An Open Letter

T agreed to fire up fall guys again, and so I put on my burger outfit and proceeded to call myself “the beast” as we proceeded to lose like 15 games in a row. We agreed to play until we won one, and eventually we got one and I growled so hard that I lost my voice for a bit. We kept playing for a while and now we’re playing a few games of league. I love nights like this, it is so much fun to scream at each other and make blatant excuses for losing.

I feel horrible for this, but I just don’t feel the spark with E. I think we’re fairly different people and at the end of the day, she isn’t what I have in mind for what I want in a partner. I think I’m going to wait a little bit so that it’s not immediately after a date, and then look to break the news. I guess another lesson learned.

I went to the powerlifting club meeting today, and it was two other people and they both were freshmen benching 3 plates. I ended up leaving kinda early since I just didn't vibe, but that spurred on some feelings I had forgotten about. I remembered how painfully mediocre I am. That toxic flame reignited, as I just got surrounded by that familiar feeling, and I ended up doing every single leg exercise as a drop set. I just kept repeating to myself “how much do you hate me” and that would spur me on to keep doing another rep. When I stand up, I can't move my legs the same but that pain was bliss. The feeling of muscles being ripped and begging to stop is enough to just block out everything else and all that's left is a feeling of ecstacy. That bliss is the reward that I'm chasing.

I think I realized while under the influence that I have a pretty bad social anxiety, but the good news is I can now finally articulate what my problem is to my therapist in a way that’s actionable!

One thing that fundamentally scares me is – yeah no this ones a cipher post.

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Unfortunately, it’s a bit later than I thought, so I want to keep this short again. I had another date with E today, and it was a great time! We went to watch the Transformers movie, which was super fun and the theater was mostly empty so we were giggling and making jokes the whole time. This feels foreign but also what I’ve been looking for, someone I consider a friend and that I feel like I can be myself around. I’m excited and anxious at the same time.

Right now I’m waiting for my soy sauce delivery to come while my chicken cooks, and right as I typed that my instant pot started hissing, and I feel like it’s about to explode so I’m moving to the other side of my studio apartment. I think I’ve been in a fairly content place in life right now, especially now that I’ve somewhat packed my schedule with things to do. I volunteer at the local middle school for Lego robotics, which is cool because that was a big part of my childhood. I’m doing a few clubs, and I’m joining the gymnastics club which is actually really fun. Jiujitsu started today, and so even though I was injured I went and I had a good time and met some new friends. I got to hang out with S today, and I should be able to hang out with L tomorrow. I have another date with E tomorrow which I’m super excited about, since I actually feel like I can be myself around her which is something that’s difficult for me. I also need to acknowledge that I can’t really write anything too sensitive since I think that there’s a nonzero chance that she reads this (and if so hi E!) and I don’t want to have that quirky little dynamic of a one-way transparency this early on, since I do think this could be the start of something great. In full honesty, I am a little afraid since there haven’t been any red flags so far and they’ve actually responded almost perfectly to big things that I value – but also I don’t want them to read that part since I don’t want there to be some kind of pressure for them to have to fit into some specific mold or have it be where they ‘need to’ get everything perfect. How smart of me to write that warning AFTER the sensitive information, and then to also not go back and edit anything in the usual fashion. I think the big thing that I think is key for me right now is how I feel like I could be comfortable around her in the long run. Like I can visualize being in the same place and doing nothing together, and not feeling like I have to perform anything which is something I think my therapist will be so happy to hear. I also think that since I’ve put in the effort to not be my idea of ‘charismatic’ from the start, a lot of anxieties have gone away, like I’m not afraid of her seeing my tiktoks or behaviors since I’m consistent with who I portray myself as (and who I want to be). As a small little layer of abstraction away from all of this, I want to clarify for my own sake this whole analysis thing – a lot of this is not actually referring to E specifically, but rather just overall concepts and situations that I’ve been working on in therapy for, like not performing a specific way I think someone wants. With that disclaimer weirdly introduced in the middle of this, I think I actually feel like I’d be comfortable being high around her, since my big fear is I turn into a non-verbal goofy fucking idiot; the huge benefit is I’ve been that person (aside from non-verbal) so far! I think this has set me up for success, since I don’t feel like I’ve shot myself in the foot yet, and also how this is actually me and not some weird fucked up trauma coping mechanism from childhood (hooray!).

And now for something that definitely doesn’t deserve the only paragraph break in this post – I also spent over an hour today playing guitar for the first time in god knows how long, which was something that I’ve been missing out on. I purposefully avoided saying “something I’ve been neglecting”, since I don’t want this to be something I’m forced to do but rather another channel for something I can love. I played random songs I fully forgot about, and even sang along and even though I’m pretty happy right now I feel like I somehow released some pressure in some emotional songs. I played until my hands cramped too much, and then had to go to jiujitsu. I’m happy I did that. I think I’m just happy right now.

Wow what dogshit quality of posts recently, I may have to find a better time to do this as I am very sleepy and want to nap with my doggie. I had a nice .5th date (not first date yet) with E, and I actually feel like they’re someone I can see myself being authentic around. I hope this blossoms.

I’m really tired so short post, but I did gymnastics today and met several cool people who I got along with. I also matched with someone on hinge who seems like someone I’d actually love to be friends with, so I’m excited to see how that goes! I like their sense of humor and we seem very similar so I really want to go on a date! So much to do.

One of the big factors for me not doing a PhD was because of how hard and scary it was for me to read academic papers. This was before I knew I had ADHD, which explains a lot – but today I went and learned spectral clustering, and then read two papers regarding community detection for my graph ML class. I’m incredibly proud of myself because this is one of those things that I was terrified about before that now is not as scary.