Hope Dies Last

There are minutes–neatly spaced between fun-filled seconds and productive hours–when it physically hurts to be alone.

I know this because I feel it. First it comes as a breathless, stabbing pain in my chest. Then it descends to my gut as if I’ve just been pushed out from an airplane without a parachute. It is at once painful and terrifying.

There are minutes where I believe that this is the way it will be. Period. I will live a life of quiet, peaceful unfulfillment. It is at once a choice and a resolution. But mostly its a defense. A wall I’m building around the disappointed fragments of my heart (and mind).

And yet there are minutes where I feel so hopeful that I almost shed actual fucking tears. This optimism that I will find a person that will love me seems so incredible to me. Because ordinarily I believe in evidence based facts. And I have absolutely no evidence to suggest that I will. These unfailing minutes of faith feel at once beautiful and delusional.

These lonely minutes are usually few and far in-between. Some weeks pass without a single minute. Other times, there will be days filled with countless of these minutes.

Today was one of those days. Today I felt all one thousand four hundred and forty minutes of  painful, terrified, beautiful and delusional loneliness.

After you have crossed a line you feel you cannot go back to a time when you hadn’t. You cannot un-learn what you have learned and you cannot undo what has been done. Since you’re already going to hell, you figure ‘What the hell, I might as well carry on.’ Especially when you really want to.  And then your mind will come up with all sorts of justifications to let you do it. ‘I deserve to be happy too.’ You ignore the little voice that replies, ‘Yes. But does it have to be at some other person’s expense?’ You want to jump into the deep end of darkness (or is it lightness? You can’t really tell the difference) and you want to live in denial. His head is stuck in the sand and you want to join him there. But you can’t because your head is always up, floating in the clouds. You know what the right thing to do is, but one minute you don’t care because what if this is the right thing? And the next minute you do care and and you know that you know right from wrong and you promise yourself that you will not move away from the crossed line. Then he calls and leaves an epic voice mail just to cheer you up and you want to believe that it is friendly but you feel that its not. So you stay away until you can’t stay away anymore. And then you hope that you will be able to restrain and restrain and restrain yourself from crossing that line a second time. Because the first time could–technically–be justified as an honest mistake. But the second time? That would be a choice. A conscious, deliberate choice.

And how would you ever find a way to justify that?

For some obscure reason, I recently spent an hour of therapy time discussing marriage.  Upon establishing that I am–in fact–pro marriage my therapist informed me that statistically speaking marriages produce happy husbands and bitter wives. She explained that this is almost always created because the average women my age believes that marriage will fulfill all their needs.

Initially, I reacted in the arrogant way that we all react sometimes. I am different. Then I made a judgment. Who are these silly women that believe that one person (and a piece of paper) can satisfy their every idiosyncratic need?

She began to cite the most common needs that women expect to be fulfilled through marriage. It was an exhaustive and long list. I rolled my eyes at the silliness. But, five minutes in I felt myself nodding in agreement. Ten minutes in, I began to furiously scratch an imaginary itch on my arm. Fifteen minutes in, I began to cross my legs, unfold them and then cross them again. At twenty minutes, I actually huffed and puffed. Finally– mid-session– I exclaimed to my therapist,

‘Goodness woman, I am so damn irritated and I don’t know why.’

It turns out that I am one of those silly women. I  have the expectation that The One will somehow complete me in every single way possible. To further my own embarrassment, I smugly stated:

‘Look, I’m not going to settle. I’m not going to compromise. I would rather be alone than be with something that doesn’t give me EVERYTHING I want.’

‘You are willing to compromise an entire relationship rather than to compromise some of your needs?’ she countered.

[She should have yelled CHECKMATE here but she didn't because she is a classy lady.]

As the session continued, I realized that I don’t even know what my needs are. I could see that I do naturally compromise (no matter my defiant denial of it) but I tend to compromise my most basic needs. I do this because I have never actually thought about my needs.Sure, I routinely think about the characteristics and traits I want my elusive future Man Friend to possess.But as a single woman, I feel like I have been brainwashed to believe that ‘need’ is a dirty, desperate word. The verb ‘to want’ implies an independence that is sexy and desirable.

It is absurd and that is the reason I have begun to think about my needs. These are the most important ones and I am not willing to compromise.

Equality

I do not believe that men and women are the same, but I do believe that we are equal. Therefore there needs to be some sort of balance in most aspects of the relationship. Men who subscribe to strict gender roles will stifle me. Equality will also impact the way we make decisions as a couple. I need my opinion to be just as important as his. I need us to be a team.

Acceptance

I need a man who will let me be me. An anecdotal example: if he is outdoorsy (something which I really am not) he will not try change me, or judge me, or deride me for not going to the gym. I am not willing to lose my sense of self for a man. This is not to say that I am not willing to change a little. I also want a man who will show me new experiences. But ultimately, I need to be loved for exactly the way I am.

