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Alone in the park

Nov 17, 2001
Uncategorized

10:16PM, Saturday, November 17th, 2001

I wish I had something a little nicer than simpletext to write in. I wish I had something a little nicer to write. So much of what I have to say just isn’t kind. It isn’t kind to me. It isn’t kind to the people in my life. So much of what I want to say might just go down the wrong way with some people that I just don’t say it. Not even to myself. I believe in the idea of honesty, and of being forthright with what is on your mind, but this has led me to mislead myself. If I can just convince myself that something about me isn’t true then I don’t have to worry about whether or not I reveal it to the people it would upset; there’s nothing left to reveal.

I censor myself. I don’t just censor the words that I say and write. I censor my own thoughts. I have heard it said that thoughts cannot be censored, but I know that this is not true because I censor my own thoughts. I have blanked out whole sections of my memory and my hopes and dreams and desires and emotions and so much of myself that I am no longer sure what it means to be me. Some say that I just like to be a complicated person. Some say that That is because I want to be able to push people away. That I want to be left alone. I have hidden so much from myself over time that I don’t know if I am even capable of knowing whether my complexity is intentional or a side effect of something true about me. I don’t know how to find out if I am really this way, or if I’m just pretending to be this way, or if there is really a difference between reality and imagination, if one believes what is imagined.

If I lie to myself about something for so long, or so convincingly that I and up believeing it and living my life according to it, does it remain a lie? If I lie to everyone I know and I live my life in line with that lie, is it still a lie? For whom? Does it stop being a lie the moment I believe it? I can be pretty convincing. I think people, myself included, have a very good ability to make themselves believe things, whether or not they have any basis in truth or not. I think that this very ability can change the course of human events. Can change the whole world. I believe that since everything that is is just a matter of what we perceive it to be, if we can change our perception of the world, we can change the world.

I remember when my sexual orientation was not a question, but an assumption. I remember when a career was something I wanted to have; was going to have. I remember when I knew for certain that I would always be alone; that I would never find a match and would live my life without the companionship of a partner. I remember it was not in question. It was a fact. So many things that I believed to be true about the world and about my own place in the world. I remember specific moments when some of these things changed. Some of them have been more gradual. Some of them have even begun to shift back from possibilities to facts of life.

I can think back to when I first started showing an interest in the opposite sex thinking to myself that this would be an interesting experiment - something to look at, learn about, and move on from. I remember looking at relationships as a part of the human experience that I did not share, that I did not understand but wanted to understand. I remember losing girlfriends three years in a row while I tried to figure out what the deal with Valentine’s Day is. I remember not knowing little assumed things about how to deal with other human beings in an emotional, intimate relationship causing so much trouble. I remember how I learned to be a good partner by learning what it means to love. I remember how love itself compelled me to say things like “I want to be with you forever,” and how saying those things began to change what I believed about my future. How I eventually managed to convince myself that I should be with the person that I love, even if I could never really convince them of the same thing about me. How the reality of what was true in my heart about what I want in my life was changed because I was trying to work out how to be in a good relationship.

So much of the love in my heart, so much of the flirtation in my past, so much of the pleasure in my bed, has come from this ill-advised quest to understand human companionship that I think I muct have convinced myself that it was all rubbish. It wasn’t real, it wasn’t valid, it wasn’t true, and all because my intentions in experiencing it were artificial. I can remember that I used to be able to get anyone I wanted. I remember that I used to flirt effectively with the best of them. I remember girls fighting with each other to be with me. I remember having more than one person at a time (more than half a dozen at another), and all to myself. I remember these things happenning, but I don’t seem to be able to do them now. A little while ago I spent over two hours in a store where an attractive young woman I am interested in is working, and I did little more than say hello. Now I know just about every product offerred in the entire store, but she doesn’t even know I like her. I used to see someone I wanted to get to know and in no time they were reveling secrets they never thought they’d tell anyone - now I see someone I’d like to get to know better and I just freeze up. I just don’t know how to start with people anymore.

