The destruction of a person builds character! Part 1

I always feel like I'm just one fuckup away from losing friends. And people wonder why I'm always so stressed out. It has happened before, it will probably happen again. Sometimes, those "friends" are just assholes. Here are a few stories of times within the past year(!) where I fucked up and lost "friends". 

In my previous entry, which I recommend reading before starting on this one, I mentioned that I realized last Summer that I was never going to "people" properly. This was after an incident that involved a woman I met at the beginning of 2024 who I happened to first hear the term "neurospicy" from. We ended up not talking a lot after we friended up on Facebook. I messaged her at the end of February asking how she was doing, got no response. That Summer, she invited me to a neurodivergent goalsetting group on Facebook. One Saturday last July, I asked my best friend that morning what she was up to that day, she didn't reply until much, much later that day. I was super depressed and needed someone to talk to, and during that time before my best friend finally responded, I saw that the woman I met at the beginning of the year was online. Instead of asking "How are you?", I decided to tell her a story about something that was bugging me that was related to the group, but I didn't want to share in the group because reasons. Well, she said she wasn't going to read all that. Long story short, she interpreted what I thought was an attempt at starting a conversation as me trying to make her my therapist, and after a little back-and-forth that was civil on my end, she told me she was blocking me because she didn't need more work to do. Jesus fucking Christ, I can see how it could've been interpreted as me needing a therapist, but I would've just left her bitch ass alone, blocking me was unnecessary. This was an example of two neurodivergents mixing like oil and water.

I hate Winter, and I was especially miserable from December 2024 until about the end of March. Some of this was weather related, since January and February were fucking cold and occasionally icy, and March was downright stormy and soggy. But it had more to do with being isolated, especially after having been unfriended by four people over the course of one weekend in December, three of whom I believe unfriended me because of someone who unfriended me in November, and then not hanging out with anybody outside of a couple of monthly events, not even my best friend, who had her share of adversity in November and December. I made a new friend at the end of March, and hanging out with her has helped me get over last Winter's bullshit some. But I feel like I need to tell this story one last time and put it on the record. Before I start, I have to list the cast of characters:

• The Promoter
• The (Gay) Acquaintance (I'm still Facebook friends with him)
• The Other Woman (Someone I had met the previous Spring who, unlike the rest of the cast, is only loosely connected to The Promoter at best)

And then there are The Three Fuckheads, who consist of:

• Miss Thang (An ex-crush)
• The Artist (He's been Miss Thang's boyfriend since last Summer)
• Twenty (Close friend of Miss Thang, and someone I had known for twenty years)

As of October 2024, I had been Facebook friends with The Promoter for three and a half years, but I was starting to get the impression that he was getting a little irritated with my online presence, namely my comments or responses to his friends' comments. I first noticed something was off when a comment I made about not knowing he had been in a local band who opened for a touring band I went to see in 2010 was deleted. Later in October, he started a fun post asking people which band had the better discography, Judas Priest or Iron Maiden. Not who was better, but who ultimately had the better albums. I played along and gave my answer, he Liked it. One friend of his essentially said that it depends on the period of time, like now versus ten, twenty, thirty, or forty years ago. But what intrigued me was his last paragraph:

"That being said, the Priest vs. Maiden thing doesn't always make sense when you consider the differences in origin, style, performance, etc."

 That was interesting to me because I always found people pitting Priest versus Maiden funny because Priest had a lot of albums out by the time Maiden's first album came out. I replied to the guy and said as much, along with mentioning another commenter's "Elvis vs. Beatles" comment, and saying that pitting Priest versus Maiden is like pitting Black Sabbath against Witchfinder General or St. Vitus. This guy Liked my response. He responded with some good points, and I Liked it. Then The Promoter responded to me with:

"If you don't understand the question don't comment on the post? It's not about pitting fans of the bands against each other. Or which band is better."

I apologized, saying that I was just having fun, and also pointed out the flaws in my response to his friend. But seriously? I don't get out much and pretty much live on Facebook, this is sometimes the most interaction I get outside of work on my work days. I showed one of my best friends screen shots of this exchange. She does not know the promoter personally, but she concluded that he's a massive dick, and that I shouldn't have bothered apologizing to him.

