Feeling Left Behind

Long rant incoming lol.

I’ve been feeling like I’m falling behind lately, honestly more like I’ve fallen so far behind that I’ll never catch up. For context, I’m a 24 year old LGBTQ+ male, living in small town Texas.

Just a bit of my recent life story, I’ll try to keep this coherent but there’s so many different points that I’ll separate them into paragraphs, so some events may be out of order.

Theatre: I started doing Theatre in 3rd grade. Stuck with it and completely poured myself into it all throughout High School (and I was homeschooled throughout HS so I had more time to devote myself). I think that, while I absolutely loved my craft, a lot of my self-esteem issues started there. Myself and my best friend were the top two there, he was always their go-to leading man, and I was always the go-to Tech Guy. I always felt that no matter how hard I worked, I was never actually rewarded for it. I was always early, stayed late, formed meaningful connections with all of my peers and leaders, always welcomed the new people, etc. Not once did I get the lead. I got close, and I got Stage Manager plenty of times, so much that in college I went as a Tech major rather than performance, but I always felt that I was pushed into that role when I really wanted to be a performer. Regardless, I took time and learned the technical aspects of theatre and became very good at it, so much so that I still work shows at that theatre to this day, just as an employee rather than a student.

College: I graduated in 2018, and went into college that fall. I honestly loved it, my first semester I made some of the most meaningful connections that I still maintain to this day. I started as a Theatre major, but after transferring to a 4 Year University my second semester of college, I slowly realized that wasn’t what I wanted to do with my life. After three semesters in Theatre, I decided to switch my major to Social Work, as that had always been my backup plan. Three months into that, COVID came around and we went to virtual learning. I think I struggled not having the in-person aspects, because I learn better in a classroom setting, and being at home allowed my issues with self control to become more prevalent, and it was showing in my grades. I decided to drop that semester and planned to go back in the fall when we got back to in-person learning. Unfortunately, due to an error on the college’s part, my financial aid got messed up and I couldn’t return to school until all of my student loans were paid off (which I have yet to be able to afford). A college education is something I have always valued and feel is important, but here I am four years later and still no degree. I want to go back to school so badly, but when I think about it I realize I don’t even know what to major in. It’s like I have so many different things that I want to do, but when I really sit down and think hard about a possibility, I come to realize I’m not passionate enough about it to devote my life to it. The one constant has been Film Studies, as I would love to direct films, but the two colleges in my area don’t offer that program, so I’d have to relocate.

Family: I come from a very close family, I’m talking aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, all people I see on a weekly basis. It’s something I’m extremely grateful for, but it has its issues as well. I’m definitely the black sheep of my family. They’re very much your typical southern, Christian, Republican family, all things I’m not. But by far the hardest part is the fact that I am an LGBTQ+ individual. I have only come out to one of my sisters, and nobody else in my family knows besides her. Outside of family, I’m very open about my sexuality, regularly attend pride events, etc. But my entire life I’ve witnessed the awful things my family says about the LGBTQ+ community, whether political or religious. Regardless, I’ve learned how to keep those two parts of my life separate from each other and I am okay with doing so until the time comes that I can’t anymore (marriage, etc.).

Sexuality/Relationships: I’ll just be honest here. I’m still a virgin, not so much as a first kiss. It’s embarrassing, and it makes me feel like a freak. I’ve tried everything, I’m on dating apps, Grindr, hell for a brief period I even used Omegle just to get some form of attention from somebody else. I never felt completely fulfilled by it, but at least it was something. The part that makes it even worse is that I feel like I’m someone with so much love to give, I know that I’m not your typical hot social media person, but I know that I’m not unattractive either, but this really has made me feel ugly and unlovable.

Friendships: For most of High School, I kind of rotated between two friend groups. I really thought those would be my friends for the rest of my life. But one group slowly drifted apart, just due to life events, some moved away, and those of us still here got busy with our college schedules. Then I was down to one friend group. We lasted a bit longer, it wasn’t until early 2021 that we all separated (and that was a nasty falling out). I still have friends, and have reconnected with a few from these friend groups, but it’s not the same. I don’t feel the same way about the people I’m friends with now that I did about the people I was friends with then, I don’t really know how to elaborate on that further because so much of it is just feelings but I hope someone gets what I’m talking about.

