I have so many questions about this man's cribbage-based approach to attracting women

 

I have a cribbage app on my iPhone that I play from time to time.

(In referencing "cribbage," I'm assuming you're at least passingly familiar with the game, which in the "real" world is played with a deck of cards and a small board with holes around which you move colored pegs.)

One of the features of this app (Cribbage Pro) is that you can play live games against real people.

Or at least I assume they're real people. Either that or it has been a long series of matches between me and very human-like bots since I started playing the app in 2016.

I do think they're actual people, though. If I have a few minutes free, sometimes I'll take out my iPhone and see who's online and looking to play a quick round of crib.

When you make yourself available to play, you have the option of naming your game. My game is usually called "Fast please" because, as you might gather, I'm looking for opponents who play the game quickly like I do, rather than dawdle over their cards endlessly like they're trying to solve world hunger.

Occasionally I will join someone else's game, especially if it's clear they're going to be a fast player.

Recently as I've perused the list of available cribbage games on the app, I have repeatedly come across the gentleman pictured above. His game is always named "Hot ladies plz ;)"

When I fire up Cribbage Pro, I'm just looking for a few minutes of gaming enjoyment, win or lose. When this guy does it, he's apparently looking for love.

I have so many questions I almost don't know where to start, but here are a few:

• First, is he serious? That is, is he really looking for women, or does the little winky face suggest he's just being a cheeky little rapscallion with no intention of actually hitting on female cribbage players?
  
  
• If he is serious, what then does he expect to happen? As you can see above, he has enabled the chat feature on his game, so is he assuming that, instead of studying her cards, a hot lady will instead engage in some sort of dirty online chat with him?
  
  
• Taking this a step further, is it his contention that he can, simply through the force of what are undoubtedly his witty, typed-out bons mots, convince a woman to meet up with him for, say, dinner and whatever I shudder to think would come next?
  
  
• Is he convinced that his profile picture – featuring him in what appears to be a polo, sunglasses and some sort of headgear...possibly a visor – is enough to drive any straight woman wild with desire? (If this is your opinion, sir, while I cannot count myself an expert on female psychology, I respectfully submit that your profile pic alone isn't going to do the trick.)
  
  
• Is it possible I'm underestimating his chances at success? Does the world's hot lady population have a surprising penchant for cribbage, and particularly an attraction to the doughy guys who play it? Maybe there are way more hot ladies on Cribbage Pro than I realize. I certainly haven't noticed them, though, as I'm too busy squinting at the tiny cards on my phone screen and thinking how I may need a pair of bifocals.
  
  

It would make me feel so much better to find out this guy is just a fun-loving dad who names his cribbage game "Hot ladies plz ;)" with tongue planted firmly in cheek (and nowhere else). And that his wife knows he does this and just rolls her eyes at him, causing him to laugh and think to himself, "Mission accomplished."

That, at least, would be a man I could relate to.

As it is, though, I can only wonder how many hot ladies he has attracted. My rough guess is zero, but then I don't claim to understand the ways of cribbage-based romance.

What we did right with each of our kids - Part II - Chloe

(NOTE: Parents are forever lamenting the things they wish they had done differently with their children. "I should have been more strict about this" or "I wish I had let her participate in that." That type of stuff. I see nothing productive there, so instead I choose to celebrate the things that Terry and I appear to have done well with our children. Plus, it's a good way to fill five days of blog posts. So there's that.)

My 20-year-old daughter Chloe wants to be a doctor. A pediatrician, to be specific, and of course she's doing it by first getting a degree in biomedical engineering. This makes some sense, I suppose, but it's just like Chloe to go at the whole thing just a bit differently from most people.

For Chloe herself is a bit different from most people. Always has been. It is one of the many things to love about her.

Allowing her individuality to flourish is probably one thing we did right for her. Here are five others:

(1) We allowed her to be an interesting person. As Chloe was going out the door to head for work just now, I told her I was going to write a post about her, and I gave her the topic. She suggested that letting her be an interesting person should be on this list. Actually, she just said, "I'm an interesting person." And I said, "Does that mean we actually helped you become interesting? Or did we just stand by and let it happen?" And all she said as she ran out to her car was, "Good point." I'm not even sure what the point is. But I guess you could say we never quashed any of her eccentricities. Chloe is Chloe. If you love her like we do, great. If you don't, she doesn't have much use for you.

(2) I introduced her to soccer when she was 6 years old. Technically, she introduced me to soccer. I had been coaching my kids in t-ball and baseball for a couple of years when Chloe the kindergartner informed me she wanted to play soccer. So I went to City Hall to sign her up, and through a chain of events that still confuses me to this day, I ended up as her coach, as well (another story for another time). Chloe played nonstop all the way through her senior year of high school, capping her career by being named Most Valuable Player on her team that season. Soccer proved to be an outlet for her both physically and mentally, as she learned what it means to truly work for something and strive to improve every day.

(3) I let her choose the baritone horn on "Meet the Instrument Night" when she was in 4th grade. Chloe's choice to be a low brass player serves her well even to this day, as she has played the sousaphone in the University of Akron marching band the last two years. Terry, however, started accompanying us to these Meet the Instrument Nights after that because she was afraid I was going to steer all of our kids toward weird musical choices.

