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Opponents of men’s centre are unwittingly reinforcing patriarchy

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By Paul Wang

Critics of the proposed SFU Men’s Centre claim that it is unnecessary, because men don’t have the same problems as women. However, this argument relies on the same problematic assumptions that the Women’s Centre is supposed to fight, and is ultimately a stumbling block for the cause of gender equality.

Let’s make one thing clear: there is no need for the creation of some sort of Victorian gentlemen’s club at SFU. A men’s centre will need the same level of oversight that the Women’s Centre does. Furthermore, the creation of a men’s centre cannot compromise the current operations of the Women’s Centre, an organization that provides valuable services to the student body. Despite assertions to the contrary, academic statistics do not make the Women’s Centre obsolete. There are indeed more women pursuing undergraduate degrees than men, and more of them getting their degrees. However, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t still abused women, female victims of sexual harassment, or cultural assumptions that prevent these women from reaching their full potential. The issues that the Women’s Centre deals with are primarily cultural, not academic.

The cause of these issues is a series of cultural assumptions and biases which most refer to collectively as “the patriarchy,” a term which conjures up an image of a male-dominated society. The problem with that image is that, like most issues, has two sides, a duality reflected by the fact that although our student body is doing a fine job of combating the assumptions that victimize women, it has entirely ignored those that target men.

The patriarchy defines roles for men as well as women. The man is the warrior, the stoic, the defender, and the breadwinner. These ideas create an increasingly obsolete image of masculinity that forces demands on men that are difficult to live up to. This is why abused women are rightfully treated with sympathy, while abused men are so afraid of the humiliation of potential emasculation that they rarely report an abusive partner. This is why when a woman dresses in men’s clothes, she’s a tomboy, but when a man dresses in women’s clothes, he’s labeled a freak.

These issues exist, and they are issues in need of address. A men’s centre, under the proper oversight, can provide a place for research and activist events. It can help with the education process to fight these cultural assumptions from both sides, and to open a second front against both sexual discrimination, and stereotyping.

To say that there is no need for a men’s centre is to insinuate that us guys are expected to take care of our own problems, and that either abused men and the cultural assumptions that victimize all but the most “macho” of us don’t exist, or that we are strong enough to deal with them ourselves. This idea would then suggest women must naturally have a specialized support structure to help them. How is this different from what both the Women’s Centre and the proposed Men’s Centre aim to fix? The opponents of the Men’s Centre may not know it, but by reinforcing the same cultural assumptions that we should be banding together to fight, they are perpetuating the problem.

SFSS board shorts

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By David Dyck

Board addresses concerns about facilities

The board approved a letter drafted by URO Jeff McCann addressed to SFU VP-finance and administration Pat Hibbitts, which addressed several concerns that the society has about “access to invoices, information relating to project quotes, and timely feedback opportunities.” It suggested that facilities post electronic invoices, formal documentation between preliminary and final estimates, and more opportunities for feedback.

 

Board seeks Build SFU project worker

A job description for a Build SFU project worker to support the board of directors was passed. Among the project worker’s responsibilities would be to take meeting minutes and work with other SFSS staff, student representatives, and university staff. The staff member is projected to work from five to 20 hours per week.

 

URO sends standing regrets for summer

University Relations Officer Jeff McCann requested that the board ratify standing regrets for May 22 until August 18. “I don’t want to take a leave of absence, I want to keep working, I just won’t be able to come to board meetings,” said McCann, citing a summer co-op term that he accepted. He stated that he would still attend space committee meetings, Build SFU steering committee meetings, and forum meetings.

Treasurer Kevin Zhang voiced concerns that as an executive director it’s more imperative that he attend board of director meetings than faculty of health sciences representative Tracy Luong, whose leave of absence over the summer was approved by board earlier this month.

“Why don’t we give him the benefit of the doubt and let him do it? He was president last semester, I’m pretty sure he knows what he’s doing,” said education faculty representative Shideh Manavipour.

