An Open Letter

I really like this quote, and I looked it up a little bit more and it’s from an old fable. A fox tries to get some grapes from a tree, but there Are some grapes that the fox cannot reach. The fox then gives up and says that they didn’t even want the grapes because those were probably sour anyway. I first saw the quote written next to “the love I cannot taste must be hate”.

I went with M to a rave on Friday, and afterwards while leaving we made some friends with some random girls that liked my costume. Since I was sober and they needed a ride after we had been talking for a bit I offered to drop them off at their place since it was along the route to our homes, and they agreed. We ended up just chilling at their place for like another hour or so, and then eventually left after exchanging numbers/Instagrams. M mentioned that it was her birthday soon and one of the girls said they would throw her a birthday party, and apparently really meant it. It looks like they stayed in contact and were very friendly with M, and even though that night they were friendly with me, afterwards they barely responded to any texts of mine. It’s not even like I sent much at all, I just said some formality and also restated my interest in something they said they wanted us to join for.

I brought this up in therapy because I realized how I felt bitter about this, and how I didn’t like that I was feeling that way. I ended up solidifying my feelings into the fact that I felt like M got actively accepted and included, while I had to put an effort and basically interview, and then be ignored. It felt pretty shitty that during that night we were all getting along super well, and they were really friendly with me, and then the next day onwards they just ignore me while they include M. I know that being a woman is incredibly difficult compared to being a man overall, but one of the nice things about being a woman is the sense of community. That was something I never really had growing up because of my upbringing and so it’s something that I really long for, and it does hurt to see my friends get accepted while I end up just feeling used. I think about how with E and J, how they behaved super friendly and polite to me only when I have something of value to them, or at least that’s what it feels like. They were super friendly because I was the one organizing an event, and once they got in, they stopped interacting with me or being friendly the same way they were before. One of the shitty things about being a man is the emphasis on value over just being intrinsically lovable. And again I feel like I have to restate that I’m not saying women have it better, just different problems. And I don’t think it detracts from them to be able to speak about ones that I face. God it’s stupid how I feel like I have to clarify so much about my intentions on my own journal that isn’t even meant for people to really read. But yeah, I feel like a lot of times women aren’t exploited for value the same way men are in friendships. Most of my friends have been women, and that’s most of the people that I surround myself with, but I have never once seen a woman that has only been included because they provide some kind of value that if they would stop doing would stop being included. I think about the last cruise I went on, and how there was this one person that kept getting taken advantage of, and it felt like that was the only reason why he was included by the others, like he would buy them drinks when the girls would ask, and would even buy drinks for the under aged girl that the other girls were friends with. It made me feel horrible for him, and this isn’t the only time I’ve seen this. I’ve seen a lot of my female friends, especially the pretty ones that comfortably manipulate men and almost dehumanize them, like they don’t care about hurting them or doing shitty things to them, because they just don’t provide value otherwise. There’s a lot of mental gymnastics that goes into it and I usually don’t like to hang around those kind of people as friends regardless. But I feel like this is something that illustrates this thing that affects me also. It’s hard to feel like you’re accepted or that you can trust people that are being friendly, when you’re not sure if they’re friends with you just because you provide value. Like I want to be able to help my friends and I like helping people when I can, but maybe these people were only being friendly to me because I had a car and I offered them a ride. Maybe they were only being friendly to me in the moment because I had a funny costume and I was something to laugh at. I think a similar thing for women would probably be looks, I could fully understand a woman telling me they have felt similar things, on how they fear that their value is tied to their attractiveness. And for a lot of cases that’s true, I think there’s