A Trip Into Human Psychology (aka flexing my internet skillz…)

Because my claim to fame is my ability to find things on the internet, here it is before the internet gods take it down:

You guys have heard about the guy who killed that 10 year old girl and then planned to eat her. It’s a super fucked up story. Well, the press is claiming he had a blog that hinted at twisted things.

So here, for your psychological delving: http://futureworldruler.blogspot.com/

And his myspace page that you can’t access directly from myspace because “it’s going through routine maintenance,” if you call investigations into psychopathic murder “routine.”

There’s a comment from one of his friends who myspace has encrypted the name and link. Posted 2/24/2006 8:41 PM:

“There he goes. One of God’s own prototypes. Some kind of high powered mutant never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die. “

And still…more than you need to know…

He had an Amazon.com wishlist that has since been removed. On it, he had desired a book on cannibal culture, a villain how-to book ……….. and the William Shatner CD.

There’s also message board where it’s rumored that the posters encouraged him to follow up on his subversive fantasies.

One poster writes:

_______________________________________
Crazy motherfucker posted:

Man, work sucked tonight. It was really busy. And Nathan and Murray talked about Dragonball Z the entire night. The ENTIRE night, from 4:00 to 11:30. I like Dragonball Z, but they were ridiculous. They’ve both seen or read about like every episode of every series, even the episodes and features that haven’t even been shown in America yet. They were having debates over things like whether or not non-Saiyans could learn to power-up and become like Super-Saiyans, and what certain characters, like King Kai, would look like if they did. And then they were talking about what it would look like if they could design their own character. They were like “I’d give him Trunks’ hair and clothes, Gohan’s body…” and blah blah blah. All Night.Whatever happened to Ben Stein? Other than the old Clear-Eyes commercials, I haven’t seen or heard about him in a long time. Ben Stein is cool. But I get really tired of people comparing me to him, it used to happen all the time. I may not look or sound very enthusiastic, but I certainly don’t sound like him. I wish I did though, that would be cool.

______________________________________
This is scaring the fuck out of me. He’s like a regular nerd, and all the sudden he’s like “BWARGH NOW I AM A PEDO CANNIBLE PSYCHO RAARRRR”. Humans are the scariest species on Earth.

(end of post)

Seriously, how does a person go from just a “regular” seeming person who spends a hell of a lot of time on the internet and has a lackluster social life, to suddenly coming out as a psycho pedaphile cannibal? What’s the trigger?

Lastly, a detailed look into his world from his blog:

Thursday, September 08, 2005

The Past

I did a lot of thinking today. I spent most of my work day lost in thought as I performed the mindless, physical tasks. Well, I spend most of the days like that, but even more so today. I was just thinking better, or something, clearer. It was one of those days I have once in a great while where I think about my past, and remember things I had forgotten.

I realized today, that one of the (many) reasons I like Melissa so much is that she reminds me of what I’ve lost. Of how I used to be. Melissa is often silly, and goofy, and makes her coworkers laugh. I used to be like this, years ago. Back when I was in school, I was always well known. I wasn’t popular, no one liked me much, but everyone knew me, because I was so weird and funny. Sometimes, people I didn’t even know would come up to me in the hall and say things like “Do something weird,” or, “Do the chipmunk laugh.” Even as far back as elementary school I would get in trouble every day for talking too much, and being too loud. Such a far cry from my present state of complete and total shyness and timidness.

1998 was the year that a large part of me died. Well, part of it was in 1999, but most of it was 1998. In all it was a period of about a year. I usually refer to this year span as “the longest year of my life.”

I graduated from high school in 1998, and most of my friends, except for Chris, either joined the military, or went off to college, so I didn’t see them much anymore. This caused me to retreat even further into the world of online chatrooms, which I had been battling an obsession with for two or three years. My main obsession was an AOL chat room called “Witty.” It was full of great people. Regulars who were always in there, and I became great friends with many of them. It wasn’t your regular AOL chat room, the Witty regulars were all a little more intelligent than your usual chat room inhabitants. They discouraged people talking in all internet slang abbreviations and A/S/L checks, and things like that, so the idiocy was kept to a minimum. It was here that I met Melissa. I don’t remember exactly when, it was sometime in 1998, I don’t remember if it was before or after I graduated. We became very good friends almost immediately. I had a crush on her even back then, but she had a boyfriend, but we still were good friends. Then, a few months later, about the time I went off to college, she was going to lose her internet access for a few months, I don’t remember exactly why. This was another major blow, I lost another one of my best friends. It was about this time I started getting really depressed.

