Why I'm Single

Hola Everybody,
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People sometimes ask me, Why are you single? LOL There isn’t a simple answer to that, though complications never stopped me from attempting anything. So! Here goes...

The Single Life

(Or: The Man Your Mother Warned You About)

Let me clarify right off the bat that I’m not attempting to justify or defend my “singledom.” I am single mostly because it is how I choose to live -- it’s a conscious lifestyle choice. Contrary to conventional wisdom, there are many, many advantages to being single.

A little history... I’ve been single for most of my adult life primarily because I never viewed being in a committed relationship as a priority. I didn’t grow up idealizing the conventional wife-2.5-kids-house-picket-fence thingee. And yes, I liked to have fun and during my earlier years attempted to have as many sexual and casual relational experiences as possible. I am only making an observation when I state that I have experienced a lot. More than the norm. One friend accused me of reading to many Penthouse letters.

So strike off at least 20 years to simply being a slut -- mostly. Not a “player.” I was never a player. I am too introspective or conscientious for that. I am not cruel in the sense that I would intentionally hurt others in my quest for gratification. More accurately, I was a hedonist with philosophical tendencies. LOL!

(I’m having fun here, but I suspect there will be a price to pay.)

So! That’s how or why I was single for most of my adult life. But why am I single now, you ask?

Well, the reasons are many. I am currently unemployed, so I couldn’t blame you of you observed that being broke is not an attractive look. But I was single when employed and earning a decent wage. So that's not even a minor reason.

In any case, one reason might be that there’s a large segment of women who will have nothing to do with me because of my past. I have a past and “bohemian” doesn’t even begin to describe it. I’ve been many things at different times in my life, many of them not attractive to the more conventional types (or any normal person, for that matter). As a consequence, my past serves to marginalize me. I’ve been everything from an active addict to (make-believe) pimp, to criminal, to scam artist to... well, you get the idea. In a way, I am the man your mother warned you about. And no, whatever rumors you may have heard, I have never thought it was cool to fuck my girlfriend in the ass and then leave her. I’m kidding!

 

I’ve met many women who have balked because of my past. And that’s OK, really. I am open and honest about who and what I was and if you can’t accept that, it really doesn’t pain me. Good luck and before you close the door (gently please), take as your parting gift that ultimate prize -- the last word. Summed up, there are women who won’t have much to do with me because I’m the Gangster of Love or some bullshit like that.

I am probably old enough to be your father but my outlook is young in nature. I love to laugh, to flirt, to have fun. I have seen more ugliness than even my tired eyes could ever tell you, but I’m still utterly fascinated and awed by life. I am curious to the point of distraction and I enjoy exploring new ideas and questioning beliefs (yours and mine). I mention all this because I think these attributes are both an attraction and a turn-off. For some, my attitude spell, “Danger” or at the very least immaturity. I’m still the one who will point out the Emperor (or hostess) has no clothes when everybody else knows discretion is the better part of valor. I sometimes get that side-eye look from women. You know that look that says, “You’re trifling... ” or something like that. Women lacking an evolved sense of humor won’t get me. So! There’s also  that.

But here’s the primary reason why I’m single. I am single because when I commit, I commit completely and fully, I don’t play around. When I open my heart, there are no conditions.

No ifs, ands, or buts.

I take relationships seriously when I do commit that means getting out of my comfort zone. And I guess if you’re with me the one promise I can make it that there’ll never be a dull moment. And, believe me, that’s not always a good thing.

I’ve met too many women who claim to want intimacy, but whose idea of intimacy is really me doing what they want me to do. Or their idea of intimacy is an intimacy that’s only about holding hands and doing the touchy-feeling thing. To me, that’s not intimacy, it’s a caricature of intimacy. Intimacy, for me at least, is about opening up and becoming fuckin' vulnerable in a way that’s oftentimes very scary. Intimacy demands complete, utter surrender. No holding back, giving it all even when you’re too afraid. It’s really about taking a huge chance in the face of the overwhelming evidence of past hurt and betrayals. And let me tell you: there aren’t too many willing to be like that and I’m too fuckin' old to play house.

So there, that’s my story and I am sticking to it!

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization…

That Loving Feeling

Hola mi Gente,

People always wonder why I’m single. At some point soon, I will attempt to answer that query. LOL! Today I’m going to connect you to that holy grail of relationships: “The One,” your “Soulmate,” your real love... 

Love Action

Love is a verb

Everybody wants some love action.

