Post-Hibernation

[ProtestTheHero]

I'm not missing it as much as I'm bringing a different set of assumptions to the table. I find it very hard to believe that someone who'd get along with me well would want to go to a book club. I certainly don't want to go even though I love reading. I don't want to talk about what a book means to me with strangers. I don't want to listen to their analysis either.

 

I wouldn't call myself a free agent, though. Loner would be a decent label. If there was a succinct word for people disconnected from everyone else outside of a brother that was better than "loner" then I'd call myself that instead. I am imprisoned by my freedom so I am not a free agent. I'm comfortable, I'm in the best shape of my life, I'm making more money than I ever have and yet I am more undesirable right now than I have ever been since early high school. It's a brutal juxtaposition of what feels like progress and isolation/rejection.

 

I've ascended and no one cares, lol. That's actually making me laugh out loud. I got to the point I wanted to reach and people still are washing their hands of me. Mutatis mutandis. Here we are. lol man.

 

It doesn't really matter where I go. I'll always be on the outside looking in at everyone else.

[tiredofvampires]

I'm not missing it as much as I'm bringing a different set of assumptions to the table. I find it very hard to believe that someone who'd get along with me well would want to go to a book club.

 

That's an interesting and slightly odd perspective. That having a book club hobby would so set someone apart from you, out of all the past-times people could have that are different from you, you couldn't get along. That IS quite the assumption.

 

Too bad we don't live closer, PTH. I think we'd get along (not the same as a romantic partner, but still), and because I have this way about me in person which I can't truly describe to you, people end up going to things they never thought they would, just because I say let's go. I get people to go willingly with me, I don't even have to drag them by the hair. And I'm yet to have one regretful customer.

 

 

 

But I told you -- I'm not saying there is a rule that if you like literature and reading, you must be into book clubs. It's not like I don't know where you're coming from and am too up-in-the-head and "proper" to get it. I have a good friend in her late 60's, a close friend and colleague of my mom's (retired English lit prof) who not only goes to book clubs, she HOSTS them at her house. She's given up on asking me to join ages ago, lol. I simply have other priorities, and the reasons I mentioned above. But if I had more time, and could read fast enough to keep up with others, I would go for the hell of it. And what would my assumptions be? That I'd be surrounded by tame, cordial folk somewhat older than me, none of them looking remotely like dating prospect material (though I think reading groups are >50% women, being conservative.) And maybe that's just because my friend's niche is what it is -- it's not a youngster crowd in a corner of Starbucks. But I'm not going to be limited by my assumptions in most cases, because the fact is, you never really do know. Just about EVERYTHING is about INDIVIDUALS, that's the thing -- you could have a whole roomful of dry, boring people and one who is the life of the party, the sort of person who is a social chameleon (that would be me -- social chameloen, that is, don't know about life of the party, haha) and that's all you need to make a really cool connection. The life of the party would be my friend, who even at 60-something years old will crack you the hell up, just with her choice phrases and searing, scathing wit, wrapped up in a South African accent -- her enormous vocabulary and erudition having no ill effects on how colorful and energizing her personality. She just makes you feel good to be there, wherever it is. She's larger than life, and it's just a pleasure to experience being in her company, for its own sake, whether we're talking about apartheid literature or her soup recipe. She can make a convo about stale bread fun. That's life at its best, when you're just enjoying a rich human-to-human interaction, and there are no fascades or missions to accomplish, and zero pretention, but it's high quality anyway.

 

Something intriguing happens when your erase the assumptions and just do something to do it. I can't say enough for daring yourself to do something that you really wouldn't think of being fun. I've been surprised SO MANY times that something had more redeeming qualities than I thought. It doesn't have to be that I'm going to hunt out a friend or a mate, with an agenda. That ruins the freedom. I'm not going except to have an experience -- and given you have boredom issues, you might find it filling up the time in ways that are less objectionable than you anticipated.

 

I don't want to talk about what a book means to me with strangers.

 

Would you do it with friends?

 

This is making it sound like I'm adamantly plugging book-related activities, and I have to put out the disclaimer again and again that that's not my point -- my point is diversifying your social ops portfolio, and so far you can't say you've done all you can on that front. Can you?

 

Environments are not panaceas for all that ails us -- but you are only as big as the scope of the environments that you allow yourself to experience, and I don't see how not doing that benefits you. How can you argue with well-roundedness?

 

So there's still some changes that are yet to be made. You haven't done it all. Even with the limitations of your locale, you haven't milked it or mined it.

 

Mutatis mutandis -- Sam I Am. lol

[itsallgrand]

I want to shake you and hug you at the same time. There is so much being hard on yourself here.

 

Granted, I've never met you nor seen you besides a few pics you posted here. But I can't wrap my mind around the concept that you wouldn't be desirable to a lot of women.

 

I damn well know, off the the top of my head, a lot of women closer to your age I know that would jump at the chance to go on a date with you if I described you to them.

 

Maybe it's time you go on a date. A real one. Just to see you aren't being rejected left right and center here.

 

I do agree with TOV that there is something to do with the situations and places in the experiences you are having. Not that changing it up would guarantee different results or different kinds of people, but I do tend to think that places where alcohol is involved makes a big difference. So that's bars, casinos, parties with booze, pubs, etc.

