What Doesn't Kill Me...

Hey. Long time, no see :-) Let's dive straight into it.

Adam has been a bright spot lately. After a bit of a stretch of not hearing from him, I ran into him leaving work one day a couple of weeks ago. He immediately apologized for not getting a hold of me (sweet, but I felt guilty considering I hadn't made much of an effort either) and offered to go watch a movie during the weekend. We had a great time, but even better was the conversations we had after the movie. We both seem to have the same apprehensions about being tied down by a job, since we have so many places in the world to see and things to do, neither of us feel particularly close to the gay community and wish we both had more gay friends. It was interesting when we came to chat about our love lives (or lack thereof)...poor Adam seems to be resigned to the fact that, at 30, he'll be single forever and says he isn't actively looking for anything. So, instead, he got to live vicariously through me, as I went down the list of guys I had on the go. After that day, I didn't really have the feeling Adam was actively chasing me, he legitimately was looking for another gay friend that he could connect and find something in common with. And honestly, that's what I also felt towards Adam; I felt I could trust him as a friend...he offered me advise and empathy in terms of my job/education, family, friends. And when it came to dating, it didn't seem as if he was asking to pry or scope out the competition, he legitimately wanted to know (if maybe a little in that gossipy, stereotypical gay guy kind of way). Although, since then, we've gone out for a couple more lunches, movies, even biked the Seawall in Stanley Park together, and it's felt a little more date-like. He's paid (to my dismay) for meals and other things, and it's always just us hanging out one-on-one. I'd like to invite him out to something with some of my friends, so they (I've asked Britney WHO IS PROBABLY READING THIS in particular already) can offer a second opinion on what's going on between us. I'm hoping I'm just making too much of this in my head, because he seems like a really approachable and trustworthy guy, but I'd really just want friendship from him and nothing more.

As for Alex, I lost touch with him a couple weeks ago. Prior to that, we hung out when he was back in town, and the mood was a little odd. I guess the infatuation of our first two dates wore off, because one, he was still making the occasional pass at me which I wasn't really okay with, and two, we seemed to run out of conversation topics pretty quickly. I talked to Britney about and she seemed to say that maybe we aren't a good match after all. Aside from our families and talking about work, we really didn't have much to talk about. That's all fine and dandy (my family is pretty damn important to me and I like my job), but we needed more in common than that...I'm just looking for something more. Alex is supposed to be returning to Vancouver a bunch more times this summer, but I'm not holding onto any idea that I might see him again. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted. If I'm perfectly honest, Alex showed me that I sort of like the chase in dating (at least to an extent). I kind of enjoyed being centre of attention and being waited on hand and foot; having the door held open for me, being offered a coat if I was cold walking around outside at night, having a hot coffee brought to me. Nice guy, but I don't things will work out.

I also had a couple of hangouts with the 21 year old I met off of OKCupid. He doesn't seem to be going anywhere, so I'll call him Chris. Not too much to say here, I enjoy Chris' company, although he's a bit quiet and still seems a bit nervous around me. He mentioned on that first date he was still in the closet to a bunch of people, which I imagine has a lot to do with it. He seems to be pretty eager to go out hang out with me though, which is cool. I can always use a few more good friends around.  

And the last word on Shane. I let things go after my last post, and didn't dwell on why Shane left things like he did. I had a brief little moment a couple weeks back when I got a text from Nate telling me not to be disappointed, but Shane had been accepted into a school elsewhere in the country and would be moving soon. I ended up explaining that Shane had accepted my invite for coffee and then ignored me when I tried to follow up and make arrangements, and perhaps a little upset by the lack of empathy shown by Nate about the situation, I asked him if he had known Shane wasn't into me and purposely kept this from me. He assured me he hadn't, which both sucked and was a relief, since at least his efforts to set us up were sincere, but left so many unanswered questions about the invite to Shane's birthday and the texts saying he liked me. I've got closure now, knowing that Shane's out of the province and that Nate knows what happened and that he wasn't holding out on me, so everything's done and over with.

Anyway, onto what I really wanted to write about tonight. I've been MIA for over a month now and it's because my mental health was less than stellar for a while. Not to say it's perfect now, but at least I've had the motivation/inspiration to write. It started shortly after the whole Shane situation blew over; again, not a world devastating event in any stretch of the mind, but I had my dear confidant Britney leave the country, had to make some important decisions about returning to school (which I am) and other fears abou work. Despite the interactions with Adam, Alex, Chris and everyone around me, everything seemed to compound, and I just started to shut the world out and withdrawal from everything and everyone. I felt empty inside, not really motivated to do much, although I did manage to function (just.). I just went to work, came home, ate, spent a few hours on Youtube or reading, and started the whole process again. That's when the overthinking and being over-critical of myself started to come in. I started to come back in touch with emotions and began to deal with the overwhelming amount of things I had to do at work, my disappointing social life over the past few weeks and trying to motivate myself to participate in the world again. And it all blew up when I attended a suicide prevention workshop to prepare me for a volunteer position at a local LGBT centre I'm planning to take (yes, I'm following through on a goal!). I guess it just drew out my own insecurities and fears about my own mental health and life in general, and that caused a couple of anxiety attacks. I don't know if it's just my natural shy and introverted character, or if it's from being in the closet for so long or something, but I've gotten so good at ignoring and suppressing my feelings, I really only talk about them until it gets really bad (unless it's with Britney or sometimes my mom). I think part of it is because I feel that my problems are so "first-world", I've been blessed with a lot of great things in my life, and there are so many worse things that I could be stressing about, so I figure I should be able to manage these things on my own. I definitely feel better talking about things, but I also feel as if I should have some of my own coping mechanisms that don't involve other people. Painting, yoga, running, something I'm passionate about, and I can't say I really do. It's something that bothers me a little when I'm around people, especially groups of new people. I feel as if I have nothing to talk about, nothing to get excited about. Anyway, I'm still a work in progress, but I've weathered those sort of storms before. Hopefully this will be a short bout of whatever is dragging me down.