When those young, very attractive women started in on me at that one business in 2014, the virgin girl kicked it off.  After I figured out that she just wanted to run some scam on me, a scam that involved her representing herself as available and interested when in truth she was neither, I became aware of the notion that many of her fellow employees thought of her as a genuine possibility for me.  In other words, these fellow employees did not have it in for me at all.  When I first became aware of this girl's attempt at psychological aggression towards me, the prospect that all of these fellow employees of hers allied themselves with her aggression frightened me a great deal.  Only in the act of busting her game did it dawn on me that these fellow employees I had suspicions about all thought they were doing me some kind of favor, and that this girl's game caught them unawares much more so that it did me.  Both ends against the middle.

Over time, as more young girls at this business lined up to try me (the gunfighter mentality taking hold),  some employees came to realize that I possessed the greatest ability to figure where these girls were really coming from with the attentions they paid to me.  My orientation that helped me so much in figuring these girls out involved the notion that I would just have a willingness to let opportunities to get with these girls just slip through my fingers.  In adopting this stance, I  demonstrably showed that I could accept an outcome where me and these girls did not become boyfriend and girlfriend.  In showing that I could accept an outcome where we did not become boyfriend and girlfriend, I could look out for their best interests as well as mine.  I didn't think it was in their best interests to succeed in doing some vicious takedown of me, because that just has the potential to provoke retaliation and bad feelings all around.

Fortunately, I don't suspect any young, very attractive women in my world of having these kinds of predatory agendas towards me nowadays.  The worst I have to say about anyone these days involves the notion that two young, very attractive women may have feelings for me that they feel some embarrassment about.  Like I said in my last post, I could be totally full of shit about this notion too.  At any rate, the methods I employed at getting at the truth of those girls intentions at that one business might come into play with these girls in my world now.  In the case of both of these girls, that would involve pretty much leaving them alone and just kind of making observations, and making my decisions about them based on these observations.  Like I said, since I don't feel as if I need to address any aggression from either of them, I'm inclined to just leave both of  them alone for keeps.  It's their choice whether or not they want to love me back, and if the answer is no from both of them, then so be it.  

Several years ago I said that God must really want me to get a certain type of unavailable woman right, because they kept appearing before me in my path in life.  I count in this category that young woman who used to work at that business before she stopped working there earlier this year.  I think I really got her right.  I couldn't have done better with her if I had a hundred more chances to do so.  Today I started a line of thinking that ran towards the notion that I managed to solve about seventy-five to eighty percent of my problems with women in the course of dealing with all of the challenges her unavailable ass presented to me.  That would make the current phase of this endeavor to improve my relationship with women more of a mopping up operation than anything still resembling a major problem to solve.  I may still count myself firmly in the ranks of dateless wonders, but I'm a pretty damn happy dateless wonder.  If this phase of my current deal with women represents a mopping up phase, what all does that entail?  The smartest thing I did right after inviting that young woman who used to work at that business to my comic book sale came in the form of an utter refusal to try to rebound, cash in, or otherwise find someone else to take her place.   Smart.  

What's out there for me now?  A couple of weeks ago I ran up the idea that various women over the years may have held some attraction to me they felt ashamed or embarrassed about because they felt they could do better than me.  The evidence of that I found inconclusive, and for good reason.  So good a reason that I think of the possibility of such types existing in my world now as yet another unavailable woman type.  Look, I've gotten the message that I'm supposed to take a spiritual approach to how I relate to women.  I can't expect to compartmentalize various women into hierarchies to the point where I can behave abusively towards one I consider beneath me somehow and put another on a pedestal and treat her like a queen.  So any woman who puts me in a lower ranking hierarchy, where they feel free to treat me like someone lower than them while putting their righteous boyfriend on a pedestal, well, they can go jump in the lake.  And furthermore,  I have no interest in trying to be a good guy and taking it upon myself to try and work things out with such women.

Which leads me to the next point: according to a lot of friends and other people I've known over the years, I'm not allowed to reject anyone.  I'm not even allowed to reject the premise that I can come off as something other than a really good guy who just wants to work things out with women who have conflicting feelings of attraction towards me while at the same time they posess misgivings about the person they have an attraction to occupying the socio-economic status of a fifty-eight year old man with a major mental illness who depends on support from family and the government, among other factors.  Again, I don't know if this premise holds truth, because I'm no mind reader, but that doesn't oblige me to try and come off as some good guy to anyone who may or may not have this kind of conflict going on inside of them.  They can all go jump in the lake.

