The Will to Resist

Just Finish The Fucking Sentence

There is a special kind of exhaustion that comes from not knowing.

Not bad news.

Not rejection.

Not being told no.

Just...

Nothing.

A sentence that somebody started two weeks ago and apparently wandered away from before reaching the fucking period.

And lately, I have discovered that I hate unfinished sentences.

Let's begin somewhere profoundly stupid:

LocaLuv.

LocaLuv is one of those places where you can be having a perfectly normal conversation with a woman and suddenly—

"Open this photo."

No.

"How about this video?"

No.

"This one?"

Still no.

"Baby..."

MA'AM.

At some point I started feeling like a raccoon standing in front of a vending machine while somebody repeatedly slapped the illuminated button.

PUSH BUTTON.

No.

PUSH BUTTON AGAIN.

Still no.

PERHAPS BUTTON DID NOT UNDERSTAND. PUSH HARDER.

No, motherfucker.

The button understands perfectly.

The button has reviewed your request and respectfully declined to release $5.99 from my bank account.

And this kept happening often enough that eventually I stopped asking what was happening.

I knew what was happening.

I wanted to know:

Why?

Why are we doing this?

Why does every otherwise-normal conversation eventually encounter the Great Tollbooth of Intimacy?

Why are you so invested in me opening this thing?

Are you getting paid?

Do you receive some incentive?

Does a tiny casino bell ring somewhere?

Does a manager descend from the ceiling and hand you a coupon?

WHAT DOES THE BUTTON DO?

So eventually I asked Serena directly.

Are you getting some incentive I don't know about?

Her answer?

Nooo.

Okay.

Then why the constant:

"Can you open this?"

"Can you open that?"

And finally—

THE WHY.

According to Serena, it was about keeping her account active.

Staying there longer.

Now, I don't know exactly how LocaLuv calculates that. I don't know what activity counts, what the internal requirements are, or whether opening paid content specifically satisfies some metric.

But suddenly I had something enormously valuable:

An explanation.

And something funny happened.

My answer didn't change.

No.

I'm still not opening every intimate photo shoved underneath my nose.

I'm still not buying every video.

The Gremlin Treasury remains protected by the ancient economic doctrine known as:

ACT BROKE.

But now?

I understood the machine.

And understanding the machine changed the interaction.

Not because the machine got what it wanted.

Not because I surrendered.

Not because my boundary disappeared.

Because somebody finally finished the fucking sentence.

Which brings me to something considerably less funny.

Haus Morgenrot.

At the time I'm writing this, I have spent roughly two weeks sitting at home.

Not working.

Not earning my normal hours.

Not being told definitively that I'm fired.

Not being given a return date.

Just...

waiting.

And waiting sounds harmless until waiting starts appearing on your paycheck.

Waiting doesn't look particularly dramatic on paper.

There isn't necessarily a screaming supervisor.

There isn't a dramatic termination scene.

Nobody throws your belongings into a cardboard box while security escorts you dramatically through the lobby.

Instead, the institution simply stops finishing its sentences.

"We're investigating—"

And?

"We'll let you know—"

When?

"You're still employed—"

Then when do I work?

"We haven't terminated you—"

Then what exactly am I supposed to do?

FINISH.

THE.

SENTENCE.

Because here's the thing:

I can work with no.

No is useful.

No has edges.

No tells me where the wall is.

No means I stop walking in that direction and find another road.

I can work with yes.

Yes means report here.

Show up at this time.

Wear this.

Do that.

Collect paycheck.

Go home.

Beautiful.

Boring.

Functional.

I can even work with:

You're fired.

Would I enjoy hearing it?

Of course fucking not.

But you know what I could do approximately thirty seconds afterward?

PLAN.

Update the résumé.

Push harder on applications.

Recalculate the budget.

Figure out transportation.

Figure out what gets paid first.

Figure out what gets delayed.

Figure out what the next mission is.

Remember:

When the battlefield changes, change the mission.

But I cannot change the mission when nobody will tell me what battlefield I'm standing on.

That's the cruelty of limbo.

It doesn't necessarily punch you once.

It just quietly charges admission every day.

Another day without hours.

Another day without certainty.

Another day staring at your finances and wondering whether you should behave like somebody temporarily off work or somebody who has effectively lost his job.

Meanwhile the calendar keeps moving.

