Post-Hibernation

[ProtestTheHero]

I don't think about it in those terms at all, so it's an almost impossibly difficult line of inquiry. No normal person thinks about it as if they're running for office and are polling the people. What makes me very, very annoyed is that my experience is so atypical.

 

People just don't care. I'd bleed all over the place and take a perverse pleasure in it if I thought for a second that they'd be invested enough to be hurt by it. That's another silly thought because no one would even notice. It's chronic indifference or the occasional "ew." Cool stuff man.

 

Whatever. I have to stop posting here because it's turning me into a real pansy. It's one thing to think these thoughts and it's another to express them.

[tiredofvampires]

The reason I thought it was an important question is because when you think about "people", it's actually more abstract than when you think in terms of how many "people" you really need to feel validated by. That way, when you encounter a situation where it feels like someone is either not into you, or they don't care, or whatever else is signaling that they're not invested or interested, you can ask yourself why THIS person's vote counts. They might be in the 90% of people's opinions which don't matter, since we can't please everyone, in which case we can discard that vote.

 

I was more or less asking you how many people you need to "please" to hit quota.

 

If you're being realistic and judiciously selective, unless you're an extremely bland person who no one can find anything to conflict with, or one of those extroverts who makes a friend out of everyone, you should not be expecting a large fraction of people to be casting votes that matter.

 

Which then means that it's entirely possible that you keep running into that same contingent -- that 90% (or 95 -- I'm just picking numbers out of a hat on the liberal side of reasonable). In which case, there will be a lot of votes to be dumping out. Maybe all of them so far. Sometimes 100% of the people whose opinions shouldn't/don't matter are concentrated in all the samples, unevenly distributed.

 

One thing you seriously have to ask yourself, PTH, is what sort of people you would like to care. Or does it matter? Will just anyone do, or are there actual criteria?

 

What is it about these "people" that makes their opinions so valuable to you? Note I'm not asking you what makes their opinion valuable. I'm asking what makes THEM valuable in rendering an opinion, and how are you creating that criteria? Consider various individuals you know and run into when you do this, rather than a blanket majority.

 

Saying "people just don't care" is so abstract and I'm trying to prompt you to be more specific, because the way you're talking, it might as well be the whole world that you need to be liked/acknowledged by, etc. And we both know that's not the case. I think you might settle for a small handful.

 

A well-chosen handful.

 

But that's not the way you're talking or acting.

 

I (and others) have also been trying to nudge you in the direction of finding that handful, where you're right now with your MO coming up dry. I would like to see a different sample size and breadth, because I believe the progress and possibilities lie there. I don't know if you're ever going to take any of those nudgings to heart. You seem to want or even need things to work THIS WAY. With THIS SET of givens, and only these givens. And you are so hellbent on THIS SET OF GIVENS and THIS WAY, you'd rather keep bloodying your head against that wall than see what's on the other side.

 

Something else too...and warning, it's going to sound somewhat cheesy poofs to you. But if all your focus in this world is about what other people can give you and see in you, it's a dead end. Well-worn truisms here, I know. What's going on is a kind of self-implosion, where you become smaller and smaller and your world collapses in on your own ego (aka, self-identifications). That can't be the whole content of your inner world or consciousness -- you will reliably go insane, as anyone will.

 

If I had to give you one mantra, something from a visceral sense, it would be "outward." The only way out is outward.

 

No one can be happy in this world without caring, turning the desire to be cared about inside out -- and so ponder whether being the one to get the ball rolling without any preconceptions or any more "who's up/who's down" plays might be some kind of key. Every single person who ever walked the earth who knew anything about what makes a life livable has independently said this, and I find it monumentally true myself. All the evidence bears this out, including how you're feeling. It's something no one can get around. You might have to beat "people" to that punch, PTH (but you can choose which people to focus on).

 

You often seem proud of the fact that you don't have to care, or don't want to, or can show others you don't. Then you say people don't care. Is it possible you've been pouring gasoline on fire?

 

I/people can give you suggestions, but you have to first agree that there's some value to the concepts.

 

And this is your journal -- it's not another stage for you to perform on. If you can't write in your journal because you don't want to be seen a certain way by a bunch of faceless, nameless people, and continue on with image-making, how does that not defeat the purpose?

[tiredofvampires]

I have another question as well --

 

What would people caring look like to you?

 

Because I think you have a conflicted relationship with that, too.

[ProtestTheHero]

I can only quantify or qualify by saying "normal." What is it like for the average person in terms of their support or the interest that people have in them? Why do I need to quantify responses that other people take for granted as if I'm asking for something extraordinary? It has nothing at all to do with quotas and everything to do with the fact that my existence is absolutely meaningless to all but about three people, and that's my brother, my dad, and my mom.

 

I have been isolated in ways that very few people on this forum could begin to understand and that's bearing some ugly fruit now. Even in prison isolation is the cruelest punishment. Well, welcome to my life. How long can you talk to yourself in the dark before you go crazy? I'd love to see the average person experience it and then get back to me.

 

I've been on the outside looking in from day one. Am I proud of the fact that I turned open wounds into scar tissue and endured where others in the same spot could fail? Yes. I am proud to have survived cruelty and indifference, but that is a survivor's response. It isn't my preference. I would have preferred a smoother journey with some good friends. I would have preferred being normal. I don't celebrate the fact that I can live totally severed from any real human connection because it wasn't my choice, but I do celebrate my capacity to stay marginally sane in a situation that would drive most people crazy.

 

No one charms the world and no one sets that as a goal. I strive to have average human experiences. No one sits down and tries to measure them. They're probably not infrequent enough to be noticed in that context.

 

I am performing. This is a stage. When you don't have people you're left playing an elaborate game of sock puppetry, and the perception that your imaginary friend has of you is the only thing you can really engage on a given day. Image is the only thing that talks back to me, albeit it in my voice.

 

It's something at a time where nothing is the alternative.

 

I guess I just wish I didn't have to do this any more, and it blows my mind that people think there's something remotely special about the human experience.

 

Maybe I should put it this way -- the chainsaw that ripped through the bird could rip through me and nobody would pause to investigate.

[tiredofvampires]

But someone did investigate the bird, didn't they (in fact, more than one person)? Unbeknownst to the bird. And it so happens that that same person keeps pestering you in your journal, lol.

 

To which end I will say -- I hear what you're saying. I don't just get it because it's relatable to me, but because I've really had a go right in your shoes, even if through different circumstances. I especially nod in recognition to this:

 

I've been on the outside looking in from day one. Am I proud of the fact that I turned open wounds into scar tissue and endured where others in the same spot could fail? Yes. I am proud to have survived cruelty and indifference, but that is a survivor's response. It isn't my preference. I would have preferred a smoother journey with some good friends. I would have preferred being normal. I don't celebrate the fact that I can live totally severed from any real human connection because it wasn't my choice, but I do celebrate my capacity to stay marginally sane in a situation that would drive most people crazy...even in prison isolation is the cruelest punishment. Well, welcome to my life. How long can you talk to yourself in the dark before you go crazy? I'd love to see the average person experience it and then get back to me.

 

This could be a transcription from my own brain on my worst of days.

 

This paragraph though is about GRIEF. Which means looking backwards. You are grieving a life you did not have. You would bargain yours away for some other life where you don't have to be a "survivor" or a fighter.

 

But that's not the end of the story. Your head does have a pivot, and looking backwards is not the only thing it is made to do. Grieving is a long journey with no set timetable, but you're at a point where you might be able to grasp a certain thought, and that thought is critical to healing and beginning to transform grief (and the anger, depression, bargaining, etc. that comes with it). It's this:

 

My life is what it is, and I'm going to own that. It's MY path, MY story, MY movie, and I AM GOING TO MAKE THAT QUINTESSENTIALLY PTH'S, UNCONDITIONALLY.

