You're in a strange city. It's dark and cold, and you're so ravenously hungry that you think you're going to faint at any moment. Your pockets are stuffed full of money, but you can't find a restaurant or market. Everything in this city seems to have closed for the night.
You walk and you walk, feet aching, head swimming with hunger, when finally you spot a soft neon glow in the distance. A restaurant! Salvation!
You reach the front door and try to go inside ... but the maitre 'd blocks your way and pushes you back onto the steps. Is there a dress code? Is your face dirty? He won't tell you anything other than that you aren't allowed inside. He's indifferent to the cash you show him, indifferent to your pleading.
So you sit by the door outside, getting hungrier and hungrier and colder and colder, smelling all the wonderful food, hearing the warm laughter and clink of silverware on plates.
And then your friends come waddling out, stuffed to the gills, and when they see you they say, "Oh, you don't want to come in here, the food is just awful!"
All your life, you've yearned for a best friend, a lover, a life companion. You know it's a tall order. But it's what you need. You need it like you need air and water ... and try as you might, you just can't seem to find your love.
You were an only child. Typical of many larval writers, you were very shy and were too weird to make friends easily. If the other kids noticed you, it was to make fun of you. So at school, you always sat at the back of the room. Once you got big enough, your parents would just leave you at home when they went to the theater or to the dance club or to whatever Adult Stuff they did that they didn't want to drag a kid along to. And you remember sitting in your room screaming at the walls because you were so fucking lonely.
Now you're an adult, and you're still sitting in your room screaming at the walls. And, as always, nothing answers but silence.
Maybe your relationships have been brief and far between, one night stands scattered across a frigid, barren landscape.
But maybe you've been in long-term relationships. You've been in love, your heart broken so many times you're surprised it still works. And one day you wake up to realize that all the people you've ever loved are now married. After all your sweat and tears trying to get them to love you, too, after all their claims of not wanting commitment ... they're committed. To someone else. And no one can say why you lacked that certain je ne sais quoi d'amour, not even them.
You're a good person, and you have a lot to offer a lover. You're considerate, generous, and you have the Kama Sutra practically memorized. But you see the men going out with vacuous, whining bimbos and the women going out with jerks and slimeballs ... and no one's giving you the time of day.
It's gotten so the moment you see someone you're attracted to, desire is immediately crushed by an overwhelming sense of despair from the weight of all your past rejections. And sometimes, all you feel is rage at the sight of couples holding hands, kissing, smiling at each other. Paint it Black becomes the soundtrack playing on an endless loop inside your mind.
Your friends -- who at this point are mostly all in committed relationships -- are full of helpful advice.
You particularly like the Ann Landers Special, which is: "Feeling Lonely? Get a dog!" Wow, great idea. You need someone you can have meaningful conversations with and make love with and go to the movies with and buy a house with and have kids with ... yeah, a dog is the perfect replacement for a human being!
You also love the advice you get from older friends who are going through divorce or who are about to get a divorce. These are the friends who've got nice houses, and they've got fine, healthy children and cats and dogs. You have a crappy apartment that doesn't allow pets.
And when you tell them of your loneliness, these friends cry, "Ah, to be young and single! Be glad you're not married! It's terrible!"
And in your mind you're sitting right outside that restaurant again. Your friends have had their turn at the banquet, and gorged themselves until they were sick. And now they tell you that you should be happy you're starving?
Fuck them.
Fuck them.
Get up off the steps and walk back into darkness. You will not starve, and you will not fail, not if you keep searching. Don't waste your gold on those who dismiss you, ignore you, take you for granted and belittle your dreams.
The lonely ones will find each other by the heat of their bodies in the cold blackness.
And they will find their love.
Labels: essay, love
BlogThis!
Lately, I've been thinking about a conversation I had with my grandmother several years before her death. I had driven down from Indiana to Alabama to visit her; we were sitting in her retirement home apartment drinking coffee.
"I've been so worried about you," she said. "You need to find a nice boy and settle down."
I smiled at my grandmother.
"I have been trying," I said, choosing not to argue against her notion that a woman has to find a man and get married or she'll end up as a sad, lonely failure. "It's not as if I can just wander the streets, find a man I fancy, knock him over the head and drag him back to my apartment and live happily ever after."
She seemed strangely unconvinced.
Since then, I've watched many single friends get that same "why don't you just find a nice girl/boy and settle down?" spiel from older relatives and even older married friends.
These people act as though single folk can just mosey down to the local DateSmart, peruse the shelves of compassionate, responsible blondes, brunettes, and redheads, and say "How much for that broad-shouldered fireman who likes classical music? Can I put him on my Visa?"
They act as if those who have been unlucky in love have somehow been intentionally shopping from the bargain bin: "Oh, honey, another manic depressive with bad credit? Take that one back and get a refund this instant!"
What universe are these parents and married folk living in? This dating shit is hard.
Decent relationships are real treasures. And finding one is often like finding a gold coin in your neighborhood street, in the hallway of the college, in the couch cushions at a friend's party.
In other words, it's distressingly random.
You can go out, advertise yourself with clothes or makeup or a winning smile, meet new people; all that will of course improve your chances at finding The One you're looking for, just as playing a row of slot machines instead of just one will improve your odds for a jackpot.
Most of us don't get this amazing choice our elders seem to think we have. Models and rock stars and pro athletes, they get to choose (and seemingly choose badly, based on their divorce rates). The rest of us mere geeky mortals can only choose to date, or not date, whichever randomly-met individuals seem interested in us.
But you don't get to choose whether or not the people interested in you want the same things in a relationship as you do. You don't get to choose whether or not they fall in love with you. And you often don't get much of a choice as to whether or not you fall in love with them.
Wuv. Twue wuv. If you find it, cherish it. Because a lot of people in this world have looked a long, long time and have never found it.
Labels: love
BlogThis!
