I just wish I had modes other than "miserable," "temporarily too distracted by something fun to remember im miserable," and "temporarily too distracted by something frustrating to remember I'm miserable"
Speed.
You should go play volleyball.
Maybe it is difficult
but it is a thing you should try to do.
+6
StraightziHere we may reign secure, and in my choice,To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered Userregular
Everyone has good stories. And some of the most boring things can be made to sound like good stories, if you tell them well.
+2
Metzger MeisterIt Gets Worsebefore it gets any better.Registered Userregular
I could tell the headbutt story again I guess... There's also the time we were camping and being stalked by what was probably a sasquatch. and that time me and my dad saw a ufo driving home from a road trip!
Okay, so it is roughly 11PM and my friends have insisted that we go to a local "expat" bar in town called "Carnegies". I am 26, single, and have been taking Mandarin classes for a couple of months; it is a good time to be a sarukun. As you may have ascertained from the photography linked above, the "deal" with Carnegies is that the bar is quite large, and that it is largely for dancing. Transactions for the purpose of purchasing libations are still conducted across it, but this is done in-between the legs of the various dancers that may, at any given time, be dancing on the bar. I was duly informed upon our arrival that it is a time honored tradition that first-timers at Carnegies are required to perform atop the bar, and I was only too happy to oblige. So I get up there and I shake my money maker for a good twenty minutes and a good time was had by all (except by my baby-faced Australian companion, who refused to participate because he is a spoil-sport).
Towards the end of my "set", I take notice of a pair of young ladies who have clearly taken an interest in me! Recall, if you would, that I am 26, single, and have been taking Mandarin; this is precisely the sort of situation I was hoping to find myself in tonight! Both ladies are quite lovely; well dressed, made-up in alluring fashion, and best of all, looking right at me. So I hop down off the bar and make with the introductions. I'm such-and-such from the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave, nice weather we're having, do you like libraries? One young lady's English is quite fluent, and she explains that her friend thinks I'm really cute, and an incredible dancer. Jackpot! So dinner plans are discussed, and the subject of how and who is to pay comes up, and an idea is proposed: DANCE CONTEST. The "winner" of the dance contest will have dinner bought and paid for by the loser. Being the gentleman that I am, I fully expect to have my performance classified as second-place material and treat the lady to a nice evening, plus, bonus, now I get to dance with her without even having to ask! Let the dancing commence!
Now, I have danced with several young ladies in my time. I know how to salsa. I have spent time in the center of circles being cheered by friends and family. I used to go out to clubs on what can safely be described as "the regular". I have even, to make my experience perfectly clear, gotten in on some of the "bumpings and grindings" that the young people are still so fond of these days. I won't be winning any awards any time soon, but I am familiar with "dancing" as a concept.
This woman did not dance with me.
What she did was hurl me: into other dancers, into passers-by, into nearby tables. I collided with many things, few of which were the parts of her body that I was most interested in colliding with. I have never experienced anything like it, before or since. And she was so earnest about it! She had the same demure, come-hither look the entire time. She seemed blissfully unaware of the fact that she was shoving me face-first into other people's cocktails. This went on for several minutes before I quickly forfeited the contest. But now what was I to do!? How was I to escape from this evening gone bafflingly, horribly wrong!
And then I heard the voice of God; it sounds like the ring on my old Motorola cellular phone.
My friends called me at that precise moment, before I had to manufacture any excuses, and informed me that we were relocating the party. I begged forgiveness of the young lady, explained that my ride was leaving (I had not yet learned how ubiquitous the taxi-cabs are in Taipei), expressed nothing but delight at having met the two young ladies, dutifully took the young lady's phone number when pressed, and assured her repeatedly that I would absolutely, without doubt, call her the following day. I did not call her the following day.
And that's how I got beat up by some crazy broad at a foreigner bar in Taipei.
sarukun on
+31
WeaverWho are you?What do you want?Registered Userregular
edited April 2013
I was at this really big dinner once and this one girl at the table looked really familiar and when she took off her hat she had really really long red hair and it wasn't until a couple of days later that it clicked that I'd probably just had dinner with red hot lauren.
I just wish I had modes other than "miserable," "temporarily too distracted by something fun to remember im miserable," and "temporarily too distracted by something frustrating to remember I'm miserable"
Speed.
You should go play volleyball.
Maybe it is difficult
but it is a thing you should try to do.
Dude I would have loved to
I walked across the parking lot to that volleyball court and got about halfway to it before making a hard left toward my car fighting to hold back tears until I got inside of it
I wish I wasn't this way. I wish my mind didn't go completely blank when trying to make small talk with a stranger. I wish I didn't feel like if I let anyone get to know me that they'll hate me. I wish I didn't feel like its incredibly rude to expect anyone to have to tolerate my company for any meaningful period of time. I wish I didn't feel like anyone who says they like me is lying because they don't want to hurt my feelings. I wish I didn't feel my loneliest when trying to meet people. I wish human interaction didn't always come with overpowering and inexplicable feelings of fear and guilt.
