Tag Archives: depression

February 3, 2018 · 7:25 am

Why Treating Sexuality As A Disease (Always) Fails

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It wasn’t too long ago that discussions about reparative therapy, also known as gay conversion therapy, became more a joke than a serious concept. Going back to Michele Bachman’s failed presidential bid in 2012, and all the assorted jokes about her husband, who ran a religion-based therapy center, I think it’s safe to say that this issue has run its course and for good reason.

There was once a time when attempting to change someone’s sexuality into whatever society deemed acceptable was a serious pursuit. Even Sigmund Freud contributed to that effort, going so far as to claim that homosexuality could be cured through hypnosis. Seeing as how hypnotists are more likely to work in Las Vegas stage shows instead of clinics, it should be obvious how wrong he was.

As it stands, reparative therapy is rejected and discouraged by nearly every legitimate psychological and therapeutic organization on the planet. There are still those who claim that’s just part of the larger gay agenda, but those claims don’t deserve to be taken seriously. Whenever that many organizations to agree that something is so ineffective and harmful, it’s usually a pretty clear sign that there’s something wrong with it.

For the rest of the population that doesn’t buy into homophobic conspiracy theories, the issue is resolved. While there’s still a lot we don’t understand about human sexuality, our current understanding offers a fairly concise conclusion. It’s not possible to completely change or radically reorient someone’s sexuality.

So in light this widely-accepted conclusion, any subsequent efforts to radically alter someone’s sexuality through archaic tactics that involve shame, guilt, and pseudo-spiritual bunk should be just as asinine. The keyword there is it should be. Even though reparative therapy is roundly condemned, the spirit of that therapy continues, albeit with a different target.

This time, the targets aren’t homosexuals or some other sexual minority. Instead, the scope is bigger and more extensive than even defunct anti-gay ministries could ever hope to achieve. It’s taking aim at sexuality, as a whole, particularly that of men. While it doesn’t have an official title, the tactics are distressingly similar.

I’m reluctant to put a label on it because I’d rather not throw around blanket terms for an issue this vast. Much of it stems from those opposing everything associated with “toxic masculinity,” a term I’ve already condemned.

From sex scandals to advertising to representations in major movies, the obstacle is the same. A particular brand of male sexuality that caters to straight men seeking the company of beautiful women for basic, shallow reasons isn’t just falling out of favor. It’s seen as corrupt, part of some grand patriarchal conspiracy.

It’s so corrupt that some, such as Joss Whedon, describe it like a disease. Men who simply have these desires are somehow flawed and need to either be educated or scorned. It’s not quite at the level that homosexuals endured in the past, but the common themes are still there.

It’s hard to pinpoint where it began. Some might point to the Harvey Weinstein scandal as the catalyst that turned the public against the whims of horny men, but I think it goes back further than that, even past the 2016 Presidential Election. The concept of criticizing men’s preference to admire beautiful women isn’t new. The extent of that criticism, however, is unprecedented and still growing.

Regardless of how it began, either through vocal critics of breast depictions in video games or protesting sexy advertising, it’s a major movement now. It has popular hashtags and the backing of powerful media outlets. If you’re a straight man who enjoys admiring beautiful women, then congratulations. You’re the source of all the problems in our current sexual landscape.

Given the intensity of the rhetoric in the movement, it’s not just about protesting the injustices perpetrated by men in positions of power who freely exploited that power. It’s attacking certain manifestations of sexuality as a whole, deeming them “problematic” to the point where it’s practically pathologized. That’s how we end up with asinine terms like “toxic masculinity.”

It’s for that reason that the parallels between the long-debunked ideas of reparative therapy and ongoing condemnations of male sexuality are all the more disturbing. Stories about LGBT youth who survived reparative therapy, and not all of them do, tend to tell similar stories. The so-called therapy they get usually involves the following:

  • Excessive condemnation and shaming of certain desires
  • Attributing certain sexual desires with negative connotations
  • Demanding frequent confessions of guilt for past misdeeds, real or imagined
  • Demanding complete dissociation from a previous lifestyle
  • Attributing desires and feelings to disease or an unhealthy state of being
  • Attacking or subverting someone’s identity in an effort to re-shape it
  • Conditioning someone to associate natural feelings with negative sentiments

To anyone who has been keeping track of how men have been criticized for their attitudes towards some of the recent sexual misconduct scandals, these methods should sound painfully familiar. It’s also worth noting that these are methods that the American Psychological Association deems harmful and even dangerous.

