From 272178fef47561c7e3b289f7d8759217ac067abd Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: John-Michael Reed Date: Wed, 4 Sep 2024 03:20:58 -0400 Subject: [PATCH] Update README.md --- README.md | 4 ++-- 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-) diff --git a/README.md b/README.md index 6775c62..996a403 100644 --- a/README.md +++ b/README.md @@ -85,11 +85,11 @@ It is 4/21/2023 and this will be my fourth-to-last paragraph on social/interpers It is August 4th, 2024 and this is the third-to-last paragraph on social/interpersonal stuff before going on to the fifth reason I'm not working. I remember when I was between about 8 and 13 years old I had a piano teacher named Manny who came to my house once a week and who was the nicest, most friendly guy. A real social fellow, nowadays he is one of my Facebook friends and he is always putting out these friendly, pleasing, entertaining travel vlogs [video blogs] on YouTube at https://youtube.com/@mannytravelsandhikes , showing people bars, restaurants, tourist destinations, scenic views, and other such travel related things (which is vastly more pleasant than my social media, which I talked about before—people tend to unfriend or unfollow me on Facebook based on my content). Anyway, when I was about 13 years old he got cancer, and I was under the impression that he was terminal. Rather than console him or anything like that, I was like “I can’t handle this, he’s fucked” and I cut off all contact with him and blocked him on everything (Facebook, maybe phone number as well). After I found out he survived and was cleared of everything, I unblocked him, and eventually he sent me a friend request on Facebook and I accepted. This is random, but when someone my age on Reddit (an anonymous group forum based social media platform) makes a post like “I found out I have terminal cancer and I have only 1 month left to live”, I naturally am like “OMG, how are you?”, and maybe I want to hear their life story, but when someone I know is like “I found out I have terminal cancer and I have only 1 month left to live”, I’m like “You’re fucked, later dead man”. Hanging out with them would make me feel sad and it isn’t something that I want and I would rather just leave them behind rather than have some sort of memories from the last moments of their life (I don’t love you, save that shit for your family). Like I won’t talk to them, I guess I don’t really care about them. But yeah, anyway, I guess I was that way with Manny, and I am fundamentally the same person now at age 30 that I was at age 13, like even going that far back I didn’t really have friends (in the grown up sense of friendship), I just sort of had playmates who for example played the same MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) as me. I sort of consider myself people’s friend the way a politician is their friend (like I’ll shake your hand and take your vote) or as like a “fair-weather friend”, which is defined as “One who is friendly, helpful, or available only when it is advantageous or convenient to be so”, but where if you have terminal cancer I am like “You’re fucked, later dead man”. An acquaintance is a "fair weather friend" but a true, real friend is someone who will be your friend even when the "weather" is bad, not "fair", and I am not that kind of friend. But yeah, I guess in the long run in order to have a friend you have to be a friend but I’m never REALLY a friend if that makes any sense, even if I seem super extroverted and interested in a new person initially. If Manny is “A real social fellow” in my words, then I am a sort of “pseudo-social fellow”, where I sort of seem social initially or superficially but at a deeper level I am sort of asocial towards other people like I talked about before. Perhaps I have a sort of superficial charm, like I will go to social events on https://www.meetup.com/ sometimes and chat up strangers, really focus on them (at least initially) and ask them questions about themselves. It’s not sustainable, though, like eventually I run out of questions to ask them about themselves and start to focus on me and my wants and usually that’s when they’re like “I would rather focus on myself and my happiness, I'm not interested, it was nice meeting you”. I’ve always been much better at making new “friends” or acquaintances than keeping or deepening a relationship with an existing one, everybody just sort of fades away, like we end up never communicating anymore. But yeah, going back to Manny, this guy was on Zoosk, the worst online dating site, for like a month or two and found a beautiful woman who wasn’t looking for anything serious and she changed her mind when she met him and decided to marry him and they are still married today. Me on the other hand, I was on like 6 different online dating sites for over 10 years and never got married despite wanting that and never even had a single official boyfriend