Risk of Dating a Negro, 2008

This is the new version, updated for 2008. Some things have changed, but some things stay the same. Many people are unaware of ways to tell if they or a loved one are at risk for dating a Negro. Here, as a public service, I provide for you 10.

1 You’re A White Female, Especially Italian, With a Big Ass.

As always, the reasons for this one abound. Especially since Ice-T has his white girl with a big ass, not only is such a woman sexually desirable, they are also seen as a status symbol. There has been much speculation that CoCo T has Ass Implants (honestly, who was the first person to ask for those?) but the effect on the imaginations and libidos of American men has been unmistakable. Witness the popularity of Kim Kardashian, Jessica Biel, and (thick) Britney Spears. They were always thick, but their Hollywood managers wanted them to hide it. These same Hollywood types occasionally make Beyonce lose a lot of weight so that she can be more appealing to white moviegoers, which is absolutely ridiculous because it’s pretty certain by now that all men like curvy girls anyway.

For some reason, and the hypothesis out there are numerous to be sure, the I-talian women have rear ends that draw black men like moths to a flame. A white girl with a big ass is like chocolate and peanut butter; two great tastes that go great together. At this point you are at risk simply because of the enormous volume of demands for your attention. Unless you have a personal bodyguard, any appearance in a mixed or, God help you, hip-hop crowd will have you drawing a crowd like a Black man at a routine traffic stop. Honorable mention; the Latina’s butt, the Polish girl’s butt.

Rule-outs: Here we will rule out the wide, flat butt, as no one likes a two-dimensional ass.

2 Good “ratio”

The ratio I speak of is waste-to-hips, and is closely related to number 1. Although for some reason the white girl with the big ass is most preferable, any girl who has a positive WtH ratio is fair game to the Black man. For instance, if you have 24 inch waste and 42 inch hips, you might as well start picking out names for your future mulatto children now. Again, the overwhelming volume of offers of love, money, and affection will wear down even the mightiest will.

Rule-outs: There aren’t very many rule-outs here for a good Ratio, unless, you know, she has a developmental disability or something… that’s just wrong. Also, rule-out Indian girls, for even though you may find one with a Good Ratio, chances are her parents would disown her for dating a Negro, and let’s face it, Indian girls just aren’t rebellious enough to risk getting cut off from their parents money.

3 Excessive BET Viewing or Hot 97 Listening

Look, Black people don’t even watch BET excessively. If you or a loved one is watching more than 4 hours a day of BET, then going Black cannot be far off. Actually, now that I think about it, my brother watches a lot of BET. This concerns me and I’m trying to get him into treatment for it. But in any case, if you are anything but Black and you watch a lot of BET… You are gonna date a Negro.

Rule-outs: If you’re doing this for research for a paper on screwed up gender roles in Hip Hop.

4 Tupac

Tupac is a definite risk-factor for dating a Negro. If you find that you have a definite appreciation not only of the man, but if his message and his music, this denotes two things: 1. you most likely harbor a deep attraction towards African Americans, and 2. you have just enough white, liberal guilt that you feel the need to make up for slavery with oral sex. I, personally, commend you on this act of reparation.

Rule-outs: Maybe she just really, really, likes his lyrics. Yeah, right…

5 General Rebelliousness

Do you have staid, conservative, stick-in-the-mud parents? Nothing will put a bug up their ass faster than bring Tyrone from Marcy Projects over for Christmas Dinner. And I’m not talking about a Sidney Poitier “Guess Whose Coming to Dinner” cultured African American either. For maximum effect, have him bring one or more of his “baby-mommas” over, if applicable. If your Black BF/GF is an upstanding member of society, he or she can always have a more uncouth sibling and/or cousin stand in to gain the necessary pants-wetting effect from one’s parents.

Rule-outs: If the subject has to chose between Tyrone and having her parents cut off the payments for her new Jetta, bye-bye Tyrone.