But I do feel those ways and there is no one that possesses the ability understanding or inclination to help me with any of that and i sure as hell don't know what to do so it is what it is
Ill make an effort to meet people, get overwhelmed with anxiety and give up, hate myself for a while and eventually repeat the process
I just wish I had modes other than "miserable," "temporarily too distracted by something fun to remember im miserable," and "temporarily too distracted by something frustrating to remember I'm miserable"
Speed.
You should go play volleyball.
Maybe it is difficult
but it is a thing you should try to do.
Dude I would have loved to
I walked across the parking lot to that volleyball court and got about halfway to it before making a hard left toward my car fighting to hold back tears until I got inside of it
I wish I wasn't this way. I wish my mind didn't go completely blank when trying to make small talk with a stranger. I wish I didn't feel like if I let anyone get to know me that they'll hate me. I wish I didn't feel like its incredibly rude to expect anyone to have to tolerate my company for any meaningful period of time. I wish I didn't feel like anyone who says they like me is lying because they don't want to hurt my feelings. I wish I didn't feel my loneliest when trying to meet people. I wish human interaction didn't always come with overpowering and inexplicable feelings of fear and guilt.
But I do feel those ways and there is no one that possesses the understanding or inclination to help me with any of that and insure as hell don't know what to do so it is what it is
Ill make an effort to meet people, get overwhelmed with anxiety and give up, hate myself for a while and eventually repeat the process
Over and over
I am glad that you tried, Speed.
I'm not sure what else to tell you other than you are a pretty cool guy and anybody spending time with you is lucky to be having your chats.
But, I mean
volleyball is pretty fun, Speed. That is a consideration that should not be dismissed.
I just wish I had modes other than "miserable," "temporarily too distracted by something fun to remember im miserable," and "temporarily too distracted by something frustrating to remember I'm miserable"
Speed.
You should go play volleyball.
Maybe it is difficult
but it is a thing you should try to do.
Dude I would have loved to
I walked across the parking lot to that volleyball court and got about halfway to it before making a hard left toward my car fighting to hold back tears until I got inside of it
I wish I wasn't this way. I wish my mind didn't go completely blank when trying to make small talk with a stranger. I wish I didn't feel like if I let anyone get to know me that they'll hate me. I wish I didn't feel like its incredibly rude to expect anyone to have to tolerate my company for any meaningful period of time. I wish I didn't feel like anyone who says they like me is lying because they don't want to hurt my feelings. I wish I didn't feel my loneliest when trying to meet people. I wish human interaction didn't always come with overpowering and inexplicable feelings of fear and guilt.
But I do feel those ways and there is no one that possesses the ability understanding or inclination to help me with any of that and i sure as hell don't know what to do so it is what it is
Ill make an effort to meet people, get overwhelmed with anxiety and give up, hate myself for a while and eventually repeat the process
Over and over
If it helps, I've been dealing with the exact same thing for a long time, coming to a head in the last week. Just ask around any place I regularly post. The plus side is that you got much further than me.
It's tough when everyone tells you to be strong. It's tougher when you have no one to be strong with. It's why you talk to your friends, or a counselor.
Two years ago my cousin's youngest walked into daddy raping mommy at knifepoint.
He's a very smart, very brave little boy, and went straight to the phone to call 911
Now, why was the four-year-old trusted with calling the ambulance?
Because his big sisters were trying to make sure mommy didn't bleed to death.
She almost did.
"The time I stopped daddy from murdering mommy" will always be a thing that happened for this family.
Happy ending: He's going to prison for a long, long time. He'll probably die there.
He also got fat.
0
David_TA fashion yes-man is no good to me.Copenhagen, DenmarkRegistered Userregular
I went to Poland once with my school. I'd probably have been about 12 years old, but everything that happened to me in primary school I remember as happening when I was about 12 years old.
It was one of those part-exchange things where you go live with a family for two weeks and then later in the year, the kid you lived with comes and lives with your family. In my case, the kid was apparently a hotshot skier because he was out of town for a competition with his uncle for most of the time. Skiing was pretty big there, we even crossed into the Czech Republic to go skiing on an all-day trip. After skiing we went hiking up a mountain, which was fine except for the part where you had to go up icy steps that were practically vertical. I wasn't an athletic kid, they actually had to push my fat ass up those steps.
I wasn't particularly happy about that.
So when it came time to go back down to the bus and some of the other kids decided to take advantage of the ice and slide down, ass-first? Yeah, that looked fun. Let's do it. Our last stop on the day was a nunnery. Apparently a historical one, but it sounded dull (and was), so I took my fun where I could find it. Sliding down a mass of ice and rocks and grass on my behind.
And that's why I spent most of the sightseeing tour of a Polish nunnery with my back to the wall, covering up the massive tear in my pants exposing my underwear-covered ass. There was a lot of sidling done that day.
One Sunday morning, at around 8 am, I went to buy beer at a local corner store. I'd worked a really rough graveyard shift the night before, and needed a post-work beverage.
As I'm waiting in line, a man who is beyond drunk (at 8 am, mind) approaches. He asks me, "Have you ever heard of that game, Beer Toilet?"
I respond, "No, I haven't. By the sound of it, I'm pretty sure I don't want to."
He says, "Oh, man, it's the best. First thing you do is scrub your toilet out real good. But don't use bleach or nothing, 'cause it'll fuck up the beer."
