Lately, I’ve had love on my mind, which is very unlike me. By love I mean relationships, and not the comfortable, non-dangerous love I have for my son and family. As I swore off the relationships kind of love a few years ago, this is unusual.
“Love is a serious mental illness”, said Plato back in 360 BC, and I am seriously inclined to agree with him. Although I think he may have called it a disease, but same difference. Socrates backed him up with “Love is a madness”, and these guys knew what they were talking about. Hence me giving the L-word the swerve. Keeps me sane, which is how I like it these days.
So it surprised me to get those old feelings back, that craving for a connection, and I found myself Facebook stalking the last excuse-for-a-man to use my heart as a disposable punching bag. Nothing much had changed there, which was to be expected, and I really wasn’t interested in re-hashing the past. What I was actually missing was not any one person, but the thrill that you experience when you meet someone new, when your heart starts to stir again, as if waking from a deep slumber. When your soul sits up and goes “let’s take another look at this one!” Waiting in anticipation for the next text, and thinking about them in your spare time. Watching indifferently as your sanity slowly slides out of the door.
Yes, it will always come back to that, and I savour my sanity these days. I like being in control of me, and being in love, or even infatuation, is not control.
I know, I sound extremely cynical, and I’ll be alone for the rest of my life at this rate. Blah, blah. I totally realise what I am “missing out on”, but I genuinely think that this is the most sensible I have been in a long time. I lose my shit when I’m into someone, and I don’t want to do that anymore. So I avoid relationships at all costs.
I’m not going to cast doubt on love for everyone, not by any means. I know it works for many; after all, I am surrounded by couples, but it always baffles me somewhat. For me, relationships have never been easy, or particularly happy. Love exhausts me. People exhaust me. Relationships just aren’t for me, and I don’t understand how people make them work. It makes me a little envious at times.
I haven’t come to this conclusion all by myself. I do speak from experience, and said experience is not something I look back on with starry eyes. I’ve been an idiot. I’ve been drawn to the wrong ones, I’ve offered them everything on a plate, and I’ve subsequently been treated like a doormat. My own fault? Maybe, but then if they had been decent men, they wouldn’t have allowed it to happen. They would have treated me with the respect I deserved.
These days, I prefer to respect myself, and this includes staying away from relationships. I know my weaknesses, and I know that I’m a magnet for narcissistic mummys boys. It’s that old self-esteem thing – I only accept what I think I deserve, and until I’ve healed myself of these thoughts, I will stay single.
Don’t I miss sex? Of course I do, I’m as red-blooded as the next woman. But I’m also realistic, and old-fashioned. I’m an all-or-nothing type of girl. If I’m having sex with you, I’m having feelings for you. Hook ups and one-night stands just don’t make the grade, but thinking about anything more than that gives me the heebie-jeebies. Intimacy scares me these days, and if I’m not ready for that, then I’m not ready for anything.
I guess it’s a trust thing. I need to work on that.
So for now, I’ll just stay here, safely hidden away, until I start to love myself.