to taste so much better than yours... No offense.

I'm sorry I haven't met you much, much earlier in my life.

I'm sorry I've been single for so long that not only have I forgotten how to be with someone, but I've also come to view my independence as an integral part of my personality and I don't know how you're supposed to put up with that.

I'm sorry you'll have to put up with a list of issues so massive that I've stopped counting them.

I'm sorry for being so broken that it will probably take you years to glue back the pieces into a half-decent human being... If you ever manage to get past my walls.

I'm sorry my life choices and career have made it so hard for us to meet and form a connection because I'm constantly moving around and we both know that a long distance relationship would be very hard on both of us.

I'm sorry because every time I try to imagine what you look like, your face is still hazy and pixelated in my mind.

I'm sorry because every time I travel somewhere new or do something exciting, I feel guilty because you're not with me... even though you don't exist for all I know.

I'm sorry I couldn't address the letter to you by name because I still don't know who you are. For all I know, we might meet in 2, 5, 10 or even 20 years... but the waiting doesn't scare me. You know what does? Wondering if we've already met but haven't realized that we're meant for each other... or worse, wondering if my massive treasure chest of issues and unreasonably high standards have already pushed you away.

Mostly I'm sorry because I'm acutely aware of how incomplete my life is without you... even though I know you'll come with more than your fair share of drama and we'll have lots of fights (or else you wouldn't be my soulmate), I also know that we'll always make it work because you're a hopeless romantic too, and you know what it means to love unconditionally.

And you know what? There is one thing I'm not sorry for... even though I've met dozens of attractive girls in my life who have amazing personalities, I'm glad I didn't settle for anyone else... rather than settle for any relationship for its own sake, I always chose to wait for you... and I hope this makes up for all the crimes above.

It shames me to admit that my faith in your existence is severely shaken at times, especially in the face of the overwhelming skepticism of all my friends (and even myself), but I will never give up... for what is there to live for, without hope?

So whoever and wherever you are, I want you to know that I'm right here... and I am not going anywhere. Take all the time you need, but be prepared... because when we do finally get together, I'm not letting go of you so easily.

Sincerely,
Mahmoud Bondok

Confessions of a Handsome Man

It might not look like it, but Jean hadn't always had it so easy.

Let me explain.

Ever since he was a child, people would treat Jean differently. As a toddler, he was always the star of any social gathering, even if there were other, more playful children around. Later on in his life when he started going to school, if he ever forgot to do his homework, his teachers always seemed to accept his excuses, and even hug him or fondly ruffle his hair. Somehow he always found himself in the front row in school pictures. The special attention his teachers gave him always kept him motivated and eager to learn and develop himself, which gave him an unfair advantage over his classmates... coupled with the attention his parents gave him as their first-born and eldest son, it also helped make him entitled and gave him unrealistic expectations in life.

Not that he knew any of that, of course. All he knew was that he was always his teachers' favourite for some reason he didn't understand, and for better or worse, it shaped his personality growing up. The constant positive feedback made him pursue hobbies he was interested in and develop his personality rather than just play videogames and football- and in the latter years of middle school when puberty hit- talk about girls.

However, always being singled out also put him under the spotlight, and all kinds of bad things happen to school children under the spotlight. You see, the extra attention he received also won him the unwanted attention of the neglected kids in class... You know the ones I mean; the "cool" kids who sit in the back and take pride in their trouble-making behaviour and unkempt appearance. It would be unfair to blame it completely on them; Jean would have likely been aggressive as well towards that one kid who got most of the attention in class.

Regardless, being bullied for the best part of his childhood kept him grounded and down to earth. It developed his sense of humour and taught him to use it as a defence mechanism. If the other kids wanted to make fun of him, he would damn well do it himself to take the sting off... their jokes wouldn't be funny if he made them first, and he figured it probably wouldn't be a bad idea to be the funny kid instead of the class punching bag.

Long story short, on one hand he always received praise and encouragement and assurances that he had the potential to be anything he wanted in life, but on the other hand being constantly on the defensive gave him thick skin and taught him to armor himself in humor. It would be a long time until he realised he didn't have to do that anymore, and that wouldn't be until highschool; where he realised self-confidence was a much sturdier choice of armor.

When Jean went to highschool, he came to a startling realisation: people seemed to actually enjoy his company now! Life wasn't a constant battle for survival anymore, where only the laws of the jungle applied. He didn't have to conform to the other kids' idea of "cool" anymore... he could actually practice his hobbies and do whatever he enjoyed, with people who genuinely enjoyed spending time with him.

With that came another realisation; he was getting some unprecedented attention from girls. Being an awkward teenager who hadn't really grown into himself, he didn't quite understand the hints girls were giving him at first. Sometimes they would ask him lame questions just as an excuse to talk to him, but being so fresh from the daily torment that was middle school, he was always suspicious of any such attempts and would deflect them without a second thought... He'd had at least 6 years of practice, after all.

But still they kept coming... and as any pubescent teenager is wont to do, he was starting to notice girls too, but he couldn't understand why they were giving him that seemingly unwarranted attention... He was sure he had nothing to offer them since he was just that awkward kid with a bad posture and dorky glasses. Too often, he would catch a girl stealing looks at him, and by force of habit he would turn around and look behind him to see who she was really checking out. When it turned out to be him, he'd turn back around to find her giggling with her friends.

