An Open Letter

I went to the Chess club today with A Because we were supposed to have other plans but they got canceled. Afterwards when I dropped her at home, she invited me in because we were in the middle of a good conversation, and she said that I can meet her cat. She had a super friendly cat named Duchess! We continued talking for another two hours or so.

At one point she mentioned that her type had changed recently, and she was looking for someone who was smart and a gym rat, but also not obsessive about it. I don’t think she solely meant it in this way, but I feel like it was kind of directed towards me, because she knows that I am smart, I had just taught her chess, and she also knows that I go to the gym a lot. She also even directly complimented me on several things, and even made a comment about how hard it must be for me to have all of this female attention (sarcastically).

It is kind of interesting to notice how that is the case. In the last three months there have been A, A, K, L, A, S, and maybe even some others that I’m not remembering right now. These are all people that have showed interest in me, and aside from one of them, I did not even enter a talking phase with them because I was not interested in them past friendship. Even though I am not looking for a relationship with these people I think it is a positive sign to recognize that this many people want me. Regardless of anything else, I want to hold onto that mentally. I think you’ll be really useful for counter conditioning myself against the childhood idea of me being undesirable.

I think I’ve also accidentally learned that a lot of women tend to chase me more when I’m not interested. I chalk it up to people who use other people as a source of validation, that face this rejection. I think when they do not receive that validation from someone that they respect in some way, it makes it almost a need to because otherwise it would mean that they do not deserve it. I would like to give myself credit for being a desirable partner, which I do know that I am, but I do feel like this is a big factor. I also do think that the reason why I do not fawn for these people I rolled out as someone I am interested in for some reason or another. I do feel like I have overcame my savior complex to some extent, because nowadays when I meet someone who has some sort of trauma or issue that I feel like I can relate to or I can help with, I’m able to step back a little bit and decouple my inherent feeling of value from romantic interest. I also recognize that sex is fairly abundant, but it’s also just something that I’m not interested in enough to compromise other things for. I’m really grateful for that. It does feel weird to be the single version of myself where I’m really not sexual, especially given how I am in a relationship. It feels like there is this part of me that has somewhat atrophied, because I don’t have some kind of primal need for sex or anything like that, because if I did I would then have sex with the people that are available to me. But partially because of the stress and fears that I have around random hookups, but also because of the fact that I don’t really feel like I’m missing anything in life without sex right now, I don’t feel like I need to have sex. This makes it easy to turn down proposals or anything like that. And I’m really proud about this, because I could see the roots of this when I first went through my breakup and I wanted to be very intentional about not seeking external validation. I didn’t want to go and show off to someone else to continue feeling wanted and attractive. Instead I remain single and didn’t find a way to replace that need. And because of that, I am completely fine without it which is almost like a superpower because I’m comfortable waiting.

I am having a bad day. I want to just disappear from messages and others and I’m feeling rotten. As I was entering the gym the woman infront of me didn’t try to hold the door and instead had it close right on my face. Didn’t even turn around or acknowledge me. I saw her next to me on the machine we both first went to. And I felt angry at her, and some of my thoughts were of giving her a piece of my mind.

I remembered the book I’m reading, NVC and the recent chapter on anger. He said anger is a need that was unmet, and so I asked myself what need was not met.

I just wanted to be acknowledged, and be given permission to exist. It’s a disproportionate reaction and misplaced anger to some extent, but I grew up neglected at home and I just learned that the world worked that way for me. I wonder if part of it was because it was an older woman, around my mom’s age when I was a kid. I find myself thinking about what I did, or did not do to deserve to not be acknowledged, and it’s like I’m ignored like a child all over again. It feels like a punishment for something I did not do. I feel like with these things that I consider common courtesies, when they are ignored and not acknowledged, it feels like it’s directly a statement saying that I am not worth human decency. And in reality I understand that she probably did not know that I was behind her, but it still hurts. I guess I’m not angry at her because I can recognize the need that was unmet, and I can recognize that a lot of it is misplaced anger. If I was to give her a piece of my mind or be rude back or anything like that, it wouldn’t do anything to address that initial need. I would just have something to be ashamed about.

