Loneliness

Unwarranted dating advice and other reflections

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Everyone is an expert on relationships and dating. Whether they’re single (by choice or otherwise), in a relationship (happy or otherwise) or dating just like you, everyone is an expert.

Here is a list of some of the advice, reflections (by no means exhaustive) that people share with me on a regular basis:

  • If you are looking for a relationship you won’t find one.
  • Put yourself out there.
  • Don’t hook up.
  • If you sleep with them too soon they will lose interest.
  • Don’t go on too many dates.
  • We met once overseas and were long distance for two years. He’s the love of my life.
  • Make sure you don’t appear desperate.
  • You cannot be looking for love, once you stop looking it will just come. It’s so easy.
  • There are plenty of others out there.
  • We started off a fuck buddies and now we’re married.
  • I told him we were just friends and after a year I realised he was what I was looking for.
  • Long distance never works.
  • I rushed in because he seemed like the right choice and ticked all the boxes but that wasn’t it. He wasn’t what I needed.
  • Hooking up is fine.
  • I had zero interest in going on a date with this person at first. But after a few times hanging out I realised there was something special.
  • Don’t use dating apps, meeting people from real life is always better.
  • If you’re not feeling it on the first date, don’t bother going on a second one.
  • Fuck men!
  • Why do you want a relationship for?
  • I would never go out with someone who approached me in person. So weird.
  • Not everyone finds someone.
  • No one person will tick all your boxes, compromise is important.
  • Love isn’t enough.
  • If they’ve been single for too long, it’s a red flag.
  • I will never do a relationship again.
  • Maybe I can find someone for you.
  • But you’re happy by yourself. You don’t need anyone.
  • You’re too independent, guys won’t feel like you need them.
  • Monogamy is a lie.
  • Half of the people in relationships are miserable and only stay in them because they can’t stand being alone.
  • You need to learn to ne happy on your own before you will find someone.
  • Smile more.
  • Stop putting up walls.
  • You need to look more approachable.
  • We fell in love when he was still married.
  • Don’t just tell someone you’re interested in them, they’ll freak out.
  • Maybe you still have feelings for your ex?
  • It just kind of happened. We did nothing ‘right’, there are no rules.
  • People who say they are only looking for a serious relationship are often the least ready for one.
  • Never go for someone who is in a relationship or married.
  • He was a drunken hookup, we have been together since.
  • No one is too busy, you’re just not a priority.
  • If they cancel without rescheduling, move along.
  • Give them a chance. You never know what they’re going through.
  • You aren’t going to find someone with that attitude.

Everyone is right and wrong at the same time. Reflections on one’s own experience can be helpful, even comforting.

Most advice comes in the form of regurgitated, broad brush statements which are generally terrible and unwarranted.

Is there a right way or a wrong way? Probably not.

Every one of the above statements would be accurate in some way. They would be true to the person making them but potentially irrelevant to anyone else.

Why am I writing this? It’s so common sense is it not? Well, for me it is cathartic and it helps clear the noise in my head.

You date and have all kinds of bizarre and disappointing encounters and eventually you begin to question yourself. You begin to wonder if you are the problem. So you put everything out in front of you and you realise, no – it’s not me. I may not be perfect but I’m doing my best and I’m learning each time.

Wake

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It feels like I’ve long woken up from a dream and even if I shut my eyes, I can’t go back.

You all look like you did in my dream but you move differently now.

I take the photos down because the memories don’t feel real anymore. It’s too painful a reminder of a warmth and ease that no longer exist.

Sure, we still go places but it isn’t the same. Beneath the surface there is nothing but empty eyes and checking the time.

What did you fill my cup with?

Something doesn’t feel right.

There are more ghosts than ever. Poking around and staring at me.

Everything is bland, the colour isn’t as bright and feelings aren’t as strong. I’m tired.

Night falls. I lay in bed and once again close my eyes. Maybe this is all just a bad dream.

Night

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I don’t know what his name was but it was a great time.

Would I go there again? Probably not.

Do I regret it? Absolutely not.

My watch tells me I’ve beat my previous exercise record. Yeah, you’re telling me!

Flinders is further than Southern Cross but I decide I can make the train from Flinders. This part of Flinders Street is weird, there are four or five kebab stores right next to each other, some crappy hotels and on the other side some apartments and two rail bridges blocking clear line of site to the Yarra.

Soon enough that lightening bolt building comes up. It’s all black and has a lightening bolt on it. I don’t know what it is but this guy is standing in front of it. The very guy who tapped me before online. We look at each other and he looks away quickly. He’s got a real romper stomper vibe about him, but it’s all aesthetic. All bark and no bite. He’s scrolling on his phone but it’s just the Home Screen.

