In a blog post from August 13th of 2020, I bring up Snolly, a young woman I found myself in a situation with in 1996 through 1997.  The post has the title, "They're not me."  I go into this story in more detail in issue five of my Richy Vegas Comics, and I know I went into greater detail in another bog post from before 2020, but I don't exactly remember exactly when or the title of the more detailed post.  Those people acted like preprogrammed robots towards me, for all I could tell.  I've found myself dealing with these same types of people in similar situations since then too.  I don't mean fifteen or even ten years ago, but more like up until recently.

I went to a recovery meeting tonight.  During the meditation portion of the meeting, how I interacted with Snolly the last time I saw her came to me as I sat there trying to chill out.  I knew I didn't want to ardently pursue her in light of the notion of me she played to the previous year.  I just made small talk with her at a Halloween party in 1997, and decided after a few minutes of that to go to a grocery store and get cigarettes.  The whole tone of our small talk remained friendly, non-confrontational, and not at all accusatory from either one of us towards the other.  When I returned to the party with my cigarettes, she had left, and I've not seen her from that day to this.

I decided that's a good way to be towards any attractive young woman I might see these days who might have had the idea of going on some kind of crusade to take me down.  The young guys like David and Joel who knew all about the situation concerning "Snolly" and "Lane" would invariably act really happy to see me in the years that followed, and they would go out of their way to say hi to me and talk to me at places like the Scratch Acid show in 2007.  David saw my name and contact info on a comic book convention exhibitor list and took the trouble to write me in 2011, a day or two after the convention.  Yeah, I wouldn't have any trouble being nice to someone who reminded me of Snolly if I saw them these days.  I may not really want to put myself out there in order to get with them, but that doesn't mean I couldn't talk to them a little.

In September, 1986, I had a psychotic episode at a house party.  At the party I wanted to approach "Donna," someone I'd encountered briefly the previous June at the same friends' house as this party.  The episode centered around the notion that many, many of the party goers thought of me as a dangerous, mentally ill, romantically obsessed guy who posed a threat to Donna.  After I sheepishly walked by Donna without talking to her, due to the hostile expression on her face as she looked at me, Wanda came up and laughed in my face, twice.  I made things right with Donna the following weekend at another party at a West Campus social organization's house.  Afterwards, all of my friends who shit on me during or after that party of the previous week had a different tune to sing, including Wanda.  I came to the understanding in the following weeks and months that Wanda had taken an interest in me.

Okay, I'll cut to the chase.  If I ever again encounter a situation where someone either succeeded in visiting, or attempted to visit emotional abuse upon me, and later on that person supposedly took some kind of interest in me, I see a reasonable way through that dilemma.  If I find that person attractive and/or appealing, but I also had the sneaking suspicion that nothing really has changed as to where I really stand with them, I have a reasonable way through that dilemma.  If someone proved an emotionally abusive asshole who only intended to inflict pain on me because they saw me as a bad guy, and they thought God was on their side, so to speak, and that person later on had a genuine change of heart, but I felt as if I couldn't properly see that change of heart in all of its manifest glory initially, I think I have a reasonable way through that dilemma. 

The last thing I'd want to do in that situation would involve coming off as if I wanted nothing more than to vie for the attentions and affections of that person at the soonest possible "opportunity" to do so.  That would amount to letting that person get away with murder, to my way of seeing things.  I would instead inform that person that we could be friends for a while, say, two to four months, and after that probationary period, we could then see about dating.

The reason I say this now involves my efforts to reflect on the last ten or so years of my personal life, when it seemed as if young, very attractive women lined up around the block to just play the role of abuser towards me.  Personally, I would prefer to date someone who NEVER, EVER, came at me in an adversarial, abusive manner.  However, all of these women who came at me in this manner of these past ten years were very, very attractive, as was Wanda in 1986/87.  So, on the one hand, there's the immense temptation to just say, "All is forgiven," right off the bat and try to be a good guy and work things out, as I attempted with Wanda, but on the other hand, there's how things shook out with Wanda after all. 

Again, a probationary period, where me and such a person were just friends and did not have sex initially- where NEITHER of us  would vie for consummation of our supposed mutual attraction to each other initially- would allow room for BOTH of us to meet someone more suitable to our individual needs, if that eventuality proved the best course of action after all, OR it could allow us to find out if something viable actually existed between us.  I could make myself available for dates and phone conversations and physical affection that only goes so far with a person like that, but I think a probationary period would minimize the chance of things going to total shit like they did with Wanda. Does anyone have any better ideas about how I best negotiate my way through such a dilemma?

I write this because, in spite of where a lot of these women came from with their shit, I really did like some of them.  That cashier at that grocery store comes to mind.  When I approached her for social reasons in October of 2021, I did so because I like her, not to play some trick on her.  That virgin girl who worked at that same grocery store could go jump in the lake, on the other hand.  A probationary period might allow me to see if I really like such a person, rather than just experience some sort of bedazzlement at their youth and beauty and charisma. 

These past several weeks have seen me focus on my own personal recovery from love addiction over trying to save the world via posts to this blog.  I don't want to talk about anyone from the last several posts.  I just want to emphasize that I want to find my own truth to a lot of the questions that dog people regarding dating, sex, and relationships, pro or con, for or against.

I just saw a YouTube video where an attractive young woman took it to the women out there for supposedly putting men off who approach them for social reasons.  The young woman in the video cited an informal survey she took that quoted men's fear of rejection and humiliation at the hands of strange women they try to talk to for social reasons as the main cause of women finding  themselves lonely and single.

I don't have any easy, pat answers to such a dilemma.  I have that experience of October of 2021, when I approached that very young, very attractive grocery store employee for social reasons in front of God and everyone, and I've gone on and on about how nice this young woman came off to me when I did finally approach her after years of cat and mouse between us.  However,  I came up empty in the end, and I don't do that kind of thing very often.  

The other night at a music venue, I fancied the idea of approaching a young, very attractive fellow patron for social reasons, but decided against it.  My mind just went over how much courage it  took to approach that grocery store employee, and the extenuating circumstances that led to my gesture, and how I ulitmately still came up empty.  I just didn't want to feel obliged to summon that level of courage on a moment's notice for someone I didn't know at all when I thought about doing something about it the other night at that music venue.

I just chalk it up to whatever experience I do have with women as to when I approach women and when I don't.  I want to emphasize that begging off of such a move and living to fight another day under, hopefully, more favorable circumstances counts as legitimate experience as well.