Fast forward to November 6th. Waking up to the election results was bad enough, but I also discovered that a friend who I absolutely adored and never got to know as well as I would've liked had died. This was made even more tragic by the fact that her husband died just three and a half years before, and they had a very young child who would grow up without either parent. The world had really gone to shit. But my favorite venue's monthly karaoke was that night, and I would be celebrating my birthday there although my actual birthday was still a few days away. I went out for coffee before karaoke, and was scrolling down my feed on Facebook. The (Gay) Acquaintance shared a post about how The Heritage Foundation's Director Of Finance was the owner of Hobby Lobby, and he added that there are all kinds of similar places to shop that aren't trying to make life harder for kids who are like him. I Liked the post. The Promoter commented that Hobby Lobby and Bucc-ee's both give millions to hate groups. I knew about Hobby Lobby, but Bucc-ee's was news to me. The Acquaintance replied that he didn't understand why everybody loved Bucc-ee's, and thought it was common knowledge that they donate to hate groups. I replied to him that it's not that well known, especially with Bucc-ee's being a fairly new entity in Kentucky. The Promoter piped in responding to me with:

"It takes 2 mins to look up a company's politics. 2 mins."

For some reason, probably due to his previous antagonism, this set me off. I told him that I don't have the time to look up every god damn company, and even my gay Progressive brother FROM TEXAS(!) has even less time to look this shit up and he probably didn't even know about Bucc-ee's either. Then The Promoter responded with:

get the fuck out of here with that "do you know how many there are" crap.

Next is well, I gotta shop somewhere, don't I?

 The best response I could come up with at the time was, "Uh, no." Because seriously, what the fuck? All I was saying was that it wasn't common knowledge. Maybe it wouldn't have gone down like that had I said in my first comment that I'll boycott them and spread the word now that I know.

Right afterward, I made a passive-aggressive post goofing on the fact that we're all supposed to know this, but I included a link to an article about Bucc-ee's CEO giving money to some asshole politician in Texas. A couple of minutes later, I saw that The Promoter unfriended me. I'm guessing he unfriended me after the comments, I doubt he saw my post, but I edited that post to go from passive-aggressive to aggressive-aggressive, even calling him out.

Not long after that, I saw Twenty post about the karaoke going on that night. I commented that I'd be there celebrating my birthday. I then saw The Promoter comment that he'd be there. I thought, "Oh, joy." 😒 It was funny though, I sat in the very front, The Promoter sat in the very back. The Three Fuckheads sat with him. Miss Thang didn't acknowledge me until she was on her way out, giving me a hug and wishing me a happy birthday. I had told a few people about the argument between me and The Promoter before the event and our falling out, but not everyone. Like, I didn't tell the Fuckheads because I didn't think they needed to know, this was strictly between me and The Promoter. I wasn't trying to turn anyone against him, I was, and still am, fine with people being friends with both of us, I was just saying he's an asshole.

I got confirmation from my gay Progressive brother from Texas that he didn't know that Bucc-ee's CEO gave money to Gregg Abbott and other fuckheads, so the Promoter can get the fuck outta here with that shit.

To be continued.

 

Why is it hard for me to make "close" friends?

I love the term "neurospicy". I considered in the recent past changing the name of this blog to "The Neurospice Must Flow".

I've been trying to figure out for about thirty years, if not longer, why I have so much trouble making and keeping real friendships. I have a ton of acquaintances, and I'm lucky to get to see some of them a couple of times a month at events that are too loud for me to socialize properly in. But I can count the number of people I could truly call close friends on one hand. The only neurodivergence I've officially been diagnosed with is Central Auditory Processing Disorder. It tends to overlap a lot with ADHD. These can definitely affect your social life, but it doesn't stop everyone. There's also the fact that I'm an adult child of an alcoholic. Being from a dysfunctional family alone can fuck you up as an adult, having some kind of neurodivergence on top of that definitely doesn't help.

I have not been tested for autism, but I think there is a good probability that I'm on the autism spectrum, so I'm self-diagnosed. It would explain a lot, like why I feel constantly drained, why I feel overwhelmed by big crowds and sensory overload, and why just getting through another day feels like a victory. Possibly even AuDHD? I've been watching a lot of videos from people on the spectrum, especially people diagnosed later in life, and one thing that comes up often is having very few real friends, and people just plain disliking us. I've noticed that a lot of attractive women with ASD Youtube channels have partners, but attractive women tend to have an advantage over mediocre looking guys in the romance department in general, that's not limited to neurodivergence.

