I just stopped following that band on social media.  The band in question has young, very attractive women as members.  I saw a show of theirs not too long ago.  As part of the no contact restriction I will try to also refrain from attending any future musical performances they might have.  I anticipate having to go through withdrawals over this decision.  I always do.  I made  this decision because I figured that I will definitely not find what I'm looking for by following this band on social media, and that I will definitely not find what I'm looking for by going to their gigs. If I take the path I now see opening up, the no contact path, I may not find what I'm looking for,  but I may find something worth discovering.

Past experience tells me that I will find a greater sense of self control and, consequently, a greater sense of self confidence by going no contact on this band.  I'm not talking about experiences from thirty years ago, either.  Try experiences from today, yesterday, and the day before.  I still manage to refrain from patronizing that one business I've talked about these last few months.  This business features a female employee who, in my opinion, bears a strong enough resemblance to that former cashier I still go on and on about.  I asked that young woman at that business if she knew anyone by that former cashier's name, and she said no.  Not long after I broached the subject to this young woman about the former cashier, I decided that I will no longer "buzz" that young woman's place of employment, and I haven't buzzed that business to this day.

At a stop smoking support group I used to attend, one of the members with many years off of cigarettes under her belt theorized that recovery, like addiction, is progressive.  In the throes of an alcohol addiction, an addict will progressively drink more and more as the addiction runs its course.  Same with a smoking addiction.  Same with a romantically obsessive addiction, in my experience.  I find my process of recovery from love addiction involves stepping BACK and seeing a progressively bigger picture at each juncture of my journey..  I take steps to correct myself at EARLIER stages with each new experience of that recovery.  

At least I hope so, because now comes, if I got it right, a bit of a withdrawal period.  A withdrawal period can involve a lot of bargaining with oneself.  I can find myself saying, "Come on, it's not so bad, ______ won't do any harm.  Lighten up!...." and on and on it goes.  The thing that helps me through this withdrawal, I think, involves my embrace of the path I take to a robust extent.  I see the path as the rightward fork in the road.  I say rightward on purpose, too.  I see the rightward path of the two paths as a commitment to a conservatism of the heart.  NOT political conservatism.  My views politically remain left of center. But, yeah, a conservatism of the heart.  A conservatism of the attention I give to some women I find attractive.

I wish my life was a nonstop Hollywood movie show
A fantasy world of celluloid villains and heroes
'cause celluloid heroes never feel any pain
And celluloid heroes never really die-The Kinks, "Celluloid Heroes," words and music by Ray Davies

But that's not all. I played Sinead O'Conner's "Nothing Compares 2 U" video tonight too.  When I had my break in 1992, the hallucinations in my head told me that Sinead sent me off with this song in my unwitting quest to rescue Jenna, a task I'd supposedly completed by the time of my "visions," and thusly, by the time of the revelation about this song.

Very grandiose, yes, very grandiose.  When I got sick again in 1995, Sinead hallucinations became very prominent.  I hallucinated that I met her in Dublin in 1982.  My symptoms persisted throughout the early months of 1995. I bought her two albums on cassette while I still reeled from all of that. One song, "Jump In the River," really got me.  I dug on this lyric: You're not supposed to be here at all/ It's all been a gorgeous mistake/ Sick one, clean one, the best one, that God ever made.

Fuck you, asshole.

The Golden Rule says, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." The Golden Rule does NOT say, "Do unto others as  THEY would have YOU do unto THEM." Does everyone out there see the difference?  I see this Not The Golden Rule in effect in my dealings with Schmaylor Schmift and her camp.  I see Schmaylor Schmift and her cohort as attempting to manipulate me into doing something I will regret.  I've dealt with this shit since 2017 from, in my opinion, Schmaylor Schmift and her buddies.  These attempts at getting me to behave in ways that do not serve my best interests reflect a belief by Schmaylor, in my opinion, that I'm nothing more than an animal in comparison to her and her buddies.  A really nice person, this Schmaylor Schmift, I just wrote sarcastically.

