relationships – Page 2

092b – new topics in life + gratitude

Every time something new comes up that I haven’t talked about too much on here, I experience new sorts of vulnerabilities. For example, I’ve started seeing someone more regularly over the last couple months and that’s brought up a lot of new questions, thoughts, feelings, etc etc in me.

That, in turn, made me realise that despite talking about SO many things with so much openness, there are still so many things that I don’t talk about, or hesitate before talking about.

Sex, physical intimacy, kink, these are some topics that I realised I’d like to talk to people more openly about. I used to think that I was the more “closed” one when it would come to these topics, and YET these days I find more people shying away from these topics even more than I do. Maybe it’s true for the Indian society, maybe my benchmarks were the ones that had been formed by my time away from India.

Monogamy and non-monogamy is the other thing that’s been occupying a lot of brain space. And while personally I’m okay with open questions taking their sweet time to find resolutions, obviously with other people in the picture, some of these questions do come with some time constraints, and I guess I have to be okay with that.

Being doing some research on the origins and advantages of monogamy and one of the primary considerations (advantage) it provides is definitely around child-bearing, raising etc. So it makes sense that I’m curious about non-monogamy because I’m also not sure whether or not want to bear (or even raise) kids.

Personally, the main aversion I feel from monogamy is the idea of being “tied to” one person. Honestly, emotionally, when I like someone I don’t feel the need to follow other curiosities. But I know from experience that other curiosities do come up as time progresses. And in those scenarios, I would just like to have more freedom to discuss them AND potentially explore and follow, if they’re strong.

Spending a lot of my time with books also. Enjoying that a lot.

I talked about love and learning earlier. I think February has been pretty great for both. If you find the right people these two things often come together, actually. I learn the best from people and if I can also find love in those dynamics (whether it’s romance or friendships or other dynamics), time-management becomes much easier. (As non-poetic as that may sound.)

Yeah, life’s pretty decent, I suppose. Not much to complain about at the moment. Pretty grateful for most parts. I’m just going to savour it all this week and not try to optimise it or “make it better”.

Why fix when not broken? Basically.

Alright that’s it from me. Hope y’all are having a safe and sound February! xx

088a – feeling feelings

They say a sign of emotional intelligence is to hold feelings without letting them drive your decisions. But I hope it’s okay that I “decide to” write (and publish) even when I have big feelings because I (like to) think of myself as somewhat emotionally intelligent and I won’t let them tell me otherwise. Granted, I do spend a good amount of time with my feelings lately but I did want to spend a lot of my time on creative work and the one thing I know for sure is that I create best when it’s driven by feelings. Skill has always been a secondary pursuit to me and reception is also not been something I’ve been able to measure but I know that my happiness and joy in creation is highly dependent on following feelings.

There is a lot I’ve been feeling today and I wrote it all down earlier tonight but I still don’t feel empty.

There are things I want to say to people who may or may not want to hear them but I am fragile and I don’t know how to gauge well what other people want. What do I want? I want to bare my soul (or whatever) without being made to feel like that’s something I’m not supposed to do.

Sure, I can make music and I can write poetry and I can make it all a little more “digestible” but what is it about things being as is that makes it “non digestible” for other people? I won’t know. Maybe I’m not supposed to know.

My mother has become quite a close “friend” of mine over the last few months and I feel so lucky to have her in my life. I lay my head in her lap today and asked her how we as a race (ie humans) can get intimacy so wrong and she looked at me with sympathy which made me feel like she thinks it’s not necessarily a race problem but a me problem. And maybe it really is a me problem and I’m okay to take that feedback because I’ve been doing a lot of the work and I’ve been doing healthy things and maybe it’s okay that there’s still a lot of work to be done and I’m willing to accept that because the other explanation is that I’m severely unlucky and that just does not seem to be true, really, so.. I don’t know.

I feel like the world always wants me to process things faster than I want to process them and despite repeatedly expressing that I don’t like being rushed people keep rushing me. They want me to move on faster, be happy faster, not grieve as much as I do, not be sad as much as I am, not talk about things as much as I do.. and yet, they don’t know how to set their own boundaries, is what jumps out to me, almost. I guess this means I would really respect people who are able to set their own healthy boundaries.

