Catching Hell From the Hellish

Even within my own "supposed" community, the community assigned to me by virtue of my sexual preference, I catch hell in the online dating realm, whenever I complain about the content of insipid emails from the dull and ignorant on personals sites. Misspelled words, fragmented sentences, fake modesty, transparent bravado, shallow beliefs, misplaced haughtiness, gender confusion, the walking wounded.... Sometimes I can't believe it. Unfortunately, I have no choice but to believe it, because it's true. It happens to me repeatedly, like some recurring rash... I continue to get those kinds of mails.

I even started a special forum called Atypical Lesbians, to try to accommodate those who felt as I did. I saw it as a sort of Underground Railroad for chagrined, dispirited lesbians who wanted more from their lives and their people; those who wanted to rise above the mundane and stereotypical. I have simply lost my patience with the kind of mentality so commonly revealed in ads and emails from personals sites. Associating with those "types" just depresses me. But five months after I launched the forum, there's very little activity, because apparently, there are not enough lesbians out there who are Atypical. Notwithstanding my good intentions, it's not like you can bring any rise to the unleavened, as it were. This is another thing that Political Correctness helps keep afloat. No one speaks out, no one says this is not acceptable. It keeps us all from evolving. Some truths are still the truths, even if they are uncomfortable to some.

So...I am an individualist, non-conformist...among other things some would label "bitch." Why is it that having standards for yourself and others, automatically relegates you to bitch-status? I don't enjoy being so schismatic with my identity and the identity of others...but somehow if I don't, I feel I will be sucked into the abyss. And if I'm going to be sucked into the abyss, I want it to be the Bliss Abyss, not the abyss of ignorance.

I suppose all this means I am also an Intellectual Separatist. I'm not judging the people, per se, just their behavior, their choices, and the surrounding issues that arise. But it's often so hard to divide a subjective self-concept or cosmology from the objective universal ones. Meaning, some people have certain ideas about themselves, and anything that threatens it is rejected out of hand. Even if what they believe is inaccurate or delusional. They believe what they believe and sometimes can't understand that beliefs are malleable; that evolution is predicated on questions and data-gathering; that what is true now, is not always written in stone; and perhaps most importantly, that if you don't educate yourself and make learning your friend, you will be INCAPABLE of understanding the very concepts that might lead to inner peace and happiness. Contrarily, you also cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. Ultimately everyone has to take the reins on their own buggy and guide it where they want it to go.

And then there's that old Prime Directive (from Star Trek)--never interfere with the natural evolution of a species. I think that applies here, too. We can help when asked or when we think we might be able to LightSwitch someone; we can put our ideas out there and hope they are considered. But ultimately, everyone is on her own path, and what she learns has to be visceral. Ideas will only take you so far. Action is the defining element. And I can't make anyone do anything they don't want to do.

Catching Hell From the Hellish

FUBAR

In my past i was always fucked up.
And I always had a girlfriend.

Now that I've done the big work to become the kind of person I think every human should ultimately aspire to (based on my tireless studies of reputable sources, including the great philosophers), along with relentless self-examination and continual attention to the details of character and ethics and how they do and should operate in me, now that I've done all that....I can't get a girlfriend to save my life.

It suggests that if i was fucked up again, I'd have better luck. I always had a relationship the whole time i was struggling. Apparently, people don't want someone who's got it together. They want someone who's damaged. Maybe because they are damaged and they know how to handle that. That's an occasion they can rise to.

So either I'm going to be the best I can be, and be alone, or I'm going to allow myself to slip into that wildly popular persona of low integrity and ethics, so that i can finally have someone who loves me and wants to make a life with me. That alone, is FUBAR. Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition.

The truth is still the truth, even if it makes no sense to me.

FUBAR

Hope Does Not Float

Sometimes i catch myself crying. I'll be listening to music, or playing Mahjongg, or watching television, and a tear will make a cold streak down one cheek, and then i have to ask myself what caused it. A cheesy commercial? A dramatic scene in a movie? Allergies? Some irritation in my eye? Maybe the irritation is simply the act of seeing through my own eyes. What triggers these moments of melancholy? what veiled emotion slips out while i am paying attention to something else?

