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

Hello and Goodbye

Anyone who follows this blog with any kind of regularity, knows I've been gone a while.  Not so far gone that you wonder whether I'm still alive or not, but long enough that you might wonder what's been going on in my life.

In the time I've been away I've had a lot to think about.  About who I am, what I want in life, and whether or not I can ever be truly happy.  A lot of this has been brought on by Becky's return to my life.  A woman I've long regarded as "the woman of my dreams".  Someone I'd give most of my vital organs to be with, but who could never say anything even remotely resembling that in return.

That however, had appeared to change over the past two months, as chronicled here.  And the past two weeks in particular were especially good.  Better than anything I could ever have imagined.  Lots of "I love yous" and "I love you toos" were exchanged.  Smileys and laughter and just staring at each other smiling.  I know it's not in real life, it's only exchanged over an internet connection, but I can honestly say I know the answer to Rod Stewart's question in "Some Guys Have All the Luck": how does it feel when the girl next to you says she loves you?  And boy, does it feel good.

To be quite honest, it felt too good to be true.  I've never had any girl I liked ever like me back, let alone someone as amazing as Becky.

And today, those fears seemed to come true.  We had yet another unfortunate conversation about how she's unsure about whether her feelings for me are romantic in nature, or something else.  The fairy tale ending with me and her riding off into the sunset is not at this point a realistic one.  To be honest, I panicked a bit.  I probably sounded like a scared, whiny bitch on the phone with her.  In hindsight, I should have maintained my composure.  I still have a while to charm her into feeling for me and besides, I need to have confidence that once she meets me she'll know that she can't live without me.

Still though, I can't shake that feeling that I'm cursed.  That I've been played for a fool yet again.  And I can't stop it.  I'm in love with her and I will be for the rest of my life.  What's worse is that I think she's ruined women and dating for me forever.  If she is playing me, I don't think I'm ever going to be able to believe someone when they say they love me ever again.  Only time will tell if my fears are legitimate, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't worried.

So where does that leave this blog?  Well for now I think I'm done writing on here.  For now.  Not forever.  If things work out with Becky I'll definitely post a series of followups to let everyone know what's going on, just as I promised.  But this blog can sometimes bring out the worst in me.  My worst neurosis, my fears, my cynicism, everything that will not in any way help me work my way through the Becky situation.  So I need to step away for a while.

I do read the comments, so feel free to comment her any thoughts you have or pieces of advice.  I don't always take every piece of advice I get (mostly because I'm a stubborn moron) but I like reading and considering the advice nonetheless.

So for now, I bid adieu.

How Do You Know?

I don't actually expect anyone to have an answer to this.  If they did, they'd probably be the ruler of the world.  But how do you know how you truly feel, and how do you know how they feel?

It's easy for someone to say "I love you", or "je t'aime", or "ahabak(ik)", or any other way of saying you love someone.  They're just words.  Anyone can do things for someone, or kiss them, or make love to them.  But that doesn't necessarily mean they love them.

So how do you know?

It's a question I wrestle with routinely.  About both my own feelings and the feelings of others.

I say I love Becky.  I believe that I do.  I believe this because of how I feel when I'm around her, when I talk to her (whether on the phone or through online chat), because of how I care about her.  Whenever I hear about something happening in her country or whenever the power goes out over there, I worry about her safety.  I feel genuine sadness at the thought of never talking to her again.  I wish very much for her happiness in life.  I think that's all great evidence in support of the idea that I love her.

But, how do I know?  How do I know it's not because she's the only girl to want to consistently stick around me for this long?  How do I know it's not because I think she's the last shot I have to ever find someone?  How do I know?

And the answer is that I don't know.  And can't know.  I don't live in a world in which I'm choosing her over many other women.  She is the only one.  I have to put trust in myself that I know what I'm feeling is in fact love, and not desperation or loneliness.  And trusting yourself is often the most difficult thing to do.