I don’t know. Today’s a bit of a bouba day. Although I’m not displeased. Cheers xx

085 – a break from doomscrolling

Happy with deactivating Instagram to be very honest. I’m realising it’s actually quite a waste to have your thought-process interrupted by social media. Of course, not all thoughts are interesting or useful, and I’ll be mindful of that, but from the chatter often come very interesting things, and that’s part of the skill-building I imagine, to find interesting things from a bunch of the noise. But for that I need to learn to tame and sort through the noise, not just quieten it down every time it starts to build.

I’m also happy with a little bit of the abundance mindset dating I’ve been doing (or trying to do lately). Simply put, dating more than a single person at a time. It’s really the only way I can emulate secure attachment at the moment.

Really want to get better at structured writing, or long-form writing, ie tying multiple related thoughts into a singular thing. I’m pretty meh at that right now. I used to think I have a lot of thoughts running through my brain ALL the time, but lately I feel like half of them are literally useless. I guess this is okay to realise, maybe that’s what growing up feels like. Or maybe that’s what a lot of word-vomiting allows me to get to. That I’m not as interesting as I thought. (And I don’t mean this in a self-deprecating way). Or maybe, that I need to put in more effort or work or focus-time to mould my thoughts into something “interesting”. Of course, that also opens up the question of what interesting is, really? I think I know this in my heart, though putting it out in words feels tedious, so I won’t attempt to do that right now.

Something that I’d been mulling over is the amount of time I want to be giving to maintenance of relationships etc, since I sometimes feel like there’s too many relationships to maintain lately and I don’t know if I can maintain them all. Of course, this doesn’t mean I want to “end” relationships or whatever, but just that sometimes it’s hard to make time for too many people in a single week, or a single month or whatever. There’s also that constant quality/quantity debate. Generally, over the last few years, what has worked okay for me is thinking of friendships and relationships in tier-forms. (I know a lot of people think this way and I think that works for me too). That I have some tier-1 friends (inner circle, etc) and a lot of tier-2 friends and then some tier-3 friends, etc. I’d also seen post by Casey Tanner about types of friendships and that was pretty cool as well because then you don’t have to “rank” friends in a way but you can still (for your self) define how important different people are to you. I can’t find the post right now but it was something along the lines of: close friends, lifelong friends, daily friends, dinner friends, party friends, affinity friends, family friends, etc etc”. I do have a lot of “affinity” friends for example. Queer friends, music friends, writing friends, self-growth friends. And these are important connections, but I wouldn’t necessarily hang out with them every week.

Anyway, I’d been mulling over how much time I can take out for social needs and whether I might just be over-indulging (ie continuing social interactions even after my social needs have been filled) and something I’m realising is that conversation is definitely something that I care about a lot. Conversation, when it goes well, has the power to move me in really unique ways. Conversation also allows me to test thoughts (and ideas) a lot better than anything else does. Sometimes I may have written a very simple word-vomit and even that allows me to be more articulate about my thoughts and feelings in conversation. Even about the simplest things. Basically coming to the conclusion that conversation is a great tool that runs parallel to writing. To that end, I don’t want to cut down my social time too much. I do think it contributes a LOT to creative work and growth, so I think it’s worth putting in the effort into it. And then again of course there’s the whole “you learn a lot of unexpected things from people”. Obviously, time is not infinite, so maybe I can’t just spend all my time with people (and obviously, my introversion will not allow for that either), but three good hangs in a week is something I can definitely strive for. At least for the next few months. I can always reevaluate once (when) I start working.

I’m up at 9:30 am today and feeling great, even though today’s a pretty chilly day as well. Good sleep, good food, good people around me, I suppose it’s all quite nice. Feeling pretty grateful, too.

I have a feeling reducing social media will also help me make more time for all the admin tasks I generally detest so much. Man, I’m feeling quite excited about this break! I might be romanticising it a little bit (lol) but I think that’s okay. If the benefits actually turn out to be that good, it’ll be very worth it. The main thing I’m doubting I think is whether it was even an addiction if it feels so easy to “quit”? I’m not sure, I guess we’ll find out. Will have to go back to the open question of understanding the addiction a lot better.

