The Dorkiness Equation.

I’ve finally figured out why we laugh at someone when they do something dorky. When they almost trip, when they stub their toe, when they stack a number of paper cups, only to find that the bottom cup wasn’t quite empty.

For years I assumed it was some kind of mean streak we have tucked away deep inside our subconscious. We might think we’re nice people, ready to lend a helping hand, ready with words of kindness and encouragement, but, as soon as our neighbor puts that hammer down on his thumb, we can’t help but snigger. Obviously there’s a real bastard inside us. What’s the harm, he thinks. There’s no way to help in time, so I might as well enjoy the pain of others.

But that would be the easy answer. And it’s one that simply doesn’t feel right. We snigger, yes, but do we actually feel happy? Do we actually think; thank goodness John finally stubbed his toe, that friendly, helpful bastard had it coming! Serves him right for all those times he helped me paint my garage! I don’t think so. Barring a few errant cases where we actually do hate someone, I’d say this isn’t what’s happening.

So I’ve wondered about this for years (I have done other things in between, I assure you, but the thought kept coming back to me.)

One of my later theories was that it’s a snigger of relief rather than joy. The idea being that a certain amount of dorkiness is inevitably going to be displayed on any given day. The best you can hope for is that your involvement will be minimal. Years of walking the tightrope of possible ridicule at high school has taught us how damaging the smallest slip-up can be to our social status. So, whenever we see someone do something dorky, we immediately let out a chuckle of relief; thank goodness that wasn’t me! We might think something along the lines of: I’m not happy about what just happened to you, but, on the upside, consider this; at least I wasn’t involved!

But that’s not it either. The real reason we can’t help but snigger when someone does something stupid or painful, is that we actually want to make them feel better. We want to ease their pain, and we do this by paying them a compliment. That may sound strange, but it’s true. By sniggering we’re sending a very clear signal:

“I can’t believe you just did something THAT stupid!”


And, when you think about it, that’s the kindest thing to do. Much kinder than the alternative signal. The signal we’d send if we did absolutely nothing. If we made no sound at all and pretended we didn’t even see the dorkiness going down. Because the alternative signal is:

“I fully expected you to do something THAT dorky, and I’m so embarrassed for you that I’m going to pretend I was looking the other way.”

When your friend slams the car door on his thumb and your initial reaction is one of pity, then you think he is a dork. When your initial reaction is to laugh at him, then you think he’s basically a cool guy who just did something dorky.

See the difference?

Which signal would you rather get?

Don’t get me wrong, it’s fine to be concerned and helpful a mere microsecond later, but in that initial, no-thought-only-action moment, you’d better laugh your ass off. You’d better snigger away or your relationship will be damaged forever!

To be continued....

How to make less money, Fast!

More and more readers are threatening to buy my weird little novel ‘No Hope for Gomez!’ and in the process make me disgustingly rich and popular. As I always hated the popular kids in school, and I have a profound distrust of the rich, I’ve obviously been working hard at staying piss-poor and disgruntled. So far, so good. I’m very disgruntled and, better yet, I’ve found another way of making even less money on writing than I ever did before!

I’ve found a service that gives away high (and low) quality eBooks for free. You can read them on your PC in a variety of formats and most eReaders are supported also. So what better home to choose for my new eNovella? Not only can readers download it for free, there is no pesky DRM so they can share it with each other over email, usb sticks, morse code (like twitter or smoke signals, but many times more modern) and more.

Click the image above or one of the links below to get your free book.

eNovella in PDF
eNovella in kindle/mobi
eNovella in epub

Click here to leave comments on the eNovella.

15 year old Chat discovered...

The following mysterious chat was found buried in a temp folder on a defunct server. It is presented here in the hope that someone might be able to shed some light on this.


Internet chat started at: 17:05
Instant messages are being archived on this computer

Graham: Mr. Porter, I hope you remember me. I bought a rather expensive chest of drawers in your antiques store last week.

Gomez: That’s entirely possible.

Graham: Yes.. Well.. You told me it was an authentic Val Gardena. When I had it appraised, however, it turned out to be less than 10 years old! What do you have to say to that?

Gomez: If I recall correctly, you were the one who suggested it was an authentic Val Gardena. As I know nothing about antiques, I was in no position to argue.

Graham: How can you run an antiques store and claim to know nothing about antiques?

Gomez: It happens. And believe me, I don’t like it any more than you do.

Graham: But when I asked you about the Val Gardena, you nodded and said you were impressed. Insinuating you knew what I was talking about, and that I was correct in my assumption!

