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"Bukowski quote comes back and kicks man in the bum"

Here's a quote from my favourite Charles Bukowski poem:

"look, Mike, no man is
invincible.
some day
you'll be sent mad by
eyes like a child's crayon
drawing. you won't be
able to drink a glass of
water or walk across a
room. there will be the
walls and the sound of
the streets outside, and
you'll hear machineguns
and mortar shells. that'll
be when you want it and
can't have it."

And my god, did that ever happen to me this weekend. I met a girl a week or so ago, a friend of a friend of a friend. We went out as a group, but mostly I just talked, drank and danced with her. I don't know why I didn't pull her; I could have and should have, but I didn't. I went home thinking a cross between 'meh, always another night' and 'meh, plenty more where that came from'. But the next night I wrote about her in my not-quite-a-diary, not-quite-just-fiction notebook. The next night I wrote about her again. I could post the stuff I came up with here and you would all want to beat me to death with baseball bats; it was borderline love poetry - nothing wrong with that except that after a while it became more fluffy bullcrap than honest words.

This weekend we all went out together again. We were drinking in a mate's house beforehand, and she and I were talking, ignoring everyone else and saying silly, flirty things. We walked to the bus stop together, miles behind the others; her shoes didn't fit her properly so she had her arm in mine to stop herself falling over; and I had what can only be described as a semi. From walking along the freaking road. We got into the club and I waited with her in the queue for the cloakroom, and when she took off her jacket there were curves where I expected nothing, and I damn near fell over. We did clubby things. At some point I decided that my mate was trying to pull her, although he wasn't. I've never hit anybody in my life but I was ready to tear one of my best friends limb from limb. Long story short: I turned into a jealous, hormonal fifteen year old schoolboy. And then I tried to pull her, and it was the most excruciating and unmitigated disaster in the history of the world in space. She looked at me and stole everything: my charm, my words, my wit, my coordination, my ability to keep drool inside my mouth, my capacity for rational thought. I said stuff, each sentence more stupid than the last. At every opportunity I had to stop, I kept digging. By the end, my mouth was just opening and shutting stupidly, and she gave me a sad look and wandered off. By the end of the night she seemed to have forgiven me, but by then I was too bad-tempered to care.

'that'll be when you want it and can't have it', indeed.

I hate and love the way this girl has made me feel. I don't like the way I am consumed with violent jealousy towards my friends; but I do quite like sitting in the pub with a mate and knowing that, while he gormlessly sips his pint, I am planning his many dooms if he looks at her just one more time. I like waking up in the morning feeling sick; I don't like not being able to eat breakfast. I like smiling to myself a thousand times a day; I hate wincing at the memory of how comprehensively I dicked things up. I like having the thought of her distract me while I'm at work; but I wish she'd get out of my head and let me have lunch in peace.

Bah, stupid testosterone.

Then why bother trying to make funny remarks about things you neither understand or, as you say, care about? If you think it makes you look clever, you should think again.

I run about here imitating a red-faced angry word-person, but only because I find it privately amusing. My shameful secret is that, to an extent, I DO care.

At the end of the day, I don't care what you, unknown or anyone else does
*shrugs*

Good to know you can read one thing and see another.

He tried to pull a bird. He failed. No sex, hence tissues. Not for life, just for now. And he got all angry and huffy about it. Yet says he's happy. See?

My relationship doesn't have what you would call public humiliation at all. Words are crossed on the internet, but if you believe that it goes any further than that, you're not just wrong, you're foolish.

But this won't convince you, I await your reply somehow turning this post into some moral victory for yourself, despite the fact that you're just mistaken.

Make up my mind? Why?

I found your comment towards unknown ironic, hinting that because he wasn't in a relationship he had somehow failed and was resigned to a life of weeping/jacking off.
But the alternative you present is a relationship of public humiliation etc etc.

It's nothing to do with what I think about these forums/the internet.

Goatboy wrote:
> It's not quite the same as belittling your girlfriend on a public
> forum, granted...

Make your mind up Goatboy. Either an internet forum is a place for meaningless crap where nothing matters and nothing effects anything else, or it's a place of real importance where the goings on actually count for something.

lnsane Bartender wrote:
> Indeed. Doesn't get much better than throwing your chance away like a
> fool and going home to a pack of tissues, does it?

I'm not saying that I wasn't a complete idiot, just that it's (sort of) fun to be reduced to the level of stuttering schoolboy again.

It's not quite the same as belittling your girlfriend on a public forum, granted...

"By the end, my mouth was just opening and shutting stupidly, and she gave me a sad look and wandered off. By the end of the night she seemed to have forgiven me, but by then I was too bad-tempered to care."

Indeed. Doesn't get much better than throwing your chance away like a fool and going home to a pack of tissues, does it?

unknown kernel wrote:
> No way. I'm beginning to enjoy life as a horny, irrational primate.
---

It rules!

Insane Bartender wrote:
> Reign in that anger and jealousy, it won't ever do you any good.

No way. I'm beginning to enjoy life as a horny, irrational primate.