What Kind Of Man Can We Not Tolerate

A friend and I collated the following traits in men that women cannot tolerate in men. We specifically did not include things like his looks, his wealth etc. We focused only on his traits.

1. He wants to spend a lot of time with you - more than you expect and is possessive. He doesn't give you space. 

2. He listens to the strongest person everywhere (Mother, sibling, friend etc) - like Bingley in Pride and Prejudice. He has no mind of his own. He can't take much stress / responsibility. if there is a problem he usually avoids it. He doesnt take any initiative for most things (to go out, even sex).

4. You can't have a long enjoyable conversation most times with him.

5. He has a foul temper and / or little sense of humor and / or is a chauvinist. He may seek your opinion / decision but his decision will usually be different.

8. He cannot be trusted (with money, women). His integrity is not much to write home about.

The fun is that no man will have ALL these characteristics. Each man will have some of these, and not the rest. Which of these is the worst that YOU cannot tolerate? How would you rank these? Note that the numbers are 1, 2, 4, 5 and 8.

We have taken pains to ensure that there aren't too many points to confuse the reader. And hopefully we have not left out important traits. If women can read these traits and point to one of these and then say "aha THERE is my man. right there", I think our efforts would have been justified. 

Comments welcome. (Earlier we had 8 different points. Then based on the analysis of the comments we got we reclassified the traits, Point 5 includes erstwhile 7. And point 2 includes 3,6)

Impact of Last Name Portability In India (When Spouses Can Be Legally Changed After 90 Days While Still Retaining Same Last Name)

I was discussing with a friend what would happen if this LNP (Last Name Portability) came into vogue and it was legal. LNP is the fictitious option invented by me to legally change your relationship partner if you don't like him (or her) after a minimum time period has elapsed. It is the option to have a no questions asked divorce after 90 days have elapsed. Assume first that there are no children involved. Just like you can change your mobile service operator after 90 days - no questions asked while still retaining your number.

Imagine you been married for some time. Things aren't too good, either for you or your spouse. So you start exploring while you are married and when you find another partner who you think is good. You wait until 90 days are over (let's assume that is the minimum time before you can change partner) and then you inform the partner and leave. Either of the partner will leave (who leaves is something that needs to be decided).

Now you are on to a new relationship. You would find things are ok initially and then they start deteriorating. Perhaps both partners feel that this relationship is also not ok. 

You move on to the third relationship. 

When it comes to the third you will be much more careful. You don't like this business of moving every 90 days. It sounds stupid.

Obviously you would be careful to avoid pregnancy until you have spent 3 years (say) with your partner. There are too many issues to tackle when there are children. You would want to be sure before having a kid.

So this time you would hesitate, wait and try to figure out what went wrong. What are others doing? How are they doing? 

Everyone wants to settle with ONE partner for a LONG time.. PEOPLE ARE NOT interested in changing every 90 days just because there is an option available.

So after one or two juvenile mistakes people will be more cautious. It's similar to how it is with MNP (Mobile Number Portability). Do we keep changing telephone operators? Don't we find out which new operator is good? Or if we think everyone is equally bad, don't we hang on to the incumbent? Only 3% of customers have used LNP in one year as per data I read recently (http://www.mnp-india.com/.)

With LNP, most people would probably go through 2 or 3 or maximum 4 relationships before they apply the brakes and do some serious introspection. People would not be indiscriminately promiscuous or have relationships indiscriminately one after another. Better sense would prevail. 

You will start evaluating new partners in new ways. You will look at how many partners he/she has had. If there were too many that itself would be an issue. Just like companies we wont recruit people who change jobs too often. You may start asking for references from previous partners or get feedback from previous partners. Like in ebay you may give and get positive / negative rating after each relationship.

Having the choice of change (of phone or partner) after 90 days doesn't mean things automatically become better. You still have to be sensible.  And you will become sensible. People DO NOT want to keep changing partners for the heck of it. MEN ALSO WONT like it.

So how would things essentially change compared to now?

People will have had couple more partners than now. They are likely to be happier than now because they have an option to leave a poor relationship and find themselves a more suitable partner. And have kids later in life.

What about assets acquired? There will be prenuptial contracts (formal or just oral). When couples split, they may value the assets and split in the proportion of their contribution. 