Now, I want to be careful with my rhetoric here because I don’t want to imply that straight men who enjoy looking at beautiful women in bikinis are suffering to the same extent LGBT people suffered in these faux-therapeutic settings. That’s not the point I’m trying to make here. I’m just trying to highlight the extent to which the approaches are similar, even if they’re not the same.

It’s one thing to punish actual misconduct. It’s quite another to attack the underlying desires of an entire group. Men looking at beautiful women is now a symptom of objectification, patriarchy, and misogyny. Conversely, women looking at beautiful men is a major Hollywood movie starting Channing Tatum. See the difference?

That difference matters because treating those attitudes as diseases is every bit as misguided as treating homosexuality or transgenderism as a disease. It would be akin to referring to all homosexuality as “toxic sexuality” instead of a simple variation among the vast spectrum that is human sexuality.

That’s not to say there aren’t issues with certain attitudes men have towards sexuality. There are plenty of issues about women’s attitudes as well. However, the fact that the current culture, empowered by social media and selective biases, treats those attitudes the same way reparative therapy treats homosexuality is both revealing and distressing.

The negative impacts of those methods are well-documented, both in terms of harm and ineffectiveness. Relentlessly shaming people for their sexuality, be they straight men or gay women, is pretty damaging. It doesn’t take a licensed therapist to know that conditioning someone to hate their own desires will seriously affect their mental health.

There are many lessons to learn from the failures of reparative therapy. For one, it revealed just how powerful sexual and romantic desire can be in a person. It can also reflect how lonely it can be when those feelings are deemed defective, toxic, or deviant by a society, at large. Countless LGBT individuals have suffered because of these misguided efforts. More will suffer if those lessons aren’t heeded.

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October 25, 2017 · 6:18 am

How Learned Helplessness Dooms Your Sex Life (Among Other Things)

When I was growing up, I considered myself lucky to be surrounded by so many loving people. I like to think my fondness of romance, as well as my desire to become an erotica/romance writer, is a direct result of seeing so much love among friends, family, and all those close to me.

It wasn’t all smiles, chocolate, and gratuitous tongue-kissing. Every now and then, I encountered certain couples that stood in stark contrast to the love I saw so much of throughout my life. They weren’t abusive or hateful. In a sense, they were their own tragedy, albeit not of the Shakespearean variety.

Picture a couple that’s about as passionate as a sick cat. There’s no fire in their romance. If there was, it burned out years ago and neither one of them cares enough to spark it again. They don’t necessarily hate each other. At best, they tolerate one another on a day-to-day basis, resigned to the fact that this is their life.

What I just described is not the kind of relationship that ends up on Jerry Springer or leads to protracted divorce hearings. They’re rarely that dramatic. If anything, they’re the antithesis to drama. That’s why those involved are so miserable. In a relationship like that, a clogged toilet counts as an adventure.

These kinds of relationships are not as easy to notice, but they do happen. You might even know a few, but I’d bet a stack of old Playboys that there are more than you think. Instead of love, passion, and heart, these relationships are fueled misery, laziness, and failure. At some point, those involved just stop trying to escape it.

In a world where people get worked up over dipping sauces and dress colors, it seems outrageous that anyone could be that callous and numb. It’s even more outrageous to think that a relationship could be built around it. However, there are powerful, unsexy forces at work and they’re not to be taken lightly.

