My dad once told me that" life is what happens when you're busy making other plans."  I looked it up just now, and he was not the one who originally said it, but it's true nonetheless.  I'm open to keeping the gift I received the other day, the iPad mini case and cables, around for awhile.  If it's a harbinger of more trouble to come, I'll just try to duck in time, I guess.  I'm sticking to my guns on my wish to not receive anonymous gifts through Amazon, though.  If the party who sent the CD and coffee in 2016 is the same party who send the iPad mini case and cables, they will just have to find another, socially acceptable, way to reach me.

I have a right to defend myself.  I've noticed an employee of a business I patronize, whom I called out on this blog the other day, no longer seems to work at her job.  Judging from the demeanor of other employees there, everything might be alright on that front regardless.  I certainly hope so.  Like I've said many times, I think I'm within my rights to express my opinions as to what goes on around me, as long as I respect the privacy of those I interact with.  I certainly mean no harm to those I might have a beef with.

I'm finished with the pencil work on issue number eighteen of Richy Vegas Comics.  Today I will start inking the text, which should take about a week.  I hope to finish the inks on the pencil illustration by the middle of June.  I'm not going to the Small Press Expo in Bethesda Maryland this Fall.  I came up short in the lottery.  That means I won't have so many bills to pay for the rest of this year.

Today I received a package from Amazon.  It was a gold iPad mini, which I didn't order.  I looked it up online, and it's their cheapest model at around eighty dollars, if I recall correctly.  Three years ago, around this time of year, I received a package that contained a CD of a hit record by a famous female pop star, and also a bag of a half pound of coffee beans.

When I first received the gift three years ago, I didn't think anything of it.  I figured that it got sent to the wrong person, or that Amazon was just trying to get rid of some inventory, or that this was some kind of gift from Amazon to acknowledge that I was a good customer.

Longtime readers of this blog will recall the post from January first 2017 when I first mentioned the gift of the CD and the coffee beans.  In between the time I received that gift and the post from January 2017, a vision of yet another glorious chapter in the already-bursting-with-glory Legend of Richy Vegas came to me during the Summer of 2016.  In late December 2016 I ordered the Best of Badfinger CD from Amazon.  No sooner did I get it into my possession than it disappeared.  Around that time I spotted the CD that I'd received as a gift from the previous Spring lying on the floor in one of my rooms.  I gave the CD another listen and I decided that it was really pretty good.  

So naturally, I added it all up and decided that this beautiful young pop star was a secret admirer, because she knew all about the Legend of Richy Vegas too.  You see, I figured that, naturally, that she'd hired some people to break into my house and steal the Badfinger CD. because it had that track, "Day After Day," on it.  The beginning lines of "Day After Day" go, "I remember finding out about you..."  

Well I suggest that readers that are not familiar with the progression of my thought processes on this subject go back and read my posts from pretty much all of 2017 and into 2018.  The initial thrill that I could have a secret admirer in the form of this famous woman morphed into speculation that I was the target of a campaign of harassment and intimidation.  Things played out to the point where I don't feel as if I'm under the spell of this woman, and that I haven't been under any kind of spell involving her for quite some time now.

Which brings me to the gift I received today.  I called Amazon's customer service number and inquired about it.  The woman on the phone said that someone did indeed deliberately send me an anonymous gift of the iPad.  She wouldn't give the name of the person whose account in was under, but she said I could try to guess.  I told this woman that I have a major mental illness, and that my guesses would involve people in a realm of reality that this woman on the phone and myself would not acknowledge as being part of a reality we shared.  So I declined to guess.  She did say that I could flag my account, and that no one could send me anonymous gifts anymore.  I opted to do just that.

People out there might think, "Dude, why didn't you just give her a few names, including the name of this famous pop star, and see if you had a hit?  What do you have to lose?"  Here's my answer: In order for me to go about my day to day business and function on a productive level, I've found it necessary to draw up certain boundaries between the kind of stuff that goes on in my head, which many people would find bizarre and irrational, and the day to day reality which I and those around me would more readily acknowledge as being relevant to our respective life circumstances.

I'll give an example:  The day before New Year's Eve, I went to see Kinky Friedman play a solo show at Stubb's.  The last time I was really sick with psychosis, early 1995, I had a hallucination involving Kinky.  I documented a version of this hallucination in comics form and put it in the first issue of Richy Vegas Comics in 1999.  I sent this issue to Kinky's dad, who was friends with my mother, along with a note putting the whole thing into context, and a request that Tom send the book onto Kinky.

