I keep being told by friends that I need to start dating someone, anyone as far as they are concerned. It's been 3 years since my wife decided to leave me for a man with more money and since then I haven't dated anyone. There have been people that have interested me but at no point did my interest in them ever evolve into a date. Just last week I was told I was a monk.
I have a great number of excuses for not dating anyone. Some are horribly personal, others are what I tell people when they start suggesting that I should start seeing someone. A list of my public excuses:
1. I don't know any women near my age (which is somewhat true as I work with teenagers and attend school with even more teenagers).
2. I need a woman I can share my faith with (which again is true however I make no effort to meet women who share my faith).
3. I have plans for the future that I don't want a relationship to mess up (after my wife and I split I started making plans to go to Wales for a year, she wanted to try and work things out, when she said that it wasn't working the deadline for my application had passed and I couldn't go. I don't want that to happen again right?)
4. I'm fine alone, it leaves me the opportunity to do what I want when I want (of course I don't do anything because I have no one to share such experiences with).
5. I can't afford it (dating is expensive and I don't have that much money to spend on doing things with someone else, or so I tell myself).
These are the main excuses I would share with anyone who asks why I don't date or apparently have no desire to date anyone. While they all have a certain ring of truth to them they all have a certain ring of bullshit as well.
Human's are essentially communal beings. We naturally seek out others to share ourselves with. There is a perverse sense of fulfillment that comes from giving of yourself to another. Even more so when it is recpricated in kind. Then there is the natural biological drive to procreate which drives us towards relationships with others on a purely instinctual level. Of course there are those who choose to deny themselves this (usually refered to as monks or freaks - take your pick) but in doing so often try to isolate themselves from society so as to distance themselves for desire and distraction. I unfortunately am not a monk.
Would I like to be dating someone? Of course. Am I willing to try and meet someone so that I could date someone? Probably not.
The real reasons I don't try and meet anyone are personal. You see I (like everyone else does) have an inner voice which talks to me. Its amazing what you can hear when you take some time to listen to the inner narrative. For instance did you know that I am unworthy of love? Or perhaps that there is no way another person could be interested in me? Another thing that I have learned from my inner voice is that I am terribly unattractive and frightfully unappealing.
This is just a small sampling however I have begun to notice a pattern. I don't seem to like myself all that much. The word negative comes to mind. I'm sure that someone out there would classify it as something akin to a 'negative self image'. If I was saying these things to another person some might claim that what I say is verbal abuse.
Of course when you find yourself in an abusive situation you should make every effort to extricate yourself from said situation. How do you do that when your doing it to yourself? Suicide? I guess that that would be one out but I don't find it all that appealing.
I said in a previous post that I had been listening to my inner dialogue and had had an epiphany. That to fulfill God's command to love your neighbor as yourself, you need to love yourself. It seems I am having a terribly hard time at this. Perhaps my inability to love myself is having some effect on my ability to love others? Or perhaps its having an effect upon my simple desire to seek out someone to love?
I want to love someone. To have that connection with another person that I lost when my wife left. It just seems that I have to convince my inner voice that I deserve it before I'll be able to seek it out.
For some reason this makes me sad.
I'm not too sure why.
2 comments:
I do not believe that there is any reason why you shouldn't love yourself (you are an unbelievably warm, kind, funny and wonderful guy), but I understand where you're coming from.
I'm starting to believe I'm incapable of loving someone else as I don't love myself.
I wish I could tell you how to solve this problem. If I knew an answer, I would tell you.
Until I can figure something out, know that you are a great guy and you deserve someone wonderful and it will happen.
Hi Vesp
This isn’t my first visit here. You’ve been bookmarked as someone worth checking in on as time allows, and I appreciate your keen observations most of the time, even when I don’t necessarily agree with your conclusions. Reading thorough here (on my occasional visits), somehow I get the feeling that you don’t check your comments, or answer them. Hello! Anybody home?? Can we say “communication” (or lack thereof) being a ‘relationship issue’? I can tell you’re a top notch thinker, and a well above average writer, but unless you are ‘relating’ to someone other than your self in that thinking and writing... (or am I “talking to myself”?)
Anyway, assuming that you do indeed at least read comments, I can let you know that you are far from alone in being alone and self considered ‘unacceptable dating material’.
My wife and I were married for nine years before she left me for a man that made more money (and who smokes and drinks, much as she also enjoys). That was just over 11 years ago. Other than a brief relationship (about 6 months) which I broke off (for mostly religious reasons), I’ve been “alone” for at least 9 of those years. Having broken fellowship with the Mennonite home church I attended over 4 years ago and after getting studious of the Scriptures, haven’t found another ‘church’ that would accept me even if I could accept them (I’ve gone “too far” outside what is ‘traditional doctrine’, but if Christ says to the church in Revelation “behold: I stand at the door and knock”, where does that put Him?). Add to that the “conservative” take on divorce and remarriage issues according to Christ (and Paul) (essentially verboten), a job that has me working at dozens of places each week populated almost exclusively by men, and being there usually for only hours at a time per month (or year in some cases) there is neither time nor place to develop ‘relationship’ of any depth even if there was someone of the opposite gender ‘odd’ enough to “diligently search the Scriptures to see if these things be so” working in such ‘ungodly’ places.
Perhaps you have also looked into the on-line dating services (pardon me whilst I stifle a laugh) which are full to overflowing with such deep relational requirements as: “Looking for someone who has a good sense of humour, and likes to have fun”. Really - if you haven’t already, do so, just to see if I’m correct, and that well over 80 percent can be ‘boiled down’ to that specific phrase.
Being that I am neither handsome, financially secure, insured, or young; that I have left the maintenance of my self and environs in far less than a “well cared for” (and socially acceptable) condition, there is no merit whatsoever that any self respecting person could find in ‘relating’ with me, and neither do I care at this point if any do. Or at least I put up a good show of it. What choice do I have but to live for Christ alone?
Then there are days I’m not sure, but the obstacles are still overwhelming.
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