Been feeling under the weather the past day and a half, so no gym today. Summer is winding down so I am getting ready for the fall, and one of the things I have to do is do a clean of the house so that I can think straight. Once everything smells like Murphy’s Oil Soap I will be able to get some mental organization back.
In other news, I saw a picture today of Kamala Harris in college:
My chest got taught because I realized you Kamala was EXACTLY the kind of girl in the late mid to late 80’s and 90’s that I would have been drawn to like a moth to flame and would become infatuated with, those poor women. Artsy, independent, with that natural “I’m cooler than you and we both know it” look and style, etc. As I joked earlier, I can hear the Cure and Laurie Anderson. They, of course, wanted ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with my wild ass white frat boy lacrosse playing dead following drunken ass. If they were an English or Theater or Library Science major and looked good in a turtleneck and jacket I was fucking done for. And like I said, they looked at me like I was a madman and new I was a fucking omnishambles.
I have a friend who is constantly trying to make plans with me and simply does not seem to understand that while yes, I would love to go out to eat and hang out, I do not want to make plans or a commitment for two weeks from now. And it hurts their feelings. And I just wish they would understand that if you call me and say “I am going to so and so in an hour” I will more than likely say ok and meet them. But you want to plan something two Saturdays away so I can do nothing but stress about it for two weeks? Fuck off. I don’t know what I want to do in an hour, let alone two weeks.
And I don’t know if anyone else is this way, but if I have an appointment or meeting scheduled on a certain day, it does not matter how small or unimportant or painless that meeting is going to be, in my mind there is a big fucking X through the day on my mental calendar. It will be all I can think about the entire day until it happens. And it is no better if it is first thing in the morning, because then I will mentally be in prep for meeting mode the night before. I will not be able to concentrate until that task is completed and every 20 minutes for until the meeting I will be “oh shit did I forget about the meeting” or “oh shit what time is it I have somewhere to be at 2 pm” or “am I leaving early enough to be there 15 minutes before the appt?” It’s fucking torture. If I have to make zoom calls I try to schedule them for all in a row on the same few days so then mentally there is no stress, I just get off one call and go to the next.
And trust me, it is not easy living like this.
I was thinking of Tunch a lot today, so here are some pictures from ages ago:
A generous graphic designer answered my call the other day, and we are cooking up some extra special election swag for the Balloon Juice store for the election. Shooting for stickers, buttons, yard signs and maybe some t-shirts and flags. Who knows. Get some cool advertising for the Harris/Walz ticket and raise some money for the animal shelter.
I am tempted to show the samples now but I want to hold off until I know more. But they are awesome!
That’s it for me. Gonna take a shower and watch some tv.
She is an Angel in a Polyester Uniform
MattF
Saw that picture the other day. A beauty.
zhena gogolia
I am exactly the same way about meetings. My entire summer seems to have been chewed up. If it’s even just one meeting in a whole day.
I love you, Tunch!!!!
zhena gogolia
@MattF: The official merch store has T-shirts with that picture on them, I believe.
wonkie
I’m the opposite. Two weeks in the future is such an abstraction to me that I consign it to “think about it later” and then forget about it. My life is a series of last-minute panics over scheduled events that had been on my calendar for weeks.
Harrison Wesley
Sounds like the ADHD Club has a meeting. In half an hour. Or an hour. Or was it yesterday?
CaseyL
Always good to see Saint Tunch!
It’s funny what “types” we seem to have an inborn weakness for. Mine always seemed to be Bad Boys, one way or another – never anything awful, just not someone you’d want to make a life with. They might be deadbeats, or never finished high school, or hated reading, or were secretly married.
It got to be that any guy who I felt an instant attraction to, I’d avoid like hell because I knew he’d inevitably turn out to be bad news. (Meanwhile, the highly-intelligent, well-educated, well-read, well-employed ones were forever in the Friend Zone because they just didn’t turn my crank.)