Kinky never wrote back, and I let it go at that.  Now, at this show at Stubb's in late December, I walked up to Kinky and introduced myself before he went on and did his set.  I mentioned that my mom knew his late father.  I told him of the two occasions my mother was around him, and I said how much of an honor it was to meet him, and that I was a big fan, and that this was the first time for me to see him perform, and I ended it with, "Break a leg, buddy."  Kinky smiled, with an unlit stogie in his mouth, said, "Thank you," and I walked off.

So my point is, that I didn't start in on this stuff about the hallucination that involved Kinky, or even ask him about the comic book, because I just didn't want to bother him.  After the show, he signed my T-shirt for me, and he seemed glad to talk to me, so I think I did the right thing.

I plan on donating the iPad to the Austin Clubhouse.  I might also tell one or two of the staff about how triggering it was for me to get this gift today.  If any of them want to call Amazon customer service and give them the tracking number and play guessing games as to who sent this gift to me, they are welcome to.  I doubt they'll do it, and I certainly don't require that any staff do this for me.  I think it's kind of stupid that I would have had to sit there and throw out names to this woman instead of her just telling me, but at least I can request not to have gifts of this nature sent to me.

Was this an attempt on the Invisible Woman's part to make amends for all the shit that seemed to start with the gift in 2016?  I don't give a shit.  Fuck that asshole!  I mean, if she or anyone else wanted to really make amends, I would want a full disclosure of who these people are and an apology in writing for all of the intimidation and harassment I perceived them visiting on me.  I mean, god forbid this famous pop star, if she were really involved, should TARNISH HER BRAND with that kind of gesture.  Oh, wouldn't that be terrible for her.  Right?  Fuck her!  Fuck her running.  For all I know this gift was an indicator that there will be more attempts to intimidate and harass me in the near future, so what am I supposed to think about that?  I'll save the tracking number, but that's about it.

An addendum (I think that's the right term): I just inspected my present and found out that it is NOT an actual iPad but an iPad CASE.  What the fuck am I supposed to do with an iPad case with no iPad?  Maybe the anonymous gift giver who sent this was planning on sending an iPad later.  In that case, they can just shove the iPad up their ass and I'll just throw away the case.  

Yesterday morning I went about my business after I dropped my dad off at work.  A couple of attractive young women at these businesses I patronize were really nice to me in a professional, doing-their-job kind of way.  In a perfect world I would like nothing better than the opportunity to get to know such women better.  I wondered if they read this blog, and if they were somehow reacting to the last post where I broke down the futility of romantically pursuing this one young woman who worked a job like theirs and whom I interact with about as often as I do these young women.

So, yeah, I've said it before, my stated goal in my interactions with such young women is that they don't have the impression that I'm trying to assign them the role of love interest to me.  I've said in many previous posts that I've traced the source spring of my river of dysfunction in my relationship with women back to the idea that I needed to always have a love interest from amongst the women in my world.  In earlier days this or that young woman might attend classes I attended in college or work the same job I worked.  As of some years ago, that deal morphed into these young women who worked these food service/ retail jobs at businesses I patronized.

The moratorium on love interests helps me separate myself mentally from women I desire to the point where I can tell where I leave off and they begin.  This ability to separate myself from them allows me to make intelligent decisions about how I relate to them.  Decisions that serve both my own and these young women's best interests comprise the dominant characteristic of intelligent decisions.  So far, intelligent decision involve me cutting these young women loose at some point.  That is all. 

In my last post I talked about a young woman at a business whom I suspected of vying for my romantic attention in less than honest ways.  This particular young woman started working at this business several years ago.  I remember last Spring I asked her something in a small talk way, and she answered courteously enough.  It may have been after that time that she kind of looked at me in a lingering way as I left her presence and I went on my way.

A couple of months ago I asked her something that related to the business where she worked, and later I realized that that was the most I'd ever talked to her, ever.  I'm talking about a brief exchange that lasted maybe thirty, forty-five seconds on two separate occasions.  

Soon after those brief exchanges, I went in there and she kind of gave me a look with snarled lips that seemed to indicate that I disgusted her in some way.  So I guess that my fantastic progress I made in getting to know her better was all for naught, and I had to start at square one again.