I went to college, and this was a MAJOR blow. I’d always been shy around people, even though I was always goofing off and being the class clown in the past, I was still shy in certain situations, especially when it came to one-on-one human interaction. Goofing off for a class full of people I could handle. But trying to talk to just one person made me nervous. It had never really been much of a problem before, though, but when I went to college, it got out of control. As time went by, I kept getting more and more nervous and scared. There were just too many people around, even though I was going to a small college. I started to get panic attacks. I’d skip class and just sit in my car for hours, or sit in the library, in the stacks where there weren’t any people, and read. Anything so that I wouldn’t have to go to class, or walk through the people-filled halls. Then I got so bad I couldn’t even work up the courage to go into the library anymore.

And at the same time I was fighting this crippling social phobia, other things were going on which just added to my mental strain. Me and Melissa were writing real letter to each other, but I hate writing letters for some reason, just like I hate talking on the phone, so we only exchanged a couple of letters. Well, she wrote me four
, but I only sent on or two. I’d sit there in the library hiding, and try to write a letter to her, but I just couldn’t and this depressed me even more, because I thought she would think I hated her or something, and I would lose her as a friend permanently.

Also, I was failing all my classes, mostly because I never went to them, and, even when I did, I couldn’t pay attention because I had so much more on my mind, or couldn’t stay awake. I only slept a couple of hours a night, because my chat room dependency was getting worse and worse. I would sit in the chat room for hours and hours every night, talking to pretty much the only friends I had.

After I lost contact with Melissa, I fell in love with one of my coworkers at Carl’s Jr. Her name was Genie. I was very in love with her, but, like always, I never said anything to her, I never told her I liked her, or asked her out. We were friends, and talked to each other a lot at work, but that was all we were. Then, she started dating a guy that also worked there at Carl’s, who was also my friend. His name was Tim. This made me even more depressed, but I didn’t give up hope that maybe they’d break up or something, and someday I’d have a chance with her. In time, I would come to regret ever hoping that something would cause them to separate.

Then, it all came to a head at once. The strain of all these problems, especially the social phobia, was too much to bear. I was in danger of having a mental breakdown at any moment. So I finally decided that I would have to drop out of college. I went to my mom, and told her for the first time, about my depression and social phobia, I’d never told anyone before, not even my best friend Chris. I told my mom, and told her about my social anxiety problem, and that I was going to drop out of college and start going to a psychiatrist. She didn’t really understand my problem, and still doesn’t (whenever I try to talk about how shy I am around people, her answer is, “Just stop, don’t be that way.”), but she was supportive anyway. So I dropped out of college, this was in early November. I never did see a psychiatrist, because as soon as I dropped out, I started feeling a little better, and I hated the idea of going to one because I knew all they’d do is give me pills.

And then, towards the end of November, the shit really hit the fan.

Friday, November 27th, 1998. The day after Thanksgiving. The biggest shopping day of the year, and also one of the worst days of the year for automobile accidents. On this day, two of my friends, including the woman I loved, became a statistic.

Me and my mom and sister had all been out shopping most of the day too, and, as we were driving back to Purcell, going south on I-35, we drove over a spot where you could tell there had been a horrible wreck recently. The road itself was actually melted in one place. Then, when we got home, I got the phone call. Genie and Tim had been in a horrible wreck. Tim was dead, and Genie probably wouldn’t make it. It turned out the spot we had driven over was where the wreck had happened. They were driving northbound, and had a blow out, and spun out of control, they went clear across the median, into the southbound lanes, where they spun into a large van going full highway speed. Genie wasn’t wearing her seatbelt, was thrown something like 20 feet through the windshield. Ironically, this is what saved her. Tim, who was wearing his seatbelt, was still trapped in the car when it burst into flames. He burned to death, and was burned so badly they had to use dental records to identify him.

Up until they re-paved the highway just a year or so ago, you could still see the burn mark on the highway. It was an almost daily reminder for me of the accident. Also, someone kept flowers there in the median of the highway at all time for many years. I don’t know who, some of Tim’s family, I guess.

I went to Tim’s funeral, and I also went to see Genie in the hospital every day. She did make it through, but she was in the hospital until December 18, the day before my birthday. I went and saw her every day, and I would sit there for hours. Even the days she was unconscious, or so doped up on morphine she barely even knew who she was. Even when she was conscious, she’d still be so doped up I had to help her eat. Most days I was the only visitor she had, her family hardly ever even came to see her. Partly because it was about an hour’s drive to even get to the hospital she was at. But I drove it every day, and sat with her every day.

