(12-25-2021, 01:15 AM)Benjamin Wrote: Got to a point last night where I was initially not totally sure if it was another night on or a night off. Just before getting into bed I realized my head hurt at the thought of listening so having a night off felt right.

That was after like 8 nights on, 1 night off, then 3 on.. 2 of those was 10 loops, then 8 loops.

Tonight the strong feeling is "nope another night off, just can't do it".

I don't know if it's a christmas day issue, partly using so many loops or something physical coming up or a combination of all of those. But late afternoon I started getting very tired, more than in ages.

Generally I would goto family for christmas, not really enjoy it and really start to feel drained and like crap and regret going.

This time I went to friends, I was happy to spend it with people I chose to instead of feeling obligated. I was already a bit tired this morning, but when I got there started off good but as the day went on started to feel really tired and like crap, and really quiet. The quietest i've been in a long time in a group, plus feeling the most depressed I have in a long time.

Partly some kind of 'christmas day' issue as for some reason I feel depressed on this day. But also the other part is a girl who is now part of the group when she first come in flirted with her alot, was very sure she liked me, all the signals and flirting.. and tried twice and she just wouldn't meet up or anything. Then I kind of got an impression she was attention whoring with every guy and I decided to just ignore her.

I did that for a while, then what was weird one night forgiveness come up which happens on OF sometimes and I go through people like "I forgive.. (whoever).." and it come up for her reflexively. Then the next day seen them and just reflexively said hi to her, and she talked to me a bit. I didn't bother with hugging her as I do most female friends anymore, but then at a christmas party at the end she come and hugged me which was strange.

Today more flirting and I was thinking I wanted to go for it again.. but then I started to shut down after which is a familiar thing in the past. Everyone was then sitting outside and I was sitting there getting pissed off and feeling down at how quiet and shit I felt and how I was struggling to engage.. and pissed off at myself that I couldn't even sum up the energy to try to continue things with her.

At the point I got annoyed and decided to ignore her I had basically stopped caring, but I think what brought it on is my female friend who i'm fairly close to but not attracted to messaged me saying "Omg she's hot, and i'm not even a lesbian, good job giving it a crack" and keeps saying stuff about her like that which doesn't help.

And weirdly after I seemed to 'forgive' her and talk to her again the attraction for her is coming back, and alot of frustration. This leads me to the thought that forgiveness is overrated in a context like this, that it's actually better to just totally disregard them, and ignore them because of their bullshit behaviour.. and forgiving her has seemed to put me in a place of weakness and frustration again, instead of really feeling like I don't even want to bother with her and because of that my interest in her and neediness wasn't there, until the forgiveness come up.

This is difficult seeing she's basically just come into our friendship group. Obviously i'm not going to hang out with her outside of that like I would some others, cos i'd just get pissed i'm attracted to her.. but can't avoid seeing her at gatherings now. I was hoping she wouldn't become part of the group as it just makes me frustrated.

She even seemed responsive to the flirting earlier before I went down a bit of a feeling down hole.

I've never really dealt with this before, in the past it would really be like 'it doesn't work out with a girl, so then just don't talk to her or hang out with her cos I don't hang out with girls as friends who i'm attracted to'.

But now that my friendship group is bigger than in years, probably more than it ever has been.. this issue comes up.

Weird that even though the first christmas i've really spent with people I choose and enjoy being around, instead of feeling obligated to go see family.. the exact same pattern of feeling really depressed by the end of the day comes up.

(12-28-2021, 08:18 PM)Benjamin Wrote: Took 4 nights off, and then last night after doing 10 and 8 loops for a while...

Back to 1 loop. Yes seems strange but this is what my urge told me. Weirdly I may have never done 1 loop, as I don't even have a playlist for 1 loop on my mp3 player. The nearest was a 3 loop playlist, but that felt like too much.

Feels like barely anything but i'm going with it as so far i've trusted the urges I get to change listening.

The last few days I felt that maybe something was shifting around being able to talk to girls again, and yesterday I was that close to it.. but then last night in bed this annoying sabotage I have come and ruined that.

I had an idea a while ago that I decided to do today, funnily enough I almost didn't because of fear. I decided it might be good to set the intent for OF to work on these fears around girls while actually out around them. I ended up going to the beach for an hour while listening to ocean surf on headphones.

Can't say I noticed heaps, but a few times I did notice some pressure/butterfly type feeling in my chest when I was looking at some girls.. I then was imagining talking to them hoping it would bring stuff up to work on.

Don't have much to report from it. But I can say that the last 2 times I went to the beach I got massively frustrated at not being able to talk to them and went on a porn binge after that, today it didn't trigger that.. so maybe listening to OF did help settle it a bit.

I don't know what it is, but really at this point i'm struggilng to keep doing OF, it's getting really boring to me, feels like not much is happening anymore. About 3 weeks until the 6 month mark. Sure it's done some things that i've written here, but can't say i'm fully satisfied with the run.

Also struggling not to do DMSI because of the frustration coming up around girls. But holding off that.

My plan has always been UMS v2 next, but Testosterone Optimizer almost takes it's place at the top of my list as something I really want to do as it would have multiple benefits.