My first thoughts always go to the inordinate amount of time i spend alone. Am i just lonely, then? Yes. Profoundly, sometimes. The nature of my life is one of frequent isolation, and most of the time, I'm okay with that. But this tearful reaction resonates with deeper meaning. My thoughts go to all of those in my life, and those now out of my life that i hear about second hand. I hear about them finding love, living in domestic bliss with a partner and a child, and a family, and i know now that my life is half over, and I can only hope to have one of those things. And that's looking bleaker by the moment. I know that a life of purpose and meaning is something that happens to other people. I create works of art, I write and sing and record songs, I author books and blogs, and I share it all with everyone. I study and i question and I examine, and I try faithfully to understand everything about living in this time-space continuum. I lay bare for all the world to see, the secrets of my soul, the joy and inspiration, along with the wounds of my heart, hoping that it will matter somehow. That someone might notice that i get it--that I really understand. That I am honoring the gifts. That someone might come along and see me. Really see me. But each momentary frisson of hope is only mocking me. And the knowledge is red hot against my heart, that I worked so passionately to conquer those crutches I leaned on so hard in the past, to refuse to be victimized, to be an individual others enjoy spending time with; I taught myself to laugh again, and to see something good in everything i encountered. I learned about human nature, philosophy, sexology, science, spirituality...I made myself available to others for counsel and support. And they sought my counsel. They thanked me. They praised me. And for brief moments it made sense, and it made me proud to be who I am. Proud of the progress I had made. I wanted to be someone also who had something tangible and of value to offer that special someone, but all I become is the one who repairs their injuries, lightswitching their darkness. . . and I am left watching them carry on, revived, while I spend so many nights clenching my fists and fighting against the maudlin memories, the sharp blade of truth against my jugular. I look out the window and whisper, When is it my turn? After years of fervent toiling to fashion myself into a person of character and integrity, I find that these are not qualities in high demand. Perhaps my greatest work of fiction, is that I'm okay with how it's turned out. That I would apparently have better luck if I had remained damaged.

Hope does not float. It sits on the bottom, weighted by its own lie.

Hope Does Not Float

Fuckedupedness

[UPDATED 30Jun09--this blog post has been updated to include things left out, and new things since it was written, almost 2 years ago]


I've become a little harsh. I'm on my last gay nerve about romance, i guess. So when i say to my friends, "Don't be a dumbass" i mean that in the most loving way. LOL.

Really, i think it all stems from this overwhelming file of evidence i have that 99% of all lesbians and lesbian-wanna- bees, and fence-jumpers are just one big screaming touchstone for FUCKEDUPEDNESS. I don't recall feeling this strongly about it back-when. It seemed we were all cut from primarily the same cloth, and there were options...dates to be had... relationships to explore....or maybe i was just naive. Maybe i hadn't gathered enough data until now. Does it take 45 years to gather that data? I think that's actually what I was doing by writing both Plethora and ISO. Manifestations of the DATA.

Maybe the Mayans were right and we're headed for that revolution of spirituality and evolution in 2012, and this is merely the precursor...the "getting worse before it gets better" scenario which all caregivers, or mothers with small children and an arsenal of peroxide and BandAids are intimately familiar with. The very fact that sapphists like me, and assorted other friends exist, seems to indicate that while we might be a dying breed, we must exist somewhere...are we just a breed somehow incapable of finding each other? Where are all of them hiding? where are our people?

And what has MY experience with dating been? Aside from my 5 longterm relationships of 9, 4, 3, 2 years, and 1 1/2 years, respectively, and the little trysts in between, in the authentic sense, i would have to say my dating relationships have been limited. A blip on the radar screen. I didn't date in high school and had only one date in college, and went from that into my epiphany that i was gay, my first girlfriend, and my first sexual experience, all rolled into one event and one person. From there, I went into the mode of serial monogamist. Then, as the relationships got shorter, and my list of criteria longer, I found myself single more often, and had only a one year period where I was actually "dating." But even those experiences weren't truly "dating" if we are using the old-fashioned definition. There were no sparkly meetings, evenings out to the movies and dinner, and a chaste kiss by the door before one of us went home alone and called later in the week for another date.

