Why am I concerned if “anonymous” will get my answer I just posed to the question? Does it really matter?? This is going to drive me crazy all day…

I swear I’m going to start using this thing again…

Now who am I talking to…?

Myself?!? Yeah…that seems about right…

I always have. I’ve taken myself too seriously, or my parents, or teachers…pretty much anyone and everyone. I don’t know why I do. And by seriously, I mean I hang on their word. Not even that, the emotion, or perceived emotion I take seriously.

I’m just wound tight. I like order and I like doing things a certain way and I think of things in certain ways, and I rarely deviate from those ways. Which either gets me in trouble or prevents me from doing something or moving forward.

I want people to share my desire and vision, but I know I can’t make them or that my way is even correct. And because I make connections quickly that justify some means in my head, it’s hard for me to explain to someone why I think or do something a certain way. And either I get frustrated with them or me. And this baffles people from my parents to my boss to my wife. I won’t get something they said until one day it clicks and I act like I never understood why I didn’t do things this way. It’s like I did a file override or something.

I’d be happier if I didn’t take things so seriously. I just don’t know how not to…

Father.  Daddy.  Dad.  We all know what those words mean, and how important a father or father-figure can be in our lives, but it seems that the world of consumerism (media, tv, radio, newspapers, magazines, marketing) thinks that only the Mothers takes care of the kids and is the only parent that cares about the welfare of the children.

I have been a father for almost 5 years (it will be in two weeks), and in those years of being a father i can fully admit that half the time, I had no idea what i was doing.  Most of that has to do with the kids were infants, but still, dealing with an almost 5 year old and 3 year old does make it hard to decide how to get things done properly.  But having that in mind, I still care greatly about the welfare of my kids and the information they are exposed to.  I want to make sure they have the best opportunity to grow and learn, whether that concerns the proper food to eat or how to teach them about their ABC’s.  Yet every time I turn the TV on and watch a sitcom or a commercial, all I see are bumbling dads and mom’s who do everything with a smile while juggling 10 things at once.  

I admit, I do have a short temper and can become impatient, but watching these things on TV makes me feel like if I have a negative though, I’m a failure as a parent.  But I guess that is the point, according to these images.  The dad is supposed to feel like the failure while the mom is the hero.  Yeah, the dad might do something like plan a big party, but it’s usually the mom who has to save the day when dad forgot to book the entertainment.    Even when you have commercials without dads in belittle, it’s still shows how the mom is there is care about the kids and that’s all that matters.  

Being a new parent, my wife decided to subscribe to some parental magazines, and the one we kept was Parents magazine.  I do read the magazine because I like some of the topics discussed, but in reading the articles, everything is from the viewpoint of the mother.  Now I understand these magazines are targeted toward women and probably 90% of the subscribers are women, but that doesn’t mean men don’t read these magazines.  I even counted the number of ads in the magazine and in most months, there was only 1 ad targeted toward men, and for the most part, there was only 1 ad with a dad in it.  Apparently, according to Parents magazine, Parent means the mom and that jackass who got you knocked up and shows up periodically to take the kids off your hands.

Just the other day, I was able to get selected to have my daughter participate in a survey.  We arrive a bit early and sit down.  A woman comes out and greets us and pulls our file.  While she does that, I check in like you do at a doctors office; name, dob, address, etc.  At the end, it asks for your initials when you leave, but it doesn’t just say initials, it says “MOTHERS INITIALS”.  ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!  

Having talked about the commercials, there are a couple that get to me.  JIF and KIX.  I’m sure you know both taglines.  JIF is “choosy moms, chose JIF, and KIX is “Kid tested, Mother approved”.  In both companies, there is just a subtle hint that the mom cares what the kids eat.  To these companies, a dad would be content to give his kids pork rinds and a beer for dinner.  With that in mind, my wife should me a letter a kid sent to KIX.  The kid reference their tag line “kids tested, mother approved” and began to ask a series of questions like “you say mother approved, what if you don’t have a mother? some families have only one dad, or two dads, or even two moms.  if i don’t have a mom, does that mean i can’t eat the cereal?  I think it should be kid tested, parent approved.”  This kid’s letter made me smile, which is why my wife showed it to me.  She knows how much it annoys me that society views dad as second-class, and that i usually go way out of my way to prove to who knows that I can do all the things a mom can, but with more swearing.

I guess I am expecting too much from a faceless society.  I get my kids dressed and fed in the morning, drive the minivan to daycare to drop the kids off and go to work, then get off work to pick up the kids, go home and figure out what’s for dinner while making sure I don’t just sit the kids in front of the tv, feed them, clean up the dishes, bathe the kids, get them in their pj’s, read them a story, and then put them to bed.  This is probably why I can’t wait till they get older and can start doing things on their own like make food or hold meaningful conversations.  It would just make my life a little less stressful.

Let’s try this again. I had about two paragraphs of information when I when to the main screen page and apparently, when you do that, it won’t save your progress as a draft. Thanks tumblr (jerks). So let’s see if I can start from the beginning on this touchy subject.

The subject that I do not like to talk about is…SEX. (get it, sex, touchy subject…yea, I know). I know this may seem odd for some that know me because I do love sexual innuendos and double entendres. But that is as far as I go. I wouldn’t say I don’t walk the walk, mainly I do talk about the actual act of sex, or more importantly, I don’t talk about me in that act. Who really wants that visualization??

I have never been comfortable talking about sex. Perhaps it is from my parents never having the talk with me; perhaps it is from my parents/other adults in my life who viewed sex as “dirty”; or perhaps it is from life saying to me “you are a pervert” and “who would want to see you naked/have sex with you”. And to that, I say…true, true.

No, I do not have a high sexual esteem about myself. I don’t think I have the right “equipment” to handle the job, nor do I have the body that anyone would want, whether that would be from stature (I’m short) or physique (I’m fat). Throw in social awkwardness and I’m just a stone throws away from being a D&D master (minus the D&D; never got into fantasy like that).

I guess that leaves “self-love” and even that has negative experienced. My mom always frown upon me “touching” myself to the point where she said the reason I was tired was from me masturbating (though she would never say that word). I even had religious figures visit and say that “pleasuring oneself is a sin”. Along with that conversation came talks about porn. Again, the religious figures and my parents talked negatively about porn, even nudity that was perceived to be “sexual”. Needless to say, I had to hide my desires, which is hard when you are shy and any girl that talks or touches you gets the attention of a certain member. So to hide my desires, I would break the law. I broke into my school to look at porn. I didn’t really break in, but would leave a window unlocked and cracked slightly. I never talked to anyone about my sexual desires, like how I enjoyed masturbation, why I got aroused around girls or when I would kiss them, and is it natural to wonder about oral sex from the same or different sex. And like most things in my teenage life, I bottled it up.

So when it came to my college life, things got a little strange. To make a long story short, I have a great deal of anxiety toward sex. Not just the act, but in people finding ME attractive. Seriously, who would want to have sex with me??

Anyways, I’m trying to open up to new things sexual, whether that is adding “spice” to the bedroom, openly talk about it, or seeking advice. For now, advice is taking the form of podcasts. Perhaps in another…5 years, I’ll be more comfortable. And I will also be 6 feet tall with a 10” cock. You know, whichever comes first.