I think one of the things that makes it so hard for me to get over K is that she ended things while we were still in love. Our relationship was cut down in its prime. It never got a chance to run its course.
There very well may be some significant dealbreakers between us. If we lived in the same town, maybe we would have got on each other's nerves or drove each other crazy. But we never got a chance to find out, because she got scared and ended it prematurely. So for the rest of my life she will exist as this ideal, the One Great Love that didn't get a chance to realize its potential.
There were so many things I wanted to do with K, but we never got to them. The moments we had together were amazing, but they were too few and too short. Ten months is not long enough for a long-distance relationship of such significance.
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SnarkEx did the same thing. We only had 2.5 years of marriage. That's a tiny little baby marriage. She hardly gave it a chance. When she left, I heard through the grapevine that she told people it was a "long time coming," but that was news to me. Maybe in 5 or 10 years I would have seen how wrong we were for each other. But I wasn't ready for it to end so soon. Here again, it felt like she was killing something good in its prime. (Although now I can see the advantage of our premature divorce, because it led me to K.)
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I suppose I could talk myself into the fact that K wasn't right for me, but that means accepting some really unpleasant truths. If K wasn't right for me, despite how madly, stupidly, wholly I adored her, then how could I ever expect to find the right one? I'm 39 years old and I've loved 5-6 women. If none of them were It, then maybe I have to give up the idea of One True Love. It's silly to be 39 and talking about the Love of My Life. My life is half over. The best I can hope for now is my Next Love, the Love of Right Now, the Love That Will Probably Die in a Few Years Because They All Do. Which doesn't quite have the same ring of destiny.
This is becoming my Year Of Panic. I'm terrified of turning 40 and being single. Which is not a very good strategy for finding a mate, I know. The thing is, if this story does have a happy ending (which so many of them do), then I'll feel really foolish for being so panicky and whiny the whole time I was single. I will look back at this time and regret that I couldn't enjoy it.
But.
That only counts if I actually do find someone. There are no guarantees. The older I get, the more my options shrink. And they were pretty limited to begin with.
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I'm not quite as pissy or downtrodden as I was on Monday. It seems that that was a 48-hour mood. I've gone back into diversion mode: NOT thinking about how the life I lead is not the one I want, and the only way to change that is to find a needle in a haystack.
Yesterday I stumbled on OKCupid, the last dating site I'd used before I met K. Although it wasn't my intention, I ended up reactivating my profile and playing around the site for hours, answering questions and viewing profiles. It's a good distraction, and once again I'm excited about possibilities. The fun thing about OKCupid is that they ask you all these questions and then compare the answers with potential mates. So you can see, mathematically, how you match up with other people. It's great for a numbers nerd like me.
The good and bad thing about the questions, though, is that a LOT of them revolve around sex-- sexual habits and sexual preferences. It's a topic I love dearly, except that it gets me all excited to see, for example, that a girl I'm interested in likes to be woken up in the middle of the night to get it on. Only, it's not necessarily ME that she wants to do that with. It's some hypothetical partner who is, overwhelmingly likely, NOT me. These questions put sex on my brain long before I'm to that point. Talk about being premature! I'm hyper-sexualized to begin with, I don't need a dating site to get me in the mood.
On the Match front, I decided it's time to resume my strategy of approaching one new woman a day until I get some more responses. All my active connections seem to have fizzled out. I did get a one-sentence message from #2 this morning, just saying how super busy she's been the past four days. She didn't answer any of my questions. I don't know what to do with that. I haven't heard from Mystery Girl, but her profile says she hasn't been on the site in a month, so I have no idea if she ever got my message, or ever will.
I sent a message to a new lady yesterday (#5?), and she responded, thanking me and saying she was really busy, but would write a longer response in a few days. I appreciate the note, but I don't think I'm going to put my online dating on hold while I wait. I worry about getting too many conversations going at once, because I don't want to get into a situation where I'm carrying on with multiple women at the same time. Somehow it almost feels like "cheating." Which is stupid, because I know that's how it works. It's just not how I work.
Now I know why I'm not making any progress on my writing projects. I'm too preoccupied with online dating sites. Especially now that I'm on two of them. It really is like a full-time job, looking for a date.
I'm not getting anything done and my brain is scattered all over the place. Is it possible to be overwhelmed and lonely at the same time?
Peace At Any Price
1 year ago
6 comments:
I too struggle with the concept of potentially talking to and meeting more than one person at once. I get that it is how it works, but I can't juggle the idea of more than one person at a time. To me, that feels like turning dating into shopping for the best mate, and although that might be the approach that leads to success I can't wrap my head around it. Neither can my friend Dave and this just happened to him by accident. So, you aren't alone.
On the other hand, I do think that you should keep reaching out to lots of people. Especially because on these sites, only a fraction of the people we contact get back to us.
Now you see why the premature divorce from SnarkEx lead you to K... Does that not make you see that perhaps something else may come along?
I understand the premature ending thing. My ex-bf and I made LOADS of plans to be together - only to be torn apart by narcissism exacerbated by post-traumatic-stress-disorder. It looked like the perfect relationship in so many ways... only it wasn't. I didn't realize it then, only now. But even still, I was pissed that it didn't get a chance to really get started.
Closure. It would always be nice.
"The Love of Right Now" is how I look at love. I thought I'd married "the one" only to find that he fit me then... but not now. Life changes. People change. I believe you can grow together, yes. But instead of putting so much pressure on "happily ever after", I'd rather live in "happily ever now".
Wishing you luck on the dating sites.
Dating is overwhelming. Adding the online element to that is even MORE overwhelming. And for us overthinkers, that can be a recipe for disaster. But I like that you are altering your approach and seeing what happens. Good idea. I also agree with T's comment here: Now you see why the premature divorce from SnarkEx lead you to K... Does that not make you see that perhaps something else may come along? <-YES!
Yes, I do see that something else MAY come along. But that doesn't mean it WILL. K was a unique once-in-a-lifetime situation. For something like that to happen again would be like getting struck by lightning a second time. It COULD happen, and I'll try like hell to find it again, but I can't count on it.
Thanks, Ladies!
OK, here's the thing. Turning 40 for me (last March) was very difficult. I knew my marriage would be over, and although I was losing weight, getting healthy, and planning a life outside of that oppressive marriage, I felt that my age meant that I only had a few short years left before it was all over.
I had no intentions of meeting someone wonderful right off the bat. And my point in bringing that up is not to brag that it happened so fast (on the contrary, I thought I'd be doing lots of strike out dating for a long time; hence, I really was not looking for a long-term relationship) but instead to point out that when you think nothing is there, nothing could be coming, all of a sudden there it is right before you. S is 49. I never thought a 49 year old could be so freakin' hawt, but he is! You are only 39. You're young, not burdened by kids (very desirable as a potential mate for women!)
It IS going to happen...when you least expect it.
"If K wasn't right for me, despite how madly, stupidly, wholly I adored her, then how could I ever expect to find the right one?"
Brother, that sentence is one I could've written tonight in my blog. God, I feel your pain. I wonder the same thing about B. I feel like I'm going to look up in 20 years and see B as the one who got away; meanwhile I'll look over at the poor bastard next to me and wonder how we got in such a ho-hum marriage (if I even find *that* guy).
Saying that, I feel ridiculous because B and I had gotten very ho-hum ourselves (we dated longer than you and K), but I still loved him madly, until the bitter end.
Maybe I even still do. My heart breaks for you, because I know of what you speak, unfortunately. Living it right now.
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