Seventeen Questions (continued)

[johnny9fingers]

Questions To Ask A Potential Girlfriend: A Chap’s Guide

 

1. Are you mad?

 

Obviously, this is the big one, but a tricky one to discuss, even with a fairly broad and non-perjorative definition of “mad”. Very few women believe themselves to be Napoleon and comparatively few even believe that they have been sent here on a mission by God; yet many apparently believe that 2 plus 2 makes 4 only if it helps the argument that they are in the midst of delivering, or that “if she buys kippers it will not rain”, or that having bailiffs call over credit card bills is an acceptable side effect of her attractive feature of being “dizzy with numbers”, or that she needs to buy 30 pairs of shoes a year in the same way that people need air, or that individual acts of minor domestic violence are often acceptable as long as they are delivered by a woman, or that it was quite rational to burn down her husband’s light aircraft hanger because she had “discovered” that he had had sex with his secretary – the list goes on. And, of course, being particularly unwilling to discuss or think calmly about the topic of apparent madness (or even to see it as an indulgence) is often itself a sign that the behaviour in question is indeed mad by any useful, non-extreme use of the term (we are hopefully not talking about someone who actually spends their evenings chewing through the straps of their straight-jacket, after all).

 

Some women make life easy for an interested chap by demonstrating clearly that they are mad (at least sometimes) and with some indication of the severity of the condition. They may announce for example that they are voting Conservative for the specific and sole reason that they quite fancy Dave Cameron or Boris Johnson, or that they got so angry at the traffic at 9am on Piccadilly that they just left the car in the road and walked (and would one be a dear and go and pick it up for them?), or be genuinely outraged and hurt when a shop assistant suggests that they might be more comfortable in one size larger than the one that they picked from the shelf. However, many will turn out to be really, incomprehensibly and irretrievably mad in major ways only when under significant emotional strain and perhaps only in the limited area of personal relationships, which makes it tricky to guess a priori.

 

Certainly, there will be many people who are on occasion generous to themselves in how much madness they adjudge to have been involved in various decisions that they have made, and many women will be able to answer “No” to this question with some degree of sincerity and implied absoluteness or consistency about the answer – some of these will honestly believe that they are 0% mad without this being what a rational observer would conclude from her later decisions/ views/ beliefs. Thus, we need a different formulation of the question – particularly as the person doing the asking may be unable to employ his full & usual ability in terms of assessing whether his interlocutor has just said “Yes” or “No” to anything non-straight-forward (i.e. like this question) as a direct result of said interlocutor having pleasing breasts.

 

As if this were not enough, asking the question in this way will produce false positives. A woman might well answer with something close to “Yes” not because a rational observer who knows her well would say so, but because of her being particularly ungenerous/ unforgiving of her own past imperfect decisions or wishing to distance herself at this moment from herself-as-on-occasion-demonstrated (perhaps when very angry or miserable), or because she gave up trying to explain her behaviour in any other way years ago despite having what look to her like sound explanations available, or indeed for a plethora of reasons.

 

It hopefully goes without saying that no chap should be asking whether a woman is ever less than 100% robotically calm and rational and fair and nice and balanced and wholly perfect –one can easily write this question in so extreme a way that the answer is self-evidently negative for all of humanity, including the questioner. Instead, we are only interested in discerning how likely one is to encounter behaviour from a range including the examples in the first paragraph (i.e. a long way further from sanity than is shown by quite fancying Billy Idol when a schoolgirl or quite liking churches).

 

The real question is perhaps how likely one is to be left (after exhaustive attempts to understand) asking “What on earth is going on?”, or “What was XYZ intended to convey/ achieve?”, or “Who on earth am I with?”, or “Am I really destined to spend this much time in company where I have to accept that that I have no idea about what is going on?”, or Why does she keep the very sharp scissors under the bed?”. This might suggest that a good formulation of the above question would be: “How frightened should I be?” Unfortunately, this too may get answers, some essentially honestly delivered, that are rather misleading. Thus, asking “Are you mad” may provide useful information, but it is unlikely of itself to provide an answer to the actual question asked, and may simply result in an interesting but extensive and time-consuming discussion about what “mad” means in this case. As a result, a slightly different and less direct approach, from which one can attempt to infer a probable answer to the question on madness, is one’s only option. My suggestions for these and for other useful questions follow.

