Entry 70: Old Man Problems (and Where All The Women At)

I’m not an old man yet, by any measure, but I’m starting to notice the onset of some old man problems. For instance, I can never keep my undershirt tucked in. This bothers me because when it’s not tucked in I get “drafty”. The weather here is getting chilly, so I usually wear a t-shirt with a sweater or sweatshirt (jumpers, as they call them here). I like to keep the t-shirt tucked in, because otherwise cool air gets in and makes my back cold.

But, for some reason, I can never keep it tucked in. Maybe I need to get longer shirts or start wearing suspenders or a singlet or something. Whatever the case may be, I’m constantly fiddling with my shirt and my belt, and that’s an old man thing to do. I never had this problem as a young man. I don’t know if it’s because my shirts stayed tucked in or because I didn’t care if they came untucked or what. All I know is, I never had this problem before, I have it now, and it’s annoying.

Also, I forget things now, and I used to never forget things, ever. That’s a bit of an exaggeration, obviously, but not much of one. I had a fantastic memory, especially of people. I’d meet somebody once briefly, see them years later and be able to place them instantly. I had such a good memory of people that I used to pretend that I didn’t remember people, especially chicks, so that I wouldn’t come off as some sort of weirdo. “Hey, I know you. Summer Smith. Yeah, we were in the same freshman English class for two weeks, three years ago. You lived in Mathis Hall and once wrote an essay on the importance of sleep for college students. You used to sit with your friend Julie… What?… No… No, I’m not a stalker.”

Now, I forget people and things all the time. I recently came across a photo of my old lacrosse team from about 10 years ago, and I couldn’t remember a bunch of people’s names, or I could only remember their first names, but not their last names. Things like this just didn’t happen when I was younger.

Also, access is a bit slower now for things I do remember. I’m not lightning fast anymore. I frequently can’t come up with something when it’s relevant, and then later it pops into my brain out of nowhere. This happened just yesterday. I was talking about the band Nick Cave (an Aussie, by the way) was in after the Badseeds, and couldn’t remember their name, despite the fact that I had just heard an interview with him, in which this band was referenced many times. An hour later, out of the blue, “Grinderman! It’s Grinderman,” but at this point nobody cares. The brain is an odd thing.



Speaking of the brain, I read a really interesting paper recently about the underrepresentation of women in mathematics. As a math major, this is something that has always interested me. It’s almost completely a male dominated field (which sucks for single dudes, by the way, when I first started grad school, I made sure to make some friends in the English department). Nobody really knows why. There have been various theories espoused (one of which precipitated the dismissal of a very prominent university president), but nothing very satisfactory.

The authors of this paper performed a study, and what they found is that among people who believe that math is mostly an innate skill (a “gift” that you have or don’t have), women score much worse than men on math tests. Among people who believe that math is a learned skill (something you can cultivate), women and men score the same, and generally they both score higher than the other group. So basically, if teachers can convince girls that they can learn to be good at math, it will probably go a long way in closing the current gender gap.



Interesting stuff, to be sure, but it begs two questions. 1) Is math a learned skill or an innate skill? 2) Why is there a male-female disparity in scoring in the group that believes mathematical skill is a gift?

Concerning 1), I’m definitely of the opinion that it’s more a learned talent than a gift. I mean, maybe not everybody can be Gauss, no matter how hard they work, but I think just about everybody can learn the basics of college-level math through calculus, if they applied themselves. Usually when people say, “I just can’t do math,” what they really mean is, “I don’t like math and don’t want to put in the time and effort it will take to learn it.”

In my opinion, it’s like this for most things. “I just suck at sports” equals “I never learned to play as a kid.” “I can’t lose weight” equals “I don’t want to maintain the discipline it takes to diet and exercise properly.” “I’m a sex addict” equals “I don’t want to stop sending pictures of my junk to women who aren’t my wife, but I have to, because I got caught, so I’ll try to convince everybody that it is some sort of uncontrollable urge.” (OK, that last one might not be very fitting, but you get my point.) There are obviously exceptions. Some people really do have physical constraints, but in my opinion, for the overwhelming majority of people, it’s about the willingness to put in the time and effort it takes to get good at something, not about innate limitations.

For me personally, I always tell people I’m just not gifted musically, but when I “played” the saxophone in middle school, I hated it. I hated music class in general, I almost never practiced, and I just generally sloughed it off. I was a finger player, meaning whenever we had performances in front of audiences, I was asked to just finger the notes and not actually make any sound with my instrument.

In 7th grade, I was relegated to the “B Band” and then, literally, kicked out of band altogether. The band teacher called my house and left a message for my parents on the answering machine, telling them he would like it if I switched to a different course. That actually happened (and I was ecstatic, when it did, by the way). So, I say, “I just don’t have any musical talent,” but when I actually had the opportunity to learn something about music, I was a fuckoff. Had I actually applied myself, who knows? Maybe I would be able to play an instrument or carry a tune now.



Concerning 2), I don’t know why this is, but if I had to venture a guess, I’d say it has something to do with the male ego. I’m not sure if it’s something biological or evolutionary or what, but dudes seem to be more sure of themselves than chicks, even when they have less reason to be. Maybe in the case of math, male ego kind of cancels out any preconceived doubts a dude has about his innate abilities.

Along similar lines, men also seem to be more competitive than women. In the Scrabble documentary Word Wars, a good female player is asked why they are so few women among very elite Scrabble players (zero in the current top twenty) and her answer is (I’m paraphrasing): “Women just don’t care as much if they dominate.” Maybe men are more attracted to competitive environments than women (and math can get very competitive as you get further along). I don’t know.

Anyway, on a completely different topic, I watched a truly terrible movie last night: Brain Smasher… A Love Story, starring Andrew Dice Clay and Teri Hatcher. (I know, I know, with those two costars, how could it possibly fail?) It vacillates between entertainingly horrible and just plain horrible. I recommend anybody who wants to be a comedian watch it. Guaranteed, they’ll be thinking, “Andrew Dice Clay, if I this guy can make it…” The Dice Man, seriously, what a hack. How did he ever get popular? I mean his fingerless batting glove / sweatband look is pretty awesome and all, but…



I’ve also started watching a new TV series Breaking Bad. It stars Bryan Cranston (the dad from Malcolm in the Middle) as an underachieving high school chemistry teacher who gets terminal lung cancer and starts making meth as a way to finance his treatment and leave his family some money before he kicks off. It’s a great premise, because it allows the character, a normal guy, to do really abnormal things. If you know you’re going to die in a few years, and the only thing you care about is making money to leave for your family, what risks would you not be willing to take?



It has a bit too much faky cop-show-style action in it, but it’s really good. I’m
enjoying it. I’ve watched at least an episode a night for the last week, and I’m already through the first season and a half in a week. I’m not going to watch any episodes tonight, though. It’s pretty intense and can be depressing (What? A show about cancer and drugs, depressing?), so I’m taking a break.

Well, that pretty much sticks a fork in this entry. I’ll just go out on a boastful note. I recently received an email from Will Shortz and in it he mentioned the following, “BTW, I've just finished a second collection of my favorite daily NYT crosswords, this time from 2002-10 ... and you have two puzzles in it!”

That’s right. Who’s the man?