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That's a great limerick, Byron .

Teratogen ~

Sometimes, just 'using' someone as a backdrop for our thoughts [like your writing me ] is enough for us to bring ourselves our own insights. Perhaps, your writing me/us/whichever/someone else would work in that way. I would love to see you have a girlfriend. As you said, " . . . but then i reminisce that i would have loved to have shared many of my experiences with someone else in my life." That's very true, and you deserve to be with someone for that. I just hope you can be willing to give yourself time . . . as I look at it, it's simply that the one who's 'right' for you hasn't appeared, yet. That may sound corny, but if you ask most people who have been adults for a while, I believe you'll find that there end up being very few they've met and gotten to know who they truly considered were 'right' for them. "If you can't be with the one you love, then love the one you're with" works great in songs, but in reality it comes up a bit short.

~ Lizzy

thank you, kush.

yes, lizzy... stephen stills got the short end of the stick on that one when horny males used it as their m.o. during the 60s when trying to get with tripped out chicks. it was the equivalent to a verbal roofie, i guess you could say. hahaha. a pickup line, more or less.

i've got a limmerick for you, byron.

There once was a man from Nantucket
His dick was so long he could suck it
He said with a grin,
As he wiped off his chin,
"If my ear were a cunt, I would fuck it."

anyway, lizzy, i don't mind sharing everything with everyone, but sometimes it makes me think to myself that i'm only doing it for attention and for pity and sympathy, and i don't want to be looked at that way. or maybe i really am saying all of this for the pity. why else would i post these things? i dunno... i haven't really had a real mother for quite some time, so perhaps i'm doing all this for that nurturing feeling. anyway, it's late here and i don't want to spend an hour just yet on writing part one of my "story." hahaha. perhaps tomorrow.

lizzytysh wrote: but then i reminisce that i would have loved to have shared many of my experiences with someone else in my life." That's very true, and you deserve to be with someone for that. I just hope you can be willing to give yourself time . . . as I look at it, it's simply that the one who's 'right' for you hasn't appeared, yet. That may sound corny, but if you ask most people who have been adults for a while, I believe you'll find that there end up being very few they've met and gotten to know who they truly considered were 'right' for them. "If you can't be with the one you love, then love the one you're with" works great in songs, but in reality it comes up a bit short.

~ Lizzy

T and L, to follow on from lizzie's quote (above) and to explore what you are discussing a bit further, it seems to me that patience is the essential factor in the hope of experiencing what T is hoping for.
Live your life and be surprised when 'someone' appears. It may take time to realise/recognise that someone you know is mutually special. Or, a single meeting will bring two people together.
The first time I saw Margaret I knew I was looking at my future. I was patient and allowed time and events to bring us together.
To be with someone and be able to share your days and experiences is a gift. However, as lizzie has said, when we get older we view life differently. I want to be with Marg in India right now, visiting the places I have dreamt of visiting for years. Alas, my old bones ain't no good for such a venture and so I await, with excited anticipation, to enjoy her holiday, through her, when she returns. Being with someone, doesn't necessarily mean being physically with them. When she's happy I'm happy. when she's sad I'm miserable. I couldn't ask for more.
Going looking for such a union is wasting energy and aspirations. Waiting for it to happen, and not forcing the issue to dominate one's life, is the way to achieve inner peace and true fulfillment, when it finally happens.
HTH

Yes, you're absolutely right, looking leads to altered perceptions, just by the mere fact that you're looking. When a person feels they must look, or when a person 'needs' and wants to be with 'someone' simply because they can't bear to be alone, and ends up being with someone simply for the sake of being with someone, what they find tends to be nowhere near what they need... and they also tend to go from one relationship to the next. Far better to wait and allow what's going to happen, to happen naturally. What they say is so true about going on about your life, doing the things that you enjoy, and when you're enjoying your own life, and not appearing to be desperately seeking someone to make your life enjoyable, you're going to be much more attractive, anyway. I've not gotten the sense that Teratogen has been doing this, at all... i.e. seeking... seeking... seeking. It just seems that he's feeling very discouraged about it all.

When I met my former husband, I felt I was looking at my future, even though I didn't know to, or how to, formulate it in those terms. I was 12 and he was 11, and I was precocious in love. It seems you were precocious, as well, even though your meeting was a few years later... still young.

Okay, enough of that for now . I have my own relationship issues that don't fall into these categories .

~ Lizzy

Hi Teratogen ~

I hope you won't try to second guess yourself into silence. I remain open. PM or on the Forum... just see how you feel and go with it. This is obviously bothering you and has been for a long time. We all need nurturing, and we all have our own, various sources. There are many caring people here and you won't be unfairly judged... at least not by most . And, you know what Dylan says about that.. you can please some of the people... and so on. He's right. Those were great lines for him to give us.

