|
|
I Thought I Found a Soulmate, But.... (Souls W/O)Feb 13 '03 Write an essay on this topic.
Popular Products in Books
The Bottom Line I'm the co-host of this write-off, and yet... I completely failed to follow the requirements.
As I write this, tomorrow will be Valentine’s Day, and now that everybody else has done their part for this Valentine’s Day write-off, I, as co-host, am fulfilling my own obligation, with my own special piece. Well.... I’m trying to fulfill it anyway......... I’m feeling particularly like a fraud at the moment as I write this. Most everybody else has written a touching piece about a very important person in their lives. I, on the other hand, don’t have any touching tales to pass along -- I wish I did, but I do not. My life seems to be the polar opposite of those satisfying tales, as I end up meeting people that are either all wrong for me, or I’m all wrong for them. What luck! Sure, there have been a number of times that I thought I might have found a soulmate, or at least a special person, but usually that search was conducted while wearing rose-colored glasses or something that creates a similar effect of utter delusion. The most important person in my life, for a while, was a woman who was beautiful on the outside, and disturbed on the inside, who once told me that if she weren’t a Christian, she would have committed suicide .... geez, that’s going to get you very far, isn’t it? Despite her negativity, I idealized this person to the extreme -- I thought that she was a wonderful person who had issues, who was lonely, and who needed to sort things out. All of this was true, of course, but the problem was that I took her too much for granted -- I always assumed that she would be available, and that she would continue to accept me into her life. Well, I shouldn’t make it out to be that bad -- for about 18 months we had what I thought was a friendship. Being someone who never really gets too close to people, I even considered her to be my best friend. And we did a lot of things together -- going out to movies, eating out, or even just taking walks, or chatting on the phone for hours. And it was like this for nearly a couple of years, so obviously there was some attachment. I even attempted to make something more out of this friendship -- I talked to her once about maybe creating something “official” out of this, but she declined. Soon, things happened. I had gotten involved in a meaningless fling with another woman, and my friend got upset at me -- as in giving me the silent treatment, and so on. Naturally, I assumed that she was jealous. I retaliated by writing her a letter basically saying how dare you act this way, because it’s not as if me and you were dating or anything -- you didn’t want to be my girlfriend. She denied any jealousy -- her “official” reasons are too detailed and complex to get into here, but suffice it to say that they were pretty foolish statements. Naturally, being a person with a major guilt complex, I tried to fix things up, but it didn’t work. More than a year passed, before I finally got the courage to contact her again recently, for, at the very least, some closure. I began to realize that, as much as I assisted in making the situation miserable, my friend really wasn’t that perfect person after all. She was, and is, so self-loathing, so willing to make herself look so unappealing and undeserving of anyone. After this conversation, I realized that I would never make her happy, and I’d never be happy with her..... I realized that I could never enjoy being in her company anymore. I think that both of us needed the other for a while, at least. I needed a woman in my life, not necessarily a lover, but just someone to be with, while she needed someone to put up with her (and I put up with quite a bit, although I know that she wasn’t nearly as bad as other people I’ve encountered and/or heard about). But that’s not the same as finding a soulmate, naturally. I knew that this essay was going to go down the road of cynicism and despair, but, after having just read Sue’s (millinocket) entry, I realized that perhaps the problem is that we expect to find the perfect person, and are naturally disappointed when things do not go our way. I was too busy thinking about the fact that my friend was an attractive woman, who actually had time for me, who could talk to me, and who would listen to me, that I blinded myself to her faults. Well, maybe I didn’t blind myself to her faults -- maybe I thought I could help her. Maybe I thought that, by being her friend, I could make her feel better. Obviously, that didn’t work, as she turned out to be much the same as she was, if not worse, when I met her. The last time we spoke, she asked me how I could have ever considered her a friend, due to all the things she said about me, and about herself. She said other equally nasty things as well, but I couldn’t feel insulted, only upset for her, because it would be so blatantly obvious to anyone listening to her that she was really saying “I’m a worthless person, David”. She did her utmost to make herself look terrible. I couldn’t deal with it anymore, because I realized that it would never work out, and that all the stuff I felt before was for naught. This woman would never be that special person. So, perhaps I’ll have to take Sue’s advice, and convince myself that soulmates don’t really exist. Of course, my problem could just be that I went the wrong way in seeking one. Or perhaps not. Every person is different. Every person has problems. Nobody is perfect. If we think that we are going to find that perfect person, that person that will completely satisfy us, we’ll always be disappointed when something goes wrong. I’ve been disappointed many times, myself.... although I’d suspect that those people who have disappointed me, have also been disappointed by me, so there you go. One thing I’ve learned at the very least, is that I ought to spend less time focused on my expectations, and my hopes, and more on the actual person. I think that I was too caught up in my expectations of this person, in my hopes for myself, that I might have blinded myself to the real person even as I thought that I was helping this person out in some way. I’m not saying that I would have eventually gotten rid of my friend if she hadn’t brushed me aside first -- I think that part of the problem was that I hoped that things would get better, and that I could have had a future with this person, and I probably would have waited forever if I could have. That meaningless fling I mentioned earlier might have been some sort of compensation for not getting what I wanted, or hoped for - or maybe it was an unconscious way of hurting my friend, I don’t know. The emotional ramifications, for me, at least, still linger. This person was more important to me than any other woman I had contact with. I know that I didn’t do enough, but at the same time, I know that I probably could never have done enough -- she had enough problems of her own that some silly guy could never fix them all for her. In any case, this situation ensures that I’m not nearly as hopeful that I’ll find that special person, that soulmate. Most of us do have some hope, hidden away somewhere in the more irrational parts of our souls. Surely, I have a bit of that as well, although past experience has dulled that area considerably. Years ago, I would have been more naive, more positive that I would find that special person -- now I’m not so sure anymore. I still think about stuff like that occasionally, but usually spend most of my spare time writing stories about people who think they’ve found the perfect person until events say otherwise -- anyone who has read my fiction on Writer’s Corner will know what I’m talking about. So..... what advice could I give? Well, one thing I’ve learned is never take anyone for granted. Don’t expect them to be able to make you happy. At the same time, realize that you can’t always solve other people’s problems --- while it’s great to be there for others, you can’t make it your life’s work to solve that person’s problems just because there’s something about that other person that stimulates your body and mind in some way. People with truly great and healthy relationships totally accept each other, and don’t have to use or manipulate each other in any way in order to make each other, or themselves, happy. Perhaps I’ve betrayed this entire write-off by writing about this melancholy chapter in my life. I tried writing a creative story, I’ve toyed with writing about other important people in my life, I’ve played with other ways of talking about soulmates, but none of those worked out for me. I haven’t had time to fully form a decent essay lately, anyway, so this was the best that I could do with the time that I had. I’m sorry that this essay isn’t as good as it could be, either, but again, I’m sort of pressed for time. In any case, more loverly stuff can be found on either mine or jankp’s profile pages. And have a Happy Valentine’s Day!!!!!  |
| Read all comments (14)|Write your own comment |
|
Ads by Google
|
