Tag: loser

Above the sea of lights

So one of the customers asked my age today and it fucking threw me for a second. I’m 21, but for a good short while there I wasn’t sure. It’s easy to work out because I was born in 1997 so it’s just le current year XD plus three. Still, it’s the first time I’ve not just been able to recount it without even thinking. I don’t know if it really tells me anything, but I just can’t help but feel quite sad. I’m so detached from everyone, I even live in a rather isolated place. I mean I still live in a busy part of a busy city, but to get up to my building you have to walk up off the street onto an elevated and most of the time almost completely desolate area of land. Just to get to street level takes a few minutes, it’s almost nothing when put like that but you’d be surprised by how such a minor inconvenience can change people’s behaviour. See, I moved a few times before finally coming here when I was nine. We lived at three different places, plus my dad lived separately from me for a long time and so lived at two more places. All of them were normal places, walk out and onto the street etc. So growing up it was normal for people to be visiting, family or friends of my parents or the people my dad lived with or friendly neighbours or my own little friends. People being around was normal, and then I moved here. I’ve sometimes jokingly referred to it as the wizard’s tower because that shit stopped after coming here. I remember a noticeable change, not immediately because people made an effort at first, but after a year or two they gradually all stopped visiting. My uncle and cousins and their mother/ his partner (who was actually a good friend of my mum before the two ever met actually) for example came here a day after we moved in for a housewarming and would visit fairly often. By the time my mum died though and my dad moved in we were seeing them a few times a year at most.

It’s interesting that this change in a way rhymes with a greater change in my life in many other regards. I can almost sort my life into pre and post 2008 with the actual year of 2008 as this weird transitional time where things were all going crazy. Of course, I’m not the only one who feels this. Not only did my life and perception change quite significantly, the world at large seems to have. This idea of 2007 as the last good year is quite popular on /r9k/ at least and anywhere on the internet inhabited by my demographic really. I’m not going to go into that though it’s been done to death, you know the basic idea, obongo, financial crisis, social media, smartphones, new console generation, etc. It’s the usual thing, new decade new trends and a couple years before the new decade starts is usually when you see the ripples in the water it seems to me. A good example being in music, which in the second half of the 20th century was a defining aspect of the various decades’ identity. So The Pixies debut album and their best work (in my opinion obviously) Doolittle which sound 90s as fuck were actually both released in ’88 and 89′ respectively. Pretty Hate Machine was also released in 1989, Kate Bush’s debut was 1978 and there were a bunch of pop singles in those eights and nines which defined the coming sounds. Baker Street, Heart of Glass, Fortunate Son (It ain’t me, meme song 2bh) etc. I don’t know what I should talk about though, I’m kind of just going for a stream of consciousness with this entry so there’s no real plan or idea in mind. Another entry I write in a couple of long sessions again and then maybe I’ll go back to my more drawn out routine after this.

Anyway it makes me wonder how much this physical separation from the rest of the people around me has affected my mind, and how my mind has developed. I think this weird romanticism I had in my early teens for the modern archetype of the hikkikomori or NEET is something I mentioned before so I’ll just assume you already know about it. Well it does seem to have come about around a year or so after moving to the wizard’s tower. See I of course get upset about being lonely, loneliness bothers me a great deal and yet at the same time I find it very nourishing. I have grown dependent on some loneliness and this job I have now has taught me that. If I have a busy few weeks where I’m doing 5 days of work in my days off I just want to get away from everyone, I need some time to be away from people. When I go outside into the real world, especially after a longer period of isolation, I feel very strange almost like a mild feeling of intoxication. My head sometimes feels like it’s spinning and I get shaky and I can’t speak to people properly. I literally can’t bee myself, it’s like I’m inside a cage and the cage is what is interacting with everyone in my stead. I grasp the bars and see the interaction take place, I know what I want to say and I feel like I could be normal and accepted by people but can do nothing. That’s all an aside though, as I was saying by being isolated I grew to not just enjoy or be comfortable in loneliness but view it in this romanticised way. Of course anyone who’s been following me here will be aware of my fascination with ascetics, that’s another expression of this. I of course took a long time to fully embrace such a lifestyle myself, but had I have never developed this outlook would it have happened at all? I’m really not sure, I always hesitate to say there’s one crucial reason for any complex situation. I know that the year between September 2013 and 2014 had a huge affect, because I finally really came to terms with my mother passing away around that time and also because the isolation drastically increased. I moved to a new school, which at the age of 16 everyone does here, and I didn’t get to bring friends.

That year wasn’t all bad, even the darkest clouds have a silver lining. See I stopped going to classes but my dad was often at home and I had to get to registration in the morning so I wasn’t missed. After that I’d go to the library and just wait there often the whole day until school was over. I’d go to a few classes a week just to keep up appearances but I never got any work done and by the end of the year I knew I was so totally fucked I didn’t even show up for most of the final exams. I didn’t make it into the second year, of course. I read a lot though, given that the library computers had 4chan blocked and I didn’t have a smartphone at the time. Speaking of that phone I had, I only got rid of about half a year ago. There was one teacher who would actually send me a text message every time I didn’t show up to his lesson and I kept all of them (seeing him slowly get more and more frustrated as the months pass is really funny) saved right until I got rid of the phone. It wasn’t all the best stuff to be reading, I read Heavier Than Heaven because I was still quite a big fan of Nirvana at the time. I read this absolute unit of a book, Stalin, which was another biography obviously. It was written by such a fucking blatant commie sympathiser looking back, but I guess so was I at the time (forgive me), could you even imagine an equivalent tome about Franco or Mussolini being left around for kids to read. I read The Republic by Plato which kind of went over my head, and I intend to go back to. I read The Prince by Machiavelli, The Female Eunuch by Germaine Greer (and jesus is she mentally ill, I’m not going to reveal my misogyny power level today maybe some other time, but this idea of ugliness as empowering is  something I could go on about for a while). I also read the ASOIAF books, all that have been published so far anyway. I know it’s genre fiction and I’m a pleb for enjoying that stuff but I do enjoy it and I’m looking forward to The Winds of Winter. It’s a shame Elliot will never get to read it, he was quite a fan of the books too. The show Game Of Thrones is unfortunately not very good past series three, which is a shame because those first three seasons were admittedly fantastic and the reason I decided to read the books.