Furthermore: okay, suppose such a woman has feelings for me, but she's too proud to love me back, so to speak.  That's her right to do so.  No woman has any obligation to love me back, no matter the reason.  And furthermore: I don't want to put myself in the position of trying to win such a person over, either, because, 1) It's their right to not love me back, and 2) I might be full of shit in my belief that such a women carries a hidden torch for me.  I can think of at least two instances in my past where I was totally full of shit in that regard.

If I'm fated to dateless wonder status for the foreseeable future, and if any woman I approach for social reasons aims to shoot me down, then I will fully exercise the limited options available to me.  I've yet to cash in on the good will my overture to that young, very attractive woman of the past several years supposedly lined me up for, and so instead I just had to come up with a new set of rules on how to conduct myself in the aftermath of these kinds of transcendent moments that have punctuated parts of my adult life. Since then I've had to fend off at least two young, very attractive women, both of whom just wanted to play stupid games, I guess.  So much for cashing in.  I've also had to let go of the notion of getting with two other young, very attractive women who just don't seem available and/or interested in me.  So much for cashing in.  And, even though I've supposedly engendered a lot of good will in my community, women in general that I see on my rounds day to day don't seem all that interested in meeting me.  I haven't met anyone new who displayed any kind of interest in me socially.   So much for cashing in.  So, new rule, don't try to cash in on something I and others would have thought would pay off for me, because it just doesn't pay off like I once expected it to.

I've approached three women in the past year for social reasons.  The first was that young, very attractive employee of that business I still patronize.  She didn't pan out.  The next one was a woman more my age who hangs out at the clubs I go to and who knows a lot of the same people I know.  She seems to think she has something "on" me due to some social media faux pas I supposedly committed on a platform we both share.  So much for her.  The third one was this forty-something year old woman I approached for social reasons during Free Comic Book Day at Bat City Comics.  She never wrote me an email like I asked her to.  So much for her.

If I'm fated to getting shot down when I approach ANY woman for social reasons, I prefer that the whole of the experience shake out like that third one from Bat City Comics.  She was so approachable and accessible, and no shitty negative consequences came from asking her to write me.  I've never seen her again.  The young, very attractive woman had some shitbird predatory agenda in regards to me, in my opinion, and the whole of  that experience just seemed to shake out like some utterly pointless, futile ordeal.  I get the feeling a LOT of women liked the way I handled the challenges of that young woman and the game she tried to play, but that's something I don't want to go through any more in my life.  Especially since the supposed payoff from dealing with those situations with the massive skill set I've acquired over the years just seems to keep me out of trouble and nothing more, provided I don't fuck THAT up.

I told a male friend in 2019 that I was trying to develop an appreciation for low hanging fruit, so to speak.  That woman at Bat City seemed like low hanging fruit.  She just kept hanging around me and talking to me until I just blurted out an invitation for her to write an email telling me whether she liked the books she bought from me or not.  The whole "ordeal," from her getting on my nerves, to my invitation, didn't last more than an hour, hour and a half, from beginning to end.  The whole of the ordeal with that young woman at that business: three years by my reckoning.  From the standpoint of which trial by fire proved a lot easier and doable and repeatable, the situation I found myself in on Free Comic Book Day with that nerdish woman wins hands down.  That whole ordeal with that young, very attractive woman was just too hard to think about doing again.  

I mean, I could have a full blown situation on my hands, if I only deigned to sign on for the Unavailable Woman Deal.  Once again, the Unavailable Woman Deal:  I bend over backwards to accommodate the notion of an attractive woman in my heart and on my mind and try to come up with a solution that I myself, the young woman in question, and those around us can all live with, and in exchange for my efforts, she gets to do whatever the hell she wants.  That's the Unavailable Woman Deal.  Since I'm not going to sign on for that deal in the foreseeable future, I'm not in any kind of situation that I usually recognize as a situation.

Don't get me wrong.  Any attractive young woman in my world that I like very much can still do whatever the hell she wants.  I''m just not signing up for my end of the bargain.  I have no interest in trying to be a good guy and work things out.  I don't see myself in a situation where "all I have to do" is play my cards right, and I can date someone in my world I really, really like.  If I really did see myself in a situation where I thought someone found themselves as free as a bird on the dating scene, and they really liked me, and they let me know it, then I would probably have a strong desire to play my cards right.  No situation like that exists for me at this time.

