forever alone (for five minutes)

I don't mean to be rude but I find it highly annoying when people throw their hands up in the air and declare that they will be alone forever but two weeks later, they are involved with someone.  That makes me want to throw my hands up in the air to punch them in the face.

It's as if people go through a few failed relationships and then want to give up on love.  They break up and them beat themselves up over it, thinking they are not good enough or are unlovable.  But if they were unlovable, they never would have found someone in the first place, amiright?  It's not that they were unlovable, just incompatible with that one person.  Or with those few people.  But certainly not with the rest of the population.

But people don't seem to get that.  They date a few people and nothing works out and suddenly their self-worth nose dives.  But don't dissolved relationships serve a purpose?  Isn't that how you figure out what you really want in a partner?

I think when we are young, we crush on people for superficial reasons.  Someone is attractive and we want to be with them.  Granted, personality does play it's part as well.  We can think they are sweet and funny and if we happen to actually get to be with them, we find out who they really are.  It's one thing to admire someone from afar but a whole new beast to know someone intimately.

And that intimacy begins to shape what we want in a partner.  And when that partner eventually leaves, we take the good in them and search for that in someone else.  Ideally, we would also avoid the bad qualities we found in that partner when looking for someone knew, but some people actually do seem to gravitate toward those bad qualities as well.

And dating and relating is simply finding a balance between those good and bad qualities in a person.  And people do it all the time.  And people break up every day.  It is natural.  It is human.  People are heartbroken and people have to let others down.  It's what we do.  And when it happens to you, it's not fun but it shouldn't make you feel like you are incapable of being loved.  You just haven't found the right one yet.  It's not a question of worth, desire, or ability, only time, location, and opportunity.

Sure, it feels frustrating to look on past relationships that didn't work out and think there must be something wrong with you, especially if you have many to look back on.  But the fact that you were able to get close to someone (or several someones) should count for something.  There are some people out there (me) who don't even have that much to hold on to.

When I was younger, I used to be hung up on being alone.  I think the timing was just bad.  I was physically a mess.  While puberty was kind to my peers, with the girls growing perky breasts and the guys molding their muscles, I was granted belly fat and acne.  And as the hormones surged beneath the skin, everyone around me started forming connections.  I only formed a low opinion of myself.  I wondered why I couldn't find someone like everyone else had.  At first I thought it was because I was ugly.  But then I lost some weight and got my image under control and I was still single.  Must be because I had a crappy personality.  But people tell me all the time that I'm funny and a joy to be around.

So I don't know what the problem is.

A lot of people have offered that it's probably a location issue.  There's just no one here that I find myself attracted to.  As much as I'd like to be in a relationship, I also can't force myself to be with someone just because I need to.  I want it to be genuine, natural.

As I have matured, so has my loneliness.  I used to be obsessed with it, used to despise it.  But now I am actually fine being alone.  I no longer crave romantic company.  In fact, my loneliness is kind of like a best friend.  It knows me more intimately than anyone else in my life.  It's been my most consistent companion.  Yes, I go through pangs of hurt over being alone but they always pass.  I can look back and see that I am not ruggedly handsome but I'm not a troll.  I don't have the best personality but I'm not psychotic (yet). 

It has taken me years to realize that I am not unlovable.  I just haven't found anyone special (or dumb) enough to put up with me and my insecurities and jealousies.

And it might never happen.  And I'm okay with that.

Or if it does, that's cool as well.

I feel I've reached a place where I am completely neutral.  Or apathetic.  Either way, I don't hurt as much and that's all that matters to me know.  I have enough pain without the agony of amorous relationships rolling around in my head.

I could say that I'll never fall in love, that no one would ever fall in love with a piece of crap like me but I can't say that.  It's unrealistic.  I could declare it and then two weeks later, I'm changing my Facebook status to "in a relationship."  Then I'd just be another ass like I wrote about at the beginning of this entry.  While it's likely I'll be forever alone, it's not improbable.

So, if I can't say it, neither can you.  Try going twenty-six years without being in a relationship or having a real kiss or ever getting to hold someone you care for.  Then you can come talk to me.