Getting back into a scene you were never really a part of is a bitch. But fuck if I know how else to find new friends or whatever else.

One of the problems with the Goth-Industrial scene is, of course, the cliquish nature of it and any established club venue. In this case, Coterie knows one another through LiveJournal; new-comers who don't get plugged in are left to try things the old-fashioned way. Y'know. I tried that shit back in 2004 for a few weeks, but shit is to web blog as vomit is to vodka binge. I was all about staying true to this basically dead backwater of the Internet. I mean I've been here since mid-2001. That is saying something.

But my luck with analog-social at the Inferno has also been mixed. My first night there had all the classic signs of success. I found a sponsor--the Astrophysicist--and made a few contacts. But then Astrophysicist had chronic health problems, buggered off, and then it was Jeff and Mike. Jeff being the late 40 something plant geneticist that has not been seen since the smoking ban occurred and could well have fled to Ohio for that express purpose. Mike being the printer guy who makes drums and doesn't talk much. I always liked Jeff and Mike, but we were all clearing in the dancing crowd. Coterie does not dance. Coterie stays in the back of the club and might, for one song, deign to saunter up in its leather corsets, 6 inch vinyl boots, and multi-colored string hair accessories to one of those old favorites.

In essence, though I feel a kinship with this tribe and I dig the place, I really couldn't have picked a harder place to find some actual human-beings. There are plenty of attractive things. But I have trouble thing-ing. As much as I love pissing people off that annoy me without much self-commentary, it's entirely different to have little to no wingman support and try to insinuate oneself with anyone well-established. I mean the options are slim and, of those, I just don't know. Hill look-alike seems nice and awkward enough, but then why not just try being friends with Hill again (which'd be funny considering how often we've bumped into each other at the hospital and completely ignored each other)? I suppose there's always mustachioed guy, or perky Jewish girl, or Nathan. Someone with a degree of vivacity to otherwise lure me away from a life of work, photography, writing, and playing computer games--all fine hobbies, but all squarely not terribly social.

It's just a mixed bag. But what's the alternative? Brian D. and I ran into each other in the hall recently and he suggested a dating website.

God's balls. That is pathetic in the literally sense of engendering pathos among one's fellow humans. That would be my recognizing that there's really no realistic venue for someone my age to meet someone else, because all of my local friends are married or in long-term relationships, and their friends likewise.

It's like I got onto a train--the Emily train--around 26 and figured the ride was good and well. But somehow 3 years later it seems like I've gotten off at this train station, suitcases in hand, and subway cars just race past at record speeds, whisking up trash and detritus while some Indie band plays and the camera changes angle so my ridiculous make-up can be fixed.

I'm going to put this shit off. I have a thesis defense to prepare for. But inevitably that's going to fuck off, I'm going to have a doctorate, and I'm going to be in Madison for at least another year.

I mean Craig's List? Am I going to be 'that guy' that leaves some quixotic line of visual cocaine stretched over long, overly self-conscious paragraphs?

I have to make some sort of active effort and I have no good idea about how to do that without wingmen. With wingmen it's just tedium. Go to a bar, randomly talk to people, go back to home base, lather rinse repeat. It's entirely different when it's just you. When you're with friends, you have an established social credit because others have some valuation of you as part of their group. When you're by yourself, you're just some guy. Granted, you could with some subterfuge make it SEEM like you're going back to a group, but that is tricky.

God I don't want to date another bisexual psychotic girl younger than I am. There was that nice normal-seeming woman who asked me about the Morning Star farms product at 1am in the morning at Woodman's that one time. I thought it was weird, but that's the way people who like people do shit.

Maybe if there were some physical indicator or accessory people wore to indicate that they didn't mind random people who've fallen through the cracks to come and speak to them. I never see that happening, myself, but I guess it must or else there wouldn't be so many Men's Health articles written about it.

I'm running around in circles.

I'll worry about tying down my job and at least figuratively telling my official prof to go fuck himself off a short pier. I can then focus on re-establishing some sort of life that doesn't approximate Robin Williams in that movie where he's the photo clerk guy and just sort of sits around his apartment when his job is done.

Fuck I hate social vagaries meant to perpetuate Western ideals of independence and male rutting.

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