I think I read more in that year than any other, I just had nothing else to do. There’s probably some other books I forgot to mention as well. I don’t know how much of this blog should be me talking about other people’s art, because while I have of course in my years up here in the tower experienced a great deal and much of it has influenced me, I don’t just want to regurgitate other ideas. “Me like this film/ book/ etc.” isn’t anything worth your time, it’s hard to tell if I could do something worthwhile talking about art because I don’t know what anyone thought about the Cure posts which is the only time I’ve done something like that. I do wish I got more comments, I’ve only ever had one. I know I have very few regular visitors, although I think I’ve got a couple more since last time I complained about it, but it’d be nice to have some idea of what you people are enjoying about these. Of course I don’t want anyone to be uncomfortable, I hesitate to comment or write anything online that isn’t a 4chan post (because the total anonymity there makes me feel safe) so I get it, but if that’s not what’s stopping you but rather something else maybe you could reconsider. I do wonder why I don’t get any comments. At risk of sounding like a total self important dipshit, one reason I’ve considered is that because my posts can be quite thoughtful and in depth (for a short blogpost that is) and maybe people are thinking they need to have particularly lengthy or thoughtful comment but really that’s not necessary at all. Anyway I’m not sure what else to say here. I’m still finding it kind of difficult to write for some reason, even though I have a few ideas. I really find it relaxing to write though, this blog is becoming a nice little hobby for me so I just decided to start writing this evening and see how it goes. The shroom spores I think I must have mentioned before have been developing into a mycelium bed nicely. Perhaps in a few weeks or so some actual fungi will have grown as I get into the final part of the process and they’ll give me something to talk about.

Trust no one, not even the incels

Often at work people will ask me to charge their phone, it’s even quite common for them to carry their own charger around with them now so they only need an empty plug socket and I most of the time will do it for them. I’ll plug it in behind the counter somewhere and then they’ll come back in just before their bus arrives or after they’re done looking around and collect it. Most weeks I’ll get asked at least once, but the last time I was at the busier shop I had two people ask me at the same time. Or, slightly apart but both had to be charging next to one another for a little while. Describing these two reminds me of that couple I talked about quite a while back in that it’s almost cartoonish how these people live up to what is supposedly just the deluded worldview of the incels. First a woman maybe in her early 20s but could pass for early 30s, overweight and with a comical amount of make-up for a sunday afternoon. Of course she had a shit attitude, even her tone when asking me to charge the phone had an undercurrent of entitlement. Sure she was asking, but it felt like she was just going through with a formality and the idea of me saying no wasn’t even a possibility in her mind. I did think about saying no just to see how she’d react but I felt it’d be petty of me when I almost always say yes to other people who ask. Also having her around means she’s more likely to buy something, and other customers are more likely to come in. It’s an interesting thing I’ve noticed actually, how the shop can be dead for ages (sometimes for nearly half an hour) and then as soon as one person is there other people become interested. The way heads turn, sometimes people who’ve been outside paying no attention for some time, like hyenas is quite amusing to me. Anyway, second was a man of similar age maybe, now he was not a “Chad” but still someone I’d imagine is quite attractive to women. Trendy haircut, trendy fast fashion getup, handsome, not scrawny or chubby, etc. He came in a little after her, asked like he was expecting me to say no and seemed grateful when I didn’t.

I suppose you can already tell where this story is going. Her phone was lighting up and buzzing every couple minutes, and his phone didn’t go off once. It wasn’t off or on silent, because when I took the plug out to hand it back to him and the screen lit up I looked and the icon wasn’t there at the top. I know that’s fucking weird, and it gets worse because I also looked at her messages or at least the snippet that shows on the screen if you don’t press to see the full thing. I don’t remember what any of it was about, I didn’t see enough to, but I know it was various people messaging her. There were several names, both male and female. Now how is one supposed to react to admittedly anecdotal evidence that falls in line with their worldview so neatly? I’m certainly not going to be inclined to take these ideas (in this case, the whole “easy mode” meme) less seriously after this, and it’s hard to just disregard it even though supposedly that’s the rational thing to do because anecdotal evidence is meaningless right.. At least according to pseuds and contrarians, but pseuds and contrarians do get a bad rap and I think are a lot more valuable than they get credit for so who knows. I will say that confirmation bias, especially when it comes to people who talk about these kinds of things, is a real issue. An issue I don’t want to contribute to, especially as this whole blog does kind of a have a “we want the incel audience” vibe to it. I promise, it’s only partially intentional. So I need to be careful, but I have to say there’s no way I will be able to stop this incident from affecting my view on things. I need to be careful with this entry as well, it’s easy when you’re used to talking about this kind of thing with the sort of people on /r9k/ to forget that not everyone is up to date with the latest internet loser slang.