6 Jewish Rebelliousness

Do you have staid, conservative, stick-in-the-mud Jewish parents? Well, nothing will put them off of their Matzah faster than bringing LaDanien home for a nice Passover dinner. The only thing that will twist your mom’s panties tighter than bringing home a Gentile will be bringing home a Gentile Shvatza! Oy vey!

Rule-outs: Same as above.

7 Previous History

Say it with me, “Once you go Black, you never go back.” Actually, statistics prove that up to 20% of those who go Black do indeed go back. Still, if your subject goes Black 3 out of 4 guys, then that’s a statistically significant percentage of times gone Black. Trends like that do not just reverse themselves.

In a longitudinal study done by the University of Wisconsin, it turns out that previous studies about how many people go back suffered from Validity and Reliability errors. In their new double-blind cross cultural study, it turns out that the actual percentage of those who do go back is closer to 15.35%, which is still statistically significant at an Alpha level of .1%

Rule-outs: Some of those who go Black one too many times end up getting the shit kicked out of them by an irate baby-momma. That significantly reduces the likelihood of going Black again.

8 Substance Abuse

Do you or someone you love have a very large Marijuana habit? Do you have a tendency to listen excessively to Snoop Dogg and Cyprus Hill songs? Combined with certain aspects of number 4 and you have a sure-fire Negro-Lover.

Rule-outs: The Grateful Dead/Phish dirty hippy marijuana abuser avoids Negroes like the plague, because they know we absolutely hate White people with dreadlocks. Drives us mad. They also avoid the Police for that matter, and by the Police I do not mean the band lead by Sting.

9 Social Influence and Naming

Where you the only white kid in a sea of Black faces growing up, and consequently, is your snowflake of a daughter named Shaniqua? And now is she the only White girl in a sea of Black faces? Do you really think she’s going to go out of her way to find the only other White person in the school to date? No. If the subjects entire peer group that she socializes with regularly is black, and her friend’s call her “White Chocolate”, and most of your friend’s are Black, there’s virtually no chance that your gene pool is going to stay melanin free for much longer; that is, if it has stayed so already. You might as well invest in some Magnum condoms for her now… “just in case”.

Rule-Outs: If said “White Chocolate” speaks hip-hop very well, is immersed in Black culture, but hasn’t actually spoken to a Black person face to face in 3 years, then the likelihood of dating a Negro is similarly low. Such “suburban hood-rats” can be tantalizing to the average Black man, but they usually turn out to be no more than teases who appreciate everything about Black culture except for actual Black people.

10 First Contact

If you’ve been sheltered your entire life, cut off from any “negative influences” and somehow, somewhere you come across the first Black man in your life… in person? Well, everyone has an attraction to what’s new, mysterious, and exotic. It only takes a few right words for that exotic man to have that girl exploring his exotic penis.

Rule-outs: Some women have never been exposed to Black men for a reason… Say, they believe we are all gun-toting rapists and murderers. Now, I wonder where they would get that idea? *coughFOXNEWScough*

Being a Good Man

For me, being myself, being a man, and being a good man are three totally separate things. I will explain. When I am being myself, I am considerably strange. Most people cannot understand me. I in fact, kind of scare people. Very, very few people know how strange I really am. Extremely few. And it is not the ordinary amount of when people say “if you knew what I really thought you’d be horrified”, because no, I wouldn’t. I have encountered the worst of humanity, so what bad thoughts you have about your mother really would not impress me. I’ve heard people’s worst fears and darkest secrets, and I was not taken aback. What is going on in my head is a dozen times worse. So, being myself is out of the question, completely out of the question. The me I am is an approximation of me based on what I feel my environment can handle at the moment. Then again, maybe that is what everyone believes; that their thoughts are worse than everyone else’s. Maybe my thoughts really are tame compared to the basest desires of the most innocent looking person I could find. I guess with myriad personalities on the world, I really could not know for sure.

