Making friends, dating.

[oak]

I am 40.

For years (2006-2013) I experienced working poverty, unemployment, and under-employment. (btw, each sucked in its own way, let me tell you.)

As recently as 2012 I faced the very real possibility of homelessness. People always talk about hitting bottom, and that point I knew where my bottom was, because I didn't have any more mental resources, hopes, or plans.

As recently as mid-2013 I was unemployable, until I got around some more successful people. Things then started to turn around quickly, and while I am some distance from the middle class, I am no longer working poor.

The Faustian bargain was that my work-life balance got way out of whack. I had to focus focus focus on job-career-skills at the expense of my physical, mental, and emotional health.

Lately, for some weeks/months now, my work-life balance has inched back to something like wholeness.

Now, I have the means (time and some disposable income) to make friends and date from scratch.

It is overwhelming. It is not a crisis, like when I was facing homelessness.

But it is overwhelming because it is just me.

I've improved my presentation (clothes, teeth, you know). I am trying to be more cheerful, and people generally find me non-threatening and often likeable.

I don't know what the solution is, but I do know what the solution isn't: holing up in my office or home. I have to get out into that real world, that messy place with all sorts of people.

The good news:

1. I went on a date last Saturday. She since stood me up for our second date, but I'll take the victory, however modest of someone showing up at a specific time just to see me, even if just one time.

2. When watching videos that came out when I was a teenager (as one does), for some reason it struck me that there are sometimes that one older guy, who just doesn't seem to fit. This is my initial impression.

Examples:

"Dave" at 00:27 https://youtu.be/6xGuGSDsDrM

Rocker (?) at 2:46 https://youtu.be/1w7OgIMMRc4

(Both of these songs hold up very well, even after 30 years.)

Then I realize that these guys, often older guys are bringing something to the table, usually from a technical/useful standpoint.

Which is just a really long way of saying that I've found a way to be that useful, older guy who people don't mind having around: rudimentary website building skills. (Much like Geocities back in the day, I can build a free drag/drop website that is only slightly off/weird/dated.)

I'll report back, now and then, as things develop. Whatever happens is up to me: I have to get out of the house and start meeting some people

Wish me luck. I need it.

[Beany Boo]

Here's something.

Have some fun of your own.

For me that seems to be skateboard paddling, strumming 3 chords on the ukulele, buying Japanese stuff, learning my colleagues native languages, and when I can, traveling to see things I've noticed in movies.

Fun doesn't have to cost anything, it just has to genuinely put you in a state of being unselfconsciously, unapologetically curious.

People seeing that, seeing you in that state is a gift to them. Finding out what other people do for fun ("What do you for fun?") and tagging along to see them in that same state of self enjoyment is a true gift to them also.

Even with a family, a career; that's all arrangements to better make and share those opportunities; enjoying the peculiar things that you happen to get fun out of.

And follow the fun; not the accessories, the lifestyle, the attention or the ambition. Your future people will treasure your capacity to follow the authentic fun more than those other things.

This might be obvious to other people. It definitely wasn't to me.

Be true to what you find fun, even if its whitling, pursue it and show people you-having-fun. They will congregate. Everything else will come. If it doesn't and you're genuinely having fun down to your roots anyway; it doesn't matter.

I'm saying this in the full awareness that this is what people say glibly and dismissively to sufferers of mental illness, "go have some fun". And relationships don't suddenly get easy, and fun doesn't mean you're cured as such. As a sufferer I've been illiterate to fun for a long time because I wasn't ready. After a long period of suffering the moment of realization, "this is fun" can be an actual shock. Whoever I might be, however self-absorbed I might sound and whatever trigger words I might have included, I hope you can hear me. Readiness comes first. And you definitely sound ready.

But people out there are simple creatures. If they see you genuinely engaged in your thing of choice, they'll come close. And as ephemeral and tiny as a piece of fun can be, the connection forged in the midst of it can be profound.

[brownblob]

good luck oak

[manuel_moe_g]

Wish you the best of luck, and strength. You got this, friend.

[oak]

Thanks fellas!

It is going to take awhile, but I have a plan to put the pieces back together.

[oak]

"They" say that I am only as sick as my secrets, so here goes:

(This is taking more courage than I imagined. I feel alot of shame and regret. I could say more about this, but I am just going to put this out there and let it speak for itself.)

I am 40 years old and I have had a girlfriend for a total of six weeks of those 40 years.

[HowDidIGetHere]

I don't know of a way to let you know that's nothing to be ashamed of other than to say "I hear you."

And maybe "feeling like a freak doesn't mean you are one."


(Side note: I'm sitting in a coffee shop trying to finish work and listening to two people at the next table who are apparently meeting in person for the first time after chatting online for some amount of time. My best guess is that they're both in their early to mid-40s. My takeaway from this is that it's never too late. Especially not these days.)

[manuel_moe_g]

You have guts, integrity, and discipline, Oak.

[hobojungle]

I'm glad this is a safe space for you to share your secrets oak. Keep using your words.

[Beany Boo]

I am a witness to your struggle Oak.

I have a similar record but I feel my shame as natural, relationships are private affairs.

And I regret investing everything in what others might think of me.

Now I just want a relationship(s) where I can be a mess if I have to and that person is going to stand by ready for when I need them; telegraphing their presence to me all the while. I'm also looking for someone who is a freak in the special way that I am a freak; so that that is never in question. And who will come and have fun at a moment's notice; or, at an agreed upon time.