Fighting For Love

[ActivistNotWacktivist]

P_M+P
Took some more photos, this time managing to fit my eccentric nature into them. The first one is an edited version since the original was too large to post



I didn't feel like writing a journal entry yesterday after work, or doing much of anything really. Right after I got home I told my dad that I was planning to ride my bike to the nearest newly unionized Starbucks location the next day. I don't really like Starbucks' products that much (same with pretty much all other fast food too); I wanted to go there in order to show my support for their decision and to take a picture. I was open with how far away it is, and the sheer distance coupled with my unfamiliarity with the area led to him strongly advising against my plan; advice that I ended up taking. In hindsight it was one of those stupid ideas of mine that are fueled by naivety and an immature dismissal of risks. I didn't bother to tell my mom about it since I would've received a similar response. Overall this is a good reminder to be grateful for the fact that I have a loving family.

This dose of reality made me kind of unmotivated for the rest of the day, and I ended up doing some plain sitting-around, occupied by nothing. I tried rereading some of my old manga, but they weren't able to interest me. I decided against going to the gym because I want to be well-rested/energized while doing so, and I wasn't feeling that way at the time. But I haven't felt like that in a while, so I'm pretty off track with it.

The next day I was able to go to the party/open-gym thing at the other gym for like an hour, and overall I enjoyed it. I did some of the fun and very light exercises that I don't do during my sessions with Jet (the only time that I can use the facility (since I haven't bought a membership yet (since I still have my membership with the first gym (since I was unable to cancel the payments that I agreed to for training sessions (so I have a bunch of unused credits (so some time after that gym gets a new trainer I'll use up the credits with them (and then cancel the membership with the first gym and get one with the second))))))).

There was some reboot-related stuff that happened too. Shortly after arriving I had a conversation with a woman who I vaguely know since I kind of knew her children. I semi-awkwardly started the conversation as a result of walking into an overwhelming environment and "latching on" to something that I was relatively familiar with (that sounds weird and objectifyingy, I know). I remembered that her son had told me about her moving to a different state, so at one point I brought that up out of curiosity. She caught me off guard by explaining that she had moved there so that her boyfriend could pass away in his home state, and that she had moved back up here afterwards. I felt genuinely sorry for her, and I made sure to express that, but one of my secondary thoughts in regards to this revelation was a worrisome one: "I just might be able to eventually have sex with her". This thought took up more space in my head than it should've. It doesn't matter how attractive she is, I shouldn't be viewing people who are under those sorts of circumstances in that way.

At the end of my time there I had a conversation with someone else, which also began a bit randomly. She was friendly and intriguing, and not surprisingly I was physically attracted to her too. While she was explaining the health/longevity benefits of some products that she uses, I thought that I heard her mention that she's 70 years old. I thought of saying something like, "You look amazing for 70", which I genuinely believed, but I held off on doing that. I'm glad that I did, because in hindsight I probably would've said it with an obvious amount of sexual energy. Shortly after she said that I looked at her fingers in search of a wedding ring: I found a ring, but she later mentioned that she's divorced, so I concluded that she might be single. Again, bruh

I had a brief conversation with a 3rd older woman in between the two mentioned above, but I know for a fact that she's married. Also, the 1st woman joined my conversation with the 2nd woman right before I left, and that contributed to the optimism of the sex-focused part of my brain. And a few days before all of this happened, I was playing Cards Against Humanity online with some friends and someone played a card that triggered sexual thoughts involving older women. The other sexual cards hadn't made that much of an impact on me, but this one hit different.

I felt out of my element during the bike ride home. Once I was in the comfort of my own home and out of bike-riding mode I got an erection, and continued to get them to some degree throughout the day.

I'm not entirely sure how much I'm in the wrong for all of this, considering the nature of human sexuality, but I feel like I could definitely be doing better. As I prepare for the world of relationships and my confidence has moments of growth, there are opportunities for me to overlook my principles. I'm not a protagonist in a pornographic game, these women do not exist for the purpose of my pleasure, and based off of their own life experiences they probably want a guy who's at least a bit more mature than one who takes photos of himself pretending to eat a cymbal and dressing like a creepypasta reject.

