This is going to read like an entry in the diary of a teenager. Maybe that’s what it actually is?

I’ve had a kind of shitty day, the type of kind of shitty day that highlights what a rough go of it one’s had in the period leading up to it. Here are bullet points about why it was so shitty to make this post more readable to the people to whom it won’t be released:

A Manic Start - I made no less than three different plans about what I wanted to do for the midday “lunch ‘n whatever” that I’ve made a habit of doing. Was I going to walk to downtown and grab a bite at Chronic Taco, then shop at Buffalo Exchange? Was I going to eat at the Chipotle by Brea Mall, then shop at the mall after? Or was I going to drive down to shop at the Irvine Spectrum, stopping at Ajisen on the way? Well, as it happened, none of those plans were put into effect. I went to Panera Bread, then shopped at the mall.

The indecision with which I handled today, I think, is a byproduct of me just being so hopelessly bored and stir-crazy that when I do have a reason to get out of the house, I want to make the absolute most of it that I can. But when I come up with ideas about what I want to do, the simple logistics of each plan flood into my mind and bring me back down to earth with plan- and soul-crushing force. I ruin my own plans more surely than any external force can.

Panic: Attack! - When I went shopping at Brea Mall today I had what I can only describe as a miniature panic attack while I was shopping at the H&M. Walking around the store was easy enough to do, though I felt some apprehension at the fact that I was wearing an H&M jacket at H&M—apprehension that I knew, even then, was completely unnecessary, yet it set the stage for the panic that came as soon as I stepped into the dressing room.

I’ve struggled since high school with body issues. It’s somewhat improved since my recent weight loss and with my current fitness routine, but almost every time I look at myself in public I hate what I see. I see a chubby, balding, wannabe-fashionable manchild that has no business wearing the clothes he’s wearing or being anywhere near “regular” people. It’s a self-image that I constantly reinforce on my own and that precious few people actually refute.

Of course, the logical part of me knows beyond the shadow of a doubt that nobody in public thinks about me like that (if they think about me at all), but I still feel the way I do. My guess as to the cause? I need validation. Validation for my looks, my fashion sense, my music taste, my etc. In a way, it’s not surprising. I feel like I’ve starved for it since middle school, maybe for longer. The cause of that feeling may be just me selectively not remembering the good stuff, but I don’t feel that I’ve really been a great person for more than a decade. A good exercise may be to actually try and remember the good stuff, but for now I’ll just move on to more bad stuff (case in point?).

The Hair Matter - My hair’s thinning. No way to get around it. And  it’s something upon which I’ve been fixated for at least a couple years now. It’s been a constant worry in the background, eating away at whatever mental peace I manage to scrounge up, and today it became an issue that helped cause the aforementioned panic attack in the H&M dressing room. I hadn’t seen the developing bald spot on my crown in such well-lit detail before and, well, I was shocked when it came into view in the mirror. I believe that it snowballed into the self-criticism that drove me out of the mall and back to the safety of my room.

The whole way back home I was wrestling with myself mentally about dealing with the issue once and for all and finally getting the “Bruce Willis” treatment—the buzzcut. On the one hand, I won’t have to deal with my hair ever again, but on the other, it could raise a completely separate self-esteem issue: the issue of a bald head, which is something I’ve never experienced before. I spent at least half an hour trying to imagine how I’d look with the haircut that I was thinking about. I even took a look at the “Going Bald” thread on Something Awful to get some other opinions, some perspective. Nearly every person in the thread seemed to love the change, but after reading every glowing recommendation I would think to myself “is it too much of a change?” and “what would my friends think?” and “would anybody fuck me if I looked like that?”. Things went back and forth for what felt like ages, but I eventually decided to uphold the (admittedly shitty) status quo. It would be at least a full hour, a masturbation session and a good, stiff afternoon drink later until I felt fit to leave the house once again…

Walkin’ In The Rain - …and walk right into a brief rainstorm. I’ve always been a fan of the rain, but today’s downpour, combined with the indecision, the panic and the general malaise of the season made me feel downright depressed. This was somewhat mitigated by the fact that I was outside and being physical without the crushing pressure I feel in matters of clothes shopping, but I was still freezing and wet. It didn’t exactly help the general feel of the day, but it did lead to its highlight—Starbucks and wandering.

Plancellation - After the highlight though, more disappointments were headed my way. On the way back from my expedition, I received a text from Brenna. She’d mentioned a couple days ago that she’d like to hang out with me, Hazel and Alfred. This made me really, genuinely happy—it’s not every day that someone besides the two or three usual suspects (a number that, to me, is depressingly low) expresses a desire to hang out with me. I mean, I don’t want to hang out with me. So it was with excitement th at I made the plans with Brenna. However, in a twist of fate that I cynically expected, the plans had to be cancelled. Brenna was stuck at work past 7. Go figure. We agreed to make new plans at some unspecified later date that I’m currently thinking won’t come up until I mention it.

And then comes uncertainty. Brenna’s a girl, a girl who, to the best of my knowledge, is single. Hazel’s also a single girl. I’m a single guy. If I try to make plans with these girls, will they think I’m trying to set up something that could turn into a date? I’m not trying to date them. They’re fun and cute, but I’m honestly just trying to expand my really shallow pool of friends. But if I try to make plans with them will I somehow say or do something that expresses to them the idea “I want to date or fuck you” and ruin my chances of making plans with them by myself? I don’t want to rely on our mutual friend Alfred to make the plans every time I want to hang out with them. Of course, this is all contingent on the concept that the idea of me dating or fucking them is disgusting to them, and then…andandand—

This is the uncertainty that I live with every time I encounter a girl that hasn’t seen me when I’ve been with someone. It’s a self-defeating lack of honesty and conviction with which I saddle myself for reasons that I would love to discover. I’m so desperately trying to avoid seeming “creepy” that I’m just avoiding possible new friends altogether.

