the daily snivel
Something I haven't been too eager to share is the fact that my girlfriend Mélanie and I broke up during the winter. Despite a solid, beautiful friendship and nearly three years together, we reached the point where it was no longer happy for us. I made Mélanie feel insecure and more than a little confused and unhappy by virtue of my wariness of defining an extremely serious relationship with a solid future, and she in turn made me feel somewhat constrained and a bit trapped. I don't think either of us was truly at fault; we cared about one another deeply (and still do), and get along even better now as friends (and far more easily). That said, the unhappy moments were increasing in number and we were both dealing with different, powerful stresses in our lives. It eventually seemed the best decision to make, though at first it was sort of a "trial" breakup to see how we fared. It was confusing and ill-defined, but I had to admit I was happier being friends. We could spend time together because we wanted to, not because we had to as a couple.
This of course is all further complicated by the fact that Mel lives in the apartment upstairs from me, and we have joint custody of a cat that she adopted in January. George lives downstairs with me, because it turns out that Mélanie is severely allergic to him (to the point of having asthmatic attacks), but she adores him and visits him every day, brings him upstairs for snuggly naps, buys his food, pays the veterinary bills, etc. I have a good arrangement. I just put the food in his bowl, add some love, scoop out the litter box and give him a warm place to sleep, and he wakes me up every morning with disgusting cat kisses all over my lips and nose. So, we still don't have a clearly delineated home situation. This makes moving on difficult, not only because our daily lives are peppered with constant communication and contact, but because that is such a comfortable way to do manage our lives right now. It would be very hard to introduce new people and new situations to that balance, or to want to.
By no means am I ready for a new relationship in any event. I really am happy with things the way they are right now. It's fuzzy but uncomplicated. I think it's a good idea for people to get comfortable with the idea of being single -- to learn that they shouldn't define their lives in terms of a relationship or another person. Loneliness is natural, and the more time goes by the more frequently one's thoughts will turn to lovin' or smooching or something similar, but the rush to be in a relationship can mean making bad choices, and can make it harder to leave a relationship if it goes sour. It's better to see solitude as a choice, and a bit of a luxury, so that sharing oneself with another person becomes a bit of a sacrifice (or a love offering), and not a "completion" or something similarly self-abnegating. This is not easy for someone who has been known to be very sucky and needy in the past, but I'm trying to see things in a new way, especially after historically alternating between being badly hurt and similarly hurting others.
Still. I do admit (from personal experience) that a body does sometimes want the thrill of going out on dates with new and interesting people. It makes you feel attractive and desirable and buoyed by optimism and a little positive momentum. It's possibly even zesty. And, yes, it can lead to smooching.
So, I decided to try my luck within the bizarre world of on-line dating. It's a bit like the cybernetic world of TRON, having adventure and pitfalls and computer generated images and lots of acronyms (like... shudder... 'LOL' and 'RU' and 'PPL'), but without the reassuring certainty that because it's fiction, and Disney, and 1982, everything will work out perfectly in the end and everyone will be happy and get what they deserve. No, on-line dating has no such guarantees.
I'm sure you've all visited websites like The Onion, Salon.com, Nerve.com, and Television Without Pity (and so on), and I'm sure you've all noticed the photo of some hottie of the day posted prominently at each. This is the front face of an interconnected network of portals run by Spring Street Networks, which has been making lots and lots of money of late by hooking readers of said sites up. Granted, the demographics involved (young, educated, liberal, urban) makes for a fairly enlightened sample, and so I decided to sign myself up.
If curiousity ever got the better of you, I could be found therein as 'atypical_male' (I mean, what else?).
I'm swallowing my pride by admitting all this to you, but I figure it's about time someone was honest about it. And, to be sure, I felt that the guy I saw last week when I was out with friends at The Honest Lawyer -- who was really and truly dressed in a shirt that was halfway unbuttoned, with chains around his neck, and was all by himself and looking to pick up drunk chicks -- was a LOT more pathetic and desperate than someone who can face up to the fact that it is sometimes hard to meet new, single people in this big and disconnected urban civilization. I basically decided that since I wasn't looking for a serious relationship anyway, I had very little to lose by dating some local smartypantses and adding some cheese (not spice) to my social life.