One of my favorite things in the past has been getting to know new people and new experiences. I remember losing several partners because I had been a little too tempted by a new face, a new smile, a passionate kiss I had never had the chance to taste before. . . I remember relishing in the getting-to-know-you routine. Today it seems to be the hardest part. I’m still forward and freindly enough on the surface that I have relatively meaningful conversations with strangers and people who work behind the counter wherever I shop, but I can’t seem to bring myself to take it past that point of casual aquaintance with whom I am comfortable discussing things of no import, but of whom I know very little. Then again, maybe I’m making too big a deal out of something that really isn’t a big deal. Maybe there really isn’t anything more to getting to know someone than to continue having conversations with them, and to be interested in their lives and their existence as human beings. Maybe if I just keep showing up at her shop and having conversations with her, she will get to know me well enough that she will be interested as well. Maybe everyone I’m considering mere casual acquiantances consider me a friend, because I’m so friendly. How could I ever really know?

What does it mean to be alive? What does it mean to die? Why do want to be with someone other than myself, and not just next to someone but with someone? Why I want to find someone to be physically intimate with is not in question; that is a part of being made from flesh. That is obvious, even when it isn’t easy. Why I want the person or persons I am physically intimate with to also be emotionally intimate with me - now there’s a question. What am I so afraid of? They say that one cannot express courage without being scared first, but I don’t think that finding someone to share living with is something that I should be afraid of. I am alive. Other people are alive. I want to share that. Their lives and mine. I want something meaningful and fulfilling. I want . . . I want to be normal. From where I am sitting right now, all I can see are couples and people looking for someone to couple with. It must be normal here.

There is something wonderful about having someone to have and to hold. I understand why all my friends are getting married. I figured out why to get married years upon years ago, and I tried to get married a few times. It hasn’t worked out yet, but it seems that my involvement in their lives has led over half of them to marry others with hearts similar to my own so far. The sueation then becomes “What is wrong with me?” There was a young woman I was pursuing a couple of months ago who told me that she didn’t want to have a serious/romantic relationship with me because she wanted to spend time getting to know people as friends long before even considering having a relationship with them. That is a reasonable and worthwhile thing to do when in pursuit of a long-term, worthwhile relationship, so I didn’t think anything of it. Then, a few weeks ago she introduced me to her new boyfriend; somone she’s known at least a few years less than myself. So what was it that he has that I don’t? What is it that I have that drives her - and others - away?

I’m getting so cold. I just don’t know what to do with myself. Sometimes I’m sure that it’s all my own fault, but . . . I am not in control of other people’s actions. I seem often to find myself in the position of having offended someone simply by being myself and speaking my mind. Worse is that more often than not in these situations, people become offended or upset but say nothing at all, leaving me to continue behaving in just the same manner as has upset them in the first place. There is so much more to human communication that I just don’t seem to have a grasp on right now. . . I may have understood it once, but now I’m just twisting in the wind. i want someone to care enough about me that they want to help me become a better person. I want someone to want to be with me with such a passion that when I say something just wrong, they stay by my side and do everything in their power to teach me the just right way to say what I’m thinking. I want someone who loves me enough that they don’t want to leave me all the time.

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9 Comments

  1. Suffering in Silence  •  Nov 19, 2001 @1:44 pm

    Who doesn’t? Perhaps there is no way to be that will make people never want to leave you. The best that anyone can do is be themselves, it’s cliche I know, but true. You can never make someone love you, you can only let them know you, and if that is what they want and need, then maybe, just maybe, they will also be what you want and need. There is no secret, no clue, no love potion that will ever change human nature. We created love for a reason, because it is as essential to our lives as water, and just as beautiful. We’ll never know what exactly it is that lets people love eachother, maybe it’s nothing more than effort. Maybe it’s everything about them just happens to fit with their partner, and it’s a miracle that they found eachother in a world with more than six billion people. Is it better to love passionately, and have it end rapidly, or to love quitely, and have it last forever? Is the first case really love? Should you ever tell someone that you love them when you’re really scared about what their response might be? Is “I don’t know you very well” an excuse to choke back the words I love you? We’ll never really know, the best we can do, is hope that by chance or fate or God or whatever you believe in, finds a way to silently lead you into the arms of those that you can love, and if we’re lucky enough, they may just love us back.

  2. Marie  •  Nov 19, 2001 @5:16 pm

    “I may have understood it once, but now I’m just twisting in the wind. i want someone to care enough about me that they want to help me become a better person. I want someone to want to be with me with such a passion that when I say something just wrong, they stay by my side and do everything in their power to teach me the just right way to say what I’m thinking. I want someone who loves me enough that they don’t want to leave me all the time.”

