The Only Emotionally Distant Person in My Life is Me
How I learned to stop blaming my fear of commitment on the men I dated.
What you see in others is merely a reflection of yourself.
I’m sure if you’re a human being living on this planet we call Earth, you’ve heard a similar statement. I know I have. Many times. I call it the mirror theory.
At the wrong moment (aka when swimming in the river of denial) it can make you want to vomit up your own self into a black hole of forgetfulness.
At the right moment (aka when you’re at your guard is down and you’re at you’re most open-hearted and vulnerable) it can make you feel nothing but compassion for your very imperfect human self and reveal that inner growth is but a perception shift away.
I’ve spent years (like 20) blaming others for my single state. It was always the men. They were too wily. Too commitment-phobic. Too deceptive. Too insecure. To emotionally cut-off. Too wounded. And on and on until I finally just gave up and realized I must be cursed in the realm of love.
I wasn’t cursed and neither are you.
It took a very uncomfortable conversation with my ex’s new girlfriend for me to realize I was the problem, not him. I was the commitment-phobe. I was the deceiver. I was the emotionally detached, wounded, insecure woman that wanted to run when love suddenly became tangible.
It was a hard truth to swallow. A really hard, uncomfortable, grown-up truth that took me four decades of fine-tuning my taste-buds to be able to savor without gagging. And I don’t know about you, but gagging frightens the bejesus out of me.
The love we seek is seeking us.
No, really, it is.
When I was able to delicately savor the taste of my own fucked-up self, I was able to see that my ex and his seemingly deceptive ways were merely a reflection of my own.
The love I sought was seeking me — but I was pushing it away.
In the past five years, moments of longing for connection have cajoled me to upload dating apps. Each time I’ve gone an app, I’ve met wonderful men — but they were always unavailable in some way. One was married (would have been nice of him to tell me on our first date, huh?); one was in the throes of an ugly divorce and constantly bitching about his ex (which didn’t make for fun Friday night date conversation, that’s for sure); one was gay (no seriously, he was — he just didn’t know it yet); one was so addicted to the idea of being poly that he would tell me stories about the men that he wanted to watch undress and caress and kiss and touch me — while we were having sex (that kind of sex talk wasn’t my jam).
I left them all. Each and every one of them. I blamed the curse.
Why was every man I dated such a player? Why did he say he wanted a relationship when we first met and then slowly start to become an emotionally detached ghost?
It was all them, not me. Right?
Well, the mirror theory would say otherwise. The mirror theory would say that their wishy-washy, push-pull, all there and then all gone ways were my problem, not theirs. I was merely attracting a male version of myself — and up close, he wasn’t that pretty.
It all hit me like a slap in the face when my recent ex and I rekindled our connection with make-up sex (well, it was 6 months after our break-up, so not sure if that qualifies as make-up sex). A friend gifted me with psilocybin and I wanted to find a like-minded friend to share the experience with. I’d had a mushroom trip 13 years back with a psychologist boyfriend who knew a ton about experimenting with natural substances. My first trip was one of the most positive, profound experiences of my life. When I asked my ex if he’d join me (we had just started trying to be friends again), he immediately said yes, then suddenly seemed hesitant. The night of our planned trip he texted me that his guy friend was struggling through a break-up and he had to leave by a certain time to hang out with him. I rolled my eyes at the text. There he was making excuses to disconnect again. Perhaps he was really emotionally unavailable and I was just being hard on myself.
I have a history of being hard on myself.
I’m that type-A perfectionist that has higher standards for myself than I do for everyone else. I was hoping the mushrooms would soften my inner critic — maybe even adorn her with a flowery crown of unconditional love, peace, and harmony — you know, all that hippie stuff the sixties were made of (sans the war and protests, of course).
Our trip was more gentle than the trip I had 13 years back. My ex took half the amount of mushrooms I did and ate a small meal about an hour into our trip, which immediately sobered him up so he could go hang with his depressed friend. When he left, I felt disappointed and alone, but still high. Knowing mindset it everything, I put on some fun music and let my senses be swept up into the groove.
I woke up at 7 am — the Zero Seven station still playing on my Pandora app. My phone chimed. It was my ex.“Want to cuddle?”
“Yes,” I texted back immediately. Then I proceeded to cut fruit and clumsily sliced my finger to such perfection that blood spurted all over my very white kitchen counter and linoleum.
“Shit,” I screamed loud enough so that my cat came running in to witness the very bloody scene.
I realized I was out of band-aids, so I quickly wrapped a few tissues around the thumb and a triple wrapped a kitchen rubber band around it to stop the bleeding.
I voice-texted him: “Can you bring a first aid kit? I cut my finger really badly.”
