as i start this post, i find myself a bit conflicted. on the one hand, it’s been suggested/requested by a good friend of mine that i write a couple of posts on particular topics. on the other hand, the topics in question are not only particularly personal, but they will be virtually impossible to write without a nearly direct reference to people i know, friends who might read the post and be compelled to respond. the posts would, by just about every definition, be about those friends.

what’s more, it’s been pointed out to me recently that my somewhat regular posts about my abysmal love live can be a bit of a “turn-off.” to some extent, i get that. i understand girls like someone who is self-confident and while i’m far more self-confident than i was just a handful of years ago, i still have a long way to go. if i follow my friend’s suggestion and write on one of these particular topics, i’ll be perpetuating my track record of longing-for-love-type posts and in both instances, i’d be breaking one of my general rules about explicitly referring to people in my life. what to do?

april 29, 2010. it was the last day of the 2010 legislative session and the last day i worked to collect a paycheck for over a year. in fact, it would be 565 days, or one year, six months, and 17 days until i was once again a fully employed person, but we’ll come back to that in a bit….

like so many others, i’m sure, when i graduated college, i never imagined that i’d someday be a statistic collecting unemployment benefits, but there i was 565 days without a job, without a retirement plan or legitimate health insurance. while it has, at times, been frustrating, i can’t say i minded it all that much. i was able to really commit to the thing i’m most passionate about: politics. i can’t say i spent 40 hours every week of that 565 days doing political stuff, but i spent a lot of the vast majority of time doing just that and i loved it.

since january 2009, my life has been in some regular degree of transition. on january 1st of that year, asb-bishop insurance agency was officially purchased by monarch insurance services. as a result of that purchase, many people i had worked with for years, people who had worked at bishop insurance their whole lives, lost their jobs, including my immediate superviser and the agency manger. even with the huge bonus from the bank, it was a tough pill to swallow and it wasn’t too long before i started actively looking for employment elsewhere.

looking back now, i see clearly that the outcome the next two years can be traced back to that day and that bonus check.

over drinks a few days back, a friend of mine commented that this blog is depressing. a reference to “wrist-slitting” drove home his point to me. of course, i’m aware of what i choose to post here and wasn’t really surprised by his comments, though i have to say it was the first time anyone had said as much to me directly. so, as i tend to do, i’ve been ruminating on his statements since then.

this blog, which i created years ago as an online diary, of sorts, has always been an outlet for me to pour out all my thoughts and feelings. for the most part, that’s always meant melancholy and depressing posts. since middle school, when i started keeping a journal, the dark and sad feelings and thoughts are almost all i’ve ever bothered to write down and i guess over time it’s turned into a bad habit of sorts. when things are good and my mood is up beat, i’m less inclined to write, if only because i’m busy doing more productive things with my time. only when my mood turns south do i find it hard to concentrate on other things and am therefore more likely to write here.

he made another point, which was a bit more hard-hitting and i think is ultimately why i’m writing here this evening; so many posts are about this girl or that and he commented that i was never going to meet someone if i always seem depressed and unconfident. while i can’t deny the truth in his observation, i have to say it’s a bit more complicated than that.

for one thing, there are, as far as i’ve been able to tell, only a handful of people i actually know who frequent this site. put another way, i don’t think there are many, if any at all, women who might be interested in me prior to wandering upon this site only to find that i’m a sad and disturbed individual. while i see his point, i find it hard to believe that the contents of this blog have contributed to my perpetual bachelorhood. though maybe his point was that it doesn’t help, which could be hard for me to deny.

then, of course, there is the reality; i’m shy by nature and though a few years of therapy helped a great deal, i still struggle with a wavering self-confidence. for better or worse, this blog reflects that reality. i can say that i am leaps and bounds better than i was, but still have issues than may, or may not, always be with me. and for reasons i’m not keen to get into here, i’ve never been one to put up a front for the sake of dating; what you see is what you get, for better or for worse. maybe that mentality has been a major contributing factor and can explain why i’ve never been particularly interested in, or good at, playing the dating game. who knows? maybe that’s all bullshit and it’s all a cop-out….

really, while i wanted to address my friend’s comments, i hadn’t intended to get into a long essay of self-reflection. what i really wanted to say was this; on some level, my friend has a point. maybe about girl stuff, but more directly about the depressing tone of this blog. if i want more people to read it, it needs to be less depressing. so, while i won’t promise you won’t see as many depressing posts, i will made a good faith effort at trying to write more often, on a wider array of topics, thus balancing out the tone of regardingfrost to more closely reflect the balanced mood of my day-to-day life.