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amulThe subject line today comes from a bit of spam that I got today. I have to admit, it attracted my attention. Has someone been researching my penis without telling me?
Congratulate me, for yesterday I had another first. For the first time since I moved to Chicago, I actually went out on my own. Lacuna Diving Bunny and I have been having some....transitional difficulty after her hubby told us he wanted more time with her. Last year, while Darth Ambivalence had been pursuing another girl, LDB and I ended up spending every weekend together. I'd pick her up Thursday around 1am, after she got off work, and drop her off Sunday in time for her 4pm shift to start. For a while, I'd then hang out with DA and his friends for the rest of Sunday.
I'd been making noises myself about how this was an awful lot of time dedicated to a social group in which I could gain little status -- these were my girlfriend's friends, or my g/f's husband's friends, so if our relationship ended, it would completely kill my social network. Plus, picking her up late Thursday night meant I couldn't make it to 80s Night at Neo.
Clubbing is important to me, as dance is a sure-fire way to keep my mood balanced, especially during the winter. It's also my best aerobic workout, since I dance nearly non-stop for 4-6 hours. So when DA asked for more time, the first thing we did was give him Thursday night. Since then, instead of taking my new free night to attend TNGC munches and 80s Night, I spent it working while waiting for responses to the dozens of emails I sent out looking for people to go clubbing with.
Yesterday, even though I sent out the emails, I resolved to attend regardless of response. When I showed up at Neo, the bouncer smiled and greeted me warmly. I told him to congratulate me on getting my ass out the door without the need of company, and he did so by adding me to the guest list! "You've always got a good attitude," he said, and generally encouraged me to be more self-sufficient in my evenings. He also implied that the bouncers and bartenders recognized me, that Neo staff thought of me as "a regular," and that I should feel welcome there.
I spent about 2 hours at the club, failing to make conversation with anyone, but spending nearly the entire time on the dance floor.
I don't really like to attribute therapeutic value to drug consumption, but partying with my Pittsburgh friends over Thanksgiving reawakened a sense of identity that I hadn't really been aware of losing. Obsessed with my goals, overworking myself to the point where I'd been producing inferior work, I had forgotten who I was underneath that list of tasks to be accomplished. A recent visit to Milwaukee and the Moonhowler Crew reinforced this even more, this time without chemical aid.
I think LDB's recent financial issues turned time with her into another type of work, and that I balked at going clubbing with her partly because of that (although mostly because I'm really bored with the music scene we met in). Instead, I incorporated her presence into the tasks I was already working on, our relationship becoming another type of tool, one I used to Better Myself in any one of the hundreds of ways I seek. This has become a self-sustaining problem, time with me no longer giving her the sense of relief from her home life, increasing her stress, I become more task-obsessed around her, increasing my stress, more and more. Winter Blues has only exacerbated this.
DA's been pressing for more time, and now I see LDB only one or two weekends of every month, and sometimes we have been going to different clubs on Saturday night. Initially, this frustrated me because I was losing my default companion for going out. Last night marks an effort to use this newly-freed time, not to work harder on my goals, but to enjoy my life and seek out new social groups.
I suppose I should clarify that I'm in no way upset over the loss of time with LDB. I can't really be comfortable in my relationship with her without constant indications that her home life is solid, that I'm in no danger of becoming a Substitute Primary in her life. This is such a central fact of my love for her that I didn't to express it (eg, DA's been pressing for more time, which I'm fine with or anything like that) but I will confess that I'm more worried about misconceptions that might arise from my LJ than I used to be. That, more than anything else, is responsible for the infrequency of my posts nowadays (which I'm sure many readers are grateful for). The last 3 years of my life have been filled with painful miscommunication, in minor contrast to the decade of torturous non-communication before. This, too, has dampened my urge to go out and meet people. I look back on earlier entries, such as when I first met Radiant Idol, and can no longer conceive of showing such trust to someone I knew so briefly.
How, then, am I to enjoy meeting strangers? I mistrust the world, for the failures of some, and the logically-acceptable-yet-still-painful absences of others. How am I to enjoy anyone's company, when I know they will either betray me, or leave me?
Moon Howling Wolf pointed out that as we get older, our ability to trust diminishes in proportion to our ability to think long-term. In the sandbox, everyone in the sandbox was a friend, because they had a toy I wanted to play with, and I had a toy they wanted to play with. At the bar, the way they treat the waitress implies habits reminiscent of someone who once hurt me....it's hard to explain.
Excerpt from Eclipse by John Shirley:
Hrm. I recently told someone that, as a boy, I hid my own feelings by quoting what other people had to say about things. Movie quotes, book quotes, stand up comedy routines -- these things expressed what I believed without subjecting me to the vulnerability that comes from speaking my own opinion. Now, my technique of shielding is relating the facts of events, rather than discussing how I reacted to those events.
Everything is worrisome. Everything is a sign that I am imperfect, unworthy, incomplete. I don't know how to break free from that perspective, except on the dance floor. Cocooned within the beat, I can feel the social butterfly I once was. The rest of the time, I'm a social caterpillar.
Congratulate me, for yesterday I had another first. For the first time since I moved to Chicago, I actually went out on my own. Lacuna Diving Bunny and I have been having some....transitional difficulty after her hubby told us he wanted more time with her. Last year, while Darth Ambivalence had been pursuing another girl, LDB and I ended up spending every weekend together. I'd pick her up Thursday around 1am, after she got off work, and drop her off Sunday in time for her 4pm shift to start. For a while, I'd then hang out with DA and his friends for the rest of Sunday.
