I've changed my mind about that waitress in that diner where I sometimes eat.  If I get a chance I will invite her to the event I'm participating in next month.  If she doesn't go for it, well, rejection is just part of the whole dating world game.  What makes me so paranoid isn't really every day, ordinary rejection, but rather it's when the rejection gets packaged into some really cruel game.  If I thought this waitress was like that or had that kind of agenda, of course I wouldn't approach her for social reasons, however, I'm sure she doesn't have that kind of agenda, so I'll see how it goes in the coming days and weeks. 

I guess I'm really apprehensive about my concern that, if this waitress at this diner does present me with an opportunity, that it will be what I've come to understand is more of a "lip-service" opportunity.  Looking back, I've had quite a few experiences with women who gave me what seemed like an opportunity, but that maybe these women weren't really into it, and these opportunities weren't really much in the way of genuine opportunities.  I can point to a lot of terrible experiences in my past where it seemed, looking back, that the woman felt somewhat obliged to give me a supposed opportunity because they felt as if they had to answer to some third party, such as a friend, or they felt obliged due to pressure from themselves.

I hope I have sufficient powers of discernment these days and can parse out whether or not this waitress really wants to move things along in a meaningful way.  In my past I used to get so very, very bummed out over "missed opportunities," when oftentimes the opportunities I would get really bummed out about were ones I could later categorize as mere lip service rather than missed opportunities I could rightfully beat myself up about.

One example of a "lip service opportunity" from my recent past concerned a very, very attractive barista at Thunderbird Coffee in 2022.  At some point late in that year, I seemed to have interactions with other female baristas at this Thunderbird location where I wondered if I caught a whiff of them seeming to hint at this attractive barista's interest in me.  I mean, I would get my coffee, right, and one of them would say, "It's all yours!" and it seemed as if this or that female barista would put a little more "oomph!" to what she said when she handed me my coffee.

I was skeptical, because, as nice as this very, very attractive barista had been to me over the preceding years I'd known her, she didn't field my Facebook friend request very nicely when I put one of those in for her in early 2018.  She never accepted my Facebook friend request, but she would mock me with pseudo-goo-goo-eyes on several occasions in the days and weeks after I put in the friend request.

I voiced my general skepticism of her interest in me on this blog in late 2022, and, sure enough, it seemed as if she took up with some other guy with, like, lightening speed shortly after I put out some blowback to her supposed interest in me.  So yeah, that's what I'm really paranoid about concerning this waitress at this diner.  Soon after I seemingly caught this development that the Thunderbird barista had taken up with some other guy, I blogged about how I'd never learned in my younger days how to catch a freight train going ninety miles an hour down the railroad tracks, either.  That's still true today, so we'll see about this waitress, I suppose. 

Last night at a songwriter's event I performed two songs about the little fat man.  I emphasize in the songs that the "turn my back on love road" that I initially embarked on in 1988 presented a manifest way to show Sara I actually cared a great deal for her.  I cared enough for her to refrain from playing the same old role I would play when someone such as her started in on me.  I cared enough for her to try something I'd never tried in hopes of having a different outcome, even though the outcome might only involve a kind of divorce from the whole courtship ritual and all that one might or might not gain from participating in the courtship ritual.  My willingness to embrace such a path and follow through with my intentions seemed to arouse an actual interest from her in me that seemed directly proportional to the extent I embraced this "turn my back on love" path.

Last month I saw a young woman working at a coffee shop who looked a lot like that former cashier that I go on and on about to this day.  I wondered whether or not this barista was the former cashier's sister.  I entertained the notion of making this coffee shop my new, regular coffee shop and going there almost every day.  I would stop short of asking about that former cashier, because I'd been down that road before when I'd spotted ANOTHER young woman in late 2022 that worked at a book store and I asked HER in January, 2023 if SHE knew the former cashier.  The young woman at the bookstore said no, and I left it at that.  I made a point of patronizing another bookstore after that.

I guess I would have attempted to make this barista's acquaintance as a regular costumer in her coffee shop, but then I came up with the whole revelation about point "A" and point "B."   I decided my effort to refrain from trying to get from point "A" to point "B" in regard to that former cashier could best manifest itself materially if I DID NOT patronize that coffee shop where that barista works and if I DID NOT try to make that barista's acquaintance.  So far it's been about a month or so since my decision, and I'm good to my word.

I've talked some about a waitress in a diner where I sometimes eat breakfast.  She gave me her email address sometime last year, and I promptly sent her an email inviting her to see me perform at an open mike.  She didn't respond to my email.  She didn't mention getting my email at all during my next visit to her place of employment as a customer.  She started acting like she didn't want to talk to me sometime last November.  I couldn't figure out why.  I thought she wanted me to make it about that former cashier.  I let the notion of that former cashier into my being even though the mere act of allowing myself to think of this former cashier as a possibility for me could invite a kind of emotional and mental chaos I did not miss at all.

I resolved the whole issue of  that former cashier and how I felt about her with that insight about how I always found it impossible to get from point "A" to point "B" with her.  I felt really good about my solution to try to refrain from going from point "A" to point "B" in regard to that former cashier.  Like I said, the most material manifestation of that effort to restrain myself from point "A" to point "B" resided in my effort to refrain from lurking around that barista that resembles the former cashier and trying to make that barista's acquaintance.

