TheSolitaryMan
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- Joined
- Feb 25, 2011
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Hey all, hope you had a good Christmas (if you celebrate it of course! )
Haven't seen this come up, despite what an interesting and complicated topic it seems to be, at least in my mind. I'm sure other people must feel it too.
I figured I'd start a thread to get some particularly weird and potent emotions out of my system, I apologise if it seems disorganised, rehashed content-wise or rambly. This might be a long one
I think I put my finger on exactly why I feel so **** rough when it comes to romance for so long. I've had it for a while...it's just different to your "usual" romantic woe I guess. And it's horrible!
It gnaws at me relentlessly whenever someone is being flirty with me and I seem to hit an invisible wall of my own restraint. It bites away when I'm sat around thinking about what I want from my personal life too.
It's a crap analogy, but guess the best I can describe it is feeling like you're dying of thirst next to an oasis, but you cannot bring yourself to drink because you feel like the fresh, cool water is poisonous.
When I think about it, there are two grand experiences I'd like with a girl. I've mentioned them in the past, but to speak rather candidly:
- I'd like to kiss and cuddle a girl
- I'd like to make love to a girl
The weight is definitely on the former over the latter, but I feel pretty intense about both. I feel almost ashamed to admit that, which is part of my problem I guess, given it's a human trait :rolleyes2:
I've always considered myself a moral person. It probably came across in my older threads that I'm a bit strict/stuffy when it comes to justice, honesty, that kind of thing. I've also got a strong sense of duty, to myself and others.
The end result is that I have this enormous inner moral conflict between my desires as a guy and what I believe is "right" as a human being.
Unfortunately it seems to be a situation I just cannot resolve at all; I've been trying for so long to rationalise my way past it, but I can't do it.
There are so many things in my life that I feel like I've sacrificed to put what is "right" in my view first, I can't even list them. I feel this deep need to go out of my way to make sure the "right" thing gets done, even if it means personal discomfort or leaving my personal wants at the door.
Never has this been more apparent than the romantic situation. I don't know if it's my low self-esteem that makes for a toxic combo (I never really feel "good enough" for any girl I like), but every single time someone shows interest in me, I can feel myself backing off without even actively doing it.
Frustration!
I want so much to just sweep a girl away when she flirts with me, ask her out, flirt back, be a little bit risque and exciting and open up my personality. I can't express how much I'd like to respond like that. I even know how to do it!
I just can't release some kind of internal lock that halts all that and forcibly keeps me at a "safe" emotional distance.
I think one reason I do it is because I have this paranoid fear of making a girl unhappy. Lost Drifter pointed out how negative and irrational this was to me in my "Phys. Flirting" thread and it was an excellent comment.
I hate to cause people discomfort if it's strictly unneccessary, to the degree that I even avoid being part of their lives if it minimises any possible negative impact.
So I just observe things happen and stay out of all that stuff, permanently sacrificing my own happiness to avoid ever crashing someone's emotions. How stupid does that sound? I can't seem to change it, though. I'm not sure I even want to change it :\
So the contradictions come straight under what I want:
- I don't want to hurt a girl
- I don't want to cause unneccessary grievance in someone's life
- I get unusually uncomfortable with the thought of physical intimacy, greatly dislike the idea of casual sex, yet at the same time I'm absolutely dying for hugs and kisses -.-
I...urgh. Feel like I'm slowly uncovering some kind of universal truth about myself. Like a regime I've conditioned myself into all my life. I'm not sure if it's bad or good, I don't even know what I want, just that it's an important part of me.
It's everything good about me and also everything that makes me unhappy and ultimately unloved.
I guess overall I'm just feeling like a huge bag of mismatched jigsaw pieces right now when it comes to my ideas of intimacy, morality and romance. What I've typed probably makes me sound nuts.
It's late after all, and I always get very thoughtful and dark-visioned when the night draws in, not a good collection of states! I'm sure in the morning I'll wonder what I was wittering on about.
