The Lonliest Toddler

By this point in my life, people expect me to know what I’m doing most of the time. I’m supposed to know how to pay my taxes, keep up on my auto maintenance, and call a landlord about leaky faucets. The same can be said of romance. In the over thirty romantic arena, there are a lot of well traveled individuals. People who have dated and divorced and dated again. People who have raised children. People who have fallen into and lost love more times than I’ve lost my keys. (Incidentally, I never lose my keys, so that analogy doesn’t really work for me. But you get what I mean.)

And then you have me. I have no idea what I’m doing.

When it comes to dating, I am the equivalent of a toddler running around learning what happens when I run into things. I’m having a real good time seeing all the new and cool stuff. I really like the activity of running. And I’m terrible at it, so I keep running into walls or tables or legos. And every time I run into something, I cry and scream and act like someone is taking off my fingers one at a time. You’ve all heard this toddler scream. It’s the one where you look at a child who is convinced this is the end and say, “Oh, come on. You’re not even two feet tall. There’s no way you’re hurt that badly.” But from the point of view of the toddler, it’s the worst pain he’s ever experienced. Of course he’s going to wail about it. Nothing has ever hurt this much ever.

It does make a certain kind of sense. I thought I was tired in college, but then I got up for work at 5:30 AM for a year and a half. As a child, I thought I understood boredom...Then I worked in a call center. And I thought that stubbing my toe was painful until I smashed my thumb with a box truck. The point here is that experience lends a lot of perspective to your subsequent experiences. And if you have no prior experiences, how do you gauge the severity of a hurt?

Honestly, I don’t have an answer here. I don’t know how to judge the severity of a hurt by any measure other than saying it hurts more or less than previous pain. And of course, there is the pain scale with the faces.

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately about my proclivity to crush too hard in much too short a time, and the subsequent (and inevitable) crash that I always find myself in. The Format has a lyric that has always resonated with me:

“Suddenly between sheets and eyelids I am reminded why I don’t do this.
I fall in love far too quickly. I never want her to forget me…”

It’s that falling in love too quickly bit that always gets me. Now hold on to your comment horses...I know that falling in love is not what I’m doing. That takes time and work and pain and joy and lots of time and a few phone calls and probably one sassy friend. Or at least that’s what I’ve surmised from watching all those Lifetime documentaries. But that is kind of the point. I don’t know what it is to truly fall in love. I have only ever fallen into infatuation. And at my age, that starts to get weird.

As a mid-thirties male, I really ought to be able to hear “Let’s just be friends” without needing a weekend to mourn the loss of….what? My ego? What did I lose? I didn’t have anything but the future my imagination got too excited to stop creating. But the problem is that I have no context to put it into. I don’t have a failed marriage. Or a successful one either. I don’t have a long relationship to compare to. Hell, I don’t have anything. All I have are these passing crushes that end in complete normality, and I somehow turn them into the emotional distress of losing the love of my life. Because, as far as I know, it’s just about the most painful experience in a relationship.

I didn’t have a thesis here. No grand soapbox to lecture from. And really, I don’t feel there is a point to be made. I’m not wrong to feel this way, and it doesn’t make me broken. It’s just something about me that I know and work around. But I do think there is a lesson here. Perhaps it is just the lesson that I am unique and different, and the only way I can live life is from my point of view. Or maybe it is just to put this out there for another person to find and realize they aren’t the only one dealing with this particular quirk. Anyway, here it is, and I would love to hear your thoughts on the matter.