Self-Analysis

Saturday night I went out. I was going to a final goodbye party for a friend of mine leaving town in a week.

I arrived and we chatted a bit, then everyone else came. Behn is a popular guy, and I knew there would be tons of people there. Behn is one of those guys who has never met a stranger, and its one of the reasons I love him. (Platonic love you pervs)

But Behn has his faults, and I wondered how many of his friends would share those. It seemed most of the men shared them.

Behn is superficial. He will only date smoking hot women. Seriously. The perfect woman could walk up to him, but if she's not smoking hot.. she will be automatically put in the friend-zone. Its just how he is, and he's not mean about it, and doesn't judge you as less than him or otherwise hold his nose up. He just won't see you as a viable mate.

He's also driven, and will only date a woman that can keep up with him in that ambition. She must be the best at what she does. Its how he is.

Since I am.. well.. not smoking most days.. and relatively career-less at this point.. (Behn honestly could care less, he's known me long enough to cherish our friendship for what it is, and since he's not planning on dating me.. well I could be a homeless hooker and it'd make no difference) I was a little worried about his friends and having something to talk about.

Everyone who showed up ended up being part of Behn's work colleagues. High powered executive MBA people. Most of them were married.. to.. similarly high powered executive wives.

They all seemed to talk about work stuff or trips they'd taken together or otherwise chummy things... which I knew nothing about.  A few of them were single, and we chatted.

But... me being so nervous and out of my element.. answered their questions as if I was on crack or a huge loser.

"What do you do?"

Instead of saying that I'm currently working in Social Media or Marketing.. no no.. I fumble around and say I do "Nothing" and that "I'm looking into going back to school" or even worse that I used to "work in sales, but I loathed it".  (most of the people there were ex-sales people, who worked their way to executive because they love sales and are good at it... its like walking up to a group of doctors and saying you're switching careers because doctoring sucks.) 

If you can't tell, I was a HUGE hit at the party.  I stayed around for 3 drinks, then congratulated Behn on his job and said goodnight.

Instead of going home, I decided to walk by Mac's work to see if he was there. I didn't see him, so I went to my favorite pub... by myself.. bellied up to the bar, and said "Surprise me".

There was a guy seated next to me. He was average looking but thin and adequately built. Attractive but nothing worth noting.  However, whenever I'd even start to look his way, he'd look away from me or otherwise try to ensure that we did not make eye contact so he'd not have to talk to me. 

This pissed me off.

However, I turned to the otherside of me and found a long haired old man losing his teeth smiling big at me.  I took a page from "average guy" and didn't make eye contact.

So I guess I gotta forgive average dude.

Anyway, I sat there in a bar.. all by myself.. drinking beers.  After my second, I came to the conclusion that I am depressed.

I am depressed, stressed out, and feeling a little hopeless. (these past few weeks have not been the best)

After my third beer, I was .. for lack of a better word.. in a self-harming mood. Luckily, I don't have the balls to go up to random guys and ask them to take me on the spot.

I also blame Fred for part of that mood. Damn bastard was sending me sexy dirty texts all night. Tease.

So I went home and did a lot of thinking.

I don't want to accept me as I am now. But this denial and self-loathing has to stop. 

What is that serenity prayer thing?  

"To know what I can change and accept that which I can't" or something like that.

There are some things.. that I really hope that I can change, but for my own peace of mind.. I have to accept or go on as if they're never going to change. Fighting with the unchangeable is .. well stupid, and since its always bound to fail.. depressing.

Accepting this.. will help me move on and build a life that I can do... rather than hoping in one that may never be.

I've also let myself go. I've got reasons and excuses, but I really have let myself go. I don't like what I'm seeing the mirror.

This isn't the me that I wanted to be. Ever. 

Now to become the person that I can be. That I'll be proud to be.

Dark Days

I am having a dark day. These kinds of days should motivate me to be better, do better, and fix the things in my life that make me sad. Should anyway.

But right now I'm overpowered by a complete sense of failure. No not just a sense of having failed in the past. But a sense of having failed, failing now, and no hope of not failing in the future.

Like I said. Dark Day.

I woke this morning with tears in my eyes. Tears brought on by the mere thought of "What am I going to do with my life?"

Followed by more tears and anxiety with the next thought of "I don't know".

Normally this would not get me down, and events like last night would be motivational.

Unfortunately the combination of last night, and yesterday's experiment with something I've not tried before (mild allergic reaction) has caused today's chemical alteration.

I have days like this. Just days. I know how to prevent them, but sometimes the urge to try something new gets the better of me. (Come on, who doesn't like to try something new?)

Technically, today I'd pass as clinically depressed. I'm not suicidal, don't worry. The darkness is never that ambitious. It merely likes to taunt and torture.

(funny, I feel it lifting as I type this. Hmm maybe I should keep a dark day journal)

Why I love my Girls Blogs

I woke up today depressed. I went on a date yesterday. Initially from his online persona I pretty much figured he wouldn't be my type. He's not really, but in many ways he so is.

He has that low masculine voice, that makes you just want to call him up and have phone sex with him right there. Not that I did, I do have self-restraint.

On meeting him, I was dreading the worst. The picture he sent me was of him in sunglasses and a cap, and a headshot.. so I pretty much was walking in blind.

I initially see him from the back. And he's physically not bad. He has a nice butt. He turns around and his face isn't "OMG take me now" but nice kind and attractively average. But there's something wrong and I can't place it for a few minutes, then it dawns on me that his head is a bit large for his body. Like he should be a good 50 lbs heavier. The thought made me smile, but didn't really detract anything from him as far as I was concerned.

