soos_mite_ah

Update: I worked out, went on a walk, went out to dinner and ate at Chipotle, took a shower, and talked to a friend on the phone. I don't feel exhausted anymore and while I still feel lonely, I don't feel like I'm mentally ruminating on it in the same way. I think I just need to go to bed at this point and tomorrow will be a new day.

Lonliness: So I have been feeling some lonliness. Life got busy and I haven't really hung out with my boyfriend for a week and we barely talked on the phone. Some things have come up at work and he has been working long hours for the past month or so. It hasn't really been bothering me personally but sometimes I do worry about him and I hope he's getting the rest that he needs. And my normal rhythm in the relationship is us hanging out twice a week with a couple of longer phone calls sprinkled in here and there. He ended up cancelling on me kind of last minute on Wednesday and I woke up on Thursday (yesterday) just feeling a little sad and wanting physical affection. I think this is a natural feeling and nothing to be concerned about. But the part that has me fucked up is the way my brain is interpreting this lonliness. My brain kind of went to this place of how so much of my social diet comes from my significant other and it sucks that my social life isn't what it was back when I was in school and college. While I do love my boyfriend, I do feel malnourished socially and I don't like him being such a large source of my social diet because so much of my life has been around friends and platonic relationships is something that I really value in my life. I don't like the feeling of knowing a good chunk of my eggs are in one basket and this small amount of lonliness was kind of a reminder of that which then led me to thinking about my platonic sense of lonliness. I have been dealing with platonic lonliness in some way or another since graduating. It's been difficult seeing relationships change and drift off over time because of changing priorities, life circumstances, and life challenging people (i.e toxic work environments, unsustainable hours taking up energy, bad romantic relationships). And sometimes I get sad. It not over a specific person not pouring into a relationship nor is it some kind of anxious/ avoidant attachment, but rather it's this feeling of isolation about how I feel like I care about and prioritize friendships differently from the people around me. Recently, I told my parents that I'm moving out of my current apartment and that I'm going to be living with my boyfriend. They are ok with it but they are panicking of how this will be received by their friends and community. They basically gave me a lecture that if I'm going to do this, I cannot let any of my childhood friends know about this because they're afraid that my childhood friends will tell their parents and then we will become the talk of the town. And their whole thing is that they are trying to process and come to terms with this and the last thing they need is having some aunty come up to them asking personal ass questions. Now, I know my friends are capable of exercising common sense and respecting boundaries. I have that degree of trust. But my parents went on this whole lecture on how my friends don't care about me, that everyone will talk shit behind my back, and I'm too trusting and naive in the way that I want to be authentic with people. My parents are very calculated and private people with walls to the sky and inability to connect to a lot of people. I can't say that I know the exact dynamics and ins and outs of their social circle (I'm sure some of those boundaries are very valid) but I can say that they do lead a kind of isolated life that I don't want to emulate and that seems exhausting to keep up with. However, their talks have been taking a toll and I can feel some unjustified paranoia rush over me as I begin to feel like my friends secretly hate me or that I'm overestimating my place in people's lives. I think this might be the last 5% of break up brain getting triggered from what my parents said but I do think this also triggers some other wounds I have in my childhood that they inflicted regarding being paranoid about everyone outside of the family and isolating oneself because no one can possibly love me outside of my family. It's a fucked up mindset and I can recognize that but I can't say that in times of emotional vulnerability that it doesn't affect me. I felt better last night after working out and going on a walk. Sure I was dealing with these feelings but I think it's good that I didn't rot in bed or doomscroll to cope. I felt myself clearing my head as I went on a walk and it was nice feeling the emotions pass through me like a cloud moving across a sky. It felt nice being able to observe the transience of difficult emotions. Today, I found myself feeling exhausted at work from the beginning to the end of the day. I didn't have much going on in terms of my work load but I just felt like I was dragging my feet all day. I also had to deal with some annoying ass complaints from the leasing office and the discussion didn't exactly do in the way that I wanted it to. But that's alright, I'm moving out in less than 2 months. I'm a little salty but it's whatever. After work, I just layed in bed for two hours. I just felt really exhausted and couldn't get myself to do much. I got myself up just now to journal about all this and later I'm going to go work out and take a nice hot shower. I think that will make me feel better and get my brain to a healthier place.

