Don’t have time for too much complex thought right now but just wanted to say THANK YOU.

I feel like pop culture has really fed into this nonsense, where every scene between anybody is written/filmed as “ship-bait”.

This idea people can’t be friends without underlying sexual tension feels a lot like “you can’t just enjoy something without putting it online and side-hustling it.” And it sucks.

It feels like another extension of how everyone sees every single human interaction as transactional anymore.

Hah, sorry, I didn’t mean it to be depressing. True, I was kinda venting a painful experience but . . .my sincere hope is that someone might learn from my mistakes, and finally stop putting off spending time with people who matter to them.

There will always be excuses to put it off til “next time”, “one day”, “eventually…”, but we don’t have forever to get over them, and we need our fellows more than we ever have.

And yeah, the terminally-online are a frightening combination of “ferociously bitter” and “obsessed with being ‘a part of something’”, that they actually rejoice in the suffering of others as if oppression is some kind of football game.

I want no part of whatever someone like that is selling.

This. Profoundly this.

I wish people would just realize this and strive to lift each other up instead of trying to one-up each other in the pity-demographic olympics.

One of the greatest feelings is having been helpful to those we care about. It’s sad that some people will abuse that to no end, and you didn’t deserve that in the slightest.

I hope you’re doing better these days. <3

I met a fellow in my neighborhood by happenstance. We happened to be crazy similar. He was really cool.

I felt bad not really getting around to checking in on him more often. I was shy and afraid of what I didn’t know, or making a fool of myself. But damnit he was a really cool guy…

Occasionally I’d catch him with his garage door open and we’d have a chat. (You gotta understand, nobody interacts in this neighborhood.) We met because I was out running in the rain like a crazy guy (we rarely get rain lol) and HE decided to introduce himself to me as I ran by his house LOL.

So anyway…I saw he hadn’t responded to my Merry Christmas text.

…And just a week ago or so I got a text from his wife that he had passed away from an aneurysm 4 months prior.

When I brought her flowers for him, she told me he had said that he thought. . .that I was very cool. . .

Why I’m sharing this:

I know it’s awkward sometimes trying to make new friends as an adult, but also it’s foolish to simply assume tomorrow is guaranteed. Do that hangout. Plan the game night. Talk about random stuff in the backyard. Whatever.

You will never regret more time spent in fellowship and good company.

I would have been a really good friend to him if I just reached out more…

The loneliness epidemic is absolutely real, and this isolating society is killing us all by design and it breaks my heart.

That is all.

…as a women?

As a men 🙏