Alright, that’s it from me right now! Cheers xx

069a – passive writing, intentions for the week

I want to sleep before 4am today. Because I really want to wake up before noon tomorrow. Which means writing a word-vomit now, doing some reading and then literally just switching off the lights by 3:45am. Had some friends over today and realised I really care about them. One of them I was meeting after more than 6 months and he’s been going through a bit of tough time. Him getting me upto speed is when I realised how much I really felt for him.

I’ve been a bit triggered about lacking a romantic relationship over the last couple days so today was a bit of grieving the last person I dated. I thought I was mostly over them but today brought some new (old) inner feelings out, I guess. It’s been over a month since we ended things and I expected this much time to be enough for me to grieve. But maybe I need a few weeks more.

I’ve decided to purchase an electric and a semi-acoustic guitar soon but the research part of the purchases is not very fun.

I think I definitely want to complete 2 more songs before the end of this year. That’s doable, I think.

I haven’t taken a flight in a while. I think I’m missing the feeling. Even though flights and travel give me some anxiety, I think even WITH the anxiety, the overall feeling is nice and interesting. Maybe I’ll go somewhere early December.
I guess I used to think the net feeling in a moment is the “sum” of your positive and negative feelings but I think it’s not really that. It’s not [happiness minus anxiety = less happiness]. It’s just (happiness, anxiety). This is actually quite interesting to me. (#epiphanies)

This word-vomit is slow because I keep getting distracted. I’m really tired today though I don’t know why. I’ve slept enough and I didn’t do much. Maybe it’s just that. I didn’t do anything refreshing.

Do I really not have any thoughts at the moment? How is that possible?

I have many tasks to do this week, most of which I’m not looking forward to. So, then, what am I looking forward to, if not those tasks? How can I make this week a bit nice? There’s an open-mic I could sign up for potentially, but I don’t know what songs I’d want to sing. Okay yes, I think I can do this. It’s a task that’s the right amount of challenging, plus it’ll also be nice to move towards my medium-term goal of doing ten open-mics by the mid of next year. It’s also at this queer/mixer event type thing so it could potentially be nice to meet some new people, and I’ve been meaning to find ways to do that anyway.

I want to get back to 1000-word posts because I think more stuff comes out when you write 1000-word posts as opposed to shorter ones, so yeah– that’s something I’ll probably start doing soon. I’ve also decided I’m not switching to substack until I’ve written 10-long posts/essays that I’m actually satisfied with (where the satisfaction rating is at least a 7/10). Alright, these conclusions feel good.

068b – diwali but this post is barely about diwali

It’s been a busy three days. We’re celebrating Diwali here in India. I posted a bit already on Instagram about how it ended up being a bit too much for me, especially since I’m celebrating in India after six whole years. It’s mostly over, but I’ve been thinking of regret and “fomo” a lot. On Friday, I was sensing increasing anxiety about the festival, the parties, the firecrackers etc and I was wondering why I wasn’t able to surrender to it all. I was also wondering if I would regret it later, whether I would miss not spending enough time with the family and friends around me while I have them.

But I’ve been thinking about the last few years, and while I did miss spending time with family/friends when I wouldn’t get to see them for many months, I don’t think I’ve missed “big” events too much.

But I’ve also been thinking of this all from the sensitivity lens, and I wonder when things got so intense. Like I don’t remember being bothered too much by loud noises, events, overstimulation etc when I was a kid.

I think part of it has to do with our collective lowkey-obsession with our physical forms, which always seems to increase around events etc. Now, I do understand why some people like to dress up, etc, but I think there is a bit of an expectation for everyone to do it, and that is what I’m not too fond of. I specifically remember times in my life where I’ve actually really enjoyed events— and those were times where the people I was hanging with weren’t too form-obsessed, where we were doing a lot more than just clicking pictures, commenting on each other’s outfits, etc.

I did also get a haircut yesterday that I didn’t end up liking (and I miss my longish hair) so maybe that’s got me a bit annoyed as well.

