Another big weekend!

Just had another big weekend…

Saturday morning I got up bright and early (well, 8:30am-ish) to pick my parents up from the city after their 10 day cruise. They were in a good mood, so everything was pretty sweet… although I almost had a car accident driving them home. I’ve never actually had an accident, and I’m a really careful driver, but something about having my parents around just stresses me out. I immediately feel judged, and it’s not in a positive sense.

I came back home and had a nap before heading out to Men’s group in the afternoon. It seems to be a group of fellow recovering (and perhaps not-so-recovering) “nice guys”. Not a whole heap of assertiveness, too polite & worried about offending other people. At first the meeting seemed to be moving at a glacial pace; lots of talking-around things and too many words for too little communication. But it got more interesting when we started sharing what was going on in the group. My observation that I’d had a number of instances recently of girls I liked falling for jerks (instead of me!) and the whole “nice guy” thing led to an exercise based of some of David Deida’s work about sticking to your mission without being side-tracked by women. This was particularly relevant to me after last weekend’s psychodrama vs spa party debacle, where I ended up glad that I didn’t change my plans when Vanessa invited me around for a girly spa party which didn’t turn out the way it does in my fantasies.

After men’s group we went out for dinner and bonded a bit more, largely talking about the topic on every single guy’s mind: women.

Saturday night I hit a couple of nightclubs in the city to do some approach exercises that my dating coach had set me. I was excited about it as I headed into town, and my excitement turned to dread as I approached the actual door of the nightclub. I wandered around for a while thinking “No way, I’m chickening out”, before deciding that wasn’t the sort of guy I wanted to be. I used to have a full-blown panic attack just walking into a nightclub, but this time it wasn’t so bad. I made my way in, and approached numerous groups of girls with the intention of saying hi, and having a fun 90 second conversation. My heart raced and I felt anxious before every approach, but I think the only way to get over that is to actually learn to do it by practising. About half of the women I approached were friendly and/or receptive, and half hostile. I really appreciated the friendly ones! Special mention goes to the lovely girl on the dance floor who was clearly nervous talking to me, but engaged me anyway instead of just walking away like some did, and the two girls having an argument in which one had just told the other to kill herself. I suggested that wasn’t such a great idea. Awkward!

Later in the evening I met up with Danny, a guy I met at a dating workshop recently, who was keen to try some approaches. We acted as wing men for each other, taking turns approaching. He seems a bit dodgy to me, and was really drunk; but having the support of another guy to go back to if it bombs was really helpful. I don’t think many girls get just how nerve-wracking it is for decent guys to go and approach them, and they’re tired of getting the jerks all the time who don’t really give a fuck. I went home about 1:30am feeling really proud of myself for going through with it.

Sunday morning I woke up feeling pretty good, considering the late night. In fact, I felt the best I had in quite a while. I slept in till mid-day, and then went to a chronic fatigue support group which I had been meaning to go to for about 6 months, but always seemed to have something on at the time. I felt a bit apprehensive about meeting them, but they all turned out to be really lovely. And one of the girls in particular was really sweet. Bonus! It was cool being able to talk to other people who understood what it was like being ill for so long, and who weren’t judgemental. Some were obviously handling it emotionally better than others, but we could all relate on a lot of things from reactions of family members to the devastating effect of the afternoon snooze! I’ve got this plan of recovering before the meeting comes around next month, but I’ll go along anyway.

Sunday night I headed back into the city for more rep (acting practise), which went pretty well. No big breakthroughs or disappointments. Some of the students were expressing scepticism about whether the school we’re at and what we’re being taught is the best method. I find I’m more easily swayed by other people’s opinions on some things than I’d like; maybe they’re right, but hey, I’m having fun and getting heaps of practise at being more assertive so it’s got to be a good thing. I just have this tendency to think “but what if that thing over there is better, and I’m missing out?”.

All in all, it was a really good weekend. I woke up this morning feeling a bit more zoned out than I’d like, and felt disappointed. I have a busy week this week; kinda pushing it to my limit I fear. That seems to make me feel more zoned out and anxious about things generally. But it’s all fun stuff that I want to do. Might have to reschedule some stuff till next week; we’ll see.