Can't find good reasons to have a boyfriend − 7 October, 2007
I was supposed to write good reasons to have a boyfriend and I couldn’t find any reason that was not either pathetic for the guy, silly for me or plainly obviously an effort at writing something.
I can’t believe I can’t find any good reason to have a boyfriend or anyone in my life. I’m astounded. Many of my friends can’t even breathe without having a crush on someone or without at least sleep with someone every few months. I was the same way. My record without a man in my life was four months and I felt I was drowning. Since I started being single I barely look at guys. If they look at me, I don’t even smile. I don’t want to encourage them and I worry too much about patterns.
Even though it feels like it’s been forever since the last time I was in a relationship or the last time I was physical with a man, I don’t see the end of it and don’t seem to want it to end. I don’t care about not having sex. I don’t care about not getting affection or attention. I certainly don’t care about not having anyone to share the bathroom with. Or my thoughts or dreams or whatever. Anyway, they don’t care either.
I was afraid to be single but now I can’t see the end of it and I don’t want to be in a relationship again. Kind of. I think of a future relationship I could be into. But it seems very very far. Just thinking about being with someone makes me tired and irritated. Nothing ever goes right. Maybe it’s because I don’t choose the guy and he chooses me, I feel honored to be considered and I date the guy. I’m distant and it drives him nuts so he wants us to be exclusive and I don’t want to hurt him so I say yes. But since I don’t know him that much I’m not attached and this pressure to get exclusive and fall in love at the same time he does (because that’s what happens) just red flags the whole thing. So I’m just more distant and he gets even more clingy. I don’t want that anymore.
I just want to take my time. It’s what I always want. I end up with guys who are on cloud 17, madly intoxicated while I’m still firmly on the ground, bored, or worried, and worrying about when they will finally get back down again. Hoping they come back down. Just waiting for the day they find out who I really am and they get back down and we can finally get on with our real lives. Or just waiting for them to find out who I really am and be disppointed. Instead guys have this distorted image of me. I guess I appeal to the macho man in them. I hate it. It has been years since the last time I was in a relationship where I felt like I could be myself, like I was seen as the real me.
It has been seven years since a man has seen me as strong, willfull, intelligent, funny, sexy, beautiful... They see me as vulnerable, lost, in need of attention and help. I do need help with anything electronic but besides that I do fine on my own.
I guess all the time I am spending alone I’m waiting for a real man to show up somewhere. A man I can say hi to and just get to know him without him getting all protective and jealous.
I do have expectations. I have an ideal. But an ideal is just that, something that is a perfect image I will never find but is a basis for what I’m looking for and hope to find. I have a list of points I’m looking for in a man. Since it’s an ideal, I know I will not find all I’m looking for in one person, it’s impossible. But it’s still a reference list. I also have things I do not want and that are non negociable. The thing is even if I have all of this I’m not looking and I say to everyone how happy I am alone. So anyone who dreams of matching me can just forget it.
I guess all those years in bad relationships plus what I have to deal with with my parents are to blame for this mess. I’m feeling sick at the idea of having a relationship and can’t find one really good reason to have a boyfriend. Don’t think about having a girlfriend, I’m not gay. I know I asked a lesbian friend of mine and I explored the topic in therapy just in case. How could I not when I fail every relationship and sex just makes me want to crawl out of my skin ? It has not always been this way. But now it is. I feel claustrophobic at the idea of sex right now.
I’m so discouraged. When I had lovers at the age of 25 everything was so great. I had to fuck it up and have relationships and try to have boyfriends. I had to meet clingy men, possessive, jealous, weird men. Now every time I meet a new man, I wonder what is wrong with this one that I’m attracted to him or him to me. There must be something wrong. I am right. There is always something terribly wrong. While they climb on their cloud, I just wait to find out and I always do. Drugs, alcohol, mental illness, bad childhood…I could try to « make it work » but I don’t want to relive my childhood by trying to save some guy the way I always wanted to save my parents, plus all these negative feelings trapped inside… If I stay I just give everything I have and keep no energy for me and lose all my self-esteem (the so little I have).
Therapy is supposed to give me hope. So I guess that hoping I will have a relationship in a very far future is okay. I guess that waiting to find someone better than the twits I have been with for the last couple of years is something too. Having expectations is better than just taking anyone who comes along. But I’m thirtysomething and the clock's ticking. It’s getting on my nerves.
Why couldn’t it be as simple as staying with the boyfriend I had in high school ? He was a safe driver, didn’t drink or use drugs, and even if I didn’t like kissing back then, I could have waited more. Sigh. My parents liked him. Okay, maybe he was wrong for me if my parents liked him.
Oh crap. I'm getting nowhere...
Comments:
bmccosar (October 12, 2007. 12:50am)
J'étais là longtemps. Il est très "Hallmark", mais aimez-vous vous-même en premier. Je ne trouvais personne jusqu'à ce que j'ai abandonné la recherche. Votre titre est tout à fait exact!
peahayes (November 24, 2007. 03:31am)
Ah, well, there's never a rush. A friend of mine didn't find love (and wasn't looking either) until she was 32 or 33. If you don't need it or want it, so be it. If it happens, then enjoy it when it happens. But the freedom to be yourself is important. Relationships are always work, always a give and take, but they're not about being someone you're not.