8:43 p.m. - 2012-07-04
space
What M needs in a relationship:
Space.
Space.
Space.
Good that I'm old enough to know what I want these days.
Way too much A. But she is getting attached to me. I don't want anyone to be attached to me. I fear having to drag them along.
She left and went home and fed her pets. I rushed downstairs and fed my languages. Programmed my keyboard to type in Russian, finally. (I have been using those online keyboards. It is a pain in the ass.) Read in Russian. Finished Dalida in French. Went online to listen to some of her music -- I had never heard of her, unlike the rest of the world -- American oblivion. Fell in love with "Bonsoir mon amour."
Smoking on my front steps last night at 3 am, I realized that one major troubling aspect of A, for me, is that she lacks passion. I don't mean the messing-around kind, I mean the kind that has driven me to all sorts of academic, self-destructive, adventurous extremes all my life. To me, it is quite normal to wake up at 3 am and leap out of bed because I have something to say, create, investigate or plan. Has she ever? Mmm, no. I've asked.
Am I looking for my clone? I didn't think so; one of me is bad enough. Yet I realized that's one thing that always attracted me to Matt -- his insatiable professional drive, something that existed independent of me, that I admired and understood because I had my own version.
On the other hand, his drive eventually overshadowed mine. When two people are driven in different directions, what happens? You separate, or one is dragged along the other way. I am not sure if I followed or was dragged. Either way it was not the way I wanted to go, and when I got there, it was not where I wanted to be.
I have consciously thought about this and decided I would probably be a more fulfilled person if I was with someone who is not also insatiable -- someone who wants to go along for the ride. Someone who actually WANTS to, let me underline that -- that involves the other person, at the very least, packing their own bags and getting into the car.
Maybe I'm better off alone.
That's what I was thinking last night.
I can think of some really good reasons to be permanently single. You don't get tied down. You don't hurt anyone's feelings. Bitch that I may sound like right now -- me, me, I want, I want -- I absolutely abhor the idea of hating a's feelings or anyone else's. How the fuck do you get out of a relationship without hurting someone's feelings? Impossible. This makes me want to get out, NOW, before i'm even really in, and never try again.
The thing that sucks about that (I am selfish) is that A is a really sweet, sane, normal, responsible, unself-pitying, thoughtful, giving, un-narcissistic kind of person, the kind of person everyone's mother would approve of. Mine would. But common sense tells me that unless I see sanity and normalness as being golden, I wouldn't be good for her and I wouldn't be happy. Can I? I thought I could, I thought I did -- this is what I initially found most attractive about her. I found some other journalists and wanderers and creative types on that dating site, exchanged messages with a few -- a couple more accomplished than i am, and they reminded me of my reflection in an ugly mirror. Do I want to be with another me? No, I decided. Been there, done that; was miserable. On the contrary, the great love of my life, my childhood/early adulthood best friend, was what she always called "boring." No need to stand out, only get by.
I have never really understood why she became so necessary to me, just bits and pieces...
I don't know what I want. I'm not used to that feeling. Usually I know exactly what I want, just not how to get it. In this relationship business, I don't know what I want. That is the only thing I am sure of right now.
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