thorntonsthoughts

[thorntonsthoughts]

3/10/22

The day I moved to Amherst after 20 years of calling Pleasantville home. An auspicious date if there ever was one.

It’s a strange time to move to a new place. It’s hard to “get out there” when the uncertainties of a lingering pandemic remain, even as many have mentally moved on.

I can’t gamble anymore, at least not until MA passes a new law, hopefully later this year.

I can buy pot from a dispensary, but I don’t know if I should. It’s an enjoyable substance, but enjoying it tends to mean that I enjoy the things I like to do less. It makes it tougher to exercise and it disrupts my focus and memory as it relates to what I bring to and get from watching movies, tv shows, and tennis. That being said, it’s very compatible with the more repetitive and methodical loops of many video games. It’s also always great with music. The other big downside is it makes me overeat late at night. Such a mixed bag and thus hard to be enthusiastic about it.

The other thing I’ll miss is the proximity to the JBFC and the BJK Tennis Center. I’ll try to find those things again in my life, but some of the proximith to events that you love that tends to get taken for granted hits you when its gone.

The big thing that I’m imagining is finding some kind of social connection. Dating apps? Bars? It’s all pretty uncomfortable for me and my alternative lifestyle gives me a lot if pause in terms of what I’d say to a girl. I also don’t get any kind of a social benefit from pot since there arent bars or coffee shops where you can do it while being around others.

I’m really tired from what was a brutal day today, even though its only 10pm. Foot pain, fatigue, and anxiety. Too tired to find a worthwhile conclusion

[thorntonsthoughts]

Was that the knife?

No, it was the spoon.

[thorntonsthoughts]

What kind of workplace should this take place in?

Probably one thematically linked to overcompensation for feeling weak and out of control

Don’t want to do a job I can’t redeem though

Advertising?

Definitely linked to posturing and insecurity

Clients could be a source of comedy

[thorntonsthoughts]

So I did what I told myself I was going to do. Once I finished sll my work I made a profile on a dating app.

We’ll see if something changes, but it’s starting to seem like the thing that I’ve always told myself is actually true: across a wide cross section of women, no one finds me desirable.

Now, of course, there are other possible explanations. It could be as I’d thought that dating aps just don’t showcase me in a productive way. It could also be that the girls who yse dating apps are not the right one’s for me. It could even be that these girls are all too busy and just haven’t checked the app. But the more excuses I make the more it seems apparent that I’m appealing to no one.

It’s funny, because I feel like physically I am actually kind of attractive right now. Sure, I have bad skin, bags under my eyes, and a hairline that has receded. That stuff isn’t changing. But I actually think I look pretty good in my pictures. I also think that I’m pretty genuine in my bio.

Not only is it possible that I am a fundamentally isolated human being, it’s also a real hit to my pride. I am such a better person than I’ve ever been. I’m healthier, I work harder, I’m smarter, I’m even a bit happier. But to go on an app like this and really be reminded that all I’ve done means nothing to other people... It’s what I’ve always thought about myself, that nothing I do matters to anyone, but to have it confirmed... It doesn’t feel great.

Then, of course, even if this proved to not be true, even if the matches started rolling in, there’s still the problem of sex and what to tell a girl about my past. Not being sure how to handle this is really anxiety provoking.

It seems like the best thing to do would be truthful without sharing everything. “I haven’t had sex with anyone in years. I’m not going to be immediately comfortable with it. I’ll need you to be understanding and to help me. It’s something that I struggle with and I would need you to help make me feel comfortable.”

I guess that’s the best I can come up with... But at this point it seems hard to believe I’m even capable of getting there. It doesn’t feel good.

[thorntonsthoughts]

It’s hard to be creative. Actually idk.

I thiught about it today. I basically do creative work for a living. I’m in academia. I’m a writer. I’m kind of like a film critic and I’m also kind of like a philosopher. At the very least I’m a theorist.

I’m not a historian and I’m not a researcher. I come up with weird ideas that have little to no practical application. Right now, I’m writing an essay about what thought looks like and that film can help us acknowledge other people as thinking.

I really like what I do and I feel like I’m pretty good at it (although certainly not as good as anyone with on a tenure track).