Some of you might be confused as to why I was so attracted to an elderly woman, even if she takes great care of herself. I wasn't sure if I was ever going to disclose this here, but I might as well now: "Older-Older Women" (not gonna use the common term because it's too vulgar) was one of the two primary pornographic interests that I developed in the "softcore as possible" era of my porn usage last year (the other being black women (as I've mentioned earlier)), and it's one of the categories that I've relapsed on multiple times. In my first journal I was able to write a list of several reasons why I had this attraction; I won't explain them due to the possibility of triggering people, but trust me when I say that they made sense. My interest in this group of women has decreased, but I feel like it's still relatively high. The strength of this attraction is correlated with the strength of my interest in hookups compared to that of long-term relationships. Normally the latter is stronger, and I very much want it to be, but I have my moments of short-sightedness and entitlement that temporarily shift the balance. I'm more attracted to women who are around my own age, and when applied to long-term relationships the disparity between this attraction and that of older women increases drastically.

I've thought about trying out cougar hookup apps before, and those thoughts came back to me with this recent dating app development of mine, but I've managed to resist the temptation (as if I'd have any success on them; the only "action" that I'd be likely to get would be looking at the pictures and triggering a masturbation relapse).

I thought that my stuttering had been getting worse, but it wasn't too much of a problem today, so that's nice.

 

[ActivistNotWacktivist]

Prime Minister's Questions

For a while now I've been writing out notes for topics to eventually talk about in this journal. Some of them will be very extensive... I ain't doin' them tonight lol.

I didn't have a notable amount of urges today or yesterday, despite the relatively sexual events of two days ago. I assume that nocturnal emissions are more likely if you get a full night's sleep, so I should use that as further incentive to go to bed sooner. As you can tell, I've made the wrong choice in that regard today.

I spent time with some of my friends yesterday, and one of them took this picture of me with the rest of them. Now I have proof that I have real friends, and thus I'm not entirely a weirdo loner



I spent another 5 seconds or so looking for autism/Asperger's dating websites a few hours ago, and I found another one that I ended up using. Like the better of the two before it, I was able to quickly browse through all of the American women, and I once again ended up messaging 3 of them. Once I get a picture that features me and Jet at the gym (to show that I'm addressing my physique shortcomings at least a little bit) I'll feel ready to create a profile on a mainstream site. The other pictures that I plan on taking in the meantime are:

• A profile picture featuring my "Porn Kills Love" shirt
• Me posing next to my bike
• Me posing with the CNC machine that I operate at work
• Me posing with that one physical creative project that I've been procrastinating on for like a year

Who's in the mood for some more old journal snippets?

Slaves to the screen
Toil into a corner
Spoil our senses
You adore her
But your friend is not as keen
He needs more than what can be seen
In the flesh
But he leaves his reasons unseen
Relation and friend
Sailing ships sunk, sinister sexual stealth submarines

How foolish of me to underestimate your wicked power, along with the damage that you've already inflicted upon me

Look away from the women in the flesh
Don't want to be a creep
Take it several extra miles
Drive myself into a creek
Sinking in the guilt of the old roads taken

I did something really cool at the gym today. There is a platform for jumping on that can have supports stacked under it for varying heights. I think that I had used something similar a couple of times in high school (so a few to several years ago). A few weeks ago I tried it out when I was in the mood to explore what the gym has to offer. I started at 0 supports and went up by 1 pair after each jump. I stopped after the jump with 10 pairs of supports out of fear and tiredness. Today I did the same process but I kept going, peaking at the jump height that used every support that was in the gym (12 pairs). According to the gym employees this was an impressive feat, and that my bicycling habit helped me prepare for it. What's funny is that I have never dunked on a standard-height basketball hoop despite accomplishing this and also being 6'3". The 2 factors holding me back are A. The liberties that I have when platform jumping as opposed to the form needed to get the ball into the hoop, and B. Nerves regarding the possibility of injury. But I don't mind not having that ability very much. So in conclusion, I'm happy to see that I've accomplished another miscellaneous thing during this journey.

I am the president of the Procrastination Nation
Elected for my exquisite track record of taking opportunities for granted
And my service in the War on Self-Discipline

I need to take those leaps
I owe it to my peeps

I used to watch porn before sleeping, now I do it during
In the form of nightmares, reoccurring
Wake up and realize that I didn't really relapse
Faith in myself restored, I let the fear elapse

I had a nocturnal emission last night where I ejaculated several times, I felt like a machine in that moment.

