An Open Letter

Yesterday night I couldn’t sleep at all, I laid awake in bed until five in the morning and it took a pretty big toll on my cognitive function so I’m hoping that I can sleep some more today.

I think this is a topic I would like to articulate my thoughts on better because I found that it was hard to decisively explain what I meant by it when it was disagreed with I do believe in the thought but I guess I didn’t have a strong enough or well put together explanation that would make sense easily and so at some point I would like to flesh that out. Not today though I’m really tired.

I went to send a reel to someone on Instagram and E’s Account showed up even though neither of us follow the other. I went out of my way to go and then block her account so that it does not randomly show up. It caught me off guard because she had changed her profile picture, and I have been good at not doing this until now, but when I went to block her I knew that I would see her bio and if I’m being honest I was hoping that there wouldn’t be a date of her and a new partner, and there wasn’t and honestly I am kind of thankful for that. I feel like that makes me believe more when she said that she wouldn’t date for a while if we broke up because it would mean a lot to her. But also even if it didn’t mean that to her, I’m happy that she’s not just jumping from relationship to relationship. And I’m also happy that I don’t have to deal with that mess of wondering about it or anything like that. And so hopefully by blocking her it doesn’t come back up again and I don’t have to face any kind of temptation to look. With all of the time that’s passed, I wish the best for her, and I also hope that she is a closed chapter in my life. I don’t hold any resentment towards her, and I have forgiven her because it no longer will affect me, she both will not have power or control over my life, but additionally I have worked on healing from the things that happened to me and now I do get benefits from learning more how to advocate for myself and understanding what things to look out for or so forth. I understand why people say that thing of I hope you get the world and I hope I never hear about it. I hope you’re well, and I hope her family well, but I also hope that I don’t hear about it. I am really thankful that passed me was strong enough to not retaliate or to be petty or to do anything like that because after everything that happened I can hold my head high with the whole experience.

Today I went to the beach with G, J and I, and we took a ton of photos. It was kind of funny because it was cloudy out, but it honestly matches my outfit pretty well so we take the winds where we can. At first we were just taking normal photos, and that quickly evolve into taking silly photos but we got a lot of really nice candid shots and I’m very happy that I have these photos of me now!

I feel like I’m at a weird impasse of feeling performative and being in the moment. I’m not being observed by anyone but I’m in my head to some extent about that. But some of these art pieces are moving me to the verge of tears, and it’s always the most inconspicuous ones. Like I see something that reminds me of something I’ve seen in my life before. Or I see something and a phrase or word just pops into my head, and I view it in that lens. I saw a piece which was a ton of threads over a canvas, and it felt like it circled around the center in some ways, and the phrase that came to mind was “God, I would have come home”. It just felt like all of the lines were choices or paths, and at some point it would have been a decision to go to a loved one. And the weird lack of structure or image makes it almost feel like just the emotion, and the loss of structure. And I think about what could be.

It is 3:45 in the morning and I’m about to go to bed. I’m coming back from a sewer rave that I went to by myself. while I was leaving one guy who is there with his girlfriend walking in said I see you jacked-ass motherfucker. Just another data point to hopefully help the body dysmorphia. I’m really happy with the life that I’ve been building, I feel like I’ve had several people tell me about how my life seems so interesting, and how I'm always doing cool things. I think younger me would be really proud of how much I’m living life intentionally. The world is such a grand place to explore and I get to do that.

It is currently four in the morning and I’m just about to go to bed after the reaper rave! I went with J And if I’m being honest I was a little bit worried that we would have a bit of a different vibe because I know that I’m a lot more expressive than she is, but she was actually super fun to go with and was dancing with me the whole time. We also went in matching jorts from a pair of jeans that we thrifted a long time ago for this reason. Another really sick thing was that during the main set, we were near the front and on the side where the private tables that cost $5000, compared to my $15 ticket lol. One of the people there really liked my vibe, and invited me under the divider to join them, and I told them I was with my friend and asked if she could also join and he said yes! They then offered us drinks, and we got to dance literally right next to the main stage which was so sick. Additionally I noticed that they had brought a couple of people from the main crowd, and they were all attractive girls. And then there was me, a guy, and I was the one that requested to bring my friend with me. It wasn’t even like they were trying to invite my friend over because she is an attractive girl, but no it was because of me! And I feel honestly really happy inside about the fact that someone enjoyed my presence so much that they decided to bring me over all of the other people there. He was sick because afterwards we got to talk with some of the openers and get their Instagram and photos with them! One of the people that was at that table at the end of the show came up to me and asked me if I was natural and oh my God. I think it’s such a weird thing because even though I really like the way that I look and I’m very happy with myself, I still do have body dysmorphia some extent. I look at my body naked flexing in good lighting, and I still feel like OK it’s like physique all things considered, and I am happy with it partially because I think that women don’t like super over the top fuzzy in practice More is exactly what a lot of women are looking for. I also do think that it is something for me and I really do like the way that my physique looks in certain ways. I also think however that when I wear clothing they really isn’t any clear something of my physique and I think that people can maybe guess out of politeness that I work out, because of my traps or the fact that I am a relatively low body fat. But I don’t think it’s really that obvious how much I work out. But then I have stuff like this where while I’m wearing a tank top a stranger comes up to me solely with the intention of asking if I use steroids. If I use the most conservative interpretation of that, of treating it like a compliment that is exaggerated, that’s still implies that the person clearly thinks that I work out. And I think it’s really funny because I remember it at least two points during the concert, I was looking at my arms while dancing and I thought about how dainty they look. And I often think about how I’m more or less just look like a regular person, because my natural physique is just less than that. But while we were walking back to the car, a random guy in a group yelled out that I looked jacked! And that’s so incredibly sweet of him. And even past that, two days ago at chess club when the organizer was talking about chess boxing and I got excited because I watched a bit of that, I joked that he should host that, and he said a comment about how I looked the part and asked if I had done boxing.

