The Ask Matt Random Questions Event: Part IV

Hello and welcome to the forth and final part of The Ask Matt Random Questions Event for 2007. Don’t forget, it’s never too early to start making your list of questions for 2008!

 

And we start the final set off with some questions from Erin:

Were you ever attracted to me?

Interestingly, I had to actually think about this question for a bit. Really, you have to consider that the entire time that I’ve known you you’ve either been in a relationship or been a complete wreck due to getting over a break-up (I mean that in the nicest way possible!). For these reasons, I’ve never really thought of you as “available” and, thus, never really contemplated romantic pursuits. That said, you are an interesting, physically attractive girl that I enjoy being around, so, yeah, I imagine there has been attraction on some level, sure.

Would you ever consider dating/having a relationship with/marrying an older woman? And by older I mean much older, like by twenty years or so.

Once again, we come upon a dreaded ever consider question. To make the answer somewhat brief, being in a relationship with an extremely older woman isn’t something that my mind is completely closed to and I can imagine such a scenario, given the right circumstances, yeah. That said, I don’t think it’s a particularly likely scenario, no. But, hey, if I met a significantly older woman and was attracted to her, I definitely wouldn’t refuse to date her only because she was older (though being older might come with its own set of lifestyle differences that would complicate things, I imagine).

How tall are you?

I’m about 5’8 – maybe 5’9 if I’m trying to stretch it. I wish I were taller. Interestingly, studies on “speed dating” have shown that height is the biggest determinant when it comes to what men women select.

As a note, Mary swears I am taller than this, though traditional measuring methods disagree.

What is your worst nightmare? And I don’t mean a literal nightmare, but what is the worst outcome possible you can think of for your life?

Well, my first thought was “Heather dying” but then I thought of my mom dying and then I thought of both of them dying, and then I realized that all of my friends could also die at exactly the same moment. Then I realized that all of humanity could be killed except for me, and I could be left on Earth all alone until I died. Then I realized that all of humanity could be killed except for me and Michael and then I had to really think hard about whether or not I’d ever consider having sex with him, because this could happen. Then I stopped thinking because I was getting really depressed.

Anyway, now that Erin has managed to completely warp my mind, I’ll take a lighter question from alone voice who asks:

[laughs] do your legions of adoring fans ever drive you crazy? will we ever see you chatting up lindsay lohan or paris hilton in rehab?

My legions of adoring fans only annoy me when they ask me how life in Greece is. And, actually, if I ever were in rehab with Lindsay Lohan or Paris Hilton, I think they might be attracted to me, since I probably would not even realize who they were and would be unimpressed by their celebrity. You would never see this however – it’d all happen behind closed doors. Unless there was a second Paris Hilton tape with me as the co-star, that is.

And next up are two questions from Inconsistency, who is always inquisitive:

What does rain smell like?

I’ve always thought rain had a very petrichor scent to it.

Is the world getting better or worse?

There’s a lot of directions I could take this question (for one, I suppose the world in itself is getting worse in that humans are damaging it and all that rot), however, I think your question is more aimed at humanity. Overall, I think it’s easier to live now than it has ever been. I think as a society we’ve improved on every level: Socially, technologically, etc. I think a lot of people (oddly, especially intelli

gent people) seem to always think that the time they are living in is the worst time ever and that society is falling apart. I suppose this stems from the fact that there are still tons of problems in society, however, most of these problems are problems that we’ve had for years and, I think, have improved on. For an obvious easy example: I’d say that racism is a problem in the United States, but I certainly think we’ve come a long way since slavery or even segregation. Another example: There’s a constant concern that religion is governing the world and is going to ruin it. Again, this is a fair concern, however, we currently have more religious freedom than has been available at any time in history. We don’t have religion forced on our public schools now, there aren’t forced open prayers, etc. Which, speaking of schools, people also complain that our educational system has gone to crap. But if it’s gone to crap, why are kids who are going to school now doing way more advanced stuff than I did when I was their age?

Right, I realize the question was on “the world” but I sorta focused my answer on the U.S., proving that I’m obviously an American. Also, I realize my answer is just spouting out random thoughts as evidence for the world “improving,” but this is an answer for my diary, not a research paper. Anyway, to finish my answer: On the whole, I think that our society today is more open-minded and less focused on blind cultural allegiances. The technological age has helped to educate the average person on the real political issues that the world faces and reduced propaganda by an enormous amount. We have a more educated, more culturally aware average citizen than we’ve ever had before. Which, I’m not saying that our society doesn’t still have tons of problems, it does, dear god, it definitely does. I’m just saying that the solution to almost all of these problems is not “going back to the way things used to be.” We’re better off than we’ve ever been.

Next, a question from a private noter:

If yu could write ANY book, or story, from any point in history, what book/story would would have liked to have written, and why?

That’s an interesting question. I admit, I have been guilty of thinking at times “Gah, I wish I’d have thought of that idea!” when reading a book. In a sense, I think this question is asking what author’s words/style am I most envious of, and I’d say Haruki Murakami. He has an amazing way of putting things (or at least Jay Rubin, his translator, does!) Norwegian Wood is my favorite of his novels, so I suppose that’s the book I will pick.

And I’ll finally end the Ask Matt Random Questions Event with a question from my longest standing reader: Briznitt. And it’s a good one.

So now that you are almost done answering questions I finally have one for you. Why is it that you are so ready and willing to listen to other people and their problems, but still unwilling to open up yourself? Like I’ve told you before, I don’t mind that you’re unwilling to open up to me, but I was wondering as to why.

Well, firstly, I think that generally I am open about myself with you and others. I don’t think there’s any part of my life that I wouldn’t share with someone, assuming that I felt our relationship was to a level that it would be appropriate to.

However, I’m sort of evading the heart of your question, because while I consider myself “open” to talking about things, it is very rare for me to confide in other people. To use a cheesy metaphor, I suppose it’d be more appropriate to say that my door is unlocked, not open. You have to actually try to open the door, and if you do, you won’t find a lot of resistance, but if you never turn the knob, you might not realize how easily you can get in.

So, why don’t I just openly confide in people? Primarily because, in the past, when I’ve openly confided in people my experience has been that: a) most people don’t want to hear it, and b) it doesn’t do me much good. I do sometimes think that it would be good for me to openly confide to someone who was truly attentive and truly wanted to listen, but, again, experience has shown that finding such a person isn’t very easy. A lot of people like the idea of being a good listener, but few people actually want to listen – understandably, they have too many of their own problems that need listening to to want to listen to yours. This is why people go to therapy, so they can pay others to listen to them. And, until I do that, I doubt I’ll ever really try to openly confide to another person about how I feel about certain things. To return to my metaphor, I’m done having my door wide open and inviting people in all the time – it makes me look and feel too desperate and needy. Still, I’ll keep the door unlocked and if anyone really wants to come in, they can.