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35th Birthday, Outings Part 2

2 years ago2,198 words

I'm much older than I'd like. I met a friend, for the first time in almost two years! I also met someone who was supposed to help with my disconnection from society...

It was my birthday yesterday. 35. Nobody except my mum wished me a Happy Birthday, but that's nothing new.

When I made Clarence's Big Chance, I had the lovely protagonist be aged 35 because it seemed to me at the time an absurdly old age to be without having your life together. Someone in their twenties who's still not found their place in the world seemed more sympathetic, maybe - they'd still be considered young by pretty much everyone - but being 35, nearly middle-aged, and still not established plants you very firmly in the loser category.

Or at least that's how I saw it back then, in my early twenties. I still do see it that way for the most part - I definitely regard myself as a loser, and this isn't where I expected my life to be at this point at all - but it also rather sadly seems to be not as uncommon as I assumed it was back then.

Or maybe I just try to believe that for the sake of my already tattered wellbeing.

It's frustrating how much of how our life turns out is down to random chance. Luck of the draw, roll of the dice. Some people are fortunate enough to find a compatible partner who loves them back just by going about their ordinary business (school, work, etc), while others - like me - search many places and always come up empty (and it's not pickiness that's to blame when the only people you come across are decades older and married with children).

It's not like I've given up, though. I'm going through the whole getting-out-there process again, as I think I probably wrote about in whatever my previous post was. I did a couple of things towards that this week.



On Monday, I met up with a uni friend for the first time in almost two years. I've written about her on this blog before - I met so few people there, so I gave the ones I did meet a lot of mental focus - though maybe not in a while. She's one of two I met in the first week, but not the one I grew obsessively close to and who ghosted me in the end.

We met up for a day in a nearby seaside town which I've been to plenty of times. I planned to go on the bus, but I get a ton of mostly-subconscious anticipatory anxiety before anything that requires me to leave my cave and interact with other people, so in an attempt to calm that I decided to walk there, which I've done a few times in the past.

Not in years, though, and I'm terribly unfit these days. Took me about an hour, and I was exhausted by the end. Though not a bad kind of exhausted. I should make a habit of going for longer walks like that, as I used to many years ago.

My friend's a weirdo too. Not in the exact same ways that I am, but there are enough similarities in our struggles - and our psychologically-minded approach to trying to understand them - that we get along well.

We didn't do anything fancy, just walked around the seafront and talked. The most exciting thing we did was wander around a big supermarket looking for food to buy (I hoped to find ideas for diet-improving meals; instead I came home with a couple of boxes full of little cakes).

We talked a bit about some stuff that's been in the news lately (eg UFOs), but mostly just vented and replied supportively. Most of what she talks about is her current boyfriend, who sounds like a disaster of a person, which might bother me if I were attracted to her ("why him and not me??"), but I never have been, so mostly I just listen amicably while internally rolling my eyes at the patterns I see (young women choosing emotionally unavailable brutes as mates and complaining about how sweet he was once and/or is inside and how she can tame him to her nice guy friends).

The longest I'd been out in many, many months was maybe a couple of hours, but this time I was out for most of the day. And I survived with no disasters happening, which I'll add to the meagre pile of evidence to counter my demons' warnings.

All of the anxiety came before and after: anticipation about what could go wrong (regarding using a bus more than with her), and then little niggling thoughts about my social mistakes during the post-event rumination phase.

The anticipation was by far the worst, and it's something I've been thinking about a lot lately because it's always been a huge part of my anxiety that never seems to go away. I seem to absolutely dread being late, and as a result I show up to things ridiculously early. I mentioned this to my friend, who laughed and said I was the opposite of most people in that regard, as they'd say "I'll be there in 5 minutes" before they'd even got out of bed.

And I wonder if that rather casual approach to appointment times is the norm? Like they'd see a meetup time of, say, 12:00 as meaning 'show up somewhere between 12:00 and 12:30 maybe', whereas to me it's more like 'IF YOU'RE NOT THERE BY 12:00 YOU DIE!!!'.

I also wonder if my fears relating to it are because one time at school during my teens, I somehow got confused about the time of day, thinking it was lunchtime when it was actually a class time, so I wandered around with a sandwich wondering why the playground was so empty for about ten minutes before having a sudden realisation - and surge of panic - that I was mistaken. I arrived at the class, and opened the door to the teacher teaching, causing a disruption. All eyes turned to me, a couple of people snickered, and the teacher rather aggressively told me off in front of everyone.

But I suppose that only bothered me to the degree that it did because I already had social anxiety? Hmm.

(I wrote a post about it on Reddit to see if similarly-suffering people experienced this, but it got zero replies, so that's annoying.)

Anyway, I'm rambling.

