I am currently working 40 hours per week. I have a "boring" job where I go through ~3000 pages of documents per day ensuring that they meet certain federal/industry/corporate standards. In order to "combat" this sort of "sad"/"desperate" life I started going back to school so that I could eventually get into an MFA program (if you are "interested" in my writings, you can check my previous blog entries, my writing is generally "called by other people" things like "post-modern" and "existential").
I am currently taking 2 graduate classes at my local university.
~10.75 months ago my girlfriend "broke up with me". We had been living together ~4 years. ~7.85 months ago my ex-girlfriend started dating somebody new. For the past ~10.75 months I haven't found any girls that I have "met" to be "attractive" or "someone that I would want to spend a lot of time with". I think this is normal, I think that for a period of ~6 months after breaking up I felt "intensely asexual" and became mostly concerned with other aspects of my life, I'm not sure if this is normal.
I don't know the "exact point in time" in which I felt that I was "over" my ex-girlfriend but I feel generally at this point that I am. I have not spoken to my ex-girlfriend in person since her birthday which was ~0.05 months before she started dating someone new, and not "spoken" online/any contact since then as well. I have attempted several times to e-mail her and we used to "talk" online even broken up. The last time I e-mailed her was several days before Christmas, I sent her a "Christmas card e-mail". I have had "anxiety" in public imagining seeing her and her boyfriend. I felt like I was caught in a "downward anxiety spiral" (citing various texts that I sent to friends) when I went out of state to see a concert and imagined seeing her. This was earlier this month.
I feel a lot less "anxiety" about this now. I have no "desire" to talk to her etc. and genuinely feel that if she were to change her mind and try to contact me via e-mail etc. that I would/would be able to tell her that I don't want her in my life right now probably.
In one of my classes there is a girl who sits in front of me. I didn't really notice that there was a girl sitting in front of me, or this particular girl who sits in front of me until recently. There could be a lot of reasons for this, but I think that the main reason is that she seems very quiet and doesn't talk to people in class.
In my past 2 classes I have noticed these things about the girl who sits in front of me: 1. The first class that I noticed her she was holding her book in front of her face to read it with both hands. I think this is a "normal" thing for people to do. She is sitting at her desk and her phone is on top of her desk and she briefly for a moment takes one of her hands off her book and rests her pinky and ring finger lightly on her phone, as if her fingers/hands needed in this moment to remind themselves that they existed in a "physical form" and wanted also to feel the "existence" of her phone. Her fingers/hand didn't do anything to interact with her phone, she just briefly "touched" her phone in this manner before bringing her hand back to her book. In this moment I felt "ecstatic" about life in a manner that I don't remember feeling before. "This is good," I thought to myself, and I wrote a poem about it and felt "calm"/"accepting" of reality.
2. The second class that I noticed her she was holding her book in front of her face to read it, and decided that she had "feelings of hunger" and "slowly"/"quietly" reached down into her backpack. After several moments she withdrew her hand from her backpack holding [indiscriminate snack] and brought her hand to her mouth and put it in her mouth and chewed it. She repeated this process several times. Several things that I noticed throughout this process: a. I feel like to bring [indiscriminate snack]'s from her backpack to her mouth involves some sort of bag, and I was impressed by the manner in which she was able to move the [indiscriminate snack] from the bag in her backpack to her mouth ie as "quietly" and "slowly" as she did. b. The sort of "quietness" that I have mentioned seemed to me to be particularly "significant" in the sort of sense that I was "intensely aware" of the noises happening around the class as well as the "silence" she was creating. c. I was reminded of a time when she left early from class and she zipped her backpack up in a manner that seemed (now thinking about it) particularly "calm"/"concise"/"calculated"/"quiet" ie a step above the sort of "polite quietness" that people exhibit when they leave class early and zip their backpacks up.
3. I listened to her read a section of the poem with a voice that surprised me at first, and in a manner that I would not say was particularly "skillful" or "effective". Her voice seemed "shaky" and "hesitant" through most of her reading, but there were points that I felt there was a "certainness" and "calmness" in her reading that I thought was particularly "moving" despite not being necessarily "moved".
