Title by the Pet Shop Boys.

I’ve been left to my own devices a lot lately. And I can’t say my devices are all that good. They never have been. I know how to survive on my own, but I don’t know how to actually enjoy life.

A lot of my basic emotional functions are just plain broken.

But that’s because I have a lot of unmet needs. I need more meaning in my life – things to make me feel like my life has some kind of purposes and that I am not just treading water till I die.

And I need romance. I need a man.

I need someone in my life I can connect with and cherish and adore. I have so much love to give the right man. The husband to my wife-ish nature. The masculine principle to my more feminine maleness.

I could be such a good wife to the right man. I would actually be more womanly than a lot of women, in the old fashioned traditional sense. I would be warm, affectionate, gentle, supportive, soft, soothing, and perfectly willing to be there when he comes home from work with his slippers, his pipe, and his martini.

I would, in fact, really enjoy that.

And my secret hope is that there is some gay man out there who longs for someone soft and gentle and supportive and nurturing but doesn’t feel like he can get someone like that because he’s not into women.

I would enjoy proving him wrong.

I would not, of course, be signing up to be his servant or his slave. Proper respect would have to be maintained. There would be a strong possibility that he would start to look down on me for my lack of male virtue and my willingness to play the “female” role.

And then I would have to reminds him, as women have done since the dawn of humanity, that he needs me and that I am his partner, not his bitch.

Well, most of the time, anyhow.

The problem, of course, is how to meet men when you have social anxiety. I have tried dating sites and have never had any success. On paper, they seem like the ideal method for the receptive male. Set up a profile and then just wait for suitors to contact you.

But they don’t. Probably because I don’t play the game. I don’t put up a generic-ish profile and then let people know how weird I am in bits and pieces, over time.

Even when I keep it short, I fill it with my own unique personality. For me, this is the most natural thing to do. I am a wizard of words and use said words to express who I am. So my profiles tend to be express my vibrant, wacky, intellectual ways.

That’s probably a mistake.

In the past I have told myself that this approach was about being genuine to myself and that if someone couldn’t handle the way I come across in my profile, they probably couldn’t handle me in the real world either. So I was just filtering the wrong people out… right?

But now I am not so sure. Maybe what I am really doing is sabotaging myself. I wouldn’t put it past my social anxiety to work behind the scenes to make sure I never actually have to face someone being into me.

Just thinking about having to get together with someone for a date scares the bejesus out of me.

So maybe I have been shooting myself in the foot and telling myself it was just being true to my foot-shooting nature. I don’t know. Am I really so sure that if they can’t instantly handle me at maximum intensity that there’s no chance for the relationship? It has to be zero to sixty in 0.1 seconds?

There’s nothing wrong with letting people get used to you. People don’t usual get me at first. There has to be an adjustment period where I dial in their frequency and they attune to mine. I kind of have to educate my audience, so to speak.

I guess that’s true of a lot of people. But I pump out a lot of wattage. I suppose there is nothing wrong with starting at relatively normal and then turning the dial up slowly.

Getting over my doubts about myself would be a big help too. I spent a lot of time thinking I was a horrible hideous disgusting lump of unfuckable unlovable pig-fat, human poison that causes pain to all just by existing, and that is not an easy thing to get over.

I am getting there, though. There are times (like earlier in this blog entry) that I can see myself as a fabulous person with a lot to offer the right guy. Sure, I am fat, but that’s hardly an insurmountable obstacle. Somewhere out there, there is a guy who would love to have a big fat round man-wife to come home to every night. Someone funny and cuddly and highly intelligent.

Hmmm. That’s another potential barrier, my shiny shiny big IQ. I suppose it could intimidate people. But I am constitutionally unable to act like I am dumber than I am. That is one of the things that a potential mate would just have to get used to about me. I am crazy freaking smart. I don’t deliberately try to make others feel stupid, but it happens anyway.

Because I do like to show off how bright I am.

And it’s part of my exuberant nature. My highest level of self expression has me shining as hard as I can, and that can intimidate others, or make them feel like I am massively full of myself (maybe) and think that everyone else is stupid (no) and worthless (NO!).

That strikes me as the sort of thing that would influence how I deal with people across the scale.

But I will not hide my light under a bushel. Fuck that.

The world’s just going to have to learn to deal with me.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.

