A Dude's Guide to Matchmaking

Friends,

If there's one thing I know about really liking something, it's that if "you really like it, you want more." But if I know a second thing about liking something, it's this: when you really like something, you want other people to know about it, experience it, and like it too.

This may explain why the moment I began seriously dating my now-wife Ashley, I also began a hell-bent campaign to find soulmates for every single person I knew. Okay, okay, I'm exaggerating a little bit, but the point remains that I've made myself available as a matchmaker for anyone who wants one.

Since I don't know which one of my four readers is reading this right now, I can say this: of course, I don't know how you feel about matchmaking. You may be a big fan who has personally taken part in, or even benefited from, the craft. Perhaps you think people like me should just stay out of other people's lives and mind our own business.

Don't worry, I'm not writing to defend the practice, and what follows should be mostly free from controversy. These are just my observations about setting people up, and whether you're the matcher or the matchee, I hope there will be something here for you...


The Art of the Match
Keep these in mind if you're following the life strategy of "the opposite of Tangent Space(s)'s advice"


1. Match-making is really hard
For two people to form a lasting, loving, successful bond, so many things need to go right. There have to be meaningful attractions and commonalities on physical, intellectual, spiritual, and emotional levels. To think that "that one friend of yours" will be an ideal match for your coworker's sibling is sort of insane. I'm not saying you should shy away from making the connection, but let's all lose the habit of saying things like, "She's perfect for you!"

2. Match-making is extra weird in today's world of pseudo-dating
I'm no expert on modern romance, but I think we're all familiar with the trends. Directness and phone calls are out, while texting and emojis are in. There may be some pros to this movement, but one con is that ambiguity seems to be at an all-time high. It's hard to say if someone is truly interested or if there will be another date. Thus, you get to share in this tension when you are a third party who knows and remains friends with both people.

3. If you want to bring people together, just write a blog
And here the shrewd reader will discern that I'm pulling a bait-and-switch of sorts. You see, for some time I've needed to exult in the following two Tangent Space(s) accomplishments, and this post is the perfect place to do it...

a. My marriage
If you haven't heard this incredible story (yeah, I'm referring to the story of me and my wife as "incredible"), I'll gladly tell you the whole thing sometime. But for our current purposes, you just need to know that this blog was instrumental in my meeting Ashley. We first "met" on another person's blog, at which point Ashley came here and read TS(s); according to her, she immediately knew that we were meant to be together. 

This isn't match-making in the typical sense, of course, since I was part of the match. But don't worry, a Tangent has successfully made another match as well...

b. Scott's marriage
I have a Minnesotan friend named Scott. To make a long story short, I once wrote a series of posts (backed by some impressive faux research) urging people to rise above the completely meaningless "Happy birthday!" Facebook posts and to take five seconds to personalize such posts. Scott--who himself credits my blog posts as his motivation--personalized a Facebook birthday post on a woman's wall, and that very personalization led to their first date. They're now married.

[Here is the post that originally inspired Scott, and here's his telling of the story (scroll down to his comment).]


If your mind isn't blown, you have some sort of robotic circuitry where your human, feeling brain is supposed to be. For real though, you never know the impact a small action is going to have on another person's (or your own) life. Writing a blog could lead you to your future wife. Offering to the public a crucially important, timely, sage, well-articulated piece of advice about social media posts could lead a distant friend to marry a Brazilian woman.



Match-Making and You
...and your perfect soulmate

Have you done any match-making? How'd it go?

Have your friends made a match for you?


Jon

A Soda Fountain Adventure

Friends,

Some of you, no doubt, read S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders sometime around middle school. It was part of the curriculum in my county, so I found myself reading it aloud in class many times, my pubescent voice cracking at every change of inflection. I wonder what my classmates thought when I was called on to read; I was a good reader, but man, those voice cracks.

But today's topic is too grand for me to get bogged down in memories of 1997 and my changing body. The reason I bring up Hinton's coming-of-age novel is that it prominently features Robert Frost's "Nothing Gold Can Stay," especially its titular final line:

Nature’s first green is gold, 

Her hardest hue to hold. 