~ Lizzy

it's all good advice, but i don't think that i'm desperately seeking susan or julia or lizzy. hahaha. when there's a particular girl i like, it's not because i WANT to. it just happens. and i get that feeling that that's the girl i want to be with. i don't just pick one at random and try to force myself to like her or anything. anyway...

the first experience with a girl was when i was a child. maybe 4 or 5. some older girl in the same town house association. i don't remember too much except one incident where i became very shy and ran away. actually, that happened twice. i guess there's really nothing to comment on here.

my first real experience i guess was when i was in 4th grade. i used to go to an after school daycare facility, and there was this family that just moved here. this boy was in my grade, he had a little brother, and an older sister, who was in 6th grade. i never had courage to speak to her but i thought she was beautiful. her name was katelyn. i do remember a few things she did to me though. i can't tell you why she did them... but this is what i remember: one time i was sitting at a table drawing, and we used to keep our backpacks and stuff in these cubbies, and she and a friend of hers went to where my backpack was and started opening it. i saw her doing it and was kind of confused and curious, so i stood up and said, "can i help you?" but she didn't respond. her friend was asking her what she was doing. but they didn't see me there at all. she closed it up and left and didn't even see or hear me. i don't remember finding anything missing or added to my backpack but it kept me intrigued. another thing that happened was on the playground. we had this large jungle gym type thing that you climb up stairs and can either go down the fireman pole or the swirly slide. i remember coming down the stairs and she was coming up, and for some reason she reached out and pinched the fat on my hip. first i felt embarassed because i wasn't a skinny kid, but i also felt like saying something. i didn't know whether to say "why'd you do that?" or "you want something else to touch?" she just kept going up, and i went back down. the third thing that happened was when we were doing this outdoor activity in groups. it was some kind of athletic competition which involved foot racing, hurdle jumping (or rather, just trying to clear the benches), and something else that i don't remember too well. but she was picked as a team captain and wound up picking me for her team. don't ask me why. i was a stocky kid and was not athletic whatsoever. i had bad astmah when i was younger, too. i was picked to do the foot race and had to pull one of the male counselors aside to tell him i'd have a hard time running. so instead i did the bench jumping. but i remember when it was my turn she came up to me and put her hands on my shoulders and kind of leaned her head down with her eyes still on me and was giving me words of encouragement. i can't tell you what she said because i was just amazed that a girl would have her hands on me for more than 5 seconds, let alone sticking her face right up close to mine. i don't even remember how well i did. i know i lost, but i don't think i had the worst jump. whatever. anyway... those are the 3 things i remember the most. i remember one time her brother (who actually befriended me) asked me if i liked his sister. in some childish way i denied it, but then later fessed up. then i remember sometime later that this other new kid who came to that school (and was in her grade) was real cool and wild and she started hanging out with him and i remember during our friday movie day the two of them were messing around underneath a blanket in the back of the room. i got upset, but what can ya do?

so this concludes my story for the grade school era. next is junior high. this comes tomorrow night.

anyway, lizzy, i don't mind sharing everything with everyone, but sometimes it makes me think to myself that i'm only doing it for attention

We all post on here to get attention.

and for pity and sympathy,

You don't make us feel pity, There is a difference between pity and compassion. If someone reads your words and pities you it means they (falsely) think they wouldn't feel sad if they didn't have enough love in their lives. Compassion is what we all feel for each other because we're all in the same boat.

and i don't want to be looked at that way. or maybe i really am saying all of this for the pity. why else would i post these things? i dunno... i haven't really had a real mother for quite some time, so perhaps i'm doing all this for that nurturing feeling.

Well, you have engaged my mothering/nurturing instinct, T . And Lizzy's, and others'. May as well make use of it. But, of course, you don't have to write anything just because someone suggests it, it's always entirely up to you.

my first real experience (...) sometime later that this other new kid who came to that school (and was in her grade) was real cool and wild and she started hanging out with him and i remember during our friday movie day the two of them were messing around underneath a blanket in the back of the room. i got upset, but what can ya do?

Some people are lucky enough to feel deeply accepted and valued as young children and believe from the off that others will accept them. Sounds like you did not absorb that feeling of being 'good enough'. I've been there, T. So have many other people.

That is not to say that we do not all fear rejection, but some day you will come to realise that you are completely fine whether or not a certain person likes/accepts/wants to date you etc.

You remember these early experiences in a lot of detail. Maybe there is grief (a mixture of anger and sadness) there that you have yet to allow to rise to the surface? Grief about that whole early experience of 'being rejected' by a girl (sounds like maybe you didn't feel she'd want to be with you, and it was that message you were giving her that put her off?) but also: How angry are you that you didn't get enough good parenting to allow you to feel good about yourself as a young child? How sad are you about the same thing? Don't necessarily answer these questions on here, they are just things to think about, if they 'ring a bell' with you. Just be aware that you have a right to feel angry and sad about these things, if they apply.

They are just some things that occur to me, but sometimes I am guilty of trying to 'look too deep' for an answer; others may have different or more helpful replies.

In any case, it sounds like you allowed that early experience of 'being rejected by a girl' to plant or confirm your false belief that you are not acceptable to girls in general? You are perfectly acceptable.

