I'm by no means certain, but I have an inkling that my current girlfriend is going to cut me loose. The inkling, well, it's pretty damn strong. It's as if I know the writing is on the wall, but I can't find my glasses. Of course this upsets me, but it brings to mind other great shaftings in the history of my short life:
Laurie Dragna: I danced with this girl when I was in the 8th grade. We woulda hung out but her friends called me a dork.
Brenda Silva: Six months of phone dating followed by "I could punch you in the mouth," issued to the girl who set us up.
Summer Bailey: She took a liking to me in the 10th grade, only to have her friends call me a dork. This pattern repeated itself often if I'm not mistaken.
Kasi B.: The total shaft. Took me to Sadi Hawkins, told me everything I wanted to hear, only to find out it was a cover for dating my best friends...someone many people didn't approve of.
Ana B.: Not bad. Dated seven months then told me she'd been thinking of ditching me the last month. Ugly split but we're still friends.
Sarah W.: I leave this girl. Four years later she kisses me in what amounts to a romantic "PSYCH!"
Michelle C: This is very unfortunate. 2 years, 9 months. One of which we were engaged. Tells me a month before the wedding (and during Thanksgiving when the family was in) that she couldn't marry me. I moved through two different states when I was with her. Louisiana to Texas and Texas to Florida. Then back home. Louisiana.
LettusB [ url ] said at 11:13 AM 05-14-2004: We need a follow up then, let us hear how you put the smack down on those ladies who didn't give you the respect you deserve.
I say if your current GF is about to drop you, beat her to the chase.
milky [email] said at 12:50 PM 05-14-2004: Actually, and oddly enough, she's not dropping me. We needed a breather from each other and we took one. I think everything is back to normal, at some extent.
I can't list bad breakups I've caused. For some reason those seem worse than the ones inflicted on me, man. I felt really shitty about most of them.
Sesur said at 1:55 AM 05-16-2004: I've had the same results with women. As far as the "breather", yeah, that's not gonna last. I used to fall for that false hope. "We need a break" has always meant "I'm getting kinda sick of you". Then again, I am a little hard to handle. Well, perhaps this will be different for the "Milk-Shaft". Best thing to do is to confront her. Ask her honestly to tell you whether this breather is just an excuse to put off a breakup, or if she just really needed the time away from you. Just my $0.02~
dave said at 1:48 PM 05-14-2004: now list the girls YOU have shafted. if the list is empty, GET OUT THERE AND DO SOME SHAFTIN'... start by getting really drunk
milky [email] said at 2:01 PM 05-14-2004: OK, freestylin' off the top of my head...first that come to mind.
Sarah W.: I left for no good reason without any explanation.
Amanda A.: I left her after I met my fiancee. We were still dating when I met Michelle.
My current gal: One date in 96. Said I'd call her back. Never did. Borrowed some tapes that night that never returned either.
I spent a weekend with one of Shelly's friends a long time ago who I took to MEET MY PARENTS. Never called her again. That hurt. I won't name her out of respect. That was a dick thing to do.
Christy L: More or less pawned her off on one of my friends while I dated around.
Anitra: told her I loved her and I wanted to still date her at the airport in Vegas. As soon as the plane landed in NOLA, I broke up with her. Cold. I'm probably going to hell for that one. She paid for my airfare.
C: Had an intimate encounter and brushed her off. Can't use her name, too close for this network.
Cherie: Same as C. Boy, those were awkward, assholish moments.
Melissa: Dated, she bought me concert tix at the Varsity and I broke up with her. I still went with her but she was pissed. I tried apologising years later.
pokey [email] said at 9:04 AM 05-15-2004: I hate milky shaft. Those pasty pale ones which are like the same colour as the inside of the dude's forearm. I like browns and pinks. The only black dude's penis I ever saw was all blotchy with 3 colours (brown, red, and light pink?!?) like camo, and I thought he had a disease and ditched him. Don't even get me started on the shape and size..
David Duke is a mali said at 5:30 AM 05-16-2004: David Duke is a malignant narcissist.
He invents and then projects a false, fictitious, self for the world to fear, or to admire. He maintains a tenuous grasp on reality to start with and the trappings of power further exacerbate this. Real life authority and David Duke’s predilection to surround him with obsequious sycophants support David Duke’s grandiose self-delusions and fantasies of omnipotence and omniscience.
David Duke's personality is so precariously balanced that he cannot tolerate even a hint of criticism and disagreement. Most narcissists are paranoid and suffer from ideas of reference (the delusion that they are being mocked or discussed when they are not). Thus, narcissists often regard themselves as "victims of persecution".
Duke fosters and encourages a personality cult with all the hallmarks of an institutional religion: priesthood, rites, rituals, temples, worship, catechism, and mythology. The leader is this religion's ascetic saint. He monastically denies himself earthly pleasures (or so he claims) in order to be able to dedicate himself fully to his calling.
Duke is a monstrously inverted Jesus, sacrificing his life and denying himself so that his people - or humanity at large - should benefit. By surpassing and suppressing his humanity, Duke became a distorted version of Nietzsche's "superman".
But being a-human or super-human also means being a-sexual and a-moral.
