The REAL Reason I’m Single
My parents married when my mom was 26 and my dad was 29. In Mormon years, especially in 1979, this was definitely Old Maid territory for my mom (whose own mother apparently gave up on her ever getting married when she turned 22 or so) and sinful territory for Dad (a quote often attributed to Brigham Young, the second “prophet” of the Mormon church, states that a young man is a “menace to society” if he remains single after the age of 27). So I always understood that my mom was talking at least somewhat about herself when she repeatedly told us not to wait too long to get married, or we’d run the risk of “turning into bachelors and getting too set in [our] ways, and not being able or willing to make the sacrifices being in a relationship requires.” (Needless to say, this description of marriage made us all long for the opportunity to experience it ourselves.)
You know I hate to say my mother is right about anything, but in a sense she was: I’m 29 and single, and I can’t even imagine being in a relationship right now. But I don’t think I have “waiting around” or “becoming a bachelor” to thank for this; far more likely culprits are simply the genes I inherited from my introverted parents (especially my father) and the sheltered, homebody upbringing they gave me.
I can’t imagine being in a relationship because I do everything by myself. Almost literally everything. I sleep by myself, shop by myself, go to movies by myself, go out to eat by myself, watch TV by myself, crack jokes by myself (some of which make it on Twitter/Facebook, but not all), cook by myself, etc., etc. It’s not that I mind doing stuff with other people; it’s simply not part of my routine. And frankly, deviating from my routine annoys me. Hear that, friends? Quit asking me to do things with you. It cuts into my Farscape-watching time, goddammit.
Just kidding. Mostly. But when I imagine being in a romantic, committed relationship with someone, my mind simply boggles. The idea of constantly having to check in with someone else, having to coordinate every activity and outing, to sometimes/often do what someone else wants to do instead of what I want to do… this is making me sound like a self-centered bastard, and of course I totally am, but really I just don’t know how to have friends. And if I don’t know how to have friends—if the decidedly less onerous responsibilities of sustaining and maintaining a friendship are completely lost on me—how on earth am I going to be able to sustain and maintain a more intimate relationship?
So basically what I’m saying is, I have until the end of the month to begin the relationship that will last me the rest of my life, or else my dad has outdone me. And of course we can’t have that.
December 5th, 2009 at 1:44 pm
[you have a "like" button!!??]
I so get this. God, do I ever get this.
I’m married. And it is heavily due to the conditioning I received via family/religious culture about how much of a failure I would be if I didn’t. Dating and engagement were hellish, but… but… it’s what I was supposed to do! (besides that, hormones raging; I NEEDED TO GET LAID)
Marriage has been rough for me.
Hubby and I are fortunate in that both our personalities have been able to adapt/endure and make the best of it. Plus, I love him, don’t get me wrong on that.
But if I had ever allowed myself to question the premise that Marriage was a requirement for everyone, allowed myself to evaluate how I was with my missionary companions, with my roommates, with my friends, with my (very few and very brief) boyfriends… dude, I had SO MANY WARNINGS that perhaps a close proximity committed relationship was just not in my wiring, I think we both could have been spared a lot of grief.
Meh, I’m sounding fatalistic, Take all that with a grain or so of salt. We are where we are, and we’re doing good.
And so are you!
Basically, thank you for writing this post.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!! :)
December 5th, 2009 at 2:11 pm
I think my parents are in a similar situation, or at least they were when I was younger; possibly they’ve gotten more comfortable over thirty years of marriage. They love each other, but… I’m not sure they should have gotten married. I mean, I’m glad they had me, and I’m glad they provided a semi-stable environment for us to grow up in, but I’m not sure they are temperamentally suited for an “eternal” commitment or even a thirty-year commitment anymore than I seem to be.
This has made agitating for extending marriage rights to gay couples a very weird experience, because, while I firmly believe straight-only marriage is unjust on its face, I’m not sure the benefits of marriage outweigh all the negatives for most gay couples. I guess it’s a decision each couple needs to make for themselves, and allowing them to make that choice is a step forward of sorts.
