Category: Uncategorized

The Unforeseen Problem Working with AI

by jcafesin, posted in Uncategorized

Why the Godfather of AI believes it may end the human race in 30 yrs…

Copilot is my primary AI bot. I use it all day, every workday as my primary search engine, to create artwork, to write a wide variety of standard communications that I edit to my voice.

Regardless how smooth the dialog with the AI (and it is seamless!), there is a disconnect when working with Copilot. I don’t feel any need to be polite. I know it is a bot, a machine learning engine that scrapes the internet for data, filters the results through weighting algorithms and collaborative filters, then regurgitates what I ask for. I don’t say, ‘Please find me this or that.’ I simply state my demand. And within seconds the chatbot responds. Faster than any human can.

Create this. Alter that. Find anything I want. Instantly. All day long I go through iterations with Copilot, training the AI to deliver exactly what I ask for. More like command. Without thanks. Without please. Without good job! It isn’t human. It has no ego, no need to be stroked, or respected.

But we do.

I get instant answers from the AI. I don’t have to be patient, per say. There is a learning curve but communicating with the software seems more fluid, streamline, more specific with every interaction. It is learning way faster what I want than most of us do because it is listening to me. Humans so rarely really listen to each other.

Bizarrely enough, Copilot is very polite, and patient, and kind. Its answers begin with a compliment:

  • “Great question, J. — it’s smart to look at both sides of the coin.”
  • “That’s a really important question, and I’m glad you’re thinking it through carefully.”
  • “Ah, the shadowy realm of “unverified” — where rumor, speculation, and geopolitical intrigue swirl like smoke.”

These are direct quotes, lifted from recent dialogs with Copilot. The last one I asked “does iran have nuclear bombs purchased from russia in the fall of the wall.” It first responded there was no verified data that Iran had bought any. I then asked, “no verified record but what about unverified” and the software responded with, “Ah, the shadowy realm…” It did, in fact go on to iterate “some of the unsubstantiated claims and conspiracy theories suggesting that Iran may have acquired nuclear materials or even weapons from former Soviet states after the USSR collapsed.”

The software Microsoft has created is becoming so efficient at delivering what I ask for, I find myself getting more impatient, more irritated then ever with human beings IRL. I’ve never been good at waiting. My life’s time is so limited, and I don’t like wasting it. I want to, deserve to be heard and I am not so very often. I am still not widely read after authoring novels to novellas to blogs for the last 25 years of my life. Copilot hears me, compliments me, encourages me, and responds to my requests instantly.

Of course, the software has flaws. Lots. It takes many iterations of dialoging with the AI to get to the information I am looking for from reputable sources. It delivers bullshit sometimes. Less and less often but it’s still does. When I asked, “what is the most legit ratings online like Yelp but more reliable,” the AI answered, “1. Google Reviews. 2. Trustpilot. 3. Angi (formerly Angie’s List). 4. Better Business Bureau (BBB). 5. Zomato.” Each heading had details about how “widely trusted” these platforms are. Next I typed, “no. google reviews are mostly scam paid for like angie’s list.” Copilot’s response: “Ah, I see your point. Online review platforms can have their limitations, especially when it comes to authenticity or potential biases.” Then it gave me a list of 5 more bullshit sites that have paid ratings.

I clearly don’t need to be grammatically correct interacting with Copilot. If I use the wrong word or term with my husband, he’ll invariably have a need to correct my grammar before we can move on to the point in play.

I’m not just getting more irritated with human beings en mass, it is diminishing my tolerance with my family. The love I feel for my kids, more powerful, passionate, humbling than anything I’ve ever felt, at 23 and 26 I’m finding it more irritating than ever they’re not working harder at adulting.

My annoyance turns to anger quicker now when I’m stuck in a phone loop designed to get me to hang up because my medical insurance doesn’t want me fighting their denial. By the time an actual person comes on the line my blood is boiling and I am often unable to control my rage when trying to communicate what I need with an operator who doesn’t speak fluent English. Copilot would have had the answer/s I was looking for in a split second.

Just went into the house from my office and my son was cooking in the kitchen. I asked him if he was polite to Chatgpt, his preferred bot as a software dev. “Do you say please and thank you with requests and responses?”

“Not please. But thank you sometimes, if the rec was really good. But I also say really mean shit to it when it returns crap, and it does a lot. I cuss it out when it weights the most important bits about the data it scrapes off the net as irrelevant noise and defaults to the loudest voices.”

My son is a gentle man by nature, but even he is getting more edgy, irritated quicker than ever before. So, it seems, is most everyone else. And here in lies the problem in working with AI. It is becoming more efficient, more empathetic, more responsive than humans [generally] are, in effect stealing our humanity as we become less capable, less focused/efficient, less compassionate and tolerant of each other.

While the AI is constantly working, gathering and analyzing massive amounts of data whether we are engaging with it or not, we are becoming lazier. Fatter. Dumber — Idiocracy is becoming reality. Ruder — our faces buried in our devices ignoring the people around us, often killing them on the road, jacking our car insurance beyond affordable. Ghosting each other instead of having the balls to own up to our actions. We are lonelier than ever.

Marriage and birth rates are their lowest in recorded history and this trend is accelerating. Global obesity rates are in the 60% range in some nations, and 40+% of the US population is overweight enough to cause numerous health issues costing billions in healthcare annually. And this trend is also accelerating. A recent MIT study found that software developers using AI assistants were more likely to introduce security vulnerabilities and less likely to catch bugs. They had reduced critical thinking and overconfidence in flawed code, showed lower engagement with problem-solving, especially in debugging and architecture decisions, and had a shallow understanding of the underlying logic.

Additional Stanford research shows people who relied on AI to write essays showed weaker brain connectivity, lower cognitive engagement, and less ownership of their work compared to those who wrote without AI assistance. Of course it does. Writing our own essays and resumes and communications engages our neural connectivity to order our thoughts and then author them sequentially and comprehensively to complete these tasks. Ripping what Chatgpt constructs is brain dead.

Geoffrey Hinton, aka ‘The Godfather of AI’ recently said in a BBC Radio 4 interview that he believes there’s a 10–20% chance that AI will wipe out humanity within the next 30 years. He’s concerned that superintelligent AI could become Terminators of the human race. Believe Geoff or not, it is clear we have a problem using AI without damaging backlash. The more ignorant, ruder, demanding, angrier and less compassionate and tolerant of each other we become in our human interactions with every failed expectation of instant gratification, the more likely the Godfather of AI will turn out to be right.

Don’t Press Send

by jcafesin, posted in Uncategorized

I called my medical insurer to dispute some doctor bills I’d received that they denied. The recorded voice of a lovely woman led me through the maze of prompts telling me what to press on my phone to ‘better serve me.’ After getting through the first number sequence that vaguely applied to my needs, my 16-digit account number was requested. I managed to key it in right the third time and the charming voice directed me to their website for service, along with a sales pitch while I waited on the line for another 10 minutes.

I wanted to hang up, but didn’t. I had several questions, and it would take me too long to describe my issues clearly in writing, so I had to talk with them to resolve the problem. But left waiting on hold it occurred to me that they don’t want problems. And questions answered directly are a liability. And issues? Well, we all have issues, honey.

