Matt Joseph Diaz

This week, Matt shares what he wishes he learned in high school.

"There is always someone who loves you. There is always someone who cares."

We met Matt a year ago when he showed us his post weight-loss body.

">

It's time for #MondayMotivation with Matt Joseph Diaz. Today Matt is talking about vulnerability. 

Being asked about my weight-loss “secrets” make me uncomfortable. It feels very different from people wanting to know about my story. It feels like being asked to provide a shortcut.

There’s a big difference between talking and communicating. One exists to relay messages, ideas, and feelings: the building blocks of being a person. The other exists to fill time. I’m by no means here to tell people how to approach their relationships — I just don’t want people to feel pressured to fill silences with noise out of the fear their partners won’t think they care.

I've long considered myself a collector of failed relationships. From the girlfriend I asked out during a bar crawl and dated for eight days to the conservative Christian who thought her love was “saving me from a life of debauchery,” I actually gained a little pride from my list of failed love affairs. However, while these relationships were problematic, what made them “failures?”

In the spring of 2013, I met a woman on OKCupid. She was petite, with a kind smile and a voice so soft that it could melt all your troubles away. Her shock of red curls went down to her shoulders — and because of this, and the fact that we no longer speak, let's call her Ann.

Ann was a few years older than I, wise and mature. She also, it turned out, spent her professional life beating up strangers for their sexual satisfaction.

I'm 23 years old, I don’t want children, and every elder who discovers this feels compelled to tell me how wrong I am about my own feelings.