ihavebeenfloated

It’s been well over a month now since I last wrote about myself.

I feel like I’m stagnating. There’s nothing happening. Just the same routine over and over again. That might be why I started sleeping through my classes against my will. The subconscious desire for drama, something to break up the monotony, finally got too heavy for my poor little mind to bear, so it gave me something to stress about.

I hang out with a few of my friends on a regular basis. We have fun, we drink, we play games, smoke cigarettes, talk about shit. I play a few video games and listen to new music. I go to class fairly regularly. I eat dinner with my parents almost every day. I talk to the same people online every day. Various other needs are taken care of on a regular basis. It’s been this way for a few months now. All in all, I’d say everything is stable and I’m happy. And it’s no fucking fun.

That’s not to say that I don’t enjoy everything I do with everyone. I am not trying to slight my friends, my people, and my surroundings. Everything I’ve got going is going good and there’s nothing wrong. It’s just been so long since such a stretch of time has passed in which nothing has exploded in my face. There’s no overwhelming sorrow, nor loneliness, overwhelming me on a daily basis. I don’t go to sleep hoping I just might not wake up. I wake up and I don’t feel like staying in bed because there is nothing worth getting out for. There’s no overpowering need for someone I can’t have.

What am I without all those things? I don’t know. I’m who I am, I guess, and I do a good job at that.

I keep trying to type, “It’s not enough, though,” but that isn’t the truth. I think I am just so unaccustomed to a life where there is nothing drastic happening. Stability, consistency, routine, what are these things? Some part of me doesn’t like them. A better part of me knows that they’re good and that I want them. I know that I want to keep them around. Still, while I’m sitting alone in my room, trying to figure out what is next on the agenda of Brad, a small piece of my mind creeps up on me from behind and hits me over the head with this feeling of general emptiness. It says to me, “Brad, nothing is happening, nothing is happening, when is something going to happen?”

I just thought, “You know, if I really need something to happen, I should make something awful happen,” but then I think, “Why would I want that?” My thoughts pipe in, “Well, you could make something awesome happen,” and I reply, “But I am too scared to do anything like that. Besides, I have other plans for this month, and I don’t want to upset them by trying to fall in love with someone. Again, I don’t want that anyway, which brings me to another point.

“Why the hell do you keep getting those flashes of loneliness? You’ve got everything you need! Everything you want, lying right there in front of you, or at least a few miles away. Where does this desire for companionship come from? Weren’t you badly broken enough last time to learn your lesson?”

“Yeah. Last thing I want is some stinkin’ relationship. I’m miserable in them. I hate the people I’m with even when I think I love them. They just weigh me down and make me feel like I’m slowly being suffocated in who they are. I have no interest, just none, not a single ounce of interest.”

“So, then, why do you think you keep feeling so lonely?”

“I’ll tell you why. We all feel the need for companionship sometimes.”

“We?”

“All of us. Humans.”

“You lie. We’re talking about you, here, not humans in general.”

“I’ve lived a life as a hopeless romantic so far. Constantly reaching and grasping for the next fix of perceived love. My head full of day dreams of lying on picnic blankets in fields of gold and all that nonsense. Now I’ve finally reached a point where I don’t want any of that. I don’t fantasize about falling in love.”

“You’re lying again.”

“Fine, fine, I do fantasize about falling madly in love with someone and wanting to run away with them forever. But now my fantasies dissolve into what I know as fact, which is to say that they always end up with someone crying, someone badly broken, someone feelingly badly. I can be in any of those roles. I’ve been in every one, so I know what they’re like. Do I break her heart by being myself? Gradually growing resentful of her presence in my life, something which is entirely my fault because I feel like I always want to be around her? Does she finally get tired of my two-dimensional personality which seems so intelligent and sarcastic but never evolves past that? Who gets caught in bed with someone else? Who makes the heartfelt confession of unfaithfulness? Who starts the fights and who never lets them end? Who is so goddamn pompous that they can never let an argument devolve into silence and angry air? Why even bother with all these variables?”

“You realize, right, that most of this anxiety is due to the fact that you’ve never had a healthy relationship, right?”

“Yeah. Of course.”

“You remember a couple of months ago, before you really launched into this whole anti-relationship thing, you actually felt reasonably confident that you analyzed and isolated all your quirks that would unhinge your relationships and would be capable of carrying on with a proper and healthy relationship?”