The weird thing is that I definitely write for an audience of 1. I’m happy to share my ideas with ppl, but I don’t really think they’re all that important or all that good. I don’t really write thinking that someone else is going to care about what I’ve written. I can’t imagine anyone looking at my work and saying anything other then, “hmm, this is kind of weird and not that good.” Idk, my advisor liked the crazy essay I wrote for him last fall. I found that kind of bafffling. I mean... I put my heart and soul into that piece, but what’s there to see in it.

What’s the relationship between a creative and their audience? I’ve always thought of myself as something like a craftsman. I build these intricate structures. They’re all kind of like the leaning tower, but held up by duct tape. I spend hours and hours building them, but they’re not ever going to move anybody else.

It seems to me that the only reason to care about ppl liking my creative work is money and job security. Sure, it feels really good to be told that your writing is good or that you have good ideas, but mostly its just something I do. Like going to the courts to shoot baskets. Just a way to do something that’s engaging for me.

I think this might be what its like to be a creator, rather than to have a job working as a creator. And I think the only reason it feels weird is because my ability to do this feels so perilous in the long term.

I think if I could just keep doing this the way I do now I would. I mean, what else is there in life. But theres this feeling of needing to impress people and I really think it just comes back to the demands of capitalism, and it leaves a pit in my stomach. It fills me with an emptiness.

It seems to me that what I’m doing now wouldn’t be possible without capitalism, but its also not possible w/ it. I think the weirdest thing is that I don’t identify as a creator. I don’t feel like I am one. A creator is someone who makes stuff that people consume. I just feel like a person who makes weird stuff for myself.

[thorntonsthoughts]

Yesterday I spent over an hour lying in Ben thinking about Allison. It was all physical. I fantasized about our bodies rubbing together. And yet it has to be a real person I fantasize about, it can’t just be “a girl”.

It’s weird too. I’m attracted to her because she’s tall, skinny, smart, and quiet. She has medium length hair, died pinkish. She’s in english and the media school. I don’t know why she’s in my class, but she’s seemed to maybe enjoy it. Her analysis of that hair dye ad was also on point. By far the best of anyone.

It bothers me though that I’m attracted to her because she’s smart but not too smart. Pretty but not too pretty. I feel like I’m just insecure, but at the same time, maybe I’m just a better judge of people who are my type than I think.

I seem to remember from my marriage and family class that people tend to be attracted to oeople who are about their level of attractiveness and intelligence. Anne seems to somewhat invalidate that though, and its such a cliche for guys to be in love w/ ppl who are out of their league.

I feel like now I overcompensate. I’m attracted to people who I feel superior to in some way. But only a little bit superior. Idk, it still feels messed up. But what’s the alternative? In the past, I’ve only been interested in ppl I admire, and that hasn’t really gone well.

Either way, it feels like theres already some kind of distance between me and these other people. It just seems like real intimacy would be something else and this stuff I do in terms of my crushes is all a defense mechanism to keep me away from other ppl, rather than to get close to them.

Still, how do you pick someone to have a crush on where its not based on some kind of power imbalance. It just feels kind of messed up. But again, here I am, concerned about something that’s never going to happen. Playing out intimate scenarios in my head that will never come to pass. Is doing this helpful? Will it make me more likely to end up w/ someone or more likely to be alone? When the semester ends should I tell Allison that I want to get with her? It could mess up her volunteering for the festival, but it could also be amazing. Should I just sign up for dating websites? I feel like those are totally wrong for me, but to be fair, I’ve hardly even tried. Idk. It does seem like one of the real reasons to stay out here over the summer would be to try to find a girlfriend. I’d really want it to be Allison, its just kind of like how would I even broach the subject. Would I just ask her if she wants to hang out? Wouldn’t that be weird? But it seems like it would be way weirder ro say I want to get with her... still it feels like it would be wrong to do this under false pretenses, and yet at the same time it feels completely wrong to try to just tell her that I’m attracted to her. Sigh, this never gets easier.

[thorntonsthoughts]

I do this thing at night when I’m trying to fall asleep. I always hug my pillow, but I try to imagine it’s a girl. I try to picture the girl, I try to imagine what she looks like, but it’s like I just hit a blockage.

I can imagine it as a real person, but I can’t come up with a fantasy girl. Its just like I don’t have the ability to fantasize. It’s just a gap where my ability to picture someone would be.

Last semester when I taught anne, i used to imagine it was her. That was the most I was able to enjoy fantasizing about someone. But that also kind of sucked because she was not an option.

