Until I Fall Away

I'm a sucker for songs with deep lyrics. Especially songs that fly under the radar. One of those is "Until I Fall Away" by the Gin Blossoms. The first verse starts off "I wanna tell if I am or I am not myself" which is a question I ask myself almost daily. The second verse "My fear pretend, that I'll never fall in love again." And if I'm honest that is a fear I have. Maybe one I always will. 

I don't like being pretentious. This blog was never about presenting myself as anything other than what I am. Or at least, the version of myself that I see: a fundamentally broken man who never figured out how to fix what was wrong with him. Objectively, I fixed some things, but maybe on others I just swept everything under the couch and hoped it would resolve itself. 

My marriage with Becky (again, not her real name) is at a crossroads. In my heart I guess I always knew we were existing on borrowed time. But just like the dirt under the couch, I thought if I didn't acknowledge it, things would be ok. 

To be clear, it's not a lack of love, nor of care. No one cheated, we don't fight. Our marriage has easily been the smoothest human relationship I've ever had. Which is remarkable given our very different upbringings and cultures we grew up in. We see eye to eye on almost everything that matters in a relationship/marriage. 

But Becky is not a normal person. She craves variety. Variety in relationships, variety in living situations, and places to live, variety in social circles. All of it. And it's the relationship variety that sits at the crux of our dilemma. 

She thinks we should separate. Not yet divorce, but maybe. She wants to know what else is out there. She has a nagging suspicion that she'll never find a man as good as me (something her mother, and her aunt have told her as well) but also feels like she'll be a failure if she doesn't at least try other relationships before settling with me. She also feels like we didn't have the normal dating/courtship dance that other couples do and that maybe that's part of what she feels is missing (not all of it, but part). And it's true. We had built up this long distance relationship, itself built on the foundation of our friendship from college, that culminated almost instantly into a marriage and shared life. It never bothered me because a) I've enjoyed our relationship and b) I finally had someone special in my life after years of failure on that front. 

She's also said she thinks I would benefit from this time apart as well. That I should be trying to date other women. That it would have been better had I done so before we got married, because at least then we'd both know that I chose her, and didn't just settle for her. 

And I gotta say, I don't know if she's wrong or not. I know that's a terrible thing to say. But how can I know that she's the right person for me if she was the only person for me. I've asked this before in older posts (you can go and read them yourself) but once we were married I never really pondered it. And honestly it scares me. Not only because we have a relationship that spans 17 years, 10 of which were as a married couple, so we've built a trust, a comfort that is impossible to replace. But also, what the hell am I going to do? Get a girlfriend? Who in God's name is interested in a 37 year old man, who's muscular but needs to lose about 35 pounds, isn't rich (though I do own two houses), doesn't look like Brad Pitt, but also isn't exactly the smoothest guy when it comes to picking up women. Dating sites, which were already bad when I was on them a decade ago, have only worse. I've gone to meetups, they aren't conducive to coupling up. So...very real chance I'd end up alone. which, without Becky, would have happened anyway. 

I don't know. I'm just thinking out loud right now. This is something that has been ongoing in our marriage for at least 3-4 years. Not consistently, but ever present. It's become more concrete over the past six months as Becky has started intimating that she is quite serious about at least a temporary split. But she also waffles on it. There are times where she wonders if she should stay with me, if for nothing other than the fact that I love her and that I'm a good man, things that you can't always replace. I don't like the idea of being "settled for" but at the same time, I don't want to be left without a chair, and I'm genuinely happy with our life together. Becky doesn't nag, doesn't belittle, doesn't tell me where I can go, or what I can do, or who I can do it with. I've seen bad marriages (my parents have one), we don't have that. 

So I don't know. Do I fight it? Do I convince her that staying together is better than parting? Or do I bet on myself that I can manage to do what I never did in the first place, only now in a worse dating environment than the one I tried dating in 10+ years ago? 

I don't know. I wish someone did and would tell me what to do. 

On Losing a Friend...and Feeling Regretful

Over the past week I've felt a little nostalgic. Looking over how things were, and how my life could have gone in a different direction. Perusing this blog too (I know I don't write much anymore). One of the things I think about is the friends I've lost. 

