Withdrawing
Given my prolonged inability to be physically active in the method of my choosing, I'm surprisingly sane. Work demands are ramping up, yet I'm shockingly mellow. And it seems to extend to all areas of my life.
Things with M, which had gone to being somewhat back on again, completed their natural cycle and moved to back off again. She's still not willing to be with me if I'm dating around. I'm not willing to date only her. We were grown ups in our discussion, but it was hard to walk away from it.
I feel bad, because she's pretty upset. But my bad feelings are for her, not me. I'm firmly questioning my ability to feel "in love" with anyone, as I currently recognize those early giddy obsessive thought patterns as the path to poor judgment and irrationality, and I squelch them. The good news is that no woman becomes the center of my happiness universe. I am never fooled by our common mate imprinting instinct of "falling in love" into chasing something. But I'm also not going to feel like any one person is everything to me.
It's been pointed out to me that my only model for how a long term relationship works is my marriage, and clearly it wasn't right. Maybe so, and maybe some day I'll see how it can be, but for now, I'm really not feeling it. I don't want a girlfriend. Girlfriends lead to commitments, commitments lead to obligations, obligations lead to unhappiness.
And I don't feel bad about it. I've never felt this uninterested in sex and relationships before. I have such little interest in meeting new people. I couldn't care less about getting any. Sex comes with relationship complexity and hurt feelings and demands and expectations of time. No thanks. Sex is too expensive. Kind of makes the case for prostitution: Add up the financial cost of the time, energy (having enough of a career to be considered) and actual money spent meeting (clothes, drinks, dating sites), dating (dinners, flowers, cell phone bills), and bedding a woman, and it's a lot less that the cost of a session with a high class call girl. From what I hear. But to be clear: It's not the hassle of sex that has me turned off. I just don't feel like it. I won't say no if it comes to me. But I have no energy for making it happen.
So part of my mellow right now has become mellow about the women. M is gone: Bummer, but oh well. D thinks I'm blowing her off, but it's just that I've been too busy and frankly too indifferent to chase after her. No biggie, we only went on 2 dates. K is back and I'm happy to see her, and fortunately, she's not one to freak if I don't act like a boyfriend. I don't really check on my Match account, haven't contacted anyone new in more than a month. I suppose this all could be related to my medical situation. Not feeling so sexy with the surgery and then the knee and other things.
I just want to get well and row.
Things with M, which had gone to being somewhat back on again, completed their natural cycle and moved to back off again. She's still not willing to be with me if I'm dating around. I'm not willing to date only her. We were grown ups in our discussion, but it was hard to walk away from it.
I feel bad, because she's pretty upset. But my bad feelings are for her, not me. I'm firmly questioning my ability to feel "in love" with anyone, as I currently recognize those early giddy obsessive thought patterns as the path to poor judgment and irrationality, and I squelch them. The good news is that no woman becomes the center of my happiness universe. I am never fooled by our common mate imprinting instinct of "falling in love" into chasing something. But I'm also not going to feel like any one person is everything to me.
It's been pointed out to me that my only model for how a long term relationship works is my marriage, and clearly it wasn't right. Maybe so, and maybe some day I'll see how it can be, but for now, I'm really not feeling it. I don't want a girlfriend. Girlfriends lead to commitments, commitments lead to obligations, obligations lead to unhappiness.
And I don't feel bad about it. I've never felt this uninterested in sex and relationships before. I have such little interest in meeting new people. I couldn't care less about getting any. Sex comes with relationship complexity and hurt feelings and demands and expectations of time. No thanks. Sex is too expensive. Kind of makes the case for prostitution: Add up the financial cost of the time, energy (having enough of a career to be considered) and actual money spent meeting (clothes, drinks, dating sites), dating (dinners, flowers, cell phone bills), and bedding a woman, and it's a lot less that the cost of a session with a high class call girl. From what I hear. But to be clear: It's not the hassle of sex that has me turned off. I just don't feel like it. I won't say no if it comes to me. But I have no energy for making it happen.
So part of my mellow right now has become mellow about the women. M is gone: Bummer, but oh well. D thinks I'm blowing her off, but it's just that I've been too busy and frankly too indifferent to chase after her. No biggie, we only went on 2 dates. K is back and I'm happy to see her, and fortunately, she's not one to freak if I don't act like a boyfriend. I don't really check on my Match account, haven't contacted anyone new in more than a month. I suppose this all could be related to my medical situation. Not feeling so sexy with the surgery and then the knee and other things.
I just want to get well and row.
posted by Kenneth at 8:24 AM
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