We sat and talked, and had a few beers. He bragged about his travels, and his poker playing. (I really hate poker, but I'm trying not to be so picky anymore.) He talked and talked and talked.

Occasionally he'd ask me about me. I'd get out about half an answer, and he'd continue on some thought that it'd brought up.

I didn't really mind. I'd decided that he was attractive enough to sleep with, and his other annoying habits could just be due to him being nervous. He talked so much I assumed that was the cause. So I figured I'd give him another shot.

We talked for 2.5 hours, then we left. He gave me a one arm hug, and swore he was going to email me (kept telling me he was going to email me throughout the 2.5 hour conversation) the info on this pirated TV place he uses. - Oh yeah, we talked geek, so yes by the end of 2.5 hours he was irresistible.

I was pretty sure by the one armed hug that he wasn't interested, but when I got to my car and saw that it'd been 2.5 hours of talking... I wasn't so sure.

Nevertheless, the increased certainty that the date was a failure bummed me out and I spent the rest of the night watching Netflix DVD's and checking my email. Still nothing from him. I'm not really holding my breath.

Is it any wonder that I really hate dating?

But today, I woke up still down.. checked my emails, then went to go see if any of my favorite girls had posted something. They had.

AmazingMelisa posted something of which I have very similar feelings. A lot of men really suck. Dating sucks. Bedbuddies are a dime a dozen, man you're not the only game in town. (so treat us right, asshole) Sometimes you just feel alone.

TrueHeart posted a very funny video of a badly designed dress. Which was just the laughter I needed. Its hard to be sexy and feel sexy when the designers try to sabotage you at every turn.

Sometimes its just good to see you're not really alone in all this.

The "Friend" Speech

The last few days I'd been working up to a major funk. Of course I say "I'd been working" as if I'd had a choice in the matter. Would be more accurate to say my body had been working on a funk and taking me along for the ride. Nevertheless, I saw it coming.

So on Friday I started pricing airline tickets to visit a "friend" of mine, in hopes that it would give me something to hold on to and look forward to as I went through this upcoming funk.

This "friend" has never been just a friend. Shortly after I moved into my apt in May, we began talking and sniffing each other out. We weren't quite dating, but we weren't quite just friends either. We have several friends in common which is how we started talking, and supposedly (he says, I don't remember) we'd met once back in 1997. So there were lots of unknowns as far as attractiveness. He lives halfway across the USA from me, so distance was always a factor in keeping it more friendly than dating.

I wasn't going to be uprooting myself for a man again, and there are no jobs in his field here. We'd kept up this stalemate for months, talking daily as much as we could.

Then about a month ago, we began discussing evolution and intelligent design. We'd already discussed religion and he'd said he was "kinda Christian" and we agreed on a few points of religion.. enough to get by I thought. But when I mentioned that I thought everyone should have the choice between evolution and intelligent design, and that my children will learn both so they can make up their own minds.. Things got heated. He solely believes in evolution, and cannot understand how I cannot.

There is nothing that 100% proves that "God" had no hand in it, and there is nothing that proves "God" did. Stalemate.

Since that conversation things began to cool down. (Fred, see this is why I don't like dating atheists, even if this guy isn't one). We'd have one big conversation a week, then sporadically small ones. But he still seemed at least a little interested, as he often was the one initiating and we discussed sexual preferences after that as well.

I'd threatened to visit him several times, but never with any real specific date. So on Friday, I emailed him with an exact weekend and asked if he wanted me to visit. He replied on Saturday "Maybe.. we should talk about it." Because I know him, I knew this was a very bad response, besides having that horrid "We should talk" phrase.

Saturday (even before his reply) I slipped further into my funk. I forced myself to go to a party of a friend, but I ended up leaving early. I felt fat and ugly.

Sunday morning I woke up in full funk. I didn't want to see anyone or talk to anyone (I had several plans for the day and cancelled them all). People would IM me and I'd end the conversation. A friend called and I told her in no uncertain terms that I was totally antisocial and I'd talk to her later in the week. It really was all I could do not to hang up on her. I distracted myself with copious amounts of TV and Netflix. The smallest thing would make me cry or angry. I felt fat, ugly, and unlovable.

He messaged me and I told him I was in a foul mood. He didn't do his normal "ask whats wrong?" thing. He wanted to get it off his chest I suspect. So he called and blurted out...

"You have a great personality that meshes well with mine, I love talking to you, and I really care about you, but we'll only ever be just friends."

Seriously, he couldn't have picked a worse day. I started crying like a little baby. I was trying to cover the phone so he couldn't hear. I knew the tears had little to actually do with him, but I couldn't stop them.

He tried to comfort me and it only made things worse. It pissed me off so I cried more. Seriously, you don't get to tell a girl that you just want to be "friends" and then comfort her too. Saying shit to her like "I wish I could just hold you" is not going to make anything better. Bastard!

It seemed like ages, but probably just a few minutes before we finally hung up. I let myself have a good cry. The funk wasn't over, but I distracted myself with episodes of the BBC series "Coupling" which is guaranteed to make you laugh no matter what.

Finally at 3 AM, I was too tired and fell into bed to cry myself to sleep. I haven't had a funk this bad in years thankfully, hopefully it will be many more before it comes again.

I woke this morning to sunshine and hope. I'm not sure I have a whole lot of hope in finding someone to share my life, but today spending the rest of my life alone doesn't sound so lonely. The world is full of people that actually do care about me, and right now, thats enough.