Another month, another break-up. Although that’s possibly too strong a term; how long do you have to ‘see’ someone for the end of it to be considered a ‘break-up’?
It’s hardly come as a shock, don’t get me wrong (mostly because once again I found myself doing the actual breaking up). There were signs, and as previously stated I am not looking for, hoping for or in fact wanting love (on either side of the equation).
I think this is the third one now in the last year and a half or so and as someone who has previously been a serial participant in rather ‘long term’ arrangements I should probably take the opportunity to reflect and work out where things are going awry. There are a number of factors / states common across them but ultimately I imagine the actual common factor is me. Quelle surprise.
So, before embarking on the (what is sure to be eye-watering) excercise of taking a long hard look at myself let’s look at the other commonalities.
The thing that would immediately occur to the the impartial observer (because that’s ever a thing) is that all three were younger than me, and I don’t just mean a year or two. In fact one of them only just passed the N/2+7 rule (and even I have to draw the line there; an ill-advised dalliance with someone in the high twenties last year convinced me that societal convention is not something to be trifled with) so at time of writing 31 is the hard-deck. A by-product of having younger friends is that other people you meet or interact with in a social setting tend to be younger as well which makes for great nights out but is not necessarily a strong foundation for a solid relationship.
Commonality the second: All work bar / industry, and late night. So, they’ve all had reasonably long-term exposure to (points thumbs at self) this guy but have for the most-part only seen the occasionally good bits: wit, humour, reasonable kindness, broader than most life experience & associated fields of reference, a frankly terrifying capacity for heavily-caffeinated-mixers-with-clear-spirit drinks. Ooh, and the ability to pay for said drinks.
Memes. Sweet Jesus the memes. All three bloody loved a meme (I won’t explain it here, but feel free to Google ‘pebbling’. No, really). Possibly a generational by-product that may have been endearing if only there had been variety. As is, every single one of these digital pokes fell firmly into one of four distinct categories:
- Age difference. Specifically relating to me being older. You know the type, the Tom Hardy as Ronnie Kray one. Screenshots for reference. That gets pretty old pretty quickly.
- Instability. Theirs, not mine. Usually with the visual aid of Isla Fisher in Wedding Crashers
- Maths. Yeah, you read that right. A working knowledge of the correct order of operations and various other high school maths basics is apparently an invitation to be sent a copy of every facile ‘can you solve this’ maths problem that pollutes your insta feed.
- Fucking astrology. 99% of the time connected to my month of birth or sign. You know it’s not real science, yeah?
There are other common themes but the more I think about it the weirder it gets. Disdain for your natural hair colour? Check. Proclivity for Emo / Nu Metal? Check. Overly-weird interest in who my ‘celebrity’ crushes might be? Check. Unnatural desire to make things ‘serious’? Fucking check. And also one more that I’ve struggled with a little bit as (I like to think) a reasonably respectful guy. When did this become such a thing..?
But anyway. Ultimately none of this is working for me because all I’m doing is filling days and nights. One of the things I realised not long ago is that, as the title suggests, it’s me that’s the problem.
As much as I might try to find fault with others, they’re actually doing nothing wrong. I’ve been trying very hard to escape a truth that isn’t going to go away and that’s just the fact that the only person I want is one that doesn’t want me. I still haven’t written the deep dive working out why I happen to be so fucked up over this but it’ll come eventually.
In terms of recent relationships I’ve been treated better than I have any right to be. Taken away to places, given gifts, tokens, affirmation, acceptance even, all that stuff that in my ‘traditional’ worldview would always have been ‘my’ job but I just can’t get past the idea that nobody else is *her*. I eventually came to a realisation that I was happier with them when I wasn’t actually *around* them (which I get is not right, you don’t have to spell that out). When not around them it was easier because messages and reels and snaps or whatever are reasonably impersonal and something I realised quite recently was that when I’m communicating with girls like that there was this tiny bit of my head that was subconsciously pretending that it was her that was speaking to me, saying nice things, wanting to spend time, and that whatever fake happiness I felt was all based on my stupid brain lying to itself.
So yeah, it’s me. No maybe about it.