Many of us, even the well-adjusted ones amongst us lesser mortals, seek love and reassurance from others for feelings we seldom experience. If we don’t think we are capable, sexy, or lovable, we will look for others to give us those things. What I am about to attempt is to show how to feel loved in the same way you feel loved when you perceive that another loves you. I will show you how to develop this inner loving quality so that you’re not out there looking to get it from someone else. And even if you’re perfectly well-adjusted, entertain me and act as if... 

Ask most people about love and their reaction usually involves pointing outward. Love is something out there waiting to happen. It sometimes falls on us like a piano out of the sky. Oftentimes, the language we use when talking about romantic love is fatalistic, as in, “I fell for him.” Or it’s a chance we take, or some other nonsense. Most of all, people tend to describe romantic love as a feeling they get from someone else. Love is something you get from other people.

It follows then that being loved or being lovable is not part of a lot of people’s self-concept. It’s funny how we talk about love. We talk about love as if we were passive victims of an elusive emotion: we fall in love. We go crazy with love. Pop songs are full of such imagery. However, isn’t how we describe other emotions ironic? We say, we are angry, we are sad, but how many times do we say, we are love?

Yeah... thought so.

But that is the point: We are love. Anything you ever needed or wanted -- that feeling of love and being loved -- exists within you right this very moment. In fact, I doubt it very much that you will ever find someone to fill that void for you. You will look and look until your sex organs expire from atrophy and still you will not find that love, because you’re looking in all the wrong places.

No date tonight? Let’s find one for you, ok? Stay with me, don’t catch a feeling. I promise that you can go back to your myths and pain after reading this if you so desire.

Right now, I want you to think about something about yourself that is true -- regardless of what others think. Some people will say that they are kind, persistent, or intelligent, for example. The only important thing is that it’s something you hold to be true about yourself.

How do you know this? What is the internal experience that makes you know that you possess this quality? I’m not asking you for what you think, or the feelings you associate with this quality.

I’m asking you, how do you know you possess this quality When you look back to the times when you experience this quality (i.e., kindness, sensuality, compassion, perseverance -- whatever you believe to be true about yourself) what happens inside? Do you talk to yourself, do you see mental pictures; do you feel the movements you make when you express this quality? Perhaps when being kind you see mental pictures of when you were being kind to someone.

Are you doing this? Good! Commit to you memory the things that let you know you possess this quality. Now, what happens to your sense of self when you’re not expressing this quality? For example, if you chose kindness, what happens to your sense of self when you’re being unkind? Do you try to make things right? Good! That shows you really do possess this quality.

How would you feel about thinking of yourself as being love, or as being a lovable person (as in the example of the quality of kindness)? Wouldn’t that be a good idea? You wouldn’t have to go about getting validation from outside of yourself.

Close your eyes and recall one example of a time you experienced creating love or being love or loving. Now put that mental picture into the same place as one of the pictures of being kind (or whatever quality you chose). Make the mental picture the same size, the same distance from you, etc. Now think of another time you experienced love or being lovable, perhaps with another person, or a different situation, and put that mental picture there with the previous one. Continue doing this until you have a bunch of mental images like the ones you have of being kind (or the quality you chose at the beginning). Keep assembling those pictures and storing them.

It may feel a little strange at first, but if you’re actually doing the exercise correctly, each time you develop and store a picture, your feeling of being love or being lovable becomes more real.

Welcome to your real self, people.

Who loves you?

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization…

The Friday Sex Blog [Harry and Sally on my Couch]

Hola mi Gente,

I want to state clearly today that I deplore romance movies and novels because they cheapen the real thing. True romance is infinitely better than anything you will read in a book, or see on a movie screen. Ladies? If you and I get married and you go senile? I will not sacrifice my life reading a freaking notebook to you. I won’t forget you, nor will I abandon you -- I’ll make sure to visit you regularly, but I will more than likely find someone else and get on with my life. I would hope that if the opposite were true, that you would do the same. I never forgave James Garner for starring in the movie, The Notebook. That’s not love, James, it’s co-dependency! LOL

Now, just because I deplore romance novels or movies doesn’t mean I am not a romantic -- in fact, I am.

* * *

Men and women can’t be friends because the sex part always gets in the way.