I have not "interacted" with the girl who sits in front of me in class in any "significant" or "meaningful" way. These are the times that I have "interacted" with her: 1. The first class that I noticed her we both turned in our notes to the professor at the same time, and left class at the same time. She held the door open for me. I smiled and said thank you. We walked through the hallway (I walked slightly faster than her) and I held the door open for her and she said thank you while bringing her phone to her face and telling [the person at the other end of her phone] that she was finished with class.
2. The second class that I noticed her I was leaving class and some girl held the door open for me because we left near the same time. The girl who sits in front of me was several steps away and if I had let the door close by itself the door would have closed approximately at the same time that she got to the door, which seemed to me at the time to be somewhat "callous" and held the door open. She said thank you and we walked in opposite directions.
I have two classes left in this semester (after which I feel "certain" that I will never see/interact with the girl who sits in front of me in class again). This is not to say that I feel "intense feelings of attraction" etc. for the girl who sits in front of me in class, but rather that I think that she seems like an "interesting person"/"person I might feel attracted to"/"someone I would like to spend time with". I feel like it could have been easier if I had "noticed" this earlier in the semester because I could have tried "talking to her"/"interacting with her" in the context of the class, but as it is would feel "strange" in any attempt of interaction ie talking to her after class ie sitting next to her in class etc. especially since there is not enough time left in the semester to use the context of the class as a reason/excuse for interacting with her.
Having been away from this sort of thing ie pursuing girls to "date" etc. and never really having had this experience before (my ex-girlfriend and I met through mutual friends and also worked together) I'm not sure if this "strange-ness" that I feel is something that I should feel or if it is "normal"/"acceptable" for me to try and interact with the girl who sits in front of me in class, and also the sort of interaction that I would go about trying to "initiate" if it were.
I think I "understand" what you're trying to "do" with the quotes, but they're still a little "distracting" to the "narrative," I feel. Good luck "initiating" "interaction."
If you only have two classes left for some type of interaction, you don't have the luxury of small banter or conversation that you might otherwise have been able to build up if done earlier on. You should essentially approach her and mention something along the lines of, "hey, I'm <insert name>. I just wanted to say that you caught my eye the other day, and I was interested in seeing if you might want to go for a coffee or something later."
You could even use the lack of remaining classes in your reasoning towards her. It doesn't have to be overly bold, or conniving in any way. Just be simple, straightforward and honest. If there is genuine interest, or she has perhaps has noticed you too, then who knows what she may say.
Maybe you should only take advice from people who have "had sex with a woman" and "bathe regularly" and don't "pop their whiteheads with a compass they used in high school".
On April 29 2013 05:08 babylon wrote: This is "nearly unreadable." The scare quotes are very "distracting." Please tone down on them for the "comfort" of the audience.
@babylon @Meadlowlark @Anachronisticanarchy Sorry, I try to make sure that when people read what I write that they know when things can be construed ambiguously and also when things are figures of speech and I am aware of their function as a figure of speech ie not necessarily concrete language but decide to use it anyway. I feel as though removing them would probably (against what @Meadowlark says) detract from the narrative overall especially re: the clarity of language and me trying to get my message across etc. (in this passage I have resisted using quotations in any form so that you will feel more comfortable) also @Meadowlark I feel as though, in imitation of this style that you are misquoting understand, and that initiating interaction would also be in a single quote (rather than two separate quotes) and also that the phrase initiating interaction feels somewhat self-aware which is one reason why I (probably intentionally) avoided using it.
@Jerubaal I'm not very familiar with Chris Farley skits and wouldn't know which one you are referring to. I'm not sure how I would go about verifying whether or not posters in reply to my post have had sex with a woman before, or bathe regularly, or refrain from popping their whiteheads with a compass they used in high school, these don't seem like questions that you would ask someone when they give you advice, I am imagining a checklist that I go through re: each posters advice with questions like have they had sex with a woman before, do they bath regularly, do they pop their whiteheads with a compass they used in highschool and it seems fucked. Also, I feel as though these aren't necessarily criteria that someone should use in judging the quality of someone's advice. With this passage as well I have refrained from using quotation marks since I am ~80% certain that the use of quotations in your post in tandem with my perceived tonality of it that you are using them in a mocking sort of way and would gather from that that you also don't feel comfortable with seeing them.