(4) We got out of her way. I said in a blog post on Chloe's birthday a year or two ago that the best thing when you're dealing with extremely bright and talented kids is to just let them go. That doesn't mean you should disengage from their lives completely, but understand that you aren't (and shouldn't be) driving the train. You're just the conductor, man, and you'd better hang on for the ride.

(5) We taught her to play cribbage. Have you ever played cribbage? That's a fun game. Sailors on submarines have played it for years. It's a good mix of strategy, skill and a little luck (much like life itself). Teach your kids to play cribbage. And if you don't know how, I will take you to Starbucks and have you playing like a champ in less than 15 minutes while we sip overpriced coffee (on me).

There's no way I should be looking at my phone half as much as I do

Whenever I leave the house, I check my pockets to ensure I have three things on me:

• My car keys
• My wallet
• My iPhone

If you were to tell me I had to leave one of these things behind, I would put my wallet back in the dresser and make sure I wasn't in a position where I would need it. If you were to tell me I had to leave two of these things at home, I would immediately drop my wallet and car keys and unhesitatingly walk wherever I was headed.

This is both true and sad.

I look at my phone all the time. ALL. THE. TIME. I look it at while I'm standing at a urinal. Really, I do.

Because apparently I need to know 24/7 whether someone has commented on my Facebook status, whether my tweet has been favorited, or whether an extremely non-urgent work email has popped into my inbox in the past four minutes. And sometimes I just suddenly need to play an emergency game of electronic cribbage.

I cannot simply exist. I cannot just sit there and think. If there's a lull in a conversation or a break in whatever action I'm engaged in, I must fill in that time with phone browsing.

And most of the time, that's all I'm really doing: browsing. Just looking. Just checking to see if any life-changing information has come across my phone that I absolutely must know right this minute.

More than 99% of the time, I find nothing that couldn't have waited five more minutes. Or 10 more minutes. Or an hour. Or until tomorrow.

I am truly addicted, though it's not the phone itself to which I'm addicted. And it's not even the phone's output that has me hooked. It's the promise of finding something funny/interesting/uplifting/useful that drives me. Just that little bit of potential, rarely fulfilled, is enough to make me look at my phone every few minutes throughout my waking hours.

And I need to stop it. I know this. I need to stop it.

But that's so much easier said than done. I want to go back to a time when I could simply sit still for awhile and think. Or not even think. Just BE.

Yet I've lost the capacity to act that way. How? How did this happen? When did I and others like me lose the ability to be disconnected? I'd like to figure that out.

You don't know how close I just came to hopping on my phone to Google "phone addiction."

I have zero attention span, and my smart phone is to blame

Actually, I'm to blame. But I would rather ascribe my complete inability to concentrate on anything for more than 10 seconds at a time on my Galaxy S4 device.

Smart phones are awesome, aren't they? They give us instant access to information, social connection (in a fashion) and entertainment, and we can carry all of that processing power around in our pockets.

But my Galaxy is SO awesome that I've become addicted to it. And I'm not even kidding. I am unable to just sit and do nothing. If I'm stopped at a traffic light, for example, I instinctively grab for my phone. Maybe an email has arrived in the 17 seconds since I last checked it, AND I MUST ANSWER IT RIGHT NOW.

This inability to just be, to just exist, is alarming. Must I be constantly stimulated? Must I be made aware of every news story, big and small, in the 60 seconds after it happens? Must I finish that game of online cribbage before proceeding through the intersection?

Apparently the answers are yes, yes, and most certainly yes.

That last point bears some explanation. I have a cribbage app on my phone that I play constantly. Like, all the time. According to the statistics the app maintains, I have played 2,955 games of electronic cribbage since I bought this phone in October 2013. That's an average of nearly seven games every day. Every. Day. Seven games. Of virtual cribbage.

I shouldn't even mention this, but I'll tell you that many of those games have been played while standing at the urinal at work. And suffice it to say that I'm very good at multi-tasking in these instances, if you catch my drift.

Why? Why can't I just do the one thing for which the urinal is designed, wash my hands and walk out of the bathroom without also engaging in a simultaneous game of cribbage? Or checking my email? Or crushing some poor sap in Trivia Crack? Why?

I don't know the answer. All I know is that in the past year or two, I've lost the ability to be still. I must constantly be doing something. Just sitting and thinking? That's for analog losers. I will be productive and/or entertained during all waking moments. Welcome to the 21st century, ladies and gentlemen!

This, by the way, is why so many of us panic when our phone batteries start running low. "My phone is dying! My phone is dying! Somebody get me a charger and a wall outlet, STAT! MY PHONE IS DYING!" We're addicts, plain and simple.

Did you ever see that movie "Wall-E," which portrays a future in which people no longer walk around or even stand? Instead, they sit on floating platforms and spend their days eating and staring at holographic computer screens. I'm already well on my way to that type of existence.

By the time the Galaxy S7 comes out, I'll weigh 550 pounds and will be confined to my room. But man, there's no doubt I'll also be the online cribbage champion of the world. And there's something to be said for that.