Friday, June 15, 2007
"Over-thinking, overanalyzing, separate the body from the mind"
When going through a drought that makes the Atacama Desert look like a Brazilian rain forest, one must keep one's self busy, lest one snap, and commence humping random, inanimate objects. But it seems that the Fates do indeed have a cruel sense of humor, as the more one tries to focus on other things, the more one's mind is distracted by female loveliness. Whether it's the girl you dated, but never slept with, and kind of wish you had, who just happens to reappear at the gym, or the motorcycle model you have a surprisingly coherent conversation with during her photo shoot, the world is full of distractions that tease the biochemistry at work within all of us. The longer it sits and distills, the more pervasive it becomes. Even at my advanced age, hormones rage, and my basal nature howls in both ears. Thank the Great Spirit for workouts, the visual arts, and motorcycles!
The most unfortunate aspect of attraction is that we often find ourselves powerfully drawn to potential partners with opposing worldviews. For instance, I am drawn to girls with vastly different ideas about sex than mine. I am to casual sex what Lindsay Lohan is to sobriety, yet I have routinely found myself becoming attracted to women with a much more cavalier attitude. The behavior goes all the way back to my early teen years, if not beyond. It is as if that thing we know is least right for us becomes compelling for the very reasons that make it incongruent with who we are. I don't buy into the idea of completing ourselves, as someone who is not whole will only find codependency, not completeness, through someone else. My thoughts on the subject fall more in line with the camp that argues for something a bit simpler. Simply put, we are drawn toward experiences that are new to us, so it is inevitable that we would be attracted to people who are not like us. In short, we are looking for something outside of our ordinary.
So what is to be done about it? That's the million dollar question and I do not have a satisfactory answer. In fact, my answer is so completely wrong, so totally piss poor, that I'm trying my best to abandon it entirely. My answer is no answer at all, since I have found myself stepping away from girls that spark my interest, working under the assumption that any girl who fires my neurons on more than an everyday level must be someone who will only end up horse-kicking me in the proverbial nuts down the road. And I hate getting horse-kicked in the proverbial nuts.
And yes, it is a stupid/irrational/ridiculous thing. It may even be childish and the resultant drought may be me getting exactly what I deserve for allowing myself to allow my fears and presumptions guide my actions. But here's the thing about people, we are all stupid/irrational/ridiculous about something. We can't help it, and it is a constant battle for all of us. Worse, no matter how hard we try, it seems that our fears are inescapable as well. We can face them, we can even contain, or seemingly transcend them, but they always seem to be there on some level. In matters of the heart, fear becomes even more powerful, because the desire to be loved is a massive part of being human. People hurt us and the resultant sting has an effect on our psychology. Ultimately, this psychological change manifests itself in future behaviors and we develop compensatory mechanisms. Some will discard emotion as a factor, thereby taking the deeper risk out of sex entirely. For some this is effective, as it gives them an illusory sense of control that allows them to seek physical gratification and validation without being troubled by the emotional implications of being intimate with numerous, uncaring people. Eventually this self-denial catches up with them, assuming they believe in love at all, but often times they seem to go on for years, if not entire lifetimes, being indifferent to love as an idea. I wouldn't want to live such a life, but for some it works.
On the other hand, you have the romantics. These are people who think that they believe in love's significance and power, but have unrealistic expectations of both themselves and other people. These are the people for whom love is an all powerful experience that can define or destroy an existence by its presence or absence alone. They seek out a perfect relationship and dream of an easy relationship with a person that fits like a purpose-built puzzle piece into their world. Most people would see these people as being pathetic or at the least, hopeless. Unfortunately, I think I am one of them, and recognizing this, realize that my predicament is wholly of my own making. The difficulty arises in trying to temper my compulsion to pursue this mythical relationship in a world where love is a disposable thing soaked in spermicide. Accepting that perfection is unattainable is one thing, cutting out the naive child inside that keeps hoping to find it anyway is something altogether different. I'm intelligent enough to know that the storybook love affair is a lie sold to us since childhood, but I have not found a way to silence the voice inside that hopes for it anyway. Until I do, there's really only one inevitable outcome...hand parties, lots and lots of hand parties.
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I wish I could provide some insight for you but I have no idea. Every day life just seems more non-sensical and confusing.
There is no easy answer on this one. If I had been born into a different time or a different place, maybe the way I think about all of this would make more sense. In this time and this place, it makes no sense at all. A lot of it is just shitty luck, I think. :/