Zhang responded, “I ran on a platform of being accountable. There’s no way for me to know if Jeff is being accountable if he’s doing work at home. If I don’t see the person and all I see is 10 hours [worth of] emails, who’s accountable?”

McCann pointed out that he was heavily involved in at least two of the items on the agenda at that meeting itself, including the letter to VP-finance.

The board voted to ratify the URO’s standing regrets until the end of June, at which time it would be reevaluated.

Women’s Centre serves more than just pancakes, it serves our community

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By Negin Alavi

The Women’s Centre has, unfortunately, not been able to pay for ads about our centre due to our budget cuts in 2009/10. However, that hasn’t stopped the Women’s Centre from stepping up for all students, regardless of gender. In fact, on the topic of our budget, it’s important that we clear up the gross misrepresentation in the “Girl’s Club” article, published by The Peak two weeks ago. The SFSS budget puts our staff wages and Centre budget in one line, so while the budget shows a higher number, the actual annual working budget for the centre has been carved down closer to $8,000, less than 50 per cent of our 2008/9 budget. We’ve had to ask and work for every dime. We’re relieved to say that our most recent budget increase was from an actual referendum process. However, $667 a month, before this past May 1 seems fiendishly low, considering our high number of volunteers, event planning, and a library that is available for all genders.

We are active in Forum and Advocacy: an under-funded and under-reported committee of the SFSS. The Women’s Centre and our sibling space, Out on Campus, were part of the fight for every student in a multi-student society campaign that headed out to Victoria on the issue of student debt. Our volunteers were also part of the successful March to Defend Public Education that was held downtown on April 1. Furthermore, we play an integral part in referring students of all genders to the campus Food Bank. MBC’s room 1349 exists not as a “kindness,” but as a necessity for student survival.

While women may have equal access to university and student debt, that doesn’t mean equal access to debt payment, not with women still earning 30 cents less on the dollar than men. Forget the myth that “more women in school” means “women making more money.” That even head-hunted women hit the glass ceiling at entry level shows that feminism isn’t quite passe, unless, of course, you choose to be content with a foot in the door and a brake on advancement.

If you think our mandate is antiquated, ask what it is first. In a few words: pro-feminist, pro-choice, anti-racist, sex-positive, and trans-inclusive. All of these are current and relevant to the diverse body of students’s lives. The Advocacy Committee, Out On Campus, the SFSS Legal clinic, and the Women’s Centre, organizations that help all students graduate, have been ravaged by SFSS cuts over the past four years.

These cuts have also reduced the Women’s Centre’s ability to combat attempts to make reproductive choice illegal, stop racist attacks in action and rhetoric, and fight for queer and trans rights; all topics debated regularly in legislatures throughout the world. Feminists of all genders are not done yet. It is regrettable that our Pro-Choice Days received little coverage, with our amazing male allies countering anti-choicers on campus last November. Nor was there coverage on the March 2012 event with national activists speaking on choice, a serious topic currently under national discussion. But with events like these, we’re proving that if it’s still happening, it’s not history, and that the SFU Women’s Centre is happening for international students, graduate students, students across disciplines, as well as their non-SFU loved ones. Still need more proof of our relevance? Volunteer applications never stop coming in.

This Centre is clear in our support of women, men, and non-conformists being feminists, without apology. Feminism, in its diverse manifestations, is indeed the affirmation of women, not an implicit rejection of men. That is why we work in a collective process with many different voices, sharing important principles, and contributing to progress for real equity and ethical power sharing in an unbalanced, binary-gendered world. In and around our little space, we’re okay with calling it feminism; just remember that it directs the community building work that we’ve been doing on behalf of all SFU students.

Mean Sun by Brasstronaut

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By Colin O’Neil

Brasstronaut’s crowdsource-enabled sophomore offering presents a lush audioscape

Vancouver band Brasstronaut released their second full-length album Mean Sun last Tuesday, giving fans another dose of their melodic tones, far-away vibrations, and perhaps an insight into the future of survival as a musician in our technological age.

