Sean's AM Journal

[Sean]

This evening, I went out to get some things, and several of them were at the mall. This mall has a very full parking lot, and I was waiting on a row for a parking space. The specific one I was waiting on was taking a while, and someone else started backing out.

As they were backing out, another car came from the other direction. I rolled on up and took the spot. As I got out, the other car pulled up next to me and yelled something about the spot. I gave them a look that said, "Whatever" and he yelled something about me being a chump. I just about lost my shizzle. I stopped, looked at them, and gave them my "Excuse me?" look.

I experienced a strong impulse to walk over to his door and actually say, "Excuse me?" in a tone laden with "take that back or eat your teeth." I felt like there was a gallon of adrenaline coursing through my veins. This guy was obviously a try-hard gangsta trying to prove something to his passenger.

I started walking again, when the car I had been waiting for and one two stalls down started backing out. So I gestured to those cars like a magician. Ta-da, asswipe.

This is really unusual for me. Historically, I'd have just bowed my head and gone into the store like prey. Instead, I held my head high, and came out of the store with my hand on my EDC in case he wanted to make something of it. Stage 3 has something powerful going on, because I felt like HULK SMASH! for about 45 minutes.

[Benjamin]

Haha I like it Sean, I really hate wannabe tough guys. They really rub me up the wrong way so I can identify with that.

But it can be a hard line between balancing avoidance which is a big thing in self defense and standing up as a man.

-Ben

[Sean]

I've been getting The Eye from the formerly-hot nutbar mentioned above, "Tammy" as well as another cougar-in-potentia in the office "Kari". We had a team meeting in person today, which is unusual. During the meeting, Tammy kept looking my way, keeping eye contact longer, keeping her shoulders oriented in my direction, and smiled like we were sharing an inside joke when she adjusted her blanket to keep warmer. Yes, she was under a blanket in the conference room while the team met.

Yesterday, Tammy was wearing a very short casual dress at work, and when I followed my morning pattern of filling my water cup and tea mug in the break room, she coincidentally happened to be standing in front of her cube, and said that she had made breakfast. I declined, because I'm not eating grains right now and she had baked muffins.

Earlier last week, she brought me a few cans of my preferred energy drink. I still use them occasionally, even though they're not in line with a strict interpretation of my diet.

Kari has been holding eye contact for much longer than necessary, and I've been giving her the head toss acknowledgements in the hallways. It's like a nod, but my chin goes up instead of down. She smiles when I do this, and nods in return.

I've been staying at home way too much lately if I'm getting results like this in the office. I need to get out more where I can enjoy this effect.

*** UPDATE ***
I'm getting strong urges to hamster-bait Tammy. A friend of mine suggested I romp with her, and that is not even an option for me: the consequences are too dire, and I don't fool around at the office as a policy. Still, there's something in my brain that keeps toying with the idea of seeing how far I can push things with her.

[DarthSussudio]

I am unfamiliar with the term "hamster bait", please enlighten me.

[Shannon]

Temptation to "see how far I can push this", in my experience, leads to one or more of the following:

- Blown opportunities in other directions.
- Blown opportunities in the same direction.
- Self destruction.
- Babies.
- Stalkers.
- Haters.
- Regrets.
- STDs.
- More regrets.
- Destroyed reputation.
- Distrust from others.

I suggest against it.

[Sean]

Shannon, I have no intention of actually playing games with her. I didn't make that clear in the post. Mostly, I'm noticing that the impulse is there, and choosing not to act on it.

[Shannon]

Wise man. I heard it said once that good judgement often comes from making bad decisions. I think that was somewhere in "The Mechanic".

[FunkeyMonkey]

This evening, I went out to get some things, and several of them were at the mall. This mall has a very full parking lot, and I was waiting on a row for a parking space. The specific one I was waiting on was taking a while, and someone else started backing out.

As they were backing out, another car came from the other direction. I rolled on up and took the spot. As I got out, the other car pulled up next to me and yelled something about the spot. I gave them a look that said, "Whatever" and he yelled something about me being a chump. I just about lost my shizzle. I stopped, looked at them, and gave them my "Excuse me?" look.

I experienced a strong impulse to walk over to his door and actually say, "Excuse me?" in a tone laden with "take that back or eat your teeth." I felt like there was a gallon of adrenaline coursing through my veins. This guy was obviously a try-hard gangsta trying to prove something to his passenger.

I started walking again, when the car I had been waiting for and one two stalls down started backing out. So I gestured to those cars like a magician. Ta-da, asswipe.

