How are you?
It's sure been a while since we last spoke, and I've heard some rumors flying around that I wanted to discuss with you. But before we get into that, lets reminisce, shall we?
Remember back in high school, when I used to base my entire day around how you and I would interact in Calculus class? How if you paid attention to me and we talked for a little bit, it would be like I was walking on goddamn sunshine for the rest of the day? Or on the other hand, when you would ignore me and talk to Chad sitting next to you, how I wanted to just go home and punch a wall?
Remember how I used to think you were the most beautiful specimen on the face of the earth, and just a little smile or giggle from you would send shivers down my spine? How I was so infatuated with you that I used to go home and write in my diary like a little pussy about any brief interaction we had, and analyze it to death?
Or how I wouldn't even imagine sex with you, because you were just too perfect and pure to taint with my awful masturbation sessions that I would have with just about every other girl in school? How just the thought of holding your hand or putting my arm around you would just immediately cause me physical pain because it was just such a pipe dream?
Remember the days when your boyfriend would anger you, and you'd talk to me about it, and how even back then I knew not to play the friend card and instead I would take his side, so that I didn't become just another one of your girlfriends, but with a penis? But how I'd secretly hope that something terrible would happen to your relationship and you'd naturally gravitate toward me since I was so trusting and caring?
How about the times you would ask me for rides home when your friends would ditch you, and how I'd wait at my locker for you so that you didn't have to take the bus? Or when you and your boyfriend got in trouble for skipping school one day, and I was the first one you called to talk about it?
Remember when sometimes I'd wait at my locker for 10 minutes, and then you'd come over and tell me you had another ride and you didn't need me? How crushed and dejected I would feel, and how I'd think that playing that martyr card would eventually get to you and you'd realize how great I was for always being there, even when you didn't return the favor?
What about when you'd tell me all about your future--how you wanted to move out to the west with your boyfriend, get married, and have a boy (you even had his name picked out)? Remember how crushed I used to feel knowing that I was chasing something that I knew I would never catch, but I kept on trying anyway?
Remember how tormented I was my entire senior year in high school, because I could never tell you how I truly felt about you and you were either too oblivious or too polite to bring it up yourself, even though it was pretty glaringly obvious?
Those were good times.
So I hear you and your boyfriend have recently broken up, after about 9 years of dating. I also heard that the root cause of it was that you were overbearing and forced your will on him. I heard you wore him down to a nub, and for the last 5 years or so of your relationship, you were more of a burden than a pleasure to be with.
I also realized that all those feelings of frustration and confusion I had when I would talk to you wasn't because I didn't know how to interpret normal female behavior, but because you were psychologically damaged, and would exploit the fact that you are beautiful and people always went out of their way to bend over backwards for you. It wasn't anything special when guys would go out of their way to please you, as I used to do so much without so much as a "thanks". Apparently, that was the norm in your life. So all my effort in showing you how much I cared for you-- that was just how EVERYONE treated you, and I was just another guy who happened to be a good listener.
And I'm sure that's why now that you've finally had someone say "no" to you--your boyfriend of 9 years breaking up with you--I guess that's why you attempted to kill yourself by overdosing on pills. Because rejection and overcoming social obstacles like this isn't something that had been hard-wired into you since you were a little kid, like it does for most people. You didn't know how to handle someone not bending to your will, especially a guy you're romantically involved with.
You even cheated on him a couple times, and I'm sure he had his suspicions, but it went unspoken and you nearly got away with it just being a mistake that you never had to own up to. You almost admitted as much to me, that one time we went to get pizza when he wasn't around, but I told you that I didn't want to know. I wasn't going to be the one to trim off some of that guilt you were feeling. This was something you had to live with. And besides, I was becoming pretty good friends with him at the time, so I didn't want to have to make that decision of whether or not to tell him. This was between you and him.
Boy have things changed. Just a few years ago, you were a Manhattan-ite yuppie with a nice big airy apartment with a beautiful view, a cutting edge job in the entertainment industry, all your friends in similar hip industries and you were in your domestic bliss, even down to the pet kitty and going out on weekends to look for a house to buy with the guy. You almost had him. You were one good real estate deal away from tying your lives together so bound that he'd have no choice but to go ahead and marry you and have a kid and be set.
Since the break-up, apparently you've moved far away from the city and are for the first time in your life on your own. You'd abandoned most of your friends during your time with the guy, because they sort of refused to bend to your will as well. In fact, a lot of your old friends became friends with him, because they could relate to what he must have been going through.
Now instead of having dinner parties and going to art exhibits, where your biggest worry was how you looked and how people in those circles viewed you and the boy, you're faced with stark reality--something most of us thankfully go through in high school and have become callused to by this age. For that, I really do feel bad for you, because it's not a fun journey to go through. And it's not in your formative years that it's happening, which makes it even worse. Back when you're still young and impressionable, you can sort of develop personality traits out of the situation. I use humor to deal with almost everything in my life, because that's how I learned to cope with shit back then. Some people become talented artists. Some focus on a hobby that makes them happier. I'm not saying it's going to be impossible for you to deal with this newfound reality of life, but I have a feeling it's gonna be a lot harder to make a personality change now than it would have been when you were 13 years old.
So I guess I should wrap up this little letter to you. I had to get this all off my chest for a few reasons. For one, I truly do wish you well, and don't want this letter to come off as condescending, even though I did use some sarcasm and obviously there are still some bitter feelings there. But also, I have been a little worried about you ever since I heard about your incident. It's not shocking, but it is a little surprising that the girl I worshipped as a perfect goddess a brief 8 years ago is now in a mental state where she feels she has nowhere to turn.
Lets just say that it'll get better. I'm not sure if that's the god's honest truth, but based on my own experiences, I'd say that if you can make it through this with some lessons learned and a newfound humility, you might be able to consider yourself as having a new lease on life.
Take care and have a wonderful rest of your life.
Sincerely,
Me
Friday, December 12, 2008
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
On: Masturbation and those awkward middle school years
Yep, that strange territory that people are entirely comfortable joking about but not too comfortable admitting to actually doing.
I'm currently in the middle of eating my post-masturbatory sandwich, and it tastes great. Yes, I washed my hands first.
