Emotional pain is difficult to evaluate. My current conceit is that if I could guarantee being free from the regret, longing, & despair that I feel for the rest of my life, I’d probably sacrifice a limb. Maybe not a whole arm, but a hand. And I’m talking hacked off with no anaesthetic, medieval style. That’s probably delusional. If someone were somehow able to really offer me that, I’m sure I would puss out. But it’s hard to quantify. When it gets bad, it seems truly awful. But it’s not like I break down crying in the middle of the street, or scream. I’m kind of weirdly numb to it. I just carry on walking, as my mind unravels and the world around me seems increasingly hostile.
One of my biggest triggers is seeing happy young couples. Something about the closeness, the supportiveness, the mutual care, cranks my feelings of loneliness and longing up to 100. And suddenly it seems like that’s the only thing that matters in life, and I’ve put myself so far beyond it that it’s like a foreign country. And then the despair hits, and the regret. All those years I wasted on bullshit, when I should’ve been changing myself to become someone capable of being in a relationship. And now it’s far, far too late.
So what the fuck am I doing still breathing? This space that I’m occupying, this life that I’m taking up, could be filled by someone who isn’t tormented by regret, swallowed by despair. In my place there could be someone with hope, vitality, someone who actually enjoyed being alive. It feels wrong to even still be here, pretending to be alive. It’s like I’m a cancerous cell, infecting the world. And it’s all so pointless. All I’m doing by continuing is causing myself more pain. But then on the other hand, I’m also sparing my family great pain.
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I still don’t buy too late…. not for romance. Older, later on, I think it gets easier, the market loosens up. I mean, you don’t get the traditional bit, meeting while you’re younger, building a life from scratch and all that. I’ll tell you a secret, that’s actually really rare anymore. Most people are non traditional, picking up the pieces and making it work.
If it’s something you want though, seek it out. Geez my damn granddad, 96 at the end of his life, still romancing the little old ladies…. the man was unstopable. So, yeah, if 96 ain’t too late, then whatever age you are probably isn’t either.
Especially if you can become a stand up kind of person, the type that is supportive. That’s rare in this world. Most people are some variety of deadbeat. A drag on their partner. Later in life being a supportive partner is worth a whole lot, and that’s a learnable skill
I hope this doesn’t come off insensitive, rereading it…. just that I know a lot of older single people.
As dark as it is right now, I think you have a lot to offer. It’d be a huge waste to throw that away or ignore it. Life’s too short to avoid things you want, as long as those things don’t hurt other people.
I mean, if you don’t mind dating people who already have kids, sky is the limit. And not all of other people’s kids are little brats, some of them are decent or even pleasant to be around.
I appreciate the positivity, really I do. 99.9% of cases it would be well warranted. But… it’s not just about age. It’s about how mentally fucked up I am. And how little life experience I’ve had. My social skills are essentially frozen below those of the average teenager. I’m not your granddad – I don’t have his mind, or his experiences, or any of the things that allowed him to operate in the world as he did.
“Especially if you can become a stand up kind of person”
I really can’t. No matter what I do from this point on. The stuff I’ve done, and the stuff that passes through my head every day, means no one would ever accept me as I am. The best I can do is act, and I can’t even do that particularly convincingly.
“Life’s too short to avoid things you want, as long as those things don’t hurt other people.”
Even involving myself with another person seems like putting them at risk of great harm, if they ever find out the truth about me. I can’t risk telling people the truth, and not telling them seems deeply unfair and deceptive. The best I can imagine is some kind of disclaimer along the lines of “if you knew the truth about me, you wouldn’t want anything to do with me.” And I can’t imagine that’d be very appealing for anyone who’s not utterly desperate.
*shrug* no matter how broken a person is, somewhere out there is a person who is convinced they can fix them. Seriously, it’s a whole damn trope.
See Draco in Leather Pants; https://official-tropes.fandom.com/wiki/Draco_in_Leather_Pants
and it can work as an appeal factor, being dark and conflicted. Certain types of people, it revs their engines. It’s been a lot of my game during the periods I was single. Ladies, guys, everyone seems to go for it. They love a project. Just enough of a hint seems to be the key.
So, is it really harm if they come willingly? I stopped thinking so a long time ago. I don’t force anyone. If they make those choices……..
It’s a lot like my work. Some of our clients make poor choices, ones that we could catch but it isn’t our job. So we have to remind ourselves, it’s their job to make their judgements.
Harm is an action with intent to wound. Being less than is not an act of harm, it can’t be.
But, I don’t believe there’s a thought you could have had that makes you unworthy, we all think awful things it’s how we got here. As far as terrible acts go….. those may be as they may be. You’ve suffered the fallout from them already. You don’t need to serve any other penance for them besides that which life imposes on you in it’s natural course.
I want to see you bloom into the best you that you can be, it won’t be like me, or my granddad or anyone else. It’ll be something new the world hasn’t seen. Your limitations are part of that, sure. I’ve just got to believe there’s more to you than that. Maybe it isn’t obvious now, and maybe I’m full of shit, it’s a risk I’m willing to take.
but that agony is only there because there’s an unserved passion, a deep desire that you want to see satisfied. I know it seems easier to walk away but it isn’t.
“I can fix them” is indeed a trope, though it does seem to be significantly impacted by how hot someone is. I’m not dark and mysterious, I’m not an edgy bad boy. I’m just an awkward, dopey loser who’s done bad things.
