The Doctor is In

Many years ago I found myself in the throes of being wildly in love with a woman who would eventually not reciprocate such love, and since merely being rejected wasn't enough for a pretend man like myself I drew it out over a year of shameless babydick mewling and whining, completely debasing myself and leaving no embarrassment untouched while desperately hoping that all of a sudden I would have said love from her. Which never happened.

Luckily nobody directly after or since my unrequited love has given me the time of day, so I've had time to cool down and reflect and realize that my anger and embarrassment would be directed at myself and should in no way carry over to my next paramour, whenever it should happen. Which, I suspect, will not exactly be expedited by this post.

One thing I do know is that if immediately afterwards my rejection I had found a woman who WAS willing to love me, I'd have treated her like shit. Not because of her, and not merely because of being rejected before, but because I would've looked back on my behavior during the previous chase with extreme humiliation and rage at the castration I had given to my own manhood. So with the new girl I would've gone in the exact opposite direction, and would've been a total aloof dickhead to her (which, of course, would make her crave me even more.)

Which in part explains the Tea Party:

The Bush-Cheney presidency was, in some respects, the perfect pseudo-conservative administration. They waged war based on loathing of the experts (damned knowledgeable elites!); they slashed taxes and boosted spending for their constituencies, while pretending to be fiscally responsible; they tore up the most ancient taboos - against torture - with a bravado that will one day seem obscene; and they left the country in far worse shape than they found it.

Throughout all this, the Tea Partiers supported them. So how do they manage the cognitive dissonance that two failed wars, a financial collapse and a debt crisis have brought? How do they deal with the fact that their beloved president was manifestly the most incompetent and disastrous in modern times? They blame it on the next guy.

Yes, they are doing all they can to avoid facing the fact that they did all of this ... to themselves. And sometimes, the truly, deeply humiliated can only carry on through blind rage.