This brings me to the concept of learned helplessness. If you’ve every taken a psychology course, you know what it is and you probably have an idea as to how it acts as kryptonite to love, romance, and passion. For those of you who don’t know, it’s a fairly easy concept. According to Wikipedia, the phenomenon is defined as follows:

[A] behavior typical of a human or an animal and occurs where the subject endures repeatedly painful or otherwise aversive stimuli which it is unable to escape or avoid. After such experience, the organism often fails to learn or accept “escape” or “avoidance” in new situations where such behavior would likely be effective. In other words, the organism learned that it is helpless in situations where there is a presence of aversive stimuli, has accepted that it has lost control, and thus gives up trying.

In terms of common behavioral traits, it’s somewhat bland. That doesn’t make it any less powerful, though. There is real, distressing science behind it, starting with experiments conducted in the 1960s. If you’re a dog lover, though, these experiments should be particularly disturbing.

If you’re also a fan of meaningful love, then you should be even more disturbed because it’s not hard to see how something like learned helplessness can creep into a relationship. For those trying to tell powerful, sexy stories, it’s important to know the signs.

The challenge, however, is that learned helplessness is one of those things that doesn’t happen all at once. Whether it’s those cruel experiments on dogs that I mentioned or continuous torture by the CIA, one painful experience is rarely enough. While love can manifest in a single moment, as is the case with “love at first sight,” learned helplessness takes a longer, more tedious road.

Sometimes it starts with boredom, a powerful feeling that I’ve discussed before. Sometimes it starts with frustration. Maybe a couple tries a few times to spice things up, but it doesn’t work. Maybe they try to shake up their routine, but that doesn’t work either. The key ingredient here is failure and frustrations, two experiences that tend to accumulate rapidly.

The couple involved may never get angry, resentful, or bitter to one another. Learned helplessness rarely inspires abuse or outright hatred. However, that’s part of what makes it so debilitating. When a relationship becomes abusive, one part of the relationship has a much stronger incentive to either escape or fight back. It’s hard to be lazy or apathetic when you feel like your well-being is at risk.

With learned helplessness, laziness and apathy are weaponized. That’s because without that incentive, neither side has the energy or desire to shake up the situation. Ending a relationship always requires some amount of upheaval, work, or effort. Someone under the influence of learned helplessness sees that as more trouble than it’s worth.

Beyond just rendering a relationship stale, the effects on your sex life can be just as debilitating. Once a couple gets to a point in their relationship where they’re just resigned to the fact that this is their normal, sex becomes less a treat and more a chore. Even if the orgasms still feel good, they’re barely distinguishable from masturbation.

That, by far, is the clearest sign that learned helplessness has consumed a relationship. As soon as sex becomes a chore, then it’s safe to say that two people have crossed the point of no return. They are beyond the point of rekindling whatever flame they once had. They just accept their misery and dispassion.

In defense of those poor souls, they don’t always have the luxury of ending that relationship and starting fresh. Sometimes, it’s because of their age. Sometimes, they’re in an environment where they don’t have anywhere else to go and few resources to work with. Then, there are times when the inconvenience just doesn’t justify the cost. It’s just easier to stay miserable than deal with the stress of rebuilding.

There’s little question that misery, depression, and boredom are bad for your love life, your sex drive, and everything in between. Learned helplessness is just the catalyst. Instead of blowing up in your face, love just whithers slowly like a piece of rotting fruit, getting emptier and deader with each passing day.

In some cases, it’s difficult to avoid. Some people just find themselves in relationships where they lose control and accept their misfortune. They’re content to just accept the misery and make the best of it, however fruitless it might be.

In others, you can take steps to avoid that kind of misery. Think back to those awful experiments involving dogs. After a while, the dog just stops trying to avoid the pain. The key to avoiding that kind of misery is to keep making an effort. Don’t stop trying. Do what you can to avoid mistakes. Moreover, do what you can to improve your situation, however possible.

That might mean pushing yourself when you don’t want to. It’s like exercising, which sometimes requires extra motivation. Within a relationship, it’s even more difficult because both you and your lover have to share in that motivation. You have to want to maintain that passion, even as you get older, have less energy, and feel less sexy.

In my experience, the most successful couples I know never truly stop dating each other. Even when they’ve been married for decades, they still carry themselves as a couple that’s still dating. They still go to interesting places, try new things, and explore new activities. Some aren’t always sexy, but they have the potential to be.

Every couple is different, but nobody benefits from learned helplessness. Whether you’re a dog, a dumb-ass, or a hopeless romantic, falling into that pit of apathy will never inspire your passion or increase your sex appeal. It’ll drain it, bit by bit.

Nobody deserves that. I certainly want to avoid that if and when I ever find a steady lover. I’m not a relationship expert or a therapist, nor should anybody assume I’m one, but I hope to help in whatever way I can. Whether it’s making people aware of learned helplessness or writing sexy novels, I intend to do my part.

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July 26, 2017 · 6:50 am

Celebrities, Loneliness, And The Price Of Fame

We all love to dream about it. We all love to build an elaborate fantasy in our minds. It’s right up there with our fantasies involving Channing Tatum, Kate Hudson, and a pool full of premium lube. It’s that tantalizing idea that we, despite our unremarkable physical traits, limited talents, and lack of opportunities, could be a celebrity.

It’s not an unreasonable fantasy to entertain. Celebrities are constantly showing off how awesome their lives are. They live in big, opulent mansions. They have more money than most of us could ever spend in a lifetime. They’re surrounded by servants and assistants who cater to their every whim,  be it a sandwich or a threesome with a couple of Swedish bikini models.

Whether they’re a movie star, a TV star, or a rock star, we all envy their extraordinary lives. That’s why it’s always so shocking and confusing when we hear that a famous, accomplished celebrity has taken their own life. It’s a tragedy and one that evokes an outpouring of mourning.

It was just hard to imagine someone as beloved and cherished as Robin Williams taking his own life. Just recently, it was hard to imagine someone like Chester Bennington from Linkin Park doing the same. These men achieved a level of success that even other celebrities envy. Why would they make such a terrible decision to end their lives?

It’s a question that we find ourselves asking way too often. Celebrities have been taking their own lives with alarming frequency in the 21st century. Some, like Kurt Cobain and John Belushi, had well-documented issues with substance abuse. Some, like Corey Haim or Freddie Prinze, saw their fame and fortune fall over time.

Whatever the circumstances, the shock still resonates. The question still remains. Why would someone who achieved something so few achieve choose to end their lives? Some of these people came from poor, impoverished backgrounds. Why would they end it after achieving the kind of success that most only dream of?

These are impossible questions to answer because we can never know what goes on in someone’s mind when they decide to take their own lives. We can speculate, but we can never truly know. I certainly won’t claim to know what was going on inside Chester Bennington’s mind. That would be wrong, especially as his family, friends, and fans mourn him.

However, even if we can’t know, there is one way to gain some insight into this tragedy. It requires another thought experiment, albeit one of the more uncomfortable variety. Considering how uncomfortable some of these experiments have gotten, that’s saying something. Even so, I think it’s an important insight to have, especially when you’re trying to make sense of celebrity culture.

Picture, for a moment, that you wake up in an alternate universe of the world you know. Everything is the same, from the shape of the planet to the laws of physics to the annoying video ads you see before YouTube videos. The main difference is that in this world, you have none of the friends or family that you know and love.

Instead, you’re in a world surrounded by total strangers. Most act nice. Some even try to be your friend. However, you don’t know for sure whether you can trust them. These people and this world may seem familiar, but it might as well be totally alien, complete with little green men and anal probes.

Then, throw in another huge complication. Imagine you’re rich and famous. Everybody wants a piece of you. Everybody envies what you have. People you don’t know and never would’ve known in your old life just throw themselves at you. They want to be with you physically, emotionally, and often sexually, as is often the case with rock stars. They even claim to love you with all their heart, sometimes excessively.

Therein lies the problem, though. How can you be sure they actually love you? How can you even trust them when they make such bold proclamations? You’re rich and famous. They’re not. You have a lot. They don’t. They also don’t know you on a truly intimate level. They know the image of you, be it in the movies or on a stage, but they don’t know the kind of person you are when the cameras go off and the lights fade.