My last post talked about how other attractive young female employees seemed to display an energy that indicated I was on the right track when I went into that business a couple of days before while this particular woman worked her shift.  This was the first time I allowed myself to be around her since she snarled at me that time, because I don't really like young women snarling at me and trying to let me know that I disgust them on a basic, primal level.  Soooo, anyway, I was around her, but she didn't say hi to me or otherwise indicate to me that she wanted to see more of me, but this other time, with these other women, a couple of days later, on this other shift seemed to constitute an attempt to give me some kind of shot in the arm as encouragement.

Okay, let's go with that.  So let's see.  She's been working there for several years now, and the previous paragraphs pretty much summarize how far things have gone between us up to this point.  Sooo, based on how long it has taken for things to get as far as they have, I will try to put a timeline on the stages of progress that pretty much have to occur before I can go on like, maybe, one date with this person.  

Sooo it might take, I don't know, two or three more years before she will greet me in a pleasant manner and let me know she's glad to see me in a general sense.  It may take another year or two after that before she will let me talk to her and maybe another three years after that before the small talk exchanges become more personal in nature.  Let's see, adding all that up, it might take about six to eight years before I can approach her at this business and talk to her about stuff of a personal nature.

Now, provided that she manages to be nice to me that whole time, it may take another two or three years before I'm comfortable enough to invite her to a musical performance of mine, or ask her if she'd like one of my comics.  Then another couple or four years after that, maybe, before I could feel like I want to ask her out.  That is, provided that she actually shows up for at least one of my shows and shows a general interest in what I do creatively and otherwise, and provided that I like her well enough, and oh yes, provided that she doesn't snarl at me as if she wants me to know that I disgust her on a deep, personal level.

So, I guess it might take about ten to twelve years before I go on one date with her.  Now, she's a young woman, with a young woman's appetites for life's pleasures, I reckon, so if she needs to have certain needs met before I'm allowed to come along, I guess that would be alright.  A fine romance indeed. 

The other day I patronized one of these businesses that employ a number of attractive young women along with other folks.  As I left, I noticed that a couple of the young female employees ran around like young Greek mythology wood nymphs.  You know, kind of going about their jobs with youth and vigor, like.  

When I got home I thought that word of the Legend of Richy Vegas might have finally got 'round- something I've been wanting to happen for about twenty-seven years, okay?- and, boy, did I get excited.  I kind of sat on this thought and didn't darken this place's door for a bit.  

Then I thought about it a while later, and I came to a different conclusion.  I thought that these young attractive women flouncing around as they were might have had something to do with how I said "no" to a situation I found myself in with a young, attractive female coworker of theirs.  I essentially said a couple and three and four posts back that I would not pursue anyone at this business romantically, and that I had a right to make such a decision.  

This past week I found myself patronizing this business during the shift of a young woman I'd made that kind of decision about, a decision to refrain from romantic pursuit of this person, and I wondered if that could explain this nymph-like flouncing about by her coworkers on another shift on a later date.  Work with me here, people; it's as if I inadvertently signaled something to these coworkers, and they wanted to tell me something about the deal with this young woman in question.  The headline of this post says it all.  This notion might just exist in my head.  Maybe the young coworkers were just being young women and they don't even know anything about me.  In that case, no harm done, I guess.

But, if these young women attempted to do me or this young woman some kind of favor with this display of energy, I have a problem with that.  I strongly suspect, as has been the case with every single young woman at this business up to this point, that the young woman in question is not what she seems.  I mean, I suspect that this young woman represents herself as available and interested for me to date, when in fact that may not ring true.

People out there should note, this has happened before, at this same business.  The first time it happened was with that virgin girl in 2014.  The other major time it happened occurred after the virgin girl failed to win at her games, and her friend took up the cause in 2015, and again in 2016.  Other young women at this business have tried me to a lesser extent than these two, but this one I'm referring to these days might be using the same playbook as the previous two.

She could be playing both ends against the middle, and leading these young woman on about her level of interest in me.  On the other hand, maybe this young woman just doesn't know what she wants, and the fact that I said "no" to the whole deal at this place and with her has her energized to try and win me over.  The purpose of trying to win me over despite my resistance, regardless of where she's coming from, is to see if she can do just that.  She may have no thought of what might occur as a result of any of that.  So, all of that energy I saw the other day in those employees may come from the fact that I said, "No."

