“I Got Your Nose!”

Dear Suze Q. My uncle teased his young daughter at a neighborhood gathering where he pretended to pluck her nose and showed her the stolen body part. She shrieked with laughter, but it almost started a major ruckus and several people got visibly upset. What happened?

Dear Niece, This game is only familiar and funny in some English-speaking countries. The hand position used with the alleged stolen nose is also known as the "fig sign," which is an offensive or obscene gesture in cultures such as Turkey, where it is the equivalent of giving the "middle finger;" Japan, where it refers to copulation; or other countries where it is used to ward off the "evil eye," insult someone, or deny a request. Sometimes, it's important to use your words to explain even the most innocent of gestures. ✌ -SQ

CAN Old Dogs Learn New Tricks: Recency (And Primacy) Effect Bias

3         8         5         1        7       2     9    4   6   10

Dear S.Q. We're going to Las Vegas and my wife wants to stay at the hotel where her sister recently won $6,000.00 at a "one-armed bandit." She's convinced that it's a winning slot machine. How to convince her this is nuts?

Dear Gambler, Overcoming magical thinking is tough, especially in L.V. where enchantment built a mega industry in a dessert that originally didn't even have water. The Recency Effect is where recent events are favored over past events, and is another one of the cognitive bias that colors people’s thinking, usually without their awareness. 

The last thing (story, event, person) you encountered is remembered more positively. Read the numbers above, in order, and out loud. Which one do you remember first? (Recency is closely linked, and opposite of, primacy bias, -over-weighing the first information you receive). The mind is miraculous, but it takes shortcuts for efficiency. The trick is: review all the information, summarize pros and cons accurately. Remind your wife of the 10 times before that her sister lost her shirt at this casino. -SQ

CAN Old Dogs Learn New Tricks: Halo and Devil Effect Bias

Dear Suze Q, My friend is so black and white that I cringe. Things are over-the-top great, especially people, or barely register on her Richter Scale. What happened to mediocre, moderate, middle?

Dear Friend, The halo or devil/horn effect is when someone latches onto one positive or negative trait, such as attractiveness, about another person that then overrides all logic and becomes the brain’s shortcut, (and lazy thinking) that everything about them must be good or bad. People accustomed to making snap judgements are especially susceptible. The trick is to force yourself to think in the gray areas, outside the box, with critical deep-dive. Always rethink your thinking. -SQ

 

Hic Sunt Dracones (Here be Dragons): Part 3, p. 423

 "Since time began, man has been curious. It's one of our superpowers that keeps us alert and alive. We focus on an unknown danger by primitive warning signs, but like forbidden fruit, we are often drawn to it. Then we tame it, and it loses its fear factor. Then we integrate the experience as normal, not deviant, and with that inclusion, we expand and broaden our range of acceptance. With this learning method, we achieve mastery of the once unknown and build a powerful cache in our armories of intelligence. Only time will tell if we master robots or will they enslave us? Or a better case scenario -we achieve a cooperative partnership." Hopefully, this sample of my debut book available on Google Books, Walmart, and Amazon, Cyber Frogs And Princes: A Sex Manual Of On-Line Dating After 50 by Suze Q will get your cerebral and bodily juices flowing. Cheers, S.Q

Consensual Non-Monogamy. Really? Say What?

Dear S. Q. My daughter told me and her father to stop asking if she’ll marry her long-term beau and have babies. She explained she’s in a “consensual non-monogamous” relationship with her guy where they live together and love each other but still date others. I was aghast. I dated others too until I was ready to give them up and say “I do” with her father. But, to live with him, say “ta ta, I’m going to sleep with another guy tonight. I’ll see you in the morning.” How the hell does that work?

Dear Mom, it’s a lot, and how it works in the long run is yet to be determined. First -the definition: partners (monogamous) who consent (AGREE) to be non-monogamous. Under specifically defined and honestly AGREED upon arrangements, the couple allows romantic/sexual connection with more than each other. Examples include “swingers” who we old folks have at least heard of, to creative combinations of “polyamory” that fit the couple. In the 1990s, the majority of couples lived together before marriage, so maybe it’s a natural outcome to explore this latest frontier of intimacy. -SQ

CAN Old Dogs Learn New Tricks: Dunning-Kruger Effect

Dear Readers, I often hear legitimate complaints from people who are miffed that someone with a bit of knowledge acts like they know it all.  Sometimes, it's just part of puffing yourself up to look good in the eyes of another who you are trying to impress. Sometimes, though, it's damn aggravating if their whole personality operates like this. It’s called the Dunning-Kruger Effect when people overestimate their limited knowledge or abilities. Who it hurts most is the person themselves because they don't know that they don't know their deficits, so they continue to look like braggarts rather than improving themselves and their skills. Naturally, it hurts the rest of their contacts if the idiot is actually put in charge. Trick is, never put a blowhard in charge unless he's brilliant and knows his shit. -SQ

No Sex

Dear S. Q. My 30 year-old, college-educated daughter is navigating a new world in which both of our knowledge and experience is like falling down a rabbit hole. By her age, I was a sexual diva with a hot career and distance thoughts of marriage and kids. She's struggling to find a descent job with any kind of benefits, piecing together gigs and short-term contracts. And sex -her 20 year-old boyfriends were jerks (no different than mine) but she and her friends abstain rather than enjoy the hell out of lovers and losers. Where's this headed?

Dear Mom, Let's start with sex, never a dull topic. The world's attitude toward sex has always had its ups and downs, from buttoned-up Victorian, to Roaring 20s flappers, to 1970 Flower Power (remember the birth control pill was introduced in the 1960), back to sex fears of AIDS in the 80s, to the introduction of the internet and explosions of all sorts beginning in the 1990s. True that sex is significantly down worldwide, and true also that fewer young adults are in relationships where sex regularly occurs. There are no simple reasons for the shift our young are going through, but plenty of speculation. Where it's headed is where it always has, some glorious unknown, where us elders hold their hands until they let go, and support their good choices thereafter. And, naturally, "Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in." -Robert Frost and S.Q.