The rise and fall and rise again of Anon

I’m struggling to think of anything interesting to talk about lately, and I’m also finding it hard to write the next part of the series going through my old books, but I do have something I’ve been thinking about maybe writing for a while. That is an update on what I’m trying to do here with this blog. See when I started I wasn’t quite sure what I had planned but whatever it was things have slightly changed. You can see for yourself the difference if you care to look through the posts from the first couple months. See in the beginning it was more autobiographical, I was talking about myself a lot more and even when I wasn’t I was still being more personal. So I would talk about what music I was listening to and the few actual things that were happening in my life, the kind of stuff you associate with the term “blog” funnily enough, but I stopped all of that because it felt kind of cringy and forced.

So when I first started I had a few entries that were basically just “my diary desu”, and they were all pretty awful other than the first one. I actually started off that post by saying that I was going to be using this blog as a diary, which is pretty embarrassing looking back. I’m not a 12 year old girl, I don’t need a diary, and the fact that I was so conceited as to presume anyone in the world would give a shit also makes me cringe a little. However in my defence, as you can tell if you’ve read that post I was clearly in a weakened state of mind at the time. Also that first entry, despite being a little self indulgent, was a pretty good one I think. It served it’s purpose, it was really helpful for me to get it all out, and I think I did a good job of finding the right balance between being impassioned and intelligible. I feel a bit weird wanking myself off so much about it, but people did seem to like that post so I think it’s fair to say it was a good one.

In fact if it hadn’t got such a good response from other anons for that initial main post I might have just ended it there (the blog I mean), but on the other hand because people did like it I perhaps tried to recreate it when I shouldn’t have. Like I said all the other entries like that were pretty bad, just as narcissistic but far less interesting and insightful. In fact I kind of had a feeling that would be the case before it happened, in the third post I wrote (which is a perfect example of one of the bad ones) pretty soon after that one linked above I was already planning to try and do something else with this blog, which is why I then went on to write that post about school shootings which was the fourth post and the one that has basically set the tone for this entire “project” from that point forward. However I still wrote quite a few more shitty “diary entry” style posts after that which were all bad and I’m only keeping them because I like being able to see how this thing has evolved.

So speaking of that fourth post, that’s a perfect example of what I was talking about in the opening paragraph to this one in that I kind of feel like it’s crucially flawed because I felt the need to keep that personal/ friendly vibe even though it doesn’t really fit. In fact if anything it takes away from what I’m trying to get across. The joke at the end about the song I was listening to feels out of place, especially without the context of the other posts I’d made so far. As a standalone piece of writing it doesn’t work because of that sort of thing. I guess I thought that I was putting a bit more personality in there, and in the specific case of mentioning a song helping to explain the kind of mood/ vibe I was trying to get across. I worry sometimes that people might miss that, I talk about things that are serious bidniss but it’s funny too. Don’t misunderstand me, I’m not saying I’m funny, I’m saying I find things funny.

Now talking about myself or trying to be kind of tongue in cheek isn’t necessarily a bad thing in every case, but it has to be done right. I just don’t think I had found the right balance yet, maybe I still haven’t and I’ll feel the same about what I’m writing at the moment in half a year, but again I’ll keep all my posts up because I like seeing how this thing has evolved. Both in regard to the actual subjects I talk about, because of course I reference back to things in older posts a lot, and in terms of the structure and style of writing. I don’t know if I’m improving “objectively” because I don’t get any feedback, I’ve had two comments in my entire time writing, but I just feel like as time has gone on my posts have only become better examples of how I actually think and want to come across to people. Well not exactly, there was a slump for a few months where I kind of hit a wall and I was feeling like my best work was behind me, but I think since last January I’ve having a pretty good run.

Now I will almost certainly still talk about events in my life, both current and in the past, but only really as a means to talk about something more interesting I think. It’s nice to have the option to vent and just have someone in the world to hear (or read) what problems I’m going through, and so hypothetically there’ll be a post like that down the line, but I have a pretty fucking boring life so it’s not that likely. Speaking of using an experience as a jumping off point I have an idea for a post about a certain film that came out at the end of 2017 and I’d probably have to talk about my specific experience watching it (twice, and at the cinema alone one of those times) in that post. I know I said at the beginning of this that I didn’t have ideas, I started writing this yesterday and this idea came to me today.

Now looking back at my initial introductory post it seems like it still works just fine, but again it kind of has that kind forced friendliness/ jokiness and that just sets the wrong tone. I also notice looking back at it that I was maybe a bit too optimistic about the potential audience I could get for this. See I’ve already talked about this all before but I am a little disappointed that so few people want to stick around, and that I never get any comments. I mean it’s weird because most of what small audience I do have are people from r9k so it’s not like they don’t have opinions of their own on the things I tend to talk about. I was kind of hoping that there would be interesting discussions in the comments, that I could recreate a sort of microcosm of the few interesting and thoughtful threads that used to be more frequent years ago. Those threads used to feel like a good discussion between friends, and the experience with this blog instead of being like that as I hoped is more just like me sending a series of long e-mails about my opinions.

