Part 2
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Prelude
So. Drama. The internet is such a fantastic enabler of the free flow of thought. The inspiration and greatness of others is able to interact with the very best of yourself across the whole of living human existence literally at the speed of thought. The same however applies to our weaknesses. What is fantastic is that it becomes transparent. Our best and worst is out there. It makes us stronger, better.
I have been having energetic dialogue with some people who are not fans on reddit.Its easy to see flaws in others, but these activities also let you see flaws in yourself if your humble enough. I'm not very humble, so the flame wars take a while to die down.
These real time events as I publish my little blog are quite pertinent to this next chapter. It is all about hacking. But by this stage in my career doing things with computers was getting boring. I could re-design, re-architect, shift business drivers, convince people to allocating budgets just using my mind and powerpoint. Didn't need to code anymore to make computers do things "your too valuable to actually write software now". I had realised that management consultants were the new shamans or high priests. Using arcane looking runic symbols we summon thoughts of demons and angels, ward off evil spirits and demand tribute from the kings, queens and merchants.
So what was there to hack? People. You see when you depersonalise it, they are just a complex system. And systems can be hacked. But for what end? Part of this journey is the realisation I don't do what I do for money. So what drives me? Whats my underlying agenda? Why bother with all this shit instead of just getting stoned? These are real and fundamental questions worthy of serious consideration. Well by me anyway. Who knows why the fuck you came here to read my narcissism enabler.
Back Once Again with the Renegade Master
All my life had run into these parents so proud of little timmy who was becoming a pianist. And then all the nice girls (nice generally means middle class. Poor girls are trashy, and rich girls are just nasty) studied some instrument. My parents had tried this for me. But I just don't have an inner rhythm. I have to use logic to work out whats going on. There is no instinctive response to the data input of sound. Its just raw data to me and I have to write the software to perform the extract transform and load operation to give it meaning to my brain.
And then I found techno. HOLY FUCK WHAT IS THIS. Music made from the bones and flayed corpses of lesser musicians. It had no reverence for the artists. It was saying its own thing. Yeah I'm gonna steal a sample from your lame pop song, but I'm gonna set it to this other beat and put a sound context around that totally corrupts everything you and your marketing team were trying to say when it was recorded in a shiny studio. They just don't give a crap about what the original artist was about, like its not even parody. Your life achievement is just meat to fuel their raving needs. OH MY GAWWWDD I LUV THIS.
Norman. Thank you. You have truly changed my life for the better and your still #1.
So I started to listen to Fatboy Slim, Chemical Brothers, Aphex Twin and odds and sods like that. Now make no mistake. I'm still not into music. I dont give a flying...whatever about the history of a band, what their last album was, who they got their inspiration from. Dont care. Not gonna care. If you talk to me about vinyl I WILL FUCKING CUT YOU.
I am about meta. I want to hear art made from ideas. No that does not mean I want your stupid mediocre art school philosophy and pathetic rages against the unfairness of life, or your pithy ideas of inspiration or vision. It means the paint on your brush is powdered up dreams mixed with the tears of other peoples emotional torture. I want to hear that painting. Audio post-modernism. Its an eclectic taste.
So by this time, I had got a new house in melbourne and my girlfriend moved down. I got this very large house, 3 bedrooms, a massive bath, an outdoors in ground heated jacuzzi thing. It was pretty damn cool. Probably nicest house I've lived in full stop. We would fight about how the house had this or that fault. I had trouble coping with the stress and couldn't understand why she would get so effected. No doubt my complete incomprehension of what she was going through made it far worse and caused the situation to spiral.
I had dreams that we would settle in, and that I would finally grow up, and then we would have children. At the same time as this, I have started to be increasingly disinterested in sex. Its not that I don't have a libido. Me with porn is like a cat with catnip. I just find the whole end to end of sex so tiresome particularly the emotional management. I have been asked many times if I'm gay (including by my daughter... but she was more stating it as fact I think...) and I genuinely dont think so. I can find a man interesting and maybe a little exciting, but I have never been horny from being around one. The time I made out with a guy for a few hours in a cocktail lounge and then he grabbed my penis and yelled at me "YOUR NOT EVEN FUCKING HARD" sort of is proof in point on this I think. I was just touristing to see what it would be like. Bad me.
I was flying back and forth, and had to maintain a residence in Sydney to keep getting my massive living away from home allowances (almost as much as my salary) which kept me in the lifestyle to which I had rapidly become accustomed (Basically buying whatever the fuck i want whenever I want without having to check my bank balance ever). I was a nerd so my tastes were basically limited to computers, games, and nice suits so the budget sort of was self limiting once you have pretty much a few colour variations of the best of each of those.
