Monday, January 29, 2007
Paura delle
I once wrote this blog about how men and women could never truly be friends, quoting Rob Reiner's philosophy beneath Harry's healthily cynical character in When Harry Met Sally, because "the sex part always gets in the way."
And I was feeling quite cynical at the time, I will admit. Because I had just slept with one of my long-time friends and already felt the beginning of that friendship disappearing beneath me.
More than a year later, I was right, or at least in that case.
But it has me thinking about something else, too.
My buddy Dave and I've had quite a few conversations about this. He's the one that coined the term, "the getting weird." He said it wasn't the sex that got in the way, it was the getting weird, and the key to figuring out how to avoid that I guess would be something else, not taking out the sex part, haha. Of course not.
I know a few things about myself, at least, on this subject, but some information is useless unless you know what to do with it, you know what I mean? Shah.
I've had very little sleep, and my head's all cloudy, but anyway ...
Once, in another conversation with Dave he told me I sought different things from my relationships than I did from my friendships. I disagreed at the time. It's true I very seldom get involved with my friends, and prefer to meet people outside of my own circles.
The reason behind that, you know, I'm not really sure about, except that I love the excitement that comes along with just meeting someone completely knew and different, and randomly establishing some sensational connection.
Then again, the problem with sensational connections is that they can be burnt out almost as fast as they light up, only, at least at the end of that you could say you had a really good time, and didn't really lose much, except that there have been times when I've been through breakups and felt like I lost my best friend, even if the person was new to me.
So back to the getting weird part. I compartmentalize. I see it more and more in myself. Chris was the first person to point this out to me and use that term, because he saw in me so much of what he saw in himself, which is funny because in the end, our similarities are what broke us up, but anyway ...
I compartmentalize. I keep several blogs, and I know who reads what. And I love to tell stories, true stories, but I'll tell some people the stories in their entirety, and edit out some of the most important parts to others, telling myself they're still true, in their own way, and sometimes they're even nice little packages of entertaining anecdotes, good things to have over coffee and cigarettes, or letters, or late night conversations on the telephone.
And then I have this other running argument in my mind that is more like an enormous fear, that I'm sure dictates my actions here and there.
When you establish a relationship with someone, or start dating them, usually you talk about the things that matter, or at least, I do.
And you're the funniest and wittiest and smartest you have ever been, and can be on demand, like the way you can turn on a light switch, and you've got so much to talk about and none of it's all that cliche bull shit you've talked about 8,000 times either, and if it is, you gain some new perspective from this new person and it just feels new, and is new.
A few months down the road, you talk all the time, and you watch movies, and you lie down and cuddle on couches, and you might even go for some drives, but its so routine and this person is just there, and things change somehow, following, for what I could think of right now, down one of two possible paths.
The first one is the idea of the person you had when you first met and/or started dating. And all the things you loved about them, and all the things you used to talk about, and maybe the chills you felt the first time they laid a hand on you. And you miss that, and you miss those things. Because the conversation has gone from once being so much and meaning so much to what seems so mundane, those daily life things that get in the way, those daily life things that become so apparent when you spend so much time with anyone as you are spending with each other.
The other way things can go is that all of those things can still be there, but you somehow don't appreciate them as much, plain and simple.
And they both suck.
So now I'm writing this and I'm thinking about the whole compartmentalizing thing, and pairing that up with how much I've been thinking lately that I'm a seriously closet case of that whole fear of intimacy thing, all the while asking myself how I could've even a few days ago referred to myself in a conversation as "emotionally unavailable," and cursing this paradoxical hypocrisy running through me, because obviously if you know me at all and read this or talk to me or listen to my songs you would know I'm overwhelmingly chock full of emotions and thoughts, so how could this be?
I don't know, man, but I'm trying so hard to work it out. And then part of me thinks I'm trying too hard.
Like that one time I wrote the blog about logic and emotion and was thinking about that for months and decided they are the same thing, just like how I think right brain and left brain are the same thing, and science, math, art, and music, are the same thing.
And maybe they are, when you're thinking in ten dimensions, but maybe as a human being, a mere animal blessed or cursed, however you look at it, with rational thought and a posable thumb so that you can think about all these things while doing other things, including trying to sleep, which is sure as fuck what I did last night.
And I don't really have a real way to conclude this, because I've only drawn a tip of an iceberg of conclusions, but it is on my mind very, very much. Fuck, it is.
And what trips me up even more, is that I can know all this and know that what I want and what most people want is to someday be able to go home to a person and be greeted with a kiss and hug and be asked how their day was. And that's as simple as it gets.
