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PaperclipPerfector
2mo ago
(text post)
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Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.
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Notes -
(Continuing from where the last story left off)
Having just recovered from what can only be described as an aggressive campaign by my GI tract against all forms of edible life, I found myself with an unexpected Friday off. This was not a calculated decision for wellness and recovery, but a tactical surrender to the combined forces of food poisoning and hangover. The first thing I did upon waking was wage a successful war against my phone’s alarm system. Victory was swift. I then slept until six in the evening, only to discover that, as far as my body was concerned, the hangover was less an acute state and more a permanent lifestyle.
This left me with a familiar question: what does one do with a day that refuses to start, and a body that has redefined "functionally alive" to mean “capable of opening WhatsApp”? The answer, apparently, is text your new powerlifter friend, whom you met in a haze of alcohol and mutual poor decision-making just the night before. He, too, had embraced a morning of sloth and self-pity. He recommended the time-honored remedy of "more booze." I believe the local term of art is "hair of the dog".
He claimed to have already started the treatment plan. Would I care to join? Yes. There was, after all, a new leather jacket to debut. It weighed more than most emotional baggage and cost about as much as a therapy session, but it increased my Swagger stat by at least two standard deviations. You have to justify these things somehow.
Small Scottish City is not actually small, at least on foot, but it is a city, and it is Scottish, and the terrain tends to punish the hungover and the unathletic. The bar my friend chose was in unfamiliar, steep territory. He mentioned a friend would be playing music there, and that more friends (possibly interesting, possibly female, possibly single) would join. In my experience, this is exactly the sort of event that is either a highlight reel or a cautionary tale, and I had come prepared for both.
Catching up with the powerlifter was a slow process, mostly because he couldn’t recall much from the previous night beyond waking up surrounded by pizza boxes and a significant loss of funds. I told him about oud recent misadventures. We both agreed to make the same mistakes, but in a new bar, with the same reckless optimism.
I had been warned the bar was “seedy,” but in my experience, this just means "affordable." The main thing decrepit about it turned out to be the music system. The musician, a cheerful older man, cycled rapidly through the five stages of grief when the PA failed to cooperate. My friend offered to fix it, but only if compensated. Apparently, IT professionals, like bartenders and taxi drivers, develop immunity to charitable requests. I took notes, and proceeded not to read them.
Meanwhile, I tried to cheer up the musician by offering to buy him a drink. He went for lemonade and explained he was now medically prohibited from participating in the more reckless forms of Scottish culture. He had some excellent stories, though, and enough idiomatic Scottish phrases to warrant a glossary. The one that stuck with me: “I’d rather shit in my hands and clap.” There is no situation in psychiatry of old age this phrase cannot improve.
The musician also informed me that he had written a book. I got excited until I realized it was a wildly overpriced PhD thesis, and his advice was not to buy it unless I could find it on LibGen. (A man of culture, clearly.)
After a while, we were joined by two women: friends of the powerlifter. One of them had driven all the way down from the northern wilds of Scotland, which I assume means a land where even the sheep have drinking problems. Both were attractive, but since my powerlifter friend had granted me entry into his circle, I resolved to be a good wingman. Besides, on a previous occasion he had essentially told me that if I wanted to date a girl who bites people in pubs, he’d support my decision while enjoying the spectacle from a safe distance.
This time, he seemed interested in the woman from up north, leaving the other - shorter and more flirtatious - free to focus on me. Somehow, the table got to talking about height, as one inevitably does in Scotland after three drinks. My friend is shorter than me and made it clear he is acutely aware of this. I did my best to build him up, assuring everyone he could easily bench press me, throw me out a window, or perform any number of feats generally reserved for Greek myth. The short woman insisted she was over five feet tall, but this seemed more a statement of faith than fact. Later, when we were alone, she asked my height, and I, like a true son of modernity, lied by a single inch. I had literally zero reason to actually do this, I was just feeling cheeky. She accepted this. Women, it turns out, are used to the metric inflationary pressures in the global height economy. Or perhaps exes have conditioned them to be very bad at eyeballing six feet or six inches.
There was more banter. She told me I was funny, for the third time, which is woman code for "I am considering you as a possible mate or, failing that, a court jester." I replied that if I couldn't be handsome, I could at least be humorous. She insisted I was both, but I am quite sure the jacket deserved most of the credit.
Darts was proposed. I had never played, but when half the players are two drunk women, even mediocrity feels like a professional achievement.
