Categories: uncategorized
Date: 11 May 2005 22:28:00
It's a funny thing, this love business.
I suppose I grew up expecting it to happen and to be a fairly natural and straightforward business, like my parents' relationship was. Not that they didn't have their rows, of course, and if my mother hadn't taken the lead in asking my Dad to walk her home the day they first met, I'd never have been more than a twinkle in my father's eye at all. But it seemed to me as I grew that each person met their "other half", that people fit nicely into twos, that this was part and parcel of life and would all fall into place as part of my reaching adulthood.
It's funny, this sense of happy inevitability always tied in, I realise now, with a comfortable sense that "nobody would really want to go out with me, so I needn't get worries about this boyfriend seeking business - with me it'll just be straight into a marriage situation". Strange that. Reading it, I don't imagine anyone would understand that. Not that I don't feel attractive, I mean, but that I have always felt that as quite comfortable. Frustrating, maybe, but safe too - no broken hearts to deal with, no risk of coping with a relationship with the wrong person, no chance of divorce happening because I'd marry the right person, it wouldn't be complicated with superficial attractions.
What I'm actually finding hard to come to terms with is that I seem to have left a stream of broken-hearted men in my wake. Yet again I've been told by someone that they've always hoped for more than just a friendship with me. Me? I've just walked my merry way, totally oblivious... thoroughly enjoyed the friendship but expected and wanted nothing more from that particular friend. Frustrating, though, because it mars the friendship to a certain extent. Frustrating too to know (and I find it so hard to accept, too) that there are men who find me attractive but never the ones I hoped would feel that way - or did they, and I just never picked up on it or responded to it because it was safer not to? Am I so afraid of a relationship that I daren't acknowledge it? Is that why I don't seem to meet people who are right for me? Or do I set my expectations too high? Or am I too settled as a dyed-in-the-wool spinster (as I told my latest admirer - a lovely fellow who put me under no pressure at all to reciprocate his feelings).
I'm all confuzzled. I enjoy and cherish my independence too much to easily consider giving it up, but do I want to be alone? Can I have the male-female friendships I so enjoy without relationships getting in the way? And is there someone there who's actually looking for me to be his Mrs Right and how will I ever realise it?
Anyone got a brick wall handy for me to bang my head against?