In this restricted sense, narcissistic leaders are post-modernist and moral relativists. They project to the masses an androgynous figure and enhance it by engendering the adoration of nudity and all things "natural" - or by strongly repressing these feelings. But what they refer to, as "nature" is not natural at all.
Duke invariably proffers an aesthetic of decadence and evil carefully orchestrated and artificial - though it is not perceived this way by him or by his followers. Narcissistic leadership is about reproduced copies, not about originals. It is about the manipulation of symbols - not about veritable atavism or true conservatism.
In short: narcissistic leadership is about theatre, not about life. To enjoy the spectacle (and be subsumed by it), the leader demands the suspension of judgment, depersonalization, and de-realization. Catharsis is tantamount, in this narcissistic dramaturgy, to self-annulment.
Narcissism is nihilistic not only operationally, or ideologically. Its very language and narratives are nihilistic. Narcissism is conspicuous nihilism - and the cult's leader serves as a role model, annihilating the Man, only to re-appear as a pre-ordained and irresistible force of nature.
Narcissistic leadership often poses as a rebellion against the "old ways" - against the hegemonic culture, the upper classes, the established religions, the superpowers, the corrupt order. Narcissistic movements are puerile, a reaction to narcissistic injuries inflicted upon David Duke like (and rather psychopathic) toddler nation-state, or group, or upon the leader.
Minorities or "others" - often arbitrarily selected - constitute a perfect, easily identifiable, embodiment of all that is "wrong". They are accused of being old, they are eerily disembodied, they are cosmopolitan, they are part of the establishment, they are "decadent", they are hated on religious and socio-economic grounds, or because of their race, sexual orientation, origin ... They are different, they are narcissistic (feel and act as morally superior), they are everywhere, they are defenseless, they are credulous, they are adaptable (and thus can be co-opted to collaborate in their own destruction). They are the perfect hate figure. Narcissists thrive on hatred and pathological envy.
This is precisely the source of the fascination with Hitler, diagnosed by Erich Fromm - together with Stalin - as a malignant narcissist. He was an inverted human. His unconscious was his conscious. He acted out our most repressed drives, fantasies, and wishes. He provides us with a glimpse of the horrors that lie beneath the veneer, the barbarians at our personal gates, and what it was like before we invented civilization. Hitler forced us all through a time warp and many did not emerge. He was not the devil. He was one of us. He was what Arendt aptly called the banality of evil. Just an ordinary, mentally disturbed, failure, a member of a mentally disturbed and failing nation, who lived through disturbed and failing times. He was the perfect mirror, a channel, a voice, and the very depth of our souls.
Duke prefers the sparkle and glamour of well-orchestrated illusions to the tedium and method of real accomplishments. His reign is all smoke and mirrors, devoid of substances, consisting of mere appearances and mass delusions. In the aftermath of his regime - Duke having died, been deposed, or voted out of office - it all unravels. The tireless and constant prestidigitation ceases and the entire edifice crumbles. What looked like an economic miracle turns out to have been a fraud-laced bubble. Loosely held empires disintegrate. Laboriously assembled business conglomerates go to pieces. "Earth shattering" and "revolutionary" scientific discoveries and theories are discredited. Social experiments end in mayhem.
It is important to understand that the use of violence must be ego-syntonic. It must accord with the self-image of David Duke. It must abet and sustain his grandiose fantasies and feed his sense of entitlement. It must conform David Duke like narrative. Thus, David Duke who regards himself as the benefactor of the poor, a member of the common folk, the representative of the disenfranchised, the champion of the dispossessed against the corrupt elite - is highly unlikely to use violence at first. The pacific mask crumbles when David Duke has become convinced that the very people he purported to speak for, his constituency, his grassroots fans, and the prime sources of his narcissistic supply - have turned against him. At first, in a desperate effort to maintain the fiction underlying his chaotic personality, David Duke strives to explain away the sudden reversal of sentiment. "The people are being duped by (the media, big industry, the military, the elite, etc.)", "they don't really know what they are doing", "following a rude awakening, they will revert to form", etc. When these flimsy attempts to patch a tattered personal mythology fail, David Duke becomes injured. Narcissistic injury inevitably leads to narcissistic rage and to a terrifying display of unbridled aggression. The pent-up frustration and hurt translate into devaluation. That which was previously idealized - is now discarded with contempt and hatred. This primitive defense mechanism is called "splitting". To David Duke, things and people are either entirely bad (evil) or entirely good. He projects onto others his own shortcomings and negative emotions, thus becoming a totally good object. Duke is likely to justify the butchering of his own people by claiming that they intended to kill him, undo the revolution, devastate the economy, or the country, etc. The "small people", the "rank and file", and the "loyal soldiers" of David Duke - his flock, his nation, and his employees - they pay the price. The disillusionment and disenchantment are agonizing. The process of reconstruction, of rising from the ashes, of overcoming the trauma of having been deceived, exploited and manipulated - is drawn-out. It is difficult to trust again, to have faith, to love, to be led, to collaborate. Feelings of shame and guilt engulf the erstwhile followers of David Duke. This is his sole legacy: a massive post-traumatic stress disorder.