Phylllis
When you do have something on the calendar in two to three weeks, do you obsessively check, recheck, double, triple check the day and time practically every day prior? No, just me? Ok.
Thanks for the Tunch pics. He was a good ole fella.
Andrya
Is there a Balloon Juice store? The link up top leads to a 404 error.
Tom Levenson
Hey John,
I had the same moth-to-flame issue with women ever cooler and much more put together than I was back at that point in my life.
I eventually met and married someone who was and is much cooler than me, and all arts and intensity. I can’t explain her lapse in judgment but i know that I am lucky as hell. And I had to wait until well into my thirties before I was remotely ready or plausibly presentable.
We get there when we get there if we’re lucky enough to get there at all.
VFX Lurker
Yep. This official shirt has three black-and-white pictures on it, including Kamala Harris’ iconic college photo. (Black T-Shirt)
This official shirt has just the iconic college photo in color. (White T-Shirt)
HeleninEire
I absolutely love your night posts. When I miss the post in the evening I look for it in the morning.
Recently I was wondering about when I first found this blog. I am sure it was right before Tunch died. Can anyone give me the date? I think it was more than 10 years ago.
Joy in FL
I think that Kamala in college and Tunch are both off the chart cool.
Thanks for the Tunch photos. He was an awesome being, and it is good to have him in my mind this evening.
John, I’m a lot like you. If I have one thing scheduled, it dominates the whole day. I’ve been retired for 10 years, and I was not like that when I was working. Of course, there was always more than one thing to attend to, so I think for me, it’s a consequence of being able to do what I want when I want, and that’s mostly to stay home and read and do art and watch my cats sleep or chase each other. That is ultimate luxury, I think. Anyway, I get what you mean, at least at some level.
I’m looking forward to Ballon Juice Merch !!!!
narya
That discussion of meetings anxiety? It me. And I’m practically retired so it’s mostly social stuff. But not all.
geg6
TUNCH!
Damn, he was magnificent.
I’m about six weeks out from retirement. Looking to take a month or two off and then look for something part time. Not sure what but I want something where I’m around people but not too close. Plus, the less responsibility, the better. I’m not a hobbyist, I’m not crafty and I can only exercise so much at my age. If left with nothing to force me out of the house, I’ll end up spending all my time reading books and online and binging tv. Then I’ll get fat and out of shape and anti-social. So I gotta get a job, I guess.
cain
@Phylllis:
That is me. I can’t seem to process dates and numbers. It’s really annoying.
I used to manage my ADHD using the computer.
Sister Golden Bear
Little known fact Cole, Harris played synth with Depeche Mode during their early years. /s
Ohio Mom
I am happy and relieved to learn I am not the only one with meeting anxiety or whatever you want to call it. I had a PT appointment morning and it took all my mental energy.
I got home and couldn’t get my head around the idea it wasn’t even noon and there was practically an entire day I could dedicate to whatever. I felt done for the day.
anitamargarita
TUNCH! what a cat, he is responsible for me following BJ. My late beloved Cabo was his twin cat. Also, too, I hate making advance plans, they fill me with dread.
cain
@Joy in FL: I don’t have that anxiety about dates as much as you all but I do check often and still manage to miss things
Ohio Mom
@HeleninEire: I arrived moments before Rosie jumped into Cole’s vehicle. That was followed by days and days —maybe weeks — of debate about whether or not she should be allowed to stay, given her behaviors.
Like you, I have no idea of what year that could have been. It feels like I have always been here.
Josie
@CaseyL:
As a teenager I always went for the bad boys. My long suffering mother called it my missionary instinct. Thank goodness, when I finally found the one, he was only half bad.
E
Consider using a union print shop. There’s one in Tucson that’s making lots of Kamala Harris and other dem stuff.
Maxim
@Harrison Wesley: Exactly.
