Tomorrow is the last Noir, an event run by friends of mine. An event I’ve helped out with for a year or more at this point. It’ll be music and people, in a concrete bunker. Some aspects of it I’m sure I’ll enjoy, like spending time with friends and the music. On the other hand, it’ll be loud, and I’ll likely have the same feeling of not fitting in that I’ve had for ages now.

Sure, I have a solid understanding of bdsm, kink, fetish, etc, but beyond mentoring, I haven’t engaged in any of it in ages. I have attended things, but not engaged in them. I’ve literally moved furniture more often than I’ve used it.

That’s my contribution to the community, a community that I’m only vestigially a part of at this point.

I’m sure there are reasons that I’ve failed to connect with anyone in recent years, not the least of which being my growing insecurity with toxic masculinity, something that causes me great discomfort and leads to me double thinking my flirting, to the point where it often doesn’t happen.

I have internalized that the majority of people I meet will not be interested in me, for various reasons. Some of those reasons are perhaps a tad shallow, while others are written deeper into the soul; the validity of the reasons are not mine to question. I can merely accept them and avoid making people uncomfortable, by treating them as people, regardless of any possible interest in them, since the odds are good it won’t be mutual.

None of this is really new material. I’ve said it all before. I’m cranky because my skill set goes to waste, because of all the various factors. A few appreciate my skills, mostly from a far. I’m cranky because I see individuals who are less qualified in a variety of ways leveraging other traits into chances that they appear to fail to appreciate. Or more significantly, that they fail to respect.

Alas, sour grapes and further alienation. Further disconnected from a community that I have consistently attempted to be a part of.