Loremaster wrote:I completely disagree; you make it seem as though any experience is valued. I'd give the world to get out of my current problems. I want to experience companionship. End of story. It's okay for you to say all that, but you have someone. I never have had anyone. You cant possibly understand my stance.
I think it is impossible for anyone to "completely understand" anyone else's stance--it is part of the uniqueness that we all possess that we all feel and comprehend things differently.
Of course, in our common humanity, we are all enough alike that we can listen to someone talk about their experience and be able to
relate to it because of our own experiences.
The whole
sex thing is something that I've thought about at great depth my entire adult life--in part because I am human and have the same biological urges and desires as everyone else, and in part because my inability to trust anyone enough to become that vulnerable to them--to actually allow them entrance to my actual
self has kept me from engaging in the sexual act.
Like Duchess and caamora, I believe that the right person is essential--someone who is trustworthy. Someone you love and who loves you. Otherwise, you reduce yourself to a temporary penis storage device, like a sandwich bag to be used until the need for the sandwich's storage is past. Then it is discarded and never thought of again.
I understand the loneliness and aloneness that Loremaster is speaking of. I've been on my own since I left home at 18. In my younger years--especially my late 20's and 30's, I was desperately lonely. I wanted a husband and children. I wanted to have the family I dreamed of having for myself when I was a child--the one that was impossible because my parents were both so dysfunctional that they shouldn't have had pets, much less children.
However, my inability to trust--bred from years of being under the thumb of abusive, crazy people--never allowed me to get beyond a certain level of intimacy--with ANYONE in ANY kind of relationship, male or female.
As I passed into my 40's and am now beginning my 5th decade of life on this planet, I have entered into a more zenlike state, I guess. I have accepted my lot. I don't cry anymore--well, not much anyway--at the fact that I don't have children or a family of my own. Perhaps it's because I am now at the stage in life where my children would be grown up. Heh heh...
I've learned to redirect my energies. I have lots of friends--I love them, and they love me. I have come to understand that even those people with the things I lack and longed for all my life do not necessarily live perfect, fulfilling lives. And I have learned that, really, everyone is alone inside their own heads. Perhaps the level of "togetherness" that I longed for but felt incapable of really doesn't exist at all. Perhaps it's just an illusion....I don't know.
Fifty years of never having had sex has made me feel like an aberration sometimes--like I am less than human, somehow, and not as worthy of drawing breath as others. BUT, I also resent that feeling and push it away. My life has had value and validity--even without sex and companionship.
If I had had the things that I wanted--I would not be as effective in the position that I am in now--I could not have given my whole attention to my little delinquents and could not love them as deeply as I do now--because that deep love would have been claimed by my own children and spouse. I would no doubt still have cared deeply for them--but I couldn't have given them my whole heart.
So, maybe this is what my life was meant to be like. Personal satisfaction and fulfillment sacrificed for the greater good--so that these children can be redirected, and the hundreds of them that I touch and influence can have what I did not, and do better than they would have without me.
I don't know.
It helps me to think that when the loneliness is overwhelming and it's just me and the cat under the covers at night.
At any rate, this IS my life. I have to embrace what is, and make the best of it.
I can let it bury me, or I can continue to do what I can, love others as much as I am able to, and keep my chin up.
Well, here's what comes of thinking--a self-indulgent essay which is probably better deleted...ah well. Such is life.
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Truly, I don't understand why no one has snatched up someone as precious and sweet as Loremaster....they all must be crazy in your part of the world. Heh heh... I can't help believing that somewhere is a dear and precious young woman who is pining for someone Just Like LM. All we have to do is get the two of you together somehow.
heh heh
I believe it will happen--but then, after all these years, I am still a romantic optimist.