I often think about the older guy/younger girl thing. Is it ok to go after a younger girl? In a sense, I think it would be best if you just met someone and liked them and didn’t even think about age. The last girl I liked was 10 years older then me and I didnt even know.

However, I am attracted to younger girls generally and I think it’s because I like the idea of not being to inexperienced for them. Thst’s how I feel about people my own age. It goes back to what Sylvester said. My brain is really well developed, but my body (my social body) is not. Is it wrong to want to go after a younger person so at least I can be mature in one sense. Even they would probably be more experienced then me, but at least the gap wouldn’t be so big.

But then I think that me going after a younger person would be subjecting them to a damaged person. To someone who is already distant and would just be looking to them because they wouldn’t fully know just how limited I am. Is that fair? It feels like I’m pulling one over on them.

It just feels like any relationship would be a kind of power struggle and I just don’t want that. I hate all these pseudo relationships I’ve had where I am devoted to the other person and they just let me hang there. I think that’s why I want a younger love interest. That at least there I would have some power and control.

But that feels like the wrong lesson. What I want is not to be on the other side of the relationship hierarchy. It’s to be with someone in a way that doesn’t involve that kind of dynamic.

Either that’s impossible and just a pipe dream on my end, or I’m just failing at being a person who it’s possible to love. Either way, it just seems like the young person thing is a bad faith gesture on my part where I try to get beyond the thing that’s hurt me by being on the other side of it. Rather than really challenging it.

I just want to be able to fantasize about someone without feeling that I’m doing it wrong and I can’t even do that.

[thorntonsthoughts]

I really want to share things about myself with Lacy. It just feels low stakes. I’ve always gravitated towards being around couples because my relationship to them is clearly established. I may be a third wheel, but it’s not a bad feeling at all to be one, as long as your not secretly in love with one of them.

It’s different with Lacy because she’s a girl. It makes me want to open up to her in a way I never could bring myself to do w/ Nick. It might also be that its just the two of us when we spend time together. Theres no power dynamic for me to be at the bottom of. As long as I’ve been part of groups of three I’ve always felt like the odd man out.

But I am concerned about 2 things: The first is that, as always, I’m just really selfish. That I just want to tell her about myself and I don’t really care about her. I try to ask her things and listen, but deep down I feel like I only care about myself.

The second thing is that it bothers me to think that I like her because I think I’m smarter (or at least more knowledgeable then her). I think ppl who are smarter than me make me feel inadequate. So much of my self worth ia wrapped up in being smart, even though i’m well aware how limited my intelligence really is. It makes me feel bad to think that I only like her because she’s not threatening to me. That makes me feel incredibly shallow. It just doesn’t feel like a relationship based on equality.

I guess its fair to ask if relationships based on equality are always the best ones. Teacher student relationships aren’t based on equality and they can be fulfilling. I guess it just puts a burden on me. If I need to feel better than her to enjoy being around her I need to work that much harder to not act as if I think I’m better than her.

The other thing is that I want to tell her the truth about my relationship problems, but it doesn’t feel quite appropriate. Not even mentioning the supreme anxiety I would feel about admitting my inadequacy, I don’t want to fall in love w/ her or for her to fall in love with me. All I know is I’ve developed crushes on every girl I’ve spent significant time around.

I don’t know what it means to have friends, but I really want to believe it’s possible for me.

[thorntonsthoughts]

I get older and it feels really wrong to be atteacted to young cute girls. Winona Ryder is really cute in Beetlejuice. She makes me think of my former student Anne.

How am I supposed to feel. It’s not particularly sexual. I just want to hug them. I just want to see them grow up.

I remember with Anne it was her competence. That day when we worked on the lights together. It felt like we were a team. She was just so pretty and so cute. It just feels weird.

I feel like I’m such a failure at dealing w/ girls my own age. I feel like w/ younger girls I have experience to share w/ them. I feel like I can help them.

But this feels like such a flawed idea. I can’t even help myself. I’m just running away from my failures and dreaming about girls who would never want anything to do with me.

I feel so stuck. How am I supposed to find some kind of relationship when my desire seems to work against anything that should or could be.

I guess there’s no should in desire. There’s only me having crushes on girls 6 or 7 years younger then me and knowing that I can’t act on these feelings in any way.

