Tag: frustration

Cyber Frustration

There was a time when I was very active in dating. Dare I say I was popular with the ladies. I was never a player and didn’t care for one-night stands and hurt feelings. Intimacy has always mattered to me and is a huge part of sexual attraction. Unlike most guys, I was always looking for my soul mate, not a hookup,even as a young man. Monogamy has never been a strained or difficult concept for me. Nor has fidelity, loyalty, sacrifice, and working harder when things are rocky.

I’m rapidly gaining on 60 years old and I’m still looking for my soulmate. I was married for 23 years but she wasn’t my soulmate. I don’t know if there is any way to say this that wouldn’t offend her if she read it, but I married her for all of the wrong reasons. One particularly big one is that I thought no one else would marry me. I didn’t settle, well in a way I did, I just made a safe decision. We have 4 wonderful children together so I can’t say that I regret marrying her, but I do have a lot of regrets. One is spending the last 10 years of our marriage on the sofa, in a relationship devoid of love, intimacy, and even friendship. But the children wanted me there, so that’s on me. I am 6 years divorced now, 4 of which were spent battling illness. When I wasn’t sick I was trying to put the rest of my broken life together.

But I’m past that now and I’m putting myself out there in the dreaded dating scene. I’m here to report that it’s worse for me now than it ever was. I haven’t made any sizable steps forward since I last dated in the early 90’s. At least then, without even delving into the difference in my looks and fitness, I could get away with not having it all together. Being broke, marginally employed, and living with your friend isn’t cute at my age. I know this because of the sheer lack of interest in me. My situation, as expected, is a bit difficult to sell to today’s woman.

I’ve been told that I’m hard on myself. It’s true to an extent. But I’m not commiserating about this, I’m just being realistic. I don’t know what women want but it’s not me. I’ve had dates, and a few short relationships. For some reason they fizzled out and it’s ok. No blame to be assigned, just not the right match. In fact, I don’t have difficulty meeting women. In person, I’m fine. There have been situations recently where I stepped out of my comfort zone and successfully asked someone out. I’m not bad-looking, especially factoring in the myriad medical problems I’ve had, and I can be charming when I let myself. About half the time, my lack of financial and job security is not a problem.

Now, the Lion’s share of my interaction with women is online, and let me tell you, there is nothing on this planet as unfair, superficial, or challenging to navigate as online dating. If you’re honest. And I am, as well as considerate. I create honest profiles, delicately and cleverly alluding to the fact that I am not where most men my age are financially. I’ve been told it’s a bad idea but I want to save someone the time and trouble of getting together only to learn it over Shrimp Cocktail and then ask for the check. You may think I’m exaggerating but I’m not. It is the rare woman that doesn’t want a successful, independent guy. Not to take care of them, but that they don’t have to take care of. I’ve been rejected over it. It’s a real thing and it can be hard on the old self-confidence.

It really all comes down to the “about you”. How do you explain yourself and what you want in life and out of another person in 120 characters or less? How do you approach someone when they list nothing about themselves? Is it superficial to reach out based on their looks if that’s all you have to work with? When you initiate a chat where do you start if you know nothing about them?
If you’re lucky they will list some interests, that is really where the connection is. Particularly when someone shares a passion of yours. For every “I love walks on the beach” (blah blah blah), there is the occasional “Winding roads on my Motorcycle” that tells you that you share something powerful. And that can be a conversation starter.

Which brings me to the worst part of dating sites (besides meeting up and realizing that the person is a liar who used a ten-year-old picture). The unanswered initial conversation and the abrubtly terminated chat. It is an emotional roller coaster to reach out to someone you are interested in and get no response. It happens on both ends, I have received many “likes” and comments from people that for one reason or another didn’t interest me. I hate to think that I may have hurt someone’s feelings and vice versa. The nicest option is to disregard it. That’s what they are doing to me. It’s part of putting yourself out there. It’s not nearly as bad as when you are chatting with someone and they suddenly stop answering. Am I the only person who would be perplexed or feel a bit rejected?It’s a frustrating process and it’s wearing on me.