and girlfriend relationship. Every woman who I ever had sex with or dated ended up blocking me (like on Facebook and blocking my number and stuff like that). Like Anna Clements (first woman I had sex with) blocked me and told me not to contact her, Kristian Faith McKlevey (woman I dated for the longest stretch of time) did the same thing, etc. It’s been over 8 years and I still want them, they were great (they definitely don’t want me). But yeah, I dunno, I guess it’s just my personality. Like I will approach people and be happy to meet them and shake their hand and ask them questions about themselves, but that is a sort of superficial thing, like really at a deeper level other people don’t want me, the real me. Employers don’t want me either. Like multiple past bosses of mine blocked me on LinkedIn. It’s not like I didn’t try to work and date and stuff like that. But yeah, I guess this is just my personality, and it doesn’t seem to really change or get fixed by medication or therapy or anything like that. I really wish this weren’t my personality, like I wish I were a “normal” person, but whatever, personality is not fixable. There is no pill for having no human sympathy. I mean I can develop obsessions (“I have fallen in love”), maybe stalk a woman I am obsessed with, but that’s different. But yeah, I guess when I “fall in love” the inner person comes out and NOBODY wants the me inner person. NOBODY really, truly wants me, but they might just think they do based on superficial stuff. By this point, all I have is me, my Mom, and my Dad. Nobody (other than my mom and occasionally my Dad) calls me, texts me, emails me, or messages me on Facebook or Instagram or anything like that, I’m all alone, just sort of waiting for the day that I die. I think it would be nice if people from my past called me or texted me but in general instead they blocked me. The number of people who blocked me or unfriended me on Facebook after meeting me in real life and becoming my Facebook friend is higher than my current number of remaining Facebook friends. I know before I wrote “I like the idea of being a normal person, but I am fine living with no real friendships and I don't even experience loneliness except for occasionally missing the company of my mother”, but that was around year 2022 and now in August of 2024 I am feeling like I really need somebody but I have nobody (other than my parents, but they don’t fill the hole). I feel like one of those grandparents who is like “Why do my kids never call?” except instead I'm like “Why does nobody from high school or college ever call?”, they don’t even reply when I text them. -It is August 5th, 2024 and this is the second-to-last paragraph on social/interpersonal stuff before going on to the fifth reason I'm not working. I want to talk about the question “How are you?” or “How are you doing?” I kind of don’t get the question. Like do you want me to lie and just spit out a generic “good”? I don’t think we should be conditioning people to lie, especially given that lying can become compulsive, automatic, or chronic. I remember my initial appointment with my therapist Dr. Maria Karilshtadt-Byk, she asked me “How are you?” while walking from the waiting room to her office and I just naturally replied “good, good”, but it was more just being polite, there was no actual thought or facts behind that answer. I remember one time on a dating app a woman asked me “How are you?” as a first message and I responded “I am suicidal” and she was like “I can’t handle this, unmatch” and then she disappeared. I don’t know, but I really was suicidal. That kind of reminds me of how in the previous paragraph Manny, my piano teacher of 5 years, was like “I have cancer” and in my head I was like “I can’t handle this” and then I was like “unmatch and block” and I basically disappeared until after his cancer went away. Those two situations are kind of similar. I think we sort of all just ask “How are you?” and reply “good” to give this sort of surface-level impression of everybody caring about each other. I don’t believe it’s real. Here is a screenshot from my phone of me texting my neighbor who is about my age, Willy, yesterday: +It is August 5th, 2024 and this is the second-to-last paragraph on social/interpersonal stuff before going on to the fifth reason I'm not working. I want to talk about the question “How are you?” or “How are you doing?”