Talking About Love (Part 2)

For this to make sense, I’ll need to explain a couple of things.

First, and this should not be too radical, I am a 19-year-old male, and sex is often on my mind. I also haven’t gotten any—that is, sex—in a while, and it’s been something I’ve been chafing for. So to speak. Okay. Pretty simple.

Second, I have recently (the past few months) gotten into the habit, when I don’t have to wake up for anything specific, of hitting the snooze button on my alarm over and over before I finally rise. I don’t mean like everyone does, I mean I punch the thing ten or twenty times, falling more or less back to sleep between, then getting re-awoken nine minutes later and doing it all again. Don’t ask why; it may be a manifestation of the fact that I wasn’t going to class much this past quarter, and so didn’t have much on my schedule. Whatever the case, I blame this odd, purgatorial period of sleep for the vivid, varied, and numerous dreams I’ve been having. I suppose because I have so much opportunity to do it—so many chances to wake up and realize what I just saw—I’m just ripe for heavy dreaming, but whatever the case, it’s been a very bizarre alternate reality for me. Usually, of course, I forget most of them by the end of the day, but a few notable ones have stuck with me. (A few days ago, I did a little experiment by using the voice recorder on my cell phone to dictate what had just happened each time I woke up. I listened to it later, noting that my just-awoken voice is barely coherent, and also that my dreams were totally bizarre.)

I mention the sex thing only because something odd has been happening lately: sex has not been on my mind much. Oh, it’s there, I’m still itching for it, but it’s not what’s been occupying my main attention, goalwise.

I mention the dream thing because it helps illustrate what has been on my mind, which is, oddly enough, love.

I have never been in a relationship where I was in love. I say this despite the fact that it may hurt some people if they stumble across this page, but that’s the consequence of being so open with your web dialogue, and it is true. It’s something that I want, of course; everyone, I think, feels that way, as long as they agree on what’s being discussed. Someone to connect with on a fundamental level, someone to care for deeply and reciprocally. Someone to trust implicitly and strive for like you do yourself. And also like many, it’s something I wasn’t too immediately concerned with until recently; I figured, what the hell, one day I’ll find it, meanwhile there’s nothing wrong with just passing time, chasing breezies, whatever.

That’s changed. Perhaps compounded by the other issues I’ve talked about, probably compounding them, but it’s there. Remember those dreams? More and more often, I find myself dreaming about being in love. The circumstances, the events, may be anything; sometimes there hardly seem to be any. Occasionally they’re sexual, but not prominently, and I would say not even very often. The important and central thing is just that there’s some girl present, and I’m there, and I am deeply, deeply in love with her.

It’s an incredibly wonderful feeling, which perhaps goes without saying. It also makes me very annoyed when I wake up, not in a “goddamn it, that was fun” way, but in a “goddamn it… I don’t have that” way.

I watch movies and TV shows, and the obligatory romantic element will touch me sincerely. Even when it’s terrible. Even when it’s an Adam Sandler movie or a show on TNT. If I were the type of person to clap a hand to my heart and say “awww…” at the corny climax, I would do so. Instead, my face often gets a kind of pained, longing expression, which anyone watching might take for indigestion. Even bad R&B love songs can get me to this place. One time, I dreamed that I was in love with a girl I actually know, which weirded me out all day. This is like the sequence in a movie depicting the hero’s degeneration into insanity; it’s not a great situation.

The reason that this is hitting me heavily now, I assume, is just because of the previously-discussed, overall urge for expansion. But it’s not hard to imagine why I’m vulnerable to it. One of my general, longer-term wants is to find people, whether friends or lovers or anything in between, who I can really, deeply connect with. I’m a bit of an odd person, which doesn’t help in terms of compatibility, but it’s probably something everyone has some trouble with; I’m talking about finding someone who truly understands you, and resonates on the same frequency; someone who may not agree on everything, or may have different interests or feelings or personality, but who thinks in the same language, the same basic assumptions and worldview. Without that, you can have a lot of fun with someone, you can exchange ideas and share activities and become close, but you cannot, I think, ever reach that deepest connection. I don’t think I’ve ever quite had that, and I want it—need it, maybe, because this is kind of a lonely world when a part of you has to remain totally on its own.

So along with everything else, I have this on my platter, and like everything else it’s not exactly a piddling matter I can just fire attention at and solve. At least, it’s a problem any good romantic can respect; there’s an aesthetic difference between problems like loneliness and problems like overgrown nose hair, so I suppose I can appreciate having the former. But it’s still not much fun.

It’s a damned sight easier to tackle than the third issue in this trifecta, though, which I’ll bitch about next.