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• Another Valentine’s Day alone: On love, sex and dating
• Girl power: overcoming a fear of women

Girl power: overcoming a fear of women

February 4, 2025

Dear diary,Well, it took quite a while, but my fear of women is diminishing. Not to say it’s gone, but progress is coming along nicely.I always felt like a complete outsider. I hated my body for being big and not curvy, for being not “feminine enough”. And I still do hate my body. It’s like I always thought that I didn’t belong in the category of “woman” because I just wasn’t pretty enough. It sounds stupid when I write it out, but I feel that there is a general image of a regular woman, and I do not fit it. I’m not comparing myself to supermodels or celebrities, but normal women with normal “flaws” and I still feel alien.I was like an incel grouping all women together because I felt inferior to them. I felt that they’d judge me. Throughout my life I hadn’t ever made many friends, I was always stuck in my head thinking about how gross and annoying and weird everyone must think I am (boo hoo). I thought that men are outright evil, and women are better at being sneaky, and that made me feel that I could trust a man more easily.I know, I know. Trust a man? Scary…I’d hear about “girls supporting girls” and I never felt that I was a part of that. I just didn’t count for some reason. It was almost more the fact that I don’t feel human above not feeling like a woman. My therapist told me many of her other autistic female clients mentioned a similar situation where you just don’t think you are human. I know that I technically am human, but I feel so deeply that I’m not. It’s rather peculiar... I’ve tried to explain it before, and I was told it didn’t make sense. Whatever. It is what it is.But I can see a bit more clearly that other people don’t necessarily care about the way my body looks. When people see good in you, they make it known.Love,Arden

An open letter to a friend: HA! I can do it too, you know.

February 4, 2025

Who knows if you’ll see this? I’m not going to send it to you as you told me to “go suck an egg” and “buzz off”. If you do see it, I hope it makes you reflect instead of be angry.You’ve spoken about me in a mean-spirited way, taking your assumptions as facts. I don’t think you are a mean person, but I do think you are conceited and mentally unwell in some capacity.
I thought you knew me, I did everything I could to ensure that you did. I was open and I never lied or kept secrets from you. I was nothing but honest and caring, and I know that is the kind of person I am. But it seems like you didn’t tell me all of who you are. You showed me only the good in you for so long, sadly with lies sprinkled in to hide this second life of yours.
I wish you could see that you have done some serious wrong.
I miss you, even with all the things I’m hearing you did and said to other girls. It’s embarrassing to miss you at this point. But I can’t help it, I really, really care about you. You were the closest friend I had ever had, and I thought all the stuff about being best friends forever was true. You changed my life a lot for the better. I had hope for you for so long after our break, even with everything I was told and shown regarding you. Now, I think I’m done. I was the one you could count on having in your corner, and you pushed me to my breaking point.Fact check: When I canceled the Airbnb in Osaka, I showed you my messages before I actually canceled it. I have the receipts for that hennyyyyy.
I left Japan because you did not want me there. You told me this when we left the hotel. You told me I was holding you hostage and you wanted to be away from me. Then, when I took a moment and stuck up for myself by telling you I didn’t want to help you, you called me mean and manipulative and stormed off while I stayed put for 5 hours.
You really think I just “changed my mind”? That I tried to sabotage you? What have I ever done to spark this idea?
And I tried to get you fined? The reality was that I was so hurt and depressed that I couldn’t eat or go anywhere or do anything, so I changed my flight home to be as soon as I could. Therefore, I had no time to sort all the trash. If I didn’t put it all outside, I’d be leaving you with a huge mess. I took a photo of the trash all put out because it was such a big pile along that wall. Thankfully I did. But even with the information from the Airbnb host and my photo, you stuck with the narrative that I tried to get you in trouble because I’m evil. The wizard of evil thing was my joke too, the night at the hotel when your phone broke, I said it was like you were cursed, and you really ran with it.I didn’t make people not like you. The people I spoke to about you already didn’t like you, and I wanted more perspective on who you actually were to them. You told me many of them were evil and crazy, like you proceeded to say about me, but you never really told me why. Anyone I talked to seemed to already avoid you. The one who had any hope for you was the one who reached out to me, and she was already very hurt by you. You can pin it on me all you want, but you are the reason that you are alone. You are a liar, you do not care about other people’s feelings, and you can’t be real.I empathize with you, I know it’s hard to be yourself. I’m finding now that maybe giving myself a character to play would help me open up to more people in the future. But it really hurts that I trusted you with everything, and you made me believe you felt the same about me when you really must not have. I wouldn’t have treated you the way you treated me. I couldn’t have.
I’m sorry I annoyed you. That’s my greatest crime.In our time apart I have learned a lot. One thing that has been meaningful is the difference it makes to be around people who like you for you, and aren’t focused on trying to fix what’s wrong with you. A positive and caring attitude from the people around me has made a world of a difference.Your family did a lot for me, but you spun it as just charity work since you’re just such great people. It’s really upsetting. You offered me a sense of belonging and ripped it away because I prioritized my needs for once. Your mother seems to have played a significant role in our break and that is very… unfortunate. I think she has serious issues and she has invested all her energy into putting you on a pedestal. The words she used about me, directly speaking to my mother, are unforgivable. Your texts to my mom and me, that your mom very clearly wrote, were just cruel and gross. It hurt that your deliberate lies about me spread to your sister as well, inciting a confrontation that clearly didn’t want a response from me. That Instagram story I posted was on a private account on my close friends story to an audience of her, my main account, and about two online people. The maximum number of people who could’ve potentially viewed that post, where I didn’t even mention your name, was 28. With only two (?) of those 28 being people who know you: your sister and a girl you previously mistreated. It was my way of hoping your sister would want to know my side of things. Of course you side with your family, but I thought maybe being best friends, she would come to see that maybe you are the common denominator in these failed relationships with women.I hate how much time I spend thinking about this all, but it really just doesn’t make sense to me. I know I have to just completely give up on finding an answer, but I hate the lack of closure. My goal is to feel indifferent about you. Through it all, I still want the best for you, but you need to want the best for yourself for any of that to matter.Then instead of dealing with your emotions, you share this jumbled story with so many inconsistencies with whatever number of people, write about it on your website, and complain about how lonely you are. Man up!Please do some soul-searching before you bring more people in your life. Please minimize the amount of hurt you put out into the world.
In the words of RuPaul, “If you don't love yourself, how in the hell you gonna love somebody else?”Anywho, if you ever feel sorry for any of the weird things you’ve done, feel free to let me know! You’ve got my email.Sincerely,Arden

