im cooked

I went from not giving/creating gifts, receiving them, or doing any sort of surprise stuff for anyone for 23 years, to being in a position where I gotta figure out creative, new gifts or doing things as a surprise, planning stuff, multiple times a year. I’m simply not used to it yet, and thus it comes with a degree of stress

I find it easier to do when I don’t care about the outcome; but it’s still really hard (especially if it’s important). For example last year’s valentine’s gift was extremely difficult to make happen until the final step of assembling it, and even then it took many hours a day for a couple days in a row. I didn’t even finish the project, I gave you something that was 98% done

Your bday last year? Stressful project; even though it was a pretty simple plan in the end and even the gifts were simple, it took soooo much to get to that point. Figuring out what would be a good gift, buying any sort of jewelry for the first time, making reservations at a restaurant for the first time (ik how simple that sounds, but it’s only very recently that I’ve become able to do it. Before, it was a daunting thing to do for me and I have never done anything like it until I met you). Then the whole centre island plan, I literally didn’t even figure out the transportation from Toronto to the islands, you did that. I just couldn’t make the timing work out in my planning. idk it’s just so so hard to plan stuff and think of gifts

I won’t even get into date ideas, there were several times where it was a nightmare to come up with fun interesting activities to do for dates, or novel places to go. Now I’m accustomed to Toronto and comfortable in Toronto, so I have slightly more ability to come up with Toronto ideas. but like man, it’s hard to come up with stuff to gift or plan ideas or dates or birthdays, etc.

And I’ve found it’s even more difficult when it’s supposed to be a surprise. Idky but it makes me feel alone and it makes me feel like I’m solely responsible for ensuring things external to my control go well. And then you make it seem so easy, a lil ripleys date a convenient distance away and it’s already blown me away.

Maybe so far the gifts/ideas/dates/plans/surprises I’ve come up with have been nice, but every single nice thing is really really hard to come up with.

Don’t get me wrong, I know that I’ve improved and many situations are easier than they once were (or maybe i stopped caring or trying as hard). For example, we don’t do novel dates anymore (ie nothing brand new as an idea), and I’ll be honest it’s actually kinda nice. I feel like the bar of acceptance for what a good date is has been lowered to a place where I can make dates that meet it without spiralling into panic.

See now with Valentine’s Day approaching, I’m not panicking like I was last year. I already have an idea or two I’m gonna try out. And if it fails? If I end up with nothing to show for trying? I mean the only bad thing that’s gonna happen is me upsetting you (which feels sickening to me btw but that’s actually not good in reality, it’ll make our relationship toxic over time). You aren’t gonna break up w me if I don’t get you a gift on Valentine’s Day. So the pressure is low, and I know it’s low, and somehow that makes it easier to reach the level of “decent” with whatever I do.

But I won’t lie since late last year I have this crazy anxiety about the biggest project to date that in my eyes is waaaayyyy outside the realm of my capabilities. It’s coming up soon, and because of how important it’s supposed to be and the high expectation I know you have for it deep down, it’s like a mild but growing torture waking up every day. The pressure is high, it needs to be perfect, and so it’s pretty much the sole source of stress I have these days. When you ask me why I’m sad or down or anything I just lie to you btw, in reality nothing is more stressful than this project. The truth is I only have a couple rough notes on it, I don’t even have a material plan for it. I’ve never made a plan, let alone a surprise plan, at this scale or level of detail before. And I’m sure in the end it’s gonna look super simple and you’ll probably be fine with it and everything will be fine, but it doesn’t feel that way rn at all and you should know that whatever the end result was, it really was relentlessly overwhelming to pull off.

The benefit is that if I get something “decent” in the end, my new bar of capability will be higher than it is now. This is why i mentioned a second proposal as a cute gesture actually, cuz on some subconscious level I know that I could prob do a better job the second time around.

I think maybe why things like this are so stressful is because these are things I think you expect out of our relationship. You want all the cute instagrammy stuff, the surprise things and the high effort. Every event and occasion needs to have the grandness to it, that’s what it seems like sometimes (I’m not saying it’s true, I’m saying this is the emotional response I have in my brain). tbh I’m not like that at all, not even a little. I don’t like such intensity, it’s scary. I like chill things, not high effort, not time consuming, no surprises, just peace and predictability. I just like hanging out doing casual things, that’s what makes me happy. I have no idea if this disparity will work itself out or ruin things eventually, but we’re already here so I guess we’ll have to just wait and see