I’ve always hated this stupid damn holiday. There was one year, I’m pretty sure, seventeen years ago, that I actually was in a relationship when this day rolled around, but even then, it was a long-distance relationship, so my then-girlfriend and I couldn’t even celebrate it together, just chat on AIM like we did every night until we both felt like we were permanently tethered to our computers.
I know that’s part of why that relationship ended. Another part was that I depended on her for my happiness, and that wasn’t a burden that she, or anyone else, should ever have to bear. Laura – that was her name – went on to get married and get a boring job and have, I hope, a perfectly happy life. Me, well…it’s been seventeen years, there’ve been a few other women, and, here I am, single as usual on this stupid damn holiday.
That thing, that unfair burden I placed on Laura seventeen years ago? Well, that’s my burden and my own personal curse. I struggle with sadness and loneliness, and I have for as long as I can remember. I go up and down like a very slow tide. For a while I’m happy, I see clearly, I am friendly and gregarious, I make people laugh, they wonder who the hell this guy is. But I start sliding back down, almost imperceptibly at first, until, a week or two later, I’m quiet and sullen and mostly uncommunicative. I can fake it for social interactions, I’m good at that, I’ve been good at it all my life. Coworkers often tell me that my smile is what they think of when they think of me. I found that weird, until I remembered that whenever I see somebody, I reflexively smile, say hey, and pass a brief greeting. No wonder people think I’m a happy guy. They don’t know me.
For a guy who struggles with these emotions on a regular basis, Valentine’s Day is the absolute worst thing. It’s like socially-mandated emotional abuse. In case I wasn’t feeling sad or lonely enough, here’s a day just for the entire world to remind me how much better than me they are! It’s cool, I know how to take punches. I’m a regular Rocky Balboa when it comes to taking punches. When I get down, I tend to introspect, worrying at knots, which is dangerous because you can loose some threads ‘t’were better left not rent. There are dark places there, and I do not recommend poking around in them.
When I was little I was typically content, but as I got older, the experiences my friends were having took on a different tone, one I wasn’t comfortable with, and I tried to cling to the things I knew I liked. I refused to grow up. Of course clinging to stuff like that has a law of diminishing returns; I was a big kid who was refusing to face the future, and doing the things I liked was eventually just a form of pretending to be happy. This is a prison of my own making.
I was friends with a lot of girls when I was little. There were playdates and many afternoons spent at each others houses. But as I grew up, all of those friendships dried up and fell away. I don’t know why. Some of the girls moved away. Some of them just started hanging out with other people. One by one they all went away, and I did not get to have the experience of growing up with even one girl as a constant presence in my life. Not with any sort of closeness. Some of them I missed for many, many years.
Then one day I found myself a teenager, with no lady friends. I went to a small high school, we all knew each other, many of us had known each other since Kindergarten. None of the young ladies in my school were strangers to me, really; but neither were they people that I really felt like I knew. And of course I was shy. Teenagers think about sex a lot. I mean, a LOT. But my Peter Pan ass wasn’t ready to deal with all of that, because it meant being a grownup, and I had no plan for my future. I wasn’t going to do anything that would force me to grow up any quicker than I had to. At that age it’s difficult to think about relationships through any other filter.
Women, therefore, were admired from afar. Torches were carried until only handfuls of ash remained. My first girlfriend was somebody I met in college. My senior year in college. I was twenty-one. That didn’t last long. I think I was mostly just glad I finally was in a relationship. But it all kind of…we were better as friends. I became kind of a jackass. We had very little in common, and I didn’t know how to handle it.
I’ve had a long series of relationship failures. About half of them were failures to even BE in a relationship. But I can honestly say that I have tried to learn and grow, and become a better man through every experience. So that’s where I find myself focusing this Valentine’s Day: on life’s lessons. I’ll try to talk briefly here about the things I’ve learned over the years, in case any of these may prove useful to anyone out there. I realize of course that most likely they won’t. The average person has learned these much earlier in life than I did, and in any case most of us need to bumble around and step on all of our own rakes. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. It’s life.
With that said, here goes:
- Just because you can be in a relationship, doesn’t mean you ought to be. You lose some good friends that way. And sometimes you end up doing more harm than good.
- Long-distance relationships don’t work.
- If she makes you chase her, tread lightly. Most likely she just enjoys the attention and does not take you seriously.
- Long-distance relationships don’t work. That’s not a typo, it’s just a thing I had to learn more than once and it bears repeating.
- No matter how much you love someone, you can’t make them love you.
- If she breaks up with you and says she wants to be friends, she doesn’t mean it, in first place; in the second place if she does, she’s wrong. Neither of you want to remain friends. Trust me on that. You both need room to heal.
- If there’s an ex in the picture, run like hell. If she hasn’t let go of him she hasn’t moved on, and if she hasn’t moved on, you’re screwed. And not in the way you want.
- Long-distance relationships DO NOT WORK.
- Sometimes the supposed ex isn’t even really an ex, in which case you’re about to be weaponized for the woman’s own purposes. You don’t want this, either, even if you think you do. Run. Run very, very far.
- If you aren’t interested in her when you meet her, you aren’t going to be interested in her later. At least that’s my experience. They say love takes time to build, and that’s true. I’ve experienced it. But only when there was interest from the start. If I’m not interested, I’m not interested. I once dated a girl for a few months hoping that I’d get interested at some point; I’d recently been through a breakup and was trying to get right. She seemed to like me well enough and that was a nice feeling. But eventually I had to face the fact that I just wasn’t into her and I was wasting her time and mine. It wasn’t fair to either of us and by the time I finally broke it off, I felt like a total piece of crap and I know she didn’t understand.
- Which I guess brings me to the age-old favorite; don’t rebound date. Ever.
- If you get mixed signals, you’re likely on the other side of the aforementioned “gauging interest level” scenario. She likes that you’re interested and isn’t sure what she wants. Most likely this isn’t going anywhere for you. If it’s important to you, you can stick it out, but don’t be surprised if it doesn’t go your way.
- If she keeps referencing this guy friend of hers, and how he’s a doofus and she’d never date him, yet she can’t seem to stop bringing him up…yeah, you’re screwed. Again, not in the fun adult way.
- If she breaks up with you, and you truly care for her…stay out of her way. If you don’t, she will end up hating you, and it will be the worst you’ve ever felt. Worse, even. You’ll keep finding new sub-levels of Hell. Eventually you’re just curled up in the fetal position crying in the storage room where the devil keeps his winter sports equipment. For the love of God, let her have her space.
I’m no expert, but these things probably still apply if you reverse the genders, or make them both the same, in either direction. Anyway, happy Valentine’s Day, everybody. Or as I’m calling it this year: Tuesday.