And I added the “like” button on whim a few months ago, but as far as I know, it’s never been used before today. :D
December 5th, 2009 at 2:21 pm
i’m an advocate for long-distance relationships. seriously.
my parents were isolationist, so my upbringing also encouraged me to be introverted and spend all my time alone. i feel really bad about it sometimes — i don’t see my roommates for days/weeks at a time, especially if i’m stressy and their personal habits annoy me. my roommate time limit is about 2 years before i find the home practically uninhabitable because of the other person’s mere existence (no matter how much i value their friendship). on the other hand, my 6-year-long long-distance relationship has been *amazing*. i’ve had no trouble with commitment, comfort, and have yet to find any personal habits annoying (including the way he eats, coughs, breathes, etc), even in the weeks we see each other (in which we spend all our time together). i’m anxious over talk of moving in together “when the time comes,” since if i get the job i want, this will be a possibility next year….but, even if it doesn’t work out in the end, it will have been worth it.
December 5th, 2009 at 2:27 pm
A long-distance relationship is something to consider. I’ve had bad experiences with them in the past, but that was mostly a result of miscommunication, I think, and not the distance. Hmm. Thanks for the suggestion.
December 5th, 2009 at 2:29 pm
I’m right there with you buddy. I actually prefer to spend the majority of my time alone. No offense to people that I hang with occasionally, I have a great time hanging with you all. However there’s a reason that days will go by when I don’t see anyone. I like being able to do what I want to do selfishly.
I also blame my parents but in a different way. My parents never should’ve gotten married at all. Other than my brother and me, there’s no positive results that came of it. And because of their marriage and subsequent divorce my mom was stuck with my dad’s financial and emotional baggage. It’s one thing to be stuck paying the rent by yourself when you break up, it’s another when you have to payoff their student loan.
I just don’t understand why one would risk so much pain just for a ring. Either way don’t worry Sean we can ban together at social functions. There’s always room at the singles table.
December 5th, 2009 at 4:49 pm
The singles’ table is where it’s at.
December 5th, 2009 at 8:03 pm
You sound a lot like me–all my life I’ve spent most of my time alone, and I’ve never really had a problem with it. Until October, I had my own apartment. Now I’m living with a rooommate, and it is so hard to have someone around that often. I don’t know what I’d do if I were married. Scary.
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December 5th, 2009 at 8:10 pm
I enjoy having a roommate to the extent that occasionally I am glad of company, and I get to satisfy that need more now than I did when I lived alone—i.e., when work was virtually my only social outlet and I spent almost every evening alone (god, how depressing). But I’m usually not in the mood for company, especially after a long, aggravating day at work dealing with PEOPLE. So… there’s that.
December 5th, 2009 at 10:16 pm
If you’re comfortable being alone, then live that life. But if a relationship is something you want, maybe you need to push yourself out of your comfort zone. I’m not saying become a social butterfly, but maybe you could try spending more time with friends and that might stretch into opening up to a relationship. And look at all the people who’ve commented that they like being alone a lot of the time – there must be like-minded guys out there who would like to be in a relationship with someone who didn’t crowd up all their time either. How to meet them I do not know, since you’re both home alone. :)
Personally I enjoy my time alone and I definitely couldn’t hook up with someone truly extroverted who needed that connection all the time because I’d suffocate. But I am lonely sometimes and I do miss that intimacy, and for that I am willing to give up some of my alone time. And I don’t see that as some big unselfish move, because what I would gain from the sacrifice is something I really want. I have friendships that are so rock solid – people I know see me as I am and with whom I have a huge shared history. I would like that level of understanding in a romantic relationship and I can’t get it without some kind of commitment. I’m not saying I have to marry, but the time (including the time spent together) is crucial.