very clear extreme versions of this with things like models, movie stars, cheerleaders, ring girls ETC. I think it’s something that’s flaunted in your face a lot as a woman, on how there is an emphasis on you being beautiful and that is your value, and I don’t think I need to really say this explicitly but that also fucking sucks. I guess for men other similar things would be having money, being successful, and of course looks also to a lesser extent. I’m kind of thankful that I’m on this side of the fence for this problem, where I’m successful and I think pretty attractive now, but I then run into the issue that I used to think about, of where I now no longer know if people are friends with me because I have money or something else I can offer them. Like with the group chat of people from dance, I feel like those people would not really be friendly to me if I didn’t have some kind of cornerstone role of organizer. I don’t think J or E would be nearly as friendly at face value to me if I wasn’t someone who is actively organizing events and things like that. And I don’t think that’s like necessarily fully wrong, like it’s not like I’m expecting someone to like me or want to be around me for no reason at all. But when I think about S, or L, or T, yes I spend money on them here and then, yes I helped them out whenever I can, yes I provide value to them. But if I didn’t do those things I’m confident they would still be my friends. My friendship with them is not contingent on the value I provide through these transactional things, but rather it’s because I’m me. It sucks because it’s really hard to make friends with people that I don’t think have the best intentions, because right now they’re being very friendly to me whenever I have something that they want, and I don’t know how they’re going to treat me when I no longer have something they want. I don’t want to be that person that gets to taste inclusion only when they can be used, and then discarded otherwise. I know I’m a man, but the person that I think I am is defined by so many other things first. I think I have a great sense of humor, and an incredibly large laugh that I utilize often. I think I’m also kind, or at least I try to be. I like to try new things, and I enjoy doing things that I’m bad at because I’ve had too many things that I’ve been better than my friends at that has caused pain for them, and I would rather my ego get hurt than theirs. I love animals, especially dogs. I always think about a study I saw about half blinks, and every time I meet a new dog no matter how friendly they are, I like to turn my body to the side and let them sniff the back of my hand, and then I half blink to try to make the dog feel more comfortable. I take a lot of pride in the fact that dogs that are scared of men usually are not scared of me, because I feel like that’s something that absolves me from a lot of misandry I grew up with. I’m an incredibly open person, to a fault — see this blog for an example. I think I give good advice, and I’m a very good listener and I like to be there for my friends, or really anyone I can help. I still think about the first time someone gifted me something and did not expect anything in return, and every year I try to do that since then. I really like playing with kids, because I find if you treat them like you’re equal they respect you back and you get to learn a lot just about the world. I struggled a lot with depression, and so I try to fill myself up with as much energy as possible to keep myself from slipping down. I started working out as a last ditch attempt because medication had stopped working, and my grandma had killed herself over the same issue. I ended up falling in love with it, and it absolutely saved me. I’d like to believe that even if I didn’t get stronger or look better, I would still love the gym. For my 17th birthday I asked my parents for something for the first time, and it was for my dad to let me sit in the car in the beach parking lot by myself for like an hour. For the first time I got to play music out loud without the overwhelming fear of getting punished for making too much sound. It’s always been my happy place inside a car, because that’s where ironically I’m the most safe, I’m free from judgment or perception and I can listen to music and behave however I want. I saves up for five years to buy a fast car, and now I feel guilty whenever people notice because I don’t want them to feel bad, so I downplay it. One of my friend’s mom said that I don’t seem like the kind of person who speeds, and I took that like a badge of pride. I like the feeling of being underestimated because I feel like that means that I have more value than what people think of me at first, and because of that I can be loved. I am so much more than the value I can provide, and I hope I surround myself with people that make me feel like that.