 -- Harry & Aristotle

Well, actually, the above is not a direct quote from Harry (the character from another intolerable movie, When Harry met Sally) and Aristotle, but as I hope to show, Aristotle and Harry seem to sleep in the same philosophical bed (pun intended). I often try to explore the reasons behind our cultural aversion to the body (at least in the Western sense). This aversion is grounded in a historical context. Things are the way they are not because that’s “how it’s always been,” but because we live within a cultural context. Philosophy matters, my dear friends, more than we know… 

The movie When Harry met Sally, begs the question, “Can men and women can be friends,” and then answers it so: “Men and women can’t be friends -- because the sex part always gets in the way.” But is this true? Are there reasons friendship between men and women, or people who are romantically attracted to one another, isn’t possible? Or more importantly: are there reasons why friendship between hetero men and women are more difficult to maintain than same-sex friendships? (I realize I’m regrettably leaving out the whole LGBTQI demographic, but I think the same holds true for romantic relationships, generally speaking.)

As I hope to show, most of the assumptions we lug around regarding these, and other, can be traced way back to ancient Greek thought and their latter day Christian interpreters. In other words, things are the way they are, not because they are universal truths, but because of a cultural bias.

Aristotle strongly suggested that a romantic relationship can never become the highest form of friendship. He makes a distinction between a bond like friendship (philia), grounded in what he perceived as character traits and involving choice, from a bond based on an emotion (eros). And while there can be friendship between lovers, he continues, it will not be the highest form of friendship. It will be a friendship based not on character but in pleasure -- and hence will likely fade. Still, Mr. Aristotle concedes, acknowledging how one form of love may grow from another, “Many do remain friends if, through familiarity, they have come to love each other’s character… ”

At this point, I will concede, somewhat reluctantly, that Eros and philia are indeed different forms of love, even if sometimes they come together as a package deal. In making a different point, the Christian writer, C.S. Lewis suggested the following experiment:

Suppose you… have fallen in love with and married your friend… now suppose that you were offered the choice of two futures: “Either you will cease to be lovers but remain forever joint seekers of the same God, the same beauty, the same truth, or else, losing all that, you will retain as long as you live the raptures and ardours, all the wonder and the wild desire of Eros. Choose which you please.

Hmmmmm… 

Mr. Lewis seems to be saying we have to recognize the reality and difficulty of a choice between the different loves. He captures this difference adequately in the following sentence: “Lovers are normally face to face, absorbed in each other; friends, side by side, absorbed in some common interest.” Friends, therefore, are more likely to be happy to welcome a new friend who shares their common interest, but Eros is a jealous love which must exclude third parties.

Lewis believed that friendship and erotic love may go together, but in many respects he agrees with Harry and Aristotle that the combination is, at the very least, an unstable one. Mr. Lewis’ contention is that a friendship between people can exist, but that it can do so only if the parties involved are not physically attracted to one another, or one of them loves another. Otherwise, the friendship will slip into the erotic realm eventually. This is not too far from Harry’s view, who after stating at the very beginning that sex (Eros) will always get in the way, adds the qualifier, “Unless both are involved with other people” later in the movie. But then, in one of many convoluted pieces of dialogue that damns this movie (Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan were two of my least appreciated actors), he adds, (and I paraphrase loosely here) But that doesn’t work because the person you’re involved with doesn’t understand why you need to be friends with the other person. She figures you must be secretly interested in the other person -- which you probably are.

Lewis is a little less pessimistic than Harry, Lewis suggests that lovers who are friends may learn to share their friendship with others, though not, of course, their erotic natures. Still this does not address the main point in all this: the supposed instability of friendships with people who are romantically/ erotically attracted to one another.

Perhaps it is best to grant the point that friendship between people who are attracted to one another will be more difficult within the context of a culture that’s terribly paranoid and repressive about eros (sexual energy). There will certainly be difficulties that don’t exist in same-sex/ nonromantic connections. However, that faint undercurrent of eros can also be enriching. If we’re fearless (or at least trailblazers) we may find that a friendship between a man and a woman may offer a balance and sanity, and, if we discard the fairy tales, fulfillment through a sexual energy (Eros) that doesn’t have to be destructive.

Towards the end of Harry and Sally, Harry finally realizes that he loves Sally and wants to marry her. He lists all the cute reasons why: that shit that Meg Ryan does with her nose, the way she looks at him, blah blah blah… all reasons that a friend might not state, granted. Of all the reasons, however, I find that Harry’s observation that Sally is “the last person I want to talk to before I go to bed at night,” most compelling.

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization… 

Love as Remembrance

Hola mi Gente,

I created and for some time facilitated a relationship workshop for people in substance abuse treatment. However, I am single and have been single by choice for quite a few years now. So I guess you should take anything I say about relationships with a grain of salt. LOL Still, I think there is something for everyone here…

* * *

Love as Remembrance

Es tan corto el amor, y es tan largo el olvido

(Love is so short, forgetting so long)

 -- Pablo Neruda, The Saddest Lines

Love...

