I've worn on my sleeve, too many times,
the pain of my past. I kept it there for the distinct ability to
remind myself to deal with it, or while I dealt with it. I spent
years sifting through those moments to gain as much from them, to
grow as much as I could from them. It was a great deal easier, I
feel, than facing other people in similar emotionally draining
situations in which they do nothing to alter their predicament.
Now, however, I feel as though I'm
being smothered by this very thing that is completely out of my hand.
It should come as no surprise that I've
witnessed very minimal good relationships, and taken part in even
fewer. Good moments, sure. Happy moments that kept people – even
myself – holding on to dying or dead connections, absolutely. I've
never, however, seen a combination of two people over the course of
an extended period of time in which the two people remained steadily
happy and flourishing.
I suppose that is the one thing that
has shaped my mindset from a psychological standpoint in regards to
human interactions.
I've been told more times than I could
ever care to count that two people are happy, that they work together
extremely well, and that they couldn't imagine a life better with
anyone else. Isn't that, by default, a bit of a narrow minded
perspective?
Let me just examine little more than a
statistical perspective. I'm currently 31 years old. I've not
traveled even 10% of the amount that I would have liked to have done
thus far in my life, and I doubt that number goes up much higher
considering the more I travel the more I want to travel. Anyway, I
digress. My point being, if I've only experienced 10% of what I want
to in terms of simple locations in this world then let's just assume
that I've not experienced even 10% of the TYPES of people in any
given location I've been to, and I'd say that it should be noted that
I'm very introverted, thus, probably narrowing that percentage down
to a low single digit – if not less than a single full digit. Fuck
it, the statistics are too hard to keep up with.
Assuming this holds true then how could
I ever believe that I've found the perfect person for me already in
my life? Or, hell, anyone at all in this world?
Then there is a much deeper and complex
variable to add to this. The variable of change. Every event that
we encounter in our life adds an altered perspective to how we live
and perceive. Monumental events like deaths of loved ones all the
way to getting coffee at an abnormal time of the day which causes a
car accident can have extreme changes to perception.
Perception, then, is the most common
factor in how we live from day to day. Even a minor detail in my
perception can have a ripple effect that alters how I perceive a
loved one. It is all dynamically interconnected, and given every day
being a host of more experiences than we can possibly fathom then it
should come as no surprise as to how frequently we, as humans,
change.
Of course, some people need routines
and stick to them with unwavering forcefulness. A slight hiccup in
that previously mentioned coffee schedule could throw their entire
emotional stability for the day out of whack – you should probably
avoid dating those people anyway, but again, I digress. These people
also seem to be the ones, from my personal experience, looking to
close that gap of loneliness as quickly as possible and try to hold
onto those relationships as tightly as possible – lying to not only
other people about how happily engaged they are with their lover, but
also lying to themselves.
I suppose at this point I should reveal
my great epiphany of a solution, but the reality is that I don't have
any such resolution. I'm of the firm belief that, at least for me,
there are relationships that work for now and possibly for an
extended period of time. That time frame could last for months or
decades, I just simply don't know until I give them a try (which is
probably why I've held so many relationships with such a wide variety
of lovers).
I do know a couple things, however.
The first thing that I know is that I never want to stop growing as a
person. I never want my life to dull down into a hum-drum routine
that makes my life feel more like stale, moldy bread than having the
next day feel as though it could offer a great new adventure to learn
from. Secondly, I know that I probably make the worst boyfriend in
the entire world.
-Dustin S. Stover
For more reading by me, here's my collection of short stories for your reading pleasure.
Kindle: Happiness in a Void of Darkness
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