Couples That Look Alike

I'm ill. I seem to have caught a cold when recently the weather in the UK has been amazing. Nice sunny warm weather and I've been stuck at home spending most of my time in bed. So I thought to myself that I should do something and then it hit me.

Ever seen a couple walking down the street holding hands? Of course you have. Ever seen two people walking together and you think to yourself "Why is that guy holding his sister's hand?". You've probably seen and thought that too and then you find out that isn't his sister. There is an explanation into why these couples resemble each other so strongly that many people like myself think they are siblings. It's kind of like dog owners resembling their dogs.

When people generally think of love, a few quotes float through their minds such as 'opposites attract'. But is that exactly true? Clearly these couples are evidence contrary to this quote. I suppose it's not as simple as that.

The first study I will briefly discuss was led by Robert Zajonic (http://zajonc.socialpsychology.org/) who is no longer with us. He died from cancer in 2008. Couples had photographs taken when they just got married and then had photographs taken 25 years later (that's if the marriage lasted that long). These were then compared. In simple terms, the results were that over time the couples facial features resembled each other. If they were a happy couple, then the physical similarity was at a higher rate. Zajonic concluded that this may be because they were always in close contact with each other and they probably shared the same habits i.e. they slept at the same time, ate the same food and did the same kind of physical activities.

In 2006, the University of Liverpool conducted a study and asked volunteers to study photographs taken of couples. The volunteers were unaware whom was married to whom. It would have been pointless if they did. The results obtained were that couples who had been together the longest were percieved to have similar appearances and their personalities were matched together by the volunteers. Researchers stated that by possessing certain personality traits may be a factor in making an individual of the opposite gender's facial features attractive.

A study published in Evolutionary Psychology Journal asked questions to 750 members of a dating website regrading their personality traits. They were then asked what traits they looked for in their ideal partner and whether they wanted their parnter to complement their personality or resemble them. The data they collected was processed and showed that members had a preference for someone with the same sort of personality (which included neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness). The University of Iowa supported this finding in 2005 by stating that similarity in personality was more important than similarities in attitude, religion, and values in forming a happy marriage. Like-minded people validate each other's beliefs and views, and there tend to be fewer conflicts as a result.

Here's another article I've found that was published in Evolutionary Psyhcology Journal back in 2004 entitled: Narcissism guides mate selection: Humans mate assortatively, as revealed by facial resemblance, following an algorithm of “self seeking like”. It is only 14 pages long and is a good read. http://www.epjournal.net/wp-content/uploads/ep02177194.pdf

Below are some photographs of couples that strongly resemble each other.

It's a bit freaky right. Especially the last one. They really do look like brother and sister. There could be another reason why women sought men who resemble them. It's a well known fact that has been backed up by science that women who are 'daddy's girls' were more likely to find men who shared facial similarities with their fathers as attractive. That's a bit fucked up considering they get half their DNA from their father but that's one of the weird things in this world.

There is a website called Find Your FaceMate.com (www.findyourfacemate.com). It analyses your facial features from key areas and finds the best matches on its database. Perhaps you should try it just as an experiment. I'm quite curious myself but I may not like the end result. Haha. Who knows, if you have a girlfriend/boyfriend, they may not be the love of your life.

Here is a youtube video of two couples who used the site. Again, quite freaky.



So taking all this information in, I guess my girlfriend is going to be a Victoria's Secret Model, no? Haha.

Girls and Mirror Photos

I have to say, I'm usually confused with what women do most of the time but nothing confuses me more when they decide to take photos of themselves in the mirror. What is the point in doing this? Being my usual analytical self, they know they have a pretty face or a great figure yet they take a photo, post it up on social networking sites such as Facebook in the hopes that tons of guys will 'like' and be the envy of some of their girl friends. They'll also have a pout/duck face.