I am glad that I write down these compliments because reading back through them really does help, because even though that I worry it comes off to anyone who might potentially read this as me just sucking my own dick, I really do have those neural pathways wired into me from childhood and most of my life honestly, of being weak and having a really poor physique because I was never really something I cared about I guess. I always had other things to worry about. But even past that, I honestly do find it hard to understand how other people see me, and I think I’m afraid of viewing myself as jacked or something like that because maybe not everyone sees me that way, and maybe these are just people being friendly or supportive, and the cost of assuming and being confident that I am jacked, while people do not think that is massive. And since I grew up where that was the case, that is how I believe the world is and it’s really hard to convince someone that the world has changed. Especially when there’s always room for doubt. But I also think about it a little bit now in the lens of the thing I recently heard about, of negativity bias in dating which I journaled about I think yesterday. Yes there will always be people that don’t find me jacked or physically strong or whatever. And there will be some people that will always find me that way. And there will be a lot of people that I’m not sure about, and if I make the assumption that they must be doing it out of sympathy or to be nice, I am doing myself a big disservice. I think however that some of the most meaningful compliments I’ve gotten have been from people that aren’t trying to compliment me. Like I think about my old jiu-jitsu coach, who would get mad at me for using muscle or power even though I didn’t think I was. And he would kind of make fun of my muscles saying that that doesn’t need to help me and that is not the way to do it. And I almost think that those instances of feedback matter so much because that person isn’t trying to be nice to me or they aren’t trying to give me confidence, they just assume that I know that and that goes with the assumption that everyone else also does too. Maybe I am jacked.

Nothing else past that right now, I’m not even opening the app, but I did install it. And for now that will be my start. I want to get back into meditation because I feel like there’s a sense of tenacity that I gained from doing it, from having this kind of permanent sense of grounding that I can always come back to. And I guess that’s honestly it for today that’s all I’ll say.

I was watching a video while driving home (listening) And he was talking about how negativity bias is an incredibly potent thing in dating. Specifically he characterized flirting as trying to have as much plausible deniability as possible, and that comes with a lot of ambiguity. If you view dating as 10% explicitly positive, 10% explicitly negative, and the other 80% as ambiguous, if you predispose yourself to believing that things are negative, you end up with a weirdly self fulfilling prophecy. And I think about that in recent time, because in the past when I was way less secure with myself and happy with the person that I am, if I receive some kind of an ambiguous signal, I would take it as just general niceness out of potentially pity, and I would turn into almost evidence that I could not be wanted. And that would then lead to even worse outcomes in the long run. But now, I think it’s fair to say that I have not received too many explicit indications of people being interested in me, I definitely have received a fairly significant amount of explicit interest, but a lot of it is vague. A lot of it is me kind of just giggling and going she want me FR, and I know for a fact that not all of that is necessarily real. But I also do think that it’s served its purpose in a way unintentionally, because I really do believe that I am desirable now which I’m really thankful for.

I don’t want to come off as cocky, but in the last few months I feel like I have had an incredible amount of success with women, in terms of people being interested in me. I haven’t even gone on dating apps yet, and my friend pointed out how she has never seen a guy get this much attention from women. I feel like in hindsight if I try to think about what advice I would even give myself or something like that, it’s difficult because I essentially didn’t really take any shortcuts. I did not try to catch any butterflies, I instead continued to build my garden. I did however do things like plant things that butterflies like, but mostly with the intention of me enjoying my garden. And I think a lot of other people are interested in that. Things are working out.

I had my therapy session again today, and it helped me recognize how a lot of the things that I wish I had Come from social media. It’s not actually real stuff, similar to how if I look at photos I take after social events I host or things like that it must seem like I have this massive wonderful friend group. Almost to prove my point, K messaged me after seeing my story saying that she wishes that she had friends like that. I think that’s like another sign of divine intervention here, essentially showing my lesson is true, because what she saw was the life that I wished that I had. And do you see the irony there? And so I kind of recognized that the lies that look wonderful are similar to mine.