I also hope this wasn't too depressing to read, it was certainly a long ramble. Respect to anyone who reads this far
For the record, I'm actually feeling pretty happy with everything else in my life right now, which makes it all the more ironic that I'm having such deep and bleak peaks into this apparent inner void o_0
Haven't seen this come up, despite what an interesting and complicated topic it seems to be, at least in my mind. I'm sure other people must feel it too.
I figured I'd start a thread to get some particularly weird and potent emotions out of my system, I apologise if it seems disorganised, rehashed content-wise or rambly. This might be a long one
I think I put my finger on exactly why I feel so **** rough when it comes to romance for so long. I've had it for a while...it's just different to your "usual" romantic woe I guess. And it's horrible!
It gnaws at me relentlessly whenever someone is being flirty with me and I seem to hit an invisible wall of my own restraint. It bites away when I'm sat around thinking about what I want from my personal life too.
It's a crap analogy, but guess the best I can describe it is feeling like you're dying of thirst next to an oasis, but you cannot bring yourself to drink because you feel like the fresh, cool water is poisonous.
When I think about it, there are two grand experiences I'd like with a girl. I've mentioned them in the past, but to speak rather candidly:
- I'd like to kiss and cuddle a girl
- I'd like to make love to a girl
The weight is definitely on the former over the latter, but I feel pretty intense about both. I feel almost ashamed to admit that, which is part of my problem I guess, given it's a human trait :rolleyes2:
I've always considered myself a moral person. It probably came across in my older threads that I'm a bit strict/stuffy when it comes to justice, honesty, that kind of thing. I've also got a strong sense of duty, to myself and others.
The end result is that I have this enormous inner moral conflict between my desires as a guy and what I believe is "right" as a human being.
Unfortunately it seems to be a situation I just cannot resolve at all; I've been trying for so long to rationalise my way past it, but I can't do it.
There are so many things in my life that I feel like I've sacrificed to put what is "right" in my view first, I can't even list them. I feel this deep need to go out of my way to make sure the "right" thing gets done, even if it means personal discomfort or leaving my personal wants at the door.
Never has this been more apparent than the romantic situation. I don't know if it's my low self-esteem that makes for a toxic combo (I never really feel "good enough" for any girl I like), but every single time someone shows interest in me, I can feel myself backing off without even actively doing it.
Frustration!
I want so much to just sweep a girl away when she flirts with me, ask her out, flirt back, be a little bit risque and exciting and open up my personality. I can't express how much I'd like to respond like that. I even know how to do it!
I just can't release some kind of internal lock that halts all that and forcibly keeps me at a "safe" emotional distance.
I think one reason I do it is because I have this paranoid fear of making a girl unhappy. Lost Drifter pointed out how negative and irrational this was to me in my "Phys. Flirting" thread and it was an excellent comment.
I hate to cause people discomfort if it's strictly unneccessary, to the degree that I even avoid being part of their lives if it minimises any possible negative impact.
So I just observe things happen and stay out of all that stuff, permanently sacrificing my own happiness to avoid ever crashing someone's emotions. How stupid does that sound? I can't seem to change it, though. I'm not sure I even want to change it :\
So the contradictions come straight under what I want:
- I don't want to hurt a girl
- I don't want to cause unneccessary grievance in someone's life
- I get unusually uncomfortable with the thought of physical intimacy, greatly dislike the idea of casual sex, yet at the same time I'm absolutely dying for hugs and kisses -.-
I...urgh. Feel like I'm slowly uncovering some kind of universal truth about myself. Like a regime I've conditioned myself into all my life. I'm not sure if it's bad or good, I don't even know what I want, just that it's an important part of me.
It's everything good about me and also everything that makes me unhappy and ultimately unloved.
I guess overall I'm just feeling like a huge bag of mismatched jigsaw pieces right now when it comes to my ideas of intimacy, morality and romance. What I've typed probably makes me sound nuts.
It's late after all, and I always get very thoughtful and dark-visioned when the night draws in, not a good collection of states! I'm sure in the morning I'll wonder what I was wittering on about.
I also hope this wasn't too depressing to read, it was certainly a long ramble. Respect to anyone who reads this far
For the record, I'm actually feeling pretty happy with everything else in my life right now, which makes it all the more ironic that I'm having such deep and bleak peaks into this apparent inner void o_0