When I flew back my girlfriend stayed in Melbourne. You can see where this goes. I reconnected with an old university friend. He was a big time goth, and very tall and very very oh so hairy. With Andersen Consulting having now become Accenture, I was due to attend the Accenture Christmas Ball. I needed a +1. In Sydney. I had been building a reputation as a competent but weird consultant. HR girls couldn't work me out, and had of late been arranging seating when I attended lunches etc. with partners (as in Partner at Accenture, not the loves of our lives waiting patiently at home) that I would pretty much always be put sitting next to one of the notoriously gay partners. I think they were trying to help me network. I took it as a "If they wanna play ball, lets play ball".
Alright Mr Goth your up. Your my date. Neither of us are gay or bi really (I mean ive done some things, but it doesn't qualify). But his outfit is to be a dinner suit, combed back well maintained shoulder length hair, well brushed beard, a sleeve of chainmail, and full goth eye liner and makeup including black lipstick. I am in full management consulting suit looking as conservative as fuck and we are arm in arm. Lets go to the ball.
As what happens always in these things, many people dont even notice, some go omg so cool, others sigh and cough *attention whore*, others are all super serious and cant believe I would desecrate the most holy of consulting events the accenture christmas ball with such displays of frippery. And then a few Partners just rotate their heads looking at you trying to work out what the fuck is going on there and then go back to talking to whoever they are talking to. Which is exactly what I wanted. Subtly fuck with their brains for a few seconds but not do any overkill.
We eat the expensive food, dance our assess off to the meh dance music and then its like "fuck it lets go to a goth club" "fuck yeah". The night ends at the goth club door bitches house drinking absinthe having totally random conversations and the most casual offer of sex I have ever had in my life. Like as in a "if you want to but mellowing to the couch and absinthe are cool too you know". I actually chose to continue with the couch and absinthe. I think this where I start to first identify my sexuality is all about being offered sex I don't ask for, rather than actually having sex. Yes boys and girls DEEEEEEEEP issues here.
Oh yeah I forgot. When I joined Accenture there was 2 HR girls in my starter group. They were not consultants, just normal HR girls. One was quite adventurous with red hair and I think would have blossomed later on, and the other was a gaaaaahhhhh boring pretty blond haired thing that was trying ever so desperately to be taken seriously in a career which would ultimately be a stop gap until she got married and then resume after her divorce because the asshole husband is a sales executive and cheats on her because BWAAAHHH!!! HE IS DA MAN. Thats exactly the kind of guy she would pick and then bitch that all men are assholes.
So I had got both of them to agree to go with me on the annual accenture offsite weekend. It was for consultants only but you could bring a partner. I thought it would be super cool if I had the 2 newest youngest HR chicks, one on either arm as we walked in to the big formal dinner. They both had boyfriends btw. BUT HERES THE THING THEY BOTH AGREED. Like as in sleep in same room... same bed....Oh... Oh... and heres the big fucking kicker. THEY SIT NEXT TO EACH OTHER ALL DAY AT WORK. And then of course blondy backs out. Some sort of crying episode at her desk "I cant do it". But red head goes through with it. Tells her boyfriend away for work. I even go to their house and say hi to him. God I am such a prick in hind sight.
So red head comes along. We get on really well talking in the car. Ok heres the hint/deal guys, this is not a penthouse story. It doesn't end in an epic sex session. At all. Just frustration, confusion, anxiety and a lot of fuck why I cant I get laid, except that I sort of cant be assed getting laid. Fuck why cant someone want me so I can reject them. Fuck why am I so fucked up. So yeah, red comes along. She in fact drives me all the way there. Spend the afternoon walking around, chatting to other consultants. Getting our costumes for the big fancy dress ball thing.
We go to the ball. Arm in arm. I get the quizzical looks - hey, I didnt know you guys were together. Oh we aren't. How do you know each other? Well, we dont really we just met in our starter group once and she accepted my offer to stay with me.
I'm drinking. She isnt. As night progresses she looks worse and worse. "I cant do this" OMFG some women have such a fucking conscience. She bails. Jumps in her car and drives back to her boyfriend. Goddammit. Alone for the night. Before she goes, she actually promises to come back and drive me home when the weekend is over. Home to my now fiancee..... As I sort of mentioned... Im a bit of a prick by this point.....
Rest of the weekend is boring. Boring ass consultants playing boring assed social positioning games to prove boring assed social dominance. I am going through some sort of psycho/sociopathic thought processes of how exactly to murder specific consultants whilst minimising DNA evidence with the resources around me. I theorise its actually pretty easy in a resort with lots of people that know the target(s). But the thing is, I really and I mean as in they cause excrutiating mental pain, hate dickheads that focus on social positioning as their source of power.
I realised that if I am ever able to, I will absolutely put a knife through the throat of someone/anyone playing social dominance with me with absolutely zero warning to them and completely without provocation. This hasn't changed by the way. If you've ever been all "I am more popular than you and you are socially retarded, look at how your reacting so angry to my observation, why are you so sensitive, must be a real sore point for you" to me and your breathing its because of circumstances limiting my ability to either execute or get away with it after. Thats it. I WILL FUCKING CUT YOU. IN THE FACE. Just so we are clear, there is nil conscience here and you will think its ridiculous to be murdered publicly over such as small thing that the shock on your face will be epic. And its not even about you. I wont care if you suffer or not or even know whats happening to you. Its just gonna happen.
