Introspective

I'm still riding something of an emotional high from this weekend, and I've been trying to figure out why.  I mean, not that it's bad or anything.  But why did it mean so much?

I kind of stopped dating when I was 26ish.  For one, the places I used to hang out closed down, and I had a few less-than-wonderful experiences with dates over a year or so.  I also got sucked into really stressful stuff at work at about the same time.  I don't think it was deliberate or conscious, but it just stopped happening.

I starting sortof-trying a few years ago, but even that has been exclusively digital and only half-assed.  There were all sorts of thoughts holding me back, some legit and some less so, and many of those are still around today.

But, really, the main thing is this: I've said it before that I don't really empathize with people.  It's not that I don't care, I just don't have visceral emotional reactions to people's emotional state.  It's all an intellectual exercise to me.

In a work environment, that's not necessarily bad: reacting emotionally in a professional setting is usually a bad thing.  That doesn't really fly outside the office, though.  And since I was 26, most of my human interaction has been at work, which means I've kind of slipped into my at-work personality all the time.  Even when I hang out with L, the lack-of-emotion is a good thing (or things would be even more strained than they are).  Those few events where I've tried to slip into "social me" have all been taxing social situations to begin with: generally involving L or his friends or people at work.  So, they're draining and exhausting no matter how I behave, but even worse when I'm giving any extra effort.

I've been doing it so long now that I just got into the "this is how I am" frame.

But it isn't necessarily.  I can - and do, or at least did - be friendly and personable and "faking it" enough to get along really well with people.  I have the natural advantage of not giving a shit what people thing about me, so I used to just walk up to folks and start conversations.  I had dozens of *actual* friends, people I hung out with and new and got along with really well who didn't make me feel drained or exhausted at the end.

I think, this weekend, I had that experience again.  I mean, I won't deny I was exhausted, but that was from lack of sleep and energy expenditure.  It was the activities that exhausted me, not the people.  I actually had fun being social and friendly and personable.  And I haven't done that in a decade.

It's like finding a gift card in your wallet that you forgot about.  Or, maybe better, a free membership to a place you used to go but haven't been to in ages.

The question is, what do I do about it now?  I think, first, I need to stat hanging out with L less.  That's this weekend's conversation, if I get the guts to bring it up.  He's going to take it as abandonment, and maybe it is in a sense, but it's something I need to do for me.  Saturday is when most stuff happens, so I need the option of being available.  Not every weekend, but certainly some of them.

Then we'll see after that.

Started working on the photos a bit last night.  Tonight I need to maybe do some laundry, though I also need to find out if I can use my shower again (maintenance guy said the drain was leaking into the apartments below, so asked me to hold off until I hear from him).