Longing

6/6/24

I recently had an experience with coworkers at a work event where I was asked if I had a “convention crush” on any of the performers during the week. Situations like this are uncomfortable for me because my honest answer always sounds like an evasion — no, I didn’t have any crushes. And neither have I ever had a celebrity crush.

It’s probably a childhood trauma response, but I simply never become attracted to a woman unless I perceive that she’s attracted to me in some way. In some contexts, it’s a nice trait to have — I could be in a room full of beautiful woman and feel no social anxiety at all, I could talk freely to them all. But put me on a dating app and it’s sheer torture … the swiping seems odd and pointless, I feel nothing. And even when I find matches, I can’t build up any enthusiasm for them. I need to be able to sense the mutual attraction.

This trait has other odd side effects. I often go out of my way to try to justify relationships with women I know like me, but I don’t honestly feel much for them. This has led to way too many tepid relationships in my life. On the other hand, if I do feel mutual attraction — and especially if the woman aggressively pursues me in some way — I feel almost powerless to resist. This has gotten me into some trouble in life and at least as I’ve matured, I’ve learned the value of restraint.

As I said, this is likely a trauma response, a way for me to protect myself from a feeling of rejection and abandonment, likely bought on by early childhood love being withheld. And you would think that the trait would do the trick very well, that I would rarely be in situations where I could possibly feel abandoned or rejected.

But the psyche craves repetition and somehow finds a way to recreate the trauma. I’ve developed a surprising range of ways to make myself feel rejected even when I haven’t been. For example, I fell in love with a therapist, who I am pretty sure was mutually attracted to me, but we were kept apart by professional ethics. I also have a tendency to cling to women after relationships are over, not really because I want them back, but because I’m drawn to the longing created by rejection. And I have a weakness for unavailable women if they’ve shown some interest in me … and especially if they maintain that interest over time.

Longing is a young person’s condition. It makes sense for someone who is inexperienced in romantic relationships and perhaps unskilled it handling a real relationship. But for someone in my position, who has had a 25 year relationship and many others of short to medium length, longing isn’t some cute romanticism. It’s painful and confusing.

This is likely why so many of the subjects of this blog return to matters of romantic longing and disappointment. There’s a certain desperation to my tone on the subject not because I feel I’m some kind of romantic failure — I actually think I’m quite good at relationships and don’t have trouble attracting women. No, the desperation is a more existential issue.

I’m simply running out of time to find a romantic partner who means something to me, and the longing I feel these days is a deep sense of sadness that I might never find that kind of partner, that the only option in front of me is yet another compromise pairing — or perhaps just staying single the rest of my life.

I don’t write any of this to elicit sympathy or call anyone out. I just felt the need to explain myself, and in turn to explain this space. I’m clinging to a situation that isn’t really working for me because I’m having a difficult time facing the alternative.