I mean look at her to the left. Yes, she is gorgeous and yes that is an amazing asset she has there but like I mentioned in the above paragraph, she clearly knows this. The fact that I have said she is gorgeous has also boosted her ego by reinforcing her belief that 'she's all that'. It is like most of these women want to be models and self-obsession in my opnion, should be considered more like a disease.

You are all aware of Sigmund Freud or I hope you are. Bit worrying if you've never heard of him but I shall continue. He mentions in his work that narcissism was not only a natural part of the human psyche but also a characteristic that if taken to an extreme level would prevent an individual from having meaningful relationships with others. A guy will look at a girl like this and say "yeh, I'd have sex with her but she isn't exactly wifey material". A girl who does this, really does not have much respect for herself so there is no point in taking her seriously.

These girls are excessively preoccupied with issues of personal adequacy, power, prestige and vanity. If you've met me, you'll know I'm always moaning at how vain society is. It's a fact that most of these girls will probably go for the douchebag type which is just fucked up but nevermind.

I've been at this new gym since the end of last year and I've met some cool people. One guy is signed up to an online dating site and has an app on his phone.It's called Plenty of Fish. There are quite a lot of women on there who do this kind of stuff. All profiles basically saying they're looking for 'Mr. Right'. To be honest, it's filled with horney women wanting some action. So going forward a little bit, he messages them and they reciprocate. Next thing you know, these girls end up sending some naked pics to him. I don't quite understand how he does it. If you read their profiles, they specifically say

Don't send me dirty messages. I won't reply back.

If that was me, I'd be like "Ok. No dirty messages. Got it!" and then I'd send a meaningful message to which I won't even get a reply. He'd do it and BAM! There you go. Naked pics. So the lesson learned is that if a woman says one thing, do the opposite. Besides, it's not the kind of quality I find attractive in a woman who I'd like to date but at least once in my life I'd like this to happen to me for just the experience... haha.

This is a reply from some girl who does this kind of thing often on FB.

Well I do take pictures of myself for fun. Sometimes I want to see how a new style or makeup or hairdo looks. Sometimes I am just bored and I find photography fun. Sometimes I want to see how other people can see me.

I laughed at the"...find photography fun". Do you really? Go and do some actual photography then. Go for a walk with your camera and take photos of nature or a busy street and not photos of yourself in the mirror jeeeeeez. Some women want to know why men don't treat them right and give them the respect they deserve. The first step is to have respect for yourself. Only then will others give you some sort of respect and not treat you like some object. By taking photos of yourself like that, people are not going to take you seriously. I believe that FB and other social networking sites are helping produce more narcissistic individuals.

Seductive Eyes

One of the things I find most attractive about women are their eyes. I personally like all shades of blue, green, grey, or hazel. Eyes which I can get lost in and disrupt my thought process.

When it comes to women, I've learnt that eye contact is important when communicating but I guess you knew that right? A crucial section of the piece of legislation known as the 'laws of attraction'. I read somewhere that if a woman maintains eye contact with you for a period longer than 3 seconds then she's interested. I haven't tried this out. To be honest, I don't have the balls to do it. In my mind, I believe it could go horribly wrong but then again I have nothing to lose right? or so that's what my friends tell me but it's harder to do and easier to say.

Still, I'm well aware that if a girl stares at you for a prolonged period of time, that indicates her interest in you. What's better is that if you notice her looking at you and she smiles then she's pretty much inviting you over to talk to her and it'll probably be up to you to maintain that interest she has. My experience with this is that if I saw a girl looking at me and she smiles, I immedietly think she's making fun of me. I'm serious. Yes, I have low self-esteem. This has happened a few times whilst my time at university and what did I do? I packed my stuff up and sat somewhere else. However, there was that one time when I fell asleep in a 24 hour computer room and woke up with paper stuck to my face but I clearly knew they were laughing about that. Anyhow, it is weird that I can't tell if this is happening to me at the time but I can clearly tell if it happens to my friends. Still oblivious to such signs so I haven't changed that much. On the other hand, if she isn't interested in you then she may quickly glance once or twice and then probably not look at you again thinking "What's he looking at?" or she may be really shy herself. It's a tricky situation.