Sometimes people end up developing feelings and they don't have the best boundaries with themselves due to a lack of self control or any other psychological factors. Yeah... don't be that person. Have some boundaries with yourself at the very least and let her know that this isn't a good idea and that you will need to pull back from hanging out and give each other space until both of y'all get over this. I don't recommend getting involved because not only is this person married with kids, but she's also your coworker and that can end pretty badly personally and professionally. I recommend exercising self control and making moral decisions even if it doesn't feel great in the moment.

Desirability It's been about 8 months since the surgery. I can say for the past month or two that the way that my body felt distorted before has significantly subsided. I'm much more used to my proportions now. I have also been losing weight and have been able to do so in a consistent and reasonable pace now that I don't have this bottomless pit of urgency in terms of the insecurities I have with my body. But now that my insecurities around my weight are mostly gone, I feel like I have unlocked a layer of insecurities around my perceptions of my own desirability. I feel like my insecurites around desirability was always there but it wasn't in the forefront on my mind as it is right now because in the past, I had this thought that was along the lines of *hey, I'm not ugly, I just need to lose weight and get rid of my stomach.* But now, it's like.. *well maybe I am just ugly.* And I have just been trying to sit with it and process where this might be coming from and how to address it. I feel like for a large portion of my life (and hell, even now to a certain extent), I was always labeled as the weird kid to some degree due to my environment. And while I have always been able to make and maintain friendships, I do think that socializing always felt like an upward climb of sorts because I never found "my people" so to say. That said, I do think that I have built up some pretty good social muscles from the upward climb because now I'm in a place where I can still connect with most people on some level and not be awkward even if I don't have much in common with them. So, I'm not like lamenting not being able to fit in during my formative years. I did have a time I mourned this a little but I think I have tried to frame it as *even though you don't have the skill of being effortlessly confident and make friends easily, you do have skills around dealing with diversity, conflict resolution, clear communication etc. that you have built instead.* As for physical appearance, I don't think I'm ugly UGLY but I do think like pretty mid (like a solid 4-5). I think on most days I can come to terms with it since I have other aspects of my life and personality going for me. But sometimes, I do find myself crashing tf out over it. I find that social media is particularly bad for me right now as I'm working through this because the algorithm pushes the most societally beautiful and fit people to your feed all the time regardless of what content you consume. I've had moments where I had to put the phone down, go outside, and socialize / touch grass, or hell, just go to the Walmart near by so I can get out of that head space. Like during Halloween when I went to the rave and the parties, I found my brain feeling healthier because it's like *oh look, there are normal people with a variety of average builds putting themselves out there and embracing their bodies and sexualities. I'm not judging them so I shouldn't judge myself and be too in my head about things.* I also find this video to be pretty helpful: Basically, the video talks about how you're not ugly, you're just not being introspective. Everyone feels ugly some time or another, even the most beautiful people. Most of us are average looking and it's pretty rare that people are turning heads because they look disgusting or because they are show stoppingly gorgeous. Being "average" is perfectly fine because you're still beautiful in your own consciousness. And that beauty comes out when we are having a good relationship with our sense of self. And often, ugly doesn't even come into consideration unless we are comparing ourselves to someone else or some arbirtrary, societally constructed standard of beauty. I also remind myself of the people that I have found very beautiful and attractive over the years. None of them look perfect. And I don't mean that in a negative way where I'm criticizing someone (while I don't think they look perfect, I don't think they look "flawed" either) but I mean it in a *I like people who have character to their face and bodies and don't look like little mannequins.* Like if anything, people who look too perfect often give me a little bit of an uncanny valley effect. That's kind of how I feel whenever I look at the cast of Love Island lol. I also think about one of the most beautiful man I have seen in person. This was the head of one of the departments in my college. He had a physique and bone structure that I can only describe as statue-eqe. I took one look at this guy and thought *god took his extra time craving that one out of marble while he made the rest of us using Play doh.