Will I Be My Valentine?
I realized last week in therapy that it was almost a year since I had a profile on a dating site.
You may have noticed that I did not write an article last week. That was the first time in the year and a half that I have been doing this column that I didn’t. It certainly wasn’t that I didn’t write anything, it’s just that what I did write–which took me days–was a bit more negative than what I usually put out and I didn’t want to bring anyone down so I scrapped it.
I am writing this on Valentine’s Day. That’s significant because I realized last week in therapy that it was almost a year since I had a profile on a dating site. I’m not sure if you can appreciate how much growth that represents for me. Since I moved out of my domestic partnership in 2017, it seemed like my life was an endless string of bad dates and short relationships.
Even with my regular ability to see problems and address them, this area of my life generally went unnoticed. It was providing me with a lot of highs and lows that were detrimental to my well-being but even more than that, it was wasting a lot of time that I did not have to waste.
It’s funny how it always takes a birthday with a zero at the end to inspire me to fix lifelong problems. When I turned forty, I finally stopped using substances and learned a viable trade. A trade that even now is providing me a very good living. At fifty, I realized that I needed to do something about my relationship issues. That is, of course, when I started consistent weekly therapy.
I can admit that this change did not take place overnight. Even when I was at Orientation for Tesla only four months ago, I was looking around the room trying to pick out who I should try to pursue. Some time around this past Christmas, I finally put all thoughts of romantic connections to bed–as it were.
I used to always believe that if this change were to ever come over me, it would be the end of something fun and the beginning of old age. I would start to become that lonely old man who sat by himself in his robe drinking coffee every morning. It was a daydream that used to seriously scare me. But here I am, in my robe, drinking coffee and writing this and I finally realize that it isn’t the end of something good, but the beginning of an emancipation that I have needed in my life since I was a teen. A freedom to define myself by more than just who was attracted to me.or who I was sleeping with. Or not sleeping with.
Age is something that we dread in our culture. We, as a society, do almost anything to avoid it. Face lifts, skin treatments, botox–we have developed numerous products and services dedicated to the practice of stopping time and preserving our youth until we’re practically dead. I say “this culture” because for the most part, what I have observed in Greece, France and Italy, is a much healthier attitude about age. The people seem to embrace it and move into it with dignity and grace. I mean, for the most part. There’s always those silly Americanophiles that want to adopt our neuroses and suffer the same way that we do. Just as there are likely eight or nine Americans that are okay with aging.
When I think about all of the relationships that I have had in my life, I have come to realize that the reason all of mine have gone the way that they have is because they always seem to reflect back to me what I experienced as a child. All of those unaddressed wounds seem to come to the surface and play out in the arguments, the avoidance, and the silence. Before I was able to understand any of it, I just used to chalk everything up to “sucking at relationships.” Now, however, I can see that there is a direct line leading back to those formative years.
Manipulative people, for instance, are not manipulative because they enjoy abusing other people. Manipulation is generally learned in childhood when direct communication goes largely ignored. Humans, of course, have a survival instinct and if simple communication does not provide a child with their needs, they experiment with other approaches. Unfortunately, if a child learns that passive aggression gets their needs met, that’s what they learn to use.
So, the partners of these people can get as angry as they want, but unless a person receives a full scale overhaul in their original programming, it’s impossible to expect that they’re going to learn to ask for their needs in a healthy way when they become adults, just because it angers their partners. It’s as likely as expecting a righty to throw a ball with their left arm just because it makes other people more comfortable.
All in all, I am content and happy that I have reached this place in my life. And if I’m in the supermarket one day and I bump into the one for me, I will follow my heart—but my days of trying to squeeze myself into places I don’t belong are over.
I love myself far too much for that anymore.
Well written. Love yourself and things will fall in place. You have a lot of love to give. Concentrate on your beautiful girls too. Hugs my friend.
FANTASTIC! since leaving the US in '18 and years of pandemic, I have done a TON of work on myself through AlAnon and therapy, but what made EVERYTHING crystal clear was ACoA/D. I haven't felt this good since 1981! I hope you rach you goals, too.