Later my psychiatrist treating me for bipolar would say I have psychotic tendencies. This is ridiculous. I changed psychiatrist.
So red drives me home after, meets my fiance. Fiance goes ballistic. I walk red to her car. She tells me "you know she is right to get angry, this situation is very ambiguous".
I have learnt something from this. I failed to manage the complete end to end picture. Didn't take into account all the variables and risks. My goal was not to actually have a rocking dirty threesome. I wanted to bring the two young hot things that the other consultants had to work with every day to the ball both on my arm with it known they were both staying in my room. I wanted to not just be cool, but too bring a massive fucking sledgehammer to the social preconceptions of what cool is. Overplayed and under delivered.
I needed to get better at this.
And in time I would.
In hind sight it was the wrong lesson. But this is how I saw it.
So yeah. Melbourne. Little was I to know this would become home for a very large part of my future life.
Work here was interesting. I became first a project manager, I had a million dollars to spend to get some shit done. People older and vastly more experienced than me (I mean shit I knew nothing besides some basic coding and how to nerd rage and have an elitist attitude. Didnt even know how to powerpoint at this stage) had to report to me, and my "ideas" on how they should do things was more important than their vast experience and wisdom. Fuck I loved consulting.
I found a niche. Most of the consultants as they grew in seniority went through a self selection process. They focused more and more on the political connections and build trust and confidence. Trust and confidence are not skillsets in anyway that related to actually achieving difficult technical outcomes. So when shit hit the fan, they would wilt or (the better ones) redefine what success is, and voila be "successful" in delivering a steaming dogs pile. Sometimes even that is not enough, especially when its really important and going really badly.
The managing partner for the $100m account decided to throw me at managing the technical delivery of the biggest most important steaming pile that no one could figure out a way forward.
My approach to big stressful things I had mastered. Hell I had literally faced death over agonising years of my life, had insurmountable social integration challenges and just nothing scared me. I knew I had to take my big blazing sword of steaming hot justice and start slaying demons. And I did just that.
Turns out I not just can be but am a ruthless bastard in pursuit of a technical vision. No one else had a big picture view of the way forward, so I took up that role and didn't ask permission. People fell into line. Confidence was establish, not from the quality of my suit or the nicely phrased emails or my reputation, but just from the fact that real solid things were getting done and there was a clear direction of where we are going and what we will achieve.
This plus my now 112% billable utilisation put me on the career fast track (80% is considered very good, 90% amazing your a rock star). I was an unstoppable money making machine for my partners. For me, the performance stats were just like a computer game. By changing what I did, how I behaved I could change those stats and LEVEL UP!!!! Seriously it was like Mario Brothers.
My fiance and I had some issues (derrr I am a cheating asshole with no concept of connecting with people emotionally). On my flights back to sydney I meet this goth girl. She thinks she is a bit badass. I'm sure some not pleasant things happened to her when she was younger and she is a tougher person from surviving it. But there is tough, and then there is motherfucking hardcore. And I knew what motherfucking hardcore was and she wasnt it.
Be she thought, like many young people (yeah she was like 6 years younger than me) that she was more experienced and knowledgeable than most, and I wore a suit and had money so there was no way I could understand pain.
We didn't quite date. I liked her. I liked that she was damaged but trying. I seem to have a soft spot for that. Was always cheering for the underdog. Never liked the alpha preening around. They were they enemy, and my life was solely (and probably still is) focused on taking them down. But she was blind to what I was. I didn't fit in her world view. The box she put me in was they box I tried to make people think I mostly lived in, not what I actually was.
But she had a friend.
I met her friend first time when visiting the goths house. She was half undressed in a towel, walking to the shower. Walked past me. Looked me up and down. Kept going.
No it wasn't love at first sight. She was not a drop dead gorgeous bombshell. I sure as shit whilst to a degree attractive, was also not the best dresser and always socially out of place. Definitely never the cool guy in the room. But in those few seconds of her scooting across the room, there was an electric connection of hers and my eyeballs.
Proceeded to go on date out with goth chick. Went to park on the water in Balmain, walked around a bit. Tried being nice and fumbled with attempts to be romantic. Its hard to apply romantic patterns of behaviour you have learnt from movies when its dark in the middle of a park and your with a woman who is rebelling against everything ESPECIALLY ROMANCE. My abilities to adapt to these situations was still very limited - but the thing was - I could see the variables in play, knew my weaknesses, knew I would not succeed but I just decided to turn it into a learning exercise. Find out what would have worked. Find out why she responded to my behaviour the way she did.