Maybe these people want some of your money. That does happen, especially with women looking to hook up with athletes and rock stars. Maybe these people want a piece of your fame. That’s where you get some of the crazy fans who will throw themselves at their celebrity crushes in a frenzy. Maybe they really just want to have sex with you because they get a huge thrill out of having sex with famous people.

There are way more possibilities I can list, but at the end of the day, you can never know for sure. You can never truly trust someone who claims to love you. You can’t even just walk down the street, make some new friends, and build new bonds from there. You’re a celebrity.

Your entire life is overly scrutinized. People only know the character that is you, but not you on a truly intimate level. It means that, even among those who claim to be your friends, you end up feeling alone. Add on top of that the everyday stresses of being a celebrity and your caveman brains will start to strain.

Image result for stress of loneliness

Could you really function with that kind of mentality? Could you live the rest of your life not being able to trust anyone around you? Could you handle being in a world where nobody truly knows the real you?

Many think they can. Why else would there be lines around the block to participate in the next American Idol rip-off? I don’t doubt these people are sincere, but I doubt they’ve actually thought about the implications of celebrity life. I doubt anyone does, even if they were born into it.

There is a price for fame and fortune. It’s downright Faustian in its cost. Sure, you might be able to live in luxury, your every whim and desired pampered to at every hour of the day. However, you’ll still be isolated and alone. You’ll be stuck in a world where you can never be sure of who to trust. You can never know whether someone actually cares about you or the celebrity version of you.

Image result for alone in a crowd

That kind of loneliness and isolation can be pretty debilitating. It’s also completely incompatible with the default settings of our caveman brains. We are very social creatures. We crave connection and bonding. I’m not just talking about the sexy kind either. Take that away from us and it really screws us up. That’s why solitary confinement is rightly considered torture.

When you feel things like that, you naturally want them to go away. This isn’t a headache, a broken bone, or chipped tooth, though. This is a very different kind of pain, one for which you can’t fix with a band aid and an aspirin. That’s why many celebrities will turn to drugs and vices.

I’m not just talking about heroin, cocaine, and orgies either. Some celebrities will go so far to alleviate that isolation that they’ll effectively cut ties with reality and try to live in their own fantasy world. We saw that happen with Michael Jackson. We’re seeing that with celebrities like Tom Cruise, who uses a sci-fi cult religion that’s famous for legal extortion to deal with these feelings.

At the end of the day, no matter how successful or glamorous they may be, celebrities are still human. They’re still wired like our caveman ancestors, even if they believe weird things. If they struggle to meet these very basic human needs, then it’s going to cause problems and some of them will end in tragedy.

That’s not to say it’s impossible to manage. There are plenty of celebrities who do an excellent job handling the fame, fortune, and attention. Celebrities like Hugh Jackman, George Clooney, Jennifer Anniston, Bruce Springstein, and even Weird Al Yanckovic regularly show that it is possible to survive that lonely world.

While these celebrities show it is possible for some to function, it doesn’t make the tragedies of those like Chester Bennington any less painful. It also wrongly convinces many that they can handle that world too. Nobody aspires to be a celebrity if they aren’t convinced they can’t handle it.

The hard truth is, though, that precious few people can pay the price that comes with fame and fortune. Fame and fortune may make for an eventful life, but it doesn’t make us any less human. It doesn’t make loneliness and isolation any less debilitating.

Chester Bennington, Robin Williams, and countless others struggled with that loneliness. They endured that struggle on top of whatever personal pain they also carried with them. No amount of fame and fortune can make that struggle less agonizing. For some, it’s just too much.

It’s a feeling that few outside the celebrity world can understand. When everyone wants a piece of you and everyone wants to tell you what you think you want to hear, there’s no way to know for sure who you can trust. In the end, it leaves even the most talented and gifted among us feeling lost. In a sense, that only doubles the tragedy when a celebrity takes their own life.

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July 25, 2017 · 7:00 am

The Death of Chester Bennington, Linkin Park, And A Piece Of My Youth

I was going to write about this sooner. I intended to put a pin in everything I’d been working on so I could talk about this still-developing story. I had to step back and give myself a few days because it was just too hard. As much as I value writing about feelings within a particular moment, some just can’t do justice to the feelings behind them.

