Always Acquaintances, Never Friends

Thanksgiving is over and everyone is back.  It was a nice couple of days off, and there's only two weeks left until I can go back home.  Finally, it's been a very shitty quarter.

Several days before Thanksgiving, I met this girl named Anni Ma.  She came up to me and started a conversation for some reason.  I don't know why she did but every time I responded, she would look down.  My initial judgement was that she didn't really wanted to talk to me since she was trying to get me to vote for her video thing in a contest on facebook, but I can't judge people off of their body language.  I saw her again last night in the laundry room and while I didn't recognize her, she said hi to me and was cheerful about it. Just being friendly I guess, otherwise she wouldn't have said hi.  My body language at time was decent.  I smiled and waved, and that was it.  She was with someone at the time so I didn't get to talk to her.

I screwed up bad today, real bad.  I went to OVT to get something to eat and I sat outside staring at the bridge and apparently Stephanie walked pass me when I was eating.  She didn't say hi so most likely she interpreted that as me discontinuing relations.  I fucked up.  Another relations bite the dust.

I also bumped into Bryan today and I felt like I kind of rushed our conversation a bit.  I hope I didn't screw that up as well.

My experience with Stephanie is the reason why I am always the acquaintance, never close friends with anyone.  I always believed its best that way too.  That way, the less contact I have with people, the less likely I would accidentally piss them off.  Is it the right course of action though?  Opting to never be close with anyone or to accidentally piss off a whole line of people before hitting it off with the right person?  I can't bare the pain of hurting the feelings of other people because I've been there and experienced that, but at the same I really want to be able to learn to socialize with others.  What should I do?

Note to self:  Always be prepared to socialize with others.  Always be softer and nicer when dealing with women.  Don't terminate relations with people when you think you screwed up.

Shifting Focus: Maintaining Relationships

For the last year, I have been trying to initiate contact and conversing with others, and I have been fairly successful at it.  The problem is that once contact was established, I would have a hard time maintaining relations.  I feel that it is time to refocus on my efforts on the next objective, which is maintaining those relationships.  I should have realized this earlier since I have watched relationship after relationship get decimated because of my stupidity, awkwardness or paranoia.  I watched as my friendship with Bill slowly disintegrated over time, watched as my friendship with Eric of building 1 take a dive bomb because I blankly stared at him, and watched just a week ago, as I inadvertently destroyed relations with Stephanie of OVT.  I have few relations left with people on campus, I hope can maintain them, maybe even foster them to grow.  I hope I can succeed.  This is going to be hard, very hard.

Lounge Greg

I met another person yesterday named Greg at the Village Lounge.  He's a biochem major and a third year transfer too.  Apparently, he was living right next to me last year and he remembers me.  How the hell do all these people know and remember me even though I've never seen them before?  My cousin's friends see me all the time around campus, yet I have no idea who they are.  Am I that oblivious?  Anyway, I played two games of pool with him and my conversation with him, though limited, was normal and went smoothly.  My body language and facial expressions were good.  Overall, it was a decent socializing experience.  I also felt kind of freaked out that he had a uncanny resemblance to Song Heng, a friend of mine from middle school.

Several posts ago, I noted that often I can predict things before it happens.  It happened again last night.  When I went to the RIMAC, a voice inside my head told me that Greg was going to be there.  Ten minutes into my workout, he came up and said hi.  Weird.  I wonder if it was possible to make this "ability" into something that I can tap and access at will.

Talk To Me

I went to see my TA tonight.  He's a nice guy and he struck up a conversation with me afterwards about my shoes.  Everything was going well initially and there weren't any anomalies on my part, but as time went on, I felt as though I tensed up and my facial expressions went stoic.  I noticed that the facial expression on my TA changed and he said goodnight and left.  Sucks that something so good ended up so poorly.  Still I was caught off guard that he wanted to talk to me and did well despite the crappy end.  I still don't know how I should go forth with my self therapy.  I've been thinking about talking in front of my webcam to see how my facial expressions look from another person's perspective, though it seems to be a waste of time if I'm not talking to another person.

Cold Reception

It's been a shitty week.  I screwed up things with Stephanie, bombed my midterms and I found out my shoes have freaking holes in it.  To cap it off, I might have accidentally pissed off Greg.  Oh boy, life sure is wonderful. Every time I come back, I'm greeted by a cold reception by my roommates.  I'm not surprised nor am I upset considering how much time I spend alone.  I wish the best to them for next quarter won't be that much different.  Good luck guys.

Stephanie, Misanthropy

I saw OVT Stephanie today working the cashier station.  When she said hi, she didn't even make eye contact.  I'm guessing she's upset at me too.  Sigh.  It might have been because I didn't say hi to her several weeks ago.  I didn't say hi because she was talking to someone and I didn't want to bother her.  Fucking hell, I'm an idiot.  Another loss, gotta keep moving.  I'm tired of this shit, the stupid little nuances that is involved in social interaction with people, it's so complex and subtle that it's driving me insane.  One part of me wants to be a part of humanity, but another part simply wants to hide away because of the amount of bullshit I have to deal with.  I want to give up, but I can't, I must keep moving.

Due to the amount of insanity I have to deal with, I noticed that my misanthropy have increased significantly since I started this project.  I've isolated myself more and more, I tend to notice the little quirks and ticks of various people and tend to be annoyed by it.  I'm finding solitude to be more of a necessity rather than a want.  Maybe this is how the rest of my life is going to be.

Note to self:  Say hi to people even if they or you are busy.  Smile by widening eyes.

The End Of The World

News popped up today that it was Italy is going to be pretty much screwed by their financial problems.  Apparently once their interest rates pass 7%, it would be impossible for them to pay down their debt.  The Eurozone is possibly screwed, and so might the entire world's economy if it does go down.  A part of me is freaking out thinking about the possible economic implications, but another part of me is absolutely happy that the world is going straight to hell.  If it does happen then the entire world will know how I felt back when I was younger, the whole world will feel what it's like to be kicked in the teeth while they're down.  It's selfish, it's schadenfreude.

Hopefully, my plans will work out.  Since I was screwed over at a young age, I realized back then that the only person I can rely on is myself when it comes to survival, and I knew shit like what the world is facing right now would go down eventually.  I made plans left and right throughout the last several years and I hope they will work out.  My parents have listened to some and implemented them, which worked out well, but they won't implement resource intensive ones.  Once I have graduated and working, hopefully I'll have enough cash to implement my other projects; solar panels, greenhouses, the whole shebang.  Ironic that my crappy childhood is going to help my family and I survive the next decade or two.

Another thought crossed my mind today, it was one about Raquel.  Thinking back, I may have accidentally made her upset when we saw each other at the market.  She wished me a safe trip and I went to grab a soda, when I looked back, she was upset.  I didn't think much of it at the time, but I realize now maybe that's why she wasn't as talkative the last few times I saw her.  Fucking hell, I'm an asshole and a stupid one at that.  Raquel, wherever you are, I'm sorry.

Shallow

An old friend of mine contacted me through facebook a few days ago.  It was great to talk to him again and it came as a complete surprise to me.  However, it always seem like that after one message they completely ignore me.  It was the same thing my old friend.  He asked how I was doing and I responded, I asked him how he was doing and it there was... nothing, no response whatsoever.  Sigh.  I always that my relationships with other people were shallow, never anything deep even back when I was able to comfortably socialize with others.  I don't blame them, I blame myself for never making a deeper connection.  Now that I want to, I doubt can any more.

Yeah, Me Neither

I now know why I keep repeating what Julie said a long time ago.  She said, "I don't really like Jason" and I keep repeating it because it was the truth.  She spoke the truth, the truth about what others felt about me and I keep repeating it because it's how I feel about myself, I don't like me either.

15th Floor and Repeating Signal

I went to this grad school info session last night on the fifteenth floor of the Village west tower.  Simply amazing, the view up there was breathtaking and the rooms up there looked like it just opened up.  Sadly, the career services center person never showed up, too bad.  At least there was free Subway, so it was free dinner for the night.  Darvarsh was also there, I got a glimpsed at him a bit and I stared off into the distance.  I think he waved bye to me as he was leaving.  Why didn't I say bye?  I don't get it.  It's like how I was back when I first started.  Am I starting to regress again?

Ever since Julie left, I've been replaying to myself what she said a long time ago, "I don't really like Jason", over and over again to myself.  She's gone, there's nothing I can do, it was my fault, it's time to let go.  I hope I can let go.

Note to self:  Maintain good relations with everyone, know when to stop a conversation.