Her early leaf’s a flower; 

But only so an hour. 

Then leaf subsides to leaf. 

So Eden sank to grief, 

So dawn goes down to day. 

Nothing gold can stay.

I'm glad I was exposed to this poem in middle school, because it helped me in high school when the well went dry... the well of the sweet nectar of life.


Baby Come Back
Or I'll bring you back in a laboratory like a modern-day Dr. Frankenstein

The discontinuation of Tropical Sprite Remix was, to me, The Day the Music Died. If you had the privilege of tasting this heavenly concoction, you know exactly what I mean. If you didn't, you were deprived one of life's true masterpieces...

...until now.

Coca-cola (always leading) has developed a fountain machine, called Freestyle, that allows you to thoroughly customize your soda beverage. You've probably seen one in a Qdoba, Five Guys, or some other fast casual restaurant.

Just saying whatever comes into the top of my head... freestylin'

One glorious day, it occurred to me that Sprite is one of the beverages in the Freestyle. That for each beverage in the machine, there are plenty of flavor syrups to mix and match. And that, if the stars aligned perfectly, if God saw fit to pour out a special blessing on a random dude like me, perhaps those flavors could combine their powers to summon forth the Captain Planet of beverages.

On most machines, these are the flavor options for Sprite:

L to R: cherry, orange, vanilla, strawberry, raspberry, grape, peach

I could stretch this into a novella, but that would require inventing a villain hellbent on denying the world of delicious flavor combinations. Too dark. So I'll just cut to the chase...

It was only a matter of time and experimentation until I rediscovered the magic of Tropical Sprite Remix. Here's the formula that will change your life (in the sense that reading it, like any action you take, adds to your cumulative life experience):

Please try this.

A Drink By Any Other Name
Would at least closely resemble the taste of its former self

What is your current favorite soda beverage?
Have you made any fun creations in the Coca-Cola Freestyle?

Jon

What's Wrong with Pyramid Schemes?

Friends,

Well, it's been almost a year since our last Tangent. I can't offer you a good excuse, but I can give you three bad ones:

• I've been adjusting to a new job
• I moved to a new apartment
• All my free time has been spent watching Food Network shows on Netflix

Look, Chopped and Kitchen Nightmares are fascinating. Anyway, summer is here, so for at least the next 2 months (and hopefully longer), Tangent Space(s) is back! And we start with a topic I honestly can't believe I haven't written about before... pyramid schemes.

Pyramids Everywhere

I don't know who built the pyramids, but charismatic entrepreneurs built the schemes

You probably know what a pyramid scheme is. I don't want to insult your intelligence. But the idea deserves some examination, because it's just that good. I think the simplest definition of a pyramid scheme is an organization or business that...

(i) requires you to pay to become an employee

(ii) gives you a payout when you or your recruits bring in new employees

Now, first of all, if a certain company or business came to mind when you read that, then yes, that company is a pyramid scheme. Amway. Mary Kay. And if your Facebook newsfeed is anything like mine... doTerra Oils.

Before you jump to the defense of one (or another) of these pyramids, let me assure you: I'm not completely anti-pyramid. There's something brilliant about a scheme that, if there were only enough people to keep bringing in, would make everyone rich. And I recognize that these companies don't only do the multi-level marketing, independent consultant/salesperson, recruitment "scheme" part. They also sell products!

You may think that these companies exist because they're passionate about cosmetics or natural health solutions. In some cases, that may be true. But there's also the terrible (like a car crash you can't look away from) possibility that they exist solely to make money off recruitment, and have added the sale of a product to remain legal and reputable. At the end of the day, though, they need to sell actual products not just for legal reasons, but for sustainability reasons: there are only so many people willing to become an independent salesperson, so eventually the recruits (and their entry fees) run out!

Well then, what's the problem? So some companies have shrewdly opened up two revenue streams-- product sales and employee recruitment. Is that really a problem?

Panera, we have a problem

Woe to the man who joins a pyramid scheme just before the pyramid collapses

There are probably actual, systemic issues with pyramid schemes, even the legit ones. For instance, an unsustainable business will ultimately crush its most recent members, as the tiny text above indicates. But I don't blog to expose actual, systemic issues. I do it to make lists of things that annoy me.

