i'm never going to have a girlfriend

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
121

Nice start, Calc. I particularly liked the “turtle lovin” comment. It was funny, especially as a good follow-up to your post about being reincarnated as a turtle. Your other two posts show promise as well.

Now push it a little, and talk with Psalex Sensei. Keep it light, and keep the conversation going.

Personally, I’m finally learning just what flirting is, and some of that learning is coming through this thread. It’s a kind of a game; the trick is to develop the skill to know when the game is “Flirt” and when the game is “Life.”

122

I stand before you quietly proud and humbled by this honor. I would like to take this time to tell a little story.
Two mice fell into a bowl of cream. The first mouse quickly gave up and drowned. The second mouse fought and struggled until he churned that cream into butter and he crawled his way out. I am that second mouse.
thank you, and good night.

123

Second mouse? Psst, Psalex, I’ve seen how this one ends - you may want to wear a bib or something easily washable.

124

Poof Because of my good deeds done here, I will have reached nirvana in my next life and thus will be everywhere at once.

As a somewhat practical spiritual leader, I intend to shapeshift at will and take the form of any form of fauna I choose, rather than floating smugly and aimlessly around in the ether. No, I won’t rest on my laurels. I am a firm believer in recycling.

It’s your weapon of choice. I could come back as Ann Bankroft (wink,wink, lno) a sultry panther, a butter-lovin mouse (though, I prefer smoke gouda, Random1, keep churnin’ please), slinky mako shark (hey, Scuba, jump on in, the water’s fine) or a hot, sexy turtle. On second thought, I wouldn’t mind being Charo for a day. Any takers?

Keep an eye out for blue eyes, and you’ll know it is me.

125

Mako shark? Cool, let me just get my camera!

Life doesn’t get much better than when you’re wearing a tight rubber suit and several pounds of lead, and the sharks are swimming right by you. (Caribbean Reef sharks, in my case.)

On second thought, I haven’t seen a turtle at depth yet. Be the turtle, Psalex.

126

Sorry for leaving y’all so abruptly. Life rudely butted in.

Psalex, you are doing great work with Calc. Please keep it up.

Calc, listen to what is being said, and more importanly, what is being implied. Learn to play, the time for serious conversation comes later. I think this is a lesson you need to learn. Women want to verbally play with a guy before opening up the mind to you. There is a time for play in any situation, just as there is a time for seriousness.

Take, for example, Bill Nye the Science Guy. Now, science is a serious subject, wouldn’t you agree? But it wasn’t really cool with the majority of people, until Bill Nye came along and spiced things up a bit, made it FUN!

If you cannot display a playfulness, a lot of women will think that you are just plain weird and assume that you are serious all the time. Seriousness early on in any relationship is not necessarily a good thing.

127

Lyllan! Why did you leave me? You know this thread needs more estrogen!

(But don’t worry, no amout of hinting or bribery tempted me to open the manual. Our secrets are still safe)

Now, Calc- you stay put. The rumor that girls have cooties is a myth.
Bill Nye rules.

128

Psalex!

Ixnay on the anualy! We don’t want the men to know there really is one!

129

trust me when i say i like playful banter as much as the next person, but mine is alot more psycho and cynical. Thats probably going to do more harm than good. I wish i were gay, guys seem to appreciate psycho banter.

130

I too have the same issues as Calc. So… I plan on taking some piano lessons at our community college here to see if I can pull some ho’s. I kinda know how to play already, so will see. It’s a start right? But when I think of it, i probably don’t have a girlfriend because I keep on saying “pull some ho’s”.

131

There are women who appreciate psycho banter. Trust me. My first date involved dark and cynical commentary on JFK, the movie. I have always had other female friends who shared an equally, uh, unusual outlook on life. My husband and I share running jokes about the death of Rasputin.

There are almost as many different senses of humour as there are people. You don’t want to be stuck with a woman who doesn’t dig your sense of humour, for all its grisliness. I know shyness is hard, I’m a shy person, but I have a public persona, which is terribly useful for getting to know people. All I can suggest is making a real effort to participate in public activities that suit your tastes, and work on having the confidence to talk to the other people who participate in them.

132

I’ve read through some good advice here, and I have one suggestion to add, which you can use or ignore as you see fit:

Kids. Hang around with some children, talk to them, play with them. This could help to bring out your playful, relaxed side in a low-pressure way. If you have nieces/nephews or other relatives you could hang out with, great. If not, maybe look into something like the Big Brother/Big Sister program, or a church, camp, or after-school kids’ place. Or just talk to kids you meet in the store, the park, etc. As long as you can do it in a nonthreatening way that doesn’t make you look like a potential child molester.

133

Calc, my two cents?
It’s like anything else. Practice. And you have a nice place to do it in here.
I failed my driving test -twice- (okay, the first time was because I didn’t notice the POPULATION of the city we were driving into. Friggin’ instructor…) but I didn’t get better until I practiced.

Two years ago, I sucked at flirting, and never even wanted to try. Then I started getting into this interactive fiction thing with some of my friends, and it turned towards romance, and… Well, let’s just say that practice has brought me out of the ‘not wanting to try’ thing.

