Does @super_lucky kinda suck?

Discussion Open Forum
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Within the last 24 hours, two people with modest influence in my life have told me directly that I “kinda suck”. Those exact words, approximately 12 hours apart, completely unrelated circumstances. One person could be considered a very current and good friend. The other is a former significant other on cordial terms.

The first mention of my kinda sucking came in a casual conversation, and of course, I did not dispute. It was said in a “you-know-what-I-mean” sort of way, devoid of true malice. We continued to jawbone as if the subject had never come up.

The second mention was more or less the familiar knee-jerk reaction to a slight rejection; this person called – from 8,000 miles away – at an inconvenient time and I couldn’t pick it up. I wanted to, but I couldn’t. There’s this shit over here called a job. I wasn’t on my fifth glass of Chardonnay after celebrating a child’s milestone. For a brief second I thought, “And that kind of reaction is exactly why we broke up”, but I digress.

My skin is not so thin that I can’t take a few stabs of a steak knife, so I was not offended. My ego was not bruised. I was just…a little surprised.

In either case, it made me wonder. How often am I told straight-up to my face that I’m not the fuckin’ grease-free urban squire I perceive myself to be? Clearly, two people in my life see me as inherently flawed but yet somehow still lovable. And I haven’t even mentioned my wife yet. Only Dr. Zaius knows what she thinks of me.

Over the years, many of my friends have said that I’m one of the most self-aware people they’ve ever known, but now I’m beginning to doubt. After my first friend said that I kinda sucked, I walked home later and replayed it in my head the whole way. “Man,” I thought, “I guess I didn’t realize that sometimes people think I’m a fuckin’ dick. I mean, I know I’m a fuckin’ asshole cocksucker sonofabitch when I want to be. But it appears I’m a fuckin’ dick even when I don’t want to be.”

Anyway, it’s just something to grouse over. I feel as if one of my walls of perception has been cracked, if not shattered. The thing is, I know that I could skip the “kinda” part and just go to full-on sucking at the drop of a hat. And as I said goodbye to the second person, they wrote, “Take care” and I replied, “No worries. I’m sure I’ll continue to kinda suck.” Status quo. Mediocrity. Where did that come from? Oh, yeah…I live here.

No, Taiwan is not the full extent of my universe and does not deserve the credit for my kinda sucking. I kinda sucked long before I got here. If I’m not careful, I could apply this methodology of questioning to every relationship in my life. I reckon it would be easier and better if I just said, “Yeah, everybody thinks I kinda suck.”

I wonder if that’s maybe a better way to go through the rest of my life.

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Yeah, you kinda suck. But in a nice way. Get over it, and keep on truckin’.

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Compared to most of these pigfuckers, brother @super_lucky is pretty much the love child of Ted Williams and the Dalai friggin Lama.

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Judging by the length of your post, you may be a good candidate for “talk therapy.” Then again, everybody kinda sucks. You just have to figure out how to kinda suck in a non-mediocre way, and it seems like you’re off to a promising start.

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There are days - many of them, actually - where I speak no more than 30 words. My interactions with people are limited to the girls at the cafe downstairs. “Iced coffee?” Yes, please. And then after a while I go out and meet with friends and I cannot shut. The. Fuck. Up. I have to make a conscious effort to clam it and listen. So whatever talk therapy is, I’m sure it would do me a world of good. As it is now, I go home and my wife lets me ramble for half a day and it’s out of my system. Back to being normal, I reckon.

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You being “normal”…now that would suck.

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You? No.

Me? I’d be afraid to ask that question here. Fortunately though I already know the answer.

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You got a wife?! . . . a person was willing to say she’d spend forever and ever with you?!
And people are still willing to talk to you?! Granted, “Iced coffee?” isn’t a very rewarding conversation…
YOU, Mr. Lucky, are clearly not at the extreme edge of the suckage bell curve. I say you celebrate your success because you are, indeed, SUPERLUCKY!

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I’d get booted from the brotherhood, wouldn’t I?

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I have no idea who you are…but you SUCK ! :slight_smile:

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I thought ‘suck’ was supposed to be a transitive verb. Trust the Americans to bugger around with stuff like that.