On the other side of the equation, how do I know how Becky feels?  She's terribly hard to predict.  Hard to lock down where she stands.  One day she'll say she loves me, the next she'll say she doesn't want a long distance relationship and has a hard time saying she loves me over the phone (something she still has never done).  She'll say she's coming here to visit, but that I shouldn't wait for her. She'll text me to say she misses me, but doesn't sound like she's in a hurry to see me.

So how do I know she's serious about wanting to give us a shot?  How do I know she's not saying these things to avoid disappointing me or to avoid making me hate her?  I'm not exactly someone accustomed to having women be interested in him, which only compounds the problem.

I've asked for people's thoughts on the issue, and some have chimed in.  And I encourage anyone else reading this to chime in too.  But how do you know about your own feelings?  How do you know about another person's feelings?  Am I just an idiot for believing this might work out?

Miscellaneous Notes About Honesty, Decency and Communication

I'm not sure if I've ever gone on record saying it, but I have no problem with "the fade".  I also have no problems with making up excuses or having non-answers like "I'll let you know" or "I'll check my schedule" as a way of rejecting someone without coming out and saying it.  I'm an adult, and somehow an adult who gets social cues fairly easily.  I understand that anything other than a "yes" is a "no".

But, there does come a time when you need to be honest with people.  When putting something gently or being passive-aggressive, or coy is not an attempt at sparing someone's feelings, but just a way of implying that they're stupid.  Telling someone after three dates that you can't see them anymore because you're not over your ex, or some other variation of "it's not you, it's me" is acceptable.  Saying that to someone you've been married to for 10 years, not so much.  It's not even about the length of time you know the person, it's more about the degree to which trust and honesty is deserved.

I was reminded of this recently, hence the timing of this post.  Someone I had hoped would have the decency to be honest with me given the similar difficulties we face, but who instead went the passive-aggressive rejection route.  I'm not even talking about romantic rejection, because I didn't see this person that way, it was more of a personal rejection of me as a person.  I don't know what kind of issues this person is going through, nor their reasons for their actions, but given what I did know of them, I had hoped that clear communication would have been possible. I hold no ill will and the door is always open for them to return, but I do hope this person finds what they're looking for.  I got the hint though and I'm backing off.  Thanks for everything, and take care of yourself.  I really mean that.

This isn't really about one specific person though.  This post is about how we should interact with anyone in our lives.  Knowing when honestly is owed and when it's not is a crucial part of interpersonal communication.    The little things can sometimes go a long way.

Wow. It's Been Four Years

So I've been doing this for four years.  Yup.  Go check.  My first ever post on this blog was 11/21/2010.  I was in my last year of college.  I was really done with college at that point, I could have finished that summer instead of going a whole extra year.  Mentally, I had checked out already.  Didn't help my GPA of course.  Though, all things considered I did fine, could have done better, but also could have done worse.

It had been three months since Becky left to go back to her home country.  I had sent her an email that she never replied to, and for all I knew at the time I was never going to hear from her again.  In six months of being on Okcupid, I had gotten zero dates, and only three replies to my messages (one was a girl who told me she only wanted to date men from her culture but still agreed to add me on Facebook).  It was the Sunday before Thanksgiving, so it was right in that terrible time of year where it sucks to be single.

Three weeks after I wrote my first post my grandmother died.  The good grandmother, the one who actually cared about me and my family.  I don't "hate" my other grandmother, but it's clear that she's not a person that wants to spend time with other people.  So that was a pretty terrible time.  I'll tell you the story one day of why I feel like a piece of shit with regards to this, but for now I'll just leave it as is.

So, I was a 22 year old senior in college.  Most of my friends had graduated so it was basically just me on campus alone.  I hadn't really been on a real "date", hadn't kissed a girl, hadn't even held hands with a girl before, had zero post-college job prospects and graduation was fast approaching.  My grand plan of meeting some girl in one of my classes or just in school in general was fast becoming an unrealistic dream.