Until one day he went home after school and stared at himself in a mirror. He didn't get it; he looked exactly the same as he always had, and the blonde peach fuzz on his upper lip sure as hell wasn't doing him any favors. He started pondering the unthinkable; could it be that he was actually... attractive? His every instinct warned him that it was a trap. The class nerd-turned-clown can't be attractive, it went against all the laws of teenage social structure. He took off his glasses, smoothed his hair back, stood a little straighter. Could he play the part? But what if one of the kids called him out on it? It would be middle school all over again and he'd spend months trying to correct his image. Could he really afford that now that he was finally starting to have a life and a personality and friends of his own?

He decided to take the risk and be confident for a day, and his life changed forever.

It was an incredible feeling, being on the other side. He was suddenly "the guy". Again, you know who I mean... that one guy every other guy either picks a fight with or tries to befriend. And girls? He would sometimes find himself hanging out with groups of 5 girls who laughed at his lame jokes and twirled their hair around while giving him moon eyes and batting their eyelashes.

In fact, eventually it even got to the point where he would wish he was unattractive so that girls would be more interested in who he was and what he had to say rather than what he looked like. Also, sometimes people got very wrong first impressions of him; always making the uninformed assumption that he was just another unintelligent, arrogant "douche" who didn't have any skills in life because he didn't really need them... and other times they would be too intimidated to talk to him, not knowing how approachable he actually was.

At any rate, from then on -through college and his later life- it was smooth sailing. The confidence he'd had to fake in the beginning now came to him naturally. Wherever he was, he was always acutely aware of at least one or two girls trying to catch his eye. There was never one point in his life when a girl wasn't trying to be with him... and if he wanted a girl, he generally didn't have to try hard. If he wanted a favour from a friend or even an acquaintance, all he had to do was ask. If he wanted a job, he was automatically on the short list; since he soon found out that all good looking people needed were a smile, self-confidence and eye-contact, and people would generally just give them what they wanted. He would even pass through passport control at airports without being hassled too much, even as people he travelled with got interviewed for hours. It was like being a celebrity.

It was very difficult to resist abusing this effect he had on people but he always stayed true to his roots. He never forgot the awkward teen he used to be, and that kept him from being an arrogant, manipulative person who toyed with people's emotions. Having been on the receiving end of emotional abuse for most of his young life, he vowed to never be the kind of person who would inflict it upon someone else.

And the moral of the story? For better or worse, his life would have been radically different if his looks were not a factor. His entire personality was shaped by who he had to be to survive his prepubescent years, and that was a direct result of always being favoured by his teachers at school because they found him "cute".

Only the very specific circumstances of his life kept him from becoming the monster society seemingly wanted to turn him into. For example, if instead of bullying him, his classmates had worshiped every word he said, he would have grown up to be a self-assured narcissist with a God complex who got ahead in life only by manipulating other people and might have likely even been a bully himself.

It's an unfair world... because if on the other hand his teachers had divided their attention equally amongst everyone in his classroom and actually tried to make everyone feel supported and encouraged, Jean wouldn't have had to live through his rough early childhood and work so hard to grow up to be a well-adjusted adult, and his classmates would likely have had much fonder memories of primary and middle school.

Jean turned out to be a good person, but it could have too easily gone the other way. In an ideal world, he shouldn't have been treated differently for any reason, be it appearance or social class or religion or race or riches, but that is the harsh reality of the world we live in. All we can do is make a conscious effort to treat everyone as we would want to be treated... and hopefully enjoy the good karma.

الأسد

"ماذا لو؟"

   سؤال وجودي قصير قد يبدو بسيطا، ولكنه كفيل وحده بـأن يدفع الرجل إلى حافة الهاوية حيث لا مفر ولا منقذ.

كم من رجال ظنوا انفسهم حكماء حتى سقطوا وتحطمت آمالهم وكبريائهم على صخور الواقع الأليم الذي لا يرحم...؟ لماذا اذا نصر كل الاصرار على نفس المصير بالرغم مما نراه بأم أعيننا؟ هل اعتدنا الألم لهذه الدرجة حتى صرنا نبحث عنه بأنفسنا؟ فهو ادمان اذا... يدمر حياتنا ويشغل تفكيرنا ويقتلنا بطيئا بينما نتلذذ بالنشوة قصيرة الامد، غير مدركين تأثيره على الاهل والاحباب.. 

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تمر الايام ويظن صديقنا نفسه سعيدا... بالطبع، و لما لا؟ فقد فهم الدنيا أخيرًا... يعيش حياته مابين عمله واهله واصدقاؤه، لا ينقصه شيء... على حد علمه على الاقل. لما اذا يشعر بنقص شديد لا يعوض؟ بات السؤال واضحا، والاجابة أوضح بعد... 

حيث لم يكن في حسبانه ما حدث على الاطلاق... فقد الف حياة العذوبيه واعتاد اسوار قلعته وتحصيناتها، حيث مكث معظم سنين عمره مثل الأسد في عرينه... مدافع عن استقلاله وحريته، كاشر عن أنيابه لمن تسول لها نفسها بأن تقترب له... كان زئيره مدويا وأنيابه حادة، ولكنها إن دلت على شيء دلت على خوفه الشديد من تمليك نفسه لشخص اخر، يستطيع بـكل بساطة ان يسحقه إذا أراد...

