<\/p>\n
So I’m sitting here at work in the final stages of the worst hangover since that time in college when I challenged an idiot savant to a game of chess-for-shots and he cleaned up the board in, like, 22 seconds, and I drank a whole bottle of bourbon and went on some sort of exchange-student molestation spree, then couldn’t eat anything but lettuce and Jell-O for days and threw up acid death in a huge black trash bag that I carried to all of my classes.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s in this similar state now, convinced that I have bowel cancer, where a memory from my youth comes rushing back.\u00a0 Instead of blaming the booze for the cancer, which is logical but, also, self-defeating, I blame an incident in 1990 when I walked across a radioactive spill on the campus of the National Navy Medical Center in Bethesda.<\/p>\n
Of course, I don\u2019t have bowel cancer.\u00a0 But I figure it\u2019s a great lead-in to my concern that I\u2019m socially dysfunctional and have become proud of it.<\/p>\n
\n
The incident, which has nothing to do with anything, really, and is just one of those strange thoughts that flashes into your brain as you throw up whole slices of oranges and coffee in the office trashcan, took place while I was in high school.\u00a0 Back then, instead of booze and broken women, my drugs were Jolt Cola, Pixie Sticks, Super Big Gulps with a \u201csuicide mix,\u201d and liquefied Sugar in the Raw rubbed on my gums and injected into my eyeballs by 14 year old proto-goth girls who loved anal sex.\u00a0 Those were innocent times.<\/p>\n
In a rare moment of volunteerism, I signed up for the Red Cross and selected the posting nobody wanted \u2013 \u201cSeven West,\u201d the wing at the Navy hospital that tended to all of the dying folk.\u00a0 AIDS people, cancer, Navy boys who had entire aircraft carriers fall from the fourth floor of their apartment building onto their heads.\u00a0 I got to watch a man in his final death throes \u2013 AIDS contracted from a tattoo.\u00a0 It\u2019s the reason I don\u2019t have tats today.\u00a0 His agonizing death was quite a show, and went on for a few minutes while a couple of nurses did what they could to keep him from totally freaking out.\u00a0 Just hold him down, try to do some shit, but, otherwise, he was cooked.\u00a0 It was messy, too.\u00a0 I saw just about everything, and they even let me take blood!\u00a0 In the midst of death and ruin, just about every law was broken.\u00a0 Medical supplies, medication, you name it, all stolen openly.\u00a0 Openly as in you could shout down a hall, in front of doctors and officers and families:\u00a0 Hey Bob!\u00a0 Grab the morphine for tonight!\u00a0 We\u2019re gonna get fuuuucked up!<\/p>\n
Seven West introduced me to death, greed, sorrow, corruption, twisted sex, and the proper way to set up a blood transfusion on the fly.<\/p>\n
I\u2019d imagine, in this new and horrible world, things are very different.\u00a0 I know, for one, getting on the center\u2019s campus is now no fun.\u00a0 In 90, I rode my bike up through the back gate \u2013 never any guards \u2013 and tooled around the entire place.\u00a0 I went along steam tunnels, boiler rooms, visited the morgue, got on the roof of the tower, explored the power plant and crawled through the \u201csecret\u201d tunnels that connected several of the buildings.\u00a0 Try that today and they\u2019ll put you in the glass box with Saddam tomorrow.<\/p>\n
So it was under these conditions that I was walking around during lunch and I ran across the radiation spill.\u00a0 Warning signs and tape had been set up, but a detour was going to make me late.\u00a0 What\u2019s a troubled high school kid to do?\u00a0 I walked through the shit, foam and all, and came out the other side to the amazement and horror of the clean-up people.\u00a0 My high school response was simple:\u00a0 I gave them the aggressive \u201cfuck you\u201d look.<\/p>\n
I can currently see through walls and lift cars with one hand, but that\u2019s a secret.\u00a0 Also, I melted a man yesterday just by thinking about it.<\/p>\n
So, that\u2019s the lead-in to my concerns regarding social dysfunction, especially with women.\u00a0 See how subtle and organized this article is?\u00a0 You wish you could write like me. But, until you expose yourself to radiation\u2026I\u2019m sorry.<\/p>\n
I have numerous very good reasons to be awkward in social settings, but what concerns me is my ever-growing sense that I\u2019m just fine with it.\u00a0 That I want<\/em> to be alone and away from people.\u00a0 It\u2019s not that I\u2019m \u201ctired of the dating scene,\u201d which is what fat women and crazy chicks write in their personal ads, it\u2019s that my heart isn\u2019t in it.\u00a0 Really, the only thing I miss about having a woman around is the terrifically crude and cathartic release of sex.\u00a0 Even then, to my dismay, I\u2019ve learned that many women don\u2019t know what they\u2019re doing. \u00a0\u00a0See, here\u2019s the trouble:\u00a0 I hate women, despite a crippling longing for their touch.\u00a0 I find that women are like eating too many Thin Mints, except they\u2019re always at that too much point.\u00a0 That last Thin Mint that you must, and will, consume, but you just know it\u2019s going to tip the scales.\u00a0 It\u2019s going to stroke you out or something.<\/p>\n I have occasion to chat up women now and then but, the whole time, I\u2019m really thinking:\u00a0 What did I get from Netflix tonight?\u00a0 When at a woman\u2019s house, there\u2019s the sad thought:\u00a0 I miss my bed.\u00a0 I miss my routine.\u00a0 It\u2019s time to re-watch Space: 1999<\/em>.<\/p>\n And \u2013 hold it \u2013 I\u2019m just talking about the first season.\u00a0 I wouldn\u2019t give up sex to watch the second season of Space: 1999<\/em>.\u00a0 I don\u2019t want you thinking I\u2019m pathetic.<\/p>\n Friends worry about me.\u00a0 They say I need a woman because I\u2019m entering into the Die Alone phase of my life.