A strange observation

Was just thinking earlier, and came across an odd thought: my reaction to other people talking about sex is drastically different from one person to the next.




Now, I'm definitely a bit different from the average person (and very different from the common stereotype of how the average guy is) when it comes to this sort of thing in the first place, considering that I need to actually get to know people before I can become attracted to them, and even when that happens, the physical aspect of it is usually the absolute last thing to get involved.  So in case you weren't already aware -- my eyes are not automatically drawn to boobs and butts every time someone passes, I do not actually think about sex every seven minutes (heck, it's probably not even every seven hours on a typical day... there've probably been times where it wasn't even every seven days!), I don't immediately form opinions on someone's appearance upon my first glance of them (and when, or if, those opinions do develop... they're anything but "set in stone," liable to shift around a whole lot depending on how well I get to know someone and how often I see/talk to them and who knows how many other things), I'm not hung up on a specific body type or anything along those lines, and so on.


But anyway, on to what I was actually going to write about before I got sidetracked a bit.  When other people talk about sex, my reaction to it seems to vary wildly.  Some people? Even the vaguest mention is uncomfortable, sometimes even bordering on creepy, even if nothing that's even remotely creepy was said.  A random Facebook comment implying something sexual (or even not-quite-sexual-but-very-close) or an offhand sexual joke might be enough to make me wish I hadn't scrolled so far down the page.  An outright mention of that some people's sex lives (or even acknowledgement that they have one at all) just feels "icky."

But with other people? Even when things are said that probably WOULD make me uncomfortable (or at least very slightly embarrassed) in public, there's no uncomfortableness and certainly not any creepiness.  Vague mentions are okay, dirty jokes are okay, stories about stuff that happened in the past as part of some previous relationship they were in are okay, even if they end up talking about specific things that I actually do find to be "icky" or going into a little more detail than I'd want to be talking about in a public place... it seems like basically nothing bothers me when some people say it.  Or at the worst, there might be an occasional "ouch" or "ew" sort of reaction, not the creepy, uncomfortable sort of feeling that I get other times.  It's not an "ouch/ew" that makes me want to change the subject, just a normal reaction to what's being said.  On rare occasions there might be just a tiny bit of uncomfortableness, but it's so brief and so minor that whatever was said doesn't ever get to the point of "okay, I would be better off having never heard that."

I wondered for a second if it might have something to do with me having some sort of strong feelings for the person saying the thing or not, like if I'm not as close to someone it'd be more uncomfortable while if I've known them for a while and feel more comfortable with them in general it'd be less so.  Doesn't seem to be the case, though, looking back at a few specific "I wish I hadn't just heard/read that" moments -- several of the ones that bugged me the worst were actually vague mentions or jokes in Facebook comments from people I knew pretty well and had some degree of feelings for at the time.

About the only consistent thing is that "hurr hurr, so-and-so's hot" kinds of comments always creep me out at least a little.  Partly to do with the use of "hot," I'm sure, since that particular word has always come across as creepy to me.  Pretty much whenever it's a guy bringing up sexual stuff, it comes across as at least a little uncomfortable and/or creepy -- probably because of how society encourages the "hurr hurr, she's hot" sort of commentary from guys more than girls, along with encouraging (or, at best, not discouraging) them to go along with basically every other kind of creepy or assholish behavior when it comes to sexual stuff.  Also, whenever something comes across as bragging about something the person did (also common to the times I've been unfortunate enough to overhear guys talk about this kind of stuff), or bashing on people they were previously involved with, or talk about a person as if the sexual things they did were the only good thing about that person and/or the only reason they were involved with that person to begin with... those tend to bug me a lot also.
But when it's just like... someone telling me about things that happened in their past, with no creepy bragging/bashing sorts of comments, just describing what happened (sometimes vaguely, sometimes in more detail)... then it doesn't bug me, even when it gets into the range of things I honestly didn't want to know, and things I pretty much never would've asked about or brought up.  But some people are able to bring those sorts of things up without creeping me out in the process, somehow.  I'm still not sure what it is, but I'm wondering if maybe it has something to do with the degree of... I guess respectfulness?... involved.  Like, if someone tells me about some random sexual thing that happened in a past relationship... if it comes across as the sort of thing I'd overhear the douchey kids hurring and durring back and forth to each other in high school (creepy bragging, bashing on past sex partners as if the way they did sex things somehow reflects on their worth as a person, etc.) then it bothers me.  If it's just like "hey, here's a thing that happened in my life, I'm going to tell you about it in as non-creepy a way possible" then it doesn't.

Like I said, this isn't a subject that comes up often for me, so this post pretty much took several years worth of random conversations with various people (and unfortunately overheard conversations, and random Facebook comments I stumbled across...) to get to a point where I might be able to figure out what's going on.  But the thought stuck in my head, so I had to write it down, pretty much.

Wow... I've gotten *really* bad at regularly updating this thing, huh?