 

2. Is your bed usually covered with a large collection of soft toys of the sort more usually given to children?

 

Some chaps may like this, just as they may like spending a large amount of time in public holding hands, or having a pet name attached to them or (often more disturbingly to the rest of us) to an item of one’s anatomy. However, for those who do not, 12 cuddly toys being placed on top of the duvet every day or too many pictures of ponies on the bedroom wall may be useful indicators of a point worth examining further.

 

3. If you keep a diary, do you have a wholly sensible and readily explicable reason for doing so, and for the types of things recorded therein?

 

Diary keepers annoyed by the failings of memory, or who think interesting things and become annoyed later that they have forgotten them, may not provoke any worry at all. However, those who find a diary assists their saying 4 years later, mid-argument, “And what about that time when I caught you looking at Mavis Bulstrode’s bottom?” may be women about whom the cautious chap would like advanced warning.

 

4. On occasions on which you have said things that you “know” are not “true” (in so far as both terms can be applied to the matter in question), did you know that you were doing it (and that it is something different in kind from your normal approach to communication) and what your intended outcome was?

 

Note that an attempt at humour, with no intention that the statement be believed past 5 seconds, is a perfectly good answer (though there may be occasions on which this point will need explaining). So are: “I wanted him to leave me alone and it looked like the best way in which to achieve it”; and “If I said that I was doing 83mph, he would have given me a speeding ticket”.

 

“It seemed like a good idea at the time”, “I must have believed it at the time, though I have no idea how”, “It felt like what I was expected to say, and I didn’t think about it beyond that” are examples of less good answers. While none of us is a saint or a robot, how much of this one in likely to encounter in future and how extreme the examples may be is something that a sensible chap will probably want guidance on as early as possible.

 

5. Given that some things are not capable of being usefully explained solely by academic analysis (e.g. why some like coffee and others do not), how readily do you stop trying to use your analytical powers to understand/ conclude about (to any further degree) something of import, and decide instead that the matter in question is impenetrable/ irreducible/ 100% subjective?

 

If one tries to use one’s brain to address questions of import whenever possible, there obviously comes a point beyond which further analysis is pointless - it can perhaps be argued that some pieces of information are just the “initial conditions” of the thought experiment. However, someone who takes thinking seriously is usually reluctant to conclude that the brain can cut no further into a problem, and that an irreducible minimum of incomprehensible stuff has been reached: that approach would still have people assuming that lightning involved people on clouds throwing things.

 

Those who are content to conclude that the irreducible minimum of incomprehensible stuff has been reached at the first sign of difficulty are very different in outlook to those who conclude it only with great reluctance; and (in so far as these things can be treated as digital) knowing into which category someone fits may well give an insight into how best to proceed. Thus, the vigour of the answer here may be illuminating, as may any examples of what she considers erroneous behaviour in others that she has known – e.g. “I felt like yelling: “What do you mean: “So I just stopped thinking about it”?””.

 

6. To what extent do you think that a large proportion of humanity often (a) appears to you disconcertingly or infuriatingly weird or daft or short-sighted, and/ or (b) is shudder-inducingly ugly, and/ or (c) is solidly nasty? 

 

On this, the chap asking should note that anyone with more brain cells than feet is likely to answer very strongly in support of option (a) being just what she herself experiences/ notes/ feels at the time.

 

Instead, the sign that one may need to be fearful or concerned about the woman in question is likely to be either that she responds very positively & vigorously to (b) and (c), or that she responds in a broadly positive way to the group as a whole and does not show any sign of separating (a) from the others. Such responses may well show internal distresses or difficulties about which one can at the very least feel sympathy, but they may not be wholly consistent with a comfortable shared private life.

 

7. With all the obvious qualifications and definitions and caveats, can you believe in any meaningful way something that you know is not actually true?

 

If someone understands the question and does not deliver a vigorous “No” to this one, then the role that sentience takes in their internal life may well be too small for sensible domestic relations with a chap who thinks himself sensible ever to be possible without unnecessarily high stress incidents occurring frequently. This may also reveal those with religious weaknesses, which can only ever be helpful.

 

8. Do you like sex?

 

Obviously, anyone answering that sex is the sole thing that they do like, and that they liked it twice today already (once in the stationary cupboard and once in the loo of the sandwich bar perhaps), may present challenges (whether intentionally or otherwise) for a chap – both in this area and (probably) in others. Conversely, given how much bother can be caused to all concerned by couples with wildly differing sex-drives, even if sensibly and kindly handled, an answer that she likes it - sometimes two or three times in a single year - may well be worth bearing in mind as well.

 

An answer that she likes sex a lot in principle, but followed by an exasperated comment that it is infuriating that 63 men out of 63 in the last X years have been so rubbish at sex that she disliked it immensely, is also likely to justify further discussion, and may well mean that this is not a person whose pants one should be in any hurry to remove.

