When I was eighteen I saw a girl I went on a few dates with in high school.  I initially asked her out because she'd flirted with me, hard, during a class one day.  On my first date with her I kissed her passionately when I let her off at her house.  I'd never kissed a girl like that before.  Soon after I saw her, arm in arm, walking through the halls of school, with her real boyfriend.  It took me a long time to understand what all that was about.  I heard years later that this boyfriend would talk about her in disparaging ways at the time he dated her.  He'd say that he wanted to, "Get rid of her," and shit like that.  I guess she wanted male attention from me that she wasn't getting from this boyfriend.  She probably didn't take me very seriously because I was so easily smitten by her charms.

When I saw her in that club at the age of eighteen, that boyfriend was long out of the picture, but my efforts with her had fizzled as well.  I remember being really depressed that night at seeing her.  I moped about the club not knowing what to do with myself in regard to her.  This as not the first time I'd felt this way.  At times, while still in high school, I'd  taken to driving by her house and walking by her in a lunchroom when I took vocational classes at the old Austin High and she took classes at Austin Community College.  As I'd ritually walk by her table in the lunchroom I'd stare at her and not want to talk to her.

Looking back at how depressed I became over that situation with her, I think about how I could have handled it better.  I never learned how to let go of problematic women until I taught myself how to do that when I was twenty-three in 1988.  That was the whole "What if I turned my back on love?" challenge I laid down for myself in regard to Sara.  That whole approach towards the dilemmas Sara presented to me altered my trajectory as to how I related to women in general from then on.  I consciously revived that experiment in 2012, and it's how I roll with problematic women these days.

Last year I had, by my count, six women represent themselves as interested in me, to a greater or lesser extent, under false pretenses.  I approached a couple of them for social reasons last year.  I don't have a problem with approaching those two women, because I assessed the situations after approaching them and just backed off and went on my way.  Again, I didn't learn how to do that with such women until I was twenty-three years old.

I went to the coffee shop for the first time in a week this morning.  I'd managed six days without patronizing a restaurant or a coffee shop before my trip this morning.  That's pretty good for me.  It was mentally arduous for me to get those six days, too.  I give myself token reward stickers on my calendar when I accomplish a such a goal.  I also give myself a token reward sticker for going to get coffee only once in a day with no further visits there or to a restaurant.

What do I hope to accomplish with this token reward system I have in place?  Well, saving money primarily, but that's not all.  I don't want to be around unavailable women so much, either.   I've thought about that night at that club when I was eighteen, and I want to do better. I don't want to reside in some awful limbo state where I don't know what to do with myself in regard to this or that unavailable woman.  I told myself yesterday that I don't want to walk into such places where cute but unavailable waitresses and baristas work, and where cute twenty-something women hang out, until I've made some concrete, materially manifested decisions about how frequently I go to such places.  I would like to go to such places a LOT less than I normally do these days.  Not only to save money, but to see if I can no longer reside in that awful limbo place where I just don't know what to do with myself in the face of so many desirable yet unavailable young, attractive women.  

Habits such as patronizing favorite restaurants and coffee shops are hard to change, but I've had quite a bit of success already, which I track on my calendars with token rewards.  It probably won't mean anything to the cute yet unavailable waitresses and baristas if I patronize their places of employment a LOT less in the upcoming days, weeks, and months, but it will mean a hell of a lot to ME.  I will save money and I will have material manifestations of my commitment to myself in the form of more time spent on things such as reading, cleaning my apartment, practicing music, and drawing comics.

My last post talked about how I offered the same deal to that former cashier that I'd offered her last summer.  I said that she could date whomever the hell she wants, and that we could just be friends.  I said later on in that post that I might just have to piss up a rope on that offer, because that former cashier might not want to have anything to do with me.  Yeah, that may be, but maybe someone in my world read that post and decided to take me up on that offer.

A week ago, as I patronized a business I regularly patronize, a waitress/ barista type who works there 'fessed up to having a boyfriend.  I took it well, in my opinion, and just had to resign myself to scratching her off as a love interest.  I saw her again at her place of employment yesterday, and she seemed to want to talk to me.   Small talk, yeah, but still.  I thought about all of that today, and I wondered if she'd read my last blog post about that former cashier and the deal I offered.  I wondered if she wanted to see if I'd put my money where my mouth is.

Hell yeah, I'll accept the same deal from that waitress/ barista type that I offered that former cashier.  Hell yeah!  She's fucking gorgeous, too.  Sure, it'll probably be a really circumscribed deal of that nature in that I'll probably only be able to see her and talk to her at her place of employment, but at least what all was going on before between me and her is over and now her real situation is out in the open.  Hell yeah, I'll take that deal.

She's not the only one in my world I'll extend that offer to, either. Last summer I wrote a post about how this one girl at my job seemed to want to help that former cashier be the bane of my existence, still.  I offered this coworker that same deal I offered that former cashier.  The offer still stands for her, too.  SHE can date whomever the hell she wants, too, and we can just be friends as well.  I think that my coworker might be going back to school soon, but yeah, she can come into work and say hi every now and then. That'd be cool.