Exercise and Mental Health
chacha.com
Exercise is good for your mental well-being on so many levels. It gives you a buzz. Continue reading →
Blog Updates
Just a quick update post. I’ve added a new page on Men’s Mental Health Resources. At the moment it contains only a few links to key posts from this blog. In future it will (I hope) have articles on a range of mental health issues for men: dating, self-esteem, depression, suicide, sexual dysfunction and anything else that takes my fancy.
I’ve removed the other two pages that were up “My Past” and “My Future” because I no longer felt they were relevant to what I want to do with this blog.
Dates That You Don’t Want to End!
They are few and far between, aren’t they? I’ve only had one date previously that I did not want to end. Obviously it doesn’t need saying that it was that wonderful second date with ubergeek where I came away with a real spring in my step. But how many first dates are ever like that? Feels like a bonus when it happens and I have had such an experience today 
This morning I had my first date with one of the girls from last week (I was in contact with three women at the same time though one has since flaked out leaving the girl who kept returning to my profile and the girl who took a week to come back to me). The girl I met this morning was the late-responder. I’m going to call her Mischief because she has a slightly mischievous look about her, a cheeky smile and twinkle in her eye. The other girl (and we have agreed to a date in principle, just not set an actual day or location yet) I am going to call bookworm. Continue reading →
Who Would Be a Man Online Dating?
A most interesting state of affairs right now. As a man on a dating site, you expect sometimes to send lots of messages and never get a single reply. In one week you might send 25 and get no responses yet the following week you might send three and they all respond. I’m sort of in that situation right now and I have possibly three dates coming up this week.
On Saturday, a girl on POF looked at my profile about three times in the space of 24 hours. Clearly she wanted to message me but did not pluck up the courage to do so. So I made the approach. She responded favourably and we’ve traded a few messages now. Continue reading →
Dating update – when “nice” isn’t enough
The dates have been rolling in without much effort from me and I’m convinced that it is because I have changed my relationship status from “separated” to “divorced” on the dating sites. I neglected to mention that I had a date in a town nearby about ten days ago. This girl approached me. She ticked all the right boxes and we met for a quiet drink. She was nice but did not float my boat.
I had another date this morning. Again, she is nice but didn’t seem to tick many of my boxes beyond being sweet and friendly. And both of these girls have entrenched me further into finding precisely what I am looking for. “Nice” is great but it is not enough. Continue reading →
The Quest for Confidence – Part 5
I took an extended break from this book, not because I stopped reading it, but there were several exercises I wanted to work on before I proceeded. Most were simple but incredibly effective ways of unhooking thoughts or distancing yourself from them by inserting something extra.
For example, now I am responsible entirely for my own income, tax returns, NI payments and everything else associated with being self-employed, I have had some negative feelings about the amount of work I might get. These feelings are perfectly normal and I acknowledge that, yet that doesn’t mean I cannot and should not attempt to do something about them.
Continue reading →
Never again… reflections on the end of my marriage
Never again will I settle for anything less than what I want
Never again will I allow myself to be talked out of what I believe to be right and have it passed off as “compromise”. Compromise is not when one person gets their way all of the time and bludgeons you with their pov until you agree or give up and go along with it anyway.
Continue reading →
A New Life
Well, here I am. I’ve left the area I married into. Two birds killed with one stone this week as my divorce has finalised. I’ve left the job that had become a thorn in my side and counterproductive to my growing as a person and moving on in life and most importantly… that had contributed so much to my depression last year. My inability to move away by pursuing conventional methods of graduate employment was not working and so I had to do it myself.
Everything has changed now.
I’m back home living with family and now officially self-employed. My working week as I have always known it, is over. Now I will work every day if I need to and might sometimes find myself with weeks off and nothing to do. I am now fully responsible for my own income and how much of a success I make of life. Continue reading →
Divorced: A letter to my ex wife
So I am now officially divorced. Some people say they feel relief and positive at this stage – and I do mostly – but I feel numb and a little disjointed. Of course I wanted this and of course she wanted this. Yet that doesn’t detract from the sense of loss that I feel today – she is no longer legally a part of my life. We married three and a half years ago having been engaged for two years. We decided that it was over 18 months ago. I’ve decided to write a letter to my ex wife for this blog; in all likelihood she will never see it.
Continue reading →
Handling “The One That Got Away”
Ubergeek has told me that she is looking at moving in with the ex boyfriend she got back together with a few months ago. Feeling slightly disappointed of course but not unexpected. They live apart and this move will make or break their relationship.
I wished her luck but commented no more on my feelings for her – I had said it all before and it didn’t need repeating. It went something along the lines of: I felt we had a connection, I’m disappointed you’re back together because I really like you but I wish you the best of luck. I guess I have now categorised her firmly as “the one that got away” and have experienced all the frustrations that go with it – and that is the only way I can deal with it right now.