I know that people are hearing me, and I know that if they’re coming back they at least think my takes are interesting. The few times I’ve just openly shilled and tried to tell people about this elsewhere I’ve been given a positive response. In the thread I was talking about last time I not only got a really positive response in the thread itself, I also got the most views in a single day I’ve ever had. Maybe I should just shill more frequently, I’ve only actually done so maybe four or five times, and every time I get someone who sticks around for a while at least. It just feels a bit slimy and gross trying to advertise or openly beg people for attention. Because I do this for free, I don’t own the domain and so I cannot (and do not wish to) make money off of this, it doesn’t feel that bad but it’s still not something I feel comfortable doing.

In a way it’s kind of analogous to that thing normalfags always say about how “you don’t ever approach women, so why do you expect a relationship?”, I’ve noticed they really like to do this when Elliot Rodger is brought up. Well we all know how ridiculous that kind of point of view is if you look at the implication behind that statement, that all or most relationships start from a cold approach, of course they fucking don’t almost none do. So perhaps I’ve unconsciously recognised that parallel and that’s why I have this very prideful attitude regarding trying to “promote” or ask people to visit my blog. You’ve probably heard the expression “the cream rises to the top”, the idea being that things of value will just be recognised by people through some kind of force of nature. I guess I’m stupidly holding on to that, and because I’ve been here writing and have found so few who are interested in what I have to say maybe it really does mean what I’m doing isn’t very good.

I hope that’s not the case, there’s nothing more pathetic than someone with no talent or ability throwing themselves against a brick wall week after week deluding themselves that their brilliance is just unrecognised right now. I really never want to be that person, it’s why I can never really commit to anything. I really struggle to stick to anything without positive reinforcement and even then I usually doubt the nice words I receive. I’m surprised I’ve continued with this for so long, it’s quite fun I suppose and I have a lot of free time with nothing else to do. Nevertheless part of me does think that perhaps I am doing something valuable or at least interesting because as I said whenever I do ask people to check the blog out there are always some new people who think so. In fact I’ve only ever done so on 4chan, where almost everything gets shat on and torn apart and I’ve never actually had a single bad thing said about what I’m doing. Not even something mild like that it’s a waste of time, as I often fear myself. I’m not sure what to think.

Looking backwards, looking forwards

Reading one of my earlier posts recently I made a connection that I’m sort of surprised I didn’t make way back then. I mentioned once I have this recurring intrusive thought or daydream of poisoning homeless people. Not any particular homeless individual, in fact I think the idea is that I’d specifically avoid the ones I know. See there’s a few who hang around near where I work, and sometimes I’ll give my tips or some of my tips to them after closing up. They’ve all come to recognise me when they see me now, there’s this one guy in particular who is very friendly. When I have to take the bin out to the sheds at the end of the shift and there’s not much room he’s helped me get it through the door a couple times. Yes it’s just a gesture, I can manage it easily enough and he’s there because he’s come to expect some change when seeing me ultimately, but nevertheless I appreciate it. I quite like these people, even if most of them probably rightfully earned their current situation, and I wouldn’t want any harm to come to them.

That’s the funny thing really, and I suppose I already did this bit in that very same earlier post so I won’t go on about it, but while I will judge these people for their poor character and decisions I don’t necessarily dislike them. On the other hand the strawmen I’ve conveniently just made up who would say I’m a nasty and ignorant person for doing so do tend to. Like I said I’ve already mentioned it before, but there’s a real disdain that most people have for the homeless and it’s a very visceral thing. It’s really a feeling of disgust, and it makes sense because they do often smell but it’s more than that, almost like they sense that their poor fortune might rub off on them. Even when I don’t have change or don’t want to give my change to one of them I’ll feel a bit bad and will always acknowledge them if asked, so many people just ignore them entirely. I mean completely blank them, they’ll be walking right by and definitely within earshot but they just pretend not only like they were never asked for money but like the beggar doesn’t even exist.

I said something else in that very same post as well actually, an insight which I lost as soon as I had it. I was worried when going back to reread some of these earlier posts that they wouldn’t hold up and would seem stupid and cringy but that’s not the case, unusually for something I’ve written and revisited after some time. There were a few things that I did in those earlier posts that I’ve decided to stop doing because of those reasons, but the general ideas and message I stand by in almost all cases which is what I’m talking about. Anyway, I said in that same post that ignoring someone is not something people do to those they don’t care about but actually to people they have a problem with. It’s not disinterest, if you’re being ignored it’s not because the person really doesn’t think about you, it’s a minor act of aggression. Not like being punched in the face or even insulted of course, but in principle it’s the same if not in degree. It’s a deliberate act, I think were my exact words.

I think this is why being “ghosted” bothers people so much, there’s this explanation that it’s because you realise how little you mean to them but that never sat right with me. That’s not what’s happening at all, let’s go back to the homeless people again for an example. See, the smartly dressed cubicle cucks and their heavily made-up female counterparts have to make an effort to pretend the beggar asking for help isn’t there, it’s undoubtedly a conscious act. They feel insulted that someone so gross and stupid (according to them, not me) would even speak to them, and again like I said in that post months back the deliberate ignoring of them really translates as “fuck off” or something like it. Being ghosted is no different, they’re basically saying you’re unworthy of their time and should fuck off. It’s not that you don’t matter to them, it’s that they have grown to dislike you or be annoyed by you and this is their way of saying so.