Mean Sun is Brasstronaut’s follow-up to 2010’s Mt. Chimera, and was recorded with renowned producer and Juno award winner Colin Stewart, who has worked with Vancouver notables Black Mountain and Dan Mangan, but perhaps the band’s fans and supporters should receive just as much acknowledgement. In order to enable the production of Mean Sun, Brasstronaut deployed a fundraising campaign on Indiegogo that raised more than their goal of $15,000. In exchange for generous donations, they offered perks ranging from free downloads of Mean Sun to autographed merchandise and a private show. Using technology and the interconnectedness of music-lovers to their advantage, Brasstronaut released their second album, worth a listen or two or 10.

Upon first listen, it is apparent this is a masterfully produced album from a band that exists far outside your everyday image of a rock and roll quartet. With instruments such as a clarinet, trumpet, and lap steel guitar, Mean Sun builds and falls perfectly, offering neither too much nor too little of what the band’s six members put forth.

“Bounce”, the album’s opening track, rises gently, like a wave forming over miles of open ocean to reach its full form of thumping bass, foot-tapping drums, and weaving horns and strings. The song evokes thoughts of pleasant travel across big, wide spaces, of desert and frozen tundra, and even of space itself. This thread continues throughout the album. “Francisco” offers a breakdown of claps, intricate guitar picking, and trumpet tooting, while “Moonwalker” gives the listener images of deep-breathing astronauts, the cold moon, and is reminiscent of The Flaming Lips. The album’s title track lyrically delivers the themes of spatial hugeness that other songs do instrumentally.

In their fundraising efforts, Brasstronaut proves that bands can adapt to their circumstances and find ways to fulfill their goals in any environment. At a time when musicians complain relentlessly about stolen music and an intrusive recording industry, the independent Brasstronaut has turned the system on its head. Mean Sun is an album that doesn’t seem to fall into any obvious categorization (jazz-pop-rock fusion does not seem to do justice), but satisfies regardless. It is an album to fall asleep to, drive to, or think to. Explore the world, Brasstronaut, and Mean Sun.

Brasstronaut plays their CD release show June 2 at the Rio.

Mercy Years chasing the dream on the roads of western Canada

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By Kristina Charania

Passion might just pay off for Mercy Years guitarist and SFU dropout Benjamin Mott

“He who opens a school door, closes a prison,” French artist Victor Hugo once said. Generally true, but this adage has proved false for many of the most successful and wealthy people in the world. John Lennon certainly didn’t pen “Imagine” because he aced a calculus exam, and teenaged Bill Gates created the pancake-sorting algorithm and founded Microsoft.

Mercy Years guitarist and former SFU student Benjamin Mott is following in their footsteps. “Generally, I was going towards an arts degree, but the idea of having a steady job after getting a bachelor’s seemed silly to me,” he says.

Mott, who was an SFU student until this spring, began with a major in music and changed programs twice, first to electronics and engineering, and then to communications. After finding his passion for music through Mercy Years, Mott dropped out of school to pursue the golden dream of every struggling musician.

“After four years [of university], I still couldn’t find something that I was really excited to study,” Mott says. “I decided that’s not where I wanted to put my energy. I think that if you’re in school and spending all of that time and money, you should love what you’re doing.”

In many cases, this epiphany comes with a hefty share of hardship, potential failure, and dissatisfaction. But for Mott, passion and determination weren’t so difficult to find. “I don’t think there was a particular light bulb, but I eventually realized that I had to do what was best for myself, and what I want do is play guitar in a rock band and tour Canada and North America.”

Now, with their inaugural western Canada tour behind them, Mercy Years is taking steps down a promising path that started with guitarist Adam Sharp’s move to Canada and an ad on Craigslist in 2009. Sharp recruited guitarist Nick Russell, and the band was born.

