I had just arrived in Korea. One year tour. Alone, again, in a foreign country. That’s ok, I’m always full of adventure. But then my girlfriend of 5 years breaks up with me. I’d already purchased the engagement ring. I was in a bad way. Listened to Chris Isaak’s ‘Forever Blue’ and Alanis Morsette’s ‘Jagged Little Pill’ over and over for 12 months. Being in Korea under those circumstances was hard. Harder than I expected. Anyway, it made me stronger. That’s what I tell myself anyway. I sometimes wonder if my relationship with my wife isn’t somehow a casualty of that. Do I really give her myself completely the way I did my ex? Am I afraid of being that hurt again? I don’t know. It changes a person. Anyway, sex was rampant in Korea. Lots of cute, young, tight, loose Army girls. Lots of whores in the clubs. I was disgusted. Much like you, Tom, I was wanting a relationship, not sex. Under those circumstances, I really believed that every woman was a whore. EVERY, SINGLE, WOMAN. Men and women cheating on their wives and girlfriends on a daily basis. I tell you, the entire thing disgusted me. And I hated women. I didn’t meet a woman that wasn’t a whore. Well, Ellen Christianson was a lady to the end…my boss. But with her as the sole exception, I was done with women. I was celibate for 24 months. Then, one day, I get an idiot roommate. And he’s a loser. BIGTIME. Never left home before the Air Force. He starts paying for whores. How do I know this? I accidently picked up his Visa bill instead of mine. I was shocked at the charges! Anyway, he was getting himself all dolled up one evening, and putting on some really rank cologne. I asked, “WTF are you doing?” He replied, “I’m going out with so-and-so tonight, she loves this cologne.” I screamed in his face, “YOU PAY FOR SEX, WHO THE FUCK CARES WHAT SHE LIKES?” It really is a sad, sad, sad world. I stayed celibate until I met my wife.
I stayed celibate until I met your wife too.
It’s true Lori has said that if I ever die she was going to marry you…is that why you’re trying to kill me, Tony?
yep.
Eric,
I know exactly what you mean about not giving yourself wholly to someone you love. I have found that for some reason I can’t allow people to get too close, hence my total distrust of the general population. Perhaps I’ve read too much Dilbert, but the truth of the matter is I can’t take people at their word because either (generally/generically) they don’t know what they’re talking about or I can’t entrust to them my confidential information. This would be why my blog has been so cryptic. I don’t want the family to know exactly what I’m doing, but at the same time I hope to leave enough clues so that my readership can have a vague idea of what’s going on.
I believe that I have made it abundantly clear via the Butterfly post that all I want is a companion; someone to come home to every night and wrap my arms around. However, after last night, I have decided that won’t happen for a long time, mainly because I will have to trust people and do have a social ineptness. Generally, I am reckless and sporadic when it comes to relationships. You know what the acute irony is? I want blind trust and faith from the get-go out of my potentials, perhaps another reason why I have failed so often with women.
My problem is that I am just too selfish. A perspective change is in order, methinks. Everything is about me. Examples: I want a companion; I want some girl to put blind trust into me; I want to settle down with someone who I not only deeply care about, but someone who deeply cares for me. Hell, even this blog is about me. Where does what she wants come into play? Well, that generally happens after I discover that I like her, I immediately want to start doing all these nice, thoughtful things for her. Why? It would be a lie to say that its because I care, when, in fact, I have not a clue who this random girl is or what her desires are. Yes it’s to show her that I care and yes I do those things just because “I’m a nice guy”, but the truth is I, like all other males, thrive off of gratefulness.
There was a recent study done that showed that people have to feel needed, feel as though they are making a difference, and feel that they matter. These three came in higher then the need for money. The study also showed that lack of these basic needs led to ill health and even suicidal depression.
