Mutual dependency.
I have had a disdainful view of love and relationships all my life. I've always hated that fact about me, and I hide it, normally. I don't like being a sourpuss. In my teens I just thought it would all make sense one day, and I dived in and kissed boys anyway, always disliking it, hoping some light would switch on. 'Of course I want a boyfriend, of course I care if boys do or don't think I'm a catch, of course I think that guy's good looking, of course he's a good kisser (bleurgh), of course.' I hoped that I’d grow up and stop being so oblivious to the reasons why people did this stuff. As much as I try and convince everybody I'm happy to be asexual, it is only over the past five years that I’ve accepted it myself, and it’s so impossible to be settled in your own mind when society is constantly telling you (directly or otherwise) that you really should have someone else there to share things with. Despite the fact that it's the norm, everybody does it and it's natural - and I don’t know why - I've always had this notion that the human need to be in an exclusive partnership as quite a weak thing. I find it weird and creepy. Possessiveness, competitiveness, envy. The need to BE possessed, competed for, envied. MY partner. MY husband. MY girlfriend. I realise that humans are weak and insecure by nature and that we need other people to be weak and insecure with. I am these things myself and I know it's not a bad thing. But still, it's something I feel and I can't help it: exclusive sexual relationships are weird.
I know great people, full of so much energy and brains and so many free and wonderful thoughts that I sometimes worry that if they had any more wonderful they might overload and disintegrate into puddles of pure awesome. They have so much to say; so much to offer the world. I can look at them (I don’t, generally, but I could) and think, 'Yes, I can see why people would want to know you. I am very happy to know you. I can see why people would want to have sex with you. But I don’t.' It's always been enough for me just to know them and to have them in my life. I found some song lyrics I wrote when I was in my late teens. I'd written them as a sort of tongue-in-cheek-overly-over-the-top commentary on how people always seem to be fine on their own and function like normal organisms until they fall in love. Then they suddenly turn into a pair of mutually-dependant symbiotic creatures with no sense of self at all. Blissfully unaware, discreetly unsure. Forever needless before. Now I'm ravaged and humbled, disgraced and open to you. Being one, anxiety is halved and I'm indebted to you. One as Two.
When I wrote the song I initially thought that the idea of being ‘ravaged' and ‘disgraced’ by love was a bit too strong. I left it in just because it was a metal song and I wanted it to sound like Tool. Years later, however, when a great person told me that the fact I didn't like sex much didn’t matter to him (and we therefore tried to have a Proper Relationship)... it was a bit humbling. The love part itself was easy! It was the 'being a partner' stuff that was the problem. It took everything out of me. It made me feel like I was on stage, all the time. It didn't come naturally to me. I felt like I was always proving myself; acting everything out for him. I felt that I wasn’t really myself, but I never acted as in pretending... I mean acting as in showing. I lost my sense of self, put all my attention into the relationship, and when he wasn’t there I put my energy into the internet, into the band I was listening to a lot at the time and just… switched off my brain.
Before this, I might've guessed that I'd based all my disdain for relationships on my friend who practically lived just for having a boyfriend; it was all she thought about, and nothing else mattered to her. But now I’d been on both sides… I wasn’t unhappy, I must stress that. He really was a great person, and we had some fantastic times. I just put so much into trying to be this half of one being that I forgot myself, and in the end that wasn’t good for me. I was hung up on the label - I didn’t want to be somebody’s girlfriend. Now I feel that maybe couples get so symbiotic because they’ve forgotten themselves completely? I don't know, but I feel like it might've got that far if we hadn't separated. I lost the great person in the end because, while he didn't yet seem to want to be in a state of symbiosis with me, he did want me to constantly show the world that we had some kind of unique connection. Knowing me and knowing the connection was there just wasn’t enough. It took me the best part of a year to realise that I couldn't fight it any more, I didn’t really want to be connected to anyone at all, even someone who is at risk of overloading and disintegrating into a puddle of pure awesome. I was just doing it because my own brain was telling me that being in a Proper Relationships was a good thing, because that's what we have to do to be normal.
It's weird, fighting with your own brain. I should probably do my proper essay now.
I know great people, full of so much energy and brains and so many free and wonderful thoughts that I sometimes worry that if they had any more wonderful they might overload and disintegrate into puddles of pure awesome. They have so much to say; so much to offer the world. I can look at them (I don’t, generally, but I could) and think, 'Yes, I can see why people would want to know you. I am very happy to know you. I can see why people would want to have sex with you. But I don’t.' It's always been enough for me just to know them and to have them in my life. I found some song lyrics I wrote when I was in my late teens. I'd written them as a sort of tongue-in-cheek-overly-over-the-top commentary on how people always seem to be fine on their own and function like normal organisms until they fall in love. Then they suddenly turn into a pair of mutually-dependant symbiotic creatures with no sense of self at all. Blissfully unaware, discreetly unsure. Forever needless before. Now I'm ravaged and humbled, disgraced and open to you. Being one, anxiety is halved and I'm indebted to you. One as Two.
When I wrote the song I initially thought that the idea of being ‘ravaged' and ‘disgraced’ by love was a bit too strong. I left it in just because it was a metal song and I wanted it to sound like Tool. Years later, however, when a great person told me that the fact I didn't like sex much didn’t matter to him (and we therefore tried to have a Proper Relationship)... it was a bit humbling. The love part itself was easy! It was the 'being a partner' stuff that was the problem. It took everything out of me. It made me feel like I was on stage, all the time. It didn't come naturally to me. I felt like I was always proving myself; acting everything out for him. I felt that I wasn’t really myself, but I never acted as in pretending... I mean acting as in showing. I lost my sense of self, put all my attention into the relationship, and when he wasn’t there I put my energy into the internet, into the band I was listening to a lot at the time and just… switched off my brain.
Before this, I might've guessed that I'd based all my disdain for relationships on my friend who practically lived just for having a boyfriend; it was all she thought about, and nothing else mattered to her. But now I’d been on both sides… I wasn’t unhappy, I must stress that. He really was a great person, and we had some fantastic times. I just put so much into trying to be this half of one being that I forgot myself, and in the end that wasn’t good for me. I was hung up on the label - I didn’t want to be somebody’s girlfriend. Now I feel that maybe couples get so symbiotic because they’ve forgotten themselves completely? I don't know, but I feel like it might've got that far if we hadn't separated. I lost the great person in the end because, while he didn't yet seem to want to be in a state of symbiosis with me, he did want me to constantly show the world that we had some kind of unique connection. Knowing me and knowing the connection was there just wasn’t enough. It took me the best part of a year to realise that I couldn't fight it any more, I didn’t really want to be connected to anyone at all, even someone who is at risk of overloading and disintegrating into a puddle of pure awesome. I was just doing it because my own brain was telling me that being in a Proper Relationships was a good thing, because that's what we have to do to be normal.
It's weird, fighting with your own brain. I should probably do my proper essay now.