The thing is, the “ideology” of the incels is uncodified and is also only a splinter of a far far FAR larger ideaspace or subculture anyway. That’s why after literally thousands of articles, youtube videos, news segments or whatever no one actually understands anything at all about any of this shit. Not even the actual fucking incels themselves. Incels are something new because the term has recently become famous, even though I remember it being thrown around in 2014 on /r9k/. There was even a tripfag IncelManlet around that time but he just disappeared one day, press F to pay respects. Incels are a movement, they want to KILL people, and they all share a uniform set of ideas. Incel is just a term for a guy who can’t get laid but would like to, see anecdotal evidence above for why women can’t be incels (or robots, or losers, or nerds, or geeks, or dorks or etc etc forever) ;D. Not in spite of the fact that most of those guys would love for there to be, because of it. Another anecdote to illustrate what I’m talking about perhaps. This friend of mine I’ve mentioned before, we were chatting around the time of the Toronto van attack when the term incel was getting mainstream news coverage about the subject and at some point I said something like “you know I’m an incel right” because I didn’t like the mean spiritedness in his voice while having this conversation. Then there was some surprise, I’m surprised by his surprise because he knows I’m still a virgin and he knows I’m not asexual, and it ends with him saying I’m actually not an incel. Ask people on the internet who self identify as incels on places like /r9k/ or incels.me and they’ll give my definition in most cases (but not all, because there is no codified ideology of incelism it’s really just a collection of a certain type of guy within the larger internet “red pill” scene), which is what I stated above someone who can’t get laid. It’s the most straightforward term ever, celibate involuntarily.

I’m not quite sure what my goal is here, I don’t really have a plan but basically I’ve had a view of this world since around the age of 14 and I feel like a lot of people miss the forest for the trees because they not only pay attention just to the few times this world is brought into contact with our own but also because those who do try to understand it are overwhelmed. They’re overwhelmed by the numerous slang terms and codewords which are always evolving, and they’re overwhelmed by conversations which rely on assumptions and the results of earlier conversations the outsider wasn’t able to experience. You’ve probably heard the expression “start with the greeks” if you’ve asked anyone about reading philosophy. The idea is that you can’t just dip into the works of a more trendy philosopher like Nietzsche or Descartes, because you’d be missing the context of a several thousand year conversation which these works are a continuation of. I’m not comparing the at absolute best two decade long red pill “discussion”, of which early PUAs like Roosh would be the greeks if we stick with the metaphor, to the canon of western philosophy (although plenty of autists would, and there is certainly a large contingent in this red pill world who would jack off the concept of western philosophy despite being the exact types who would be told to start with the greeks) but the metaphor works I think to explain why this world is so impenetrable to normies. You scratch just a little and the whole comparison falls apart, it’s the greatest minds of the aristocracy going over things for generations and a bunch of lower middle class and working class 20-somethings arguing over tiny details while generally agreeing on the same worldview. Apples and oranges, but both are fruit.

That’s what the discussion is, if we go back to this idea of a separate world then incels and pick up artists and MRAs and neoreactionaries and MGTOW and the Alt Right ad infinitum are all various nations and civilisations of this world. Sure, history is nothing but bloodshed and warfare but there are a lot of shared premises. Instead of agriculture, social class, a legal system or warfare you have the 80/20 rule or hypergamy, the sexual marketplace (and the fundamentally different and fixed roles of men and women in that), a rejection of the current social and political order, evolutionary psychology and probably more that I can’t think of off the top of my head. There might be some groups within this world that reject one of these while still following the rest, just like the Russian empire 2.0 (USSR) supposedly holding the goal of achieving a classless society or various hunter gatherer tribes and peoples like the Scythians or the Comanche that weren’t agricultural. It’s a case of being able to break the rules after you understand them. It’s kind of a weak metaphor, but I like to explain things this way because it’s how I think. There are patterns all over the place and I think when people are made aware of these shared patterns they better understand what it is that’s important to focus on, or at least what you want them to focus on. Of course if you stick with thing, there are certain “cultural areas” within both this world and the real world. Certain regions of the world where empires have risen and fallen clearly are more close to one another than groups on opposite sides of the planet who had minimal on no contact. Just how you can see a huge influence from Rome in everything that came after in Europe from Byzantium to the British Empire, or how Buddhism spread to cover quite a distance on both sides of the Himalayas, certain groups are much closer to one another in similarity while others might consider themselves so different people associated with them would be angry about me grouping them all together like this. There clearly is a link between it all though, and I think I’ve finally found a way to explain it so I’m not going to just let it go. I’m aware of the term “manosphere” but I think it’s not broad enough, I’d say the manosphere is like one of those cultural areas in this imaginary world that quite a few groups some of whom are still going strong and others that have completely dispersed are covered by. Think of it like you think of the idea of “The West” when looking at European history. The more I think about this world metaphor the more ways I find it to be applicable actually. Sticking with this idea, just like all civilisations have heroes and leaders most groups in this online world have a few e-celebs associated with them. There are also of course e-celebs in this sphere who aren’t directly associated with specific groups, just like there are heroic figures claimed by multiple nations and peoples. These people are who come to mind immediately if you talk about one of these groups. Most of them are pretty shit individuals so I’m not gonna talk about them, but you probably know or have at least heard of a lot of them.

I think the most helpful thing of all about looking at things this way though, is that I finally might understand my place in all of this after around half a decade. I’ve been heavily exposed to the shared ideas of this “world” and can certainly say I’m part of it but yet I always hesitate to say I’m a part of any of these groups. /r9k/ and the robots are the only group I’ve really stuck with and feel some connection to, but I’ve taken several long breaks from visiting the board once even leaving for over a year. I’ve always just enjoyed looking at the larger picture, which is why I’ve always seen this larger world/ visualised it that way (although only the last couple days have I been fully conscious of it), and so I’ve drifted around and seen things come and go. Anyone else remember true forced loneliness or “neomasculinity”? I’m just a rootless drifter, a people watcher, enjoying watching things play out without my direct involvement. I stick around for a while, and sometimes naturally I get a little too invested like during my /pol/ phase (gazing too long into an abyss..) but I always move on because there’s one thing that separates me from all the other people like me who inhabit this desolate world. I’m too self critical, no matter what that niggling voice is there telling me I’m probably full of shit. I can’t trust a single thought that goes through my head, I can never comfortably make an objective statement. That goes for this blog too, of course. It might all be complete nonsense, just the ramblings of a neurotic mess, you shouldn’t trust a word. This world is like the collective unconscious of young men the world over, and naturally it evolves as the population increases and the backgrounds become more varied. That’s what I mean when I talk about my worldview, the zeitgeist of this other world.

