Hoping against hope

This ties in with the people who fall for scams but often people hoping against hope actually do not do anything to bring about the realization of their wishes, they just hope in their silly intense way that some higher power will grant them their wish. This is very prevalent in social relations, especially romantic ones, where shy, reserved people keep hoping that the object of their affection (which is usually unattainable if you only consider looks) will suddenly realize what a great person they are inside and fall for them.

This is of course a pretty hard feat to accomplish, as these hopers usually hide behind facades and when confronted with the person they have a crush on they are often left stammering nervously. Strangely enough, the persons they adore do not see through this bumbling appearance into the heart of gold filled with shame and jealousy hiding inside these special people.

The most common victims of this cognitive dissonance (believing you have a heart of gold even though you are a fat jobless slob still living with your parents) are those marked as 'less desirable' by society, i.e. anyone that does not look like the people on tv, essentially forcing whole generations of teenagers to try Dutch courage to help horniness overcome their shyness when trying to ask people out.

Of course it is not only love such people are hopeful about, any day now their boss/parents/friends/strangers/movie directors will realize just how golden and special they are inside their grease-stained shirt and give them plenty of money and a mansion to boot.

It would of course be better if such people would get off their asses and start actually doing something to achieve their (often unreasonable) wants and of course also make their wishes more realistic.

In life, I have found, the old adage 'you get what you give' is much closer to the truth than 'you get what you wish for.'