Talking to my sister about everything really helps though. We spoke after almost 4-5 days today and it’s nice that we’re now able to put some gaps between interactions. (Since our phone calls tend to get pretty long and hence time-consuming). We’ve actually been weirdly in sync about life stuff over the last couple months. We were going through what felt like slumps throughout August and September and somehow came out of them together as October came around.

I often wonder what the point of these journal-entries-like word-vomits is (ie is there a point to making them public?)— and I’m going to come back to this question soon. Sometimes I feel like I’m being lazy when I write these. But let’s see, I want to have sufficient reasons to why I’m doing this in public. I know I had reasons when I’d started but lately I can’t remember them. Or be convinced by them. I know they hold value for me— more on that later— but I want to be sure of the reasons why I’m doing this in public. Otherwise it’s just vulnerability for vulnerability’s sake and I don’t necessarily need that in my life at the moment.

I feel better now, though. Man, making space for all the unpleasant thoughts in your brain feels so good.

057a – some clarity

It’s been a difficult week. Anxiety has been super active, and I’ve found that it likes to focus most on two subjects: career and love.

The interesting thing to realise is that my anxiety doesn’t focus on geography as much lately. (I think this could be a sign that India is working well for me, potentially. However, I know that it could be conditional on the fact that I have kept my daily frustrations minimised to a high level. I think I do feel more number of smaller, daily frustrations here and yet feel more of a long-term overall groundedness. But if the frustrations were more for any reason, there is potential for that to rock that feeling of overall stability, of course).

re: career

I’ve gotten more clarity on this as well. I’ve found that music and writing are the two forms of creative expression that I gravitate most towards (for various reasons which I know very well but don’t need to list out here). I can legit sit at home and play, sing and learn music all day, and that’d keep me at peace and also happy and also satisfied, fulfilled. If I were living in a vacuum, I’d probably continue life the way it has been over the last couple months for at least another couple years. But because we live in a society, and money is a thing, I’m thinking I’ll start looking for part-time, remote jobs (what kind, I don’t know yet) starting January. This would still allow me to continue to spend on creative pursuits, I think. And then I can always reevaluate.

I also think I’m not a big fan of the term “career”. I don’t think I’ll be working on building another career, so to speak. I’m probably more aligned with the idea of jobs, yes, when you need money, and otherwise of course spending your time meaningfully is important, and for me that meaning can be derived from the little things. In the current phase of my life, majority of my “work”-time would be devoted to creative expression, whether or not I share the results with the world or not. It’s what allows me to best explore my inner world (and maybe even the external world), and it’s what gives me the most joy and meaning. Whether or not it’s enough for long-term satisfaction is something I’ll probably know with more time, but for now this is enough.

re: love

I’m learning to focus more on the present, as opposed to worries about the future. This is obviously valid for life in general too, but can sometimes really show up with relationships and dating stuff. I’m learning to work on some of my anxious-attachment symptoms, therapy has been super helpful with all of this. I’m learning to listen to my body and my gut as opposed to my mind. My mind is very loud, tuning into the body is often the only thing that helps me be closer to what I really want.

Time to head out for my vocals lesson. Cheers!

054b – updates + upcoming projects

So, it’s been roughly 2 weeks since I moved to my own place and today was the third time I came to my parents’ place to spend a night. It was great in terms of me finally feeling like my decision to move was not stupid at all. (I’d been having doubts earlier.)

I think we all tolerate each other much more and better when we have enough distance between us. I genuinely like coming over and hanging out with them once or twice a week. My mum’s more patient, my dad actually takes out more time to sit with me, even for a couple hours, and it just overall feels much better. I think this will definitely be good for my relationship with both my parents.

My apartment is in a much better state now, apart from a couple medium/small problems, but hopefully they’ll be resolved soon. I’m feeling much safer overall, sleeping better, and that’s been great.

Had my 6th drums class today and it was an absolute blast. It’s been so much fun and I can’t wait to play more regularly. I hope the new instructor that I find (I need to find a new one that’s closer to my new place) is also as good. I didn’t have the best impression of him initially (he was a little too talkative for my taste) but over time I’ve warmed up to him and he’s definitely a good teacher and a good drummer, for sure.