I read Herodotus’ The Histories about a year ago and what I liked about it so much is it was less of a history book and more like a travel guide for the ancient near east. Herodotus was able to explore this world in a time not only of constant change but where anywhere even only a thousand miles from home was completely mysterious. I suppose he had a better understanding than most of the “rules” or prerequisites of civilisation but he was more apart from any specific one than most also. I’m not planning on writing extensively about this stuff, although naturally this blog inhabits this world because my thoughts are influenced by it no matter what. So going back to the unintentional catalyst for this entry (because when I started writing a couple days ago I planned to go in a completely different direction), what does it matter? I’m sure most people like me would just shrug it off as expected, but that’s why they’re also not quite me because I’m always a bit thrown off when something conforms to my worldview. I’m always expecting something around the corner to make me question myself all over again. There have been plenty of times where that has happened, and yet I still consider myself part of this “world”. If the opposite had happened and the guy’s phone was blowing up with messages I’d still be here, but let’s be honest that wouldn’t have happened… because it didn’t happen.

 

Finding my mind

I’m trying this for the third time because my mind is all over the place and I’m tired as shit. I think I’ll just try and say what’s bothering me/ been on my mind lately and not try to tie it all together anything tricky like that.

Firstly, yesterday (for me right now, but by the time I publish this probably not) was the first day I got no visitors. I mean technically I must have because I had someone “like” one of my posts but they must have come through the referrer thing which means they don’t show on my stats page as a unique visitor. It’s more of a symbolic thing, and I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t disheartening, because one of the main reasons I do this is so it will be seen and appreciated by people. I am fully aware of my own narcissism here, but it’s ok to be as long as you’re self aware right? I said either in my introductory post or the initial thread on /r9k/ that if no one was interested and I couldn’t get anyone to read I’d give up. It’s clear to me things are more complicated than that now. I do have a couple of you who are reading every upload and I really am glad you’ve stuck around and enjoy these, although it’d be nice if I knew your thoughts beyond that. Is it sick fascination, or do you find what I have to say relatable, or do I make you think? It’s such a huge drop though, because in those initial first few days I got a completely unexpected amount of people reading and by the end of that first week most were gone as I expected but there were still a good seven or eight who seemed to be interested and checking back. What I’m trying to say is I wouldn’t want to give up now that there is a very small group seemingly looking forward to what I post next, I don’t like leaving people hanging, but I am kind of disappointed that this group is so very small now. I know how I sound, but that is how I feel whether I like it or not. It’s just harder to find that initial enthusiasm I had in the first few weeks, because in the first few weeks I had three times as many regular visitors after that initial burst died down, or at least I thought and if they got bored everyone will inevitably. I was more than happy with that number, I want a pretty small audience but just large enough that if one or two get bored that’s not the end. Having only one or two (or maybe three right now, I can’t exactly tell) is a really precarious place because once you’re gone it’s a fucking wrap. This isn’t an attempt to emotionally blackmail anyone in to staying, I just realised how that sounded. The day this is no longer interesting you should stop visiting, and not feel bad about it at all.

It’s not a huge deal, I am getting people finding me from time to time thanks to that referrer thing and I think one of the current regulars was though there. So I’m probably not as close to oblivion as I convinced myself, if it hasn’t become clear yet I can get into these negative thought spirals really easily. It’s seeing the situation written down and being able to view it from a third person perspective that I’m finding really helpful for breaking out of them actually. Which is why I really don’t want to lose this, I really am finding it very therapeutic to have an outlet and know someone is hearing me out in full. I fully appreciate that if I want more of an audience I have to give people what they want (whatever that is, it ain’t this) but I just want people to love me unconditionally for who I am because I’m an entitled cunt so I will continue down this doomed path instead. Again, if you’re self aware it’s ok. Last thing on this subject, the “likes” system bugs the absolute shit out of me. It’s perhaps a benefit in some way I don’t understand right now, but they just feel completely meaningless. The option to “like” a post is (at least in the default layout) at the top so you don’t even need to scroll through what I wrote never mind actually read it. I know that’s happened as well because on a couple of occasions all my posts have been liked by one person in way less time than it’d take to read them all. Again maybe there’s some benefit and they’re doing me a favour like perhaps it’s more likely to be seen idk, but I don’t know that so it just cheapens all the other “likes” I’ve received. Did these people go on to read every post, or had they already? I’m not sure, the whole stats page is set up in a way that makes it difficult to tell because it doesn’t count all visitors. I can tell one thing though, the two people who I know keep coming back don’t ever feel the need to “like” my posts, and frankly their returning says far more than any “like” ever could. The only comment I ever got, which if it wasn’t from one of you was still from one of the original visitors who found me through the thread, again meant far more and encouraged me to continue far more than any “like” possibly could. Maybe it’s an imageboard/ chan background that’s the reason I feel this way and the reason my real niggas who I’m pretty sure are from that thread also don’t “like” things. There’s no upvote, thumbs up/ down or any other equally gay system on 4chan, the closest thing is maybe reaction images but even those convey far more than any of the usual generic positive symbols that are easily exploited. You know with a reaction image the guy read what you have to say.

