I will now recall a fellow student at UT art school named Julie Dunbar whom I had dealings with in 1984 through 1985, primarily.  Julie had a stunning face and very nice figure.  She had a way of flirtatiously interacting with an admiring, young, inexperienced guys like myself that, though probably born of a great deal of self-consciousness, made me feel as if she were in on a joke, and the joke was on me.  Maddening!  I mean by flirtatious interactions mainly little things such as a wave in the hall as we passed each other or the way she said, "Richahd."

The way that one played out compelled me to take an unfortunate lesson away from the experience.  Things got heated between myself and Julie in the Spring of 1985 when I decided to just go ahead and ask her out even though she had a serious boyfriend.  She reacted snottily to my invitation to a date and I, predicting this, had a smartass rejoinder to her scornful reply.  

So, things remained chilly between myself and Julie until the Summer of 1985, when I tripped on ecstasy one Saturday night and went to a dance club by myself.  I saw Julie and a two girlfriends of hers, each whom I had a little bit of history with as well.   That time in the club that night saw me jumping out of my skin, pacing around, generally very restless and uncomfortable.  I decided to bite the bullet and try to talk to Julie and one of those girls.  A couple of weeks later, I saw Julie outside of another dance club, and it was back to, "Richahd!"-a definite improvement.

The unfortunate lesson I took away from that experience came from the idea that super-niceness towards women such as Julie worked somehow.  I set about trying to do this same kind of thing with women from there on, and the results did not meet my expectations, to say the least.  The nervous breakdowns and overall trauma just went on and on and on.

A breakthrough came in my dealings with Sara in the Spring of 1988.  I've gone over this one episode many, many times, but to the newer reader, I decided to just allow for the possibility that Sara could not work out.  I gave myself permission to "turn my back on love" and just let it all go if it came to that.  I didn't experience any breakdown episode in regards to Sara when I let her go, initially.  The breakdowns came when, in the Spring of 1990, while I attended SVA in New York City, I came to the conclusion that I'd made a terrible mistake in letting Sara go.  I tried to make up for my "mistake" in my pursuits of Gwen and Ann Marie while still attending SVA, and Jenna in Austin after I graduated and returned.   I had a breakdown after I let go of of Gwen, and my grand mal psychotic breakdown after I let go of Jenna.

It took a long time for me to realize that my initial approach towards the Sara dilemma, the decision in 1988 to "turn my back on love," was not too bad an approach after all.  I came to this conclusion in 2012, after several years of sobriety born of an intense desire to improve my relationship with women.

So, here I sit, and yet another high-maintenance twenty-something year old girl sits on my docket.  Well, if I had to choose between my approaches toward Julie Dunbar or Sara, I'd choose my approach towards Sara as the way to go with this one, and so I have. Yeah, it's a lot like that Bill Murray movie Groundhog Day, where the Bill Murray character has to relive the same day over and over and over until he gets it right with the female lead, played by Andie Macdowell.  Yeah, it's like that Bill Murray movie Groundhog Day, except the female lead is not a single, individual, beautiful but relatively sane woman a la Andie MacDowell, but rather a succession of different women who all may have, 'ahem,' issues of their own.

Here's the kicker, I could see handling future dilemmas with future high-maintenance twenty-something year old girls in pretty much the same manner I'm handling this current dilemma.  I could see using this same approach, just letting this person go to the best of my ability, with very young, very attractive women when I'm sixty, sixty-three, sixty-seven-as long as young women such as this one I go on about still want to fool with the likes of me- I can see doing pretty much the same kinds of things with such a person.

   

These past couple of weeks have found me thinking some pretty unusual thoughts about various attractive young women I've encountered in this very, very circumscribed pandemic world we live in.  I made connections between three random attractive young women at coffee shops, one in December, two in February, that I may have no business in connecting.  The thought entered my head that the looks or other attentive gestures I sensed from these female customers may have come back to that young woman at that business I go on about.  I then went further in my own, possibly erroneous, connections and wondered if these women at these coffee shops knew this girl at this business and if they, in their lingering looks at me and such, attempted to act on this young woman's behalf.

Well, I can call bullshit on myself as well as anyone can call it on me, but this blog allows me to run this kind of stuff up the flagpole, at any rate.  Suppose that accusation rang true.  Could this represent an attempt by this young woman to "get" me to go into her place of employment while she worked there?  I vowed to refrain from doing so since, I believe, last November.  Why would she want me to do that?  Why would she want me to go and see her work at her job?  Well, thinking out loud once again, maybe she wanted to see if she could get me to go back on my word.  I think she would do such a thing purely for shits and grins.  Not like she was going to change anything in the way she presented herself to me if I did go back into her place of employment at a time she worked there.  She NEVER, EVER attempts to talk to me when I find myself around her at her job.  She would just want to see if she could get me to do it, and then she would have a laugh about it.

