A place for gratuitous disagreement.

Y Combinator

I was once in a startup accelerator called Y Combinator. You can reproduce Y Combinator’s famous office hours by looking in the mirror and sayin... Read more

Snitches of the Soul

Sometimes, I'll develop a secret crush on an acquaintance of mine. I'll be hanging out with her, talking to her, thinking, Goddamn it, this chic... Read more

And, Scene

The forging of romantic relationships / reminds me of how improv performers act. / You're constantly guessing what your partner means / by what ... Read more

Correct Me If You’re Wrong

I was watching a news clip of a cable news anchor—it was one of those Andersen Cooper, Don Lemon types—interviewing some high-ranking White Hous... Read more

Recapitulating Prev. Essay

Life is aged 15. It had a bright future, but all of a sudden, it’s terminally ill. About 10 galactic seconds ago, it developed a rare form of ca... Read more

Mental Connections

Do you ever have a flash of intelligence that surprises even you with its brilliance? What’s usually remarkable about those moments is not how c... Read more

Dating Age Formula

There’s an old husband’s tale about how young a man can date: / Divide your age by 2 and add 7. / But, me, I use a different formula: Multiply y... Read more

Star

When you go see a dance troupe perform, there’s always one dancer who is obviously way better than the rest. Isolated movements. Impeccable timi... Read more

Veganic Confidence

There’s a joke that goes, “How can you tell if someone is vegan? Well, they already told you!” That joke is a fair criticism of us vegans. We in... Read more

Internet Stalkers

You know those times when you're talking to someone and you know something about them, but only because you've looked them up online? You can't ... Read more

Swings

I've been playing blackjack, and in particular, I've been card-counting. What I've learned is that to be successful at card counting you have to... Read more

The best part about domestic violence is that you win the argument and she blames it on herself. Read more

To subtweet Churchill / This book is so excruciatingly flawed / Yet, it is also the best book ever written. Read more

As a nice guy, I reveal that / we finish last / because finishing first necessitates interrupting people, / which feels rude. Read more

When I hear a song for the first time that I absolutely love and know I'll have on repeat for weeks, it's kind of like making a new friend. Even... Read more

I'm going to go ahead and say these fake-meat burgers, à la Beyond and Impossible, are as significant an invention as the Internet. Am I kidding... Read more

Brasierrrrr

I hired a cleaning lady because my apartment had seen better days. She was going through my closet and found a bra in there. She made some good-... Read more

Time Delta

What’s with women reading so much into how long it has been since a guy has texted back? Not that anyone asked, but I have a deeply sexist theor... Read more

Quick Plug: UrRong.com

I made a website for this book, www.urrong.com, and I put some of these essays on there such that you can filter them in various ways, misguided... Read more

Hundapacent

People love to say “100%” to mean “yes” or “totally.” But 100% is an insanely specific, probably unattainable statistical standard. Academic res... Read more

Overpriced

You know when you’re in the fancy part of town and you wander into some clothing store and you’re like, dude, that’s a pretty cool t-shirt! You ... Read more

Bad Words

Why do we avoid exposing children to profanity? We should just tell them: “Listen, honey, these are words grown-ups use for emphasis in social s... Read more

Sometimes, I feel like splitting infinitives. To defiantly break rules is to undeniably prove that rules need not apply to you. Read more

Self-Reflection

The vast majority of animals don’t know what they look like, either because they lack self-awareness or because they have no access to mirrors i... Read more

“Don't be so preachy!” said the man who holds no true convictions / Read more

Positive Negative EV

Gambling takes many forms. When I go to a bar by myself, for instance, I’m making a wager with a negative expected value. Most of the time, I’ll... Read more

My Musical Taste

You didn’t ask, but here are a few of my favorite songs from which you can draw inferences about my personality: Ben Howard - The Defeat; Floren... Read more

Imprecision

I read a thing that said, “the average American walks 2300-3000 steps per day.” The sloth that conveys notwithstanding, I must say that people a... Read more

I was asked if I like babies. My answer: I think people should really, really stop making them. But I can't help but like them once they are ma... Read more

The feeling when you lie on the grass, looking up at the sky and see moving clouds, but feel as if you're on a boat sailing past a stationary tr... Read more

Test the Limits

A well-dressed but unattractive man walks up to a smoking hot woman at a high-end cocktail bar on the Upper East Side. He says to her, “Excuse m... Read more

Old Age Meat

I'll admit I'm concerned about factory farms. Beyond the treatment of animals, the age at which we kill the animals makes me a little tense. As ... Read more

Cognitive Puppy

My brain is like a little puppy with its unproductive impulses. It's always like, “Can we do this? Can we do that? Niiiik, can I get some drugs?... Read more

Nausea

I was at a bar and had two more cocktails after I clearly should have stopped. I left, stopped by a taco truck, and ate the mushroom burrito I b... Read more

Two-Page Memoir

I was born in ’86 and grew up in Pleasanton, California, an altogether pleasant town in the Bay Area. An only child, I kept myself entertained w... Read more

Ecocide

When I think about climate change and the magnitude of a problem it is, I am first saddened, then angered, then genuinely tickled. I can't help ... Read more

Childhood, on VHS

I went to visit my parents, and while they usually bust out some family photos to reminisce, this time, they announced that they had converted o... Read more

Independence

I plan to never get married or have children. Will I, at times, suffer crippling loneliness? Will I die alone with no one who cares for me by my... Read more

Reading the news often feels more voyeuristic than informative. Not that I'm specifically complaining, as a fan of voyeurism. Read more

Mental FM

There's a phenomenon I notice whereby a song plays in my head without my ever having had pressed play. I'll be walking outside or trying to slee... Read more