I woke up to an epiphany, one I can't stop having: I'm not great yet. There's lots I need to do before I can earn that title. I haven’t been sleeping well and today, after some rest, I finally saw through my solipsistic haze. I often fall into the trap of thinking I'm invincible. This week's been a shock because I've seen how overlooking just one thing (sleep) can make me weak. I've been doing things motivated by fear and that's not how I want to live.
Everything feels big in my world, so in what world am I not great?
Recently I've had a romantic interest, which is stressful enough. I like to think I’m an excellent judge of character, and she seems lovely. She’s clearly achieved a lot while I’ve achieved a lot in the confines of my own head. I wish I could show her all I’ve achieved, I wish I could show the world. I’ll admit, I’ve been using the idea of her to motivate myself: A popular pastime among hopeless romantics, it’s what makes them so hopeless.
It's natural to think everything's a big deal when you're young. You're finding your own ways of dealing with things, and it's exhausting. You need to think through every detail because you don't have the experience to know what's simply not worth worrying about. How many times have you heard that 'life's short', why? Because it's easy to overestimate how much time and energy you've got, and easy to waste it. As I'll explain later, my dating experience is limited at best, so it's something I'm cautious not to overthink. Thinking can be dangerous, it can produce imaginary factors that interfere with your judgement. Avoid it at all costs.
The Match
Bearing in mind that I've only spoken to this girl twice in person and exchanged a handful of texts, you might be wondering why I've written a whole blog post about her. I'll explain.
The ideal version of me has always been at least 2 years away and it has a number of upgrades over the current. It writes more, a lot more, and better, better sentence structure. Better lists, and better jokes.
I can tell this girl's special, because the thought of her makes me want to write. At times I've paused and thought 'What would she think of you now, get your head together man' and then proceeded to organise my thoughts. She's has a lovely voice and her music makes me feel soft and grounded.
The question of 'am I good enough' is a reasonable question to ask here. Don't feel pressured to answer, but it's definitely a question worth asking. The people who don't worry about being inadequate are shit heads, so I'll take some strength in that. If you’re the sort of person who's rosy one minute, then the next it’s all crashing and burning: Guess what?
You’ll rebuild stronger, and you’re probably much better at building than the people who sit around for years smelling smoke while their house slowly burns down.
She’s just gone from 30k followers on instagram to 100k in a matter of weeks, soon to face a life of bureaucracy, freeloaders, and cocktails at the beach. All in all, congratulations. She must’ve put a lot of work into not only her craft, but the areas that surround it: Mostly Instagram I’d imagine. I’ve also recently seen that a friend of mine is getting regular headline gigs, which is tremendous. This all serves as a reminder that everyone is at different points in their life. Which I used to nihilistically interpret as 'some people make it further', but my ego now tells me it’s all how you measure it. If you’re measuring it by follower count, then she’s winning. If it’s measured by how many people want to suck your cock, then my friend Dennis takes the cake. If it’s measured by who’s contributed most to this website, I’m a bloody winner! If you don't like the game, change the rules. Thanks ego!
Smelling Smoke
This is the second time I've fallen apart with this girl, I think due to arrogance but as I’ve said: thinking won’t help. The first time I learnt two important lessons about myself: one, I use romance for escapism; and two, I tend toward excessive reassurance. I know I'm held back by a lack of consistency in general but this made me realise how much it affects me on the relationship front. I recently heard on a podcast that you can't have integrity without being consistent, because if you’re not consistent then you can't rely on yourself. This is definitely a problem for me, one I’ve been working tirelessly to fix. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a problem if I didn’t work so tirelessly.
I don’t know how this dating stuff works. Before starting my last long term relationship, my friend told me that my soon-to-be girlfriend’s friend had put something on her instagram saying that my soon-to-be girlfriend was [insert euphemism for being very attracted to someone]. Before that I was on and off with a lovely girl from school who I idolised. She was a gentle, loving soldier and I adored her. Since then my longest relationship lasted about 3 weeks. That’s the extent of my dating experience. I'm a novice especially via text or social media. I've never been interested in learning a whole new set of social norms. I hardly know how to text a close friend, let alone a crush.
She was writing short messages and responding slowly. My friend keeps telling me that's how I should text girls. He's probably right. If I hate texting, then why am I putting so much effort into it?
