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Say something nice...
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Posted:Jan 14, 2016 7:08 pm
Last Updated:Feb 1, 2016 5:07 pm
3758 Views
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...about your least favorite person.
You don't have to say who that person is or why you don't like them. Just say one thing nice about the person you dislike the most in the world.
I'll start. He has nice hair.
Your turn!
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Whooooo!
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Posted:Jan 11, 2015 6:29 pm
Last Updated:Mar 19, 2015 9:02 pm
6820 Views
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"Gonna get some COLD CUTS today!"
I love that commercial. It makes me laugh EVERY SINGLE TIME. Anybody else have a commercial like that, where no matter how many times you've seen it, it still makes you chuckle??
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Damn you, WoW
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Posted:Nov 22, 2014 4:56 pm
Last Updated:Nov 22, 2014 10:38 pm
7514 Views
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Damn you, World of Warcraft. Damn you all to HELL! I was clean for almost three years!
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Hooray Job!
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Posted:Oct 24, 2014 4:34 pm
Last Updated:Oct 24, 2014 9:10 pm
8870 Views
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This was my first full week at my new job. And today, I actually got to do some real work. It'll be months before I'm fully up to speed, but I like to make myself useful as soon as possible, and I feel like I'm finally doing that. So yay!
Also, I should get paid next week. BIG YAY!
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Validation
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Posted:Oct 15, 2014 3:08 pm
Last Updated:Oct 16, 2014 6:24 pm
9473 Views
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I think about things too much. I think I've mentioned that once or twice already, but it's still true. Over-thinking is sort of what I do, and thinking about thinking is also a meta activity I engage in far too often. Something I've been thinking about a lot recently is validation. Why do I need so much of it, and why is the kind I get never the "right" kind?
First, let me say I've always been the low self esteem type. That means different things to different people. A woman I briefly dated once said "Nobody has high self esteem. If they do, they're assholes." That seemed like a statement I could get behind, except it can't be true. Maybe nobody has "high" self esteem, but some of us have basically no self esteem at all. So certainly most "normal" people must have a "normal" amount of self esteem, where they believe firmly that they're good people at heart and have skills and abilities that are worthwhile and are lovable and worthy of love.
Because if they didn't, they'd all be like me, and this world would fucking suck! I'm never quite certain I'm worth anything at all to anybody, even when they insist vehemently that I am. I'm never really certain I'm lovable or deserve love, and when someone expresses any kind of admiration or love for me, I worry that they are fooling themselves, because if they knew the "real me," the me that I know, they wouldn't feel that way.
So I seek validation. Constantly. And it's annoying. I want to be liked by everybody, and when someone clearly doesn't like me, it hurts me unreasonably. Because one factor of my self image issues are that I believe all negative opinions of me unquestionably, but worry that the positive opinions are "wrong." So if I'm in a room with a dozen other people, and eleven of them love me and think I'm awesome, and the last person is stand-offish and distant and makes it clear she'd rather I not talk to her, that's the one person whose opinion I believe. That person has it right--I'm not likable. The eleven others? They are just fooled by the good job I do at trying to be personable. If and when they ever see the "real me" they'll feel like that twelfth person does.
This is of course bullshit. People like me despite me not liking myself a whole lot. And the trouble I get into is constantly seeking that validation from the people who haven't given it yet, and minimizing or ignoring the people who do give me that validation. Because another part of my problem is the validation I do get is never the "right" kind or from the "right" person. I can't explain what that even means, honestly. Because sometimes it means one thing and sometimes another. And sometimes the same kind of validation from one person isn't the "right" kind from another. It makes no sense at all to anybody, even me. But it is what it is.
So I work at it. I stop and ask myself why I'm chasing after something from someone who clearly does not want to give it, and why I'm ignoring the same kind of attention from someone else. I try not to chase after that twelfth person who is steering clear of me. Not just because people are entitled to their opinions, but because it's unhealthy for me anyway. It doesn't necessarily reflect badly on me if someone doesn't want to hang out with me. There are plenty of otherwise nice people I wouldn't care to hang out with, I tell myself.
I know everybody has moments like this, but does anybody else have the same kind of crazy esteem issues I do? How do you deal with it?
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Vibes
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Posted:Oct 7, 2014 7:31 am
Last Updated:Oct 15, 2014 8:52 am
9999 Views
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No not the battery powered kind. I'm talking about the unspoken feelings you get from people, either from reading their words on the screen or meeting them in person.
