where does this idea that you'll never have sex or be in a relationship OR be randomly fancied again come from?

I don't think I'll ever have sex again or be in a relationship because... well... it was something someone said on one of the anonymous advice threads. I don't *have* another breakup in me. I can't go through that again.

I was just thinking about the randomly fancied thing. I have actually had a couple of random flirtation/fancying experiences in the past few weeks, and it was really nice. I couldn't live without that. While I could live without sex or relationships.

It's not an "X or Y or Z will never ever happen" but more an "I could live without X or Y, but not live without Z."

OTM, but knowing that it's bullshit doesn't help you stop believing it.

I am a widower.

But I was like this at school before I met Laura, and I'm the same way after Laura, so perhaps that whole relationship was the exception which proved the rule. L was the only one ever to figure out a way to me.

girls don't really flirt with me.

Also . . .

baby LaMonte

LaMonte?!?

Stence, don't do it.

Me: Clever remark, slightly flirty
female: laughs at remark, slightly flirty back
Me: So let's do that number exchange thing
female: gives number

2 days later

Me: call number
other end: anonymous crackhead telling me it's a pay phone in Hollywood

I've just had a string of bad luck when it comes to the ones who have fancied me in the past 6 months:
1) lived in SF
2) psycho
3) 50 years old
4) friend I like very much but have no interest in

yeah i know! this is my first friendly breakup! i mean, it wasn't like it was all roses, we both went through some rough stuff but i think it just makes more sense for us to still be involved in each other's lives, albeit in a different way. i mean, my ex is rad! i would feel so lame if i did something to make her not want to be friends with me.

oh man, the though of kids, yeesh, i dunno about that kate.

but i don't really want kids.

what's weird is i've gotten a lot of numbers lately -- real ones, not fakes -- and yet still don't get called back.

Men always tell me "I've stayed friends with all my ex girlfriends!" and either it's bullshit (and men often do have different definitions/expectations of the word "friendship") or I'm the exception.

Kate, I think it might be that we just intimidate men. 90% of my relationships, I've had to initiate it, or at least start the ball rolling. The only way I ever got "the eye" was through being in a band.

I hate April.

i wonder if that's what went through Karol Wojtyla's mind when he became the pope..

what really stung recently was this conversation last week with the super-long-game crush and she was talking about something completely unrelated, about someone she knew meeting a random celebrity, and she said "she didn't want to seem like a STALKER" (emphasis hers) and sort of looked at me. like, wtf?

...obviously that's not all girls, but that's just one's opinion.

Mind you, if he'd come on too strong and "Oh my god, I must have you!" I'd have thought he was desperate and not replied at all. Flirty and direct is good for me.

i have never been friends with any ex (even the ones i don't harbor bitterness towards) until my most recent one. i dunno, maybe it's a sign of maturity?

NAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

when you get numbers aren't you supposed to call them??

Yeah, I asked my mum why no one ever paid me much attention, even when i was a slip of a thing. She pretty much said she thought it might be cause I intimidated people. Not in an "I am a predatory female" kind of way though. Some other kind of way I can't quite figure out.

fuckin' i give up, women are a complete mystery.

okay not complete mystery, but still.

But I kind of think about it this way: I'm not a Sheep Girl, I'm not gonna be happy with a Sheep Boy. (Ironic being an aries and all.) I'm an exceptional kind of person who has lived a pretty extra-ordinary life, it's gonna take a pretty extra-ordinary kind of partner to be able to take me on.

(At least that's what I think when the SSRI's are working and I've got some shred of self esteem. other times, I just think I'm a weirdo and "I'm the only one" and no one's ever gonna fall in love with me, ever.)

Which I think sums up the root of the problem pretty concisely.

Arrogance turns me off big time.

xpost

not according to bon scott.

xxpost

1) The partner was a complete psycho, or betrayed and/or hurt me so badly that I don't want them in my life any more.

2) If the partner dumped me, I experience jealousy when they meet someone else before I do.

3) A romantic or sexual partnership involves a kind of... emotional intimacy that is greater than a normal friendship. One can't expect the relationship to end, and the same degree of intimacy to continue. (See also number 2 above - the guys who want to talk intimately to you about their emotional life with the new girlfriend.)

I've recently had a relationship fail on me - because of practical limitations, not because we hate each other or anything - and maybe true friendship is a difficult thing to achieve but surely it's worth a go?

It's not arrogant to say that you *are* different. Some good experiences have put me apart (being talented, intelligent, etc.) and some negative experinces have put me apart (moving so bloody much, psychological things).

