Riding a train of thought

I don’t do interesting things, I don’t know interesting people. In fact, interesting people tend to resent me, which is what I want to talk about. I’m starting to feel that if people don’t either respect or like you, then they resent you. There isn’t a middle ground, people who are just tolerated or invisible, no I assumed this was the case my whole life but I’m really not seeing any actual examples of it. I could be completely wrong, I always hesitate to say any new opinion or insight of mine is categorically true because I so often will change my mind again, but it’s starting to feel like this is how things really are. The more I think about it, the more anecdotes I’m reminded of, the more it all seems to make sense to me.

I sent that message, saying “Why did you message me?” to phone girl, and of course there was no response. I don’t regret sending it, it was what I wanted to do and now I can move on I think. I’m thinking about other things, my mind is wandering again. The only real concern was it somehow affecting my job, but being realistic that isn’t going to happen. The situation is wrapped up in a box and put away again now, I can move on to being sad about something else. My feelings on the whole thing are of course way more negative now, but I’ve had relationships with other friends/ acquaintances that ended worse than this. I’ve been thinking though, over the last few days when obsessing over this I was constantly trying to read her mind. What mattered to me most was understanding the motivation, why would you just message someone so out of the blue and then ignore them? I had all these absurd ideas, and thinking back on it I realised I was ascribing to her attitudes and ways of thinking about people that I never have had myself. I do it all the time too, I’m probably not the only one I imagine it’s quite common. We think of all these reasons people might do something but such a reason would never motivate us. So I get to thinking, maybe it’s just disdain. You don’t ignore someone you’re indifferent to you ignore someone you have disdain for, someone you want to go away. Ignoring someone is, contrary to popular belief, not a cowardly way of not dealing with the situation but an active declaration. It means “leave me alone, I don’t even want to waste the effort of saying that to you properly”, it’s aggressive. I realised this when I stopped trying to think about why, and started thinking about when. When I’ve ignored people in the past, whether it be giving my parents the silent treatment as a little kid after not getting my way or more recently ignoring a customer still trying to talk to me after attempting to short change me moments before. There are plenty more examples, but ultimately they always meant “fuck you”. Of course that doesn’t necessarily mean you resent the person, I didn’t resent my parents as a little kid I was just throwing a tantrum. If there’s no history of warmth or empathy from someone though, well then I think it’s safe to assume they probably have no respect for you. After all, they’re actively disrespecting you.

So I then got to thinking why do so many people seem to resent me and losers, or whatever you want to call people like me, in general. Because I really have done nothing wrong, nothing to offend or harm anyone at all. I’m timid, meek even, around most people. I do honestly think I’m a truly nice person, I’ve gone into my reasoning slightly before on this blog but I have more to say about the subject like I do on everything. Last night there was a thread on r9k, somehow someone thought of another angle to take on the whole “nice guys finish last” meme. It said something along the lines of “why do women hate nice guys”. I don’t need to talk about this for too long, we’ve all heard everything this conversation has to offer in a hundred different ways. It’s clear to me that almost everyone on both sides of this issue, if you can even call it that, is painfully lacking any self awareness. The one side won’t accept that it’s not being nice that’s a turn off it’s the lack of confidence as there are plenty of “Chad” types who are pretty nice people, the other will lie that women don’t find thugs/ criminals and scum in general attractive. Do I need to bring up the old chestnut about rape being the most common female sexual fantasy? For some unknown reason though I picked up on something I never have before in a certain post, the post itself was pretty standard but it gave me this eureka moment.

See, it’s been staring me in the face for literally years through comments just like this one but I haven’t been able to put two and two together. I suppose it goes to show that the hardest truths really need to be beaten into you repeatedly. See, the implicit message behind this is that being meek and cowardly is deserving of scorn or hate, as the OP was asking why he is hated remember not why he can’t get laid. You can say I’m reading too much into a shitpost, but as far as I’m concerned you can’t read too much into anything someone says. The implication that being cowardly and meek is a reason people don’t respect you I can grasp, that’s not new to me I’ve understood it for a long time. People respect strength and confidence of course, both men and women. I’m not and haven’t ever been angry about women sleeping with assholes, because I understood this, unlike a lot of incels. It’s amusing to me when I see that narrative play out in real time if anything, there’s this one couple who sometimes come through the shop that fit this perfectly. The woman is maybe late 20s, always dressed modestly and is really polite. She’s pretty and thin and demure, the ideal partner for men the world over. She often comes in to the shop alone, with her baby in a pram. The boyfriend/ husband is sometimes there sometimes not, he’s often wearing a wife beater and ripped jeans and has greased back hair and a bunch of faggy tattoos. I wish I was kidding this guy is like a fucking cartoon character, he talks to her like shit and always has this pissed off expression on his face. I wonder why she’s always wearing long sleeves, even in the middle of summer. Anyway, I don’t care if people don’t respect me because I understand I haven’t done anything to earn it. What’s new though, is that if I’m not respected I’m resented. This is new, this really changes how I analyse everything the people around me say and do. Because I can tell when people don’t like me I’m not an idiot and like I said I know I don’t command respect. I thought I was invisible, you’ll hear people like me talk about it all the time. How they feel ignored, left out of life. Elliot talked about it in his final video. Did he understand that it was deliberate? I don’t think so because he said he felt it was unfair, like being ignored was some force of nature not an active decision made regarding him. Either I’m an idiot who’s just catching up to something blatantly obvious or I’ve hit on something life changing. I really had to think about this, so I went over all the regular customers we get at the shop. There isn’t one who I don’t think something about, sure most of them aren’t on my mind at all outside of when I have to interact with them but still I have an opinion. Every single one without exception I either like and am happy to see, or dislike and wish they wouldn’t be there. There’s no one I’m indifferent to, not one whose presence doesn’t affect me. So, why would I assume that other people are any different? Like I said earlier that never gets you anywhere.

