Time Travel
Posted by harlan on 21 Apr 2008 at 07:03 am | Tagged as: talking to the void
Bertha still hasn’t returned any of my calls. She didn’t answer when I rang her doorbell Friday night or Saturday night. Her door is locked. Her bedroom window is locked. The lights in her apartment never came on Saturday night, or at least not before 3:30 am. Is she avoiding me? Is she away for the weekend?
I feel very alone.
I’ve been trying to comfort myself by taking a larger perspective. In the course of human history, now isn’t exactly a bad time to be alone. It’s certainly better nowadays than it would have been a hundred years ago.
Let’s travel back in time.
It’s 1908. Let’s say there’s a guy named Arlen who didn’t get any pleasure from talking to other people. In fact, it pained him so much that solitude was a form of relief. And let’s say he had the kind of sister who was living such a dim life that her only moment of brightness was when she shined a light on her brother’s isolated existence. And he had the kind of brother who sold all of Arlen’s Star Trek: TNG collectibles for $15 in a yard sale and then accused Arlen of avarice for complaining. OK, maybe they didn’t have Star Trek collectibles back in 1908. Maybe he sold his brother’s Civil War artifacts for an Indian nickel. You get the point.
What could a lonely guy do in 1908? Sit around in the local diner with people he had no desire to talk to? Read books in the library? Live in some brick apartment reading Charles Dickens by candlelight? Have a tubercular seizure and be taken away to a sanitarium?
Compare that to now. I can turn on the television at any time and choose among dozens of movies, any of which can easily numb my mind. I can watch every single episode of Babylon 5 on my Zune. I can jump on the internet and see all kinds of things that my 1908 doppelganger could only dream about. I can make safe friends on the internet. And so can everyone else.
We can all be alone together.
Isolation score: 9
I was just dumped this weekend.
I’m alone now too.
Let’s be alone together.
Author: You’re working on your apology post for tomorrow, right? Will the tale be that the H’s are ashamed because they spent all weekend humping the trophy.
H, I am quite happy to be alone with you. However, I think you may be looking at the wrong big picture. Let me paint another one for you.
It’s 2008. You won a coveted award because you write honestly, without self-censorship about your life. Many people respond to that. In fact, some are so put off by your honesty that the only way they know how to respond is with anger and harsh judgment. You met a woman who doesn’t think you’re great just the way you are. You had sex with her and now have no obligation to continue any form of contact with her whatsoever. This means you are free to pursue relationships with other women who might actually think that you’re funny and smart and don’t need a giant personality make over. They might even smell like cinnamon buns and roses after sex. And, when you decide you want to have sex with the next woman, you won’t be a virgin anymore. You have, not one, but two jobs that give you freedom to do whatever the hell you want whenever the hell you feel like it. And you have no inescapable lifetime responsibilities like screaming, colicky children or elderly, incontinent parents. Although not completely happy, you are healthy. You have a squad of virtual cheerleaders. Try channeling all that positive energy into something worthwhile that will make you feel good about yourself at the end of the day.
Stalking people will not make you feel good about yourself.
http://dating.personals.yahoo.com/singles/datingtips/81390/10-signs-youre-being-needy
Yum, cinnamon buns!
Yeah baby! ;)
Moshizzle is the kind of girl I’d want as a friend. Nicely put!
Can a ’squad’ be one person?
Her bedroom window was locked? Stalker much? Damn man. Get out more. Emo.
I agree with Moshizzle on this one. Also, look at the way your writing changes when you are having positive encounters with others, at the gym for instance. Face it, not everyone is fabulously adept at dealing with people, but that doesn’t mean you have to be paralyzed by it. Just looking at your posts we can see that on some level you do get enjoyment out of being with others.
You should check the back of all the jeeps in the area, perhaps B took your slimming advice and attached herself to the back of one. She might be down to a svelt size 20 by now, go get her while she’s still got something to give!
Zune?
Do you pump movies into it from your Betamax using your IBM PC II with Micro Channel Architecture!?
And oxycodone. Don’t forget oxycodone. That’s good for numbing stuff too, and they didn’t have that in 1908.