. I kind of don’t get the question. Like do you want me to lie and just spit out a generic “good”? I don’t think we should be conditioning people to lie, especially given that lying can become compulsive, automatic, or chronic. I remember my initial appointment with my therapist Dr. Maria Karilshtadt-Byk, she asked me “How are you?” while walking from the waiting room to her office and I just naturally replied “good, good”, but it was more just being polite, there was no actual thought or facts behind that answer. I remember one time on a dating app a woman asked me “How are you?” as a first message and I responded “I am suicidal” and she was like “I can’t handle this, unmatch” and then she disappeared. I don’t know, but I really was suicidal. That kind of reminds me of how in the previous paragraph Manny, my piano teacher of 5 years, was like “I have cancer” and in my head I was like “I can’t handle this” and then I was like “unmatch and block” and I basically disappeared until after his cancer went away. Those two situations are kind of similar. I think we sort of all just ask “How are you?” and reply “good” to give this sort of surface-level impression of everybody caring about each other. I don’t believe it’s real. Here is a screenshot from my phone of me texting my neighbor who is about my age, Willy, yesterday: ![Text to Willy link](https://i.imgur.com/qySGzAM.png) -You can see I texted him and then he didn’t reply for over an hour and then I texted again and now it’s the next day and he still didn’t respond (he ultimately never responded). Notice I first text “Hey Willy. How ya doing?” Note that I literally never think about how Willy or anybody else is doing. I have like no empathy/sympathy. I don’t actually care. I just want to get the other person (Willy in this case) talking to me. It’s just like an automatic thing to ask “How are you?” to get someone talking to you, but you never actually walk around and think “I wonder how is doing”. I once read that love manifests as a sort of concern or worry for another person and if that’s true I guess I don’t actually love other people. Anyway, after I sent Willy my first text, I experienced a sort of anxiety (sort of like my “Relationship Destruction Reflex”) and then after over an hour I followed it up with another text, “Nevermind. I've just gotten to the point where it's just me, my Mom, and my Dad and I have zero friends remaining”. After I sent this second text my anxiety went away and I could chill without sending anymore texts (if I'm in a situation where I can’t chill, like if I'm obsessed with a woman, I might send her like 100 texts in a row and ultimately she blocks me or contacts the police). Anyway, this second text to Willy kind of elicits pity, but it’s true. Willy was basically the last person who was my friend and I just kept him around so we could play pool sometimes, but now he won’t even play pool with me anymore. It sucks. Note that from my perspective, I was never Willy’s friend (or anyone else’s friend, really), I just sort of go from this situation where they are sort of my friend (like at least they'll text me back and make plans with me if I ask) to this sort of equilibrium where neither of us are each other’s friends, if that makes any sense. I figure that in order to have real friends you have to be a real friend and I’m not and never was a real friend (just look at my situation with Manny from the previous paragraph, he got cancer and I disappeared). Anyway, sometimes I see my mom wave at people who she doesn’t give a shit about and say “How are you?” with the expectation of hearing them say “Good!” and I’m like “Why do you ask, Mom? Clearly they’re bullshitting. Do you want their bullshit?” (my mom is a nice lady). I think really she’s trying to create social cohesion, like to give off this impression that everybody cares about each other. Sorry, but they don’t. That guy who cuts the grass or whatever is not your friend. I’m going to use the security guard guy in my gated neighborhood who I kinda know as an example for these next couple sentences. I mean if I recognize him and he stops the security guard vehicle and waves at me and says “Hey!” I’ll wave back at him “Hey, how you doing?” and he’ll reply “Good!”, but I don’t actually care about him or want to talk to him, it’s just sort of social obligation. I mean maybe in his imagination he thinks I’m his friend but I’m not really his friend if that makes any sense. Like he could die in his sleep of a heart attack tomorrow and I would be like “cool”, like I don’t ACTUALLY care about him beyond a socially obligatory universal minimum. Like when I tell the security guard “Good!” I’m kinda bullshitting, it’s just sort of an automatic social requirement to say that, like really I just want to get on with whatever I’m doing. +You can see I texted him and then he didn’t reply for over an hour and then I texted again and now it’s the next day and he still didn’t respond (he ultimately never responded). Notice I first text “Hey Willy. How ya doing?” Note that I literally never think about how Willy or anybody else is doing. I have like no empathy/sympathy. I don’t actually care. I just want to get the other person (Willy in this case) talking to me. It’s just like an automatic thing to ask “How are you?” to get someone talking to you, but you never actually walk around and think “I wonder how \ is doing”. I once read that love manifests as a sort of