I had another major nocturnal emission last night. This one was caused by a relapse nightmare that involved me scrolling through a bunch of pictures. Fortunately while it was happening I realized that it was a dream, and I was able to ejaculate my several loads in peace. I view this experience as a sign of progress in regards to my cognitive abilities.

wtf

Yu-Gi-Oh and those other anime were right, the power of friendship is unrivaled

Highlights of my day
Distractions from reality
And thus my reality worsens
As the day goes by

It's too easy to escape pain
Not just for me
But for all of us
Not just with porn
All sorts of methods
Causing all sorts of additional problems

Today will be Day 60
And that's meaningful
But there's so much more that I need to do
Things to improve on
Things to begin
Things to end

I think that my skin-picking is an accurate summary of all of my bad past behaviors that I'm now paying the price for: I was warned about it, it served as a source of dopamine and a form of escapism, it became one of the highlights of my day, it was legitimately unhealthy, it made me unappealing, and it destroyed my self-confidence. Skin-picking is the face (pun intended) of this because it has yielded the most visual results.

I have a deeply unhealthy love for overthinking things

...And now I'm out of old snippets

 

[ActivistNotWacktivist]

Pardon My Rambunctiousness

My lack of strong urges to break my abstinence goals has remained since my last post. The whole "staring at my naked reflection and getting a symbolically powerful erection" thing seems to have lost most of its appeal. I recently remembered that I could use the dating apps that I'm on as a sort of porn substitute, and/or for something related to this:

I could sense the danger of going down some sort of "Looking at content featuring cute women" route

Fortunately I haven't been very interested in doing that. I feel like my mind is being occupied with other (mostly positive) stuff, which is a good place to be at. One of those things is picture-taking of my own, here are two new ones:




I feel like my brainpower is continuing to improve, and a few hours ago I had an idea that furthered my belief in this. I forgot to put my headphones on in the first photo (in order to show that I care about preserving my hearing), but I had an idea for a cool picture to take at work tomorrow that I could wear them in. Creating these photos has been fun, even if they often take dozens of attempts to get "right".

I'm using this post to set a goal for this weekend: To make a decent amount of progress on my sculpture. It's something that I can take a photo of, so I should use this current interest of mine to complete this old ambition.

Speaking of having ideas: I've written a bunch of bars about late-20th-century UK politics over the last several months; I was coming up with a new one the other day but it ended up working better as a sex joke. Not too long after that I had written 4 more. I'd rather not share four of the five of them, but the fifth one is appropriate enough:

"Did you hear about the British man who has every STD?"

Spoiler

"There's no man fouler"

For the 98.3% of you who don't get it:

Spoiler

https://normanfowlercom.wordpress.com/hiv-aids/

This joke seems too obvious to be original, and it's been writable for decades, but I think that it works too well not to share. I'd prefer for my creativity to be more focused on my anti-sexual-exploitation song ideas, but that stuff hasn't been popping into my head in this way for a while.

I practiced driving last Sunday, and I've been driving to and from work with a parent instead of biking. It's been going well I guess; I've made some minor mistakes but nothing too discouraging.

I decided not to participate in the marching band this year. A lot has changed since last season, especially in terms of how I spend my free time, and my enjoyment of being in the band has been wearing off over the years anyways, so it's a decision that I'm very confident in.

 

[ActivistNotWacktivist]

Urges are getting slightly stronger, and excuses are becoming slightly more convincing, but I'm holding steady.

I had a nocturnal emission both last night and the night before, which is anecdotal evidence in support of this assumption that I made last week

I assume that nocturnal emissions are more likely if you get a full night's sleep

What was also interesting were the differences between the two (as far as I can recall at least). In the first one, I was being presented with visuals of a naked woman/women, but they were difficult to maintain. Possibly as a representation of my effort to complete the emission once the visuals went away; I then visualized me touching myself, like I was leading up to masturbation, and then the ejaculation happened in reality. The second one was more streamlined: A group of women prepared for me and their friend to have sex, and both the woman and the sexual activity were easier to visually maintain. But I wish that it could've ended in a, uh, less pornographic way.




Wait a sec, that last one looks off...…..oh yeah, it's the edited version that one of my friends surprised me with. Here's the original:

<This is my new profile pic. It was the best among like 30+ attempts, but I'm still not 100% confident in how it turned out. Maybe it's for the best though, since it's a good representation of who I genuinely am: An awkward but principled person. I tried to make the rest of my profile honest as well, without being too self-critical of course.