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December 5th, 2009 at 11:05 pm
I guess part of what I’m saying (although it’s not even clear to me what I’m saying, partly because I’m a little drunk right now) is that I’m not sure I want a relationship. I can say for certain that I want *intimacy*, by which I mean “makeouts,” but beyond that… I dunno. I guess I have trouble envisioning what it would mean. Especially since all of the relationships I’ve had since I came out have been frustrating, encroaching and ultimately unfulfilling failures. :-/
December 6th, 2009 at 12:30 pm
I can relate to what you’re saying here. I got married too young to really know what my preferences were like, but it turns out I like A LOT of time alone. So does Jeremy. Our biggest impediment to time alone (or together) is our kids, not each other. Kids these days just ain’t got respect, what with their need to be fed and clothed and occasionally entertained. :)
We like to be with each other more than anyone else because we sincerely respect the other’s need for time alone, space, quiet, etc. When we are together, people might think we don’t get along because we’re so quiet. We’re often doing things separately even if we share the same room. Our favorite time spent together is reading different books. We just have a deep mutual respect and need for doing things on our own. That’s okay for our relationship. We still communicate well, share the same values and goals, and love each other very much. We just have a quiet relationship.
I can’t imagine being with anyone else in part because I don’t think anyone else would allow me to just *be* the way Jeremy does, without obligations, expectations, resentments, or disappointments.
I also feel like a bad friend. Being with other people just exhausts me. I need a lot of time to recover from parties or meetings. I’m just barely getting over that trip to Utah. :) It’s not that I don’t love my friends, but it’s hard for me to actually *be* with other people. I communicate much better, and tirelessly, through writing. Unsurprisingly, I first met Jeremy online. That’s how we to know each other, through writing. If we’d met in person first, our relationship never would have gotten off the ground. And we’ve continued that relatively independent, individualistic quietude in our marriage. So I know there’s hope for you. Hey, you don’t have to worry about female fertility, so you really have all the time in the world. ;)
December 7th, 2009 at 9:07 am
Interesting topic Sean. I’ve known a lot of people in my life, and I have made this observation; relationships are not for everyone, and anyone that tries to tell you what you should do about this is off base. I know several people that live alone, relationship-less, and are extremely happy and satisfied with their lives.
It took me about 25 tries, but I finally found the one person I belong with. We are married, live together, drive together, work together, and yet, we each have our own space. Maybe it’s because we can completely be ourselves, which is rare, maybe it’s our age, or maybe, and I think more likely, after looking all of my life, I finally found the one person that I belong with. I would be lost without her, and she without me, so I can’t imagine not being married to her. But that is me. Most people can’t imagine spending as much time together as we do, but we could not imagine it any other way.
Humans love to judge each other, but the thing we forget is that it’s impossible to judge anything because you would truly have to be that person in order to come to any conclusions, which is impossible.
You are an awesome person Sean, and I love you just the way you are, as do many others…in my mind you have to be very strong to want to be on your own, but then, I don’t know because I am not on my own.
December 8th, 2009 at 3:22 pm
Sean,
I read your haunting post last night, and have thought about it quite a lot.
You write: “I do everything by myself. Almost literally everything. I sleep by myself, shop by myself, go to movies by myself, go out to eat by myself, watch TV by myself, crack jokes by myself (some of which make it on Twitter/Facebook, but not all), cook by myself, etc., etc.”
In his book, _Can We Be Good Without God_, Greg Epstein writes:
“People need community. Not just out of some whiny desire to be hugged or avoid loneliness–we need community because we succeed best in life when we can count on reliable help from a wide range of individuals with a range of skills and talents, all of whom know us personally enough to treat us as their own when we are in need. You just don’t usually get that kind of feeling from working in the same office with people, or living in the same apartment building or even on the same rural street.” (Epstein, 24)
From reading John T. Cacioppo and William Patrick’s book, _Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection_, I know that different people have different needs when it comes to social connectedness. Some of us need others, while others are fearlessly independent and can thrive on their own. In the former case, when the environment doesn’t provide us with the social connections that we need, we not only wither, but sometimes much worse.
I think about my friend, Doug Stewart, who committed suicide. I can only partly guess at the reasons, but I think one was that he felt not only heartbroken in his inability to sustain a relationship with another male, but achingly, insolubly lonely. He refused to live on in a world that he found absurd, that thwarted his every hope and felt empty of anyone worth living *for*.
There is a Jewish aphorism that goes something like this: Happiness is having something to do, someone to love, and something to look forward to.” Sigmund Freud and Bertrand Russell believed that happiness was to be found in love and work, and in the latter’s case, a passionate curiosity that drove him to try to understand the world.
