You know, four years ago I would gladly have leapt on the “let’s make fun of Stephen Den Beste bandwagon, but then one of the commentors at D-Squared’s place had to go and point at this cry for help:
Or at least that seems to be my experience. Six years ago I broke up with my last girlfriend after eight years together, and what I’m finding is that there are no women around me anymore. I don’t remember it being like this 14 years ago.
I spent six years trying to accept that I was no longer a man and accepting my role as a male person; trying to become comfortable with the fact that I would spend the rest of my life alone, surrounded by female persons but not having any contact with women, any kind of contact at all, physical or otherwise.
[…]
So for six long years I tried to get used to being a male person and tried to become comfortable with the idea that there would only be no women around, only female persons. And for six years the only women in my life were encoded in JPEG.
And then three weeks ago I took a trip to Vegas and blew that all to hell.
[…]
There are things which women and men can do with each other that female persons never do with male persons. A woman’s face lights up when she sees her special man. She hugs him. She puts her arm around his waist and holds him. They sit next to each other with no gap between them. There’s no 3-foot privacy boundary between them. They cuddle. They sleep together. They call each other on the phone just to hear the other’s voice. They share their triumphs and tragedies. They love each other. They care about each other. They’re special to each other.
And I realized that I can’t live without that. I don’t want to meet female persons. I want to meet, get to know, and learn to love a woman and have her love me back as a man.
[…]
A strip club. Yup, a place where men go and pay women to take their clothes off. At such a sleazy place, I was actually at peace with myself for the first time in six years.
[…]
Now it’s true that this is somewhat exaggerated. You’re reading the writings of a middle-aged man who is dreadfully lonely. But there’s a great deal in this which is true. If I’m standing in line next to an attractive woman and after talking to her for a while and discovering that I like her and that we seem to be getting along well, I cannot follow the engineer’s way, and say to her “You seem to be intelligent, articulate, and well educated, and I would consider myself extraordinarily lucky to become romantically involved with you. My intentions are strictly honorable. May I see you again?” That’s what my inclination is to do: very straightforward, very honest, completely unambiguous — it’s the engineer’s way. Say it and get it out, communicate clearly. (I tried this once and it was an abject
failure.)
And what is he doing now? blogging about anime; I felt such a pity reading that plea for understanding masquerading as an essay. There but for the grace of god (and not being a complete asshole) go I. So yeah, I pity him, but not as much as I pity the poor woman who becomes thefocus of his attentions. If I learned one thing, it’s that it is rarely the “nice guys”, (ie. the guys who always have to shout from the rooftops about how nice they are and they don’t understand why they’re still single) who are good for you.