Yeah... 5 months since my last post on here.  Oof.  I don't think I've ever gone that long between posts before.  I guess there just hasn't been a lot going on for me as far as "real life" goes -- it's all been just going to my job and working on various stuff on the computer, for the most part.  I don't see friends nearly as often as I'd like, and it's a really depressing thought that so many of them are going to vanish after this semester is over (and even more within the year or so after that.)  I've gotten to see several people recently, but it still never quite seems like "enough," especially when there's still so many friends I really want to see but I never really get the chance to.  I hope I'll be able to keep in touch with people better than I have up to this point... not hearing from people for months at a time is pretty awful (and seems even worse when they're people I could easily just walk over and visit!) and I'd really rather avoid that in the future if at all possible.

Anyway... job has been going okay for the most part.  I've made some progress toward finishing those training videos I need to get done before my pay can get bumped up to $8.00 an hour (it's at $7.50 an hour right now), I think I only have one video left to go now... though it is the longest of them, supposedly in the range of an hour and a half.  I'm kind of dreading summer, though, after hearing about how insanely hot it gets in that store when it's very warm outside.  Hearing that it sometimes gets into the freaking 90s inside during the summer almost makes me glad that my hours will be shorter over the summer... I'm definitely going to have to start applying to other jobs soon, specifically jobs at places that actually use their freaking air conditioner rather than setting it to 78 which... doesn't actually cool the place down that much, especially with all the heat blasting out from the oven and the pizza-heating racks.  I mean, it's an improvement over 80-82 that it would get up to without the AC on at all, but still not great, and apparently when it's really hot outside even turning the AC on is not enough to keep it within "actually a tolerable indoor temperature" range.  95 degrees is not within that range... heck, 95 isn't even tolerable when you're outside unless you're in a swimming pool or something.  And apparently when the AC broke last year, it got up to 115 degrees inside.  And stayed that way for months because it took them forever to get someone to fix it.  Yeah, if that happens I'm going to have to find somewhere else to work because I'm pretty sure I would be in actual danger if I tried to work in those conditions (even the 90s might be in "Eddie is in danger of overheating and dying" range, really, considering how bad that one day of 80-82 degree temperatures in there was for me.)  I've got an application for Subway, but I'm going to have to check the place out a little more and find out how they do their air conditioning (I'm assuming it'll be saner than what Papa John's does, considering that Subway has indoor seating) -- I don't want to have two jobs where I'll be roasting alive all summer, after all.  I'm actually seriously considering giving Wal-Mart a look, since I know they keep it pretty cool in there... I've heard Wal-Mart isn't too fun to work for, but this is going to be a summer job rather than something long-term so if it sucks I can always quit when my Papa John's hours start going up again when the college students come back in the flal. XD

The warmer weather hasn't been all bad, though (it's actually been pretty nice aside from work-related complications!)... I've been going on walks a lot more often lately, sometimes more than once in the same day when I'm off from work.  I had already explored Buena Vista from one end to the other (walking all the way up to Food Lion in one direction, and way out past city limits to the "old fences and grassy fields" range in the other), and I'm pretty sure the flood wall is pretty much the far end of Buena Vista on that side, but now I've walked up to what may be the highest point in town.  And I took some pictures, which I'll post here now:

Source of all water in BV that doesn't come from the Maury, perhaps? XD

Most contradictory signs ever.  KEEP OUT, STOP, WELCOME!

The view from the top of Buena Vista.

Oh, and back in February I made another OHRRPGCE game -- this time one based on Teekee, that fat, goofy gray stripey cat who's currently living back at my mom's house.  The game isn't finished but it is playable and even beatable, since it's going to have multiple story branches with different endings when it's done (currently only one is reachable... not counting a couple of "bad ending" possibilities, anyway.)  It was made for one of Slime Salad's many OHRRPGCE game-making contests, and came in second place (though I get the feeling that if one specific voter hadn't put the game at the bottom of his votes solely for "I was too lazy and/or not-smart to figure out how to get past this point" reasons I would've won.  Heck, I would've tied for first place if I had switched my own votes around slightly.)  Here's some screenshots:

No random encounters -- Earthbound/Mario RPG-style wandering enemies instead!

Obligatory in-battle screenshot.  Teekee vs. the dreaded demon-beetles. XD

The Big Humpty Star nose-vacuuming Crocowilliam.

Hmm, what's that mysterious stone arch here for?

A cat's take on human toilets.

I've also been drawing more stuff than usual lately, as you've seen if you've been looking at my Facebook uploads... or my other blog... or my Deviantart account.  Yeah, I put stuff all over the place now. XD  And here's one more place, though I'll only be posting one picture this time... I actually painted something for the first time in months recently!

That's the girl with the fish-sword that I came up with a couple years back, except now she's actually colored in (the original drawing was black-and-white... and I had no idea what kind of color scheme to give her.  Whoops. XD  Thankfully, my first attempt actually turned out really well!)

And I've also continued trying different kinds of beer.  Yep, this is the point where some of my Mormon friends may want to tune out, so I've conveniently plunked the beer portion of this post behind a thingie you have to click on to expand it if you're reading this from my main blog page! If that thingie doesn't work, well, this is the last bit before I start talking about beer, so if you don't want to read about beer, pretend the post ends here. XD

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