Everyone gets lonely. Everyone. I don't care how introverted or even downright misanthropic you are, at some point, you will get lonely. You will long for the sympathetic touch of another person. You will want someone to listen to you, and understand.
This is the basic problem with being single: the loneliness. Loneliness leads people to do some pretty dumb shit. I should know; I do most of it. Because I suffer from one of the more acute cases of lonely-ass known to man. I am always lonely. It's a permanent condition. There is always something going on in some part of my brain that would like to be shared, and there is never anyone to share it with.
Mostly, I deal with this by blogging. And overusing social media to epic proportions. (I've more or less got my facebook feed under control, but Twitter still occasionally ends up looking like an emo kid threw up all over it. I can't help it. It's a sickness.)
Sometimes I send drunken emails to my friends in the middle of the night.
Sometimes I compose drunken emails to loves past and then don't send them in the middle of the night. This is occasionally funny the next morning, but more often than not it's cringe-inducing. I can get really intense when I'm drunk. It's terribly inappropriate.
A side issue in all this is that I have very British sensibilities. By which I mean, very World War II-era British sensibilities. I'm an endurer. I find actually asking for things to be unspeakably vulgar. Ditto on talking about sex, or feelings. I prefer silence to most things. I think life would be way less complicated if you didn't kiss anyone unless you thought you could probably marry them. Also if people would stick out there commitments just a little better. Also if people could still fall in love through absence.
(I've often wondered if Jim didn't abandon me because he thought he was getting an American girl, and instead I turned out to be just like all the girls on his side of the pond after all. Loss of exoticism and all that.)
I also have the British terror of vulnerability. I don't cry in front of people. Ever. And when other people cry in front of me, I am usually uncomfortable. I would love to be one of those people that can offer just the right amount of sympathy and comfort and make people feel better, but the reality is that as much as I want to help, I am usually too awkward to actually do so. I'm a bungler. And I'm horrid at asking for things.
Being of such staid and constrained philosophies in the modern American world is HARD. I mean, for fucks' sake. It's ridiculous how hard it is to live under these archaic ideas of decorum when everyone around you is hooking up and confessionally blogging about their sexploits and talking about feelings all the damn time. It's a constant feeling of letting your friends down because you can't commiserate. It's living in a permanent state of offense and horror at the world around you.
And it's an unending series of heartbreaks. You get to the point where you start being bitchy to people that might like you just to forestall what you absolutely know must be coming. That's a terrible excuse for being mean to someone, but it's true.
(So hey, if I'm mean to you, it probably means I like you. Just FYI.)
A lot of this grows from this outdated notion that confuses physical arousal with romantic love. I absolutely am one of the few people left in the world that are burdened to labor under this inability to separate the two. When I kiss someone, I fall in love with them. When I'm attracted to someone, I confuse it with being in love.
I thought that I should go celibate for awhile, until I figure out how to separate physical reactions from emotional ones, but I get lonely. I'm not very good at being alone, despite having been single for more of my adult life than I've been in relationshps. Abd most of those relationships have been bad, because it takes to little to attach me and I am so very eager to please that... well, you do the math.
So. Where was I going? I forget.
Loneliness. Loneliness is the crux of just about every problem I face. Terrible affliction.
Do you know I follow you on Twitter? Besides your lovefor Milwaukee and food.
ReplyDeleteSo many of the things I'd experience, you write about, and it is helping me to kill those ghosts.
Since I was a kid I've been a lonely person. My awkwardness, my glasses, the way I talk. In Mexico I was segregated because i was white therefore ppl thought i couldn't dance, play soccer, ... date.
In the US because I'm not white.
In Mexico i was lonely because i loved literature, art, science, my lingo was educated, Here, because I have an accent, I misspell, etc...
So I decided to work and help my mom and brother. I read a lot and learned English, I gave up on freedoms so I couldn't feel lonely.
My first ex left me for someone ... stronger, who beat her... i didn't understand life at all.
I met my ex wife.
Finally i felt accepted and heard, someone to share ...
Her overweight caused her so many traumas, all of our dreams went to hell. I was living with the most violent person you can ever imagine, i was scared to dead (no, really )
One ay I said, enough. And left
It broke my heart. I had never felt that miserable and used.
OF COURSE after my departure i learned about her infidelity and the way she always thought about me.
To be honest w you i hated everyone and myself, I loved my freedom and hated it
One year and a half later, of no dating, no nothing I was feeling needy. Not sexually, but of being heard.
So I bought an airplane ticket to Mexico
My plan: Become a human rights attorney (still is) and live single. Travel, adoption (I'd like to be a dad)
Like magically ... that same week it was a cascade of people telling me how important i was for them... wow, first time.
Friends got closer to me.
Life was getting a little happier.
But my decision was made.
For the first time in my life i was going to do something for myself.
So i said goodbye to my friends and bosses. I can't believe the response. I cried for the first time in 10 years in public
my friend Nels then asked me to go to his house for Thanksgiving.
And I met the woman of my dreams.
FUCK YOU IRONY!
noooo! Not this time I thought.
So I sacrifice my dreams, fr a better one, sharing a life with somebody.
Sold my plane ticket, dated her everyday, it has been the best time of my life.
Very unlikely story, but it happened to me.
I still think you have to step on a swamp of bullshit, no Raleigh's cape, to reach your dreams.
But also, my lessons was. Accept yourself .
BTW... INTERNET dating sucks cocks n' dicks (movie reference )
Anyway, I like and envy your writing :)
I admire you for continuing to work through the language barrier, by the way. I (briefly) toyed with the idea of moving to Mexico or Spain in my early 20s, and ultimately decided against it because I didn't think I could handle being inarticulate; it would have killed me not to be able to communicate anything but basic necessities. (My Spanish is atrocious, for real.) So, I admire you very much for having that courage.
ReplyDeletebelieve me, in Mexico there is more than one thing that can kill you, including the arrogance of men (that would kill you twice).
ReplyDeleteWell thank you very much, and keep writing about relationships, it's unintentionally very educational.
I guess the greatest thing you may have is a little disciple that will worship you when she gets older. Take Care