I am really sorry, but the whole time, I became really distracted by the almost near exactness you described the passage of time. Have never really met anyone who uses decimals with their months haha.
Best of luck to you though.
And you can ditch the quotes. They almost made the whole thing unreadable.
No offense, but I imagine most posts as conversation and the quote density had me thinking you were notching your fingers more than someone doing shadow puppets.
And yes, it is normal to want to talk to people in your class. Strike up a conversation (especially if finals are coming up there's usually something you can discuss re: the professor/test questions/studying troubles). Just maybe act a little more relaxed than you're coming across here.
I found this hard to read but I understood enough to give you advice. Just stop worrying what people think and talk to her. Strike up a conversation and maintain it for at least 2.75 minutes. If it's really awkward then "who cares" just try again with the next girl. All this agonizing and worrying about how she'll react is not only useless but actually counter-productive.
@nohbrows @Ryalnos Sorry for using these measurements of time, this is generally how I "perceive" the time passing in each case, I didn't intend for it to be distracting, I just wanted to create a stronger "context" so that people would be able to better understand where I was "coming from" ie this vs something like "a long-ass time", "very short while" etc. that are more ambiguous and less based upon "concrete reality".
@TheTenthDoc I don't feel the necessity to create "quotes" around my words when I am talking, I talk the same way as I type (or "perceive" my words in the same manner).
@docvoc @farvacola I think that the punctuation is only as distracting as you want it to be. For example, if I used it less I feel as though people would generally not have the same reaction as they do towards it. I feel like if I used it less people would think something like, "this makes things more clear" maybe not on the conscious level but at some level. Ie my use of brackets in describing [an indiscriminate snack] which nobody has called attention to or noticed, I feel like people would tend to read this section "naturally" and their inner dialogue can easily recognize this sort of punctuation as a signal to the reader and understand it and the purpose of it without any trouble. I feel like there is no difference between me using it once (for the sake of feeling "better able to explain" the way that I am thinking) or using it more than once besides the amount of times more that I am using it.
@ziggurat "To strike up a conversation and maintain it for at least 2.75 minutes" is something that I didn't really feel was "possible" given 1. my lack of interaction with her previously and 2. the amount of classes that I have left before the semester ends. Any attempt at a conversation would take place in the ~2.75 minutes that I spend sitting at my desk waiting for class to start, in which I would either have to (rather uncharacteristically) A. get her attention and have a conversation in which one of us is facing one direction and the other was originally facing the other direction and must now turn at an "awkward angle" in order to continue at a point in time of class when the professor is generally "half-lecturing" about something that is vaguely related to class waiting on any stragglers or B. sit next to her for the previously recommended ~2.75 minute conversation, a seat that I have not occupied in the previous classes, and then stay sitting next to the girl [who formerly sat in front of me in class] for the next 3 hours of the lecture, during which times I will probably do "vaguely unattractive" things like "taking notes in an excited manner" which I feel would also be generally unsuccessful because the girl who formerly sat in front of me in class would be left wondering things like "Why did he sit next to me to only have a ~2.75 minute conversation with me" recalling specific instances of our previous interactions ie holding the door open for each other for the next 3 hours also possibly "dreading" the end of class when (as she perceives it) I will attempt to make another ~2.75 minute conversation when all she really wants to do after class is bring her phone to her face and tell [the person on the other end of the phone] that she is done with class or I would have to wait until the end of class, taking an "extra amount of time" to pack my things up (which would be, again, uncharacteristic because I sit closer to the door and only carry a single book with me) or waiting for her outside the door (equally uncharacteristic of me, since I don't remember any instance of me doing this before) in order to "strike up" a conversation for ~2.75 minutes outside the context of the class during which time she would be thinking something along the lines of "How long is he going to keep talking, it has been ~2.75 minutes, when am I going to be able to call [the person on the other end of the phone] to tell them that I am out of class" etc. Any ~2.75 conversation that I have would have to be "direct" in my intention otherwise I am wasting ~2.70 minutes of time making whatever conversation that I make for the ~0.05 minutes that it takes to say something like "I saw you touch your phone briefly without interacting with it and felt ecstatic about my life in a way that I never have before, can we please go somewhere and do something without interacting with each other or talking, can we just go sit somewhere and be silent and not look at each other for [an indeterminable amount of time]" or "I am very impressed by the manner in which you quietly ate [indiscriminate snack] last week, did you want to go out and eat [indiscriminate snack] quietly with me later" etc. because I can't conceive of a possible "universe" in which any conversation or interaction that I have the girl who sits in front of me in class where my intentions wouldn't be clearly on display and result in any "unrelated conversation" seeming to be "strange". I feel like this was my "original intention" but was unsure of what is the manner of doing it that is 1. the least "strange" 2. has the least amount of "artifice" and 3. was the most "honest"/"straightforward"/"concrete".
