Every now and then when I need a break from work, but still want to feel productive, I do things like clean up my desktop icons or go through and organize my bookmarks. Tonight I was going through bookmarks and I came across the link for an ex’s blog. I forgot I had it. Funny thing is, for the most part, I wrote in my blog extensively while we were together. He didn’t post anything in that time period it looks like.

Mostly his blog is about pickup and self improvement (which I guess for someone in PUA they might tell you they’re the same thing). There weren’t any recent posts, but there were a few from a few weeks after we broke up. They were him trying to get back into PUA and being… well… unsuccessful and creepy.

The thought has occurred to me lately that even though I didn’t initiate that breakup, I’m the one that came better out of it. Even though I’m not going out with anyone, I get the impression I have my shit more together than he does. I think I’ve had more success in being with new people since then. I don’t mean that pick-up style, I mean that just meeting new people. I’m certainly not being the desperate, creepy one.

I think that might be part of his and some other people’s problems. The obsession and focus of meeting the preferred sex for finding a mate is going to make you come off in a particular unattractive way if you let it consume you.

1. You think you need it.

You don’t need to get laid. You don’t need a boy/girlfriend. Life goes on. Great things happen either way. People who think they need it will give off the desperate vibe. The desperate vibe makes a woman feel creeped out, unsafe, and not special at all. I too have fallen into this trap, and I know it doesn’t come off as a good vibe to guys either (at least not the ones you want to attract).

2. It’s your number one motivator for meeting, talking to, and getting to know people.

You only talk to them if you think they might be your type. At the mention of a boy/girlfriend, you’re not interested in communicating with them any more.

This is what I told one of my friends: he may not be your next boyfriend, but what if his brother or best friend is your soulmate? Friends are very valuable to life in general. They can also help you find that next someone. There’s nothing wrong with just making friends.

This also is a problem in the way you approach people. You can flirt without using crappy pickup lines. If you’re smiling a bunch, using good body language, being interested, asking questions about their life, etc., you don’t need to say something like, “Hey, nice shoes… wanna f-”.

I think openers are stupid. Sorry, PUA people. They are. They are just alternate phrasing for crappy pickup line. They’re not any better. Try some genuine, off the top you’re your head, not creepy, real world conversation starters. Walking up to some random person on the street and calling them cute is a no. I’m sorry if someone who uses that is reading this and being offended, but someone has to tell you before you get maced. You may hate me now, but thank me later.

3. You’re approaching it as a player in a game rather than yourself.

As I got to know what PUA was, I didn’t gain much respect for it, and this is one of the big reasons. I love games. You might even call me a gamer. However, meeting people is not going to be won with cheat codes. I don’t care how many books your read, lines you put together based on those, or methods you use. To find someone lasting, you have to put your actual self out there (that includes to meet good friends and significant others).

Are you only interested in shallow acquaintances? Awkward lays? Maybe those lines could work for you then.

I guess the big question is: who are you and what do you want?

I’d like to find someone worth sticking my neck out for again, but I’m in no hurry either. There are a lot of great connections to be made with people out there without expecting them to be the next anything. I want to have fun. I want to meet people. But… I don’t need anything from these people. I’m comfortable here with myself, by myself both growing and existing. I don’t need another half, because I’m already a whole. One day I’d like to meet another whole person, a partner who fits me well, but I know it’s not going to happen by any kind of force.

I know, a blog post about blogging is kind of the saddest of the sad as far as topics go at a glance.

Yet, I have a specific topic I want to bring up. I’ve had this blog for a couple years now. I have no problems posting about the people in my life (as long as I don’t reveal their name). I have no problems with the people I know reading it. It’s actually created some cool dialogues with people. I’m not ashamed of anything I put on here.

The thing I want to bring up actually has nothing to do with my blog. It has more to do with the fact I found someone else’s personal blog- the person who I’m dating. I know the handle he uses in video games and the like, so I google searched it with a few key words, a few sites clicked, and there it was.

Maybe about three quarters of the way through reading all of the posts I start to feel guilty. Is it right for me to be reading this stuff? It’s on the internet, sure, but he didn’t give me the link or anything. Then I start to think maybe he’ll be upset when I tell him I found it (I mean, was I supposed to?).

