Dinkaltranen

The picture is unrelated to anyone I mention by name in this post.

I went to the philosophy group yesterday. I arrived an hour early and only stayed for half an hour, despite my immense investment into the act. Two other members arrived early, I suspected them of being members. Something about the way they walked, the way they talked to one another across the table. Finally, they sat down at the table in the middle of the food court with a little sign indicating that it was the meeting place for the club.

Immediately, I felt like I knew I was in the right place sitting down. We discussed our degrees, including one person being quite vulnerable by recounting that they'd spent 10 years at uni unable to decide what they wanted to do. That's quite brave. I still thought they were pathetic, however. They reminded me of me. Later they tried to break the ice by offering a good deed and suggesting a better place to park for free, but I had already decided to leave at this point.

The man sitting next to me was handsome. Slightly curled hair, lean features, hazel eyes. He made excellent eye contact, something I noticed very quickly. He made no qualms about staring, like an autistic person, however the gaze was indicative of genuine commitment to the conversation at hand. I was very impressed by him. I admired him. He was immediately likeable. I asked him what his story was, and we discussed philosophy. It was clear I was not very articulate even outside of philosophy. He spoke of Goethe, I asked of Faust. I spoke of No Longer Human and he immediately responded with the author's name, and even I couldn't remember the author's whole name. We exchanged book recommendations, he gave me a little under a dozen.

I consider myself quite a good liar. And even though I didn't lie, I came to the realisation that I would not be able to lie to this person. Somehow, I knew if I did not speak the truth, it would be recognised immediately. He would not press me on it, confront me on it, for he would have no need to. He recognised that the damage a liar does to themselves by lying when they are recognised is far worse than almost any drawn attention. He was a completely real person, genuinely committed to the conversation with someone he had just met. He was not being paid. He was not abiding by the social contract. He was not family. There was no reason for him to engage with me as such aside from his genuine interest and enjoyment of our conversation. It was terrifying. I don't think I've met someone like that in years. The last person was probably J. But even J had a sly, sort of mocking potentiality beneath it all, even if it wasn't directly hurtful, as his was self-degrading too.

I remember when we first met. It was very surreal. As a group of online mutuals, we met at city to watch a movie. There was a girl among us, K. We all went by our screen names. Except J, whose screen name was just a shortening of his name. Now I think about it, the name that K chose was a fantastic pseudonym: it translated to be frightened, or scared, which looking back is probably what she was. Terrified and alone. Anyway. I expected a group of unattractive, lost, and ill-put together men in their mid 20s. What I found was well kempt, above-average attractiveness men who had jobs, aspirations, and a relatively directed life. Except for K, but she wasn't a man. She was however the antithesis of these things. After the movie, she sort of latched on to me, especially after we started drinking in the botanical gardens. I honestly found her quite charming and liked her quite a bit. Her unattractiveness didn't really bother me. She reminded me of the caricatures of the obese buddha, with scarlet lipstick on fat lips that stretched too far. A dark bob of curly, oily hair. Large, watery frog eyes. I think the reason she latched on to me is because I was polite to her, nice even, but I was nice to everyone back then. And I think the reason I liked her, or was charmed by her, was that she was nice to me. It's nice feeling like someone cares about you. We talked about her aspirations, her goals, and she held my hand. I was uncomfortable with this, even though I liked it, especially that someone seemed to like me, but I felt like she had never had anyone taken a genuine interest in her in her entire life. It felt like I was being bought. We stayed too late as a group, and supposedly she had no way home. The other guys quickly left, not even offering to help take her home. I was naive to the subtext of the action.

I took her home, showered, and showed her the guest bed. We started trying to watch something on the TV after I showered, and she asked if we could cuddle. I was still uncomfortable, but I was curious. I hadn't been with anyone since a girlfriend in The Sticks at this point, and we hadn't gone very far. Before that, it was my first. And we all know how that went. I wasn't really thinking about this at that moment, but I knew that I was absolutely horny, despite being incredibly uncomfortable with everything. I got up from the couch and said I was uncomfortable. I went to leave, and she asked me to come cuddle in bed instead. She asked me if I was a virgin. I lied, and said I was. I'm not sure how dishonest that was. I honestly considered myself one and had called myself one before. I'd had sex before, but I had dissociated for most of my experiences, no matter how numerous. It was more of a single player game, and I wasn't the player. Well, I won't go blow by blow here. I could, I feel like I remember so much of that night that I really shouldn't, which is a harsh contrast to my other sexual experiences. We didn't have sex. But we talked, messed around, and messed around some more. I didn't come. I couldn't come, no matter what she did. It wasn't because of her, either, even though I know now she might have felt that way. I was terrified, trembling. She kept asking me if I was okay, and I started getting cold flashes every time she did. Eventually I asked to stop, and she offered quite literally to take my (non existent) virginity. She offered to fulfil my fantasies. I deflected, and went back to my bed. I don't know what I think now, but in the moment I felt like to throw around intimacy like we were doing was wrong. I felt like I had used her. I recognised my arousal as something that didn't need to be sated, or at least not at what felt like the cost of someone else's dignity. Both of us would have, I feel, regretted it, or at least I would have.

15 minutes later I heard her get up and leave the house, heading home. I don't know why, but there was a heaviness to her steps that made me think she felt deafeated.

We didn't talk much after that, at least not in person. I regretted my actions, both what I did and didn't do. Instead of being polite and nice, I became simply polite when we talked. I had become another lesson for her that no one had genuine interest in her, because of my own weakness. Even though I hadn't told anyone, and I assume she hadn't, it seemed everyone knew, or at least assumed, that we had sex. That didn't really bother me, but J did give me a wry look next time someone commented about K. It wasn't judgemental. It was more of a "Hey man, you do you I guess."

