I am 36 years old, and up until two years ago I had never
been in a serious relationship. This was due to a variety of factors—some
within my control, others less so—but if I had to pinpoint the primary reason
for this, I would say it was because I really couldn't be bothered.
Unlike most of the perpetually single people I've come
across, I actually like being alone. Being a classic introvert, I recharge my
inner battery by being alone, rather than feeding off the energy of others. I
revel in moments of solitude where I can zone out for hours surfing the web,
reading a book, watching a movie, or any other number of solitary activities.
I'm rarely bored when alone because my overactive imagination doesn't allow me
to be; I can while away the hours on a cross-country flight making up various
stories in my head, puzzling over random questions that pop into my mind—like
if I didn't put my tray table up during landing and we crashed, could it
possibly impale me? —and mentally replaying any episode of Friends because I have them all more or less memorized (and no, I
don't think that's an embarrassing fact to admit at all).
Large crowds overwhelm me, loud noises make my head hurt,
and situations that don't allow for any sort of quiet reflection make me
anxious. And all of this boils down to me preferring to be happily left alone
most of the time.
Naturally, no (wo)man is an island, so I've always had a
small collection of friends I enjoy spending time with and am reasonably close to
some of my family members. But when it came to personal relationships of a more
intimate nature, my track record was pretty dismal, mostly due to that whole
"not wanting to be bothered" thing. I can give you the breakdown
without even needing a full hand to count them on:
- One brief-lived romance in 9th grade that lasted all of four months.
- An unrequited crush that ran the full course of my high school years.
- My first real boyfriend in college, who treated me well for a month, then treated me like crap on and off for the next few years because I was an idiot who let him.
- A handsome, but...unchallenging guy I periodically dated in my late college/early 20s years.
And then the next 10 years would consist of a sporadic
stream of first dates almost exclusively cultivated from the horror show that
is online dating. (I lived in NYC, worked in publishing, enjoyed going to the
theater, and took dance fitness classes...let's just say I didn't organically meet
a whole lot of heterosexual guys in my day-to-day routine.)
I used to complain about the frustration of these first
dates that lead nowhere, but if I'm truly honest, I didn't really care. I only
deigned to go on the occasional first date mostly because I thought people
would think it weird that a smart, healthy, reasonably sane single woman in her
20s wasn't actively dating. I had no interest in giving any guy a real chance.
Why would I? If I actually did meet someone who liked me, he'd want to be
hanging around all the time! He might sit in my favorite spot on the sofa! He
might call me at a time I didn't feel like talking! He might ask me questions
of a personal nature that weren't any of his damn business! He might want the
same side of the bed as me! He might raid my cookie cabinet! (That's not a
euphemism; I have a kitchen cabinet dedicated to cookies.) Why on earth would I
want to saddle myself with all the hassle that comes with letting another
person into your life?
And it is because of my innate lone wolf nature that I—and
plenty others who know me—was taken quite by surprise when two years ago,
after moving to Chicago simply because I wanted somewhere new to live, I had
what was initially a purely platonic dinner with a friend of a friend of a
friend (I'll get into the bizarre degrees of separation that led to our meeting
in the next post on this blog) that quickly turned into the life-changing
relationship that has forced me to let another into my wolf pack of one.
I always got frustrated with the books, movies, plays, and
TV shows that ended with the "happily ever after." What came next
should have been the most interesting part of the story! When two single people
find each other and decide to build a life together, that's when the story
should start, as far as I was concerned. Think about it: How much better would
the final season of Gilmore Girls
have been if it was about Luke and Lorelei figuring out how to share a life
together, instead of about all that other horrible crap? (The show has been off
the air for over years now, and that atrocious final season still haunts me.)
So that is what has inspired me to start this blog. I've
always wondered how people who have been alone for a long time manage to let
someone else in, and now I find myself in that situation, and I
thought the stories and anecdotes that come from it—of various levels of amusement—might be interesting enough to share.
And no, none of this makes me a relationship expert who's going to impart
pearls of wisdom to anyone; I am now, and will always be, at least a partial
moron when it comes to the minefield that is personal relationships. Nor is
this my attempt to be some Carrie Bradshaw-clone dishing the details of our
sexy fun times, so if that's what you were hoping for, I'm sorry (and also,
you're nosy and gross).
Thank you for taking the time to read this intro post; I
promise the rest of them will be shorter. Maybe.
No comments:
Post a Comment