05-10-2021, 11:45 AM
This is a repost of a thread I began during the time that spammers ruthlessly invaded this webpage. It got lost in the shuffle at the time and no doubt got deleted along with the huge volume of spam that surfaced at the time. The title of this thread is what I would title my autobiography if I ever were to write on. It has only been recently that I became familiar with the word misogyny, which is an obsessive hatred toward women. Well, I was the opposite of a misogynist, one who liked women too much, and it did get me in trouble at various times. Sometimes it cost me on jobs even though there were no sexual harassment laws yet at the time and I was never guilty of anything approaching that anyway even though I often developed attractions toward female coworkers. Before those laws were passed I believe that the bosses were able to get away with quite a bit but was not the case for the rank and file workers.
I tried going to places such as singles bars which were very much in vogue at the time with mostly miserable results. I was usually the one who got approached by the bouncers even if I struck up a conversation about something as innocent as the weather. I ended up figuring out that the establishments were a waste of four things--time, money, energy and sanity--perhaps the latter even more than the first three. I seldom was able to get anyone on the dance floor during my infrequent excursions into that world. Later on I found organized singles dances, which most of the time were more fruitful in the early years but as time went along it seemed as though the ladies were a lot choosier about who they would even accept a dance from. Seldom did I get paired off toward the end of the dance as was commonplace. I also joined a plethora of inexpensive dating services before most got so ridiculously expensive when the whole yuppie thing it.
Social life was top dog for many years of my life, and while credit scores didn't even exist at the time or at least weren't widely advertised, I lived on the edge in many ways and was even threatened a couple of time with car repossession and even apartment eviction because I wanted to make sure I had enough money for pleasure and a great social life. Usually I didn't scrimp on food but even that I did on occasion. It wasn't until I was probably around that I learned that there is a word for this type of person who puts pleasure above all else--a hedonist. It doesn't have to be sexual pleasure but that seems to be usually what is assumed when the word is used.
It is often said that we are called to follow our dream(s). And I had a great dream of being the supreme ladies' man who could get almost any women he wanted. That part felt flat on its face early on. In trying to make dates I had a ratio of about ten nos for every yes, a stat that made me horribly disillusioned. The obsession was no doubt spawned by the fact that I was socially isolated in a boarding school from ten years of age and into my twenties. I was 26 before I had my first real date, and the feeling of life having passed me by went through the stratosphere and no doubt led to my obsession. I joined a social group primarily for single people with mixed results. I ended up getting called on the carpet for things that I felt most of the other men in the group got by with fairly easily. At that time not much was known about Asperger's, and I often felt that much was kept hidden for me. Wasn't till the 1990s that the condition became more widely known, and because diagnosis wasn't available before then I am not sure I ever was really diagnosed. Yet on an Internet test I took a while back where if you score 32 points or higher you're considered an Aspie, I scored a 31 which has to make me at least a borderline case. And have often read that clumsy actions toward opposite gender is a hallmark of the condition. Yet at the time I was bold and determined not to be pigeonholed into some type of proverbial box.
There is much more to tell but I will leave it at this point from how, hoping to generate opinoins and feedback on the topic.
I tried going to places such as singles bars which were very much in vogue at the time with mostly miserable results. I was usually the one who got approached by the bouncers even if I struck up a conversation about something as innocent as the weather. I ended up figuring out that the establishments were a waste of four things--time, money, energy and sanity--perhaps the latter even more than the first three. I seldom was able to get anyone on the dance floor during my infrequent excursions into that world. Later on I found organized singles dances, which most of the time were more fruitful in the early years but as time went along it seemed as though the ladies were a lot choosier about who they would even accept a dance from. Seldom did I get paired off toward the end of the dance as was commonplace. I also joined a plethora of inexpensive dating services before most got so ridiculously expensive when the whole yuppie thing it.
Social life was top dog for many years of my life, and while credit scores didn't even exist at the time or at least weren't widely advertised, I lived on the edge in many ways and was even threatened a couple of time with car repossession and even apartment eviction because I wanted to make sure I had enough money for pleasure and a great social life. Usually I didn't scrimp on food but even that I did on occasion. It wasn't until I was probably around that I learned that there is a word for this type of person who puts pleasure above all else--a hedonist. It doesn't have to be sexual pleasure but that seems to be usually what is assumed when the word is used.
It is often said that we are called to follow our dream(s). And I had a great dream of being the supreme ladies' man who could get almost any women he wanted. That part felt flat on its face early on. In trying to make dates I had a ratio of about ten nos for every yes, a stat that made me horribly disillusioned. The obsession was no doubt spawned by the fact that I was socially isolated in a boarding school from ten years of age and into my twenties. I was 26 before I had my first real date, and the feeling of life having passed me by went through the stratosphere and no doubt led to my obsession. I joined a social group primarily for single people with mixed results. I ended up getting called on the carpet for things that I felt most of the other men in the group got by with fairly easily. At that time not much was known about Asperger's, and I often felt that much was kept hidden for me. Wasn't till the 1990s that the condition became more widely known, and because diagnosis wasn't available before then I am not sure I ever was really diagnosed. Yet on an Internet test I took a while back where if you score 32 points or higher you're considered an Aspie, I scored a 31 which has to make me at least a borderline case. And have often read that clumsy actions toward opposite gender is a hallmark of the condition. Yet at the time I was bold and determined not to be pigeonholed into some type of proverbial box.
There is much more to tell but I will leave it at this point from how, hoping to generate opinoins and feedback on the topic.