As 2015 is plodding along, entering my 47th year on this ball of dust (or is it 48th, since I turned 47 on my most recent birthday), a bittersweet personal anniversary approaches, except that I cannot remember the exact day in May 1985 (except it was a Saturday in that month at our high school band's annual picnic) when it happened.
I had met her for the first time some 11 months earlier in 1984 while playing in our high school's band summer practice, but by the fall I lost out on being this young lady's squad leader due to an unusual event in which the band leader needed me to switch instruments for an unexpected vacancy in the brass section, so I missed out on getting to know this attractive lady in marching band working together. Then the approaching anniversary mentioned above came about in May 1985 when we must have been chatting at the picnic and somehow (I forget how exactly) I told her I could not swim. She offered to give me lessons that summer, but like a fool who does not see a good opportunity when it stares him in the face I said "no." I said that word partly out of fears I will not explain here and confusion at the time about my feelings toward her (which must have inching toward romantic love or worshiping her from afar since at the time she had a steady boyfriend). This was the missed opportunity and I must have seemed like the oddest human being anyone could have tried befriending (and in hindsight had I said yes, with my appalling track record toward the opposite sex as an adult, I would have been nothing more than stuck in the friend zone not being the fun-loving good time jock or the prank-loving asshole as a teenager).
The following school year (1985-1986), I realized I had fallen in love with this beautiful brunette (or so I believed) without being able to directly express my feelings or learning more about her (learning more details about the woman after her untimely death in 2004 oddly enough). She had transferred in the marching band to the flag corps that year from playing an instrument on the field, only magnifying my belief I had fallen in love. Another bonding opportunity was missed that February when with a group of honor students at a roller skating rink (where the photograph was taken of us together) in a nearby neighboring town. Having balance troubles my entire life I could not even stand up for long on the rented roller skates and when she tried helping me with friendly intent, I soon became completely discouraged and refused to humiliate myself any further on those wheeled shoes. I suspect that was what convinced her I was no fun (apparently something most pretty girls look for in young men to be interested in them) and ended any remote chance of winning her heart.
By the spring as I approached graduation, a few hints I made about my feelings toward her she ignored or rebuffed convinced me I needed to lose some of my obese-level weight and impress her with the accomplishment. So, while a former good friend was moving in on her after she became single from the previously mentioned boyfriend and won her as his girlfriend by the fall of 1986 for the next five years (apparently parting company after he had finished his leisure studies, oops, political science degree at a major state university they both attended jointly for three of those years), I lost some 50 pounds and felt better about myself that fall. After seeming attractive enough to flirt with female strangers in college I had no interest dating, I felt confident enough to ask the lady out on a date (not knowing then yet my chances were nonexistent due to the ex-friend beating me to her months earlier). Her rejection was crushing to my fragile ego and tenuous self-confidence, and I have never possessed as much courage to engage any woman seriously about romantic matters again. When asked for a reason, the boyfriend was not mentioned, but she claimed (remember I was angry, livid by then and barely even listening to her words, she claimed we had nothing in common (yeah, in the real world opposites do not attract I guess) and never even noticed the sacrifice I made to impress her.
Although I gave up on this lady after the rejection, learning she was taken again by the following spring (1987) and viewing her from the local audience as the junior class' prom queen during the couples' procession outside the school. I spotted her boyfriend and if looks could have killed from my eyes he surely would have died that April evening. Thinking about this one beauty that got away on occasion over the intervening years in my chronic loneliness, I remained blissfully unaware how she got on with her life, finished college, married (probably some guy just like the kinds of boys she dated I knew) and had a family never communicating with this woman ever again before she died in 2004. Then after accidentally discovering her obituary in March 2006, I learned more about her than I had ever known as a teenager, all because I was too intimidated by her beauty (even though she always seemed nice and was liked by many who knew her better than I did) and my unrequited feelings to even try talking much to her.
People often tell me to "move on" and live my life perhaps as if I never met or knew her. Hell, I even received an unexpected telephone call from her teenage son (but did not accept it, fearing my words written about her as an author would have been misunderstood due to their mixture of love and hatred toward the lady's memory). I have often wished and prayed (obviously to no avail since God does not answer such requests no matter how heartfelt) that I might return to that one mistaken moment in 1985 and this time say "yes" regardless of the outcome, all in the hopes my life would be changed instantly and I might return to a different reality (perhaps one with me even possibly married to the lady in question for say two decades or so so she would not have died more than a decade ago as another man's wife), but that is just the Twilight Zone fan and fantasy prone personality in me - something I consider a strength as a sometimes published author of speculative fiction but a grave weakness as someone that cannot accept reality as it is.
