An Open Letter

Man, I talked with my therapist today about the surprisingly shared experience of hitting it off with someone intensely and then not talking again. After talking with this girl, I was mentally prepared to not interact with her again. This time, I was happy with the experience, and I didn’t have the expectation of more, or the entitlement either.

She ended up texting again, and we’re texting right now. I really enjoy talking to her, and it’s very nice to be able to indulge the side of me I can’t show to platonic friends. Man, this shit is like a drug.

I think I’ve journaled enough, judging how I vented earlier today – I do wanna say after getting that out of my system and blasting Great Lakes by Cleopatrick enough times while scream-singing, I felt a lot better. I’m a bit worried about how people IRL see my blog, and I want to reinforce the idea of how this is meant as the opposite of traditional social media. I am incredibly vulnerable and I talk about my struggles a lot here, but this is not a representation of I how am holistically, just my bad parts. Huzzah!

Situation: The idea of sex stresses me out due to relatively recent things

Thoughts: Time to avoid sex for as long as I can!

Feelings: I feel not directly stressed, but also this makes the stress around sex worse and worse.

Behavior: I make the issue worse, as it remains mental and it builds on itself the longer I enable it.

Thoughts: It only has as much power as I give it. If someone without a dick can have great sex, there’s nothing physically restricting me either.

Feelings: I feel anxious, but also a bit free. I also feel like I’m addressing a big problem.

Behavior: I have sex again, and I start to unlearn this fear.

Man I am fucking PETRIFIED! 🥳 Good luck dude, and remember that I love you Suman. Happy early birthday! ♥

I instead went and parked almost a block away, just in case I cry so that I'd have some privacy at least.

A close friend asked me what tshirts size I was, and I'm pretty sure that was what they plan to get me for my birthday. I'll feel pretty bad if they see this, but I need to write this down somewhere. I think if I just get some joke T-shirt that will shatter me.

I thought about it, and I think I'd rather get nothing for my birthday compared to a random impersonal gift. It's not because it's a bad present, or anything like that – but I think I'll mentally equate it to the fact that that's all I am to them. For their birthday, I got several incredibly personal and sentimental gifts. I spent a while trying to learn how to make a collage and printed them a poster with all of their artwork I could find, and several other things.

I remember thinking about it around then when they mentioned getting me a birthday present how if it was a drawing of me how I'd be kinda sad. I thought about why, and to me it was because it would feel like that's more them than me. Art like that isn't really my thing, so I would feel like they didn't really think about what I'd like but rather what they'd like. It all boils down to the feeling like they don't understand me.

I think I'd rather have that than some joke T-shirt any day though. I feel like an ungrateful piece of shit for thinking these things, but I think I'd rather they forget to get me anything than something like that. At least this way I could believe that they would know me, but that they just forgot.

I think I enjoyed the birthdays my parents forgot more than the ones where they tried getting me some random gift, usually things I can't even use. The last present I got for my birthday was a Zelda shirt from target from my sister. I've never played Zelda, and the shirt was way too small for me anyway. She ended up keeping it.

I think I'd rather be forgotten than finding out someone doesn't know me the way I know them. I don't want to feel that alone ever again. I wish I could just skip my birthday.

I'm going to drive to buy some new flowers for my room now.

We went on a walk, this was before we started dating. We went just as friends, but we both had crushes on each other. At one point I mentioned how I have always wished a girl gave me flowers, and how I would cherish them.

She said she wished she could have given them to me without me saying that, because of how much it would mean to me.

I still would have loved if she gave me flowers, the only thing I'd be sad about is the fact they would eventually decay – I would have held onto them for as long as I could have.

Hot damn. So I matched with someone on Hinge, and she is so fucking funny. We both have the same energy, she is incredibly funny, and also very cute! I find her very attractive, and she also finds me attractive and she’s also mentioned how she finds me funny and smart – two things she really likes. I’ve been texting her for about 3 hours now, and it’s almost 2 am in the morning. She’s just so easy to talk to.

I’m actually gonna keep this fairly short because I’d rather be texting her right now than talking to anyone – so here comes some half-assed CBT.

Situation: Cute girl has very hot personality, and is attracted to me. She also seems incredibly compatible, and we click very well.

