The Dramatic Downfall

Last night I had a heated discussion with a close friend about a few different topics.....a few that were mentioned were:

What I want in life...sometimes it takes someone else to point out to you what you want. I had this happen to me yesterday.

Yes, I know I say one thing and then think another, but we all do this with something or another. Specifically I'm talking about real life relationships with real life people. I have been divorced for ten years now and since then I have not had one meaningful romantic relationship with anyone...it's something that doesn't really bother me...I don't NEED to be with someone. Sure, I would LIKE to spend my time with someone I can appreciate and respect but I am completely comfortable being by myself.

Even when I was in relationships, I was not the kind of person who had to be with them or doing stuff with them all the time, I had things of my own that I enjoyed doing by myself. Yes, I would like a female close to my age, who lived within a reasonable distance to me, to occasionaly go out and maybe see a movie or get a bite to eat....have meaningful conversations or even a steamy makeout session on her couch....hell not even that...I would be just happy with the meaningful conversation part.

I don't really do much in my life these days anyway, I get up at 4 AM everyday to go to work, I have my work friends, I draw a few cartoons for them at breaktime, we all have a good laugh and then we make fun of each other, I come home, I do the computer blog thing or watch movies. Then I go to bed around 9:30 or 10.

My kids live in Indiana 150 miles away with thier mother and her husband, I don't get over there very often and I should call them more,but I don't....I'm not really a phone talker kind of person, I usually only call when I have something important to say. I do love them very much and I miss them, but they are at the age now where they have thier own lives and they do thier own thing....it's not cool to be seen with mom or dad, I can understand this perfectly though, i remember doing the same thing when I was thier age. I know it's nothing personal on either of our parts and I'm sure they love me just as much as I love them.

My divorce really messed me up when it happened, I was literally devastated...and if you ask me why I got a divorce I couldn't give you a straight answer. At the time, I worked in a shoe warehouse and they announced that they were going to close the plant...that sucked...after all those job applications I had put out and job interviews that went to so I could better my family and my income...I even told the guy at the job interview, "If there was any chance that i would get layed off, I didn't want the job." He assured me that the history of the company was impeccable and that it just wouldn't happen. Well, it happened. Fuck.

At the same time this happened, I was also working as wedding photographer and making a pretty decent amount doing that...it was small time potatoes, but I could make more in four hours of doing a wedding than I could while working a whole week at the shoe warehouse.

You start to get to know what people are really like when you work in a business where you have to deal with the public. I had my run in with the public a few times in small claims court with my wedding photography business. Let me tell you this. The customer is ALWAYS right. No matter what you say or do with anything even if you perform perfectly and you present them with flawless photos...there are still going to be those people who are just not satisfied with anything.

I witnessed this personally,twice. There was no possible way for me to assure and insure myself that something similar to this sort of occurance would happen to me in the future...so I just gave it up. To hell with it, I don't need the headaches from the public.

It also didn't help my situation at the time that to escape from my problems I would medicate myself with over the counter ephedrine pills. You may or may not remember the "Mini Thins" you would always see on the counter at numerous gas stations or mini marts. They are illegal to sell now, they passed a law about two years ago banning ephedrine from all products, in all states.

I learned to take handfulls at a time and to slowly feel the drug moving through my veins, I liked it, oh hell who am I kidding, I LOVED IT. They were better than alcohol because they didn't make you drunk, they were a stimulant. I perfectly understand how addiction happens and what it is like being addicted.

I would find myself buying them all the time, a bottle of 50 in a day, I would go through them like they were breath mints, it would keep me up for hours even days...I lost focus on what I was even doing in life and with my family. I didn't even care. I didn't give a shit about anything, fuck my job, fuck the public fuck it all.... I just didn't care if I lived or died. I'm sure that had something to do with why my wife left me. That and her mother. Over the years my ex has told me a couple of times that it wasn't supposed to be this way, referring to her and I getting a divorce, I'm sure she would have really liked to work things out between us, but since she lets her mother dictate her life, and since she hasn't got the balls to stand up to her, this is how it ended.

While I was working at the shoe warehouse I introduced this guy to my wife's sister, they hit it off great and they eventually got married. So how does this guy repay me for introducing him to his future wife? Right at the time my wife and I are having problems with our marriage and before we could even begin to try and work things out with one another, this guy introduces my wife to his cousin.