I’ve noticed as well that being ghosted seems to bother robots and people of a similar mindset even more so than it does normal people. Which makes sense when you think about it, because what is the thing that really seems to define a robot? Other than the obvious I mean. It’s this feeling of being ignored, of being left out. It starts young, and I literally cannot think of a single example of one of these people who doesn’t share this experience. I have had this experience, if you read MTW you’ll see that Elliot Rodger had this experience, it’s one of the most common things to see people lamenting on /r9k/ and in my very brief time spent checking out other spaces online populated by similar people I’ve seen it there as well. I mean you might think that this should mean they’re desensitised to it but I don’t think so. I think that it’s like irritating a wound, see a lot of these people retreat away from the world in their youth, which is partially what stops them from being properly socialised. The desire for companionship being so strong though, they search for relationships with other people online. The time away from the world has allowed for some healing, but then these online things break down as they always seem to and the scar is reopened.

I had another post very early on, my second or third, about school shootings. I feel like without the whole build up the hot take I have on the subject doesn’t have the same gravity so I’d say if you’re reading this and haven’t checked that one yet you should read it before this, but it’s not crucial. Essentially, I see school shootings/ mass shootings in general as performance art. The problem is that the message of the piece is not something I think the performers (the people doing the shooting, whether it be Elliot Rodger or the Columbine kids or whoever) are consciously aware of. I will say though, something I didn’t say in that post, that the increase in such events or at least the increased reporting of them is an interesting development. See take the example of Columbine, everyone always assumed they were bullied losers but they were actually relatively normal. They had a group of friends, one had a girlfriend I think, this is something that surprises people. It surprises people because it makes sense for school shooters to be losers, after all who is it who fantasises about doing that kind of thing? Even if only as an escapist fantasy, and they’d never actually do something like that, just like how I would obviously never actually harm the homeless. It’s kids who are bullied, kids who are meek, kids who struggled to find friends.

Now though, and there’s been a new one since that post actually but I haven’t taken the time to really read much about the story, you’re seeing a lot of these shooters more explicitly identify with this role or be identified with it. I’m not really here to talk about just shootings though, I think it’s bigger than that. After all, there was that guy Alek Minassian and he certainly fits in with this despite using a vehicle to attack the public rather than a firearm. So we all kind of know that it’s “losers” and now a more recent term “incels” who are the kind of person to engage in this sort of thing, even when it’s not, if you understand. Incel is a really interesting term, and I’ve had another idea for a post just regarding the term itself and why it over all the similar ones has come out on top in the public discourse recently, but right now I just want to talk about one particular thing regarding the term.

It’s something I’m sure I’ve talked about in a previous post, but I can’t for the life of me find it so maybe I never actually got around to that one. Does the term incel describe a kind of person, or an ideology? I mean of course it describes a person but I mean is it merely a person, is any young man who can’t get laid an incel? Or is it a young virgin male who also believes specifically in the usual things that are associated with the term incel? So, does being an incel also mean you have to be in that whole world of Chad and Stacy, of the blackpill, of the very term incel? I mean there’s the idea of the “hopecel” (which is one of the funniest words I’ve heard in a while) going around, which describes someone who would generally fit the incel archetype but doesn’t buy into the whole “blackpill” idea. The thing is, hopecels are considered a variant of incel (by incels, who are the ones who coined this amusing term) which leads me to believe that according to most people who would identify themselves as an incel it’s not about an ideology. To these people it is just what it says, a portmanteau of involuntary and celibate, someone who can’t get laid.

The problem is whenever incels are spoken about in normie media outlets they are identified as an ideological group. Even a terrorist group, lol. Any article on the subject from a major news organisation or even just a buzzfeed kind of thing (glorified blog that operates within the overton window) makes the preface that they’re not talking about all virgin men but merely the people who believe in the toxic/ misogynist/ hateful/ delusional or whatever other meme buzzword they have ideology professed on incel forums and other such places. This then filters down and nowadays the term incel when used in general public discussion also means this. So the question is really, what is this ideology? To me if there is one right now, and I’m not sure there is, it’s basically just a variant of the same “redpill” stuff that’s been here for over a decade. It’s really not much different than what PUAs, or MRAs or MGTOWs and so forth believe, other than a few admittedly crucial differences. It’s a lot like Marxism in a way, you have socialists and anarchists and Leninists and so on, but they all see one another as comrades when push comes to shove.

These crucial differences are, at least from my understanding, the “blackpill” and the acceptance of violence. So the blackpill is essentially the idea that it’s fucked and there’s nothing you can do about it. I don’t know if Eggy’s video is the actual first use of the term but it certainly was the point from which it entered the meme lexicon. It’s kind of spread to certain alt-right circles, you see some of those e-celebs use the term but it’s taken on a slightly different meaning when they use it, thanks to the pol9k pipeline which I’ve already talked about before. It’s ultimately the same feeling, hopelessness, just applied to politics. I’m not going to go on another several paragraph long tangent about this, but I’ll quickly say that there are even within incel circles different ideas about what the thing to be “blackpilled” on even is. It doesn’t matter too much, the only thing that matters is that the blackpill has been taken, and now you see how hopeless your situation really is.