Emotional Freedom

I need a man that is able to appreciate the complexity of my brain and who will be able to be an active participant in our emotional and intellectual worlds. What does this mean? I am a romantic, a dreamer, a philosopher and I believe in the goodness of people. I need a man who will be able to match that in some way.  This need however, is most important in the way we deal with conflict resolution. I fight to be understood and I fight to understand. I need a man who will want to resolve our differences in a constructive way. Time and time again.

Financial and Emotional Security

I need a man that is ambitious, hard working, practical, smart and who possesses an entrepreneurial spirit. He does need to provide for us both [See Equality] but I need to know–that in the worst case scenario–he will be able to push through. As for emotional security, I need a man who is strong but who can also acknowledge his weaknesses. I need a man who will do his best to choose to love me everyday and I need a man who will not run screaming into the abyss at the first sign of trouble.

Eye Candy

I need a man that I will be happy looking at for years. I like tall men with  kind eyes, naughty smiles and lean arms.

When I look at the above list, I feel a sense of understanding and relief for my past affairs. I have not yet met a man who would have been able to meet these five needs. It is disappointing but it is also liberating. While there are no prospects on the horizon, I am one step closer to knowing what I need which means I must be one step closer to getting it.

And there is nothing dirty or desperate about that.

Have you ever thought about your needs?  What are they? What about the ones you absolutely refuse to compromise?

My eyes are closed and my head is spinning from one too many vodkas. He is sitting on the edge of my bed waiting. I’m not sure for what exactly. I can feel him stand up and then sit back down. I mutter, ‘You’re drunk. Sleep on the futon.’ He stands up again. Then he sits back down and whispers, ‘I have to go.’  The disparity between words and action confuses me but I don’t have any time to question it because suddenly his lips are on mine.

My entire body wakes up. It is unexpected. But inevitable. I want this. I want this desperately.  But I don’t kiss back. My lips are numb. 

He has a girlfriend.

He stops. He stands up. Then immediately sits back down. And the only words I can think of saying are, ‘You cannot do this.’

But it is pointless. He kisses me again. And this time I give in. I kiss him back. It is a slow and curious kiss. Our tongues search for an answer to a question that remains elusive.  He strokes my hair with one hand and with his other he cups my chin to meet his lips. He whispers ‘Dammit. You are so lovely‘ into my mouth and my mouth catches his words and I swallow them whole. It is wrong and I know it. He is not mine to kiss. His compliments are not mine to receive. His face is not mine to stroke.

Just as unexpectedly as it started, it ends. My eyes are closed and my head is spinning from one too many illicit kisses. I hear my front door close softly. He is gone. I am alone.Everything is as it was.

Except now I know that I am weak enough to cross lines that I shouldn’t.

Dear Future Man Friend,

I’m sorry that I’m writing to you twice in such a short time span, but its been a surreal week and I feel like I need to talk to you. When I say need please don’t freak out and jump out of a moving vehicle to get away from me. I don’t mean to criticize before I’ve even met you, but that would be an extreme reaction. And we both know that between the two of us I’m going to have to be the dramatic one.

The thing is on Saturday night I watched in horror as one of my favourite people in the world went up in flames. A freak accident caused by a dangerous combination of a rather adorable sheep costume for Carnival and a tiny flame from a tea light.

Man Friend, it was terrifying.

After spending six hours in the burn victim’s ward of the hospital, I feel emotionally bankrupt. I’ve been challenged in my life and this one goes directly into the Top 10 of the chart. Watching a person I love in pain is hard. (Even if they are surprisingly and charmingly chirpy!) The knowledge that there isn’t anything I can do to make it better is even harder. But I’ve learned that in the darkest moments of a person’s life my mere presence is the best comfort I can provide.

Presence, Man Friend. It is such a simple concept yet at the same time so complicated for me. As a closeted phobic, the act of being present is incredibly challenging. I’ve missed out on all sorts of occasions and I’ve disappointed people I love because of my inability to surpass certain limits I place. I’ve learned, though, that there are three kinds of presence available to all of us. There is physical presence–the act of actually being there. Then there’s emotional presence–the act of showing care. Finally, there’s thoughtful presence–the act of expressing presence in the absence of physical presence. (Have I just blown your mind with my analysis? You’ll have to get used to that. I’m a woman of detail.) I rely heavily on emotional and thoughtful presence to be present. Some people accept that and other people simply can’t. I hope that you’ll be one of the people that does.

What I’m trying to say, Future Man Friend, is that sometimes when you need me I might not be able to be there, but know that I’ll always be there for you.

Present and waiting,

Your future lady friend

Hope

p.s. And you thought that this letter would be about how much I need you. That just goes to show that you’ll never quite get me. And I suppose I’ll have to get used to that.