Forever Alone
I was going to be a badass. If there was ever a way to solidify yourself as the masculine bad-boy that every high school girl wants, this was it. The window into her heart was finally open- and it was time to prove I belonged there.
I stared at my 11th grade History teacher, and he nodded. I positioned the brick between the two desks and continued to think about how smooth I was gonna look. Maybe after class, I’d ask her out.
Our class had been studying China and reviewing the rise of the Boxer Rebellion and the history of the martial arts and monks. That also happened to be the day the good idea fairy entered my brain and sprinkled doofus dust all over my rational thought process. “Offer to put on a martial arts exhibition. Break a brick in front of the class. Win the girl.”
When my teacher agreed, I began living in fantasy-land for the next week. There were three girls in my class that every guy in our high school seemed to crush on. The problem was that they were never single. You had about a 5-hour window until they had a new boyfriend or love interest. One of them, however, had now been single a week, so the idea fairy began to play convincing hallucinations in my head. I would break the brick, and as everyone cheered, I would walk over and kiss her (without even asking). As my teacher began to protest I would break his desk in half, walk out of the classroom while someone muttered “so badass” and get handed the leather jacket and sunglasses from Terminator 2. Teachers would run to stop me as I got into my 1989 Honda Civic only to do donuts in the parking lot while everyone in the school ran outside to see the commotion. It would be then that, like a game of telephone, my schoolmates would hear I had split my teacher’s desk in two. I’d get suspended, but not before I made out publicly with my crush on the front steps of my high school in front of the American flag when I returned the next day. Eat your heart out Kid Rock.
Everything went according to plan until I tried to break the brick. Forgetting all my training I could only think about the girl and how short my window was to date her until some other guy swooped in. My fist slammed hard into the brick, and immediately my hand swelled. People snickered. So ignoring the pain, I remembered my training and broke the brick. But it was too late. No one was impressed, and my hand looked like Dave Grohl’s giant hand from the Foo Fighter’s Everlong music video for the next week.
I had nothing to offer in the way of skills or smoothness anymore I told myself. I would be Forever Alone.
In college, this thought process continued (albeit it sounded somewhat more rational than teenage fear) and was reaffirmed by the culture around me. I still hear it echoed in our colleges today and it looks like this: “I’m just worried I’m not going to find anyone and will end up being alone for the rest of my life.” Fast-forward into your late 20’s and you will hear hoards of panicked singles echo this cry as well, and by age 30 most people could give two shits who they date as long as they’re not alone.
Most of the reason for this mentality is that culture tells us being alone is a sickness that needs to be cured by someone else. This, in turn, culminates into a massive Fear Of Missing Out (otherwise known as FOMO), which only fuels this fire of constantly having to be surrounded by others, so the pang of loneliness is muted. College students panic during finals when they can’t attend the campus rager or intermural activities that their friends are going to. Perhaps their friend is going to find the guy or girl they’ve been fantasizing about meeting. And if only they had just gone to the event and skipped studying then Mr. or Mrs. Right would have simply been a conversation away. During my late 20’s, social media intensified this anxiety that I was missing opportunities to connect and bury my loneliness. Dammit! I should have gone to happy hour!
For once, I wanted to be the person who was never alone. I wanted to be the guy that within a week of a break up found someone else. I wanted to be able to quickly move on and not have to worry about being lonely, just like those popular guys and girls in high school and college who always seemed to have people waiting in line to date them.
It would only be later in life that I discovered there was a term for all of this: Codependency.
I recently asked a friend what he thought the definition of codependency was. I wanted to know, because as I understood it, there were numerous layers that involved more than just one person being codependent. It could be the guy or girl always in a relationship for fear of being lonely. But it could also be the college and teenage version of myself whose attitude and demeanor was affected by what everyone thought of him. Or it could be that person who sucks the life out of a room because when he or she isn’t happy, no one else should be happy. All of it seemed to revolve around the desire to not be alone. The unintended consequence being that we manipulate people to provide the environment we need, and they acquiesce.
He smiled and gently stated his counselor had a great definition:
Codependency is two people growing sicker together.
For the first time, I recognized the truth in that simple statement. Those of us who have to be in relationships or surrounded by people to feel full means we’re only going to take from our relationships and never deposit into them. We will view friendships and relationships as a way to make us whole. And if the people we latch onto allow that, we’ll both grow sicker and unhealthier in that environment. We will view our relationships and friendships as a goal to attain as opposed to actually having a connection and intimacy that grows organically over time with the actual person. And having that type of outlook makes you incredibly selfish.
For instance, the minute outside forces or people shift their attention off of us; we feel threatened and try to shift the focus back towards us. The reason we do this is because we aren’t satisfied with ourselves. Because we aren’t satisfied with ourselves we can’t have healthy relationships with people because we will always be the point. My needs. My wants. My hurts. My accomplishments. My desires. Me. Me. Me. Every relationship, every friendship, every single connection will implode regardless of how many people we continue to surround ourselves with because no one will ever be able to give us what we need or want.
People are imperfect, and no matter if you find a best friend, awesome spouse, or amazing significant other, they will eventually let you down. Stuffing an imperfect person into that longing only produces more imperfection and dissatisfaction. But culture continues to feed us this lie with every ad, movie, and song because it sounds right (not to mention sexy). Taylor Swift’s unbelievably catchy “Blank Space” might as well be the codependent’s anthem. And while we may chuckle at the Greeks and Romans for worshipping gods that personified characteristics and longings, culture hasn’t shifted that much. If you want to be beautiful, so that you’re accepted, you will worship Aphrodite, the God of Beauty. If you believe finding another person will fulfill you finally so that you won’t be alone, you will worship Venus, the God of Love. These false ideologies only cause us to grow more codependent as we cling desperately to relationships and hang on every word as we grow sicker and end up feeling more alone.
Life isn’t only beautiful with someone standing next to us or validating our experience. We don’t have to have a “like” button next to the things we find invigorating and soul quenching.
Instead, most days we will have to fight to see what’s beautiful….even if we’re the only person around.
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