I’m getting ahead of myself by responding to things I haven’t even written down yet, so good luck to future me for keeping track of what I’m saying if you ever read this again. But at the same time you’re me so you probably get it lol. I often tell myself that I’m strong enough and that I can take it, as almost like a mantra whenever someone ends up wrongly hurting me while they are hurt for some other reason. This also comes out in more drawn out ways, like when friends aren’t supportive to me but enjoy when I am supporting them. In these moments I tell myself that I am strong enough to continue to be kind instead of being retaliatory, and giving them a taste of their own medicine. But I don’t really know if this is healthy, this might just be some retroactive justification for tolerating behaviors that I shouldn’t, and refusing to advocate for myself. I think there’s value in being kind no matter what, but I think this is a More romanticized version of me not being able to properly communicate what has hurt me. And it’s not that I don’t know what I could say, it’s more that I don’t want to lose people potentially, like today I didn’t really want to even post on my private story to friends how I was upset or that things hurt me because I was worried that someone there would see it and then get mad at me over how I was feeling. And then that bridge would be relatively burnt because it’s a new friendship, and still in the testing the water phase. I still ended up posting something venting about the night a little bit, and the person I organized it with that I was worried about was very receptive and validated my feelings which I really appreciate. I feel comfortable speaking with them which is really nice, and I guess something I’m not too used to honestly. I think this is a good topic to talk about in therapy tomorrow, about how I’m afraid of retaliation or disrupting the peace when I am hurt and so I don’t want to bring it up. I obviously see the causes for it from childhood, but I always value my therapists insights and knowledge on how to work on it.

The concert yesterday was great! I ended up getting home at 5 AM, and then slept until noon. I feel like shit physically today, and my jaw, neck and right wrist hurt but I’m happy I went. Time to recover.

In about an hour and a half doors open for the Sullivan King concert, and I’m pretty excited! I spent $40 on a stupid bit outfit, and so I’m already giggling at that, but I’m super excited to dance. I’m right now waiting for M to get to my place, and so I’m taking hash out. I remembered that one saying, to go to sleep imagining that it’s your last time you will ever be awake. I think the idea is to live every day like your last. You can be argumentative and say that that’s a stupid way to live, because if it really was your last day you would be horribly reckless and live in ways that are unsustainable, but that caveat aside I think it’s a good thing to remind myself. Mostly just to avoid doom scrolling so much, I feel like I’ve started to default to scrolling on my phone again when I have any free time and it really just eats it away and I don’t even experience my day. God forbid, but if I somehow die today like on a car crash or something like that, I would much rather be here in the moment with Hash rather than scroll some reels mindlessly. I think also actively being grateful for the things that I have while I have them is important.

Today I did something that was pretty weird, and not in a good way. It’s one of those things that you learn from and don’t do again. I know I struggle a lot with guilt but I don’t think I have anything to feel excessively guilty about so I’m doing my best to minimize the shame because I know that it’s past the point of productivity. One thing that kind of does stick with me right now though is the idea of how certain things are ok or are allowed if you are attractive. I realized this because once I started feeling offputting to new friends and insecure, I wanted to go to the gym mostly so that I could reaffirm that I am physically attractive and I think that’s a weird response in my head. I think I’ve become attractive at least to me because of my muscles, and I kind of use that as a crutch emotionally sometimes, like I think I realized I’ve been texting N much more than she has been texting me, and while she could be just not a great texter, I think this is something where I need to regulate myself a bit. It’s just strange that I believe that I don’t need to change as much as I would’ve if I was less attractive, like I was a few years ago.

I had a pretty shitty day today, and I was starting to feel really bad, but I ended up eventually going to the gym pretty late, and I did squats for the first time in a while. I managed to do 285 pounds without a belt, which is not usually something I do – and this is only 20 pounds less than my all-time PR. The craziest thing is it moved pretty easily actually, and I ended up feeling pretty good in the workout. And now I’m just putting Hash and getting ready for bed. Everything will be OK.

