Page 32 - MidWeek - Oct 27, 2021

32 MIDWEEK OCTOBER 27, 2021
THE SCIENCE ADVICE GODDESS
My boyfriend asked for nude photos of my- self. I reluctantly sent him one. I feel very uncomfort- able about sending it, and I don’t want to send more — though sending naked pics now seems very common. Am I paranoid? – Online Privacy Fan
Amy Alkon
Just Grin And ‘Bare’ It
In the spirit of spooky season, meet Ghost! Despite his name, Ghost can’t walk through walls, and he is not made of ectoplasm. Rather, he is a very friendly rabbit that likes to munch on his hay and hop around his cage. He enjoys watching the world
around him and is friendly with people. He is a 3-pound rabbit and will need a big pen with plenty of room to explore.
Check out hawaiianhumane. org/adoptions to learn how to adopt Ghost. Hawaiian Humane Society’s website updates
in real-time so you always know what animals are currently available.
Feel free to visit its
Mō‘ili‘ili campus and
check into the virtual
waitlist to meet your new
furry friend. You may also go online at hawaiianhumane.org/ adoptions to see all the programs and services that Hawaiian Humane Society has to offer.
ableness.” High agreeable- ness manifests in a “pleaser” personality: being kind, empa- thetic, cooperative and driven to have positive interactions with others (often to one’s own detriment).
closure: often, though not always.)
Unfortunately, “online privacy” is one of the more absurd oxymorons — a con- tradiction in terms on the lev- el of “planned spontaneity,” “working vacation” and my favorite: “civil war.”
Understanding that you might have a predisposition to say yes can help you stand up for yourself. At first, announc- ing your boundaries — saying no — will likely feel bad. Be prepared to override that feel- ing and act in your best inter- est. Sure, many people share all sorts of naked ’ n’ crazy without having it exposed to the universe, but there’s always that possibility. At a work retreat, your co-work- ers should not try to bond with you with, “Don’t you find the Cool Whip requires too much cleanup?”
As for your envy, research by evolutionary psychologist Bram Buunk overturns the bad name this emotion has long gotten. Envy is actually adap- tive and its function appears to be making us go: “Whoa! He’s way ahead of me! Gotta put on my lady-chasing track shoes!” Envy is only a de- structive emotion when peo- ple experiencing it engage in “malicious envy”: trying to sabotage those doing better than they are rather than try- ing to up their own game and outdo them fair and square.
Digital-world technology has made our lives vastly eas- ier, more efficient and more fun, but it can also cost us big time — on a scale previous- ly unseen and even unimag- inable throughout human history. Back in the Middle Ages, no one had to worry about some brainy malcontent hacking their “cloud” and re- leasing all their nudie shots to the global village. At worst, one other person might come upon a lone sketch of them in a state of undress or maybe a few slutty etchings.
I’m a guy in my early 20s. I love my older broth- er and look up to him. But starting in high school, girls flocked to him, and he was crowned prom king, though I’m objectively more attrac- tive. Recently, a girl I really liked and became friends with started dating him af- ter I introduced them at a party. Neither knew about my feelings for her because I never told them, but I now feel resentful and envious of my brother. – Bitter
In the future, when you want a woman, don’t silently watch as she wanders off into another guy’s arms. Say some- thing! As I noted, it won’t al- ways end well when you hit on a woman, but possibly getting rejected is the cost of possibly having dates, sex and love.
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In other words, you are far from unreasonable to say no to sending any further nudiepix, and it would not be unreason- able to ask your boyfriend to delete the one you sent him (explaining your priva- cy concerns). That said, he might find that request unrea- sonable, vis-a-vis how com- mon it is for people to sext those they’re dating.
Ideally, if a woman is asked to guess your “spirit animal,” her answer won’t be, “Ham- ster lying cold and dead in the corner of his cage?”
That said, there’s a way to repurpose bummerino brush-offs into “small wins”: organizational psychologist Karl Weick’s term for small positive outcomes experi- enced while failing to solve a big (or even massive) prob- lem. An example of how that might play out in your head: “OK, that girl I hit on at the bar was nasty, but yesterday, I would’ve spent all night just staring at her. Today, I grew a pair and approached her. Yay, me!”
If he does find it unreason- able, you might feel bad say- ing no. Women, much more than men, tend to be on the high end of the spectrum of the personality trait “agree-
Your “I feel resentful” is a bit entitled, since you never did anything to let this wom- an know you were interested. In short: Good things come to those who ask. (Full dis-
Though this is admittedly the slow, emotionally grub- by approach, you should find it much more effective than your current MO: waiting for a woman you’ re into to read your mind and have herself shot out of a cannon through your open window and into your love pit/bed.
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MidWeek’s
Pet Friends Forever
Outlined
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GHOST
PHOTO COURTESY HAWAIIAN HUMANE SOCIETY