Anne hasn't called me (except to return my call) since Monday. I was starting to wonder if she has decided to move on. I went back onto match to see if she had been active at all recently, and her add is gone. I wonder if she is hiding it, or if she removed it. Regardless, she doesn't seem nearly as interested in this as she did in the beginning.

I was walking Billy Dee yesterday, just around the neighborhood. While we were out, I saw children out playing in their yards- playing basketball, running through spinklers....it mad me think back to when I was that age, and how lucky I think I was to have grown up where and how I did. For all their faults, I think my parents did a pretty good job raising me. my dad wasn't around much, but he was working a shit job and shit hours so we could live in a good neighborhood and I could be out playing basketball with my friends- without having to worry if one of them was going to pull out a 9mm and kill me over a pair of shoes. So I don't fault him for that. So, if I grew up in a good neighborhood, and my parents were loving and providing, why am I not a happier person? Why do I have low self esteem and no friends? Why am I always the first to find faults in myself? And then it hits me. I stutter. Granted, it isn't nearly as bad now as it used to be, but lets face it, the damage is already done. Teased on a regular basis in school, I learned to keep my mouth shut most of the time, in fear of what would (or wouldn't, rather) come out. I was a bright kid- did well in school. I had a group of casual friends in high school- none of whom I'm still in touch with. I think I can tie just about every problem in my life to that one simple flaw. Too timid, too self conscious, low self esteem, petrified of the opposite sex. All because I stutter. How pathetic do you have to be to let something as trivial as that dictate your life and define who you are? I've lived in Dayton for four and and half years now, and I really don't have any friends. I've had girfriends, but no friends. No one I can just call up and go grab a beer with and shoot the shit. No one I can really talk to about shit going on in my life- which I guess is partially why I'm writing into an online journal. I can't approach women in bars or clubs, so I have to find them online. It is my only outlet. I feel like I prob have a lot to offer someone- I think I'm fairly attractive, I have a good job, my own house in a good neighborhood, I'm intelligent.....yet I automatically assume I'll get shot down if I ask a girl out.

I remember once when I first moved down here, three other guys from work and I went out after we got off work to The Fox and Hound Pub for a few beers. These guys are all roughly my age, slightly older, and single. People I should have a lot in common with....not a chance. They were all idiots. All they cared about was their little nich in the world- Dayton, Ohio. NASCAR. Bud Light. Anyway, I digress. Tom and Todd managed to get a couple of girls over to our table, and the two of them were flirting with the girs, while Dan, (who is even more a mess than I am) and I basically sat and looked on. Someone eventually coaxed me into saying more than two words- hell it may even have been me. And I stumbled all over what I was trying to say. I will never forget this for as long as I live. My co-workers all knew I had a speech problem. They were well aware of it. But sitting there in the bar with me struggling to force the words out of my mouth, they laughed. They laughed out loud me. I've never felt so humiliated in my life. Not angry, not mad, just humiliated. These were my first 'friends' in Dayton, OH.

I never hung out with any of them again after that night.

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