I try to refrain from making it about this or that twenty-two year old.  I've found this goal much easier to achieve since I went through the Ultimate Unavailable Woman Deal: the deal with the Invisible Woman that reared it's head last year and, nowadays, finally, seems to have passed.  

As I passed that giant turd blockage of a deal, I stated many times on this blog that Penny Poopy Pants, the barista at the coffee shop, or Marcy Fudge Pie, the waitress at the diner, would not have a very easy time of it if they wanted to tie me up in knots.  And so it has come to pass.

See, I've thought a lot about this.  Recently, I had this brilliant thought: people say, it's not about finding the right person, it's about being the right person.  Right?  So it follows thusly:  a fifty-three year old man who goes around trying to get with twenty-two year old baristas and waitresses and whom all else might not be the right person.  I'm just sayin'.  I figure women in their thirties might be fair game, I guess, but enough with the twenty-two year olds already.

This past week or so has found me thinking about how I used to struggle with depression so much.  Long after I started taking medication for it, I would often despair that I could find no-one that I desired in my world that I thought I could date.  It's been quite a while since an issue such as that could bum me out to any extent, I think.  I do get kind of bummed, still, at how frequently I have to figure out that attractive women in my world are not really serious when they flirt with me.  

I've gone on about this issue at great length, and I don't want to rehash it too much.  I'll just try to cut to the chase.  The other day I got really excited that a young attractive woman in my world made a little small talk with me.  This was, yes, an employee of a business I patronize, because I would probably not meet someone so young while traveling in my usual social circles.

Anyway, I thought about reaching out to this young woman somehow.  I thought about inviting her to see my set at the Pocket Fishrman Fish Fry on Saturday, June 2nd, at my scheduled start time of 9:30 PM, give or take a ten or fifteen minute delay.   I thought about our blossoming perfect love that I had found at last, and all of that.

Then I thought about my experiences in general with women.  It has never seemed to go down as smoothly as I still fantasize about. Even with someone I would consider ideal- especially with someone I would consider ideal, in fact- there seemed to be a lot of wrangling and general bullshit that would totally burst my bubble of initial expectations.

So, I decided to take my time and not rush anything for the sake of inviting her to the Fish Fry.  Then I decided that I could probably wrap this whole deal up in under two weeks, anyway.  That thought in my head, that I could wrap any kind of deal with someone I had an attraction to in less than two weeks, once that thought enters my head, it's like the kiss of death, in that I can usually let the whole thing go in under two hours after that thought enters my head.  And so it went with this deal.  Done.

I never had any luck when I would invite these employee types to my gigs in the past.  Why should I think I would have better luck this time?  In the past, there were some of these employee types who would flirt with me to the moon and back when I would interact with them at their jobs, but I still would have no luck in getting them to come to my shows when I would invite them.

This young woman I'm referring to now just kind of made a little small talk, really.  And there's the rub: in my adult life I would hear women complain about obsessive guys and how they would pursue them over what these women described as the most superficial of interactions.  The form these complaints would take would begin with. "All I did was..."  talk a little to him, say hi to him once or twice, etc.

I'm not in the mood to fling any accusations about these kinds of statements I would hear from time to time, i.e. "All I did was..."  I'm only going to say that I am glad that I did not act on my impulse to reach out to this young woman.  I figure now that she would have proven elusive at best, and who-knows-what at worst.  And, she could have said, "All I did was...(make a little small talk a couple of times)," and I could not really argue with her statement.

I think that romantically obsessive guys are notorious for finding encouragement in the slightest little things that women they find attractive do.  I've certainly been guilty of that.  Boy-oh-boy is that true. From personal experience, I think that this tendency to find such encouragement stems from the despair at the prospect of never finding love, and when something such as a little flirtation or even less comes these guys' way from an attractive woman, they'll latch onto it as if they are drowning in a vast ocean and someone has just thrown them a life preserver.

I haven't been out much lately.  When I do go out to clubs to see bands, I don't really pressure myself to meet women.  I think I'm doing fine as I am now, in that I'm generally approaching women I find more approachable than the young employees of businesses that I had such a keen eye for when I first quit drinking and drugs in 2009.  

The last couple of posts might have given those out there the impression that I have some policy of going around telling beautiful young women that I kind of like to go fuck themselves.  That's not it at all.  That statement usually only comes after I've considered other possibilities, and I conclude that letting such a person know that they could go jump in the lake is the most intelligent decision that I can make.

