It’s not that I’m afraid of rejection — it’s that I assume it. That’s what I was really mad about as a kid. Why do I have to be the screw-up? Why do I have to be all of these things that I wouldn’t want, either? Emotionally fragile, socially shut-in, in equal parts sexually perverse and timid — and worst of all, self-loathing. That self-loathing has fed avoidance, which has led to a failure to express my needs and desires, which has led to dysfunction in my relationships, which resets the cycle.

On the terrible system dynamics of dating and sensitive young man syndrome. Beautiful cycle depicted.

Or; “Diptych, Panel I: The Mote in His Eye.”

A nice discussion of het dating norms and a useful script for treating people.

But I think there’s a more radical slipperiness in that “our sense of right and wrong” and “the social reaction of others” are not as separable as we like to think. Elsewhere, the article tries to get past the fear of accidental harm by encouraging the reader to make use of the “common-sense understanding of offensiveness that you have developed as a minimally functional adult living in a society.” The issue, I think, is that one’s common-sense understanding of what makes people feel uncomfortable or unsafe is built by receiving or observing social consequences.

I’m still haunted by the sense that my attraction to women is in some way inherently, almost psychically, harmful. I just don’t have the practice in more representative circles to have worked through it on an instinctual level.

Oh my God. Such beautiful application of contemporary philosophy to the pains of social life.

it’s not good advice, but it’s all there is

This is unfortunately what I must do, too. “Dating in the Bay Area” returns.

The comic in this piece is very cool.

see: https://archive.org/details/hup-04-1992_202302/Hup%2001%2C%201987/page/n15/mode/2up

When it’s “punching up” to pretend the other gender’s loneliness crisis is self-imposed

Elise Schuenke comics about Sage, an exhausted hard working autistic, home from a long day of work, masking and social effort. Decompressing and pulling back from the effort to perform, we get to see a 5 pager comic of their partners reactions. A wonderful comic that highlights and gives a moment for a powerfully intimate moment that’s easy to misunderstand.

and there’s a lot of monogcycle accidents