I'd been making noises myself about how this was an awful lot of time dedicated to a social group in which I could gain little status -- these were my girlfriend's friends, or my g/f's husband's friends, so if our relationship ended, it would completely kill my social network. Plus, picking her up late Thursday night meant I couldn't make it to 80s Night at Neo.
Clubbing is important to me, as dance is a sure-fire way to keep my mood balanced, especially during the winter. It's also my best aerobic workout, since I dance nearly non-stop for 4-6 hours. So when DA asked for more time, the first thing we did was give him Thursday night. Since then, instead of taking my new free night to attend TNGC munches and 80s Night, I spent it working while waiting for responses to the dozens of emails I sent out looking for people to go clubbing with.
Yesterday, even though I sent out the emails, I resolved to attend regardless of response. When I showed up at Neo, the bouncer smiled and greeted me warmly. I told him to congratulate me on getting my ass out the door without the need of company, and he did so by adding me to the guest list! "You've always got a good attitude," he said, and generally encouraged me to be more self-sufficient in my evenings. He also implied that the bouncers and bartenders recognized me, that Neo staff thought of me as "a regular," and that I should feel welcome there.
I spent about 2 hours at the club, failing to make conversation with anyone, but spending nearly the entire time on the dance floor.
I don't really like to attribute therapeutic value to drug consumption, but partying with my Pittsburgh friends over Thanksgiving reawakened a sense of identity that I hadn't really been aware of losing. Obsessed with my goals, overworking myself to the point where I'd been producing inferior work, I had forgotten who I was underneath that list of tasks to be accomplished. A recent visit to Milwaukee and the Moonhowler Crew reinforced this even more, this time without chemical aid.
I think LDB's recent financial issues turned time with her into another type of work, and that I balked at going clubbing with her partly because of that (although mostly because I'm really bored with the music scene we met in). Instead, I incorporated her presence into the tasks I was already working on, our relationship becoming another type of tool, one I used to Better Myself in any one of the hundreds of ways I seek. This has become a self-sustaining problem, time with me no longer giving her the sense of relief from her home life, increasing her stress, I become more task-obsessed around her, increasing my stress, more and more. Winter Blues has only exacerbated this.
DA's been pressing for more time, and now I see LDB only one or two weekends of every month, and sometimes we have been going to different clubs on Saturday night. Initially, this frustrated me because I was losing my default companion for going out. Last night marks an effort to use this newly-freed time, not to work harder on my goals, but to enjoy my life and seek out new social groups.
I suppose I should clarify that I'm in no way upset over the loss of time with LDB. I can't really be comfortable in my relationship with her without constant indications that her home life is solid, that I'm in no danger of becoming a Substitute Primary in her life. This is such a central fact of my love for her that I didn't to express it (eg, DA's been pressing for more time, which I'm fine with or anything like that) but I will confess that I'm more worried about misconceptions that might arise from my LJ than I used to be. That, more than anything else, is responsible for the infrequency of my posts nowadays (which I'm sure many readers are grateful for). The last 3 years of my life have been filled with painful miscommunication, in minor contrast to the decade of torturous non-communication before. This, too, has dampened my urge to go out and meet people. I look back on earlier entries, such as when I first met Radiant Idol, and can no longer conceive of showing such trust to someone I knew so briefly.
How, then, am I to enjoy meeting strangers? I mistrust the world, for the failures of some, and the logically-acceptable-yet-still-painful absences of others. How am I to enjoy anyone's company, when I know they will either betray me, or leave me?
Moon Howling Wolf pointed out that as we get older, our ability to trust diminishes in proportion to our ability to think long-term. In the sandbox, everyone in the sandbox was a friend, because they had a toy I wanted to play with, and I had a toy they wanted to play with. At the bar, the way they treat the waitress implies habits reminiscent of someone who once hurt me....it's hard to explain.
Excerpt from Eclipse by John Shirley:
"...When you're a young man, or woman, you try to build things. Businesses or home or books or space stations or... schools of ideas. You have a wide freedom of choice as a young person. Relatively speaking. As you grow, you build on to what you've built, and on to that, and on to that, and attach yourself to it, and you create a sort of web of... of conceptions and misconceptions of the world. Wrong or right, these ideas solidify around you, and hem you in. And you do things in accordance with the ideas and, then... why then you must justify what you do, if you are to live with yourself. So your choices diminish until you are no longer making them, you are simply building a pattern on a pattern. It's like the man who's built a skyscraper with his own two hands -- I saw a Popeye thing like this as a boy on TV Land -- till it got to be up in the clouds, and he was up there, atop it, but he hadn't built stairs and there was no way down or off, so he had to keep building up, up... Where he gets the material I don't know, and there the analogy breaks down..."
He's completely maundering, Claire thought. Who's Popeye?
Hrm. I recently told someone that, as a boy, I hid my own feelings by quoting what other people had to say about things. Movie quotes, book quotes, stand up comedy routines -- these things expressed what I believed without subjecting me to the vulnerability that comes from speaking my own opinion. Now, my technique of shielding is relating the facts of events, rather than discussing how I reacted to those events.
Everything is worrisome. Everything is a sign that I am imperfect, unworthy, incomplete. I don't know how to break free from that perspective, except on the dance floor. Cocooned within the beat, I can feel the social butterfly I once was. The rest of the time, I'm a social caterpillar.