Phylllis
@geg6: I’m still helping out at the old job a few days a month, but expect to wrap that up early next year. I didn’t think I wanted to volunteer or work part time, but there was a news story on today about a local group working with the homeless with a ‘housing first’ mission that really piqued my interest.
Danielx
Tunch the Magnificent and Menacing
Tenar Arha
ADHD “I have an appointment” where it wrecks your day because what to do beforehand without ending up late?
Jackie
That pic of Kamala reminds me a lot of Lisa Bonet in the later years of the Cosby Show. Both stunning young women.
piddonoadonk
Yo this is awesome. I’m with you on Kamala being the type and even more aligned with you on dreading the idea of locking myself in for anything two weeks from now, but down to get spontaneous in 20 minutes! Keep the dream alive!
MagdaInBlack
I am kind of like you, John, about planning stuff with a friend. In a moment of irrational exuberance, I will make plans for 2-3 weeks out and and hour later I’m trying to figure out how to get out of it
Eta: Used to do that, I should say. I’ve learned its easier to turn a no to yes, than a yes to a no.
piddonoadonk
@Jackie: nailed it with the Lisa Bonet vibe! 🤩
cain
@Jackie: oh yeah .. she recently divorced Jason Mamoa
Matt McIrvin
One my sister’s college friends (Pakistani-American film student) found that photo and noted that she had exactly the same haircut at the time.
mrmoshpotato
@CaseyL: Will Smith and Martin Lawrence! Oh baby!
Enhanced Voting Techniques
IDK Harris had me at “I am not Trump” lol
HeleninEire
@Ohio Mom: Me too. I feel like I’ve been here forever. In a very good way.
hitchhiker
I’ve just always given myself permission to blow things off, which I’m sure drives people crazy … or maybe they’ve just built in an expectation that I might do that, and decided to be okay with it. I don’t know. They keep inviting me.
To be fair, though, I never take it personally when people do this.
frosty
That was more-or-less me and I watched a lot of jerks go off with the girls. I luckily found one at just the right time who was sick of the Bad Boys.
Marleedog
@HeleninEire:
July 13th 2013.
There is a lovely drawing of him with angel wings on the fundraising page with the date.
Ramona
I am exactly like that to the extent that I missed an appointment because I’d anticipated it so much I imagined it had happened. I read somewhere that such obsession and inaction in the face of scheduled appointments is typical of ADHDers like me.
HeleninEire
@Marleedog: Thank you.
Jager
I have a beautiful, all-American blonde wife, however as a college boy, like John, I was crazy for girls like Kamala. One of my cherished memories is sharing a joint and a few beers with a Natalie Merchant look-a-like, We sealed the deal with a long, slow blues grinder. We ended up at my shitty college boy apartment. The next morning she said, “If we’re going to do this, you need a bigger bed.”
frosty
@geg6: Ugh, another job. Work!!! (cue Maynard G. Krebs). You can do better. Here’s two things I’m doing:
Join a bird club. Gets you out of the house with other people but there’s a 2-3 hour limit on any interaction. Some walking but not what I’d call exercise. Sounds nerdy and dumb but I found out I enjoy it.
Second idea: Buy a C harmonica (Hohner Special 20) and Harmonica for Dummies. It’s not a craft but it will stretch your brain a little. Plus you can play music by yourself without needing a band.
Kristine
I always wanted to look like College Kamala, but every time I tried to look cool I tripped over my shoes.
I attended the Space Cadets 4 Harris event last night. It was way smaller than most all of the web events so far—I think we hit 1500 signups and the organizers seemed thrilled given they’d only been planning for a couple of days. The speakers were all astronauts, space scientists (including one Nobel Prize winner) and actors from various Star Trek iterations. A fun time, and we raised close to $59K.
geg6
@Phylllis:
I have an old friend I ran into at Target. She’s retired from her career in banking. She is working for the county library system. She said they are often looking for people who aren’t librarians but who can do other things like check books and any other media in and out. And they love a part-timer. I think I’d like that a lot. They don’t pay much but I don’t necessarily need a lot.