I, of course, have a big problem with this.  Trying to win me over shows a basic lack of respect for my wishes, both on her part and on the part of these other employees.  Of course, I'm just thinking out loud.  None of this may actually have any basis in reality.  But, no matter, because my chosen course of action requires that I do not much of anything about it.  Writing about it helps.

Think about it, people.  Let's say the genders were reversed, and it was a man trying to win over a woman with such tactics.  People would consider him and his mostly male confederates to be real scumbags, wouldn't they?  I mean, the confederates may serve as unwitting dupes of the player dude, but still, they are all knowingly going against the wishes of the lone female- if the genders were reversed.  Just because they are all attractive young women and I'm a fifty-four year old man doesn't make what they do cute or okay.

I've read that a sex addict will have sex with someone just because they have an opportunity, regardless of whether they want to have sex with that person or not.  Maybe someone such as myself, a love addict, would feel compelled at times to love someone even though he or she didn't really want to.  That makes any machinations of other parties to bring about that result seem really slimy,  does it not?  Hey, people, I don't HAVE to love anyone.  All anyone can do is ask, and maybe the answer is "NO."  The preceding came from a public service announcement from the eighties.  That is all.

I haven't been going to restaurants or coffee shops or the bakery as much as I usually go.   Since the start of the new year, I've put a token reward system in place to help modify or accentuate everything from spending habits, to diet and exercise, to practicing guitar and other musical instruments.   An example of token reward is a teacher giving an elementary school student a gold star on some class assignment that the student handed in.  Another example could be someone putting an "x" on a calendar date to signify that they didn't smoke during that day.  People in the know say that such a trivial-seeming reward can really help motivate people to a surprising degree.  As I go about my day to day routine, a mental image of those little stickers on my calendar at the end the day helps me to drive past the bakery or the coffee shop and refrain from stopping and buying something.

I went crazy and bought a whole bunch of little stickers to signify every little thing I would like to work on.  So I have separate stickers for both eating the kinds of foods I want to eat for meals, and not eating sweets and other junk food for snacks.  If I don't go to the coffee shop for one whole day, that's TWO stickers because I usually go twice in one day.  I have separate stickers for practicing guitar and bass as well as a separate category for other instruments such as drum pad and musical saw.  I have separate stickers for walks and other exercises such as crunches and pushups.

I give myself a small monetary reward for each of these things I achieve on a daily basis.  I originally intended to make little payments on my credit card balance almost every day based on how much of these rewards I earned, but the money got tight, so I just use the monthly total reward as a benchmark for how I want to do the next month.  As it goes with the individual goals, I set the next month's reward goal at a bit less than what I achieved the earlier month, so that I will have it in my mind that I can attain the goal I set.  This helps me to go ahead and do all this stuff, and that makes it more likely that I will approach or tie the previous mark before the end of the month, and then I will have the rest of the month to exceed the previous mark.  See how I'm going on about this topic?  Ah, obsession!

I think that Facebook wanted me to download their app for my phone this morning, so it wouldn't let me log on through the Chrome browser as usual.  I thought that Facebook had a hell of a nerve trying to push me around, given all the stuff that's come out about them since the 2016 election and afterwards, so I deleted my account today.  It will take a full month before I will be completely off of Facebook and not able to just log into my account if I change my mind.  I don't know if I can do it.  I will lose my friends who read this blog from the site, so that might affect my decision on whether to go ahead and do it or not.  In the mean, I'm going to try to get contact information for any one of my old friends I don't have info for, and if I succeed in getting off of Facebook after a while, I  may consider some other social media site. 

I have the right to be wrong about nineteen year old girls who fire a shot across my bow.  By "wrong" I mean mistaken.  If such a young woman was coming from a good place with that, of course it would be okay if I misinterpreted her intentions, she's thirty-five years younger than me.   Why wouldn't I misinterpret good intentions from such a gesture?

I also have the right to set certain boundaries.  I've been watching YouTube videos where these therapists and "life coaches" always talk about setting boundaries.  I guess we all kind of know what they are talking about when they say that one should set boundaries in interpersonal relations.  In my case, I have the right to set a boundary in regards to very young, attractive female employees at businesses I patronize.  Namely, I have to right to refrain from asking such young women out on dates.  I have the right to have a policy where I just don't do that anymore, because I base this policy on experience and common sense.

