“How Did Your Project Go?

I just ran into my friend [T] who I don’t see very often. He was with another woman, and without giving her context asked, “How did your project go?”

“What’s the project?” She wanted to know.

I replied, “I’m a failure.”

“Oh my god. That can’t be the project. And I just met you but I can already tell that’s not true.”

“Well. Right, thanks. That’s not the project. But I did fail at it. The project was not dating for Q4 -”

“Wow, that’s hard.”

“Yeah! Apparently it is. Which is the bright side I guess.”

“So what happened?” [T] asked.

“I went on non-dates and I got a non-boyfriend. In the beginning when I still thought everything was fake I was really happy. Then when things turned out to be real, I got really depressed. I realized I still have terrible relationship issues that can’t be cured with a blog and that I should be in therapy.”

They thought it was really funny. [T], who is a literary agent, told me that I should turn it into a one woman show. I said it could be called, “Dating is a Crime Against Humanity.”

“Yes! It totally is!” agreed the other woman. “It is totally awkward and annoying. But don’t say it too loud – someone will steal your idea.”

“It’s not even that. It’s that we treat people we date in a horrible way we’d never treat another human being. We lie to them, we talk about them behind their back, we judge them harshly for the tiniest of flaws.”

“So,” asked [T]. “Have you been kinder to other people during this quarter?”

“Um….”

“Ok, have you been kinder to yourself?”

That one I knew the answer to. “In the beginning definitely. In the beginning it was good and fun. Then, you know…the non-relationship…so, now…not at all kind to myself.” In a fake crying voice I added, “I hate myself!”

They laughed and he said I should move to LA and be a real writer instead of staying here in SF to market marketing.

Although I wasn’t kidding about hating myself, given how unkind I’ve been to myself lately, it was nice to have more affirmation that the 4thQC at least comes across as a good learning experience if not an example of how to be a good rule follower.

And it’s also a good reminder of how important storytelling is to me. I have so little compassion for myself right now, and when you feel that worthless and empty, it’s so easy to just close down and crawl in a hole. I’m sure that humor is not as effective as therapy, but it is an example of how the tiniest action can be so meaningful as you start to chip away at a big problem.

Even though Stephen wrote recently that he was angry at himself for not writing, I am so proud and impressed (as are others) by everything he’s written. It’s so easy to ignore achievement in ourselves and others just because it could have been a bigger achievement. But forgetting to celebrate effort and intention will lead to perpetual dissatisfaction – both with your own life and other people. In fact, I’d say it’s a crime against humanity.

63 Day Check In

Posted by Stephen

I haven’t written in a while, which makes me feel like a procrastinator. Now, I’m actually quite okay with admitting to being a procrastinator, but there was something more than that. Since I wrote a post a while back saying how important it was to be able to want things from people in your life without feeling needy, I was really starting to feel like a hypocrite when people asked me when I was going to write again. Basically, I was doing the blog version of refusing to wash the dishes. While procrastination is something we all know and love, feeling like a hypocrite is not something that’s sitting well with me.

I know it’s been a long time since I last wrote, but there’s no great story behind it: I just didn’t feel like writing. I always wanted to keep this blog reflective and funny, and I didn’t want to use this as a forum to whine about the project I volunteered for. That being said,  this adventure has not been fun, or easy…but it’s doing its job of giving me some new perspective.

You see, as a guy, girls don’t approach me the way that guys approach my sister. I haven’t had to explain myself to one stranger yet about this challenge or the blog. Not because I was hiding it — just cause it has never come up in conversation, and I’m not looking to broadcast it. To compound that, and also to do my best to avoid situations where I might break the rules, the last two months have been pretty isolating, and I haven’t had too many funny situations that I felt necessary to report or document here.

But the 4thQC has left me plenty of time to think and evaluate where I am and what I want. Because when I’m in dating mode, I’m constantly talking to other people and asking them about their lives: their jobs, their interests, their hopes and dreams. Perhaps most importantly, the whole time I’m asking questions, I’m also assessing to see if I believe the answers. This doesn’t leave a lot of time in the day for me to ask myself those very same questions and see if I believe what I am telling myself.

And even though it led me to not want to write for a while as I worked through those things, ultimately I started to really feel bad that I wasn’t writing. I could brush off other people who were asking me why I haven’t written, but I could not tune myself out.

So I’m back, and I’m here to finish what I started. Nothing like having my sister getting our blog published on Elle.com to give me a little extra guilty push to get back on the horse! A big congratulations to Rachel is in order for that one…

Here’s to one more month.