 

A simple “No” may well also produce the same conclusion of course in terms of pants-removal, but further discussion may well demonstrate that the speaker is not a person requiring a “Mad” label at all. Which of these 2 points is regarded as more relevant will presumably vary, depending on the situation, what the participants are each looking for, and so on.

 

A simple “Yes” is of course a good answer, and some sensible qualifications like “in general” or “with someone vaguely appropriate” or “That bit is not usually the problem” should be welcomed (apart from anything else they encourage the suspicion that the question is being answered honestly).

 

High marks for sanity should be awarded to anyone who says that, however much these things vary with the specifics of occasion and company, the question is difficult to answer with more than a bland “Yes” that is so vague and general as to be of limited meaning unless there is some clarity over which elements are grouped under the heading of “like” – i.e. distinguishing between finding interesting/ finding fun/ making one feel more cheered later/ general physical enjoyment/ exploding like Mount Vesuvius at the slightest opportunity – and indeed which activities are being grouped under the heading of “sex”. Of course, it is not mandatory for the woman to say all that – “The answer is probably “Yes”, but it depends on how you mean the question” is a good answer in several ways.

 

Any answers that point to significant inner turmoil or bitterness being provoked by the question may well encourage similar conclusions to those that would follow from a straight “No”, and may or may not encourage further examination of the point. Similarly, unless the chap doing the asking is by some bizarre good fortune possessed of similar tastes, concern should be raised by any answers that imply that she likes sex as long as she feels compelled to do it, and/ or as long as the moon is retrograde in Venus, and/ or as long as the chap looks like Ewan MacGregor/ Johnny Depp/ Sidney Poitier, and/ or she is wearing the right under-garments at the time, and/ or as long as her instructions are obeyed to the letter – at least for the first couple of hours. Any answers of this sort are likely to make useful follow-up questions fairly obvious.

Anyone providing an honest answer that they like it because of the way that sex makes them feel dominant/ submissive/ charitable/ fertile may well also be giving useful data that will make sure that only chaps with corresponding tastes pursue the point, or at the very least that makes it clear that this is something that needs further clarification.

 

9. When you see a dog tied up outside a supermarket, what are you most likely to think?

 

“Well, bringing a dog to Tesco is just irresponsible/ unhygienic,” is a very bad answer. A brief and off-hand “Poor thing” is also far from ideal. Being mildly annoyed at oneself because one is now certain to spend the next few minutes being friendly to the dog instead of doing the actual shopping is, by contrast, a very sane response. “I am far too preoccupied to notice them” is not a good answer at all. Asking the same question about seeing a pram may also be enlightening, as may asking whether she prefers cats to dogs.

 

10. To what extent do you envisage using the phrases “All men are bastards” or “the politics of penetration” in future conversations?

 

The latter phrase itself is not meaningless, but could easily be thought to be literally meaningless by its common usage (and the details of the response to this question may well give a hint on how it used by the speaker), while the former is acceptable as an expletive like “Damn!” or “Sod him!” or as an indulgence but not a useful piece of actual thought or as an explanation of anything. Its use may also show that a high level of self-indulgence is permitted by the speaker over such matters, which is rarely a good thing in itself.

 

11. What roles/ features relevant to a sexual relationship do you think are essentially male or female (assuming a fairly normal heterosexual arrangement)? 

 

Answers including that a man has genitalia shaped thus and does not give birth are good, and the idea that these points can have some implications beyond the obvious is very sensible. However, any suggestions that involve terms like “breadwinner”, “shoulder to cry on” or “Knight in shining armour” “someone to make life make sense/ sort everything out” or that having to sit down to pee delivers a right to receive cut flowers on a regular basis may well not be good signs in the eyes of the sensible chap.

 

12. Have most of your previous partners of consequence wholly failed to take you seriously, or to show a level of consideration for your wishes/ preferences/ foibles that would be somewhere between kind and sensible/ appropriate?

 

Just as it is tricky to get useful data from asking directly whether someone is mad, so it is tricky to get it by asking whether someone is bitter to the point of disability or possessed of an inappropriate view of their own marvellous-ness - a point that this question tries to address. Obviously, this question can give false-positive danger signals. A woman may well simply have had a few partners who were all personally ghastly or very inappropriate in some way, whether through bad luck or not knowing that any men were different to any degree or through not thinking that she could get/ deserved anyone better than the reprobates involved. 

