Ruminating
Jun. 1st, 2012 07:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
garoteIt is quite possible for me to reach a level of happiness on my own.
I've slept alone, adventured alone, eaten alone, bathed alone, worked alone, and played alone, and I'm fine with that.
For some of that time, especially in recent years, I've been attached to a significant other, but still spending much of my time alone, pursuing my own things.
I have no "problem" with being alone.
But being alone has not "cured" me of the desire to be with someone else, someone I can truly feel connected to, someone I can truly depend on and respect.
It occurred to me, instead, that if the point was to get so comfortable with living alone that I preferred it just as much as a relationship, then doing so would actually turn me into less of a partner. What would I care if my relationship was compromised or threatened? Why would I be motivated to do difficult or careful work to maintain it, when I could just bail out of it and return to equal happiness as a bachelor? Let the process repeat a hundred times for all I would care. Relationships are sometimes work. If I could take it or leave it, why do the work?
Ah, but you can argue back: The point is not to eliminate the desire, the point is to eliminate the need. If we need a relationship to be happy, then clearly we are failing to keep our own health and self-esteem, and are instead relying on a partner to support us, yes?
That means everyone who dislikes being single is weak and will sabotage their next relationship with their weakness, right?
How does that square with the simple fact that I am just plain happier when I am with a partner I adore, relative to being alone? If that is a weakness, what of it? Being made of pliable skin, rather than granite, it also a weakness, but being made of skin is human, and preferring a happy relationship to loneliness, is also human.
Is that it? Loneliness? How much time do I "need" to spend as a single person, independent and happy sometimes, but lonely and wistful at other times, before I pass the imaginary waterline where I am appropriately independent, and have the appropriately small measure of loneliness, to qualify as a successful candidate for romance?
I believed there was a bar to clear, all through my 20's, and I believed it was hard-won wisdom to know the bar was there, and how high it was.
But you know what? That's crap.
The height of loneliness does not occur when you are single. It occurs when you are with the wrong person, and part of you knows it, and the rest of you is fighting to hold on, and you start to bury that struggle down inside yourself because you think it's a necessary step to rescue the relationship.
What's problematic is that sometimes a small version of this struggle, a temporary version of it, is what's required to avert an obvious disaster. Being able to hold something in check so that you can safely and lovingly deal with it in the near future is a tactic that keeps families, communities, teams, and relationships, all intact despite hardship.
Real maturity comes from knowing when there is too much being held below the surface, and doing what is necessary to expose it, as gently, but as firmly, as possible. That's a skill that has almost nothing to do with keeping your own company. There are millions of people who are perfectly content to live as bachelors, yet don't have the first clue what they're really feeling, let alone the ability to talk about it with care, and for all their mercurial glamour or endearing housebound nerdiness, they treat partners like disposable tissues.
No, the real quantities we all struggle with are self-care, and care for others, and what that really looks like. And the real progress comes in treating it as more than a zero-sum game.
YOU DO NOT HAVE TO SUFFER, FOR SOMEONE ELSE TO BE HAPPY.
But to pursue your own happiness, you may have to change.
I've slept alone, adventured alone, eaten alone, bathed alone, worked alone, and played alone, and I'm fine with that.
For some of that time, especially in recent years, I've been attached to a significant other, but still spending much of my time alone, pursuing my own things.
I have no "problem" with being alone.
But being alone has not "cured" me of the desire to be with someone else, someone I can truly feel connected to, someone I can truly depend on and respect.
It occurred to me, instead, that if the point was to get so comfortable with living alone that I preferred it just as much as a relationship, then doing so would actually turn me into less of a partner. What would I care if my relationship was compromised or threatened? Why would I be motivated to do difficult or careful work to maintain it, when I could just bail out of it and return to equal happiness as a bachelor? Let the process repeat a hundred times for all I would care. Relationships are sometimes work. If I could take it or leave it, why do the work?
Ah, but you can argue back: The point is not to eliminate the desire, the point is to eliminate the need. If we need a relationship to be happy, then clearly we are failing to keep our own health and self-esteem, and are instead relying on a partner to support us, yes?
That means everyone who dislikes being single is weak and will sabotage their next relationship with their weakness, right?
How does that square with the simple fact that I am just plain happier when I am with a partner I adore, relative to being alone? If that is a weakness, what of it? Being made of pliable skin, rather than granite, it also a weakness, but being made of skin is human, and preferring a happy relationship to loneliness, is also human.
Is that it? Loneliness? How much time do I "need" to spend as a single person, independent and happy sometimes, but lonely and wistful at other times, before I pass the imaginary waterline where I am appropriately independent, and have the appropriately small measure of loneliness, to qualify as a successful candidate for romance?
I believed there was a bar to clear, all through my 20's, and I believed it was hard-won wisdom to know the bar was there, and how high it was.
But you know what? That's crap.
The height of loneliness does not occur when you are single. It occurs when you are with the wrong person, and part of you knows it, and the rest of you is fighting to hold on, and you start to bury that struggle down inside yourself because you think it's a necessary step to rescue the relationship.
