Sorry to myself for forgetting yesterday night, I was all over the place with preparing for the cruise and also hitting masters (hooray!).
Me and A went to the singles mixer because bingo was a bust, and we just sat in the corner not taking to anyone and dying laughing. We eventually went and talked to one person, and one thing led to another and we all made a group of people. We went to a music bar, then we brought them to the comedy show. During the main set, the guy brought up a girl on stage and I kept getting egged on so I kept cheering and clapping loudly and standing up on the balcony, and eventually the comedian told me to come down. I wasn't expecting that, but he eventually brought me on stage and asked me about my job, my fico score, and if I worked out. To the last point he asked if I had abs and to show them and I flexed as well as I could and lifted my shirt and the crowd kinda erupted; one lady in the front row stood up and started cheering and the guy even made fun of her for that. So that's a huge confidence boost LOL. But also the girl is from San Diego, and is only 10 minutes away from me! We talked afterwards and went to a club with both of our groups, and had a nice night. On the cruise messaging app she asked me to come to yoga and I said of course, and then she sent a follow up saying “im not kidding, pull up 😳😅” and sent hearts afterwards.
It's crazy how much success I can get by being myself and not having to fake who I am to fit a mold I imagine. Maybe I can be loved and wanted as I am. What a beautiful thought.
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.
Today really fucking sucked. I had to fucking grind League of Legends ranked which is already a miserable experience, all so I can make a stupid joke about getting my master's degree and masters in League of Legends. But also F messaged again, since he again did something shitty and we weren't really talking, and I showed him how I had an 80% win rate on Leona in D1 and he just kind of tried to neg me. Same with T yesterday in different contexts. It just fucking sucks that people can't be happy for me, and that this keeps happening somehow. I know that I'm the common factor and so it's something I can control, I guess; I hope.
I was able to hang out with J finally for the first time in a while online, because everyone has been so busy and I'm really happy for that and I loved talking with him and playing with him. But even after a few hours of that when it was time for us to part for the night I realized I still felt depressed. I got outside time, I ate food, I did things, I spent time with people, and I did things that I enjoy. And I was still miserable. M canceled plans because they had a really long day which is fully understandable, and things like that are things I would want to be able to understand and accommodate as a friend. But at the same time it also did make me sad because I was looking forward to seeing them I guess. And then the whole messy situation with R, and Instagram messages from B. I haven't really done this before but I just got overwhelmed today, and I just dismissed my notifications without responding to them. I told myself that eventually I will find the messages and respond. I just really needed that space I guess.
I went to the gym in my apartment to try to feel better, and it did help. I even ran for the first time in forever, and I ran a full mile. I didn't fully stretch and my abs were cramping for a while so I stopped it there but I'm pretty happy about that I guess, even though it was at a relatively slow pace. I sat down for a while, and then when I got up to stand my quads started cramping out of nowhere. It wasn't bad enough where I was debilitated, but it was extremely tense and walking I kept my legs completely extended. And then once I left the gym I realized I didn't have my bag on me, and that was right inside the door. With my key. Both to the apartment, but also the gym. I started panicking and I realized that it was 11, and there is no one anywhere nearby even in the pool. I had to leave the building and I used a pillow to prop open the door because otherwise I might not have been able to get in if I needed to again, and I just walked around the parking lot hoping I could see someone. I saw this teen guy and girl that were there a little bit earlier, but they were in a big group of teens and they were all speaking Russian and drifting their car that I think, and I was too nervous to ask. I just walked around the parking lot for more time until I saw a car, and I waved it down and thankfully the guy was nice and parked and then let me back in. When I got home I just wanted to cry. But I couldn't so instead I just sat down on the couch and watched YouTube to try to cheer myself up.
I bought a really nice monitor for the first time in my life, and I can’t help but feel disappointed with it. I spent a thousand dollars on it, which is an astronomical amount of money – all for it to be just a pain and something that doesn’t even really make me happy. I’m super thankful for the financial flexibility and freedom I’ve gotten, but at the same time I’ve weirdly realized how spending this money doesn’t really make me much happier. At least not in the immediate sense, maybe the overall quality of life increases which does have a factor – it’s nice to have things like shelves and organizers and fancy bedframes, but it’s not like any of these things individually made me jump for joy. Out of all the things in the world to complain about this is such a nice problem to have, but it’s still a problem I guess. I feel bad about seeming insensitive around it, especially when I know that to a lot of my friends money is a pain point, and something that I’ve gotten some shade thrown at me for. I know that it’s not really coming from a place of malice or anything like that, but rather just an inherent kickback to seeing how something that’s a big stressor or issue for them is not for me, the same way I feel that jealousy for other aspects in life. It’s so strange how important money is.
I keep thinking about how Huberman said he heavily respects people who have the strength to end things with people when it’s bad, without the need for it to end in a “good” way. I’ve been thinking about that a lot in the context of A, because regardless of her I think that this is clearly not a good thing for me, and there is just so much extra time and mental stability I am paying to try to end with some notion of things being good. Maybe they don’t have to end good, especially with the consistent pattern of the way I’ve felt from her actions. Regardless if things would change, it’s not like I’m obligated or really wanting to gamble on that anymore. It’s not like there’s a shortage of people in this world, and so I’d like to have the respect for myself to be able to step away from A to make space for those people. I just went and removed her on social media, and I can’t really bring myself to block her on anything unfortunately, so she can still text me. But I think to me this marks moving on.
I feel bad for having such short posts recently, but I feel like it’s understandable with being all over the place moving. I’m still settling back into my routine, and so far so good! I’ve been slowly moving in and getting more and more stuff unpacked, and things are looking like they are coming out good. I’ve spent an ungodly amount of money, which is going to hurt when I pay off my credit card but I’m happy I have the money to do that, and the apartment I’ve been excited about!
I had an energy drink and my ADHD meds today, and surprise surprise I felt better and had more energy. Who would have guessed? The apartments coming together more and more now and tomorrow I move in properly. I'm excited again!
Today I walked, and officially got my master's degree! And with that I am done with school as far as I know. It's really strange and I spent the rest of the day driving down to San Diego after moving out. Throughout the drive I mostly listened to a podcast by Andrew Huberman about relationships and love, and there were so many insights shared between him and the guest speaker. There were plenty of things I wrote down to think about more later, but one right now that's relevant is the state of emotional numbness; specifically how this state is not the lack of emotion but rather the presence of too many. I mention this because I'm not hurting right now, I'm mostly excited for the future and for what the life I get to shape will look like. I'm a bit confused however because I don't think I'm emotionally numb, but at the same time I'm not really sad I guess I expect to be feeling like that. I talked about this earlier with my therapist and she did say that moving doesn't have to be a trigger for depression or sadness but it feels wrong to be experiencing that.
I have my health, plenty of financial freedom, and the massive benefit of uncertainty. I say the last thing, because that is both the most terrifying thing, but also the thing with the most potential. I could have very easily stayed in my old circumstances and have been content enough to not make a change, but instead I am now plunged into it. It's like trying to fix a flawed pottery vase, tweaking it and making a slight modifications without breaking it versus crushing it and restarting. Except I don't even have to crush it because I have the friends that I value with me, but I also have the space for new ones. What an exciting time to be young.