I have received a complaint.
Our Rich writes from the lovely city of Boston, Mass. over the pond in the US of A:
"I don't know what's happened to you, Dive. You seem to be getting like an old softy. NOT the Dive of old who used to be cynical and amuse us all with your bitching and ranting. No wonder old knudsen doesn't read your blog anymore.
jeez!!"
To which I can only concur …
Sorry, Rich, I don't know what's wrong with me, either. Try as I might, I just cannot seem to get it up these days. I've been sitting here all morning, desperately straining to work up a rant and there's nothing there.
I'm so ashamed.
This has never happened before … Honest!
I've always been able to get a rant up at a moment's notice, but just lately it appears that I have become rant-impotent.
Invectile dysfunction: The inability to produce invective, spleen, vitriol, or even a plain and simple fit of incoherent rage.
Bummer!
The closest I can get today is to rail pathetically against myself and my total inability to chat up weemen.
Let's go back to last Saturday and the Festival of Cultures (cue wibbly "flashback" music).
I am setting out all the food when this stunningly pretty girl walks up and looks lost.
I turn on my smile and reach for my not inconsiderable reservoir of wit and charm and …
… and I manage to have a long and detailed conversation with her about scones.
After which she - understandably - keeps at least ten yards away from me all afternoon.
A little later and one of the most truly beautiful women I can ever remember seeing approaches me, smiling and starts up a conversation.
Woah! Result!
Yeah, right …
What happens?
Mister intelligent, funny, charming, confident Dive returns the smile and …
Bang!
My brain totally seizes …
She is talking to me and asking me personal things and the only word in my brain is "Duh" … and I cannot even articulate that as my mouth is flapping like a fish in the bottom of a boat and I hear myself stutter and freeze.
After a while, she wanders off, looking confused.
Joy introduces us later in the day and leaves us together and exactly the same thing happens again.
Pathetic.
Shoot me now.
If I believed in God I could go join a monastery, but I don't, so fuck it.
Hey, ho … Back to masturbation.
22 comments:
Honey you're not the only one who seems to have lost the ability to spit venomon on any given subject.
My excuse? A doctor who put me on seretonin producing meds so that I'm happy or at least in a holding pattern where I don't care or explode.
I miss exploding, I miss unrighteous indignation, i miss being merely peturbed, peeved, partially pissed off.
Happiness has its drawbacks.
Yeah, there's something kinda lame about not being able to work up a good rage, isn't there, Kate?
Hey ho. We can't win.
Dive, could it be that you've been spending too much time with me - someone who tries to live up to her name for the most part? :D But we love you just the way you are!
At least you try to introduce me to attractive women, Joy. It's just my inability to do anything about it that frustrates me.
And I don't love me just the way I am; I'd like myself a whole lot better if I had a girlfriend.
Damn, damn, damn!
Excuse me??? You'd like yourself a whole lot better if you had a girlfriend? Why? Before anyone can love us, we should be able to look in the mirror and say, "I love you! You're gorgeous, kind and have a great sense of humour!" :D
And spending time with me - I thought that could be part of the reason you haven't been able to rant lately because I'm always jolly :D
Joy, I only look in the mirror when I need to shave and then I just see a double chin with a heaped helping of ug on top.
And yes, you have been making me unnaturally cheerful of late. This week at work should manage to bring me back down to rantiness again, though.
Ha ha, Dive. this has to be one of your more laughable posts and I mean laughable in a funny way.
If that makes any sense at all.
As for the "complaint" -
I wasn't complaining so much as I was merely noticing a change in you - a change that well, maybe just what you needed.
So, go get em tiger!!!
Cheers, Rich!
It looks, however, like I'll be returning to a diet of ranting and masturbation fairly soon.
Hey ho.
Women … huh!
Did I call it or cause it? I knew there would be an "I need a gf" post coming soon. teehee
If only you could just get over that initial talking problem, and try to turn off the charm entirely, you'd probably have a better chance. I would suffer from the same exact problem, by the way, so I am not judging or feeling sorry for you. I am thinking of it from back when I was in that uncomfortable world of singledom.
Can you fool yourself and act like you are unavailable so that you are like a charming friend or someone's husband? Can you ignore the womanly wiles and go straight for personality research? Those things would keep you from losing yourself to imagining them looking at you through your eyes. They will see your personality and cleverness combined with your dapper ways as long as you don't try too hard to impress right off.
Also you've got to get over that "ug" image you have of yourself because you are not, AND very few people look like Johnny Depp anyway.
I still think you just spend too much time on the train to socialize enough. Stick with Joy, but at a slight distance just so you don't look taken. She'll get you out there amonst the ladies. ;) You are well on your way with the non-rantiness already. Bahha
Sorry I can't resist giving my input. I love matchmaking (even if I'm not especially skilled in that area). :D
Shan, you definitely called that one.
I was joking about the "wit and charm"; I have none of either.
