To all guys out there that want to find a woman to spend their life with

A friend posted a video on Facebook, asking if the advice contained was good dating advice.  I know that dating is hard and it’s particularly hard for people with social skills disorders, but it’s ignorant word vomit like that video that messes it up for everyone!  I refuse to link to the video because they certainly do not deserve hits, but here is my response to my friend, unedited and full of shock at the misogynistic stupidity of it.  Warning, cursing is involved.:

It's a complete load of crap. Issue one, they only use the term "girls" not "women" which is immediately condescending. Issue two, they are the whole reason people play games with each other! Holy crap!!! Telling people to play games around dating is the EXACT reason so many people have issues with dating!!! I can see waiting a bit and getting to know them a bit before asking them out on a date and making sure the first date is more along the lines of, "Hey, let's get together and hang out doing this thing we both like" rather than "Let me take you out to a nice restaurant and be all proper date like."

They are basically telling you to do exactly all the wrong things. They are morons. They are teaching all the wrong things to perpetuate the completely sick cycle of other humans as commodities.

In reality, if someone I like does not text me back or ditches me (for no reason, pain doesn't count) it's a really strong mark against allowing that human into my life. They are proving they are not dependable and are rude.

I'm listening to it as I type and seriously, these guys are assholes. They are exactly the entire problem that exists with dating. A girl either likes you for who you are or they don't. Playing games might cause some interest in a very unhealthy way at the very beginning of a relationship, but that is a horrid way to start any long term relationship. Unless you plan to keep up being an asshole the whole time you are with them because that is the person they are getting to know, of course.

HOLY CRAP!!! NO ONE wants to be made jealous!!!! WTeverlovingF????

Notice in the comments there is nothing from women? They obviously screen those comments out. So all it looks like is positive feedback.

The one thing I will give them is that touch is a good tester, but the high five things is dumb a hell. Also some people are touch sensitive. I could see if you have known a lady for a bit of time and feel comfortable together placing a hand on an arm and if she doesn't move away that's a good sign, but it sure as hell isn't a sign that you should go in for a kiss. You can only judge that by the person you are with and their body language. If you stand close and they move away they probably don't want to be close, but that could also be space sensitivity (I'm like that with almost all humans), but if they linger close it's most likely a good sign, unless of course they are space blind. And of course if you screw up and do it in a creepy way, no one would want to be close.

Bottom line, be you and act like you and treat them the way you feel it is right to treat them and women will be interested or not. Give them what you would like or what they seem to act like they would like and let it evolve organically not following some stupid "girl" baiting rules. Trust me, no women you would want to spend your time with would want you to act like these guys suggest. Women you would want to spend your time with are not that shallow and superficial... as a general rule.

Basically if you are looking for dating advice and find something that involves “baiting” “girls” or anything involving the term “PUA” in any way shape or form, run the other direction.  If all you are after is plunging your stick in any random hole, that’s on you, but if you want an actual relationship with a respectable female human that bull won’t help you find a woman in that category.  Even if any of that junk worked on a respectable woman you are getting into a relationship via a lie.  You would not want to be with someone that you didn’t love for who they truly were so don’t do that to someone else.  Lies are not a good way to begin a relationship. Period.  Be YOURSELF!  Believe it or not people will love you for who you are.  If they don’t, you wouldn’t want to spend your life with them anyway!

P.S. Seriously though, don't strive to be an example of the reason why so many women are extra suspicious about men.

Doctors, specialists, and surgeries, oh my! Or why I have to laugh instead of cry

Many know that I've had some stupid health issues going on. It's really been doing a number on my self-esteem and my ability to cope with life in general. I decided to list everything from when the worst of it started, just to get an idea of what I had actually been through. Some minor things happened before this, but this has all happened in the last two years along with a lot of upheaval in my personal life. Putting this all down and seeing it in black and white was both shocking, depressing and uplifting all at once. It's a hell of a lot to go through in two years and, all things considered, I could be a lot worse off at this point. I am so grateful for health insurance and for the doctors that would actually listen, not to mention the people in my life who have stood by me and supported me through all of this. I couldn't have done it without you.

• July 2015 - Visited emergency room with stomach pain that at the time was believed to be related to my gall bladder and was told to see a gastrointestinal specialist.
• August - October 2015 - Massive amounts of tests with the GI specialist ending with a diagnosis of possible IBS and the definite diagnosis of a small hiatal hernia.  Given no meds and told to come back if it gets worse.  At this point I had 24/7 pain between a 3-5 as well as constant nausea and with unpredictable and uncontrollable diarrhea.
• January 2016 - Visited my primary care doctor and begged him to do something, ANYTHING, to help me.  He have me a prescription for Prilosec.  Three days later I was back to normal except for occasional pain or stomach flare ups.
• March 2016 - Diagnosed with severe anemia.  Talked with primary care doctor about switching Prilosec to a medication that was less likely to block iron.  Switched to Pepcid.
• April 2016 - First iron infusion.  Started weight loss medication.
• April 2016 - July 2016 - Hand therapy for carpal tunnel and tendonitis (again... it was my third round of hand therapy since 2012, I believe).
• June 2016 - Bunion surgery.  Intense pain response. Keloid scarring.
• August 2016 - Second iron infusion.  Hysterectomy with a bad pain response and poor recovery needing additional meds and several months more recovery than expected.
• October 2016 - Surgery to remove screws and Keloid scar from my foot.  I’ve now had plastic surgery!
• December 2016 - March 2017 - Physical therapy for my foot.
• March 2017 - May 2017 - Physical therapy for my hip and posture.  Cold laser therapy.
• March 2017 - Emergency scleral banding surgery for a prolapsed retina.  Extreme pain response and an overnight trip to the ER.
• April 2017 -  Asperger’s/high functioning autism diagnosis.  Stopped weight loss medication with a loss of over 30 lbs.  Started the muscle relaxer cyclobenzaprine.
• June 2017 - Fibromyalgia diagnosis.  Started a trial of Lyrica.

