An Open Letter

I really enjoy interacting with people over text, especially with playful conversations like flirting. Pretty much my main goal is to make myself laugh and to clip farm To myself, and I think funnily enough the authenticity goes across pretty well. I’m still confused about what N thinks about me, but I matched with someone cool just now on Hinge and they were pretty funny and I enjoyed our conversation. I took so many screenshots from my own laughing sake.

I keep reminding myself that it doesn’t have to be a bad experience to move back and forth. I think I feel scared in some ways because it’s like a change in life or expectation, and I do like that structure. I think I honestly may be more autistic than I thought, and part of me wants to see if I’m diagnosed, but also I wonder how that changes my own perception of myself. I know that I identify myself with diagnoses and I almost try to fit myself into a mold to validate that, so I wonder how that would be for something that I don’t really think I identify with (autism).

I ended up going on a like two hour walk, Including a hike for like 45 min of it in the dark. At first I was beating myself up mentally by thinking about how I didn’t feel like I fit in, and thinking about a lot of bad memories. I realized however that I was doing that, I was thinking about bad memories. I thought about the good ones, and a big thing I realized was UCSB was like going to Boot Camp for me, I went from very little socialization and being completely sheltered to being in the heart of a party town. I think UCSB overall made me so much more social, and also helped me understand much more who I wanted to be, not from a lack of choice, but rather from experience. I’m really proud of the person I’ve become, and I’ve made a lot of good memories. I’ve also learned how the people I am great friends with are completely different than the people I think I would be comfortable with at first glance. Everything will be OK in life.

I just came back from Six Flags, and I stopped at a Taco Bell along the way to get some food. I spent a lot of money, fairly casually, like $10 for a frozen lemonade here, $20 for a refill cup there, and I’m not sweating it too much because I can afford it. While I was eating in the Taco Bell a homeless person came in with some scabs and a limp, and sat kind of near me but behind me. I felt anxious and worried, and so I kept looking out of the corner of my eye, and by the time I finished I saw that they were visibly very distraught. I have a somewhat irrational fear of being attacked or stabbed by a needle and so usually I try to keep my distance but I thought about it and it’s only like six dollars for a meal. That amount of money is completely trivial to me right now, but that person looked like they were struggling for meals and battling other things. If I had to choose between getting a bottle of soda at Six Flags, or this person getting lunch, that should never be a question. I ordered a meal and waited for it and they were about to leave, when I stopped and asked them if they were hungry, and they said yes. Thankfully right at that moment the meal was ready, and so I got it and gave it and left. Whenever I feel bad or frustrated it’s nice to do something nice for someone else, I feel like that helps me focus on good instead of bad. And also I think it’s incredibly important to recognize the incredible privilege that I have, the fact that six dollars means virtually nothing to me. But that could make such a difference to someone else. I think a lot about how when I was a kid some random person online bought me five dollars worth of in game currency on transformice, and because of that I was able to finally get the things I wasn’t able to before. The world is not kind therefore we must be kind in its place.

When I was getting in my car to leave work I had my headphones in, and I thought I heard a bird singing near me so I stopped to listen. I found that it was the tree rubbing against this wooden stake both shaking in the wind. I’m so happy that I stopped to look at the world a little bit more, it makes me happy. I want to focus more on things that make me happy, that will be my happiest path. I want to stop and smell the roses more often.