لك ان تتخيل الصدمة اذا عندما وجد أحدا قد تخطى دفاعاته يوما... فهو شيء لا ولم يحدث أبدا... والغريب انه بدلا من أن يزأر، خارت قواه حتى صار وديع مثل القط. كانت كل غرائزه تحذره من ذلك الزائر الغريب، ولكنه ما يلبث ان يحاول الزئير حتى تتحول زمجرته إلى مواء... حتى مخالبه أعلنت عصيانها لأوامره الملحة... فقط وقتها ادرك الأسد انه لم يعد ملك الغابة... فـإنه لم يعد حتى ملك قراره... وبالرغم من ذعره، ايقن الأسد  حقيقة لطالما حاول أن ينساها.. أنه حتما كان سيتمكن أحد منه في يوم من الايام، ولن يكن قادر على الدفاع عن نفسه بالرغم من شراسته... ولكنه أبدا لم يتوقع ان يسلب السيطرة لهذه الدرجة وبهذه السرعة. 

في تلك اللحظة قرر الأسد أن يرضخ، فأي كائن قادر على السيطرة على ملك الغابة يستحق الاحترام والتبجيل... وعندما اخذ ذلك القرار، ادرك ارتياحه الشديد لهذا الدخيل... فـإذا به يتخيل مشاركته في عرينه وطعامه وحياته كلها... بات الأسد الأبي الفخور ذليلا ولكنه لم يبالي، فاذا به سعيدا مغردا مثل الطيور، مليئ بالفرحة والتفاؤل والأمل.. 

ويالسخرية القدر! فبينما هو يحاول التأقلم على الواقع الجديد، بعدما انقلب عالمه رأسا على عقب، فجأة يجد صديقنا نفسه وحيدا مرة أخرى في عرينه! أكان حلما هذا ام حقيقة؟!  ربما كان حلما، فالواقع قبيح كل القبح... لا يمكنه إنتاج شيء بهذا الجمال.

التقط الأسد أنفاسه وعاد إلى جولاته حول عرينه مجددا... فهو لن يسمح لما حدث بان يتكرر أبدا.

The Brink

He stood at the very edge, tentatively peering down over the rim into the yawning abyss... inwardly fighting an inexplicable urge to jump.

The French have a deceptively elegant phrase for it, much like most things French; L'appel du vide. "The call of the void". It speaks of those self-destructive urges that sometimes creep into your mind as you contemplate a particularly vexing dilemma.
Case-in-point; standing on the precipice and looking down over the edge, and -for a few wild seconds- wondering how it would feel like to jump... that sudden mad urge to make a leap of faith into the unfathomable depths below.

At its core, the decision is not logical. No sober person with the self-preservation instincts of a carrot would jump without harboring some serious suicidal tendencies, so this urge cannot be analysed logically... the same as love, ironically, which is the very reason he found himself in that dilemma. Or was it lust? Aren't they essentially the same? Let's get real for a second; strip away all the sentimentality from love and you're left with lust; the lust of body for body and the lust of mind for mind... When both happen to coincide we call it love, but to put love on a pedestal and forget where it ultimately stems from, we risk living in a fairy-tale world; ungrounded in messy, ugly, sinful reality.

He didn't know what he was waiting for... A sign, an epiphany, a message from the heavens? Those tend to be in rather short supply for lucid individuals, and life was rarely that simple... in any case, it would be a very cynical God indeed who would inspire him to jump. At that point, he would have even welcomed a shove in either direction to spare him from having to make the decision himself, but alas, the decision was his and his alone, and he would have to make up his mind soon and live with the consequences.

He stood there for what seemed like days but were probably a few seconds, contemplating the nature of what lay beneath his feet. He could pretend that the jump would not kill him. The darkness could be an illusion... And why not? The human mind is a very powerful machine which evolution has upgraded to near perfection, but the biggest weakness (and ironically, the biggest strength) of the human brain is its inability to accept its own limits. In order to plug in the gaps in its knowledge, the brain would make certain assumptions to fool itself into getting that feeling of smug superiority it loves so much.

In other words, specifically in his case, since he could not physically see the bottom of the pit, his brain chose to make the assumption that the intense darkness meant the pit was bottomless or very deep... and while this is a valid assumption to make, it is not necessarily true. It could be a very small drop into a shallow, poorly-lit canyon he would easily climb back out of, having finally confronted his doubts and got rid of the skeletons in his closet.

But what if it was as deep as his brain had warned him? Once he went over the edge, there would be no coming back... and much like Schrodinger's cat, he would be both alive and dead until he found the ground one way or another. He could tumble through the darkness; down, down, down... eternally flailing in limbo, eventually wishing for even a hard landing that would end his miserable existence and put his mind at ease. Small solace it would seem to him then, to think that he confronted his demons and laid them to rest... for he would have condemned himself to a painful unnecessary death, swiftly followed by eternal damnation. "Getting closure" would hardly be worth that, would it?

And so there he stood, ponderously considering his options, all the while dimly aware of the storm building in the background. Sooner or later, the winds would grow strong enough to throw him one way or another, and unless he truly wanted the decision to be made for him -which besides making him feel feel weak and indecisive would also make him lose his self-respect- he would have to make a choice.

