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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.
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05-10-2021, 01:00 PM
(This post was last modified: 05-10-2021, 01:07 PM by pbrower2a.)
Keep trying. Keep trying. Keep trying. Think of it like selling insurance: you may get fifty "no's" before getting a "yes". People actually make a good living that way.
Let's start with the obvious: many women have some characteristic incompatible with you, and they discover that before you do. Similarities may be much more obvious than dissimilarities. Dissimilarities could be musical tastes, different culinary traditions, and levels or emphases in formal education. That's before I get into things that should be red flags (I am not saying that you have those) such as a quick temper, sociopathic tendencies, pathological narcissism, and bad habits. Some people have big personal problems to solve before they can be suitable life-partners for anyone.
A whirlwind romance that leads quickly to marriage often ends in divorce, so at times you can consider yourself lucky.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
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(05-10-2021, 01:00 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Keep trying. Keep trying. Keep trying. Think of it like selling insurance: you may get fifty "no's" before getting a "yes". People actually make a good living that way.
Let's start with the obvious: many women have some characteristic incompatible with you, and they discover that before you do. Similarities may be much more obvious than dissimilarities. Dissimilarities could be musical tastes, different culinary traditions, and levels or emphases in formal education. That's before I get into things that should be red flags (I am not saying that you have those) such as a quick temper, sociopathic tendencies, pathological narcissism, and bad habits. Some people have big personal problems to solve before they can be suitable life-partners for anyone.
A whirlwind romance that leads quickly to marriage often ends in divorce, so at times you can consider yourself lucky.
This is not the pattern of my life today. In fact at present love life is quite low on the totem pole. This is a history lesson more than anything else. Am now 76 and figured it is a good time to go public as no one becomes a successful ladies’ man in his 70s. And I often wonder if that very term has now become more derogatory.
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(05-10-2021, 04:14 PM)beechnut79 Wrote: (05-10-2021, 01:00 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Keep trying. Keep trying. Keep trying. Think of it like selling insurance: you may get fifty "no's" before getting a "yes". People actually make a good living that way.
Let's start with the obvious: many women have some characteristic incompatible with you, and they discover that before you do. Similarities may be much more obvious than dissimilarities. Dissimilarities could be musical tastes, different culinary traditions, and levels or emphases in formal education. That's before I get into things that should be red flags (I am not saying that you have those) such as a quick temper, sociopathic tendencies, pathological narcissism, and bad habits. Some people have big personal problems to solve before they can be suitable life-partners for anyone.
A whirlwind romance that leads quickly to marriage often ends in divorce, so at times you can consider yourself lucky.
This is not the pattern of my life today. In fact at present love life is quite low on the totem pole. This is a history lesson more than anything else. Am now 76 and figured it is a good time to go public as no one becomes a successful ladies’ man in his 70s. And I often wonder if that very term has now become more derogatory.
I thought the term simply obsolete. In my case I recognize that I have far less to offer than I need -- which is to be kept on an even keel now that my parents are gone. I never realized how much I needed them.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
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In this installment I shall mention that the seeds for my obsession began quite early. In the first grade I became friends with a girl by the name of Janice. We often walked together on the way home and most likely at lunch time as well. One Saturday afternoon my parents took me by her house but I was too chicken to go inside. Don't recall why, but when my grandfather would write he one time spelled Janice out in big capital red letters. That was in the days of red and black ribbon typewriters. I later learned that it is unusual for boys at that age to even like girls unless it's a sister or cousin. Got the impression that most actually hated them, or so they would say. In later years I would often say that I did better with the ladies at that age than I did later in life.
When I was ten there was a girl next door to me by the name of Lynnea. She had been a classmate of mine before my parents took me out of public school because I was threatened with things like stoning by classmates which sometimes forced me to take a detour home. She and her younger brother Keith were like a surrogate brother and sister to me as I was an only child and adopted at that. Anyhow we would dance to the music on the TV bandstand show of the time. It was not long after that when I was sent away to boarding school never to really see home again for twelve years. In hindsight I have often wondered what might have happened had I been able to stay in public school and grown up normally. If not ever marrying her, would the girl next door and I have perhaps become professional dancers. What if this part of my life were to grown and sprout upward without fear of the foundation collapsing? Once sent away to boarding school it obviously did.