So I hope that paints a good picture of the setting.  The "fertile ground" in which this blog began.

When I started this blog, my hope was that I would post on here and that people would read and give me advice on what I should do.  School kind of interrupted my ability to post consistently, and I think by the spring I was at three or four posts and zero comments.  That's when I decided maybe I should record my activities and progress, with the eventual goal of acting as a blueprint for others in my shoes.  Like a science experiment, or a traveler's guide.  As the months and years stretched on I realized that was only going to fill up so many pages, especially given the lack of dates I was going on.  That's when I added commentary and social critique to the content here.  Helps bridge the gap between my failed dates.

Since I started the blog I've certainly made some progress.  I've been on some dates, I've actually held hands with a girl, and kissed a girl on the cheek, I've had a girl tell me she loved me (albeit not quite in the way I wanted her to love me but whatever), and I've told a girl I loved her.  I now have a full time salaried position with a stable company and I'm on the way towards having a more independent lifestyle.  Still though, I think I'm still in many ways the same guy.  The same guy who is unsure and shy, and insecure about himself.  I still wonder in the same way what a girl I'm interested in could possibly find attractive about me.  I'm not sure exactly how or when this will ever change.  It's something that has been with me for a long time.  I hope it's not part of who I am, but it definitely could be.

I also still find women of South Asian and Middle Eastern descent extremely attractive.  I don't think it's a fetish in the way that people have Asian fetishes or what have you.  It's not something I intentionally seek out, it's just a trend I've noticed.  I think it hurts me in that it limits my dating pool though ironically the only women who have ever even agreed to go out with me were of those descents, so I don't know.

It seems fitting that one of the blogs I follow (BrownGirlBloggin) is doing a reveal video as a probable retirement of her blog this coming week. This blog (my blog) is (hopefully) not forever.  I will end this blog when/if  I get a girlfriend.  I'll obviously not leave anyone hanging.  I'll write some wrap up posts, and a farewell as well as a place to find my current writing and a way to get in touch with me.  And I'll leave this blog up for anyone who wants to find it and read about my journey.  For now though that day has not arrived.  So fear not, The Inexperienced Guy is still here.

I've toyed from time to time with the idea of doing a "reveal" of my own.  The thing is though, this blog is anonymous for a good reason.  Very few of my friends know that I'm a completely inexperienced guy.  Most people think I'm a cool and calm, "manly man" who doesn't fret about how girls don't like him.  If I reveal myself, that all goes out the window.  That's not to say that no one knows how I look or who I am.  I've befriended one reader of this blog a year ago and would certainly reveal my identity to anyone else under the condition that they don't reveal my identity (unless it's to help me get a girlfriend, then I'm ok with it).  I've tried to befriend others with mixed success.  If you read this blog and you really do want to know who I really am, please drop me a line and I'll add you on Facebook or I'll send you a picture or something.

Suffice it to say, I've been here four years.  I'd really not like to be here for another four.  Hell, I'd like not to be here another four days.  But, I'm glad that if I have to be on this journey, that I have whoever is reading this along with me.  Thanks everyone, and I promise I'm not going anywhere.  At least not yet...

How About a Movie Review?

Wow.  I'm perilously close to the fourth anniversary of the founding of this blog.  I guess I'll have to post on Friday commemorating this occasion.

For now though, I'm taking a break from talking about dating and relationships and talk about something more fun and entertaining: movies.  Specifically a movie I saw recently, you may have heard of it: Interstellar.

I saw it twice.  Saw it the first weekend it came out in a regular theater, and saw it again on Thursday in IMAX.  The IMAX theater I saw it at also had a model of the ship on display as well some kind of virtual reality tour of the inside of the ship.  I didn't stay for that part because I got out of the theater at 10:30 pm and I had to get at up 5 in the morning.  If you haven't seen the movie in IMAX I highly recommend doing so.  Space movies, or flying movies, or anything really having to do with huge spaces and scenes always look better in IMAX.

