A moment of self-absorption
Feb. 14th, 2006 10:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mousmeFirst off, I'd like to apologise for not posting anything other than my serial lately. (Bazillions of new installments are up at ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
secret_history if you're remotely interested. Okay, fourteen since the beginning of the month. Don't get discouraged)
Mostly it's because Life is eating my brain. I'm never home early enough in the evenings to post anything coherent, and I don't want to post junk.
Anyway, I'm breaking my "no junk" rule (if you can even call it a rule) tonight, and whingeing, because it's Valentine's Day. No, I'm not one of the people who hates Valentine's Day. I don't go crazy about it, either. I just like the fact that there's a day out there when people get to celebrate love in all its forms.
It will surprise no one who reads this LJ if I tell you that never, in all my life, have I had someone in my life on Valentine's Day. Not a serious SO, not even a casual fling. Nothing. Valentine's Day, for me, is traditionally spent all by my lonesome. Not exactly by choice, either. Sometimes it was a choice (I turned someone down once who asked me on a date on that day), but mostly it's my default setting.
In fact, single seems to be my default setting. The longest relationship I ever had lasted a little over eight months, and started in the month of March. We all know how well that turned out. My record for shortest relationship is three weeks. I can count the number of people I've dated on the fingers of one hand.
I'm not usually one to stand up and ask "Why not me?" Really, I'm not. Usually I muddle through my life, reasonably content with being alone with my cats and my little habits. I don't marvel that people don't want me, at least not in any physical or romantic way. I don't think I'm so fabulous that people must be blind not to see it and be queuing up at my door to ask me out.
Every now and then, though, I get a nagging little feeling. It makes my chest constrict and my throat hurt, and then I ask the question that, really, I should avoid asking. Why the hell am I not allowed to have someone, just once? I get that feeling on Valentine's Day, although not every year. Today, though, it hit me like an eighteen-wheeler.
I went to my dance class, but I got there five minutes late. They were teaching a couples dance, and guess who didn't have a partner? I didn't even want a romantic partner. I just wanted to fucking dance with someone. Instead I sat down alone at a table and wrote a few hundred words of Conflation while I waited for them to review last week's dance.
What I want to know is what the hell is so wrong about me that no one wants me? I'm not repellent physically. At least, I don't think I am. I've got a pretty decent personality, as these things go: I smile a lot, I keep a hold of my temper most of the time, and I try to be pleasant most of the time.
You know what happens then? I get asked out by broken people. The only time I didn't get someone broken was when I was the one who did the asking, and then that only lasted for three weeks. Otherwise, I get people who are even more messed up mentally than I am, and that's saying something. I can deal with people who are a little bit broken. Hell, everyone is a little bit broken in one way or another. It's the major breaks that are hard to handle, and I seem to attract them, which means I then get put in the unenviable position of ending something which, in theory, I actually want, in order to save my sanity.
This year, at the beginning of January, I decided that I wouldn't go looking for romance or anything like it. Call me in 2007 if you want something from me, I decided. It's not like it's that hard for me to stay single, anyway. :P I thought that if I made the decision, somehow moments like these wouldn't happen anymore, because the power would be in my hands. Apparently I laboured under a delusion.
I'm going to cut this short. It's making even me sick to my stomach to read this crap. All I really wanted to say was that it would be really nice, just once, if someone were to want me. No frills, no flowers, no chocolate. Just spending the time together, because we want to.
I'm just saying.
secret_history if you're remotely interested. Okay, fourteen since the beginning of the month. Don't get discouraged)Mostly it's because Life is eating my brain. I'm never home early enough in the evenings to post anything coherent, and I don't want to post junk.
Anyway, I'm breaking my "no junk" rule (if you can even call it a rule) tonight, and whingeing, because it's Valentine's Day. No, I'm not one of the people who hates Valentine's Day. I don't go crazy about it, either. I just like the fact that there's a day out there when people get to celebrate love in all its forms.
It will surprise no one who reads this LJ if I tell you that never, in all my life, have I had someone in my life on Valentine's Day. Not a serious SO, not even a casual fling. Nothing. Valentine's Day, for me, is traditionally spent all by my lonesome. Not exactly by choice, either. Sometimes it was a choice (I turned someone down once who asked me on a date on that day), but mostly it's my default setting.
In fact, single seems to be my default setting. The longest relationship I ever had lasted a little over eight months, and started in the month of March. We all know how well that turned out. My record for shortest relationship is three weeks. I can count the number of people I've dated on the fingers of one hand.