Part of growing up means inevitably downsizing your friend group, and even seeing less of the friends you do have. Marriage, family, work, just...life in general gets in the way. You go from seeing your buddies almost every day, to a few times a week, then a few times a month, then once a year if you're lucky. You can, and do, make new friends, but they're often friends from work, or another couple you and your spouse have befriended. They often lack the richness and the context of your old friend group. At least that's how it feels to me. 

But then there's also the friends you've lost. Unlike the friends you just see less of because life gets in the way, these "lost friends", you don't have a relationship with at all.  If you were to run into each other at the grocery store, you'd both likely walk in the other direction, or awkwardly try to avoid each other. Maybe you had a falling out over something, or something got in the way of your friendship, or maybe there was a misunderstanding and the two of you are too full of bitterness or pride to cross the armistice line. Whatever the case, there's often nothing there anymore to resuscitate, the friendship long ago asphyxiated when the life support machine was cut off. 

I've thankfully only had a few of these over the years. And as the years have passed I can confidently say I hold no ill will towards any of them. Though I acknowledge the chances we will ever reconnect is probably zero. Unfortunately. Life is like that sometimes. 

There's one person I was thinking about this week. A friend of mine from college. Oddly enough she was a mutual friend of my wife's. Not a particularly close friend of hers, but they went to high school together and had a cordial relationship on our college campus. During our college years, I developed a closer relationship with this person (whom we'll call "Jennifer") to the point where I was better friends with her than my wife was. We had classes together, similar interests, and we both had similar nerd-lite tendencies (though I was far more into sports and athletics than she was). There's a big chance that had I not met my wife first, I might have developed a crush on this "Jennifer" in another timeline. And, with the benefit of looking back now, years later, I suspect "Jennifer" might have at one time had a crush on me. She often displayed jealousy when I spent time with "Becky" (my wife) instead of her. And another time, we were in class and she complained about her hands being cold. She proceeded to place her hands on my (bare) arms so I could feel how cold her hands were. Now, I'm not saying she was head over heels with me, and maybe all these things were just coincidences, but it's possible there was something more going on. I don't know. Regardless, I considered her a friend, and considered her one of the smartest people I knew. I truly believe she had an impact on how my worldview eventually ended up. And for that I truly appreciate our time together. 

After we graduated, she worked overseas for a while. When she eventually returned stateside I asked to interview her for my podcast. I thought she had a unique perspective that both myself, and my (few) listeners would be interested in. It was a very good podcast episode, easily the best one I've ever done. After I published it, she messaged me to request that I remove her last name from the website so it wouldn't come up in Google searches of her name. I complied, though was unaware that the file name itself still had her name on it, and would come up in searches. She didn't bring this to my attention, but instead waited until I messaged her about something else. Then she made it very clear that she was angry and felt that I had let her down. I ultimately fixed the issue, but our relationship never recovered. I can only assume she had intense anger towards my negligence, and on my end I was annoyed that she would insinuate that I would intentionally burn her (or any of my friends for that matter). That was over ten years ago and we've not spoken or exchanged contact since. And while I haven't thought about it every day, I have thought about it from time to time. Wondering how things might have gone if I had been more careful. 

I looked her up last week. The vast majority of her social media accounts, and almost any trace of her online has disappeared. The only thing left is an anonymous Twitter account. Via Wayback Machine, and reading over the tweets, the user name, all of that, I confirmed it is in fact, her. I'm...very disappointed. Of all the paths I thought she might take, I didn't think she'd go religious fanatic, conspiracy nut, racist, homophobic nut bag. There are still traces of who I knew her to be long ago, but they're buried under a pile of bullshit. Beyond the loss of our friendship, I genuine believe the world, and maybe just as important the movement for individual liberty and free markets, lost a great mind. And I can't help but wonder if we hadn't had our falling out, maybe I could have been a positive influence that would have kept her from spiraling out. But maybe not. I don't know. 

I do wish her well, and hope that she comes back down from the precipice. But that's what I've been thinking about these days.   