Yup. You read that right: the Big “L.”

The word many of us are scared to admit to even when we’re feeling it in the very fiber of our being. Some will go for most of their lives and hardly ever utter the word to those they most love. It’s even scarier in romantic relationships. We worry, panic, and go all strategic:

What if I tell her I love her? Will she reject me? Will she use it against me? Will she think me to clingy? Will she say he loves me too? And what if she doesn’t say it?!

Yup. The Big Hairy Nasty “L” Word.

More often than not we are afraid to say it. Or if we do say it, we play semantics with it. We draw distinctions, for example, between loving someone and being in love. Apparently, there is a difference. No, I’m not that dense. I realize that when people make that distinction, they’re pointing out the difference between the attraction of the feeling of love and actually committing to it and letting it flower.

Or maybe not. Maybe it means something else, I really do not know and I do not really care. I call bullshit on that nonsense.

I tend to complicate matters so I have to keep things simple in order to retain what little sanity I can claim. For me love is an action word, a verb, it is something you do. When I say, “I love you,” it means I’m going to work at loving you. It means I am committed to loving you by acting -- by my behavior. That means that I will attempt to accommodate your feelings, be considerate, protect you, make love to you, compromise with you, do the things I know makes you feel wanted and valued (and yes, probably drive you to distraction, but it is a package deal). That’s partly what the Big “L” word means to me. When I tell you I love you, it means I’m walking alongside you on this journey called life and all that claim implies.

So, I don’t know if there’s a huge difference there for me between love and being in love. For me it’s like being pregnant: I have never met anyone who was half pregnant. I have never heard a woman say, “I’m pregnant, but not in pregnant.” That’s why I stopped making that distinction. When I love, it’s with my soul, nothing held back, caution thrown to the wind. Believe me, in this very life it’s the only risk worth taking. Of course, it doesn’t mean I ain’t shitting in my pants the whole time because, yeah (duh!) it’s fuckin’ scary opening up like that.

To make matters worse, I become unbearable because sometimes I really want to sabotage the whole thing and in that way not have to do it. I jump, then in midair, I’m screaming like a bitch because I’m thinking: GODDAMIT why do I do this shit! It is the same feeling I get every time I reach the first apex of a good rollercoaster ride. I’m like… Fuck! And yet I still take the risk because when I get old and finally outlast my usefulness residing in some decrepit nursing home where the nurses won’t wipe my ass for hours, I don’t want to be lying there in my shit full of regret -- regretting that I didn’t take the risks. In the end, these risks -- these excursions into what I call unreasonable happiness -- are the only things you can take with you.

A personal truth I have discovered regarding love is that it will enter into any mind that actually wants it. Our task is not to seek love, but instead undo the barriers that we erect against it. I’ve heard it said that love waits on welcome, not on time. When you accept love, you will see nothing else. If you could agree with me that love is in part a form of sharing, then how can you find it except through itself? I say, offer it and it will come to you because Love is attracted to itself. Offer hostility, neurosis, or contraction and love cannot co-exist under those conditions, for it can only live in an open space committed to freedom. Many people say, “I want love.” I say, take out ego (I) and desire (want) and what are you left with? We often say, “I am angry,” or “I am sad,” but we never say, “I am love.”

I have learned that Love is already in me and that I need only to extend it outward. Going back to my perspective on Love as an action for a moment -- that is the action: extending what is there already inside of me. As M. Scott Peck defines it, love is an act of will for the benefit of another. What a fuckin’ revelation.

Love is the most sacred mantra you can ever chant, for Love is the Divine and you could never know one without the other. Integrated, you could never again be unaware of love and Love would never fail to recognize you. And in this recognition, you will live in grace because grace is the acceptance of Love within a world full of too much hate and fear. In Love you will find gratitude because gratitude is the ring bearer of Love. Where there is one the other must be found.

Love laughs at the childish foolishness of my defenses for that is what they are -- scripts probably written generations ago against an imaginary monster. Love demands we lay down all our weapons. Love without trust is impossible. People always ask me about my motivation. I guess my aim is to offer an example of remembrance -- a reminder of who and what we really are -- to emphasize that there is no difference between your essence and Love.

This is so powerful that if all you did today was catch a glimpse of that remembrance you will have advanced on your path in an immeasurable way. Seek the Love in you, and you will see it everywhere because it is everywhere.

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization…