CURIOUS WEDNESDAY // man.i.pulation

Man – The term is used for an 

adult

human

male

(the term 

boy

is the usual term for a human male 

child

or 

adolescent

).

I – The first-person singular subject pronoun in English

Pulation – In category theory, a branch of mathematics, a pulation square (also called a Doolittle diagram) is a diagram that is simultaneously a pullback square and a pushout square. It is a self-dual concept.

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I was having brunch with a dear friend today, when the topic of manipulation was brought up. It had been brought up several times before, and always in a positive light. I had never considered the act of manipulation as a positive attribute unlike wikipedia, which considers all, but I was starting to understand where my friend was coming from. Manipulating clients, in a service based industry to have more pleasant conversation while you are working, by avoiding certain topics of conversation – can at times, by some people, be considered in-genuine and manipulative. However, having a combined 20 years of experience in service based industries, we had come to an executive decision. It is important to change and adapt to your environment in order to survive.

The topic then turned to friends who had made careers from the practice of psychological manipulation, and the men who provide the outlet. I had heard of “sugar daddies” in passing, and even the website which exist as a forum for communication what I had thought then was a joke. They are real – so real in fact that a friend of my brunch-mate’s had found, and was currently some old rich dude’s platonic “sugar babe.” I was stunned. Is it really that easy?

There I was, thinking I had to work for a living, trying hard to dress well and schmooze with the right people, gauging potential clients and customers. It’s all the same: table service, design, art consultation, flagellation.

It turns out, it’s just as much work as everything else. The girl had gone on many interview dates, no doubt with countless offensive douchebags. Some may say she was lucky to find a gentleman happy to support her, others would just call her no doubt with jealousy a manipulative gold digger who was in it to win it. I wish I knew her, so I could pick her brain. Instead, I did the next best thing by joining a couple of the sites. I’ll keep ya’ll posted – hopefully from my 200ft yacht which I would definitely, name “Absinthe”.

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This column has been brought to you by: exhaustion. I’m so fucking tired. Oh, and cigarettes.

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Curious Wednesday is a weekly column written and driven by the personality of Ms. Marquise discussing the insides of her head in relation to things around her. New topics can be found on the Bushwick Daily every Wednesday, while you can find her productions listed on False Aristocracy.

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