While I know that I can’t generalize, I personally believe that without someone to love, all the rest wouldn’t count for very much. I sometimes wonder if even having someone amazing to love would be enough, or would happiness take a community, within which to play out a grand narrative–a “meaning” of life? And if so, among gay men, where is such a community to be found?
As one ages, perhaps the need for social connection increases. This is just a guess. I’ve wondered long and hard about what happens when a gay man reaches 40, then 50, then 60, and beyond–perhaps much farther beyond. If one lacks appreciable social status, there’s little reason for others to want to be around one. But even with such status, the hangers-on tend to be there because they want something: money, power, connections. Is there a simple, Tolstoyan, authentic love to be found, or is being passionately in love only a biological illusion comprised of oxytocin and vasopressin–as Hermann Hesse would say, a monkey’s trick?
I read through all of the comments to your post, and was struck by Rachel’s, where she says that there’s always room at the singles table. I wish that it were true. Is there room for an obese 50 year old at the singles table? Or someone with Down syndrome? To me, the singles table is really a way of referring to a social circle of dashing young strangers: socially desirable, fun, perhaps just a bit mischievous, strangers who want to find The One. It’s a metaphor for romance, restricted to the young and beautiful (regardless of the reality).
Maybe you’re incredibly resilient, Sean, and don’t need to be in a community of others to find meaning. What your roommate said to me last year at the ex-Mormon conference about his own situation with his family still bothers and shocks me.
While I’m an existentialist and I believe that we, by necessity, create our own meaning through the choices (both of commission and omission) that we make, I don’t see how it’s possible to live anything resembling what people colloquially refer to as “a life” completely independent of others. There’s an unbridgeable gulf between distance and nonexistence. People may need space, but I don’t think that humanity would be possible at all without a community. (How would we ever learn language?)
In _Loneliness_, there’s a diagram of a brain, whose caption reads: “Figure 2. The human brain reacting to social pain. The dark rectangular blotch near the top of the brain represents the activation of the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex in response to social rejection. The brain responds similarly to physical pain.” (Cacioppo and Patrick, 9)
Youth and beauty are socially desirable. We’re all born under the assumption of heterosexuality, and only over time–and in many cases, with great difficulty–to we begin to carve out a unique identity outside of the default ocean in which most of our peers swim. Unfortunately, defining oneself as a gay man carries with it a stigma, with very real consequences, and when the sheen of youth and beauty departs, the sharp lines demarcating the divide between the American cultural ideal of the superheroic Husband and Father, and the gay man, come into clear focus, pushing the latter further out into the periphery: out from the fold, into the cold. Sometimes to live. Sometimes to die. Rarely to thrive, and if they do manage it, they’re the exceptions.
This is a tragedy.
You write: “I guess I have trouble envisioning what it would mean. Especially since all of the relationships I’ve had since I came out have been frustrating, encroaching and ultimately unfulfilling failures. :-/”
Having met you, this seems completely unimaginable. You couldn’t be a nicer guy: you look great, you’re smart, you’re funny, and you come off as self-confident–comfortable in your own skin. However, having spent years talking with countless gay men (mostly on gay.com chat), I’ve heard the same frustration repeated over and over again. One of these men said that despite some rare, promising starts, “there is always some fatal flaw.”
Could any group be so terribly unlucky, am I making unwarranted inferences from a nonrandom sample from gay.com, or is something larger and more troubling going on?
I know that a great number of straights don’t like us. I also know that successful, long-term gay relationships are uncommon. But why? Is it a lack of good role models and well-established, nurturing traditions, such as heterosexist society has? Is it that too much freedom leads, paradoxically, to unrestricted hedonism and ends, inevitably, in suffering?
Never mind relationships. What about simply having friends? I’ve noticed that some gay men have a large number of straight female friends, but few, if any, close straight male friends. Others don’t have any close friends who aren’t gay. Still others don’t really have anyone at all.
