www.richardhagen.org

Good question! (My life seems to be full of good questions lately.)

I think we might be able to answer this through the lyrics from the old song, The Day I Wrote Antghost:

Antghost!
Superhero for the 80s
He can’t help anyone
Cause he can’t do anything

He fights
For the common cause

(Chorus)
He gets squashed, he gets squashed,
He gets squashed, he gets squashed,
He gets squashed, he gets squashed,
He gets squashed, he gets squashed,
He gets squashed, he gets squashed
In every episode

Antghost!
Everybody hates him
Cross roads to avoid him
“He’s got an odd way about him”

Gets put on hold
By the talking clock

(Chorus)

And he doesn’t have a sidekick.

Perhaps that’s not such a good explanation after all.

Update: Antghost didn’t have a utility belt, he had a futility belt.

Update: Finding a fixpoint for futility was a big part of my life at the time. My sister and I sketched Doctor Who and the Futillons (pronounced few-TILL-ons) after I suggested that futon mattresses come from the planet Futillon.

What a marvellous adventure! Here are some observations from meeting R.

• Make sure the place where you’re meeting is actually open at the time agreed for meeting. R. and I were to meet at the Powerhouse at about 5:30. This turns out to be a poor choice of venue and time for a Monday night.
• First impressions really are important. It took R. maybe two seconds to size me up and find me unsatisfactory. I realise that R.’s reaction was mainly due to her preconceptions not being met, but I think that there are some things I could have done better. (To be honest, her reaction reminded me of David Brent in The Office Christmas specials.)
• Walking to the Merthyr bowls club, rather than grabbing a cab from the Powerhouse to somewhere a bit more upmarket, was a big mistake. I must not let the fact that I enjoy walking override immediate social imperatives in future.
  
• The Merthyr bowls club is inexpensive and has an almost scruffily informal atmosphere. It was definitely too downmarket for R. I quite liked it there, but I’m comfortable in most surroundings.
• The Merthyr bowls club has a minimal wine list, which was definitely another negative for R.
• I found the conversation very hard going, and I guess this was because I’d failed the first-impression test as well as the walking-rather-than-getting-a-cab test. I didn’t raise a single laugh, her conversation was studied in its neutrality and she had an excuse ready to get away relatively quickly. If this stalling of conversation happens again in future, I’ll take the hint and make a gracious early exit.
• I experimented with mirroring. I was aware that I was working in a situation where a non-positive outcome was assured, but it was still interesting to see how easy and unobtrusive it was and how natural it became after a while.

So, even though there wasn’t a positive outcome, it was a positive experience overall.

Update: I sent a thank you note to R., but she hasn’t replied. I guess I’m being transformed into a store of Internet Date From Hell anecdotes.