An Open Letter

I had the tech roast today along with my date with U. I have talked with a couple of friends about the date already but in short, I don’t think she really matched my energy and she kind of was overly negative and I very much know for myself that I need positivity because otherwise depression can take root much easier. I also think that there are certain things about me that I don’t think she would really like, like my more feminine sides or weird after parts of my personality. And I think that to someone else that is their dream. And I would rather wait for someone that matches me more in cherishes things like that rather than at best indifference. I am open to a second date just to be sure, but I think that’s it.

Play more than the date there was something else that happened that I wanted to talk about. At the tech roast show they brought us onto stage because I held our hands up and at the beginning, they asked us to say our name our role and our team. After that one of them asked me “how many peptides are you on?” and the other host said I was the most jacked Indian he has seen. After a little bit when they made a joke for the other team, and I was clapping along with everyone else the host made a joke about how the force for my clap was hurting him like Hulk in the new Spider-Man movie.

At the concert I went to on Thursday, I was introduced stranger by L because he was talking to them and immediately after saying hi she commented how jacked I was, and how she could see the muscles through the shirt. L got excited and agreed and talked about how she had said that exact thing Word for Word like a week ago. And so in the last two weeks, I have three different people independently comment about how jacked I am while wearing regular clothing. I don’t know why I feel like I have to say this like a disclaimer, but I’m happy to hear this. I have written down all of these things in my self-esteem list of compliments, but at the same time all of them have made me feel uncomfortable. It feels like everyone is somehow in on this almost inside joke, except it’s the universe trying to be nice to me. All of these things have to be said out of pity. I had My yearly checkup with my dermatologist and immediately he said Im really muscular, and asked if I am taking steroids. I feel like these things have to be set out of purely pity. This feels like when there is someone that you can tell is new to the gym and they look insecure or out of place, and you tell them looking good! Or when you are proud of someone that is new to lifting for achieving a PR even though it is not something generally impressive. It feels honestly patronizing. And it feels that way because when I look at myself in the mirror, naked, I feel great and I really love my body, and I always do love my body thankfully. But when I wear regular clothing, I just cannot understand where that is coming from. I feel like I look the exact same way I did before I started lifting with maybe the exception of my traps and forearms. But those things are not nearly enough to warrant the types of reactions that I have been getting. And I know that this is a because I did not ever receive comments like this before I started lifting so much, and now I receive them pretty often. And it’s such a stupid thing that I look in the mirror and I just can’t see what other people do. I also know that in more traditional flavors of body dysmorphia, I compare myself a lot to people online and also people in person. Now that I have been going to this new gym, that is really nice and filled with people that are bodybuilders and so forth, I feel again like a little kid. Except even the people younger than me are influencers and incredibly shredded. And they are nice people and I have made several friends, but I look in the mirror and I see a kid that doesn’t truly fit in with the jacked people. I am not strong enough to fit in with the powerlifters, and I am not aesthetic enough to fit in with the bodybuilders. I remember a while ago I played tennis with my dad for the first time in a long time, and before I got there, he was playing with someone else, and that person had seen me as a kid. About how strong and muscular I look, and my dad said I am a bodybuilder. And I am not. And I know that to him I am and maybe to the average person I am also. But I remember in the gym I had the thought come up that I may be the smallest in the room, but I am in the room. And then I thought about how kind of sad that was to think about, because I am absolutely not the smallest in the room. And it feels like ultimately I cannot get away from that trap.

It’s such a weird moving goal post, I now like the way my body looks when I’m shirtless or in a gym shirt, and I am somehow struggling with the surplus of compliments while I am least visible. And what a wonderful issue to have hit me so deeply. And how ironic the wound it causes is.