concern or worry for another person and if that’s true I guess I don’t actually love other people. Anyway, after I sent Willy my first text, I experienced a sort of anxiety (sort of like my “Relationship Destruction Reflex”) and then after over an hour I followed it up with another text, “Nevermind. I've just gotten to the point where it's just me, my Mom, and my Dad and I have zero friends remaining”. After I sent this second text my anxiety went away and I could chill without sending anymore texts (if I'm in a situation where I can’t chill, like if I'm obsessed with a woman, I might send her like 100 texts in a row and ultimately she blocks me or contacts the police). Anyway, this second text to Willy kind of elicits pity, but it’s true. Willy was basically the last person who was my friend and I just kept him around so we could play pool sometimes, but now he won’t even play pool with me anymore. It sucks. Note that from my perspective, I was never Willy’s friend (or anyone else’s friend, really), I just sort of go from this situation where they are sort of my friend (like at least they'll text me back and make plans with me if I ask) to this sort of equilibrium where neither of us are each other’s friends, if that makes any sense. I figure that in order to have real friends you have to be a real friend and I’m not and never was a real friend (just look at my situation with Manny from the previous paragraph, he got cancer and I disappeared). Anyway, sometimes I see my mom wave at people who she doesn’t give a shit about and say “How are you?” with the expectation of hearing them say “Good!” and I’m like “Why do you ask, Mom? Clearly they’re bullshitting. Do you want their bullshit?” (my mom is a nice lady). I think really she’s trying to create social cohesion, like to give off this impression that everybody cares about each other. Sorry, but they don’t. That guy who cuts the grass or whatever is not your friend. I’m going to use the security guard guy in my gated neighborhood who I kinda know as an example for these next couple sentences. I mean if I recognize him and he stops the security guard vehicle and waves at me and says “Hey!” I’ll wave back at him “Hey, how you doing?” and he’ll reply “Good!”, but I don’t actually care about him or want to talk to him, it’s just sort of social obligation. I mean maybe in his imagination he thinks I’m his friend but I’m not really his friend if that makes any sense. Like he could die in his sleep of a heart attack tomorrow and I would be like “cool”, like I don’t ACTUALLY care about him beyond a socially obligatory universal minimum. Like when I tell the security guard “Good!” I’m kinda bullshitting, it’s just sort of an automatic social requirement to say that, like really I just want to get on with whatever I’m doing. It is still August 5th, 2024 and this is the last paragraph on social/interpersonal stuff before going on to the fifth reason I'm not working. I sometimes come across as socially impaired (I found the determiner of my disability case put “marked social impairment” on me as one of the things when making the disability determination), but I think what comes off as being socially impaired is just me not lying in situations when lying is normal (like when a girl on a dating app messages “How are you?” and I reply “I'm suicidal”). Like for example, I remember around year 2019 the disability determination lady, Mrs. Spears, wouldn’t pick up the phone so I called her 16 times in a row and she finally picked up the phone in an exasperated manner and said “You called me 16 times. I was with another person. I will get to you” or something like that and then hung up on me without giving me the opportunity to say anything. Like bitch, you think calling you 16 times in a row is bad, if the President told me (back then, that) he would approve my disability claim and grant me a Presidential pardon for killing you and I believed him, I would kill you (but obviously this situation would never happen). Is that social impairment or do I just not give a fuck about you? I think it’s really the latter and I’m just telling you the truth. Likewise, sometimes I say stuff that is off-putting, but I don’t think I’m unaware that it’s off-putting. Like I’m not unaware that a girl asking “How are you?” and me replying “I am suicidal” is off-putting. It’s just that replying “Good” would be lying and also it feels cathartic to dump my shit on people. Like if I had a time machine and I went back to that point in time, I would give her the exact same answer. Is that social impairment or do I just suck? I think social impairment is more autism, like where they’re not even aware but as soon as they become aware they feel bad, and I never had autism. I’ve had people tell me that I come off as autistic in certain situations, but I don’t believe I’m autistic (if I recall correctly I was tested as a child and the tests came out negative).