It's true, I've never really dated an uberbabe type, and I'm getting up there in years, and that dream is looking pretty cheap these days.  The only arc I've been able to generate with an uberbabe, goddess, call them what you will, was to make intelligent decisions about them.  And, up to this point in my life, the most intelligent decisions I've ever made about such women was to cut them loose, let them go, call it what you will.

I first made a such a decision about such a woman in 1988 with Sara.  In every major instance before then, the decision to let go of such a woman was always made for me- by the woman.  The problem with that course of action, is that the shit could really hit the fan in major ways before it ever came to them making that decision.  With Sara, if one were to find her these days, I doubt seriously that she could truthfully have any complaints about the way I treated her, or have any problems with how I let her go when I did.

The decision to cut such a woman loose comes when I decide that it is in both of our interests for me to do so.  Sometimes I pick up a vibe that I'm making style points with other men when I make these decisions, but really, I don't get a lot of satisfaction for my ego when I make these decisions.  Who wouldn't want to date an uberbabe/ goddess type?  Letting such a person go amounts to the best possible course of action for me to take, not the most desired course of action, but the best course of action.

In yesterday's post I wrote about the type of woman that I would always admire from afar.  She would be very attractive, young, and project a lot of confidence that would enhance her beauty.   Invariably, these types would also have a very mean, bitchy side as well. I've never dated this type, really.  The last woman I sort of dated had some of these qualities, but could be very uptight, pathologically obsessed about her looks etc.

She made it pretty clear that she didn't really want to date me seriously.  She said she wanted to be someone who caused me a lot of grief.  She let me know this when she said she wanted for me to add her portrait as one of the women/ snakes coming from my mother's head in my painting. "Medusa."

That pretty much sums up why I never really had any luck dating those really pretty types.  I never really was their guy, I suppose.  With that said, is such a woman really MY type?  If I've had a great deal of interest in these types, but these types never really had much of an interest in me, can they really be said to be my type?

I've kind of alluded to some of the famous women I've had fantasies about meeting through my legacy as the legendary Richy Vegas.  And, from what I can tell, they all pretty much could be the beautiful, bitchy types that never took any kind of sustained interest in me.  How would that go, if I actually met one or more of  these types?

I think they might meet me, and as they got to know me better, they might feel like they see the little man behind the curtain manipulating the image of the Great and Terrible Oz, and treat me accordingly.  That kind of thing has happened in the past.

There's several types of unavailable women.  There's the woman who's logistically unavailable because they are in a relationship.  I've had plenty of trouble getting past something as simple as that in my youth and moving on.  There's the more predatory type who represents themselves as available and interested when they are usually unavailable, never really interested.  I've learned to sniff out that rat pretty good in the fullness of my years.  Then there's maybe the worst type, the one that I would call emotionally unavailable.  That could be someone I've even dated in the fullest sense of the word, but who never really cared for me.  That kind can really ruin a lot of years for someone who is not willing to face this reality about them.

I think if the legend of Richy Vegas ever became manifest in our mutually acknowledged reality, the emotionally unavailable type would be my biggest worry.  Near as I can tell, the emotionally unavailable type would most likely be wrapped up in a pretty package of beauty coupled with great confidence, with a really mean and bitchy side to their personality as well.  If such a type were to come along because of this Richy Vegas stuff, I'm not sure how I'd get to the stuff I need to get to in order to make an intelligent decision about them.  I think my greatest asset would be my ability to tell where I left off and such a person began; where I could tell that my issues weren't really my issues, but instead their issues, one might say.

Anyone whose been reading this blog for the past few years knows that my thinking about myself can get pretty grandiose.  In the web comic on my home page, "Richy Vegas: a psycho memoir," I basically credit myself with ending the nuclear standoff between the West and the Communist bloc while I was in the eighth grade.  Well, basically.  

All I had to do to convince my disability examiner that I was a for-real-mentally-ill-person was mention that I have rather grandiose thoughts about myself.  I didn't even really have to go into specifics, and that, along with all the trouble I was having at the time with my full-time retail job, and the hospitalizations, and the documented, continued need for psychiatric care and medication, was enough to convince him to green light my benefits.

One of the main things I go on about in my head is this idea that, what has until now only really existed, so far, as a reality of ANY kind, has existed in my head, will someday be manifest in the reality-the "real world"- that most of us readily recognize as the reality we all exist in.  Of course, a guy who gets credited with singlehandedly ending the cold war in the eighth grade, among many other deeds, is going to be quite the something if that day ever does come.  That would probably mean that I would have the veritable pick of the litter as far as getting a real live girlfriend.  Would it not?

