I Can't Be Trusted, I'm Dust In the Wind

I didn't really expect to get away with making a moral statement to not make any moral statements (especially in this company). Sometimes my ideas don't quite come together, and on such occasions I deserve to be called out.

Last Sunday I met up with some hipster types--friends of Brian who works at One World--in a Hampden park for a game of kickball. First thing that happened when I showed up was a guy in jeans torn at the knees handed me a bottle of PBR. It turns out Hampden hipsters are not terribly athletic--who knew? We still lost, though, by a lot.

The weekend of M. has come and gone. We went to see a few of my friends' bands (Thrushes, Sonadors, Scout) at the Big Art Show down at Load of Fun. We explored the creek west of campus, jumping across stones and clambering under branches and over the water as we headed upstream from the bridge. A boy asked us if we'd seen the person who stole his book from the large boulder he'd left it on and it felt like the beginning of some kind of adventure. We went to farmer's market, cooked spinach omelets, baked cornbread from the mix Jess left me. We messed around with my guitar pedals and made weird noises. We sat in the living room and read books until we fell asleep. In other words, about as idyllic a weekend as I could've envisioned with anyone's company.

So why am I so seized with anxiety all of a sudden? Several different reasons, all of which are happening at once. Whether or not M. still has anything to say to me that she didn't say in the two and a half days she was here, it seemed obvious that she was, indeed, overly impressed by the somewhat grown-up life I live (e.g. yes, I have a real kitchen; no, my apartment is not some hidden sanctuary where I read poetry and listen to ambient music all day separated from everyday concerns). I don't know what that will come to; we have less initiative between the two of us than an empty room. Either way it makes me nervous. She, like many people, seems to see me completely differently from how I see myself: as being stable, wise, and in control, whereas I think of myself as still having yet to "figure it out" or find a foothold in life. The former aspect of me seems to be what attracts many people, but the latter aspect is the one that is attracted to others (likely explaining the older women tendencies). I can't seem to avoid falling into that role; it's such a recurring pattern at this point that I reflexively try to "read" other people's problems and solve them, and am at a loss for how to interact with them at all if I can't. This is a problem, especially since sometimes I feel like I'm too adept at feigning confidence for my own good: while half of me is upping the ante by continuing to act assured, the other half grows steadily more paranoid about what would happen when I finally encounter a situation where I have to admit I just don't know.

On the other hand, maybe I need to give her more credit. Maybe this whole caretaker complex is really borne more out of benefit to myself than to others, and I need to just let it go. But if that's true, it'd make me a pretty reprehensible person, especially with regards to girls who might be attracted to me.

Or maybe what I need to let go of is insecurity. I have little faith I'll be able to make someone who's become attached to me happy; the last time that happened, I messed up and hurt people (something I think about more often than I am usually aware of). Maybe I need to accept that what I have is all I have to work with for now, to stop waiting to feel more assured. Maybe I need to stop trying to dodge the risk of becoming the bad guy and assume some responsibility for my flaws.

From a different angle, is M. the one I've been waiting for? The answer is no, not really: she thinks Auden gets too sing-songy (although she did like, without my ever mentioning them, the two stanzas from "As I Walked Out One Evening" which are some of my favorite in all of poetry), she doesn't listen to Slowdive, and hell, she isn't even "older women." But then again, where would we be if we sat around with a checklist waiting for the 100% person to come along (something that only happens in Murakami short stories, and even then only transiently, for melancholy's sake)? People who hesitate in subway stations and rock shows wishing they could meet that person disappearing into the multitude do not actually want to meet that person. They want to meet someone they fabricated entirely within their own imaginations, whom they have projected onto that disappearing person out of romantic convenience. And if they ever do, they will realize that person has bad teeth, listens to the wrong bands, whatever, and they will collect their disappointment and move on to begin again. This is the kind of thing I try to avoid; it's ultimately pointless and doesn't respect people's right to be taken on their own terms.

Case against: maybe that is exactly how people set themselves and others up for damage, by getting into things they don't know are good.

Case for: I haven't met anyone I got along so well with since--well, since a long time ago. It would be a shame if it came to nothing.

Case against, and this is the most horrible case of all: I don't think I'm that attracted to her, physically speaking. This is utterly inexcusable and makes me feel like a shallow bastard. Which I am, at least in part.

But the most absurd thing is the realization that, despite all the emphasis I place on close empathetic relationships with others, I may have forgotten to leave room in my own life for another. I realized in a conversation with Joe that it's been a long time since I've really expected or wanted anything from another person. I don't often feel like sharing myself with others nowadays. I join bands because I can, but feel little compulsion to tell my bandmates about my life, even as they chatter on about their office drama (my bandmates, like my crushes, are usually much older people), or to invest myself much emotionally by writing songs or lyrics, and when I do write a song (rare) I don't trust anyone else to play on it. In fact, I don't often feel like talking to people, period, with the exception of Jessica. Talk always seems to depress me; or is that another unjustified assumption? There used to be a person-shaped hole in my life. There's still a hole, but it seems to have shrunk, and I'm not sure I could fit a person in there anymore. And if I truly am content (or complacent) to continue in solitude--something that I had never even considered--is that good or bad?

So what do I do now--the answer is nothing. Wait until things get more obvious, whichever way they go. Copout? Perhaps. But I don't know what to do. We haven't planned her next visit yet, if indeed she will visit again. So I suppose I still have time; the rest of summer, at best. Still, I feel somehow obligated to try and figure it out in the meanwhile.

There is only one thing this chain of events so far has shown me for certain--for better or for worse, I have been alone for far too long.