It’s been over a year of this crap.
As you can probably predict from my word choice, I’m not enjoying it.
It’s not exciting–it’s exhausting. There are some days when simply checking my messages is another duty in a too long list. It’s hard to work up the extra time and energy for a date most times. And the pickings are slim; sometimes, I am tempted to open my parameters a bit–maybe a guy doesn’t have to be close or maybe I could do the poly thing–but the second I think of driving to Folsom regularly or having to talk about more than one relationship at a time (when I hate relationship talks), I just want to hang a “closed for business” sign around my neck.
When this adventure started, I made a rule: I wasn’t going to choose anyone that I’d have to explain to my friends. My last long term relationship was one of the few I’ve had in which I didn’t have to say “but” constantly–he wasn’t perfect by any means, but there wasn’t anything obviously, unforgivably wrong with him.
It was a wonderful reprieve from years of people whom I could have counseled my own friends to dump if they’d been in my place.
Instituting this rule has made me incredibly picky. And I don’t want to live with someone; I have no burning desire to get married, and I’m done having kids. Since I don’t want to settle down, I have less reason to settle.
On the other hand, for a long time now, I’ve been giving guys lots and lots of chances: going out on a date if I couldn’t find an obvious reason not to, agreeing to a second and third, even if the thought of a second date filled me with that “meh” feeling.
I’ve had that “meh” feeling with almost everyone.
I’ve had that “meh” feeling so much that I was starting to think it was normal–that it was the highest level of enthusiasm I could muster.
There have only been a couple of guys who have inspired more than a “meh.” And some guys have had a “meh” feeling about me. And even on the rare occasion when neither of us are “meh,” other things aren’t working.
But because of the very few, now when I get that “meh” feeling, I remember that I am capable of more, even if most people can’t inspire it in me.
I want more than meh. And I’d like to think I deserve more than meh.
But then we’re back to me being picky.
Even if we discount all the people who are incredibly wrong for me–the smokers, the homophobes, the white supremacists, the conservatives, the baby crazy, the far away lovelorn, the fakers, etc.–so many things have to come together in the Venn Diagram of relationships:
Okay–I just tried to make a Venn Diagram for this, but I could only find software that would make PDF versions–and it would only let me have three circles.
In the interest of getting other stuff done this week, I ask you to please imagine the following in a Venn Diagram:
Intellectual attraction
Emotional attraction
Physical attraction
Proximity
Similar hobbies
Similar life desires
Complementary schedules
Complementary temperments
Actual readiness for a relationship
If even one of these is missing, the whole thing falls apart.
So, at the start of the summer, where am I? Where I was last year.
Thinking about circles and saying “meh” a lot.
