Here's a rendering of people being mean to me at a party in September of 1986.

If I see that former cashier in my world in the coming days, weeks, or months, I intend to let her go, blow her off, call it what you will.  I wrote a post recently where I entertained the idea that she loved me but thought me unworthy of her.  I wrote about how this might have created an inner conflict in her where, on the one hand, she desired me, but on the other hand, she didn't want to show it.  I talked about how this was a very problematic way for me to think.  I talk about how thinking along these lines, and then acting on such thoughts, can lead to a lot of unwanted pursuit and unwanted attention from me towards someone such as her.  I don't want to do that.

Every woman from my past that I used to think had that kind of thing going on inside of them turned out to not love me after all.  It figuratively makes my head hurt thinking about women such as Jenna and Wanda and Julie Drake and trying to fit them into some category of women who cared for me but were too proud to show it.  I don't want to put myself through that again, first off, and I don't want to put her through it, either. 

From February 24th, 2020: "​So, does this or that person really like me or not?  You know, that kind of a question is grounds for people getting divorced after ten, twenty, even thirty years of marriage.  One spouse just asks themselves of the other, "Does this person even like me?"  Imagine how I feel. "

If I wrote any thing in my last post that the former cashier found hurtful, I'm truly sorry.  From where I've sat these past many years in which she's been a big deal to me, I've seen not an inch of improvement for so long.  That last post reflected that frustration, and if she found it hurtful, I'm sorry.

I'll just come out and say it.  The former cashier thought, for the longest time, that I was unworthy of her.  This made whatever attraction she had towards me a problem for her.  She may still think I'm unworthy of her, and that would mean that she still has unresolved feelings for me.  In my last post I talked about my predicament.  This may be a huge component of my predicament.  This may be what exactly I have to forgive how she's been towards me for all these years.

Of course, for me to think this way about how this former cashier feels about me presents huge problems in their own right.  This line of thinking, that the woman has feelings for the man she can't or won't admit to, has fueled and still fuels a lot of unwanted attention and pursuit of women by obsessive men for a very long time the wide world over.  For me to even entertain such a possibility puts me in a bad position from the outset.

But what if the notion that this former cashier has unresolved, conflicted feelings for me were true?  What if the delusion that so many boys and men tell themselves about women they desire who really don't desire these boys and men in return were true in my case?  Well, it's been no bowl of cherries for me.  This IS a lot to unpack.  I don't want to go into it all in this one post.

Before I go, I'll go on about some aspects of this deal.  If this is true, that this former cashier thinks me unworthy of her and yet desires me, this may not be the first time this has happened to me.   In many, many instances, just letting go of such a woman and moving on solves the dilemma for all concerned parties.  But, in my last post I talked about a predicament women in my world want to impose on me that signifies an attempt on their part to get me to deal with this situation.  Moving on doesn't seem to be an option for me at this time.  The last waitress who acted interested in me only to not really be interested in me might have been trying to impress this point on me.

So it won't be so easy for me to just move on from this fucked up deal.  Very well.  The closest thing I've had to movement in any direction regarding this former cashier comes as a result of my stated desire to just forgive her and move on.  I think I saw her at my job not long after I started posting those posts about forgiving her and her friends for being mean to me.   Well, there's a lot to go into  on this supposed dynamic between myself and this former cashier, but that's for another time. 

Okay, I still love this former cashier.  No, I have no desire to retaliate against her.  I make no apologies about how I feel about her, and my forgiveness of her releases me from any anger and resentment that would otherwise make me feel like some prisoner in the situation I find myself in these days.  My main issue with her remains her unavailability.  My forgiveness of her for this reality I feel she and others imposed upon me allows me a greater deal of personal freedom and happiness these days than I remember ever having about this predicament I still find myself in these days.  If any more waitresses and baristas want to play any more games with me that attempt to underscore my predicament, well, that's something, I guess.

The last couple of posts about forgiving that former cashier and her buddies for messing with me seemed to resonate in my world a bit.  I don't know if anything will shake out as a result of my stated course of action- to forgive those women, to forgive by not retaliating- but I will give it a few weeks.  My main issue with that former cashier was always, and still remains, the issue of her perpetual unavailability.   I don't say this out of anger anymore, it's simply the fact of the matter.  The fact that I've worked on my love addiction issues to the extent I have allows me to find some peace with the issue of her unavailability.  If the coming weeks and months only serve to underscore this main issue I have with her; if, in other words, she just remains as unavailable as she's always been, well alright then.

In other news, I'm almost finished with issue 30 of "Richy Vegas Comics."  I hope to finish illustrating the remaining thirteen pages by next week.  I've tweaked my work routine a little.  I work on the comics for an hour or two, but then I'll switch to practicing my songs.  I try to practice until my finger tips get sore.  If I have the time and energy to get back to the comics after I practice, then i'll work some more on those.  This tweaking of my routine is an effort to spend more time and energy on my music.  If my productivity and pace of comics production suffers, I bet it only slows it up a little.

In my last post I wrote about forgiveness in the context of how I will relate to those mean girls in my world.  I said that forgiveness involved laying down my burden of pain by the side of the road and just carrying on down the road after that.  I contrasted that concept with the "nice guy" concept of forgiveness.  The nice guy sees an opportunity to get material reciprocity from such young, attractive women in his gesture of forgiveness towards them.  Things such as love, friendship, dates, and sex are what a nice guy hopes for in return for his forgiveness.  

So, what do I mean, figuratively speaking, by laying down my burden of pain by the side of the road?  What do I actually do, literally speaking?   I don't retaliate, that's what I "do."  NOT retaliating is a viable, legitimate course of action to take in this situation.  If any of these mean girls want to know what thought dwells in my head in the days to come when I'm around them, it's, "Don't retaliate, don't retaliate," over, and over, and over again.  Retaliation can even include a stray dirty look in their direction.  I don't even want to do that.  That whole Schmaylor Schmift ordeal was about a retaliatory gesture I enacted in the 1980's towards Wanda.  Nope!  

I've said the following before about retaliation, and it especially applies to retaliation against mean girls:  1) I never got the satisfaction I anticipated whenever I retaliated against someone such as Wanda, 2) The retaliatory gesture created a lot more problems that it solved (boy, I'll say!), and 3) Women such as Wanda never felt as if they deserved the retaliation.  Apparently that last one is a universal sentiment shared by just about anyone who has experienced retaliation, including me.  

I don't know what else to say on the subject of retaliation.  I do feel better knowing that I'm not going to retaliate, and I feel great because I have absolutely no desire to retaliate against any of these mean girls in my world.  I'm not even particularly angry at those mean girls, for the most part.  I think focusing on the forgiveness- "Don't retaliate, don't retaliate, don't retaliate"- helps extinguish the anger I still occasionally feel towards them.

I had to field a play made at me by some young, attractive, mean girls in my world in this past couple of weeks or so.  I did my usual stellar job, but the job isn't finished.  What do I do now?  Am I supposed to get mad about this?  Will the terrible way I sometimes feel about how these girls behaved towards me subside substantially in the next week or so?  

The play I'm talking about fielding concerns the former cashier, and how these young women tried to come off as her stand-ins in my world, all the while this former cashier probably has a boyfriend, and so these mean girls were subtly leading me on with this posture they assumed.  This is all about reading between the lines of how they came across.  I know it doesn't sound like much, what all they were actually doing, but there you are.  I fielded this game fine, and I now have some breathing room and some wriggle room as far as how to go about figuring out my next series of moves.

I've decided to forgive these girls for their trespass against me,  Again, the game they played was subtle, but I perceived it.  Subtle, feminine.  I can best detect these kinds of games if I have my "systems" turned down low and just observe those in my world around me. Anyway, yeah, I'll forgive them.

Now, let me be clear on what exactly I mean by forgiveness.  To me, in these situations, forgiveness involves me laying down my burden of pain by the side of the road and then just moving further on down that road.  This doesn't sound like much.  It sounds simple.  It is a properly uncomplicated way to view forgiveness, especially when I talk about the kind of "forgiveness" it's not.  I am not forgiving these mean girls in hopes of getting something material in exchange from them.  Material things can include friendship, love, dates, sex, and validation that I'm a great guy.  That's not forgiveness.  That's niceness.  

Like the headline says, if I field this mean girl behavior from these young woman successfully only to turn around and try to cultivate a friendship with them, then who's the asshole?   Well, that would make me the asshole.  When I'm attracted to someone, I try to proceed with caution in whatever situation I find myself with them.  The last thing I want to do is alienate someone I'm attracted to.  These girls, in the way they acted towards me, let me know they had no substantial attraction to me at all, because they seemed to have little or no concern about alienating me.  For me to turn around and try to make friends with them seems pretty stupid on my part.

I see these women in my world on a regular basis.  I can be civil towards them, even somewhat friendly, but I'm not going to try to actually be friends with any of them.  In a more perfect world than this one, I would very much like to be friends with them, but in this world, it doesn't seem to be something any of them ever wanted.

There exists, now, two situations with women in my world that involve rejection and how I should handle it.  One situation involves someone I like very much making a dating decision that didn't go my way, and the other involves young, very attractive women playing cruel rejection games with me at the behest, I believe, of that former cashier I last saw in late February of this year.  The girl I like very much made a decision that was more about her personal preference for the company of someone else and not necessarily a decision she made against me.  The other situation personally offends me more because I never did anything to these girls to deserve that kind of attention from them.  These girls, in my opinion, acted as stand-ins for that former cashier and interacted with me in such a way as to try to make me think they spoke for her.  All the while this former cashier most likely has a boyfriend and lives her life how she pleases, and so these women serve to torment me on her behalf.  It comes off as quite subtle, but I think this game exists.  

The game these girls were playing puts me in a very awkward position now, in large part because I don't think they want to play this game anymore, but I'm kind of stuck in my place knowing they probably don't like me, will never like me, and how I should field such behavior directed at me.  The best solution I came up with on how to deal with these young women is the same solution I employ with the young woman whose decision to date someone else was, in my opinion, in no way coming from an adversarial place with me.  On the one hand, I don't want to come off as emotionally hurt, pissy, or surly towards this young woman.  On the other hand, a behavior I find almost as obnoxious as coming off all hurt and pissy would involve this display of what a great guy I am about this rejection and how she should just totally love me because I'm being such a great guy to her about her decision that didn't go my way.  I see such a display as very manipulative.  

My solution involves coming off as neither of those things.  I will try to come off as neither hurt nor as some great guy about it all to any of these women in all of these parts of my world.  My overall mood these days is pretty good, thanks to the psych med I'm on, the fact that I no longer drink, my efforts to employ cognitive behavior thinking exercises about such discouraging events, and my efforts to seek out support groups where I can talk about this stuff to people who share the same goals I share.  My attempt to metaphorically thread this needle's eye is an attempt to move on and just continue living the life I've built up as a single person who has problems with women that often are not my fault, and in living this life I've built up and enjoy, make it really, really hard for me to fall prey to this or that scammer or con artist who seeks to exploit whatever loneliness I do still experience.  And, I might add, the way I approach my life as a single man and how I relate to the women in my world makes it harder for women such as the adversarial ones I wrote about in the above sentences to bring me down very much or for very long.