I know from experience that relationships between me and "office people" or "12 CD people" or "normals: I hate 'em" (from Repo Man) generally just haven't worked out. There's a lack of understanding on a most basic level.

oh, that's bad. i have just recently done that, although not about new girlfriend but about long-game crush. probably not the best thing in the world but better than a shrink because the ex knows the crush.

Awwwwww how cute....

....Yeah, best friend in that we don't fuck...ever.

Last time I had sex was with another man over a year ago. I'm getting a little frustrated to say the least.

re jazz trumpeters: it's cause they feel sax players get all the attention.

probably from being ugly

lol "sound artists"

No, just one, but that was enough. And all his jerky sound artist friends. This is a good thing about not being in a relationship - I never, EVER, have to sit through another conversation about sound art ever again.

if someone tells you that they make "soundscapes" for "imaginary movies" RUN!!!!!

I like that I'm in a relationship with a guy that lets me talk about and go and watch sports without trying to dissuade me, even though he gives approx one zillionth of a fuck about it.

See, ^^^this. It would be nice to have common interests, things I can share with someone, like. But at the very least, I need to be with someone who doesn't actively disconnect herself from me when I'm engaged in or eager to talk about my interests. I make a conscious effort tonot be overwhelming in that respect and also to reciprocate, so I think it's a pretty fair parameter to set up.

i can't imagine giving someone who seriously called himself a "sound artist" any of my time or respect

Maybe they meant penile sounding artist, in which case, yes, stay the fuck away.

I am pleased to say I am in a relationship and I will never ever have to sit through a conversation about sound art either.

I was a sucker for a pointed nose and a good beard. Love isn't blind, but it's kinda deaf, OK?

They weren't imaginary films. They were very boring and very pretentious video art that he did soundtracks for. CHRIST, I used to want to chew mine own arm off to get out of going to his stupid freaking openings.

i can't imagine giving someone who seriously called himself a "sound artist" any of my time or respect

― goole, Monday, August 17, 2009 7:39 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark

I feel the need to stand up for sound artists around the world right now... It's not all misery, I mean, they are good listeners

Really over time, I think it's not so much the shared territory you already have, as much as making sure the other person doesn't feel the need to force their interests on you. Much rather would peacefully have different interests than be forced to share something I dislike

yes!

At least with the DJ/promoter asshole, the club was at least lots of fun to go to. (Even if I did usually get stuck being door bitch) And he did teach me how to DJ which was probably the one long-lasting good thing to have come out of all that misery.

Actually, would probably date a DJ again, were he not an insane, abusive, Munchausens syndrome, compulsive liar, possible bigamist* dickwad.

*I would possibly consider making an exception for Erol Alkan, though. Would totally be OK with being his second wife. He's Turkish, he's allowed to have up to 4, isn't he? ;-)

I feel the need to stand up for sound artists around the world right now... It's not all misery, I mean, they are good listeners

Not in this case, no. he wasn't.

I'll take your word for it Kate!

Oh Kate, please don't forget dude's hatred for the 'mainstream' art world that was so obviously stealing all his ideas. Sometimes I felt like saying that any idea claimed had already been through a few sets of yBA kidneys before he could drink it, metaphorically speaking, because it was kind of THAT obvious. The one time I ran into him at friend's wedding drinks, he was sitting in the Eno wannabes section droning on with this other soundtwat I found even more boring and wet. LOL.

These people like Brian Eno, but not Roxy Music. TRAGIC.

the Eno wannabes section

Genuine LOLS here!

shit, now I wonder if I've heard of this guy.

This is a common thread in the dudes that I date - the world is ripping them off. With DJ Munchausen, it was every other indie club in London was biting his shit. With Horrible Sound Artist, it was everyone from Artangel to Scanner.

Note to self: if a bloke complains about how he is a malcontent genius that everyone is nicking his ideas - especially if he can never ever ever tell anyone his AMAZING ideas in case someone rips his off (note to bloke: how can they rip you off if they have been doing it for years before you even thought of it?) RUN AWAY RUN AWAY NOW

It's OK if ideas get nicked now and again, as much as it sucks at the time, if only for some kind of silent proof that you're on the right track. But when every piece of successful conceptual art with a sound element is claimed by one extremely cosseted underachiever as his own it kind of goes past neurosis into rationalized laziness. The deep irony is that I have NEVER ONCE heard Kate say that the world is biting her ideas. There are simply too many of them.

With this DJ Münchausen rename you are really spoiling us! Or just my computer, with laugh-spittle.

Horrible Sound Artist's reason for living totally dissipated when Boards of Canada hit, BTW. Scanner is actually a good friend of mine from years back so it was VERY interesting biting my lip when the whining started on that front; just imagine what you're missing, commentary-wise, on the David Byrne installation at the Roundhouse!

