The automatic thought channel wants to steer me into doom and gloom... I do not like going down that path.
I rather enjoy walking the path, through the small woods, behind the park; out around by the storage pond, and then back up along the fields bordering the gas line. If you watched the videos posted for the virtual NAMI Walk, you would have seen various points along that short walk.
I also enjoyed the 5 second videos of all the birds and fish and more, down at the Aquarium.
Words become weary, images become blurry...
Yeah, I posted some posts, this week, that I felt twisted up in knots over some people, and some of their actions. Were those humbling events... humiliating events... or just irritating events? Did I feel testy because I felt like I was being tested? ...or was my selfishness just seeping out of my pores, demanding some satisfactions that are not mine to have?
It's like I bristle at 'double-speak' and at 'domination' - there's a lack of respect - fuck. i think i'm in doom and gloom.
rewind...?
I find myself quite loving tutoring, again.
Yet, there's that more sinister spectre of becoming attracted to some of the students. I believe that it can be kept Platonic, I believe that I can be honorable - because I have been quite capable of doing so, in the past. Yet, there's still that whisper in the back of my mind, wondering if anything more could ever develop.
I think it's a double-edged sword, when your work interacts mostly with people and not with things. ...and because education connects minds - oh, it's such a painful heartache to try to redirect in productive ways.
Living in the co-ops - that led to some heartaches, on my part, too. We're all thrown together, into the same house, on independent contracts, yet we became such a tight-knit family. It's much more touchy of a situation, than simply dating within friends...
Seeing pitfalls all around, and hearing about others' inappropriate behaviors... it seemed like my dating life soon boiled down to dating sites, bars and clubs, or friends twice removed from my friends. All great, except I really dig having a mind-to-mind connection before really thinking about romantic dating. So, I either put a lot of effort into writing so many unanswered letters, hoping to meet someone's mind... or I become attracted to my good friends, and feel utterly stumped on "venturing into dates".
This all gets wrapped up in secrecy and dishonesty, fueled by fear - some people don't like to admit their attractions because of past betrayals, past mixed signals, past transgressions?
I know the fear of rejection keeps me fairly quiet. I know the fear of social dissolution should things go South - that's another brake on dating.... you know, "if the dating breaks up badly, how will we split up our shared activities, to avoid crossing paths?" (which is why dating within our friend circle can be such a tricky undertaking)
Most often, my basic decision has been suppression - "Don't even try dating, or keep it strictly to the dating sites, where it's supposedly agreed that's why everyone's there..." {don't get me started about catfishing, though... or bad scams....}
I'm not happy with that 'dating sites only' solution, yet I think it's still the one where I'm causing the least potential harm.
Other people are still causing plenty of harms, though; in their dating dialogues. ...and both I and others cause plenty of harm by not being direct and honest about our feelings and emotions, with each other.
Still, I've given up on asking people on dates. I also mostly gave up on trying to start conversations by phone or by email. Part of that's because I feel that men have been painted as bad players when trying to start relationships, so I'd rather not even try to play into that model. Instead of being too aggressive, I choose to be too passive.
I should note, here, that when I have tried to be aggressive about dating, it tended to end with mutual fears of my intensity: "too much, too fast". Like the old AA joke: "How do you know when two AA's had a first date?" 'The U-haul in the driveway, the next morning.'
It's midnight. I'm going to take a shower, now.
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