Metablog

OMG! Someone actually started a conversation with me on a dating site! Someone interesting and attractive? Yes! This is surely a first. Since she could read this, I will say no more about her directly. Besides, I don’t really know that much yet, having had only one short conversation with her. I am anxiously waiting continued conversation. And anxiously dreading the possibility that she, having lost her interest, due to our conversation (or worse yet, due to reading my blog) has stopped correspondence between us.

I have limited my emotional investment in the possibility from the beginning with this scenario and others in mind, but it’s not possible to limit it enough to obviate the pain of rejection entirely. (Even rejection still floating off in the land of possibility.) But it’s not really the pain, so much as it is the possibility and tension and fear in the situation—the anxiety of it all—that really gets to me, drives me crazy, and drives me to distraction.

This has really preoccupied me. It’s driven me to feel more suicidal. I’ve already been feeling pretty goddamn suicidal. I’m at the stage now where I’m seriously getting close. I haven’t yet purchased the tools I’ll use, but I’ve gotten close a couple days to going out and buying the stuff.

So what’s my point here? I guess that, even with all this stress and drama, I think it’s worth it. The possibilities, the hope, the potential, make it worth it. Because nothing in life is worth quite as much as a good relationship, I think.

Hello, world. I’m learning Scala. It’s a pretty neat language, despite my initial negative reaction based on the name, logo, and color scheme of the site. I think I’ve finally gotten over liking Lisp especially. F# doesn’t seem especially impressive to me compared to Scala. Or even SML, to be honest.

Still single, and miserable. There’s no one out there like me. Well, close enough to no one that I haven’t been able to find them after three years of looking, off and on, through dating sites. Only a couple people that even come close, and those ones don’t respond.

They say that suicide is a disease in itself. Aside from depression, it takes a life of its own, and eats away at you even when you’d otherwise be happy. I’m not quite happy, but I’m close to it. Closer than I was a year ago. I still have plenty to justify suicide. I just wonder if I will ever run out of things to justify it. I clearly have a will to live. Just not a very strong one.

I’m learning Isabelle. I want to write a new user interface for it. Something awesome. I have a good idea of how to make it awesome, but I haven’t yet decided how to approach it. Or how to spend my free time working on it. Or how to deal with the stress of my job. Or the lack of a desire to live. Anyway, I’ve thought that I might take a bottom-up approach, reading the source code in order of how the compiler compiles it, which is guaranteed to be the most linear bottom-up approach available. (Unlike in languages like C# where source files can have circular dependencies up to the assembly (dll) level, which makes bottom-up reading potentially impossible.) But I’m not sure I’ll do that.

Due to an unfortunate incident, I’m required to attend AA meetings. It’s a shame, since I’m not an alcoholic, that I’m being forced to intrude on these meetings, but seeing the camaraderie between these people makes me want to attend something more appropriate for me. A bipolar meeting, perhaps? I don’t see anything in my city. Shame. I should call some hotlines that have better resources than google on this issue.

No real progress on lucid dreaming, despite the post title. I remember bits of dreams every few days. That’s about it. I promise not to subject you to any of my dreams. I may post here of some revelation I’ve had as a result of some dream. But that’ll be it. So far, the most significance any dream has had is that I needed to pee while I slept.

You know, I’m not even sure why I do this type of post. It’s not like there’s anyone who enjoys them. Now, my last post. That was one with popular appeal.

Also published at Less Wrong.

So, you wanna be a rationalist, huh? Then it’s more than likely that at some point you’ve had the thought: “I should be completely honest with everyone. I shouldn’t hide any truth.” And it’s likely you’re a bit more honest than the average human. (Robin Hanson might take issue here.) And it’s likely you’re nothing like completely honest with everyone. So where, and why, do these ideals fall short?

First, strict honesty is a form of vulnerability. You’re bound to say a particular thing in any given situation, regardless of how it may work to your advantage or disadvantage. You pass up opportunities to manipulate or obfuscate that could work to your advantage. In the game of life, you’re conceding ground. Now, this is made up for, to some extent, by the reputational advantages of honesty. Is the balance positive? Not hardly, in my opinion. (And we haven’t even considered the “telling it like it is” problem yet.)

Second, it takes a lot of active effort to stay honest with someone. And that effort needs to pay off for honesty to be worthwhile. Strict honesty can only pay off with particular people. You say you want honesty. No, what you want is honesty from someone who thinks rather highly of you and is committed to your well-being. Someone who doesn’t have much negative to say about you at all, compared to the positive.*

Really, I think what people are searching for with these honesty impulses is reciprocal honesty. Reciprocal honesty is much more practicable than strict honesty. You can be reciprocally honest in limited ways, with specific people on certain topics. You can pick and choose. (Do you feel an obligation to tell the truth to those who lie to you?)

Continue reading »

This.

Here’s a poem-ish thing I wrote several years ago. Do you think it’s any good? I still like it, but I suspect I’m really terrible at this sort of thing.

Crush

A simplicity, an unconscious grace,
fluid, natural, and inseparable
from her being,
that brightens her and her surroundings,

her presence demanding not awe,
but still, a happy appreciation,
instilling an insatiable interest,
immediate,

curves that admit of no criticism,
a smile, not of maturity, but of friendliness,
an innocence that has been happily forgotten,
discarded,

and the characteristic vitality of youth,
not tempered by any false religious wisdom,
not checked by pressures of purity, sanctity,
or excellence,

are what make her
my crush.

BTW, I was too chicken at the time to ever even talk to her. Ah, those were the days.

Why is it that it’s so hard to flirt until you stop caring about it? Why is it that it’s so hard to make friends while you’re lonely? Why is it that it’s so hard to find a partner until you’re no longer desperate for one?

If you’ve just read my last post, you know I just got dumped. And if you’ve read this, you know that I’ve had a real problem with feeling apathetic. I now understand this problem as straightforward major depression, rather than ADHD. And, thanks to my most recent experience, I now understand this depression as being caused, in a major part, by social isolation, or loneliness. (Read on for the full story.) Continue reading »

OK, well, not really. It was just two dates. But the second one was at my apartment and involved cuddling. And she sounded so infatuated! Or at least, interested. What with the “cutie” and “sweetie” over IM.

What’s that you say? Someone that’s 22 years old shouldn’t be too upset about this? This is just a normal part of dating? Oh, I hear you. I know. It’s just that I haven’t ever experienced these things. I’m such a newbie. This is the first time I’ve been dumped. (Well, declined after having had dates.) And I’m wondering, how is it that I became attached after two dates for this to be a surprise?

I have two theories. One, I’m just too easily taken by people. I become attached more easily than others. Solution: more dating. More experience. More cynicism. (Intellectually, I’m pretty cynical, but emotionally no.)

Two, she was being misleading. Solution: slightly more cynicism. Be aware that some people can disply all the signs of wanting intimacy without the actual interest or desire in you particularly. That’s a new experience for me.

My best guess at this point is an even mixture of one and two.