I didn't go to the coffee shop or that diner very much since I last wrote.  I'm working on prepress for my latest comic book.  I hope to finish by this weekend.  I will then reach out to the on-demand printer.

In the spring of 1985, I worried that if I didn't do enough to get with my love interest, Veronica, I would "cool myself out of the picture." Considering all of the shit that hit the fan with that one, I now think cooling myself out of the picture might have been just the thing to do about Veronica.  I don't have a love interest right now, but I wonder if  that waitress in that diner put in a good word for me to the rest of the world, including women.   Yeah, I guess I was nice enough about how things didn't work out, but I'm also wondering if I'm just projecting my inner world onto those in my outer world and engaging in a type of wishful thinking.  Accepting the outcome that came to pass with her does NOT seem like that big a deal to ME.  Does it really count as that big a deal to the women in my world?  

I'm trying to refrain from going to the coffee shop and the diners with the cute baristas, and waitresses, and customers because I'm not sure I'm finding what I'm looking for in those places.  I've felt THAT way for some time.  This stuff about the good word from that waitress is a more recent line of thinking.  I'm trying to save money by refraining from patronizing those businesses as frequently as I usually patronize them, but this line of thinking about the good word from the waitress at that diner gets in the way.  I don't want to go to the coffee shop five times a day for three weeks and the diner every single morning to try and confirm whether or not what I'm wishing for has any basis in reality.  So yeah, "What if I cool myself out of the picture?"  I don't think such a line of inquiry counts as sabotaging a good deal.  I just don't think that.  

In my last post I talked about how Ted Turner persisted with Jane Fonda when he called her several times and continued to ask her out even though she initially turned him down the first few times he did so.  I've concluded that Ted Turner must have felt confident enough in those interactions with her and liked her enough as a result of those interactions with her that he felt encouraged to go ahead and persist in asking her out more than once.

With me in my interactions with that waitress at that diner, it's kind of the opposite side of the coin.  Don't get me wrong, I DO like her quite a lot.  But, based on a couple of interactions with her, including the occasion where I went through with inviting her to the Staple comic book convention last month, I don't feel good enough about what went down to take another chance on approaching her for social reasons. 

I don't want to go into the gory details of all that happened, but I will say that she seemed to derive a tinge of sadistic pleasure from seeing me struggle some in my interactions with her on a couple of occasions, and that includes that time a month ago now that I did indeed reach out to her by inviting her to the comic book convention.  Again, I'm not trying to embarrass her with specifics, but the smile that came across her face as she saw me struggle some on those two occasions doesn't exactly instill confidence in me that taking another chance on her is a good idea.  I'm willing to bet that Ted didn't have that kind of issue with Jane.  

Get this, I did good to take just ONE chance on that waitress at that diner.  Starting with Sara in 1988, there have been plenty of women on plenty of occasions where I didn't even take that ONE chance with them and felt fine to not do so.  One of the most important things I discovered in my experiences with Sara in 1988 is the realization that the chances I take with women are mine to take or mine NOT TO TAKE.  

That's a big reason why that experience with Sara is a well I still draw water from today.  The experience of losing my virginity several years before Sara stands as more of a product of its time.  The whole bull in a china shop approach I had to THAT dilemma found enough forgiveness from those around me to bring the whole first time experience off.  Maybe bull in a china shop is not the most accurate metaphor, but it really was like I FINALLY just drew some random lucky ticket in some lottery, and that's how that whole losing my virginity experience went down. 

I plan on going to that waitress' place of employment a few times in the next several weeks.  At first, I planned on doing that to initiate a process of cutting her loose.  My thinking went along the lines of, "I put myself out there  to get with her about a month ago, and she shot me down.  I'll see if she wants to give me anything reciprocal to that attention I paid to her.  If/when it becomes apparent that she won't ask me out to make up for it or anything like that, then I'll cut her loose."

The idea of trying again to approach her for social reasons did not appeal to me at all as I thought along those lines of cutting her loose.  That's because I have BAD associations with persistence of that nature coming from me towards someone such as this waitress.  I associate persistence with obsession and obsessive pursuit and chasing someone to the ends of the earth and back.

The problem with thinking like that resides in the fact that I have encountered stories from celebrities in the media telling of their personal dating and relationship experiences where the man DID persist and DID succeed, and a relationship ensued.  Jane Fonda told of how Ted Turner got her number from someone, called her several times, asked her out several times, and after some attempts by Ted, she "gave in" and went out with him, and they dated and were married for some time.

These kinds of stories really messed with my head, because that was definitely NOT my experience with persistence.  I would tell myself, "I'm not some hotshot rich guy, or athlete, or rock star, so I have to play by a different set of rules than a Ted Turner plays by."  By "I would tell myself" stuff like that in the past, I mean the past as of this past several weeks or so.