When he walked into my apartment, he looked at me with pity. My face was wan and my blood sugar was low. After he bandaged me up, he led me into the bedroom. As we started to fuck he began to whisper his fantasies about another man undressing me while he watched. Instead of telling him to stop, I looked deep into his eyes and he grew quiet. We started making love. I knew it was the end. I could feel it in my bones. We both orgasmed together. We had never done that when we were dating. Then he held me.
“So this is your version of cuddling, huh?” I said with a wry smile.
“Well, yeah. So what about that guy from work. Are you seeing him?”
“Guy from work? The one I brought to the meditation group once? Why are you asking?”
I could see the insecurity on his face. He wanted me to want him. I wanted it too, but I didn’t have anything left to give.
“He’s still texting me if that’s what you’re asking.” Instead of saying what my heart felt: I really want you. I love you. Will you be mine? I acted cool and nonchalant. I made myself unavailable. I gloated about this other guy wanting me when I wanted nothing more than to be consumed by him for all eternity. Why do I do this to myself?
It wasn’t him that was running scared. It was me.
The mirror theory would say my perception of him as a frightened rabbit would be an accurate analysis of my own behavior.
We sexted that night into the next day. Until he stopped responding. Hours passed until I reached out to ask why.
“I met someone on Tinder that seems cool.”
And he’s been dating her for the past year. She’s a somatic sex coach. According to her website, my ex is the “love of her life.”
I talked with her the other day, in a professional way. I knew she knew who I was, but our phone chat stayed professional. I wanted to find out more about what she did — “for my clients,” I said, but I think she knew it was for my own curiosity. As she talked about the wheel of consent and how she makes sure all her male clients tell their wives they are working with her, my mind spun around thoughts:
What does she have that I don’t? Why is my emotionally detached ex the love of her life? Is she a better lover than I am? Is she prettier? Is she more complacent? Is she more nurturing and patient?
What does she have that I don’t?
When I hung-up after a very fake, “I’ll add you to my referral list. Have a great night!” — I looked long and hard at my mask. It was tired and worn and I knew she saw right through it.
When I hung-up I realized, I’m the phony. I’m the one who can’t commit. Maybe I’m scared — frightened, really. Maybe I’m still too raw and wounded from my divorce six years ago. Maybe I just haven’t met the right match.
There are lots of maybes, but only one reflection to look at.
I’ve recently stopped blaming them and started blaming myself. For my own emotional health, I’ve had stop talking so negatively to myself. I’ve had to stop comparing myself to women like my exes new sex coach girlfriend.
Seeing your reflection clearly in others can be a painful thing.
Pain, when met with grace and gratitude, is a catalyst for healing and inner-growth.
It takes courage and self-forgiveness to be able to move through the pain you have caused yourself. It takes insight and honesty to be able to look at your past and discover the origin of your self-sabotaging behaviors.
Years of therapy didn’t do the trick for me. It took me closing my heart to a man I felt a deep love for and watching him walk into the arms of another woman to take responsibility for my single status.
Years of therapy have definitely helped me understand my own mind and heart enough to know I will probably always compare myself to others — I’m human after all. But now I know I can stop myself. I can ask: is this thought serving me right now? If so, how? And if the answer is no, then I can choose to perceive the situation differently.
My current situation: I’m a single woman in her 40s.
Thoughts connected with my situation vary. Some days I feel like an empowered goddess who is happily choosing to own her single status. Other days I feel lonely and longing and crave companionship like a lost puppy. Yes, it all depends on where I am in my cycle (hormones are real!), but it also has to do with the state of my mind. How I think is how I see the world.
Mirror mirror on the wall…
How I perceive my own reflection depends on how much sleep I’ve had, how well I’ve eaten, whether I’ve worked out or not, how others have treated me — and on it goes.
How I think about myself has a lot to do with how well I am taking care of myself. Perhaps that is why self-care is the new buzz word.
The me I see in the mirror on a balanced day is a kind, compassionate, inquisitive, sensual, intelligent, empathic, sensitive soul that has a lot of growing to do, but loves who she is just the same.
The me I see on a tired, out-of-sync day is colored in darker tones and needs more from the world than she has to give.
The real me is a combination of a balanced and tired self. She’s authentic. She sometimes happy and sometimes discontent with her single state and knows that oscillation between the extremes is normal. She knows she growing and always will be. She’s aware of her insecurities and offers them, love, whenever she can. She knows she can’t live on this planet without needing others, so she’s okay with the fact that sometimes she needs to reach out for support.
The reflection that I see is imperfect and there is incredible beauty in that.
Mirror, mirror on the wall, show me my authenticity, flaws and all.