With that in mind, I give you the Top Four Problems with Pyramid Schemes

1. Public recruitment meetings

A face-to-face meeting is needed to recruit and bring on a new salesperson. So while the actual sale of product takes place at home parties or online, the recruitment meeting always takes place at the table next to me in Panera. This makes me an unwanted third wheel in your scheming. Get an office.

2. A strange correlation with pseudoscience 

I don't know why, but pyramid schemes and fake science seem to go hand in 100%-natural-oil-soaked hand. To give an example, I will directly lift text from a Facebook post hawking a nutrition supplement, Shaklee. [The person who posted it is wonderful, so... I'm sorry.] Here's what the post says:

"Shaklee is a company that has conducted countless clinical studies, published over 90 peer-reviewed articles published in well-known journals..."

And yet a thorough scouring of Shaklee's website reveals no effort to link to any of these journal articles, nor does it explain the results of these studies. There is just no credible science here, but there are plenty of outrageous scientific claims--the site refers to its latest supplement as "the latest advancement in brain science" and that it will "immediately enhance mental sharpness." If you doubt its efficacy, don't worry: it's "clinically proven" (no link or explanation provided).

[Note: I found a claim that all the articles are mentioned by name in the company's official sales catalog. But also note: the Wikipedia page for Shaklee, section "Pyramid scheme convictions and accusations", reveals some of the grim ramifications of the pyramid model.]

3. Taking over my Facebook newsfeed

I'm so sorry to pick on that same Shaklee salesperson, but because numbers don't lie... It is June 16. Since June 1, this salesperson has posted 10 times about Shaklee's products and why I should consider using them and/or selling them (hitting up both halves of the revenue stream).

So, fearlessly extrapolating from the super small sample size of one person, we can guess that a pyramid seller posts advertisements(!) to Facebook about 20 times per month. And here's the point I'm trying to make: they have to do so in that line of business. When your livelihood depends on your known associates buying from you and/or joining your company, and you are forced to buy inventory that you then have to move-- a lot of people will be "unfollowing" you on Facebook.

4. A culture of guilt

This might be the worst aspect of the pyramid scheme. Because your client base is your group of friends, family, coworkers (from your other job at Starbucks), and neighbors, you have to hit them up for sales. And here's the thing--they know your livelihood depends on making these sales. So even though there are plenty of good elements to the product you're selling or the fun make-up/jewelry/candle/clothing party your aunt threw for you, the fact remains that those people feel obligated to buy your product. 

You know they feel obligated, but you have to ask them anyway. And that obligation to buy is sort of like climate change; you may insist to them it doesn't exist, but it still does. (And I've spent time essentially being a professional fundraiser, so I understand this dynamic quite well.)

Schemers, Unite

Or completely disband, either way

I'm reading over this post, and it comes across way more anti-pyramid than I meant it to. If anyone is offended, I'm sorry. For the record, I think most of these companies, pet peeves aside, are legitimate businesses that sell good products. That being said, don't ask me to buy your essential oils, Nerium skin care products, Jamberry nail wraps, dietary supplements, weight-loss wraps, knife sets, or candles. 

• What do you think about pyramid schemes? Have you bought or sold from a "multi-level marketing" company?

Jon

Credit: ateacherscoda.com
This is from an article called "The Peer Coaching Pyramid Scheme," describing a model for improving education through teachers' peer mentoring. So hey, pyramid schemes are making the world a better place.

[Editor's note: in this post, I used the nomenclature that seemed (and seems) intuitively correct to me--that any organization with a pay-to-work system and kick-backs to your "up-line" workers is a pyramid scheme. Those companies that sell a product are legitimate and legal, while those that don't sell a product are illegitimate and illegal. I've since learned that in business parlance, the former is called "pyramid selling" (or multi-level marketing by its proponents) while the latter illegal version is a "pyramid scheme". It should be noted, then, that in the above post, I am not calling the named companies "schemes" in the illegal, con-artist sense of the phrase.]