Ten Years Gone

This is a post that has been sitting on my blogger dashboard since pretty much the first of the month, waiting for me to post it. I've really debated a lot about it since it gives up a lot more about me than I usually do around these parts. It's probably a little too honest. But I guess if I can't be honest about things there's no point in continuing to write on here, is there? It's kind of random and all over the place and I was never quite able to pull it together and make it cohesive... So I'm just throwing it out there. Please don't kill me for not keeping the proper ironic distance. K?

So, with the arrival of Valentine's Day, the traditional day of love and affection and those sorts of things, I've been thinking a lot about love. To sum things up simply: I haven't been "in love" for ten years now. That's a long damn time to never have that feeling. Sure, I've been in lust, I've had infatuation, all those sorts of things. But I can say that I haven't been in love. I was once, but that crashed and burned on me. It happens to be ten years ago this month. Thus, the whole self-reflection thing.

If you'd asked me ten years ago where I saw myself by the time I was 30, I'd have probably said I'd be married, maybe with kids. Definitely married, though. I'd probably have figured I'd have the same job I have now, probably the same house I have now, same friends I have now. All of that stuff is pretty much where I expected it to be. I figured the girlfriend/marriage thing would have worked itself out eventually. But it just hasn't, which bothers others a lot more than me, but I'd be lying if I didn't say it nags at me a bit. And it certainly doesn't help that so many people harp on it. Some constantly. I can't blame the singleness on that last love flaming out so spectacularly since I got over that a long, long time ago. The singleness isn't for lack of trying, either, considering I've gone out with plenty of women since then. Hell, I've gone out with more women than some of my friends who ended up married, so I would think the law of averages would have kicked in by now, y'know?

But it hasn't. Odd. Yes, I've been told I'm too picky. Maybe I am. But I figure if I'm going to spend more and more time with a girl, we'd better have some common interests and we'd better enjoy the same activities. I won't lie, there had better be a mutual attraction between the two of us, also. The chemistry needs to be there, too. That's the big reason online dating simply doesn't work. You can't gauge any sort of chemistry through e-mails and phone calls. It's not a natural progression. Besides that, there's all sorts of expectations involved. It's like it's even worse than your standard blind date. But that's a post for an entirely different time, I think. The point is that I'm not one to settle on something unless it feels "right." If it doesn't, well, I don't think it's going to magically appear a month or two down the road.

It's easy to fall into the trap of staying with something that's obviously going nowhere... The "sticking around until something better comes along" syndrome. Why put someone through that? There's also the "no better options" way of thinking. You know, the people in crappy relationships who stay together not necessarily because they're in love, but they like the idea of being in love. They've fallen in love with that idea and confused what they have with someone else for it. Sure, it's a lot better to be able to say you're in love, even if you're not really in love, y'know? And it beats being single again so you don't have to hear it from 500,000 people about how awesome you are and how it's so shocking nobody has snatched you up and it's such a shame and all of those other things. But still, if the relationship isn't going to go anywhere, why lead each other on? Why not end it there? Everyone says I'm too picky for my own good, but I can see if nothing's going to happen with a girl and I think I'm a decent enough guy not to waste her time or mine. I've been the one pursuing only to have that interest not returned... And it sucks. Big time. I'm not the type of guy to put someone through that just for an ego boost.

Sometimes I wonder if I even know what love is anymore. I used to think of it as being willing to do anything for someone and them being willing to do anything for you... But that doesn't seem right when you think of crazy people who would kill someone if their lover asked them to. But hey, I guess that's what happens when you fall in love with a sociopath. At least I've avoided that one... For now. But really, I suppose I'll realize it when I get blindsided by it one day.

Maybe it's that type of love you hear in songs like Blur's "Tender" or The Cure's "Lovesong" or even Led Zeppelin's "Thank You." Maybe these songs appeal to that base need that we all feel for companionship, focusing on all the easy stuff and neglecting all the hard stuff. The cynic in me says that love is hard, and songs like these, no matter how good they are, give us unrealistic expectations... Like life will be perfect if someone loves us. Maybe I'm becoming the guy Tori Amos is singing about in "Doughnut Song," shut off and unfeeling and unwilling to open up. I don't know. The optimist in me says that if you've got the kind of love in those first songs, the hard stuff really doesn't matter and maybe life really could feel perfect. Of course, what do I know? I'm not in love, after all. Haven't been in a while, as I've already admitted. And I'm certainly not the kind of person to be able to put it into a song or blog post or whatever any better than anyone else has a hundred times already.

For now, this leaves me as the single guy. And you know what? Things aren't bad right now. Like I said, I've got it pretty good and the vast majority of my life is in a good place. I've got plenty of friends, I get to go out and have fun all the time... All I need is for people to quit bothering me about the fact that I'm not getting married any time soon. It'd be nice to have someone to share the good times with. I'll admit it'd be nice to not be the only one who doesn't have the wife/fiance/significant other with him when a group of friends meets up for dinner or whatever, too. And, of course, well, you know. That's always a nice bonus. But really, it's only days like today that make me think about it without someone bringing it up. Maybe it's the nagging feeling that I'm happy now, but I know I could be a lot happier. Who knows.

Either way, I hope your Valentine's Day is a good one. If you've got somebody to share it with, don't take that fact for granted. Seriously. I know it's cool to bag on Valentine's as being some big capitalist mess, (as I'll openly admit to doing, what with renaming it "Commercialized Affection Day" and all), but it's better to show someone you love them than to avoid doing it for a day out of some stupid protest. Life's too short for that.

See? I'm not all cynicism.