For some reason I feel compelled to write about love, ironically at a time I feel most unqualified to do so. Maybe I’m trying to give myself reassurance.
It’s been less than a week since my first break up and while I’m feeling better than expected, I’m not sure I’ve processed things enough, and I’ve been told that I’m good at compartmentalizing. It’s not that I intend to, rather, I think it’s a byproduct of my low RAM/memory window, and I’ve been juggling a lot of things these days.
It feels like a personal failing, of sorts, to have not been able to take care of someone enough, to not be able to find a good person, enough.
At the same time, it’s not unexpected – I suspected at 17 that dating would not be easy for me (in my accuracy, is this possibly a self-fulfilling prophecy?). And my strategy has been to lean into my friendships and career interests to compensate, in anticipation of a romantically lonely future.
In that sense, I’ve been surprisingly successful, by my own standards: I have a relatively clear idea of what I find compelling, and while it hasn’t been easy or straightforward (a lot of luck involved), I’ve been able to maneuver myself into opportunities to work on compelling problems. I have a few very solid friends (I tend to have more intimate platonic relationships than average), and a good smattering of interesting friends for novelty.
In fact, I’m so good at friendships that my ex now thinks it’s an upgrade (less stress). And I’m not sure how to not internalize that I’m fussy and difficult. I’ve tried to find attitudes over the years to make myself easier, to smooth out my rough edges.
Friendships are easier because you don’t need to worry about idiosyncratic compatibilities (like if you find them physically attractive, cleanliness, etc), you can just evaluate them on ideals, like their strength of character. With this distance, I can wholeheartedly support them becoming whatever they want – and I seem to do this well, I am characterized by friends as being unusually nonjudgmental and accepting. But this is not true for a romantic partner because they’ll inevitably encounter my fussy idiosyncratic preferences, which I’ve been able to largely restrict, even from friends, but it is not feasible in at the distance of a romantic relationship.
I think there’s a 80% probability that I end up unwed and alone. That’s generally the trend of women that I find admirable on wikipedia. I think it could be a nice life to raise a kid with my friends, taking advantage of my strengths. Some people are polyamorous, and I guess I’m arguably platonically polyamorous. I desire to be romantically monogamous though. I want a best friend and not be lonely, to always have a default partner to pair up with in life’s group projects/events. While everyone is most fearing their mortality, I most fear feeling alone.
And this is related to why dating is hard for me – I need specific kinds of conversation/interaction to not feel lonely. It is something like a mutual exploration to understand something, and my close friends suggest that it requires the specific aesthetic of a bottom up approach (my ex had a top-down approach). This tends to be a hard filter, and from there, the usual dating things also apply (attraction, logistics, etc). Perhaps I’m too picky, but I currently don’t know how to loosen them, and I’ve tried for a decade now.
Aversion to feeling alone might be why I value physical touch so much – it is grounding, it concretely tells me that, in this universe, someone else is here with me. But it is finicky – its effectiveness is dependent on how close I feel with them. I really only seek and can only get this kind of comfort from a limited number of people.
I’m not sure where I wanted to go with this. I don’t have an insightful commentary about love. Let me share the ones I’ve collected over the years in that place:
“Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction.”
- Antoine de Saint-Exupery (adjacent to “The Missing Piece Meets the Big O” by Shel Silverstein)
You tend to go back to who feels like home.
- ten word story, j.h. (via jewelhess)
“And if you cannot find your way out of the darkness, I will sit there with you and show you the stars.”
- N.R. Hart
“The most fortunate relationships are a natural match between what a person lacks and what the other cannot wait to give.” (reflects how I don’t really believe in settling)
“I’ve become skeptical of the unwritten rule that just because a boy and girl appear in the same feature, a romance must ensue. Rather, I want to portray a slightly different relationship, one where the two mutually inspire each other to live - if I’m able to, then perhaps I’ll be closer to portraying a true expression of love.”
- Hayao Miyazaki