Entering into the circles of others

I felt an overwhelming sense of sadness this evening. Having re-framed my thought process into acknowledging that I want no long term anything, want no normal because normal is the death of everything, I spoke with a friend that has just hooked up with someone that has made her so blissfully happy that she has been almost transformed by contentment.

As I explained my newly re-framed thought process of no expectation and happiness in just living for the moment , she said

"That is utter bollocks, of course you want a long term possibility, we all do"

Then I went to the pub. I joined in, I had a great time, I emphasised that I am not 'in' a relationship, just having a good time. At which point the people I was with said:

"Will you stop the negative crap about this going nowhere, you are only doing it because you are too scared to think it might"

They have a point and I feel a tad saddened. Someone I knew last year said to me that they try very hard to think with their head and struggled with the fact they were being led by their heart. In the end the head won and this in essence, is where it all goes very wrong.

I am thinking with my head because my head knows that if I feel with my heart, it is going to get broken. The true irony is that in shutting off the part of my heart that can truly expose myself to emotions, feelings and ultimately, vulnerability - I am guaranteeing that I shut off he feelings that allow you to get past this stage and feel things on a different level.

It is this deeper level that makes a relationship. Thinking with your head may well protect you from harm but it also means that you can talk yourself out of a relationship quicker than you ever talked yourself in. In simplistic terms, you will never get out of a relationship what you are too afraid to put in, which ultimately means that the relationship with potential can never grow and is doomed to fail.

I have completely empathised with the serial dater recently. You meet someone, it's great, you get swept away with all the possibility in it and then you make that fatal mistake. You use your brain. Your brain takes over emotions and gives you 150 reasons why this will never work. Survival mechanism kicks in, turns off your ability to feel emotions and you walk away because you can now justify that you no longer feel anything emotional for that person and so it becomes a no brainer. Except that it is your brain that has convinced your heart that the risk of pain is simply too high.

And this is the position I find myself. The head is taking over and in extricating myself from emotional risk means that I have entered into something that my head recognises is emotionally risky. Emotions are switching off. Yet deep down, I know that this is an action on my part to avoid pain, because I know that I am capable of feeling it.

For someone that can see self fulfilling prophecy a mile off in others, I appear to be creating my own. I knew when I met the serial dater that he had entered into my life for a reason. I had hoped that it was that I learnt something from it but instead, I appear to be replicating it.

Life sucks.