Go back to her place. No, again this does not end with sex. It ends with a conversation in her back yard where she is telling me she isn't going to settle down and live in suburbia with me. I'm laughing on the inside as she is saying this. Yes I am wearing a suit, thats what I get off the aeroplane in on friday nights which this was. But she is incapable of understanding me. This is interesting. I begin to suspect there is a broad range of people out there who simply cannot fathom even vaguely what I am about. This could be very useful information to know.
Our brief "fling" that went no where at all is over. She goes on with her super rebel life, talking about getting stoned man and wearing black clothes and fuck you to the man.
I go back to slowly subverting multinational corporations to spend money and give me control of things that I want for whatever strikes my fancy as the next area of thought I want to play with and then fuck with people. Sorry, I mean I am back to suburbia, except by suburbia my 4 storey house in the inner city walking distance to all the cool goth clubs she wished she could go to but never bothered to find this out about me.
I ask a friend about her friend. "Oh thats M". M also asked about me when she heard that goth chick was over me. My friend brokered an introduction. "Lets catch up next time I'm in Sydney" "sure sounds fun".
My hotel room for that weekend (I get a hotel room on the weekends for tax reasons so that I get per diems and rent for my Melbourne monster mansion from Accenture for during the week. It effectively doubles my salary. Thanks Accenture HR your awesome.) is in the centre of Sydney. I meet her near a train station in the CBD. Still in my suit because I've rushed to meet her. She also had brought a dress. Was very insistent needed to get changed. Wanted to not look like she was from the burbs in her blue jeans and knitted jumper.
Ok, get changed in my hotel room then.
I sit on the couch in the hotel room (it was a very nice one) she goes to bathroom to get changed. I put tv on to watch CNN. I was big time into CNN then. Next thing you know she is naked on the bed teasing me.
I'm still really bad and awkward at flirting with women at this point. Yes even ones naked in front of my, literally gyrating their hips at me in my own hotel room. I start not wanting to offend her. Worried am I treating her like a sexual object? Is it appropriate for me to express the fact that I find her attractive at this point in time? Does this mean a kiss from me when she stops rubbing her naked groin against the front of my suit trousers might be ok? This is all so confusing.
No it doesnt end with a massive sex orgy.
I feel really uncomfortable and talk her back into clothes with the promise of food. Yes I really wanted her, was desperate for any sort of sexual relationship at this point, and she seemed really nice. As in really nice. Blond hair, thin but not too thin in all the right places. And I really had now seen everything, there was not anything to worry about at all. But life was easier to manage relationships with new people if they have clothes on. For me anyway. So we go for a walk for food.
She comes back the next day. We get on great. Chatting, walking, catch a ferry. Eventually she convinces me to screw her brains out. I was so nervous, so anxious. I felt absolutely horrific to again be cheating on my fiance. Despite the fact I was doing this increasingly or at least seeming to try to do it regularly. Felt amazingly bad. And the sex was amazingly good.
There is a particular mixture of loathing yourself and experiencing short term fleeting extreme pleasure. To climb to achieve the pleasure you have to hack your way through some pretty nasty feelings of self loathing, doubt, and a realisation that you are using and hurting people to steal something you dont even really need. And as soon as you have it you hate yourself and you want whoever is in your bed to just leave. If they dont want to ever talk to you again, thats ok too. I had had this more than once now. The problem was, I realised I was starting to get comfortable here. Pleasure comes from hating yourself and hurting others and you live on this rocky sea of constant anxiety. Always. I am never at peace. I have fallen a very long way from the monk who prayed, loved, laughed and was at complete peace with himself, life, others.
I respond to this by fucking harder.
If I am doomed to become some kind of demon, I am going to take my demon soul seller reward. No permission is sought. If I decide something is mine, it is unless someone else is strong enough to stop me.
I change my flights after M goes shopping for porn for me to watch. She wants to watch me watch. At this stage I had never met let alone be with a women who was interested in a positive manner in me watching porn. I had a very deep and intimate and long term relationships with porn. Had realised early on that girls will come and go but porn is the one staple of my sex life.
With porn, I had started thinking theories on relationships with women. I had noticed as I got progressively closer to 30 that the economics of sex had changed. I used to never be in demand "there is always more fish in the sea" being something several girls had told me about boys. But as I and the women got closer to 30, suddenly they wanted me in the way I used to want them.
But I had porn. I wasn't desperate. Oh yeah and a fiance etc but you know, I mean for my actual sex life. A girl needed to be more than just a vagina and breasts that were willing to spend some time with me. And the thing is, a great many women had become lazy from their youth. They were used to men going to great efforts to get them into bed. But it changed. Their needs increased and the demand for them for one reason or another changed.
Now, yes its sexist, and a symptom of some things wrong with our culture. I do regard myself as a feminist and want women to have a fair equitable place in our society. But there is also an evolutionary aspect to this. Porn tips part of the balance. Why hire a prostitute or escort or whatever when you can now just jack off for free on the internet and get probably 80% of the experience. And the porn will probably look better and you want catch anything worse than a computer virus. Girlfriends cost even more than prostitutes, so you are saving much more again.