There was no denying that he wanted to jump. He could even say that he needed to jump in order to move on once and for all... but it was not a question of wants or needs. It was a question of character. Ultimately, he was choosing who he wanted to be as a person; did he want to be the person who would jump off the edge of a cliff when he felt the urge to, or did he want to be a calculating person who would make the best possible decision with the information he had? Did he want to be a man of convictions, or give in to whims and seek happiness wherever he could find it? His was the eternal dilemma of heart versus brain; lust versus logic; happiness versus principles; impulsiveness versus cautious premeditation.

He stood there until the end of time, unable to decide.

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I'm writing this at the beach, where I thought the soothing sound of the crashing waves would give me a sense of clarity and make my choice easier. It's been two days, and I am still on the brink, no closer to making a decision.


UPDATE- I stepped back from the brink for now.

Top 15 Reasons Why I'm Done With Pokemon Go; A Pokemon Fanboy's Review

I really didn't want to write this. I really tried to jump on the Pokemon Go bandwagon, and it was nice while it lasted, but I'm afraid the honeymoon period is over. Almost overnight, I've gone from "I can't believe I finally caught Bulbasaur!" To "Why am I doing this?", and that was when I decided to stop. Don't get me wrong, I've been a pokemon fan for more than 15 years. I've watched the anime as a kid, and even though I never had the Gameboy experience, I joined the club at a later age by emulating the games on PC and various mobile phones... and I'm not ashamed to admit (or maybe I should be?) that I currently own a Nintendo 2DS, with a copy of each of Pokemon Y and Pokemon Ruby sitting comfortably in my cupboard. When I first heard about Pokemon Go, I got excited enough to do cartwheels in my living room, because getting the chance to "catch em all" in person and make my childhood dreams come to life sounded too good to be true. Alas, my well-earned sense of adult skepticism proved well-founded, because it really was too good be true. Here are the top 15 reasons why I believe that Pokemon Go is far from being the real-life simulator we were promised: 1- Nintendo has admitted that they don't actually make the game themselves, and thus their ability to influence any future updates or the direction the game is taking in general is non-existent, and the developers can pretty much take whatever liberties they want with the source material. 2- There are in-game micro-transactions. By definition, in order for Niantic to make their money, people have to feel motivated to buy items from their shop, so it is neigh on impossible to be good at this game without giving in to the temptation to buy something. 3- This game is nothing more than a hoarding exercise. While anyone who's ever played a pokemon game would probably tell you that the games had paper-thin excuses for plots and laughable dialogues, there was at least an end in sight when you battled the elite 4 and beat the game. This time, you just hoard as many pokemon as possible, which is an endless pursuit. 4- Speaking of, in previous pokemon games it was theoretically possible to catch all the pokemon in the particular copy of the game you bought (if you put in a lot of time and are lucky and have no life <cough>), but since they've only introduced the original 150 pokemon so far, I'm inclined to believe that they'll be adding the later pokemon generations soon and it will grow harder and harder to catch em all. 5- All the walking around was cute at first, but it's getting old really fast. The game doesn't have any sense of identity or any activity you can do while you're in-doors -where most people spend most of their day- which forces you to only be able to play while you're outside... and even then, personally if there were a pokemon 20 meters away, maybe I'd go slightly out of my way to catch it, but all the stories I hear about people getting Uber rides and having them drive them around so they can catch pokemon is frankly completely banana-nut-butters to me. Maybe I'm too lazy or not "dedicated", but I like to think that I'm smart enough to not be sent running around all over a city because a cartoon yellow mouse told me to. 6- Coming back to leveling up and evolving your pokemon, it's beyond stupid the way it's being done now. No I bloody well won't catch 100 Magikarps to get a Gyarados, or catch a whole bunch of Pidgeys so I can level up my Pidgeot. The good old fashioned way of leveling up the pokemon through battles makes much more sense. 7- Which brings us to the heart of the matter; the battles are way too simplistic and are solely based on one arbitrary number (CP). Whatever elements of strategy there are traditionally in a pokemon game are completely gone; gone are the days when you had to think for hours which 4 attacks you'd give your pokemon to increase their survivability; and the days when you had to think long and hard which team of 6 pokemon to carry around which would cover most of the pokemon types.
Instead of expertly choosing the perfect pokemon type and attack to counter your opponent's pokemon, and thinking 2 steps ahead about what you would do to counter the other pokemon your opponent would probably switch into the battle; you just swipe and tap your way to a cheap tasteless victory, devoid of any sense of achievement, where pokemon types and attacks no longer seem to carry any weight. You just have to catch every motherfucker you run into, keep the strongest ones and dump all the rest, which is as elegant a solution as lighting a candle with a flamethrower, albeit with half the finesse. 8- The reason why pokemon games were ever so successful is because pokemon games are all about petty victories delivered in an easy fix to an entitled generation of millennials, and that was easy enough when the virtual pokemon world consisted of 5 small villages with a population of only about 200 people total. In such a small world, being "the very best" was easy, but Nintendo always made it hard enough to make the player feel like they achieved something and that they really were the best at this, even if it was against a bunch of NPC characters in a virtual world. However the real world, as it turns out, is a huge place. Being the very best Pokemon Go player out of about 1 billion people is nowhere near as easy as beating the original games, especially considering the sheer number of unemployed people who have eagerly seized on this game as a chance to give their lives a sense of purpose.

9- A lot of the pokemon either spawn in particular geographic locations or under certain very specific conditions. This was a minor inconvenience in pokemon games where 1 hour in real life was equal to one whole day in the game, and where you could teach one of your pokemon "fly" and they would take you to any city in the world you wished to go to, but in real-life having to wait a whole day until it's night time so you can catch a ghost-type pokemon is a level of dedication many people don't have to their actual real-life jobs... and don't get me started on having to fly to Australia to even get a chance at catching a Kanghaskhan. 10- By the way; traditionally in pokemon games, the legendary pokemon are just that; legends. There is only one per world, so the player character is the only character in that world who would have it. There are two ways for Niantic to handle this in Pokemon Go; either they make it possible for all players to obtain one, which would cheapen them and destroy their legendary status as well as ensure that all the gyms would soon be dominated exclusively by them; or only create one of each and make them as immensely rare and powerful as they are supposed to be... in real life, how good do you think your odds are to catch that one Zapdos, as opposed to the other billion players who are as eager as you? 11- Catching pokemon is pathetically easy. You just throw the poke-ball. Once upon a time, you had to engineer a perfect scenario where you attack the pokemon with attacks that were just strong enough to weaken them but not strong enough to make them faint. All the times you met a rare pokemon only to attack it with an attack which was just a little bit too strong, causing it to faint and losing the chance to catch it made it a lot more rewarding when you finally managed to get it right... And even then, you had to have a good enough poke-ball or else you would have spent hours flicking poke-balls at the pokemon and it might have ended up escaping anyway. Now if you just throw enough poke-balls at it, you're bound to catch it eventually, which is very weak. 12- There's no pokemon league or any kind of competition that you are motivated to win. Let's pretend you did manage to catch them all and level them all up higher than everyone else in the world. How would your efforts be recognized? You would be able to dominate that one gym near your house. Oh wow, great job... and while we're at it, pokemon gyms shouldn't be a dime a dozen and around every corner, or you wouldn't get any gratification out of beating one; having maybe one or two per city and awarding whoever beats them with a badge would make much more sense than the current way it's being done, where you can't go 20 steps in any direction without stumbling into a gym. 13- I'm not a conspiracy theorist and I don't buy into all these crackpot paranoid scenarios people have been cooking up, but I'd have to be terribly naive to think that no one is using the massive amount of data generated by this game. Just by tracking my geographic locations and using all the points I caught pokemon at as a breadcrumb trail, it would be easy enough for a 5 year old to join the dots and figure out my daily routine; where I live, where I work and what route I take to get to work, and even where I like to go on my weekends. I'm not saying that the Mossad will send their top agent to take me out on my way to my office in Bracknell, but I'm sure this data can be used in other less sinister ways such as targeted advertising, and that rubs me up the wrong way because I didn't consent to this... or maybe I did; I didn't read the terms of the agreement just as I'm sure no one else in the world did. 14- Hatching pokemon... yes, I agree that forcing people to go out and walk around is a definite positive about this game, but having to walk 2-10 kilometers to hatch one single pokemon is excessive, and the fact that we only have one free incubator per player makes it obvious that this is done on purpose to force players to buy new incubators. I don't know about you guys, but there is nothing I'm less likely to spend money on than micro-transactions to help me hatch imaginary eggs on a game, no matter how much I love the Pokemon franchise. 15- Finally, catching the same pokemon every day is boring. Not enough is being done to shuffle the pokemon around regionally; if you walk the same route, odds are you'll find the same pokemon every day (trust me, I speak from personal experience). On the other hand, the game is not consistent- water type pokemon are occasionally found nowhere near water bodies (I found a Squirtle in my hallway) while on the other hand I've never caught a grass type pokemon at a park... which I suppose is a good thing when it comes to catching fire-type pokemon because then we'd only be able to catch them at industrial furnaces, the surface of the sun or hell. This was always going to be a dilemma for the developers; if they made pokemon exclusively spawn in areas that fit their type, you'd have only been able to catch ground/rock types in deserts or in mountainous areas, water-type pokemon near rivers/lakes/seas, etc, and this would have limited each player to whatever pokemon happen to fit their geographic locations; but if they had made it more random, then players seeking a certain type of pokemon wouldn't have known where to go to find one.

This uncertainty is compounded by the fact that Niantic doesn't communicate at all with players; there are no official player guides or tips, and players have so far been largely forced to figure things out on their own, which lends credence to my theory that this game is a front to collect player data, since Niantic don't seem too keen on developing or refining the "game" aspect of the game. Come to think of it, this seems to be a much more sound business model than the (probably) insignificant number of micro-transactions that players make; I wouldn't be surprised at all to learn that the game's main revenue stream is selling data to whoever needs it, much like carrying your own personal Varys in your pocket (except that he's spying on you)... and since, again, no one bothers to read the terms of the agreement, this data-gathering could very well have been something we unknowingly agreed to when we clicked "accept", which would make it completely legal.