Most guys I know tend to find approaching the girl the most diffiuclt thing but if she's smiled at you then as I've said before, you should go up to her because she's now made it easier for you. That's about the only thing they find hard. They're able to maintain conversation and escalate things further whereas I do not. I don't think I have the neccessary social skills to maintain conversation unless they're my friends and to be honest, I don't really do anything about it so I can't really moan.

Have you ever heard of something called 'bedroom eyes'? It's a term for seductive eyes. Some women have naturally seductive eyes but others have to work on some kind of seductive look to inform a male that she wants something more tonight. Some tilt their head back and still have their eyes locked on. In my opinion,  she just looks crazy and creepy and I kind of get scared.
Talking about seductive eyes, last year women in Saudi Arabia who had 'sexy eyes' were told they would have to cover them up. I don't really mock culture and religion that much as it causes unnessassary trouble but I just found that hillarious. That was probably they only part of their body that was not covered and now their told that they'd have to cover their eyes up too. They'd just end up wearing black cloaks or whatever other colour they choose that'd ressemble the KKK.

The government of Saudi Arabia has decided that its men would do better without the "tempting eyes" of attractive Saudi women in public places.

Apparently, women in Saudi are required by law to wear the 'Abaya' which as I've mentioned previously covers all parts of their bodies. Those who wonder in public places without it will be executed...nah, they'll just get fined. The idea is that Saudi men should not get tempted and look at women lustfully. Well, I guess Saudi isn't the best place for me to live. No wonder why nearly most of the Arab students that come into the UK are so horney and they try to get chicks over here. Mind you, they also drink since they are far away from home and are temporarily living the western way of life. I'm just wondering though, have they banned porn in Saudi? Guess it must suck to live there huh.

So there you have it. Don't really know what else to say. If you've got any thoughts you'd like to share then please comment.

Abercrombie Douchebags

One company which I'm starting to dislike is Abercrombie & Fitch, the Parent Company of Holister and Gilly Hicks.

Now I can't tell a person what to wear and what not to wear. It is up to him/her to wear what suits their personality. The Company's employment policy in my opinion however is just wrong. It is also used by it's subsidiaries. I was having a discussion on Facebook with one of the girls who works at Holister. She was an ex-housemate and a very nice person. I asked her:

"ok. ok. so if a guy who was overweight and another guy who was in good physical condition were to apply for the same position, who'd you think would get it at one of these stores (Gilly Hicks or Holister)? bare in mind that the overweight guy had extremely good communication skills and was able to sell quite a lot of stock where as the other had no such qualities"

 Her reply was:

"yeah but he wouldn't be able to fit in their clothes and you have to wear their clothes. silly! :P"

I have no idea whether they produced XL or XXL clothing so I just searched it up and found out they do. I'd be surprised if they didn't because all other desginers produce these sizes such as Ralph Lauren, Armani, Hugo Boss etc. But even so, from that I gather that despite the overweight guy being more suited for the job, he probably wouldn't 'look good' which clearly does not fit the image the Company's marketting style and would therefore lose out to the other guy.

I've only been in that store once and that was because an old school friend went in there. We hadn't met for a very long time. He told me that the main reason why he wears such clothing is because his girlfriend wants him to wear it. So essentially, his girlfriend wants him to be 'hip' and clothing from Holister is 'hip'. When I went in with him, it was dark with hardly any lighting. Clever trick to use on consumers as they can't see the exact detail on the clothing but they'll still buy it. Everyone seems to be following this craze of purchasing their clothes from these stores. People even on Facebook have put in their job description 'Works at Holister' even though they actually don't. It's appears that if you work there, then society has accepted that you are good looking. I along with a few others seem like the only ones who haven't sucumbed to this so-called Abercrombie indoctrination for which I am glad. I'd rather be unique than follow the crowd.

Here is a MAD TV skit on Abercrombie employees. What I like about it is that it's a true representation. Enjoy.