I think this is what leads into the second thing, the acceptance of violence. Now most people who identify with incels obviously aren’t violent and thuggish, if anything I’d argue that meekness is much more common amongst them (us?) than the public at large. Statistically speaking an incel is less likely to murder you than a normie, I’m not kidding. What I’m saying is that you’ll never get any kind of condemnation about what Elliot or Minassian or the most recent guy who killed those women in a bank did, in fact you’ll find jeering and celebration of it. This is in opposition to the people who identify with those other associated “redpill” groups I mentioned earlier, who will always claim that they condemn violence. I’m not saying this as a bad thing, I’ve done the same over and over in my time on /r9k/ if I’m being honest, laughing and joking about the victims of various shootings. In fact the picture I think I’ll use for the header image on this is a screenshot of my post from the infamous “some of you guys are alright” thread, if I’m honest I’m not 100% convinced that Mercer actually made that thread and it’s not just a coincidence but it’s certainly a likely possibility. I do find it kind of satisfying, I probably gave that impression on my other post about school shootings too. It feels like a kind of twisted justice has been had when I hear about one of these mass shootings, and I know for a fact that a great many people feel the exact same way.

Until that post about school shootings, or the idea I wrote about in it came to me anyway, I couldn’t properly explain why. After all the people who die in these shootings aren’t even the actual people who excluded or bullied the shooter (if he was bullied that is) in many cases, so it’s not like he’s getting revenge. The people are random, but of course as I explain in that post that’s the point. What unifies everyone who has “taken the blackpill” is this feeling that the thing holding them back from happiness and companionship is out of their control. Whether it’s how they look, or their meekness and lack of proper socialisation as a child or whatever, it’s random, or at least it feels random to someone raised in the individualistic culture we inhabit. It feels wrong to even be angry at the people who did exclude you, after all you’re told over and over that to expect to be treated well or even the same as everyone else is entitled. Again though, going back to the other post I was talking about, ignorance is deliberate. Which should bring me back to where I started this post.

Back to poisoning homeless people, hopefully you’ve figured out the connection already. Just like with a mass shooting or running your vehicle into a crowd, the beauty is in the randomness. Now I can kind of retroactively appreciate why this weird fantasy appeals to me, and again I want stress I personally wouldn’t ever actually leave little poisonous drinks around for hobos. There’s just something about the idea of truly random violence that has a kind of beauty to it. There was a thread I saw a few weeks ago on /r9k/, it was about some crime that had happened and how the perpetrator was found because of his relation to the victim. I don’t remember why it was made, but there ended up being quite an interesting point made about the perfect crime.

The perfect crime you might say, is one without any discernible motive. This example was given by an American, he said what if he were to buy a gun and travel to a different state and then shoot someone at random. Then dispose of the weapon, make sure no fingerprints or DNA evidence is left behind and never talk about it. How plausible this actually is I don’t know, but it’s very interesting to me that it was someone from /r9k/ who would think this way. Again, this idea of randomness of the victim comes up. Just another anecdote that stuck out to me. I think there’s really something to this, and I think that while it may just be unconscious now a very interesting potential development for the “incel community” if there is any such thing will be when people start to become conscious of this.

Volcel gang manifesto

So, I said I’d talk in more detail about online dating. I’ve been told, a few times, that I’ve never actually made any effort to get a girlfriend/ lose my virginity. Mostly by “helpful” normalfags online but also once in person. A lot of the time online it isn’t specifically aimed at me, because I rarely ever moan or whine about not having those things anymore for reasons I kind of talked about in the last entry. Rather it’s aimed at “robots” or “incels” and similar kinds of people in general, who I do associate with. There was one specific post I read, unfortunately it was a while ago now so I don’t have a screenshot and I have no idea what thread it was so I wouldn’t be able to find it in the archives. The guy had made this thread, one of those ones you see fairly regularly or at least used to, saying he was the one who had the right advice that would help us out of the situation we’re in. It’s the kind of thread, the kind of person, who the whole bee urself meme was originally made to mock. Anyway, of course people reacted accordingly and insulted/ berated him and were just making jokes about the whole thing and I was going to give up on it and find something else to entertain myself with but then an actually rather interesting exchange happened.

At some point someone made what I think was quite an insightful comment, he said that this advice never worked before with incel/ robot types not necessarily because it was bad advice generally speaking. Clearly it worked for some people after all, but it assumes things that are true about the person giving advice are true about everyone. Now I’ll try and explain what he meant, or my interpretation of what he meant anyway, using the most well known of these little nuggets of normie wisdom “Just be yourself”. What they really mean by this is, stop being so inhibited (as if it’s so fucking easy) around other people, especially those you don’t know very well. Which there’s some truth to, it seems like when you’re shy or awkward people sense that you’re hiding something. Which I suppose in a way you are, you’re not being yourself dare I say and people can sense how contrived everything you do is.

The problem again, is that it’s not something you can just turn on or off. I can’t just act how I do around my close friends or on my own when I’m around other people it’s physically impossible for me. At least for the moment, although it’s starting to feel less and less possible that there’s much I can do to change that even in future. More importantly though is that underlying assumption that if you are somehow able to get over that, you’ll just be accepted and liked for who you are. There’s no reason that someone wouldn’t still be ostracised for their political beliefs, their social attitudes, etc. Given the tendency of people like me to gravitate to extreme ideas I’d say it’s actually fairly likely. The important thing to remember here is the assumption, that’s what I’m talking about. It’s not just this one example either, all the usual advice these kind of people share has it’s own because of course it’s all sold as universally applicable, which really means it applies to no one.