I wonder if this relates to my whole thing about women not smiling back. I often try to smile at people as I walk by, and I have noticed that there have been a good amount of times where a woman will make full eye contact and not smile back at all. Also there are men that do that. But I think with women it sticks with me a little bit more, and I’m recognizing a little bit of a double standard there which is something to unpack another time. The thing that I typically say is that I understand why women are often defensive or rude to strangers, because I’ve heard and I believe that there are enough cases of women being friendly to strangers, and those strangers taking it as an invitation for harassment or worse. I would understand then that the safest option is to then be rude or unapproachable. And I tell myself that so that it isn’t something personal when I smile at someone and they glare at me. But also I think it would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge that there are plenty of reasons why someone might just not smile at a stranger that have nothing to do with gender. I know that sometimes when I’m in a mood I just want to kind of be scary or unapproachable or something like that. I don’t want to smile because I’m frustrated and trying to channel that into something more productive. I think people can also just be having shitty days. People can be going through things in life, or anything of this sort. But all of that being said, I wonder how much of the hurt if I can call it that comes from the feeling of being looked down on or completely dismissed. I think part of it feels like a rejection, and it feels like it’s something personal against me. It kind of reminds me of when I was a kid and I would have people put me down or tell me how undesirable I was. I think about all of the pressure society puts on men, with the expectations of being heavily desired or able to get a woman of certain status to be able to show off. I think about how there is so much shame put towards men who aren’t seen as that desirable. And it reminds me a lot of when I was growing up and I felt like a loser and I felt like I just didn’t know why people wouldn’t like me. And people like me, it’s not that I was a complete loaner or anything like that, but I very much am not the person that I am now, and I do think it’s fair to say that I was on the lower end of emotional intelligence or social skills or things like that growing up. And I’m not saying this to blame myself, because I want to acknowledge that I do believe a lot of that is not my fault. I just wasn’t given opportunities to socialize, I wasn’t given any kind of help from my parents and understanding what relationships are like, what conflict resolution should look like, how to make friends, what things are appropriate, or any of those things and I wasn’t given the freedom to be able to learn those on my own either. And all of those things combined, in addition to the fact that I was not physically attractive and I was a late bloomer, and additionally my parents did not do me any favors by constantly shaming me for a skin condition or the way I look, and not helping me when I would ask for help with things like learning how to shave or anything like that. And so I grew up I guess with the mental model that I am undesirable, and that there isn’t really anything going for me. And I think a lot of those things have flipped now. I think that I am attractive, I am charismatic, I am successful, I am empathetic and kind, I think my emotional intelligence is a strong suit that I’m confident in, and I think that I am a desirable person and also someone who has these options and isn’t only facing rejection or anything like that. But I think whenever I face these little micro rejections it feels like the world is pushing back and trying to confirm that the way that I grew up is correct, and no matter how much that I try to fight to change that world view by being friendly or by trying to show myself that the world is kind, and that I do have a place in it, it feels like I am given these points of feedback of things that try to reinforce that old world view. And it sometimes feels like I’m treading water, and the natural resting state for me is under the surface.

I saw a TikTok today of an edit. It was something called sword logic. Essentially that the Strongest should survive. Honestly nothing really about it, I just thought it was cool. I didn’t really have a great day at the gym strength wise, but I really liked how my forearms looked. I did bench press for the first time in a while and I was able to do 245 for five with a lot of difficulty. I then did 265 for one in the slowest rep I have ever seen, and kind of just called it there. But I feel good about myself. And I feel like I’ve really created a life that I’m happy to live. And I’ve put in a lot of effort for that.

V is leaving around 4 in the morning while I’m asleep. I’ve really enjoyed just being able to hang out with him, this has felt like having a roommate that you get along with. I understand why that’s something that people are really afraid to let go of, because having such proximity to someone that you really click with and a constant source of socialization must be really valuable. I guess in a way I’m kind of grateful now that I did not have that, because it means that I didn’t have to let go of anything and I wouldn’t have that now anyway.

We had a bit more a chill day today which was really nice, and we watched a horror movie together, and it was pretty unsettling I will say. Wasn’t the scariest but it was good! Afterwards however we decided to re-create one of the scenes really badly which was really fucking funny, and it’s honestly a really beautiful thing it just takes two minutes to record something that you’re very proud of and that you will look back at and cherish.

V is staying with me today. This is the first time someone’s staying with me and we had a big planned day. I’m so tired.

I squatted 345 pounds today! I’ve been honestly just riding that high the entire day. I’m just so proud of myself man. Not even for the PR, but for the person I try to be. I just am really grateful to past me for a lot of the effort that I’ve put in in order to be the person I am today.