Understand this.  By refusing to keep my end of the Unavailable Woman Deal up, I can better free myself from any feelings of resentment and animosity towards some love interest that would likely come up when said love interest would then proceed to do whatever the hell she wanted to.  That young woman at that business who remained on my docket for a full THREE YEARS certainly did whatever the hell she wanted in regards to how she dated other men besides me the whole time.  But when I approached her for social reasons last October, I did so with the experience of coming and going as I pleased as far as whether I patronized her place of employment when I knew her to work there.  I possessed a strong desire towards the later part of  that ordeal to slow things way, way down, and pick my spots to act.  I wound up inviting her to my comic book sale, and my invitation to her came off as if we'd just met for the first time then and there.

Right now, I find myself free of love interests.  The one person I looked up online recently had photos up of her with her boyfriend on her social media page.  I think of that young woman nowadays more than any other, but she's no love interest.  She might not even like her boyfriend, but she might wind up dating someone else besides me if that's the case.  I don't see myself as having any kind of inside track with her.  No need for me to sign on for the Unavailable Woman Deal in regards to her.

I often wonder at times what feelings or desires for me actually exist in certain women's hearts.  I specifically wonder if certain women have an attraction to me in spite of believing themselves too good for me- in spite of regarding me as somehow not worthy of them.  I can find such thoughts oddly comforting in some contentious situations I find myself in with such attractive women, but the main conclusion I come to these days has to do with the categorization of such women as yet another unavailable type.

The problem with harboring the notion that such a type actually likes me, and that their horribleness towards me indicates this attraction to me somehow; I'm always left questioning whether such a type ever really liked me at all.  I mean, I still wonder about women from the 1980's who seemed to possess these traits.  Looking back, I still wonder about such women from that era to this day.  Again, just another unavailable type.  Especially if they are spoken for at the time I wonder these things about them- whether their snotty behavior towards me indicates a deeply secret but intense attraction towards me.

Trying to come off as a good guy about such women in my world and subsequently trying to "work things out" just sets me up for a big put down, almost every time.  That's why I still wonder decades later about such types, because the overall experiences, from beginning, to middle, to end, can turn out so badly.   Just another unavailable type.

I know that I can interact with such women in ways that many women out there like, but these women who like the way I handle such  difficulties should keep in mind that my priority with such women remains intelligent decision making. In other words, intelligent decision making, whether it meets with the women in my world's approval or not, remains my priority.  Don't get me wrong, I think my ability to make intelligent decisions about such women these days helps me to like many, many, more women the way they really are- much more these days than in years past.  But sometimes intelligent decision making about such difficult women and the difficult situations I can find myself in with them does NOT allow for the acceptance and approval of a wide swath of women in my world.

Okay, so I still have a very attractive, young woman who resides in my day to day world, and I want to know where I really stand with her.  When I initiate a reality check about such a  person, I usually give myself about two weeks to figure things out.  The funny thing about that two week time limit comes from the fact that my line of inquiry usually doesn't last much beyond two or three days, if not just a few hours after initiating the reality check.  In other words, the mere act of imposing a reality check upon my reality usually  marks these love interest scenarios with the kiss of death.  These women typically don't last as love interests for much time after said reality check becomes in full effect.

That young woman who had me vexed for several years, recently, probably constitutes the rare exception to this process.  i imagine I had several reality checks over the years that just didn't hold, and I finally had to just go ahead and invite her to my comic book show, witness her lack of response and engagement afterwards, and only then could I let go of her.  One thing that really distinguishes that young woman of these past years from the current love interest type has to do with the fact that the young woman of the current time PROBABLY does not have any kind of fucked up agenda in regards to me.   The young woman who used to work of that business I still patronize fell under deep, unwavering, suspicion that she totally had some fucked up agenda that had to do with seeing herself on some sort of crusade for womankind or some such shit as that.

This girl now.  No way.  She has, to the best of my abilities to perceive her intent, absolutely no desire to engage with me on that level.  Since she probably has no desire to deceive me in that way, her days as a love interest might come down to the next one or two times I find myself around her, and then no more.  If she lasts the whole two or three weeks as a love interest, with no discernible dastardly agenda that I can tell, I guess she would merit a sustained period where I would try to find myself in her presence.  I do like her very much.  

