Bitterly running through the bush

So after my Dotty and toto bullshit, I found myself perplexed with the typical questions one is faced with when they try to comprehend rejection that is intensified by loneliness. Yes I'm lonely, but not lonely enough to settle for the first mediocre offer that comes my way.

I have things in my life generally in order. I'm self sufficient, and I find myself interesting. Yet at the same time as you navigate rejection it's easy to turn that process into a pity party. Which is what happened today. Now that I'm aware of it I don't feel quite as terrible about it. However, some productive things have come out of the day. 

I've evaluated (maybe a bit more harshly than normal) the friends I have and the friends I think I have. Obviously everyone is busy and has their own life going on. So, it's not exactly the easiest thing to do to drop everything and take note of what's happening around you and that maybe some people have fallen off the radar.  The easiest way to realize who may need you to say hey is to scroll to the very bottom of your messages and find the person that's at the bottom of the list. If you're like me and you keep all your messages then you will see who has gone the longest without you interacting with them. 

It also works in other ways. If someone messages you asking for something and the last time you talked to them was over a month ago,  good chance they're only thinking of you because they need you for something. This doesn't align with my friend code and therefore these requests go unanswered. Not answering someone is painful for me. I feel it's a courtesy to be frank and reply to people but at the same time, it's also a courtesy to feel somewhat included in the lives of the people who claim to be your friend.

I'm not sure what I'm trying to get at here. Mostly, I'm reinforcing something I've believed for a long time, when you're out of sight, you're out of mind. 

Dorothy wanders around basecamp

Interacting has become more commonplace lately, it's like somehow I missed sending the "I'm hermiting in the mountains memo" or something. 

We had Tiddly Pom and the park ranger, before that the hiker. Now today, Dorothy walks in with toto and we wander around basecamp looking at fallen timber and snow that doesn't seem to react the the positive temperatures. 

Now allow me to clarify, I'm in a hermit state because I don't trust myself in the world. I feel that any human connection is detrimental to me and could potentially be the cause of a number of restraining orders. So instead of really getting out there and sharing my flavour of crazy. I hide and sabotage it. It's like I don't even know how to chill out and be a normal human. 

Hipsters would say "normal is lame, and not in a way that lame is cool" or something. I never really listen to what those fuckers have to say, they're weird and use their bike locks as a belt and love things ironically. They probably even love the song "Ironic" by Alanis. 

So here I am wandering with Dorothy and toto and I come to the conclusion that Dotty is a hottie, toto is a cute little hell beast of a dog, when wham. A house drops on my head. Dorothy explains that they don't like me. Somewhat unsolicited but great information considering the conclusions I had just come to. Disappointing but I can live with this. 

What troubles me is that next little Dottie turns into a full blown whore and maybe implies, but maybe doesn't imply that they just wanna pull apart their meat curtains and engage in sins of the carnal variety. I'm not sure if they mean with me or not. Don't get me wrong. I can totally appreciate the desire. I'm human too. 

The trouble with going full whore and being all about exchanging bodily fluids is that to me it's an intimate act. Emotion gets involved. That emotion isn't easily separated. It's even harder to separate with a stranger that's hella attractive. Yes I've done it in the past with people. It stirs up some feelings but in cases where it's most successful it usually involves a few hours of talking, being real about the reality and me working my way through what's about to come. Yes. I'm one fucked up little elf. 

So here I am with a proposal from Dotty, I could jump right in and potentially do some damage, or I could just slide Dorothy over into the friendzone.....  I'm at a point where I think I'm just going to wait for someone that's good enough, appreciates me, and wants to shag after we've become friends as a way to move that friendship into a deeper emotional experience. 

Interacting at the transactional level for me at this point, and looking back retrospectively and honestly, has always been an emotional roller coaster where I find myself quoting Cameron Diaz from "vanilla sky" where she's in the car and says to Tom Cruise, "when you have sex with someone, your body makes a promise to them...." Then bam she crashes the car. 