@Cainam I don't understand where you would get this sense, I don't feel like anything that I wrote is "outwardly violent". I feel as though you are saying something along the lines of "Here is someone who doesn't think in a similar manner to me, therefore he must be 'mentally fucked'/'a serial killer'". In imitation of the heavy use of quotations, I would leave the quotations off of "girl" and "skin" (ie concrete reality) and also put quotations around "place" and also strongly consider putting quotations around "making a suit" (vs. "suit" alone) as a phrase.
The 2nd time you interacted with her seems like the type of scenario seen in this vid @ :45 seconds (I disregard the part about attractiveness in my point, though it is applicable in your case) :
@run.at.me I generally do my best to hold off on value judgements and it seems odd to me that it would feel "okay" to you that it would be a "good" thing to do to call into question the manner in which I express myself. I think the statement "this is NOT [sic] well written in any shape or form" is something that I would reject as being a false statement as generally most of my usage of quotation marks is grammatically correct.
I think that this statement also provides an excellent reason why I feel it is necessary to punctuate the manner in which I do. Saying something like "this is NOT [sic] well written" in itself is something that I would have used quotations in ("well written" would be my usage) because something like "well written" in this usage (I am presuming you don't mean it in the grammatical sense since grammatically I think my usage of quotation marks is generally correct) is something that isn't part of concrete reality and you should really be signifying this to your reader in the sense that this is something for which I should be providing a definition of (ie the conditions you have set for something being "well written" etc) and is something that could mean a number of different things and is ambiguous/vague etc. so that the reader can immediately know all of this information.
Further than that, I feel like I would also put quotation marks around "shape" and "form" or maybe the entire phrase "any shape or form" to indicate to the reader this is figurative language ie a cliched phrase and as such doesn't really have very much meaning of its own and instead relies upon its usage traditionally for it to evoke any meaning in the reader, this phrase isn't very concrete and if we were to consider it concretely or objectively then it would prove itself to be false because if I set the conditions of something that is "well written" to be something that is written in this manner/style (ie this shape of something being well written/this form of something being well written) then it is, according to this criteria (ie this shape/form) well written.
Not that I feel anything that I write is particularly "well written".
I didn't mind the quotes but those time measurements were really weird and threw me off for a bit.
In regards to the actual content, I thought it was kinda funny how you were overexamining minor interactions with her and writing whole paragraphs about holding a door open/watching her eat out of her bookbag.
Kinda odd, but I enjoyed reading it. Just fix your quotes so people can actually understand next time. Time measurements too I think.
The way you describe her exact actions makes it sound like your watching her from your van, rather than the seat behind her in class. And this stuff is only gonna get weirder if you put off talking to her.
