Exposure

• In photography, exposure is the total amount of light allowed to fall on the photographic medium (photographic film or image sensor) during the process of taking a photograph. Exposure is measured in lux seconds, and can be computed from exposure value (EV) and scene luminance over a specified area.
• vulnerability to the elements; to the action of heat or cold or wind or rain; "exposure to the weather" or "they died from exposure";
• the act of subjecting someone to an influencing experience; "she denounced the exposure of children to pornography"
• the disclosure of something secret; "they feared exposure of their campaign plans"

I have received comments from several readers that I should be careful with what I post on my blog. They meant it kindly, mind you. Not in a you-are-so-dumb-be-careful-with-what-you-post-or-you-better-watch-your-step kind of attitude. They just pointed it out, like asking "hey, that's not something people usually shout out. Did you really mean that stuff to be public?" I did mean it, and I told them so. Why shouldn't I let everyone see the poems I like? Or the thoughts, trivial or long, that I make up? They describe my reasoning and my ideological taste. Why shouldn't people know my feelings? They show how I react to various situations. Why shouldn't I tell the internet about my history, my activities? If no one else exposes their own, it does not mean I don't have the right to.

But when I was pointed out that my blog entries were "too public" by other people, I could not help but feeling, inside of me, a tingling sensation of exposure that made me rethink my privacy threshold. There are still certain "secrets" I keep that I feel an obligation to keep undisclosed, and I frequently teeter-totter on the border of ambiguity to spill them out. I have no problem with, and even like to, disclose myself in my entirety. But I run into the same privacy issues that online social networks face these days - one cannot disclose oneself entirely without also disclosing everyone around one to an extent that they find uncomfortable. And if the people one knows were to become uncomfortable with one's disclosures, all of them would refuse to continue being around one, and one would end up alone and friendless. How sad. Or would one end up only with people that don't mind being completely open about their lives? I just don't think I know anyone like that. Hmm... nope, don't think so.

Today's society demands a certain level of privacy, and it enforces it with habit and with shame. The connections and dependencies between people are very strong, in any case, and a person often thinks that others are eager to disconnect with them if they find out his "secrets" are revealed. But is that really the case? And if so, is keeping these connections worth keeping parts of himself constrained?

And the closer a person is to you, the stronger a friend and you are connected, the more you know about her. The more she confides in you, the more she trusts you not to divulge her information. But that information has also, in a way, become your information. You now share a piece of knowledge of which you don't have ownership or right to expression. By knowing your friend's secrets, you have lost your right to express whatever you want, whatever is on your mind. Does that make sense? Is it worth it?

Many of these concepts may seem trivial or absurd to even mention. Like asking "Why do objects fall? Do they have to fall? Maybe we can make them NOT fall!". Expression. Is expression a good thing? All in good measure, as some say. But good measure is way too often confused with whatever, it works, let's just keep on doing it the same way, and that is an attitude I beg to oppose. That is why I feel the limits of privacy, like those of many other things, should be bent, and the area outside of them tested. Scouted. Experienced. Not for everyone, of course. Everyone has their right to their privacy. But we also have the right to our disclosure, and it is my opinion that this is one we do not exercise enough.

I have written blog entries that contain information other people find disturbing. Not too much - I don't really have a reason or feel the need to directly clash with other people's opinions or beliefs, and I actually have an over-sensitive concern for the possible negative consequences I might induce upon others with careless actions. But a couple of times they have been disturbing enough to cause someone else to ask me whether I really meant them to be published. Which makes me think I'm on the right track.

However, I have been accumulating secrets ever since 2007. Actually, I've been accumulating secrets ever since the year 2000, but only those since 2007 have prevented me from publishing blog entries. And these darn secrets are terrible. I don't like them. They constrain my expression, and make me feel as if I should be ashamed of something about myself. I shouldn't... but I keep the secrets nonetheless. Because they are not just mine. Because I am not their owner. Sigh.

And now counting... I have thirty-three unpublished blog entries. Thirty-three. Out of three hundred and thirty four. Almost 10% of my blog entries are kept private because of secrets in relationships. Why do they so often end up in secrecy? Maybe one of these days I should just assume that my blog is rarely read anyway, and consider that most everyone doesn't really care.

There is another effect that occurs due to exposing oneself entirely that I think is worth knowing: dilution. Well, that's what I call it.

When one initially conceives an idea, it is entirely one's own. It has one's own particular personality imprinted upon it, fresh, pure, and usually simple. The particular way in which one conceives an idea is perfectly unique, as it springs from one's unique perspective and context, equal to no one else's. Like a fresh piece of code one wrote oneself, one understands it perfectly and knows it from top to bottom. It comes directly from Plato's "World of Ideas", in a manner of speaking.

If this idea is shared with someone else, this other person will take this idea in and attempt to fit it into his own conceptual framework. Since the idea and the way in which it was expressed are unique, this other person will need to make some kind of adjustment to the idea to fit it into his own framework. Relate it to his own context, recreate with pieces of his own knowledge and experience, which can be a whole lot different from one's own. It will rarely, if ever, have the exact same representation in the new person's mind. At this point, the idea's "code" has been shared (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apache_Subversion).

(As a note to the the previous paragraph, this is also why one should try to be as clear and accurate as possible when expressing ideas - to achieve a good approximation in the other person's mind).