Look at how people treat the homeless, a group of people who fascinate me in many ways. You see the way most people react to them when they ask for money, it’s not just no I haven’t got the time often people are outright rude to them. More often though, they will simply ignore them which as I’ve demonstrated I think is itself a purposefully offensive act. It’s true, look at how they ignore, they will often have this expression like they just walked past an open sewer. I’ve been with people, walking together in friendly conversation and seen their expression turn so suddenly when they get asked for some spare change by a homeless guy. It’s quite something, and you know what it reminds me of most. It reminds me of how women behave when approached by someone they find to be unsuitable or not “in their league”. Not that I’ve ever cold approached women myself, but I’ve seen it happen in person on a few rare occasions and the expression is almost the exact same. Also there are plenty of tales I’ve heard which follow a similar pattern, sure people go on the internet and tell lies all the time I probably shouldn’t use that as evidence for anything, but it does fit the description of what I’ve seen myself fairly accurately. Anyway, both cases show yet again this duality I’m talking about. It’s impossible not to see it everywhere really, if they don’t like you then they hate you. I actually try to be nice to homeless people, most of the ones I’ve interacted with were quite endearing characters, most days I’ll give my tips away to whichever one is outside the shop after I close up. There are a few regulars, and they’re always friendly with me other than one who I’ll admit I quite dislike. Not to beat a dead horse but this further goes along with my point, all the ones I like I actively try to help (in a small way admittedly but more than most people, I’ve probably given quite a significant sum away in total over the last year when you add it up) and then I find myself pocketing the money when the asshole one is around. I’m not sure why I find it so easy to like the homeless when so many people find them repulsive. It’s funny because I have this weird recurring daydream where I’m trying to kill them. Of course I’d never do something like that please, but I remember this post I saw years ago on 4chan somewhere, I don’t remember which board. The OP talked about how he tried to kill hobos in his local area. He said he would take cheap bottles of vodka and after drinking the contents he’d refill them with methanol and leave them around bins. You’d actually only need to half fill the bottles, because that would easily be enough to kill a person and a half empty bottle of vodka is way less suspicious. A drunk hobo stumbling around at night isn’t gonna care if someone already drank out of it a little. I don’t know why, but sometimes I think about myself doing something like that. I highly doubt the guy actually did anything like that either, it was just edgy humour but for whatever reason the imagery of the whole thing has stuck with me. If I told anyone about these thoughts maybe I’d be seen as a monster, but they’re the ones who actually despise these homeless people and they probably hate me too.

These kinds of thoughts aren’t going through my head most of the time, usually I’m fairly pensive or even timid, but then sometimes this feeling of misanthropy comes over me. Violent daydreams/ intrusive thoughts are common when in this state, but not always a feature. I am a lot more antagonistic but honestly the feeling is kind of liberating for me. It’s almost like I’m a different person, the music I want to listen to is different, and my opinions about people change. Not drastically, I don’t go from liking people to the reverse this doesn’t counter my earlier point. It’s more like I’ll go from not liking someone or what they did but being charitable and understanding and then if I’m reminded of it later I’m thinking I got taken for a fool and should have kicked the shit out of them. I never would assault someone just because I’ve only been in a few fights in my entire life and I’d probably get beaten up in most cases but I have made impulsive decisions while in this state before. Including a few times at work getting kind of angry at stupid customers and berating them. Nothing excessive, I’ve never sworn or shouted at a customer but sternly told them off (I sound like a schoolteacher..) or asked them why they did something stupid. They never say anything back either, that’s something I’ve began to notice over the last year and half or so. I’m a skinny soft boy, I haven’t even taken a punch since I was maybe 12 or 13, but when I get visibly angry people get intimidated now. Maybe it’s my height, or my dead eyed expression idk. When this feeling hits me in public, which is uncommon but since I’ve got the job and am around normalfags a lot more has started to be less so, I’m also more confident. People don’t need to ask me to repeat myself because I speak louder, I have less trouble with holding eye contact. I also get a different vibe from the people around me too, like usually I can tell people are uncomfortable when interacting with me. It’s like they’re forced to have a conversation with someone with Down’s Syndrome and are just desperate to end the encounter in a polite way. Then when I’m like this I feel like people actually enjoy being around me. I can’t control it though, I watched it fade out in real time on my most recent shift. I could feel my voice getting fainter as time wore on, I could feel the self doubt creeping back in. It was like when you’re in a dream and aware of it but you still just accept this crazy shit going on around you as normal, like climbing a treehouse to work. I’m consciously trying to reason with myself that nothing has changed but yet my entire world has changed.

I’ve been listening to Loveless several times a day since I first heard it, and I’m able to enjoy it whatever my mood. I said the music I listen to changes when I’m in this more alert and normie-ish state, which isn’t unusual a lot of music is mood specific for people, but with Loveless that isn’t the case. I listen to it before I have to go to work and deal with people like a pick me up, and yet put it on to help me wind down before going to sleep. Immediately after sending the message the other day I put it on, and somehow my racing thoughts were put to rest as I was whisked off to that warm and cosy place that’s already becoming very familiar. It’s like when people joke about going to a “happy place” in their mind to deal with trauma or something, now I’ve finally found mine. I wish I could understand and explain in more technical terms what’s so special about it. I have been watching a few videos about the making of the album and stuff like that but I know absolutely nothing about music theory so a lot of it goes over my head. I can only explain how it makes me feel. I wish I had studied music, I was never interested in making and performing music, or learning an instrument but it’s become so important to me that I wish I was able to discuss this art form that’s such a big part of my life properly. I could learn some of the basic stuff, but it’s rather dreary I feel like having to go to lessons on it for years would be one of those things I’d hate at the time and then really be glad for when looking back. I couldn’t possibly have known that I’d become much more interested in music almost a decade later though, but I do greatly regret the decisions I did make. I could write a whole entry on all my regrets, probably several actually, and how they all relate to one another and affect me today. I’m listening to other stuff as well, we’ve well and truly entered autumn here so I’ve been listening to Five Leaves Left this morning while watching the rain and wind shake the leaves off the trees. Someone recommended the album Fisherman’s Blues by The Waterboys recently too and I quite enjoyed that. Might give it another listen this afternoon if the weather stays like this, feels appropriate. I’m enjoying the lesser known NMH album too, On Avery Island, it’s got a real charm to it but I understand why it’s never had a response like ITAOTS had.