@ziggurat "To strike up a conversation and maintain it for at least 2.75 minutes" is something that I didn't really feel was "possible" given 1. my lack of interaction with her previously and 2. the amount of classes that I have left before the semester ends. Any attempt at a conversation would take place in the ~2.75 minutes that I spend sitting at my desk waiting for class to start, in which I would either have to (rather uncharacteristically) A. get her attention and have a conversation in which one of us is facing one direction and the other was originally facing the other direction and must now turn at an "awkward angle" in order to continue at a point in time of class when the professor is generally "half-lecturing" about something that is vaguely related to class waiting on any stragglers or B. sit next to her for the previously recommended ~2.75 minute conversation, a seat that I have not occupied in the previous classes, and then stay sitting next to the girl [who formerly sat in front of me in class] for the next 3 hours of the lecture, during which times I will probably do "vaguely unattractive" things like "taking notes in an excited manner" which I feel would also be generally unsuccessful because the girl who formerly sat in front of me in class would be left wondering things like "Why did he sit next to me to only have a ~2.75 minute conversation with me" recalling specific instances of our previous interactions ie holding the door open for each other for the next 3 hours also possibly "dreading" the end of class when (as she perceives it) I will attempt to make another ~2.75 minute conversation when all she really wants to do after class is bring her phone to her face and tell [the person on the other end of the phone] that she is done with class or I would have to wait until the end of class, taking an "extra amount of time" to pack my things up (which would be, again, uncharacteristic because I sit closer to the door and only carry a single book with me) or waiting for her outside the door (equally uncharacteristic of me, since I don't remember any instance of me doing this before) in order to "strike up" a conversation for ~2.75 minutes outside the context of the class during which time she would be thinking something along the lines of "How long is he going to keep talking, it has been ~2.75 minutes, when am I going to be able to call [the person on the other end of the phone] to tell them that I am out of class" etc. Any ~2.75 conversation that I have would have to be "direct" in my intention otherwise I am wasting ~2.70 minutes of time making whatever conversation that I make for the ~0.05 minutes that it takes to say something like "I saw you touch your phone briefly without interacting with it and felt ecstatic about my life in a way that I never have before, can we please go somewhere and do something without interacting with each other or talking, can we just go sit somewhere and be silent and not look at each other for [an indeterminable amount of time]" or "I am very impressed by the manner in which you quietly ate [indiscriminate snack] last week, did you want to go out and eat [indiscriminate snack] quietly with me later" etc. because I can't conceive of a possible "universe" in which any conversation or interaction that I have the girl who sits in front of me in class where my intentions wouldn't be clearly on display and result in any "unrelated conversation" seeming to be "strange". I feel like this was my "original intention" but was unsure of what is the manner of doing it that is 1. the least "strange" 2. has the least amount of "artifice" and 3. was the most "honest"/"straightforward"/"concrete".
This is pretty ridiculous, I feel like you're bored and just having a little fun trolling TL. If you are not though, stop thinking so much about every little thing.
It's not that the quotes themselves are affronting; it's just that they are used almost completely unnecessarily. For instance, in this occasion you quote, "possible," when you have already clarified the use of the word's connotations by saying it is, "something that I didn't really feel."
@ziggurat "To strike up a conversation and maintain it for at least 2.75 minutes" is something that I didn't really feel was "possible" given 1. my lack of interaction with her previously and 2. the amount of classes that I have left before the semester ends.
On topic, I would try to repress some of your thoughts and feelings about what is socially allowed. Just like it was said, strike up a conversation with her, and if it goes wrong, at least you tried. You're not going to be vilified for some small social foible.
When you read, you end up sounding out the words in your head (or at least I do). The quotes are distracting, because even if I don't imagine someone using air quotes all the time (which I don't), I "hear" the emphasis added to the words in my head. It's the same reason why seeing a hell of a lot of italics or capslock in a sentence is fucking annoying and distracting.
There's no point to putting in the scare quotes when we, as readers, are not idiots and can generally tell which words are ambiguous and which are not, and thus we assign the appropriate weight to them. Hell, if you're really that worried about us being lost in the ambiguity of your language, just pick better words.
I mean, I am all for idiot-proof writing, but this is going a bit too far, especially since most of us are native English speakers.
@Kometaja I feel like I am using "possible" in that sense outside of the traditional context in which "possible" might be used, I don't mean it by way of the definition of "possible", this is obviously something that I can do, something that I can actually do. I think that "striking up" a conversation with the girl who sits in front of me in class is something that exists well within the confines of reality (I can imagine myself writing a story about "striking up" a conversation with the girl who sits in front of me in class in a style of realism). Instead, I mean "possible" in the sense that it doesn't seem "possible" in a universe whose "rules" seem comprehensible to me, and I think go further in trying to explain this.