 

I could be bias though. Because I'm fine with someone who has the odd beer now and again, but heavily avoid anyone who enjoys drinking as a past time. As far as relationship interest goes anyways, because I can be friends and am with people who drink a lot more than I do. I just don't go out drinking with them, we do other things together.

 

It's not my place to tell you anything, but that is one thing you haven't changed up. Dropping the drinking. And for good or bad, it is a big deal for a lot of people.

[ProtestTheHero]

I don't know what the issue is with women. Maybe I'm not physically attractive to the women in my area or perhaps I'm simply too much trouble, lol. It's nice to think that anyone would consider me an above average option, but around here that just isn't the case. I certainly wouldn't be opposed to going on dates but I can't really think of options off of the top of my head.

 

I can drop the drinking...I just haven't been incentivized to do so. I only do it on weekends so it doesn't affect my weight, and sometimes drinking on weekends is the pleasant alternative to something much less palatable. Drinking snaps me out of those weekend-ish thoughts like "This is as good as things will ever be for you. Is it worth it to keep going?"

 

No real dates on the horizon for me at the moment, though.

[ProtestTheHero]

[video=youtube;wr99r59XPhE] ]

[ProtestTheHero]

It's a mistake for me to blame this area for my lack of friendships or for my dry spell with women. I'm going to be really cognizant of any inclination to blame anyone other than myself. At the end of the day, the only meaningful concept here is accountability. The buck stops with me.

 

I need to really reevaluate myself. I might have to pull the plug on this incarnation of myself, just scrap it and start over. The job is fine. The work and money is fine. I just need to figure out how to totally retool my personality. I can't eradicate the experiences in my life that have made me insecure. I can't really eliminate my penchant for the occasional self-deprecating comment. Those impulses are always going to be there and it's very likely that nothing I do will change that fact.

 

I can, however, eliminate the symptomatic expressions of these cases of faulty wiring. I can simply make a choice not to make the acerbic observation about myself in the presence of others. I can make the conscious effort to swing every time I'm at the plate instead of apathetically staring down pitches.

 

The one thing I've known since I was very young is that people don't want to see any part of your brokenness. People want to bite into a tasty sausage but they don't want to see the ugly ways in which it was made possible. I think that's a beautifully apt analogy for me. Guys that respect me and women whose attention I've earned have always respected the final product. They are completely unconcerned with how it was made. I wouldn't talk about my past of being bullied or any of my physical insecurities to a woman I was interested in EVER. EVER. Not six days into it, not six months...never. This is something I've had to explain to my brother, who is naïve enough to think that x or y person really means it when they ask "How was your day?"

 

The answer is "Fine." There is no other answer. I don't care what else you want to say, you tell them it was fine. It's really simple. No one wants to hear your stupid sob story. No one wants to endure your verbal indulgence. Very simple stuff.

 

It would be nice if being yourself was good advice. Be STRONG.

 

I've spent too much time longing for a world or for people who could watch me drop my sword and shield without contempt. That's not how any of this works. My "road to authenticity" has been a thousand steps backward. The PTH brand, the stock price, is in the lowest water it's seen in 10 years. They'd be firing everyone. I have officially and totally bottomed out. I need to really think about WHY this has happened.

 

I need to seriously consider why I am a nonperson socially and sexually right now, and I need to start thinking about ways that I can make changes because this just isn't working, this false evolution.

 

They're calling for the ass to come back. They're chanting for Barabbas. I can be that guy.

[tiredofvampires]

Do you ever go back in this journal and read over past posts? I think it's something you should do.

 

I went back, looking for the words that are almost incised in my brain, which you've said a great number of times over multiple years now, and I didn't have to go back as far as I thought to find the sentences I was looking for. This being only the most recent wave of such accounts and statements.

 

Here is just a SMALL SAMPLE (I've bolded especially important portions -- you can't miss the greatest of them, lol):

 

 

 

 

 

So reading these over, here is what I gather:

 

1. There are no signs of you being a "nonperson" socially -- you are talked about, and by groups of women, behind closed doors, in flattering language; you can and have been, even recently, the talk of the town (in a positive light)

 

2. There are no signs of you being a "nonperson" sexually -- in various situations, clear-thinking women try to get with you, but they either don't appeal to you for your own reasons, or you simply don't care to act on the interest they show. IT'S NOT FOR LACK OF OPPORTUNITY, and in fact people register confusion that you walk away from guaranteed sex

 

3. Your family and friends try to set you up with pretty women, on dates, and you decline -- so that onus is on you; and you may have your reasons to think these women would be incompatible, but it's not for a lack of possibility that some might say yes, and might even be interested once they met you

 

4. You say you are socially "self-suffiicient" -- you have lots of acquaintances, but no really close friends and you like it that way

 

5. You don't want to pursue anyone because you've "gotten that stuff out of your system"; you couldn't care less about having a relationship and wouldn't even be good at one

 

What this amounts to in a combination of volition on your part about the "dry spells", in that you're not seeking them out, plus an element of not availing yourself of opportunities when they do present, and they DO. You don't think highly of people, or relationships, or the women you're meeting, and thus you're not behaving in a seeking mode, you're not flirting -- but somehow, you have no trouble getting numbers and chances and people talking about you and wondering why you're single or if you're gay for turning down attention, anyway...

