I woke up to log myself into work and set up the headphone trick to look busy before falling back asleep for a while. I kept putting off errands and napping for the whole day, eventually getting up only to eat once and go to volleyball in the evening. It was a sad day and I will have to look at all the signs that my life isn't put together (long fingernails, trash that needs taking out, unfolded laundry, dirty floors), but thankfully Gigi still wanted to come to volleyball so I was excited for her.

She also wanted to work out afterwards, which was a surprise. Gigi was concerned that she would bring her team down, but she seemed to warm up to the idea of playing anyways to start the process of improvement, which was great to see. She got to meet a lot of the faces there, some of whom were also quite new to the game. This made the dynamic of play different, but still fun as I was trying to work on my serves, roll shots, and passes instead of hits.

It was great getting to stay on the court, and I felt like everyone was having a good time, but a moment afterwards has had me asking questions about myself and how to approach friendships. One of Luiz's friends approached me afterwards to tell me that I look like a friend of hers. I was surprised since no one ever tells me that and asked if she had a picture of him for me to see. She showed me the guy's Instagram and I was surprised, but we sort of stopped the conversation there and I felt awkward being unable to keep talking. It was only as she walked away that conversation topics and questions came to my head, which made me sad since I was concerned I missed the chance to make another friend then.

I'm thinking it was a cocktail of:

• I was tired, short term after playing volleyball and long term after a hectic Thanksgiving week
• I'm a bit hesitant to chat and be friendly with people, especially girls, after some iffy scenarios wherein bad sides came out only after having fun and chatting a lot

Either way, it started making me question my life philosophy and how I ideally want to treat people. It seemed like being friendly and chatty with others was fundamentally at odds with being defensive and keeping myself from being disappointed by people. I suppose ideally I could talk and have fun without getting excited and expecting others to like me too, but giving it more thought made me wonder if that may be an impossible standard. I guess the solution is to try practicing that restraint deliberately and seeing if it can work.

Right as we were leaving volleyball Isaac messaged the group chat inviting anyone to hang out with him in Carrollton. Gigi and I both wanted to go, but Jinn wanted to join and asked Gigi to ride with her, which was honestly a bit annoying. I've had enough of that girl in my life already, but I guess I'll keep having more.

They went to Hmart to pick a few things up so I got to hang out with Isaac and his friend Neo for a bit, which was nice.

The rest of this journal and the next few are sloppy. Sorry, I've been lazy and busy the past few days and some of it has been a haze. I'm writing these on Mon 11/28 at like 3 AM.

It was fun getting to know Neo but eventually gigi and jinn came too
I'm tired of pretending to be friendly with jinn
they all drank a good bit and brent eventually came too
we went late so we decided to go to brents instead of karaoke

it was nice chilling, but blue lock isnt interesting
isaac brought a pie, neo picked his younger brother up from a kickback
neo's brother nathan came to volleyball once and recognized me

• we had a fun time chatting and gushing abt vball
• he got my number and talked abt his UTA friends (including caytion) -- apparently they play 5-1 a lot and against the club teams -- uta is abt as far as garland so hopefully i get an invitation

eventually we tried to do some karaoke but zion.t was making people doze off
gigi, brent, and i were later exchanged drunk stories while jinn listened

• they said that they "miss the drunk Nolan", which ben also expressed, but hit at that moment i realized that i had some amazing times drunk and figured that i could try to exit retirement
• i was recorded promising to exit retirement and have everclear

on the way back gigi also told me about her talk with jinn

• it was about exes mostly, but jinn brought me up
• apparently she didn't appreciate learning that i was talking abt the crush with others
• i guess i should be (and thankfully have been) picky about who i share with since they may talk

thank you friends for reading (and hopefully not talking about this with anyone else)