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I thought the movie lame. Incredibly lame. There were a few embarrassing bits that I crawled underneath the covers not wanting to watch as per norm, but the whole end bit where Hitch declares his undying love (to be fair, I'm not really creating any spoilers here), I thought it was a credit to Will Smith's acting skills that he did it with a straight face.

My girlfriend and I agreed that no man we ever met has been that eloquent about his feelings. In fact I believe that unless he's writing it and he's had plenty of time to consider his words, no man will go the full mile and spout in public a lot of words declaring his love for me especially with the very real possibility of my rejection of it. And it was completely unrealistic to think Will Smith's character would go back to her after the stunt that she pulled.

In general, I love romance novels. But I hate romantic comedys. I think it's because in novels, at least I have the chance to just skip the page. But watching a movie and watching a man actually pretend to be someone's opinion of the romanticised ideal of what women want is really not my cup of tea. I've only had one man tell me seriously that he loved me, but he said it in the most simple way, using the most simple words and all that needed to be said was said in his eyes. It took him a fair while in our relationship for him to get to that point too. None of this "I met you three days ago and now I'm in love with you" kind of thing.

I'd like to think that the guy that I'm in love with, can see it in my eyes when I look at him. None of this verbose crap that comes spouting out of films that girls in this generation might expect their men to produce.

In Star Wars, when Leia says to Han Solo "I love you" and his reply is simply "I know" is what I think the kind of thing that really happens. I know I like to verbalise things, and sometimes I'd like the validation of a response, but in my experience with men and the collective of the stories from my girlfriends, it's what a man does that is real. And if he says something, anything at all, you better be paying attention. He says what he means even though he could be confused as to what he is saying.

For the longest time, I couldn't look at Death Angel in the eye. Because I knew that my eyes would shine with the longing of a desperate hope, and I didn't want to see what I knew his eyes were telling me.

Who knows where we go from here. But I'll probably think very carefully before I agree to watch another romantic comedy. Comedy isn't supposed to be about realism in the first place - but I don't want my perception of what is real to change.]]> http://www.cecile.net.au/actuary/index.php?entry=entry070731-234237 Cecile Nguyen Wed, 01 Aug 2007 06:42:37 GMT http://www.cecile.net.au/actuary/comments.php?y=07&m=07&entry=entry070731-234237 http://www.cecile.net.au/actuary/index.php?entry=entry070609-034702 7. a. An engagement to go out socially with another person, often out of romantic interest.
b. One's companion on such an outing.
However in part 3a:-
3. a. A particular point or period of time at which something happened or existed, or is expected to happen.

I've been out twice with a boy. However, it has certainly been very interesting. In all my romantic love life including the protosexual time (as my mate Seafood calls it) in my extreme youth, I've never actually been out on a DATE. Definition 7, though I'm not quite certain if it is a romantic interest. I tended to jump in things head first with guys that I struck an attraction level with in a reasonably comfortable environment like university or via (Heaven forbid) the internets. So here I am, DATING. And it's weird. Like it's definitely nice because it's like seeing someone but still being single. I look forward to my dates with this nice guy Apple.

But I guess the real question that I should be pondering is Defintion 3a. i.e. the question 'Where is this leading?'.

A lot of people have said take the 'Wait and See' tactic. You wait around before making any commitment and in the interim most likely to never end up committing unless they force the issue. Take things slow, let love grow etc.

There's the 'Hard to Get' tactic. This implies that I've made the decision that I want this boy and that I'm just going to let him dangle on a string before reeling him in. Play with him heartlessly so he truly values me for the wonderful creature that I am. (NB I do not like the Hard to Get tactic and am sad that is works so well). Of course though, it could mean you risk playing so hard to get that they refuse to try to get you.

There's something I like to call the 'Upfront tactic'. And by that I mean you just spill exactly what is on your mind, tell them what you want from them and wait for them to respond. Now I've been told unequivocally by many parties to NOT PURSUE THIS TACTIC. Because apparently this tactic makes many people run away because they are not ready as they are playing other tactics - usually the 'Wait and See' one.This will upset the balance and hence you will be left out cold.

I prefer the 'Upfront' tactic. However statistically speaking, I have in the past had a 0% success rate. Some of the people I am really honest to have ended up being taken and thus they appreciate my honesty, are flattered by it, but nothing will happen except the start of a nice friendship. And then there are the others that run away because they don't know how to handle it. But to quote my boss of many summers ago "The past performance should not be used to indicate future performance".

My take on the situation is that if I don't be upfront from the start, then how will they deal with my usual bluntness and tactlessness on a regular basis? According to my mates though, if people are put off by it because I keep pushing the issue then they'll never have a chance to get to know me. But if I don't act on my attraction, then I will regret not having done it.

However one thing I do hate, is that now I'm taking the 'Wait and See' tactic because I really don't know how attracted I am. So I don't think about it too much. But when I mentioned to my friends that he cancelled our movie outing because he had to finish an assignment, my friends started analysing it saying 'Pfft if it was me and I was really that interested I would have gone' etc. which was really annoying because then I started to worry about it before I caught myself.