“Nick was the only person that wrote me back who didn’t say ‘pro-attitude’. Everyone else was telling me how cool they were, and Nick was just humble, so we hit it off,” Sharp says.

Mott, drummer Jamison Gladysz, bassist Matt Gostelow, and vocalist Hannah Walker were adopted through their time working together at JJ Bean. Mercy Years came to a full circle when Russell took to Craigslist again and found the band’s latest addition, keyboardist and vocalist Laura Genschorek.

“Craigslist has been very good to this band,” Mott chuckles.

Their self-titled EP was officially released May 4, one day after their CD release show at The Cobalt, where free copies were given away. Three guitarists and multiple vocalists lend a full sound to their music, giving Mercy Years a creative advantage in the industry.

“We’ve always been into a collaborative approach to music. Having more members and having girl vocals adds a lot to the sound and gives you a wider range of things you can do with the music,” Russell says.

This variety comes through with the group’s weaving guitar parts and harmonious, soft vocals, which have been praised on the EP. “The proper review we had was good. It said we sounded very summery, which is something I’m not sure we expected, but now that I’ve listened to it, it’s true,” Russell says. “It’s great because summer CDs end up being road trip CDs, which you attach to good memories.”

Mercy Years has a sunny future that includes their first festival appearance in Edmonton in late summer, more hometown shows, and finishing their debut album. “We’ve got some good momentum at the moment,” says Sharp, “and it would be nice to keep it going.”

 

Mercy Years plays the Breast Cancer Fundraiser at 560 on May 24.

Hive: The New Bees 2 theatre collaboration promises a honey of a show

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By Daryn Wright

Resounding Scream will be bringing several theatre companies under one roof for a series of site-specific performance shorts

Chapel Arts, an event space at the edge of Strathcona, is about to give honeycomb housing to a dozen different independent theatre companies from the Vancouver area. Resounding Scream Theatre company is hosting Hive: the New Bees 2, a smorgasbord of theatre, dance, and music, all packed into one former funeral home.

The premise for the show is 12 independent theatre companies coming together, each given a nook of the Chapel Arts venue and asked to create a 10-minute performance inspired by the space. The participating companies include Rice and Beans theatre, Escaping Goat Productions, Human Theatre Collective, and Workingclasstheatre, among others.

“The inspiration for the show comes from the Progress Lab Company, a professional theatre group in Vancouver who has done this kind of show three times before,” said Catherine Ballachey, referring to the team behind La Marea, one of the most popular productions showcased at PuSh Festival in 2011, which used the shops of Gastown as stages and shut down roads for the performances.

Ballachey is the co-artistic director of Resounding Scream Theatre, and an SFU alumnus. She has written and directed three original plays, and is currently acting as the senior front of house manager at the SFU Woodward’s cultural unit. After completing her undergrad, she formed Resounding Scream Theatre with fellow SFU theatre major Stephanie Henderson in 2009 to bring a unique and fresh theatre experience to Vancouver.

The name Hive: the New Bees 2 comes from the hive-like space the performers are given; each nook is like a honeycomb in a beehive, housing a few performers from each company. The place will be buzzing with emerging and young artists, hence the “New Bees.”

“There’s a musical, a dance company, a few different installations; my company’s piece is a performance where the audience can come and go throughout the night. It’s just kind of continuously going and very interactive that way. It’s the kind of environment that lends to some experimentation,” Ballachey said.

Each performance will occur simultaneously, and the audience members will be encouraged to move from one piece to another. One production involves two people in a Winnebago-style van, with just enough room for about six audience members.

“I know as a young artist and as an audience member, when I went to the professional version, I was so inspired by seeing all these artists share the same space and share their work and work together,” Ballachey said.