I mutter, "Oh, god," but he is undeterred.
He continues, "Then, you drain all the water out the bowl, right? Then you fill that shit with beer - you're gonna need a lot, so it's good you're buying a case."
We'd gone from him describing a (I pray) fictional drinking game, to him assuming I was on my way to go play it. It was one of those conversations. I didn't bother correcting him.
He goes on, "Then, all you do is, grab some bitch's head and shove it in the toilet and make her drink."
Which was a huge, sudden escalation! At this point, I was invested. I had to know more. "Wait, what are the rules?"
"Rules? Ain't no rules in Beer Toilet! Just dunk that bitch's head in the beer!"
"But you said it was a game!"
"Man, it is a game! It's fun as shit!"
I briefly considered getting into a debate about what constitutes a game, but I get into enough of those on the internet. I was still filled with questions - too many, really. Where'd he learn of Beer Toilet? Was it necessary for the participant to be "a bitch," or could anyone play? Were there rounds? What do you do with the leftover beer? Do you warn somebody they're about to "play," or is it a surprise? If the former, how do you convince them? If the latter, how do you get them to follow you into a bathroom?
I knew if I asked one question, I'd need to ask them all. So instead, I paid for my beer and walked away. All the while imagining what other drinking games this fellow plays. "Beer pong is great! Throw ping-pong balls at a bitch's face and dump a beer on her!" "Quarters is great! Dump a roll of quarters in a mug, pour a beer over 'em, and make a bitch chug that shit!"
I just wish I had modes other than "miserable," "temporarily too distracted by something fun to remember im miserable," and "temporarily too distracted by something frustrating to remember I'm miserable"
Speed.
You should go play volleyball.
Maybe it is difficult
but it is a thing you should try to do.
Dude I would have loved to
I walked across the parking lot to that volleyball court and got about halfway to it before making a hard left toward my car fighting to hold back tears until I got inside of it
I wish I wasn't this way. I wish my mind didn't go completely blank when trying to make small talk with a stranger. I wish I didn't feel like if I let anyone get to know me that they'll hate me. I wish I didn't feel like its incredibly rude to expect anyone to have to tolerate my company for any meaningful period of time. I wish I didn't feel like anyone who says they like me is lying because they don't want to hurt my feelings. I wish I didn't feel my loneliest when trying to meet people. I wish human interaction didn't always come with overpowering and inexplicable feelings of fear and guilt.
But I do feel those ways and there is no one that possesses the ability understanding or inclination to help me with any of that and i sure as hell don't know what to do so it is what it is
Ill make an effort to meet people, get overwhelmed with anxiety and give up, hate myself for a while and eventually repeat the process
Over and over
So, I'm gonna share this with you and I hope it can bring you a little peace.
I'm not exactly ... right ... in the head.
When I was seven years old, I suffered a pretty nasty fall and a really bad knock on the head. If I had been a year or two older, the plates that make up the cranium would have started fusing and I would have shattered my skull and died. As it would happen, I ended up with cerebral hemorrhaging and damage to my frontal and rear lobes, the foundations for memory and impulse control. The shock to my system was pretty severe, so much so that my breathing and heartbeat stopped completely and it took several minutes of CPR to revive me.
So.
There I am, seven years old and recovering from massive brain trauma. Before the accident, I was a completely normal kid, bright and happy, fun-loving and terribly social, I got along with everybody. Ask anyone in my family, I was the most charming little shit you've ever met. After the injury, I started thinking about death, suicide, self-harm ... pretty much all the warning signs that shit was not right.
Do you know what my family did about it?
Nothing. They fucking ignored it. When they weren't ignoring it, they were trying to 'toughen me up.'
I don't know when or where or how it specifically happened, but it was sometime in my first two years of college that I started discovering my own worth, my own sense of self. I started thinking that I had value, that I had worth and merit. I grew and I changed, I learned of what I was capable and how much endurance I had to stand tall not only against the world, but my own flaws and self-criticism. I learned that 'you are your own worst critic' has specific meaning for me and those like me.
But I also learned one very important thing, from my time in college, my years bartending, my stint in the Marine Corps and every day since I blew out my knee and got booted on a medical discharge:
I only have to be myself.
For every person that thinks of me in a negative fashion after meeting me, for every man that tries to prove himself more of a man than me, for every woman that scoffs at my appearance, for every person that judges me for my flaws ...
They have missed out on a really good friend because I am more than the sum of my flaws.
I wish I wasn't this way. I wish my mind didn't go completely blank when trying to make small talk with a stranger. I wish I didn't feel like if I let anyone get to know me that they'll hate me. I wish I didn't feel like its incredibly rude to expect anyone to have to tolerate my company for any meaningful period of time. I wish I didn't feel like anyone who says they like me is lying because they don't want to hurt my feelings. I wish I didn't feel my loneliest when trying to meet people. I wish human interaction didn't always come with overpowering and inexplicable feelings of fear and guilt.
But I do feel those ways and there is no one that possesses the ability understanding or inclination to help me with any of that and i sure as hell don't know what to do so it is what it is
If it's of any comfort to you, I suffer from some of the same problems too. Whenever somebody tries to talk to me in work my mind usually goes blank, and any response I give is either cold and distant or else robotic and weird. I don't even have any control over it. Rarely, rarely I'll feel lively and be able to talk to people almost normally, but even then I'm still quiet and withdrawn.
