Female desire for a man is not based on the guy's virtuous merit any more than a man's desire for a woman is based on her virtuous merit.  I read an entry in the comments section of an article on the Jezebel site that said, that in our society, one gender (men) plays the role of voracious consumer, and the other gender (women) plays the role of gatekeeper. I find it unhelpful to buy into my part in such an equation, and I imagine a lot of other people, men and women both, would feel the same way.

I was on a date in 2015, and my date, at one point, smirked and said, in a smirking voice, that she did not compete for men.  The fact that she offered herself to me later that night was supposed to override some remark like that, I guess.  I found the attitude she displayed towards me that found reflection in that remark she made while smirking so off-putting that, my role as voracious consumer be damned, that was our first and last date. 

A guy's virtuous merit can be an attractive feature, as long as it's not enmeshed in some "nice guy" attitude of entitlement to access to women due to this supposed virtuous merit.  But the idea that women select a guy due to such a quality has likely tripped me up on any number of occasions.

A couple of years ago, this one barista at a coffee shop I patronized supposedly wanted to get to know me better.  She was fucking gorgeous too, but I was skeptical.  I'd found her on Facebook in early 2018, and put in a friend request for her.  She seemed to take great offense to this at the time.  She would make goo-goo eyes at me as if to mock me or to otherwise mess with me.  But I made it clear through posts on this blog that I didn't have any desire to "start" anything with her, and that my Facebook friend request in no way reflected such a desire.  

She backed off with that goo-goo eyes stuff, and she turned out to be one of the nicer women to me at that coffee shop.  She acted as if she sympathized with me through the whole Schmaylor Schmift ordeal, and I really appreciated her support.  She became one of my favorite baristas at that coffee shop, for sure.

But I think she got tripped up on the notion of rewarding my perseverance through my travails with some sort of attention from her, because the first instance where I expressed some skepticism and reluctance to engage with her on this blog, she bailed.  Again, I think the scuttlebutt around the coffee shop was that she just found someone else she liked better.  So much for her role as judicious gatekeeper, favoring men with attention based on their virtuous merit.

So you see, this kind of thing has happened to me before....and quite recently to boot.  But you know what, the idea that women's desire for men is based more on things such as looks and charm and whatnot frees me from having to be a "good guy" all the time in how I engage with women.  I can concentrate more on stuff such as losing some more weight, getting a nice haircut, or buying a neat pair of shoes or like that than having to be a "good guy" and "work things out" with ANYONE who crosses my path.

Here's some pages from issue 2 of Tales from the Richy Vegas Psychoverse.

To the best of my understanding, that former cashier, who I might have spotted in my world a little over a week ago, remains as unavailable to me as she was when I let her go in January of 2022.  That is all.

I'm in the process of posting pages from issue 4 of Richy Vegas Comics on Patreon.  I plan on posting ten pages every two weeks.

I hope to post on Patreon instead of paying for expensive reprints.  For $1 a month, a patron can access everything I've posted up to that point, as well as future posts.

i've got a nifty, tricked out scanner to help me.  Cheers!

I remember writing several years ago that I felt as if I might have been in a different place in regards to that young woman of these past several posts than any place I've ever been before with anyone.  Maybe that notion, that I'm in a place I've never been before, has finally come to fruition.  Several years ago, when I first put that idea out there, this girl and I weren't exactly on the same page.  But by then I'd made a lot of changes, and there might have been something different about her as well that I picked up on, even though we didn't see eye to eye on some fundamental things.  This deal I'm dealing with, and I do feel as if this is a deal, as of yesterday, maybe; this deal I'm dealing with might not actually work out, but maybe things have changed for the better to such an extent that I can get something going with someone else if things don't shake out with this former cashier the way I'd like for them to shake out.

