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If you get to know me well enough, eventually you'll hear about my desire to find someone with whom I can share my life. You'll hear how I'm looking for that one person who completes me, and makes me feel stronger than I ever did alone. Well, maybe not recently. "M" from New Jersey saw to that. You don't know who "M" is? That's a long tale all by itself..
I recognize that I need to work on me. It's vital for me to try, because I still believe -- deep down -- that there's someone out there for me. How can I know, though, when I get scared everytime I find myself getting close to someone? How can I find that other half that makes my own whole even more complete, if I can't be with someone without trying to find out why I don't need to be with her? It's a horrible vicious circle, and one that I guess I still have to work on.
I actually am generally happy alone, now. I don't have to be around someone to feel validated or worthwhile. Ironically, though, that independence has caused me to resent being involved with someone, because of the expectations that come from being involved with someone. So while I feel more okay with myself on one hand, with the other I'm pushing against the very thing that I claim to want to find.
It isn't that I think my standards are too high. I think that my standards have been set so high so I won't find anyone who fits them. I have even told msyelf that, because I didn't live up to my own standards for my dream woman, I didn't have to worry about finding anyone, because I wasn't ready. Yet, I still want that magical relationship. So, I relax on my standards, and I find someone I could be happy with, and yet, those standards come back and make me second guess how I feel and how comfortable I am with things after all. Perhaps I move too fast, subconsciously trying to "make up lost time", and when I realize how far I moved, I panic. I wish I knew.
The past year has taught me a lot about myself, and where my comfort zones are. I can honestly say that, even though I'm still more down on myself than I should be, I also feel more confident than ever, simply because I've met so many new people, who all seem to accept me for what they see, and no more. There are no hidden agendas (mostly), and I feel the love coming from folks. I'm closer to some of the people that I've met in the last year than I am to friends and family I've known for most of my life. Yet, that's not enough by itself. I still need to figure "me" out, and "me" is a broad picture.
I could list the things I want to change about myself, but I've learned that lists of things I need to work on just intimidate me into ignoring the list altogether. One could definitely say that I need to a ton of shadow work, and I wouldn't argue. For the time being, I'm going to lose the excess weight I've been carrying, because that's not what I want, regardless.
I just want to find that relationship sometime before I'm too old to enjoy it. I also worry that my soulmate was the girl I hung out for one evening when I was 16-17, when we met through some mutual friends. By the end of the night, I was in love. I wish I had asked for her number, because I never saw her again. It could be that I've built it up over the years, but I remember feeling like I was on cloud 9 when we dropped her off that night, and everyone noticed how we were clicking.
Live and learn, I guess. Does anyone know if one can have more than one true love in a life? Heh. I better believe it myself, or I am in trouble. :-/
Time for bed, because work will be coming early tomorrow...
1 - No, we never dated in name, but she told me she loved me, I sent her flowers and wrote her poetry. And, in the fallout of that night, I hurt like only someone who was in love could.
2 - I'd asked her out for Valentine's Day back in October, so it was a "date" trip. Yeah, a date trip with your little brother and a friend, both of whom were interested in her as well. Riiight.
The story of "M"The point of that long, rambling tale was that she made a snide comment about guys saying she "completed" them. It bugged me, because I realized that she was at least partly right. I need to be a complete person by myself, before I ever think of being part of something bigger than me. Ever since then, I've avoided allowing myself to think like that for any woman I've felt for (which has not been a terribly long list). It could even stand to reason that her words caused me to hide my feelings and hide FROM my feelings enough that it damaged what relationships I have tried.It all began in October 2004. She began making comments that made me really happy, and made me think that something was there. I would spend hours at my computer, sitting on MSN, waiting to hear from her. We both were active on my friend's forums (some simple forums that were primarily for a bunch of real life friends to stay in touch). The thing that I didn't allow myself to see at the time was that, in addition to me, she was playing the same tune for my friend "S", a guy named "J", and my brother, "E".
I became absolutely smitten with her, and even sent her flowers a couple of times. We would talk about things, and shared our most secret thoughts. So, I thought. As the year waned, she changed, I now believe in part because she knew she had me hooked. She grew to be very annoyed at things I would do, that only a month earlier would make her happy. She would regularly turn on her webcam for MSN, and allow those of us who were sitting online waiting to talk to her to see that she was indeed online, but not talking to us (or me, anyway).
