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Comments
The first two weeks of work mostly went well, except for yesterday when I finished a project in time but then was too shy to go and tell my boss that I was done and that we could talk about it. I kind of expected him to come to me (a very Japanese way of thinking, I didn't want to "disturb" him...). In the evening I realized that he was possibly waiting for the results but didn't ask because he didn't want to put the newbie under pressure, and that he might think I wasn't done yet...
So I went back to work to send him the results, but the building was already locked up. So I went back home and reconstructed my report from memory and sent it to him, explaining why I hadn't done so earlier.
I'm not sure what kind of impression that gives him, but the main thing for me is that I dealt with the situation in some way instead of just avoiding it and having it in the back of my mind for days. So I'm happy about that.
I gained a surprising amount of weight in the first week of work, so I'm paying more attention to what I eat in my lunch break now. It went back down a bit in the second week.
We're kind of expected to keep working at home after hours (without additional pay), which, excepting the self-inflicted situation yesterday, I haven't done so far. I really don't want to start doing that if it's at all avoidable, especially since I'm already exhausted when I come home, and barely able to keep up my workout routine during the week.
That said, I really like the kind of work that I'm doing, and my colleagues are nice.
I went to a Christmas party last week, was surrounded by three guys all night and got asked for my number by a fourth. A fifth guy drove me home and then asked for my number earlier this week. One of those guys - probably one of the first three who got my number from somebody else - asked me out yesterday evening for a date today, but to be honest, I wasn't sure which of them he was since he didn't sign his name at the end of the message, and by the time I realized that, I had already replied, thinking at first that he was guy 5, so it would have been really awkward to ask. Plus I already had plans anyway, so I canceled and suggested we meet some other time. Guy four also asked for a lunch date, but I only saw the message when it was already too late.
MAP monkeys for next week:
- shock myself while eating sweets or ice cream once a day every day to get rid of the sugar habit (I have a Pavlok now... it's brutal).
- Get done with my more urgent work in time and leave the office on time every day.
-Keep going to CF during the week.
Money/material stuff: Work is still good. I get new sorts of tasks/responsibilites regularly, which is great. Everyone is happy with the quality of my work and my speed. I may still be a bit too quiet, especially around the boss, so I have to work on that a bit.
ETA: I need to either clean more or throw more stuff away. One of the two.
Health: Despite the new job, I still exercise five times a week (3xCF, 1x swimming, 1x running). I also eat like a horse. I usually have a salad for lunch, then eat whatever I can get my hands on in the evening. A lot of the time I have two dinners, a small one right after work on my way to the Crossfit class, and another one afterwards. My clothes haven't gotten any tighter, so I assume I'm burning about as much as I eat and don't worry about it too much. I do want to get more veggies into the mix, but it's not really a top priority right now. I also have a lot of races and other competitions planned for this year (CF Open, a handful of half marathons, trail runs).
Social life and dating: I see my friends a lot - I do part of the exercise stuff with them, and usually see my non-sporty friends on weekends - but there's absolutely no dating going on. Almost everybody I know is in a relationship, so going out to flirt-friendly venues is difficult, although I try to initiate evenings out. I'm talking to a bunch of guys online, but it's not really going anywhere.
On a mental level, I'm almost always in one of two mental states - focused on some kind of work (either at my job or working out) and content, or non-working and kind of empty. It's probably why I work out so much; it keeps the empty feeling away.
Somebody else already mentioned the Cologne attacks here somewhere, and those occupied my mind a lot, too. Both the event itself and the reactions that people had to it depressed me a lot. A few people I know from CF started "liking" extremely racist stuff on Facebook. A guy who works in law enforcement broke the law by posting a video of the attacks. A future lawyer posted a neonazi slogan. A guy that I used to have the hots for until NYE turned from multi-lingual, cross-cultural ambassador to refugee-hating ass overnight. None of these people were known for their feminism before this happened.
At the same time, a big part of the few people who don't think that all refugees are now automatically evil just deny that we have a problem and that it was a huge mistake to let people in without any form of ID. Most refugees here got to us over the Austrian border, which means they were already in a safe place before they arrived and there was no reason to hurry. There seems to be barely any middle ground in the whole discussion.
Plus it all keeps reminding me of all of the times I've been sexually harrassed or worse, and even if I did ever meet single guys in my daily life, thinking about that all the time makes me a lot less likely to react positively.
So, the tl;dr version is: I'm busy, healthy and successful but in a suboptimal mental state and have almost no time or opportunity to meet guys. Also, a lot of Germans seem to not have paid attention in History class. Plus our police is underfunded.
I've been thinking about posting an update for months, but never did because I was scared of jinxing the luck that I've had. But so many people on here have been so supportive on here for years, I'd feel weird just letting the thread disappear without telling all of you how well things have been and expressing my gratitude to this place.
Soooo...
Back in February, this American guy wrote me a message on OkCupid. His profile was hilarious, and I liked his pictures, so I went out with him once, just to see, even though I had a second or third date planned with another nice and intelligent German guy at the time, and didn't really have the time or energy to see two guys.
He was awesome.
I canceled the next date I had scheduled with the German guy, and kept meeting with the American guy (E). He has met my best friends and my mother, and I have said hello to his parents over FaceTime and met his friends (and their families) in person when I visited him.
He's the kind of man you'd bake for yourself if you could - strong, silent, manly, sinewy, rock-hard muscles, has survival and fighting skills but is peaceful and calm (unless somebody attacks me), likes children (although he doesn't want any anytime soon) and animals, used to put rapists in prison for a living, and is well-traveled. You could discuss literature with him, or foreign policy, or ask him to build a house or hunt deer - none of it would be a problem. We have very different opinions on politics, but can agree on enough to make it interesting rather than a deal-breaker, and our opinions on how to live life and how to have a relationship - the stuff that really matters - are largely the same.
He had to go back to the U.S. in July, but we're still together, I've visited him there already and we're now planning our next trip. We write each other pretty much every day and talk over FaceTime on the weekends. I think the long-distance situation is even harder for him than it is for me, and I'm sometimes scared that he might give up because we haven't figured out yet how to solve that problem in the long run, but for now, we're good, and regardless of what happens in the future, I'm very happy that we found each other.
I also finished my traineeship and got a job (with a significantly improved, although still not great salary) at the same company, in an all-girls department with a great atmosphere, wonderful colleagues, a bigger office and less hours, and I work out five times a week and got an award from my Crossfit gym for being a great member, finished a marathon, and improved my run times. I'm very happy about all of that, but meeting E. is really the event that I'm most thankful for this year.
The advice that I have gotten here - from Athol's articles and posts, of course, but also from all of the members who commented here or discussed similar situations on their own threads - has had a tremendous impact on me, and I'm pretty sure that I wouldn't even have met E if it hadn't been for MMSL. Even if fate had somehow made us cross paths, I might not have had the courage to continue seeing him after the first date with all of the obstacles that got in our way (political differences, knowing that distance would be an issue in the future, my abandonment issues...). But I did meet him, and I did have the courage to continue, and now I have this great guy that I'm really looking forward to being able to hug and kiss again as soon as possible. So, thank you all.
This guy sounds incredible, and I had some serious belly laugh attack when you mentioned "political differences". You bet. LMAO!
You rock!
@shibari, where did your posts go, did you erase all of them already?