While I was growing up I would tell myself not to kill myself because I was like Kassadin. I told myself that even though I wanna kill myself and my life is miserable, I am skiing for a late game. Once I get to college or once I get older my life will be so worth it compared to the people that I envied so much. And at the risk of sounding arrogant, I don’t need to hit 16 to take things into my own hands. I got several kills and a lead, several as solo kills, and several due to help. I’m so incredibly proud of myself for teaching myself to be empathetic, how to be social, charisma, etc. I used to wish that I could be one of those people that gets adopted by someone else socially, and I would mourn the fact that instead I’ve had to learn how to handle it myself and the beautiful thing is now I can handle it. I’m a secure and strong enough person to be authentic in social situations, and that combined with the person that I am authentically, becomes something magnetic towards others. I consistently get thrown into brand new rooms, and I come out surrounded by people that want to interact with me. I’ve gone from being the hopeless person seeking for salvation, to being the person who is so abundantly filled with it, that they’re willing to reach out to people struggling to help them. And thinking about it now, I’ve gone out of my way to involve people or to gently parent people that are abrasive or struggling socially, and even though this is something that I wish I could have growing up I’m completely happy to give it to people that are arguably less deserving. And that never crosses my mind, like it’s not that I think that someone should have helped me socially develop growing up more than these other people, because I was not rude or insulting. And I feel like this post is for misinterpretation, partially because I think I didn’t really capture my thoughts the way that I would hope, but essentially I want to give myself some credit for all of the effort that went to deliberately learning how to be social, and recognizing how that’s paid off.

That was the wedding ring she dreamed of, as that was her favorite stone. My question is what am I to do with that information, where do I put it?

I think one of the strengths of getting to live is to be able to love things in this world. It’s a weird thing to be saying this while confronted with the cost of such thing, but it still feels right to say. I really don’t know what else is more human than to love so willingly.

And this doesn’t need to be to other humans in the conventional sense. I have fallen in love with the soft and slow opening of a hihat, because of how it makes a song swell and carries it to a place through that vulnerability.

I’ve fallen in love with the sunlight on the nape of my neck. I couldn’t tell you a specific memory for it, but it’s something I’ve carved into myself – how the universe comes full circle to remind me about how the same warmth that came from a small space heater on the floor in a locked room exists everywhere. It’s a silent voice gently asking me if I can recognize the feeling, softly leading me out of depression. It’s love in the way I yearn for, and so patiently waiting for me when I forget.

I’ve fallen in love with the lessons that cause me so much pain. All of the places I see that remind me of the love I shared with E push on the wounds that have started to close up. They don’t push hard enough to reinjure me, but enough for it to hurt. That pain serves as a reminder to be proud of – how I went through something that was necessary and that present me is so thankful for. It’s a trophy given for doing something present me could not ask past me to go through, as I wouldn’t want to go through that again. But past me did go through it and the lessons I’ve learned unlock the life I’ve dreamed of. And I get to continue to carry the love for them with me, I can be proud and also happy thinking back to a Barnes and nobles where I got to show her how much I loved her and how I would be there for her. I’m proud of how I supported her, and I’m even more proud of the fact that I not ONCE had any thoughts of complaints, or anything but love and concern while sitting in that hospital room for hours. The only thing I cared about was protecting her however I could, and I’m grateful that I am that person.

I’ve fallen in love with the extremely loud and undignified laugh that I used to cringe at. I’ve gone from suppressing myself or avoiding hearing it to cherishing it now, and I don’t think that’s a small feat at all.

I’ve fallen in love with the office buildings down the street by the road, because as I walk and look at them, with enough flexibility they remind me of Minecraft servers I’ve built up with friends. Little towns with each their own stories and memories tied to them tucked away in my mind, waiting for a random screenshot or reminder to surface them again.

I’ve fallen in love with the concept of someone putting in so much care, love, thought, soul and life into something that has no promises of return. It’s such a beautiful bid for connection that I root for.

I’ve fallen in love with all of the endless things I could devote my life to and not fully explore. I get to see and experience so much in this world and I would never be able to go through it all. And is that not such a beautiful thing?

To my original question I don’t know what to do with all of this love that I’ve cultivated inside of me other than to hold onto it dearly with gentle hands.

Today I squatted 335 pounds! It moved pretty well and aside from some knee pain afterwards it was wonderful. I’m really proud of myself. I’m not just proud of that achievement, but also because of the whimsy and joy that I’ve fostered in my life for myself. I’m proud of the person I have become, and the person that I consistently work towards being. I’d like to think that depression has given me the gift of being intentionally happy with life.