* He also had a bit of a George Clooney thing going on but then when I searched up what George Clooney looked like... George Clooney looked like a troll next to this guy. If this man was on the cover of GQ, I wouldn't question it because he would look like he belonged and that nothing is out of the ordinary. And whenever anyone would talk about our department and this guy, even if people didn't know his name, once they said *the guy that looks like a gigachad* EVERYONE KNEW WHO YOU WERE TALKING ABOUT. It doesn't matter what your sexuality or culture is, we all knew this guy was beautiful. All that said, I can't say that I was attracted to this guy in the same way that I'm not attracted to a Greek statue. Also... he's like 20 years older than me and I'm not attracted to older men like that. The point that I'm trying to make is that perfection and beauty doesn't always translate into being attractive and vice versa. I think one of the big reasons people don't like being considered average or ugly is that there is an implication that they don't deserve love, attention, attraction etc. I also think there is something to be said on how there are some people who treat people badly according to the way that they look, whether it's because they think the other person is ugly and doesn't deserve basic respect or if they think the other person is beautiful and they're lashing out in jealousy/ insecurity. Thankfully, as your local mid, I do not encounter either of those things. But while I'm happy I don't get pretty girl problems, it is a little sad that I don't get any pretty girl perks especially when you're conditioned to believe your beauty is a large chunk of your self esteem as a woman. It also doesn't help when you were kind of labeled as the ugly kid growing up and got asked out as a joke. I can laugh about it now and I can recognize logically that this not the case anymore as we have all grown up, but I guess deep down emotionally it still affects me even though I don't like to admit it. I think part of me is kind of repressed sexually and romantically. It's not a purity culture thing where I think I'm immoral, dirty, or like I'm violating the other person by having feelings or getting sexual thoughts. Like I'm not violating them so long as I'm not overstepping consent or being disrespectful. I just had a lot of unrequited crushes growing up, not because I'm into emotionally unavailable men, but because of luck and the context of my surroundings. I guess I'm also scared of people rejecting me, thinking I’m weird or creepy for desiring them, especially if I communicate it in the wrong way. The last thing I want to do is make someone feel uncomfortable and violated with my unwanted presence or attention. My default is also assuming that people aren't into me because that's been my main experience thus far (with the exception of my current relationship) and my default reaction to when I realize I have caught feelings for someone is to run away and hide so I don't embarrass myself or make things weird for the other person. And because I was asked out as a joke growing up a number of time, when people do show genuine interest in me, often times my brain either doesn't pick up on it or I think someone is being deceptive. And while my current relationship does help a lot in terms of me not falling into the depths of inceldom, I still think I need more corrective experiences. Honestly, after this past weekend, I think I just needed to touch grass. I think seeing people on the internet skews with my perception of what I consider attractive or chopped and what desirability looks like. I saw plenty of people who didn't have perfect bodies pull lol. I saw plenty of normal looking people still be able to have romantic and sexual attention. I think also the topic of desirabilty has a lot to do with power, politics, and culture and it's important to deconstruct that to have a healtheir view of ourselves. And I think for me personally, I need some corrective experiences in my life because for so long I was labeled as the weird kid and I was put in weird environments that got me viewing myself in a certain way.

An Inventory of My Social Skills: I have wrote about in the past how I have been itching to put myself out there more. This Halloween weekend, I was able to do that and I found myself thinking how I socially thrive in some things and situations but not others. And I was comparing that to the way that my friends have similar or completely different skill sets as well to see what I can learn from them as well as what I can teach them. The items in green are things I want to get proficient in because I think it's more a priority given my current values. The items in blue are things I just want to be moderately competent in where I'm not in a place were I think it's the most important thing to be good at but, nevertheless, I do think it is helpful life skill. The things in black are just things I'm content with. Moderate on conflict resolution skills: This is something I have been working on a lot over the past year. I think I'm pretty good at it considering my current romantic relationship as well as the sometimes difficult/awkward conversations I had with friends. I think I have a good foundation of coming at things in good faith and being mindful of how I may come off to others and vice versa which I am going to elaborate on the Proficient section. But I do feel like I have room for improvement here as I watch a number of creators who I feel like have a good handle on this skill. Moderate on public speaking: I can do presentations and talk in a group setting without losing my shit. I may need a heads up and some time to prepare but for the most part, I'm all good. I'm pretty competent in this area of life as far as it is needed in my professional and social life. But I cannot say that I'm proficient to where I can easily give impromtu speaches or rizz up a crowd lol. And that's perfectly fine. Moderate on dealing with kids: I think I have the basic skills to make sure that kids don't hurt themselves and do something stupid and I have the skills to relate to teenagers without talking down on them or coming off as someone who isn't safe for them to go to. I think I also know a decent amount of healthy parenting strategies to prevent kids from internalizing common toxic societal things (i.e. teaching kids how to identify and regulate emotions instead