Well hello there. Here I am again. Rock you like hurricane. I’m currently battling my annual spring pollen attack which exhausts me and turns my eyes to slits for a month, so I’m trying not to be more ornery than normal. Truly. Results are mixed.
WTF is that photo above about? Read on.
1. I find myself posting less often. I’ve been posting here for over six years, and I occasionally go through phases like this. The reasons vary. Usually it’s time-driven. I get busy at work, or I’m more drawn to that other hobby of mine, photography. Lately, I’ve spent most of my free time processing my photos from Rio, which came out pretty well. I took more of them than I thought I would. But this isn’t the only reason for my slowdown, which started even before my trip. I only post when I feel like I have something to say, when I feel inspired by something, whether it’s a person, a trip, or an idea that gets stuck in my brain and won’t leave. I don’t post, or try not to post, just for the F of it. I have about 60 posts here at this point, which seems insane to me. I’ve said a lot already about certain topics and hate being redundant, so I try not to re-tread old ground unless my feelings have changed or evolved on something (which happens regularly), but I really hate repeating myself, so in some ways, there’s less to say about some of my favorite subjects.
Related to this, one way that Rio’s “slow down and be more present” lesson is operating for me is to slow down here too. Let the old posts sit. Let my last post sit for a month if I want. Two months. Even three. This blog isn’t a job, it’s for pleasure. I’m not on a schedule, I should relax and only post when I feel like it. Twice a month is not written in stone.
Also, there’s one thing that I originally intended for this blog that I haven’t done yet. One of my original goals when I started was to post my own short stories and short fiction here. Content that’s less about me and my life and more about creating. This is more fraught of course, because it takes a hell of lot more time to do this and not have it read like shit. I took a few fiction writing classes when I lived in NYC and no one’s short story became decent until draft three or four. But I do think it’s time for me to start writing some fiction, even if I’m only posting first or second drafts here. Even if it means I post less here about my life. Even if there are long gaps between posts. We’ll see how this plays out.
2. Rio really got under my skin. I’ve traveled a lot in my life, but not every place I’ve visited has stuck in my head the way Rio has. The places I visited last year–Prague, Vienna, and Budapest–were beautiful in their own way, but none of them were that culturally different from what I’m used to, and none of them had the natural beauty that Rio has. (None of them were as dangerous or made me as hypervigilant either.) Instagram and TikTok’s algorithms are still feeding me reels from Rio that make me pine for the place, and this ain’t helping my comedown any. The drone footage from high above the city in particular is breathtaking and romanticizes the place beyond reality. I really hope I’ll get back there one day.
3. Being in a relationship again is illuminating. I was going to say “disorienting,” but it’s not really disorienting–well, in a way it is because I’d been single for so long–but it’s been more illuminating than anything. More specifically, it’s been illuminating about me and those two and a half years I spent between relationships. For one thing, not dating for months because I have someone special in my life is spotlighting the insane amount of time I spent on dating, i.e., The Hunt, for so long. It’s crazy to look back on from my current vantage point. At the time, in the moment, when I’m hungry for connection and other things, The Hunt makes total sense because you’ve gotta be in it to win it. If you don’t hunt, you don’t eat. It’s how I found my current relationship in fact.
But holy fuck is it time consuming. Energy consuming. Now it makes me ask, what was The Hunt for, exactly? Why did I devote so much of myself and a disproportionate amount of my time to it, to online swipes and conversations and rosters and juggling and scheduling and trips into the city or suburban locales in the Tri-State Area for these usually one-off encounters, to the point that it was almost a second job? Why? How much of it was mindless habit, dopamine deprivation, or need?
Now I can see a few new things that I couldn’t see before. Apart from the obvious, things I already knew and have written about–trying to move past my last relationship, fulfillment of physical and emotional needs–I recently realized that I was also treating dating as my primary means of having a social life. It was my main social driver. I don’t have many friends where I live. Most of my good friends live far away in other states or countries. The one close friend I had living close by turned out to be a wackadoo sociopath, and our long friendship ended three years ago. They don’t tell you when you’re in school that it becomes harder to make friends as you get older and become an adult, especially for men. And let’s face it, I’m pretty picky with the people I choose to invest in and spend time on, and my introverted nature and hobbies further restrict my social motivation. So this is as much about my personal preferences and drives as anything else. I also get along better with women than men, and I’m mostly talking about male friendships here.