I liked the movie.  It had a good beginning and end, good character development, the usual stuff you expect from Christopher Nolan, who directed the film.  What really set it apart though was the cinematography.  The wormhole, the other worlds, Gargantua (their name for the black hole they encountered), the tesseract, all of it was really really beautiful to behold.  That was really worth the 15 bucks I spent on the ticket.

The only somewhat negative thing I'll say about it is that it basically followed the cliche astronaut/space travel movie plot.  I don't want to give away too many spoilers, but if you've seen movies like Gravity or Apollo 13, you know the story line: disaster/unexpected event forces crew to abandon scheduled itinerary and improvise a new way to get on with the mission and/or get back home.  There's no rescue possible in space (at least not currently) so it's a plot that works.  But, it does seem bland and formulaic sometimes.

That said, it didn't take away too much from the film.  It was still a beauty to watch.  Maybe it will rekindle some interest in exploring other worlds.  I know the idea fascinates me.

Anyway, if you saw the film, what did you think of it?

Head Games

Yup.  Just like the Foreigner song.

I've neglected to post for almost two weeks now.  I've been a bit busy and a little downtrodden about the events that I chronicled in my last post.  But I'm here to post again.  Still not about anything wonderful though.

At this point, I honestly think I need to bundle some of these posts and label them "the Becky files" or "the Becky problem".  Because out of all the things that I've written on, I've probably written about her the most.

As you may remember from my last post, Becky (just want to remind everyone that this is not her real name) said "love you" to me at the end of a chat online.  It was an amazing moment of my life, and extremely shocking to me.  She backpedaled the next day when I probed a bit further, which is always the story with Becky: one step forward, two steps back.

Since then, she gave me her phone number, which I called using the Skype app (which is a lot cheaper than calling straight up using your cell phone), and we've talked four times on the phone.  They were the usual great conversations we've always had.  Reminded me of my college years to be honest.  But I recognize one thing: she doesn't feel the same way about me, and that is a fact that is unlikely to ever change.

To clarify, it's not like I ever really thought she would fall in love with me.  She didn't when we lived in the same state and went to the same college, it's even harder for that to happen when thousands of miles separate you.  I've kind of already made my peace with that.  The real mystery going on five years now is why I find myself unable to walk away.

It's not like I'm not accustomed to liking women that don't like me back.  That's a fairly common occurrence with me.  The thing is I'm always able to let go and move on.  The women I've liked or went on dates with in the past, I'm really not longing to be with them.  Yet with Becky it's the opposite.  No matter what I try, be it no contact, space, just thinking about the things I don't like about her (which is practically nothing), I just find myself unable to let her go, despite knowing (intellectually) that nothing is going to happen between us, and despite not seeing her for four years.  And I think I've discovered why.

She seems like she really cares about me.

She will compliment me, encourage me, share things about herself with me, ask me my opinion, ask me how my day is going or how my life is going.  Whenever we talk on the phone or online I never get the feeling that she's in a hurry to go.  She has never asked me for anything.  Not once.  When we were in college we basically split expenses (I paid sometimes, she paid other times).  There are people who have told me that she's only into me so that she could come to the US for citizenship and then bleed me dry.  Becky is smart, she knows that all she has to do is say the word and I'd meet her at the airport with a bouquet of flowers and a ring, yet she doesn't.  If she asked me for some money to help her (she definitely needs it) I'd send it.  Yet she never asks.  Either she genuinely cares about me, or she's the world's biggest saint.

Now I know a lot of you will say "that's just what friends do".  And I get it, but I have friends.  Friends I've known for years, great friends.  None of them have acted towards me the way she does and did when she lived here.  All of the "signals" they tell you are signs that a girl likes you, she displayed.  The hair twirling, the sitting close to you, the crossing her legs towards you, the laughing at all your jokes and smiling like the Cheshire Cat, mentioning specific things she wants to do with you (and then actually following through on it).  All of that, plus the things I've already mentioned made me think something might be there.  Yet there isn't anything there.  Hence the title.