She much more agressively pursued two or three other men in the group over the next 6 months. One of the times the actual act itself was streamed: a sick and gladiatorial act that I witnessed online, and was tasked with recording. I say tasked like I didn't willingly do it. I don't believe I shared it with anyone. I am deeply ashamed of this. I was no longer a child at this point, obviously. The people I was engaging with were several years older than me. But still. I made my choice myself. I was an adult, and should have done differently. Even in the moment I knew that what I was doing was fundamentally wrong, and I rubber knecked to the carcrash of this poor woman's life.

Several months later two of the men who she'd seen then broken up with in quick succession spread nudes she'd sent them to her social media and family: revenge pornography. By this point I had been out of the group for some time, though not only because of my ever growing disgust with members of the group that did not meet in person. J had receded too, for his own reasons. Mostly he and I hung out once a week. He still went to the in person hangouts, but didn't talk online. I was the opposite.

I know my job isn't to save anyone. I can't even save myself, let alone someone else. But I felt like I had condemned someone with my actions. Perhaps if I had just done this or that, things might not have turned out this way. There's an infinite level of complexity to that problem. That's what I've realised with all these thought experiments, even though I still find myself unable to tear myself away from them. It doesn't necessarily matter how I was raped or why. What matters is having something I can understand, that fits enough with my internal narrative that I can say and not have that alarm that goes off telling me "You're lying." A preface to a news story. My mother didn't love me, so I found someone who did, and they raped me.

Tale as old as time, really.

J was a good man. I at least believe he was, even if him not getting back to me feels like it'll bring me to tears every time I say it out loud. "He's not coming back. I'm never going to see him again. We are no longer friends."

It sounds like I loved him. And I did, not in a romantic sense. But like family, like a brother. I felt so horribly alone for so long. Talking to him I felt like I have until reading Dostoyevsky and Dazai, and talking to R at the philosophy group. Even if I am not close to my family, if you told me I could never see my sister, my father, my mother, ever again, I would be heartbroken. I would be rendered to tears to say it aloud. I didn't feel alone. I am a greedy man. I want people to myself. I feel righteous in my love for others. I think you have to be truly sick to be able to love anyone after what I've been through. This is what love is? Is this what love is? She was trying to make me feel better. I can feel myself fragmenting. Spinning. I can't stop writing. If I do, I'll dissociate. Maybe I am doing it right now, and that's why I've written so much. If I don't stop writing, I don't have to hear my thoughts. As long as I am writing I do not think the words. I open my mind and I free them, I don't have to think them. Seeing them on a page is different from being tortured by them. The words are fiction, even if they are true. Fiction isn't real.

I miss J. I really, really miss him. We were best friends. He was my brother. And it seems he either didn't feel the same way, or had another reason to never come back. I feel rage. Ungrateful. I saved his life on more than one occasion. Bastard. Arrogant fucking bastard. You saved my life too, but you condemned me by leaving. Why? Why? Why? Is this what love is? I don't know what love is. Is love where you pick someone up, let them pick you up, and then fall apart? I thought we were meant to support each other, separately, but as though we were one, as though we were tied together and drowning as we truly were. If that's the case then I failed my end of the bargain. I didn't do enough. Enough. Going to tie myself in knots running away on thoughts like this.

I tried reaching out to an old friend recently. E. It wasn't the same. I didn't feel that light. I didn't feel that we could understand each other. We were just two people trying to reminisce, recover the time we had been friends. I wonder if I saw J again if it would be like that too. I wonder that about a lot of people. I am terrified of others and despite my desire to be understood, to have connection, I am also terrified of that. In that eye contact, in one moment with R, I felt all of this. That this would a person I could truly be best friends with. I could spend 5 years with this person, talk with, disagree with, but grow with. And in that same moment I saw it get ripped to shreds. I saw them destroy me, I saw me destroy them. It didn't matter by what. But it'd happen. It always does. I was uncomfortable. There were too many people there, I was being touched by strangers as we shoved closer together to fit in more people. Finally, a friend he'd been waiting for arrived, and I realised there was simply too little space for any more people to fit at the assembly table. I got up and said I was leaving. We bumped fists. I left. The walk to the car was nearly as long as the time we'd spent talking to one another. I kicked myself for not facing my fear, for listening to the intuition to run and never look back. But I couldn't go back, at least not that day. R texted telling me he had a great time talking to me and that he was sorry he was distracted while talking to me, and that he hoped to see me again week after next when he wouldn't be working and could come to the society again. I told him not to worry, and that it was wonderful talking to him, and that I'd left to let other people who hadn't been to the society before sit down and chat. I knew the excuse was empty, but it didn't matter. He knew that. He doesn't need to know my life story to know I'm suffering. We're all suffering. Especially at the philosophy society. Philosophy's core idea, its basic principle is "Is life worth living? Should I kill myself?" The next question is where actual schools of thought come in: which is "How should you live?"

You don't think about these ideas a lot unless you are trying to impress girls, in which case there are easier ways and your pseud nature will be blatantly obvious to anyone who cares, or more likely that you have spent years of your life agonizing over those first two questions. Which is something that happens if you're unable to live. This is a vastly reductionist and somewhat joking view of things, but that's how I would save somebody an entire 6 month class on first year philosophy.

Anyway. I was trying to have a consistent theme in this one: that didn't go so well. I will leave you with that for now.