oohlala Posted January 18, 2013 Posted January 18, 2013 Oh wow, this has been eye-opening to read. I'm also in a big metropolis and I'm 32 and single. A lot of my really successful, beautiful friends who are around my age are only now settling down and so forth. In my area 32-34's the new mid-20's I guess? When I meet people, online or otherwise, eventually after talking for a while I get the "Why are you still single??" question. This conversation is relevant to me and hitting close to home because I'm really heartsick at the moment about having to break things with off with someone I had a really amazing connection with, but there were some issues coming up that ultimately I just could NOT understand. For perspective I'm 32 and he's 36. Dating life wise I've had a few serious boyfriends, and I've been engaged twice - the first one we were REALLY STUPID and young and had a whirlwind thing, and after an all-day binge drinking fest that started with brunch and ended at our fave dive, by 9pm he was ****faced on one knee and we decided this was the best idea ever. Yeah it turned out it wasn't. So, eh, I don't think about it much. The second was legit - we were very much in love but there was a horrible circumstance that I'm responsible for that lead to our breakup. That's another story in itself, but it was very traumatic and since then I've made a really, really strong effort to change, I've been through hours of therapy and counseling and more than ever I'm making an effort to appreciate everything I have and the people in my life and to stay healthy (the breakup partially had to do with my mental health). I work in the creative industry and it's extremely demanding - for a person my age I've had to work really, really ****ing hard to even get where I am, and I'm at a point where some really, really awesome possibilities are opening up for me career-wise. The last 2 years have been REALLY intense, but it won't be that way forever. And I do make a good-faith effort to put life before work. It HAS interfered with my romantic relationships before in a really big way and I'm trying my best to not let that happen anymore. That said, the guy I was seeing recently is successful, extremely smart and just all around good-stuff, but there were some things I can't help that DID bother him a little bit simply because in his dating history he hadn't dated someone with these traits. And that knife cuts both ways - he found me stimulating on a level he's never felt before, and for the last month or so we'd been in pretty much 24-hour around the clock contact texting, messaging all day, having crazy long phone conversations, etc., BUT, the same things that made him love talking and spending time with me were kind of the same things that bothered him. I guess for example: The night we got into THE fight, he'd told me earlier in the day he was going to a trivia night at a bar that he participates in every week, and of course I was welcome to join. A friend of his was also going to be there. I'd had a really **** emotionally draining day at work - to the point where I was almost in tears - and he managed to push a button with me that created the perfect storm for **** to go down. He said "Well I guess I won't be seeing you at trivia night then?" and I said I didn't think it was a good idea. I was pretty devastated about what was happening with us and what was happening with work, so on the way home from work I had a bunch of **** to do so I pulled over at my favorite dive, had dinner and a drink and set up my little mobile office in the corner of the bar and finished the project I was working on. When I was done, I was nearby another place I hadn't been in years, and you know, it was just one of those nights. I popped in for a beer, saw some friends I hadn't seen in ages, and things were just finally in perspective again. I really don't think that's a big deal - and maybe that's my problem. The guy was pissed that I went out, on my own, instead of going home and sulking. He said that he's never dated anyone as social as I am, which to me was a weird thing to say because again, at the first bar I was having dinner and working on a presentation for work. He's said that he's intimidated by the large social network I have, and you know, **** I can't help that either. There's posts here and theories about people who have more than 400 friends being attention whores seeking validation, but Facebook is where I network and ****. I used to work for a large media corporation and the people he sees on my friends list are writers, critics, talent, etc. but what he forgets is that they're my ACTUAL FRIENDS. I'm not some weird ****ing groupie - me and these people worked together. We'd drink together after work. We'd eat each other's Lean Cuisine on deadline. He thinks I'm name-dropping whenever one of them comes up and I'm like WTF? When you talk about your friends I don't consider it name-dropping. And then there's the issue of having a sort of idea of how much money your partner makes, which I don't ever think about but for some men it's just weird. I'm certainly not rich but I'm not slumming or anything. But by far the weirdest thing for me was an assumption that because things were going so great, I must be REALLY aching for a comittment that he just doesn't know if he's ready for. He brought up comittment WAY more than I did - I don't even remember ever bringing it up. He'd say "hey, let's do this together in April " and yeah, it made me happy to think about where our relationship would be by then, but Jesus I'm not secretly subscribing to bridal magazines and **** a month and half into anything. No. God no. That's just not me at all. So, I dunno. This has given me some things to think about. I don't think I'm crazy full of myself or over-the-top, and I'm not single for lack of options, but, I dunno. The older and more successful I get and the more opportunities for me that open up it feels like it makes me initially cooler on paper in the beginning but less desirable in the long run.
oohlala Posted January 18, 2013 Posted January 18, 2013 And ack! Sorry for the thesis - I'm just really hurting and that was therapeutic to type out. This really has given me food for thought.
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