Here's the problem with that: for as long as I can remember, I've been the guy who admires the really attractive young women from quite a distance.  These women always had a lot of confidence that went with their great beauty, and that only enhanced their beauty.  They also tended to have a really bitchy, mean side to them as well.  And here's the problem with that: no matter what I did to prove myself worthy, and I'll give examples further on down, they always seemed to decide that giving me some arrogant, "kiss my ass" "opportunity" was plenty good enough for trash like me.

Two examples:  1) in 1988, while in my last year of undergrad at UT-Austin.  I managed to generate a cat-and-mouse game with Sara out of her attempt to take me down.  Look at the post "I'm not bad" from January, 2016 for some detail on that.  Anyway, I decided to end the deal when a friend of her's started conspicuously coughing when we two, myself and Sara's friend, were alone in an art studio at UT-Austin.  I hadn't seen Sara in two months, and this attitude her friend gave off that now was my "opportunity" to start kissing ass really put me off.  At least that's how I interpreted all of those forced-sounding coughs coming from this girl.

Example 2)  At SVA in New York City in 1991, I had assigned love interest status to one Ann Marie.  Unfortunately, I had come off as kind of scary to everyone, so she was having none of it, and she had moved on by my last semester in grad school in the Spring of 1991.  The critical juncture came in the last days of the Spring Semester, when I essentially let her go as she walked by me in the hall in one of the Art Buildings.

This seemed to please those that it mattered to me to please, such as a teacher/ artist named Brett DePalma, who seemed to be worried about me up until then.  Funny thing is, I saw Ann Marie on the streets of Midtown Manhattan in the days after school let out.  I felt her eyes on me, I smiled as I we passed on the street, as if to say, "You see! I really do love you."

A few weeks later, I figured that I had to go see her at a nearby gallery from where we encountered each other.  A gallery that I induced that she may have worked at, from interactions with my thesis advisor, among others, whose gallery it was that represented him, and I went there one afternoon.

There was a nicely dressed young man at the front desk.  I talked to him a little and looked at the brochure for the exhibit, and I heard a young woman's voice from an office directly partitioned off from the front desk.  Could it have been Ann Marie?  She talked on the phone, and the young guy at the desk coughed a forced cough, or "harrumphed," so I walked out.

Both of these examples have the quality of me showing up, and the other party giving me this "kiss my ass" attitude in response.  Mind you, I was the guy who made the crude sexual proposition that made the rounds in the UT Art building, I guess, and who was viewed as a threat to the girls at SVA , so these women saw these "opportunities" as good enough for me.

Maybe, in both instances, these women were trying to orchestrate "meet cute" moments, like those moments in the romantic comedies, and that "meet cute" quality didn't quite come off.  If this Richy Vegas stuff has any basis in reality, I would advise the Chloe Grace Moretzes, Jennifer Lawerences, or Ariana Grandes of the world not to try to meet me cute.  It might not come off as cute, and if I'm the kind of man that I've wanted to be for so many years, I might let them all know, in no uncertain terms, that they can go fuck themselves.  Please don't treat me in an arrogant manner.  Please?  

Well, the Pocket Fishrman Fish Fry is an all ages event that is open to the public from Saturday, June 2nd, 4 PM, until the Hole in the Wall closes at 2 AM that night, so anyone who reads this can go. What I definitely will NOT do is personally invite any of the twenty-two year old waitresses and baristas and what all others who work at businesses that I regularly patronize to the Pocket Fishrman Fish Fry.

If any twenty-two year old waitresses and baristas and what all other types of employees would like for me to personally invite them to the Fish Fry, all I have to say is this: that they should have been around in 2009 or 2010, when I would invite such types to my shows all the time.  If any twenty-two year old waitresses and baristas and what all others these days have any complaints about not being personally invited to the Fish Fry, blame the twenty-two year old baristas and waitresses and what all others who never showed up for any of my shows back in 2009 and 2010.

One young woman who also did modeling work back then, in other words, an asshole, had me go to the trouble of putting her on the guest list for a show that I had with my old band.  As I stood onstage trying to do my set, I couldn't help but keep my eyes glued to the club's entrance in the hopes that she would show up.  Of course, I could only conclude that she never had any intention of showing up, whether she was on the guest list or not.  What a drag!

