Dull-Eyed Dread
There’s very little that gives me a feeling of dread anymore, and that is a good thing. Unfortunately, there is one specific topic that pretty much ONLY gives me dread: dating.
People keep trying to goad or talk me into going on dates, or “just think about it”. I don’t want to. Leave me alone about it. I don’t have the energy or wish to invest in that at this point of my life. I am having a hard enough time just making it day-to-day, I don’t need or want to add a string of stressful and pointless encounters to the list. And for what? To prove I’m ‘successfully single’? I’ve been single for nigh on four years already, and I don’t see why there’s a problem with that.
The truth is, I have no interest.
As far as I can tell, the idea behind dating is to find marriage, or whatever one’s closest proximate to this is. I know that I sure in hell do not want marriage anytime soon, if ever. (I could be settled with a person, sure, but I can’t handle the settled-in-forever lifestyle. Just the thought makes me want to run.) I just don’t have it in me to be contractually bound to an unchanging life. I already tried that, remember? I already failed, remember? I am the one that felt suffocated and like I was dying a slow death, remember?
Frankly, I feel trapped enough as it is – I am fully aware of the reality that I am bound to live in and interact with society to some degree for at least 15 more years. And that idea is troubling to me. I feel a very strong need for complete freedom from any constraint, but I also understand and accept that I can’t be free just yet, because there are certain responsibilities I must see through.
Not that the reason is anything bad: the simple truth is that I have children who depend on me, and I’m not going to abandon them just because it’s not easy for me to live a typical life. I’m perfectly okay with this arrangement, because I know that as soon as I see those little humans into their own life-building, I’ll then be able to strike out on my own however I want to. And, I am okay with the wait, because I also know I can build my life NOW as I want to, and there are some very awesome little humans who love to build things with me.
If there were nothing anchoring me to a specific place? I’d just wander around the world on foot or by boat. That’s pretty much it. Not particularly realistic, because money makes the world go ’round, but that’s the truth of it. It’s hard for me to “have to” be in certain places at certain times, and I don’t like that I can’t just pick up and go. I get overwhelmed often, so I go off into the forest, where I am free. This allows me to shed those feelings of entrapment because something about the forest changes me. This is why I now live in a place where forests are abundant, where there is always a forest within walking distance.
I made the choices I made when I was a different person, and I can’t change that. I choose to live with the natural consequences, even if it’s difficult for me as this person I am now. The children don’t prevent me from following my dreams. They actually add more substance to my dreams – their existence helps me to form truly achievable plans, and they give me motivation to follow through. That is a good thing.
Either way, the idea of dating just gives me negative feelings. I don’t fit into that world, I just don’t. I would like to make friends, definitely… but I don’t really feel like I can try to keep up with anything more than that. Not in the normal ways, anyway. Mostly because I can’t imagine finding anyone who genuinely thinks or feels the way I do, and I can’t imagine finding a life companion to build a stabilized yet fluid life with.
I know that most people want stability in their lives. My idea is that the relationship itself would be the stability, because it would be based in friendship and flexibility and mutual support, not materialism or competition. But, that’s just not realistic as far as I can tell. The whole point of pretty much all romantic tragedies is that “love isn’t enough”.
But, it is enough for me. Truthfully, I make my way in the world however I make my way. I’m good at using all resources to their fullest. I don’t mind living a subsistence life, or not having heaps of excess money, or not owning the world. I don’t WANT to own the world. I don’t need someone else to earn money for me. I’m perfectly adept at doing that on my own. Likewise, I don’t mind being ‘the moneymaker’, because it doesn’t really matter who is making the money, or if we even used money… as long as we’d have everything we needed to live without constant struggle.
I just want to exist in peace and love and joy and go on however I can. I don’t need anything else. I’m too simple, I think.
I can’t imagine anyone wanting to love me the way I am – accepting that I can never be ‘normal’ and still loving me and allowing me to pursue my dreams without a need to control me or keep me caged. I can’t imagine finding someone to build a strong yet free love with.
I can’t imagine that I’d ever find someone who is willing to explore life with me on the simplest of terms, to wander and stumble and be okay with that uncertainty because we are together and that’s all that we need.
And, to top off the list of irregularities? I’m generally not attracted to people. I mean, I can see they are ‘good looking’ or ‘charismatic’ or whatever, but it doesn’t mean I’d want anything more than friendship. I have no drive to make myself physically attractive so that they will want to try for more than friendship, either. I’m open to forming solid friendships, and I’m open to seeing where things go from there… But I’m not open to starting out with romance as the intent.
Even if I did find someone to love me as I am, there’s no guarantee I’d be able love him the same way. And that hurts me to think of, because I know my instinct is to pretend to be ‘in love’ just so that I can feel loved. It is my nature to want to be loved, and it is my nature to be a people-pleaser. This is what happened before, how I ended up “married” before.
And, what if it happened the opposite way, where I grew to love him and he didn’t or couldn’t love me? Never would I want a man to pretend to love me just to avoid hurting me. That’s not unconditional love at all, and that is not what I want. And this is why there are tears streaming down my face as I type this. It’s painful.
And so, I feel that it’s highly unlikely that there is any type of “dating” success to be found for me. The idea of “online dating” just saps my strength, to be honest. The simplest truth: I can’t do it. I can’t even consider it.
I don’t understand the ‘why’ of any of this. My life would be infinitely simpler if I could just be a normal person with normal interests and normal goals. My life would be infinitely simpler if I didn’t have thoughts about these things that give me anxiety. My life would be infinitely simpler if… I don’t know.
I just need to be the simple person I am and not have people tell me I’m ‘wrong’ all the time. It’s frustrating and it hurts. This is really why I can’t stay around people for too long without getting tired or overwhelmed – it’s a constant barrage of reminders about all the things ‘wrong’ with me. My brain can literally never be ‘normal’, so I will never be able to feel like other people tell me I “should” feel.
If I don’t want something, I don’t want it… why is it anyone else’s job to try to “fix” me? I’m fixing myself in the ways that I need to, so that I may find peace, so that I may live openly in the light. That’s it.
I don’t know. Maybe someday I’ll be “ready” in my own way. That day is not today.