The thing about jerking off is the varying levels of importance it takes in your life over different periods of time.
I first "officially" masturbated in the summer between the 8th and 9th grades--a late bloomer to most people, as is my understanding. But before I messed up that spot on my bedroom carpet, I came close a few times. All I knew is that any mention of sex got me immediately and permanently in that masturbatory mode, but not yet knowing how to release that energy, it was pure torture to me. Here I was, my mind all in a tizzy and my body ready to do something, but I'm completely baffled as to what I it was supposed to do. I was a mess.
I remember the first time pretty vividly. It started on a warm summer day as I was leafing through my 8th grade yearbook, looking at the girls and how goddamn amazing they were starting to look. That yearbook and subsequent ones became my primary masturbatory material for at least 3 years, which I'm sure wasn't the yearbook committee's intention. If only those well-meaning hard workers realized how those picture collages would soon be viewed and used by what I could only guess were hundreds of kids like me, I'm sure they'd sooner join the Key Club and instead work on something a little more charitable than providing endless jerk fests to their horny and shameless classmates.
Anyway, I got to the picture of the one girl--lets call her Jessie Planter--who I first laid eyes on the first day of school in 7th grade and immediately thought "god damn, I'm not in elementary school anymore". She looked at least 5-6 years older than she was, and could easily pass for a hot senior cheerleader or whatever porn fantasy you'd like to enter here. She had the sexiest damn eyes and a wide, open face with shoulder-length dirty blonde hair. And the body--god damn again--I was not used to these bodies in my 6th grade class. What the hell happened over the summer for the girls around me to look like this all of a sudden?
That's the other thing that is so damn unfair. Most 7th grade boys are stuck in our 6th grade bodies plus three months--pudgy, baby fat, still with no clue as to how to dress, talk, or interact with the opposite sex. Meanwhile, girls get all curvy, grow boobs, develop nice round asses, have shiny long hair, and are actually eloquent and seem to be in total control of the world around them. It's amazing that we're in the same classes at this point. All I cared about in 6th grade was Notre Dame football, the Knicks' playoff chances, and my social standing in terms of how good I was at sports. I definitely had an interest in girls, but more for the social aspect than in any real desire to be in any relationship with them.
By 7th grade, all that changed. Girls were everywhere, and they all looked fucking AMAZING. To the point where it would get me nervous and I'd stammer and stutter and choke on my words any time one of them talked to me. This mentality lasted well throughout high school, and even as I developed into a somewhat better looking person.
So I went way off topic there for a bit. Back to that warm summer day, and me flipping through the 8th grade yearbook on my floor, examining each girl's picture (any high school girls that happen to be reading this: yes, we do thoroughly examine those yearbook pictures of yours, so say cheese with that in mind), and I get to Jessie's picture. All of a sudden, I start stirring a bit down in the pants and before you know it, my pants are undone, and I'm dryly rubbing myself and my body has completely overtaken my mind. I'm doing this involuntarily and I'm not stopping until I reach some conclusion that I only know about through evolution and possibly a few awkwardly taught sex ed classes.
Another aside-- I must have been taught about ejaculation pretty poorly (and in that pre-internet age, sex ed was pretty much all we had), because I imagined it being a stream of liquid, like taking a piss. I had no idea what to expect when I finally did finish and how exactly it would come about.
So I'm jerking in my own primitive, instinctual way and I'm just eyeing that picture when all of a sudden, it starts feeling really damn good and bam... out leaks a little clear stuff onto my bedroom carpet.
And so began a new world for me.
High school was all about finding 5-10 minutes by myself, usually with nothing but my imagination. Before school. After school. Before bed. In bed. In the bathroom. In the living room. In the kitchen. Between the pillows. Discovering wetting it (which by the way is like rediscovering masturbation). Discovering the twist technique. Discovering internet porn.
High school was basically a blur of jerking off to every thought that I couldn't jerk off to in those dark ages when I had no outlet for that feeling. I would plan on who I would jerk off to each night. I would discover new ways of doing it. I was like a little Magellan, going to uncharted territory with reckless abandon.
Then came college, and sharing a room with my friend, and learning to interact with females in day-to-day life, not just in those awkward 8 hours in a concrete building under flourescent lights. I actually had to live with these creatures. My first sexual experiences are well documented here, so I won't get into that, but suffice it to say, my masturbatory tendencies declined quite a bit then.
And now, I'm 26 years old. I have a steady girlfriend who I consider my best friend and a peer. An equal. Not an unattainable piece of perfection that I will never attain. She's a human being with her own insecurities and thoughts and fears and interests and her own stories of youth. Just like those girls way back in 7th grade, which I was all too unaware of at the time.
And we have sex. Lots and lots of it. Enough to keep a guy completely sexually satisfied.
So no need for masturbation now, right? Well, wrong. I still do it, as I alluded to above. But it's become more of a chore at this point. I do it now just because I can. I could just as easily go to bed or read a book or watch a movie. It's not the world changer it was back then. I guess a part of me still hopes for a bit of that excitement every time I do it, but now its lost a lot of the luster.
I'm running out of steam here, and I don't really have any kind of conclusion in mind for this little entry, so lets leave it here before I get more disturbing.
Good night, kids.
I'm currently in the middle of eating my post-masturbatory sandwich, and it tastes great. Yes, I washed my hands first.
The thing about jerking off is the varying levels of importance it takes in your life over different periods of time.
I first "officially" masturbated in the summer between the 8th and 9th grades--a late bloomer to most people, as is my understanding. But before I messed up that spot on my bedroom carpet, I came close a few times. All I knew is that any mention of sex got me immediately and permanently in that masturbatory mode, but not yet knowing how to release that energy, it was pure torture to me. Here I was, my mind all in a tizzy and my body ready to do something, but I'm completely baffled as to what I it was supposed to do. I was a mess.
