Author: Deano

First, I invite you to check out my answer to the question What is it like to work as a "pusher" in Tokyo's subway system? for some perspective.

Generally speaking:

As humans, we are exceedingly flexible, and we'll tend to adapt in time to whatever the local environment requires, to help preserve our sanity and allow our brains to keep from being distressed constantly. People who ride the subways in Tokyo during rush hour are no different.

For one thing, the overcrowded train stuff happens only during a very limited period of the day, on specific express or commuter-focused lines only. As Tom Spano says, when you need to be somewhere during those specific times, it beats walking! If you need to do it regularly, it beats the likely-outrageous cab fare (not to mention the amount of time either would take to get you to your destination). The rest of the time, the crowding is much less a problem, though that may seem less true in the hot sweaty summer months coming up…

Okay, that aside, why are people willing to tolerate the crowding? Simply put, people in Tokyo, and other densely-populated areas of Japan are:

• quite generally polite and respectful, which makes things easier, and
• have a different concept of "personal space" than most Westerners do.

The latter trait is certainly not exclusive to Japan… Everything is relative! But in Tokyo, where walking down a busy street often means walking in packs of a dozen or more, rather than the 4-5 you might experience regularly in New York, things just simply don't "feel crowded" until you're actually touching other people unintentionally.

As a foreigner, it was a very conscious experience for me to first experience the crush of pedestrians when I landed at Narita… And to notice, day by day, week by week, how little those same crowds affected me, and how much easier it became to see the "holes" in a crowd, if I needed to press through in a hurry without disturbing the general flow of things.

It's an acquired skill and even "taste", if you will… One borne out of necessity given the tightly-packed population. But, in many ways, I grew to vastly prefer it – it kept me far more observant in my daily routine, and made my accommodations (also very small compared to what I was used to in the US) feel downright palatial. So much so, in fact, that I can go back now and stay in Capsule Hotels without really noticing that I'm paying to be a giant sardine.

I know I've strayed a bit from the specifics of subway crowding, but in general our sensory inputs can be tuned up or down (just ask your garbage hauler, or a porn video editor) to suit our need for mental calm, which is one of our greatest advantages as a species.

Why are people willing to tolerate the extreme crowding on Tokyo subways?

I'm having trouble finding an answer that actually addresses the question asked, so here goes:

Marriage ceremonies are, with a few exceptions, affairs based on religious, not legal tradition. Religions tend to have various marital rulesets based on millenia-old problems establishing paternity, inheritance – and to a lesser extent, the preservation of the bride's rights and powers after producing offspring.

If you consider the historical origin of marriage itself as a sales process, the ceremony is basically the equivalent of a contract signing – and most contracts would be useless if they were written as "this holds true until you're no longer feelin' it". Rather, by making it clear that the arrangement was permanent (barring certain fairly common clauses), the gravity of the institution, and the alliances forged and lands distributed as a result could be viewed as much more stable and long-lasting than they otherwise would.

Today, 90% of the original reasons for inter-familial marriage are viewed as relatively unimportant (British royalty and Hollywood dream-couples aside), with love and affection being the popular selection principles. In turn, this makes marriage inherently more of a "couple" than a "families" affair. Romeo and Juliet can get married, and the Montague-Capulet hatefest is free to continue unabated.

Unfortunately, neither established religions, nor the law, have moved as quickly as the modern human heart – which creates the disparity at the core of the question:

On the one hand, the marriage ceremony is (usually) filled with language of permanence at all costs,

While on the other hand, most "functional" marriages are much more complex, and usually based on factors that are never even mentioned during the marriage ceremony.

So, really, it's simple: the reason most marriage ceremonies assume permanence is because the ceremonies are largely cut from old, outdated cloth. Whether or not this is a good thing is another question entirely.

This is not to say that it's impossible to create a ceremony of that is both legal, and more self-aware/modernized to reflect the specific desires and agreements of a given couple. With the widespread availability of "retail prenups", more exotic vehicles like the "Relationship LLC", and the burgeoning availability of non-heterosexual marriage, it seems likely that the problem described in the question will be at least more significantly addressed in the next few decades.

For the record – my personal recommendation would be to subsume all marriage within existing adoption law – allowing for many additional forms of marital constructs in one fell swoop (non-heteronormative, non-monogamous, asynchronous, pure platonic, etc), as well as building in probationary periods, and routine checkins – not simply to police the newlywed, but to assist them in establishing relationships that truly can withstand the many tests of time. This might also make it easier for everyone involved to address the conclusion of a marriage in a less inherently negative/failure-oriented manner.

Why do marriage ceremonies assume marriage is forever, when for many, it isn't going to be?

A wise man once said, "You can ask the salad to toss itself, but you still wind up with breath that reeks of more than desperation."

Why not simply either:

• Express your interest directly on its own merits, and let her decide what's right for her, or
• Be awesome – in a way that makes her helpless but to dump her man and fall for you

(It… kinda… is… that easy. Courtesy of http://afterlifemints.wordpress….)
Unfortunately, rule #1 of being awesome is not being needy, so you'll basically have to give up any expectations and hopes with this girl in order to be the guy who could easily snag her. Funny how that works.

On the bright side, being awesome is its own reward – though one that often comes with bonus gifts like meeting newer, more interesting girls who are actually single and into you.

Can you ask a girl to break up with her boyfriend to be with you?

The best solution to deal with negative emotional states is to fill up your time with activities that require high levels of concentration and/or effort.

Doing so will not eliminate the pain, but keep it constrained to your more "thoughtful" free time. And, if you do a good job at picking activities, like exercising and cooking for yourself, you may find that diet and fitness ride in with a wave of positive-emotive-state-inducing brain chemicals that will help you even out a bit. Surrounding yourself with friends, and focusing on the positive (rather than having a pity party) also does wonders.

Another great method that takes the sting from heartbreak is to fail utterly, completely, and seemingly-life-endingly at something besides love[*].

Forgetting is not an option, but eventually, the immediacy of the pain and the feeling of helplessness in an "active heartbreak" give way to more nostalgic, "nichevo-ey[†]" thoughts that can, in time, even be used to help surface the better memories around your various past loves.

[* This works in reverse, too: When I lost my job, I was devastated. When my dog died a few days later, the job didn't even return to my thoughts for weeks, and when it did it wasn't the cataclysm I had initially thought it to be.]

[† Nichevo is Russian for… Hell, I just can't explain it. What does the Russian word "nichevo" mean? to the rescue…? ]

What's the best way to deal with heartbreak?

Simple math: You can fit more of them in your trunk.

Why do men tend to prefer skinny girls?