I might have seen that former cashier somewhere in my world yesterday.  It's been over two years since I last saw her, and this young woman looked somewhat different in how her hair was done, for one thing.  Well, I said, "Sooner rather than later."  That'd be awesome if it was her.  It'd be great to have someone on board for a deal that I want to be a part of, for once.  I'll try not to come off as so hyper-vigilant in future posts.  I don't recall having to be really hyper-vigilant with Chelsea, even after she just flat out said to me that she wanted to be someone I would not recall fondly.  I mean, she just said it, and I made my decisions accordingly.  I could still enjoy her company when we'd go out to dinner and stuff like that.

 Since my diagnosis in 1992, I can think of TWO women I would like to see again, as far as missed opportunities go.  TWO!  When I contrast that to all of the bogus opportunities I've mostly been smart enough to let fall by the wayside...man!  Neither of those TWO women, nor the situations I found myself in with them, seemed to have that highly charged quality that the bogus situations I found myself in with the bogus women had.  The situation with this former cashier STILL seems highly charged.  I haven't even seen her in well over two years, and yet...my god, does it seem charged!  Especially in contrast to those deals with Celeste and Lauren.  Celeste in 1999, Lauren in 2010.  I could be wrong about this former cashier, but if I am, I'm willing to let this supposed opportunity be the THIRD opportunity I wish I had back since my diagnosis in 1992.  I can live with that, I promise. 

I used to have this male friend who, instead of having a code of behavior which he tried to adhere to in how he related to those around him, he would just try to get away with as much shit as possible.  I told an another male friend of mine that I found the behavior that resulted from this guy's attitude tiresome and alienating.  It was just such a drag to feel as if this guy was constantly probing his limits and boundaries with me.  

One example: One time I went to meet this male friend and one of his girlfriends at a bar in the spring of 2013.  The conversation turned to "Chelsea."  He volunteered a swaggeringly delivered, "I fucked her!" at some point during this.  I replied, "Really?" with  smile.  He waved it off and said, "Naw!"  That ended that conversational exchange.   A few weeks later, he gave me a ride downtown one evening with one of his other girlfriends in the front seat with him as he drove.  Again, the conversation turned to Chelsea.  He turned to his girlfriend and said, in a more mature tone, "I dated her for a couple of weeks."  

I decided to stop being friends with this guy in the spring of 2014.  I think my decision to reject him after over thirty years of friendship  says a lot more about him than it does about me. In the spring 2014 he told me one lie too many about one of his deals with one of his girlfriends, and, it wasn't so much that this one time it was so bad, it was more like the straw that broke the camel's back.  I'd had enough, I couldn't do it anymore.

I've had to deal with a lot of women who've set out to treat me in pretty much the same way this guy treated me for so many years.  I don't like this kind of behavior in women anymore than I like it in men.  One thing that's really helped me to spot this behavior in women-even women I've had a strong physical attraction to. The kind of attraction that can cloud a guy's ability to reason- one thing that's really helped me is that I learned long ago how to let go of the idea that I needed to consummate a deal with ANY woman that crosses my path.  You get me?  i'm willing to let ANY opportunity slip through my fingers, NO MATTER WHAT THE WOMAN REPRESENTS TO ME.

I first trained myself to take this position in regards to ANYONE when I ran into Sara in the spring of 1988.  It was only in 2012 that I adopted this "turning my back on love" approach in the most committed way I knew how.  I don't think ANYONE I've had run-ins with since 2012 can really complain about how I treated them, either.

One aspect of this stance towards the women in my world has to do with what I write here on this blog.  If the notion crosses my mind that I might one day want to write words such as the ones I wrote in this entry's preceding paragraphs, then go for it.  Don't hold back.  Don't save such a post for a situation that may or may not develop into something later on.  Just come out with it.

I write this now because I get the impression that how a number of women in my world regard me has changed for the better.  The whole reason things have changed for the better has to do with my willingness to just let this stuff get out there, no matter where I may feel I stand with any one particular person or another, in my opinion.  If anyone forgot what this post's original topic centered around, it centered around women trying to get away with murder as far as how they relate to me goes.