Then there is being a Man. That one I think I have down. I have some extremely girly moments, but I got thrown out of a bar a year or two back, and I think that puts me firmly in the Male category. Also I am unabashedly into guy things. I like violence, sports, fighting, and crassness, all things typically associated with males. I have a reputation as being a skirt-chaser, which is somewhat groundless, but I will not deny that I am in love with women, the entire gender and all contained therein. I also would say that I possess the more noble attributes of my gender. I consider myself to be strong in mind and body, and am fiercely loyal to my friends and family. Fiercely might be an understatement; it is the reason why I was thrown out of said bar, Olde Queens. I am rabidly devoted to my friends and the women I love. Unfortunately this leads to another unfortunate male trait, jealous rage. I know women can have jealous rage as well, but it seldom reaches the intensity of mine I think; maybe it does and women just have way more self-control than I do. That is entirely possible. But in the end, I think I am a fairly decent example of what a man is and should be.

The last part is the hardest, being a Good Man. Being a good man does not come naturally to me; I have to work at it. My definition of a good man is shown by the things I am trying to be. I am trying to be more considerate of the feelings of those who care for me. I am trying to be more considerate of others feelings in general. I am trying to use my talent for empathy for good instead of evil. I am trying to be a one woman man. I am trying to think about things that affect the planet. I am trying to be more considerate of my fellow man, and brighten up the days of those around me. I am trying to not let my bad moods spread to those around me. I am trying to not take anyone or anything I have for granted, to be appreciative of everyone who loves and cares for me. I am trying to be more responsible, more productive, and more self-sufficient. I am trying to be less selfish and more giving. I am trying to achieve better health, both mentally and physically. I am trying to not let the ghosts of my past catch up to me and bring me to a similar fate as my mother. I am trying to be a better brother, grandson, and nephew. I am trying to put myself in a position to be the best father ever one day. I am trying to make right what once went wrong, much like Scott Bakula, and do right to those to whom I have done wrong. I want to be stable and interesting, to be me but better, more refined, more desirable. I want to be a good and decent man. And I am close, so very close… but not there yet..

In my opinion many, many people get by in life but just being themselves, or some very few manage to just be men. So few strive to actually be good men. It seems that in my life, people will not let me get away with just being a man, or much less being myself. Mostly it seems that people expect more of me. I cannot get away with being a lousy, piece of crap scumbag like most men. I have to strive to be better, because when I do not the people who care about me become very disappointed and disillusioned, and that is not a pleasant feeling for me. I have to achieve a higher standard of behavior than most guys, mainly, I think, because I seem to be capable of it, or at least that is what people tell me. Even people who have only known me for a while seem to think I have the capability to be much more than I am, in fact, more than most men have the capability to be, if I can just figure out how to fulfill my true potential.

Not that I should feel any pressure… I remember, when I was young, very young, thinking highly of myself for being a good person. When I was in 5^th grade I found a wallet full of cash and returned it. I probably did more for my race at that moment than at any other point in my life, seeing as how I was the only black kid in the school. But as time went by, my sense of morality slid and slid and slid, to the point where I am the writer you are reading now. I’m fairly immoral, or “morally flexible” as I like to say. I think I can be a good man and be morally flexible (being myself) all at the same time. I can be a synthesis of the immoral me and the good man I want to be. I am trying and I think I am getting there. But being a Good Man takes a lot of effort, more than people realize. It is so much easier to be evil, and sometimes it feels, more rewarding.

How to Properly Celebrate Black History Month

There is only one way to properly celebrate Black history month. There are many ways that people do so; they educate themselves on famous Black people, they visit museums, they may even think twice before shooting Black suspects. But really, there is only one surefire way to celebrate Black History month, and that is by rescinding white privilege. Now I know many of you are unaware of white privilege; by it’s definition you should not be aware of it, especially if you happen to be white, so I will attempt to define it for you. Wait, better yet, why should I define it when I can have someone else define it for you;

"white privilege, a social relation
1. a. A right, advantage, or immunity granted to or enjoyed by white persons beyond the common advantage of all others; an exemption in many particular cases from certain burdens or liabilities.
b. A special advantage or benefit of white persons; with reference to divine dispensations, natural advantages, gifts of fortune, genetic endowments, social relations, etc.
2. A privileged position; the possession of an advantage white persons enjoy over non–white persons.
3. a. The special right or immunity attaching to white persons as a social relation; prerogative.
b. display of white privilege, a social expression of a white person or persons demanding to be treated as a member or members of the socially privileged class.
4. a. To invest white persons with a privilege or privileges; to grant to white persons a particular right or immunity; to benefit or favor specially white persons; to invest white persons with special honorable distinctions.
b. To avail oneself of a privilege owing to one as a white person.
5. To authorize or license of white person or persons what is forbidden or wrong for non–whites; to justify, excuse.
6. To give to white persons special freedom or immunity from some liability or burden to which non–white persons are subject; to exempt."
From http://whiteprivilege.com/definition

So yes, there ya go. White privilege. They enjoy every day of their lives and are many times not aware of it. We as Black people are quite aware of it, because we do not enjoy such privilege. We in fact suffer from something that can be called Black Disadvantage. Black Disadvantage means you have to work two or three times as hard just to achieve the same level as white people are given on a silver platter. For instance, I have not spelt the word "privilege" correctly once in this entire essay. I blame the public school system for giving me a substandard education compared to my white classmates, and not on the fact that I am for some reason convinced that privilege has an "a" in it.
I digress. I celebrate Black History Month by denying white privilege to all white people I see. I don’t grant them special privileges. I cut them off in traffic. I don’t let them merge. I cut them in line. I steal their girlfriends (especially if they are dating Brown or Black girls). I urge all of you to do the same in any way you can. Deny White people loans, keep them from moving into good neighborhoods, don’t pick them up in your cabs in favor of Black people. The best way to celebrate Black History month is to give White people a month long taste of what it’s like to be Black. Black men; date lots of women even though you’re ugly, have terrible bodily hygiene, no personality, and no social skills to speak of, but get the benefit of the doubt simply because you’re Black (the most coveted of White Privileges, being able to date any race of girl despite being a troll). Black people should be allowed to get out of all sorts of legal trouble because of either A. being cute and blond, B, having big boobs, or C. knowing somebody. Also, the rate of White people being pulled over, ticketed, and arrested for no good goddamn reason should increase by 70% during Black history month.
White people, you can do your part too; give up "Friends" for Black History Month. Forego all your white niceties for a month. Try your hardest not to call us niggers when your alone with your friends (don’t pretend you don’t; we know). Eat soul food until your blood pressure gets dangerously high. Get rid of your health insurance for the month and see how hard it is to get by. Go Up to Harlem and see how we feel in small suburban towns in New Jersey. Get shot 20 or 30 times by NYPD. Really get the feel of what it is like to be African American in America today. This part might be hard, but try mightily to give up your air of self-entitlement, as if the world owes you something; don’t enter every establishment with the attitude that everyone there should kiss your ass. This is more a result of a lifetime enjoying white privilege than of white privilege itself, but still, it’s extremely annoying. Try to accept that you aren’t always in charge of everything; everyone doesn’t have to speak your language, everyone doesn’t have to like your music, and everyone does not have to do things your way. Once you have accepted these facts, you are well on your way to rescinding your own White Privilege, and truly Celebrating Black History. Oh yeah, and don’t Lynch anybody; that’d be in extremely bad form.

