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Time to open up, not just about personal philosophies, but about me.
I was raised in an emotionally abusive household. A kid who was born paralyzed from mid thigh down, with one parent in particular who just couldn’t tolerate that, and another who, in many ways, acquiesced to his intolerance. I’ve had immediate family call me fat. I’ve had immediate family tell me that I’d never be worth anything to women as a guy with a disability. I’ve had immediate family physically hit me just out of spite for the amount of attention I received as a kid. Yes, I’m in counselling for these and numerous other issues.
All of that has informed a personality that for a lack of a better word is “different”. It’s certainly not one of a guy who walks into a room and knows his place. I’m not a “presence”. I rely on humour to get through to people. I have no problem being completely self-deprecating and, yes, sometimes I’ll say things that piss people off - but it’s largely down to the fact that most people really don’t know my story.
Between the ages of about nineteen and twenty two I was very sexually aggressive. I would have no problem letting you know I wanted to fuck you and that I’d be upset if you said no. As it often does, that approach led to a shit ton of rejection. It wasn’t abject failure, but it certainly didn’t work most of the time. When it did, it was largely just empty bullshit, and was almost entirely limited to just foreplay. No sane woman would have wanted an ass like me inside of her.
On Thanksgiving weekend 1999, I, at age 22, right in the (supposed) prime of my young adulthood and virility, went into kidney failure. By February of the following year, I was chained to a dialysis machine three times a week (a total of nine hours, unless the treatment didn’t go well). I couldn’t work. I couldn’t go out because I had no energy. I had been, in large part, stripped of my identity and my ability to exert any kind of masculine appeal (compounded by the fact that a guy in a chair isn’t the most attractive anyway),
By the end of May (May 21st to be exact) of 2002, I had a kidney transplant and a new lease on life. I started to work, started going to clubs - but something just was…missing. They say that having an organ transplant of any kind makes you more emotional, but, it seemed to have robbed me of any real “game” that I had left. Know how many women I’ve been with since May 21, 2002? Three. One very wrongheaded one night stand which, again, was limited to just foreplay, one long distance relationship (we saw each other every other weekend) and one “real” relationship. None of these lasted more than four or five months. Aside from that, oh - and one quasi-date with someone who emailed me IN POINT FORM after the date a list of all the reasons why I’d be wrong for her, I’ve been completely alone.
As of now, I can count probably a half a dozen women within my immediate sphere of recognition (Read: not fantasy model superstars and actresses. These are people who actually occupy a place in my life) who I’d love to have enough money or power or charisma or good looks or other means of influence to be able to text or call them and go “hey ….tonight, I want you, make it happen…” and it would, regardless of whatever situation they were in at the time. I don’t have whatever “that thing” is anymore. Whatever it is that can snap a woman to attention and make her see something in me. There was a moment, a brief, shining moment in my life, about twenty years ago when I can say I probably - no - I ABSOLUTELY “had it”, and that’s when I became a dick. I had it, I got cocky, got too expectant, got burned,I suppose I’m now paying the price - loneliness. Ahh, Karma and rejection ye be fickle bitches.
In fact, I can honestly say that my personality has flipped 180 degrees in 20 years. I’m not sure if that’s down to just getting older, or because so many of the life experiences I’ve mentioned above are more in focus, or because the world has changed and what women want in a partner has changed. It’s probably all of the above, to a certain extent. All I know is that it used to be much easier, and as the world has gotten tougher, I’ve gotten more timid, socially. I’ve gone from being aggressive to being very timid and anxious, easily flustered. I no longer make the first move, out of fear of rejection. Ok, that’s not quite true. I’ll initiate conversations and (relatively) harmless flirting, but if it came down to me making the move to take things to “the next level”, I’d freeze. There would be no way. Nowadays, I’d NEVER text someone and go “Hey, tonight, I want you. Make it happen.” unless it had already happened at least once (and I’m NOT going back to my ex…yurgh), or it had been made so blindingly obvious that there was mutual interest that it couldn’t help but happen. I do tend to miss those signals though. Yeah, I’m kind of a moron when it comes to dating.
Not long after New Year’s - I was chatting to a friend of mine and I made the comment that I’d love to make 2015 “my late teens and early 20s revisited”, meaning that I’d live with that kind of hope, and wild abandon and intensity that characterized that time in my life. Would I do things differently? Yes. I certainly have a greater sense of respect for women as human beings than I did then, and I’d use humour to my advantage instead of just expectant brooding. Of course, the first seven and a half weeks have been spent laid up with pneumonia and then worrying about family illness, so it hasn’t quite gone to plan….but there’s still time ;-).
Thanks for reading.