“Yeah.”

“What happened?”

“I’m not sure, actually. I got used to being alone, and I started to like it. I started to recognize that I was not only miserable at the end of relationships, but during them as well. Even before things would start to go seriously wrong, I would already feel unhappy in some way. I’m not sure what causes that.”

“Have any ideas?”

“Yeah. I’m a selfish person.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“Then what is it?”

“You’re not selfish. I’m going to actually make that declaration for you, because you never will. You walk around telling people you’re selfish and awful and I don’t think you really are.”

“What am I, then?”

“You’re so extremely introverted that it actually pains you to do things for other people when it involves being with them. You only venture outside or see people on your own terms, when you’re ready. A person asking for help does not depend on your choice. I know you’re willing to offer help to people, but you will turn people down when they ask you for help. You’re just not often willing to offer help to people, because you’re not often ready to accept that sort of burden on your psyche. You help strangers all the time, you’re nice to strangers, and you give bums money all the time. You remember that time you gave that bum twenty bucks?”

“Yeah.”

“Why’d you do that?”

“He was a nice guy, and I had money I didn’t really need.”

“So you gave it to him. Then he chatted you up while you walked to the 7-11 and seemed interested that you worked at a veterinary hospital, and none of it annoyed you at all.”

“You’re getting off topic.”

“No, no, there’s a reason for bringing it up. The reason is a question. If you’re so selfish, why’d you give a huge amount of money to a bum? And, oddly, if you’re so introverted why didn’t it bother you when he started talking to you for more than the three seconds it took to ask you for a handout?”

“I don’t know.”

“Because he didn’t take anything from you. You feel like people are constantly taking from you. When you hang out with someone and you don’t feel much like it, you feel like people are taking from you. They’re stealing your energy away from you. Simply being with people puts an immense drain on you. You can’t stand it.”

“That would make me selfish then, wouldn’t it?”

“No, it makes you introverted. It makes you protective of your stability. Is it selfish to want to protect yourself?”

“Sometimes. Maybe if you’re Jesus.”

“Funny.”

“Thanks.”

“The point is this: women are a drain to you. You’ve actually been so thoroughly drained at this point that you never want to feel that way again. Your inability to be happy within the context of a relationship is not due to the fact that you’re selfish, it’s due to the fact that you can’t live comfortably with someone inside your head. You operate just fine on fantasy, on lust and need, dreams of having someone in your arms, because that’s entirely on your own terms. You want that fantasy, you need it. The initial chase is just the same, you see a woman, you pursue her, you finally catch her in your arms and you wake up in bed next to her the next morning and the first thought that occurs to you is…”

“Man, I’ve got to get the fuck out of here so I can recharge.”

“But you don’t leave. You lay there and you wait for her to wake up. You spend half the day together, maybe grab lunch, and do other shit. Why do you do this?”

“Because I want a relationship. I want love. I want companionship.”

“Unfortunately for you, those things kill your mind. By the time you get home you’ve been sucked dry, but you’re still riding the high of new love. When that high finally wears off, you think it’s a come down, but it really isn’t. It’s just your natural reaction to spending time with a person.”

“I guess so.”

“So, what does all this tell you?”

“I was made broken. There’s no fixing this. The best I can do is find someone who doesn’t want to be around me. Someone who can love me while leaving me alone. Someone I can love while leaving them alone. This isn’t functional, right?”

“But it’s all you’ve got. So, you’ve got to learn how to love someone without wanting them so bad.”

“I can’t do that, there’s no point.”

“It’s your deal, man, your choice.”

“Good, because I’m going to have to sit on this for a while and think about it. Thanks for helping me with this.”

“You’re welcome, dude.”

“Also, thanks for not being an ass like last time.”

“You’re welcome, again. Besides, I’ve mellowed out quite a bit. You have too. Have you not noticed?”

“I have. Not much, though. You’re a lot better than I am.”

“I think I’m just starting to like you a bit. You’re not blindly fucking shit up everywhere, with a few notable exceptions, so I don’t feel such a need to be a dick.”

“I’m glad I can measure up.”

“I am, too. Later, man.”

“Later.”

I’m learning to deal with this being enough. I’m coping. It’s just withdrawal symptoms, and like all withdrawal, there is a way to wait it out and get over it. I’ll get over it. I just need some more time. Or, I need to find a way to entertain myself better. I guess we’ll see.