If you want to find out what it is specifically they are assuming is universally true, it’s the thing that actually makes these hot tips and tricks they have work. So of course in the example I chose it’s actually being likeable and not frightening to normalfags with your weird views on things. You might think I’m being unfair, that of course no one really thinks that everyone is a boring normal faggot like them. After all, they are aware that extreme beliefs exist so naturally people also exist to hold them. Fair point, they would agree with that if pointed out probably, but I think on a day to day basis they underestimate the amount of people who they would consider weird and feel uncomfortable around hugely. I could be completely wrong, but I genuinely believe they think of such people as a tiny fringe group. Of course this specific “be yourself” (and of course all similar statements) line is given by a particular type. I guess they’re what people might call a turbonormie, at least that’s one term I’ve heard used for them. This is most people, who just engage with the world in a very superficial way. People who talk about the weather and wear fast fashion. Yes that’s kind of a strawman or caricature, a modern archetype even, but that doesn’t mean it’s inaccurate. It’s a composite, so obviously it’s not going to describe any one of these people that well but don’t pretend you don’t know the type.

The thing is, people use advice that worked for them. So for someone who was kind of always one of these people but just was maybe a little socially awkward or shy as a kid being themselves worked. Maybe they were part of a certain clique or social niche while at school, even one of the ones who pride themselves on being different like the goth kids from southpark. See they think that because they were different in a very shallow way from most of their peers, that they’re similar to the incels and actual social rejects who remained that way into adulthood. The difference of course being that what made them different was fashion, and I’m not using that word to necessarily mean clothing (although of course, oftentimes that was a part of it) but rather something that can be taken off at any time, rather than something fundamental.

Then you have failed normies or alt normies or whatever other of these silly little terms you want to choose, people who can blend in reasonably well but are a little “off” maybe. Think of someone who has always been able to make friends, has had a few relationships, etc. but also has a few “weird” ideas. Of course “bee urself” didn’t work for them, but another little chestnut of advice these people will give is “fake it till you make it”. Again, because it worked for them. They were able to stay composed and appear normal long enough for it to happen naturally, so of course everyone must be capable of that. You know, and on and on it goes for all the various different kinds of people who think they’re helping you by just repeating what worked for them. They obviously don’t really care about you (not that they should care about people on the internet they’ve never even met, but they shouldn’t pretend to either) and are just looking to feel good for “helping” people. I got so sidetracked I completely lost my train of thought..

Right, the thread I was talking about. So in response to this comment, about how his advice might not be universally applicable and in fact might actually only work for quite a small group of people, instead of having a moment of self reflection he decided to double down. They were going back and forth for a while, and as these people always do when slightly pushed back on start calling you things, incel, loser, etc. So much for the whole good samaritan routine. Honestly the fact that they’re so quick to jump to those specific kinds of insults makes me think they’re there really just to feel less pathetic for a little while, and the contempt they really have is revealed in these moments. It doesn’t really matter though, what I’m trying to get to is a particular thing he said at one stage in this whole thing. I don’t remember the exact wording, but essentially it was something like “you’ve never even asked a girl out before, you’ve never even tried, it’s not my advice that’s wrong you’re just a coward”. The reason this particular example of something which as I said in the first paragraph is something people like me are accused of often, is the last part. I’m not going to try and disagree that I’ve never actually tried, because it’s a fair point, but I will disagree that cowardice is the reason. Well, maybe it plays a role, but it’s definitely not the main reason that’s for sure. See, I myself used to agree with that. I have for a very long time seen myself as a coward, but I think over the years there have been a few situations that I would have handled quite differently were I one. With anyone I was willing and able to be honest with, I would have openly referred to myself as a coward maybe even as recently as a year ago.

Which finally takes me to what I actually was intending to talk about when starting this, online dating. See we now have a way of getting into the “dating game” or whatever you want to call it, with the risk or scary part removed. Yes you still might be unsuccessful and be rejected indirectly by having no one “like” or match with you or whatever, but it’s all totally impersonal. The actual genuinely scary, terrifying even, prospect of asking out a girl you barely know or even a total stranger and very possibly getting shot down and/ or humiliated is completely done away with. By the time you get to any kind of interaction it’s been established there is a mutual attraction between the two of you, and by the time you get to meeting in person you’ve established you get along and have had time to get a little more comfortable around them. I don’t need to explain this, it’s the selling point. I’m just trying to stress what I was saying as much as possible, that we have an example of a way to bypass the scary part.

The thing is though, I’m not on any online dating site/ app. In fact I’d be more likely to cold approach a woman in public like the PUAs do than sign up for online dating. Both are very fucking unlikely of course, I’m not saying cowardice doesn’t play some role, but it’s clearly more than that. I’ve been thinking for a long time about what it could be, but it’s a tricky thing. What I think, is that it’s not so much that I have a problem with the modern idea of “dating”, but rather that there’s something different about the first relationship you have starting somewhere like that. I’m talking about on online dating especially, but also just asking a girl out in person. See the modern idea of “dating”, of serial monogamy if you prefer, is unbelievably cynical. The entire premise is that you will have several failed relationships, it’s not just expected it’s literally a given. Now people who have become cynical can get on just fine in a cynical system, but those of who have yet to lose our idealism not so much.