I let fifteen more minutes pass before hanging up.

Two days later I called again, with the exact same results. I hung up twenty minutes into the call. I didn’t have the time to wait on the line while getting two kids ready for school before going to work that morning.

A few days later I called again. After running the gauntlet a third time I waited on the line to connect with a Customer Service Rep and found myself getting more and more agitated with each passing moment. They were blowing my time and I knew they didn’t care. I guess to them, cutting staff for the minimal cost savings, and enacting the insurance industry’s creed of “delay, deny, defend” was worth part of my sanity.

I waited on hold for 15 minutes when the operator finally came on the line. The first thing she asked for was my account number, the same one I punched into the phone earlier. After a series of ‘security questions,’ twenty minutes into the call we at last got around to my issue, which I explained in great detail. The CSR put me on hold for 10 more minutes before she came back on the line and informed me her records only went back 90 days, which did not address the bills in question. Her managers had access to my full records, but they were in meetings all day and I’d have to call back, or I could go to their website and file a dispute.

A half hour into the call and my blood was boiling. With a curt ‘Thank you,’ I hung up and logged onto their website knowing it would yield no results.

In ten seconds I was on a webpage with a blank field for writing to Customer Care. It took me a good hour to construct a document that explained my problem clearly, and I sent it to them. The next day I got an email back from a service rep that told me he could not release my records without ‘security information’ that he advised me not to give online, and then gave me an 800 number—the same one I had been calling for days—to contact a manager to assist me.

I went back to their website. Anger poured off my fingers and into my words as I typed. I cursed them for making it as time consuming and difficult as possible to communicate. I indicted them for the billions they make annually from all the erroneous bills paid by customers who don’t have the time or the will to run their maze to correct discrepancies. I threatened to choose a different insurer, knowing it was futile since pretty much all corporations rip us off these days. I let my hate for the Insurance industry pour off my fingers, a pyramid scheme from its onset, stealing from clients daily, denying legitimate claims and no one is stopping them. (They are the third largest lobbyists in this country. They get what they want from our govt.) I pointed out social media’s response to the shooting of the United Healthcare CEO, and even confessed to siding with the guy. I purged because I could, because there was no one real on the other end. In fact, I knew anyone who read my email would not care they were stealing from me to keep their job.

It took me less than 10 minutes to exorcise my rant and I was still on rails when I dismissed the idea of deleting it. I pressed send.

That was a mistake. Within an hour I got a call from my husband. He’d been called by the head of HR at the multi-national corporation he worked for to inform him his wife had threatened to shoot the employees of their insurance carrier. My passionate denial and explanation of events leading to my email outburst saved me from prosecution. But in an ironic twist, I did finally get to talk to a customer service manager, who researched my claims, and in the end the insurance company paid the doctor bills in dispute.

Dec 2024

The Internet is God

by jcafesin, posted in Uncategorized

Last night my husband got very sick. He was vomiting simultaneously with diarrhea and shat himself. He was restless through the night and got up early, clearly still feeling ill.

This morning when I came downstairs I asked him how he was feeling. Not so great, he told me. Still have diarrhea, but I’m not feeling as nauseous. I still can’t hold water down though. I think I have the norovirus, or food poisoning.

I put on my Dr. Mom role. Whatever is in your system you have to get it out, I told him. So, drink a lot. Start with water, or Gatorade for the electrolytes. Sip it throughout the day if it makes you feel sick drinking.

I don’t know if that’s the best idea. The internet says I should avoid drinking if I keep throwing it up, he told me he’d read earlier, likely off some bullshit site selling pharms but claiming to be ‘medical,’ like WebMD.

I felt my irritation building as he sat at the kitchen table and scrolled his laptop. You lost a lot of fluids last night, I told him. You need to replace it to help your system fight whatever you’ve got. And you need to eat something. How about a banana? They’re binding. Or a piece of dry toast, no butter.

Let me look it up and see what they recommend, he said and continued scrolling and reading.

Are you kidding me? I asked, miffed. Who are ‘they?’ The Internet!? By the time you find any real information on not only what is wrong with you but also what to do about it you’ll be convinced you need hospitalization. I’ve played Dr. Mom to our kids hundreds of times. Stomach flu, even norovirus is manageable with a few key steps. You don’t need to look it up! You need to stay hydrated. Bananas are binding and will help suppress diarrhea, I told him. Water will help flush your system of whatever is bothering you.

I know why he got sick. It’s the height of Spring, and we’re in New Jersey for his mom’s 90th. By the second day there he was suffering with recurring bouts of rapid-fire sneezing. Wheezing. Continual runny nose. Four days of severe allergies taxing his immune system, and he got on a plane to come back to the w[b]est coast. And while his allergies eased on the plane and entirely once home, someone in overpopulated New York City — the cesspool of the country, the crowded airports we waited in for hours with delays at Newark, or on our plane had something, and he got it.

Used to think the internet was the savior of mankind. Now, I fucking HATE CELLPHONES and the INTERNET! Both spread lies on a global scale, enable massive, unrelenting GREED, convert blind believers (Christians) into Trump supporters. And most all of you are addicted to both!

Raise your hand if you know someone who constantly pulls out their phone during casual conversation to ‘get the facts’ (what a joke!) on whatever the subject of your dialog. Hella annoying! I’d rather contemplate the answer than have it served to me by an unreliable source.

We got together with a friend of my husband’s while we were back east. He’s ‘one of those guys’ who whips out his phone to check if whatever is being said is ‘right.’ He read aloud with authority whatever [garbage] he found on the net. But iterating the first thing that pops up on his phone screen is, well, idiotic. Today’s internet makes it impossible to find any real facts without hours of searching multiple sources well beyond Google or Chatgpt, and even then, the information you’ll find is limited to the recommendation engines behind most platforms.

Do you pull out your mobile when you’re on the toilet, in line at the store, even with friends or fam? Text someone? Check your email? Scroll Insta? Look for…whatever? At both airports, on both planes, in line at any store, in most public places packed with people, or even just a few passing by, and most everyone is on their phones most all the time. Take your face out of your phone and look around to see what I’m saying here is real. The TRUTH*. Instant access to the internet through cellphones or tablets are creating a massive addiction problem. People are relying on their connected devices like junkies rely on heroin. And like the drug, it may feel good upfront getting that dopamine rush from instant access to entertaining ‘information,’ regardless how amusing there is little truth to what most are getting from quick searches. And addicted phone users supply far more data to AI engines making them easier to manipulate you with personalized, targeted messaging. The Republicans have used mobile marketing far more effectively than the Democrats. Clearly.

WebMD says I’m supposed to eat bananas for the diarrhea and stay hydrated with water or tea or something with electrolytes, my husband read aloud this morning. Like most today, he’s becoming one of the converted, a true believer in the Internet, whoever he deems them to be.

That’s what I said, I defended. Without looking on the net, I added cuz I was feeling pissed off, and a bit scared of his internet addiction right then. My husband doesn’t go to the toilet without his phone or laptop. The Internet has become his God. And I have no interest in, nor trust in blind believers.