I finished watching Heartstopper Season 2 and it was absolutely mind-blowing. I remember liking Season 1 a lot but I think Season 2 just completely knocked it out of the park. The production quality, the character development, and so many “social”/emotional things handled so well. Just fkn amazing.

I had an emotionally tough evening yesterday, but was able to get through it by talking to a couple of close friends over the phone. Coming home today also helped with the reset. (This is definitely important data). I think overall I’m okay now, my top projects need to be the following over the next 2-3 months (the order and prioritisation is yet to be figured):

Quitting a certain addiction
A card-game entrepreneurial idea that I have
Music stuff (needs to be broken down)
Dating
Remaining house-setup

Oh, in other news, I started taking some extra lessons for school for this kid from downstairs, and that’s been kind of fun and fulfilling. He’s a pretty curious kid, and we’ve only had 4 lessons so far but so far I’m quite impressed.

I don’t feel like publishing this one. I’m not sure why, maybe because the quality / style feels off to me, or I feel like I’ve generally just been posting updates for a while now. But as I say this, I realise that that’s fine, because yes, journaling/blogging isn’t always going to be stylistic or creative, that’s barely the point.

044b – three weeks of living at my parents’ house

Man, it’s been tough. In the last year or so, I’ve spent a lot of time at my parents’ house. And though it always does come with its share of hardships (I call them “red dots”), it’s been a little harder this time. Primarily because everyone thinks that because I’m more “free” (ie because I don’t have a job), they are entitled to more of my time. Or well, maybe not everyone, but my grandmother definitely seems to think so.

My sister was around for the last couple weeks so that was relatively nicer, since I absolutely love having her around (and so does everyone else). But now that she’s left, my grandmother thinks that she doesn’t “have anyone”.

Okay maybe this is going to be a grandmother rant more than anything else. She’s 83, and doesn’t really have a good relationship with anyone. She hasn’t treated her kids (one of them is my dad) very well throughout her life and is now (I think) suffering the consequences of her actions. Old age is of course difficult for most people (I guess), but I don’t know, it feels really difficult to take care of her.

Overall, I’ve been questioning some things as well. ie how much suffering can I see in front of me? How much of myself can I actually sacrifice just to attempt to ease her suffering a bit, though any of this sacrifice or charity (of my time, for example) doesn’t actually make her feel better on a deep level, which then makes me wonder whether there’s any point to my sacrifice at all.

I think I just need to set some boundaries. ie know my boundaries. I will always get frustrated when she wakes me up in the morning or noon or asks me to have meals with her, so that’s something I can allow myself to feel. But what I can do is spend some time (around 20-30 minutes) once in a couple days talking to her, and then even if that isn’t enough for that is eventually not my problem.

Had some small arguments with my mother as well, but I think they’re small in the grand scheme of things. My parents have overall been quite understanding of me, my preferences, etc. So that’s really nice of them and I appreciate it. (I probably need to tell them that, since I know one of their complaints is that I don’t appreciate them enough)

However I know that living here isn’t very sustainable, so I definitely need to move by July, latest.

Some things are nice though. It’s nice to have regular food, and two nice balconies, and most things smoothly running. It’ll obviously take some time to get that all once I move, wherever I move. And obviously it’s nice to save a bit of money as well.

I’m slowly trying to find time and solitude to engage in mini creative activities which has been really fulfilling. Also finished reading “Steal Like An Artist” (really short book, highly recommend for anyone) and started working on some the recommended things mentioned in that and that feels really good too.

So anyway, that’s what’s been up. Write soon!

041b – pretty much a journal entry

Lots of feelings. Lots and lots. Unable to communicate well with people lately.

One common pattern I’m seeing with “close-ish” friends (but not the ones closest) is that I’m unable to tell them when I’m “bored” of listening to some of their stories, some that I never asked them about in the first place. And these people are obviously unable to guess (or read) that I’m done listening as well. Maybe there is an opportunity to be more clear here. I’m afraid of hurting their feelings though. Okay, I wrote down a phrasing that conveys both parts of the feeling and isn’t as hurtful.