What does "owning" your life mean? You took the first steps by saying that you're proud for staying alive through the slings and arrows, and for enduring what might make other people insane. You've gotten through the gulag, so to speak. And lived to tell it. That's your first step to owning -- "I am proud of myself for what I have done to still be here, fighting." That's not just a statement -- that's the start of something more and better.

 

The next step, which is a little more provocative, is realizing that a difficult hand isn't necessarily a worse hand, despite appearances. It's easy to win with a perfect hand, if you're a decent player. It takes more ingenuity and skill and talent to make that tough hand work for you. But that's your challenge and you own it because it's yours to play. What others have been dealt is not relevant to how you play this, except that you are adapting to all the interactions in the wisest way possible. But their hand is theirs and yours is yours. You don't stop to think, "why didn't I get THEIR cards?" and let that ruin your challenge with rumination, do you? I seriously doubt that's what you're thinking during a game. Your focus is not on that in a poker game. Your focus is wow, this is going to be tough -- but I'm gonna see what I can do with this.

 

I think this is a good model for what I mean by owning your life. You accept that whatever handicaps you've dealt with, or been dealt, that's what makes your seat yours at the table. One things this is NOT -- it's absolutely NOT about resignation. It's about taking an almost perverse pleasure in grabbing the bull by the horns and saying, "Oh yeah? Well then, let's do this. It's not going to be ordinary. But it's going to be mine all the way."

 

AND AND AND...you still have power over what comes next.

 

Perhaps you've been living in a prison, but even prisoners have found ways to radically change their approach to life, or to create deep life credos that were anything but ugly, because of prison. I could cite a few famous examples, but there are many less historically noteworthy as well. They lived to tell and they made that story more than just a story about "I was locked up and had no choices". So you don't have to continue to be a prisoner, which is more a state of mind than a physical imposition. Your fate is not sealed, so you don't have to be a prisoner anymore. But that's largely going to be up to you -- to Shawshank Redemption it. You're a survivor, yes, but you're not only that.

 

These are not the only identities for you.

 

When you get to the point that you're tired of the revolutions of grief, and I think you're pretty much getting there (though it's hard to get into a new mindset when you're not used to much else), it's time to start playing with the idea that perhaps you can bury the "normal" life you think you could have had, and get on with the life that you DO have. The life that is YOURS, which you take some pride in having maintained. I'm talking about moving from a focus of envy and loss and grief and anger to respecting yourself for your grit, and therefore caring about yourself as you would a character that you're rooting for, and wanting to see what's next for this one man's adventure in his own unique life.

 

Saying, "this is my lot and I own it, I respect that it's mine and let the "what if's" or "should have beens" R.I.P.", even if it's not what I'd have chosen, is the start of befriending yourself -- something you need above all. I think you've started by at least saying, I know I have something to be proud of.

 

A lot of people have told me over the years, "Why compare your life to others'?" And it always has bothered me, because first of all it seems so obvious: because everyone compares themselves to others, it's the way we live, why shouldn't I? Over time, I've come to see that even though this is an irksome question, that response is even more irksome. Why, because it's an argumentative fallacy. Specifically an Argumentum ad Populum.

 

So if I discard the faulty reasoning that is so knee-jerk with that answer...I can't really find any other reason. Can you?

 

There are a few other reasons I can mull over, but none of them meet the bar of justifiable, except on a purely emotional, non-rational level. "If I stop comparing myself to other people, maybe I'll fall apart and become socially unacceptable." Really? Let me check that with my personality. Can I see myself not giving a damn to the point that I lose a sense of all social reference points? No. That's really not in my nature and that extreme is not necessary to stop comparing my life and what it consists of to other people's lives.

 

"Maybe if I stop comparing myself to other people's 'normal' lives, I'll be okay living a substandard life, or give merit to myself where it doesn't belong." THIS ONE IS SO FRAUGHT WITH BS, IT'S HARD TO KNOW WHERE TO BEGIN. First of all, it starts with an insidious premise of comparative assumptions already written in, so that undermines the whole process with a tainted slate. Second, it anticipates your becoming somehow dissolute in a way that again, your personality doesn't accord with. Next, the idea of giving yourself merit where it doesn't belong has little to do with you -- it has to do with your distaste for others who do this. For YOU, this concern is N/A -- for someone who is incessantly whipping themselves and is their harshest critic, even a liberal dollop of self-meriting probably belongs.

 

Finally, this thinking process misses one major key in owning your life: DEVELOPING A SENSE OF FAITH IN YOURSELF, a TRUST in yourself. Do you think you've earned your own trust by now? I define trust as allowing yourself to believe a person will act in your best interests and not betray you, even without advance knowledge of their every move.

 

Because you have things that have empowered you to stick with it -- is it time to start learning how to trust in yourself, which means to kindle a sort of faith in yourself?

 

If you can develop some trust in yourself...have earned a black belt in life...and are owning your hand with a focus to play the hell out of it...what need is left to dwell on other people and their "normal" lives?

 

So I've pretty much exhausted some of the likely go-to's, and challenge you to give me one good answer to the question, "Why compare your life to others"?

 

And then I challenge you to define what exactly you mean by "normal" and "average life experiences", which you are wanting. Define please.

 

Surely you know about the trap with the word "normal," right? Wasn't your family while you were growing up considered the paragon of "normal"?

 

There's some utility in the word "normal." Like having a normal blood pressure, a normal liver enzymes panel, etc. Other than that, it gets tricky. It's a word that very loosely can be used when talking about gross attributes and responses, but other than that, it's a vague catch-all that's hardly meaningful. When you do break down assumptions like what you're looking for with "normal", and really do so unscrupulously -- a certain ludicrousness and absurdity evidences itself, and even if you see it only for a flash before you revert, that flash leaves its mark of truth upon you that you can't then unsee.

 

As I said, I've thought through these same issues...and I've really resisted breaking them down. They seem like such basic expectations. But they have to be broken down. In fact, expectations of life in general are a good thing to be breaking down. Once you can bury one "should have been", it gets easier to do so again. This is not a cynical statement, it's a plug for not stagnating.

 

Funny that none of this post was what I'd planned on posting. It just came out this way instead, lol. There were other things I really wanted to say, so maybe in another post.

 

But I don't want to overload this...

 

I think in the most simple terminology possible, I'm saying that you're stuck in a rut -- and when you can say, "I agree, I AM stuck in a rut. I see that's so. How can I get out? I want to get out, I WANT AN ALTERNATIVE [and not by dying OR selling out]" it'd be a quantum leap.

[ProtestTheHero]

This thread is enough of a reason to spend whatever it costs to become a supporter and delete every trace of ever having been on this forum. Disgusting.

[tiredofvampires]

(The following is an abbreviated and slightly edited version of what I originally posted above):

 

 

You know what I don't understand? Or at least feel would be helpful for you to articulate better?

 

You're feeling isolated.

 

But I'm not sure what YOU think is the cause of that.

 

WHAT. That is the question here. WHAT makes you isolated?

 

Your whole life as you've been telling us about it signals a disphoric, existential sense of loneliness. That's clear. But that's still to me more of a result than a cause. And I'm asking about causes.

 

Because the truth is, you're not in a prison. You're not living sequestered in a bedroom or basement, you go to work, you see people, you interact each day. You interact with people who generally regard you well. You are a free man walking around. So those are the "surface" conditions.

 

And within those surface conditions and environments, you bump shoulders with a lot of people -- and it's quite likely that they do not feel isolated. They don't perceive themselves as isolated. But you do.

 

So something's different for you.

 

WHAT?

[ProtestTheHero]

I don't think I'd attribute my isolation to geographic location. My life just feels like I'm running a simulation of what it's like being a human. It doesn't feel particularly real and because of that I'm not particularly invested in it. Some people would misread that for apathy but I'm not a sloth. I work often and hard. I'm programmed to be a Type A robot not because it brings me pleasure but because any other approach is not palatable. It's a pride thing. Pride is the only emotion or value that I feel with any intensity.

