Missing People, Pt. 2

It’s almost poetic that two and a half years after I have my first major dream about Jessica and write a blog post, I have another dream under vastly different circumstances.

I got married! I have been married now for four-and a half months, but I believe that the thing that brought on this dream was not some conversation I had, but in my own sexual behavior.

I have felt guilt and shame about masturbation since my mom took a strong stance against it when I was 12. I wanted to look at all of these images, watch pornography, basically go through what every modern prepubescent boy experiences. Instead my mom reacted by putting on a “safe search” firewall on all of the computers, effectively stunting that exploration and delaying the path I would eventually take when I got out of the house.

I went through the phases on addiction. I read on Go Ask Alice that as long as masturbation doesn’t affect your day to day life, then you can masturbate as much as you want; I didn’t feel like it was, so I did. But that lingering guilt kept a running tally in my head. What was my rolling average for the week? Can I go a day without jerking off? Usually the answer was no.

My position on masturbation didn’t dramatically change until I saw this TED Talk. There is a disclaimer in the description of this video talking about the disputed scientific validity of his claims, but the thing that stuck with me is that the dopamine, the feeling that I get when I watch some woman get plowed keeps me coming back. And as discussed in the underappreciated and rated[1] Don Jon discusses, jerking off using your imagination is a different experience than jerking off to porn. I personally find that the dopamine levels are lower when I use my imagination, but still released. I would call it a less addicting high.

Which brings us back to the topic in which I started. The night after my fourth day or so of masturbating only using my imagination (or not masturbating), I have my first dream about Jessica since the last blog post. The entire dream was Jessica and I rolling around in bed kissing. My wedding ring kept flashing to let my brain know that this was happening while I was married. I tried on at least two occasions to go for second base, but she was having none of it. The only thing that was said in between bouts of kissing was me stating, “You could have had it all”, which I understand to mean “You could have had all of me”.

This raised a lot of questions when I woke up: would I have become a different person had I dated Jessica, would I have changed myself if I had the opportunity to date Jessica, how long would we have lasted if I didn’t change the person I am now. All of these are unanswerable hypothetical questions, and I can add them onto the pile of unanswerable Jessica hypotheticals.

I looked up her Facebook profile and two things brought some satisfaction: she still has stuck to her religious convictions and it seems that she has moved away from our hometown. So even though I am married, I can move on with my life knowing that she is still inaccessible. I had intrusive thoughts of cheating over the weekend, so I dosed that with a stronger shot of porn dopamine, and it seems to have done the trick. I’ll go back to jerking off with my imagination and see what happens (other than the eventual orgasm) to my long-term sexual health.

Talk to you again after another Jessica dream, I guess.

But I digress…

I love the Over/Under series by Pitchfork. I often use the expanded Appreciated/Rated scale, originally done by Killa Mike, as a point of discussion.

An (Un)Finished Digression

I started this post two weeks ago, but lost my momentum after I made two points. The rest may not be what I had in mind at the moment, but C’est la vie.

I was watching the commentary for the first season of Rick and Morty last night, excited to hear what these masterminds had to say about their show. As a general principle, I will only buy a DVD if it has production commentary (the notable exception to this has been the first three seasons of Spongebob, that show is amazing). I am amazed by Rick and Morty; it’s funny, exceedingly intelligent, and just the right amount of crass. But listening to the commentary, I couldn’t help but feel that I wouldn’t get along with the people doing the commentary. The lesson from that story is that with a creative product, there is a degree of separation between those that create the labor of love and those that consume this thing.

So, before we go any further, let me say this (is not my original thought): in order for any relationship to work, there needs to be something you see in another person that you need and vice versa. As an introvert, my most organic relationships have usually come with other introverted, independent people (because I can empathize). With others, I have had to practice my sales pitch as someone that has something to offer.

Throughout my life, I have maintained a tight group of friends from just one when I was in elementary school to an inflated three in college. Each person fills what I like to call a slot, an emotional and activity-oriented void in my needs. [1] With having such a small group of people, it economically makes each of those people significantly more valuable than someone who has, say 10 friends.

So when one person leaves their slot for one reason or another, the value of that empty slot becomes currency I could spend on making new connections. The question arises at that point, why don’t I just mitigate my risk by expanding the number of slots? Because, my requisite requirement to get a slot is an emotional connection.

Here’s an interesting idea that I got from  This Book is Full of Spiders by David Wong (Quick review: It’s the second book in the sequence and both are an entertaining time-filler). Not spoiling the plot with making this point, as Wong goes meta in his own right, he mentions the idea of Dunbar’s Number. The idea being that based on the size of a primate’s neo cortex, one can predict the size of that primate’s tribe. Based on this idea, the human’s neo cortex dictates a clique of 150 people.

The implications of Dunbar’s Number in this modern technological society, where interconnectedness has required less effort than ever before, are worth visiting. The average Facebook user has 338 friends, while the median slides down to 200. If you follow that link, or this one, my point has already been made months ago.

So let’s move on from that. I suppose that is why I forget people’s names immediately after hearing them, self-preservation and such. In this world full of secrets, David Wong convinced me that evolution (I prefer descent with modification) still holds a few secrets about people.

But I digress…

1. Such an only child.

Missing People

Just a preface. I am hoping to have something revelatory come out of this “Di-Journal” post, but I can’t guarantee anything profound. Fair warning.

I had a dream last night that was stirred up by a conversation with a friend a few days ago. The conversation consisted of me asking her if she missed any single aspect from her previous relationships. She mentioned a few of hers and I mentioned a few of mine. One of the people I mentioned was my first girlfriend, who was Chinese. I went on about that if I hadn’t dated her, I would not have been able to get a real glimpse at the Chinese lifestyle. But being that Chinese names are confusing to a majority of westerners, my friend mistook one of the names I mentioned for Jessica [1], a girl I originally met in middle school, but continued to see into the first few years of high school because we rode the same bus together (she went to a different school). After that, we continued talking until my freshmen year of college.

Isn’t it odd that a simple misunderstanding like that can trigger your subconscious in such a way that you can have a dream about it a few nights later? I should have watched that episode of NOVA on dreams, then I would have something better to say here.

Long story short, Jessica chose religion over me. Looking back, I could have approached some situations differently, but it was inevitable that this was going to happen. There were a lot of unanswered questions that rose out of my relationship with Jessica, and a large number of those answers were knowingly withheld by her.

Anyway, back to the dream. The scene that I still remember was me approaching this multistory, brown hotel. It didn’t look very big from the outside, but when I got in the elevator there were at least twenty-five floors to this thing; she was on the thirteenth floor. I went up to her door and knocked. When she opened the door, I quickly hugged her and in close quarters, I kissed her neck. While still in the embrace, I whispered in her ear, “I have always loved you.” We hugged a little while longer and then I woke up.

The residual feeling I had upon waking up was a longing for the emotional connection that came with that hug. I reminisced on some of my memories of Jessica, thought of this video, and ultimately resolved to hash things out through a blog post. And now you’re caught up.

So, let’s briefly talk about religion as a whole, then about my fond memories of Jessica (as a whole), and whatever else is left.

I grew up in the church. I have been saved since I was five. It was largely a routine while I was home, but in my sophomore year of college, I really got in touch with the feelings that Johnny Cash poured into this song. But as many a twenty-somethings are wont to do, I became disillusioned to the shortcomings of church and now it is difficult to go to a service without my family.

Now, I’m not discounting the feelings I felt at that time, but I see organized religion now as a giant club. Not every club is going to have the same credo that you do, and not every member for that matter will believe the exact same things you do. [2] But where organized religion succeeds, just like any well-bonded group of friends, is that you get to be a part of the shared experience, which will hopefully strengthen the connections between each other as a whole. Religion adds the benefit of providing an answer to many of life’s most difficult questions. I think Jessica felt like she needed to belong, and diving into religion was her choice.

Now that all of that laundry has been hung up to dry, Jessica… All of my memories with her feel idealized, probably remembered more fondly than they were felt in the moment. It was probably also that a lot of those experiences were my first time: first kiss, first time asking a girl out, first time fixating on a proper response after a perceived slight (I actually wrote her a letter, never gave it to her). In this world of social connectivity, it’s easy to remind myself of her existence. And I’m torturing myself by doing that, but is it better to feel pain than nothing at all? [3]

Quick tangent, I don’t know how to feel about posting that song. It’s catchy, but does it really fit? I guess it’s an indirect way of quoting, even though I would have written “it’s better to feel something than nothing at all” if  I hadn’t searched “it’s better to feel than nothing at all” and this song popped up. Is there a preceding quote stating something in the same vein? Would someone with more journalistic experience please comment on this quandary? Thanks in advance.

I must say, I feel differently about this whole situation now (at 11:43 pm) than I did when I woke up this morning (7-some am). Writing about this has served more as experience to grow as a writer than therapy in whatever way. I’d like to open up the floor for discussion. Let the worms flow from the can.

But I digress…

1. Don’t worry, that’s not her real name.

2. Hopefully.

3. I call this music Nu Folk, just as System of a Down calls their music Nu Metal.