Crouching Fierce

I love Street Fighter. If you did not know that about me, I would be quite surprised to think that you are my friend. Wait, I more than love Street Fighter, Street Fighter is like a cherished pet that I’ve had for the last 15 years. I love Street Fighter. Chun-Li, Ryu, and Ken are like brothers and sister to me.
So, that being said, the decline in popularity of fighting games is very distressing to me. It reflects the incredible puss-ization of America’s youth. The same way kids are more prone to shooting each other than having hand-to-hand fights and taking the possibility of being humiliated publicly, kids these days don’t want to play someone in an arcade head to head. They just want to sit n their x-boxes and PS2’s and trash talk each other from the safety of their living rooms, never once risking actual humiliation, or in fact real human interaction. Kids these days suck. They don’t know what it is to gloat over another persona’s fallen digital form. They do not know the joy of a UUUUUUUUUULLLLTRAAAAAAAAAAA COOOOOMBOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They don’t know that an Aerial Rave can be just as exciting as a real one. It really is sad.
Samurai Shodown, if you hit someone just right, you cut them in half when you beat them. THAT’S COOL! Of course nothing beats that Innovator of Violence, Mortal Kombat. When I was in school MK people and SF people did not get along, they were like cats and dogs. I, as you know, was a SF person, I hated MK people. They were just generally bastards and jerks. They preferred things the easy way. Street Fighter was too complicated for them. They also were those really, creepy heavy metal guys who always drew bloody pictures in their notebooks and didn’t smell quite right. But, for what it is worth, I always liked watching MK. I remember the first time I ever saw it was in the arcade at Middlesex County College. I was mesmerized, my eyes had been opened to something fantastic and wonderful. I just could not stop uttering those magical phrases in that famous guttural tone, "EXCELLENT! FINISH HIM!" I was in another state of mind. Imagine my disappointment when I discovered how terrible the gameplay was, and how hard the fatalities were to execute. Back to SF for me
Samurai Shodown came from the SNK camp of fighting games, those geniuses who brought you Fatal Fury and King of Fighters. Nobody put more effort into fighters than SNK, and that’s including CapCom. SNK is out of business now, and I think that was a major blow, but they've been bought, so at least their characters are still alive. CapCom owns the rights to many of the characters, but they seem loathe to do anything new with them. Except now, there is the news of the orgasm-inducing Street Fighter 4. Everyone is into first person shooters now. Cold impersonal games where you run around shooting people with exotic weapons. No strategy, no tact, no personality, just running and shooting. No creativity, no action… it seems incredibly boring to me. But it is more popular now than ever, certainly more popular than SF. But then there are sites like http://www.shoryuken.com/, that reaffirm my faith in humanity. The real fighters are still out there. It kind of makes me feel good to know that I am the last of a dying breed. I feel like a guy who makes guns by hand, or a blacksmith or something. Fighting games are a niche now, a psychotic subculture that worships the crouching fierce. We know chain combos like the back of our hands, and we can do Hadokens in our sleep. Most people don’t understand us, but we understand us. It’s nice to belong, it’s nice to know that no matter what I’ll always have a scar because of my first Shoryuken. I know when I’m old, there will only be a few of us out there, but even when I’m 80, I’ll still smile when I hear the words "TIGER, GENOCIDE!!!"

Extrastentialism

"We Do All That We Can Do, the Best We Can, and Await the Results"
- Literal translation of the Japanese word "Nintendo"