of yelling at them and saying they're bad or worse, weak for crying). But at the same time, I do feel like I can be a little awkward around kids and that I lack certain life experiences to be truly proficient in this area of life. Moderate on confidence: I would say that I'm pretty good about self respect but I'm not good with confidence. Don't get me wrong, I'm not hiding in a corner on my phone at a party, but I cannot say that I don't have any social anxiety and that I'm boldly introducing myself and making friends. While I'm not super self deprecating and oozing shame when dealing with work issues and putting myself out there romantically, I'm also not moving with the confidence of a delusional white man or instagram model lol. I just feel like I'm average in this department. Moderate on finding like minded people: I feel like a lot of this stems from me being in environments where I've had to adapt and assimilate in some way. As a result, I think I'm better at creating bridges with people and prioritizing diversity over relatability.I'm not so lost to where I'm bending over backwards to fit in with people, but sometimes my social life feels like an upward climb because of a lack of relatability. I do think this is a skill I want to strengthen because I'm noticing some things being in common that are foundational for me to have good friendships with people. At the same time, while I want to improve on finding like minded people, I do think that that I still to value diversity of thought and life styles to where I would never want to be surrounded by carbon copies of myself in different fonts. That's why this is blue instead of green. Moderate on small talk: I think I'm good enough at this to build rapport with people and not come off as a weirdo but I cannot say I'm good at this to where I'm just rizzing people up left and right lol. Moderate on hosting: I feel like I'm decent at this but I can't say I'm like Martha Stewart level put together. Proficient in balancing my life and being reliable with commitments: I'm pretty good at making plans, following up with people, being flexible if something comes up, not cancelling anything last minute, and checking on people even when my life gets busy. And I do think that a big part of this is that I have a decent work life balance that enables me to have the time and energy to pour into myself and the people around me. Proficient in dealing with diverse backgrounds: I think a large chunk of this is my education on different cultures/ social issues as well as me always being in settings with people different from myself. I do pride myself in knowing that I'm invited to the cookout, I'm invited to the brown wedding, I'm invited to iftar, I'm invited to a random Hispanic 2-year old's party, and that I'm invited to lunar new years. In addition to that, I'm pretty good at managing differences in socio-economic status as well as people who are in different industries, stages of life, or life styles. Proficient in attracting good people in my life: I've had very little drama and negative falling outs with people. I think generally speaking, I attract pretty ethical people where I'm not even put into the possition of messiness. Proficient in self respect / boundaries: While I'm not the most confident person, I'm pretty good about not staying in unhealthy situations where people are treating me badly, I'm pretty good about knowing my values and staying true to that, and I'm good at knowing when to prioritize myself and my sanity. I'm also good at recognizing red flags and discerning between disappointment and disrespect. I guess the difference between the outward confidence and being able to utilize these skills is playing defense vs offense. My offense is moderate but I do have rock solid defense in terms of my confidence. Proficient in small / 1-1 settings: I would say that hanging out with people 1-1 or in small groups where we can just talk to each other is my comfort zone as far as socializing goes and it's where I have had the most luck in developing longer term, deeper relationships. Proficient in keeping friends and keeping a partner: I'm pretty good at maintaining my relationships and keeping in touch with people. I think it also goes back to the point of having very few negative falling outs with people. Proficient in managing my neurotic tendencies: I have put in a good amount of work in therapy to deal with my issues, behave in an ethical well thoughout way, have decent character, and not have my traumas negatively impact my relationships. I'm also decent at regulating my own emotions if something has come up and deal with social situations with a decent amount of tact even if emotionally I feel like I'm all over the place. Proficient in self awareness: I think I'm a pretty self aware person who is capable of having constructive conversations and taking in feedback from others. Proficient in listening and empathizing: I have been told this my friends that I'm a pretty good person to go to if they need to talk or share about things and I think it has made it possible to make deeper connections more easy. Low on making friends and finding new partners: I think while I'm good at hanging on to current connections, I'm not the best at making friends wherever I go. I think part of it is that I can be a bit of an acquired taste socially where it takes me a moment to warm up to people and it takes a minute for people to warm up to me. But another thing is that I think I can be kind of to myself, isolated, and guarded at times. And of course, I think the lack of social abundance you face after school/ college plays a role in exasserbating that. And sometimes I wonder how much of it is me versus the environments I find myself in. Low on managing group settings and parties: I can get overstimulated in parties and group settings with a