So until I find someone wealthy enough to be cryogenically frozen in time due to a life threatening injury, I'm going to just keep my distance from the likes of casual sex for the sanity of myself and the safety of others. 

YOU TOOK MY RADIO!!!! Fuck you!

So, it's been a bit auspicious lately. Chaos has ensued. The park ranger discovered my whereabouts and tried to have me removed from the hillside where I am camped out. I've just set up base camp and am not really intending on going anywhere. He has no reason to justify the change in scenery, and I'm confident that there may be a correlation between the discovery by the ranger and Tiddly Pom the other passerby that I haven't yet told you about.

So, Tiddly Pom shows up like a winter storm. Blowing into town, and making everyone's cheeks rosy. I had some dialogue with them when we met up on the trails. By dialogue I mean, they just talked and talked and talked. For what seems like it could have been twenty years. The dialogue was off and on, but interesting and I've grown a respect for them as a fellow adventurer. We share some similar battles and commiserated on our shared frustrations in life. All in all Tiddly Pom (I think that's their hipster name) is an individual that i have grown to trust. So, enter Park Ranger. Now, firstly, anyone working in law enforcement (I include park rangers in this) are usually suffering from some form of psychosis. I say this because it takes a special kind of person to strap a gun to their hip daily and parade around with a superiority complex whilst feigning any interactions with people. So the park ranger approaches my camp and asks what I'm doing. I explained the variety of reasons for my stay, and the objectives. They expressed an envy for my efforts and objectives. Something that doesn't garner a whole lot of clout in my books. I mean this is my reality, it can be anyone's if they want it to be. Don't envy something you wished you could have, go out and make it yours!

The ranger and I interacted regularly over a few weeks and they came across as relatively normal. That is until Tiddly Pom met them, told them they were loony. Then it was like all stops were pulled and full blown psychotic snap!  It wasn't clear to me immediately what was going on, but as time progressed things started becoming a bit less hazy. 

The final straw was when the park ranger lost their radio and I found it. Upon its return to them, they reacted like I had intentionally taken the radio. I mean really, I hardly need your radio. I have my own wizardly technology that I tend to. Being able to speak to your group of people with your radio has about as much interest to me as using the icicles forming on the pine trees as enemas. No thank you!  So with them being full blown in criminal investigation mode (read: accusation mode) I was no longer interested in the brownies they were selling!  I asserted that I didn't take it, get over it, and go back to making smores!

Later on I watched as the park ranger, punch drunk and flying on their sugar high, had grabbed a tracker that belonged to the hiker!  What the shit! Why are you taking stuff?  They ran behind a tree and looked back screaming.  "You took my radio!!!!!!!" As if by yelling the trees would come to help them. Over and over they maniacally wailed "you took my radio! You took my radio!!!"

I had taken in enough of this little demon drama, and asked them to politely give back the tracker and we could go about our business. They were trying to evade me, so I did what any person would do in this situation, I grabbed them and restrained them so that I could secure the property that didn't belong to them.  Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that I would be facing this predicament, but alas, I retrieved the device and went about my evening. 

The next day, the ranger returned to their post, and from what I've gathered from sources in town (my supply people) is that they continued to enjoy the effects of their psychotic break and the local sheriffs were called in to contend with them. I'm not sure where they went but, the ranger hasn't been seen for a few days. I'll hope they're somewhere getting assistance for their paranoid delusional attack and will come out the other end improved with some coping skills to avoid future breaks. 

Needless to say, it was an interesting encounter. The hiker has gone back to town, when I descend from my base camp I'll be sure to return their property, and move on from the short stint of infatuation with said hiker. Not a lot more to be said about that. 

I've had an opportunity to reflect on the situation, and have realized that I'm not sure I made a great choice on how open this base camp is. I'll be scouting a new base camp position and what that looks like over the next while. Until then, I'm covert enough that I shouldn't need to worry too much about visitors and guests.