Sometimes I feel like I just don't understand human interaction.
writing fiction for me is easier that telling stories about events in my life because they seldom make any fucking sense
last week i was in the pub and a one armed bald man in a white suit comes up and stares at me and mumbles good boys dont sit like that then he mumbles some more shit and stares at me then does something and leaves he comes back later and it turns out he'd plugged in his phone to charge and left it there i'd failed in my duties at being the phone watcher or some shit it was weird
writing fiction for me is easier that telling stories about events in my life because they seldom make any fucking sense
last week i was in the pub and a one armed bald man in a white suit comes up and stares at me and mumbles good boys dont sit like that then he mumbles some more shit and stares at me then does something and leaves he comes back later and it turns out he'd plugged in his phone to charge and left it there i'd failed in my duties at being the phone watcher or some shit it was weird
I've had this similar situation as a bartender; I learned very quickly that charging someone's phone for them is a license for them to be as dickish as they want to be.
My solution is to be a dick first and say, "No, we won't hold your phone while it charges; we aren't responsible for the irresponsible."
Up until recently I never had a teddy bear. I mean, my family bought toys and these included teddy bears, but I never had that one bear that was mine. Apparently this is a thing? People being given bears when they're toddlers or infants, ones that last them a lifetime, ones they may pass down between generations? I never had any real concept about it, it wasn't ever an issue to me, I'd lived my life so far without one so why did I ever need a teddy.
@HyperBallad found this out about me last year, and her being so damn compassionate and having her own bear since she was born, she took matters into her own hands. She trawled thrift stores and toy shops for a day until she came across one all-purpose dollar store and found him. He was face down on the ground, having fallen off his rail, strewn about by the number of people walking up and down that aisle. He was a teddy bear, one she decided would be mine. After she brought him back home she named him, Teddy naturally, cleaned him up, and then began to make him a wardrobe. She made him a matching jacket and pants, as well as some trousers plus a tiny flannel shirt, all from nothing. She then put him in a bag, rushed over to mine, and gave me my very first teddy bear at the age of 21.
It's odd, that feeling of having something you never knew would have an impact. I'm a grown man, but damn if having that little bespoke bear sitting on a pillow beside me every night hasn't helped me sleep during my most restless times.
This is just another one of the many, infinite reasons why I love HyperBallad so much.
So anyway, let's give you a nice, geeky story to warm the cockles of your heart.
It was a week before the summer holidays in school, and our English teacher decided that instead of a boring old lesson he'd give us some fruit punch, play some music and let us have a mini-disco in the classroom. As has been established above, I am not a social creature, and the act of waving your arms around known as 'dancing' is a mystery to me, so I did the funnest thing I could think of; log on to the class PC and do a little coding.
My dad had taught me a little BASIC programming; you know, the old 10 Input, GoTo 20. I threw together a quick program that asked you your name, and then returned the phrase "NAME smells like feet." As I was testing it, one of the other kids came over, curious, and asked me what I was doing. I showed him my little program, and he was amazed. He asked me to do another one, so I made one that was a little more complicated that asked a couple of questions before giving the phrase.
By the time I'd finished the third such program, most of the class had abandoned the disco and were instead gathered around the PC, shouting out suggestions and generally enjoying themselves.
@Poorochondriac someday you are going to tell a story that is not going to make me laugh out loud. A story I will not repeat to my friends and to total strangers. A story that I won't think of months later on the train and start laughing even though everyone is staring at me. Today is not that day.
So a long, long time ago... 2004 or so, I was posting here. I had just ventured into the untamed wilds of SE++ and one of my first stops was the camwhore thread. I had a digital camera, if you could call it that, and posted a .5 megapixel photo of myself. One forumer commented on how cute I was. Awesome, I thought, especially as this forumer is a girl!
It was of course, @Janson that said that. I complimented her photos as well, and it wasn't long before we were exchanging PMs (after I complained that nobody ever PMed me), and eventually talking over AIM. We became quite good friends, eventually having avatars and signatures of the other, which led people to believe that she and I were an item. This was of course untrue, what with the two of us being on separate continents. There was a mutual attraction there, but it never was something we really considered, what with distance and her having a boyfriend and all.
We did talk nearly every day for several months, and then there was a point where we stopped. She got swamped with work and I was busy getting lovesick over different girls (especially crazygirl, which is a story in itself). But eventually we talked and reconnected. She was able to quit her miserable retail job and find a position as an administrator at a small company, so she had time to talk. And talk we did, and it was like old times! I found a crazy good deal for webhosting and used it to start a site called Flying Stove. I started a forum because I'd always wanted to run my own forum and she offered to help.
FS was a fun place. I still kind of miss it, though obviously not the stupid drama from it, and I certainly don't miss running it. Still, I have a lot of good memories from there.
I still had a bit of a crush on her from before, but still didn't think anything would come of it because there was still the problem of distance and the boyfriend. But I was happy enough to have a friend! Eventually, though, she did start telling me that she was growing unhappy with her boyfriend. I still brushed this off, though. Again, the distance seemed near-insurmountable. Eventually, though she sent me an email, in which was a chatlog from @Weaver and the wook (I think) talking about how she had a crush on me. So I finally gathered up the courage to ask her, and she confirmed it, So, that was nice, but still, the distance - and the boyfriend.