If anyone wants to let me know that this. or that, or any young woman at one of these businesses likes me enough to want to go out with me on just one date, they can overtly tell me so instead of trying to drop hints or be rude or otherwise try to interact with me as if I'm doing something wrong by not romantically pursuing this, or that, or any young woman at any of these businesses.  Any young woman who works at one of these businesses who wants to go out with me may ask me out themselves if they like.  Just because they or anyone else tries to put some kind of subtle pressure on me, don't think that I will interpret such pressure as any kind of cue that I must act.  I am not going to do that.  I speak from experience on this matter.

I've been watching episodes of Season Two of Mike Judge's Tales From the Tour Bus.  Season Two covers Funk legends such as George Clinton, Bootsy Collins, and James Brown.  I've noticed that whether these men or anyone else in the series behaves in good ways or bad ways, they are all pretty unique individuals.  Maybe all of this harassment I perceive myself experiencing from young woman in my world is just the natural by-product of myself being a somewhat unique individual.  

I've got everything I need to lay up issue number 17 for the printer.  I'm too fried to work on it any more tonight.  I managed to finish painting the cover.  I went to Kinko's and got the cover copied about two hours ago.  I hope to contact the printing company, Capital Printing, on Friday.

In other news, my bookmarks came back from another printer.  They look good.  I contracted them through Elgin Screen Printing, who farmed the job out to a vendor in Louisiana. I got two hundred bookmarks, delivered to my door, for less than fifty dollars, and the turnaround was pretty quick.

In the last couple of posts I talked about a very young, very attractive young woman who threw me a flirty look a couple of weeks ago.  Oh boy.  I guess I shouldn't be too quick to judge when a nineteen/ twenty year old girl fires a shot across my bow like that.  I mean, I know what I'll be doing with my mind for the next little while now, I guess.  I'll try to keep my mouth shut until I figure this one out.  Fat chance I'll totally keep my mouth shut, but here goes...

In my last post I talked about a young woman in my world who threw me a flirtatious look while I patronized her place of employment last week.  I talked about how I had no "plans" for her, i.e. I would just leave her alone and not even try to ask her out or anything like that.  I talked about how I would see such young women under more favorable circumstances - someplace outside of their work, for example- but it didn't make any difference, and I would still strike out.

So, if I didn't allow myself the chance to try to take things further, what should I do?  Should I go the other way with this deal?  How would that manifest itself?  Would it make me a bad person if I denied her my love?  Would I seal my doom to a life of unfulfilled desires?

So I took the plunge and went the other way.  I avoided interacting with her when I saw her in these past few days.  Now, this next part is critical; I have learned to just take a course of action such as blowing someone such as her off, and then come up with very good reasons for doing so only AFTER I take such a course of action.

So here goes: Often times in my past, when I would try to take full advantage of such a perceived opportunity, I would draw the ire of those around myself and the object of my desire, as well as the ire of the object of my desire her own bad self.  All of these parties seemed to strongly object to what they saw as me going way too far in response to what seemed to all concerned, excluding myself, as pretty minor, inconsequential flirtations by the young woman in question.

I guess a lot of men have an unconscious filter that allows them to go about their business and not get too caught up in that kind of flirtation bullshit.  And, one could measure the extent of my desperation by how seriously I would take such flirtations.  I guess I am someone who had to construct a filter out of whole cloth using cruel example, my wits, and the guidance of books such as Feeling Good  by Dr. David Burns.  I think the extent and progression of my recovery from love addiction shows up in how each successive episode I talk about on this blog often seems to find resolution more quickly and more easily that the episodes that preceded it.  

I'm fifty-four years old, so a lot of people out there might consider all of this progress irrelevant in some way- like I'd be better off just planting a vegetable garden in my backyard and concentrating on something like that.  I think about that sometimes.  But, I'm not talking about stuff that happened in 1986 and never anytime afterwards.  On this one I'm only going as far back as last week.  A lot of men around my age with a mental illness diagnosis similar or identical to mine make the news because they think they have something going on with some young, prominent, very attractive actress, singer, or model, so no, I don't think my age makes my progress on these issues irrelevant.  

