A couple of weeks ago I was at a gig and a slightly tipsy acquaintance asked me if I had a boyfriend. As I reported to a friend later, I reacted to this question as if someone had asked me if I had a pet monkey. âA monkey? Oh. A monkey, right. AâŚmonkey. Yeah, nahâŚI mean, where would I keep a monkey? Plus Iâve got circus Mondays and then yoga Wednesdays and then usually there’s a party or two at the weekend and when I’m not out I really need to chill and do my washing and bake cakes and read and I just donât know how a monkey would fit into that schedule. And, like, Iâm just getting the house to where I want it, design aesthetic-wise, and I fear a monkey would mess that up. And monkey food is sort of expensive. Iâm not even sure how you get a monkey? What would I even do with a monkey?â
And then the other day I wrote a post about jealousyâwhich I now think, upon re-reading it, makes me sound as if I have all my emotional nonsense sorted out and Iâm just grooving around being glad for people all the time–which is sometimes the case, obviously, but only sometimesâand a very nice commenter said that sheâd been reading me for a long time and wondering how I was going with all âthis stuffâ and that it was nice to hear I was in a good place. I was really pleased to read such a nice comment but then I started really thinking about what place Iâm actually in with all This Stuff, and that got sort of difficult.
This Stuff isâŚThis Stuff is hard to describe. Itâs relationships, of course, usually the kind where you want to be pants-free with the person in question. It’s attraction and desire and beauty. A certain type of love, I guess. It’s also expectations of how your life would be and will be; it’s wondering how you got to where you are, and whether youâll always be in that place, and if youâll be alone forever; wondering if being alone forever is okay, or even a good thing, but what if itâs not?
Itâs been seven years since Iâve been in what a lot of people would call A Serious Relationship. (Some of you reading this remember that time in my life, and if you knew me then and talked me through that breakup, thank you. Again.) Iâve fallen in and out of love several times since then, as youâd expect, and even had a couple of boyfriendish-type occurrences during that time, but nothing has stuck.
I am never really sure how to talk about This Stuff, because there are so many ways that conversation can go wrong. People think youâre desperate, sometimes, or they think youâre putting a brave face on a terrible situation. Occasionally they pity you. Occasionally they suggest ways you can meet dudes, like joining the tramping club even though you hate tramping. Sometimes they think you are this super strong independent person who doesnât have feelings and doesnât need anyone else. Sometimes they get offended by your obvious and occasionally inappropriate cynicism and they think youâre making snide comments about their relationships.
I often say that the skills you need to be in a steady relationship are really different to the skills you need to be single; one thing I notice is I have lost a lot of ability to talk with people my own age about their stable and longer-term relationshipsâlike, I get it, in that Iâve read books and had conversations, but I have no idea what itâs like to be celebrating a ten or fifteen year anniversary with someone you wore matching flannel shirts with in the 90s. I canât even imagine going grocery shopping with a partnerâlike, a partner who might not adhere to my Grocery Store system ( 1) veggies if I haven’t already been to the farmer’s market, 2) bulk bins, 3) baking aisle maybe, 4) deli counter for olives, 5) stock up on Lady Grey, ginger nuts and sea salt and orange-almond chocolate if necessary, 6) dairy aisle for plain unsweetened Greek yogurt , and 7) then a quick check to see if they’ve stocked my favourite fruit bread which they never do and I seriously don’t even know why I bother sometimes) and would put his stuff in my refrigerator. Or maybe he wouldnât even have the concept of âhis stuffâ and âmy stuffâ but would think it was OUR stuff and might go ahead and eat my goddamn veggie couscous that I made when I was specifically saving it for lunch the next day.
So, right. I donât have much insight in how to be with someone, stay with someone. It seems an unreal thing to do. All I know about, after all this time, it is how to like someone and how to fess up to liking, and how to be rejectedâwhether right then at the fess-up point, or sometime later down the track. I know a lot, now, about invisibility. I know a lot about the voices in your head that tell you that no one will ever love you that way, no one will ever want you as much as you want them.
And how, I ask you honestly, do you talk about that, how do you just have that be a thing, without judgment or value: yeah, Iâll probably always be alone. How do you just leave it there, without justifying it. How do you accept the well wishes of people who love youâthis happens especially with women friends, I findâso much that they canât get anyone else’s not loving you; how do you hear âI just donât understand why he doesnât see in you what we all see in you?â When you have gone so far past understanding any of this and now just mainly stick to observing.
What I observe: I haven’t ever found anyone I could love and still keep my self-respect.
Also: I try to keep my heart buried but it can only stay under so long if I’m going to keep loving my friends and family and community, if I’m going to love the world.
And also: I have this strange secret belief that this kind of love, from me, poisons the person for whom I feel it. Can that be true?
This Stuff. Itâs there but itâs not there, itâs part of me but itâs outside me. Itâs benign, usually. Itâs part of the landscape, not a big deal: work, hanging out, yoga, stopping off at the grocery store. There This Stuff is, going about its business in the unused back rooms of my heart. Biding its time.
Comments
12 responses to “This Stuff”
You are so totally right that being single and being with someone requires two completely different kinds of skill sets. I was having a conversation with a friend about this a couple of weeks ago – she’s recently divorced after getting married right out of college, and I’m recently married after spending most of my 20s living by myself. We both feel like we have NO idea what we’re doing – I miss living on my own, having my own place, etc while she’s trying to figure out how to do all that. And while neither of us would change what we have now, we’re both a little bit jealous of the other, because we’re both a little bit out of our comfort zones right now.
