This one's a bit more personal and i've been debating how much to put on here in terms of what i'm thinking about the arguably more important stuff, because i reckon there's a limit to how much i should really share, both for my sake and my reader's.
I've been feeling, for lack of a better term, out of sorts for the longest time now. Most the time not unhappy, just most the time not particularly happy either. I really don't know how to describe it well without sounding melodramatic or making it seem like i'm feeling worse than i am. I guess it feels like i'm waiting, waiting for something that will make all the uncertainty that is inherent in everyone's teenage years seem, i don't know, worthwhile, or maybe just make things make a bit more sense.
I'm not entirely sure what it is though that i'm waiting for. My gut instinct suggests it's romance/a relationship/love/whatever you want to call it, i reckon it's the thing i'm most conscious is missing from my life atm. I have a great group of friends, i like my course and i'm reasonably happy with the career i feel i'm heading for. I've always been hyper aware of romance and relationships, it's just the way i'm wired i guess, but i've always put a much greater importance in relationships and trying to find someone than other people seem to.
Recently though i've been thinking that it's maybe that i'm just more open about it, rather than really so much more eager to meet someone. You see i reckon companionship is one of those primal needs, we're a social species and finding someone to be with in a long term way is surely just the natural conclusion to that particular desire. However admitting that, admitting that you need someone else is kind of scary. A lot of people get scared by the idea of a relationship, of something "serious" because despite as i said earlier being social by nature, we also have a pretty strong instinct for self-preservation and the avoidance of pain, and let's be frank, love and relationships can hurt like a bitch. So life ends up being a sort of balancing act, where we try and weigh up whether another human being might be worth the risk. Most people keep their guard up, have some defences between them and the rest of the world that they instinctively put up when it comes to romance.
Plus it's not considered 'cool' or even all that desirable (believe me that realisation didn't exactly fill me with hope) to be overly keen on relationships, or at least that's the way it seems. Turns out that people seem to want to find someone who's as guarded as them, because someone who's open and maybe a little too keen at times, that scares them away more effectively than having a whole load of trust issues and being unwilling to commit. Go figure.
I do dislike that side of our culture (though maybe it's the same in all cultures), the feeling that really caring about something or someone, loving them, openly, isn't something people want. I hate that being openly passionate is either something which scares people or that gets mocked. So most people try to act cool and indifferent, like in some way if they act like it doesn't matter to them, it won't. But i think that's just denying what's going on. I refuse to believe that people don't want to love and be loved, don't want to be free to be passionate about whatever takes their fancy. Maybe i'm reading too much into it, maybe i'm making sweeping generalisations that no one who reads this will agree with, but it just seems we're all so busy hiding how we feel that we run the risk of missing out on what to me makes life worthwhile.
I don't really have much of a defence system when it comes to girls or romance. I'm a complete and utter hopeless romantic as anyone who really knows me will probably have realised and become sick of. I wrote an 80,000 word story trying to lose myself in a created world of romance and relationships. I threw myself into writing that when i should have been revising for my A-levels. It's of pretty questionable literary quality but i love it mostly just because i managed to focus on something for that long and finished it. I was just putting many of the hopes, fears and dreams i had going on in my head onto the page and it kind of developed into a moderately coherent love story. I struggle a lot of the time with the fact that the life i live every day is quite so far away from even the more modest elements of the narratives i've written and the stories i've read. I write quite a lot of the time as an outlet for that frustration i guess, because as i said earlier, to express those things outside of the world of fiction would make people uncomfortable. (maybe this will, i don't know anymore)
I do find it tough a lot of the time being single, i just don't think i was cut out for it really. But that's the reality of my situation and i'm fully aware that if the worst thing i have to complain about right now is a sucky love life and an irritatingly constant feeling of loneliness then i'm really pretty lucky and life could be a hell of a lot worse.
I know i let it get me down too easily a lot of the time but i just hope it doesn't seem to people that i'm not aware of or grateful for how good my life is in so many ways, espescially in terms of the friends i have. Also despite the down sides to the way i am, i don't think i'd change even if i knew how, so i guess that means i need to start trying to like how i am.
Now i debated for a long time whether to post this, or at least the second half of it. For a start it doesn't exactly paint me in the greatest light and it's also a little bit more intense than i'm going to usually aim for with these blog updates. But if i'm honest with myself anyone that knows me at all properly will have worked out most of these things already and despite everything i'm proud of who i am, even if it hasn't always worked out in my best interests.
If this post seems a little intense, that's because i'm a little intense. If it seems melodramatic, soppy, cheesy, weird, incoherent, that's because i'm all of those things half the time.
So i guess i just hope people can deal with that, because i'm really trying to.
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I'm thinking i might post on here a short story i wrote ages ago that i'm quite proud of. Not sure yet though, i'll have a think over the next couple of days.
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