To begin--in media res.
Part of that Pride
As C.S. Lewis best stated it, "I will proceed to gorge in this book of mine", because writing about oneself after all is an indulgence.
Game 1
Pride is what pervaded my interaction with Mark (not his real name) today. I hate him but can’t but feel some attraction to him… he’s brilliant… sheerly brilliant… but so fucked up its even familiar… The direction of his comments scarcely hide his insecurity… and his desperate desire to cover it up with his brilliance… with his classically liberal, classically elitist lines of thought… he wants to become a part of that elite by adopting their frame of mind and justifying it with reasoning that comes as possibly deep from his heart as possible… he wants to really believe it… Its almost painful to watch or listen as he mocks morality and glorifies amoral intelligence and achievement.
He comes into class… and appears not to notice me… I do the same. I desperately want to talk to him… I have in the past. But he’s had an odd reaction to me, basically since the first time I talked to him…
I made it obvious I thought he was intelligent and asked about his academic background… he kinda basked in it… and then got really arrogant… I mean really arrogant… and made a crude remark about me having to wait until next class for another one of his lessons… I was put off, but not that much… I figured most people that intelligent must have fucked up thoughts like that… but eventually, the comments he made in class started to put together an eerie and ugly picture about his possible moral values…
It didn’t help that another friend of mine… who does not like me talking about other folks to whom I'm attracted (she’s in love with me)… happened to bring him up in conversation… She said she used to have a crush on him… precisely for his mind. She also thought he was cute. That was one thing I disagreed on—I thought he was really really ugly. Maybe not that ugly… its just that when u take conventionally attractive features, and somehow get them to come together all wrong… well… I thought this b4 he opened his mouth or slighted me. He got slightly better looking 2 me with time… but still.
She thought my taste was unusual and disagreed. Although she conceded that all of his previous boyfriends had been more attractive than he… I refrained from saying the obvious… She got all weird… and said that I should go for him… She then however did mention that he had an evil type of streak… the type that would purposely get into your head to commit damage… He had a history of dysfunctiaonlity at school… and for making exceedingly immoral and inflammatory comments… you could check the school paper and read all about it. that was enough for me to put off any thoughts of wanting to get to know him… plus I was scared… someone so intelligent and so mean (and insecure)…. Could easily do damage to me… plus, my attraction and his ability to see past my "fronts" would leave me quite vulnerable.
I set upon a contrary course. And laid it out to my friend… I think he would be physically attracted to me… my demeanor, distance, and intelligence would make me even more intriguing to him I thought… and I would only be courteous enough to make me seem reachable to him… and I would always cruelly keep him at arm’s length… I told her… in that way, I would subjugate him… the very achievement he prides himself in doing to others… Ironically demoniacal in retrospect.
Several days later… I caught him staring at me in class… lasciviously that is... it was about to get uncomfortable for me… but then I realized quickly that he didn’t care that I had caught him… he had enough confidence to entertain the possibility that I would want his attention or even respond to it… I got a bit disturbed by it… he saw that…
sometimes this turns people on… I don’t understand why… I get kinda thrown off balance by shit like this... that is the truth…
He was sitting directly across from me and the teacher was far from us, so even those around us weren’t focusing on us. We had public privacy.
I looked slightly towards the professor making it obvious that I was returning his glare with my peripheral vision to confirm. And he continued to stare. He stared for a while. Upon confirming that he was looking only at me, I fully turned towards the teacher, and without responding with an angry look back, I had given him permission to continue staring.
After that, whenever I would run into him he seemed to be rather cheery in his greetings. At times he would just ignore me though. I didn’t care. At this point, I figured he must dig my appearance, was insecure about his own, and would vacillate as a result between overconfidence and paralyzing insecurity. I knew that b/c I was like that.
For a couple classes, he sat next to me. He would make pathetic attempts to talk to me, even stuttering at times. I would scarcely even look in his direction. Talk overtly more enthusiastically to someone right next to him and just totally ignore him, I gloated in having "won".
