From: llama@pooh.cc.utexas.edu (sine nomine)
Newsgroups: alt.angst
Subject: Re: Depression
Date: 15 Dec 92 17:54:38 GMT
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL5

David E Lightner (dlightne@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu) wrote:

: It was a twenty year old male virgin who began this thread.  Since then most 
: commentators seem to be trying to point out that there is more to life than 
: sex and relationships.  I'd like to take the other tack.
: [...]
:   I guess it's the fact that no one has ever been in love with me, no one has
: ever told me that she loved me, which is hard to deal with.

that sounds really painful. i remember feeling that way. bleah. but
sometimes i wonder if it's really worth it to have someone tell you
that. i've said "i love you" to four different men in my life. once i
didn't mean it, once i really really wanted to mean it but it wasn't
true, twice i thought it was truer than anything could be when i said
it.

:    When deb says that there is more to life than relationships and sex, I 
: agree, but consistantly not being a part of those things does make me feel like
: a freak. I just wish I had some sort of control over these things.  I realize
: that having a relationship is not a magic cure for anything.  I realize that 
: they can be quite annoying and a lot of work. Nevertheless, I would like some
: choice in the matter.

apparently my sensitivity and insight (whatever measure of those i
possess) went on vacation yesterday. let me explain where i'm coming
from, though.

i didn't date at all in high school, and went on maybe three dates in
college (the first time; when i went back to school, i was married). i
wasn't unattractive, just painfully shy and seriously fucked up, and i
gave off need vibes you could pick up a mile away ("please please love
me"). i was 18 the first time i ever kissed a guy, and he had to
explain to me how to kiss. at 19, i lost my virginity, and in best
"why yes, i *am* a southern baptist" fashion, married the guy who did
the deflowering. religion was a great excuse for what was basically an
"okay, you fucked me, now love me and take care of me and make
everything better" move.

so i spent six years in what by the end was a roommate arrangement,
socially acceptable and not inferior because, after all, i landed a
man. didn't matter that i weighed nearly 300 pounds by the time the
marriage ended. i was a success as a woman.

so after i ditched all that bullshit, i moved here and went crazy. if
you have a good enough online personality and you're female, you can
get fucked by compugeeks if you want, even if you do weigh nearly 300
pounds. and as i lost weight, finding sex was even easier. so i went
berserk; in a year, i managed to have 18 different lovers. a couple of
those weren't even one-nighters; the l-word was thrown in my direction
a couple of times in there.

but it sucked. i hated myself, hated using myself and other people,
hated the whole scene. at first i used "how many times i've had sex
this month" as a security blanket, a way to say that i was okay and
acceptable.

so that's where i'm coming from now. i haven't gone entirely celibate,
but i've stopped measuring the quality of my life as a function of my
sexual conquests. so when i say that there's more to life than being
in love and fucking, it's from years of having measured my life by
precisely those yardsticks.

it's painful as hell, thinking you're a freak because you've never had
a relationship. but it can be just as painful thinking you're a freak
because your relationships never work out, or just mindlessly pursuing
relationships so you can feel okay about yourself. my approach has
become to just live, and if i meet interesting, intriguing people to
get to know them as people, not as potential bedmates. 

i think the key is wanting a lover for his/her intrinsic qualities as
a person, not as someone who's going to make you feel better about
yourself or less lonely or whatever.

bleah. sermon off, i spose.

--
sine | deb
sometimes an insensitive thug, oh well.

Xref: sparky alt.angst:4853 rec.arts.poems:12933