Now what makes online dating different, other than the safety I already talked about? Unlike other spaces for “dating”, it is explicit about it. Sure you had speed dating events and stuff like that but they’re a novelty, most people go to clubs and bars and places like that. So online dating managed to make the entire thing seem even more contrived, and there is the real issue I think I and presumably some other people like me have. See, the other way people meet as adults is they might ask out a colleague, or someone they share a hobby with. Sure, they still have to ask and that’s a scary prospect especially if you’ve never done it before, but the idea doesn’t feel wrong in the way that “dating” whether it be online or irl does. Going into the world with the express purpose of finding a gf, feels really wrong to me and I can’t explain why and that really bugs me. I think I even may have spoke about this before.

In fact I definitely did, I don’t remember exactly which post but it was not too long ago. I think the phrase I used was it gets under my skin, and it really does. People don’t say “I want to be in a relationship with this particular person” they say “I want a girlfriend” or I want to be in a relationship”. I don’t want to repeat myself if I’ve already talked about this, but it’s something that keeps popping back into my thoughts. Modern dating, the phenomenon that is taken to it’s ultimate conclusion with these shitty dating apps and sites but has existed in some form since the 20s, feels unnatural and of course like I said cynical. Even the example of the more naturally occurring relationships have that cynicism, the culture at large unfortunately also asserts this idea of the inevitable failed relationships for all, but that’s just the way of the world I suppose.

I also was about to go in a different direction there, so I’m going to go back a bit and do that. See the idea of being part of that whole cynical world might seem bad enough, but for that to be your first experience of romance is even worse. Most people’s first experiences, their first relationships, happen in their youth. Of course, these fall into the natural side of this dichotomy I seem to have set up here today. Kids and young teens can’t go to clubs and bars and they’re surrounded by each other all day because of school so they just do what they’re designed to do naturally. Most of them anyway, and those who don’t never seem to be able to get over it. Young love is almost universally seen as something special, it’s held up as this fantastic experience that can’t ever be replicated later in life. Nothing lives up to your first they always say, it’s the rite of passage for our current age. To know that you will never experience this is really fucking hard to accept. To know that the options might very well be either remain alone or join in with the bitter charade of modern dating is never going to go away. Especially because I can think of a few times where I got rather close, in fact there’s one particular memory that might stay with me until my dying day where I was literally only a few words away. I know from my time talking with similar people that a lot of them have similar memories.

There’s this film, Whatever, which is based on a book of the same name by Michel Houellebecq. I haven’t read the book, or any others of his although I’ve been told I should. In fact I was recommended some of his books by the girl I was talking about in my last post. Anyway there’s this scene in the film which is set in a nightclub, you can find it on youtube really easily if you’re interested, and one of the two characters (an older man, speaking to the other main character who is basically an incel) gives a short speech talking about the same exact thing. Of course it’s put much more poetically than in this post, and it’s a good film, so that’s why I’m mentioning it. Think of it like a wound, or more accurately just a hole, and after a certain point there’s nothing that can be done to heal it.

Think about the PUAs, people always say they’re trying to compensate for something or they’re broken in some way, all these platitudes without ever really saying what it is. I think it’s this, I mean I like to go on about modern archetypes and the PUA who was a loser/ really unsuccessful with girls in his youth is a huge one. Maybe it’d be more accurate to call it a trope even. More importantly though, are the audience for this kind of thing. Because the pick up artist community, is essentially maybe at most a few hundred men selling some kind of variation of the same scheme to millions. These few hundred, are in many cases an example of this late bloomer trope. Now the lesser known faces, the guys who just pay for the online courses or go to conferences of whatever these people do and then go out into the world to “pick up”, they’re who I’m really talking about. See, what they’re paying for and what “pick up artistry” is when you really think about it, is a revenge fantasy.

By calling it a fantasy I’m not saying it’s unrealistic, I’m reminded in particular of this one short video by one of these guys I saw a long time ago when I would occasionally listen to these people. I don’t remember exactly which one, and they all look and talk and dress the same anyway, but it was a video by this famous PUA talking about why you should cold approach. Now maybe I’m too trusting because anyone can go on the internet and tell lies, but for some reason I actually do believe that a lot of these men are telling the truth about the level of “success” they have with women. I mean sure I expect they’re embellishing somewhat but I don’t doubt that they’ve had lots of hook ups with very pretty girls. So anyway quick summary, the guy described himself (rather short, average looks, high pitched voice, etc) and said that he has been with various models and actresses and “10s” and YOU CAN TOO IF YOU FOLLOW THESE FIVE SIMPLE STEPS! I’m half joking, but no he was trying to sell his course or something anyway I’m sure.

There was one insight I got from this though, see he said that before you got to that point you had to get rejected a lot. This isn’t unusual, they all say this, but maybe this is a trend with me I’ll have to hear something many times before I notice it. What stood out to me, that for whatever reason hadn’t the other times I heard this, is that it’s exactly like a certain rather common cult practice. See in order to become the “new you”, you need to break down everything about who you currently are. You need to lose every aspect of your current identity, like I said you need to be completely broken down and humiliated, in order for something new to be built in it’s place. So, you can either force yourself through the gauntlet of rejection until your pride is completely smashed or you can refuse to take part and not lose who you are. I always like to bring these full circle, so often the conclusion these accusers make is that if you never made the effort that means that you’re not actually an incel, you’re a volcel. I’m not sure because I’d be happy to have a relationship if it were to occur naturally in the way I was talking about earlier, even if it’ll never be the same as what could have been, but if that’s not an option then I guess you can call me volcel.