The new person then naturally, after having inferred his own version of the idea, will have an opinion about it. Does it make sense to him? Does it fit in nicely with his own experience, or can he find counter-arguments or counterexamples to it? He will react to the idea SOMEHOW, whether he wants to or not. He can discuss it, counter it, agree with it, or make a facial expression that lets one know WHAT did this person think. He has reacted to it, so he has shared his opinion on it. He has submitted SOME change to the code through the versioning system. Either through direct opinion or not, one has received an opinion on one's own idea. The code is no longer pure - it has, at some level, been "diluted" with its environment.

This can be a very good thing if one trusts the other person to be better-suited to appreciate the idea. I would most probably trust H&R Block if they told me my idea on getting more tax money back won't work - their tax experience is way broader than mine. But I would be less inclined to trust a friend if he told me the food is having is not really that spicy - I consider myself to be the most knowledgeable person in matters of my own taste. There are just some things that one does not necessarily trust other people to know more about, or even understand. And the more personal these things are, the more likely this is true.

You might argue that one need not be affected by the other person's opinion on your idea, that one can keep the "pure" version of the idea, and need not perceive any consequence of this subtle exchange of opinions. But in my own experience, this turns out to be mostly false, especially if the idea is still fresh and undeveloped. Simple and pure as it starts, it is also growing and very sensitive to change. And one is not a perfectly controlled being - I see the division between one and the rest of the world as a semi-permeable membrane. One does not simply merge into its environment or viceversa through entropy, like a food colorant in water, or like smoke through a room - one rather exchanges controlled bursts of actions, depending upon one's own decision and convenience. But just like with living cells, this allows one only a certain level of control. Cells in a hypertonic saline solution will dehydrate, and a hypotonic saline solution will swell them up. One is always inevitably affected by one's environment, and even the gentlest opinion from another person on one's idea can alter it, especially if the idea is still new and fresh. In such a state, I believe the best course of action is to incubate this idea in one's mind and develop it by oneself, until one feels that it has reached a solid-enough state to be shared with its surroundings.

Thus, to avoid dilution of ideas, I think keeping some thoughts private is important - especially if one sees a high potential in them. And although each person can have a different opinion on the subject, this concept of "dilution" is what my own observations and experience have led me to infer.

Also, long-exposure pics are cool. But they come out really shaky sometimes, even with a tripod.

Observations before Rain

(Date is approximate)

Saturated space.
Saturated resources.
Optimized economy.
Incomplete models.
Fallacious assumptions.
Unexpected events.
System erosion.
Disappointing change.

Orange and blue
White so bright it glows yellow.
Water so vast it can show you the sky.
The will of Life sprouting in green and in brown.
Beings, their purpose long forgotten, long neglected,
divert their mind when and wherever they can,
to avoid the inevitable lack of true purpose.
~Sep 2011

Fifth and Craig

(Date is approximate)

Buildings adorn the quaint street corner outside my window. Brick towers filled with tenants, draped with neat white balconies and windows, each (showing vainly) slight shades of particularity (illumined rooms, windows lowered at different heights, closed curtains, open curtains, or intriguinly almost-closed... the flicker of a television), suggesting personality and occupancy. The 123 windows and 14 balconies I make out from my seat betray the residency of hundreds of people. The brick, utilitarian, straight-angled apartment building.

Across the street from it, a cathedral, that seems of smooth stone, of beige covering. It's fake stone, I know, but its appearance is grand and its shape is majestic. Gothic, with multi-armed crosses atop each peak - atop every front, every corner, every bell tower, even the two highest and most grandiose on its front. Twice as high as the brick building, dozens of times lighter, hundreds less useful. When I go inside it I see almost up to the ceiling. It cannot host more than ten regulars, and its primary occupant is air. But it is more eye-catching, more inspired, less simple. A useless block of stone remains simply because until now it has, and people here may know the building more than the place.

~August 2011

1001 computer nights

There was a time when night was a time for sleep. When the range of stimuli and of possible activities were quite limited during the dark hours, and sleep was the favorite nocturnal activity.

Now, it seems to me, this has changed. People can, and would, stay awake all night, were it not because their bodies become tired and ask them for sleep. Sleep is no longer a voluntary action for many, a pleasing interlude to passing days - it seems to be more a pesky bodily requirement that disallows us from using more waking hours away on our computers, on our appliances - either reading, playing, or keeping up with other people's lives through chats, facebook and twitter.

Or in my case, writing a blog entry until I feel my body tire again, and it drags me down again. That, pitifully, is my objective. When did I lose the ability to fall asleep intentionally?

*UPDATE*: I failed to fall asleep, went out on a night bike ride, stayed up until 7AM, and woke up after noon today. The bike ride was very good. But during the ride I noticed my right gear changer doesn't work :(. Some piece near the handlebar that was holding the cable tense broke, and the cable is pretty rusted and worn anyway. Will take it to Kraynick's to repair tomorrow.

Money

The need for money. Is it real?

Historical value

While randomly having come across a Wikipedia article of the Stomachion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stomachion), a barely-surviving ancient mathematical treatise attributed to Archimedes, I realized how much of what we write is transient, only relevant for a relatively short duration of time. For most of what we write, especially on these blogs, only a few months, weeks even, flow before most of their significance is reduced to the whisper of a memory, and that only for the writer itself.

If the relevance of a piece of writing, of an idea, is to be extended further into the future, its content must appeal to people beyond the context inside which it is written (its "scope", if programmers will). If a piece of writing depends on its context for meaning, then it will be interesting only to others who are interested in that particular context. Otherwise, it might interesting only a very small group of people, and only as a curiosity. A piece of writing should not depend upon any particular context if it is to persist across others. How to write something that is fully context-free? Maybe I might find a hint to that in context-free grammars (in the context of Compilers)?

