City of Angels.

My new environment has presented me with two options: evolve or die.

It has been about 7 months since I moved to LA. After an emotional couple of months, things have really slowed down for me. My social life was my social life. Shoutout to Feeld and Hinge. If I couldn’t land a date on a given week, I was staying my ass at home. My only rule while dating was a simple one, keep an open mind. I’ve dated younger, older, taller, shorter different races etc. Even though I wasn’t looking for a life partner, I assumed one of them would stick around even if only for a few weeks.

LA is more romantic than I remembered or maybe Chicago is more repressed than I thought. The people in LA are not shy about PDA. I’ve seen gym couples kiss before their separate workouts and another when they reunite. At Bottega Louie, I watched a man caress his lady’s bum while looking at macaroons. Ngl, I’m into PDA. Back home one drunken night with the woman I loved at the time. We held hands in the street, in a world of our own, a feeling I’ll always remember. Seems like I’ve been searching for that feeling ever since.

Before I moved, I’d fallen into a routine of settling. I was so far from my purpose that I was willing to accept anything that was better than what I had. When my job offered me the position, I didn’t even negotiate. I was broke as hell and desperate to never be down like that again. My relationships were the same. Even if a partner wanted to give me more than the bare minimum, I’d turn it down because I wasn’t sure that I worth it. There was a mental block created by fear of inadequacy, aka insecurity.