There’s no room for me in that kind of girls life. I can just be friendly and think about their face and feel warm inside. I just want to be able to have some kind of meaningful relationship with someone. Why do my crushes have to take me away from the realm of possibility. I know it’s because I’m protecting myself. If you have crushes on girls you can’t have, you never pursue the ones that you could.

I’m never going to have a family. I’m never going to find love. I’m never even going to have real friends... And yet I still get these crushes. And it feels like there’s no outlet for them. I don’t want to save these girls. I just want to be able to do something for myself. It really feels like no crush of mine has ever bern snything then an experience of bumping up against the impossible. And it just seems so pointless. Feelings that don’t lead anywhere. Desire w/out anything to be had or any way to have it...

I guess I’m just going to think about Winona and hug my pillow. I just feel kind of sad. I’m supposed to be happy. Everything in my life is as good as it’s ever been. I even have a kind of nice very simple friendship w/ Lacy where we’re just nice to each other. It feels good, but I really want someone to be close to. I just feel like how much in my life do I have to fix? I feel like I’ve improved every part of myself and these problems I have with other people haven’t changed at all. I don’t feel like they ever will.

[thorntonsthoughts]

The Case For Writting Badly

I’ve never felt like a good writer. My prose isn’t flowery. My sentences lack rhythm. I chain long clauses together with little to no regard for variation. I do try to limit my repetitious habits, but I still find myself repeating the same words over and over again.

Basically, what this means is I don’t like to share my writing with other people. When you talk to other people you can read their reactions and adjust what you’re saying. They determine the words you choose almost as much as you do. But showing someone your writing is like walking into a room naked while the other person remains fully clothed. There’s a power dynamic there that has always put me off.

Some would say that everyone feels this way about writing, and maybe they’re right. But I don’t think everyone reacts to this feeling in the same way.

For some, sharing writing can be a kind of exhibitionist thrill. For others it can be the motivation to work out and lose the beer belly, trim the fat and focus on making it presentable. But I don’t swing this way.

The be all end all for me is that writing is a way to think. Its a way to have ideas that you wouldn’t have talking to people. And what��s the point of having these ideas? Probably just to have them.

My writing is clunky. I agonize over sentences that will bring no one any enjoyment. I write selfishly. Writing poorly is writing selfishly. That’s the way I do everythjng in my life. So it should be of no surprise that I write selfishly too.

[thorntonsthoughts]

What is a failure to come of age story?

It seems to be that coming of age stories are really about going from one world to another: from the familiar world of childhood to the unfamiliar world of adults.

A failure to come of age story would seem to require the protagonist to refuse to accept their passage from one world to another.

I think that the reason why one would fail to come of age would have to be bases in a kind of refusal to enter that world.

I think that the irony of this kind of narrative can be found in the way that the protagonist would fight to remain in the world of childhood, but what they actually succeed in doing is creating a world in between. They create a kind of private world which is neither the world of childhood, nor the world of adults.

The failure to comd of age is ultimately something of a triumph. The protagonist succeeds in making somethinf for themselves by refusing to accept the inevitable. However, this comes at the cost of affecting a fundamental seperation which is nearly impossible to overcome. The way the world is, you don’t get a second chance to come of age. By resisting tje opportunity, you pass up on something that can’t be realized later.

Never having come of age leaves a fundamental gap between the protagonist and others that cannot be bridged. He isn’t a part of their world. He only exists in his own. This is at it’s most pernicious when the protagonist would just like to open up their world a little bit. To share it with someone other then themselves. But its already too late. There world is only there own. There is no room for anyone else.

The protagonist longs for companionship, but lacks the imagination to concieve of a way that companionship would be possible for them.

[thorntonsthoughts]

I’ve never had a girlfriend, but I can remember being attracted to girls as early as at least 1st grade.

I remember people talking about cooties, but I just remember thinking all the girls were pretty.

We used to go out into the yard for recess and we would all line up against the fence together and race across the blacktop. There was a girl, her name might have been Claire. She was faster than any boy. I remember how amazing I thought she was. I think she was my first real crush and I think the precedent that would hold for the rest of my life was already established: Most of the people I have been attracted to in my life have been people that i admire. Beauty certainly plays a role, but being good at something that I wanted to be good at was always the real key. I know that they have a word for being sexually attracted to intellugent people (I think its sapiosexual). I wonder if they have one for this.

