Around the time of my last update, I felt like nothing could stop me. I was losing weight, gaining confidence and then the holidays happened. Old people from your life, both good and bad, start popping around. Everything becomes a celebration which leads to a lot of over-indulging--especially in both booze and food. I would go out with friends to dinners, they would say how good I looked and that they were proud of me, and then we would head to the bars and I would do even more over-indulging. On top of all that, being single around the holidays is also an unfortunate recipe for disaster (I was literally asked to take a picture of my best friend and his girlfriend kissing on at midnight NYE because they knew I wouldn't be doing any kissing of my own). Things weren't going well at all with the girl I was focusing all of my attention on, and that lead to me coping with that problem with food, going to bars with friends, and inactivity. At my best, I would cope with exercise. Then I would not only feel better in the short term, it would be another step to feeling better in the long term. Now when I needed to cope, it would be with a box of Wheat Thins

Knowing that I needed some inspiration, I headed down to my Alma Mater this past weekend with to get some inspiration. And I got inspired. I was coming off of a final round job interview with a fantastic company, and I felt like it went quite well. I met up with some friends with this new confidence I didn't know where it was coming from. It was border-line cocky which is never me. My one of my closest female friends introduced me to all of her roommates and I hit it off with several, a couple more friendly than others. I felt great. I was honest, overly-confidant, and I focused on my good time for once. I wasn't worrying about how drunk my friends were getting in case I needed to take them home and make sure they were all right. I wasn't worrying about my other friend who is known for getting into fights worrying that I would have to bail him out of any kind sticky situation. And it worked. I met a very down-to-earth girl. We had similar personalities and spent the whole time with each other secluded from both friend groups talking and making out. I was amazed. It's like that scene in (500) Days of Summer the expectations/reality part.

For the first time in my life those two things aligned. We exchanged numbers and that was that.As I was driving home and reflecting about how much fun I had this weekend. I was ready to get back in the gym and start up again. Then, I naturally started examining my encounter through the lens of GNE. And I did it all wrong. First off, every time I had the confidence to talk to the girl it was through alcohol. My friend introduced me to her friends and I had enough to drink where I was willing to say or tell these women anything to talk to me. I was this weird mixture of crass and polite, I didn't care about any of my other friends' enjoyment that night. I was selfish, assertive (but bordering on aggressive), and I even was making out with a girl in public to the point where people told us to take it elsewhere. And on top of that I'm pretty sure that this girl I was with was too drunk to remember how much fun we seemed to be having with each other.

The thing is, this kind of behavior seemed to work in my favor. The less drunk women did seem to want me. I had fun being an even more animated version of myself. I had fun not being the baby-sitter for my friends and walking my girl-friends home so no creeps would try anything stupid. It felt good knowing that I could tell a girl that I would love to bring her home tonight and not get looked at like some kind of moron. It felt good that for once my friends were asking ME about the random girl that was flirting with me. All that inspiration that I had just went -poof- out the window because even though I was able to do it, I did it the wrong way and feel like I sort of betrayed myself. I didn't go into this weekend with any expectations of finding anyone to hook up with or even start dating. It all just kind of happened. Now I really don't know what to do. I need to get inspired again. I don't want to turn into someone else. I just want to be a better version of myself. And I don't think I'm there quite yet.

Any ideas?