I met up with my ex last week. When she broke up with me, it really broke my brain. But I was able to say to her "having a typically attractive* girlfriend opened doors for me with the beautiful middle class people I was always trying to fit in with, and when you left me those doors slammed shut." It was nice to just voice it out after all these years and put all the weird recrimination behind.
I sorta wonder what the younger comrades feel. I grew up before the internet, in the 80s when we actually believed that everyone was going to be middle class. Back when I was a kid, every TV show and movie was about trying to get into the cool people group. Life from school to through uni through the early naughts felt like everyone was angling to get in the in-group.
I spent my 20s and 30s repeating the same cycle: meet a group of people, feel accepted, try really hard to be part of the group, then get burned from said normie group for various reasons. The older I got the harder I tried. Like guys, I GOTTA make this group work because I'm running out of time.
Now those same people are boring as fuck to me. I can barely maintain the emotional labour to listen to them. If you're not marxist/anarchist, activist, vegan, and/or mask wearing, I can't honestly force myself to talk to you. It does help that most of the normies outed themselves as sociopaths during COVID times. Most people who know me IRL probably think I'm cold. I make a real effort for the actual proles I meet tho.
I suspect you younger comrades probably figured it out much earlier than I did. But if you're still searching, I hope this helps you out.
*Sorry I know that "typically attractive" can be problematic and arbitrary. In this story, I'm referring to the irrational standard enforced by the mainstream culture and media.
I've done the "try really hard to fit into normie group, get burned" a few times, except every time it's been a queer or neurodiverse group or people, who are supposed to not be normies themselves, so there's a problem on my end clearly.
I am pretty "lucky" though in that I realised I was trans at age 15 so I never really had the chance to try assimilating or whatever. My wife is beautiful but Idk if any of my past partners would have been considered normatively attractive, so it never really got me any ins with people. My first girlfriend was an insufferable military brat though, which occasionally led to me being abrasive and weird in upper middle class "polite" company, that was fun. Her parents were legit "concerned for her safety" when she wanted to wear a dress the first time, lol.
It is hard to listen to normals generally though, and not just because hearing dumb jokes about AES countries flips the "UNCRITICAL SUPPORT THE DEMOCRATIC PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF KOREA IN THEIR HEROIC STRUGGLE TO etc" switch, but also because with a lib-or-worse worldview and subsequent lack of understanding, the average normie is often not prone to deep or interesting thoughts, I think.
Also I don't know anyone else who reads freakishly weird books all day =)
My wife n I are pretty content existing outside of society socially, mostly I spend my time trying to find that non-normo niche to fit into, which hasn't panned out. Oh well, nevertheless,
I'm embarrassed to admit that I've been jealous of queer people at times because their groups seem so cool from the outside, but I'm sure that problems exist like any group.
What do you read?
I'm glad that you have an amazing wife that you can feel fully human with. It makes navigating this lonely, unfair world a bit easier.
Most of the big ones are lib breeding grounds, let's be real. Hexbear's queer group is fuckin rad though, like finally a place without brainworms. We are cool as fuck though
Right this second it's Unjust Depths, which you should read, do it loser. Otherwise I've been directing people to this weird post. Really, there's somethin funny in my brain :)
Thank you and it really does, she's awesome and I'd be nothing nowhere without her
My wife is a big unjust depths fan, she also recommends it.
OK I promise to giver Unjust Depths a read and get back to you.
So I'm afraid of sounding ignorant, but as long as I've been doing activism, a massive percentage (if not majority) of the people involved were queer and there were explicit queer groups just 1 degree of separation away. I don't know if online groups are lib, but the ones that I interacted with IRL seem pretty decent. I guess that there are plenty of queer libs, but I'd imagine that queer people have a much higher chance, compared to the straights, of being based than being reactionary.
REALLY sorry if I missed the mark.
Maybe talk to Cromalin about it also if you do, she's the one who gave it to me =)
No that's fair, and I might just be looking in the wrong places, or it could be an issue with different localities, stuff. But it makes sense that anyone queer would be pushed left, because our entire ability to exist remotely safely at all is thanks to those who came before us throwing bricks at cop cars. Every queer person SHOULD be a goddamn leftist! I think I just have an abnormally sized hatred for lib queers honestly. Idk where to go to find groups of queer commies and anarchists outside of hexbear tho.
You're aight :)
I've always been in the same group, but more I had a recent experience that made me realize it isn't just you, it's them too. Sometimes you just wont click with people and wont enjoy being around them, even if they are different.
Any recs?
Yeah and that makes sense I guess, but also I've bounced between so many different places and people in life that it's hard not to view it as being a just-me issue.
I made a lil list of books I can rec if you're feelin weird. I have other, more cis-er books I like too, like Our Wives Under The Sea or This Is How You Lose The Time War, as well as a select few oddities like Sterling Karat Gold by Isobel Waidner. Yelling about these is generally unproductive though, so I tend to keep my yelling more focused Idk. I didn't realise there were so many Unjust Depths readers though, Cromalin evidently does good work.
Thanks for the recs
It was really hard to get over the idea that it wasn't all me. Hopefully you can entertain the thought even a lil bit.