I felt like a horrible person. Because in the back of my mind, a voice kept telling me, “Hey, she’s single now, just give her a couple of months to get over the loss of Tim, and then make your move.” I’d tell that voice to shut up, and stop thinking things like that, but it kept coming back.

Of course, this made me slip farther and farther into depression. She got out of the hospital on the 18th, and I spent the next couple of weeks in a state of deep depression. I would drive around aimlessly in my car for hours, listening to depressing music, and thinking depressing thoughts. Actually, it wasn’t exactly aimless. Most of the time was spent driving around Lexington, where Genie lived, trying to get up the courage to visit her at her home. I was just biding my time, remaining her friend, until the day I thought it was safe to ask her out. And then she shocked and surprised me. Just a couple of days after she got out of the hospital, some other guy at Carl’s asked her out for New Years, and she accepted. I couldn’t believe it. It was too soon after Tim’s death. I was shocked by this, and also depressed further by the fact that it wasn’t me who was going out with her.

I spent the next few months in a state of deep depression, and seriously thought about killing myself on several occasions, but never had the nerve to go through with it. Which made me feel even worse. I was such a coward. I was too afraid to talk to people, too afraid to ask girls out even after being in love with them for months. I was even too afraid to kill myself even though I wanted to.

Over time I started getting a little better, but I battled depression for a couple of years. I still have the social phobia, and very occasionally small bouts of depression, but I’m much better than I was then, at least when it comes to the depression.

But still, over the last year or so I find myself becoming more and more detached from the world. I almost never leave the apartment except to go to work or my parents’ house, and when I do leave the apartment, I walk around like a zombie, with a blank expression on my face, not looking at anything or anyone. In fact, the last couple of months, I’ve noticed that my eyesight is going, probably because my eyes are getting weak. Whenever I’m out of the house, I never focus on anything, I stare blankly ahead, operating on a sort of fuzzy peripheral vision. The only things I ever really focus on and look at are books or computer screens for hours on end, which strains my eyes further. When I’m not safe in my apartment, I am silent and expressionless, looking at nothing. I have no personality. If someone says hi to me, I either ignore them, or grunt out a small “hi,” or “ok,” if they ask me how I’m doing. It gets worse every day, I withdraw farther and farther into myself with each passing week.

My spirit has been totally crushed. Anyone who looks into my eyes can see this.

I wish I could be like I used to be. I wish I could be like Melissa.

I wish I could be human.

Or Perhaps, Here’s the Trigger (from his blog):

Saturday, August 13, 2005

Going Back; and also some good news.

This is something that’s been going on for a while now, but I’ve never told anyone about, except for my parents, and I briefly mentioned it to Phillip when I was working at Carl’s. I’ve
not even told Chris, which will probably make him mad, because it’s such an important thing. He will probably say, “I thought we were best friends? Why didn’t you tell me?”

‘m moving to California, to be with Melissa.

I’ve known her for almost 8 years now, and we’ve been really good friends the entire time. We’ve known for years that we were perfect for each other, but there was the pesky problem of us living about 1500 miles apart. She didn’t want to move to Oklahoma, and I would’ve hated for her to have done so, because Oklahoma sucks, and I don’t even want to be here. I’ve always wanted to move to CA, or somewhere else on the west coast, even before I met her, but I couldn’t move to CA because I was too poor, and CA is so expensive to live in. But a few months ago, shortly after she broke up with her last boyfriend, I brought up the idea of me finally moving to CA, and we started to seriously talk about it. I told my parent’s and Phillip about it way back then, and I was going to tell Chris, but it was something I would’ve rather told him about in person than online, and every time he came to OK on leave, I just couldn’t seem to find the right time or place to talk about it, I didn’t really want to talk about it in front of his entire family, as I am a shy person, and don’t really like talking about matters like this in public.