Plans shifted, as they do, and we prepared to relocate to the short woman’s place to deplete the tall woman’s trunk of alcohol. Just as this was agreed upon, the tall woman decided she wanted to go clubbing. This was received about as well as a proposal to switch to Diet Irn-Bru. She would not be dissuaded, so into a cab we went (thankfully, one cannot help but be suspicious of Scottish drivers with strong views about drink-driving).
On the way, the tall woman began furiously calling someone. Her friend groaned. “Why are you calling him?” she asked. The tall woman claimed it was just to tell him to "fuck off," and that she was done with him. Even with only two hours’ acquaintance, I could tell this was a lie. But it was not my business. Yet.
The man didn’t pick up, so we arrived at the club undisturbed. I could describe the nightclub, but if you have ever been to one, you already know what it looked like: loud, generic, with the only local variation being the price of watered-down lager. I did get in trouble for using a communal deodorant spray in the men’s toilet without paying the attendant. I genuinely didn’t know that was a thing. I always assumed those were for emergencies, like fire extinguishers.
Some men hit on our group, but the women handled it, and I was left to the dignified task of stealing fries from a drunk man who was too busy trying to impress them to care. You take your victories where you can.
Finally, we decamped to the flat. It was a pleasant enough space, and after some more drinking, drama re-emerged. The tall woman was still calling her ex, and her friend was getting increasingly annoyed, pointing out (not unreasonably) that this was neither new behavior nor compatible with the stated goals of “a girls’ night out.” The short one eventually sulked off to the kitchen. The powerlifter followed, in an apparent bid to mediate. This left me alone with the tall(er) woman, who vented at me with increasing force. I attempted some very basic therapy, suggesting that if she didn’t love herself, it would be hard for others to do so. This backfired in spectacular fashion, producing a total meltdown and forcing me to fetch her friend for backup.
Suddenly, we heard a door slam. The short woman came back in, downed her drink, and slammed the glass so hard it shattered. I helped clean up, and she explained that her friend did this every time: dramatic fights, impulsive driving, repeated entanglements with a man who was, by all accounts, a walking red flag. A diagnosis of "BPD" was disclosed. I considered hiding the kitchen knives.
I finally asked if we should go after her friend. The answer: not especially, but if I wanted to, nobody would stop me. I went outside, found the tall woman in her car with the engine running, and knocked. She let me in. I spent the next ten minutes listening to a monologue about abandonment, her ex, her daughter, and the universe’s indifference. I tried to gently suggest alternatives to driving home drunk or sitting in a running car alone. She asked me to step out so she could make a call, and I took the chance to text the others that she probably wasn’t leaving.
As I was returning to the car, a man appeared, presumably the ex. I made a quick executive decision to stop being involved, and returned to the flat. Upon reporting these developments, everyone agreed the drama was now out of our jurisdiction. We watched from the window as she walked off with the man, and the short woman launched into a tirade about her friend’s long history of destructive choices: cheating, boundary violations, family conflict, and general chaos. She'd even fucked this guy in her flat, in her bed, and without being so kind as to ask for permission. Her own daughter? There was no way in hell that she'd ever let the men in her life affect them so. I noticed the bag of cocaine she was holding had gotten much lighter. I resolved not to ask questions, including about where her own daughter was at present.
My powerlifter friend made his move. With only one woman left in the flat, something had to give. I, declined with grace, and found companionship with her cat, a beautiful creature who ignored him all night and snuggled up to me. Sometimes you just have to take the wins where you find them.
At some point I passed out on the couch, cab calling plans derailed by fatigue and alcohol. I woke up, checked the time, and discovered it was now deep into Saturday. The flat was eerily quiet, but evidence of human occupation remained: clothing scattered about, and, crucially, a phone not belonging to me. Nobody in 2025 leaves a phone behind voluntarily.
On my way to the bathroom, I heard whispers from the bedroom. My friend emerged, shirt half-buttoned. We exchanged the ritual fist-bump. I asked if the night had been successful. He sighed, said that whiskey dick had struck again. I told him he should have asked for help, I always keep a contingency plan for just such emergencies. The only war wound was a scratch, which he attributed to the cat, not his partner.
We agreed that the only way to recover from this hangover was to continue drinking, but by this point I was beginning to suspect that the Scottish are a separate species, capable of metabolizing alcohol at rates that would kill lesser men. A single beer in, I was done, and stumbled home, crashed, and only now, two days later, do I feel human again.
