I've been wrestling with my paranoia demons these past several days. This morning I had the notion that I too often deny my own ability to change people's minds about me, and that lack of confidence in my ability to change people's minds about me can have some disastrous consequences.
I don't need to look any further than "Katie" for proof of that insight. On New Years Eve, 1984 into 1985, Katy said she loved me after I confessed my virgin status to her while on our date. Things shook out over the next couple of weeks in a manner that indicated her love for me had no real basis in reality. I felt cheated out of an opportunity to get laid for the first time, and hurt at getting dumped.
In June of 1985, I called Katie again in hopes of cashing in on the promise she once seemed to offer. After our one date, she came away from the experience thinking that I basically tried to rape her, and I had to take responsibility for my behavior and apologize. That didn't prevent me from having to display a willingness to defend myself in a club in 1986 to male friends of Katie.
When I contacted Katie in the summer of 1985, I think she still felt bad for the way she treated me when we first went out, and she went out with me that one night during the following summer in an effort to make amends the best she could. I, for my part, was all hot to get LAID, and in my quest to do so, I disregarded all of the anger and resentment I felt towards Katie and tried to charge ahead. The resulting date shook out as I described above.
Okay, Katie counts as one example where hindsight allows me to see her in a more forgiving light. Then there exists the case of "Wanda." During a psychotic episode I had at a party where I tried to connect with "Donna" and failed, Wanda came up and laughed in my face, twice. The following weekend, properly chastened and realizing the error of my ways, I ran into Donna at another party and courageously went up and talked to her as if I didn't even really know her, which I didn't. My sly, yet conciliatory approach led to my first (second?) transcendent moment, of which there was hell to pay.
Wanda took an interest in me in the spring semester of 1987, but her need to exert total control over the situation led her to squirrel away a "real" boyfriend while she basically pretended to be my girlfriend. Yada, yada, yada, crude sexual proposition I still find myself having to live down all these years later.
Katie comes off as the more sympathetic of those two to this day, but the way I still played to the idea of the mean Katie in my head on that date of the summer of 1985 just sent everything back into the crapper. I played to the idea of the mean Wanda as well, with much the same results.
If that former cashier, or anyone like her, came around these days, I think the best course of action would involve just being friends with such a person. If someone such as her were to walk up and say hi at the Lost Well or some retail space and act as if they wanted me to ask them out or get their contact info, and I just didn't feel like doing that, that'd be okay by me. I not going to guarantee that I would refuse to perform such an overture, mind you, but I just might not feel right at that time doing so.
I've been wrestling with two or three notions of that former cashier in my head for awhile. One more like Katie, one more like Wanda, and one who is still just out to get me, plain and simple. Yes, so at least three, if not more. So yes, very, VERY modest social goals for such a person. So modest, in fact, that I have no need, as I see it, to further elaborate. I have no desire to send things back to some vicious place with my behavior towards such a person.
I don't need to look any further than "Katie" for proof of that insight. On New Years Eve, 1984 into 1985, Katy said she loved me after I confessed my virgin status to her while on our date. Things shook out over the next couple of weeks in a manner that indicated her love for me had no real basis in reality. I felt cheated out of an opportunity to get laid for the first time, and hurt at getting dumped.
In June of 1985, I called Katie again in hopes of cashing in on the promise she once seemed to offer. After our one date, she came away from the experience thinking that I basically tried to rape her, and I had to take responsibility for my behavior and apologize. That didn't prevent me from having to display a willingness to defend myself in a club in 1986 to male friends of Katie.
When I contacted Katie in the summer of 1985, I think she still felt bad for the way she treated me when we first went out, and she went out with me that one night during the following summer in an effort to make amends the best she could. I, for my part, was all hot to get LAID, and in my quest to do so, I disregarded all of the anger and resentment I felt towards Katie and tried to charge ahead. The resulting date shook out as I described above.
Okay, Katie counts as one example where hindsight allows me to see her in a more forgiving light. Then there exists the case of "Wanda." During a psychotic episode I had at a party where I tried to connect with "Donna" and failed, Wanda came up and laughed in my face, twice. The following weekend, properly chastened and realizing the error of my ways, I ran into Donna at another party and courageously went up and talked to her as if I didn't even really know her, which I didn't. My sly, yet conciliatory approach led to my first (second?) transcendent moment, of which there was hell to pay.
Wanda took an interest in me in the spring semester of 1987, but her need to exert total control over the situation led her to squirrel away a "real" boyfriend while she basically pretended to be my girlfriend. Yada, yada, yada, crude sexual proposition I still find myself having to live down all these years later.
Katie comes off as the more sympathetic of those two to this day, but the way I still played to the idea of the mean Katie in my head on that date of the summer of 1985 just sent everything back into the crapper. I played to the idea of the mean Wanda as well, with much the same results.
If that former cashier, or anyone like her, came around these days, I think the best course of action would involve just being friends with such a person. If someone such as her were to walk up and say hi at the Lost Well or some retail space and act as if they wanted me to ask them out or get their contact info, and I just didn't feel like doing that, that'd be okay by me. I not going to guarantee that I would refuse to perform such an overture, mind you, but I just might not feel right at that time doing so.
I've been wrestling with two or three notions of that former cashier in my head for awhile. One more like Katie, one more like Wanda, and one who is still just out to get me, plain and simple. Yes, so at least three, if not more. So yes, very, VERY modest social goals for such a person. So modest, in fact, that I have no need, as I see it, to further elaborate. I have no desire to send things back to some vicious place with my behavior towards such a person.
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