It has been established that I have some unique views about spirituality, philosophy, and the function and purpose of the Universe, as well as our places in it. Most people get the answers to these questions from organized religion. My sources are no more or less real than that, but they are generally more entertaining. My view of the world is mostly cobbled together from pieces of Futurama, Native American Mythology, Boondocks, large doses of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and bits and pieces of whatever theologies I find convenient at the moment. From these sources, and many more, I have cobbled together a word to describe my world view. This sorta new philosophic theology I call Extrastentialism.
Extrastentialism is on the surface the exact opposite of existentialism. The main theme of existentialism is "A philosophy that emphasizes the uniqueness and isolation of the individual experience in a hostile or indifferent universe, regards human existence as unexplainable, and stresses freedom of choice and responsibility for the consequences of one's acts." The way I see it, the universe is anything but indifferent, but it is definitely hostile. The world as we know it is not set up to let humans survive. This is largely our own doing, but we love to blame the things that are wrong in the world on God. Even worse, we constantly ask him or her to fix the messes that we, as humans, have made for ourselves. And I’m not just talking about things like pollution, war, and general cruelty. I’m talking about the little stupid things that we do to ourselves, like getting pregnant when we have no business having children, pushing away the men and women who love us most, or drinking and driving. These are afflictions that do not come from God, but from our own foolish choices. And instead of doing what we have to to fix these problems, we pray, or have lucky charms, or trust in any number of invisible forces to pull our fat out of the fire.
The Universe is not, however, indifferent. Simple physics teaches us that everything is interconnected, that everything in the universe is affected by everything else in the universe. Existentialism leads most people to a feeling of nihilism where they believe that nothing matters, least of all arbitrary distinctions such as good and evil. That is part of the equation, but it is not the whole story. That’s where my thing differs, I say that everything you do matters to someone or something. The problem with humans is that we tend to get so wrapped up in ourselves that we stop seeing how interconnected we are with the world. If we spent more time thinking about all of the positive and negative effects we have on the world, no matter how large or small, I believe there would be less suicides. Suicide happens when people lose their connections, when they feel that they have no effect on anything in the world. The ironic and sad fact is that suicides cause a huge negative effect on the world. They create a vacuum in the string of cause and effect that powers reality, a vacuum which is inevitably filled in with negative emotions. Everything you do causes far ranging effects, a theory known as the "Butterfly Effect". The butterfly effect is a mathematical representation of chaos that shows how the smallest action has the biggest effects. Whether you leave for work at 8:10 or 8:15 matters, and it likely effects a large number of people in the world. Therefore, careless actions should not be done so carelessly, because who knows what you are doing when you say things like "I am having tremendous difficulty with my lifestyle". The point? Do whatever you can, and do it well. Chances are if you do something good, it will spread and have many more positive consequences than you intended, most of which you will never see. Likewise, negative actions spread out in a wave of negativity across the universe, carried by hundreds of trillions of little cause and effect coincidences and actions. So everything you do does matter, so try to make the things you do improve the world. It will help, even if you don’t think so.
This brings me to the point where extra and exi-stentialism cross over. I believe that we make our own miracles, luck, fate, etc. We have freedom of choice, we have knowledge and freedom of thought, which is either a blessing or a curse depending on your theological views. I learned that invisible forces may or may not effect our lives, but we can have a more immediate effect on our realities. There is no fate but that which we make for ourselves. We have to give our own lives meaning. If you count on outside forces to give you a purpose for living, you will be waiting a long time. The Universe may not be indifferent about what you do, in terms of cause and effect, but that does not mean that it cares about, say, whether you chose to become a dentist or not. It is only concerned with the effects of you becoming a dentist or not. As Shakespeare’s Caesar said, "The fault lies not in the stars, dear Brutus, but in ourselves". That’s basically the point of Extrastentialism. Things are not going to get done unless you get off your ass and do them. Everything has a point, a reason, and cause and effect. You just have to assign meaning to events in your life, and no matter what happens after that, you have done a little bit more to order your universe. Of course, life is not going to go the way you want it to, but my philosophy allows people to change, adapt, and move with a chaotic and hostile world. In the end, the only thing we can depend on is ourselves, for we always have ourselves there to depend on. Again though, you can only depend on yourself if you believe you can. Faith and belief really are the basis of functioning in this world, but that faith and belief has to be personal for it to be of any good. And that, in a convoluted and confusing way, is extrastentialism. It may sound silly and impractical, but it works for me.

