IdleRich

IdleRich
Thanks @IdleRich!

This latest variety of depression (around ageing and mortality) I suppose can only be "dealt with" in a couple of ways: 1) distract yourself constantly so you never stop to think about it 2) hope that you get bored of thinking about it and it fades away (as I believe has happened to me in the past) 3) "work out" philosophically how you can feel better about it (e.g. that william james quote).

I realise that you can look at this stuff from different perspectives (the glass half full/half empty thing) – instead of thinking "time is limited and running out, so what's the point" you can think "i'm here now and i still have time, so let's make it count". And until recently I was quite comfortable occupying that second position.
I think that, as @version said a page or two back, at one time or other we all suffer from that kind of existential depression thing. For me it was when I understood - not knew, I always knew it obviously, everyone does - that a) there was absolutely no point to anything and b) every single passing second is an inexorable step closer to the inevitable end of that horribly boring pointlessness. The problem being that life is rubbish AND we don't get nearly enough of it. Seemingly should contradict each other and cancel out like two equally massive numbers of opposite directions.... and yet somehow they break the rules of logic and maths and common sense to create an overwhelmingly large negative.

I don't know why there are some moments when these trivial truths suddenly hit us viscerally, grab us by the nuts and make us concentrate on them to the detriment of everything else.... making life more boring still and, at the same time, using it up trying to fight this conundrum. But every now and again it just fucking happens. I think that you're right though with your list of solutions. For me, number 2 is really the only cure that works - it goes away with time ie I get bored of it*. For most people this feeling passes... for a lucky few it never comes back, for most of it comes back with frequencies that depend on the person. For some I guess it never passes and these are the people we diagnose as "depressed"


*It's the same with heartbreak. As far as I know the only way it gets better is time. It slowly lessens and eventually goes away, but when it hits you that seems inconceivable - not to say unbearable, you need rid of that feeling right now "don't fucking tell me it will get better with time, I can't last another minute like this" but we do. It's shit but it goes away.

I hope it goes away for you very soon.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
iThis is a totally unrelated aside, but it popped into my head cos of thinking about Petteri, @Mr. Tea do you remember some incident where he shagged this girl and it turned out she had escaped from a mental hospital after being sectioned? I'd totally forgotten this but the other day I suddenly a) remembered that it had happened and b) got really frustrated cos I couldn't recall any of the details properly.

Am I right in saying that she got his contact details and, after she'd been dragged back off to her confinement, she tried to blackmail him into becoming embroiled in some kind of daring escape attempt?

Is this possible? How can I have forgotten that? Or have I lost my mind and dreamt up a totally insane fairy tale that never existed outside my own twisted imagination?
I think, now you mention it, I have a vague recollection, although it sounds like you remember it better than I do, or maybe heard more details in the first place.

The [*****] sexcapade that sticks in my mind the most was when he apparently got a blowjob from some random guy on a night bus, who then demanded that Petteri bum him, which P wasn't all that into but thought "Well it would be rude not to." Not sure how much of this happened while they were still on the bus

My favourite story about him was the time he was really drunk in some bar or small club and got a bit rowdy - or the staff felt that way, anyway, so he was asked to leave, didn't like this one bit, one thing led to another and eventually the fuzz were called. He was asked to step into the meat wagon and completely lost it, I think because they wouldn't let him go back into the bar for his coat, maybe? and said something like "Well if you want my clothes, have all of them!" and just stripped down to nothing at all and hurled all his clothes at the cops in disgust before they could stop him.

I don't know whether this happened at the very coldest point in the winter, but it's funnier if it did. Makes me think of the Sopranos episode where Paulie and Chrissie try, without much success, to kill some Slavic ex-special-forces guy. There's snow everywhere and they're shivering in their big coats while forcing him to dig his own grave, wearing a T-shirt, and he's going "You call this cold? This isn't cold! I wash my balls in ice water!", etc. etc.