Not mentioning the lack of pokemon centres to heal pokemon and the ability to trade them with friends -which I understand will be implemented in future updates- aside from all the points covered above, the game servers are consistently overloaded and the game lacks polish altogether, always prone to crashes and freezes... and I completely understand how difficult it is to manage a game of that size with that many players internationally, but I'm tired of waiting for hours at a time during peak hours to be able to get in. Perhaps these are issues that will get solved organically as the developers understand more and more how to optimize the game and iron out the kinks, but to be honest I feel like it's too much effort on my part for nothing in return. I've always wanted to have a trusty Charizard I could count on if I ever got into a fight, but I don't think I want one so badly that I'd catch an average of 50 Charmanders to get a decent-powered Charizard, just so I can place him at a "gym" and leave him there to defend my honor as the damsel in distress. If I'm not giving the orders and directing the battle, it's really not worth it for me. Long-story short, this game is definitely a step in the right direction but as I'm sure many others have already pointed out, it's not the real-life pokemon simulator it could have been. I believe I speak for a wide demographic of pokemon fans who would be prepared to actually pay a one-time fee to buy a game which is more true to the roots of the franchise, rather than this bland, corporate attempt at capitalizing on the nostalgia of an aging demogographic of pokemon fans who now suddenly have access to some sweet, sweet disposable income. We deserve better than this... and the franchise which practically raised us damn well deserves better than this.

Men Vs. Women

Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to present to you what I think are the differences between our genders, showcased by a number of interactions between 5 friends. I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed writing them.

Exhibit (A) - Stumbling across an old friend:

Women:

-Becky: "Oh my God, it's SARAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA"
=Sarah: "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA"
-Becky: "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA"
=Sarah inwardly: Fuck that slut
-Becky inwardly: I wanna wear your intestines as a scarf
=Sarah: "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA"
-Becky: "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA"

Men:

-Kyle: "Sup, Short, Pale and Fuggly?"
=Jim: "Suck my dick, asshat"
-Kyle inwardly: I love that guy!
=Jim inwardly: What am I having for lunch?

*******************************************************

Exhibit (B) - Compliments:

Women:

- Becky: "Your shoes are like so cute, and they go so well with your outfit!"
-Becky inwardly: At least her clothes are ugly enough to draw attention away from her fat face
=Sarah: "Awwww, thank you! I love what you've done with your hair!"
=Sarah inwardly: Did she get her hair done at a butcher's?
- Becky: "Stop, you're making me blush!"
-Becky inwardly: I will kill your entire family in front of you

Men:

-Kyle: "Kevin, you look different... new T-shirt?"
=... "Dude, I'm Jim"
-Kyle: "Oh."

*******************************************************

Exhibit (C) - Catching Up:

Women:

-Becky: "So how have you been? It's been such a long time!"
=Becky inwardly: not nearly long enough
=Sarah: "I know, right! I'm doing great, just got my Master's Degree, and I got a modelling job in Milan, so I live there now... Oh, and I'm engaged!"
=Sarah inwardly: Burn, bitch... burn...
-Becky: "OH MY GOD THAT'S SO AMAZING I'M SO HAPPY FOR YOU"
-Becky inwardly: REACTOR CORE MELTDOWN IN T-10 SECONDS. 9. 8. 7. 6...

Men:

-Kyle: "What did you say your name was, again? Kyle?"
=Jim: "No Kyle, I'm Jim and I've been your roommate for 3 years. Kyle's your name"
-Kyle: "Dammit, I always get these two mixed up"

********************************************************

Exhibit (D) - Eating:

Women:

-Becky, eating: That bitch Sarah pissed me off so much, I deserve this treat... it's not good for my figure, but I can skip dinner today and go for a jog tomorrow morning to burn the extra calories and on the way I could pass by that really cute shoe store to buy that pair I noticed 3 months ago from across a crowded street and a few glass screens and a concrete wall and two armored personnel carriers and then I can go home and ask my boyfriend if he thinks I look fat and tell him that Sarah got engaged and expect some kind of response more elaborate than "Oh, cool"

=Passing Janitor: "Ma'am, are you gonna finish that lettuce slice?"

Men:

=Kyle, eating: BEAUTIFUL SUCCULENT MEAT <CHEW CHEW CHEW>
-"Sir, I'm obliged by law to not sell you any more burgers today because it's a danger to your health. Please step out of the queue"

********************************************************

Exhibit E - Multitasking:

Women:

-Becky, driving and on the phone with Nicole: "Yeah, so I told her that I loved her shoes, but I totally didn't! They were like so ugly"  <signals right and turns left into a one-way street in the wrong direction> "and then the bitch had the NERVE to ask about my hair! She was so jealous, I could see it in her eyes" <swipes left 240 times on Tinder>  "and then she started" <pulls off bank heist> "showing off her new job and" <chooses new podcast on iPod while dodging bullets from police pursuit>- "her fancy new life and I just wanted to remind her of" <gives birth, ends world poverty> "that one time I saw her with a hole in her left sock"

Men:

<Kyle tries to similtaneously walk and breathe>

<dies>

********************************************************

Exhibit F - Feelings:

-Becky: "I don't know how I feel... today, that talk with Sarah made me really insecure and I just really need some support right now... it's not fair, she always makes me feel this way, she comes into any room and effortlessly gets all the attention without even trying, she's such a diva and she doesn't even care about anyone else's feelings, it's all about looking bright and flashy and making all these rude comments about everyone else's appearances to make herself look better... We weren't all born with a silver spoon in our mouths, you know? Some of us had to work hard to get to where we're at, and you know what? I'm proud of who I am, what I look like and who I'm with. I don't have to feel insecure or down because then that whore wins, and I won't let that happen. Is any of this making sense? I need to know that you understand me!"