I resolve to embrace sobriety for the rest of the week. I also resolve to abstain from women, at least until my jacket’s powers recharge.
Or until the next text message. These things never last.
God, I find woman like this grossly unnatractive. If a girl is drug adjacent, and doesn't have her life in order, its a No.
I know it's partly a nice guy ism, but skanks are not capable of consenting to me. We're just not in the same ballpark of decision making capacity or agency.
Their brains are so contorted, with all their little pathologies vying for attention that it makes me complicit in engaging merely because I'm aware.
If I've known them for longer then maybe, but that's only after I've established a connection to all the disparate parts of their unstable personality and I myself have had my agency reduced by the powerful emotional force of time+proximity.
I don't begrudge most other men for "tapping that" but only if they are either unaware of how broken that person is or they themselves are psychologically compromised.
Either you're a big enough manwhore to drown out short memories of woman or those spiritual scars are going to stick with you.
Knowingly canoodling with "a bad idea" is weak. Just jerk off (without porn) before going out. Your too old and experienced to be bed post notch maxing. It's your job dealing with these people, surely that makes it worse somehow.
Aside from that. Great series of posts! You have really struck gold with the "Indian immigrant goes to Scottish gay bar" device. For the television mini series adaption I would make your character have a bleak and empty social life outside the new friends he's made at the bar, while he's grappling with moving back to India due to family pressure of his arranged marriage. Grueling grey work and a cold damp Appartment contrasts with the warm sunny flashbacks of his native home.
The episode structure is the immigrants refreshing non judgemental curiosity of the absurd and colourful characters leading him to learn parts about them no one else bothered to because they couldn't look past their larger than life personalities. At the end of each episode the Indian immigrant gives an impromptu therapy session, leading the subject of the episode resolving some deep issue they had been carrying with them.
Add some bitter struggles with casual racism, and you have all the right ingredients for a BBC dramedy. In my head you look like a young Jason Mantzoukas. Would be Kino casting.
The shorter lady seemed mostly sane! Maybe I'm grading on a curve, but heavy drinking and the consumption of coke.. That is a description that fits probably >70% of men, women, children and pensioners in Scotland.
She actually does seem to have her life mostly together. The apartment was clean and had a feminine touch (better than mine). She waited till getting home before getting sloshed. She's back in uni, finishing up a sensible degree. I later learned that her own daughter was sent over to stay with family that weekend, which is honestly the least anyone should do if they're not settled adults and partying this hard. She had her daughter a long time back, and clearly cared about her.
The taller one? I can't really condone her behavior. Incredibly self-destructive, and worse than self-destruction, a threat to the sanity of the people who are around her.
You and me both. The worst is when they're good at hiding their flaws. An ex of mine probably has BPD too, but she never did anything as outright insane as what I witnessed tonight. It was easy to get attached and imagine a life together.
I am a hopeless romantic, who pretends cynicism and detachment because it makes him seem cooler. I've been badly hurt before, and even watching these train wrecks unfold causes me mild psychic damage. But that's just... dating? Life? There's no service for vetted, sane sexual and romantic partners. You run into one you think meets the bill, and you hold on for dear life.
I must defend myself. I had never met these women before. When I went out to hang, I didn't even know for a fact that there would be women involved. Once I had met them, they initially seemed normal, by Western standards.
It is hard being an immigrant in a foreign land, without friends and family at hand. My colleagues tend to be older, with kids and pensions to worry about. For a long time, I didn't really do nights out or seek an active social life. You're seeing the early days of a recovery, when I don't quite know the people or the city. Hopefully, once I have a more established social network, I can afford to be picky about those I hang out with.
Shit. You've got me pinned like a butterfly to a napkin, using sharpened chopsticks. I am not quite nostalgic about India, I just miss my family, my friends and my dogs, but I do wish for better weather.
I have been slacking on getting my CBT experience signed off on. However, I think my bosses would shoot me if I submitted case reports from the pub.
Fortunately, the casual racism has been a very small component of my life. My new powerlifting buddy might well count, but even he thinks I'm "one of the good ones" or "surprisingly non-horny for an Indian". Yeah.. I actually can't disagree with that, and not just because it's somewhat flattering. A lot of Indian men in the West were starved for feminine contact their entire life, and now go hog wild because the same constraints aren't placed upon them, while having optimistic notions of how "easy" Western women are.
I do not think I am quite as handsome as you envision, but at least I'm not breaking mirrors when I look at them. The BBC has cast worse. Thank you nonetheless!
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