is the word 'diary' better than the word 'blog'? probably not.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Friends Help Stave Off The Wasteland, But It's Still There.
I had a bit of an epiphany today. It goes like this: even though there are, of course, ways in which I am what you might call an emotional retard, nonetheless, in the ways that count most, I am not. I was thinking about how or why it is that the last few people I've tried to date ended up retreating and running off into the distance. I mean, it could give a girl a complex, or ideas, or something. And what is more dangerous than a girl with ideas?
Talking to David (the David from L.A., as opposed to the Eggers or the Lowery) helped a bit, as did talking to Heidi. They, respectively, offer the prototypical smart-but-very-much-a-guy view and the prototypical intellectual-and-quirky-girl view. Combined, those two views tell me that I did nothing wrong. I tried to love someone. That person, it turns out, found that he could not love me. And that in itself is no crime on his part. He phrased his dumping egregiously unforgivably badly. In addition to the unkind phrasing, his way of breaking up left much to be desired. That sucks. But it is no reflection on me. He was, as David put it, in over his head. He, as Heidi put it, chewed off his arm. Who wants to be with that? I pretty much know after a date or two, sometimes even earlier, whether or not I want to stay with a person for some period of time. If I don't, I don't continue. I guess with others it is not the same. Who knows why people do what they do? Oh. But I haven't gotten to the epiphany yet.
Here it is: This keeps happening to me not because I make bad choices or end up with terrible people. This happens to me because I am willing to be in love with someone, when I meet someone who has that something. And that is nothing to wish changed. No, nothing to wish changed, even though I most likely will continually encounter people who, for whatever inscrutable reasons, cannot love, or at least cannot love me.
It is cute, really, how my friends all refuse to believe it possible that someone could not love ME. I have a whole collection of indignant phrases that have been sent or spoken to me in this regard. These phrases have kept me laughing at the ways in which we all see the undeniable loveliness of all these single people around us whom we love but who keep getting disappointed when disappointment is the last thing they deserve. Indeed, as stories of disappointment go, mine is much milder than some other recent tales.
However, not everyone loves me, friends. It's true. And I understand it. I am not for everyone, no not at all. However, I still do not think that was the case with The Dumper. Yes, I still think he was wrong! But perhaps that is my folly. He has his own reasons for what he did, reasons he apparently cannot explain to me. Nonetheless, he doesn't have to be The Dumper anymore. (For that we can thank David-from-L.A., who, after talking me out of some of my Theories About The Dumper, has spent the day sending me funny one line emails that say things like "you're better than him." Because that's what friends do.)
Another David, the Lowery, also helped. Heidi and I had fun at the rock show. And it was good to see the guys. I have a funny groupie letter in my purse that I meant to do a dramatic reading of at the post-show drinking session. But instead we talked about David's kids, and crazy alternative radio stations, and teleological legal theories, Heidi's house, mafia bodyguards in Moscow, me-as-professor, me as single, and Heidi as single, and the dumbass men that caused all this singleness. At some point in the evening David offered to list all the things about me that someone ought to love. And it was a perfect list, precisely the list of things that I would want someone who loved me to love about me. There are people out there, and some of them see the right things. It's not impossible.
There's a place for pessimism in all this, however. I have no doubt that, were I to meet someone new, good things could happen. However, I'm not so sure about whether meeting someone new will happen. Many of you know this already, but�single at this age? IT IS A WASTELAND OUT THERE, full of wreckage, dreck and baggage. I don't mind taking on a bit of baggage. It's just the way things are. But, unfortunately, for many of the singletons out there, the baggage has now piled itself up so high that they can no longer leap over it to get to something better than what they left behind. It's just the way things are. I used to think I could inspire people to aspire beyond that with the sheer force of my belief in them. However, experience has proven that often that power is way beyond me.
2:11 a.m. - October 18, 2004
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