I'm incredibly lucky that she is such an angel, otherwise I'd be totally fucked (pardon my language).  And to be quite honest the next girl I meet might not be so noble.  And that's the really depressing part.  Am I really such a sap that all you have to do to hook me in is say some nice things to me and act like you care?  Will this ever come back to bite me?  Will my hangups about Becky inhibit my ability to develop romantic relationships with other women?  Should I just go ahead and see a therapist about this?

These are all things I've been thinking about since 2 PM yesterday.

I May Never Wash These Hands Again

I'm kidding of course.  I don't want to help start an Ebola outbreak.  Or much more likely, the flu, common cold and all the other more common diseases.

Seriously though, it's been an interesting week for me.  Particularly the second half of the week.

Some of you already know, but on Thursday I had a discussion with "Becky" online.  It was an odd one, and ended on as odd a note as it began.  She told me she had something to tell me, and the way she said it made it sound like it was something serious.  I'm thinking at this point "dear God, she's going to tell me that she's getting married, and then I'll probably go barf up all the lunch I just ate".  Turns out she only wanted to tell me that she really cared about me and valued our friendship.  That she thinks about me "all the time" especially things I say to her that she later thinks about to make her feel better when she's feeling down.  All of that stuff is very heartwarming, but not quite what I hope for with her.  I told her the truth (which I've told her before) about how I'm glad she's in my life, even if she doesn't feel quite the same way about me as I do about her.  Which prompted her to tell me she's never really been in love, it takes a long time to fall for someone, etc.  By now it was time for me to go back to work as my lunch break was over.  And then she wrote "love u".  Whoa.

Now I come from the perspective that you don't just throw that out there casually, unless you put major caveats on it.  "Love you buddy" or "I love you like a best friend/brother/whatever", those are good ways to use the word "love" without adding all kinds of extra baggage to it.  But saying "love u" without any other context or explanation after the other person just got done saying that they were in love with you?  That's heavy stuff.  Also something I can check off my bucket list: having a girl tell you she loves you.

I followed up with her about it the next day.  I specifically asked her why we couldn't try to make a long distance relationship work.  She alleges (I didn't use the word "allege" with her though) to care about me, and I care about her, we have a lot in common, neither of us is dating anyone else, what's the hold up?  She informed me that she doesn't want a long distance relationship and can't know for sure if she really feels romantically about me until she sees me in person.  Tells me that she will eventually come to the US when her mother comes to visit family.  Doesn't know when that will be but if I'm still single we can see what happens then, but that I should not wait for her.  As much as I would love to believe that this means I can go meet her at the airport sometime in the future and whisk her off into the sunset with me, my gut tells me that this is just her way of telling me she's not interested without telling me so explicitly, and a way to avoid liability if I should "wait for her".  I still do lover her, even thought it would be for the best to walk away.  For whatever reason I just find myself unable to do so.

Now, for the really juicy stuff that you've all been waiting for.

I HAD A DATE YESTERDAY!

On Wednesday, after chatting with a girl from a dating site for about a week, we exchanged phone numbers and I asked her out.  We met up at a Fall festival in our area.  I'm not going into explicit details in case she stumbles upon this blog (highly unlikely but you never know).  I will say though that she was a lot prettier in person than she was in her photos.  That's happened with pretty much every girl I've met from dating sites, so I was happy to see that trend continue.  Also, she had a lovely voice, I love accents and she had a sexy one.  She seemed kind, well rounded, interesting and smart.  All of the things that I tend to like in a woman.

I can also cross some other things off the bucket list.  We held hands.  I had already broken the "touch barrier" prior to this (touching her back, touching her leg when we were sitting and talking, etc.) so maybe that had warmed me up to it, or maybe I remembered all the reserved dates I went on when I didn't go for hand holding and wanted to, I don't know.  But I did it, and she didn't recoil in horror or pull her hand away or none of that.  That was amazing.  I tried to kiss her at the end of the date but she gave me her cheek instead.  That could be good or bad, it's really too early to tell.  She also said she was free this week to go out again.  So I will follow up with her and hopefully that works out.

