Yes, another easterner gonna climb Rainier

[W]

Hiring a guide makes it less proud, but:

 

I sort of wish you guys would stop picking on me and go with me on a climb so I could learn some stuff. If I don't have a more knowledgeable partner to climb with, I will never learn the correct way to do things.

 

Rainier was so easy it was "disappointing", and climbing was getting so boring because you always reached summit so you really needed to do a first winter ascent to make it interesting again, yet:

 

If I don't have a more knowledgeable partner to climb with, I will never learn the correct way to do things.

 

and further:

 

I have no chance of summitting....terrain is class 3

 

You went to the "hard school" of mountaineering but:

 

I will never learn the correct way to do things.

 

If all this is true, you evidently haven't learned by doing, yet you express disdain for hiring a guide to teach you, then you bemoan a lack of a partner to "learn from", and prior trip reports and your posts in general would demonstrate a general unwillingness to listen to your partners. You seem very conflicted and to be honest, ego driven, despite your claim that it is all about "adventure".

The fact that you have already climbed Rainier on your own, claim it was too easy, yet just now are asking questions about the dynamics of prusiks and belays, tells me that your ambition far outweighs your skills and judgment- if you're climbing Rainier w/o a guide, you should already have proficient knowledge of such things.

 

Seriously: you seem somewhat earnest in wanting to learn. I suggest you start by detaching yourself from your past experiences and what you think you know and how skilled you believe yourself to be, and adopt a beginners mind. You'll not only actually learn more, you'll probably find it much easier to get partners who will want to climb with you, and keep climbing with you.