As a follow-up to today’s sad-about-girls mixtape, I am going to revisit my “Things I Hate: Being Single” posts from 2008, which were ruminations on the trainwrecks and horrorshows that await the newly single. Since that time, I’ve had a brief and generally good relationship that ended largely due to environmental factors, a few dates that I felt were really promising with someone who brushed me off without explanation (after telling me point-blank that she wasn’t brushing me off) and sundry other encounters that have been stunningly un-noteworthy, either from a positive perspective or a “Oh My God, what was that?!” one. Because I don’t have the stark, existential horror of vapid youngsters, drunken marrieds or mistaken identities to cull from in this report, I can’t promise it will be as amusing as previous installments.
One of the thoughts that occurs to me frequently when I consider my wedmancipation from a year away from the incident is this: that I have traded environmental stability (as defined by a mortgage, a garage in which I fixed things with power tools, a firm knowledge that I would be going to bed with another person) for emotional stability (as defined by general happiness, the energy to pursue things I am creatively passionate about and the creation and repair of human connections).
It is a bargain that I’m pleased with.
As a consequence of this, though, I feel like I’m in like Adventure Mode or something: cut loose of baggage, I’m looking to reclaim some kind of nebulous value that I may never have actually had. It is neither a quarter life nor mid life crisis; it is a Quest of a Gawainesque bent. With a capital Q.
Many of the women that I’ve been on dates with recently simply aren’t looking for that. Some are looking for a guy with a stable job and a car in good repair and a stable air of stable stability about him. I have two of those things. One of these especially has been too defensive and fixated on her own past for my taste (and a date that consists of nothing but dating horror stories over dinner and drinks definitely counts as fixated on the past by my reckoning).
I was told on one of my most recent sojourns into the land of dating that I am not inquisitive enough. That I should be asking all about her job and her family and her et cetera, and that those will be the metrics by which our compatibility will be determined. I don’t buy that – that’s all stuff I can find out organically, over time. I want to know if a woman will make me laugh, or make me think or make me giddy or forget what time it is. I don’t need to know the facts of someone up front; I need to know the ephemera of them. Perhaps that makes me odd.
The best conversation I’ve had on a date within the past month was a lengthy discussion on our top 3 desert island CDs. I learned more about the woman I was with from that than I did from the relentless Q+A portion of the evening.
Lest you maybe think I’m bemoaning the fact that I’m still single and casting blame on a (small) parade of diverse women, I fully admit that the dissonance here is with me. Most people my age are looking for someone to settle down with, but that’s an embrace I am not in a hurry to rush back into. I’ve already done it, and I spent much of the time when I should have been not settling down doing the opposite. I am like Merlin or Brad Pitt, aging backwards eternally. Perhaps next I’ll join a fraternity or something, like in that one movie with those guys.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
great line: “I’m looking to reclaim some kind of nebulous value that I may never have actually had.”
while i often lament the whole peter panning of men in my age range, i also understand the desire to return to a life where mixtapes were king and the joy of discovery was always around the corner.
of course, who’s to say we can’t have that now AND have a car and a stable job?
It’s definitely a false dichotomy, but I don’t think that everybody gets that. I heard, “Oh God, you’re a gamer, aren’t you?” from someone when they were asking about my work history and I said that I used to write for a gaming site.
Basically, I just want to find someone that respects that I have my Peter Panny niches that I need to retreat into sometimes, and knows that they don’t rule my life. I don’t want to revisit the alternative. NEVAR AGAIN, as the kids say.
As a perpetually single person. I don’t know if women are seeking for stability or not, I’m pretty damn stable, but never seem able to really bring things home.
Also, a lot of the girls I’ve met or dated always seem a little off themselves.
Can’t comment on the maturity thing. Everyone I meet always claims that I seem older then I should be, but I still live with my folks.
i don’t know… all i can say is tom has his man cave in the basement and he spends a lot of time playing video games and reading comic books, and i’m happy he has his shit that makes him happy. we all have our stuff that keeps us going.