The posts end a short time after we meet- so there’s nothing too recent. It was on the internet, so it’s not like rifling through someones’ sock drawer, but I wonder if he’ll take it that way..?

Update:

So, surprise, I told the boy I found his blog. I was worried he’d be weirded out by the fact I googled his handle, or worse, would view it as an invasion of privacy.

What I didn’t expect is for him to initially be defensive, as if he was expecting me to go after him for the content.

I don’t expect him to apologize for his honest journaling about his journey to self-improvement. ::looks around the blog:: I mean, after all… I think he expected me to find issue with some of the content of his self-improvement regiment which included learning to talk to, pick up, and date women. I’m not going to fault him for that stuff. I’ve posted about how hard it is to communicate and connect with people and my failed attempts at breaking down those walls.

…as well as posting about me avoiding dating all together like the bubonic plague. We all deal with bad breakups in our own way. I’m not embarrassed or regretful about anything I’ve posted, I would be a hypocrite to try to make him feel that way.

I don’t know what this door I’ve opened means. I’m not going to grill him on anything, but I do have questions. There’s a lot of terminology he uses specific to this ‘learning-to-get-women’ class/group he was in. My instinct is to be, “Damn, was that used on me?” But then, he met me at jiu-jitsu- sweaty, nasty, with a thick cotton gi hiding my curves. So, no, I don’t think I was picked up all text-book style. I wasn’t part of some class experiment… I don’t think at least. Even if I initially was, we get on well. What does it matter? It’s just kind of weird to read about it from the other side.

Another funny thing- he mentioned he was using tarot card reading as a romantic ice-breaking sort of thing. Guess what I brought over his house my first time over? Yeah, I brought my tarot cards. I bet he wasn’t expecting those tables to be turned. Ha.

This whole thing brings up a lot of points for me- that we still have a lot to learn about each other, and strangely (after reading) we have a lot more in common than maybe we know yet. It looks like we were going through some of the same bad times and started turning our lives around in a similar time frame, only to meet after we’d started to get our respective shit together.

Joining jiu-jitsu was part of our self-improvement/goals regiment- separately, but there we met.

Life and its sense of humor know no ends.

And speaking of turning tables, my blog is easy enough to find.

Oh, hai neglected blog. What’s that? It’s the middle of March? Really… When did this happen?

So, here’s some updates is an arbitrary numerical order. This is kind of a collection of excuses for not being here writing.:

1. I started taking Brazilian Jiu-jitsu classes.

Before all of you look at me with a question mark over your heads, there’s probably more reasons I started than I could put here. At the core, it’s in line with the whole self improvement thing. The Wii Fit, though awesome, is not enough.

Also, Brazilian Jiu-jitsu is essentially live action Katamari Damacy. I’ll write more on that thought later, but essentially, your goal is to roll the other person up. Tell me that you don’t see the correlation.

It’s wicked fun.

2. So, there’s this guy…

Speaking of the Katamari, I know I was on a roll, but we all knew it had to end sometime. In proper form, it happened when I least expected it. I found the least likely kind of person in the least likely of settings. Before you think I’m totally lost, I’ll say we’re just kinda seeing each other right now and we’ll see where this goes (if anywhere).

For any of you thinking I can’t handle casually seeing someone, you could be right. It’s something I’m trying and hoping will be good for me. I want to know if I should be cautious, or throw caution to the wind in lieu of experiencing life to the fullest? I wonder if this a risk worth taking.

I know that opportunity only knocks once, so I run the risk… I promise I won’t run with scissors.

3. Man down!

Work is busy and I don’t even have moments to jot down thoughts about posts. One of my work buddies is on a leave of absence and I miss him, not just for the additional weight pulled, or the psychological comfort of him being around. Having someone you work that closely with every day just vanish all of the sudden just sucks. I miss him.

It’s busy. I’m trying to get this crap done and done well. I don’t do half-assed. So, I do the needful that needs doing and I do it well.