Take me for instance. I have a tendency to feel as though I don’t matter. This is, of course, a psychological mind game that I play simply because I can say to myself, “oh yeah, if you really matter, how come you go home to an empty apartment?” I have a tendency to feel as though I don’t make a difference because, well, I dropped out of school and can’t seem to break into either industry I’m interested in. I have a tendency to feel as thought I am not needed because it is easy for my puerile brain to concoct scenarios where life would go on if I wasn’t involved in any given situation.
So you see, my wanting to be gracious is really self-serving in that it’s all seeking gratefulness because that in turn makes me feel as though I am fulfilling all of the above needs. One might say that is human, but if you really and truly care about someone so much that you would die in their place, the you has to come out of the equation. You have to be willing to make sacrifices in favor of the other person such that the consequences don’t matter. However, by taking my approach, my relationships are ultimately self-serving and therefore, I can’t invest my being into another person, no matter how much the desire is to have a life-long companion.
As a corollary to all of this, it should be noted that I generally am shitty to attractive young women because I find that it is the easiest behavior to maintain constantly. This leads into your next topic…
It has been my experience (especially since working at the Grill) that, particularly with younger people, there does seem to be an abundant amount of cheating, emphasis on sex, and pettiness. Omitting needles words, there seems to be an abundance of insincerity and infidelity. It seems as though it is a contest to see who can be the biggest infidel or the most insincere. I have noticed that because of my general shittiness towards the fairer sex, it comes across as though I am sexist when this isn’t the case. I respect women and double respect beautiful women who lead successful, happy, productive lives.
I think that a lot of my problem stems from the fact that I was raised in a strict environment. It was so strict, in fact, that I would (and still, for the most part, to this day) not touch women for fear that it would either be or would lead to something inappropriate. Of course, the whole women’s lib thing doesn’t help any. This is, let us not forget, in direct conflict with the pressure in today’s society to get laid and to take advantage of as many attractive women as possible.
On a lighter note, I totally concur with you on the fact that if you’re paying for sex, who cares about what she does and doesn’t like. Isn’t that what you’re paying for anyway: the “privilege” of dictating what you want in bed?
While I’ve not met your wife in person, I must say that I was celibate until I saw her picture. Does she harbor some kind of control over men or something?
You probably don’t remember me, but there was a time when I was really trying to do something nice for you because you seemed really down and out and you made me feel like a pathetic loser who was trying to buy some male attention. I remind you of this because of this discussion about how you treat women. Even when I tried to explain myself, it seemed as though it only increased you contempt for me. Not that I cry into my pillow about it, but I don’t think I ‘ve ever had an encounter such as that before. Now that I read this post, it sheds a miniscule amount of light on the subject.
In reference to the post before this one, get a copy of “He’s Just Not That Into You”. While directed toward the female of the species, it does point out that we have a terrible tendency to overlook the obvious when we want something else to be true. It certainly educated me, and applies to either sex I believe.
I remember you and was wondering when you were going to post again.
I don’t think that you are a pathetic loser, but it was kinda obvious that you were trying to buy men. I remember some of the snide comments that I made in our email exchange and do apologize.
As a footnote, it should be noted that just because I act shitty towards a person, it doesn’t mean that I like them. “I don’t discriminate. I hate everyone equally.”
I also have the virtue of taking a joke too far, which is exactly what happened in your case. Again my apologies, but “now you know the rest of the story.”
Ok, Paul Harvey…..
Do you have any good off-line friends, and by that I dont mean that in a cutting way. Also, given the knowledge that I have of you, some perceived, some not, you shouldnt be looking for companionship in younger women. Why? Yes, they are ‘hot’, toned, primed for sexual encounters….and lets be honest here…..shallow.
Think back to when you were their age. Were you as knowledgeable (this is a relative term) then, as you are now? Did you think of doing anything for the right reasons? Were you really concerned about how you impact society, versus how your hair, face or body looked? What is more important to them…a glowing zit in the middle of your forehead, or your compassion for other people and a general, deep-rooted sense of mutual exchange between people that care for one another. In short…leave the children alone, and let them grow up. Some of them will actually be decent, well-rounded people in a few years, worthy of someone such as yourself…..but today is not that day.