The event is a mosaic of art forms. Some groups have as many as eight performers using a larger area, while some use only one or two people working in a smaller space. Following the theatre performances, there will be an after-show each night, including performances by prog-rock band Criminal Caterpillar, the comedic styling of David MacLean and Jacob Samuel, and the Gal Pal DJs on the final night. The event is a coming-together of the Vancouver arts scene, which has become increasingly necessary following the provincial funding cuts.

“Everyone approaches art really differently. At SFU they instill a certain kind of mentality in you: you focus on working with each other and making those connections. With visual art it’s very competitive, so it can be hard; you worry sometimes that there’s an ulterior motive. But people are very genuine and just want to do their art, whatever it takes,” said Ballachey.

While networking of this nature has become almost a necessity in the arts industry, it also creates a colourful and thriving community that works together to create new things. Kind of like a colony of bees.

“It’s tricky to convince people who haven’t been out to the theatre to come out to the theatre. There is a movement in the arts of being more self-sustainable, of running more like a business,” Ballachey said. The Vancouver independent theatre scene is dependent upon those who are eager to collaborate and to partake in the arts being created. Spring and summer is the time for independent companies to put on performances, while the colder seasons are generally the period in which professional companies put on shows. The separation of seasonal theatre helps to keep competition at bay, and also means that the warm months are filled with unique performances by passionate young bees.

 

Hive: The New Bees 2 runs from May 24–26 at Chapel Arts.

UBC laboratory defends controversial donation to the B.C. Liberals

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By Laura Rodgers

Political fundraising dinners have landed a particle physics lab at UBC in hot water

VANCOUVER (CUP) — Political fundraising dinners have landed a particle physics lab at UBC in hot water. TRIUMF, the Canadian national physics laboratory located at UBC’s Vancouver campus, donated a total of $1,950 to the B.C. Liberal Party in the form of tickets to fundraising events in 2011. These donations have come under fire from IntegrityBC, a British Columbian political watchdog group, as well as the B.C. NDP — both of which claim that, as TRIUMF is a registered charitable organization which receives taxpayer dollars, the donations should be returned.

According to TRIUMF’s director, Nigel Lockyer, the donations were made so that he could attend a handful of B.C. Liberal fundraising receptions in order for him to speak with Liberal MLAs Moira Stilwell and Richard Lee, as well as B.C. Premier Christy Clark.

“It’s a cost-effective, time-effective way to interact with the people in the government. That’s the way the system works,” said Lockyer.

TRIUMF, which is a joint venture between 17 Canadian universities, is a registered non-profit charitable organization in Canada. This organization is also linked with TRIUMF Accelerators Inc., which holds the facility’s operating licence, and TRIUMF Technologies Inc., a for-profit technology commercialization arm.

Lockyer stated that, although the lab does not receive any funding directly from the provincial government, he feels lobbying them is still important.

“We want to be sure that if there’s a phone call from Ottawa to Victoria and they say, ‘We’d like to ask you about TRIUMF,’ they know what it is, and they say it’s an important laboratory for us,” he said. “We have to be viewed as valuable to the province in order to get federal money.”

In total, TRIUMF receives about $55 million per year in public funding from the federal government, according to Lockyer. Their commercial profits total roughly $1 million each year.

TRIUMF CFO Henry Chen was adamant that no taxpayer dollars were used for the donations. “It’s not from taxpayer money, it’s other revenues that we generate,” he said.

According to Tim Meyer, TRIUMF’s head of strategic planning and communications, “the contributions were made from TRIUMF, the registered non-profit organization.” Meyer further clarified that the money came out of what he called a “segregated, non-public account.”

“Registered non-profit charities can make political contributions. There’s no law against that,” said Meyer.

However, Nola Western, the deputy chief electoral officer with Elections B.C., contested this statement. “It doesn’t matter what the source of the money was, what account it came from, a charitable organization is not permitted to make a political contribution,” said Western. “[A charity] is prohibited from buying tickets to fundraising functions for political parties.”

B.C. NDP caucus chair, Shane Simpson, also criticized the donations.