Dying to Live

You know, I wonder if they'll laugh when I am dead
Why am I fighting to live, if I'm just living to fight
Why am I trying to see, when there ain’t nothing in sight
Why am I trying to give, when no one gives me a try
Why am I dying to live, if I'm just living to die

I have been under the assumption that I have been living for the past few years, but at times it seems like I was mistaken. I have been in a funk, a malaise if you will, and I have been laboring to get out of it. I have spent most of the last 5 years of my life chasing something. I do not know what it is I have been chasing, or running after if you will, but I have been running hard. I suppose you could say that I've been running from some things and chasing other things at the same time. I’ve been chasing women mostly, mostly out of habit. It’s all I knew to do. I was chasing women because there was a great hole in my heart, a deep seated longing that was left by a woman. I guess unconsciously I believed that a woman could fill the need that a woman left me with. As time went on I found that one woman could not fill the hole in my heart, so I sought out more, and for a time I believed that no one woman could help me, help me fill the great sucking emptiness that lay where my heart had been. So I chased every woman I could, and believe me, I got around. In the process I destroyed many relationships that could have made my life a nice, fulfilling, loving one. The hole sucked up every bit of love that came my way, but it never got smaller. It just got hungrier.
So then there is the thing I was running from. I’m still running from that, and I think if I run fast enough I can get away from it. What I’m running from is worse than what I stated in the previous paragraph. And it’s faster, and it will probably catch up to me eventually. It is my Fate from which I run and I do not think I can escape it. It’s dark and foreboding, but it’s there. And I can’t avoid it. I have a history of mental illness, heart disease, and cancer in first degree relatives. That’s a lot to deal with.

Now I used to live my life as an illusion
But reality will make my dream come true
So I'll keep fighting to live
If there's no reason to fight
And I'll keep trying to see...
Until the end is in sight
You know I'm trying to give
So come on...give me a try
You know I'm dying to live
Until I'm ready to die
-Dying to Live by Edgar Winter

And now I find that I have had a change of heart in many ways. I met women who cared enough about me to stay around me even though I am broken. They hugged me even though doing so was like hugging broken glass, and they put me back together, cutting themselves many times in the process. They gave me all the pieces I need to get better, I just had to see that they were there. And I have. In the process I seem to have found some old parts of my personality that I had thrown away, that I had not used because they lead to me getting hurt time and time again. It seems like I am at last ready to feel again. I am ready to love someone the way they love me. I am not afraid if hurting everyone, because I have far less sharp edges than I once did. I know what I want, and I can pursue what I want with a single-minded resolve that I hadn’t had before. When I was in High School I was a one woman man, but I could not find one woman who wanted me. Now if I do find that one woman who wants me, and who I feel can handle me, I think I can be happy again. I did not think that I had the capability to be happy anymore,. But I know now that I can be, because I know some of the greatest women in the world. I think I can be happy with one woman now, I really do. I feel more stable, like I have a sense of direction now. It’s a sign of healing, but that does not mean that I can escape my fate
I know I can’t but I know that my friends won’t let me face my fate alone. I know that one day I’ll get sick and depressed, but I won’t have to do so alone. I have my friends to help me get through whatever may come, and for that I will be eternally grateful. I just have to prove to myself that I am worthy of having friends like I do. I have to prove to myself that I am worthy of a girl who is worthy of me. I have a lot of things to prove to myself, and for the first time in a long time I feel like I have a reason to get up in the morning. I feel like I have goals, things to move towards, things I want to achieve. I want to change, to be the best man I can be. I want a girl who loves me to be secure in the fact that I love and only want to be with her. I am very, very close, and I think I will get to that point soon, when I can look at myself and say that I deserve something good to happen to me. Hope has always been a four-letter word to me, but for the first time in a long time I feel it, and it’s scary. I hate being disappointed, but you have to risk it to get what you want. The things I want are very important to me, so I will have to risk a lot, but it will all be worth it. And if I fail, my friends will be there to help me up, like they always are. I’m not ready to die yet, not by a long shot. Now, here’s to hoping I live past 65.