One of my Xmas gifts this year was a DVD box set of the “lost episodes” of the Carol Burnett Show. We just watched the first of the 18 episodes. I am awash with nostalgia.

That show, plus the Muppet Show, formed the very foundation of who I am. The warmth, wackiness, and wit of those shows became the basis of what I considered good television. Both shows had a way of making you feel like you were part of the family.

And that’s exactly the kind of show I want to make some day. The kind of show that can make people not just feel good, but feel better. That’s the power of television.

Especially, of course, if you’re raised by it.

It has been a sort of productive day. I paid my tuition for the coming semester from the money from the student loan for last semester. That was important to me, because I felt like I have to prove to Kwantlen that I am not some chronic deadbeat. The previous problems will not be repeated. I am on top of things now. They can trust me.

I also paid Tila back the $400 she loaned me. That felt good too. I don’t like owing money. I am always eager to settle up. I don’t like there to be strain on my relationships with people.

Which made it doubly frustrating when I couldn’t do a transfer to pay back Joe the $350 I owe him. I thought I could just do it as a bill payment to his account at Coast Capital. I mean, I bank at Vancity. It’s a credit union. So is Coast Capital. I thought it would be no problem.

But no, the moment I tried to transfer the money to Joe’s account, the bill paying system stopped working. I tried over and over and nope, no dice.

And that got the paranoia flowing, and I started to wonder if there is, in fact, a fierce and blood rivalry between Coast Capital and Vancity, and they deliberately sabotaged their systems to make it impossible for money to flow between them.

Of course, that’s crazy. And highly unlikely. But it’s how my mind works.

Feels good to be Getting Things Done. I still have a long ways to go. For one, I still have no idea if I an supposed to be applying for a second student loan right now or not. I also don’t know if I have messed with the system’s tiny dinosaur brain by paying next semester’s tuition without said student loan.

But the worse part is looking for scholarships that I can apply for. Kwantlen has a list on their website, and it’s quite thorough, but I can’t figure out how to find the stuff that might apply to me.

So all I can do is go through the entire list and read about dozens of scholarships for things like business administration and marketing and entrepreneurship and welding and even for being a goddamned ferrier^[1], but nothing for a sad lil artsy type like me.

There has to be a better way to find these things.

I tried to fill out the generic scholarship application form online, but it wanted information I don’t have yet, like how much money I expect to have coming in from scholarship.

If I knew that, I wouldn’t be bloody applying, would I?

I will try again, though. If they ask me for stuff I don’t know, I will just make a guess. I am just worried that the fact that I already paid for next semester will make me ineligible for all scholarships.

Because, you know, technically, I don’t actually need one any more. But goddamn it, I just want to do things right for once in my life, and part of that is trying to get scholarship money.

It’s a matter of principle. And cash. Mostly cash.

Plus I still have to buy my books for the next semester. Looks like they are going to run me around $300-$350 total. Ick. But I am fresh out of excuses not to buy them, so but them I shall.

But I will try to get them used, and thus at least partially resist the textbook mafia.

By my calculations, by the time I pay back Joe and pay for books, I will have maybe $50 left. That’s fine. I will spend that on school supplies and then I will be set.

And honestly, my main school supplies will be printer paper, printer ink, and fresh paper for my binders, the kind with reinforced holes.

Oh, and some really dark pencils. I used mostly pens last semester, but pens have a nasty habit of exploding in my pocket. I guess I am just a hot blooded dude. Ergo, I want to switch to pencils, but my eyes are not what they used to be so I need something that makes a good distinct dark mark.

There must be extra dark pencils out there somewhere.

Last night I had dinner with Joe’s family, which was pleasant and enjoyable as usual. And I am happy to say I did not have a single panic attack while I was there.

Normally I have one when I get there, and then a few over the space of the evening. I am just not used to socializing like that. But this year, I was able to remind myself that these are nice people and I always have a good time, and these peole like me and I like them, so what’s to worry about?

Admittedly, the three glasses of champagne probably helped a lot. Plus having stimulating intellectual conversation with Joe and his sister helped disperse my excess mental energy.

I’m a high strung, neurotic guy. I have to learn to accept that. And then work on finding things to absorb all that nervous mental energy so I can be calm and content.

Stay busy. That’s my motto for the new year.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.