Another Valentine’s Day alone: On love, sex and dating

February 3, 2025

I love love. I love romance. I have fantasized about going on dates and about beautiful weddings. But I don’t ever consider it a reality for me. It does not seem like it could be natural. A natural and lasting love does not seem attainable.Lately I have been in a period of self reflection. Upon analysis, I am a good person. In my searches, a cardinal flaw has come to my attention: I believe anything a person may tell me about pretty much anything, especially in relation to themselves.It does not occur to me that people lie. A lot.In my mind, there is no reason for someone to lie to me. And though I know there doesn’t have to be a valid reason to lie in order for it to happen, I really cannot comprehend myself being lied to. It just does not make sense. Something not making sense to me is extremely frustrating. Anything being unclear is just hard for me to bear. I just cannot necessarily understand the concept of lying.I am not a good liar. My therapist told me that it is okay to lie about small things, but I do not think it really is. I try to practice lying and keeping secrets, but it’s extremely difficult for me. I know some things are completely inconsequential, but it feels wrong not to be open and honest about everything. Personally, trying to lie is much more nerve-wracking than revealing whatever the truth may be. I guess it is because my truth is never something bad. I feel good about the choices I make, I have not been forced to make bad decisions. Lying is a form of self-preservation, and I can empathize with people who lie. I understand that it helps people deal with their lives.
Simply put, I know why people lie, but I just cannot make sense of it for myself.I have always avoided social contact due to a laundry list of fears I have. It never quite made sense to me, and for a long time it was routine to continue to suffer horribly from loneliness. I believed I would never have someone I could really open up to. Luckily I got to have that connection for a period of time, and then I was left to face my greatest sin…I am very gullible.
I would be kidnapped so easily. It would take very little to convince me of practically anything.
I am MALLEABLE.It would almost be irresponsible to date someone if I knew there would be this kind of difficulty, wouldn’t it? It takes so much out of me to open up and feel comfortable, there’s a high chance of being lied to, and I can hardly form my own opinions.Sex? Now that’s a whole different story. Very similar, but different nonetheless.A debilitating hate of my body and a fear of being emotionally and physically close to another person make up the solution to this puzzle…
Thankfully the value of a woman increases when she is a virgin, so I will probably always be a rather expensive woman. I will be admired like Mother Teresa for my eternal virginity. That is what was so important about her, right?I am not someone who thinks about sex. I would not consider it a need. Surely it is great for tons of people, but it does not really seem to actually exist in my mind. However, I am fascinated by sex in the informational aspect. I do want to know things. That is my greatest desire: to understand everything in the entire world and beyond. There are a lot of things that I am curious about regarding sex, but almost exclusively from an observational point of view. Is this what being asexual is? If so, I do not care to know.In conclusion, it seems nearly everyone lies. A lot.And that sucks. And sex is weird and gross and gives you cooties and AIDS.Here are my calls to action: pleaaaase do not be no stinkin’ liar, and please only practice safe sex. Thank you.