here's to getting gut-level honest, more as a record and as a personal catharsis than anything else. i'd normally shy away a little from being quite so bare, even here, but hardly anyone reads it anymore anyway (and let's be honest, few people ever did). so it probably doesn't matter that much anyway.
i don't know if this is a problem with me or the society i live in--probably both. i suppose failure to adapt to the world one lives in is a kind of personal flaw in itself. i've thought for a while that we--Christian and secular Americans alike--put a frankly incomprehensible emphasis on romance, sex, and marriage.
now before you, imaginary reader, protest, yes. i understand that there are definite merits to these things. i understand that i am prone to having unpopular opinions on many subjects, not just this one. and i am almost certain that there is some kind of inherent element in the way most people think and are motivated that i must almost certainly be missing. i have wondered many times if i might be some flavor of what many secular people would call "asexual," or what many Christians would call "having the gift of singleness"--a phrase on which i have so many thoughts that it warrants a whole post all on its own.
"give it time, you just haven't found the right person yet." sure. maybe. i have no concrete evidence, since it's difficult to gather concrete evidence for personal mental trends in comparison to others' personal mental trends. it's also much more difficult to prove that something isn't there than proving that something is there. as an example, many people first start experiencing sexual attraction when they're in their early teens. it was something i thought about as little as possible outside of health class. many people start dating in high school. but i mean, i pretty much kept my head down and did my work, which kept me pretty focused. many people start getting into serious romantic relationships in college. when i was 19, it started occurring to me that maybe it wasn't really normal for someone my age to still find the idea of sex vaguely repulsive. and now, as increasing numbers of my friends are getting married (or planning to), it's hard not to think about the fact that at 24 (almost 25), i have never actually dated anyone, and the closest i've felt to sexual attraction was thinking that if one specific person wanted to kiss me, maybe i wouldn't object, more out of curiosity than anything. the point is, i think my perspective is not typical.
a couple other elements about my romantic history (or, more pertinently, my lack thereof): i have had a few of what i would define as crushes before, one of which may borderline on being too intense for the connotations associated with the word, but that's not the point. i do not crush easily. i have had roughly two people express interest in dating me before, but in both situations, i was not romantically attracted to the person, and did not want to force myself to manufacture feelings for them. why try to force a situation to become more complicated? that's what i thought the one time i was friends with the one asking--that's probably pretty revealing about my mindset.
so it's not impossible that someone could be interested in me in that way. and it's not impossible for me to be interested in someone else in that way, though maybe it's complicated. but the odds of both of those things happening, let alone in a situation where it would actually be a good idea to form a close relationship with that person, seem to me to be so astronomically improbable that it seems most likely that i will always be single. yes, i understand that that doesn't necessarily follow. it's still difficult to believe.
it's also difficult not to make value statements based on that line of thinking. "why would anyone like me?" "is there something wrong with me that i'm blind to?" and that sort of thing. again, i know it doesn't follow. it's one of those things i keep having to fight with the weapon of logic on days like today. it's not actually about the relationship, but what being in one says about you. man, i hate that.
it's worth noting that i know people whose greatest desire is to be married. it's the relationship they want more than anything, more even than the person they would be in relationship with. with me, it's different. i think marriage is a beautiful institution, valuable for all sorts of reasons, and i would not be against it for myself eventually. but frankly, it terrifies me, which is more than enough for me not to take it lightly. but. the most intense desire for a romantic relationship i've ever had was not even specifically for the relationship. what i wanted was that person's affection, his preference. a unique kind of comradeship. his partnership and company--even if in a group setting. obviously, those are all elements of a healthy romantic relationship, but most of them are not unique to that context. furthermore, before that point, i was perfectly content being single. it wasn't the relationship i wanted, but the person.
more to the point (finally!): it's not being single that bothers me. it's just that the more things change and people get married and even start families, the more conscious i become of the unsteady nature of my situation. everyone moves on, and most people grow apart eventually. nothing can change that fact, but part of the idea of marriage is that that person is essentially your traveling buddy. where you go, they go, what you do, they do. your interests and concerns become their interests and concerns, and your lives become entwined. you probably have more problems with this person than with any other, but there's no longer any question of that being the issue that separates you, because you have made an agreement in no uncertain terms to stick together. (i'm not naïve about divorce, but that's not what i'm talking about right now. i'm not speaking to the breaking of a covenant, but to the lack of one.)
the thing is, you could say the same of a family member, or a really close platonic friend. it's just that in this time and place, almost nobody does that. i have two close friends that live far away for grad school. we have a rough plan that, supposing we are all still single, we will move in together once they're finished, maybe even buy a house. provided we're all still single. the thing is, even if all that happened, part of our agreement would almost certainly include that if someone decided to get married at some future season, they absolutely would not be held to their platonic friendship house. which, in a way, brings us right back to the ever-present possibility that your traveling buddies will suddenly travel somewhere else. and as much as that makes me uncomfortable, i don't think i would necessarily want to be held to that either. even if i were against getting married in this present day, i still wouldn't bet on that desire for marriage and family never growing in me. but commitment isn't rooted in desire--if it were, it would be superfluous. so what should a commitment of friendship look like?
tl;dr: permanence is an illusion, and it's high time i accept it and learn to embrace the change, if possible. yet, commitment is still virtuous and important--it's more a question of who you're committing to, and our culture has little context for platonic commitment. and i have no idea what i want or expect about romance in my life, if anything.