After her latest act of aggression I had to field not long ago, I went to see a band at this weird, clandestine venue.  The crowd consisted of, mostly, very young women and men. One guy my age came up and talked to me, which was nice. I still felt so weirded out by Schmaylor's latest act of aggression that I didn't really observe the rules of etiquette in regards to the young women in the band I came to see that night. I can come off as so self-conscious about not wanting to bother women such as them, that I sometimes forget that such women can think I'm weird if I don't try to talk to them at all.  I apologize if I came across as aloof, standoffish, or just weird to these young women. I don't know when I'll come out and see them again, so I thought I'd mention it here.

I can safely say I've never been through an experience like this before.  I care for that former cashier from that grocery store, and I think she cares for me.  I go up and down like a sine wave on this issue, though.  I get insecure.  If she never shows, she might never show in an effort to act in my best interest.  I just have to believe that.  If she does show, I think we should just be friends for a period of around three to four months.  I would tell anyone I went out on a date with my situation, and they would probably understand.  If they didn't, they'd get the heave ho.  I can only hope she would do the same.  I will try to refrain from blogging about every little insecure thought that crosses my mind.  I've never been through this before.

Whenever I had any dealings with that former cashier at that grocery store, I would often feel debased and denigrated.  It was never good between us.  I had a talk with my psychiatrist today.  I told her about some of the grandiose Richy Vegas stuff.  I don't talk much about that stuff with her.  I still feel debased and denigrated from recent goings on.  That former cashier hasn't showed herself, but I somehow sense she's in the mix.  At least I'm not buzzing that one business where that young woman works; that young woman who I thought bore a family resemblance to that former cashier.  I take my medication every day.  I don't feel as if I need a hospitalization and/or change in medication.  I just told my doctor some of the themes of that Richy Vegas stuff and I concluded some regular sleep would help.  I've had issues with my apartment lately that I'm sorting out with the management, but that's taking a lot of time.

I would often have to deal with her boyfriends when she worked at that grocery store.  That sucked.  She seemed to have me as some kind of bad guy, and she seemed to let her boyfriends know all about that stuff.  That sucked.  The thought of actually trying to get something going with her makes my flesh crawl, pretty much.  Like I said, we could maybe be friends.  That's about it.  If she wants information on the legend of Richy Vegas, she's going to have to be nice enough to me for me to pass along that she's okay to my friends.  Mind you, my friends put up this front with me on that stuff, so for me to give the okay to tell her would really be saying something.  She'd have to show herself, and really try to refrain from pissing me off for an extended period of  time.  Like months.  I see no way she could pull that off if I actually tried to date her, but if she could be a friend to me, maybe.

I just ran my morning gauntlet of indifferent baristas and other young, attractive female employee types who don't look at me twice as of late, and, moments ago, I asked myself this question: Do all roads lead to our Miss Missy Miss?  Still?  But how?  I haven't even seen her in over a year!  Realistically, I do not want to give myself any false hope that she'll show up anytime soon.

My statement of a couple of weeks ago where I said that God gives me plenty of chances to get Miss Missy Miss types right, that is, unavailable women right, really helps me to keep it cool of late. When I said that, I predicated my assertion based on this one observation: That the world has no shortage of unavailable women.  The world will not run out of unavailable women anytime soon, if anyone wants to know my best guess.

Did demonstrating a willingness to let our Miss Missy Miss fade into the not-here-beyond she currently occupies prompt this response from all of these other women? Or did I grow  that much less attractive, all on my own, overnight?  Did I just take that famous MGTOW red pill?  'Eagh!'  Okay, sooo, indifferent baristas it is.  Maybe no other layers of the onion exist for me to peel back.