I play some songs on repeat as I bound towards Flinders Street.

Thinking about a lot of things.

Thinking about how when you have music in your ears that you’d life feels like a music video. Even when a homeless person says something to you as you walk past but when you’ll look, the only words coming out of their mouth are the lyrics to the song.

Thinking about how I feel flexing my freedom.

Thinking about how I get random threats on the app from someone who knows way more about me than a stranger should.

I’m thinking about what lies ahead and I really don’t know.

It’s more of the same but better.

Through the ticket barriers and past a station man helping someone with their myki.

Down the steps and I see an emaciated woman in a loose fitting tatty pink dress peeing on the wall and screaming. But the words coming out of her mouth are the lyrics to the song.

My heart is pounding in my chest.

Up the stairs and look at that, two minutes to spare.

Grid

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You’re not next to me but you’re with me.

I know that, I swear I do.

It’s a Saturday night isolated but I know I’m not alone. I know I’m loved. Especially by you.

Despite this, I can no longer focus on whatever I put on the TV that I thought would distract me enough. I look down to that grid. I’m scanning the grid knowing you wont be there. My brain and my heart are telling me to stop looking but as if by some phantom habit, my body now moves on it’s own.

This search also turns up nothing.

I don’t feel relieved.

I feel empty,

I feel dark,

I feel uncomfortable.

My eyes close, I reset and open up to find the grid is gone.

I’m pacified for now but I know I have to be stronger next time, I know I can’t go on like this.

I’m praying for strength and most of all I’m praying for faith.

Genesis

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Genesis by Grimes comes on and I close my eyes to find myself back in my apartment in Hanegi one evening during the week nearly five years ago. I’ve finished work and I’m sitting there on my beige coloured ikea sofa with the red throw on it.

I can see a seven eleven dinner plastic tray with a trace of food I just ate from it lying open on the coffee table in front of me. Disposable wooden chopsticks are sitting on top and a thin rubber band is a short distance away.

My heart, I never feel

I never see

I never know.

I’m restless, I always have been.

My eyes close as I get to my feet and throw my body into some kind of mad dance. I’m doing this in my shoebox space.

Oh, heart

And then it falls

And then I fall

And then I know

I wish this song would never end. It always does and I know it but fuck, I wish it would go on forever.

My

My

My

Ever see, ever be, ever know my heart

Ever see, ever be, ever know my heart

I think I’ll be restless forever. A tear rolls down my cheek and slides into the space between my lips.

My dance becomes more erratic, violent jerks throw me into the walls and tripping over my coffee table.

Home and I know

Playing the deck above

It’s always different

I am the one in love

I bring myself to my feet and I keep going, unable to stop myself. I feel the blood dripping down my left shin and the sting of the scrape.

Ever see, ever be, ever know my heart

Ever see, ever be, ever know my heart

I run down the hallway now and throw the door to my apartment open. Through the entrance and out of my building into a humid autumn night with cicadas screaming to genesis, hidden from view.

I’m screaming in the darkness and no one can see or hear me.

It’s always different

I am the one in love

I disappear.

Where I’m not meant to be

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I’m writing to think about something else that isn’t thinking about social media and dating which numb my mind. To not think about the place where I spend most of my week sitting in, I want to write even more and I want to be where I’m meant to be.

I think about people who have a passion and then succeed at it and I imagine them staying up late at night burning the candle at both ends until they free themselves because there is no gain without struggle or freedom without a fight. Those who succeed only get there with struggle right? You have to endure tears and pain to get it right. Right?

And then I wonder if I just float through life as I am, not devastated and relatively comfortable, can I live with this feeling that follows me around like some masked menace? And while sometimes I forget he’s there, as soon as I turn around he’s poking around and smirking at me like some smug asshole.

I know I don’t fit, that much is obvious and it’s pointed out to me everyday. I used to think it was socially but recently I’m realising that it’s more to do with what my place is in the world. Those around me, like the characters in a dream are very much aware of an outsider – they turn to me and say, “Why are you doing this? You know you’re meant to be doing something else right?” All I can reply is by using humour to deflect the fact that I know but I don’t know where.

My world falls quiet and everyone stops moving, speaking and expressing. They turn to me and each and every one of them holds up a sign that reads, WRONG WAY.

What am I? An imposter? A wolf in sheep’s clothing? A cuckoo or a Lyrebird? Possibly a chameleon? Sitting and waiting, planning, or just copying because mirroring is all I know.