lot of people to where I get so focused on observing others to where I don't really contribute. I also think in general I'm not used to settings like this and this is just a muscle I don't work on very often. I think it's a simple fix of needing to get out more lol. Low on sexual experience: Yeah... I'm not even going to pretend. I'm not the greatest sexually and I think a lot of it has to do with a lack of experience since I have only been with one person. But I will say, I'm pretty good about being open minded and communicating (in general but also in this area of my life). And I feel like as a result, even though I kind of suck, I'm not like sexually unsatified. Low on socializing in corporate: I just feel like I'm still figuring my shit out in this area of life and it's just taking longer since I only go into the office once a week at most for the past year and a half. Before, that, I would go in very sporadically. I'm capable of working together in a team and just being friendly with coworkers so they don't think I'm a weirdo. I'm not also behaving in a way that would jeopardize my professional relationships. But at the same time, I'm not good at navigating office politics or the event when people are coming at me crazy. Low on healthy anger, debate, and healthy defensiveness: I tend to freeze up when people come at me crazy and I think that comes at the expense of me standing up for myself at times. Like, don't get me wrong, I'm not going to stick around in a bad situation, I'm going to ignore the crazies or remove myself from a situation. But sometimes, you do need to put up a fight and clap back and I'm just not good at that. Debates also freak me out because I feel like my default way of operating is to find common ground and engage in good faith discussion rather than focussing on the optics of my arguments or the best way to convince others. And while it's good that I can engage in good faith without lashing out and getting defensive, I do think that people can take advantage of this and hurt me in certain situations because I'm not defensive in a healthy way. Low on flirting: Yeah.. I can be kind of awkward in romantic situations. I don't have the rizz lol. But that said, I think that while I'm not creative and artful in the way that I flirt, I can be pretty direct which has it's own pros. I also think this is something COVID fucked up for me lol.

I feel like just posting and acknowledging my mental load in the previous post at like 6 am in the morning helped a lot in terms of me being able to do what I need to do to get through the day. I almost instantly felt better after writing things out and I feel pretty decent now that I finished work and I got some important things that were weighing on me done. I still don't feel like I'm 100% myself but I do feel like I'm like 70% there. Which is a huge improvement since at the time of writing my previous post I felt like I was at 25%. I think this journal is doing its job.

Emotional Exhaustion Rant: It's nearing the end of October and I feel emotionally done. Over the weekend, in both Saturday and Sunday, I had a 2-3 hour of pure bed rotting where I wasn't doing anything other than just laying there (no scrolling etc.). I also slept in both of those days until 10:30 which is not typical for me on a weekend even though it isn't unsual for me to sleep in. I usually only sleep in until 8-9. I was feeling overstimulated and the sleeping in and the bed rot session felt much needed. But also, the fact that I need this much rest is out of the ordinary and I need to process that. I'm writing out this piece before work because I just need to let this out in order to be a functioning person. 1. October is always a busy month for me because of the number of relgious and social events going on. I was booked back to back. It was fun but I still need time to recharge and I feel like I didn't get room to breathe. 2. Everything that came with the wisdom teeth removal: Like I'm good now but this plus everything else on this list I feel like has a residual effect where it's not manifesting as distress but a compounding sense of exhaustion. 3. The emotional exhaustion my birthday can bring: Thankfully my actual birthday went well (and I wasn't on phone duty) but I did have to deal with the 12 days of crashing out before then. 4. My friend is going through a lot at work and I was on the phone with her for 3.5 hours on Monday night. I don't mind doing the work but it still took something out of me. 5. Work has been particularly annoying with some of the cases I was put on. Both Monday and Tuesday had the "monday" feeling and it feels like pulling teeth when it comes to getting through this week. I also had a couple of busy weeks back to back prior to this week and even September was kind of rough. I feel like I need to use a PTO day but I already took some time off for being sick and for the wisdom teeth removal. I don't want to seem like I'm creating a recurring pattern and unfortunatley, I think I'm going to have to hold off until Thanksgiving for a break. 6. I came back home and I told my parents that I'm moving in with my boyfriend in this upcoming year. Yeah.... they're still in the adjustment process for that and that took something out of me emotionally as well. This was last night. 7. I'm also on a calorie deficit of sorts and I think that's impacting the amount of energy I have in general and my overall mood. 8. I feel like I'm processing some things regarding my body image and desireability. But that's something I'm journalling about privately. 9. I'm also a little stressed at the thought of hosting Thanksgiving with my friends this year. I have no fucking clue on how to make a turkey and I have never done it before. I just want this week to be over so I can rot during the weekend. It's only Wednesday, and the day has barely begun.