I feel that at every side of every possible interaction there are "insurmountable obstacles"- talking before class being severely limited via seat positioning in relation to whatever tangential way the professor uses to segue into her lecture or being severely limited via changing seat positions in an "uncomfortable way" and talking after class being severely limited to the strangeness of trying to have a conversation with someone who's direction of movement is opposite to your own traditional path of movement and also her desire to tell [the person on the other end of the phone] that she is done with class, I feel given the timing of the phone call ie the class ending at ~6:45p.m. and making the call almost right away after getting out of class and also the general positioning of her phone on her desk along with her fingers "longing" to create contact, even if interaction-less, with it that [the person at the other end of the phone] would be more likely to be someone that would be defined as her "boyfriend" than vs. someone that would be defined as her dad, etc. I think that these factors especially paired with the fact that I have two more classes left in the semester prevents me from "striking up" a conversation with her because 1. I don't have the ability to "strike up" a conversation using the context of the class and 2. any interaction would either be clearly defined as me having an interest in her in this way (the way in which her having a boyfriend would prohibit) or would have to have me clearly defining my interest in her in this way (as before) which is an inherent imbalance of power that might feel "uncomfortable" in the future (in addition to the present).
It is my assumption that this seemingly quiet girl who does things in class in what seems like a "calculatedly quiet" manner would feel at the very least flattered that somebody in her class would "feel attracted to her" but this is an assumption that I don't feel is particularly true sometimes and remember several specific instances of unwanted advances from either 1. the class-mate in my poetry workshop who worked in a book-store where my friend worked in the coffee thing, this wasn't so bad except after he tried to "figure out my relationship status" I felt strange about the times that we had interacted before and also our future interactions (of which in my case there would be two more, one more via class and one more via the final or 2. the time that someone said he was/had been in my class but hadn't and seemingly "stalked" me on campus for the next year or so. I feel like both of these people would have had the same assumption towards me that I am making towards the girl who sits in front of me currently.
And I find it concerning that you have the time counted down to the last hundredth of a month. Maybe you're just a quirky kind of person.
Skimming through your replies, you think way too much. Quite neurotic. Then again I'm avoiding reading too much because of ALL THOSE FUCKING SCARE QUOTES.
Aiurz, I feel as though you'd be a very interesting person to speak to, I'd like to know you better to figure out how you think.
As for what reading your writing is like, have you watched the youtube video linked at the top of this page? Because that's how most of us are reading what you write.
You have other ways to put emphasis in, quotation marks imply a certain way of reading/speaking what you say.
In cases where it is simply a single word and you are not using it to indicate speech, it really does sound like the air quote video above.
Can I suggest something like this instead? Its much easier to the reader and nicely shows where the importance is.
Its not so...different. Of course if you -really- wanted to have a third option, you could do what I just did there.
Each of those three methods should read a different way. The quotations mark it harsh and short, the italics make it softer and more meaningful whilst the dashes harden and lengthen the sound of the word a bit.
Overall though, you don't need to do it anywhere near as much as you do now. The reader should be able to interpret what you are trying to say, you don't need to baby us. Try writing without them at all, I bet a large portion of people will still place the importance correctly.
I reckon your best shot is to try and recreate the door-situation again, preferably on the second last class. You mentioned that the after-class option is probably a no-go so how about camping outside before class. If you're lucky and your timing's right, you've got something "vaguely interesting" to joke about and then 2.75 minutes to talk about anything else before class. Now you have a free ticket to talk to her on the second day without any tricks: problem solved.
It'll probably be really obvious to her what you're trying to pull, but she can't prove it and might intrigue her as well (worked for me in a similar situation with perfect bathroom-break timing - yeah I know: real smooth )
@FractalsOnFire I don't really think that I overthink things or that I am a neurotic person, I think that maybe I am deliberate or maybe aware in my own thoughts in a different sort of way than most people, but I don't see any difference between anything that I have posted and things that a "normal average person" would think about just not on the conscious level. I think this sense of yours might be exacerbated because I also try to be very deliberate and concrete in my language, but I really think that I think about the same much as the average person does. To use a similar example, if you go to class, or when you went to class etc. and you sit down in the seat that you normally sit in, what really stops you from sitting in any other seat from around the room? Maybe you don't really think about it, but I don't really think that it can be "well I just decided to sit here" because if this was the reason then it seems to me like you would be constantly changing seats according to what you just decide to do in that moment. The difference is that when I sit down in my seat every day I am aware of the reasons why I am deciding to sit in that seat for that day. This is only an extension of that ie asking why don't I just sit next to the girl who sits in front of me in class and "strike up" a conversation with her and maintain it for ~2.75 minutes and being deliberate and aware of my own thought process why in a concrete manner, asking why don't I sit in my regular seat behind the girl who sits in front of me in class and "strike up" a conversation with her and maintain it for ~2.75 minutes and so on and so forth. I am reminded of a passage in Beckett's Molloy: http://www.samuel-beckett.net/molloy1.html although I feel as though you would probably also point that out as being neurotic and thinking too much and therefore reference it with a feeling of hesitation.
