A Parlour for a Plague

I’ve never understood the drama about exes. If you aren’t a teeny weeny young person, anyone you fall for is going to have exes, generally speaking.

I think it's because it's human instinct to create a story. For I guess many reasons, but mainly to make sense in our minds out of life.

Like, when this obscure and totally uninteresting tiny part of my life comes up, without exception, the other person wants to know how it is we "manage" to get along, or, more rarely get the "I could never do that."

Frankly, I couldn't care less what you could or couldn't do. I didn't ask. So in that respect, they only wanted me to say something, anything, so they can then run their own mouth.

How we did it? We were introduced at some point and I said "Hi D" and she said "Hi Chai"

I am just so over everything coming down to "you're so" brave, confident, have the right attitude, etc."


Related to that. Shewolf was over today. She mentioned she used to live around here, and I said, yeah I remember that.
She said she remembered walking with her then toddler and saw a car jump the curve at a bend in the road, and crash head on into a tree. She said the driver must have died instantly.
She hung around as a witness, waiting for emergency and the police to show up.
She said that by the time they all got there, people that hadn't even Been there when it happened were saying "She must have be drunk/high"

I said yeah, by the time they get home and tell the story, it will be a done deal, a fait accompli, that she was drunk. Like no one wondered, is she a mother, wife, etc. Who is she not coming home to? Naw, just a drunk, forget about her.

I think it’s more primal than that. Possibly going back to wanting to be the one your parents love most. It’s interesting that so many people seem to feel insecure about it. I think we play out our attachment history and experiences with those primal relationships in our partner relationships.

I’m very insecure but not about that. I think we are a bit unusual not being weird about exes. I have no idea why I’m not.

The amount of drama about it still amazes me.

One of my early loves had had a very intense relationship beginning when he was 17 with a woman 10 years older, who was quite unwell emotionally but very attractive to men.

He was quite affected by it.

Anyway, he was kind of leader of the pack in his group of friends, so people liked to gossip a lot about him.

His ex was coming to visit from another city, which he told me about.

All his friends managed to slip the visit into conversation, watching me carefully, hoping I’d be upset, I guess...or just interested in how I’d jump.

It was funny and I enjoyed being completely unaffected and frustrating their expectations.

In other news, Viola has finally figured out how to use the cat flap to the enclosed backyard! She found out how to get OUT on Saturday.

It’s Monday here and she got herself out to join me when I was weeding. I wasn’t sure if she knew how to get back inside.

A few moments ago my neighbour, who is working from home, called me to let me know Viola was outside squeaking to get back in. I couldn’t hear her because I’m not wearing my hearing aids. While we were still chatting Viola jumped up onto me! She’s done it!

I had to think about that a bit to make sense of it being related to wanting to be the one your parents love the most.
So like people what to (even unconsciously) pit one against the other to see who would come out as the most loved?
Like that current love would want to prove her position over the other?

Trying to think of what I'm insecure about....

That's hard to say because the opposite of insecure would be confident, and I don't think I'm particularly confident.
I equate in my mind, right or wrong, the word confident with things like being cocky, or like a know it all.

For instance when someone makes the broad statement "Women want confident men" God that really rubs me the wrong way. What first occurs to me are one of those guys that want to be the alpha male. Who want to compete.
I guess I'm more of a middle of the pack person.

I think if I come across as confident to people, it's because I'm decisive.

Erm....I think in that earliest attachment relationship yes, we perceive attention given to others as attention not given to us. And we play that out in various ways in later relationships...or more that we play out our attachment STYLE in other relationships in many ways.

I see confidence as very different from cockiness. To me cockiness is a display meant to deflect from lack of confidence

Look at the origin of the word. Being a rooster in the wild is about showing your dominance...displaying it...the premise being there’s always another rooster waiting to beat you and hence your world is always insecure and you always need to be displaying yourself.

Jane Goodall’s work on chimps is really interesting in that regard, especially when also thinking of attachment.

The style of dominant male chimps seemed to be related to their attachment relationship with their mums.

The most relaxed and non aggressive style she had witnessed in the last detailed account of her long term research that I have read belonged to a pair of male siblings, whose mother, Flo, had been the dominant female in her troupe for many years, up until her death.

Flo was a confident, loving mum and all her children were high status, happy, relaxed chimps...until her last baby whom Flo was too unwell to mother in her normal way.

Two of her sons became the dominant males in the troupe and this troupe was the most relaxed of the ones she studied. The guys could depend on each other and didn’t seem to need to be aggressive or violent to stay on top.

Less secure males tended to need to make constant displays of how powerful they were, which involved a lot of violence to other chimps...other males of course, but also females and young

I guess I'm not getting what you originally said then.

Where are people seeing attention being given to one party (either D or me), that is not being given to the other?

I mean, attention is being given to either of us. It's like there's reality, and then how other people want to assume there's animosity.
I mean, it's not like an extreme, like we would cling to each other when we saw each other over the years, or avoid each other staying on separate sides of the room.

That's interesting about the chimps, and yes, that's what confidence truly is. Actually feels like being unaware that you've got it, you just are.

It seems like in our society though that let's say men in particular are preceived as confident when they ARE in that hunt and conquer mode.

There used to be someone here that really exemplified that to me, and when he would get into the advising other men about women, it really twisted my stomach.
He was from how he told it, the typical guy to got sand kicked in his face who transformed himself into Charles Atlas.

Now he had the "confidence" to go up to the "most desirable" woman in the room, and end up taking her home. Bleech.

But, that's what people preceive it seems as confidence.
I think it's (in this limited context) the person who goes up and gets to know the person in the room that's perhaps Least obviously the goal of every man there, and hitting the jackpot because he saw beyond all that crap.

I’m not talking about the people observing but the people who actually DO become very upset at any thought of their partner’s exes.

Which is odd. One thing I have thought of you from the start is that you are a confident person. As you said, it may have to do with how you present yourself by being decisive. Whatever it is, it works.

I had a thought while dozing before.

What Deb stated as confident, for instance the chimps, I see in my mind as Capable and Competent.

I looked up the definition for all three.

Capable
having the ability, fitness, or quality necessary to do or achieve a specified thing.

Competent
having the necessary ability, knowledge, or skill to do something successfully.

Confident
feeling or showing confidence in oneself; self-assured.
AND
Confidence
the feeling or belief that one can rely on someone or something; firm trust.
BTW, self assurance apparantly means the same as competent and capable.

I am certainly Capable and Competent. That includes if I don't know how to do something, I'm capable of getting someone else to do it, and paying them, or if offered help by a friend, taking it.

I absolutely don't see people using the word Confident in the way defined on a day to day basis.
Lately (on tiktok for instance) it seems to be reserved in the comments section for women who are plus size and Dare to wear clothes who are supposed to be reserved for women under a certain size. Or doing something like dancing, or God forbid, being sexual.
"You GO queen! You're so confident!" or worse, "You're so brave!"

That's another ******* thing people are all the time now. BRAVE!

Oh. And deserving. We all deserve some damn thing.
Like those commercials that tell us we Deserve to have a stronger OTC medicine to take care of our headache?
Well what if you went out and got blotto last night and caused all kinds of trouble, hurt feelings, and were generally a douchebag?
I think you deserve every second of that sick hangover you now have. Especially if you knew if was going to end up like that.

Maybe it's just semantics, but I see the chimp mother and offspring as really competent and capable members of their group, especially because they didn't make a big fuss over it.

What kinda pal are you ?

Wha...

I was clearly thinking of you and looking out for your safety! Imagine if you had happened upon the pistachios past their freshness. When they have absorbed moisture from the air and....


...you ain't buying any of this are ya?
(Really must improve my groveling and acting techniques)

Joe and Winston visited me last night. With Winston's guidance and support, Joe got the lamps to work. In the words of Winston the Cute, "Let there be light."

Finally someone has good news!

Maybe now we can get the trains running again...

Woot!

I managed to make three successful landings and the plane is still useable!

That makes three great landings!

Wowser!

you near any of the fires? I heard something about the fires in the Sangre de Christo mts. Get the **** outta there. I hope all the old mining buildings and sheds n pilings near Gunnison dont get messed up. I used to drive out there to paint landscapes when I was working on nuke water near Canon City