I should have given myself away by now. But today, he did something funny. When we were both just sitting there, he started whistling… in that way that someone does to make it poignant that there’s an uncomfortable silence… its funny it reminds me of Gorgeous when he once did that… it was fucken hilarious… I think its plain ass retarded but its funny to see completely socially inept people do it even if it looks ridiculous out of sheer nervousness and awkwardness… I pretended not to notice… I’m kind of high at this point… so ignoring something completely at will isn’t that hard…
i landed the home run when while in the midst of an intense debate, i was able to distinguish his values via one of his examples. he had implicitly assumed that economies would proceed a certain way--optimally, that is--because all the players were not just self-interested, but willing to cheat everyone. while the argument seems intuitive, it's not (see Passions within Reason by Cornell economist RH Frank). So when his loud tirade of a particular government's legal infrastructure paused, I loudly interjected with an example of an idiotic decision by the monopoly holders in that country. He freaked, and came back at me with a terse regurgitation of the definition of efficiency. I had him. So, I shot back one more counter-example, and mockingly finished with, "Greed doesn't implicitly indicate efficiency or intelligence--greedy people make stupid mistakes too." Several of my classmates' eyes fell out of their sockets before they erupted into laughter. The assumption in his argument suddenly became to clear, and its obvious falsity as well. The professor as well couldn't help but laugh. Mark waited, and finally said, with palpable and visible anger, "They can't make bad decisions, however, for very long.... that's why it's efficient." I could've shot back with another counter example and an argument, but no one at that point was paying him any heed.
Game 2
There’s another girl in this class… She began staring at me a lot in class about 3 weeks ago… I thought she liked me a while back… but then she struck up small talk with me after class… as she left, she said good bye in a very friendly way and finished it off with my name in a very complete way… the tone and her facial expressions just blared—attraction.
I started being less expressive with her as well. A week later in class she stared me down during lecture. Very lusty. She did it several times. I was surprised at how bold she was. The stares were long and very intense—sensual. A few months ago, they would have been the type to totally make me feel all fucken weirdly feminine… in a vulnerable sort of way… actually, that’s what it is…. Those stares make me feel vulnerable… b/c its someone being very vulnerable with me and the result is me usually not being able to be as vulnerable or being unwilling to be so…. Usually a combination of the two.
Game 3
There’s another woman in a class who has a crush on me… its also rather intense… I remember one time running into her outside of class… at the grocery store on a Friday night. she’s a grad student in one of my classes… she freaked out… like in a positive way… Her jaw dropped and the smile afterwards was far to intense for me. I was freaked out by her freaking out…
She made it seem like it was this huge deal that she had run into me… I was like… we’re at fucken university… this happens all the time (I didn’t say this exactly…) We had a perfunctory conversation—at least that’s how I directed its course… and I politely and deliberately ended it… After that night… encounters with her were similar… I thought it was my ego or that I was just making it up that she liked me…
But then, one day in class, a few of us were early. We sat in silence. Then someone brought up a topic. A few words were exchanged (I love uptight universities). Then I asked a question. She wasn’t looking at me, but I could see her. Her eyes widened. She smiled big, realizing that I had asked the question. And having recomposed her face, looked at me and answered my question. A reaction completely out of sync with the way she carries on class when the prof is not around... Fuck, she still liked me.
So I guess here’s the issue to which much of this points… cuz this is getting drawn out… I’m fascinated and almost thrilled or turned on by the fact that people have this crazy reaction of attraction towards me… this reaction that involves a visceral revelatory moment of vulnerability. It’s a precious thing I think to let someone see you with your “pants down”. To let them see you freak out in such a way. To see someone in a sort of mild desperation to fucken want to talk to you. To fucken need the fucken confirmation of your attention on their social or maybe even deeper dimension of their ego.
The contrast here is that I strive for the complete opposite. I strive for stoicism. I strive for an extreme social independence. Although I do go to extreme measures to keep up my physical appearance, I skimp on the superfluous aspects of it, i.e. clothes, accessories, and/or grooming. Mind you—I rarely let it look ugly. I do coordinate my dissheveledness. Because the goal of course is to make hotness seem effortless, and thus even more out of reach. So I guess I am playing the same game they are. I am vying for affirmation and just want to pretend like I am not. I’m in denial.
