I'm feeling sad and powerless. What if there's no point to practicing abstinence? What if I should just fuck whomever? Sometimes, I don't think I'll ever ever fall in love with someone. It just makes me want to cry. I don't like faking my emotions. I fake everything else in life.
I'm tired of trying to be a good person. I'm not sure it's in me. All I ever feel like is that I'm spinning my wheels, depriving myself from what my body wants, and seeing more and more people for the empty, superficial beings they are. It's like holding a hollow baby chick in your hands and then squeezing it too hard to the point where it collapses in on itself and it turns to dust. It was so beautiful at face value, but as soon as you go deeper, you realize that it's an illusion - nothing is there.
I was proud of myself last night when I turned down a guy who wanted to sleep with me. He was gorgeous - completely out of my league. And he slung every line in the book at me. and a part of me wanted to believe it, except that I've heard every line in the book already. It's just a web of lies. I'm lying to him by refusing him, he's lying to me by throwing himself on me, I'm lying to myself by saying that what I'm doing is the best possible thing for me. I'm not even sure what's true anymore except for the dull pain in my heart.
I'm lying. I'm lying everyday. So much that I'm not sure there is any truth in my life anymore. What is there left to do? Wade through which lies are insignifcant and which are oh so unbearable to live? It's not even the selfish pain like I used to know before of not having love for myself. But the more I open my eyes to reality, the less I see other's relationships working. The more I see that loyalty, commitment, selflessness are all fairy tales - fragments of hopes and dreams of the children within all of us. But eventually, we learn that Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy don't exist. Yes, we were raised on lies. Now, we just choose which ones seem most appropriate to believe.
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2 comments:
Extremely poignant. "The Truth" is extremely hard because there's just so little of it. Quyen, you just have to decide which lies you're willing to live with. But then you can't complain about being deceived later.
This blog, or rather its author, makes the mistake of drawing connections, where there are none, between abstinence and lying, effectively complicating the situation, rather than clarifying or resolving it.
Abstinence is not about being a good person. It's not about becoming more marketable to men. It's not about finding a quick fix to your problems in the love department. And, despite the clarity you've experienced in recent days, it's not about being able to identify the superficial and insincere.
Abstinence is a matter of self-respect, or self-worth if you will. It can only be practiced by a person with a a high enough opinion of themselves to resist seeking the approval of others, whether through sex or other means. A person with ample self-respect and a heightened sense of self-worth would not be willing to diminish themselves by sharing their body with someone who's beneath them. If it's true that you're only as good as the people you hang out with, it can also be said that you're only as good as the people you sleep with.
The decision to practice abstinence, whether prior to marriage or when not involved in serious relationships, can also strengthen your bond with your partner. In practicing abstinence, you communicate to your partner that your affection is earned, that it isn't given freely to just anyone. Because, if it is given freely to just anyone, how can your partner ever hope to learn whether your affection, verbal or physical, is being offered as a token of love, or in exchange for the approval that a self-loathing person requires to keep feeling good about themselves?
I assume the tramps of America will soon be screaming about how a call to abstinence transforms an act of love into a commodity. But, the irony of the situation is that anything given freely is no longer an act of love. Love is conditional. Love is earned. As the band Semisonic once said, "Nobody knows it, but you've got a secret smile, and you use it only for me."
As for the situation you've outlined, you're unhappy because you find yourself doing poorly in the love department. As previously mentioned, abstinence is not a quick fix for what ails you. What I've said before and will continue saying is that your problems are the result of low standards. Should I be surprised that mini-pizzas from the frozen aisle, on sale (12 for $10), don't taste nearly as good as a $25 gourmet pizza? No. Just the same, you shouldn't be surprised that your relationships, or rather flings, with the mini pizzas are unsatisfying. They look good but offer nothing of real substance.
The problem is that while you both understand and agree with the above-stated argument, you are not capable of drawing a distinction between high-quality and low-quality men. Yes; you have a long laundry list of qualities you look for in a possible suitor, many of which are admirable, but have you ever stopped to consider whether your laundry list has anything to do with being a good person? What good is your laundry list if it's fulfilled by arrogant, cruel, selfish men - such as Chris 2.0. To that extent, I could have a laundry list of what I look for in a pizza (pepperoni, cheese, tomato sauce, crust, and perhaps some American bacon). Do those ingredients necessarily ensure that I will have a great pizza? No. Of course not.
Moreover, you're going to have to learn patience. You've only been abstinent for a few weeks and already you're complaining about not having found the love of your life, and about denying yourself what your body needs. You're under the impression that I'm lucky to have found love. Luck had nothing to do with it. It was a combination of high standards and patience. When I was single, I dated only women who I thought had a chance of fulfilling the high standards to which I hold myself and to which I would hold her in the future. Of those women, most never made it past a third date. And, you can bet I had sex with none of them. Had I lowered my standards, I may have been preoccupied in a meaningless relationship when opportunity/love came knocking at my door. Can you imagine how many opportunities have been lost while you've been busy dating the mini-pizzas of the world?
As for your disappointment with men, it's not that all potential suitors are "hollow baby chicks," it's that those are the type of men who fulfill your laundry list, or at least aspects of it. If you're tired of being disappointed, the choice is clear: you need to learn what makes a good man and put "that" into your laundry list. It's not enough to practice abstinence; you have to reexamine what's important to you, and start looking for it. When you date good men, good things happen.
Finally, don't tell me that loyalty, commitment, and selflessness are lies, or at their best, fairy tales. They're not, and saying they are is just a clever means of letting yourself off the hook, and of convincing yourself that it's okay to be superficial and selfish, to give in to the base, animalistic urge to mate. It's much easier to blame the world for your failures than it is to do something about them. If you want to stop being sad, if you want to stop feeling powerless, if you want to stop searching in vain for love, you know what has to be done. It's not easy. And, contrary to what has been suggested before, you do "not" have to decide which lies to live with. The "truth" is easy to find for those who seek it.
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