Well, that would suck.  But I just figured today that, if such a thought resided in anything resembling reality, well, she seems the type that would just do whatever the fuck she wanted to do, whenever she felt like it.  I don't have to capitulate to that kind of subtle, manipulative pressure.  To help me to not capitulate that kind of thing, I set about recalling the reason I stopped going in there when I knew her to work there in the first place. I wrote a blog entry several months ago that told the story of "Anita, You're the Reason I'm Not In Prison."  "Anita You're the Reason I'm Not In Prison," appears in issue number 4 of Richy Vegas Comics.  I tell of a bad experience that I had in 1999 concerning some people at a restaurant where I used to work.  The part of that story that relates to this young woman of today has to do with the fact that I'd tried to win over a girl who had expressed the fact that she had no romantic interest in me.  

After I wrote that entry about the comic book story of "Anita..." I went to that business where that young woman worked, and, even though we really don't interact, I thought I could tell that she had read the blog entry that told a version of that story, and that the story resonated with her.  No, I don't want to try to win this young woman over.  I can't control any attempt she may or may not make to get me to go back on my word to let her go; to get me to go into where she works when I knew her to work there, but I can at least control my own actions.  In that blog entry I concluded that I've never been won over by anyone who attempted to do so with me, and I can't really expect to win women over.  Now, I've had some experience with women trying to win me over, but maybe this very, very attractive young woman has to deal with that kind of thing all the time.  Regardless of whatever behaviors she visits on me, any attempt to win over someone who just does not have an attraction to me registers as very disrespectful behavior on my part, and that sentiment rings as true to me as I write this entry as it did when I first decided refrain from patronizing this young woman's place of employment at the times I knew her to work there.

If I'm wrong about the idea that this young woman really doesn't care for me as a love interest, then I apologize.  My relative inexperience in actual sexual relations and actual relationships with women might account for such a mistake, but I am what I am.  I can't recall any male friends from the time I attended college to this day who had any experiences with a woman where things started out in a very adversarial way and they wound up having sex with said woman and maybe even dating her.  If any male friends since college did have an experience that resembled the features of my adversarial experiences with this young woman, and they did manage to get things going in a much more positive direction, surely such an experience would count as a crown jewel of their overall relationship with women-even if they had sex with such a person only once and never again-and most assuredly they would talk about such an experience to the point where I would remember.  But no, I don't recall any stories like that from any male friends from the time I attended college to this day.  Now I know that I can come across as different from a lot of men and a lot of people in general, and that may explain why I can have an experience with a woman that NONE of my male friends since college have ever, ever talked about.  But still, if this young woman has a deep, abiding desire for me that I just don't see, well, she'll just have to forgive me for dropping the ball on this one, and furthermore, she has other dating options. Um, yeah, she surely does.

In my last three posts I talked about my standards in regards to women I will go on dates with.  I said that my three criteria are, 1) that they are available, 2) that they are interested, and 3) that they act like they give a shit about taking care of themselves.  I wanted to include that young woman at that business whom I go on about so much, but I figured by the third post that she probably did not meet the standards regarding availability and interest.  

That's too bad, but people need to realize that it can take a lot for someone like me to put themselves out there and ask a woman out.  The thought of going into that woman's place of employment and asking her out when I can still cite the fact that she never talked to me when I found myself around her, well, I lack the confidence to ask her out.  There, I said it.

I have a few songs that bring her to mind that I listen to on a regular basis. Chris Gaffney's "Waltz for Minnie" and pretty much everything on Chet Baker Sings remind me of her.  A lyric from "Bagavon Decreed" by the Flatlanders also reminds me of her.  There were times she would give me a warm smile when I saw her at her place of employment, and I wouldn't really think that she had earned that gesture.  The lyric from "Bagavon Decreed" that brings those times to mind comes at the end of the song; "You say  one day soon we will all stand as brothers/ Till then I guess we'll just stand around."  

As of earlier this evening, I have no plans to show up at that young woman's place of employment at the times I've known her to work there in the past.  In a post from earlier today (Valentine's Day!), I wrote that I would try to see her at her job, but I've since changed my mind.  I do this because she's proven to be one of these elusive young woman who have come to bedevil me for quite of number of years now.  When one finds oneself confronted repeatedly with young, attractive women who do not typically make themselves available for dating and all of tha, one has to find unconventional ways of getting to know them better.  These methods of getting to know such women better pretty much involve sitting around in the comfort of one's home and adding things up.  Lot's of sitting on any urges to pursue such women, making observations, and doing the math.  These tactics yield much better results, typically, than anything to involves overt romantic pursuit.

My relationship with women IS intelligent decisions.  Now more than ever, given this pandemic time that does not favor dating of any new people.  Earlier this evening I expressed to myself a desire to get to know this person better.  I immediately conceded that my most trusted methods of knowing such a person better don't involve pursuit or dates or sex or anything like that.  My most trusted methods of getting to know such a person better simply involve revisiting past episodes involving this person and deciding that these  episodes contain all that I need to know about such a person in order to make an informed, intelligent decision about her.  The most definitive episodes that involve her in regards to myself invariably highlight the elusive, frustrating side of her that she chooses to show me.  Any desire i have to "show up" in her world in any significant way seems really ill-advised and foolish in light of how emphatically she impressed a really distasteful, unsavory side of her nature upon me.