By now, many have already heard the terrible news that TMZ broke last week. Chester Bennington, the lead singer of Linkin Park, is dead. His death has been ruled a suicide. For fans of Linkin Park and the music world, as a whole, it’s a terrible loss.

Bennington, whose suffering from the scars of child abuse and various forms of substance abuse is well-documented, used his powerful voice to put into words a pain that is unique, but profound to all those who hear it. For those who came of age in the early to mid 2000s, having listened to the raw, unbridled passion of their music, the loss cuts much deeper.

I know because I was among those who grew up listening to Linkin Park. Their music came along at just the right time. I’ve talked before about how messed up I was as a teenager. I was socially awkward, depressed, and constantly struggling with my insecurities.

Linkin Park, and the powerful voice of Chester Bennington, made those feelings tangible and real. It made it feel as though I could grasp these painful feelings. They became less overwhelming and less distant. It put into words the thoughts I could not process. It also rocked in ways that defined a time, a place, and a feeling.

Their first two albums, Hybrid Theory and Meteora, have a special place in my heart. Even though my life has gotten a lot better since those dark days of my adolescence, the music still resonates with me. It reminds me of what I felt, what I went through, and how it made me stronger.

That’s why the death of Chester Bennington really hit me hard. Compared to the issues he endured, mine seemed so minor. For a man to have that kind of voice and that kind of passion requires a special kind of talent. That talent, mixed with his own personal pain, helped define a generation. For that, I will be forever grateful to Bennington and Linkin Park for giving that generation a voice.

To Chester Bennington and his family, Rest In Peace.

To anyone out there who is dealing with pain, be it emotional or physical, please seek help. As part of Linkin Park’s ongoing effort to help those dealing with suicidal thoughts, they are spreading awareness of suicide prevention. So if you, or someone you know, is struggling with thoughts of suicide, please call the Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK.

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February 13, 2017 · 6:15 am

A Personal Story The Day Before Valentine’s Day

It’s the day before Valentine’s Day. For spouses, lovers, mistresses, and fuck buddies, it’s almost time to begin a day of romance. There will be kissing, chocolate, love-making, and just plain fucking, although not necessarily in that order. It’s a beautiful thing. I don’t deny that. As an aspiring erotica/romance writer, I have a strong appreciation for all the things that Valentine’s Day represents.

That said, it’s also my least favorite holiday and has been for a while now. I know I’m not alone either. Some have gone so far as to create an entirely new holiday called “Singles Awareness Day” to balance out all the annoying reminders that Valentine’s Day gives. It’s basically a weaker version of Festivus, minus the famous Seinfeld connotations.

Now I don’t take my disdain of Valentine’s Day quite that far. I don’t believe that creating one bullshit holiday to counter another is that productive. It also doesn’t change the underlying reasons why many people hate Valentine’s Day.

For many, Valentine’s Day is a harsh reminder that finding love is hard for a lot of people. Let’s face it. If you’re a pretty, young woman with big tits or a handsome young man with a fat wallet, finding love is easy. You can walk down the street in a thong and you’ll probably find someone to celebrate a holiday with. It’s just that easy.

For the rest of us, though, we don’t have that luxury. We’re at the mercy of our circumstances and some of us don’t handle those circumstances very well. In fact, we find ways to make them worse, even when we don’t have to.

In that spirit, as well as the spirit of those who would rather spend this Hallmark Holiday drunk, I’d like to share a little anecdote that should help explain why Valentine’s Day is so difficult for me.

I’ve gotten personal on this blog before. I’ve confessed to sleeping naked and shared a story about my first trip to Las Vegas. Those stories have some inherent sexiness to them. Unfortunately, there’s nothing sexy about this one. It’s mostly just somber recollection of a very lonely part of my life, long before I ever had an outlet in erotica/romance.

It happened when I was a teenager in high school, also known as my extended stay in Hell. I’ll probably say this many times on this blog, but it’s worth emphasizing. I hated high school. I was absolutely miserable. I wasn’t just a whiny, self-loathing teenager. I basically went out of my way to be miserable. It’s even more pathetic than it sounds.