There is no such thing as ‘blind trust’. Trust is earned, and cannot be expected. There are also different levels of trust….just as there are different levels of relationships. These go hand-in-hand.
I understand fully the human need to feel wanted. Maybe it was just me, but I can remember a time in my childhood when I wished I could physically die (in no specific way) just to see who in my class would miss me and to hear what they might say about me. Its nice to feel wanted, but its a fleeting feeling, because we always want more…
Its hard not to be selfish…the entire world is made up of people whose only tenet in life is ‘Whats in it for me?’…You have to teach yourself not to be selfish….swim against the stream….set yourself apart…that takes time, determination and being patient with yourself. The end result is that YOU will be a better person, not better than everyone else, but better than you were before, and someone of the ‘fairer sex’ (who IS a worthy candidate for ‘throwing your arms around’) will notice you, and you will find yourself wondering what life was like before her arrival and realizing that both you and her are benefitting collectively from your life experiences…both good and bad.
My response to your words is this: Life is hard, unfair, and cruel, but after looking into the barrel of a gun, deciding your next move, and realizing there is actually one, tiny, fragment of a reason not to remove yourself, everything looks different than it was before. And just like Kansas weather….life changes instantly from one moment to another. Its how you deal with it, and what you make of the situation that determines your degree of satisfaction. At the risk of sounding cliche….there is ALWAYS something good (and sometimes something to learn) in every bad thing that happens to us.
‘All things must pass All things must pass away All things must pass None of life’s strings can last So, I must be on my way And face another day’
What he said.
Dan,
You’re absolutly right…I’m too tired to comment fully now, but suffice it to say that I will have another entry for you if not tomorrow then by the time I go to bed Monday. The short version of it is there is still hope.
Comments (11)
I had just arrived in Korea. One year tour. Alone, again, in a foreign country. That’s ok, I’m always full of adventure. But then my girlfriend of 5 years breaks up with me. I’d already purchased the engagement ring. I was in a bad way. Listened to Chris Isaak’s ‘Forever Blue’ and Alanis Morsette’s ‘Jagged Little Pill’ over and over for 12 months. Being in Korea under those circumstances was hard. Harder than I expected. Anyway, it made me stronger. That’s what I tell myself anyway. I sometimes wonder if my relationship with my wife isn’t somehow a casualty of that. Do I really give her myself completely the way I did my ex? Am I afraid of being that hurt again? I don’t know. It changes a person. Anyway, sex was rampant in Korea. Lots of cute, young, tight, loose Army girls. Lots of whores in the clubs. I was disgusted. Much like you, Tom, I was wanting a relationship, not sex. Under those circumstances, I really believed that every woman was a whore. EVERY, SINGLE, WOMAN. Men and women cheating on their wives and girlfriends on a daily basis. I tell you, the entire thing disgusted me. And I hated women. I didn’t meet a woman that wasn’t a whore. Well, Ellen Christianson was a lady to the end…my boss. But with her as the sole exception, I was done with women. I was celibate for 24 months. Then, one day, I get an idiot roommate. And he’s a loser. BIGTIME. Never left home before the Air Force. He starts paying for whores. How do I know this? I accidently picked up his Visa bill instead of mine. I was shocked at the charges! Anyway, he was getting himself all dolled up one evening, and putting on some really rank cologne. I asked, “WTF are you doing?” He replied, “I’m going out with so-and-so tonight, she loves this cologne.” I screamed in his face, “YOU PAY FOR SEX, WHO THE FUCK CARES WHAT SHE LIKES?” It really is a sad, sad, sad world. I stayed celibate until I met my wife.
I stayed celibate until I met your wife too.