Looking back, The Hunt checked a lot of boxes, not just physical. Going out connected me with new people, and new women specifically. It got my solitary ass out of the house and gave me something to do on a weekend when I was alone and sometimes during the week. It gave me hope and possibility. It gave me novelty and relieved my boredom and stasis. It gave me something new to experience, whether it was a new person, a new restaurant, or a new town I hadn’t been to before. It gave me a social life and the freedom to do it only when I felt like it. Win win.
But damn, it was consuming, and it often felt like a waste of time because ultimately, the goal is to establish a deeper connection with one person and have a relationship, not just fill a social need. Or that’s supposed to be the goal. Now that I’m in one, albeit at a very long physical distance (though not an emotional one), I’m able to see more clearly the other things I was using dating for. Now I can ask myself why I was doing this so intensely instead of expending some of that time and effort in pursuit of friendships. If I’m being honest, I think it’s because I see the value in romantic prospecting but don’t see the value in establishing new friendships at this stage of my life. I see the latter as a waste of my time and not worth the investment. There just isn’t enough ROI in my experience. Some of this is on me, but some of it is on the shitty “friends” I chose who reinforced this belief. It’s also due to the fact that I invest a lot in my romantic relationships, and those people tend to become my best friends when I’m in one. Which is great when I’m in a relationship, but problematic when it ends.
Now that I’m not investing time in The Hunt, we’ll see if my views on making new friends evolves, and if there’s something inside of me that makes me motivated enough to invest in one or two of them. We’ll see which factors will drive this, whether it’s geographic proximity, personal interests, time, or something else.
4. What’s the frequency, Timoth? There’s an old R.E.M. song called What’s the Frequency Kenneth? from the Monster album, which came out in 1994, when I was in law school. One of my friends at the time also liked R.E.M., so instead of saying “Hey” or “What’s up?”, he’d come up to me and say “What’s the frequency, Timoth?” My name is Tim, you see. Heh.
Lately, I’ve been asking myself this question. What’s my frequency? Another byproduct of my relationship after so much dating is that I have a renewed curiosity about what draws me to certain people but not others. What is that special sauce that differentiates certain women from others for me? How do I account for the intensity of my interest and connection with some of them, but not others? What’s the cause?
Let’s get the obvious factors out of the way: physical attraction and unconscious pulls from childhood. I think I’m beyond both now, or at least I’m self aware enough to take myself outside of these factors and see how they may be working to influence how I feel about someone in the moment. (I think. I hope I’m doing this.) At this point, these factors aren’t enough to make me want to remain in someone’s orbit for very long. Being hot isn’t enough. Tugging on my unconscious Achilles heel by reminding me of my parents or triggering my childhood “trauma” (however minor) isn’t either. Neither of these is enough to yank me out of the bliss of solitude and the freedom of answering only to myself, which I have come to love and appreciate more than I care to admit. Deciding to invest in someone, to pursue them and make them a part of my life and future requires far more.
So what is it? Where does this “pull” come from?
Upon reflection, I think it comes from being on the same vibrational frequency as someone else. I think we become seriously attracted to certain people, a limited few, because they’re operating at the same frequency as we are. Of course, we can’t see this and we can’t hear it, but we can FEEL it. You know when it’s there. You just know. It’s like two tuning forks vibrating in synchronicity with each other to make a new sound. Sometimes it’s only temporary synchronicity, like at the beginning of the relationship, and this is what starts the song. Sometimes the vibration dies quickly. Sometimes it lasts longer and goes deeper because you evolve together and stay on the same frequency longer. I really felt this in my last relationship for a long time. I think it’s why I had such difficulty hearing the occasional discordant note while I was in it and then letting go of it at the end. I’d never felt that kind of synchronized vibration with anyone before, at least not in that way.
Since you can’t see an energy vibration or hear it with your senses–it’s this metaphysical electricity that can’t be perceived–it’s hard to quantify and react to in real time when it departs. At some point, you feel the energy between you change to another frequency as your connection becomes more and more faint. And then it’s gone. As if this doesn’t suck enough, sometimes the loss of another person’s energy field or vibration lowers yours for a while. A lower vibration is never a good thing because it’s regressive. It’s a sign you’re going backwards. Sometimes it takes a long time to raise your frequency again, but raise it we must if we want to grow and evolve and be ready to match the next person’s (the right person’s) frequency, which ideally will be progressive and elevate us to a new and better place, rather than the opposite.