The still beating heart

We have these /comfy/ threads on /r9k/, I’m sure most of you already know what I’m talking about. To the one or two who don’t though, essentially people will post art, photos, music, and tell little anecdotes that in one way or another have this common feeling of “comfy” linking them all together. Of course the word comfy, or comfortable, is far older than 4chan but the way it is used makes the /comfy/ of 4chan a unique idea. It’s a little like this Danish word. See in Denmark they have this word hygge, and there doesn’t seem to be a direct translation to English but from what I’ve read it describes a general feeling of cosiness/ warmth gotten from certain activities. So, drinking a hot chocolate while it snows outside or sitting near a fire place and listening to the crackling sounds as it gets dark out. Apparently this is a large part of Danish culture, the best way of putting it that I heard was from this one guy Meik Wiking who said that “Hygge” is to Denmark what “Freedom” is to the US. Now I don’t know how true this is, after all this guy is trying to sell this hygge idea it might be entirely manufactured but it certainly illustrates the concept quite well. The word exists in other Scandinavian/ north Germanic languages or something very similar but it doesn’t have quite the same weight to it. So in Norway it’s just their way of saying cozy or homely, at least that’s what I’ve gathered, whereas in Denmark it’s this central idea. You could say there’s the lower case and the upper case hygge. Similarly you have “comfy” as it’s used by normal people every day and you have “Comfy” the romantic ideal.

Now the two aren’t synonyms, I’d actually say that /comfy/ is far larger in scope. See /comfy/ is a bit different for everyone. The different things people put in those threads reflect their own sense of it. Sure there’s a lot of overlap, in fact a lot of things that would be pretty hygge would also be /comfy/ for many anons. You see a lot of the same images reposted often, but there’s quite a lot of different kinds of things. Deckard’s apartment from Blade Runner, a group of anime girls living in a caravan, a photo of a cup of coffee near a window. Ambient music, or folk, or something that just has nostalgia value and most wouldn’t find /comfy/ at all. Some anons like an old timey aesthetic and others prefer a futuristic place to imagine themselves in, hobbit homes and personal space ships. Even though there’s quite a lot of variety, and almost everyone is going to find things in those threads that they don’t get or understand why someone considers them /comfy/, there’s an understanding that the feeling experienced is the same in substance. I’m not really too happy with my explanation, but the explanation isn’t the purpose of this entry it’s just some preliminary information. Hopefully you already know what it is I’m talking about. No, what I’m here to talk about is the only real through line I can identify that connects everything that /r9k/ might consider /comfy/. Yes, the term is used site wide and in fact even outside of 4chan nowadays as it’s kind of spread out like everything does, but it did originate there. I know the /adjective/ meme is a more general thing too, but I’m not here to talk about 4chan shit. Honestly the “culture” for lack of a better term there isn’t something you can give a quick rundown on you have to just live in it, that why the whole lurk more thing came about. I mean I first started visiting maybe late 2011 and I still would be considered a newfag. Of course even that whole new/ old thing is only half serious, it’s literally just a website where people post pictures and make the same stupid jokes over and over. I don’t want to get side tracked here, these recurring /comfy/ threads are what I’m talking about and the idea may have spread and become diluted or changed but it doesn’t matter because I’m not talking about those cases.

One huge thing though is the amount of artwork or oc that taps into the greater board mythology, I’m using the term loosely but it’s definitely something that exists. I mean you have these figures, and yes the more famous ones are not board exclusive or even site exclusive, but they are most developed on /r9k/. The thing is, pol9k is a real thing and that demographic (not the best term, but the best I can think of right now) absolutely dominates the site now. The radicalised virgin, the 2010s upgraded version of the 00s neckbeard caricature. Very few if any individuals embody all of the traits associated with such a character but as a collective all of them show up frequently. So of course a lot of what develops kind of organically on /r9k/ is spread out quickly because /pol/ is so huge now and there’s that overlap thanks to this demographic and gets picked up by normals. Maybe the most famous example is the virgin walk image which existed as a standalone joke that was posted for years. One day someone made some absurd response image to it, the chad stride, and now a couple years later you have some facebook boomers making “Virgin thing I don’t like, Chad thing I do like” memes who have only ever heard of the hacker known as 4chan through fox news segments. Anyway that’s just another tangent, my point is that I’m well aware that most of these characters (pepe, wojak, spurdo and the various variants that have become their own characters after a while) both existed before the current “culture” on the board had developed into what it is today or even before the board existed at all and exist beyond it. You don’t get stuff like pic related anywhere else though, do you?