 

Dude. Even when you're willfully not TRYING or wanting anything to happen, you're still swatting off opportunities or potential opportunities. This is with sweet innocent Southern belles, bar babes, women in varying degrees on sobriety, and if we go back even further in the journal, we'll find dates with at least one woman who didn't pan out as a girlfriend, but who in the end turned out not to be your type, and probably as a compliment to you. That not being an isolated incident, either.

 

And this goes back to college and post-college, where you had enough attention to keep you busier than you chose to be.

 

So you are actively opting out, and yet amazingly the world hasn't given up on you. You're still pulling in interest -- and interest that is even by your standards viable. Just imagine if you really wanted to make an effort what that would look like! You're someone for the guys on this forum who pour blood, sweat, and tears into their efforts and come up empty-handed to HATE. They're skeletally starved, nibbling on barnacles, while you're throwing fish back in (and you didn't even bother to put the juiciest of bait on your line). While now saying your line hasn't been tugged.

 

And it's worse (or the same) now than it was 10 years ago, when you were at rock bottom, at 16?

 

Have you lost your mind?

 

The worst part of this is that I know presenting this stuff will be met with some kind of diminishment or devaluation. Because that's the only way to support the current mindset, however off-base it is. You're not going to say, "Oh yeah, right. I forgot about those. Scratch what I said. Here I go again, with my characteristic lack of perspective when I'm feeling uninspired with things." lol You're going to find a way to pull a David Copperfield and make all the examples disappear.

 

You'll handily forget that you suffer from a "weird form of cognitive dissonance where (you can) simultaneously acknowledge (that these things are true) while not internalizing it at all". And so...if you can't internalize reality...there's a problem there. Right?

 

You cannot refute this. These are your own experiences, and your own words. To date, very recently. This falls within the realm of "current".

 

So you have either sabotaged opportunities, or simply decided they were not worth your time. But you have had them -- socially AND sexually.

 

This "nonperson" you speak of does not exist. Except as the ghost of PTH101, who you have also said has since let go of the myth that invulnerability is what makes one strong. (I tried to post one post you said to this very effect, but it didn't take, so I'll have to go back and find it again.)

 

So your last couple of posts make me feel like you've just gone from a graduate level class to a Kindergarten class, dragged over a tiny plastic stool to crunch down on, and picked up "The Cat in the Hat."

 

"Strength isn't creating tall walls. Strength is showing the city to someone and knowing you can endure a bad review." -- PTH

 

That's the talk, PTH. And it's good talk.

 

Can you walk it?

[Silverbirch]

F

I don't know what the issue is with women. Maybe I'm not physically attractive to the women in my area or perhaps I'm simply too much trouble, lol. It's nice to think that anyone would consider me an above average option, but around here that just isn't the case. I certainly wouldn't be opposed to going on dates but I can't really think of options off of the top of my head.

 

I can drop the drinking...I just haven't been incentivized to do so. I only do it on weekends so it doesn't affect my weight, and sometimes drinking on weekends is the pleasant alternative to something much less palatable. Drinking snaps me out of those weekend-ish thoughts like "This is as good as things will ever be for you. Is it worth it to keep going?"

 

No real dates on the horizon for me at the moment, though.

 

LOL Hope this doesn't come out as either patronising or conceited, but maybe your thoughts on your level of attraction is related to your age. As a young woman, somehow I mostly felt like that 14 year old with spots whose body developed from child to Woman in a year - not giving my mind time to grow into my body!

 

about 5 years ago, I was showing a male friend old family photos. He saw a photo of me at 17 and gasped, and then telling me I was beautiful! I recall him telling other people the same at his shock to see what I looked like at that age. I thought I was plain at the best when I was that age, and it was only when he said that, and I was in my late 40s, I really looked at that photo and realised for the first time that I would have been considered beautiful by many people's standards. We just don't see ourselves as others see us.

[ProtestTheHero]

Silverbirch, you may be right. I guess the thing with me is that I never developed an ability to "see" myself. When you're young you aren't dwelling on those things. By the time I was old enough to entertain thoughts of my level of attractiveness, the question had already been answered for me by other people. I knew where I stood with my peers and it wasn't a flattering picture that they painted. I won't ever be able to make that assessment of myself.

 

TOV, you're swatting away an objection that you already know is coming, but I guess it comes down to the extent to which details matter. They matter to you. I told you I'd roll my eyes at any guy who told me he was good with women because plastered ones make the occasional pass at him on a girl's night out. Nevertheless, he WAS accosted, so kudos? Not from me.

 

I won't argue the cognitive dissonance point, it's a true statement.

 

When I'm meeting someone at a bar for the first time and I'm chatting them up, they are being treated to my performance. I am manifesting strength, wit, and showing no weakness. It's the approach I just advocated. Women that know nothing other than that version of me respect me far more than the ones who have seen more, and it's because behind that shroud of artificially manufactured mystery that aloofness produces is a pretty sensitive, intellectually curious guy who very much would enjoy being the guy that women often feel obliged to pay homage to but don't really want when all is said and done. Why should I serve up Updike and Vonnegut to people who really only want "The Cat in the Hat?" It's not my fault that the latter is far more palatable and appealing to them. That's what I'm talking about when I mention reconciling the way we'd like the world to be with the way that it is. You can adapt to the situation or you can be steamrolled by it. Why? Because Updike and Vonnegut have no inherent value. A classic isn't still a classic if it's collecting dust and perpetually unread.