I remember the first time pretty vividly. It started on a warm summer day as I was leafing through my 8th grade yearbook, looking at the girls and how goddamn amazing they were starting to look. That yearbook and subsequent ones became my primary masturbatory material for at least 3 years, which I'm sure wasn't the yearbook committee's intention. If only those well-meaning hard workers realized how those picture collages would soon be viewed and used by what I could only guess were hundreds of kids like me, I'm sure they'd sooner join the Key Club and instead work on something a little more charitable than providing endless jerk fests to their horny and shameless classmates.
Anyway, I got to the picture of the one girl--lets call her Jessie Planter--who I first laid eyes on the first day of school in 7th grade and immediately thought "god damn, I'm not in elementary school anymore". She looked at least 5-6 years older than she was, and could easily pass for a hot senior cheerleader or whatever porn fantasy you'd like to enter here. She had the sexiest damn eyes and a wide, open face with shoulder-length dirty blonde hair. And the body--god damn again--I was not used to these bodies in my 6th grade class. What the hell happened over the summer for the girls around me to look like this all of a sudden?
That's the other thing that is so damn unfair. Most 7th grade boys are stuck in our 6th grade bodies plus three months--pudgy, baby fat, still with no clue as to how to dress, talk, or interact with the opposite sex. Meanwhile, girls get all curvy, grow boobs, develop nice round asses, have shiny long hair, and are actually eloquent and seem to be in total control of the world around them. It's amazing that we're in the same classes at this point. All I cared about in 6th grade was Notre Dame football, the Knicks' playoff chances, and my social standing in terms of how good I was at sports. I definitely had an interest in girls, but more for the social aspect than in any real desire to be in any relationship with them.
By 7th grade, all that changed. Girls were everywhere, and they all looked fucking AMAZING. To the point where it would get me nervous and I'd stammer and stutter and choke on my words any time one of them talked to me. This mentality lasted well throughout high school, and even as I developed into a somewhat better looking person.
So I went way off topic there for a bit. Back to that warm summer day, and me flipping through the 8th grade yearbook on my floor, examining each girl's picture (any high school girls that happen to be reading this: yes, we do thoroughly examine those yearbook pictures of yours, so say cheese with that in mind), and I get to Jessie's picture. All of a sudden, I start stirring a bit down in the pants and before you know it, my pants are undone, and I'm dryly rubbing myself and my body has completely overtaken my mind. I'm doing this involuntarily and I'm not stopping until I reach some conclusion that I only know about through evolution and possibly a few awkwardly taught sex ed classes.
Another aside-- I must have been taught about ejaculation pretty poorly (and in that pre-internet age, sex ed was pretty much all we had), because I imagined it being a stream of liquid, like taking a piss. I had no idea what to expect when I finally did finish and how exactly it would come about.
So I'm jerking in my own primitive, instinctual way and I'm just eyeing that picture when all of a sudden, it starts feeling really damn good and bam... out leaks a little clear stuff onto my bedroom carpet.
And so began a new world for me.
High school was all about finding 5-10 minutes by myself, usually with nothing but my imagination. Before school. After school. Before bed. In bed. In the bathroom. In the living room. In the kitchen. Between the pillows. Discovering wetting it (which by the way is like rediscovering masturbation). Discovering the twist technique. Discovering internet porn.
High school was basically a blur of jerking off to every thought that I couldn't jerk off to in those dark ages when I had no outlet for that feeling. I would plan on who I would jerk off to each night. I would discover new ways of doing it. I was like a little Magellan, going to uncharted territory with reckless abandon.
Then came college, and sharing a room with my friend, and learning to interact with females in day-to-day life, not just in those awkward 8 hours in a concrete building under flourescent lights. I actually had to live with these creatures. My first sexual experiences are well documented here, so I won't get into that, but suffice it to say, my masturbatory tendencies declined quite a bit then.
And now, I'm 26 years old. I have a steady girlfriend who I consider my best friend and a peer. An equal. Not an unattainable piece of perfection that I will never attain. She's a human being with her own insecurities and thoughts and fears and interests and her own stories of youth. Just like those girls way back in 7th grade, which I was all too unaware of at the time.
And we have sex. Lots and lots of it. Enough to keep a guy completely sexually satisfied.
So no need for masturbation now, right? Well, wrong. I still do it, as I alluded to above. But it's become more of a chore at this point. I do it now just because I can. I could just as easily go to bed or read a book or watch a movie. It's not the world changer it was back then. I guess a part of me still hopes for a bit of that excitement every time I do it, but now its lost a lot of the luster.
I'm running out of steam here, and I don't really have any kind of conclusion in mind for this little entry, so lets leave it here before I get more disturbing.
Good night, kids.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
So on Sept. 11 2001
Just copied & pasted here for posterity. It's relevant here, I suppose, given that tomorrow marks 7 years (!) since those towers fell.
I was a sophomore in college working at the library. My co-worker came in and told me that a plane hit the tower, and I didn't know what to think. Obviously I figured it was an accident at first, and had no clue what was about to change over the course of the week, month, and following years.
I didn't have access to a cell phone there, so I relied on him and constant cnn.com refreshes to give me updates.
When he said that they filmed the 2nd plane going into the tower and that terrorism was likely the cause, I felt helpless and didn't know what to do.
The one girl I worked with was all excited about getting classes cancelled for the day, and she made her excitement vocal, to which one of the library patrons said, "that's not very appropriate". I don't think she understood what exactly was going on, which was odd, since she was the president of her class.
I worked until 2, got my stuff, and started walking home, in somewhat of a daze. Being that close to NYC (I was in New Brunswick, NJ), there were fighter planes zooming by overhead, I guess for some sort of air protection, but every time I saw one, I cringed a little, not knowing what was what.
I ran into one of my house mates. He jumped up, and jokingly screamed "IT'S WORLD WAR THREE!!". I didn't find that all that funny or tasteful.
I got back to my off-campus house that I shared with 7 other people. Some of the girls that we were friends with from freshman year were over, and we were all frantically trying to get through to our families on the phones, but the lines were so tied up that it took a lot of persistence. We eventually all got through, everyone was okay, and nobody knew quite what to say. My uncle predicted quite accurately that he feels for Afghanistan, because they're about to be "turned into a parking lot".
Eventually we all settled around the TV and kept CNN on for hours at a time. We all decided to grill up some hot dogs on the Foreman grill and try to crack jokes and keep it light, but we were all visibly shaken and all sort of at a loss for words.
