you may be right, i may be crazy...
i'm supposed to be writing about the history of disaster relief right now for my seminar paper (which currently has a working title of "katrina: that racist bitch"), but i'm not. i'm watching the local news and thinking about how i'm dangerously close to being a raving lunatic.
so this post is an attempt to exorcise my demons.
see, it's like this... it's been a rough week and a rough day. i sat on my bathroom floor last night and had a good cry. maybe i'm just feeling a little vulnerable and self-critical these days, but sometimes i can be such an idiot. in particular (this has nothing to do with last night's cry, this has to do with why right now i think i'm a lunatic), there's something i can't understand about myself, something that really pisses me off about me, something that is really kind of inconsistent with my personality--i have this awful tendency, whenever i think of myself in relation to the opposite sex, to turn into a stupid, insecure, self-loathing 13 year old girl. ugh. what is wrong with me?! i shouldn't need someone to tell me i'm pretty. that shit shouldn't matter, right? what matters is on the inside, right? um, wrong.
is this symptomatic of getting older? is this what happens when you're eight months out of a relationship that you at one point thought was "it" in the i'm-finally-done-with-dating sense? (for the record, i don't believe in the concept of soulmates.) do you then start to picture yourself, surrounded by cats and bridge games, riding the alone train to aloneville?
ugh. it's all so stupid. i know that. the sensible part of me knows that i'm still young, that i don't need to be in a relationship, that i have fantastic friends and school and a hell of a lot of other stuff going on right now to keep me occupied. i know that being part of a couple is not the end-all-be-all. but good god, do i miss waking up next to someone. i miss having someone around who looks at me in a way that's different from the way he looks at anyone else. i miss stupid little things like late night phone calls, thoughtful gestures, holding hands.
and it's autumn, which really is the best time to be dating someone. the leaves are all changing, the weather is cooler, coffee tastes better.
i should stop this. i'm being so silly and this is really a pointless and boring exercise (exorcise?). bah, so what if i'm single? so what? the odds are that i won't always be. so this is well-earned downtime. i should enjoy it.
and you know what they say -- the grass is _always_ greener on the other side...
something of which i'm not sure, however, is that if this desire to be coupled off is some sort of compromise of one's insistence on and appreciation of independence? is it possible to be totally content on one's own and yet still want to be part of a relationship? i'd like to believe that the two notions are not mutually exclusive, but i'm not always so sure...
thoughts? anyone? and i'm really only asking about the last paragraph -- i don't need (or want, for that matter) anyone to comment on all the weepy idiot stuff.
posted by emily @ Friday, October 28, 2005
7 comments
7 Comments:
I've thought about this a lot and still continue to think about it. I don't think it's as easy as "there's someone out there for everyone." If people wanted to be coupled up, they would couple up. Society encourages us to couple up, it's certainly the easier thing to do.
We started reading about spousal property in Estates & Trusts, and in most states each person owns what they earn, and they can dispose of it how they wish? Great, right? It's fair, everyone can be independent - except that it's not fair, because married women typically don't make as much as men. The more equitable solution is in a minority of states where the married couple owns everything jointly. That's great, theoretically, but it bugs the crap out of me.
I absolutely think I'm not ready for marriage and kids and compromise yet. I'm getting closer, certainly, but up to this point I believe I've been dating inappropriate men as a subconscious way of staying single. "I don't want to get forced into sharing everything - here, I'll date this guy who is a complete jerk, or with whom I have nothing in common, or who doesn't like cats" or something like that. Sure, I've complained about it when we've broken up, but I don't think I was seriously ready to "settle down" with any of them either.
Being single - like being child-free or being gay - is so hard to be, with society pushing us into heterosexual, baby-making couples. It works for some people, but it doesn't work for everyone. I'm not saying this is necessarily the right choice for you or I long-term, just that - you know, there's lots of people our age who are married with kids, and I'm sure we could have gone that route if we'd stayed with Joe Exboyfriend, but we didn't, and there's a reason for that, and it's not necessarily Joe's Fear of Commitment that's at issue here.