Looking back on my failings with women from long ago, I concluded in my last post that basic incompatibility with these women I could desire so much really contributed to how badly things turned out.  I think a huge source of such incompatibility stemmed from my lack of ability to see things from their point of view.  One example involved someone I call Veronica Ortega in 1985.  I met her when I was still a virgin in the Spring semester of 1985, dated someone for real the following Summer, and tried to get something going with Veronica that Fall.  

I thought Veronica was merely the ultimate love goddess, and that she could really make me happy if I could just play my cards right. Well, years after my psychotic episode at my busboy job around Halloween of 1985, an episode brought on by drama concerning Veronica, I wondered, why did Veronica act as interested in me as she did at the beginning?  I came to the conclusion that, due to the fact that she had been through a painful breakup with a live in boyfriend in the Spring of 1985, Veronica just wanted male attention from someone that she would not have to take seriously.  That would involve hooking in some inexperienced guy, throwing him a little bone of attention, and realistically expecting that she can get tenfold the amount of attention from him in return.

So, Veronica really did not have my best interests at heart, and I had no chance of hitting the right spot and getting with her in a serious way.  Sometimes seeing things from the other person's point of view involves ascertaining some pretty dark, cynical shit about their motives.  There, I said it.  It's true.  

Wherever that young woman at that business was coming from in the past, I'm serious about my democratic approach to dates, especially about first dates.  Again, if a woman is available, interested, and acts like she gives a shit about taking care of herself, that'll get her at least one date with me.  But, in regards to this young woman, It might not even come to that, I realize.  Her curiosity about me might extend only as far as to whether she can get me to show my face at her job when she works there, and no further.  So, maybe not even one date with her.  Well, I'm pretty good at figuring that stuff out, in my own opinion.

My standards for one date with a woman list as follows:  1) available, 2) interested, 3) act like they give a shit about taking care of themselves.  Even with those, from my point of view, pretty forgiving standards, I don't get out much.  That includes the years in the  run up to this pandemic period.  Also, Ive had a problem several times with women who do want to go out with me, but can't manage that third requirement in the list.  Namely, act like they give shit about taking care of themselves.  By "problem" I mean they have a drug and/or alcohol problem.

I've decided to try to patronize that business that the young woman I go on at length about works at during the times I knew her to work there.  I don't even know if she still works at this business.  I hope she still works there, because I would like to go there and see if I could tell whether she is, 1) available, 2) interested, 3) acts like she gives a shit about taking care of herself.   I have a feeling that she meets the third item on the list, at least.  I don't know about the other two, though.  

I see those standards as pretty damn democratic, at least in comparison to a set of standards that would ONLY include someone who is as young as her and looks as good as her.  I've gone on actual dates with some women whom I was not infatuated with, who were not twenty-two years old, and did not look as good as this young woman, simply because I wanted to honor that more forgiving set of standards and not just be a total dateless wonder in life.  I think men who make it all about really attractive young women exclusively don't like women very much, when all is said and done.  That said, a willingness to go out with this young woman, if she meets my newer, more forgiving set of standards counts as democratic as well, to my way of seeing things.

I've said in previous posts that, for now, I want a variety of dating experiences with a variety of women.  Even though I'm very much attracted to this young women, and my fantasies about how things play out with her run towards more, um, traditional scenarios, I'm going to stick to my guns on my stated goal with my relationship with women.  Yep, a variety of dating experiences with a variety of women.  I look back on my past failings with women I considered exciting, women who remind me of her, and I keep coming back to one word; incompatibility.  I've gone on at length in this forum about all the ways the women from my past and I just weren't on the same page in one way or another, which led to a soul crushing incompatibility between myself and these women.  I think a goal that includes the possibility of seeing other women, and I don't necessarily mean making a uniform sexual conquest of a variety women I go out with- it's never worked out that way- I think at least allowing for that possibility to exist in a world where we won't find ourselves so beset with this pandemic issue will allow me to not put so much off on someone such as this young woman.  It takes pressure off of her and it takes pressure off of me, in other words. 

I don't go many places due to the current pandemic situation.  I do go to a couple of coffee shops several times a week.  I've noticed sometimes that very attractive young women will look at me a little more than usual or otherwise vie for my attention.  I like this.  They all seem to have in common a certain height and body proportion that remind me of  that young woman at that business I can go on about so much.

I don't want to see that young woman at that business right now.  I figure that if I tried to favor her with attention at her job, I would have the overwhelming feeling at some point that she might just want me to leave her alone and not bother her at all.  After all, it's OTHER woman at these coffee shops who look at me a moment more than usual or even put on a little miniature show for me by struttin' their stuff in front of me.  This attention, regardless of where it's coming from, seems to act as a salve on the bitter feelings over where this young woman might have been coming from for a good deal of that time these past two years.  She seemed to back off towards the end there, which helps.  These little interactions with these other young women seem to kind of let me know that I did the right thing by letting this young woman at this business go.