“I think that the suggestion that you can separate those dollars in some way justifies it is problematic. I think TRIUMF should accept that that’s just not an avenue that should be available to them because they get significant taxpayer money to fund their operation,” said Simpson.

Simpson said some of the onus should be on the Liberals themselves. “The Liberal Party of B.C. should not be accepting money from charities, and if it came from a charity, then they are obliged to give it back and they should do it as soon as possible,” he said.

“It would be better if they just felt confident they could get to the government without having to pull out their chequebook to do it.”

Dermod Travis, director of IntegrityBC, agreed. IntegrityBC is a provincial electoral-finance watchdog group, which initiated criticism of the donations. “Charities don’t cherry pick; that this fund comes from this person, and this donation comes from that person, and therefore we can take this little bit of money and give it to that political party and get away with it,” said Travis. “If TRIUMF is saying that effective lobbying is only done by making political donations to the party in power, we would have some very serious concerns with such a statement.”

Although the ultimate source of the funds may differ, Travis likened these donations to those made to the B.C. Liberals by SFU director of government relations Wilf Hurd. The cost of Hurd’s donations, just over $2,000, was reimbursed to Hurd by SFU, but after the Vancouver Sun reported on the issue, SFU altered their policies to prohibit similar donations in the future.

Although Lockyer insisted the two instances were different due to where the money came from, he also played down the importance of both. “This is really how the world works, but you can see, in our case, it’s not a lot of money,” Lockyer said. “I remember for SFU, it [was] not a lot of money either.

“If we spend $1,000 on average [per year] out of a million dollars it’s not a lot,” Lockyer added. “I really don’t think this is something that we want to stop doing.”

The B.C. Liberals have since stated that they will be returning the funds, as TRIUMF is a charitable organization.

Study turns over cards and minds to understand illusions

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By Alison Roach

SFU masters student looks at the psychology behind card tricks

When someone asks you to choose a playing card, you have a completely free choice in which of the 52 you pick, right? According to SFU psychology graduate student and teaching assistant Jay Olson, you might have less choice in the matter than you think. Olson has recently co-authored a study called “Perceptual and Cognitive Characteristics of Common Playing Cards” that investigates the relationship between psychology and magic.

The study itself focused on a seemingly simple brand of magic: tricks using playing cards. Specifically, it analyzes how one psychologically perceives individual playing cards. “We were trying to look at how card tricks work in the mind. There are some tricks that we don’t understand how they work in the mind, as magicians and as psychologists,” said Olson. He revealed that there are card tricks that magicians don’t completely understand themselves, or the reason why magicians think that they work happens to be incorrect. This means that there are psychological processes going on that aren’t completely understood, or even recognized.

The study looked at psychological characteristics of cards to better understand how people treat them. Four specific factors were examined: “visibility,” how well people can perceive specific playing cards; “memorability,” how memorable certain cards are; “likeability,” how much people liked certain cards; and “accessibility,” how easy it is to access specific cards when asked to name one. Looking at cards through these lenses, the study distinguished several large differences in how specific cards are treated. For example, when asked to name a card instead of being asked to visualize it, people will choose different types of cards.

Some cards are more “likeable” than others, and this might depend largely on the audience’s past associations with them. For example, the research showed that women liked lower valued cards more, while men tended to favour higher valued cards.

“We’re not sure why . . . but maybe men associate cards more with card games; say, poker. If more men play poker, then maybe they associate those kinds of values more than women do,” Olson speculated. It was found that people’s perceptions of cards were strongly linked to their favourite card games. For example, players of “Big Two” liked twos much more than those who didn’t, since twos are highly valued in the game.

There were some universals, however. Most notably, the study found that when people were asked to name a playing card, most people chose from the queen or king of hearts or the ace of spades. Women were found to choose the king of hearts more than men did, and men chose the queen of hearts more often than women. These findings suggest that there are inherent cultural, social, or psychological values that certain cards possess.

