Love, again

Things are not going well with Nicky. The storm I thought we’d ridden out has passed, but the major problems still remain. I don’t find her attractive. I get very quickly bored when she starts to speak of her job and interests. I cringe at her attempts to be funny, and wish she wouldn’t try. I feel almost nothing in the way of sexual attraction or desire. I don’t love her.

And yet…she’s so sweet and easy-going and accepting – exactly the woman I’ve long dreamed of in so many ways, the woman who gives me no hassles. The other day I lost one of our car keys and she had to get a train to bring the spare and even though it’s her car really and they’re well expensive to replace, all she was was understanding and sympathetic and philosophical and positive. I felt ashamed reflecting on that and reflecting on the ways I’d been feeling about her, dominated by weird hang-ups on her face and her humour, and in my humble state I resolved to be better and more grateful. But then the next morning I actually shouted at her and banged my hand down on the sink. That’s not a good thing.

Can the I Ching really have been right when saying to stick it through? Maybe time for another reading. In my head I’m always thinking of the words, I think it’s time to let you go. A sort of magnanimous dismissal. For her own good, you understand. An outsider observing the situation and seeing this girl with travel and permaculture desires living with this older guy who’s grown quite settled in his ways and thinks only of squash and football. She wants kids; he doesn’t. He doesn’t love her, and finds her sweet and agreeable ways annoying. He thought he wanted that but he’s doomed to feel love only for critical, nagging women who remind him of his mother. He needs a bit of friction in his life, to feel the wanting. He’s no good for her – but she’s too good to be able to see that. She thinks she wants him. Maybe ‘cos he in turn reminds her of her dad, an amiable and calm fellow who’s always out doing sport and being good-humoured.

Maybe romantic relationships aren’t anything at all: maybe they’re just purely two people seeking in another some strange fulfilment of a parent complex. Or what if they are just for learning something and then moving on? Would I have got with her if I’d given the time to get to know her before sleeping with her? If sex hadn’t even entered the equation? Is it all just sex?

What we gonna do? She leaves this morning without kissing goodbye. We have so little to talk about we just spend our together time watching movies. Her sexual frustration is growing, but I have no interest. I find myself often happy when I know she’s going to be out, no looking forward to her coming home. And yet…no negative feelings, really – just a lack of feeling altogether. She’s like a good roommate. She doesn’t bother me. She’s just there.

The other day I said she was very “sweet” and she said she didn’t like that word. She said it meant, to her, “personality-less”. I didn’t think so – but I reflected and realised that that’s kind of how I see her. I’ve always felt that, right from the beginning, but I guess I’d hoped her goodness would override it.

Funny how the things from the beginning are so often the things that are right there in the end. I wanted her boobs. I wanted her sex. I thought she was too agreeable and, yes, lacked personality. And I suppose I should have also thought that our differences in age would be a problem, after Perlilly, but I didn’t. And what now remains? The fact that boobs and sex can’t sustain a thing and those very early days concerns now grown into the things that threaten to move us apart.

Relationships are hard. And maybe I don’t even want one. What purpose if not wanting kids? What point if my own companionship is enough? If I’d rather sleep alone in my bed and go about my life just me? The need for another seems to have died. The contentment of Leeds and my occupations here fulfils me – and this relationship is beginning to be more of a drag than a benefit.

But what are the good things? That she’s nice. That she’s good. That she’d make a really excellent mother. That we don’t argue, and communicate really well and freely. That she understands me and listens to me (when I can be bothered to talk). That she’s into the lifestyle I am – simple, non-consumerist, living for a higher aim – and doesn’t give me hassles about material things. That she…laughs at my stupid jokes and –

I guess the problem is a lack of feeling. If she were to ask me if I cared about her, what could I say? ‘Cos I’m not sure that I do. I don’t feel very much. I don’t mind if she’s here or not, and I think on some level she knows that. That doesn’t feel like a good thing at all.

What to do, ultimately? Talk all these things out? Get to the bottom of the issue? But how to say the things that could potentially cause great hurt – I don’t find you attractive, I don’t love you or care about you – without creating trauma? I don’t want that. I don’t think that would be good for anybody. And why should it even matter, whether someone’s attractive or not? All faces wither and fade with the passing of the years. And yet it does.

I’m starting to feel like poison again. Like that guy who just leaves women feeling shit about themselves. God only knows why they want me. I wish they didn’t. I wish they’d wise up and realise I’m no good for them. And then we’d all be better off. Why am I the one who’s got to do the work of saving her when she’s the one who doesn’t like things the way they are? Or is she just tolerating me, the way she tolerates her job, because it’s what works for her grand scheme of her life right now? Stay in Leeds for a few months and save some money for travelling. Hit the road and cycle through the States or something. What care for me there? What thought of our future? Just her. Could it be that she could be using me, for cheap rent and sex and somewhere to lay her head while she puts some cash together? Or is that just me angling for a way out, to ease the guilt and shift the blame? But…it makes some kind of sense!

She tolerates her job. She doesn’t like it, and loathes much of what it does to her, but still she goes on with it, day after day, week after week, because of what it’ll give her in the long-term. Namely, money, and lots of money – and lots of money equals travel and dreams of beaches and roads and sunshine and freedom. She hates her work at times – has been talking of quitting it almost as long as she’s been doing it – yet she continues. Is this relationship any different? It may not give her much in terms of love satisfaction and fun – but it does give her plenty in terms of physical security and not needing to deal with the stresses of changing things (place to live, etc) and also, until recently, sex satisfaction, which seems kind of important to her. And, of course, money – ‘cos living with me is a hell of a lot cheaper than living on her own. And freer, too, ‘cos no contract or commitment or…

Wowzers. I wonder if I’ve hit on something here. I wonder if she really could be thinking, just a few more months, while I get my cash together, and then the road to the old US of A and get back to what I really want to do. Tolerating me as she tolerates her work: a temporary headache that nonetheless serves the grander purpose.

Why is she with me? Perhaps I have my answer right there.

And, of course, that she had hopes in the beginning – as I did, before we got to know one another – that it would turn into something great and cool and long-term and mutually beneficial. And maybe it has, if we can throw off our weird conditionings that have taught us that relationships only succeed if you end up old and married and with children together. Yet if relationships are about learning, and only need to exist long enough to learn all necessary lessons…then I suppose this one could be deemed a resounding success. Certainly, I’ve learned – and changed – a lot, and all for the better. I feel stronger and more clear for the future. A deeper understanding of relationships and myself. And less desire for them, which more desire for something greater than what human love has to offer. I don’t mind letting go of sex and romantic love and women – for I know they can only be replaced by something higher. This is not any painful struggle to renounce but true letting go – riding the road to its end and experiencing it in full and seeing what it has to offer.

But, again, what to do? Toss an I Ching? Talk all this out? Or just say, Nicky, I think it’s best to let you go. We’ve done what we needed to do. And staying with me any longer wouldn’t be good for you, would hold you back. It’s time to move on.

But is it? Or are there more lessons to be learned? Is it really for me to decide, for her? Or is this the decision that I want to make, for myself?

Ain’t life grand! Shoowee! :-)