Part of that Pride
As C.S. Lewis best stated it, "I will proceed to gorge in this book of mine", because writing about oneself after all is an indulgence.
Game 1
Pride is what pervaded my interaction with Mark (not his real name) today. I hate him but can’t but feel some attraction to him… he’s brilliant… sheerly brilliant… but so fucked up its even familiar… The direction of his comments scarcely hide his insecurity… and his desperate desire to cover it up with his brilliance… with his classically liberal, classically elitist lines of thought… he wants to become a part of that elite by adopting their frame of mind and justifying it with reasoning that comes as possibly deep from his heart as possible… he wants to really believe it… Its almost painful to watch or listen as he mocks morality and glorifies amoral intelligence and achievement.
He comes into class… and appears not to notice me… I do the same. I desperately want to talk to him… I have in the past. But he’s had an odd reaction to me, basically since the first time I talked to him…
I made it obvious I thought he was intelligent and asked about his academic background… he kinda basked in it… and then got really arrogant… I mean really arrogant… and made a crude remark about me having to wait until next class for another one of his lessons… I was put off, but not that much… I figured most people that intelligent must have fucked up thoughts like that… but eventually, the comments he made in class started to put together an eerie and ugly picture about his possible moral values…
It didn’t help that another friend of mine… who does not like me talking about other folks to whom I'm attracted (she’s in love with me)… happened to bring him up in conversation… She said she used to have a crush on him… precisely for his mind. She also thought he was cute. That was one thing I disagreed on—I thought he was really really ugly. Maybe not that ugly… its just that when u take conventionally attractive features, and somehow get them to come together all wrong… well… I thought this b4 he opened his mouth or slighted me. He got slightly better looking 2 me with time… but still.
She thought my taste was unusual and disagreed. Although she conceded that all of his previous boyfriends had been more attractive than he… I refrained from saying the obvious… She got all weird… and said that I should go for him… She then however did mention that he had an evil type of streak… the type that would purposely get into your head to commit damage… He had a history of dysfunctiaonlity at school… and for making exceedingly immoral and inflammatory comments… you could check the school paper and read all about it. that was enough for me to put off any thoughts of wanting to get to know him… plus I was scared… someone so intelligent and so mean (and insecure)…. Could easily do damage to me… plus, my attraction and his ability to see past my "fronts" would leave me quite vulnerable.
I set upon a contrary course. And laid it out to my friend… I think he would be physically attracted to me… my demeanor, distance, and intelligence would make me even more intriguing to him I thought… and I would only be courteous enough to make me seem reachable to him… and I would always cruelly keep him at arm’s length… I told her… in that way, I would subjugate him… the very achievement he prides himself in doing to others… Ironically demoniacal in retrospect.
Several days later… I caught him staring at me in class… lasciviously that is... it was about to get uncomfortable for me… but then I realized quickly that he didn’t care that I had caught him… he had enough confidence to entertain the possibility that I would want his attention or even respond to it… I got a bit disturbed by it… he saw that…
sometimes this turns people on… I don’t understand why… I get kinda thrown off balance by shit like this... that is the truth…
He was sitting directly across from me and the teacher was far from us, so even those around us weren’t focusing on us. We had public privacy.
I looked slightly towards the professor making it obvious that I was returning his glare with my peripheral vision to confirm. And he continued to stare. He stared for a while. Upon confirming that he was looking only at me, I fully turned towards the teacher, and without responding with an angry look back, I had given him permission to continue staring.
After that, whenever I would run into him he seemed to be rather cheery in his greetings. At times he would just ignore me though. I didn’t care. At this point, I figured he must dig my appearance, was insecure about his own, and would vacillate as a result between overconfidence and paralyzing insecurity. I knew that b/c I was like that.
For a couple classes, he sat next to me. He would make pathetic attempts to talk to me, even stuttering at times. I would scarcely even look in his direction. Talk overtly more enthusiastically to someone right next to him and just totally ignore him, I gloated in having "won".