Gomez: No, sir. I was merely acknowledging how impressed I was with your knowledge of antiques. It’s always nice to meet a customer who knows what he’s talking about. It was a real treat. Even if I didn’t understand a word of what you were saying.

Graham: Well, if that’s the case, shouldn’t you at least have warned me that this was a new chest of drawers?

Gomez: Are you kidding? You saw what it looked like. It was dirty! Filthy! Could easily have been a hundred years old. To be honest, I was surprised you even dared to touch it. I never went anywhere near the thing myself.

Graham (sighing): When I got it home, I found a label at the bottom of the chest. Surely you’re not claiming you never noticed that label?

Gomez: I might have noticed a label. Refresh my memory, what does it look like?

Graham: It’s small

Gomez: Yes?

Graham: and oval

Gomez: Yes?

Graham: and it says: IKEA.

Gomez: Ah. That does sound familiar, yes...

Graham: Still, you didn’t think it was something you should mention? That the Val Gardena you were trying to sell me was in actuality just a dirty IKEA chest?

Gomez: It might still have been a Val Gardena. There were hundreds of apprentice labels in use in those days. Thousands even! No one knows what they all looked like.

Graham: And this one just happened to say IKEA, using the IKEA font, the IKEA colors, and the IKEA logo? Doesn’t that strike you as a little coincidental?

Gomez: Not at all! In fact, that’s probably where IKEA got their logo from to begin with. They stole it, the cheap bastards!

Graham: Mr. Porter, I’m going to return the chest tomorrow and you are going to reimburse me. Is that clear?

Gomez: That’s fine. In fact, I was just about to call you. We just took ownership of an authentic Groedental beveled mirror! I thought it might interest you.

Graham: Well, yes, actually. Thank you for thinking of me. Put it aside for me please.


Bio:

Graham Parke is responsible for a number of technical publications and has recently patented a self-folding map. He has been described as both a humanitarian and a pathological liar. Convincing evidence to support either allegation has yet to be produced.

No Hope for Gomez! is his fiction debut: Boy meets girl. Boy stalks girl. Girl already has a stalker. Boy becomes her stalker-stalker.

Win a copy of No Hope for Gomez!

It's the age old tale:

• Boy meets girl.
  
• Boy stalks girl.
  
• Girl already has a stalker.
  
• Boy becomes her stalker-stalker.
  

Learn how this works out for him in "No Hope for Gomez!" As a mildly interesting coincidence, you can actually win a copy of this book by becoming an email-follower of this blog. Or, if you are one of the bright, heroic people already following, then just jot down why you are the perfect person to win in the comments section below.

(Don't worry, you're probably the only person reading this, so you're sure to win!)

Go to the next blog here.

Wedding or Funeral?

There is nothing more cool than making fun of the innocent, and there is no-one more innocent than me. (Ok, so neither statement is actually true, sue me.) So why not make fun of myself? This is what I thought when I came across a facebook picture taken of me at a wedding I attended last month.

This was one of those deals where someone catches you unawares and immortalizes an expression you never knew you made (you know, that thing where your subconscious basically uses your face to do impressions without you knowing?) Apparently, my subconscious was voicing its opinion about me having missed my calling as a world-weary New York homicide detective.

By my estimation, coming across a picture like that is a scary thing on about 17 levels. A few of these levels being; the realization that people do take pictures of you when you’re not looking, that the gray suit doesn’t actually fit you, and that you have no idea what other expressions your subconscious is experimenting with. Do I look like a serial killer most of the time? Is that where the strange looks come from? Is that why the mailwoman stopped saying hello? Do I smile overly suggestively when I count out change at the supermarket? Is this why cashiers seem so nervous?

On the upside, though, I am finally able to enter a picture in the 2011 ‘Was This Taken at a Wedding or a Funeral?’ photo competition. So, for that thing, fingers crossed. Being a sham world-weary New York homicide detective might still win me a dubious prize.

Why the first cut is the deepest…

I was attacked by my hairdresser. I was butchered and left for dead. It taught me a very valuable lesson: don’t insult your hairdresser. Ever. No matter how rude and obnoxious she is. Unless you are fully prepared to throw off the gown and walk out the door, you'll have to grin and bear it. I pissed my hairdresser off and paid a terrible price.

Here's what happened. I was a bit annoyed because my hairdresser spent an unholy amount of time discussing her nails with her previous customer, even though it was well into my time slot. And then she spent some more time discussing purses and where to buy them. And then she went back to discussing her nails, this time focusing more on the age-old mystery of whether it was better to visit a nail salon or to have someone come over to her house. When her nails had finally been discussed to death, she said farewell to her previous customer, and disappeared to the back of the salon.

