I met up with my ex last week. When she broke up with me, it really broke my brain. But I was able to say to her “having a typically attractive* girlfriend opened doors for me with the beautiful middle class people I was always trying to fit in with, and when you left me those doors slammed shut.” It was nice to just voice it out after all these years and put all the weird recrimination behind.

I sorta wonder what the younger comrades feel. I grew up before the internet, in the 80s when we actually believed that everyone was going to be middle class. Back when I was a kid, every TV show and movie was about trying to get into the cool people group. Life from school to through uni through the early naughts felt like everyone was angling to get in the in-group.

I spent my 20s and 30s repeating the same cycle: meet a group of people, feel accepted, try really hard to be part of the group, then get burned from said normie group for various reasons. The older I got the harder I tried. Like guys, I GOTTA make this group work because I’m running out of time.

Now those same people are boring as fuck to me. I can barely maintain the emotional labour to listen to them. If you’re not marxist/anarchist, activist, vegan, and/or mask wearing, I can’t honestly force myself to talk to you. It does help that most of the normies outed themselves as sociopaths during COVID times. Most people who know me IRL probably think I’m cold. I make a real effort for the actual proles I meet tho.

I suspect you younger comrades probably figured it out much earlier than I did. But if you’re still searching, I hope this helps you out.

*Sorry I know that “typically attractive” can be problematic and arbitrary. In this story, I’m referring to the irrational standard enforced by the mainstream culture and media.

  • ButtBidet [he/him]@hexbear.netOP
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    4 months ago

    I’ve done the “try really hard to fit into normie group, get burned” a few times, except every time it’s been a queer or neurodiverse group or people, who are supposed to not be normies themselves, so there’s a problem on my end clearly.

    I’m embarrassed to admit that I’ve been jealous of queer people at times because their groups seem so cool from the outside, but I’m sure that problems exist like any group.

    Also I don’t know anyone else who reads freakishly weird books all day =)

    What do you read?

    I’m glad that you have an amazing wife that you can feel fully human with. It makes navigating this lonely, unfair world a bit easier.

    • ashinadash [she/her, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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      4 months ago

      Most of the big ones are lib breeding grounds, let’s be real. Hexbear’s queer group is fuckin rad though, like finally a place without brainworms. We are cool as fuck though screm-cool

      Right this second it’s Unjust Depths, which you should read, do it loser. Otherwise I’ve been directing people to this weird post. Really, there’s somethin funny in my brain :)

      Thank you and it really does, she’s awesome and I’d be nothing nowhere without her meow-hug

      • ButtBidet [he/him]@hexbear.netOP
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        4 months ago

        OK I promise to giver Unjust Depths a read and get back to you.

        So I’m afraid of sounding ignorant, but as long as I’ve been doing activism, a massive percentage (if not majority) of the people involved were queer and there were explicit queer groups just 1 degree of separation away. I don’t know if online groups are lib, but the ones that I interacted with IRL seem pretty decent. I guess that there are plenty of queer libs, but I’d imagine that queer people have a much higher chance, compared to the straights, of being based than being reactionary.

        REALLY sorry if I missed the mark.

        • ashinadash [she/her, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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          4 months ago

          Maybe talk to Cromalin about it also if you do, she’s the one who gave it to me =)

          No that’s fair, and I might just be looking in the wrong places, or it could be an issue with different localities, stuff. But it makes sense that anyone queer would be pushed left, because our entire ability to exist remotely safely at all is thanks to those who came before us throwing bricks at cop cars. Every queer person SHOULD be a goddamn leftist! I think I just have an abnormally sized hatred for lib queers honestly. Idk where to go to find groups of queer commies and anarchists outside of hexbear tho.

          You’re aight :)