These are my thoughts.
sandy
oh goodness... dating the wrong men... and on purpose... yeah.
if i were to chart some sort of dating progression in my life, it would look like this:
high school:
the boys emily likes are:
probably in a band, not likely to be college-bound, have horrible relationships with their parents
emily herself is:
straight-A student, determinedly college-bound, student council president, loves her parents, but has the sort of relationship with them like that of angela chase to her parents in "my so-called life"
college:
the boys emily likes are:
probably philosophy majors, lovers of indie rock, all around good guys
emily herself is:
having an agnostic crisis in the wake of her mother's death, smoking a lot of cigarettes, dreaming of writing fiction for a living
post-college 1, the boston years:
the boys emily likes are:
probably in a band, have strained relationships with their parents, probably took an extremely long time to finish college
emily herself is:
a total self-proclaimed bad ass at darts, in love with boston, deciding she should go to law school because she realizes she really wants to do some good in the world
post-college 2, the philadelphia years:
the boys emily likes are:
a couple of nobodies, and stean
emily herself is:
kinda aware from the get-go that she and stean aren't meant to be, but she thinks he's fantastic and really wants things to work
so, jesus! am i guilty of dooming myself to be single? like sandy, i am by no means ready for marriage and kids and homeownership and all of that stuff. even if i were with the "right" guy, i wouldn't want the whole white-picket-fence fantasy. but the older i get, the more interested i am in finding somebody kind and stable and with whom i have compatible things in common. i wouldn't say my standards are lowering (good god, you see what my past looks like above), but i would say that they're getting more realistic. and somehow, in my most empowered-feeling moments, it seems to me that being part of a couple is just another one of the things i want for myself, like a piano or a great dane. i'm me, emily, unwilling to compromise. maybe that's why i've dated the wrong guys? maybe because i haven't yet put myself in a position to be in a relationship that will work?
no... that's not it. i'm actually pretty good at relationships. despite my general insanity, i'm a good girlfriend.
and there -- that's something that's me: i'm a good girlfriend, emily = good at relationships. but that's crap, too. none of us is "good" at relationships. relationships take work.
maybe, i should think of this another way. i would never say that i didn’t need friends. why? because i recognize that i’m a human being and human beings are communal creatures and need/want/enjoy the company of others. and there are utilitarian reasons for friendships, too. for example, i don’t have a car. but i have friends who have cars and sometimes maybe i need a ride somewhere. or, maybe i have to do something that involves heavy lifting. i can’t do it by myself, but can enlist the help of friends. or, maybe i’m freaking out about something and am crying on my bathroom floor. rather than sit and feel lonely, i can call a friend or my brother to talk to.
so, there’s nothing at all that seems inconsistent with being strong and independent and having a lot of friends. then why does it strike me as kinda weak if i say that i want to be in a relationship? is it just my own hangup? do i need to just get over it and make peace with myself?
realistically, signs point to “yes”.
oh, and elizabeth? that guy who said that you were too neurotic for anyone else to love? well, he is a jerk.
there. just wanted to say that.
As unsatisfying as it may sound, the best relationships come about when one is not looking for them, and with whom one might not expect.
I'm only saying this because I love you. Platonically. It might be hard for you to contemplate this from an objective point of view, but I really think you're putting too much pressure on yourself. Relax a little bit, stop worrying about the looking, and worry about having a good time. More people will be interested if you come across as a happy person.
grant -- i know. i don't really think i'm putting pressure on myself. it's just that i may be more vocal in bitching about this stuff than about other things. but i'm not really worried. just thinking.
and, jesus! i hope i'm not coming across as some sort of unhappy spinster!
No. But you have come across as a bit of a cat lady... ;-)
uncool, hackley. uncool.
besides, you've got like seventeen cats and a whole gaggle of dogs. and yeah, so maybe you're married and all, but you're still practically a zookeeper, so i'll tolerate no pet-ownership-slights from you, sir!
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