In 1988 I tried an experiment with Sara. When it became apparent that she seemed committed to fucking with me while we sat in lectures in our art history class at UT, I decided to try an experiment. I thought to myself, "Suppose this interaction I'm having with this girl represents a shot at a romantic love deal for me? Well, what if I turned my back on love? Would that make me a bad person? Would that make me a weak, inadequate man? Would that mean I was a cold, unloving man? Would such a move, turning my back on love, mean that I would forsake the potential love of my life and lead myself to an unfulfilled life?" Well, none of those fears proved true.
Nowadays, I find myself in kind of a similar place. This time, I want to ask myself, "What if I refuse to offer 'forgiveness' to a certain young woman in my world?" I put forgiveness in quotes because, as I wrote in my previous post, what I used to think of as forgiveness turned out, to my way of seeing things now, to not constitute actual forgiveness at all. In other words, the gesture I used to call forgiveness I now think of as "super-niceness" that I would visit upon women in the hope of getting material rewards in exchange.
The things I would want from individual women in exchange for this super-niceness could include love, acceptance, sex, an overall affirmation of my worth as a man- the sky's the limit, really. So, what if I just shut all of that down? What would happen? Now, I have no reason to believe that the person I've been thinking about in relation to this experiment finds herself available for dating at this time. Nor do I have any real reason to think she would have an interest in getting to know me better even if she were available for dating. But, neither of those possibilities mean that I couldn't still just shut down all of that psuedo-forgiveness impulse on my end of it just for shits and grins, if nothing else. I mean, I don't even know if I will physically see this person with my own eyes in the coming days or weeks- she might not be around anymore, for all I know- but I might at least relieve myself of the burden of trying to be so nice all the time about stuff.
How would shutting the impulse to be super-nice to this person at this point in time manifest itself? Would I then display an openly hostile manner to this person should I have an occasion to interact with her? Would that mean I have a choice between coming off as all super-nice and fawning versus coming of like some raging asshole? Are those the only two choices? Really? That's all I want to do at this time. I just want to shut down that one impulse towards super-niceness, on these occasions, to see what happens. I'm not looking for anything else from myself, or this one other person, or anyone else, for that matter. Just. Stop. Doing. THAT.
Nowadays, I find myself in kind of a similar place. This time, I want to ask myself, "What if I refuse to offer 'forgiveness' to a certain young woman in my world?" I put forgiveness in quotes because, as I wrote in my previous post, what I used to think of as forgiveness turned out, to my way of seeing things now, to not constitute actual forgiveness at all. In other words, the gesture I used to call forgiveness I now think of as "super-niceness" that I would visit upon women in the hope of getting material rewards in exchange.
The things I would want from individual women in exchange for this super-niceness could include love, acceptance, sex, an overall affirmation of my worth as a man- the sky's the limit, really. So, what if I just shut all of that down? What would happen? Now, I have no reason to believe that the person I've been thinking about in relation to this experiment finds herself available for dating at this time. Nor do I have any real reason to think she would have an interest in getting to know me better even if she were available for dating. But, neither of those possibilities mean that I couldn't still just shut down all of that psuedo-forgiveness impulse on my end of it just for shits and grins, if nothing else. I mean, I don't even know if I will physically see this person with my own eyes in the coming days or weeks- she might not be around anymore, for all I know- but I might at least relieve myself of the burden of trying to be so nice all the time about stuff.
How would shutting the impulse to be super-nice to this person at this point in time manifest itself? Would I then display an openly hostile manner to this person should I have an occasion to interact with her? Would that mean I have a choice between coming off as all super-nice and fawning versus coming of like some raging asshole? Are those the only two choices? Really? That's all I want to do at this time. I just want to shut down that one impulse towards super-niceness, on these occasions, to see what happens. I'm not looking for anything else from myself, or this one other person, or anyone else, for that matter. Just. Stop. Doing. THAT.
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