So I stay an extra day. My fiance calls me. She is on the tram to work.
"Your not in Melbourne?"
"No I'm staying in Sydney an extra day"
I am full of anxiety. I actually REALLY hate lying. I was also bad at it, but mostly I just hate it.
"Are you having an affair?"
"Yes"
Tears. Lots of tears. In a tram full of people going to work at 8.30am
Im an asshole.
In my mind we would just talk about. She would eventually see that this was something that made me feel better. She loved me (and she really did) and so of course she would be supportive of something that helped make me feel better. We would have a sophisticated loving, European style relationship in our fabulous house and jet setting lifestyle.
I arrive back to Melbourne. All my techno CD's had been placed in the kitchen sink, and then she had used a metal meat mallet to mash them into shards of silicon.
Lesson learnt. If you have a girlfriend, switch to MP3s. CD's are too vulnerable.
She had baked me some lasagne. Left it in the fridge. A note on it.
"This is what I had cooked for you for when you came home. You should still eat it anyway."
Damn it was good lasagne. I was very hungry too, so it was a really considerate thing she did.
Asshole.
I think maybe later she wanted me to come crying back to her (in the end I sort of did, but not for a few years as you will see) and instead I lit the match and threw it on the petrol I had been pouring all through my life. Some men just want to watch their lives burn....
She had packed her (our? but well definitely now her) car and driven back to Sydney to live in the apartment we had bought together.
M and I continued a relationship for a time. I visit her in Sydney, she visits me in Melbourne. She starts talking about conspiracy theories, and how you know maybe there is something there. I stop calling her. Alone again. My very worst fears self realised. No one in the world cares for me or gives a crap whether I live or die. Life is bleak and without meaning.
Lesson learnt. Always have a backup girlfriend to your girlfriend who is the backup to your fiance. Defense in depth. Yep I'm that asshole.
Money Makin, Money Money Makin
In Accenture, your role model should be Harvey Specter from the tv show "Suits". You dominate, win, are in complete control, look dam good all the time and constantly tell people to get their shit together and make it clear you are the man. You make a fuck ton of money when you hit partner, and your smart enough not to mention it even though your suit, haircut, shirt, tie, shoes and tastes in drinks screams it.
At this stage of my life I was however more like Don Draper from Mad Men. A metaphor that perhaps blends into simile territory on many levels. I don't like the character Don Draper btw he rings too fucking close to home especially in the first 2 seasons.
I am creative, visionary. Sophisticated. I have taught myself to drink and appreciate martini's and red wines. I smoke, not because I was a stupid teenager and am addicted but because I am french style fuck you cool (I'm not french and cant speak it either). I started smoking at 27. It is an affectation of my chosen cultural elitism. My health is a servant to my ambition and charm, not the other way round. (BTW seriously dont smoke kids, no I dont have cancer but its just generally stupid). I wear thousand dollar suits, not just on special occasions but every day. I can talk with authority on the pitfalls of extra marital affairs, personal arrangements, art, culture, an avid fan now of post modernism and talk for hours over an ironic choice of chardonnay on the concept of meta art utilising media primitives to explore the concept of meaning itself, rather than a particular meaning. Yeah I masturbated a lot.
Women find me offensive. And sexy. Men think I am a pretentious wanker, interesting or gay.
In the apartment of another consultant, very late one night, we have established that I am definitely a nerd. She mentions "I have never been with a real nerd. But I could..."
For the inner reality, I was pulled in many directions. Medically my bipolar was in full unrestricted actualisation of its potential. I was rewarded and praised for being fucking insane. An absolute rainmaker machine of innovation. I could summon money from sitting in front of a computer with a copy of powerpoint (Was not epically good at powerpoint yet, but good enough) and being told which company had a need for someone to work out vaguely what they might want to lay down some seven figures on and then directing my focus there. I am also crippled with severe social anxiety and general inability to form a social connection. Formal work communication however doesnt suffer... because it has rules and structure of communication. I just follow those, and it always goes well and am seen as a pinnacle of professionalism. I'm not, just clinging to the only way that works for me.
You are on the track to partner. I am told.
I hate myself. Looking in the mirror in the sleek black marble bathroom I come to the realisation that everything and everyone that I am surrounded by is just shit. I have taken my big demon slaying sword to other peoples careers and lives to change the world to suit me. Time to do it to myself. The inner Jihad.
But lets rewind a little. This part is the clearest example of the combination of aspergers and bipolar in action.
There was a girl. She joined IBM when I was there. Plain looking, but slim and a hell of a personality. I had been sort of in love before. But this, I was completely smitten. Would have literally died to bring her a glass of water if she asked.
She was single. We got on amazingly well. We kept edging closer. Months of build up. A work function. She pointedly made sure I would attend. I pointedly made sure she would attend. We would have drinks on our own after. Life was going to open to a new thing. A positive thing. I had never felt anything like this, I would be good and honest. This was before I had ever cheated or had an affair. I would break up with my girlfriend. I would not do anything before I did. I wanted it to be respectful to everyone involved. A good man. Breaking a heart yes. But this happens.