Take care,

Diane

I was patient and allowed time and events to bring us together.

Good plan. Thats the way it works...and not miss any tricks while you're at it.

diane, i don't believe i had a lack of good parenting. my mother left when i was 6 and my dad did the best he could. in retrospect i realize now that for several years i took for granted a lot of the things my dad did for my sister and i when he was alone. i guess when i was younger i felt that it was expected of him to do these things. but i feel bad for him now. and i hate to be in a position where i make him upset because then i feel i have failed him when he has never failed us. i dunno... i know for a fact that a lot of my problems are genetic because my dad was the same way as i was. he hated parties. he said he was never good in conversations because he was boring and had led no spectacular life or did things in his life that would warrant an interesting conversation. he said he'd always listen to other people talk. he would tell me that when he'd go out with friends they'd have their girlfriends and he always felt like the third wheel, which i have often felt. but it's not like i'm angry at him for this. i just accept it and take it as fate. anyway, on to part two: the junior high school years.

so, after i got out of grade school i had made a few more friends in junior high. i had my best friend, ben, and a few other friends. we'd stick to ourselves, mostly because i think no one else cared about us and because we never expanded our horizon for new members. hahaha. but we'd all sit together during our lunch break and our 15 minute nutrition break. in grade school it was recess, in junior high it was nutrition, and later in high school i think it was just referred to as first break. but we'd all sit together and talk about seinfeld, cartoons, the x-files, and music... and girls. we'd point to girls out and about and say whether or not we'd "do" them. y'know, just a way to say who we thought were the attractive girls. i can still remember most of them. i can go through my yearbook and point them out still. one girl in particular, tiffany, was the one i had my eye on. this was all through 7th and 8th grade. i remember the first time i talked to her. it was the end of 7th grade and we were on our year-end field trip to the beach. i remember how bad that day was because i was an idiot and went into the ocean wearing my glasses and got knocked over by a wave and lost my glasses forever in the ocean. pissed me off. anyway... on our way back to school that late afternoon i was listening to an album by the prodigy on my headphones. she came up to me and asked what i was listening to and i told her. they were my favorite band at the time. she said she loved them and asked if she could listen to my cd and of course, i was so excited i said she could. then we got back to school and she asked if she could borrow it. i agreed. i was partially afraid though because that was the ONLY cd that i cared for and didn't want out of my site. the next day after school was over all the kids waited out in the parking lot for their parents to pick them up and i found her talking amongst all her female friends. i went up to her (and like i do with everybody, i wait until they acknowledge me to speak) and stood there as one of her friends looked at me and said in a disgusting manner, "what do YOU want?" i said, "tiffany borrowed a cd of mine, and she said she'd give it back to me today." so then tiffany looked at me and apologized with sympathy that she forgot to bring it and would bring it the next day. the next day came, and i passed by her, and i know she saw me, but i didn't bring it up... and she didn't bring the cd. a week later i asked her about it again and she said she had left it in her mom's car, and her mom was coming to pick her up, so when she came she'd give me the cd. i would wait late with my friend anyway because we had to wait for his dad to get off work to come pick us up. and that day she was waiting late, too. so, her mom came, but she hopped right in the car and they left. didn't give me the cd. i don't even know if her mom even had it in her car. anyway, i wound up giving up. my best friend, ben, felt sorry for me and gave me his copy of the cd, said he knew how much i loved that cd. i thanked him, and that was it.

8th grade came around and there were 2 interactions i had with tiffany that year. in the middle of the year ben and i were waiting for his dad to come one day after school. a friend of his that he played football with, pat, came around and asked for a ride. i knew pat somewhat, and i thought he was cool, but he was very wild, vulgar, and popular. he was a tough kid. one of the kinds of kids i wouldn't want to mess with but never understood why he thought i was an okay kid. but he and ben were close friends in grade school. so, i had no objections to the guy or anything. anyway, tiffany was waiting and came up to us. however, she spoke to pat and neither me nor ben. she asked pat whoever was picking him up if she could hitch a ride, too. pat looked at ben for approval, and ben looked at me because he knew i liked tiffany. ben said it was okay, then pat told her it was okay, and she said, "thank you, thank you, thank you!" and gave pat this big hug. it made me feel very unworthy. here's the case again of another cool, wild kid getting the pretty girl. so, ben's dad came and picked us all up. i sat in the back of his truck with pat, and i believe it was ben up front with tiffany. but we went to drop her off first, and i remember when she got out of the truck i just blurted out, "come again!" kind of like we had just serviced a customer or something. then everyone just stared at me. ben's dad started laughing and said, "did you just say that??" i kind of chuckled myself, but ben's dad pointed out that it was just odd of me to say that especially since i was the most soft-spoken kid out of that group. then ben made it public in the car on the way back that i had a crush on her. i guess i didn't mind it, but i know that when i was younger i made a big deal out of not telling anybody about what girl i liked.

my second encounter with her that year was at the end of the year. all my buddies dogged me every day for the last few weeks of school to get her to sign my yearbook. i wanted to do it, too. i wanted to do it but didn't have enough courage to do it, nor did i have enough to convince me that i SHOULD do it. however, i did eventually wind up doing it. i was always afraid of going up to her when her friends were around.