Thoughts: I will do ANYTHING to not lose this, including altering my personality.

Feelings: YAY! I GET HAPPY RELATIONSHIP WITH AWESOME PERSON!

Behavior: I may get the relationship, but end up changing who I am throughout the relationship, which is not a good thing – either that or I surpress who I am.

Thoughts: I think this person likes me for who I am inherently, I don’t have to act a different way. I should act however I feel natural, that way it is sustainable.

Feelings: I feel even better, because I caught a potential trap early, and I don’t even think it will ruin anything or be worse in any way.

Behavior: Hopefully the relationship!!! And if it does happen, this will be healthier as I get to be myself instead of acting a different way. And at the end of the day, if this doesn’t pan out it should be a great experience regardless – this should give me hope for the future, as this is another example of meeting someone who seems great.

God, I feel almost butterflies. Pace this bad boy out a bit, and enjoy it. Love you Anshuman ♥

Hoo boy, something’s testing me today. During tennis, I was feeding for some games, and my feeds weren’t doing too hot. They weren’t horrible, but they weren’t great either. But there was this one guy, who I’m friends with, but sweet lord he is annoying as fuck sometimes. He has someone make a joke that’s funny, and then he proceeds to repeat the joke every single day for the next few months. Today he was exceptionally tone-deaf, he kept loudly complaining about how bad the feeds were, and like – what do you want me to do? I haven’t played in a week, I’m feeding so everyone else can play the game, am I supposed to stop the game get on my knees, and beg for forgiveness? Holy shit.

I went home afterward and was playing Overwatch with two friends, and one was pretty drunk. He also wasn’t doing too hot in the games, to the point where nearly every game random people would comment on his performance. The other friend and I did not care if he did good or not, especially since he was the lowest rank out of us, so we didn’t care too much. But while drunk, he kept yelling about how it was everyone else’s fault. That’s whatever, but he kept just saying things that were blatantly wrong. For context, he was playing tank – the role I’m a fairly high rank in the game at, and which I’ve been coached several times before. He was complaining about how there was nothing he could do, and I suggested swapping to a specific kind of character that would fit the game best, and that set him off. He then proceeded to go on a soliloquy of how that’s not his job, and how it’s our fault instead. It was pretty frustrating, because he can be incredibly stubborn, and also was pretty drastically wrong about the situation, but he was confidently saying things. It’s annoying because I can be right, but it doesn’t matter because he will just disagree and argue that he’s right. It doesn’t matter if he’s the lowest rank in the game, and I’m a high rank, or if this is the perspective and opinion of pro players, suddenly I become a horrible person for disagreeing with him.

He left the voice call and then proceeded to start spam-messaging me about how I needed to apologize, and he kept repeating his (wrong) reasoning. I ended up just apologizing because it’s just words and I don’t have to really mean it. I know a lot of people who play with him mention how they cannot have conversations about game stuff with him, and how they end up just treating him like an idiot and going “mhm! yup! you’re right!”. But he’s a good friend, and I always want to give him the respect of explaining things when I think he’s wrong, and I’m confident I’m right. I wonder why I can’t just let him be wrong.

Situation: A good friend is struggling in our games, and doesn’t think he is doing anything wrong, and blaming us instead.

Thoughts: If I was in his situation, I would love it if someone who knows the game better would help me out by telling me what to do when I’m lost like that. Therefore I should do the same, and give him some ideas that would make him feel less helpless.

Feelings: I don’t really feel anything, but I probably end up feeling frustrated as he doesn’t take any sort of advice well and is incredibly stubborn and argumentative.

Behavior: Inevitably he explodes, and I have to put in the effort to just suck it up and deal with him making out-of-pocket comments at me, and soothe him. He doesn’t even get any better at the game so there’s no benefit.

Thoughts: I can just nod and smile, and save myself the headache

Feelings: I don’t like the idea of seeing someone struggle unnecessarily, but also unless he explicitly asks me for help I’ll just let him struggle.

Behavior: I get more practice in letting people make mistakes and do bad things in their lives without me trying to help them.

