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Friday, Aug. 01, 2003 - 2:05 a.m. COVER STORY Today was a rather laid-back day at work, definitely the calm before the storm. There is a project that I am working on that is fixing to run away from me and turn me into a nervous wreck because I will not have enough budget-hours to finish it. I am doing all I can to camouflage it from my superiors, who seem to think I am doing fine. This afternoon the electrician who installed some receptactles in my house bathrooms came over again. After the installation, which was about a month ago, I had been having problems with my burglar alarm system. It was running off its battery and would start beeping in the middle of the night. I had to stop setting the alarm so that I would not have problems. I finally got the electrician to come over again to figure out what happened. Based on what he told me, the electrical outlet to which the alarm was connected was very weak and needed to be replaced by the alarm company. His work had nothing to do with my problems. I also put out a call to the Baton Rouge Art Gallery to see if any volunteer opportunities existed for me there. I am supposed to meet with the director tommorrow to see how I can contribute my time. I had been doing some research on the internet regarding places to meet women. Apparently, art galleries frequently have receptions or auctions whenever a new exhibit comes to town. Wine and food is served, and it is an excellent way to socialize. The only drawback to these receptions is that you often have to be a benefactor of some sort who donates money to the gallery in order to attend. My reasoning is that if I can volunteer to help out with these receptions, I will have the opportunity to socialize and network, hopefully with women. My second appointment with my new therapist was also today. The appointment was scheduled for five, and I thought it was scheduled for six. After getting the electrician out of my house, I got a call about 5:20 telling me of my appointment. I darted out of my door and made it over there for 5:30. Luckily, the office is only five minutes from where I live. Our appointment lasted until about 6:20. I got to asking her about my flirtacious grinding experience. I was interested to find out how little people from older generations know about the current bar scene. My therapist must be in her mid-40s and she went on to tell me that the dancing she experienced when she was younger involved dance steps that brought the partners closer together that could be somewhat suggestive. I took a class in West Coast Swing, so I know what type of dancing she was alluding to. That is nothing like grinding. All I can say is that the current bar-climate is one in which physical contact has become so liberal, physical contact has become devoid of all meaning. We went on to say that some women are completely comfortable behaving that way and mean nothing by it. As far as I am concerned, women like that are idiots. How can you grind a guy's crotch and not mean anything? I guess that makes sense, considering that a blow job nowadays no longer constitutes sex. I then think back to the bar scene, and what I just came back from tonight. I go to bars alone. Hitting on chicks from this standpoint is very difficult. You need another guy with you, a "wingman," if you will, to distract a chick's friends when you are hitting on her. Also, he prevents you from looking like a desperate and lonely-looking nerd standing in a bar looking to hit on women. So now I am figuring out what I need to at least become somewhat successful in the bar scene. The "wingman" concept is what worked for me in Shreveport. My brother and his roommate both served as wingmen of sorts when that girl grinded me. The roommate and my brother took her friends out of the picture so that she was left to grind me. But looking at all this, I feel stupid. I would hate to sound arrogant, but I am a gem in a sea of garbage. The women in these bars, and the men going after them, are by-and-large beneath me. I am a good-looking guy, with impeccable character and morals, successful at a respected occupation, I own a house, am well-educated, well rounded, am physically fit, and on and on. These guys that hit the bar scene on a Thursday night, and the women that join them, are all likely to be sorely lacking in all these categories compared to me. Otherwise, they would be getting a good night's rest because they have a job and responsibilities to tend to the following day. I might as well not even waste my time in some of these places, at least if I am by myself. The only reason I am going is because I have the time to burn before the big crunch at work starts in three weeks. I have approximately 30 hours of compensatory time to use up before I begin to start reaccumulating it again in massive quantities. Therefore, I have requested tomorrow and the next two Fridays off. I plan to use this time to stay out late and do the bar scene, as excruciatingly painful as it might be for myself. I may have no luck whatsoever hitting on women, but I have to do it so that I can prove to myself that I have the ability to be socially successful in that environment. Tomorrow evening I attend a singles function where hopefully I will meet some people. I went two weeks ago to one and the majority were overweight people in their young thirties. It made sense to me that these people would need a singles group to meet other people. They would not attract other people in any other venue. But they actually are more like gems than the garbage, despite their physical appearance. I may luck out tomorrow because singles that normally do not attend the other singles functions may be attending the dinner tomorrow because the restaurant we are going to has a bar. Two weeks ago, we at a Jason's deli, an only about 8 people showed up, 4 of which were former members but are now married. Maybe I can recruit a wingman there. I do not know. I just wish I could meet a woman that could live up to the standards I expect for myself. I look at my brother in Shreveport, a guy in medical school, very intelligent, good-looking, stylish, and on the surface, everything a half-intelligent girl would want. But are they crawling all over him? Not exactly. That is because they are idiots. They would rather crawl all over the scaffolder I had spoke to briefly at the Varsity the week before. He could not get a job after he barely survived college, so he ended up scaffolding. He told me how content he was because he made just enough money to fund his weekends at the bars. That is what he said he lived for. He lived life so dangerously! What a bunch of crap. Pretty much everyone in my family is like my brother. We were all raised well, we are all talented in our own ways, and we hold high standards for ourselves, as we should. I see some of these really attractive sluts in these bars, and, as beautiful as they might appear, I just do not see them as being worthy of sharing my genetic material. That is why I see much of this as pointless. If I could restart this summer, knowing what I know now about the nonverbal aspects of a male-female relationship, maybe I could have been more proactive in that church I was involved in. I never really appreciated the quality of those people until it registered in my head about how godless and valueless much of the rest of the pool of people in my generation are. My older brother, for instance, was a virgin until age 21. Then he became sexually active. He met this older, divorced woman in a bar and a very intimate relationship with her, based basically on sex. Their religions differed. Their perspectives on family differed. But the sex drove the relationship all the way to the altar. Two years later, my brother is divorced. He admits that the "blinding" sex is partly to blame. I am just frustrated. I do not know whether to throw up my hands and admit that all these values and principles I have are nothing but an excuse for the symptoms of my illness, or if I should stand strong and believe in all those things that I have carried that have been completely uncontaminated by the outside world due to my self-imposed isolation. Toward the end of my session, which went over by a half-hour, my therapist stared wryly trying to think of a good "cover story" for a guy like me. Maybe I just got out of a long relationship and have not dated for a while because I was so hurt, for instance. But then she admitted to me that I would have to be honest, or at least not completely deceitful, in case the relationship were ever to evolve into something. But before anything like that is a consideration, I need experience in relationships. It is that plain and simple. |