I wrote most of this yesterday, in my notebook while at work and then typed it up in the evening. That was pretty relaxing, kind of menial but it helped me relax. I have nothing to do today, it’s grey and raining out like I’ve said so there won’t be many people around. Perhaps I’ll go for another walk, or maybe I’ll just stay in all day in my comfy cave. I tried to follow a similar pattern with this post as I did with the first (not including my introduction) one, where I followed where my mind wandered as the day went on. People seemed to like that, and I like writing that way the most. That’s all for now anyway, I’m working after tomorrow for three days straight so perhaps that’ll get my mind going again.

Decisions decisions

Last night as I finished writing up the previous entry I realised I was sad. I didn’t have it when I started writing, but I took a break to cook something and after finishing eating I went back to write some more. As I was writing the last couple paragraphs it just hit me, I guess this means things are entirely back to normal at last. I went to sleep early again to get away from the feeling. I don’t remember my dream too well now, it’s been a while since I woke up but here’s what I can recall.

There were two distinct parts, perhaps I woke up and fell back into a different dream, it’s all a blur. I was in a shop, some kind of old second hand clothing store or a thrift store you might call it. All the clothes were wrapped in those plastic coverings they have in dry cleaning places, those bags they put to take them home in. Then, out of nowhere this old friend I knew from years ago showed up. I really mean years, I haven’t seen this person in real life since I finished primary school so I would have been 10 years old. He was acting as if we’d never lost contact, and he gave me an old playstation 1 and one game (some sonic game, which is funny because I looked it up out of curiosity after waking up and there were no sonic games at all on the original playstation) saying that would cheer me up. I wandered around the shop some more and eventually bumped into my second ever crush/ oneitis from my first year of secondary school. This girl left a huge mark, to this day she still occasionally shows up in my dreams for god’s sake that tells you everything. Although perhaps this will be the last time that happens, because things were different in this one. She was the same age as me, usually in other dreams she features in her and me are both kids again. So I see her looking through clothes, even though they’re all bagged up and look the same. I go to tap her on the back and get her attention but she turns around really fast and stares at me with this look of disdain. “You don’t care about me anymore Anon, stop wasting my time” she said or something to that effect, and then walked off deeper into the store. After some time that old school friend appears again, he tells me that he hopes I’ve been enjoying the sonic game over the last few days because his mother likes to play it and she’s been bored stuck at home. I lied, I said I had been even though I don’t remember ever leaving the store or several days passing. I decide to give it back and say I’ve had my fun and appreciate the thought but I can’t find it. So I say I’ll get it back to him some time soon, and I remember this feeling of guilt hitting me right away. It didn’t last long though, because the next thing I remember I’m somewhere completely different. I was heading to work, an early shift again but somehow the sun was high in the sky like at noon. I could see it from the staircase as I climbed up to the treehouse, not that I work in a treehouse usually but in a dream things like that seem to go by unnoticed. I don’t remember doing any work, I only know it was work because my brain felt like that was where I was going for some reason. I know that to get down I took a different route, and waiting at the bottom of this wooden scaffold structure I had to climb down was another one of the people who works with me. There’s a team of about 6 in total so not one I’ve mentioned before. I don’t remember what she said, honestly this whole second dream felt a lot less meaningful.

I woke up after that, and the sadness was still there, that exact same feeling and I hate to admit this because of how truly pathetic it makes me look but the only thing I can think about is phone message girl. I just don’t know what the fuck is wrong with me, last Monday I was completely miserable and losing it over some other girl who never gave a shit about me and now I’ve completely stopped caring about her and am back to obsessing over someone I had put out of my mind ages ago who also doesn’t and I guess never did give a shit about me. It’s all because of one stupid fucking message, I’m losing my mind over this shit. If it wasn’t for that message I’d likely never think about her again outside of an occasional fond memory popping into my head of the time when we were both working together. As sad as it was at the time to know that she’d no longer be in my life, I was really glad that things ended how they did. So this morning, while I was stuck at home waiting for it to be time to go in to work I decided to check her social media. Immediately there’s a bunch of posts in her native language from the last couple months, generic sad/ sappy shit so something obviously happened. Find out over the next 20 minutes lurking around like a fucking weirdo that she broke up with her boyfriend, who I’m pretty sure she moved here to this country with in the first place years ago. So, now I have reached yet another conclusion on what happened because I just can’t stop thinking about this stupid message. I think that, last Wednesday evening she was at home with nothing to do and still hadn’t got over this break up. So to get back some sense of self worth she messaged me, and because I replied within about 20 minutes that was all that was necessary. A potential orbiter was all the esteem boost she needed, so that’s why she didn’t respond after I sent my reply. I don’t know, seeing it typed up like this makes me think I’m being overly cynical. I don’t like thinking about someone like this, especially when I really do think she was a truly nice girl and above such behaviour. I can’t help it, my mind always goes to the worst possibility. I’ve been thinking about it, and maybe there’s only one option here if I want to put this behind me. I just have to ask “Why did you message me?”, I think if I don’t I’ll end up going mad but there’s no reason to believe that won’t also get ignored. I’ll decide tomorrow whether or not to do that. Part of me thinks it’s a terrible idea, maybe I’ll find out why and I’ll wish I didn’t, or I’ll get ignored.

I met the new guy today, he was really friendly which is nice because I had no idea what he was like. He’s a little odd, like me I guess, I’m glad to have him around and not being the only guy on the team is a nice change too. I’ll get to say hello properly to the other new addition on Saturday too, I met her on Monday as I’ve mentioned but I only had time to shake hands and then I was gone because she had to be shown around by the manager. You know, I already went over that. Also I’m slowly falling in love with Loveless, I listened to it 7 times today. If I’m being honest I don’t want to listen to anything else, there’s something incredibly comforting and warm about this album. I tried listening to other music but I just wasn’t feeling it at all. I’m going to listen to it now one more time before having an early night again. I’m not sure posting an entry every night is a great idea either, and the next two days I’m not working so I’m going to have nothing to do. I’ll probably leave it for a few days now.