    There are like a million responses to this floating around, and it’s all summed up with “Are you unclear”? I find it interesting that during my quest for an appropriate mate, you have caused me to classify the kind of person that I want, which you frequently identify as yourself. And you often complain that there is no one to love you stand by you through whatever crap you dish out, etc. When I obviously do that.

    To the best of my knowledge we are only missing two components that would make us exactly like all of those other couples out there. Okay, two and a half, and another half = three. We don’t interact sexually, you have no “romantic feelings” for me or whatever it was that you said( something really hurtful if I recall), we spend less time together than most couples, and we seem to be signifigantly mroe aware of each other.

    I’ve mentioned to you before and I’ll do it again. Sometimes the things you need in life can be gotten from your friends. We spent the whole day together yesterday, we had fun, we ate dinner, we watched some TV, we discussed things that we found interesting or important, and as far as I can see we did it with ease. The only thing that we did that was at all unlike a “typical couple” is that at the end of the evening we retired to our seperate beds. That’s okay with me. I find myself not looking so hard for someone else when I have you around, oddly enough that it something you once said to me, also. Just maybe you could spend a more time examining all of the wonderful things you have, and not paying so much attention to the things you are missing.

    You have a friend that loves you more than possibly anyone else ever will, you have a great job that sucks sometimes, but you can do it and it pays the bils, your sister is moving in with you which will provide you will more income companionship, and familial love, you are young, intelligent, mostly healthy when you’ll allow yourself to be, and so much more. To sum it all up, I don’t think you have it all so bad as you conveyed. I step over to take a look at your grass sometimes, and it seems just as green as mine, so you can’t be doin’ to badly.

  3. Teel  •  Nov 20, 2001 @9:12 am

    Well, there are a few things I can say in response to that. I could talk about how even I lose interest in reading my site when every time I ramble about feeling bad I end up figuring out that I don’t really feel bad at all by the time I stop typing, and how I intentionally stopped writing way too early Saturday night. I could talk about how I have had multiple requests from people for more posts like what I used to post, which as far as I can tell means long, rambling posts whining about things that really aren’t all that bad, or aren’t bad at all when looked at in the full context of my life, and that was what I tried to deliver. I could talk about how I’ve been trying to get myself in the appropriate mood to get an “I Like Blue Skies” or two done, and that inducing feelings of false lonliness are actually a good thing in that regard. I could talk about how much I appreciate you and how I’m still not very good at acknowledging the important people in my life, even when they clearly are going out of their way to involve me in their lives, as you have recently, and that having you in my life is a really good thing.

    I seem to have got in the habit lately of going down to Mill on Saturday nights. I’m certain that an important part of this is to remind me constantly of what I’m not missing by not really being “on the market” for a partner, and what I’m not missing by staying home most other nights of the week. Another side effect though is that for a few hours every week or two I get a focused dose of feeling very single and with very little possibilty of that changing soon, if at all, plus the idea that having a partner would somehow make my life more complete. Then on Sundays and Mondays I do my best to spend a little time with a good friend or just doing something creative and fulfilling, and the whole thing is washed so far from my mind that I don’t remember how bad it was until I do it again. That I keep doing it seems mostly to be a symptom of my own procrastination and laziness; going out on Saturday nights seems easier than staying home and cleaning or whatever.

    I’ve been taking steps to do better things with my time, and in fact my primary intention on Saturday night wasn’t to go feel bad about being alone, but to go to the park and get some writing done for the site. Probably I shouldn’t have hung out on Mill before and after doing so, but it’s right there between me and the park. I think that going to the park to write or do comics or whatever is going to become an increasingly productive thing; I seem very comfortable being creative there. The fresh air is nice, and being by the water reminds me. Which I like.

    I feel like I’ve lost my focus here. Talking to too many idiots while trying to type something meaningful causes the sort of stifling that has prevented me from doing many posts here lately at all. Something else: Marie, you haven’t mentioned to me that you love me in twelve or eighteen months or more, and I’ve an awful tendency to misplace ideas I’m not reminded of. Like, I can remember that at some time in the past you felt something for me, but we’ve been “just friends” for so long that it hasn’t occurred to me. Come over some time soon and we’ll discuss this again. It’s been a while.

  4. Teel  •  Nov 20, 2001 @10:03 am

    When there were a lot of things missing from my life, it was easier to not focus on them. It is easy to not look in detail at something you have in abundance, even if it is problems. I used to be able to just aknowledge that I had some problems and move on and be relatively happy.