LNP would make no sense to partners who don't work (or earn) because they could be left high and dry. Women would find jobs. They would become equal or almost equal to men. There would be less consideration or protection to women because of their gender. The current practice of one person (men) earning and the other taking care of home will become less practical. That worked fine when the marriage was until "death do them part". Losers, men and women who aren't fit to be in a relationship or those who do not make good partners, will move into oblivion. The unfit won't survive.

Parents would have less part to play in the marriage either before or after marriage. Parents (in case of arranged marriages) played an active part in choosing the bride or groom. But if LNP is going to happen to more often, they would not be involved in the process of choosing a partner for their children. The death knell would sound on the old Tamil saying "Aayaram poi cholliyum oru kalyanam pannalaam" (Even 1000 lies can be told in order to conduct a marriage).

Guruji mentioned that marriage expenses would fall. Instead of having one big fat Greek wedding, people may have a few petite weddings. And the groom's side would be expected to contribute equally to the expenses. One would not invest too much on a very risky or a short lived venture.

And guess what? Men would have to learn house work. Guys who are unfamiliar with the kitchen won't make the cut. They would end up with poor ratings or without a partner and then will have no choice but to learn to do household chores. Ain't this nice?

Until LNP becomes a reality in India, women currently have to choose dubious last names such as Rani, Devi, Kumari etc in order to to not anyone know who their current spouse is. With LNP, women can remain a Shah even if their current spouse's last name is Naseeruddin. Men don't have this problem. They don't change their last name just because they have changed their spouse. 

Jesus Christ, what is this? http://www.timescrest.com/society/another-name-for-rape-6767

Additional reading: This is lovely reading.

Love In Titanic

A friend and I were discussing love and what causes it to happen and to break. She cited the love between Kate and Leonardo in the movie Titanic. 

Which woman wouldn't love a character like Leonardo? He was a welcome breeze in her life, she being engaged to an arrogant man she didn't love. She was about to commit suicide when Leonardo saves her and during the course of the next three days becomes a good friend and ultimately gave his life to save her. Fairy tale like, isn't it?

Kate was grateful to him for being a good friend in time of her need. What else did they have in common? That he was from the lower classes and not an unmitigated arrogant ass like Kate's fiance? And that Kate disliked her fiance because she was "sold off" to her fiance?

Now was this really love between Leonardo and Kate? Could it have sustained if the ship didn't sink as it did? What would have happened if they had both survived and been in a relationship?

Would they have loved each other for the next 10 years? Could Kate have been happy with Leonardo's lower middle class life, upbringing and aspirations? Could Leonardo have moved "up" the rung?

This is almost like Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck in Roman Holiday. They had 3 days of close friendship but after that they had to go to their separate lives. Their lives couldn't be one. Were Audrey and Gregory in love? Or did circumstances cause a good friendship, with likely a low shelf life? I think it's the latter.

Both sets of couples (in Roman Holiday and Titanic) truly liked each other's company for those three days. Put them together for a longer period of time, then their fondness towards each other would likely have turned sour. I guess I would predict the same with Richard Gere and Julia Roberts in the movie Pretty Woman.

Transient fondness can be created by circumstances. Love cannot be created/sustained if people come from too different a background. And certainly love needs a longer time to grow and take roots. You cannot be in love with a person whom you have known for three days.

Was the love between Eliza and Darcy in Pride and Prejudice (http://vbala99.blogspot.com/2011/11/why-did-elizabeth-love-darcy.html) or between Jennifer and Oliver in Love Story (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_Story_(novel)) of a transient kind or a permanent kind?

Comments welcome.

Capital Protection Fund

I came across a presentation which explained how a capital protection scheme worked. 

It's like this. The money is invested for a specified duration, say, 5 years. About 65% of the amount you invest is deployed into debt funds (fixed deposits etc) which at the end of the period will grow to the total amount you invested. Thus your capital is protected no matter what.

Now the balance amount (35% in this case) is invested in equity. Over 5 year period this can double or grow by 50% or you can lose your shirt. Any which way, the capital you invested is protected.

Now, the presentation also had made an analysis in the last 12 years of returns from investment in equity over a rolling 3 year period. There were 3000 odd data points.

I assume the data points were like:

1 Jan 1999 - 1 Jan 2002

2 Jan 1999 - 2 Jan 2002

...

30-Sep-2008 - 30-Sep-2011

You can see that its about 10 yrs (of 240 days each approx, excluding weekends and other holidays) which comes to about 2400 days.

Now coming back to what the analysis in the presentation...