4. Social life - I has one.

I don’t know when this came about, but like other bloggers that have come before me have pointed out, it does interfere with writing regularly. It’s not all about item number 2. either. The social life thing has been going on for longer than item two has. My circle of friends is getting a little wider and a little stronger, and we’re stir crazy ready for Winter to end. That’s right, we’re crazy and doing crazy things. Woo. Raah.

Zombie Fluxx is crazy, right? Right?

So, enjoy your numerical excuses and I’ll catch up soon. I have a bunch of partially finished posts as usual. There are stories and ideas and characters floating in the ether as always. One day soon, some of them will materialize here. Until then, be well everyone.

Here is another of the characters from Team IT. You can also find out about characters in the stories posted here by visiting the Characters tab on the top navigation bar. Click here to see all of the Team IT postings.

Sarah Senfield
Age: 26
Astrological Sun Sign: Scorpio

Sarah is anything but the ‘token woman’ as she is the designer and front-end developer of Computer World’s external support website and their private team internal blog, along with Tom who mostly handles back-end programming. She is also a Windows system administrator for the company, being in charge of group policy for the domain. In addition, she still is responsible for the external tech support and computer repairing and building just like the rest of the team. She has a hard time not taking on additional responsibilities, and does her best to keep peoples’ griping to a minimum. In general she handles it quite well, but if you push her or don’t treat her with respect the outer calm will drop and you will regret it. She works with little complaint as long as she is not expected to ever step foot outside the basement during work hours and she is allowed to manage her time as she sees fit. If you have a problem with her using remote desktop or sshing into your computer, don’t ask for her help, as she has little patience for n00b walk throughs. She’s more likely to bite the bullet and do this for customers, but for her coworkers, she is more likely to lock down their account further so they can’t mess anything up in the future and as punishment. This, of course, excludes her IT coworkers which she has nothing but love and respect for. The Domain’s OUs reflect this as they are broken down into: “TeamIT, “Nice”, “Naughty”, and “ShitList”. The freedom for her to use her own discretion is why she stays with the company, otherwise she would have quit within the first week. She hasn’t even been with Computer World for a full year and already the upper management is unsure what they would do if she ever did leave, since they’d either have to hire three people to do her job or find someone else as capable, hard working, and in love with her job as her. The big bosses know this, try to hide the fact, and hate it. Unlike Craig, she isn’t always threatening to quit her job. Like Craig, she is constantly trying to find better ways of getting the work done, though her methods differ from his. While he tries to organize, she supports more of a head on ‘try it out and get it done’ approach.

Here are the stats for readers of my blog for about the past four months which you may find interesting:

Current Country Totals
From 1 Oct 2008 to 22 Jan 2009

United States (US) 1,462
Canada (CA) 123
United Kingdom (GB) 115
Germany (DE) 49
Brazil (BR) 28
Hungary (HU) 28
Australia (AU) 25
France (FR) 21
Poland (PL) 21
Puerto Rico (PR) 18
Netherlands (NL) 18
Italy (IT) 18
Spain (ES) 16
Mexico (MX) 16
Sweden (SE) 15
Belgium (BE) 14
Ireland (IE) 13
Denmark (DK) 12
Finland (FI) 10
Russian Federation (RU) 9
Romania (RO) 9
Japan (JP) 8
Israel (IL) 8
Argentina (AR) 8
Portugal (PT) 7
Europe (EU) 7
Singapore (SG) 7
Turkey (TR) 7
India (IN) 7
Chile (CL) 6
Switzerland (CH) 6
Colombia (CO) 6
Norway (NO) 6
Korea, Republic of (KR) 6
Philippines (PH) 6
Peru (PE) 5
Serbia (RS) 5
Indonesia (ID) 4
China (CN) 4
Czech Republic (CZ) 4
Thailand (TH) 4
Austria (AT) 4
Vietnam (VN) 4
Costa Rica (CR) 3
Greece (GR) 3
Slovakia (SK) 2
Malaysia (MY) 2
South Africa (ZA) 2
New Zealand (NZ) 2
Venezuela (VE) 2
El Salvador (SV) 2
Ukraine (UA) 2
Iceland (IS) 1
Paraguay (PY) 1
Uruguay (UY) 1
Lithuania (LT) 1
Latvia (LV) 1
Mauritius (MU) 1
Jamaica (JM) 1
Bosnia and Herzegovina (BA) 1
Egypt (EG) 1
Iran, Islamic Republic of (IR) 1
Libyan Arab Jamahiriya (LY) 1
Pakistan (PK) 1
Kuwait (KW) 1
Hong Kong (HK) 1
United Arab Emirates (AE) 1
Malta (MT) 1
Dominican Republic (DO) 1
Netherlands Antilles (AN) 1
Slovenia (SI) 1
Sri Lanka (LK) 1
Honduras (HN) 1
Panama (PA) 1
Bulgaria (BG) 1
Mongolia (MN) 1