The Art of Movement - Part 1

 When one refers to the 'art of movement', what springs to your mind? For many youngsters, parkour or freerunning would be one mentioned.

In essence, parkour is simple in concept and difficult in practice. Precision is everything and like everything else, the beginner will need to start small and develop his reflexes by performing a range of exercises. These are designed to incorporate flexibility and strength. It is easy in a few ways. However, if you want to do it right with speed and efficiency then you must practice one exercise sometimes for days or weeks, maybe months at a time. And again, like everything else, you need to continue pracitcing. You can never truly know parkour, it's infinite.

There is something about it that is calming. The fluidity of movement as I would call it brings my mind to peace. You don't think too much about what you are about to do. If you think about it too much then is it not fluid? you just do it whilst expressing yourself at the same time. Of course, you must be aware of the environment and the obstacles it holds but for me that is about it.

It has been 'established' that the concept of parkour was developed in France by David Belle and those who were close to him. I.e. his father and his friends. I have emphasised on the word established because in my mind and basing this on common sense, surely this form of movement has existed long before by the likes of say, primitive humans. Take civilisations that primarilly existed within the numerous jungles of the world such as the Aztecs or Mayans. In order to catch prey which would have most likely been faster than man, every movement they made in the chase had to count. One slip and most probably they would have lost their dinner for the day. The same would apply if one were running away from someone or something.You may be familiar with the popular japanese ninja and shinobi. They used very unorthodox methods to gain entry into enemy strongholds.

Unbeknownst to me before I typed the above were Sebastian Foucan's words.  He mentioned on the Channel 4 documentary which a lot of you may have seen called 'JUMP London' that

"...parkour has always existed. Free running has always been there. The thing is that no one gave it a name. We didn't put it in the box"

This supports my thoughts that they didn't actually 'create' it, but more like 'adapted' it to the modern concrete jungles that are now spread across the world. Like all inventors, someone before them had to have built the groundwork and they were the ones forunate to complete it to put it in one way i.e. the well known Thomas Edison and the light bulb.Foucan (along with Belle and others) was a member of the The Yamakasi, the group that first exposed me to parkour. All members have pretty much said the same thing in relation to the origins of the concept. It has always been there. As soceity became advanced and a system of movement (by that I mean, pavements and road etc) is now in place, is there any need for parkour? But parkour isn't totally just about getting around efficiently. It's an essential tool for survival. I believe that as a species, man now depends too much on what they have created. Technology and science which have helped ensure 'survival of the masses' are being depended on too much. Why drive to a supermarket which is literally 10 minutes away to do small amount of shopping when you can perfectly walk there? But the main factor is that we no longer need to hunt for our food. This changed everything. But if there were to be a catastrophic event and we were forced to live in a harsh environment with no modern food supply system working and hunting was clearly required, how many 'normal' people would be able to survive? I don't think many will but then again survival is not all physical, you need to be tough mentally which is why the Yamakasi stand for "Strong Body. Strong Mind. Strong Spirit". I therefore think that perhaps man has physically regressed in certain ways. One thing is for sure is that we are lucky to be alive. Our ancestors were perhaps the fittest and strongest 30-40,000 years ago who had lived in extreme conditions. I don't think many of us could live through what they did now with all the facilities we take for granted.

Does Britain Have An Inferior Gene Pool?

The reason why there has been a lack of activity on this blog is because I've decided to take some time off since graduating to travel, start a buisiness project, and spend some quality time with Xbox. Last month I went to Stockholm, Sweden and it is true what they say about the country. It is the land of beautiful people. The women were gorgeous. I've never seen women with such beauty. Mind you, I've never seen so many H&M stores too but that's going off-topic.