 

Pride is the brief explosion of color in a black-and-white field. It's a symbiotic relationship, each the other's parasite, and we couldn't exist independently from the other.

 

Pride is not a rare flaw but I do think it is rare for it to be prioritized so highly. Other people walk through fire for love, friendship, and family -- for connection. They will endure anything and everything for complementary puzzle pieces. I'm wired differently.

 

I spent a lot of time with my casino friend that I mentioned in another post. We both enjoy many of the same things and we have similar outlooks, but the end game is still a little different. This isn't a guy looking for intimacy, but he does enjoy women and sex. I enjoy conversation. We are confident in our approach and demeanor but he is roughly 1000 times more aggressive than I am because the end goal is different. He tries to escalate quickly so that he will know whether a woman is down for more in a short period of time because time is money. The back-and-forth is my end goal and so I am not blowing through it to get to an answer. The answer is irrelevant because I will never ask the question. It's a solid pairing of contrasts so we usually meet a lot of people.

 

I often talk about various discouraging experiences so I suppose I should balance that out with some "affirming" ones. I place the word in quotations because somehow "success" is harder to define and isn't as intense of a feeling as failure.

 

This friend and I usually end our nights off gambling at the casino just to kill time. We were at one of the casino bars and saw two women walk in (24 and 32). The older one was better looking. My friend chats them up and starts gaming the 32 year old. I can tell she's not really feeling it and he probably could sense that as well, but he's not going to throw in the towel before he's given some verbal indication of disinterest. He goes to the bathroom and she looks at me and says "Save me." I told her that all she had to do was say she had a boyfriend or wasn't interested and he'd go away. He's not one of those dudes that's going to get mad and act like a creep/jerk. He will say "no problem" and bail. She says she doesn't want to just say no. I told her that sounded like a character flaw and she said she didn't want to be mean. I offered her a way out by telling her to just feign interest in me and he'd withdraw out of respect (the code), and then I'd let her go without so much as a handshake. He comes back and she's now standing close to me and leaning in to talk so my friend gets the hint and he goes to play a slot somewhere. I said, "See? It's that easy -- and now I let you go." She says "What if I don't want you to?" and she kisses me. Odd. She leans and does it again, longer this time. Whatever, I'll kiss back for a few seconds but no amount of alcohol turns me into a PDA machine so at that point I pull back. She puts her number in my phone and texts herself, doesn't even ask permission. I didn't stop her.

 

She wanted to meet up later in the week over food but I didn't really want to put myself in a "first date" situation. I didn't know enough about her to lock myself into an hour-long meeting. I suggest coffee and she accepts. At the end of 20 minutes I was ready to go -- single mom, broke (no offer to pay, just looked up at me and even verbalized that she had very little cash flow), divorced, etc. I thought about not even going for coffee because it's not like I met her in amazing circumstances. I leave and I can tell she's waiting for me to lean in but I didn't want to mislead her so it was a sidehug and out. I didn't schedule another meeting. I didn't say I'd call her. Everything about that meeting screamed "we will never see each other again" because of the aforementioned reasons, but she texts me everyday for almost a week before she got the hint. It's the only time I've ever ghosted someone, but somehow "Listen, you're broke, a mom, and looking for something I can't give you" didn't seem like the kinder alternative.

 

The next experience this week was with a coworker of my friend. She was 25 and he's smart enough not to mix work with other things so he wasn't trying to escalate. They are friends and she likes to go out and so she came along with us. We are going from place to place like we always do and then hit the casino. She's drinking fast and I already know that this girl is going to end up sleeping in her apartment bathroom at some point during the night. She was sitting in the middle between me and my friend and a group of guys sat to my left. They were older, probably mid 40s. One is flirting with the girl hardcore and the guy closest to me apologizes to me saying that his friend is drunk -- he assumed we were together. I told him he had nothing to apologize for because she's not my girlfriend. I then let her know that she had just been flattered and was promptly told that it should be interpreted the other way around. She spends the night giving me hell, I give it back to her, and then she reached that point of no return where buzzed fun turned into drunken stupidity. She's a little too wild and my friend and I know that now is the time to go before we get kicked out. He goes to hit the restroom before we bail. Security walks over and tells me they had reports of a drunken patron and I tell him that I've got her pinned to the rail next to me and that we're leaving. He laughs and says "Been there, buddy." I tell her that the arm I've placed around her is to keep her from riding the escalators again and should not be interpreted as flirtation. She looks up at me and says "That's a shame" and leans in just a little, the ole 20% waiting for you to come 80% but I didn't reciprocate. It's not that she wasn't pretty, I just thought that two Casino makeout sessions in one week was a little much.

 

This one is quicker than the other woman and she knows I'm not taking the shot after a couple of seconds. She tells me I'm an ass. I tell her I've done nothing to her. She says that I should have a "Warning" sign on my forehead. That's a fairly interesting response from someone who has done some drinking. I ask "Why?" She says "Because you're a mirage."

 

That's a pretty intuitive thing to say. It was an impressive response. The signal, the indicator of interest, ends the game for me. It lets me know I'm viable. Pride demands a demonstration of viability and I feed the beast by showing it I'm capable. He feeds and it's over.

 

I think it answers your question, too. I'm isolated because I'm not really "plugged in" -- here, but not here.

[tiredofvampires]

It's not that she wasn't pretty, I just thought that two Casino makeout sessions in one week was a little much.

 

Well, I think your math is a little off there -- given that the effect of the single, "What? I'm not dating HIM" incident of several weeks ago counts as a bare minimum of 12 anti-make-out sessions (as it played out in your head, and I think this is truly being conservative), I think two on the other end of the spectrum compressed into a maximum of one week would have been more than a justifiable compensation.

 

Agreed, the sting of "failure" -- in quotes for a reason -- usually has a more penetrating effect than "success".

 

I have a couple of totally trivial questions, lol: first, how do you know these women's ages? Every time you recount these experiences, you know exactly how old the ladies are that have taken up with you and your friend. I just never get that direct in initial conversations to find out age, and especially with women, it's not the most-loved question (beyond 30, anyway). So I'm just curious -- how is it that you know? Do you ask point blank?

 

Next, in this "code" you guys have going...where you cede the lady to the man she's gravitating to the most...how do you avoid any sort of competition with eachother, where it's ambiguous who started the flirting first, the girl or one of you guys? How does that never devolve into an "I had her first" sort of scene? Or does he just naturally and implicitly get first dibs, since you have an understanding between you that you're the "I'm not in it for hands-on results" half, and therefore, have less at stake?

 

Interesting, her remark about you as a "mirage." But do you think that was really intuitive...or the handiwork of alcohol in its more poetic presentation? (and I mean, not in a disinhibited perceptive way, but a random "this word just came to my mind [because right now, everything's a mirage to my eyeballs]" way?...not trying to rain on the story, just wondering how "real" that response was, in your opinion.)

 

I know, totally technical, I know. I just wanted to know how these dynamics are playing out. hehe

 

Sort of an appetizer post, I spose.

[tiredofvampires]

Oh yes. And I have one more.

 

How have you explained to your friend why you're not interested in taking it any farther than you do?

[ProtestTheHero]

My friend will sometimes ask them to guess his age because he truthfully looks pretty young, and often when they answer they ask us to guess. He told me the coworker's age when he texted me that she was coming out that night. I never directly ask, but if a woman looks old enough to be irked by the question then she's probably beyond my desired age range.