(For the benefit of anyone who doesn't know [*****], he's Finnish, and like all Finns, women included, has done national service, washes his balls in ice water, and so on.)
 
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Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Well, you know – the Craner Top 100. Something that makes life worth living. (But which also makes life ending unbearably sad, because there'll come a day when I can never listen to it again.)
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Of course reading stuff like this hasn't done me any favours:

"O dark dark dark. They all go into the dark,
The vacant interstellar spaces, the vacant into the vacant,
The captains, merchant bankers, eminent men of letters,
The generous patrons of art, the statesmen and the rulers.
Distinguished civil servants, chairmen of many committees, Industrial lords and petty contractors (4), all go into the dark,
And dark the Sun and Moon, and the Almanach de Gotha .
And the Stock Exchange Gazette, the Directory of Directors,
And cold the sense and lost the motive of action.
And we all go with them, into the silent funeral,
Nobody's funeral, for there is no one to bury..."

I keep thinking atm that I'd probably be a lot happier if the only literature I'd ever had access to was the Mr Men series.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
I think, now you mention it, I have a vague recollection, although it sounds like you remember it better than I do, or maybe heard more details in the first place.

The Petteri sexcapade that sticks in my mind the most was when he apparently got a blowjob from some random guy on a night bus, who then demanded that Petteri bum him, which P wasn't all that into but thought "Well it would be rude not to." Not sure how much of this happened while they were still on the bus

My favourite story about him was the time he was really drunk in some bar or small club and got a bit rowdy - or the staff felt that way, anyway, so he was asked to leave, didn't like this one bit, one thing led to another and eventually the fuzz were called. He was asked to step into the meat wagon and completely lost it, I think because they wouldn't let him go back into the bar for his coat, maybe? and said something like "Well if you want my clothes, have all of them!" and just stripped down to nothing at all and hurled all his clothes at the cops in disgust before they could stop him.

I don't know whether this happened at the very coldest point in the winter, but it's funnier if it did. Makes me think of the Sopranos episode where Paulie and Chrissie try, without much success, to kill some Slavic ex-special-forces guy. There's snow everywhere and they're shivering in their big coats while forcing him to dig his own grave, wearing a T-shirt, and he's going "You call this cold? This isn't cold! I wash my balls in ice water!", etc. etc.

(For the benefit of anyone who doesn't know Petteri, he's Finnish, and like all Finns, women included, has done national service, washes his balls in ice water, and so on.)
No you're getting mixed up... I think, he randomly gave the guy a blowjob on the bus, no bumming was involved. But it was still - to my mind - an impressively adventurous act for a straight guy to think "yeah what the hell, let's give it a go".
With the clothes thing, he threw his clothes at the bouncers one item at a time and then they called the police who chucked him naked into the van. He then busted out and made a bid for freedom but they rugby tackled him while doing so and returned him to the van and then a night in the cells. Which I imagine was quite painful on the pavement. It was certainly in winter and it was 11pm on a Friday I believe so he was certainly guaranteed a large and, I imagine, appreciative audience.
Haven't spoken to the guy for a while, this has inspired me to contact him and say hello. Assuming he replies I should also be able to clear up any questions... but probably best not to mention that his name actually came up in a public forum with the connotations it did. In fact, I did not intend this to take the direction it did, I am gonna go back and edit his name out, I suggest you do the same.
 

luka

Well-known member
I've heard a few stories of sustained drug abuse leading to straight men trying out being gay and they've all told me it was really harrowing and awful. One said to me, I'm never grabbing a girls head while she's sucking me off again. So at least he learned something.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
OK @Mr. Tea , I have edited out the name of our Finnish friend, I really think you should do the same in the interest of... fairness or something.
Good call - I think you can edit your post where you've quoted my post, too.

The bus-bumming may have been a product of my fevered imagination, then, but the bus-blowjob bit was true at least.
 