I ended the night by going to my room and throwing on a movie, hoping to escape for a couple of hours. But stupid me--I chose to watch Fight Club, a movie about a budding terrorist group that ends with the main character and his girlfriend looking out the window watching towers around the city crumble.
Yeah, I didn't sleep well that night.
I was a sophomore in college working at the library. My co-worker came in and told me that a plane hit the tower, and I didn't know what to think. Obviously I figured it was an accident at first, and had no clue what was about to change over the course of the week, month, and following years.
I didn't have access to a cell phone there, so I relied on him and constant cnn.com refreshes to give me updates.
When he said that they filmed the 2nd plane going into the tower and that terrorism was likely the cause, I felt helpless and didn't know what to do.
The one girl I worked with was all excited about getting classes cancelled for the day, and she made her excitement vocal, to which one of the library patrons said, "that's not very appropriate". I don't think she understood what exactly was going on, which was odd, since she was the president of her class.
I worked until 2, got my stuff, and started walking home, in somewhat of a daze. Being that close to NYC (I was in New Brunswick, NJ), there were fighter planes zooming by overhead, I guess for some sort of air protection, but every time I saw one, I cringed a little, not knowing what was what.
I ran into one of my house mates. He jumped up, and jokingly screamed "IT'S WORLD WAR THREE!!". I didn't find that all that funny or tasteful.
I got back to my off-campus house that I shared with 7 other people. Some of the girls that we were friends with from freshman year were over, and we were all frantically trying to get through to our families on the phones, but the lines were so tied up that it took a lot of persistence. We eventually all got through, everyone was okay, and nobody knew quite what to say. My uncle predicted quite accurately that he feels for Afghanistan, because they're about to be "turned into a parking lot".
Eventually we all settled around the TV and kept CNN on for hours at a time. We all decided to grill up some hot dogs on the Foreman grill and try to crack jokes and keep it light, but we were all visibly shaken and all sort of at a loss for words.
I ended the night by going to my room and throwing on a movie, hoping to escape for a couple of hours. But stupid me--I chose to watch Fight Club, a movie about a budding terrorist group that ends with the main character and his girlfriend looking out the window watching towers around the city crumble.
Yeah, I didn't sleep well that night.
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
So the girl who took my innocence is getting married
I've only had sex with 2 girls in my life. Both were in long-term relationships, and one of them is still going strong to this day.
But I do have one girl out there with whom I've come as close as possible to sex without actually finishing, and a random internet search (google stalking) of her name has brought up the fact that she is engaged and about to be married.
Again.
See, back in freshman year of college, I was a complete virgin in pretty much every sense of the word. I was 18 years old, and I had never had a girlfriend, never touched a breast, only saw a girl's nipple once (when the loose girl at the local A&P showed it to me at my buddy and co-worker's urging her) and my only kiss was an awkward peck on the lips on a front porch after hanging out with a girl for the night, and it was only because I asked "can I get a kiss?". In retrospect, there were probably about 3 other girls I could've had sex with back in high school, but I either didn't have the nerve or was completely scared and shied away from it. Wow, thinking about these encounters is embarrassing.
So suffice it to say, I had basically no experience dealing with girls on any level outside of the occasional awkward encounter in high school, which really didn't amount to much.
Fast forward to freshman year. I had my eye on two girls at our freshman orientation in the dorm almost immediately. The Chinese girl with the buns in her hair who quickly thrust me into the friend zone, out of which I tried to break for about 3 years after that--another story for another time--and then the one who reminded me of that one girl who I awkwardly kissed. She looked like she had the punk/indie thing going for her, which were the sort of girls I dug back then-- tanktops and hoodies, jeans, not a lot of make-up, cute face, small frame, nice little rack on her. The kind of girl you would probably see going backstage at a show.
The thing my thick head couldn't pick up on, though, was that this girl REALLY dug me. Like, so much so that she went out of her way to ask my roommate/best friend about me, would come up with any reason to come up to my room, and invite me to do things with her that I perpetually turned down mostly because I was a nervous and scared little shit who didn't feel comfortable stepping outside of the little routines that I was into at the time.
I specifically recall her inviting me to her dorm room for a little party she was throwing that I later realized was specifically to get me to her room and to get me drunk. I spent that night watching game 2 of the Mets/Yankees World Series instead.
Oh, did I mention that she was engaged at the time? Yeah, to her high school boyfriend, and she had the ring and everything. I realize it now, but if she weren't engaged, it likely wouldn't have made a difference. Still, at the time, I used that as the excuse I needed not to step out of my comfort zone.
But she pushed on. She would take me to record stores in her car, which was nearly impossible to have on campus, she'd invite me to watch Space Ghost with her on her bed, go to the mall, and then-- on a "dorm trip" which she rarely participated in, she decided to come and flirt with me right in front of her fiance. It was a paintball session, and after getting shot in the neck and yelled at for taking my helmet off too soon, she came over and stood next to me while her fiance was off firing plastic balls of paint at people. She'd sort of cuddle in, lean on me, and talk really close to me, to which I don't recall how I reacted, but I'm sure it was a healthy mix of arousal and discomfort.
After that, I finally got it. This girl actually liked me, and would not stop showing me until it was blatantly obvious and I was fully aware of it.
But again, it was all too much for me. Forget the fact that I'd never had a girlfriend or so much as held a girl's hand outside of an awkward prom obligation. This girl was everything I feared. She was sexy, confident, seemingly popular, and scariest of all, she wanted ME, which is not what I was used to in regard to sexy, confident, popular girls.
Scariest of all, she seemed like she wanted me more than just another pal, as was the case with the aforementioned Chinese girl who I was crushing on at the time.
And that scared the shit out of me.
No no, sex wasn't for me right now--I was fine with my usual routine of video games, writing personal things that nobody will ever see (lots changed there...), listening to music, and worrying about schoolwork. Sex was way too much to handle right at this moment, especially to an engaged woman.
This is until the "borrowed vacuum" strategy.