Firbromyalgia is:

• Waking up tired and hurting more than when I went to bed.
• Having to schedule recovery days after any day where I exert myself at all.
• Ditto for days when I encounter any stress.
• Doctors not believing my pain levels.
• Considering a pain level of 3 as baseline normal.
• ITCHING for no good reason!
• Cold and tingling feet when it’s 80 degrees outside.
• Never knowing ahead of time how functional I will be on any given day.
• Memory issues even worse than those caused by the brain damage.
• Suddenly struggling to focus on things when I have the ability to hyperfocus.
• Never knowing when my gut will behave itself. (Bonus: This is exacerbated by the hernia.)
• Having to relearn my physical capabilities.
• Trying everything possible to get relief, but only finding a few things that partially help.
• Having to budget my spoons/spells that much more carefully.
• My skin being so sensitive that clothing hurts.
• How does pain burn???
• Relief in knowing that there is an explanation and that it’s not something worse.

A Year of Advocacy Hell

I just found this writing from years ago that never got posted, so I'll share it now.

I figured I would add this for those of you who haven't heard the trials and tribulations we went through to get Wolf into the school he is in now.

In July 2008 I read an article about gifted kids and said "This sounds like Wolf." I went online and did some research (ok, a WHOLE lot of research). It turns out that most kids aren't doing math when they are three, I honestly had no idea that was out of the ordinary. In my research I found out about early Kindergarten entrance and contacted my district to find out if it was an option in our area. Mind you, at that point I wasn't gung ho about placing him in K early, I JUST wanted to know if it was possible. Mid August 2008 I finally found one person in the school district who actually both knew the answer and was not rude to me about it which was a nice change. I was then put in contact with the charter system and told that Wolf could start with one of their schools (homeschool based system) that fall. We had never planned to homeschool so that was an adjustment, but it did make sense for Wolf. Shortly afterwards I was told he could not actually start that fall because the school was full (which the principal of the school later told me was a lie). I was told by the district to homeschool Kindergarten in 08-09 so we did and I just let him go at his own pace.


I quickly realized that a grade skip, in other words starting 1st grade when he was five, would do him a lot of good. It would be a closer academic fit, he was ready for it socially and then he wouldn't have to skip later when there was more social stigma and stress involved. I talked with the principal of the charter schools again to see about getting him placed in first grade in fall 2009. Much hassle ensued and as well as much disbelief in his abilities. The principal finally suggested that I give him grade assessment tests at home. I think they wanted to prove to me that I was seeing things that weren't there, or was pushing him, either way that I was ruining his childhood, etc... I asked what we should do if he aced them, they said come back and get the next level. By the time I asked for grade 3 math they were getting really tired of us.


I checked out several of the charter's programs to see if any of them would work for Wolf. Both Wolf and I were treated rudely by several of the well known and respected teachers we met. Wolf was blatantly talked down to and our interest in the programs was pretty much disregarded as soon as they knew his age. The teacher even said, "Oh, don't worry some of the parents bring their preschoolers so he'll have kids to play with." Seriously? We finally had an appointment with the teacher of the charter he would probably end up in and I spent a half an hour being lectured about how I was not allowing him to be a child. I didn't even get to ask most of my questions about the program. I drove home crying and feeling completely defeated. That was the last straw.


I ended up calling the Independent Study program in the neighboring district. I had talked with them before when we had thought about moving there. I told the teacher all about Wolf and what he could do. She loved the idea of having him as a student. Then I told her the thing that turned everyone else off, he would be five in August 2009. She had no idea what the problem with that was. She said he was my kid and I knew him better than she did. She was willing to take everything I said sight unseen. She also specifically requested that he be her student and was willing to fight to get a transfer to go through if that was what it would take.


We applied for a interdistrict transfer and they were going to make us go through a bunch of red tape since we hadn't even enrolled in our home district yet. However, the person in charge of the process was the first person I had talked to in our home district and I told her exactly what had happened, including all the mistreatment and lies (some of which she had been a part of), and she pushed it through on her end rather than face me going up the chain of command. We had to wait until the day school started before we got the official confirmation that the transfer went through, but it did and Wolf gleefully blasted his way through his first grade work and his second grade math. He even got to study Logic and Spanish to help keep him challenged. He loved it and the fit was perfect.

Wolf actually ended up back in our home district after several years (and an almost complete staff change in the charter program) having rules bent to allow him to to attend the 6-8 grade middle school program when he was enrolled in 5th grade and young fourth grade aged. That happened all thanks to his teacher in the Independent Study program who was retiring and wanted to make sure he ended up someplace that worked for him.

It took a year learning that school districts and a large percentage of school staff are less interested in a child's education than keeping the status quo and fitting all the pegs in their round holes whether or not the pegs themselves are round or square, but we found the perfect fit in the end and that is all that matters.