Midnight Stupid O'Clock?

It's stupid o'clock (sort of)---time to get all maudlin with a drink in hand.

I was doing fairly well for quite a while, all things considered. Yes, there were moments where I just wonder why the hell I'm still alive (and yes, even now), while intrusive thoughts appear fleetingly through my mind, before disappearing back into the abyss from whence they came.

Then of course all the things started to pile up as a matter of the normal course of operation---projects and what-not always start having their major checkpoints/milestones crammed together the closer we get towards the end of the current funding tranche.

I think I'm stressed out from that. There're also other things that I don't want to talk about specifically, but those things did not do me any favours either, in terms of piling it on.

I coped through playing games that took my mind away. shapez, shapez 2, No Man's Sky, The Talos Principle 2, and everything in between.

I tried to read more. And played more music, this time with a different group even, though the actual mechanics were more serendipitous than anything else. I tried to catch up on my sleep, and tried to get back on schedule on my weight loss programme (that 70 kg at the end of the year is starting to look dicey as hell now).

I went on long-ass cycling trips during the hottest time of the day to shock my body into exhaustion so that I didn't have to think so much.

Last evening, I even grabbed a friend to just hang out after work with some booze and food to chill out and vent a little.

Did all of that help?

In a way, yes. It did keep my mind together. I didn't make too many bad decisions on the whole, which I think is the singularly most important thing when it comes to crunch time.

But you know and I know that all these things that I do... are just temporary distractions at best.

``MT, but what about God?''

I would say that it is thanks to God that I can even hold it together enough to engage these temporary distractions.

In theory, I can just walk away from all the things that are stressing me out. But I cannot, and will not---I have literal lives under my charge, and when I am in charge of something (the team, in this case), I am determined to be the last damn person to leave, not the first.

Call it the curse of the duty-bound, but I think I'm severely sidetracked.

All the happenings aside, I'm not depressed. In reality, I'm just vexed over something else that started to bug me in no small way---my heart started aching for another soul to share my life with.

It crept up on me without my realising. I think it started back when I unhesitatingly replied that I was alive in response to a ``how're you doin?'' question. It was June, this year.

In between then and now, much [shit] has happened, and here we are today, feeling vexed.

I simply do not know if I am ready to pursue anyone, or if settling down with someone was something that I was to go for.

What was that life going to be? Will I still get to go on the path that I had started on ever since that fateful day I got dumped for the last time? Am I really over whatever happened from then, and am ready for the future?

Or is there even a future in the first place?

Annoyed. Irritated.

I think that in some way, it is actually hard for me to go on pursuing anyone. Mostly because I don't usually default into that mode to begin with---my hormones don't really rage hard and drive the horny in a way that makes me actively head out to look for that special someone. In many senses, attraction to me is a very confusing concept, even being a ``veteran'' of several [failed] relationships.

I don't see a conventionally pretty woman and go ``yowzers, she's hot---I simply have to speak with her!''. Hell, I don't even eye any woman whom I meet with the judgement of whether she's ``wife material'' or not---they are fellow humans first and foremost, and I treat them the way that I would treat anyone else, with courtesy and friendliness, without ulterior motives.

Perhaps this is why wherever I end up, most people trust me enough to help them, even at their most vulnerable.

For me to be attracted to someone, she's got to have that... thing about her that I have not managed to reduce into words. All the women whom I ended up in relationships with... they all had the same thing. It was a certain kind of personality, a certain way with which they go about doing things.

They did not stand out, not immediately. They are smart, but they don't usually make it a habit of showing it---speaking with them reveals that intelligence behind the façade that they put up for whatever reason. They are smart, but they aren't in the habit of being condescending with it. They have that wry sense of humour that ``whooshes'' past most people, and they don't usually draw such attention to themselves. They are never really conventionally sexy, but once I got to know them better (and when we became an item), they are incredibly sexy.

But I suppose there's also that other... thing that ensures that these women whom I had relationships with ended up all being exes at this stage---selfishness. It's not quite the same as being self-centred, but it's close enough.

Then again, can I really fault them?

Only a fool claims to be self-less, and even I have since learnt to not be a self-less fool in this world where the foolish are pointed out, made fun and taken advantage of.

I suppose part of the reason why my heart started aching for another soul to share my life with is that I missed the times where I had a safe space with a trusted person to share my thoughts with, to just hold on to physically to remind myself that life ain't all bad, and to have someone else to actually care about, to be a good reason to push on through despite how shitty life can get at times.

Friends can cover much of these, but as we age, even friends have their own lives and families to look out for, not me.

``But MT, you can always talk with ChatGPT! And if you're looking for someone to hold, embed ChatGPT into a gynoid!''

Firstly, eww. Secondly, eww. Thirdly, it's not the same... I have many things I can hold (Twinkletoes being one of them, now joined by a Takodachi in the office), but no matter how soft or cute they are, they aren't the same as another person whom one is spending one's life together with.

Anyway, I think I've lost the plot like ten paragraphs ago. I've vented enough for now, and it's time to turn in for the night---I need to play at the music ministry at PPCC tomorrow.

Till the next update then.