I should have given myself away by now. But today, he did something funny. When we were both just sitting there, he started whistling… in that way that someone does to make it poignant that there’s an uncomfortable silence… its funny it reminds me of Gorgeous when he once did that… it was fucken hilarious… I think its plain ass retarded but its funny to see completely socially inept people do it even if it looks ridiculous out of sheer nervousness and awkwardness… I pretended not to notice… I’m kind of high at this point… so ignoring something completely at will isn’t that hard…
i landed the home run when while in the midst of an intense debate, i was able to distinguish his values via one of his examples. he had implicitly assumed that economies would proceed a certain way--optimally, that is--because all the players were not just self-interested, but willing to cheat everyone. while the argument seems intuitive, it's not (see Passions within Reason by Cornell economist RH Frank). So when his loud tirade of a particular government's legal infrastructure paused, I loudly interjected with an example of an idiotic decision by the monopoly holders in that country. He freaked, and came back at me with a terse regurgitation of the definition of efficiency. I had him. So, I shot back one more counter-example, and mockingly finished with, "Greed doesn't implicitly indicate efficiency or intelligence--greedy people make stupid mistakes too." Several of my classmates' eyes fell out of their sockets before they erupted into laughter. The assumption in his argument suddenly became to clear, and its obvious falsity as well. The professor as well couldn't help but laugh. Mark waited, and finally said, with palpable and visible anger, "They can't make bad decisions, however, for very long.... that's why it's efficient." I could've shot back with another counter example and an argument, but no one at that point was paying him any heed.
Game 2
There’s another girl in this class… She began staring at me a lot in class about 3 weeks ago… I thought she liked me a while back… but then she struck up small talk with me after class… as she left, she said good bye in a very friendly way and finished it off with my name in a very complete way… the tone and her facial expressions just blared—attraction.
I started being less expressive with her as well. A week later in class she stared me down during lecture. Very lusty. She did it several times. I was surprised at how bold she was. The stares were long and very intense—sensual. A few months ago, they would have been the type to totally make me feel all fucken weirdly feminine… in a vulnerable sort of way… actually, that’s what it is…. Those stares make me feel vulnerable… b/c its someone being very vulnerable with me and the result is me usually not being able to be as vulnerable or being unwilling to be so…. Usually a combination of the two.
Game 3
There’s another woman in a class who has a crush on me… its also rather intense… I remember one time running into her outside of class… at the grocery store on a Friday night. she’s a grad student in one of my classes… she freaked out… like in a positive way… Her jaw dropped and the smile afterwards was far to intense for me. I was freaked out by her freaking out…
She made it seem like it was this huge deal that she had run into me… I was like… we’re at fucken university… this happens all the time (I didn’t say this exactly…) We had a perfunctory conversation—at least that’s how I directed its course… and I politely and deliberately ended it… After that night… encounters with her were similar… I thought it was my ego or that I was just making it up that she liked me…
But then, one day in class, a few of us were early. We sat in silence. Then someone brought up a topic. A few words were exchanged (I love uptight universities). Then I asked a question. She wasn’t looking at me, but I could see her. Her eyes widened. She smiled big, realizing that I had asked the question. And having recomposed her face, looked at me and answered my question. A reaction completely out of sync with the way she carries on class when the prof is not around... Fuck, she still liked me.
So I guess here’s the issue to which much of this points… cuz this is getting drawn out… I’m fascinated and almost thrilled or turned on by the fact that people have this crazy reaction of attraction towards me… this reaction that involves a visceral revelatory moment of vulnerability. It’s a precious thing I think to let someone see you with your “pants down”. To let them see you freak out in such a way. To see someone in a sort of mild desperation to fucken want to talk to you. To fucken need the fucken confirmation of your attention on their social or maybe even deeper dimension of their ego.
The contrast here is that I strive for the complete opposite. I strive for stoicism. I strive for an extreme social independence. Although I do go to extreme measures to keep up my physical appearance, I skimp on the superfluous aspects of it, i.e. clothes, accessories, and/or grooming. Mind you—I rarely let it look ugly. I do coordinate my dissheveledness. Because the goal of course is to make hotness seem effortless, and thus even more out of reach. So I guess I am playing the same game they are. I am vying for affirmation and just want to pretend like I am not. I’m in denial.
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