 

People want to finger paint and look at pictures. They want to be entertained. They don't want what you're calling "the good stuff." I'm not hitting them with that good stuff when I'm winning them over.

 

I have walked away from almost blacked-out drunks trying to grope me. I have walked away from them when the offer of something sexual was definitely on the table just because I was there. If not me then it's the dude to my right or left. Should I take something from that? Should I say that's a reflection of stellar value in the sexual market place? I could probably find one tonight, just like any guy with a few hours and few bucks could if he hung around until closing time.

 

If I split myself in two with each half representing your quotes and my recent post, then "manifest strength" PTH would wipe the floor with the other one. No contest. I have to decide whether I'm going to be evolved, enlightened, and lonely or primal with something to show for it.

 

Seems like an easy choice.

[tiredofvampires]

I have walked away from almost blacked-out drunks trying to grope me. I have walked away from them when the offer of something sexual was definitely on the table just because I was there. If not me then it's the dude to my right or left. Should I take something from that? Should I say that's a reflection of stellar value in the sexual market place? I could probably find one tonight, just like any guy with a few hours and few bucks could if he hung around until closing time.

 

So, reviewing your history over the last 10 years, accounting for every single encounter you've had with a woman who has shown interest in you that is not platonic -- and I mean every single interest, from the most trivial to the most considered -- these are the only places and situations where those opportunities (i.e., sex potential) have presented?

 

In all cases which you speak of in your posts I quote above, they were opportunities with women whose senses and intellect were so incapacitated, the compliment might just as well have been from a man sitting next to you? (that came out sounding weird, and nothing against gay guys or their taste, lol, but you know what I mean.)

 

Thorough inventory please, considering the following as well:

 

I told you I'd roll my eyes at any guy who told me he was good with women because plastered ones make the occasional pass at him on a girl's night out. Nevertheless, he WAS accosted, so kudos? Not from me.

 

You've never been that guy though, have you? And yet you have said that you're good with women (in more sophisticated language). You can be when you want to be. By whatever means, you hold their attention, and you have felt that when they've given you their numbers, when it's counted to you it's because they were critically examining things about you that they liked. So when you have told us it was a "thumbs up", you have not been that guy. That guy who has no standards. But you've still been able to boast female attention, so you've said.

 

I hardly think you would have been satisfied with the outcomes you've had, had those women been compromised in their basic faculties. But your posts have registered as satisfaction.

 

I'm just trying to get you to stop picking cherries for a minute here.

 

 

 

I think this one girl "adamantly" asserting that she is not dating you to your friend has really been the one stone toppling off a snowy mountain peak, setting off an echo...and an avalanche of regressive feelings.

[ProtestTheHero]

Well, I wasn't writing off 10 years of recent experiences. I wasn't discounting college or law school. I was speaking to how things have been since I've relocated here. I said I was at my lowest point in ten years, which is true.

 

I think the comparison you're making is a little rough. I'd say it would mean as much to me as if a man had delivered the "compliment," but I don't know if that's what you're implying.

 

I'm good at playing the game, yeah. I'd put myself up there with most dudes in terms of my ability to say the right thing at the right time and project a certain image that is all polished product.

 

I bet if I had begun my interaction with this girl by putting that foot forward instead of a stripped down, more authentic version of me then I'd have done better.

 

These women want the guy who inspires them to come here and write threads, good or bad, and not the guy leaving thoughtful replies. You're the dude inspiring the thread or you're the dude leaving the reply. I've been in that latter niche for too long.

 

Charm, charm, charm. Yeah, I can do that. I can hop on stage and hit anyone with a solid performance. I guess that's what I'll do.

[tiredofvampires]

I'm slipping behind here, with too many little irons in the fire -- but let's see what I can get into one post.

 

Backing up:

 

Why should I serve up Updike and Vonnegut to people who really only want "The Cat in the Hat?" It's not my fault that the latter is far more palatable and appealing to them. That's what I'm talking about when I mention reconciling the way we'd like the world to be with the way that it is. You can adapt to the situation or you can be steamrolled by it. Why? Because Updike and Vonnegut have no inherent value. A classic isn't still a classic if it's collecting dust and perpetually unread.

 

The sun will explode into a red giant, the skies will turn crimson and then darken, and you and I will still be arm-wrestling over this point.

 

No inherent value.

 

Maybe not. Maybe Updike and Vonnegut have no inherent value. If you bring a couple of each into a bar, where talking mainly happens in short blasts of questions about what brings you here and what you usually drink, interspersed with blasts of dance beats, someone will readily use them as handy coasters. So you win.

 

On the other hand, there's that little operative word "IF" in that sentence. "...IF it's collecting dust and perpetually unread." ARE Updike and Vonnegut collecting dust and perpetually unread? Let's look at the evidence. Over a half century later, you've read them. Your fellow students and teachers have read them. They will be read by all the college froshes or AP English high school students today. But you can also find them on Amazon and in Barnes and Noble, fresh off the presses and sleek, not just in campus bookstores. No dust there. Many people cite them as their favorite writers (the people I tend to run into anyway; and I do run into quite a few on dating profiles, for one). These books are on the loose, at large. So I win.