See this girl was persistant, and crafty at that. After getting me to finally notice her and what her intentions were, her next step was to get me in her room and finish the job. She would occasionally borrow my vacuum cleaner from our room and always said that she "owed me" for it. My ham-fisted attempts at flirting back were most likely embarrassing enough to warrant me willfully forgetting them, so after not getting the hint enough times, she eventually blatantly said "if you let me borrow the vacuum today, I'll make out with my roommate and let you watch".
Let me repeat that, and also state that this is the god's honest truth, and there is no reason to make this story up. If anything, by the time you reach the end of this little story, you will realize that this in no way makes me look good.
She said: "if you let me borrow the vacuum today, I'll make out with my roommate and let you watch".
I took it as a joke, let her borrow the vacuum and went back to whatever the hell I was doing.
Of course, she wasn't going to let that little line go without a reaction from me, so she invited me downstairs to her room, where she made good on that promise. She sat me down, her and her roommate cuddled up on the bed, and bam, they started kissing. Her roommate seemed to be into it a little longer than she was, as she was the first to pull away, but I remember making some awful joke about masturbation right after it happened, which she either chuckled at or ignored completely, and she patted the bed for me to sit down next to her. Her roommate got up and left, locking the door on the way out, and soon it was just me and her, at which point she made a point of saying that she broke up with her fiance.
It started with lots of heavy making out, feeling up, and eventually led to her going down on me and vice versa. I remember the tattoo on her flat lower stomach area like I just saw it 5 minutes ago. I was oddly completely ready for this, and soon enough, we were finished. Well, I was finished anyway. I went back upstairs, hung out with the people on my floor with an extreme sense of giddyness and a little nervousness, and said not a peep to anyone about the whole affair. I don't remember how or why I went right back upstairs, but I do remember wanting a complete return to normalcy afterward, since my head was spinning and I didn't know how to deal with what I was feeling at the time.
This happened a few times, until she brought up the question right in the middle of the act I was so enjoying-- "do you want to have sex?"-- spoken in a breathy, in-the-act-already type of way which one would think would lead to the inevitable, but my answer was the following: "I don't know if we should".
Let me repeat that, just to balance out the double quote of what was probably the highlight of my memory earlier.
I said back to her: "I don't know if we should"
Now part of me knew that I didn't have much interest in her outside of her physical attributes and some similar tastes in music and movies and whatnot. And I knew that I couldn't really stand her friends and didn't see myself ever wanting to be in that circle. And I knew that if I had sex with her then and there, even though it wasn't her first time, it was mine, and I wouldn't have felt right starting down that path knowing that I was having what was essentially meaningless sex with a girl that was living downstairs from me.
Part of me knew that.
The other part of me was terrified of sex in general, though, and I really needed more than a breathy "do you want to have sex" to push me over. If she had grabbed me, threw a condom on, and inserted me inside of her, I doubt I would've had much protest. But she left it up to me at that point, and instead of going with my bodily instincts, I had an instant of hesitation, which turned into a moment, which turned into a fully formed thought, and I realized that it wouldn't have been right to go through with it.
So I didn't. I talked to her and told her that I don't really know if I feel the same way about her as she does to me, and that I don't want to lead her on, but of course I said these things in the most vague, confusing ways possible.
After that, it's sort of a blur. I think we may have hooked up a few more times after that, but I quite possibly distanced myself from her, and she more than likely distanced herself from me, as I distinctly recall knocking on her door on those desperate lonely dorm nights when everyone else was out at a frat party, and getting no answer. I think she ended up moving off-campus during the year without saying anything, and I was none the wiser for a long time.
In the end, I probably made the right decision by not having sex with her, but I approached it horribly and I still feel terribly about it to this day. I've thought about contacting her and explaining myself at various points throughout the past seven years, but now that I've found out she's engaged and about to be married--and I assume she'll go through with it this time--I can only assume that she's completely put that whole debacle much further from her memory than I ever will.
Anyways, it's good to be writing again on here, and I hope to continue with these blurbs whenever I get a few hours to myself again. It's not often that I do, but I do enjoy writing for some actual relief again instead of worrying about an audience reading these things.
But I do have one girl out there with whom I've come as close as possible to sex without actually finishing, and a random internet search (google stalking) of her name has brought up the fact that she is engaged and about to be married.
Again.
See, back in freshman year of college, I was a complete virgin in pretty much every sense of the word. I was 18 years old, and I had never had a girlfriend, never touched a breast, only saw a girl's nipple once (when the loose girl at the local A&P showed it to me at my buddy and co-worker's urging her) and my only kiss was an awkward peck on the lips on a front porch after hanging out with a girl for the night, and it was only because I asked "can I get a kiss?". In retrospect, there were probably about 3 other girls I could've had sex with back in high school, but I either didn't have the nerve or was completely scared and shied away from it. Wow, thinking about these encounters is embarrassing.
So suffice it to say, I had basically no experience dealing with girls on any level outside of the occasional awkward encounter in high school, which really didn't amount to much.
Fast forward to freshman year. I had my eye on two girls at our freshman orientation in the dorm almost immediately. The Chinese girl with the buns in her hair who quickly thrust me into the friend zone, out of which I tried to break for about 3 years after that--another story for another time--and then the one who reminded me of that one girl who I awkwardly kissed. She looked like she had the punk/indie thing going for her, which were the sort of girls I dug back then-- tanktops and hoodies, jeans, not a lot of make-up, cute face, small frame, nice little rack on her. The kind of girl you would probably see going backstage at a show.
The thing my thick head couldn't pick up on, though, was that this girl REALLY dug me. Like, so much so that she went out of her way to ask my roommate/best friend about me, would come up with any reason to come up to my room, and invite me to do things with her that I perpetually turned down mostly because I was a nervous and scared little shit who didn't feel comfortable stepping outside of the little routines that I was into at the time.
I specifically recall her inviting me to her dorm room for a little party she was throwing that I later realized was specifically to get me to her room and to get me drunk. I spent that night watching game 2 of the Mets/Yankees World Series instead.
Oh, did I mention that she was engaged at the time? Yeah, to her high school boyfriend, and she had the ring and everything. I realize it now, but if she weren't engaged, it likely wouldn't have made a difference. Still, at the time, I used that as the excuse I needed not to step out of my comfort zone.
