On the Heath

I'm not happy tonight. I don't like the fact that I only seem to blog when I'm unhappy. It gives the blog this theme of angst and lame but usually two things move me to write; absolute disgust or absolute joy.

I've been finding very little of the latter recently so here I am.

I've been stewing about a number of things lately, one of them being my sad love life or complete lack thereof.

I recently found out that a gent that I have LONG admired (read: been borderline obsessed with) has found the girl of his dreams. I'm sorry to report that that girl was not me. Now, I know that I have a very bad habit of only really being attracted to very unavailable guys. If they're ridiculously complicated or live far away or are just plain not good for me they're usually at the top of my list. Why I do this, I don't know. But this particular guy, absent of any real potential between us, gave me hope.

I was reaching disappointment levels with the LDS guys in my immediate sphere of influence that was rivaling the Absolute 0 temperature of space. The majority of them for no menacing reasons, simply bored me. There was little depth, passion, sense of self or grit to any of them. Emotional lawn ornaments if you will.

I realize this is unkind, but know I'm in a pretty foul mood and that gets me more honest than is socially acceptable sometimes. But this is my blog so recognize or piss off.

For me to be attracted a guy needs to be interesting. A wealth of Will Ferrell quotes, video game prowess, having read a few obligatory books and a newsie cap from the 9th grade does not qualify as interesting. I've always said I wanted to marry a convert to the Church or someone that has fallen away and then come back. I've recently realized that I feel that way because I would like a companion with a bit of perspective to him.

This particular gent who has recently coupled up with someone that is not me was, to me, this kind of a guy. He was still very much a guy and played more video games than is probably good for a him. But he was also thoughtful and truly kind and loyal. He went looking for experiences, didn't poo-poo art or feelings. He was honestly good and capable of honest love. I loved him for that. And now hes gone along with most of my hope. I felt that I may have to deal with a bunch of testosterone-deficient sillies here, but because he was still in the world somewhere, that kind of real masculine tenderness was still around, that there was still hope for the rest of us.

I reacted a lot more strongly than I thought I would. The news took couple of days to really settle in but once it did it took me 2 days to stop crying. I know its ridiculous. I realize that 90% of this build up and let down is in my head and that a prolonged everyday encounter with this particular Adonis would reveal that he was just as much of an emotional lawn ornament as I'm currently dealing with. This information is ready and at the forefront of my fluff-for-brains. However it doesn't comfort me at all. This isn't a logic problem and never was. This is a heart issue and mine is unusually large, tender, gullible and bruises easily. It is very much like my 2 year old self that wouldn't stay inside where it was safe and warm and frequently ran out into the snow sans shoes just because I wanted to be there and it seemed like a more interesting place to be. The balm of logic has no sway over gaping wounds of the heart and never will.

I theoretically know that what he was to me, what I was truthfully in love with, was an idea that he well embodied. Its precisely this that makes him so much of a greater loss. He's not just another man married and gone; its my belief in a good one. In a brave one. In a tender one. In a real man. I have been failed by every single one I've encountered so far.

I feel very lost, disappointed and bored with everything around me. Especially myself.

I don't like it at all but this disillusionment has diffused into every corner of my life. I find myself totally stripped of any cushion of idealism that I had before. I seem to have put it all away and are seeing the hard ugly edges on everything; my academic life, my career, my past, my future, my family - everything.

The sad truth is that the world is pretty ugly cold place. Some people get to go through it with someone and some don't. There are moments of beauty, flashes of warmth and real connection. I still cherish those and recognize them for what they are. They are the flowers that grow between the rocks.

But the rocks remain rocks and my thin skin tears easily.

The Pinching Things

So I'm kind of sad tonight.

You query "How on earth can you possibly be sad when you get to spend the bulk of your day with a brand new baby? A miracle in the workings even?"

The truth is that I am a very selfish person. Amid all this lovely I'm kind of weepy and ready to cash in my chips on this civilization thing and just walk away, find some nice banana stand somewhere in an area with no cell phones and just pass my days there.

Why you say? Well I have never been more aware of how single I am than I have these last 2 weeks.

One, because I'm staying with a nauseatingly married couple, two, because they just had a baby and three, I'm in Utah; Land of the happy couple, litters of adorable children and enough pheromones to choke a rhino at 20 paces.

Its one thing to deal with every kind of couple possible holding hands and being cute in every car around you at every stop light. Even tragic looking couples have managed to find each other and be having a better day than me.

Then to deal with staying with a fairly newly married couple and hearing "oh you'll find your eternal companion soon" and "Oh I was *just* like that right before I met my husband" almost all the time.

Then to see that adorable baby and all those families being so happy everywhere - man. Its enough to shatter a single girl's pieced together and tattered self worth.

THEN tonight on the way home from the hospital the conversation turned to some fatherly conversations my SIL has had with her dad and how he literally took her aside after she packed on some pounds after being married and pretty much told her that "men like slim women. Men will not be interested in you, married or not, if you're not slim and you husband will step out on you if you're not." and had said such things to her her whole life.

This made me angry for a few reasons.
1 - A FATHER said this to his DAUGHTER. The one female in the world that he shouldn't judge at all and just support. He is responsible for instilling an unimpeachable self confidence in her. That's his JOB. Paternal FAIL!

2- How much more objectified can a woman become? Like men can/don't/won't fall in love with any other part of a woman than her measurements?

and 3 - because hes right. That's how men think, that's how they are and that's how they work and despite all the ranting and disappointed women in the world they haven't changed and they won't. And you know what that means? I don't have anyone to hold hands with at a stoplight and probably never will at this point.

I've been throwing this idea around with a few friends and just dealing with this ugly fact that people are actually really shallow and quite mean. Like even the people that love us. I feel horribly judged by people that I'm close to, that I respect. They don't ever dare tell me as much but their censure is as palpable as rain. They think loudly and I know them too well.

You know, I really wonder if gay members of the Church feel the same way as women over 25 who aren't a size 2 in Mormon world. I had a rather heart wrenching discussion with a few amazing gals about the Prop 8 tar pit of misery and how we live in this Romantic church. Its a man and a woman. Together forever. If you deviate from that then you are outside The Plan apparently. There is no room for you. You get consolation happiness and a fisher price chair for the concert. Yay you.

I think that tonight, where I am, that I am going to assert that single women over 25 and not a size 2 in the church are kind of in ranks with every gay member of the church. We are an Other, someone outside the norm to be considered and sighed about and tisked over and given sideways half hearted assurances from walking paper dolls that "it will all work out".

I've struggled all of my life with the Other factor. It just seems to be my lot despite my longing for cogency. Even now, among my amazing friends I still feel like the other, to token chubby one to make them look better and prove that they're not shallow. I don't doubt that my friends love me either and that a good portion of that label is self inflicted but that doesn't make it any less of a struggle for me.

I realize that all this comes kind of close to my birthday and truth be told, its never much of a happy time for me and pretty much every corner of my life is arrested at the moment. Its hard not to feel a bit useless.

And at the same time simply saying so seems so ungrateful because I have such a caring family and so many good things to be grateful for.

And on the whole I am OK. I'm great even, but tonight I'm exhausted and alone and I just need to cry.