Before I start, let me say this blog is going to touch on the subject of rejection. But hopefully not in the way you think. Complaining about rejection is a huge no no on this site, and I get why. I'm not going to do that. But I am going to use rejection as a jumping off point for other topics. So basically, if you're the type who sees any mention of rejection being discussed and assumes the person talking is a weak willed, entitled, whining asshole, you can save us both the trouble and click away now.
That said, the other day I got rejected. Nothing new here on Senior Sizzle. Happens all the time to us guys, can't be avoided. But I took this rejection especially hard because of how unnecessarily harsh it seemed. I really felt like the woman hadn't just rejected me, she'd gone out of her way to mock me, as if to point out that not only was she saying no, she was sort of offended (or maybe just amused) that I'd even asked in the first place.
I made the supreme mistake of sharing this with some other people on the site. I was sufficiently chastised for my complaining, but in the process I did manage to get a few responses to my actual concern. The consensus seemed to be that I was misreading the message. Some felt there was no malice at all in the rejection, others that there wasn't any rejection at all, but an invitation for further dialogue!
How could I have misread things so badly? Why was I picking up a negative vibe while others weren't, or were even getting a positive vibe? In confusion I decided to simply be direct and emailed the lady back, asking in clear terms if I'd just been rejected.
I was, in fact, correct on this point. She emailed back and said that indeed, I had been rejected. It seemed pointless to ask if she'd meant to come off as harsh as I felt she had been, so I'll never really know that for sure.
But the point is, many people read the same words and got different, even opposite vibes from it. I've always been fascinated by this. Communication is imperfect, but sometimes (distressingly often, it seems) it can go so awry that completely opposite intentions can be conveyed.
Anybody else have any stories like this one? Have you ever completely misread a situation, or had someone so misinterpret something you said so as to completely change your intended meaning? Tell me your stories!
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Fishing for compliments
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Posted:Oct 2, 2014 5:23 pm
Last Updated:Jan 11, 2016 1:47 am
9822 Views
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Hey ladies! Feeling blue tonight. Say something nice about me!
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Fitting in
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Posted:Sep 30, 2014 6:19 pm
Last Updated:Oct 27, 2014 9:35 pm
10243 Views
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Mingling. Talking. Chatting. Getting to know people in a group setting. I'm awful at it. I'm an introvert who much prefers one-on-one contact. In one-on-one situations, I can relax, get into the flow of conversation, pick up on body language--basically, all the things normal people do in any conversation.
But in group situations, I tend to get overwhelmed easily. The constant stimulation makes me feel the need to close off, and I'll find myself deep in my own thoughts in the middle of a gathering far too often.
If you want to make friends, however, you kind of need to be able to deal with group situations. You can't just grab someone off the street and say "Hey, want to go over here and be alone with me and talk?" That's fucking creepy and weird.
Similarly, in online situations, the group setting is again most popular. Here on Senior Sizzle if you want to talk to others you can either use IM or you can go into the chat rooms. Well, I don't need to tell you guys how futile it is to chat with women on IM here. There isn't a woman on the site who will respond to an unsolicited IM, and most of them get dozens of them every few minutes so even if she might have been interested in what you have to say, it's going to get lost in the shuffle, so IM is pointless for meeting new people.
The chatrooms, however, are group situations again. And all the same problems for me apply. Sometimes I find myself sitting in the chat room, feeling lonely and out of place. I watch everyone else chat and wonder what I'm doing there. When I get that way, I just have to leave.
Anybody else have this problem? How do you deal with it?
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3
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Happiness
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Posted:Sep 27, 2014 11:45 pm
Last Updated:Oct 24, 2014 4:27 pm
10373 Views
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What is it, anyway?
I suffer from clinical depression, which basically means my brain is conspiring against me. Nobody knows what exactly causes it or even really how to effectively treat it, although we have some ideas. For the past year or so I've been on a medication that is effectively managing my depression, which is a life changing thing in many ways. I don't have prolonged, random bouts of darkness and despair anymore. I function day to day almost exactly like your bog standard neurotypical human, and it's amazing. It really is, I really wish everybody who suffers from this disease could feel like this, even if only for awhile.
But I still wonder if I'm happy. I've spent so much of my life in soul crushing blackness that I've never been really sure what happiness even is. For awhile I thought happiness was just the absense of depression. I figured that once the darkness went away that what remained must be happiness.
But is it? Surely that's just "being normal." And while it's pretty magical for someone who has spent most of their life in that darkness, surely that's not what people mean when they say they're happy?