Go for it. We’re behind you 100%. You got support out the wazoo here (which may not be where you -want- the support, but too bad! :))

We’re with ya, and we know you can do it. First time’s gonna be hard. Second time’s gonna be hard. Third time is gonna be… Less hard. Practice, buddy, and don’t give up!

134

not to hijack the thread here, but i feel this is the most appropriate place. i just got majorly let down again by someone who’s feelings for me were not as strong as they were made out…

ice cream, please. lots. and pizza. and old films…

135

Oh, Plank- What happened? Tell us about it. And Calc will be fine with the hijack- he is on vacation for a week. I think we can safely continue the discussion of the miscommunication between men and women right here- spill.

136

Hey, Calculus_of_Logic!

I gotta say I agree 100 % with Scuba_Ben upthread… he and I could probably have worn the same T-shirts, what he said sounds so familiar to me. Building yourself up can be a hell of a task. But it’s worth it.

I was extraordinarily afraid of peoples’ reactions to me: afraid to open my mouth around them in social situations for fear of appearing an idiot; afraid to put myself out there and try for something, be it a raise or a date or whatever, for fear that I’d be slapped down and ostracised yet again. I barely looked at people, and I had no idea if anyone was interested in me.

Calc, your post about not knowing that a girl was interested in you is so like me that it’s not funny. I remember one time in grade eight that a girl actually went to the effort of calling me. I blew her off. Why? I honestly thought she was making fun of me. Why not? Everyone else did, except for a few friends. I literally could not imagine that a girl, especially a cute one, would want to spend time with me.

Time went by. So did high school and university, and then I entered the work world.

I put myself through therapy, first to put myself back together after suffering way too many deaths in my family during the nineties, and then to gradually get used to being around people–and especially being around emotion. The sheer intensity of emotion at times terrified me.

Gradually my counselors got me used to being around emotion in a safe setting where I could trust that I wouldn’t be destroyed, and where I always had a safe place to retreat to if I needed it. I may never enjoy arguing, as some people seem to, but I think I can find my own footing and survive it now. This alone is worth all the money I paid.

Somehow things have changed in recent months and weeks; I’m way more relaxed*, and I’m even posting in flirting threads! And I’ve even gotten some favourable responses!

I’m not as far as I want to be, but I’m definitely on the road there.

Kudos to everyone in this thread for their support to Calc!

Drat. On preview, I see Psalex’s post that Calc is on holidays. Oh well. We’ll be here when he comes back. :slight_smile:

BTW, Psalex, have you ever had the experience of seeing Inkubo? It’s livid proof that old Billy can’t act in Esperanto either. I have the DVD. :smiley:

[sub] *Of course, it took shorting out the entire northeastern power grid and putting fifty million people in the dark to get me to lighten up, but then I’m a hard case. Your mileage will definitely vary.[/sub]

137

Oh, Plankspanker?
Here’s a triple-decker cone in your three favourite flavours. And I’ve got a chocolate sundae for reinforcement when necessary… :slight_smile:

138

Ha Ha Ha- Thank you, Sunspace. I have waited years for a good reference to Esperanto- (not since Mike Myers and Mick Jagger were spoofing the Stones on SNL years ago- wherein Mick labeled bandmate Keith Richard’s muddied speech “… Esperanto, or something”

I have never seen it but am searching for it now. Wonder how you say “cheese” in Esperanto.

And Plankspanker , your support crew are waiting. Tell us about your someone and your subsequent need for sugary comfort.

139

Psalex, “cheese” is fromagxo (pronounced, “fromahdjoh”). It’s based on the same word root as the French fromage (not pronounced “fromahdjoh”, but “fromahzh”). The ‘gx’ is a way of representing a g with a circumflex accent in ASCII environments. To translate the Shatner/Nimoy/“Transformed Man” sense of “cheesy” out of English is oddly difficult though.

Inkubo or Incubus was thought to be lost until a few years ago, when someone dug the only remaining copy out of the French National Archives. It was reissued on VHS, and then later on DVD.

Apparently Shatner is the only member of the main cast to remain alive; most of the others came to an unpleasant end… although some might argue that to be both perpetuated and pigeonnholed as a celebrity is itself a form of living death.

I approach the film from the viewpoint of an Esperanto-speaker; the quality of pronounciation in Inkubo is so bad that when we showed it at an Esperanto-club meeting, everyone burst out in laughter. In places, two characters are speaking dialogue while facing each other, and you can tell that they are reading prompt cards over each others’ shoulders…

140

Well, i guess i was just kidding myself. i asked her before she went on holiday how she felt about me, and it took a whole week to give the answer. i should’ve known that any more than about 5 seconds of thinking and it would be a definate no…

cant get hold of ice cream or pizza or even old films right now. i do have beer, but i’m really not much of a drinker, so my options are limited in the extreme… I’m just wondering what the fuck it is about me that makes me always the friend, never the boyfriend? If i’m the great guy i’m always told i am, why? what is wrong with me. goddamnmuthafukkin ‘friends zone’…