\u00a0 In response, I\u2019ve formed a quiet little lunch bunch of social castaways who, like me, have never maintained a relationship longer than 15 months.\u00a0 We drink, we talk, we share great thoughts.\u00a0 There\u2019s freedom in a world without sexual tension, in a world of self-loathing and despair.\u00a0 There, I\u2019m happy.\u00a0 A brief meeting with friends, then back home to my own thoughts and true peace.<\/p>\n But it\u2019s not enough.\u00a0 The natural drive to possess and conquer kicks in whenever there\u2019s a hot waitress, or a local barfly drinking her anorexic life away.\u00a0 I go stupid, but it\u2019s never the charming, endearing sort of stupid.\u00a0 It\u2019s irritating and bizarre.\u00a0 I become a nutcase, rambling on about TV shows and history, completely removed from any sort of reality.\u00a0 That might have been the bee\u2019s knees for the troubled rape-victims looking for solace in college, but those women are now far from me.\u00a0 Now my target audience is the solid 30-something crowd.\u00a0 Responsible, cynical.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve realized that part of the issue is my extreme social discomfort.\u00a0 A sort of nervous twitch that comes from one major problem:\u00a0 Let\u2019s not beat around the bush.\u00a0 Take it up to that final, shut-in level.\u00a0 It\u2019s not just women I hate.\u00a0 I really hate people.\u00a0 I always have.\u00a0 I\u2019m happiest when I go for days without human contact or speech.<\/p>\n Now, I have friends, as I\u2019ve said.\u00a0 A close group.\u00a0 I can and do make new friends.\u00a0 From now to death, I will always be bound to the weird and the crazy.\u00a0 This is a great time in my life, really, because, post-30, most of the weird and the crazy who have survived have become refined creatures.\u00a0 The artists and the ones who manage to maintain a satisfactory financial comfort level are the type of crazy people you can really get down with.\u00a0 The middle-class Patrick Bateman\u2019s.\u00a0 Great people. It\u2019s 9am, let\u2019s go get drunk then drive around the Beltway till sunset.<\/p>\n I seem to bond well with the artists.\u00a0 The people who follow their drive to create\u2026something something.\u00a0 In the midst of their frenzied need, they remain generally functional and entertaining.<\/p>\n Hey!\u00a0 You should meet an artistic, dysfunctional woman, then!<\/p>\n Yes, I know.\u00a0 But it\u2019s back to square one:\u00a0 I just don\u2019t want to work for it.<\/p>\n My most successful relationship \u2013 the 15 month one \u2013 was with a dreamy, nutball lesbian who danced and sang and was just a total screwhead.\u00a0 I loved her to bits.\u00a0 But, I had to put her down.\u00a0 She\u2019s buried next to my beagle out in the backyard. I know, I know. It\u2019s illegal to bury dogs in the backyard, right?<\/p>\n Sometimes I miss her, because she was an expert in hand to hand combat and small arms.\u00a0 These are other values I look for in a woman besides \u201cable to fuck right\u201d and \u201cnot stinky.\u201d<\/p>\n But now I realize that I\u2019m just not happy in a relationship.\u00a0 I lose my ability to adhere to a routine and continue at my necessary comfort levels.\u00a0 Like when you visit a friend and stay on their couch for two weeks.\u00a0 Every relationship has felt like that to me \u2013 I\u2019m on the couch, I\u2019m tiptoeing around the kitchen, I can\u2019t shit right, the friendly neighbor is constantly alarmed that I\u2019m there, there\u2019s only instant decaf coffee and, as the two weeks move on, the friend becomes increasingly desperate to send me on my way.<\/p>\n Not that I\u2019m a confirmed bachelor, as they used to say in the 50\u2019s (it really means \u201cflaming queen,\u201d by the way), just that I have such high standards that I might as well be a cunty queer, as they used to say in the 90\u2019s.<\/p>\n And, yet, I make a fool out of myself if the situation involves a potential mate.\u00a0 All this great talk and bitterness and desire to be alone falls away, even if the woman is a hopeless case.\u00a0\u00a0 Have I, then, simply lost faith in myself?\u00a0 Why do I become so weak when women are around?\u00a0 What is this mindless, reptilian need for conquest that drives me?\u00a0 When can I finally become the quiet, sinister guy in the dark corner who orders pitchers of scotch and does not get stupid even if the 22 year old goth-hippie-alterna waitress celebrates Nudist Day?<\/p>\n The guy who mows our lawn told me that 40 is when you get the pussy \u2013 more than you can dream of.\u00a0 He told me that when I turn 40, if I\u2019m still single, I\u2019ll be able to wield the ultimate power of the life clock and feed off of wave after wave of divorced, lonely women looking for a long term relationship.\u00a0 His warning was that I need to dump them all after three months.\u00a0 Savagely.<\/p>\n Will I reach the purity of mind that I crave at 40, when I\u2019m able to purge the reptilian needs with reliable MILF injections?\u00a0 It is with that idea that I maintain sanity in the face of the uncontrollable stupidity.\u00a0 Soon, they will come to me.\u00a0 This may be disillusionment, but I think it\u2019s an idea that has merit and is worth exploring.<\/p>\n My detractors are correct:\u00a0 I am a sociopath.\u00a0 But I like to think of myself as a \u201cfunctional sociopath.\u201d\u00a0 Like Hitler.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[352],"tags":[353,400],"class_list":["post-2526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gsarchive","tag-gs-archive-2004-2008","tag-wage-slave"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2526","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2526"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2526\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2677,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2526\/revisions\/2677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}