She soon decided that she wanted to come and visit, so she was determined to break up with her boyfriend and find a new place of her own (as she lived with him at the time). She accomplished this rather quickly, so it came to pass that in July 2006 she came to visit for Comic-Con. We figured it was a good reason for her to visit, since the con itself would be fun enough and if things didn't work out between us she would still have a fun time. It says something about my parents that my mother offered to take us up to a campground for a few days - and booked and paid for our own private room. Rachel was to initially sleep in what used to be my sister's room at my parents' house but after the first night she just slept in my bed and my parents had no objections to that whatsoever. Also, she cleaned my room, because my efforts to do that myself were absolutely pitiful.
Suffice to say, things worked out really well for us. We hit it off famously, had a great time at the convention, and parted sadly at the airport. I was determined to visit her, so that Winter I went to England and met her family. We all got along amazingly well, despite her brothers possibly being rowdy and much louder than they assumed I would be. Her parents nicknamed me 'The Quiet American' because I was and still am so reserved. Again, we parted sadly at the airport.
It was a foregone conclusion, something we decided on our first time together in 2006, that we would eventually get married. It wasn't even a question of 'if' for us, just 'when', we got along so well. So I got a credit card (bad idea in retrospect, I should never have credit) and bought a nice tension-set sapphire engagement ring. And when she came back to visit for the winter of 2007, I proposed to her. Since she didn't want a public proposal I just did it out of bed, because I am totally romantic. So then it became a question of navigating the treacherous mazes of the byzantine fiance visa process. Thankfully Rachel is amazing at paperwork and we got the filing figured out, no thanks to me, really.
We finally got approval for her to come here and get married some months later - so she decided to arrive in November of 2008. I had finally gotten a promotion at work to a pay amount that might actually let me live on my own, so thanks to some friends of my mom I was able to find a tiny studio apartment for an affordable amount. She arrived, and we began the waiting period to our wedding date, two days after Christmas.
The wedding went great, it was a fairly small, quiet affair, which is what we both wanted. We got some nice gifts, although the majority of the money we got went to pay to file the adjustment of status for the visa - now that we got married, we had to get Rachel on the way to getting her green card!
And of course because the universe is kind of a dick, right after our brief honeymoon (which I came home early from because I didn't want to be late for work that evening), I found out that I was getting laid off. Last day at the end of the week. Not exactly great, and this wasn't really the best way to start a marriage. I got really depressed and sullen over losing my job, and to be honest I didn't do anything close to what I could have done in finding a job. Rachel found a job working under the table to supplement my unemployment, and once she got her work permit she got an actual job. It wasn't until october of 2009 that I got my own job, and it's been kind of a successive string of jobs ever since (though losing this job wasn't my fault at all).
We've had our ups and downs but we still remain completely devoted to each other. And then in September of last year we discovered Rachel was pregnant (by me, even), and seven months later our little daughter Annaleah Coraline was born. I couldn't be happier with the way this aspect of my life turned out (although I would probably have skipped the unemployment, to be honest).
+59
Clint EastwoodMy baby's in there someplaceShe crawled right inRegistered Userregular
I'm gay.
+2
JC of DII think we're fucked up.I know I am.Registered Userregular
Posts
h...how about...a boy?
http://www.audioentropy.com/
I completely love these threads.
and we haven't had one in a grip
it seemed like the time was right
It was mostly him on stage looking down this woman's dress.
Speed.
You should go play volleyball.
Maybe it is difficult
but it is a thing you should try to do.
I don't believe you.
Everyone has good stories. And some of the most boring things can be made to sound like good stories, if you tell them well.
I could tell the story of how I met Rachel!
i'll tell some stories
Towards the end of my "set", I take notice of a pair of young ladies who have clearly taken an interest in me! Recall, if you would, that I am 26, single, and have been taking Mandarin; this is precisely the sort of situation I was hoping to find myself in tonight! Both ladies are quite lovely; well dressed, made-up in alluring fashion, and best of all, looking right at me. So I hop down off the bar and make with the introductions. I'm such-and-such from the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave, nice weather we're having, do you like libraries? One young lady's English is quite fluent, and she explains that her friend thinks I'm really cute, and an incredible dancer. Jackpot! So dinner plans are discussed, and the subject of how and who is to pay comes up, and an idea is proposed: DANCE CONTEST. The "winner" of the dance contest will have dinner bought and paid for by the loser. Being the gentleman that I am, I fully expect to have my performance classified as second-place material and treat the lady to a nice evening, plus, bonus, now I get to dance with her without even having to ask! Let the dancing commence!
Now, I have danced with several young ladies in my time. I know how to salsa. I have spent time in the center of circles being cheered by friends and family. I used to go out to clubs on what can safely be described as "the regular". I have even, to make my experience perfectly clear, gotten in on some of the "bumpings and grindings" that the young people are still so fond of these days. I won't be winning any awards any time soon, but I am familiar with "dancing" as a concept.
This woman did not dance with me.
