So, some thoughts. I guess I don"t really know what "being a man is," and recently I"ve come to realize that I don"t care. Because in my own mind, I am.
I have a job I like. I have my own car. I own various musical instruments and computers. I can fix a computer. I can build one. I can change oil. I can program a database. I can setup a network. I can play Mozart and Beethoven on the piano. I can play the guitar. I have recorded songs. I have traded in the stock market and invested my own money with success.
I have taught children. I have taught teenagers. I have changed my son"s life for the better. He and I have worked hours upon hours overcoming his disability. I am divorced.
I date when I want, and I stay home and enjoy video games, Community, and House when I want.
I get my children 25% of the time and when I have them, they always have a good time. Both of my children take mostly after me. They are affectionate, obedient, and musically talented. The older child is patient and loving, like I am. Not a single one of these qualities apply to my ex-wife. She isn"t the devil. She has many good qualities but none of those are hers. The younger child has a horrible temper and is very independent, like his mother. But like I said, their personalities take mostly after me. Most of their lives have been spent with me.
When they get older, I will teach them to play the drums, the piano, and the guitar if they want. I will show them how to change the oil in a car, fix a computer, and build one. I will show them how to construct a logical argument, and how to write an essay. I will tell them it is not their fault that we are not a family together. Because my exwife didn"t murder our relationship, or murder me. She murdered what our family could be. And for that, I pity her. I have no doubt that she is a serial cheater. A cheater is something you are, or you aren"t.
I have goals. I have a sidejob where I am paid to write, which I love. I have a good family that cares. I play guitar with one of my brothers and record in the studio that I helped build in a small way.
I am not rich, but I am getting by. I had a recent hospital trip but I am doing my best to pay it off because my job does not afford me insurance. I am starting school again in January.
Yeah, bad things happen. I couldn"t control what happened to me. Ultimately, destroying a marriage through adultery, repeatedly and essentially unashamedly is her fault. I was not perfect but I tried my best, and I love who she was and I love my children. The point is, I am picking the pieces of my life up and that"s what I"ll continue to do. I suffer, and my children assuredly suffer, because of the choices of one person. But that is life. If enjoying intimacy, and kissing someone on the forehead, and not minding if someone doesn"t look like someone straight out of the PGT, makes me not a man, then okay. You guys can keep it.
I honestly don"t mind that a lot of people here think I date really fat women. That"s okay, because I"m the one actually dating the women in question, so not only do I know the falsehood (which isn"t to say I haven"t been on dates with fat women. Give everyone a chance, I say. Hasn"t gone beyond a first yet though) of the specifics, I am the one who has to like the person and be attracted to the person I date. Not FoH. To me, that is being a man. It doesn"t matter what other people think, as long as I get the things I want, the things I need, and my life goes forward in the direction I want it to. Sometimes, that means immediate sacrifices for long-term gains.
It is so easy to let your life go away in a bad direction. To me, being a man is fighting against it and getting yourself aimed correctly no matter what happens to you. Getting divorced, or not.
I have my bad days, and horrible days. But I still keep going. That also is being a man, to me. Some days, I don"t know that I want to keep going at all anymore. But I"m still here. I don"t think I"ll ever be insanely rich or have every single thing I want, but that doesn"t matter to me as much as it does to some people here. I hope to some day not worry about things so much, and not feel betrayed, but I know that takes time. Sometimes, to heal that, it takes a new relationship to get over the old.
But one thing is, as upset as I"ve been sometimes, you guys never, ever fail to make me smile. Thanks for being there, even if you"ve been nonstop shit lately.
Also, Etoille is fat, and various other boardmembers raped 12 year olds.