 

The dust clouds swirl about us, and meteors pummel the earth. But our fists stay clenched, elbows lock with our biceps trembling, as we glower in the shadowy cosmic hail into eachother's eyes. You whisper to me, "No inherent value." And I whisper back, "SO THE F WHAT? Find where they are celebrated for their RELATIVE value, because YOU value them."

 

"People want to fingerpaint."

"People only really want 'The Cat in the Hat.'"

"The way the world is."

 

PEOPLE. PEOPLE. THE WORLD, THE WORLD.

 

Which people? Which world?

 

You're going to have to be more specific.

 

The world that loves those things and would keep them on a polished maplewood shelf, dust-free? Or the world that would use those things as fuel for the beach bonfire and then bury them as ashes?

 

Some PEOPLE save all their money for a Ferrari, other PEOPLE, a Steinway.

 

Some of the WORLD lies in an ethyl coma at 4:38 a.m. in a bed it never saw in its life, puke dried in its mouth. Some of the WORLD at that same hour is pouring a cup of black coffee, feeding the cat, and sitting down to write in its journal about the dream it had.

 

A thunderous wind is sweeping through, an endless sea of landed rocks turns colder than ice on the dessicated landscape stretching out before us. The ozone is sucked up into the void, and we are left with sheets of gamma rays slicing through us like arrows. Above us, all the planets of the solar system have been subsumed into the whorl of radiation, with the only detectable heavenly body a lone copy of Slaughterhouse-Five, floating away into vacuousness.

 

"No inherent value."

 

"So what?"

 

 

And is it at all possible...

 

Is it at all possible that somewhere in the state of West Virginia, there is a girl cozying up in bed, turning off her Powerpuff Girls lamp (her childhood lamp, which she dragged all the way through college), a girl who has a job, cute dimples, mischievous eyes, an edgy taste in music, a small enough waist and perky enough boobies, and would say her favorite book is "A Farewell to Arms", even though she always takes a club soda and "kind of hates those places"? Sorry, not Updike or Vonnegut, but it'll do. I chose not to say, in your town. I'm saying, in the entire state of West Virginia. No? Not in the ENTIRE state? Well. As you please.

 

How about in the entire South?

 

Everything east of Kansas?

 

The United States of America?

 

No?

 

People. The World.

[ProtestTheHero]

So what? So a lot. This is an issue where we're on such opposite sides of the fence that the phrase doesn't do the divide justice. You value the process. I couldn't care less about the process. I care about results. That's the point I'm making when I say that a classic has no inherent value if it is ignored. I don't get any more enjoyment out of being Vonnegut versus Dr. Seuss. I have certain capabilities, but those capabilities don't make me smile. They don't make me happy and they have very little utility. "The good stuff" is not good because it is not valued by others and if it's not valued by others then it isn't valued by me.

 

Majority rules.

 

If you want my very honest opinion, I have a very difficult time believing that one woman in these United States could enjoy PTH sans sword and shield and his performance art. No one gives a giggity god damn about me and my good stuff, but ears perk up like dogs at the door when the curtain call comes and I'm entertaining them.

[itsallgrand]

When you like a girl, what do you usually tend to value about her that makes you start to develop an interest?

 

What kind of woman would you ultimately like to be with? What kind of experiences would you like to have with her, what kind of connections?

 

I think...go from there. You will attract what you lead with, usually.

 

I actually think that's part of the explanation for what happened with your 'friend' who clubbed you with disclaimers. You led with buddy-bar-vibe and she gave you what you can kinda expect back from someone who would be attracted to that. Kind of all over the place, checking out my options and keeping em open, let's have a good time! It was nothing personal to you. It is just her, and where she is at, and what she is attracted to at this point in time.

 

I was thinking of how I met a boyfriend many years ago, and we had a reallly nice relationship together. He said he was attracted to my kindness. He thought I was cute and everything lol, but he saw me in a situation and thought I seemed like a very caring person, and that drew him to me. I'd had other people attracted to me for other reasons, and people will usually tell you and show you WHY they are attracted to you. You have a say, in a way, in what you want to be valued for. By way of filtering.

 

Anyways I was thinking about this when reading your recent posts because you seem to think that there are only certain things which are going to be valued. And I'm not totally sure what those are? But ti's like you think you need to get rid or hide some of the things that actually, could make you the most attractive to someone. Again, don't know if you want that. Want to be appreciated and drawn to for those reasons, but if you hide them, you will block out so many of those women who would go for you because they won't be seeing it.

 

I guess it's basically different bait will get different bites. I don't know if I want the men who would only want me as the tasty sausage. Actually, I know I don't. Hey, if you want the women who only care about results, by all means go that route.

 

But is that what you want? I can't tell. You aren't clear on what you want in a woman.

[tiredofvampires]

Well, if we're talking about acclaim, I'd have more interest in making my mark as a children's book illustrator and author (Suess) than an adult fiction writer (Vonnegut). And I was gonna put that in parentheses and say it was irrelevant, but then I rethought it, because it's not.

 

I've gone to many children's book conferences, and none on adult fiction writing as a craft (I'm not counting ad hoc workshops). But I know that if I compared the niches, the people in them, they would be totally different. And I certainly would not put Vonnegut on a pedestal and Seuss on a stump, just because of their genres and intended audiences. The discussions are different, the thinking processes have some differences, certainly the personalities are different. But there is as much genius and sophistication in a Seuss or Sendak book as an Updike or Vonnegut book.