The other side of a friend break up I had this messy friend breakup that lasted from early August 2024 and lingered into the end of February 2025. That has been fucking with my brain. I will say that by the end of March I was like 80% over it but that last 20% has been lingering. Then by September, I started to feel like I was on the other side where most of the pain subsided to where I felt like I see the life lessons in this situation. And I've had like a month or two to let those lessons simmer and I want to journal about it. I would say that the biggest thing is that this situation taught me about the type of friend I do NOT want to be. I don't want to be the friend with no conflict resolution skills: Conflict is inevitable and it comes up when you're in a long term relationship with anyone. Misunderstandings happen, people aren't perfect, but so long as you can communicate your needs and take accountability, I think that helps you preserve your relationships as well as help each other grow. Sometimes we need the friction of other people to smooth out our rough edges and I think we're living in a world that values emotional convenience over connection which can cause us to deem any form of friction as erosion. I don't want to be the friend who ghosts (or tries to ghost others): I think that ghosting people who you have considered close is pretty confusing and existentially bad to the person who you're ghosting who was probably under the impression that things were fine this entire time. I don't want to be the friend who people pleases and doesn't voice her needs or when someone did something that bothers her: I think a lot of the stuff that the other person was going through can be wrapped up in not being proactive with something that bothers her to the point where it bubbled up and exploded. I also think the person I was dealing with was probably around a lot of toxic form of conflict in her workplace and maybe even in her romantic relationship. And in my experience, when you're around so much toxic conflict, you also tend to paint healthy and natural forms of conflict as toxic as well which then causes you to be conflict avoidant / a people pleaser. I wouldn't be surprised if because she was surrounded by volatile people she would get into screaming matches with if she brought something up that she would think that I would react the same way if we were to have a conversation. I can see how trauma can cause this kind of bias but it's also like, anyone who has had conversations with me knows that I'm not a volatile person and that I am capable of working through things constructively and in good faith. Basically, I think this person has a lot going on which has affected her ability to handle conflict and she probably doesn't know me like that. I don't want to be the friend who doesn't give people the space to grow and take accountability: I understand that growth isn't perfect and that people can still make mistakes in that path but I don't want to write someone off who is genuinely trying. So long as we had a conversation and I can see that you're making moves in the right direction, I think that's good enough. I think it can be dehumanizing and harsh to expect perfection in ourselves and the people around us. Again, it reminds me of this quote: I also believe that being a friend also means holding each other accountable. Like I don't want a group yes men who will validate everything I'm going through and be unconditionally supportive. I want people to call me out or reassure me when I'm not thinking straight. I don't see people disagreeing with me or people not being unconditionally supportive as them being negative. I'm not the type of friend who won't say anything and will sit and watch the circus go down as their friend is running around like a clown and ruining their life. I'm also not going to be the type of person that lectures, nags, or keeps bringing the same thing up (I'm not their mom or their therapist) and I'm not going to be the type of person to say I told you so either because I want you to feel safe even if you made the wrong decision. I will mention something once or twice and then let you make your decision because you have agency and some people need to learn from their life experiences and fuck around and find out to have certain things stick. I'm going to start judging people by their significant other/ long term partners: Of course there are caveats and nuances here. I'm not going to judge people and victim blame those in abusive situations. I'm not going look down on people who made a few bad decisions here and there as they are learning through life experiences. But what I am going to consider is that birds of a feather flock together and the type of partner you choose does say something about you. And if you're dating a weirdo, either you yourself are weirdo on some level or you tolerate that type of behavior. Either way, I'm proceeding with caution. I'm more