Ok, second thing was more of a big deal when I started this two nights ago (I know I’m really getting lazy with this) and also now there’s some distance my thoughts have changed. There are two new people at work, I’m sure I’ve mentioned it. So, naturally given how I’m a completely desperate loner it took almost no time for me to start seeing one of them in “that way”, the female one of course I haven’t gone prison gay yet. I know, I really do know how unbelievable it is that I’ve been at this place for just under a year and this has happened three times, it’s beyond pathetic. What can I say, my standards are basically just be pretty and be nice to me so now I’m finally out of my NEET cave I’m coming into contact with plenty of people who fit that description. Anyway I decided to check her social media the other night while bored, something I’m worryingly becoming way more comfortable doing lately, and she has a boyfriend. My immediate reaction was surprising even to myself given how unsurprising the information was, I took it quite badly. I’m over it now, in fact I’m pretty relieved as this should hopefully prevent me from developing serious oneitis but I’ve mentioned before that there’s this hope you live with when you have oneitis and I think the real sting is always that being taken away. Because let’s be honest, anyone who’s been in a similar situation knows they’re never going to make a move or they already would have and the girl never will. So there’s only one way the thing ends, which is as it always does. That hope though, that fantasy you know is completely unfounded that she’ll just confess her love for you one day or something, is enough to work with. In fact, it’s actually quite nice in a way like waiting for a package from amazon. One day life will just sort itself out and all my problems will be fixed by other people. So, I think looking back I got so upset (I wasn’t yelling out loud or banging things like an autist, I just mean internally) because I was starting to get that feeling again and it was prematurely killed in the womb. I got over it pretty quickly though, the very next morning I woke up and felt pretty good and I’ve been in a generally good mood since even though I had to do an extra day at work. Not manic either, not all of the time anyway, just generally positive vibes. I think I’ve already said this somewhere but, I feel like I just got out of a prison sentence but it’s one of those comfy Scandinavian prisons where you can play videogames all day. I feel like there’s more I could say about this, but I’m trying to speed up a bit because I’ve been posting way less frequently the last couple weeks. I’ve just been working a lot more, when I started this it was way less busy and I had a couple of two day weeks. I can write more in an hour at home than I will in an entire day at work.

Third and final thing is less related to any event or ongoing issue and more just a general idea I’ve been having. I’m not sure what sparked it, actually that’s not true it’s these new co-workers. I find them a little easier to talk to and be comfortable around, not much easier I’m still incredibly awkward but it’s not like with the ones who were there when I first started. I’ve got more comfortable around them having to work with them for a year, it’s not like at the start where I was more timid than someone with AvPD (maybe I actually have that but I’m not going to self diagnose because people who do that are insufferable) but it’s still really bad sometimes. Whereas these new people I’m already as comfortable around if not slightly more so than with the original crew. So I was thinking about it, and it reminded me of something I was wondering months ago about how I am actually getting a little better with people, which was why I deliberately looked for a customer facing job, but it’s only new people. I’m way more confident now, well not way more but certainly more so than before I started, but not with people I have already gotten to know. Basically, and I’ve always known this really but these recent things made me very conscious of it, I strive to maintain the first impression I make with someone. I don’t know why, but I’d find it so much harder to speak louder or gesture more or just be open with one of the people who’ve already decided I’m shy or quiet etc. than with some stranger I was meeting for the first time. Realising this, I see myself constantly following it throughout my life. Once someone sees me in a certain way I find the idea of going away from that terrifying, and I don’t know why because it sounds so ridiculous reading it back. This is with people who in many cases don’t give a shit, or would prefer me to be more confident and talkative.

I wrote something down on the back of a receipt because I thought it sounded clever at the time “We embrace the assumptions people have about us, and become who we are”, I don’t remember how I made the jump from this being just a personal problem to something universally applicable but it made sense to me at the time. Maybe this is relatable, I really do wonder now if this is just a problem for me or if it’s more common. It’s not just a personal thing either, I have slowly embraced many of the stereotypes about shut ins/ hikikomori even if originally I wouldn’t have wanted to. I was never a weeb in school, or even a casual anime fan despite the opportunity being there. I mean there was an anime/ manga club, but it’s only the last couple years so since I’ve turned 19 that I really got into it at all. I just wasn’t interested, in fact I hated those kids and I thought it was faggy shit. I was quite into western comic books though back then, luckily I seemed to jump ship on that interest just as it totally went to shit. I listen to a lot of metal, I sometimes piss in bottles, I almost never actually go outside aside from work, I’m into weird nazi mysticism, I’m racist and honestly the term is overused but if you called me a misogynist it’d be fair. I could go on but you get the picture, I’ve very slowly crept closer and closer to the basement dweller NEET caricature. Luckily I’m not fat or ugly and I stopped being a NEET, but still in many other ways. I’ve always done this, I don’t know whether it’s fear of being considered a fraud or what it could be. So, there is something to the idea of beeing urself because I’m maintaining a bunch of slightly different selves with all the different people I know and none of them are quite me. Even in this blog it’s not a completely accurate representation of who I am, but more because of the limitations of the medium rather than me hiding or acting a certain way. Ah I remember now, I was thinking of the idea of “flanderization”, which is this weird phenomenon in television. Basically a character, usually a secondary or less important character but I can think of one example where it’s not (Bazinga!), is introduced as fairly well rounded with some odd traits and eventually those traits become more and more pronounced and after long enough the two are basically completely different people. So, I’ve gone through an irl flanderization almost. It’s not a perfect fit, it’s been much more natural and slow me becoming the person I am today, but television and film is always hyper real. I’ve been aware of the fedora wearing daki clutching stereotype for as long as it’s been going around, before I had even hit puberty or really got into video games. Yet I always kind of felt like something about that spoke to me, and while I avoided anime and some of the other more superficial trappings associated with such a person for a time I think I knew I’d end up like this. When I was a little kid, I idolised the loner and I had a romanticised view of shut ins/ omega males/ hikkis.

I feel like I have more to say, but I have to go to work again soon and I just want to get this out today it’s been long enough. I’m still here, still blasting Loveless erry day, still keeping it D R E, still not loving police etc etc. I’ve got plans, finishing that Cure project, and there’s this Wizchan screenshot I’ve been thinking about a lot I think I want to talk about.

