I started this post almost two weeks ago. It was cold then. I revisited it and revised it, the weather got warm, and now it’s cold again with snow on the ground and more on the way… During one of the revisions on a warmer day I wrote:
In the predawn hours, the morning birds gossip in the pines. It feels like early spring and the overnight rain smells warm and ancient. This won’t last. Colder weather is on the way, but for a few days it’s been nice to hear the birds.
That felt like a solid intro, even if it had nothing to do with the subject I wanted to address. I often have this need to root the reader in the moment – as though that has some bearing on what might or might not follow.
When I first sat down to write this, I had just finished breakfast and, in the few brief moments I had before getting ready and heading in to the office, I tried to write. I was looking at, and thinking about, the colors in the sky at sunrise: peach, pink, tangerine, and a dozen gradations of blue. I was trying to force a metaphor for change or transition. It wasn’t working. I was trying to write my way through what felt like an internal change that had settled in a few years ago (past tense) while the sky was changing quickly (present tense).
I’ve been reflecting on my time in central PA (and Memphis). I’ve been reflecting on that theory I once bought into (and maybe believe a little less now) of “being the person you want to find.” I’ve been reflecting on what now feels like slightly misguided attempts at cultivating a deeper, more resilient, more self-sufficient internal self. I’ve been revisiting some old thinking (my thinking) on things like attachment theory, other people as mirrors, solitude, and why we seek others out. I’ve been thinking about how I seem to define my recent history in terms of the relationships I’ve had, the people I’ve been around, and the spaces I’ve occupied…. For a long time I was married and had a family. Then there was this time when I wasn’t and I was meeting a lot of people and doing a lot of things on my own. There was a fleeting moment when I was with someone significant and giddy with possibility. And there has been everything after (gradations of discovery). On most days, skipping over all of the nuance that defines a life, that seems to be the simplified timeline. Maybe that’s where the colors of the sky were fitting in, a thin line of light on the horizon caught (briefly) between firm, dark earthly objects and a cold, midnight blue sky. And to quote Robert Hass, “All the new thinking is about loss. / In this it resembles all the old thinking.”
I wasn’t ruminating on loss. I was, instead, contemplating the difference between presence and absence, company and solitude. I was mentally revisiting some quotes on relationships (one by Joni Mitchell and one by Adrienne Rich). What purpose do close friends or partners or family really serve? How do we define ourselves if not through others? It seems, at least for the more tormented among us, that we are always in this state of flux in which we’re trying to reconcile how we see ourselves with how others see us. What happens when we don’t let others see us? Do we become invisible? Do we become deluded with our own self-perception? Do we become cock-sure in our convictions and less willing to compromise?
What I couldn’t pinpoint as I tried to write that morning, and almost every day since… what I still can’t pinpoint, is this sense of change – neither good, nor bad, just different. In the wake of that significant relationship, I set out to get better at being alone, or more accurately, to learn to want to be alone. Up until then, I hadn’t spent much time alone. I was in two very long relationships for most of my adult life, and then, as a single person, I was always in some state of the dating cycle. I never thought of it as a fear of being alone (which is usually a red flag in the dating world), but instead thought of it as a preference for the company of others. Quite honestly, I’m not sure I had given solitude much thought. I probably confused being alone with being independent… or had assumed that because I’ve spent plenty of time alone that I was ok with it… which is different than needing it, wanting it, or cozying up to it for the long winter’s night. My move to Memphis was, in part, an attempt to test my tolerance for solitude and reduce my reliance on others. I had been accused of being too needy, and because I took this person as seriously as one can take another human being and because I had been reading about cultivating in the self what we seek in others, I felt I had something to learn (and maybe prove).
That morning a week or two ago, sitting at the table watching the sky perform its early morning magic, I was struggling to assess the outcomes of this dalliance with solitude. Something felt different, but I wasn’t sure what.
For a few months, I have been inching my way towards the idea of dating again. Though a “relationship” seems improbable. This is part of the change I was struggling to pinpoint. I don’t seem to care about dating or meeting people or striving for something meaningful. I didn’t always feel this way – it didn’t always feel this half-assed. Right now, inching my way and “getting back out there” means creating a dating profile, looking around for a week or two, not reaching out, not replying, and then deleting my profile. With each iteration, I re-think my motivations. Do I genuinely want to meet someone? Am I just bored? Do I crave attention and validation? Do I just want some help with the dog and dinner on a Wednesday night? Perhaps a small and timid yes to all of the above. With each iteration I get a little closer to striking up more conversations and maybe meeting up with someone. To what end, I’m not sure. I’m not a shy person. I’m not nervous around women. I’m not afraid of rejection (though I hate rejecting others). If I have trepidation, it’s that maybe I’ve lost faith in the process.
There seem to be two general approaches to how a relationship develops. One is built loosely around the concept of love at first sight (chemistry). The other is built loosely around the concept of friends first and see where it goes (evolution). I’ve tried both approaches, and depending on how one measures success, I’ve succeeded (or failed) with both approaches. I don’t believe the two approaches are necessarily mutually exclusive… but, as much as I want to believe that both approaches are viable and have a type of beauty to them, I gravitate towards the first if only because it seems like it usually includes aspects of the second.
There was a time when I went out with almost anyone and everyone (within reason). I would take a “you never know” attitude. Sure, maybe we’re not hitting it off in our texting, but they might be different in person… I tried to treat dating the way I treat travel: wander around enough and you always find something pleasantly surprising. I used to think of dating like attending the state fair, you’re free to walk around, but have to pay for the rides… and now, I’m more inclined to charge admission at the gate. Now, I’m starting to believe you kinda do know what has potential and what doesn’t, and I’m hesitant to wander around as much or put my time into anything that doesn’t immediately seem tilted towards the magical. If they’re not this combination of stunning and funny, kind and conversational… if there isn’t this natural back and forth in which we seem to feed off of each other, I have little to no interest in meeting to find out more. This is an exceptionally high bar and a little at odds with a Buddhist approach to life (find beauty in every thing and every moment).
I’m not sure where to go with this or what it was that felt different as I watched the hues of early morning light. I’ve been trying to think about what made those rare and easy encounters go so well and why I have my doubts now. I tend to believe we get out of things what we put into them – and so it stands to reason that it’s partly a matter of effort. But I know that’s not entirely true – these things can’t be forced. No, as best as I can tell, the “magic” or “chemistry” seems to be tied to a sense of mutual inspiration and excitement that creates it’s own escape velocity. Everything else feels like a failure to launch.