Before I get into my thoughts on women and relationships, let me just say—I’m not talking about all women, or all men, or every situation, or every outlier no matter how small, no matter how unlikely, no matter how impossible, because, let’s be real, someone’s always ready to pull out that one tiny exception to try and shut down what I’m trying to say, which is…
Now I forgot.
Dammit!
Give me a sec, it’ll come back to me…
What was I about to say?
What was my point before the whole thing got derailed because I had to preface it? Like I have to, because no one gets nuance or subtext anymore. Because most people are so chronically online, so deep in their bubbles, they can’t even fathom that their reality isn’t the reality. That their truth isn’t The Truth…
You know what? I forgot what I was gonna say.
Guess it wasn’t that important.
Never mind.
Back to doomscrolling I go…
See what I did there?
Anytime someone gets closer to The Truth instead of “my truth,” the person who doesn’t want that to be challenged will filibuster just enough to kill the momentum, just enough to derail the conversation so it dies a natural death—and their “my truth” can continue to go unchallenged in their little bubble.
And here’s the kicker: I know I operate in a bubble—one that’s also my truth, masked as The Truth. But the difference is, I want to engage. I want to sharpen my thoughts. But I can’t, because every time I try to have a real discussion, every time I think I’ve found someone who might be a great adversary, and I try to engage, they turn out not to be.
Because before we can spar, before we can even figure out how each of us thinks, the conversation gets killed off—filibustered into oblivion by bad-faith arguments.
So what I do instead now is troll—and troll hard—because life is absurd, and it’s absurd to argue anymore. Because no one wants to be convinced the way I’d like to be convinced, to maybe grow, and I can’t get back the time I wasted prefacing my thoughts. So, the hell with it.
I’ll just have fun with it now.
Instead of “living to the point of tears,” I’m shitposting.
And yes, I’m toxic. Yes, I’m a misogynist or a misandrist or any -ist you—the rhetorical you—want to slap on as a label because of your need to categorize something into virtuous versus problematic thoughts.
Now, what’s your next level to that?
Shout-out to the book whose principles (STEPPS) I deliberately placed into action in this post, giving it the tone that's needed to make what I wrote shareable at the top of a marketing funnel.
Contagious by Jonah Berger.
S is for Social Currency: The fake “I forgot” trick makes readers feel smart for spotting the setup. Sharing it gives them a boost for being in on it.
T is for Triggers: It links to things people see daily: long disclaimers, “my truth” posts, doomscrolling, and memes.
E is for Emotion: It hits excitement and amusement, two high-arousal emotions Berger says drive sharing.
P is for Public: It’s bold, easy to quote, and the Camus image is recognizable. Perfect for sharing and signaling identity.
P is for Practical Value: It teaches readers how to spot when a real conversation is being derailed by over-explaining or nitpicking.
S is for Stories: It plays out like a quick story with a twist ending. Easy to remember, easy to retell.
My latest novel The Desert Road of Night, which explores many of the themes in my short stories, poems, and personal essays like this one, is available now on Amazon.