Grover Gardner
I too hate making appointments more than a few days in advance, and even that’s a pain. And yes, even if I remember the event (which no amount of computer- or phone-generated reminders seems to ensure), the whole day is shot because all I can think about is how I need to get ready for it.
I’ve also come to dread public events. Weddings, funerals, award ceremonies, concerts, plays–anything that traps me in a room with a large group of people for more than ten minutes is agony. And to think I used to stroll into a theater fifteen minutes before curtain and perform for hundreds of people without even thinking about it. It’s probably somewhat significant that one night, during my last stage performance, I looked out at the audience and realized that they were bored. I started sweating profusely and that turned into stage fright, which I guess has never left me. I still have nightmares where it’s opening night and I realize that not only have I not learned my lines, but I haven’t even read the play.
Joy in FL
@cain: I made myself make a habit of having a planner. It’s not that full, but it helps me not forget things. I have a physical one and I keep the same stuff on the calendar that comes on all the Apple devices I have. It has really helped me.
I think it’s weird that when I worked, I did not keep a personal planner, but after I retired I saw that it was worth the effort to not worry about missing this or that appointment or bill, etc.
Whatever makes life easier and helps me be a responsible person : )
geg6
@frosty:
None of these will happen. I am not outdoorsy and I am not a bird fan. And as for any type of musical instruments, there is a reason I was last seat of the clarinet section in band. I was only there because my mother insisted we all had to play an instrument. And she liked to humiliate me.
A part-time job sounds fine to me. I like to be busy and I won’t do that at home when I know I have all the time in the world. It’s either full speed or full stop for me.
CaseyL
@frosty:
So sorry. Honest.
I doubt this would be of any consolation, but the best way to stay part of my life over the long haul was to be in the Friend Zone. I valued my men friends more; they were more important to me, than the Bad Boy Toys.
(I’m not interested, at my age and stage of life, in a relationship with anyone, so the issue of Friend Zoning someone doesn’t exactly arise because everyone gets that now :)
KatKapCC
ROFL, just got a good salty email from the DNC. Starts out with “See this guy?” and shows a pic of Trump pointing at the sun during the eclipse. “He says the people at this rally are not real” followed by a pic of a Harris rally crowd.
I am really enjoying the new “eff it” attitude from the Dems.
Dangerman
I’m still worked up that asshole has more respect for Rush Limbaugh than Pat Tillman (I think PT is an MOH recipient). The Man has no filter. Whatever pops into his Id comes out his mouth. We don’t have to worry about a Freudian Slip and him talking about his schlong because we have been there. I do think we run the risk of him waving it around as the Dementia kicks in.
dmsilev
@KatKapCC: Hah, I got the same email. Asking for money, of course…
NotMax
Que será, será.
;)
Kristine
An interesting article about Walz’s finances and how they more closely resemble the average voter’s when compared to those of millionaire and billionaire politicians.
Princess
I had that haircut in 1984, only a little more asymmetrical. A friend of mine wrote about that photo that finally she viscerally understood why identity politics was so powerful, the identity in question being Gen X of course.
Pete Downunder
Now I’m retired I don’t have to attend work related functions and because I’m also old I don’t have to attend boring events like weddings and birthday parties. It is very liberating. I’m not antisocial I just prefer gathering with close friends or family.
ETtheLibrarian
I should have a Menopausal Cat Ladies for Kamala yard sign
Matt McIrvin
@CaseyL: Part of my problem in my youth, in hindsight, was that I was crushing on all these unavailable women while doing the same damn kind of friendzoning to completely other women who were interested in me. I was either incapable of recognizing that they were crushing on me, or incapable of feeling like reciprocating–I thought I had to be having this wild infatuation that made my heart go pitter-pat before anything could happen.
So we all ended up in these endless chains of unrequited attraction. I mean, the fairytale love-at-first-sight in which Cupid gives two people random crushes on each other at the same time is pretty rare. Someone usually has to be willing to give the other person a chance and see whether something cool happens. I had to mature a lot before that could be me.