It was mentioned that the investment (in equity) gave positive returns 80% of the time (of the 3000 samples) and gave negative returns 20% of the time. Meaning, if you had blindly invested in equity between 1999 and 2008 and stayed invested for 3 years, there was a 80% chance that you would make money and 20% that you would lose money.

Note:

I am not going into how much one would have profited or lost. I am assuming that it may not be an important factor in this analysis. 

Now if we change the 3 year investment period what happens to the analysis? Investment in equity is risky. One could make or lose a lot. If we reduce the investment period to 2 years then we would have made negative returns probably 40% of the time (instead of 20% of the time as in the case of 3 year lock in).

Conversely, if the lock in period was increased to 5 years, the probability of negative returns would reduce. Maybe it might only be 10% instead of 20%.

Now, if the probability of getting a negative return when we invest in equity market over 5 years is only 10% (and I assume the expected loss is about 15%) then this also is a form of capital protection. You don't lose more than 15% of your capital. While the upside in case of profit would be much higher. Right?

So my question is: why are people selling debt instruments when the investment horizon is 5 years? Why do investors buy it?

Should we not focus on (a) CAGR Returns (b) risk (c) liquidity while making an investment and choose whichever product/instrument which meets our goals. Whether its gold or silver or real estate or sectoral funds or stocks or equity funds or debt funds or balanced funds etc? Why do we compare each asset class with its own benchmark? Should we not instead compare across asset classes using the common parameters like the three mentioned above?    

Getting What You Want

A friend sent me this quote: 

""The only thing worse than not getting what you want is getting what you want". 

I modified it for her.

"WHEN YOU DON'T DESERVE SOMETHING, the only thing worse than not getting what you want is getting what you want".

In Tamil there is a saying "Mudavan kombu thenukku aasai paduvadu pola". It translates roughly as "a lame man wishing to get honey from a tree (how stupid it is, he will never get it)".

If the lame man doesnt deserve it and gets it, later the honey will think "what did I do to deserve this lame man and walk out." Getting something that you don't deserve creates more problems than it solves.

Maths Puzzle - 21 - Forgotten Password

A boy forgot his pin-code which was of 5 digits, but luckily he remembered some hints to remember that password, here are those clues. 

1. First digit is equal to the square of second digit 

2. Second plus 3rd digit are equal to 10 

3. 4th digit equal to the 2nd digit plus 1 

4. 5th plus 3rd digit make 14 

5. Sum of all the five digit make 30. 

Find the pin code. Let's see how your math is.

Maths Puzzle - 20

Only 2% students had solved this question in an exam.

5+3+2=151012 

9+2+4=183662 

8+6+3=482466 

5+4+5=202504 

Then 7+2+5=???

(I couldn't solve it fully. Guruji provided the solution).

Maths Puzzle - 19

Guruji gave me this puzzle.

Try to solve this puzzle. She said only 1 Out of 100 Has been able to solve this. If you’re able to solve it you’re one of those … And your IQ is also above 150. (I don't think this is true. It is far too simple for that.)

IF

7 - 3 = 10124

6 + 3 = 3279

5 – 2 = 763

11 + 2 = 92613

Then,

15 - 3 = ?

Maths Puzzle - 18

A friend gave me this puzzle today.

A man wanted to enter a club

Every member knew the password,

The man hid himself beside a wall and tried to listen to the password.

A member came, watchman said 'twelve'

Member replied 6,

Watchman opened door.

Another member came, watchman said 'six'

Membr replied 3,

Watchman opened door.

Man thought he had got the password

He went to the door,

Watchman said 'eight'

Man replied 4. Watchman didn't open door.

What was the password?

Some Articles On Relationships

A friend sent me a link on relationships; about the kind of men you shouldn't marry I did a back of the envelope calculation: 

There are 7 billion people in the world. 3.5 billion males.

Males up to 18 years age (@20% of total population):  0.7 billion

Males above 60 years of age (@15% of total population): 0.5 billion

Males between 18 and 60: = 3.5 - 0.7 - 0.5 = 2.3 billion

Males (and also females) between 18 and 60 who are not married (@40% of above population): 0.9 billion =900 million.

After you eliminate all of the kind of males listed in the article, I wonder how many of the 900 million males will remain still eligible though. Maybe 2 million?

So 900 million women would be looking out for 2 million men? If a man is part of this 2 million, imagine his odds. Wowowowow.

Another interesting article:

Are you a standby in his life? (http://timesofindia.com/PDATOI/articleshow/10507078.cms)