The Scum of the Earth

If you're at all aware of the news of the world, then I'm sure you've heard about the recent layoffs in the technology sector. Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, all laid off significant portions of their workforce in recent weeks, but they weren't the only companies to do so. For a couple years now I've worked in the tech space (in sales) and I too was impact by a mass layoff. No PIP, no performance or disciplinary issues, just "hey we needed to cut 40% of our workforce, and even with that the company may not make it 6 months." 

It's tough. I spent a year closing deals and building a kick ass pipeline that would have netted me near $100k in commissions (maybe more) in January. I loved the team I worked with, loved the software I was selling, and loved the work from home lifestyle. And I also hate job hunting. I'm sure the rest of the people looking for work right now feel much the same way. 

It's also an absolutely terrible time to be unemployed. Not only for the obvious inconvenience of being stressed around the holidays, but November and December are the usually the worst time to look for a job. Recruiters and hiring managers are out of office, companies freeze hiring until the new year, we might be heading into a recession, and now of course you're competing for a job with all the other laid off folks. 

Thus the stage is set for the world's scumbags to rear their ugly heads. 

Anyone who has spent time on LinkedIn knows it can be nauseating at times. A lot of hustle culture porn, thinly veiled sales pitches, and news about who's been promoted or moved to a new company. There are good people on there though, and a lot of well meaning recruiters and talent acquisition folks have made posts trying to connect people who are hiring with jobseekers. I commented on one explaining how I was an experienced sales guy who was recently laid off and that I was looking for a sales role in tech preferably in my market or remote. Unfortunately I (along with several others) was met with a barrage of responses from LinkedIn members hocking their MLM schemes. One of them was trying to get me to buy $2600 worth of air purifiers that I (allegedly) could then sell for $1400 a piece. Another wanted me to sell overpriced life insurance products. I'm sure by the time I log in tomorrow I'll have several more. 

I have two words for these folks: Fuck. You.

Seriously. I'm not here to judge anyone's business model or tell you that selling air purifiers or life insurance or whatever is not a viable business, or that you can't make money doing it. I'm sure you can and I'm sure people have. But soliciting people who just lost their income, at a very tough time of the year, who are probably hurt and scared, and maybe even desperate, and asking them to sink their money into a commission-only sales role in an industry they've never worked in before, is a douche move. You have got to get out of here with that bullshit. Even if I was so inclined as to believe in the job, what in God's name makes you believe that I would be successful selling air purifiers during the holiday season to the point that you would advise me to put in almost three grand into the endeavor? The sad part of it is someone will buy into it. It just won't be me. 

If you're reading this, don't let it be you either. 

On Regret

I don't think I've ever touched on this topic before. But it is an important one. 

I used to feel a lot of regret. Regret for chances I didn't take, chances I did take, mistakes I made, things I said or didn't say, opportunities lost, etc. I'd wish that I had like a time machine I could jump into and fix the things I did wrong and make my life better. 

For the most part, I don't feel that way anymore. Maybe some small things like wishing I'd had invested in Bitcoin when I first heard about it. I'd probably be able to retire right now if I had. Professional things for sure. I have the best job I've ever had right now, but I sometimes wish I would have discovered this career path years ago and be a little further ahead in my career. But while these things would improve my life materially, in the grand scheme of things I can't say I'm truly bothered by them. Certainly not enough to feel any kind of sustained regret over them. 

While I think my relationship with my wife would be improved had I had relationships and sex with other women prior to getting married (my wife has said as much), that improvement would be marginal at best. My marriage is great, and our relationship is great and I can't say that I regret not dating more in my younger years. 

I think maybe that's the point of this post. I have no real regrets anymore, even though my past feelings of regret were real at one time. For me, it's largely because things worked out: I married a wonderful woman, and I have a wonderful career. And I recognize that some of these things would never have happened if those past situations I regretted had turned out differently. 

To be clear, things didn't work out all by themselves. I had to take active steps to improve them, and to keep trying to improve. It's not easy, I think humans have a tendency to become complacent and lazy for sure. And sometimes you can try really hard, and things still don't work out. 

Without coming off like some kind of tacky life coach, I guess I'm just saying that wherever you are in life, you feelings of regret or hopelessness might be very real right now, but you may look back on them in a few years and realize they were a necessary part of your life's journey. Or you may not. Impossible to know without the benefit of hindsight. 

Anyway, I'll try to post here more often. Not sure what about, but some thing or another. 

The Incel Podcast

Through my casual interest in true crime and unsolved mysteries I learned that there's a relatively new podcast (I think a year or so old) called "The Incel Podcast". Despite my desire to put that part of my life behind me once and for all, I did listen to a few episodes just to see what it was all about and whether I would have anything of note to add to such an endeavor. 

Sometime during the course of this blog (probably sometime in 2011 or 2012) I became aware of the term "incel" and aware that there were websites, forums, and Reddit subs dedicated to people describing themselves as "involuntary celibate", or "incel". For a time I lurked and occasionally commented on the Forever Alone subreddit, but otherwise I never joined any sites dedicated to people who might be described as fellow travelers. The reason for this was quite simple: while I may have suspected that there was something inherently "wrong" with me that made me incapable of ever attracting a romantic or sexual partner, to the extent that getting out of my situation was possible, there was nothing of value to be gleaned from hanging around with other people like myself. Furthermore, whenever I did have the chance to interact with others like me, I never quite felt a connection with them. I know this is overgeneralizing, but many of them had no friends (female or male), they were big into anime and stereotypical "nerd shit", and had a disdain or disinterest in sports or athletic competition. Many had been bullied when they were younger, or were convinced that looks, or their height or some other aspect of their appearance was what held them back. I never felt that way, I always felt that my inexperience was the result of me "missing the window" so to speak in which most people go out and have their first dates, kisses, sex, etc., and that figuring out how to catch up was the key (whether that was possible or not was always the question). 

Again, I know I'm overgeneralizing, but even the culture that permeates the community makes me cringe, and probably would have made me cringe 10 years ago. Terms like "ascending" or "Chads", or "normies" don't jive with me, and just sound like cultish lingo. Perhaps it's because I'm too old and out of touch, and the things that might have once resonated with me have passed me by. 

I don't write any of this as judgement. Honestly, having support and a community you feel like you can trust and go to for discussion and venting is very valuable. It's unfortunate that so many incels can't (or feel as though they can't) find that through offline relationships. I'm glad someone like Naama Kates (who seems intelligent and receptive to learning) has taken on a project like the podcast. I'm only saying I don't feel a very strong connection or identity with them. 

The episodes I've listened to have made me go back and think about my past and how I ended up writing this lonely little blog at the edge of the internet. It's also made me confront some aspects of my personality that still permeate, but now manifest themselves in other areas of my life instead of dating and sex. It's worth checking out, and I do recommend it.

The Next Journey

While I figure out whether or not I will move to a new blog to discuss my newest crucible, I guess I'll start here with whatever audience I have left.

When I last left you dear readers in January 2015, I was working for an insurance agent. I would last only a few more months at this place before being fired. I know it's a cliche, but it was really was for the best, and while I believe my employer had a role to play in my "lack of progress" (the official stated reason for my dismissal), I honestly can't blame them for letting me go. I didn't understand my role or where I fit into the success of the agency. All I really did was collect a paycheck and do the bare minimum on a day-to-day basis.

I was unemployed for another 3 months before finding a job as a bank teller. While I made less money than I did at the insurance agency, I was working under a manager who saw my experience and my skill set and made it her mission to put me in a position where I can learn how to be successful in the financial sales world. In less than 6 months I was promoted to banker and I started to be much more successful than I had been before.

After more than a year in the role, my new manager (who was also very keen to keep developing me and putting me in positions to succeed and move up) left for a competitor bank. Very soon he referred me to take a position with a manager he had befriended at a branch much closer to my house. It was in this role I experienced more success than I ever had before. I exceeded my sales quotas, I received raving reviews from my manager, built a great reputation and everything seemed well and good.