Recently, I read a definition of the male sexual hierarchy (Alpha Males, etc.) that has convinced me I am not an Omega Male but perhaps a Gamma Male. This is the definition from one webpage (http://alphagameplan.blogspot.com/2011/03/socio-sexual-hierarchy.html).
Gamma: The introspective, the unusual, the unattractive, and all too often the bitter. Gammas are often intelligent, usually unsuccessful with women, and not uncommonly all but invisible to them, the gamma alternates between placing women on pedestals and hating the entire sex. This mostly depends upon whether an attractive woman happened to notice his existence or not that day. Too introspective for their own good, gammas are the men who obsess over individual women for extended periods of time and supply the ranks of stalkers, psycho-jealous ex-boyfriends, and the authors of excruciatingly romantic rhyming doggerel. In the unlikely event they are at the party, they are probably in the corner muttering darkly about the behavior of everyone else there... sometimes to themselves. Gammas tend to have have a worship/hate relationship with women, the current direction of which is directly tied to their present situation. However, they are sexual rejects, not social rejects.
Although there are other slightly differing definitions of the Alpha-Omega hierarchy, this one sadly fits my personality and unrequited relationships toward women regardless of their perceived sexual status. Some lists would still classify me as an Omega Male. I know of one friend's spouse who refused to find me a girlfriend last year because she said I was "too bitter." Of course, most well-meaning people since I was in high school saw me as such a misfit and loser they suggested I date any single teenage mother or outwardly unattractive girl (regardless of age) that would have me if at all. I won't be forced to accept the unacceptable (including divorcees) just to find a wife, but I've made that abundantly clear in other controversial posts at this blog.
So despondent am I about being unable to change my past, no amount of friend encouragement that my desires will be fulfilled or something good will come my way, or any therapeutic services, will change my pessimistic outlook about my future chances with the opposite sex for the object of matrimony. Until next time dear readers, have a nice life if you can. I won't be.
I had met her for the first time some 11 months earlier in 1984 while playing in our high school's band summer practice, but by the fall I lost out on being this young lady's squad leader due to an unusual event in which the band leader needed me to switch instruments for an unexpected vacancy in the brass section, so I missed out on getting to know this attractive lady in marching band working together. Then the approaching anniversary mentioned above came about in May 1985 when we must have been chatting at the picnic and somehow (I forget how exactly) I told her I could not swim. She offered to give me lessons that summer, but like a fool who does not see a good opportunity when it stares him in the face I said "no." I said that word partly out of fears I will not explain here and confusion at the time about my feelings toward her (which must have inching toward romantic love or worshiping her from afar since at the time she had a steady boyfriend). This was the missed opportunity and I must have seemed like the oddest human being anyone could have tried befriending (and in hindsight had I said yes, with my appalling track record toward the opposite sex as an adult, I would have been nothing more than stuck in the friend zone not being the fun-loving good time jock or the prank-loving asshole as a teenager).
The following school year (1985-1986), I realized I had fallen in love with this beautiful brunette (or so I believed) without being able to directly express my feelings or learning more about her (learning more details about the woman after her untimely death in 2004 oddly enough). She had transferred in the marching band to the flag corps that year from playing an instrument on the field, only magnifying my belief I had fallen in love. Another bonding opportunity was missed that February when with a group of honor students at a roller skating rink (where the photograph was taken of us together) in a nearby neighboring town. Having balance troubles my entire life I could not even stand up for long on the rented roller skates and when she tried helping me with friendly intent, I soon became completely discouraged and refused to humiliate myself any further on those wheeled shoes. I suspect that was what convinced her I was no fun (apparently something most pretty girls look for in young men to be interested in them) and ended any remote chance of winning her heart.