It’s true Lori has said that if I ever die she was going to marry you…is that why you’re trying to kill me, Tony?
yep.
Eric,
I know exactly what you mean about not giving yourself wholly to someone you love. I have found that for some reason I can’t allow people to get too close, hence my total distrust of the general population. Perhaps I’ve read too much Dilbert, but the truth of the matter is I can’t take people at their word because either (generally/generically) they don’t know what they’re talking about or I can’t entrust to them my confidential information. This would be why my blog has been so cryptic. I don’t want the family to know exactly what I’m doing, but at the same time I hope to leave enough clues so that my readership can have a vague idea of what’s going on.
I believe that I have made it abundantly clear via the Butterfly post that all I want is a companion; someone to come home to every night and wrap my arms around. However, after last night, I have decided that won’t happen for a long time, mainly because I will have to trust people and do have a social ineptness. Generally, I am reckless and sporadic when it comes to relationships. You know what the acute irony is? I want blind trust and faith from the get-go out of my potentials, perhaps another reason why I have failed so often with women.
My problem is that I am just too selfish. A perspective change is in order, methinks. Everything is about me. Examples: I want a companion; I want some girl to put blind trust into me; I want to settle down with someone who I not only deeply care about, but someone who deeply cares for me. Hell, even this blog is about me. Where does what she wants come into play? Well, that generally happens after I discover that I like her, I immediately want to start doing all these nice, thoughtful things for her. Why? It would be a lie to say that its because I care, when, in fact, I have not a clue who this random girl is or what her desires are. Yes it’s to show her that I care and yes I do those things just because “I’m a nice guy”, but the truth is I, like all other males, thrive off of gratefulness.
There was a recent study done that showed that people have to feel needed, feel as though they are making a difference, and feel that they matter. These three came in higher then the need for money. The study also showed that lack of these basic needs led to ill health and even suicidal depression.
Take me for instance. I have a tendency to feel as though I don’t matter. This is, of course, a psychological mind game that I play simply because I can say to myself, “oh yeah, if you really matter, how come you go home to an empty apartment?” I have a tendency to feel as though I don’t make a difference because, well, I dropped out of school and can’t seem to break into either industry I’m interested in. I have a tendency to feel as thought I am not needed because it is easy for my puerile brain to concoct scenarios where life would go on if I wasn’t involved in any given situation.
So you see, my wanting to be gracious is really self-serving in that it’s all seeking gratefulness because that in turn makes me feel as though I am fulfilling all of the above needs. One might say that is human, but if you really and truly care about someone so much that you would die in their place, the you has to come out of the equation. You have to be willing to make sacrifices in favor of the other person such that the consequences don’t matter. However, by taking my approach, my relationships are ultimately self-serving and therefore, I can’t invest my being into another person, no matter how much the desire is to have a life-long companion.
As a corollary to all of this, it should be noted that I generally am shitty to attractive young women because I find that it is the easiest behavior to maintain constantly. This leads into your next topic…
It has been my experience (especially since working at the Grill) that, particularly with younger people, there does seem to be an abundant amount of cheating, emphasis on sex, and pettiness. Omitting needles words, there seems to be an abundance of insincerity and infidelity. It seems as though it is a contest to see who can be the biggest infidel or the most insincere. I have noticed that because of my general shittiness towards the fairer sex, it comes across as though I am sexist when this isn’t the case. I respect women and double respect beautiful women who lead successful, happy, productive lives.
I think that a lot of my problem stems from the fact that I was raised in a strict environment. It was so strict, in fact, that I would (and still, for the most part, to this day) not touch women for fear that it would either be or would lead to something inappropriate. Of course, the whole women’s lib thing doesn’t help any. This is, let us not forget, in direct conflict with the pressure in today’s society to get laid and to take advantage of as many attractive women as possible.
On a lighter note, I totally concur with you on the fact that if you’re paying for sex, who cares about what she does and doesn’t like. Isn’t that what you’re paying for anyway: the “privilege” of dictating what you want in bed?