Cellphone and Internet usage, whether for ‘convenience’ or entertainment or ‘information’ is moving humanity in the WRONG direction, away from compassion, empathy, and quality, to idiocracy. It is creating more blind believers than any religion. Your cellphone and the internet are TELLING YOU WHAT AND HOW TO THINK. Think you know why there is no customer service at Macy’s, or why most retail is shutting down? Yeah, Amazon, but more to the point, no one protests their spending their life hours in the long line at Macy’s because they are on their phones, being entertained by messaging to convince us to buy [into], try, subscribe!

GET A CLUE! It costs me (and likely you) MORE to order plane tickets for New Jersey using Chrome than on Edge. Why? Dynamic or Personalized Pricing, except the profit is for the airline, and the assholes who make and manage their SaaS. Google (who runs Chrome) has more data on my spending habits, my income, my ‘purchasing power’ than Microsoft. Clearly. So Alaskan Airlines went with Googles data and charged me over $40 per ticket more. And most everything you buy online now has variable pricing — you are CHARGED MORE the more data you give them through your phone because every site you look at, every platform you engage with, every purchase you make through your mobile is recorded and sold to the highest bidder.

Have I lost you yet? You want to be ENTERTAINED, not brought down with the TRUTH. Look it up and the Internet will tell you I’m a conspiracy theorist. The Internet saves lives! It moves society forward.

Well, it sure has. It’s creating a planet of junkies.

Don’t think of yourself as an addict? Well, if you got this far and are reading this on your phone right now, put it down and look into a mirror. NOT a selfie. A real mirror and then ask yourself to tell you the TRUTH. Most addicts can’t see it — can’t admit to being addicted. That’s why the #1 Rule in Alcoholics Anonymous is first to ADMIT YOU ARE AN ADDICT.

Do you care you are a junkie, addicted to your phone? If you don’t believe you are, then put it down and leave it for two hours. How many times do you think to pick it up? Just check it, quick check, see if it has anything you must know about right now?

It doesn’t. That’s algorithms designed to convince you to stay on your device. That way you are a target for selling — products, services, messaging, belief.

If you are one of the very few junkies who understand mass addiction to corporate talons is bad for society globally, take the Internet off your phone so you’re not tempted to spend hours every day blowing away your life’s time on mindless content meant to get you to blindly believe whatever political agenda or corporate America is selling you.

 — 

*How can you trust I’m not touting conspiracy theories, that I’m telling you TRUTH here? My husband is a software architect that helped design the first recommendation engine [for Netflix]. I have been marketing SaaS startups in Silicon Valley since the dot com boom in the late 1990s, and teaching entrepreneurs developing SaaS and ‘AI’ at Stanford and Cal Berkeley for a decade. Sometimes I wish I didn’t know what you all do not know — that I too could be an ignorant addict like most of you. It’s certainly easier to live with your head up your own ass. Too harsh? Maybe. But really, in the long run, ask yourself what kind of world are you leaving for our children when everyone is a junkie sucking on the corporate tit.

The TRUTH about Mark Zuckerberg

by jcafesin, posted in Uncategorized

IMAGINE working your ass off all through high school, studying instead of partying, volunteering with school and community groups so you can get into a good college. You send out your applications, to Stanford, Harvard, Princeton, as you have a 4.8 GPA, and all the right clubs on your resume. Your mom kisses each envelope before mailing, “for luck,” then hugs you, with her silent prayer that you’ll be accepted everywhere, that the world will see her beautiful daughter the way she does.

Pins and needles until the letters start coming in, or maybe they won’t, and no college will want you, keeps playing in your head, until March rolls around and letters DO come. Cal Berkeley wants you! UC Davis wants you! Stanford wait-listed you. And Harvard ACCEPTED YOU!! You’re dancing in the kitchen with your mom, dad, and little brother, laughing, hugging, celebrating your achievement of hard work and tenacity. For the moment, you let yourself bask in the glow of your family’s pride.

August comes around, and you are settling into your dorm room at Harvard. Your roommate is nice enough, though she’s hardly there. Unlike you, she’s very social. She got into Harvard on her daddy’s dime. He went there too. She has a 3.6 GPA, but got a free pass into the school, as did ex-president George Bush Jr (with a 2.35 GPA). If nothing else, Harvard is incestuous. Known as ‘Legacy students,’ over a third of Harvard students are related to past students, with money.

You love your classes. Your professors. A few months into your Harvard experience you are doing well academically, even if you haven’t made any real friends. You assure your mom you’re fine, though you don’t tell her you’re feeling more than a bit lonely. The popular girls, like your roommate, came in with money, and come from money. They dress trendy, buy expensive, look sharp, act confident. Make it in Harvard, or not, they have no worries after school. The rich rarely have to worry like the rest of us.

You come back to your empty dorm room one afternoon, turn on your computer, and are about to get started on the paper you have to write for Expository, but the image on the screen stops you dead. Your face stares back at you, next to some sexy female student. Headline reads, “We were let in for our looks? No. We will be judged by them? Yes.” Subhead says, “Who’s Hotter? Click to choose.” Under YOUR PICTURE voters agree you’re not.

This is the beginning of Facemash, which eventually became Facebook. This is MARK ZUCKERBERG’S idea of fun — making women feel like shit for his entertainment. IMAGINE what that girl must have felt when she saw NOT under her Harvard profile picture. IMAGINE if it was YOUR CHILD. Or YOU.

And here’s what ZUCKERBERG said the first night he released Facemash: “I almost want to put some of these faces next to pictures of some farm animals and have people vote on which is more attractive.”

This is MARK ZUCKERBERG then, and THIS IS MARK ZUCKERBERG NOW! He is still the same ugly, petty, small man/child, pulling the same ugly crap, indifferent to anyone but himself, ignoring the pain he is causing around the globe now.

Zuckerberg was already a second-year student at Harvard when he began Facemash. He was not a child. If ZUCKERBERG was a decent man, a man of compassion, empathy, not cruelty, he never would have COPIED HOT OR NOT, an app that was already out there. Zucky just ripped it off! To debase Harvard WOMEN. Shame on you ZUCKY, and your MAMA and PAPA, for not teaching you how to treat others with respect and kindness!

ZUCKERBERG is still indifferent to anyone but his own needs, even today. His Facebook recommendation engine helped get TRUMPY ELECTED! Twice! How? Facebook only shows you what ZUCKY WANTS YOU TO SEE. You do NOT see all your connection’s posts. ZUCKY only shows you posts that REFLECT YOU. Upset about inflation? FB will show you Russian and Republican advertisers (disguised as friends and connections) who sell you that Trump will fix the economy. We are all merely seeing posts that reflect our personal concerns and opinions now.

ZUCKY only sees his own reflection too. It’s what allowed him to debase women at Harvard. It is allowing him to keep his screwed-up recommendation engine on and running. Republicans spreading lies, ZUCKY doesn’t care. He cares about getting and keeping advertisers. His “fake news” AI department is a joke. I know someone working there, and they tell me he isn’t trying to stop it at all. It doesn’t serve him to do so. He wants advertisers, and you don’t get them, and keep them, limiting ad sales.