Can’t be bothered to think of a title this time

Ok, I’ve had a little break now but I feel like I don’t want the gap between posts to be too long right now. It’s also quite therapeutic, and yesterday was another weird day although nothing like early last week so I can talk about that. Yesterday was the first day since starting this thing I haven’t posted or at least been writing something that I could post later on.

I had an early shift, which means waking at 5 in the morning. It’s not that difficult, but I’ve had mild insomnia since I was a little kid which comes in waves so I get several days or weeks in a row where I really struggle to sleep and then weeks or months where it’s fine. It’s easy to manage, but it will just come out of nowhere and if that’s the night before an early rise it can really fuck your day up. I can probably count the times it’s really fucked me on two hands though, due to being a NEET for a while and also just generally a useless cunt who never has plans I can usually just sleep in later, so again it isn’t the worst thing in the world. Anyway, after it happening to me on my second morning shift just after starting this job I found some sleeping pills to prevent this happening again. As always, recommended by an anon on r9k. They help, but you wake up in the morning feeling pretty groggy and they can also cause some pretty intense dreams although I’ve always had vivid dreams anyway. So I thought because this last week I’ve been sleeping better than I have in a long time, I don’t know what it is but since early last week I’ve just been falling asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow, I’ll skip the pill this time. Maybe writing my thoughts down clears my mind so I’m not thinking about things when I try to fall asleep. I didn’t fall asleep immediately, it took me a while so I probably got about six hours of sleep in the end roughly. Not ideal but I can work with it. I went in and did the work, and nothing of note really happened until about 15 minutes before I usually finish.

The shift was meh, nothing happened really. I got there and put on Klu Klux Glam, a collab album by Ariel Pink and R. Stevie Moore which I start every morning shift with. Not sure how that habit started, it’s one of the only “rituals” I really have other than my general morning routine on days I’m not working early or at all. The customers came, some were friendly some were cunts and most were just trying to get their shit and go. There was one 30 year old boomer type who said “at least this isn’t more bloody rap” about my music, which made me chuckle. Then just before it was time to go my manager arrived, along with one of the new workers. There’s two new people, one to replace someone who left a few weeks ago and the replacement for the girl who left last week. Speaking of her, I’m quite shocked about how quickly I’ve gotten over that whole situation given how I felt last week. I was seriously messed up for a couple days there, and every other time I’ve been in a similar situation it’s been rough for weeks and still might pop back into my thoughts months later. It could be that writing has helped me, in getting my thoughts out and having them heard like in a therapy session. It could be the distraction of writing and feeling of a new project or purpose (admittedly very small scale, but from literally nothing it’s still an improvement) that’s been helping. Maybe it’s getting that text from the other girl, I mentioned in my “first real post” that this powerful feeling of exhaustion came over me after the initial surprise and then internal freak out, but I didn’t elaborate on that at all. I think maybe I had what people call a moment of clarity. The whole thing was so out of left field, I was miserable and stuck inside pining for this girl who won’t even remember who I am soon I imagine and then this other thing I’d been upset about and thought was tied up in a neat little bow and left in the past was suddenly right back on my mind. It first completely took my mind off of oneitis girl being gone, after two days of trying and only making myself feel worse. Secondly it reminded me that I had been in almost the exact same situation only a few months earlier. When I woke up the next day, I saw still reeling from the previous couple days but it was different. I haven’t gone back to that video of the youtube cover, or checked any of her social media or even really thought about her once since the blogpost about that whole situation was finished.

Anyway my manager showed up yesterday with one of the new people. I’ll explain the situation at work to help understand things. There’s two different branches in the area of the city I live in both run by one manager. One is quite a bit smaller and gets a lot less customers, also the shifts are shorter. So when you do your training for the job you’re at the big place, then after you start properly you mostly work at the small shop or do weekends at the bigger place. At least that’s how it was for me, kinda, I’m gonna go deep on this shit be warned. When I had my first real shift, I had to go to the small shop and the person who had been doing the morning there was asked to quickly explain the slight differences between it and the main one. It was phone message girl who was there that day actually, if it was even her who sent that message which now I’m not even sure about. I know last time I said my main theory was it was an accidental message but now after realising it was the same number from before with the same local area code despite her leaving the country it might just be a completely different person. I’m very happy for this to be the case, it means things actually are still wrapped up neatly and the last exchange from when she left is where things were left after all. Or she never changed to a new number, I don’t fucking know. So she had to explain the slightly different till and a few other small things like that. I was expecting that I would be asked to do the same, and when I saw my manager show up with the new girl early I was surprised when instead I was just told I could go home early. I know I should be happy about getting to leave early but I’d be lying if I said this didn’t bother me. See this isn’t the first thing like it that’s happened at work, in fact it’s one more in a long list of things that have been really bugging me for a while now.

I’m going to try and hit everything, might forget some smaller things though. So the first thing that made this an issue I paid attention to was shortly after the last time I ever did a weeknight at the main shop, I didn’t stock up perfectly and I also spent like half an hour longer than normal closing the place. I haven’t been there on a week day since, except one time where I was asked really last minute because the person there left mid shift and I was around. Also after that point I stopped getting weekends there for months. I’ve also never had a weekday morning there once, other than when I was training and with someone else. The busiest the place ever gets is the mornings, or certain special occasions when the area is way more busy than normal. Even before that point I wasn’t there week nights very often, I only ever had a week I was there multiple evenings one time. So this bothered me a tiny bit, but I prefer the smaller place anyway so I didn’t really think about it much. I did get to thinking about some things though when the subject did pop into my head. I know I look young for my age, I’m 21 now but I still get people thinking I’m way younger. I had a customer, this old lady, say I looked about 15 not too long ago. If I ever try to buy alcohol I need ID, and even the people who know I’m a legal adult often assume I just turned 18. When I mentioned it was my birthday to oneitis girl she assumed I was about to turn 19. I think you can tell where I’m going with this, I’m fairly certain this leads people to think I’m less competent than I am. That fact combined with my criminally vulgar shyness anyway. I’m not saying I’m especially competent, but I think I could manage whatever the rest of my co-workers can. Anyway, after message girl (I guess that’s what I’m calling her now..) left and she was replaced the replacement was working weekday mornings at the main shop her first or maybe second week. I think she’s done very similar jobs before so had experience, but still after this I started feeling really insecure. The same thing is happening again with one of the new people, the guy who I haven’t met yet. Lastly, my manager seemed kind of annoyed at me too when she was there yesterday. More abrasive and in a rush than usual, usually she’s really friendly. I thought that maybe it was because she had to explain things to the new girl herself because I couldn’t do it (even though I could) but thinking about it now more clearly it’s probably just been stressful having to find new people and do interviews and all that crap. I have a tendency to make things that have nothing to do with me all about myself.