 

So, you choose your niche. Niches don't choose you.

 

Maybe my painterly post lost the crux of my message to you, but my point about SO WHAT if appreciation is relative, not intrinsic/inherent, to a person or niche or thing, is that you can still find a sense of belonging with those who appreciate what you do, and then it's just a matter of how to find these people, your breed. There might be some practical obstacles to that, but at least you know your direction.

 

If you don't care about doing that, or don't value the idea, then don't bank on the kind of attention you get while being false to ever, ever feel like a victory. Expect that feeling, beyond an hour or two, to keep eluding you. I know that as you write these things, you know you're barking up the wrong tree. But it's more comfortable than looking at your alternatives. You can spend your time with drunk women's heads in your lap and thinking, "Anyone could get this attention, it's just a matter of proximity so it's no compliment to my masculinity or desirability at all" or you could play to the crowd with great displays of showmanship and think, "Anyone with my natural abilities could fool the best of them, it's just a matter of me knowing how to work the crowd, so it's no compliment to my masculinity or desirability at all" and you will end up in the same place. Which is feeling unloved and undesired, as PTH, himself.

 

You are not going get what your heart really wants until and unless you seek out those who appreciate what you do, whether it's "intrinsically" or "inherently" of value in the universe or the world, or not. What I'm saying, that question -- inherent value -- is irrelevant to finding something more genuine and satisfying than what you're getting (a wannabe "consolation prize," at best.)

 

If this doesn't make sense to you, at least don't question your viability when all the judges you've surrounded yourself with are incapable of viable verdicts. Don't expect a chorus of dogs to render a reliable opinion about your songbird solo.

 

If the only places you go for confirmation of your sexual desirability are places where the opinions rendered don't count, then how can you take anything from that one way or the other?

 

If your sole criterion is what the majority calls "the good stuff", you need to fit in with a certain statistical percentage, then that's a priority I'm sorry you have. You're exchangnig happiness potential for mass appeal, and I think that's a crap trade. If you have a burning need to be in the majority...well, what can I say. That'll be a tough road -- and gratuitously so.

 

Not to mention, this is not some new "face." When, since I've know you, have you NOT been "manifest STRENGTH" PTH? That's an era I missed. I don't remember a time you've ever let down your sword and shield to the world at large, and certainly women. This is not just an experiment that's been tried. It's a continuing MO, so I'm not sure what's different now.

 

I don't know what you would have done differently with that girl, and how you think that would be different from how you've presented yourself since you have been there.

[tiredofvampires]

By the way, I just had to revisit this to say I don't know how my comments reflect an interest in process and not result, and how that relates to "inherent" value. It feels like a mish-mash.

 

You said a classic is worthless if no one appreciates it. And I answered that classics are appreciated all the time -- by classics-appreciating people. So you've made a useless point.

 

What does that have to do with not caring about "results", and how does it imply that I don't? Or valuing process? We are talking about both a process and a result, whether in your world or mine. It's a question of what's being valued in our processes that differs.

[ProtestTheHero]

IAG:

 

I've been attracted to many different types of women and I've liked them for different reasons. I think I can extract qualities from the aggregate to set a baseline for qualities that I like. I really value a woman's sense of humor, but I can narrow it down much more than that because everyone, even the most banal people, claims to have a sense of humor. I like women who can handle sarcastic quips and dish it back pretty easily. I really dislike fragility. If someone was very easily hurt or rattled by obvious jokes then that would become very annoying. I like intelligence, but I don't really care about their educational pedigree. That's not what I'm evaluating, and it's not really a word I use in its strict meaning. People who were mediocre in school with no college-level education develop interests and passions in which they immerse themselves, and in so doing they become a little less vanilla than their counterparts.

 

I prefer extroverts to introverts. It's too easy for me to steamroll introverts without meaning to do so, and it feels too much as if I'm sustaining everything. I really like grounded people, people without a sense of entitlement. I also enjoy some sharpness. Some women tout their desire to make a man feel like a king but I have no desire to feel like royalty. I'm not into that dynamic at all. I also like when that sharpness or edge doesn't compromise important measures of stability, such as a job producing reliable income, no kids (which isn't unreasonable at my age IMO), the absence of drug use, etc.

 

Those are the baselines for me I think...the things that I like. Of course, these things have to be mobilized in the body of someone that I find physically attractive.

 

As far as my qualities or capabilities, I can tell you what I know will not be valued, and that's essentially every quality (good and bad) that I've exhibited on this forum. Self-awareness, self-reflection, pensiveness, and whatever else I'm demonstrated in my own threads and in my replies to the threads of others are worthless commodities. I've always found the contrast between my life and these forums very interesting. People thank me for things or praise me for things here that wouldn't be worth the data cost to process to people in my "real life." Those qualities make you different and not in a good way. They make people uncomfortable because it's not entertaining and it drags people back to the center of the things from which they're trying to escape. They want someone who will help them suspend their disbelief for a while, and that's the role that I play that women in my actual, flesh-and-blood experiences have enjoyed. That is what they have wanted.

 

My record when engaging women in a far more substantive way is far less impressive. That version of me is not attractive to the women who don't want to deal with "all of that," and perhaps I'm just not particularly impressive to the women who prefer substance to performance and still find me wanting.

