Dramatis Personae: The Post I Most Don't Want to Write

[As always, see the DISCLAIMER].

This is the post I am most loath to write. Seriously, I'd rather write about my masturbation fantasies than write about this. I'd rather write about my suicide attempts. I'd rather write about all the girls I've pretended to not be interested in. But...strangely, I don’t even remember why it was that I realized yesterday that this was a necessary addition to dramatis personae. I'm going to assume I was right.

It may be only the meta, actually. It may base itself in the fact that this is, possibly, the fact I least want to address. It's all the stranger because it's not exactly a dark truth, just an uncomfortable one. Years ago, I was a regular columnist for a gaming website, like back in the pre-blog days when something like that was arguably important. In fact, that writing (along with other writing opportunities created by that one) are the only time I've made money from writing.

It gets better than that, actually, in that some of the money was a payout when the website was sold. Ergo, yours truly actually earned cash as part of the 90s' lets-sell-our-free-website-for-millions business. I'm strangely proud of this. It's like I got to attend the concert before the band got big. The other odd quirk is that a column from another website – in which I was actually sort of pulling a Sokal (if it had been run when it was supposed to) – I once found cited in an academic paper. Like, for actual content.

I stopped after a column that had something to do with homosexuality turned out very unpopular and contentious. It's the old story: try to stir up the pot and no one notices, but write something that's intended to be, frankly, disposable filler and create a firestorm. It was strange. After – okay, I write about it now, it comes out as some grand conscience act. It wasn't. Seriously, I tied this denial up so thick that I don't even remember how I rationalized it away. But after all that talk of my courting contention, of wanting to be noticed and cause trouble, when it happened, I backed down. I didn't just back down, I expunged my on-line existence. I didn't have to do anything to accomplish this. I just had to not do anything, to not respond to anyone who asked about what I was up to or what I was doing. And in that, I faded away like MacArthur.

I even managed to completely forget about it, until someone, abi_dierecte I think, accidentally reminded me of it. I can't bring myself to look at it. I can't even bring myself to go back to the website because of it.

It's still out there on the web. (The website, now back in the hands of the original owners, is bigger than ever). It's one of the first series of hits under a certain version of my name. I find that creepy. It's like a bad analogy, which is the analogy I always use when I can't come up with a good analogy. Sure, the writing is embarrassing, but that's the nature of any old writing. I'm sure that I'll be embarrassed by what I'm writing today in ten years time, (God willing that I'm still alive), even if other parts of it astound and impress me. That remains one of, if not the best, feeling in the world, when there's enough distance between you and a piece of work that reviewing it is a total rediscovery. You can always be more mature.

But it's different than that. It's secret, somehow, because it's secret. I mean, I can't really think of why it is so important to me to disassociate myself from it so much, except that I want disassociation from it. If I had to guess, it's that it represents a hope for me that I'd rather not have hanging about. It's one thing to just be a failure, it's a wholly different one to fail.

And this only mythologizes the fact, and makes it worse. I didn't fail. It was something I did. There was no winning or losing. I didn't get kicked out or lose. I just stopped.

That may be why I'm so loath to connect myself to it. There's no story. There's only me, giving in to an imaginary foe. Only me, feeling a failure after the mildest of pressure. It has the feel of something that should be a dramatic and interesting story, though.

Of course, that's another reason why it might be the post I don't want to write: it's a total fucking bore. I suppose, if I had to put a name to it, it's when I realized I wasn't going to be important. No, not that I'm unimportant, but I think we all have a point in our lives when we realize that we're not the hero, we're not the rock star. We're not even in the crowd scene. We're not even in the audience. We're on our way back from work, not even having heard that the show is going on. Of course, there are those of us who do not have this thought, which begs the question of whether it's the thought that produces the ignominy or vice versa. I don't belabor that one.

I'd say that it marks the point where I stopped writing to any degree, except that's not perfectly true. Then again, maybe it is more true that not. I mean, note that (outside of the occasional challenge), that's the only fictionslamming story I've posted. I have to admit I put it together to see if I could earn acceptance to a rating community (though, really, that's incredibly dismissive of fictionslamming, which is frequently a very attentive and insightful writer's group). I've accomplished fragments since then, though.

The analogy that seems to want to leap out is the ex-girlfriend, but that's not right. It's more like finding yourself dead on the floor.