=Kyle inwardly: This is it Kyle, the moment we've been training for. This is prime-time and it's time to bring out the big guns... Let's go through the list of 5 feelings we've been learning by heart; Is she... sleepy? No, that's not it... hungry? Should we go for Chinese or pizza? No Kyle, focus... she said she had that lettuce slice earlier, so she's not hungry... sad? She's not crying, so that's not it... happy? She's not doing that thing where her mouth curls upwards at both ends, so not that either... horny? She's horny, isn't she? Man, I'm good at this!
=Kyle: "Of course I understand you sweetie, c'mere"
=Kyle inwardly: I'm so getting laid tonight
-Becky: "Sarah's boyfriend proposed to her, do you think we'll ever have that?"
=Kyle inwardly: Fuck.

********************************************************

Exhibit G - Flirting:

Women:

-Nicole: "I don't know what's wrong with him! I've done everything to make him think I like him!"
=Becky: "Did you look him in the eyes for 5 seconds and expect some sort of response?"
-Nicole: "Of course I did! I also kept flicking my hair and twirling it around"
=Becky: "What about your posture?"
-Nicole: "Chest up, arched back, facing him, unflinching eye contact"
=Becky: "He still didn't get it? He must be stupid! Did you touch him?"
-Nicole: "I was practically sitting in his lap the whole time"
=Becky: "Still nothing?"
-Nicole: "Nope. I asked him "how come you don't have a girlfriend?", I mispronounced words on purpose while giggling, I used "we" and "us" as often as I could, and I must have told him at least 7 times that I had no plans for the weekend... Still nothing!"
=Becky: "Well maybe you should give up on Jim... go for Kevin instead. Even though I have never met him and only glanced at his Facebook profile picture for 2 seconds, I sense that he will start liking you in exactly 3 days, 15 hours, 4 minutes and 13 seconds"
-Nicole: "Your sensors are off by 12.3 milliseconds. You should get them re-calibrated, I'll come with you!"
=Becky: "Oh you know where we should go? I know this amazing place where you can get your hair and nails done too!"

Men:

-Jim: "Dude, I think Becky likes you"
=Kyle: "We've been together for 5 years and we have a baby boy"
-Jim: "See? I told you"
=Kyle: "Maybe Nicole has a thing for you, though"
-Jim: "I don't think so"
=Kyle: "How do you know?"
-Jim: "She didn't tell me that she did"
=Kyle: "Oh. I must be wrong, then"

********************************************************

Exhibit H - Fights:

Women:

-Becky: "Oh my God, I think that's Sarah! Quick, hide me, I don't wanna see her. It would be so awkward!"
=Kyle: "Why would it be awkward?"
-Becky: "Weren't you listening? I told you about that conversation we had 3 years ago where we told each other nice things but secretly meant to passive aggressively poke at each others' insecurities. There's no going back from that! She's dead to me"
=Kyle: "Wasn't Sarah your best friend, roommate, maid of honor, BFF, Sista from anotha mista, love you to the moon and back, backbone and partner in crime?"
-Becky: "Sarah? Who's Sarah? I don't know that name"

Men:

=Kyle: <hangs up the phone with Kevin>
-Becky: "What were you guys talking about?"
=Kyle: "We were talking about the roadtrip we're going on next week"
-Becky: "Didn't you shout at Kevin for 30 whole minutes, punch him in the face, sell his wife into slavery, torture him for 40 days, delete his World of Warcraft account, stomp on his Playstation 4, and rape his dog; for which he kicked you in the balls, killed your mother, defiled me, burned our house down, took your sister hostage and stole all your money?"
=Kyle: "Sweetie, that was like a month ago... who even remembers?"

********************************************************

Exhibit H - Shopping:

-Jim: "I haven't seen Becky in a while, is she OK?"
=Kyle: "Well she went shopping in August, so I'm not expecting her back until next June"
-Jim: "Wow man, your wife is fast! Nicole hasn't been back from Victoria's Secret since we started dating 2 years ago"
=Kyle: "Shouldn't we get some new clothes too?"
-Jim: "Sure! Let's switch again, it's my turn to wear the blue T-shirt this year"
<Jim and Kyle switch T-shirts>
=Kyle: "Jim?"
-Jim: "Yes, Kyle?"
=Kyle: "I think Becky and Nicole left us"
-Jim: "Yeah, probably"

********************************************************

Exhibit I - Cleanliness:

<Becky and Nicole come back from shopping>

There's a passed out hooker doing a head stand against the kitchen wall, who Kevin pays no mind to as he screams at the TV screen because he is losing a game of FIFA against Kyle, who's covered in old socks and junk food wrappers and appears to be eating a burger directly off the floor, which apparently Jim took a piss on directly before passing out in a pool of his own vomit next to the door. There is also what seems to be a dead baby on a pile of empty pizza boxes and beer cans, wearing a diaper on its head. There is a line of white powder leading from the door all the way into the bathroom which Jim apparently got a quarter of the way through snorting before his collapse.

