That is true, the real estate of Manhattan which was constantly booming. And just being handed money, getting an allowance of something like $200000 as a kid is ridiculous. I find it hard that I see this in people here. They say that they worked hard for their money. Displacing people from their homes to build new ones and/or get richer people to move in is not an honourable profession. And receiving inheritance and random bags of money from parents is not work. By definition it just is not. It is true, more than half of the city has been gentrified. The working class are gone. Only rich people and the homeless, essentially. Words cannot describe the dystopic sadness of this place.

I see. I really have to read up on it now. I guess that I just had some superficial understanding. Like when I thought that autism was mostly the severe cases, like stimming and not talking, or that OCD was just hand-washing.

I had to talk to my mother again. This time for over two hours. My father was gone for the weekend, so it was an opportune moment. It was not an easy conversation again, but you are right. Sorry that you had such a terrible relationship. I guess that in a way we are in the same situation, disregarding past relationships. We both try to wait for someone who cares about us. That family pressure I can understand how it creates a lot of “impatience” and self-esteem issues. But yeah, his behaviour was inexcusable. That was definitely not the way that he should have handled his own situation.

My mother gave some more information about her past. I did not know that she had a lot of bad experiences, one after the other. Like how she felt pressure and a bit of shame for being single all the way into her mid 20s, then into her late 20s. And that some of the guys whom she had tried dating were complete arseholes. Like really complete idiots, apart from being too immature, hyperfocussed on sex, or doing really idiotic things such as setting up dates with her, then when she arrives they never show up. And doing this repeatedly like some sort of sick joke. And they found it funny. Or telling her that she would be treated better if she acted “good” and looked “hotter”. I find that really f_cked up. I am not sure what is wrong with the people here. If I had found out that any male acquaintance whom I met acted like that, I would tell him what a prïck he was and never associate with him again. This happened in the mid and late 1980s, so clearly there were quite a few arseholes in this city even back then. Just like me, she fell into a bit of depression in her late 20s thinking that she would be an old maid and never have a relationship and never have children. I think that in addition to loosening up my stress and stopping the problems with my self-esteem, talking with her also kind of helps in knowing what kind of guy not to be.

That is true, you are right. Even though the “counterevidence” of hearing about these negative comments even came straight from the mouths of my previous dates, it does not mean anything about how things objectively are. As in, they might have told me these things, but it is also evidence that this is the pervading attitude in this place, where I clearly do not belong. My mother asked me, “Say that you managed to get into a relationship with one of these women, the ones who made fun of you for being a virgin and single. Would you want to stay with them, even if they judged and made fun of you like that?” so that made me think. I guess that it is a good thing that they rejected me.

My mother told me towards the end of the conversation that in late 1989, the same guy who kept making dates with her and standing her up as a prank had called her again to try the same thing. Except then, she answered him, “Oh, I am busy. You know, I just gave birth to a son…”. The guy got embarrassed and irritated and hung up. So maybe there is some poetic justice. Maybe, in the same way, I will get a girlfriend someday, and the detractors who always made fun of the older single virgin guy end up angry that I have success. That would be something.