I also don't smoke anything, and I never have.

I occasionally drink alcohol, usually on special occasions. I try to make sure that I don't drink when I am going to have to be driving afterward. I can feel the effect of even a small amount of alcohol. I often have a non-alcoholic beer if I am in a setting where people are having drinks.

I am also in the minority of American males in that I could hardly care less about sports, and do not watch sports. For one thing, I do not want to invest emotional energy in the outcome of any sports competition, particularly when there are many other things, including many vastly more important things, in which to invest such emotional energy.

I much prefer to be running or hiking, which I enjoy doing for myself and which help me to stay in shape, to either participating in or watching team sports. I never enjoyed participating in team sports, and was never good in them. I hated gym classes in school in which I had to participate in team sports.

Actually at one time I took an interest in major league baseball, and especially took a liking to the Chicago Cubs. In particular I did so back in 1967, when I was in high school and living in Naperville, Illinois. It was that year that the Cubs started doing well after having finished 20 straight seasons with a losing record. I liked the idea of rooting for an underdog; this had a lot to do with my having my own painful problems.

It is very painful remembering 1969 when it looked for most of that season that the Cubs were going to win the pennant, only for them to fold at the end of the season, and it would turn out that the Mets won the pennant. The Mets had also been an underdog team, having been noted previously for always finishing in last place. I never liked the Mets after 1969.

I had moved to San Diego with my parents in 1970, and started rooting for the Padres. They had always finished with a losing record until 1984, when they won the National League Western Division, and the Cubs had won the Eastern Division. In 1984 I thought I would be happy with whichever of the two teams prevailed. However the Padres winning, particularly when they ended up beating the Cubs after the Cubs won the first two games of the series, brought back very painful memories of 1969. I just could not enjoy the celebration in San Diego which came at the expense of the Cubs. That being the case, I never liked the San Diego Padres afterward. I would say that that, in particular, ended any interest in following any sports team which I might have otherwise had.

I have always been an introvert rather than an extrovert. I particularly had problems when I was young. In particular I missed out on getting to know a girl who seemed to have a crush on me in high school, which turned out to be one of my biggest regrets in life, if not my biggest.

I had problems with mean fellow students in school, and I had a difficult dad. It took a long time for me to work through the issues which I had when I was young, and to come to accept myself. In fact I have described this in other posts, which are included in my journal.

I am definitely not given to small talk or bantering, either on a message board like this or in real life. I am particularly not given to the kind of bantering often seen in threads and posts in the lounge. And I am not the most knowledgeable person about all the details regarding current affairs; I am glad that other people post them. And I don't like to bring personal drama to a public message board if I can avoid it. I have been posting fairly regularly here since 2002 but still have only about 860 posts. However if I have something which I feel is important for me to say I like to say it.

The most important thing is to be oneself, and to like and respect oneself, and to enjoy being oneself. I have become much better at this since the time I was young (I am now 57).