One thing I've observed is that neurodivergent people in creative fields seem to do better socially than those of us who are not creative. This is especially true for people who work in live theater. I can think of one person in particular who I have known for 21 years who works on tons of projects, and has tons of friends and no trouble dating. She's also super hot, which helps with the latter. I actually love performing. My performing these days is limited to singing karaoke, where I can just read the words off a screen. I'm not a great singer, but I'm not terrible, and I have far more confidence on stage than off. I've had people tell me that they love seeing me perform because it's obvious how much fun I'm having up there. I actually had a lead role in a play when I was in 8th grade. The other kids were amazed at how good I was at memorizing lines, and I really worked on my character. But boy, was it draining! I think I'd rather do film acting than live theater. Doing voiceover work has crossed my mind, but I wouldn't know where to go to see if I'd be a good fit or have a future in it.

Trying to make friends since 2021 has been very strange. Seems like most people I meet in real life and then connect with on social media have plenty of friends already, and no real desire to get to know me beyond a superficial level. I think some people would like me if they got to know me on my terms, which would be one on one at a place that's public, but not too noisy. But I can't make anyone want to get to know me. Hell, a lot of people I'd love to get to know better are homebodies like me, getting them to meet up is like pulling teeth. I'm better off just making new friends on dating apps! 😆

I'm a little too close to 50 for comfort. I thought I'd be much more socially advanced at this age than I actually am, like I was going to find the key to unlock the secret to having a normal-ish social life that seems to come naturally to neurotypicals. Young me also thought I would've done a lot more dating and had more sex, but that's a story that may or may not get told another time. It occurred to me last Summer that I was never going to "people" properly, but knowing this doesn't make getting rejected or shunned hurt any less. The purpose of this entry is really to be a prologue to the next episode, "The destruction of a person builds character!"

Another bump...

 Back in July, I moved my computer and desk to the living room in hopes that having it in the same room as the tv would motivate me to get on the computer more. It hasn't. I still have plenty of projects I want to do on a computer, as well as stuff to write about in this blog, I just have no desire to sit at my computer in the apartment, especially when I can just watch Youtube videos on my tv. I'd rather go out to a coffee shop and do computer stuff there, but I would need a new laptop, and that's not high on my priority list right now. Getting new tires for my car is my top priority for now, followed by getting a 4K blu-ray player.

Maybe connecting the computer to the tv would help? I doubt it, but it might be worth looking into.

One positive thing to come out of moving the computer to the living room is that a lot of junk that I had in the living room has moved to the storage room, so there's less of an eyesore in the living room. Now, if I could only organize the storage room.

Bump

I have lots of stuff I want to write about, but despite having a working PC now, I've had no desire to sit in my Computer Room and do it. The next time I post is anyone's guess.

Computer update!

 I'm just stopping in to say that I have a working desktop PC again! I had my ex-brother-in-law look at the desktop PC I had been using since 2020, not just to fix it, but to upgrade it as well. He couldn't really do everything we both wanted with the chassis of the old computer, so he fixed up a computer that he had sitting around. I'm very happy with it, it's much faster, and no more freezing up after a couple of minutes of idling. Hopefully I'll get to do more blogging soon. I'd start up a whole new entry, but I had a busy morning, and just want to retreat to the sofa.

Last quarter, 2023

 I'm typing this from my ancient laptop at a coffee shop. I fucked up my desktop PC trying to fix it. Someone with a similar problem (freezing up after being idle for a few minutes) said that they fixed the problem just by taking the RAM stick out and blowing on it. I haven't opened up a computer since I left my job at a computer company in 2001, but I figured it was something I could probably do myself. I eventually got it back together. That fix didn't work. Then I noticed that the front of the chassis wasn't all the way on. I can't remember since I actually haven't looked at it since then, but I think I got it on, but then the computer wouldn't start. I might be able to fix it myself, but I haven't been in the mood to. I may just pay someone to look at it.

Others have said that the problem could be the CPU, some have fixed their computers by upgrading it. I figure mine could use an upgrade, along with doubling the RAM. I'm definitely going to have someone else do that for me, too.

