Just read an article by Lora M. on "Why are all the good guys taken?". It got me to thinking after I wrote a comment on it.
I have been alone or unmarried much longer than I was ever married. Married at the age of eighteen and a father at the age of nineteen, our marriage lasted for eleven years. If you can call it that. After we separated I found three diaries which she had started before we ever met which continued until just weeks before we went our separate ways. In them she told of never having loved me, marrying me was a way out of custody of her grandparents. We had four children together, at least I thought it was us together. We were both too young to really have gotten married.
On my part I did love her, with all of my heart I did for the eleven years. Even through so many difficult times we had and no I will not go into them. Those were between her and me not anyone else's unless they were involved as well and they know so I don't have to tell them. Even the day I saw her in the casket my heart belonged to her and she was another man's wife by then. She was killed by a lioness on their don't know what you might call it since she and her then husband kept wild animals for zoos. They had gotten two lions from zoos and, from what he told me, were going to raise cubs to sell since you couldn't import any new lions into the country. They were living just out side of Tallassee, Alabama at that time.
After the divorce in two years time I went out with over a hundred different women. Was trying to prove I was desirable to women to myself. Been told I'm not an unhandsome man, don't know if I have ever believed that. But most of the women went out with me to see what it was like to go out with a cop. Spent most of my time in uniform and I would not ask a woman out while I was in uniform. So most of my dates at that time were from being asked out, this was in the seventies.
When I realized why I was going out so much with so many different women I stopped. Took a look at my life and then went out rarely. It wasn't that I didn't want to have someone in my life. We all do want that special one in our lives. I was raising four children at that time alone. For the first couple of years my younger ex-brother-in-law stayed with me to help with the kids. I had helped him go on to trade school, as I helped his older brother finish high school and get into the Navy.
I tried to find someone who I could love and be a mother to my four. I got the line from so many "If only you didn't have four children" or "You're a great catch for someone else" or "You're a great guy someone will come along". Well, no one ever did. Oh, I got married a second time. For the wrong reasons, to have a mom for my kids. She turned out to not be that someone. She moved out before we were married nine months. Then I found out I wasn't her second or third husband but something like her sixth or seventh. Oh well, life goes on whether or not we like how it is going.
Is it because I'm so terrible that I can't or didn't find another woman to want to spend her life with me? Heck someone told their parents I was safe to be around because I was gay. Uh, no, I'm not gay and haven't had any trends toward that side of life. Not my idea of fun or what I want to be doing with my life. I don't swish when I walk, maybe limp sometimes from injuries. Am not feminine nor is my voice such that you would think so. My voice is a bass and I haven't sang high since I turned twelve and had to start shaving.
I don't play games and have dropped many who did want to play games with me. Change me? Yes, even after saying I was perfect they start with if you only would change this or that we would be better together. Wait, if I'm so great the way I am why is it that I must change? If I should change then what fantasy were they living in that to begin with I was so great? I open doors, hold chairs, am polite, don't pee on the floor (not since I was very little that is), don't use bad language, go to church, obey the laws of man and God to the best of my ability. So I'm a little messy, forgetfull now (I am in my sixtyfirst year ya know and diabetic), I'm in pain all the time mostly don't say anything about it live with it, I don't yet drool, I don't smoke (never have, hate it), don't drink (when I did was never much), don't run around with criminals (used to lock them up, as I was a cop), I don't argue (hate it since my aunt and uncle were always doing just that), maybe a little hard headed or stuborn, cry at Lassie movies (uh, have since I was a kid), love animals (just not the human kind of animal), am an artist/photographer, read over 10,000 books in my lifetime, am not a know it all (know enough to know I don't know it all), love kids (in a grandfatherly way, not a pervert).
Oh don't I sound just like the kind of guy you would want to have around? Then why is it no one wanted me long enough to really get to know me? Some may have wanted to but I'm truthful if I have no feelings in that way I don't have them for you. I will tell you up front how I feel. I don't lie to get my way or what I want. Would rather do without than lie and cheat to get something. Maybe that is one of the reasons most women never wanted more than, yes, sex with me. If I love it is with all of my heart not just a portion. Is why I love art and photography, it is the only thing in my life that hasn't hurt me or tried to change me other than make me a better person. I see the beauty of the world around me and try to show it in my art and photography. It is my passion and the only passion that I show to the world any longer.
Gee, seems I have not said much about why do we want someone else in our life. It should never be to be whole, because if you are not whole to begin with how can you be whole with another person? You need to love yourself before you can love another person. For what do you have to offer them of love when you don't love yourself. How can you know what love is if you don't love yourself? First we should learn to love ourselves then we can love another. I don't use the word love lightly. I may like somthing strongly but do I love it? Do I love my NoNo? Yes, in a cat person's way of loving a feline, I do. Do I love my kids, very much so. Do I love my grandkids, way more than I can express in words. Love is over used sometimes in our society today. We love this we love that. But do we really love what ever it is or just like it extremely?