One time a therapist asked me to describe the last time I felt happy and I realized I couldn't. I realized I couldn't even decide if I'd ever really been happy. I think about opening presents on Christmas morning when I was a . Surely that made me happy? I think it did. I remember delight at the anticipation. I remember the rush of finally seeing what was under the wrapping paper. I remember the fun of playing with new toys. I was happy, wasn't I?
Is that all happiness is? A fleeting emotion? If so, why do people describe themselves as happy? Or describe their life situation as being happy? Do they really feel that Christmas morning giddiness all the time? I think that can't possibly be true. And yet... So many people don't believe that depression is a real thing. That some people are caught in the darkness and the despair all the time. But we are. I know that's a fact from experience.
So tell me. Are you happy?
What's it like?
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My Plumbing
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Posted:Sep 25, 2014 6:58 pm
Last Updated:Sep 25, 2014 7:38 pm
10698 Views
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No, not my personal internal plumbing. Although probably at some point I'll talk about that. I'm talking about the plumbing in my house. It apparently is broken.
I took a shower in my downstairs bathroom last night. When I got out of the shower, I noticed something no homeowner wants to see. One of the tiles of the drop ceiling was water stained. It was over the sink, across the room from the shower, so it wasn't just excessive splashing from my shower.
A little background. I just bought this house two and a half months ago. I bought the house and then immediately lost my job, so I've been basically stuck here all that time. I've come to know the place intimately very quickly, so I knew this was new and not something old I was just noticing.
I pushed up the ceiling tile. Or tried to. The drop ceiling is much too low, the tiles don't actually pop up and out like they're supposed to. But this tile was so water damaged it basically crumbled, and so I ended up just tearing it out. Now that the underside of the sub-floor was exposed, I could see three different possible culprits for the leak.
Two were copper pipes running across the ceiling. It was nice to see they were copper and not that older galvanized shit they used to put in houses a lot. The third was a PVC pipe that looked like a drain. Since the upstairs bathroom is right above the downstairs bathroom, I cleverly deduced that this was probably the upstairs tub drain.
There was no major dampness anywhere that I could tell, so it was probably not the water pipes themselves that were leaking. If they were, there would have been a lot more water and dampness, I figured. So that left the tub drain.
So I did what I always do when a home repair issue rears its ugly head. I ignored it. I went to bed and tried to forget about it. Maybe the problem would just magically go away?
I got up this morning and took a bath. After draining the tub and getting dressed, I went downstairs to check on the water situation. Unfortunately, the problem had not magically solved itself as I had hoped it would. Instead, there was water all over the floor under the missing tile. So, yeah. The tub drain needs fixing.
I briefly toyed with the idea of fixing it myself. I used my Google-fu to find some info on fixing leaky tub drains. I found several websites and a few videos. After a few minutes of reading about tools for removing tub drains and some stuff about plumber's putty, I stopped. I'm a computer geek. I can fix and repair computers, but that's about it. Every time I try a home improvement or DIY repair project, I fail miserably and end up breaking things. Sometimes my anger gets the best of me and I deliberately break things in frustration, thus making the problem worse rather than solving it.
So I did what guys like me do when they have these problems. I swallowed my pride and called a plumber. The first plumber I called said they couldn't get anybody out to me until Monday. That's no good, so I called another plumber. He was busy on a job, and said he'd call me back. He didn't. I should have been a plumber. Or an electrician. Or a carpenter. It seems like those guys never lack for work!
While waiting for the second plumber to not call me back, I decided to put my troubleshooting skills to work. I'd read something about how there are various points in the drainage system that could be the problem, not just the main tub drain. So I tested it out by... taking a shower. I mean, why not? I've got nothing else to do. Afterwards I went back downstairs, and... no water!
So what does this mean? It means the tub drain doesn't leak. That's good! But where does the water come from then?
Turns out, from the tub overflow drain. The little drain under the lever that controls the plug. When I take a bath, the water overflows into that drain and then leaks out into the basement bathroom below.
So. My course of action was now clear. Stop taking baths. Problem solved! Check it out, I'm a plumber!!
As Red Green would say: It's a temporary fix. Unless it works.
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New job
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Posted:Sep 24, 2014 8:04 pm
Last Updated:Sep 25, 2014 6:23 pm
10147 Views
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I accepted a new job today! Thus ends my two and a half months of unemployment. I will (hopefully, pending paper work) be starting Monday morning.
I know this will be a huge help in meeting women. I hear chicks dig employed dudes! It's sort of hard to go on a date and answer "So what do you do for work?" with "I sit at home and watch TV and the government sends me money every week." Unless you're a senator.
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To link to this blog (dp_no_not_that) use [blog dp_no_not_that] in your messages.
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