In my Humble Opinion

A journal to vent about why people are like that and why all the stupid things they do are so obvious to me, from not using their turn signals to believing they’re center of the universe to sweating small stuff to ignoring the fact that we’re all just trying to make our way in this insanely crowded world but some of us are doing it a whole lot better than others.

Other people are so annoying

If it weren’t for all those idiots, your life would be perfect.  After all, you’re a good driver, a sensible friend, a nuanced coworker, a caring mate, and, most of all, you know how to stand in a line without cutting.  Given the antics of the thronging rabble, however, “If you’re not angry, you’re not paying attention,” as the bumper sticker says.  We’d probably all be better off if we weren’t paying attention – to the tailgating jerk behind us, to the woman screeching into her cell phone, to the waiter who thinks he’s God’s gift.  Two centuries before bumper stickers enriched our lives, the eighteenth-century poet Thomas Gray said “Ignorance is bliss,” and no doubt it’s still true.

For better or worse, you don’t have the gift of oblivion.  You notice every little irritating tic and injustice and spend your hours wondering why people are like that.  And who could blame you?  Plain and simple, there’s a lot to vent about these days.  Our concerns range from the significant (war, environmental destruction, the continued popularity of reality television) to smaller, everyday annoyances (stupid pop songs, telemarketers, and overpriced coffee) to the philosophical (do humans even matter in the cosmos?)  You’re paying attention, and the result is misanthropy ranging from the vague to the acute.

One justification for your aggravation level is the overcrowding of our contemporary world.  We’re living in congested cities, competing for resources, clogging highways, and generally rubbing up against one another.  Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. famously stated, “The right to swing my fist ends where the other man’s nose begins.”  The same could apply to loud music, cigarette smoke, and honking.  The damaging effects of proximity have been proven: in renowned studies on the deliberate overcrowding of rats, high levels of aggression and compromised health were the inevitable result.

Annoyance isn’t terribly good for you either.  Research shows that those who score high on a hostility scale are substantially more likely to die earlier than those at low or average levels, primarily from heart disease.  Physiologically, the effects of anger include the release of the hormones adrenaline and noradrenaline, increased heart rate and blood pressure, and the movement of sugar into the bloodstream.  It also, however, appears to be something we crave – as much as sex, food, and drugs.  According to a Vanderbilt University study, aggression engages the brain’s reward pathways and involves dopamine.

We do seem to be delighted to compare our irritations with others – witness the blogging movement.  In an article in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Laura Lee author of The Pocket Encyclopedia of Aggravation, notes, “People like hearing that other people are bugged by the same things” because “we’re not stoning anyone or being killed by leeches, so we have the leisure to concentrate on petty annoyances.”  In his book The Emotional Revolution, Dr. Norman E. Rosenthal states, “Bad traffic, slow waiters, an insensitive boss, an incompetent employee, or an inattentive spouse are all common provocations.”

But do you have to be angry to write down your humble opinions?  Certainly not.  “Humble opinion” is, of course, an understatement – whenever anybody uses that phrase, the presumption is that opinion is correct and better than everyone else’s.  Even when it’s expressed as an acronym online (IMHO), it’s false mitigation of what you know to be right – your view.  And what better place to express that than a journal, where nobody can contradict you?

Whether you scribble your two cents’ worth or vent your rage on any given day, journaling is a healthy outlet for your thoughts.  You won’t anger anybody else, and, should you be irritated, you might just work through your own anger.  Experts now believe that anger is generally best when it’s suppressed (not expressed) but that it can be damaging when it’s repressed (not known or acknowledged).  In his book Anger: How to Recognize and Cope with It, Dr. Leo Madow notes, “If anger is considered as ‘energy’, it cannot be destroyed (forgotten) but must be converted.”

Fortunately, the benefits of journal writing have been examined, to surprisingly consistent results.  According to a widely cited study by James W. Pennebaker and Janel D. Seagal, “Writing about important personal experiences is an emotional way for as little as fifteen minutes over the course of three days brings about improvements in mental and physical health.”  Proven physical effects include stress management, strengthened immune systems, fewer doctor visits, and improvement in chronic illnesses such as asthma (clearly it’s better to vent in your journal than to hyperventilate).  “It’s hard to believe,” says Pennebaker, a psychology professor at the University of Texas at Austin, but “being able to put experiences into words is good for your physical health.”  Kathleen Adams, founder of the Center for Journal Therapy, calls journals “79-cent therapists.”