After a while though, the plan sort of fell through. Mostly because she was taking her last breakup really hard, and she also said she didn’t want to force me to move halfway across the country and so far away from my family. So we stopped talking about it, and I had pretty much given up on the idea. But then a couple of weeks ago, she brought it up again, and since then we’ve been talking about it again, even more seriously than last time. Unless something unforeseen happens, it’s going to finally happen this time. But we don’t know when. Basically, as soon as I can save up enough money to feel comfortable doing it. CA is expensive, and I won’t have a job when I get there. I’ll be living with her, but I don’t want to be a total dead-beat and have to mooch off of her. I don’t really have a target goal on the money issue, but I’d like to at least make back the $1200 I had to spend on my car a while back. Then I also need to get some work done on my car first, nothing major, just a new set of tires, and before I attempt the drive I’d want to make sure I got a good tune-up and stuff like that. So, we don’t know for sure when this will be happening, but I’m hoping two or three months at the most. She’s got a vacation coming up in early October, and she’s hoping I can get a week off from work to come stay with her for a few days first. I was really hoping to maybe be moving there by then, but she insists, and it is a good idea, that I should come stay with her for a week or so first, because for some reason, we may end up not getting along together in real life, though I don’t see that happening at all. The main reason I don’t really want to do this is because that’s extra money I’ll have to spend. I’ll have to get a plane ticket, and take some spending money, and on top of that, I’d be missing a week of work. I may not even be able to get the time off from work though. I don’t know for sure what the policy is on stuff like that.

I really hope it doesn’t take too long. I would move out there today, if I could. We’ve already wasted so many years not being together even when we knew we should be, that I hate to waste even one more day.
posted by Kevin @ 3:10:00 PM

*******
Sunday, October 09, 2005

Argh.

So, I never wrote the other day like I promised, but that’s because something happened. So now I can write about what I was going to write about, combined with the new developments.

If everything had gone as planned, I would be in California right now. That’s what I was going to write about the other day, me and Melissa finally had all our plans set for me to come visit her in California. She is on vacation this week, and I was going to go to California to visit her while she was on vacation. I had my plane tickets bought and everything, I got some great deals. But then, a few days ago, she called me up in the middle of the night and said I couldn’t come anymore.

She had gotten all depressed, thinking about her ex again, and said she was too depressed for me to come. But worst of all, she gave me the old “lets just stay friends” talk. I hate that thing. I’ve heard it so many times I know it by heart.

I guess I’m just too nice, women all want to be friends with me. Even girls I don’t like have told me what a nice guy I am, and, as if that wasn’t bad enough, I’ve even been told that “I actually forget you’re a guy, I don’t even think of you as a guy, you’re like one of the girls to me.”

That fucking hurts.

But anyway, Melissa cancelled the trip. My plane tickets are non-refundable, so she said she’ll pay me back, but it will have to be in small payments over a period of time. I don’t know how she’ll do it though, she already owes her dad a bunch of money she borrowed from him. I actually feel bad about her having to pay me back.

Like I said, I’m too nice. I should be mad at her. I should be like “Bitch, you better pay me back!” Instead, I feel bad about her paying me back. I’m pathetic. I let people walk all over me in social situations. I inconvenience myself just so other people can get what they want. Like if I was in one of those Christmas rush things, where everyone is frantic trying to buy the season’s hot toy, if I got to the toy first, and it was the last one, I’d give it to the next person so they could have it.

I’m not mad at Melissa though. Dissappointed, but not mad. I could never be mad at her.

What really gets me about the whole “lets be friends” thing, is that they always say they don’t want to date because “I don’t want to ruin our special friendship.” What they don’t seem to understand is that that pretty much ruins the friendship as well, because it’s pretty much impossible to stay friends with someone you are so in love with, but they don’t want you. It hurts to talk to them, or hang out with them, because the whole time all you can think about is how badly you want them and can’t have them.

And I do love Melissa, I love her more than anything. Maybe it’s stupid, considering that we’ve only met once, for a few hours once, and she had a boyfriend at the time, so nothing happened. So you might think it’s stupid to be so in love with someone you’ve hardly even met, but I don’t think it is.

Ok, I’ve got other stuff I could write about, but that’s the most important of the stuff that’s happened recently, so I will save the others for another time.

posted by Kevin @ 4:16:00 PM

Personality Typology

Much is usually made of the Myers-Briggs method of personality typology
(to find out your personality type, take the test at
http://similarminds.com/myers-briggs-jung.html)

I’m an INFP , in case you’re wondering. Which makes me…a total pussy.

But in my life role as an observer, I’ve noticed other correlations between certain things and personality types, so I’d like to present the 3AM Wanderer’s Worthless Method of Personality Typology Test.

1. Cats or Dogs?
2. Starbucks or Coffee Bean?
3. Mac or PC?
4. Forest or Ocean?
5. Sun or Rain?
6. Morning or Night?
7. Summer Winter Spring or Fall?
8. Waking or Sleep?