That list of dates was 11...and the one-night-stands and/or one hit wonders and/or DUDS of:

1. The one who who visited me, drove an hour and a half home, then called me and said she'd turn around and drive back right then just for a kiss from me--which she did, though i thought she was kidding, and that ended up being a one-sided encounter from whence sprang Justice's jibe: "The way to get rid of a woman is NOT to give her a mind-blowing orgasm.".....and
2. an agreed upon fuck that was one-sided with me using a toy and then being unable to let her stay the night and making her drive home 2 hours in a thunderstorm because I was so freaked out about it, and
3. The one i met online, talked to at length, then drove 5 hours out of town to meet, and her huge horse of a dog jumped all over me and ruined my good clothes, while also ruining the house and leaving presents on the floor, whose house had a layer of dust an inch thick all over it, who seemed to be a hoarder, with stacks and stacks of newspapers, magazines, papers...who was a hard-core diabetic with a dismal life expectancy, and admitted that she often forgot to care for her health, and who had a medicine cabinet full of psych meds, and then insisted i could safely sleep next to her with no hanky panky, and then came to bed stark-naked....
4. ...the one whom I met once for lunch in MO after chatting on the internet and phone, and with whom I had no chemistry, who was rude to the waitress at our lunch, could not stop talking about her ex, and who lived with her mother who was NOT disabled or bedridden, and who later blasted me for not writing to her or calling, and for my implication that we were not a romantic item, when I thought that was pretty clear, and
5. ...the one with whom I had one date, and liked her as a person, but had ZERO romantic chemistry with, and
6. ...the one to whom I felt no attraction, though still I tried to get past that pesky lack of chemical response, fearing that i wasn't trying hard enough or giving it a fair chance; we had sex twice, then realized it was just not going to happen, while also discovering she was emotionally damaged and also a pathological liar...(see the Sullied Pajamas series).
   
7. ...the date that had no longterm promise, but turned into Friends with Benefits, but dissolved when she found someone she wanted to date seriously, and
8. ....the date who had absolutely no future with me, as she was about as dumb as a box of rocks; but the sex was good, and it provided another much-needed fuckfest, which eventually could not continue either, because she was a pathological liar, and (she appeared as a character in Plethora, and I didn't have to change many of the facts for it to fit into the plot).
   
9. the rescue that turned into a sexual encounter, and another Friends with Benefits situation; I knew she could never capture my heart> this was interrupted by dating other people, and eventually moved to just friendship, but then was dissolved altogether by continued delusion and betrayal on her part....(see Herniated Disco: Necessary Scissors)
10. The former actress who was now back home in Kansas, who came to visit/meet me, and turned out to be a nutjob. (See Nightmare Dates: Actress with a Bad Vibe )
    
11. ...and the one whom I thought was just a coffee friend, as well as STRAIGHT, but who drank too much wine one night and confessed that she wanted me to kiss her since the first time we met, and then wanted me to do other things, upstairs in my bedroom, and who disappeared afterward, reappeared for more of the same and disappeared again.....see Mercy Kissing...
    

*for another example more recently, see Ditto.

And then there were the two pseudo-relationships that were doomed from the start with Big Eraser (a bad girl, previous drug dealer, alcoholic, cheat and liar, who I convinced myself i could save, and who eventually inflicted some nasty bruises and a broken toe) and

PhillyFilly (a recipient of 3 kidney transplants, who lived with her parents, for whom she had little respect if the condition of her room was any indication, who I tried to convince myself I loved, because i wanted to be in love so desperately, but had to finally admit it was impossible to convince yourself of love; this process was hurried along by her thinking that it was acceptable for me to support her ass for three or four years while she went to nursing school, never honored her promises to me, never seemed to think i was worth fighting for, bored me out of my mind, had a hidden drinking problem, a reality problem, an initiative problem, and delivered even more boring sex which i found numerous ways to avoid...(see the "CircleCircleCircle fiasco",The Truth is Ever Clear and Et Tu, Brute? ),

And then there was the Angst Ridden Blogist girl, (not an obvious romantic interest, but at least a seemingly profound connection)--with whom I exchanged a novella's worth of intellectual/ philosophical emails and some phone calls, who seemed to be some sort of cosmic kindred, but whom I never met in person, since she changed her mind after I rented the car and made the arrangements, because she decided she was suddenly dating her best friend. Then she swiftly turned on me like some card-carrying harpy.