Man, this shit is annoying. I guess I really just gotta stop trying to help people that don’t REALLY ask for help. Even if he says “What do you think I can do” that’s just a trap, just let it slide. It causes so much unnecessary friction when I’m good at a game, and my friends aren’t. It’s almost like an information hazard, for the games I’m ass at I don’t have any issues with it because when they are frustrated they aren’t good, I can’t help them so I don’t even have the choice to give them that help. God, I hate having to let people struggle unnecessarily. Oh well, love you anyways, and always Ithaka ♥.

I was thinking while biking about how I succeed in different aspects, which are all isolated from each other. My friends I game with don’t see how I’m academically dominant. My gym friends don’t know how good I am at certain games. I feel like a weird microcelebrity in different aspects of my life, yet they rarely intersect. I love this idea for some reason – that I am so much more than what people see of me.

I feel like you could attribute this to me being afraid of not being enough. If I am not good enough at something, oh well I have several different situations where I am more than enough. It gives me a weird safety cushion that allows me to fail, as I weirdly can override this notion of not being enough. If I get rejected by someone, it’s no biggie because they just don’t know about the rest of me. Then it’s just their loss. It feels like an incredibly arrogant and self-centered take, but it gives me some protection against tying my self-worth to anything or anyone. I think the reason saying this has a bad taste in my mouth is because it feels like it has the connotation of rejecting self-criticism. I think I do this in a healthy way – I don’t think I’m some perfect person, by any stretch of the imagination. But I also do think for example, if a girl rejects me from a dating app profile, it’s not because I’m not good enough or anything like that, it’s just because she doesn’t have a full understanding of who I am.

And at the same time, it’s virtually impossible to truly understand someone else. So I guess I always have this protection, as I can always believe that things were not a holistic representation of who I am.

Oh well! Yap session over! I’ll do some CBT later, I’m not feeling it right now, and this way I force myself to journal again at night.

Heyo! Second post today, wowzers! I threw up a little bit in my mouth typing that.

The girl from the martial arts class texted back, and she asked me to hang out! I think this is implied to be a date, but sweet lord I do not understand this stuff that well. I was asking a friend who’s pretty well versed with this stuff about social norms, and I think I came to the conclusion that wow this shit is wack.

How stupid is it that you have to go on dates, imply they’re dates, but not call them dates? And you can’t really be explicit about what you want or what you’re looking for until you’ve both successfully beaten around the bush enough times. Half-assed hate aside, it makes sense. But at the same time man, this shit is hard!

Thinking about it, my two adult relationships were 1. Tinder, and 2. them asking me out. The closest I’ve come to properly asking someone out was writing a coded letter asking her out, slipping it in her lunchbox, and then running out of school (it was 7th grade). I guess there’s no way around this problem without experience itself. I think I have this weird quirk where I like to study things, but never apply them. I used to watch videos on League of Legends, watch coaching VODs, and do a ton to learn – and then never play ranked. I think I’ll probably do the same thing if I just go on autopilot here. I think I need to just get over this fear/anxiety/whatever and get some experience with this. I wonder if it’s the fear of ruining potential relationships that petrifies me from exploring different actions. Oh well, since I’m working out with a friend tomorrow I should sleep early. Time for CBT!

Situation: B has heavily hinted that she wants to go on a date, or something along those lines.

Thoughts: Because things are not explicitly stated, I can assume that she is not interested in me, and play the safe route of doing nothing.

Feelings: 🥳 I am fully in my comfort zone! No potentially scary things happen!

Behavior: Maybe this relationship would be amazing, regardless I think it would be something I don’t regret, no matter how it goes. I think I would regret it if I let this opportunity slip by. In the (paraphrased) words of Sam Sulek, “I would rather go too far than not go far enough”.

I think this is the first time I’ve done CBT, and the feelings get worse. I guess that’s a pretty important thing to note – if I still think it’s a better path, even if it makes me less peaceful, that must be pretty important.

Thoughts: Everyone has mentioned she is flirting with me. She has also implied that she wants to hang out, so all of the signs are there. But also, even if she wasn’t into me, she could become into me! I know she really enjoys weightlifting, and she may really like that in me – and I am fairly certain she enjoys my company too. I think it’s a fairly obvious trap now that I think about it because I don’t think people could like me, unless it is explicit, I simply cannot give the benefit of the doubt to them. But I know that’s wrong, so all that’s left for me is to consciously override this part of me.

