0 comments Denial's & Unrequited Love

Denial. It's something that strikes us all at one point or another. Yet it seems to hurt the most (and leaves a lasting impression) when we're denied in a romantic sense. It leads to self questioning.

Am I good enough?

What's wrong with me?

I'm ugly, aren't I?

Or creepy maybe?

et cetera

However, I believe denial is the key to truly moving on from someone. Being denied leads to crushed hopes and dreams, of course. It requires time to move on from that, of course. You may pine over the person for days, weeks, or months and years after, but you know you'll eventually move on, and probably for the better. (Though, if you're my friend named Lillian, you're probably fucked.)

Now what is “unrequited love?” We've all heard the term, I hope. Unrequited, first off, means “not returned or reciprocated.” So from that, we learn that this love isn't returned for whatever unstated (or sometimes stated) reason. Maybe the person really is ugly, creepy, etc. Or perhaps the circumstances have something to do with it.

This begs the question, though, would you rather have un-reciprocated love or would you rather never fall in love?


I would rather never love at all. It's nearly a form of torture to have your love un-reciprocated. You know what love is, you feel it vividly, yet you're powerless to do anything about it. You can't say a word to the person in fear of ruining a perfectly good friendship. You can't touch them without some sort of desire jolting through you. You can't even look at them or speak with them without remembering how much you love them.

1 comments Work, or How the Government Steals My Money

To be completely honest, my job sucks. I work as a cashier at a local, shitty store. It's a fruit market, of course. What we sell? Well, obviously, fruit, but we also carry an array of other bizarre items. What does this bring in? An array of customers. And what does that mean? They're all fucking weird.

Weird customers? Golly galoshes, Ripley, that must be exciting!!

Frankly, it isn't. I've been yelled at in Russian, Japanese, Chinese, Arabic, Hindi, et cetera. For doing my god damned job. Is there something morally wrong with being a cashier that I should know about? Did they see me smoking outside and are worried about my health? Did I accidentally run a puppy over on my way to work? (If I did, I don't remember.) But honestly, why? It is rarely ever the cashier's fault. Really, it isn't. We just fucking beep things across glass all day.

Then, besides the weird customers, there are the overly emotional ones that need to tell you about how their lives are terrible. When I ask, "Hey there! How're you doing today?" with a fake smile plastered to my face, I really mean, "Sup, throw your shit on the belt, tell me you're fine and get out real quick-like." I don't want you to bitch about how your mother, sister, or cat is in the hospital. Or how much it sucks to be old.

I don't care, for the most part. Tough shit, there's worse things in life.

Next time, let's explore empathy, or Ripley's lack thereof.

0 comments Comic #4 Rejection

0 comments The Writer or the Elephant?

Life is a constant struggle of choices; some easy while others exemplify a confounding variety. Suppose you’re presented with the choice of cake. You open up the fridge, and you gander over yonder towards a delicious cheese cake sitting right there on the second shelf. Observe the Oreo crust and how it elegantly decorates the chocolate cheesecake flavor with its crumby goodness. One side of you, the elephant side, says, “I’m going to devour this entire fucking platter,” while the other side of you, the writer side, says, “I’ll only take one slice from this cake.” Which one takes hold of you? Which one wins in this incredibly confounding dilemma?

We must first take a look at both sides of this argument. The writer represents the voice of reason in your tiny noggin, while the elephant represents your animalistic urges and feelings. These two forces govern all of our actions on a day-to-day basis in our lives. It is often difficult to discern between the two. More often than not, the elephant is confused for the writer. When you eat the entire cheesecake in the fridge, the elephant has taken hold while the writer tries to excuse the action after the fact. Because the writer has excused the action, we think that it was the writer’s choice to eat the cake. In reality, it was the elephant that wanted the cake, because it’s a big monster that loves sweets.

For difficult conundrums where you’re unsure as to which force controls which, a good rule of thumb is that if the action in question is illogical or backed with little to no reason, then the action is being governed by nothing but feeling, nothing but the elephant. The question is really this: Will you let reason control feeling or let feeling control reason?

But why does all of this matter? Why should you be concerned with any of this? What matters is if you are happy with your choices.

0 comments The Toll of Romance

How far does one go forward with a romantic relationship when their partner has established a second romantic relationship with another? The implication with this question here is that the second romance was permitted by the first but doesn’t necessarily mean it’s desirable. It’s essentially a question of tolerance before one snaps and maims inanimate objects. These are very specific circumstances but the answer remains the same for many questions dealing with “how far does one go” with regards to romantic relationships: it all depends on the established boundaries that have been agreed upon by both partners.

But the problem with many relationships is the lack of established boundaries. Or perhaps the lack of respect for said boundaries. It’s one of these two, I’m sure of it.