I think at that age you’re just dumb about a lot of things.
NotMax
DJT stock closes at $23.06, a new low.
Paging Mr. Checker.
lowtechcyclist
@ETtheLibrarian:
I hope they’ll have a “Another White Dude for Kamala” bumper sticker. If they sell one, it will be on my car.
kindness
Awww, Tunch. He was such a good boy.
lowtechcyclist
@Matt McIrvin:
I know what you mean. I really didn’t start growing up until about age 27.
TS
@geg6:
Where I am, so many retired people play mahjong. Most are non competitive so it’s just seeing folks and enjoying the game. It can be quite addictive, worth checking if you can find a group, or have a few friends that are interested.
I stopped wearing a watch when I retired & do not keep a diary. have an old fashioned paper calendar on the refrigerator & use that for the appointments that I cannot miss (usually medical).
I sleep, eat & do stuff at times that suit me, not the boss or anyone ese. Everyone should be retired, binge watching a TV show is also enjoyable & you don’t have to stop to go to work!
Ken
Interestingly, that is exactly what Donald Trump thinks about being President.
Trivia Man
I realized very late that i was naturally drawn to lesbians. The ones i met were confident, sassy, brazen, very comfortable talking to me and hanging out, funny, smart, and tolerant of others.
Had more than one “date” that I eventually realized was hanging out and not an actual date. That’s ok, i always enjoyed their company. Ive been more comfortable around women than men my whole life and I dont know why.
hitchhiker
@Matt McIrvin:
Right? At some point I started to realize that forming a relationship could be a choice. Things got a lot more interesting after that.
brendancalling
I was a punk rocker with a weird haircut who played bass in a band. I knew, and dated, broke the hearts of, and had my heart broken by a lot of girls who looked like Kamala. The 80s and early 90s were a lot of fun…
Citizen Scientist
Awww, JG, thanks for the pictures of Tunch.
Trivia Man
I still think about Tunch sometimes. Most recently i laughed when I remembered him bound and hooded at the vet.
opiejeanne
This week has been a whole summer of stuff I had to do, Except for Thursday, but I repaired a pj top I made for my husband several years ago, finally did it after it sat on my work table for several months.
As for First World Problems: Having too much drama with a bathroom remodel that was running smoothly until they laid the tile floor, and it looked like two different dye lots, and not in a good way. We have been waiting for the screaming to stop, for everyone to sort themselves out, and fix it. Meanwhile, the tile crew is not good at communications. We think the Morovians who laid the tile scurried away so they wouldn’t get blamed, but they left their tile saw in the flower bed at the front of my house. The blame has now been laid, the tile shop has accepted the responsibility and is going to eat the cost of replacing it with a different but similar tile. The first batch is 1″ hexagonals on a mesh backing. The replacement tiles are 2″ hexagonals and while there are variations in the marble product, the first set were very obviously packed in the wrong boxes: each sheet is either very white or obviously gray. I’m going to have the new tile unpacked and laid out in the driveway in sunlight so this doesn’t happen again, but we are stalled right now, nothing has happened in 3 weeks. The general contractor says we have been saints, but he hasn’t heard what we’ve been muttering recently and we’ve been careful to use tact in communications. I remember when this was normal behavior among contractors in SoCal 30 years ago. They would bid too many jobs and get overextended, and couldn’t find subs to do the stuff they didn’t/couldn’t do.
Anyway, this is the master bath and we’ve put it off for 13 years, and it was really awful, and we’re sleeping in the guest room, and I want all of the cool stuff we picked out for this to finally be installed so we can enjoy it and sleep in our own bedroom again.
Thank you for listening to my rant TL,DR: remodeling sucks sometimes, but we’re getting a new tub, a walk-in shower, pretty tile, and a bidet toilet seat!
opiejeanne
@Trivia Man: It was the description of the “panty trim”, when he was trying to shave that cat’s ass. That had me howling because my middle kid had just gone through that same horror with her own long-haired cat.