^ this. I thought my soulmate would have a zillion twee indie records, be taller than me, be interested in football, like films that aren't whizzybangy blockbusters. Turns out he is none of those things. He might not even be "my soulmate", "the one" in the conventional Hollywood happy ending sense, but he was enough to make me happy and make me stop looking. I have friends and the internet to fill in the gaps in terms of going to gigs/football/cinema/talking about popular culture pish. I have a world outside of him - I think people who expect all things of one person are expecting the impossible and are going to end up disappointed.

this is so otm. there are so many different ways to connect with someone, I've met people who had v similar interests and been really taken with that but prob more often than that I'll meet someone who doesn't share any of my interests and the differences of opinion and the things you learn are really exciting.

the funny thing about being with a person for an extended period of time is that a big portion of your interests actually start to be shared

does ur gf like sting?

well now she does

xp - some do, but also it's more comfortable having unshared interests ... maybe it's just me, but I feel more comfortable being interested in things my partner isn't, and expressing a lack of interest in things he is. He can go to a dance performance, and I can go to a bar and drink w/friends, and I won't feel like I'm missing out on quality time.

yeah thats why i said "most"

or "a big portion"

I dunno - we had a lot of shared interests to begin with. Some of his that I didn't initially share, I did end up sharing, but others, I did not, though I tried to for a while.

yeah

youre not disagreeing with me

some do, but also it's more comfortable having unshared interests

yah thats closer to my xp w/long term relationships u just find space for the things that u dont share an interest in w/o necessarily coming to enjoy them ~ also youre assured enough to be like "no i think that sucks" w/o it being a judgment on the other person

...or feel assured enough to say "no that is boring" without worrying that it will be a dealbreaker or be a negative reflection on you.

Ha. I am a drummer and a DJ.

I was married to someone with zero common interests (besides sex). It was fine for a few years. I learned a lot from her. Luckily it's over but 3 years later I'm still sad about it.

So I stand by my advice about "loving yourself". But that hasn't helped me find a soulmate. The older I get, the less concerned I am about that though. It doesn't feel remotely hopeless, and I attribute that to the fact that I put so much energy into the things I like to do and I have a lot of great friends.

When I said "don't hate yourself" upthread I also should point out I don't mean garden variety "damn, I'm boring"/"god I'm fat" kind thinking we all go through. I mean active, radiant self hatred. The kind that has a person reject ALL compliments out of hand. The sort of person who focusses daily on their negative aspects - especially when they dont exist. The kind that then manages to turn any and all compassion and love and friendship from otehr people down into a sucking black hole. It is *really fucking hard* to support people in such a state. I'm not talking about depression either, it's more .. active, and nasty than that.

And before anyone bites, I do *not* mean to imply the above of ANYONE in this thread. It is something I've experienced in my past on a couple of occasions. And I just couldnt handle them.

No, I absolutely have had those moments of utter matte sucking black hole depression. And don't think that this is something different from Depression - maybe it's not the common or garden grey wet blanket depression, but it is a form of mental illness in itself, the most deep, vicious, crippling kind. It's impossible to explain to someone who has not experienced, what it is like. It is like the lights have been turned out on the world, and there is no goodness, no positivity, no nothing. And no amount of pouring in of empathy or compassion or love will put them back on. (And it actually becomes irritating when people think that they can put the lights back on, and then get irritated with you for not responding to it, and withdraw.)

Maybe depression isn't even the right word for it, maybe it's a kind of psychosis - but it's something very deep and brain chemical and only a brain-level change (the right kind of medication, serotonin-boosting over-exercise, etc.) will actually affect it.

I've been that person. I've been *with* that person, and had my energy drained out of me. I've seen friends slip down into that state, and wondered why I hung on, remembering only what they used to be like before they got there - and in one glorious case, seen my friend come back from the brink and turn back into the wonderful, loving person she was before the blackness got hold of her.

----

on another subject, it's also difficult when you don't have a long-established base core of friends on whom you can reassess your self worth in the way that Charlie and others have described. It's hard to come to that conclusion of "well, there must be something loveable in me under it all, since my friends stick around" when - because of the transitory nature of your life, or whatever - your friends don't stick around. They come and go, they decide you're too much work.

This is what kills me the most, these days. Not even the not-having-a-partner bit, but the transitory way in which people I thought would be in my life forever, as friends, just slip away, and there's nothing you can do to stop it from happening. If people want to go, you have to just let them go - trying to hold onto a friendship that the other person has decided to end is perhaps even more painful than the breakup of a Relationship.

It's hard to come to that conclusion of "well, there must be something loveable in me under it all, since my friends stick around" when - because of the transitory nature of your life, or whatever - your friends don't stick around. ...