Feelings: I feel scared, mostly because this is all unknown to me. I’m also excited! Opportunities like this don’t always happen. This almost feels like God giving me baby steps. First Tonia asked me out, now B is being fairly visible with her interest. I feel nervous but happy!

Behavior: I fuck around and find out! Realistically, if I somehow astronomically fumble this (worst-case scenario), I just make her feel uncomfortable and she doesn’t want to interact with me again. To reiterate – this is the worst possible scenario! That’s basically the same outcome if I do nothing, as we don’t interact outside of the class that’s ending after one more class. But the best case? Everything I’ve ever wanted. I have nothing to fear with this in mind, there is no cost to failure! The only real failure would be not trying.

This shit is scary dawg, imma keep it real. Love you for still wanting to try! Love you Big ♥

Hey! I find it funny I am apologizing to the void – this journal is meant to be a personal thing put on display, but I find it hard to write without the context of someone reading it.

I think I’ve written about this recently, but I’ve started to get more female attention. I didn’t do CBT for the last two nights, but that’s been because I’ve gotten home late (and under the influence) from going out with friends to parties – so hey at least that’s pretty admirable for me! Last night while outside of a party figuring out what we were doing, a drunk girl stumbling out grabbed my bicep, felt it up, and went “Woahh” before her friends took her away. I’d like to imagine that she liked the way my arms looked, but I inherently think she was just drunk and grabbing someone’s arm. At the same time, the girl from my martial arts class who seems like she is flirting with me (all the friends I’ve asked have said it’s obvious) today ended up pushing her butt into me pretty intimately and again was very friendly to me. Again all my friends say it’s obvious, but I find my mind convincing me that it was just an accident, or that she just feels comfortable around me in a platonic way.

It’s a really strange thing – I’m so convinced that I could not be desired, and every piece of evidence that goes against that somehow gets turned around into some way of confirming that thought.

When I was in high school, I had a pretty big crush on one of my closest friends. She explicitly said unprompted something along the lines of “I would throw up if we were together” etc. Another time, the girl I had a crush on was someone I had been friends with since 2nd grade. One day at lunch she was talking about her crush, and unprompted said I was a 2/10. It hurt way worse because I had a big crush on her, and to hear that out of the blue did some damage. My parents used to mid conversation stop listening to me, stare at my skin, and tell me how people would find me sickly and not want to touch me. I have eczema. I still have some discoloration on my skin, and sometimes it gets worse – and I’m terrified of someone looking at it. The only people who have pointed it out have been my parents, who told me how people wouldn’t want to look at me. God that was cruel. I still don’t look at them when I talk to them, I try to hide my face.

I don’t want to hold a pity party for myself, but I guess I want to just tell someone this – even if it’s just writing it down for no one. I feel bad that the people around me have to constantly hear me not accept evidence that people could want me, but I wish I could somehow explain why it’s so hard. I think it’s rough, especially since almost all of my closest friends are women – and I think it’s a drastically different experience (not better or worse, just different). I think a big reason I got SA’ed as a kid was because of how much I wanted someone to lust over me. I was willing to do anything to feel like someone would want me. A part of that kid is still present in everything I do I feel like.

In the shower while I was thinking about this, I for some reason pictured a younger me trying to hold it together while about to cry. I wish there was some way to retroactively change what happened. I guess I can somewhat do that, through stuff like CBT, can’t I? God I just want to be loved – isn’t that a pathetic thing to say lol

Situation: Angela told me Nick was like a 7/10, then turned me and said I was a 2/10 – then continued talking about something else.

Thoughts: I’m a 2/10, coming from someone who has known me for over half a decade.

Feelings: I feel like I got slammed in the stomach. I feel like if someone this close to me finds me this disgusting, all the things I’ve heard have been true.

Behavior: I never can accept anything good about me, because I believe that so intrinsically. I handicap myself in life.

Thoughts: Maybe she was making a bad joke? I’ve never actually thought about that. I was so ready to accept that, and I never considered maybe she didn’t mean that. She could have been making a joke that didn’t land at all (obviously).

Feelings: I feel sad, but more because of how long I’ve held this over my heart. I don’t think I needed to do that. I’m sorry to myself for hurting over this so much. I feel a bit better, and I feel like maybe people could want me.