 

There's never any competition. We just talk to groups of them and if one gravitates toward the other then that's it. There's no hypothetical situation in which I would compete side-by-side with any man for a woman's attention. If he chats one up, escalates, and she reciprocates then nothing else is important. They're people, not televisions at Black Friday sales...you can't "claim" something that isn't a possession. They choose and you respect the choice. Very, very simple and it's never been an issue. I actually can't even craft a hypothetical scenario where I would be remotely irked by his success with a particular person. At the end of the day it comes down to the person with the power to make a choice. We pursue, they choose. If anything, I'd be more likely to defer or push someone in his direction by helping build his vibe because I'm almost never in a mood to hook up with someone anyway. Dibs are for passenger seats and the last slice of pizza.

 

I'm not sure about the girl. The warning sign comment was just as impressive and seemed like the product of real thought. The mirage comment is more likely to be random. It was her read more than her choice of words that was impressive. You can totally misread someone in an aesthetically pleasant way and that wouldn't snap me back in the moment the way she did.

 

He never asks me to justify my choice. He would definitely be curious if I never talked to women, but he never asks me why I choose not to take someone up on an offer. He says the downside of pursuing younger women is that they are very mediocre in bed, so simply saying I wasn't interested in a boring 20-30 minutes is a satisfactory answer. It's already playing into his narrative.

[itsallgrand]

I know this may come across harsh but Jesus PTH, no wonder you feel as you do. I read that and feel slightly depressed now. The whole scenario, the people, the interactions, is depressing as f/k.

 

In my early twenties, my bf at the time and I were going through our drinking and smallish partying phase. Sometimes we would hit up hotel bars, because there were a lot very close to where we lived and there were always fresh people and music there. One time I got really drunk and some travelling professor from Dubai was there alone, and took a liking to me, and so he bought me and my bf drinks and food all night to keep him company. All these other people started joining our table too when they clued in, hey, this guy is paying out. I wouldn't have normally allowed anyone to buy me drinks, especially not someone who took a liking to me, but I was very drunk and with my boyfriend so it happened. One of the people who joined our table was a man maybe in his forties who was telling sad stories about missing his wife who had passed, and waxing on about how my bf and I had to stick together, it's so beautiful young love blahblahblah. I was pissed, and didn't give a sh/t about any of this, I was just thinking of my boyfriend taking me home at that point. I was getting depressed being around all that, and thought those guys were pathetic and sad, and this was with tonnes of alcohol in me.

 

It just made me think of that somehow. The lingering feeling of it. I made my boyfriend promise he wouldn't get sucked into a situation like that again with me there. You gotta get away from that scene, that crowd of people. Its like the walking dead. It's not good for you.

 

Well that's just my take on it. Get the hell away from that and don't be lingering on the mumblings of a drunk girl. Seriously. You need to find your way to resurrect. This stuff will kill your soul and what fragile faith in humanity you do have (and I know how dramatic that sounds, but I don't care, I really believe that).

 

Taking a risk of offending you saying this, but hopefully it won't, hopefully you will see I say it only because of how much I like you. Of course you are free to tell me to f off if you like.

[ProtestTheHero]

You didn't offend me. I am not easily offended by those who would set out with that end in mind, so someone with purer intentions needn't worry.

 

I understand what you mean about the walking dead -- the environments that seem to sap you of everything, suck the warmth and the color and leave you feeling almost vicariously embarrassed and raw. The thing I hate the most is watching an old guy or some lonely dude pay for company. It wouldn't bother me at all for some guy to say he paid for sex, but to watch the same old guy go to a bar to talk to a waitress or bartender and get nothing out of it but their contempt -- you know they don't respect him -- and he's too lonely to even care. That's a very gross sight for me. I almost want to hit those guys. I know I should be able to feel some empathy for the guy in that situation but it is pathetic.

 

This drunk girl voiced something I had been feeling for quite some time. I hope she was making a read instead of just mumbling out words. It wasn't depressing for me at all. It was a connection. It would make me feel real if I believed she sensed the vibrations that no one else quite seems to hear. It's important for me to say this because I do want to contrast this moment with the one with the other girl weeks ago that had me reeling. It wasn't like that for me in that moment. It was just shock -- it was how a ghost would feel if he'd haunted a house for years and someone finally noticed.

 

Faith is axiomatically dramatic. Neither of us can use the word without fear of drifting into cliché but sometimes it's unavoidable -- necessary, even. I have no faith. Protest the Prodigal Son lost it, over the pleadings of my mother the Baptist, talking to walls at some time in that 13-14 range where my face was the scratching post of more physically intimidating peers. I didn't regain it again when I discovered that she had cheated on my hero with the Pastor, a family friend, and a guy almost 20 years her senior. The thing that surprises me about her is that she texts me nostalgic for moments that she's rendered impossible and yet there's not the slightest hint of remorse buried beneath her self-pity.

 

I've asked you to endure this self-indulgent, masturbatory stroking of the world's smallest violin to ease your concerns -- I don't walk into these places with any faith to lose. People are who they are and all roads lead to the same conclusion. My mother would repeat her mistake with every man stretched over enough time. It's just who she is -- I've come to accept that and that's why we have a relationship. Blaming her for being herself is very tiring.

 

I know what any woman would do to me if I let her live in my heart instead of visit my mind. I wouldn't even blame her for it. We are animals fighting an uphill battle against the forces of biology and evolution. So when I hear an attractive, interesting woman lament how her ex treated her and wish to no one in particular for the treasure I've hidden under my coat, I know that 6 days, 6 weeks, or 6 months later that treasure will litter the street like breadcrumbs as she takes the familiar, dirty path back to whom she is accustomed.

 

So really, I'm almost never in the mood.

[itsallgrand]

It wasn't depressing for me at all. It was a connection. It would make me feel real if I believed she sensed the vibrations that no one else quite seems to hear. It's important for me to say this because I do want to contrast this moment with the one with the other girl weeks ago that had me reeling. It wasn't like that for me in that moment. It was just shock -- it was how a ghost would feel if he'd haunted a house for years and someone finally noticed.

 

That does make sense. That you felt like she saw you, saw what was actually happening, and it was real in that moment. Acknowledgment. Connection.

 

Your mom...I wonder, have you ever talked to someone about all that? It seems so much goes back to her. Your feelings about women, and connection, and what is possible, and how you view people and what they are really all about underneath it all. Like because of the depth of disappointment and lack of recognition (basically abandonment by her) you felt, you now think and believe deep down that all women (or people) are going to be as deeply disappointing as she is.

 

On an unrelated note, I like your writing. The subject may not be rainbows and kittens, but you have a way with words that I appreciate.

[ProtestTheHero]

No, I never really talk about it to anyone -- mostly because I found out about all of that when I was 21-22. I think high school was the formative point in the sense that I learned a lot about cruelty. Guys could only break my body but the girls had broken my spirit. They changed the way I saw my face and body.

 

My mom was an example of a type of woman for whom the whole world would never be enough -- you could never stay "in the black" for long. She was the embodiment of hypergamy. She taught me that every relationship is transactional and has an expiration date.

 

It's a combination of the two, I think.

[itsallgrand]

A combination of the two, that makes sense. Either one of its own would be difficult enough, especially if there aren't people there to counter and cushion those experiences. But the two together, it makes sense PTH.

 

I hope you do talk to someone about it some day. I think it could help a lot.

 

I dismissed the impact my mom had on my life for a really long time. I knew some of it was difficult, but I told myself eh, lots of people grow up with it and worse, I'm ok. It wasn't until I went to therapy for something I thought totally unrelated that it all came out. And pretty quick; my psychiatrist saw in me things I had been hoping someone would acknowledge for ages. And validated my experiences. It's hard to put into words here exactly the experience of it. How powerful it was. It was the day I think of as truly starting my healing and to something else, even hope of something else. The day my psychiatrist acknowledged my mother as an alcoholic and how that felt from my perspective. How it impacted me and the other experiences, all filtered through that too in a way.