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The father back the departure is from what happened in fact, the greater is the divergence from reality. This is as true in personal life as in world history. How different would the world be had it not been for the Bolshevik takeover of Russia? (Very much, I would say, as Fascism and National Socialism were in part reactions to Bolshevism). How different would the world be had someone been guarding the approach to the Presidential box at Ford's Theater? Huge in race relations, I would guess. Go back far enough and imagine the Carthaginians subduing the Romans. Then things get really strange.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
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The toughest thing to have to confess to is that through much of my life I did try to control those I loved, or even though I thought I had loved. Never to the point of wanting to incite violence--thank God for that. But there were a couple time I did try to check up one whom I had been dating. Only once did I manage to find the person. There was another time when I would send an unsolicited letter to one I had had several phone conversations with. That was back when they had this name and address service you could call and, as long as the number was published you could match the phone number with a name and address. This one was through a dating service and I got a rather angry call from the moderator of that service saying that the person involved was just about ready to go to the police. That was after I had used an alias to try to get more information. Fortunately this was long before we had stalking laws. Later on though I did reach out to her and we did somewhat make up on the phone, and she admitted that she thought she understood where I was coming from. We never ended up dating, but seventeen years later I saw her at a singles dance and ended up writing a song lyric about her. Was going to post copy of it here but can't find it just now. Would I do any of this today? A snowball would have a better chance surviving hell.
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My assumption is that those who keep fit can be ladies men or gentlemen's ladies (etc.) at any age.
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(05-20-2021, 01:33 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: My assumption is that those who keep fit can be ladies men or gentlemen's ladies (etc.) at any age.
I don't know, I always liked this quote from Mae West:
Steve Barrera
[A]lthough one would like to change today's world back to the spirit of one hundred years or more ago, it cannot be done. Thus it is important to make the best out of every generation. - Hagakure
Saecular Pages
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05-21-2021, 01:04 PM
(This post was last modified: 05-21-2021, 01:06 PM by Eric the Green.)
Well, Mae ought to know. I just watched a bio on her last night on my PBS channel. Great lady! I'd love to see her sometime. When she's bad, she's better.
(she's been gone from her most-recent physical vehicle since 1980, but who knows in this interesting cosmos!)
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(05-21-2021, 01:04 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Well, Mae ought to know. I just watched a bio on her last night on my PBS channel. Great lady! I'd love to see her sometime. When she's bad, she's better.
(she's been gone from her most-recent physical vehicle since 1980, but who knows in this interesting cosmos!)
Her persona is likely to have been an act... although she seems to be an old stereotype of Lost women who thought they achieved gender equality by being as sexually aggressive as men. As with all actors, the shtick may not be the reality.
I would guess that many X women are not acting.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
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One would wonder though how many men actually did take her up on that offer and how often she really accepted it. This was of course way before the mammoth goldfish bowl that is the Internet.
Eventually my own penchant for pursuing women came to a crawl when I finally had a good talk with myself and the response I got back was "you could be trying to do too much". "You’re over-extending yourself, doing a little bit here and a little bit there, and you’re not getting a whole lot accomplished. You’re spinning your wheels and not getting any traction at all. Take a breath. You need to find balance." The beginning of the end of LMD probably came following a fall in had in 2008 which kept me out of commission for the better part of two full months. That was also the same year the economy tanked with the foreclosure crisis and it became more difficult to find suitable work. The absence of family responsibilities including living in a small rented room enabled me to do a lot I couldn't have afforded to do otherwise, including a substantial amount of dating. The disappointments began mounting as time went along. On the other side of the fall I just couldn't afford the lifestyle I had previously aspired to. Today most of my world outside home revolves around food delivery which isn't conducive to this type of activity, especially not in this day and age.
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