Why do we need someone else in our lives? Why do we want someone else in our lives? Is it because we are lonely? Is it because we feel a hole in our hearts? A hole in our soul without someone else in our lives. A husband or a wife in our lives to love and to cherish? Or just a friend to share the good and bad times with? Why do we feel the need to have someone in our lives so very badly? Is it the ying and yang thing? We should fit together like a puzzle? Does it make us feel like we are living? Why? I don't have the answer. I live alone and probably will for the rest (how ever long that maybe) of my life. Aftrer almost dying the end of last year and probably should have with a blood glucose count of 1047, I know my life is not going to last thousands of years, thank goodness. And since I've spent most of it without a companion, even when I was married I was not with a companion only a body who used me for what ever reason she had. So can I say I really had someone? Can I say I know what it was to be loved? No, I can't say any of those things. So guess I have been alone all of my sixty years.
I'm sure that there are plenty of others who know how I feel and what my emotions are like. But to the others do you know what it is like to be alone even with someone? Do you know what it is like to be alone all of your life? So being alone for me is life. Do I regret my life no. I have four children who I love and three wonderful grandchildren who I love and who love Papa. Would I like to change what my life has been, no don't want to go back it might have been even worse, who knows. I wake to the aches and pains. They make me know I'm still alive. I take my camera and photograph the beauty I see around me. I try to share it with any who will let me. It is my passion and my companion in life. As a young friend said "Art is the only thing that has never hurt me" she is right. Only other people can hurt you if you let them. Is my heart hardened? No, it is still the soft open one that I was born with, only a bit scarred from life's wear upon it. It is wary of opening to others too widely not wanting to be hurt again.
I forget when I start writing that I am long winded sorry if this is too long. But it is my way of expressing what is in side of me. It is easier than most ways of letting it out.
Thank you for getting this far if you did.... :o)
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Comments: 18
I`ve been married or in a relationship most of my life, when the kids we`re small, I always thought it was my responsibility to provide a well balanced family life for them. Well that never worked. lol. Now that the kids are grown and I`m alone I can share myself as I please, I don`t have responsibility, no one depending on me for anything. I love my life. I come and go as I please, I visit family and friends more often than I am at home. I am a person that loves to serve others. If I happend upon a gentleman who loves me and wants to spend the rest of his life with me, I would have to be 100% sure that he isn`t dalusional.lol. I`ve made enough mistakes, detours etc because I didn`t know. I was stumbling through life just like the next person. I`ve taken some me time, I`ve requested instruction and I`ve recieved it. I`d love to share myself intimately with another person, and I believe someday I will, in the meantime I`m spreading myself around, helping those that ask.
To answer your title question--We are social creatures. We were not created to live alone. So while we are complete in ourselves, we are incomplete in another sense. This does not necessarily mean marriage for all. But it does mean relationship and communion.
I've never been married. Don't want to be single any more. But I'd rather be single forever than married to the wrong man.
Great post.
I completely agree with this: "It should never be to be whole, because if you are not whole to begin with how can you be whole with another person? You need to love yourself before you can love another person. For what do you have to offer them of love when you don't love yourself. How can you know what love is if you don't love yourself? First we should learn to love ourselves then we can love another."
As for what I believe was your real question, why are you alone, no one can give you an answer without getting to know you and, at the same time, without wanting to be with you. That way they can see you as a friend, without ties, and if honesty is what you want they could give that to you.
Maybe you try to hard. Maybe you come across as clingy or needy, even though I don't think you are either. Whatever the reason there is a reason.
We are starting to know you through your pictures and a little more through your articles. Maybe when we finally really know you we can maybe one of us, give you an answer that will make sense.
But personal experience tells me that most men do not want the truth. I've had to many male friends, most of my friends were men, ask similar questions as you have above.
I've know them for years as friends but I can still see what women see and I know what they might want and what they might be seeing. I tell them, they are polite and slightly nod in agreement, only to leave and not come back. I've lost a friend. I don't know what they wanted to hear. Nothing negative, even constructively worded.
So be sure you want an answer and be willing to hear the truth and find a friend that will tell you what you need to hear and if you still wish to go further make the changes suggested.
OR be happy with you, who you are. Have friends and enjoy your own company as I know can and is done everyday.
I look forward to more of your posts, I wish you well!
It is their life to live and they must make the final decision as to what to do in or with their life.
I too found out the hard way most people ask but really don't want to know the truth so found that by the above it may help as well as keep them as a friend since it was them who made the final decision as what to do. I've always tried to accept the truth from friends or anyone who has given it to me and one on with my life and kept my friends not turned away from them for telling me even something I may not have wanted to hear. I always try to remember that it was I who asked not them who offered. If you don't want the truth then don't ask for it. If I feel the person really doesn't want the truth then I steer the conversation away from that topic until they forget they asked me anything. One way of keeping friends. :o)
As for knowing me can we ever really know another without being able to get into that person's head? Yes, we can learn something about them and form an opinion about them but know them? Not sure myself but hey who knows...
Thank all of you for your comments ...it is nice to know someone really reads my musings.
Would it have gotten worse? Probably. I sometimes feel so alone, but it has taught me alot. I now can work a screw driver;-). I know I can support my family, alone. I know what it is to be so tired that I think I cant make it another day. I see my beautiful children growing and thriving. But....sometimes, I feel soooooo alone.
Blessing to you,
Dar
But I hate that people look at me and think I should start being worried about not being married or even actively dating at this time in my life.