Justice and I were discussing our strings of women, and came to the conclusion that NONE of them were good relationships at all. So we've not had a single good relationship in our entire lives.

My experiences with dating were all like this::: (1) meet on the Internet or--rarely--in person the first time, (2) make a date (3) get climbed in an amorous fashion the first time we are together, before i had even decided how i felt about them, (4)allow it to turn into some fuckfest, (5) then discover the 27 deal breakers and,(6) then deal with the aftermath.

I talk to my friends about most things, even the personal ones, and they all seem to have a similar story where sexual escapades are concerned. Mine seems no different: In the bedroom, I too heard similar declarations. The most common two being: (1) I have never let ANYONE do THAT before you! and (2) I have never had an orgasm that big, ever! I was also called "a master," "the best lover I've ever had," and told that they couldn't get enough of me....(oh, even one of my ex's new girlfriends was drunk enough at the bar one night to THANK ME for all the great things, sexually, I had taught my Ex; things she was now enjoying).

"Happy to be of service," I said blandly.

So, I didn't ever feel like my sexual prowess was in question. (Well, until that "CircleCircleCircle" fiasco with PhillyFilly, which I decided was a fluke based on her inexperience, even with her own body). I have made women open up like they'd never opened before, had them doing things they thought they hated but decided they loved, and willing to be my sex slave at the snap of a finger. And none of them--NONE--did I want in any way other than strictly carnal because I had "needs." Not one, did I love, Did I for one minute believe I'd want to keep for any appreciable amount of time. And yes, i did make it my mission to study sexual pleasuring until I felt I should have some kind of fucking degree in it. (That would be called, naturally, a Fucking Degree.) I earned those accolades, by god. But i did so thinking it would be one element in making me a good LIFE PARTNER, not just a good lay. What did it matter, if I didn't want to keep the woman I had just stupefied?

I spent years believing that there must be something horribly wrong with me, until I had my epiphany that it wasn't me, that all my self-work had actually paid off, and that all this "crazy" or "damaged" I thought *I* was, was really not the case, and, in fact, was represented to the nth degree in THEM. I finally realized that they were all MORE crazy, on MORE levels, and infinitely MORE fucked up than I was. A dubious liberation, to be sure. For awhile I was relieved that I was not so damaged as I had believed. It meant that there were a slew of damaged women out there, who resided in my dating pool. If I had met someone, romantically, who was "normal" and real and self-actualized and financially stable, and say, willing to get tickets to cool events and to spend time with me---why, I would have been in heaven, I tell ya. My suitors were either trying to impress me and buy my love or convince me I should be the sugar mama, as if my own happiness was inconsequential in the equation.

So I ask you: are we left with friend-dates just to enjoy the company of quality women without the perk of sex or romance? Maybe that's what I'm headed for, along with meaningless one-night-stands to curb the carnal appetites, when and IF I can even find that, without the threat of an STD. (which means I can only have "safe sex" for the rest of my life).

I'm going to dig a hole and crawl in and cover myself up.
Like a turd.

Fuckedupedness

The Truth is Ever Clear

It is with a renewed sense of disillusionment that i tap these words out; it's a morse code into the universe, a plea for sanity, a prayer for humanity. Melodrama, perhaps? Sure. But i really do feel that way. I feel that it is more and more difficult to find people who are stable and self-actualized; who don't have a cartful of baggage, rather than just a carry-on; and who would never look you in the eye and lie.

My previous relationship was a large learning experience for me, as all my relationships are, platonic or otherwise. I choose to frame them as little classrooms, micro-courses in the school of human nature and my place in it. WHile there is much to dissect about my last foray into romance, i have only one thing on my mind: that no matter how well you think you know someone, they all have secrets. Their true identity can be masked for a period of time, and the mask might not fall off until they are walking away or being shoved out the door, with any manner of debris left behind. THe person i refer to behaved in odd, disturbing, and verbally abusive ways, only to explain later that it was her medication, or that she was tired...There were other, more accurate reasons.