    I’ve been working so hard and long to identify and address the things about myself and my life that I would like to change that I have made significant progress in the vast majority of these things. Unfortunately, that leaves the full force of energy that I’ve used to transform myself and my life to try to address a couple of little things (like being “single” when I kinda want to end up married with kids), and it seems to kinda overflow the problems and overinflate them. It isn’t that I don’t realize my life is great, it’s just that all the greatness in my life leaves me plenty of time to focus on and go into great detail exploring the ramifications of the things that are less than great.

    Also, I do realize that a lot of what I need as far as human companionship goes I can get from friends. I also realize that friends is just a part of what I believe a (more-than-friends) relationship should be (thus, the “more-than-friends”-ness). There are things I can’t get from friends. More importantly, I’m selfish and greedy and I want friends AND a partner in a mutually loving relationship. Kinda. No rush. I’m not on some sort of schedule for finding a mate. That doesn’t mean it isn’t on my mind time and again, it just means I’m not really stressing over it as much as I guess I come across.

    I do really worry about whether I will ever be able to find a mate and how my current difficulties with even making new friends may impact that, but … not all the time. Not when I’m doing other things that are important to me, like spending time with my friends or creating (unless I’m creating something about being woefully single, of course). I’m repeating both of us now. I’ll stop.

  5. Marie  •  Nov 20, 2001 @3:36 pm

    I wondered that you didn’t get it when I got no response. Last month or so you stated that I was going to ditch you if I ever found a boyfriend, so I emailed you a long email, montioning how much I love you, just to make you feel better. I forget to say words to people often, because I think that everything I do is conveyed so well other way, and my serious lack of need for people to say words to me.

  6. Newtron Dance  •  Nov 22, 2001 @10:59 am

    Marie, I have to admit it. I finally respect you, after reading your posts here and the last two times I have seen you in person you have changed what I have thought about you as a person. You have changed in my mind from a young girl who seemed to feel the world owed them to a woman who takes resposibility and has a mature world outview. I apologize for the harsh things I have said in the past and ask forgivness for them.

    On another note, Teel, you know you have friends, I myself went through a period when I was still trying to define myself where I had very simular thoughts as to what you are going through now. Not the same thoughts, and I am not trying to say that you are like everyone else, you are the most unique person I know, and one of the few who can make me feel dumb on a regular basis. I enjoy hanging out with you, and consider you one of my closest friends, we have been through alot together and I hope that we can continue to be close friends in the far future.

    On a futher note, I hope to have plans sketched soon for the mechanincs of the robot, Do you remember how to draw up circuit diagrams? I will have to take some refresher courses on electronics to get the schematics done right. It looks like we will have a house this friday so we will have a place to construct it.

  7. Teel  •  Nov 23, 2001 @7:44 am

    re: battlebots/circuits

    re:Friends - I know I have friends. I just don’t seem to be able to make new ones. But maybe that’s not true and I just don’t see it. The people who are my friends are people I’ve known for a few years or more. Iain, one of my newest friends, I have known for over three years. I’ve known Marie at least as long as Iain. I’ve known you and Art for an entire decade. The only people I can think of off the top of my head that might consider themselves my friends who I’ve known for less time would be Iain’s wife & her sister, who I’ve only known for a year or so.

    I don’t know what I’m trying to say. Maybe that I wasn’t trying to appear totally alone, but rather that I am romantically alone and I feel unable to make new friends/partners. Again, maybe I was just trying to make a post that fit what I thought people wanted to see. Heck, mayeb I did it, and that’s why we’re able to have a conversation about it instead of just reading it and moving on. I have another weekend coming up; maybe I’ll have a free moment to spend rambling for you guys again.

  8. Iain  •  Nov 23, 2001 @4:27 pm

    I think that’s why I Like Blue Skies works so well. It COULD be about you, or it could be just compelling fiction. It can act as a outlet for both, and people who want posts here probably want to read I Like Blue Skies too. Heck, maybe even post the new ones over here as well?

  9. ed  •  Jan 28, 2004 @7:38 pm

    Some of us have the spiritual responsibility of being the ’stepping stone’ for others. Perhaps once we realize our “place” we’ll move on to another step. There is a new book out called, “against love” it challenges all the
    standard social customs we call dating and coupling. Perhaps it is a higher spiritual plane to be the “stepping stone”. thanks for your life and insight and website. take care
    Ed