Board Games and Power Struggles

Posted on February 19, 2021September 15, 2021 by James St. Clair

Board Games

My siblings and I can’t play board games together. We are all totally incapable of sitting down and engaging in the myth that is “friendly competition”. The problem with this is, because we’re all siblings, everything is a competition and nothing about competition to us is friendly. Like one time a game of monopoly ended up in a full blown fist fight, complete with the board being whipped at someone, someone tackling another person over the couch, and some asshole robbing the bank when the shenanigans were in full force. And don’t get me started on what happens if we play a two-player game where we need to work together.

Part of me thinks this is normal, but another part of me thinks that all my brothers and sisters and I have inherited a flaw from both my parents. We are all incredibly and indelibly insecure. Now at first, one might think that since we’re all siblings I might be mistaking normal sibling rivalry for insecurity. After all siblings are, to some extent, supposed to tease you about those fluorescent pink pants that you thought were super cool but your older sister insisted they made you look like some fucked up version of a highlighter. That’s normal sibling stuff right? And had this been the only kind of teasing going on, things would have been much more tranquil in our house. But it wasn’t. Looking back, we all started teasing each other when we were very little but even then it was always motivated by a deep seated need to prove not only that the other person was unquestionably wrong, but that they were a huge idiot for disagreeing with you. Conversation with us was always a full contact sport and there was no such thing as understanding or accepting the other person’s point of view or just agreeing to disagree. I remember the first time I heard the phrase, “Lets agree to disagree” I was like, what kind of weird fuckery is this where I just passively submit to your views which are obviously stupid if you’re disagreeing with me, and I don’t verbally grind you into submission?? I had seriously never had an instance where someone else’s views were accepted, or even considered, especially if they were different than mine. And there is a reason for that.

Continue reading “Board Games and Power Struggles” →

I’ll Give You A Dollar

Posted on February 14, 2021November 18, 2021 by James St. Clair

Strong Enough Not to Chase

In my last post there were a couple things that I wanted to expand on since it plays a lot into what I’ll be talking about here. The first being those three people I mentioned who went to my school and were also part of my church. They were also three of the worst bullies I’ve ever had. One in particular was by far one of the cruelest person I have ever known. And that’s counting my adult life. Think Rachel McAdams in Mean Girls, but the meaner Hispanic version.

Her name was Elena, and if she had only been in my life for one school year that would’ve been amazing, because she would’ve simply been classified as a one-year-bully with the rest of the assholes. But she wasn’t. She was in the same class as me for the third, fourth, and fifth grade. It. Was. Awful.

And before any of you think that this was just some ordinary teasing, it had started off that way, but by the fourth grade it wasn’t anymore. It all began with dirty looks out of nowhere in the second grade. But by the time I got to the third grade I already knew that I was somehow different from all the other girls, so I was already very self conscious. I didn’t like dresses, I always wore jeans and a t-shirt. I liked hanging out with guys but I didn’t like them or have crushes on any of them like all the other girls were doing already. When I thought about kissing other people, thinking about kissing guys felt strange to me. But again, my parents were super religious so having thoughts of anything other than heterosexual thoughts meant that you were unclean and that God hated you. Thanks man. So I always felt strangely out of place and odd both in my body and in my own head, mainly because I didn’t know I was gay yet. In the third grade I hadn’t figured that part of me out or even understood it was an option. Because according to my parents, and God apparently, it was either you were straight or you were wrong. So I couldn’t figure out why I wasn’t drooling over the latest hot guy like all the other girls did, but could stare for hours at Jeanette while she played four square at recess. Continue reading “I’ll Give You A Dollar” →

Eggs and Baskets

Posted on February 8, 2021August 27, 2021 by James St. Clair

Self Esteem 101

I had therapy today. I feel like most of my blogs are going to start with that line. Therapy is where a lot of the shit that goes on in my head just kinda comes out. I’ve kept what I feel like hidden for years so it’s not an easy thing for me to do. I’m not someone who views themselves as an overdramatic sad person either so normally I’m not all about the feelings stuff but I suppose if everyone expressed themselves in a perfectly normal and well adjusted manner then we wouldn’t need therapy. So there’s that.

Eggs.

So one of the first things that I’ve kept nicely hidden is…ugh…and this is a pain for me to write, my huge self esteem issue. Most people don’t even see it and if you’ve ever had a chance encounter with me then I’m guessing you didn’t even notice it. You see with people I just meet or don’t really know, it doesn’t come out. It’s only when I start to get to know you and usually it hits about 2-3 months after we begin to hang out when things get a little weird with me. Then that’s when the pattern that I didn’t even know existed until recently kicks in and my friendships typically and pretty routinely get fucked.