Which led me to think, how many doubts of your relationship can be caused by people's so-called analysis? Many people are insecure by nature and peer pressure (and I think of this as peer pressure) will only exacerbate it.

I think this whole dating game is rather confusing.]]> http://www.cecile.net.au/actuary/index.php?entry=entry070609-034702 Cecile Nguyen Sat, 09 Jun 2007 10:47:02 GMT http://www.cecile.net.au/actuary/comments.php?y=07&m=06&entry=entry070609-034702 http://www.cecile.net.au/actuary/index.php?entry=entry060822-132548
I had the advice a while back that I should remain who I am, because if I pretend to be something I'm not, then the guy that wants me for exactly who I am will pass me by.

In the past few months I met Jaq. It was really strange. I've read his blog, he's read mine and we empathise on the emotional issues. But when we met in real life, it was different. You can exchange emails all you want, and read what you want, but in the end, a blog can only tell you the perspective that the blogger wants you to see of them. It's a form of highly specialised acting. I know my blogs run different but similar themes and show different aspects of my personality. But if you met me, there's a high chance that you wouldn't even like me or that I'm nothing like how you imagined.

In reality, who AM I? It's not like I'm a deterministic thing, I'm rather stochastic. My equation will never remain static, I will re-declare my variables, add some, drop some at whim or suddenly, correlations to external variables will change in a blink of an eye.

Elm once told me that I shouldn't give people a lot of power to hurt me if I concentrated inwardly and focussed on other areas in life then finding Mr Right. I've always thought that he was wrong. Not working on my own model is the issue, it's how much I'm willing to gamble.

As the old maxim goes, "The higher the risk, the higher the return". But after an extremely painful episode in the last few months where the investment I made (despite knowing it was a bad one) gave me a large negative return, I've become extremely risk adverse. I don't want to give men the power to hurt me anymore, not because I want to concentrate inwardly, but because my utility distribution has become so skewed as my risk aversion has increased exponentially.

From personal statistics, people that I've been attracted to haven't worked out so well so I will no longer weight that indicator so heavily. Being a cautious Actuary, I'm not foolish enough to accept just anybody who crosses my path (the idea being if you lower your standards enough you'll find someone), but at least now I have a high valuation reserve for anyone who does.
]]> http://www.cecile.net.au/actuary/index.php?entry=entry060822-132548 Cecile Nguyen Tue, 22 Aug 2006 03:25:48 GMT http://www.cecile.net.au/actuary/comments.php?y=06&m=08&entry=entry060822-132548 http://www.cecile.net.au/actuary/index.php?entry=entry060529-214458

Actuarial Rating: -ln(.6) out of 5
Chick Lit. Rating: 3 out of 5
Overall Rating: (1.07)^10 out of 5

Well in one of my earlier articles, I stated that I never read a romance novel where the hero/heroine was an actuary. However yes, outliers do exist, and by sheer chance, a fellow junior actuarial assistant at the superannuation consulting firm I work at, lent it to me as I simply had to read it (for its novelty value if nothing else).

Realisation soon dawned that such an intriguing premise would be negatively correlated with to a consistently good story. Crusie's writing is fast-paced with funny (but highly improbable) situations. I can appreciate why her books are popular - it belongs to the subset of Chick Lit. and in the Sample Space of books I've read intersecting with that particular subset, comparably not terrible.

However, despite the heroine Minerva being an Actuary, her only truly actuarial feature is her nickname 'Stats' and she sporadically spouts them in the book. I feel that the significance level of this is quite low in the grand scheme of things. Her more distinguishing characteristics appear to be converging towards orgasm as she eats food and weird & wonderful shoes.

As I have once said to Cow, to an actuary (or really to the point, this particular instantiation of actuary), statistics are not something I beat in the face all the time - I just automatically have it on an intuition level. Crusie's attempt to make her character 'actuarial' through random statistic spouting makes her character appear contrived.

I am aware, that isn't much interesting things you can write in the 'exciting' job of an insurance actuary for Chick Lit. (believe me I know working for a General Insurer) but I like my job and I talk about it. I love pricing and hate investments. I make random comments about the state of the insurance market and get fustrated at incomplete data because stupid broking houses don't know how to maintain good records or organise data consistently. Minerva's job seems like a gimmick to the story, as opposed to an intrinsic definition of her personality.

(I do realise that I am being highly hypocritical being that this blog is using actuarial stuff as a gimmick, but at least I am an actuary whereas I'm fairly sure Crusie isn't)

All in all a fun read if you like Chick Lit. - but if you are looking for actuarial goodness, I recommend reading Two Ducks Swimming column in Actuary Australia. Get your copy from the Institue of Actuaries Australia now!]]> http://www.cecile.net.au/actuary/index.php?entry=entry060529-214458 Cecile Nguyen Mon, 29 May 2006 11:44:58 GMT http://www.cecile.net.au/actuary/comments.php?y=06&m=05&entry=entry060529-214458