Volumes that Archimedes wrote include (says Wikipedia):

• On the Equilibrium of Planes (two volumes)
• On the Measurement of a Circle
• On Spirals
• On the Sphere and the Cylinder (two volumes)
• On Conoids and Spheroids
• On Floating Bodies (two volumes)
• The Quadrature of the Parabola

Mathematical and physical treatises seem universal enough. The properties of shapes, of ideal figures, and of water and floating materials are not expected to change anytime soon - hence, perennial relevance. And of course, they have been proven to be most useful in engineering and science - hence, long-lasting. They may not be exactly top-sellers in these times, but there still exists a non-trivial portion of the human population who is highly interested in maintaining the memory of these treatises alive and healthy in the culture of the world.

The bible is another long-lasting piece of writing. Does its relevance extend onto our times? The events described in there are of interest to historians and to anthropologists - the esoteric and moral concepts, to people affiliated with christianism and with interest in spirituality, ethics, morality. And maybe to atheists who try to find contradictions in it. It has survived for many hundreds of years, and parts of it for thousands. Does it hold universal relevance, too? Will people always be concerned with morality, ethics, and jewish history? Or was it artificially kept alive by an enormously prominent international organization during almost two thousand years now? (the catholic church, of course). I'd vote for the former imo, but wouldn't discard the latter.

How many topics are there that extend across all contexts and cultures? What are all the possible topics of which one can write, that will contain relevant information to all people, of all times, from all over the world? (I do consider only people, of course, since it's the only species that I know can read what we write).

Starting off a rough list:

• Ethics
• Science (Math, Physics, Astronomy, Chemistry, etc...)
• Thoughts about life and purpose? (People call it Philosophy, but I think that's etymologically incorrect)

That's the list I came up with just now. Any additions?

Moving invisible prisons

That is what we live in, when we live in the city, surrounded by people we don't know. Afraid to disturb them, reducing our expression to pitiful shadows, projecting our lives onto the least common denominator of tolerance and understanding, which has for a long time now been low and is still falling.

It's as if each individual on the street presents a force field around them, which pushes against that of everyone else, and in crowds become a full tesselation, out of whose each of its pieces its respective person does not dare project his own truth, lest it conflict with that of his neighbor's.

This interaction of "personal spaces" varies upon each person's perspective - a shy person will feel his own space dwarved by everyone else's, while a confident person might feel the opposing view. But if you understand what I mean, you will know that its effects are real and highly influential on our lives.

How to break free? How to escape from our tiny, invisible, self-imposed prisons? You might forcefully expand our own space to ignore everyone else's - as it is mental, it is a matter of proper thoughts and willpower. But everyone else would not take to that too kindly - some would react by avoiding you as much as possible, while others would confront you physically, an instinctive reaction to recover their territory. In any case, force has few friends, so it does not seem to me as the optimal manner of coexistence. And I find our current lifestyle undesirable too, so how can we improve upon it?

If you see friends walking and talking on the sidewalk together, you know they are sharing their personal spaces. They agree to merge their individualities and differences into a single shared experience for a while, and during this time, they allow each other access to their thoughts, and expressions, and feelings. As much as each one allows, of course. Think about a couple in love sitting together in a park, enjoying their love and each other. They also share their spaces and bodies, and may eventually move on to sharing the rest of their lives.

The alternative that I think as a solution to these prisons is, then, to share. To share our thoughts, our expressions, and to be less afraid of other people's reactions and intolerance, and rather focus on the good one might bring them by interacting with them. I think we should expand our personal spaces, not to push everyone else's, but in an inviting manner, expressing but not imposing, proposing a merging of our lives, if only for a little while, and thus attempt to reduce the fear and mistrust so prevalent in so many people today.

Like Stewart McCoy said, we should open ourselves to the world and to others, because it helps you learn and grow in experience, wisdom, trust, and love. Ok, I made that very last part up, but I'm slightly in a hurry because we're about to reach the Rafting place and I don't feel I have enough time to search for what exactly he said.

I have to take my own advice. Again. For real.

Thinking on the bus

thinking thinking thinking oh my god what am I thinking "my god??" my god, what did I just say? Just yesterday I was claiming to not subscribe to the belief of a god, but oh well, maybe an idea and just a common generic interjection.

I am listening to music from my iPhone on my way from the Pittsburgh airport to the Oakland stop, typing on my laptop while I do so, and bogging my head back and forth to the rhythm of a music that only I can listen to here in this bus.

And I wonder what other people think of me. I focus too much on that, I think. "What is everyone else thinking? Is what I am doing funny/interesting/intriguing/strange/curious/admirable enough for everyone here? Am I making an impression?" I don't know if I succeed, but I sure as well think about it, and I don't think it should be that way.

I should just focus on what I am doing. I mean, I do want to write about something, but that's what's on my mind. Other things on my mind: Leave of Absence, turning the form in to Diane, I imagine the sad expression on her face when I give her the form, I imagine her telling me whether I am allowed to keep this laptop or whether I should give it back to the department. I still have to tell other people about my decision. Who is left? Min knows... hmmm, people in Pittsburgh...

