morale boost. and dating

My mental health is normally bad, so a lot of my life looks like being tired in bed looking at tiktok compilations of gay couples. I think it's a distraction for longing for a relationship.

Last week starting saturday, my life seemed to make a meaningful adjustment. It may be that things just can't be too bad for too long and eventually it's gotta improve. But I think I gonna attribute it to friends encouraging me to go back to school by validating my feelings, racking up small wins where I get aversive things done to go back to school, and reading Guzey's moral-boosting post.

Here's a recap of the past week:

Saturday: friend validates me being scared to go back to school and encourages me. another friends reminds me that there are many possibilities and solutions to problems, and that doing the obvious thing that I know I have to do is not necessary good advice because there could be things I'm overlooking.

Sunday: I'm with a friend and we eat dinner. I learn roller skating which boosted my confidence that I am good at learning quickly. Wearing pads and a helmet helped with being ok to fall often so I can experiment and learn with faster feedback loops. We then play video games and have a sleepover.

Monday: I get a lot of aversive things things done at my friend's house!

Tuesday: I meet with a counselor and optometrist and they were very helpful and it went very smooth. I was worried that it wouldn't go well but they were really good! I then went to SF to go on a date. I then went to a group dinner.

Wednesday: I went to my first class in a long time! it reminded me of high school because of how people talked to each other during class to help each other out. I got another hard thing done, and then I went to the library.

Thursday: I had a video meeting, and went on a date.

Throughout the week, I was feeling the momentum from the morale post and getting things done. I'm hoping that this isn't just a one-week high and then I'm gonna back to feeling bad, but I'll stay in the present and acknowledge that it's normal and can happen.

In january, I tried to write a post about how much meta-conversation should be in relationship. the conclusion at the time was: more meta conversation, but do it better. my thought on meta conversations is to do it less. the shift is realizing that everything you do is a signal, and saying whatever is on your mind, like the nuances of whether and how much you like that person, without considering how this is helpful to the other person is probably negative signal. it seems better to just be present when you are with them, reflect on how this working out, and following up in an explicit way that you are interested. I think it's problematic when the relationship has too much meta conversation and at such an early stage that you don't get to know a person beyond meta thoughts and in other contexts.

my goal is to be in a long term relationship. an action I would need to take is to date a lot of people. an objection to this would be that some people would feel weird if they know I am dating multiple people since that could mean that I am not interested in them. someone actually didn't like my sex post where I said that I ran into him after kissing another guy. a response to that would be that I care about being honest, saying things, and that my intentions that I care about you should be clear. since I want a long term partner, I am still extremely present and make every effort to develop the relationship with the person I'm dating. I usually like the person a lot if I've already gone on a first date with them, and I follow up, but eventually I won't text anymore if they don't respond since that probably means they are not interested anymore.

I was on a date with someone when I ran into that guy who didn't like my sex post. I don't know what it is with running into him when I'm on dates. it's amusing but it makes me a bit anxious because he just didn't respond to me for a long time and then flirts with me while I'm on my date?? what

I don't like how much this post talked about negative things. I wanted to talk more about my morale being boosted and things I liked about people. I have a policy that I can just write whatever I want to say, but I'm feeling some resistance because the person I'm dating could be reading this and that would fall into the 'people in a relationship being too meta' category and I don't want a repeat of a relationship where it's just us reacting to drafts about thoughts we've had during a date. I don't think that would be good for developing a relationship.

9/1 update: "once my dating posts started hitting thousands of views I basically instituted a hard rule to not talk at all about anyone I was dating casually and nothing negative by name about anyone I've ever dated and almost nothing about sex - for exactly this reason" - @yashkaf

probably good. I made a mental update, but not sure what it exactly is yet.