It’s not entirely clear how journaling accomplishes all this.  The consensus among experts is that catharsis is involved, but they also point to the organization of experience into a narrative.  According to Newsweek, some scholars believe that journaling “forces us to transform the ruminations cluttering our minds into coherent stories.  Writing about an experience may also dull its emotional impact.”  Psychologist Ira Progoff, widely considered to be the father of the modern journaling movement, stated in 1975 that an “intensive journal process” could “draw each person’s life toward wholeness at its own tempo.”

As a devotee of this journal, you obviously have opinions, be they humble or (more likely) really smart.  You’ve chosen not to blog (at least in this case) but rather to learn from your own conclusions and pet peeves.  To best utilize the journaling process, however, don’t blindly vent, as that may exacerbate your frustration with the teeming masses.  Instead, get your feelings out, then try to understand them.  A few additional tips to consider: experts agree that in order to reap the benefits of journaling, you have to stick with it, quasi-daily, for as little as five minutes at a time (at least fifteen minutes, however, is best).  Finding regular writing times and comfortable locations can help with consistency.  Prompt your writing with questions; in the case of this journal, elaborate on “Why people are like that today” and “Definitive conclusion about humanity.”  The In My Humble Opinion journal’s quotations will also provide a jumping-off point for your writing.  Renowned journaler Anais Nin suggests asking yourself, “What feels vivid, warm, or near to you at the moment?”  Don’t critique your writing as you journal; journaling is a process of self-reflection, not a constructed composition.  In other words, spew.  Finally, determine a home for your journal where others won’t find it.

Thomas Jefferson declared, “When angry, count ten, before you speak.  If very angry, an hundred.”  Mark Twain leavened Jefferson’s advice: “When angry, count four.  When very angry, swear.” We say, “When you are angry, irritated, or you just have a humble opinion to express, journal.”

taken from Knock Knock “In my humble opinion” journal – which is made specifically to journal irritating or any other experiences.  I wanted to buy it as a present, but I could not resist the temptation to keep it.  I have plenty of  journals, structured, non-structured, more personal, less personal, online ramblings, participation in discussions, but this one just appealed to me.  Let’s see, how much benefit I can reap from this one.

Black Horoscope

Scorpio

There is little that could be added to your bad reputation. However, we believe it interesting to twist the knife still deeper. You are a sly, inquisitive and aggressive person. Strangely enough, you remind of scorpions (no pun intended!), but also of sewer rats, perverse, petty and frightening. You revel in other people’s sufferings, so please don’t purport that it is because you want to help them transcend their ordeals and know themselves better, because we know very well that your evil and cunning nature enjoys attracting attention and stirring up ill-feeling. You are believed to have an intense sexual energy. However, it has more to do with a regrettable tendency to release your impulses, since you are unable to control them. You also cultivate a high opinion of yourself, and to make yourself interesting, you play the mysterious and rebellious personage. Nevertheless, it is obvious that you feel unloved, which drives you almost paranoid. You see evil everywhere, and to protect yourself against it, like a spider setting its cobwebs, you keep on manipulating everyone in your entourage (you should admit that it is awfully difficult for you afterwards to get out of the mess you have created).

Source: http://www.astrotheme.com/files/black-zodiac.php

...but the satisfaction of desire only leaves the Scorpio soul still hungry for something beyond...

Source: http://vi.sualize.us/view/kallini2002/161d695b22f964939afdc47e2b403517/

The Scorpio Love Mystery

As it enters its second experience in the Water element, the now mature soul welcomes the chance for meditation through a return of the negative feminine Night Forces of the Scorpio consciousness.  On a public level, Scorpio is enormously capable of executing the now very familiar duties as a Fixed Organizer.  On a personal level, Scorpio is troubled to discover that he faces for the first time the awesome mystery of his own existence.  Where did he come from? – where is he going? – why is he here?  Scorpio must tear the veil from life, regardless of the cost, to quiet his restless spirit, suddenly released from its former preoccupation with earthly needs alone, as he cries out: “I DESIRE!”