In hind sight, I think this is where the corruption by the forces of Chaos began. I like to think Khorne was my corrupting demon prince, but it was probably Nurgle, but hey at least I have my space marine armour. And no I dont believe in demons or angels ffs. If you do your retarded and close this blog right now and go back to home school. Learn to Warhammer.
We danced. We laughed. Drank. Chatted. Mingled. And then one of the IBM executives propositioned her. She was emotionally shaken and had to leave. MOTHER FUCKER.
She cut off from work colleagues for a while. I think she got clarity around me, or saw me differently. There was no electricity anymore. I wanted it back, didnt understand. She tried to get me interested in her friend. She cared about me still. I knew that. Her friend was paying her way through uni by working on a phone sex thing. I was still a good man then, didnt know how to deal with that sort of thing. If met her today (phone sex girl) I would impress upon her the importance of her work and how in the messy imperfection of life she brought an elevation, however small of the human experience to men in need. She would then screw my brains out because her sense of value of self was now intrinsically linked to my perception of her. But I was not evil yet. I just wanted the cool sassy COBOL programmer that every cell in my body screamed I will do anything for you forever.
So anyway. There was a girl. She ended up dating, then getting engaged to, and then marrying a guitarist in an ironic indie pop band.
MOTHER FUCKER.
Fucking musicians. At least he wasnt a drummer. Except that if I was going to be in a band I would probably be the drummer. Fucking elitist asshole guitarists. And fuck women for finding them sexy.
So she wants creative. In passing she had contrasted that what he did was creative and really moved people, and by implication as an office drone programmer in a suit I was not.
Well motherfucker. The Matrix had just come out. Drone office programmers called Neo were now motherfucking superheroes. The worlds changed bitch, I'm not buying into your dated view of reality. Your boyfriend knows how to hit a G chord. Well I know kungfu. Well virtual kungfu in the virtual reality of my mind anyway. But I can kick ass in ways most people cant imagine they can be kicked. Mentally. I mean in an actual fight, I'm fucked. But you know what I mean.
Sledgehammer massive overkill time. I was gonna be the fucking rockstar of creativity of the finance world. I would show her how to truly rock, not some pissy bullshit playing a guitar and smoking some pot out the back of 3rd rate pubs. Then I would become so epic it would stop being about her. And then I guess I would find closure or contentment or probably what I most wanted, recognition that I was as good as a normal person.
Now this is where the journey really begins on the aspergers bipolar. You can see traces of them both in the development of the story to here, but thats nothing. Now we get the real fucking no holds barred deal.
Lock Stock and Two Smoking Cigars in Double Bay
Now as I am want to do, I do multiple things at once with long time horizons on them for payoff. Patience and time are things I learnt when I was younger. Because I think partly due to the rarer mechanics of my brain, I tend to not really put much priority on immediate gratification. It has been claimed by a few and a current partner that this statement is not true. I like trashy trampy girls and will fall for a sob story. But I think this is due to other factors, which may or may not be explored in this blog depending on if I feel like it or remember it later.
So for a few years now I had been fostering a relationship with this guy called C. No not a sexual relationship. A business one.
I first met C when I was a lowly desktop support tech. He wore nice suits, had natty glasses and cool haircut. Things I certainly did not then. His area was product development or something for unit trusts (Australian equivalent of 401K funds or whatever you call them in the US) these were the smart guys set to make lots of money. It was as close to meeting a young on the way up Gordon Gecko I would ever get.
The other guys working there ignored me, or were rude or just smiled politely (which is always the worst. It means they think you are so stupid they think being nice will make you think they like you. I always prefer outright hostility. I am never vindictive in victory to someone who was honest about hating me, and always make a point of being spiteful to those who are not). He actually engaged me in conversation. Social awkwardness on my side meant it went really badly, but he persisted and was nice. We sort of clicked, and I think that for a seriously nerdy nerd he thought I did ok.
We ran into each other occasionally.
I had a really good relationship with a bunch of girls that worked on another floor. One in particular was always nice and we would joke. I always looked forward to tech support calls for their area. Years later they would both marry. No I didnt get to go to the wedding, but I did get invited to the bucks party and look at strippers after talking to his quite old father which I really enjoyed. I actually found out his father, as a partner in Deloittes was an advisor in what is probably the most famous tax court case in Australia "Bottom of the Harbour", which was effectively the government vs. my dad plus a bunch of other guys. So his dad was on the other side in that. Funny how life goes.
After I left IBM, then at Accenture I wanted to do something. And yes that something was to prove I was an epic god of the internet driven by an unstoppable divine mandate to move heaven and earth where all creation and the affections of men shall bend to my will.
There was this book "Capital Market Revolution". It was written by this economist guy. I really liked it. It just homed in on all the things I was learning in eCommerce - disintermediation, decentralisation, new kinds of value. A big focus on the book was all about liquidity. With liquidity of capital we could radically transform the living experience of the entire planet. Transform value from assets to action. It was preaching social commerce before the word had been invented.
