What is this love crap anyway. People keep asking me Jeff, when are you going to fall in love, when are you going to find your one?
To hell with that noise.
I am not in search of this wondrous ideal called love, why the hell would I want something that is even higher maintenance then half of the made up sluts I run into on my day to day rounds.
So what is it I am looking for then you ask? In a short and to the point phrase, i am looking for someone who will put up with me.
Why would that be so hard? Simple, I am a nut job, nice, gentle, but I may or may not remember what I am doing from moment to moment. I will sometimes respond with blurbs even I fail to understand. I connect phrases and situations randomly, seeing connections that are only there in my head. I am paranoid of things things that are out of my control, I switch back and forth between happy and boisterous, wanting to run, wanting to eat the flowers, and make every world my oyster, and depressed and not even wanting to get out of bed, just leave me in my corner, I'll be fine.
I can love strongly, but I have no sense of timing. I have difficulty with conversation, and never ask me to look at you when I talk to you, I just can't do it. I am the genius freak, I understand everything as if it is my nature to do so, I can make, design, or fix basically anything. I still can't tell left from right except that I was taught to write with my right hand (I can do both).
I didn't learn how to tie my shoes until third grade, by that time I had read the entire encyclopedia set. I could not read fiction until high school, did not make sense to have things that were not reasonably possible happening. I am literal to a fault, to the word. I have difficulties with phrases and often misunderstand what they are actually trying to reflect.
I want to hide in my corner, paint my pictures, write articles, and go and party with my friends when I am in a good mood. I need someone who understands that everything can go from manic to suicidal in ten minutes or less at which point it is best to just let me go to bed so that I can wake up and deal with it with my whole mind.
I am charming, reasonably good looking, professionally single, hate telephones, I think I have returned three phone calls to women I was talking to in the last 5 years. I am interesting, dynamic, can be good for conversation, sometimes, although I have to understand the topic beforehand or I will not speak a word.
In a word I am eccentric, I seek my muse but she is either afraid or disturbed.
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Comments: 32
Or perhaps you have not met her yet.
When love finds you, and it will, you'll understand what all the love crap is about.
Are we humans built to be monogamous or is that the social rule of law?
Sorry, each person is different, walk your own path, as long as you are not harming other people, its all good.
I like your writing, even though it is often purgative and anxiety-driven. You have style and a voice and interesting ways to say interesting things. All of that is good.
On the topic of women, I am not one to give advice. I have loads of experience with women who don't talk to me any more, including two ex-wives, who divorced me for reasons I will never understand. I guess it is enough that they were unhappy and wanted out.
On the other hand, I have quite a few women friends who never arrived at the "let's get physical" stage with me, some of them going on forty years. I think it is an accomplishment to keep any kind of friendship going for that long.
So I can't give you advice, but maybe a comment or two will be useful. First, sex is totally irrational and almost all pheromones, a kind of hormone that sends chemical signals between people. Even without help from chemicals, the hard-wired sexual drive to reproduce is completely irrational from the individual point of view and makes almost everyone do incredibly self-destructive things. Given that, there is some hope. Like those recurring bouts of depression, if you wait long enough in a safe place, they go away.
I don't care much about sex any more and I really don't miss it. I never get excited while looking at pieces of colored glossy paper or at phantoms of desire on the television or movie screens. You know those little blue butterflies that cluster madly on one or another little spot on the highway in the summer time? They are males, drawn there by the evaporating pheromones of a squashed female. Who needs that?
I agree with Kat. I know a place where the women are all wonderful, talented, and kind, and the men are too. Of course it isn't a building or a city or a nation….it's a place in my own existence, where I can see the beauty and worth of a human being, because of who we are, not because of what they may or may not do for me.
Hang in there. With any luck, the hormone wars won't rage in your bloodstream forever. And there is peace.
R
Not everyone wants to or should reproduce, but I think that should be left up to individuals. I certainly don't want to see a law disallowing selected groups from breeding. Nor do I think making people apply for permits to breed is a good idea. The fact is, good people come from bad people as often as bad people come from good people, and there is no guarantee anyone from the middle will go either way. People with ordinary mental abilities can produce genius, and people who are geniuses can produce retrogrades. There is no sense to it, and control would just encourage the growth of chaos.