I spent two and a half years chasing a ghost vibration, a dead frequency, that no one could possibly match. Either because mine was too low, and I wasn’t ready, or I didn’t encounter someone occupying the same frequency as me, or a combination of both. I wrote about this a lot when I was dating, how a person’s energy matters, and how I could feel someone’s positive or negative energy when I was in their presence. Now I feel this is even more significant a factor than I thought back then. Vibrational frequency is another form of romantic alignment. More important than I ever realized.
This is my current working theory on this. I don’t care how it sounds. I think human attraction, the deeper kind, works like this, we just can’t see it. I think energy vibration accounts for a lot more than we know and explains why it’s so hard to connect to other people. I think it explains how rare and special it is when you encounter someone who is vibrating at the same frequency as you are because you feel it inside you. It’s that feeling, that knowing, that similar vibration that makes me want to pursue some people but others. I feel like I found it again. But it’s still way early in this relationship, and we live very far apart from each other. There’s only so much one can tell in this moment. We need much more time together, especially in person.
But… I do feel that in-tune vibration between us, even at this distance. I especially felt when we were together last month. There’s something to be said for how we’ve managed to sustain this long distance connection for almost half a year, investing in each other, being open to each other, including our differences, and even planning for the future. For me, this is rare.
So Timoth is currently enjoying the frequency, even though he can’t tell you exactly what frequency it is.
5. Now for a few TV recommendations. I loves my television shows, so here are a few gems that I’ve been watching lately and highly recommend.
Widow’s Bay (Apple TV): darkly hilarious with just enough scary, and tailor-made for Stephen King fans like me. It features the great Matthew Rhys and Stephen Root, and lots of fun King easter eggs to hunt for if you’re familiar with his books. I love this show, and M. and I even watch it together after I screen it for jump scares.
Euphoria (Season 3 – HBO Max): this show is well-written and suspenseful and a guilty pleasure. Zendaya is a really good actress, and Sydney Sweeney is an American treasure. I’m also really enjoying watching pretty boy Jacob Elordi get his ass kicked this season.
The Pitt (HBO Max) – I was late to this and binged the whole thing in 3 weeks. I’m not big on hospital dramas, and this one is really intense with a bit too much gore for my taste, which can bring you down if you watch it late at night like I did. But it’s well-acted, and I really like Noah Wyle’s, Shawn Hatosy’s, and Patrick Ball’s characters.
Beef (Season 2- Netflix) – I LOVED this show. I loved last season’s too, and this one was different, but I really enjoyed it. I have a bit of a mancrush on Oscar Isaac, so I’ll watch him in anything, but this is just a well-done show, even though some episodes were better than others. It’s trippy and existential and shows you how small decisions can have big results. It has a lot to say about relationships, which is like crack to me if it’s done right, as this one was.
Half Man (HBO Max) – I somehow left this one out of my initial post. It’s phenomenal. It’s the story of two dysfunctional brothers, one of whom is a violent sociopath with whom you still somehow empathize, and the other of whom is a passive-aggressive, closeted gay man struggling with his sexuality. Incredible acting, unpredictable, frustrating at turns, and just really well done.
Apex (Netflix) – When I started seeing all these trending parody videos of people quoting lines from a movie and dancing to The Chemical Brothers song ‘Go’ on TikTok, I wondered what the hell was going on. Parodies like these:
Funny as fuck, but I had no context at all, so I’m like What the hell is ‘Apex’ and why are they cawwwing like that? I finally watched it, and it made these videos even more hilarious. The plot has been done 100 times, but it was entertaining, and Taron Egarton was phenomenal. In fact, I heard he came up with that trending Go dance himself. The guy needs a much higher profile. Go check it out.
6. Keeping with the art theme, Noah Kahan just released a second album, The Great Divide: The Last of the Bugs, and it’s better than I expected. Usually second albums from breakout artists are disappointments. Not so here. There’s a run of good songs with solid lyrics. My favorite is Doors, followed by Downfall and American Cars. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to take M. to see him when he comes to New York in July because….