I think it’s a problem that has roots in the days when I was just starting out in the online dating world. I had no concept of what made a guy creepy, and thus proceeded to totally be creepy. Whether it was continuing to send messages to a girl who was obviously not interested or doing something incredibly crass or gross in front of the only couple of girls who actually decided to see me in real life, I managed to fulfill the stereotype of Creepy Internet Guy. Maybe I’m still coming to terms with the fact that I’m not necessarily that guy anymore? Maybe it means I still have absolutely no fucking clue how to make friends with girls when we’re not in a sexless college or professional setting? The pragmatist in me, the part of me that can look at my personal history with an unclouded perspective, thinks it’s the former. But the part of me who fixates on the fact that I’ve only had sex with 1 person and been in 2 relationships by the age of 25 vehemently insists on the latter. I know the first to be true, but the second hounds me still.

Plancellation II: The Weekendend - The coup de gras to this day of mania and disappointment came shortly after the first cancellation. Apparently I may not have plans tomorrow night anymore, and I’ve mentally let the possibility ruin my entire weekend. 

On Alfred

Some background for my own edification: My friend Alfred has been a monolithic and indispensable fixture of my social life for the last two years. Since hitching my wagon to him I have been immersed in a world of which I’ve wanted to be a part since a time that I can’t even remember. The shows, the parties, the festivals, the people I’ve met—all have combined to make me exponentially more worldly, more experienced, and more simply “cool” than I was before I met him. Without my asking he took me under his wing and allowed me to tag along with him to whatever crazy cool event he saw fit. I’m sure he’d scoff at the concept (actually I’m fairly sure he’d think it was creepy) but I’ve been toying with the idea of Alfred as my tutor, my guide, and my role model. His life experience, social network, knowledge of the local “scene” and quiet, unassuming demeanor are all qualities that I appreciate and admire.

Alfred is very much the kind of person I want to be—known and loved, respected in the circles of which he makes himself a part, genuine, knowledgeable (but not infallible), and humble in spite of the knowledge. This admiration, in my mind, is made remarkable by the fact that I’m such an envious person that I generally hate people of “quality.” Alfred is the exception to this rule, and I’m really glad he has made it past my gauntlet of arbitrary regulations and prejudices to gain the foothold in my life that he has.

With that said, though, I’ve become worried recently about just how dependent I’ve become upon his presence and social invitations. Nearly every social gathering I’ve attended in recent memory came to my knowledge because he told me about it. The fact that I do a lot of things with Alfred doesn’t alarm me by itself—I love going to parties with him—it’s the fact that I myself have so little agency when it comes to social gatherings. Nearly every show I go to is somebody he’s into, nearly every party I go to is because Alfred was invited. Maybe I’m becoming tired of being a +1. Maybe I just want great friends of my own, in the scene that I desire, with whom I do things on a regular basis. I’m more inclined to believe the latter, though an answer as simple as the former is consistent with my jealous, covetous self-image. If I asked, would Alfred come to a party with my friends? If I had tickets to a band that he didn’t know of, would he come? It’s hard to put these questions to the test because the friends of mine that are exclusively mine don’t really invite me to parties, and if I know of a band that Alfred doesn’t know of, it doesn’t last long enough for me to tell him about a show. And honestly, I should trust in our friendship enough to not have to answer these questions, yet doubts persist.

Those doubts became more prominent than ever tonight when he said he might have to cancel plans we made to attend a holiday party in Silverlake because a friend of his had won tickets to a show featuring a couple of bands I had never heard of, yet who he saw fit to bail on our plans to go see. I know the people throwing the party, but I didn’t receive an invite to the party. I’m assuming it’s an oversight but my proud self isn’t going to ask them if I can go, despite the fact that I’ve hung how much I will enjoy my weekend on it. A bunch of emotions spring up when I think about this cancellation: Disappointment, jealousy, sadness, desperation, doubt, frustration and hatred of the fact of the emotions. I think they all point to the issue of my dependence on Alfred’s graces to carry my social life. Maybe I need a break from him? Maybe he needs a break from me and this is an indirect way of letting me know? Maybe I need to realign my social priorities? I don’t feel ready for that just yet, but when will I ever feel ready if I don’t free myself and start making my own damn friends? To put it clumsily, this situation is my rock, and loneliness is a hard place. I need to figure something out.

I need to figure myself out.

Maybe I need to focus on developing my writing technique? God knows that after months of disuse I could use a little de-rusting. Maybe I need to meet new people? Maybe I need to develop relationships with people I know but haven’t hung out with lately? Failing that, maybe I need to do new things by myself?

In my next entry, I promise to take a good, hard look at the areas of my life that need improvement and how I think I can go about improving them. I also promise that I will write said entry tomorrow. I break promises to myself all the time, but honesty, what the fuck else am I going to do tomorrow besides jack off, play videogames and write? It’ll be good for me.

Good night, sweet prince. You’re a good guy but you don’t feel it yet.