It also seems to matter how bad the person/character is. In Harry Potter for example, Draco is an arsehole, but I don’t think he ever does anything to make him irredeemable. 1) He’s a child, and 2) he backs out when ordered to actually kill someone. So people are still able to think “I can save him.” In contrast, Voldemort, though some may pity him, is recognized as unsalvageable – he’s done things he simply can’t come back from: https://official-tropes.fandom.com/wiki/Moral_Event_Horizon
If you don’t give someone the info they need to make an informed choice, then it does seem wrong, especially if you know they wouldn’t choose you if they knew. Maybe a bit less so if I give a disclaimer, but to encourage someone to make a choice that’s bad for them seems antithetical to love. If you expose someone to risk of significant emotional harm without giving them the necessary background to make an informed choice, then it does seem wrong.
I don’t know. I desperately want to believe that there’s a way to make it ok. It just seems like it wouldn’t work.
“I don’t believe there’s a thought you could have had that makes you unworthy”
It’s not just thoughts, it’s the feelings connected to them. These are things significant parts of me want to do. I’m pretty sure I’m not going to, because I’m not prepared to accept the consequences, and I don’t want to feel any worse about myself. But they’re a deep reflection of who I really am.
“Your limitations are part of that, sure. I’ve just got to believe there’s more to you than that.”
There is more to me than that. But it’s close. I’m torn between – not bad enough to act like a true sociopath, not good enough to feel like I can involve myself with people normally.
Question: are you male? Asking because, well I DO break down crying in the street, a lot, not like I’m on the floor incapacitated or anything, I just cry a lot, all the time, and I’m very high functioning so I’m usually able to do all my mundane stuff like shopping or running errands, while also crying. Anyway, I feel like men in our society are socially conditioned to not cry. I have a few male friends who say they just can’t do it. So they process their sadness in that kind of numb way you describe. I doubt it’s healthy. But I also doubt crying uncontrollably is either, so… meh.
I think it’s really nice that you’re considering the well being of others, and trying to ‘protect’ them by not engaging in a relationship. But, you’re also taking away their choice in the matter, and that’s one of the worst things you can do to a person. Maybe it’s easier to take the option off the table, rather than suffer from potential rejection. That ol’ chestnut. But, call a spade a spade: that’s not trying to protect someone else…. that’s cowardice.
You clearly want a relationship. Don’t let your fear hold you back.
I am indeed. I believe other than a few tears shed at a funeral, I was 9 the last time I really cried in public . It was over something petty, so I felt doubly stupid. But yes, for men, it’s a sign of weakness. And if you signal weakness as a man, you leave yourself open to all kinds of threats.
Personally, I often cry in private. Rarely uncontrollable sobbing, but I’m the kind to get misty-eyed at a sad scene in a film. I’m an extremely oversensitive dude. But crying doesn’t feel good – it doesn’t change the underlying feelings of despair, there’s no relief afterwards. No internal pain is released. So I rarely fully give in to it.
It’s probably not clear from what I’ve said, but there’s serious things about myself I couldn’t risk disclosing to a potential partner. Things that they’d definitely deserve to know before getting emotionally involved with me, that would be absolutely crushing if they ever found out. So I couldn’t offer someone an informed choice on whether to be with me. All I could do would be to deceive them, or offer some sort of disclaimer that “there’s these awful things about me that I can’t tell you, but if you knew, I’m almost certain you’d run a mile.” And even if I could find someone desperate enough to accept such terms, it doesn’t seem like a good thing to put someone through.
I am also absolutely terrified of rejection, and that’s a key part of my avoidant personality. Even if I didn’t have such skeletons in my closet, I would be terrified of getting involved with anyone. I am absolutely a coward, in so many ways. But on this it does seem justified. When I hear women speak about how devastated they feel on discovering far lesser secrets their partners have kept from them, it just seems wrong to go into a relationship like that. I think I’d be constantly wracked by guilt, or on edge waiting for the other shoe to drop.
But thank you for your perspective, it’s always good to get different feedback on this, as it is something I’m constantly wrestling with. As you say, it’s something part of me very much wants.
Well, it’s hard to comment, not knowing the skeletons in your closet. Sometimes people are overly hard on themselves and think their discretions are worse than they actually are. Other times… their discretions really are that taboo. Ultimately it doesn’t really matter what I think, if you’ve already decided you could not share them with a partner. But question: are your skeletons an active part of your present life? Or are they in the past? Just because, if they are in the past, maybe they don’t need to be disclosed to future partners? I think it’s ok to start new relationships with a clean slate.
How do you feel about AI relationships? I’m sure there’s software being developed, if not already out there. I wonder if AI is scraping this website to learn as we speak…
Unfortunately, my core issues really are that taboo. There’s just no way that I could risk telling anyone (other than a therapist), and no way I could expect anyone to stay even if I did.
They are an active part of my present, though in a lesser way than they used to be. I have some boundaries now which I’ll hopefully never cross again. From time to time I make small efforts to further distance myself from it, mostly futile. But I can’t pretend I’m really a “changed man”. Though some of my actions have changed, most of the stuff behind it, in my mind, is strong as ever, and I can’t see that changing.
The idea of AI relationships leaves me feeling pretty empty. I know there’s already very rudimentary programs which some lonely people find comfort from. Good for them I guess. But even if it was sophisticated, proper AI, capable of really mimicking a human personality, the thought just has no appeal to me. Not sure why exactly. I think just on a basic level, I want someone with the same human vulnerabilities and frailties as me. And I guess I’d also want to be chosen by someone because of their own preferences, rather than because some instruction had forced them to. It just seems meaningless.
I tend to assume that as computing gets more powerful, every trace of data we leave online will eventually be collected, analysed, collated, to give a fairly accurate picture of who we are, warts and all. So I guess at some point my secrets will be known to the world. Which may be the signal for me to finally leave the stage.