I’m not sure how to feel, I have enough reason to be insecure at this point but not to say for certain that the reason I’m being kept at the smaller shop is because I can’t handle more responsibility. After all, I have mentioned to some of my co-workers that I prefer the smaller place so maybe my manager is just trying to be nice, plus everyone else seems to feel the opposite so it does work out fairly well this way. There’s good reason to believe this too, because a similar thing happens with the evenings and mornings. That is, I prefer the evening shifts because I can wake up late and everyone else prefers the morning shifts because they’re normies who have crap to do during the day. I know everyone at the job knows this, and I just happen to be given mostly evenings. I work less than everyone else too, I only do part time so an average of three or four days a week whereas everyone else does five normally. Writing it out like this really does make me realise just how petty I’m being, how I’m worrying about nothing. Even if they do all think I’m a stupid child who can’t do anything why should I care, it’s literally making my life easier to be thought of in such a way. Anyway that’s what was bothering me all day yesterday, I feel like this post does a bad job of expressing how I felt but a good job of explaining what I was feeling.

I felt small and useless, I know it’s silly but I get into this negative spiral over the tiniest things. To try and relax and clear my head I thought I’d run a hot bath before going to sleep. I can’t even not fuck that up though because the bath ended up practically scalding hot. I wanted to wait for it to cool down for a few minutes so I thought I’d choose a new album to listen to while I had the bath, and I’ve been slowly going through /mu/core stuff for a while now so I thought Loveless would be a good pick. I know a lot of people think of /mu/core as pleb tier but I’ve said before I’m new to this as a real hobby and I have to start somewhere. It’s taking me a while too because I’m mostly using the chart as a jumping off point to find other things I like. I haven’t yet listened to the main 15 at the top even. I like to mention what I’m listening to, if I am listening to anything that is, at certain points in these blogposts because it’s kind of like giving it a soundtrack. I put Loveless on and get into the ridiculously hot bath that hasn’t cooled down a bit. I haven’t listened to much shoegaze but a few times when I have it’s given me this feeling like something pressing me down. It’s like being on an aeroplane or underground and that feeling of pressure you get. This was no exception, and combined with the heat I had to stand up after about ten minutes because I was going to faint. I stood against the wall, and I was hardly paying attention to the music it was like this whirring in the background. Then eventually I slid back into the water and it had cooled down some, I stayed there for a while just staring up at the ceiling until the record finished. I’m not retelling any of this for a reason, it’s just the only noteworthy thing that happened. It was a strange experience, I enjoyed the album a lot more on my second listen today sitting in my main room with the window open.

This post is a fucking mess, I did a bad job getting across the feeling I wanted to. I feel like that one about the nightwalk and surrounding events really conveyed the place I was in at the time well but I can’t do that tonight. That was also an unusual few days, I suppose I could try and make life more interesting so this online diary thing is worth reading. I’m not sure how I’d do that though, I’m all alone out here it’s difficult to even force myself out of the door for the necessities. Either way hopefully next time I upload it’ll be something I can be proud of like with the other entries, because I really am happy with those.

I coulda been somebody!

Well shit, I’m not sure what to write about. It’s not like I don’t have ideas, I’m overwhelmed by them but I have no clue where to start or how to elaborate on any one of them enough that it’ll make a worthwhile read so I’m just gonna put something down or I’ll work myself up into a frenzy and be unable to get to sleep tonight. Which can’t happen because it’s back to work in the morning. I have to say though, I actually quite like this feeling. You see, it reminds me of when I was still in school. Homework or any other kind of written assignment would always cause me to go blank. I’d get so worked up thinking about all the different routes I can go I would end up sitting there staring at the page for hours and not writing a word. Then I’d feel shitty and go play vidya or watch something and say I’d start the next day. It’s a pretty common experience this isn’t anything insightful, I just like having that feeling again. I have an assignment due in and now I’m even more free in my potential options than ever before.

That age was also the last time I was truly happy, not to say I haven’t experienced happiness since then of course but that was the last time I was truly happy and optimistic as a general rule. Nowadays to be happy is something I actually appreciate, at that age it was something I could take for granted. I had finally managed to get a small group of friends at school and one other boy in particular quickly became a very close friend. We were together so often the rest of our friends and people we associated with were constantly making gay jokes, a teacher of ours even made a similar quip although much less crudely. That teacher while I’m on the subject was hugely important to me, he was an English teacher and was one of the few I genuinely always wanted to impress with my work. He also said something to me once that left a huge impression, something that’s been back on my mind the last few days. In response to an assignment we had, a kind of mock review of a television show of our choice, he said he laughed out loud multiple times while marking it. He also said he could picture it in a genuine pop journalism publication, or something like that but I might be looking back with rose tinted glasses because this was a huge moment for me. I’m not sure I trust my memory completely in this case, but still it was certainly a very well received piece of work and one I never quite lived up to again. Naturally that one comment was enough to make someone as insecure as me feel indebted to him right until the last day of school. The reason it’s been back on my mind though, is because writing again in a longer form than just the occasional effortpost is reminding me how fun this is. I used to write for fun and that particular assignment I remember especially fondly. I remember laughing at my own attempts at humour the entire time I was writing the thing up. It was just a silly school assignment in the grand scheme of things though, only impressive to him because I was about 14. If someone my age were to write that it’d be laughable, but because I’ve dropped off in almost every single one of my interests and pursuits since not long after that age I haven’t progressed. Hopefully doing this will help me to catch up to where I could be if I never quit writing, one day.

