Why do we search for love? Is it just for acceptance? Is it the whole point of life? Why do we search for something that seems so out of reach that it would stop even the most lovestruck of fellows, yet we do not quit? Why are we obsessed with finding someone to share our time with, to ease and relax our pain, to talk to at 3 in the morning, to sleep with only for warmth? What is so special about finding someone to understand each and every word that we speak, or even the ones we never say at all? Is there something beyond survival that drives our lust for these people? Is there something more to life than just success, stability of mind and decent surroundings? Is there some fulfillment not yet carried out in our hearts?
Something seems necessary about a relationship in society, the tangible status of togetherness, the lack of aloneness that normalizes a person to the rest of the world. Something makes a relationship a necessity, and the lack of it nearly unbearable. We turn to friends, to guide us, aid us, help us in times of sorrowed darkness, shadowed affliction where we find to great comfort, no simple whisper or pat upon the back, no gentle kiss nor slip of skin upon the arm or shoulder or lower back, saying things like "I'm here, we're here, and the world knows," to comfort and silence our worries of tomorrow. In that warm, thoughtful gesture of love we find comfort, peace and happiness. Though without those occasional gestures, something seems defective. Something is indeed gone, since our social image is halved in the eyes of normalized society - where is our other? Where is the oh-so-cherished better half? Where is the standard by-my-side symbol of stability? Why is the approachability of a woman gaged by her marital status and why does that directly determine her susceptibility both to rejection and cheating, abandonment of the necessity of love?
The necessity of love. Such is the world today, or so it seems. It's both depressing and fascinating, that a human must find its equal to share its life with, else life be incomplete for its duration. It seems so unfair, and yet it is only that one human's fault, because how could one person be to blame for another's marital status? How could I hinder my parent's marriage, my sister's relationships? However, on the other hand, I can directly control my willingness to speak and act calmly and normally in front of a handsome man. I can directly control my willingness and ability to speak and recognize old friends who no longer recognize me. I am in complete control my myself. Therefore it is completely my fault and failure that I let opportunities of flirtation go unused.
In my younger days of high school I would seize them with urgency, no matter my current status at the time, and hold onto them, shake them, pursue them until I found an answer. Maybe that was what I was looking for all along, the answer to the question. Why do we search for love? Why is this depressingly never ending quest for companionship the apparent goal of all life on earth? And why, for god sake, is it so damn hard? Aloneness is only easy to tolerate for so long; seeing couples across the room, happy, smiling, giggling, holding one another, is only bearable for so long. And then the ride begins to tumble. Life spirals down like a broken rollercoaster, down to the ground with a thundering crash and you know for sure that you've hit rock bottom.
Only then, I suppose, can you be sure that you cannot fall any further. But how do you know for sure you've hit it already? And how can you be sure you won't hit it again? Depression can only be held off for so long. Tears can only be held back for so long. Friendships, no matter how new or old, can only satisfy for so long. And a young man in the face of life and on the quest for happiness can only take so much missing out and giving up. Whispering to himself doesn't work. Keeping himself up doesn't work. And once down, you can't pull yourself up again, you have to be strong enough to push yourself off the ground. But wouldn't it be nice if there was someone there to help make sure you weren't bruised when you fell? That's what I think.
It's so damn hard to find anyone. And it's so damn hard to watch all the happy couples go by in their happy little worlds with their happy little faces and their happy little lives and think to yourself "God damn I wish I had something." "I can't wait to get the hell out of here" are constant thoughts in your mind. It's so damn hard sometimes. And the tears can honestly only be held back for so long. And in the darkness, at past two in the morning, the only one to talk to is yourself. The hurt can only go so deep and then fade. But you forget that it can always come back, and when you least expect. And you forget that it hurts and you want to cry, and you see everyone happy and you hear all the giggling and you smile and nod and wish them well, while inside you're cursing their good fortune, wishing nothing ill upon them - you would never do that - but wishing to God or Someone out there that someone would come along your way to pick you up and make you see that things are indeed not so bitter and hard as you had once thought. And life seems so tough and full, and obligations go forgotten until hours before they're pre-established deadlines and rushes to complete them are only as futile as the attempts to seize those opportunities of flirtation. And then you go unnoticed - again.
The world won't see if you don't show, but how do you show when you're so nervous and unsure? Or is that the whole point? To overcome the fear of abandonment and rejection for the slight chance of a smile and a warm moment of heart in another person. Maybe that's the whole point of the quest for love. Maybe there are others out there like me, and maybe I'm not so alone. And maybe I'll end up happy in the future and successful and with time full of those warm gestures of love and of kindness, and of gentle hugs and warms lip-caresses until the sleep fades us away into warm nights together in clean beds and comfortable embraces. But for now, at 24, I am again forced to resign into another cold, empty bed with the sheets ruffled and the sides as flat as the mattress they rest on, to dream of something unrelated to my current troubles of heart. And tomorrow I'll wake up, depressed at the amount of forgotten work and the mounting day presenting new challenges in finding someone to laugh or smile or simply open themselves for a moment of kindness which I've been long denied.
Though I know it won't happen tomorrow. Am I wrong to be set in my preconceived notion of aloneness and solitude and depressing singularity for yet another day in yet another small, relatively unimportant life? Compared to the world, my troubles are nothing, but compared to the world, my troubles are universal. Am I wrong to be this bitter, am I wrong to be this cold? Or is the freezing breeze coming through my window just another reminder of how I'm to spend my night asleep? This writing simply a method to express the sadness that soaks my bones and sometimes surfaces in unexpected moments of ordinary life?
Of course. But then what do I do? Simply continue the quest? Of course, what other option is there? Other than to lay down and die, which I would refuse if offered the chance. So I simply trudge off to sleep, satisfied at least at having made headway on one of the forgotten pieces of work that loom so heavily on the darkened horizon. Continuous depressive writing is probably the most needless activity of the night. So I retire, likely to think about the same matters and let the tears flow, ever so slightly, onto the cold pillow on the bedside. Or maybe simply to dream. Only time will whisper, and only to me, coldly, as I tick away the seconds wondering when anyone will come along and warm up the heart in my chest.