Today at my basketball game, I didn’t wear a shirt under our jerseys since I usually sweat a ton. When I walked in, one of the guys on my team complimented me on my muscles and asked where I got shoulders like that. I joked and tried to dismiss it, but it weirdly stuck in my head. Body dysmorphia is such a weird thing when it’s from the gym like this. I never really understood it until I experienced it. I’ve gotten so many compliments on being muscular and so many passing comments acknowledging it. I would have thought they would make me feel good, but instead, it feels like it’s an inside joke that everyone else is playing on me. I look in the mirror, and when I flex, I feel good about myself, but only in a way that is hidden from the world. I think I am below mediocre when comparing myself to random people online, and I know that this is incredibly biased, but it’s still in my head. But when I’m not posing in nice lighting and with a pump, I feel like I just barely look like a normal man. And so when I’m wearing regular clothing at work, or just out and about, and people say that I’m muscular, I feel like they’re lying to me. It feels like it’s done out of politeness or just empty compliments, the same way someone may just randomly compliment your shoes even if they don’t mean it. The logical part of my brain feels like this happens too consistently and also happens from non-compliments, meaning that this is not just some coincidence. But the emotional part of me is somewhat scared, for a lack of a better word. Why does this happen when I look at myself in the mirror and I see a small boy trying to pad themselves up to look like a normal man? I work out my arms and grow all to be smaller than some normal man. And I’m no longer a kid, I’m 23, so why do I feel so small and scrawny? It’s like nothing has changed from when I was a kid. And there I know lies my issue, this is just body dysmorphia, and I am not the person I see in the mirror. I just wish I could believe it, or feel it. I feel embarassed whenever someone compliments me for being muscular or strong, since I’m just waiting for the shoe to drop and for me to get my hopes up, all to be brought back to earth. Hard. And so it’s safer if I just lay on the ground safe, without letting people raise me up. Whenever someone compliments me, the best I do so far is just dismiss it or move past it as fast as possible. Before, I would disagree or deflect it. Someone told me today that they find me incredibly hot, but also that they find my personality and mind too good, and that they fear they will get attached to me. All I do in my mind is try to find ways to discredit them, so that I stay in this mental mold that I am not really wanted. It’s stupid that I do this to myself, but it’s like I want to believe that all of these consistent positive feedbacks are just one-off events that will not happen again. And then they happen consistently. And I keep saying this was a random once-in-a-lifetime event, for the 8th time that month.

I’d like to love myself all the time. I have stretches where I do, and then I have moments where I’m like this. I scored no points in basketball, and I got scored on by their big guys a couple times. I fully whiffed the two shots that I had, horribly because I panicked. Even during random warmups I couldn’t make the ball in with a layup or right next to the hoop. I laughed at myself jokingly in those moments, because I couldn’t just let shame consume me. That’s for the car ride home. Our team keeps winning, and I’m not the worst on the team, but it’s close. I feel horrible being useless. I don’t want people to look at me with pity, and I don’t think that I should be included if I don’t carry my own weight. And so I want to not go again, because I don’t want to drag them down.

N asked me to tell her about the Dunning-Kruger effect, and she was interested by it. She then asked where I think it applies to me. I didn’t want to be depressing so I wasn’t fully honest by omission — I realized I think it applies to almost nothing, since I think I’m not good at anything really. I know I have really hard standards for myself, and so no matter what — even the things that I know that I’m in the top 1% of easily, I feel like there’s not much point of pride there. There are so many people in the world, and people that I will meet that would leave me with nothing to say other than they are better. No excuses I can make, and so how am I supposed to have an ego? I remember thinking about this a few months ago, if I am honest and say that I am bad at something, that’s arguably worse than being overconfident to others. The reasoning was if I say I am bad at something, and then if the person beats me, they gain nothing. If they lose to me, then they feel worse than bad. If I say I’m good, then if they lose their ego is intact. If they win, they feel better than good. And so it’s best for their ego if I say I’m good. I don’t think it’s that simple though, so I don’t really do that. But I don’t like to say how I really feel about my own skills, for fear of putting other people down. This is kinda the reason why I don’t like working in with people at the gym on things that I’m strong at. For example, my current goal is to max out the leg extension machine for 8 reps with one leg, and I’m 260/300 right now. The other day I worked in with someone, and they were doing around 170 and when it was my turn to go they would stand and just stare while I was doing my set. I felt bad, since I didn’t want that person to think that I was showing off. I felt horribly guilty. I know how it feels to compare yourself and not be enough, that’s all I did growing up. I don’t want to do that to someone else.