Olson has been personally practicing and performing magic since he was five years old, but had never really considered the psychological implications of his tricks until four years ago, when he saw a story in the Vancouver Sun featuring Alym Amlani, a UBC psychology major and instructor at Kwantlen, and Dr. Ronald Rensink, a professor at UBC. Olson contacted the two and they became a group, going on to co-author the paper in Perception together. “We started out specifically studying how magicians influence people’s choices,” said Olson.

The research has brought out not only some insight into the minds of the participants, but into the minds of the magicians themselves. There is one specific trick the team computerized, in which a person is shown each card in a deck and is then asked to choose a card. The person will think that they have a completely free choice in this, but in reality the magician knows 99% of the time which card they will choose. When this trick was automated, it was found that the reason magicians thought this trick worked was actually partially or completely wrong. In the experiment the computer shows 16 packs of playing cards to the viewer, flipping through the first while trying to make the person choose a specific card, then a second pack to make the person choose a different card, and so on. When Olson had the magician who initially taught him this trick sit down to participate in the experiment, his friend was skeptical, and claimed there was no way his choice could be influenced in more than one of 16 trials. In the end, the computer had actually gotten him to choose 5 of the target cards. To this day, four years later, Olson’s friend still doesn’t believe these results. “It just shows that someone who knows it’s a trick, who knows what the trick is, still feels he has a completely free choice of the card he wanted. It shows how strongly people want to have a free uninfluenced choice, when in reality they don’t,” said Olson.

Virtual Cupid: Dating in the Internet Age

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By Esther Tung

I’m not a middle-aged man crawling out of a painful divorce. I shower and floss every day, and the very nature of my job has me in intimate contact with strangers on a weekly basis. I don’t shave my legs, or know how to walk in heels, and the most private thing I’ll admit is that I forget to wear deodorant a little too often, but I can still look the part of a debutante on a good night. I’m even casually seeing someone I met in real life. Despite falling short of the litmus test for an online dater, I’ve been active on OKCupid for over a month, and it’s never been a secret among my real-life friends.

The underlying stigma of dating online is that if you use it, you’re likely desperate, boring, a bigot, or otherwise harbor some other fundamental personality flaw. But this perception likely stems from self-selection bias. Horror stories about creeps, pervs, and sociopaths naturally stick around the rumour mill longer and stronger, and are the ones we’re likelier to hear about. Among the 150 or so men who have messaged me so far, only a small percentage raise warning flags in their messages, whether it’s by calling me stupid and then asking me to call them anyway, or outright admitting to their flaws. As for the majority of users on OKCupid, some have social lives that are more conducive to platonic relationships than romance, but many people are new in town (read: cute European exchange students) and are looking for someone to hang out with and show them the underbelly of the city.

I chose OKCupid over the better-known Plentyoffish largely because I knew people who already had a profile. A man with whom I’ve been in a quasi-relationship for two years set up accounts with his best friend before he met me. Encouraged by both of them being legitimately charismatic, intelligent, creative types, I set up my profile. After spending a couple of weeks browsing matches, rating photos, and answering messages indiscriminately, I unearthed even more people that I knew in real life, from sweet-faced band members that I’d interviewed to distant colleagues from rival school papers. I knew they’d be able to see that I’d viewed their profile, but that initial mortification quickly melted into curiosity. Through the answers to their OKCupid questions (which are done to help the site come up with better matches for you), I was now privy to details that would never come up in actual conversation — whether they’d be horrified or turned on by getting slapped on the face during sex, whether they would teach their kids to believe in Santa, how often they masturbated — but even the novelty of that quickly wears off.

Quick gleaning of profiles showed that most men responded often to messages, while women replied either selectively, or very selectively. Granted, women get messages from at least a couple men a day, but I resisted feeling jaded about the whole experience, and replied to all messages as long as they were polite, regardless of the person’s photos or profile. Everybody’s got a great story if you’ll let them tell it. A married man once approached me for coffee. With his permission and input, his wife wanted to see another woman outside of the marriage. I declined, but mentioned that I had read The Ethical Slut, which led to a grand-scale discussion on polyamory and swinger culture. Eventually, some conversations stood out more than others, and meetings were proposed.

Over the span of a month, I met four men, and my only criterion for accepting an invitation to drinks was that we had kept up smart, sincere conversation over at least three or four exchanges. Even at this juncture, I put physical attraction on the backburner, and took it as an exercise in cultivating connections with people. It might have been an unusual approach to take in online dating, but in retrospect, such indiscrimination was central to how much I got out of the whole experience.

My first date lasted three and a half hours; my most recent one drew late into the night and clocked in at eight. I kissed one on the first date, and I have yet to even break the touch barrier with another even after third-date brunch. I’ve showed up underdressed and overdressed, too early, and too late. I’ve revealed insecurities, argued politics, and been uncool. I’m in the middle of what Cosmo calls a “boy binge”. Maybe being approached by a seemingly endless supply of good matches is what emboldened me to break pretty much every dating rule ever published under self-help, but this has serendipitously made dating the most fun it’s ever been. When you break all these rules, you realize that nobody actually knew they were rules in the first place.

B.C. Liberals must adapt faster to win the next election

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By Benedict Reiners

As of last week, we are officially less than one year away from the next provincial election, with the date already set for May 14, 2013. At this point, all evidence indicates the next legislature will have a radically different make up. As it generally does in such cases, the bulk of the responsibility belongs to the governing party. No, they could not stop the advent of the B.C. Conservative Party, nor could the current leadership wipe their record clean on the HST, but they could have handled those and other events far better, or at least more strategically.

The Conservative Party in B.C. has come into prominence on the basis of the claim that there was no true right-wing option for B.C. voters, and in previous years, that claim held legitimacy. The B.C. Liberals have decided to take out the Tories by invalidating that claim. How? By producing what is now another legitimate choice for right-leaning voters. This disregards one of their now-past strengths: the fact that they were a centrist party that could draw support, both from those who did not consider themselves left enough to vote for the NDP, and those not right enough to vote for the Conservatives. The Liberals are effectively opening up the votes for the centre and the entire left to the NDP, while splitting the right with the Tories. Sure, this means that John Cummins probably won’t be B.C.’s next premier, but it also lowers the odds of Christy Clark holding that same honour.

To address this problem, the Liberals need to move back to the centre. To get there, they’ll likely need to send an olive branch or two to the left-leaning voters. Perhaps the most effective way to do this would be to take a firm stance against the proposed Enbridge pipeline, instead of simply describing their government as “pro-economic development” at every possible opportunity. This would take some of the environmentalist vote from the NDP, and would show any voter deciding between the NDP and the Liberals that the Liberals can be a solid choice for those left of centre.

While they have not taken a firm stance on the proposed pipeline, the Liberals are clear on at least one issue: the HST, as legislation was finally pooled to transition back to the mixed PST/GST. However, even if the Liberals had opposed it with more conviction in the lead up to its demise, they would still have faced an uphill battle. The NDP vehemently opposed the HST, and if the Liberals were to defend their handling of the HST, the fact would remain that they brought it in in the first place. As such, it is bizarre that they chose that very issue as one of the few that they are taking a firm stand on.

All told, the B.C. Liberals have not handled the last political year with much grace, as they appear to be facing something of an identity crisis. We have seen the advent of the Conservative Party in B.C., and that has thrown the traditional practices of the two leading parties into question. For years, both the NDP and the Liberals have defined themselves simply as “not the other,” but with three parties, this no longer works. The NDP has been adapting well. The Liberals have not.

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Simon Fraser University’s independent student newspaper since 1965.

Contact us: [email protected]

© The Peak Publications Society 1965-2024

Simon Fraser University’s independent student newspaper since 1965.

Contact us:
[email protected]

© The Peak Publications Society 1965-2024