There is much that the Scorpio soul knows… but even more that is sensed and cannot yet be defined.  The Scorpio vibration brings such a burning need to penetrate the unknown that it must be buried beneath deep layers of calm reason, or it would consume the mind and sear the soul.  Lessons well remembered from Libra softness and impartial judgment have made Scorpio wary of expressing opinions to those who would tear them apart.  The strong Scorpion instinct for survival springs from a deep-seated fear that he who is not forearmed will be destroyed.  Each defeat sustained by Scorpio only strengthens the inner conviction that the first loyalty must be to his or her own personal integrity.  For Scorpio sense that if the self is lost, then all is lost.

On the Scorpio level of consciousness, the soul is newly aware of the relationship between birth, death, sex and religious truth.  Scorpio knows that, in some mystical way, these are intertwined.  Therefore, sex becomes something intimately explored with an intensity unknown to those either behind or ahead Of Scorpio’s stage of evolvement.  Although Scorpio trusts love only after is has proven itself deserving of such trust, once dedicated to another, loyalty is unswerving and eternal.  Feeling fiercely the need to protect themselves and those they love from hurt, Scorpio is compelled to demand “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” as insurance that injures will not be repeated.

Through the subtle influence of the ruling planet Pluto, the experience of death comes to the Scorpio soul, as friends and relatives pass away, increasing the need to penetrate even deeper for the knowledge buried in the silent subconscious.  While Scorpio’s spirit soars upward like the eagle, defying gravity, worldly desires and passions intensify, forcing him to question his own worthiness.  Ultra-sensitive, but now able to totally disguise such sensitivity, Scorpio now learns the amazing power of his or her own mind – the silent will – and uses it secretly, lest others learn how to use the same kind of power over him – or her.  The Scorpio consciousness is the period of the soul’s testing.

Scorpio’s positive qualities are loyalty, will power, magnetism, gentleness, insight and amazing self-control.  Expressed in their negative form they become ruthlessness, fanaticism, revenge, sadism, suspicion and self-hatred.

To Scorpio men and women, love is a consuming flame, worth any sacrifice – and they must conquer its challenge.  Sexually uninhibited, yet emotionally fearful and mentally suspicious, they strive desperately to unite love’s physical and spiritual vibrations, with a strange mixture of eroticism and purity.  But the satisfaction of desire only leaves the Scorpio soul still hungry for something beyond.

Source: http://vi.sualize.us/view/kallini2002/f436e6d4c09674e2e2a65fd429b1cf90/

Come here, rude boy, boy,

can you get it up?

Strangely enough, after I have watched the video clip for “Alejandro” and laughed and completely discounted it as rubbish, my flow of consciousness was inundated by thoughts about sex, erotica, sexuality and sensuality.  Not that there were no other factors that drove me in this particular direction.

The seeds were planted long ago, so to speak.  And all of a sudden I started paying attention to other clips and words in songs.  In the clip for the song “She bangs”, there is some banging, and lyrics are somewhat provocative (maybe it is not the best description), but it is how I am approaching the subject now.  Even if it is lame, let it be for now.  Then I listened to Rihanna’s “Rude Boy”.  I liked how she talks business:

Come here, rude boy, boy,

Can you get it up?

Come here, rude boy, boy

Is you big enough?

Never mind the grammar – “is you big enough?”

Rihanna “Rude Boy” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e82VE8UtW8A

Rihanna \”Rude Boy\”

That is how it should be.  “Can you get it up? Or what the hell are we talking about?”  Probably there should be no talking.  Words are nothing, action is everything.  Testing is everything (spoken from experience).  Testing is Everything.  It does not matter how imperfect my marriage was or the sexual aspect of it; at least my husband had no problem with the equipment or performance.  Which I found out only after it had fallen apart.  I don’t regret it, but I feel that in that sense I hit the jackpot the first time; I just did not know it.  Getting it up seems to be more problematic for men than I expected.  Sometimes you need a magnifying glass to find the equipment.  I speak like an engineer, LOL.  Equipment, measurements, length & width, performance…  That is not everything, of course.  There is technique. There is passion; at least there should be passion.  Good luck finding it….  There are plenty of other factors, too.  Otherwise, my marriage could have been much better.  My ex would have not blamed me that I ruined his sex life.  But I think the sentiment goes both ways.  The subject is complicated enough.  But my life was what it was and it is what it is; therefore there is no other choice but to continue my journey of discovery unabated.  Full steam ahead.