Finances/Career: To be completely honest, I don’t know what I want to do with my life. I feel like every job I’ve had since COVID was just a dead-end job. I feel like I work hard and do my best every day, and somehow I keep getting screwed over. I had a job at a doctors office, always showed up early, left late, did any extra work that needed to be done, but my manager liked to nitpick everything I did to the point that I left work crying most days. I finally decided I had had enough, and went out and found a new job at a local nonprofit after school program. It was a summer job as their receptionist, and since they were open for 12 hour days the shift was split in two and they hired one of us for each shift. I was told from the beginning that at the end of the summer, one of us would be given the receptionist role full time, and the other would be moved to a teaching position. So all summer, I went above and beyond. The only time that entire summer that I couldn’t give them my 100% was the two weeks that I had Covid, and even then I went back to work before I should have (I still was experiencing shortness of breath when walking across a room). At the end of the summer, I found out the other guy had been chosen based on his fulfillment of work opportunities that I was never offered. No worries, so I took the teaching position since they weren’t going to lower me to a teacher’s pay. I did that until the following February when I was fired for “getting sick too often”. I will own up to that mistake. At the end of the day, I chose to call out when I didn’t need to and it became too excessive for what they needed, that is 100% my fault. From there, I got a job at a local antique store, and I fell in love with it quickly. The coworkers were cool, the boss was very laid back, I enjoyed getting to meet all the different customers from all kinds of interesting places, learning the history of the building, etc. But one day the boss sat me down and said she wasn’t satisfied with my performance and was going to demote me to a minimum wage position. I’m still completely clueless as to why she felt that way. While I liked my coworkers, I am not exaggerating when I say I was the only one who ever showed up on time, any time a heavy piece was purchased I was the one who helped the customer get it to their vehicle, I was the one who answered the phone when it rang, took rent payments, checked customers out. I genuinely was the only employee who actually worked. She said she was worried because I struggled to count the drawer at the end of the day. But how was I supposed to know when she took $50 out to run down the street and get drinks with the other manager (leaving me to run the store by myself during lunch rush) if I wasn’t told the money was taken? Or when the other manager would take a $10 and run to the convenience store next door for snacks? I know I wasn’t at fault here, but I still don’t understand why she decided I was the problem. From there, I got a job at a car dealership as a BDC Representative. It was my first sales position, but I think it was a good way to try out sales and see if it was something I’d like or be good at. From the start I loved that job. It was easy work, I didn’t have to deal with customers in person, I literally just had to sit at my desk and make calls all day. A few months in, we had a slow period. It wasn’t because me and my coworkers weren’t trying, but our dealership wasn’t getting the vehicles people were interested in and the economy took a dip so sales were just low. That wasn’t the case according to our manager. She did a complete overhaul of our job description. Changed the pay scale, added responsibilities, wanted us to start managing the social media accounts, etc. Needless to say, we were upset that in 24 hours our commission was nearly halved and our responsibilities doubled. But I kept my mouth shut and quietly started looking for a new job. Among many many other issues (the receptionist pushing her job off onto us, service pushing their jobs off onto us, lack of quality leads, the manager being a constant distraction or just flat out not knowing the information we were supposed to get from her to begin with) I decided pretty quickly that I needed to get out of that job, and my coworkers decided the same. Then one day back in March I was called into the GM’s office and fired. No write ups, no warnings verbal or written. I always sold more than the monthly goal I was given by my manager, always scored high on my phone calls, always on time to work, always willing to cover or pick up extra days. I was never given any indication that my performance was unsatisfactory or that I needed to pick up the slack in certain areas. My coworkers can attest to the fact that I was a very good employee, always respectful, and very good a what we were doing. But when I was fired they said it was my “performance” and that they wanted to do something else with my position. I knew that didn’t seem right, and come to find out the manager told my coworkers that it was because I had a “bad attitude”, so not what I was told when they fired me. She then said “He should have seen it coming” and “Somebody that negative is too toxic for an office this small”. Again, always respectful, always in a good mood at work, and no write ups or warnings (but one coworker had two and the receptionist had plenty of complaints against her for not doing her job). I also found out the manager was giving horrible, inaccurate reviews of my performance when places I apply to call to verify my employment. I’m still looking for a job to this day.

Overall I’m just lost. I know what I need to do, I just don’t know how to do it. To go back to school, I’ll have to pay off my loans, but I also need a new car as mine is hanging on by a thread, and have to pay rent and my utilities, I still have two wisdom teeth that need to be pulled ASAP, but I lost my dental insurance when I lost my job and haven’t been able to afford to get them pulled without. That’s just the finances, even if I get all of that taken care of I have no idea what to go to school for or how I want to spend the rest of my life, in my heart I know that Film Directing is what I want to do, but I also want to be financially stable and the arts is not the place to find that stability. Dealing with all of that is hard enough as it is, and just to add to it I feel awful about myself, I’m so lonely and it seems like love from another person will never come, but even if it did I worry that I’d end up screwing it up like I have everything else in my life. I don’t know where things went wrong or what I’m doing (or not doing) that’s not making it get better. If anyone has any advice it would be much appreciated, and I have no intention of being a dick when I say this but please don’t comment with the “Just hang in there, it gets better” stuff, I’ve been “hanging in there” for 4 years now and I’m not seeing any signs that it’s going to get any better. I know how that sounds, and I promise I’m not suicidal, but I’m losing the motivation to keep trying to get back on my feet.