This just in : no comedy tonight due to inclement weather.
In other words, it snowed, and shiznit is all funked up.
And seeing as Felicity’s parents don’t even want her driving here in Richmond, asking our MC, Chris, to come all the way from White Rock is out of the question.
And I must admit, I am disappointed. I like comedy night. I like the food, the company, the atmosphere, and the chance to get up there and shine.
But I am also relieved as I was just starting to have a serious panic attack about it.
This happens a lot. I am used to it. Pretty much every time I am going to leave the house, even if it’s just to hang with Le Gang, I will have at least one mild panic attack beforehand, which I suppress and/or endure with relative ease.
That’s just life chez moi. This particular panic attack was above average in size and might have developed into a major one if I had not managed to nip it in the bud.
Those happen sometimes. Rarely. Generally they make me miserable for a little while and then my defenses kick in and drag me back down to neutral-ish.
Makes me wonder what kind of price I am paying for my ability to do that, though. Because it’s definitely not a delicate operation. It’s raw brute force suppression of emotion, and that’s probably not good for me.
In fact, it’s entirely possible that I overcorrect. That the price I pay for killing my panic is being emotionally numb, and that it’s that numbness that is the root of my depression.
Which would be, I suppose, quite ironic.
Been reading this pretty good article about gender and violence and attachment styles called THE OPPOSITE OF RAPE CULTURE IS NURTURANCE CULTURE by someone named Nora Samaran.
Let me get this out of the way : “nurturance” is not a word, and is also a very clumsy and unpleasant formation of its concept.
Just say “nurturing”. Way better. Moving on.
The article really speaks to me because I am a man with a very strong urge to nurture. To the point of referring to myself as a “maternal male”.
As such, I grew up with very few role models, and anything I saw where men displayed nurturing traits really stood out in my mind.
Like in the original The Odd Couple movie, at the very beginning, when all the poker buddies are worried that Felix is going to try to kill himself and they are all scrambling to (rather clumsily, because comedy) comfort him and convince him to not do it.
That made a big impression on me because it’s so rare to see anything where men openly care about one another. And that’s so messed up.
Then there’s the line from The Birdcage where Robin William says Nathan Lane’s character “is so maternal he’s practically a nipple”.
That’s the only cultural reference I have for a man being maternal. And that was in reference to a flamboyantly gay man.
Which was lucky for me, because I am a gay man too.
I shudder to think of what it would be like to have strong maternal, nurturing, “soft” instincts as a heterosexual man.
It’s the sort of thing that might make a man very bitter and angry and cruel from the frustration of not being able to express their true selves, not to mention the self-loathing engendered by their poor gender performance.
It might even make a man hate women with a passion out of sheer jealousy. It might even make him very controlling of women because he so desperately needs someone to express what he cannot and give him the nurturing and care he can’t give himself.
It might even make him lash out at those same women in a blind rage.
When men are forced to suppress all that is tender and loving in themselves, the whole world pays a terrible price.
More after the break.
In regards to attachment styles :
I am definitely a mix of anxious and avoidant. I can be very demanding and clingy and need loads and loads of affection in order to feel secure. Yet I can also be extremely aloof and detached and distant.
Sometimes I need cuddles and sometimes I need space. And I can’t predict which mode I will be in any better than anyone else can.
So when I do get into a relationship one day, I will likely not be quite as low maintenance as I would like to be due to unpredictability.
But it’s not all about me. I can act contrary to my current mode if I think that it is the right thing to do. If my husband needs cuddles, he will get cuddles, even if I am feeling like I need some space to breathe.
Not sure I can go the other way, though. If I need cuddles and he needs space, I am going to get pretty darn pouty.
Overall, I know that I have severe issues when it comes to getting close with people. My ice cold childhood did not contain close relationships. Even my relationship with my mother was somewhat at a distance and detached, and she’s the person I have been closest to in my entire life.
My brother Dave would be next in line. He an I are a lot alike and we spent a hell of a lot of time hanging out together.
But mostly as adults. In my childhood, I rarely had friends, and my family barely noticed me at all. I lived a lonely life of school and TV and video games and books.
Again I am forced to wonder how it was that I grew up as functional and sane as I did.
I can only conclude that I am a fundamentally stable person and that carried me through all those lonely years until the internet came along and I found furry fandom and had friends through it.
I remember some very not sane moment from back then. Times when depression and anxiety swirled together into a maelstrom of terror and isolation that made me feel like I was naked in a blizzard and that went on for hours.
I guess I am healthier now than I was then.
But I get so very, very tired of it all.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.