And living alone is lovely … no girly mess in the bathroom, no cold feet in bed, nobody leaving the towels wonky, nobody telling me my cooking needs more salt … until of course I leave the safety of my house and then it sucks.
And hey, looking like you do you could never have been in a position where men weren't queueing up to court you!
I'm not so sure about the wisdom of looking to meet women again though. Too many decades of rejection have caused quite enough damage as it is.
Sigh …
Hahaheehaw. I can tell you right now that your food needs more salt. There's never enough! And you are ever so kind but Shannon is a real fixer upper. There's very little natural beauty going on here. Plus, she was an extremely late bloomer who spent most of her life looking like a frog (probably why I'm scared of them). Did you notice the way I removed myself third person style from my memories? Ugly times develop our senses of humour. :)
Some frog! Hee hee. I imagine Prince Jamey is very pleased with his Frog Princess.
Ugly times took my sense of humour and twisted it into sickening shapes, then painted it black.
I have plenty to say on this topic, but I can't right now because I'm still at work and my brain can't form thoughts that aren't related to the law. Check back later!
Talk about a teaser trailer. Now I'm not going to be able to settle until I know what you have to say, Katie!
My problem was never with the initial conversation. I was good at that shit. It was the conversation after being together for several months that went badly for me. I would just...lose interest in anything they had to say..
I was usually the one that girls lost interest in, Maria.
Unfortunately it was right around the time they first saw me.
Hey ho.
Ok, I’m finally ready to add my comments, for what they’re worth. Since I haven’t been around since you first started blogging, I’ll have to assume that Rich from Boston knows of what he speaks when he says you’ve become an old softy. I personally think this is good news for you, because a guy who does nothing but rant all the time is not what most women are looking for. Don’t get me wrong, your rants are brilliant, but it’s because you’re allowing us to see the “old softy” beneath the surface that makes you so appealing (at least to me).
I only know Joy from your posts, but she seems like a good influence on you in the happy department, so keep up the good work Joy! However I totally agree with Shan that you should “ignore the womanly wiles and go straight for personality research.” I’m a little concerned by your descriptions of women you’re attracted to who are “stunningly pretty” and “most truly beautiful.” Nothing against incredibly attractive women, but their looks might be blinding you, thus your inability to be yourself around them. Not that attraction isn't important, but if you can’t be your witty, ranty self then ultimately how can a relationship work? I wish I had the secret to finding a good balance between a happy independent life and a dating life, but I haven’t discovered it yet. I’m still happy being selfishly responsible for no one but me, but I can definitely understand your frustration. As the song says, nice work if you can get it, and if you get it, won't you tell me how?
Oooh! I love big comments, Katie. Hee hee.
Ah, the Mister Ranty thing …
I would never rant like "Dive" or produce such vituperative swear-fests in real life, though of course we all feel like it sometimes, so "Dive" and myself share blogging duties. The blog gives me/him an outlet to let off steam (and also to wind people up … I'll confess to an addiction to facetiousness and mischief).
Occasionally, when I feel really offensive, I'll hand the blog over to Stouffer, my blue rubber cat, who makes "Dive" look like a nun, but I may well be softening as Stouffer hasn't shown his rubbery face much lately.
Yes, I am an "old softie" … Whilst "Dive" hates the world in general and everybody in it in particular, I tend to like people. While "Dive" denies any God I'm just someone who was brought up a Christian but lost my faith and it would be kinda nice to get it back sometime.
The annoyingly pedantic rants about language are, however, all me. Hee hee.
Joy doesn't like to see anyone unloved (very admirable) and tries to guide me toward dating, but I've had forty-nine years of rejection and heartache and I know I stopped looking good decades ago, so I have no illusions that anything will ever change there.
And our opinions of what is attractive change with age (thank goodness; I don't want to start fancying teenage girls at fifty!), so when I wrote about the beautiful woman I met at the Festival I meant she was a nice-looking middle-aged woman, with all the comforting sagginess that implies. The "beauty" there was in her personality; she just shone.
Plus I would never "date". I've always gone into relationships committed for life and I really miss sharing everything with a long term partner (hell, Ming and I were together for sixteen years, so yes, I even miss the girly mess in the bathroom).
You can follow "Dive's" dating frustrations through the archives using the "Not Dating" label if you want to laugh at my suffering. Hee hee.
If I ever find the secret I'll let you know before I tell the rest of the world.
Oh heavens I didn't mean to imply that I thought you were a ranty person in "real" life -- I assumed you weren't! That's what I get for commenting while tipsy. I'll check out your "Not Dating" links and although I wouldn't dream of laughing at your suffering (being in a similar boat and all), I will I'm sure learn to more fully appreciate your current situation.
Hee hee, Katie. No worries.
Feel free to laugh at my suffering. I certainly laugh at it myself.
Dive...Burt's Bees makes a really good hand salve...in case you develop calluses from all that....uh....handshaking!
Hee hee hee.
No worries, Shazza. You're talking to the author of the onanist self help manual "Fifty Ways To Love Your Lever."
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