So, interested in the dates themselves? Tired of contrived romance on so-called reality TV? Got a voyeuristic penchant for some genuine dirt? Wanna live vicariously through me by getting the juicy details?
Then stay tuned.
Comments:This of course is all further complicated by the fact that Mel lives in the apartment upstairs from me, and we have joint custody of a cat that she adopted in January. George lives downstairs with me, because it turns out that Mélanie is severely allergic to him (to the point of having asthmatic attacks), but she adores him and visits him every day, brings him upstairs for snuggly naps, buys his food, pays the veterinary bills, etc. I have a good arrangement. I just put the food in his bowl, add some love, scoop out the litter box and give him a warm place to sleep, and he wakes me up every morning with disgusting cat kisses all over my lips and nose. So, we still don't have a clearly delineated home situation. This makes moving on difficult, not only because our daily lives are peppered with constant communication and contact, but because that is such a comfortable way to do manage our lives right now. It would be very hard to introduce new people and new situations to that balance, or to want to.
By no means am I ready for a new relationship in any event. I really am happy with things the way they are right now. It's fuzzy but uncomplicated. I think it's a good idea for people to get comfortable with the idea of being single -- to learn that they shouldn't define their lives in terms of a relationship or another person. Loneliness is natural, and the more time goes by the more frequently one's thoughts will turn to lovin' or smooching or something similar, but the rush to be in a relationship can mean making bad choices, and can make it harder to leave a relationship if it goes sour. It's better to see solitude as a choice, and a bit of a luxury, so that sharing oneself with another person becomes a bit of a sacrifice (or a love offering), and not a "completion" or something similarly self-abnegating. This is not easy for someone who has been known to be very sucky and needy in the past, but I'm trying to see things in a new way, especially after historically alternating between being badly hurt and similarly hurting others.
Still. I do admit (from personal experience) that a body does sometimes want the thrill of going out on dates with new and interesting people. It makes you feel attractive and desirable and buoyed by optimism and a little positive momentum. It's possibly even zesty. And, yes, it can lead to smooching.
So, I decided to try my luck within the bizarre world of on-line dating. It's a bit like the cybernetic world of TRON, having adventure and pitfalls and computer generated images and lots of acronyms (like... shudder... 'LOL' and 'RU' and 'PPL'), but without the reassuring certainty that because it's fiction, and Disney, and 1982, everything will work out perfectly in the end and everyone will be happy and get what they deserve. No, on-line dating has no such guarantees.
I'm sure you've all visited websites like The Onion, Salon.com, Nerve.com, and Television Without Pity (and so on), and I'm sure you've all noticed the photo of some hottie of the day posted prominently at each. This is the front face of an interconnected network of portals run by Spring Street Networks, which has been making lots and lots of money of late by hooking readers of said sites up. Granted, the demographics involved (young, educated, liberal, urban) makes for a fairly enlightened sample, and so I decided to sign myself up.
If curiousity ever got the better of you, I could be found therein as 'atypical_male' (I mean, what else?).
I'm swallowing my pride by admitting all this to you, but I figure it's about time someone was honest about it. And, to be sure, I felt that the guy I saw last week when I was out with friends at The Honest Lawyer -- who was really and truly dressed in a shirt that was halfway unbuttoned, with chains around his neck, and was all by himself and looking to pick up drunk chicks -- was a LOT more pathetic and desperate than someone who can face up to the fact that it is sometimes hard to meet new, single people in this big and disconnected urban civilization. I basically decided that since I wasn't looking for a serious relationship anyway, I had very little to lose by dating some local smartypantses and adding some cheese (not spice) to my social life.
So, interested in the dates themselves? Tired of contrived romance on so-called reality TV? Got a voyeuristic penchant for some genuine dirt? Wanna live vicariously through me by getting the juicy details?
Then stay tuned.