I once wrote this blog about how men and women could never truly be friends, quoting Rob Reiner's philosophy beneath Harry's healthily cynical character in When Harry Met Sally, because "the sex part always gets in the way."
And I was feeling quite cynical at the time, I will admit. Because I had just slept with one of my long-time friends and already felt the beginning of that friendship disappearing beneath me.
More than a year later, I was right, or at least in that case.
But it has me thinking about something else, too.
My buddy Dave and I've had quite a few conversations about this. He's the one that coined the term, "the getting weird." He said it wasn't the sex that got in the way, it was the getting weird, and the key to figuring out how to avoid that I guess would be something else, not taking out the sex part, haha. Of course not.
I know a few things about myself, at least, on this subject, but some information is useless unless you know what to do with it, you know what I mean? Shah.
I've had very little sleep, and my head's all cloudy, but anyway ...
Once, in another conversation with Dave he told me I sought different things from my relationships than I did from my friendships. I disagreed at the time. It's true I very seldom get involved with my friends, and prefer to meet people outside of my own circles.
The reason behind that, you know, I'm not really sure about, except that I love the excitement that comes along with just meeting someone completely knew and different, and randomly establishing some sensational connection.
Then again, the problem with sensational connections is that they can be burnt out almost as fast as they light up, only, at least at the end of that you could say you had a really good time, and didn't really lose much, except that there have been times when I've been through breakups and felt like I lost my best friend, even if the person was new to me.
So back to the getting weird part. I compartmentalize. I see it more and more in myself. Chris was the first person to point this out to me and use that term, because he saw in me so much of what he saw in himself, which is funny because in the end, our similarities are what broke us up, but anyway ...
I compartmentalize. I keep several blogs, and I know who reads what. And I love to tell stories, true stories, but I'll tell some people the stories in their entirety, and edit out some of the most important parts to others, telling myself they're still true, in their own way, and sometimes they're even nice little packages of entertaining anecdotes, good things to have over coffee and cigarettes, or letters, or late night conversations on the telephone.
And then I have this other running argument in my mind that is more like an enormous fear, that I'm sure dictates my actions here and there.
When you establish a relationship with someone, or start dating them, usually you talk about the things that matter, or at least, I do.
And you're the funniest and wittiest and smartest you have ever been, and can be on demand, like the way you can turn on a light switch, and you've got so much to talk about and none of it's all that cliche bull shit you've talked about 8,000 times either, and if it is, you gain some new perspective from this new person and it just feels new, and is new.
A few months down the road, you talk all the time, and you watch movies, and you lie down and cuddle on couches, and you might even go for some drives, but its so routine and this person is just there, and things change somehow, following, for what I could think of right now, down one of two possible paths.
The first one is the idea of the person you had when you first met and/or started dating. And all the things you loved about them, and all the things you used to talk about, and maybe the chills you felt the first time they laid a hand on you. And you miss that, and you miss those things. Because the conversation has gone from once being so much and meaning so much to what seems so mundane, those daily life things that get in the way, those daily life things that become so apparent when you spend so much time with anyone as you are spending with each other.
The other way things can go is that all of those things can still be there, but you somehow don't appreciate them as much, plain and simple.
And they both suck.
So now I'm writing this and I'm thinking about the whole compartmentalizing thing, and pairing that up with how much I've been thinking lately that I'm a seriously closet case of that whole fear of intimacy thing, all the while asking myself how I could've even a few days ago referred to myself in a conversation as "emotionally unavailable," and cursing this paradoxical hypocrisy running through me, because obviously if you know me at all and read this or talk to me or listen to my songs you would know I'm overwhelmingly chock full of emotions and thoughts, so how could this be?
I don't know, man, but I'm trying so hard to work it out. And then part of me thinks I'm trying too hard.
Like that one time I wrote the blog about logic and emotion and was thinking about that for months and decided they are the same thing, just like how I think right brain and left brain are the same thing, and science, math, art, and music, are the same thing.
And maybe they are, when you're thinking in ten dimensions, but maybe as a human being, a mere animal blessed or cursed, however you look at it, with rational thought and a posable thumb so that you can think about all these things while doing other things, including trying to sleep, which is sure as fuck what I did last night.
And I don't really have a real way to conclude this, because I've only drawn a tip of an iceberg of conclusions, but it is on my mind very, very much. Fuck, it is.
And what trips me up even more, is that I can know all this and know that what I want and what most people want is to someday be able to go home to a person and be greeted with a kiss and hug and be asked how their day was. And that's as simple as it gets.
Labels: Movies, Relationships
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