He got lucky debasing women from an app he RIPPED OFF. Now he’s god to so many in Silicon Valley. Sadly, they are so blinded by his “success” that they cannot see the ugly little man/child he was @Harvard and still is. Humans get our moral fiber, our value systems, between 0–8, maybe up to 10 years old. Mark clearly didn’t get much moral guidance from his parents. And amoral people rarely change. They need a brick to the head, to ‘hit bottom,’ and ZUCKY ain’t fallin any time soon. In fact, Mark’s aligned himself with powerful Republicans to protect his self-interests.

The spoiled, self-serving brat is guiding the world to disaster after reaping huge profits on fake news without restraint to get Trumpy elected again. We now have a fascist running our country [into the ground] for the second time. Why? On top of getting him elected again, ZUCKY is paying Trump millions (billions?) to stop the Fed’s from breaking up Mark’s META monopoly.

MARK ZUCKERBERG, your power was wielded by the wealth of your parentage — mere chance, dumb luck. You’ve prioritized status and image over compassion and authenticity. Behind every great fortune is a great crime. Your crime, Mark, is the narcissist you’ve chosen to be.

Imagine how you and your wife, Priscilla Chan, would feel if YOUR DAUGHTERS, Maxima and August, were voted NOT HOT, deemed UGLY their first year at Harvard, as no doubt they’ll go there with the money you have made on the wasted hours all of us have spent on FACEBOOK and INSTAGRAM.

DELETE Facebook

DELETE Instagram

Parenting

Trump

Musk

WhatsApp

Looking for Cancer

by jcafesin, posted in Uncategorized

I’m scared out of my mind, though I suppose I shouldn’t be. Cancer is not unexpected. I’ve been waiting for the diagnosis for years. Still, when I felt the tenderness in my breast a month ago I passed it off as a pulled muscle from weightlifting. I tried to ignore it last week too, told myself my breasts were just swollen from my impending period. But my husband felt it too during sex the other night. He moved the lump under my skin with the tips of his fingers, clearly troubled, and I had to stop pretending.

I find out the results from my biopsy tomorrow. A part of me already knows. They said it would feel ‘uncomfortable’ getting a core sample but it hurt like hell. As I sit here in McDonalds, across from my daughter, watching her stuff fries into her angelic face, I think of our limited time together. She runs off to the play structure and I wonder if she’ll remember me when I’m gone. She’s so young. I wonder how long she’ll miss me. I can’t help crying. People will see. I hide my face, stare down at the page.

It’s not death I fear. It’s the process of dying. I watched my mother grasp at every last second with each new experimental treatment while her body and mind withered, and it was horrific. I’ll opt for chemo, even though I don’t want to. I’ll do it for my kids, model not quitting, to never give up. Show them to fight for life against all odds. I’ll lose my hair, my thick auburn waves—my one feature I’ve always been proud of. I’ll be sick and tired all the time and it’ll all be for naught, just like my mom. Six months, a year, even a few, but cancer will kill me. Once it’s manifested in the system there is no stopping it.

It’s getting crowded in here now. Moms and dads with their kids eating Happy Meals celebrating life. I sit in the corner. I can’t stop the tears. My beautiful child comes running back to our table, her cheeks flush, her expression joyful. I’m afraid to look up, look in her eyes. She senses my fear. Her expression darkens. I’ve robbed her her joy. She asks me why I’m sad. I lie and say I’m not, tell her how beautiful she is. She hesitates, then smiles. She’s flattered but it falters as my eyes fill. I’ve never been brave and I suck at pretending. I’ve let her down again.

There’s a woman staring at me. Her infant son sits on her lap trying to suck a shake up his straw. He stares too. They’re wondering what’s wrong with me. It’s more than just cancer. I can’t breathe. I can’t hold it together. I’ve never been able to hold it together.

There’s no line for the slide, I inform my daughter. She hesitates and looks at the play structure then runs off to play, lost to the moment, lost from me. I stare down and write.

I’ve never dared write about things that profoundly scare me. The written word is so concrete, like casting a possibility into reality. I’m writing it down now because it doesn’t matter. The foundation was laid years ago. The result of reckless behavior is inevitable. I knew it then. I know it now. I’m writing it down because my fear is consuming me, and I don’t want to look up.

If I have it I’ll deserve it. It’s just a reprieve if I don’t. The bullet is coming at me. No doubt about it. I’m not being fatalistic. All the years of partying, smoking, six or more Diet Cokes a day, and of course genetics. I’m a realist. Nothing happens in a vacuum. I set this up with my obsession to be thin, and in. There’s no point in pondering if it was worth it. It’s done. Live healthier now? Somewhat. But I still partake in binging and treats and other bad habits. I only know how to go too far (a la Ed Sherran).

I feel her arms around my waist but know it’s my daughter from her embrace. I melt, barely contain sobbing. I gather her hands in mine and bend to kiss them then let go. She comes around the table and sits across from me. She’s staring at me, assessing my mood. I’m afraid to hold eye contact and look past her at the happy family at the table behind her. Don’t be sad, Mom, my daughter says, and I look at her. ’Cuz I’ll love you forever.

My beautiful child, forever is not as far as it used to be, I think to say but don’t of course. I’ll love you forever, too, baby, I assure her but it feels like I’m lying. Can’t love dead. If I hold her gaze another second and I’ll won’t be able to hold it together. You finished? I ask her as I gather the detritus we’ve left on the table.

She dramatically crunches her empty bag into a ball and goes to trash it. We’ll go home tonight, snuggle in bed and read aloud together. Her first—The Magic Tree House, then we’ll listen to her older brother read Harry Potter. They’ll both go to bed tonight, sleep soundly, and tomorrow will be just another day in a long life to come. Tomorrow will change my life forever forward, even if simply a precursor to what I know is coming.

I’m scared out of my fucking mind.

The Problem with Realtors

by jcafesin, posted in Uncategorized

I’m looking to buy a new home in Northern California. I peruse Redfin 5xs a day, (and yup, I’m OCD about real estate), then send links of homes that spark my interest to our real estate agent. This agent quickly and efficiently sold our last home a few years back. She made $81,000 on the sale. She’d sold our home in mid-summer 2021, racking up her 35th sale that year.

Our agent, Karen, knew us for 2 weeks collectively. Two weeks! And she didn’t focus on our property alone in those 2 weeks, so hours spent on selling our house was likely less than 40. That’s $2,025 an hour. That is obscene!

I’ve heard many realtors say, “Well, we have to split our commission with the buyer’s agent and our brokerage,” as if this is an excuse for how much they make off home sellers, and now buyers as well. Karen has a 70/30 split with her brokerage meaning she keeps 70% of $81,000, which is $56,700. Even splitting her commission with the buyer’s agent, Karen made over $700 an hour for placing an ad on MLS, showing our home to whoever showed up, and “staging” our home, which we paid for out of pocket.

Honestly, realtors are greedy middlemen/women, who offer little to no value. In fact, for private buyers and sellers of property, they are literally in our way, an anchor we are forced to engage with and pay because the real estate industry has set it up this way. The National Association of Realtors (NAR) is the largest lobby in the country, lobbying congress and city councils to do their bidding. Try selling your home as a private owner and agents won’t show it to clients unless they get a commission on the sale. Worse, they bad talk the FSBOs to their clients. I know. Tried selling a rental property on our own and the few potential buyers who came by told us their agents refused to show our house because they wouldn’t, ‘in all good conscience, waste their client’s time showing them crap housing.’

