More writing, depression, relationship thoughts

Lots of stuff to write about. I talked to one of my friends about relationships, and I’m still depressed, so let’s get that boring stuff out of the way. Then I’m going to churn out one or two quick short stories. I’m still not in the mood to continue the one from before — that one is a bit too optimistic and “fantasy”-ish for the way I’m feeling now.

So. My friend is a really short dude, kind of nerdy, and he can’t get a girlfriend. I’m a math nerd, and I can’t get a girlfriend. We have two friends, one of whom is even shorter than the first guy (and also nerdy), and the other who is even more socially awkward and intensely math-nerdy than I am. These seem to be the most obvious deterrents for our having relationships with girls. And these other two guys have girlfriends. We were sitting around trying to rationalize why they do and we don’t.

He thinks that they have girlfriends because they tried really hard to get girlfriends. We don’t because we don’t make enough effort for it. It seems plausible. But is this really how the world is? Because we don’t make enough effort to get a girlfriend, we don’t get to have that experience? Of course, if we never talked to girls or never asked girls out, then of course we would never have that kind of relationship. But it’s not like we don’t try at all. And it’s a bit saddening to think that whether you have a girlfriend isn’t actually mainly affected by your personal merit, but by how much effort you put into pursuing girls. In my youthful optimism, I still had some hope that all I had to do was meet a girl, and be a good person, and then she might like me and I might like her and things might happen. But no. Someone else, who may or may not be more intelligent, kind, whatever, is going to date this girl first, because he is going to “go after her” while I am just saying hi when we pass by and trying to act nice.
The obvious solution would of course be to spend more time hitting on girls. But there are some problems here:

(1) I don’t really know how to do this effectively.

(2) I don’t think it’s polite to do this when you don’t even know if the girl is available (which isn’t always easy to ascertain).

(3) I don’t like being rejected (and being an unattractive dude, this usually happens), which makes this sort of effort a generally unpleasant process.

(4) I am pretty focused on academics and stuff, and I don’t have that much time for messing around.

(5) I’ve become intensely pessimistic about myself in this respect. I just don’t think there’s anything attractive about me, unless the ability to solve math problems or understand algorithms is attractive. I feel rather unmotivated to put much effort into an endeavor which is doomed to failure.

I think my friend’s reasons are similar. (4) might be the biggest one for him. (5) is probably mine. Anyway, it sucks. I don’t think this is the cause of my recent depression — this kind of depression is chemical, not psychological — but it has certainly become a main focus of my negative emotions. I vaguely wonder if I should seek help. It’s not like I’m actually going to kill myself. It would take too much change from my current system of belief before I could justify that. But still:

- lately I’ve been thinking about suicide a lot, even though I know intellectually that I’m not going to let myself do it.

- i also thought about self-mutilation a bit. that’s easier for me to justify, too. like, why not give myself some horrible scars on my face? it’s kind of honest, then people will see my ruined face and they can know that i am a ruined person inside as well. And that’s not going to cause nearly as much emotional harm to my family and close friends as suicide would…

- i have been encountering a LOT of difficulty with doing anything lately. In the past 2-3 weeks, I’ve basically done almost nothing. I do as little as possible in order to get by. It’s horrible, because I should be doing well in my classes and research, and I should be exercising. I have plenty of free time. but instead of doing what I know I should, I just watch another movie, or lie on my bed doing nothing, or wank, or read webcomics. Too much more of this and it’ll have a pretty serious negative impact on my life.

So those are the signals of depression. (Well, all of this and the fact that there’s no direct cause. Nothing bad has happened to me lately. In fact, from the outside, my life probably looks to be at a relatively high point right now.) I don’t know. I’m just not motivated to do anything, though, and that includes going to talk to a doctor.

Well, I promised short stories, but I think actually I should probably post those separately, ’cause this post is kind of long already.