Romance for the perpetually single | Squat the Planet

Romance for the perpetually single

iflewoverthecuckoosnest

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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.
 

Hillbilly Castro

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Hard for me, honestly. I am such a lover but there are so few travelers, and among them even fewer who are female, who I can relate to and maybe roll with. While I think there is another type of romance, more the literary sort found in waves and pretty leaves and gorgeous campsites, or even conversations with old crackheads, does it satisfy the primal instinct to grasp onto someone who knows you completely, and who you know and understand better than anyone else? I think the literary romance is actually not experienced in full when we are alone, unless we choose aloneness, fully able to chose togetherness with as much ease. Usually this is not the case, for me anyway. I know I am going to be alone - both in friends and in people I love and have sex with - and so I try to improve it by being optimistic about whatever else comes my way. I love my life, and what comes my way is awesome, and I often get temporary camaraderie, with lovers who are not travelers, but I always leave them behind because I have to leave to see the world!
To be a vagabond is to love yourself so completely that you risk loneliness for the fulfillment of your own life. But I'm unconvinced that this risk is so great. I think it just takes a lot more time to find someone when you are not a disposable component of a massive social machine. The relative ease with which non-vagabonds pair off is illusory, I think. I am going to go to Europe and I wonder if things will be different there. I am rambling on a touchscreen keyboard, so maybe I am not coherent, but I am trying to say - I feel you!
 

iflewoverthecuckoosnest

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There is definitely a physical component to loneliness. You can feel it in your body, sometimes. Like I said, it's chemical.
There probably isn't much of a way around that.
I've had my share of what I would call romantic-friendships, but I agree that there is always this desire to be completely intimate in a long term sense. It's difficult for free spirits and outsiders to find love.
People see us and feel jealous because we are so free, but I don't think they realize that it often comes at the price of loneliness.
What I am hoping is that I can learn to be a little happier in spite of it all, to be less "shut down" when I start feeling lonely.
Good luck! I hope we both find somebody great someday :)
 

creature

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Biology is a hell of an enemy...

hunger, pain, thirst, need..

& always that everpresent 'dying' shit..

loneliness in some ways is a wall.. in others a major liberation...
 

creature

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the problem with nomadic romance is not nomadic romance.

the problem is that industrial culture makes it impossible for nomadic individuals to *remain* nomadic, & still fulfill the duties & obligations of love..

better to *be* alone, & not destroy what you are, than to be in love, & not do what love demands.

being fair is fucking *tough*..
 

WanderLost Radical

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I've never thought about it, but I think I agree with your point (absolutely beautifully written, by the way!). I've never had a girlfriend, let alone travelled with one, so I lack the insight of the other side of the medal, but yes, there's some special feeling you get when you experience beauty, and you have no one to share it with but your inner self. But i feel like if someone wants to experience that feeling, romance, as you call it, one must enjoy the fact of being alone. Or at least be truely okay with it.
 
A

AlwaysLost

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aint nothin wrong with being single. boink who you can, when you can, and keep intervals between boinking short. :)

Do not seek out the crotch of another. Let the crotch come to you, as a butterfly lights on a lily. Do not try to catch the butterfly, you'll crush its wingz.

You are a poet sorceror!
 
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iflewoverthecuckoosnest

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aint nothin wrong with being single. boink who you can, when you can, and keep intervals between boinking short. :)

Do not seek out the crotch of another. Let the crotch come to you, as a butterfly lights on a lily. Do not try to catch the butterfly, you'll crush its wingz.

Now I can toast to that ::drinkingbuddy::
 
D

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Well said some of you. I too don't meet the opposite sex often. I went nearly two years without fucking till a few months ago and had steady sex for a few weeks. It was fun weird sex and I feel most guys would become attached and over look the negatives and stick around but I didn't. I just don't need it as much as some people might. My hand causes no drama. I have few friends and they are in not so great relationships and I barely see them or want to be around them because of this. I believe I'll meet a more compatible girl someday but have to believe too I could be alone most of my life. I get sick of people quickly too and really need to wake up mornings alone or have lack of conversation a lot so a girl too better somehow be able to understand or chemically change this in me. monogamy is actually more natural. I don't believe in marriage but would definitely put effort towards a gal who is worth it and similar to mwah. life is tough and thats just how it is. Loneliness sucks but what can ya do
 

creature

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So.. I'm curious.. Officially Single..
Do you have to see a judge or summin', about that?

: )
 

iflewoverthecuckoosnest

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I like being single
There are things about it that are really nice; namely the complete and total freedom to do anything you want. At all. Ever. And you never have to worry about compromising any of it.
I'm so used to that freedom to take off at a moment's notice I almost take it for granted. Sometimes, when you don't have one thing, it leaves space open for all kinds of other things.
I'll enjoy it while it lasts :)
 
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Inhibition

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Well, it can't quite directly kill you. So that's pretty cool that we aren't wired to die from a lack of love/sex.

I find as I get older, it actually gets easier, or at least feels more numb. The way I see it, some people die at birth and never experience love and sex. Others live long lives and never experience it.

I'm not always sure which group is luckiest. But I didn't die at birth so I keep trucking you know?
 
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