Sprained ankle, lost gig and no opposite-sex date for tonight but that's okay

Okay, things are not splendid but at least are clearer now: Called the coordinator of the photo festival and asked her where and when they're gonna need me today (after I couldn't show up yesterday after severely spraining my foot/ankle the day before but assuring them I will be available today). She said her supervisor decided to let me go completely and asked some other guy to take the guests around. So in that sense things are clearer and I put “photo festival” off of my calendar for today, tomorrow and the day after. When I hung up the phone, I asked myself “isn’t this what you wanted to begin with?”

So the opening is later today at the B-house gallery; then there are more gallery exhibitions and then dinner at the G-Club (which I love, btw). I called Evan hoping that he might be my “date” for the evening but the flake skipped town after promising me to meet today. He attempted a stupid joke on the phone and things got even worse. I don’t think he realizes that he hurts me by showing me time and time and again how little I mean to him. And this is ALL as a friend. I’ve never been romantically interested in him, not even when I wrote that STUPID postcard saying that I loved him. Of course I love him but as a friend. I’m not in love with him and I never have been and probably I never will be. I was just lonely back then. Really lonely. As lonely as I had never been before, and I hadn’t yet learned to cope with my loneliness without involving other people in my own drama and without longterm consequences. Now at least I think I know better.

 

And just to be completely clear, I’ve never been sexually interested in him either. Not even when I asked him (several times - HUMILIATING) to show me his dick when we were sitting in some car – Evan in the driver’s seat, me – shotgun, and Alex on the back seat. I think it was some cool rental, or some nice pickup truck (yes, a pickup truck with a back seat), behind the duplex we lived in at the time, but how we got our hands on it – I don’t remember. I just remember it was pretty humiliating to beg my good friend of many years to show me his penis in the sketchy darkness of someone else's car, and I remember sounding like a desperate crazy person. No wonder Evan avoids me. Not to mention all the socially awkward moments – literally hundreds of them over the years. No wonder he doesn’t invite me anywhere he goes with other people. Sometimes I just wish that life would already be over so I can be done with this alienation once and for all. But a part of me keeps hoping that some day I’ll finally be strong enough to change the exterior of my personality and fit more social quality in my life.  

It just never seizes to infuriate me the hypocrisy of it all. I mean – even if you are a truly nice person on the inside, unless you’re a truly socially adequate person on the outside, people will be weary of hanging out with you and inviting you places. But if you’re socially adequate, even if you’re the biggest psycho on the planet, people are still going to enjoy your company. The bottom line is – people would prefer socially well-versed psychos to socially awkward nice people ANY FUCKING DAY OF THE YEAR. I know I have to accept this, and even use it to my advantage in order to change my situation but it just makes me angry every time. I hope I’ll soon have the “serenity to accept” it…

Update (a few awesome hours later):

Amazing evening! Totally worth it. (For now. Unless my foot gets enormous and explodes.) 

Socially preferred

Emotional freedom isn't something you can achieve with a snap of your fingers. If you're emotionally trapped, you need not only will and time, but also a little bit of luck, to get out of the trap.

I've been emotionally trapped many times before.

Now I've been emotionally free for over a year, and it feels GREAT. I feel stronger when I'm single. When I'm with someone, or getting over someone, I feel weaker, I feel as if I'm giving up a part of who I am, I feel suffocated. When I'm single, I am ME. And it's the best you can be.

However.

However, people take you more seriously when you're with someone. When you show up at a social function, or a cultural event, arm in arm with a respectably looking opposite-gendered individual, people take you ten times more seriously than if you showed up alone or with one of your same-sex friends. Being with someone shows you're dependable. Stable. Worth sticking around, somehow. And the perks don't stop there. When people think about you as a COUPLE, they tend to think about inviting you to their own events more often. Especially other married and committed people. Think about it: A couple - man and woman. At a gallery opening. And me. Alone. We meet there. We chat. I'm closer with the guy because we met before, at another function, and we clicked. As friends. Then I meet his wife or girlfriend at the said gallery opening. If I'm ALONE, his wife might see me as a threat. And might want him to not hang out with me even if she likes me as a person. BUT. If I'm arm in arm with a handsome guy, she will NOT ONLY NOT feel threatened, but next time she has a get-together at their place and is wondering WHICH COUPLES to invite, one of the first couple she will think of, will be US - me and my handsome supposedly-boyfriend. Then I NOT ONLY get a chance to be more socially involved and accepted, but I ALSO get a LICENSE to hang out with committed men without being seen as a threat.

So I'm thinking I need a boyfriend. Lets be clear - I don't WANT one; I NEED one. We don't even need to be together in real life. Just socially together for the sake of social and cultural inclusion and acceptance.

Yes, it sucks to not be able to be who you are. But if society is going to play games with you, you can play games with society.