So what happened with her? Was the effort worth it? Happily ever after?
I don't know what she is doing now, since we lost contact many years ago. Basically after school when I moved away to study. So no happily ever after with her, but it was absolutely worth the effort. It would never have worked out, since we were way to different, which she knew, but I – as always – took longer to understand. However it was such an important thing for me, since it was the first time that I was really confident and brave enough to be really open about my feelings and my interest. Of course it took me some time and overcoming, but in the end I was able to openly communicate to her and also not trying to play cool or hide it from my friends. I think it really was the first conscious experience for me in regards to that: to really just do the jump, be open about my feelings, take my shot and in the process make myself vulnerable. As I said, she gave me a clear "no" and I think that was for the better – not only because we came from quite different worlds but also because I still had so much to learn. However she handled all this so perfect, gracefully and appreciative: actually for me the perfect experience to learn and grow from. We stayed friends, continued to do stuff together and it never was much of a topic after a while. I still remember how after I was a bit petulant in the first time after her rejecting me and refused her offering me some of her lunch. She told me in the most respectful way that just because she said no to one thing I didn't have to say no to everything else now. Which was exactly what I needed to hear. It showed me that I hadn't lost any of her respect and that relationships with people do not have to be all or nothing, can have so many facets which can (almost) all be valuable and should be appreciated – just as she still appreciated our relationship. Although there was no happily ever after, I still like to remember all that. Today I am having my happily ever after with a very wonderful someone else. But to become the person who is having this, the whole experience with that girl was so important. I was making myself very vulnerable for the first time and it was the best fail-scenario I could ever think of and it helped me become more brave and open about myself and my feelings.
Thanks for making me remember this experience.
> Some people have constrained the definition of "gambling" such that it only contains things they view as bad
If there is some internally consistent definition that excludes all the “good” stuff without excluding it specifically for being good, no one has shared that so far as I’ve seen.
The arguments about insurance so far have been “but it’s a good thing” and “you aren’t happy when your insurance pays out”. The former is exactly gambling==bad and the latter is just wrong. I could bet that a politician I despise will win and I won’t necessarily be happy that I won. I’ll be more happy that I got a payout than not, exactly the same as insurance. That’s what a hedge is.
Absolutely not the same thing. But even so there is still an interesting insight to be gained from common parlance:
Usually we talk of a bet in a situation where you take an event that is somewhat out of your control and irrelevant for your wellbeing and intentionally and actively make some kind of material outcome for yourself depend on it. In so far speculation at stock markets is „gambly“, you are right about that. And if you have measures in place that hedge the risks of those speculations you might be tempted to very loosely call those your insurance.
If you look however at how the term insurance is typically used you can see a difference there: you insure against risks that are non-avoidable risks of your daily life or business. You do not intentionally and actively enter the cancer-lottery. And you do not actively take measures to win your „health-insurance-bet“ because the outcome is still considered catastrophic, even in case of „winning“ it.
And the way people tend to see things more as insurance vs. bets follows exactly these lines: is it about mitigating a devastating natural risk that is hard or impossible to avoid 100% or is it about something where you actively and intentionally attach your wellbeing to a random event. (We could separate this out in two questions: do you involve yourself actively and intentionally; and: is the outcome that you bet on inherently against your intrinsic interests. But that is a detail that I don‘t think we need to go into)
I think this explains the common parlance quite well: health-insurance: the risk is unavoidable, you do not willfully enter some kind of cancer-lottery on whose outcome you bet. Also you have an intrinsic interest in not „winning“ said „cancer-lottery“. -> no doubt it is insurance.
Legal expenses insurance: risks depend largely on your behaviour but you usually still have an intrinsic interest not having to use it. -> some people might see this as more gambling- or “bet-“ adjacent.
Speculating on one stock and hedging that bet. -> Totally not an insurance. Also not something insurances do. An insurance might be part of your hedge (maybe insurance of freight against loss) but insurers typically do not insure bets. Which makes sense, since part of their business-model is that the customer has an intrinsic interest that the payout case does not occur.