Frustrated

I've been feeling more and more unhappy the last week or two. Nothing seems to be going the way I would like it to, and I don't see a lot of ways to change it.

The first bummer, obviously, is the world of dating - after the last internet match not working out, I'm back to where I've always been - perusing ads for women who are too good to date me, sending emails that never get answered, and more and more wondering what the heck is wrong with me - why everywhere I go I seem to be surrounded by happy young couples with cute little babies. It's like there is this club that everyone gets to be a member of but me, and I don't understand why.

My parents are still, well, the same. I feel like I should be doing more to help them, but I'm not a good enough son to actually do more than visit once in a while.

Work just keeps reminding me what a failure I am. Six years of work and a grad degree, and I'm still doing work that a high school dropout could do. I don't see it changing anytime soon, and if I ever do get promoted I'll probably screw up and get fired.

I've been trying to lose some weight, and it's not helping my mood. I'm angry at myself for being oveweight in the first place, surprised how much weight I could lose and still be "normal" by BMI standards, and kind of depressed about the fact that I pretty much can't ever eat any foods I like or not exersize. I'm pretty sure losing weight will have absolutly no positive impact in my life, but it's about the only thing I can control, so I should probably do it.

And my cat hates me. For the last couple weeks, she pretty much ignores me, except she'll come into my home office when I'm on my computer and meow loudly and pitifully. If I pick her up, or go to pet her, or move to another room where she can hop on my lap more easily, she ignores me. If I stay on my computer, she keeps meowing, making me feel like the piece of shit that I am for ignoring her - the only female who I'll probably ever have in my bed.

So Hungry...

For the last couple years, I've pretty much been maintaining my weight. Back in 2005, I decided to get serious about losing weight after taking one of those silly online "when will I die" surveys and having it tell me I would be dead at 56. Over the course of about 2 years, I went from 250 pounds to around 160. Since then, my weight has fluctuated, going up to 165 at times and down to 150 at others. My eating habits have been much better than they were 5 years ago, but there is still quite a bit of room for improvement.

So I've decided to improve them. I'm going back to counting calories like Scrooge McDuck counting money. I'm going to exercise more. My goal is to drop 20 pounds. Why 20? I don't know. It seems like a nice number.

This is going to be tough - I've cut out the easy stuff, so the stuff that's left is the stuff I really like, and that makes it harder to cut. But there is still plenty of it - I tend to eat fairly large dinners, which are often heavy on carb-heavy side dishes. I usually have a big bowl of light ice cream every night. If I go out to eat, I usually order whatever I want. If someone at work brings in donuts, I usually eat them. I often splurge on breakfast on weekends and get some sort of sugary pastry. I tend to have a mid-afternoon snack. All of those things need to go.

I also need to exercise more. I typically do 90 minutes of cardio most days. I'm going to try to build that up to two hours, and change the "most days" to "every day". I want to try to start going to the gym twice a day on weekends, and if I can get myself out of bed early enough during the week, twice a day during the week too.

The funny thing is I didn't realize how fat I was until I started writing this post - I went to the Government's BMI calculator and found out that being 5'5" and 150 pounds actually makes me overweight, with a BMI of exactly 25. In order to be considered underweight, I would actually need to lose 40 pounds, which would give me a BMI of 18.3. I thought 20 pounds might be pushing it, since I didn't think I had a huge amount of visible fat - I've got a little bit of a gut, but didn't think a 34" waist was that bad. Evidently it is.

I'm trying to make a bunch of small changes to my diet - a lowfat yogurt instead of that bowl of ice cream, less carbs, sugars, and fat, more whole grains, more water, more vegetables. The funny thing is I already feel like I'm hungry all the time, even though I haven't cut out that much yet. I guess it's probably psychological - I keep thinking about dieting, so I keep thinking about being hungry, even though I'm really not.

