Somehow I keep returning to this notion that the more successes any of us experience, the less likely we are to dispense advice. Still, it’s hard to pinpoint exactly where on the spectrum this dot might lie. Or should I say, these multiple coordinates. Are we more successful because we refrain from dispensing advice? Maybe there’s something here. Another leading theory, one might argue, is that the successful wish to hoard the strategies which actually work. Or that there’s a personality defect there with the chronic advice givers, whereby they are desperate to be taken seriously.
All the above considerations are probably partly true. I continually think back to my relatively recent, much younger past, and it sure seems like I talked a lot more nonsense — which I mostly knew to be nonsense, even then — in some weak bid to sound like an expert. So plainly this is a factor worth considering. However, I lean more toward believing that the mindset leading one to dispense advice is itself the greatest problem, because it’s making an individual believe he has something figured out. Therefore he is closed off to other data.
By extension, this validates the inverse as well. Because one curious development seems to accompany this era, for Dylan and me, as our victories with the ladies and these bullshit props exponentially increase: it’s that we become less and less certain that we know what we’re talking about. I am already basically a person who can’t even dream of telling somebody how they should do something, unless they are begging me to. And Dylan’s cut from pretty much the same misaligned cloth. Jumping in and figuring things out as we improvise our way along only serves to ignite these tendencies to a higher degree. And even when we somewhat confirm that a strategy is sound, it still only mostly leads to one shoulder shrugs as we tell our colleagues, “I don’t know, dude, this seems to be working…”
Add in a few other components and you have a combustible formula for success…not that I would tell anybody this. Part of it is you just stop mentioning this stuff because they are either horrified, or you get tired of hearing them blather on about how this will not work. The satisfaction with knowing they are closed minded and wrong, perhaps, to a certain extent. A little bit of a knowledge hoarding mindset, sure. And also the awareness I’ve steadily gained that speaking the fewest words possible winds up being a really smart idea, for a whole host of reasons, in pretty much every aspect of your life.
Mainly, though, it’s just how we are naturally wired. We couldn’t imagine telling somebody else how they should be doing something. No matter what happens, despite whatever skins mounted on the wall, we are still mostly adlibbing our way through this crapola ourselves. Because we are never fully convinced that something absolutely works.
For the latest examples of these phenomena, one need only look at how we are handling our exes. A day after dragging our weary selves home from the lake, Dylan calls Jodie, to rehash Friday night, apologize for blowing them off even though we technically attempted to not blow them off, and then hopefully get a feel for where to proceed from here. Whilst continuing to keep his options open, mind you, which is crucial in these matters.
It’s always a dicey operation, threading this needle. Were Joe still single and coming around, or for that matter just without Shoniqua for the night and a few beers deep, he would without question bestow some drunken, hilarious, yet still quite often questionable wisdom about how to pull off these matters. Nothing against the guy, though, but the most puzzling aspect about that tendency is he is far and away the person most likely to get roped back into a serious relationship with one of his ex-girlfriends. That’s the part we are determined to avoid. He and Janis went through this countless times for years on end, and he followed that up in smaller doses with Lee Ann and the stripper Angel. The first part of the equation he is pulling off just fine, absolutely, the sleeping with them again portion. Problem is, he winds up spending every night with them for the next two weeks, which turns into a handful of months.
But, again, definitely not saying I have all the answers here. Following our Valentine’s Day hookup, Jenna and I slept together just twice more before she called the whole thing off again, grousing, “I just really don’t see this going anywhere.” I wouldn’t claim to shed any tears about that whole sequence of events, or anything, though it does highlight how thinking you’re going to keep these serious ex-girlfriend hookups going forever without a recommitment is maybe delusional. Nonetheless, while highly similar to the Jenna situation, recent, somewhat unexpected developments with Helena hold much greater promise for maybe pulling that off — although even here, clearly a smidgen lost for how to manage it, I admittedly take advantage of some help from Joe, and possibly even Pete.
At this point Helena and I are treading dangerously close to official couple status again, the only missing piece our coming right out and saying so. She and I go out to lunch together one weekend, joined only by a friend of hers, this black chick named Tamika. After that, we all return to my apartment, knock back a few beverages, watch movies, and those two even read some stuff that I had written, after asking to view such. But this doesn’t move the needle any.
For that, it takes the wholly improbable and for that matter unprecedented precise combination of she and Joe and Pete and me hanging out together. With Shoniqua enjoying a girls’ night out type adventure — their own relationship still in the early enough stages that Joe can take advantage of this — and Pete obeying the standard Thursday bylaws of crashing here, before hitting the lone college class he takes on Fridays, we have already ventured off to Edgecrest Cafe and returned to drink and laugh over old times in front of whatever randomness is on the television. Dylan is also not home, albeit not with some female for once, rather having taken some time off work to go on a fishing trip with his dad. Which, who knows, may have changed this dynamic just enough.
The entire conversational slant, I must confess, is Joe’s doing, and furthermore clearly something done solely for my benefit. This angle just never really popped into my head, until he introduced it. I think I do surprisingly well as a conversationalist despite huge glaring gaps where I will almost never discuss anything current and of substance happening in my life. I’m not sure if this is some mysterious defense mechanism, or that the thought never occurs to me. It’s definitely at least somewhat true that I’m trying to get other people to talk about themselves more, and am always steering discussions that direction on purpose. But our talks are sputtering in the living room and may have never gone anywhere, partially as a result of this, until Joe decides to get on this kick telling Helena all these hilarious stories about me, from the void of her mostly absent past five years. And then this eventually turns into Joe just kicking things off with an introductory line, before passing the ball my way.
“Hey what about that time you were, like, hiding behind that trash can at work?”
“Oh yeah! So here’s the deal, okay, this was back when I was waiting tables. Somehow I discovered that there was this tiny bit of space behind this little alcove where we kept our trash can. It was just enough for me to fit in. So this one day, I knew management was looking for me, right, so…”
Cue up the punchlines, teed off by Joe’s rare straight man turn, a masterful and much appreciated helping hand from him. Everyone is all but rolling on the floor for a good hour. Everyone winds up crashing right there shortly thereafter, too — except this time, Helena’s in my bed. This is our first time together in nearly five years, but it’s almost more surreal than anything else, an out of body experience.
In other news: order the complete novel from my official site and save a few bucks, on the exact same versions, versus what the big mean corporate ogres at Amazon are charging:
Well-Behaved Monsters paperback
Thanks and have a great week!
