FAQ #4: So, [when] are you and Darkside going to get together?

Good question. Really good question.

If you asked him, you'd get a "And this is any of your business because...?", a "Not likely", or (if he knows you well enough to be silly, and he's feeling whimsical) "I'd say, 'in a blue moon', but that happens a little too often with this Lunatic..."

He doesn't find himself physically drawn to me, and values our friendship highly. This combination looks to be stable. If we do get together, it would happen in either of these ways: he will, over time, realize that loyal best friends make the best long-term partners, or something would suddenly and dramatically change either his perception of me, or his outlook on the relationship/friendship thing.

I'm more than willing to get together with him; the ball, as it were, is in his court, and he's choosing to leave it be for now. I would only damage our friendship and my self-respect by pushing the issue.

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FAQ #5: Why are you so obsessed with Darkside?

I've been on a manic husband-hunt since the age of six. I started early. My dating record is not all that great. I've dated some very nice people, and I'm still in touch with many of them, but, sadly, the bad ones were equally as bad as the good ones were good.

But what does that have to do with your obsession with Darkside? You're dangerously obsessed with him, you know. It's not good for either of you.

Darkside is the one who took the time to gain my trust and build me back together after two of the worse: Shawn, followed up quickly by BJ. I'm sure, if I'd gone to a shrink, that I would have been diagnosed with some form of post-traumatic stress disorder. Both of them played nasty mind-games with me. One of them attempted suicide on my watch. I never saw a shrink. Other men would have, did, exploit the ease with which I may be hypnotized, to their advantage and my disadvantage. Darkside saw me broken, and exploited my willingness to cling to him to take me all the way apart again, clean me up, and patch me back together. He's more than earned my trust, loyalty, and friendship; he saved me, heart, mind, soul, and life, more times over than I care to count.

When Darkside patched me back together and I cooperated with him, I did that for him, because he had faith in me that I could, and if he wanted me whole and happy, I could make myself that for him. Now that I'm whole enough to bear it, he's giving me an even more precious gift. Other, less ethical, men might accept my adoration as their due and leave it at that. Darkside has chosen to kick my ass into caring for myself not because he wishes it so, but because I wish it so and deserve it. He's kicking my ass until I get some self-esteem. He knows me well enough to know what I respond to. It's the hope of both of us, now, that someday I will be able to love myself for who I am, and I'm getting closer every day.

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FAQ #6: When are you going to [move on from / give up on] Darkside?

So far, Darkside is the closest match I've found to my ideal mate. I trust him, for good reason, and he and I get along better than I've ever gotten along with any other human being. I have reason to believe that I get along with him better than many other people do.

Before Darkside, I had the vague ideal of what love should be like, but had never experienced an actual instance myself. Now, I have something to compare it against, and most comparisons between my bond with him and my connections with others fall far short.


If I meet someone who has the potential to become closer to me than Darkside is, I will certainly explore and develop that relationship with all due caution. One of the benefits of being wired for polyamory is that I can consider other potential candidates for mates while being happily and unrequitedly and most faithfully in love with Darkside.

However, my systems return a Relationship Depth Meter Warning whenever I reach the level I'm comfortable being at with most people, and in most cases, I hit that soon after I meet them. I may know people for years and only get so emotionally intimate with them, never any more. This warning system of mine is a good thing, and is based on all my experience with people over the years, plus a few subconscious / 5 + nth sense things.

From time to time, I have told people about my Relationship Depth Meter warnings, usually in the form of, "_____'s a nice person, but I know them as well as I'll ever need to know them, and I can tell you now that they and I won't work out."

The usual response to that is, "You just aren't giving them a chance! You never give anyone a chance!", or variants on the theme.

Several times, I have yielded to those "Aww, give them a chance" voices, and went ahead, ignored my own warning system, and got further-entangled with someone who my instincts were telling me to avoid getting further-involved with. My instincts were, of course, correct. I've made it a policy to listen to that, now, because it's probably got a reason.

In the face of that "You're not giving them a chance!" statement, my answer should always be, "I did give them a chance. They failed to make it to the next level."


It's not required that someone who might form a bond closer than the one I have with Darkside form that bond with me immediately. It is required that they not flunk any trustworthiness, vibe, or compatibility screenings.



( A sample compatibility screening, answers, and scores: )

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I am Geek.

Every time I hear the name of the movie Lilo and Stitch, or even one of the character's names, I have to do a double-take, and realize it's an animated character, not LInux LOader.

*snork* I love geeks.

http://www.ucomics.com/foxtrot/2003/09/21/

(When the link dies, we've got Our Hero with an arrow strapped to his head, his best friend holding a bow and apple, and explaining to a passerby chick, "This way, we're only being kinda stupid." She looks in horror/dismay at the many apples scattered on the ground.)