But she pushed on. She would take me to record stores in her car, which was nearly impossible to have on campus, she'd invite me to watch Space Ghost with her on her bed, go to the mall, and then-- on a "dorm trip" which she rarely participated in, she decided to come and flirt with me right in front of her fiance. It was a paintball session, and after getting shot in the neck and yelled at for taking my helmet off too soon, she came over and stood next to me while her fiance was off firing plastic balls of paint at people. She'd sort of cuddle in, lean on me, and talk really close to me, to which I don't recall how I reacted, but I'm sure it was a healthy mix of arousal and discomfort.
After that, I finally got it. This girl actually liked me, and would not stop showing me until it was blatantly obvious and I was fully aware of it.
But again, it was all too much for me. Forget the fact that I'd never had a girlfriend or so much as held a girl's hand outside of an awkward prom obligation. This girl was everything I feared. She was sexy, confident, seemingly popular, and scariest of all, she wanted ME, which is not what I was used to in regard to sexy, confident, popular girls.
Scariest of all, she seemed like she wanted me more than just another pal, as was the case with the aforementioned Chinese girl who I was crushing on at the time.
And that scared the shit out of me.
No no, sex wasn't for me right now--I was fine with my usual routine of video games, writing personal things that nobody will ever see (lots changed there...), listening to music, and worrying about schoolwork. Sex was way too much to handle right at this moment, especially to an engaged woman.
This is until the "borrowed vacuum" strategy.
See this girl was persistant, and crafty at that. After getting me to finally notice her and what her intentions were, her next step was to get me in her room and finish the job. She would occasionally borrow my vacuum cleaner from our room and always said that she "owed me" for it. My ham-fisted attempts at flirting back were most likely embarrassing enough to warrant me willfully forgetting them, so after not getting the hint enough times, she eventually blatantly said "if you let me borrow the vacuum today, I'll make out with my roommate and let you watch".
Let me repeat that, and also state that this is the god's honest truth, and there is no reason to make this story up. If anything, by the time you reach the end of this little story, you will realize that this in no way makes me look good.
She said: "if you let me borrow the vacuum today, I'll make out with my roommate and let you watch".
I took it as a joke, let her borrow the vacuum and went back to whatever the hell I was doing.
Of course, she wasn't going to let that little line go without a reaction from me, so she invited me downstairs to her room, where she made good on that promise. She sat me down, her and her roommate cuddled up on the bed, and bam, they started kissing. Her roommate seemed to be into it a little longer than she was, as she was the first to pull away, but I remember making some awful joke about masturbation right after it happened, which she either chuckled at or ignored completely, and she patted the bed for me to sit down next to her. Her roommate got up and left, locking the door on the way out, and soon it was just me and her, at which point she made a point of saying that she broke up with her fiance.
It started with lots of heavy making out, feeling up, and eventually led to her going down on me and vice versa. I remember the tattoo on her flat lower stomach area like I just saw it 5 minutes ago. I was oddly completely ready for this, and soon enough, we were finished. Well, I was finished anyway. I went back upstairs, hung out with the people on my floor with an extreme sense of giddyness and a little nervousness, and said not a peep to anyone about the whole affair. I don't remember how or why I went right back upstairs, but I do remember wanting a complete return to normalcy afterward, since my head was spinning and I didn't know how to deal with what I was feeling at the time.
This happened a few times, until she brought up the question right in the middle of the act I was so enjoying-- "do you want to have sex?"-- spoken in a breathy, in-the-act-already type of way which one would think would lead to the inevitable, but my answer was the following: "I don't know if we should".
Let me repeat that, just to balance out the double quote of what was probably the highlight of my memory earlier.
I said back to her: "I don't know if we should"
Now part of me knew that I didn't have much interest in her outside of her physical attributes and some similar tastes in music and movies and whatnot. And I knew that I couldn't really stand her friends and didn't see myself ever wanting to be in that circle. And I knew that if I had sex with her then and there, even though it wasn't her first time, it was mine, and I wouldn't have felt right starting down that path knowing that I was having what was essentially meaningless sex with a girl that was living downstairs from me.
Part of me knew that.
The other part of me was terrified of sex in general, though, and I really needed more than a breathy "do you want to have sex" to push me over. If she had grabbed me, threw a condom on, and inserted me inside of her, I doubt I would've had much protest. But she left it up to me at that point, and instead of going with my bodily instincts, I had an instant of hesitation, which turned into a moment, which turned into a fully formed thought, and I realized that it wouldn't have been right to go through with it.
So I didn't. I talked to her and told her that I don't really know if I feel the same way about her as she does to me, and that I don't want to lead her on, but of course I said these things in the most vague, confusing ways possible.
After that, it's sort of a blur. I think we may have hooked up a few more times after that, but I quite possibly distanced myself from her, and she more than likely distanced herself from me, as I distinctly recall knocking on her door on those desperate lonely dorm nights when everyone else was out at a frat party, and getting no answer. I think she ended up moving off-campus during the year without saying anything, and I was none the wiser for a long time.
In the end, I probably made the right decision by not having sex with her, but I approached it horribly and I still feel terribly about it to this day. I've thought about contacting her and explaining myself at various points throughout the past seven years, but now that I've found out she's engaged and about to be married--and I assume she'll go through with it this time--I can only assume that she's completely put that whole debacle much further from her memory than I ever will.
Anyways, it's good to be writing again on here, and I hope to continue with these blurbs whenever I get a few hours to myself again. It's not often that I do, but I do enjoy writing for some actual relief again instead of worrying about an audience reading these things.
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
How to spend $1300+ in 2 weeks
(this was actually written a few weeks ago-- I now have a positive $75 to my name (and a $1000 credit card bill-- but at least I"m not in the red as of this moment)
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I currently have zero dollars to my name. Actually, scratch that. I currently have negative $9.50 to my name, and at 26 years old and 4 years removed from college, 3 years removed from grad school, that is goddamn depressing. And the sadder part is, I started with over $1300.
Now it's not the worst thing in the world, as I'll be getting my usual biweekly $900-something paycheck on Thursday night, so it's only 2 days I'm without any finances, but here's how this happened.