So surely the important question is, what is it that super_lucky sucks, and why is he sucking it?

Anyway, I think you’re overanalyzing this. You really only have two courses of action. If you think they’re referring to something specific and you think it’d be worth changing - you know, as a personal-growth thing or whatever the life coaches call it - then maybe you can do so. Otherwise, do nothing. I find doing nothing is often a good choice.

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Has Finley finally succumbed to the call of the Orient and converted to Buddhism?

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Thanks for the thoughtful replies so far. Even you, @tommy525 .

One of the great(er) things about the American language: Grammar is considered merely a condiment – like mayonnaise – to the overall lexical sandwich. There is rarely a point in our communication process where we* think: “Oh fuck me. I need a transitive verb here” or “That’s the wrong preposition there” cuz generally speaking the language itself is fluid and variable, which is good for thinking about things like one’s self-image; as well as expressing fairly complicated poetic dilemmas with enough clarity that even a hillbilly could understand what you’re jawbonin’ about. Please tell me this is true about all languages. I’m fluent in American; incompetent in a handful of others.

*Everybody I know, at least

Now, here @finley presents a valid and intriguing question: What is it super_lucky might be sucking?

Unfortunately, the “it” in my gob every waking moment is not a material object, but found in the act of not meeting the expectations and demands of others. In the case of my former SO, she was disappointed that I didn’t knock myself out trying to answer her call. She reckoned that if I truly cared about her, I would have picked up come hell or high water. And I suppose, with the shoe on other foot, I see the “suck” of her perspective: I suck because I let her down.

P.S. For all you Semanticats and Lexicogs: How many idioms and clichés did I use in the last paragraph? Just for fun.

Forgive me if this seems obvious but over the last few days of introspection I’ve come to think maybe it’s not really me that’s sucking, and even if it were, there isn’t much I can do about it. As I’ve gone through my routines and detours with my teeny-tiny behaviors and habits under a microscope, it seems very clear that I’m exceedingly considerate to everybody until they give me a reason not to be. And I think you could apply that statement to just about everybody I know, too.

So, what Finley has iterated here:

Otherwise, do nothing. I find doing nothing is often a good choice.

is actually one of my life mottos; and people who know me will recognize, cuz I say it all the time: When I don’t know what to do, I don’t do anything. And that’s the closest I’ll ever get to living a Zen Buddhist lifestyle. So there’s really nothing I can do, nothing I will do, that’s going to change the intransitive condition of kinda sucking.

Which brings me to another quote, this one from David Foster Wallace:

You’ll worry less what other people think about you when you realize how seldom they do.

Above all, the preceding thoughts culminate in a massive: “Eh, forget that nonsense and just get on with it.” Here’s the rub: I’ve done that for the first 40-some-odd years of my life. Every now and again, it has been important to stop and think for a minute, “What am I doing?”

Thus, it’s not so much a philosophical question as a practical inquiry; but I’m in a position where I’m allowed a tremendous amount of time to consider the fractals and co-signs of existence. Generally speaking, I tend to fill that space with music and chemical recreation.

It occurred to me at some point that I tend to forget all the times when someone says, “You rock” as opposed to “You suck.” It actually happens far more often. The thing is, no one ever says, “You kinda rock.” No, it’s, “Dude, you rock!” Humility and whatnot will not allow me to bask in the glow of a casual compliment; but one or two “You kinda suck” will wipe out a decade of “You rock.” If I’ve learned anything from this little gambit, it’s that I need to keep the latter much closer to my heart.

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Well, as my daddy used to say, “Boy, there were people who thought Jesus was an asshole, so, you know…”

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Wait…Jesus wasn’t an asshole? I thought a megalomaniac was, by definition, an asshole. What are they teaching kids in Sunday school these days?

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OK, who gave Gramps the frigging WiFi password???

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Nobody did…just a lucky guess: raccoonsdoitinthedark

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_trashpandas_doitinthedark

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bearswhowashdoitinthewater :2cents:

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I know for a fact that raccoons don’t do it in the water…they like it dirty!