I have an event I'm participating in next month.  I won't patronize that diner where that waitress works until after this event because I don't want to invite her to it.  The last time I ate there, the waitress was being friendly and talking to me. I liked how she was being friendly to me, for sure, but I still DO NOT like how she's treated me in the past.  I figure the best way to show I care enough about myself, and by extension, to show I care about her, would involve letting this supposed opportunity to get with this waitress slip through my fingers.  The best way I see to materially manifest my desire to play a different role than that of the nice guy who gets passed over in favor of "Chad" or whatever would involve me refusing to play the part of the persistent, devoted, ardent admirer of this waitress.  The best way I see to refuse to play the role of ardent admirer resides in an attempt to refrain from patronizing that diner for the next month and a half and to not invite her to the event I'm participating in next month. 

Look, I'm showing that I don't care at all whether or not I get laid in a very material way.  I won't see this person for quite some time if I follow through.  If the problem women such as her have with "nice guys" stems from the perception that nice guys are nice only if the woman they are being so nice to grants them substantial access to them, then I'm definitely walking away from all of that.  I DO care about how I'm treated by women such as her to show in a very real, material way my disdain for the supposed "opportunities" these women sometimes deign to "favor" me with.

I really try not to be a "great guy" when someone rejects me these days.  I think I'm right when I say that trying to come of as a great guy to a woman who has rejected me can be so very manipulative.  If anyone wants to know the gory details of what I depict as having happened in this book, they will have to write me for a copy to purchase the book.  I have an email address on my contact page as well as a P.O. Box they can write to for info on that.

The second page I added many years later as the second moral to this story.  The episode depicted in this issue number 4 was like a psychotic episode without the psychosis.  The environmental elements of one of my typical psychotic episodes all fell into place on this one, but my medication prevented actual psychosis from occurring.  The episode in this issue marks the last time something like this ever happened to me (knock on wood!).

The next sixteen pages of my latest book illustration effort will see me doing pencil work exclusively on all sixteen pages before I begin the inks on page 31.  Upcoming posts will feature excerpts from previously published issues of "Richy Vegas Comics."

Yeah, love interests are not really the kind of women one "breaks up" with, rather, one lets go of them.  So I will see how things shake out with this former cashier if I try to refrain from going from point "A," the place where I see myself now in relation to her, to point "B," a place where I sometimes still imagine I want to be in relation to her.  

My experience with love interests when I make a decision such as the one I lay out in the previous paragraph is that this course of action will end whatever it is that is going on with me and a love interest such as this former cashier.  When I make a decision to let go of one of these kinds of love interests, I never get anything back from them expressing a desire to move things to another place.  

I might conclude from my experiences of letting such love interests go; an experience where my decision to shut down my role in the dance effectively ends the whole situation; I might conclude that these love interests only wanted one-sided attention from me.  Once it became obvious that the attention from my end was not forthcoming, that ended the whole deal.  For them to answer such a shutting down of attention from my end of it with a, "Hey wait, come back," type gesture would involve risking rejection from me, which is something they never really wanted to risk, apparently.

Trying to get from point "A" to point "B" has always been a problem when it comes to trying to get with this former cashier.  Do I really need to go over what all I'm talking about here? Okay, I invited her to my comic book sale in October of 2021.  She didn't come to it.  She wouldn't even say hi to me at her work when I saw her at her grocery store job after I invited her to my comic book sale, so I decided to patronize another grocery store.  I also joined a love addiction support group for good measure.  Since that day, nothing has ever, ever improved.  My challenge to myself now consists of, "What if I no longer try to get from point 'A' to point 'B' with her?  Will I forsake the love of my life with such a move?  Will I live an unfulfilled life as a consequence of such a course of action?  Will deciding to implement such a course of action make me a cold, unloving man?  Will it make me a bad person?"  I shall see if any of that comes to pass.

I'm working on Page 29 of "...Songbook."  I should have it done by tomorrow (Friday).

Yeah, I consider having a love interest a privilege, not a right.  I mean, back in my early twenties, I couldn't handle having Katy, Veronica, and Wanda as love interests.  I mean, they weren't perfect as love interests, but girlfriends aren't perfect either, so that's no excuse for how badly I handled the privilege of having them as love interests.  Having the ability to contact someone I like through, say, a phone number, email address, social media account, or some such is a privilege and not a right.  

I want to start posting stuff from "Richy Vegas Comics" as well as my latest stuff.  I just read an article on ghosting in the New York Times. When I started to read the article, I expected the "ghosters" to talk about obsessive people texting twelve times a day and like that.  Some of the people being ghosted seemed quite reasonable and not at fault at all.  So where does that leave someone such as me with a history of, um, less than wonderful behavior towards some of my early love interests?  Where am I going with this?  I'm watching the Conan O'Brien channel and that's distracting.  I will watch the third episode of the "Tinker, tailor, Soldier, Spy," miniseries and imagine the former cashier sitting next to me as I watch it.  A privilege, not a right.

The headline says it all.  I don't want to put my foot in my mouth in any of about a thousand ways I could do that.  Yeah, I love the idea that she wants to be my love interest.  I hope it's true.  I hope it's true that she wants to be my love interest. That is all.