I'm not an economist. Didnt study accounting. Can only use excel to a marginal level (fuck me how do I use this pivot table? I mean seriously). Hell in my KPMG assessment I did yesterday (expecting Letter of Offer right now dammit... cmon HR get your shit together...) despite "spiking" (that was the term used to describe my performance by the hiring director) in the verbal component - which had a shit tin of curly questions btw, it wasnt a basic cat sat on the fucking mat, what is on the mat? you get at most companies, despite this I at most did ok in the numerical assessment.
Actually on this point, people always assume that to be good at computers you need to be good at math. This is complete bollox. Binary logic, whilst being invented or at least claimed by mathematicians is completely different thinking to maths. Talking to guys my age that are math prodigies they just cant handle for example concepts of object oriented programming, let alone something messy and dirty like strategic architecture. They need a fucking whiteboard full of greek symbols to work out what I can do just by looking at something and describing it to another nerd in a sentence. Seriously maths whilst it can be hard, the discipline isnt that useful in technology. Except game theory, but thats a whole later discussion when I talk about internet dating.
So I got an old IBM friend to look up the email address and phone number for C from the internal directory. Now to most people, calling up someone and saying "hi, I think I have an idea you might like, and hey remember me, can you spare 10 minutes sometime next week?" is not that big a deal. Well I had trouble having a conversation to order a cup of coffee. Seriously. If they try to small talk me or ask me any question I was not prepared for, then I was fucked. And fuck haircuts. That shit is full of small talk. Torture. Unless you go to a barbers. They know what they are doing. Well except for that one really young cute hairdresser who knew my name from last time she cut my hair and heaps about me somehow (I didnt remember her, hairdressers all look the same) who didnt say a single word and took like an hour to cut my hair and her breasts kept bumping into my arms and back and then didn't understand why I didn't ask for her number after. BECAUSE IM RETARDED I CAME TO GET MY HAIRCUT AND DIDNT KNOW HOW TO DEAL WITH ANYTHING - ANYTHING UNEXPECTED. YES YOU WERE AMAZINGLY CUTE AND I WOULD HAVE TOTALLY DIED FOR THE CHANCE TO GO OUT WITH YOU BUT IM FUCKING RETARDED.
Aspergers is supposedly genetic, something about 200-300 genes in combination are related (this is autism fyi). Everyone with autism has these genes, but not everyone with these genes has autism. I seriously have my doubts on the reproductive viability of people with aspergers.
To call C was gonna take some balls. Extreme anxiety, making multiple practice runs in my mind. None going well. There is no story of dutch courage from drinking an epic volume of scotch or rum then calling. That would not have worked. Probably...
In the end I just grew some balls and called.
err.. ahh... stutter.. stutter... "hi" err...stutter "is that C?"
He answers with a humorous good tempered "why hello, yes it is"
"umm.. ahh.. this is Luke.... I used to work at IBM and fix your computer"
"Lucas! How are you old chap?"
In case its not clear, he has really good mastery over communication skills in even the oddest situations. I've seen better salesmen, but he brings a very solid confidence for all parties.
So he says, sure I would like to hear about your idea. Lets meet on Sunday at a cafe in Double Bay around the corner from his house.
FUCK YEAH. The only thing now standing between me and revolutionising the world with the best dot com ever was a motherfuckin cup of coffee. The fact that I'm typing this from a nice but not really nice hotel room sort of gives away the ending. But life is about the journey. So stop bitching and keep judging.
Sunday happens to be Mothers Day. Double Bay in Sydney is like THE suburb for wealthy matronly mothers to be taken out for brunch by their trust funded children. The super stylish cafe we are meeting at is literally drowning in pearls and lattes. I am of course oblivious to all this.
We meet. I order my now standard long black. I have learnt that severity in choices is actually cool. The way that I think and act is actually regarded as cool if you don't hold back and dont half commit. The more me I am the more people think I am this weird assed artiste that has god like style super powers. Long black. So much wank in just ordering a cup of coffee.
C gets a cappuccino. I devolve the conversation briefly onto the history of the name of the cappuccino being derived from the Cappuchin monks who gained their name from the size of the cappuch or hood on their monastic robes. C quickly shuts me up.
I cant hold back and dive straight into the idea.
I want to change the world. The concept of who has wealth, who does not. The challenges in raising equity as opposed to debt. I want to create a world where it is just as easy to get investors in well... anything and everything... as it is to get a personal loan. Where anyone can be both an investor and an entrepreneur at the same time. Capital to be unlocked and flowing not like a trickle or a stream but like an unstoppable force more akin to an avalanche. People would need to invest because the value of equity once the world started moving faster would vastly eclispe the value of assets. The people that could turn equity into more value would become the new gods. And these would be every day people, not just a few working at merchant banks or venture capital firms.