There are several things I enjoy about these stats, but I think the lone fellow from Mongolia takes the cake.

I also admit I had to look up where Malta and Mauritius was and didn’t know anything about them.

For anyone who wants to know, I got some info from Wikipedia and I will share the juicy bits with you.

The Republic of Mauritius, is an island nation off the coast of Africa east of Madagascar. One of the coolest things I read about it is that there is a plan for Mauritius to become the first nation to have coast-to-coast wireless internet access. The wireless hot spot currently covers about 60% of the island and is accessible by about 70% of its population. Also, Mauritius was the only known habitat of the extinct Dodo bird.

Republic of Malta is an archipelago of seven islands off the coast of Italy in the Mediterranean Sea. All education is free there (which is always an obsession to us in the USA who start life off with debt to be educated) and Malta was ranked number 5 in the World Health Organization’s ranking of the world’s health systems (also an obsession to those of us in the USA who have periods in life with no health insurance). The official language of Malta is Maltese which I didn’t even know was a language.

I hope this has been educational for everyone. Thank you all for stopping by!

So, my blog’s birthday came and went not too long ago. I didn’t mark its passing because I’ve been a flake about writing, which I’m sure makes orphan kittens cry.

If I believed in New Years resolutions, posting more on the blog again would be a good one. I know this is an issue a lot of writers in general struggle with. There are many tricks of the trade to deal with it. Blogging itself is really a trick to get you to write more. So, what’s trick to make you blog? Where will this trickiness all end?

The tricks to get oneself to wake up in the morning, the tricks to make oneself exercise, the tricks to get oneself out the door on time, conserve gas, eat right, get more done at work, stay organized, stay in touch with people, stay working on art…

I have several drafts of posts in my little Wordpress CMS thingie. Keeping drafts might be the key to this. I don’t usually have enough time to write a post from beginning to end or edit to where I’m happy. Often I’m not even sure if it’s a post that ‘works’ for me. Being a draft takes the pressure off a bit. It allows random things so when you sit down to post, really all you have to do is sit down to edit something. That’s certainly not something I always feel like jumping up and doing, and sometimes I want to edit a piece of writing 6,000 times before putting it out there.


Compulsive editing is a big issue I have with longer story writing. I tend to want to reread what I’ve written so far before I go on to write more. If I reread I want to edit. This leads to me spending that time reserved for writing doing edits instead.

To work out compulsive editing I’ve been trying to write before rereads. If it doesn’t fit exactly right because I didn’t remember all of the details of the story so far, or what I decided to name a few characters, that can be worked out during editing time. We’re trying to make writing time for writing. What a concept.


It’s easier to write for me right now since I’m on vacation and doubly since I’m traveling. Many of my distractions are at home and in its place are inspirations as I’m exposed to what I don’t normally see every day. I think people tend to block things out as they get used to them. Most of our life then becomes routine, and thus blocked out. How does one maintain wonder and inspiration as their days are a series of blocks one doesn’t remember independently or distinguish from one another? Sometimes when a week of work goes by, and I try to remember the individual days and what happened, I come up pretty scarce.

It’s important to break your routine as uncomfortable as it is. Life churns and bubbles much more brilliantly even if the resulting boiling chaos can throw us off kilter.

So I’ll do my best to throw the kilter off and battle blog flakes, and let me know if any of you out there have the secret key to this business. I’d be interested to hear how other people deal with these things.