I've had any number of people tell me I should try internet dating...I feel bad, but I can't help but hear "I think you should try and attract someone in a setting that doesn't involve them having to look at you." That's not fair, but to deny it would be entirely about protecting one of the very few holes in my self-esteem. Can't go being forthcoming about everything except one's vulnerabilities.
...
So you can see my dilemma, though I've gone straight through on a tangent to get here. Set out to be serious, look you in the eye. No lies, of commission or omission. No polishing myself up or trying to be anything but true to the rest of you. Not because it's "good" or "right" or because you deserve it (who am I to decide what anyone else deserves?) and not because I want to be liked...even if I do. Not acting out of wanting, not trying to create the consequences of a given conversation or certain circumstance. I just want to stand here, and burn bright and clear enough to see. And apparently...it's not working. Still cryptic, still obscure. That's where I'm at, folks, right now in the last few hours before the sabbath. I think I'll post this before I sober up enough to realize that it's a bad idea.
And to be honest, having dipped my toe ever-so-slightly, I find the process sort of gruesome. I'm all for being forthcoming, and for using the New Media as a vehicle for making myself known to the rest of you...here we are, aren't we? But the colors and the fonts and the half-witted, half-assed questions designed be revealing of one's personality...1/3 questions about sex, 1/3 about marriage, and the remainder split between drugs, religion, pop culture and sex again. Meh. All the charm of MySpace mixed with all the dignity and class of the Eugene Weekly's personal section...and you should all know what I think of the Weekly.
AND...since we haven't had this conversation before (and folks, I'm high enough on vicodin, pot, lack of food and sleep, ellipses, and self-satisfaction to think of this as a conversation, rather than a monologue. Ask me about my auditory hallucinations.) I should point out that much of dating, internet or otherwise, counts against my own peculiar, perpendicular sense of morality. Flirting and politesse and chivalry and artifice and care and tradition and inertia and sexism and and and and.
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My fondest and finest friend told me yesterday (or the day before, one can't really remember) that I was obscure. This is not the first time he's said this. And that's fucked, bad, not good. Because, my friends, that's the exact opposite of what I'm doing. With everything. Really. I set out at the onset of my newly-acquired adulthood in the belief that if I'm not saying something, if I'm lying, if I'm trying to conceal or control or manipulate the image I project to the outside world-then that's bad. It's a barrier to my happiness, an obstacle to knowing and being known and trusting and being trusted by...other people. And folks, I've long since decided that it's you motherfucking other people that are the only really worthwhile things out there. And the engines of all my stress and unhappiness too. Christ, but don't I hate symmetry.
So you can see my dilemma, though I've gone straight through on a tangent to get here. Set out to be serious, look you in the eye. No lies, of commission or omission. No polishing myself up or trying to be anything but true to the rest of you. Not because it's "good" or "right" or because you deserve it (who am I to decide what anyone else deserves?) and not because I want to be liked...even if I do. Not acting out of wanting, not trying to create the consequences of a given conversation or certain circumstance. I just want to stand here, and burn bright and clear enough to see. And apparently...it's not working. Still cryptic, still obscure. That's where I'm at, folks, right now in the last few hours before the sabbath. I think I'll post this before I sober up enough to realize that it's a bad idea.
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