Perpetual Awkwardness.

I'm just going to start by giving myself a warm welcome back. It's been a month. It's been too long. 

I'm actually upset right now because I made a mistake at work. I am cringe-ing just finding the words to explain what I did. I'll just type it hastily. Essentially, there were some web development tasks split between me and my co-worker and I overstepped and did his tasks. I thought I was being helpful and yes, I was really interested in what we were doing so I got a little too excited. He came to my cubicle later and told me to be careful in doing things like that because it can be taken the wrong way. 

I really appreciate that he told me but I'm so mad at myself for not thinking in the first place. And now I just feel this perpetual awkwardness as I keep thinking about it. What a mess, I am. 

It doesn't help that I have other mess on my mind. On Sunday, I went to the movies with a guy from church. He's an older guy. Very close to my dad's age (he has to be approaching 60) even though I'd say he looks closer to his late 40s. We had been getting pretty close. I actually really liked this guy because he made me feel comfortable at church. He is one of those outgoing people that always has something to say. And he would invite me out to places with other people from church. So I associate this guy with good times.

On Sunday afternoon, he invited me to watch "First Man". I had slept all day. I was supposed to watch "Venom" with Zack and his girlfriend in the morning but I just wasn't feeling it. But after wasting my entire day, I was down to go somewhere. I thought we would be watching the movie with his daughter who is 20 years old. If not, a group of people. But nope, he showed up to the house all by himself. I felt a little uneasy but I figured it would be fine. It was just the movies after all. Everything had been fine. The ride there, getting our tickets (he paid), and sitting and waiting for the previews to end were all fine. It was only until about ten minutes into the movie, after Ryan Gosling scary ass rocket plane ride, that shit got weird. 

The guy got scared (as did I) from the scene and grabbed my hand, saying he didn't know what he would do if I wasn't there. Then, he started caressing my fingers in his palms. But I felt ill. I kept my hand limp until he finally let go halfway through the movie. 

After the movie, he dropped me home and hugged me for a little too long. But he's done that before, saying how much he cherishes me. I didn't think too much of it before but that night, it felt icky hearing that. 

I still can't really comprehend what happened but every time I think about it, I feel uncomfortable. It's weird because it was just hand holding. But I know it wasn't just hand holding. I feel gross right now thinking that this guy was really trying to pull something on me. His daughter is only two years younger than me. He goes to church. He has met my parents. He has to know that what he did was so wrong. Yet, I won't tell anyone because I don't want to cause trouble. 

I ranted to my friends about it after the ordeal. I kind of regretted it once they responded. In that moment, I was just tired as hell and didn't want to confront the night. The worst was over. I wasn't sitting in a dark, empty movie theater with a strange, old man caressing my hand. I was safe in the house by myself. But now, the events are catching up to me and I feel bad. Honestly, I'm only thinking about it because I'm pouring it all out right now. Otherwise, I would have blocked it out for the rest of the week until I have to see the guy's face again on Saturday morning. 

I was thinking today how I've only been hit on by older men since being in FL. There was talkative, former fitness show competitor at Planet Fitness who asked about my non-existent boyfriend. There was this 80-year-old-ish man at the bar that insisted on buying me a drink. Another old man at church said that he liked seeing me at church because I looked good. These are just concrete instances. I can make assumptions with some other older men. But other than a makeout session with a guy from Happy Hour and another guy that my friends say may have a thing for me, I haven't felt like I had any hits with men of my own age range. Oh, how I wonder...

So to circle back to "First Man", I have to say that I didn't like the movie that much either. The first scene was great. If the director's intention was to induce anxiety and conjure up my deathly fears of heights and flying all at once, he did a great job. I was terrified. I thought I was in for a good one. But instead, I felt like I was watching a movie I had already watched before. Not to mention that it was so slow. I despised every space flight scene because it would just be clips of nothing strewn together. There would be endless seconds of footage of the windows (in the perspective of Neil). There was nothing outside of these windows except darkness and the reflection of the machinery inside the rocket. Imagine your friend sending you a 30-second snapchat video of their view outside of a window during a plane ride. It's dark outside so all you can see is your dumb ass friend's reflection in the window. Any person would probably just tap out of that video after about 5 seconds. But there are no forward buttons or tap out options in the movie theater. 

It wasn't a bad movie. It certainly left me with some questions. At one point, they addressed the political/ethical issue of putting money towards space travel rather than fixing problems in the society. The guy (I'm just going to refer to him as that) did say that there has been and always has been poverty and no matter how much money you throw at it, it'll never go away. I agreed. Poverty will never go away. But that's because we would never use all our money to fix the problem. 

Although I am glad that NASA was able to accomplish such an amazing thing, I don't think I would have thought the same way back in the 1960s. Too many men died for this mission to get man on the moon. And for what? Just to say we did it? There are people dying for being the wrong race, the Russians are threatening to nuke us, and we just want to press our little human feet into the moon dust just to say we did it first?

But speaking as a woman of the future, I am so happy we were able to do it. I think it is absolutely astonishing. When I was a kid and first learned about astronauts, space travel was the ordinary. I never thought about the bravery and intelligence that went into all of that being possible because it had already been done. Now that I'm older, it is almost unfathomable that there were human beings just like me, not much older than me, that had this amazing vision and made it come to fruition. And not only that, they were willing to risk their lives for it too. Why? How can people be so brave?

I'm going through that weird period of the month where everyone is a little more attractive than normal. That nerdy guy with the bowl cut hair and the high watered pants? He may be kinda ugly but his voice is kinda hot and I'd probably make out with him once if I was drunk enough. The short, oddly, assertive guy at work looks kinda cute when he cocks his head at a 90 degree angle away from me. Those type of thoughts. Yet, I'm tempted to delete my Tinder again because I feel icky about myself. No matter who messages me (not that anyone is), I would be wasting their time since I won't respond. 

I've been trying to get my ass into the gym at least five times a week. It's been more like three. And I haven't lost any weight according to my last doctor's visit. My acne is flaring up because I'm trying out Curology. I can't tell if it'll work for me for another 6 weeks. But I've already suffered from 6 painful pimples in the span of a week awhen my face had been doing well with my old stuff. I want to improve but my body is telling me no.

Welp. Stay dickmatized. Good night.