Back to the what I was going over though, at that age I was still hopeful for the future. Not only did I finally have what you could call a best friend, and we really were incredibly close. We were together at all times outside of lessons, and also in lessons that we shared. We would hang out after school every day, on Fridays for hours and hours and most weeks one of us would stay the night at the other’s place. Weekends we’d hang out too, often with a few of the others from the group at school. He also first got me thinking about politics in a meaningful sense, my politics have changed drastically several times over since then but it started with him. Before him I was really uncritical, I don’t know how but he awoke this thoughtfulness in me that never went away. Not just in regard to politics, in how I looked at any kind of art or media and how I analysed the things people did. Maybe it’s all a coincidence, this was after all around the same time I went through puberty so maybe this was all latent. I don’t think so though, and at the time I definitely didn’t. At the time I felt this huge sense of gratitude, I felt like he’d saved me. To keep up with the current memes, it was like I was an NPC and he somehow made me into a player character. We were also actively looking forward to our futures, we spoke about what we’d study at uni and the places we’d travel to in our 20s. I was enjoying life and looking forward to every day, and excited for what the future would hold. I wasn’t even really bothered by not having a girlfriend, I would have liked one and I’d certainly already had crushes/oneitises at this point but it wasn’t something that I really thought about frequently. I just assumed I’d get around to that aspect of my adolescent development later on. There were girls who had expressed clear interest in me, but because I always dropped my spaghetti I ruined it, so naturally I’d just get better and things will work out like everything else had been doing I thought. Just not right now.

My music taste first started to develop around this time too, I was mostly listening to a few fairly well known alt-rock and indie bands so I had pleb tier taste but it was the first time I started paying attention to what I listened to and actively developing a certain taste rather than just seeing music as something that’s in the background. I wouldn’t say I saw music as a hobby or real interest of mine until about a year ago though. The album Velociraptor by Kasabian is basically the soundtrack for those three years, along with maybe Nevermind or In Utero. I don’t listen to any of them very often now, but the few times I have I get hit by a wave of memories from back then.

That’s why I like this feeling anyway, it puts me back in the headspace I was in when I was last truly a happy person. This was the last meandering post for a while now though. I have that idea about school shootings which I really want to talk about. I just hope it is as original as I think or I’ll feel like an idiot. I know I have an insight that most people don’t, and I’ve read and watched a lot about the subject and never seen someone put it quite like I would so far. Making a whole blogpost on the thing though is going to be difficult and might take longer than these last few did. Talking about myself is easy, but writing an intelligent (hopefully) and in depth (kinda) commentary on a modern phenomenon like school shootings isn’t. Also I’ll be working on and off again over the weekend and into next week. What I’m trying to say is I’m not done yet, and there will be more from me.

First real entry

So, I suppose I better start somewhere.

Now I’ve had some time to think about this more clearly I’m going to lay out my plan for anyone who might be interested. I’ll be using this as a diary or journal like I mention in the introduction. Now I actually need to have something to say it’s hard to know where to start. So as a general rule I’ll make an entry or post, not sure what to call these, if I have an interesting day or event happen around me and whenever I get to thinking about something in particular detail. For today I’ll go over the last few days events, which ultimately led to me starting this. The last few days have been really difficult and confusing, but it was all in my head. I’ve thought about recounting what happened in detail but after reading back the draft I realised how insane it makes me look that this is all it took to completely throw me off baseline. So instead I’ll just go over it all as briefly as I can and use that to springboard to other things. I think this post will probably still be atypical for what I generally plan to do here though. No matter how hard I try I can’t get this particular entry to not come off as completely self indulgent and wanky, but going forward I’ll try to keep things more in the spirit of my introductory post.

So as background information starting Tuesday morning I’ve had the home to myself and will for the next month, my parents are away. My last day at work was Monday, and my oneitis co-worker will be gone when I start back next. I knew she was going to leave for a while, and I knew but didn’t mention that Monday would be the last time I’d see her. I also knew she’d be opening up the next day, so I left a goodbye note that evening before going home. I didn’t “confess my feelings” or anything faggy like that but I was more emotive than I ever was in person. I wake up and immediately check my phone the next day hoping for some reply but there’s nothing. Parents leave really soon after that and I basically do nothing the entire day but scroll through the catalog on /r9k/ and check my phone every few minutes. It’s still the busiest part of the shift maybe later, she’s still working maybe later, etc. It’s clear there’ll be no reply after a while but I still do nothing except listen to Filosofem on repeat incredibly loudly and lie on the floor constantly checking my phone.

At some point the bright idea hit me that I should check her social media, because I didn’t feel like enough of a creepy fucking loser already. Some anon told me that putting someone’s email address in quotation marks into google would help and through that I found her Instagram, Facebook and an old youtube channel with one video public. Now, going through all of that crap for the following few hours really illustrated something to me that I’d been going over in my head the month leading up to this day when I first found out she was leaving. I never really fell for her, I fell for a creation that was based on the few snippets of information I got in the time I knew her. Because we hardly even spoke, for months I couldn’t even manage basic smalltalk without my voice shaking and even after getting more comfortable the conversations were really brief. I didn’t fall for a person, in my desperation and loneliness I convinced myself she was something she wasn’t and that that person I imagined was who I wanted to be with. I hope this makes sense, I know if you’re a khv like me you’ll understand but I want normalfags to get it too. Like I said I was already thinking about this for a month, but finding out in a few hours that this person was a performing musician, an amateur photographer (this one I was aware of actually but I had never seen any of the photos), had been on several trips over the summer, might very possibly be a lesbian (something I did have very slight suspicions about before) and just had a life that was so much more active when looked at next to mine the two weren’t even comparable really hammered it home.