From my travels so far, I have observed that the populations of the areas that I've been to in general are far better looking than that back home. Perhaps it is early for me to type this before I head off to Brazil hopefully at the end of the month, but I am already arriving at the conclusion that Britain's gene pool is inferior to the rest of Europe and is probably one of the 'weakest' in the world. I must stipulate that this is purely based on observation. I have been thinking carefully why this is the case. Surely the invasions from the Saxons, Romans, Vikings, Normans and the in recent times, number of immigrants now living in Britain would have created a more diverse gene pool. Well according to a study by arcaheologist David Miles from the Institute of Archaeology, Oxford has unravelled that there has been little change in regards to the genes of Britons since the Ice Age. If you wish to read more, you can check your local library, purchase or try to download a PDF of his work entitled 'The Tribes of Britain' - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tribes-Britain-David-Miles/dp/0297830864

There was a news article written a few years back in relation to a website called BeautifulPeople.com. Statistics from the site revealed that one in eight British men (about 12%) and just three in 20 women (roughly 15%) who have applied were accepted as members. So when you apply, you have a 48 provisional period whereby existing members rate you. Extremely shallow. I'm guessing it is a Scandanavian site but don't take my word for it. Swedish men have proved the most successful applicants, with two-thirds (65%) of those putting themselves forward being accepted. Norwegian women are considered the most beautiful with more than three-quarters (76%) making the grade.

Since the website was opened to UK members in 2005, 295,000 people have applied, with only 35,000 being approved. Please note that the figures are out of date as it's information extracted from an old article. I have no idea what the current figures are but I'm guessing it'll still be low for Britons. The MD of the site Greg Hodge is himself English and when asked why Britain was doing badly, he said

"I think there is less emphasis on appearance in the UK than overseas. If you go to some countries they are very into how they look, very health and body conscious. The UK attitude is a bit more about kicking back and relaxing, and having a few drinks in the pub after work."

As I mentioned earlier, I had been thinking of reasons why Britons were 'ugly'. Could diet be a major factor and not getting enough essential healthy nutrients over generations and generations contritbute to this? Unattractive people mating with unattractive people creates more unattractive people? It's a mystery.

Here are two videos.

The first is a video comparisson of nighclubs in Sweden and The UK



The second is just general Swedish clubs. I can vouch for this one as I've been there.

Well that's it from me. Enjoy!



If you have any thoughts, leave a comment.

Never Give Pretty Girls a Compliment

Some say women want to be told that they're beautiful etc but in my experience, that has never worked out. But then again, I've hardly given any girls compliments because I see it like this. If you see a very attractive young woman in a bar/club, her defences are going to be up. She knows she's going to be hit on by guys from all corners of the ring. In her mind, she needs to find the most suitable person out of the bunch. Most of the time, it'll probably end up being the most attractive guy as women are quite shallow despite many of them saying that looks aren't important to them and it's all about personality. This is usually a lie.

They're programmed to find the best mate possible for reproduction. I guess personality doesn't help ensure surivial. Getting back to the topic at hand, since you know they're expecting to be hit on, you need to try and treat them as normal people or maybe perhaps be a bit mean to them. A lot of the guys will be trying to get into their knickers so they'll be treating these women like princesses. I suck at this so if I ever did talk to a girl, I'd try and be as normal as possible.

I have a friend who until recently was giving pretty girls compliments on the street. He didn't even know them. The result; hardly any numbers recieved and he came off very desperate. The after effect of his acts; since people in general remember awrkward events happening to them and women talk about these things to their friends, the next time they see him they'll warn them about him and it'll go like this:

Girl hit on by friend: "you remember that guy i told you who hit on me in the city centre?"
Girl's friend: "which one?"
Girl hit on by friend: "that guy when i bought that dress"
Girl's friend: "ooooohhh yeah"
Girl hit on by friend: "That's him over there"
Girl's friend: "Oh my god"

So next time if you're in a club/bar and want to talk to a girl you like but she's surrounded by lots of guys, try and get an oportunity to make yourself stand out from the rest. It may not work first time round but if you practice, I'm sure it'll work out. Ever seen the movie Hitch? He isolates one of these chicks by giving her money and pretending that he thought she was a waitress. Genius.