I think that if you met the right person, you would be willing to figure out how to combine grocery systems or share your couscous. But I wouldn’t worry about that until it happens. And I really wouldn’t worry about it happening. You have a full life and, for the most part, seem to be really happy in it, so that’s good. If someone comes along that fits into it and sweeps you off your feet? Bonus! If not? You are doing a fantastic job of Being Awesome, which is really all you can ask for out of life, you know?
I like what Dawn said above and I would like to add, in response to “And also: . . . Can that be true?”
No.
Whether or not you’re happy/fulfilled/resigned or whatever to being single–and there are a lot of great things about singlehood and you are living your life very beautifully (as personally witnessed), any belief that your love–your LOVE–is poisonous is only causing harm to you. Please let that belief go.
xox
“And also: I have this strange secret belief that this kind of love, from me, poisons the person for whom I feel it. Can that be true?”
NO IT CANNOT. Jesus. What the hell? What, now you have Midas touch of the heart? Except it turns people into suppurating masses of PAIN? No, no, no, no. NO.
You are a wonderful, loving person. In recent memory, you shared a grand passion with someone who left you only because he really needed to save starving people. You share a problem with Lois Lane, not Poison Ivy. Do not focus on the part where Superman leaves – focus on the part where you’re so hot Social Justice Superman falls in love with you.
And the Really Big One, that guy from seven years ago? Yeah, well, the lasting effect of you was he figured out how to overcome his inherent Spockiness. Yeah, okay, he did it after the fact, because while he was with you he didn’t have to have any feelings because that was your job, but he learned by example and went on to have a life.
Christ, woman, it’s like you casually reached into your knife block while we were making tea and cut off one of your fingers. “Oh, yeah, could you hand me that tea towel? I need to stanch this. I know, it was just a passing thing, never mind.” Poisonous. Pffft. Bah. Don’t beat yourself up, it makes me all yelly.
Extremely well put Ginger… but then again…I’m the guy that would eat Chiara’s couscous that she was saving for lunch
But….Britney Spears made me think that being toxic was a useful strategy for attracting/addicting hapless would-be lovers? I think if you were really toxic you would have vengeful exes scaling up the side of your building or dressing up as flight attendants to get their own back on you.
Now you are saying it works the opposite? So confusing…. ;-)
I needed to read this. I’ve been trying to write something like it ever since a recently separated friend said to me, “I’m not like you. I’m meant to be partnered.” And she’s recently separated and in pain (also driving the car we were in) so punching her in the noggin was not an option but it really, really hurt my feelings and made me feel like I have to justify being single and not thinking it’s forever even though I’m not plastered all over every dating site known to beast. You know?
Yes, you do know. I know you do. And thanks for that.
So many of your entries lately have reverberated with me–this one especially. I’ve also been single for seven years and I’ve almost convinced myself that it’s better that way. It’s certainly easier. All my life decisions only take me into consideration. I do as pleases me. It can get lonely, but then I realize I have so much I can do, so many fulfilling things, so many awesome things I can do without someone perpetually making me angry or disappointing me.
Your life sounds really fulfilling and fun, also. Super adventurous.
I sympathise with your situation, but it’s probably not you. Have you never heard of the man-drought? There are ~13k more women than men in the 35-39 age group in NZ.
Oh oh oh. This Stuff. It is so hard to talk about and once again I feel so lucky (that’s the wrong word, but you know what I mean) that you’re writing about it.
I was single and a virgin until my late 20s, and I know exactly what you mean about the two different skill sets. And I could not stand the millions of ways people pity you or admire you or think you’re desperate and just generally don’t get it at all.
Everyone above already said this, but it’s worth repeating: That kind of love from you doesn’t poison people. Love does not — CANnot — poison people. I promise.
Yeah, This Stuff… we keep saying we need to go out and have coffee and vent about This Stuff and the ways that people handle someone who is obviously so unrepentantly SINGLE.
Serious questions like “Don’t you WANT a boyfriend?” that are impossible to answer without sounding pathetic… ‘Well, yeah, I’d love a boyfriend, I guess, but that hasn’t happened for a while now, and, uhm, I’m kind of just getting on with my life?”
Or my (now ex-) sister in law setting the dinner table and saying “I always feel so SORRY for you when I have to put down your placemat here, all on its own” and didn’t even realise how… patronising? insulting? mean? she’d just been.
Or people who tell you how BRAVE and INDEPENDENT you are, when you’re like “actually, I’d love to be able to collapse, now and then. Sometimes I wish I could come home and have dinner cooked for me, or someone to get the spider out of the shower, or a warm body in bed at night.”
Or (my favourite) The Question – “Why don’t you have a boyfriend?” where they’re not asking ‘do you not want one’ but ‘what is wrong with you that everyone else has sensed… why have you FAILED at this one thing which is so fundamentally part of being human, why do you insist on being different and making us Partnered People feel strange and wary as if confronted by a wild animal’
All of That Stuff. God I hate it.
I just want to print this out and pass out copies to everyone I know. And you are amazing and I find the idea that your love is poisonous highly dubious.
There are all sorts of love, as the ancient Greeks first figured out, but nowhere in the canon of Western (and, for that matter, Eastern) thought is the concept of true love being poisonous.
Except if you were a bunny-boiling obsessive serial killer type, which I think we can all agree that you are not.
I do know what you mean about being shocked by the boyfriend question. When I was single in Chicago for half a decade, I felt taken aback when people would ask me whether I had a boyfriend. I suspect(ed) that my natural state of being is to be single. And that’s okay.