Becky and Nicole back away slowly and close the door.

********************************************************

Bonus:

<Becky wakes up Kyle>

-Becky: "Kyle, you know I love you, right?"
-Becky inwardly: I'm very confused right now, I don't know how I feel and I'm having second thoughts about our relationship

=Kyle inwardly: Kyle who?
=Kyle <rubs the sleep from his eyes, replies drowsily>: "Of course I do, sweetie"

-Becky: "Will you always be there?"
-Becky inwardly: if I run away, would you take me back?

=Kyle inwardly: Fuck, what is it now?
=Kyle: "I am here, and I will never leave"

-Becky inwardly: Let's see how far I can push him
-Becky: "Even if I get fat or ugly?"

=Kyle inwardly: Do we have to do this now?
=Kyle: "Always"

-Becky inwardly: He's gonna break, I can feel it
-Becky: "What if you meet someone else?"

=Kyle: "I'll tell them I'm taken. You have nothing to worry about."
=Kyle inwardly: I would never leave

-Becky: "I love you"
-Becky inwardly: good, he's held up to questioning tonight. Let's see how he does tomorrow.

=Kyle: "I love you"
=Kyle inwardly: I love you

<They kiss, Kyle gets ready to go back to sleep>

-Becky: "But what if-"
=Kyle: "Becky I'm tired, it's 3 AM and I have work in the morning. Can we do this some other time?"

-Becky inwardly: "BINGO", <rolls up sleeves>

The Joys of Nostalgia and Longing

Whispered promises.
Tearful reassurances.
Fierce embraces.
Brutal goodbyes.

He often thought back long and hard on these last few moments of a dying love story, never meant to be yet so difficult to end... of how two people so different on almost every level could find love despite all the obvious reasons not to. For what can torment a man more than what could have been; a "what if" fluttering gently in the breeze, lingering maddeningly at the edge of consciousness... the climactic final chapter in a captivating book with the last page torn off, denying the reader any sense of closure or resolution... destined to forever haunt the mind with the sheer power of doubt and possibility?

It only took the slightest provocation to trigger the nostalgic breakdown; The sound of the waves crashing on a moonlit beach on a warm summer evening; a whiff of a particular brand of rich, overwhelmingly sweet women's perfume; a half-forgotten song from ages past; a basement-floor study room at his university library... even the double chocolate chunk cookie she loved so much, mixed queerly with tobacco smoke to produce a taste whose memory somehow still made him stir, all these years later. That's not to mention the dozens of old pictures, buried in the dusty, ancient virtual corridors of old Facebook albums... hidden from the eyes of the world by outdated privacy settings, yet still available to him as a reminder of what once was. As busy as he was, he always seemed to end up looking at these pictures every few months... timidly at first, preferring to focus on group photos, but always ending up staring at the same few pictures of that one day when he'd realized that he was in love.

His friends always urged him to forget, but they missed the point entirely... he would have gladly deleted these memories permanently if he'd had the chance; but he could no more do that than he could create peace on Earth or end world hunger. They seemed to think that he was still not over her, but that was only a half-truth - a quarter-truth, even. For when he looked at these pictures, it was seldom her face he found himself staring at... it only evoked pain, a sense of betrayal, and unresolved feelings bottled up, fermenting for years until they were potent enough to make him drunk on the memory of her eyes.

No, it was always his own face he spent the most time fixated on. He could see vibrant, enthusiastic, radiant blue eyes... a far cry from the world-weary, tired, calculating eyes that now stared back at him in his bathroom mirror. He could see a clean-shaven face, unmarked by years of worries and responsibilities in the form of the coarse black stubble that now covered half his face; happy, full of hope for the future, and content with the unshakable certainty only a 17 year-old can muster that that was the start of something beautiful. He could see wild golden hair, free and untamed, glowing brightly with reflected sunlight, in stark contrast to the tightly cropped bronze curls he now favored... which in his mind was a clear parallel to his lifestyles then and now, and the light that had gone out of his life.

Yet what he remembered most of all were the days that had gone by in a haze of love-addled intoxication... Even though he'd had a lot of childish dreams, worries and fears, all of them paled into insignificance and were ultimately banished from his memory. The fact remained that when he thought back on these few months, he could not remember any aspects of his existence other than her... apart from his closest friends, who helped him through it. She was the very definition of his life, and he was too young to realize how dangerous that was.

Certainly, it would be a lie to claim that he didn't sometimes still wonder what could have been, considering the way things ended (or rather, didn't). However, what he really missed so much was not truly her, but how he'd felt when they were together... how eager he was to listen to her; to know her; to study her; to feel her; to explore her. He would wake up in the morning with the sole purpose of spending time with her and staring into her eyes for what seemed like hours in an attempt to decipher her, and he wouldn't have had it any other way. That was not the resigned, dismissive, hopeless indifference with which he went about his adult love life; that was intense, uncontrollable passion, burning red-hot and impossible to contain...

Which was why he realized that he didn't mind the nostalgia so much. Although it would almost always put him in a brooding melancholy mood, it also reminded him of what it was like to be so hopelessly, irrevocably in love that he could still feel echoes of it through the years... and although he wasn't a particularly optimistic person, it gave him hope that maybe one day he would have these feelings again.

Perhaps there will yet be other chapters in this particular book.