I’ve been suffering from a particularly bad bout of depression and just didn’t feel like posting. I suppose that’s one way to deal with it, but I didn’t want to do anything. No games, no crosswords, no television. I just stared at the walls and wondered where my life was going. I’m getting better now, but it is a slow process and I don’t know when I’ll fully get out of it.
One thing that helped me get out is my roommate’s entry into podcasts. He is a gaming nerd and invited me along with one of his sessions, and I have to admit it was a pleasant and novel experience. It was fun talking about a subject that I knew very well and enjoyed (or used to enjoy when I was younger), and apparently some people get paid to do this. My roommate said I did quite well and I should do one of my own with my Trivial Words bit. It was a tempting offer, but I’m always afraid to start something because I just know I’ll be gung-ho about it for a while and then eventually drop it (like I did with the first incarnation of this blog). Maybe I will, maybe I won’t…we’ll see how it works out.
Once again I felt a need to expand my circle of friends, and I couldn’t quite figure out how to do it. I joined a group online that gets together (called, appropriately enough, the Introverts of Houston), but a lot of their activities are based around the weekend, which I can’t do because I’m working those days. So, I decided to bite the bullet and send out a request on Craigslist. Crazy, right?
Well, yes and no. I started off by saying that I didn’t want to see a picture. I just wanted to get to know people first and pictures wouldn’t be necessary to do that. This actually had a two-fold reason: we would get to know each other first (a realm where I excel) and it prevents potential biases due to physical appearance. Given the fact that I have the sexual attractiveness of a potato, this may actually turn into a win for me. My first and foremost goal is to get friends, and I made it very clear this was not a call for a one night stand. I wasn’t directly looking for a relationship; such a subject would arise once we got to know each other first.
This was also partly due to a failing on my part; namely, my weakness against physically attractive people. Everyone likes attractive people; who isn’t? (Don’t answer that.) The problem lies in the fact that I was looking at them exclusively, and that’s not fair to the other people out there who may not be conventionally attractive (like myself) but are decent people (a trait I would like to think I possess). It is bitterly ironic that while I was bemoaning the lack of interest from others that I was doing the same thing at the same time. It is a difficult thing to acknowledge, much less recognize as a failing, and I’ve had to spend many a night coming to terms with it. Nonetheless, I can’t stop to cry over the missed opportunities of the past; instead, I must focus on the potential opportunities of the future, and this is one way of doing it.
So, I sally forth to see if my experiment works. Maybe it will, maybe it won’t; I won’t know unless I try, so try I will. I threw down my gage and now I wait to see if anyone picks it up.
Now I hope no one slaps me with it.