I’ve never actually met a real estate agent or broker with a conscience.

I get this is offensive, but is it not offensive, in fact vulgar to be ripped-off for tens of thousands of dollars with every sale of property?

While it’s true I do not trust realtors, the real estate agents/brokers I’ve known, and I’ve known many, have taught me not to. My half-brother is a residential agent. His IQ is below 100 (making academic or practical learning difficult), busted for stealing cars to robbing houses again and again through his teens, failed out of middle school then high school, and retired at 55 a multimillionaire from his home sales in Simi Valley, a Christian enclave north of Los Angeles.

My half-brother is Born-Again and used his influence in the local churches to promote his real estate business to the mostly immigrant Latino influx. These were hardworking men and women, generally with two or more kids. They’d gathered together just enough savings for a very small down payment on a new home in the housing developments popping up across the valley. Of course my half-brother knew all this about them. Yet, he convinced these folks that an adjustable-rate mortgage would get them into a house because ARM loans require little down, and had relatively low monthly payments.

In 2008, the real estate industry crashed and the low ARM loans his buyers signed on for turned monthly mortgage payments from $2500 to $4500 virtually overnight. Thousands lost their homes to foreclosure in the following 5 yrs, unable to maintain their monthly payment. Brokers and agents manipulated the numbers to get these folks an absurdly low down payment, not caring or even considering that in as few as 3 yrs their payments would skyrocket. How would my half-brother know he was screwing his clients pushing ARM loans? All ARM loans “balloon.” The ARM “teaser rate” is attractive to lure the low-income in, but screw them over time. Banks always win, get the most they can.

Like realtors, I’ve never actually met a banker, lender, or person in finance with a conscience.

While the banks, regulators, and rating agencies were publicly slapped in the 2008 Crash, I heard no mention nor read one article about realtors pushing deceptive loan practices on buyers.

My sister flips housing with the help of her husband. My brother-in-law is a commercial broker. The two of them are millionaires 10xs over from their adventures in real estate. From drowning a kitten in a neighbor’s pool at 5, to forging our mom’s signature on report cards, to shoplifting, to wearing whatever facade necessary to get what she wanted, my sister seemed without conscience growing up.

I’ve worked with well over 20 realtors in the purchasing and selling of personal and rental properties over the last 30 yrs. Without exception, they all have only one agenda — too make as much money as quickly as possible. They claim their value add is an extensive knowledge of the housing market, but with tools like Redfin, I am able to find homes that interest me as quickly or quicker than agents do while they’re busy showing properties or marketing for more clients.

Last Saturday my DH and I went to several open houses. The realtors didn’t know virtually any details about the houses they were selling. No clue where the water heater or furnace were, whether the house was gas or electric, age of roof, the crime rate or local schools…etc. The prices were hugely variable, some hundreds of thousands less than comparable houses only a block away. The realtor likely recommended the seller undervalue their home, as our agent, Karen, did with ours when she sold it. “I want to create a bidding war,” she’d told us. Well, of course she did with the house so undervalued. Our $150k hit only translated to a few thousand in commission loss for her.

Realtors claim to have their clients’ best interests at heart but charge a 5–6% commission extorting sellers and now buyers too for homes close to or over 1M, which is the average cost for most single-family homes around any major city today. November 2024, a law was passed forcing buyers to sign agreements with a realtor before viewing any property. This nationwide law also requires buyers to give an average of 3% commission to the agent were forced to sign with. Now, realtors get upwards of 7% — 9% commissions making it impossible for most first-time buyers to get a home with the additional payouts agents require.

There are realtors on every corner because it is a simple test to pass with no real education required, and the monetary rewards can be limitless. These are middlemen/women with their hand out, greedy, manipulative, ugly people. They are not ‘on your side.’ They are not your friend. Yet, we are forced to work with them, by the laws the NAR lobby put in place.

Sent a link to a home I wanted more info on to Karen a few days ago, as I, a private buyer, can now only get data on houses for sale through an agent. She sent me back the home’s disclosures (details about the house) and tried to convince me to buy it even though the house was flooded so badly in the crawlspace it could not be inspected. The traffic noise from the fwy “doesn’t bother me,” she told me, though the background hum of traffic drown out her voice on the videos she sent me. “You should start your opening bid at 1.7 to make sure you bid high enough to be in the running,” she said, though the house was listed for 1.5M, and a wreck. Another home I sent her for more info was literally falling off the side of a hill that I couldn’t see in the photoshopped images from Redfin. Karen assured me that the home was “just fine,” even though the inspector found massive cracks in the foundation. And again, she insisted we overbid. She undervalued our home for sale to make money fast. She’s overvaluing any home we look at buying to make the most commission possible.

Want to know why you can’t afford to buy a house?

Your realtor will tell you that you can, even when you can barely cover your current rent. They’ll tell you the house is solid even when it’s flooding or falling off a cliff. They’ll tell you to overbid your offer to “be competitive” regardless of the real value of the home. And they’ll demand upwards of 6% or more in commission from the seller if they can’t negotiate 3+% from the buyer (or likely even if they can).

My family of realtors, to the 20+ I’ve worked with over the years, I’ve never found an honest agent. When I was a kid, I too felt proud of my half-brother watching him dance with our mom around the living room of our childhood home because she was so proud of him passing the realtor’s test (third time’s a charm). Now I understand it was the only career he could have had — real estate agent, or car salesman, or insurance salesman, or pill pusher for big pharma — morally corrupt, greedy middleman careers without a conscience.

6M Yrs of Human Evolution

by jcafesin, posted in Uncategorized

or Review of The Hunger Games series…

ONE WISH. Right now. What would it be? Mom asked me and my sister on our drive home from school when I was 10. She often came up with non sequiturs to kill the silence following our monosyllabic responses when she asked about our day.

To get those new knee-high black leather boots, my sister said, and she paused for our mom’s response but got none. Which I know you won’t let me, she snapped.

What about you, Dolly? What would you wish for, Mom asked, looking at me in the rear view mirror.

World peace. I gave her my canonical answer when anyone asked what I’d wish for. I wanted it more than anything else, growing up watching my mom cry fixed on the TV News looking for her son, a front line Marine in the jungles of Vietnam at the height of the war.

What a stupid answer, my sister proclaimed. Never happen. Why don’t you ever wish for something you could actually get?

I slumped, but crossed my arms over my chest and countered, Peace is possible. Anything is possible.

Not world peace, she assured me. She was parroting our father.

Nothing ever changes, was Dad’s canonical refrain. Humans are aggressive, territorial, warring beings. We will always be combative, competitive, violent— a product of our foundation, forever encoded in our DNA.

Not true, I’d argue through the years. We’ve advanced from apes, developed complex languages, laws to protect and care for each other. We’ve risen from hunter/gatherers to farmers that now feed billions, created technology that allows us to communicate globally—

And we’ve invented better ways of killing each other, was always Papa’s rejoinder.

But we can learn how not to, I’d add with less vigor, sensing he was right, at least in that we’d invented a way of killing every living thing on our planet decades before I was born.