Apparently, N didn’t save my number, and I found out through a screenshot. Both D and N said that she is weird and she doesn’t save people’s numbers, only family and close friends. It did kinda hurt. Partially because I don’t know if she’s telling the truth, or if I’m just some person unworthy of saving a number for. It doesn’t help that N doesn’t really respond to my messages frequently, and also because she has read receipts turned off. I think she still hasn’t opened my instagram messages from Monday. I am hoping that she just isn’t a good texter and isn’t really responsive, and there is evidence to at least back that up. But I’m worried that the doubt is seeping in, and I think that maybe I’m just a dancing monkey for them to laugh at. I can entertain them and then when my use is over, I can be left in a closet. I think I can be weird, and I am not everyone’s flavor. But I’d like to be loved. I keep thinking back to art, if only I could do something like write beautiful enough, or play something so pure that I could be seen in it. I find it hard to use my words often. It would be easier if I could paint something with such intention, in a way that someone doesn’t find it embarassing but rather just “real” for a lack of a better word. I’ve wallowed in so much self pity already I feel bad. Haha, that’s kinda ironic isn’t it? Feeling bad.

I think I’m objectively good at things because I never feel like I am. Since I always feel like I need to be more, I always strive for that. But then I’m never enough. I don’t think there will really ever be something I’m the best at, and so I have to figure out some way to cope with this feeling. I guess regardless this would be important, since self-worth has to come from something more sustainable. I guess I just want this feeling to pass. I guess, I guess, I guess. I don’t like reusing the same words to start sentences, but I guess I’m just not smart enough to avoid that. My feelings repeat in these patterns, I’m too afraid to feel decisively, and so I say “I guess”. I feel like I talk too much in therapy pretty often, and it’s something I’ve brought up to her and she says it’s not an issue. But I’d like to shut up sometimes. I think I just ramble until someone stops me sometimes, because I don’t know how to express my feelings in that way. I don’t often have places where I can just be heard, and so I just pour out there from every wound. Sometimes slowly, sometimes not.

I think maybe my Dunning-Kruger moment may be thinking I’m emotionally healthy or mature. I fear that I am so far behind in that progression that I don’t even know how fucked up I am. I don’t know if I’m behind or ahead of the curve with all of this journaling. I feel like some days I’m learning more about myself in a way that others don’t, and some days I feel like I’m playing catchup. Some days I feel like I’m just going in a fully different direction, and that I’m incredibly weird and unfortunately off-putting. I don’t have enough self-confidence right now to be fine with that fact, and so I just sit with it. It may be time to go to bed, I’ve been sitting here writing for about 30 minutes now. I hope I’m enough.

I decided to go to bed a little bit early today, and so I got way more time to read. Spoiler alert, but it turns out Amos is alive and I’m so happy about that. I like reading and I’m happy that I am able to do that now.

I asked T for advice on my crush, and he told me stuff that I already feel like I know. I’m glad to corroborate it, but I kind of wish I had some kind of game plan or instruction on when or how to proceed. With dating apps you never get the same feeling of that risk. That feeling when you don’t know if the other person wants to see you in the same way you see them, and especially when it’s a friend. I thought about what would possibly be my happiest memory, and it might have been when I first asked O out in middle school. I remember I have never felt that much adrenaline in my life, and I kind of feel that now in a very baby way.

I think it’s a weird thing, but when I look at myself from the outside I think the things that I fall in love with the most are the parts of me that are a little bit weird and strange, but things that I embrace because I love them about myself. This shows up in weird mannerisms, like the way that I giggle uncontrollably after making a joke in private. Or the way that I’ll do something stupid, and then physically say holy shit I’m fucking stupid what is wrong with me, and then laugh at that at the absurdity of it all. And so I end up loving the practice of me that I already love, and it builds up more. How weird it is to be anything at all.

I think it’s funny how birds have their mating dances, and I end up doing something similar. The girl I’m interested in (N) was making jokes about my abs, and had asked to see them before on facetime, but at the time I was too embarrassed and caught off guard. I ended up trying to slyly post some pump photos after the gym today on my instagram private story, basically JUST for her to see lol. It’s so funny how bad I am at flirting when it’s someone I feel this way about.

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.