I have spent the past several weeks alone. Barring the rare casual outing (including a rather unusual date with a lobbyist), I’ve been trying to come to terms with being alone. You know. Spending some time without the distractions offered by regularly waking up next to a beautiful woman. I can’t really assess whether or not I’m making any progress of sorts—I’ve never been particularly good at this, being alone. I enjoy the company of another, learning their ins and outs and having someone around who knows how I like my coffee. But I am learning about myself. And, true to form, I’ve been thinking a lot.
I’ve said it before and it still stands—I feel terribly out of place in the “dating scene” (whatever that is) of my age bracket for a litany of reasons. There’s the initial block: I’m just not comfortable coming up to a girl in a club and, before introducing myself or getting to know a little bit about her, grinding my crotch against her. But even if I manage to work around this—say, by meeting someone at a mutual friend’s party or something—the general emotional approach to relationships for people in my age bracket just doesn’t resonate with me. I think a graph explains this best:
Initially, the raw force of getting to know someone intimately makes the situation engaging. It’s thrilling to exchange novelties between the two of you, learning one another’s intricacies. And so, as the graph shows, the first few stages are emotionally incredible–you’re making a vast amount of progress in a very small period of time. And, under presumably normal circumstances, the typical situation would involve quite literally continuing the falling—right into love. Emotional horizons are expanded, trust is extended, and the two of you—provided you’re compatible—will fall into love.
But as the graph shows, the “love zone” is out of bounds in our youthful zeitgeist. “We are young and I don’t want to be tied down yet.” “I will gladly go to bed with you, but I won’t extend a modicum of emotion that could be construed of as serious.” Or maybe: “I’m still trying to figure my shit out.” My generation seems hellbent on making themselves as physically available as possible and as emotionally unavailable as possible. (It’s strange to me that so many people believe a series of physical encounters will contain profound self-knowledge for them, while it seems to me that the emotional experience would hold far more introspective possibilities.)
I think there’s always that emotional tug to progress as you spend more time with someone. I’m not particularly good at escaping the gravity that develops from a few months’ time spent in the arms of someone. Eventually, I inevitably find myself teetering on the abyss of love. And I don’t think this is unusual or unnatural or anything like that—there doesn’t seem to be anything more natural about sharing a series of incredibly intimate experiences with someone and then proceeding to emotionally bond with them. However, nearly everyone in my demographic is functioning along different parameters, capping out the bonding experience and not letting it go beyond a certain point.
What happened to reckless abandon? Throwing caution to the wind and letting something beautiful blossom between the two of you? It seems that it has been forgotten. What I’m most afraid of is that this act of forgetting will itself be forgotten—that people think that this is just the way it is, this is how things work—and that I, standing at the edge, will have no one to hold my hand and jump into the abyss with me.
February 21st, 2009
by stranger
hi jesse.
i’m wondering why you didn’t make that graph upside down, with love being the highest instead of the lowest part of the graph…
here is how i feel about it: you have to decide how much of your comfortablizing yourself with being alone is actually doing just that and how much is simply getting used to something different. when you’re in a relationship for a very long time, it gets very comfortable to fall into the routine-type things a relationship entails. also, at least in my humble experience, when you’re in such a long term relation, your identity gets necessarily intertwined with your partner’s, so there is a great deal of self-identity crisis happening i imagine also. though, this just may be me.
people in our generation are generally very quick to do everything; we are a generation built upon instant gratification. this is what i attribute this attitude young people have today to — it astonishes me how people will sleep with one another with relative ease but are terrified to talk about their feelings with the very same person..
at any rate, my heart goes out to you, sweetheart, fear not the double-forgetting and hang in there.
February 21st, 2009
by stranger
also– i think if you’re looking for a girl in a bar (or club etc), you’re catering to the wrong demographic of people. people who meet people in bars are definitely not the kind that are seaching for a wreckless romance, or throwing caution to the wind and letting something beautiful blossom. they mostly just want to get laid (and i think sexuality has an interesting negative correlation with emotional attachment when it comes to relationships..)
just a thought.
February 22nd, 2009
by Dr. Strangelove
While it is alarming and sad that the number of people willing to love recklessly has dwindled, true love, in my estimation, is when one “jumps” even despite the possibility that the other person may not jump along with you. It is a most dangerous risk but true Love loves even without reciprocation.
February 23rd, 2009
by Jesse
stranger: Make no mistake—I gave up on finding someone deeper than a mud puddle in bars/clubs a long time ago. Unfortunately, there aren’t that many venues around where level-headed, emotionally mature people tend to hang out. They seem strewn about, popping up in the most unlikely places. Tangentially, I put love at the bottom of my graph to give it a more abyssal quality. I could also blame it on The Unbearable Lightness of Being…
I’d also be interested in hearing more on your theory of sexuality and emotion, if you’d be so kind to divulge, stranger.
