It’s not quite Halloween yet and I am already in holiday burn-out mode. Good grief.
They are pushing us at work to keep momentum up in Q4. I guess on some level, I want to care because money is a nice commodity to have. However, I just don’t like the arm-twisting, high pressure shit. People are focused on the holidays, family, food, time off, planning trips, feuding with their families LOL, etc. I am no exception to this. I’ve been hashing out the whole ‘meet the family’ deal in my mind regarding Arsey Darcy. There’s a part of me that wants to and a part of me that doesn’t. My friend Frank was like, “When you’ve recently gotten into a relationship, the holidays are probably not the best time for an introduction. Doing something more casual and less stressful later is the way to go.” When he put it that way, I would have to agree. It’d be really horrible if I got to another state with Darcy, discovered that the family is a train-wreck, and then couldn’t leave. Or if I did cut out early, it would basically be the end of the relationship. And that I do not want. In the end, it’s better that we both have more than a poppyseed of love before we start diving headfirst into such a complicated mess. It’s funny how fragile these things are. It would be truly horrendous to get out of town, discover that the family hates me or I them, and then be devastated. Or even just to be a fly on the wall if an argument breaks out. I haven’t spent much time with my own extended family in the past few years and I have the feeling it’s time to change that. Jim Beam and Johnny Walker agree with me, LOL.
I was having another discussion with a friend today. He’s frustrated because he feels like there is a disparity between what he thinks he should feel and what he actually feels. I always go back to Dennis Miller: sex is the great un-figure-able. Truly, it is. Apparently my friend was out at a bar when a drunk girl danced with him and kissed him. Then she punched someone in the face and was thrown out by the bouncer. I dunno. I can’t sit in judgment of the guy because I’ve been to some down and low places in my mind before. When it’s been a while since you’ve had a meaningful relationship and you are on one shit date after another or not having any dates at all, it feels awful. In fact, in my opinion, it’s easier not to date at all than it is to suit up and show up time after time at different places only to be hellaciously disappointed. I dunno. It’s like the longer you are in the process and the more you do it, the more it jades you. You find yourself shaving your legs and putting on a nice dress while your mind is going, “Oh God. Not this shit again. I’m sure I’ll get there and be ready to leave in less than an hour.” So you go into the whole process with a dark cloud above your head. I’d find myself thinking about how much I’d rather be in my pajamas watching TV or reading a book than out with some weirdo for the millionth time. That’s still something I struggle with a little bit even in dating Darcy. There are times when he has hobbies and stuff with other people going on and I just want to go home. I don’t intrude on his personal stuff. I just think there is this weird, like, competitive drive people have. If your mate is going out, you need to as well, even if you totally don’t want to. Now, I don’t think it’s right to sit at home staring at the walls, twiddling your thumbs, and feeling sorry for yourself. That’s not really being at home because you want to be. But fuck. Some people like to be out-and-about more than others. I’ve said before that in some ways, I’m an introvert in extrovert’s clothing. It’s fun to have time with friends and family and to have plans. Not every single day though. Darcy has more clubs and little oddball social shit that he does than I do. And I’m OK with that because it gives him an outlet for crap I have no interest in and it gives me time to do other things. Some people feel like there needs to be constant stimulation to avoid boredom and I’m not like that. Sometimes it feels good to do nothing. My own company suits me fine.
So anyway, this drunken brawler dances with my friend and now he is having some sort of mental turmoil because it felt good to be wanted, even if it was by a drunken brawler who wasn’t much aware of what she was doing. It sucks to be in that place emotionally. Like, “Oh God! Finally some attention!” I struggle with knowing what to tell him. There is the ever-present temptation to go SimCo. “I don’t mean to be rude but: you are not Hugh Jackman or Brad Pitt. You’re not even hobo Brad Pitt in the Chanel commercial. Why you think some mystical, magical woman is going to fall from the sky just for you and be perfect in every way is beyond me. Get with reality.” He gets vain and superficial about the strangest things. Paradoxically, he’ll date anything with a pulse and then be distraught and disappointed when, amazingly (said in dripping irony), it doesn’t work out. You want to say, “Come the fuck on, dude.” There have been convicts, trannies, colossal frumps, addicts, women still living with other men in semi-relationships, etc. Bloody hell. At first I felt sorry for him because I thought perhaps he is the victim of bad circumstances. Now I just think he’s being foolish as hell. Darcy and I have talked about how lucky he is not to have been a crime victim himself at the hands of some of these freaked out chicks. Emotionally, I understand that it sucks to have this low self-esteem / Anxiety Demon telling you that you don’t deserve anyone good, no one will ever love you the way you want to be loved, you’ll die alone, everyone else will be happy but you, you are defective, you are fucked up, etc. That goddamn Anxiety Demon can pull you through the ringer. But you fight it, right? You say, “Fuck you, I’m not going to live my life that way.” If you read this blog with any frequency, you will know that when I met Arsey Darcy, it was not an immediate love connection. Now, the first time I saw him, I was sexually attracted to him. But at that time, he was dressed normally and not wearing a motel fabric shirt with lemon yellow clown shoes. I was turned off by the poncy book club and the dislike of Trump and the lack of TV. But the tension and the “Ugh, what the fuck is this guy’s problem” turned into, “Damn. I think I want him.” And now I poppyseed love him. No one has ever been more convinced that they would be alone forever like me. I wish my friend would understand that wasting time on bad, mean, depraved people is not the gateway to happiness.