What she did was hurl me: into other dancers, into passers-by, into nearby tables. I collided with many things, few of which were the parts of her body that I was most interested in colliding with. I have never experienced anything like it, before or since. And she was so earnest about it! She had the same demure, come-hither look the entire time. She seemed blissfully unaware of the fact that she was shoving me face-first into other people's cocktails. This went on for several minutes before I quickly forfeited the contest. But now what was I to do!? How was I to escape from this evening gone bafflingly, horribly wrong!
And then I heard the voice of God; it sounds like the ring on my old Motorola cellular phone.
My friends called me at that precise moment, before I had to manufacture any excuses, and informed me that we were relocating the party. I begged forgiveness of the young lady, explained that my ride was leaving (I had not yet learned how ubiquitous the taxi-cabs are in Taipei), expressed nothing but delight at having met the two young ladies, dutifully took the young lady's phone number when pressed, and assured her repeatedly that I would absolutely, without doubt, call her the following day. I did not call her the following day.
And that's how I got beat up by some crazy broad at a foreigner bar in Taipei.
Dude I would have loved to
I walked across the parking lot to that volleyball court and got about halfway to it before making a hard left toward my car fighting to hold back tears until I got inside of it
I wish I wasn't this way. I wish my mind didn't go completely blank when trying to make small talk with a stranger. I wish I didn't feel like if I let anyone get to know me that they'll hate me. I wish I didn't feel like its incredibly rude to expect anyone to have to tolerate my company for any meaningful period of time. I wish I didn't feel like anyone who says they like me is lying because they don't want to hurt my feelings. I wish I didn't feel my loneliest when trying to meet people. I wish human interaction didn't always come with overpowering and inexplicable feelings of fear and guilt.
But I do feel those ways and there is no one that possesses the ability understanding or inclination to help me with any of that and i sure as hell don't know what to do so it is what it is
Ill make an effort to meet people, get overwhelmed with anxiety and give up, hate myself for a while and eventually repeat the process
Over and over
http://www.audioentropy.com/
I am glad that you tried, Speed.
I'm not sure what else to tell you other than you are a pretty cool guy and anybody spending time with you is lucky to be having your chats.
But, I mean
volleyball is pretty fun, Speed. That is a consideration that should not be dismissed.
Bullshit.
You married a beautiful British woman who bore you a child and you met her on the internet.
These very forums.
As for me ...
I think you can use the search function to find one of my stories with the keywords grandad or military and get a decent one.
I'll try to think of something new and humorous or one I haven't spun out in a while.
If it helps, I've been dealing with the exact same thing for a long time, coming to a head in the last week. Just ask around any place I regularly post. The plus side is that you got much further than me.
It's tough when everyone tells you to be strong. It's tougher when you have no one to be strong with. It's why you talk to your friends, or a counselor.
Use your
Imagination
I mean, really the hardest part, logistically speaking, is figuring out where everyone stands
He's a very smart, very brave little boy, and went straight to the phone to call 911
Now, why was the four-year-old trusted with calling the ambulance?
Because his big sisters were trying to make sure mommy didn't bleed to death.
She almost did.
"The time I stopped daddy from murdering mommy" will always be a thing that happened for this family.
He also got fat.
It was one of those part-exchange things where you go live with a family for two weeks and then later in the year, the kid you lived with comes and lives with your family. In my case, the kid was apparently a hotshot skier because he was out of town for a competition with his uncle for most of the time. Skiing was pretty big there, we even crossed into the Czech Republic to go skiing on an all-day trip. After skiing we went hiking up a mountain, which was fine except for the part where you had to go up icy steps that were practically vertical. I wasn't an athletic kid, they actually had to push my fat ass up those steps.
I wasn't particularly happy about that.
So when it came time to go back down to the bus and some of the other kids decided to take advantage of the ice and slide down, ass-first? Yeah, that looked fun. Let's do it. Our last stop on the day was a nunnery. Apparently a historical one, but it sounded dull (and was), so I took my fun where I could find it. Sliding down a mass of ice and rocks and grass on my behind.
And that's why I spent most of the sightseeing tour of a Polish nunnery with my back to the wall, covering up the massive tear in my pants exposing my underwear-covered ass. There was a lot of sidling done that day.
As I'm waiting in line, a man who is beyond drunk (at 8 am, mind) approaches. He asks me, "Have you ever heard of that game, Beer Toilet?"
I respond, "No, I haven't. By the sound of it, I'm pretty sure I don't want to."
He says, "Oh, man, it's the best. First thing you do is scrub your toilet out real good. But don't use bleach or nothing, 'cause it'll fuck up the beer."
I mutter, "Oh, god," but he is undeterred.
He continues, "Then, you drain all the water out the bowl, right? Then you fill that shit with beer - you're gonna need a lot, so it's good you're buying a case."
We'd gone from him describing a (I pray) fictional drinking game, to him assuming I was on my way to go play it. It was one of those conversations. I didn't bother correcting him.
He goes on, "Then, all you do is, grab some bitch's head and shove it in the toilet and make her drink."
Which was a huge, sudden escalation! At this point, I was invested. I had to know more. "Wait, what are the rules?"
"Rules? Ain't no rules in Beer Toilet! Just dunk that bitch's head in the beer!"
