T-minus 3 weeks till the road trip and wedding. I’ve been chatting with this girl for over 2 months now. I am giddy bro. We’ve been texting everyday nearly non-stop. Gm and gn messages. Memes back and forth. Phone calls. Physique posting. Videos sent. Inside jokes. Feel like I am at the doorsteps of something meaningful. Excited to see where this will go. The wedding will be like the ultimate shit test for if we would be a good couple. 4 days. 3 nights. She even wanted to spend an extra night with me at my place instead of rushing off to the airport Sunday. Yay! This is going to be so fun.

She has been a little distant lately. Best not to pry, she is going through some heavy emotional stuff right now. It’s not like she likes me any less just because she’s been talking to me less. Right? It’s also the holidays. Everyone is busy this time of year. Plus, I’ll see her soon anyways.

“How was the rave shawty :3” was responded to with a cat meme at noon. That doesn’t really answer my question. Idk how to respond. Ummmm… cat meme right back to you? Seen 7hrs ago. Late at night I get a long form message of how much fun she had the previous night. No questions about me, my last two days, or anything. Oh ok, well gn. She eventually asks the following day, but everything seems strangely distant. Before we were tapped in. Synergetic. What changed?

I ask questions and get vague answers now. Sometimes we can have a decent back and forth, but I can’t shake the impression that something is off. It seems like she doesn’t really care about what I’m doing or feeling. Rarely asks now. Sense she’s losing interest in me. Pretty sure she bought the airplane tickets though—relax.

The wedding is the solution. At the wedding we will have a blast and I will feel silly for critically hyper-analyzing her communication style shift. I am stressing about it regardless. Does she even still want to go to this wedding? Feels like she doesn’t. She’s been turbo-distant compared to the prior 2 months. But no, she said she would, of course she will. She wants to meet my dog, do soviet invented GABA receptor agonists designed for slavic astronauts, and try sponge candy. She was super excited about the trip initially, but fuck, that was weeks ago. This isn’t adding up. I feel like I am talking to a different person.

I am on uneven ground. Dizzy. Nauseating. To call out the vibe shift would seem insecure and would likely further distance herself from me. Must wait it out. If it wasn’t for the wedding I’d take the hint and bail. I hate ambiguity. My thinking is very binary when it comes to relationships. 01111001 01100101 01110011 00100000 01101111 01110010 00100000 01101110 01101111 00111111. I am an extremist. There is no middle ground in my heart. It’s my nature to be aggressive. 100% or 0%. Choose me or lose me.

Wedding is less than 2 weeks away now. Have a big business trip in the morning. Try to sleep early so I can be spry for my meetings. I can’t. Toss. Turn. One hour of sleep. Nightmare. Up. Check phone. Scroll. She must’ve saw I was online. “Pseudo! A friend that came to visit professed he had feelings for me! We are dating now! I am so happy and sillypilled and…” Vomit.

I stare at my screen like a lizard person. My soul shivers. Hands shake. I feel heartbreak, dread, and relief in an ever-shifting kaleidoscope. Pent-up assumptions, cope, and fear leave my body. Feel hollow. My intuition is never wrong when it comes to these things unfortunately. I just didn’t want to believe it. Yeah, that is great shawty. Wishing you love and happiness, but I need to distance myself from you now because I am a sentimental sappy romantic and I am ridiculously hurt.

Sleep isn’t a possibility now. Hit the road early. 2:30am early. Blast zyn. Helps me feel something besides the knot in my stomach. I drive. Ryan Gosling. Accelerate. Punch car horn. Swear. Delete every picture related to her I can find digging through my gallery on an empty interstate. No mementos. Moody rock reverberates in my work car. Euro bro calls me. What a saint. While concluding our call he tells me that he highly values our friendship and that meeting up this past summer was one of his highlights of 2023. Sounds super gay, but I started to choke up a little bit when he told me that. As dumb as it is, I guess subconsciously I needed to hear someone vocalize they value me.

Arrive to my destination. Way too early for my first meeting. Café time. Planned to get a donut. Reach the register. Nope. Absent appetite. Black coffee it is. Write in my small sketchbook, but I feel like a robot. Mechanical. Heart is in repair mode. Brain is in control. Backup generator fueled by nicotine. Look in the mirror. Not only do I feel like a robot, I look like one too. Terminator. My eyes look threatening. Ice blue. Razor sharp. I might be able to kill a small insect by intensely focusing my gaze upon it. Dark bags under my eyes. My skin looks pale. Paler than usual. Slap the angst off my face in my client’s parking lot. Smile. :3 is the ethos of my being. It’s what I do best. I am a silly soldier in an absurdist war fighting for meaning.

Enter the first meeting with masterfully controlled mania. LOCKED IN. Unbeatable charisma is dripping off me. This customer is one of the first people I dealt with when I first entered our industry years ago. Was my first time meeting him in person. He was inquisitive as to how I got there so early. I spilled. Gave quick details on how/why I was even at the café for 2 hours before visiting him. It was cathartic to start my day telling a semi-stranger my woes briefly. He treated me like a son. Gifted me kind words. Great meeting. Back on the road. Next location. Same bit. Rinse. Repeat. All my meetings went fantastic. Now it is night. Not eepy. Have not eaten anything all day. Zyn. Coffee. Water. My 3 food groups.

Met up with a mutual I had befriended in Budapest 2 years ago. He was the only other American at our hostel during my two week stay and by happenstance was also on crypto twitter. First time seeing him since. Treats me like a brother. We haven’t skipped a beat. Bar. Catchup. Tequila coke. Force a steak quesadilla down my esophagus. Wrestle in his living room. Humble him. Go outside. Barbell and plates tucked away in a weird cellar. “Narnia” I thought. Throws the equipment haphazardly onto the grass. Overhead press. Rows. Calisthenics. Curls. Repeat. Exhaustion. MORE REPS MFER. Lungs and shoulders are on fire. Not used to circuit workouts. Muscles more fatigued than I thought they would be. Rest. Water.

Jittery. High-key tweaking. Vibrating. Sprawled out on his mimic Prussian rug. Feel like I am on drugs. Can’t chill. Mania is still ahold of me. Even though I don’t feel compelled I eventually attempt to sleep. Once my head hits the couch pillow—I’m out immediately.

I am incredibly thankful. My friend hadn’t seen me in years and went above and beyond to help me feel like a human again. It was exactly what I needed. A familiar friendly face. Banter. Empathy. Drinks. Food. Combat. Exercise. I am blessed for all my connections and friends. Best worst day of my life.

I allowed myself that one day to be sad. To be an angsty little cunt, but exclusively in my car. That is it. One day. One specific location. I let myself be a sad little baby man bitch and wallow in between meetings. When I got out of my car, I was a sick cunt. Unbreakable. Absurdly grateful. Warm energy. In my car I would occasionally break down on highways. I had to make sure to dig deep and feel everything there was to feel. Let it all out. Process everything. Leave nothing in the tank.

Now it is a new day. I look in the mirror. :3 Things will be ok. No, more than ok. They will be based and swag and fun and meaningful. Yeah! Everything always magically works out for me. Each heartbreak makes me stronger. My heart of gold won’t be compromised. God loves me. I’m divinely protected. Know better days are in my future. I never yearn for the past. The past is a graveyard. I yearn for stability, but for now I’ll surf through chaos in the pursuit of passion.