(1pm) Time for a typing break.
(3pm) Nice workout. (I have lost 15 pounds in the last month. (Tis amazing what cutting back on beer does for the waistline.))
Sex is one of the few social skills I have developed, and I think I need to find a way to put that into use more often.
I don't think the answer to the problem with my feelings for Erica is to try to kill that love. (Tis the basis of very special and wonderful friendship, and I don't think anything constructive would come from destroying it. (What I do have to do is put in a better frame, so that I am no longer using it as an excuse for not moving on to relationships with other women, that could be more!))
One advantage to working on "Outlaws and Poets" is seeing how much better I am now than then! (I am seldom depressed now and never to the depths I sometimes reached then, and I am far happier!) (That I am happier alone now, than I was then with people around, makes me feel more confident that time alone is the phase I need to be working on now.)
Erica still comments to me about how negatively I am perceived by others when I am in social situations, because I just sit there alone until someone talks to me. (I am very much aware of that, and that is a lot of why I keep feeling I need to stay alone until I like myself enough and have the self confidence it's going to take to get out and learn to interact with others in positive ways! (Until then, doesn't it just turn people off and make it harder to create a positive image once I do work it out?) (That is another way that I figure all the other guys are better. (At least they like themselves enough to feel they deserve the joys of being with women, and are assertive enough to go out and get laid.)))
I used to go to the bars broke, so I don't think that is really the reason I don't go now. (That is my conscious thought, but I think there is something else that is the real root. (It all comes back to liking myself enough to give myself the right to enjoy living again.))
(11pm) Quiet nite. (Nice.)
5-5-87
(7am) I thought one major advantage of not being lovers with my women friends was that, if and when I do find a girlfriend, she might deal better with them all remaining in my life; but, from the things Sharon has said, she might not believe me anyway. (I know I have had to give up several women friends because their beaus didn't believe we hadn't been lovers.) (Anyway, I think that is an attitude I need to scrap. (If I continue not f'ing friends, I either have to stick to f'ing strangers and not build friendships with women, or go back to celibacy. (Neither of those options thrills me.)))
One way that the past was different from how things are now is that while I used to be quiet and mostly sad in social settings, now I am quiet and mostly happy. (Tis a step in the right direction.)
I suppose that one way to get past my worries about hurting women would be to stop caring about my lovers; but that is so much a part of who I am, I don't know that I could or should consider it.