I can't think of any way I could personally sabotage my good time at the Fish Fry more effectively than to invite a woman or women in my world whom I had something of a fondness for to the gig, and then spend all fucking day at the venue anticipating their arrival/ knowing they are not coming.  Argh!  Any employee of one of these businesses who has the idea that they can get me to put myself out there for them like I used to back in 2009 and 2010 might want to get acquainted with the phrase, "Been there, done that."    

I'm recording the last three songs for Sgt. Pepper's... sometime in the next week.  One of the songs is about Donald Trump.  If he screws up and does something good in the next few weeks, I guess there will be egg on my face.  I hoped to have the songs ready for this weekend, but I may have to wait until Tuesday or Thursday.

The book is coming along pretty well.  I hope to finish at least sixteen or so more pages before this months is out.  I approached the book a little different than I usually do.  I outlined thirty-plus pages before beginning the fill-in phase.  I hope to have this one done at the end of July by the latest.

I don't want to go on about the woman thing too much this week. I will say that I posted something several months ago that said something to the effect of; I hoped that no-one sees me as some big woman hater, and that I thought that my improved ability to take care of myself in the love and dating game would lead to a more fond, affectionate view of women overall than in previous times.

There's definitely women in my world that I am very fond of, though.  I say that with some trepidation, because I remember, a couple of years ago, one young woman who seemed to react as if I was going to start obsessively stalking her after posts on this blog where I said something along the lines of: she's adorable, or that she might have an interest in me. 

I've talked about a waitress at a restaurant that I went back and forth with over the course of two-plus years.  The nature of my affront towards her seemed to be some combination of the fact that I freaked out the owner and some female staff when I worked at that same restaurant over twenty years before, and how I would go out of my way to say "hi" to this waitress several times over the course of some weeks early in 2012, and at the fact that I would wear a shirt that read "I support single mothers" that featured a silhouette of a stripper and a pole beside this phrase.

Anyhoo, we went back and forth until Oct 2014, when she finally figured out that I'd quit wearing that t-shirt in the restaurant when I figured out, in June 2012, that she didn't like it.  Towards the end of this ordeal, I remember trying to make small talk with her one day, and how she shook from her core and inhaled as she tried to respond.  I figured that she was so enraged at the outcomes of our skirmishes over the years that she could barely contain herself.

Yeah, a lot of times women will get quite upset when they lose at the cruel romantic love and sexual rejection games they try to play with me.  I guess they consider me less of a man because of my mental illness, and to lose to me so abjectly really wounds their egos.  One friend confided in me that she had a desire to harm herself after she and I had a dustup.  Thank God she did no such thing. But still.

My point?  Good question.  I have to deal with women playing these kinds of games with me A LOT.  I have LOTS AND LOTS of experience at this.  To guarantee defeat at my hands to anyone out there these days who desires to try me would not be....scientific.  Guaranteeing such an outcome may not be scientific, but to say that the probability that anyone out there these days will actually win at a level to their satisfaction; to say that it seems unlikely from where I sit; to say that seems reasonable.

I've gone over the reasons why I think that I have to deal with this kind of shit so frequently.  I seem to be typed as the the mentally ill guy with romantically obsessive tendencies.  One the one hand, that automatically makes me some kind of bad guy to a lot of women, and on the other hand, hey, goose me little and maybe some woman who so desires such a thing can maybe reap a boatload of, essentially, free male attention.  So, it seems I have to deal with impulses that exist at the level of temptation to a lot of women, and thus, the (once alarming) frequency of this kind of attention that I so often find myself in the midst of.

What do I do about someone who feels bad about losing at these cruel rejection games?  Well, I certainly wouldn't want such a person to hurt themselves, but I don't think I'd mind the idea of such a person feeling kind of remorseful about it, to tell the truth.  Understand, I repeat, I have to deal with this A LOT.   In a post from the Summer of 2017, I posited that God was giving me plenty of chances to get it right; that is to say, that these games where women represented themselves as something they were not; representing themselves as available and interested when, in fact, they were neither; well back in the day, the nineteen eighties mainly, I could retaliate in ways I now consider unacceptable- an attempt to force a sexual situation through a crude sexual proposition, for example.


As I said in my last post: the World's not running out of unavailable women anytime soon, and it seems as if it's up to me to just practice, practice, practice coming up with socially acceptable ways of dealing with this reality when I presents itself to me.  Did anything like this occur recently? Maybe.  This blog allows me the chance to think out loud about this kind of stuff.  If no such thing has occurred, then no harm/ no foul, I suppose.