 

I think what I want is ultimately unimportant because my preferences only matter in the presence of many viable options. I have no real "options" right now because women here are either not attracted to my personality or to me unless I am performing.

 

TOV:

 

Well, I think I could have resolved a lot of my misunderstanding just by telling you that there is no "breed" to which I belong. There is no niche craving for my entry.

 

Inherent value matters in a probabilistic sense. The more people value a trait the easier it will be for me to appeal to someone, but you're asking me to go on an expedition to find someone that would enjoy me in my totality. LOL. Let's get that out of the way by saying that person will never be found by me.

 

What I do is really a recipe for disaster at times. Nothing positive that anyone says about my performance at a bar will stick, but a girl like this friend that was essentially repulsed by the suggestion can send me careening for a little while because it's a thought that's easily digestible.

 

I have no problem believing that I am incredibly physically unattractive. I was told that for a long ass time; the verbal sandpaper has made that an easy path to travel down again at any time. Even now, I can't appraise my appearance. Here, I'll give you an example, I'll attach a picture I just took with this laptop to illustrate what I mean.[ATTACH=CONFIG]10754[/ATTACH]

 

You could tell me that this was the ugliest dude ever and you can totally reject everything about me and my inclination would be to believe you. I know that's not good. My gift is that this does not lead to paralysis -- it doesn't prevent me from trying again anyway and it doesn't make me feel tentative or unworthy of approaching women, but I will believe any negative comment about my appearance far more easily than I will listen to praise. This is my tragic flaw...my tabula rasa approach to my own value as determined by my appearance and the frequency with which it's been measured by people who had nothing kind to say.

 

I'm not sure there's a constituency out there ready to cast a vote for that guy and it is what it is.

 

As for the girl, I can tell you that I should have been more aloof and I should have been the one to assert that this was a platonic situation, and then she could have considered why I was so quick to run from that association. She beat me to the punch.

[tiredofvampires]

I have no problem believing that I am incredibly physically unattractive. I was told that for a long ass time; the verbal sandpaper has made that an easy path to travel down again at any time. Even now, I can't appraise my appearance.

 

Maybe you were told that for a long ass time, but it was also a long ass time ago -- and since then, you've said that you no longer think of yourself as ugly or terribly unattractive. You've said that you think you're average or "ok", and on rare occasions, even perhaps a little more than that. This was not just due to some spontaneous change of heart, but because you had enough positively reinforcing experiences to antidote the negative messages of the past.

 

So even if we just go with "not unattractive/average" -- it's clear that you've been able to jam your wheels out of the "I'm ugly/very unattractive" rut since the things you were told that trigger these feelings.

 

Since then, you've been able to realize the difference between a thought in your head about how you look, based on an emotional trigger (based on a bad past experience) VS. what is a more realistic view of yourself.

 

So is it possible for you to look at the way you're feeling now and recognize, "OH, I was TRIGGERED again. That doesn't mean my thoughts are true -- it means that an old belief system has been riled up, as it were, exhumed from the grave. AND I DON'T HAVE TO BUY INTO THAT ANYMORE, BECAUSE I ALREADY HAVE MOVED PAST THAT, GIVEN I HAVE ALSO HAD POSITIVE REINFORCING EXPERIENCES THAT CAN'T BE 'UNDONE'"?

 

Is it possible for you to stand outside yourself a bit, as if looking at yourself having a cold/flu, and say, "I know what's going on here -- I'm having a relapse. It's a bug and it will go away, because I'm just vulnerable to this right now."

 

Is it possible for you to recognize that once you've seen yourself more clearly and realistically, you can't unsee that, except if you buy into the brain sabotage?

 

s for the girl, I can tell you that I should have been more aloof and I should have been the one to assert that this was a platonic situation, and then she could have considered why I was so quick to run from that association. She beat me to the punch.

 

This doesn't give any clue as to what you feel you did in her presence that you feel you shouldn't have done. I don't think you were talking about Vonnegut with her, or being socially inept in any way.

 

I'm wondering what has transpired between you two since that night. Have you heard from her since or been in contact?

[ProtestTheHero]

Nah. Haven't really talked to her since then and I won't be making an attempt to reach out to her in any way. I'm not going to solicit her attention.

[ProtestTheHero]

Wow what an awful week. Time to drink I guess

[tiredofvampires]

That would be both of us. I mean, not the drinking, the week. Yeah, what's up with this week? There is an up side, though -- it's FRIDAY (at least on my watch it still is)!

 

What made it so bad for you?

[itsallgrand]

Sorry to hear you had a crummy week. You too TOV.

 

What happened this week that made it bad?

[ProtestTheHero]

I'm going to puke all over this page because it's my prerogative and there's simply no other response to the digestion of garbage.

 

I really can't decide whether I hate myself or the way people perceive me. Phrased in another way, I don't know whether I am fundamentally flawed in an irreparable and unsalvageable way or if my presentation is just very mediocre. You can't really make that determination yourself but you can't really ask that question of other people, either. I suppose that leaves me with no choice but to make inferences based on a body of work and the body itself (lol) to discern which way the wind is blowing. The prognosis is not good.