[ProtestTheHero]

It took a while for me to fully understand the effect she had on me. Truthfully, I don't believe that the effect was a product of the divorce. I was old enough at that point that I was already doing my own thing and so the dynamic wasn't the same as it would have been if I was 8 and still living with them at the time. The cheating was disappointing -- I didn't know about that until the divorce was underway. It was interesting to revisit every religious argument we had with the knowledge that this woman had been unfaithful 3 times, the last occurring when my Dad was very sick.

 

No one has ever accused me of being an optimist. My Dad used to tell people I was born 40. I think my exposure to religion made me cynical, being physically and emotionally abused by my peers eliminated whatever positive expectations I had of people in general, and then my Mom showed me the transactional nature of relationships.

 

I make sure to acknowledge those influences in moments where I have to tackle an ambiguous situation with a woman, but the correct interpretation of an event is almost always perfectly aligned with the bias that those influences have produced in me. The narrative is usually correct and life is largely a cliché -- people stick to the script.

 

I will say that there are some places that I don't wish to go to anymore on a Friday or a Saturday night. Some of my lawyer friends like to go downtown to younger bars. The girls are definitely more attractive just because it's predominately a 20s crowd, but the meat market feel is much more tangible in them than at the casino or less busy places that I frequent. I don't like being shoulder to shoulder with people and drowned in music and noise.

 

I don't even know why I went with them on Saturday night, but it gave me a gross feeling to be in that place. It's bad because of my tendency to evaluate myself through the lens of "what have you done for me lately?" Every thing is discarded except that moment, and I find myself watching instead of participating. I'm looking at guys that I see succeeding in that atmosphere and I make comparisons that probably aren't reasonable. I'm locked away in myself, completely shut down. I just wanted to break a beer bottle and gut myself with it to escape everything about it.

 

I know I don't hate women any more, but I've arrived at this weird place where it feels difficult to synthesize them into my life in a meaningful way. Every time I interact with one I show them certain rooms in the house, but there are always doors that I know must stay locked -- rooms that they can never be allowed to see. I respect them in the way that I respect cobras, firearms, and explosives.

 

I just wish it didn't have to be this way. I wish I could meet someone that wouldn't make me flinch.

[tiredofvampires]

It doesn't have to be this way.

 

And the good news is, however little you find this credible: if you wish you could meet someone who is more than a fleeting test, a vapid copycat, or someone who for any of a dozen reasons would rightly make anyone who is intuitively "tapped in" (and you are) flinch, I think that is an achievable goal.

 

This is where I get to sound like a broken record, though. I continue to disagree with you that your geographical locale is inconsequential to this apparent social deadzone you find yourself in. And I feel like on that score, you've been in varying levels of quasi agreement with me, so that's a bit puzzling. Even when you started to write about this friend of yours, you said that one of the things you agreed on, as you are both transplants, is that this is really kind of a bonefield for finding/meeting women (even though it appears he has enough fodder for his intentions with them, and that's not too hard because quality is less important there; all women have vaginas). I got the sense though from what you'd written that you shared a dismal outlook together about the diversity and pickings, having come from more cosmopolitan places. And that this was a sort of backwater step down for both of you. And despite the arguments you and I have had over this, I can't believe that you'd hold that a provincial atmosphere in a homogenous region would offer you the same social options as a place that isn't this way. It seems so utterly common sense, and if the labor of breaking it down mathematically or scientifically was feasible, I think such a thing could be proven.

 

But even if we were in total agreement on this, that wouldn't change the fact that at this time in your life, that much is not under your control. You are where you are. And therefore, what remains to your control is this: how can you seek out the best environments for yourself even in an inideal place like that city/town? How can you maximize and optimize your opportunities to meet people who will be most on your wavelength and least likely, as women go, to make you feel like you're dancing through a minefield?

 

As the broken record continues its revolutions on the turntable...I think your recognition that the younger meat market club crowds are a bad plan is a sound one. If you ever do err again by going there, you'll have to go in knowing that it's the equivalent of wading through the sewer system with protective gear on, and that anything you find there belongs in there. So it's outside of yourself. But why put yourself through that? I hope that you might put a moratorium on such visitations, if your friends can be persuaded to go to any other venue with you, and if not, that you respectfully bow out for the evening because you are not a hired sewage management worker looking to fix a pipe that the city needs in order to run. This is especially true is you've already been sickened by sewage spills in the past and are still harboring a parasite from it.

 

But to me, cutting that out is like, if were were to make a food analogy, you've decided you want to improve your diet and what you've cut out are the Vienna sausage and soda for dinner. What is the improvement? In the food world, you're now eating a Big Mac and drinking chocolate milk, which contain at least a real piece of meat, some tomatoes and a sliver of lettuce, and some calcium. This is a fairly sketchy analogy to make with you, since nutritional concern is at the rock bottom of your list of priorities, lol, but this comparison is one that you'll get anyway.

 

To me, going to the casino, or other types of establishments you frequent, like dive bars and such, are the Big Macs and the sugary chocolate milk. Are the Big Macs and chocolate milk as insulting to the notion of "food" as Vienna sausage and soda? I'd be forced to say no, if I were honest, but it's still CRAP. Not sort of crap, but extremely crap. It's junk, it's crap, it's still laced with non-nutritive and health-compromising ingredients. It's simply, in the most basic way, NOT GOOD FOR YOU, and in fact, BAD FOR YOU the more you "eat" it.

 

I can understand hanging out in the casino if you want to enjoy card games with your friend, or just taking a very observational interest in the people watching, as if you were going to the zoo. Much like how I feel walking down the streets of New York. I don't internalize any of that because it's just me noticing what's around me and enjoying the act of witnessing. The problem is, even at a casino, you're engaging your persona in a way that is more invested than you would like to think; there's more of you that is being shaped and impressed, disillusioned and reflected upon than if you were at the zoo. All these experiences play into a total world view for you, whether you like it or not. It's like...a marinade, and you're in the vat just like everyone else there who makes it part of their lifestyle. It just can't be helped that this then becomes a sort of emotional language for you, and that's partly because you have no back-up social plan. This is where is ALL your information is coming from, and each time just repeats that narrative as you say, until you are convinced that's all there is.

 

The problem with these places is that in virtually every sense and case, the sole objective of the people there is to escape. Every drunk 25-year-old, every tail-chasing 40-year old, they are all there to run away from what their lives are about. They hate their lives on some level, and probably hate themselves, too. That girl who told you you're a mirage? She's actually a mirage to herself. She doesn't even know who SHE really is, what she wants, who she wants, where she's going. So might as well just tune out and turn herself over to a half-awake version of her consciousness. Running up and down the escalator, flirting with men whose faces will disappear and turn into new ones next weekend, that's a way not to feel anything, to face anything, to know anything or anybody. It's NOT LIVING, it's existing for a while as the shell of a human being, and voluntarily so. Same with your friend. Sure, maybe he's a decent companion to kill time with, but he's got a losing number -- by choice. He's opted out of asking for something better in himself and his life. It doesn't have to be this way for him either, but sadly, he doesn't know how else to redirect his dissatisfaction.

 

So you are surrounding yourself with people who are not looking for any sort of fulfillment, they are just craving. Craving a moment of anesthesia. A form of low-dose general anesthesia.

 

I understand that you think this is something you share with them -- there is a certain "bond" you find there, because you're doing the same. Distraction, diversion from life's pains, a focus on some temporary numbing agent that brings with it momentary entertainment. So what you're doing is sharing the passage of time with people who just don't have any respect or regard for the little time they have here on this earth. And meanwhile, that tone penetrates deeper and deeper into your own psyche, as it's reinforced and reinforced, until it's so embedded in there, you'll post back to me that there's nothing demeaning, demoralizing, or compromising about spending your life in a place with no windows, no clocks, artificial lights, artificial people, and enough chemical alteration that everyone's just one big, miserable drugged family, only with no ties but these.

