London Calling…

I’m single, and I’m not looking. Don’t ask me out, because I’m not interested. Not that people ask me out a lot, the problem resides more in the people trying to set me up with their single friends. Some people seem to think that life is incomplete without a significant other. First of all lets deal with the really obvious questions.

I don’t hate men, I don’t hate women. No, I haven’t just gotten out of a big relationship. My last relationship, though highly significant, ended over 9 months ago, and had lasted under a year and a half. No, I’m not emotionally fucked up about sex. I’ve been through fucked up and come well out the other side, and gained much perspective. No, I’m not incapable of intimacy, I both value and enjoy it immensely. And no, I’m not terrified of commitment. I was for a long time, but I have finally gotten to the stage where I make decisions that I hold to, and am not afraid to make them.

And I suppose that’s the point really. Why make a decision I can’t stick with? Why date? Why look for things that I don’t really want? I don’t meet people that I’m attracted to very often. Because I’m only attracted to people I know well enough to admire their intelligence, or their character, preferably both. I don’t see the point of trying to be interested in someone, that’s so shallow, and so fucking meaningless.

I’ve been in a reasonably large number of relationships for someone who’s just turned 23. They had varying degrees of seriousness, but they had one thing in common, when I was in them, I was in them with my whole heart, and if that stopped being the case they ended. I don’t do things by half.. Which doesn’t mean I go to bars looking for my soul-mate, it means I never look for anything.

And aside from disagreeing with the very principal of dating, ie. seeing someone you are trying to like before you really know them, I hate almost everything else about it. The etiquette, the lack of sincerity, how difficult it is to be sincere if you want to be, the embarrassment, the feeling like you have to live up to someone’s expectations. The knowledge that you are being judged and evaluated by someone, however irrelevent their opinion may turn out to be.

I don’t need to be in a relationship to feel worth something. I value myself just fine alone. I don’t need someone to have dinner with, and I don’t need someone to have to listen to me talk shit when I’m angry or stressed. Sure, those things are handy. But nothing is a good enough excuse for being in a relationship you’re not pushed about. If I was in one, I’d feel like I was lying to both myself and someone else every day.

None of this means I think love is unimportant. On the contrary, I think its incredibly important. It’s the second most important thing in the world. So it shouldn’t be trivialised by fools for the sake of smothering their insecurities. I’ve been in love, I know how it feels, I have no desire to try and fake it, or reproduce it through my own efforts. Nor do I have the ability.

So take your cutesy, 4-week-old little relationships and shove them up your butts, or hell, rub them in my face, it makes not one bit of difference. Because I don’t envy you. Not one bit.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 4th, 2006 at 2:16 pm and is filed under Rant. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.