The italics portions is my opinion. Scroll down for the relevant material.
I like honesty and straightforwardness. Everyone likes to know the truth.

There’s a kind of allure to not knowing things. It’s the idea that showing some leg but not all of it. And largely, the popularity of oversized glasses hinges on the masking a large portion of your face. The observer’s brain and facial recognition and curiosity mix into a big mess. (But this may be something I don’t want to get into.)

But I also think that not some things are better left un-said. I had two odd situations this past month. The characters are really similar, their actions are different, but both stories end with me having a bad taste in my mouth.

1. Be Straightforward
I had been hanging out with “Stacy”, an asian girl, for a while. We had been going out, dinner, play, etc. Phoned, texted, yaddda yadda. She told me to call and text her more. She said she would make more time for me. Great?

To cover my bases and ‘just to make sure’ I asked her the other day if she had a boyfriend (we had a late night car ride where she went on about how she broke up with her previous boyfriend in December, and we started hanging out the end of January.

She said she has a boyfriend and they’ve been dating since January. It was one of those WTF moments that used to get me mad. But it didn’t. I’ve been riding at a moderate emotional range since last September. So I told her we’re not hanging out anymore and left it at that.

She should have told me she had a bf well before I asked. Sometimes I wish I had the courage to ask people “What were you thinking?” more often.

2. Leave it unsaid
I was at the casino last night playing Blackjack, card counting. I don’t usually chat with other players while I concentrate on the ‘count’ and remember deviations.

There was a little asian girl(“Fran”), who looked like my sister, Grace (not Gloria), playing at a different table. At one point, she sat down between me and some other guy. She chatted with him for a while.

Between shoes, the dealer said he taught Fran how to play the other night. I normally don’t like to play with inexperienced players (maybe it’s my superstition acting up), but I decided to help her a little on the basic-est of Basic Strategy.

Between shoes after that, Fran would go back to her previous table where her friends “Trudy” and “Linus” sat. After a little, they come play with us all for a while. I decide to not count for one shoe and talk with them a little. They’re all students, Vietnamese and they end their sentences with “man!”. (She keeps stealing my pho, man!). Trudy and Linus are siblings. Linus and Fran are dating.

After an hour, they all leave. But 2 minutes later, Fran and Trudy come running back:
Trudy: “Fran has something to tell you.”
Fran: “Shut up, no I don’t!”
Trudy: “Fran thinks you’re cute for a Taiwanese person. But she thinks you’re too old for her; it wouldn’t work out.”
They run away.

I didn’t think about flirting with Fran or say much past “You should double-down” or “I would split those”.

Stacy and Fran, you both have boyfriends. Do me and everyone a favor: put a freaking sign on your foreheads and leave me alone.

In a short time and on a small college bankroll, I’ve become a VIP player at a local casino. I won’t mainly be posting tips on how to play blackjack, but mostly about the culture that I’ve noticed, the social aspect of gaming, endoctorenated betting strategies, superstitions, and fallacies held by players that prevent long term winning.

Often times these false beliefs, superstitions, and lack of understanding compound each other.

The first fallacy I want to address is the ubiquitous belief that if you play the cards correctly, you will win. And, if you don’t play “correctly”, you will ruin the winning order of the cards – the winning order of cards that would give you: blackjack; twenty-one, if you hit; make the dealer bust, if you stay with than twenty-one; give the dealer a winning hand, if you decide to surrender; give the dealer blackjack, if you decide to take insurance; not give the dealer blackjack, if you don’t take insurance; all of which is possible in one shute, but highly improbable to expect.