But there was something lurking. A dissatisfaction, a desire for more. I was in the role for three years, but it didn't appear that moving beyond my role was on the horizon. I was making more money than I ever had before, but I was still paycheck to paycheck. Not content to simply wait for something to be handed to me, I looked into possible positions in the bank that I could apply for. There weren't any management positions in my area, and to be quite honest I wasn't really looking to become a manager. I ruled mortgage lending out, because it was commission-only and I didn't have enough money saved up to tide me over until I started closing loans. I found a handful of positions elsewhere in the bank that I thought I could do and applied for them, but no dice.

While looking internally for a change, I began to look externally as well. Starting in 2018 I had looked at making a switch into another industry. Since my wife worked in tech, I figured tech sales would be a natural spot. But, try as I might, I just couldn't manage to get anywhere.

Meanwhile, midway through 2019, the bank changed our bonus structure. We would now be paid to show our customers how to use the online banking system. We were only meant to show our customers 2-3 demonstrations per visit, but I figured why not show them more? Soon, I was showing them at least 10 per visit. In my mind, it seemed to me they were benefiting from an increased knowledge in the new technology, and I was getting something out of it too, win-win. Unfortunately for me, it was not win-win. At least not to the bank. After getting an impromptu reprimand from the regional coordinator, I was fired at the end of January.

To make matters worse, I had become persona non grata to my former manager, the same manager who had lavished praise on me for the previous three years. At my exit interview he offered to set me up with a MLM person he knew "to have some passive income" while I looked for another job. When I called him a few weeks later to ask if he could be a reference for me on a job application, he acted as if he didn't know who I was. Soon after, he deleted me from his LinkedIn connections.

Since then, I found myself working in tech. The only problem is I'm working as a help desk technician. And while I am making more money than ever before, I'm miserable. I don't like technical work. What's worse is it's a public sector contractor. I have zero private sector clients, so even if I wanted to eventually move up to a sales role, it would be in the public sector.

I've continued to apply for sales jobs, but to no avail. I had a few interviews that ultimately went nowhere, but the last of those was in early April. Back in March I had somebody reach out to me on another social media site and offer to help, but after our initial conversation he has dropped off the radar and I'm not one to beg anyone to help me. So I consider that option a dead end. I've reached out to other people on LinkedIn to try to do informational interviews or even just asking recruiters what skills or experience I should try to emphasize as I look to go in a new direction, but they too had zero interest in replying.

So, here I am. Ultimately straightened out my personal life, but my professional life is not anywhere near where I'd like to be. And I don't know how to fix it.

2020: An Update from the Apocalypse

I don't know if anyone reads this anymore. It's been five years and I've essentially broken the promise I made that I wouldn't just disappear. In my defense, I'm a superstitious person. When something is out of my control, I tend to remove it from the world of the rational and into the world of the supernatural. I believed that this blog and its contents, and the persona of The Inexperienced Guy, were toxic. That I had to let it go in order to embrace a new life. I've gotten better at being less superstitious, and honestly 99% of the time I'm very rational and a bit of a skeptic. Nonetheless maybe I'll regret coming out of retirement (if this is even me coming out of retirement). Who knows.

I'll start with the important stuff since I know everyone is tuning in for the obvious: Becky and I ended up getting married. 6 months or so after my last post. Is it a perfect relationship? Of course not, such a thing doesn't exist. But we're happy. I'm also now no longer a kissless, virgin who never had a girlfriend before.

I don't know what else to say other than that. I can say that I'm now much more confident around women (ironic, since it no longer matters). I guess it's one of those catch-22 type of things where you can't have confidence until you've got some experience, and you won't get experience without confidence. Somehow I managed to break the cycle.

Anyway, I just wanted readers to know I'm not dead. I'm doing well. I could probably manage to cut back on the bourbon and cigars, but otherwise I'm healthy and happy. I may come back and write here about other things. Maybe my career journey, which is currently in a valley (some of my own doing). I appreciate those of you who gave me advice, feedback, or even just those who commented on here over the years. It's been almost ten years since I started this blog, and if nothing else it's a great time capsule for me to go back and read my thoughts through the years.

Again thank you all.

Yours,

The Inexperienced Guy