/b/ - Random

He was a carpenter from the age of 14 and even paid for college by fixing random things in random houses in his neighborhood. His personality boils down mostly to hating laziness and "bullshit jobs" as he puts it (he's an inspector professionally now and hasn't fixed anything on the books since I was like 10). He tought me how to use basically every tool short of a welder, which he also hates using and especially opposes me and my brother becoming professionally (not that I had any desire to). From age 12 he had me getting dragged around the city helping anyone who needed some nonsense in their house, or garage, or gutted 711 they bought on a whim (and he was calling them stupid for the whole way there and back) repaired. I inherited his know-how for fixing things, though it's mostly through helping him, I certainly don't love for it the way he does. It made for a more interesting childhood than my friends who's parents were mostly either absent addicts or helicoptering school obsessed pieces of shit.

He was an alcoholic who raped and beat my mother. I blocked a lot of that out due to trauma but since I’ve started to remember more clearly, I can’t look at him anymore.

>>296389
cool trick

anyways.
i dont care anymore. im sorry things happened.

He's a strange man. He seems totally emotionless, but certain situations arise and suddenly you realise he's this roiling cauldron of love, emotion and unending empathy, all carefully contained in an extremely analytical, cold, calculating and stoic shell. Most of the time he comes across as very stable and boring, but then will reveal new bit of dadlore, like the time he sourced an illegal weapon from contacts he made with Estonian merchant sailors, while helping to operate a smuggling operation on the docks, to rescue my aunt from a cult's desert compound at gunpoint.

He can never suffer anyone who intentionally remains bad at something and makes it everyone else's problem, but has this unending reservoir of kindness and patience for children, people learning and the disabled. Refuse to learn basic computer skills? You have precisely 30 seconds to get out of the way or he'll make his displeasure known; which, given he has a natural menace to him, is very unnerving. Someone in a wheelchair gets caught in a doorway or a new employee fumbles with a computer system? He'll happily wait for as long as it takes, giving them friendly smiles, reassuring affirmations and sympathetic smalltalk.

He'll also ocassionally espouse either the most high-minded, optomistic beliefs about our species, or the most coldhearted and awful things about society. I have to keep reminding myself he saw mass death in 3 wars. Sometimes it seems like he's being needlessly hard on me, or withholding affection, but then we'll talk about something that happened in my childhood or a hypothetical and he'll hit me with something like "Having children gives you brain damage. I'm not the same man I was before you were born. You changed me. I didn't think I was capable of forgiving slights against me, but one look at you made me believe in redemption and that we can all become better people. I also didn't think I was capable of coldblooded murder before you came along, but then you were in danger and suddenly I was willing to kill anyone, do anything, reduce the earth to ashes, to get you back. I still am".

I think what I love most about him is his total lack of shame/self-conscioussness. He'd sing and dance in public to make me happy, completely go against the flow of normal behaviour to make something simpler or better and can do things without a single care in the world what anyone else might think of him. I have this memory I recall often of him singing to me in a supermarket, with people staring at him like he was insane, because I asked what song was on the radio. We were leaving and saw the way down to the car was blocked, so he went to the railing, vaulted over and carried me down to the next level as people reacted with shock and panic. It was just a little drop, but they were so absorbed in what was normal that it seemed insane and dangerous to hop a guard rail. They would all rather wait 30+ minutes than break a non-existent rule.

I wish I got his shamelessness, but instead I got the roiling cauldron of emotion and empathy. Of course I wouldn't get that natural stoicism that let him function so well, so I'm just a mess.

he was a bit of a scumbag. Three baby mommas would cheat on my mom constantly and use her money to cheat. I feel bad for her bc she makes relatively good money (100k) but is in a financia bat spot bc he fucked her over financially multiple times.

>>296474

Yeah that man sounds AWFULLY familiar to me. Men who sound like they care half the time still just don't fucking understand anything and don't really want to past a certain point. Men rarely ever understand anything that isn't in the technical realm. They do things and pretend to have emotions for points and to boost their own egos. But they will blow up in a rage if you don't do something in a way they don't fucking understand. And then list off all the ways you're stupid because you refuse to think like them and wanted absolutely nothing to do with what they insist is important. They're all up in your business to control everything anyway. I would keep that man very fucking far away from me anyway because you never know if there's going to be something they refuse to think deeply about. Being around men in general is just like being around a landmine. I had a dad that acted like that on the surface but was just a landmine the rest of the time. Almost exactly like you described god.