Strangelove: I’ve done the jump alone—and remained falling without the company of another—a few too many times to comfortably do it again until I build some significant trust.
February 24th, 2009
by elaine
i think that right there–jumping and falling without the company of another, or more often in my case, jumping and falling with someone and being surprised when they unexpectedly bust out a parachute–is exactly why it is difficult to find someone who will throw caution to the wind, at least in our demographic. i don’t think there is anything more incredible than loving and being loved with reckless abandon, but after a fall that ends in a wile e. coyote style puff of dust, i certainly need my time to recover. if i jump again without recovering, then i’m going to be the one to bust out the parachute. i know i’ll make my way to the edge again when i’m ready.
i’m also not sure how much youth actually renders the “love zone” unattainable. i think expectation (of the relationship, of the significant other, of love itself) leads to disappointment, so we come up with reasons to split like “we’re young and i don’t want to commit” instead of really making an effort to be together.
i also think much of the reluctance to jump and the need to “figure shit out” is situational. i have friends whose parents have been together since they were younger than i am, but most of those couples weren’t really going anywhere, for whatever reasons. one such couple grew up in northern new mexico and will stay there until they die, probably. i can’t speak for anyone else, but i think it’s a little more difficult to make a commitment like that when i have a lot more possibilities to work with. i want to do my thing, and i would want my significant other to do his thing, too. that’s the main reason for needing to figure my shit out–it has nothing to do with wanting to sow wild oats in lieu of sharing experiences with someone i care about.
i think you probably already know how i feel about all of this, so i’m not sure why i’m writing a novel. in short, we make love a lot more complicated than simply holding hands and jumping. but that doesn’t mean you’re the only one standing at the edge.
February 25th, 2009
by JB
If nothing else, these musings make me appreciate the fact that I am no longer young!
At least chronologically. However, regrettably, what you describe is not new. It wasn’t that different in the 80s.
The last great romantic is not yet dead! And perhaps not even in the throes thereof.
Love need not, nor should it be, a trap.
Here’s to jumping!
February 28th, 2009
by crystal
Hi jesse,
I think that one must also take into consideration as a male, that when he meets a girl and they sleep together pretty quickly (within the first month or so) that is not a great foundation for a long relationship. Why would he be surprised that later on she decides not to settle down and throw herself into love if she did not really even wait to get to know her potential mate? I am not saying that sex is bad or people shouldn’t go crazy and give into a sensual experience, by all means, do it.
Do not however, be surprised that when someone-is going to give you such a precious part of themselves without really knowing you first, that the same person is also not going to be someone who wont be able to hold out and build a real relationship. Women have high standards for men they really think they will be with and usually they will get to know someone before sleeping with them. i am not saying it very well, but basically, what do you expect when the relationship started with the physical instead of the emotional to begin with? Sometimes it can work out and become a beautiful relationship even if it was based on sex in the beginning, but sometimes i think relationships would be better if people focused on the relationship for at least several months before having sex. Most people stopped being willing to do that though.
Also, sometimes it is important to understand what you really want. Are you looking for marriage, a family? Where is it that you want your next relationship to go? Maybe when you know what you are really aiming for then you can express that to the person you are starting the relationship with- tell them you eventually want something long term instead of a fling. i think the universe sends us what we want, but we have to be clear about it.
March 1st, 2009
by pat o'hayer
this isn’t a comment, exactly, but i very much enjoyed your observations on ‘infinite jest’ on 21 july 2007, which included a graph from amazon showing the novel’s word count – i’m writing to ask how to access such a graph at amazon – i looked around some of the pages but came up empty – thanks!
March 3rd, 2009
by Jesse
The Author
Elaine: I suppose that my appreciation for the practical aspects of one another’s respective lives are overshadowed—at least for me—by the fear of missing that one person that could potentially change everything. For better or worse, I think the practical concerns of being with the person you love will have an effect on you, which makes jumping that much more vulnerable. It is an acknowledgment that your best laid plans can be disrupted by another and a willingness to let that happen. This was much easier when you women-folk were just domestic goddesses that followed the man wherever his career took him while you baked pies and wore hot dresses. (I kid, of course.)
Crystal: I’m not sure whether or not sleeping with someone early on in a relationship—or, hell, even immediately—has any sort of longer term effects. I’m not convinced that it does, beyond some weird convention that we would likely do just as well to shrug off and forget about.
In other words, I’m not sure why one (the physical) needs to follow the other (the physical). This is a fairly traditional ordering, sure, but I’m not clear why this particular order is at the root of the long-term viability of the relationship. You’re right, but still, it only seems conventional.