This afternoon was meh. I slept more than I should. Got somewhat depressed. But to my credit, when I felt myself getting really depressed, I got up and did some of my against the wall push-ups (push-outs, I guess) and some pacing. And they did help me feel better. I even started out counting my “laps” pacing but gave up and just did it till I stopped on my own, and that is a pretty big step for someone who usually wants to know when things will end before they even begin.

Trust the universe.

Still getting over that whole Dashy thing I talked about yesterday. It’s not easy. It’s a lot to process. I mean, it’s not like we were deeply madly passionately in love and three years into a five year mortgage on our dream house, but still, I had opened up somewhat to him, and that’s not an easy thing for me to do.

My usual mode (in online furry text interactions) is to be friendly, funny, silly, and cuddly… but still keep people at arm’s length. It’s a skill I learned over time when That Same Thing© kept happening to me. I decided that being a furry was fantastic but that it was for fun and play only, not for love. I might share a lot of things with the right people, but my heart would not be one of them. It would remain light and friendly and not at all serious, forever.

And that worked, more or less, for a real long time. But I am getting old now, and I am lonely. I have completely ignored the whole of human pair bonding for so long, figuring it had no place for me. After all, the tragically low self esteem depression brought told me that I was worthless and unlovable anyhow, that anyone unfortunate enough to be romantically involved with me would soon regret it as I could be nothing bot a toxic burden on them like a sick and messy pet.

Nowadays, I at least have enough self worth to believe that I would be an excellent husband to the right man. Someone who would appreciate the love and affection and understanding I can bring. I think with most people, I am so understanding and accommodating that I kind of disappear into the background.

On a fundamental level, that’s not fair. We all think we should be rewarded for our virtues. Being sweet and kind and understanding are all things most people would consider good, virtuous things.

But people only value what they feel they have earned, and I make it way too easy for people. So they don’t value me. And that is not something I can change. I can’t pretend to be harder to get than I am, it’s just not in my nature to be that phony. I have no patience for that kind of bullshit either.

So I guess I need somebody who can respect a passive, receptive man like myself. I think a lot of people like me, and think I am a great guy (which I am), and think I am smart and funny (ditto), but respect?

Maybe not so much.

And research shows that respect is the root of long term relationships. People can hate each other all they want and the pair bond remains intact. But once people lose respect for one another, the relationship starts to die.

Presumably, this applies to the stage before that as well. Someone might really like someone, think they are great people, miss them when they are not around, even think they are hella sexy…. but without respect, there is no romantic attraction.

“I don’t know, I’ve just never thought of you that way. ”

Yeah, I get that a lot.

I honestly don’t know how I could change that perception of me. I don’t know how to become more “respectable”.

In the concrete sense, I don’t have a lot of respectability assets. I have no job, no career, no accomplishments, no wife and kids, no respectability profile at all, really.

All I have is an amazing mind, loads of talent, and my winning personality. All of which is cool and all, but none of which is real. It’s all just potential. And it’s hard for people to truly respect potential.

Still, growing respect for myself will doubtlessly have some positive effect. I am still recovering from all that self-neglect and only barely developing the ability to perceive how I am seen by others. And more importantly, how I want to be seen.

My power to achieve a desired outcome on that level is as yet limited. I can’t afford the sorts of clothes I really want, although I get by with what I have now, more or less. If I was a little richer and a lot more socially confident, I would go to a tailor and get custom clothes made. That seems to be the only way to get clothes that properly fit a fat guy.

But appearances, and speaking purely in the terms of social perception, I’m a loser. That’s what the average person is going to think of a person my age who is not only unemployed and unemployable, but who has never even had a grown-up job or a relationship. From a social perception point of view, that is all highly toxic.

Add in my receptive and accommodating nature and my lack of hard preferences in a lot of things, and I am like a big, fluffy, colorful doormat. And nobody can respect that kind of thing.

I am just so formless and without structure. I mean, who the heck am I, really?

But some day, I will meet a fella that needs someone like me and we will complement each other perfectly and become far, far more than the sum of our parts.

I just have to keep putting my heart out there. Keep kissing frogs till I find my prince.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.