 

Thinking about thinking about things

I always hesitate to give the spur or catalyst for one of my internal monologues when trying to share these thoughts I have with someone. Not that I get much opportunity to do so, I’m not comfortable enough around most of the people I know to want to tell them what’s on my mind. When I do though I’ve learned it’s best not to tell them about whatever it is that got you started on this train of thought. Oftentimes it’s something trivial but they’ll latch onto it and it’ll become impossible to stay on point. I understand that a conversation is not a lecture and you’re going to drift, but this is before you can even get into the ideas you have. I want things to go in an unexpected direction, I want the opinions of other people. I don’t want to be told “Why are you thinking so much about X?” Well perhaps not those exact words except for one which is absolutely used frustratingly often, about. It bothers me so much because it devalues my ideas, no longer are they original thoughts but merely a response to or worse a regurgitation of what was presented by another person’s art or action. If I tell them how I feel about this, about that word in particular and everything it communicates to me I’m told I’m overthinking something trivial again. I’m told that but yet continue to not be taken seriously. I’m told that but they continue to focus on whatever silly thing it was that got me thinking in the first place rather than the actual thoughts I’m trying to share and have a conversation about. This is why I believe there’s no such thing as overthinking. Just because the person isn’t intelligent enough toto consciously imply everything they do with each word they utter doesn’t mean the language doesn’t reveal things if you pay close attention. So with that out of the way here’s what got me thinking recently.

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I was at work as I’m sure most of these will start and this guy and his girlfriend came in. Now I honestly don’t mean this insultingly but he was an entirely unremarkable man. Wearing a graphic t-shirt and a denim jacket, soft spoken and looking ever so slightly uncomfortable. He was exactly who I picture in my head when you say “man” or “guy” other than perhaps his height. He was rather short, in fact the girl was taller than him but she did have heeled boots. Speaking of her, she was essentially his female equivalent. Pretty but not especially so, dressed in a way that didn’t stand out at all (although it would have shocked people a century ago) and wearing minimal but still very noticeable makeup. What I’m saying is that they were the very definition of generic, sure if you get to know them they might prove to be a fascinating and unique pair but given their gormless expressions and what I could pick up form their conversation I doubt it. I don’t like this new NPC meme because I think it’s just the most recent expression of the modern phenomenon satirised in the image above this paragraph, however I feel like if you ran around a street corner fast enough it’d be people like this you’d catch rendering in. So after I’d processed all that for a second I remember my first thought being that these two in this moment were perfect for each other. In this moment specifically that is the key here. As she looked up from her phone to answer his question about what they should get “yeah babe, whatever” and he shuffled up to the counter to pay, that’s what I thought. Outside of that it’s a void, I have no idea how a relationship like this begins or ends, I just cannot visualise it. I can’t picture this relationship progressing into parenthood or marriage when she clearly resents him (you’d know what I meant if you heard her tone of voice and saw her expression when speaking to him) and I can’t imagine how they ever got together in the first place when he’s such a fucking beta male. I really hate that term, I find it so vulgar and I’ve always avoided referring to guys that way even in anonymous 4chan posts because of how ugly it is to me, but this guy was the archetypal beta male and I’d be dishonest if I didn’t say what I truly thought at the time.

I suppose it says more about me than it does about them. I don’t know a thing about these people and I’m judging them completely based on a very brief encounter. I just can’t understand it though. There’s this real contradiction in my head in that what I’m seeing when they’re there in front of me makes so much sense but yet no sense at all. This isn’t that unusual for me either, I get a similar feeling from time to time in regards to completely different things. Things that are completely normal for many people, which is why I don’t find them unusual but I haven’t personally experienced which is why I find it so hard to understand how they happen in the first place. I’m doing a really bad job of explaining this so I’m going to try giving an example here. Think of how career criminals are represented in films (or in pop culture/ major Hollywood productions at least), they’re these jovial or suave characters. Beautiful intelligent women who can pull the wool over any man’s eyes and charming smooth talking men who can get out of any fix. When you get thinking though, it doesn’t make any sense that someone like that would end up with such a life for a number of reasons. People who look like models and movie stars can become models and movie stars and be making far more money without the risk factor of robbing places and other criminal activity. I mean look at actual real life famous gangsters, they’re all busted up middle aged men who grew up in poor/ lower class areas and rose up through petty crime and local violence. It makes people uncomfortable to say this but beauty is an asset just like wealth or intelligence and it concentrates upwards socially. I could go on but this is a complete tangent, my point is that when you try to imagine how these kinds of people in these films ended up where and as they are you can’t. The whole situation is so absurd and it takes you out of the film entirely. So that feeling is what I get, except without good reason like in the case of the film. That feeling of it not making sense is there but at the same time in these other cases it also makes perfect sense… I don’t think I’ll ever be able to properly share what this situation is like with someone unless they’ve experienced it themselves and just know what I’m talking about. I don’t have the vocabulary to properly express myself here and it’s really frustrating.