I'm so glad the Peak season is over. It was rougher than last year, due to having two accounts to work for instead of just one, and not having a good bilingual helper this year. I had two Cuban women who barely speak or understand English, and I had another person who was actually trainable, but I was too busy to give her as much training as I would've liked. She was let go recently because she supposedly failed her background check. We had another girl for a couple of weeks who was a real piece of work. Security walked her out the very first day for being insubordinate, but she was brought back the next day. The woman complained about ev-er-y-thing, and loved talking more than listening, which I will not abide. If I had hiring/firing power, she would never have come back after that first day, or I would've fired her after just a couple of days. Oh, and my supervisor was moved to another building for November and December, he was not missed at all. He was back this past Tuesday, thankfully he didn't bother me too much. I was seriously thinking about gunning for his position, or just pestering the way-higher ups into making me a lead or something similar. While I'm good at the work, I'm terrible with people, and really have no desire to deal with staffing issues. I'm better at just finding shit that's wrong.

I may do more posts about movies and music soon, since I think a lot of my rants about them on Facebook are probably more suited to the blog. I thought about making a whole new blog just for that, because personal stuff has taken up so much of it in previous years, but I'm too lazy for that. One subject I want to do soon is my current take on the Loudness Wars. It hasn't been a pet hobby for me in a long time, but I do have some thoughts. 

A quick one... (September 2023 edition)

 It's been entirely too long since I've posted. Entries that are only about two or three paragraphs can take hours to write. On the rare occasions when I get on my home computer, I end up spending a lot of time watching Youtube videos, and find myself moving on to other stuff when it gets too late to do an entry. So I'm just going to try to make this quick.

Speaking of the home computer, I've been having issues with it freezing up if I leave it idle for just a few minutes since January. That's when Avast Antivirus pestered me about some drivers needing updating. I did the Microsoft Update to tell me what drivers needed updating. Some of these "new" drivers dated back to 2019. I bought this computer at the end of 2019 or beginning of 2020. I figured "What the hell", and updated the drivers. And that's when the freezing bullshit started. I did a Restore thing, but I think that only helped temporarily. Can't figure out what the exact problem is. So, I haven't been real enthused about using this computer. I'm probably better off taking my ancient laptop to coffee shops again, might probably help keep me from staying home if I have plans to go out.

Work is still ridiculous. The Peak season has started, and we're still ridiculously understaffed. My direct boss is still an idiot. I've been trying to work extra hours since June. For the first month or two, all I was really doing was making up for the fact that we weren't working Saturdays. I tried to get even more days in, in hopes of being able to pay all my bills and still have money for groceries, and maybe actually have disposable income, including going to a concert or two. I did go to one concert, where I was fucking miserable most of the time, but that's a story for another time. What I really wanted to do was see Duran Duran at the Bourbon & Beyond Festival, but I didn't make enough money for that. I'm really bummed about not getting to see them, especially since my brother and his husband got to see them in Austin. As much as I hate my job, I'd sure hate it a lot fucking less if it paid enough to afford me to go to concerts, or indulge in my music/movie collecting addiction. Like, in order to afford concerts, I'd have to have only one day off a week, and that place drains me too much to do that. Hell, I was so exhausted this past Sunday that it ruined me for the rest of the work week, and I spent a good portion of my first day off after that taking naps.

The one good thing I can say about work this past Summer is that I got to have Memorial Day, Independence Day, and Labor Day off.

In other news, I popped my Covid cherry in August. Yup, I somehow managed to go three and a half years without getting it. As far as congestion issues go, it wasn't bad at all. That (Covid-less) sinus infection I had in late November/early December last year was way worse in that regard. No, what really did me in was the brain fog that can come with Covid. I can deal with congestion, but the brain fog made me feel dumber, and that's what really concerned me enough to get tested.

(TMI Alert) Also in August was the tenth anniversary of the last time I got laid. Or about as laid as I can get, but that's another story that I may not even tell here. Sex is pretty overrated, despite how fun movies and tv shows make it look*, but I miss intimacy. I'm trying to come to terms with the fact that, aside from hugs, I may never touch another woman ever again.

*Florence Pugh in (or maybe I should say ON) Oppenheimer comes to mind.