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As I noted a couple of weeks ago, with so much going on in my life now, I've decided to stop updating this blog on a weekly basis, especially as I only have about two readers who check the blog out regularly. Instead, I'll be sharing charts as my curiosity takes shape and demands a new chart. A large reason for the change is that I now have a girlfriend--and marriage is likely. When I look at the subject of charts over the last couple of years, reading and writing were certainly two of the most popular, but most popular of all, in terms of the types of charts I created (and those that people read most often) were those related to dating, which for me is now finally, after forty-three years of life, coming to a close, other than with one lady with whom I've been blessed to connect.

Most E-mails Received by Person in 2013

I wanted to see how many e-mails I received in 2013. This doesn't include Facebook messages, which means some people are not here that probably should be. Still, it's been an interesting year insofar as I went from seeking and from dating around to having a girlfriend, and in part I was wondering how that impacted the messages I received and from whom. (A few years ago, I realized, too late, that one woman had been writing me for a long while and was probably interested--I didn't pick up on the hint soon enough and lost out to another guy.) This year, however, the larger numbers come mostly from women penpals overseas, people firmly established as friends, or from the gal who became my girlfriend, with only maybe a couple of other women I might have been able to date had I made such a move (and, in the latter case, mostly only in the first half of the year).

Or to see it in another way:

What I Did This Weekend

The weekend seemed to fly by, and I didn't--as often seems to happen--accomplish near as much as I would have liked. In fact, I feel like the weekend was to a large extent wasted. Let's break it down then by activity, starting from 5:00 p.m. on Friday until 8:00 a.m. on Monday (63 hours total):

After looking at the chart, I can see that I wasted almost five hours online--not really accomplishing anything, just scouting around (although part of that time was spent looking for jazz music to play in the car on an upcoming trip, so not a complete waste). Still, I can see that I treat the Internet much as I used to treat television--and that in turn is why I rid myself of television. Sometimes I think I might do myself a favor by ridding myself of the Net; the problem is that the Net is much more interactive and useful, so it's not as easily abandoned, given that it's the main way I stay in touch with some people. Still, far too much time is spent essentially doing the equivalent of watching TV, so this is an area where I need to improve.

Nationalities

Because my ancestors are relatively recent immigrants to this country, I still know just how much I am the various nationalities that make up me. I am as follows: 

Another Month of Dinners

Here are the dinners (main courses, not including side dishes, like salad) I had from April 16 to May 15. This survey is perhaps a more typical month dinner survey I did, since I could eat breaded items all this month--hence, more tortillas are incorporated.

Enchiladas were more frequent this period because, as noted above, I couldn't use leaven for a week or more, so they took the place of a couple of other dishes I usually eat. What surprised me was that I ate out five times during this period, three times at restaurants; I don't think of myself as eating out the often--but friends wanted to get together.

Classmates Who Died

Four people from my high school have died since our graduation that I know of. I went to a small high school, so there were only about thirty or so in each class (my graduating class had thirty-five). One of those who died was one of my best friends, from about age ten through a little after age thirty. Unfortunately, we had a falling out about that time, and the friendship never recovered. A couple of years after our friendship came to an end, my friend's body started to shut down through the auspices of some odd disease, such that the past decade has been one of great pain, a pain I could only read about third-hand through a blog that at the end of April came to an conclusion.

Here is a chart of the way people from my high school have died:

All of the deaths are unique, as I guess in some way all deaths are. The first to go was someone else in my own class; he died within a year, in a motorbike accident. Tragic as it was, somehow, it didn't seem surprising; he had always had something of a wild streak in him. I don't remember the order of the second and third, but suffice it to say that marriage did them both in: one had a wife who left him and his response was to hang himself; the other had a husband who killed her. They were each a couple of years ahead of my own class in high school.

Forty-two seems a young age to die, let alone nineteen or one's twenties. But I suspect that as I grow older now, the deaths will begin to mount up, more and more of them by disease.

Local Spending in April

I hadn't done a survey of my local spending--or an accompanying map--since near the start of this blog two years ago, so I decided to do one in April. Here's where I spent my money locally in April:

If these places were sized on a map relative to how much money I spent, here's what the map would look like:

Etienne--great food, first time I'd eaten there. But it's a bit above my usual price range, so I doubt I'll return anytime soon. Credit an acquaintance with blowing my entertainment budget for the month.