I like her, and I don't want to compare her to Becky, because I think it's unfair to compare the two given the circumstances.  But no matter how it works out with this girl, I've made some major strides: first time I've ever kissed a girl (on the cheek, but still counts), and first time I've held hands with a girl.

One last thing.  If things do work out with this girl (or even if they work out with Becky), I want to make a promise to readers: I'm not going to turn into one of those douches who gets one girlfriend and is suddenly the expert on dating.  I don't know jack shit about dating.  I lucked into this date with this girl.  I have no clue in the slightest how to replicate that success.  I will continue to give opinion and sometimes advice from my perspective, but I will never claim to have any kind of authority on the subject of love and romance.  If I ever become that guy though, please copy and paste this paragraph and send it to me as a comment, tweet, email, or something.

Anyway, I'm not sure if this is the longest blog post I've had.  Maybe it is I'm not sure.  I just wanted to let you guys know that The Inexperienced Guy is slightly less experienced as of yesterday.

Enjoy your Sunday everyone.  :)

Addendum:

So much for the good vibes.  I was quite excited to call this girl tomorrow to ask her out again.  Unfortunately, I will never get the chance.   She texted me tonight to tell me she wasn't interested in a second date.  Something about having different personalities or whatever.  The specifics don't matter,  What matters is that there will not be another date with this girl.  I'm not broken up necessarily over one girl, it's that I feel like this is how everything ends.  Always.  Doesn't matter how well a date goes or how poorly.  There will always be a bad ending.  Always.

My shields are up.  I really can't go through this again.  One more time and I think I will have a psychotic break.

**Major Announcement**

There will be a major announcement tomorrow.  Look for it.

That is all.

Thanks.

:)

The Depressing Season

Halloween is a big event on the calendar for me.  Not so much because I do anything particularly special for Halloween (last year was the first time I had actually even gone to a Halloween party) but because it's the last day before the start of what I call the "depressing season".  It's that time when the weather starts to get cold and people like to cuddle up next to the fire place (or just their home with the heat on) with a significant other.  And the colder weather is bolstered by a slew of holidays that often involve those significant others: Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's, and Valentine's Day.

I've said this before when people ask me what the toughest part of the year is to be single (and dateless).  And my answer is always November-February.  No one to invite over for Thanksgiving, no one to buy gifts for at Christmas, nobody to kiss at New Year's, and obviously no one to spend Valentine's day with.  And I totally get the Valentine's Day is a total rip-off and a "Hallmark holiday".  It really is.  But I feel like relying on that as a defense, is a punk move.  The reality is I'd love to experience the stress that Valentine's Day can be at least just once, instead of treating it like any other day as I have been for a while now.

There is something amazingly romantic to me about kissing in the snow or walking hand in hand in the cold while looking at Christmas decorations in town.  Or inviting your girlfriend to have Thanksgiving dinner with your family (or conversely, being invited to her family's home for Thanksgiving).  I could be alone in this feeling though.

Of course, I'd love to spend other moments in the year with a lovely woman too.  A haunted house on Halloween, or sitting on a blanket taking in the Fourth of July fireworks, or hell even the baseball games I just went to last week.  Having someone to share those moments of life with is something I really really desire.  It's just, I think the nature of the upcoming season just magnifies those feelings for me.

So, I will look to enjoy this rest of this month as much as I can.  And obviously hope that this time the "depressing season" isn't so depressing.

Ben Affleck, Bill Maher, and Islamophobia

As I'm sure most of you know, Ben Affleck was recently on Bill Maher's show and gave a spirited defense of Islam.  My opinion of Bill Maher is that he is a gigantic douche who routinely spouts horseshit and uses the same old tired shtick.  That anyone even bothers to watch his show for purposes other than derision, really boggles the mind.