....

as i went for my yearbook to copy what she wrote me, i couldn't find her entry. then i picked up my 7th grade year book and found it in there. i think i've got some stuff confused. unless this all happened in 7th grade and i just forgot.... instead of going back through my story and editing everything, i figured it'd be easier to just post this here. so, i guess this all happened in 7th grade and nothing happened in 8th grade then. oh well. that's fine. however, to introduce her entry into my 7th grade yearbook, let me explain that when i was in junior high i used to wear gimmicky t-shirts. one was bright orange with alien faces on it, a lot were cartoon-related... just horrible shirts that i barely recall. but one that i remember most (and still own somewhere) is a white shirt with blue collar and sleeves that had homer simpson on it. in big red letters it said "WOO HOO!" above his picture. anyway, i had to prep for what she wrote. here it is, in all its punctuation-less glory: "Hi Homer woo woo you sexy thing you give me rides as you did last time if you know what I mean <3 Tiffany Horvat," and she also gave me her phone number. needless to say, i never called her. i was confused by this message for obvious reasons. i was frightened, too, BECAUSE of my confusion. i didn't know what to do and i was afraid that i was either being had, or that i would fuck it up somehow. it was just a mess. my buddies laughed and congratulated me, but i was bewildered.

anyway... there was another girl in 8th grade. this also happened at the end of the year. i began talking to this girl on the internet named rachel. we realized that we both went to the same school. she wanted me to come talk to her one day, but i told her that i didn't want to. she was one of the girls i had told my buddies i'd "do." hahaha. so, naturally, i was afraid because she was too hot for me to be talking to in person. anyway... during that last quarter (because instead of semesters we had 4 quarters) i was a student aid for one of my electives. i remember the teacher had me deliver a message to the office one day, and on my way there i saw rachel walking around outside during class-time, possibly to use the bathroom or visit her locker or something. but she didn't see me, and i was walking right behind her for some time before i went another direction. i was creeped out. i didn't know if i should say something. i wussed out and said nothing. however, the year had finally ended, and during 8th grade i never spoke to her in person. but we still talked on the internet all the time. however, this all changed once we got to high school... and that will be saved for my next story. hope you had fun reading this novel. hahaha.

Hi T,

diane, i don't believe i had a lack of good parenting (... ) but it's not like i'm angry at him for this.

OK. I'm not meaning to infer any criticism of your father, and it sounds like he did a wonderful job with you and your sister. But if he believed he was no good at conversation, boring and so on, he would have passed this on to you by example, not by genetics. Some personality traits might be genetic, but attitudes and beliefs are learnt, are often untrue and self-sabotaging, and can be changed. You might have inherited an introverted personality, but that does not equal boring, usually quite the reverse. Your mother leaving when you were six must have been quite upsetting to say the least. The reason I mention these things is because so much of how we feel and behave, and the things we believe, derive from our early significant relationships. That's not just a myth, it's the truth. But I should change the record, and read what you say.

...lost my glasses forever in the ocean .

Sounds like poetry .

I doubt that anybody gets through their young years without feeling bad about things like the ride home incident you describe. It was mean of Tiffany not to return your CD. It makes me feel angry with her (and her friends with their unpleasant attitude), for not respecting your things enough to bother returning them.

i had to prep for what she wrote. here it is, in all its punctuation-less glory: "Hi Homer woo woo you sexy thing you give me rides as you did last time if you know what I mean <3 Tiffany Horvat," and she also gave me her phone number. needless to say, i never called her. i was confused by this message for obvious reasons. i was frightened, too, BECAUSE of my confusion. i didn't know what to do and i was afraid that i was either being had, or that i would fuck it up somehow. it was just a mess. my buddies laughed and congratulated me, but i was bewildered.

Well, maybe her mates were egging her on to write something like that, and she also knew your mates would be reading what she wrote. So, she was 'writing for an audience' and not only for you. I doubt she would have written her phone number if she did not want you to call, but sometimes it is hard to infer motivations. She would have had her own worries and insecurities too, remember. If she was just playing games to wind you up, it was unkind of her.

T, you will grow in confidence as you get older. You have a lot to say, and I'm by no means the only person on this board who is saying that to you, either directly or indirectly. Also, a man who is open about the way he feels and who writes poetry and music is very attractive to women, believe me (look at Leonard Cohen, for example). You lack only one thing, a certain belief in yourself. Maybe you are following your father's lead on this. But you can change. Don't accept it's "just the way you are".

I'm off for a few days again. I expect you'll have written your entire autobiography by the time I return. Did you get with Rachel in high school? I'll have to wait to find out.