I'm not usually one to stand up and ask "Why not me?" Really, I'm not. Usually I muddle through my life, reasonably content with being alone with my cats and my little habits. I don't marvel that people don't want me, at least not in any physical or romantic way. I don't think I'm so fabulous that people must be blind not to see it and be queuing up at my door to ask me out.
Every now and then, though, I get a nagging little feeling. It makes my chest constrict and my throat hurt, and then I ask the question that, really, I should avoid asking. Why the hell am I not allowed to have someone, just once? I get that feeling on Valentine's Day, although not every year. Today, though, it hit me like an eighteen-wheeler.
I went to my dance class, but I got there five minutes late. They were teaching a couples dance, and guess who didn't have a partner? I didn't even want a romantic partner. I just wanted to fucking dance with someone. Instead I sat down alone at a table and wrote a few hundred words of Conflation while I waited for them to review last week's dance.
What I want to know is what the hell is so wrong about me that no one wants me? I'm not repellent physically. At least, I don't think I am. I've got a pretty decent personality, as these things go: I smile a lot, I keep a hold of my temper most of the time, and I try to be pleasant most of the time.
You know what happens then? I get asked out by broken people. The only time I didn't get someone broken was when I was the one who did the asking, and then that only lasted for three weeks. Otherwise, I get people who are even more messed up mentally than I am, and that's saying something. I can deal with people who are a little bit broken. Hell, everyone is a little bit broken in one way or another. It's the major breaks that are hard to handle, and I seem to attract them, which means I then get put in the unenviable position of ending something which, in theory, I actually want, in order to save my sanity.
This year, at the beginning of January, I decided that I wouldn't go looking for romance or anything like it. Call me in 2007 if you want something from me, I decided. It's not like it's that hard for me to stay single, anyway. :P I thought that if I made the decision, somehow moments like these wouldn't happen anymore, because the power would be in my hands. Apparently I laboured under a delusion.
I'm going to cut this short. It's making even me sick to my stomach to read this crap. All I really wanted to say was that it would be really nice, just once, if someone were to want me. No frills, no flowers, no chocolate. Just spending the time together, because we want to.
I'm just saying.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-02-15 04:19 am (UTC)I can relate. And my longest relationship was about 11 months... and I am also currently 'single'.
At this point, my thinking is this: I don't need to be with anyone. I need to concentrate on getting stability in my life, and just be who I am.
Although, yes, it does get lonely, and I wish I had someone too.
C.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-15 09:51 am (UTC)For the first time in 4 years of a relationship I'm single on valentines day :\ Thank god...but at the same time it can get damn lonely :(
I dont think its so much the fact that people dont want you, I think its that maybe you dont meet enough single people with similar interests etc. Its hard to meet people you really click with I guess, I know I find it difficult. Especially hard when you meet people for the first time and all they really have to go on is how you look and first impressions, something I've never been terribly good at - they dont see the things inside that they might find intreaguing or attractive, at least, usually not at first.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-15 12:06 pm (UTC)I know how massively annoying 'sage advice' from someone coupled is, with these things (there are a lot of people in my past that I just wanted to punch very hard, when they got pontificating), so I'll shut up now. But if you're still in a ranty mood tonight, I'll be around to listen.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-15 01:37 pm (UTC)Anyway, for what its worth, *I* find you attractive, charming, witty, and talented, and I really doubt I'm the only one.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-15 01:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-15 08:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-15 11:19 pm (UTC)*sigh*
Eh, partners. Who needs 'em anyway? I'd have to put up with their foul moods as well as my own :P
Ahem. Don't get down on yourself. Ahem.
Date: 2006-02-17 03:12 am (UTC)I just want to you know that you may not have had the worst Valentine's Day of everyone you know... or at least, remember. I just wanted you to know that perhaps it is sometimes better to spend Valentine's Day alone then to end up spending it with someone that you are not sure you should be spending it with.
Cheer up and don't get down on yourself, you should give up on yourself because Love has surely not given up on someone as wonderful as you. You just need to give it time to match you with the right person at the right time.
Re: Ahem. Don't get down on yourself. Ahem.
Date: 2006-02-17 03:16 am (UTC)Re: Ahem. Don't get down on yourself. Ahem.
Date: 2006-02-19 03:02 am (UTC)You're totally not broken. I wasn't thinking of you at all when I was talking about broken men (a few others spring to mind, though... :P)
You're a darling, and thank you for the kind words. I didn't have a lousy Valentine's Day. I just succumbed to a moment of self-pity. :)