This feeling I have though is very unpleasant, it really worsens my usual sense of detachment and separateness from society. To most people normal things just are. They don’t seem to think about how, they don’t put any thought into trivial things it appears. In fact it annoys them when you do or they believe you do as I talked about in the beginning. Life just happens and they never really put much thought into it, you could even say it’s like they’re following a prewritten program. In fact that’s probably in part the reason everything just happens so smoothly for them, the more you think about something the more complicated you realise it is and the more daunting it seems. I don’t seem to have a choice though, it really does seem like ignorance is bliss. I’m reminded of this one time, I was watching a video on youtube that was titled something like “I don’t have any friends” or “I’ve never had any friends”, you might find it if you care to look but there’s probably a bunch of very similarly titled videos so it’ll be like a needle in a haystack. Anyway after dishonestly whinging about his lonely existence and “lack of meaningful relationships” for a while he said something like at least he had his girlfriend to keep him company without blinking and then kept on with the video. That’s information about him that completely changes the entire video, should cause any sane person to re-evaluate everything he just said, but he didn’t even fucking blink. I mean call me crazy but surely a romantic relationship is also supposed to be meaningful, if anything more so if you want to perhaps raise a fucking child with this person one day. Apparently not though, I hear people talk about their bfs/ gfs like a meal or an item of clothing or something completely boring and mundane. I’m focusing in quite a lot on this one thing because it’s obviously something I care about being a khv but it’s the same in other areas of their life. People talk about doing drugs or going to parties or whatever normalfag shit they enjoy doing and then wonder why I can’t relate to them. This is including people that know me and know I live a completely different life, and that used to be much more like me. It’s like everyone was able to transition into adult life completely seamlessly and without instruction and I don’t know what I’m even talking about anymore.

I’ve stopped making sense, I don’t want to put off finishing this entry another day though. I think what I’m trying to say is that the NPC thing is a really tempting way to look at the world and it helps a lot to cope with the fact that so often everyone around you can appear totally soulless, but you should be careful because maybe they’re right and you’re just a faggot thinking about pointless shit while everyone else is busy getting laid and doing fun shit. I mentioned earlier something about putting thought into trivial things, and that’s always been a lens I’ve used to judge people, I’ve always personally felt that putting great thought into trivial things was a sign of intelligence. I don’t think I was even entirely aware of this, I know I say this a lot but it was probably not something I was completely conscious of but was just going on under the surface. I think a lot of people like me have a similar thing, in fact I think that’s what binds us together more than anything else. Robots/ incels whatever term you want to use have no other trait quite as unifying. You have short and tall, ugly and handsome, overweight and skinny, rich and poor, and even both clever and stupid ones, but we all seem to spend way too much time thinking about everything. I realise now that I’m am conscious of this that it isn’t necessarily a sign of intelligence after all but rather a sign of someone like me. I don’t know if I’m intelligent, I often feel like a total fool and to be honest I’m a fucking dropout working a dead end job too, but I have so much to say I can’t be that stupid can I?

Anyway, I’m done for tonight I’m not working for the next four days so I’m going to stay up late drinking and listening to Dead Meadow. I know there are two or three regulars who are actually checking every couple days for new posts so hopefully this is another satisfactory read. I’ve started writing some notes for my post about The Cure so maybe that one’ll be next.

Rambling as promised

I was at work today, I still am this was moments ago actually but by the time I re-type and publish this I won’t be, and from the window I could see a remarkably underweight woman. She was truly anorexic, not what americans and bitter middle aged women would call anorexic (that is, a healthy weight) but honestly so skinny it’s probably a health concern. She had one of those big puffy down jackets and a really short skirt or shorts with no tights or leg coverings whatsoever. Really doing everything to beat the cold, but seriously it was ridiculous she looked like one of the balder knights from dark souls with her knobbly knees and this huge jacket. Anyway after being unsure what to write about since finishing my last entry I’m seizing upon the first interesting thought I have and miss spooky skellington is the one who inspired that thought.

She got me thinking about anorexia more generally, not the slang use of the term which is just another word for skinny people but the actual medical condition. See from what I understand it’s considered a mental illness. The girl, and it is a girl you picture when talking about anorexia, claims she still looks fat no matter what. She can be stick thin and will claim she sees something entirely different in the mirror. Supposedly anyway, although I imagine this is just tween girl hyperbole and what she means but doesn’t know how to say (or feels uncomfortable saying so explicitly) is that she doesn’t look like the models who are on magazine covers, advertisements, in music videos, etc. You know, the “unrealistic body standards” that get a certain sometimes overlapping group of women to go completely hysterical every once in a while. The thing is though, and it’s something I’m fairly certain most little girls aren’t told about, the women who have that kind of look aren’t just skinny they’re fucking built too. That’s some of my own hyperbole, but they’re certainly doing serious muscle building exercises. Something almost every boy will learn growing up, but a shocking amount of females never did I’m realising, is that how you look at a low bodyfat percentage will change drastically with only a relatively slight increase in muscle mass. I’m far from a fit person, I try to do some bodyweight exercises when I can like push ups/ pull ups and sit ups though and after doing that irregularly for the last couple years I certainly look more slim now than I did then despite slightly increasing in weight. I was what is called skinnyfat, I still kind of am now but I was for sure then, and I looked ever so slightly chubby in my mind when looking in the mirror despite my BMI saying I was underweight at the time. So here you have all these girls being diagnosed as having hallucinations when maybe no one considered that perhaps it’s just an epidemic of skinnyfat-ism.. I’m only half serious, but I do think in some cases there is definitely something to what I’m saying. I mean think about it muscle/ strength training is widely seen as a male thing, maybe in this instance the feminists have a point about how gender roles can be harmful. I think for the most part I believe fairly rigid socially enforced gender roles are a good thing, but on this issue I suppose it is having an actual measurable negative affect. Most robots/ incels would ask why I give a shit, but remember a lot of these girls haven’t even hit puberty so they haven’t become evil yet. I hope it’s obvious that’s a joke.