I’d been awake since about 6 and it was starting to get dark, but at that point the racing thoughts were so intense I had to do something so I got my coat and left. I got a bus to the city centre, which was around half an hour as I was listening to the ep Nightshade Forests by Summoning and it synched up almost exactly. I know it seems like I listen to a lot of black metal reading this but I actually don’t very often I just happened to that day. The bus ride itself was really something, I actually made a thread about it on /r9k/ after getting back. I was staring out of the window and it’s like every single inch of the city had some memory attached for me. It all suddenly hit me how limited my life has been. That’s where I’d hang out after school, that’s where I got stuck for hours in the snow that one time, that’s where X used to live, that’s that place I used to go on weekends when I was little, that’s the shopping centre where I got chased around by the older kids. Like that but non stop, a new one every few seconds for the entire trip before I had time to really think properly about any of these memories. I genuinely started to feel nauseous after a while, it was relentless. Most of the memories weren’t bad, they were either good or neutral, but realising how my entire life could be relived in a short bus ride was a really awful feeling. Especially because in the back of my mind this whole time was the knowledge that oneitis girl had lived in several cities and I couldn’t help but compare myself to her. It’s not like I even want to do that though, I want to travel yes but I don’t want to live in a different city or live the kind of life she does. I want to see mountains, and sprawling deserts and third world shanty towns. I want to go on adventures, which is another reason this ride bothered me because I realised I’m in my early 20s and haven’t progressed mentally or materially since I was 15. I could elaborate on why I think that is for hours and have and probably will in future posts but not right now. Short story is I think the suicide of someone very close to me when I was around 14 and seeing their embalmed corpse at that age may have caused some kind of PTSD. I don’t have a professional diagnosis though so don’t trust me for a second. I haven’t progressed because I still talk about wanting to “go on adventures” like a fucking child and also because I haven’t been on any adventures yet. Well, there’s one brief holiday I went on with my only two friends earlier this summer which kind of fits what I’m looking for but it was only a couple days and fairly local in the grand scheme of things. It was an interesting few days though, I had my first psychedelic experience too while there.

I’ll try to keep going with the story though. I got off the bus and began to walk, I walked along the river for a while until I got to a bridge and crossed that. I walked around fairly aimlessly until I found myself at the city cathedral, then crossed back via a different bridge just as it began to rain and the fog was getting pretty dense. I have to say that second bridge crossing was really beautiful, it was completely dark by this point and through the fog you could see the lights on the taller towers shining through. I should have taken some photos, they’d have gone down really well in a /comfy/ thread. After that I was getting pretty hungry after eating nothing the entire day so I went around searching for a nice ramen stall to eat at. Of course I didn’t find one because I don’t live in an anime and eventually settled for getting my calories in drinkable form. I found a little alcove down by the river and sat there for a while drinking my ales and watching the rain hit the water with some tunes. Curtains by John Frusciante, as you may have noticed music is quite a big part of my life. This is actually fairly new though, it really only started when I got this job. I used to listen to music occasionally before, but when I started in order to keep myself entertained through the long shifts I began listening to lots of new stuff every day. This new interest in music and appreciation for it has been really helpful in getting through the harder times the last year. This lasted for a while anyway, me sitting there, I’m not sure how late it was at this point but it wasn’t yet midnight because the shop would have been closed.

Eventually a homeless man barged into my little outpost and I had to go. The interaction we had was noteworthy though. I was already at the end of my last bottle so I quickly finished it off and got up to leave and on my way out he started complaining about his situation. He said he’d lived in this city his entire life, and watched new apartment buildings go up every day for people with no connection to this place. I said something in reply I don’t remember exactly what and as I was heading up the steps he said “I wish I had somewhere to go home to”. I felt I had to say something, but as nice as I think I am I’m not going to invite a total stranger into my home so I replied “you might find somewhere” which he misinterpreted as me saying I didn’t have any money. He got visibly angry and said “I’m not asking for money” and being the sperg I am I said “No, that’s not what I meant” but the no was far louder than the rest and that’s all he heard. Then he had this look on his face, which still bothers me now. I think what happened is he thought I’d misheard him both times and the second reply was me saying I didn’t have money again but louder. As I walked back to get the bus home, the rain now heavily coming down, the internal monologue started playing up again. I started thinking maybe I really am a good person. The fact that I even care about this guy at all when he can’t possibly do anything for me must show that. See, there’s this immediate reaction people have when you refer to yourself as a good/ nice person now which is why I never do it. They think you’re just another example of the “nice guy” meme, an opportunist or someone who’s just trying to get in a girl’s pants. You’ve heard it all before “you’re not nice you’re just doing nice things to get sex”. Well disregarding the fact that that doesn’t even matter because you’re still doing nice things it’s often not even fucking true. However, it’s such a widely held view of things that someone as self doubting as me still sometimes starts to second guess themselves. Which is exactly what I’d been doing before the homeless guy came along. I’d been thinking specifically about one day when the oneitis girl had been ill and I went into work despite it not being my shift to bring some medicine. That was the main thing, but there were a few others. I was still bitter at this point so it started with me thinking about how I’d done all this shit and she didn’t even think to send me a goodbye message back in response to mine. If she even ever saw it and it didn’t just blow onto the floor overnight which was something else worrying me. That made me think though, maybe the legion of cunts are right and I’m not really nice. Did I just do those nice things because she was my oneitis, I’m still not sure. Would I do something like that for someone I wasn’t attracted to or thought I could get something in return from? I’m not sure, but I did realise that I certainly care about people who can’t do anything for me. So my “nice guy”ness is universal not contextual at least in theory. I suppose if I was a real good person I’d have let him stay in my parents’ bedroom though wouldn’t I, what a piece of shit I truly am.

The rest of the evening was uneventful, I started writing this on the bus or at least the other draft which was more in depth (would you believe?) but I wasn’t sure if I was going to ever put it anywhere yet I just needed to get my thoughts out. Then I got home, rewatched that one video from her old youtube channel a bunch of times on repeat and went to sleep. It’s a cover of some latin american pop ballad, with an acoustic guitar. She doesn’t even show herself in the video but given the name on the account and some tells at certain points in the song I know it’s her. It’s funny, a few times when I was not feeling great she asked if I was doing ok and it really helped me cheer up. When you feel like no one in the world cares about you at all and then someone does something to show they do it really can make your day. Given that she didn’t even think to reply to my message though, something which would have taken a few seconds, I guess it was all false. Assuming she got it in the first place that is. She never cared at all, and the video is quite a fitting metaphor. It’s this love song, I looked up an english translation of the lyrics, and in the video I can feel what seems like true emotion. The main reason I was listening to it that evening was because it almost helped recapture that feeling of being asked if I was doing alright. It’s a cover though, someone else’s words about someone else’s love. It couldn’t be any less genuine and yet it feels so real. I feel like I need to say this too, I’m not saying she should care about me or even that she’s a bad person for not caring. I was stupid for believing she did based on nothing more than her asking me how I am a few times. I don’t think I’m entitled to any space in anyone’s head, I’d just like it.