 

So I ask you: is this all? Either the underground sewers or the dumpster?

 

What you are doing is contributing to a reality that you've homegrown from the choices you're making.

 

If you carefully hand-select all the worst exponents in this world, and hold them up as your models, yes, you will have a grim picture of women and what they are for you, of relationships and their potential, and of people in general.

 

You are still young enough to be strongly under the sway of your most formative examples and experiences. Hell, I'm still young enough for that, as well. It's a work in progress until the end. But you're old enough to be questioning whether your models are all there is, if that's the whole story. You're old enough to critically hold up what happened to you, and who did it to you, against other examples in the world. And even if you have yet to experience some of these other "realities" yourself, you ARE old enough to be able to recognize them, using the rational brain that you do possess.

 

So when you say, "my mom taught me the transactional nature of relationships" and that "all relationships have an expiration date", what you are now old enough to do (which is not the case for a child or even teenager) is take a hard inventory of whether those concepts hold up when you scrutinize everything you've ever seen about the world. Have you never known a couple who was together for decades, those being happy decades, whose only relationship expiration date was the expiration date of one of the partners? If you don't know of any from real life (which I'm gonna put money down you do), have you not heard of any in history? If not, I'd be happy to furnish you with a list, lol.

 

It's alright if you tell me but yes, they are the massive exception to the rule. Agreed, and that changes nothing that I'm asking you to do. What you said is that all relationships have an expiration date (which would mean, they ultimately end in unhappiness); that they are all transactional in nature (I actually did not know the word "hypergamy" before; cool, thanks), and women would all spew into the street like breadcrumbs the pearls you might cast.

 

The problem is not that such behaviors exist, but that you don't see anything else is possible. And even more to the point and troubling is that EVEN IF YOU WERE PROVEN WRONG, GIVEN THE RIGHT CIRCUMSTANCES AND INFLUENCES, HOW LONG UNTIL YOU WOULD SHIFT YOUR THINKING ABOUT ANY OF THESE THINGS?

 

Let me illustrate how this plays out as a problem: you were feeling better about your appearance for quite a long time, and running. Then, fast forward to a couple of months ago and a girl who you put yourself out there for a little more whiplashed you back into a seizure of self-doubt about your looks. Which the persisted in a most gangrenous way. Then....in a week's time, you were hit on by two pretty women, both of whom probably would have happily slept with you if you'd gone in for it. And one of them, by your own reckoning, was still in her right mind enough to feel out enough about you that it didn't feel like a meaningless exchange. Clearly, you are quite capable of attracting women, and whether or not you want to attribute it to other non-tangible qualities you bring to the table, your looks are NOT HURTING YOU.

 

That is the take-home message that matters to me, and should matter to you about these last two women "success stories." That it's not about your looks any more. So the question is, when can that issue be put to bed? When will you be able to take a situation like the one that threw you back and be able to incorporate this more affirming information, to put a bad experience into perspective and be able to say, "Whatever you say!" to a fairly random woman who may reject you for whatever superficial and vague reason? Instead of it turning into a re-run of all the same feelings you had before you were shown something to reframe them?

 

Do you think that after this "odd" series of events so recently, you might take this opportunity to pronounce yourself good-enough looking to now use that as ammunition when those triggers come up, so that you don't fall so deeply into the trap your mind would have you set? Where, instead of falling into that trap, you catch yourself and say, "Ah, here we go again. But this is the old story. There has been new story since then, and that is what prevails, because once the new story has been writ, I can't just unwrite it." Do you think you might use these data points as more than just an accumulation of anecdotes, but rather towards the coalescence of a more self-validating and less shakable conclusion?

 

I know I'd like to be able to see a sort of shift of thinking that utilizes precedent -- not just the earliest precedents of high school and your family home, but the precedents that are being set as you move along NOW. NOW NOW NOW, and the bulk of the evidence that is now weighting down the case.

 

So there are a lot of things going on here...there is the insistance upon subsisting on "junk food" for company, and then believing that's the basis for the human/female template. There is the use of your mom's example as personal "gospel". There is the selective use of emotional reasoning, which is a strong current with you, to eradicate positive or progressive examples or to diminish their value or meaning. There is the seeking out of atmospheres that amplify all the lowest common denominators which feed into all these views, as you mirror your dissatisfaction with the people you seek as bedfellows. And there are the many justifications and rationalizations about how and why those strategies have to be, or are as they are.

 

You are someone who acts as one resigned, but I don't believe you actually are, and therein is the act of you sabotaging yourself. And as I see it, an iceberg of cognitive dissonance which shows up as the alternating closed down and vulnerable PTH.

 

I don't have any silver-tongued fixes for any of this, particularly because the very first steps, you don't seem receptive to taking. I think there may be a gross-out factor that still isn't hitting you hard enough. Some of it, you've become inured to, which is why I told you that if I put you in vastly different environments for long enough, returning to these places you now feel at home in, you'd feel like retching every second. I think only a contrast could open your eyes at this point. You'd need to eat a fillet mignon to realize how almost inedible the junk you used to eat was. But you'd have to seek that out. You'd have to stop making an "excuse" for it having to be this way.

 

Why would someone do this to themself, though?

 

I think that's connected to the pride thing, actually.

 

Pride. Pride is, as you realize, a bit like a vampire. There is only one kind of pride that I endorse, and that is the feeling of momentarily enjoying an accomplishment of one's own, or on behalf of another. When it concerns myself though, I quickly transmute that if I can into other emotional tones -- gratitude and feeling honored, to have been given the gift of being able to pull off what I did. Because great people who also retain great humility are my chosen role models, these are the qualities I aspire to. But so I'm saying, I'm not totally against pride -- it has a very specific place and application.

 

Other than that, like jealousy and envy, I can think of no good that can ever come of it. Even anger is more productive than pride, because it can stimulate important action. Pride is about one thing, and one thing only: basking in the illusion (or delusion) that one's image is really of any consequence to anyone but oneself. It's pure, unadulterated, naked ego -- a structure that is a construct of a number of amassed mirages. If we are rightly to call anything a mirage.

 

But I don't need to tell you about the pitfalls of pride. Clearly, you and I agree -- it's not a high state of evolution. It's part of your psychic architecture that dominates you right now, and as I've told you, I think it's going to be your biggest lifelong challenge, but I by no means believe it's ineradicable or some fixture that you wouldn't be you without.

 

What I believe is, you cling to pride because you have not experienced a better feeling. It's a bit of a crutch, or life preserver. It's your closest feeling so far to satisfaction. It's only this gratifying because you don't have something more compelling, in a good way, to replace it. It's just as far as you've gotten, but I think you sense there is more. That elusive more is where you give up a little and settle.

 

Don't settle, PTH. Don't settle for pride because it's just all you could get your hands on.

 

Truth be told, I also think it's part of the buffer system. It's actually in your employ for a reason. I think you're deathly terrified of the more and the better. I think it's just like the keeping yourself at a safe distance from people at the places you hang out. You don't have to risk anything there, in those places. It's by design that you suffer these people and places, the antics and the monotonous script. You don't have to expose anything there, you aren't put to the test of making more of PTH known. You don't have to stick your neck out (I do give you credit for trying when some opportunity seems to present, like the woman you met for coffee; but let's face it, you knew you had a very low probability of that working out, and the low probabilities, not so coincidentally, characterize these places where you meet women. So it's all very consistently low-risk for you.) You don't have to engage any part of your heart, you don't have to open these questions about what will happen if you do. It's the way you keep from being seen, but then you say you feel invisible.

 

How about this -- you're invisible and unaudible to the senseless. Would you expect otherwise? If you wanted to experience real visibility, you'd have to go where people have eyes to see and ears to hear. It's not because you're not here -- it's because they're not here. Know this, at least, when you make the choice to go in. That those who live to escape, or escape to live, have lost their sight and so it is asking much of them to regain it.

 

You'd also have to want to be visible and seen and known and heard -- and do you really want to be? That, PTH, that I think is the greater of two evils in your mind right now. Hello, cognitive dissonance.

 

Pride is a shadow of what you could be taking as gratification from life, but it's the breadcrumbs YOU have been scattering all over the place -- and taking from life.

 

If you killed that parasite, you'd have to replace it with something much more disarming -- and disarmed. And that's where you'd get to feel what a cheap knock-off pride is, by comparison.

 

I won't say you need to entirely rid yourself of pride -- I have an ego, everyone does. But it is a seat occupied, and as long as it's there taking up all the space with its fat, cocky ass, there's no room for love to sit down.

 

There's no room for being visible to sit down.

 

There no room for the ghost to become corporeal.

 

Pride is what separates you from people and women, PTH. It keeps you from experiencing the scariest stuff for you, and the chances you'd have to take. Pride is what you use to protect yourself and it serves as a superficial, transient sense of validation and vindication. But it's not your friend, and it's not the real deal, which would require a lot of you and a different kind of battle with yourself altogether.

[tiredofvampires]

I did want to add this in, but the edit window ran out.

 

There is one good shift I notice, and that is you used to seem unequivocally and unquestioningly locked into your pride. I don't think you critically thought about it at all, and I think in fact you were proud of your pride. I believe I told you this a long while back. That until you weren't so proud of your pride, nothing, and I mean NOTHING could change in a fundamental way.

 

But it seems that you are moving in the right direction...you are, it seems, more aware of a needy and dysfunctional relationship with it. You've called it a "beast", a "parasite." So I see this as a change, and one that could be part of a trend, much as your hating women was almost a credo and now it no longer is.

 

It's a layered process...seeing what is not building us up, and what could use shedding, however vital it may have seemed at a given point in time. At very least, identifying these aspects of ourselves -- that's a step even before anything is done about it, because recognition is much of the battle started, if not won.

 

Awareness means you can't escape the observations anymore that spring up with greater frequency, in their inconvenient truths.

[ProtestTheHero]

I am critical of my pride, but I don't call it a strength or a weakness because it's both at different times. I do think I'd be dead without it, but it can be an obstacle. It's the only validating emotion that I ever feel.

 

I don't think of the casino as a place that's "bad for me." If you're asking me to raise my expectations then you're asking me to be disappointed with any city or spot that you could think to take me. Take me to any group of people anywhere and what difference would it make? We're all bred with the same flaws, and the only thing that changes is the politics and the accents. My friend's complaint is that there aren't enough attractive women here, so yes, quasi-agreement. This is an aesthetic point but I don't think aesthetics was on your mind when you said the same thing.

 

I also agree that there are exceptions to my stated "rule." I know people whose relationships couldn't be reduced to my description, although none of them are under 50. I don't think the soil for those kinds of relationships is particularly fertile anymore.

 

Take me any where and I'll show you more of the same. I lived in a much bigger state for most of my life. The only difference between my home state and this one is that there's less to do on a weekend. People suck. That is my experience.

 

I would need a much more powerfully positive experience to change how I feel about how I look.

[tiredofvampires]

We're all bred with the same flaws, and the only thing that changes is the politics and the accents.

 

That's not my experience. I mean, I'm not talking about macro circles, as in, regions of the world -- I'm talking about "micro" circles, that is, different social environments. Those include more differences than politics and accents. There are differences in values, interests, social behaviors, and many other factors.

 

My point was that generally, when you spend most of your time with people whose go-to approach to life is escaping from it, good luck finding something uplifting or acknowledging there.

 

There are places that don't capitalize on that need/that emotional state of poverty, where the people present are not particularly interested in throwing out their life, forgetting, and fleeing, and THEREFORE your odds of finding something soul-nourishing or someone unflinchworthy are a lot better statistically. Relatively. Degree. And all that.

 

People who are not running from life tend to have more to offer.

 

People suck.

 

All people? You've never met anyone who doesn't suck?

[tiredofvampires]

I would need a much more powerfully positive experience to change how I feel about how I look.

 

Like what?

[ProtestTheHero]

This isn't enough.

[ProtestTheHero]

I speak at the macro level. I would never deny the existence of exceptions to rules but I'm still focused on the rules for the purpose of this conversation. Why? Because I'm not an exception. I'm not proud enough to wear that label. Most people suck, but not all people. Likewise, most people can be worthwhile company when held at a certain distance.

 

The fact of the matter is this: I'm only fit for entertainment. I'm a great time. We will have an amazing night on the town but that's it. I am unlovable in the long-term. I am too flawed. None of us are perfect, but some flaws are unlovable. I am not physically capable of being what a woman would need from me. I am emotionally and mentally capable, but I am not physically capable, and nothing I do can change that. I've maxed out what I can get out of this body. I made many changes but I'm still me.

 

It will never be enough.

[tiredofvampires]

Even if you don't see yourself as an exception (which I think isn't a matter of pride to claim or not, or superiority/inferiority, but just stating facts -- that most people you encounter on these outings are probably not perceiving the world/life as you are, in multiple ways, making you the "exception" even if you can fit in on a superficial level), the reason I'm taking issue with these "rules" is that once you make them doctrine, you close your mind in ways that then dictate behaviors, which then dictate experience. Experience which then begets more doctrine that serves to further limit your mind, behaviors, and experiences until you're living in a self-fulfilling prophecy. There's nothing magical about self-fulfilling prophecies -- they are simply the direct result of a downstream effect of guiding thoughts with the potential to steer you towards something more or less humanizing. So the doctrine you hold shapes outcomes, shapes doctrine, shapes outcome, ad infinitum.

 

It would seem to be chicken-or-the-egg, but it's not, because you can stop the merry-go-round long enough to examine the ROOT -- your assumptions and the rules in your doctrine. This labyrinth has an entrance. (And it also has an exit). You can look for holes, flawed inferences, and erroneous extrapolations. And if you do this cross-examination and corrective action, you then shift the tracks much like the train station will reroute the path of the trains.

 

It's too easy to pop out a statement -- or a rule -- like "all relationships have an expiration date." You say your mother taught you that, but then you say that this is more of a contemporary rule for people under 50. Well, your mom is over 50, so by your rule, her generation should have had a better shot at proving to you that relationships can and do thrive for nearly a lifetime, which she simply failed to exemplify. So she has defied part of your assertion (making it a bit inconsistent), but you've made off with the part that suits you, to create a totalizing rule. If you're talking about people your age, well they are too young to have proven the test of time. The Millennial Generation has a ways to go to be blowing out 50th anniversary candles together at a party full of seniors and grandchildren.

 

It feels a little silly to be bucking your theory, in a sort of rhetorical quip, when I feel that you and I both know that people have ESSENTIALLY not changed. I do believe some things have appeared which are ominous developments in your generation and now, the one younger than you (think, you now are old enough to talk about "the younger generation, hah! even if they ARE only under 10, but don't laugh, because what's happening in that generation, physically and mentally, is several degrees scarier than what has happened with yours and just as in yours, it has everything to do with what they are exposed to). But by and large, people are still people, and human nature is what it's always been. And what this means is that people will seek and need what they always have, however challenging that becomes.

 

One thing that will be true forever in the blueprint, as unchangeable: we can feed human nature the right things on a macro level and it give better soil to grow in -- or we can feed it the wrong things on a macro level and its propensities for self-damage and damage to others will increase. Which is the direction I mean about the ominousness.

 

As with the macro, so the micro.

 

You, as an individual, can decide to become part of the macro trend, or to find channels that run somewhat counter. You can make choices about the soil you want to fertilize YOURSELF in. You DO have choices, you do have a say in this. You do have a hand in the rules -- you are not following some universal code, you are making your own.