The element that hinders me the most from just approaching her for social reasons resides in the fact that I know her through her place of employment.  I genuinely feel as if I could really put her in a bad position by approaching her for social reasons.  So, that said, I can just kind of show up in her world often enough, and I think I can leave it at that.  Another thing about her that distinguishes her from that last one has to do with the fact that I find her so much more accessible for conversation and pleasant, sustained interaction.

I consider my hands tied in approaching her for dates and whatnot, though.  Maybe she feels the same way about me.  I think her overall accessibility as someone to be around and talk to will help our deal, even if nothing goes any further because we both feel constrained from further engagement.  She definitely has other options for her social life and whom she can pick to have in it, and you know what, maybe I do too.   

Over the last couple of days an awareness that more than one attractive woman in my world may care for me provides a genuine source of distraction as I go about my business.  I know these women from businesses I patronize or other places where I have contact with them on a regular basis. In every instance I feel personally constrained from approaching them for social reasons.  Today I remembered how I tried to broach that subject with several baristas at this one coffee shop from 2009 to 2012, and how much upheaval getting shot down by them caused for me mentally, emotionally and socially.  I don't want to go through that again.  Again, I don't make this decision out of excessive shyness, but rather because I just want to try a different approach.  I hope that refraining from asking this barista for contact info or inviting that staff member at Austin Clubhouse to see me play an open mike night might possibly bear a brand of fruit that I can live with, even if I never go on even one date with any of these women. 

As it stands, I feel constrained, and they may feel constrained too, if my guesses about their interest me contain some truth.  I think taking care to treat such women with consideration proves just as important a task for me as taking care to treat that young woman I invited to my comic book sale last October with consideration.  I suspected her of coming from some adversarial place in regards to me, and that guardedness from me that governed how I treated her could prove just as handy with these women whom I figure might really care for me.  I don't feel as if any, or, um, either of them will find my reserved stance alienating to them.  I say this with some confidence, because I've refrained from approaching baristas since that era of around the early 2010's, and those baristas I've just left alone, so to speak, seem to like me fine.

A couple of posts ago I wrote that I had no resentment that my gesture towards that young woman last October didn't compel lots of very attractive, young women to openly express a desire to go out with me, and I feel that way about these two women.  I feel good enough speculating that my behavior towards that young woman from the past several years may indeed resonate with more than one attractive woman in my world.  I feel a great amount of gratitude that I've meaningfully addressed my problems with love addiction, and that I did not do anything to undermine or sabotage the positive flavor of my invitation to that young woman last October.   I think the possibility that women in my world whom I find very attractive also like me, even if the circumstances we know each other, and my past frustrations that resulted from efforts to put myself out there for the cause, constrain me from doing anything about it.  I feel very good with entertaining the possibility that these feelings for me from these women in my world may exist at all, even though I don't feel much like trying to cash in.  Will my unwillingness to do anything about it alienate either of them?  We'll see.

I will talk further about the idea that my interactions with young, very attractive women in my world never seem to have anything to do with dates, sex, love, girlfriends, or relationships.  Might as well not sweat any of those issues in regards to such young, very attractive women if they never seem to come up.  Am I right?  The two main issues that seem to come up with such women usually have to do with, 1) Should I leave her alone? and, 2) Should I let go of the idea of getting with her?

I find actual sexual encounters with women, for the most part, seem to have a random, chaotic quality to them in contrast to the fantasy world a lot of these young, very attractive women inhabit.  Or rather, the notion I have of these young, very attractive women.  My tendencies toward love addictive actions and behaviors, the obsessiveness towards this or that individual woman, for example; the behaviors and thought patterns seem to betray a desire for order to what still seems to register as an oftentimes indifferent, random experience of the dating universe.

I've found some of my best chances at negotiating my way around this conundrum to reside in the goal of just kind of forming some friendships with women who prove receptive to such an overture.  If they don't bite at that opportunity, don't push it.  My invitation to that young woman to my comic book show last year represented just about all I wanted to do to try and form some kind of friendship with someone I could just not stop thinking about.  Once it became obvious that she had no interest in that, I bailed on the whole deal soon enough.

The process of forming friendships with women, and accepting many of those who indicate an interest in me, requires a more forgiving standard as to which women I will go out with.  I don't have to have some wild sex time with every woman I go out with.  I think men who only solicit and value friendships with very attractive women don't like women much.  I think such a man's need for validation from very attractive women, in many instances, at least those men who resemble me psychologically, will come across rather readily to these same very attractive women, and these men will experience a seemingly endless stream of rejections.

