Ever get lonely? Yeah, probably. Me, too. Ever want to shun all human contact as a reaction to losing yourself in various kinds of relationships? Me, too.
I've been thinking a lot today about my (more uncertain than ever, in every possible way) future and have particularly been pondering the big space inside me where the love stuff is supposed to go. I really want to find someone, one day, even though I'm not about to actively look in a hurry. I also recoil to at least some extent at the thought of finding someone, no matter how perfect for me. Confused? You will be...
Am I just meant to be alone? 'Alone' sounds to me -- in keeping with what seems to be a fairly dichotomous character -- both sad and good. Sometimes the need to find That Thing Called Love and to give and receive it gets overwhelming, but the reality when I think about it, can leave me cold. I mean, what are the
odds that a person could meet another person and have it be Mostly Good Stuff forever (I'd never be so naive to suggest that any union could be absolutely perfect).
There's also the undeniable fact that, in calendar years, I'm getting older. Also, unless I somehow end up with women 20 years younger than me, it'd seem like that potential (possibly mythical) perfect match is going to want to be having children soon. I want one or two of those things -- and perhaps I'd be more upset about the passage of time were my role models not largely academics who had children when they were in their late 30s or early 40s -- but that spells a fairly major commitment. I wouldn't want to rush in to anything like that...don't want to mess that up. I know that there are no guarantees, but that's little consolation to someone who's already been through the ringer. Right now I'm seeing love -- and I am, indeed, questioning if I even know what that is -- as something at least as destructive and negative as it is good.
To be frank, after a decade and a half in a largely intimacy-free marriage (the net effect being to neuter me during my later 20s and my 30s, years that're gone forever), I don't know that finding myself in a serious, long-term relationship is anything even close to the right thing for me. On the other hand, I've never dated, for real, and the thought not only scares me but generally sounds
very unappealing. If I ever do meet anyone, I highly suspect that it'll be through means other than dating...supermarket, airplane ride, or whatever, more than likely.
So that kinda leads me to what I keep coming back to: just sticking to myself indefinitely. After all, I bottled up and suppressed all that passion, romantic stuff, and love all those too-many years, and sublimating it into my work did wonders for my career. Now that I've all but walked on (nay, almost derailed entirely) my career that I worked so hard and so long to secure....well, maybe I should just console myself to being forever alone in a romantic sense. I'm not being melodramatic here: for some reason, some cosmic irony, despite my early attraction to girls and vast reserves of passion I never had a real girlfriend and was alone in any related way until my early 20s. So this Solitary Man archetype is hardly new to me. And being essentially intimacy free, in a romantic relationship, has marked almost my entire life thus far.
If you're still with me, this is the real thing about it all: a big part of my ambivalence (well, conflict, I guess) is because I don't want to sacrifice my freedom and I don't want to be constantly criticized. Been there, done that. Those're the last things I need now, and probably ever. I've always been independent, though life with my wife basically made me highly dependent and helpless, and I value my privacy and freedom to do what I want when I want. It seems to me like it's inevitable that any relationship with a woman, even the best, is going to erode that. Actually, it seems to me like I'd be an inflexible cad if I resisted any compromise in that respect. Of course, part of my freedom in this hypothetical Near-Ideal Relationship would be freedom to appear very un-free because we'd be such a good match that we'd spend a lot of time together. But, still...
As for the criticism, I got tired of being nagged and tired of being put down, treated like a child, and tired of being criticized for every little (usually stupid, petty) thing. Especially when, as was often the case, the basis of said criticism was invalid. That I had bigger things on my mind, like completing degrees and a lot of other stuff, didn't help much. I still get a bit of that from others close to me, and I'm tolerating it less and less fully. If there's any indication that I've grown older, perhaps it's a diminishing of my patience for petty garbage that wastes my time and energy. I'm definitely less tolerant in that respect. If I live alone in perpetuity, I'm pretty well set up to eventually become a classic curmudgeon...that actually sounds kinda fun.
Anyway, after all that I'm beginning to suspect that I'm stuck between a desire for love and all that good stuff and a complete aversion to its trappings and, just maybe, some of the emotional commitment. Of course, it's possibly significant that I recently filed for divorce...though, in reality, the marriage was over long ago and, functionally, at least, I've been unmarried for years. I think I don't know what I want, or do know and the things involved are incompatible. I'm sure that, if it's right, all will be clear. How, though, can you know if it's right? You can't, right? Not 'til it's over, or at least well underway. Basically, I'm not sure that I want to or can put in the effort to correct a faltering relationship....but maybe that's just now, given my dynamic marital status at this moment and, of course, expected post-traumatic stress burnout and fatigue. Matrimony shock.
It seems like there are plenty of other DUers in a similar boat. Any words of encouragement, words of discouragement, or --if all else fails -- nude photos?