Behavior: I can start to accept all the positive experiences I’ve had.

I think people do find me attractive now. Maybe they even did back then, but that’s a different question. Let’s take this in baby steps and try to accept it right now. God, how am I supposed to do this without comparing? Man, this shit is hard. But oh, it’s so worth it. Love you Suman ♥

I for some reason asked God to send me a sign. Suddenly I just found myself smiling ear to ear. I realized I'm happy. Like truly, genuinely happy. I feel good. I'm not depressed.

Do you know how good it feels to hear music again? I was doing a plank, and found myself uncontrollably smiling at the floor. I was laughing for no reason. I could cry right now, I feel happiness again. I was facing a mirror, and there were like 5-6 beautiful girls in front of me, and all I could look at was my own smiling face. I was so fucking proud of myself for sticking it out. It's a cloudy day outside. Nothing drastic has changed, I'm still in the early stages of my new friendships, I don't have anything new, but I'm suddenly happy. I'm so happy I'm alive.

Hey me, I want to keep journaling so here’s today’s entry:

Today I pushed myself pretty damn hard, and as a result, got an insane endorphin rush. I was singing along to music, shaking my head, the whole 9-yards in the gym, and on the ride back home I was dancing the whole way. Music felt really nice again.

While waiting for the shower to heat up, I was also looking at my body, and I couldn’t stop myself from smiling. I have over time seen myself slowly find my body more and more attractive, and I’m very happy with the body I have now. I know it’s vain, but I was thinking about how I wanted to get a girlfriend so I could show someone my body, as there’s no real other way to show the progress I’ve made to someone else. Oh well, even without that I’m proud of myself!

One small thing I realized today was I have a bad habit of being too emotionally healthy at times, for lack of a better way to say it. I thought about how my friend would mention self-deprecating comments, and how my first instinct is to try to contest that negative thought and I would immediately say “No I think you’re …”. I would do this to try to be supportive and to try to avoid that person reinforcing bad thoughts, but I realize how this might get exhausting to be on the receiving end. It’s one thing if this is something a person mentions they would want assurance for, but if it’s unsolicited then maybe I should just not comment on it, or at least figure out on a per-person basis what they would prefer.

I guess tangentially related, one thing I’ve had to practice is letting people make mistakes and hurt themselves. A friend and I were both in similar boats of struggling to apply to internships and I saw myself in them. Because of that, I wanted to go extremely out of my way to try to help them, in the whole savior-complex way of trying to retroactively help myself. Either way, this person didn’t really want the help it seemed, and eventually it culminated in us deciding that I would give up on them. Recently, they asked to do it again, since they did not do anything and could use the help of being accountable. I told them that I was more than happy to, but I wouldn’t be going out of my way to try to keep them accountable, I told them this time it’s their job to do it not mine.

I would be lying if I said I wasn’t frustrated or upset with them about it. The only thing I’m upset about is how they aren’t driven about it. I would kill to have a friend who would keep me accountable like I was doing, and they kinda just disregarded all of that. Now that they asked to stay accountable and I told them it was up to them to put in the initiative, they have done nothing. I again have sent unprompted messages about it or given reminders, and they haven’t done anything. I feel almost disgusted, and it’s because I see myself in them and I hate that part about me. I find it weird because I actually feel upset and dislike this about people, but that’s only because I think of myself – and I don’t have any issues with being upset with myself I guess.

Situation: I need to apply to more internships

Thoughts: For some reason, it is a scary thing. I don’t want to think about it, as then I can just act like it isn’t real.

Feelings: I feel a hidden anxiety, and I try to stay in denial about it which doesn’t help it.

Behavior: I don’t do anything to stop this anxiety, and I also set future me up for failure.

Thoughts: There is nothing to be afraid of now, I can always just take one day and treat it like a game – I can set a PR for how many internships I can apply for in one day.

Feelings: I don’t feel as scared, and it still is a task I don’t want to do but this is better for me.

Behavior: I end up applying to more internships and having less anxiety overall.

I might make a pool of $80 (the money in my Venmo), and send all of it to the friend – and tell them for every internship I apply to send me back that fraction of money. God this shit is scary isn’t it, proud of you for staying strong. Stick to your daily ritual of stuff, love you Anshuman ♥