Not many people really. I think Jose still doesn't know... or does he? Oh yes he does - I told him on our trip to NYC, I think. Ashik and Julian know... Laura knows, Min knows... Leila and Ina should still be told. TK and chinese Julian. Lucia.

And then the jolly rest of the family and friends from whom I've avoided questions about my program recently. Marcos, Manfredo, Elisa, Pedro, Marcelo. The rest of the UVG CS crowd, Lucia, Oscar Melchor. Oh, girls here in PA. Amanda, Lexie. Awww, Lexie. I still want to be around for her soccer match in Slippery Rock, though.

That's it for notifications, I guess. What is left? Oh yes. What will I do? :) That's where the interesting part begins, I think. List of possibilities... a little more concrete and actually motivating, as opposed to fucking the dinosaur in front of the Carnegie Museum of Science and crashing into the sun. Here goes:

• Learn and practice Python - become good at it. Enough to work at Google, make cool applications on it.
• Learn to DJ on Ableton with the trial version I have on my computer. It will just take time, but I'm willing to give it time if the results become awesome music :D.
• Learn to program on Android. Julian may help me a bit there, and I'll be glad to help him with the Java part. Win-win :).
• Further practice the piano, learn a few more pieces. I have Filipe's electrical piano in my room to practice with at any time I want, and I can go to the CFA (College of Fine Arts) if I want real pianos to practice with. Even if they are out of tune.
• Learn another (spoken) language, and practice german. I know german well enough so that lessons on the internet and reading the dictionary provide only marginal benefit, I believe, so I think improving my german is better done by practicing with people who already have a fair-to-good level of it and are willing to practice having conversations with me. Ma three Pitt girls are on my mind (Sonja, Kimberly, Cora :). And which other language? Hmmm... French. And italian coming right behind it.
• Learn to dance. I'm interested in several styles. Latin dance, Tango, Ballroom dancing would all be fine. Contemporary dance strikes a special piece in me - the part that wants to move my body in all directions, flail my extremities, and exploit the potential of my body's movements. I know I can move much more and in more manners, and I know I want to. Hence contemporary dance :).
• Parkour, related to my previous point on wanting freedom of movement. Patrick Terry is the guy I'd like to contact about it (well, he contacted me). And then there's breakdancing as well... similar... a little.
• Jump off one of the Pittsburgh bridges? One that has a river underneath, of course. :) (I'm looking at the bridges right now, so I thought of it).
• Learn to farm? I've been intrigued by that, and now I actually know a farmer that I can contact to know more about this. Food production... so essential to me - to every person who eats, but something that so few people know about. I want to know about it. And learn how to do it.
• Finding a cute, smart, wise girl to be with, to share activities and thoughts with, and to fuck :)

I'm on Forbes and Bouquet now, so I'm going to close the lid on my computer and stash it into my backpack. bye!

Post-fuck pity

When you say you love me right after I know you've fucked another guy, I feel that you say it out of pity.

Yup

As previous posts on my blog may have suggested to the very few people who read my blog, I am taking a leave of absence from the Ph.D. program in Machine Learning I am enrolled in.

Each person who I have told has asked me: "Why?". And to each one I give a slightly different list of reasons, all of which sound true at the time, but which I am actually making up when I am asked. Why don't I give everyone the same list? Why do I make up a different one every time? Well, I'm actually figuring them out myself.

At least one person has told me that it is not wise to formalize my decision until I can at least explicitly and coherently express the reasons for which I want to suspend my Ph.D. program. I understand his concerns, but I will still take the "unwise" approach. I don't know exactly what motivates me, but I do know enough to make this decision at this point.

Parents

My parents don't know when to shut up.

Putting you first

I do not allow myself to put you first if I am not first to you. You cannot be high on my priorities if I am not high on your priorities. I disallow myself from doing so. Too often have I placed someone before me while I was nothing to them. Too often has it hurt so much to realize it.

Yes, you talked to him before talking to me. You talk to him, you plan with him, you are excited about him coming to you and being together again, in all aspects. You fuck him. Then the next morning you see me online and you think "I should touch base with him so he doesn't think I've forgotten him during this time", so you send out your little text heart.

You send out a few lines, to promote casual, innocuous conversation between us. I can see your intentions. I know you do love me, but I know you don't love me like I love you. I know you don't need me like I need you. Priorities change, especially in matters of the heart, and when someone else comes into play.

And I don't allow myself to even fake loving you fully like before. We barter a few questions and answers. She doesn't say much about what she did on her saturday, I don't say much about what I did on my saturday. It could very well be a normal conversation, except that the enthusiasm is so much less than it is other days. We both know it, and we both expect the other one to come up with comments that get to the point. The closest we get is the exchange: "so is robert staying with you?". "yes". "that makes most sense". "yes".

Finally you break the tension and the silence with "i'm getting tired :(", and I'm happy to bid you good night. I just want to stop talking to you, stop the anxiety. How can I love you when I know I am not loved by you in the same way? Or by anyone else? I just can't, I can't. Many of your needs are being satisfied by someone else - I am simply not there to do it. If you have been my only one ever and you have had dozens... and even now I'm not the one closest to you... how can I be most important to you? I just can't. So you can't be that to me. Because when I've tried it, it has always hurt. And it has hurt so much that I, my mind, refuses to go that way again. It hurt so much that it hurts now just to remember it. Those times when I dedicated my mind day and night to a single precious girl for weeks, months, and my utmost joy was yanking a smile, a glance even, from her wandering unattentive face. And even after having done my best to catch her attention, her liking, her trust, her love, it was never enough. And when I realized how much beggar-like effort, and how much time, had I spent on achieving only (when I was lucky) her pity or her pity-based "friendship", tears welled up and my face grew dark, and that's when it hurt. That's when it hurt the most.

