hephaestion2014's blog

Hope that my personal and specific events has some universal resonance.

Now, I was thinking of hanging up my Speedos for good a little while ago. Nothing to do with this site or the people on it - I'd have still stayed as have lots of good mates on here that I like chatting too as much as trying to make them tap.I'd have been less active. It felt like the thrill had gone. I hadn't worked it out of my system but after the matches and on the train home I was being to feel less happy.

Why's that? I hear no-one cry, Did you not enjoy yourself?

Well yes, I did. I had a great time but after a period of time on the site, and after the amount of opponents I have had, I began to think people might expect more from me. I'm not a newbie after all.

"So how many matches you won then? I beat so-and-so, they were easy, did you get them to tap?"

I've began to notice that competitiveness was being to creep into people's conversation with me. As if this site was a league, and people were trying to put me into it. Was I top of the league? Was I a Stoke - middle of the table just milling about? Was I a Sunderland - no-one sure what I was doing here in the top leagues? Or was I a Leicester - champion once but sliding down into oblivion?

I was beginning to feel a pressure that yes, I should be winning. I should be doing better. Not improving, but just better. Suddenly something that was me turning up and doing my best and having fun doing it was becoming something else.

I was back to being the school kid again dreading sports because as my then undiagnosed dyspraxia would mean I'd just be a disappointment. On the train back from wrestling matches, I could hear the patronising tones of my PE teacher saying, " well at least you tried and didn't trip over, so that's a success"

School days huh? They mess you up.

To mask the fact that I'm not brilliant and, unless I repeat a move a lot I forget it, not the biggest move repertoire I began to adopt the jobber role. Don't get me wrong, I love being in the position where I'm fighting to get control back, where my aggressive side can be released because I'm defending myself rather than going after someone. I.like reflecting my opponent's energy.

But I was finding the Jobber title wasn't a full fit for me.

"Yeah, but he's just a jobber right? He'll just lie there, that's no fun."

So there's all the pressure to fit into boxes and labels that didn't fit. I didn't want to be thought of as fun and friendly and the dreaded nice.
I wanted to be thought of as rough, tough, scary and a beast. I don't have the looks, the body or the skill to get people onto the mats with me, so let's try and tweak myself into something else. Let the pressure of what they want from you make you into a diamond.

Pressure doesn't do that to me. Recently met a guy I have always wanted to wrestle. Man, I wanted to impress him. I sucked. I choked. I forgot how to do a headlock and went back to the early days when I used to wrestle with my eyes shut so I could think ... but moving on.

I was trying to be someone I wasn't. Well not in whole. There's a heel to me, there's a jobber to me, there's a Hulk-smash inside me, there's a thug and there's a wrestling dummy too. I'm all those in one, but there's a pressure to cut off parts of me. To adapt to so much to what my opponent wanted, I was forgetting me too.

I was talking to one opponent after a match asking him if he had fun.
He stopped and said yes he did ... but did I?

We had a good chat and I explained how I felt about all the "nice" and no-one wants to fight the nice guy. He put me right, pointed out that at heart I'm doing this for fun. I'm not naturally competitive but I offer competition. I'm a challenge and genuinely fun to wrestle.

By adapting to others expectations I was putting a pressure on myself that I couldn't really thrive under.

I'm friendly, I'm tough, I'm nice, I'm gobby, I'm occasionally an arse, I'm playful, I'm serious, I'm a bookworm, I hold back too much sometimes, Im a geek, im shy, I often forget about protecting an arm, I'm a jobber, I'm a heel, I contain multitudes

But I'm all me.

I will adapt but I'm doing this for fun (fun doesn't have to mean erotic) I will learn as I go, I will make mistakes but I'll never give a damn about win/loss, or the amount of opponents but more about how many guys want that rematch and round two or three.

Forget that pressure pushing down on me

[Bridge: Freddie Mercury]
Um ba ba be
Um ba ba be
De day da
Ee day da -
I'm okay :)