A few months ago I wrote about a young woman at a business I patronized who resembles that former cashier I go on and on about. I asked this girl if she knew our Miss Missy Miss, and she said no.  One thing I will really, really try to do involves refraining from buzzing that girl's place of employment.  I don't want to do that anymore.  Other businesses sell the same stuff I buy at this girl's place of employment, and I feel better about correcting an old habit that goes way back to high school in the obsessive behaviors towards unavailable girls and women category of things I don't want to do anymore.

Another thing I won't do, I won't act like I'm really INTO these indifferent barista/employee types anytime from now until I die.  I won't give them unsolicited copies of my comics or CD's, either.   Nope, not gonna do it.  I'll just let Miss Missy Miss blend into her continued absence in a world of women who just don't give a DAMN.  Look Ma, no net.

About ten days ago I wrote a post concerning a young woman in a band that I had a crush on.  I toyed with the idea in my mind as to whether to assign her the status of love interest.  The night I turned this over in my mind, I came to the conclusion that I would just say she was a crush to me, but not a love interest.  

I had a crush on that virgin girl back in the early to mid 2010's, but I never considered her a love interest.  She started in on me during the late summer of 2014.  I'd liked her before then- had a crush on her- but I never expressed any interest at all in getting to know her better.  After she started in on me, I guess she wanted me to confer love interest status upon her, but I had more of an interest in finding out where she was really coming from over automatically conferring love interest status on her.  So yeah, busted the virgin girl good.

That other young woman at that same grocery store, Miss Missy Miss, yeah, I had a crush on her from the very start.  She worked there for at least two years before starting in on me, and I recognized her as a situation from then on.  It took two years of being in a situation with her before I recognized her continued presence in my heart and on my mind as love interest worthy material, so sometime during the spring and summer of 2021, she became my love interest.  I referred to her as a love interest, not a girlfriend, but a love interest; I referred to her as a love interest to at least one person during the summer of 2021.  I've gone over at length what I "did about it" ever since I invited her to my comic book sale in October of 2021.

So yeah, I don't want that girl in that band to be my love interest. I have little or no interest in getting to know her better.  I have little or no interest doing anything about it.  I can have a crush on her without conferring love interest status on her.  If she starts in on me (doubtful), then she MIGHT become an "issue"  or "situation," but still, not necessarily a love interest, yet. I think I really raised the bar over who gets assigned love interest status through my dealings with our Miss Missy Miss.

My main reason for refraining from conferring love interest status on that girl in that band has to do with how she would likely receive that kind of feedback.  I think she would regard my assigning her love interest status as a rather arbitrary, unilateral decision on my part.  A rather arbitrary, unilateral decision that would indicate a premature, inappropriate emotional attachment to her.  She's attractive to the point where I bet she's attracted tons of that kind of attention from men and boys.  Nope, don't want her as a love interest at this point.

Back in 2016 I pinpointed this tendency I have to cast about for a love interest from among the women in my world as the source spring in my river of dysfunction regarding my relationship with women. I would assign love interest status to women in my world in order to feel as if I played a part in the dating, love, and romance game I saw others around me play more successfully.  It got to where I always felt as if I needed a love interest over the years.  Actual girlfriends I always found hard to come by, but no so love interests.  This caused so many problems for me with those around me.  Problems I don't want to visit on that young woman in that band, and I certainly don't feel like dealing with any of her defenses in response to any way I might behave towards her if I did confer love interest status on her at this stage.  So yeah, no gifts to this girl of my comics or CD's, and nothing else on that level either.

So much of my recovery from love addiction involves stepping back over stepping forward.  In this post I talked about those woman in my world whom I had a crush on, but not much else. In the case of those two grocery store employees, THEY started something that involved actual engagement with me on some level. Then, they became women I had "issues" with.  Women I found myself in a "situation" with.  Women whose level of engagement with me required quite a lot of thoughtful, intelligent decision making regarding them both, individually, on my part.  

​So, stepping back, looking at the big picture, my crush on this or that young, attractive woman in my world doesn't automatically send me down some hellish rabbit hole; my crush on this or that young woman in my world, by itself, doesn't make me guilty of anything.  That realization helps me leave the young girl in that band where she is with me, and that realization helps me move on from our Miss Missy Miss as well, without the need latch on to some other young woman by assiging HER the role of love interest. 