The Love Myth

I believe in the idea that humanity invents what we need to explain things that have no explanation. This idea is illustrated by the hypothesis that if there was no God, humanity would invent one, because it is something that we as a species need in this stage of our development. Many people need the idea of "God" to be able to lead their lives. It is a lot easier to believe in God to explain why things happen than the idea that we live in a random and chaotic universe where the only laws that really apply are the rules of nature. And, therefore, since humanity believes in God, God is real. Belief is perhaps the most powerful tool human beings have, for it can shape the present, future and past, and make miracles. Maybe it’s true that there is a little bit of God in all of us, and when we effect reality with the power of our beliefs, maybe we are tapping into that shard of the Maker that’s in all of us. Or maybe it’s all in our heads.
Which brings me to the subject of my discussion; love at first sight. Now before you people go getting your panties in a bunch, this does not mean that I do not believe in Love, whatever you happen to define that as. I just do not believe in Love at first sight. First of all, first sight is just that, sight, it’s visual. I maintain that you cannot fall in Love with someone just from looking at them, unless they are doing something spectacularly good for you when you first see them, like saving your mother from a burning building. Then I could maybe excuse Love at first sight. But in general one cannot fall in love at first sight. You can fall in Lust at first sight, you can fall in Lust from 200 feet away, but love? No. People are very good at rewriting their own personal history. It’s one of the perceptual biases we all have. People rewrite events to be what they thought it was, or what they believe it to be. For instance, a person may have only been physically attracted to another person upon their first meeting, but then fall in love later. What will happen is that the first person will superimpose their feelings of love onto their memories of the first meeting. So in their minds they will remember being in love at first sight, but that is not what happened. This is part of the power of the human brain to rearrange the past. That’s why police have such problems with eyewitness testimony; often people did not see what they thought they saw.
Like I said this does not mean that Love cannot happen ever, it is just that Love is a construct, a thing that we make, not something that happens. What people fail to understand is that their anecdotal evidence of something happening is flawed by not only their perceptions, but by their failure to take notice of when their individual theories about the workings of the world are wrong. In other words, we never think about how many times we don’t fall in love at first sight with people who we might otherwise. To go back to my previous example, if the first time you saw your future significant other he were, say, kicking the shit out of your mother, I don’t care what he did after that, you would not fall in love with him. I don’t care how good a reason he had for kicking the shit out of your mother, you just would not be that into him. And these sorts of things happen all the time. We often see people we would otherwise fall in love with, but it doesn’t happen because they don’t give very good first impressions. In fact, I would say that these occurrences happen a lot more than love at first sight. A lot of things that we attribute to fate or luck or God are usually just constructions of our minds. But our minds are so powerful that what we imagine can sometimes be very, very real to us. When our personal realities clash with consensual reality, we run into a lot of problems, which is where some mental illness springs from. What people fail to do is look for events that contradict what we believe. If you looked at the world truly objectively, one would find that an equal number of events happen to counteract those events that we wish or think were true. The world is truly random, which is the major truth I want to bring out here. That doesn’t mean that good things can’t or won’t happen, it just means that we should take a little more personal responsibility and initiative in making sure that those good things that we believe in actually do happen. We can’t expect God to do the work that we can do ourselves. We can’t let faith be responsible both for the cracks in our understanding of things, and for those things that we actually do understand and have control over.
Of course I expect that some people will disagree with me, and claim that love conquers all, etc. But some people need that sort of thing to fill in the parts of their life that they don’t understand. We all have cracks in our understanding of the universe and reality, and faith is what we use to fill in those blank spots. Whenever I express my theories about things, people inevitably crawl out of the woodwork with thousands of stories that directly disprove whatever I think. But these stories never stand up to reasoned questioning, and the person I am arguing with usually just gets angry and shuts down. It’s really hard being right so much, but I don’t know any other way to be.