 

It would be unlikely to be fair to draw conclusions about a woman who said that this applied to both past candidates, for example. However, if she says that 5 out of the last 7 are now in prison or that none of them could stand her singing despite her phenomenal voice or that none of them ever remembered the names of her dresses/ cuddly toys/ cousins despite the huge trauma this fact caused her, then a useful line of conversation (or a good reason for leaving) may be visible.

 

However, even a brief description of the failings of other men that she has known may give an insight into whether one of sensible and sympathy-inducing explanations exist, or whether the speaker is labouring under an inappropriate view (in either direction) of her own wonderfulness or what constitutes the kind of behaviour that she in particular “deserves”. Of course, answering “No” to the question or producing comments that generalising about these chaps as a group is not particularly relevant or helpful constitute particularly un-worrying answers.

 

13. Do you know what you want from a boyfriend, and does your experience suggest that it is easier to get such things by telling him that list or conversely that doing so is the last thing that is likely to succeed?

 

It is of course possible for a woman with an agenda to answer this question less than honestly as part of pursuing that agenda. However, most people who would genuinely give “right” answers to this question (i.e. “Pretty much, yes” and “Talking wins) have had plenty of experiences of non-ideal events happening because of people not talking about “stuff” or because of people employing incompetent strategies. Probably she will have thought about the limits to certainty and openness and real-world conversation that she perceives to exist, the appropriate role of selfishness and so on. In short, a short and simple answer to this question may tell us little or be a bad sign. However, a long and arm-wavy answer is entirely appropriate and a usually good sign, and a very vigorous delivery of the “right” answers, probably with un-requested counter-examples of things that are/ were just infuriating, is a probably very good answer.

 

14. To what extent do you think that every relationship is built by people making compromises, and that a good one is one that is worth large compromises?

 

Words like sacrifice and compromise need to be treated with great caution, and prompt the question of why these things must be difficult or expensive. If someone answers this question by agreeing strongly with the sentiment, one might ask how much they hope to civilise a chap or how much they would hope that he would civilise himself, and one would certainly wish to ask what sort of compromises she thought were likely to be relevant – few sensible chaps would remain calm if early mention were made of discarding his more creepy friends or his record collection, or that sheets really need ironing before use and should always be changed daily, or that his stance on breeding will need beating into submission, or that he should understand the causal connection between sex and jewellery, or that he will need to be polite & cheerful to her parents for 5 hours a week for as long as he is with her. On the other hand, asking a chap to close the lavatory door, even in his own house, would not be a sign of an unsound mind.

 

By contrast with the approach in the question, it is noticeable that many people with very happy private lives report not really having to make much in the way of compromises or sacrifices at all, perhaps because there was little that was actually annoyed them in the first place about the other party. Thus, “A bit of practical compromise and allowing for another person not being one’s clone, plus a bit of live-and-let-live” is a good answer, as is any suggestion that a huge amount of compromise being required (from either or both) and noticed as such would make them seriously wonder whether to proceed.

 

15. Do you currently hope/ expect to be a mother within 5 years?

 

Getting honest answers may be tricky. After all, it is not unknown for ladies to eat contraceptive pills in front of their partner before spitting them out later. People also change their minds without any element of deception being involved, and this is not something that many of us can criticise. On the other hand, one has little reason to be upset or annoyed or shocked about developments in this area if one has never asked.

 

16. Have you ever been made so angry that things that you or a partner own were thrown with vigour or destroyed utterly?

 

Any chaps not terrified by behaviour of this sort are clearly much more manly and courageous than this author. However, even for such stalwart souls, it is handy to know as early as possible if calling her mother a trout will result in your hi-fi being thrown from a 3^rd storey window or the crotches of all your suit trousers cut out or your spending some time in Casualty (not that she intended that the frying pan actually hit you, obviously).

  

17. Are there any questions that you would like to ask me?

 

Any woman who has had any experience of what can be the grim reality of human relations but who has no questions like these for the chap in question may well simply be uninterested in any private relations with said chap – this might well limit her curiosity. However, if she is interested and does not ask any questions when given the chance (even if given time to come up with a few), it may well suggest that asking directly for the information that she wants is not her preferred approach to finding out who a chap is, or that she regards knowing this sort of thing as not particularly important when it comes to her deciding whether or not to disrobe (for example). Discerning which (if either) of these things apply in a particular case of a woman who does not have questions for a chap may well be useful. As for those women who do have questions, I can only recommend answering them as well as possible.

 

Now this is the latest missive from our Planet Nick correspondent. There will be more, I hope.