It started with my roommate-slash-bill collector telling me that he had neglected to give me bills to pay for the last 3 months, so the 1300 dollars in my account at the time immediately got knocked down by nearly $300 bucks.
I purchased gas twice in this time span between paychecks, so there's another $120 burned up in my tank. Also, I got gas for the girl, because I asked her to drive me to the home town, so add another $20 onto that. $140 in gas. Oh and I had to get my oil changed as well, so add another $23 onto car expenditures. Oooh, and this is a great time for my car insurance auto-deduction to take place. Minus $140.53. So the total car costs during this stretch was over $300.
Next, lets talk food and drinks. I love going to get food and sometimes a few beers with my girl--it's one of my very few vices. And drinks usually is a couple for me, a couple for her, no big expenditures. Total cost: approximately $280. Yep, I spent nearly 300 dollars in 2 weeks on food and drinks. That's 23 dollars a day. I could eat filet mignon every day and not pay as much as that. I really need to learn to budget myself when it comes to food.
Lets not forget rent, which mercifully has been cut significantly since we got a new roommate. Chalk up another $375 for that.
I "paid off" my credit card (meaning, I got a huge loan at a lower interest rate to buy it out), but not without giving them an extra $150 in interest rates before canceling it out altogether.
Take out another $60 for a gift I bought for the girl for her upcoming birthday.
So the car ($300), rent ($375), food/drinks ($280), 3 months worth of bills ($300) and my credit card payment ($150) all fell within the same time period.
Obviously I'm not gonna have to pay that $300 every month for bills, as I won't be building that up all the time. And I can stand to cut back a bit on the food/drinks a little.
And to kick me in the balls just a little more, Wachovia decides to take out $22 because I overdrew my account.
Here are the constants:
Every paycheck, at LEAST $120 will be taken out for gas.
Every paycheck, $187.50 needs to go to rent.
Every paycheck, AT LEAST $50 needs to go to bills.
Every paycheck, $106 needs to go to my car payment.
Every paycheck, $71 needs to go to my car insurance.
Every paycheck, $93 needs to go to my credit card loans.
Every paycheck, $133 needs to go to my college loans.
$950 - 120 - 187.50 - 50 - 106 - 71 - 93 - 133 = $189 left per paycheck.
I really need to cut back on the food and drinks.
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I currently have zero dollars to my name. Actually, scratch that. I currently have negative $9.50 to my name, and at 26 years old and 4 years removed from college, 3 years removed from grad school, that is goddamn depressing. And the sadder part is, I started with over $1300.
Now it's not the worst thing in the world, as I'll be getting my usual biweekly $900-something paycheck on Thursday night, so it's only 2 days I'm without any finances, but here's how this happened.
It started with my roommate-slash-bill collector telling me that he had neglected to give me bills to pay for the last 3 months, so the 1300 dollars in my account at the time immediately got knocked down by nearly $300 bucks.
I purchased gas twice in this time span between paychecks, so there's another $120 burned up in my tank. Also, I got gas for the girl, because I asked her to drive me to the home town, so add another $20 onto that. $140 in gas. Oh and I had to get my oil changed as well, so add another $23 onto car expenditures. Oooh, and this is a great time for my car insurance auto-deduction to take place. Minus $140.53. So the total car costs during this stretch was over $300.
Next, lets talk food and drinks. I love going to get food and sometimes a few beers with my girl--it's one of my very few vices. And drinks usually is a couple for me, a couple for her, no big expenditures. Total cost: approximately $280. Yep, I spent nearly 300 dollars in 2 weeks on food and drinks. That's 23 dollars a day. I could eat filet mignon every day and not pay as much as that. I really need to learn to budget myself when it comes to food.
Lets not forget rent, which mercifully has been cut significantly since we got a new roommate. Chalk up another $375 for that.
I "paid off" my credit card (meaning, I got a huge loan at a lower interest rate to buy it out), but not without giving them an extra $150 in interest rates before canceling it out altogether.
Take out another $60 for a gift I bought for the girl for her upcoming birthday.
So the car ($300), rent ($375), food/drinks ($280), 3 months worth of bills ($300) and my credit card payment ($150) all fell within the same time period.
Obviously I'm not gonna have to pay that $300 every month for bills, as I won't be building that up all the time. And I can stand to cut back a bit on the food/drinks a little.
And to kick me in the balls just a little more, Wachovia decides to take out $22 because I overdrew my account.
Here are the constants:
Every paycheck, at LEAST $120 will be taken out for gas.
Every paycheck, $187.50 needs to go to rent.
Every paycheck, AT LEAST $50 needs to go to bills.
Every paycheck, $106 needs to go to my car payment.
Every paycheck, $71 needs to go to my car insurance.
Every paycheck, $93 needs to go to my credit card loans.
Every paycheck, $133 needs to go to my college loans.
$950 - 120 - 187.50 - 50 - 106 - 71 - 93 - 133 = $189 left per paycheck.
I really need to cut back on the food and drinks.
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Well it's 2008-- time I start using this here internet
Okay, so that subject is a bit of a misnomer (great way to start off this blog). I am actually quite heavily involved in several websites, blogs, and message boards in various forms, screen names, and--on occasion--even using my actual government name.
This, though-- this blog I want to be completely separate from everything else I am a part of. I don't want this to have any connection to anyone I know in real life or cyber-life. I want this to be a completely autonomous, freeform area in which I can spit out my thoughts, concerns, loves, hates, fears, and everything else that goes through my brain.
Ostensibly, I want this to be an online equivalent to my pen and pad that I've relied on heavily since high school-- writing without the fear that one person or another is going to read it, and what will she say if I write that, and this entry is terrible they're gonna think I'm a bad writer oh my god I'm an awful writer I need to make this entry more entertaining.
Nope, this one here is strictly for me. Any time I write for an audience, there's a little spin to what I'm saying, a little nod to whoever might be reading, a little hesitation on my part about how this will affect my real life. However, in this case, I will be completely brutally honest to myself and to my take on life. This will essentially be a series of rough drafts; unedited mental spewing that may at times get ugly in both prose and content.
