(no subject)

I had a dream about Val.

In the dream we met at her house - wherever that is. At first I think it was just friendly, but she made advances and I reciprocated. It never made it to sex, but just about everything else. She was pregnant (again?) but not -too- far along. It actually felt really good - really right. What sucks is that nothing has ever really come close to the way I felt about her, really. There was something deep and meaningful about the love I had for her.

***I don't care about all these stupid concepts in this world - about what relationships are when young, about how hardly any of them make it. The real truth is that this society is sick...because it pressures people to leave what they have in seek of greater riches (the grass is always greener.) But is it really greener? Nothing really touched on the kind of dynamic I had with Valerie. I really felt something special there. Why the fuck did she throw it away? Did she really not feel it, too - does she not have these dreams herself? Did all of the other men she's been with invalidate it?***

About the time we started getting really close with each other, two people returned to the house. Her dad, Tom Glotz, and Fred Freeman - pretty much, the highest level boss I deal with on a regular basis. Head of maintenance at the refinery. He enters the house first - when he sees us together, I inherently -know- he disapproves, and he also gestures his disapproval. I pretty much just get up and get ready to go. She pulls me further into the house instead. But even that privacy is short lived - more people start showing up. People from my past, some of them. A pool table is put together. I get chosen to play, with a teammate (an old schoolmate and occasionally acquaintance now.) The other team, I can't remember exactly - I think it was someone I tried to hit in the dream as soon as I saw him (a Smithers kid...someone who I really, really hated throughout high school.) He managed to get me to stop before I went through with it...but all of this is meaningless, because pool never gets played. All it served to do was further drive a wedge between myself and my focus in the dream - Val.

About that time, something happens and people start piling outside. At this point the dream manufactures how I got there - I parked a very long distance away. It even manufactures the memory of me doing so, even though I'm pretty sure in the dream, I never did park anywhere to get to the house in the first place. I watch in what amounts to some level of horror, thinking back on it, as Val gets into the back of a pickup truck with about six other people - I think all guys - and I wave a bit of a sorrowful wave. She goes off, never to be seen again.

Things start heating up at the house. There's police involved. Now I'm suddenly intoxicated or concerned about being caught, for whatever reason - maybe under agers, maybe I'm underage in the dream...who knows. Pagan's Mind is playing on someone's CD player, and I knew it was my CD - I had to get my CDs. I was already well away from the house...I ran all the way back. The feeling of suspense of an impending, life-altering doom was everywhere. I found my CDs...but I didn't have time to get Pagan's Mind. I grabbed them...along with a bunch of what looked to be fake monopoly money (but it seemed to me at the time, that it represented real money...to someone.) And high-tailed it out of there.

Up a long hill that was nothing like South Carver street but like it all the same. At the top, I see hardhat wearing policeman (SWAT?) coming from the right side of the intersection. I put myself up as close against the wall as I can...and luckily they don't see me. So I hold my breath and move forward into the intersection...to find barricades and construction ongoing. I have no choice but to cross and dodge through the obstacles to get to the bridge.

This bridge has occurred in my dream many times. It is built like a concrete corridor, not very high, but wide, and falling apart. The middle of the bridge in particular is completely collapsed, at least very nearly. I traverse it as fast as I can. But when I reach the other side, I realize, I have gone too far. I have to go back.

I'm now in an alien world, however. Red metal dominates the landscape. No life to be seen. I run to my left, hoping that where I parked my car was there, but it was only a similar spot...it was not the same. I'd have to go back across the bridge and to the right to get to it. About that time, an alien guard steps out of one of the metal structures and starts running at me. I turn back and find a chasm between me and the entry system for the bridge, which had coincidentally appeared to stop my escape. I make a leap of faith and barely get across the chasm, and turn around and see the guard landing behind me, but barely. I had to make a choice between pushing him off to certain death, or saving time and escaping a little faster. I chose the latter. Through the entry system I went, sliding down slight incline piping filled with some sort of liquid, probably sewage. When I get to the end of the slide, the middle of the bridge is no better - someone is there, and turns down the level of lubrication in the next set of piping. He tells me it helps a bit. I proceed to enter...and the dream ends.

The goal was not met and I am not satisfied.

But the most important aspect of this dream was Val, and I never went back to her. My escape, I'm sure, on some level, was me trying to find her and get back with her by first getting to my car. But so many obstacles got in the way. Everything that possibly could.

Something I posted on a self help website

“Socially Awkward” is a value judgment which is subjective. Let me point out something. You make a claim at the top of this page that any person can effectively “make smooth conversation with anyone.” This is an impossibility. Doesn’t matter how capable of a conversationalist, how charismatic, how good looking you are. Doesn’t matter what social status you have, or what social cues you are providing. Not everyone is going to respond to you smoothly – particularly if they don’t really have any fucking interest in what you have to say. And sorry to say, but, what most people talk about – namely themselves – I don’t have much a fucking interest in. I have interest in ideas, in events, in things bigger than man in his little time capsule. I like to theory craft. I don’t like to talk about mundane life experiences. So no, in the charismatic, middle of the bell curve, average world – not only am I different, but I’ve really no interest in participating in the little, ignorant power games. I’ve watched people try to play the charismatic part – it’s fucking retarded. Being yourself is far more respectable.

What really pisses me off about self-help websites and books is that they feed off of people who already have this premise developed inside of themselves that there is something WRONG with them. There’s nothing fucking WRONG with ANYONE! Unless you are, say, immoral, sociopathic, selfish, violent, inconsiderate, self-indulgent, self-righteous…a list of negative attributes goes on. These attributes are present in all of us but they are usually on very minor levels – some people express them very significantly – these are the people who have something wrong with them.

Having a lot of real friends is pretty rare. There are people out there who manage to build a network of thousands of people – but none of these people can conceivably be all that interested in the one person. The interactions necessary to build a long-lasting, meaningful rapport are too time consuming, and too circumstance dependent to be fabricated. Just think about it – if you’ve been on a few dates with a few different people, and it didn’t work out, did those ten or twenty total hours together result in you staying lifelong friends? What about all the nameless people you had an hour long conversation with at a party or get-together, only to never remember their name, and possibly never come across them again? (and if you got their number, eventually you hardly ever talk – because you’re already up keeping a number of other relationships?)

For those reading this site, you need to ask yourself:
Do you WANT surface-level interactions with people? Do you have the energy and interest level necessary to continue doing that for extensive periods of time, which is basically the underlying premise of any self-help or networking strategy? Most people who might consider themselves socially awkward PROBABLY withdrew for the very reason that they did not want to waste vital time and energy on what amounts to very brief, quite meaningless interactions with people.

Do you WANT to be like these people that you haven’t really enjoyed interacting with? Do you want to be the person that intimidates, causes anxiety, gets in others’ personal space for the sake of pleasing the middle of the bell curve? Think about it – if you become that person, you will only alienate the people who are like you RIGHT NOW. THOSE are the people that you need to seek out! THOSE are the people who /NEED YOU/. The middle of the bell curve, the average, the normal – these people don’t need us, and they’ve made it annoyingly apparent for our entire lives. You are the way you are because people treated you like shit. Those people are the bane of the planet. And you know it deep down.