magic

There's a very simple kind of magic that works surprisingly well in social situations.

People tend to live up to expectations, so if you genuinely expect what you want from people, that's what you'll get. Trust is a good example. Trust someone and they'll probably be trustworthy. People like being trusted, like it when people have faith in them. They won't throw that away without good reason. Obviously the trick is to genuinely trust them and not give them any of those good reasons... but that's not so hard.

Getting a job is another. If you're convinced that you deserve the job, the pay-check, then that'll rub off on whoever is interviewing you. But you can't fake it, you have to believe it. People can spot a faker a mile away.

By virtue of sheer optimism, I usually get what I want.

Like magic.

Trouble is, it works the other way around. Tell someone often enough that you don't trust them and they probably won't bother proving you wrong. Tell someone they're crap at their job and they'll rapidly live up to your expectations.

I really have to struggle with that with Maria. She's a bloody pessimist. She doesn't trust people, had little or no faith in relationships. So she ends up with someone like Brad. Even with my own blind-faith optimist's reality distortion field cranked up to 11, sometimes I had a hard time countering that. I lost the last skirmish.

I think I've won this one though. Maria is coming back this weekend, I'm picking her up from the airport, taking her out to eat. We're both looking forward to seeing each other. My bed will be made up with clean sheets, surrounded by candles and condoms.

But I'm still a little nervous about what happens after that, which isn't good at all. The magic doesn't work if you don't believe in it.