For whatever my opinion is worth, if you want to be solitary, be solitary. What an individual does with their own life is entirely up to them. But you don't say what people want you to reproduce. Is it eligible women who want to have your baby? Is it your sister, your mother, your aunts and grandmothers? Is it your parish priest or your local rabbi? Whatever. Just rhetorical questions. But always consider the source when listening to people who are trying to inform you. What stake do they have in it? I suppose if you are an only child and your mother is tearfully pleading with you to settle down with some nice girl and make babies, that might have more weight than a sentence in a three thousand year old book telling you to go out and populate.
Anyway, lighten up. There are lots of girls and guys who don't want children but do like some company. Besides, you are a writer, and if I am not mistaken you are somewhat serious about it. Writing is very solitary work. You have to spend a lot of time alone. Is that fair to a wife and kids? As a serious writer, your responsibility is to the culture, not to any individuals. As a priest once told me, "It is better for a man in your position to remain celibate." I would have saved myself a fortune and a lot of misery if I had listened to his advice.
Good luck getting through this.
R
Right now I am just coming to terms with who I am, it has taken me 32 years to figure out why can't look at people when I talk to them, why I barely have the concentration to watch commercials, why I see and hear things that aren't really there (luckily it is minor and more of a curiosity than a problem), how I can fail to understand common phrases that have ironic meanings (I know there is a term for these things, but it is escaping me right now, I am clueless about body language, I generally miss things going on around me because all of the subtlety in the world never makes it past my brain. My life is made difficult by my own blessings, I can understand things of a mechanical nature just by default, one I know how something functions I can troubleshoot and repair it. Once I understand how the basic process works I am usually able to pick up everything else I would need to know on my own. People, no clue.
Well, I am lost in my own statement there. To sum it up, I can't understand myself but I can calculate prime numbers in binary in my head. I will never be able to tell you what that look you just gave is suppose to mean but if you want some better understanding on how atomic particles respond to extreme conditions of magnetic flux, or want simple instructions on how to split a planet in half, I will gladly oblige.
Well done Jeff.
He is just saying plainly and simply: I do not understand this love crap, period.
In some ways many of us have similar traits (maybe except for the wanting to eat flowers), and he is being honest about who he is.
Having said that, let's stop giving advice and laugh with him about his "peculiarities" and lack of understanding of what love is all about. As a matter of fact most of us do not have the slightest idea of what love is all about anyway, and some of us are probably a lot more peculiar than Jeff.
I ALWAYS long for the unattainable. Beautiful, smart, funny, delicate, and cool. When I am exposed to one, the unattainables, I go into, umm, umm, dork-mode. When I am within pheromone range, I go nuts. I am so FRIKKIN' tortuousley heterosexual, that when the girl proves she will never be interested in me, I feel like life is'nt worth fighting through any more.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not a stalker (or a writer-bow to jeff-) , but I grow feelings very fast when I see a potential partner. Then they get snuffed.
The Scorpions have a song for it;
"I'm falling in love. It happens to me every day.
I'm falling in love . A love that seems to slip away."
I think someday I may learn to listen to my friend when they see me with someone and tell me that what I really should be doing is running away as fast as possible, but what would the fun be in that?
but then again...there are none who are attracted to me that I am attracted to! Hence: there is no risk.
If I am not attracted to someone on some level, I tend to not even give them the time of day. Intellect, creativity, craziness, a freaky wild side, and looks have much to do with what causes me to talk to someone.
Honey, it's all about pheromones and wildness. Sex is the best stress reliever, and enables the mind to go to a place that is wonderful. But there has to be a relationship, or there are too many gifts given that keep on giving with a burning desire!
I'm never having any more children...my breeding days are done. thank God/Goddess. Children come into this world for a reason, and we have a choice to allow them to be in our home.
Love is something that grows over time. Friends are the most wonderful, loving, relationships that a person can have. Very infrequently is there a person that comes along that is worth the risk to love more. Heartbreak is too often the cause of disgruntled overwhelmed feelings of cynical and jaded rants. And rightfully so ---
The idea of a three minute dating night at the Pub is sounding more like fun.
The pounding of the heart, the sweaty palms and the first kiss.
The endless nights you spend fantasizing the joy of your first time together…
The fighting and the making up.
When you achieve the perfect balance with your partner, you will understand love!