Take care,

Diane

Diane wrote:OK. I'm not meaning to infer any criticism of your father, and it sounds like he did a wonderful job with you and your sister. But if he believed he was no good at conversation, boring and so on, he would have passed this on to you by example, not by genetics. Some personality traits might be genetic, but attitudes and beliefs are learnt, are often untrue and self-sabotaging, and can be changed. You might have inherited an introverted personality, but that does not equal boring, usually quite the reverse. Your mother leaving when you were six must have been quite upsetting to say the least. The reason I mention these things is because so much of how we feel and behave, and the things we believe, derive from our early significant relationships. That's not just a myth, it's the truth. But I should change the record, and read what you say.

i am VERY aware of this. however, it's not like i witnessed my dad in conversations. i did not learn that. it was only after i broke down one day and he talked to me in private about what he used to be like at my age did i understand that i had been just like him. i'm sure things like this can be changed, but it will be much harder because of the genetics. he only claimed to be boring. who knows if he really was. i don't think that i'm boring. i like to believe that i can hold a conversation with just about anyone, but that doesn't mean i'm a ladykiller or anything. anyway...

here is part one of my high school story. i went to two different high schools (changed schools because i wanted to), and spent 2 years at each place. this part recounts my first two years of high school.

okay, so when high school started most of my friends went to another school because of the boundary difference. the only person that came with me was my best friend ben. and just for reference, tiffany did not go to the same school as me. anyway, in 9th grade i was still speaking to rachel on the internet. we found that we had a lot of things in common, and i was trying to win her over, but it wasn't really happening. i hadn't really come out and told her that i liked her. not just yet at least. but i was having a hard time my first year of high school. i wanted to hang out with my friend but he had joined the football team and wanted to hang around his jock buddies. naturally, during our lunch breaks and stuff he'd be hanging around them and enganging in conversations while i would just stand there with him and not talk at all. i could not relate to anything these guys were talking about. getting with girls, cars, playing football, being aggressive, things like that. but i wanted to be with my friend. i really didn't have anybody else. of course, there were acquaintances and stuff, kids i'd met in class, and some of the jocks i had gone to grade school with, so some of them would say hi to me and have small conversations, but nothing more than that. in fact, i'd get picked on a few times here and there. it came down to guys that were good in my book, guys that were alright, and guys that i hated. at least there were only a few that i hated, but enough to get on my nerves every day. i wasn't afraid of them, but i was annoyed. in fact, i stepped up to one of them one day. some girls were messing around throwing food at each other. i believe it was one of those packaged apple pies. and these were the jocks' girls, so they'd hang around with them, too. anyway, this pie hit me on the shoulder on a day that i was wearing a brand new t-shirt. and this one asshole jock said, "sucks to be you!" so i walked up to him and rubbed my shoulder all over his jersey and he just shoved me away. i didn't say anything to him, but he was pissed. hahaha.

anyway, it was during one quarter of high school where i shared the same elective with rachel. it was some kind of computer programming class. we were learning c++. if any of you know what that is, then good for you, but all i got to say is that IT SUCKS. DON'T EVER ATTEMPT TO LEARN IT. i did terribly in that class. but i did finally start talking to rachel in person. one day i went for broke and (not in person, but on the internet) i asked her out. she said she "didn't like me that way." i later found out she didn't think i was attractive. i asked her if that's what it was and she said yes. mind you, i was a chubby kid, had short hair, wore glasses, blah blah blah. actually, now that i think about it, i got my first pair of contact lenses in 9th grade. but whatever... it doesn't matter. anyway, i figured i'd failed and was afraid to talk to her, but she still wanted to be friends and i didn't have a problem with it, so we remained friends. but i do remember feeling jealous because of this guy she eventually got with. i didn't personally know the guy but i told her i didn't think he was good for her and i told her i didn't like him at all. of course, she just disregarded my advice and kept seeing him. suffice it to say she got her heart broken and apologized to me for not listening to me when i told her to watch out. but then she got with another guy that she had known since childhood. i guess it was one of those things where they were bound to be together at some point. of course, this is high school and is often the point in people's lives where they first experience sex. and of course, she confided in me that she had been sexually active with him and i got really jealous. not only that, but i remember how i felt about the whole sex thing. and diane, when you asked me if there was something i once believed and it is completely different now... well, i just remembered that this is one of them. i used to thing sex was so important, that it should be held on a pedestal and be romantic and should be saved for someone very important and special and so on. maybe it was only because i had never gotten anywhere with a girl yet and also because i wanted to be with rachel and couldn't. but i got over that notion very quickly, and i'll get to that later.

anyway, 9th grade ended and ben had moved away. just like the guys i considered to be my best friends in grade school (there were 2), he had moved away. he didn't move that far, just to marina del rey, near the beach, but it was obviously too far to go to the same school still. also during the summer after 9th grade i moved as well. my dad got remarried and we all moved into her house. i would have had to go to another school but i filled out this petition-type thing to be able to stay at the same school. and to my surprise they actaully let me stay. however, i really had no one close to me anymore there. i had rachel and that was it. she said i could hang out with her and her friends during 10th grade, and so i did. fuck the jocks. i had nothing to do with them and vice versa. so i hung out with rachel and her friends, but honestly, not much had changed. i had known some of her friends from junior high or from grade school, but they all talked amongst themselves and no one ever initiated conversation with me except if i was the only one around or if they were bored with their own friends. i talked to rachel most of the time but she would always be hanging around her boyfriend. i remember just sitting there, drinking my soda during lunch, and then just listening to other people talking or observing people elsewhere on campus. i learned a LOT about people just from these observations. and i guess even in 9th grade i learned a lot from just listening to other people talk and stuff. even early on in grade school when i had NO friends, i would spend my recess leaning up against a brick wall watching other kids play. during lunch i'd just wander around by myself in those days, not playing with any of the other kids. but over the years i had observed so much about others just by listening and watching. and in 10th grade, even though rachel accepted me into her group, it was still the same.

i remember back in 9th grade i had told her that i wrote poetry. i began writing the year before, in 8th grade. mostly it began as silly things. toilet humor, trying to be funny for the most part, and plagiarizing bands and artists that i'd listen to that i knew nobody else listened to. i let her borrow my notebooks because she said she wrote too and wanted to read my stuff. when she'd give me one of them back i'd give her another notebook. to this day i still own them all except one (which i lent to my friend's girlfriend and after they broke up i never saw it again. that particular book detailed every aspect of my one and only relationship, which i will get to soon). there's about 13 or 14 of them total. but anyway, i had noticed that she wrote messages on some of the poems. not so much a "review," but she'd tell me if she liked it and say if it reminded her of something. i dunno, i really liked that. it showed that she was actually reading them and not just skimming through it all. i would always look forward to her comments. i think by this time she had been in 4 different relationships with other guys, and never me, all while she knew i liked her. of course, over time my feelings were kind of suppressed and i just considered her my friend instead of a romantic interest.

at one point, when she did not have a boyfriend, i asked her to come with me to my aunt's wedding. i bought her earrings for christmas and told her she could wear them to the wedding. she did actually come. but she was asking about my cousin because she thought he was attractive. i asked her to dance several times but she didn't want to. my other family members were surprised that i actually had a girl with me. they thought she was my girlfriend and everything. i think rachel wasn't too happy about that. but she sat in her chair at the table the whole time and hardly moved around. i forget the name of the garment that the bride wears around her leg that the groom tosses, but i remember i was the one that caught it. it was funny. i got up and played some of the games that the dj had for the kids and stuff, and it was fun, but she wouldn't do anything with me. i remember them playing all these love songs, of course, and i'd just stare at her, even though she was staring out into space in some other direction. i was kind of upset that she came but didn't want to do anything.

anyway, one night i had this dream that brough all those feelings i had for her back to the forefront. in my dream her and i were at my old house shooting hoops. i used to have a backboard above my garage door and would shoot hoops often. anyway, it was bright and sunny outside, we were shooting hoops, and i remember that in the dream the ball bounced away into my front yard. i remember that i went to go after the ball, but she grabbed my shirt and as i turned around she pulled me into her and kissed me, and then i put my arms around her and embraced the kiss. i woke up feeling like shit. it was a great dream, but i knew that it would only cause me heartache. a while later i finally came clean to her about the dream, and i told her that the dream had brought back a lot of the feelings i had for her before. she again told me that she didn't like me that way and ever since that moment things went downhill. she stopped talking to me as much as she used to. she got back with her childhood sweetheart guy or whatever. i began to feel more lonely than ever. i remember getting back the last poetry notebook i'd ever let her borrow. there was a poem in there that she thought was about her. in fact.... let me search for it right now....

...upon looking through this poetry book i find that a lot of the comments she left were contrary to things that she'd leave before. for instance, we shared a lot of common interests and beliefs, but i wrote something about god being torturous and she said she disagreed and that she was a born again christian. this made no sense because she never mentioned a damn thing about this before and had in fact talked about being an atheist with me before.

ah, i found it. the poem is called "my guilt," and i wrote about guilt, but used it in the form of a female. i called it "her" and "she." at the end of the poem i refer to "her" as my best friend. well, rachel's comment was towards that line. she wrote, and i quote: "Me? Jason, I'm sorry, but I don't consider you best friend... all we basically do is talk online. Sorry." i noticed here that the very next poem i wrote was about that dream i had. it's terribly titled "I Had A Dream (The Answer To All Your Questions)." Here is an excerpt:

You looked at me
I looked at you
You realized who I was
And I could see it, too
Realized what I've done for you
Realized what more I could do
Recognized I was here and there
Realized I was the only one to ever care

Forgot that other guy
Forgot everything else
You noticed how I love you
And I forgot myself
You reached your arms all the way around
Picked up your eyes to stare me down
Lodged your lips close to mine
And that was the end of time

