Dale Miller

The past few Saturdays that I have been at home, I have been particularly lethargic — staying in but until noon, not doing anything useful, spending the evening at home because I don’t feel like getting dressed, etc. Today, for some reason, I had a burst of energy. This manifested, unusually enough, in wanting to go out and mow the yard. Since it was the first mowing of the season, it was slow going, but I finished it up and it looks very nice. It’s a good feeling to not waste a beautiful day by sitting inside.

Tomorrow, the forecast calls for rain and thunderstorms. This does not bode well for a day at the ballfields playing kickball. The weather has really not cooperated this season.

I ran across this meme on a friend’s LiveJournal and it sounded interesting.

Post your favorite fake memories of me. It can be anything you like, as long as it never happened. Then post this in your journal so people can make up shit about you, too.

After getting rather down this afternoon, I decided that I just wanted to go home. Before doing so, I offered my pair of tickets to three different married people in the office, to see if each would like to take his/her spouse. Jack already had plans. Molly is breast-feeding, and couldn’t schedule it in (but said that if I give her a couple of days notice next time she would leave her husband with the baby and join me). Jay called his wife and found that she already had commitments. He then turned to me and said “I know I’m not an attractive woman, but I’d be happy to go with you.” Since that was the best offer I’d had yet, I took him up on it. The performance was thoroughly enjoyable. The dancers were incredible, and the orchestra did a fine job. My seats were not great, but nor were they horrible.

Interestingly enough, at intermission I was looking around, and realized that I was, while certainly not the youngest man in the room, quite probably on the low end of the curve. I found that rather odd.

So, I ended up having a pretty good evening after all, though not quite in the way I had hoped. And, in the long term, I *should* find it a bit easier to ask women out in the future. We shall see.

I am becoming truly depressed. Despite my best efforts, I still haven’t found anyone to go to Movin’ Out with me tonight. Having paid a considerable amount for tickets, I hate to simply blow it off and go home, but I’m having real trouble convincing myself to go alone. I’m sure if I posted a message on the UALR classifieds list I could give the tickets away or sell them at a discount, but I don’t even feel like doing that.

I feel completely defeated.

Kickball yesterday was both fun and tiring. In addition to the usual long day, it was cold. It wasn’t bitterly cold, but just enough to sap my strength as the day wore on. I played as noon game with the Repeat Offenders, and did a fair job. By the time the 7:30 Fembots game came around I was pretty much done in. I came home and collapsed. This morning, I really didn’t feel like getting out of bed, so I didn’t. That means that in addition to missing work, I missed class. When I do that, I know I’m truly exhausted.

Yesterday was very interesting in one way. Brittany decided that she couldn’t get of a Wednesday night commitment in order to go with me to “Movin’ Out”, thus leaving me with a ticket and no date. I therefore started asking attractive women to accompany me. I asked more women for a date yesterday than I have in the previous five years (by a large factor). None of them said “yes”, but simply the act of asking was good for me. I have continued that today with messages on Facebook with, so far, similar results. I may end up going by myself on Wednesday night, but at least this time it won’t be for lack of trying. I really don’t think I’ll find women pursuing me, so I need to be the assertive one. Maybe this will help break me out of my shell.

I slept rather poorly last night, and had a couple of rather disturbing (and one rather pleasant) dreams. About the pleasant one, I will only say that it involved determining how many orgasms I could provide to a woman of my acquaintance.

The most recent dream had me writing a blog entry about the previous dreams. I was disappointed when I woke from this dream because I wrote far better in the dream than I am doing here, describing nuances of the dream and just how it made me feel. Things just sometimes work better in dreams.

I only remember the end of the previous dream. It involved me traveling down Cantrell road just to the east of Chenal on a device not unlike a Razor Scooter, except not as nice. I was actually in the traffic lanes, and cars were zooming past me and barely missing. I remember that I was trying to get away from something, but I don’t remember what.

The ending of the first dream also sticks with me, and is part of a recurring theme. I was driving in my car late at night. I was going up a long, steep hill. Although the headlights were on high, they weren’t reflecting off anything. The area in front of the car was an unrelieved black. I felt the car start to level out, and at that moment a bolt of lightning struck directly in front of me, illuminating everything in a brief high-contrast image. I jerked the wheel, and woke up with tangled covers, covered in sweat and rather scared.

Overall, I prefer the pleasant dreams.

After my most recent post, I received an anonymous comment on LiveJournal which deserved an answer, as it asks some good questions.

…what about community theatre, or civic/service/community events? I know when I did community theatre, there were all kinds of dating-stuffs going on, and I have met several nice people at civic events, where you can make a difference as well as meet people. If you have tried those, and you may have, then help those of us that like you but don’t know you outside of your blog — what sort of thing is your normal choice of venue, and what have you not tried? Is it, in your opinion, more of an issue of a lack of suitable candidates, or an overarching problem of successful approach strategies? From what you have posted, I am not sure. Both are fixable, just different.

I have tried community theatre, but probably not with the right organization. There are a couple of others here in town that I really should check out. However, since my acting skills leave much to be desired, I tend to be more useful in the technical aspects, so I still don’t have a lot of interaction. Volunteer work has been suggested to me before, but I need to find something I really care about for that to work

Now, the final question, and the crux of the matter. While I may complain about not meeting women, it’s mostly my fault. I work on a college campus, after all. It’s not as if there are no women around me. It’s much more that I don’t know how to approach them. Of the three “relationships” I have had in my life, one began on Yahoo personals, and is better forgotten. The other two happened because the women approached me. There you have it. I’m not any good at asking women out. I have been improving slightly in recent months, but not enough to really matter. Men are supposed to project confidence and be assertive. That’s where I fail.

Last week at this time I was at Hendrix, settling in to hear Suzi talk about Sex in the South. This week I’m sitting at home feeling sorry for myself.

Where, in central Arkansas, does an aging heterosexual male, who can’t abide cigarette smoke, and who doesn’t drink if he’s going to be driving (which is pretty much anytime I leave the house) go to meet women? Actually, I should emend that sentence… Where do I go to meet women who may be attracted to me? Finding women is simple. Finding available, attractive, amenable (alliterative?) women is another matter entirely.

It’s kind of pleasant to wake up to the sound of a storm when a) I no longer have a hole in my roof and b) I don’t have to drive to work.

I decided to take the day off just because I could. That may have been a mistake. Adding a day of nothing-to-do to my weekend gives me too much time to brood. I had hoped to get out in the yard a bit today, but it doesn’t look like the weather is going to cooperate.

At least my cats like to have me around. Cinderella has inserted herself between my leg and the side of the chair, and paws the screen if I ignore her for very long.

Oh, and in case I haven’t whined lately… I want a girlfriend.