Reconsidering
(Previous post)
Boy, had I known that writing some sort of half-assed confessional bit about dating would have provoked such feedback, I might have skipped the whole thing.
No, I'm not talking about the feedback in the comment section, most of which was either suitably goofy, thoughtful, or at least on topic. What I am talking about is the well-meaning folk who, for whatever reason, seem to think I need to be on suicide watch or that I'm having some sort of major life crisis or shift or ... I don't know what. (Although I do want to thank my stepsister, who's too young to be reading this filth anyway, for trying to help out with this particular link.)
I rant and rave about politics and I'm just being Ken. I go on a stint about relationships and suddenly there's cause for concern. (I mean, have you read my fiction? Quite a bit of it is overly concerned with relationships and sentimentality and idealized romance. Hell, go read Satellites. I was writing about fake love back in 1996. Shit.)
Hell, for a moment, I was starting to get worried about myself. Someone as self-absorbed as I am can't help but be (hyper) self-aware, but maybe I was missing something. Maybe these well-meaning folk were staring at my blog post long enough to pick up on something that I was missing. But a couple of my boys who've seen me at my very worst read the thing, and they did little more than grunt in recognition of the sentiments contained therein. They, better than anyone else, would recognize if I was making little squealing noises for help. But I ain't. If I was, there'd have been a series of late-night, Jack Daniels-fueled phone calls going on all week. And the fact is, aside from a couple of glasses of wine at an industry party last night and some Nyquil, I've been pretty dry this week (hmmm, maybe people are picking up the desperate vibes of an alcoholic going through withdrawal symptoms).
Citygurl said in the comments to the below post: "I think most people feel like you do." I'd agree with that. Most people do. Except when they don't.
And there's the rub. That whole confessional bit about wanting one steady person, I've believed that most days of my life. It's not like I woke up yesterday morning and was like, "Oh my god, I'm 31 and I'm going to die alone. What have I done with my life?" No, I just felt like writing about it. And on some other days of my life, I might not feel like that at all. I might feel like it's my god given right to go around saying "Hi, my name's Ken. Wanna fuck?" And there are other days, you know, hypothetically speaking, when I might be content to hop online, download some cybersmut and spend some quality time getting ... well, even more self-absorbed.
But it's been my experience that these moods, when experienced by the single person, tend to be mutually exclusive. Your "I want to settle down" self doesn't acknowledge or recognize your "I'm gonna go out and lay some pipe" self. You've probably all experienced that feeling, usually at some point during the summer, when you're at a great party with all your single friends and the tunes are spinning, the booze flowing, the beautiful people dancing and you remember that last girl or guy you were crushing on hardcore and how you were ready to sign on the dotted line and your "lay some pipe" self, says "Jesus, what the FUCK was I thinking. Give THIS up?" (Of course, you wake up hungover the next morning with your arm trapped under some stranger and you start reconsidering that swinging lifestyle real quick.)
And this is gender neutral. Single men and women, in many respects, are from the same planet. It's the people in deeply committed relationships who are alien life forms. (And yes, we're all jealous of one another in some way shape or form.)
At any rate, I would like to say I appreciate the concern. But as thenthitive as I tend to be at times, I think pity is about as useful as the U.N., and in this case about as misplaced as Kofi's morality.
Now, hopefully, I can move onto discussing this stuff in more general terms, before someone comes along and forces me to go blog on LiveJournal.
(Next post in series.)
Boy, had I known that writing some sort of half-assed confessional bit about dating would have provoked such feedback, I might have skipped the whole thing.
No, I'm not talking about the feedback in the comment section, most of which was either suitably goofy, thoughtful, or at least on topic. What I am talking about is the well-meaning folk who, for whatever reason, seem to think I need to be on suicide watch or that I'm having some sort of major life crisis or shift or ... I don't know what. (Although I do want to thank my stepsister, who's too young to be reading this filth anyway, for trying to help out with this particular link.)
I rant and rave about politics and I'm just being Ken. I go on a stint about relationships and suddenly there's cause for concern. (I mean, have you read my fiction? Quite a bit of it is overly concerned with relationships and sentimentality and idealized romance. Hell, go read Satellites. I was writing about fake love back in 1996. Shit.)
Hell, for a moment, I was starting to get worried about myself. Someone as self-absorbed as I am can't help but be (hyper) self-aware, but maybe I was missing something. Maybe these well-meaning folk were staring at my blog post long enough to pick up on something that I was missing. But a couple of my boys who've seen me at my very worst read the thing, and they did little more than grunt in recognition of the sentiments contained therein. They, better than anyone else, would recognize if I was making little squealing noises for help. But I ain't. If I was, there'd have been a series of late-night, Jack Daniels-fueled phone calls going on all week. And the fact is, aside from a couple of glasses of wine at an industry party last night and some Nyquil, I've been pretty dry this week (hmmm, maybe people are picking up the desperate vibes of an alcoholic going through withdrawal symptoms).
Citygurl said in the comments to the below post: "I think most people feel like you do." I'd agree with that. Most people do. Except when they don't.
And there's the rub. That whole confessional bit about wanting one steady person, I've believed that most days of my life. It's not like I woke up yesterday morning and was like, "Oh my god, I'm 31 and I'm going to die alone. What have I done with my life?" No, I just felt like writing about it. And on some other days of my life, I might not feel like that at all. I might feel like it's my god given right to go around saying "Hi, my name's Ken. Wanna fuck?" And there are other days, you know, hypothetically speaking, when I might be content to hop online, download some cybersmut and spend some quality time getting ... well, even more self-absorbed.
But it's been my experience that these moods, when experienced by the single person, tend to be mutually exclusive. Your "I want to settle down" self doesn't acknowledge or recognize your "I'm gonna go out and lay some pipe" self. You've probably all experienced that feeling, usually at some point during the summer, when you're at a great party with all your single friends and the tunes are spinning, the booze flowing, the beautiful people dancing and you remember that last girl or guy you were crushing on hardcore and how you were ready to sign on the dotted line and your "lay some pipe" self, says "Jesus, what the FUCK was I thinking. Give THIS up?" (Of course, you wake up hungover the next morning with your arm trapped under some stranger and you start reconsidering that swinging lifestyle real quick.)
And this is gender neutral. Single men and women, in many respects, are from the same planet. It's the people in deeply committed relationships who are alien life forms. (And yes, we're all jealous of one another in some way shape or form.)
At any rate, I would like to say I appreciate the concern. But as thenthitive as I tend to be at times, I think pity is about as useful as the U.N., and in this case about as misplaced as Kofi's morality.
Now, hopefully, I can move onto discussing this stuff in more general terms, before someone comes along and forces me to go blog on LiveJournal.
(Next post in series.)
posted by Ken Wheaton at
10:57 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home