All those feelings rushed back into me
Now everywhere I look you're all I see
These are the answers to everything you've asked
And I hope your feelings aren't like they were in the past

anyway, you can tell it's more juvenile than anything i've posted her. but i thought that was the best part of the entire thing, which is about 2 pages long. anyway, she left this comment saying "I still don't know how u could have feelings 4 me.. u don't even know me that well." now, it had been about a year and a half that i'd known her, and we used to talk on the internet ALL the time, not to mention during class and during lunch and stuff. i am looking now... after all the poems i used to write little things here and there towards the end of the notebook. just lines, stuff i'd made up, or portions of lyrics from songs i liked. on the very last page, at the bottom, i wrote in pencil (very lightly), "Rachel is user friendly," referring to a marilyn manson song called "User Friendly" about, well, being used for emotional gain. she didn't comment on it, but perhaps she didn't see it.

one day, after all this happened, i had a wild thought. during lunchtime i sat there like always, listening to other people talk, not being acknowledged by anyone. i drank my soda. then i got up. grabbed my backpack. and i left. i went up to the school library and stayed there for the duration of lunch break. and every day for the rest of 10th grade i sat by myself in quiet in the library, just reading or writing. and i stopped talking to rachel because i figured she didn't want anything to do with me anymore so i thought if she wanted to talk to me i'd let her say something first. and she never did. so that was the end of that. however, things would change drastically for me after this point. i was going to continue with it here as part of my first 2 years of high school but i see i've already written more than i thought i would, so i guess i'll save it for tomorrow night. just for reference though, all this takes place in a year and a half. between 9th grade and halfway through 10th. i had one more semester at that school and it was one of the most fucked up experiences of my life. until next time....

Hi Jason,

(I was glad to be reminded of your real name in your last post.)

i am VERY aware of this. however, it's not like i witnessed my dad in conversations. i did not learn that. it was only after i broke down one day and he talked to me in private about what he used to be like at my age did i understand that i had been just like him. i'm sure things like this can be changed, but it will be much harder because of the genetics. he only claimed to be boring. who knows if he really was. i don't think that i'm boring. i like to believe that i can hold a conversation with just about anyone, but that doesn't mean i'm a ladykiller or anything. anyway...

I didn't think you thought you were boring. But you are talking about how you have been rejected or how you are all always expecting to be rejected. My meaning was more that genetics does not make you unloveable/boring/(any other negative characteristic). And when I meant you'd have learnt by example I meant more in the sense that you may have identified with the way your father felt about himself (which was at least somewhat negatively from what you say), from your day-to-day interactions. However, you would know best whether that may have any truth to it, of course.

Mostly, I can't help wondering what it was like for that little boy of six when his Mother left.

i could not relate to anything these guys were talking about. getting with girls, cars, playing football, being aggressive, things like that

It's great to be different from the crowd, isn't it? But lonely sometimes, yes.

anyway, this pie hit me on the shoulder on a day that i was wearing a brand new t-shirt. and this one asshole jock said, "sucks to be you!" so i walked up to him and rubbed my shoulder all over his jersey and he just shoved me away. i didn't say anything to him, but he was pissed. hahaha.

Good for you. (I assume you mean he was pissed off, and not that he was drunk. Sorry, I know you Americans can't help it that you can't speak English properly .)

high school and is often the point in people's lives where they first experience sex. and of course, she confided in me that she had been sexually active with him and i got really jealous. not only that, but i remember how i felt about the whole sex thing. and diane, when you asked me if there was something i once believed and it is completely different now... well, i just remembered that this is one of them. i used to thing sex was so important, that it should be held on a pedestal and be romantic and should be saved for someone very important and special and so on. maybe it was only because i had never gotten anywhere with a girl yet and also because i wanted to be with rachel and couldn't. but i got over that notion very quickly, and i'll get to that later.

Well, I'm glad you can see that it is possible to change a deeply held belief, when you notice and accept evidence to the contrary. But why polarise what you think sex should be? Maybe sex can mean different things at different times, even with the same person.

ah, i found it. the poem is called "my guilt," and i wrote about guilt, but used it in the form of a female. i called it "her" and "she." at the end of the poem i refer to "her" as my best friend. well, rachel's comment was towards that line. she wrote, and i quote: "Me? Jason, I'm sorry, but I don't consider you best friend... all we basically do is talk online. Sorry.

How was guilt your "best friend"? Is there something about a feeling of guilt that you associate with girls/women? Do you feel, in general, that you have done something wrong that you need to be forgiven for?

" i noticed here that the very next poem i wrote was about that dream i had. it's terribly titled "I Had A Dream (The Answer To All Your Questions)." Here is an excerpt:

You looked at me
I looked at you
You realized who I was
And I could see it, too
Realized what I've done for you
Realized what more I could do
Recognized I was here and there
Realized I was the only one to ever care

Forgot that other guy
Forgot everything else
You noticed how I love you
And I forgot myself
You reached your arms all the way around
Picked up your eyes to stare me down
Lodged your lips close to mine
And that was the end of time

All those feelings rushed back into me
Now everywhere I look you're all I see
These are the answers to everything you've asked
And I hope your feelings aren't like they were in the past

Your poem and your dream, and the dashed hopes you expressed with both of them, are very sad. I'm sorry you felt so lonely at this time in your life.

then i put my arms around her and embraced the kiss

You noticed how I love you
And I forgot myself

You wanted those things so much. I can imagine how bad you would have felt.