I rolled this around in my head a bit.  I now think some persistence can work, provided it doesn't degenerate into the crazy, chase-them-to-the-ends-of-the-earth-and-back type of persistence that I would engage in when I was a lot younger.  I'll take that notion under advisement as I contemplate going to this waitresses' place of employment and talking to her some.

I believe that as long as someone such as this waitress likes me on some level, and as long as I'm really "easy" in the way I go about approaching her for social reasons more than one time, she might even be okay with a bit of persistence from me.  I don't even know if this waitress is even single, but if she likes me as a customer and an acquaintance enough, it might even be okay to approach her more than once.

I think about a couple of women who came to my table at the MoCCA Fest comic book convention in New York City in years past.  One, in 2012, hung around my table after she said that she didn't have the money to pay for one of my books.  In the years and months that followed, I figured that she wanted me to give her a book, and that's why she hung around my table for a few beats longer than necessary.  The other one, in 2024, was this GORGEOUS young woman who worked the food service at the after party for that year's MoCCA Fest on the Saturday night before she came to my table on Sunday afternoon.  

I remember feeling really alone, with no one to talk to at this after party, and this GORGEOUS young woman looking at me and smiling as she went around picking up empty plates and glasses from the tables.  On Sunday afternoon she bought a book of mine I recommended to her, and SHE hung around my table, just me and her, for a few beats longer than necessary.

I've thought about that encounter, and how I just probably said to myself at the time, "What if I just let this opportunity slip through my fingers? What will happen then?"  Well, slip through my fingers she did.  I just told myself a few weeks ago, "Man, the idea of picking someone such as her up on the spot like that is WAY above my pay grade."  Yeah, well, maybe it's time to ask for a raise.  I may be ready to "process" more women I'm attracted to in a manner that actually involves making a bit of a try for them.  Maybe or maybe not this particular waitress at this diner, but yeah, maybe some more than I'm used to making a try for on a more frequent basis than usual.

I gather that some people in my day to day world were taken aback by how proactively I let that whole situation involving that waitress in that diner just go by the wayside.  I haven't seen her in over three weeks, and I feel fine about my decision to let it all go.  I think this waitress at this diner and other women saw me as the obsessive type, and that I would persist in my attentions to this waitress even though she, to my way of seeing things, was not receptive to my attempt to approach her for social reasons.  

I think it's BAD that so many women EXPECT me to pursue someone such as this waitress  with more persistence and ardor than I wind up actually doing.  I don't like the idea of having a reputation as the overly persistent, obsessive guy that some attractive woman has to do the math on whether or not to display any inclination to like me on any level.  I think so many women I have an attraction to would, if given a choice between some player/womanizer type of man and an obsessive man, they would choose the womanizer ANY DAY and see such a type as the way lesser of the two evils.

I think what a lot of women don't seem to realize about a LOT of obsessive men resides in the fact that so many obsessive men WANT TO CHANGE.  Whereas, the womanizer is, more often than not, fine with himself the way he is. I feel as if I've made significant, substantial changes to how I relate to women I'm attracted to, and that setting limits to the lengths I will go to in order to get with someone I have an attraction to represents the fruits on MANY, MANY years of hard work on my path to do better about that.

If any women in my world who perceive me as having an attraction to them wonder how things could shake out if things didn't totally work out, they'd only have to look to situations such as that one involving  that former cashier at that grocery store, or this or that barista or waitress, or this or that woman associated in some way with Austin Clubhouse (whether staff, volunteer, intern, or clubhouse member).  I see no problem with the notion of following my buddha over chasing down "true love, everlasting" and seeing if that changes how women in my world might anticipate how I'll relate to them.

A while back I posted about holding people accountable for how they've behaved towards me.  I talked about the eighties and how I never felt that I really called people out for what they did to me.  I've put that into context for what all went on with me these past eight or nine years with the Schmaylor Schmift and all of that.

What I DID do back in the eighties involved learning to be by myself in constructive ways.   I worked on this in an effort to help me sever ties with those who had hurt me so.  It worked.  Whenever I saw those people again, the whole sense that things could never be the same between us hung over everything in a very palpable sense.  It  was never my sincere wish to actually hurt any of these people, and the way some of them have turned out, I can't wish on them any worse an outcome than the ones they have visited on themselves. 

I think about this as I go see bands and see that group of people, any one of whom could've come to me and said something along the lines of, "Hey Rich, I heard some really fucked up story about you, and I wonder what you have to say about it."   I've decided to just learn to be by myself in constructive ways, which is a project I took up again in earnest back in 2001.  I'm not so much interested in holding all of these people accountable in some call-out sort of way.