This is really unusual for me. Historically, I'd have just bowed my head and gone into the store like prey. Instead, I held my head high, and came out of the store with my hand on my EDC in case he wanted to make something of it. Stage 3 has something powerful going on, because I felt like HULK SMASH! for about 45 minutes.

I was very aggressive with people in Stage 2 and 3. Had more than one experience where people were getting in my way and I put the fear of death in them. Sometimes just with a look and sometimes the look was seen by people who had nothing to do with it and they looked like they were ready to run for cover LOL. Oh the good ole days.

It took me about 000000.2 seconds for me to react to BS.

[FunkeyMonkey]

This evening, I went out to get some things, and several of them were at the mall. This mall has a very full parking lot, and I was waiting on a row for a parking space. The specific one I was waiting on was taking a while, and someone else started backing out.

As they were backing out, another car came from the other direction. I rolled on up and took the spot. As I got out, the other car pulled up next to me and yelled something about the spot. I gave them a look that said, "Whatever" and he yelled something about me being a chump. I just about lost my shizzle. I stopped, looked at them, and gave them my "Excuse me?" look.

I experienced a strong impulse to walk over to his door and actually say, "Excuse me?" in a tone laden with "take that back or eat your teeth." I felt like there was a gallon of adrenaline coursing through my veins. This guy was obviously a try-hard gangsta trying to prove something to his passenger.

I started walking again, when the car I had been waiting for and one two stalls down started backing out. So I gestured to those cars like a magician. Ta-da, asswipe.

This is really unusual for me. Historically, I'd have just bowed my head and gone into the store like prey. Instead, I held my head high, and came out of the store with my hand on my EDC in case he wanted to make something of it. Stage 3 has something powerful going on, because I felt like HULK SMASH! for about 45 minutes.

I was very aggressive with people in Stage 2 and 3. Had more than one experience where people were getting my way and put the fear of death in them. Sometimes just with a look and sometimes the look was seen by people who nothing to do with it and they looked like they were ready to run LOL for cover.

It took me about 000000.2 seconds for me to react to BS.

[smash]

This evening, I went out to get some things, and several of them were at the mall. This mall has a very full parking lot, and I was waiting on a row for a parking space. The specific one I was waiting on was taking a while, and someone else started backing out.

As they were backing out, another car came from the other direction. I rolled on up and took the spot. As I got out, the other car pulled up next to me and yelled something about the spot. I gave them a look that said, "Whatever" and he yelled something about me being a chump. I just about lost my shizzle. I stopped, looked at them, and gave them my "Excuse me?" look.

I experienced a strong impulse to walk over to his door and actually say, "Excuse me?" in a tone laden with "take that back or eat your teeth." I felt like there was a gallon of adrenaline coursing through my veins. This guy was obviously a try-hard gangsta trying to prove something to his passenger.

I started walking again, when the car I had been waiting for and one two stalls down started backing out. So I gestured to those cars like a magician. Ta-da, asswipe.

This is really unusual for me. Historically, I'd have just bowed my head and gone into the store like prey. Instead, I held my head high, and came out of the store with my hand on my EDC in case he wanted to make something of it. Stage 3 has something powerful going on, because I felt like HULK SMASH! for about 45 minutes.

I was very aggressive with people in Stage 2 and 3. Had more than one experience where people were getting my way and put the fear of death in them. Sometimes just with a look and sometimes the look was seen by people who nothing to do with it and they looked like they were ready to run LOL for cover.

It took me about 000000.2 seconds for me to react to BS.

I made same experience. Being calm within yourself, but if some BS is too much, ready to explode like a rocket. People feel it and treat you different. (We don´t take shit from others)

[DarthSussudio]

Wise man. I heard it said once that good judgement often comes from making bad decisions. I think that was somewhere in "The Mechanic".

Great movie.

"See Naples and die."

[Sean]

I am unfamiliar with the term "hamster bait", please enlighten me.

To quote Dalrock*:

The rationalization hamster is an analogy for the thought processes used by women to turn bad behavior and bad decisions into acceptable ones to herself and her friends. When a woman makes a bad decision, the hamster spins in its wheel (the woman’s thinking) and creates some type of acceptable reasons for that bad decision. The crazier the decision, the faster the hamster must spin in order to successfully rationalize away the insanity.

When I speak of hamster baiting, I'm talking about toying with a woman's rationalization hamster to see what I can get her to do for me up to a point. Getting her to do my bidding, like telling her I want her to wear something slightly inappropriate to the office; to wear underwear I choose, or none at all; etc. Basically seeing how far she will go while still rationalizing her behavior.

The problem is that the boundary can be fuzzy, and is negotiable since it was established by an agreement between my ego and my testicles. Neither of them has a reputation for strong ethical convictions. Worse, were I to pursue this, I would already have abrogated some of my ethics, so when I hit the next boundary, the ego says, "What's wrong with pushing it a little further?" and it keeps saying that until we're drunk and naked, hopped up on endorphins after a sexual encounter that would make porn stars ask us to keep it down a little. She's the kind of girl who would equate sex with love and start making wedding plans the moment there was sexual contact.

This can be fun in a relationship: telling your girlfriend to do something sexy for the day can result in AMAZING sex that night if you play it right. But this isn't a relationship, and I have no intentions of forming one with her (nuttier than squirrel poop, remember?). Playing that game with her would be manipulative, selfish, and cruel: That's not how I roll.

That's one of the reasons why I posted it: When I draw my darker desires out into the light through writing, my understanding of them grows immensely. I've got to thank you for asking about the term, because typing all of that out made me realize a great deal. I knew acting on the baiting impulse was A Bad Idea, but now I know more intimately why it is such a bad idea, and how shitty it would be to do so. It's similar to women who use an inferred promise of sex to get what they want from desperate guys.

I'm not opposed to a romp, or having that kind of fun with a woman, but my ethics require that she know my intentions.

Wise man. I heard it said once that good judgement often comes from making bad decisions. I think that was somewhere in "The Mechanic".

Yeah, I've made a few bad decisions, and I may be wiser now than I was then, but I haven't stopped learning.


* Linkage: http://theprivateman.wordpress.com/2011/...-immortal/

[Sean]

At my younger son's Halloween Parade today, I got there an hour early, and sat down on a cement planter box to read a book on the Kindle app in my cell phone and keep up with my work email on my work phone.

A pretty woman sat down at the other end of the planter, and started using all the textbook ways of getting my attention: flipping her long brown hair, sighing heavily while checking her phone, and looking over at me to see if I noticed. I could see all this going on in my peripheral vision, but I was reading a book, which felt more important at the time.

Eventually she asks, "Do you know if they do everything in the [quad] here?"

"They do. Is this your first year at this school?" I replied

"No, just the first year I've been able to get off for the Parade."

The conversation faltered, and she called someone, asking them to bring warmer clothes for her daughter because she would be cold later, and she mentioned she was sitting near the classroom.

After her call, I asked if her daughter was in my son's class, and she said she's in a different class but the same age. She said something about kids these days being stubborn, "...or maybe it's just girls." I shared a little about my boys being stubborn, and she asked about my kids. I gave the stats, and she mentioned having a 16yo daughter, too. I laughed, and asked if Daddy has a shotgun already.

"Well, her dad is a retard, but I feel sorry for my boyfriend. He's got a 9yo daughter, so he's the only guy in a house full of women." I laughed and said, "Estrogen poisoning is deadly: I hope he has a hobby."

The kids were starting to come out of their classrooms, and she pointed her daughter out. I said, "She'll be fine. Look, she has leg warmers on." which got a good laugh from her. "We'd better go get closer to the quad so we can see." and I got up and walked away. She stood about 5' away from me when we first settled into our places, and I moved on in a few minutes when my son's classroom set up in a different spot than I expected.

It was a fun little chat. She seemed interested in me, based on her IOI's: playing with her hair, eye contact, and the way she worked to keep the conversation going. I really enjoyed it because I was really present for it. My enjoyment was outcome independent, and I had no goal in mind. I was just chatting with a pretty woman, going through a couple of the opening moves in a linguistic dance, and walking away feeling refreshed afterwards.

Also, my kid was cute as hell. He boogied a bit to Party Rock Anthem, which was fun to watch.

[DarthSussudio]

Ah, yes. Thank you for the clarification. I am familiar with this process. I tend to do it all the time to women and people in general as I used to love effing with people's minds to the point that it's now just a rote habit, and default personality trait of mine.

Selfish and Cruel is my middle name.

I'm not manipulative though, I'm up front about my bastardhood. Which comes as a shock to some who thought it was all just a front to keep me from appearing vulnerable. I really ought to learn to exploit the base assumption that I'm a decent person, and then just not deliver the venom later. Ah well, we're all works in progress.