I’m a really good person with a lot to offer, looking for someone that shares some interests and challenges me a bit. The likelihood of finding that on such a disingenuous platform seems unlikely. I think I may abandon the format altogether and return to my original plan of hoping that love will find me. It’s putting a lot of faith on serendipity and fate but it’s so much less of an emotional roller coaster for my personality.

the notice

*this post is a continuation of a story. It will stand alone in many ways but for missing context please go back a few…*

One week after giving my notice there was an incident. The guy I was training was a young kid my son’s age. I disliked him from the start. From the day I was introduced to him, I could just tell that he was a wise little prick. His smug expression spoke volumes. I had him pegged and it took very little time to realize it. When I tried to show him things he was dismissive. When I told him the expectations of what we do when it was quiet, clean something, help stock the beer cooler, organize the walk-ins and storage areas, etc., he wanted nothing to do with it. He was a “specialist”, he only wanted to make pizzas and helped no one but himself. I was so glad I wouldn’t have to work with him for long.
I didn’t know that day that it wouldn’t be long at all.

As dinner hour arrived he was working alone. I jumped in to help him. It was par for the course to have help on that station at busy times, no one person could handle it. But when I went to help he burst out, “dude, what are you doing?!” in a very loud voice. The place just stopped. I gave him my best watch your mouth or I’ll pound you into little asshole Mcnuggets look. He persisted with the attitude so I yelled back, “what’s the problem, kid?” He went off on me telling to get the fuck away from him, to get out of his way, to get lost, etc.,” He was shouting for all to hear.
I was floored. At that point, I had two choices. To walk away or rip his fucking head off. I have a thing about how I’m spoken to and this wasn’t happening on my watch. Because I am physically much larger than him, old enough to be his father, and because it is illegal to beat the shit out of someone, I walked away. I was FURIOUS.

The kitchen manager told someone to switch stations with me but that was it. I would think that after all the help and goodwill I had shown to my coworkers that someone would say something to him, but nobody did. They just let it happen. I don’t know what they were supposed to do but I felt very unsupported. I told the manager on duty that when my shift was over I was all done. In hindsight, I should have waited for Vinny but he wasn’t there yet and she had asked me what happened. When Vinny got there I knew that he knew. He ignored me the entire night.

I did what I promised, I worked a very busy night to the completion of my shift. As the night wore on, my decision didn’t weigh on me nor did I consider recanting it. I replayed the events in my head. My conclusion was that even if the little prick was right, in any way, about objecting to my assistance it was the way he handled it that bothered me. Cementing my decision was the fact that I could never work with him again, even for a short period, and that the lack of support I received made me too embarrassed to ever show up for a shift again.
The end of the evening came and as promised I left the building for the last time. I crossed paths with Vinny several times that evening and he didn’t even bother to ask me once what had actually happened. Not even as a courtesy. Allow me to be clear, I was not expecting or hoping that he would try to talk me out of it. Not my style. His failure to even try to acknowledge that I wasn’t the problem was all that I needed to know.

I left not necessarily proud of myself. But I knew there was no other way for me to handle it.

Committed

*this post is a continuation of a story. It will stand alone in many ways but for missing context please go back a few…*

Committed. At least I should be, anyway. I am nothing if not a man of my word and I dove back into the job. My head was a mess. Between the red flags about the viability of the job being a long-term prospect for me, and the flags were plentiful, and my head being all messed-up over my new relationship my mind was racing all over. This may be a good time to interject that, if you have not read me before you may not know that I have moderate to high general anxiety. My temperament could best be described as, despite outward appearances, “everything is a big deal to me”. I am a classic over-thinker.

The red flags were the pace, the people, the physical and the collateral effects. Added to the mix was the realization that customers can really suck the big one sometimes.

The pace was frantic. When I took the job I was excited to make food, plain and simple. I am very good at that. I had no idea how busy the place would start out and continue to be. It was non-stop all the time.