When it looked in the summer of 2019 that the cashier at that grocery store would likely become a thing for me to deal with, I KNOW what went on in my head at the time.  I know because, when someone such as that girl becomes an issue for me, I always think the same way; that God keeps giving me plenty of chances to get someone such as her right.  That's not to say that me and a girl like her will fall in love and live happily ever after, not at all.  Maybe getting someone such as her right just involves intelligent decision making, and not much else.

I got the notion in my head these last three months that various women in my world tried to impress upon me that this former cashier at this grocery store now cares for me a great deal.  It that's true, that's great!  God still wants me to get someone such as her right, like always.  If my impressions of these last few months about women in my world wanting me feel as if this girl cares for me have no basis in reality, then that's great too, because all that has to happen is for the actual reality to make itself more manifest in the coming weeks and months, and I can move on.  Because, in both instances, I think I TOTALLY did what God wanted me to do in regards to her, and I have no apologies to make to ANYONE if I'm mistaken to the point of delusion about the reality of this young woman in my life.  Mental illness, remember.

That's home to me; that God really, really wants me to get this type of woman right, no matter how it shakes out. Especially in regards to how things shake out that are beyond my ability to control, such as whether this person chooses to love me back or not.  Never could control that, never wanted to control this young woman in such a decision, never tried to get her to love me back with any other method than persuasion.  It doesn't matter.  If I never see her again- I haven't seen her in over a year, remember- I still feel as if I got her right.   If I do see her again, if she does want to get to know me better, then God still wants me to get her right.  Nothing more, nothing less.  

If she doesn't come around, maybe some other type will show up, or maybe the same type as her will show up YET AGAIN.  I know what to do if another type shows up who's a lot like her, and I find myself getting deeper and deeper in, and I wind up feeling as if intelligent decision making about such a type becomes a major priority to me.  If such a thing happens with a whole other person, I know how to play it.

I just ordered Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and Smiley's People from Amazon in DVD format.  I've only seen those miniseries once, and I'd like to watch them again with that girl who used to work at the grocery store.  I ordered and finally received the complete SCTV box set a couple of weeks ago.  There's a lot of dated pop-culture references in that, but still.  I've got The Night Stalker in my Amazon streaming library.  That holds up.  I can watch some of those again with her.   I just finished watching my favorite clips from Once Upon a Time In the West.  The clips alone I've watched dozens of times, and I've seen the whole movie many, many times, so I don't know about that one. I don't know about Yojimbo, or Sanjuro for that reason, either.   I could watch Seven Samurai all the way through again, even though I've seen that one a bunch of times.  Let's see,..there's Francis Ford Coppola's version of Dracula, which I don't have, but I could rent from Amazon.  "My bouyfreyend is Dr. Van Helshing and Drah-cu-luh!  He'd drive a sshtake tru his own heart, and kill yoo wid it!"- Josef Gargledraino.

Okay, I'm willing to consider the possibility that the former cashier from that grocery store actually cares for me. I guess I really stepped in it in October of 2021 when I expressed how I felt about her, to her face, in front of God and everyone. Maybe she just doesn't want to let that go by, and she's made it her life's work to torture me for expressing how I feel about her.  I decided I liked her enough to possibly do something like that while I chilled out in North Adams during the summer of 2021.  And now, boy, I've got pay for that one, I guess.

I'm out of Austin as of the coming spring of 2024.  I guess I have to put up with the continued presence of her absence, and the ENDLESS bullshit that goes along with that, up until I leave next year, and maybe well afterwards.  I guess I'll spend this next year or so lowering my head and going about my preparations to leave, and I guess I might have to put up with this bullshit situation I have before me for that whole time, and thanks to Schmaylor Schmift, I guess, I'll have to live with whatever decisions I made about her for quite some time after I'm all moved up there.