I had a stupid idea for something to send to S, and so I quickly made it and it was so bad that I didn’t have it in me to share it with anyone else lol. I still sent it to him ofc, since I have no reservations around him. But while doing that, I ended up seeing my tiktok drafts, and I saw a few things that were so embarassing that I fully started like cowering in my own apartment by myself. I did then proceed to share it with S and J, but not on my story to friends. I did however see the drawing I paid $5 for of me giving birth, and I thought that was so fire so I posted that on my story, to much chagrin of others. J then mentioned “Isnt it great not having a shame response” and that did make me think for a bit. I think I do have a pretty strong shame response, but not exactly for being weird or esoteric. I’m not fully sure why those parts are fine with me, but I’d guess it has something to do with the lack of solid socialization growing up. I think because I didn’t really have a community to conform to, I am not necessarily too afraid of that judgment. I think that’s also because I haven’t really gotten much negative feedback for my cringy behaviors in the moment. Like for example with this blog — I think it’s fully within reason for someone to give me shit for this or call me weird, but strangely enough that hasn’t happened yet. I’d like to think that I’ve gotten enough positive feedback and I’m solid enough in my worldview that even if I did get that negative feedback from a random person it wouldn’t affect me much. I guess it’s weird to try to figure myself out more, and to put rules and understand my behaviors, like where I draw the lines on certain things. I think I’m happy with this version of me.

There’s a girl I’m kind of interested in that likes the kind of rock music that I do, and I said that I would make a playlist. I like to take pride in my purposefully esoteric or cryptic playlist names, and I settled for vitality in a trenchcoat. I guess the story for that one is how I really like the saying that anger is just a grief in a trenchcoat, and I think to me rock music is vitality – the willingness to live. I think the energy that it brings and that it makes me feel is what kind of saved me, during that period of time in my life where I quit medication and went on a last ditch effort. I think that energy and aggression from the music helped me feel not alone in a way. It’s kind of like a conscious choice for me, when I start to slip again I can either choose to fall deeper into it with sad music, or I can rage against it and I’m incredibly grateful for rock music for supporting me there.

I used to think that music was like magic, in the way that if you learned how it worked then the magic would disappear. It would be replaced with another kind of appreciation, one for the design — but the visceral element of it would disappear and never come back. that’s what made me afraid to learn more about music; I never wanted to lose that wonder. But the more I learn, the more I realize how wrong I was. Every time I’ve learned something new about music, every example of it becomes an additional piece of love, and thought that goes into something already beautiful. You can eat a cake, and appreciate the fact that a baker made it for you with love. But imagine learning and getting to meet the farmer who gathered the eggs for your cake, or the trucker that drove eight hours to get those eggs to the right location, or even the engineer that planned out the logistics route that enabled this transfer, and it keeps going. I don’t know about you, but each additional layer makes me feel loved and seen in a way I didn’t think it was possible. I think it’s such a beautiful human thing to see how much comes together to make something so beautiful. Except in this case the farmer is the drummer, with hands cramping putting there heart into the foundational rhythm and energy of the song, even when it’s immediately overshadowed. maybe the baker is the lyricist, figuring out how to put an experience into words much like a poet. Each new musical technique is an exploration into this shared human brain together. I don’t know what I’m saying with any of this but all I know is music is nothing like magic in the sense where learning more about it doesn’t ruin it. Instead learning more gives you an additional color to see all of these love letters written to the human experience.

I got invited to another event today and even though it was again out of my comfort zone I went, and I even invited people to join me. I’m really glad I did, I again made more friends and I had a great time. Wanted us to people there however was someone that virtually no one liked, and they kept saying he was a dick and giving examples. I got the greenlight to rage bait him, and unfortunately for him he is very gullible and every single bait was hook line sinker. He didn’t take offense to it but I also don’t think he knew he was getting rage baited, and everyone else was losing it. But some of the things I did I think were kind of dickish, and I kind of want to think ethically about rage baiting. I always like to give people the benefit of the doubt and form my own opinions on them, but immediately I was rage baiting him, and I don’t think he is a bad person. I think he’s just socially deaf and doesn’t understand that some of the things that he says aren’t nice or are unwanted. I don’t think that necessarily means that someone deserves to get bullied, and I think that there is a way to rage bait where they aren’t getting excluded or bullied, and I think if I want to feel OK with my actions I would need to focus on that. That looks like including him, and not doing things that are hurtful, but rather benign. I’d like to think more about that because I don’t want to be hurtful to anyone.