I’ve attended weddings of two happily married couples who met through matchmaking apps and know of others who have met their companions. These apps seem to work. Nevertheless, the recent New York Times article that caught my eye was reminiscent of ...
I’ve attended weddings of two happily married couples who met through matchmaking apps and know of others who have met their companions. These apps seem to work.
In the day I had arbitrary wishes of the kind of person I wanted to go out with before I married such as “a military man in uniform,” and “a guy who owns a sports car.” There was nothing about kind or funny and smart. I don’t recall if I thought of requirements for husband candidacy. I didn’t think of marriage at that time. My wishes were easy to achieve. Not so Pascaretta’s requirements. He is 38.
Catherine Pearson’s is a long article with interesting reader comments. I’ve chosen only a few highlights.
According to Pearson, “Pascaretta also sent the [matchmaking] team an Excel spreadsheet cataloging his must-haves: an accomplished professional, ideally a doctor, lawyer or executive, ‘someone like me who has been ‘heads down’ career focus, but now is ready for a serious relationship.’ Someone who has never been married or is at least amicably divorced. Someone shorter than him. And someone between the ages of 25 and 43. It also detailed his strong preference for a woman who is, among other things, ‘naturally pretty’ and ‘stylish,’ ‘loyal, classy, ambitious, elegant, feminine, emotionally stable,’ from a ‘well-respected family’ and who went to a top-tier school.”
My reaction to his requirements is: Anything else?
Pearson wrote: “Pascaretta’s contract with Agape Match guarantees him at least one date per month from the company’s massive database of single women — most of whom have signed up for free, uploading a photo, filling out a questionnaire and then sitting for a 60-minute “discovery call” where the matchmakers quiz them about everything from their ideal date to their political views.”
Do you think paying large sums of money should increase the chances that you’ll discover the love of your life? What about setting requirements for your intended—should you ignore some on your list if the major ones are checked?
This fall, freshman at the University of Michigan College of Literature, Sciences, and the Arts won’t get grades the first semester. They will get P or NC for pass or no credit. Why? To improve student mental health.
According to CoPilot Search, “The policy is part of a broader trend in higher education to reduce academic pressure in response to rising mental health concerns among college students.”
The rationale ranged from giving freshman time to adapt to the demands of college; encourage them to take challenging courses without impact on GPA and replace a culture of student competition with collaboration.
UMich isn’t alone. MIT has used a pass/no-record system for first-year students since 1968 to allow students to take challenging courses without the pressure of grades affecting their academic records. Caltech has a similar policy. Wellesley College replaces letter grades with pass/no credit on transcripts for freshman as does Swarthmore College according to CoPilot Search.
Tests were never my friend and always a source of anxiety. I’m not alone. Is it harmful when freshman anxiety is not acknowledged? And whether or not in high school or college aren’t we always tested whether to get a driver’s license or cook a portion of fries; pack and arrive at the station to catch a train; submit taxes by April 15 or clean the house before company arrives?
It’s hard to get into many universities and the anxiety waiting to hear whether a student is accepted or how much scholarship money they will receive, making the tuition hurdle possible, is astronomical. What is it about this crop of students that makes administrators feel they need special consideration for the first semester of their freshman year when they’ve survived the application process? What do you think of the initiative?
I popped into a CVS on a broiling afternoon to buy water as I’d stupidly left home without a bottle. I asked a clerk, who was dealing with boxes of merchandise, if he could open it for me as the top wouldn’t budge and I didn’t have a rubberband handy. As he gave it back I said, “So easy! Of course I loosened it up.” This robust young man responded: “I always say that.” We both laughed.
Sometimes bus drivers are patient and wait for a passenger, [plenty don’t]; the door staff at my apartment building are welcoming and helpful and as tiring as standing at a cash register all day must be, grocery store clerks at some stores are anxious to please and share a laugh.
So often I have pleasant exchanges and yet there’s the drumbeat that echoes an Oprah podcast headline: “We’ve Never Been Meaner. Here’s Why.”
I have only the promo to go by as I don’t subscribe to her podcast, but I get the gist and can’t disagree with how difficult it must be for frontline employees such as flight attendants, emergency medicine doctors, fast food workers, baristas and influencers. One of each is interviewed in the podcast. They talk about the extreme levels of rudeness they experience at work and online, according to the promo.
Oprah and one of the experts, Dr. Jay Van Bavel, professor of psychology and neuroscience at NYU, and the director of the NYU Center for Conflict and Cooperation, delved into the subject. Dr. Van Bavel broke down what is causing this rise in incivility and shared some ideas about how we can all do better.
Copilot Search shared these highlights. Dr. Van Bavel says, “humans haven’t suddenly become worse — the social environment has changed in ways that make incivility more likely.” He pointed to stress and inequality, social media and leaders modeling contempt. According to Copilot Search, “In the Oprah Winfrey conversation, Dr. Van Bavel also noted the role of AI in harming relationships, reality TV normalizing bad behavior, and the normalization of rudeness in public spaces”
Do you think we’ve never been meaner, or have we always been grouchy and short-tempered? Was our bad behavior not captured and amplified as much in the past?
When it comes to ladies’ rooms, women are lucky today. Architects responsible for public spaces such as movie houses or theaters put in a generous lineup of stalls. In the old days before and after a show the line for the one or two was a sin. For a reminder of the old days, visit older Broadway theaters and concert halls.
In another example of smart change I saw construction workers painting the roof of an adjacent building bright white [Photo above]. In the day I lived in a wonderful apartment in Brooklyn Heights with working fireplace, skylight in one of two bathrooms, two bedrooms, a dining room and a view of the East River from the kitchen window. In summer the place was a caldron because it was on the top floor under a black tar roof. We offered to paint it and buy the pain, but the landlord refused to let us.
Nevertheless, these days, I sometimes wonder where the architect or product designer has been or the contractor or business owner overseeing a project.
In the lobby of a major NYC medical facility is an elevator call board that is confusing enough to require instruction arrows for up and down. [Photo right.]
The layout of the floor selection board in my apartment’s elevators confounds many of us. [Photo below.] It can take a nanosecond or two to find the floor of a package laden neighbor.
A neighborhood coffee shop that doesn’t want to pay to change the step in to a ramp. It tells wheelchair bound customers to ring a bell [that doesn’t work] or to inquire within for assistance. And how will this person manage that?
A block from me is an apartment building that spans from 39th to 40th streets on Second Avenue that for at least five years has paid for scaffolding. The architect in charge isn’t on top of the project. It’s great for pedestrians on snowy or rainy days but the cost must put a big dent in the building’s maintenance budget. I once lived in a poorly managed co-op, but we put a stop to the scaffolding snafu soon enough.
Have you noticed wonderful changes or glitch decisions by architects, business owners or product designers?
Classic 1950s cocktail shaker that in the day must have heard many choice fun words.
I had to look up hornswoggle when Senator Sheldon Whitehouse used it in a Facebook post. It means to get the better of someone by cheating.
The butler on “Downton Abbey,” Carson, called one of his employees a hobbledehoy–a clumsy, awkward, or gawky youth. PBS is replaying the series on NY and Long Island stations.
Some other words we don’t often use, yet I’ve heard, except the last one, include cattywampus, flapdoodle, fiddle-faddle and fiddlesticks [I use these two], hoosegow, weisenheimer, and bumfuzzle, [to confuse].
Do you use or remember any fun, vintage or regional words?