"But you said it was a game!"
"Man, it is a game! It's fun as shit!"
I briefly considered getting into a debate about what constitutes a game, but I get into enough of those on the internet. I was still filled with questions - too many, really. Where'd he learn of Beer Toilet? Was it necessary for the participant to be "a bitch," or could anyone play? Were there rounds? What do you do with the leftover beer? Do you warn somebody they're about to "play," or is it a surprise? If the former, how do you convince them? If the latter, how do you get them to follow you into a bathroom?
I knew if I asked one question, I'd need to ask them all. So instead, I paid for my beer and walked away. All the while imagining what other drinking games this fellow plays. "Beer pong is great! Throw ping-pong balls at a bitch's face and dump a beer on her!" "Quarters is great! Dump a roll of quarters in a mug, pour a beer over 'em, and make a bitch chug that shit!"
So, I'm gonna share this with you and I hope it can bring you a little peace.
I'm not exactly ... right ... in the head.
When I was seven years old, I suffered a pretty nasty fall and a really bad knock on the head. If I had been a year or two older, the plates that make up the cranium would have started fusing and I would have shattered my skull and died. As it would happen, I ended up with cerebral hemorrhaging and damage to my frontal and rear lobes, the foundations for memory and impulse control. The shock to my system was pretty severe, so much so that my breathing and heartbeat stopped completely and it took several minutes of CPR to revive me.
So.
There I am, seven years old and recovering from massive brain trauma. Before the accident, I was a completely normal kid, bright and happy, fun-loving and terribly social, I got along with everybody. Ask anyone in my family, I was the most charming little shit you've ever met. After the injury, I started thinking about death, suicide, self-harm ... pretty much all the warning signs that shit was not right.
Do you know what my family did about it?
Nothing. They fucking ignored it. When they weren't ignoring it, they were trying to 'toughen me up.'
I don't know when or where or how it specifically happened, but it was sometime in my first two years of college that I started discovering my own worth, my own sense of self. I started thinking that I had value, that I had worth and merit. I grew and I changed, I learned of what I was capable and how much endurance I had to stand tall not only against the world, but my own flaws and self-criticism. I learned that 'you are your own worst critic' has specific meaning for me and those like me.
But I also learned one very important thing, from my time in college, my years bartending, my stint in the Marine Corps and every day since I blew out my knee and got booted on a medical discharge:
I only have to be myself.
For every person that thinks of me in a negative fashion after meeting me, for every man that tries to prove himself more of a man than me, for every woman that scoffs at my appearance, for every person that judges me for my flaws ...
They have missed out on a really good friend because I am more than the sum of my flaws.
I am me.
And so are you, @Speed Racer.
If it's of any comfort to you, I suffer from some of the same problems too. Whenever somebody tries to talk to me in work my mind usually goes blank, and any response I give is either cold and distant or else robotic and weird. I don't even have any control over it. Rarely, rarely I'll feel lively and be able to talk to people almost normally, but even then I'm still quiet and withdrawn.
Sometimes I feel like I just don't understand human interaction.
last week i was in the pub and a one armed bald man in a white suit comes up and stares at me and mumbles good boys dont sit like that then he mumbles some more shit and stares at me then does something and leaves he comes back later and it turns out he'd plugged in his phone to charge and left it there i'd failed in my duties at being the phone watcher or some shit it was weird
I've had this similar situation as a bartender; I learned very quickly that charging someone's phone for them is a license for them to be as dickish as they want to be.
My solution is to be a dick first and say, "No, we won't hold your phone while it charges; we aren't responsible for the irresponsible."
@HyperBallad found this out about me last year, and her being so damn compassionate and having her own bear since she was born, she took matters into her own hands. She trawled thrift stores and toy shops for a day until she came across one all-purpose dollar store and found him. He was face down on the ground, having fallen off his rail, strewn about by the number of people walking up and down that aisle. He was a teddy bear, one she decided would be mine. After she brought him back home she named him, Teddy naturally, cleaned him up, and then began to make him a wardrobe. She made him a matching jacket and pants, as well as some trousers plus a tiny flannel shirt, all from nothing. She then put him in a bag, rushed over to mine, and gave me my very first teddy bear at the age of 21.
It's odd, that feeling of having something you never knew would have an impact. I'm a grown man, but damn if having that little bespoke bear sitting on a pillow beside me every night hasn't helped me sleep during my most restless times.
This is just another one of the many, infinite reasons why I love HyperBallad so much.
It was a week before the summer holidays in school, and our English teacher decided that instead of a boring old lesson he'd give us some fruit punch, play some music and let us have a mini-disco in the classroom. As has been established above, I am not a social creature, and the act of waving your arms around known as 'dancing' is a mystery to me, so I did the funnest thing I could think of; log on to the class PC and do a little coding.
My dad had taught me a little BASIC programming; you know, the old 10 Input, GoTo 20. I threw together a quick program that asked you your name, and then returned the phrase "NAME smells like feet." As I was testing it, one of the other kids came over, curious, and asked me what I was doing. I showed him my little program, and he was amazed. He asked me to do another one, so I made one that was a little more complicated that asked a couple of questions before giving the phrase.