Briefly put, if that former cashier doesn't show up in a timely manner in my world, say, sooner rather than later, then I doubt I will feel much obliged to take her seriously from the point when it becomes obvious she won't show.  My personal frame of reference for this belief is my experience with "Chelsea" in 2012.  In short, in September of 2012, I added things up in regards to Chelsea and concluded that she just wanted to play some idiotic femme fatale role with me.  Yeah, it sucked that she wanted to be that to me, but the good news resided in the fact that I never had to take her seriously again as someone to date.  When she moved on to this other guy several months after my realization about her, I don't recall experiencing even a tiny amount of emotional pain or loss over her moving on.

If all this former cashier and her buddies want to do is play games with me, then yeah, those games can work for a while.  Quite a while, in some cases.  However, at some point those games will stop working as a way to torment me.  I totally experienced that with Chelsea.  Those games Chelsea played with me stopped tormenting me when I realized that said games just reflected a pitiless, uncaring attitude towards me.  And since those games just reflected that kind of attitude towards me, I didn't have to take her seriously as a love interest any more.  

If that cashier does show up, say, six months from now, well, moving on is moving on.  I don't think her appearance in my world six months from now would indicate that she would be someone I would have to take seriously as a love interest.  Even after my realization about Chelsea, we still remained friends and would go on "friend zone" type dates.  One time she suggested coming over to spend New Years Eve with me, just me and her at my house, watching TV.  But she backed out and said she had to be at work too early the next day.  After that, early on in the new year, I would take her back to her apartment after one of our dinner dates, and a couple of times she invited me in to hang out with her and watch TV.  The problem with those two times resided in how freaked out her Dad's dog became with me in the apartment.  She tried to shut the dog up in a bedroom, but his menacing growls proved too distracting for her, and she asked me to leave.  On none of these three occasions, the aborted New Year's Eve date, or the two times with the dog in her apartment; on none of these occasions did I ever come back with any invitation to have her over to my house again to watch TV or anything like that.  Dating her just didn't matter to me much at that point.

I think my post about seductive withholders might have resonated with some people.  Just about anyone who has been on the dating scene has likely encountered someone who seemed to hold a lot of promise at first, but as the situation progressed, the person who seemed to hold so much promise never delivered on that promise.  I think ANYONE who read what I wrote about seductive withholders would understand why I would let go of ANYONE whom I perceived to be that to me.  

Furthermore, I think if that former cashier EVER had the inclination to look me up, my post about seductive withholders, and how I'm so willing to cut such a person loose; I think that sentiment could possibly encourage her to go ahead and see about me, perhaps.  Now, I don't know if this person even lives in my town now, and I don't know anything else about this person, either.  However, my writing what I wrote about seductive withholders would likely go a lot further with her than if I declared my undying, everlasting, forever and ever love and allegiance to her.  She and just about anyone else would not know at all what to make of such a declaration, but she and just about anyone else could better relate to a person who was willing to let go of a love interest and situation with that love interest that dissatisfied them so.

Do I like this former cashier? Yes, I'd say I still like her.   I'm curious enough to want to see her, but it's not as if my life would depend on seeing her again.  Just as my post about seductive withholders might have resonated with her in a good way and cleared up some questions about what all I was thinking when I let her go a little over two years ago, I hope this post makes clear that I would like to talk to her and go out with her.

What I WON'T do is ask anyone in my world if they know her.  I believe I've already given plenty of myself for the cause.  There was the time when I asked her to my comic book sale in late October of 2021.  Plus, lest anyone forget, when I again put myself out there and asked that woman at that one business if she knew her.  That occurred in January of 2023, and I'm inclined to believe that young woman at that one business might have been lying about not knowing her.  That guess of mine about that young woman lying does not encourage me to ask anyone in my world about her these days.  If she has no interest in putting herself out there for my sake, so be it.  Like I said, it's not as if my life depends on seeing her again.