Typical Weekday Meals by Food Group

I've been reading a bit about food habits lately. I need to incorporate more vegetables into my diet, as I've long known. I tend probably to overdo the carbs. Here's a typical breakdown of breakfast, lunch, and dinner:

By contrast, the breakdown should look like this:

That grain side should be even with the fruits and vegetables side, and the meat and dairy should be even with each other (although I do tend to think Americans generally overdo the eating of meat).

One Month of Dinners

My friend Al claims that I eat spaghetti every night. It's not quite true, but I do have it very often. Here are the dinners (main courses, not including side dishes, like salad) I had from March 16 to April 15. They're skewed a bit because this period included the Days of Unleavened Bread, so I was trying to get rid of bread just before the days and then wasn't eating certain things I usually would have eaten during them. Hence, I'm extending the survey one month further so that I can compare later. The first survey breaks down this way:

Enchiladas were more frequent this period because, as noted above, I couldn't use leaven for a week or more, so they took the place of a couple of other dishes I usually eat. What surprised me was that I ate out five times during this period, three times at restaurants; I don't think of myself as eating out the often--but friends wanted to get together.

Where My Money Went in 2012

I was curious to know what percent of my income went to what things, so I created this handy graph:

Number of Previous Partners of Women I've Gone Out With

Sex is not something that comes up immediately in discussion on a date, but if I spend enough time with a gal, previous experience usually does arise at some point. Because I date almost exclusively within my faith, the portion is probably skewed conservative compared to the general population--or maybe, just my perceptions are. In the following, I assume, given things such women told me, that they had had no experience, had had experience only within a former marriage, or had a few experiences outside of marriage. But I've been surprised a few times (previous marriages not mentioned, etc.). And then there are a few I never got a vibe from and never discussed such a topic with.

Favorite Book of the Year

Each year since graduating from college, I've chosen a favorite book of the year in three categories (novel, story collection, nonfiction) and then a single favorite overall. How it breaks down follows. I was surprised by how many story collections there are compared with the other types of books--I do love story collections; it should also be noted, however, that most of those collections were chosen in the years very soon after graduate school. In more recent years, nonfiction seems to more often come out on top. I was also surprised by how many women authors wrote my favorite book of each year; there are still significantly more men, but I'd have thought the numbers would have been even more skewed, since the number of books I read by men seems to be fairly skewed--and probably to an even greater proportion (I see another chart in the making). Anyway, here are the charts:

By Type of Book

By Author's Gender

Shoes Women Wore on Dates

A friend of mine asked me to make a chart of this. Unfortunately, I don't remember more than six dates back (that is, in one and a half years), so there isn't a large contingent from which to gather data. On the other hand, given the paucity of numbers, I at least can remember these. Here are the types of footware that women wore on the dates I went on (one date involved multiple shoes):

My own footware would be much more consistent:

Local Driving Trips

I was out with some friends just before Thanksgiving, and they brought up an interesting subject--namely, how often I drive outside of trips to church or the grocery store. I used to drive to work twice a week, but now that we're in a new office, I don't drive to work at all. This means that the car typically gets taken out only three times in two weeks: church on Sabbath and then, every other week, a trip to the grocery store. Most other things I can accomplish by walking, given enough time: most of my friends live close by and downtown is just a block away.

I wanted to see how often I drive outside of the two main destinations. As it turns out, not much--just one to two times a month. And here's what I drive to do:

The outer ring represents out-of-town stuff, the inner ring in-town stuff, with the in-town drives outnumbering the out-of-town drives by exactly one. Here's a breakdown month by month:

Reasons I Stopped Dating a Woman

I haven't dated a lot of women, and I think of myself more as a dumpee rather than the dumper. The following chart shows women I stopped dating (that is, I stopped asking for dates, rather than the gal refusing them) after a time and the reasons. (The chart is not scientific--it's based merely on outings I remember.) In all cases, it was within the first three dates, and it was clear that these were dates. I think there are a lot more outings where what the girl and I were doing wasn't clear, so those relationships--more like friendships than dating--often just drifted away through circumstances (moves, other people in the picture, etc.).

In making this chart, I recognized a number of things. One, I haven't been very clear in the past regarding my intentions; something, I've been trying to change in the past couple of years. So I've made a lot of "friends" and never got the relationship I was hoping for. Most so-called relationships have simply drifted away rather than ending with a clear discussion about what we wanted brought about by me. Two, I really am the dumpee more often than the dumper. Three, because dates are so difficult to get, I'll go out with women who I am pretty sure are not a match to begin with, hoping they'll become one--they never have (which makes me wonder whether I should even give such women a chance--I feel like a tease when I do). Four, I don't tend to end the possibility of a relationship very clearly. More often, I let dating drift into friendship rather than clearly spelling out that I'm not interested, and for better or worse, I almost never cut off all contact. Five, the very few women who have matched all of the three criteria above have rejected me, sometimes before the first date (admittedly, in those cases, that we had "chemistry" was probably not yet established, since the girl never gave it a chance to develop, let alone see if there could be something there) and sometimes after a long series of so-called dates. Six, I've gone out on quite a few truly blind dates (that is, I had no idea what the woman even looked like before asking her out).