But even now it's hurting. It hurts to know that I am so ineffectual in being loved. So unlovable. Even when I try. Even when I don't try. Even why I subtly and jokingly fake caring about them and I become dashing and funny and conversational, and become my most genuine self to show myself as I truly am, and I present myself in the best form I can manage, I still fail. It hurts to fail at something I am already most certain from experience that I suck at. And I really really do my best at it. I just... suck :'(.

I'm not being unfair, or trying to make you feel guilty, or breaking the "open relationship" rule. I'm just expressing my emotions and my feelings as they are. I love you. But I don't want to love you if I will not be loved back. That is so painful.

Notification process

People who know:

• Geoff Gordon
• Diane Stidle
• Katia Sycara
• Nilanjan Chakraborty
• David Reitter
• Luis von Ahn
• Julian Ramos
• Ashik Rehman
• Laura Stokes
• Jose Flores
• Min Xu
• Simeona Zalcikova

People who I think know:

• Jerry Vinokurov
• Christian Lebiere
• Alona Fyshe
• Prashant Reddy

People who surely suspect:

• Madalina Fiterau
• Leila Wehbe
• Tzu-Kuo Huang
• Julian Shun

People who I plan to notify:

• People in the previous two lists
• Dad
• Mom
• Pedro Morales
• Marcelo Mota
• Marcos

It seems to me that a person is shown respect if he/she is told important news in a personal fashion.

*UPDATE September 20TH: Everyone in this last has been notified.*

Gender equivalence

Nice shy guys are the male equivalent of fat girls. It's so hard for them to get laid.

A brief history of my sexual self-esteem

When I was a kid, I was happy. I remember being quite happy. I ran, I jumped, I laughed, I told jokes, I sang, I danced, I played, and I did all of these with confidence and with joy, unabashed at anything else people thought about what I was doing, whether those people were boys or girls.

I was actually quite a center of attention, I recall, and I would often catch the attention of my relatives and of my friends with my early mathematical skills, the jokes I knew and told so well, and other pieces of knowledge I was not afraid to share. This overage of attention got me thinking that I should expect everyone to pay attention to me, though, and ever since then, my self-esteem has never been the same.

Then as I grew up, I ran into situations and actions that people around me disapproved of, but which I had no reason not to get involved into. I learned about "puta" and "mierda" in school and asked my parents what it meant, and was denied an answer. I asked my older siblings about it, but to no avail. I asked about kissing and about differences between men and women, but found no answer either. Instead I found sudden silence, coldness and awkward behavior, and from this I learned that I should not bother grown-ups with such things. So I learned to avoid these concepts with all people, including friends from school, and thus I delayed my knowledge of curse words, sexual facts, and drugs (including alcohol and tobacco) until my mid-teens.

As you can imagine, this behavior I learned imposed quite a disadvantage and much awkwardness on me when I began being attracted to other girls in my classroom, and I remember that happening even at the age of 7 and 8. I spent quite a few years in which I avoided such topics, but when my teenage years came, this became quite impossible to ignore, as girls became prettier, attraction became stronger, and the attention of all my classmates was directed entirely towards it.

Thinking I still was "in the right", "obeying" my parents by avoiding such topics, I retreated into becoming an excellent student and worrying about other things, such as mathematical olympiads and computer games. I became fairly adept at both, but in doing so, I became fully inept at my social skills. And then several girls somehow turned to angels in my eyes, and I could do nothing about it except dare a few awkward lines with them, and look away when they talked to me back. I knew I wanted to be closer to each of them, but I had no idea what my objective was. All I knew about relationships between boys and girls was based on Disney movies, and a few moments of a porn film my classmates at a previous school had forced me to see. Was I trying to kiss her? Or to touch her? Did she want to be kissed? Or was it like a robbery, where one forces kisses out of the girl? How do I know if she wants to be kissed? Why do I want to kiss her? What does it mean to be boyfriend and girlfriend? Am I supposed to want that? Why? All these questions I wanted to ask the girl herself, but I did not have the courage or the skills to do so. And I used the taboo label on those subjects I learned from my parents, and the pride I somehow accumulated during the time of academic excellence, to block myself from asking other people and learning more on the subject. I remained ignorant, inept, and awkward for many years.

So my entire teenage years passed, and through each of them, I liked different girls, and I tried to talk to them, I even let them know about it, but none of them liked me back. None of them. None of them either showed it or told me - they actually acted around me in a repulsed manner, disgusted by my presence and by my words. This reinforced my hypothesis that girls actually do not want to let guys touch them or kiss them, and that it was guys who "forced" them to. Either that, or that I was especially unlikable, for some reason. I didn't want to "force" a girl I liked into doing something she didn't want to, so I simply resigned myself to not pursuing a girl actively unless she showed signs of liking me first. And that never happened. I was 17, and the most sexual concept I knew of was masturbation. I still did not fully understand what the act of sex was, and what it meant for both the boy and the girl. Fucking sexually repressed society. I graduated from high school still ignorant about what sex was, with a heart broken time and time again, with absolutely no evidence to support the fact that I was a boy worth liking.

When I began college (slightly against my will), I thought that starting fresh and anew in another social environment would help me find confidence in myself again. It helped initially when nobody knew me well, but it wasn't long before everyone realized that I was quite a reject. I acted as if I expected myself to be a reject, used to it from the years of high school, so I became a reject, and the people I met took the hint. It wasn't long until I again found myself unliked and unhappy, friends only with other people who weren't apt at social interactions either.

Through college again I found many girls who I liked, all of which did not like me back. My greatest achievements consisted of telling girls that I liked them, directly. One of them on the phone, a couple others to their faces, looking at her eyes. They were all met by rejection, and though it hurt, as always, they were achievements for me nonetheless.

And so I went through and graduated from college, surer after each passing year that I was simply not a likable boy, now practically a man. My mood always alternated between depressed and resigned, and I became quite a master at disguising it when I wanted to. At this point, still my parents and I had never ever engaged on the subject, but at least I had decided to watch and read some porn by then, so I knew how things worked, at least from the outside. But not a single girl's lips had ever touched mine, and every time I realized it I cried, even if only inside.

Six or seven months after finishing college, at age 23, for the first time in my life, a girl came on to me. We got along great, as had happened before with other girls, but then she actually looked at me and wanted to kiss me. Never had it happened before, and I simply disbelieved it for hours, days on end, until it was only way too obvious. She snuggled me, she hugged me, she bit my lip, waiting for a reaction on my part, and I just stood there, looking at her, stupefied by a situation I had so many times dreamed of but never believed that could really happen to me. I'm still amazed she kept on pushing after my absolute idiocy, but she did. And then one time in the movies, as Shrek 3 showed on the screen before us, with my heart beating like crazy, trying to get out of my chest, against all previous experience, with my brain screaming at me "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!?!?!???", I shakily tilted my face to hers and kissed her lips, as I also slowly took her leg, then her breast, and caressed them as best as I managed from what I had imagined. And she LET ME DO IT.

At that one moment, she became my world, my divine angel, the most precious creature that ever existed. I was hers, and I would have done absolutely anything for her, though to her I was only a cute shy boy. It was also the most important act in the history of my self-esteem. It was ground-shattering, it blew my mind, it broke my paradigms, what I had built and believed in for over twelve years. At 23, I was proven that it was possible for a girl to like me. Seeing UFOs come down from the sky and aliens come out of it to greet me, developing telepathic powers, or the sky turning green with pink stripes would not have been as mind-blowing to me as the kiss we had in that movie theater. My whole being experienced Nirvana as my brain rushed to break all of the erroneous concepts I had built under the assumption that I would never be liked. Those few minutes kissing in the front row of a movie theater showing Shrek 3 changed my world.

A few weeks later her parents found out that their daughter's physics tutor and their daughter were becoming pretty intimate with each other, and the physics lessons were off. I was devastated for a few days, but it all became better when I found another girl online who I began chatting with flirtatiously, and soon after sexually. She lived in Los Angeles and I lived in Guatemala, but with my newly-born confidence in my pocket and a lifetime of sexual urges to appease, I flew to Los Angeles, met her, and kissed the second girl in my lifetime in her shiny red Mustang in a Burger King parking lot in LA.

I know she wanted to go all the way - she was slightly older and more experienced, but I was TERRIFIED of unwanted pregnancy and of STDs. Absolutely terrified. So the first time in her car we only masturbated each other and did not do much else. The second time, however, I had an apartment to myself, and we enjoyed it as we slowly removed each other's clothes, and caressed each other's skin with anxious hands and sweaty bodies. It was the first time another girl saw me fully naked. I remember the feeling as being quite tickly in my stomach, and slightly embarrassing, but the fact that she kept on smiling and took my penis in her hand made me break even more of the erroneous useless paradigms I had believed before. In this case, the broken paradigm was "girls think penises are icky". It was also the first time I saw a girl's breasts. (She had such a nice body...)

Unluckily, however, she was on her period. That being even more unknown to me, I decided not to mess around with it, and thought that I would eventually fuck her all the way sometime in the future. That didn't turn out to be true, but still I ejaculated on top of her, even though I don't think she enjoyed the whole experience as much as I did. Too bad for her... I could've made her feel so much better if I had received a decent sexual education in my past.

After three or four furtive encounters, I never saw LA girl again. I returned to Guatemala and focused on my abacus classes, where I met Daniela, the best girl in the abacus class, and with whom I competed for first place in the annual guatemalan abacus competition. I liked her and we got together a few times, and as I got to know her better, I began to love her even. Unfortunately, I knew I was moving to Austin, TX to work only a few weeks later, but I couldn't let her not know about how much I liked her and thought we should be together. So then one time when ice skating in a mall, for the first time in my life, without any real cue from her, without her smiling at me or showing explicit interest in being close to me, I kissed her. It was such a short kiss, just a split second maybe, but I kissed her lips, and then quickly pulled away to look at her reaction, anxious. The huge smile in my face covered my terror at what her reaction could be. But she acted quite calm and thoughtful, and we then only proceeded to talk further and to walk outside, looking at the moon, sharing more thoughts than touches. No more kisses with her happened. But that was the first time I kissed someone on my initiative, without her obvious consent.

I haven't seen her since. Another six or seven months passed, and those months I spent alone in Austin, trying to meet new pretty girls, but failing pretty badly. I did meet one awesome girl at a bar that I thought was perfect for me... but it turned out she had already found a guy that was perfect for her. I suffered a few months for her, longing and wishing for her, but then I met a woman at work.

Much older than me, I decided to talk to her one time only to practice my social skills. I thought she was pretty, but didn't think much else about it. I saw her pretty in the sense I saw my pretty aunts and my pretty cousins - I was attracted to them, but simply knew in my mind that there was an insurmountable barrier between us. However, I decided that a large age difference did not impede us being friends, so I pursued a friendship with her.

We ended up getting along quite well, and we began having lunches and watching movies together. Movie-watching was fun, and sitting with her alone in a semi-dark living room was a very nice mood - we found ourselves drawing closer, telling each other more intimate secrets, hugging each other more meaningfully. I wasn't sure what that meant, and I wasn't sure if a woman would ever consider liking a guy like me, but at that time I sure didn't mind it - she was a beautiful woman who I got along with great.

Then one night at 3AM, as we waited on her porch for the rain to stop, we looked at each other and did not look away. Neither of us had explicitly meant it, but our looks were meaningful and our smiles gave us away. Without explicit consent, with only our looks and our feelings to guide us, I told her she was beautiful, and trembling, sizzling, almost unbelieving again, reached out to touch her lips to mine.

The kissing under her porch was awesome, but it was not too long before she pulled me inside and decided to get down to the real business. We went to her couch, and she took off her pants, showing me her genitals, the first female non-baby genitals I'd ever seen in my life. She gave me such a look of playfulness lustiness I will never forget, and then she proceeded to unbuckle my belt and pull my pants down, and looked at my full-on erection. She seemed happy to see it, and began pulling my penis to dock with her vagina, right then and there. I went through all of this in a state of trance, trying to assimilate her vagina and my nakedness and what we were about to do all at once, overwhelmed with powerful sensations, too many to act in any coherent fashion - I just let myself go and did what she indicated me to.

Disappointing for her, I ejaculated after having penetrated her only once. She said "it's ok", but I guess that's just female etiquette-language to actually mean "you bastard!". Only one or two nights later, however, we again proceeded to have the sex, but this time, it was so much better. I knew what was going on, and though it was still a new experience for me, I had mentally prepared myself, and I did such a better job. I gave myself in to the experience - licked her skin, licked her clitoris, fucked her silly for as long as I could manage, and she was very happy about it afterwards.

That night I became a non-virgin, and she was quite astonished and disbelieving when I confessed that to her afterwards. We both liked the sex quite a lot, though, so we continued doing it for quite an extended period of time. I visited her every time I could manage, and during this time, my sexual self-esteem rose up to levels I had never before experienced. I now had full proof that I was likable, sexually capable, and even quite good at it. There was at least one girl with whom the entire act of sex, from the touching to the kissing to the licking to the fucking, was enjoyable on both sides.

So far, however, this has been the only piece of evidence I've had on the subject. I am now 26, and there is only a single girl I have ever had sex with. I kissed another girl more recently, and fingered another even later, but nothing all the way, and nothing that lasted more than a couple of days. I still get together with my sexual woman sometimes when I visit her (from Pittsburgh to Austin when I do), but it is not as frequent as before, and further searches for other women to do the same with have failed so far.

Although I've come a very long way ever since my total ineptness in high school and college, I think I still have a few steps to take before I can consider myself fully sexually confident. Just recently, my only sexual anchor told me that she had had sex with another guy. Our relationship is not exclusive, so I was not justified to be angry or upset at her about this. However, I was upset. Jealousy came up from inside me, Envy filled me up, and could just not stop thinking about it. For a little while. I wasn't torn and battered and completely ineffectual at doing anything else, but it hurt a little bit. And I wondered "why is that? I knew that it could and would happen... why do I feel hurt?"

She is my only sexual anchor, however. She is the only person that I have ever had sex with, and the only person that I know I can go to and expect sex from. That makes her very special, and so anything that even remotely endangers that anchor for me, and makes it possible for me to go back to a state in which I can't guarantee finding a girl to have sex with, makes me feel quite anxious and afraid.

I wrote this whole blog entry attempting to justify the negative feelings I have just described. It turned out as a fairly accurate narrative of my sexual life, and I am pretty satisfied with it. I missed out on making out with my sister, but that was just a one-time thing (unfortunately).

Anyway, I use my tragic teen years and as a young adult to justify my jealousy. That is the purpose of this blog. How can I be expected to act normally and trust on her to really continue liking me, when my attempts to be liked for over 10 years failed?

I trust and love her, but my animal instincts just fear the past. I'm sorry for being cold to you, J... I love you so much.

Love freedom

I have never ever had a love relationship that has been... normal?? If that even makes sense? The few relationships I've ever had have been secret, most have been very short, and none of them satisfactory.

I want a trusting, open, non-secret, loving, happy relationship with a girl in which I can be my own true self and achieve my full potential, and in which this girl can be and achieve her own. One from which we would both learn and grow, in happiness and in wisdom, together.

Online language

You start all of a sudden:

• hey
• <3>

I look at the messages. You only love me out of nowhere when you mean it or when you intend it to soften me. I know this time it is the latter case.

• hey
• :)
• how's it going?

No love sign from my side. Though I show you contentment, I do not reply lovingly. Hence, I let you know there is some imbalance between us. I let you know that you fucking another guy, although we have both agreed upon it, has changed my feelings for you, and I do not love you like before.

It is for naught, though, as you don't reply, and a few hours go by. Your status turns to red, which means you are doing things in the real world. I then decide to close my chat windows to either work or sleep, so I send you a thoughtful but unemotional message:

• good night

Your status turns green.