 

When you say "my mom taught me that relationships expire, and I don't care about the exceptions or the counter-evidence", what you're saying is, I refuse to look for something better in this world to want to emulate or at least acknowledge. When you say, "All people suck", you are saying it's not worth looking for the places and people that inhabit them in greater proportions that don't suck -- why look for that, when you've already laid down that rule and said exceptions be damned? This makes it awfully easy to resign, to abdicate your choice-making in the suckdom of life.

 

When you lay down these rules, you are setting your sights on losing. Losing out on opportunities. Losing out on possibilities. Losing out on life. And it will be easy to blame the institution of relationships, the nature of people, etc. -- all forces you present as beyond any say-so of your own.

 

I've said it many times on this forum, and I often have to remind myself as well: we are generally accountable for the soil we grow our lives from. And for all the resultant produce. There are things, to continue this planting analogy, that are not under our control. Sometimes the sun doesn't come out. Sometimes it doesn't rain enough. Sometimes it rains too much. Sometimes a tractor just comes by and levels the ground. We cannot order the entire universe and our small place in it is susceptible to forces beyond our control.

 

But goddammit, let's take what is ours to control where we do have the power. That is in our minds, PTH. Our willingness to drop the rule-book for a long enough time to ask ourselves what part of reality our "rules" reflect. Is it the part that scratches a miserably painful itch that's been there festering for 20 years? Or is it the part that seeks to stop the itch with a healing salve. Do our rules over- or under-encompass reality in general? Is it possible that for every rule, there is an exception, and is it this very existence of exceptions that makes another rule by which we can govern our lives?

 

When you say something like "people suck", it is as if you are uttering the 11th Commandment. I know the word "commandment" doesn't fit here, but I'm going for it anyway, because that's almost what it becomes -- an imperative you'd like to see played out to twistedly support your paradigm. This is not about reality -- it's about orchestrating and manipulating a "preferred" set of givens, as a type of coping strategy (more coming on that), starting with that gross over-simplification process. Which is more like a continuation of the rule-behavior-outcome-rule vicious circle than a true reflection of reality.

 

I see life as a bit like those iridescent decals that look like one thing when you turn them in one direction, and another thing in another. I remember one I saw a kid with, on Halloween. If you turned it one way, it looked like a devil. The other way, an angel. It was cool -- to this kid, a fun visual. To me, it was symbolic of what we can do with our own minds. We can know that this is not a singular reality -- it's bi or multi-dimensional. People suck. People don't suck. People suck. People don't suck. It depends on the light you're in, where you're standing, at which angle you're holding it. Both the devil and the angel are there, and you are the operator when you turn it one way or the other to view it.

 

If you want to talk sheer numbers and get down and dirty to quantify all this, or even to ask my own opinion, I used to think most people are good. I'm a little more on the fence with my vote on that than I used to be. Especially when I consider people are so complicated, it's hard to take any one person and say this is either A or B, good or bad. People are mixtures, and so it becomes really tricky to try to boil down any one person, let alone the entire world, the whole human population. Apart from philosophy, if you had to quantify the people who suck and the people who don't suck, draw up a roster, you'd quickly find yourself in a quagmire that you probably would not want to be in, if someone's life depended on your verdict.

 

I don't know if you agree with anything I've said so far, but if you do...the question that must be asked is how this applies to your life. It applies in not a theoretical and abstract way -- it applies in the code that you are stamping into your rule book every time you form thoughts, then say them, then write them, then go out and live them each weekend and call it just the way things are in the world.

 

And as I said, I think these over-arching "truths", you depend on, as I said, to keep yourself safe. You can keep yourself safe from the experiences that will challenge any of them. That is THE PURPOSE THEY SERVE. Which is to say...they lack the objective framework I think you would at least in theory aspire to.

 

I don't think you're the biggest fan of beliefs, presented as truths (however that is orchestrated), that protect one from their fears.

If you hold that relationships will all expire, so therefore why bother; you think all people suck; and you continue to look in places where people are more likely to do sucky things to one another, nicely watering that fetid plant you're cultivating, stoking all these self-fulfilling prophecies, of course you will not experience something else or different. You'll find what you're looking for -- which is nothing. You want to find someone who doesn't make you flinch, but you're not looking in the places someone like that can be found. You want to be seen, to not be invisible, but as I said, you're looking to the sightless to see. And then you throw up your hands and say, "you see? it's pointless". I'm proposing a mechanism here, but it's more than a mechanism. It's a way to cope with the content of your last post which is: I am afraid I will never be what a woman wants.

 

And again, there is a sureness there that is unquestioned. It's just another assumption -- only this one is so highly emotionally-charged, this one you aren't even pulling from a pool of data that exists, like "people suck" or "relationships end." At least in those cases, I could cite examples.

 

This one is pure mental fabrication. I know there are reasons those thoughts took form -- but there is absolutely nothing in your experience -- I mean your actual lived experience of your physicality as the grown man you are, upon which to base this notion. There is just a SHTLOAD OF PERSONAL MYTHOLOGY. Nothing on the ground. I know that you cannot refute me on this, because you purely and simply have no test subjects to prove that you are not enough for a woman. And of the women who haven't been tests, but real cases, none of this holds up. Give me one example from your experience -- YOUR experience, not the experiences of others -- that has taught you that you are not enough for a woman, physically.

 

You have to really suspend something you're so far not willing to suspend to really inspect this. I'm saying, show me the hard evidence. Is it there? Or like I said, is this more of a mythological construct? Maybe you've created an idol to worship, that idol not being you, and you're dancing around it, even though it never delivers anything remotely applicable or relevant to you?

 

So this is where the buck seems to stop though. Hinging on this evidence-less "conclusion". "I am physically not enough for women."

 

I would like to know what you think would change in your life if that one factor were disproven, or it was something you could take off the table. If that's too hard to imagine, imagine that you are you and all things equal, whatever you perceive as fatal physical flaws were not there. Imagine you could go in with a stylus and replace any and all physical flaws that you think are dealbreakers. Try to keep as much of PTH intact as possible, taking out/replacing only what you believe to be the dealbreakers, so that this stays as realistic as possible (even though the exercise involves supernatural powers, lol).

 

How would that shape your life differently, your behaviors, your motivation(s), and even the people and places you choose to make your steady diet?

 

The broad focus of that question is this: what would be different in your life?

 

I hope you won't say that you can't imagine that, because it's a fictitious world. You've resorted to that answer in the past, and I'm looking for something a little more imaginative. I know if someone asked me what I'd do and be without my physical hindrances, what my life would likely look, I'd have some solid images. I try not to overdo that fantasy, lol. But I do have the gist of it. And I think you probably do, too, otherwise, you wouldn't have any context for your angst.

 

My sense is that your feelings of alienation, and the choices you make to perpetuate them, would be drastically altered, if not extinguished. And as I said in my last long post, I think this fear is the root of the undesirable and uninspired choices you make, which you have a slew of rationalizations for. "I don't think this is bad for me", "I don't think that is bad for me" -- right. If you've given up on yourself, or have decided to protect yourself from being vulnerable to the things you fear most, that'd be true, in a sense. You can't kill what is already slain, but you don't need me telling you that. You've mastered that already. It's become easy for you to lose because you've made the determination that you will.

 

The people sucking and the relationships all having an expiration date, et cetera...these, in my view, are not even the real problems, though I've spent much time talking about them here. They're actually more like emotional red herrings. The "I'm unfit for anything but entertainment" and "I'm unlovable" are what's really running the show here.

 

I think you need to ask yourself to what extent you make and jealously guard the rules you do because they protect you and help create simple, less messy, formulaic answers to have the convenience to hide in. Brutal honesty here, PTH. Of a most ironic nature, given who you are and what you've rejected.

 

I just don't think you should be so complacent as to settle for that anymore. You need a new story and you CAN make one. I always say, the good news is you can change things, and the bad news is that you can change things.