My big obsession when I became a teenager was with finding a soul mate. I didn’t receive or understand true affection when I was a kid, and I loved the idea of having someone who would care about me as much as I cared about them. With that in mind, I tried to take any chance that came my way of fulfilling this.
Thirteen years and countless stories later, I can see how badly I overshot it.
I dated. A lot. I met numerous women, and tried my best to make things work with each one. I wanted each my relationships to work out, just like everybody who starts dating does, but I was so deathly scared of letting go of a girl who may have been that coveted soul mate that I stayed in relationships until they burned out and we hated each other. I began early, and worked my way up so quickly that I have a nice little four-element breakdown of my relationships; who else could claim that?
I even followed the standard hero’s path of adventure, with a twist. I began my journey, realized that I was way in over my head, dug deeper down the rabbit hole to gain the knowledge I was so severely lacking, realized I was really in over my head and was forced to the sidelines, came back a little wiser and stronger with a calmer disposition and ready to accept my place under the sun, and found what I wanted: a woman I loved so much that I’d be willing to give up the rest of my life to be around her. When the complications came, I faltered, because I was forced into a decision where I could either: do the right thing and let her go until things in our lives were sorted properly; or do the passionate thing, tell everybody else to go screw themselves, and went for broke. I’ve watched enough TV to know that nothing good comes from the hero deciding to give up his morals for personal gratification. I did the right thing for a while, until it became painfully obvious that life wasn’t a fairy tale of morals but a wild jungle where one has to do whatever one can to survive.
When I tried contacting her about this, I found out she had recently died. Had I done the ‘wrong’ thing, she may not have been in a situation where she’d lose her life the way she did. Boy…that sucked.
It’s been over three years since all that went down. I took a few years to myself, and I was able to move on. I had wonderful friends around me, and I learned to apply a lot of the information I had gained by senselessly dating around. I was even able to have a relatively fruitful relationship…and failed afterwards. Now the girl hates my guts. But I’m not as bad off as I used to be.
What bothers me the most about all this is how long it took me to grasp a very key concept in dating: no matter how much I know beforehand, the best odds I’ll have of a relationship working out is 50/50. Same as if I knew nothing about relationships. I feel like I wasted my life looking for some way to improve my chances in something where I can’t actually cheat. I’ve seem complete dunderheads have amazing relationships, and some of my most emotionally capable friends have the worst kind of luck with relationships.
Billions of dollars are spent trying to figure out how to hold down a happy marriage, or simply a content relationship. Horoscopes, therapy, vacation escapades… Massive industries are fueled by this desire to help improve them odds towards getting one’s ideal significant other, but it’s all bullshit. It doesn’t really help, and if it did chances are it was a case of “they always had the potential inside them, and just needed an outlet to share it”. If anything, all this brou ha ha makes it worse, because it convinces people that the tools are the reasons relationships work out or fail. Tools are tools, and the success (or lack thereof) of a relationship hinges solely and exclusively on the people involved in it.
Why do we keep trying to make this a big deal? I get that it’s an essential personal journey, and I am not giving up at all on finding a suitable partner for myself, but could we just finally say that the emperor has no clothes, and dethrone those who call themselves “relationship experts”? There’s no such thing.
I’ve dated numerous people. I have loved, been loved, hated, and been on the top of numerous hit lists. All the while, I kept a close eye on my actions and monitored everything that happened, taking time to compare notes every now and then with others. I could publish motherfucking studies on this shit. My conclusion to my own unpaid, completely voluntary research, is: good luck, buddy, brace for the pain, and enjoy every moment you can.
Cynical Dreams 