I don’t know Harlan. In 1908 there might have been a lot of widows around who would be willing to marry absolutely anyone. All you would have had to do is wait until after 1914, then there were lots and lots of widows.
Harlan only exhibits 8 of the 10 signs he’s being needy, so I think he’s totally OK.
I think Arlan would have gotten himself a match maker or a mail order bride…or I guess back then it’d be a new American bride. Someone with a language barrier so he wouldn’t have to talk to her much until he’d really gotten used to her.
Well, unless Arlen were gay, he wouldn’t be writing lustful entries in his journal about the attractive Railway Express clerk. I imagine he’d ride the streetcar to work in silence, work at a tall desk wearing a green eyeshade and spend his free time going to stereopticon shows. He would be J. Alfred Prufrock.
You know, Harlan, a trip to a sanitarium might not be such a bad idea for you.
Moshizzle, what you wrote is great.
It would be great if the H’s were real.
Zune’s rock, even if the software isn’t all that great. At least it’s not iTunes.
First of all, Harlan, I’m glad to see that your path to fulfillment is not generally 80 proof. That loud haranguing from the other day seems well behind you now.
So now it’s back to the status quo: just lonely. Maybe that’s not so bad. You seem more upbeat and philosophical about it; at times even profound. Please count me as part of your squad, too. (As long as it’s not the Zunes-instead-of-iPod squad, or worse, the bent-rod squad.)
Moshizzle, esteemed commenter that she is, sets the standard for good advice again, I see. The only thing worth adding is some research I read about not long ago. A large perfume manufacturer had conducted tests to see which scents would elicit a thermographic response in male genitalia. Of all the smells they tested, only one led to arousal. As you probably guessed, it was cinnamon buns.
BTW, I have no idea what I’m talking about with Zunes. Is it actually better?
So there are TWO people on the planet who have a Zune.
(I’ll bet Vince paid for his.)
You have to get out to meet normal people, talk to women. Eventually you will find one you are confortable with who loves you for who you are.
I am agreeing with Moshizzle. consider this a gift, move on, you guys really did not have much in common. Think of how you glazed over when she went on and on…
Find a female Arlan who likes what you like, maybe meet her at a star treck convention.
Ernest, does that mean cinnamon buns will get you laid?
Excluding the effects of other exogenous factors, Sol, yes, I think it does.
I’d even do Bertha if she smelled like a cinnamon bun.
Hmmmm, best get baking.
Harlan, I wonder if the pace of communication in 1908 left folks to feel more, or less, alone?
Interesting times. But wait, isn’t that the proverbial blessing/curse - “may you live in interesting times”?
Moshizzle, what you wrote makes me think Harlan is an ungrateful a-hole
I thought she just wanted Harlan to take a different perspective and realize that, all things considered, for him being alone isn’t all that bad.
I think Moshizzle has major holdings in cinnamon futures and was betting that Ernest would clue us all in on its magical mystical qualities thus increasing global demand and creating a spike in the market.
H-Don’t ever forget that you named her Bertha for a reason. Always, always trust your gut. And if you’re feeling confused, go back and read you initial posts about her.
Im with Alyson on this one. From your initial posts about her, and the real creepy things she says, im surprised she has not tried to stab you after sex while your sleeping while saying how you need to trust in the fates or some other crazy things. I personally think your better off. I realize also that sex does make a connection far above and beyond and you become very attached, but sometimes you need to know when its a blessing in disguise and get while the getting is good.
It would be great if Moshizzle has a Cinnabon franchise. I’d swim across the lake for that!
Well, it isn’t a franchise but you can have my cinnabons any time, Asshat. Don’t swim in the lake though. They’re all pretty icky and I don’t want any stinky fish interfering with my sweet, sticky cinnabons.
Asshat and Moshizzle should marry and have babies.
I just realized that Arlan’s relationship with his siblings sounds an awful lot like Ender Wiggen. I read it yesterday thinking it seemed very familiar but it wasn’t till this morning that I realized what it reminded me of.
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