I'm sure there is plenty of blame to pass around here and I'm also included in the mix, but one thing led to another and wham bam, I get divorce papers served to me and they get married in less than a year after our divorce was final. She has always denied cheating on me, and I will probably will never know for sure, but when you are seeing another man while you are still married but having problems, and you refuse to work things out or seek counseling, it's the same as cheating in my book.

I know I sound bitter. I know I want to blame everyone but myself. I did not want a divorce, I had planned on one women for the rest of my life. I'm sure I wasn't perfect. I'm guilty of alot of things, but through all of that shit we went through, I would have never imagined it was THAT bad...SO bad that we needed to get a divorce.

I never thought it would happen, I thought we would eventually work it out. Well, that never happened.... and now that other guy has MY kids and what used to be MY wife and I have to pay child support so he can raise MY kids. Yes, I am bitter. So I guess, I hope you understand where I'm coming from when I am a little aprehensive when it comes to jumping into a relationship with a woman.

The more I think about it the more it starts to creep up on me and my fears....I really don't want to be alone when I get older, or even NOW, I really would like someone around to do things with and to live out the rest of my years with.

The one thing that holds me back is the DRAMA...all of the damn head games that women play...I really don't need another heart break in my life...I've really had it something awful over the years...I'm sure you all know what I'm talking about when you finally give in to your emotions and you decide that you DO love them and you want to be with them....only to have them mash your heart into pulp....yeah, this is awful...I'm not really looking forward to anything like that again.

I would like to think that I'm a straight forward guy who doesn't play games ( i'm sure this point could be argued )...I would prefer a woman who is the same, someone who can just tell you to your face, I don't want this, I do want this, you know what I mean? I appreciate honesty and I can respect someone who is up front and to the point.

I think it's impossible for women to be that way, they let emotions get in the way of decision making and then it makes them do the wrong thing. I'm sure everyone knows the difference between the right thing to do and the wrong thing to do, at any given moment with any given situation, when you let emotions enter into the equation, you are at risk of making the wrong decision. I have made myself into a victim many times by letting emotions take me over and rule my decisions...sometimes you don't even realize what your doing...until after the fact....I'm guilty just as much as the next person....I see a pair of brown eyes on a pretty girl and I just melt into a slab of gibbering goo...."Uh, blorgle barg here's my heart will you please stomp on it?"

I may not know what I want in life...but I sure as hell know what I DON'T WANT.

We talked about online relationships and is it possible to TRULY know someone that you have met online. I suppose you would have to answer NO to this question, but I think that you CAN learn to trust someone completely, just from reading thier words and with conversations online. It's not a perfect way to get to know someone, but it is the next best thing to knowing them in real life or knowing someone that knows them in real life....heh.

Back when I first got this computer in the spring of 2000, I was fascinated with chat rooms and chat people and the different things that happen in chat. I got to be what they call "a regular" in the Yahoo chat rooms....yeah, I surfed around from different rooms looking for that one in particular that I enjoyed... "Extraterrestrial Life" is the one that I finally chose. There were some nice people in that room, and day after day of entering the room and getting to know the different people, I have made what I call lifelong friends. A few in which I totally trust completely and have never doubted anything they have told me. I haven't been there in years but I know there are still people that I know in this room and if I was to go back a few would recognize me immediately.

Yeah, but is it possible to actually meet someone online and then meet them in real life and then continue the relationship? Is it the norm? NO. Can it happen? YES. I have seen online relationships end up in marriage at least three times, and I know for a fact that meeting people online is a great way to meet people to date in real life. The drawbacks are WEIRDOS. You have to keep your eyes open and peeled for people that are creeps and who are just saying things to get what they want from you. I have never personally met anyone in real life that I have met online. I am very skeptical of people who want to meet you in real life after only knowing you a few weeks or even months online. That is NOT nearly enough time to really get to know a person to make such a decision.

When you have screen names like Sexkitten_1981, or Kingcock_69 you know immediately what the person is looking for. Don't give me this shit, oh yeah, they are a nice girl or guy....look, the point is when you put sexual references in your online ID, you aren't just looking for good conversation. You are there for SOMETHING, and you know what I mean.

Allright...I've written enough.