The “One Behind” Club

Come on in, we got a seat waiting for ya.

Back in 1993, I worked for a school crew that poured urethane on gym floors for the district high schools and junior highs. It was a summer job for me, a way to earn money to go towards the next semester’s tuition. I was the only college kid on this crew of about 5. The rest were high school kids making some money to blow on booze or weed, or both. There was a supervisor over this crew of dipshits, and his name was Richard. Richard was about 35 at the time. He was dour, sour, scowled a whole bunch, called us dipshits and retards, and was a most unpleasant fellow to be around.

One day, right as we were about to take lunch in this sweltering gymnasium, I remember that I was talking with the high school retards, and we were talking about our favorite subject: Pussy.

I remember telling them something along the lines of how I turned down “some chick” because of reasons. I thought I was “smart” and that I was “cool.”

Now our supervisor, Richard, had already begun his lunch. He was eating a bologna sandwich and some chips and shit. He overheard our conversation and he stopped eating, looked up at us, looked me dead in the eye, and said, “Never turn down pussy.” He scowled and sneered as he said it.

“Why not?” I said.

Because you’ll always be one behind.” And with that, Richard went back to scowling and eating his bologna sandwich.

At the time I was 21 and thought I knew it all. The truth was, I had no idea what Richard was talking about. It took me until I was about 35 to understand what he meant.

You’ll always be one behind.

I don’t regret the money I didn’t make, I don’t regret the jobs I didn’t take, and I don’t regret the places I haven’t visited. What I regret, what still haunts me to this very day, is the women that I didn’t bang because I was naive, stupid, or both.

I’m not talking about the women that I made a pass at and they told me in one form or another, “thank you, but no thank you.” I’m talking about the women, who in some cases, told me point-blank, that they wanted to fuck me. And stupid me, I didn’t get the message until it was much too late. Too late to take them up on their offer. Too late to say, “Let’s go.” Too late to have another chance because that chance was gone forever.

That’s what I regret.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t dwell on it and I certainly don’t beat myself up over it, but it is my one and only regret. Like I said, I don’t regret the one’s that said no, I don’t regret lost job and money opportunities, and I don’t regret the places I haven’t been to. But I do regret not fucking those women when I had the chance.

I was talking with Swurv, Dante, Mish, Marty, and I think Jack Napier was still there too when “The One Behind Club” came up in our conversation. Don’t ask me how exactly it came up, but it did. All the guys had a gut, visceral reaction when I said it and what it was. All of them paused when I told them what Richard told me so long ago. All of them belong to The One Behind Club. It’s how Dante’s discord server got a name change.

I decided to write this post and hopefully you guys will see it and unfortunately, I’m sure far too many of you will relate to it. Far too many of you will be members of the One Behind Club. Can you “fix it?” No. If you passed up on a sure thing, a sure lay, you’re always going to be one behind. But learn from it. Don’t pass up on a good time again.

I have had a lot of sex with a lot of different women over the years and not one of them was “bad.” It’s like pizza. There’s no such thing as “bad pizza.” Just some better than others. Same with sex. I’ve never had a bad sexual experience, just some better than others.

You want to pass up a sure thing because of your morals, virtues, or something that someone else told you was “the way to go,” you will always be one behind. And trust me, you’ll think about it at some point, and you’ll regret it. Even if you never say it out loud to another human being, you’ll still regret it. You’ll always wonder. And it’s that wonder that becomes an itch that you can never quite reach, you can never scratch.

The Guilded Cage

Jack Donovan wrote about the Empire of Nothing in his books, The Way of Men, Becoming A Barbarian, and A More Complete Beast. And indeed we live in the Empire of Nothing. We live in a guilded cage.

If you live in the West, you live in a guilded cage. Sorry, not sorry, but it’s true. Unless you want to “ex-patriate,” give up your citizenship, and basically never come back, you live in a guilded cage. The United States of America is one the countries that require you, as a U.S. citizen to pay your taxes to Uncle Sam, even if you live in another part of the world, earning a living in a different currency. Tell me again how “living abroad” is so freeing, bro.

The truth is, if you live in the West, you have always lived in a guilded cage, from the time that you were born.

Something financially came up for me recently and I’ll be able to pay off my mortgage. I will officially be a home owner. Except I won’t. Sure, the bank won’t be able to come after me, but the One True God, the State, still can.

If I don’t stay current on my property taxes, the State can come in and seize my home, my property. It’s been that way for as long as I have been alive.

You can “squat” on “public” property and get away with it for awhile. You might even be able to pull it off in private sectors as well, but in the end, the State can and will eventually show up with force, since it has the monopoly on violence, and it will remove you from that property. Let me know how that works out for you, bro.

And it’s been this way ever since I have been alive.

Welcome to the guilded cage.

Now I might sound a little bitter about this, and if I’m being completely honest, I am a little bitter. But there is nothing I can do about it except accept it. I truly don’t “own” my property, none of it really. Not even the vehicles and “toys” I have purchased over the years. If I want to continue driving my car and motorcycles without the State impounding them, I have to keep the registration on each of those vehicles current. Welcome to the guilded cage.