The next day was better until the evening, I woke up and managed to actually eat something. I did some push ups, and while some part of me still was hoping for a reply I had accepted that were wouldn’t be one realistically. I still did nothing, I continued with that draft and had it mostly finished but other than that I was lying around feeling sorry for myself and going through the /r9k/ catalog over and over again. It wasn’t until later that night, not long after it got dark again that the next and final interesting thing happened. I hadn’t checked my phone in a while but I looked at it and there was actually a notification. Of course my immediate thought and hope was that it was my oneitis with a more likely guess that it would be my friend who I had tried to call earlier that day. It wasn’t either of them though. It was someone I hadn’t spoken to in months and expected to never hear from ever again. This serves as a good way of showing just how different my experience is from the typical normalfag btw. If I get one (1) notification on my phone that’s an unusually eventful day. I’m not trying to compete for biggest loser on the planet here but if I was I’d probably beat you.

Anyway, you’re about to understand just how neurotic I really can be, this next paragraph could have been written by a 14 year old girl. Quickly going back in time, when I first started my job there was another girl who worked there. We actually got on probably better than I did with oneitis girl and I was able to make her laugh a few times even. On the day she quit she actually sent me quite a heartfelt goodbye message. In response to a text from me first but still I really appreciated it. At risk of sounding completely shallow she was prettier and younger than oneitis girl too, I guess because I knew she had a boyfriend I managed to not develop feelings for her. I’ve looked back on the time with her fondly because I know for sure there wasn’t any kind of unconscious ulterior motive and I did just enjoy her company in and of itself. There’s an innocence to it all, or at least there was. Anyway, she’s in a completely different country on the other side of the continent now but for some reason last night I get a message on WhatsApp saying hi. Not the exact message but that sums it up. No question just hi and because I’m so taken aback I have no idea what to do. I’m wondering if it’s an accident and was meant for someone else (most likely in my mind now) or she really does want to catch up or I don’t even know what. After I take a minute, and ask for advice about what to say on 4chan which was no help, I reply back “hi.. what’s up?” to which there has still been no reply almost 24 hours later. There’s two things that may have happened here, and both bother me greatly. Either it was an accident and she hasn’t replied to my reply because she didn’t ever want to talk. Which might also mean that the goodbye from before wasn’t as heartfelt as I thought and was just something she sent to get me to leave her alone. Not that I was going to try and contact her again after my goodbye text, but she might have thought I would. If this route is the accurate one then it ruins that entire time I’ve looked back on fondly and also ruins how it was all wrapped up and left in the past. Closure is such a nice thing to have in life, so when that is retroactively taken from you it really isn’t fun. Alternatively, she did mean to send the message but my reply wasn’t satisfactory. Maybe because it was too soon after her message and I seemed too enthusiastic, or because the message was fairly brief and reserved so I didn’t seem enthusiastic enough. I really don’t fucking know, there’s this whole millennial code around this kind of thing that being separate from normie life I never picked up but I thought it was only really important in dating/ romantic exchanges and for catching up with an old friend things would be less strict. I’m still checking my phone now like holy shit why would you send a message to someone and then just ghost. If it was an accident just tell me, and the fact that this happened to me right now when I’m in a particularly emotionally fragile state it’s like I’m being divinely fucked with. I really can’t shake this feeling that I’m living in some Truman show style simulation and the viewers or the showrunner or the harvester robots or whatever are just messing with me for kicks. This is why people shoot up schools. Well, not really I actually have an interesting theory on that which I don’t think anyone else has talked about so maybe that could be the concept of a future entry if I can think of a good way of presenting it.

Anyway, that’s where we are now, there’s nothing else eventful that’s happened other than me making my introductory post. After seeing those blue ticks show up on my message and then radio silence this powerful feeling of exhaustion just came over me. I was so completely unprepared, maybe a better reply would have been “hey, thanks for the anxiety attack” after all it would have been more emotionally honest than what I actually sent. It might have gotten a laugh, not that I’d see it but I do miss her laugh. So I fell asleep after that, earlier than I planned but lately I’ve found going to sleep and escaping this mental hell the part of the day I most look forward to. It’s starting to get darker now, I’ve been writing this on and off all day long so it’s tonally all over the place. Maybe that’s fitting though, if this thing is meant to be truly representative of my state of mind it should be all over the place. Comical and absurd at parts, melancholic or outright miserable and bleak at others. Of course everyone goes through changes in their mental state, I just think the rapidity is uncommon.

Anyway I’ve been thinking about this blog thing all day while writing this up and I do want to keep going. It’s quite cathartic to get my feelings out and know that someone will hear them in full. And that really is crucial, I don’t want to be screaming into an empty void I’ve been doing that without a blog for years. /r9k/ can be a great place to vent but it’s limiting, I really got to lay out my mental journey over the last few days here. Even if the tl;dr of the story is just, I woke up and hung around at home, then I went for a stroll, then I came home and did some more nothing, my mind has been on overdrive so it’s felt like an emotional odyssey. Right now my audience, or potential audience is limited to the anons from that thread and I’m not sure if even you’ll stick around. I said I’m not going to shill this there again, but if I want to get people reading I’ll have to learn to be comfortable shilling somewhere which I’m not right now or be good enough that people shill for me. I don’t want much, just a small following of people who are genuinely interested in what I have to say or maybe see me as an interesting case study worth paying attention to. So, if you think I’m worth shilling for I’d appreciate it. Also I think there are comments if you want to call me a faggot or something.