In any case, I'm with Affleck on this one.  I am not a Muslim (despite what some people tell me), and I'm pretty sure I never will be.  But that doesn't mean I'm not disturbed by the alarming level of Islamophobia that exists in the world.  It would be one thing if it came from Neocons like Dick Cheney or conservative heroes like Sam Huntington or Robert Spencer, but it comes from supposedly liberal progressives, libertarians, smart people, and dumb people.  It's incredibly sad to hear the same people passionately defend the idea of judging people on who they are as an individual rather than who they are as a group, fail to extend that principle to Muslims.

Furthermore, I find it odd that these Islamophobes claim to be "experts on the true Islam" but when an actual Muslim disagrees with their description of the religion, they dismiss the person as either not a true Muslim, or of engaging in deception to lull people into a false sense of security.  There is no way to have a conversation or meaningful debate with someone who regards people who disagree with their view of the world as liars or Uncle Toms.  I remember when Reza Aslan came to my college back in 2007 and he said he found it ironic that the two people who want to depict Islam as inherently violent are Osama Bin Laden and televangelist Pat Robertson.  That should tell you something.

Acts of terrorism committed by people claiming to speak for Islam represent a very small percentage of violent acts.  In fact in the United States you are more likely to be killed by someone you know, or a police officer than you are a terrorist.  Hell, I'm sure some of you know women are more likely to be raped than killed by a terrorist, yet I don't see any collective freak out over rape in our society, at least not anywhere near the same level as we do with regards to terrorism.

Really though, at the end of the day there really is no one who speaks for all of Islam.  There are the Five Pillars (none of which is war or even the much misunderstood word "Jihad") and the Qur'an, but there are all kinds of nuance and tiny details outside of those things.  You can choose to believe the worst of Muslims, or you can choose to accept that they are no different than anyone else in this world.  And you don't have to be a Muslim to understand this either.

A Rant

I don't often go on rants.  Well, I do, but they're rants dressed up as sophisticated analysis.  But here's a less than sophisticated diatribe for you:

What the fuck baseball?!

Seriously.

I have said this to people plenty of times but baseball is the single most enjoyable sport to watch live in person.  And I say this as someone who loves the NFL, loves watching football on Sundays, all of that.  Trust me, live baseball tops live NFL games.

But, the scheduling for this postseason blows.  It's just terrible.  I have tickets for Friday that I have to sell on Stubhub because there's no way I could make either of the possible start times.  12:07 or 3:07 in the afternoon?  Seriously?!  I'm not unemployed anymore, I have to go to work during the day.  I can't just hook to see a baseball game.

Beyond that, who the hell is going to be watching baseball on television at noon?  It's not like the NCAA tournament where everybody watches just to see how screwed up their brackets are hours into the tournament and their dreams of winning a billion dollars from Warren Buffet went up in smoke.  I highly doubt there's any gain in viewership by airing these games the way Major League Baseball chose to air them this year.

I know, poor me.  I'm going to make some money scalping my tickets.  Woe is me.  But I wanted to go.  I know as fans we don't really impact the game, especially in a sport like baseball where crowd noise rarely plays a factor.  But you sometimes feel like you might be able to swing the game and you want to be there to do it.  You want to feel that energy along with forty thousand other fans.

So seriously baseball.  Get your act together.  Just play the games at night.  Play them simultaneously.  No one will mind.  Everyone will be watching their own teams anyway and if they absolutely need to watch two games at once they can do this thing they invented sometime in the 20th century called "changing the channel".

End rant.  Sorry if this bored anyone who hates baseball or sports.

To Be 20 Again

I'm a bit of a nostalgic person.  Anniversaries of important events or moments in my life are things I tend to remember and reminisce about.  And sometimes obviously look on with regret.

Six years ago today I met "Becky".  It wasn't even like a grand "I met you" moment.  We talked for roughly 10 minutes, give or take.  It was one of those things where I was so amazed that an attractive woman even bothered to speak to me at all.  There was a guy on campus giving out flyers for something or other and when we passed him I was so entranced I said something so totally off the wall.