TS
@Ken:
He wants to be President for the house, AF1 and forcing people to listen to his rants. Unbelievable that 43% of the population don’t seem to understand the reality of the F’ing weird old adulterer.
opiejeanne
@brendancalling: I just realized that she reminds me of in that photo: the female lead in The Expanse. Dominique Tipper, but I think it’s more than the hair.
sab
We decided to move to a one storey house now that we are in our seventies and my husband’s back is shot. And my families hereditary spinocerebellar ataxia might kick in for me.
When husband moved in with me 20+ years ago it took us two days. One day to move, Another day to clean up what he left.
This time it took two weeks, and we aren’t quite done. 50 year olds think they are old. They haven’t seen theirselves at 70+ yet.
Which makes me even more impressed with old Joe Biden. He moved into the White House effortlessly in his seventies. I can promise you our kids are not impressed with us this week.
frosty
@Matt McIrvin: @CaseyL: My story is a little like Matt’s too. Oh, my, the Bad Girl that I crushed badly on. Really bad news, I dodged a bullet there. And a few that in retrospect I’m pretty sure had a crush on me that I didn’t notice.
I don’t know how people get together. I’m watching my Millenial sons go in and out of relationships now* and my heart breaks for them.
*At least as much as they’ll tell me. It’s not my business.
Trivia Man
@opiejeanne: I always think of him as “boss cat”
opiejeanne
@opiejeanne: The most obvious example of how “off” the tile match was.
https://flic.kr/p/2qasGf2
Trivia Man
@TS: My bet for his favorite perk: no stop lights in Manhattan.
opiejeanne
@Trivia Man: Funny, so do I. Did John actually call him that, or is it just that he treated him as the boss? I think we all treated him that way.
rikyrah
I love this for these young men 👏🏾👏🏾🥹🥹
Unapologetically Black, Positive & Unbothered (@KimWrites4U) posted at 7:28 PM on Fri, Aug 16, 2024:
A Morehouse College new student tradition we love to see every year! This is how they welcome their new brothers in! Black men who are future doctors, lawyers, architects, accountants, CEOs, husbands, fathers, teachers, politicians, and even President!
#BlackMen
#HBCU
#Future https://t.co/TE0Nqsn72E
(https://x.com/KimWrites4U/status/1824604170974007535?t=r1WTELDjdlDRoT8uEHn6HA&s=03)
sab
@frosty: If my husband and I had met in our twenties it would have been mutual contempt at first sight. Now we mostly admire each other for our differences.
I am overeducated so he thinks I am smarter than him. I, being over-educted, know the difference. He is much smarter than me.
Eunicecycle
@opiejeanne: oh my that is not the same! How frustrating. Remodeling is not for the faint of heart!
opiejeanne
@Eunicecycle: This started off so promisingly, everyone showed up on schedule, the plumber, electrician, dry-waller, the cabinets arrived and are waiting for the floor to be replaced. I kept thinking I really didn’t need the general contractor because I’ve organized a couple of bath and kitchen remodels without one, and they turned out great, BUT this is what the gen con is for: a buffer between me and the tile shop guy, whose owner is fighting with the distributor, who won’t do squat because the tile is packaged in Japan. Carrera, probably from Italy, shipped to China, cut and mounted onto the mesh backing, boxed and shipped to Anaheim. State College in Anaheim has been a tile and flooring dream for shoppers at least since the 70s. Miles of warehouses with showrooms of tile and stone from all over the world. It probably cost the distributor a couple hundred dollars, it is going to cost the shop at least $2-4K to replace it. They’re eating the costs.
sab
@opiejeanne: Yikes. In the same county but definitely not even close to the same.
Reminds me of me refinishing furniture. Never exactly right on the color.