All of this I just wrote I can sum up as a roundabout way of saying that when it comes to actually having sex with a woman, I just try to make hay where I can, and to not feel as if I have to be in love with the person.  I still try to approach women I really, really care for, as in the case of that young woman in October of last year, but not to the exclusion of all other experiences available to me with women of all types.

I can't help but feel as if my problems with women represent developmental obstacles to overcome.  Whatever tendencies I may still have to chase some hottie to the ends of the earth and back may indicate a stunted growth in regards to the total relationship with women.  I think I have overcome this tendency, even if I still obsess on individual women as if I'm still fifteen years old.  

In my last post, I wrote that I would prioritize intelligent decisions over striving for the happily ever after with whomever I tend to think that way about.  I remember writing tons of entries that covered the notion that every decision I've had to make, these days, in regards to young, very attractive women whom I like never has anything  to do with love, girlfriends, or relationships, yes or no, for or against.  I really emphasized this point in my posts concerning that young woman who remained on my docket from February 2019, to about February, 2022.  Intelligent decision making over happily ever after certainly ruled the day during that whole ordeal.

I can't help but think that such a mindset decisively defined how I conducted myself in regards to that young woman from beginning, to middle, to end.  No doubt.  And, you know what, if I adopt intelligent decision making as the priority mindset in any situation I find myself in with any young, very attractive woman whom I like in the foreseeable future, I have no reason not to think that I will conduct myself in an exemplary manner towards anyone I care for, regardless of where I stand with them. 

Last year, after I invited that young woman to my comic book sale, I steeled myself for the aftermath.  I emphasized to myself, time and again, that I did not want to try to cash in, rebound, or otherwise try to find some other love interest to take that young woman's place, and I did not try to do that at all.  I have no resentments at all that the aftermath of that encounter with that young woman did not bring some windfall of young, very attractive women who demonstrably expressed a desire to go out with me.  Instead, I feel very, very grateful that my adaptation of the cognitive behavior therapy techniques that I learned in the David Burns book Feeling Good allow me to live a life almost free of the emotional pain and upheaval that would mark my days in my twenties.  

While I do respond well to psych meds, I think the stability the meds imposed on me allowed me to work on my game and effect a meaningful recovery from love addiction in regards to how it would trigger bad, traumatic episodes with women.  The combination of psych meds and cognitive behavior therapy techniques brought about this place I find myself in now.     

In my last post, I talked about how similar my approach to the right person, romantically speaking, would look to my approach to the wrong person.   I talked about how my approach to that young woman at that business that I invited to my comic book sale last year-she was the wrong person- could possibly carry over to someone who might actually work out somehow.  I emphasized my ability to slow things way down, pick my spots, not engage in sabotage, and display a willingness and ability to let go of that person when the time came.  I proposed that those elements of my approach could carry over to someone who might actually care for me some.

In my grandiose way of looking at the world, I imagined that a lot of young, very attractive women actually "saw," or more accurately, knew about, the level of skill I displayed in dealing with the difficult situation presented to me by this young woman.  After that invitation I offered this young woman to my comic book sale, and how courageous and heartfelt I came off, I wondered if a lot of these young, very attractive women entertained thoughts about putting me behind a similar eight ball, and seeing how that would all shake out.  I speak from an experience I had with "Wanda" in 1987.  For a fuller understanding of how that all shook out, buy Richy Vegas Comics issue number 9 from my store.  I don't want to talk about it now, other than to say I had one of the worst experiences of my life in regards to my relationship with women at the hands of Wanda as a direct consequence of my heartfelt, courageous handling of a very bad episode involving `"Donna," Wanda, and others in 1986.

So, if someone I care for in my world, and this person happened to be a young, very attractive woman, actually came to care for me a bit, and wanted to possibly get to know me better, such a person might want me use the same care in dealing with them that I displayed with that young woman last year. Okay, will do.  But, this person, if they even exist in my world, should take care in what they ask for.  I can deal with a difficult situation presented by a well-intentioned person, probably, but if this person wants that same skill level on display, I might not find myself so focused on riding off into the sunset with her.  Instead I might find myself prioritizing intelligent decision making over happily ever after.   Yep, that's my relationship with women these days: intelligent decisions.