(no subject)
Fair warning, what follows below is personal and fairly stream of consciousness, so I apologize if it’s the absolutely incomprehensible, but that’s how I roll. That’s what comments are for. :-p
Lately, I’ve found myself very confused. The situation that has given rise to my confusion is one that I’m not complaining about, it is simply one that I have never experienced to this same extent before… having people interested in me for who I am as a person, and not what I can offer them. With my sister, Kristen, Logan, Lindsey, Siobhan and even CJ I’m at a point where we’ve been through enough trials and know each other well enough to trust that if either person were in a jam, the other would do anything in their power to help them, with no strings attached. As with all solid friendships, there would probably be a debt incurred, but it wouldn’t have to be written down or even specifically quantified. That’s a level of trust that very few people have enjoyed with me, and in a number of cases, that trust came at fairly steep price for both parties involved… anyone who’s been paying attention knows that it’s a miracle that the three lesbians on the above list are still talking to me.
In a related activity, I recently did some soul-searching to better understand what I was looking for in a partner and other people I want to include in my life, so that I could put that hamster in my head to rest before I went back to school. I’ve been trying to do this less because I’m actively looking for someone (though like anyone without someone “special”, I’d love to have someone, in large part because I feel the same social pressure that is common for those my age), but more to clarify those ideas in my own head so that it’s somewhat easier to figure out who and how to keep good people in my life. In short, those that I keep active in my inner life need to be ok with who I am, particularly when it comes to my ultimate goals. They also really need to know where they’re going in life and be making some attempt at getting to those goals. Everyone on the list above qualifies under those stipulations to a greater or lesser extent, but none of those same people qualify as possible partners, for a plethora of reasons. Trust me, there are some near misses on that list, but that’s a discussion for another time.
I’ve been thinking a lot, particularly considering a quote from the movie “Elegy”: A comment from one guy in that movie to another: “Beautiful women are invisible; (look of shock) we're so dazzled by the outside that we never make it inside.” I would tend to agree, and I know that the tendency has caused me to be a guy that I don’t really want to be. Here’s the conundrum… the two people I am romantically interested in at this point are really unknown entities to me, though all indications are positive. That makes me seriously uncomfortable. The last time I landed in a relationship or deep friendship with this little information, it ended pretty badly, for me particularly. I based my commitment, actions, and feelings on outward appearances, without really considering what could have been going on with the other problem. The real problem here is the age old problem of intelligence gathering… I never really developed the socials skills I need to I find out the information I need to know without falling all over myself. It’s just a matter of overcoming the “Iaccoca balance” - the balance between needing so much information to make a decision that it paralyzes the process entirely and while having enough that you can make an informed analysis of the risks and rewards of any particular action. The problem is that you have to do that while knowing the information you have is still relevant to the particular situation. So begins the hamster trapped in a wheel that is my thought processes. Add to that my occasional inferiority complex, and you have a fairly complicated situation of me trying to balance my attraction and genuine caring for people, because both inwardly and outwardly, I haven’t figured out how to make those impulses cooperate with each other. I also haven’t had the time to talk to either person one-one to have a mature conversation about where I’m as far as they’re concerned. We shall see what happens, I guess.
Lately, I’ve found myself very confused. The situation that has given rise to my confusion is one that I’m not complaining about, it is simply one that I have never experienced to this same extent before… having people interested in me for who I am as a person, and not what I can offer them. With my sister, Kristen, Logan, Lindsey, Siobhan and even CJ I’m at a point where we’ve been through enough trials and know each other well enough to trust that if either person were in a jam, the other would do anything in their power to help them, with no strings attached. As with all solid friendships, there would probably be a debt incurred, but it wouldn’t have to be written down or even specifically quantified. That’s a level of trust that very few people have enjoyed with me, and in a number of cases, that trust came at fairly steep price for both parties involved… anyone who’s been paying attention knows that it’s a miracle that the three lesbians on the above list are still talking to me.
In a related activity, I recently did some soul-searching to better understand what I was looking for in a partner and other people I want to include in my life, so that I could put that hamster in my head to rest before I went back to school. I’ve been trying to do this less because I’m actively looking for someone (though like anyone without someone “special”, I’d love to have someone, in large part because I feel the same social pressure that is common for those my age), but more to clarify those ideas in my own head so that it’s somewhat easier to figure out who and how to keep good people in my life. In short, those that I keep active in my inner life need to be ok with who I am, particularly when it comes to my ultimate goals. They also really need to know where they’re going in life and be making some attempt at getting to those goals. Everyone on the list above qualifies under those stipulations to a greater or lesser extent, but none of those same people qualify as possible partners, for a plethora of reasons. Trust me, there are some near misses on that list, but that’s a discussion for another time.
I’ve been thinking a lot, particularly considering a quote from the movie “Elegy”: A comment from one guy in that movie to another: “Beautiful women are invisible; (look of shock) we're so dazzled by the outside that we never make it inside.” I would tend to agree, and I know that the tendency has caused me to be a guy that I don’t really want to be. Here’s the conundrum… the two people I am romantically interested in at this point are really unknown entities to me, though all indications are positive. That makes me seriously uncomfortable. The last time I landed in a relationship or deep friendship with this little information, it ended pretty badly, for me particularly. I based my commitment, actions, and feelings on outward appearances, without really considering what could have been going on with the other problem. The real problem here is the age old problem of intelligence gathering… I never really developed the socials skills I need to I find out the information I need to know without falling all over myself. It’s just a matter of overcoming the “Iaccoca balance” - the balance between needing so much information to make a decision that it paralyzes the process entirely and while having enough that you can make an informed analysis of the risks and rewards of any particular action. The problem is that you have to do that while knowing the information you have is still relevant to the particular situation. So begins the hamster trapped in a wheel that is my thought processes. Add to that my occasional inferiority complex, and you have a fairly complicated situation of me trying to balance my attraction and genuine caring for people, because both inwardly and outwardly, I haven’t figured out how to make those impulses cooperate with each other. I also haven’t had the time to talk to either person one-one to have a mature conversation about where I’m as far as they’re concerned. We shall see what happens, I guess.