I don't know how successful I'll be at this, but I'd hate to fail at it, like I seem to fail at almost everything else. Part of the reason I think this is a good idea is because I've been striking out at dating - I don't know if this is because of my weight, and I know it can't be all my weight, since I hadn't even met the last woman who told me she "didn't see this going anywhere" in person. But I'm not really sure how to change my personality, or my appearance beyond my weight. I do know how to lose weight - eat less, exercise more. I figure obsessing about my weight will give me something to think about besides the twin wrecks that are my career and my social life.

Further adventures in internet dating, or how to get dumped by women you weren't even dating...

Well, I just got the "I don't think this is going anywhere and I've met someone else" speech. From a women I wasn't actually dating.

A few weeks ago, I got an eHarmony match requests communication from a 22-year old graphic designer. I responded, we emailed a bunch, and talked on the phone a bunch. I would have tried to meet her in person earlier, but the last two weeks have been hellish at work and I'm going out of town this weekend. Still, I called her most nights, or she called me.

Now, there were a bunch of red flags that made me think this probably wasn't going to work out - I won't get into too much, but she had some lifestyle/health/scheduling issues that would have made dating difficult, and she seemed like she was even more sheltered/less social than me, something I didn't think was possible. And there was the 7 year age difference. Still, she seemed interested, and it's not like there are lots of other cute blonds lining up to date me, so I figured it was worth a shot. But when I called her tonight, I got the above speech.

Maybe it's good in a way - it frees up my resources to hopefully find someone who likes me. But it's pretty depressing how it seems like no woman wants to date me - I can't help but wonder what's wrong with me, how everyone else seems to be able to find someone except me.

And of course, I got the "I'd still like to be friends if you want to talk." Not really. I think guys and girls can be friends, but when at least one of them wants to see the other naked, I don't see it ending well. But I don't really see my adventures in internet dating ending well, either.

Burned out...

I feel kind of crappy. I'm tired, I'm sore, I just don't feel quite right. I have trouble getting out of bed in the morning. My face feels warm and I sweat at random times. My right arm and shoulder - my mousing arm - are sore. My head is stuffy.

I suspect it's more physical than mental. I don't think it's depression - I tend to be my happiest when I'm my busiest, and I'm really busy now. When I have lots of stuff to do, I don't have time to think about where I want to be in life or where I am, just about getting done what I need to get done. Two of the biggest things in my life - work and dating - have green shoots, although both also have the possibility of turning into a flaming mess.

And I've been busy. Last weekend I worked both days, for move-in weekend at work. The week before I worked one weekend, one late night during the week, and spent the other weekend day running errands and doing chores around the house because I knew I wouldn't be around to do them. This coming weekend I'm driving up to NJ to visit the parents. So I haven't had a chance to catch up on sleep or to relax. So I'm wondering if part of my problem is just lack of sleep. I've also been doing more work at work - when things are quiet I tend to be at my desk, but of late I've been having to run around doing a lot more stuff.

I'm hoping that I'm not sick - that it's not swine flu or something. I don't have time to be sick. This is the worst time of the year - we are super-busy just with the normal start-of-school crap, and I've got a bunch of projects I need to get underway as well.

Things don't show any sign of slowing down outside of work, either. I've been forcing myself to continue to go to the gym and do my normal 90 minute workout, which is good for my waistline but maybe not so good if I really have a cold or the flu or something. I've been talking on the phone with a woman I met online - don't know if it's going to go anywhere, but I need to make time for that so it has at least some chance. As I said before, I'm going to Jersey this weekend - I hope I feel better, and I hope it's not something I can pass on to the parents, who have enough health problems as it is. Going home isn't quite as relaxing as it used to be, either - I spend most of the time helping out the parents around the house and running errands. That's fine - they need the help, and it's the least I can do after all they've done for me - but it means that "vacation" really isn't a vacation.

I've actually felt so bad of late that I turned down overtime twice this week - which makes me hate myself for being so weak, when I could use the money - but I also don't know when I would do it. I've been getting to bed early, sometimes before midnight, yet I still feel tired in the morning. I'm up to 5 cans of Diet Mountain Dew a day, plus two or three cups of coffee.

So I'm hoping I feel better soon, but I'm not counting on it.