• hey :)
• <3>

"darn", I think. Love at the beginning again, confirms your willful intention.

• hey you're around (professing coolness, unbotheredness - thinly veiling my disinterest for you at the moment)
• i am now
• :P (P for Playful, Pay attention to me, "I want to have a conversation with you", "I care about you and I want to see where you're at")
• i was out earlier (I wasn't ignoring you before, I was out for a reason)
• i did this, i did that, blah blah blah... (These are my reasons. We have started talking now. Ask me about it.)
• busy night for you (I refuse to follow suit with a trivial observation with not much room for extension)
• no kidding (huh)
• are you going to bed? (don't you want to have another one of our long conversations tonight?)
• soon, yes (I don't)
• we have an experiment to run at noon (I give you a sloppy excuse that you know would not stop me if I really wanted to talk to you)
• i see (huh)
• how about you? (Polite question intended to end our conversation with an uncold, somewhat responsive feeling from my side)
• i have to put some clothes in the dryer and then get in the shower...i am waiting for wash cycle to finish (ok, I'll answer your dry question. I am trying to get on your soft side, anyway...)
• ohhhhh man that reminds me
• tonight is trash night (Yes! I found a valid excuse to leave this conversation!)
• I have to go and take out all the remaining junk from my backyard
• cabinets, wooden boards, etc... (And I tell you useless details about it to do a bad job at concealing my desire to leave)
• we'll finally have a clean backyard
• :) (Look, a smiley face. I'm happy. Not about talking to you, but I'm happy about something. Stop worrying.)
• so what happened to jodi? (Just tell me this quickly and I can take out the trash and end it there. I'll extend the conversation just a little bit longer to strengthen the lie that I'm not avoiding you)
• she just called... just a sec (no subtext)
• ok (yes!)
• I'll go take out trash now (bye!)
• I'll be about 10-20 min (I'll be longer than that, and I hope you will have fallen sleep or will be taking a shower by then)

I go outside and take out the trash. I take my time, not wanting to hurry too much. I come back 30 minutes later.

• done (hello? please don't be there)
• poor trash guys are gonna have a tough one with our trash (humorous comment that will end everything in a good note if you don't turn up)
• :P (I'm here! haha)
• no kidding (Fuck!)
• did you put your clothes in the dryer? (Throwing you a bone. Why am I so nice when I don't feel it?)
• i just got off the phone with jodi =/ (Concerned smiley means you have something to tell me)
• she called right when you logged off
• yeah you told me (I know that, you don't need to tell me that)
• i forgot :P (oops! lol! :P :P i'm cute!)
• hehe (feigning amusement)
• i was just leaving (don't you remember??)
• my night has been busy (I have stuff to tell you still)
• and you said she was calling (don't you remember??)
• oh yeah :) (oh yeah lol! :P :P)
• sure seems like it (mmhmm...)
• so what's she going through now? (just tell me this one thing and I can stop this conversation gracefully)
• can you talk? (let's talk)
• i wont keep you up late (pretty please)
• :P (I'm cute lol!)
• :) (noooooooooooooo darn! Your "pretty please" cannot be rejected without you becoming upset or disappointed, and I would be the bad guy... fuck...)
• ok (siiiiiigh. I give you my night hours to talk, I fuck you a couple of times every 3 or 4 months. What a deal.)
• let me switch (Fuck, what I do to keep you happy)

We have a webcam conversation. I act like always but dryer. I listen to you, but I don't apply much effort to changing my facial expressions as your plot develops, or to look at you all the time. It is an act of patience and self-restrain, watching you talk while I only think of ending our conversation soon. Sometimes I interest myself in your life, but tonight I simply don't care. You ask me what I did, and I list a few things. Although some of them are fairly significant to me, I list them dryly, plainly, cutting the detail to a polite minimum of which you cannot justifiably complain. I look around my room constantly, and it hints you that I want to end our conversation soon. You mention it. You're looking all around the room - if you want to end our conversation we can do that. I lie: No no, I'm just seeing if I can relate anything I see in my room to something else I can tell you. Both are true - I compromise too much between conflicting objectives sometimes. But the real truth has been spoken, and it's out there, and we both know it. It is embodied by our expectant silence. Our conversation ends soon enough, and I give her a weak "I Love You" sign without vocalization, feigning tiredness. After our video feed is off:

• <3>
• :):) (I'll tell you anything now that our conversation's sure to end. Sure, I love you. I'm happy to have talked to you, sure. I'm just glad it's over)
• <3><3><3> (You can do better than two hearts. See, I love you more. Isn't that easy?)
• i love you (Now you say it. I'm saying it, you can say it too.)

If I don't say it and close my window, I can pretend to not have seen your message, or I can pretend to not care. The former indicates my rush to get away, the latter a wound in our relationship. And replying promptly and heartily would be a plain lie. So I use time. More than a minute later:

• i love you (There. Have it. After some thought, I have decided that I love you too. Spontaneous, huh? That's true love, all right. Night.)

And my throat feel tense, pulled, as it restrains my damaging feelings from coming out from inside me and causing havoc on my Life. Jealousy, Envy, chipped Pride, Sadness, they're like toxic high-pressure gases for which my throat serves as an overused but effective valve. And now, my skills at instant messaging do that too.

And I don't care that 2 hours have passed since we ended this conversation, and my sleeping time is being used up by writing a blog entry of which I care much more about than I did about our conversation itself.