In my book, ISO: In Search Of, i warn against red flags and deal breakers in the relationship milieu. Yet i am as guilty as those i try to enlighten, of ignoring what i don't want to see. Need, desire, fear--these are all powerful emotions that can alter our perception of what color that flag really is..."maybe it's just sorta pink"..."or maybe it's really white, and that's just the wonderful sunshine reflecting off it"...nada. It is still a red flag. I noticed the associations, the warning signs, but chose to believe her when she explained. I didn't listen to my gut.

Now that the relationship has met its demise (for many other pertinent reasons), i am given this postscript on the story; this symbol of my own blindness, this evidence, left at the scene which i must now catalog in my mind for future reference. Love can be like CSI.

It was almost cinematic in its unfolding...she spent a good deal of time in the upstairs guest room, working on her projects and studying for school, while i was downstairs at my desk, doing my own work. Yesterday, i was moving the recliner from the guest room, and had to flip it over to get it to fit through the doorway. I heard a clunk, and turned around. On the floor in that hallway was an almost empty bottle of Everclear.

My brain wanted to explain that away. She was upset during our several breakups and reconciliations. She was drowning her sorrows. But then, who goes and buys a huge bottle of Everclear when they need a drink? Everclear is the choice of hardcore drinkers. It's hard to detect on the breath. It's monstrously strong. Why not wine coolers? Why not beer?

Then i began to recall all the other incidents...the two times on the phone before she moved here, when she was obviously blotto, and trying to drive herself home; that night she went off on something innocuous and sounded like a ranting, hateful harpy; the several times during tense conversations about our rickety future when she would behave like a total wino or scream and say things that made no sense and wasn't even on topic...only to forget it the next day, surprised at the retelling of it...

...and then it became clear. Everclear.

The Truth is Ever Clear

Weapons of Heart Destruction

“There is no pain equal to that which two lovers can inflict on one another. This should be made clear to all who contemplate such a union. The avoidance of this pain is the beginning of wisdom, for it is strong enough to contaminate the rest of our lives.” ~ Cyril Connolly

As a creative person, it is necessary for me to open myself up and take chances. To create art of any kind, you must be able to dig down and reveal yourself in order for the creative result to be honest and visceral and meaningful. I have learned that when you open yourself up to SOMEONE, a specific someone, thinking they might be significant in your life--a future lifemate, a soulmate, perhaps--you always take the chance of having that personal information twisted and thrown in your face when things don't turn out they way they want. You might be having a spiritual/emotional crisis that you are trying desperately to work through, but the minute the situation disappoints them and their own goals, they reduce your feelings to mere character flaws, they spit venom at your self-worth, Then everything they embraced and loved and understood about you morphs into this ugly Grendel, and you suddenly become the embodiment of all their own angst and fear and ugliness. They turn on you, they load their weapons and they begin to fill you full of holes. I have learned it is best to hold back the deeper aspects of your heart, and never reveal any past demons you've conquered and learned from, because others are capable of forging them into weapons with which to cut you, bludgeon you and inflict the deepest emotional harm--harm that can render you faithless and hopeless and wounded. I can't fathom ever opening myself up again--even if it's the small amount i managed to do it this time...and if i do manage to be foolish or brave enough to attempt it once more, it won't be until i have an extended period of proof that they are not capable of such carnage and such viciousness, and what they tell you about themselves is not merely words... "When are you going to understand, that i am not like those others?" they say, over and over, "You are too hard on yourself. You just have to learn to let go and be in the moment and allow yourself to feel..." You open that door just a little, and you take a step inside, And then they demonstrate themselves as clones of those others with their hatefulness, and have the gall to say it is somehow all your own doing. WE are all humans and we all have our limits, and can only be impaled with a sharp stick so many times before we will do anything to make it stop. I have learned that i am capable of attacking back when these wounds are so deep that they feel like life or death. I abhor the way it makes me feel about myself to lash out, or inflict reciprocal harm, to lower myself to such a level of pain that i will hurt someone else out of some need to protect myself, i also recognize it is a perfectly natural human reaction to such a overwhelming amount of injury to my heart, my psyche, my wounds. Thus, I will use every ounce of strength i have left and that i manage to collect afterward to never allow myself to be that vulnerable again. No one will ever be able to hurt me like that again. No one will have my heart for awhile. It's too bruised and battered for handling. Even by me.

Weapons of Heart Destruction