Also re: the decimals indicating the month are generally an approximation
@pevergreen I can't help or change the tonality in which you, or anyone, read my posts short of reading my posts myself and posting that either alongside my post or as my post. The quotation marks are generally correct, I think. If it helps you to read you can not place any emphasis on the words contained by quotation marks, I feel generally unencumbered in this way but I think that oftentimes I make an effort to read in a detached sort of monotone. It isn't about emphasis but more having to deal with various issues of language in relation to vagueness/ambiguity/concrete reality etc.
@Hoender I get off of work and go straight to school, there is no way for me to arrive at school any earlier than I do now. Trying to create a situation in which I hold open the door for her seems also full of artifice in the sense that I would have to open the door, then hold open the door, make eye-contact, maintain eye-contact, during which time if my body language is conveying my intention she will realize what is about to come next and feel an incoming sense of dread-- there is the sense that I am "creating" this situation out of a desire of this interaction, which feels to me to be the same amount of artifice as attempting any conversation of [indiscriminate length] that doesn't immediately communicate whatever intention that I have.
You're trying to make this into some simple formula for "optimal success." Just listen to yourself ""To strike up a conversation and maintain it for at least 2.75 minutes" is something that I didn't really feel was "possible" given 1. my lack of interaction with her previously and 2. the amount of classes that I have left before the semester ends. Any attempt at a conversation would take place in the ~2.75 " This is not how a human actually thinks. You can probablytalk to her if you find out what kind of person she is. SO far you have no idea, you'vejust been observing her in this creepily over attentive way. I know because i used to do this.
Also you sound super pretentious. Just because you are educated and confident in your ability with language and artistic observation or whatever doesn't mean you have to flaunt it as your main personality trait. You're going to piss a lot of people off. If you find a way to get over yourself and wanting to sound "special" or something then maybe you can summon the proper emotions to just be a normal human wtih her.
On April 29 2013 04:52 AiurZ wrote: ~10.75 months ago my girlfriend "broke up with me". We had been living together ~4 years. ~7.85 months ago my ex-girlfriend started dating somebody new. For the past ~10.75 months...
I lost it after this. The approximations combined with decimals, man. Too good.
@Japhybaby I don't understand, I feel like I am an "actual" human being' but this is the way that I think about this situation. Also I don't feel like I am "observing her in [a] creepily over attentive way" if I am generally paying attention to my professors lecture (I take very detailed notes) and am only noticing these things in a sort of "off-hand" kind of way. I think that I might begin to stray into this territory of "observing [...] in [a] creepily over attentive way" when I begin to notice and comment on things like: the manners in which she crosses her feet under her chair, the frequency of her shifting the manner in which she crosses her feet under her chair, the amount of water that she drinks per sip out of her water bottle both in times where it seems as though she is aware of herself drinking water in a "public area" and times where she seems to be "genuinely thirsty", the kind of paper that she uses ie using a notebook vs. loose-leafed paper, the size of her handwriting, the clarity of her handwriting, the handwriting that she uses to take notes in contrast to the handwriting that she uses for things that she knows she will have to turn in, the frequency in which she turns her head to look at "strange noises" in the classroom ie chairs moving, people talking in class who haven't been in class before, etc., etc., etc. This is not how I feel at all, my emotion is more along the lines of [feeling slightly interested in a person who I think might be interesting, if I had the opportunity to talk to them, or email them, or something] and my level of observation is more like [a passing interest which results in seeing a specific moment with intense detail/awareness].
