Dear Ryan:

You are welcome, and welcome back to your thread a month and ten days since you last posted.

Regarding your current, third federal telework job: “I’m trying to be excited, but I fear it may not be as wonderful of an opportunity”. You are hoping that moving to the big city, hopefully this mid-summer, “won’t seem so dreadful“.

“The previous job brought me no joy“, you did that job with a “lackadaisical mindset” (lackadaisical, definitions: “lack of enthusiasm and determination, carelessly lazy”, “lacking life, spirit or zest”), handing off unfinished work to a team of already overtaxed coworkers because there was “nothing left” in you to focus on that job.

You chatted with a few women on Tinder, “didn’t pursue things due to a lack of interest“. One woman pursued you and you agreed to a dinner date with her, but “felt even less of a connection” when you met her, and you were “not physically attracted to her”. After dinner and drinks, she invited you to her place, and you “did the deed.. focused on her and she was quite happy”. A few days later, she asked to see you again, and you “begrudgingly accepted”. Following a second dinner, she invited you to her place again, but this time you had trouble to rise to the occasion, as you put it, and you rolled over and tried to blame the alcohol. “there was nothing there” for you, “that connection.. does not exist”.

You mentioned the “intense connection” you felt the first time you went out with your former coworker, the woman who dominated this thread, starting December 5. 2020.

“I continue to battle depression, but there is also the lack of a sense of purpose or a longing to explore more of myself.. I find it difficult to do anything more than watch tv”.

You shared in August 2, 2020 that you were diagnosed with “recurrent major depressive disorder (MDD).. It’s called ‘high-functioning depression'”, that you “largely feel mirthless… emotional withdrawal.. decreased sex drive, negative feelings about myself.. and others to an extent.. I really have little interest in any hobbies. I  just remain flat”-

– still the same depressed experience, ever since you were a child, isn’t it, an experience born in social-emotional isolation as a child, and then,  extended into decades of adulthood, isn’t it (?)

anita