Enter the personalities. Vinny, who was starting to reveal the rude and ill-tempered side of his personality. The Kitchen manager (who I liked overall) loved to accuse people of everything and clung to her knowledge as if it were the National Treasure and refused help with anything. Then there were the various dolts who simply couldn’t do the job or thought they were more important than they were.

Physically, I was getting stronger. Vinny was true to his promise to give me hydration breaks whenever I needed. But I was still struggling and I don’t do well in the heat as it is. I went home in a lot of pain every night.

Then there were the customers. Despite the fact that we were making a herculean effort to keep up with the demand, the customers were less than understanding. The cranky old people in town were bad customers. Demanding, impatient and insufferable. The people that came from surrounding areas were downright impatient and negative. They bitched openly at the exasperated employees and posted negative reviews which only served to send Vinny into a tizzy that was then transferred to us.

After a month of that, and not seeing my lady I realized that something had to give. I broke down and asked to reduce my hours. Surprisingly, Vinny was ok with it.

A beautiful night for a walk

He stood at the edge of the walking path. It was peak hour to walk the lake and he needed to get out of the way of the bustling foot traffic. He was winded, the pace he had set for himself was too much. Exhausted, he put his hands on his aching sides and tried to catch his breath. His legs were starting to cramp. He looked around and realized he was almost halfway around. Losing motivation, but aware that it’s the same distance back as it is to continue, he started to walk again. His mind was still racing but he furiously tried to control it. The events of his day were racing through his mind and exercise was the only way he knew to work it off, sort things out. As days go, today was pretty shitty on all fronts.

He thought of his late father and his trademark line, “everything will work out, it always does”. He never actually believed it to be true but he loved how his father believed so strongly in it. This shit, he thought to himself, this shit is not going to work itself out.

I wish you were here to talk to right now, Dad. I could use some of that cheerful optimism of yours that I once scoffed at, he mused as he trudged forward. His Dad always seemed to have it together. Sure, he sometimes acted badly in his marriage. He had money problems but he alwaysgot through it. He hated his job, but he always did it with pride and dedication. He never acted like I am right now. I’m a hot mess. I can’t stand my wife, I’m on the brink of foreclosure and my boss is a fucking psycho that I love one minute and hate the next. How would Dad handle all of this?

Bill Marshall was well-known among friends, family, and business associates for his resilience and cheerful demeanor. It was a great source of pride to him that this applied to more than just his public, outside persona. He was also committed to maintaining a positive frame of mind even when alone and talking to himself, which today he was doing quite a bit of. What people didn’t realize is that it required nearly all of his energy to maintain that reputation. There are limits to what any man can take, as he was fond of thinking. despite the fact that he rarely allowed himself such slack. He held himself to an impossible standard. Today, when the walls felt like they were closing in, he decided to give himself a rare break. Snap out of it! he reprimanded himself, you’re not going to fix anything in this state of mind. With the equivalent of a snap of a finger, he let his day wash off of him and he just walked. To keep his mind empty and focused he walked while looking down at the ground and concentrated on playing “don’t step on a crack”, a game from his childhood. This amused him for a while and it wasn’t long before noticing that he was approaching the final stretch where his car sat waiting for him. It was the only car in the lot.

When Bill reached the clearing to the parking lot, he saw a lone figure in the parking lot very close to his parked car. Great, I’m probably getting robbed or vandalized. He began to walk faster, marveling that his day is somehow getting worse.

He felt the phone in his back pocket vibrating. He was tempted not to even look to see who was calling. It was most likely his wife doing the nightly “where are you” call. God, he fucking hated that call. Often, he contemplated answering and saying “as far away from you as possible!” and hanging up but he knew that wouldn’t end well. Then again, it could be one of his kids calling and he grabbed for the phone. Too late, he had missed the call, but it was indeed the wife. Here comes the text, he thought. 2 seconds later it came through.
Where are U?

Bill chuckled to himself despite his annoyance. He called that one. He didn’t respond. He had a walk to finish and possibly a kid to beat up.