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"Well, you've filled it to half its height, but due to the taper on the glass, less than half its volume is occupied by water."

This usually gets a response of "Jackass. I'm trying to figure out if you're an optimist or a pessimist."

My response?

"Neither.
I'm a realist."

I always say it depends.... If someone is drinking out of it, the it's half empty. If someone is filling it up, it's half full. People tell me that's stupid, but I think it makes perfect sense.

So you're why the rum is always gone.

I say both, depending on the situation.

If one is filling a glass with water, and the meniscus reaches the halfway mark, the glass is half full.

However, if one is pouring water out of a glass and sets it down to find that the meniscus is at the halfway mark, the glass is half empty.

Yep.

My answer:

"Both. It just depends on how you look at it. And why couldn't you just go and ask me directly if I was an optimist or pessimist instead of wrapping everything up in metaphors for no good reason?"

And I honestly think that. What a simple question: "Do you look positively or negatively at life?" but people are so determined to make everything so difficult for themselves.

Besides, when you ask directly, you don't get any answers from people trying to be clever about "liquid to air ratios" and how it depends on if you were pouring it out or filling it up and all that.

What does that make me? Not optimist or pessimist, but I don't think a realist either. I have no idea. I confuse myself.

I tend to say half-empty, because I am a very pessimistic person.

It's all empty; the liquid is an illusion. Move the glass into another orientation; you'll find that in the majority of perspectives there is no liquid there, and you'll also find that once you've turned the glass to view it from one such perspective, even returning it to its original state won't return the liquid.

Sounds like the way nearly all illusions and misconceptions work. ; )

Literally speaking, it is even possible to have something be half-empty or half-full? Sounds like a contradiction to me. A glass of water can't be half-full or half-empty, because if you take half of an whole (full), then it's not whole anymore, it's half, and if you take half of nothing (empty)...well, then you'd have to get mathematical and deal with negative fractions. The glass can be full, empty, or something in between the two. Just plain half. To be grammatically correct, you have to say, "It's halfway filled" or "Halfway gone".

As for the pestimist/optimistic nature of the question, I just think it's too random to really establish which. I mean, I could say "It's halfway gone" but still be an optimist. After all, there's some still left, right? wink