What's problematic is that sometimes a small version of this struggle, a temporary version of it, is what's required to avert an obvious disaster. Being able to hold something in check so that you can safely and lovingly deal with it in the near future is a tactic that keeps families, communities, teams, and relationships, all intact despite hardship.
Real maturity comes from knowing when there is too much being held below the surface, and doing what is necessary to expose it, as gently, but as firmly, as possible. That's a skill that has almost nothing to do with keeping your own company. There are millions of people who are perfectly content to live as bachelors, yet don't have the first clue what they're really feeling, let alone the ability to talk about it with care, and for all their mercurial glamour or endearing housebound nerdiness, they treat partners like disposable tissues.
No, the real quantities we all struggle with are self-care, and care for others, and what that really looks like. And the real progress comes in treating it as more than a zero-sum game.
YOU DO NOT HAVE TO SUFFER, FOR SOMEONE ELSE TO BE HAPPY.
But to pursue your own happiness, you may have to change.
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no subject
Date: 2012-06-04 07:10 pm (UTC)I don't admire people who don't "need" people, who have a sterile detachment from companionship, who care only about themselves and what gives them pleasure. There's a name for that; it's sociopathy.
no subject
Date: 2012-06-04 08:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-06-04 10:30 pm (UTC)But I don't think that being alone has much to offer for its own sake, just like I don't believe that fasting has much to offer for its own sake. I think the need to gain mastery over one's nature, one's very physiology, is merely one form of obsession with control... being alone for its own sake, attempting to (in Master Yoda's words) "train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose" is just emotional anorexia.
But I can see how someone who has spent virtually no time single would question his or her motivations to stay in relationships. Me, I was the opposite until Lucas... until the age of 22, my longest relationship (by far) was 6 months. It took me a long time to recover* from my childhood abuse and neglect, and I was *always* painfully lonely but, at the same time, terrified of rejection and certain that no one wanted me. Even once I began to appreciate my own awesomeness, I was painfully lonely, because the loneliness didn't come from the lack of self-esteem or desire for autonomy. It came from lack of intimate relationships and social resources.
I guess what I'm getting at is that even once a person no longer feels they need to have a relationship to prove their worth, even when they don't define themselves by the people they associate with... there is always a need for companionship and shared experience. Except in sociopaths. ;)
*Cover? Recover implies that I was ever whole in the first place.
---
Check out self-determination theory. You might find it interesting. Basically, the idea is that humans have higher-order needs for autonomy, competence, and connectedness. Maybe too much connectedness has threatened your feelings of autonomy and competence, but all three are important. :)
no subject
Date: 2012-07-02 09:28 pm (UTC)That's changed over time. Now I have a LOT less trouble rejecting people that I don't feel happy being with, to the point where I'm beginning to think that I have swung the pendulum too far in the other direction.
For example, I just abruptly ended the very beginnings of a relationship with a really nice woman, after a few weeks, because I suddenly felt very unhappy with another relationship in her life. (She has a long-distance "boyfriend" that she has a long history with, and he visits the area a few times a month for socialization and sex.)
And now I'm questioning myself - a lot - about why my discontent was suddenly so intense. I didn't care about her socialization with another boyfriend. It was the sex I cared about. And not so much that, as the fact that she had sex with him, and described him in glowing, poetic prose, evocative of a very strong attachment, and declared that she would never end the relationship, and that I saw the potential for a long-term relationship with her if we continued to interact. It was all three together that bothered me, and I basically hit the eject button.
She was very understanding when I told her my decision, but also dropped in a comment about how I was "honoring my fear of nonmonogamy rather than challenging it", which, aside from making me feel insulted, especially based on my own history, also made me think about fear in general.
Have I become too fearful, to the point where I'm rejecting things that even smell just a tiny bit like trouble? Has it become too much to ask, in my age group and cultural surroundings, that a woman I date desire at least a period of monogamy while exploring a romantic potential? Or have I entered the grand age of everyone hedging their bets and clinging to their baggage, and I should learn to follow suit?
no subject
Date: 2012-07-03 03:39 am (UTC)I do think that consensual nonmanogamy should be more accepted as a normal variant of human sexuality, just like the potential to love the same gender. But just as the existence of people who love those of the same gender doesn't mean everyone is gay/bi, just because many people are truly happier with the ability to love more than one person in a romantic/sexual way at a time doesn't mean that everyone is "really" poly.
no subject
Date: 2014-09-06 11:57 am (UTC)Also, I like that term. Sophomore single. It puts a name to the way I've handled relationships for most of my life.
I'd not quite considered the long term lessons that might come of this, for better or worse. Reading this (and your friend's comments - there are really insightful!) was very illuminating. Thank you.
no subject
Date: 2014-09-06 07:16 pm (UTC)Strange world we live in!
I'm glad you found it useful. After I wrote it, I had to ask myself, "if this idea is obvious, why did it take me so long to figure it out?"
I think it's because I really was quite lonely for a lot of my teenage years and early adulthood, and that formed a sort of ... habit, with relationships?