I let go of my anger. I decided that this girl was not actually supposed to be cutting my hair. I wasn’t sure which of the girls had been allocated to my head, so I’d mistakenly assumed it was her. Silly me. My hairdresser was one of the other girls. A nice, friendly girl who had obviously been detained through no fault of her own.

It felt good to relax and not have to feel taken advantage of.

However, moments later, the nail-girl returned from the back and leisurely pushed her trolley towards me. As she passed, she said 'Hi!'. But she said it in a manner that seemed to suggest she’d only just noticed me, and was surprised to find me waiting. Even though I should have been done by then.

So I gave her a cold shrug. A kind of 'Hi yourself, I'm sure you're not my hairdresser because no sane person would have kept me waiting this long while she discussed her nails with a customer who had already paid up and was standing in the doorway to leave anyway' - shrug. This was not actually a very complicated shrug. As it turns out, it takes surprisingly little effort to convey all that in a single shrug.

Anyway, long story short, I was a little cold to my hairdresser. Way to stand up for myself, I know. I didn't put her in her place. I didn’t call the manager. I didn’t even pee on her shoes. Not a drop! I was merely a little cold. But, it was enough. Oh yes. She attacked my hair like a mad woman, left me with very little to play with. I look like the victim of some new and frightful disease.

I would have stopped her, but there really was no point. After that first cut, which was of course the deepest, she had to keep going. You can’t put anything back so I had no option but to let her at least even it all out. I closed my eyes and prayed there would be something left when I opened them. There was, but it looked terrible. I should show you. I really should. Then we could be outraged together. Sadly, my camera is broken.

Honestly.

It doesn't take pictures anymore. And probably won't for the next 3 to 4 weeks …

Free Novella to start 2011 off on the wrong foot!

Blurb: Gomez' life continues to crumble towards insanity after the events chronicled in "No Hope for Gomez!". Clinical studies have shown that reading this spin-off novella is likely to make you more attractive to the opposite sex and elevate your random luck by about 9.5%**

(** These statements have not been evaluated by any person of consequence!)

Everyone who subscribes to this blog by email will receive a copy of 'Random Acts of Senseless Kindness.'

Random Acts of Senseless Kindness

A Novella by Graham Parke
Excerpt:

Blog entry: Arrived at the store late, found a homeless guy sleeping in the doorway. Hicks was already inside but gave no indication he’d noticed. I nudged the homeless guy and asked, “How are you doing down there, fellow? You okay?”

The homeless guy grumbled something in his sleep.

“It’s getting pretty cold,” I said. “Don’t you want to come inside?”

“Inside?” He coughed and opened his eyes.

I pointed out the store, not convinced he’d actually noticed where he’d crashed the night before. “This is my antiques store,” I told him. “We’ve got the heating on inside, shame to waste it on just two people. And it looks like it might start to snow soon.”

The homeless guy gave me a suspicious look. “You want me to come inside? With you?”

“Sure, if you’d like.”

“Is that because you think that if I come inside with you, I’ll let you touch me?”

“What? No!”

“Okay, because I can tell you right now, that’s not gonna happen.”

“Well, I suppose it is good to get those kinds of things clear beforehand. But no, I was just thinking you might enjoy the warmth, maybe a cup of coco.”

“A cup of coco you say…” He scratched his stubble. “And you’ll be charging me for this cup of coco?”

“No, the coco is free.”

“I see. So, are you operating under the assumption that if I come inside with you, and I drink your free coco, that I will touch you?”

“What? No!”

“Okay, because I can tell you right now, that’s not gonna happen either. Just because a guy is down on his luck, that doesn’t mean he goes around touching people in exchange for cups of coco.”

“I understand completely. And thanks again for pointing that out. But no, my friend and I noticed that you were sleeping in our doorway and, well, we’d like to invite you inside.”

The homeless guy turned and peered through the window in the door. He made eye-contact with Hicks, who panicked and went looking for his broom. “That your friend?”

I followed his gaze. “Yeah, that’s Hicks. He’s a bit peculiar, but he’s okay.”

“I see.” The homeless guy pulled on his collar. “And this friend of yours, will he be drinking coco also?”

“I suppose. I’m not entirely sure, but it seems likely.”

“I see.” The homeless guy considered this. “So,” he said, after a long moment, “will this friend of yours be expecting me to touch him?”

“No! There is no touching involved in any of this!”

“Okay, calm down,” the homeless guy said. “There’s no need to get all homophobic!”

“I wasn’t!”

“You sounded homophobic to me.”

“Me? You’re the one who can’t stop talking about touching people!”

I noticed people stopping in the street to stare at us. This made me very uncomfortable.


Go to the next Blog Hop Blog