i am not talking about performance anxiety i think

it is something else

i might feel

• being close to someone = danger = EJECT EJECT EJECT
• someone i like shows she likes me = danger = PUSH PUSH PUSH her away
• i am needy therefore i will be exploited
• those who love get screwed. so i must not get close to anyone i love
• i have no support network therefore i will be badly hurt when this ends, and almost everything ends
• she does x or y, so she is not good enough, so i won’t get close to her

what i mean by stress:

1. i met someone. we talked for 5 hours on the day i met her. she made me forget which country i was in when we went out to a cafe. we returned to our hostel at 23. got into our separate beds. but i went downstairs to the balcony. there was nothing there other than some wild trees. it was cold and deserted but i stayed there for 30 mins. which was weird. when i was leaving back to my bed, receptionist started a bit of a small talk. she tried to understand what i was doing. i randomly said something like “balcony was calming”… the word i used was calming. so apparently this girl, specifically the connection i felt with her, made me so stressed that i needed to cool down. i don’t remember needing to cool down like that, ever. next morning another girl in our room assumed we hooked up. but i didn’t touch her. i didn’t say anything to clarify her interest in me. she ordered love potion in the cafe we went. she wanted to talk about our love lives but i pretend to not hear what she said.

2. another girl. she was the hottest or second hottest girl in the social dance class. she was more engaged in conversation with me than others (asked me good smart questions). she was smiling more than others. she was making more eye contact than others. we were laughing and having a good time. so i thought we had a connection at the time. she gave me a semi which i wasn’t expecting. i broke eye contact to make that disappear. that’s how this started. then i was a bit formal next time i was with her and she understood. anyway, after a while, she acted in a way that was very welcoming. this was because they showed a closer move in class which made me stressed. mostly because of that stress, i didn’t understand the move. so i told her i didn’t understand the move. and that’s when she acted like that. its hard to describe. most people are nice, and a few were really nice too in this class, but she was different. she was nice in a more authentic or meaningful or real way. anyway, i got home. i sat down. i stared at nothing for 1-1.5 hour. there was no idea in my mind. there was no emotions i can recognize. maybe i felt like “this attractive woman wants me” and that made me stressed. i am not sure. because of this stress, i broke my diet for the first time in 4 months. i ate junk food to comfort myself. then i took a break for a week.

3. my experience with her led to a discovery in therapy. i realized maybe i am not afraid of rejection, i am afraid of acceptance. i realized i avoid intimacy really hard e.g i realized i made myself believe in false things e.g i am unattractive to avoid intimacy. well this realization led to a lot of connections. in next class, 3 women were physically flirting with me for the first time. i started getting random compliments that have nothing to do with my skills. someone indirectly invited me to hooking up. i was getting very close to a woman who maybe loved me. about 10 women in a week made me feel i am very attractive. meanwhile, my energy increased. but i started being unable to sleep anymore. i suppose due to stress.

4. i took a break from people for 5 weeks. i was very happy to leave due to the stress…

for 4 weeks i was so sleep deprived, eventually i lost consciousness in gym after a deadlift (it was not that heavy). so connections with women made me so stressed that my body kinda broke.

that incident made me use sleeping pills to sleep. apparently they have sedative effects. those effects removed most of that energy and i got my sleep back.

in my break i tried to process my experiences and accept my new self. it took 2 weeks for me to talk to someone about my experiences online anonymously. idk why it was difficult. i am used to talking about anything and i am used to realities of life that are very hurtful.

5. after my break, i returned to the place with the girl i was getting close to. i had to because i had to stop avoiding intimacy. i did my best. she made me so stressed that my face twitched while i was touching her. before going there, i broke a bottle in supermarket for the first time in my life because i was stressed. i went to the supermarket to get junk food to comfort myself because of her. she acted like she loved me way more or authentically than others, so she made me way more nervous than others

6. another girl’s body was touching mine more than others for no reason. she was talking to me too much while almost everyone else was dancing. i felt she’s into me. i sweated a lot. when i got home, i ran. idk why exactly. i couldn’t sleep for 2hrs.

btw i don’t get stressed if someone shows she is into me while i’m not into her. i wasn’t into that girl who indirectly invited me to hooking up. i used the word unfortunately during some innocent sentence and gave her a hug. if i liked her, i probably wouldn’t have given her a hug. this was the first time i initiated a hug towards a girl out of my free will lol.

7. i talked about all my experiences with a girl… only because she was closed to me and everyone, maybe due to her trauma. if i thought if she was open to me, i wouldn’t have talked (because when i talk, it makes women into me). after a while, i met her again for real touch practice. by real, i mean with emotions. i tried to unsuppress or feel emotions while touching someone

8. then i practiced sex with an escort whose ex is an avoidant. there was no connection. using dance songs felt wrong with her like insult to memories of others but i think it might have been useful to practice. then i was gonna see if anything is different with me after two types of practice, but i got sick… and that was two months ago. i used my sickness as an excuse to avoid intimacy by isolating myself. i have been eating like an absolute pig to make myself fat and unattractive. btw it was calming to not dance with women and not listen to dance music (they make me feel memories)… even tho i miss it sometimes.

so intimacy (emotional and physical combo) stresses the fuck out of me apparently