Of course, the stress of the moving etc might have a role to play here as well. I know it does.

Okay but, lots of things to look forward to over the remaining month here in Amsterdam. The days are getting sunnier so I hope I can be a little more active.

Have a therapy session tomorrow so hopefully that’ll be a bit helpful. Another thing I’m kind of annoyed about is how nobody else thinks of therapy as something they could be considering as well. I feel like I put in so much work and it does help many of my relationships, but people around me could be putting in some work as well. And granted, most of the work that I put in is mostly for myself, but considering it helps the relationships too, it’d be so much better if other people were working on themselves (and expressing themselves) as well. Often I feel there’s so much friction because the people I’m talking to aren’t very much in touch with their feelings (or willing to accept them, or willing to accept that there’s something a little more there). And that then requires a little more effort to most conversations.

Anyway, I’ll continue this tomorrow — I just realised I want to unwind a bit and then try going to sleep early-ish.

—

My therapy sesh got canceled which is not the best. Since I still have a lot of stuff on my mind. Woke up pretty late today and not too happy about that, since I need to wake up on time tomorrow, ugh. Couldn’t get much work done though I got some moving-related chores done, so that’s good.

The social responsibilities wrt moving are weighing on me a little bit. ie the whole process of reaching out to the few people I want to meet once before leaving. Although I know it doesn’t make a huge difference if I don’t do this, I still want to. 😦 I feel like half of my conflict on a day-to-day basis is just about how much effort-muscle I have in me vs the kind of goals/wants I have.

There’s a lot of physical energy required by most of my chores/tasks and I’m realising I don’t have enough. So that’s that. I mean of course mental energy too, but that I’m still a little more used to summoning when really needed. Or just knowing how to pace myself so I don’t end up super-exhausted. Ah well.

Anyway, that’s all from me today. Hope to have some interesting stuff to talk about soon!

029a – platonic intimacy and friendships

We don’t always get what we want. But we get other things. Other things that sometimes end up being silver linings.

I took a somewhat spontaneous weekend trip with few of my friends from grad-school this week. I’d never realized how platonic intimacy has many similar stages like romantic intimacy does. The obvious, tangible things like shared spaces, shared bathrooms and beds. But more than that, the smaller things – the newer fights, some of them caused by unsuspecting jokes, the small adjustments to each others’ habits. Quirks. The privilege of getting to see each others flaws. The vulnerability that comes with telling someone you’re a late sleeper. The vulnerability of being cranky when you haven’t had your day’s coffee. Then there’s the meditative moments when you all sit around someone packing their suitcase on the last night, watch them slowly fold their clothes, one piece after another. You realize how much at peace you all can be, together. Nobody says anything until it’s done and everyone suddenly realizes how magical the moments that just passed had been.

I’m all for virtual friendships and long-distance relationships, but I’m realizing that some dimensions of intimacy can only be achieved by spending actual time with people. I think throughout school and college, some of this happen pretty automatically, since trips and spending time with each other is kind of a default. But as adults, some of us often have to be a bit more deliberate about it. Glad to be able to do it though!

In general, it’s been a great year for friendships for me (of course, being single will do that to you anyway). But I have realized that I’m much more social than I used to think, and it’s been fun to lean into it. Though one new concern that’s come up for me is whether having “more” friends can affect the quality of friendships? (I mean obviously, but I wonder what the numbers are.)
I was definitely a believer of “quality over quantity” earlier, and though I have liked increasing the quantity so far, I don’t want the quality to be affected.

Am I making “enough” friends so that I don’t have to face disappointment when someone is unavailable etc, or do I just genuinely like having that many friends? I think it’s okay when I have multiple friends for different purposes, like enjoying different kinds of activities or when people fill different roles for me, but having multiple friends for similar purposes and roles might be an overkill.

My eventual goal though is to reduce my dependencies on social media and have just enough close friends that I can keep in touch with them and be able to reach them through the older mediums of connectivity. This should provide a good enough upper constraint, I guess.

Anyway, that’s all on this. Onwards.