I don’t really remember having another real crush until I was in 6th grade, but it might have even been 7th. They came one after the other. There was Emily, there was Amanda, and there was Isabelle.

Emily was rail thin, athletic and had dark hair. I really don’t know why I liked her. I think it was mostly physical. I’ve always had a preference for girls with pretty faces and stylish hair. I do really like short hair, but when I actually think about it, most of the girls I’ve actually been interested in had long hair.

With Emily, I think I was attracted to her in kind of a contrarian sense. All my friends talked about T and A, but I picked her out because of her face and hair. I never heard my friends even mention her name when they discussed the hottest girls.

I remember lying in bed at night and thinking about her. It’s pretty hard to remember what I even thought about. I think that I just fantasized about a world where she was my girlfriend. I think that’s best way to put. I wasn’t so much interested in her as I was in an imaginary world where I got to have what I wanted. I don’t know if I ever even talked to her. I can’t remember ever interacting with her in any capacity. I would just look at her across the classroom. Years later at the end of highschool she dated Michael, one of the stars of the football team. He was a jock who wasn’t really a jock. He had been a skateboarder first, and he had even been nice to me. We all kind of agreed he was generally a good guy. Maybe not the smartest, but next to a lot of the other jocks, he seemed like a saint. I remember that she basically kind of just seemed like a jerk. I don’t really know why. She just gave off this kind of energy at this point. Like she was just another side of the world that had dragged michael down. It was so weird to have liked her all those years ago. It seemed like she had changed, but I never really knew who she was in the first place. Once she had been a blank slate for me to imagine another world through. In the end, she turned out to belong perfectly to this world, the world she dated the star of the team, the world where I could only covet what other people had.

There was also Amanda. I knew her personality more than I had know Emily’s. She wasn’t the smartest, but unlike her brother who was always kind of loud and ignorant, she tried. Trying seemed to be the defining feature and it was a desire to try that she brought out in me. I remember writing her initials on my hands as a kind of symbol to push myself. I knew that she was out of my league, but I used the initials as motivation to push myself to go out and run, to try to lose weight and become attractive. It never really took.

She had beautifuk brown hair. It was always styled beautifully. I don’t know anythinf about how girls do their hair, but her hair was thick and wavy. I wonder how much time she soent on it. I wonder how much time she soent in salons. It was beautiful. She was also bucksome. She was small, but she had round breasts and a curvy body. She wasn’t the prettiest, or the most refined, but it was a definite girl next door kind of thing. I always saw her as out of my keague, but she was different from Emily. The best word to describe Emily would be icy. Amanda was warm by conparison. She was bubbly, and what I’ll always remember most is she used to compliment me on my shirts. That was the weirdest thing. I knew she didn’t like me, wasn’t interested in me like that. I was overweight and unpopular. But she would smile, and talk to me, and say nice things about my beestie boys shirt. I don’t really know why she did it and I certainly wan’t dumb enough to think that it actually meant something to her, as in it was some kind of subtle way of telling me that she liked her. No, what it was was something that meant something to me. It made me feel like I had a place in somebody slses world. Even if that place was exceedingly small. She never tried to take advantage of me, or to make fun of me. It was just kind of like she acknowledged that we existed in the same world. I don’t know why, but this still feels meaningful. I’m crying now as I write about it. It was so small. I really don’t understand.

Then there was Isabelle. My crushes always had to do with being in class with certain people. I didn’t see girls anywhere else, so that was how my crushes worked. If we were in the same class, there was a chance I was going to like you. Isabelle and I had at least 4 or 5 classes together in 8th grade. More than I’ve ever had with anyone.

Isabelle had long straight dirty blonde hair and a very toothy smile. She was similar to Amanda in that she had this bright and bubly quality, but physically she was different. She was kind of beautiful without trying to be. Amanda seemed to try so hard, and I loved that about her, but Isabelle didn’t really need to. She didn’t dress in a memorable way. She didn’t do anything special with her hair. I cascaded down her back. I seem to remember, although this could be invented, that it was so long that it used to get caught under her butt when she was sitting in a chair. That seems like it would have been uncomfortable, but I think it was so long that it might not have been.