Yes I know it’s an edit, the original was from the poopoopeepee days though and that whole situation was an earlier part of this board mythology I’m talking about anyway. In fact that whole thing was a response to the characters becoming adopted by so many normies, which further goes to show how these little cartoony beings are inextricably tied up with the place. It’s such a lovely little comic strip as well isn’t it, really warms the heart. You see, these various characters seem to me to form a pantheon, and much like the gods of ancient Hellas these characters show up all over the artwork of various creative robots. You couldn’t really create a serious canon from all of these drawings and things, with a continuous story or something like that, it’d be impossible. These characters just are, they exist in all these separate stories and none of them at the same time, just like the hundreds of poems and plays and works of classical art featuring the Olympians. This is ongoing and like I said earlier organic, I deliberately chose a more recent and kind of shoddy image for the main picture of the post to help show this. There’s stuff like it being made often and by all sorts of people. Well, all sorts of robot anyway. These characters have certain traits we all kind associate with each of them, and we know when one is being used over another what they’re trying to represent. These characters personify various aspects of ourselves, and can be used to create a feeling of sadness or melancholy, of joy, of anger, and most importantly of being /comfy/. The funny thing about the things that feature these characters though is this sense of friendship or being at ease around one another these characters all seem to have when two or more are put together. Even in the ones where they’re messing with one another, and sometimes those can get really fucking weird, there’s this sense that they’re still part of this great and unbreakable friendship or even familial bond. Which again I can’t help but see in parallel to not just the Greek pantheon but Norse mythology as well. See a lot of people think there was this codified story of the gods in these societies, and all the famous folk stories featuring them were believed to be true. Of course that’s a very materialist and modern way of seeing things, and it misses the whole point of these ancient mythologies and the characters they feature. No, there’s stories where they fight and die and betray one another and come together to deal with greater threats and there’s so much no one could possibly believe it all happened and in some kind of order. Some stories might even outright contradict others, but yes if you want to see how the gods of antiquity were used in stories and sagas you should think about how gondola or wojak or that retarded version of pepe are used.

It’s funny to me because this sense of there being a friendship or bond is almost exclusive to the art featuring these characters, in the /comfy/ threads I mean. Almost everything else posted, photos or artwork or music etc. feels very solitary in theme. Maybe this isn’t surprising at all, this is /r9k/ after all it’s filled with isolated and lonely young men, but remember these threads are meant to be about what we find comfort in. So it is interesting that it is often (admittedly very pretty) art of empty bedrooms, or isolated winter cabins, or small ships floating through space. Fuzzy lo-fi music, usually pretty melancholy, that brings to mind the idea of a summer stuck indoors. All tied together with the things that people in the thread talk about, how they’re getting /comfy/ themselves. Naturally because it’s a bunch of NEETs and hikkis or sometimes wageslaves who are still very shut in the rest of the time like myself finding this comfort in old video games and films, simple things enjoyed from home like a hot drink and most importantly these threads themselves. Both alone, and in good company. In the wizards tower with a nice heavy blanket, with the Palantir at hand. See, I first started thinking about this when I made that post a couple of weeks ago. Why I like to romanticise my situation, cut off from people and it’s not merely cope or an attempt to make it more bearable. It’s because, I actually in some sense quite like it. I mean I long for good company sometimes to be sure, but I also take solace in being away from people when things become too stressful. I think I mentioned this before here but I actually used to have a very romantic view of the hikikomori archetype when I was a lot younger and still not necessarily on the path to aligning with it so closely as I do today. It’s because I (and I think it’s fair to say you can extrapolate to a lot of other robots too) have always been drawn to similar figures. The wandering ronin, the chivalric knight-errant, the wizard cooped up in his tower on the mountain, the drifter afloat in space and of course as I’ve mentioned before the ascetic monk. It’s these kinds of characters, sometimes drawn as variations of the /r9k/ pantheon I was talking about earlier and sometimes just reposted pics found anywhere online, that are the second major kind of figure that appears in these threads. Often as well, there’ll just be empty rooms, or city streets with no people (or blurry silhouettes) and similar stuff too. I know it’s a stretch to say that the modern hikikomori (as an archetype, just like I said earlier about something else it’s rare you’ll find any person in the real world who embodies all associated traits) is the incarnation of what all those other figures are for the modern world, it’s just a loser who can’t get laid you may say. Maybe you’re right, but I see a connection there.

So I said that the only time you have depictions of a more social existence in these threads is when the frogs and cancer patients etc. are used but that’s not entirely true. There are also occasionally pictures of children, there’s two images which I can think of right now. One is this drawing of a bunch of Japanese schoolkids doing some kind of project near a big window during what looks like a summer break, the other is of three or maybe four boys playing on an N64 in their pyjamas. I think it’s clear why this is, it’s a case of looking back on childhood with rose tinted glasses. I’m absolutely guilty of this, I’ve made several posts on here in which I’ve done it. When I think of friendship, I think of being a child. Why wouldn’t I, it was when I was a child that I actually had friends. Well, up until my mid teens anyway. Of course I still have friends now, a few anyway although I had many more when I was little, but we see each other at best a few times a year. Clustered around the summer as well, so most of the year I don’t see anyone. The only real group of people with whom I can engage in friendly activities with, laughing about stupid jokes, arguing about anything from politics to art, sharing feels both positive and negative, is /r9k/. Who, that’s right, are best represented by this pantheon I guess I’m calling it now. Again, I think I’ve spent enough time with the robots to say that a lot of them are very similar to me in some fundamental ways, and therefore it’s fair for me to extrapolate my way of seeing things onto them I think. So I think that this is why it’s those characters or children who are necessary stand ins in order for most robots to see any kind of social gathering as /comfy/. A lot of normalfags might see a pub or bar with “interesting” strangers to talk to as comfy, but to any robot such a place would be the exact opposite. Because these threads represent /r9k/, and not only that but they get at the fundamental robot truth more than any other. The only other recurring thread I can think off that comes close would be those Frog and Feels threads but they seem to have stopped or at least become way less common over the last couple years. You can’t help but see these /comfy/ threads as basically the church, or temple, of the board when you think this way. The place where the soul resides.

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.

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.

Riding a train of thought

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Decisions decisions

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

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

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

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