The post-event rumination period is a key part of social anxiety too. Thinking about every little thing you did wrong. Cringing over memories of embarrassing social missteps seems to be a normal human thing (except maybe for the sociopathic?), though in people with social anxiety it's just maladaptively overtuned.

As I feel close to and comfortable with this friend, though, there wasn't much of that at all. I think there were a couple of awkward things I said, but I vaguely recalled them once, maybe, and can't even remember what they were anymore. So that's nice.

Overall, I felt so amazingly alive just from spending a few hours doing nothing of note with another person I like, in a way that felt like a long, rainy night had been replaced with a warm, sunny day.

And it's so frustrating because I know how isolation affects the brain neurochemically, and how just spending quality time with another human being has essentially drug-like effects. And how I know I need this so badly, I'm so starved, but how hard it is to find people who'd be compatible enough for this fulfilling kind of connection to even develop at all.

We at least decided to meet up more often, but she has several people in her life, while I don't. I suggested to my other remaining uni friend that we could meet up, but haven't got a reply since then, and I strongly suspect - based on our last interaction and what I know of her - that it's because she's both not interested and afraid of turning me down.

I'd absolutely love to find new connections, but that's the big problem. The people I'd get along with best are all hiding in their bedrooms.



I saw that friend on Monday. On Wednesday, I went out again (wow!!!), this time to see some professional woman who the occupational therapist had referred me to, whose job (the title of which I forget; something like 'Community Navigator'?) was to... help people get more involved with 'the community', whatever that even means.

I went there expecting her to give me a list of groups and clubs in the area, and we'd work through them and see which ones I was willing to attend.

Instead, much of our hour-long talk was about what her job even is (it's still not exactly clear to me), and my specific issues. She seemed to get the point - after hearing about all the trauma, isolation, cancer, etc - that maybe I should go and see an actual mental health person instead of these people who mostly just help the elderly go to the bingo club or whatever.

The interaction wasn't without value. The arduous journey of getting there involved paying for a bus, which I'd always done with change before, so this time I wanted to use an app. The first time was a bit awkward, but not nearly as bad as the neurotic anticipation made it out to bed. Now I can do that without worry in future. Good.

Just talking with another person helped, too, though not to the degree that it did with someone I already had an emotional connection with. I noticed that I had zero anxiety throughout our talk (some weird eye/focus-related stuff though, probably from focusing on something that wasn't at the distance of my computer monitor for a change). I also explicitly asked her if I came across as odd, since the context seemed less inappropriate than most, and she seemed genuine when she reassured me that I didn't seem any odder than most people.

(Though come to think of it, she did say "you're just socially awkward :)" or something, as if to reassure me, which isn't exactly the way this broken brain responded to it.)

It seems that my next step might be to go to something she described as a 'drop-in', which sounded like nothing I've ever heard of or been to before (her description broughto mind a convention with small tables for different creators or businesses?), where I can maybe make some progress towards finding counselling again. Which is where I was hoping my GP would refer me when I first reached out to them weeks ago. Annoying basically going around in circles like that, but it's not as if each step hasn't had some value. I'll be going to that next Thursday.



...Though I've also got some concerning lump that's been developing in my lower gum that I'm concerned could be an abscess. I haven't seen a dentist in years and have been meaning to for a long while now, so maybe that'll motivate me to make the push towards finally doing that. There are several dental things I probably need done.

Finding a dentist seems annoyingly difficult though, as there are a ton of options, but some offer treatment on the NHS ('free' government health service) while others are private. But I don't get why only some offer NHS services, and even then they cost something? I had brain surgery entirely for free, but can't get tooth care for free? I don't understand how any of it works. Plus a lot of them say they're not even taking on new patients, and I've heard that even once you do attempt to register, you can spend months on a waiting list before you actually see someone. So I have some things to figure out.



I didn't intend to ramble as much as I have about all this! I couldn't even be bothered writing this post at all at the start, but I suppose I got carried away because it really is valuable just to get this stuff out somewhere.

I'd hoped that even though I'd be busy on the Monday and Wednesday, I could at least use the Tuesday, Thursday and Friday to do stuff on the CBC port.

As it happened, though, I felt like the shift in my state of mind after meeting up with tha friend on the Monday was so profound that I couldn't concentrate on the Tuesday, then on the Thursday and Friday I just felt so exhausted from the drastic changes to my regular routine that I also couldn't concentrate! I suppose it'll take time to establish a balance, or something.

So I only did a bit. I played through the entirety of CBC in ported form, and it mostly works, except for tiny things like not accepting key presses after the end of the game.

I've been having some thoughts about how much I should or shouldn't tweak the port, but I'll write another post specifically about that in a few days.