You take a left step so I take a left step too.

You reach for coffee so I reach for coffee too.

You suggest this a holiday so I suggest that very same holiday.

Your eyes thin slightly in suspicion and so do mine.

You laugh and then I laugh.

I even express the slight discomfort that comes across one’s face when they feel they are being mirrored. Or is it you that is mirroring me? Deep down you know but you’re not sure enough to say anything and that’s all I need.

Now the train tells me I’m at where I’m not meant to be and I get off one more time. For another day I tell myself that maybe I take life a little too seriously and think a little too much. I see what’s ahead and I can’t stop chewing the inside of my mouth. At this very moment when no one is watching, I’m not copying anyone.

Haunted City

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I live in a beautiful city.

Some even say it’s one of the most beautiful in the world but I think that depends on who is looking and where they are looking from.

There was a time when I would fly, wide-eyed around my city filled with buildings both old and new, streets lined with plane trees and cute little laneways, each turn filled with me wonder and excitement.

But recently something has changed. When I walk the streets, I’m alone and I can’t help but notice them.

They are scattered amongst the new people that pass me by.

The ghosts stare at me with their hollow eyes and shapeless mouths.

I try my best to ignore them but there seem to be more and more.

I enter an arcade that I would spend countless afternoons in all those years ago. One of the cafes in the arcade has this upstairs area where I would sit by the arched window watching the crowds filter trickle through for whole afternoons.

It was a sacred place.

But now, as part of the trickling crowd I look up to the arched window and see a ghost sitting at my table, mouth gaping open and staring at me.

I decide to walk another way.

Food tastes bland and powdery, the buildings look weathered. The world around me is becoming a tired amusement park, the rides haven’t changed and things are starting to break down.

I’m not making new memories like I used to.

No – surely not.

I look through my phone to convince myself otherwise but most of my photos are of food, buildings or myself. The smiles that occupy my older photos before this all started are filled with warmth and feeling. Something has changed, I have changed.

What have I done?

Where did I go wrong?

Whatever I did, wherever I went wrong, there are only ghosts following me around and standing in my way.

This is no longer the city I grew up in, the city that shaped me into who I am.

And when I look under the thin veil it is very much apparent that at some point I stopped living.

How long have I just barely been existing?

Scared

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I’m scared.

Scared to love, scared to be loved.

I’m scared of closing my eyes and I’m scared of speaking up.
I’m scared of making an impression, scared of being forgotten.

I’m scared.
Scared that I’m doing it all wrong.

Scared to be the first, scared to be the last.
Scared of permanence and scared of being vulnerable.
Scared that this is it and that nothing will change.

I’m scared that I’m silly and scared to look you in the eye.
I’m scared of being left behind.

Scared that everyone rolls their eyes when I leave the room.

I’m scared.
Scared that I have made some terrible mistake and there is no going back.

I’m scared that no one is listening.
I’m scared that everything will change.  

Scared to disappoint and scared to impress.
Scared of being admired and scared of being hated.

I’m scared of what I see staring back at me when I look in the mirror.
I’m scared that I’ll be found out.

I’m just scared.

I see you

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We’d just had sex, relishing in the warmth of post orgasm cuddle play when he looked me in the eyes, “You know I really like you.”

My chest swelled with euphoria and fear and I smiled, “Me too!” But just as my reply reached his ears the sparkle disappeared from his eyes, his lips curled down ever so subtly – the post coitus warmth had dried up and my bed felt like winter.

“It’s okay, I know you don’t.” He said, the eye contact was broken now.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

He was looking out the window, his thoughts were now as far as the mountain ranges in the distance. He started speaking, “You don’t want a relationship. You don’t want a boyfriend. You’re so lonely but you only want guys that are temporary but then when they are willing to stay in your life you back away because you’re so scared of getting close to someone.”

All I could do was nod. I didn’t know what to say but I couldn’t disagree.

He continued, “I feel sorry for you, I don’t know what happened to you but I’m really sorry that it happened. In all the time I’ve spent with you, I still have no idea who you are.”

Just like that it was gone, my jig was up. An act even I wasn’t actively conscious of up until that point.

Again, I just nodded and looked down at the messy linen sheets, really deep into the thread work and imperfections – speckles here and there, lumps and bumps.

Slowly I took my gaze up to my reflection in the mirror where I only saw myself. He was all but gone.

Rather than looking at my reflection, I was looking through myself in the reflection. My eyes glazed as I floated out from my body to imagine me viewing myself alone in the room watching myself look through my own reflection.

I felt so empty.