mindful about things like weaponized therapy speak and hyper individualized self care: I did a few posts talking about this so I will not be elaborating. I'm also at a place where even though I can see where I might have fucked up, I can also see ways that her breaking up with me in this way might also be more of a reflection of what's going on on her end rather than mine. She was working in a very volatile work environment and had a lot of chaos in her life: I'm sure that what I did was the straw that broke the camels back but also, the camel was holding on to a lot of other things that was contributing significantly more to that weight than my straw. And kind of what I was saying earlier, I think the toxic confict she was facing in this environment also caused her to react disproportionately to healthy conflict and me trying to figure out what was going on her end in good faith. And I think as she was going into a more peaceful time, she's kind of over correcting and going into the toxic positivity route. I had that era too and I can recognize that this is part of the process sometimes but it sucks that I was collerateral damage in her journey of personal growth. She may or may not be in a toxic relationship: I don't want to say that she is for sure because I have limitted evidence of it and I don't want to make bold claims of people I don't know like that. But she has said things about this man that has cause me to be like *girl... that's not normal..* And I wonder if this relationship was worse than I thought and I was unknowingly navigating a minefield where I said the wrong thing that caused this person to want to distance herself from me and further isolate. I also remember a time in my healing from all of this where I was pissed because she can go to couples therapy and work shit out with this man that did fucked up things to her. But when it comes to me doing something minor, she's going to cut things off and never have a proper conversation about this. And now, my perspective has shifted a bit about this as I have been learning about toxic relationships. People who are trauma bonded to each other with the low lows and the high highs can sometimes justify and fight for things that don't make sense because they are attached to the abuser in a way that mirrors addiction. Maybe the reason she felt like she could leave without fighting for the connection when it came to me is not because she's male centered but because I'm not manipulating/ trauma bonding her to me. There might be other stressors going on that I have no clue about: Given that this looks like an avoidant person, I wouldn't be surprised if there were other things going on that I had no clue about that was also causing stress to cause her to react the way that she did. I think this person also might have the Bumble BFF brainrot: I will not elaborate since I already did posts about convenience culture and how that is translating to people on apps as their main form of socialization. At this point, I think I'm like 95% over it. I still have a few thought loops that go along the lines of: I think I'm a trauma dumping crazy person who is miserable to be around and that makes me scared to open up to people at times. Sometimes I think people secretly hate me and I have no friends. I'm scared I might be overestimating my place in people's lives But on the bright side I have been making a couple of new friends and been opening up more at work. I think that has been helping me combat the thought loops above and it's making me think *hey, you don't suck socially, you just dont have as many opportunities as you did growing up so finding and making friends takes longer than it used to.*

I had a professor give me some advice I found helpful when I was around that age. You don't have to have your entire life and your career mapped out, you just need to know your general sense of direction and your next step. That way you can have some structure and plan but at the same time you can have some flexibility in case new opportunites you didn't consider come up or if life situations change and you need to pivot for whatever reason. As a college student, I would say focus on picking a major that you find interested in and that can give you flexibility regarding the job market. The job that you get out of college doesn't have to exactly match up with it but rather it can serve as transferable skills for whatever you go into in the future. I double majored in management and international relations and currently I'm working in a tech company surrounded by former CS majors. My general sense of direction at the time was that I wanted something that gave me decent work life balance, that would pay me a decent amount, and that will help me figure out what to do long term careerwise. My current job has been helpful in all of that. I have an idea of where I want to go after this but I don't know EXACTLY what that would look like and that's totally fine.