By the time I'd finished the third such program, most of the class had abandoned the disco and were instead gathered around the PC, shouting out suggestions and generally enjoying themselves.
Suck it, popular music!
dear god
I don't often wish for a person's death
@Poorochondriac someday you are going to tell a story that is not going to make me laugh out loud. A story I will not repeat to my friends and to total strangers. A story that I won't think of months later on the train and start laughing even though everyone is staring at me. Today is not that day.
@Berk what is it like, living in Twin Peaks?
My mother's second husband did something very similar.
The thoughts that go through my head about him should be shocking and repulsive.
No he's Speed Racer, you're Darth Waiter- look, it's right there in the name. If he was also Darth Waiter it would say so.
It was of course, @Janson that said that. I complimented her photos as well, and it wasn't long before we were exchanging PMs (after I complained that nobody ever PMed me), and eventually talking over AIM. We became quite good friends, eventually having avatars and signatures of the other, which led people to believe that she and I were an item. This was of course untrue, what with the two of us being on separate continents. There was a mutual attraction there, but it never was something we really considered, what with distance and her having a boyfriend and all.
We did talk nearly every day for several months, and then there was a point where we stopped. She got swamped with work and I was busy getting lovesick over different girls (especially crazygirl, which is a story in itself). But eventually we talked and reconnected. She was able to quit her miserable retail job and find a position as an administrator at a small company, so she had time to talk. And talk we did, and it was like old times! I found a crazy good deal for webhosting and used it to start a site called Flying Stove. I started a forum because I'd always wanted to run my own forum and she offered to help.
FS was a fun place. I still kind of miss it, though obviously not the stupid drama from it, and I certainly don't miss running it. Still, I have a lot of good memories from there.
I still had a bit of a crush on her from before, but still didn't think anything would come of it because there was still the problem of distance and the boyfriend. But I was happy enough to have a friend! Eventually, though, she did start telling me that she was growing unhappy with her boyfriend. I still brushed this off, though. Again, the distance seemed near-insurmountable. Eventually, though she sent me an email, in which was a chatlog from @Weaver and the wook (I think) talking about how she had a crush on me. So I finally gathered up the courage to ask her, and she confirmed it, So, that was nice, but still, the distance - and the boyfriend.
She soon decided that she wanted to come and visit, so she was determined to break up with her boyfriend and find a new place of her own (as she lived with him at the time). She accomplished this rather quickly, so it came to pass that in July 2006 she came to visit for Comic-Con. We figured it was a good reason for her to visit, since the con itself would be fun enough and if things didn't work out between us she would still have a fun time. It says something about my parents that my mother offered to take us up to a campground for a few days - and booked and paid for our own private room. Rachel was to initially sleep in what used to be my sister's room at my parents' house but after the first night she just slept in my bed and my parents had no objections to that whatsoever. Also, she cleaned my room, because my efforts to do that myself were absolutely pitiful.
Suffice to say, things worked out really well for us. We hit it off famously, had a great time at the convention, and parted sadly at the airport. I was determined to visit her, so that Winter I went to England and met her family. We all got along amazingly well, despite her brothers possibly being rowdy and much louder than they assumed I would be. Her parents nicknamed me 'The Quiet American' because I was and still am so reserved. Again, we parted sadly at the airport.
It was a foregone conclusion, something we decided on our first time together in 2006, that we would eventually get married. It wasn't even a question of 'if' for us, just 'when', we got along so well. So I got a credit card (bad idea in retrospect, I should never have credit) and bought a nice tension-set sapphire engagement ring. And when she came back to visit for the winter of 2007, I proposed to her. Since she didn't want a public proposal I just did it out of bed, because I am totally romantic. So then it became a question of navigating the treacherous mazes of the byzantine fiance visa process. Thankfully Rachel is amazing at paperwork and we got the filing figured out, no thanks to me, really.
We finally got approval for her to come here and get married some months later - so she decided to arrive in November of 2008. I had finally gotten a promotion at work to a pay amount that might actually let me live on my own, so thanks to some friends of my mom I was able to find a tiny studio apartment for an affordable amount. She arrived, and we began the waiting period to our wedding date, two days after Christmas.
The wedding went great, it was a fairly small, quiet affair, which is what we both wanted. We got some nice gifts, although the majority of the money we got went to pay to file the adjustment of status for the visa - now that we got married, we had to get Rachel on the way to getting her green card!
And of course because the universe is kind of a dick, right after our brief honeymoon (which I came home early from because I didn't want to be late for work that evening), I found out that I was getting laid off. Last day at the end of the week. Not exactly great, and this wasn't really the best way to start a marriage. I got really depressed and sullen over losing my job, and to be honest I didn't do anything close to what I could have done in finding a job. Rachel found a job working under the table to supplement my unemployment, and once she got her work permit she got an actual job. It wasn't until october of 2009 that I got my own job, and it's been kind of a successive string of jobs ever since (though losing this job wasn't my fault at all).
We've had our ups and downs but we still remain completely devoted to each other. And then in September of last year we discovered Rachel was pregnant (by me, even), and seven months later our little daughter Annaleah Coraline was born. I couldn't be happier with the way this aspect of my life turned out (although I would probably have skipped the unemployment, to be honest).