Weekly Observations: Week 21 ðŸ’
On forever alone. I can’t stop thinking about my constant singleness these days. So much in my life’s improved recently — I feel happier at work, I’ll be moving to my third SF neighborhood soon, I’m pushing my boundaries and trying new things, but my love life continues to be a problem I can’t seem to crack. I remember reflecting on this with a friend right after my college graduation — with most things in life, working really hard, applying yourself and trying will generally yield you the results you want, but with this, there’s so much that’s left up to luck and chance and opportunity that pure effort on your end may still not be enough. Putting my happiness in the hands of fate freaks me the fuck out. I don’t do well with uncertainty that I have no control over.
The loneliness manifests itself in a myriad of ways: sometimes it’s soul-crushing, where it feels like it reaches all the way down into my core and all I can do is curl up in a fetal ball of despair to let it wash over me. Sometimes I feel raw to the touch, where everything smarts and simple, innocuous things like seeing happy couples stings. Sometimes it shows up as desperation, where I’m ready to throw out all logic and reason out the window, willing to sacrifice my long-term happiness for short-term satisfaction. And sometimes it’s in the way I feel so starved for touch that a 1:1 Pilates session feels surprisingly intimate.
At times, dating feels like both the easiest and the hardest thing in the world. When I think about a friend that met her boyfriend of 5 years within her first days on a dating app, friends that met their partners in college, friends that have no shortage of people throwing themselves at them, I’m amazed at how easy the entire process can be. My experience’s felt markedly different — full of stops and starts, misguided attempts, tortured confessions, unrequited interest, pointless conversations that never go anywhere.
The conventional advice for those unlucky in love is to focus on yourself, to revel in your independence and live your best life regardless. I get it, I totally do, yet I’m really fucking tired of working on myself. I’m tired of being alone. Not to toot my own horn, but I think I’m a pretty solid package already — yes, I get that there’s always room for improvement, but I’m far from being a complete mess. I wake up on my own most mornings, I’m independent, I have a life, I have friends. I’m curious, thoughtful, fun, caring, optimistic, capable of decent conversation. I’m nice to wait staff, to strangers. Why is this so hard?
It’s not like I’m not doing my part in this either. It feels like I’ve checked off all the typical boxes — online dating, trying new activities, being open to meeting people. It all sucks. Online dating in particular — it’s essentially cold, hard evaluation masquerading as human connection. In my experience, it’s ruthless, cut-throat, and emotionless. As efficient as it is, I don’t want to get to know people like this, with the half-hearted conversations and weak, paltry attempts to get to know each other.
For the folks that could care less, that’re happy in your singleness, I envy you. I wish I had the patience to wait for him, to have things fall into place without effort, without trying, to have the luxury of being opportunistic, but for now, I’m just going to try to keep hanging on.
On mindsets. For better or worse, I’ve never failed catastrophically at anything. I got pretty good grades in school, landed a decent job after months of searching only to find myself in a better job. I will say it hasn’t been entirely smooth sailing the whole time, but brain power and discipline’s gotten me pretty damn far. I’ve learned to take advantage of various resources to help me when I’ve run into shortcomings or places where natural talent and intellect haven’t been enough. I learned how to ask for help, how to break things down and make progress on intractable tasks.
Because I’ve never done anything that fell utterly flat, I’ve always had the mindset that I can do anything, that I can accomplish any feat or achievement I put my mind to. That sense of confidence, that innate belief in myself — it enables and motivates me to keep going. Because I know it’s just a matter of time and effort before I’m successful, it’s easier to mentally coach myself through the rough bits when things get hard.
It hasn’t been until lately that I’ve come to the realization that this mindset’s not universal. When you’ve encountered failure before and when you’ve done your best and it hasn’t been enough, it strikes at your self confidence, at your ability to pull through and make things happen. I can see the self doubt in those close to me that’re trying to do hard things — I imagine they wonder whether they can pull it off, whether they’re capable.
While it’s provided me with ample benefit, my lack of failure’s also held me back in other areas. Because I’m so used to being good at things (school, work, whatnot), I’ve never gotten comfortable with failure, with looking like an idiot. This discomfort with looking like a fool’s kept me from pursuing things I want to do and activities I want to get into, including learning languages, cooking, drawing. You can’t skip the shitty bits when you’re learning something new — they’re inevitable. You’re going to mess up, going to fall on your face.
The only way to get past it’s just to do it, to throw yourself off the deep end and see how you fare. It does get easier with time and practice. I find that it helps immensely to surround yourself with supportive people and friends as you’re going through this journey. I’ve been wanting to get into biking for a little while, enviously looking on at the confident cyclists of SF zipping around effortlessly on their road bikes. If not for the support of my bike family and their encouragement and guidance, there’s no way I could have started biking to work or around the city.
In many ways, it’s a good problem to have — it’s much easier tackling these mental blocks, as opposed to being deficient of more essential skills, but it’s still a constant challenge to keep pushing my boundaries further, to keep expanding my comfort zone.