Re: sounding pretentious I think that my main character traits are "feeling depressed", "feeling anxiety", and "feeling detached" and not things like "confidence in my ability to use language" or "confidence in my ability to make artistic observations"-- I think that in general I have very little confidence in my ability to use language and consider it a weakness of mine (even looking through the comments here you can see people who don't really understand the language that I am using despite my attempts to be as clear as I can; I've had mentors tell me that I have a tendency to "obfuscate" with my language). Also I think that the term "artistic observation" is against my aesthetic in the sense that I don't really believe when I make "observations" that they are "artistic", or that "observations" can be "artistic", and I think that if I made observations with the intent of them being "artistic" that it would be dishonest, untrue, and artificial, where my goal, generally, is to be honest, true, and "not artificial". I think I understand where you are coming from though, I think that in my posts here my tonality is something that can easily be understood as "pretentious" and I feel like it is everything I can do to just say something like, "this is not my tonality, but I understand how you might think that it is," and attempt to explain my tonality as I have done here.
Also as an update I haven't had any significant interaction with the girl who sits in front of me in class yet, I think there might have been an opportunity to but it would have meant that I would have had to waited outside of class for her for ~15 seconds when I knew that she had someplace that she had to go to after class that was important enough to tell the professor that she had to leave class early, and I felt that this wasn't "possible". I have one more class with her (not including the final) and generally feel as though I have done everything I could to create a situation in which interaction was "possible" to little/no avail and that despite any intention of mine in the future that the "universe" will "prevent" me from creating any situation in which interaction is "possible" via any number of contrived circumstances.
I don't know what made me say the thing about your personality being based on being educated. I just felt like you were speaking and therefore thinking in a tone that was more formal than one would expect in a blog where you talk about someone you are considering a potential partner.It removes personality in an instance where one would hope to see some personality. Maybe you need to think more in terms of your personality?
i didn't mean what you interpreted artistic observation to mean. I was referring to your comments about her reading voice, because she was reading a poem.The way someone experiences art is sometimes thought to portray something of the self. So in this case the art you were experiencing was the poem and whether it "worked" for you. Knowing what "works" is sometimes seen as a status symbol.
I think you're a good writer. It's clear and it has a bit of "pazazz" but to me it feels like a lot of the style is borrowed from someone like David Foster Wallace. I guess those are just techniques and he's the only writer i've read a fair amount of who uses a style and a tone like that (post-modernism but i've never got into that whole thing). too lazy to cite atm. If you haven't read David Foster Wallace i'd definitely recommend Infinite Jest or Brief Interviews with Hideous Men.
Well, too bad the interaction never panned out. Maybe you just need to start going with that impulsive voice ... the kid one that just says "go with it!" and be prepared to deal with failures. That's better than writing these blogs(not to imply that i don't like getting a chance to get into someones thoughts [is that unhealthy?]). Good Luck~
edit- i think i may have projected some of my own creepiness onto you and it just came out. (ew sounds gross)
totally normal. just go up and say "hey". if she's a cool person then she will be happy to have a conversation with you. it's not weird at all that you have been sitting next to each other in class for a few months (you shouldn't make a big deal of that, so why should she?). you've got nothing to lose and everything to gain. you even have the advantage of knowing a common topic of conversation: your professor's goofy dress, or whatever you read last week, or how much you're studying for this class ("so, I was wondering...I spend about 20 hours a day on this class—what kind of work are you putting in?").
Good luck exploring/observing the phenomena of people's behavior. I guess you should go for it, you never know whether you are going to meet someone as interesting or "worthwhile" again, and it might even work out in the end.
From the way you describe your feelings and observations and the apparent need to clarify "every" "single" "possible" "misconstruction," I think you care too much about what others think of you and your actions/thoughts.
Get more comfortable with yourself. Appreciate who you are as an individual, because there is nobody quite like you in the world. Why should it matter whether or not others "perceive" what you "write" as "different than you individually intend?" If they're confused and they care, they'll ask questions that you can answer. If not, they won't.
In the same vein, being more self-assertive and confident will only ever help with the ladies
EPT
Still, you have an interesting way of describing things. 
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