Doubly Singular

Soul Blazer crab walking

This post’s image is brought to you by the Enix game Soul Blazer for the SNES. On one hand, this may be an introduction to a tutorial. On the other hand, it might be a pickup line.

I enjoy being single. The world is, in general, a much simpler and happy place when you’re dealing with a single point of view. It’s a bit harder to argue with yourself. I’m not much in the habit of betraying myself. And when I screw up, no one is there to tell me so or rub it in except me. I’m hard enough on myself, so it’s a bit of a relief to not have double the guilt.

I’ve seen enough people cringe when I go on like that. I know approximately what they’re thinking. “Wow. That’s a pretty jaded viewpoint. What about all the good stuff?”

I used to have good answers to this sort of cynicism. I used terms like “…when I find my soul mate…” as opposed to, “…if something close to this even exists…”. I used to believe that love could be enough to make any relationship work if you worked at it hard enough.

But, really, it doesn’t work that way. People suck. A person will expect you to work at the relationship while simultaneously looking over their shoulder for something better, making you feel like you’re doing something wrong, and not feeling even remotely obligated to meet you half way on anything.

The two ways of dealing with someone when they try to make you meet them half way on anything:

1. Argue.

2. Agree without even listening to what you’re agreeing to.

I prefer people that will argue over those who will ‘yup’ you. “Yes, honey” makes me want to impale peeps and marshmallow bunnies on knives while pretending they’re real. You at least can be sure the argumentative ones are being honest about what they think and feel with you. They trust you enough to expose their own opinions and feelings. Unfortunately, they also usually think their thoughts are automatically more qualified than anyone else’s. It’s not that they think they’re always right, it’s that you’re always at least more wrong than they are (if you are performing the great sacrilege of having a different point of view).

To these people, being wrong is a significant event that determines one’s mental capacity. Proving someone wrong and making them feel stupid for it go hand in hand. Nothing says “I love you.” more than, “You moron, you got that movie quote wrong.”

Even though I like being single, I will admit that finding that ideal other person would also be wonderful. It’s something that is always at least in the back of every single person’s mind: what is your ideal like? What are you going to look for differently next time (as if we don’t chose slight variations on the same type of people over and over)?

I’m thinking that next time I will try to find someone that has the capacity to both be very honest *and* very caring. I want to find someone that will feel like they can say anything to me, but would like that person to have the ability to say, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.” and “I don’t agree with you, but you make a valid point.” and mean it.

I could go on to say that the idea person would be a dichotomy between a lot of things. I am someone who has always been (somehow) extremely left brained and right brained at the same time. I also have the capacity to be both over logical and over emotional. If this doesn’t make any sense, get to know me better. If this sounds frightening, it can be, so you might want to poke me with a stick through my cage a few times before getting too close.

But what is with this useless exercise? It’s the ultimate self centered thought, to pretend there is going to be someone else out there who you will find in your lifetime that matches your wants and needs more perfectly than you even understand those wants and needs.

On top of that, I’m pretending I’ll actually chose things about the person the next time my mind and body betray me and do the love suicide march once again.

I have not planned it when it’s happened. I’ll not even be looking.

So, as I continue to actively not look for someone else, I also try not to go down this silly road wrought with self-indulgent romanticism. The pessimistic blather may not be much better, but it at least supports my independence. It’s better than being a desperate romantic any day.

  • Kathryn

    I happen to think that your attitude towards singleness is pretty healthy. OK, OK, I know how little that might mean coming from me, someone who has had hardly any “down time” in the past ten years (yikes). But I am willing to admit that being paired up isn’t always what it’s chalked up to be, and what little time I have spent alone has been some of the most pleasant and valuable time I’ve experienced. But being in relationships has also contributed a great deal to my own understanding of who I am and what I want. I believe that both “conditions” of being offer us opportunities to grow as individuals and discover what we’re really about.

    I’ve recently begun to have a shift in my perspective about relationships. It’s almost a reversion to an old way of thinking, but it’s subtly different this time around. I used to be wildly optimistic and romantic: “I’ve got a soulmate, my One True Love, and he’s somewhere out there waiting for me. It’s my job to go find him.” Furthermore: “My relationship with my soulmate will be perfect, flawless, like a fairytale.”

    And then I dated. A lot. I thought I found my soulmate once. Clearly, that didn’t really work out. I had a lot of bad experiences. I became VERY disenchanted with romantic concepts like “soulmates,” or even “real happiness.” The whole thing left me fatigued and resentful. Somewhere along the line, I took on this attitude that every guy I’ve ever dated (and subsequently had a break up with) was at best immature, and at worst irreparably flawed. Not a single one of them was blameless.

    And then sometime very recently, I realized, “You know what? Most of those guys were actually good people. We just weren’t compatible.” Now, don’t go thinking that I’d grant sainthood to each and every one of those men. Two in particular actually were pretty awful. But the truth is, most were good men, with good hearts. We just didn’t have the skills or characteristics necessary to support one another’s needs for whatever reason. That doesn’t make them bad people. We just weren’t right for one another.

    I used to think that dating was the way to figure out what we want in a relationship. I now take the opposite stance: the point of dating, I have decided (at this point in my life, anyway), is to figure out what we don’t want.

    Not every person we meet is The One. I know that’s like “well, DUH!” but as soon as I really accepted that, it took a lot of pressure off. Having said that, I do maintain the stance that everyone we *do* find ourselves dating has some kind of lesson to share with us, as we also have a lesson to share with them.

    Cindy sez: “I have not planned it when it’s happened. I’ll not even be looking.”

    Now THAT’S true wisdom. ;)

  • “Most of those guys were actually good people.”

    I wish I could say that. Where do I get these guys? Why do I let them get me? I mean, I’m sure a percentage of them are at least a percentage good. :)

    “…everyone we *do* find ourselves dating has some kind of lesson to share with us, as we also have a lesson to share with them.”

    I hope this is true. Sometimes I feel like I’ve spent too much time bending over backwards and working on something that was doomed from the get go. There’s also the tendency to not have as much time for other things in your life when you’re in a relationship. If there was at least a lesson in there, then at least it wasn’t a complete waste of time and personal resources.

    Still, I’m at a place where I think, “What the hell is the point? Is this worth all the pain that partners with it?” At this point I’m leaning towards no, it isn’t worth it.

    But then, part of me is still waiting for someone to prove me wrong. :)

    It’s so hard to be objective. I’m pretty good at seeing other people’s relationships and ‘troubleshooting’ them, but I’m dumb as a doornail when it comes to my own. I need me to come up to me in some of these situations and say, “What the hell are you doing? It’s not going to get better. Get out.”

    So what it really comes down to is, being single is not just simple, but very safe too. It’s a big chance when a person puts themselves on the line to get hurt like that (or perhaps have to unintentionally hurt).

    I guess I’m pretty scared of it. When did that happen?