This particular story highlights just how bad it got for me. It happened right around January of my freshman year, which also happened to be the year I developed a horrible acne problem that plagued me for most of my teenage life. So I was already feeling pretty bad about myself to begin with. However, being the miserable little fuck I was, I just had to make it worse.

During this time, we had a major snowstorm, which happens pretty often in my part of the country. We get at least two a year and this one was probably the biggest of the year. The whole neighborhood was a winter wonderland. It would’ve been so pretty if I weren’t such a miserable little shit.

In addition to the snow, it was colder than a snowman’s nut-sack in the morning. Given how early class started, I had to be out at the bus stop at around 6:30 a.m. Remember, this is the middle of winter. It’s still dark out and most of my body is still asleep.

Why is this relevant? Well, it matters because the bus stop I stood at was just across the street from my house. The neighbors were nice and our families got along. So when it was so damn cold and dark out, they would let me and the other kids stay indoors where it was warm. It was a good deal. The kids in my neighborhood were all very nice and friendly. I had no reason at all deny such a generous offer.

Then, I remembered that I was a miserable, self-loathing teenager who had the social skills of a brain-dead fish. Even when the weather was nice, I never talked to anyone. I never tried to strike up a conversation. I would literally spend an entire morning not saying a goddamn word to anybody. The most I did was stare at my shoes and daydream about not being in high school.

As a result, I didn’t take my neighbors up on their generosity. I just remained out there by the curb in the freezing cold, shivering to myself and finding more reasons to be miserable. All the while, the other kids at my bus stop stayed indoors and stayed warm. They probably even chatted, supporting one another in any way they could, knowing that high school always found new ways to make teenagers miserable.

I really could’ve used that support. I really could’ve used friends like that. I believe that if I had chosen to hang out with them while we waited for the bus, I probably would’ve been less miserable in addition to being warmer. They probably wouldn’t have said a word about my acne problem. They were teenagers, but most of them weren’t assholes.

Sadly, I just decided to stay miserable. I decided to keep to myself. For an entire week during the coldest time of the year, I stayed out at that bus stop, alone and miserable. I never said anything. I just stood there, endured the cold solitude, and waited for the bus. It’s as sad and pathetic as it sounds.

Why am I sharing this the day before Valentine’s Day? Well, I want to tell this story to help illustrate how bad I was at connecting with people. I had horrible social skills. I had no charisma whatsoever. It certainly didn’t help that I was exceedingly self-conscious, mostly due to my acne. It is a sad, pathetic feeling that I wouldn’t wish on anyone.

Now don’t get the wrong impression. This pathetic loneliness was my fault and mine alone. My family did damn near everything to support me in every possible way. They went out of their way to make me less miserable. I basically rejected them. I made the decision to be miserable. I wish I could unmake it because it still affects me to this day.

Looking back on those cold, lonely mornings, I feel as though I set myself back. I eventually did improve my social skills, but I was very behind the curve and still am to this day. It shows when I talk to new people and especially when I try to talk to women. I can handle myself a bit better, but I really did handicap myself for reasons that have never been justified.

So on the day before Valentine’s Day, I find myself remembering those cold mornings in high school again. I remember the loneliness and isolation that I imposed on myself during that time. I don’t doubt for a second that there are many others like me who share that feeling. Not all of them are in high school, but I imagine there’s never a shortage of miserable teenagers.

To those out there who do feel lonely, especially during this time of year, I would urge you to fight the urge to stay miserable. Fight the inner demons saying you deserve to be lonely. You’re better than that. You deserve to connect with others because guess what? They’re human, just like you. They seek connection as well. Look for it and you’ll find that you don’t have to be alone.

For this year, at least, I’ll probably be spending Valentine’s Day alone. The only companion I’ll have is named Jack Daniels. However, I refuse to remain in that cold, lonely place I put myself in all those years ago. I want to find love. I want to connect with people. Hopefully, my work as an erotica/romance writer will help me achieve this.

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