She was all smiles. Even when her sister died from a blood clot in her brain. I never saw her sad. I never saw her angry. We didn’t talk as much as I had talked to amanda, but she was always friendly. She was always smiling and she was always warm. If just felt like she was a part of the world. She just belonged. She made it seem easy. She didn’t seem to try, or struggle or fight. I really wanted her. Probably more than I ever wanted Emily or Amanda. How much time did I spend in class looking at her hair and her body? I don’t know. It was a lot.

I think that with all of my middle school crushes, what I imagined that I had to offer was that I was someone who cared. I always cared so much about everything. And I was sure that I cared about them in a way that no body else did or could. In the end, caring isn’t really worth much. Mostly its just painful. Caring can give you a reason to work hard, but then it’s the work that people respect. Nobody cares if you care. Caring doesn’t matter to other people. And I never did anythinf with all my caring. I mean, in some ways I am now. But really, what I did with all my caring was to direct it back to myself. To fight and struggle to not be part of the world. I sepersted from everything and everyone. I did things for me. I tried to build myself into some kind of perfect life. A life where I did what I cared about, never trying to achieve anything other than the ability to go on caring. But it was always also a fight against the world. A fight to not be part of a world I knew didn’t need me or my caring.

There’s a phrase that I really like. It goes, ‘’make a place for yourself and you’ll fit in.” I think it’s unquestionably true. I made a place for myself to fit out. I worked really hard to do it. I did it because I felt unwanted. Nit by my parents. They wanted the best for me far to much. I felt unwanted by the world. All my caring meant nothing because I wasn’t willing to work at what other people thought was important. They might have been right, but I didn’t care. I think I’m still like this. I write things in academia that have no value to anyone. I refuse fo conform to the standards of my discipline. Amazingly I’ve been able to do this somewhat successfully, but for how long? Every day I’m afraid that it will come to an end.

These days I’ve accepted myself a little more. I still am not a part of the world. I still feel jealous of other people. Of course all the other guys in my cohort are all friends. They have inside jokes, they comment on each others facebook posts. When I make a post on facebook it just gets ignored. But as much as it does still bother me, I’m not in denial about it. I know now that it’s mostly because of me. I push people away. I seperate myself from the world. I’m not as unhappy about it as I once was. It just seems to be the way that I fit with other people, or really the way I don’t.

Is this something that I could change? Probably, but I also know that I probably never will. There’s a huge part of me that is still defiant. I don’t want to be part of that world. I want to cling to the world where I get to care about me. Being a part of that world feels like giving this up. Am I the most selfish person imaginable? I might be. I’m so far beyond empathy. I just can’t really bring myself to relate to other people. For me, the world is the place where I have to give up on caring in order to be a part of it. Instead I care at I distance. I care about the pictures in my mind and dream about a world that doesn’t exist, rather than dreaming about finding a place in the one that does.

At night I often try to think about a girl to care about. I try to imagine myself as having a connection to the world. I’ve found thst its getting harder and harder to do. I search for something in my mind, but I just come back with emptiness. My life is like a life that nobody really lived. It’s basically like I’m not even here. I mean so little to anyone in the grand scheme of things. My caring is only matched by the worlds indifference to me, an indifference I’ve done everything in my power to bring about. I don’t really regret it though. It doesn’t make me sad. What makes me sad is that I don’t really dream about a different world any more, a different world that I’m actually a part of. I’ve just kinda come to terms with this world in which I’m not. And when I see stories about friends, about lovers, about connections, about people who matter to each other; they leave me increasingly cold. They don’t make me want to go anywhere. They just make it clear that I’m not here.

[thorntonsthoughts]

I think the backlash against marriage, not withstanding its implication in holding up patriarchy, is a backlash against the idea of marriage as necessary. If we think about marriage as a challenge, as a project, as work, and not as a happily ever after, I think we’d have a clearer picture of the value of marriage and whether or not it does or doesn’t hold value for us.

[thorntonsthoughts]

I have a problem with relating to other people. From high school on I have only been interested in spending time with people who I look up to in some way. However, I’ve never quite been able to “be myself” atound these people. I’m always eager to please and just go along. Eventually it is possible for the relationship to progress and for me to become more comfortable, usually when I get to know the person, recognize some of their flaws, and no longer feel such a strong desire to impress them. However, at that point I think that my behavior swings too far in the other direction and I become really selfish.

