Please note: the third installment of "Dating Advice from a Guy" has to wait a few more days. It's based on the latest Mike Tyson documentary. For research purposes, I've wanted to watch it before commenting on the advice. It's not in my local video store yet, I'm watching it in pieces off YouTube when I'm around free wireless. The joy of rural living means a data stick for internet, which works okay but limits me in downloads and streaming. Blah blah blah. The third and final installment will be coming shortly. Now here's what's on my mind tonight.
Sigh. Dear Readers, it's disconcerting, to say the least, to have inconvenient truths dawn upon me in low moments. I suppose that's what such times are for: to reveal unpleasant truths in all their smiling, dope-eyed glory. Here we are, we've been here all along...and we're here to stay.
I've felt increasingly foolish the past couple of months. It's accelerated this last couple of weeks in particular, with the thanks-but-no-thanks of the friend-lover-friend (?), the ever more reticent Date, and the sporadic regrets of the Ex. I've been trying to be chipper and practical about all this, process it through the SlapChop! of self-image. It doesn't work. Dang.
The truth is that I'm not particularly clever or modern. I've been trying my hardest, but conclude I'm lousy at casual dating/sex/emotions. It's not for me. I can't help feeling that I'm being used and/or using another person to avoid loneliness, be a plucky heroine, distract myself with sex. It makes me feel icky.
Hence the allusion to the plain old-fashioned. Yup, a cake doughnut, maybe a plain glazed. Not a profiterole or chocolate Bismarck, no showy sprinkles or mysterious centre. I'm a plain, solid romantic, and it's embarrassing for a couple of reasons.
One, it's out of sync with what I see around me. It's vinyl in the age of digital downloads. Or more befittingly, plain doughnuts when fancy cupcakes are in fashion. This, though, may become cooler as I grow more comfortable with myself. Classic is a different kind of cool.
More embarrassing is that my stodginess--or let's be kind and call it sweetness--highlights how silly I've been. I've been telling myself I'm a certain way: cool, hilarious, mercenary, adventurous.
In truth, I'm geekwarm, serious, and overly-sensitive. Yes, wilfully reckless, but it's been pant-shittingly scary for the most part. It takes a concerted psychosis to overcome the natural shyness most of us are born with, and I've been pretty good about doing so. Maybe too good. In short, I can't help feeling like I've been sending out some very mixed signals while I juggle image and reality.
Reality is I find it unnatural to be attracted to someone but hold them at arms' length for whatever reason. Logic can't trump feeling. It's in my nature to want to get to know them better, to show my enthusiasm, to exude happiness that they like me back. Kid stuff, but real stuff. This whole post-modern thing of playing it cool and cryptic seems like so much horseshit, and kind of creepy to boot. I'm outing myself as a small-c conservative in this regard.
That said, I'm still hopeful about dating and romance. I'm still not "looking" for a relationship, I recognize the impossibility of willing love into existence. I just have to be honest that my ultimate goal is not vacation sex at home. Vacation sex is only possible on vacation, where the reality of logistics bookends things nicely, completes the episode. At home, these bookends don't exist, so it kind of trails off into messiness. I'm an insincere fuck-buddy. If the sex is good, I can't help but want more from the other.
I'm drawn to the whole person, and it seems natural to want to know them better and not dwell on the implications. Oh, the implications! What happens if we actually like each other, or he likes me and I grow tired of him, or vice versa, etc. What happens if we think we're in love but one day we wake up and realize we don't even like each other, much less love each other, but don't know what else to do? What happens if I make decisions about my life on the hope This Could Go Somewhere, and it deadends and time and opportunity have passed (my greatest fear). Oh, those implications. Very real, very hurtful. Fruit flies on the fruit of love. Am I supposed to fixate on the implications or the love?
For now, neither. I've given up, officially, now that I have nothing left to lose. I've got not a single person to romanticize anymore, and while it freaks me out it also makes me curious. An absence, why not? Sure, it's scary not to have anyone to dream about. But surer, it's scarier to dream about someone who is, in fact, just a dream.
If I'm ever to be swept off my feet while sweeping another off his (a fine trick on gravity, if one can manage it), I conclude it's time to set aside self-image. Just be in all the stalwart, contradictory sweetiemessiness. Good grief. Oh well. Of course, I could just be pre-menstrual. As confused as ever, but still liking the strangeness.
-GR
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