Earlier today, a friend of mine and I were chatting about my How to Crush project and she started asking some pretty good questions. So good, in fact, it ended up reading like a real interview. Thankfully, I was smart enough to save a copy of that conversation. Here’s the first part of it. (Thanks, Steph!)
You have been open about having not been in the dating game for a while now. so why should anyone take romantic advice from you?
It’s really not about romance. It’s about relationships. The most important one being the relationship with yourself. Romance–real and imagined–is just a tool to learn more about yourself… And by doing so, be better able to understand your interactions with others.
Are you okay with yourself?
I am very OK with myself. Which is why I can be happily single for nearly a decade.
Are you not okay with others? What i’m getting at is so what are you waiting for then?
I am very OK with others… which is why I have such a wonderful group of friends. What should I be waiting for? There’s nothing to be waiting for. I’m not really wanting anything, relationship-wise, right now.
Because…?
The only reasons I’d go out and get myself all tied up in a relationship now would be to:
1) Get more stories to tell or
2) Because I suddenly feel the need to.
So you’re not, like, anti-relationship or anything.
Oh, hell no! Relationships–romantic or otherwise–are fantastic things. They’re natural and human things. They help us define ourselves and help us grow.
But, just like many things that are natural and often helpful, they can be damaging, too. We’ve all seen people go through incredibly destructive relationships. We all know people who get into relatioships that everyone around them knows will be destructive… and yet, they are oblivious to that fact.
In this culture we are pushed to think that being in a relationship is the only way we can be happy– the only way we can be normal and sane. That’s just wrong. It’s not the only way to be happy. And it is just as normal to be happy being uninvolved.
Or, it would be if the external pressure would let it.
But that all goes back to the so what are you waiting for question again. You’re not anti-relationship. Without discounting that you can be happy single, don’t you ever want to be in a relationship or have sex again? After ten years, you know that you can be perfectly happy single, but how will you know if you can be happy in a relationship or not if you don’t try it again?
I’ve been in relationships and I’ve been happy in them. I’ve also seen a whole lot of people go from relationship to relationship and remain miserable. No matter how hard they try, they just can’t make it work. The most successful relationships I’ve ever seen are those between two individuals who feel complete in and of themselves. When people like that come together, they create a pair that can last.
So you’re waiting for that special complete someone who’s not a lunatic?
Well, I’m waiting for a distinct feeling of need to be in a relationship… but that gets into my personal metaphysical beliefs on how my life works. Everyone has a slightly different set of rules, wants and needs that they have to reconcile. I neither expect nor encourage people to go through everything I have in order to get to a good “happy place.” But I have found that some techniques seem to work for a lot of other people. The main one being: Pay Attention!
So besides the lack of good stories to tell, what would make you need a relationship? Do you just wake up one morning and you’re like “Damn, I need a woman”?
Not “a woman.” It would be “that woman”–someone specific. And it would probably happen in the course of meeting her. At least that’s how it’s worked for me in the past.
So you just haven’t crossed paths yet?
We may have… but people change. I’m not the same person I was a year ago.
For the me I am now, it may be a different woman than it would have been for the me a year ago. Maybe she wasn’t the person she needed to be to get involved with me yet..Maybe our paths haven’t crossed at all. Therein lies the adventure of it all!
Interesting.
And that is really where the basic rule of “Pay Attention!” comes in. You have to be aware of who you are and the difference between your own wants and needs–and the wants pushed upon you by society. You have to be able to confidently say “No, not just yet” when you know that a relationship isn’t right.
For me it’s not so much paying attention as listening to what I’m thinking
That’s paying attention! Paying attention to the internal monologue that directs us.
We usually know a whole lot more about ourselves than we’re willing to admit to anyone–even ourselves. It can be very scary to be really honest with yourself. Most of us are full of things we don’t like.
So what happens when you’re basically okay with yourself as a solo project but you don’t particularly want to be solo while at the same time you don’t want to settle for just anyone?
That becomes a question of balancing out the two potentially conflicting “wants” there.
You “want” to be with someone–but not just anyone. That in and of itself can cause some internal conflict.
But then the whole thing gets even more complex because then you have to take into account the wants of others.
Mis-matched wants and needs are one of the biggest causes of relationship problems I’ve ever seen. Or experienced.
This would be where I point out that I’m a big fan of recreational relations–be they simply dating or sexual in nature. They can be fun, wonderful and educational things. They’re just not my thing. The mindsets required for them don’t match with my own wants and needs.
I know, for example, that if I’m in a relationship, I need to be in that relationship for the long run. I’ve been pretty good at recognizing when a romantic relationship won’t be a long run kind of thing (which is most times).
That skill–a skill because it can be learned–has saved me from a whole lot of pain and suffering… and gained me a whole lot of good friends.