WashYourHands

Cat Malogen
@Corpsey if we round it up it’s been a brutal 2 years. If you’ve had a busy social life more so. If you were holding all this in it would be worse. Talking it out, reviewing options, one step at a time, that’s actual progress squire of Oxfordshire

If this persists (and it may), dm me an approximate location and an advocate + GP appt might crack it without meds. If your mood continues, a medication like you mentioned is an option. Better to have options, there is help out there, plus

 

craner

Beast of Burden
Well, you know – the Craner Top 100. Something that makes life worth living. (But which also makes life ending unbearably sad, because there'll come a day when I can never listen to it again.)

But life is all about learning to appreciate beauty, including the sad fact that it fades. Time is tragic but it also gives life its full richness and meaning. The art of living is learning to understand and accept loss and learning to live with memories. There's a really beautiful film about it Jack, which will help you to process this in an uplifting, life-affirming way...it's called Wonder Woman.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
I've heard a few stories of sustained drug abuse leading to straight men trying out being gay and they've all told me it was really harrowing and awful. One said to me, I'm never grabbing a girls head while she's sucking me off again. So at least he learned something.
This was not drug related as I understand it. Our man was on a bus just travelling from A to B - probably business related as he seemed to work 23 hours a day seven days a week - one afternoon and this guy sitting in front of him turned round and said "Hey, do you want suck and be sucked" and our Finnish friend sort of went "Why the fucking hell would I w.... oh, you know what, fuck it, you're on". As i said above, an attitude that one could categorise as admirably open-minded.

To throw in what, at first, must seem like an enormous non-sequitur, I'm sure you've read Dice Man @luka , in that novel, the dice thing does lead to a load of interesting results, but it only works cos the characters in the book do two things which most people in real life would not do - and without which the whole thing would not get off the ground - firstly they rigorously follow the rule that if some idea occurs to them, then they must include it in their dice-rolling options, and secondly, they are equally strict in adhering to the idea that if the dice tells them to do something then they fucking well do it. I don't know many people who could really live by those two principles - people who could be true Dice Men (or even Dice Women) but I reckon that episodes such as the one above provide some evidence that our friend that I am talking about just now, may be one of those few people out there who could do it*.

My impression was that, while I didn't think that he would be making any particular effort to rush to repeat the experience, he didn't find it that horrific either. I could be wrong though, cos, I remember now that he told me this upon arrival at a party, concluding the story itself with something about exercising discretion... so, as you can probably imagine, if he did then continue the narrative by telling me about the harrowing psychological effects I think that once he had explained what happened I had pretty much stopped listening and started texting, emailing, semaphoring and, when all else failed, just shouting out, exactly what had happened to everyone in my address book or at the party.


*Reading that back, I realise that I have twisted myself into such pseudo-intellectual, metaphysical knots, that I am praising someone cos he's the only one amongst us who would be prepared to kill an innocent child in cold blood if the dice told him to.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Good call - I think you can edit your post where you've quoted my post, too.

The bus-bumming may have been a product of my fevered imagination, then, but the bus-blowjob bit was true at least.
The story he told me had no bumming... but who knows, same thing probably happened again next week so...
 

yyaldrin

in je ogen waait de wind
how is your finnish friend doing now? what became of him? sound's like a fun guy to be around
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
how is your finnish friend doing now? what became of him? sound's like a fun guy to be around
Right now this minute I'm not totally sure, but I emailed him this morning so hopefully I can provide an update.
He's a great guy though yeah, he's fun but he's really smart as well, you can have really interesting conversations on any topic plus he'll have a go at stuff, like I put together a five-a-side football team and he joined even though he had hardly ever played. In the end he played in goal all the time cos no-one else wanted to and he became pretty good.
But yeah he was selling his flat in North London and moving back to Helsinki with his wife but then they were splitting up so it wasn't happening and then they were gonna give it another try and then they weren't... so I dunno what the latest is.
Last time I saw him they passed through Lisbon and the two of them stayed here for a couple of days and we had some fun.
 
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