I knew that once I found something to write about it would easily lead me into other topics. I just finished copying the previous paragraphs from my notebook onto here now I’m home from work and was thinking it gave off a kind of creepy vibe. I had to stop because it got a lot busier and customers kept making me stop, writing while at work was quite comfy though before that though. I had the Hibernaculum EP by Earth playing in the background which was really easy to write to. Anyway staying on topic, talking about kids like that, even ones around the age of puberty and well into their teens makes me uncomfortable. I know I’m not a creep or a paedophile so it doesn’t bother me really, but if I saw that written by someone else I imagine I’d get those kind of vibes while reading. Maybe not though, did you? I think the anti-paedophile feeling is especially powerful in contemporary western society. So much so that we get uncomfortable and this weird spidey sense kicks in over oftentimes completely innocuous things. Maybe it’s because of the Jimmy Saville case (maybe not such a big deal outside of Britain) and other high profile cases like the catholic priesthood stuff that was going on for who knows how long. Whatever the reason though, people are so incredibly oversensitive and on the lookout almost. Of course paedophilia is monstrous and the strong visceral reaction people have to even the thought of it is normal, and I mean specifically the sexual attraction to pre-pubescent children not hebephilia/ ephobephilia which is a separate and way more complicated thing. I just think that this collective feeling of so many things being kind of weird or “a bit pedo” was never a thing when I was a kid. Of course when you’re that age you miss so many little social cues and details about adult life, but still I think adults could talk about children and liking children or children’s issues without being seen as weird.

Think about this, one day I want to have children or at least one. I would hate to have one now, but when I’m a lot older and can more easily take care of one I think I would like to do so. I’m talking like a decade from now, though my feelings might completely change. I might decide I would make a terrible parent, I certainly would now why assume I’ll be any less unstable in future. As I’ve already talked about quite a bit and probably will continue to I’m a complete loser though. I’m incredibly awkward and can hardly manage a conversation with most people, it takes months for me to even get kind of comfortable around people and that’s when they’re making as much effort. Which will likely never happen to me again, as a kid there were some people like that (the friend I talked about before being one) but as an adult it’s unlikely. I may have spent too much time around incels and their ideology online but I’m starting to really believe that as a male the only people who will ever genuinely care about you are your immediate family and the friends you make in childhood, everyone outside of that is just making a value judgement. I’m not even able to bee myself around some of my own family. I’ve never had a girlfriend and seeing as I have no intention of making a real effort to if I’m honest with myself I don’t see why that will ever change. So if I want a child one day when I’m older and settled I’ll have to go the surrogacy route or adoption if either of them are even legal for single men in this future. Don’t tell me that the idea of a single man wanting to adopt or have a surrogate born child doesn’t at least make you a little uncomfortable.

Well, it’s the morning now I was pretty tired and had to cook and wash up the last few days dishes so I wasn’t able to write as much last night as I wanted to. I still want to add some more to this post though as it’s been a few days since the last one and probably will again until the next. I’ve got to get the shopping later and think of something to cook, but there’s not too much rush. I should be able to finish this up now, then later find a fitting picture and title and upload it. I’m listening to Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me by The Cure, my favourite band probably for the last two years but I’ve recently started listening to them again quite a lot after taking a break for the last few months. I think I could write a whole post on why they’re so important to me. In fact I think what I’ll do to end this post is come up with a few ideas for future entries. If I have an idea in mind already I can work on them in my notebook while at work like yesterday which I enjoyed doing. So, I could definitely try and write about The Cure. Why they’re so important to me, how their (or more specifically Robert Smith because he’s the only member who’s been with every incarnation of the band) music affects me, some memories associated with them etc. I also have had this idea of writing about regret, specifically a select few major regrets of mine or potential turning points in my life that I fucked up. That could be a bit too self indulgent though, it’d just be talking about myself and nothing else, I don’t want to feel like a complete narcissist. I think the best posts I’ve made had a good balance of talking about myself and other people/ things I think about. I also would like to talk about death, specifically the death of my mother when I was 14. I’ve never really said much to anyone about it, but of course this is the biggest thing to ever happen to me and I have a lot to say. I know when I started this blog I said my parents were going away but it was just my dad who I’ve lived with since that age. He’s away right now, looking for somewhere else to live actually. The day where I really am living completely on my own isn’t that far off anymore. Speaking of my living situation, I think I could write about that too, again it’s all very self focused though fuck.. See because of my mum passing away and inheritance I’ve been living in a bureaucratic nightmare for years. Well, that fact combined with some decisions that were made years before too.

Ok, so ideas that aren’t about me. It’s tricky because usually they hit me quite spontaneously and then I’ll just sit there thinking for hours, I don’t really plan ahead what I’ll be thinking about. I could try and write something political, but I’ll need to think about what my politics are because I’m really not sure anymore. I’ve been a kid on the internet, so naturally I’ve spent a lot of time flirting with fringe political ideas both left and right but nowadays I’m not sure where I stand. I can’t shake this idea as well that a lot of what you believe is shaped or informed by things outside of your control. Our ideas and opinions don’t exist in a vacuum, we are genetically predisposed to a certain way of looking at things and also the attitudes of those around you in your formative years have a huge influence. There’s definitely something to the stereotype of the people attracted to extreme politics as losers and social rejects. Looking at the early lives of Hitler and Goebbels or just being aware of /pol9k/ really cements this. The leadership in these movements are fully aware of this too, so that means they target this demographic. George Lincoln Rockwell was quite explicit about this, shit even Hitler in Mein Kampf (not that I’ve read it but I’ve seen this passage posted online) talked about it. It kind of makes me second guess myself whenever I take a stance on something. I think the only thing I’m pretty confident in is the social conservatism I’ve slowly come around to. All the wacky esoteric crap about the eternal spiritual battle between aryans and semites, is a little silly if fun to get into at 3am in the morning when you should be asleep. Even more mundane things, I don’t know a thing about economics even after reading several genuinely quite tough an in-dpeth books on the subject in my “libertarian phase”. I basically have to treat all my political views with a kind of detachment, maybe I actually believe this maybe not kinda thing. I’m not sure, hopefully ideas will come to me. They always have, I just hope that now I’m actually anticipating them so I can write about what I think they don’t become less frequent. That would be just my luck.

 

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.

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.