An Open Letter

In a vacuum I think I'm pretty happy with who I am. I feel like I'm authentic to myself, and at the same time that self is someone that aligns with the values that I care about, and what more can I ask for. But that only really exists in a vacuum.

I think I'm painfully aware of the feelings of comparison, and of course that stems from childhood to some extent – but that's aside from what I was going to say. I find this comparison rearing its ugly head whenever I interact with my friends in context where I don't feel like it should even come up. I was swimming with M, and she was talking about a date she went on. I know her type is military men, and even though there's no such reason for me to do this to myself, I start comparing myself, and them convincing myself of my inadequacy. I often like to share the quote you could be the sweetest peach on the tree, but someone might just not like peaches. But it's hard for me to take that advice I guess. Even with people that I don't want to be in a relationship with, it affects me whenever I think about how I may not be someone they desire. And I'm not sure why that hurts as much as it does. I think I've come to understand that I want to be a polarizing person, because the opposite is being fully agreeable yet unopinionated. I think you have a much richer and deeper connection with people the more limited it is, and that comes from being someone that not everyone would like. And so this obviously contradicts My feelings of inadequacy when everyone does not want me.

I want to avoid a pity party but I guess my issue comes from feelings growing up of being undesirable, and how even now that's changed it doesn't click. I've had several people admit feelings for me and pursue me, and more often than not I've had the problem of letting someone down rather than being let down. Hell, even in my last breakup I was the one to call it off, and they were the ones to say that I deserve better. And so why do I still feel like I cannot be wanted?

I would say that I'm more feminine than the traditional guy, and that's something that I'm fine with and I'm happy about I guess. But at the same time sometimes this keeps me up when I think about how someone may perceive it. I really like martial arts for this reason, and I really miss doing Jiu-Jitsu and kickboxing. In those environments I can be light-hearted joking and not the traditional picture of masculinity, and I don't need to be worried about being perceived as weak, because I'm pretty good at combat sports. Part of me has these weird daydream fantasies of getting into some kind of a fight or altercation where I am justified. And then I really savor the thought of just overwhelming violence, and especially the coming to terms moment from people who underestimated me. For them to know what I am capable of, at least in this fantasy world.

I think it's of course a universal experience to some extent, but these feelings of inadequacy suck when all the people I interact with only know me in certain aspects of life. The people that know about my academic dominance don't know about my physicality. People that know about my physicality don't know about my aptitude and achievements in competitive environments. And the people that know about that don't know about my career. And it just keeps continuing. I'm so proud of the life that I have built, but there's still so much left for me to do. And part of that is trying to stop obsessing over wanting to show people all these other aspects of my life to show that I am worth it, and I have value. I'd like to just believe that I'm enough as is, and that's not something I need to fight or convince people about.