So last night I was accused of being “up tight.” Make no mistake this was a slight against my virility, party-time morality, and social graces.
Up tight.
What is up where and what is tight? Is the tightness regarding the fit of the what up the where? Are my thoughts retarded by a paradigm of penetration? Maybe it is a question of friction, a kind of affective friction that unfolds in-connection (ala Massumi), necessarily so, of a friction like footholds in a constantly shifting relativity between infinitely folded surfaces.
Up tight.
Perhaps telling someone they are up tight (albeit initially framing it as a question) is a sure way to make someone who might not actually feel ‘up tight’ (maybe just tired, drunk, etc) suddenly feel it.
Up tight.
We didn’t meet each other exactly (dialectic) it was more a weirdly congruent reaction to contingency (event). Then we hung out for a few hours. Is the denoucement of ‘up tightness’ an expression of a libidinal micro-economy within such an event, of a way of restating what is essentially unspoken but expressed within the question? (inter alia “Why don’t you want to get it on with me?”)
Up tight.
This passed through my slightly drunk head in a couple of instants, as she articulated the question and the various resonances cascaded through my mind. I am at once stoked and, well, feeling up tight. Maybe I am ‘up tight’? In the bourgie argot ‘up tight’ is certainly a defence of wounded beauty. And the woman who said this to me is smoking hot. Like so hot I couldn’t keep my eyes off her when I saw her and therfore had to slightly reposition myself in such a way that she was in the projected line of sight between me and the band (that is, if I looked at the band, which I didn’t because I was looking at her).
But maybe romance should be an obstacle course and not a fucking drag race. But maybe she didn’t want romance and just a drag race to fucking? Should I repay cynicism in kind? But why then invite me to a party next weekend? (Because she was drunk?)
I was told recently that I was “neurotic” by a man to whom I really want to appear cool and insouciant. This wounded me as it was true, and also because of the gendered insinuation to the binary of ‘insouciant’ (male) and ‘neurotic’ (female). This is why I find your situation interesting.
Usually people use ‘uptight’ when you have refused to share their way of doing a particular thing. It would be fairly easy to be falsely accused of this if you both had different ideas of the thing to be done.
is \’uptight\’ one word? wow, i am an idiot.
but it felt like two words, the way she said it, two savage blows (\”up… tight…\”). i was so sure it was two words from the way she said it that i didn\’t even bother looking it up in any sort of dictionary.
Now I am thinking that, on a social level, maybe my uptightness (or the perception of uptightness that I seem to perform) is what bourgies see in me as attractive? then I appear as a worthy project of socio-sexual colonisation to liberate me from my uptightness. kind of like Iraq and Islam versus the capitalist market but on an interpersonal level and more about the socio-sexual dynamics of bourgie bohemia.
So my response to your comment would be, who cares if you actually are neurotic? You care and in this context two other types of people: those who think this is a bad thing and point it out as some kind of insult, and those whose very behaviour expresses some kind of necessary phantasmatic integration of the feminine-neurotic into their socio-sexual relations. In other words, why think being neurotic is a bad thing? It may actually be a necessary thing! Follow the pattern of previous romances for the common thread that ties the asymmetrical knot of attraction between you and another.
I empathise with Mel – I was also called neurotic [only once, wow] and renamed my blog… I proved a point there all right!
Otherwise, how very curious.
non-uptight = relaxed enough to put out? perhaps she is not used to being knocked back, the good-looking ones never are….
well, not tripping over myself to get it on, or at least try to like all the other peanuts in the bar, is not the same thing as knocking her back.
i dunno. sometimes i think i am supremely foolish and i should stop analysing things so much, but i stop myself because thinking about thinking is even more frustrating and boring.
…and, pete, mate…! you need a blog!!!