Friday 11 May 2012

Another One Bites The Dust

They always tell me to stop looking and I will find it.

I think that's dumb. It's like saying: "stop eating and you'll get full".

See, how do you not look? If you want to play basketball, you don't NOT play basketball! Argh.

I think its all part of the giant conspiracy to attempt and make those of us that would rather not be single ok with not being single.

I'm not all shitty and depressed, but I do realize what I actually want and what I don't have.

But it's sometimes a difficult balance, being bombarded with advice from coupled-up people on how they found  all their happiness (barf) and trying to do your best to just be you.

I think all of this advice and crap that we all try to shovel through kind of caught up to me over the last few months. To the point that I think it screwed up my brain a bit.

This is the scenario: Friends of friends have friends. I meet one of the friends. She's cool as hell. Likes the crap outta me. Saved by The Bell Zack Morris Pause - I don't have many "rules" about dating and my single life, but there are guidelines. A big one is meeting people that are newly single from medium to long term relationships. There is a pretty lengthly "buffer" you need to have before you can realistically expect to achieve a meaningful foundation to another long term relationship. This is something that people will tell you, that you will read and that you will experience. Pretty much, we're pretty screwed up for a while after these things go south, and though it may feel right, you're not getting that "real" person for a while. un-pause.


This was one of those scenarios. Well, it might not have been - but that's how I treated it. I believed the hype a bit too much. A stayed cautious, at arms length, believing whole-heartedly that it was the smart thing to do and that without question, this person just went through a break-up and clearly, obviously must be a complete basket-case.

And this is the sheer fucked-upedness of this whole single life.

That searching for "guidelines" or "rules" or something remotely constant that you can at least rely on as a stable leaning-post to let you know you are at least partially on the right track is completely and utterly wrong. NOTHING is constant in this. There is no rulebook or anything to let you know you're on track.
One second, it's awesome, the next; kaboom.

Every scenario is different and crazy and stupid and awesome in and of itself.

In this particular instance, she wasn't "messed" up at all. Sure, there needed to be time - but not time for me to be terrified of somebody awesome that was liking me. Just time to get to know one another. Time to let something happen.

And when I realized that. When I sat there one day looking at this person and said to myself, "Holy shit! she's actually good!" It was too late.

Over the course of a few months we hung out from time to time, and when I eventually realized that this was not only a safe path, but probably a pretty damn awesome one, I took a week or so to kind of reassess what I had been thinking and why. It was actually quite a therapeutic time for me. And when I emerged from my little self re-awesomization, I turned my attention back to this girl...and received the text message: "I'm sort of seeing somebody now."

I snoozed. I lost.

I listened to people, and my own assessment of how I do these things and got roasted. It was a bit of a gut punch, and as I write this and think how I should end this story - with some lesson or magical chunk of advice all I can think of is that the only rule is that there are no rules. And the only way you'll be able to not get an elbow drop to your heart and ego is to embrace the uncertainty and buy a round of shots for chaos.

I'm still trying to figure this out.






1 comment:

  1. I really hope you find someone.
    It does feel sometimes that whenever you stop looking you find someone. But it is just an illusion - it feels that way because when you finally meet somebody it seems so unexpected.

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