Taking an objective view, what I'm reading, Jason, is that you tried to get with Tiffany, even though she didn't really want to be with you, and you sensed that relative lack of interest from the beginning. Ditto with Rachel. What do you think?

i had one more semester at that school and it was one of the most fucked up experiences of my life. until next time....

I'm listening...

Take care,

Diane

first off, my relationship with tiffany was nothing. it was a chance encounter and the only thing that makes me remember it is just the simple fact that i had a crush on her. if it were some other girl i might not have remembered it so much (save the fact that my favorite cd from that time is the subject). i only spoke to her maybe on 3 or 4 occassions in my life, and for very short durations. she had NO idea whatsoever that i had a crush on her. so it's not like she could have denied me on purpose without knowing this information. but i was always afraid of rejection anyway. mainly because of who i was and how i looked. i gave in to the pressure that most women still give in to today, and that's the idea of beauty. i was not the typical guy and i did not look it, therefore i figured my chances were nil and would be that way forever. i am still the same--very atypical--but i've learned really now that i'm older that things are different. even when the rest of the world is older everything is different for them too. i can't really go into more of the story tonight seeing as i have to be up in 5 hours for work--BLAAH!!!! but i just wanted to comment on the other things you said, diane.

but as far as the guilt thing goes, i honestly can't remember why i wrote that poem. it was probably some specific thing that happened where i felt guilty about saying or doing something towards rachel and was sorry that i did so. that's all. i forget really. and when i was 14 or 15 i don't think i can say that my idea of sex was a "deeply held belief." i do believe, however, that i only thought of sex that way because i had never experienced it and that i wanted to get to that point with rachel. y'know what i mean? i viewed it as the pinnacle of a relationship, and i only dreamed that i could make it that far with rachel, but much to my dismay, i barely scratched her surface and got absolutely nowhere. i've learned a very tough lesson in the past 15 years... HIGH HOPES WILL KILL YOU. once you start having fantasies and play out things in your mind about how the perfect interactions will be, you start believing that it will happen just that way. and when it doesn't, you become so disheartened and devastated and that is major pain for the psyche and for the idea of advancement in ANY relationship.

OK. It is a little out of order of me to get so ‘analytical’ about your memories. Yes, I understand that you wanted sex to be special with Rachel, of course. But you didn’t even get as far as getting her to be really interested in you. You must have felt so hopeless about the whole thing.

Jason, you really are perfectly acceptable the way you are. The problem you had or have about how you look is in your imagination. Who/what do you think you should look like, and who wants to look or be "typical" anyway? Also, as you know, there are a number of other qualities apart from physical looks that are important in being attractive to someone.

When the way you feel about yourself changes, you will find it easier to form relationships. It's all to do with the subtle body language cues you give out. Another factor is that if you still have emotional pain that has yet to surface (I don't know that you have, but I guess that you might), you will unconsciously be looking for someone who will help you to replay a situation similar to the one(s) that originally caused the pain. The mind is a weird apparatus.

15 years ago when your Mother left, you did learn a tough lesson. But the high hopes you had were ones you had and have a right to have. You Needed and Deserved to have your Mother love and care for you when you were a child, and also for her, or someone, to really “see” who you were. Every person born on this earth needs and deserves these things. Her leaving like that would have been devastating to you.

It is remarkably brave of you to write about your experiences on here, Jason. I’ll try to read the next instalment without reading things into it; I know I am annoying you a bit by doing this because you just want to tell your story. Go ahead.

Take care,

Diane

no no, it's fine. say whatever you want. and i know what you mean about looks aren't everything. i'm not that naive. but i'm saying when i was younger i most certainly was. however, i can't give everyone in the world the benefit of the doubt that they are individual thinkers. what i mean by this is that both guys and girls alike are essentially TOLD what is beauty and who they should be going after. know what i mean? women read magazines that tell them what they should look like. men have magazines like that too. then men look at the women's magazines because the women in them are good looking. girls do the same thing, though probably not to a great extent. what i'm saying is that even if a girl finds things other than looks to be attractive in a male, it by no means denotes that she will require it. most often times if the good looks are there then everything else can be forgotten about for the time being. plus... back in high school, if you're a member of the cheerleading squad and you are dating someone that's NOT a jock--or worse, someone ugly and nerdy, then you're gonna get tons of shit from your fellow cheerleaders and their jock boyfriends. and who wants that? so, it's almost like a pressure thing in some cases for pretty girls to only date the handsome, rugged guys.

the thing about my mother is really not all that important to this story of rejection. of course, it very well could be. but i'm not trying to get that deep just yet. you all only asked me to go over all the girls that have rejected me in the past... i guess my mother may have been the first. but it doesn't matter.... i did not have high hopes about my mother coming back. so i don't think the high hopes thing applies to her. it was only to girls i wanted desperately to get with. anyway, i'll return later this evening to get back to my sophomore year in high school.