This is what kills me the most, these days. Not even the not-having-a-partner bit, but the transitory way in which people I thought would be in my life forever, as friends, just slip away, and there's nothing you can do to stop it from happening.

I empathize with this to a degree that you cannot even know. It's bad enough that, in the past, I've lost entire circles of friends, but there's been a recent rash of very important people slipping away, and it's made me sooooo incredibly gunshy about being at all intimately involved with people in general. You may note in my posts above that I'm currently trying to come to terms with the fact that everything is transitory so that I don't allow the finite nature of relationships to keep me from engaging with anyone ever again.

Wow, Deric. I think you've got in a few lines the whole gist of what has been really upsetting me and been unable to express again and again on this thread. And the whole romantic-partner thing is a giant red herring. That it's the loss of that other kind of intimacy that has bothered and unsettled me more than the lack of any sexual partner.

So, here's me, working away from home, and quite upbeat about being au solo. Not in a 'hey' can do all the things I don't get time to' but just ..

I dunno, can't remember now. Last night, bored with my own company, go eat, read book, come back, do nowt.

Had a depressive breakdown, I suppose you could say, some years ago; through a combination of zero energy, being too ashamed to talk about it, and sudden conviction that there was no reason for anyone to like me sufficiently to want to know what was going on, I lost touch with everyone I knew.

Except that none of them realised anything was wrong, so they just thought I woke up one morning and decided I was way too fucking cool for them and presumably spent all my time doing exciting and rad things without them, so now when I bump into those people they are really guarded and sniffy and keen to emphasise how enormously different their busy recent lives are to any previous pre-historic life that might have had room for me in, and that hurts more than any old just not knowing people.

Oh well. I can't say it's not my own fault. The things you don't think through when you're young and going crazy...

could you not explain the circumstances of how you fell out of touch with them? i hope i'd be quite understanding, were i them...

Meant to put this here:

(Or it might make them worse. In my experiences, unfortunately, many people would be more understanding of "oh, she just suddenly became a snob" than "actually, I have had a quite serious brush with mental illness")

years of experience

Maybe depression isn't even the right word for it, maybe it's a kind of psychosis - but it's something very deep and brain chemical and only a brain-level change (the right kind of medication, serotonin-boosting over-exercise, etc.) will actually affect it.

You've described clinical depression, as opposed to just feeling depressed for a while. Not at all uncommon, and nothing to be ashamed of.

Except that none of them realised anything was wrong, so they just thought I woke up one morning and decided I was way too fucking cool for them and presumably spent all my time doing exciting and rad things without them, so now when I bump into those people they are really guarded and sniffy and keen to emphasise how enormously different their busy recent lives are to any previous pre-historic life that might have had room for me in, and that hurts more than any old just not knowing people.

This really sounds like you became depressed, dealt with it by excluding people who cared about you, and they feel put off by it. It's possible that they are genuinely jerks who only judge you by how much attention you give to their lives, but I kind of doubt it. It's possible they just feel hurt and are being defensive. The idea that they think you were off doing great things might be real, or it might be something you believe. You have to trust that people who care about you can handle information about your health. Depression, and mental disease, is no different from any other health issue in that it requires treatment, might be recurrent, and might need regular medication or therapy.

No, I'm talking about the difference between something like clinical depression and something like...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borderline_personality_disorder

Though maybe I'm conflating different sets of circumstances. There are only really two people I've known in my life that have had that black-hole depression that seems to be masking Borderline Personality Disorder.

When describing myself, and that other friend who did eventually come out of it, in my case, it was bipolar disorder, in my friend's case, clinical depression.

Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference. I've had two experiences in my life, very negative, where I thought I was dealing with someone with clinical depression, and treated them as such, and was actually dealing with something much closer to BPD. My only advice for dealing with someone with BPD is GET AWAY NOW.

But I understand that many people feel this way about the sucking black hole of deep clinical depression, as well. Certainly partners I've had.

I was a little harsh in how I worded it, but yes, I think you're right that depression can mask or be associated really closely with borderline personality or bipolar disorders. Recent experience has shown me that you can't be too careful when treating one symptom -- you have to really watch for others as depression, anxiety, or anything else you thought was the main problem starts to recede.

My only advice for dealing with someone with BPD is GET AWAY NOW.

Could not agree more. I feel a little bad saying that, but I've had my life carelessly wrecked by a couple of undiagnosed BPD cases. One of whom is probably the biggest catalyst in turning me into such a spaz with respect to interpersonal relationships. I observed for years the negative impact of someone who doesn't care about the feelings of others and learned a little too well from that example. I care too much about the feelings of others to the point where it's practically crippling.