The Importance of Setting Goals
A. is incapable of being alone, completely and utterably. It may amount to an actual phobia (as I know he is also afraid of the dark), but his claim is that being alone with himself slowly drives him mad. That is hardly surprising when one considers that being alone with A. for prolonged periods of time will drive anyone insane. A consequence of all this is that his social life is always packed and, if he happens to be alone, odds are high you will receive a phone call from him that will not terminate until you take it upon yourself to end it abruptly. I guess a voice other than the one(s) in his head is all he needs to maintain his tenuous grip on sanity.
As time passes, A. is watching the gradual shift from group friendships to romantic pairings. He has come to realize that it will become progressively more difficult to spend every waking moment with friends when they begin establishing families of their own. I have to wonder whether this is not one of the reasons why he and I have become closer over the years. Of course, now I have a boyfriend and, even with the obstacles posed by a long distance relationship, I allocate significant amounts of my time to nightly phone calls or weekend activities from which A. is excluded. A. has, therefore, decided that he needs a semi-permanent, romantic relationship. I pity the girl who is being selected solely based on A.'s desire to never spend a second by himself, but then we all have our own complex motivations for pursuing people.
To this end, A.'s therapist has encouraged him to begin attending more activities at which girls only tangentially connected with our social circle will be present. I find this an annoyance because it means I am deluged with offers to join him at such tedious fare as "dinner with [H.]'s coworkers" or "a barbecue with [V.]'s girlfriend's roommate's friends." It also grates on me somewhat because I know that A. is only making the most superficial of attempts to find Mrs. Right at said gatherings. There is no way he would ever be capable of commitment or true emotional intimacy. He is the embodiment of confabulation, an avatar of deceit (both of others and of the self). As such, he has no option but to pursue the unattainable and thereby secure the status quo.
You see, what A. is not telling his therapist is that he is trying to sow the seeds of discord in the relationship of another because A. believes his ideal woman is a recent mother who just so happens to be married to one of his good friends.
As time passes, A. is watching the gradual shift from group friendships to romantic pairings. He has come to realize that it will become progressively more difficult to spend every waking moment with friends when they begin establishing families of their own. I have to wonder whether this is not one of the reasons why he and I have become closer over the years. Of course, now I have a boyfriend and, even with the obstacles posed by a long distance relationship, I allocate significant amounts of my time to nightly phone calls or weekend activities from which A. is excluded. A. has, therefore, decided that he needs a semi-permanent, romantic relationship. I pity the girl who is being selected solely based on A.'s desire to never spend a second by himself, but then we all have our own complex motivations for pursuing people.
To this end, A.'s therapist has encouraged him to begin attending more activities at which girls only tangentially connected with our social circle will be present. I find this an annoyance because it means I am deluged with offers to join him at such tedious fare as "dinner with [H.]'s coworkers" or "a barbecue with [V.]'s girlfriend's roommate's friends." It also grates on me somewhat because I know that A. is only making the most superficial of attempts to find Mrs. Right at said gatherings. There is no way he would ever be capable of commitment or true emotional intimacy. He is the embodiment of confabulation, an avatar of deceit (both of others and of the self). As such, he has no option but to pursue the unattainable and thereby secure the status quo.
You see, what A. is not telling his therapist is that he is trying to sow the seeds of discord in the relationship of another because A. believes his ideal woman is a recent mother who just so happens to be married to one of his good friends.