The other day I patronized one of these businesses I talk about.  A very young, very pretty female employee gave me a really flirty look.  The movie poster for a French film called Amelie featured the lead, played by Audrey Tatou, smiling mischievously for the viewer while she looks at the camera from her bowed head.  The only difference between how Audrey tattoo looked and how this young woman at this business looked lies in the fact that the movie poster featured a shot of Audrey from a three quarters angle, while the young woman looked directly at me, from a full frontal angle, in this manner.  I've been wondering all weekend what that was all about.  I will often project really nice, Rich-affirming motives to looks such as the one this young woman gave me, only to find out later that they are coming from a really shitty place with that.

So no, I won't ask this person out in front of God and everyone at her place of employment.  I remember this young woman who worked at a Vulcan Video a few years back at one of their old locations.  She was really good about talking to customers like me.  After a while I would see her  talking to other middle-aged men who were in there by themselves, including this one time where I saw her talk at length to some old geezer who clearly saw this as a highlight of his day.  But, who am I to judge?  To each his own, I guess.  

One time I was out on the town walking to a club and I saw her talking on her phone.  I thought, all at once, "Gee, I'm so glad I never asked her out at her job in front of God and everyone, because now I have this perfect opportunity to see her on a more social level.  Maybe I will get lucky," or some such.  I waved to her as she talked on the phone, and she just gave me the shittiest look.  I just pointed at her and walked off.

There was this other time, last year, when I found one of these girls on Facebook and sent her a friend request.  This girl didn't accept it, but in the weeks after I sent the request, she would give me these looks while I patronized her place of employment that, I guess, were meant to convey a sense of longing for me on her part.  Somehow writing about where I thought she might really be coming from with those looks-namely, that putting in a Facebook friend request for her in the first place meant that I had somehow started some kind of shit with her- somehow those looks magically stopped coming from her after I posted that guess on this blog.  

Both of these instances remind me of the time in 1988 during my last Summer of school at UT-Austin.  In the Spring of that year, I'd had a running flirtation with Sara in a class.  At the end of the semester, on the day of the final, I just watched her turn in her final and walk out.  I finished my final several minutes later, turned it in, and left the classroom.  I didn't even know her name at this point.

During the Summer session, in an art studio at night, I asked a friend of hers if she knew a girl named "Lee."  Cathy said she didn't know anyone by that name.  I left it at that and didn't press for any more.  Some days later I saw Sara in the hall as I rode the elevator and the door opened on her floor.  She stood with her back to me as I pointed at her.  As I pointed at her, she turned and waved, and the elevator door closed.   I laughed heartily.  Sara showed up in a class of mine a week or so later, but she fled after she said hi to me, all while she and her friends giggled, and she cut me short after I chased her into the elevator.  

A couple of months later, after I had not seen nor heard anything from Sara, I tried to work in the same big studio one night.  Eva, one of Sara's friends from that time Sara said "hi" earlier that Summer, stood at an easel working on a painting.  As I set up my stuff, I seethed a bit with the idea that I was over the whole Sara thing.   Eva talked to a girlfriend for a bit, the girlfriend left, and then Eva and myself occupied the whole studio by ourselves.  Eva started coughing.  She continued to cough for a while.  I took this as a "jump through my hoops" gesture, made a slapping sound with the heel of my palms, as if I were beating my meat, and angrily put my stuff up and left.

What do all three of these incidents have in common?  They all represent me doing, to the best I've ever known how, my very best to get to know someone better, and all of these women tried to pass it off as if my best weren't good enough.  Well, in all three instances, my best was good enough for me, if not for them.  In a post from several weeks back, I talked about how I would like to get to know one such young woman in one of these businesses better in "a perfect world."  I think all three instances I've cited demonstrate that I have the ability, at times, to take advantage of more favorable circumstances that represent the closest thing to a perfect world that I can muster on behalf of getting to know such young women better.  But, apparently, any of these women who try to put some kind of pressure on me in what seems to constitute an effort to get me to really put myself out there somehow don't really seem to care enough about getting to know me better under more favorable circumstances.   

So, no, I won't ask this young woman out at her place of employment, or invite her to one of my musical performances, or give her comic books.  The three instances above illustrate how, in times past, I had the patience and smarts to just let all of that go and see if I could find a better way, and if I couldn't, forget about it.  Because, all three instances above illustrate how none of the woman who, in my opinion, tried to put me in a position where I felt as if I had to stick my neck out in some way, really responded in an acceptable way to overtures that clearly solved whatever bullshit-existential-"flight or fight"- crisis they wanted to try to instill in me in the first place.