The bills certainly don't enter investigative suspension.

Uber doesn't say:

"We understand Haus Morgenrot hasn't finished its internal process. Transportation will therefore be complimentary."

The grocery store does not accept PENDING ADMINISTRATIVE REVIEW at checkout.

Rent cannot be paid in PLEASE STAND BY.

My bank account does not operate on institutional time.

And THAT is what makes this so exhausting.

It turns out LocaLuv and Haus Morgenrot accidentally taught me the same lesson.

One of them did it with horny JPEGs.

The other did it with my livelihood.

Obviously, those stakes are nowhere near equivalent.

But the underlying frustration is remarkably similar:

Tell me how the machine works.

That's it.

I don't require the answer to flatter me.

I don't require the answer to benefit me.

I don't require reality to bend itself around what Mr. Germlin would prefer.

I require enough information to make a fucking decision.

Tell me yes.

Tell me no.

Tell me I'm fired.

Tell me when I return.

Tell me the rule.

Tell me the price.

Tell me why the button exists.

Because once I understand the machine, I can decide whether I want to participate in it.

LocaLuv finally gave me a version of why.

And hilariously?

The answer remained:

No snacc.

But now it wasn't:

"WHY THE FUCK DO YOU KEEP ASKING ME?"

It became:

"Ohhhhhhh. Okay. I understand why you're asking.

Still no."

And that's fine!

That's how boundaries are supposed to work.

Understanding somebody's reason does not create an obligation to satisfy it.

Empathy is not a purchase agreement.

Explanation is not consent.

You can understand someone's position completely and still decline.

But understanding lets two people stop fighting shadows.

This is part of what I mean when I talk about being Aggressively Boring.

People sometimes hear boring and imagine passive.

No.

Aggressively Boring is incredibly active.

Aggressively Boring means:

Give me the policy.

I'll follow it.

Give me the schedule.

I'll work it.

Give me the boundary.

I'll respect it.

Give me the price.

I'll decide whether I can afford it.

Give me the answer.

I'll make the next decision.

I don't need intrigue.

I don't need mystery.

I don't need some elaborate psychological chess match where everybody communicates through hints, silence, implications, and smoke signals.

I am forty-four years old.

I have shit to do.

Finish the sentence.

Maybe that's why uncertainty wears me down more than rejection.

Rejection closes a door.

Uncertainty makes you stand in the doorway.

And standing in a doorway gets fucking tiring.

Eventually your legs hurt.

Eventually you're hungry.

Eventually you're wondering whether you're supposed to take your shoes off.

Eventually some asshole behind you asks why you're blocking the hallway.

I DON'T KNOW, STEVE.

THE DOOR HAS BEEN “PENDING REVIEW” FOR TWO FUCKING WEEKS.

So perhaps tonight's lesson came from the stupidest possible place.

A dating app.

A woman repeatedly asking me to open something.

Me repeatedly refusing.

And eventually me asking:

Why?

Then receiving an answer.

Not necessarily the complete technical explanation.

Not necessarily an explanation I could independently verify down to every detail.

But enough context to understand the behavior.

And suddenly the frustration dropped.

Not because I got what I wanted.

Because I finally knew what I was looking at.

That's all I've wanted from Haus Morgenrot.

Not mercy.

Not special treatment.

Not some grand apology delivered on parchment by three executives and a hallway cat.

An answer.

If I'm coming back:

Tell me.

If I'm not:

Tell me.

If there's another step:

Tell me.

If somebody is still reviewing something:

Tell me what that means for the person whose paycheck is currently getting beaten behind the woodshed.

Because eventually silence becomes information too.

Eventually the unanswered sentence starts answering itself.

And eventually the person waiting stops waiting.

There is only so much money you can put into a machine after you've learned what the machine does.

There is only so long you can stand in front of one that refuses to tell you.

So tonight, my philosophy is remarkably simple:

Tell me yes.

Tell me no.

Tell me the rule.

Tell me the price.

Tell me why.

Then get the hell out of the way and let me decide what happens next.

I can survive an answer.

I can adapt to an answer.

I can budget around an answer.

I can laugh at an answer.

I can tell an answer to go chomp a cactus.

What I cannot do indefinitely is build tomorrow around a blank fucking space.

Just finish the sentence.

— Jerry “The Ankle-Biter” Silverhand