The idea is actually good, and still needed btw. If anyone has a spare few mil let me know.
I use the example of someone wanting to start a cafe, someone who has no money. Our system would create liquidity for the investment in the cafe - an investment that is such a small amount by current open markets that it would not be possible to create true market liquidity. But with the power of the internet we can create a market and create a market based valuation of equity in real time.
Further more, we can get around the legal restrictions on investment and market listings for each entity by creating a form of unit trusts - so you are basically flipping points in and out of trusts - and not in fact trading shares. Its all held together by essential the contracts, where units are valued by a formula linked to the market and dependant on swapping units with other unit holders, and disbursements calculated using a pooling and dispersal to reward and punish choices in risk - effectively a VIRTUAL stock exchange, without needing to be a real one and take on all the compliance costs but completely real in its ability to collect and transact money.
He as a product owner for developing and launching unit trusts is exactly what is needed to be CEO. He also has all the contacts we need.
Our cup of coffee goes for nearly four hours. The gay waiter is absolutely infuriated at us. He literally throws the bill in its leather folder at us. No not the table. At us. On his busiest day for months we have taken a prime table for four, for nearly four hours. He pretty much yells at us he hates us. This is literally not an exaggeration.
But I'm trying to make the world a better place for people like you. Fucking gay waiters.
letsdothis.jpg
Actually this was before such as thing as 4chan existed and C would not have heard of it even if it did, and probably still hasnt now. So he just more said, this is a good idea. Lets do it.
CEO and CIO of the yet to be incorporated equity7.com have struck a deal.
18 months later, after recruiting a CFO, working through legalities and putting together the most personally meaningful powerpoint deck of my life (except for the one I did as an application to be a slave for a BDSM mistress. She said it was the best application she had had btw... I knew how to cut a deck) we are meeting Venture Capitalists.
Mr Hooker. He runs a little VC op in Sydney. Venture Capital has become trendy. Everyone with some money is setting up an incubator or early stage fund.
He agrees to meet us. I have the decks printed out and put together. We are in suits. He isn't. I dont think it would be out of line to say he looked quite disengaged.
I start with the pitch. I've done this for Accenture before, but never for me.
He is flicking through the pages. Not following the script in my head. After about 2 minutes his assistant comes in to tell him he has something very important.
He looks at the deck and looks at me. Then holds his hand up.
"No I'm going to keep looking at this. It's interesting."
Booyah.
Also a useful lesson. Never knew that an assistant would ever lie about something as holy as a meeting before. But I could tell that it was a ruse to kick us out if he was bored. I was amazed that I could recognise this. YAY MY AUTISM IS CURED. Actually no. In fact the opposite. The opposite in the way that it would have been offensive to not lie, or at least in most peoples world. That way face would be saved all around. The pitchers would know they are being lied to but comforted by the respect that at least he showed the good grace of lying. This I did not understand. C did of course.
A few weeks later I am being driven by Mr Hooker through Double Bay in his shitty beat up roofless car. It was probably some kind of classic. Certainly had a massive engine, and it seemed the fact he was worth a few hundred million and could drive around a distinctively crappy looking car through some of Australia's most well to do neighborhoods was both a bit of a statement of ownership and rebellion at the same time. I suspect he used the car to have conversations to get laid a lot. But I was in the car, not watching it drive past. New experience for me.
Hind sight, he was trying to size me up. He had put some serious thought into the idea and tried translating it to his world. He asked me how the idea would work with large property investments. Say 30 or 300 million dollars worth. I ran the thought process through the model I kept in my head. Yes it can do that, but optimally it provides the most economic benefit on micro equity models, that is where the transformation of the underlying economic principles occur. Where were change the world.
We meet his property developer friend for coffee.
Doesn't go so well. I dont like the rich kid kicking the tires of my idea and obviously not getting how fucking revolutionary it is. It was the equity equivalent to bitcoin and I was pitching it before people had heard of facebook or youtube. They had doubts about the internet as a marketplace. I dont think I told them they were retarded, but I certainly stared at them like they were. The net worth at our coffee table was over $1 billion dollars, of which mine was about $10k. I dont think they liked that I looked at them like they were retarded. Or maybe they didnt notice and just assumed I was aspying out as normal. Who can tell.
He wanted to take it to the next level. But we needed to now put our balls on the line. Mortgage a house or something. Come up with some money, enough money to hurt should it fail. It was either 100 or 300k, cant remember. I know we needed 1.5 mil to make it happen. He was going to do it in tranches.
We were mid negotiation on the skin in the game money "I dont have a house to mortgage" when this thing happened, which we now call the dot com crash. Fuck you America. Fuck you very much.
Literally overnight, all the VC shops closed. Like literally closed. He was going to go back to do something and maybe one day buy back his dads old business. He ended up doing just that. Good on him. He was kind of an ok guy. For someone like him, he wasn't as much of a dick as I would have thought he would be.
But enough about him. FUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKK.