I worried that either she wasn't interested or it wasn't going anywhere, and felt a responsibility to drive the conversation. I was trying to be responsive without feeling too much pressure to act a certain way, but I worry I came across as self-centred and arrogant. Showing my romantic interest seemed foolish as it felt implied with this girl. She didn't give me much confidence that we were on the same page.
I've fucked up a few times by perusing a relationship with someone who could've been (or was) a good friend. It's a tough decision. I tend to just go for it though, I've never been very risk averse. I'm not saying that's what you should do, I wouldn't know. It suits me though. I'm the crash-and-burn type.
Burn Baby Burn
To be clear, I never had much of a chance with this girl. It certainly didn't help when she extended a branch and I took the piss out of her. She's clearly nervous around dating, and I picked the wrong time to stop thinking. I thought it was getting in the way.
There were two elements to this crash-and-burn: the spark was me worrying about being inadequate, and the fuel was my ego trying not to freeze. These were each to the tenth degree because I was hardly sleeping. This was for a few reasons: I'd injured my knee preventing me from exercising; I'm recovering from a half-a-decade drug habit; and I'm in trouble at work for having lie-ins, which is stressful! I never slept well anyway. It was an interesting experience, and I hope this gives you a taste for how it played out:
I started to wonder if I was a fraud, if I'd been lying so good I'd tricked myself (I have in the past but I'll share that story another time). It was horrible, I didn't like who I was. My ego did gymnastics. It told me that she had no intentions for romance and only went through the charade for validation, or maybe just to be polite.
I couldn't believe that she could have a grasp on love and not recognise me as having buckets to spare, so I mistook her lyrics to show doubt in romance. I was angry at the world for not getting the timings right.
I'd created a character to villanise her with, I imagined her looking down on romantics as foolish because they're setting themselves up to get hurt.
J.B. Peterson interpreted from a biblical text (I think it was the Cain and Abel story) that people who inflict pain on others likely do so to feel safer themselves. This is a nice way to view heartbreak: They do it because they're scared.
I bounced between being frightened, bitter, and sad. One lyric I found particularly comforting was:
Your drug is a heartbreaker, My love is a life taker. Say it ain't so.
Thanks for the advice Weezer!
I was still quite bitter when I first posted this, sorry if you saw that. It wasn't good enough, but I feel stronger now having reflected on it, as if that needs saying.
Settling Embers
In the past I've imagined being great friends with one ex or another. It's never happened, but I've never really tried. I don't think it's that simple, but it must be possible because so many people seem to suppress their feelings. They might just be heartless, but if they are holding onto their love for the longer term good, then I admire those people. Being friends sounds like a good place to start, but it's never really felt like it's started there. I'm lucky to have always known what I wanted, and to have faith I'll find it when I need to.
I wanted enough time to become perfect, which I'll never have. I like the phrase: 'if you look hard enough you'll find what you're looking for'. It's optimistic yet foreboding. Having an attention to detail means I look for imperfections. I could write for years, and there'd still be something to fix. 'Nothing will ever be perfect' is a handy perspective. It helps me to take breaks to settle and maintain myself. I think talking, listening, writing, and reading are great ways to get closer to perfection. They give a feel for which thoughts are helpful. Perfectionists have little interest in anything mediocre, including most starting points. They work very hard to achieve something momentarily, then make every effort to renounce their achievement. Dating a perfectionist is slow and taxing, but well worth it.
Dating a romantic is a whole different story, one for another time. In reflection, I took a hint of romance and ran with it. I got lost in its world and came out the other side with a story. I threw all I had into it, and sometimes that’s not enough, but in this case it was probably too much. I told you I use romance for escapism. It's not really a dating strategy, certainly not an effective one. It's good way of exploring your emotions though. Escapism implies I’m running from something, maybe that’s my growing responsibilities. One thing I know for certain now is that I’m looking for love. Thank you Hazy Jane.
Overall I think I made it too precious, as romantics tend to. I don't think she was as interested as I was, but maybe she was just being cool about it. Probably both. I could be totally wrong about her being interested in the first place, but now's not the time for doubt. It’s the time for a naïve and cheesy closing statement to complete the narrative:
I hope we make it far. I know were both heading in the right direction, and I don't think either of us would be satisfied by any one destination. There will be lots of stops to take, and sights to see. If we do cross paths, I imagine that the skies will look over us with jealousy. In the meantime we'll grow old, collecting stories. Stories to be told by a man and a woman. Stories that hold us together when we're falling apart. Stories to share. Stories from the heart.
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