While I’ve not met your wife in person, I must say that I was celibate until I saw her picture. Does she harbor some kind of control over men or something?
You probably don’t remember me, but there was a time when I was really trying to do something nice for you because you seemed really down and out and you made me feel like a pathetic loser who was trying to buy some male attention. I remind you of this because of this discussion about how you treat women. Even when I tried to explain myself, it seemed as though it only increased you contempt for me. Not that I cry into my pillow about it, but I don’t think I ‘ve ever had an encounter such as that before. Now that I read this post, it sheds a miniscule amount of light on the subject.
In reference to the post before this one, get a copy of “He’s Just Not That Into You”. While directed toward the female of the species, it does point out that we have a terrible tendency to overlook the obvious when we want something else to be true. It certainly educated me, and applies to either sex I believe.
I remember you and was wondering when you were going to post again.
I don’t think that you are a pathetic loser, but it was kinda obvious that you were trying to buy men. I remember some of the snide comments that I made in our email exchange and do apologize.
As a footnote, it should be noted that just because I act shitty towards a person, it doesn’t mean that I like them. “I don’t discriminate. I hate everyone equally.”
I also have the virtue of taking a joke too far, which is exactly what happened in your case. Again my apologies, but “now you know the rest of the story.”
Ok, Paul Harvey…..
Do you have any good off-line friends, and by that I dont mean that in a cutting way. Also, given the knowledge that I have of you, some perceived, some not, you shouldnt be looking for companionship in younger women. Why? Yes, they are ‘hot’, toned, primed for sexual encounters….and lets be honest here…..shallow.
Think back to when you were their age. Were you as knowledgeable (this is a relative term) then, as you are now? Did you think of doing anything for the right reasons? Were you really concerned about how you impact society, versus how your hair, face or body looked? What is more important to them…a glowing zit in the middle of your forehead, or your compassion for other people and a general, deep-rooted sense of mutual exchange between people that care for one another. In short…leave the children alone, and let them grow up. Some of them will actually be decent, well-rounded people in a few years, worthy of someone such as yourself…..but today is not that day.
There is no such thing as ‘blind trust’. Trust is earned, and cannot be expected. There are also different levels of trust….just as there are different levels of relationships. These go hand-in-hand.
I understand fully the human need to feel wanted. Maybe it was just me, but I can remember a time in my childhood when I wished I could physically die (in no specific way) just to see who in my class would miss me and to hear what they might say about me. Its nice to feel wanted, but its a fleeting feeling, because we always want more…
Its hard not to be selfish…the entire world is made up of people whose only tenet in life is ‘Whats in it for me?’…You have to teach yourself not to be selfish….swim against the stream….set yourself apart…that takes time, determination and being patient with yourself. The end result is that YOU will be a better person, not better than everyone else, but better than you were before, and someone of the ‘fairer sex’ (who IS a worthy candidate for ‘throwing your arms around’) will notice you, and you will find yourself wondering what life was like before her arrival and realizing that both you and her are benefitting collectively from your life experiences…both good and bad.
My response to your words is this: Life is hard, unfair, and cruel, but after looking into the barrel of a gun, deciding your next move, and realizing there is actually one, tiny, fragment of a reason not to remove yourself, everything looks different than it was before. And just like Kansas weather….life changes instantly from one moment to another. Its how you deal with it, and what you make of the situation that determines your degree of satisfaction. At the risk of sounding cliche….there is ALWAYS something good (and sometimes something to learn) in every bad thing that happens to us.
‘All things must pass
All things must pass away
All things must pass
None of life’s strings can last
So, I must be on my way
And face another day’
What he said.
Dan,
You’re absolutly right…I’m too tired to comment fully now, but suffice it to say that I will have another entry for you if not tomorrow then by the time I go to bed Monday. The short version of it is there is still hope.
make that was…I comment later.