Internet Viewing Hits 4

Here's another look at what I've been looking at online. For the last ninety days:

And here's just the last thirty days:

Method of Rejecting Dates

I think it would be hard to provide an actual scorecard here of how proposed dates were turned down. Although I haven't dated much, twenty-plus years of dating is still a lot to try to recall. So instead, I'm trying to remember just the last ten years.

Below is a chart of ways girls have rejected my dating proposals. I'm including any women I asked out after a reasonable time of getting to know them as well as women who I actually managed to get a few dates with before being rejected for subsequent dates.

As the chart shows, women often don't tend to be very forthright. Rather than saying No, they tend to opt to make excuses at every invitation or, if possible, even disappear (easier with long-distance acquaintances, where I'm not likely to run into them again).

Among these, the ones I hate the most are the ones that involve a breakdown of communication: accepting a date then canceling and refusing to reschedule (particularly troublesome if substantive planning was involved), repeated excuses, and a failure to return messages. I hate the last two for two reasons: (1) I don't know what's going on for a certain length of time; and (2) I am left wondering whether I actually was rejected or simply gave up too soon. (After all, there have been women I asked out multiple times who finally accepted after a full year of discourse.)

I think as I've gotten older, I've become better at reading the signals. I tend now to understand better that no return message or repeated excuses (especially with no counter offer) almost always equal no. But that still leaves sometimes a month or two before I recognize what's going on (and even then, such excuses make it easier for me to continue hoping where there really isn't any). I'd rather be saved the hassle of asking two or three times and just be told no nicely but directly. I also dislike the lack of returned messages because sometimes it's killed what could have been a decent friendship.

I say I hate these techniques for turning down dates, and yet, I recognize how difficult it is to be that direct, since I've often used excuses or slower and less personal messages (I always return messages) as ways to distance myself from a gal who seems interested in me whom I don't fancy. Knowing how I feel about it, though, I've tried to be more direct in the past few years (as well as more direct in asking women out, so that I get clear answers). Still, it's awkward to be direct sometimes: I mean, why contact someone just to say, "Hey, I'm not into you." Seems kind of rude and strange. It's a little easier, for me, if the gal is the one contacting me--showing me lots of attention--since it gives me the opportunity to explain why she probably shouldn't be doing so.

Percentage of Bands I've Seen Live in My CD Collection

What percentage of bands contained in my CD collection have I seen live? Here's how it breaks down:

Penguin and Random House Merger

So Penguin and Random House are planning to merge, which I think is utterly insane. Why? Because my feeling is that they publish the bulk of the books in this country. There are two of what are called the "big six" (or is it five?) publishers. But in fact, they are the two biggest--or that would seem the case to me. I decided to take a look at my own bookshelf and see what percentage of the books are from these two companies. Here's how a random shelf of nonfiction books (since I work for a university press, I decided to include that as part of the percent too):

Here's how it looks for fiction:

Nearly half! Seriously, the best fiction generally is being published by these two companies; HMH and Harper both publish their share, but it's nowhere near to the amount that RH and Penguin do. I hope, but I doubt, that antitrust will keep this merger from going through.

The argument these companies will make--and it's not necessarily unjustified--is that they now, in the digital age, have to compete with media giants like Amazon and Apple, who will increasingly create their own content and/or dictate price schedules. Being bigger gives these two publishers more leverage, but what of the little guys? Will the heft of a bigger publisher translate to better/fairer deals for small presses too, or will it simply mean that one has to be big to play?

People I've Been Compared With

I've been compared with seven people that I can remember: Woody Allen, Jim Carrey, Todd Solendz, Orel Hershiser, John Malkovich, the Peter McNichol character on Allie McBeal, Michael Stipe, and David Bilowus. The latter is a "church" celebrity (a chorale director), not one most people would know outside my faith. McNichol's character probably does have a similar personality, and I'm not terribly bothered by that. I think the only comparison I was ever flattered by was Malkovich--he's a kind of attractive guy.

Anyway, if we break this down by what these people actually do, what they're famous for, acting of course comes out at number 1, and it's the profession most in the public eye, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised.