iflewoverthecuckoosnest
Well-known member
I've been officially single for nearly 4 years now, with no definite end in sight. I've spent so much time building up a fierce sense of independence, but the truth is that sometimes it really gets me down.
Unfortunately, you can't force the stars to align at your own will. Serious romantic relationships take time, chemistry, and compatibility to develop (at least the healthy ones do). So, I'm willing to guess that I'm not the only single person on here who sometimes feels painfully lonely. However, I'm also willing to guess that we don't have to lead lives that are bereft of romance.
Your brain may release chemicals that trick you into thinking that you have to find a mate to be happy. I think that your brain is operating on very primitive principles, and that it may be missing something in the bigger picture.
There is a certain quality of awe that comes over a person when they are in love; this sense that they are touching upon some vast mystery. I would argue that this feeling is not entirely unrelated to sexual ecstasy, or, indeed any number of ecstatic experiences. So, wound up in the experience of romance is this element of ecstatic mystery.
Can we not, fellow singles, find mystery in many places? Can we not find romance in many places? Romance seems to be an element of the human experience. It is not attached to individual people, although sometimes you may see it through other people.
The truth is that this ecstatic mystery reveals itself in a multitude of ways; it is in the yawning chambers of redwoods, the gnawing hems of sea foam, and the silver calls of nighttime scavengers.
Being single for years can make you feel lonely and inadequate, or, perhaps, it can be an opportunity to fall in love with something far vaster than an individual person; to fall in love with the romance of the every day strangeness that surrounds us and lives through us.
Hell, I'll try my hardest if you do.
Unfortunately, you can't force the stars to align at your own will. Serious romantic relationships take time, chemistry, and compatibility to develop (at least the healthy ones do). So, I'm willing to guess that I'm not the only single person on here who sometimes feels painfully lonely. However, I'm also willing to guess that we don't have to lead lives that are bereft of romance.
Your brain may release chemicals that trick you into thinking that you have to find a mate to be happy. I think that your brain is operating on very primitive principles, and that it may be missing something in the bigger picture.
There is a certain quality of awe that comes over a person when they are in love; this sense that they are touching upon some vast mystery. I would argue that this feeling is not entirely unrelated to sexual ecstasy, or, indeed any number of ecstatic experiences. So, wound up in the experience of romance is this element of ecstatic mystery.
Can we not, fellow singles, find mystery in many places? Can we not find romance in many places? Romance seems to be an element of the human experience. It is not attached to individual people, although sometimes you may see it through other people.
The truth is that this ecstatic mystery reveals itself in a multitude of ways; it is in the yawning chambers of redwoods, the gnawing hems of sea foam, and the silver calls of nighttime scavengers.
Being single for years can make you feel lonely and inadequate, or, perhaps, it can be an opportunity to fall in love with something far vaster than an individual person; to fall in love with the romance of the every day strangeness that surrounds us and lives through us.
Hell, I'll try my hardest if you do.