The reason I am breaking this barrier (not doing the deed, I did it two years ago), but talking about it in a public space is that the other day, my favourite character told me that “I am such a lamb”.  How I resented the comment!  I am not a lamb!  Maybe there is some truth to it; otherwise I would not be so much irritated.  Well, if there are barriers to be broken, maybe it is about time.

I broke the barrier two years ago.  It was more an act of courage and rebellion, than sex.  And what was the first thing that I encounter?  My second partner could not get it up.  Neither could the third.  And I thought “What the hell?”  I am not going to continue with numbers, performance evaluations & statistics.  It’s all private.  But the question remains “Can you get it up?” Testing, testing 1-2-3.

What is more important to me, can I get past my shyness, inexperience, prejudice, moral barriers?  Can I move on?  Can I get it up?  Can I free myself?  Overcoming fear is intoxicating.  What a stupid question!  Of course, I can!

Voyeurism of Exactitude

Source: http://vi.sualize.us/view/kallini2002/d2a950047be0b905419f58bd4eef36f0/

“Pornography is the quadraphonics of sex. It adds a third and fourth track to the sexual act. It is the hallucination of detail that rules. Science has already habituated us to this microscopics, this excess of the real in its microscopic detail, this voyeurism of exactitude.” (Jean Baudrillard)

“At the heart of pornography is sexuality haunted by its own disappearance” (Jean Baudrillard)

“Sex is full of lies. The body tries to tell the truth. But, it’s usually too battered with rules to be heard, and bound with pretenses so it can hardly move. We cripple ourselves with lies.”  (Jim Morrison)

“Smile and others will smile back. Smile to show how transparent, how candid you are. Smile if you have nothing to say. Most of all, do not hide the fact you have nothing to say nor your total indifference to others. Let this emptiness, this profound indifference shine out spontaneously in your smile.” (Jean Baudrillard)

There is not much to say about LavaLife.  How did I start writing on my web-site?  It was a suggestion.  Oh, why don’t you make a web site and write there whatever you want?  I was not so eager because I never knew what to write about.  Baring my soul?  No, thank you very much.

Oh, well, write, for example, how to date on LavaLife.  How to date on LavaLife?  How do I know?  I am not an expert on dating.  My experience on LavaLife is so insignificant, that my conclusions would be hardly of any interest to anyone.

The difficulties that I had?  Writing profiles.  I started with one which proved to be worse than another and I ended up with having no profile and therefore no activity at all.  My picture sends a totally wrong message – “oh, you are so sexy!”.  Maybe I am, but I am not interested in men who look for “oh, you are so sexy” women.  I wanted to see what other women write, but I did not know how to access their profiles.  Now I know, but I am not sharing that knowledge.  I am not interested in finding women, mind you, just curious what they write and what kind of pictures they do post.

Most of the time, I find LavaLife a waste of time, but there is still a slight hope that something might come out of it.  We will see.

Everything takes shape with time.  Or loses it.  So, I wrote a new profile and started treating LavaLife as a social experiment, as one of the guys I met put it.  If there would be any results I might share them.

Victor Pelevin “The Sacred Book of Werewolf”

‘… Did Mikhalich give you the flower?’

‘Yes,’ I answered.  ‘And he told me I should think about the meaning of the message.  But I haven’t come up with anything.  Maybe you can tell me yourself?’

He scratched his head.  He seemed disconcerted by my question.

‘Do you know the folktale about the little scarlet flower?’

‘Which one exactly?’ I asked.

‘I think there is only one.’

He nodded towards a desk with a computer and a silver figurine standing on it.  There was a book lying beside the figurine, with bookmarks in several pages.  The half-effaced red letters of the title on its cover read: Russian Fairy Tales.

‘The story was written down by Sergei Aksakov,’ he said.  ‘His housekeeper Pelagia told him it.’

‘And what about it?’

‘About a beautiful girl and a beast.’

‘And what’s the little flower got to do with it?’

‘It was the reason everything began.  Do you really not know this fairy tale?’

‘No.’

‘It’s long, but the gist is this: a beautiful girl asked her father to bring her a scarlet flower.  The father found one in a magical garden a long way away and picked it.  But the garden was guarded by a terrible monster.  He caught the beautiful girl’s father, and she had to become the monster’s prisoner so that he would release her father.  The monster was ugly, but kind.  She fell in love with him, first for his kindness, and then simply in love.  And when they kissed, the spell was broken and the monster turned into a prince.’

‘Aha,’ I said.  ‘Do you have any idea what it’s about?’

‘Of course.’

‘Yes? What is it about?’

‘About love conquering all.’

I laughed.  He really was quite amusing.  He’d probably bumped off a few heavy hoods and ordered a hit on some banker, so now, with typical human presumption, he thought he was a monster.  And he also thought that love would save him.

He took me by the arm and led me across to a futuristic divan standing between two groves of dwarf bonsais with miniature arbours, bridges and even waterfalls.

‘Why are you laughing?’

‘I can explain,’ I said, sitting down on the divan and pulling my legs up under me.

‘Okay, explain.’

He sat at the other end of the divan and crossed his legs.  I noticed the edge of a holster peeping out from under his uniform jacket.

‘It’s one of those folktales that express the horror and pain of a woman’s first sexual experience,’ I said.  ‘There are lots of stories like that, and the one you just told me is a classic example.  It’s a metaphor of how a woman discovers the essentially bestial nature of man and becomes aware of her own power over that beast.  And the little scarlet flower that her father picks is such a literal symbol of defloration, amplified by the theme of incest, that I find it hard to believe the story was told by a housekeeper.  It was probably composed by some twentieth-century Viennese postgraduate to illustrate his thesis.  He invented the story, and the housekeeper Pelagia, and the writer Aksakov.’

While I was talking, his expression turned noticeably gloomier.

‘Where did you pick this stuff?’

‘It’s all truisms.  Everybody knows it.’

‘And you believe it?’

‘What?’

‘That this fairy tale is not about how love conquers everything on earth, but how defecation realizes its power over incest?’

‘Defloration,’ I corrected him.

‘It does not matter.  Is that what you really think?’

I thought about it.

‘I…. I don’t think anything.  That’s simply the contemporary discourse of folktales.’

‘So you’re saying that because of this discourse, when someone gives you a scarlet flower you think it’s a symbol of defecation and incest?’

‘No, don’t be like that,’ I replied, a little embarrassed.  ‘When someone gives me a scarlet flower I….I’m simply pleased.’

‘Thank God,’ he said.  ‘And as for contemporary discourse, it’s high time to take an aspen stake and stuff it back up the cocaine-and-amphetamine polluted backside that produced it.’

I hadn’t expected such a sweeping generalization.

‘Why?’

‘So it won’t defile out little scarlet flower.’

‘All right,’ I said, ‘I understand about the cocaine.  You mean Dr Freud.  He did have that little peccadillo.  But what have amphetamines got to do with it?’

‘I can explain,’ he said.  And tucked his legs up underneath himself in a parody of my pose.

‘Okay, explain.’

‘All those French parrots who invented discourse were high on amphetamines all the time.  In the evening they take barbiturates to get to sleep, and they start off the morning with amphetamines so they can generate as much discourse as possible before they start taking barbiturates to get back to sleep again.  That’s all there is to discourse.  Didn’t you know that?’

‘Where did you get information like that?’

‘There was a course at the FSB Academy about modern psychedelic culture.  Counter-brainwashing.  Oh yes, I forgot to say – they’re all queers too.  In case you were going to ask what the backside had to do with anything.’

Victor Pelevin “The Sacred Book of Werewolf”

Love and tragedy go hand in hand.  Homer and Euripides wrote about that, so did Stendhal and Oscar Wilde.  And now it’s my turn.

Until I learned from my own experience what love is, I thought of it as a specific kind of pleasure that tailless monkeys can derive from being together, in addition to sex.

I formed this impression from the numerous descriptions I had come across in poems and books.  How was I to know that the writers were not describing love as it actually is at all, but constructing the verbal imitations that would look best on paper.  I thought of myself as a professional of love, since I had been inducing the experience in others for so many centuries.  But it’s one thing to pilot the B-29 towards Hiroshima, and quite another to watch it from the central square of the city.

Love turned out to be nothing like what they write about it.  It was ludicrous, rather than serious – but that didn’t mean it could be dismissed out of hand.  It was not like being drunk (the most popular comparison in literature) – but it was even less like being sober.  My perception of the world didn’t change: I didn’t think Alexander was anything like a fairy-tale prince in his Maibach.  I could see all the sinister sides of his character but, strangely enough, those things only added to his charm in my eyes.  My reason even came to terms with his barbarous political views and began to discover a certain harsh northern originality in them.

Love was absolutely devoid of any meaning.  But it gave meaning to everything else.  It made my heart as light and empty as a balloon.  I didn’t understand what was happening to me.  But not because I had become more stupid – there simply was nothing to understand in what was happening.  They may say that love like that doesn’t run deep.  But I think that anything that is deep isn’t love, it’s deliberate calculation or schizophrenia.

I myself wouldn’t even attempt to say what love is – probably both love and God can only be defined by apophasis, through those things that they are not.  But apophasis would be wrong, too, because they are everything.  Writers who write about love are swindlers, and the worst of them is Leo Tolstoy, clutching his programmatic bludgeon “The Kreutzer Sonata”.  Although I have a lot respect for Tolstoy.

I met this person on line, but the only conversation we had is the one to follow on MSN.  Please if you have anything to say,  leave a comment!  Because this is insane.

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

To chat with a Windows Live user, you must first add them to your online list. Learn More

Burnaby :            hi                      9:48 PM

Me:                  hi                      9:48 PM

Burnaby:            how are you?             9:49 PM

Me:                  ok, you?     9:49 PM

Burnaby is Available                      (9:50 PM)

Burnaby            i am fine 9:50 PM

how is your search on lavalife going? 9:51 PM

Me:                  it is not really going anywhere             9:51 PM

what is your name?                         9:51 PM

Burnaby            are you russian?                                    9:52 PM

Me:                  yes                                                       9:52 PM

Burnaby            [His name]                                       9:52 PM

pictures look like different person             9:53 PM

Me:                  what do you mean?                           9:53 PM

Burnaby:            are you jewish?                                     9:53 PM

Me:                  no                                                        9:53 PM

should I be?                                           9:53 PM

Burnaby:            you changed on pictures..                      9:54 PM

dont know…                                            9:54 PM

so, what are you looking for? are you single, and kids? 9:55 PM

Me:                  single, one son, you?                           9:55 PM

Burnaby:            single. No kids                                    9:56 PM

Me:                  how old are you?                             9:56 PM

Burnaby:            42                                                        9:59 PM

Me:                  what sign?                                         9:59 PM

Burnaby:            Taurus                                     10:00 PM

Me:                  we did not really talk before? did we? 10:00 PM

did I scare you?                             10:03 PM

Burnaby:            not interested                                              10:04 PM

Me:                  why then did you talk to me?                   10:07 PM

Burnaby:           russians do not behave well.

they are rude, unreliable.

donot come to date.

i do not care about your son.

you are stupid and proud, not even good looking.            10:10 PM

Me:                  And i guess you are very polite, are you?                 10:11 PM

Burnaby:            i am . VERY. with the right person. but not a fool. 10:12 PM

My comment:  I would love to hear your comments.  Especially if you are a Russian woman and have experience dealing with Canadian men from LavaLife.  But any comment is welcome.

From: me

Subject: Pictures

To: Libra Man

I am certainly not a morning person, more of a night owl, but these few days are an exception for me.  I just could not sleep.  I got a new job and maybe it is stress, I do not really know.  These guys that I met were not about chemistry at all – all they wanted was sex on their terms – not strings attached.  They need a woman to be on a “booty call” and they could not care less about her.  I am putting it bluntly, of course, they use “normal” acceptable phraseology, but it all boils down to sex only.  But that category was to respond first and first to come (of course! they are motivated)!!!.

That is what I personally do not understand.  I am a caring person; I care about my friends, my neighbours, people on the street and complete strangers.  I don’t have to be asked to help; I am always the first one to offer.

But I now, I learned “their language”, and I see them immediately.  It took me a week to eliminate this category and I have only been on LavaLife for a week.

I did respond to you, because I have a strategy.  I am being pro-active.  I take charge.  But it does not mean that a telephone number is an invitation to bed.  It is part of the process.  First we make contact, exchange e-mails, then talk on the phone and then a cup of coffee.  It is very similar to a job interview.  I am totally done with IM – it is insane and it is nothing but a waste of time.

I am trying to adjust the process as I go.  By the way, I always ask guys how it is going for them, because I am genuinely interested.  You are the only one to give me such a story.  Everybody else says that is going fine, thank you very much.

By the way, I could not see you that well on the picture either.

Do not worry about my number, just take your time.  A lot of guys do not call anyways.  The reason is that they are not interested.  The only thing that bothers me – why then they use the service if it costs so much.

Svetlana

——————————————————————————–

From: Libra Man

To: me

Sent: Tuesday, June 30, 2009 4:51:58 AM

Subject: RE: Pictures

Hey Svetlana, thanks for the pics..you look good to me

And I appreciate your openness..

But no, I didn’t think giving me your number was an invitation to bed lol.

It sounds like it’s all or nothing, and that’s where it stands for you. I understand that. I don’t know if I’m your type, but I can call you sometime if you’re still interested..maybe take it from there?

Here are a few other pics.

Libra Man

Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2009 08:09:21 -0700

From: me

Subject: My type?

To: Libra Man

How can I decide whether you are my type or not?  I haven’t even talked to you and I haven’t even met you.  Pictures are pictures, they do not tell much.  If you were to buy a real estate, would you go by a description and a picture?  If you were to buy new clothes, wouldn’t you try it on?

http://www.altrealm.com/conversations/2008-08-30/signs/

Read this short story “Signs”.  You only have “to flip coins”, when you do not know what it is exactly that you want.  When you know what you want, you will do it.  It is very easy, just common sense.

Besides, I did not understand what you mean exactly by “all or nothing”?  Does it really exist in this world?  I have a lot in my life – my family, my son, my friends and a new and exciting job.  Finding a man is not easy, but it is only a matter of time.  I am a “go-get-girl”, but not in a romantic relationship.  I am a woman and I want to be treated like one.  My femininity is not of a regular quality, but I can bet you anything, these simple and ordinary women have not a clue how to be seductive.  And no, dressing up the part is not enough.  Playing the part requires talent and skill, not a costume.

I never pursue men.  Never, ever, ever.

Weak, indecisive, wishy-washy, boring is certainly not my type.

Svetlana

From: Libra Man

To: me

Sent: Wednesday, July 1, 2009 5:47:51 PM

Subject: RE: My type?

 Re ‘type’ -that’s all I meant…  just expressing a little doubt

You know EXACTLY what ‘all or nothing’ means. It exists to 99% of all women! How many women do you know that are in a relationship just for the sex? If it doesn’t come with any more than that, it would be VERY short-lived.

You’ve been on lava for a week? I’ve been on it on/off for 14 yrs. It’s been little more than a social experiment, and the results aren’t encouraging. I’ve found most women are on it for attention, ego stroking, and teasing. I can lecture you on weak, indecisive, wishy-washy, boring, ..not to mention fickle Men have to pay to use the site, so we’re not in it to waste time/effort.

I’ve had a number of gfs off the site, but they were compromises. I’ve always believed having something is better than nothing..may be sad, but realistic.

I have to say, I liked your take on your ‘femininity’ So true about women just looking the part. I do find you a little intriguing

Libra Man

Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2009 15:37:53 -0700

From: me

Subject: Re: My type?

To: Libra Man

I felt like you were screaming at me.

Svetlana

From: Libra Man

To: me

Sent: Thursday, July 2, 2009 2:34:51 AM

Subject: RE: My type?

Sorry. Just venting Guess we both expressed a little frustration.

To let you know, I work nights from Mon-Thurs, so I can try calling you sometime Fri night or the weekend? I’m nicer on the phone ..and in person.

You set off any fireworks last night?         Libra Man

Date: Thu, 2 Jul 2009 00:20:39 -0700

From: me

Subject: Re: My type?

To: Libra Man

Apologies accepted.  I was not frustrated at all.  That is all in the past when I did not know enough about people, about myself and I could not communicate effectively.  Now, it became much much easier.  It is a skill, which can be developed.  Well, moving on.  I am supposed to work on Friday and Saturday from 9 am to 5 pm, but it might change.  The other person who was hired to work with me, has quit, so the schedule might be different.  You can try and call me, but I prefer when you let me know before you call (send an e-mail or something).  Otherwise I will be in the middle of something and it always feels a bit awkward.

I did not set any fireworks myself.  But my son was invited by his girlfriend to see Fireworks and I saw them all over the city from my balcony (I live in a Penthouse).  But that was certainly not the best part of my day.

Good night, night owl

Svetlana