7. Next stop, Buenos Aires. M. (the Brazilian M.) has a holiday from work in mid-July, so we’re going to meet in Buenos Aires and explore the city together for a week. It’s another city on my bucket list that I’ve wanted to visit for a long time, so I’m really looking forward to it. The last time I was there was 30 years ago when I had a connecting flight to Mar de Plata, where I have extended family, and I never left the airport. This time I’m going to get to see BA for reals. We’re also considering a day trip to Uruguay, which is nearby. It’ll be winter there, but that’s fine with me–I’m not a fan of the summer heat at all. The other M. in my life is annoyed that we’ll miss Noah Kahan, but he’ll be back.
8. Sort of wondering if I should have stormed the Capitol on January 6th so I could qualify for that $2 billion taxpayer-funded Trump Slush Fund. Right now, crime is paying big in this country, and I’m definitely playing for the wrong team.
9. After enjoying a series of books recommended by comedian Anthony Jeselnik in 2024, including Martyr!, Rejection, Blue Ruin, James, and The Heart in Winter, and I joined his book club and blind bought three new books he recommended. I love good fiction but I get paralyzed when it’s time to buy a new book because there are way too many choices, and I hate picking wrong. After book hit after hit two years ago, I decided Jeselnik and I have the same taste in fiction, so I’m going to blind buy his recommendations from now on to save myself time. Now he’s doing one book recommendation a month in his book club. Even the Barnes & Nobles sales clerks know about it.
I just finished two of his recent recommendations, Perfection, by Italian author Vincenzo Latronico, which was his top pick from last year and a finalist for the Booker Prize, and Stoner, a 1965 novel by John Williams. I didn’t enjoy Perfection very much, and for the life of me can’t understand the accolades or why it was his top pick. It’s a satirical story about a millennial expat couple that lives a curated life in Berlin, which proves empty and slowly unravels over time. Some of the themes like materialism and the vacuity of that lifestyle were interesting, but there was no dialogue at all, and the main characters were two-dimensional to me. I like my fiction characters developed to a fault. Fortunately, it was a short book that I finished in a few days. AJ’s first miss in my opinion.
But I loved Stoner, which I just finished last night. It follows the life of an English professor who is born to a poor family and it’s a beautiful exploration of the human condition during the course of one man’s unassuming life. The prose is beautiful and I found myself really relating to the main character who is multi-layered, existentially deprived, and so well-crafted that I couldn’t put the book down.
Next up is Flesh, which was on his top 10 list last year and I know nothing about.
10. I’m enjoying these lyrics from some new song favorites lately:
They tell you that you feel too much
Euphoria right down to the crush
It all breaks down, it always does
It all works out, it always does
And the shit they say in the songs you love
The greatest hits and the deepest cuts
It all breaks down, it always does
It all works out, it always does
To love somebody
To hurt somebody
To lose somebody
Is to know you’re only human
Honey, to love somebody
To hurt somebody
To lose somebody
Well, at least you got to love somebody
— To Love Somebody, Holly Humberstone
I don’t believe in Miracles
But I do believe in UFOs
So I do believe, I do believe you’re about to call
And If I bleed, what If I believe it says it all
Look what you found
Look at your boy
A look at you
Don’t look at me
There’s no one around
How do you love?
How do you solve the etiquette?
Since you’re alone
Since you were mine
Since you were born inadequate
— UFO, UFOs
So call me when it goes to shit
I’ll be keeping the house the way it was
I won’t rub your face in it
I swear I won’t tell anyone
I don’t mind being your dead end
I think it’s fine to never move on
Keep my ear up to the door-frame
And I’ll keep rooting for your downfall
And I’ll keep rooting for your downfall
— Downfall, Noah Kahan
Have you ever stared directly at the sun?
Have you ever shared some closeness, so exposed
To have it spit back by someone?
So, forgive me if I jump
At the rattle of your keys
“Oh, are you leaving?, ” “No, babe, I’m just waking up”
And now what?
I’m left staring at the ceiling, listing reasons you should pack all your shit up
Yeah, I’m the trouble ahead
And I scream in my sleep
You’re putting money on red, I’m a sure bet at a losing streak
I keep showing you doors, but you can’t open them up
‘Cause it gets harder to see me the closer you try to look
I just live here, babe, but you’re the one who decided to knock
You knocked
— Doors, Noah Kahan
