(no subject)
I'm having myself a couple of existential crises.
I hate that I only write and use my livejournal to complain. That's not one of my crises, but it does bother me. I'm always thinking "I should write something" but then there's some new news article to be read or site to be refreshed, and the only time I ever get down to typing things is when something is "eating away at my liver."
The Gathering of the Gargoyles was great. I'll post about it later in detail. This is a promise, to myself and to a lot of other people. But right now, the whining.
The first crisis is about my weight and appearance. Now I don't think I look hideous. When I'm posing myself in front of a mirror I can look downright decent. But for girls... that's not good enough. Everywhere I go I see dozens and dozens of cute girls, much cuter than me. Until recently I could tell myself that they weren't geeks, but lately I've been seeing these girls at cons or on geek dating sites. And then I catch a glimpse of myself in a candid photo, and I almost always look like I have a double chin. I want so badly to lose weight, but I've been trying for a long time - eating better, lots of small meals, getting some exercise, etc. I can never seem to do well enough to make a difference, and I hate being hungry all the time. I'm getting these things sorted out, and I have a doctor's appointment in mid-September which will hopefully get me to the point where I can exercise heavily and see a physical therapist if the shoulder or ankle complain, or at least figure out what I have to do for the shoulder and ankle to get them to stop complaining permanently.
But the point is there are a ton of cute girls, and until I can manage to lose 40-60lbs, what chance do I have? It doesn't help that I don't often find anyone attractive. So while there IS the occasional guy who finds me cute despite all the crap, the odds against me finding them attractive in return are staggering. And yes, there is the guy in Kansas... but that's not a serious thing. Why is complicated, so just trust me.
Not that I'm not insanely glad that Kansas guy happened. I am, and I attribute my remaining shards of sanity to him and my college boyfriend. They provide me with proof that lightning can strike and there's a chance that I can find a guy who I am genuinely attracted to who will like and respect me. But I used to go to every con, every meetup with the idea that maybe I'd meet someone. Now that seems so spectacularly unlikely that I'm a little depressed about PAX.
And that relates to the other thing: I genuinely don't know what I'm doing career-wise. When I first started it seemed like there were so many great possibilities. Now when I look I don't see nearly as much interesting stuff around, and a lot of the stuff I thought would be perfect is stuff I've already applied for so clearly... it wasn't perfect. I haven't properly started with a recruiter yet, sure, and I haven't given up hope but... I just don't know. This has all been exacerbated by my relatives giving thoroughly unhelpful advice and suggestions all weekend, displaying that they have no real knowledge of any of the fields I'm involved or educated in. Which makes sense... they're all newish, weirdish, rapidly changing fields. I could start explaining and enumerating their misconceptions, but that would probably be a bad idea. Let's just say they think I should take my career in directions I'm not really interested in at all.
So now PAX is on the horizon, and I convinced myself to splurge on it partially because it would be an opportunity to network. This presents a wealth of other problems. Firstly I have no idea how to network effectively in that kind of an environment. Secondly, I'm not as hardcore as most PAX people seem to be: I've only played a hundred or so games in my life, I'm not familiar with all the great creators and studios. Thirdly, I'm starting to worry that I'll come off as a poser, or a crazy person... my skill-set and position were so weirdly defined, I can make so few real claims.
So if I'm not going to PAX for boys, or for being hardcore, or for networking (ok, I'm still going to TRY all three of those but... see above) then why am I going? I was looking forward to this, now I'm almost slightly dreading it. I'm sure I'll be fine when I get there and the con wave sweeps over me... even if I spend the entire weekend sitting alone in panels and video game rooms.
But every moment when I'm not distracting myself I'm thinking about my looks, my romantic situation, and jobs. And having one of your classic existential crises. Or maybe that's giving the whole situation too much dignity. Maybe I'm just depressed and whiny.
I hate that I only write and use my livejournal to complain. That's not one of my crises, but it does bother me. I'm always thinking "I should write something" but then there's some new news article to be read or site to be refreshed, and the only time I ever get down to typing things is when something is "eating away at my liver."
The Gathering of the Gargoyles was great. I'll post about it later in detail. This is a promise, to myself and to a lot of other people. But right now, the whining.
The first crisis is about my weight and appearance. Now I don't think I look hideous. When I'm posing myself in front of a mirror I can look downright decent. But for girls... that's not good enough. Everywhere I go I see dozens and dozens of cute girls, much cuter than me. Until recently I could tell myself that they weren't geeks, but lately I've been seeing these girls at cons or on geek dating sites. And then I catch a glimpse of myself in a candid photo, and I almost always look like I have a double chin. I want so badly to lose weight, but I've been trying for a long time - eating better, lots of small meals, getting some exercise, etc. I can never seem to do well enough to make a difference, and I hate being hungry all the time. I'm getting these things sorted out, and I have a doctor's appointment in mid-September which will hopefully get me to the point where I can exercise heavily and see a physical therapist if the shoulder or ankle complain, or at least figure out what I have to do for the shoulder and ankle to get them to stop complaining permanently.
But the point is there are a ton of cute girls, and until I can manage to lose 40-60lbs, what chance do I have? It doesn't help that I don't often find anyone attractive. So while there IS the occasional guy who finds me cute despite all the crap, the odds against me finding them attractive in return are staggering. And yes, there is the guy in Kansas... but that's not a serious thing. Why is complicated, so just trust me.
Not that I'm not insanely glad that Kansas guy happened. I am, and I attribute my remaining shards of sanity to him and my college boyfriend. They provide me with proof that lightning can strike and there's a chance that I can find a guy who I am genuinely attracted to who will like and respect me. But I used to go to every con, every meetup with the idea that maybe I'd meet someone. Now that seems so spectacularly unlikely that I'm a little depressed about PAX.
And that relates to the other thing: I genuinely don't know what I'm doing career-wise. When I first started it seemed like there were so many great possibilities. Now when I look I don't see nearly as much interesting stuff around, and a lot of the stuff I thought would be perfect is stuff I've already applied for so clearly... it wasn't perfect. I haven't properly started with a recruiter yet, sure, and I haven't given up hope but... I just don't know. This has all been exacerbated by my relatives giving thoroughly unhelpful advice and suggestions all weekend, displaying that they have no real knowledge of any of the fields I'm involved or educated in. Which makes sense... they're all newish, weirdish, rapidly changing fields. I could start explaining and enumerating their misconceptions, but that would probably be a bad idea. Let's just say they think I should take my career in directions I'm not really interested in at all.
So now PAX is on the horizon, and I convinced myself to splurge on it partially because it would be an opportunity to network. This presents a wealth of other problems. Firstly I have no idea how to network effectively in that kind of an environment. Secondly, I'm not as hardcore as most PAX people seem to be: I've only played a hundred or so games in my life, I'm not familiar with all the great creators and studios. Thirdly, I'm starting to worry that I'll come off as a poser, or a crazy person... my skill-set and position were so weirdly defined, I can make so few real claims.
So if I'm not going to PAX for boys, or for being hardcore, or for networking (ok, I'm still going to TRY all three of those but... see above) then why am I going? I was looking forward to this, now I'm almost slightly dreading it. I'm sure I'll be fine when I get there and the con wave sweeps over me... even if I spend the entire weekend sitting alone in panels and video game rooms.
But every moment when I'm not distracting myself I'm thinking about my looks, my romantic situation, and jobs. And having one of your classic existential crises. Or maybe that's giving the whole situation too much dignity. Maybe I'm just depressed and whiny.