You were born in a guilded cage and if you stay here, at least in the West, you will die in a guilded cage. I honestly can’t imagine that it is any better in any other part of the world. Sure I might actually be able to own some dirt in a third world shithole somewhere, but I’m trading dirt for something else. It might be something like being able to criticize the government without fear of retribution from the government. I might be able to own a patch of dirt somewhere else in the world, where I could pass it down through the generations, but good luck in having plumbing and clean, drinkable water.

I find it amusing when people squabble online about “property rights and ownership.” You don’t own it and you never truly will. Property taxes. Keep that in mind. Don’t pay your taxes and tell me how that ultimately works out for you, bro.

With all of that being said, living in a guilded cage isn’t terrible. I have clean, drinkable water. Consistent electricity. I can run my mouth here online as long as I don’t call a bundle of sticks a bundle of sticks. Even then I can do that as long as I don’t target a specific person. I can’t really complain to be honest.

Like Jack Donovan said, and I’m paraphrasing here, “You live in the Empire of Nothing and there is nowhere to go. You can’t escape it. So carve out your life inside of it. Do what works for you and thrive from within.” Like I said, paraphrasing. Everything else is irrelevant.

This is why I don’t get caught up in outrage anymore. I can’t do anything about it, and honestly it has no direct impact on my meager, little life, so who cares? Why bother? Life is too short.

Besides, most of the bullshit you see online is only happening online. I go outside into the real world and the great majority of people out there didn’t get the memo that we are all going to die any day now and that men and women should be and are hating one another.

So while you are arguing about “muh freedom,” realize that you have never been truly free, ever. Not for at least 70 years or more. You have been living in a guilded cage.

And honestly, do you think you could truly survive in a world where you had to be totally accountable for yourself, your health, and your safety? You think you could be truly self-reliant?

You truly think you could? Really? Interesting, bro. Tell me more.

Appetite For Destruction

Well, as you might have seen or heard I got banned from Twitter. It’s a permanent ban, so I get can’t back on it that easily.

Even though the Conservative route of saying Twitter is “silencing voices who don’t align with their ideology” would be an easy one to take and maybe give me some clout, it’s as far away from the truth as possible.

I knew damn well what I was doing and had been poking the bear for a couple of weeks now, because I got bored of the platform. Even though I had put in a lot of effort for the 5.7k followers, after I got them I got bored with it.

And as my friend Watson once stated about me:

“When everything is going well with you, you get bored. And when you get bored you start looking for something that can mess it up because you enjoy the chaos and anxiety it brings.”

I wouldn’t say I “enjoy” it, but he was right about me messing up a good thing.

I’ve gone on record before with Rob saying most of my LTR’s were ended by her after a couple of months of me getting bored and changing my behavior.

I knew it was unattractive, I knew it would drive her away and I knew damn well I would end up single.

But I did it anyway.

*Note: In some cases I did get hit out of nowhere with her cheating, but more often than not I got annoyed with having my freedom taken away and being bored with the “happy life”.

And I couldn’t tell you why.

Maybe it’s some deep internal believe system that I don’t deserve it. Maybe I want to fail just to prove I can’t do it anyway. Or maybe I have a self destructed personality.

I’ve had the tendency to grab to substances knowing it wouldn’t end well in my younger years. The legal drinking age in The Netherlands used to be 16 for soft liquor, but enough soft liquor will still hit hard and when I turned 18 and hard liquor became available, this didn’t suddenly stop being something I’d grab to. *

*I have never gone to AA not did I need to. I have had my own personal demons which were founded in a childhood trauma that has been dealt with. My behavior, though toxic, wasn’t near to the level of bad as alcoholism is and my heart goes out to everyone who has ever gone through it. I have not experienced this. 

I’ve also been honest about my previous nicotine addiction. I knew full well it was bad for me, but I did it anyway.

I guess I have an addictive personality as some would call it. 

Some people will brush these off and say: “It’s just occasional alcohol and nicotine. There are thousands of people who do hard drugs every day which is way worse!”

As a man who grew up in a house with an alcoholic I will tell you to go fuck yourself.

Substance abuse is substance abuse. Focussing on the word “abuse” here.

Especially nicotine has a form of nihilism to it.

People know it’s bad for, people know it’s expensive and people know it’s probably cause cancer.

Yet do they it anyway.

Yet I did it anyway.

Every cigarette is another step closer to your heart failing, lungs stopping and or other bodily malfunctions.

Yet, the taste of death never tasted so sweet.

“So what if it happens? At least I got to enjoy it!”

And there’s the hook.

Do they really enjoy it or did they stop caring all together?

Little habits can tell you a lot about someone now only views the world but also themselves.

Whether they want to feel alive, are just bored or completely apathetic and stopped feeling anything or want to feel everything. 

With all of that also comes a devil may care attitude behaving in ways that at least cause something.

Something that changes the daily grind of life.

A little excitement. 

Which is something I consciously or subconsciously have done for as long as I can remember.

“A will get me into trouble, so let’s push A as far as possible and see what we can get away with.”

I did this in middle school, high school, college and heck even today.

Consequences don’t feel real until they’re actually happening and the appetite for destruction needs to be satisfied.

Wether it be big or small, consequential or negligible something needs to make you feel.

As long as you feel something.

“I’m not going there to die. I’m going there to see if I’m really alive” -Spike Spiegel