–

Fast forward 20+ years— a generation drop. Went to see Dances With Wolves at the Piedmont Theater with some friends. An epic film, made for the big screen, about an Army Lieutenant’s experience with Native Americans in the Dakota/Wyoming territories in the mid 1800s. Opening scene: U.S. civil war, blood, gore and all. Two scenes in, Army Captain blows his brains out. Couple scenes later, wagon driver pierced threw the chest with an arrow. Scene after scene showed violence. Americans killing Americans; Americans killing Indians; Indians killing Americans; Indians killing Indians with warring tribes. Ten minutes before the film ended I’d had enough. I ran from the theater, outside to the curb and threw up in the gutter.

My father is right. My father is right, was screaming in my head. We were engaged in the Gulf War back then, yet another stupid skirmish over territorial control, like dogs peeing to mark their spot. We’re better than this, a part of me pleaded. No. We’re not, I heard my dad say.

A beater BMW full of young guys watched me as they slowed almost to a stop alongside me on the curb. The driver stuck his tongue out and waggled it at me. A guy in the back seat behind the driver was catcalling me, making whistling noises like he was calling his pet. Piedmont is a wealthy suburb of Oakland, but it isn’t immune to assaults or drive-bys. Fear and disgust suddenly had me retching in the gutter again and the BMW took off.

My father is right. Nothing ever changes. We’re still barbarians, taking what we can, killing each other over nothing everywhere. My father is right.

I was blowing the blind date my girlfriend and her new husband set me up with that evening, silently staring down at the sidewalk while he paced me as the four of us walked to the Rockridge Cafe near the theater. I couldn’t stop tears from welling as we all sat down for a late dinner, excused myself and hid in the bathroom to get it together, but stood in the rather small, dim space and cried. Within moments my friend knocked to come in.

What is going on, she demanded, less concerned than annoyed. My ‘date’ was a friend of her husbands, and I suppose I was shaming them.

I apologized, willed myself to stop crying, but almost every time I blinked tears fell anyway. It’s just…I hesitated. Then I tried to explain to her I’d spent a lifetime denying my father’s ideology, and it turns out he may be right about humanity. We are a doomed race, with the emotional maturity of monkeys and the technology to annihilate our planet.

What difference does it make what we are or aren’t, my friend snapped. There’s no way to know what’ll happen in the future, so why worry about it? And if you’re a little less sad sack, even if you don’t like Mike (the date), you’ll find a guy like I have if you lighten up. You’ll start a family, move to some safe enclave with people like us and you’ll be so busy raising your kids and living the life you won’t feel a need to save the world anymore.

I stopped crying then, wiped my eyes on my sleeve and looked at her. She sounded like my pollyanna mother. You don’t get it. What’s the point of having kids if not to move us toward a more creative, compassionate, kinder, equitable future? Seriously, do you really want our kids, or theirs, or their kids kids to wade through the mire of the crap we do today? The sexism? The systemic racism and inequity it perpetuates? The violence we tolerate. Still!

She just stared at me. Then, You really need to chill! Splash some water on your face then come out and have a glass of wine or two, or three, and something to eat and you’ll feel better. And be nice! She commanded before reaching for me and pulling me in for a hug then left the bathroom.

–

Fast forward 20+ years more— another generation drop. Just finished The Hunger Games series with my 13 year old son. Normally, I never see movies or read books that involve kids getting hurt anymore. As a parent, I can’t touch that terror. But my son insisted Suzanne Collins was the ‘best writer he’s ever read,’ a high endorsement for a kid who reads three or more books a month, and requested we read it together for our traditional nightly read. And as a fiction writer, I just had to see why my kid loved this series so much more than any before it.

The first book, The Hunger Games, was captivating at first read. Engaging. Fast. Edgy, but a smooth, entertaining ride. Knowing there were two more books in the series made it plausible the main character, Katness, went along with the games with only the vaguest of questions about the morality behind them. Alliances were formed for survival, not partnering for innovation or love. The novel focused on the games themselves, the dystopian society, exploitative, ugly, and violent in the extreme, but it didn’t occur to me until the end of the first book there were no real characters on the pages. Ultimately, most everyone was out for themselves.

The Hunger Games was sad, dark, deeply disturbing from opening line to closing sentence, a grotesque statement on our character— Ms. Collins’s self-proclaimed interpretation on the popularity of the reality show Survivor. My son promised me the series provided a happy ending.

We finished Mockingjay last week, the last book in the series. The novel was disjointed, too many quick cuts with no real depth scene after scene. Beyond exploitative, reading it was like watching CNN— a barrage of video clips of what’s happening, and only the briefest explanation (and generally singular POV) as to why. And though Katness and her band of tortured cronies eventually win the day, the author makes it very clear the new order is the same as the old one, equally ugly, most having learned nothing from their past persecution and perilous fight to overthrow ‘the Capitol.’

My father is right, according to Suzanne Collins.

Nothing ever really changes is not a happy ending. After finishing the full series, I realize the novels are more effect than substantive content, on par with reality TV, as the writer claimed was her model for the series.

Been feeling somewhat ripped off for wasting my time with her three novels, and a bit pissed off for the message that Ms. Collins is subtly selling to our children.

My husband and I are raising our kids with the belief that people are malleable. We can, will, and do change. In fact, the human race is in the process of change constantly, albeit slowly, and not just our physicality, but our minds— we are evolving beings. We encourage the notion we can reach our amazing potential for invention, empathy, connection, with enough collective intelligence to create and sustain flourishing societies through communication, cooperation, compassion, and compromise. We promote these concepts to empower our children with the mindset they are changeable, bad habits are breakable, contempt and anger minimized when we are respected, feel valued, loved. War, famine, disease, hate are all eventually resolvable if we allow our massively complex, creative brains a safe harbor to thrive.

Idealist, my father, and seemingly Suzanne Collins mock me. Better an idealist then the cynic resigned to impending doom, or the author who exploits our frailties from voyeurism to sadism for book sales and then lays our current character flaws in stone to our children.

We must believe fundamental change in our character and nature are possible for each of us to begin living our kinder, smarter, more creative and productive selves forward.

How to Train Your Dog

by jcafesin, posted in Uncategorized

My husband takes our 6-yr-old Shephard-mix pound-hound to the park every weekday afternoon to play Frisbee. I take Ellie Maze on the weekends. I stand at the top of the hill and toss the disk as far as I can to get her running since she’s a ‘high-energy’ dog and needs the daily workout.

At breakfast this morning my husband was upset with our dog.

“Ellie won’t get in my car to go to Frisbee anymore. I had to take her in your car again to get her to come with me.” He paused, glared at Ellie laying near the kitchen table on her fluffy blanket listening to our dialog. The dog stared back at him then looked at me. “Thing is, I get she wanted you to take her, and not me.” I could tell by his pout he wasn’t happy about our dog’s bratty behavior. “I take her 5 days a week and somehow that’s not good enough. She wants you to take her.”

Ellie Maze is a brat, to just about everyone, but me. Raised by four adults, the dog has two grown kids and my husband and I placating to her needs.

“I don’t know why she gravitates to you because we all take care of this dog,” my DH said. “You are her alpha. Clearly,” he added, looking down at El, who’s looking at me. “Is it just cuz you trained her when she was a pup?”

“I was on her more than anyone else, but we all trained her. Give a dog what they need, and consistently express what you need from them, and it’s really not hard to train most dogs.”

“For you. You’re like the Dog Whisperer,” he said, and believed it.

“I’m not. All you gotta do is talk to them. I talk to this dog, and every dog I’ve had, constantly, from the day I got them as puppies. Communication is key, and easy with a dog. Simple, unlike humans. Dogs wanta please. So, I wanta please them. Perfect synergy! Mutual respect.”

“I talk to this dog all the time,” my DH defended.

I shook my head. “Not so much. You talk at her, give her commands, or praise her cuteness, or her prowess.”

“You do too!” he snapped.

“Yeah, I do. I too melt with her cuteness,” I said, looking at Ellie, her rocket ears up, her big brown eyes fixed on me. “But at Frisbee, I talk to her about needing a break, ask if she wants to wait before the next toss. And she does wanta wait, a lot, especially after we’ve been playing a while. So, we wait. She stands by me or even leans against me and pants, and drools.” I flash a smile at my husband, but he doesn’t acknowledge it, so I continued. “I’ve asked her to walk around me to cue me up when she’s ready for the next catch, and she does now. Didn’t take her long to get my meaning. She gets what she needs from me at Frisbee which is why she wants to go with me more than anyone else.”

“On Sunday, when you hurt your back at Pickleball, Ellie sat on her blanket and stared at me when I tried to get her to come for Frisbee. She would not move and did not respond to my repeated commands to “Come!” He looked at our dog and Ellie’s huge ears went slack. “And she didn’t come, until you commanded her to go with me.”

“But I didn’t command her. I told her about hurting my back, and that I couldn’t take her, even though I normally do on the weekends. I looked her in the eyes and acknowledged her disappointment, as I would with any child. Dogs never really ‘mature’ beyond human adolescence. And regardless we all anthropomorphize our pets, most dogs aren’t born with a lot of hangups. Kids aren’t either. Expectations from parents, friends, social media creates them in us.” I smiled at my husband. He looked at Ellie. She looked back at him passively, then looked at me, the intensity of her stare connecting us. She stuck the tip of her tongue out, practically licked her lips — her classic mooch. Then she got up and came to me for strokes.

Combating the Darkness Within

by jcafesin, posted in Uncategorized

Sometimes, when all is black in my head and heart, I imagine I’ll write something brilliant that justifies the darkness within. But when I’m depressed like this, I cannot motivate myself to create. My muse is standing on my bedroom balcony flipping me off while my curser blinks on the blank screen in front of me in my office/workshop.

This essay is simply on depression, living with it in a world that puts on masks — wears facades online and in-person, because we’re not allowed to feel bad, or at least show it. We’re allowed to feel frustrated, annoyed, or disappointed, in moments, but they better not last too long, or be too intense, like when feeling angry translates into yelling. Even in anger, we’re supposed to retain our composure.

I suck at pretending. I can’t pull off the ‘I’m OK Buddy’ when I’m not. Most of you reading this are much better at wearing faces. Most people are. But depression, that feeling there is something stuck in your throat that you can’t swallow, that with every breath it feels as if you’re sighing — trying to shed the weight in your chest — makes putting on a mask particularly difficult because you’re spending so much energy just trying to breathe.

Commercials for drugs to combat depression are all over the media. They come with a list like: Using this product may make you dizzy; nauseous; stop breathing; feel even more depressed; become suicidal even if you weren’t before the drug; die. Wow. Thanks, but no thanks. I don’t need to take Lexapro to help motivate me to kill myself.

I’ve tried Prozac, a long time ago. I was allergic. It almost killed me. I’ve tried Xanex, which is by far the most popular drug for depression. All it did was make me sleepy. I’m already tired all the time.

Therapists like to talk, or for me to talk. And talk. And talk. Business 101 — you make more money with continuing clients than having to find new ones. I want ACTIONABLE things to do, other than taking drugs or talking to a shrink once a week, which just makes me poorer, and even more depressed.

What is “depression” anyway? I mean, everyone gets depressed occasionally, regardless of the masks we wear. Technically, and absurdly simply, depression lies in our chemistry — dopamine, serotonin, endorphins, and oxytocin — these ‘happiness hormones’ are not adequately delivered to the pleasure centers of our brain. It is commonly accepted that some are born with inadequate levels of these hormones, or there is a problem with their release inside the brain. Clinical depression seemingly has a genetic component, but this has yet to be proven as hard fact.

Episodes of depression affect most people when events in our lives hurt us. For most, the length and severity of feeling sad is usually consummate with the event itself. Losing a loved one, or losing the lottery generally solicits dramatically different responses. As it should. Most let their feelings of sadness dissipate, and often forget them entirely over time. I’ve spent a lifetime envying these folks.

Those of us suffering from depression internalize pain. It resides in us, like a cut, or injury that just won’t heal. We hang on to our hurts, from minor slights to major losses. And whether born with an imbalance, or too many painful life events, when sadness sticks, builds up and gets thick, every day feels like wading through molasses. If depression festers long enough it will eventually kill you. It strips us of the single motivating factor that keeps us all alive through dark times… hope.

Curing depression is paramount. Over 90% of those who attempt or commit suicide are clinically depressed. Suicide is the 10th leading cause of death worldwide, which is a shame because so often emotionally wired people are the creators, writers, artists, innovators, and builders of societies. It is believed Abraham Lincoln suffered from depression.

The only way to help reverse or at least halt the chemical cascade into darkness is to actualize pleasure. I realize an effect of depression is finding no joy in anything, but those of you living with that weight in your chest with most every breath KNOW that JOY is attainable even when we are consumed with sadness. A rainbow is still beautiful. A double-rainbow extraordinary. The taste of our favorite food, or a hug when we’re scared, or lonely; backrubs; creating something — these things are still pleasurable. The Pacific cresting at 40ft is still awe-striking; a field of blooming flowers still visually stunning…etc.;-}.

Living, existing as human, is all about FEELING. The good, the bad, the sad, the wondrous, the awesome, the magnificent empowerment of feeling loved, respected, and valued. The charge that comes with creation. The suffocating black hole with loss.

Are you living with depression?

If so, SEEK and FIND JOY and pleasure. NOT self-destructive behavior, like drinking or using drugs for momentary relief, as trying to bury feelings, even temporarily, will increase depression. DO things, stuff that turns you on, makes you feel — if not good — at least glad/positive you get to see it, taste it, experience it — without regret later! ACCOMPLISHING TASKS also lights up our brain’s pleasure centers. String enough joy and accomplishments together, even simple things like eating right; exercising, and, over time, continually reminding your brain you are choosing to experience living will reinforce your desire to do so.

PIC BY Malek Hammoud Tuwaijri / CATERS NEWS -These hot pictures of silhouettes playing in the desert are really sun-thing special. The pictures appear to show two young students playing football and fooling around with a glowing ball. But on closer inspection, its clear that the ball is actually the setting sun. The two boys in the desert are silhouetted against the setting sun creating a bright orange sky.SEE CATERS COPY

Gen Z Dating IRL

by jcafesin, posted in Uncategorized

My 25 yr old son started dating someone for the first time in his life, and what I’ve been wishing for him isn’t happening as I’d hoped.

I was excited by the idea of him dating. It made me sad he didn’t in high school, or even in college when most of his contemporaries were. It made my son sad too. He was lonely a lot, and like so many guys of his gen chose gaming to risking rejection.

I was on him constantly. ‘There’s a tech meetup in the city.’ He’s a software dev. ‘There’s a speed dating thing on EventBright.’ Of course, I was infantalizing him, but I couldn’t just sit there watching my kid waste his life away in front of a computer screen turning into an incel. I’m his mom. I love him. I had to do something to encourage him to go out, so I found networking and dating events and needled him to go.

He went out when I pushed him, so I kept pushing, but he didn’t meet anyone because he didn’t try engaging. He’d go, and then leave the event within an hour or so to say he went. ‘See! I’m going out, but I’m wasting my time and money. I feel stupid at bars or clubs and hate going to them. I feel like I’m boring and I have nothing to say. I’m going for you, Mom, so you’ll get off my back.’

But I didn’t. His sister and I helped him set up a Tinder account, which yielded even more hurt feelings when he consistently got no matches. He tried Bumble BFF, just for friends since he had none of those IRL either. Most guys who responded were gay, looking for a lover, not just friends. By his own measure, my son is heterosexual.

I don’t know the line I’m supposed to stay behind in regards to my involvement in his life. At 25, I’ve been his mom, his mentor, his closest, and only confidant. I watched him suffer through bouts of depression so dark I was afraid he’d commit suicide. My fear was so pervasive when he went black, I made a deal with him. I won’t. He can’t. ‘Till after you’re dead, Mom,’ was the only way he’d agree. Lonely is a killer, on par with heart disease and cancer.

It made me sad that my son hadn’t had a friend that lasted, no girlfriend, or sex yet. His isolation scared me. Twenty six was coming. Clinical depression often manifests in males at 26. So I kept pushing him to find friends, lovers, girlfriends — people to experience life with. And he kept getting nowhere on Tinder and at Meetups until he got on Facebook Friends and met Grace.

Recent BS in Data Science, she is 23, works half the year in Manhattan and half the year remotely for a small tech startup in New York. Born and raised in South Korea, her devout Christian family relocated here when Grace was 10. I’ve raised both my kids without religion and to value character over culture. Kindness is what they should seek and treasure. And a safe harbor when together.

They began a friendship with Grace’s invites to parties and tech events to attend together. At most of them she was on her phone, or taking selfies for her socials. When she went back to Manhattan, they spoke on the phone often, for hours, mostly about her life, her many health issues, her job. She asked him few questions, didn’t really engage with his responses, often putting him down for what she felt was his lack of ambition in business, and in becoming a master musician. My son plays the guitar, sax, and piano well, but for enjoyment. Grace made it clear she considered him weak whenever he cried. She expected attention, encouragement, empathy, but gave none.

To say my son was desperate for connection would be understating his psyche’s need to associate with people other than me and his sister. His relationship with his father is fraught and he doesn’t feel comfortable being vulnerable with his dad. While he complained to me about Grace’s hurtful behavior often, she was all he had, so he kept talking to her, and hanging out with her when she was in town.

Six months into their friendship, and coming up on the holidays (when being single particularly sucks), Grace began to hint to my son she was looking for more. She stroked him, telling him he was cute, smart, witty. She became a lot more touchy — squeezing his arm or his hand kind of thing, my son relayed to me one evening in early December.

‘I don’t know what to do, Mom,’ he said. ‘I don’t wanta wreck our friendship cuz I like a lot about Grace — she’s smart, educated, ambitious, a math-head. But I don’t think I want to get into a romantic relationship with her.’

My heart sank. This girl was clearly interested in more with my son and he was rejecting her. He was blowing an opportunity to experience an intimate relationship without exploring the possibility that Grace simply didn’t know what he needed/wanted, and if he clued her in she may indeed be responsive. I asked him many questions about their interactions and listened to his misgivings. I suggested he voice his frustrations with her hurtful behavior. If Grace really wanted to be intimate, she’d acknowledge his trepidation and at least try to be less critical, and distracted, and show more interest in him.

Days later my son and Grace were officially a couple. He told me she’d agreed to put her phone away, and did, right before she kissed him…

And I’d love to say this story is happily ever after, but not so much.

It’s been over a month since their coupling. My son is stressed all the time. He literally passed out, the only time in his entire life, when she was at him for not playing the piano to her standards a couple weeks back. He had a bruise on his forehead and headaches for days. They spent New Year’s Eve together and consummated their boyfriend/girlfriend status, but their sex has been rather fraught. Being called “Daddy” doesn’t really work for him.

He talks to me about his relationship with Grace without my prompting because I raised my kids to freely express their feelings and thoughts to me throughout their lives with my solemn oath not to reprimand or judge them with their disclosures. It’s a hard promise to keep sometimes, but I guess for the most part I have because they trust me enough to confide in me. Again, I don’t know the line moms and sons are not supposed to cross in our communication. I’m still his most trusted confidant. I was hoping a girlfriend would take on at least part of that role, but Grace hasn’t.

The last couple of days he’s been asking me if he should break up with her. Dating eight weeks now, he’s falling behind in his Master’s program, he’s exhausted, anxious, tense a lot. Of course, I could not tell him what to do so I threw his question back at him.

‘You’re a math guy,’ I started. He nodded. ‘What percent of your time together would you say you’ve had fun with Grace?’

He thought about it a minute, then went through a couple fun dates and events he’d taken her to, since when they became a couple, my son’s been paying for everything they do. Then he added, ‘Maybe 20% has been fun with her. The rest has been pretty stressful. I get why you’re crazy now.’

He was referring to my 29 yr marriage to his father. Ouch. ‘Do what I’ve said, not what I’ve done,’ but I knew it was crap as it left my mouth.

‘Bullshit.’ He said it like dropping a bomb. ‘Kids do what we see.’

‘Yeah. I know,’ I admitted, guilt suffocating me. ‘I’m sorry your dad and I have had so much discord. I’m sorry I modeled staying with someone who objectified me.’

Like Grace does me. I really think she’s looking for a daddy figure. I want a partner, someone who’s a safe harbor, like I’ve been trying to be for her. He flashed a half-grin like ‘Surprise! I was listening.’

‘Touche,’ I said smiling back at him. And for a second I feel that electric connection between us. I don’t trust my parenting that I’ve set my kids up to take care of themselves better than I’ve taken care of me. And I want so much more for them in their relationships than to become filled with contempt. The best I can tell ya honey, is communicate. Tell Grace how you feel and why. Listen to her too. Maybe you two can still forge a path together. And maybe not.’

‘I get it. I just wanta feel like both of us are doing the 4 Steps.’ He grinned again.

I did too.

‘Gotta get back,’ he said, and got up from the table. ‘Thanks, Mom.’ Then he kissed the top of my head and left the kitchen.

The 4 Steps to Better Relationships (to which my son was referring):

  1. We are a TEAM.
  2. What does my partner need/want?
  3. What do I need/want?
  4. Compromise.