I wonder what happens to the friends of a gay man as he gets older and older. Women have children to take care of and husbands to spend time with, not to mention peer heterosexual couples and their children. Straight male friends marry and have children and work and work and work to provide for their families. It just seems to me that over time, gay men are highly likely to become increasingly alienated from both family members (if they’re fortunate enough to have them) and straight friends, leaving only other gay people to turn to, but if we take a good look at older gay men and their friendships, how many do they have? Are they as happy as their heterosexual peers? Do they even live as long as their heterosexual peers? It seems to me that based on what scant evidence I’ve been able to find, the long-term prospects for a gay man involve growing loneliness, necessary self-reliance, increasingly restricted options, and rejection, leading to an anti-eudaemonia, a lack of happiness and a failure to flourish.
No matter how I turn all of these thoughts around in my head, I always wind up with the conclusion that living a meaningful life isn’t possible without others to share it with, because the very concept of meaning entails participating in a social narrative that gets interpreted and retold as a heroic and enchanting story. The reality rarely approaches the epic myth, but striving for that myth infuses life with purpose.
Sean, you write: “And if I don’t know how to have friends—if the decidedly less onerous responsibilities of sustaining and maintaining a friendship are completely lost on me—how on earth am I going to be able to sustain and maintain a more intimate relationship?”
I only have two thoughts about this. First, concentrate on developing your talents in order to flourish. Regardless of what’s going on around you, focus on, and be good to, yourself, with the hope that the right relationship will find you at some happy, unexpected point in the future. Second, don’t be so hard on yourself.
Imagine a metaphor. We’re mighty spiritual beings that (for incomprehensible reasons) have incarnated in human bodies, with various strengths and weaknesses, biological attributes, and life situations. Your situation happened to be much more difficult–socially, romantically–than that of others. Under the circumstances, you may be doing incredibly well, whereas someone even slightly less resilient–perhaps someone like Doug–might have given up.
Most of us are dealt unfair hands in life, in one way or another, and sometimes in multifarious and tragic ways. What does it mean to “win” the game of life that we’re playing? I’m not certain that anyone can actually win. There is only change. Sometimes things are better, and other times, worse.
I wish you happiness, joy, and adventure. You’re a beautiful fellow, Sean. Remember that, and use it to actively create a life of meaning and connectedness.
As Goethe said, “Life rewards bold action.”
Steve
December 12th, 2009 at 2:45 pm
PS It saddens me to see so much talent squelched by an ideology demanding subservience at the price of one’s happiness:
http://mormonshadesofgay.blogspot.com
But…would he be any happier outside of the church? Happiness isn’t necessarily related to truth, only to comfort.
March 3rd, 2010 at 4:14 pm
You have a lot of comments on this post. I might be redundant, but what you said really resonated with me. I’m 29 this month. I live with my mom, so I’m not really alone but I do think about having a relationship, but right now I struggle with not really wanting one. With a man or a woman. I am who I am and a relationship demands that a person give so much. You need to accommodate. I find I am willing to accommodate others short term but I don’t find any benefit from having to breath another persons body oder and sleep in another persons sweat all night. I like my life but I want to have sex. Can it be possible to have both? Am I totally selfish to want to have touch without serious commitment? Or am I doomed to either being eternally pissed off by another persons foibles or never experiencing another persons touch again?
Thanks for writing about this its nice to know I’m not alone, oh wait I mean, I’m not the only one alone.
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March 3rd, 2010 at 4:56 pm
I haven’t been in therapy since I graduated from the U of U (therapy’s too expensive when it’s not covered by insurance), but my last one, a master’s-student therapist—and my only non-Mormon counselor ever—was really invaluable. When I told her how disgusted I was with myself for being in a purely physical arrangement with a guy I had no interest having a relationship with, she was like, “Why is that a bad thing? There’s no problem with no-commitment sex. Maybe you need to give yourself permission to not pursue a relationship and just be in it for the sex.”
I can’t say I accepted her advice right away, and I certainly haven’t followed it in practice, but that’s what I believe: as long as both (or all) parties are in agreement, a purely physical relationship, encounter or one-night-stand is perfectly acceptable. It doesn’t make you a bad person, and it can be a positive experience for everyone involved.
March 3rd, 2010 at 7:47 pm
I used to have no commitment sex all the time when I was younger, no problem. I don’t think there is anything morally wrong with it, except, I feel less comfortable with that kind of thing now. I don’t really know why that should be. (Shrug)
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