Gamers

I suppose I didn't mention that marxdarx and Little Fayoumis have been playing Uno nearly nonstop for several days. Well, almost. votania plays too, and last night I was dragged in.

I remember really hating that game when I was a kid. That was because I was never any good at it. Sometime in the intervening years, I must have gotten very, very good. Evidently I play with a sort of ruthlessness that is characterized by my habit of saving up the "good" cards to play when I've run out of every other card in that colour.

We stayed up until 11:30, playing. It was great.

I think, when we were equipping the Temple with games, we got a Skip-Bo deck. That was my favorite game as a kid. I think I'll have fun...

The things we learn on /.

OOoh! I want to go to the Library Hotel sometime!!

*bounce*

Mmmm, 800.001...

Nose

The bad thing about being accustomed to a permanently-clogged nose is that you've got the nose thing going on, and don't realize it, and then you wonder, "Why am I coughing? Oh, wait, it's because I'm inhaling snot constantly, and I don't realize it..."

Incense

Whatever's in the Butt Naked incense, it smells like home. It smells like the wood smoke from the stove; it smells like burning spruce and birch, with a hint of snow.

I'm homesick now. Sort of.

It's a lazy winter Sunday morning sort of smell.

Interpersonal dynamics, "What the fuck are you smoking, bitch?"

Had a recent encounter with what the Arcata Eye would refer to as "a weirdling", someone who tripped my weirdometer to the scary side of the scale. At the time it happened, I refrained from posting about it, because I wanted to get some feedback first.

I discussed the situtuation with mutual acquaintances, and found that other than the person who has gotten their weirdometer fine-tuned by so many bad experiences, I was the only one getting this precise level of "What the *fuck*?!?!" from the weirdling's weirdness.

Somehow, though, we managed to hit on an explanation.

As the weirdling's attention is focused on me, I am the one bearing the brunt of the "WTF??!?!" perception. Others, not having the weirdling paying attention to them, aren't moved to label it a weirdling, because it is acting like a decent person around them. Me, it acts like a weirdling around. Those who have observed its actions around me agree that yes, it's a weirdling if ever there was one.

Epiphany time. This is one of those weird interpersonal dynamics things. Several of my friends have weirdlings, weirdlings who behave badly around them, but manage to simulate decent human beings in nearly every other way except where my friends are concerned, where there are just a few, or more than a few, screws missing.

One friend has weirdlings, and mutual friends of them and the weirdlings are convinced that the weirdlings are wonderful, decent human beings, and my friend is utterly wronging the weirdlings by insisting that they are weirdlings, and really should be giving them a chance. [Insert digression to FAQ #6 on the 'give them a chance' thing...]

From the friends' perspective, they see a normal, healthy, human being, with a few human quirks. Yet somehow their friend is insisting that this normal friend of theirs is a potentially dangerous weirdling? The usual response is, "What the fuck are you smoking, bitch?"

If a weirdling like that makes it bigtime, the phrases "S/He kept to []self, mostly," and "S/He was always a good student / a bit of a loner," are what tend to pop up on the evening news from those who knew the weirdling in better days as a human. No one wants to believe that a weirdling will go all weird until it's too late, except for those few who the weirdling shows the weird face to.



I know that I've been a weirdling in the past, mostly in my high school freshman year. Several of my classmates decided that I was the one most likely to snap in a dangerous fashion. This was before Columbine, even.

Odd neologisms come from an odd frame of mind.

Loudsmith; loudsmithery. One who crafts loudness, and the process of crafting it.

Am still reading The Minority Report, and finished re-reading the title story. Thus, I had odd dreams about recursive things that did odd things. (And no, I can't be much more specific than that, except it involved e-mail, LJ friending, and writing a Dickian story.)

Midway through this, the cats were playing Herd of Stampeeding Wildebeests through my room. They've learned that it's best to not do this ON me, for whatever reason; they don't extend the same courtesy to marxdarx, who is more disturbed by it than I would be. (I suppose that my talent as a loudsmith has much to do with that, as if they tried that, I would bellow "CAT!" at them, and marxdarx wouldn't, as he shares sleeping space...)

Dawn called, but I was quasi-asleep, so she left me to my dreams. Now I'm awake again, albeit temporarily.

Happydances

I've noticed that, of late, I've been saying, "*does the ___ happydance*" a lot.

Or, if it's not a happydance, just a dance.

That being said, I will proceed to do the *Photos! Yay!* dance. (That is to say, among other things, that I'm going to be putting the photos of Marah up on Petridish soon...)

*does the '22 is a wonderful number' dance*

Photos

Petridish, now with more photos of Marah!