j4k3

I am a former racer, commuter, and professional Buyer for a chain of bike shops. I'm also disabled from the crash involving the 6th and 7th cars that have hit me in the last 170k+ miles of riding. I only barely survived what I simplify as a "broken neck and back." Cars making U-turns are what will get you if you ride long enough, especially commuting. It will look like just another person turning in front of you, you'll compensate like usual, and before your brain can even register what is really happening, what was your normal escape route will close and you're going to crash really hard. It is the only kind of crash that your intuition is useless against.

I digress, because I care too much. My point is that I still ride on a dedicated road bike trail. I encounter children on their Power Wheels™ /s doing wheelies all the time. I even have many playing chicken. Any small head injury is likely to kill me. I'm actually not all that concerned about dying. I've been present for two crashes where someone died. These things haunt you for life. I'd rather not die while stressed over the impact my struggle has on you for that 30-45 minutes if I am conscious. It will change your life nearly as much as mine.

Never do anything on a bike that requires anyone else to "trust you." Every time you have a close call in a car or on a bike due to another person's error, and you're mumbling to yourself "fucking idiot," that other person is saying to themselves or others "trust me, you're fine." Every time you tell yourself "trust me" you're everyone else's "fucking idiot."

No one is aware of all the things that can go wrong. However, I've been riding for a lot of miles. I know more than most what can go wrong. The most likely cause of my death on a bike right now is a naive child doing a wheelie. All it takes is a snapped chain, a fractured freehub pawl or outer bearing race, a tire blowout, a snapped spoke that causes a cascade of 3 or more spokes to break, or simple over confidence and a lack of balance. I have seen all of these things happen at least once.

The only time I appear completely fine to the casual observer is when I'm on a bike. I'm fast; likely faster than you typically ride at with lithium legs, and have a top speed in the mid thirties on flat ground without a tailwind, - if I care to try. What you can't see is the 10 years of spending most days laying down from not being able to hold posture, my constant back pain on par with a bad bee sting that never goes away or fades to background, or how I can't turn my head left anywhere near far enough to see over my shoulder.

The only way to help the issue of youthful irresponsibility on e-bikes is to develop a culture of shaming and shunning any fellow riders that endanger others on bike trails. That is a tough ask from youths that are notorious for a lack of well established and outspoken character capable of aligning positive traits through peer pressure. I type all this in the hopes that you are the exception to this stereotype.

None of us can objectively enter this third person perspective in the present or the future easily. In my mind I can picture something like a computer game. It could be Mario, Zelda, Warcraft; any game where the player controls the character from a third person perspective.

Once you have this image in your mind; yourself on a screen in a game, it is not much more of an abstraction to change characters in the game. Now, in the game you write the narrative of your ideal partner; the person you are hoping this meet. Put yourself into the mind of that character like you've been playing as them in this game of life every day for years. What are your goals, where are you at in life, what do you want and need out of that relationship, etc.; become them in abstract within your mind.

Now, insert an encounter between the ideal partner you are playing and your inner self in this game. You hit it off well and enjoy spending time together. After a few casual dates, things evolve into feelings. Your game character gets to the point of infatuated addiction when suddenly the opposing character tells you that they have plans to leave the area, and that they had known about this all along.

I can't continue this story for you without inserting my biases (more than I already have). Only you can answer if this kind of situation would bother you in practice. I am telling you that, the only way to know what is right or wrong for you, is if you can be objectively honest with yourself and assess the situation from a third person narrative perspective. If you can step back and say, "if someone did this to me, it would not bother me at all" then go ahead and do it. If the opposite is true, you will feel guilty in the end because your emotions and logic are in conflict. That inner conflict will eventually manifest as an external issue, likely through a mechanism called cognitive dissonance until it is resolved.

I had a particularly hard time with the feelings you have mentioned; feeling that need to be in a relationship. It was more of an issue when I was in my early to mid twenties (in my late 30's now). I think a lot of that feeling of need is the withdraw that accompanies shifting from life in school to adult life. I really wish someone had been able to tell me that humans are not cognitively fully formed until age 25 when the prefrontal cortex is fully formed. That is one factor, while introversion and extraversion are another major contributor. I'm introverted, so it is easier for me to be independent. I still have social needs, but I can fill those with places like here. Anyways, in retrospect, the person I was in my early to mid twenties, the one that thought he needed a relationship to be happy, he didn't actually know himself very well. He was looking for himself in the wrong places. The things he learned that allowed him to mature and grow were many, but some were, an enjoyable daily exercise routine, a regular reading habit, and allowing his curiosity to run wild into interests.

I could spend hours writing about that journey, but in a sentence, this is where I found myself and who I really am. The growth that came from this chapter of my life was immense and I am so glad that I wasn't struggling through that with someone else that may have had a shorter book or some different chapters in life. What I'm trying to say is that, you may find yourself in a similar vain if you take the time to get to know yourself.

Everything in life is just brain chemistry. In other words, everything about the human experience is a managed addiction. From the food you eat, to your circadian rhythm, to work, play, cleaning, reading, and relationships, it is all fundamentally a managed addiction. Your metabolic rate and its day to day average consistency will determine a lot about how you feel. If you engage in an endurance exercise daily, it will largely remove several inconsistencies related to what when and how you eat and sleep. This will balance hormones and becomes a major endorphin source. For me it was cycling, and still is in limited form. That will give you the emotional independence you need in order to explore yourself more. It takes 2 months to work your way into a solid routine that will then slowly shift and become harder to quit than it is to continue.

You do you. I'm just telling you what worked for me and explaining it like I am talking to my former self, and assuming you are of a similar age and mind. Those are big assumptions, so sorry if they miss the mark.