I any event, I wouldn't speak to her again for several weeks.  I was doing my patented "too cool for school" act.  You know the one where you ignore someone you're attracted to because you don't want to be "that person" who follows them around like a puppy dog.  Eventually though by essentially stroke of luck we'd start hanging out regularly and I was in deep.

I won't rehash the whole story here because I've already blogged about it a couple of times and don't want to bore you with yet another retelling.  What I will say is that it's a bittersweet memory (as all my memories of her are).  That September night, walking back from class.  Me, a 20 year old guy who thought he knew everything about the world but who in fact knew practically nothing.

For the past 6 years I've tried in vain to recreate that, just with a happier ending.  I'm not sure if that's possible.  Nor am I sure it's desirable.

I still dream about "Becky".  I'm sure it doesn't help that I still talk to her online on a regular basis.  I'm not sure what will happen in the future, I'm not optimistic but who knows.

Helicopter Parenting

I am not a parent.  I know it's a big surprise, but it's awfully hard to father children without even kissing a girl (actually reminds me of a "Boy Meets World" episode, but that's another story).  But, I have parents, and most of my peers have parents.  And our parents have parents.  So it's kind of easy to observe the phenomenon that is the practice of raising children.

There are a lot of different parenting styles, but probably the most common one today is known as "helicopter parenting".  Basically hovering over your child like a helicopter and watching our for their every move and every step.  You know, your parents will call up to complain about the grades your teacher gave you, or call the principal up to complain about something or other.  It's much maligned because it looks (and to the children feels) like parents are suffocating their children and stifling their growing up process.

There's an old Arab proverb that says: the first 7 years you play with your children, the second 7 years you let them get in trouble and the third 7 years you explain to them why they got in trouble.  It's a roundabout way of saying that you only learn by screwing up and sometimes learning why you screwed up.  Yes, you can learn by watching others screw up, but experience is almost always the best teacher.  If you always have someone there to watch you and make sure you don't make any mistakes, how are you ever going to learn for yourself?  Especially when there will come a time when your parents won't be there to watch out for you.  What will you do then?

Now, I know a lot of you will be asking yourselves where this is going and why I'm bringing this up.  I recently read a story in which a father (along with his wife) did a sweep of their daughter's room (I guess the equivalent of a cell check) and found a package of thongs under the mattress.  His daughter was 13 and he was wondering if this was just too early for a girl to be wearing that kind of undergarment.  And if so, should he put his foot down and forbid his daughter from wearing them.

I'm no expert on women's underwear.  But I guess the worry here is that his daughter might be trying to dress "sexy" at a young age, an age where really nobody should be sexually active.  I understand that, but I think at some point if you're worried that your daughters underwear choices might lead her to start having gratuitous sex at a young age it might already be too late.  If you've done a good job this isn't something you typically worry about.

Moreover, and perhaps more importantly, I don't think it's a good idea to want to control every aspect of your child's life.  You have to draw reasonable lines and pick your battles.  I understand protecting your kids from drugs and alcohol, or encouraging them to do well in school, and making sure they behave in your home.  But when you try to control everything, including what kind of underwear they wear the lesson children usually learn from that is not to stop doing the behavior, but rather to hide it better.  The mattress was used this time as a hiding place, so next time they'll find a better one.  Maybe a cutout in a book, or inside the box frame.

I'm sure some of you reading this had times when your parents tried to get you to stop doing a certain thing and you didn't want to.  So you just learned how to sneak around and do it without your parents knowing.

Again though, I'm not a parent.  So maybe some of you parents out there reading this think I'm full of shit.  I just hope that if you feel that way you're not one of those people complaining that today's young adults lack maturity and responsibility and independence, or mock us for being the "boomerang generation".  If we haven't grown into full adults yet, it's because we weren't allowed to.