But I am an admitted amateur working on my own stuff. (Blew it on that chair. Fix it later maybe?)
Matt McIrvin
@frosty: It seems like kids today don’t necessarily have the same sense that there’s some kind of rush, which is good. I remember getting all anxious because, on the basis of the worst of 1980s pop culture and my incredibly catty peers, I thought some kind of clock was ticking and I’d be branded a loser unless I got into a relationship before some deadline age… but it didn’t stop me from being weirdly picky.
I think part of the problem is that many young men have trouble separating loneliness from status anxiety, and pining after status is a bad basis on which to start anything. One of the things you immediately notice about creepy incel/”manosphere” culture is that they’re obsessed with ranking people.
The Dying Gaul
@Ohio Mom: Me neither. I think I came here via either Crooks&Liars, or Josh Marshall. Was it during the Iraq War. Is that possible? Whatever, it’s an indispensable site.
The Dying Gaul
@Ohio Mom: Me neither. I think I got here via either Crooks&Liars or Josh Marshall. Was it during the Iraq War? Is that possible?
Either way, it’s an indispensable site.
catbirdman
Tunch was clearly an amazing being. Thanks for the spectacular pix.
BarcaChicago
Ah, Tunch! One of the great cats of my life. Thank you for the pics – does my heart good to see his magnificence. He is still in my thoughts.
Chris Johnson
Cole, you’re always so relateable. Which I guess speaks very poorly of me XD
I know I just plain failed at love, which is sometimes pretty hard to take. It turned out I had the option to care about other things in life which isn’t a replacement but works as a motivation: I got into a ‘making audio tools for people’ thing, and then went hard left-wing and decided I was all about making that stuff available to everybody, and now if I work constantly at that I can be happy about that.
It turned out I fit into some of 2024’s categories that I didn’t know were a thing when I grew up. I’m not gay (I’d have a way easier time finding love if I was), so I’m attracted to women and even have a type (college-age Harris would have just as easy a time attracting me if she wished) but I also am a type that’s not simply ‘man’. There’s a thing called demisexual, which means you have a hell of a time connecting with anybody unless you know them as a person, and the way love works a lot of people connect sexually and THEN build a relationship on the back of that, because they naturally do that. But I’m autistic and had a tricky time growing up so I’m a lot more isolated, and then if I get to know somebody as a person like that, I’m laying the WRONG groundwork and then throwing a curve ball.
I hope the younger people we have today have an easier time with this than I had, because I ended up kind of doomed. On the bright side, the relationships I have had, helped clarify a lot of this. I’m a man, and I did in fact date someone a couple years ago who was all of the ‘cute smart capable cool’ stuff I liked (but with some dealbreakers, sadly) who was very into me physically, except she wanted a MAN man, not a demisexual who wanted to engage more like a lesbian or something (reductive, but…). It’s very weird to get a ‘you’re not enough of a cowboy, smack me for fuck’s sake you wuss’ vibe from somebody who otherwise is very attractive. It’s like ‘well, shit, now I don’t want to’.
Knowing yourself is a key to liberation. Just ‘cos I’m a man does not mean I have to be a red pill macho pig. Just because I’m not a red pill macho pig does not mean I have to be gay and get balled by men: I’ve tried! I had to think of hetero thoughts to get off, with all the good will in the world.
I don’t even know what to say. I guess I’m just venting ‘cos John Cole opened up, and because he is not the only misfit out there in the world doing his best to be a good person, and John’s been kind to me in the past.
I guess it’s a matter of, if life sucks, it’s worthwhile to just find a right thing to do, and to stubbornly find who and how you are, and be that as well as you can. I’ll give that a try… and that’s why I like hearing out of John’s darkness. I’m like, yes, I agree, and what’s more I’m going to do my best to do as you’re doing. For what that’s worth.
knittingbull
@Tom Levenson:
Im there with you, I didn’t meet my husband until i was 40, we didn’t marry until I was 56. Latest bloomer in my family.