Sometimes the stories I tell the most are the ones I’m still trying to figure something out about. There are holes to be filled that perhaps will find their mates upon being vocalized. I spent a recent evening with a friend at a local bar, hiding outdoors from some kind of event inside. The waitress has decided I’m a regular and offers me a jack + coke with a bowl of veggie chili every time, which I mostly recant to back up that she was comfortable enough with us to ask us to come inside when we wanted to close out because it was to cold outside and that we would because “we loved her.” When we did, she told my friend, “You know what I love about this guy? Every time he comes in here he is with a different girl; he’ll be here with one girl in the morning and one girl in the afternoon.”

I didn’t catch most of the story at the time, my friend had to tell me what she said before I put it together. I wouldn’t have put that together on my own. While she certainly exaggerates, the perspective is there. I’m not that guy, I’m a geeky awkward kid sarcastically wandering around doing things because it’s much more interesting to do than to talk. But there are, apparently, differences between my own identity and how others look at me.

Telling someone that I’m not interested in hooking up with them feels counter to how our culture seems to imply I should be. Of course, that’s a ‘should’ and therefore is a ‘black box’ of implication without grounding, without base. I too often feel that I’m trying to have conversations with people that they’ve never had with anyone before, and it too often leaves me feeling lonely in a way that makes me feel like I don’t fit with anyone.

You can’t articulate how you feel and what you want without getting angry? Wait, how old are you again? Yes, I know it’s hard. Life is hard. Grow up already.

I ran into a friend I hadn’t seen for years, who I met through SWN, recently and had brunch with him. SWN was the first realization for me in Seattle that I was more, and capable of more, than I gave myself credit for. Perhaps it was equal parts coming from the edge of nowhere and coming out of a long-term relationship where my partner didn’t think I was awesome. We talked of wireless, the security scene, the world, traveling, vegetarianism as entitlement.

I have no discomfort with who I am, nor who I’ve become. I feel that I’ve solidly reached a point where I’m wanting to do more and searching for that now. Often I walk, feeling a tinge of age, of wisdom of who I am, and marvel at how far I’ve come. I still blush, it’s not me they’re talking about, is it?

Everyone searching… doing well is not doing good, but running away doesn’t change anything. Oh…