It grew to be a bigger and bigger issue. I even heard from her how my friend "S" was forcing his affections on her, and that she wished he'd stop. I grew to despise "S" for it, and finally told him what I thought. It got back to her, and she staged a trap, where both of us wound up in the same chatroom with her. When I said something disparaging to him, she claimed that she'd let me get too close, and that she had to break things off1. I didn't sleep that night. I couldn't. Every single time I laid down to try to sleep, my chest closed up and I couldn't breathe. Literally.
I finally began to improve over the next few days, but I guess when she saw me starting to do better for myself, she reeled me back in. I wound up making her a keepsake box, and we watched "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" together over the phone (simultaneous DVD playback, don't ya know?). She then said she wished I could be up there with her. As it happened, I had just cashed a loan check, giving me the money to do just that.
So, I visited. We made love that first night. I was deliriously happy. Then, she tried to set me up with her friend, and when I balked, staged a trap for me where her friend came to the hotel. While I was trying to get rid of the friend, I let the time pass by that I was supposed to call her. When I did, she acted mad that I didn't call when I said I would, and wouldn't see me that day at all. I cried myself to sleep that night (figuratively, anyway).
She spent my final night with me. We had Italian food, and I felt nothing but love for her. I slept poorly, though, and when I woke, she asked me to find a cab to get back to the airport (we were in NJ, outside of Philadelphia, and my plane left from Newark). I agreed, and was $170 shorter for it. The whole way home, I wrote in my personal journal about how I felt. I got home, only to have her snub me for a week because "I gave her a cold".
Things seesawed for a while, until I finally decided in mid-January 2005 that I wasn't going to let how I felt con me into going back up there2, just because she wanted to meet "E" and "S" (who she'd talked me into agreeing into taking with me). I bought a nice telescope with the money I was going to use for the trip, and soundly pissed her off. We talked barely off and on until about March, when I was tired of her trying to lure me back in, so I told her goodbye forever, and blocked her on MSN.
I recognize that I need to work on me. It's vital for me to try, because I still believe -- deep down -- that there's someone out there for me. How can I know, though, when I get scared everytime I find myself getting close to someone? How can I find that other half that makes my own whole even more complete, if I can't be with someone without trying to find out why I don't need to be with her? It's a horrible vicious circle, and one that I guess I still have to work on.
I actually am generally happy alone, now. I don't have to be around someone to feel validated or worthwhile. Ironically, though, that independence has caused me to resent being involved with someone, because of the expectations that come from being involved with someone. So while I feel more okay with myself on one hand, with the other I'm pushing against the very thing that I claim to want to find.
It isn't that I think my standards are too high. I think that my standards have been set so high so I won't find anyone who fits them. I have even told msyelf that, because I didn't live up to my own standards for my dream woman, I didn't have to worry about finding anyone, because I wasn't ready. Yet, I still want that magical relationship. So, I relax on my standards, and I find someone I could be happy with, and yet, those standards come back and make me second guess how I feel and how comfortable I am with things after all. Perhaps I move too fast, subconsciously trying to "make up lost time", and when I realize how far I moved, I panic. I wish I knew.
The past year has taught me a lot about myself, and where my comfort zones are. I can honestly say that, even though I'm still more down on myself than I should be, I also feel more confident than ever, simply because I've met so many new people, who all seem to accept me for what they see, and no more. There are no hidden agendas (mostly), and I feel the love coming from folks. I'm closer to some of the people that I've met in the last year than I am to friends and family I've known for most of my life. Yet, that's not enough by itself. I still need to figure "me" out, and "me" is a broad picture.
I could list the things I want to change about myself, but I've learned that lists of things I need to work on just intimidate me into ignoring the list altogether. One could definitely say that I need to a ton of shadow work, and I wouldn't argue. For the time being, I'm going to lose the excess weight I've been carrying, because that's not what I want, regardless.
I just want to find that relationship sometime before I'm too old to enjoy it. I also worry that my soulmate was the girl I hung out for one evening when I was 16-17, when we met through some mutual friends. By the end of the night, I was in love. I wish I had asked for her number, because I never saw her again. It could be that I've built it up over the years, but I remember feeling like I was on cloud 9 when we dropped her off that night, and everyone noticed how we were clicking.
Live and learn, I guess. Does anyone know if one can have more than one true love in a life? Heh. I better believe it myself, or I am in trouble. :-/
Time for bed, because work will be coming early tomorrow...
1 - No, we never dated in name, but she told me she loved me, I sent her flowers and wrote her poetry. And, in the fallout of that night, I hurt like only someone who was in love could.
2 - I'd asked her out for Valentine's Day back in October, so it was a "date" trip. Yeah, a date trip with your little brother and a friend, both of whom were interested in her as well. Riiight.