That makes sense. I think trying to figure out major life decisions is hard enough and it can be harder when you're trying to take other people into consideration. That goes for even it's from a healthy place of wanting to harm reduce as you're figuring out your life so you don't inflict unnecessary suffering for another person as opposed to a codependent place where you're trying to conform to each other as an effort to coddle each other and make the relationship work at the cost of each other. I am thankful that my boyfriend is pretty understanding about all of this. But I would have also understood if he wasn't. And while he isn't a pushover, sometimes I wonder if him being understanding is him conforming because he seems very chill in the face of conversations that would make other guys freak out. I guess I need to have more faith in him as he is trying to figure things out as well and have the faith that he is acting from an authentic place where he wants to be in this relationship and it isn't a sacrifice for him as opposed to him wanting to be in this relationship and silently suffering. I do give him plenty of opportunities to express if something feels off or if he needs some space and I have been told that I'm a safe and reassuring space for him emotionally. And while it's great that I have a sense of self skepticism where I want to make sure I'm not taking advantage of someone (even unintentionally), I think I also need to have more faith in myself because I am doing my due diligence in terms of checking in with my partner, having honest and constructive conversations, and I'm creating a safe place to do all that. As for the topic of "wasting someone's time" or "wasting your time," I think relationships can only be a waste if its coming from an inauthentic and unhealthy place or if you're working off the paradigm of *I have to be settled down by X age.* I sometimes think about what it would be like if I were to have broken up with this person and I think that even if we go our separate ways, I'm still grateful for the relationship that I had with this person, everything I have learned, as well as the ways that this relationship helped me grow. But so much of it is because this relationship has been healthy. Even on year 1/2, I was talking to him and we were like *hey, we make a good team and we have a very solid relationship so the only reason why we would ever break up is due to incompatibilities around long term life plans.* If that does happen, I would honestly partially credit him in finding my future spouse because our relationship was the blueprint on what a good relationship looks like. As for the paradigm of *I have to be settled down by X age,* I feel like part of the way these timelines are contructed is through heteronormativity where the ultimate goal is to get married and have kids soon (preferably before 30) and that should be your main goal romantically. Not exploration, not any thing casual, not experiencing a healthy relationship for the sake of it, but for the sake of finding *the one* and popping out kids so you can check that off your box. Like I find a lot of gay people or people who are for sure they don't want kids don't subject themselves to the same time pressures and that is something that I feel like you can integrate even if you are straight and you ultimately want to have a kid. As far as the biological clock, I feel like the risk is often exaggerated for women tbh. Like for example, if you had a risk of birth defects as 1% and your risk increases by 50% if you decide to have a kid after 35, your new risk for defects is not 1.5%, not 51%. And as long as you're taking care of your health in a basic way and not living a sedentary lifestyle, I think you're good. For men, I think that their risk is often underestimated because even if you can have kids when you're older, your sperm quality can suffer and also, the man's overall health plays a role in terms of how smooth the pregnancy goes as well. I think that makes sense in terms of location. I think in the south, there is a mentality of *oh you're in a healthy relationship for 2+ years, you should go ahead and get married, why waste your time?* And that removes a lot of the nuance ranging from *just because someone is in a relationship for a long period of time, that doesn't mean it's good* or *not every relationship is meant to end in marriage even if they are healthy nor is that the goal for everyone* or *there are some very important things to consider when choosing a lifelong partner and sometimes it takes longer than 2 or 3 years to figure out if you're a good fit for each other.*

I can see on how it's not something to envy when it comes to making major permanant decisions when you're young. You never know what going on and if people are going through it in a healthy well thought out way or not. You never really know why someone is doing something (and hell, sometimes they themselves don't know). I will say that figuring our major life decisions in your 20s feels like you're taking a math test with 1 hour on the clock. I have a handful of calculus questions that takes 20 steps to do and I'm writing out a page for just one problem. Then, 30 minutes into the test I look up and I see that half the class is already turning in their paper. And it's like, do they do all the work? Did they copy off each other? Did they study and complete the test early or did they not study and just half assed it and turned something in because they gave up? Did they have a different test and questions all together? Did they guess through all the questions without taking the time to do the work? Or are they just smart like that and I'm just a slow test taker? Am I overthinking things and doing the wrong process in solving these questions and that's why it's taking so long? Then there is also the question of am I slow in figuring out my life or do I just live in Texas lol

In short, is it wrong that I don't know what settling down looks like for me and I don't know whether I want to have a kid at 26? Am I too old to not know these answers and is it bad that I'm not ready to get married or make permanent life decisions? Am I the asshole for staying in a relationship for 4+ years as I figure this out instead of marrying my current partner?