 

I didn't choose to look the way that I do. I've made serious attempts to arrive at a better place on this issue but I don't know what good it's really done for me. I worked out and am slim now. I started dressing better. I think the only people I've managed to impress with any of that is other guys. Guys are appreciative of hard-work and self-improvement for some strange reason, even the ones that I don't know very well.

 

It's important for me to litter this post with disclaimers -- I didn't do any of this expecting that women would care. I don't feel that I deserve to be affirmed or validated in any way. No one deserves that, but for some people it happens and for some people it doesn't. One must navigate the murky waters of indifference in one's own way, and my way is with a beer in my hand.

 

Anyway, the bottom line is that I've taken all of the steps to get the most out of what I have to offer, and unfortunately that's still the metaphorical equivalent of a two-cylinder going 0 to 60 mph in 10 seconds -- very mediocre. Fine. Cool. Awesome. I can stomach that to various degrees on different days and the days where I can't I've got my methods.

 

I just wish I didn't have to do any of this anymore. I really could pass the buck and blame my parents. That would be convenient and easy. "Listen guys, thanks for everything, but when you two decided to get it on in that hotel and ripped me from the nether and into this world, you really should have considered the possibility that your genetic contribution would be less than stellar and used protection. You would have saved me a lot of god damn trouble and your bank accounts would probably be fatter at this point. You really screwed up here."

 

It's an absurd thought but it's funny to think about sometimes. I think I'll try that line out on them at some point.

 

Oh well.

 

The strange thing is that the only time it feels as though I'm able to transcend the limitations of my appearance is when I act like the world's biggest ass. PTH meek and mild with his books and thoughts and feelings has abso-god-damn-lutely nothing to offer his peers. PTH at 100 mph with the middle finger in the air has led to more successful nights. I'd say it doesn't make sense but I'd be lying.

 

The world is ugly and like attracts like, which is about as simple as it gets. When I'm ugly I'm a little prettier, and the good lord knows I need the help.

[tiredofvampires]

I've got a sort of incohesive sampling of responses to this...

 

This isn't really a huge point to belabor, and you yourself realize the futility (and the nonsense) of it -- but as far as your parents conceiving you, haven't you said that they are both very attractive specimens? So why would they not think that the product of their gametes wouldn't produce awesome-looking offspring to the power of two?

 

Alright, yeah, that's the whimsical part.

 

I don't think you're mild, even when you're not "100 mph on all 8 cylinders raging" PTH. Even less so, meek. I don't lump those qualities in with a person who is interested in books and thoughts and feelings. You're fashioning a caricature out of some out-dated conception of yourself and layering that over any part of you that doesn't qualify as "arsehole." (Do you think I'm meek and mild, lol?)

 

So you're saying that you're more successful with women on the nights you have your middle fingers in the air? That you feel that's made you appear more attractive?

 

How about a different kind of question.

 

When you talk about the way "people perceive you" (and I'll just assume for the sake of this question you mean women, and that this "perception/presentation" is about strictly physical appearances -- hope that's not over-simplifying/wrongly presuming what you mean), I'd like to know something more concrete about what you're looking for.

 

Namely, what percentage of the population of women would you be satisfied with thinking, "There's a cute guy"? Or choose your own bar of "attractiveness" -- "there's a handsome guy"? "There's a hot guy"? I think it's not as important as the rest of the question, but what descriptor would you be satisfied with, as a minimum baseline?

 

So take that descriptor and ask yourself what ratio, or percentage, would you be satisfied with, if a given population were to see you and perceive you as attractive by that descriptor, without much other input?

 

Everyone? (100%)

One in 2? (50%)

One in 5? (20%)

One in 10? (10%)

One in 100? (1%)

 

Just examples. Like, would you be satisfied if for every 100 women in the bar, 2 thought you were cute, just looking across the room at you?

 

And on the flip side, with those thinking you're not attractive, what would you be okay with?

 

One in a 100 thinking you're unattractive?

 

How about 50% thinking you're unattractive, as long as the other 50% thought you were positively attractive?

 

What if one in a hundred thought you were unattractive, 33% thought you were attractive, and 66% wouldn't notice you one way or the other, but if polled, thought you were a little above average or average with the possibility to become cute with more conversation (which is the case for many, if not most scenarios with women, since "average" guys means that: the AVERAGE of looks, and these guys do get interested women).

 

Would that breakdown work for you, if you knew the precise numbers?

 

Whoa, that last question got sort of complex all of a sudden there, lol. Lots of balls in the air. That way it's more lifelike, though, since the unattractive/attractive dualism is pretty artificial (though it does make the question easier in some ways to answer, especially for you because you're a black-or-white thinker oftentimes), as it eliminates for grey zones, and grey zones are the meat of life.

 

I'm curious how you'd break it down.

 

Imagine what's the worst case scenario that you could still be okay with. That's basically the answer I'm most interested in.

 

20% of women thinking you're good enough looking to date, 30% thinking you're just nothing special, and 50% thinking you're not good-looking enough to date? As an example.

 

It's semi dangerous getting this technically bogged down about an issue that can't be boiled down to numbers and stats, but this might be an interesting insight/mental experiment anyway.

 

Plus, you're an accountant, so I'm just tapping into the skillset. haha

[ProtestTheHero]

I don't know...can't really answer those questions yet because they're very abstract and not very typical of how I approach the issue. I'll have to think about it more when I'm sober.