Basically, the effect of this problem is that my friendships are never built on mutual understanding. If I feel like I don’t get anything from being around someone (not anything material, just the ability to be atound someone I look up to) I’m not interested in putting in any effort in order to try to get close to that person. However, if I feel like I do get something I try to hard and the foundation the friendship is built on becomes unsustainable.

I feel like I want relationships with other people based on acceptance and mutual understanding, but appart from my friends from middle school, this just doesn’t happen for me. I feel like the key is to meet people through shared hobbies, but I have so little time and I’m so unwilling to be uncomfortable that this never happens.

I don’t even know how to make a new friend in this world anymore. It just seems impossible.

[thorntonsthoughts]

As long as it’s still tonight it’s not tomorrow.

[thorntonsthoughts]

3 Rules for Sex with a New Person (that should be common sense but aren’t)

1. Not When We’re Drunk

Having sex while drunk is like taking the easy way out. Sure, it might help people overcome inhibitions, but the cons more than offset the pros. Drunk sex is impersonal sex. You might as well be doing it by yourself.

2. Foreplay

I don’t know what you think I mean by foreplay, because what I actually mean is extremely specific. You get access to my genitals for 5 minutes and then I get the same. It sounds clinical, but that’s how we get to know each other.

3. Communication

Moans are bullshit. Dirty talk is bullshit. Some people like that stuff. I think those people are stupid. We talk about what we’re feeling and what we think of our bodies. We don’t make noises. We joke, we tease, we compliment. We make eye contact.

[thorntonsthoughts]

The Governor’s Mansion

I remembered being in the lobby of the governor’s mansion once before. It must have been on a school trip. It’s a large open room with a wooden floor. It feels a bit like being in a museum/historical site. It didn’t feel like that anymore.

We had come for a ceremony. There, my black colleague was celebrated for his appearance in a film many years ago. He had distinguished himself and was recognized for it. After the ceremony we returned to the lobby.

Objects were out of place, lying on the floor. Some of the doors and windows were borded up. People milled about, sifting through the reference and exploring the other parts of the house.

Someone told me that the place had been ransacked. That something strange had happened and nobody was sure what. Plus there was no sign of the governor, or anyone else who lived here.

I began to explore the building and look for clues about what had happened. The building was extremely large, but certain entryways were blocked off making it difficult to get the feel of the place. Staircases were inaccessible and when they were accessible, they didn’t always lead to an exit.

I woke up the next morning in an unfamiliar bed. Unable to find anything significant, I had spent the night in one of the bedrooms. Nobody else seemed to be around and with thr house to myself I managed to find a way to a working elevator. Thinking it would allow me to bypass the stairs and access different parts of the mansion I decided to try it.

The elevator was just as strange. It only had a few buttons and the floors they corresponded to were wildly disperate: 2, 4, 11, 27. I decided to try to go where I could.

Before long I heard a commotion from somewhere not too far away. I arrived to find a small group of people. They had found the governor’s body. He was dead.

I looked around the room and found a small closet off to one side. Inside I found a young black child who attacked me, pushing me in to sharp broken glass.

I struggled and called for help. Eventually the others came and pulled the boy off me. He was wild and aggresive and would not stop struggling. We decided to lock him in a room while we tried to figure out who he was and what had happened here.

We continued to explore and eventually found our way to an exit. Looking back on the building, something was clearly off. The building was immensely wide, but only a few stories tall. My black colleague was sure that something was off about the size and shape of the mansion compared to the layouts of the rooms.

It was only later that I came to realize that the the floors of the building were not on top of each other, but were different segments of the same floors. The elevator only was able to cover a few floors and as a result could only access a few of what we had thought to be totally different floors of the building. The blockages and obstructions had helped facilitate this effect.

We decided to hold a meeting to discuss what we thought had happened. I presented evidence that the black child had murdered the governor. However, before we decided what to do with him, someone else began to explain why this had happened.

The governor had wronged the boy, taking advantage of his race. We decided to vote on whether the boy should be forgiven or punished.

I could sense the way the room was turning. They were sympathetic to the boy and we’re going to vote to forgive him, but part of me was still upset at being attacked and unsure that the boy deserved forgiveness.

I considered putting my feelings aside and voting to forgive him, but in the end I decided not to vote for or against him. He was forgiven, but not by me.