You can tell that I made the "Wood Tunes" thing in the 1st picture myself since I accidentally cut the vertical part of the T too deep and thus made it invisible with the filter thing. I decided not to make a 2nd one to replace it because it would weaken the "being resourceful with scrap material that can't be used for actual work projects" theme.

I made an account on the dating app Bumble yesterday, and settled on limiting myself to a 20-mile radius for now. It was awesome to see the sheer amount of women who are members of that demographic, and there are quite a few who seem like they might be compatible with me. I haven't matched with anyone yet, but there are still other ways in which I can use this new thing to my advantage. For example:



More accountability photos, but now they're focused on action rather than abstinence.

There were common negative beliefs on PurpleSquare about the types of women who use dating apps: They gatekeep based on height and income and sometimes trivial stuff like zodiac signs, their standards are too high, they all have the same "shallow" interests, they're crazy, etc. During my time on PurpleSquare I never fully bought into this rhetoric, but I have to admit that I believed in it more than I should have. After being away from that site for a while I knew better, and my experience on the dating sites has anecdotally confirmed the illegitimacy of these claims. Yeah some interests are more common than others (ex: the IPs Marvel/The Office/Harry Potter), but is that actually something to be so critical of? Besides the totally reasonable "no hook-ups", I barely saw any gatekeeping in bios, and the instances in which I did were generally reasonable as well (like "don't try to get with me if you're anti-weed" (are these things still considered gatekeeping? idk)). Only a single-digit percentage of the women outright claimed to be crazy/unstable/etc. The standards thing is something that can't be really "proven" based on the experiences of just 1 guy; but even if there's some truth to it, us guys can use that as inspiration for self-improvement.

A topical thought popped into my head earlier today: In regards to the women/girls who I've been interested in in the past, would I have "swiped right" on all of them? It's like I mentioned in an earlier entry:

communicating the many nuances of a person through a profile page is pretty much impossible

I won't begin to truly know any of these women unless I actually meet them, but I'm more than willing to accept this flaw of online dating (along with the others) for the chance of encountering success.

The local female userbase seems to have a vast majority of women who are around my age, and after browsing for just a few minutes I began to further question how I could've gotten semi-bored of such a beautiful demographic. Porn is powerful man.

I feel like my 2nd nocturnal emission was inspired by my use of the app. It was kind of like a fantasy of me teleporting into a group photo, and the woman's friends (for some reason) really wanting us to have sex with each other and expressing their excitement about it. It doesn't really make any sense, and it gives me that "stop being entitled" feeling for coming up with it in my head, even if just in a dream.

I worked on my sculpture for a bit today, and employed some newly-conceived strategies. I also thought of another project to eventually do that can yield a good photo, but I'm not sure when I'll get to that one though to be honest. And as I was typing this entry I thought of yet another picture idea, this one being much easier to do.

Looking back on the "bringing condoms to the gym party" arc of my journal, I feel like I could write several paragraphs roasting myself over that shit. One of those points is this: Is my bedroom really ready to bring a woman into? No, no it isn't. Reorganizing it to be more tolerable is a priority now. Not because I'm expecting to have a woman over anytime soon, but as a sign of maturity and progress.

 

[W4tchmak3r]

you’ve come such a long way dude, loving this progress that you’re making and the positive attitude you’re choosing to take in a lot of your self relfection. Also you’re getting some great pics, the one with your mate looks especially good for a dating website IMO ) keep up the great work!

 

[ActivistNotWacktivist]

Last time viewing porn: October 4th, 2021/Last time viewing porn substitutes: April 13th, 2022/Last time masturbating: May 10th, 2022/Last time picking at my skin: April 14th, 2022/Last time picking at my fingernails: March 24th, 2022

I don't think that having this in my Signature is necessary anymore. I'm confident that all but one of them will continue to remain the same, but I will make sure to bring up any relapses in the entry following its occurrence. As for why that odd-one-out changed on this very day, once again it may have been for the best.....except for the fact that I did it again like 2 or 3 hours later.

(As a general practice, I will sometimes be relatively vague about dating app stuff in this journal (for various reasons))

It's been a bit of a rollercoaster for me today. I joined a new app this morning, and I spent a decent amount of time during and after work messaging 2 different women, as well as receiving a few "Likes" and having shorter conversations with 2 other women. This made focusing on my work hard, like my penis, which was just so goddamn excited for what felt like half the damn day, which made moving around hard awkward especially since my shorts were kind of tight (probably since I've gained some weight). It was like my body considered today to finally be the day. I want this to be about more than just the chance to eventually relieve sexual frustration, but because of how these apps interact with our brain the less sexual factors can be overshadowed.

I'm a bit worried about the body-type preferences that I have for women gaining too much influence over me; I'd like for them to be as weak as possible. It's difficult for me to figure out which aspects of them and to what extent are part of my natural sexuality, and what's a byproduct of my porn consumption + societal bullshit. Based on the track record of the women who I've had feelings for over the years, there doesn't really seem to be a positive or negative correlation between them and the preferences that I think I have. So I'm not too concerned, but I'll still watch out for it.

…..Believe it or not, this ideal is difficult to maintain on these apps.

I'm conflicted about the morality of messaging multiple women at a time. Once I really began to contemplate this I stopped using the people-finding feature, deciding to instead focus on the women who I've already matched with (all of which "Liked" me first, as opposed to me finding their profile on my own). And even then it still feels weird to be in communication with 2 of them. One of the two seems like she might be done talking to me, like forever, so "problem" solved? (It would be funny if they both were)

One of the women who "Liked" my profile is a single mom who's pregnant with another child, and uses the term "stepdad season" in her profile. Personally, I believe that practically everyone is deserving of a loving relationship, and that the stigma against certain groups of people in regards to this is usually unjustified. Single parents fall into this category, and my interest in single mothers is also relatively strong due to my recognition of the fulfillment of child-raising while not wanting biological kids of my own. However, I feel far from ready to be a parent figure; I have yet to become a legitimate adult in my own eyes. I felt kind of crumby since I had to reject her in her time of need, and also because I probably would've been into her if she was childless.



I've done it! I've made myself feel guilty for wanting to conveniently yet acceptably accomplish my primary non-survival biological objective of the last ~10 years! This might be the peak of my nauseating "good guy" shit. I haven't felt this bad for being a heterosexual male with a sex drive above 0 since I was spending time on Twitter.

Oh yeah, about the masturbation: I couldn't handle the overflow of sexual feelings so I caved in twice. I hope that I got that out of my system, and it helps that I won't be "Swiping" for some time.

Based on the feedback that I've received on my looks, there seems to be a market for them. That still feels kind of weird to me, but overall the revelation is a happy one.

 

[ActivistNotWacktivist]

Although not quite as frequently as it was two days before, my penis was energetic yesterday. This time I managed to leave it alone.

This online dating stuff has been developing really fast, and as of yesterday I've already entered a new phase: Going "Incognito" on the apps because the connection that I have with the woman who I've messaged the most by far is strong enough to make it seem necessary. I ended up shutting down (in a way) a very young conversation with a different woman. I felt kind of bad for doing that, but I'm confident that it was the right thing to do.

Two nights ago I had a dream that I was very fond of. There was some guy giving a presentation in what looked like my living room, and I was sharing the couch with a woman who was covering herself with a blanket. At first we weren't making any physical contact, but I was able to gradually change that. But it wasn't anything explicitly sexual, it was stuff like "brushing her leg with my hand". Eventually I had the chance to escalate it further, but because other people were in the room I didn't. I hate it when that kind of thing happens. The last part of the dream that I can recall was her sitting on the floor, away from me. After I had gotten out of bed I noticed that my body pillow was near the edge of it. It might've just been pushed there in the process of me getting up, but it could be involved with the dream. That sort of physical contact felt amazing, and I'm looking forward to one day experiencing it, I just haven't brought it up too much in this journal because I thought that it might be a little embarassing. But why should it be, and how could it even crack the Top Ten Most Embarassing "Fighting For Love" Moments at this point? I also really appreciate how long cuddling can last, especially since I'll probably last like -3 minutes at sex lol

...It's just a monochromatic blue body pillow guys, relax I was never able to genuinely get into the whole "waifu" thing, but for a few weeks a year or two ago I did a surface-level ironic version of it (mainly to troll my friends)

 

[ActivistNotWacktivist]

...I'll explain later

Right now I need to regain control, and making this post will kickstart that