By the spring as I approached graduation, a few hints I made about my feelings toward her she ignored or rebuffed convinced me I needed to lose some of my obese-level weight and impress her with the accomplishment. So, while a former good friend was moving in on her after she became single from the previously mentioned boyfriend and won her as his girlfriend by the fall of 1986 for the next five years (apparently parting company after he had finished his leisure studies, oops, political science degree at a major state university they both attended jointly for three of those years), I lost some 50 pounds and felt better about myself that fall. After seeming attractive enough to flirt with female strangers in college I had no interest dating, I felt confident enough to ask the lady out on a date (not knowing then yet my chances were nonexistent due to the ex-friend beating me to her months earlier). Her rejection was crushing to my fragile ego and tenuous self-confidence, and I have never possessed as much courage to engage any woman seriously about romantic matters again. When asked for a reason, the boyfriend was not mentioned, but she claimed (remember I was angry, livid by then and barely even listening to her words, she claimed we had nothing in common (yeah, in the real world opposites do not attract I guess) and never even noticed the sacrifice I made to impress her.
Although I gave up on this lady after the rejection, learning she was taken again by the following spring (1987) and viewing her from the local audience as the junior class' prom queen during the couples' procession outside the school. I spotted her boyfriend and if looks could have killed from my eyes he surely would have died that April evening. Thinking about this one beauty that got away on occasion over the intervening years in my chronic loneliness, I remained blissfully unaware how she got on with her life, finished college, married (probably some guy just like the kinds of boys she dated I knew) and had a family never communicating with this woman ever again before she died in 2004. Then after accidentally discovering her obituary in March 2006, I learned more about her than I had ever known as a teenager, all because I was too intimidated by her beauty (even though she always seemed nice and was liked by many who knew her better than I did) and my unrequited feelings to even try talking much to her.
People often tell me to "move on" and live my life perhaps as if I never met or knew her. Hell, I even received an unexpected telephone call from her teenage son (but did not accept it, fearing my words written about her as an author would have been misunderstood due to their mixture of love and hatred toward the lady's memory). I have often wished and prayed (obviously to no avail since God does not answer such requests no matter how heartfelt) that I might return to that one mistaken moment in 1985 and this time say "yes" regardless of the outcome, all in the hopes my life would be changed instantly and I might return to a different reality (perhaps one with me even possibly married to the lady in question for say two decades or so so she would not have died more than a decade ago as another man's wife), but that is just the Twilight Zone fan and fantasy prone personality in me - something I consider a strength as a sometimes published author of speculative fiction but a grave weakness as someone that cannot accept reality as it is.
Recently, I read a definition of the male sexual hierarchy (Alpha Males, etc.) that has convinced me I am not an Omega Male but perhaps a Gamma Male. This is the definition from one webpage (http://alphagameplan.blogspot.com/2011/03/socio-sexual-hierarchy.html).
Gamma: The introspective, the unusual, the unattractive, and all too often the bitter. Gammas are often intelligent, usually unsuccessful with women, and not uncommonly all but invisible to them, the gamma alternates between placing women on pedestals and hating the entire sex. This mostly depends upon whether an attractive woman happened to notice his existence or not that day. Too introspective for their own good, gammas are the men who obsess over individual women for extended periods of time and supply the ranks of stalkers, psycho-jealous ex-boyfriends, and the authors of excruciatingly romantic rhyming doggerel. In the unlikely event they are at the party, they are probably in the corner muttering darkly about the behavior of everyone else there... sometimes to themselves. Gammas tend to have have a worship/hate relationship with women, the current direction of which is directly tied to their present situation. However, they are sexual rejects, not social rejects.
Although there are other slightly differing definitions of the Alpha-Omega hierarchy, this one sadly fits my personality and unrequited relationships toward women regardless of their perceived sexual status. Some lists would still classify me as an Omega Male. I know of one friend's spouse who refused to find me a girlfriend last year because she said I was "too bitter." Of course, most well-meaning people since I was in high school saw me as such a misfit and loser they suggested I date any single teenage mother or outwardly unattractive girl (regardless of age) that would have me if at all. I won't be forced to accept the unacceptable (including divorcees) just to find a wife, but I've made that abundantly clear in other controversial posts at this blog.
So despondent am I about being unable to change my past, no amount of friend encouragement that my desires will be fulfilled or something good will come my way, or any therapeutic services, will change my pessimistic outlook about my future chances with the opposite sex for the object of matrimony. Until next time dear readers, have a nice life if you can. I won't be.