My biggest issues are not much more dramatic than struggling to pay rent and bills on time and maybe some things involving friends and family, but this blog is also not a means to show off my life struggles and ache for validation. At least I pray to God it doesn't become that. There is nothing worse than reading a blog that consists of nothing but bitching about each and every little thing that happens to the writer in his or her privileged life.
I want to start out with the things I am grateful for, which is all too often ignored on the internet in favor of all the things people hate about life. I have a fantastic beautiful girlfriend of about two and a half years, and if all things go the way I'd like them to, she will be my wife and the mother of my children. I say that without my heart skipping beats and with a dry, sweatless brow. Not a bad situation to be in there.
Also, I have a handful of wonderful friends, on whom I can rely for pretty much anything. Their lifestyles range from married with kids and owning a home in suburbia to recovering relationship junkie in New York City who is finally free from all attachment and brings home a different woman every night. Oddly, I feel a connection and an understanding to each of them.
I have a steady full-time job that pays just enough to keep me going there. Between my rent, car, and bills, I just about break even with each paycheck, usually with a little debt growing each week. This is the main source of my stress at this point in my life. It almost makes me long for the days of girls being my biggest problem, but luckily I took notes of that era, which I can look through and see just how much more complicated those issues were. If my biggest problem is a numbers game, I think I can figure out how to deal with it in time.
Finally, I'm very close with my family, which I am incredibly grateful for. Not a lot of people can go home and actually look forward to hanging out with the people they grew up with, but between my sister, cousins, uncle & aunt, and grama, I always have a great time. My mother is a bit of another issue. I love the woman and appreciate everything she has done for me, and I often do enjoy spending time with her, but it really can only last for so long before I start to lose my mind around her. Luckily we have a bunch of other family members to keep the attention loose and unfocused.
I'll wrap this up now by saying what exactly I want out of this blog. As I said, I am not writing to any particular audience, nor do I expect to gain any sort of readership at all here. In fact, I am not going to advertise this blog on any of the previously aforementioned message boards or web sites that I frequent, as I'll save that for my less personal endeavors (the one notable exception being the digitizing of my old high school journal--with names and places all changed-- that I've let a few people become privy to). This, however, will be a completely isolated oasis in which I can get my thoughts down much quicker than with the old pen and pad, and if people happen to read it, then so be it.
So hopefully this proves to be nearly as meaningful as the writing I did in high school, in which I figured out things about myself I never realized were inside of me and discovered insights about the world that would have never occurred to me had I not actually sat down to think long enough to get some words down. Because at the end of the day, all I'm looking for is to improve upon my own life through introspection.
I'm selfish like that.
This, though-- this blog I want to be completely separate from everything else I am a part of. I don't want this to have any connection to anyone I know in real life or cyber-life. I want this to be a completely autonomous, freeform area in which I can spit out my thoughts, concerns, loves, hates, fears, and everything else that goes through my brain.
Ostensibly, I want this to be an online equivalent to my pen and pad that I've relied on heavily since high school-- writing without the fear that one person or another is going to read it, and what will she say if I write that, and this entry is terrible they're gonna think I'm a bad writer oh my god I'm an awful writer I need to make this entry more entertaining.
Nope, this one here is strictly for me. Any time I write for an audience, there's a little spin to what I'm saying, a little nod to whoever might be reading, a little hesitation on my part about how this will affect my real life. However, in this case, I will be completely brutally honest to myself and to my take on life. This will essentially be a series of rough drafts; unedited mental spewing that may at times get ugly in both prose and content.
My biggest issues are not much more dramatic than struggling to pay rent and bills on time and maybe some things involving friends and family, but this blog is also not a means to show off my life struggles and ache for validation. At least I pray to God it doesn't become that. There is nothing worse than reading a blog that consists of nothing but bitching about each and every little thing that happens to the writer in his or her privileged life.
I want to start out with the things I am grateful for, which is all too often ignored on the internet in favor of all the things people hate about life. I have a fantastic beautiful girlfriend of about two and a half years, and if all things go the way I'd like them to, she will be my wife and the mother of my children. I say that without my heart skipping beats and with a dry, sweatless brow. Not a bad situation to be in there.
Also, I have a handful of wonderful friends, on whom I can rely for pretty much anything. Their lifestyles range from married with kids and owning a home in suburbia to recovering relationship junkie in New York City who is finally free from all attachment and brings home a different woman every night. Oddly, I feel a connection and an understanding to each of them.
I have a steady full-time job that pays just enough to keep me going there. Between my rent, car, and bills, I just about break even with each paycheck, usually with a little debt growing each week. This is the main source of my stress at this point in my life. It almost makes me long for the days of girls being my biggest problem, but luckily I took notes of that era, which I can look through and see just how much more complicated those issues were. If my biggest problem is a numbers game, I think I can figure out how to deal with it in time.
Finally, I'm very close with my family, which I am incredibly grateful for. Not a lot of people can go home and actually look forward to hanging out with the people they grew up with, but between my sister, cousins, uncle & aunt, and grama, I always have a great time. My mother is a bit of another issue. I love the woman and appreciate everything she has done for me, and I often do enjoy spending time with her, but it really can only last for so long before I start to lose my mind around her. Luckily we have a bunch of other family members to keep the attention loose and unfocused.
I'll wrap this up now by saying what exactly I want out of this blog. As I said, I am not writing to any particular audience, nor do I expect to gain any sort of readership at all here. In fact, I am not going to advertise this blog on any of the previously aforementioned message boards or web sites that I frequent, as I'll save that for my less personal endeavors (the one notable exception being the digitizing of my old high school journal--with names and places all changed-- that I've let a few people become privy to). This, however, will be a completely isolated oasis in which I can get my thoughts down much quicker than with the old pen and pad, and if people happen to read it, then so be it.
So hopefully this proves to be nearly as meaningful as the writing I did in high school, in which I figured out things about myself I never realized were inside of me and discovered insights about the world that would have never occurred to me had I not actually sat down to think long enough to get some words down. Because at the end of the day, all I'm looking for is to improve upon my own life through introspection.
I'm selfish like that.
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