If you’re a CSPCneitherSMwhateverW…you’re an anal-retentive prick and most people hate you.
If you’re a DCBMbothRNwhateverS…you’re a pro-marijuana hippie living with a nudist tree colony.

Everything in between…I don’t know. Make up your own shit.

I’m DCBPCFRNFS. Though I like cats and dogs and forests and oceans equally.

Love, Friends and Parenthood

Have you ever noticed that, when a friend of yours is in a bad relationship, you can almost see her life fire burning so much dimmer? It’s like in science class when you put a jar over a flame to restrict the oxygen and the flame turns into this sad little blue nub.

A bad relationship doesn’t necessarily have to be one that’s tearing-the-trees-out-by-the-roots combative. Sometimes it just involves personality incompatibility–by being who a person inherently is, that person makes the other feel unhappy or inadequate or lonely.

When I have friends in bad relationships, it kills me. I know how brightly their inner light can burn and when I see it dimmed that way, it really upsets me. But it’s so hard to tell someone that maybe the person that they really like or love isn’t right for them, or to get them to take their unhappiness seriously and not be so willing to sacrifice themselves.

I think that when you really care about someone, you never want to see them get the short end of the stick. It’s like how my mom always tells me, there’s rarely perfect balance in relationships–only settle down with someone who loves you more and is more devoted to you. Of course she’d say that. It’s just like, I want to see all of my friends and loved ones be with people who absolutely worship them, because I think they’re all wonderful people. But again, it really pains me to see someone I care about not be completely happy, or settle down with someone who is self-centered and isn’t generous about making her happy, and isn’t even at the very least, putting in the effort to try.

There’s only so much you can say. You can give them advice to really examine the relationship, you can point things out, but ultimately, it’s their decision. And when you think they’re in a position where they might get hurt, it hurts so much to stand by and let them learn their lesson. You can’t protect the ones you love from everything, and you can’t live their lives for them, and sometimes, it sucks to feel so helpless.

This is why I’m afraid of parenthood. I know that with kids, you would give your life to protect them. You want to tell them what’s good for them and what’s bad for them, but ultimately, there are so many lessons in life that some they will have to learn for themselves the hard way. You can tell a kid not to touch a hot stove, but until he puts his hand on it and gets burned and realizes that the reason for not touching it is because it’s painful, he’ll only think of it as a distant idea rather than a reality. So much about parenting is about standing by and watching your kids learn about life, knowing that they need to stumble and fall sometimes in order to get back up and walk taller, but it’s a heartbreaking experience to see them have to fall.

I watched my parents deal with the hard realization of being human–having to deal with feeling inadequate because they weren’t able to protect my brother and I from everything that has hurt us in our lives. I have seen my brother learn so many lessons the hard way, face so much cruelty from small-minded people and find his place in a world where people seem to speak a language that he can’t quite grasp, and it kills me that I can’t protect him from everything that has and will ever hurt him.

I know they say that raising kids can be the most rewarding experience a person could have. But they tend to not mention, it’s also the most heartbreaking.

The Subconscious Revealed Through Instant Messaging

I’ve found that while Instant Messaging is a more accurate way of communicating than emails or letters, the medium still allows for miscommunication. But upon deeper analysis, miscommunications usually occur because someone (simultaneously) sees both the subtext and the surface meanings, but there is confusion or mistrust over which is being intentionally expressed (ie which the receiver is responding to).

Because IMing is each person typing out their own lines of dialogue. The only things missing are the emotional affectations and the face to face observations of another human being. I think IM is the clearest medium for exposing subtext because each person is automatically paring down what he or she says to the essential, and what is said is presented in a manner that gives the receiver a tangible message with which he or she can digest in the needed time frame, and which can be referred back to. But written dialogue also leaves room for interpretation. At best, we use our natural intuition to derive the underlying meanings or motivations that people give away (if you listen to people talk, when they are lying or internally conflicted, you can often tell by dissecting their word choices and dialogue construction. Outside of the sociopathic personality, the Truth is ALWAYS present in our communications, even if we are not saying what we mean). At worst, we project our fears and anxieties in our interpretations.

Regardless, I find that if you are very careful of suppressing your own ability to project your inner self, Instant Messages can provide an incisive yet clear way to see the core from which people operate, through the manner and content of their communication, despite not allowing for the same visual and psychic cues of live conversation.